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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Christianity and Greek Philosophy, by 
+Benjamin Franklin Cocker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Christianity and Greek Philosophy
+       or, the relation between spontaneous and reflective thought
+       in Greece and the positive teaching of Christ and His
+       Apostles
+
+Author: Benjamin Franklin Cocker
+
+Release Date: December 20, 2008 [EBook #27571]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTIANITY AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Rénald Lévesque and the
+Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at
+http://dp.rastko.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHRISTIANITY
+
+AND
+
+GREEK PHILOSOPHY;
+
+OR, THE RELATION BETWEEN
+SPONTANEOUS AND REFLECTIVE THOUGHT IN GREECE
+AND THE POSITIVE TEACHING OF
+CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES.
+
+
+BY B.F. COCKER, D.D.,
+
+PROFESSOR OF MORAL AND MENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
+
+"Plato made me know the true God, Jesus Christ showed me the way tohim."
+
+                                                           ST. AUGUSTINE
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK: CARLTON & LANAHAN.
+SAN FRANCISCO: E. THOMAS.
+CINCINNATI: HITCHCOCK & WALDEN.
+
+1870.
+
+
+
+Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by HARPER &
+BROTHERS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United
+States for the Southern District of New York.
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+D.D. WHEDON, D.D.,
+
+MY EARLIEST LITERARY FRIEND, WHOSE VIGOROUS WRITINGS HAVE
+STIMULATED MY INQUIRIES, WHOSE COUNSELS HAVE GUIDED
+MY STUDIES, AND WHOSE KIND AND GENEROUS WORDS
+HAVE ENCOURAGED ME TO PERSEVERANCE
+AMID NUMEROUS DIFFICULTIES,
+I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME AS A TOKEN OF MY MORE THAN ORDINARY AFFECTION
+
+_THE AUTHOR_.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+In preparing the present volume, the writer has been actuated by a
+conscientious desire to deepen and vivify our faith in the Christian
+system of truth, by showing that it does not rest _solely_ on a special
+class of facts, but upon all the facts of nature and humanity; that its
+authority does not repose _alone_ on the peculiar and supernatural
+events which transpired in Palestine, but also on the still broader
+foundations of the ideas and laws of the reason, and the common wants
+and instinctive yearnings of the human heart. It is his conviction that
+the course and constitution of nature, the whole current of history, and
+the entire development of human thought in the ages anterior to the
+advent of the Redeemer centre in, and can only be interpreted by, the
+purpose of redemption.
+
+The method hitherto most prevalent, of treating the history of human
+thought as a series of isolated, disconnected, and lawless movements,
+without unity and purpose; and the practice of denouncing the religions
+and philosophies of the ancient world as inventions of satanic mischief,
+or as the capricious and wicked efforts of humanity to relegate itself
+from the bonds of allegiance to the One Supreme Lord and Lawgiver, have,
+in his judgment, been prejudicial to the interests of all truth, and
+especially injurious to the cause of Christianity. They betray an utter
+insensibility to the grand unities of nature and of thought, and a
+strange forgetfulness of that universal Providence which comprehends all
+nature and all history, and is yet so minute in its regards that it
+numbers the hairs on every human head, and takes note of every sparrow's
+fall, A juster method will lead us to regard the entire history of human
+thought as a development towards a specific end, and the providence of
+God as an all-embracing plan, which sweeps over all ages and all
+nations, and which, in its final consummation, will, through Christ,
+"gather together all things in one, both things which are in heaven and
+things which are on earth."
+
+The central and unifying thought of this volume is _that the necessary
+ideas and laws of the reason, and the native instincts of the human
+heart, originally implanted by God, are the primal and germinal forces
+of history; and that these have been developed under conditions which
+were first ordained, and have been continually supervised by the
+providence of God_. God is the Father of humanity, and he is also the
+Guide and Educator of our race. As "the offspring of God," humanity is
+not a bare, indeterminate potentiality, but a living energy, an active
+reason, having definite qualities, and inheriting fundamental principles
+and necessary ideas which constitute it "the image and likeness of God."
+And though it has suffered a moral lapse, and, in the exercise of its
+freedom, has become alienated from the life of God, yet God has never
+abandoned the human race. He still "magnifies man, and sets his heart
+upon him." "He visits him every morning, and tries him every moment."
+"The inspiration of the Almighty still gives him understanding." The
+illumination of the Divine Logos still "teacheth man knowledge." The
+Spirit of God still comes near to and touches with strong emotion every
+human heart. "God has never left himself without a witness" in any
+nation, or in any age. The providence of God has always guided the
+dispersions and migrations of the families of the earth, and presided
+over and directed the education of the race. "He has foreordained the
+times of each nation's existence, and fixed the geographical boundaries
+of their habitations, _in order that they should seek the Lord_, and
+feel after and find Him who is not far from any one of us." The
+religions of the ancient world were the painful effort of the human
+spirit to return to its true rest and centre--the struggle to "find Him"
+who is so intimately near to every human heart, and who has never ceased
+to be the want of the human race. The philosophies of the ancient world
+were the earnest effort of human reason to reconcile the finite and the
+infinite, the human and the Divine, the subject and God. An overruling
+Providence, which makes even the wrath of man to praise Him, took up all
+these sincere, though often mistaken, efforts into his own plan, and
+made them sub-serve the purpose of redemption. They aided in developing
+among the nations "the desire of salvation," and in preparing the world
+for the advent of the Son of God. The entire course and history of
+Divine providence, in every nation, and in every age, has been directed
+towards the one grand purpose of "reconciling all things to Himself."
+Christianity, as a comprehensive scheme of reconciliation, embracing
+"all things," can not, therefore, be properly studied apart from the
+ages of earnest thought, of profound inquiry, and of intense religious
+feeling which preceded it. To despise the religions of the ancient
+world, to sneer at the efforts and achievements of the old philosophers,
+or even to cut them off in thought from all relation to the plans and
+movements of that Providence which has cared for, and watched over, and
+pitied, and guided all the nations of the earth, is to refuse to
+comprehend Christianity itself.
+
+The author is not indifferent to the possibility that his purpose may be
+misconceived. The effort may be regarded by many conscientious and
+esteemed theologians with suspicion and mistrust. They can not easily
+emancipate themselves from the ancient prejudice against speculative
+thought. Philosophy has always been regarded by them as antagonistic to
+Christian faith. They are inspired by a commendable zeal for the honor
+of dogmatic theology. Every essay towards a profounder conviction, a
+broader faith in the unity of all truth, is branded with the opprobrious
+name of "rationalism." Let us not be terrified by a harmless word.
+Surely religion and right reason must be found in harmony. The author
+believes, with Bacon, that "the foundation of all religion is right
+reason." The abnegation of reason is not the evidence of faith, but the
+confession of despair. Sustained by these convictions, he submits this
+humble contribution to theological science to the thoughtful
+consideration of all lovers of Truth, and of Christ, the fountain of
+Truth. He can sincerely ask upon it the blessing of Him in whose fear it
+has been written, and whose cause it is the purpose of his life to
+serve.
+
+The second series, on "Christianity and Modern Thought," is in an
+advanced state of preparation for the press.
+
+NOTE.--It has been the aim of the writer, as far as the nature of the
+subject would permit, to adapt this work to general readers. The
+references to classic authors are, therefore, in all cases made to
+accessible English translations (in Bohn's Classical Library); such
+changes, however, have been made in the rendering as shall present the
+doctrine of the writers in a clearer and more forcible manner. For
+valuable services rendered in this department of the work, by Martin L.
+D'Ooge, Μ. Α., Acting Professor of Greek Language and Literature in the
+University of Michigan, the author would here express his grateful
+acknowledgment.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+     CHAPTER I.
+     ATHENS, AND THE MEN OF ATHENS.
+
+     CHAPTER II.
+     THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.
+
+     CHAPTER III.
+     THE RELIGION OF THE ATHENIANS.
+
+     CHAPTER IV.
+     THE RELIGION OF THE ATHENIANS: ITS MYTHOLOGICAL AND SYMBOLICAL
+     ASPECTS.
+
+     CHAPTER V.
+     THE UNKNOWN GOD.
+
+     CHAPTER VI.
+     THE UNKNOWN GOD (_continued_).
+       IS GOD COGNIZABLE BY REASON?
+
+     CHAPTER VII.
+     THE UNKNOWN GOD (_continued_).
+       IS GOD COGNIZABLE BY REASON? (_continued_).
+
+     CHAPTER VIII.
+     THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS.
+       PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+     _Sensational_: THALES--ANAXIMENES--HERACLITUS--ANAXIMANDER
+     LEOCIPPUS--DEMOCRITUS.
+
+     CHAPTER IX.
+     THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_).
+       PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOL (_continued_)
+     _Idealist_: Pythagoras--Xenophanes--Parmenides--Zeno. _Natural
+     Realist_: Anaxagoras.
+       THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+       Socrates.
+
+     CHAPTER X
+     THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_).
+       THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (_continued_).
+       Plato.
+
+     CHAPTER XI.
+     THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_).
+       THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (_continued_).
+       Plato.
+
+     CHAPTER XII.
+
+     THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_).
+       THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (_continued_).
+       Aristotle.
+
+     CHAPTER XIII.
+     THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_).
+       POST-SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+       Epicurus and Zeno.
+
+     CHAPTER XIV.
+     The Propædeutic Office of Greek Philosophy.
+
+     CHAPTER XV.
+     The Propædeutic Office of Greek Philosophy (_continued_).
+
+
+
+
+      "_Ye men of Athens_, all things which I behold bear witness
+      to your carefulness in religion; for, as I passed through
+      your city and beheld the objects of your worship, I found
+      amongst them an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN
+      GOD; whom, therefore, ye worship, though ye know; Him not,
+      Him declare I unto you. God who made the world and all
+      things therein, seeing He is Lord of heaven and earth,
+      dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is He
+      served by the hands of men, as though he needed any thing;
+      for He giveth unto all life, and breath, and all things. And
+      He made of one blood all the nations of mankind to dwell
+      upon the face of the whole earth; and ordained to each the
+      appointed seasons of their existence, and the bounds of
+      their habitation, that they should seek God, if haply they
+      might feel after Him and find Him, though he be not far from
+      every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our
+      being; as certain of your own poets have said, _For we are
+      also His offspring_. Forasmuch, then, as we are the
+      offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is
+      like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by the art and
+      device of man. Howbeit, those past times of ignorance God
+      hath overlooked; but now He commandeth all men everywhere to
+      repent, because He hath appointed a day wherein He will
+      judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath
+      ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all, in that
+      He hath raised Him from the dead."--Acts xvii. 22-31.
+
+
+
+
+CHRISTIANITY
+AND
+GREEK PHILOSOPHY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ATHENS, AND THE MEN OF ATHENS.
+
+
+      "Is it not worth while, for the sake of the history of men
+      and nations, to study the surface of the globe in its
+      relation to the inhabitants thereof?"--Goethe.
+
+There is no event recorded in the annals of the early church so replete
+with interest to the Christian student, or which takes so deep a hold on
+the imagination, and the sympathies of him who is at all familiar with
+the history of Ancient Greece, as the one recited above. Here we see the
+Apostle Paul standing on the Areopagus at Athens, surrounded by the
+temples, statues, and altars, which Grecian art had consecrated to Pagan
+worship, and proclaiming to the inquisitive Athenians, "the strangers"
+who had come to Athens for business or for pleasure, and the
+philosophers and students of the Lyceum, the Academy, the Stoa, and the
+Garden, "_the unknown God_."
+
+Whether we dwell in our imagination on the artistic grandeur and
+imposing magnificence of the city in which Paul found himself a solitary
+stranger, or recall the illustrious names which by their achievements in
+arts and philosophy have shed around the city of Athens an immortal
+glory,--or whether, fixing our attention on the lonely wanderer amid the
+porticoes, and groves, and temples of this classic city, we attempt to
+conceive the emotion which stirred his heart as he beheld it "wholly
+given to idolatry;" or whether we contrast the sublime, majestic theism
+proclaimed by Paul with the degrading polytheism and degenerate
+philosophy which then prevailed in Athens, or consider the prudent and
+sagacious manner in which the apostle conducts his argument in view of
+the religious opinions and prejudices of his audience, we can not but
+feel that this event is fraught with lessons of instruction to the
+Church in every age.
+
+That the objects which met the eye of Paul on every hand, and the
+opinions he heard everywhere expressed in Athens, must have exerted a
+powerful influence upon the current of his thoughts, as well as upon the
+state of his emotions, is a legitimate and natural presumption. Not only
+was "his spirit stirred within him"--his heart deeply moved and agitated
+when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry--but his thoughtful,
+philosophic mind would be engaged in pondering those deeply interesting
+questions which underlie the whole system of Grecian polytheism. The
+circumstances of the hour would, no doubt, in a large degree determine
+the line of argument, the form of his discourse, and the peculiarities
+of his phraseology. The more vividly, therefore, we can represent the
+scenes and realize the surrounding incidents; the more thoroughly we can
+enter into sympathy with the modes of thought and feeling peculiar to
+the Athenians; the more perfectly we can comprehend the spirit and
+tendency of the age; the more immediate our acquaintance with the
+religious opinions and philosophical ideas then prevalent in Athens, the
+more perfect will be our comprehension of the apostle's argument, the
+deeper our interest in his theme. Some preliminary notices of Athens and
+"the Men of Athens" will therefore be appropriate as introductory to a
+series of discourses on Paul's sermon on Mars' Hill.
+
+The peculiar connection that subsists between Geography and History,
+between a people and the country they inhabit, will justify the
+extension of our survey beyond the mere topography of Athens. The people
+of the entire province of Attica were called Athenians (_Αθηναίοι_) in
+their relation to the state, and Attics _(Αττικοί_) in regard to their
+manners, customs, and dialect.[1] The climate and the scenery, the forms
+of contour and relief, the geographical position and relations of
+Attica, and, indeed, of the whole peninsula of Greece, must be taken
+into our account if we would form a comprehensive judgment of the
+character of the Athenian people.
+
+The soil on which a people dwell, the air they breathe, the mountains
+and seas by which they are surrounded, the skies that overshadow
+them,--all these exert a powerful influence on their pursuits, their
+habits, their institutions, their sentiments, and their ideas. So that
+could we clearly group, and fully grasp all the characteristics of a
+region--its position, configuration, climate, scenery, and natural
+products, we could, with tolerable accuracy, determine what are the
+characteristics of the people who inhabit it. A comprehensive knowledge
+of the physical geography of any country will therefore aid us
+materially in elucidating the natural history, and, to some extent, the
+moral history of its population. "History does not stand _outside_ of
+nature, but in her very heart, so that the historian only grasps a
+people's character with true precision when he keeps in full view its
+geographical position, and the influences which its surroundings have
+wrought upon it."[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Niebuhr's "Lectures on Ethnography and Geography," p. 91.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ritter's "Geographical Studies," p. 34.]
+
+It is, however, of the utmost consequence the reader should understand
+that there are two widely different methods of treating this deeply
+interesting subject--methods which proceed on fundamentally opposite
+views of man and of nature. One method is that pursued by Buckle in his
+"History of Civilization in England." The tendency of his work is the
+assertion of the supremacy of material conditions over the development
+of human history, and indeed of every individual mind. Here man is
+purely passive in the hands of nature. Exterior conditions are the
+chief, if not the _only_ causes of man's intellectual and social
+development. So that, such a climate and soil, such aspects of nature
+and local circumstances being given, such a nation necessarily
+follows.[3] The other method is that of Carl Ritter, Arnold Guyot, and
+Cousin.[4] These take account of the freedom of the human will, and the
+power of man to control and modify the forces of nature. They also take
+account of the original constitution of man, and the primitive type of
+nations; and they allow for results arising from the mutual conflict of
+geographical conditions. And they, especially, recognize the agency of a
+Divine Providence controlling those forces in nature by which the
+configuration of the earth's surface is determined, and the distribution
+of its oceans, continents, and islands is secured; and a providence,
+also, directing the dispersions and migrations of nations--determining
+the times of each nation's existence, and fixing the geographical bounds
+of their habitation, all in view of the _moral_ history and spiritual
+development of the race,--"that they may feel after, and find the living
+God." The relation of man and nature is not, in their estimation, a
+relation of cause and effect. It is a relation of adjustment, of
+harmony, and of reciprocal action and reaction. "Man is not"--says
+Cousin--"an effect, and nature the cause, but there is between man and
+nature a manifest harmony of general laws."... "Man and nature are two
+great effects which, coming from the same cause, bear the same
+characteristics; so that the earth, and he who inhabits it, man and
+nature, are in perfect harmony."[5] God has created both man and the
+universe, and he has established between them a striking harmony. The
+earth was made for man; not simply to supply his physical wants, but
+also to minister to his intellectual and moral development. The earth is
+not a mere dwelling-place of nations, but a school-house, in which God
+himself is superintending the education of the race. Hence we must not
+only study the _events_ of history in their chronological order, but we
+must study the earth itself as the _theatre_ of history. A knowledge of
+all the circumstances, both physical and moral, in the midst of which
+events take place, is absolutely necessary to a right judgment of the
+events themselves. And we can only elucidate properly the character of
+the actors by a careful study of all their geographical and ethological
+conditions.
+
+[Footnote 3: See chap. ii. "History of Civilization."]
+
+[Footnote 4: Ritter's "Geographical Studies;" Guyot's "Earth and Man;"
+Cousin's "History of Philosophy," lec. vii., viii., ix.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Lectures, vol. i. pp. 162, 169.]
+
+It will be readily perceived that, in attempting to estimate the
+influence which exterior conditions exert in the determination of
+national character, we encounter peculiar difficulties. We can not in
+these studies expect the precision and accuracy which is attained in the
+mathematical, or the purely physical sciences. We possess no control
+over the "materiel" of our inquiry; we have no power of placing it in
+new conditions, and submitting it to the test of new experiments, as in
+the physical sciences. National character is a _complex_ result--a
+product of the action and reaction of primary and secondary causes. It
+is a conjoint effect of the action of the primitive elements and laws
+originally implanted in humanity by the Creator, of the free causality
+and self-determining power of man, and of all the conditions, permanent
+and accidental, within which the national life has been developed. And
+in cases where _physical_ and _moral_ causes are blended, and
+reciprocally conditioned and modified in their operation;--where primary
+results undergo endless modifications from the influence of surrounding
+circumstances, and the reaction of social and political
+institutions;--and where each individual of the great aggregate wields a
+causal power that obeys no specific law, and by his own inherent power
+sets in motion new trains of causes which can not be reduced to
+statistics, we grant that we are in possession of no instrument of exact
+analysis by which the complex phenomena of national character may be
+reduced to primitive elements. All that we can hope is, to ascertain, by
+psychological analysis, what are the fundamental ideas and laws of
+humanity; to grasp the exterior conditions which are, on all hands,
+recognized as exerting a powerful influence upon national character; to
+watch, under these lights, the manifestations of human nature on the
+theatre of history, and then apply the principles of a sound historic
+criticism to the recorded opinions of contemporaneous historians and
+their immediate successors. In this manner we may expect, at least, to
+approximate to a true judgment of history.
+
+There are unquestionably fundamental powers and laws in human nature
+which have their development in the course of history. There are certain
+primitive ideas, imbedded in the constitution of each individual mind,
+which are revealed in the universal consciousness of our race, under the
+conditions of experience--the exterior conditions of physical nature and
+human society. Such are the ideas of cause and substance; of unity and
+infinity, which govern all the processes of discursive thought, and lead
+us to the recognition of Being _in se_;--such the ideas of right, of
+duty, of accountability, and of retribution, which regulate all the
+conceptions we form of our relations to all other moral beings, and
+constitute _morality_;--such the ideas of order, of proportion, and of
+harmony, which preside in the realms of art, and constitute the
+beau-ideal of _esthetics_;--such the ideas of God, the soul, and
+immortality, which rule in the domains of _religion_, and determine man
+a religious being. These constitute the identity of human nature under
+all circumstances; these characterize humanity in all conditions.
+
+Like permanent germs in vegetable life, always producing the same
+species of plants; or like fundamental types in the animal kingdom,
+securing the same homologous structures in all classes and orders; so
+these fundamental ideas in human nature constitute its sameness and
+unity, under all the varying conditions of life and society. The acorn
+must produce an oak, and nothing else. The grain of wheat must always
+produce its kind. The offspring of man must always bear his image, and
+always exhibit the same fundamental characteristics, not only in his
+corporeal nature, but also in his mental constitution.
+
+But the germination of every seed depends on conditions _ab extra_, and
+all germs are modified, in their development, by geographical and
+climatal surroundings. The development of the acorn into a mature and
+perfect oak greatly depends on the exterior conditions of soil, and
+moisture, light, and heat. By these it may be rendered luxuriant in its
+growth, or it may be stunted in its growth. It may barely exist under
+one class of conditions, or it may perish under another. The Brassica
+oleracea, in its native habitat on the shore of the sea, is a bitter
+plant with wavy sea-green leaves; in the cultivated garden it is the
+cauliflower. The single rose, under altered conditions, becomes a double
+rose; and creepers rear their stalks and stand erect. Plants, which in a
+cold climate are annuals, become perennial when transported to the
+torrid zone.[6] And so human nature, fundamentally the same under all
+circumstances, may be greatly modified, both physically and mentally, by
+geographical, social, and political conditions. The corporeal nature of
+man--his complexion, his physiognomy, his stature; the intellectual
+nature of man--his religious, ethical, and esthetical ideas are all
+modified by his surroundings. These modifications, of which all men
+dwelling in the same geographical regions, and under the same social and
+political institutions, partake, constitute the _individuality_ of
+nations. Thus, whilst there is a fundamental basis of unity in the
+corporeal and spiritual nature of man, the causes of diversity are to be
+sought in the circumstances in which tribes and nations are placed in
+the overruling providence of God.
+
+[Footnote 6: See Carpenter's "Compar. Physiology," p. 625; Lyell's
+"Principles of Geology," pp. 588, 589.]
+
+The power which man exerts over material conditions, by virtue of his
+intelligence and freedom, is also an important element which, in these
+studies, we should not depreciate or ignore. We must accept, with all
+its consequences, the dictum of universal consciousness that man is
+_free_. He is not absolutely subject to, and moulded by nature. He has
+the power to control the circumstances by which he is surrounded--to
+originate new social and physical conditions--to determine his own
+individual and responsible character--and he can wield a mighty
+influence over the character of his fellow-men. Individual men, as
+Lycurgus, Solon, Pericles, Alexander, Cæsar, and Napoleon have left the
+impress of their own mind and character upon the political institutions
+of nations, and, in indirect manner, upon the character of succeeding
+generations of men. Homer, Plato, Cicero, Bacon, Kant, Locke, Newton,
+Shakspeare, Milton have left a deep and permanent impression upon the
+forms of thought and speech, the language and literature, the science
+and philosophy of nations. And inasmuch as a nation is the aggregate of
+individual beings endowed with spontaneity and freedom, we must grant
+that exterior conditions are not omnipotent in the formation of national
+character. Still the free causality of man is exercised within a narrow
+field. "There is a strictly necessitative limitation drawing an
+impassable boundary-line around the area of volitional freedom." The
+human will "however subjectively free" is often "objectively unfree;"
+thus a large "uniformity of volitions" is the natural consequence.[7]
+The child born in the heart of China, whilst he may, in his personal
+freedom, develop such traits of character as constitute his
+individuality, must necessarily be conformed in his language, habits,
+modes of thought, and religious sentiments to the spirit of his country
+and age. We no more expect a development of Christian thought and
+character in the centre of Africa, unvisited by Christian teaching, than
+we expect to find the climate and vegetation of New England. And we no
+more expect that a New England child shall be a Mohammedan, a Parsee, or
+a Buddhist, than that he shall have an Oriental physiognomy, and speak
+an Oriental language. Indeed it is impossible for a man to exist in
+human society without partaking in the spirit and manners of his country
+and his age. Thus all the individuals of a nation represent, in a
+greater or less degree, the spirit of the nation. They who do this most
+perfectly are the _great_ men of that nation, because they are at once
+both the product and the impersonation of their country and their age.
+"We allow ourselves to think of Shakspeare, or of Raphael, or of Phidias
+as having accomplished their work by the power of their individual
+genius, but greatness like theirs is never more than the highest degree
+of perfection which prevails widely around it, and forms the environment
+in which it grows. No such single mind in single contact with the facts
+of nature could have created a Pallas, a Madonna, or a Lear; such vast
+conceptions are the growth of ages, the creation of a nation's spirit;
+and the artist and poet, filled full with the power of that spirit, but
+gave it form, and nothing but form. Nor would the form itself have been
+attained by any isolated talent. No genius can dispense with
+experience.... Noble conceptions already existing, and a noble school of
+execution which will launch mind and hand upon their true courses, are
+indispensable to transcendent excellence. Shakspeare's plays were as
+much the offspring of the long generations who had pioneered the road
+for him, as the discoveries of Newton were the offspring of those of
+Copernicus."[8] The principles here enounced apply with equal force to
+philosophers and men of science. The philosophy of Plato was but the
+ripened fruit of the pregnant thoughts and seminal utterances of his
+predecessors,--Socrates, Anaxagoras, and Pythagoras; whilst all of them
+do but represent the general tendency and spirit of their country and
+their times. The principles of Lord Bacon's "Instauratio Magna" were
+incipient in the "Opus Majus" of Roger Bacon, the Franciscan friar. The
+sixteenth century matured the thought of the thirteenth century. The
+inductive method in scientific inquiry was immanent in the British mind,
+and the latter Bacon only gave to it a permanent form. It is true that
+great men have occasionally appeared on the stage of history who, like
+the reformers Luther and Wesley, have seemed to be in conflict with the
+prevailing spirit of their age and nation, but these men were the
+creations of a providence--that providence which, from time to time, has
+_supernaturally_ interposed in the moral history of our race by
+corrective and remedial measures. These men were inspired and led by a
+spirit which descended from on high. And yet even they had their
+precursors and harbingers. Wyckliffe and John Huss, and Jerome of Prague
+are but the representatives of numbers whose names do not grace the
+historic page, who pioneered the way for Luther and the Reformation. And
+no one can read the history of that great movement of the sixteenth
+century without being persuaded there were thousands of Luther's
+predecessors and contemporaries who, like Staupitz and Erasmus, lamented
+the corruptions of the Church of Rome, and only needed the heroic
+courage of Luther to make them reformers also. Whilst, therefore, we
+recognize a free causal power in man, by which he determines his
+individual and responsible character, we are compelled to recognize the
+general law, that national character is mainly the result of those
+geographical and ethological, and political and religious conditions in
+which the nations have been placed in the providence of God.
+
+[Footnote 7: See Dr. Wheedon's "Freedom of the Will," pp. 164, 165.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Froude, "Hist. of England," pp. 73, 74.]
+
+Nations, like persons, have an _Individuality_. They present certain
+characteristic marks which constitute their proper identity, and
+separate them from the surrounding nations of the earth; such, for
+example, as complexion, physiognomy, language, pursuits, customs,
+institutions, sentiments, ideas. The individuality of a nation is
+determined mainly from _without_, and not, like human individuality,
+from within. The laws of a man's personal character have their home in
+the soul; and the peculiarities and habits, and that conduct of life,
+which constitute his responsible character are, in a great degree, the
+consequence of his own free choice. But dwelling, as he does, in
+society, where he is continually influenced by the example and opinions
+of his neighbors; subject, as he is, to the ceaseless influence of
+climate, scenery, and other terrestrial conditions, the characteristics
+which result from these relations, and which are common to all who dwell
+in the same regions, and under the same institutions, constitute a
+national individuality. Individual character is _variable_ under the
+same general conditions, national character is _uniform_, because it
+results from causes which operate alike upon all individuals.
+
+Now, that man's complexion, his pursuits, his habits, his ideas are
+greatly modified by his geographical surroundings, is the most obvious
+of truths. No one doubts that the complexion of man is greatly affected
+by climatic conditions. The appearance, habits, pursuits of the man who
+lives within the tropics must, necessarily, differ from those of the man
+who dwells within the temperate zone. No one expects that the dweller on
+the mountain will have the same characteristics as the man who resides
+on the plains; or that he whose home is in the interior of a continent
+will have the same habits as the man whose home is on the islands of the
+sea. The denizen of the primeval forest will most naturally become a
+huntsman. The dweller on the extended plain, or fertile mountain slope,
+will lead a pastoral, or an agricultural life. Those who live on the
+margin of great rivers, or the borders of the sea, will "do business on
+the great waters." Commerce and navigation will be their chief pursuits.
+The people whose home is on the margin of the lake, or bay, or inland
+sea, or the thickly studded archipelago, are mostly fishermen. And then
+it is a no less obvious truth that men's pursuits exert a moulding
+influence on their habits, their forms of speech, their sentiments, and
+their ideas. Let any one take pains to observe the peculiarities which
+characterize the huntsman, the shepherd, the agriculturist, or the
+fisherman, and he will be convinced that their occupations stamp the
+whole of their thoughts and feelings; color all their conceptions of
+things outside their own peculiar field; direct their simple philosophy
+of life; and give a tone, even, to their religious emotions.
+
+The general aspects of nature, the climate and the scenery, exert an
+appreciable and an acknowledged influence on the _mental_
+characteristics of a people. The sprightliness and vivacity of the
+Frank, the impetuosity of the Arab, the immobility of the Russ, the
+rugged sternness of the Scot, the repose and dreaminess of the Hindoo
+are largely due to the country in which they dwell, the air they
+breathe, the food they eat, and the landscapes and skies they daily look
+upon. The nomadic Arab is not only indebted to the country in which he
+dwells for his habit of hunting for daily food, but for that love of a
+free, untrammelled life, and for those soaring dreams of fancy in which
+he so ardently delights. Not only is the Swiss determined by the
+peculiarities of his geographical position to lead a pastoral life, but
+the climate, and mountain scenery, and bracing atmosphere inspire him
+with the love of liberty. The reserved and meditative Hindoo, accustomed
+to the profuse luxuriance of nature, borrows the fantastic ideas of his
+mythology from plants, and flowers, and trees. The vastness and infinite
+diversity of nature, the colossal magnitude of all the forms of animal
+and vegetable life, the broad and massive features of the landscape, the
+aspects of beauty and of terror which surround him, and daily pour their
+silent influences upon his soul, give vividness, grotesqueness, even, to
+his imagination, and repress his active powers. His mental character
+bears a peculiar and obvious relation to his geographical
+surroundings.[9]
+
+[Footnote 9: Ritter, "Geograph. Studies," p. 287.]
+
+The influence of external nature on the imagination--the _creative_
+faculty in man--is obvious and remarkable. It reveals itself in all the
+productions of man--his architecture, his sculpture, his painting, and
+his poetry. Oriental architecture is characterized by the boldness and
+massiveness of all its parts, and the monotonous uniformity of all its
+features. This is but the expression, in a material form, of that
+shadowy feeling of infinity, and unity, and immobility which an unbroken
+continent of vast deserts and continuous lofty mountain chains would
+naturally inspire. The simple grandeur and perfect harmony and graceful
+blending of light and shade so peculiar to Grecian architecture are the
+product of a country whose area is diversified by the harmonious
+blending of land and water, mountain and plain, all bathed in purest
+light, and canopied with skies of serenest blue. And they are also the
+product of a country where man is released from the imprisonment within
+the magic circle of surrounding nature, and made conscious of his power
+and freedom. In Grecian architecture, therefore, there is less of the
+massiveness and immobility of nature, and more of the grace and dignity
+of man. It adds to the idea of permanence a _vital_ expression. "The
+Doric column," says Vitruvius, "has the proportion, strength, and beauty
+of man." The Gothic architecture had its birthplace among a people who
+had lived and worshipped for ages amidst the dense forests of the north,
+and was no doubt an imitation of the interlacing of the overshadowing
+trees. The clustered shaft, and lancet arch, and flowing tracery,
+reflect the impression which the surrounding scenery had woven into the
+texture of the Teutonic mind.
+
+The history of painting and of sculpture will also show that the varied
+"styles of art" are largely the result of the aspects which external
+nature presented to the eye of man. Oriental sculpture, like its
+architecture, was characterized by massiveness of form and tranquillity
+of expression; and its painting was, at best, but colored sculpture. The
+most striking objects are colossal figures, in which the human form is
+strangely combined with the brute, as in the winged bulls of Nineveh and
+the sphinxes of Egypt. Man is regarded simply as a part of nature, he
+does not rise above the plane of animal life. The soul has its
+immortality only in an eternal metempsychosis--a cycle of life which
+sweeps through all the brute creation. But in Grecian sculpture we have
+less of nature, more of man; less of massiveness, more of grace and
+elegance; less repose, and more of action. Now the connection between
+these styles of art, and the countries in which they were developed, is
+at once suggested to the thoughtful mind.
+
+And then, finally, the literature of a people equally reveals the
+impress of surrounding cosmical conditions. "The poems of Ossian are but
+the echo of the wild, rough, cloudy highlands of his Scottish home." The
+forest songs of the wild Indian, the negro's plaintive melodies in the
+rice-fields of Carolina, the refrains in which the hunter of Kamtchatka
+relates his adventures with the polar bear, and in which the South Sea
+Islander celebrates his feats and dangers on the deep, all betoken the
+influence which the scenes of daily life exert upon the thoughts and
+feelings of our race. "To what an extent nature can express herself in,
+and modify the culture of the individual, as well as of an entire
+people, can be seen on Ionian soil in the verse of Homer, which, called
+forth under the most favorable sky, and on the most luxuriant shore of
+the Grecian archipelago, not only charms us to-day, but bearing this
+impress, has determined what shall be the classic form throughout all
+coming time."[10]
+
+[Footnote 10: See Ritter, pp. 288, 289. Poetic art has unquestionably
+its _geographical_ distributions like the fauna and flora of the globe.
+"If you love the images, not merely of a rich, but of a luxuriant fancy;
+if you are pleased with the most daring flights; if you would see a
+poetic creation full of wonders, then turn your eye to the poetry of the
+_orient_, where all forms appear in purple; where each flower glows like
+the morning ray resting on the earth. But if, on the contrary, you
+prefer depth of thought, and earnestness of reflection; if you delight
+in the colossal, yet pale forms, which float about in mist, and whisper
+of the mysteries of the spirit-land, and of the vanity of all things,
+except honor, then I must point you to the hoary _north_.... Or if you
+sympathize with that deep feeling, that longing of the soul, which does
+not linger on the earth, but evermore looks up to the azure tent of the
+stars, where happiness dwells, where the unquiet of the beating heart is
+still, then you must resort to the romantic poetry of the
+_west_."--"_Study of Greek Literature_," Bishop Esaias Tegnér, p. 38.]
+
+In seeking, therefore, to determine correctly what are the
+characteristics of a nation, we must endeavor to trace how far the
+physical constitution of that people, their temperament, their habits,
+their sentiments, and their ideas have been formed, or modified, under
+the surrounding geographical conditions, which, as we have seen, greatly
+determine a nation's individuality. Guided by these lights, let us
+approach the study of "_the men of Athens_."
+
+_Attica_, of which Athens was the capital, and whose entire populations
+were called "Athenians," was the most important of all the Hellenic
+states. It is a triangular peninsula, the base of which is defined by
+the high mountain ranges of Cithæron and Parnes, whilst the two other
+sides are washed by the sea, having their vertex at the promontory of
+Sunium, or Cape Colonna. The prolongation of the south-western line
+towards the north until it reaches the base at the foot of Mount
+Cithæron, served as the line of demarkation between the Athenian
+territory and the State of Megara. Thus Attica may be generally
+described as bounded on the north-east by the channel of the Negropont;
+on the south-west by the gulf of Ægina and part of Megara; and on the
+north-west by the territory which formed the ancient Bœotia, including
+within its limits an area of about 750 miles.[11]
+
+Hills of inferior elevation connect the mountain ranges of Cithæron and
+Parnes with the mountainous surface of the south-east of the peninsula.
+These hills, commencing with the promontory of Sunium itself, which
+forms the vertex of the triangle, rise gradually on the south-east to
+the round summit of Hymettus, and onward to the higher peak of
+Pentelicus, near Marathon, on the east. The rest of Attica is all a
+plain, one reach of which comes down to the sea on the south, at the
+very base of Hymettus. Here, about five miles from the shore, an abrupt
+rock rises from the plain, about 200 feet high, bordered on the south by
+lower eminences. That rock is the Acropolis. Those lower eminences are
+the Areopagus, the Pmyx, and the Museum. In the valley formed by these
+four hills we have the Agora, and the varied undulations of these hills
+determine the features of the city of Athens.[12]
+
+[Footnote 11: See art. "Attica," _Encyc. Brit._]
+
+[Footnote 12: See Conybeare and Howson's "Life and Epistles of St.
+Paul," vol. i. p. 346.]
+
+Nearly all writers on the topography of Athens derive their materials
+from Pausanias, who visited the city in the early part of the second
+century, and whose "Itinerary of Greece" is still extant.[13] He entered
+the city by the Peiraic gate, the same gate at which Paul entered some
+sixty years before. We shall place ourselves under his guidance, and, so
+far as we are able, follow the same course, supplying some omissions, as
+we go along, from other sources. On entering the city, the first
+building which arrested the attention of Pausanias was the Pompeium, so
+called because it was the depository of the sacred vessels, and also of
+the garments used in the annual procession in honor of Athena (Minerva),
+the tutelary deity of Athens, from whom the city derived its name. Near
+this edifice stood a temple of Demeter (Ceres), containing statues of
+that goddess, of her daughter Persephone, and of Iacchus, all executed
+by Praxiteles; and beyond were several porticoes leading from the city
+gates to the outer Ceramicus, while the intervening space was occupied
+by various temples, the Gymnasium of Hermes, and the house of Polytion,
+the most magnificent private residence in Athens.
+
+[Footnote 13: The account here given of the topography of Athens is
+derived mainly from the article on "Athens" in the _Encyc. Brit._]
+
+There were two places in Athens known by the name of Ceramicus, one
+without the walls, forming part of the suburbs; and the other within the
+walls, embracing a very important section of the city. The outer
+Ceramicus was covered with the sepulchres of the Athenians who had been
+slain in battle, and buried at the public expense; it communicated with
+the inner Ceramicus by the gate Dipylum. The Ceramicus within the city
+probably included the Agora, the Stoa Basileios, and the Stoa Pœcile,
+besides various other temples and public buildings.
+
+Having fairly passed the city gates, a long street is before us with a
+colonnade or cloister on either hand; and at the end of this street, by
+turning to the left, we might go through the whole Ceramicus to the open
+country, and the groves of the Academy. But we turn to the right, and
+enter the Agora,--the market-place, as it is called in the English
+translation of the sacred narrative.
+
+We are not, however, to conceive of the market-place at Athens as
+bearing any resemblance to the bare, undecorated spaces appropriated to
+business in our modern towns; but rather as a magnificent public square,
+closed in by grand historic buildings, of the highest style of
+architecture; planted with palm-trees in graceful distribution, and
+adorned with statues of the great men of Athens and the deified heroes
+of her mythology, from the hands of the immortal masters of the plastic
+art. This "market-place" was the great centre of the public life of the
+Athenians,--the meeting-place of poets, orators, statesmen, warriors,
+and philosophers,--a grand resort for leisure, for conversation, for
+business, and for news. Standing in the Agora, and looking towards the
+south, is the _Museum,_ so called because it was believed that _Musæus_,
+the father of poetry, was buried there. Towards the north-west is the
+_Pnyx,_ a sloping hill, partially levelled into an open area for
+political assemblies. To the north is seen the craggy eminence of the
+_Areopagus_, and on the north-east is the _Acropolis_ towering high
+above the scene, "the crown and glory of the whole."
+
+The most important buildings of the Agora are the Porticoes or
+cloisters, the most remarkable of which are the Stoa Basileios, or
+Portico of the king; the Stoa Eleutherius, or Portico of the Jupiter of
+Freedom; and the Stoa Pœcile, or Painted Porch. These Porticoes were
+covered walks, the roof being supported by columns, at least on one
+side, and by solid masonry on the other. Such shaded walks are almost
+indispensable in the south of Europe, where the people live much in the
+open air, and they afford a grateful protection from the heat of the
+sun, as well as a shelter from the rain. Seats were also provided where
+the loungers might rest, and the philosophers and rhetoricians sit down
+for intellectual conversation. The "Stoic" school of philosophy derived
+its name from the circumstance that its founder, Zeno, used to meet and
+converse with his disciples under one of these porticoes,--the Stoa
+Pœcile. These porticoes were not only built in the most magnificent
+style of architecture, but adorned with paintings and statuary by the
+best masters. On the roof of the Stoa Basileios were statues of Theseus
+and the Day. In front of the Stoa Eleutherius was placed the divinity to
+whom it was dedicated; and within were allegorical paintings,
+celebrating the rise of "the fierce democracy." The Stoa Pœcile derived
+its name from the celebrated paintings which adorned its walls, and
+which were almost exclusively devoted to the representation of national
+subjects, as the contest of Theseus with the Amazons, the more glorious
+struggle at Marathon, and the other achievements of the Athenians; here
+also were suspended the shields of the Scionæans of Thrace, together
+with those of the Lacedemonians, taken at the island of Sphacteria.
+
+It is beyond our purpose to describe all the public edifices,--the
+temples, gymnasia, and theatres which crowd the Ceramic area, and that
+portion of the city lying to the west and south of the Acropolis. Our
+object is, if possible, to convey to the reader some conception of the
+ancient splendor and magnificence of Athens; to revive the scenes amidst
+which the Athenians daily moved, and which may be presumed to have
+exerted a powerful influence upon the manners, the taste, the habits of
+thought, and the entire character of the Athenian people. To secure this
+object we need only direct attention to the Acropolis, which was crowded
+with the monuments of Athenian glory, and exhibited an amazing
+concentration of all that was most perfect in art, unsurpassed in
+excellence, and unrivalled in richness and splendor. It was "the
+peerless gem of Greece, the glory and pride of art, the wonder and envy
+of the world."
+
+The western side of the Acropolis, which furnished the only access to
+the summit of the hill, was about 168 feet in breadth; an opening so
+narrow that, to the artists of Pericles, it appeared practicable to fill
+up the space with a single building, which, in serving the purpose of a
+gateway to the Acropolis, should also contribute to adorn, as well as
+fortify the citadel. This work, the greatest achievement of civil
+architecture in Athens, which rivalled the Parthenon in felicity of
+execution, and surpassed it in boldness and originality of design,
+consisted of a grand central colonnade closed by projecting wings. This
+incomparable edifice, built of Pentelic marble, received the name of
+Propylæa from its forming the vestibule to the five-fold gates by which
+the citadel was entered. In front of the right wing there stood a small
+Ionic temple of pure white marble, dedicated to Niké Apteros (Wingless
+Victory).
+
+A gigantic flight of steps conducted from the five-fold gates to the
+platform of the Acropolis, which was, in fact, one vast composition of
+architecture and sculpture dedicated to the national glory. Here stood
+the Parthenon, or temple of the Virgin Goddess, the glorious temple
+which rose in the proudest period of Athenian history to the honor of
+Minerva, and which ages have only partially effaced. This magnificent
+temple, "by its united excellences of materials, design, and decoration,
+internal as well as external, has been universally considered the most
+perfect which human genius ever planned and executed. Its dimensions
+were sufficiently large to produce an impression of grandeur and
+sublimity, which was not disturbed by any obtrusive subdivision of
+parts; and, whether viewed at a small or greater distance, there was
+nothing to divert the mind of the spectator from contemplating the unity
+as well as majesty of mass and outline; circumstances which form the
+first and most remarkable characteristic of every Greek temple erected
+during the purer ages of Grecian taste and genius."[14]
+
+[Footnote 14: Leake's "Topography of Athens," p. 209 et seq.]
+
+It would be impossible to convey any just and adequate conception of the
+artistic decorations of this wonderful edifice. The two pediments of the
+temple were decorated with magnificent compositions of statuary, each
+consisting of about twenty entire figures of colossal size; the one on
+the western pediment representing the birth of Minerva, and the other,
+on the eastern pediment, the contest between that goddess and Neptune
+for the possession of Attica. Under the outer cornice were ninety-two
+groups, raised in high relief from tablets about four feet square,
+representing the victories achieved by her companions. Round the inner
+frieze was presented the procession of the Parthenon on the grand
+quinquennial festival of the Panathenæa. The procession is represented
+as advancing in two parallel columns from west to east; one proceeding
+along the northern, the other along the southern side of the temple;
+part facing inward after turning the angle of the eastern front, and
+part meeting towards the centre of that front.
+
+The statue of the virgin goddess, the work of Phidias, stood in the
+eastern chamber of the cella, and was composed of ivory and gold. It had
+but one rival in the world, the Jupiter Olympus of the same famous
+artist. On the summit or apex of the helmet was placed a sphinx, with
+griffins on either side. The figure of the goddess was represented in an
+erect martial attitude, and clothed in a robe reaching to the feet. On
+the breast was a head of Medusa, wrought in ivory, and a figure of
+Victory about four cubits high. The goddess held a spear in her hand,
+and an ægis lay at her feet, while on her right, and near the spear, was
+a figure of a serpent, believed to represent that of Erichthonius.
+
+According to Pliny, the entire height of the statue was twenty-six
+cubits (about forty feet), and the artist, Phidias, had ingeniously
+contrived that the gold with which the statue was encrusted might be
+removed at pleasure. The battle of the Centaurs and Lapithæ was carved
+upon the sandals; the battle of the Amazons was represented on the ægis
+which lay at her feet, and on the pedestal was sculptured the birth of
+Pandora.
+
+The temple of Erechtheus, the most ancient structure in Athens, stood on
+the northern side of the Acropolis. The statue of Zeus Polieus stood
+between the Propylæa and the Parthenon. The brazen colossus of Minerva,
+cast from the spoils of Marathon, appears to have occupied the space
+between the Erechtheium and the Propylæa, near the Pelasgic or northern
+wall. This statue of the tutelary divinity of Athens and Attica rose in
+gigantic proportions above all the buildings of the Acropolis, the
+flashing of whose helmet plumes met the sailor's eye as he approached
+from the Sunian promontory. And the remaining space of the wide area was
+literally crowded with statuary, amongst which were Theseus contending
+with the Minotaur; Hercules strangling the serpents; the Earth imploring
+showers from Jupiter; and Minerva causing the olive to sprout, while
+Neptune raises the waves. After these works of art, it is needless to
+speak of others. It may be sufficient to state that Pausanias mentions
+by name towards three hundred remarkable statues which adorned this part
+of the city even after it had been robbed and despoiled by its several
+conquerors.
+
+The Areopagus, or hill of Ares (Mars), so called, it is said, in
+consequence of that god having been the first person tried there for the
+crime of murder, was, beyond all doubt, the rocky height which is
+separated from the western end of the Acropolis by a hollow, forming a
+communication between the northern and southern divisions of the city.
+The court of the Areopagus was simply an open space on the highest
+summit of the hill, the judges sitting in the open air, on rude seats of
+stone, hewn out of the solid rock. Near to the spot on which the court
+was held was the sanctuary of the Furies, the avenging deities of
+Grecian mythology, whose presence gave additional solemnity to the
+scene. The place and the court were regarded by the people with
+superstitious reverence.
+
+This completes, our survey of the principal buildings, monuments, and
+localities within the city of Athens. We do not imagine we have
+succeeded in conveying any adequate idea of the ancient splendor and
+glory of this city, which was not only the capital of Attica, but also
+
+/*
+     "The eye of Greece, mother of art and eloquence."
+*/
+
+We trust, however, that we have contributed somewhat towards awakening
+in the reader's mind a deeper interest in these classic scenes, and
+enabling him to appreciate, more vividly, the allusions we may hereafter
+make to them.
+
+The mere dry recital of geographical details, and topographical notices
+is, however, of little interest in itself, and by itself. A tract of
+country derives its chief interest from its historic _associations_--its
+immediate relations to man. The events which have transpired therein,
+the noble or ignoble deeds, the grand achievements, or the great
+disasters of which it has been the theatre, these constitute the living
+heart of its geography. Palestine has been rendered forever memorable,
+not by any remarkable peculiarities in its climate or scenery, but by
+the fact that it was the home of God's ancient people--the Hebrews and
+still more, because the ardent imagination of the modern traveller still
+sees upon its mountains and plains the lingering footprints of the Son
+of God. And so Attica will always be regarded as a classic land, because
+it was the theatre of the most illustrious period of ancient
+history--_the period of youthful vigor in the life of humanity, when
+viewed as a grand organic whole_.
+
+Here on a narrow spot of less superficies than the little State of Rhode
+Island there flourished a republic which, in the grandeur of her
+military and naval achievements, at Marathon, Thermopylæ, Platæa, and
+Salamis, in the sublime creations of her painters, sculptors, and
+architects, and the unrivalled productions of her poets, orators, and
+philosophers, has left a lingering glory on the historic page, which
+twenty centuries have not been able to eclipse or dim. The names of
+Solon and Pericles; of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; of Isocrates and
+Demosthenes; of Myron, Phidias, and Praxiteles; of Herodotus, Xenophon,
+and Thucydides; of Sophocles and Euripides, have shed an undying lustre
+on Athens and Attica.
+
+How much of this universal renown, this imperishable glory attained by
+the Athenian people, is to be ascribed to their geographical position
+and surroundings, and to the elastic, bracing air, the enchanting
+scenery, the glorious skies, which poured their daily inspiration on the
+Athenian mind, is a problem we may scarcely hope to solve.
+
+Of this, at least, we may be sure, that all these geographical and
+cosmical conditions were ordained by God, and ordained, also, for some
+noble and worthy end. That God, "the Father of all the families of the
+earth," cared for the Athenian people as much as for Jewish and
+Christian nations, we can not doubt. That they were the subjects of a
+Providence, and that, in God's great plan of human history, they had an
+important part to fulfill, we must believe. That God "determined the
+time of each nation's existence, and fixed the geographical bounds of
+its habitation," is affirmed by Paul. And that the _specific_ end for
+which the nation had its existence was fulfilled, we have the fullest
+confidence. _So far, therefore, as we can trace the relation that
+subsists between the geographical position and surroundings of that
+nation, and its national characteristics and actual history, so far are
+we able to solve the problem of its destiny; and by so much do we
+enlarge our comprehension of the plan of God in the history of our
+race_.
+
+The geographical position of Greece was favorable to the freest
+commercial and maritime intercourse with the great historic
+nations--those nations most advanced in science, literature, and art.
+Bounded on the west by the Adriatic and Ionian seas, by the
+Mediterranean on the south, and on the east by the Ægean Sea, her
+populations enjoyed a free intercommunication with the Egyptians,
+Hebrews, Persians, Phœnicians, Romans, and Carthaginians. This
+peculiarity in the geographical position of the Grecian peninsula could
+not fail to awaken in its people a taste for navigation, and lead them
+to active commercial intercourse with foreign nations.[15] The boundless
+oceans on the south and east, the almost impassable mountains on the
+west and north of Asia, presented insurmountable obstacles to commercial
+intercourse. But the extended border-lands and narrow inland seas of
+Southern Europe allured man, in presence of their opposite shores, to
+the perpetual exchange of his productions. An arm of the sea is not a
+barrier, but rather a tie between the nations. Appearing to separate, it
+in reality draws them together without confounding them.[16] On such a
+theatre we may expect that commerce will be developed on an extensive
+scale.[17] And, along with commerce, there will be increased activity in
+all departments of productive industry, and an enlarged diffusion of
+knowledge. "Commerce," says Ritter, "is the great mover and combiner of
+the world's activities." And it also furnishes the channels through
+which flow the world's ideas. Commerce, both in a material and moral
+point of view, is the life of nations. Along with the ivory and ebony,
+the fabrics and purple dyes, the wines and spices of the Syrian
+merchant, there flowed into Greece the science of numbers and of
+navigation, and the art of alphabetical writing from Phœnicia. Along
+with the fine wheat, and embroidered linen, and riches of the farther
+Indias which came from Egypt, there came, also, into Greece some
+knowledge of the sciences of astronomy and geometry, of architecture and
+mechanics, of medicine and chemistry; together with the mystic wisdom of
+the distant Orient. The scattered rays of light which gleamed in the
+eastern skies were thus converged in Greece, as on a focal point, to be
+rendered more brilliant by contact with the powerful Grecian intellect,
+and then diffused throughout the western world. Thus intercourse with
+surrounding nations, by commerce and travel, contact therewith by
+immigrations and colonizations, even collisions and invasions also,
+became, in the hands of a presiding Providence, the means of diffusing
+knowledge, of quickening and enlarging the active powers of man, and
+thus, ultimately, of a higher civilization.
+
+[Footnote 15: Humboldt's "Cosmos," vol. ii. p. 143.]
+
+[Footnote 16: Cousin, vol. i. pp. 169, 170.]
+
+[Footnote 17: The advantageous situation of Britain for commerce, and
+the nature of the climate have powerfully contributed to the perfection
+of industry among her population. Had she occupied a central, internal
+station, like that of Switzerland, the facilities of her people for
+dealing with others being so much the less, their progress would have
+been comparatively slow, and, instead of being highly improved, their
+manufactures would have been still in infancy. But being surrounded on
+all sides by the sea, that "great highway of nations," they have been
+able to maintain an intercourse with the most remote as well as the
+nearest countries, to supply them on the easiest terms with their
+manufactures, and to profit by the peculiar products and capacities of
+production possessed by other nations. To the geographical position and
+climate of Great Britain, her people are mainly indebted for their
+position as the first commercial nation on earth.--See art.
+"Manufactrues," p. 277, _Encyc. Brit_.]
+
+Then further, the peculiar configuration of Greece, the wonderful
+complexity of its coast-line, its peninsular forms, the number of its
+islands, and the singular distribution of its mountains, all seem to
+mark it as the theatre of activity, of movement, of individuality, and
+of freedom. An extensive continent, unbroken by lakes and inland seas,
+as Asia, where vast deserts and high mountain chains separate the
+populations, is the seat of immobility.[18] Commerce is limited to the
+bare necessities of life, and there are no inducements to movement, to
+travel, and to enterprise. There are no conditions prompting man to
+attempt the conquest of nature. Society is therefore stationary as in
+China and India. Enfolded and imprisoned within the overpowering
+vastness and illimitable sweep of nature, man is almost unconscious of
+his freedom and his personality. He surrenders himself to the disposal
+of a mysterious "_fate_" and yields readily to the despotic sway of
+superhuman powers. The State is consequently the reign of a single
+despotic will. The laws of the Medes and Persians are unalterable. But
+in Greece we have extended border-lands on the coast of navigable seas;
+peninsulas elaborately articulated, and easy of access. We have
+mountains sufficiently elevated to shade the land and diversify the
+scenery, and yet of such a form as not to impede communication. They are
+usually placed neither in parallel chains nor in massive groups, but are
+so disposed as to inclose extensive tracts of land admirably adapted to
+become the seats of small and independent communities, separated by
+natural boundaries, sometimes impossible to overleap. The face of the
+interior country,--its forms of relief, seemed as though Providence
+designed, from the beginning, to keep its populations socially and
+politically disunited. These difficulties of internal transit by land
+were, however, counteracted by the large proportion of coast, and the
+accessibility of the country by sea. The promontories and indentations
+in the line of the Grecian coast are hardly less remarkable than the
+peculiar elevations and depressions of the surface. "The shape of
+Peloponnesus, with its three southern gulfs, the Argolic, Laconian, and
+Messenian, was compared by the ancient geographers to the leaf of a
+plane-tree: the Pagasæan gulf on the eastern side of Greece, and the
+Ambrakian gulf on the western, with their narrow entrances and
+considerable area, are equivalent to internal lakes: Xenophon boasts of
+the double sea which embraces so large a portion of Attica; Ephorus, of
+the triple sea by which Bœotia was accessible from west, north, and
+south--the Eubœan strait, opening a long line of country on both sides
+to coasting navigation. But the most important of all Grecian gulfs are
+the Corinthian and Saronic, washing the northern and north-eastern
+shores of Peloponnesus, and separated by the narrow barrier of the
+Isthmus of Corinth. The former, especially, lays open Ætolia, Phokis,
+and Bœotia, as the whole northern coast of Peloponnesus, to water
+approach.... It will thus appear that there was no part of Greece proper
+which could be considered as out of the reach of the sea, whilst most
+parts of it were easy of access. The sea was thus the sole channel for
+transmitting improvements and ideas as well as for maintaining
+sympathies" between the Hellenic tribes.[19] The sea is not only the
+grand highway of commercial intercourse, but the empire of movement, of
+progress, and of freedom. Here man is set free from the bondage imposed
+by the overpowering magnitude and vastness of continental and oceanic
+forms. The boisterous and, apparently, lawless winds are made to obey
+his will. He mounts the sea as on a fiery steed and "lays his hand upon
+her mane." And whilst thus he succeeds, in any measure, to triumph over
+nature, he wakes to conscious power and freedom. It is in this region of
+contact and commingling of sea and land where man attains the highest
+superiority. Refreshing our historic recollections, and casting our eyes
+upon the map of the world, we can not fail to see that all the most
+highly civilized nations have lived, or still live, on the margin of the
+sea.
+
+[Footnote 18: Cousin, vol. i. pp. 151, 170.]
+
+[Footnote 19: Grote's "Hist, of Greece," vol. ii. pp. 221, 225.]
+
+The peculiar configuration of the territory of Greece, its forms of
+relief, "so like, in many respects, to Switzerland," could not fail to
+exert a powerful influence on the character and destiny of its people.
+Its inclosing mountains materially increased their defensive power, and,
+at the same time, inspired them with the love of liberty. Those
+mountains, as we have seen, so unique in their distribution, were
+natural barriers against the invasion of foreign nations, and they
+rendered each separate community secure against the encroachments of the
+rest. The pass of Thermopylæ, between Thessaly and Phocis, that of
+Cithæron, between Bœotia and Attica; and the mountain ranges of Oneion
+and Geraneia, along the Isthmus of Corinth, were positions which could
+be defended against any force of invaders. This signal peculiarity in
+the forms of relief protected each section of the Greeks from being
+conquered, and at the same time maintained their separate autonomy. The
+separate states of Greece lived, as it were, in the presence of each
+other, and at the same time resisted all influences and all efforts
+towards a coalescence with each other, until the time of Alexander.
+Their country, a word of indefinite meaning to the Asiatic, conveyed to
+them as definite an idea as that of their own homes. Its whole
+landscape, with all its historic associations, its glorious monuments of
+heroic deeds, were perpetually present to their eyes. Thus their
+patriotism, concentrated within a narrow sphere, and kept alive by the
+sense of their individual importance, their democratic spirit, and their
+struggles with surrounding communities to maintain their independence,
+became a strong and ruling passion. Their geographical surroundings had,
+therefore, a powerful influence upon their political institutions.
+Conquest, which forces nations of different habits, characters, and
+languages into unity, is at last the parent of degrading servitude.
+These nations are only held together, as in the Roman empire, by the
+iron hand of military power. The despot, surrounded by a foreign
+soldiery, appears in the conquered provinces, simply to enforce tribute,
+and compel obedience to his arbitrary will. But the small Greek
+communities, protected by the barriers of their seas and gulfs and
+mountains, escaped, for centuries, this evil destiny. The people, united
+by identity of language and manners and religion, by common interest and
+facile intercommunication, could readily combine to resist the invasions
+of foreign nations, as well as the encroachments of their own rulers.
+And they were able to easily model their own government according to
+their own necessities and circumstances and common interests, and to
+make the end for which it existed the sole measure of the powers it was
+permitted to wield.[20]
+
+[Footnote 20: _Encyc. Brit_, art. "Greece."]
+
+The soil of Attica was not the most favorable to agricultural pursuits.
+In many places it was stony and uneven, and a considerable proportion
+was bare rock, on which nothing could be grown. Not half the surface was
+capable of cultivation. In this respect it may be fitly compared to some
+of the New England States. The light, dry soil produced excellent
+barley, but not enough of wheat for their own consumption. Demosthenes
+informs us that Athens brought every year, from Byzantium, four hundred
+thousand _medimni_ of wheat. The alluvial plains, under industrious
+cultivation, would furnish a frugal subsistence for a large population,
+and the mildness of the climate allowed all the more valuable products
+to ripen early, and go out of season last. Such conditions, of course,
+would furnish motives for skill and industry, and demand of the people
+frugal and temperate habits. The luxuriance of a tropical climate tends
+to improvidence and indolence. Where nature pours her fullness into the
+lap of ease, forethought and providence are little needed. There is none
+of that struggle for existence which awakens sagacity, and calls into
+exercise the active powers of man. But in a country where nature only
+yields her fruits as the reward of toil, and yet enough to the
+intelligent culture of the soil, there habits of patient industry must
+be formed. The alternations of summer and winter excite to forethought
+and providence, and the comparative poverty of the soil will prompt to
+frugality. Man naturally aspires to improve his condition by all the
+means within his power. He becomes a careful observer of nature, he
+treasures up the results of observation, he compares one fact with
+another and notes their relations, and he makes new experiments to test
+his conclusions, and thus he awakes to the vigorous exercise of all his
+powers. These physical conditions must develop a hardy, vigorous,
+prudent, and temperate race; and such, unquestionably, were the Greeks.
+"Theophrastus, and other authors, amply attest the observant and
+industrious agriculture prevalent in Greece. The culture of the vine and
+olive appears to have been particularly elaborate and the many different
+accidents of soil, level, and exposure which were to be found, afforded
+to observant planters materials for study and comparison."[21] The
+Greeks were frugal in their habits and simple in their modes of life.
+The barley loaf seems to have been more generally eaten than the wheaten
+loaf; this, with salt fish and vegetables, was the common food of the
+population. Economy in domestic life was universal. In their manners,
+their dress, their private dwellings, they were little disposed to
+ostentation or display.
+
+[Footnote 21: Grote, "Hist. of Greece," vol. ii. p. 230.]
+
+The climate of Attica is what, in physical geography, would be called
+_maritime_. "Here are allied the continental vigor and oceanic softness,
+in a fortunate union, mutually tempering each other."[22] The climate of
+the whole peninsula of Greece seems to be distinguished from that of
+Spain and Italy, by having more of the character of an inland region.
+The diversity of local temperature is greater; the extremes of summer
+and winter more severe. In Arcadia the snow has been found eighteen
+inches thick in January, with the thermometer at 16° Fahrenheit, and it
+sometimes lies on the ground for six weeks. The summits of the central
+chains of Pindus and most of the Albanian mountains are covered with
+snow from the beginning of November to the end of March. In Attica,
+which, being freely exposed to the sea, has in some measure an insular
+climate, the winter sets in about the beginning of January. About the
+middle of that month the snow begins to fall, but seldom remains upon
+the plain for more than a few days, though it lies on the summit of the
+mountain for a month.[23] And then, whilst Bœotia, which joins to
+Attica, is higher and colder, and often covered with dense fogs, Attica
+is remarkable for the wonderful transparency, dryness, and elasticity of
+its atmosphere. All these climatal conditions exerted, no doubt, a
+modifying influence upon the character of the inhabitants.[24] In a
+tropical climate man is enfeebled by excessive heat. His natural
+tendency is to inaction and repose. His life is passed in a "strenuous
+idleness." His intellectual, his reflective faculties are overmastered
+by his physical instincts. Passion, sentiment, imagination prevail over
+the sober exercises of his reasoning powers. Poetry universally
+predominates over philosophy. The whole character of Oriental language,
+religion, literature is intensely imaginative. In the frozen regions of
+the frigid zone, where a perpetual winter reigns, and where lichens and
+mosses are the only forms of vegetable life, man is condemned to the
+life of a huntsman, and depends mainly for his subsistence on the
+precarious chances of the chase. He is consequently nomadic in his
+habits, and barbarous withal. His whole life is spent in the bare
+process of procuring a living. He consumes a large amount of oleaginous
+food, and breathes a damp heavy atmosphere, and is, consequently, of a
+dull phlegmatic temperament. Notwithstanding his uncertain supplies of
+food, he is recklessly improvident, and indifferent to all the lessons
+of experience. Intellectual pursuits are all precluded. There is no
+motive, no opportunity, and indeed no disposition for mental culture.
+But in a temperate climate man is stimulated to high mental activity.
+The alternations of heat and cold, of summer and of winter, an elastic,
+fresh, and bracing atmosphere, a diversity in the aspects of nature,
+these develop a vivacity of temperament, a quickness of sensibility as
+well as apprehension, and a versatility of feeling as well as genius.
+History marks out the temperate zone as the seat of the refined and
+cultivated nations.
+
+[Footnote 22: Guyot, "Earth and Man," p. 181.]
+
+[Footnote 23: _Encyc. Brit._, art. "Greece."]
+
+[Footnote 24: The influence of climatic conditions did not escape the
+attention of the Greeks. Herodotus, Hippocrates, and Aristotle speak of
+the climate of Asia as more enervating than that of Greece. They
+regarded the changeful character and diversity of local temperature in
+Greece as highly stimulating to the energies of the populations. The
+marked contrast between the Athenians and the Bœotians was supposed to
+be represented in the light and heavy atmosphere which they respectively
+breathed.--_Grote_, vol. ii. pp. 232-3.]
+
+The natural scenery of Greece was of unrivalled grandeur--surpassing
+Italy, perhaps every country in the world. It combined in the highest
+degree every feature essential to the highest beauty of a landscape
+except, perhaps, large rivers. But this was more than compensated for by
+the proximity of the sea, which, by its numerous arms, seemed to embrace
+the land on nearly every side. Its mountains, encircled with zones of
+wood, and capped with snow, though much lower than the Alps, are as
+imposing by the suddenness of their elevation--"pillars of heaven, the
+fosterers of enduring snows."[25] Rich sheltered plains lie at their
+feet, covered with an unequally woven mantle of trees, and shrubs, and
+flowers,--"the verdant gloom of the thickly-mantling ivy, the narcissus
+steeped in heavenly dew, the golden-beaming crocus, the hardy and
+ever-fresh-sprouting olive-tree,"[26] and the luxuriant palm, which
+nourishes amid its branches the grape swelling with juice. But it is the
+combination of these features, in the most diversified manner, with
+beautiful inland bays and seas, broken by headlands, inclosed by
+mountains, and studded with islands of every form and magnitude, which
+gives to the scenery of Greece its proud pre-eminence. "Greek scenery,"
+says Humboldt, "presents the peculiar charm of an intimate blending of
+sea and land, of shores adorned with vegetation, or picturesquely girt
+with rocks gleaming in the light of aerial tints, and an ocean beautiful
+in the play of the ever-changing brightness of its deep-toned wave."[27]
+And over all the serene, deep azure skies, occasionally veiled by light
+fleecy clouds, with vapory purple mists resting on the distant mountain
+tops. This glorious scenery of Greece is evermore the admiration of the
+modern traveller. "In wandering about Athens on a sunny day in March,
+when the asphodels are blooming on Colones, when the immortal mountains
+are folded in a transparent haze, and the Ægean slumbers afar among his
+isles," he is reminded of the lines of Byron penned amid these scenes--
+
+[Footnote 25: Pindar.]
+
+[Footnote 26: Sophocles, "Œdipus at Colonna."]
+
+[Footnote 27: "Cosmos," vol. ii. p. 25.]
+
+     "Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild;
+     Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields,
+     Thine olives ripe as when Minerva smiled,
+     And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields;
+     There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds,
+     The freeborn wanderer of the mountain air;
+     Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds,
+     Still in his beams Mendeli's marbles glare;
+     Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but nature still is fair."[28]
+
+[Footnote 28: Canto ii., v. lxxxvi., "Childe Harold."]
+
+The effect of this scenery upon the character, the imagination, the
+taste of the Athenians must have been immense. Under the influence of
+such sublime objects, the human mind becomes gifted as with inspiration,
+and is by nature filled with poetic images. "Greece became the
+birth-place of taste, of art, and eloquence, the chosen sanctuary of the
+muses, the prototype of all that is graceful, and dignified, and grand
+in sentiment and action."
+
+And now, if we have succeeded in clearly presenting and properly
+grouping the facts, and in estimating the influence of geographical
+position and surroundings on national character, we have secured the
+natural _criteria_ by which we examine, and even correct the portraiture
+of the Athenian character usually presented by the historian.
+
+The character of the Athenians has been sketched by Plutarch[29] with
+considerable minuteness, and his representations have been permitted,
+until of late years, to pass unchallenged. He has described them as at
+once passionate and placable, easily moved to anger, and as easily
+appeased; fond of pleasantry and repartee, and heartily enjoying a
+laugh; pleased to hear themselves praised, and yet not annoyed by
+criticism and censure; naturally generous towards those who were poor
+and in humble circumstances, and humane even towards their enemies;
+jealous of their liberties, and keeping even their rulers in awe. In
+regard to their intellectual traits, he affirms their minds were not
+formed for laborious research, and though they seized a subject as it
+were by intuition, yet wanted patience and perseverance for a thorough
+examination of all its bearings. "An observation," says the writer of
+the article on "_Attica_," in the Encyclopædia Britannica, "more
+superficial in itself, and arguing a greater ignorance of the Athenians,
+can not easily be imagined." Plutarch lived more than three hundred
+years after the palmy days of the Athenian Demos had passed away. He was
+a Bœotian by birth, not an Attic, and more of a Roman than a Greek in
+all his sympathies. We are tempted to regard him as writing under the
+influence of prejudice, if not of envy. He was scarcely reliable as a
+biographer, and as materials for history his "Parallel Lives" have been
+pronounced "not altogether trustworthy."[30]
+
+[Footnote 29: "De Præcept."]
+
+[Footnote 30: _Encyc. of Biography_, art. "Plutarch."]
+
+That the Athenians were remarkable for the ardor and vivacity of their
+temperament,--that they were liable to sudden gusts of passion,--that
+they were inconstant in their affections, intolerant of dictation,
+impatient of control, and hasty to resent every assumption of
+superiority,--that they were pleased with flattery, and too ready to
+lend a willing ear to the adulation of the demagogue,--and that they
+were impetuous and brave, yet liable to be excessively elated by
+success, and depressed by misfortune, we may readily believe, because
+such traits of character are in perfect harmony with all the facts and
+conclusions already presented. Such characteristics were the natural
+product of the warm and genial sunlight, the elastic bracing air, the
+ethereal skies, the glorious mountain scenery, and the elaborate
+blending of sea and land, so peculiar to Greece and the whole of
+Southern Europe.[31] These characteristics were shared in a greater or
+less degree by all the nations of Southern Europe in ancient times, and
+they are still distinctive traits in the Frenchman, the Italian, and the
+modern Greek.[32]
+
+[Footnote 31: "As the skies of Hellas surpassed nearly all other
+climates in brightness and elasticity, so, also, had nature dealt most
+lovingly with the inhabitants of this land. Throughout the whole being
+of the Greek there reigned supreme a quick susceptibility, out of which
+sprang a gladsome serenity of temper, and a keen enjoyment of life;
+acute sense, and nimbleness of apprehension; a guileless and child-like
+feeling, full of trust and faith, combined with prudence and forecast.
+These peculiarities lay so deeply imbedded in the inmost nature of the
+Greeks that no revolutions of time and circumstances have yet been able
+to destroy them; nay, it may be asserted that even now, after centuries
+of degradation, they have not been wholly extinguished in the
+inhabitants of ancient Hellas."--"_Education of the Moral Sentiment
+amongst the Ancient Greeks_." By FREDERICK JACOBS, p. 320.]
+
+[Footnote 32: These are described by the modern historian and traveller
+as lively, versatile, and witty. "The love of liberty and independence
+does not seem to be rooted out of the national character by centuries of
+subjugation. They love to command; but though they are loyal to a good
+government, they are apt readily to rise when their rights and liberties
+are infringed. As there is little love of obedience among them, so
+neither is there any toleration of aristocratic pretensions."--_Encyc.
+Brit._, art. "Greece."]
+
+The consciousness of power, the feeling of independence, the ardent love
+of freedom induced in the Athenian mind by the objective freedom of
+movement which his geographical position afforded, and that
+subordination and subserviency of physical nature to man so peculiar to
+Greece, determined the democratic character of all their political
+institutions. And these institutions reacted upon the character of the
+people and intensified their love of liberty. This passionate love of
+personal freedom, amounting almost to disease, excited them to a
+constant and almost distressing vigilance. And it is not to be wondered
+at if it displayed itself in an extreme jealousy of their rulers, an
+incessant supervision and criticism of all their proceedings, and an
+intense and passionate hatred of tyrants and of tyranny. The popular
+legislator or the successful soldier might dare to encroach upon their
+liberties in the moment when the nation was intoxicated and dazzled with
+their genius, their prowess, and success; but a sudden revulsion of
+popular feeling, and an explosion of popular indignation, would overturn
+the one, and ostracism expel the other. Thus while inconstancy, and
+turbulence, and faction seem to have been inseparable from the
+democratic spirit, the Athenians were certainly constant in their love
+of liberty, faithful in their affection for their country,[33] and
+invariable in their sympathy and admiration for that genius which shed
+glory upon their native land. And then they were ever ready to repair
+the errors, and make amends for the injustice committed under the
+influence of passionate excitement, or the headlong impetuosity of their
+too ardent temperament. The history of Greece supplies numerous
+illustrations of this spirit. The sentence of death which had been
+hastily passed on the inhabitants of Mytilene was, on sober reflection,
+revoked the following day. The immediate repentance and general sorrow
+which followed the condemnation of the ten generals, as also of
+Socrates, are notable instances.
+
+[Footnote 33: When immense bribes were offered by the king of Persia to
+induce the Athenians to detach themselves from the alliance with the
+rest of the Hellenic States, she answered by the mouth of Aristides
+"that it was impossible for all the gold in the world to tempt the
+Republic of Athens, or prevail with it to sell its liberty and that of
+Greece!"]
+
+In their private life the Athenians were courteous, generous, and
+humane. Whilst bold and free in the expression of their opinions, they
+paid the greatest attention to rules of politeness, and were nicely
+delicate on points of decorum. They had a natural sense of what was
+becoming and appropriate, and an innate aversion to all extravagance. A
+graceful demeanor and a quiet dignity were distinguishing traits of
+Athenian character. They were temperate and frugal[34] in their habits,
+and little addicted to ostentation and display. Even after their
+victories had brought them into contact with Oriental luxury and
+extravagance, and their wealth enabled them to rival, in costliness and
+splendor, the nations they had conquered, they still maintained a
+republican simplicity. The private dwellings of the principal citizens
+were small, and usually built of clay; their interior embellishments
+also were insignificant--the house of Polytion alone formed an
+exception.[35] All their sumptuousness and magnificence were reserved
+for and lavished on their public edifices and monuments of art, which
+made Athens the pride of Greece and the wonder of the world.
+Intellectually, the Athenians were remarkable for their quickness of
+apprehension, their nice and delicate perception, their intuitional
+power, and their versatile genius. Nor were they at all incapable of
+pursuing laborious researches, or wanting in persevering application and
+industry, notwithstanding Plutarch's assertion to the contrary. The
+circumstances of every-day life in Attica, the conditions which
+surrounded the Athenian from childhood to age, were such as to call for
+the exercise of these qualities of mind in the highest degree. Habits of
+patient industry were induced in the Athenian character by the poverty
+and comparative barrenness of the soil, demanding greater exertion to
+supply their natural wants. And an annual period of dormancy, though
+unaccompanied by the rigors of a northern winter, called for prudence in
+husbanding, and forethought and skill in endeavoring to increase their
+natural resources. The aspects of nature were less massive and
+awe-inspiring, her features more subdued, and her areas more
+circumscribed and broken, inviting and emboldening man to attempt her
+conquest. The whole tendency of natural phenomena in Greece was to
+restrain the imagination, and discipline the observing and reasoning
+faculties in man. Thus was man inspired with confidence in his own
+resources, and allured to cherish an inquisitive, analytic, and
+scientific spirit. "The French, in point of national character, hold
+nearly the same relative place amongst the nations of Europe that the
+Athenians held amongst the States of Ancient Greece." And whilst it is
+admitted the French are quick, sprightly, vivacious, perhaps sometimes
+light even to frivolity, it must be conceded they have cultivated the
+natural and exact sciences with a patience, and perseverance, and
+success unsurpassed by any of the nations of Europe. And so the
+Athenians were the Frenchmen of Greece. Whilst they spent their "leisure
+time"[36] in the place of public resort, the porticoes and groves,
+"hearing and telling the latest news" (no undignified or improper mode
+of recreation in a city where newspapers were unknown), whilst they are
+condemned as "garrulous," "frivolous," "full of curiosity," and
+"restlessly fond of novelties," we must insist that a love of study, of
+patient thought and profound research, was congenial to their natural
+temperament, and that an inquisitive and analytic spirit, as well as a
+taste for subtile and abstract speculation, were inherent in the
+national character. The affluence, and fullness, and flexibility, and
+sculpture-like finish of the language of the Attics, which leaves far
+behind not only the languages of antiquity, but also the most cultivated
+of modern times, is an enduring monument of the patient industry of the
+Athenians.[37] Language is unquestionably the highest creation of
+reason, and in the language of a nation we can see reflected as in a
+mirror the amount of culture to which it has attained. The rare balance
+of the imagination and the reasoning powers, in which the perfection of
+the human intellect is regarded as consisting, the exact correspondence
+between the thought and the expression, "the free music of prosaic
+numbers in the most diversified forms of style," the calmness, and
+perspicuity, and order, even in the stormiest moments of inspiration,
+revealed in every department of Greek literature, were not a mere happy
+stroke of chance, but a product of unwearied effort--and effort too
+which was directed by the criteria which reason supplied. The plastic
+art of Greece, which after the lapse of ages still stands forth in
+unrivalled beauty, so that, in presence of the eternal models it
+created, the modern artist feels the painful lack of progress was not a
+spontaneous outburst of genius, but the result of intense application
+and unwearied discipline. The achievements of the philosophic spirit,
+the ethical and political systems of the Academy, the Lyceum, the Stoa,
+and the Garden, the anticipations, scattered here and there like
+prophetic hints, of some of the profoundest discoveries of "inductive
+science" in more modern days,--all these are an enduring protest against
+the strange misrepresentations of Plutarch.
+
+[Footnote 34: These are still characteristics of the Greeks. "They are
+an exceedingly temperate people; drunkenness is a vice remarkably rare
+amongst them; their food also is spare and simple; even the richest are
+content with a dish of vegetables for each meal, and the poor with a
+handful of olives or a piece of salt fish.... All other pleasures are
+indulged with similar propriety; their passions are moderate, and
+insanity is almost unknown amongst them."--_Encyc. Brit._, art.
+"Greece."]
+
+[Footnote 35: Niebuhr's Lectures, vol. i. p. 101.]
+
+[Footnote 36: Εύκαιρέω corresponds exactly to the Latin _vacare_, "to be
+at leisure."]
+
+[Footnote 37: Frederick Jacobs, on "Study of Classic Antiquity," p. 57.]
+
+In Athens there existed a providential collocation of the most favorable
+conditions in which humanity can be placed for securing its highest
+natural development. Athenian civilization is the solution, on the
+theatre of history, of the problem--What degree of perfection can
+humanity, under the most favorable conditions, attain, without the
+supernatural light, and guidance, and grace of Christianity?[38] "Like
+their own goddess Athene the people of Athens seem to spring full-armed
+into the arena of history, and we look in vain to Egypt, Syria, and
+India, for more than a few seeds that burst into such marvellous growth
+on the soil of Attica."[39]
+
+[Footnote 38: It has been asserted by some theological writers, Watson
+for example, that no society of civilized men has been, or can be
+constituted without the aid of a religion directly communicated by
+revelation, and transmitted by oral tradition;--"that it is possible to
+raise a body of men into that degree of civil improvement which would
+excite the passion for philosophic investigation, without the aid of
+religion... can have no proof, and is contradicted by every fact and
+analogy with which we are acquainted." (_Institutes_, vol. i. p. 271;
+see also Archbishop Whately, "Dissertation," etc., vol. i. _Encyc.
+Brit._, p. 449-455).
+
+The fallacy of the reasoning by which this doctrine is sought to be
+sustained is found in the assumption "that to all our race the existence
+of a First Cause is a question of philosophy," and that the idea of God
+lies at the end of "a gradual process of inquiry" and induction, for
+which a high degree of "scientific culture" is needed. Whereas the idea
+of a First Cause lies at the beginning, not at the end of philosophy;
+and philosophy is simply the analysis of our natural consciousness of
+God, and the presentation of the idea in a logical form. Faith in the
+existence of God is not the result of a conscious process of reflection;
+it is the spontaneous and instinctive logic of the human mind, which, in
+view of phenomena presented to sense, by a necessary law of thought
+immediately and intuitively affirms a personal Power, an intelligent
+Mind as the author. In this regard, there is no difference between men
+except the clearness with which they apprehend, and the logical account
+they can render to themselves, of this instinctive belief. Spontaneous
+intuition, says Cousin, is the genius of all men; reflection the genius
+of few men. "But Leibnitz had no more confidence in the principle of
+causality, and even in his favorite principle of sufficient reason, than
+the most ignorant of men;" the latter have this principle within them,
+as a law of thought, controlling their conception of the universe, and
+doing this almost unconsciously; the former, by an analysis of thought,
+succeeded in defining and formulating the ideas and laws which
+necessitate the cognition of a God. The function of philosophy is simply
+to transform ἀληθὴς δόξα into ίτιστήμη--right opinion into science,--to
+elucidate and logically present the immanent thought which lies in the
+universal consciousness of man.
+
+That the possession of the idea of God is essential to the social and
+moral elevation of man,--that is, to the civilization of our race, is
+most cheerfully conceded. That humanity has an end and destination which
+can only be secured by the true knowledge of God, and by a participation
+of the nature of God, is equally the doctrine of Plato and of Christ.
+Now, if humanity has a special end and destination, it must have some
+instinctive tendings, some spermatic ideas, some original forces or
+laws, which determine it towards that end. All development supposes some
+original elements to be unfolded or developed. Civilization is but the
+development of humanity according to its primal idea and law, and under
+the best exterior conditions. That the original elements of humanity
+were unfolded in some noble degree under the influence of philosophy is
+clear from the history of Greece; there the most favorable natural
+conditions for that development existed, and Christianity alone was
+needed to crown the result with ideal perfection.]
+
+[Footnote 39: Max Muller, "Science of Language," p. 404, 2d series.]
+
+Here the most perfect ideals of beauty and excellence in physical
+development, in manners, in plastic art, in literary creations, were
+realized. The songs of Homer, the dialogues of Plato, the speeches of
+Demosthenes, and the statues of Phidias, if not unrivalled, are at least
+unsurpassed by any thing that has been achieved by their successors.
+Literature in its most flourishing periods has rekindled its torch at
+her altars, and art has looked back to the age of Pericles for her
+purest models. Here the ideas of personal liberty, of individual rights,
+of freedom in thought and action, had a wonderful expansion. Here the
+lasting foundations of the principal arts and sciences were laid, and in
+some of them triumphs were achieved which have not been eclipsed. Here
+the sun of human reason attained a meridian splendor, and illuminated
+every field in the domain of moral truth. And here humanity reached the
+highest degree of civilization of which it is capable under purely
+_natural_ conditions.
+
+And now, the question with which we are more immediately concerned is,
+what were the specific and valuable results attained by the Athenian
+mind in _religion_ and _philosophy_, the two momenta of the human mind?
+This will be the subject of discussion in subsequent chapters.
+
+The order in which the discussion shall proceed is determined for us by
+the natural development of thought. The two fundamental momenta of
+thought and its development are spontaneity and reflection, and the two
+essential forms they assume are religion and philosophy. In the natural
+order of thought spontaneity is first, and reflection succeeds
+spontaneous thought. And so religion is first developed, and
+subsequently comes philosophy. As religion supposes spontaneous
+intuition, so philosophy has religion for its basis, but upon this basis
+it is developed in an original manner. "Turn your attention to history,
+that living image of thought: everywhere you perceive religions and
+philosophies: everywhere you see them produced in an invariable order.
+Everywhere religion appears with new societies, and everywhere, just so
+far as societies advance, from religion springs philosophy."[40] This
+was pre-eminently the case in Athens, and we shall therefore direct our
+attention first to the Religion of the Athenians.
+
+[Footnote 40: Cousin, "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 302.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.
+
+
+      All things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness
+      in religion δεισιδαιμονεστέροις.--ST. PAUL.
+
+As a prelude and preparation for the study of the religion of the
+Athenians, it may be well to consider religion in its more abstract and
+universal form; and inquire in what does religion essentially consist;
+how far is it grounded in the nature of man; and especially, what is
+there in the mental constitution of man, or in his exterior conditions,
+which determines him to a mode of life which may be denominated
+_religious?_ As a preliminary inquiry, this may materially aid us in
+understanding the nature, and estimating the value of the religious
+conceptions and sentiments which were developed by the Greek mind.
+
+Religion, in its most generic conception, may be defined as a form of
+thought, feeling, and action, which has the _Divine_ for its object,
+basis, and end. Or, in other words, it is a mode of life determined by
+the recognition of some relation to, and consciousness of dependence
+upon, a _Supreme Being_. This general conception of religion underlies
+all the specific forms of religion which have appeared in the world,
+whether heathen, Jewish, Mohammedan, or Christian.
+
+That a religious destination appertains to man as man, whether he has
+been raised to a full religious consciousness, or is simply considered
+as capable of being so raised, can not be denied. In all ages man has
+revealed an instinctive tendency, or natural aptitude for religion, and
+he has developed feelings and emotions which have always characterized
+him as a religious being. Religious ideas and sentiments have prevailed
+among all nations, and have exerted a powerful influence on the entire
+course of human history. Religious worship, addressed to a Supreme Being
+believed to control the destiny of man, has been coeval and coextensive
+with the race. Every nation has had its mythology, and each mythologic
+system has been simply an effort of humanity to realize and embody in
+some visible form the relations in which it feels itself to be connected
+with an external, overshadowing, and all-controlling Power and Presence.
+The voice of all ancient, and all contemporaneous history, clearly
+attests that the _religious principle_ is deeply seated in the nature of
+man; and that it has occupied the thought, and stirred the feelings of
+every rational man, in every age. It has interwoven itself with the
+entire framework of human society, and ramified into all the relations
+of human life. By its agency, nations have been revolutionized, and
+empires have been overthrown; and it has formed a mighty element in all
+the changes which have marked the history of man.
+
+This universality of religious sentiment and religious worship must be
+conceded as a fact of human nature, and, as a universal fact, it demands
+an explanation. Every event must have a cause. Every phenomenon must
+have its ground, and reason, and law. The facts of religious history,
+the past and present religious phenomena of the world can be no
+exception to this fundamental principle; they press their imperious
+demand to be studied and explained, as much as the phenomena of the
+material or the events of the moral world. The phenomena of religion,
+being universally revealed wherever man is found, must be grounded in
+some universal principle, on some original law, which is connate with,
+and natural to man. At any rate, there must be something in the nature
+of man, or in the exterior conditions of humanity, which invariably
+leads man to worship, and which determines him, as by the force of an
+original instinct, or an outward, conditioning necessity, to recognize
+and bow down before a Superior Power. The full recognition and adequate
+explanation of the facts of religious history will constitute a
+_philosophy of religion_.
+
+The hypotheses which have been offered in explanation of the religious
+phenomena of the world are widely divergent, and most of them are, in
+our judgment, eminently inadequate and unsatisfactory. The following
+enumeration may be regarded as embracing all that are deemed worthy of
+consideration.
+
+I. The phenomenon of religion had its origin in SUPERSTITION, that is,
+in a _fear_ of invisible and supernatural powers, generated by ignorance
+of nature.
+
+II. The phenomenon of religion is part of that PROCESS or EVOLUTION OF
+THE ABSOLUTE (i.e., the Deity), which gradually unfolding itself in
+nature, mind, history, and _religion_, attains to perfect
+self-consciousness in philosophy.
+
+III. The phenomenon of religion has its foundation in FEELING--_the
+feeling of dependence and of obligation_; and that to which the mind, by
+spontaneous intuition or instinctive faith, traces this dependence and
+obligation we call God.
+
+IV. The phenomenon of religion had its outbirth in the spontaneous
+apperceptions of REASON, that is, the necessary _à priori ideas of the
+Infinite, the Perfect, the Unconditioned Cause, the Eternal Being_,
+which are evoked into consciousness in presence of the changeful and
+contingent phenomena of the world.
+
+V. The phenomenon of religion had its origin in EXTERNAL REVELATION, to
+which _reason_ is related as a purely passive organ, and _heathenism_ as
+a feeble relic.
+
+As a philosophy of religion--an attempt to supply the rationale of the
+religious phenomena of the world, the first hypothesis is a skeptical
+philosophy, which necessarily leads to _Atheism_. The second is an
+idealistic philosophy (absolute idealism), which inevitably lands in
+_Pantheism_. The third is an intuitional or "faith-philosophy," which
+finally ends in _Mysticism_. The fourth is a rationalistic or
+"spiritualistic" philosophy, which yields pure _Theism_. The last is an
+empirical philosophy, which derives all religion from instruction, and
+culminates in _Dogmatic Theology_.
+
+In view of these diverse and conflicting theories, the question which
+now presents itself for our consideration is,--does any one of these
+hypotheses meet and satisfy the demands of the problem? does it fully
+account for and adequately explain all the facts of religious history?
+The answer to this question must not be hastily or dogmatically given.
+The arbitrary rejection of any theory that may be offered, without a
+fair and candid examination, will leave our minds in uncertainty and
+doubt as to the validity of our own position. A blind faith is only one
+remove from a pusillanimous skepticism. We can not render our own
+position secure except by comprehending, assaulting, and capturing the
+position of our foe. It is, therefore, due to ourselves and to the cause
+of truth, that we shall examine the evidence upon which each separate
+theory is based, and the arguments which are marshalled in its support,
+before we pronounce it inadequate and unphilosophical. Such a criticism
+of opposite theories will prepare the way for the presentation of a
+philosophy of religion which we flatter ourselves will be found most in
+harmony with all the facts of the case.
+
+I. _It is affirmed that the religious phenomena of the world had their
+origin in_ SUPERSTITION, _that is, in a fear of unseen and supernatural
+powers, generated from ignorance of nature_.
+
+This explanation was first offered by Epicurus. He felt that the
+universality of the religious sentiment is a fact which demands a cause;
+and he found it, or presumed he found it not in a spiritual God, which
+he claims can not exist, nor in corporeal god which no one has seen, but
+in "phantoms of the mind generated by fear." When man has been unable to
+explain any natural phenomenon, to assign a cause within the sphere of
+nature, he has had recourse to supernatural powers, or living
+personalities behind nature, which move and control nature in an
+arbitrary and capricious manner. These imaginary powers are supposed to
+be continually interfering in the affairs of individuals and nations.
+They bestow blessings or inflict calamities. They reward virtue and
+punish vice. They are, therefore, the objects of "sacred awe" and
+"superstitious fear."
+
+                           Whate'er in heaven,
+     In earth, man sees mysterious, shakes his mind
+     With sacred awe o'erwhelms him, and his soul
+     Bows to the dust; the cause of things conceal
+     Once from his vision, instant to the gods
+     All empire he transfers, all rule supreme,
+     And doubtful whence they spring, with headlong haste
+     Calls them the workmanship of power divine.
+     For he who, justly, deems the Immortals live
+     Safe, and at ease, yet fluctuates in his mind
+     How things are swayed; how, chiefly, those discerned
+     In heaven sublime--to SUPERSTITION back
+     Lapses, and fears a tyrant host, and then
+     Conceives, dull reasoner, they can all things do,
+     While yet himself nor knows what may be done,
+     Nor what may never, nature powers defined
+     Stamping on all, and bounds that none can pass:
+     Hence wide, and wider errs he as he walks.[41]
+
+[Footnote 41: Lucretius, "De Natura Rerum," book vi. vs. 50-70.]
+
+In order to rid men of all superstitious fear, and, consequently, of all
+religion, Epicurus endeavors to show that "nature" alone is adequate to
+the production of all things, and there is no need to drag in a "divine
+power" to explain the phenomena of the world.
+
+This theory has been wrought into a somewhat plausible form by the
+brilliant and imposing generalizations of Aug. Comte. The religious
+phenomena of the world are simply one stage in the necessary development
+of mind, whether in the individual or the race. He claims to have been
+the first to discover the great law of the three successive stages or
+phases of human evolution. That law is thus enounced. Both in the
+individual mind, and in the history of humanity, thought, in dealing
+with its problems, passes, of necessity, through, first, a
+_Theological_, second, a _Metaphysical_, and finally reaches a third, or
+_Positive_ stage.
+
+In attempting an explanation of the universe, human thought, in its
+earliest stages of development, resorts to the idea of living personal
+agents enshrined in and moving every object, whether organic or
+inorganic, natural or artificial. In an advanced stage, it conceives a
+number of personal beings distinct from, and superior to nature, which
+preside over the different provinces of nature--the sea, the air, the
+winds, the rivers, the heavenly bodies, and assume the guardianship of
+individuals, tribes, and nations. As a further, and still higher stage,
+it asserts the unity of the Supreme Power which moves and vitalizes the
+universe, and guides and governs in the affairs of men and nations. The
+_Theological_ stage is thus subdivided into three epochs, and
+represented as commencing in _Fetichism_, then advancing to
+_Polytheism_, and, finally, consummating in _Monotheism_.
+
+The next stage, the _Metaphysical_, is a transitional stage, in which
+man substitutes abstract entities, as substance, force, Being _in se_,
+the Infinite, the Absolute, in the place of theological conceptions.
+During this period all theological opinions undergo a process of
+disintegration, and lose their hold on the mind of man. Metaphysical
+speculation is a powerful solvent, which decomposes and dissipates
+theology.
+
+It is only in the last--the _Positive_ stage--that man becomes willing
+to relinquish all theological ideas and metaphysical notions, and
+confine his attention to the study of phenomena in their relation to
+time and space; discarding all inquiries as to causes, whether efficient
+or final, and denying the existence of all entities and powers beyond
+nature.
+
+The first stage, in its religious phase, is _Theistic_, the second is
+_Pantheistic_, the last is _Atheistic_.
+
+The proofs offered by Comte in support of this theory are derived:
+
+I. _From Cerebral Organization_. There are three grand divisions of the
+Brain, the Medulla Oblongata, the Cerebellum, and the Cerebrum; the
+first represents the merely animal instincts the second, the more
+elevated sentiments, the third, the intellectual powers. Human nature
+must, therefore, both in the individual and in the race, be developed in
+the following order: (1.) in animal instincts; (2.) in social affections
+and communal tendencies; (3.) in intellectual pursuits. Infant life is a
+merely animal existence, shared in common with the brute; in childhood
+the individual being realizes his relation to external nature and human
+society; in youth and manhood he compares, generalizes, and classifies
+the objects of knowledge, and attains to science. And so the infancy of
+our race was a mere animal or savage state, the childhood of our race
+the organization of society, the youth and manhood of our race the
+development of science.
+
+Now, without offering any opinion as to the merits of the phrenological
+theories of Gall and Spurzheim, we may ask, what relation has this order
+to the law of development presented by Comte? Is there any imaginable
+connection between animal propensities and theological ideas; between
+social affections and metaphysical speculations? Are not the
+intellectual powers as much concerned with theological ideas and
+metaphysical speculations as with positive science? And is it not more
+probable, more in accordance with facts, that all the powers of the
+mind, instinct, feeling, and thought, enter into action simultaneously,
+and condition each other? The very first act of perception, the first
+distinct cognition of an object, involves _thought_ as much as the last
+generalization of science. We know nothing of _mind_ except as the
+development of thought, and the first unfolding, even of the infant
+mind, reveals an intellectual act, a discrimination between a self and
+an object which is not self, and a recognition of resemblance, or
+difference between _this_ object and _that_. And what does Positive
+science, in its most mature and perfect form, claim to do more than "to
+study actual phenomena in their orders of resemblance, coexistence, and
+succession."
+
+Cerebral organization may furnish plausible analogies in favor of some
+theory of human development, but certainly not the one proposed by Aug.
+Comte. The attempt, however, to construct a chart of human history on
+such an _à priori_ method,--to construct an ideal framework into which
+human nature must necessarily grow, is a violation of the first and most
+fundamental principle of the Positive science, which demands that we
+shall confine ourselves strictly to the study of actual phenomena in
+their orders of resemblance, coexistence, and succession. The history of
+the human race must be based on facts, not on hypotheses, and the facts
+must be ascertained by the study of ancient records and existing
+monuments of the past. Mere plausible analogies and _à priori_ theories
+based upon them, are only fitted to mislead the mind; they insert a
+prism between the perceiving mind and the course of events which
+decomposes the pure white light of fact, and throws a false light over
+the entire field of history.
+
+2. _The second order of proof is attempted to be drawn from the
+analogies of individual experience_.
+
+It is claimed that the history of the race is the same as that of each
+individual mind; and it is affirmed that man is _religious_ in infancy,
+_metaphysical_ in youth, and _positive_, that is, scientific without
+being religious, in mature manhood; the history of the race must
+therefore have followed the same order.
+
+We are under no necessity of denying that there is some analogy between
+the development of mind in the individual man, and in humanity as a
+whole, in order to refute the theory of Comte. Still, it must not be
+overlooked that the development of mind, in all cases and in all ages,
+is materially affected by exterior conditions. The influence of
+geographical and climatic conditions, of social and national
+institutions, and especially of education, however difficult to be
+estimated, can not be utterly disregarded. And whether all these
+influences have not been controlled, and collocated, and adjusted by a
+Supreme Mind in the education of humanity, is also a question which can
+not be pushed aside as of no consequence. Now, unless it can be shown
+that the same outward conditions which have accompanied the individual
+and modified his mental development, have been repealed in the history
+of the race, and repeated in the same order of succession, the argument
+has no value.
+
+But, even supposing it could be shown that the development of mind in
+humanity has followed the same order as that of the individual, we
+confidently affirm that Comte has not given the true history of the
+development of the individual mind. The account he has given may perhaps
+be the history of his own mental progress, but it certainly is not the
+history of every individual mind, nor indeed, of a majority even, of
+educated minds that have arrived at maturity. It would be much more in
+harmony with facts to say childhood is the period of pure receptivity,
+youth of doubt and skepticism, and maturity of well-grounded and
+rational belief. In the ripeness and maturity of the nineteenth century
+the number of scientific men of the Comtean model is exceedingly small
+compared with the number of religious men. There are minds in every part
+of Europe and America as thoroughly scientific as that of Comte, and as
+deeply imbued with the spirit of the Inductive Philosophy, which are not
+conscious of any discordance between the facts of science and the
+fundamental principles of theology. It may be that, in his own immediate
+circle at Paris there may be a tendency to Atheism, but certainly no
+such tendency exists in the most scientific minds of Europe and America.
+The faith of Bacon, and Newton, and Boyle, of Descartes, Leibnitz, and
+Pascal, in regard to the fundamental principles of theology, is still
+the faith of Sedgwick, Whewell, Herschel, Brewster, Owen, Agassiz,
+Silliman, Mitchell, Hitchcock, Dana, and, indeed of the leading
+scientific minds of the world--the men who, as Comte would say, "belong
+to the élite of humanity." The mature mind, whether of the individual or
+the race, is not Atheistical.
+
+3. _The third proof is drawn from a survey of the history of certain
+portions of our race._
+
+Comte is far from being assured that the progress of humanity, under the
+operation of his grand law of development, has been uniform and
+invariable. The majority of the human race, the vast populations of
+India, China, and Japan, have remained stationary; they are still in the
+Theological stage, and consequently furnish no evidence in support of
+his theory. For this reason he confines himself to the "élite" or
+advance-guard of humanity, and in this way makes the history of humanity
+a very "abstract history" indeed. Starting with Greece as the
+representative of ancient civilization, passing thence to Roman
+civilization, and onward to Western Europe, he attempts to show that the
+actual progress of humanity has been, on the whole, in conformity with
+his law. To secure, however, even this semblance of harmony between the
+facts of history and his hypothetical law, he has to treat the facts
+very much as Procrustes treated his victims,--he must stretch some, and
+mutilate others, so as to make their forms fit the iron bed. The natural
+organization of European civilization is distorted and torn asunder. "As
+the third or positive stage had accomplished its advent in his own
+person, it was necessary to find the metaphysical period just before;
+and so the whole life of the Reformed Christianity, in embryo and in
+manifest existence, is stripped of its garb of _faith_, and turned out
+of view as a naked metaphysical phenomenon. But metaphysics, again, have
+to be ushered in by theology; and of the three stages of theology
+Monotheism is the last, necessarily following on Polytheism, as that,
+again, on Fetichism. There is nothing for it, therefore, but to let the
+mediæval Catholic Christianity stand as the world's first monotheism,
+and to treat it as the legitimate offspring and necessary development of
+the Greek and Roman polytheism. This, accordingly, Comte actually does.
+Protestantism he illegitimates, and outlaws from religion altogether,
+and the genuine Christianity he fathers upon the faith of Homer and the
+Scipios! Once or twice, indeed, it seems to cross him that there was
+such a people as the Hebrews, and that they were not the polytheists
+they ought to have been. He sees the fact, but pushes it out of his way
+with the remark that the Jewish monotheism was 'premature.'"[42]
+
+[Footnote 42: Martineau's Essays, pp. 61, 62.]
+
+The signal defect of Comte's historical survey, however, is, that it
+furnishes no evidence of the general prevalence of Fetichism in
+primitive times. The writings of Moses are certainly entitled to as much
+consideration and credence as the writings of Berosus, Manetho, and
+Herodotus; and, it will not be denied, they teach that the faith of the
+earliest families and races of men was _monotheistic_. The early Vedas,
+the Institutes of Menu, the writings of Confucius, the Zendavesta, all
+bear testimony that the ancient faith of India, China, and Persia, was,
+at any rate, pantheistic; and learned and trustworthy critics, Asiatic
+as well as European, confidently affirm that the ground of the
+Brahminical, Buddhist, and Parsist faith is _monotheistic_; and that
+_one_ Being is assumed, in the earliest books, to be the origin of all
+things.[43] Without evidence, Comte assumes that the savage state is the
+original condition of man; and instead of going to Asia, the cradle of
+the race, for some light as to the early condition and opinions of the
+remotest families of men, he turns to Africa, the _soudan_ of the earth,
+for his illustration of the habit of man, in the infancy of our race, to
+endow every object in nature, whether organic or inorganic, with life
+and intelligence. The theory of a primitive state of ignorance and
+barbarism is a mere assumption--an hypothesis in conflict with the
+traditionary legends of all nations, the earliest records of our race,
+and the unanimous voice of antiquity, which attest the general belief in
+a primitive state of light and innocence.
+
+[Footnote 43: "The Religions of the World in their Relation to
+Christianity" (Maurice, ch. ii., iii., iv.).]
+
+The three stages of development which Comte describes as necessarily
+successive, have, for centuries past, been simultaneous. The
+theological, the metaphysical, and the scientific elements coexist now,
+and there is no real, radical, or necessary conflict between them.
+Theological and metaphysical ideas hold their ground as securely under
+the influence of enlarged scientific discovery as before; and there is
+no reason to suppose they ever had more power over the mind of man than
+they have to-day. The notion that God is dethroned by the wonderful
+discoveries of modern science, and theology is dead, is the dream of the
+"_profond orage cérébral_" which interrupted the course of Comte's
+lectures in 1826. As easily may the hand of Positivism arrest the course
+of the sun, as prevent the instinctive thought of human reason
+recognizing and affirming the existence of a God. And so long as ever
+the human mind is governed by necessary laws of thought, so long will it
+seek...
+
+[Transcriber's note: In the original document, page 64 is a duplication
+of page 63. The real page 64 seems to be missing.]
+
+....eur, and consequently to develop its true philosophy. Its
+fundamental error is the assumption that all our knowledge is confined
+to the observation and classification of sensible phenomena--that is, to
+changes perceptible by the senses. Psychology, based, as it is, upon
+self-observation and self-reflection, is a "mere illusion; and logic and
+ethics, so far as they are built upon it as their foundation, are
+altogether baseless." Spiritual entities, forces, causes, efficient or
+final, are unknown and unknowable; all inquiry regarding them must be
+inhibited, "for Theology is inevitable if we permit the inquiry into
+causes at all."
+
+II. The second hypothesis offered in explanation of the facts of
+religious history is, _that religion is part of that_ PROCESS OR
+EVOLUTION OF THE ABSOLUTE (_i.e._, the Deity) _which, gradually
+unfolding itself in nature, mind, history, and religion, attains to the
+fullest self-consciousness in philosophy_.
+
+This is the theory of Hegel, in whose system of philosophy the
+subjective idealism of Kant culminates in the doctrine of "_Absolute
+Identity_." Its fundamental position is that thought and being, subject
+and object, the perceiving mind and the thing perceived, are ultimately
+and essentially _one_, and that the only actual reality is that which
+results from their mutual relation. The outward thing is nothing, the
+inward perception is nothing, for neither could exist alone; the only
+reality is the relation, or rather synthesis of the two; the essence or
+nature of being in itself accordingly consists in the coexistence of two
+contrarieties. Ideas, arising from the union or synthesis of two
+opposites, are therefore the _concrete realities_ of Hegel; and the
+_process_ of the evolution of ideas, in the human mind, is the process
+of all existence--_the Absolute Idea_.
+
+_The Absolute_(die Idée) thus forms the beginning, middle, and end of
+the system of Hegel. It is the one infinite existence or thought, of
+which nature, mind, history, religion, and philosophy, are the
+manifestation. "The absolute is, with him, not the infinite _substance_,
+as with Spinoza; nor the infinite _subject_, as with Fichte; nor the
+infinite _mind_, as with Schelling; it is a perpetual _process_, an
+eternal thinking, without beginning and without end."[44] This _living,
+eternal process of absolute existence is the God of Hegel_.
+
+It will thus be seen that the _Absolute_ is, with Hegel, the sum of all
+actual and possible existence; "nothing is true and real except so far
+as it forms an element of the Absolute Spirit."[45] "What kind of an
+Absolute Being," he asks, "is that which does not contain in itself all
+that is actual, even evil included?"[46] The Absolute, therefore, in
+Hegel's conception, does not allow of any existence out of itself. It is
+the _unity_ of the finite and the infinite, the eternal and the
+temporal, the ideal and the real, the subject and the object. And it is
+not only the unity of these opposites so as to exclude all difference,
+but it contains in itself, all the differences and opposites as elements
+of its being; otherwise the distinctions would stand over against
+absolute as a limit, and the absolute would cease to be absolute.
+
+God is, therefore, according to Hegel, "no motionless, eternally
+self-identical and unchangeable being, but a living, eternal _process_
+of absolute self-existence. This process consists in the eternal
+self-distinction, or antithesis, and equally self-reconciliation or
+synthesis of those opposites which enter, as necessary elements, into
+the constitution of the Divine Being. This _self-evolution_, whereby the
+absolute enters into antithesis, and returns to itself again, is the
+eternal _self-actualization_ of its being, and which at once constitutes
+the beginning, middle, and end, as in the circle, where the beginning is
+at the same time the end, and the end the beginning."[47]
+
+[Footnote 44: Morell, "Hist, of Philos., p. 461."]
+
+[Footnote 45: "Philos. of Religion," p. 204.]
+
+[Footnote 46: Ibid., chap. xi. p. 24.]
+
+[Footnote 47: Herzog's _Real-Encyc._, art. "Hegelian Philos.," by
+Ulrici.]
+
+The whole philosophy of Hegel consists in the development of this idea
+of God by means of his, so-called, dialectic method, which reflects the
+objective life-process of the Absolute, and is, in fact, identical with
+it; for God, says he, "is only the Absolute Intelligence in so far as he
+knows himself to be the Absolute Intelligence, _and this he knows only
+in science_ [dialectics], _and this knowledge alone constitutes his true
+existence._"[48] This life-process of the Absolute has three "moments."
+It may be considered as the idea _in itself_--bare, naked, undetermined,
+unconscious idea; as the idea _out of itself_, in its objective form, or
+in its differentiation; and, finally, as the idea _in itself_, and _for
+itself_, in its regressive or reflective form. This movement of thought
+gives, _first_, bare, naked, indeterminate thought, or thought in the
+mere antithesis of Being and non-Being; _secondly_, thought
+externalizing itself in nature; and, _thirdly_, thought returning to
+itself, and knowing itself in mind, or consciousness. Philosophy has,
+accordingly, three corresponding divisions:--1. LOGIC, which here is
+identical with metaphysics; 2. PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE; 3. PHILOSOPHY OF
+MIND.
+
+[Footnote 48: "Hist, of Philos.," iii. p. 399.]
+
+It is beyond our design to present an expanded view of the entire
+philosophy of Hegel. But as he has given to the world a _new_ logic, it
+may be needful to glance at its general features as a help to the
+comprehension of his philosophy of religion. The fundamental law of his
+logic is the _identity of contraries or contradictions_. All thought is
+a synthesis of contraries or opposites. This antithesis not only exists
+in all ideas, but constitutes them. In every idea we form, there must be
+_two_ things opposed and distinguished, in order to afford a clear
+conception. Light can not be conceived but as the opposite of darkness;
+good can not be thought except in opposition to evil. All life, all
+reality is thus, essentially, the union of two elements, which,
+together, are mutually opposed to, and yet imply each other.
+
+The identity of Being and Nothing is one of the consequences of this
+law.
+
+1. _The Absolute is the Being_ (das Absolute ist das Seyn), and "the
+Being" is here, according to Hegel, bare, naked, abstract,
+undistinguished, indeterminate, unconscious idea.
+
+2. _The Absolute is the Nothing_ (das Absolute ist das Nichts). "Pure
+being is pure abstraction, and consequently the absolute-negative, which
+in like manner, directly taken, is _nothing_." Being and Nothing are the
+positive and negative poles of the Idea, that is, the Absolute. They
+both alike exist, they are both pure abstractions, both absolutely
+unconditioned, without attributes, and without consciousness. Hence
+follows the conclusion--
+
+3. _Being and Nothing are identical_ (das Seyn und das Nichts ist
+dasselbe), Being is non-Being. Non-Being _is_ Being--the
+Anders-seyn--which becomes _as_ Being to the Seyn. Nothing is, in some
+sense, an actual thing.
+
+_Being_ and _Nothing_ are thus the two elements which enter into the one
+Absolute Idea as contradictories, and both together combine to form a
+complete notion of bare production, or the _becoming_ of something out
+of nothing,--the unfolding of real existence in its lowest form, that
+is, of _nature_.
+
+The "_Philosophy of Nature_" exhibits a series of necessary movements
+which carry the idea forward in the ascending scale of sensible
+existence. The laws of mechanics, chemistry, and physiology are resolved
+into a series of oppositions. But the law which governs this development
+requires the self-reconciliation of these opposites. The idea,
+therefore, which in nature was unconscious and ignorant of itself,
+returns upon itself, and becomes conscious of itself, that is, becomes
+_mind_. The science of the regression or self-reflection of the idea, is
+the "_Philosophy of Mind_."
+
+The "_Philosophy of Mind_" is subdivided by Hegel into three parts.
+There is, first, the subjective or individual mind (_psychology_); then
+the objective or universal mind, as represented in society, the state,
+and in history (_ethics, political philosophy,_ or _jurisprudence_, and
+_philosophy of history_); and, finally, the union of the subjective and
+objective mind, or _the absolute mind_. This last manifests itself again
+under three forms, representing the three degrees of the
+self-consciousness of the Spirit, as the eternal truth. These are,
+first, _art_, or the representation of beauty (æsthetics); secondly,
+_religion_, in the general acceptation of the term (philosophy of
+religion); and, thirdly, _philosophy_ itself, as the purest and most
+perfect form of the scientific knowledge of truth. All historical
+religions, the Oriental, the Jewish, the Greek, the Roman, and the
+Christian, are _the successive stages in the development or
+self-actualization of God_.[49]
+
+It is unnecessary to indicate to the reader that the philosophy of Hegel
+is essentially pantheistic. "God is not a _person_, but personality
+itself, _i.e._, the universal personality, which realizes itself in
+every human consciousness, as so many separate thoughts of one eternal
+mind. The idea we form of the absolute is, to Hegel, the absolute
+itself, its essential existence being identical with our conception of
+it. Apart from, and out of the world, there is no God; and so also,
+apart from the universal consciousness of man, there is no Divine
+consciousness or personality."[50]
+
+[Footnote 49: See art. "Hegelian Philosophy," in Herzog's _Real-Encyc._,
+from whence our materials are chiefly drawn.]
+
+[Footnote 50: Morell, "Hist. of Philos.," p. 473.]
+
+This whole conception of religion, however, is false, and conflicts with
+the actual facts of man's religious nature and religious history. If the
+word "religion" has any meaning at all, it is "a mode of life determined
+by the consciousness of dependence upon, and obligation to God." It is
+reverence for, gratitude to, and worship of God as a being distinct from
+humanity. But in the philosophy of Hegel religion is a part of God--a
+stage in the development or self-actualization of God. Viewed under one
+aspect, religion is the self-adoration of God--the worship of God by
+God; under another aspect it is the worship of humanity, since God only
+becomes conscious of himself in humanity. The fundamental fallacy is
+that upon which his entire method proceeds, viz., "the identity of
+subject and object, being and thought." Against this false position the
+consciousness of each individual man, and the universal consciousness of
+our race, as revealed in history, alike protest. If thought and being
+are identical, then whatever is true of ideas is also true of objects,
+and then, as Kant had before remarked, there is no difference between
+_thinking_ we possess a hundred dollars, and actually _possessing_ them.
+Such absurdities may be rendered plausible by a logic which asserts the
+"identity of contradictions," but against such logic common sense
+rebels. "The law of non-contradiction" has been accepted by all
+logicians, from the days of Aristotle, as a fundamental law of thought.
+"Whatever is contradictory is unthinkable. A=not A=O, or A--A=O."[51]
+Non-existence can not exist. Being can not be nothing.
+
+[Footnote 51: Hamilton's Logic, p. 58.]
+
+III. The third hypothesis affirms _that the phenomenon of religion has
+its foundation in_ FEELING--_the feeling of dependence and of
+obligation_; and that to which the mind, by spontaneous intuition of
+instinctive faith, traces that dependence and obligation we call God.
+
+This, with some slight modification in each case, consequent upon the
+differences in their philosophic systems, is the theory of Jacobi,
+Schleiermacher, Nitzsch, Mansel, and probably Hamilton. Its fundamental
+position is, that we can not gain truth with absolute certainty either
+from sense or reason, and, consequently, the only valid source of real
+knowledge is _feeling--faith, intuition_, or, as it is called by some,
+_inspiration_.
+
+There have been those, in all ages, who have made all knowledge of
+invisible, supersensuous, divine things, to rest upon an internal
+_feeling_, or immediate, inward vision. The Oriental Mystics, the
+Neo-Platonists, the Mystics of the Greek and Latin Church, the German
+Mystics of the 14th century, the Theosophists of the Reformation, the
+Quietists of France, the Quakers, have all appealed to some _special_
+faculty, distinct from the understanding and reason, for the immediate
+cognition of invisible and spiritual existences. By some, that special
+faculty was regarded as an "interior eye" which was illuminated by the
+"Universal Light;" by others, as a peculiar sensibility of the soul--a
+_feeling_ in whose perfect calm and utter quiescence the Divinity was
+mirrored; or which, in an ecstatic state, rose to a communion with, and
+final absorption in the Infinite.
+
+Jacobi was the first, in modern times, to give the "faith-philosophy,"
+as it is now designated, a definite form. He assumes the position that
+all knowledge, of whatever kind, must ultimately rest upon intuition or
+faith. As it regards sensible objects, the understanding finds the
+impression from which all our knowledge of the external flows, ready
+formed. The process of sensation is a mystery; we know nothing of it
+until it is past, and the feeling it produces is present. Our knowledge
+of matter, therefore, rests upon faith in these intuitions. We can not
+doubt that the feeling has an objective cause. In every act of
+perception there is something actual and present, which can not be
+referred to a mere subjective law of thought. We are also conscious of
+another class of feelings which correlate us with a supersensuous world,
+and these feelings, also, must have their cause in some objective
+reality. Just as sensation gives us an immediate knowledge of an
+external world, so there is an internal sense which gives us an
+immediate knowledge of a spiritual world--God, the soul, freedom,
+immortality. Our knowledge of the invisible world, like our knowledge of
+the visible world, is grounded upon faith in our intuitions. All
+philosophic knowledge is thus based upon _belief_, which Jacobi regards
+as a fact of our inward sensibility--a sort of knowledge produced by an
+immediate _feeling_ of the soul--a direct apprehension, without proof,
+of the True, the Supersensuous, the Eternal.
+
+Jacobi prepared the way for, and was soon eclipsed by the deservedly
+greater name of Schleiermacher. His fundamental position was that truth
+in Theology could not be obtained by reason, but by a feeling,
+_insight_, or intuition, which in its lowest form he called
+_God-consciousness_, and in its highest form, _Christian-consciousness._
+The God-consciousness, in its original form, is the _feeling of
+dependence_ on the Infinite. The Christian consciousness is the perfect
+union of the human consciousness with the Divine, through the mediation
+of Christ, or what we would call a Christian experience of communion
+with God.
+
+Rightly to understand the position of Schleiermacher we must take
+account of his doctrine of _self_-consciousness. "In all
+self-consciousness," says he, "there are two elements, a Being ein Seyn,
+and a Somehow-having-become (Irgendweigewordenseyn). The last, however,
+presupposes, for every self-consciousness, besides the ego, yet
+something else from whence the certainty of the same
+[self-consciousness] exists, and without which self-consciousness would
+not be just this."[52] Every determinate mode of the sensibility
+supposes an _object_, and a _relation_ between the subject and the
+object, the subjective feeling deriving its determinations from the
+object. External sensation, the feeling, say of extension and
+resistance, gives world-consciousness. Internal sensation, the _feeling
+of dependence_, gives God consciousness. And it is only by the presence
+of world consciousness and God-consciousness that self consciousness can
+be what it is.
+
+We have, then, in our self-consciousness a _feeling of direct
+dependence_, and that to which our minds instinctively trace that
+dependence we call God. "By means of the religious feeling, the Primal
+Cause is revealed in us, as in perception, the things external, are
+revealed in us."[53] The _felt_, therefore, is not only the first
+religious sense, but the ruling, abiding, and perfect form of the
+religious spirit; whatever lays any claim to religion must maintain its
+ground and principle in _feeling_, upon which it depends for its
+development; and the sum-total of the forces constituting religious
+life, inasmuch as it is a _life_, is based upon immediate
+self-consciousness.[54]
+
+[Footnote 52: Glaubenslehre, ch. i. § 4.]
+
+[Footnote 53: Dialectic, p. 430.]
+
+[Footnote 54: Nitzsch, "System of Doctrine," p. 23.]
+
+The doctrine of Schleiermacher is somewhat modified by Mansel, in his
+"_Limits of Religious Thought_." He maintains, with Schleiermacher, that
+religion is grounded in _feeling_, and that the _felt_ is the first
+intimation or presentiment of the Divine. Man "_feels_ within him the
+consciousness of a Supreme Being, and the instinct to worship, before he
+can argue from effects to causes, or estimate the traces of wisdom and
+benevolence scattered through the creation."[55] He also agrees with
+Schleiermacher in regarding the _feeling of dependence_ as _a_ state of
+the sensibility, out of which reflection builds up the edifice of
+Religious Consciousness, but he does not, with Schleiermacher, regard it
+as pre-eminently _the_ basis of religious consciousness. "The mere
+consciousness of dependence does not, of itself, exhibit the character
+of the Being on whom we depend. It is as consistent with superstition as
+with religion; with the belief in a malevolent, as in a benevolent
+Deity."[56] To the feeling of dependence he has added the _consciousness
+of moral obligation_, which he imagines supplies the deficiency. By this
+consciousness of moral obligation "we are compelled to assume the
+existence of a moral Deity, and to regard the absolute standard of right
+and wrong as constituted by the nature of that Deity."[57] "To these two
+facts of the inner consciousness the feeling of dependence, and
+consciousness of moral obligation may be traced, as to their sources,
+the two great outward acts by which religion, in its various forms, has
+been manifested among men--_Prayer_, by which they seek to win God's
+blessing upon the future, and _Expiation_, by which they strive to atone
+for the offenses of the past. The feeling of dependence is the instinct
+which urges us to pray. It is the feeling that our existence and welfare
+are in the hands of a superior power; not an inexorable fate, not an
+immutable law; but a Being having at least so far the attribute of
+personality that he can show favor or severity to those who are
+dependent upon Him, and can be regarded by them with feelings of hope
+and fear, and reverence and gratitude."[58] The feeling of moral
+obligation--"the law written in the heart"--leads man to recognize a
+Lawgiver. "Man can be a law unto himself only on the supposition that he
+reflects in himself the law of God."[59] The conclusion from the whole
+is, there must be an _object_ answering to this consciousness: there
+must be a God to explain these facts of the soul.
+
+[Footnote 55: Mansel, "Limits of Religious Thought," p. 115.]
+
+[Footnote 56: Id., ib., p. 120.]
+
+[Footnote 57: Id., ib., p. 122.]
+
+[Footnote 58: Id., ib., pp. 119, 120.]
+
+[Footnote 59: Id., ib., p. 122.]
+
+This "philosophy of feeling," or of faith generated by feeling, has an
+interest and a significance which has not been adequately recognized by
+writers on natural theology. Feeling, sentiment, enthusiasm, have always
+played an important part in the history of religion. Indeed it must be
+conceded that religion is a _right state of feeling towards
+God_--religion is _piety_. A philosophy of the religious emotion is,
+therefore, demanded in order to the full interpretation of the religious
+phenomena of the world.
+
+But the notion that internal feeling, a peculiar determination of the
+sensibility, is the source of religious ideas:--that God can be known
+immediately by feeling without the mediation of the truth that manifests
+God; that he can be _felt_ as the qualities of matter can be felt; and
+that this affection of the inward sense can reveal the character and
+perfections of God, is an unphilosophical and groundless assumption. To
+assert, with Nitzsch, that "feeling has reason, and is reason, and that
+the sensible and felt God-consciousness generates out of itself
+fundamental conceptions," is to confound the most fundamental
+psychological distinctions, and arbitrarily bend the recognized
+classifications of mental science to the necessities of a theory.
+Indeed, we are informed that it is "by means of an _independent_
+psychology, and conformably to it," that Schleiermacher illustrates his
+"philosophy of feeling."[60] But all psychology must be based upon the
+observation and classification of mental phenomena, as revealed in
+consciousness, and not constructed in an "independent" and à priori
+method. The most careful psychological analysis has resolved the whole
+complex phenomena of mind into thought, feeling, and volition.[61] These
+orders of phenomena are radically and essentially distinct. They differ
+not simply in degree but in kind, and it is only by an utter disregard
+of the facts of consciousness that they can be confounded. Feeling is
+not reason, nor can it by any logical dexterity be transformed into
+reason.
+
+[Footnote 60: Nitzsch, "System of Doctrine," p. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 61: Kant, "Critique of Judg.," ch. xxii.; Cousin, "Hist, of
+Philos.," vol. ii. p. 399; Hamilton, vol. i. p. 183, Eng. ed.]
+
+The question as to the relative order of cognition and feeling, that is,
+as to whether feeling is the first or original form of the religious
+consciousness, or whether feeling be not consequent upon some idea or
+cognition of God, is one which can not be determined on empirical
+grounds. We are precluded from all scrutiny of the incipient stages of
+mental development in the individual mind and in collective humanity. If
+we attempt to trace the early history of the soul, its beginnings are
+lost in a period of blank unconsciousness, beyond all scrutiny of memory
+or imagination. If we attempt the inquiry on the wider field of
+universal consciousness, the first unfoldings of mind in humanity are
+lost in the border-land of mystery, of which history furnishes no
+authentic records. All dogmatic affirmation must, therefore, be
+unjustifiable. The assertion that religious feeling precedes all
+cognition,--that "the consciousness of dependence on a Supreme Being,
+and the instinct of worship" are developed _first_ in the mind, before
+the reason is exercised, is utterly groundless. The more probable
+doctrine is that all the primary faculties enter into spontaneous action
+_simultaneously_--the reason with the senses, the feelings with the
+reason, the judgment with both the senses and the reason, and that from
+their primary and simultaneous action arises the complex result, called
+consciousness, or conjoint knowledge.[62] There can be no clear and
+distinct consciousness without the cognition of a _self_ and a
+_not-self_ in mutual relation and opposition. Now the knowledge of the
+self--the personal ego--is an intuition of reason; the knowledge of the
+not-self is an intuition of sense. All knowledge is possible only under
+condition of plurality, difference, and relation.[63] Now the judgment
+is "the Faculty of Relations," or of comparison; and the affirmation
+"_this_ is not _that_" is an act of judgment; to know is, consequently,
+to judge.[64] Self-consciousness must, therefore, be regarded as a
+synthesis of sense, reason, and judgment, and not a mere self-feeling
+(cœnæsthesis).
+
+[Footnote 62: Cousin, "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 357; vol. ii. p.
+337.]
+
+[Footnote 63: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 88.]
+
+[Footnote 64: Hamilton, "Metaphys.," p. 277]
+
+A profound analysis will further lead to the conclusion that if ideas of
+reason are not chronologically antecedent to sensation, they are, at
+least, the logical antecedents of all cognition. The mere feeling of
+resistance can not give the notion of without the à priori idea of
+space. The feeling of movement of change, can not give the cognition of
+event without the rational idea of time or duration. Simple
+consciousness can not generate the idea of personality, or selfhood,
+without the rational idea of identity or unity. And so the mere "feeling
+of dependence," of finiteness and imperfection, can not give the idea of
+God, without the rational à priori idea of the Infinite, the Perfect,
+the Unconditioned Cause. Sensation is not knowledge, and never can
+become knowledge, without the intervention of reason, and a concentrated
+self feeling can not rise essentially above animal life until it has,
+through the mediation of reason, attained the idea of the existence of a
+Supreme Being ruling over nature and man.
+
+Mere feeling is essentially blind. In its _pathological_ form, it may
+indicate a want, and even develop an unconscious appetency, but it can
+not, itself, reveal an _object_, any more than the feeling of hunger can
+reveal the actual presence, or determine the character and fitness, of
+any food. An undefinable fear, a mysterious presentiment, an instinctive
+yearning, a hunger of the soul, these are all irrational emotions which
+can never rise to the dignity of knowledge. An object must be conjured
+by the imagination, or conceived by the understanding, or intuitively
+apprehended by the reason, before the feeling can have any significance.
+
+Regarded in its _moral_ form, as "the feeling of obligation," it can
+have no real meaning unless a "law of duty" be known and recognized.
+Feeling, alone, can not reveal what duty is. When that which is right,
+and just, and good is revealed to the mind, then the sense of obligation
+may urge man to the performance of duty. But the right, the just, the
+good, are ideas which are apprehended by the reason, and, consequently,
+our moral sentiments are the result of the harmonious and living
+relation between the reason and the sensibilities.
+
+Mr. Mansel asserts the inadequacy of Schleiermacher's "feeling of
+dependence" to reveal the character of the Being on whom we depend. He
+has therefore supplemented his doctrine by the "feeling of moral
+obligation," which he thinks "compels us to _assume_ the existence of a
+moral Deity." We think his "fact of religious intuition" is as
+inadequate as Schleiermacher's to explain the whole phenomena of
+religion. In neither instance does feeling supply the actual knowledge
+of God. The feeling of dependence may indicate that there is a Power or
+Being upon whom we depend for existence and well-being, and which Power
+or Being "we call God." The feeling of obligation certainly indicates
+the existence of a Being to whom we are accountable, and which Being Mr.
+Mansel calls a "moral Deity." But in both instances the character, and
+even the existence of God is "_assumed_" and we are entitled to ask on
+what ground it is assumed. It will not be asserted that feeling alone
+generates the idea, or that the feeling is transformed into idea without
+the intervention of thought and reflection. Is there, then, a _logical_
+connection between the feeling of dependence and of obligation, and the
+idea of the Uncreated Mind, the Infinite First Cause, the Righteous
+Governor of the world. Or is there a fixed and changeless co-relation
+between _the feeling_ and the _idea_, so that when the feeling is
+present, the idea also necessarily arises in the mind? This latter
+opinion seems to be the doctrine of Mansel. We accept it as the
+statement of a fact of consciousness, but we can not regard it as an
+account of the genesis of the idea of God in the human mind. The idea of
+God as the First Cause, the Infinite Mind, the Perfect Being, the
+personal Lord and Lawgiver, the creator, sustainer, and ruler of the
+world, is not a simple, primitive intuition of the mind. It is
+manifestly a complex, concrete idea, and, as such, can not be developed
+in consciousness, by the operation of a single faculty of the mind, in a
+simple, undivided act. It originates in the spontaneous operation of the
+whole mind. It is a necessary deduction from the facts of the universe,
+and the primitive intuitions of the reason,--a logical inference from
+the facts of sense, consciousness, and reason. A philosophy of religion
+which regards the feelings as supreme, and which brands the decisions of
+reason as uncertain, and well-nigh valueless, necessarily degenerates
+into mysticism--a mysticism "which pretends to elevate man directly to
+God, and does not see that, in depriving reason of its power, it really
+deprives man of that which enables him to know God, and puts him in a
+just communication with God by the intermediary of eternal and infinite
+truth."[65]
+
+[Footnote 65: Cousin, "True, Beautiful, and Good," p. 110.]
+
+The religious sentiments in all minds, and in all ages, have resulted
+from the union of _thought_ and _feeling_--the living and harmonious
+relation of reason and sensibility; and a philosophy which disregards
+either is inadequate to the explanation of the phenomena.
+
+IV. The fourth hypothesis is, _that religion has had its outbirth in the
+spontaneous apperceptions of_ REASON; that is, in the necessary, à
+priori ideas of the infinite, the perfect, the unconditioned Cause, the
+Eternal Being, which are evoked into consciousness in presence of the
+changeful, contingent phenomena of the world.
+
+This will at once be recognized by the intelligent reader as the
+doctrine of Cousin, by whom _pure reason_ is regarded as the grand
+faculty or organ of religion.
+
+Religion, in the estimation of Cousin, is grounded on _cognition_ rather
+than upon feeling. It is the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of duty
+in its relation to God and to human happiness; and as reason is the
+general faculty of all knowing, it must be the faculty of religion. "In
+its most elevated point of view, religion is the relation of absolute
+truth to absolute Being," and as absolute truth is apprehended by the
+reason alone, reason "is the veridical and religious part of the nature
+of man."[66] By "reason," however, as we shall see presently, Cousin
+does not mean the discursive or reflective reason, but the spontaneous
+or intuitive reason. That act of the mind by which we attain to
+religious knowledge is not a _process of reasoning_, but a pure
+appreciation, an instinctive and involuntary movement of the soul.
+
+[Footnote 66: Henry's Cousin, p. 510.]
+
+The especial function of reason, therefore, is to reveal to us the
+invisible, the supersensuous, the Divine. "It was bestowed upon us for
+this very purpose of going, without any circuit of reasoning, from the
+visible to the invisible, from the finite to the infinite, from the
+imperfect to the perfect, and from necessary and eternal truths, to the
+eternal and necessary principle" that is God.[67] Reason is thus, as it
+were, the bridge between consciousness and being; it rests, at the same
+time, on both; it descends from God, and approaches man; it makes its
+appearance in consciousness as a guest which brings intelligence of
+another world of real Being which lies beyond the world of sense.
+
+Reason does not, however, attain to the Absolute Being directly and
+immediately, without any intervening medium. To assert this would be to
+fall into the error of Plotinus, and the Alexandrian Mystics. Reason is
+the offspring of God, a ray of the Eternal Reason, but it is not to be
+identified with God. Reason attains to the Absolute Being indirectly,
+and by the interposition of truth. Absolute truth is an attribute and a
+manifestation of God. "Truth is incomprehensible without God, and God is
+incomprehensible without truth. Truth is placed between human
+intelligence, and the supreme intelligence as a kind of mediator."[68]
+Incapable of contemplating God face to face, reason adores God in the
+truth which represents and manifests Him.
+
+[Footnote 67: Cousin, "True, Beautiful, and Good," p. 103.]
+
+[Footnote 68: Id., ib., p. 99.]
+
+Absolute truth is thus a revelation of God, made by God to the reason of
+man, and as it is a light which illuminates every man, and is
+perpetually perceived by all men, it is a universal and perpetual
+revelation of God to man. The mind of man is "the offspring of God,"
+and, as such, must have some resemblance to, and some correlation with
+God. Now that which constitutes the image of God in man must be found in
+the reason which is correlated with, and capable of perceiving the truth
+which manifests God, just as the eye is correlated to the light which
+manifests the external world. Absolute truth is, therefore, the sole
+medium of bringing the human mind into communion with God; and human
+reason, in becoming united to absolute truth, becomes united to God in
+his manifestation in spirit and in truth. The supreme law, and highest
+destination of man, is to become united to God by seeking a full
+consciousness of, and loving and practising the Truth.[69]
+
+[Footnote 69: Henry's Cousin, p. 511, 512.]
+
+It will at once be obvious that the grand crucial questions by which
+this philosophy of religion is to be tested are--
+
+1st. _How will Cousin prove to us that human reason is in possession of
+universal and necessary principles or absolute truths?_ and,
+
+2d. _How are these principles shown to be absolute? how far do these
+principles of reason possess absolute authority?_
+
+The answer of Cousin to the first question is that we prove reason to be
+in possession of universal and necessary principles by the analysis of
+the contents of consciousness, that is, by psychological analysis. The
+phenomena of consciousness, in their primitive condition, are
+necessarily complex, concrete, and particular. All our primary ideas are
+complex ideas, for the evident reason that all, or nearly all, our
+faculties enter at once into exercise; their simultaneous action giving
+us, at the same time, a certain number of ideas connected with each
+other, and forming a whole. For example, the idea of the exterior world,
+which is given us so quickly, is a complex idea, which contains a number
+of ideas. There is the idea of the secondary qualities of exterior
+objects; there is the idea of the primary qualities; there is the idea
+of the permanent reality of something to which you refer these
+qualities, to wit, matter; there is the idea of space which contains
+bodies; there is the idea of time in which movements are effected. All
+these ideas are acquired simultaneously, or nearly simultaneously, and
+together form one complex idea.
+
+The application of analysis to this complex phenomenon clearly reveals
+that there are simple ideas, beliefs, principles in the mind which can
+not have been derived from sense and experience, which sense and
+experience do not account for, and which are the suggestions of reason
+alone: the idea of the _Infinite_, the _Perfect_, the _Eternal_; the
+true, the beautiful, the good; the principle of causality, of substance,
+of unity, of intentionality; the principle of duty, of obligation, of
+accountability, of retribution. These principles, in their natural and
+regular development, carry us beyond the limits of consciousness, and
+reveal to us a world of real being beyond the world of sense. They carry
+us up to an absolute Being, the fountain of all existence--a living,
+personal, righteous God--the author, the sustainer, and ruler of the
+universe.
+
+The proof that these principles are absolute, and possessed of absolute
+authority, is drawn, first, from the _impersonality of reason_, or,
+rather, the impersonality of the ideas, principles, or truths of reason.
+
+It is not we who create these ideas, neither can we change them at our
+pleasure. We are conscious that the will, in all its various efforts, is
+enstamped with the impress of our personality. Our volitions are our
+own. So, also, our desires are our own, our emotions are our own. But
+this is not the same with our rational ideas or principles. The ideas of
+substance, of cause, of unity, of intentionality do not belong to one
+person any more than to another; they belong to mind as mind, they are
+revealed in the universal intelligence of the race. Absolute truth has
+no element of personality about it. Man may say "my reason," but give
+him credit for never having dared to say "_my_ truth." So far from
+rational ideas being individual, their peculiar characteristic is that
+they are opposed to individuality, that is, they are universal and
+necessary. Instead of being circumscribed within the limits of
+experience, they surpass and govern it; they are universal in the midst
+of particular phenomena; necessary, although mingled with things
+contingent; and absolute, even when appearing within us the relative and
+finite beings that we are.[70] Necessary, universal, absolute truth is a
+direct emanation from God. "Such being the case, the decision of reason
+within its own peculiar province possesses an authority almost divine.
+If we are led astray by it, we must be led astray by a light from
+heaven."[71]
+
+[Footnote 70: Cousin, "True, Beautiful, and Good," p. 40.]
+
+[Footnote 71: Id., "Lectures," vol. ii. p. 32.]
+
+The second proof is derived from _the distinction between the
+spontaneous and reflective movements of reason_.
+
+Reflection is voluntary, spontaneity is involuntary; reflection is
+personal, spontaneity is impersonal; reflection is analytic, spontaneity
+is synthetic; reflection begins with doubt, spontaneity with
+affirmation; reflection belongs to certain ones, spontaneity belongs to
+all; reflection produces science, spontaneity gives truth. Reflection is
+a process, more or less tardy, in the individual and in the race. It
+sometimes engenders error and skepticism, sometimes convictions that,
+from being rational, are only the more profound. It constructs systems,
+it creates artificial logic, and all those formulas which we now use by
+the force of habit, as if they were natural to us. But spontaneous
+intuition is the true logic of nature,--instant, direct, and infallible.
+It is a primitive affirmation which implies no negation, and therefore
+yields positive knowledge. To reflect is to return to that which was. It
+is, by the aid of memory, to return to the past, and to render it
+present to the eye of consciousness. Reflection, therefore, creates
+nothing; it supposes an anterior operation of the mind in which there
+necessarily must be as many terms as are discovered by reflection.
+Before all reflection there comes spontaneity--a spontaneity of the
+intellect, which seizes truth at once, without traversing doubt and
+error. "We thus attain to a judgment free from all reflection, to an
+affirmation without any mixture of negation, to an immediate intuition,
+the legitimate daughter of the natural energy of thought, like the
+inspiration of the poet, the instinct of the hero, the enthusiasm of the
+prophet." Such is the first act of knowing, and in this first act the
+mind passes from _idea to being_ without ever suspecting the depth of
+the chasm it has passed. It passes by means of the power which is in it,
+and is not astonished at what it has done. It is subsequently astonished
+when by reflection it returns to the analysis of the results, and, by
+the aid of the liberty with which it is endowed, to do the opposite of
+what it has done, to deny what it has affirmed. "Hence comes the strife
+between sophism and common sense, between false science and natural
+truth, between good and bad philosophy, both of which come from free
+reflection."[72]
+
+It is this spontaneity of thought which gives birth to _religion._ The
+instinctive thought which darts through the world, even to God, is
+natural religion. "All thought implies a spontaneous faith in God, and
+there is no such thing as natural atheism. Doubt and skepticism may
+mingle with reflective thought, but beneath reflection there is still
+spontaneity. When the scholar has denied the existence of God, listen to
+the man, interrogate him, take him unawares, and you will see that all
+his words envelop the idea of God, and that faith in God is, without his
+recognition, at the bottom, in his heart."[73]
+
+Religion, then, in the system of Cousin, does not begin with reflection,
+with science, but with _faith_. There is, however, this difference to be
+noted between the theory of the "faith-philosophers" (Jacobi,
+Schleiermacher, etc.) and the theory of Cousin. With them, faith is
+grounded on sensation or _feeling_; with him, it is grounded on
+_reason_. "Faith, whatever may be its form, whatever may be its object,
+common or sublime, can be nothing else than the _consent of reason_.
+That is the foundation of faith."[74]
+
+[Footnote 72: Cousin, "True, Beautiful, and Good," p. 106.]
+
+[Footnote 73: "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 137.]
+
+[Footnote 74: Ibid., vol. i. p. 90.]
+
+Religion is, therefore, with Cousin, at bottom, pure Theism. He thinks,
+however, that "true theism is not a dead religion that forgets precisely
+the fundamental attributes of God." It recognizes God as creator,
+preserver, and governor; it celebrates a providence; it adores a
+perfect, holy, righteous, benevolent God. It holds the principle of
+duty, of obligation, of moral desert. It not only perceives the divine
+character, but feels its relation to God. The revelation of the
+Infinite, by reason, moves the feelings, and passes into sentiment,
+producing reverence, and love, and gratitude. And it creates worship,
+which recalls man to God a thousand times more forcibly than the order,
+harmony, and beauty of the universe can do.
+
+The spontaneous action of reason, in its greatest energy, is
+_inspiration_. "Inspiration, daughter of the soul and heaven, speaks
+from on high with an absolute authority. It commands faith; so all its
+words are hymns, and its natural language is poetry." "Thus, in the
+cradle of civilization, he who possessed in a higher degree than his
+fellows the gift of inspiration, passed for the confidant and the
+interpreter of God. He is so for others, because he is so for himself;
+and he is so, in fact, in a philosophic sense. Behold the sacred origin
+of prophecies, of pontificates, and of modes of worship."[75]
+
+[Footnote 75: "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 129.]
+
+As an account of the genesis of the idea of God in the human
+intelligence, the doctrine of Cousin must be regarded as eminently
+logical, adequate, and satisfactory. As a theory of the origin of
+religion, as a philosophy which shall explain all the phenomena of
+religion, it must be pronounced defective, and, in some of its aspects,
+erroneous.
+
+First, it does not take proper account of that _living force_ which has
+in all ages developed so much energy, and wrought such vast results in
+the history of religion, viz., the _power of the heart_. Cousin
+discourses eloquently on the spontaneous, instinctive movements of the
+reason, but he overlooks, in a great measure, the instinctive movements
+of the heart. He does not duly estimate the feeling of reverence and awe
+which rises spontaneously in presence of the vastness and grandeur of
+the universe, and of the power and glory of which the created universe
+is a symbol and shadow. He disregards that sense of an overshadowing
+Presence which, at least in seasons of tenderness and deep sensibility,
+seems to compass us about, and lay its hand upon us. He scarcely
+recognizes the deep consciousness of imperfection and weakness, and
+utter dependence, which prompts man to seek for and implore the aid of a
+Superior Being; and, above all, he takes no proper account of the sense
+of guilt and the conscious need of expiation. His theory, therefore, can
+not adequately explain the universal prevalence of sacrifices, penances,
+and prayers. In short, it does not meet and answer to the deep longings
+of the human heart, the wants, sufferings, fears, and hopes of man.
+
+Cousin claims that the universal reason of man is illuminated by the
+light of God. It is quite pertinent to ask, Why may not the universal
+heart of humanity be touched and moved by the spirit of God? If the
+ideas of reason be a revelation from God, may not the instinctive
+feelings of the heart be an inspiration of God? May not God come near to
+the heart of man and awaken a mysterious presentiment of an invisible
+Presence, and an instinctive longing to come nearer to Him? May he not
+draw men towards himself by sweet, persuasive influences, and raise man
+to a conscious fellowship? Is not God indeed the _great want_ of the
+human heart?
+
+Secondly, Cousin does not give due importance to the influence of
+revealed truth as given in the sacred Scriptures, and of the positive
+institutions of religion, as a divine economy, supernaturally originated
+in the world. He grants, indeed, that "a primitive revelation throws
+light upon the cradle of human civilization," and that "all antique
+traditions refer to an age in which man, at his departure from the hand
+of God, received from him immediately all lights, and all truths."[76]
+He also believes that "the Mosaic religion, by its developments, is
+mingled with the history of all the surrounding people of Egypt, of
+Assyria, of Persia, and of Greece and Rome."[77] Christianity, however,
+is regarded as "the summing and crown of the two great religious systems
+which reigned by turn in the East and in Greece"--the maturity of
+Ethnicism and Judaism; a development rather than a new creation. The
+explanation which he offers of the phenomena of inspiration opens the
+door to religious skepticism. Those who were termed seers, prophets,
+inspired teachers of ancient times, were simply men who resigned
+themselves wholly to their intellectual instincts, and thus gazed upon
+truth in its pure and perfect form. They did not reason, they did not
+reflect, they made no pretensions to philosophy they received truth
+spontaneously as it flowed in upon them from heaven.[78] This immediate
+reception of Divine light was nothing more than the _natural_ play of
+spontaneous reason nothing more than what has existed to a greater or
+less degree in every man of great genius; nothing more than may now
+exist in any mind which resigns itself to its own unreflective
+apperceptions. Thus revelation, in its proper sense, loses all its
+peculiar value, and Christianity is robbed of its pre-eminent authority.
+The extremes of Mysticism and Rationalism here meet on the same ground,
+and Plotinus and Cousin are at one.
+
+[Footnote 76: "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 148.]
+
+[Footnote 77: Ibid., vol. i. p. 216.]
+
+[Footnote 78: Morell, "Hist. of Philos.," p. 661.]
+
+V. The fifth hypothesis offered in explanation of the religious
+phenomena of the world is that they had their origin _in_ EXTERNAL
+REVELATION, _to which reason is related as a purely passive organ, and
+Ethnicism as a feeble relic_.
+
+This is the theory of the school of "dogmatic theologians," of which the
+ablest and most familiar presentation is found in the "Theological
+Institutes" of R. Watson.[79] He claims that all our religious knowledge
+is derived from _oral revelation alone_, and that all the forms of
+religion and modes of worship which have prevailed in the heathen world
+have been perversions and corruptions of the one true religion first
+taught to the earliest families of men by God himself. All the ideas of
+God, duty, immortality, and future retribution which are now possessed,
+or have ever been possessed by the heathen nations, are only broken and
+scattered rays of the primitive traditions descending from the family of
+Noah, and revived by subsequent intercourses with the Hebrew race; and
+all the modes of religious worship--prayers, lustrations,
+sacrifices--that have obtained in the world, are but feeble relics,
+faint reminiscences of the primitive worship divinely instituted among
+the first families of men. "The first man received the knowledge of God
+by sensible converse with him, and that doctrine was transmitted, with
+the confirmation of successive manifestations, to the early ancestors of
+all nations."[80] This belief in the existence of a Supreme Being was
+preserved among the Jews by continual manifestations of the presence of
+Jehovah. "The intercourses between the Jews and the states of Syria and
+Babylon, on the one hand, and Egypt on the other, powers which rose to
+great eminence and influence in the ancient world, was maintained for
+ages. Their frequent dispersions and captivities would tend to preserve
+in part, and in part to revive, the knowledge of the once common and
+universal faith."[81] And the Greek sages who resorted for instruction
+to the Chaldean philosophic schools derived from thence their knowledge
+of the theological system of the Jews.[82] Among the heathen nations
+this primitive revelation was corrupted by philosophic speculation, as
+in India and China, Greece and Rome; and in some cases it was entirely
+obliterated by ignorance, superstition, and vice, as among the
+Hottentots of Africa and the aboriginal tribes of New South Wales, who
+"have no idea of one Supreme Creator."[83]
+
+[Footnote 79: We might have referred the reader to Ellis's "Knowledge of
+Divine Things from Revelation, not from Reason or Nature;" Leland's
+"Necessity of Revelation;" and Horsley's "Dissertations," etc.; but as
+we are not aware of their having been reprinted in this country, we
+select the "Institutes" of Watson as the best presentation of the views
+of "the dogmatic theologians" accessible to American readers.]
+
+[Footnote 80: Watson, "Theol. Inst," vol. i. p. 270.]
+
+[Footnote 81: Id. ib., vol. i. p. 31.]
+
+[Footnote 82: See ch. v. and vi., "On the Origin of those Truths which
+are found in the Writings and Religious Systems of the Heathen."]
+
+[Footnote 83: Ibid., vol. i. p. 274.]
+
+The same course of reasoning is pursued in regard to the idea of duty,
+and the knowledge of right and wrong. "A direct communication of the
+Divine Will was made to the primogenitors of our race," and to this
+source _alone_ we are indebted for all correct ideas of right and wrong.
+"Whatever is found pure in morals, in ancient or modern writers, may be
+traced to _indirect_ revelation."[84] Verbal instruction--tradition or
+scripture--thus becomes the source of all our moral ideas. The doctrine
+of immortality, and of a future retribution,[85] the practice of
+sacrifice--precatory and expiatory, are also ascribed to the same
+source.[86] Thus the only medium by which religious truth can possibly
+become known to the masses of mankind is _tradition_. The ultimate
+foundation on which the religious faith and the religious practices of
+universal humanity have rested, with the exception of the Jews, and the
+favored few to whom the Gospel has come, is uncertain, precarious, and
+easily corrupted tradition.
+
+[Footnote 84: Watson, "Theol. Inst.," vol. ii. p. 470.]
+
+[Footnote 85: Id. ib., vol. i. p. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 86: Id. ib., vol. i. p. 26.]
+
+The improbability, inadequacy, and incompleteness of this theory will be
+obvious from the following considerations:
+
+1. It is highly improbable that truths so important and vital to man, so
+essential to the well-being of the human race, so necessary to the
+perfect development of humanity as are the ideas of God, duty, and
+immortality, should rest on so precarious and uncertain a basis as
+tradition is admitted, even by Mr. Watson, to be.
+
+The human mind needs the idea of God to satisfy its deep moral
+necessities, and to harmonize all its powers. The perfection of humanity
+can never be secured, the destination of humanity can never be achieved,
+the purpose of God in the existence of humanity can never be
+accomplished, without the idea of God, and of the relation of man to
+God, being present to the human mind. Society needs the idea of a
+Supreme Ruler as the foundation of law and government, and as the basis
+of social order. Without it, these can not be, or be conserved.
+Intellectual creatureship, social order, human progress, are
+inconceivable and impossible without the idea of God, and of
+accountability to God. Now that truths so fundamental should, to the
+masses of men, rest on tradition _alone_, is incredible. Is there no
+known and accessible God to the outlying millions of our race who, in
+consequence of the circumstances of birth and education, which are
+beyond their control, have had no access to an oral revelation, and
+among whom the dim shadowy rays of an ancient tradition have long ago
+expired? Are the eight hundred millions of our race upon whom the light
+of Christianity has not shone unvisited by the common Father of our
+race? Has the universal Father left his "own offspring" without a single
+native power of recognizing the existence of the Divine Parent, and
+abandoned them to solitary and dreary orphanage? Could not he who gave
+to matter its properties and laws,--the properties and laws through
+whose operation he is working out his own purposes in the realm of
+nature,--could not he have also given to mind ideas and principles
+which, logically developed, would lead to recognition of a God, and of
+our duty to God, and, by these ideas and principles, have wrought out
+his sublime purposes in the realm of mind? Could not he who gave to man
+the appetency for food, and implanted in his nature the social instincts
+to preserve his physical being, have implanted in his heart a "feeling
+after God," and an instinct to worship God in order to the conservation
+of his spiritual being? How otherwise can we affirm the responsibility
+and accountability of all the race before God? Those theologians who are
+so earnest in the assertion that God has not endowed man with the native
+power of attaining the knowledge of God can not, on any principle of
+equity, show how the heathen are "without excuse" when, in involuntary
+ignorance of God, they "worship the creature instead of the Creator,"
+and violate a law of duty of which they have no possible means to attain
+the barest knowledge.
+
+2. This theory is utterly inadequate to the explanation of the
+_universality_ of religious rites, and especially of religious ideas.
+
+Take, for example, the idea of God. As a matter of fact we affirm, in
+opposition to Watson, the universality of this idea. The idea of God is
+connatural to the human mind. Wherever human reason has had its normal
+and healthy development[87], this idea has arisen spontaneously and
+necessarily. There has not been found a race of men who were utterly
+destitute of some knowledge of a Supreme Being. All the instances
+alleged have, on further and more accurate inquiry, been found
+incorrect. The tendency of the last century, arbitrarily to quadrate all
+the facts of religious history with the prevalent sensational
+philosophy, had its influence upon the minds of the first missionaries
+to India, China, Africa, Australia, and the islands of the Pacific. They
+_expected_ to find that the heathen had no knowledge of a Supreme Being,
+and before they had mastered the idioms of their language, or become
+familiar with their mythological and cosmological systems, they reported
+them as _utterly ignorant of God_, destitute of the idea and even the
+name of a Supreme Being. These mistaken and hasty conclusions have,
+however, been corrected by a more intimate acquaintance with the people,
+their languages and religions. Even in the absence of any better
+information, we should be constrained to doubt the accuracy of the
+authorities quoted by Mr. Watson in relation to Hindooism, when by one
+(Ward) we are told that the Hindoo "believes in a God destitute of
+_intelligence_" and by another (Moore) that "Brahm is the one eternal
+_Mind_, the self-existent, incomprehensible Spirit". Learned and
+trustworthy critics, Asiatic as well as European, however, confidently
+affirm that "the ground of the Brahminical faith is Monotheistic;" it
+recognizes "an Absolute and Supreme Being" as the source of all that
+exists.[88] Eugene Burnouf, M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, Kœppen, and
+indeed nearly all who have written on the subject of Buddhism, have
+shown that the metaphysical doctrines of Buddha were borrowed from the
+earlier systems of the Brahminic philosophy. "Buddha." we are told, is
+"_pure intelligence_" "_clear light_", "_perfect wisdom_;" the same as
+Brahm. This is surely Theism in its highest conception.[89] In regard to
+the peoples of South Africa, Dr. Livingstone assures us "there is no
+need for beginning to tell even the most degraded of these people of the
+existence of a God, or of a future state--the facts being universally
+admitted.... On questioning intelligent men among the Backwains as to
+their former knowledge of good and evil, of God, and of a future state,
+they have scouted the idea of any of them ever having been without a
+tolerably clear conception on all these subjects."[90] And so far from
+the New Hollanders having no idea of a Supreme Being, we are assured by
+E. Stone Parker, the protector of the aborigines of New Holland, they
+have a clear and well-defined idea of a "_Great Spirit_," the maker of
+all things.
+
+[Footnote 87: Watson, "Theol. Inst.," vol. i. p. 46.]
+
+[Footnote 88: Maurice, "Religions of the World," p. 59: _Edin.
+Review_,1862, art "Recent Researches on Buddhism." See also Müller's
+"Chips from a German Workshop," vol. i. ch. i. to vi.]
+
+[Footnote 89: "It has been said that Buddha and Kapila were both
+atheists, and that Buddha borrowed his atheism from Kapila. But atheism
+is an indefinite term, and may mean very different things. In one sense
+every Indian philosopher was an atheist, for they all perceived that the
+gods of the populace could not claim the attributes that belong to a
+Supreme Being. But all the important philosophical systems of the
+Brahmans admit, in some form or another, the existence of an Absolute
+and Supreme Being, the source of all that exists, or seems to
+exist."--Müller, "Chips from a German Workshop," vol. i. pp. 224,5.
+
+Buddha, which means "intelligence," "clear light," "perfect wisdom," was
+not only the name of the founder of the religion of Eastern Asia, but
+Adi Buddha was the name of the Absolute, Eternal Intelligence.--Maurice,
+"Religions of the World," p. 102.]
+
+[Footnote 90: "Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa," p.
+158.]
+
+Now had the idea of God rested _solely_ on tradition, it were the most
+natural probability that it might be lost, nay, _must_ be lost, amongst
+those races of men who were geographically and chronologically far
+removed from the primitive cradle of humanity in the East. The people
+who, in their migrations, had wandered to the remotest parts of the
+earth, and had become isolated from the rest of mankind, might, after
+the lapse of ages, be expected to lose the idea of God, if it were not a
+spontaneous and native intuition of the mind,--a necessity of thought. A
+fact of history must be presumed to stick to the mind with much greater
+tenacity than a purely rational idea which has no visible symbol in the
+sensible world, and yet, even in regard to the events of history, the
+persistence and pertinacity of tradition is exceedingly feeble. The
+South Sea Islanders know not from whence, or at what time, their
+ancestors came. There are monuments in Tonga and Fiji of which the
+present inhabitants can give no account. How, then, can a pure, abstract
+idea which can have no sensible representation, no visible image, retain
+its hold upon the memory of humanity for thousands of years? The Fijian
+may not remember whence his immediate ancestors came, but he knows that
+the race came originally from the hands of the Creator. He can not tell
+who built the monuments of solid masonry which are found in his
+island-home, but he can tell who reared the everlasting hills and built
+the universe. He may not know who reigned in Vewa a hundred years ago,
+but he knows who now reigns, and has always reigned, over the whole
+earth. "The idea of a God is familiar to the Fijian, and the existence
+of an invisible superhuman power controlling and influencing nature, and
+all earthly things, is fully recognized by him."[91] The idea of God is
+a common fact of human consciousness, and tradition alone is manifestly
+inadequate to account for its _universality_.
+
+[Footnote 91: "Fiji and the Fijians," p. 215.]
+
+3. A verbal revelation would be inadequate to convey the knowledge of
+God to an intelligence "_purely passive_" and utterly unfurnished with
+any _à priori_ ideas or necessary laws of cognition and thought.
+
+Of course it is not denied that important verbal communications relating
+to the character of God, and the duties we owe to God, were given to the
+first human pair, more clear and definite, it may be, than any knowledge
+attained by Socrates and Plato through their dialectic processes, and
+that these oral revelations were successively repeated and enlarged to
+the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament church. And
+furthermore, that some rays of light proceeding from this pure fountain
+of truth were diffused, and are still lingering among the heathen
+nations, we have no desire, and no need to deny.
+
+All this, however, supposes, at least, a natural power and aptitude for
+the knowledge of God, and some configuration and correlation of the
+human intelligence to the Divine. "We have no knowledge of a dynamic
+influence, spiritual or natural, without a dynamic reaction." Matter can
+not be moved and controlled by forces and laws, unless it have
+properties which correlate it with those forces and laws. And mind can
+not be determined from without to any specific form of cognition, unless
+it have active powers of apprehension and conception which are governed
+by uniform laws. The "material" of thought may be supplied from without,
+but the "form" is determined by the necessary laws of our inward being.
+All our cognition of the external world is conditioned by the _à priori_
+ideas of time and space, and all our thinking is governed by the
+principles of causality and substance, and the law of "sufficient
+reason." The mind itself supplies an element of knowledge in all our
+cognitions. Man can not be taught the knowledge of God if he be not
+naturally possessed of a presentiment, or an apperception of a God, as
+the cause and reason of the universe. "If education be not already
+preceded by an innate consciousness of God, as an operative
+predisposition, there would be nothing for education and culture to act
+upon."[92] A mere verbal revelation can not communicate the knowledge of
+God, if man have not already the idea of a God in his mind. A name is a
+mere empty sign, a meaningless symbol, without a mental image of the
+object which it represents, or an innate perception, or an abstract
+conception of the mind, of which the word is the sign. The mental image
+or the abstract conception must, therefore, precede the name; cognition
+must be anterior to, and give the meaning of language.[93] The child
+knows a thing even before it can speak its name. And, universally, we
+must know the _thing_ in itself, or image it by analogies and
+resemblances to some other thing we do know, before the name can have
+any meaning for us. As to purely rational ideas and abstract
+conceptions,--as space, cause, the infinite, the perfect,--language can
+never convey these to the mind, nor can the mind ever attain them by
+experience if they are not an original, connate part of our mental
+equipment and furniture. The mere verbal affirmation "there is a God"
+made to one who has no idea of a God, would be meaningless and
+unintelligible. What notion can a man form of "the First Cause" if the
+principle of causality is not inherent in his mind? What conception can
+he form of "the Infinite Mind" if the infinite be not a primitive
+intuition? How can he conceive of "a Righteous Governor" if he have no
+idea of right, no sense of obligation, no apprehension of a retribution?
+Words are empty sounds without ideas, and God is a mere name if the mind
+has no apperception of a God.
+
+[Footnote 92: Nitzsch, "System of Christian Doctrine," p. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 93: "Ideas must pre-exist their sensible signs." See De
+Boismont on "Hallucination," etc., p. iii.]
+
+It may be affirmed that, preceding or accompanying the announcement of
+the Divine Name, there was given to the first human pair, and to the
+early fathers of our race, some visible manifestation of the presence of
+God, and some supernatural display of divine power. What, then, was the
+character of these early manifestations, and were they adequate to
+convey the proper idea of God? Did God first reveal himself in human
+form, and if so, how could their conception of God advance beyond a rude
+anthropomorphism? Did he reveal his presence in a vast columnar cloud or
+a pillar of fire? How could such an image convey any conception of the
+intelligence, the omnipresence, the eternity of God? Nay, can the
+infinite and eternal Mind be represented by any visible manifestation?
+Can the human mind conceive an image of God? The knowledge of God, it is
+clear, can not be conveyed by any sensible sign or symbol if man has no
+prior rational idea of God as the Infinite and the Perfect Being.
+
+If the facts of order, and design, and special adaptation which crowd
+the universe, and the _à priori_ ideas of an unconditioned Cause and an
+infinite Intelligence which arise in the mind in presence of these
+facts, are inadequate to produce the logical conviction that it is the
+work of an intelligent mind, how can any preternatural display of
+_power_ produce a rational conviction that God exists? "If the universe
+could come by chance or fate, surely all the lesser phenomena, termed
+miraculous, might occur so too."[94] If we find ourselves standing amid
+an eternal series of events, may not miracles be a part of that series?
+Or if all things are the result of necessary and unchangeable laws, may
+not miracles also result from some natural or psychological law of which
+we are yet in ignorance? Let it be granted that man is _not_ so
+constituted that, by the necessary laws of his intelligence, he must
+affirm that facts of order having a commencement in time prove mind; let
+it be granted that man has _no_ intuitive belief in the Infinite and
+Perfect--in short, no idea of God; how, then, could a marvellous display
+of _power_, a new, peculiar, and startling phenomenon which even seemed
+to transcend nature, prove to him the existence of an infinite
+_intelligence_--a personal God? The proof would be simply inadequate,
+because not the right kind of proof. Power does not indicate
+intelligence, force does not imply personality.
+
+[Footnote 94: Morell, "Hist. of Philos." p. 737.]
+
+Miracles, in short, were never intended to prove the existence of God.
+The foundation of this truth had already been laid in the constitution
+and laws of the human mind, and miracles were designed to convince us
+that He of whose existence we had a prior certainty, spoke to us by His
+Messenger, and in this way attested his credentials. To the man who has
+a rational belief in the existence of God this evidence of a divine
+mission is at once appropriate and conclusive. "Master, we know thou art
+a teacher sent from God; for no man can do the works which thou doest,
+except God be with him." The Christian missionary does not commence his
+instruction to the heathen, who have an imperfect, or even erroneous
+conception of "the Great Spirit," by narrating the miracles of Christ,
+or quoting the testimony of the Divine Book he carries along with him.
+He points to the heavens and the earth, and says, "There is a Being who
+made all these things, and Jehovah is his name; I have come to you with
+a message from Him!" Or he need scarce do even so much; for already the
+heathen, in view of the order and beauty which pervades the universe,
+has been constrained, by the laws of his own intelligence, to believe in
+and offer worship to the "Ἄγνωστος Θεος"--the unseen and
+incomprehensible God; and pointing to their altars, he may announce with
+Paul, "this God _whom ye worship_, though ignorantly, him declare I unto
+you!"
+
+The results of our study of the various hypotheses which have been
+offered in explanation of the religious phenomena of the world may be
+summed up as follows: The first and second theories we have rejected as
+utterly false. Instead of being faithful to and adequately explaining
+the facts, they pervert, and maltreat, and distort the facts of
+religious history. The last three each contain a precious element of
+truth which must not be undervalued, and which can not be omitted in an
+explanation which can be pronounced complete. Each theory, taken by
+itself, is incomplete and inadequate. The third hypothesis overrates
+_feeling_; the fourth, _reason_; the fifth, _verbal instruction_. The
+first extreme is Mysticism, the second is Rationalism, the last is
+Dogmatism. Reason, feeling, and faith in testimony must be combined, and
+mutually condition each other. No purely rationalistic hypothesis will
+meet and satisfy the wants and yearnings of the heart. No theory based
+on feeling alone can satisfy the demands of the human intellect. And,
+finally, an hypothesis which bases all religion upon historical
+testimony and outward fact, and despises and tramples upon the
+intuitions of the reason and the instincts of the heart can never
+command the general faith of mankind. Religion embraces and
+conditionates the whole sphere of life--thought, feeling, faith, and
+action; it must therefore be grounded in the entire spiritual nature of
+man.
+
+Our criticism of opposite theories has thus prepared the way for, and
+obviated the necessity of an extended discussion of the hypothesis we
+now advance.
+
+_The universal phenomenon of religion has originated in the à priori
+apperceptions of reason, and the natural instinctive feelings of the
+heart, which, from age to age, have been vitalized, unfolded, and
+perfected by supernatural communications and testamentary revelations_.
+
+There are universal facts of religious history which can only be
+explained on the first principle of this hypothesis; there are special
+facts which can only be explained on the latter principle. The universal
+prevalence of the idea of God, and the feeling of obligation to obey and
+worship God, belong to the first order of facts; the general prevalence
+of expiatory sacrifices, of the rite of circumcision, and the observance
+of sacred and holy days, belong to the latter. To the last class of
+facts the observance of the Christian Sabbath, and the rites of Baptism
+and the Lord's Supper may be added.
+
+The history of all religions clearly attests that there are two orders
+of principles--the _natural_ and the _positive_, and, in some measure,
+two authorities of religious life which are intimately related without
+negativing each other. The characteristic of the natural is that it is
+_intrinsic_, of the positive, that it is _extrinsic_. In all ages men
+have sought the authority of the positive in that which is immediately
+_beyond_ and above man--in some "voice of the Divinity" toning down the
+stream of ages, or speaking through a prophet or oracle, or written in
+some inspired and sacred book. They have sought for the authority of the
+natural in that which is immediately _within_ man--the voice of the
+Divinity speaking in the conscience and heart of man. A careful study of
+the history of religion will show a reciprocal relation between the two,
+and indicate their common source.
+
+We expect to find that our hypothesis will be abundantly sustained by
+the study of the _Religion of the Athenians_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE RELIGION OF THE ATHENIANS.
+
+
+"All things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness in religion
+(δεισιδαιμονεστέρους). For as I passed through your city, and beheld the
+objects of your worship, I found amongst them an altar with this
+inscription--'TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.' Whom therefore ye worship...."--ST.
+PAUL.
+
+Through one of those remarkable counter-strokes of Divine Providence by
+which the evil designs of men are overruled, and made to subserve the
+purposes of God, the Apostle Paul was brought to Athens. He walked
+beneath its stately porticoes, he entered its solemn temples, he stood
+before its glorious statuary, he viewed its beautiful altars--all
+devoted to pagan worship. And "his spirit was stirred within him," he
+was moved with indignation "when he saw the city full of images of the
+gods."[95] At the very entrance of the city he met the evidence of this
+peculiar tendency of the Athenians to multiply the objects of their
+devotion; for here at the gateway stands an image of Neptune, seated on
+horseback, and brandishing the trident. Passing through the gate, his
+attention would be immediately arrested by the sculptured forms of
+Minerva, Jupiter, Apollo, Mercury, and the Muses, standing near a
+sanctuary of Bacchus. A long street is now before him, with temples,
+statues, and altars crowded on either hand. Walking to the end of this
+street, and turning to the right, he entered the Agora, a public square
+surrounded with porticoes and temples, which were adorned with statuary
+and paintings in honor of the gods of Grecian mythology. Amid the
+plane-trees planted by the hand of Cimon are the statues of the deified
+heroes of Athens, Hercules and Theseus, and the whole series of the
+Eponymi, together with the memorials of the older divinities; Mercuries
+which gave the name to the streets on which they were placed; statues
+dedicated to Apollo as patron of the city and her deliverer from the
+plague; and in the centre of all the altar of the Twelve Gods.
+
+[Footnote 95: Lange's Commentary, Acts xvii. 16.]
+
+Standing in the market-place, and looking up to the Areopagus, Paul
+would see the temple of Mars, from whom the hill derived its name. And
+turning toward the Acropolis, he would behold, closing the long
+perspective, a series of little sanctuaries on the very ledges of the
+rocks, shrines of Bacchus and Æsculapius, Venus, Earth, and Ceres,
+ending with the lovely form of the Temple of Unwinged Victory, which
+glittered in front of the Propylæa.
+
+If the apostle entered the "fivefold gates," and ascended the flight of
+stone steps to the platform of the Acropolis, he would find the whole
+area one grand composition of architecture and statuary dedicated to the
+worship of the gods. Here stood the Parthenon, the Virgin House, the
+glorious temple which was erected during the proudest days of Athenian
+glory, an entire offering to Minerva, the tutelary divinity of Athens.
+Within was the colossal statue of the goddess wrought in ivory and gold.
+Outside the temple there stood another statue of Minerva, cast from the
+brazen spoils of Marathon; and near by yet another brazen Pallas, which
+was called by pre-eminence "the Beautiful."
+
+Indeed, to whatever part of Athens the apostle wandered, he would meet
+the evidences of their "carefulness in religion," for every public place
+and every public building was a sanctuary of some god. The Metroum, or
+record-house, was a temple to the mother of the gods. The council-house
+held statues of Apollo and Jupiter, with an altar to Vesta. The theatre
+at the base of the Acropolis was consecrated to Bacchus. The Pnyx was
+dedicated to Jupiter on high. And as if, in this direction, the Attic
+imagination knew no bounds, abstractions were deified; altars were
+erected to Fame, to Energy, to Modesty, and even to Pity, and these
+abstractions were honored and worshipped as gods.
+
+The impression made upon the mind of Paul was, that the city was
+literally "full of idols," or images of the gods. This impression is
+sustained by the testimony of numerous Greek and Roman writers.
+Pausanias declares that Athens "had more images than all the rest of
+Greece;" and Petronius, the Roman satirist, says, "it was easier to find
+a god in Athens than a man."[96]
+
+[Footnote 96: See Conybeare and Howson's "Life and Epistles of St.
+Paul;" also, art. "Athens," in _Encyclopædia Britannica_, whence our
+account of the "sacred objects" in Athens is chiefly gathered.]
+
+No wonder, then, that as Paul wandered amid these scenes "his spirit was
+stirred in him." He burned with holy zeal to maintain the honor of the
+true and only God, whom now he saw dishonored on every side. He was
+filled with compassion for those Athenians who, notwithstanding their
+intellectual greatness, had changed the glory of God into an image made
+in the likeness of corruptible man, and who really worshipped the
+creature _more_ than the Creator. The images intended to symbolize the
+invisible perfections of God were usurping the place of God, and
+receiving the worship due alone to him. We may presume the apostle was
+not insensible to the beauties of Grecian art. The sublime architecture
+of the Propylæa and the Parthenon, the magnificent sculpture of Phidias
+and Praxiteles, could not fail to excite his wonder. But he remembered
+that those superb temples and this glorious statuary were the creation
+of the pagan spirit, and devoted to polytheistic worship. The glory of
+the supreme God was obscured by all this symbolism. The creatures formed
+by God, the symbols of his power and presence in nature, the ministers
+of his providence and moral government, were receiving the honor due to
+him. Over all this scene of material beauty and æsthetic perfection
+there rose in dark and hideous proportions the errors and delusions and
+sins against the living God which Polytheism nurtured, and unable any
+longer to restrain himself, he commenced to "reason" with the crowds of
+Athenians who stood beneath the shadows of the plane-trees, or lounged
+beneath the porticoes that surrounded the Agora. Among these groups of
+idlers were mingled the disciples of Zeno and Epicurus, who
+"encountered" Paul. The nature of these "disputations" may be easily
+conjectured, The opinions of these philosophers are even now familiarly
+known: they are, in one form or another, current in the literature of
+modern times. Materialism and Pantheism still "encounter" Christianity.
+The apostle asserted the personal being and spirituality of one supreme
+and only God, who has in divers ways revealed himself to man, and
+therefore may be "known." He proclaimed that Jesus is the fullest and
+most perfect revelation of God--the _only_ "manifestation of God in the
+flesh." He pointed to his "resurrection" as the proof of his superhuman
+character and mission to the world. Some of his hearers were disposed to
+treat him with contempt; they represented him as an ignorant "babbler,"
+who had picked up a few scraps of learning, and who now sought to palm
+them off as a "new" philosophy. But most of them regarded him with that
+peculiar Attic curiosity which was always anxious to be hearing some
+"new thing." So they led him away from the tumult of the market-place to
+the top of Mars' Hill, where, in its serene atmosphere, they might hear
+him more carefully, and said, "May we hear what this new doctrine is
+whereof thou speakest?"
+
+Surrounded by these men of thoughtful, philosophic mind--men who had
+deeply pondered the great problem of existence, who had earnestly
+inquired after the "first principles of things;" men who had reasoned
+high of creation, fate, and providence; of right and wrong; of
+conscience, law, and retribution; and had formed strong and decided
+opinions on all these questions--he delivered his discourse on the
+_being_, the _providence_, the _spirituality_, and the _moral
+government_ of God.
+
+This grand theme was suggested by an inscription he had observed on one
+of the altars of the city, which was dedicated "To the Unknown God." "Ye
+men of Athens! every thing which I behold bears witness to your
+_carefulness in religion_. For as I passed by and beheld your sacred
+objects I found an altar with this inscription, 'To the Unknown God;'
+whom, therefore, ye worship, though ye know him not [adequately], Him
+declare I unto you." Starting from this point, the manifest carefulness
+of the Athenians in religion, and accepting this inscription as the
+evidence that they had some presentiment, some native intuition, some
+dim conception of the one true and living God, he strives to lead them
+to a deeper knowledge of Him. It is here conceded by the apostle that
+the Athenians were a _religious people_. The observations he had made
+during his short stay in Athens enabled him to bear witness that the
+Athenians were "a God-fearing people,"[97] and he felt that fairness and
+candor demanded that this trait should receive from him an ample
+recognition and a full acknowledgment. Accordingly he commences by
+saying in gentle terms, well fitted to conciliate his audience, "All
+things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness in religion." I
+recognize you as most devout; ye appear to me to be a God-fearing
+people,[98] for as I passed by and beheld your sacred objects I found an
+altar with this inscription, "To the Unknown God," whom therefore ye
+worship.
+
+[Footnote 97: Lange's Commentary, _in loco_.]
+
+[Footnote 98: "Ως before δεισιδ.--so imports. I recognize you as
+such."--Lange's Commentary.]
+
+The assertion that the Athenians were "a religious people" will, to many
+of our readers, appear a strange and startling utterance, which has in
+it more of novelty than truth. Nay, some will be shocked to hear the
+Apostle Paul described as complimenting these Athenians--these pagan
+worshippers--on their "carefulness in religion." We have been so long
+accustomed to use the word "heathen" as an opprobrious
+epithet--expressing, indeed, the utmost extremes of ignorance, and
+barbarism, and cruelty, that it has become difficult for us to believe
+that in a heathen there can be any good.
+
+From our childhood we have read in our English Bibles, Ye men of Athens,
+I perceive in all things ye are _too superstitious_ and we can scarcely
+tolerate another version, even if it can be shown that it approaches
+nearer to the actual language employed by Paul. We must, therefore, ask
+the patience and candor of the reader, while we endeavor to show, on the
+authority of Paul's words, that the Athenians were a "religious people,"
+and that all our notions to the contrary are founded on prejudice and
+misapprehension.
+
+First, then, let us commence even with our English version: "Ye men of
+Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are _too superstitious_." And
+what now is the meaning of the word "superstition?" It is true, we now
+use it only in an evil sense, to express a belief in the agency of
+invisible, capricious, malignant powers, which fills the mind with fear
+and terror, and sees in every unexplained phenomenon of nature an omen,
+or prognostic, of some future evil. But this is not its proper and
+original meaning. Superstition is from the Latin _superstitio_, which
+means a superabundance of religion,[99] an extreme exactitude in
+religious observance. And this is precisely the sense in which the
+corresponding Greek term is used by the Apostle Paul. Δεισιδαιμονία
+properly means "reverence for the gods." "It is used," says Barnes, "in
+the classic writers, in a good sense, to denote piety towards the gods,
+or suitable fear and reverence for them." "The word," says Lechler, "is,
+without doubt, to be understood here in a good sense; although it seems
+to have been intentionally chosen, in order to indicate the conception
+of _fear_(δειδω), which predominated in the religion of the apostle's
+hearers."[100] This reading is sustained by the ablest critics and
+scholars of modern times. Bengel reads the sentence, "I perceive that ye
+are _very religious_"[101] Cudworth translates it thus: "Ye are every
+way _more than ordinarily religious."[102]_ Conybeare and Howson read
+the text as we have already given it, "All things which I behold bear
+witness to your _carefulness in religion_."[103] Lechler reads "very
+devout;"[104] Alford, "carrying your _religious reverence very
+far_;"[105] and Albert Barnes,[106] "I perceive ye are greatly devoted
+to _reverence for religion_."[107] Whoever, therefore, will give
+attention to the actual words of the apostle, and search for their real
+meaning, must be convinced he opens his address by complimenting the
+Athenians on their being more than ordinarily religious.
+
+[Footnote 99: Nitzsch, "System of Christ. Doctrine," p. 33.]
+
+[Footnote 100: Lange's Commentary, _in loco_.]
+
+[Footnote 101: "Gnomon of the New Testament."]
+
+[Footnote 102: "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 626.]
+
+[Footnote 103: "Life and Epistles of St. Paul," vol. i. p. 378.]
+
+[Footnote 104: Lange's Commentary.]
+
+[Footnote 105: Greek Test.]
+
+[Footnote 106: Notes on Acts.]
+
+[Footnote 107: Also Clarke's Comment., _in loco_.]
+
+Nor are we for a moment to suppose the apostle is here dealing in hollow
+compliments, or having recourse to a "pious fraud." Such a course would
+have been altogether out of character with Paul, and to suppose him
+capable of pursuing such a course is to do him great injustice. If "to
+the Jews he became as a Jew," it was because he recognized in Judaism
+the same fundamental truths which underlie the Christian system. And if
+here he seems to become, in any sense, at one with "heathenism," that he
+might gain the heathen to the faith of Christ, it was because he found
+in heathenism some elements of truth akin to Christianity, and a state
+of feeling favorable to an inquiry into the truths he had to present. He
+beheld in Athens an altar reared to the God _he_ worshipped, and it
+afforded him some pleasure to find that God was not totally forgotten,
+and his worship totally neglected, by the Athenians. The God whom they
+knew imperfectly, "_Him_" said he, "I declare unto you;" I now desire to
+make him more fully known. The worship of "the Unknown God" was a
+recognition of the being of a God whose nature transcends all human
+thought, a God who is ineffable; who, as Plato said, "is hard to be
+discovered, and having discovered him, to make him known to all,
+impossible."[108] It is the confession of a _want_ of knowledge, the
+expression of a _desire_ to know, the acknowledgment of the _duty_ of
+worshipping him. Underlying all the forms of idol-worship the eye of
+Paul recognized an influential Theism. Deep down in the pagan heart he
+discovered a "feeling after God"--a yearning for a deeper knowledge of
+the "unknown," the invisible, the incomprehensible, which he could not
+despise or disregard. The mysterious _sentiments_ of fear, of reverence,
+of conscious dependence on a supernatural power and presence
+overshadowing man, which were expressed in the symbolism of the "sacred
+objects" which Paul saw everywhere in Athens, commanded his respect. And
+he alludes to their "devotions," not in the language of reproach or
+censure, but as furnishing to his own mind the evidence of the strength
+of their _religious instincts_, and the proof of the existence in their
+hearts of that _native apprehension_ of the supernatural, the divine,
+which dwells alike in all human souls.
+
+[Footnote 108: Timæus, ch. ix.]
+
+The case of the Athenians has, therefore, a peculiar interest to every
+thoughtful mind. It confirms the belief that religion is a necessity to
+every human mind, a want of every human heart.[109] Without religion,
+the nature of man can never be properly developed; the noblest part of
+man--the divine, the spiritual element which dwells in man, as "the
+offspring of God"--must remain utterly dwarfed. The spirit, the personal
+being, the rational nature, is religious, and Atheism is the vain and
+the wicked attempt to be something less than man. If the spiritual
+nature of man has its normal and healthy development, he must become a
+worshipper. This is attested by the universal history of man. We look
+down the long-drawn aisles of antiquity, and everywhere we behold the
+smoking altar, the ascending incense, the prostrate form, the attitude
+of devotion. Athens, with her four thousand deities--Rome, with her
+crowded Pantheon of gods--Egypt, with her degrading
+superstitions--Hindostan, with her horrid and revolting rites--all
+attest that the religious principle is deeply seated in the nature of
+man. And we are sure religion can never be robbed of her supremacy, she
+can never be dethroned in the hearts of men. It were easier to satisfy
+the cravings of hunger by logical syllogisms, than to satisfy the
+yearnings of the human heart without religion. The attempt of Xerxes to
+bind the rushing floods of the Hellespont in chains was not more futile
+nor more impotent than the attempt of skepticism to repress the
+universal tendency to worship, so peculiar and so natural to man in
+every age and clime.
+
+[Footnote 109: The indispensable necessity for a religion of some kind
+to satisfy the emotional nature of man is tacitly confessed by the
+atheist Comte in the publication of his "Catechism of Positive
+Religion."]
+
+The unwillingness of many to recognize a religious element in the
+Athenian mind is further accounted for by their misconception of the
+meaning of the word "religion." We are all too much accustomed to regard
+religion as a mere system of dogmatic teaching. We use the terms
+"Christian religion," "Jewish religion," "Mohammedan religion," as
+comprehending simply the characteristic doctrines by which each is
+distinguished; whereas religion is a mode of thought, and feeling, and
+action, determined by the consciousness of our relation to and our
+dependence upon God. It does not appropriate to itself any specific
+department of our mental powers and susceptibilities, but it conditions
+the entire functions and circle of our spiritual life. It is not simply
+a mode of conceiving God in thought, nor simply a mode of venerating God
+in the affections, nor yet simply a mode of worshipping God in outward
+and formal acts, but it comprehends the whole. Religion (_religere_,
+respect, awe, reverence) regulates our thoughts, feelings, and acts
+towards God. "It is a reference and a relationship of our finite
+consciousness to the Creator and Sustainer and Governor of the
+universe." It is such a consciousness of the Divine as shall awaken in
+the heart of man the sentiments of reverence, fear, and gratitude
+towards God; such a sense of dependence as shall prompt man to pray, and
+lead him to perform external acts of worship.
+
+Religion does not, therefore, consist exclusively in knowledge, however
+correct; and yet it must be preceded and accompanied by some intuitive
+cognition of a Supreme Being, and some conception of him as a free moral
+personality. But the religious sentiments, which belong rather to the
+heart than to the understanding of man--the consciousness of dependence,
+the sense of obligation, the feeling of reverence, the instinct to pray,
+the appetency to worship--these may all exist and be largely developed
+in a human mind even when, as in the case of the Athenians, there is a
+very imperfect knowledge of the real character of God.
+
+Regarding this, then, as the generic conception of religion, namely,
+_that it is a mode of thought and feeling and action determined by our
+consciousness of dependence on a Supreme Being_, we claim that the
+apostle was perfectly right in complimenting the Athenians on their
+"more than ordinary religiousness," for,
+
+1. They had, in some degree at least, that faith in the being and
+providence of God which precedes and accompanies all religion.
+
+They had erected an altar to the unseen, the unsearchable, the
+incomprehensible, the unknown God. And this "unknown God" whom the
+Athenians "worshipped" was the true God, the God whom Paul worshipped,
+and whom he desired more fully to reveal to them; "_Him_ declare I unto
+you." The Athenians had, therefore, some knowledge of the true God, some
+dim recognition, at least, of his being, and some conception, however
+imperfect, of his character. The Deity to whom the Athenians reared this
+altar is called "the unknown God," because he is unseen by all human
+eyes and incomprehensible to human thought. There is a sense in which to
+Paul, as well as to the Athenians--to the Christian as well as to the
+pagan--to the philosopher as well as to the peasant--God is "_the
+unknown_," and in which he must forever remain the incomprehensible.
+This has been confessed by all thoughtful minds in every age. It was
+confessed by Plato. To his mind God is "the ineffable," the unspeakable.
+Zophar, the friend of Job, asks, "Canst thou by searching find out God?
+Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?" This knowledge is "high
+as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?"
+Does not Wesley teach us to sing,
+
+                      "Hail, Father, whose creating call
+                         Unnumbered worlds attend;
+                       Jehovah, comprehending all,
+                         Whom none can comprehend?"
+
+To his mind, as well as to the mind of the Athenian, God was "the great
+unseen, unknown." "Beyond the universe and man," says Cousin, "there
+remains in God something unknown, impenetrable, incomprehensible. Hence,
+in the immeasurable spaces of the universe, and beneath all the
+profundities of the human soul, God escapes us in this inexhaustible
+infinitude, whence he is able to draw without limit new worlds, new
+beings, new manifestations. God is therefore to us
+_incomprehensible_."[110] And without making ourselves in the least
+responsible for Hamilton's "negative" doctrine of the Infinite, or even
+responsible for the full import of his words, we may quote his
+remarkable utterances on this subject: "The Divinity is in part
+concealed and in part revealed. He is at once known and unknown. But the
+last and highest consecration of all true religion must be an altar 'to
+the unknown God.' In this consummation nature and religion, Paganism and
+Christianity, are at one."[111]
+
+[Footnote 110: "Lectures," vol. i. p. 104.]
+
+[Footnote 111: "Discussions on Philosophy," p. 23.]
+
+When, therefore, the apostle affirms that while the Athenians worshipped
+the God whom he proclaimed they "knew him not," we can not understand
+him as saying they were destitute of all faith in the being of God, and
+of all ideas of his real character. Because for him to have asserted
+they had _no_ knowledge of God would not only have been contrary to all
+the facts of the case, but also an utter contradiction of all his
+settled convictions and his recorded opinions. There is not in modern
+times a more earnest asserter of the doctrine that the human mind has an
+intuitive cognition of God, and that the external world reveals God to
+man. There is a passage in his letter to the Romans which is justly
+entitled to stand at the head of all discourses on "natural theology,"
+Rom. i. 19-21. Speaking of the heathen world, who had not been favored,
+as the Jews, with a verbal revelation, he says, "That which may be known
+of God is manifest _in_ them," that is, in the constitution and laws of
+their spiritual nature, "for God hath showed it unto them" in the voice
+of reason and of conscience, so that in the instincts of our hearts, in
+the elements of our moral nature, in the ideas and laws of our reason,
+we are taught the being of a God. These are the subjective teachings of
+the human soul.
+
+Not only is the being of God revealed to man in the constitution and
+laws of his rational and moral nature, but God is also manifested to us
+objectively in the realm of things around us; therefore Paul adds, "The
+invisible things of him, even his eternal power and Godhead, from the
+creation are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are
+made." The world of sense, therefore, discloses the being and
+perfections of God. The invisible attributes of God are made apparent by
+the things that are visible. Forth out of nature, as the product of the
+Divine Mind, the supernatural shines. The forces, laws, and harmonies of
+the universe are indices of the presence of a presiding and informing
+Intelligence. The creation itself is an example of God's coming forth
+out of the mysterious depths of his own eternal and invisible being, and
+making himself apparent to man. There, on the pages of the volume of
+nature, we may read, in the marvellous language of symbol, the grand
+conceptions, the glorious thoughts, the ideals of beauty which dwell in
+the uncreated Mind, These two sources of knowledge--the subjective
+teachings of God in the human soul, and the objective manifestations of
+God in the visible universe--harmonize, and, together, fill up the
+complement of our natural idea of God. They are two hemispheres of
+thought, which together form one full-orbed fountain of light, and ought
+never to be separated in our philosophy. And, inasmuch as this divine
+light shines on all human minds, and these works of God are seen by all
+human eyes, the apostle argues that the heathen world "is without
+excuse, because, knowing God (γνόντες τὸν Θεόν) they did not glorify him
+as God, neither were thankful; but in their reasonings they went astray
+after vanities, and their hearts, being void of wisdom, were filled with
+darkness. Calling themselves wise, they were turned into fools, and
+changed the glory of the imperishable God for idols graven in the
+likeness of perishable man, or of birds, and beasts, and creeping
+things,...and they bartered the truth of God for lies, and reverenced
+and worshipped the things made rather than the Maker, who is blessed
+forever. Amen."[112]
+
+[Footnote 112: Rom. i. 21-25, Conybeare and Howson's translation.]
+
+The brief and elliptical report of Paul's address on Mars' Hill must
+therefore, in all fairness, be interpreted in the light of his more
+carefully elaborated statements in the Epistle to the Romans. And when
+Paul intimates that the Athenians "knew not God," we can not understand
+him as saying they had _no_ knowledge, but that their knowledge was
+imperfect. They did not know God as Creator, Father, and Ruler; above
+all, they did not know him as a pardoning God and a sanctifying Spirit.
+They had not that knowledge of God which purifies the heart, and changes
+the character, and gives its possessor eternal life.
+
+The apostle clearly and unequivocally recognizes this truth, that the
+idea of God is connatural to the human mind; that in fact there is not
+to be found a race of men upon the face of the globe utterly destitute
+of some idea of a Supreme Being. Wherever human reason has had its
+normal and healthful development, it has spontaneously and necessarily
+led the human mind to the recognition of a God. The Athenians were no
+exception to this general law. They believed in the existence of one
+supreme and eternal Mind, invisible, incomprehensible, infeffable--"the
+unknown God."
+
+2. The Athenians had also that consciousness of dependence upon God
+which is the foundation of all the primary religious emotions.
+
+When the apostle affirmed that "in God we live, and move, and have our
+being," he uttered the sentiments of many, if not all, of his hearers,
+and in support of that affirmation he could quote the words of their own
+poets, for we are also his offspring; [113] and, as his offspring, we
+have a derived and a dependent being. Indeed, this consciousness of
+dependence is analogous to the feeling which is awakened in the heart of
+a child when its parent is first manifested to its opening mind as the
+giver of those things which it immediately needs, as its continual
+protector, and as the preserver of its life. The moment a man becomes
+conscious of his own personality, that moment he becomes conscious of
+some relation to another personality, to which he is subject, and on
+which he depends.[114]
+
+[Footnote 113:
+
+          "Jove's presence fills all space, upholds this ball;
+           All need his aid; his power sustains us all,
+          _For we his offspring are_."
+                         Aratus, "The Phænomena," book v. p. 5.
+
+Aratus was a poet of Cilicia, Paul's native province. He flourished B.C.
+277.
+
+       "Great and divine Father, whose names are many,
+        But who art one and the same unchangeable, almighty power;
+        O thou supreme Author of nature!
+        That governest by a single unerring law!
+                      Hail King!
+        For thou art able, to enforce obedience from all frail mortals,
+       _Because we are all thine offspring,_
+        The image and the echo only of thy eternal voice."
+                                        Cleanthes, "Hymn to Jupiter."
+
+Cleanthes was the pupil of Zeno, and his successor as chief of the Stoic
+philosophers.]
+
+[Footnote 114: "As soon as a man becomes conscious of himself, as soon
+as he perceives himself as distinct from other persons and things, he at
+the same moment becomes conscious of a higher self, a higher power,
+without which he feels that neither he nor any thing else would have any
+life or reality. We are so fashioned that as soon as we awake we feel on
+all sides our dependence on something else; and all nations join in some
+way or another in the words of the Psalmist, 'It is He that made us, not
+we ourselves.' This is the first _sense_ of the Godhead, the _sensus
+numinis_, as it has well been called; for it is a _sensus_, an immediate
+perception, not the result of reasoning or generalization, but an
+intuition as irresistible as the impressions of our senses.... This
+_sensus numinis_, or, as we may call it in more homely language,
+_faith_, is the source of all religion; it is that without which no
+religion, whether true or false, is possible."--Max Müller, "Science of
+Language," Second Series, p. 455.]
+
+A little reflection will convince us that this is the necessary order in
+which human consciousness is developed.
+
+There are at least two fundamental and radical tendencies in human
+personality, namely, to _know_ and to _act_. If we would conceive of
+them as they exist in the innermost sphere of selfhood, we must
+distinguish the first as _self-consciousness_, and the second as
+_self-determination_. These are unquestionably the two factors of human
+personality.
+
+If we consider the first of these factors more closely, we shall
+discover that self-consciousness exists under limitations and
+conditions. Man can not become clearly conscious of _self_ without
+distinguishing himself from the outer world of sensation, nor without
+distinguishing self and the world from another being upon whom they
+depend as the ultimate substance and cause. Mere _cœnœesthesis_ is not
+consciousness. Common feeling is unquestionably found among the lowest
+forms of animal life, the protozoa; but it can never rise to a clear
+consciousness of personality until it can distinguish itself from
+sensation, and acquire a presentiment of a divine power, on which self
+and the outer world depend. The _Ego_ does not exist for itself, can not
+perceive itself, but by distinguishing itself from the ceaseless flow
+and change of sensation, and by this act of distinguishing, the _Ego_
+takes place in consciousness. And the _Ego_ can not perceive itself, nor
+cognize sensation as a state or affection of the _Ego_ except by the
+intervention of the reason, which supplies the two great fundamental
+laws of causality and substance. The facts of consciousness thus
+comprehend three elements--self, nature, and God. The determinate being,
+the _Ego_, is never an absolutely independent being, but is always in
+some way or other codetermined by another; it can not, therefore, be an
+absolutely original and independent, but must in some way or another be
+a _derived_ and _conditioned_ existence.
+
+Now that which limits and conditions human self-consciousness can not be
+mere _nature_, because nature can not give what it does not possess; it
+can not produce what is _toto genere_ different from itself.
+Self-consciousness can not arise out of unconsciousness. This new
+beginning is beyond the power of nature. Personal power, the creative
+principle of all new beginnings, is alone adequate to its production.
+If, then, self-consciousness exists in man, it necessarily presupposes
+an absolutely _original_, therefore _unconditioned, self-consciousness_.
+Human self-consciousness, in its temporal actualization, of course
+presupposes a nature-basis upon which it elevates itself; but it is only
+possible on the ground that an eternal self-conscious Mind ordained and
+rules over all the processes of nature, and implants the divine spark of
+the personal spirit with the corporeal frame, to realize itself in the
+light-flame of human self-consciousness. The original light of the
+divine self-consciousness is eternally and absolutely first and before
+all. "Thus, in the depths of our own self-consciousness, as its
+concealed background, the God-consciousness reveals itself to us. This
+descent into our inmost being is at the same time an ascent to God.
+Every deep reflection on ourselves breaks through the mere crust of
+world-consciousness, which separates us from the inmost truth of our
+existence, and leads us up to Him in whom we live and move and
+are."[115]
+
+[Footnote 115: Müller, "Christian Doctrine of Sin," vol. i. p. 81.]
+
+Self-determination, equally with self-consciousness, exists in us under
+manifold _limitations_. Self-determination is limited by physical,
+corporeal, and mental conditions, so that there is "an impassable
+boundary line drawn around the area of volitional freedom." But the most
+fundamental and original limitation is that of _duty_. The
+self-determining power of man is not only circumscribed by necessary
+conditions, but also by the _moral law_ in the consciousness of man.
+Self-determination alone does not suffice for the full conception of
+responsible freedom; it only becomes, _will_, properly by its being an
+intelligent and conscious determination; that is, the rational subject
+is able previously to recognize "the right," and present before his mind
+that which he _ought_ to do, that which he is morally bound to realize
+and actualize by his own self-determination and choice. Accordingly we
+find in our inmost being a _sense of obligation_ to obey the moral law
+as revealed in the conscience. As we can not become conscious of self
+without also becoming conscious of God, so we can not become properly
+conscious of self-determination until we have recognized in the
+conscience a law for the movements of the will.
+
+Now this moral law, as revealed in the conscience, is not a mere
+autonomy--a simple subjective law having no relation to a personal
+lawgiver out of and above man. Every admonition of conscience directly
+excites the consciousness of a God to whom man is accountable. The
+universal consciousness of our race, as revealed in history, has always
+associated the phenomena of conscience with the idea of a personal Power
+above man, to whom he is subject and upon whom he depends. In every age,
+the voice of conscience has been regarded as the voice of God, so that
+when it has filled man with guilty apprehensions, he has had recourse to
+sacrifices, and penances, and prayers to expatiate his wrath.
+
+It is clear, then, that if man has _duties_ there must he a
+self-conscious Will by whom these duties are imposed, for only a real
+will can be legislative. If man has a _sense of obligation_, there must
+be a supreme authority by which he is obliged. If he is _responsible_,
+there must be a being to whom he is accountable.[116] It can not be said
+that he is accountable to himself, for by that supposition the idea of
+duty is obliterated, and "right" becomes identical with mere interest or
+pleasure. It can not be said that he is simply responsible to
+society--to mere conventions of human opinions and human
+governments--for then "_right_" becomes a mere creature of human
+legislation, and "_justice_" is nothing but the arbitrary will of the
+strong who tyrannize over the weak. Might constitutes right. Against
+such hypotheses the human mind, however, instinctively revolts. Mankind
+feel, universally, that there is an authority beyond all human
+governments, and a higher law above all human laws, from whence all
+their powers are derived. That higher law is the Law of God, that
+supreme authority is the God of Justice. To this eternally just God,
+innocence, under oppression and wrong, has made its proud appeal, like
+that of Prometheus to the elements, to the witnessing clouds, to coming
+ages, and has been sustained and comforted. And to that higher law the
+weak have confidently appealed against the unrighteous enactments of the
+strong, and have finally conquered. The last and inmost ground of all
+obligation is thus the conscious relation of the moral creature to God.
+The sense of absolute dependence upon a Supreme Being compels man, even
+while conscious of subjective freedom, to recognize at the same time his
+obligation to determine himself in harmony with the will of Him "in whom
+we live, and move, and are."
+
+[Footnote 116: "The thought of God will wake up a terrible monitor whose
+name is Judge."--Kant.]
+
+This feeling of dependence, and this consequent sense of obligation, lie
+at the very foundation of all religion. They lead the mind towards God,
+and anchor it in the Divine. They prompt man to pray, and inspire him
+with an instinctive confidence in the efficacy of prayer. So that prayer
+is natural to man, and necessary to man. Never yet has the traveller
+found a people on earth without prayer. Races of men have been found
+without houses, without raiment, without arts and sciences, but never
+without prayer any more than without speech. Plutarch wrote, eighteen
+centuries ago, If you go through all the world, you may find cities
+without walls, without letters, without rulers, without money, without
+theatres, but never without temples and gods, or without _prayers_,
+oaths, prophecies, and sacrifices, used to obtain blessings and
+benefits, or to avert curses and calamities.[117] The naturalness of
+prayer is admitted even by the modern unbeliever. Gerrit Smith says,
+"Let us who believe that the religion of reason calls for the religion
+of nature, remember that the flow of prayer is just as natural as the
+flow of water; the prayerless man has become an unnatural man."[118] Is
+man in sorrow or in danger, his most natural and spontaneous refuge is
+in prayer. The suffering, bewildered, terror-stricken soul turns towards
+God. "Nature in an agony is no atheist; the soul that knows not where to
+fly, flies to God." And in the hour of deliverance and joy, a feeling of
+gratitude pervades the soul--and gratitude, too, not to some blind
+nature-force, to some unconscious and impersonal power, but gratitude to
+God. The soul's natural and appropriate language in the hour of
+deliverance is thanksgiving and praise.
+
+[Footnote 117: "Against Kalotes," ch. xxxi.]
+
+[Footnote 118: "Religion of Reason."]
+
+This universal tendency to recognize a superior Power upon whom we are
+dependent, and by whose hand our well-being and our destinies are
+absolutely controlled, has revealed itself even amid the most
+complicated forms of polytheistic worship. Amid the even and undisturbed
+flow of every-day life they might be satisfied with the worship of
+subordinate deities, but in the midst of sudden and unexpected
+calamities, and of terrible catastrophes, then they cried to the Supreme
+God.[119] "When alarmed by an earthquake," says Aulus Gellius, "the
+ancient Romans were accustomed to pray, not to some one of the gods
+individually, but to God in general, _as to the Unknown_."[120]
+
+[Footnote 119: "At critical moments, when the deepest feelings of the
+human heart are stirred, the old Greeks and Romans seem suddenly to have
+dropped all mythological ideas, and to have fallen back on the universal
+language of true religion."--Max Müller, "Science of Language." p. 436.]
+
+[Footnote 120: Tholuck, "Nature and Influence of Heathenism," p. 23.]
+
+"Thus also Minutius Felix says, 'When they stretch out their hands to
+heaven they mention only God; and these forms of speech, _He is great_,
+and _God is true_, and _If God grant_(which are the natural language of
+the vulgar), are a plain confession of the truth of Christianity.' And
+also Lactantius testifies, 'When they swear, and when they wish, and
+when they give thanks, they name not many gods, but God only; the truth,
+by a secret force of nature, thus breaking forth from them whether they
+will or no;' and again he says, 'They fly to God; aid is desired of God;
+they pray that God would help them; and when one is reduced to extreme
+necessity, he begs for God's sake, and by his divine power alone
+implores the mercy of men.'"[121] The account which is given by Diogenes
+Laertius[122] of the erection of altars bearing the inscription "to the
+unknown God," clearly shows that they had their origin in this general
+sentiment of dependence on a higher Power. "The Athenians being
+afflicted with pestilence invited Epimenides to lustrate their city. The
+method adopted by him was to carry several sheep to the Areopagus,
+whence they were left to wander as they pleased, under the observation
+of persons sent to attend them. As each sheep lay down it was sacrificed
+to _the propitious God_. By this ceremony it is said the city was
+relieved; but as it was still unknown what deity was propitious, an
+altar was erected _to the unknown God_ on every spot where a sheep had
+been sacrificed."[123]
+
+[Footnote 121: Cudworth, vol. i. p. 300.]
+
+[Footnote 122: "Lives of Philosophers," book i., Epimenides.]
+
+[Footnote 123: See Townsend's "Chronological Arrangement of New
+Testament," note 19, part xii.; Doddridge's "Exposition;" and Barnes's
+"Notes on Acts."]
+
+"The unknown God" was their deliverer from the plague. And the erection
+of an altar to him was a confession of their absolute dependence upon
+him, of their obligation to worship him, as well as of their need of a
+deeper knowledge of him. The gods who were known and named were not able
+to deliver them in times of calamity, and they were compelled to look
+beyond the existing forms of Grecian mythology for relief. Beyond all
+the gods of the Olympus there was "one God over all," the Father of gods
+and men, the Creator of all the subordinate local deities, upon whom
+even these created gods were dependent, upon whom man was absolutely
+dependent, and therefore in times of deepest need, of severest
+suffering, of extremest peril, then they cried to the living, supreme,
+eternal God.[124]
+
+[Footnote 124: "The men and women of the Iliad and Odyssey are
+habitually religious. The language of religion is often on their
+tongues, as it is ever on the lips of every body in the East at this
+day. The thought of the gods, and of their providence and government of
+the world, is a familiar thought. They seem to have an abiding
+conviction of their _dependence_ on the gods. The results of all actions
+depend on the will of the gods; _it lies on their knees_ (θεῶν ἐν
+γούνασι κεἶται, Od. i. 267), is the often repeated and significant
+expression of their feeling of dependence."--Tyler, "Theology of Greek
+Poets," p. 165.]
+
+3. The Athenians developed in a high degree those religious emotions
+which always accompany the consciousness of dependence on a Supreme
+Being.
+
+The first emotional element of all religion is _fear_. This is
+unquestionably true, whether religion be considered from a Christian or
+a heathen stand-point. "The _fear_ of the Lord is the beginning of
+wisdom." Associated with, perhaps preceding, all definite ideas of God,
+there exists in the human mind certain feelings of _awe_, and
+_reverence_, and _fear_ which arise spontaneously in presence of the
+vastness, and grandeur, and magnificence of the universe, and of the
+power and glory of which the created universe is but the symbol and
+shadow. There is the felt apprehension that, beyond and back of the
+visible and the tangible, there is a _personal, living Power_, which is
+the foundation of all, and which fashions all, and fills all with its
+light and life; that "the universe is the living vesture in which the
+Invisible has robed his mysterious loveliness." There is the feeling of
+an _overshadowing Presence_ which "compasseth man behind and before, and
+lays its hand upon him."
+
+This wonderful presentiment of an invisible power and presence pervading
+and informing all nature is beautifully described by Wordsworth in his
+history of the development of the Scottish herdsman's mind:
+
+     So the foundations of his mind were laid
+     In such communion, not from terror free.
+     While yet a child, and long before his time,
+     Had he perceived the presence and the power
+     Of greatness; and deep feelings had impressed
+     So vividly great objects, that they lay
+     Upon his mind like substances, whose presence
+     Perplexed the bodily sense.
+                            ... In the after-day
+     Of boyhood, many an hour in caves forlorn,
+     And 'mid the hollow depths of naked crags,
+     He sat, and even in their fixed lineaments,
+     Or from the power of a peculiar eye,
+     Or by creative feeling overborne,
+     Or by predominance of thought oppressed,
+     Even in their fixed and steady lineaments
+     He traced an ebbing and a flowing mind....
+     Such was the Boy,--but for the growing Youth,
+     What soul was his, when, from the naked top
+     Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun
+     Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He looked:
+     Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth
+     And ocean's liquid mass, in gladness lay
+     Beneath him; far and wide the clouds were touched.
+     And in their silent faces could he read
+     Unutterable love. Sound needed none,
+     Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank
+     The spectacle: sensation, soul, and form
+     All melted into him; they swallowed up
+     His animal being; in them did he live,
+     And by them did he live; they were his life,
+     In such access of mind, in such high hour
+     Of visitation from the living God.[125]
+
+But it may be said this is all mere poetry; to which we answer, in the
+words of Aristotle, "Poetry is a thing more philosophical and weightier
+than history."[126] The true poet is the interpreter of nature. His soul
+is in the fullest sympathy with the grand ideas which nature symbolizes,
+and he "deciphers the universe as the autobiography of the Infinite
+Spirit." Spontaneous feeling is a kind of inspiration.
+
+It is true that all minds may not be developed in precisely the same
+manner as Wordsworth's herdsman's, because the development of every
+individual mind is modified in some measure by exterior conditions. Men
+may contemplate nature from different points of view. Some may be
+impressed with one aspect of nature, some with another. But none will
+fail to recognize a mysterious _presence_ and invisible _power_ beneath
+all the fleeting and changeful phenomena of the universe. "And sometimes
+there are moments of tenderness, of sorrow, and of vague mystery which
+bring the feeling of the Infinite Presence close to the human
+heart."[127]
+
+[Footnote 125: "The Wanderer."]
+
+[Footnote 126: Poet, ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 127: Robertson.]
+
+Now we hold that _this feeling and sentiment of the Divine_--the
+supernatural--exists in every mind. It may be, it undoubtedly is,
+somewhat modified in its manifestations by the circumstances in which
+men are placed, and the degree of culture they have enjoyed. The African
+Fetichist, in his moral and intellectual debasement, conceives a
+supernatural power enshrined in every object of nature. The rude Fijian
+regards with dread, and even terror, the Being who darts the lightnings
+and wields the thunderbolts. The Indian "sees God in clouds, and hears
+him in the wind." The Scottish "herdsman" on the lonely mountain-top
+"feels the presence and the power of greatness," and "in its fixed and
+steady lineaments he sees an ebbing and a flowing mind." The
+philosopher[128] lifts his eyes to "the starry heavens" in all the depth
+of their concave, and with all their constellations of glory moving on
+in solemn grandeur, and, to his mind, these immeasurable regions seem
+"filled with the splendors of the Deity, and crowded with the monuments
+of his power;" or he turns his eye to "the Moral Law within," and he
+hears the voice of an intelligent and a righteous God. In all these
+cases we have a revelation of the sentiment of the Divine, which dwells
+alike in all human minds. In the Athenians this sentiment was developed
+in a high degree. The serene heaven which Greece enjoyed, and which was
+the best-loved roof of its inhabitants, the brilliant sun, the mountain
+scenery of unsurpassed grandeur, the deep blue sea, an image of the
+infinite, these poured all their fullness on the Athenian mind, and
+furnished the most favorable conditions for the development of the
+religious sentiments. The people of Athens spent most of their time in
+the open air in communion with nature, and in the cheerful and temperate
+enjoyment of existence. To recognize the Deity in the living powers of
+nature, and especially in man, as the highest sensible manifestation of
+the Divine, was the peculiar prerogative of the Grecian mind. And here
+in Athens, art also vied with nature to deepen the religious sentiments.
+It raised the mind to ideal conceptions of a beauty and a sublimity
+which transcended all mere nature-forms, and by images, of supernatural
+grandeur and loveliness presented to the Athenians symbolic
+representations of the separate attributes and operations of the
+invisible God. The plastic art of Greece was designed to express
+religious ideas, and was consecrated by religious feeling. Thus the
+facts of the case are strikingly in harmony with the words of the
+Apostle: "All things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness in
+religion," your "reverence for the Deity," your "fear of God."[129] "The
+sacred objects" in Athens, and especially "the altar to the Unknown
+God," were all regarded by Paul as evidences of their instinctive faith
+in the invisible, the supernatural, the divine.
+
+[Footnote 128: Kant, in "Critique of Practical Reason."]
+
+[Footnote 129: See Parkhurst's Lexicon, under _Δεισιδαιμονία_, which
+Suidas explains by εὐλάβεια περὶ τὸ θεῖον--_reverence for the Divine_,
+and Hesychius by Φυβυθέια--_fear of God_. Also, Josephus, Antiq., book
+x. ch. iii, § 2: "Manasseh, after his repentance and reformation, strove
+to behave himself (τῇ δεισιδαιμονία χρῆσθαί) in the _most religious
+manner_ towards God." Also see A. Clarke on Acts xvii.]
+
+Along with this sentiment of the Divine there is also associated, in all
+human minds, an _instinctive yearning_ after the Invisible; not a mere
+feeling of curiosity to pierce the mystery of being and of life, but
+what Paul designates "a feeling after God," which prompts man to seek
+after a deeper knowledge, and a more immediate consciousness. To attain
+this deeper knowledge--this more conscious realization of the being and
+the presence of God, has been the effort of all philosophy and all
+religion in all ages. The Hindoo Yogis proposes to withdraw into his
+inmost self, and by a complete suspension of all his active powers to
+become absorbed and swallowed up in the Infinite.[130] Plato and his
+followers sought by an immediate abstraction to apprehend "the
+unchangeable and permanent Being," and, by a loving contemplation, to
+become "assimilated to the Deity," and in this way to attain the
+immediate consciousness of God. The Neo-Platonic mystic sought by
+asceticism and self-mortification to prepare himself for divine
+communings. He would contemplate the divine perfections in himself; and
+in an _ecstatic_ state, wherein all individuality vanishes, he would
+realize a union, or identity, with the Divine Essence.[131] While the
+universal Church of God, indeed, has in her purest days always taught
+that man may, by inward purity and a believing love, be rendered capable
+of spiritually apprehending, and consciously feeling, the presence of
+God. Some may be disposed to pronounce this as all mere mysticism. We
+answer, The living internal energy of religion is always _mystical_, it
+is grounded in _feeling_--a "_sensus numinis_" common to humanity. It is
+the mysterious sentiment of the Divine; it is the prolepsis of the human
+spirit reaching out towards the Infinite; the living susceptibility of
+our spiritual nature stretching after the powers and influences of the
+higher world. It is upon this inner instinct of the supernatural that
+all religion rests. I do not say every religious idea, but whatever is
+positive, practical, powerful, durable, and popular. Everywhere, in all
+climates, in all epochs of history, and in all degrees of civilization,
+man is animated by the sentiment--I would rather say, the
+presentiment--that the world in which he lives, the order of things in
+the midst of which he moves, the facts which regularly and constantly
+succeed each other, are not _all_. In vain he daily makes discoveries
+and conquests in this vast universe; in vain he observes and learnedly
+verifies the general laws which govern it; _his thought is not inclosed
+in the world surrendered to his science_; the spectacle of it does not
+suffice his soul, it is raised beyond it; it searches after and catches
+glimpses of something beyond it; it aspires higher both for the universe
+and itself; it aims at another destiny, another master.
+
+[Footnote 130: Vaughan, "Hours with the Mystics," vol. i. p. 44.]
+
+[Footnote 131: Id. ib., vol. i. p. 65.]
+
+      "'Par delà tous ces cieux le Dieu des cieux réside.'"[132]
+
+So Voltaire has said, and the God who is beyond the skies is not nature
+personified, but a supernatural Personality. It is to this highest
+Personality that all religions address themselves. It is to bring man
+into communion with Him that they exist.[133]
+
+[Footnote 132: "Beyond all these heavens the God of the heavens
+resides."]
+
+[Footnote 133: Guizot, "L'Eglise et la Societé Chretiennes" en 1861.]
+
+4. The Athenians had that deep consciousness of sin and guilt, and of
+consequent liability to punishment, which confesses the need of
+expiation by piacular sacrifices.
+
+Every man feels himself to be an accountable being, and he is conscious
+that in wrong-doing he is deserving of blame and of punishment. Deep
+within the soul of the transgressor is the consciousness that he is a
+guilty man, and he is haunted with the perpetual apprehension of a
+retribution which, like the spectre of evil omen, crosses his every
+path, and meets him at every turn.
+
+     "'Tis guilt alone,
+       Like brain-sick frenzy in its feverish mode,
+       Fills the light air with visionary terrors,
+       And shapeless forms of fear."
+
+Man does not possess this consciousness of guilt so much as it holds
+possession of him. It pursues the fugitive from justice, and it lays
+hold on the man who has resisted or escaped the hand of the executioner.
+The sense of guilt is a power over and above man; a power so wonderful
+that it often compels the most reckless criminal to deliver himself up,
+with the confession of his deed, to the sword of justice, when a
+falsehood would have easily protected him. Man is only able by
+persevering, ever-repeated efforts at self-induration, against the
+remonstrances of conscience, to withdraw himself from its power. His
+success is, however, but very partial; for sometimes, in the moments of
+his greatest security, the reproaches of conscience break in upon him
+like a flood, and sweep away all his refuge of lies. "The evil
+conscience is the divine bond which binds the created spirit, even in
+deep apostasy, to its Original. In the consciousness of guilt there is
+revealed the essential relation of our spirit to God, although
+misunderstood by man until he has something higher than his evil
+conscience. The trouble and anguish which the remonstrances of this
+consciousness excite--the inward unrest which sometimes seizes the slave
+of sin--are proofs that he has not quite broken away from God."[134]
+
+[Footnote 134: Müller, "Christian Doctrine of Sin," vol. i. pp. 225,
+226.]
+
+In Grecian mythology there was a very distinct recognition of the power
+of conscience, and a reference of its authority to the Divinity,
+together with the idea of retribution. Nemesis was regarded as the
+impersonation of the upbraidings of conscience, of the natural dread of
+punishment that springs up in the human heart after the commission of
+sin. And as the feeling of remorse may be considered as the consequence
+of the displeasure and vengeance of an offended God, Nemesis came to be
+regarded as the goddess of retribution, relentlessly pursuing the guilty
+until she has driven them into irretrievable woe and ruin. The Erinyes
+or Eumenides are the deities whose business it is to punish, in hades,
+the crimes committed upon earth. When an aggravated crime has excited
+their displeasure they manifest their greatest power in the disquietude
+of conscience.
+
+Along with this deep consciousness of guilt, and this fear of
+retribution which haunts the guilty mind, there has also rested upon the
+heart of universal humanity a deep and abiding conviction that
+_something must be done to expiate the guilt of sin_--some restitution
+must be made, some suffering must be endured,[135] some sacrifice
+offered to atone for past misdeeds. Hence it is that men in all ages
+have had recourse to penances and prayers, to self-inflicted tortures
+and costly sacrifices to appease a righteous anger which their sins had
+excited, and avert an impending punishment. That sacrifice to atone for
+sin has prevailed universally--that it has been practised "_sem-per,
+ubique, et ab omnibus,_" always, in all places, and by all men--will not
+be denied by the candid and competent inquirer. The evidence which has
+been collected from ancient history by Grotius and Magee, and the
+additional evidence from contemporaneous history, which is being now
+furnished by the researches of ethnologists and Christian missionaries,
+is conclusive. No intelligent man can doubt the fact. Sacrificial
+offerings have prevailed in every nation and in every age. "Almost the
+entire worship of the pagan nations consisted in rites of deprecation.
+Fear of the Divine displeasure seems to have been the leading feature of
+their religious impressions; and in the diversity, the costliness, the
+cruelty of their sacrifices they sought to appease gods to whose wrath
+they felt themselves exposed, from a consciousness of sin, unrelieved by
+any information as to the means of escaping its effects."[136]
+
+[Footnote 135: Punishment is the penalty due to sin; or, to use the
+favorite expression of Homer, not unusual in the Scriptures also, it is
+the payment of a debt incurred by sin. When he is punished, the criminal
+is said to pay off or pay back (άποτίνειν) his crimes; in other words,
+to expiate or atone for them (Iliad, iv. 161,162),
+
+      σύν τε μεγάλω ἀπέτισαν σίν σφῇσιν κεφαλῇσι γυναιξί τε καὶ
+      τεκέεσσιν.
+
+That is, they shall pay off, pay back, atone, etc., for their treachery
+with a great price, with their lives, and their wives and
+children.--Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," p. 194.]
+
+[Footnote 136: Magee, "On the Atonement," No. V. p. 30.]
+
+It must be known to every one at all acquainted with Greek mythology
+that the idea of _expiation_--atonement--was a fundamental idea of their
+religion. Independent of any historical research, a very slight glance
+at the Greek and Roman classics, especially the poets, who were the
+theologians of that age, can leave little doubt upon this head.[137]
+Their language everywhere announces the notion of _propitiation_, and,
+particularly the Latin, furnishes the terms which are still employed in
+theology. We need only mention the words ἱλασμός, ἱλάσκομαι, λύτρον,
+περίψημα, as examples from the Greek, and _placare, propitiare, expiare,
+piaculum_, from the Latin. All these indicate that the notion of
+expiation was interwoven into the very modes of thought and framework of
+the language of the ancient Greeks.
+
+[Footnote 137: In Homer the doctrine is expressly taught that the gods
+may, and sometimes do, remit the penalty, when duly propitiated by
+prayers and sacrifices accompanied by suitable reparations ("Iliad," ix.
+497 sqq.). "We have a practical illustration of this doctrine in the
+first book of the Iliad, where Apollo averts the pestilence from the
+army, when the daughter of his priest is returned without ransom, and a
+_sacrifice_ (ἑλατόμβη) is sent to the altar of the god at sacred
+Chrysa.... Apollo hearkens to the intercession of his priest, accepts
+the sacred hecatomb, is delighted with the accompanying songs and
+libations, and sends back the embassy with a favoring breeze, and a
+favorable answer to the army, who meanwhile had been _purifying_
+(ἀπελυμαίνοντο) themselves, and offering unblemished hecatombs of bulls
+and goats on the shore of the sea which washes the place of their
+encampment."
+
+"The object of the propitiatory embassy to Apollo is thus stated by
+Ulysses: Agamemnon, king of men, has sent me to bring back thy daughter
+Chryses, and to offer a sacred hecatomb for (ὑπέρ) the Greeks, that we
+may _propitiate_ (ιλασόμεσθα) the king, who now sends woes and many
+groans upon the Argives" (442 sqq.).--Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets,"
+pp. 196, 197.]
+
+We do not deem it needful to discuss at length the question which has
+been so earnestly debated among theologians, as to whether the idea of
+expiation be a primitive and necessary idea of the human mind, or
+whether the practice of piacular sacrifices came into the post-diluvian
+world with Noah, as a positive institution of a primitive religion then
+first directly instituted by God. On either hypothesis the practice of
+expiatory rites derives its authority from God; in the latter case, by
+an outward and verbal revelation, in the former by an inward and
+intuitive revelation.
+
+This much, however, must be conceded on all hands, that there are
+certain fundamental intuitions, universal and necessary, which underlie
+the almost universal practice of expiatory sacrifice, namely, _the
+universal consciousness of guilt, and the universal conviction that
+something must be done to expiate guilt_, to compensate for wrong, and
+to atone for past misdeeds. But _how_ that expiation can be effected,
+how that atonement can be made, is a question which reason does not seem
+competent to answer. That personal sin can be atoned for by vicarious
+suffering, that national guilt can be expiated and national punishment
+averted by animal sacrifices, or even by human sacrifices, is repugnant
+to rather than conformable with natural reason. There exists no
+discernible connection between the one and the other. We may suppose
+that eucharistic, penitential, and even deprecatory sacrifices may have
+originated in the light of nature and reason, but we are unable to
+account for the practice of piacular sacrifices for substitutional
+atonement, on the same principle. The ethical principle, that one's own
+sins are not transferable either in their guilt or punishment, is so
+obviously just that we feel it must have been as clear to the mind of
+the Greek who brought his victim to be offered to Zeus, as it is to the
+philosophic mind of to-day.[138] The knowledge that the Divine
+displeasure can be averted by sacrifice is not, by Plato, grounded upon
+any intuition of reason, as is the existence of God, the idea of the
+true, the just, and good, but on "tradition,"[139] and the
+"interpretations" of Apollo. "To the Delphian Apollo there remains the
+greatest, noblest, and most important of legal institutions--the
+erection of temples, sacrifices, and other services to the gods,... and
+what other services should be gone through with a view to their
+_propitiation_. Such things as these, indeed, _we neither know
+ourselves, nor in founding the State would we intrust them to others_,
+if we be wise;... the god of the country is the natural interpreter to
+all men about such matters."[140]
+
+[Footnote 138: "He that hath done the deed, to suffer for it--thus cries
+a proverb thrice hallowed by age."--Æschylus, "Choëph," 311.]
+
+[Footnote 139: "Laws," book vi. ch. xv.]
+
+[Footnote 140: "Republic," book iv. ch. v.]
+
+The origin of expiatory sacrifices can not, we think, be explained
+except on the principle of a primitive revelation and a positive
+appointment of God. They can not be understood except as a
+divinely-appointed symbolism, in which there is exhibited a confession
+of personal guilt and desert of punishment; an intimation and a hope
+that God will be propitious and merciful; and a typical promise and
+prophecy of a future Redeemer from sin, who shall "put away sin by the
+sacrifice of himself." This sacred rite was instituted in connection
+with the _protevangelium_ given to our first parents; it was diffused
+among the nations by tradition, and has been kept alive as a general,
+and, indeed, almost universal observance, by that deep sense of sin, and
+consciousness of guilt, and personal urgency of the need of a
+reconciliation, which are so clearly displayed in Grecian mythology.
+
+The legitimate inference we find ourselves entitled to draw from the
+words of Paul, when fairly interpreted in the light of the past
+religious history of the world, is, that the Athenians were a religious
+people; that is, _they were, however unknowing, believers in and
+worshippers of the One Supreme God_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE RELIGION OF THE ATHENIANS: ITS MYTHOLOGICAL AND SYMBOLICAL ASPECTS.
+
+
+"That there is one Supreme Deity, both philosophers and poets, and even
+the vulgar worshippers of the gods themselves frequently acknowledge;
+which because the assertors of gods well understood, they affirm these
+gods of theirs to preside over the several parts of the world, yet so
+that there is only one chief governor. Whence it follows, that all their
+other gods can be no other than ministers and officers which one
+greatest God, who is omnipotent, hath variously appointed, and
+constituted so as to serve his command."--LACTANTIUS.
+
+The conclusion reached in the previous chapter that the Athenians were
+believers in and worshippers of the One Supreme God, has been challenged
+with some considerable show of reason and force, on the ground that they
+were _Polytheists_ and _Idolaters_.
+
+An objection which presents itself so immediately on the very face of
+the sacred narrative, and which is sustained by the unanimous voice of
+history, is entitled to the fullest consideration. And as the interests
+of truth are infinitely more precious than the maintenance of any
+theory, however plausible, we are constrained to accord to this
+objection the fullest weight, and give to it the most impartial
+consideration. We can not do otherwise than at once admit that the
+Athenians were _Polytheists_--they worshipped "many gods" besides "the
+unknown God." It is equally true that they were _Idolaters_--they
+worshipped images or statues of the gods, which images were also, by an
+easy metonymy, called "gods."
+
+But surely no one supposes that this is all that can be said upon the
+subject, and that, after such admissions, the discussion must be closed.
+On the contrary, we have, as yet, scarce caught a glimpse of the real
+character and genius of Grecian polytheistic worship, and we have not
+made the first approach towards a philosophy of Grecian mythology.
+
+The assumption that the heathen regarded the images "graven by art and
+device of man" as the real creators of the world and man, or as having
+any control over the destinies of men, sinks at once under the weight of
+its own absurdity. Such hypothesis is repudiated with scorn and
+indignation by the heathens themselves. Cotta, in _Cicero_, declares
+explicitly: "though it be common and familiar language amongst us to
+call corn Ceres, and wine Bacchus, yet who can think any one so mad as
+to take that to be really a god that he feeds upon?"[141] And _Plutarch_
+condemns the whole practice of giving the names of gods and goddesses to
+inanimate objects, as absurd, impious, and atheistical: "they who give
+the names of gods to senseless matter and inanimate things, and such as
+are destroyed by men in the using, beget most wicked and atheistical
+opinions in the minds of men, since it can not be conceived how these
+things should be gods, for nothing that is inanimate is a god."[142] And
+so also the Hindoo, the Buddhist, the American Indian, the Fijian of
+to-day, repel the notion that their visible images are real gods, or
+that they worship them instead of the unseen God.
+
+[Footnote 141: Cudworth's "Intell. System," vol. ii. p. 257, Eng. ed.]
+
+[Footnote 142: Quoted in Cudworth's "Intell. System," vol. ii. p. 258,
+Eng. ed.]
+
+And furthermore, that even the invisible divinities which these images
+were designed to represent, were each independent, self-existent beings,
+and that the stories which are told concerning them by Homer and Hesiod
+were received in a literal sense, is equally improbable. The earliest
+philosophers knew as well as we know, that the Deity, in order to be
+Deity, must be either _perfect_ or nothing--that he must be _one_, not
+many--without parts and passions; and they were scandalized and shocked
+by the religious fables of the ancient mythology as much as we are.
+_Xenophanes_, who lived, as we know, before Pythagoras, accuses Homer
+and Hesiod of having ascribed to the gods every thing that is
+disgraceful amongst men, as stealing, adultery, and deceit. He remarks
+"that men seem to have created their gods, and to have given them their
+own mind, and voice, and figure." He himself declares that "God is
+_one,_ the greatest amongst gods and men, neither in form nor in thought
+like unto men." He calls the battles of the Titans and the Giants, and
+the Centaurs, "the inventions of former generations," and he demands
+that God shall be praised in holy songs and nobler strains.[143]
+Diogenes Laertius relates the following of _Pythagoras_, "that when he
+descended to the shades below, he saw the soul of Hesiod bound to a
+pillar of brass and gnashing his teeth; and that of Homer, as suspended
+on a tree, and surrounded by serpents; as a punishment for the things
+they had said of the gods."[144] These poets, who had corrupted
+theology, _Plato_ proposes to exclude from his ideal Republic; or if
+permitted at all, they must be subjected to a rigid expurgation. "We
+shall," says he, "have to repudiate a large part of those fables which
+are now in vogue; and, especially, of what I call the greater
+fables,--the stories which Hesiod and Homer tell us. In these stories
+there is a fault which deserves the gravest condemnation; namely, when
+an author gives a _bad representation of gods and heroes_. We must
+condemn such a poet, as we should condemn a painter, whose pictures bear
+no resemblance to the objects which he tries to imitate. For instance,
+the poet Hesiod related an ugly story when he told how Uranus acted, and
+how Kronos had his revenge upon him. They are offensive stories, and
+must not be repeated in our cities. Not yet is it proper to say, in any
+case,--what is indeed untrue--that gods wage war against gods, and
+intrigue and fight among themselves. Stories like the chaining of Juno
+by her son Vulcan, and the flinging of Vulcan out of heaven for trying
+to take his mother's part when his father was beating her, and all other
+battles of the gods which are found in Homer, must be refused admission
+into our state, _whether they are allegorical or not_. For a child can
+not discriminate between what is allegorical and what is not; and
+whatever is adopted, as a matter of belief, in childhood, has a tendency
+to become fixed and indelible; and therefore we ought to esteem it as of
+the greatest importance that the fables which children first hear should
+be adapted, as far as possible, to promote virtue."[145]
+
+[Footnote 143: Max Muller, "Science of Language," pp. 405, 406.]
+
+[Footnote 144: "Lives," bk. viii. ch. xix. p. 347.]
+
+[Footnote 145: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xvii.]
+
+If, then, poetic and allegorical representations of divine things are to
+be permitted in the ideal republic, then the founders of the state are
+to prescribe "the moulds in which the poets are to cast their fictions."
+
+"Now what are these moulds to be in the case of _Theology?_ They may be
+described as follows: It is right always to represent God as he really
+is, whether the poet describe him in an epic, or a lyric, or a dramatic
+poem. Now God is, beyond all else, _good in reality_, and therefore so
+to be represented. But nothing that is good is hurtful. That which is
+good hurts not; does no evil; is the cause of no evil. That which is
+good is beneficial; is the cause of good. And, therefore, that which is
+good is not the cause of _all_ which is and happens, but only of that
+which is as it should be.... The good things we must ascribe to God,
+whilst we must seek elsewhere, and not in him, the causes of evil
+things."
+
+We must, then, express our disapprobation of Homer, or any other poet,
+who is guilty of such a foolish blunder as to tell us (Iliad, xxiv. 660)
+that:
+
+     'Fast by the threshold of Jove's court are placed
+     Two casks--one stored with evil, one with good:'
+
+and that he for whom the Thunderer mingles both--
+
+     'He leads a life checkered with good and ill.'
+
+But as for the man to whom he gives the bitter cup unmixed--
+
+                                         'He walks
+     The blessed earth unbless'd, go where he will.'
+
+And if any one asserts that the violation of oaths and treaties by the
+act of Pandarus was brought about by Athené and Zeus (Iliad, ii. 60), we
+should refuse our approbation. Nor can we allow it to be said that the
+strife and trial of strength between tween the gods (Iliad, xx.) was
+instigated by Themis and Zeus.... Such language can not be used without
+irreverence; it is both injurious to us, and contradictory in
+itself.[146]
+
+Inasmuch as God is perfect to the utmost in beauty and goodness, _he
+abides ever the same_, and without any variation in his form. Then let
+no poet tell us that (Odyss. xvii. 582)
+
+                   'In similitude of strangers oft
+     The Gods, who can with ease all shapes assume,
+     Repair to populous cities.'
+
+And let no one slander Proteus and Thetis, or introduce in tragedies, or
+any other poems, Hera transformed into the guise of a princess
+collecting
+
+     'Alms for the life-giving children of Inachus, river of Argos,'
+
+not to mention many other falsehoods which we must interdict.[147]
+
+"When a poet holds such language concerning the gods, we shall be angry
+with him, and refuse him a chorus. Neither shall we allow our teachers
+to use his writings for the instruction of the young, if we would have
+our guards grow up to be as god-like and god-fearing as it is possible
+for men to be."[148]
+
+We are thus constrained by the statements of the heathens themselves, as
+well as by the dictates of common sense, to look beyond the external
+drapery and the material forms of Polytheism for some deeper and truer
+meaning that shall be more in harmony with the facts of the universal
+religious consciousness of our race. The religion of ancient Greece
+consisted in something more than the fables of Jupiter and Juno, of
+Apollo and Minerva, of Venus and Bacchus. "Through the rank and
+poisonous vegetation of mythic phraseology, we may always catch a
+glimpse of an original stem round which it creeps and winds itself, and
+without which it can not enjoy that parasitical existence which has been
+mistaken for independent vitality."[149]
+
+[Footnote 146: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xix.]
+
+[Footnote 147: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xx. Much more to the same effect
+may be seen in ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 148: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xxi.]
+
+[Footnote 149: Max Müller, "Science of Language," 2d series, p. 433.]
+
+It is an obvious truth, attested by the voice of universal consciousness
+as revealed in history, that the human mind can never rest satisfied
+within the sphere of sensible phenomena. Man is impelled by an inward
+necessity to pass, in thought, beyond the boundary-line of sense, and
+inquire after causes and entities which his reason assures him must lie
+beneath all sensible appearances. He must and will interpret nature
+according to the forms of his own personality, or according to the
+fundamental ideas of his own reason. In the childlike subjectivity of
+the undisciplined mind he will either transfer to nature the phenomena
+of his own personality, regarding the world as a living organism which
+has within it an informing soul, and thus attain a _pantheistic_
+conception of the universe; or else he will fix upon some extraordinary
+and inexplicable phenomenon of nature, and, investing it with
+_super_natural significance, will rise from thence to a religious and
+_theocratic_ conception of nature as a whole. An intelligence--a mind
+_within_ nature, and inseparable from nature, or else _above_ nature and
+governing nature, is, for man, an inevitable thought.
+
+It is equally obvious that humanity can never relegate itself from a
+supernatural origin, neither can it ever absolve itself from a permanent
+correlation with the Divine. Man feels within him an instinctive
+nobility. He did not arise out of the bosom of nature; in some
+mysterious way he has descended from an eternal mind, he is "the
+offspring of God." And furthermore, a theocratic conception of nature,
+associated with a pre-eminent regard for certain apparently supernatural
+experiences in the history of humanity, becomes the foundation of
+governments, of civil authority, and of laws. Society can not be founded
+without the aid of the Deity, and a commonwealth can only be organized
+by Divine interposition. "A Ceres must appear and sow the fields with
+corn." And a Numa or a Lycurgus must be heralded by the oracle as
+
+     "Dear to Jove, and all who sit in the halls of the Olympus."
+
+He must be a "descendant of Zeus," appointed by the gods to rule, and
+one who will "prove himself a god." These divinely-appointed rulers were
+regarded as the ministers of God, the visible representatives of the
+unseen Power which really governs all. The divine government must also
+have its invisible agents--its Nemesis, and Themis, and Diké, the
+ministers of law, of justice, and of retribution; and its Jupiter, and
+Juno, and Neptune, and Pluto, ruling, with delegated powers, in the
+heavens, the air, the sea, and the nethermost regions. So that, in fact,
+there exists no nation, no commonwealth, no history without a Theophany,
+and along with it certain sacred legends detailing the origin of the
+people, the government, the country itself, and the world at large. This
+is especially true of India, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Their primitive
+history is eminently _mythological_.
+
+Grecian polytheism can not be otherwise regarded than as a
+poetico-historical religion of _myth_ and _symbol_ which is under-laid
+by a natural Theism; a parasitical growth which winds itself around the
+original stem of instinctive faith in a supernatural Power and Presence
+which pervades the universe. The myths are oral traditions, floating
+down from that dim; twilight of _poetic_ history, which separates real
+history, with its fixed chronology, from the unmeasured and unrecorded
+eternity--faint echoes from that mystic border-land which divides the
+natural from the supernatural, and in which they seem to have been
+marvellously commingled. They are the lingering memories of those
+manifestations of God to men, in which he or his celestial ministers
+came into visible intercourse with our race; the reality of which is
+attested by sacred history. In all these myths there is a theogonic and
+cosmogonic element. They tell of the generation of the celestial and
+aërial divinities--the subordinate agents and ministers of the Divine
+government. They attempt an explanation of the genesis of the visible
+universe, the origin of humanity, and the development of human society.
+In the presence of history, the substance of these myths is preserved by
+_symbols_, that is, by means of natural or artificial, real or striking
+objects, which, by some analogy or arbitrary association, shall suggest
+the _idea_ to the mind. These symbols were designed to represent the
+invisible attributes and operations of the Deity; the powers that
+vitalize nature, that control the elements, that preside over cities,
+that protect the nations: indeed, all the agencies of the physical and
+moral government of God. Beneath all the pagan legends of gods, and
+underlying all the elaborate mechanism of pagan worship, there are
+unquestionably philosophical ideas, and theological conceptions, and
+religious sentiments, which give as meaning, and even a mournful
+grandeur to the whole.
+
+Whilst the pagan polytheistic worship is, under one aspect, to be
+regarded as a departure from God, inasmuch as it takes away the honor
+due to God alone, and transfers it to the creature; still, under another
+aspect, we can not fail to recognize in it the effort of the human mind
+to fill up the chasm that seemed, to the undisciplined mind, to separate
+God and man--and to bridge the gulf between the visible and the
+invisible, the finite and the infinite. It was unquestionably an attempt
+to bring God nearer to the sense and comprehension of man. It had its
+origin in that instinctive yearning after the supernatural, the Divine,
+which dwells in all human hearts, and which has revealed itself in all
+philosophies, mysticisms, and religions.[150] This longing was
+stimulated by the contemplation of the living beauty and grandeur of the
+visible universe, which, to the lively fancy and deep feeling of the
+Greeks, seemed as the living vesture of the Infinite Mind,--the temple
+of the eternal Deity. In this visible universe the Divinity was partly
+revealed, and partly concealed. The unity of the all-pervading
+Intelligence was veiled beneath an apparent diversity of power, and a
+manifoldness of operations. They caught some glimpses of this universal
+presence in nature, but were more immediately and vividly impressed by
+the several manifestations of the divine perfections and divine
+operations, as so many separate rays of the Divinity, or so many
+subordinate agents and functionaries employed to execute the will and
+carry out the purposes of the Supreme Mind.[151] That unseen,
+incomprehensible Power and Presence was perceived in the sublimity of
+the deep blue sky, the energy of the vitalizing sun, the surging of the
+sea, the rushing wind, the roaring thunder, the ripening corn, and the
+clustering vine. To these separate manifestations of the Deity they gave
+_personal names_, as Jupiter to the heavens, Juno to the air, Neptune to
+the sea, Ceres to the corn, and Bacchus to the vine. These personals
+denoted, not the things themselves, but the invisible, divine powers
+supposed to preside over those several departments of nature. By a kind
+of prosopopœia "they spake of the things in nature, and parts of the
+world, as persons--and consequently as so many gods and goddesses--yet
+so as the intelligent might easily understand their meaning, _that these
+were in reality nothing else but so many names and notions of that one
+Numen,--divine force and power which runs through all the world,
+multiformly displaying itself._"[152] "Their various deities were but
+different names, different conceptions, of that Incomprehensible Being
+which no _thought_ can reach, and no _language_ express."[153] Having
+given to these several manifestations of the Divinity personal names,
+they now sought to represent them to the eye of sense by _visible
+forms_, as the symbols or images of the perfections of the unseen, the
+incomprehensible, the unknown God. And as the Greeks regarded man as the
+first and noblest among the phenomena of nature, they selected the human
+form as the highest sensible manifestation of God, the purest symbol of
+the Divinity. Grecian polytheism was thus a species of _mythical
+anthropomorphism_.
+
+[Footnote 150: The original constitution of man is such that he "seeks
+after" God Acts xvii. 27. "All men yearn after the gods" (Homer,
+"Odyss." iii. 48).]
+
+[Footnote 151: "Heathenism springs directly from this, that the mind
+lays undue stress upon the bare letter in the book of creation; that it
+separates and individualizes its objects as far as possible; that it
+places the sense of the individual part, in opposition to the sense of
+the whole,--to the _analogia fidei_ or _spiritus_ which alone gives
+unity to the book of nature, while it dilutes and renders as transitory
+as possible the sense of the universal in the whole.... And as it laid
+great stress upon the letter in the book of nature, it fell into
+polytheism. The particular symbol of the divine, or of the Godhead,
+became a myth of some special deity."--Lange's "Bible-work," Genesis, p.
+23.]
+
+[Footnote 152: Cudworth, "Intellect. System," vol. i. p. 308.]
+
+[Footnote 153: Max Müller, "Science of Language," p. 431.]
+
+A philosophy of Grecian mythology, such as we have outlined in the
+preceding paragraphs, is, in our judgment, perfectly consistent with the
+views announced by Paul in his address to the Athenians. He intimates
+that the Athenians "thought that the Godhead was _like unto_ (ἐ ναι
+ὄμοιον)--to be imaged or represented by human art--by gold, and silver,
+and precious stone graven by art, and device of man;" that is, they
+thought the perfections of God could be represented to the eye by an
+image, or symbol. The views of Paul are still more articulately
+expressed in Romans, i. 23, 25: "They changed the glory of the
+incorruptible God into the _similitude of an image_ of corruptible
+man,.... and they worshipped and served the thing made, παρά--_rather_
+than, or _more_ than the Creator." Here, then, the apostle intimates,
+first, that the heathen _knew_ God,[154] and that they worshipped God.
+They worshipped the creature besides or even more than God, but still
+they also worshipped God. And, secondly, they represented the
+perfections of God by an image, and under this, as a "_likeness_" or
+symbol, they indirectly worshipped God. Their religious system was,
+then, even to the eye of Paul, a _symbolic_ worship--that is, the
+objects of their devotion were the _ὁμοιώματα_--the similitudes, the
+likenesses, the images of the perfections of the invisible God.
+
+[Footnote 154: Verse 21.]
+
+It is at once conceded by us, that the "sensus numinis," the natural
+intuition of a Supreme Mind, whose power and presence are revealed in
+nature, can not maintain itself, as an influential, and vivifying, and
+regulative belief amongst men, without the continual supernatural
+interposition of God; that is, without a succession of Divine
+revelations. And further, we grant that, instead of this symbolic mode
+of worship deepening and vitalizing the sense of God as a living power
+and presence, there is great danger that the symbol shall at length
+unconsciously take the place of God, and be worshipped instead of Him.
+From the purest form of symbolism which prevailed in the earliest ages,
+there may be an inevitable descent to the rudest form of false worship,
+with its accompanying darkness, and abominations, and crimes; but, at
+the same time, let us do justice to the religions of the ancient
+world--the childhood stammerings of religious life--which were something
+more than the inventions of designing men, or the mere creations of
+human fancy; they were, in the words of Paul, "a _seeking after God_, if
+haply they might feel after him, and find him, who is not far from any
+one of us." It can not be denied that the more thoughtful and
+intelligent Greeks regarded the visible objects of their devotion as
+mere symbols of the perfections and operations of the unseen God, and of
+the invisible powers and subordinate agencies which are employed by him
+in his providential and moral government of the world. And whatever
+there was of misapprehension and of "ignorance" in the popular mind, we
+have the assurance of Paul that it was "_overlooked_" by God.
+
+The views here presented will, we venture to believe, be found most in
+harmony with a true philosophy of the human mind; with the religious
+phenomena of the world; and, as we shall subsequently see, with the
+writings of those poets and philosophers who may be fairly regarded as
+representing the sentiments and opinions of the ancient world. At the
+same time, we have no desire to conceal the fact that this whole
+question as to the origin, and character, and philosophy of the
+mythology and symbolism of the religions of the ancient world has been a
+subject of earnest controversy from Patristic times down to the present
+hour, and that even to-day there exists a wide diversity of opinion
+among philosophers, as well as theologians.
+
+The principal theories offered may be classed as the _ethical_, the
+_physical_, and the _historical_, according to the different objects the
+framers of the myths are supposed to have had in view. Some have
+regarded the myths as invented by the priests and wise men of old for
+the improvement and government of society, as designed to give authority
+to laws, and maintain social order.[155] Others have regarded them as
+intended to be allegorical interpretations of physical phenomena--the
+poetic embodiment of the natural philosophy of the primitive races of
+men;[156] whilst others have looked upon them as historical legends,
+having a substratum of fact, and, when stripped of the supernatural and
+miraculous drapery which accompanies fable, as containing the history of
+primitive times.[157] Some of the latter class have imagined they could
+recognize in Grecian mythology traces of sacred personages, as well as
+profane; in fact, a dimmed image of the patriarchal traditions which are
+preserved in the Old Testament scriptures.[158]
+
+It is beyond our design to discuss all the various theories presented,
+or even to give a history of opinions entertained.[159] We are fully
+convinced that the hypothesis we have presented in the preceding pages,
+viz., _that Grecian mythology was a grand symbolic representation of the
+Divine as manifested in nature and providence_, is the only hypothesis
+which meets and harmonizes all the facts of the case. This is the theory
+of Plato, of Cudworth, Baumgarten, Max Müller, and many other
+distinguished scholars.
+
+[Footnote 155: Empedocles, Metrodorus.]
+
+[Footnote 156: Aristotle.]
+
+[Footnote 157: Hecatæus, Herodotus, some of the early Fathers, Niebuhr,
+J.H. Voss, Arnold.]
+
+[Footnote 158: Bochart, G.J. Vossius, Faber, Gladstone.]
+
+[Footnote 159: To the English reader who desires an extended and
+accurate acquaintance with the classic and patristic literature of this
+deeply interesting subject, we commend the careful study of Cudworth's
+"Intellectual System of the Universe," especially ch. iv. The style of
+Cudworth is perplexingly involved, and his great work is unmethodical in
+its arrangement and discussion. Nevertheless, the patient and
+persevering student will be amply rewarded for his pains. A work of more
+profound research into the doctrine of antiquity concerning God, and
+into the real import of the religious systems of the ancient world, is,
+probably, not extant in any language.]
+
+There are two fundamental propositions laid down by Cudworth which
+constitute the basis of this hypothesis.
+
+1. _No well-authenticated instance can be furnished from among the Greek
+Polytheists of one who taught the existence of a multiplicity of
+independenty uncreated, self-existent deities; they almost universally_
+_believed in the existence of_ ONE SUPREME, UNCREATED, ETERNAL GOD,
+"_The Maker of all things_"--"_the Father of gods and men_,"--"_the sole
+Monarch and Ruler of the world_."
+
+2. _The Greek Polytheists taught a plurality of_"GENERATED DEITIES,"
+_who owe their existence to the power and will of the Supreme God, who
+are by Him invested with delegated powers, and who, as the agents of his
+universal providence, preside over different departments of the created
+universe_.
+
+The evidence presented by Cudworth in support of his theses is so varied
+and so voluminous, that it defies all attempts at condensation. His
+volumes exhibit an extent of reading, of patient research, and of varied
+learning, which is truly amazing. The discussion of these propositions
+involves, in fact, nothing less than a complete and exhaustive survey of
+the entire field of ancient literature, a careful study of the Greek and
+Latin poets, of the Oriental, Greek, and Alexandrian philosophers, and a
+review of the statements and criticisms of Rabbinical and Patristic
+writers in regard to the religions of the pagan world. An adequate
+conception of the varied and weighty evidence which is collected by our
+author from these fields, in support of his views, could only be
+conveyed by transcribing to our pages the larger portion of his
+memorable _fourth_ chapter. But inasmuch as Grecian polytheism is, in
+fact, the culmination of all the mythological systems of the ancient
+world, the fully-developed flower and ripened fruit of the cosmical and
+theological conceptions of the childhood-condition of humanity, we
+propose to epitomize the results of his inquiry as to the _theological_,
+opinions of the Greeks, supplying additional confirmation of his views
+from other sources.
+
+And first, he proves most conclusively that Orpheus, Homer, and
+Hesiod,[160] who are usually designated "the theologians" of Greece, but
+who were in fact the depravers and corrupters of pagan theology, do not
+teach the existence of a multitude of _unmade, self-existent, and
+independent deities_. Even they believed in the existence of _one_
+uncreated and eternal mind, _one Supreme God_, anterior and superior to
+all the gods of their mythology. They had some intuition, some
+apperception of the _Divine_, even before they had attached to it a
+sacred name. The gods of their mythology had all, save one, a temporal
+origin; they were generated of Chaos and Night, by an active principle
+called _Love_. "One might suspect," says Aristotle, that Hesiod, and if
+there be any other who made _love_ or _desire_ a principle of things,
+aimed at these very things (viz., the designation of the efficient cause
+of the world); for Parmenides, describing the generation of the
+universe, says:
+
+     'First of all the gods planned he _love_;'
+
+and further, Hesiod:
+
+     'First of all was Chaos, afterwards Earth,
+     With her spacious bosom,
+     And _Love_, who is pre-eminent among all the immortals;'
+
+as intimating here that in entities there should exist some _cause_ that
+will impart motion, and hold bodies in union together. But how, in
+regard to these, one ought to distribute them, as to the order of
+priority, can be decided afterwards.[161]
+
+[Footnote 160: We do not concern ourselves with the chronological
+antecedence of these ancient Greek poets. It is of little consequence to
+us whether Homer preceded Orpheus, or Orpheus Homer. They were not the
+real creators of the mythology of ancient Greece. The myths were a
+spontaneous growth of the earliest human thought even before the
+separation of the Aryan family into its varied branches.
+
+The study of Comparative Mythology, as well as of Comparative Language,
+assures us that the myths had an origin much earlier than the times of
+Homer and Orpheus. They floated down from ages on the tide of oral
+tradition before they were systematized, embellished, and committed to
+writing by Homer, and Orpheus, and Hesiod. And between the systems of
+these three poets a perceptible difference is recognizable, which
+reflects the changes that verbal recitations necessarily and
+imperceptibly undergo.]
+
+[Footnote 161: "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. iv.]
+
+Now whether this "first principle," called "_Love_," "the cause of
+motion and of union" in the universe, was regarded as a personal Being,
+and whether, as the ancient scholiast taught, Hesiod's love was "the
+heavenly Love, which is also God, that other love that was born of Venus
+being junior," is just now of no moment to the argument. The more
+important inference is, that amongst the gods of Pagan theology but
+_one_ is self-existent, or else none are. Because the Hesiodian gods,
+which are, in fact, all the gods of the Greek mythology, "were either
+all of them derived from chaos, love itself likewise being generated out
+of it; or else love was supposed to be distinct from chaos, and the
+active principle of the universe, from whence, together with chaos, all
+the theogony and cosmogony was derived."[162] Hence it is evident the
+poets did not teach the existence of a multiplicity of unmade,
+self-existent, independent deities.
+
+[Footnote 162: "Cudworth," vol. i. p. 287.]
+
+The careful reader of Cudworth will also learn another truth of the
+utmost importance in this connection, viz., _that the theogony of the
+Greek poets was, in fact, a cosmogony_, the generation of the gods
+being, in reality, the generation of the heavens, the sun, the moon, the
+stars, and all the various powers and phenomena of nature. This is dimly
+shadowed forth in the very names which are given to some of these
+divinities. Thus Helios is the sun, Selena is the moon, Zeus the
+sky--the deep blue heaven, Eos the dawn, and Ersē the dew. It is
+rendered still more evident by the opening lines of Hesiod's
+"Theogonia," in which he invokes the muses:
+
+     "Hail ye daughters of Jupiter! Grant a delightsome song.
+     Tell of the race of immortal gods, always existing,
+     Who are the offspring of the earth, of the starry sky,
+     And of the gloomy night, whom also the ocean nourisheth.
+     Tell how the gods and the earth at first were made,
+     And the rivers, and the mighty deep, boiling with waves,
+     And the glowing stars, and the broad heavens above,
+     And the gods, givers of good, born of these."
+
+Where we see plainly that the generation of the gods is the generation
+of the earth, the heaven, the stars, the seas, the rivers, and other
+things produced by them. "But immediately after invocation of the Muses
+the poet begins with Chaos, and Tartara, and Love, as the first
+principles, and then proceeds to the production of the earth and of
+night out of chaos; of the ether and of day, from night; of the starry
+heavens, mountains, and seas. All which generation of gods is really
+nothing but a poetic description of the cosmogonia; as through the
+sequel of the poem all seems to be physiology veiled under fiction and
+allegory.... Hesiod's gods are thus not only the animated parts of the
+world, but also the other things of nature personified and deified, or
+abusively called gods and goddesses."[163] The same is true both of the
+Orphic and Homeric gods. "Their generation of the gods is the same with
+the generation or creation of the world, both of them having, in all
+probability, derived it from the Mosaic cabala, or tradition."[164]
+
+But in spite of all this mythological obscuration, the belief in one
+Supreme God is here and there most clearly recognizable. "That Zeus was
+originally to the Greeks the Supreme God, the true God--nay, at some
+time their only God--can be perceived in spite of the haze which
+mythology has raised around his name."[165] True, they sometimes used
+the word "Zeus" in a physical sense to denote the deep expanse of
+heaven, and sometimes in a historic sense, to designate a hero or
+deified man said to have been born in Crete. It is also true that the
+Homeric Zeus is full of contradictions. He is "all-seeing," yet he is
+cheated; he is "omnipotent," yet he is defied; he is "eternal," yet he
+has a father; he is "just," yet he is guilty of crime. Now, as Müller
+very justly remarks, these contradictions may teach us a lesson. If all
+the conceptions of Zeus had sprung from one origin, these contradictions
+could not have existed. If Zeus had simply and only meant the Supreme
+God, he could not have been the son of Kronos (Time). If, on the other
+hand, Zeus had been a mere mythological personage, as Eos, the dawn, and
+Helios, the sun, he could never have been addressed as he is addressed
+in the famous prayer of Achilles (Iliad, bk. xxi.).[166]
+
+[Footnote 163: Cudworth, vol. i. pp. 321, 332.]
+
+[Footnote 164: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 478.]
+
+[Footnote 165: Max Müller, "Science of Language," p. 457.]
+
+[Footnote 166: Id., ib., p. 458.]
+
+In Homer there is a perpetual blending of the natural and the
+supernatural, the human and divine. The _Iliad_ is an incongruous medley
+of theology, physics, and history. In its gorgeous scenic
+representations, nature, humanity, and deity are mingled in inextricable
+confusion. The gods are sometimes supernatural and superhuman
+personages; sometimes the things and powers of nature personified; and
+sometimes they are deified men. And yet there are passages, even in
+Homer, which clearly distinguish Zeus from all the other divinities, and
+mark him out as the Supreme. He is "the highest, first of Gods" (bk.
+xix. 284); "most great, most glorious Jove" (bk. ii. 474). He is "the
+universal Lord" (bk. xi. 229); "of mortals and immortals king supreme,"
+(bk. xii. 263); "over all the immortal gods he reigns in unapproached
+pre-eminence of power" (bk. xv. 125). He is "the King of kings" (bk.
+viii. 35), whose "will is sovereign" (bk. iv. 65), and his "power
+invincible" (bk. viii. 35). He is the "eternal Father" (bk. viii. 77).
+He "excels in wisdom gods and men; all human things from him proceed"
+(bk. xiii. 708-10); "the Lord of counsel" (bk. i. 208), "the all-seeing
+Jove" (bk. xiii. 824). Indeed the mere expression "Father of gods and
+men" (bk. i. 639), so often applied to Zeus, and him _alone_, is proof
+sufficient that, in spite of all the legendary stories of gods and
+heroes, the idea of Zeus as the Supreme God, the maker of the world, the
+Father of gods and men, the monarch and ruler of the world, was not
+obliterated from the Greek mind.[167]
+
+[Footnote 167: "In the order of legendary chronology Zeus comes after
+Kronos and Uranos, but in the order of Grecian conception Zeus is the
+prominent person, and Kronos and Uranos are inferior and introductory
+precursors, set up in order to be overthrown, and to serve as mementos
+of the powers of their conqueror. To Homer and Hesiod, as well as to the
+Greeks universally, Zeus is the great, the predominant God, 'the Father
+of gods and men,' whose power none of the gods can hope to resist, or
+even deliberately think of questioning. All the other gods have their
+specific potency, and peculiar sphere of action and duty, with which
+Zeus does not usually interfere; but it is he who maintains the
+lineaments of a providential government, as well over the phenomena of
+Olympus as over the earth."--Grote, "Hist. of Greece," vol. i. p. 3.
+
+Zeus is not only lord of heaven but likewise the ruler of the lower
+world, and the master of the sea.--Welcher, "Griechische Götterlehre,"
+vol. i. p. 164. The Zeus of the Greek poets is unquestionably the god of
+whom Paul declared: In him we live and move, and have our being, as
+certain of your own poets have also said--
+
+     "'For we are his offspring.'"
+
+Now whether this be a quotation from Aratus or Cleanthes, the language
+of the poets is, "We are the offspring of Zeus;" consequently the Zeus
+of the poets and the God of Christianity are the same God.
+
+"The father of gods and men in Homer is, of course, the Universal Father
+of the Scriptures."--Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," p. 171.]
+
+"When Homer introduces Eumaios, the swineherd, speaking of this life and
+the higher powers that rule it, he knows only of just gods 'who hate
+cruel deeds, but honor justice and the righteous works of men' (Od. xiv.
+83). His whole life is built up on a complete trust in the divine
+government of the world without any artificial helps, as the Erinys, the
+Nemesis, or Moira. 'Eat,' says the swineherd, 'and enjoy what is here,
+for _God_[168] will grant one thing, but another he will refuse,
+whatever he will in his mind, for he can do all things' (Od. xiv. 444;
+x. 306). This surely is religion, and it is religion untainted by
+mythology. Again, the prayer of the female slave, grinding corn in the
+house of Ulysses is religious in the truest sense--'Father Zeus, thou
+who rulest over gods and men, surely thou hast just thundered in the
+starry sky, and there is no cloud anywhere. Thou showest this as a sign
+to some one. Fulfill now, even to me, miserable wretch, the prayer which
+I now offer'" (Od. xx. 141-150).[169]
+
+[Footnote 168: No sound reason can be assigned for translating _θεός_ by
+"_a_ god" as some have proposed, rather than "_God_." But even if it
+were translated "a god," this god must certainly be understood as Zeus.
+Plato tells us that Zeus is the most appropriate name for God. "For in
+reality the name Zeus is, as it were, a sentence; and persons dividing
+it in two parts, some of us make use of one part, and some of another;
+for some call him Ζήν, and some Δίς. But these parts, collected together
+into one, exhibit the nature of the God;... for there is no one who is
+more the cause of living, both to us and everything else, than he who is
+the ruler and king of all. It follows, therefore, that this god is
+rightly named, through whom _life_ is present in all living
+beings."--Cratylus, § 28.
+
+Θεός was usually employed, says Cudworth, to designate _God_ by way of
+pre-eminence, θεοί to designate inferior divinities.]
+
+[Footnote 169: Müller, "Science of Language," p. 434.]
+
+The Greek tragedians were the great religious instructors of the
+Athenian people. "Greek tragedy grew up in connection with religious
+worship, and constituted not only a popular but a sacred element in the
+festivals of the gods.... In short, strange as it may sound to modern
+ears, the Greek stage was, more nearly than any thing else, the Greek
+pulpit.[170] With a priesthood that offered sacrifice, but did not
+preach, with few books of any kind, the people were, in a great measure,
+dependent on oral instruction for knowledge; and as they learned their
+rights and duties as citizens from their orators, so they hung on the
+lips of the 'lofty, grave tragedians' for instruction touching their
+origin, duty, and destiny as mortal and immortal beings.... Greek
+tragedy is essentially didactic, ethical, mythological, and
+religious."[171]
+
+[Footnote 170: Pulpitum, a stage.]
+
+[Footnote 171: Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," pp. 205, 206.]
+
+Now it is unquestionable that, with the tragedians, Zeus is the Supreme
+God. Æschylus is pre-eminently the theological poet of Greece. The great
+problems which lie at the foundation of religious faith and practice are
+the main staple of nearly all his tragedies. Homer, Hesiod, the sacred
+poets, had looked at these questions in their purely poetic aspects. The
+subsequent philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, developed them more fully
+by their didactic method. Æschylus stands on the dividing-line between
+them, no less poetic than the former, scarcely less philosophical than
+the latter, but more intensely practical, personal, and _theological_
+than either. The character of the Supreme Divinity, as represented in
+his tragedies, approaches more nearly to the Christian idea of God. He
+is the Universal Father--Father of gods and men; the Universal Cause
+(παναίτιος, Agamem. 1485); the All-seer and All-doer (παντόπτης,
+πανεργέτης, ibid, and Sup. 139); the All-wise and All-controlling
+(παγκρατής, Sup. 813); the Just and the Executor of justice (δικηφόρος,
+Agamem. 525); true and incapable of falsehood (Prom. 1031);
+
+     ψευδηγορεῖν γὰρ οὐκ ἐπίσταταί στόμα
+     τὸ δίον, ἀλλὰ πᾶν ἔπος τελεῖ,--
+
+holy (ἁγνός, Sup. 650); merciful (πρευμένης, ibid. 139); the God
+especially of the suppliant and the stranger (Supplices, passim); the
+most high and perfect One (τέλειον ὕψιστον, Eumen. 28); King of kings,
+of the happy, most happy, of the perfect, most perfect power, blessed
+Zeus (Sup. 522).[172] Such are some of the titles by which Zeus is most
+frequently addressed; such the attributes commonly ascribed to him in
+Æschylus.
+
+Sophocles was the great master who carried Greek tragedy to its highest
+perfection. Only seven out of more than a hundred of his tragedies have
+come down to us. There are passages cited by Justin Martyr, Clemens
+Alexandrinus, and others which are not found in those tragedies now
+extant. The most famous and extensively quoted passage is given by
+Cudworth.[173]
+
+     Εἶς ταῖς ἀληθείαισιν, εἰς ἐστίν θεὸς,
+     Ὂς οὐρανόν τ᾽ έτευξε καὶ γαῖαν μακρὰν,
+     Πόντου τε χαροπὸν οἶδμα, κἀνέμων βίαν, κ. τ. λ.[174]
+
+This "one only God" is Zeus, who is the God of justice, and reigns
+supreme:
+
+     "Still in yon starry heaven supreme,
+     Jove, all-beholding, all-directing, dwells--
+     To him commit thy vengeance."--"Electra," p. 174 sqq.
+
+This description of the unsleeping, undecaying power and dominion of
+Zeus is worthy of some Hebrew prophet--
+
+     "Spurning the power of age, enthroned in might,
+     Thou dwell'st mid heaven's broad light;
+     This was in ages past thy firm decree,
+     Is now, and shall forever be:
+     That none of mortal race on earth shall know
+     A life of joy serene, a course unmarked by woe."
+
+     "Antigone," pp. 606-614.[175]
+
+[Footnote 172: Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," pp. 213, 214.]
+
+[Footnote 173: "Intellectual Syst.," vol. i. p. 483.]
+
+[Footnote 174: "There is, in truth, one only God, who made heaven and
+earth, the sea, air, and winds," etc.]
+
+[Footnote 175: "Theology of Greek Poets," p. 322.]
+
+Whether we regard the poets as the principal theological teachers of the
+ancient Greeks, or as the compilers, systematizers, and artistic
+embellishers of the theological traditions and myths which were afloat
+in the primitive Hellenic families, we can not resist the conclusion
+that, for the masses of the people Zeus was the Supreme God, "the God of
+gods" as Plato calls him. Whilst all other deities in Greece are more or
+less local and tribal gods, Zeus was known in every village and to every
+clan. "He is at home on Ida,[176] on Olympus, at Dodona.[177] While
+Poseidon drew to himself the Æolian family, Apollo the Dorian, Athene
+the Ionian, there was one powerful God for all the sons of
+Hellen--Dorians, Æolians, Ionians, Achæans, viz., the Panhellenic
+Zeus."[178] Zeus was the name invoked in their solemn nuncupations of
+vows--
+
+     "O Zeus, father, O Zeus, king."
+
+In moments of deepest sorrow, of immediate urgency and need, of greatest
+stress and danger, they had recourse to Zeus.
+
+     "Courage, courage, my child!
+     There is still in heaven the great Zeus;
+     He watches over all things, and he rules.
+     Commit thy exceeding bitter griefs to him,
+     And be not angry against thine enemies,
+     Nor forget them."[179]
+
+[Footnote 176: "Iliad," bk. iii. 324.]
+
+[Footnote 177: Bk. xvi. 268.]
+
+[Footnote 178: Müller, p. 452.]
+
+[Footnote 179: Sophocles, "Electra," v. 188.]
+
+He was supplicated, as the God who reigns on high, in the prayer of the
+Athenian--
+
+     "Rain, rain, O dear Zeus, on the land of the Athenians and on their
+     fields."
+
+It has been urged that, as Zeus means the sky, therefore he is no more
+than the deep concave of heaven personified and deified, and that
+consequently Zeus is not the true, the only God. This argument is only
+equalled in feebleness by that of the materialist, who argues that
+"spiritus" means simply breath, therefore the breath is the soul. Even
+if the Greeks remembered that, originally, Zeus meant the sky, that
+would have no more perplexed their minds than the remembrance that
+"thymos"--mind--meant originally blast. "The fathers of Greek theology
+gave to that Supreme Intelligence, which they instinctively recognized
+as above and ruling over the universe, the name of Zeus; but in doing
+so, they knew well that by Zeus they meant more than the sky. The
+unfathomable depth, the everlasting calm of the ethereal sky was to
+their minds an image of that Infinite Presence which overshadows all,
+and looks down on all. As the question perpetually recurred to their
+minds, 'Where is he who abideth forever?' they lifted up their eyes, and
+saw, as they thought, beyond sun, and moon, and stars, and all which
+changes, and will change, the clear blue sky, the boundless firmament of
+heaven. That never changed, that was always the same. The clouds and
+storms rolled far below it, and all the bustle of this noisy world; but
+there the sky was still, as bright and calm as ever. The Almighty Father
+must be there, unchangeable in the unchangeable heaven; bright, and
+pure, and boundless like the heavens, and like the heavens, too, afar
+off."[180] So they named him after the sky, _Zeus_, the God who lives in
+the clear heaven--the heavenly Father.
+
+[Footnote 180: Kingsley, "Good News from God," p. 237, Am. ed.]
+
+The high and brilliant sky has, in many languages and many religions,
+been regarded as the dwelling-place of God. Indeed, to all of us in
+Christian times "God is above;" he is "the God of heaven;" "his throne
+is in the heavens;" "he reigns on high." Now, without doing any violence
+to thought, the name of the abode might be transferred to him who dwells
+in heaven. So that in our own language "heaven" may still be used as a
+synonym for "God." The prodigal son is still represented as saying, I
+have sinned against "_heaven_." And a Christian poet has taught us to
+sing--
+
+     "High _heaven_, that heard my solemn vow,
+     That vow renewed shall daily hear," etc.
+
+Whenever, therefore, we find the name of heaven thus used to designate
+also the Deity, we must bear in mind that those by whom it was
+originally employed were simply transferring that name from an object
+visible to the eye of sense to another object perceived by the eye of
+reason. They who at first called God "_Heaven_" had some conception
+within them they wished to name--the growing image of a God, and they
+fixed upon the vastest, grandest, purest object in nature, the deep blue
+concave of heaven, overshadowing all, and embracing all, as the symbol
+of the Deity. Those who at a later period called heaven "_God_" had
+forgotten that they were predicating of heaven something more which was
+vastly higher than the heaven.[181]
+
+[Footnote 181: See "Science of Language," p. 457.]
+
+Notwithstanding, then, that the instinctive, native faith of humanity in
+the existence of one supreme God was overlaid and almost buried beneath
+the rank and luxuriant vegetation of Grecian mythology, we can still
+catch glimpses here and there of the solid trunk of native faith, around
+which this parasitic growth of fancy is entwined. Above all the
+phantasmata of gods and goddesses who descended to the plains of Troy,
+and mingled in the din and strife of battle, we can recognize an
+overshadowing, all-embracing Power and Providence that dwells on high,
+which never descends into the battle-field, and is never seen by mortal
+eyes--_the Universal King and Father,--the "God of gods_."
+
+Besides the direct evidence, which is furnished by the poets and
+mythologists, of the presence of this universal faith in "_the heavenly
+Father_," there is also a large amount of collateral testimony that this
+idea of one Supreme God was generally entertained by the Greek pagans,
+whether learned or unlearned.[182] Dio Chrysostomus says that "all the
+poets call the first and greatest God the Father, universally, of all
+rational kind, as also the King thereof. Agreeably with which doctrine
+of the poets do mankind erect altars to Jupiter-King (Διὸς βασιλέως) and
+hesitate not to call him Father in their devotions" (Orat. xxxvi.). And
+Maximus Tyrius declares that both the learned and the unlearned
+throughout the pagan world universally agree in this; that there is one
+Supreme God, the Father of gods and men. "If," says he, "there were a
+meeting called of all the several trades and professions,... and all
+were required to declare their sense concerning God, do you think that
+the painter would say one thing, the sculptor another, the poet another,
+and the philosopher another? No; nor the Scythian neither, nor the
+Greek, nor the hyperborean. In regard to other things, we find men
+speaking discordantly one to another, all men, as it were, differing
+from all men... Nevertheless, on this subject, you may find universally
+throughout the world one agreeing law and opinion; _that there is one
+God, the King and Father of all, and many gods, the sons of God,
+co-reigners together with God_"(Diss. i. p. 450).
+
+[Footnote 182: Cudworth, vol. i. pp. 593, 594.]
+
+From the poets we now pass to the philosophers. The former we have
+regarded as reflecting the traditional beliefs of the unreasoning
+multitude. The philosophers unquestionably represent the reflective
+spirit, the speculative thought, of the educated classes of Greek
+society. Turning to the writings of the philosophers, we may therefore
+reasonably expect that, instead of the dim, undefined, and nebulous form
+in which the religious sentiment revealed itself amongst the
+unreflecting portions of the Greek populations, we shall find their
+theological ideas distinctly and articulately expressed, and that we
+shall consequently be able to determine their religious opinions with
+considerable accuracy.
+
+Now that Thales, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Anaxagoras, Empedocles,
+Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were all believers in the existence of
+one supreme, uncreated, eternal God, has been, we think, clearly shown
+by Cudworth.[183]
+
+[Footnote 183: Vol. i. pp. 491-554.]
+
+In subsequent chapters on "_the Philosophers of Athens_," we shall enter
+more fully into the discussion of this question. Meantime we assume
+that, with few exceptions, the Greek philosophers were "genuine
+Theists."
+
+The point, however, with which we are now concerned is, _that whilst
+they believed in one supreme, uncreated, eternal God, they at the same
+time recognized the existence of a plurality of generated deities who
+owe their existence to the power and will of the Supreme God, and who,
+as the agents and ministers of His universal providence, preside over
+different departments of the created universe_. They are at once
+Monotheists and Polytheists--believers in "one God" and "many gods."
+This is a peculiarity, an anomaly which challenges our attention, and
+demands an explanation, if we would vindicate for these philosophers a
+rational Theism.
+
+Now that there can be but one infinite and absolutely perfect Being--one
+supreme, uncreated, eternal God--is self-evident; therefore a
+multiplicity of such gods is a contradiction and an impossibility. The
+early philosophers knew this as well as the modern. The Deity, in order
+to be Deity, must be one and not many: must be perfect or nothing. If,
+therefore, we would do justice to these old Greeks, we must inquire what
+explanations they have offered in regard to "the many gods" of which
+they speak. We must ascertain whether they regarded these "gods" as
+created or uncreated beings, dependent or independent, temporal or
+eternal We must inquire in what sense the term "god" is applied to these
+lesser divinities,--whether it is not applied in an accommodated and
+therefore allowable sense, as in the sacred Scriptures it is applied to
+kings and magistrates, and those who are appointed by God as the
+teachers and rulers of men. "_They are called gods_ to whom the word of
+God came."[184] And if it shall be found that all the gods of which they
+speak, save _one_, are "generated deities"--dependent beings--creatures
+and subjects of the one eternal King and Father, and that the name of
+"god" is applied to them in an accommodated sense, then we have
+vindicated for the old Greek philosophers a consistent and rational
+Theism. In what relation, then, do the philosophers place "_the gods_"
+to the one Supreme Being?
+
+_Thales_, one of the most ancient of the Greek philosophers, taught the
+existence of a plurality of gods, as is evident from that saying of his,
+preserved by Diogenes Laertius, "The world has life, and is full of
+gods."[185] At the same time he asserts his belief in one supreme,
+uncreated Deity; "God is the oldest of all things, because he is unmade,
+or ungenerated."[186] All the other gods must therefore have been
+"generated deities," since there is but one unmade God, one only that
+had "no beginning."[187]
+
+[Footnote 184: See John x. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 185: "Lives," bk. i.; see also Aristotle's "De Anima," bk. i.
+ch. viii. πάντα θιῶν πληρη.]
+
+[Footnote 186: "Lives," bk. i.]
+
+[Footnote 187: "Lives," bk. i.]
+
+_Xenophanes_ was also an assertor of many gods, and one God; but his one
+God is unquestionably supreme. "There is one God, the greatest amongst
+gods and men;" or, "God is one, the greatest amongst gods and men."[188]
+
+_Empedocles_ also believed in one Supreme God, who "is wholly and
+perfectly mind, ineffable, holy, with rapid and swift-glancing thought
+pervading the whole world," and from whom all things else are
+derived,--"all things that are upon the earth, and in the air and water,
+may be truly called the works of God, who ruleth over the world, out of
+whom, according to Empedocles, proceed all things, plants, men, beasts,
+and _gods_."[189] The minor deities are therefore _made_ by God. It will
+not be denied that _Socrates_ was a devout and earnest Theist. He taught
+that "there is a Being whose eye pierces throughout all nature, and
+whose ear is open to every sound; extending through all time, extended
+to all places; and whose bounty and care can know no other bounds than
+those fixed by his own creation."[190] And yet he also recognized the
+existence of a plurality of gods, and in his last moments expressed his
+belief that "it is lawful and right to pray to the gods that his
+departure hence may be happy."[191] We see, however, in his words
+addressed to Euthydemus, a marked distinction between these subordinate
+deities and "Him who raised this whole universe, and still upholds the
+mighty frame, who perfected every part of it in beauty and in goodness,
+suffering none of these parts to decay through age, but renewing them
+daily with unfading vigor;... even he, _the Supreme God_, still holds
+himself invisible, and it is only in his works that we are capable of
+admiring him."[192]
+
+[Footnote 188: Clem. Alex., "Stromat." bk. v.]
+
+[Footnote 189: Aristotle, "De Mundo," ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 190: Xenophon's "Memorabilia," i. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 191: "Phædo," § 152.]
+
+[Footnote 192: "Memorabilia," iv. 3.]
+
+It were needless to attempt the proof that _Plato_ believed in one
+Supreme God, and _only_ one. This one Being is, with him, "the first
+God;" "the greatest of the gods;" "the God over all;" "the sole
+Principle of the universe." He is "the Immutable;" "the All-perfect;"
+"the eternal Being." He is "the Architect of the world; "the Maker of
+the universe; the Father of gods and men; the sovereign Mind which
+orders all things, and passes through all things; the sole Monarch and
+Ruler of the world.[193]
+
+And yet remarkable as these expressions are, sounding, as they do, so
+like the language of inspiration,[194] there can be no doubt that Plato
+was also a sincere believer in a plurality of gods, of which, indeed,
+any one may assure himself by reading the _tenth_ book of "the Laws."
+
+[Footnote 193: See chap. xi.]
+
+[Footnote 194: Some writers have supposed that Plato must have had
+access through some medium to "the Oracles of God." See Butler, vol. ii.
+p. 41.]
+
+And, now that we have in Plato the culmination of Grecian speculative
+thought, we may learn from him the mature and final judgment of the
+ancients in regard to the gods of pagan mythology. We open the _Timæus_,
+and here we find his views most definitely expressed. After giving an
+account of the "generation" of the sun, and moon, and planets, which are
+by him designated as "visible gods," he then proceeds "to speak
+concerning the other divinities:" "We must on this subject assent to
+those who in former times have spoken thereon; who were, as they said,
+the offspring of the gods, and who doubtless were well acquainted with
+their own ancestors..... Let then the genealogy of the gods be, and be
+acknowledged to be, that which they deliver. Of Earth and Heaven the
+children were Oceanus and Tethys; and of these the children were
+Phorcys, and Kronos, and Rhea, and all that followed these; and from
+these were born Zeus and Hera, and those who are regarded as brothers
+and sisters of these, and others their offspring.
+
+"When, then, _all the gods were brought into existence_, both those
+which move around in manifest courses [the stars and planets], and those
+which appear when it pleases them [the mythological deities], the
+Creator of the Universe thus addressed them: 'Gods, and sons of gods, of
+whom I am the father and the author, produced by me, ye are
+indestructible because I will.... Now inasmuch as you have been
+_generated_, you are hence _not_ immortal, nor wholly indissoluble; yet
+you shall never be dissolved nor become subject to the fatality of
+death, because _so I have willed_.... Learn, therefore, my commands.
+Three races of mortals yet remain to be created. Unless these be
+created, the universe will be imperfect, for it will not contain within
+it every kind of animal.... In order that these mortal creatures may be,
+and that this world may be really a cosmos, do you apply yourselves to
+the creation of animals, imitating the exercises of my power in
+_creating_ you.'"[195]
+
+[Footnote 195: "Timæus," ch. xv.]
+
+Here, then, we see that Plato carefully distinguishes between the sole
+Eternal Author of the universe, on one hand, and the "souls," vital and
+intelligent, which he attaches to the heavenly orbs, and diffuses
+through all nature, on the other. These subordinate powers or agents are
+all created, "_generated_ deities," who owe their continued existence to
+the _will_ of God; and though intrusted with a sort of deputed creation,
+and a subsequent direction and government of created things, they are
+still only the _servants_ and the _deputies_ of the Supreme Creator, and
+Director, and Ruler of all things. These subordinate agents and
+ministers employed in the creation and providential government of the
+world appear, in the estimation of Plato, to have been needed--
+
+1. _To satisfy the demands of the popular faith_, which presented its
+facts to be explained no less than those of external nature. Plato had
+evidently a great veneration for antiquity, a peculiar regard for
+"tradition venerable through ancient report," and "doctrines hoary with
+years."[196] He aspired after supernatural light and guidance; he longed
+for some intercourse with, some communication from, the Deity. And
+whilst he found many things in the ancient legends which revolted his
+moral sense, and which his reason rejected, yet the sentiment and the
+lesson which pervades the whole of Grecian mythology, viz., that the
+gods are in ceaseless intercourse with the human race, and if men will
+do right the gods will protect and help them, was one which commended
+itself to his heart.
+
+[Footnote 196: Ibid., ch. v.]
+
+2. These intermediate agents seem to have been demanded to _satisfy the
+disposition and tendency which has revealed itself in all systems, of
+interposing some scale of ascent between the material creation and the
+infinite Creator_.
+
+The mechanical theory of the universe has interposed its long series of
+secondary causes--the qualities, properties, laws, forces of nature; the
+vital theory which attaches a separate "soul" to the various parts of
+nature as the cause and intelligent director of its movements. Of these
+"souls" or gods, there were different orders and degrees--deified men or
+heroes, aërial, terrestrial, and celestial divinities, ascending from
+nature up to God. And this tendency to supply some scale of ascent
+towards the Deity, or at least to people the vast territory which seems
+to swell between the world and God, finds some countenance in "the
+angels and archangels," "the thrones, and dominions, and principalities,
+and powers" of the Christian scriptures.[197]
+
+3. These inferior ministers also seemed to Plato to _increase the
+stately grandeur and imperial majesty of the Divine government._ They
+swell the retinue of the Deity in his grand "circuit through the highest
+arch of heaven."[198] They wait to execute the Divine commands. They are
+the agents of Divine providence, "the messengers of God" to men.
+
+[Footnote 197: "The gods of the Platonic system answer, in office and
+conception, to the angels of Christian Theology."--Butler, vol. i. p.
+225.]
+
+[Footnote 198: "Phædrus," § 56,7.]
+
+4. And, finally, the host of inferior deities interposed between the
+material sensible world and God seemed to Plato as _needful in order to
+explain the apparent defects and disorders of sublunary affairs_. Plato
+was jealous of the Divine honor. "All good must be ascribed to God, and
+nothing but good. We must find evil, disorder, suffering, in some other
+cause."[199] He therefore commits to the junior deities the task of
+creating animals, and of forming "the mortal part of man," because the
+mortal part is "possessed of certain dire and necessary passions."[200]
+
+[Footnote 199: "Republic," bk. ii. p.18.]
+
+[Footnote 200: "Timæus," xliv.]
+
+Aristotle seems to have regarded the popular polytheism of Greece as a
+perverted relic of a deeper and purer "Theology" which he conceives to
+have been, in all probability, perfected in the distant past, and then
+comparatively lost. He says--"The tradition has come down from very
+ancient times, being left in a mythical garb to succeeding generations,
+that these (the heavenly bodies) are gods, and that the Divinity
+_encompasses the whole of nature_. There have been made, however, to
+these certain fabulous additions for the purpose of winning the belief
+of the multitude, and thus securing their obedience to the laws, and
+their co-operation towards advancing the general welfare of the state.
+These additions have been to the effect that these gods were of the same
+form as men, and even that some of them were in appearance similar to
+certain others amongst the rest of the animal creation. The wise course,
+however, would be for the philosopher to disengage from these traditions
+the false element, and to embrace that which is true; and the truth lies
+in that portion of this ancient doctrine which regards the first and
+deepest ground of all existence to be the _Divine_, and this he may
+regard as a divine utterance. In all probability, every art, and
+science, and philosophy has been over and over again discovered to the
+farthest extent possible, and then again lost; and we may conceive these
+opinions to have been preserved to us as a sort of fragment of these
+lost philosophers. We see, then, to some extent the relation of the
+popular belief to these ancient opinions."[201] This conception of a
+deep Divine ground of all existence (for the immateriality and unity of
+which he elsewhere earnestly contends)[202] is thus regarded by
+Aristotle as underlying the popular polytheism of Greece.
+
+[Footnote 201: "Metaph.," xi. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 202: Bk. xi. ch. ii. § 4.]
+
+The views of the educated and philosophic mind of Greece in regard to
+the mythological deities may, in conclusion, be thus briefly stated--
+
+I. _They are all created beings_--"GENERATED DEITIES," _who are
+dependent on, and subject to, the will of one supreme God_.
+
+II. _They are the_ AGENTS _employed by God in the creation of, at least
+some parts of, the universe, and in the movement and direction of the
+entire cosmos; and they are also the_ MINISTERS _and_ MESSENGERS _of
+that universal providence which he exercises over the human race_.
+
+These subordinate deities are, 1. the greater parts of the visible
+mundane system animated by intelligent souls, and called "_sensible
+gods_"--the sun, the moon, the stars, and even the earth itself, and
+known by the names Helios, Selena, Kronos, Hermes, etc.
+
+2. Some are _invisible powers_, having peculiar offices and functions
+and presiding over special places provinces and departments of the
+universe;--one ruling in the heavens (Zeus), another in the air (Juno),
+another in the sea (Neptune), another in the subterranean regions
+(Pluto); one god presiding over learning and wisdom (Minerva), another
+over poetry, music, and religion (Apollo), another over justice and
+political order (Themis), another over war (Mars), another over corn
+(Ceres), and another the vine (Bacchus).
+
+3. Others, again, are _ethereal_ and _aërial_ beings, who have the
+guardianship of individual persons and things, and are called _demons,
+genii_, and _lares_; superior indeed to men, but inferior to the gods
+above named.
+
+"Wherefore, since there were no other gods among the Pagans besides
+those above enumerated, unless their images, statues, and symbols should
+be accounted such (because they were also sometimes abusively called
+'gods'), which could not be supposed by them to have been unmade or
+without beginning, they being the workmanship of their own hands, we
+conclude, universally, that all that multiplicity of Pagan gods which
+make so great a show and noise was really either nothing but several
+names and notions of one supreme Deity, according to his different
+manifestations, gifts, and effects upon the world personated, or else
+many inferior understanding beings, generated or created by one supreme:
+so that one unmade, self-existent Deity, and no more, was acknowledged
+by the more intelligent Pagans, and, consequently, the Pagan Polytheism
+(or idolatry) consisted not in worshipping a multiplicity of unmade
+minds, deities, and creators, self-existent from eternity, and
+independent upon one Supreme, but in mingling and blending some way or
+other, unduly, creature-worship with the worship of the Creator."[203]
+
+[Footnote 203: Cudworth, "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 311.]
+
+That the heathen regard the one Supreme Being as the first and chief
+object of worship is evident from the apologies which they offered for
+worshipping, besides Him, many inferior divinities.
+
+1. They claimed to worship them _only_ as inferior beings, and that
+therefore they were not guilty of giving them that honor which belonged
+to the Supreme. They claimed to worship the supreme God incomparably
+above all. 2. That this honor which is bestowed upon the inferior
+divinities does ultimately redound to the supreme God, and aggrandize
+his state and majesty, they being all his ministers and attendants. 3.
+That as demons are mediators between the celestial gods and men, so
+those celestial gods are also mediators between men and the supreme God,
+and, as it were, convenient steps by which we ought with reverence to
+approach him. 4. That demons or angels being appointed to preside over
+kingdoms, cities, and persons, and being many ways benefactors to us,
+thanks ought to be returned to them by sacrifice. 5. Lastly, that it can
+not be thought that the Supreme Being will envy those inferior beings
+that worship or honor which is bestowed upon them; nor suspect that any
+of these inferior deities will factiously go about to set up themselves
+against the Supreme God.
+
+The Pagans, furthermore, apologized for worshipping God in images,
+statues, and symbols, on the ground that these were only schetically
+worshipped by them, the honor passing from them to the prototype. And
+since we live in bodies, and can scarcely, conceive of any thing without
+having some image or phantasm, we may therefore be indulged in this
+infirmity of human nature (at least in the vulgar) to worship God under
+a corporeal image, as a means of preventing men from falling into
+Atheism.
+
+To the Christian conscience the above reasons assigned furnish no real
+justification of Polytheism and Idolatry; but they are certainly a tacit
+confession of their belief in the one Supreme God, and their conviction
+that, notwithstanding their idolatry, He only ought to be worshipped.
+The heathen polytheists are therefore justly condemned in Scripture, and
+pronounced to be "_inexcusable_." They had the knowledge of the true
+God--" they _knew God_" and yet "they glorified him not as God." "They
+changed the glory of the incorruptible God into a likeness of
+corruptible man." And, finally, they ended in "worshipping and serving
+the creature _more_ than the Creator."[204]
+
+[Footnote 204: Romans i. 21, 25.]
+
+It can not, then, with justice be denied that the Athenians had some
+knowledge of the true God, and some just and worthy conceptions of his
+character. It is equally certain that a powerful and influential
+religious sentiment pervaded the Athenian mind. Their extreme
+"carefulness in religion" must be conceded by us, and, in some sense,
+commended by us, as it was by Paul in his address on Mars' Hill. At the
+same time it must also be admitted and deplored that the purer theology
+of primitive times was corrupted by offensive legends, and encrusted by
+polluting myths, though not utterly defaced.[205] The Homeric gods were
+for the most part idealized, human personalities, with all the passions
+and weaknesses of humanity. They had their favorites and their enemies;
+sometimes they fought in one camp, sometimes in another. They were
+susceptible of hatred, jealousy, sensual passion. It would be strange
+indeed if their worshippers were not like unto them. The conduct of the
+Homeric heroes was, however, better than their creed. And there is this
+strange incongruity and inconsistency in the conduct of the Homeric
+gods,--they punish mortals for crimes of which they themselves are
+guilty, and reward virtues in men which they do not themselves always
+practise. "They punish with especial severity social and political
+crimes, such as perjury (Iliad, iii. 279), oppression of the poor (Od.
+xvii. 475), and unjust judgment in courts of justice (Iliad, xvi. 386)."
+Jupiter is the god of justice, and of the domestic hearth; he is the
+protector of the exile, the avenger of the poor, and the vigilant
+guardian of hospitality. "And with all the imperfections of society,
+government, and religion, the poem presents a remarkable picture of
+primitive simplicity, chastity, justice, and practical piety, under the
+three-fold influence of moral feeling, mutual respect, and fear of the
+divine displeasure; such, at least, are the motives to which Telemachus
+makes his appeal when he endeavors to rouse the assembled people of
+Ithaca to the performance of their duty (Od. ii. 64)."[206]
+
+[Footnote 205: "There was always a double current of religious ideas in
+Greece; one spiritualist, the other tainted with impure
+legends."--Pressensé.]
+
+[Footnote 206: Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," pp. 167, 168;
+Pressensé, "Religion before Christ," p. 77.]
+
+The influence of the religious dramas of Æschylus and Sophocles on the
+Athenian mind must not be overlooked. No writer of pagan antiquity made
+the voice of conscience speak with the same power and authority that
+Æschylus did. "Crime," he says, "never dies without posterity." "Blood
+that has been shed congeals on the ground, crying out for an avenger."
+The old poet made himself the echo of what he called "the lyreless hymn
+of the Furies," who, with him, represented severe Justice striking the
+guilty when his hour comes, and giving warning beforehand by the terrors
+which haunt him. His dramas are characterized by deep religious feeling.
+Reverence for the gods, the recognition of an inflexible moral order,
+resignation to the decisions of Heaven, an abiding presentiment of a
+future state of reward and punishment, are strikingly predominant.
+
+Whilst Æschylus reveals to us the sombre, terror-stricken side of
+conscience, Sophocles shows us the divine and luminous side. No one has
+ever spoken with nobler eloquence than he of moral obligation--of this
+immortal, inflexible law, in which dwells a God that never grows old--
+
+        "Oh be the lot forever mine
+            Unsullied to maintain,
+         In act and word, with awe divine,
+            What potent laws ordain.
+
+     "Laws spring from purer realms above:
+      Their father is the Olympian Jove.
+      Ne'er shall oblivion veil their front sublime,
+      Th' indwelling god is great, nor fears the wastes of time."[207]
+
+The religious inspiration that animates Sophocles breaks out with
+incomparable beauty in the last words of Œdipus, when the old banished
+king sees through the darkness of death a mysterious light dawn, which
+illumines his blind eyes, and which brings to him the assurance of a
+blessed immortality.[208]
+
+[Footnote 207: "Œdipus Tyran.," pp. 863-872.]
+
+[Footnote 208: Pressensé, "Religion before Christ," pp. 85-87.]
+
+Such a theology could not have been utterly powerless. The influence of
+truth, in every measure and degree, must be salutary, and especially of
+truth in relation to God, to duty, and to immortality. The religion of
+the Athenians must have had some wholesome and conserving influence of
+the social and political life of Athens.[209] Those who resign the
+government of this lower world almost exclusively to Satan, may see, in
+the religion of the Greeks, a simple creation of Satanic powers. But he
+who believes that the entire progress of humanity has been under the
+control and direction of a benignant Providence, must suppose that, in
+the purposes of God, even Ethnicism has fulfilled some end, or it would
+not have been permitted to live. God has "_never left himself without a
+witness_" in any nation under heaven. And some preparatory office has
+been fulfilled by Heathenism which, at least, repealed the _want_, and
+prepared the mind for, the advent of Christianity.
+
+[Footnote 209: The practice, so common with some theological writers, of
+drawing dark pictures of heathenism, in which not one luminous spot is
+visible, in order to exalt the revelations given to the Jews, is
+exceedingly unfortunate, and highly reprehensible. It is unfortunate,
+because the skeptical scholar knows that there were some elements of
+truth and excellence, and even of grandeur, in the religion and
+civilization of the republics of Greece and Rome; and it is
+reprehensible, because it is a one-sided and unjust procedure, in so far
+as it withholds part of the truth. This species of argument is a
+two-edged sword which cuts both ways. The prevalence of murder, and
+slavery, and treachery, and polygamy, in Greece and Rome, is no more a
+proof that "the religions of the pagan nations were destructive of
+morality" (Watson, vol. i. p. 59), than the polygamy of the Hebrews, the
+falsehoods and impositions of Mediaeval Christianity, the persecutions
+and martyrdoms of Catholic Christianity, the oppressions and wrongs of
+Christian England, and the slavery of Protestant America, are proofs
+that the Christian religion is "destructive of morality." What a fearful
+picture of the history of Christian nations might be drawn to-day, if
+all the lines of light, and goodness, and charity were left out, and the
+crimes, and wrongs, and cruelties of the Christian nations were alone
+exhibited!
+
+How much more convincing a proof of the truth of Christianity to find in
+the religions of the ancient world a latent sympathy with, and an
+unconscious preparation for, the religion of Christ. "The history of
+religions of human origin is the most striking evidence of the agreement
+of revealed religion with the soul of man--for each of these forms of
+worship is the expression of the wants of conscience, its eternal thirst
+for pardon and restoration--rather let us say, its thirst for
+God."--Pressensé, p. 6.]
+
+The religion of the Athenians was unable to deliver them from the guilt
+of sin, redeem them from its power, and make them pure and holy. It gave
+the Athenian no victory over himself, and, practically, brought him no
+nearer to the living God. But it awakened and educated the conscience,
+it developed more fully the sense of sin and guilt, and it made man
+conscious of his inability to save himself from sin and guilt; and "the
+day that humanity awakens to the want of something more than mere
+embellishment and culture, that day it feels the need of being saved and
+restored from the consequences of sin" by a higher power. Æsthetic taste
+had found its fullest gratification in Athens; poetry, sculpture,
+architecture, had been carried to the highest perfection; a noble
+civilization had been reached; but "the need of something deeper and
+truer was written on the very stones." The highest consummation of
+Paganism was an altar to "the unknown God," the knowledge of whom it
+needed, as the source of purity and peace.
+
+The strength and the weakness of Grecian mythology consisted in the
+contradictory character of its divinities. It was a strange blending of
+the natural and the supernatural, the human and the divine. Zeus, the
+eternal Father,--the immortal King, whose will is sovereign, and whose
+power is invincible,--the All-seeing Jove, has some of the weaknesses
+and passions of humanity. God and man are thus, in some mysterious way,
+united. And here that deepest longing of the human heart is met--the
+unconquerable desire to bring God nearer to the human apprehension, and
+closer to the human heart. Hence the hold which Polytheism had upon the
+Grecian mind. But in this human aspect was also found its weakness, for
+when philosophic thought is brought into contact with, and permitted
+critically to test mythology, it dethrones the false gods. The age of
+spontaneous religious sentiment must necessarily be succeeded by the age
+of reflective thought. Popular theological faiths must be placed in the
+hot crucible of dialectic analysis, that the false and the frivolous may
+be separated from the pure and the true. The reason of man demands to be
+satisfied, as well as the heart. Faith in God must have a logical basis,
+it must be grounded on demonstration and proof. Or, at any rate, the
+question must be answered, _whether God is cognizable by human reason_?
+If this can be achieved, then a deeper foundation is laid in the mind of
+humanity, upon which Christianity can rear its higher and nobler truths.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE UNKNOWN GOD.
+
+
+"As I passed by, and beheld your sacred objects, I found an altar with
+this inscription, _To the Unknown God_."--ST. PAUL.
+
+"That which can be _known_ of God is manifested in their hearts, God
+himself having shown it to them" [the heathen nations].--ST. PAUL.
+
+Having now reached our first landing-place, from whence we may survey
+the fields that we have traversed, it may be well to set down in
+definite propositions the results we have attained. We may then carry
+them forward, as torches, to illuminate the path of future and still
+profounder inquiries.
+
+The principles we have assumed as the only adequate and legitimate
+interpretation of the facts of religious history, and which an extended
+study of the most fully-developed religious system of the ancient world
+confirms, may be thus announced:
+
+I. A religious nature and destination appertain to man, so that the
+purposes of his existence and the perfection of his being can only be
+secured in and through religion.
+
+II. The idea of God as the unconditioned Cause, the infinite Mind, the
+personal Lord and Lawgiver, and the consciousness of dependence upon and
+obligation to God, are the fundamental principles of all religion.
+
+III. Inasmuch as man is a religious being, the instincts and emotions of
+his nature constraining him to worship, there must also be implanted in
+his rational nature some original _à priori_ ideas or laws of thought
+which furnish the necessary cognition of the object of worship; that is,
+some native, spontaneous cognition of God.
+
+A mere blind impulse would not be adequate to guide man to the true end
+and perfection of his being without rational ideas; a tendency or
+appetency, without a revealed object, would be the mockery and misery of
+his nature--an "ignis fatuus" perpetually alluring and forever deceiving
+man.
+
+That man has a native, spontaneous apperception of a God, in the true
+import of that sacred name, has been denied by men of totally opposite
+schools and tendencies of thought--by the Idealist and the Materialist;
+by the Theologian and the Atheist. Though differing essentially in their
+general principles and method, they are agreed in asserting that God is
+absolutely "_the unknown_;" and that, so far as reason and logic are
+concerned, man can not attain to any knowledge of the first principles
+and causes of the universe, and, consequently, can not determine whether
+the first principle or principles be intelligent or unintelligent,
+personal or impersonal, finite or infinite, one or many righteous or
+non-righteous, evil or good.
+
+The various opponents of the doctrine that God can be cognized by human
+reason may be classified as follows: I. _Those who assert that all human
+knowledge is necessarily confined to the observation and classification
+of phenomena in their orders of co-existence, succession, and
+resemblance_. Man has no faculty for cognizing substances, causes,
+forces, reasons, first principles--no power by which he can _know_ God.
+This class may be again subdivided into--
+
+1. Those who limit all knowledge to the observation and classification
+of _mental_ phenomena (_e. g_., Idealists like J. S. Mill).
+
+2. Those who limit all knowledge to the observation and classification
+of _material_ phenomena (_e. g_., Materialists like Comte).
+
+II. _The second class comprises all who admit that philosophic knowledge
+is the knowledge of effects as dependent on causes, and of qualities as
+inherent in substances; but at the same time assert that "all knowledge
+is of the phenomenal_." Philosophy can never attain to a positive
+knowledge of the First Cause. Of existence, absolutely and in itself, we
+know nothing. The infinite can not by us be comprehended, conceived, or
+thought. _Faith_ is the organ by which we apprehend what is beyond
+knowledge. We believe in the existence of God, but we can not _know_
+God. This class, also, may be again subdivided into--
+
+1. Those who affirm that our idea of the Infinite First Cause is
+grounded on an _intuitional_ or subjective faith, necessitated by an
+"impotence of thought"--that is, by a mental inability to conceive an
+absolute limitation or an infinite illimitation, an absolute
+commencement or an infinite non-commencement. Both contradictory
+opposites are equally incomprehensible and inconceivable to us; and yet,
+though unable to view either as possible, we are forced by a higher
+law--the "Law of Excluded Middle"--to admit that one, and only one, is
+necessary (_e. g_., Hamilton and Mansel).
+
+2. Those who assert that our idea of God rests solely on an _historical_
+or objective faith in testimony--the testimony of Scripture, which
+assures us that, in the course of history, God has manifested his
+existence in an objective manner to the senses, and given verbal
+communications of his character and will to men; human reason being
+utterly incapacitated by the fall, and the consequent depravity of man,
+to attain any knowledge of the unity, spirituality, and righteousness of
+God (_e. g_., Watson, and Dogmatic Theologians generally).
+
+It will thus be manifest that the great question, the central and vital
+question which demands a thorough and searching consideration, is the
+following, to wit: _Is God cognizable by human reason_? Can man attain
+to a positive cognition of God--can he _know_ God; or is all our
+supposed knowledge "a learned ignorance,"[210] an unreasoning faith? We
+venture to answer this question in the affirmative. Human reason is now
+adequate to the cognition of God; it is able, with the fullest
+confidence, to affirm the being of a God, and, in some degree, to
+determine his character. The parties and schools above referred to
+answer this question in the negative form. Whether Theologians or
+Atheists, they are singularly agreed in denying to human reason all
+possibility of _knowing_ God.
+
+[Footnote 210: Hamilton's "Philosophy," p. 512.]
+
+Before entering upon the discussion of the negative positions enumerated
+in the above classification, it may be important we should state our own
+position explicitly, and exhibit what we regard as the true doctrine of
+the genesis of the idea of God in the human intelligence. The real
+question at issue will then stand out in clear relief, and precision
+will be given to the entire discussion.
+
+(i.) _We hold that the idea of God is a common phenomenon of the
+universal human intelligence_. It is found in all minds where reason has
+had its normal and healthy development; and no race of men has ever been
+found utterly destitute of the idea of God. The proof of this position
+has already been furnished in chap, ii.,[211] and needs not be re-stated
+here. We have simply to remark that the appeal which is made by Locke
+and others of the sensational school to the experiences of infants,
+idiots, the deaf and dumb, or, indeed, any cases wherein the proper
+conditions for the normal development of reason are wanting, are utterly
+irrelevant to the question. The acorn contains within itself the
+rudimental germ of the future oak, but its mature and perfect
+development depends on the exterior conditions of moisture, light, and
+heat. By these exterior conditions it may be rendered luxuriant in its
+growth, or it may be stunted in its growth. It may barely exist under
+one class of conditions; it may be distorted and perverted, or it may
+perish utterly under another. And so in the idiotic mind the ideas of
+reason may be wanting, or they may be imprisoned by impervious walls of
+cerebral malformation. In the infant mind the development of reason is
+yet in an incipient stage. The idea of God is immanent to the infant
+thought, but the infant thought is not yet matured. The deaf and dumb
+are certainly not in that full and normal correlation to the world of
+sense which is a necessary condition of the development of reason.
+Language, the great vehiculum and instrument of thought, is wanting, and
+reason can not develop itself without words. "Words without thought are
+dead sounds, _thoughts without words are nothing_. The word is the
+thought incarnate."[212] Under proper and normal conditions, the idea of
+God is the natural and necessary form in which human thought must be
+developed. And, with these explanations, we repeat our affirmation that
+the idea of God is a common phenomenon of the universal human
+intelligence.
+
+[Footnote 211: Pp. 89,90.]
+
+[Footnote 212: Müller, " Science of Language," p. 384.]
+
+(ii.) _We do not hold that the idea of God, in its completeness, is a
+simple, direct, and immediate intuition of the reason alone, independent
+of all experience, and all knowledge of the external world_. The idea of
+God is a complex idea, and not a simple idea. The affirmation, "God
+exists," is a _synthetic_ and _primitive_ judgment spontaneously
+developed in the mind, and developed, too, independent of all reflective
+reasoning. It is a necessary deduction from the facts of the outer world
+of nature and the primary intuitions of the inner world of reason--a
+logical deduction from the self-evident truths given in sense,
+consciousness, and reason. "We do not _perceive_ God, but we _conceive_
+Him upon the faith of this admirable world exposed to view, and upon the
+other world, more admirable still, which we bear in ourselves."[213]
+Therefore we do not say that man is born with an "innate idea" of God,
+nor with the definite proposition, "there is a God," written upon his
+soul; but we do say that the mind is pregnant with certain natural
+principles, and governed, in its development, by certain necessary laws
+of thought, which determine it, by a _spontaneous logic_, to affirm the
+being of a God; and, furthermore, that this judgment may be called
+_innate_ in the sense, that it is the primitive, universal, and
+necessary development of the human understanding which "is innate to
+itself and equal to itself in all men."[214]
+
+[Footnote 213: Cousin, "True, Beautiful and Good," p.102.]
+
+[Footnote 214: Leibnitz.]
+
+As the vital and rudimentary germ of the oak is contained in the acorn;
+as it is quickened and excited to activity by the external conditions of
+moisture, light, and heat, and is fully de developed under the fixed and
+determinative laws of vegetable life--so the germs of the idea of God
+are present in the human mind as the intuitions of pure reason
+(_Rational Psychology_); these intuitions are excited to energy by our
+experiential and historical knowledge of the facts and laws of the
+universe (_Phenomenology_); and these facts and intuitions are developed
+into form by the necessary laws of the intellect (_Nomology_, or
+_Primordial Logic_).
+
+The _logical demonstration_ of the being of God commences with the
+analysis of thought. It asks, What are the ideas which exist in the
+human intelligence? What are their actual characteristics, and what
+their primitive characteristics? What is their origin, and what their
+validity? Having, by this process, found that some of our ideas are
+subjective, and some objective that some are derived from experience,
+and that some can not be derived from experience, but are inherent in
+the very constitution of the mind itself, as _à priori_ ideas of reason;
+that these are characterized as self-evident, universal, and necessary
+and that, as laws of thought, they govern the mind in all its
+conceptions of the universe; it has formulated these necessary
+judgments, and presented them as distinct and articulate propositions.
+These _à priori_, necessary judgments constitute the major premise of
+the Theistic syllogism, and, in view of the facts of the universe,
+necessitate the affirmation of the existence of a God as the only valid
+explanation of the facts.
+
+The _natural_ or _chronological order_ in which the idea of God is
+developed in the human intelligence, is the reverse process of the
+scientific or logical order, in which the demonstration of the being of
+God is presented by philosophy; the latter is _reflective_ and
+_analytic_, the former is _spontaneous_ and _synthetic._ The natural
+order commences with the knowledge of the facts of the universe,
+material and mental, as revealed by sensation and experience. In
+presence of these facts of the universe, the _à priori_ ideas of power,
+cause, reason, and end are evoked into consciousness with greater or
+less distinctness; and the judgment, by a natural and spontaneous logic,
+free from all reflection, and consequently from all possibility of
+error, affirms a necessary relation between the facts of experience and
+the _à priori_ ideas of the reason. The result of this involuntary and
+almost unconscious process of thought is that natural cognition of a God
+found, with greater or less clearness and definiteness, in all rational
+minds. The _à posteriori_, or empirical knowledge of the phenomena of
+the universe, in their relations to time and space, constitute the minor
+premise of the Theistic syllogism.
+
+The Theistic argument is, therefore, necessarily composed of both
+experiential and _à priori_ elements. An _à posteriori_ element exists
+as a condition of the logical demonstration The rational _à priori_
+element is, however, the logical basis, the only valid foundation of the
+Theistic demonstration. The facts of the universe alone would never lead
+man to the recognition of a God, if the reason, in presence of these
+facts, did not enounce certain necessary and universal principles which
+are the logical antecedents, and adequate explanation of the facts. Of
+what use would it be to point to the events and changes of the material
+universe as proofs of the existence of a _First Cause,_ unless we take
+account of the universal and necessary truth that "every change must
+have an efficient cause;" that all phenomena are an indication of
+_power_; and that "there is an ultimate and sufficient reason why all
+things exist, and are as they are, and not otherwise." There would be no
+logical force in enumerating the facts of order and special adaptation
+which literally crowd the universe, as proofs of the existence of an
+_Intelligent Creator_, if the mind did not affirm the necessary
+principle that "facts of order, having a commencement in time, suppose
+mind as their source and exponent." There is no logical conclusiveness
+in the assertion of Paley, "that _experience_ teaches us that a designer
+must be a person," because, as Hume justly remarks, our "experience" is
+narrowed down to a mere point, "and can not be a rule for a universe;"
+but there is an infinitude of force in that dictum of reason, that
+"intelligence, self-consciousness, and self-determination necessarily
+constitute personality." A multiplicity of different effects, of which
+experience does not always reveal the connection, would not conduct to a
+single cause and to _one_ God, but rather to a plurality of causes and a
+plurality of gods, did not reason teach us that "all plurality implies
+an ultimate indivisible unity," and therefore there must be a _First
+Cause_ of all causes, a _First Principle_ of all principles, _the
+Substance_ of all substances, _the Being_ of all beings--_a God_ "of
+whom, in whom, and to whom are all things" (πάντα ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ, ἐν τῷ
+θεῷ, εἰς τὸν θεόν).
+
+The conclusion, therefore, is, that, as the idea of God is a complex
+idea, so there are necessarily a number of simple _à priori_ principles,
+and a variety of experiential facts conspiring to its development in the
+human intelligence.
+
+(iii.) _The universe presents to the human mind an aggregation and
+history of phenomena which demands the idea of a God--a self-existent,
+intelligent, personal, righteous First Cause--as its adequate
+explanation._
+
+The attempt of Positivism to confine all human knowledge to the
+observation and classification of phenomena, and arrest and foreclose
+all inquiry as to causes, efficient, final, and ultimate, is simply
+futile and absurd. It were just as easy to arrest the course of the sun
+in mid-heaven as to prevent the human mind from seeking to pass beyond
+phenomena, and ascertain the ground, and reason, and cause of all
+phenomena. The history of speculative thought clearly attests that, in
+all ages, the inquiry after the Ultimate Cause and Reason of all
+existence--the ἀρχή, or First Principle of all things--has been the
+inevitable and necessary tendency of the human mind; to resist which,
+skepticism and positivism have been utterly impotent. The first
+philosophers, of the Ionian school, had just as strong a faith in the
+existence of a Supreme Reality--an Ultimate Cause--as Leibnitz and
+Cousin. But when, by reflective thought, they attempted to render an
+account to themselves of this instinctive faith, they imagined that its
+object must be in some way appreciable to sense, and they sought it in
+some physical element, or under some visible and tangible shrine. Still,
+however imperfect and inadequate the method, and however unsatisfactory
+the results, humanity has never lost its positive and ineradicable
+confidence that the problem of existence could be solved. The resistless
+tide of spontaneous and necessary thought has always borne the race
+onward towards the recognition of a great First Cause; and though
+philosophy may have erred, again and again, in tracing the logical order
+of this inevitable thought, and exhibiting the necessary nexus between
+the premises and conclusion, yet the human mind has never wavered in the
+confidence which it has reposed in the natural logic of thought, and man
+has never ceased to believe in a God.
+
+We readily grant that all our empirical knowledge is confined to
+phenomena in their orders of co-existence, succession, and resemblance.
+"To our objective perception and comparison nothing is given but
+qualities and changes; to our inductive generalization nothing but the
+shifting and grouping of these in time and space." Were it, however, our
+immediate concern to discuss the question, we could easily show that
+sensationalism has never succeeded in tracing the genetic origin of our
+ideas of space and time to observation and experience; and, without the
+_à priori_ idea of _space_, as the place of bodies, and of _time_, as
+the condition of succession, we can not conceive of phenomena at all.
+If, therefore, we know any thing beyond phenomena and their mutual
+relations; if we have any cognition of realities underlying phenomena,
+and of the relations of phenomena to their objective ground, it must be
+given by some faculty distinct from sense-perception, and in some
+process distinct from inductive generalization. The knowledge of real
+Being and real Power, of an ultimate Reason and a personal Will, is
+derived from the apperception of pure reason, which affirms the
+necessary existence of a Supreme Reality--an Uncreated Being beyond all
+phenomena, which is the ground and reason of the existence--the
+contemporaneousness and succession--the likeness and unlikeness, of all
+phenomena.
+
+The immediate presentation of phenomena to sensation is the _occasion_
+of the development in consciousness of these _à priori_ ideas of reason:
+the possession of these ideas or the immanence of these ideas, in the
+human intellect, constitutes the original _power_ to know external
+phenomena. The ideas of space, time, power, law, reason, and end, are
+the logical antecedents of the ideas of body, succession, event,
+consecution, order, and adaptation. The latter can not be conceived as
+distinct notions without the former. The former will not be revealed in
+thought without the presentation to sense, of resistance, movement,
+change, uniformity, etc. All actual knowledge must, therefore, be
+impure; that is, it must involve both _à priori_ and _à posteriori_
+elements; and between these elements there must be a necessary relation.
+
+This necessary relation between the _à priori_ and _à posteriori_
+elements of knowledge is not a mere subjective law of thought. It is
+both a law of thought and a law of things. Between the _à posteriori_
+facts of the universe and the _à priori_ ideas of the reason there is an
+absolute nexus, a universal and necessary correlation; so that the
+cognition of the latter is possible only on the cognition of the former;
+and the objective existence of the realities, represented by the ideas
+of reason, is the condition, _sine qua non_, of the existence of the
+phenomena presented to sense. If, in one indivisible act of
+consciousness, we immediately perceive extended matter exterior to our
+percipient mind, then Extension exists objectively; and if Extension
+exists objectively, then Space, its _conditio sine qua non_, also exists
+objectively. And if a definite body reveals to us the _Space_ in which
+it is contained, if a succession of pulsations or movements exhibit the
+uniform _Time_ beneath, so do the changeful phenomena of the universe
+demand a living _Power_ behind, and the existing order and regular
+evolution of the universe presuppose _Thought_--prevision, and
+predetermination, by an intelligent mind.
+
+If, then, the universe is a created effect, it must furnish some
+indications of the character of its cause. If, as Plato taught, the
+world is a "created image" of the eternal archetypes which dwell in the
+uncreated Mind, and if the subjective ideas which dwell in the human
+reason, as the offspring of God, are "copies" of the ideas of the
+Infinite Reason--if the universe be "the autobiography of the Infinite
+Spirit which has also repeated itself in miniature within our finite
+spirit," then may we decipher its symbols, and read its lessons straight
+off. Then every approach towards a scientific comprehension and
+generalization of the facts of the universe must carry us upward towards
+the higher realities of reason. The more we can understand of Nature--of
+her comprehensive laws, of her archetypal forms, of her far-reaching
+plan spread through the almost infinite ages, and stretching through
+illimitable space--the more do we comprehend the divine Thought. The
+inductive generalization of science gradually _ascends_ towards the
+universal; the pure, essential, _à priori_ reason, with its universal
+and necessary ideas, _descends_ from above to meet it. The general
+conceptions of science are thus a kind of _ideœ umbratiles_--shadowy
+assimilations to those immutable ideas which dwell in essential reason,
+as possessed by the Supreme Intelligence, and which are participated in
+by rational man as the offspring and image of God.
+
+Without making any pretension to profound scientific accuracy, we offer
+the following tentative classification of the facts of the universe,
+material and mental, which may be regarded as hints and adumbrations of
+the ultimate ground, and reason, and cause, of the universe. We shall
+venture to classify these facts as indicative of some fundamental
+relation; (i.) to Permanent Being or Reality; (ii.) to Reason and
+Thought; (iii.) to Moral Ideas and Ends.
+
+
+(i.) _Facts of the universe which indicate some fundamental relation to
+Permanent Being or Reality_.
+
+1. _Qualitative_ Phenomena (properties, attributes, qualities)--the
+predicates of a _subject_; which phenomena, being characterized by
+likeness and unlikeness, are capable of comparison and classification,
+and thus of revealing something as to the nature of the _subject_.
+
+2. _Dynamical_ Phenomena (protension, movement, succession)--events
+transpiring in _time_, having beginning, succession, and end, which
+present themselves to us as the expression of _power_, and throw back
+their distinctive characteristics on their _dynamic_ source.
+
+3. _Quantitative_ Phenomena (totality, multiplicity, relative unity)--a
+multiplicity of objects having relative and composite unity, which
+suggests some relation to an absolute and indivisible _unity_.
+
+4. _Statical_ Phenomena (extension, magnitude, divisibility)--bodies
+co-existing in _space_ which are limited, conditioned, relative,
+dependent, and indicate some relation to that which is self-existent,
+unconditioned, and absolute.
+
+(ii.) _Facts of the universe which indicate some fundamental relation to
+Reason or Thought_.
+
+1. _Numerical and Geometrical Proportion_.--Definite proportion of
+elements (Chemistry), symmetrical arrangement of parts
+(Crystallography), numerical and geometrical relation of the forms and
+movements of the heavenly bodies (Spherical Astronomy), all of which are
+capable of exact mathematical expression.
+
+2. _Archetypal Forms_.--The uniform succession of new existences, and
+the progressive evolution of new orders and species, conformable to
+fixed and definite ideal archetypes, the indication of a comprehensive
+_plan_(Morphological Botany, Comparative Anatomy).
+
+3. _Teleology of Organs_.--The adaptation of organs to the fulfillment
+of special functions, indicating _design_(Comparative Physiology).
+
+4. _Combination of Homotypes and Analogues_.--Diversified homologous
+forms made to fulfill analogous functions, or special purposes fulfilled
+whilst maintaining a general plan, indicating _choice_ and
+_alternativity_.
+
+
+(iii.) _Facts of the universe which indicate some fundamental relation
+to Moral Ideas and Ends_.
+
+1. _Ethical Distinctions_.--The universal tendency to discriminate
+between voluntary acts as right or wrong, indicating some relation to an
+_immutable moral standard of right_.
+
+2. _Sense of Obligation_.--The universal consciousness of dependence and
+obligation, indicating some relation to Supreme _Power_, an Absolute
+_Authority_.
+
+3. _Feeling of Responsibility_.--The universal consciousness of
+liability to be required to give account for, and endure the
+consequences of our action, indicating some relation to a Supreme
+_Judge_.
+
+4. _Retributive Issues_.--The pleasure and pain resulting from moral
+action in this life, and the universal anticipation of pleasure or pain
+in the future, as the consequence of present conduct, indicate an
+_absolute Justice_ ruling the world and man.
+
+Now, if the universe be a _created effect_, it must, in some degree at
+least, reveal the character of its Author and cause. We are entitled to
+regard it as a created symbol and image of the Deity; it must bear the
+impress of his _power_; it must reveal his infinite _presence_; it must
+express his _thoughts_; it must embody and realize his _ideals_, so far,
+at least, as material symbols will permit. Just as we see the power and
+thought of man revealed in his works, his energy and skill, his ideal
+and his taste expressed in his mechanical, artistic, and literary
+creations, so we may see the mind and character of God displayed in his
+works. The skill and contrivance of Watts, and Fulton, and Stephenson
+were exhibited in their mechanical productions. The pure, the intense,
+the visionary impersonation of the soul which the artist had conjured in
+his own imagination was wrought out in Psyché. The colossal grandeur of
+Michael Angelo's ideals, the ethereal and saintly elegance of Raphael's
+were realized upon the canvas. So he who is familiar with the ideal of
+the sculptor or the painter can identify his creations even when the
+author's name is not affixed. And so the "eternal Power" of God is
+"clearly seen" in the mighty orbs which float in the illimitable space.
+The vastness of the universe shadows forth the infinity of God. The
+indivisible unity of space and the ideal unity of the universe reflect
+the unity of God. The material forms around us are symbols of divine
+ideas, and the successive history of the universe is an expression of
+the divine thought; whilst the ethical ideas and sentiments inherent in
+the human mind are a reflection of the moral character of God.
+
+The reader can not have failed to observe the form in which the Theistic
+argument is stated; "_if_ the finite universe is a created effect, it
+must reveal something as to the nature of its cause: _if_ the existing
+order and arrangement of the universe had a commencement in time, it
+must have an ultimate and adequate cause." The question, therefore,
+presents itself in a definite form: "_Is the universe finite or
+infinite; had the order of the universe a beginning, or is it eternal_?"
+
+It will be seen at a glance that this is the central and vital question
+in the Theistic argument. If the order and arrangement of the universe
+is _eternal_, then that order is an inherent law of nature, and, as
+eternal, does not imply a cause _ab extra:_ if it is not eternal, then
+the ultimate cause of that order must be a power above and beyond
+nature. In the former case the minor premise of the Theistic syllogism
+is utterly invalidated; in the latter case it is abundantly sustained.
+
+Some Theistic writers--as Descartes, Pascal, Leibnitz, and Saisset--have
+made the fatal admission that the universe is, in some sense, _infinite_
+and _eternal_. In making this admission they have unwittingly
+surrendered the citadel of strength, and deprived the argument by which
+they would prove the being of a God of all its logical force. That
+argument is thus presented by Saisset: "The finite supposes the
+infinite. Extension supposes first space, then immensity: duration
+supposes first time, then eternity. A sudden and irresistible judgment
+refers this to the necessary, infinite, perfect being."[215] But if "the
+world is infinite and eternal,"[216] may not nature, or the totality of
+all existence (τὺ πᾶν), be the necessary, infinite, and perfect Being?
+An infinite and eternal universe has the reason of its existence in
+itself, and the existence of such a universe can never prove to us the
+existence of an infinite and eternal God.
+
+[Footnote 215: "Modern Pantheism," vol. ii. p. 205.]
+
+[Footnote 216: Ibid, p. 123.]
+
+A closer examination of the statements and reasonings of Descartes,
+Pascal, and Leibnitz, as furnished by Saisset, will show that these
+distinguished mathematicans were misled by the false notion of
+"_mathematical_ infinitude." Their infinite universe, after all, is not
+an "absolute," but a "relative" infinite; that is, the indefinite. "The
+universe must extend _indefinitely_ in time and space, in the infinite
+greatness, and in the infinite littleness of its parts--in the infinite
+variety of its species, of its forms, and of its degrees of existence.
+The finite can not express the infinite but by being _multiplied_
+infinitely. The finite, so far as it is finite, is not in any reasonable
+relation, or in any intelligible proportion to the infinite. But the
+finite, as _multiplied_ infinitely,[217] ages upon ages, spaces upon
+spaces, stars beyond stars, worlds beyond worlds, is a true expression
+of the Infinite Being. Does it follow, because the universe has no
+limits,--that it must therefore be eternal, immense, infinite as God
+himself? No; that is but a vain scruple, which springs from the
+imagination, and not from the reason. The imagination is always
+confounding what reason should ever distinguish, eternity and time,
+immensity and space, _relative_ infinity and _absolute_ infinity. The
+Creator alone is eternal, immense, absolutely infinite."[218]
+
+[Footnote 217: "The infinite is distinct from the finite, and
+consequently from the multiplication of the finite by itself; that is,
+from the _indefinite_. That which is not infinite, added as many times
+as you please to itself, will not become infinite."--Cousin, "Hist, of
+Philos.," vol. ii. p. 231.]
+
+[Footnote 218: Saisset, "Modern Pantheism," vol. ii. pp. 127, 128.]
+
+The introduction of the idea of "the mathematical infinite" into
+metaphysical speculation, especially by Kant and Hamilton, with the
+design, it would seem, of transforming the idea of infinity into a
+sensuous conception, has generated innumerable paralogisms which
+disfigure the pages of their philosophical writings. This procedure is
+grounded in the common fallacy of supposing that _infinity_ and
+_quantity_ are compatible attributes, and susceptible of mathematical
+synthesis. This insidious and plausible error is ably refuted by a
+writer in the "North American Review."[219] We can not do better than
+transfer his argument to our pages in an abridged form.
+
+[Footnote 219: "The Conditioned and the Unconditioned," No. CCV. art.
+iii. (1864).]
+
+Mathematics is conversant with quantities and quantitative relations.
+The conception of quantity, therefore, if rigorously analyzed, will
+indicate _à priori_ the natural and impassable boundaries of the
+science; while a subsequent examination of the quantities called
+infinite in the mathematical sense, and of the algebraic symbol of
+infinity, will be seen to verify the results of this _à priori_
+analysis.
+
+Quantity is that attribute of things in virtue of which they are
+susceptible of exact mensuration. The question _how much_, or _how many_
+(_quantus_), implies the answer, _so much_, or _so many_ (_tantus_); but
+the answer is possible only through reference to some standard of
+magnitude or multitude arbitrarily assumed. Every object, therefore, of
+which quantity, in the mathematical sense, is predicable, must be by its
+essential nature _mensurable._ Now mensurability implies the existence
+of actual, definite limits, since without them there could be no fixed
+relation between the given object and the standard of measurement, and,
+consequently, no possibility of exact mensuration. In fact, since
+quantification is the object of all mathematical operations, mathematics
+may be not inaptly defined as _the science of the determinations of
+limits_. It is evident, therefore, that the terms _quantity_ and
+_finitude_ express the same attribute, namely, _limitation_--the former
+relatively, the latter absolutely; for quantity is limitation considered
+with relation to some standard of measurement, and finitude is
+limitation considered simply in itself. The sphere of quantity,
+therefore, is absolutely identical with the sphere of the finite; and
+the phrase _infinite quantity_, if strictly construed, is a
+contradiction in terms.
+
+The result thus attained by considering abstract quantity is
+corroborated by considering concrete and discrete quantities. Such
+expressions as _infinite sphere, radius, parallelogram, line,_ and so
+forth, are self-contradictory. A sphere is limited by its own periphery,
+and a radius by the centre and circumference of its circle. A
+parallelogram of infinite altitude is impossible, because the limit of
+its altitude is assigned in the side which must be parallel to its base
+in order to constitute it a parallelogram. In brief, all figuration is
+limitation. The contradiction in the term _infinite line_ is not quite
+so obvious, but can readily be made apparent. Objectively, a line is
+only the termination of a surface, and a surface the termination of a
+solid; hence a line can not exist apart from an extended quantity, nor
+an infinite line apart from an infinite quantity. But as this term has
+just been shown to be self-contradictory, an infinite line can not exist
+objectively at all. Again, every line is extension in one dimension;
+hence a mathematical quantity, hence mensurable, hence finite; you must
+therefore, deny that a line is a quantity, or else affirm that it is
+finite.
+
+The same conclusion is forced upon us, if from geometry we turn to
+arithmetic. The phrases _infinite number, infinite series, infinite
+process_, and so forth, are all contradictory when literally construed.
+Number is a relation among separate unities or integers, which,
+considered objectively as independent of our cognitive powers, must
+constitute an exact sum; and this exactitude, or synthetic totality, is
+limitation. If considered subjectively in the mode of its cognition, a
+number is infinite only in the sense that it is beyond the power of our
+imagination or conception, which is an abuse of the term. In either case
+the totality is fixed; that is, finite. So, too, of _series_ and
+_process_. Since every series involves a succession of terms or numbers,
+and every process a succession of steps or stages, the notion of series
+and process plainly involves that of _number_, and must be rigorously
+dissociated from the idea of infinity. At any one step, at any one term,
+the number attained is determinate, hence finite. The fact that, by the
+law of the series or of the process, _we_ may continue the operation _as
+long as we please_, does not justify the application of the term
+infinite to the operation itself; if any thing is infinite, it is the
+will which continues the operation, which is absurd if said of human
+wills.
+
+Consequently, the attribute of infinity is not predicable either of
+'diminution without limit,' 'augmentation without limit,' or 'endless
+approximation to a fixed limit,' for these mathematical processes
+continue only as we continue them, consist of steps successively
+accomplished, and are limited by the very fact of this serial
+incompletion.
+
+"We can not forbear pointing out an important application of these
+results to the Critical Philosophy. Kant bases each of his famous four
+antinomies on the demand of pure reason for unconditioned totality in a
+regressive series of conditions. This, he says, must be realized either
+in an absolute first of the series, conditioning all the other members,
+but itself unconditioned, or else in the absolute infinity of the series
+without a first; but reason is utterly unable, on account of mutual
+contradiction, to decide in which of the two alternatives the
+unconditioned is found. By the principles we have laid down, however,
+the problem is solved. The absolute infinity of a series is a
+contradiction _in adjecto_. As every number, although immeasurably and
+inconceivably great, is impossible unless _unity_ is given as its basis,
+so every series, being itself a number, is impossible unless a _first
+term_ is given as a commencement. Through a first term alone is the
+unconditioned possible; that is, if it does not exist in a first term,
+it can not exist at all; of the two alternatives, therefore, one
+altogether disappears, and reason is freed from the dilemma of a
+compulsory yet impossible decision. Even if it should be allowed that
+the series has no first term, but has originated _ab œterno_, it must
+always at each instant have a _last term_; the series, as a whole, can
+not be infinite, and hence can not, as Kant claims it can, realize in
+its wholeness unconditioned totality. Since countless terms forever
+remain unreached, the series is forever limited by them. Kant himself
+admits that it _can never be completed_, and is only potentially
+infinite; actually, therefore, by his own admission, it is finite. But a
+last term implies a first, as absolutely as one end of a string implies
+the other; the only possibility of an unconditioned lies in Kant's first
+alternative, and if, as he maintains Reason must demand it, she can not
+hesitate in her decisions. That _number is a limitation_ is no new
+truth, and that every series involves number is self-evident; and it is
+surprising that so radical a criticism on Kant's system should never
+have suggested itself to his opponents. Even the so-called _moments_ of
+time can not be regarded as constituting a real series, for a series can
+not be real except through its divisibility into members whereas time is
+indivisible, and its partition into moments is a conventional fiction.
+Exterior limitability and interior divisibility result equally from the
+possibility of discontinuity. Exterior illimitability and interior
+indivisibility are simple phases of the same attribute of _necessary
+continuity_ contemplated under different aspects. From this principle
+flows another upon which it is impossible to lay too much stress,
+namely; _illimitability and indivisibility, infinity and unity,
+reciprocally necessitate each other_. Hence the Quantitative Infinites
+must be also Units, and the division of space and time, implying
+absolute contradiction, is not even cogitable as an hypothesis.[220]
+
+"The word _infinite_, therefore, in mathematical usage, as applied to
+_process_ and to _quantity_, has a two-fold signification. An infinite
+process is one which we can continue _as long as we please_, but which
+exists solely in our continuance of it.[221] An infinite quantity is one
+which exceeds our powers of mensuration or of conception, but which,
+nevertheless, has bounds and limits in itself.[222] Hence the
+possibility of relation among infinite quantities, and of different
+orders of infinities. If the words _infinite, infinity, infinitesimal_,
+should be banished from mathematical treatises and replaced by the words
+_indefinite, indefinity,_ and _indefinitesimal_, mathematics would
+suffer no loss, while, by removing a perpetual source of confusion,
+metaphysics would get great gain."
+
+[Footnote 220: By the application of these principles the writer in the
+"North American Review" completely dissolves the antinomies by which
+Hamilton seeks to sustain his "Philosophy of the Conditioned." See
+"North American Review," 1864, pp. 432-437.]
+
+[Footnote 221: De Morgan, "Diff. and Integ. Calc." p. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 222: Id., ib., p. 25.]
+
+The above must be regarded as a complete refutation of the position
+taken by _Hume_, to wit, that the idea of nature eternally existing in a
+state of order, without a cause other than the eternally inherent laws
+of nature, is no more self-contradictory than the idea of an
+eternally-existing and infinite mind, who originated this order--a God
+existing without a cause. The eternal and infinite Mind is indivisible
+and illimitable; nature, in its totality, as well as in its individual
+parts, has interior divisibility, and exterior limitability. The
+infinity of God is not a _quantitative_, but a _qualitative_ infinity.
+The miscalled eternity and infinity of nature is an _indefinite_
+extension and protension in time and space, and, as _quantitative_, must
+necessarily be limited and measurable, therefore _finite_.
+
+The universe of sense-perception and sensuous imagination is a
+phenomenal universe, a genesis, a perpetual becoming, an entrance into
+existence, and an exit thence; the Theist is, therefore, perfectly
+justified in regarding it as disqualified for _self-existence_, and in
+passing behind it for the Supreme Entity that needs no cause. Phenomena
+demand causation, entities dispense with it. No one asks for a cause of
+the _space_ which contains the universe, or of the Eternity on the bosom
+of which it floats. Everywhere the line is necessarily drawn upon the
+same principle; that entities _may_ have self-existence, phenomena
+_must_ have a cause.[223]
+
+[Footnote 223: "Science, Nescience, and Faith," in Martineau's "Essays,"
+p. 206.]
+
+IV. _Psychological analysis clearly attests that in the phenomena of
+consciousness there are found elements or principles which, in their
+regular and normal development, transcend the limits of consciousness,
+and attain to the knowledge of Absolute Being, Absolute Reason, Absolute
+Good_, i.e., GOD.
+
+The analysis of thought clearly reveals that the mind of man is in
+possession of ideas, notions, beliefs, principles (as _e.g._, the idea
+of space, duration, cause, substance, unity, infinity), which are not
+derived from sensation and experience, and which can not be drawn out of
+sensation and experience by any process of generalization. These ideas
+have this incontestable peculiarity, as distinguished from all the
+phenomena of sensation, that, whilst the latter are particular,
+contingent, and relative, the former are _universal_, _necessary_, and
+_absolute_. As an example, and a proof of the reality and validity of
+this distinction, take the ideas of _body_ and of _space_, the former
+unquestionably derived from experience, the latter supplied by reason
+alone. "I ask you, can not you conceive this book to be destroyed?
+Without doubt you can. And can not you conceive the whole world to be
+destroyed, and no matter whatever in existence? You can. For you,
+constituted as you are, the supposition of the non-existence of bodies
+implies no contradiction. And what do we call the idea of a thing which
+we can conceive of as non-existing? We call it a _contingent_ and
+_relative_ idea. But if you can conceive this book to be destroyed, all
+bodies destroyed, can you suppose space to be destroyed? You can not. It
+is in the power of man's thought to conceive the non-existence of
+bodies; it is not in the power of man's thought to conceive the
+non-existence of space. The idea of space is thus a _necessary_ and
+_absolute_ idea."[224]
+
+[Footnote 224: Cousin's "Hist. of Philos.," vol. ii. p. 214.]
+
+Take, again, the ideas of _event_ and _cause_. The idea of an event is a
+_contingent_ idea; it is the idea of something which might or might not
+have happened. There is no impossibility or contradiction in either
+supposition. The idea of cause is a _necessary_ idea. An event being
+given, the idea of cause is necessarily implied. An uncaused event is an
+impossible conception. The idea of cause is also a _universal_ idea
+extending to all events, actual or conceivable, and affirmed by all
+minds. It is a rational fact, attested by universal consciousness, that
+we can not think of an event transpiring without a cause; of a thing
+being the author of its own existence; of something generated by and out
+of nothing. _Ex nihilo nihil_ is a universal law of thought and of
+things. This universal "law of causality" is clearly distinguishable
+from a _general_ truth reached by induction. For example, it is a very
+general truth that, during twenty-four hours, day is succeeded by night.
+But this is not a necessary truth, neither is it a universal truth. It
+does not extend to all known lands, as, for example, to Nova Zembla. It
+does not hold true of the other planets. Nor does it extend to all
+possible lands. We can easily conceive of lands plunged in eternal
+night, or rolling in eternal day. With another system of worlds, one can
+conceive other physics, but one can not conceive other metaphysics. It
+is impossible to imagine a world in which the law of causality does not
+reign. Here, then, we have one absolute principle (among others which
+may be enumerated), the existence and reality of which is revealed, not
+by sensation, but by reason--a principle which transcends the limits of
+experience, and which, in its regular and logical development, attains
+the knowledge of the Absolute Cause--the First Cause of all causes--God.
+
+Thus it is evident that the human mind is in possession of two distinct
+orders of primitive cognitions,--one, contingent, relative, and
+phenomenal; the other universal, necessary, and absolute. These two
+distinct orders of cognition presuppose the existence in man of two
+distinct faculties or organs of knowledge--_sensation_, external and
+internal, which perceives the contingent, relative, and phenomenal, and
+_reason_, which apprehends the universal, necessary, and absolute. The
+knowledge which is derived from sensation and experience is called
+_empirical_ knowledge, or knowledge _à posteriori_, because subsequent
+to, and consequent upon, the exercise of the faculties of observation.
+The knowledge derived from reason is called _transcendental_ knowledge,
+or knowledge _à priori_, because it furnishes laws to, and governs the
+exercise of the faculties of observation and thought, and is not the
+result of their exercise. The sensibility brings the mind into relation
+with the _physical_ world, the reason puts mind in communication with
+the _intelligible_ world--the sphere of _à priori_ principles, of
+necessary and absolute truths, which depend upon neither the world nor
+the conscious self, and which reveal to man the existence of the soul,
+nature, and God. Every distinct fact of consciousness is thus at once
+_psychological_ and _ontological_, and contains these three fundamental
+ideas, which we can not go beyond, or cancel by any possible
+analysis--the _soul_, with its faculties; _matter_, with its qualities;
+_God_, with his perfections.
+
+We do not profess to be able to give a clear explication and complete
+enumeration of all the ideas of reason, and of the necessary and
+universal principles or axioms which are grounded on these ideas. This
+is still the grand desideratum of metaphysical science. Its achievement
+will give us a primordial logic, which shall be as exact in its
+procedure and as certain in its conclusions as the mathematical
+sciences. Meantime, it may be affirmed that philosophic analysis, in the
+person of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Cousin, has succeeded in
+disengaging such _à priori_ ideas, and formulating such principles and
+laws of thought, as lead infallibly to the cognition of the _Absolute
+Being_, the _Absolute Reason_, the _Absolute Good_, that is, GOD.
+
+It would carry us too far beyond our present design were we to exhibit,
+in each instance, the process of _immediate abstraction_ by which the
+contingent and relative element of knowledge is eliminated, and the
+necessary and absolute principle is disengaged. We shall simply state
+the method, and show its application by a single illustration.
+
+There are unquestionably _two_ sorts of abstraction: 1. "_Comparative_
+abstraction, operating upon several real objects, and seizing their
+resemblances in order to form an abstract idea, which is collective and
+mediate; collective, because different individuals concur in its
+formation; mediate, because it requires several intermediate
+operations." This is the method of the physical sciences, which
+comprises comparison, abstraction, and generalization. The result in
+this process is the attainment of a _general_ truth. 2. "_Immediate_
+abstraction, not comparative; operating not upon several concretes, but
+upon a single one, eliminating and neglecting its individual and
+variable part, and disengaging the absolute part, which it raises at
+once to its pure form." The parts to be eliminated in a concrete
+cognition are, first, the quality of the object, and the circumstances
+under which the absolute unfolds itself; and secondly, the quality of
+the subject, which perceives but does not constitute it. The phenomena
+of the me and the not-me being eliminated, the absolute remains. This is
+the process of rational psychology, and the result obtained is a
+_universal_ and _necessary_ truth.
+
+"Let us take, as an example, the principle of cause. To be able to say
+that the event I see must have a cause, it is not indispensable to have
+seen several events succeed each other. The principle which compels me
+to pronounce this judgment is already complete in the first as in the
+last event; it can not change in respect to its object, it can not
+change in itself; it neither increases nor decreases with the greater or
+less number of applications. The only difference that it is subject to
+in regard to us is that we apply it, whether we remark it or not,
+whether we disengage it or not from its particular application. The
+question is not to eliminate the particularity of the phenomenon wherein
+it appears to us, whether it be the fall of a leaf or the murder of a
+man, in order immediately to conceive, in a general and abstract manner,
+the necessity of a cause for every event that begins to exist. Here it
+is not because I am the same, or have been affected in the same manner
+in several different cases, that I have come to this general and
+abstract conception. A leaf falls; at the same moment I think, I
+believe, I declare that this falling of the leaf must have a cause. A
+man has been killed; at the same instant I believe, I proclaim that this
+death must have a cause. Each one of these facts contains particular and
+variable circumstances, and something universal and necessary, to wit,
+both of them can not but have a cause. Now I am perfectly able to
+disengage the universal from the particular in regard to the first fact
+as well as in regard to the second fact, for the universal is in the
+first quite as well as in the second. In fact, if the principle of
+causality is not universal in the first fact, neither will it be in the
+second, nor in the third, nor in the thousandth; for a thousandth is not
+nearer than the first to the infinite--to absolute universality. It is
+the same, and still more evidently, with _necessity_. Pay particular
+attention to this point; if necessity is not in the first fact, it can
+not be in any; for necessity can not be formed little by little, and by
+successive increments. If, on the first murder I see, I do not exclaim
+that this murder had necessarily a cause, at the thousandth murder,
+although it shall be proved that all the others had causes, I shall have
+the right to think that this murder has, very probably, also a cause,
+but I shall never have the right to say that it _necessarily_ had a
+cause. But when universality and necessity are already in a single case,
+that case is sufficient to entitle me to deduce them from it,"[225] and
+we may add, also, to affirm them of every other event that may
+transpire.
+
+[Footnote 225: Cousin, "True, Beautiful, and Good," pp. 57, 58.]
+
+The following _schema_ will exhibit the generally accepted results of
+this method of analysis applied to the phenomena of thought:
+
+(i.) _Universal and necessary principles, or primitive judgments from
+whence is derived the cognition of Absolute Being_.
+
+1. _The principle of Substance_; thus enounced--"every quality supposes
+a _subject_ or real being."
+
+2. _The principle of Causality_; "every thing that begins to be supposes
+a _power_ adequate to its production, _i.e._, an efficient cause."
+
+3. _The principle of Unity_; "all differentiation and plurality supposes
+an incomposite unity; all diversity, an ultimate and indivisible
+identity."
+
+4. _The principle of the Unconditioned_; "the finite supposes the
+infinite, the dependent supposes the self-existent, the temporal
+supposes the eternal."
+
+(ii.) _Universal and necessary principles, or primitive judgments, from
+which is derived the cognition of the Absolute Reason_.
+
+1. _The principle of Ideality_; thus enounced, "facts of order--definite
+proportion, symmetrical arrangement, numerical relation, geometrical
+form--having a commencement in time, present themselves to us as the
+expression of _Ideas_, and refer us to _Mind_ as their analogon, and
+exponent, and source."
+
+2. _The principle of Consecution_; "the uniform succession and
+progressive evolution of new existences, according to fixed definite
+archetypes, suppose a unity of _thought_--a comprehensive _plan_
+embracing all existence."
+
+3. _The principle of Intentionality or Final Cause_; "every means
+supposes an _end_ contemplated, and a choice and adaptation of means to
+secure the _end_."
+
+4. _The principle of Personality_; "intelligent purpose and voluntary
+choice imply a personal agent."
+
+(iii.) _Universal and necessary principles, or primitive judgments, from
+whence is derived the cognition of the Absolute Good_.
+
+1. _The principle of Moral Law_; thus enounced, "the action of a
+voluntary agent necessarily characterized as _right_ or _wrong_,
+supposes an immutable and universal standard of right--an absolute moral
+Law."
+
+2. _The principle of Moral Obligation_; "the feeling of obligation to
+obey a law of duty supposes a _Lawgiver_ by whose authority we are
+obliged."
+
+3. _The principle of Moral Desert_; "the feeling of personal
+accountability and of moral desert supposes a _judge_ to whom we must
+give account, and who shall determine our award."
+
+4. _The pnnciple of Retribution_; "retributive issues in this life, and
+the existence in all minds of an impersonal justice which demands that,
+in the final issue, every being shall receive his just deserts, suppose
+a being of _absolute justice_ who shall render to every man according to
+his works."
+
+A more profound and exhaustive analysis may perhaps resolve all these
+primitive judgments into one universal principle or law, which Leibnitz
+has designated "_The principle or law of sufficient reason_," and which
+is thus enounced--there must be an ultimate and sufficient reason why
+any thing exists, and why it is, rather than otherwise; that is, if any
+thing begins to be, something else must be supposed as the adequate
+ground, and reason, and cause of its existence; or again, to state the
+law in view of our present discussion, "_if the finite universe, with
+its existing order and arrangement, had a beginning, there must be an
+ultimate and sufficient reason why it exists, and why it is as it is,
+rather than otherwise_." In view of one particular class of phenomena,
+or special order of facts, this "principle of sufficient reason" may be
+varied in the form of its statement, and denominated "the principle of
+substance," "the principle of causality," "the principle of
+intentionality," etc.; and, it may be, these are but specific judgments
+under the one fundamental and generic law of thought which constitutes
+the _major_ premise of every Theistic syllogism.
+
+These fundamental principles, primitive judgments, axioms, or necessary
+and determinate forms of thought, exist potentially or germinally in all
+human minds; they are spontaneously developed in presence of the
+phenomena of the universe, material and mental; they govern the original
+movement of the mind, even when not appearing in consciousness in their
+pure and abstract form; and they compel us to affirm _a permanent being_
+or _reality_ behind all phenomena--a _power_ adequate to the production
+of change, back of all events; a _personal Mind_, as the explanation of
+all the facts of order, and uniform succession, and regular evolution;
+and a _personal Lawgiver_ and _Righteous Judge_ as the ultimate ground
+and reason of all the phenomena of the moral world; in short, to affirm
+_an Unconditioned Cause of all finite and secondary causes; a First
+Principle of all principles; an Ultimate Reason of all reasons; an
+immutable Uncreated Justice, the living light of conscience; a King
+immortal, eternal, invisible, the only wise God, the ruler of the world
+and man_.
+
+Our position, then, is, that the idea of God is revealed to man in the
+natural and spontaneous development of his intelligence, and that the
+existence of a Supreme Reality corresponding to, and represented by this
+idea, is rationally and logically demonstrable, and therefore justly
+entitled to take rank as part of our legitimate, valid, and positive
+_knowledge_.
+
+And now from this position, which we regard as impregnable, we shall be
+prepared more deliberately and intelligibly to contemplate the various
+assaults which are openly or covertly made upon the doctrine that _God
+is cognizable by human reason_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE UNKNOWN GOD (_continued_).
+
+IS GOD COGNIZABLE BY REASON?
+
+
+"The abnegation of reason is not the evidence of faith, but the
+confession of despair."--LIGHTFOOT.
+
+At the outset of this inquiry we attempted a hasty grouping of the
+various parties and schools which are arrayed against the doctrine that
+God is cognizable by human reason, and in general terms we sought to
+indicate the ground they occupy.
+
+Viewed from a philosophical stand-point, we found one party marshalled
+under the standard of Idealism; another of Materialism and, again,
+another of Natural Realism. Regarded in their theological aspects, some
+are positive Atheists; others, strange to say, are earnest Theists;
+whilst others occupy a position of mere Indifferentism. Yet,
+notwithstanding the remarkable diversity, and even antagonism of their
+philosophical and theological opinions, they are all agreed in denying
+to reason any valid cognition of God.
+
+The survey of Natural Theism we have completed in the previous chapter
+will enable us still further to indicate the exact points against which
+their attacks are directed, and also to estimate the character and force
+of the weapons employed. With or without design, they are, each in their
+way, assailing one or other of the principles upon which we rest our
+demonstration of the being of God. As we proceed, we shall find that
+Mill and the Constructive Idealists are really engaged in undermining
+"the _principle of substance_;" their doctrine is a virtual denial of
+all objective realities answering to our subjective ideas of matter,
+mind, and God. The assaults of Comte and the Materialists of his school
+are mainly directed against "_the principle of causality_" and "_the
+principle of intentionality_;" they would deny to man all knowledge of
+causes, efficient and final. The attacks of Hamilton and his school are
+directed against "the _principle of the unconditioned_," his philosophy
+of the conditioned is a plausible attempt to deprive man of all power to
+think the Infinite and Perfect, to conceive the Unconditioned and
+Ultimate Cause; whilst the Dogmatic Theologians are borrowing, and
+recklessly brandishing, the weapons of all these antagonists, and, in
+addition to all this, are endeavoring to show the insufficiency of "_the
+principle of unity_" and the weakness and invalidity of "the _moral
+principles_," which are regarded by us as relating man to a Moral
+Personality, and as indicating to him the existence of a righteous God,
+the ruler of the world. It is necessary, therefore, that we should
+concentrate our attention yet more specifically on these separate lines
+of attack, and attempt a minuter examination of the positions assumed by
+each, and of the arguments by which they are seeking, directly or
+indirectly, to invalidate the fundamental principles of Natural Theism.
+
+(i.) _We commence with the Idealistic School_, of which John Stuart Mill
+must be regarded as the ablest living representative.
+
+The doctrine of this school is that all our knowledge is necessarily
+confined to _mental_ phenomena; that is, "to _feelings_ or states of
+consciousness," and "the succession and co-existence, the likeness and
+unlikeness between these feelings or states of consciousness."[226] All
+our general notions, all our abstract ideas, are generated out of these
+feelings[227] by "_inseparable association_," which registers their
+inter-relations of recurrence, co-existence, and resemblance. The
+results of this inseparable association constitute at once the sum total
+and the absolute limit of all possible cognition.
+
+[Footnote 226: J. S. Mill, "Logic," vol. i. p. 83 (English edition).]
+
+[Footnote 227: In the language of Mill, every thing of which we are
+conscious is called "feeling." "Feeling, in the proper sense of the
+term, is a genus of which Sensation, Emotion, and Thought are the
+subordinate species."--"Logic," bk. i. ch. iii. § 3.]
+
+It is admitted by Mill that one _apparent_ element in this total result
+is the general conviction that our own existence is really distinct from
+the external world, and that the personal _ego_ has an essential
+identity distinct from the fleeting phenomena of sensation. But this
+persuasion is treated by him as a mere illusion--a leap beyond the
+original datum for which we have no authority. Of a real substance or
+substratum called Mind, of a real substance or substratum called Matter,
+underlying the series of feelings--"the thread of consciousness"--we do
+know and can know nothing; and in affirming the existence of such
+substrata we are making a supposition we can not possibly verify. The
+ultimate datum of speculative philosophy is not "_I think_," but simply
+"_Thoughts or feelings are_." The belief in a permanent subject or
+substance, called matter, as the ground and plexus of physical
+phenomena, and of a permanent subject or substance, called mind, as the
+ground and plexus of mental phenomena, is not a primitive and original
+intuition οf reason. It is simply through the action of the principle of
+association among the ultimate phenomena, called feelings, that this
+(erroneous) separation of the phenomena into two orders or
+aggregates--one called mind or self; the other matter, or not
+self--takes place; and without this curdling or associating process no
+such notion or belief could have been generated. "The principle of
+substance," as an ultimate law of thought, is, therefore, to be regarded
+as a transcendental dream.
+
+But now that the notion of _mind_ or _self_, and of _matter_ or not
+_self_, do exist as common convictions of our race, what is philosophy
+to make of them? After a great many qualifications and explanations, Mr.
+Mill has, in his "Logic," summed up his doctrine of Constructive
+Idealism in the following words: "As body is the mysterious _something_
+which excites the mind to feel, so mind is the mysterious _something_
+which feels and thinks."[228] But what is this "mysterious something?"
+Is it a reality, an entity, a subject; or is it a shadow, an illusion, a
+dream? In his "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," where it
+may be presumed, we have his maturest opinions, Mr. Mill, in still more
+abstract and idealistic phraseology, attempts an answer. Here he defines
+matter as "_a permanent possibility of sensation_,"[229] and mind as "_a
+permanent possibility of feeling_."[230] And "the belief in these
+permanent possibilities," he assures us, "includes all that is essential
+or characteristic in the belief in substance."[231] "If I am asked,"
+says he, "whether I believe in matter, I ask whether the questioner
+accepts this definition of it. If he does, I believe in matter: and so
+do all Berkeleians. In any other sense than this, I do not. But I affirm
+with confidence that this conception of matter includes the whole
+meaning attached to it by the common world, apart from philosophical,
+and sometimes from theological theories. The reliance of mankind on the
+real existence of visible and tangible objects, means reliance on the
+reality and permanence of possibilities of visual and tactual
+sensations, when no sensations are actually experienced."[232]
+"Sensations," however, let it be borne in mind, are but a subordinate
+species of the genus feeling.[233] They are "states of
+consciousness"--phenomena of mind, not of matter; and we are still
+within the impassable boundary of ideal phenomena; we have yet no
+cognition of an external world. The sole cosmical conception, for us, is
+still a succession of sensations, or states of consciousness. This is
+the one phenomenon which we can not transcend in knowledge, do what we
+will; all else is hypothesis and illusion. The _non-ego_, after all,
+then, may be but a mode in which the mind represents to itself the
+possible modifications of the _ego_.
+
+[Footnote 228: "Logic," bk. i, ch. iii. § 8.]
+
+[Footnote 229: "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 243.]
+
+[Footnote 230: Ibid., vol. i. p. 253.]
+
+[Footnote 231: Ibid., vol. i. p. 246.]
+
+[Footnote 232: Ibid., vol. i. pp. 243, 244.]
+
+[Footnote 233: "Logic," bk. i. ch. iii. § 3.]
+
+And now that matter, as a real existence, has disappeared under Mr.
+Mill's analysis, what shall be said of mind or self? Is there any
+permanent subject or real entity underlying the phenomena of feeling? In
+feeling, is there a personal self that feels, thinks, and wills? It
+would seem not. Mind, as well as matter, resolves itself into a "series
+of feelings," varying and fugitive from moment to moment, in a sea of
+possibilities of feeling. "My mind," says Mill, "is but a series of
+feelings, or, as it has been called, a thread of consciousness, however
+supplemented by believed possibilities of consciousness, which are not,
+though they might be, realized."[234]
+
+[Footnote 234: "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 254.]
+
+The ultimate fact of the phenomenal world, then, in the philosophy of
+Mill, is neither matter nor mind, but feelings or states of
+consciousness associated together by the relations, amongst themselves,
+of recurrence, co-existence, and resemblance. The existence of self,
+except as "a series of feelings;" the existence of any thing other than
+self, except as a feigned unknown cause of sensation, is rigorously
+denied. Mr. Mill does not content himself with saying that we are
+ignorant of the _nature_ of matter and mind, but he asserts we are
+ignorant of the _existence_ of matter and mind as real entities.
+
+The bearing of this doctrine of Idealism upon Theism and Theology will
+be instantly apparent to the reader. If I am necessarily ignorant of the
+existence of the external world, and of the personal _ego_, or real
+self, I must be equally ignorant of the existence of God. If one is a
+mere supposition, an illusion, so the other must be. Mr. Mill, however,
+is one of those courteous and affable writers who are always conscious,
+as it were, of the presence of their readers, and extremely careful not
+to shock their feelings or prejudices; besides, he has too much
+conscious self-respect to avow himself an atheist. As a speculative
+philosopher, he would rather regard Theism and Theology as "open
+questions," and he satisfies himself with saying, if you believe in the
+existence of God, or in Christianity, I do not interfere with you. "As a
+theory," he tells us that his doctrine leaves the evidence of the
+existence of God exactly as it was before. Supposing me to believe that
+the Divine mind is simply the series of the Divine thoughts and feelings
+prolonged through eternity, that would be, at any rate, believing God's
+existence to be _as real as my own_[235]. And as for evidence, the
+argument of Paley's 'Natural Theology,' or, for that matter, of his
+'Evidences of Christianity,' would stand exactly as it does.
+
+The design argument is drawn from the analogies of human experience.
+From the relation which human works bear to human thoughts and feelings,
+it infers a corresponding relation between works more or less similar,
+but superhuman, and superhuman thoughts and feelings. _If_ it prove
+these, nobody but a metaphysician needs care whether or not it proves a
+mysterious _substratum_ for them.[236] The argument from design, it
+seems to us, however, would have no validity if there be no external
+world offering marks of design. If the external world is only a mode of
+feeling, a series of mental states, then our notion of the Divine
+Existence may be only "an association of feelings"--a mode of Self. And
+if we have no positive knowledge of a real self as existing, and God's
+existence is no more "real than our own," then the Divine existence
+stands on a very dubious and uncertain foundation. It can have no very
+secure hold upon the human mind, and certainly has no claim to be
+regarded as a fundamental and necessary belief. That it has a very
+precarious hold upon the mind of Mr. Mill, is evident from the following
+passage in his article on "_Later Speculations of A. Comte_."[237] "We
+venture to think that a religion may exist without a belief in a God,
+and that a religion without a God may be, even to Christians, an
+instructive and profitable object of contemplation."
+
+And now let us close Mr. Mill's book, and, introverting our mental gaze,
+interrogate _consciousness_, the verdict of which, even Mr. Mill assures
+us, is admitted on all hands to be a decision without appeal.[238]
+
+[Footnote 235: "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 254.]
+
+[Footnote 236: "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 259.]
+
+[Footnote 237: Westminster Review, July, 1835 (American edition), p. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 238: "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 161.]
+
+1. We have an ineradicable, and, as it would seem, an intuitive faith in
+the real existence of an external world distinct from our sensations,
+and also of a personal self, which we call "I," "myself," as distinct
+from "my sensations," and "my feelings." We find, also, that this is
+confessedly the common belief of mankind. There have been a few
+philosophers who have affected to treat this belief as a "mere
+prejudice," an "illusion;" but they have never been able, practically,
+so to regard and treat it. Their language, just as plainly as the
+language of the common people, betrays their instinctive faith in an
+outer world, and proves their utter inability to emancipate themselves
+from this "prejudice," if such it may please them to call it. In view of
+this acknowledged fact, we ask--Does the term "_permanent possibility of
+sensations_" exhaust all that is contained in this conception of an
+external world? This evening I _remember_ that at noonday I beheld the
+sun, and experienced a sensation of warmth whilst exposing myself to his
+rays; and I _expect_ that to-morrow, under the same conditions, I shall
+experience the same sensations. I now _remember_ that last evening I
+extinguished my light and attempted to leave my study, but, coming in
+contact with the closed door, experienced a sense of resistance to my
+muscular effort, by a solid and extended body exterior to myself; and I
+_expect_ that this evening, under the same circumstances, I shall
+experience the same sensations. Now, does a belief in "a permanent
+possibility of sensations" explain all these experiences? does it
+account for that immediate knowledge of an _external_ object which I had
+on looking at the sun, or that presentative knowledge of _resistance_
+and _extension_, and of an extended, resisting _substance_, I had when
+in contact with the door of my study? Mr. Mill very confidently affirms
+that this belief includes all; and this phrase expresses all the meaning
+attached to extended "matter" and resisting "substance" by the common
+world.[239] We as confidently affirm that it does no such thing; and as
+"the common world" must be supposed to understand the language of
+consciousness as well as the philosopher, we are perfectly willing to
+leave the decision of that question to the common consciousness of our
+race. If all men do not believe in a permanent _reality_--a substance
+which is external to themselves, a substance which offers resistance to
+their muscular effort, and which produces in them the sensations of
+solidity, extension, resistance, etc.--they believe nothing and know
+nothing at all about the matter.
+
+[Footnote 239: "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 243.]
+
+Still less does the phrase "_a permanent possibility of feelings"_
+exhaust all our conception of a personal self. Recurring to the
+experiences of yesterday, I _remember_ the feelings I experienced on
+beholding the sun, and also on pressing against the closed door, and I
+confidently _expect_ the recurrence, under the same circumstances, of
+the same feelings. Does the belief in "a permanent possibility of
+feelings" explain the act of memory by which I recall the past event,
+and the act of prevision by which I anticipate the recurrence of the
+like experience in the future? Who or what is the "I" that remembers and
+the "I" that anticipates? The "ego," the personal mind, is, according to
+Mill, a mere "series of feelings," or, more correctly, a flash of
+"_present_ feelings" on "a background of possibilities of present
+feelings."[240] If, then, there be no permanent substance or reality
+which is the subject of the present feeling, which receives and retains
+the impress of the past feeling, and which anticipates the recurrence of
+like feelings in the future, how can the _past_ be recalled, how
+distinguished from the present? and how, without a knowledge of the past
+as distinguished from the present, can the _future_ be forecast? Mr.
+Mill feels the pressure of this difficulty, and frankly acknowledges it.
+He admits that, on the hypothesis that mind is simply "a series of
+feelings," the phenomena of memory and expectation are "inexplicable"
+and "incomprehensible."[241] He is, therefore, under the necessity of
+completing his definition of mind by adding that it is a series of
+feelings which "_is aware of itself as a series_;" and, still further,
+of supplementing this definition by the conjecture that "_something
+which has ceased to exist, or is not yet in existence, can still, in a
+manner, be present_."[242] Now he who can understand how a series of
+feelings can flow on in time, and from moment to moment drop out of the
+present into non-existence, and yet be _present_ and _conscious of
+itself as a series_, may be accorded the honor of understanding Mr.
+Mill's definition of mind or self, and may be permitted to rank himself
+as a distinguished disciple of the Idealist school; for ourselves, we
+acknowledge we are destitute of the capacity to do the one, and of all
+ambition to be the other. And he who can conceive how the _past_ feeling
+of yesterday and the _possible_ feeling of to-morrow can be in any
+manner _present_ to-day; or, in other words, how any thing which has
+ceased to exist, or which never had an existence, can _now_ exist, may
+be permitted to believe that a thing can be and not be at the same
+moment, that a part is greater than the whole, and that two and two make
+five; but we are not ashamed to confess our inability to believe a
+contradiction. To our understanding, "possibilities of feeling" are not
+actualities. They may or may not be realized, and until realized in
+consciousness, they have no real being. If there be no other background
+of mental phenomena save mere "possibilities of feeling," then present
+feelings are the only existences, the only reality, and a loss of
+immediate consciousness, as in narcosis and coma, is the loss of all
+personality, all self-hood, and of all real being.
+
+[Footnote 240: "Exam. of Hamilton," vol. i. p. 260.]
+
+[Footnote 241: Ibid, p. 262.]
+
+[Footnote 242: Ibid.]
+
+2. What, then, is the verdict of consciousness as to the existence of a
+permanent substance, an abiding existence which is the subject of all
+the varying phenomena? Of what are we really conscious when we say "I
+think," "I feel," "I will?" Are we simply conscious of thought, feeling,
+and volition, or of a self, a person, which thinks, feels, and wills?
+The man who honestly and unreservedly accepts the testimony of
+consciousness in all its integrity must answer at once, _we have an
+immediate consciousness, not merely of the phenomena of mind, but of a
+personal self as passively or actively related to the phenomena_. We are
+conscious not merely of the act of volition, but of a self, a power,
+producing the volition. We are conscious not merely of feeling, but of a
+being who is the subject of the feeling. We are conscious not simply of
+thought, but of a real entity that thinks. "It is clearly a flat
+contradiction to maintain that I am not immediately conscious of myself,
+but only of my sensations or volitions. Who, then, is that _I_ that is
+conscious, and how can I be conscious of such states as _mine?_"[243]
+
+[Footnote 243: Mansel, "Prolegomena Logica," p. 122, and note E, p.
+281.]
+
+The testimony of consciousness, then, is indubitable that we have a
+direct, immediate cognition of _self_--I know myself as a distinctly
+existing being. This permanent self, to which I refer the earlier and
+later stages of consciousness, the past as well as the present feeling,
+and which I know abides the same under all phenomenal changes,
+constitutes my personal identity. It is this abiding self which unites
+the past and the present, and, from the present stretches onward to the
+future. We know self immediately, as existing, as in active operation,
+and as having permanence--or, in other words, as a "_substance_." This
+one immediately presented substance, myself, may be regarded as
+furnishing a positive basis for that other notion of substance, which is
+representatively thought, as the subject of all sensible qualities.
+
+3. We may now inquire what is the testimony of consciousness as to the
+existence of the extra-mental world? Are we conscious of perceiving
+external objects immediately and in themselves, or only mediately
+through some vicarious image or representative idea to which we
+fictitiously ascribe an objective reality?
+
+The answer of common sense is that we are immediately conscious, in
+perception, of an _ego_ and a _non-ego_ known together, and known in
+contrast to each other; we are conscious of a perceiving subject, and of
+an external reality, as the object perceived.[244] To state this
+doctrine of natural realism still more explicitly we add, that we are
+conscious of the immediate perception of certain essential attributes of
+matter objectively existing. Of these primary qualities, which are
+immediately perceived as real and objectively existing, we mention
+_extension_ in space and _resistance_ to muscular effort, with which is
+indissolubly associated the idea of _externality_. It is true that
+extension and resistance are only qualities, but it is equally true that
+they are qualities of something, and of something which is external to
+ourselves. Let any one attempt to conceive of extension without
+something which is extended, or of resistance apart from something which
+offers resistance, and he will be convinced that we can never know
+qualities without knowing substance, just as we can not know substance
+without knowing qualities. This, indeed, is admitted by Mr. Mill.[245]
+And if this be admitted, it must certainly be absurd to speak of
+substance as something "unknown." Substance is known just as much as
+quality is known, no less and no more.
+
+[Footnote 244: Hamilton, "Lectures," vol. 1. p. 288.]
+
+[Footnote 245: "Logic," bk. i. ch. iii. § 6.]
+
+We remark, in conclusion, that if the testimony of consciousness is not
+accepted in all its integrity, we are necessarily involved in the
+Nihilism of Hume and Fichte; the phenomena of mind and matter are, on
+analysis, resolved into an absolute nothingness--"a play of phantasms in
+a void."[246]
+
+(ii.) We turn, secondly, to the _Materialistic School_ as represented by
+Aug. Comte.
+
+The doctrine of this school is that all knowledge is limited to
+_material_ phenomena--that is, to appearances _perceptible to sense_. We
+do not know the essence of any object, nor the real mode of procedure of
+any event, but simply its relations to other events, as similar or
+dissimilar, co-existent or successive. These relations are constant;
+under the same conditions, they are always the same. The constant
+resemblances which link phenomena together, and the constant sequences
+which unite them, as antecedent and consequent, are termed _laws_. The
+laws of phenomena are all we know respecting them. Their essential
+nature and their ultimate causes, _efficient_ or _final_, are unknown
+and inscrutable to us.[247]
+
+[Footnote 246: Masson, "Recent British Philos.," p. 62.]
+
+[Footnote 247: See art. "Positive Philos. of A. Comte," _Westminster
+Review_, April, 1865, p. 162, Am. ed.]
+
+It is not our intention to review the system of philosophy propounded by
+Aug. Comte; we are now chiefly concerned with his denial of all
+causation.
+
+1. _As to Efficient Causes_.--Had Comte contented himself with the
+assertion that causes lie beyond the field of sensible observation, and
+that inductive science can not carry us beyond the relations of
+co-existence and succession among phenomena, he would have stated an
+important truth, but certainly not a new truth. It had already been
+announced by distinguished mental philosophers, as, for example, M. de
+Biran and Victor Cousin.[248] The senses give us only the succession of
+one phenomenon to another. I hold a piece of wax to the fire and it
+melts. Here my senses inform me of two successive phenomena--the
+proximity of fire and the melting of wax. It is now agreed among all
+schools of philosophy that this is all the knowledge the senses can
+possibly supply. The observation of a great number of like cases assures
+us that this relation is uniform. The highest scientific generalization
+does not carry us one step beyond this fact. Induction, therefore, gives
+us no access to causes beyond phenomena. Still, this does not justify
+Comte in the assertion that causes are to us absolutely _unknown_. The
+question would still arise whether we have not some faculty of
+knowledge, distinct from sensation, which is adequate to furnish a valid
+cognition of cause. It does not by any means follow that, because the
+idea of causation is not given as a "physical quæsitum" at the end of a
+process of scientific generalization, it should not be a "metaphysical
+datum" posited at the very beginning of scientific inquiry, as the
+indispensable condition of our being able to cognize phenomena at all,
+and as the law under which all thought, and all conception of the system
+of nature, is alone possible.
+
+[Footnote 248: "It is now universally admitted that we have no
+perception of the causal nexus in the material world."--Hamilton,
+"Discussions," p. 522.]
+
+Now we affirm that the human mind has just as direct, immediate, and
+positive knowledge of _cause_ as it has of _effect._ The idea of cause,
+the intuition _power_, is given in the immediate consciousness of _mind
+as determining its own_ operations. Our first, and, in fact, our only
+presentation of power or cause, is that of _self as willing_. In every
+act of volition I am fully conscious that it is in my power to form a
+resolution or to refrain from it, to determine on this course of action
+or that; and this constitutes the immediate presentative knowledge of
+power.[249] The will is a power, a power in action, a productive power,
+and, consequently, a cause. This doctrine is stated with remarkable
+clearness and accuracy by Cousin: "If we seek the notion of cause in the
+action of one ball upon another, as was previously done by Hume, or in
+the action of the hand upon the ball, or the primary muscles upon the
+extremities, or even in the action of the will upon the muscles, as was
+done by M. Maine de Biran, we shall find it in none of these cases, not
+even in the last; for it is possible there should be a paralysis of the
+muscles which deprives the will of power over them, makes it
+unproductive, incapable of being a cause, and, consequently, of
+suggesting the notion of one. But what no paralysis can prevent is the
+action of the will upon itself, the production of a resolution; that is
+to say, the act of causation entirely mental, the primitive type of all
+causality, of which all external movements are only symbols more or less
+imperfect. The first cause for us, is, therefore, the _will_, of which
+the first effect is volition. This is at once the highest and the purest
+source of the notion of cause, which thus becomes identical with that of
+personality. And it is the taking possession, so to speak, of the cause,
+as revealed in will and personality, which is the condition for us of
+the ulterior or simultaneous conception of external, impersonal
+causes."[250]
+
+[Footnote 249: "It is our _immediate consciousness of effort_, when we
+exert force to put matter in motion, or to oppose and neutralize force,
+which gives us this internal conviction of _power_ and _causation_, so
+far as it refers to the material world, and compels us to believe that
+whenever we see material objects put in motion from a state of rest, or
+deflected from their rectilinear paths and changed in their velocities
+if already in motion, it is in consequence of such an _effort_ somehow
+exerted."--Herschel's "Outlines of Astronomy," p. 234; see Mansel's
+"Prolegomena," p. 133.]
+
+[Footnote 250: "Philosophical Fragments," Preface to first edition.]
+
+Thus much for the origin of the idea of cause. We have the same direct
+intuitive knowledge of cause that we have of effect; but we have not yet
+rendered a full and adequate account of the _principle of causality_. We
+have simply attained the notion of our personal causality, and we can
+not arbitrarily substitute our personal causality for all the causes of
+the universe, and erect our own experience as a law of the entire
+universe. We have, however, already seen (Chap. V.) that the belief in
+exterior causation is _necessary_ and _universal_. When a change takes
+place, when a new phenomenon presents itself to our senses, we can not
+avoid the conviction that it must have a cause. We can not even express
+in language the relations of phenomena in time and space, without
+speaking of causes. And there is not a rational being on the face of the
+globe--a child, a savage, or a philosopher--who does not instinctively
+and spontaneously affirm that every movement, every change, every new
+existence, _must_ have a cause. Now what account can philosophy render
+of this universal belief? One answer, and only one, is possible. The
+_reason_ of man (that power of which Comte takes no account) is in fixed
+and changeless relation to the principle of causation, just as _sense_
+is in fixed and changeless relation to exterior phenomena, so that we
+can not know the external world, can not think or speak of phenomenal
+existence, except as _effects_. In the expressive and forcible language
+of Jas. Martineau: "By an irresistible law of thought _all phenomena
+present themselves to us as the expression of power_, and refer us to a
+causal ground whence they issue. This dynamic source we neither see, nor
+hear, nor feel; it is given in _thought_, supplied by the spontaneous
+activity of mind as the correlative prefix to the phenomena
+observed."[251] Unless, then, we are prepared to deny the validity of
+all our rational intuitions, we can not avoid accepting "this subjective
+postulate as a valid law for objective nature." If the intuitions of our
+reason are pronounced deceptive and mendacious, so also must the
+intuitions of the senses be pronounced illusory and false. Our whole
+intellectual constitution is built up on false and erroneous principles,
+and all knowledge of whatever kind must perish by "the contagion of
+uncertainty."
+
+[Footnote 251: "Essays," p. 47.]
+
+Comte, however, is determined to treat the idea of causation as an
+illusion, whether under its psychological form, as _will_, or under its
+scientific form, as _force_. He feels that Theology is inevitable if we
+permit the inquiry into causes;[252] and he is more anxious that
+theology should perish than that truth should prevail. The human will
+must, therefore, be robbed of all semblance of freedom, lest it should
+suggest the idea of a Supreme Will governing nature; and human action,
+like all other phenomena, must be reduced to uniform and necessary law.
+All feelings, ideas, and principles guaranteed to us by consciousness
+are to be cast out of the account. Psychology, resting on
+self-observation, is pronounced a delusion. The immediate consciousness
+of freedom is a dream. Such a procedure, to say the least of it, is
+highly unphilosophical; to say the truth about it, it is obviously
+dishonest. Every fact of human nature, just as much as every fact of
+physical nature, must be accepted in all its integrity, or all must be
+alike rejected. The phenomena of mind can no more be disregarded than
+the phenomena of matter. Rational intuitions, necessary and universal
+beliefs, can no more be ignored than the uniform facts of
+sense-perception, without rendering a system of knowledge necessarily
+incomplete, and a system of truth utterly impossible. Every one truth is
+connected with every other truth in the universe. And yet Comte demands
+that a large class of facts, the most immediate and direct of all our
+cognitions, shall be rejected because they are not in harmony with the
+fundamental assumption of the positive philosophy that all knowledge is
+confined to _phenomena perceptible to sense_. Now it were just as easy
+to cast the Alps into the Mediterranean as to obliterate from the human
+intelligence the primary cognitions of immediate consciousness, or to
+relegate the human reason from the necessary laws of thought. Comte
+himself can not emancipate his own mind from a belief in the validity of
+the testimony of consciousness. How can he know himself as distinct from
+nature, as a living person, as the same being he was ten years ago, or
+even yesterday, except by an appeal to consciousness? Despite his
+earnestly-avowed opinions as to the inutility and fallaciousness of all
+psychological inquiries, he is compelled to admit that "the phenomena of
+life" are "_known by immediate consciousness_."[253] Now the knowledge
+of our personal freedom rests on precisely the same grounds as the
+knowledge of our personal existence. The same "immediate consciousness"
+which attests that I exist, attests also, with equal distinctness and
+directness, that I am self-determined and free.
+
+[Footnote 252: "The _inevitable tendency_ of our intelligence is towards
+a philosophy radically theological, so often as we seek to penetrate, on
+whatever pretext, into the intimate nature of phenomena" (vol. iv. p.
+664).]
+
+[Footnote 253: "Positive Philos," vol. ii. p. 648.]
+
+In common with most atheistical writers, Comte is involved in the fatal
+contradiction of at one time assuming, and at another of denying the
+freedom of the will, to serve the exigencies of his theory. To prove
+that the order of the universe can not be the product of a Supreme
+Intelligence, he assumes that the products of mind must be characterized
+by freedom and variety--the phenomena of mind must not be subject to
+uniform and necessary laws; and inasmuch as the phenomena presented by
+external nature are subject to uniform and changeless laws, they can not
+be the product of mind. "Look at the whole frame of things," says he;
+"how can it be the product of mind--of a supernatural Will? Is it not
+subject to regular laws, and do we not actually obtain _prevision_ of
+its phenomena? If it were the product of mind, its order would be
+variable and free." Here, then, it is admitted that _freedom is an
+essential characteristic of mind_. And this admission is no doubt a
+thoughtless, unconscious betrayal of the innate belief of all minds in
+the freedom of the will. But when Comte comes to deal with this freedom
+as an objective question of philosophy, when he directs his attention to
+the only will of which we have a direct and immediate knowledge, he
+denies freedom and variety, and asserts in the most arbitrary manner
+that the movements of the mind, like all the phenomena of nature, must
+be subject to uniform, changeless, and necessary laws. And if we have
+not yet been able to reduce the movements of mind, like the movements of
+the planets, to statistics, and have not already obtained accurate
+prevision of its successions or sequences as we have of physical
+phenomena, it is simply the consequence of our inattention to, or
+ignorance of, all the facts. We answer, there are no facts so directly
+and intuitively known as the facts of consciousness; and, therefore, an
+argument based upon our supposed ignorance of these facts is not likely
+to have much weight against our immediate consciousness of personal
+freedom. There is not any thing we know so immediately, so certainly, so
+positively, as this fact--_we are free_.
+
+The word "force," representing as it does a subtile menial conception,
+and not a phenomenon of sense, must also be banished from the domains of
+Positive Science as an intruder, lest its presence should lend any
+countenance to the idea of causation. "Forces in mechanics are only
+_movements_, produced, or tending to be produced." In order to "cancel
+altogether the old metaphysical notion of force," another form of
+expression is demanded. It is claimed that all we do know or can
+possibly know is the successions of phenomena in time. What, then, is
+the term which henceforth, in our dynamics, shall take the place of
+"force?" Is it "Time-succession?" Then let any one attempt to express
+the various forms and intensities of movement and change presented to
+the senses (as _e.g._, the phenomena of heat, electricity, galvanism,
+magnetism, muscular and nervous action, etc.) in terms of
+Time-succession, and he will at once become conscious of the utter
+hopelessness of physics, without the hyperphysical idea of force, to
+render itself intelligible.[254] What account can be rendered of
+planetary motion if the terms "centrifugal force" and "centripetal
+force" are abandoned? "From the two great conditions of every Newtonian
+solution, viz., projectile impulse and centripetal tendency, eject the
+idea of _force_, and what remains? The entire conception is simply made
+up of this, and has not the faintest existence without it. It is useless
+to give it notice to quit, and pretend that it is gone when you have
+only put a new name upon the door. We must not call it 'attraction,'
+lest there should seem to be a _power_ within; we are to speak of it
+only as 'gravitation,' because that is only 'weight,' which is nothing
+but a 'fact,' as if it were not a fact that holds a power, a true
+dynamic affair, which no imagination can chop into incoherent
+successions.[255] Nor is the evasion more successful when we try the
+phrase, 'tendency of bodies to mutual approach.' The approach itself may
+be called a phenomenon; but the 'tendency' is no phenomenon, and can not
+be attributed by us to the bodies without regarding them as the
+residence of force. And what are we to say of the _projectile impulse_
+in the case of the planets? Is that also a phenomenon? Who witnessed and
+reported it? Is it not evident that the whole scheme of physical
+astronomy is a resolution of observed facts into dynamic equivalents,
+and that the hypothesis posits for its calculations not phenomena, but
+proper forces? Its logic is this: _If_ an impulse of certain intensity
+were given, and _if_ such and such mutual attractions were constantly
+present, then the sort of motions which we observe in the bodies of our
+system _would follow_. So, however, they also would _if_ willed by an
+Omnipotent Intelligence."[256] It is thus clearly evident that human
+science is unable to offer any explanation of the existing order of the
+universe except in terms expressive of Power or Force; that, in fact,
+all explanations are utterly unintelligible without the idea of
+causation. The language of universal rational intuition is, "all
+phenomena are the expression of power;" the language of science is,
+"every law implies a force."
+
+[Footnote 254: See Grote's "Essay on Correlation of Physical Forces,"
+pp. 18-20; and Martineau's "Essays," p. 135.]
+
+[Footnote 255: "Gravity is a real _power_ of whose agency we have daily
+experience."--Herschel, "Outlines of Astronomy," p. 236.]
+
+[Footnote 256: Martineau's "Essays," p. 56.]
+
+It is furthermore worthy of being noted that, in the modern doctrine of
+the Correlation and Conservation of Forces, science is inevitably
+approaching the idea that all kinds of force are but forms or
+manifestations of some _one_ central force issuing from some _one_
+fountain-head of power. Dr. Carpenter, perhaps the greatest living
+physiologist, teaches that "the form of force _which may be taken as the
+type of all the rest_" is the consciousness of living effort in
+volition.[257] All force, then, is of one type, and that type is mind;
+in its last analysis external causation may be resolved into Divine
+energy. Sir John Herschel does not hesitate to say that "it is
+reasonable to regard the force of gravitation as the direct or indirect
+result of a consciousness or will exerted somewhere."[258] The humble
+Christian may, therefore, feel himself amply justified in still
+believing that "power belongs to God;" that it is through the Divine
+energy "all things are, and are upheld;" and that "in God we live, and
+move, and have our being;" he is the Great First Cause, the
+Fountain-head of all power.
+
+[Footnote 257: "Human Physiology," p. 542.]
+
+[Footnote 258: "Outlines of Astronomy," p. 234.]
+
+2. _As to Final Causes_--that is, reasons, purposes, or ends _for_ which
+things exist--these, we are told by Comte, are all "disproved" by
+Positive Science, which rigidly limits us to "the history of _what is_,"
+and forbids all inquiry into reasons _why it is_. The question whether
+there be any intelligent purpose in the order and arrangement of the
+universe, is not a subject of scientific inquiry at all; and whenever it
+has been permitted to obtrude itself, it has thrown a false light over
+the facts, and led the inquirer astray.
+
+The discoveries of modern astronomy are specially instanced by Comte as
+completely overthrowing the notion of any conscious design or
+intelligent purpose in the universe. The order and stability of the
+solar system are found to be the _necessary_ consequences of
+gravitation, and are adequately explained without any reference to
+purposes or ends to be fulfilled in the disposition and arrangement of
+the heavenly bodies. "With persons unused to the study of the celestial
+bodies, though very likely informed on other parts of natural
+philosophy, astronomy has still the reputation of being a science
+eminently religious, as if the famous words, 'The heavens declare the
+glory of God, had lost none of their truth... No science has given more
+terrible shocks to the doctrine of _final causes_ than astronomy.[259]
+The simple knowledge of the movement of the earth must have destroyed
+the original and real foundation of this doctrine--the idea of the
+universe subordinated to the earth, and consequently to man. Besides,
+the accurate exploration of the solar system could not fail to dispel
+that blind and unlimited admiration which the general order of nature
+inspires, by showing in the most sensible manner, and in a great number
+of different respects, that the orbs were certainly not disposed in the
+most advantageous manner, and that science permits us easily to conceive
+a better arrangement, by the development of true celestial mechanism,
+since Newton. All the theological philosophy, even the most perfect, has
+been henceforth deprived of its principal intellectual function, the
+most regular order being thus consigned as necessarily established and
+maintained in our world, and even in the whole universe, _by the simple
+mutual gravity of its several parts_."[260]
+
+The task of "conceiving a better arrangement" of the celestial orbs, and
+improving the system of the universe generally, we shall leave to those
+who imagine themselves possessed of that omniscience which comprehends
+all the facts and relations of the actual universe, and foreknows all
+the details and relations of all possible universes so accurately as to
+be able to pronounce upon their relative "advantages." The arrogance of
+these critics is certainly in startling and ludicrous contrast with the
+affected modesty which, on other occasions, restrains them from
+"imputing any intentions to nature." It is quite enough for our purpose
+to know that the tracing of evidences of _design_ in those parts of
+nature accessible to our observation is an essentially different thing
+from the construction of a scheme of _optimism_ on _à priori_ grounds
+which shall embrace a universe the larger portion of which is virtually
+beyond the field of observation. We are conscious of possessing some
+rational data and some mental equipment for the former task, but for the
+latter we feel utterly incompetent.[261]
+
+[Footnote 259: In a foot-note Comte adds: "Nowadays, to minds
+familiarized betimes with the true astronomical philosophy, the heavens
+declare no other glory than that of Hipparchus, Kepler, Newton, and all
+those who have contributed to the ascertainment of their laws." It seems
+remarkable that the great men who _ascertained_ these laws did not see
+that the saying of the Psalmist was emptied of all meaning by their
+discoveries. No persons seem to have been more willing than these very
+men named to ascribe all the glory to Him who _established_ these laws.
+Kepler says: "The astronomer, to whom God has given to see more clearly
+with his inward eye, from what he has discovered, both can and will
+glorify God;" and Newton says: "This beautiful system of sun, planets,
+comets could have its origin in no other way than by the purpose and
+command of an intelligent and powerful Being. We admire him on account
+of his perfections, we venerate and worship him on account of his
+government."--Whewell's "Astronomy and Physics," pp. 197, 198.]
+
+[Footnote 260: "Positive Philosophy," vol. ii. pp. 36-38; Tulloch,
+"Theism," p. 115.]
+
+[Footnote 261: Chalmers's "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. pp. 117,
+118.]
+
+The only plausible argument in the above quotation from Comte is, that
+the whole phenomena of the solar system are adequately explained by the
+law of gravitation, without the intervention of any intelligent purpose.
+Let it be borne in mind that it is a fundamental principle of the
+Positive philosophy that all human knowledge is necessarily confined to
+phenomena _perceptible to sense_, and that the fast and highest
+achievement of human science is to observe and record "the invariable
+relations of resemblance and succession among phenomena." We can not
+possibly know any thing of even the existence of "causes" or "forces"
+lying back of phenomena, nor of "reasons" or "purposes" determining the
+relations of phenomena. The "law of gravitation" must, therefore, be
+simply the statement of a fact, the expression of an observed order of
+phenomena. But the simple statement of a fact is no _explanation_ of the
+fact. The formal expression of an observed order of succession among
+phenomena is no _explanation_ of that order. For what do we mean by an
+explanation? Is it not a "making plain" to the understanding? It is, in
+short, a complete answer to the questions _how_ is it so? and _why_ is
+it so? Now, if Comte denies to himself and to us all knowledge of
+efficient and final causation, if we are in utter ignorance of "forces"
+operating in nature, and of "reasons" for which things exist in nature,
+he can not answer either question, and consequently nothing is
+explained.
+
+Practically, however, Comte regards gravitation as a force. The order of
+the solar system has been established and is still maintained by the
+mutual gravity of its several parts. We shall not stop here to note the
+inconsistency of his denying to us the knowledge of, even the existence
+of, force, and yet at the same time assuming to treat gravitation as a
+force really adequate to the explanation of the _how_ and _why_ of the
+phenomena of the universe, without any reference to a supernatural will
+or an intelligent mind. The question with which we are immediately
+concerned is whether gravitation _alone_ is adequate to the explanation
+of the phenomena of the heavens? A review _in extenso_ of Comte's answer
+to this question would lead us into all the inextricable mazes of the
+nebular hypothesis, and involve us in a more extended discussion than
+our space permits and our limited scientific knowledge justifies. For
+the masses of the people the whole question of cosmical development
+resolves itself into "a balancing of authorities;" they are not in a
+position to verify the reasonings for and against this theory by actual
+observation of astral phenomena, and the application of mathematical
+calculus; they are, therefore, guided by balancing in their own minds
+the statements of the distinguished astronomers who, by the united
+suffrages of the scientific world, are regarded as "authorities." For
+us, at present, it is enough that the nebular hypothesis is rejected by
+some of the greatest astronomers that have lived. We need only mention
+the names of Sir William Herschel, Sir John Herschel, Prof. Nichol, Earl
+Rosse, Sir David Brewster, and Prof. Whewell.
+
+But if we grant that the nebular hypothesis is entitled to take rank as
+an established theory of the development of the solar system, it by no
+means proves that the solar system was formed without the intervention
+of intelligence and design. On this point we shall content ourselves
+with quoting the words of one whose encyclopædian knowledge was
+confessedly equal to that of Comte, and who in candor and accuracy was
+certainly his superior. Prof. Whewell, in his "Astronomy and Physics,"
+says: "This hypothesis by no means proves that the solar system was
+formed without the intervention of intelligence and design. It only
+transfers our view of the skill exercised and the means employed to
+another part of the work; for how came the sun and its atmosphere to
+have such materials, such motions, such a constitution, and these
+consequences followed from their primordial condition? How came the
+parent vapor thus to be capable of coherence, separation, contraction,
+solidification? How came the laws of its motion, attraction, repulsion,
+condensation, to be so fixed as to lead to a beautiful and harmonious
+system in the end? How came it to be neither too fluid nor too
+tenacious, to contract neither too quickly nor too slowly for the
+successive formation of the several planetary bodies? How came that
+substance, which at one time was a luminous vapor, to be at a subsequent
+period solids and fluids of many various kinds? What but design and
+intelligence prepared and tempered this previously-existing element, so
+that it should, by its natural changes, produce such an orderly
+system"?[262] "_The laws of motion alone will not produce the regularity
+which we admire in the motion of the heavenly bodies_. There must be an
+original adjustment of the system on which these laws are to act; a
+selection of the arbitrary quantities which they are to involve; a
+primitive cause which shall dispose the elements in due relation to each
+other, in order that regular recurrence may accompany constant change,
+and that perpetual motion may be combined with perpetual
+stability."[263]
+
+[Footnote 262: "Astronomy and Physics," p. 109.]
+
+[Footnote 263: Chalmers's "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 119.]
+
+The harmony of the solar system in all its phenomena does not depend
+upon the operation of any _one_ law, but from the special adjustment of
+several laws. There are certain agents operating throughout the entire
+system which have different properties, and which require special
+adjustment to each other, in order to their beneficial operation. 1st.
+There is _Gravitation,_ prevailing apparently through all space. But it
+does not prevail alone. It is a force whose function is to balance other
+forces of which we know little, except that these, again, are needed to
+balance the force of gravitation. Each force, if left to itself, would
+be the destruction of the universe. Were it not for the force of
+gravitation, the centrifugal forces which impel the planets would fling
+them off into space. Were it not for these centrifugal forces, the force
+of gravitation would dash them against the sun. The ultimate fact of
+astronomical science, therefore, is not the law of gravitation, but the
+_adjustment_ between this law and other laws, so as to produce and
+maintain the existing order.[264] 2d. There is _Light_, flowing from
+numberless luminaries; and _Heat_, radiating everywhere from the warmer
+to the colder regions; and there are a number of adjustments needed in
+order to the beneficial operation of these agents. Suppose we grant that
+by merely mechanical causes the sun became the centre of our system, how
+did it become also the _source of its vivifying influences_? "How was
+the fire deposited on this hearth? How was the candle placed on this
+candlestick?" 3d. There is an all-pervading _Ether_, through which light
+is transmitted, which offers resistance to the movement of the planetary
+and cometary bodies, and tends to a dissipation of mechanical energy,
+and which needs to be counter-balanced by well-adjusted arrangements to
+secure the stability of the solar system. All this balancing of opposite
+properties and forces carries our minds upward towards Him who holds the
+balances in his hands, and to a Supreme Intelligence on whose
+adjustments and collocations the harmony and stability of the universe
+depends.[265]
+
+[Footnote 264: Duke of Argyll, "Reign of Law," pp. 91, 92.]
+
+[Footnote 265: M'Cosh, "Typical Forms and Special Ends," ch. xiii.]
+
+The recognition of all teleology of organs in vegetable and animal
+physiology is also persistently repudiated by this school. When Cuvier
+speaks of the combination of organs in such order as to adapt the animal
+to the part which it has to play in nature, Geoffroy Saint Hilaire
+replies, "I know nothing of animals which have to play a part in
+nature." "I have read, concerning fishes, that, because they live in a
+medium which resists more than air, their motive forces are calculated
+so as to give them the power of progression under these circumstances.
+By this mode of reasoning, you would say of a man who makes use of
+crutches, that he was originally destined to the misfortune of having a
+leg paralyzed or amputated.[266] "With a modesty which savors of
+affectation, he says, "I ascribe no intentions to God, for I mistrust
+the feeble powers of my reason. I observe facts merely, and go no
+farther. I only pretend to the character of the historian of _what is_."
+"I can not make Nature an intelligent being who does nothing in vain,
+who acts by the shortest mode, who does all for the best."[267] All the
+supposed consorting of means to ends which has hitherto been regarded as
+evidencing Intelligence is simply the result of "the elective affinities
+of organic elements" and "the differentiation of organs" consequent
+mainly upon exterior conditions. "_Functions are a result, not an end_.
+The animal undergoes the kind of life that his organs impose, and
+submits to the imperfections of his organization. The naturalist studies
+the play of his apparatus, and if he has the right of admiring most of
+its parts, he has likewise that of showing the imperfection of other
+parts, and the practical uselessness of those which fulfill no
+functions."[268] And it is further claimed that there are a great many
+structures which are clearly useless; that is, they fulfill no purpose
+at all. Thus there are monkeys, which have no thumbs for use, but only
+rudimental thumb-bones hid beneath the skin; the wingless bird of New
+Zealand (Apteryx) has wing-bones similarly developed, which serve no
+purpose; young whalebone whales are born with teeth that never cut the
+gums, and are afterwards absorbed; and some sheep have horns turned
+about their ears which fulfill no end. And inasmuch as there are some
+organisms in nature which serve no purpose of utility, it is argued
+there is no design in nature; things are _used_ because there are
+antecedent conditions favorable for _use_, but that use is not the _end_
+for which the organ exists. The true naturalist will never say, "Birds
+have wings given them _in order_ to fly;" he will rather say, "Birds fly
+_because_ they have wings." The doctrine of final causes must,
+therefore, be abandoned.
+
+[Footnote 266: Whewell, "History of Inductive Sciences," vol. ii. p.
+486.]
+
+[Footnote 267: Id., ib., vol. ii. p. 490.]
+
+[Footnote 268: Martin's "Organic Unity in Animals and Vegetables," in M.
+Q. Review, January, 1863.]
+
+It is hardly worth while to reply to the lame argument of Geoffroy,
+which needs a "crutch" for its support. The very illustration,
+undignified and irrelevant as it is, tells altogether against its
+author. For, first, the crutch is certainly a _contrivance_ designed for
+locomotion; secondly, the length and strength and lightness of the
+crutch are all matters of calculation and _adjustment_; and, thirdly,
+all the adaptations of the crutch are well-considered, in order to
+enable the lame man to walk; the function of the crutch is the final
+cause of its creation. This crutch is clearly out of place in Geoffroy's
+argument, and utterly breaks down. It is in its place in the
+teleological argument, and stands well, though it may not behave as well
+as the living limb. The understanding of a child can perceive that the
+design-argument does not assert that men were intended to have amputated
+limbs, but that crutches are designed for those whose limbs are
+paralyzed or amputated.
+
+The existence of useless members, of rudimentary and abortive limbs,
+does seem, at first sight, to be unfavorable to the idea of supremacy of
+purpose and all-pervading design. It should be remarked, however, that
+this is an argument based upon our ignorance, and not upon our
+knowledge. It does not by any means follow that because we have
+discovered no reasons for their existence, therefore there are no
+reasons. Science, in enlarging its conquests of nature, is perpetually
+discovering the usefulness of arrangements of which our fathers were
+ignorant, and the reasons of things which to their minds, were
+concealed; and it ill becomes the men who so far "mistrust their own
+feeble powers" as to be afraid of ascribing any intention to God or
+nature, to dogmatically affirm there is no purpose in the existence of
+any thing. And then we may ask, what right have these men to set up the
+idea of "utility" as the only standard to which the Creator must
+conform? How came they to know that God is a mere "utilitarian;" or, if
+they do not believe in God, that nature is a miserable "Benthamite?" Why
+may not the idea of beauty, of symmetry, of order, be a standard for the
+universe, as much as the idea of utility, or mere subordination to some
+practical end? May not conformity to one grand and comprehensive plan,
+sweeping over all nature, be perfectly compatible with the adaptation of
+individual existences to the fulfillment of special ends? In civil
+architecture we have conformity to a general plan; we have embellishment
+and ornament, and we have adaptation to a special purpose, all combined;
+why may not these all be combined in the architecture of the universe?
+The presence of any one of these is sufficient to prove design, for mere
+ornament or beauty is itself a purpose, an object, and an end. The
+concurrence of all these is an overwhelming evidence of design. Wherever
+found, they are universally recognized as the product of intelligence;
+they address themselves at once to the intelligence of man, and they
+place him in immediate relation to and in deepest sympathy with the
+Intelligence which gave them birth. He that formed the eye of man to
+see, and the heart of man to admire beauty, shall He not delight in it?
+He that gave the hand of man its cunning to create beauty, shall He not
+himself work for it? And if man can and does combine both "ornament" and
+"use" in one and the same implement or machine, why should not the
+Creator of the world do the same? "When the savage carves the handle of
+his war-club, the immediate purpose of his carving is to give his own
+hand a firmer hold. But any shapeless scratches would be enough for
+this. When he carves it in an elaborate pattern, he does so for the love
+of ornament, and to satisfy the sense of beauty." And so "the harmonies,
+on which all beauty depends, are so connected in nature that _use_ and
+_ornament_ may often both arise out of the same conditions."[269]
+
+[Footnote 269: Duke of Argyll, "Reign of Law," p. 203.]
+
+The "true naturalist," therefore, recognizes two great principles
+pervading the universe--_a principle of order_--a unity of plan, and _a
+principle of special adaptation_, by which each object, though
+constructed upon a general plan, is at the same time accommodated to the
+place it has to occupy and the purpose it has to serve. In other words,
+there is _homology of structure_ and _analogy of function_, conformity
+to _archetypal forms_ and _Teleology of organs_, in wonderful
+combination. Now, in the Materialistic school, it has been the prevalent
+practice to set up the unity of plan in animal structures, in opposition
+to the principle of Final Causes: Morphology has been opposed to
+Teleology. But in nature there is no such opposition; on the contrary,
+there is a beautiful co-ordination. The same bones, in different
+animals, are made subservient to the widest possible diversity of
+functions. The same limbs are converted into fins, paddles, wings, legs,
+and arms. "No comparative anatomist has the slightest hesitation in
+admitting that the pectoral fin of a fish, the wing of a bird, the
+paddle of the dolphin, the fore-leg of a deer, the wing of a bat, and
+the arm of a man, are the same organs, notwithstanding that their forms
+are so varied, and the uses to which they are applied so unlike each
+other."[270] All these are homologous in structure--they are formed
+after an ideal archetype or model, but that model or type is variously
+modified to adapt the animal to the sphere of life in which it is
+destined to move, and the organ itself to the functions it has to
+perform, whether swimming, flying, walking, or burrowing, or that varied
+manipulation of which the human hand is capable. These varied
+modifications of the vertebrated type, for special purposes, are
+unmistakable examples of final causation. Whilst the silent members, the
+rudimental limbs instanced by Oken, Martins, and others--as fulfilling
+no purpose, and serving no end, exist in conformity to an ideal
+archetype on which the bony skeletons of all vertebrated animals are
+formed,[271] and which has never been departed from since time began.
+This type, or model, or plan, is, however, itself an evidence of
+_design_ as much as the plan of a house. For to what standard are we
+referring when we say that two limbs are morphologically the same? Is it
+not an _ideal_ plan, a _mental_ pattern, a metaphysical conception? Now
+an _ideal_ implies a mind which preconceived the idea, and in which
+alone it really exists. It is only as "an _order of Divine thought_"
+that the doctrine of animal homologies is at all intelligible; and
+Homology is, therefore, the science which traces the outward embodiment
+of a Divine Idea.[272] The principle of intentionality or final
+causation, then, is not in any sense invalidated by the discovery of "a
+unity of plan" sweeping through the entire universe.
+
+[Footnote 270: Carpenter's "Comparative Physiology," p. 37.]
+
+[Footnote 271: Agassiz, "Essay on Classification," p. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 272: Whewell's "History of Inductive Sciences," vol. i. p.
+644; "The Reign of Law," p. 208; Agassiz, "Essay on Classification," pp.
+9-11.]
+
+We conclude that we are justly entitled to regard "the principle of
+intentionality" as a primary and necessary law of thought, under which
+we can not avoid conceiving and describing the facts of the
+universe--_the special adaptation of means to ends necessarily implies
+mind_. Whenever and wherever we observe the adaptation of an organism to
+the fulfillment of a special end, we can not avoid conceiving of that
+_end_ as foreseen and premeditated, the _means_ as selected and adjusted
+with a view to that end, and creative energy put forth to secure the
+end--all which is the work of intelligence and will.[273] And we can not
+describe these facts of nature, so as to render that account
+intelligible to other minds, without using such terms as "contrivance,"
+"purpose," "adaptation," "design." A striking illustration of this may
+be found in Darwin's volume "On the Fertilization of Orchids." We select
+from his volume with all the more pleasure because he is one of the
+writers who enjoins "caution in ascribing intentions to nature." In one
+sentence he says: "The _Labellum_ is developed into a long nectary, _in
+order_ to attract _Lepidoptera_; and we shall presently give reasons for
+suspecting the nectar is _purposely_ so lodged that it can be sucked
+only slowly, _in order_ to give time for the curious chemical quality of
+the viscid matter settling hard and dry" (p. 29). Of one particular
+structure he says: "This _contrivance_ of the guiding ridges may be
+compared to the little instrument sometimes used for guiding a thread
+into the eye of a needle." The notion that every organism has a use or
+purpose seems to have guided him in his discoveries. "The strange
+position of the _Labellum_, perched on the summit of the column, ought
+to have shown me that here was the place for experiment. I ought to have
+scorned the notion that the _Labellum_ was thus placed _for no good
+purpose_. I neglected this plain guide, and for a long time completely
+failed to understand the flower" (p. 262).[274]
+
+[Footnote 273: Carpenter's "Principles of Comparative Physiology," p.
+723.]
+
+[Footnote 274: Edinburgh Review, October, 1862; article, "The
+Supernatural."]
+
+So that the assumption of final causes has not, as Bacon affirms, "led
+men astray" and "prejudiced further discovery;" on the contrary, it has
+had a large share in every discovery in anatomy and physiology, zoology
+and botany. The use of every organ has been discovered by starting from
+the assumption _that it must have some use_. The belief in a creative
+purpose led Harvey to discover the circulation of the blood. He says:
+"When I took notice that the valves in the veins of so many parts of the
+body were so placed that they gave a free passage to the blood towards
+the heart, but opposed the passage of the venal blood the contrary way,
+I was incited to imagine that so provident a cause as Nature has not
+placed so many valves _without design_, and no design seemed more
+probable than the circulation of the blood."[275] The wonderful
+discoveries in Zoology which have immortalized the name of Cuvier were
+made under the guidance of this principle. He proceeds on the
+supposition not only that animal forms have _some_ plan, _some_ purpose,
+but that they have an intelligible plan, a discoverable purpose. At the
+outset of his "_Règne Animal_" he says: "Zoology has a principle of
+reasoning which is peculiar to it, and which it employs to advantage on
+many occasions; that is, the principle of the conditions of existence,
+commonly called final causes."[276] The application of this principle
+enabled him to understand and arrange the structures of animals with
+astonishing clearness and completeness of order; and to restore the
+forms of extinct animals which are found in the rocks, in a manner which
+excited universal admiration, and has commanded universal assent.
+Indeed, as Professor Whewell remarks, at the conclusion of his "History
+of the Inductive Sciences," "those who have been discoverers in science
+have generally had minds, the disposition of which was to believe in an
+_intelligent Maker_ of the universe, and that the scientific
+speculations which produced an opposite tendency were generally those
+which, though they might deal familiarly with known physical truths, and
+conjecture boldly with regard to unknown, do not add to the number of
+solid generalizations."[277]
+
+[Footnote 275: "History of Inductive Science," vol. ii. p. 449.]
+
+[Footnote 276: "History of Inductive Science," vol. ii. p. 2, Eng. ed.]
+
+[Footnote 277: Ibid., vol. ii. p. 491. A list of the "great discoverers"
+is given in his "Astronomy and Physics," bk. iii. ch. v.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE UNKNOWN GOD (_continued_).
+
+IS GOD COGNIZABLE BY REASON? (_continued_).
+
+
+      "The faith which can not stand unless buttressed by
+      contradictions is built upon the sand. The profoundest faith
+      is faith in the unity of truth. If there is found any
+      conflict in the results of a right reason, no appeal to
+      practical interests, or traditionary authority, or
+      intuitional or theological faith, can stay the flood of
+      skepticism."--ABBOT.
+
+In the previous chapter we have considered the answers to this question
+which are given by the Idealistic and Materialistic schools; it devolves
+upon us now to review (iii.) the position of the school of _Natural
+Realism_ or _Natural Dualism_, at the head of which stands Sir William
+Hamilton.
+
+It is admitted by this school that philosophic knowledge is "the
+knowledge of effects as dependent on their causes,"[278] and "of
+qualities as inherent in substances."[279]
+
+[Footnote 278: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 58.]
+
+[Footnote 279: Ibid., vol. i. p. 138.]
+
+1. _As to Events and Causes_.--"Events do not occur isolated, apart, by
+themselves; they occur and are conceived by us only in connection. Our
+observation affords us no example of a phenomenon which is not an
+effect; nay, our thought can not even realize to itself the possibility
+of a phenomenon without a cause. By the necessity we are under of
+thinking some cause for every phenomenon, and by our original ignorance
+of what particular causes belong to what particular effects, it is
+rendered impossible for us to acquiesce in the mere knowledge of the
+fact of the phenomenon; on the contrary, we are determined, we are
+necessitated to regard each phenomenon as _only partially known until we
+discover the causes_ on which it depends for its existence.[280]
+Philosophic knowledge is thus, in its widest acceptation, the knowledge
+of effects as dependent on causes. Now what does this imply? In the
+first place, as every cause to which we can ascend is only an effect, it
+follows that it is the scope, that is, the aim, of philosophy to trace
+up the series of effects and causes until we arrive at _causes which are
+not in themselves effects_,"[281]--that is, to ultimate and final
+causes. And then, finally, "Philosophy, as the knowledge of effects in
+their causes, necessarily tends, not towards a plurality of ultimate or
+final causes, but towards _one_ alone."[282]
+
+[Footnote 280: Ibid., vol. i. p. 56.]
+
+[Footnote 281: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 58.]
+
+[Footnote 282: Ibid., vol. i. p. 60.]
+
+2. _As to Qualities and Substance, or Phenomena and Reality_.--As
+phenomena appear only in conjunction, we are compelled, by the
+constitution of our nature, to think them conjoined in and by something;
+and as they are phenomena, we can not think them phenomena of nothing,
+but must regard them as properties or qualities of something.[283] Now
+that which manifests its qualities--in other words, that in which the
+appearing causes inhere, that to which they belong--is called their
+_subject_, or _substance_, or _substratum_.[284] The subject of one
+grand series of phenomena (as, _e.g._, extension, solidity, figure,
+etc.) is called _matter_, or _material substance_. The subject of the
+other grand series of phenomena (as, _e.g._, thought, feeling, volition,
+etc.) is termed _mind_, or _mental substance_. We may, therefore, lay it
+down as an undisputed truth that consciousness gives, as an ultimate
+fact, a primitive duality--a knowledge of the _ego_ in relation and
+contrast to the _non-ego_, and a knowledge of the _non-ego_ in relation
+and contrast to the _ego_[285] Natural Dualism thus establishes the
+existence of two worlds of _mind_ and _matter_ on the immediate
+knowledge we possess of both series of phenomena; whilst the Cosmothetic
+Idealists discredit the veracity of consciousness as to our immediate
+knowledge of material phenomena, and, consequently, our _immediate
+knowledge of the existence of matter_.[286]
+
+[Footnote 283: Ibid., vol. i. p. 137.]
+
+[Footnote 284: Ibid., vol. i. p. 137.]
+
+[Footnote 285: Ibid., vol. i. p. 292.]
+
+[Footnote 286: Ibid., vol. i. pp. 292, 295.]
+
+The obvious doctrine of the above quotations is, that we have an
+immediate knowledge of the "_existence_ of matter" as well as of "the
+_phenomena_ of matter;" that is, we know "_substance_" as immediately
+and directly as we know "_qualities_." Phenomena are known only as
+inherent in substance; substance is known only as manifesting its
+qualities. We never know qualities without knowing substance, and we can
+never know substance without knowing qualities. Both are known in one
+concrete act; substance is known quite as much as quality; quality is
+known no more than substance. That we have a direct, immediate,
+presentative "face to face" knowledge of matter and mind in every act of
+consciousness is asserted again and again by Hamilton, in his
+"Philosophy of Perception."[287] In the course of the discussion he
+starts the question, "_Is the knowledge of mind and matter equally
+immediate?_" His answer to this question may be condensed in the
+following sentences. In regard to the immediate knowledge of _mind_
+there is no difficulty; it is admitted to be direct and immediate. The
+problem, therefore, exclusively regards the intuitive perception of the
+qualities of _matter_. Now, says Hamilton, "if we interrogate
+consciousness concerning the point in question, the response is
+categorical and clear. In the simplest act of perception I am conscious
+of _myself_ as a perceiving _subject_, and of an external _reality_ as
+the object perceived; and I am conscious of both existences in the same
+indivisible amount of intuition."[288] Again he says, "I have frequently
+asserted that in perception we are conscious of the external object,
+immediately and _in itself_." "If, then, the veracity of consciousness
+be unconditionally admitted--_if the intuitive knowledge of matter and
+mind_, and the consequent reality of their antithesis, be taken as
+truths," the doctrine of Natural Realism is established, and, "without
+any hypothesis or demonstration, the _reality of mind_ and the _reality
+of matter_."[289]
+
+[Footnote 287: Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, part ii.]
+
+[Footnote 288: Ibid., p. 181.]
+
+[Footnote 289: Ibid., pp. 34, 182.]
+
+Now, after these explicit statements that we have an intuitive knowledge
+of matter and mind--a direct and immediate consciousness of self as a
+real, "self-subsisting entity," and a knowledge of "an external reality,
+immediately and _in itself_," it seems unaccountably strange that
+Hamilton should assert "_that all human knowledge, consequently all
+human philosophy, is only of the Relative or Phenomenal_;"[290] and that
+"_of existence absolutely and in itself we know nothing_."[291] Whilst
+teaching that the proper sphere and aim of philosophy is to trace
+secondary causes up to ultimate or first causes, and that it
+_necessarily tends_ towards one First and Ultimate Cause, he at the same
+time asserts that "first causes do not lie within the reach of
+philosophy,"[292] and that it can never attain to the knowledge of the
+First Cause.[293] "The Infinite God can not, by us, be comprehended,
+conceived, or thought."[294] God, as First Cause, as infinite, as
+unconditioned, as eternal, is to us absolutely "_The Unknown_." The
+science of Real Being--of Being _in se_--of self-subsisting entities, is
+declared to be impossible. All science is only of the phenomenal, the
+conditioned, the relative. Ontology is a delusive dream. Thus, after
+pages of explanations and qualifications, of affirmations and denials,
+we find Hamilton virtually assuming the same position as Comte and
+Mill--_all human knowledge is necessarily confined to phenomena_.
+
+[Footnote 290: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 136]
+
+[Footnote 291: Ibid., vol. i. p. 138.]
+
+[Footnote 292: Ibid., vol. i. p. 58.]
+
+[Footnote 293: Ibid., vol. i. p. 60.]
+
+[Footnote 294: Ibid., vol. ii. p. 375.]
+
+It has been supposed that the chief glory of Sir William Hamilton rested
+upon his able exposition and defense of the doctrine of Natural Realism.
+There are, however, indications in his writings that he regarded "the
+Philosophy of the Conditioned" as his grand achievement. The Law of the
+Conditioned had "not been generalized by any previous philosopher;" and,
+in laying down that law, he felt that he had made a new and important
+contribution to speculative thought.
+
+The principles upon which this philosophy is based are:
+
+1. _The Relativity of all Human Knowledge._--Existence is not cognized
+absolutely and in itself, but only under special modes which are related
+to our faculties, and, in fact, determined by these faculties
+themselves. All knowledge, therefore, is _relative_--that is, it is of
+phenomena only, and of phenomena "under modifications determined by our
+own faculties." Now, as the Absolute is that which exists out of all
+relation either to phenomena or to our faculties of knowledge, it can
+not possibly be _known_.
+
+2. _The Conditionality of all Thinking_.--Thought necessarily supposes
+conditions. "To think is to condition; and conditional limitation is the
+fundamental law of the possibility of thought. As the eagle can not
+out-soar the atmosphere in which he floats, and by which alone he is
+supported, so the mind can not transcend the sphere of limitation within
+and through which the possibility of thought is realized. Thought is
+only of the conditioned, because, as we have said, to think is to
+condition."[295] Now the Infinite is the unlimited, the unconditioned,
+and as such can not possibly be _thought_.
+
+3. _The notion of the Infinite--the Absolute, as entertained by man, is
+a mere "negation of thought._"--By this Hamilton does not mean that the
+idea of the Infinite is a negative idea. "The Infinite and the Absolute
+are _only_ the names of two counter _imbecilities_ of the human
+mind"[296]--that is, a mental inability to conceive an absolute
+limitation, or an infinite illimitation; an absolute commencement, or an
+infinite non-commencement. In other words, of the absolute and infinite
+we have no conception at all, and, consequently, no knowledge.[297]
+
+The grand law which Hamilton generalizes from the above is, "_that the
+conceivable is in every relation bounded by the inconceivable_." Or,
+again, "The conditioned or the thinkable lies between two extremes or
+poles; and these extremes or poles are each of them unconditioned, each
+of them inconceivable, each of them exclusive or contradictory of the
+other."[298] This is the celebrated "Law of the Conditioned."
+
+[Footnote 295: "Discussions," p. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 296: Ibid., p. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 297: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. pp. 368, 373.]
+
+[Footnote 298: Ibid., vol. ii. p. 373.]
+
+In attempting a brief criticism of "the Philosophy of the Conditioned,"
+we may commence by inquiring:
+
+I. _What is the real import and significance of the doctrine "that all
+human knowledge is only of the relative or phenomenal_?"
+
+Hamilton calls this "the great axiom" of philosophy. That we may
+distinctly comprehend its meaning, and understand its bearing on the
+subject under discussion, we must ascertain the sense in which he uses
+the words "_phenomenal_" and "_relative._" The importance of an exact
+terminology is fully appreciated by our author; and accordingly, in
+three Lectures (VIII., IX., X.), he has given a full explication of the
+terms most commonly employed in philosophic discussions. Here the word
+"_phenomenon_" is set down as the necessary "_correlative_" of the word
+"_subject_" or "_substance_." "These terms can not be explained apart,
+for each is correlative of the other, each can be comprehended only in
+and through its correlative. The term '_subject_' is used to denote the
+unknown (?) basis which lies under the various _phenomena_ or properties
+of which we become aware, whether in our external or internal
+experience."[299] "The term '_relative_' is _opposed_ to the term
+'_absolute_;' therefore, in saying that we know only the relative, I
+virtually assert that we know nothing absolutely, that is, _in and for
+itself, and without relation to us and our faculties_."[300] Now, in the
+philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, "the absolute" is defined as "that
+which is aloof from relation"--"that which is out of all relation."[301]
+The _absolute_ can not, therefore, be "_the correlative_" of the
+conditioned--can not stand in any relation to the phenomenal. The
+_subject,_ however, is the necessary correlative of the phenomenal, and,
+consequently, the subject and the absolute are not identical.
+Furthermore, Hamilton tells us the subject _may be comprehended_ in and
+through its correlative--the phenomenon; but the absolute, being aloof
+from all relation, can not be comprehended or conceived at all. "The
+subject" and "the absolute" are, therefore, not synonymous terms; and,
+if they are not synonymous, then their antithetical terms, "phenomenal"
+and "relative," can not be synonymous.
+
+[Footnote 299: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 148.]
+
+[Footnote 300: Ibid., vol. i. p. 137.]
+
+[Footnote 301: "Discussions," p. 21.]
+
+It is manifest, however, that Hamilton does employ these terms as
+synonymous, and this we apprehend is the first false step in his
+philosophy of the conditioned. "All our knowledge is of the relative
+_or_ phenomenal." Throughout the whole of Lectures VIII. and IX., in
+which he explains the doctrine of the relativity of human knowledge,
+these terms are used as precisely analogous. Now, in opposition to this,
+we maintain that the relative is not always the phenomenal. A thing may
+be "in relation" and yet not be a phenomenon. "The subject or substance"
+may be, and really is, on the admission of Hamilton himself,
+_correlated_ to the phenomenon. The ego, "the conscious _subject_"[302]
+as a "_self-subsisting entity_" is necessarily related to the phenomena
+of thought, feeling, etc.; but no one would repudiate the idea that the
+conscious subject is a mere phenomenon, or "series of phenomena," with
+more indignation than Hamilton. Notwithstanding the contradictory
+assertion, "that the _subject_ is unknown," he still teaches, with equal
+positiveness, "that in every act of perception I am conscious of self,
+as a perceiving _subject."_ And still more explicitly he says: "As
+clearly as I am conscious of existing, so clearly am I conscious, at
+every moment of my existence, that the conscious Ego is not itself a
+mere modification [a phenomenon], nor a series of modifications
+[phenomena], but that it is itself different from all its modifications,
+and a _self-subsisting entity_."[303] Again: "Thought is possible only
+in and through the consciousness of Self. The Self, the I, is recognized
+in every act of intelligence as the _subject_ to which the act belongs.
+It is I that perceive, I that imagine, I that remember, etc.; these
+special modes are all only the phenomena of the I."[304] We are,
+therefore, conscious of the _subject_ in the most immediate, and direct,
+and intuitive manner, and the subject of which we are conscious can not
+be "_unknown_." We regret that so distinguished a philosophy should deal
+in such palpable contradictions; but it is the inevitable consequence of
+violating that fundamental principle of philosophy on which Hamilton so
+frequently and earnestly insists, viz., "that the testimony of
+consciousness must be accepted in all its integrity".
+
+[Footnote 302: Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton (edited by O.W.
+Wight), p. 181.]
+
+[Footnote 303: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 373.]
+
+[Footnote 304: Ibid., vol. i. p. 166.]
+
+It is thus obvious that, with proper qualifications, we may admit _the
+relativity of human knowledge_, and yet at the same time reject the
+doctrine of Hamilton, _that all human knowledge is only of the
+phenomenal_.
+
+"The relativity of human knowledge," like most other phrases into which
+the word "relative" enters, is vague, and admits of a variety of
+meanings. If by this phrase is meant "that we can not know objects
+except as related to our faculties, or as our faculties are related to
+them," we accept the statement, but regard it as a mere truism leading
+to no consequences, and hardly worth stating in words. It is simply
+another way of saying that, in order to an object's being known, it must
+come within the range of our intellectual vision, and that we can only
+know as much as we are capable of knowing. Or, if by this phrase is
+meant "that we can only know things by and through the phenomena they
+present," we admit this also, for we can no more know substances apart
+from their properties, than we can know qualities apart from the
+substances in which they inhere. Substances can be known only in and
+through their phenomena. Take away the properties, and the thing has no
+longer any existence. Eliminate extension, form, density, etc., from
+matter, and what have you left? "The thing in itself," apart from its
+qualities, is nothing. Or, again, if by the relativity of knowledge is
+meant "that all consciousness, all thought are relative," we accept this
+statement also. To conceive, to reflect, to know, is to deal with
+difference and relation; the relation of subject and object; the
+relation of objects among themselves; the relation of phenomena to
+reality, of becoming to being. The reason of man is unquestionably
+correlated to that which is beyond phenomena; it is able to apprehend
+the necessary relation between phenomena and being, extension and space,
+succession and time, event and cause, the finite and the infinite. We
+may thus admit the _relative character of human thought_, and at the
+same time deny that it is an ontological disqualification.[305]
+
+It is not, however, in any of these precise forms that Hamilton holds
+the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge. He assumes a middle place
+between Reid and Kant, and endeavors to blend the subjective idealism of
+the latter with the realism of the former. "He identifies the
+_phenomenon_ of the German with the _quality_ of the British
+philosophy,"[306] and asserts, as a regulative law of thought, that the
+quality implies the substance, and the phenomenon the noumenon, but
+makes the substratum or noumenon (the object in itself) unknown and
+unknowable. The "phenomenon" of Kant was, however, something essentially
+different from the "quality" of Reid. In the philosophy of Kant,
+_phenomenon_ means an object as we envisage or represent it to
+ourselves, in opposition to the _noumenon_, or a thing as it is in
+itself. The phenomenon is composed, in part, of subjective elements
+supplied by the mind itself; as regards intuition, the forms of space
+and time; as regards thought, the categories of Quantity, Quality,
+Relation, and Modality. To perceive a thing in itself would be to
+perceive it neither in space nor in time. To think a thing in itself
+would be not to think it under any of the categories. The phenomenal is
+thus the product of the inherent laws of our own constitution, and, as
+such, is the sum and limit of all our knowledge.[307]
+
+[Footnote 305: Martineau's "Essays," p. 234.]
+
+[Footnote 306: M'Cosh's "Defense of Fundamental Truth," p. 106.]
+
+[Footnote 307: Mansel's "Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant," pp. 21,
+22.]
+
+This, in its main features, is evidently the doctrine propounded by
+Hamilton. The special modes in which existence is cognizable" are
+presented to, and known by, the mind _under modifications determined by
+the faculties themselves_."[308] This doctrine he illustrates by the
+following supposition: "Suppose the total object of consciousness in
+perception is=12; and suppose that the external reality contributes 6,
+the material sense 3, and the mind 3; this may enable you to form some
+rude conjecture of the nature of the object of perception."[309] The
+conclusion at which Hamilton arrives, therefore, is that things are not
+known to us as they exist, but simply as they appear, and as our minds
+are capable of perceiving them.
+
+[Footnote 308: Hamilton's "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 148.]
+
+[Footnote 309: Hamilton's "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 129;
+and also vol. i. p. 147.]
+
+Let us test the validity of this majestic deliverance. No man is
+justified in making this assertion unless, 1. He knows things as they
+exist; 2. He knows things not only as they exist but as they appear; 3.
+He is able to compare things as they exist with the same things as they
+appear. Now, inasmuch as Sir William Hamilton affirms we do not know
+things as they exist, but only as they appear, how can he know that
+there is any difference between things as they exist and as they appear?
+What is this "_thing in itself_" about which Hamilton has so much to
+say, and yet about which he professes to know nothing? We readily
+understand what is meant by the _thing_; it is the object as existing--a
+substance manifesting certain characteristic qualities. But what is
+meant by _in itself_? There can be no _in itself_ besides or beyond the
+_thing_. If Hamilton means that "the thing itself" is the thing apart
+from all relation, and devoid of all properties or qualities, we do not
+acknowledge any such thing. A thing apart from all relation, and devoid
+of all qualities, is simply pure nothing, if such a solecism may be
+permitted. With such a definition of Being _in se_, the logic of Hegel
+is invincible, "Being and Nothing are identical."
+
+And now, if "the thing in itself" be, as Hamilton says it is, absolutely
+_unknown_, how can he affirm or deny any thing in regard to it? By what
+right does he prejudge a hidden reality, and give or refuse its
+predicates; as, for example, that it is conditioned or unconditioned, in
+relation or aloof from relation, finite or infinite? Is it not plain
+that, in declaring a thing in its inmost nature or essence to be
+inscrutable, it is assumed to be partially _known_? And it is obvious,
+notwithstanding some unguarded expressions to the contrary, that
+Hamilton does regard "the thing in itself" as partially known. "The
+external reality" is, at least, six elements out of twelve in the "total
+object of consciousness."[310] The primary qualities of matter are known
+as in the things themselves; "they develop themselves with rigid
+necessity out of the simple datum of _substance occupying space_."[311]
+"The Primary Qualities are apprehended as they are in bodies"--"they are
+the attributes of _body as body_," and as such "are known immediately in
+themselves,"[312] as well as mediately by their effects upon us. So that
+we not only know by direct consciousness certain properties of things as
+they exist in things themselves, but we can also deduce them in an _à
+priori_ manner. "The bare notion of matter being given, the Primary
+Qualities may be deduced _à priori_; they being, in fact, only
+evolutions of the conditions which that notion necessarily implies." If,
+then, we know the qualities of things as "in the things themselves,"
+"the things themselves" must also be, at least, partially known; and
+Hamilton can not consistently assert the relativity of _all_ knowledge.
+Even if it be granted that our cognitions of objects are only in part
+dependent on the objects themselves, and in part on elements superadded
+by our organism, or by our minds, it can not warrant the assertion that
+all our knowledge, but only the part so added, is relative. "The
+admixture of the relative element not only does not take away the
+absolute character of the remainder, but does not even (if our author is
+right) prevent us from recognizing it. The confusion, according to him,
+is not inextricable. It is for us 'to analyze and distinguish what
+elements,' in an 'act of knowledge,' are contributed by the object, and
+what by the organs or by the mind."[313]
+
+[Footnote 310: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 129.]
+
+[Footnote 311: Philosophy of Sir Wm. Hamilton, p. 357]
+
+[Footnote 312: Ibid., pp. 377, 378.]
+
+[Footnote 313: Mill's "Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i. p.
+44.]
+
+Admitting the relative character of human thought as a psychological
+fact, Mr. Martineau has conclusively shown that this law, instead of
+visiting us with disability to transcend phenomena, _operates as a
+revelation of what exists beyond_. "The finite body cut out before our
+visual perception, or embraced by the hands, lies as an island in the
+emptiness around, and without comparative reference to this can not be
+represented: the same experience which gives us the definite object
+gives us also the infinite space; and both terms--the limited appearance
+and the unlimited ground--are apprehended with equal certitude and
+clearness, and furnished with names equally susceptible of distinct use
+in predication and reasoning. The transient successions, for instance,
+the strokes of a clock, which we count, present themselves to us as
+dotted out upon a line of permanent duration; of which, without them, we
+should have no apprehension, but which as their condition, is
+unreservedly known."[314]
+
+"What we have said with regard to space and time applies equally tο the
+case of Causation. Here, too, the finite offered to perception
+introduces to an Infinite supplied by thought. As a definite body
+reveals also the space around, and an interrupted succession exhibits
+the uniform time beneath, so does the passing phenomenon demand for
+itself a power beneath. The space, and time, and power, not being part
+of the thing perceived, but its conditions, are guaranteed to us,
+therefore, on the warrant, not of sense, but of intellect."[315]
+
+"We conclude, then, on reviewing these examples of Space, and Time, and
+Causation, that ontological ideas introducing us to certain fixed
+entities belong no less to our knowledge than scientific ideas of
+phenomenal disposition and succession."[316] In these instances of
+relation between a phenomenon given in perception and an entity as a
+logical condition, the correlatives are on a perfect equality of
+intellectual validity, and the relative character of human thought is
+not an ontological disqualification, but a cognitive power.
+
+[Footnote 314: "Essays," pp. 193,194.]
+
+[Footnote 315: Ibid., p. 197.]
+
+[Footnote 316: Ibid., p. 195.]
+
+There is a thread of fallacy running through the whole of Hamilton's
+reasonings, consequent upon a false definition of the Absolute at the
+outset. The Absolute is defined as _that which exists in and by itself,
+aloof from and out of all relation_. An absolute, as thus defined, does
+not and can not exist; it is a pure abstraction, and, in fact, a pure
+non-entity. "The Absolute expresses perfect independence both in being
+and in action, and is applicable to God as self-existent."[317] It may
+mean the absence of all _necessary_ relation, but it does not mean the
+absence of _all_ relation. If God can not _voluntarily_ call a finite
+existence into being, and thus stand in the relation of cause, He is
+certainly under the severest limitation. But surely that is not a limit
+which substitutes choice for necessity. To be unable to know God out of
+all relation--that is, apart from his attributes, apart from his created
+universe, is not felt by us to be any privation at all. A God without
+attributes, and out of all relations, is for us no God at all. God as a
+being of unlimited perfection, as infinitely wise and good, as the
+unconditioned cause of all finite being, and, consequently, as
+voluntarily related to nature and humanity, we can and do know; this is
+the living and true God. The God of a false philosophy is not the true
+God; the pure abstractions of Hegel and Hamilton are negations, and not
+realities.
+
+2. We proceed to consider the second fundamental principle of Hamilton's
+philosophy of the conditioned, viz., that "conditional limitation is the
+fundamental law of the possibility of thought," and that thought
+necessarily imposes conditions on its object.
+
+"Thought," says Hamilton, "can not transcend consciousness:
+consciousness is only possible under the antithesis of a subject and an
+object known only in correlation, and _mutually limiting each
+other_"[318] Thought necessarily supposes conditions; "to think is
+simply to condition," that is, to predicate limits; and as the infinite
+is the unlimited, it can not be thought. The very attempt to think the
+infinite renders it finite; therefore there can be no infinite _in
+thought_, and, consequently, the infinite can not be known.
+
+[Footnote 317: Calderwood's "Philosophy of the Infinite," p. 179.]
+
+[Footnote 318: "Discussions," p. 21.]
+
+If by "the infinite in thought" is here meant the infinite compassed or
+contained in thought, we readily grant that the finite can not contain
+the infinite; it is a simple truism which no one has ever been so
+foolish as to deny. Even Cousin is not so unwise as to assert the
+absolutely comprehensibility of God. "In order absolutely to comprehend
+the Infinite, it is necessary to have an infinite power of
+comprehension, and this is not granted to us."[319] A finite mind can
+not have "an infinite thought." But it by no means follows that, because
+we can not have infinite thought, we can have no clear and definite
+thought of or concerning the Infinite. We have a precise and definite
+idea of infinitude; we can define the idea; we can set it apart without
+danger of being confounded with another, and we can reason concerning
+it. There is nothing we more certainly and intuitively know than that
+space is infinite, and yet we can not comprehend or grasp within the
+compass of our thought the infinite space. We can not form an _image_ of
+infinite space, can not traverse it in perception, or represent it by
+any combination of numbers; but we can have the _thought_ of it as an
+idea of Reason, and can argue concerning it with precision and
+accuracy.[320] Hamilton has an idea of the Infinite; he defines it; he
+reasons concerning it; he says "we must believe in the infinity of God."
+But how can he define the Infinite unless he possesses some knowledge,
+however limited, of the infinite Being? How can he believe in the
+infinity of God if he has no definite idea of infinitude? He can not
+reason about, can not affirm or deny any thing concerning, that of which
+he knows absolutely nothing.
+
+[Footnote 319: "Lectures on History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 104.]
+
+[Footnote 320: "To form an _image_ of any infinitude--be it of time or
+space [or power]; to go mentally through it by successive steps of
+representation--is indeed impossible; not less so than to traverse it in
+our finite perception and experience. But to have the _thought_ of it as
+an idea of the reason, not of the phantasy, and assign that thought a
+constituent place in valid beliefs and consistent reasonings, appears to
+us as not only possible, but inevitable."--Martineau's "Essays," p.
+205.]
+
+The grand logical barrier which Hamilton perpetually interposes to all
+possible cognition of God _as infinite_ is, that to think is to
+condition--to limit; and as the Infinite is the unconditioned, the
+unlimited, therefore "the Infinite can not be _thought_." We grant at
+once that all human thought is limited and finite, but, at the same
+time, we emphatically deny that the limitation of our thought imposes
+any conditions or limits upon the object of thought. No such affirmation
+can be consistently made, except on the Hegelian hypothesis that
+"Thought and Being are identical;" and this is a maxim which Hamilton
+himself repudiates. Our thought does not create, neither does it impose
+conditions upon, any thing.
+
+There is a lurking sophism in the whole phraseology of Hamilton in
+regard to this subject. He is perpetually talking about "thinking a
+thing"--"thinking the Infinite." Now we do not think a thing, but we
+think _of_ or _concerning_ a thing. We do not think a man, neither does
+our thought impose any conditions upon the man, so that he must be as
+our thought conceives or represents him; but our thought is of the man,
+concerning or about the man, and is only so far true and valid as it
+conforms to the objective reality. And so we do not "think the
+Infinite;" that is, our thought neither contains nor conditions the
+Infinite Being, but our thoughts are _about_ the Infinite One; and if we
+do not think of Him as a being of infinite perfection, our thought is
+neither worthy, nor just, nor true.[321]
+
+[Footnote 321: Calderwood's "Philosophy of the Infinite," pp. 255, 256.]
+
+But we are told the law of all thought and of all being is
+determination; consequently, negation of some quality or some
+potentiality; whereas the Infinite is "_the One and the All_" (τὸ Ἕν καὶ
+Πῦν),[322] or, as Dr. Mansel, the disciple and annotator of Hamilton,
+affirms, "the sum of all reality," and "the sum of all possible modes of
+being."[323] The Infinite, as thus defined, must include in itself all
+being, and all modes of being, actual and possible, not even excepting
+evil. And this, let it be observed, Dr. Mansel has the hardihood to
+affirm. "If the Absolute and the Infinite is an object of human
+conception at all, this, and none other, is the conception
+required."[324] "The Infinite Whole," as thus defined, can not be
+thought, and therefore it is argued the Infinite God can not be known.
+Such a doctrine shocks our moral sense, and we shrink from the thought
+of an Infinite which includes evil. There is certainly a moral
+impropriety, if not a logical impossibility, in such a conception of
+God.
+
+[Footnote 322: Hamilton's "Lectures on Metaphysics," Appendix, vol. ii.
+p. 531.]
+
+[Footnote 323: "Limits of Religious Thought," p. 76.]
+
+[Footnote 324: Ibid.]
+
+The fallacy of this reasoning consists in confounding a _supposed_
+Quantitative Infinite with _the_ Qualitative Infinite--the totality of
+existence with the infinitely perfect One. "Qualitative infinity is a
+secondary predicate; that is, the attribute of an attribute, and is
+expressed by the adverb _infinitely_ rather than the adjective
+_infinite_. For instance, it is a strict use of language to say, that
+space is infinite, but it is an elliptical use of language to say, God
+is infinite. Precision of language would require us to say, God is
+infinitely good, wise, and great; or God is good, and his goodness is
+infinite. The distinction may seem trivial, but it is based upon an
+important difference between the infinity of space and time on the one
+hand, and the infinity of God on the other. Neither philosophy nor
+theology can afford to disregard the difference. Quantitative Infinity
+is illimitation by _quantity_. Qualitative Infinity is illimitation by
+_degree_. Quantity and degree alike imply finitude, and are categories
+of the finite alone. The danger of arguing from the former kind of
+infinitude to the latter can not be overstated. God alone possesses
+Qualitative Infinity, which is strictly synonymous with _absolute
+perfection_; and the neglect of the distinction between this and
+Quantitative Infinity, leads irresistibly to pantheistic and
+materialistic notions. Spinozism is possible only by the elevation of
+'infinite extension' to the dignity of a divine attribute. Dr. Samuel
+Clarke's identification of God's immensity with space has been shown by
+Martin to ultimate in Pantheism. From ratiocinations concerning the
+incomprehensibility of infinite space and time, Hamilton and Mansel pass
+at once to conclusions concerning the incomprehensibility of God. The
+inconsequence of all such arguments is absolute; and if philosophy
+tolerates the transference of spatial or temporal analogies to the
+nature of God, she must reconcile herself to the negation of his
+personality and spirituality."[325] An Infinite Being, quite remote from
+the notion of _quantity_, may and does exist; which, on the one hand,
+does not include finite existence, and, on the other hand, does not
+render the finite impossible to thought. Without contradiction they may
+coexist, and be correlated.
+
+The thought will have already suggested itself to the mind of the reader
+that for Hamilton to assert that the Infinite, as thus defined (the One
+and the All), is absolutely unknown, is certainly the greatest
+absurdity, for in that case nothing can be known. This Infinite must be
+at least partially known, or all human knowledge is reduced to zero. To
+the all-inclusive Infinite every thing affirmative belongs, not only to
+be, but to be known. To claim it for being, yet deny it to thought, is
+thus impossible. The Infinite, which includes all real existence, is
+certainly possible to cognition.
+
+The whole argument as regards the conditionating nature of all thought
+is condensed into four words by Spinoza--"_Omnis determinatio est
+negatio_;" all determination is negation. Nothing can be more arbitrary
+or more fallacious than this principle. It arises from the confusion of
+two things essentially different--_the limits of a being_, and _its
+determinate and distinguishing characteristics_. The limit of a being is
+its imperfection; the determination of a being is its perfection. The
+less a thing is determined, the more it sinks in the scale of being; the
+most determinate being is the most perfect being. "In this sense God is
+the only being absolutely determined. For there must be something
+indetermined in all finite beings, since they have all imperfect powers
+which tend towards their development after an indefinite manner. God
+alone, the complete Being in whom all powers are actualized, escapes by
+His own perfection from all progress, and development, and
+indetermination."[326]
+
+[Footnote 325: North American Review, October, 1864, article, "The
+Conditioned and the Unconditioned," pp. 422, 423. See also Young's
+"Province of Reason," p. 72; and Calderwood's "Philosophy of the
+Infinite," p. 183.]
+
+[Footnote 326: Saisset, "Modern Pantheism," vol. ii. p. 71.]
+
+All real being must be determined; only pure Nothing can be
+undetermined. _Determination_ is, however, one thing; and _limitation_
+is essentially another thing. "Even space and time, though cognized
+solely by negative characteristics, are determined in so far as
+differentiated from the existences they contain; but this
+differentiation involves no limitation of their infinity." If all
+distinction is determination, and if all determination is negation, that
+is (as here used), limitation, then the infinite, as distinguished from
+the finite, loses its own infinity, and either becomes identical with
+the finite, or else vanishes into pure nothing. If Hamilton will persist
+in affirming that all determination is limitation, he has no other
+alternatives but to accept the doctrine of Absolute Nihilism, or of
+Absolute Identity. If the Absolute is the indeterminate--that is, no
+attributes, no consciousness, no relations--it is pure non-being. If the
+Infinite is "the One and All," then there is but one substance, one
+absolute entity.
+
+Herbert Spencer professes to be carrying out, a step farther, the
+doctrine put into shape by Hamilton and Mansel, viz., "the philosophy of
+the Unconditioned." In other words, he carries that doctrine forward to
+its rigidly logical consequences, and utters the last word which
+Hamilton and Mansel dare not utter--"Apprehensible by us there is no
+God." The Ultimate Reality is absolutely unknown; it can not be
+apprehended by the human intellect, and it can not present itself to the
+intellect at all. This Ultimate Reality can not be _intelligent_,
+because to think is to condition, and the Absolute is the unconditioned;
+can not be _conscious_, because all consciousness is of plurality and
+difference, and the Absolute is one; can not be _personal_, because
+personality is determination or limitation, and the Infinite is the
+illimitable. It is "audacious," "irreverent," "impious," to apply any of
+these predicates to it; to regard it as Mind, or speak of it as
+Righteous.[327] The ultimate goal of the philosophy of the Unconditioned
+is a purely subjective Atheism.
+
+[Footnote 327: "First Principles," pp. 111, 112.]
+
+And yet of this Primary Existence--inscrutable, and absolutely
+unknown--Spencer knows something; knows as much as he pleases to know.
+He knows that this "ultimate of ultimates is _Force_,"[328] an
+"_Omnipresent Power_,"[329] is "_One_" and "_Eternal_."[330] He knows
+also that it can not be intelligent, self-conscious, and a
+personality.[331] This is a great deal to affirm and deny of an
+existence "absolutely unknown." May we not be permitted to affirm of
+this hidden and unknown something that it is _conscious Mind_,
+especially as Mind is admitted to be the only analogon of Power; and
+"the _force_ by which we produce change, and which serves to symbolize
+the causes of changes in general, is the final disclosure of
+analysis."[332]
+
+[Footnote 328: "First Principles," p. 235.]
+
+[Footnote 329: Ibid., p. 99.]
+
+[Footnote 330: Ibid., p. 81.]
+
+[Footnote 331: Ibid., pp. 108-112.]
+
+[Footnote 332: Ibid., p. 235.]
+
+3. We advance to the review of the third fundamental principle of
+Hamilton's philosophy of the Unconditioned, viz., that the terms
+infinite and absolute are names for a "mere negation of thought"--a
+"mental impotence" to think, or, in other words, the absence of all the
+conditions under which thought is possible.
+
+This principle is based upon a distinction between "positive" and
+"negative" thought, which is made with an air of wonderful precision and
+accuracy in "the Alphabet of Human Thought."[333] "Thinking is
+_positive_ when existence is predicated of an object." "Thinking is
+_negative_ when existence is not attributed to an object." "Negative
+thinking," therefore, is not the thinking of an object as devoid of this
+or that particular attribute, but as devoid of all attributes, and thus
+of all existence; that is, it is "the negation of all
+thought"--_nothing_. "When we think a thing, that is done by conceiving
+it as possessed of certain modes of being or qualities, _and the sum of
+these qualities constitutes its concept or notion_." "When we perform an
+act of negative thought, this is done by thinking _something_ as _not_
+existing in this or that determinate mode; and when we think it as
+existing in no determinate mode, _we cease to think at all--it becomes a
+nothing_."[334] Now the Infinite, according to Hamilton, can not be
+thought in any determinate mode; therefore we do not think it at all,
+and therefore it is for us "a logical Non-entity."
+
+[Footnote 333: "Discussions," Appendix I. p. 567.]
+
+[Footnote 334: "Logic," pp. 54, 55.]
+
+It is barely conceivable that Hamilton might imagine himself possessed
+of this singular power of "performing an act of negative thought"--that
+is, of thinking and not thinking at once, or of "thinking something"
+that "becomes nothing;" we are not conscious of any such power. To think
+without an object of thought, or to think of something without any
+qualities, or to think "something" which in the act of thought melts
+away into "nothing," is an absurdity and a contradiction. We can not
+think about nothing. All thought must have an object, and every object
+must have some predicate. Even space has some predicates--as
+receptivity, unity, and infinity. Thought can only be realized by
+thinking something existing, and existing in a determinate manner; and
+when we cease to think something having predicates, we cease to think at
+all. This is emphatically asserted by Hamilton himself.[335] "Negative
+thinking" is, therefore, a meaningless phrase, a contradiction in terms;
+it is no thought at all. We are cautioned, however, against regarding
+"the negation of thought" as "a negation of all mental ability." It is,
+we are told, "an attempt to think, and a failure in the attempt." An
+attempt to think about _what_? Surely it must be about some object, and
+an object which is _known_ by some sign, else there can be no thought.
+Let any one make the attempt to think without something to think about,
+and he will find that both the process and the result are blank
+nothingness. All thought, therefore, as Calderwood has amply shown, is,
+must be, _positive_. "Thought is nothing else than the comparison of
+objects known; and as knowledge is always positive, so must our thought
+be. All knowledge implies an object _known_; and so all thought involves
+an object about which we think, and must, therefore, be positive--that
+is, it must embrace within itself the conception of certain qualities as
+belonging to the object."[336]
+
+[Footnote 335: "Logic," p. 55.]
+
+[Footnote 336: "Philosophy of the Infinite," p. 272.]
+
+The conclusion of Hamilton's reasoning in regard to "negative thinking"
+is, that we can form no notion of the Infinite Being. We have no
+positive idea of such a Being. We can think of him only by "the thinking
+away of every characteristic" which can be conceived, and thus "ceasing
+to think at all." We can only form a "negative concept," which, we are
+told, "is in fact no concept at all." We can form only a "negative
+notion," which, we are informed, "is only the negation of a notion."
+This is the impenetrable abyss of total gloom and emptiness into which
+the philosophy of the conditions leads us at last.[337]
+
+[Footnote 337: Whilst Spencer accepts the general doctrine of Hamilton,
+that the Ultimate Reality is inscrutable, he argues earnestly against
+his assertion that the Absolute is a "mere negation of thought."
+
+"Every one of the arguments by which the relativity of our knowledge is
+demonstrated distinctly postulates the _positive existence_ of something
+beyond the relative. To say we can not know the Absolute is, by
+implication, to affirm there _is_ an Absolute. In the very denial of our
+power to learn _what_ the Absolute is, there lies hidden the assumption
+_that_ it is; and the making of this assumption proves that the Absolute
+has been present to the mind, not as nothing, but as _something_. And so
+with every step in the reasoning by which the doctrine is upheld, the
+Noumenon, everywhere named as the antithesis of the Phenomenon, is
+throughout thought as actuality. It is rigorously impossible to conceive
+that our knowledge is a knowledge of appearances only, without, at the
+same time, conceiving a Reality of which these are appearances, for
+appearances without reality are unthinkable.
+
+"Truly to represent or realize in thought any one of the propositions of
+which the argument consists, the unconditioned must be represented as
+_positive_, and not negative. How, then, can it be a legitimate
+conclusion from the argument that our consciousness of it is negative?
+An argument, the very construction of which assigns to a certain term a
+certain meaning, but which ends in showing that this term has no
+meaning, is simply an elaborate suicide. Clearly, then, the very
+demonstration that a definite consciousness [comprehension] of the
+Absolute is impossible, unavoidably presupposes an indefinite
+consciousness of it [an apprehension]."--"First Principles," p. 88.]
+
+Still we have the word _infinite_, and we have _the notion_ which the
+word expresses. This, at least, is spared to us by Sir William Hamilton.
+He who says we have no such notion asks the question _how we have it?_
+Here it may be asked, how have we, then, the word infinite? How have we
+the notion which this word expresses? The answer to this question is
+contained in the distinction of positive and negative thought.
+
+We have a positive concept of a thing when we think of it by the
+qualities of which it is the complement. But as the attribution of
+qualities is an affirmation, as affirmation and negation are relatives,
+and as relatives _are known only in and through each other_, we can not,
+therefore, have a _consciousness_ of the affirmation of any quality
+without having, at the same time, the _correlative consciousness_ of its
+negation. Now the one consciousness is a positive, the other
+consciousness is a negative notion; and as all language is the reflex of
+thought, the positive and negative notions are expressed by positive and
+negative names. Thus it is with the Infinite.[338] Now let us carefully
+scrutinize the above deliverance. We are told that "relatives are known
+only in and through each other;" that is, such relatives as _finite_ and
+_infinite_ are known necessarily in the same act of thought. The
+knowledge of one is as necessary as the knowledge of the other. We can
+not have a consciousness of the one without the correlative
+consciousness of the other. "For," says Hamilton, "a relation is, in
+truth, a thought, one and indivisible; and while the thinking a relation
+_necessarily involves the thought of its two terms,_, so it is, with
+equal necessity, itself involved in the thought of either." If, then, we
+are _conscious_ of the two terms of the relation in the same "one and
+indivisible" mental act--if we can not have "the consciousness of the
+one without the consciousness of the other"--if space and position, time
+and succession, substance and quality, infinite and finite, are given to
+us in pairs, then 'the _knowledge of one is as necessary as the
+knowledge of the other,_' and they must stand or fall together. The
+finite is known no more positively than the infinite; the infinite is
+known as positively as the finite. The one can not be taken and the
+other left. The infinite, discharged from all relation to the finite,
+could never come into apprehension; and the finite, discharged of all
+relation to the infinite, is incognizable too. "There can be no
+objection to call the one 'positive' and the other 'negative,' provided
+it be understood that _each_ is so with regard to the other, and that
+the relation is convertible; the finite, for instance, being the
+negative of the infinite, not less than the infinite of the
+finite."[339]
+
+[Footnote 338: _Logic,_ p. 73.]
+
+[Footnote 339: Martineau's "Essays," p. 237.]
+
+To say that the finite is comprehensible in and by itself, and the
+infinite is incomprehensible in and by itself, is to make an assertion
+utterly at variance both with psychology and logic. The finite is no
+more comprehensible _in itself_ than the infinite. "Relatives are known
+only in and through each other."[340] "The conception of one term of a
+relation necessarily implies that of the other, it being the very nature
+of a relative to be thinkable only through the conjunct thought of its
+correlative." We comprehend nothing more completely than the infinite;
+"for the idea of illimitation is as clear, precise, and intelligible as
+the idea of limitability, which is its basis. The propositions "A is X"
+"A is not X," are equally comprehensible; the conceptions A and X are in
+both cases positive data of experience, while the affirmation and
+negation consist solely in the copulative or disjunctive nature of the
+predication. Consequently, if X is comprehensible, so is not--X; if the
+finite is comprehensible, so is the infinite."[341]
+
+Whilst denying that the infinite can by us be _known_, Hamilton tells us
+he is "far from denying that it is, must, and ought to be
+_believed_."[342] "We must believe in the infinity of God."
+"Faith--belief--is the organ by which we apprehend what is beyond
+knowledge."[343] We heartily assent to the doctrine that the Infinite
+Being is the object of faith, but we earnestly deny that the Infinite
+Being is not an object of knowledge. May not knowledge be grounded upon
+faith, and does not faith imply knowledge? Can we not obtain knowledge
+through faith? Is not the belief in the Infinite Being implied in our
+knowledge of finite existence? If so, then God as the infinite and
+perfect, God as the unconditioned Cause, is not absolutely "the
+unknown."
+
+[Footnote 340: Hamilton's "Logic," p. 73.]
+
+[Footnote 341: North American Review, October, 1864, article
+"Conditioned and the Unconditioned," pp. 441, 442.]
+
+[Footnote 342: Letter to Calderwood, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 530.]
+
+[Footnote 343: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 374.]
+
+A full exposition of Sir William Hamilton's views of _Faith_ in its
+connection with Philosophy would have been deeply interesting to us, and
+it would have filled up a gap in the interpretation of his system. The
+question naturally presents itself, how would he have discriminated
+between faith and knowledge, so as to assign to each its province? If
+our notion of the Infinite Being rests entirely upon faith, then upon
+what ultimate ground does faith itself rest? On the authority of
+Scripture, of the Church, or of reason? The only explicit statement of
+his view which has fallen in our way is a note in his edition of
+Reid.[344] "We _know_ what rests upon reason; we _believe_ what rests
+upon authority. But reason itself must rest at last upon authority; for
+the original data of reason do not rest upon reason, but are necessarily
+accepted by reason on the authority of what is beyond itself. These data
+are, therefore, in rigid propriety, Beliefs or Trusts. Thus it is that,
+in the last resort, we must, per force, philosophically admit that
+belief is the primary condition of reason, and not reason the ultimate
+ground of belief."
+
+[Footnote 344: P. 760; also Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, p. 61.]
+
+Here we have, first, an attempted distinction between faith and
+knowledge. "We _know_ what rests upon reason;" that is, whatever we
+obtain by deduction or induction, whatever is capable of explication and
+proof, is _knowledge_. "We _believe_ what rests upon authority;" that
+is, whatever we obtain by intellectual intuition or pure apperception,
+and is incapable of explication and of proof, is "a _belief or trust_."
+These instinctive beliefs, which are, as it were, the first principles
+upon which all knowledge rests, are, however, indiscriminately called by
+Hamilton "cognitions," "beliefs," "judgments." He declares most
+explicitly "that the principles of our knowledge must themselves be
+_knowledges_;"[345] and these first principles, which are "the primary
+condition of reason," are elsewhere called "_à priori cognitions_;" also
+"native, pure, or transcendental _knowledge_," in contradistinction to
+"_à posteriori cognitions_," or that knowledge which is obtained in the
+exercise of reason.[346] All this confusion results from an attempt to
+put asunder what God has joined together. As Clemens of Alexandria has
+said, "Neither is faith without knowledge, nor knowledge without faith."
+All faith implies knowledge, and all knowledge implies faith. They are
+mingled in the one operation of the human mind, by which we apprehend
+first principles or ultimate truths. These have their light and dark
+side, as Hamilton has remarked. They afford enough light to show _that_
+they are and must be, and thus communicate knowledge; they furnish no
+light to show _how_ they are and _why_ they are, and under that aspect
+demand the exercise of faith. There must, therefore, first be something
+_known_ before there can be any _faith_.[347]
+
+[Footnote 345: Ibid., p. 69.]
+
+[Footnote 346: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 347: M'Cosh, "Intuitions," pp. 197, 198; Calderwood,
+"Philosophy of the Infinite," p. 24.]
+
+And now we seem to have penetrated to the centre of Hamilton's
+philosophy, and the vital point may be touched by one crucial question,
+_Upon what ultimate ground does faith itself rest?_ Hamilton says, "we
+believe what rests upon _authority_." But what is that authority? I. It
+is not the authority of Divine Revelation, because beliefs are called
+"instinctive," "native," "innate," "common," "catholic,"[348] all which
+terms seem to indicate that this "authority" lies within the sphere of
+the human mind; at any rate, this faith does not rest on the authority
+of Scripture. Neither is it the authority of Reason. "The original data
+of reason [the first principles of knowledge] do not rest upon the
+authority of reason, but _on the authority of what is beyond itself_."
+The question thus recurs, what is this ultimate ground beyond reason
+upon which faith rests? Does it rest upon any thing, or nothing?
+
+[Footnote 348: Philosophy of Sir Wm. Hamilton, pp. 68, 69.]
+
+The answer to this question is given in the so-called "Law of the
+Conditioned," which is thus laid down: "_All that is conceivable in
+thought lies between two extremes, which, as contradictory of each
+other, can not both be true, but of which, as mutual contradictories,
+one must_." For example, we conceive _space_, but we can not conceive it
+as absolutely bounded or infinitely unbounded. We can conceive _time_,
+but we can not conceive it as having an absolute commencement or an
+infinite non-commencement. We can conceive of _degree_, but we can not
+conceive it as absolutely limited or as infinitely unlimited. We can
+conceive of _existence_, but not as an absolute part or an infinite
+whole. Therefore, "the Conditioned is that which is alone conceivable or
+cogitable; the Unconditioned, that which is inconceivable or
+incogitable. The conditioned, or the thinkable, lies between two
+extremes or poles; and each of these extremes or poles are
+unconditioned, each of them inconceivable, each of them exclusive or
+contradictory of the other. Of these two repugnant opposites, the one is
+that of Unconditional or Absolute Limitation; the other that of
+Unconditional or Infinite Illimitation, or, more simply, the Absolute
+and the Infinite; the term _absolute_ expressing that which is finished
+or complete, the term _infinite_ that which can not be terminated or
+concluded."[349]
+
+"The conditioned is the mean between two extremes--two inconditionates,
+exclusive of each other, neither of which _can be conceived as
+possible_, but of which, on the principle of contradiction, and excluded
+middle, _one must be admitted as necessary_. We are thus warned from
+recognizing the domain of our knowledge as necessarily co-extensive with
+the horizon of our faith. And by a _wonderful revelation_, we are thus,
+in the very consciousness of our inability to conceive aught above the
+relative and the finite, _inspired with a belief in_ the existence of
+something unconditioned beyond the sphere of all comprehensible
+reality."[350] Here, then, we have found the ultimate ground of our
+faith in the Infinite God. It is built upon a "mental imbecility," and
+buttressed up by "contradictions!"[351]
+
+[Footnote 349: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. pp. 368, 374. With
+Hamilton, the Unconditioned is a genus, of which the Infinite and
+Absolute are species.]
+
+[Footnote 350: "Discussions on Philosophy," p. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 351: The warmest admirers of Sir William Hamilton hesitate to
+apply the doctrine of the unconditioned to Cause and Free-will. See
+"Mansel's Prolegom.," Note C, p. 265.]
+
+Such a faith, however, is built upon the clouds, and the whole structure
+of this philosophy is "a castle in the air"--an attempt to organize
+Nescience into Science, and evoke something out of nothing. To pretend
+to believe in that respecting which I can form no notion is in reality
+not to believe at all. The nature which compels me to believe in the
+Infinite must supply me some object upon which my belief can take hold.
+We can not believe in contradictions. Our faith must be a rational
+belief--a faith in the ultimate harmony and unity of all truth, in the
+veracity and integrity of human reason as the organ of truth; and, above
+all, a faith in the veracity of God, who is the author and illuminator
+of our mental constitution. "We can not suppose that we are created
+capable of intelligence in order to be made victims of delusion--that
+God is a deceiver, and the root of our nature a lie."[352] We close our
+review of Hamilton by remarking:
+
+[Footnote 352: Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, p. 21.]
+
+1. "The Law of the Conditioned," as enounced by Hamilton, is
+contradictory. It predicates contradiction of two extremes, which are
+asserted to be equally incomprehensible and incognizable. If they are
+utterly incognizable, how does Hamilton _know_ that they are
+contradictory? The mutual _relation_ of two objects is said to be known,
+but the objects themselves are absolutely unknown. But how can we know
+any relation except by an act of comparison, and how can we compare two
+objects so as to affirm their relation, if the objects are absolutely
+unknown? "The Infinite is defined as Unconditional Illimitation; the
+Absolute as Conditional Limitation. Yet almost in the same breath we are
+told that each is utterly inconceivable, each the mere negation of
+thought. On the one hand, we are told they _differ_; on the other, we
+are told they do _not differ_. Now which does Hamilton mean? If he
+insist upon the definitions as yielding a ground of conceivable
+difference, he must abandon the inconceivability; but if he insist upon
+the inconceivability, he must abandon the definition as sheer verbiage,
+devoid of all conceivable meaning. There is no possible escape from this
+dilemma. Further, two negations can never contradict; for contradiction
+is the asserting and the denying of the same proposition; two denials
+can not conflict. If Illimitation is negative, Limitation, its
+contradictory, is positive, whether conditional or unconditional. In
+brief, if the Infinite and Absolute are wholly incomprehensible, they
+are not distinguishable; but if they are distinguishable, they are not
+wholly incomprehensible. If they are indistinguishable, they are to us
+identical; and identity precludes contradiction. But if they are
+distinguishable, distinction is made by difference, which involves
+positive cognition; hence one, at least, must be conceivable. It
+follows, therefore, by inexorable logic, that either the contradiction
+or the inconceivability must be abandoned."[353]
+
+[Footnote 353: North American Review, October, 1864, pp. 407, 408.]
+
+2. "The Law of the Conditioned," as a ground of faith in the Infinite
+Being, is utterly void, meaningless, and ineffectual. Let us re-state it
+in Hamilton's own words: "The conditioned is the _mean_ between two
+extremes, two inconditionates exclusive of each other, neither of which
+_can be conceived as possible_, but of which, on the principle of
+Contradiction and Excluded Middle, _one must be admitted as necessary_."
+It is scarcely needful to explain to the intelligent reader the above
+logical principles; that they may, however, be clearly before the mind
+in this connection, we state that the principle of Contradiction is
+this: "A thing can not at the same time be and not be; _A is_, _A is
+not_, are propositions which can not both be true at once." The
+principle of Excluded Middle is this: "A thing either is or is not--_A
+either is or is not B_; there is no _medium_."[354] Now, to mention the
+law of Excluded Middle and two contradictories with a _mean_ between
+them, in the same sentence, is really astounding. "If the two
+contradictory extremes are equally incogitable, yet include a cogitable
+mean, why insist upon the necessity of accepting either extreme? This
+necessity of accepting one of the contradictories is wholly based upon
+the supposed impossibility of a _mean_; if a mean exists, _that_ may be
+true, and both contradictories together false. But if a mean between two
+contradictories be both impossible and absurd, Hamilton's 'conditioned'
+entirely vanishes."[355] If both contradictories are equally unknown and
+equally unthinkable, we can not discover _why_, on his principles, we
+are bound to believe _either_.
+
+[Footnote 354: Hamilton's "Logic," pp. 58, 59; "Metaphysics," vol. ii.
+p. 368.]
+
+[Footnote 355: North British Review, October, 1864, pp. 415, 416.]
+
+3. The whole of this confusion in thought and expression results from
+the habit of confounding the sensuous imagination with the non-sensuous
+reason, and the consequent co-ordination of an imageable conception with
+an abstract idea. The objects of sense and the sensuous imagination may
+be characterized as extension, limitation, figure, position, etc.; the
+objects of the non-sensuous reason may be characterized as universality,
+eternity, infinity. I can form an _image_ of an extended and figured
+object, but I can not form an _image_ of space, time, or God; neither,
+indeed, can I form an image of Goodness, Justice, or Truth. But I can
+have a clear and precise idea of space, and time, and God, as I can of
+Justice, Goodness, and Truth. There are many things which I can most
+surely _know_ that I can not possibly _comprehend_, if to comprehend is
+to form a mental image of a thing. There is nothing which I more
+certainly know than that space is infinite, and eternity unbeginning and
+endless; but I can not comprehend the infinity of space or the
+illimitability of eternity. I know that God is, that he is a being of
+infinite perfection, but I can not throw my thoughts around and
+comprehend the infinity of God.
+
+(iv.) We come, lastly, to consider the position of the _Dogmatic
+Theologians_.[356] In their zeal to demonstrate the necessity of Divine
+Revelation, and to vindicate for it the honor of supplying to us all our
+knowledge of God, they assail every fundamental principle of reason,
+often by the very weapons which are supplied by an Atheistical
+philosophy. As a succinct presentation of the views of this school, we
+select the "_Theological Institutes_" of R. Watson.
+
+[Footnote 356: Ellis, Leland, Locke, and Horsley, whose writings are
+extensively quoted in Watson's "Institutes of Theology" (reprinted by
+Carlton & Lanahan, New York).]
+
+1st. The invalidity of "_the principle of causality_" is asserted by
+this author. "We allow that the argument which proves that the _effects_
+with which we are surrounded have been _caused_, and thus leads us up
+through a chain of subordinate causes to one First Cause, has a
+simplicity, an obviousness, and a force which, when we are previously
+furnished with the idea of God, makes it, at first sight, difficult to
+conceive that men, under any degree of cultivation, should be inadequate
+to it; yet if ever the human mind commenced such an inquiry at all, it
+is highly probable that it would rest in the notion of an _eternal
+succession of causes and effects_, rather than acquire the ideas of
+creation, in the proper sense, and of a Supreme Creator."[357] "We feel
+that our reason rests with full satisfaction in the doctrine that all
+things are created by one eternal and self-existent Being; but the Greek
+philosophers held that matter was eternally co-existent with God. This
+was the opinion of Plato, who has been called the Moses of
+philosophy."[358]
+
+For a defense of "the principle of causality" we must refer the reader
+to our remarks on the philosophy of Comte. We shall now only remark on
+one or two peculiarities in the above statement which betray an utter
+misapprehension of the nature of the argument. We need scarcely direct
+attention to the unfortunate and, indeed, absurd phrase, "an eternal
+succession of causes and effects." An "eternal succession" is a
+_contradictio in adjecto_, and as such inconceivable and unthinkable. No
+human mind can "rest" in any such thing, because an eternal succession
+is no rest at all. All "succession" is finite and temporal, capable of
+numeration, and therefore can not be eternal.[359] Again, in attaining
+the conception of a First Cause the human mind does not pass up "through
+a chain of subordinate causes," either definite or indefinite, "to one
+First Cause."
+
+[Footnote 357: Watson's "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 273.]
+
+[Footnote 358: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 359: See _ante_, pp. 181, 182, ch. v.]
+
+Let us re-state the principle of causality as a universal and necessary
+law of thought. "_All phenomena present themselves to us as the
+expression of_ POWER, and refer us to a causal ground whence they
+issue." That "power" is intuitively and spontaneously apprehended by the
+human mind as Supreme and Ultimate--"the causal ground" is a personal
+God. All the phenomena of nature present themselves to us as "effects,"
+and we know nothing of "subordinate causes" except as modes of the
+Divine Efficiency.[360] The principle of causality compels us to think
+causation behind nature, and under causation to think of Volition.
+"Other forces we have no sort of ground for believing; or, except by
+artifices of abstraction, even power of conceiving. The dynamic idea is
+either this or nothing; and the logical alternative assuredly is that
+nature is either a mere Time-march of phenomena or an expression of
+Mind."[361] The true doctrine of philosophy, of science, and of
+revelation is not simply that God did create "in the beginning," but
+that he still creates. All the operations of Nature are the operations
+of the Divine Mind. "Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return
+to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created; and thou
+renewest the face of the earth."[362]
+
+[Footnote 360: The modern doctrine of the Correlation and Homogenity of
+all Forces clearly proves that they are not many, but _one_--"a dynamic
+self-identity masked by transmigration."--Martineau's "Essays," pp.
+134-144.]
+
+[Footnote 361: Martineau's "Essays," pp. 140, 141.]
+
+[Footnote 362: Psalm civ.]
+
+The assertion that Plato taught "the eternity of matter," and that
+consequently he did not arrive at the idea of a Supreme and Ultimate
+Cause, is incapable of proof. The term ὕλη=matter does not occur in the
+writings of Plato, or, indeed, of any of his predecessors, and is
+peculiarly Aristotelian. The ground of the world of sense is called by
+Plato "the receptacle" (ὑποδοχή), "the nurse" (τιθήνη) of all that is
+produced, and was apparently identified, in his mind, with _pure
+space_--a logical rather than a physical entity--the mere negative
+condition and medium of Divine manifestation. He never regards it as a
+"cause," or ascribes to it any efficiency. We grant that he places this
+very indefinite something (ὁποιονοῦν τι) out of the sphere of temporal
+origination; but it must be borne in mind that he speaks of "creation in
+eternity" as well as of "creation in time;" and of time itself, though
+created, as "an eternal image of the generating Father."[363] This one
+thing, at any rate, can not be denied, that Plato recognizes creation in
+its fullest sense as the act of God.
+
+The admission that something has always existed besides the Deity, as a
+mere logical condition of the exercise of divine power (_e.g._, space),
+would not invalidate the argument for the existence of God. The proof of
+the Divine Existence, as Chalmers has shown, does not rest on the
+existence of matter, but on the orderly arrangement of matter; and the
+grand question of Theism is not whether the _matter of the world_, but
+whether the _present order of the world_ had a commencement.[364]
+
+2d. Doubt is cast by our author upon the validity of "_the principle of
+the Unconditioned or the Infinite_." "Supposing it were conceded that
+some faint glimmering of this great truth [the existence of a First
+Cause] might, by induction, have been discovered by contemplative minds,
+by what means could they have _demonstrated_ to themselves that he is
+eternal, self-existent, immortal, and independent?"[365] "Between things
+visible and invisible, time and eternity, beings finite and beings
+infinite, objects of sense and objects of faith, _the connection is not
+perceptible_ to human observation. Though we push our researches,
+therefore, to the extreme point whither the light of nature can carry
+us, they will in the end be abruptly terminated, and we must stop short
+at an immeasurable distance between the creature and the Creator."[366]
+
+[Footnote 363: Plato, "Timæus," § xiv.]
+
+[Footnote 364: Chalmers's "Natural Theology," bk. i. ch. v.; also
+Mahan's "Natural Theology," pp. 21-23.]
+
+[Footnote 365: Watson's "Institutes of Theol.," vol. i. p. 274.]
+
+[Footnote 366: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 273.]
+
+To this assertion that the connection of things visible and things
+invisible, finite and infinite, objects of sense and objects of faith,
+is utterly imperceptible to human thought, we might reply by quoting the
+words of that Sacred Book whose supreme authority our author is seeking,
+by this argument, to establish. "The _invisible_ things of God, even his
+eternal power and god-head, from the creation, are clearly _seen_, being
+_understood by the things which are made_." We may also point to the
+fact that in every age and in every land the human mind has
+spontaneously and instinctively recognized the existence of an invisible
+Power and Presence pervading nature and controlling the destinies of
+man, and that religious worship--prayer, and praise, and
+sacrifice--offered to that unseen yet omnipresent Power is an universal
+fact of human nature. The recognition of an _immediate_ and a
+_necessary_ "connection" between the visible and the invisible, the
+objects of sense and the objects of faith, is one of the most obvious
+facts of consciousness--of universal consciousness as revealed in
+history, and of individual consciousness as developed in every rational
+mind.
+
+That this connection is "not perceptible to human observation," if by
+this our author means "not perceptible to sense," we readily admit. No
+one ever asserted it was perceptible to human observation. We say that
+this connection is perceptible to human _reason_, and is revealed in
+every attempt to think about, and seek an explanation of, the phenomenal
+world. The Phenomenal and the Real, Genesis and Being, Space and
+Extension, Succession and Duration, Time and Eternity, the Finite and
+the Infinite, are correlatives which are given in one and the same
+indivisible act of thought. "The conception of one term of a relation
+necessarily implies that of the other; it being the very nature of a
+correlative to be thinkable only through the conjunct thought of its
+correlative; for a relation is, in truth, a thought one and indivisible;
+and whilst the thinking of one relation necessarily involves the thought
+of its two terms, so it is, with equal necessity, itself involved in the
+thought of either."[367] Finite, dependent, contingent, temporal
+existence, therefore, necessarily supposes infinite, self-existent,
+independent, eternal Being; the Conditioned and Relative implies the
+Unconditioned and Absolute--one is known only in and through the other.
+But inasmuch as the unconditioned is cognized solely _à priori_, and the
+conditioned solely _à posteriori_, the recognition by the human mind of
+their necessary correlation becomes the bridge whereby the chasm between
+the subjective and the objective may be spanned, and whereby Thought may
+be brought face to face with Existence.
+
+[Footnote 367: Hamilton's "Metaphysics," vol. ii. pp. 536, 537.]
+
+The reverence which, from boyhood, we have entertained for the
+distinguished author of the "Institutes" restrains us from speaking in
+adequate terms of reprobation of the statement that "the _First Cause_"
+may be known, and yet not conceived "as eternal, self-existent,
+immortal, and independent". Surely that which is the ground and reason
+of all existence must have the ground and reason of its own existence in
+itself. That which is _first_ in the order of existence, and in the
+logical order of thought, can have nothing prior to itself. If the
+supposed First Cause is not necessarily self-existent and independent,
+it is not the _first_; if it has a dependent existence, there must be a
+prior being on which it depends. If the First Cause is not eternal, then
+prior to this Ultimate Cause there was nothingness and vacuity, and pure
+nothing, by its own act, became something. But "_Ex nihilo nihil_" is a
+universal law of thought. To ask the question whether the First Cause be
+self-existent and eternal, is, in effect, to ask the question "who made
+God?" and this is not the question of an adult theologian, but of a
+little child. Surely Mr. Watson must have penned the above passage
+without any reflection on its real import[368].
+
+[Footnote 368: In an article on "the Impending Revolution in Anglo-Saxon
+Theology" Methodist Quarterly Review, (July, 1863), Dr. Warren seems to
+take it for granted that the "aiteological" and "teleological" arguments
+for the existence of God are utterly invalidated by the Dynamical theory
+of matter. "Once admit that _real power_ can and does reside in matter,
+and all these reasonings fail. If inherent forces of matter are
+competent to the production of all the innumerable miracles of movement
+in the natural world, what is there in the natural world which they can
+not produce. If all _the exertions of power_ in the universe can be
+accounted for without resort to something back of, and superior to,
+nature, what is there which can force the mind to such a resort?" (p.
+463). "Having granted that _power_, or _self-activity_, is a natural
+attribute of all matter, what right have we to deny it _intelligence_?"
+(p. 465). "_Self-moving matter must have thought and design_" (p. 469).
+
+It is not our intention to offer an extended criticism of the above
+positions in this note. We shall discuss "the Dynamical theory" more
+fully in a subsequent work. If the theory apparently accepted by Dr.
+Warren be true, that "_the ultimate atoms of matter are as uniformly
+efficient as minds_, and that we have the same ground to regard the
+force exerted by the one _innate_ and _natural_ as that exerted by the
+other" (p. 464), then we grant that the conclusions of Dr. Warren, as
+above stated, are unavoidable. We proceed one step farther, and boldly
+assert that the existence of God is, on this hypothesis, incapable of
+proof, and the only logical position Dr. Warren can occupy is that of
+spiritualistic Pantheism.
+
+Dr. Warren asserts that "the Dynamical theory of matter" is now
+generally accepted by "Anglo-Saxon _naturalists_." "One can scarcely
+open a scientific treatise without observing the altered stand-point"
+(p. 160). We confess that we are disappointed with Dr. Warren's
+treatment of this simple question of fact. On so fundamental an issue,
+the Doctor ought to have given the name of at least _one_ "naturalist"
+who asserts that "the ultimate atoms of matter are as uniformly
+efficient as minds." Leibnitz, Morrell, Ulrici, Hickok, the authorities
+quoted by him, are metaphysicians and idealists of the extremest school.
+At present we shall, therefore, content ourselves with a general denial
+of this wholesale statement of Dr. Warren; and we shall sustain that
+denial by a selection from the many authorities we shall hereafter
+present. "No particle of matter possesses within itself the power of
+changing its existing state of motion or of rest. Matter has no
+spontaneous power either of rest or motion, but is equally susceptible
+to each as it may be acted on by _external_ causes" (Silliman's
+"Principles of Physics," p. 13). The above proposition is "a truth on
+which the whole science of mechanical philosophy ultimately depends"
+(Encyclopædia Britannica, art. "Dynamics," vol. viii. p. 326). "A
+material substance existing alone in the universe could not produce any
+effects. There is not, so far as we know, a self-acting material
+substance in the universe" (M'Cosh, "Divine Government, Physical and
+Moral," p. 78). "Perhaps the only true indication of matter is
+_inertia_." "The cause of gravitation is _not resident_ in the particles
+of matter merely," but also "_in all space_" (Dr. Faraday on
+"Conservation of Force," in "Correlation and Conservation of Force." (p.
+368). He also quotes with approbation the words of Newton, "That gravity
+should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, is so great an
+absurdity, that I believe no man who has in philosophic matters a
+competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it" p. 368). "The
+'force of gravity' is an improper expression" (p. 340). "Forces are
+transformable, indestructible, and, _in contradistinction from matter_,
+imponderable" (p. 346). "The first cause of things is Deity" (Dr. Mayer,
+in "Correlation and Conservation of Force," p. 341). "Although the word
+_cause_ may be used in a secondary and subordinate sense, as meaning
+antecedent forces, yet in an abstract sense it is totally inapplicable;
+we can not predicate of any physical agent that it is abstractedly the
+cause of another" (p. 15). "Causation is the _will_," "creation is the
+act, of God" Grove on "Correlation of Physical Forces," (p. 199).
+"Between gravity and motion it is impossible to establish the equation
+required for a rightly-conceived _causal_ relation" ("Correlation and
+Conservation of Force," p. 253). See also Herschel's "Outlines of
+Astronomy," p. 234.
+
+It certainly must have required a wonderful effort of imagination on the
+part of Dr. Warren to transform "weight" and "density," mere passive
+affections of matter, into self-activity, intelligence, thought, and
+design. Weight or density are merely relative terms. Supposing one
+particle or mass of matter to exist alone, and there can be no
+attractive or gravitating force. There must be a cause of gravity which
+is distinct from matter.]
+
+3d. The validity of "_the principle of unity_" is also discredited by
+Watson. "If, however, it were conceded that some glimmerings of this
+great truth, the existence of a First Cause, might, by induction, have
+been discovered, by what means could they have demonstrated to
+themselves that the great collection of bodies which we call the world
+had but _one_ Creator."[369]
+
+[Footnote 369: "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 275.]
+
+We might answer directly, and at once, that the oneness or unity of God
+is necessarily contained in "the very notion of a First Cause"--a
+_first_ cause is not many causes, but _one_. By a First Cause we do not,
+however, understand the first of a numerical series, but an ἀρχή--a
+principle, itself unbeginning, which is the source of all beginning. Our
+categorical answer, therefore, must be that the unity of God is a
+sublime deliverance of reason--God is one God. It is a first principle
+of reason that all differentiation and plurality supposes an incomposite
+unity, all diversity implies an indivisible identity. The sensuous
+perception of a plurality of parts supposes the rational idea of an
+absolute unity, which has no parts, as its necessary correlative. For
+example, extension is a congeries of indefinitesimal parts; the
+continuity of matter, as _empirically_ known by us, is never absolute.
+Space is absolutely continuous, incapable of division into integral
+parts, illimitable, and, as _rationally_ known by us, an absolute unity.
+The cognition of limited extension, which is the subject of quantitative
+measurement, involves the conception of unlimited space, which is the
+negation of all plurality and complexity of parts. And so the cognition
+of a phenomenal universe in which we see only difference, plurality, and
+change, implies the existence of a Being who is absolutely unchangeable,
+identical, and one.
+
+This law of thought lies at the basis of that universal desire of unity,
+and that universal effort to reduce all our knowledge to unity, which
+has revealed itself in the history of philosophy, and also of inductive
+science. "Reason, intellect, νοῦς, concatenating thoughts and objects
+into system, and tending upward from particular facts to general laws,
+from general laws to universal principles, is never satisfied in its
+ascent till it comprehends all laws in a single formula, and consummates
+all conditional knowledge in the unity of unconditional existence." "The
+history of philosophy is only the history of this tendency, and
+philosophers have borne ample testimony to its reality. 'The mind,' says
+Anaxagoras, 'only knows when it subdues its objects, when it reduces the
+many to the one.' 'The end of philosophy,' says Plato, 'is the intuition
+of unity.' 'All knowledge,' say the Platonists, 'is the gathering up
+into one, and the indivisible apprehension of this unity by the knowing
+mind.'"[370]
+
+[Footnote 370: Hamilton's "Metaphysics," vol. i. pp. 68, 69.]
+
+This law has been the guiding principle of the Inductive Sciences, and
+has led to some of its most important discoveries. The unity which has
+been attained in physical science is not, however, the absolute unity of
+a material substratum, but a unity of _Will_ and of _Thought_. The late
+discovery of the monogenesis, reciprocal convertibility, and
+indestructibility of all Forces in nature, leads us upward towards the
+recognition of one Omnipresent and Omnipotent Will, which, like a mighty
+tide, sweeps through the universe and effects all its changes. The
+universal prevalence of the same physical laws and numerical relations
+throughout all space, and of the same archetypal forms and teleology of
+organs throughout all past time, reveals to us a Unity of Thought which
+grasps the entire details of the universe in one comprehensive
+plan.[371] The positive _à priori_ intuitions of reason and the _à
+posteriori_ inductions of science equally attest _that God is one_.
+
+[Footnote 371: We refer with pleasure to the articles of Dr. Winchell,
+in the North-western Christian Advocate, in which the _à posteriori_
+proof of "the Unity of God" is forcibly exhibited, and take occasion to
+express the hope they will soon be presented to the public in a more
+permanent form.]
+
+4th. By denying that man has any intuitive cognitions of right and
+wrong, or any native and original feeling of obligation, Mr. Watson
+invalidates "the moral argument" for the existence of a Righteous God.
+
+"As far as man's reason has applied itself to the discovery of truth or
+_duty_ it has generally gone astray."[372] "Questions of morals do not,
+for the most part, lie level to the minds of the populace."[373] "Their
+conclusions have no _authority_, and place them under no
+_obligation_."[374] And, indeed, man without a revelation "is without
+_moral control_, without _principles of justice_, except such as may be
+slowly elaborated from those relations which concern the grosser
+interests of life, without _conscience_, without hope or fear in another
+life."[375]
+
+[Footnote 372: "Institutes of Theology," vol. ii. p. 470.]
+
+[Footnote 373: Ibid., vol. i. p. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 374: Ibid., vol. i. p. 228.]
+
+[Footnote 375: Ibid., vol. ii. p. 271.]
+
+Now we shall not occupy our space in the elaboration of the proposition
+that the universal consciousness of our race, as revealed in human
+history, languages, legislations, and sentiments, bears testimony to the
+fact that the ideas of right, duty, and responsibility are native to the
+human mind; we shall simply make our appeal to those Sacred Writings
+whose verdict must be final with all theologians. That the fundamental
+principles of the moral law do exist, subjectively, in all human minds
+is distinctly affirmed by Paul, in a passage which deserves to be
+regarded as the chief corner-stone of moral science. "The Gentiles
+(ἔθνη, heathen), which have not the written law, do by the guidance of
+nature (reason or conscience) the works enjoined by the revealed law;
+these, having no written law, are a law unto themselves; who show
+plainly the works of the law written on their hearts, their conscience
+bearing witness, and also their reasonings one with another, when they
+accuse, or else excuse, each other."[376] To deny this is to relegate
+the heathen from all responsibility. For Mr. Watson admits "that the
+will of a superior is not in justice binding unless it be in some mode
+sufficiently declared." Now in the righteous adjudgments of revelation
+the heathen are "without excuse." The will of God must, therefore, be
+"sufficiently declared" to constitute them accountable. Who will presume
+to say that the shadowy, uncertain, variable, easily and unavoidably
+corrupted medium of tradition running through forty muddy centuries is a
+"sufficient declaration of the will of God?" The law is "written on the
+heart" of every man, or all men are not accountable.
+
+[Footnote 376: Romans, ch. ii. ver. 14-15.]
+
+Now this "law written within the heart" immediately and naturally
+suggests the idea of a Lawgiver who is over us. This felt presence of
+Conscience, approving or condemning our conduct, suggests, as with the
+speed of the lightning-flash, the notion of a Judge who will finally
+call us to account. This "accusing or excusing of each other," this
+recognition of good or ill desert, points us to, and constrains us to
+recognize, a future Retribution; so that some hope or fear of another
+life has been in all ages a universal phenomenon of humanity.
+
+It is affirmed, however, that whilst this capacity to know God may have
+been an original endowment of human nature, yet, in consequence of the
+fall, "the understanding and reason are weakened by the deterioration of
+his whole intellectual nature."[377] "Without some degree of education,
+man is _wholly_ the creature of appetite. Labor, feasting, and sleeping
+divide his time, and wholly occupy his thoughts."[378]
+
+[Footnote 377: "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 378: Ibid., vol. i. p. 271.]
+
+We reverently and believingly accept the teaching of Scripture as to the
+depravity of man. We acknowledge that "the understanding is darkened" by
+sin. At the same time, we earnestly maintain that the Scriptures do not
+teach that the fundamental laws of mind, the first principles of reason,
+are utterly traversed and obliterated by sin, so that man is not able to
+recognize the existence of God, and feel his obligation to Him. "_Though
+they_(the heathen) _knew God_ (διότι γνόντες), they did not glorify him
+as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imagination, and
+their foolish hearts were darkened. They changed the truth of God into a
+lie, and worshipped and served the creature _more_ than the Creator."
+"And as they did not _approve of holding God with acknowledgment_, God
+delivered them over to an unapproving mind, to work those things which
+are not suitable." After drawing a fearful picture of the darkness and
+depravity of the heathen, the Apostle adds, "Who, _though they_ KNOW
+_the law of God_, that they who practise such things are worthy of
+death, not only do them, but even are well pleased with those who
+practise them."[379] The obvious and direct teaching of this passage is
+that the heathen, in the midst of their depravity and idolatry, are not
+utterly ignorant of God; "they _know_ God"--"they _know_ the law of God
+"--"they worship Him," though they worship the creature _more than_ Him.
+They know God, and are unwilling to "acknowledge God." "They know the
+righteousness of God," and are "haters of God" on account of his purity;
+and their worshipping of idols does not proceed from ignorance of God,
+from an intellectual inability to know God, but from "corruption of
+heart," and a voluntary choice of, and a "pleasure" in, the sinful
+practices accompanying idol worship. Therefore, argues the Apostle, they
+are "without excuse." The whole drift and aim of the argument of Paul
+is, not to show that the heathen were, by their depravity, incapacitated
+to know God, but that because they knew God and knew his righteous law,
+therefore their depravity and licentiousness was "inexcusable."
+
+[Footnote 379: Romans, ch. i. ver. 23-32.]
+
+We conclude our review of opposing schools by the re-affirmation of our
+position, _that God is cognizable by human reason._ The human mind,
+under the guidance of necessary laws of thought, is able, from the facts
+of the universe, to affirm the existence of God, and to attain some
+valid knowledge of his character and will. Every attempt to solve the
+great problem of existence, to offer an explanation of the phenomenal
+world, or to explore the fundamental idea of reason, when fairly and
+fully conducted, has resulted in the recognition of a Supreme
+_Intelligence_, a personal _Mind_ and _Will_, as the ground, and reason,
+and cause of all existence. A survey of the history of Greek Philosophy
+will abundantly sustain this position, and to this we shall, in
+subsequent chapters, invite the reader's attention.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS.
+
+PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+
+SENSATIONAL:
+THALES--ANAXIMENES--HERACLITUS--ANAXIMANDER--LEUCIPPUS--DEMOCRITUS.
+
+
+      "Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the
+      Stoics encountered Paul."--Acts xvii. 18.
+
+      "Plato affirms that this is the most just cause of the
+      creation of the world, that works which are good should be
+      wrought by the God who is good; whether he had read these
+      things in the Bible, or whether by his penetrating genius he
+      beheld _the invisible things of God as understood by the
+      things which are made_"--ST. AUGUSTINE, "De Civ. Dei," lib.
+      xi. ch. 21.
+
+Of all the monuments of the greatness of Athens which have survived the
+changes and the wastes of time, the most perfect and the most enduring
+is her philosophy. The Propylæa, the Parthenon, and the Erechtheum,
+those peerless gems of Grecian architecture, are now in ruins. The
+magnificent sculpture of Phidias, which adorned the pediment, and outer
+cornice, and inner frieze of these temples, and the unrivalled statuary
+of gods and heroes which crowded the platform of the Acropolis, making
+it an earthly Olympus, are now no more, save a few broken fragments
+which have been carried to other lands, and, in their exile, tell the
+mournful story of the departed grandeur of their ancient home. The
+brazen statue of Minerva, cast from the spoils of Marathon, which rose
+in giant grandeur above the buildings of the Acropolis, and the flashing
+of whose helmet plumes was seen by the mariner as soon as he had rounded
+the Sunian promontory; and that other brazen Pallas, called, by
+pre-eminence, "the Beautiful;" and the enormous Colossus of ivory and of
+gold, "the Immortal Maid"--the protecting goddess of the
+Parthenon--these have perished. But whilst the fingers of time have
+crumbled the Pentelic marble, and the glorious statuary has been broken
+to pieces by vandal hands, and the gold and brass have been melted in
+the crucibles of needy monarchs and converted into vulgar money, the
+philosophic _thought_ of Athens, which culminated in the dialectic of
+Plato, still survives. Not one of all the vessels, freighted with
+immortal thought, which Plato launched upon the stream of time, has
+foundered. And after the vast critical movement of European thought
+during the past two centuries, in which all philosophic systems have
+been subjected to the severest scrutiny, the _method_ of Plato still
+preserves, if not its exclusive authority unquestioned, at least its
+intellectual pre-eminence unshaken. "Platonism is immortal, because its
+principles are immortal in the human intellect and heart."[380]
+
+[Footnote 380: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+9.]
+
+Philosophy is, then, the world-enduring monument of the greatness and
+the glory of Athens. Whilst Greece will be forever memorable as "the
+country of wisdom and of wise men," Athens will always be pre-eminently
+memorable as the University of Greece. This was the home of Socrates,
+and Plato, and Aristotle--the three imperial names which, for twenty
+centuries, reigned supreme in the world of philosophic thought. Here
+schools of philosophy were founded to which students were attracted from
+every part of the civilized world, and by which an impulse and a
+direction was given to human thought in every land and in every age.
+Standing on the Acropolis at Athens, and looking over the city and the
+open country, the Apostle would see these _places_ which are inseparably
+associated with the names of the men who have always been recognized as
+the great teachers of the pagan world, and who have also exerted a
+powerful influence upon Christian minds of every age. "In opposite
+directions he would see the suburbs where Plato and Aristotle, the two
+pupils of Socrates, held their illustrious schools. The streamless bed
+of the Ilissus passes between the Acropolis and Hymettus in a
+south-westerly direction, until it vanishes in the low ground which
+separates the city from the Piræus." Looking towards the upper part of
+this channel, Paul would see gardens of plane-trees and thickets of
+angus-castus, "with other torrent-loving shrubs of Greece." Near the
+base of Lycabettus was a sacred inclosure which Pericles had ornamented
+with fountains. Here stood a statue of Apollo Lycius, which gave the
+name to the _Lyceum_. Here, among the plane-trees, Aristotle _walked_,
+and, as he walked, taught his disciples. Hence the name Peripatetics
+(the Walkers), which has always designated the disciples of the
+Stagirite philosopher.
+
+On the opposite side of the city, the most beautiful of the Athenian
+suburbs, we have the scene of Plato's teaching. Beyond the outer
+Ceramicus, which was crowded with the sepulchres of those Athenians who
+had fallen in battle, and were buried at the public expense, the eye of
+Paul would rest on the favored stream of the Cephisus, flowing towards
+the west. On the banks of this stream the _Academy_ was situated. A
+wall, built at great expense by Hipparchus, surrounded it, and Cimon
+planted long avenues of trees and erected fountains. Beneath the
+plane-trees which shaded the numerous walks there assembled the
+master-spirits of the age. This was the favorite resort of poets and
+philosophers. Here the divine spirit of Plato poured forth its sublimest
+speculations in streams of matchless eloquence; and here he founded a
+school which was destined to exert a powerful and perennial influence on
+human minds and hearts in all coming time.
+
+Looking down from the Acropolis upon the Agora, Paul would distinguish a
+cloister or colonnade. This is the Stoa Pœcile, or "Painted Porch," so
+called because its walls were decorated with fresco paintings of the
+legendary wars of Greece, and the more glorious struggle at Marathon. It
+was here that Zeno first opened that celebrated school which thence
+received the name of _Stoic_. The site of the _garden_ where Epicurus
+taught is now unknown. It was no doubt within the city walls, and not
+far distant from the Agora. It was well known in the time of Cicero, who
+visited Athens as a student little more than a century before the
+Apostle. It could not have been forgotten in the time of Paul. In this
+"tranquil garden," in the society of his friends, Epicurus passed a life
+of speculation and of pleasure. His disciples were called, after him,
+the Epicureans.[381]
+
+[Footnote 381: See Conybeare and Howson's "Life and Epistles of St.
+Paul," vol. i., Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy;" and
+Encyclopædia Britannica, article, "Athens," from whence our materials
+for the description of these "places" are mainly derived.]
+
+Here, then, in Athens the Apostle was brought into immediate contact
+with all the phases of philosophic thought which had appeared in the
+ancient world. "Amongst those who sauntered beneath the cool shadows of
+the plane-trees in the Agora, and gathered in knots under the porticoes,
+eagerly discussing the questions of the day, were the philosophers, in
+the garb of their several sects, ready for any new question on which
+they might exercise their subtlety or display their rhetoric." If there
+were any in that motley group who cherished the principles and retained
+the spirit of the true Platonic school, we may presume they felt an
+inward intellectual sympathy with the doctrine enounced by Paul. With
+Plato, "philosophy was only another name for _religion_: philosophy is
+the love of perfect Wisdom; perfect Wisdom and perfect Goodness are
+identical: the perfect Good is God himself; philosophy is the love of
+God."[382] He confessed the need of divine assistance to attain "the
+good," and of divine interposition to deliver men from moral ruin.[383]
+Like Socrates, he longed for a supernatural--a divine light to guide
+him, and he acknowledged his need thereof continually.[384] He was one
+of those who, in heathen lands, waited for "the desire of nations;" and,
+had he lived in Christian times, no doubt his "spirit of faith" would
+have joyfully "embraced the Saviour in all the completeness of his
+revelation and advent."[385] And in so far as the spirit of Plato
+survived among his disciples, we may be sure they were not among the
+number who "mocked," and ridiculed, and opposed the "new doctrine"
+proclaimed by Paul. It was "the philosophers of the Epicureans and of
+the Stoics who _encountered_ Paul." The leading tenets of both these
+sects were diametrically opposed to the doctrines of Christianity. The
+ruling spirit of each was alien from the spirit of Christ. The haughty
+_pride_ of the Stoic, the Epicurean abandonment to _pleasure_, placed
+them in direct antagonism to him who proclaimed the crucified and risen
+Christ to be "_the wisdom_ of God."
+
+[Footnote 382: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+61.]
+
+[Footnote 383: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vi. vii.]
+
+[Footnote 384: Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. p. 362.]
+
+[Footnote 385: Wheedon on "The Will," p. 352; also Butler's "Lectures,"
+vol. ii. p. 252]
+
+If, however, we would justly appreciate the relation of pagan philosophy
+to Christian truth, we must note that, when Paul arrived in Athens, the
+age of Athenian glory had passed away. Not only had her national
+greatness waned, and her national spirit degenerated, but her
+intellectual power exhibited unmistakable signs of exhaustion, and
+weakness, and decay. If philosophy had borne any fruit, of course that
+fruit remained. If, in the palmy days of Athenian greatness, any field
+of human inquiry had been successfully explored; if human reason had
+achieved any conquests; if any thing true and good had been obtained,
+that must endure as an heir-loom for all coming time; and if those
+centuries of agonizing wrestlings with nature, and of ceaseless
+questioning of the human heart, had yielded no results, then, at least,
+the _lesson_ of their failure and defeat remained for the instruction of
+future generations. Either the problems they sought to solve were proved
+to be insoluble, or their methods of solution were found to be
+inadequate; for here the mightiest minds had grappled with the great
+problems of being and of destiny. Here vigorous intellects had struggled
+to pierce the darkness which hangs alike over the beginning and the end
+of human existence. Here profoundly earnest men had questioned nature,
+reason, antiquity, oracles, in the hope they might learn something of
+that invisible world of _real_ being which they instinctively felt must
+lie beneath the world of fleeting forms and ever-changing appearances.
+Here philosophy had directed her course towards every point in the
+compass of thought, and touched every _accessible_ point. The sun of
+human reason had reached its zenith, and illuminated every field that
+lay within the reach of human ken. And this sublime era of Greek
+philosophy is of inestimable value to us who live in Christian times,
+because _it is an exhaustive effort of human reason to solve the problem
+of being_, and in its history we have a record of the power and weakness
+of the human mind, at once on the grandest scale and in the fairest
+characters.[386]
+
+[Footnote 386: See article "Philosophy," in Smith's "Dictionary of the
+Bible."]
+
+These preliminary considerations will have prepared the way for, and
+awakened in our minds a profound interest in, the inquiry--1st. What
+permanent _results_ has Greek philosophy bequeathed to the world? 2d. In
+what manner did Greek philosophy fulfill for Christianity a
+_propœdeutic_ office?
+
+It will at once be obvious, even to those who are least conversant with
+our theme, that it would be fruitless to attempt the answer to these
+important questions before we have made a careful survey of the entire
+history of philosophic thought in Greece. We must have a clear and
+definite conception of the problems they sought to solve, and we must
+comprehend their methods of inquiry, before we can hope to appreciate
+the results they reached, or determine whether they did arrive at any
+definite and valuable conclusions. It will, therefore, devolve upon us
+to present a brief and yet comprehensive epitome of the history of
+Grecian speculative thought.
+
+"_Philosophy_," says Cousin, "_is reflection_, and nothing else than
+reflection, in a vast form"--"Reflection elevated to the rank and
+authority of a _method_." It is the mind looking back upon its own
+sensations, perceptions, cognitions, ideas, and from thence to the
+_causes_ of these sensations, cognitions, and ideas. It is thought
+passing beyond the simple perceptions of things, beyond the mere
+spontaneous operations of the mind in the cognition of things to seek
+the _ground_, and _reason_, and _law_ of things. It is the effort of
+reason to solve the great problem of "Being and Becoming," of appearance
+and reality, of the changeful and the permanent. Beneath the endless
+diversity of the universe, of existence and action, there must be a
+principle of unity; below all fleeting appearances there must be a
+permanent substance; beyond this everlasting flow and change, this
+beginning and ending of finite existence, there must be an _eternal
+being_, the source and cause of all we see and know, _What is that
+principle of unity, that permanent substance_, or principle, or being?
+
+This fundamental question has assumed three separate forms or aspects in
+the history of philosophy. These forms have been determined by the
+objective phenomena which most immediately arrested and engaged the
+attention of men. If external nature has been the chief object of
+attention, then the problem of philosophy has been, _What is the
+ἀρχή--_the beginning; what are the first principles_--the elements from
+which, the ideas or laws according to which, the efficient cause or
+energy by which, and the reason or end for which the universe exists?_
+During this period reflective thought was a PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. If the
+phenomena of mind--the opinions, beliefs, judgments of men--are the
+chief object of attention, then the problem of philosophy has been,
+_What are the fundamental Ideas which are unchangeable and permanent
+amid all the diversities of human opinions, connecting appearance with
+reality, and constituting a ground of certain knowledge or absolute
+truth?_ Reflective thought is now a PHILOSOPHY OF IDEAS. Then, lastly,
+if the practical activities of life and the means of well-being be the
+grand object of attention, then the problem of philosophy has been,
+_What is the ultimate standard by which, amid all the diversities of
+human conduct, we may determine what is right and good in individual,
+social, and political life?_ And now reflective thought is a PHILOSOPHY
+OF LIFE. These are the grand problems with which philosophy has grappled
+ever since the dawn of reflection. They all appear in Greek philosophy,
+and have a marked chronology. As systems they succeed each other, just
+as rigorously as the phenomena of Greek civilization.
+
+The Greek schools of philosophy have been classified from various points
+of view. In view of their geographical relations, they have been divided
+into the _Ionian_, the _Italian_, the _Eleatic_, the _Athenian_, and the
+_Alexandrian_. In view of their prevailing spirit and tendency, they
+have been classified by Cousin as the Sensational, the Idealistic, the
+Skeptical, and the Mystical. The most natural and obvious method is that
+which (regarding Socrates as the father of Greek philosophy in the
+truest sense) arranges all schools from the Socratic stand point, and
+therefore in the chronological order of development:
+
+     I. THE PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.
+     II. THE SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.
+     III. THE POST-SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.
+
+The history of philosophy is thus divided into three grand epochs. The
+first reaching from Thales to the time of Socrates (B.C. 639-469): the
+second from the birth of Socrates to the death of Aristotle (B.C.
+469-322); the third from the death of Aristotle to the Christian era
+(B.C. 322, A.D. 1). Greek philosophy during the first period was almost
+exclusively a philosophy of nature; during the second period, a
+philosophy of mind; during the last period, a philosophy of life.
+Nature, man, and society complete the circle of thought. Successive
+systems, of course, overlap each other, both in the order of time and as
+subjects of human speculation; and the results of one epoch of thought
+are transmitted to and appropriated by another; but, in a general sense,
+the order of succession has been very much as here indicated. Setting
+aside minor schools and merely incidental discussions, and fixing our
+attention on the general aspects of each historic period, we shall
+discover that the first period was eminently _Physical_, the second
+_Psychological_, the last _Ethical_. Every stage of progress which
+reason, on _à priori_ grounds, would suggest as the natural order of
+thought, or of which the development of an individual mind would furnish
+an analogy, had a corresponding realization in the development of
+Grecian thought from the time of Thales to the Christian era. "Thought,"
+says Cousin, "in the first trial of its strength is drawn without." The
+first object which engages the attention of the child is the outer
+world. He asks the "_how_" and "_why_" of all he sees. His reason urges
+him to seek an explanation of the universe. So it was in the _childhood_
+of philosophy. The first essays of human thought were, almost without
+exception, discourses περὶ φύσεως (De rerum natura), of the nature of
+things. Then the rebound of baffled reason from the impenetrable
+bulwarks of the universe drove the mind back upon itself. If the youth
+can not interpret nature, he can at least "know himself," and find
+within himself the ground and reason of all existence. There are
+"_ideas_" in the human mind which are copies of those "_archetypal
+ideas_" which dwell in the Creative Mind, and after which the universe
+was built. If by "analysis" and "definition" these universal notions can
+be distinguished from that which is particular and contingent in the
+aggregate of human knowledge, then so much of eternal truth has been
+attained. The achievements of philosophic thought in this direction,
+during the Socratic age, have marked it as the most brilliant period in
+the history of philosophy--the period of its _youthful_ vigor. Deeply
+immersed in the practical concerns and conflicts of public life,
+_manhood_ is mainly occupied with questions of personal duty, and
+individual and social well-being. And so, during the hopeless turmoil of
+civil disturbance which marked the decline of national greatness in
+Grecian history, philosophy was chiefly occupied with questions of
+personal interest and personal happiness. The poetic enthusiasm with
+which a nobler age had longed for _truth_, and sought it as the highest
+good, has all disappeared, and now one sect seeks refuge from the storms
+and agitations of the age in Stoical indifference, the other in
+Epicurean effeminacy.
+
+If now we have succeeded in presenting the real problem of philosophy,
+it will at once be obvious that the inquiry was not, in any proper
+sense, _theological_. Speculative thought, during the period we have
+marked as the era of Greek philosophy, was not an inquiry concerning the
+existence or nature of God, or concerning the relations of man to God,
+or the duties which man owes to God. These questions were all remitted
+to the _theologian_. There was a clear line of demarkation separating
+the domains of religion and philosophy. Religion rested solely on
+authority, and appealed to the instinctive faith of the human heart. She
+permitted no encroachment upon her settled usages, and no questioning of
+her ancient beliefs. Philosophy rested on reason alone. It was an
+independent effort of thought to interpret nature, and attain the
+fundamental grounds of human knowledge--to find an ἀρχή--a first
+principle, which, being assumed, should furnish a rational explanation
+of all existence. If philosophy reach the conclusion that the άρχή was
+water, or air, or fire, or a chaotic mixture of all the elements or
+atoms, extended and self-moved, or monads, or τὸ πᾶν, or uncreated mind,
+and that conclusion harmonized with the ancient standards of religious
+faith--well; if not, philosophy must present some method of
+conciliation. The conflicts of faith and reason; the stragglings of
+traditional authority to maintain supremacy; the accommodations and
+conciliations attempted in those primitive times, would furnish a
+chapter of peculiar interest, could it now be written.
+
+The poets who appeared in the dim twilight of Grecian
+civilization--Orpheus, Musæus, Homer, Hesiod--seem to have occupied the
+same relation to the popular mind in Greece which the Bible now sustains
+to Christian communities.[387] Not that we regard them as standing on
+equal ground of authority, or in any sense a revelation. But, in the eye
+of the wondering Greek, they were invested with the highest sacredness
+and the supremest authority. The high poetic inspiration which pervaded
+them was a supernatural gift. Their sublime utterances were accepted as
+proceeding from a divine afflatus. They were the product of an age in
+which it was believed by all that the gods assumed a human form,[388]
+and held a real intercourse with gifted men. This universal faith is
+regarded by some as being a relic of still more distant times, a faint
+remembrance of the glory of patriarchal days. The more natural opinion
+is, that it was begotten of that universal longing of the human heart
+for some knowledge of that unseen world of real being, which man
+instinctively felt must lie beyond the world of fleeting change and
+delusive appearances. It was a prolepsis of the soul, reaching upward
+towards its source and goal. The poet felt within him some native
+affinities therewith, and longed for some stirring breath of heaven to
+sweep the harp-strings of the soul. He invoked the inspiration of the
+Goddess of Song, and waited for, no doubt believed in, some "deific
+impulse" descending on him. And the people eagerly accepted his
+utterance as the teaching of the gods. They were too eager for some
+knowledge from that unseen world to question their credentials. Orpheus,
+Hesiod, Homer, were the θεολόγοι--the theologians of that age.[389]
+
+[Footnote 387: "Homer was, in a certain sense, the Bible of the
+Greeks."--Whewell, "Platonic Dialogues," p. 283.]
+
+[Footnote 388: The universality of this belief is asserted by Cicero:
+"Vetus opinio est, jam usque ab heroicis ducta temporibus, eaque et
+populi Romani et omnium gentium firmata consensu, versari quandem inter
+homines divinationem."--Cicero, "De Divin." bk. i. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 389: Cicero.]
+
+These ancient poems, then, were the public documents of the religion of
+Greece--the repositories of the national faith. And it is deserving of
+especial note that the philosopher was just as anxious to sustain his
+speculations by quoting the high traditional authority of the ancient
+theologian, as the propounder of modern novelties is to sustain his
+notions by the authority of the Sacred Scriptures. Numerous examples of
+this solicitude will recur at once to the remembrance of the student of
+Plato. All encroachments of philosophy upon the domains of religion were
+watched as jealously in Athens in the sixth century before Christ, as
+the encroachments of science upon the fields of theology were watched in
+Rome in the seventeenth century after Christ. The court of the Areopagus
+was as earnest, though not as fanatical and cruel, in the defense of the
+ancient faith, as the court of the Inquisition was in the defense of the
+dogmas of the Romish Church. The people, also, as "the sacred wars" of
+Greece attest, were ready quickly to repel every assault upon the
+majesty of their religion. And so philosophy even had its martyrs. The
+tears of Pericles were needed to save Aspasia, because she was suspected
+of philosophy. But neither his eloquence nor his tears could save his
+friend Anaxagoras, and he was ostracized. Aristotle had the greatest
+difficulty to save his life. And Plato was twice imprisoned, and once
+sold into slavery.[390]
+
+[Footnote 390: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 305.]
+
+It is unnecessary that we should, in this place, again attempt the
+delineation of the theological opinions of the earlier periods of
+Grecian civilization. That the ancient Greeks believed in _one Supreme
+God_ has been conclusively proved by Cudworth. The argument of his
+fourth chapter is incontrovertible.[391] However great the number of
+"generated gods" who crowded the Olympus, and composed the ghostly array
+of Greek mythology, they were all subordinate agents, "demiurges,"
+employed in the framing of the world and all material things, or else
+the ministers of the moral and providential government of the εἷς θεὸς
+ἀγέντος--the one uncreated God. Beneath, or beyond the whole system of
+pagan polytheism, we recognize a faith in an _Uncreated Mind_, the
+Source of all the intelligence, and order, and harmony which pervades
+the universe the Fountain of law and justice; the Ruler of the world;
+the Avenger of injured innocence; and the final Judge of men. The
+immortality of the soul and a state of future retribution were necessary
+corollaries of this sublime faith. This primitive theology was
+unquestionably the people's faith; the faith, also, of the philosopher,
+in his inmost heart, however far he might wander in speculative thought.
+The instinctive feeling of the human heart, the spontaneous intuitions
+of the human reason, have led man, in every age, to recognize a God. It
+is within the fields of speculative thought that skepticism has had its
+birth. Any thing like atheism has only made its appearance amid the
+efforts of human reason to explain the universe. The native sentiments
+of the heart and the spontaneous movements of the reason have always
+been towards faith, that is, towards "a religious movement of the
+soul."[392] Unbridled speculative thought, which turns towards the outer
+world alone, and disregards "the voices of the soul," tends towards
+_doubt_ and irreligion. But, as Cousin has said, "a complete
+extravagance, a total delusion (except in case of real derangement), is
+impossible." "Beneath reflection there is still spontaneity, when the
+scholar has denied the existence of a God; listen to the man,
+interrogate him unawares, and you will see that all his words betray the
+idea of a God, and that faith in a God is, without his recognition, at
+the bottom of his heart."[393]
+
+[Footnote 391: "Intellectual System of the Universe;" see also ch. iii.,
+"On the Religion of the Athenians."]
+
+[Footnote 392: Cousin's "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 393: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 137.]
+
+Let us not, therefore, be too hasty in representing the early
+philosophers as destitute of the idea of a God, because in the imperfect
+and fragmentary representations which are given us of the philosophical
+opinions of Thales, and Anaximenes, and Heraclitus, and Diogenes of
+Apollonia, we find no explicit allusions to the _Uncreated Mind_ as the
+first principle and cause of all. A few sentences will comprehend the
+whole of what remains of the opinions of the earliest philosophers, and
+these were transmitted for ages by _oral_ tradition. To Plato and
+Aristotle we are chiefly indebted for a stereotype of those scattered,
+fragmentary sentences which came to their hands through the dim and
+distorting medium of more than two centuries. Surely no one imagines
+these few sentences contain and sum up the results of a lifetime of
+earnest thought, or represent all the opinions and beliefs of the
+earliest philosophers! And should we find therein no recognition of a
+personal God, would it not be most unfair and illogical to assert that
+they were utterly ignorant of a God, or wickedly denied his being? If
+they say "there is no God," then they are foolish Atheists; if they are
+silent on that subject, we have a right to assume they were Theists, for
+it is most natural to believe in God. And yet it has been quite
+customary for Christian teachers, after the manner of some Patristic
+writers, to deny to those early sages the smallest glimpse of underived
+and independent knowledge of a Divine Being, in their zeal to assert for
+the Sacred Scriptures the exclusive prerogative of revealing Him.
+
+Now in regard to the theological opinions of the Greek philosophers, we
+shall venture this general _lemma_--_the majority of them recognized an
+"incorporeal substance"_[394]_ an uncreated Intelligence, an ordering,
+governing Mind_. Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus, who were
+Materialists, are perhaps the only exceptions. Many of them were
+Pantheists, in the higher form of Pantheism, which, though it associates
+the universe with its framer and mover, still makes "the moving
+principle" superior to that which is moved. The world was a living
+organism,
+
+     "Whose body nature is, and God the soul."
+
+Unquestionably most on them recognized the existence of _two_ first
+principles, substances essentially distinct, which had co-existed from
+eternity--an incorporeal Deity and matter.[395] We grant that the free
+production of a universe by a creative fiat--the calling of matter into
+being by a simple act of omnipotence--is not elementary to human reason.
+The famous physical axiom of antiquity, "_De nihilo nihil, in nihilum
+posse reverti"_ under one aspect, may be regarded as the expression of
+the universal consciousness of a mental inability to conceive a creation
+out of nothing, or an annihilation.[396] "We can not conceive, either,
+on the one hand, nothing becoming something, or something becoming
+nothing, on the other hand. When God is said to create the universe out
+of nothing, we think this by supposing that he evolves the universe out
+of himself; and in like manner, we conceive annihilation only by
+conceiving the Creator to withdraw his creation from actuality into
+power."[397] "It is by _faith_ we understand the worlds were framed by
+the _word of God_, so that things which are were not made from things
+which do appear"--that is, from pre-existent matter.
+
+[Footnote 394: "Οὐσίαν ἀσώματον."--Plato.]
+
+[Footnote 395: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 269.]
+
+[Footnote 396: Mansell's "Limits of Religious Thought," p. 100.]
+
+[Footnote 397: Sir William Hamilton's "Discussions on Philosophy," p.
+575.]
+
+Those writers[398] are, therefore, clearly in error who assert that the
+earliest question of Greek philosophy was, What is God? and that various
+and discordant answers were given, Thales saying, water is God,
+Anaximenes, air; Heraclitus, fire; Pythagoras, numbers; and so on. The
+idea of God is a native intuition of the mind. It springs up
+spontaneously from the depths of the human soul. The human mind
+naturally recognizes God as an uncreated Mind, and recognizes itself as
+"the offspring of God." And, therefore, it is simply impossible for it
+to acknowledge water, or air, or fire, or any material thing to be its
+God. Now they who reject this fundamental principle evidently
+misapprehend the real problem of early Grecian philosophic thought. The
+external world, the material universe, was the first object of their
+inquiry, and the method of their inquiry was, at the first stage, purely
+physical. Every object of sense had a beginning and an end; it rose out
+of something, and it fell back into something. Beneath this ceaseless
+flow and change there must be some permanent principle. What is that
+στοιχεῖον--that first element? The changes in the universe seem to obey
+some principle of law--they have an orderly succession. What is that
+μορφή--that form, or ideal, or archetype, proper to each thing, and
+according to which all things are produced? These changes must be
+produced by some efficient cause, some power or being which is itself
+immobile, and permanent, and eternal, and adequate to their production.
+What is that ἀρχὴ τῆς κινήσεως--that first principle of movement Then,
+lastly, there must be an end for which all things exist--a good reason
+why things are as they are, and not otherwise. What is that τὸ οὗ ἕνεκεν
+καῖ τὸ ἀγαθόν--that reason and good of all things? Now these are all
+ἀρχαί or first principles of the universe. "Common to all first
+principles," says Aristotle, "is the being, the original, from which a
+thing is, or is produced, or is known."[399] First principles,
+therefore, include both elements and causes, and, under certain aspects,
+elements are also causes, in so far as they are that without which a
+thing can not be produced. Hence that highest generalization by
+Aristotle of all first principles; as--1. The Material Cause; 2. The
+Formal Cause; 3. The Efficient Cause; 4. The Final Cause. The grand
+subject of inquiry in ancient philosophy was not alone what is the final
+_element_ from which all things have been produced? nor yet what is the
+_efficient cause_ of the movement and the order of the universe? _but
+what are those First Principles which, being assumed, shall furnish a
+rational explanation of all phenomena, of all becoming?_
+
+[Footnote 398: As the writer of the article "Attica," in the
+Encyclopædia Britannica.]
+
+[Footnote 399: "Metaphysics," bk. iv. ch. i. p. 112 (Bohn's edition).]
+
+So much being premised, we proceed to consider the efforts and the
+results of philosophic thought in
+
+THE PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.
+
+"The first act in the drama of Grecian speculation was performed on the
+varied theatre of the Grecian colonies--Asiatic, insular, and Italian,
+verging at length (in Anaxagoras) towards Athens." During the progress
+of this drama two distinct schools of philosophy were developed, having
+distinct geographical provinces, one on the east, the other on the west,
+of the peninsula of Greece, and deriving their names from the localities
+in which they flourished. The earliest was the _Ionian;_ the latter was
+the _Italian_ school.
+
+It would be extremely difficult, at this remote period, to estimate the
+influence which geographical conditions and ethnical relations exerted
+in determining the course of philosophic thought in these schools.
+Unquestionably those conditions contributed somewhat towards fixing
+their individuality. At the same time, it must be granted that the
+distinction in these two schools of philosophy is of a deeper character
+than can be represented or explained by geographical surroundings; it is
+a distinction reaching to the very foundation of their habits of
+thought. These schools represent two distinct aspects of philosophic
+thought, two distinct methods in which the human mind has essayed to
+solve the problem of the universe.
+
+The ante-Socratic schools were chiefly occupied with the study of
+external nature. "Greek philosophy was, at its first appearance, a
+philosophy of nature." It was an effort of the reason to reach a "first
+principle" which should explain the universe. This early attempt was
+purely speculative. It sought to interpret all phenomena by
+_hypotheses_, that is, by suppositions, more or less plausible,
+suggested by physical analogies or by _à priori_ rational conceptions.
+
+Now there are two distinct aspects under which nature presents itself to
+the observant mind. The first and most obvious is the _simple phenomena_
+as perceived by the senses. The second is the _relations_ of
+_phenomena_, cognized by the reason alone. Let phenomena, which are
+indeed the first objects of perception, continue to be the chief and
+almost exclusive object of thought, and philosophy is on the highway of
+pure physics. On the other hand, instead of stopping at phenomena, let
+their relations become the sole object of thought, and philosophy is now
+on the road of purely mathematical or metaphysical abstraction. Thus two
+schools of philosophy are developed, the one SENSATIONAL, the other
+IDEALIST. Now these, it will be found, are the leading and
+characteristic tendencies of the two grand divisions of the pre-Socratic
+schools; the Ionian is _sensational_, the Italian is _idealist_.
+
+These two schools have again been the subject of a further subdivision
+based upon diverse habits of thought. The Ionian school sought to
+explain the universe by _physical analogies._ Of these there are two
+clear and obvious divisions--analogies suggested by living organisms,
+and analogies suggested by mechanical arrangements. One class of
+philosophers in the Ionian school laid hold on the first analogy. They
+regarded the world as a living being, spontaneously evolving itself--a
+vital organism whose successive developments and transformations
+constitute all visible phenomena. A second class laid hold on the
+analogy suggested by mechanical arrangements. For them the universe was
+a grand superstructure, built up from elemental particles, arranged and
+united by some ab-extra power or force, or else aggregated by some
+inherent mutual affinity. Thus we have two sects of the Ionian school;
+the first, _Dynamical_ or vital; the second, _Mechanical_.[400]
+
+[Footnote 400: Ritter's "Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 191, 192.]
+
+The Italian school sought to explain the universe by rational
+conceptions and _à priori_ ideas. Now to those who seek, by simple
+reflection, to investigate the relations of the external world this
+marked distinction will present itself: some are relations _between_
+sensible phenomena--relations of time, of place, of number, of
+proportion, and of harmony; others are relations _of_ phenomena to
+essential being--relations of qualities to substance, of becoming to
+being, of the finite to the infinite. The former constituted the field
+of Pythagorean the latter of Eleatic contemplation. The Pythagoreans
+sought to explain the universe by numbers, forms, and harmonies; the
+Eleatics by the _à priori_ ideas of unity, substance, Being _in se_, the
+Infinite. Thus were constituted a _Mathematical_ and a _Metaphysical_
+sect in the Italian school. The pre-Socratic schools may, therefore, be
+tabulated in the following order:
+
+     I. IONIAN (Sensational), (1.) PHYSICAL {Dynamical or Vital.
+                                            {Mechanical.
+
+     II. Italian (Idealist), {(2.) MATHEMATICAL Pythagoreans.
+                             {(3.) METAPHYSICAL Eleatics.
+
+I. _The Ionian or Physical School._--We have premised that the
+philosophers of this school attempted the explanation of the universe by
+physical analogies.
+
+One class of these early speculators, the _Dynamical_, or vital
+theorists, proceeded on the supposition of a living energy infolded in
+nature, which in its spontaneous development continuously undergoes
+alteration both of quality and form. This imperfect analogy is the first
+hypothesis of childhood. The child personifies the stone that hurts him,
+and his first impulse is to resent the injury as though he imagined it
+to be endowed with consciousness, and to be acting with design. The
+childhood of superstition (whose genius is multiplicity) personifies
+each individual existence--a rude Fetichism, which imagines a
+supernatural power and presence enshrined in every object of nature, in
+every plant, and stock, and stone. The childhood of philosophy (whose
+genius is unity) personifies the universe. It regards the earth as one
+vast organism, animated by one soul, and this soul of the world as a
+"created god."[401] The first efforts of philosophy were, therefore,
+simply an attempt to explain the universe in harmony with the popular
+theological beliefs. The cosmogonies of the early speculators in the
+Ionian school were an elaboration of the ancient theogonies, but still
+an elaboration conducted under the guidance of that law of thought which
+constrains man to seek for _unity_, and reduce the many to the one.
+
+Therefore, in attempting to construct a theory of the universe they
+commenced by postulating an ἀρχή--a first principle or element out of
+which, by a _vital_ process, all else should be produced. "Accordingly,
+whatever seemed the most subtle or pliable, as well as _universal_
+element in the mass of the visible world, was marked as the seminal
+principle whose successive developments and transformations produced all
+the rest."[402] With this seminal principle the living, _animating_
+principle seems to have been associated--in some instances perhaps
+confounded, and in most instances called by the same name. And having
+pursued this analogy so far, we shall find the _most decided and
+conclusive_ evidence of a tendency to regard the soul of man as similar,
+in its nature, to the soul which animates the world.
+
+[Footnote 401: Plato's "Laws," bk. x. ch. i.; "Timæus," ch. xii.]
+
+[Footnote 402: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. 1. p.
+292.]
+
+_Thales of Miletus_(B.C. 636-542) was the first to lead the way in the
+perilous inquiry after an ἀρχή, or first principle, which should furnish
+a rational explanation of the universe. Following, as it would seem, the
+genealogy of Hesiod, he supposed _water_ to be the primal element out of
+which all material things were produced. Aristotle supposes he was
+impressed with this idea from observing that all things are nourished by
+moisture; warmth itself, he declared, proceeded from moisture; the seeds
+of all things are moist; water, when condensed, becomes earth.
+
+Thus convinced of the universal presence of water, he declared it to be
+the first principle of things.[403]
+
+And now, from this brief statement of the Thalean physics, are we to
+conclude that he recognized only a _material_ cause of the universe?
+Such is the impression we receive from the reading of the First Book of
+Aristotle's Metaphysics. His evident purpose is to prove that the first
+philosophers of the Ionian school did not recognize an _efficient_
+cause. In his opinion, they were decidedly materialistic. Now to
+question the authority of Aristotle may appear to many an act of
+presumption. But Aristotle was not infallible; and nothing is more
+certain than that in more than one instance he does great injustice to
+his predecessors.[404] To him, unquestionably, belongs the honor of
+having made a complete and exhaustive classification of causes, but
+there certainly does appear something more than vanity in the assumption
+that he, of all the Greek philosophers, was the only one who recognized
+them all. His sagacious classification was simply a resumè of the labors
+of his predecessors. His "principles" or "causes" were incipient in the
+thought of the first speculators in philosophy. Their accurate
+definition and clearer presentation was the work of ages of analytic
+thought. The phrases "efficient," "formal," "final" cause, are, we
+grant, peculiar to Aristotle; the ideas were equally the possession of
+his predecessors.
+
+[Footnote 403: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 404: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 77;
+Cousin's "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," p. 77.]
+
+The evidence, we think, is conclusive that, with this primal element
+(water), Thales associated a formative principle of motion; to the
+"material" he added the "efficient" cause. A strong presumption in favor
+of this opinion is grounded on the psychological views of Thales. The
+author of "De Placitis Philosophorum" associates him with Pythagoras and
+Plato, in teaching that the soul is incorporeal, making it naturally
+self-active, and an intelligent substance.[405] And it is admitted by
+Aristotle (rather unwillingly, we grant, but his testimony is all the
+more valuable on that account) that, in his time, the opinion that the
+soul is a principle, ἀεικίνητον--ever moving, or essentially
+self-active, was currently ascribed to Thales. "If we may rely on the
+notices of Thales, he too would seem to have conceived the soul as a
+_moving principle_."[406] Extending this idea, that the soul is a moving
+principle, he held that all motion in the universe was due to the
+presence of a living soul. "He is reported to have said that the
+loadstone possessed a soul because it could move iron."[407] And he
+taught that "the world itself is _animated_, and full of gods."[408]
+"Some think that _soul_ and _life_ is mingled with the whole universe;
+and thence, perhaps, was that [opinion] of Thales that all things are
+full of gods,"[409] portions, as Aristotle said, of the universal soul.
+These views are quite in harmony with the theology which makes the Deity
+the moving energy of the universe--the energy which wrought the
+successive transformations of the primitive aqueous element. They also
+furnish a strong corroboration of the positive statement of
+Cicero--"Aquam, dixit Thales, esse initium rerum, Deum autem eam mentem
+quæ ex aqua cuncta fingeret." Thales said that water is the first
+principle of things, but God was that mind which formed all things out
+of water;[410] as also that still more remarkable saying of Thales,
+recorded by Diogenes Laertius; "God is the most ancient of all things,
+for he had no birth; the world is the most beautiful of all things, for
+it is the workmanship of God."[411] We are aware that some historians of
+philosophy reject the statement of Cicero, because, say they, "it does
+violence to the chronology of speculation."[412] Following Hegel, they
+assert that Thales could have no conception of God as Intelligence,
+since that is a conception of a more advanced philosophy. Such an
+opinion may be naturally expected from the philosopher who places God,
+not at the commencement, but at the _end_ of things, God becoming
+conscious and intelligent in humanity. If, then, Hegel teaches that God
+himself has had a progressive development, it is no wonder he should
+assert that the idea of God has also had an historic development, the
+_last_ term of which is an _intelligent God_. But he who believes that
+the idea of God as the infinite and the perfect is native to the human
+mind, and that God stands at the beginning of the entire system of
+things, will feel there is a strong _à priori_ ground for the belief
+that Thales recognized the existence of an _intelligent God who
+fashioned the universe_.
+
+[Footnote 405: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 71.]
+
+[Footnote 406: Aristotle, "De Anima," i. 2, 17.]
+
+[Footnote 407: Id., ib., i. 2, 17.]
+
+[Footnote 408: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," p. 18
+(Bohn's ed.).]
+
+[Footnote 409: Aristotle, "De Anima," i. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 410: "De Natura Deor.," bk. i. ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 411: "Lives," etc., p. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 412: Lewes's "Hist. Philos.," p. 4.]
+
+_Anaximenes of Miletus_ (B.C. 529-480) we place next to Thales in the
+consecutive history of thought. It has been usual to rank Anaximander
+next to the founder of the Ionian School. The entire complexion of his
+system is, however, unlike that of a pupil of Thales. And we think a
+careful consideration of his views will justify our placing him at the
+head of the Mechanical or Atomic division of the Ionian school.
+Anaximenes is the historical successor of Thales; he was unquestionably
+a vitalist. He took up the speculation where Thales had left it, and he
+carried it a step forward in its development.[413]
+
+Pursuing the same method as Thales, he was not, however, satisfied with
+the conclusion he had reached. Water was not to Anaximenes the most
+significant, neither was it the most universal element. But air seemed
+universally present. "The earth was a broad leaf resting upon it. All
+things were produced from it; all things were resolved into it. When he
+breathed he drew in a part of this universal life. All things are
+nourished by air."[414] Was not, therefore, _air_ the ἀρχή, or primal
+element of things?
+
+[Footnote 413: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p.
+203.]
+
+[Footnote 414: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 7.]
+
+This brief notice of the physical speculations of Anaximenes is all that
+has survived of his opinions. We search in vain for some intimations of
+his theological views. On this merely negative ground, some writers have
+unjustly charged him with Atheism. Were we to venture a conjecture, we
+would rather say that there are indications of a tendency to Pantheism
+in that form of it which associates God necessarily with the universe,
+but does not utterly confound them. His fixing upon "_air_" as the
+primal element, seems an effort to reconcile, in some apparently
+intermediate substance, the opposite qualities of corporeal and
+spiritual natures. Air is invisible, impalpable, all-penetrating, and
+yet in some manner appreciable to sense. May not the vital
+transformations of this element have produced all the rest? The writer
+of the Article on Anaximenes in the Encyclopædia Britannica tells us (on
+what ancient authorities he saith not) that "he asserted this air was
+God, since the divine power resides in it and agitates it."
+
+Some indications of the views of Anaximenes may perhaps be gathered from
+the teachings of Diogenes of Apollonia (B.C. 520-490,) who was the
+disciple, and is generally regarded as the commentator and expounder of
+the views of Anaximenes. The air of Diogenes was a soul; therefore it
+was _living_, and not only living, but conscious and _intelligent_. "It
+knows much," says he; "for without _reason_ it would be impossible for
+all to be arranged duly and proportionately; and whatever objects we
+consider will be found to be so arranged and ordered in the best and
+most beautiful manner."[415] Here we have a distinct recognition of the
+fundamental axiom that _mind is the only valid explanation of the order
+and harmony which pervades the universe_. With Diogenes the first
+principle is a "divine air," which is vital, conscious, and intelligent,
+which spontaneously evolves itself, and which, by its ceaseless
+transformations, produces all phenomena. The soul of man is a detached
+portion of this divine element; his body is developed or evolved
+therefrom. The theology of Diogenes, and, as we believe, of his master,
+Anaximenes also, was a species of Materialistic Pantheism.
+
+[Footnote 415: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 8;
+Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 214.]
+
+_Heraclitus of Ephesus_(B.C. 503-420) comes next in the order of
+speculative thought. In his philosophy, _fire_ is the ἀρχή, or first
+principle; but not fire in the usual acceptation of that term. The
+Heraclitean "fire" is not flame, which is only an intensity of fire, but
+a warm, dry vapor--an _ether_, which may be illustrated, perhaps, by the
+"caloric" of modern chemistry. This "_ether_" was the primal element out
+of which the universe was formed; it was also a vital power or principle
+which animated the universe, and, in fact, the _cause_ of all its
+successive phenomenal changes. "The world," he said, "was neither made
+by the gods nor men, and it was, and is, and ever shall be, an
+_ever-living fire_, in due proportion self-enkindled, and in due measure
+self-extinguished."[416] The universe is thus reduced to "an eternal
+fire," whose ceaseless energy is manifested openly in the work of
+dissolution, and yet secretly, but universally, in the work of
+renovation. The phenomena of the universe are explained by Heraclitus as
+"the concurrence of opposite tendencies and efforts in the motions of
+this ever-living fire, out of which results the most beautiful harmony.
+This harmony of the world is one of conflicting impulses, like the lyre
+and the bow. The strife between opposite tendencies is the parent of all
+things. All life is change, and change is strife."[417]
+
+[Footnote 416: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p.
+235.]
+
+[Footnote 417: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 70;
+Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 244.]
+
+Heraclitus was the first to proclaim the doctrine of the perpetual
+fluxion of the universe (τὸ ῥέον, τὸ γιγνόμενον--Unrest and
+Development), the endless changes of matter, and the mutability and
+perishability of all individual things. This restless, changing flow of
+things, which never _are_, but always are _becoming_, he pronounced to
+be the _One_ and the _All_.
+
+From this statement of the physical theory of Heraclitus we might
+naturally infer that he was a Hylopathean Atheist. Such an hypothesis
+would not, however, be truthful or legitimate. On a more careful
+examination, his system will be found to stand half-way between the
+materialistic and the spiritual conception of the Author of the
+universe, and marks, indeed, a transition from the one to the other.
+Heraclitus unquestionably held that all substance is material, for a
+philosopher who proclaims, as he did, that the senses are the only
+source of knowledge, must necessarily attach himself to a material
+element as the primary one. And yet he seems to have _spiritualized_
+matter. "The moving unit of Heraclitus--the Becoming--is as immaterial
+as the resting unit of the Eleatics--the Being."[418] The Heraclitean
+"_fire_" is endowed with _spiritual_ attributes. "Aristotle calls it
+ψυχή--soul, and says that it is ἀσωματώτατον, or absolutely incorporeal
+("De Anima," i. 2. 16). It is, in effect, the common ground of the
+phenomena both of mind and matter it is not only the animating, but also
+the intelligent and regulating principle of the universe; the Ξυνὸς
+Λόγος, or universal Word or Reason, which it behooves all men to
+follow."[419] The psychology of Heraclitus throws additional light upon
+his theological opinions. With him human intelligence is a detached
+portion of the Universal Reason. "Inhaling," said he, "through the
+breath the Universal Ether, which is Divine Reason, we become
+conscious." The errors and imperfections of humanity are consequently to
+be ascribed to a deficiency of the Divine Reason in man. Whilst,
+therefore, the theory of Heraclitus seems to materialize mind, it may,
+with equal fairness, be said to spiritualize matter.
+
+[Footnote 418: Zeller's "History of Greek Philosophy," vol. i. p. 57.]
+
+[Footnote 419: Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. p. 297, note.]
+
+The general inference, therefore, from all that remains of the doctrine
+of Heraclitus is that he was a Materialistic Pantheist. His God was a
+living, rational, intelligent Ether--a soul pervading the universe. The
+form of the universe, its ever-changing phenomena, were a necessary
+emanation from, or a perpetual transformation of, this universal soul.
+
+With Heraclitus we close our survey of that sect of the physical school
+which regarded the world as a living organism.
+
+The second subdivision of the physical school, _the Mechanical_ or
+_Atomist theorists_, attempted the explanation of the universe by
+analogies derived from mechanical collocations, arrangements, and
+movements. The universe was regarded by them as a vast superstructure
+built up from elemental particles, aggregated by some inherent force or
+mutual affinity.
+
+_Anaximander of Miletus_ (born B.C. 610) we place at the head of the
+Mechanical sect of the Ionian school; first, on the authority of
+Aristotle, who intimates that the philosophic dogmata of Anaximander
+"resemble those of Democritus," who was certainly an Atomist; and,
+secondly, because we can clearly trace a genetic connection between the
+opinions of Democritus and Leucippus and those of Anaximander.
+
+The ἀρχή, or first principle of Anaximander, was τὸ ἄπειρον, _the
+boundless, the illimitable, the infinite_. Some historians of philosophy
+have imagined that the infinite of Anaximander was the "unlimited all,"
+and have therefore placed him at the head of the Italian or "idealistic
+school." These writers are manifestly in error. Anaximander was
+unquestionably a sensationalist. Whatever his "infinite" may be found to
+be, one thing is clear, it was not a "metaphysical infinite"--it did not
+include infinite power, much less infinite mind.
+
+The testimony of Aristotle is conclusive that by "the infinite"
+Anaximander understood the multitude of primary, material particles. He
+calls it "a μῖγμα, or mixture of elements."[420] It was, in fact, a
+_chaos_--an original state in which the primary elements existed in a
+chaotic combination without _limitation_ or division. He assumed a
+certain "_prima materia_," which was neither air, nor water, nor fire,
+but a "mixture" of all, to be the first principle of the universe. The
+account of the opinions of Anaximander which is given by Plutarch ("De
+Placita," etc.) is a further confirmation of our interpretation of his
+infinite. "Anaximander, the Milesian, affirmed the infinite to be the
+first principle, and that all things are generated out of it, and
+corrupted again into it. _His infinite is nothing else but matter._"
+"Whence," says Cudworth, "we conclude that Anaximander's infinite was
+nothing else but an infinite chaos of matter, in which were actually or
+potentially contained all manner of qualities, by the fortuitous
+secretion and segregation of which he supposed infinite worlds to be
+successively generated and corrupted. So that we may easily guess whence
+Leucippus and Democritus had their infinite worlds, and perceive how
+near akin these two Atheistic hypotheses were."[421] The reader, whose
+curiosity may lead him to consult the authorities collected by Cudworth
+(pp. 185-188), will find in the doctrine of Anaximander a rude
+anticipation of the modern theories of "spontaneous generation" and "the
+transmutation of species." In the fragments of Anaximander that remain
+we find no recognition of an ordering Mind, and his philosophy is the
+dawn of a Materialistic school.
+
+[Footnote 420: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 421: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. pp. 186, 187.]
+
+_Leucippus of Miletus_ (B.C. 500-400) appears, in the order of
+speculation, as the successor of Anaximander. _Atoms_ and _space_ are,
+in his philosophy, the ἀρχαί, or first principles of all things.
+"Leucippus (and his companion, Democritus) assert that the plenum and
+the vacuum [_i.e._, body and space] are the first principles, whereof
+one is the Ens, the other Non-ens; the differences of the body, which
+are only figure, order, and position, are the causes of all
+others."[422]
+
+[Footnote 422: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," p. 21 (Bohn's edition).]
+
+He also taught that the elements, and the worlds derived from them, are
+_infinite_. He describes the manner in which the worlds are produced as
+follows: "Many bodies of various kinds and shapes are borne by
+amputation from the infinite [_i.e._, the chaotic μῖγμα of Anaximander]
+into a vast vacuum, and then they, being collected together, produce a
+vortex; according to which, they, dashing against each other, and
+whirling about in every direction, are separated in such a way that like
+attaches itself to like; bodies are thus, without ceasing, united
+according to the impulse given by the vortex, and in this way the earth
+was produced."[423] Thus, through a boundless void, atoms infinite in
+number and endlessly diversified in form are eternally wandering; and,
+by their aggregation, infinite worlds are successively produced. These
+atoms are governed in their movements by a dark negation of
+intelligence, designated "Fate," and all traces of a Supreme Mind
+disappear in his philosophy. It is a system of pure materialism, which,
+in fact, is Atheism.
+
+[Footnote 423: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," p. 389.]
+
+_Democritus of Abdera_ (B.C. 460-357), the companion of Leucippus, also
+taught "that _atoms_ and the _vacuum_ were the beginning of the
+universe."[424] These atoms, he taught, were infinite in number,
+homogeneous, extended, and possessed of those primary qualities of
+matter which are necessarily involved in extension in space--as size,
+figure, situation, divisibility, and mobility. From the combination of
+these atoms all other existences are produced; fire, air, earth, and
+water; sun, moon, and stars; plants, animals, and men; the soul itself
+is an aggregation of round, moving atoms. And "motion, which is the
+cause of the production of every thing, he calls _necessity_."[425]
+Atoms are thus the only real existences; these, without any pre-existent
+mind, or intelligence, were the original of all things.
+
+[Footnote 424: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," p. 395.]
+
+[Footnote 425: Id, ib., p. 394.]
+
+The psychological opinions of Democritus were as decidedly materialistic
+as his physical theories. All knowledge is derived from sensation. It is
+only by material impact that we can know the external world, and every
+sense is, in reality, a kind of touch. Material images are being
+continually thrown off from the surface of external objects which come
+into actual contact with the organs of sense. The primary qualities of
+matter, that is, those which are involved in extension in space, are the
+only objects of real knowledge; the secondary qualities of matter, as
+softness, hardness, sweetness, bitterness, and the like, are but
+modifications of the human sensibilities. "The sweet exists only in
+form--the bitter in form, hot in form, color in form; but in causal
+reality only atoms and space exist. The sensible things which are
+supposed by opinion to exist have no real existence, but atoms and space
+alone exist."[426]
+
+[Footnote 426: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 96. The
+words of Democritus, as reported by Sextus Empiricus.]
+
+Thus by Democritus was laid the basis of a system of absolute
+materialism, which was elaborated and completed by Epicurus, and has
+been transmitted to our times. It has undergone some slight
+modifications, adapting it to the progress of physical science; but it
+is to-day substantially the theory of Democritus. In Democritus we have
+the culmination of the mechanical theory of the Ionian or Physical
+school. In physics and psychology it terminated in pure materialism. In
+theology it ends in positive Atheism.
+
+The fundamental error of all the philosophers of the physical school was
+the assumption, tacitly or avowedly, that sense-perception is the only
+source of knowledge. This was the fruitful source of all their erroneous
+conclusions, the parent of all their materialistic tendencies. This led
+them continually to seek an ἀρχή, or first principle of the universe,
+which should, under some form, be appreciable to _sense_; and
+consequently the course of thought tended naturally towards materialism.
+
+Thales was unquestionably a dualist. Instructed by traditional
+intimations, or more probably guided by the spontaneous apperceptions of
+reason, he recognized, with more or less distinctness, an incorporeal
+Deity as the moving, animating, and organizing cause of the universe.
+The idea of God is a truth so self-evident as to need no demonstration.
+The human mind does not attain to the idea of a God as the last
+consequence of a series of antecedent principles. It comes at once, by
+an inherent and necessary movement of thought, to the recognition of God
+as the First Principle of all principles. But when, instead of
+hearkening to the simple and spontaneous intuitions of the mind, man
+turns to the world of sense, and loses himself in discursive thought,
+the conviction of a personal God becomes obscured. Then, amid the
+endlessly diversified phenomena of the universe, he seeks for a cause or
+origin which in some form shall be appreciable to sense. The mere study
+of material phenomena, scientifically or unscientifically conducted,
+will never yield the sense of the living God. Nature must be
+interpreted, can only be interpreted in the light of certain _à priori_
+principles of reason, or we can never "ascend from nature up to nature's
+God." Within the circle of mere sense-perception, the dim and
+undeveloped consciousness of God will be confounded with the universe.
+Thus, in Anaximenes, God is partially confounded with "air," which
+becomes a symbol; then a vehicle of the informing mind; and the result
+is a semi-pantheism. In Heraclitus, the "ether" is, at first, a
+semi-symbol of the Deity; at length, God is utterly confounded with this
+ether, or "rational fire," and the result is a definite _materialistic
+pantheism_. And, finally, when this feeling or dim consciousness of God,
+which dwells in all human souls, is not only disregarded, but pronounced
+to be an illusion--a phantasy; when all the analogies which intelligence
+suggests are disregarded, and a purely mechanical theory of the universe
+is adopted, the result is the utter negation of an Intelligent Cause,
+that is, _absolute Atheism_, as in Leucippus and Democritus.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS _(continued_).
+
+PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOL _(continued_).
+
+IDEALIST: PYTHAGORAS--XENOPHANES--PARMENIDES--ZENO. NATURAL REALIST:
+ANAXAGORAS.
+
+SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+
+SOCRATES.
+
+
+In the previous chapter we commenced our inquiry with the assumption
+that, in the absence of the true inductive method of philosophy which
+observes, and classifies, and generalizes facts, and thence attains a
+general principle or law, two only methods were possible to the early
+speculators who sought an explanation of the universe--1st, That of
+reasoning from physical analogies; or, 2d, That of deduction from
+rational conceptions, or _à priori_ ideas.
+
+Accordingly we found that one class of speculators fixed their attention
+solely on the mere phenomena of nature, and endeavored, amid sensible
+things, to find a _single_ element which, being more subtile, and
+pliable, and universally diffused, could be regarded as the ground and
+original of all the rest, and from which, by a vital transformation, or
+by a mechanical combination and arrangement of parts, all the rest
+should be evolved. The other class passed beyond the simple phenomena,
+and considered only the abstract _relations_ of phenomena among
+themselves, or the relations of phenomena to the necessary and universal
+ideas of the reason, and supposed that, in these relations, they had
+found an explanation of the universe. The former was the Ionian or
+Sensation school; the latter was the Italian or Idealist school.
+
+We have traced the method according to which the Ionian school
+proceeded, and estimated the results attained. We now come to consider
+the method and results of
+
+THE ITALIAN OR IDEALIST SCHOOL.
+
+This school we have found to be naturally subdivided into--1st, The
+_Mathematical_ sect, which attempted the explanation of the universe by
+the abstract conceptions of number, proportion, order, and harmony; and,
+2d, The _Metaphysical_ school, which attempted the interpretation of the
+universe according to the _à priori_ ideas of unity, of Being _in se_,
+of the Infinite, and the Absolute.
+
+_Pythagoras of Samos_(born B.C. 605) was the founder of the Mathematical
+school.
+
+We are conscious of the difficulties which are to be encountered by the
+student who seeks to attain a definite comprehension of the real
+opinions of Pythagoras. The genuineness of many of those writings which
+were once supposed to represent his views, is now questioned. "Modern
+criticism has clearly shown that the works ascribed to Timæus and
+Archytas are spurious; and the treatise of Ocellus Lucanus on 'The
+Nature of the All' can not have been written by a Pythagorean."[427] The
+only writers who can be regarded as at all reliable are Plato and
+Aristotle; and the opinions they represent are not so much those of
+Pythagoras as "the Pythagoreans." This is at once accounted for by the
+fact that Pythagoras taught in secret, and did not commit his opinions
+to writing. His disciples, therefore, represent the _tendency_ rather
+than the actual tenets of his system; these were no doubt modified by
+the mental habits and tastes of his successors.
+
+[Footnote 427: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 24.]
+
+We may safely assume that the proposition from which Pythagoras started
+was the fundamental idea of all Greek speculation--_that beneath the
+fleeting forms and successive changes of the universe there is some
+permanent principle of unity_[428] The Ionian school sought that
+principle in some common physical element; Pythagoras sought, not for
+"elements," but for "relations," and through these relations for
+ultimate laws indicating primal forces.
+
+[Footnote 428: See Plato, "Timæus," ch. ix. p. 331 (Bohn's edition);
+Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. v. ch. iii.]
+
+Aristotle affirms that Pythagoras taught "that _numbers_ are the first
+principles of all entities," and, "as it were, a _material_ cause of
+things,"[429] or, in other words, "that numbers are substances that
+involve a separate subsistence, and are primary causes of
+entities."[430]
+
+[Footnote 429: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. v.]
+
+[Footnote 430: Id., ib., bk. xii. ch. vi.]
+
+Are we then required to accept the dictum of Aristotle as final and
+decisive? Did Pythagoras really teach that numbers are real
+entities--the _substance_ and cause of all other existences? The reader
+may be aware that this is a point upon which the historians of
+philosophy are not agreed. Ritter is decidedly of opinion that the
+Pythagorean formula "can only be taken symbolically."[431] Lewes insists
+it must be understood literally.[432] On a careful review of all the
+arguments, we are constrained to regard the conclusion of Ritter as most
+reasonable. The hypothesis "that numbers are real entities" does
+violence to every principle of common sense. This alone constitutes a
+strong _à priori_ presumption that Pythagoras did not entertain so
+glaring an absurdity. The man who contributed so much towards perfecting
+the mathematical sciences, who played so conspicuous a part in the
+development of ancient philosophy, and who exerted so powerful a
+determining influence on the entire current of speculative thought, did
+not obtain his ascendency over the intellectual manhood of Greece by the
+utterance of such enigmas. And further, in interpreting the philosophic
+opinions of the ancients, we must be guided by this fundamental
+canon--"The human mind has, under the necessary operation of its own
+laws, been compelled to entertain the same fundamental ideas, and the
+human heart to cherish the same feelings in all ages." Now if a careful
+philosophic criticism can not render the _reported_ opinions of an
+ancient teacher into the universal language of the reason and heart of
+humanity, we must conclude either that his opinions were misunderstood
+and misrepresented by some of his successors, or else that he stands in
+utter isolation, both from the present and the past. His doctrine has,
+then, no relation to the successions of thought, and no place in the
+history of philosophy. Nay, more, such a doctrine has in it no element
+of vitality, no germ of eternal truth, and must speedily perish. Now it
+is well known that the teaching of Pythagoras awakened the deepest
+intellectual sympathy of his age; that his doctrine exerted a powerful
+influence on the mind of Plato, and, through him, upon succeeding ages;
+and that, in some of its aspects, it now survives, and is more
+influential to-day than in any previous age; but this element of
+immutable and eternal truth was certainly not contained in the inane and
+empty formula, "that numbers are real existences, the causes of all
+other existences!" If the fame of Pythagoras had rested on such "airy
+nothings," it would have melted away before the time of Plato.
+
+[Footnote 431: "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 359.]
+
+[Footnote 432: "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 38.]
+
+We grant there is considerable force in the argument of Lewes. He urges,
+with some pertinence, the unquestionable fact that Aristotle asserts,
+again and again, that the Pythagoreans taught "that numbers are the
+principles and substance of things as well as the causes of their
+modifications;" and he argues that we are not justified in rejecting the
+authority of Aristotle, unless better evidence can be produced.
+
+So far, however, as the authority of Aristotle is concerned, even Lewes
+himself charges him, in more than one instance, with strangely
+misrepresenting the opinions of his predecessors.[433] Aristotle is
+evidently wanting in that impartiality which ought to characterize the
+historian of philosophy, and, sometimes, we are compelled to question
+his integrity. Indeed, throughout his "Metaphysics" he exhibits the
+egotism and vanity of one who imagines that he alone, of all men, has
+the full vision of the truth. In Books I. and XII. he uniformly
+associates the "_numbers_" of Pythagoras with the "_forms_" and
+"_ideas_" of Plato. He asserts that Plato identifies "forms" and
+"numbers," and regards them as real entities--substances, and causes of
+all other things. "_Forms are numbers_[434]... so Plato affirmed,
+similar with the Pythagoreans; and the dogma that numbers are causes to
+other things--of their substance-_he, in like manner, asserted with
+them_."[435] And then, finally, he employs the _same_ arguments in
+refuting the doctrines of both.
+
+[Footnote 433: "Aristotle uniformly speaks disparagingly of Anaxagoras"
+(Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy"). He represents him as
+employing mind (νοῦς) simply as "a _machine_" for the production of the
+world;--"when he finds himself in perplexity as to the cause of its
+being necessarily an orderly system, he then drags it (mind) in by force
+to his assistance" "Metaphysics," (bk. i. ch. iv.). But he is evidently
+inconsistent with himself, for in "De Anima" (bk. i. ch. ii.) he tells
+us that "Anaxagoras saith that mind is at once a _cause of motion_ in
+the whole universe, and also of _well_ and _fit_." We may further ask,
+is not the idea of fitness--of the good and the befitting--the final
+cause, even according to Aristotle?
+
+He also totally misrepresents Plato's doctrine of "Ideas." "Plato's
+Ideas," he says, "are substantial existences--real beings"
+("Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. ix.). Whereas, as we shall subsequently show,
+"they are objects of pure conception for human reason, and they are
+attributes of the Divine Reason. It is there they substantially exist."
+(Cousin, "History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 415). It is also pertinent
+to inquire, what is the difference between the "formal cause" of
+Aristotle and the archetypal ideas of Plato? and is not Plato's τὸ
+ἀγαθόν the "final cause?" Yet Aristotle is forever congratulating
+himself that he alone has properly treated the "formal" and the "final
+cause!"]
+
+[Footnote 434: This, however, was not the doctrine of Plato. He does not
+say "forms are numbers." He says: "God formed things as they first arose
+according to forms _and_ numbers." See "Timaeus," ch. xiv. and xxvii.]
+
+[Footnote 435: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. vi.]
+
+Now the writings of Plato are all extant to-day, and accessible in an
+excellent English translation to any of our readers. Cousin has
+shown,[436] most conclusively (and we can verify his conclusions for
+ourselves), that Aristotle has totally misrepresented Plato. And if, in
+the same connection, and in the course of the same argument, and in
+regard to the same subjects, he misrepresents Plato, it is most probable
+he also misrepresents Pythagoras.
+
+[Footnote 436: "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," pp. 77-81.]
+
+It is, however, a matter of the deepest interest for us to find the
+evidence gleaming out here and there, on the pages of Aristotle, that he
+had some knowledge of the fact that the Pythagorean numbers were
+regarded as _symbols_. The "numbers" of Pythagoras are, in the mind of
+Aristotle, clearly identified with the "forms" of Plato. Now, in Chapter
+VI. of the First Book he says that Plato taught that these "forms" were
+παραδείγματα--models, patterns, exemplars after which created things
+were framed. The numbers of Pythagoras, then, are also models and
+exemplars. This also is admitted by Aristotle. The Pythagoreans indeed
+affirm that entities subsist by an _imitation_ (μίμησις) of
+numbers.[437] Now if ideas, forms, numbers, were the models or paradigms
+after which "the Operator" formed all things, surely it can not be
+logical to say they were the "material" out of which all things were
+framed, much less the "efficient cause" of things. The most legitimate
+conclusion we can draw, even from the statements of Aristotle, is that
+the Pythagoreans regarded numbers as the best expression or
+representation of those laws of proportion, and order, and harmony,
+which seemed, to their eyes, to pervade the universe. Their doctrine was
+a faint glimpse of that grand discovery of modern science--that all the
+higher laws of nature assume the form of a precise quantitative
+statement.
+
+[Footnote 437: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. vi.]
+
+The fact seems to be this, the Pythagoreans busied themselves chiefly
+with what Aristotle designates "the _formal_ cause," and gave little
+attention to the inquiry concerning "the _material_ cause." This is
+admitted by Aristotle. Concerning fire, or earth, or the other bodies of
+such kind, they have declared nothing whatsoever, inasmuch as affirming,
+in my opinion, nothing that is peculiar concerning _sensible_
+natures.[438] They looked, as we have previously remarked, to the
+relations of phenomena, and having discovered certain "numerical
+similitudes," they imagined they had attained an universal principle, or
+law. "If all the essential properties and attributes of things were
+fully represented by the relations of numbers, the philosophy which
+supplied such an explanation of the universe might well be excused from
+explaining, also, that existence of objects, which is distinct from the
+existence of all their qualities and properties. The Pythagorean
+doctrine of numbers might have been combined with the doctrine of atoms,
+and the combination might have led to results worthy of notice. But, so
+far as we are aware, no such combination was attempted, and perhaps we
+of the present day are only just beginning to perceive, through the
+disclosures of chemistry and crystallography, the importance of such an
+inquiry."[439]
+
+[Footnote 4398: Id., ib., bk. i. ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 439: Whewell's "History of Inductive Sciences," vol. i. p.
+78.]
+
+These preliminary considerations will have cleared and prepared the way
+for a fuller presentation of the philosophic system of Pythagoras. The
+most comprehensive and satisfactory exposition of his "method" is that
+given by Wm Archer Butler in his "_Lectures on Ancient Philosophy_," and
+we feel we can not do better than condense his pages.[440]
+
+[Footnote 440: Lecture VI. vol. i.]
+
+Pythagoras had long devoted his intellectual adoration to the lofty idea
+of _order_, which seemed to reveal itself to his mind, as the presiding
+genius of the serene and silent world. He had, from his youth, dwelt
+with delight upon the eternal relations of space, and determinate form,
+and number, in which the very idea of _proportion_ seems to find its
+first and immediate development, and without the latter of which
+(number), all proportion is absolutely inconceivable. To this ardent
+genius, whose inventive energies were daily adding new and surprising
+contributions to the sum of discoverable relations, it at length began
+to appear as if the whole secret of the universe was hidden in these
+mysterious correspondences.
+
+In making this extensive generalization, Pythagoras may, on his known
+principles, be supposed to have reasoned as follows: The mind of man
+perceives the relations of an eternal _order_ in the proportions of
+space, and form, and number. That mind is, no doubt, a portion of the
+soul which animates and governs the universe; for on what other
+supposition shall we account for its internal principle of activity--the
+very principle which characterizes the prime mover, and can scarce be
+ascribed to an inferior nature? And on what other supposition are we to
+explain the identity which subsists between the principles of order,
+authenticated by the reason and the facts of order which are found to
+exist in the forms and multiplicities around us, and independent of us?
+Can this sameness be other than the sameness of the internal and
+external principles of a common nature? The proportions of the universe
+inhere in its divine soul; they are indeed its very essence, or at
+least, its attributes. The ideas or principles of Order which are
+implanted in the human reason, must inhere in the Divine Reason, and
+must be reflected in the visible world, which is its product. Man, then,
+can boldly affirm the necessary harmony of the world, because he has in
+his own mind a revelation which declares that the world, in its real
+structure, must be the image and copy of that divine _proportion_ which
+he inwardly adores.[441]
+
+[Footnote 441: It is an opinion which goes as far back as the time of
+Plato, and even Pythagoras, and has ever since been widely entertained,
+that beauty of _form_ consists in some sort of _proportion_ or _harmony_
+which may admit of a mathematical expression; and later and more
+scientific research is altogether in its favor. It is now established
+that complementary colors, that is, colors which when combined make up
+the full beam, are felt to be beautiful when seen simultaneously; that
+is, the mind is made to delight in the unities of nature. At the basis
+of music there are certain fixed ratios; and in poetry, of every
+description, there are measures, and correspondencies. Pythagoras has
+often been ridiculed for his doctrine of "the music of the spheres;" and
+probably his doctrine was somewhat fanciful, but later science shows
+that there is a harmony in all nature--in its forms, in its forces, and
+in its motions. The highest unorganized and all organized objects take
+definite forms which are regulated by mathematical laws. The forces of
+nature can be estimated in numbers, and light and heat go in
+undulations, whilst the movements of the great bodies in nature admit of
+a precise quantitative expression. The harmonies of nature in respect of
+color, of number, of form, and of time are forcibly exhibited in
+"Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation," by M'Cosh.]
+
+Again, the world is assuredly _perfect_, as being the sensible image and
+copy of the Divinity, the outward and multiple development of the
+Eternal Unity. It must, therefore, when thoroughly known and properly
+interpreted, answer to all which we can conceive as perfect; that is, it
+must be regulated by laws, of which we have the highest principles in
+those first and elementary properties of numbers which stand next to
+_unity_. "The world is then, through all its departments, _a living
+arithmetic in its development, a realized geometry in its repose_." It
+is a κόσμος (for the word is purely Pythagorean)--the expression of
+_harmony_, the manifestation, to sense, of everlasting _order_.
+
+Though Pythagoras found in geometry the fitting initiative for abstract
+speculation, it is remarkable that he himself preferred to constitute
+the science of Numbers as the true representative of the laws of the
+universe. The reason appears to be this: that though geometry speaks
+indeed of eternal truths, yet when the notion of symmetry and proportion
+is introduced, it is often necessary to insist, in preference, upon the
+properties of numbers. Hence, though the universe displays the geometry
+of its Constructor or Animator, yet nature was eminently defined as the
+μίμησις τῶν ἀριθμῶν--the imitation of numbers.
+
+The key to all the Pythagorean dogmas, then, seems to be the general
+formula of _unity in multiplicity_:--unity either evolving itself into
+multiplicity, or unity discovered as pervading multiplicity. The
+principle of all things, the same principle which in this philosophy, as
+in others, was customarily called _Deity_, is the primitive unit from
+which all proceeds in the accordant relations of the universal scheme.
+Into the sensible world of multitude, the all-pervading Unity has
+infused his own ineffable nature; he has impressed his own image upon
+that world which is to represent him in the sphere of sense and man.
+What, then, is that which is at once single and multiple, identical and
+diversified--which we perceive as the combination of a thousand
+elements, yet as the expression of a single spirit--which is a chaos to
+the sense, a cosmos to the reason? What is it but
+harmony--proportion--the one governing the many, the many lost in the
+one? The world is therefore a _harmony_ in innumerable degrees, from the
+most complicated to the most simple: it is now a Triad, combining the
+Monad and the Duad, and partaking of the nature of both; now a Tetrad,
+the form of perfection; now a Decad, which, in combining the four
+former, involves, in its mystic nature, all the possible accordances of
+the universe.[442]
+
+The psychology of the Pythagoreans was greatly modified by their
+physical, and still more, by their moral tenets. The soul was ἀριθμὸς
+ἑαυτὸν κινῶν--a self-moving number or Monad, the copy (as we have seen)
+of that Infinite Monad which unfolds from its own incomprehensible
+essence all the relations of the universe. This soul has three elements,
+Reason (νοῦς), Intelligence (φρήν), and Passion (θυμός). The two last,
+man has in common with brutes, the first is his grand and peculiar
+characteristic. It has, hence, been argued that Pythagoras could not
+have held the doctrine of "transmigration." This clear separation of man
+from the brute, by this signal endowment of reason, which is
+sempiternal, seems a refutation of those who charge him with the
+doctrine.
+
+In the department of morals, the legislator of Crotona found his
+appropriate sphere. In his use of numerical notation, moral good was
+essential unity--evil, essential plurality and division. In the fixed
+truths of mathematical abstractions he found the exemplars of social and
+personal virtue. The rule or law of all morality is resemblance to God;
+that is, the return of number to its root, to unity,[443] and virtue is
+thus a harmony.
+
+[Footnote 442: That is, 1+2+3+4=10. There are intimations that the
+Pythagoreans regarded the Monad as God, the Duad as matter, the Triad as
+the complex phenomena of the world, the Tetrad as the completeness of
+all its relations, the Decad as the cosmos, or harmonious whole.]
+
+[Footnote 443: Aristotle, "Nichomachian Ethics," bk. i. ch. vi.]
+
+Thus have we, in Pythagoras, the dawn of an _Idealist_ school; for
+mathematics are founded upon abstractions, and there is consequently an
+intimate connection between mathematics and idealism. The relations of
+space, and number, and determinate form, are, like the relations of
+cause and effect, of phenomena and substance, perceptible _only in
+thought_; and the mind which has been disciplined to abstract thought by
+the study of mathematics, is prepared and disposed for purely
+metaphysical studies. "The looking into mathematical learning is a kind
+of prelude to the contemplation of real being."[444] Therefore Plato
+inscribed over the door of his academy, "Let none but Geometricians
+enter here." To the mind thus disciplined in abstract thinking, the
+conceptions and ideas of reason have equal authority, sometimes even
+superior authority, to the perceptions of sense.
+
+[Footnote 444: Alcinous, "Introduction to the Doctrines of Plato," ch.
+vii.]
+
+Now if the testimony of both reason and sense, as given in
+consciousness, is accepted as of equal authority, and each faculty is
+regarded as, within its own sphere, a source of real, valid knowledge,
+then a consistent and harmonious system of _Natural Realism_ or _Natural
+Dualism_ will be the result. If the testimony of sense is questioned and
+distrusted, and the mind is denied any immediate knowledge of the
+sensible world, and yet the existence of an external world is maintained
+by various hypotheses and reasonings, the consequence will be a species
+of _Hypothetical Dualism_ or _Cosmothetic Idealism_. But if the
+affirmations of reason, as to the unity of the cosmos, are alone
+accepted, and the evidence of the senses, as to the variety and
+multiplicity of the world, is entirely disregarded, then we have a
+system of _Absolute Idealism_. Pythagoras regarded the harmony which
+pervades the diversified phenomena of the outer world as a manifestation
+of the unity of its eternal principle, or as the perpetual evolution of
+that unity, and the consequent _tendency_ of his system was to
+depreciate the _sensible_. Following out this tendency, the Eleatics
+first neglected, and finally denied the variety of the universe--denied
+the real existence of the external world, and asserted an absolute
+_metaphysical_ unity.
+
+_Xenophanes of Colophon_, in Ionia (B.C. 616-516), was the founder of
+this celebrated school of Elea. He left Ionia, and arrived in Italy
+about the same time as Pythagoras, bringing with him to Italy his Ionian
+tendencies; he there amalgamated them with Pythagorean speculations.
+
+Pythagoras had succeeded in fixing the attention of his countrymen on
+the harmony which pervades the material world, and had taught them to
+regard that harmony as the manifestation of the intelligence, and unity,
+and perfection of its eternal principle. Struck with this idea of
+harmony and of unity, Xenophanes, who was a poet, a rhapsodist, and
+therefore by native tendency, rather than by intellectual discipline, an
+Idealist, begins already to attach more importance to _unity_ than
+multiplicity in his philosophy of nature. He regards the testimony of
+reason as of more authority than the testimony of sense; "and he holds
+badly enough the balance between the unity of the Pythagoreans and the
+variety which Heraclitus and the Ionians had alone considered."[445]
+
+We are not, however, to suppose that Xenophanes denied entirely the
+existence of _plurality_. "The great Rhapsodist of Truth" was guided by
+the spontaneous intuitions of his mind (which seemed to partake of the
+character of an inspiration), to a clearer vision of the truth than were
+his successors of the same school by their discursive reasonings. "The
+One" of Xenophanes was clearly distinguished from the outward universe
+(τὰ πολλά) on the one hand, and from the "_non-ens_" on the other. It
+was his disciple, Parmenides, who imagined the logical necessity of
+identifying plurality with the "_non-ens_" and thus denying all
+immediate cognition of the phenomenal world. The compactness and logical
+coherence of the system of Parmenides seems to have had a peculiar charm
+for the Grecian mind, and to have diverted the eyes of antiquity from
+the views of the more earnest and devout Xenophanes, whose opinions were
+too often confounded with those of his successors of the Eleatic school.
+"Accordingly we find that Xenophanes has obtained credit for much that
+is, exclusively, the property of Parmenides and Zeno, in particular for
+denying plurality, and for identifying God with the universe."[446]
+
+[Footnote 445: Cousin, "History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 440.]
+
+[Footnote 446: See note by editor, W.H. Thompson, M.A., on pages 331,
+332 of Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. His authorities are "Fragments of
+Xenophanes" and the treatise "De Melisso, Xenophane, et Gorgia," by
+Aristotle.]
+
+In theology, Xenophanes was unquestionably a _Theist_. He had a profound
+and earnest conviction of the existence of a God, and he ridiculed with
+sarcastic force, the anthropomorphic absurdities of the popular
+religion. This one God, he taught, was self-existent, eternal, and
+infinite; supreme in power, in goodness, and intelligence.[447] These
+characteristics are ascribed to the Deity in the sublime words with
+which he opens his philosophic poem--
+
+     "There is one God, of all beings, divine and human, the greatest:
+     Neither in body alike unto mortals, neither in mind."
+
+He has no parts, no organs, as men have, being
+
+     "All sight, all ear, all intelligence;
+     Wholly exempt from toil, he sways all things by _thought_ and                                                            _will_."[448]
+
+Xenophanes also taught that God is "uncreated" or "uncaused," and that
+he is "excellent" as well as "all-powerful."[449] And yet, regardless of
+these explicit utterances, Lewes cautions his readers against supposing
+that, by the "one God," Xenophanes meant a Personal God; and he asserts
+that his Monotheism was Pantheism. A doctrine, however, which ascribes
+to the Divine Being moral as well as intellectual supremacy, which
+acknowledges an outward world distinct from Him, and which represents
+Him as causing the changes in that universe by the acts of an
+intelligent volition, can only by a strange perversion of language be
+called pantheism.
+
+[Footnote 447: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 38;
+Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 428, 429.]
+
+[Footnote 448: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp.
+432, 434.]
+
+[Footnote 449: Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. p. 331, note; Ritter's
+"History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 428.]
+
+_Parmenides of Elea_ (born B.C. 536) was the philosopher who framed the
+psychological opinions of the Idealist school into a precise and
+comprehensive system. He was the first carefully to distinguish between
+_Truth_ (ἀλήθειαν) and _Opinion_ (δοξαν)--between ideas obtained through
+the reason and the simple perceptions of sense. Assuming that reason and
+sense are the only sources of knowledge, he held that they furnish the
+mind with two distinct classes of cognitions--one variable, fleeting,
+and uncertain; the other immutable, necessary, and eternal. Sense is
+dependent on the variable organization of the individual, and therefore
+its evidence is changeable, uncertain, and nothing but a mere
+"_seeming_." Reason is the same in all individuals, and therefore its
+evidence is constant, real, and true. Philosophy is, therefore, divided
+into two branches--_Physics_ and _Metaphysics_; one, a science of
+absolute knowledge; the other, a science of mere appearances. The first
+science, Physics, is pronounced illusory and uncertain; the latter,
+Metaphysics, is infallible and immutable.[450]
+
+Proceeding on these principles, he rejects the dualistic system of the
+universe, and boldly declared that all essences are fundamentally
+_one_--that, in fact, there is no real plurality, and that all the
+diversity which "appears" is merely presented under a peculiar aesthetic
+or sensible law. The senses, it is true, teach us that there are "many
+things," but reason affirms that, at bottom, there exists only "the
+one." Whatever, therefore, manifests itself in the field of sense is
+merely illusory--the mental representation of a phenomenal world, which
+to experience seems diversified, but which reason can not possibly admit
+to be other than "immovable" and "one." There is but one Being in the
+universe, eternal, immovable, absolute; and of this unconditioned being
+all phenomenal existences, whether material or mental, are but the
+attributes and modes. Hence the two great maxims of the Eleatic school,
+derived from Parmenides--τὰ πάντα ἕν, "_The All is One_" and τὸ αὐτὸ
+νοεῖν τε καὶ εἶναι (Idem est cogitare atque esse), "_Thought and Being
+are identical._" The last remarkable dictum is the fundamental principle
+of the modern pantheistic doctrine of "absolute identity" as taught by
+Schelling and Hegel.[451]
+
+[Footnote 450: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp.
+447, 451.]
+
+[Footnote 451: Id., ib., vol. i. pp. 450, 455.]
+
+Lewes asserts that "Parmenides did not, with Xenophanes, call 'the One'
+God; he called it Being.[452] In support of this statement he, however,
+cites no ancient authorities. We are therefore justified in rejecting
+his opinion, and receiving the testimony of Simplicius, "the only
+authority for the fragments of the Eleatics,"[453] and who had a copy of
+the philosophic poems of Parmenides. He assures us that Parmenides and
+Xenophanes "affirmed that '_the One,_' or unity, was the first Principle
+of all,....they meaning by this One _that highest or supreme God_, as
+being the cause of unity to all things.... It remaineth, therefore, that
+that _Intelligence_ which is the cause of all things, and therefore of
+mind and understanding also, in which all things are comprehended in
+unity, was Parmenides' one Ens or Being.[454] Parmenides was, therefore,
+a spiritualistic or idealistic Pantheist.
+
+_Zeno of Elea_ (born B.C. 500) was the logician of the Eleatic school.
+He was, says Diogenes Laertius, "the inventor of Dialectics."[455] Logic
+henceforth becomes the ὄργανον[456]--organon of the Eleatics.
+
+[Footnote 452: "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 50.]
+
+[Footnote 453: Encyclopædia Britannica, article "Simplicius."]
+
+[Footnote 454: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 511.]
+
+[Footnote 455: "Lives," p. 387 (Bohn's edition).]
+
+[Footnote 456: Plato in "Parmen."]
+
+This organon, however, Zeno used very imperfectly. In his hands it was
+simply the "reductio ad absurdum" of opposing opinions as the means of
+sustaining the tenets of his own sect. Parmenides had asserted, on _à
+priori_ grounds, the existence of "the One." Zeno would prove by his
+dialectic the non-existence of "the many." His grand position was that
+all phenomena, all that appears to sense, is but a _modification_ of the
+absolute One. And he displays a vast amount of dialectic subtilty in the
+effort to prove that all "appearances" are unreal, and that all movement
+and change is a mere "seeming"--not a reality. What men call motion is
+only a name given to a series of conditions, each of which, considered
+separately, is rest. "Rest is force resistant; motion is force
+triumphant."[457] The famous puzzle of "Achilles and the Tortoise," by
+which he endeavored to prove the unreality of motion, has been rendered
+familiar to the English reader.[458]
+
+[Footnote 457: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 60.]
+
+[Footnote 458: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp.
+475, 476.]
+
+Aristotle assures us that Zeno, "by his one Ens, which neither was moved
+nor movable, meaneth God." And he also informs us that "Zeno endeavored
+to demonstrate that there is but one God, from the idea which all men
+have of him, as that which is the best, supremest, most powerful of all,
+or an absolutely perfect being" ("De Xenophane, Zenone, et
+Gorgia").[459]
+
+With Zeno we close our survey of the second grand line of independent
+inquiry by which philosophy sought to solve the problem of the universe.
+The reader will be struck with the resemblance which subsists between
+the history of its development and that of the modern Idealist school.
+Pythagoras was the Descartes, Parmenides the Spinoza, and Zeno the Hegel
+of the Italian school.
+
+In this survey of the speculations of the pre-Socratic schools of
+philosophy, we have followed the course of two opposite streams of
+thought which had their common origin in one fundamental principle or
+law of the human mind--the _intuition of unity_--"or the desire to
+comprehend all the facts of the universe in a single formula, and
+consummate all conditional knowledge in the unity of unconditioned
+existence." The history of this tendency is, in fact, the history of all
+philosophy. "The end of all philosophy," says Plato, "is the intuition
+of unity." "All knowledge," said the Platonists, "is the gathering up
+into one."[460]
+
+[Footnote 459: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 518.]
+
+[Footnote 460: Hamilton's "Metaphysics," vol. i. pp. 67-70 (English
+edition).]
+
+Starting from this fundamental idea, _that, beneath the endless flux and
+change of the visible universe, there must be a permanent principle of
+unity_, we have seen developed two opposite schools of speculative
+thought. As the traveller, standing on the ridges of the Andes, may see
+the head-waters of the great South American rivers mingling in one, so
+the student of philosophy, standing on the elevated plane of analytic
+thought, may discover, in this fundamental principle, the common source
+of the two great systems of speculative thought which divided the
+ancient world. Here are the head-waters of the sensational and the
+idealist schools. The Ionian school started its course of inquiry in the
+direction of _sense_; it occupied itself solely with the phenomena of
+the external world, and it sought this principle of unity in a
+_physical_ element. The Italian school started its course of inquiry in
+the direction of _reason_; it occupied itself chiefly with rational
+conceptions or _à priori_ ideas, and it sought this principle of unity
+in purely _metaphysical_ being. And just as the Amazon and La Plata
+sweep on, in opposite directions, until they reach the extremities of
+the continent, so these two opposite streams of thought rush onward, by
+the force of a logical necessity, until they terminate in the two
+Unitarian systems of _Absolute Materialism_ and _Absolute Idealism_,
+and, in their theological aspects, in a pantheism which, on the one
+hand, identifies God with matter, or, on the other hand, swallows up the
+universe in God.
+
+The radical error of both these systems is at once apparent. The
+testimony of the primary faculties of the mind was not regarded as each,
+within its sphere, final and decisive. The duality of consciousness was
+not accepted in all its integrity; one school rejected the testimony of
+reason, the other denied the veracity of the senses, and both prepared
+the way for the _skepticism_ of the Sophists.
+
+We must not, however, lose sight of the fact that there were some
+philosophers of the pre-Socratic school, as Anaxagoras and Empedocles,
+who recognized the partial and exclusive character of both these
+systems, and sought, by a method which Cousin would designate as
+Eclecticism, to combine the element of truth contained in each.
+
+_Anaxagoras of Clazomencœ_ (B.C. 500-428) added to the Ionian philosophy
+of a material element or elements the Italian idea of a _spirit_
+distinct from, and independent of the world, which has within itself the
+principle of a spontaneous activity--Νοῦς αὐτοκρατής, and which is the
+first cause of motion in the universe--ἀρχὴ τῆς κινήσεως.[461]
+
+[Footnote 461: Cousin, "History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 411.]
+
+In his physical theory, Anaxagoras was an Atomist. Instead of one
+element, he declared that the elements or first principles were
+numerous, or even infinite. No point in space is unoccupied by these
+atoms, which are infinitely divisible. He imagined that, in nature,
+there are as many kinds of principles as there are species of compound
+bodies, and that the peculiar form of the primary particles of which any
+body is composed is the same with the qualities of the compound body
+itself. This was the celebrated doctrine of _Homœomeria_, of which
+Lucretius furnishes a luminous account in his philosophic poem "De
+Natura Rerum"--
+
+                        "That bone from bones
+     Minute, and embryon; nerve from nerves arise;
+     And blood from blood, by countless drops increased.
+     Gold, too, from golden atoms, earths concrete,
+     From earths extreme; from fiery matters, fire;
+     And lymph from limpen dews. And thus throughout
+     From primal kinds that kinds perpetual spring."[462]
+
+These primary particles were regarded by Anaxagoras as eternal; because
+he held the dogma, peculiar to all the Ionians, that nothing can be
+really created or annihilated (de nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse
+reverti). But he saw, nevertheless, that the simple existence of
+"_inert_" matter, even from eternity, could not explain the motion and
+the harmony of the material world. Hence he saw the necessity of another
+power--_the power of Intelligence_. "All things were in chaos; then came
+Intelligence and introduced Order."[463]
+
+Anaxagoras, unlike the pantheistic speculators of the Ionian school,
+rigidly separated the Supreme Intelligence from the material universe.
+The Νοῦς of Anaxagoras is a principle, infinite, independent
+(αὺτοκρατές), omnipresent (ἐν παντὶ παντὸς μοίοα ἔνον), the subtilest
+and purest of things (λεπτότατον πάντων χρημάτων καὶ καθαρώτατον); and
+incapable of mixture with aught besides; it is also omniscient (πάντα
+ἔγνω), and unchangeable (πᾶς ὁμοῖός ἐστι).--Simplicius, in "Arist.
+Phys." i. 33.[464]
+
+[Footnote 462: Good's translation, bk. i. p. 325.]
+
+[Footnote 463: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," p. 59.]
+
+[Footnote 464: Butler's "Lectures on Philosophy," vol. i. p. 305, note.]
+
+Thus did Anaxagoras bridge the chasm between the Ionian and the Italian
+schools. He accepted both doctrines with some modifications. He believed
+in the real existence of the phenomenal world, and he also believed in
+the real existence of "The Infinite Mind," whose Intelligence and
+Omnipotence were manifested in the laws and relations which pervade the
+world. He proclaimed the existence of the Infinite Intelligence ("the
+ONE"), who was the Architect and Governor of the Infinite Matter ("the
+MANY").
+
+On the question as to the origin and certainty of human knowledge,
+Anaxagoras differed both from the Ionians and the Eleatics. Neither the
+sense alone, nor the reason alone, were for him a ground of certitude.
+He held that reason (λόγος) was the regulative faculty of the mind, as
+the Νοῦς, or Supreme Intelligence, was the regulative power of the
+universe. And he admitted that the senses were veracious in their
+reports; but they reported only in regard to phenomena. The senses,
+then, perceive _phenomena_, but it is the reason alone which recognizes
+_noumena_, that is, the reason perceives being in and through phenomena,
+substance in and through qualities; an anticipation of the fundamental
+principle of modern psychology--"_that every power or substance in
+existence is knowable to us, so far only, as we know its phenomena_."
+Thus, again, does he bridge the chasm that separates between the
+Sensationalist and the Idealist. The Ionians relied solely on the
+intuitions of sense; the Eleatics accepted only the apperceptions of
+pure reason; he accepted the testimony of both, and in the synthesis of
+subject and object--the union of an element supplied by sensation, and
+an element supplied by reason, he found real, certain knowledge.
+
+The harmony which the doctrine of Anaxagoras introduced into the
+philosophy of Athens, soon attracted attention and multiplied disciples.
+He was teaching when Socrates arrived in Athens, and the latter attended
+his school. The influence which the doctrine of Anaxagoras exerted upon
+the mind of Socrates (leading him to recognize Intelligence as the cause
+of order and special adaptation in the universe),[465] and also upon the
+course of philosophy in the Socratic schools, is the most enduring
+memorial of his name.[466]
+
+[Footnote 465: "Phaedo," § 105.]
+
+[Footnote 466: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. iii.]
+
+We have devoted a much larger space than we originally designed to the
+ante-Socratic schools--quite out of proportion, indeed, with that we
+shall be able to appropriate to their successors. But inasmuch as all
+the great primary problems of thought, which are subsequently discussed
+by Plato and Aristotle, were started, and received, at least, typical
+answers in those schools, we can not hope to understand Plato, or
+Aristotle, or even Epicurus, or Zeno of Cittium, unless we have first
+mastered the doctrines of Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Parmenides, and
+Anaxagoras.[467] The attention we have bestowed on these early thinkers
+will, therefore, have been a valuable preparatory discipline for the
+study of
+
+II. THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+
+The first cycle of philosophy was now complete. That form of Grecian
+speculative thought which, during the first period of its development,
+was a philosophy of nature, had reached its maturity; it had sought "the
+first principles of all things" in the study of external nature, and had
+signally failed. In this pursuit of first principles as the basis of a
+true and certain knowledge of the system of the universe, the two
+leading schools had been carried to opposite poles of thought. One had
+asserted that _experience_ alone, the other, that _reason_ alone was the
+sole criterion of truth. As the last consequence of this imperfect
+method, Leucippus had denied the existence of "the one," and Zeno had
+denied the existence of "the many." The Ionian school, in Democritus,
+had landed in Materialism; the Italian, in Parmenides, had ended in
+Pantheism; and, as the necessary result of this partial and defective
+method of inquiry, which ended in doubt and contradiction, a spirit of
+general skepticism was generated in the Athenian mind. If doubt be cast
+upon the veracity of the primary cognitive faculties of the mind, the
+flood-gates of universal skepticism are opened. If the senses are
+pronounced to be mendacious and illusory in their reports regarding
+external phenomena, and if the intuitions of the reason, in regard to
+the ground and cause of phenomena, are delusive, then we have no ground
+of certitude. If one faculty is unveracious and unreliable, how can we
+determine that the other is not equally so? There is, then, no such
+thing as universal and necessary truth. Truth is variable and uncertain,
+as the variable opinion of each individual.
+
+[Footnote 467: Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 114; Butler's
+"Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. pp. 87, 88.]
+
+The Sophists, who belonged to no particular school, laid hold on the
+elements of skepticism contained in both the pre-Socratic schools of
+philosophy, and they declared that "the σοφία" was not only
+unattainable, but that no relative degree of it was possible for the
+human faculties.[468] Protagoras of Abdera accepted the doctrine of
+Heraclitus, that thought is identical with sensation, and limited by it;
+he therefore declared that there is no criterion of truth, and _Man is
+the measure of all things_.[469] Sextus Empiricus gives the
+psychological opinions of Protagoras with remarkable explicitness.
+"Matter is in a perpetual flux, whilst it undergoes augmentations and
+losses; the senses also are modified according to the age and
+disposition of the body. He said, also, that the reason of all phenomena
+resides in matter as substrata, so that matter, in itself, might be
+whatever it appeared to each. But men have different perceptions at
+different periods, according to the changes in the things perceived....
+Man is, therefore, the criterion of that which exists; all that is
+perceived by him exists; _that which is perceived by no man does not
+exist_."[470] These conclusions were rigidly and fearlessly applied to
+ethics and political science. If there is no Eternal Truth, there can be
+no Immutable Right. The distinction of right and wrong is solely a
+matter of human opinion and conventional usage.[471] "That which
+_appears_ just and honorable to each city, is so for _that city_, so
+long as the opinion prevails."[472]
+
+[Footnote 468: Encyclopædia Britannica, article "Sophist."]
+
+[Footnote 469: Plato's "Theætetus" (άνθρωπος--"the individual is the
+measure of all things"), vol. i. p. 381 (Bohn's edition).]
+
+[Footnote 470: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 117.]
+
+[Footnote 471: "Gorgias," § 85-89.]
+
+[Footnote 472: Plato's "Theætetus," § 65-75.]
+
+There were others who laid hold on the weapons which Zeno had prepared
+to their hands. He had asserted that all the objects of sense were mere
+phantoms--delusive and transitory. By the subtilties of dialectic
+quibbling, he had attempted to prove that "change" meant "permanence,"
+and "motion" meant "rest."[473] Words may, therefore, have the most
+opposite and contradictory meanings; and all language and all opinion
+may, by such a process, be rendered uncertain. One opinion is,
+consequently, for the individual, just as good as another; and all
+opinions are equally true and untrue. It was nevertheless desirable, for
+the good of society, that there should be some agreement, and that, for
+a time at least, certain opinions should prevail; and if philosophy had
+failed to secure this agreement, rhetoric, at least, was effectual; and,
+with the Sophist, rhetoric was "the art of making the worst appear the
+better reason." All wisdom was now confined to a species of "word
+jugglery," which in Athens was dignified as "the art of disputation."
+
+[Footnote 473: "And do we not know that the Eleatic Palamedes (Zeno)
+spoke by art in such a manner that the same things appeared to be
+similar and dissimilar, one and many, at rest and in
+motion?"--"Phædrus," § 97.]
+
+SOCRATES (B.C. 469-399), the grand central figure in the group of
+ancient philosophers, arrived in Athens in the midst of this general
+skepticism. He had an invincible faith in truth. "He made her the
+mistress of his soul, and with patient labor, and unwearied energy, did
+his great and noble soul toil after perfect communion with her." He was
+disappointed and dissatisfied with the results that had been reached by
+the methods of his predecessors, and he was convinced that by these
+methods the problem of the universe could not be solved. He therefore
+turned away from physical inquiries, and devoted his whole attention to
+the study of the human mind, its fundamental beliefs, ideas, and laws.
+If he can not penetrate the mysteries of the outer world, he will turn
+his attention to the world within. He will "know himself," and find
+within himself the reason, and ground, and law of all existence. There
+he discovered certain truths which can not possibly be questioned. He
+felt he had within his own heart a faithful monitor--a _conscience_,
+which he regarded as the voice of God.[474] He believed "he had a divine
+teacher with him at all times. Though he did not possess wisdom, this
+teacher could put him on the road to seek it, could preserve him from
+delusions which might turn him out of the way, could keep his mind fixed
+upon the end for which he ought to act and live."[475] In himself,
+therefore, he sought that ground of certitude which should save him from
+the prevailing skepticism of his times. The Delphic inscription, Γνῶθι
+σεαντόν, "_know thyself_" becomes henceforth the fundamental maxim of
+philosophy.
+
+[Footnote 474: The Dæmon of Socrates has been the subject of much
+discussion among learned men. The notion, once generally received, that
+his _δαίμων_ was "a familiar genius," is now regarded as an exploded
+error. "Nowhere does Socrates, in Plato or Xenophon, speak of _a_ genius
+or demon, but always of a _dœmoniac something (το δαιμόνιον_, or
+_δαιμόνιν τι_), or of a _sign_, a _voice_, a _divine sign_, a _divine
+voice_" (Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 166).
+"Socrates always speaks of a _divine or supernatural somewhat_ ('divinum
+quiddam,' as Cicero has it), the nature of which he does not attempt to
+divine, and to which he never attributes personality" (Butler's
+"Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 357). The scholar need not
+to be informed that _το δαιμόνιον_, in classic literature, means the
+divine Essence (Lat. _numen_), to which are attributed events beyond
+man's power, yet not to be assigned to any special god.]
+
+[Footnote 475: Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 124.]
+
+Truth has a rational, _à priori_ foundation in the constitution of the
+human mind. There are _ideas_ connatural to the human reason which are
+the copies of those archetypal ideas which belong to the Eternal Reason.
+The grand problem of philosophy, therefore, now is--_What are these
+fundamental_ IDEAS _which are unchangeable and permanent, amid all the
+diversifies of human opinion, connecting appearance with reality, and
+constituting a ground of certain knowledge or absolute truth_? Socrates
+may not have held the doctrine of ideas as exhibited by Plato, but he
+certainly believed that there were germs of truth latent in the human
+mind--principles which governed, unconsciously, the processes of
+thought, and that these could be developed by reflection and by
+questioning. These were embryonate in the womb of reason, coming to the
+birth, but needing the "maieutic" or "obstetric" art, that they might be
+brought forth.[476] He would, therefore, become the accoucheur of ideas,
+and deliver minds of that secret truth which lay in their mental
+constitution. And thus _Psychology_ becomes the basis of all legitimate
+metaphysics.
+
+[Footnote 476: Plato's "Theætetus," § 22.]
+
+By the general consent of antiquity, as well as by the concurrent
+judgment of all modern historians of philosophy, Socrates is regarded as
+having effected a complete revolution in philosophic thought, and, by
+universal consent, he is placed at the commencement of a new era in
+philosophy. Schleiermacher has said, "the service which Socrates
+rendered tο philosophy consisted not so much in the truths arrived at
+_as in the_ METHOD _by which truth is sought_." As Bacon inaugurated a
+new method in physical inquiry, so Socrates inaugurated a new method in
+metaphysical inquiry.
+
+What, then, was this _new method_? It was no other than the _inductive_
+method applied to the facts of consciousness. This method is thus
+defined by Aristotle: "Induction is the process from particulars to
+generals;" that is, it is the process of discovering laws from facts,
+causes from effects, being from phenomena. But how is this process of
+induction conducted? By observing and enumerating the real facts which
+are presented in consciousness, by noting their relations of resemblance
+or difference, and by classifying these facts by the aid of these
+relations. In other words, it is _analysis_ applied to the phenomena of
+mind.[477] Now Socrates gave this method of psychological analysis to
+Greek philosophy. There are two things of which Socrates must justly be
+regarded as the author,--the _inductive reasoning_ and _abstract
+definition_.[478] We readily grant that Socrates employed this method
+imperfectly, for methods are the last things perfected in science; but
+still, the Socratic movement was a vast movement in the right direction.
+
+[Footnote 477: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 478: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," vol. xii. ch. iv. p. 359
+(Bohn's edition).]
+
+In what are usually regarded as the purely Socratic dialogues,[479]
+Plato evidently designs to exhibit this method of Socrates. They proceed
+continually on the firm conviction that there is a standard or criterion
+of truth in the reason of man, and that, by _reflection_, man can
+apprehend and recognize the truth. To awaken this power of reflection;
+to compel men to analyze their language and their thoughts; to lead them
+from the particular and the contingent, to the universal and the
+necessary; and to teach them to test their opinions by the inward
+standard of truth, was the aim of Socrates. These dialogues are a
+picture of the conversations of Socrates. They are literally an
+education of the thinking faculty. Their purpose is to discipline men to
+think for themselves, rather than to furnish opinions for them. In many
+of these dialogues Socrates affirms nothing. After producing many
+arguments, and examining a question on all sides, he leaves it
+undetermined. At the close of the dialogue he is as far from a
+declaration of opinions as at the commencement. His grand effort, like
+that of Bacon's, is to furnish men a correct method of inquiry, rather
+than to apply that method and give them results.
+
+[Footnote 479: "Laches," "Charmides," "Lysis," "The Rivals," "First and
+Second Alcibiades," "Theages," "Clitophon." See Whewell's translation,
+vol. i.]
+
+We must not, however, from thence conclude that Socrates did not himself
+attain any definite conclusions, or reach any specific and valuable
+results. When, in reply to his friends who reported the answer of the
+oracle of Delphi, that "Socrates was the wisest of men," he said, "he
+supposed the oracle declared him wise _because he knew nothing_," he did
+not mean that true knowledge was unattainable, for his whole life had
+been spent in efforts to attain it. He simply indicates the disposition
+of mind which is most befitting and most helpful to the seeker after
+truth. He must be conscious of his own ignorance. He must not exalt
+himself. He must not put his own conceits in the way of the thing he
+would know. He must have an open eye, a single purpose, an honest mind,
+to prepare him to receive light when it comes. And that there is light,
+that there is a source whence light comes, he avowed in every word and
+act.
+
+Socrates unquestionably believed in one Supreme God, the immaterial,
+infinite Governor of all. He cherished that instinctive, spontaneous
+faith in God and his Providence which is the universal faith of the
+human heart. He saw this faith revealed in the religious sentiments of
+all nations, and in the tendency to worship so universally
+characteristic of humanity.[480] He appealed to the consciousness of
+absolute dependence--the persuasion, wrought by God in the minds of all
+men, that "He is able to make men happy or miserable," and the
+consequent sense of obligation which teaches man he ought to obey God.
+And he regarded with some degree of affectionate tenderness the common
+sentiment of his countrymen, that the Divine Government was conducted
+through the ministry of subordinate deities or generated gods. But he
+sought earnestly to prevent the presence of these subordinate agents
+from intercepting the clear view of the Supreme God.
+
+The faith of Socrates was not, however, grounded on mere feeling and
+sentiment. He endeavored to place the knowledge of God on a rational
+basis. We can not read the arguments he employed without being convinced
+that he anticipated all the subsequent writers on Natural Theology in
+his treatment of the argument from _special ends_ or _final causes_. We
+venture to abridge the account which is given by Xenophon of the
+conversation with Aristodemus:[481]
+
+[Footnote 480: "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iv. § 16.]
+
+[Footnote 481: Ibid., bk. i. ch. iv.]
+
+"I will now relate the manner in which I once heard Socrates discoursing
+with Aristodemus concerning the Deity; for, observing that he never
+prayed nor sacrificed to the gods, but, on the contrary, ridiculed those
+who did, he said to him:
+
+"'Tell me, Aristodemus, is there any man you admire on account of his
+merits? Aristodemus having answered, 'Many,--'Name some of them, I pray
+you,' said Socrates. 'I admire,' said Aristodemus, 'Homer for his Epic
+poetry, Melanippides for his dithyrambics, Sophocles for his tragedy,
+Polycletus for statuary, and Zeuxis for painting.'
+
+"'But which seemed to you most worthy of admiration, Aristodemus--the
+artist who forms images void of motion and intelligence, or one who has
+skill to produce animals that are endued, not only with activity, but
+understanding?'
+
+"'The latter, there can be no doubt,' replied Aristodemus, 'provided the
+production was not the effect of chance, but of wisdom and contrivance.'
+
+"'But since there are many things, some of which we can easily see the
+use of, while we can not say of others to what purpose they are
+produced, which of these, Aristodemus, do you suppose the work of
+wisdom?'
+
+"'It would seem the most reasonable to affirm it of those whose fitness
+and utility are so evidently apparent,' answered Aristodemus.
+
+"'But it is evidently apparent that He who, at the beginning, made man,
+endued him with senses because they were good for him; eyes wherewith to
+behold what is visible, and ears to hear whatever was heard; for, say,
+Aristodemus, to what purpose should odor be prepared, if the sense of
+smelling had been denied or why the distinction of bitter or sweet, of
+savory or unsavory, unless a palate had been likewise given,
+conveniently placed to arbitrate between them and proclaim the
+difference? Is not that Providence, Aristodemus, in a most eminent
+manner conspicuous, which, because the eye of a man is so delicate in
+its contexture, hath therefore prepared eyelids like doors whereby to
+secure it, which extend of themselves whenever it is needful, and again
+close when sleep approaches? Are not these eyelids provided, as it were,
+with a fence on the edge of them to keep off the wind and guard the eye?
+Even the eyebrow itself is not without its office, but, as a penthouse,
+is prepared to turn off the sweat, which falling from the forehead might
+enter and annoy that no less tender than astonishing part of us. Is it
+not to be admired that the ears should take in sounds of every sort, and
+yet are not too much filled with them? That the fore teeth of the animal
+should be formed in such a manner as is evidently best for cutting, and
+those on the side for grinding it to pieces? That the mouth, through
+which this food is conveyed, should be placed so near the nose and eyes
+as to prevent the passing unnoticed whatever is unfit for
+nourishment?... And canst thou still doubt, Aristodemus, whether a
+_disposition of parts like this should be a work of chance, or of wisdom
+and contrivance_?'
+
+"'I have no longer any doubt,' replied Aristodemus; 'and, indeed, the
+more I consider it, the more evident it appears to me that man must be
+the masterpiece of some great Artificer, carrying along with it infinite
+marks of the love and favor of Him who hath thus formed it.'
+
+"'But, further (unless thou desirest to ask me questions), seeing,
+Aristodemus, thou thyself art conscious of reason and intelligence,
+supposest thou there is no intelligence elsewhere? Thou knowest thy body
+to be a small part of that wide-extended earth thou everywhere
+beholdest; the moisture contained in it thou also knowest to be a
+portion of that mighty mass of waters whereof seas themselves are but a
+part, while the rest of the elements contribute out of their abundance
+to thy formation. It is the _soul_, then, alone, that intellectual part
+of us, which is come to thee by some lucky chance, from I know not
+where. If so, there is no intelligence elsewhere; and we must be forced
+to confess that this stupendous universe, with all the various bodies
+contained therein--equally amazing, whether we consider their magnitude
+or number, whatever their use, whatever their order--all have been
+produced by chance, not by intelligence!'
+
+"'It is with difficulty that I can suppose otherwise,' returned
+Aristodemus; 'for I behold none of those gods whom you speak of as
+framing and governing the world; whereas I see the artists when at their
+work here among us.'
+
+"'Neither yet seest thou thy soul, Aristodemus, which, however, most
+assuredly governs thy body; although it may well seem, by thy manner of
+talking, that it is chance and not reason which governs thee.'
+
+"'I do not despise the gods,' said Aristodemus; 'on the contrary, I
+conceive so highly of their excellency, as to suppose they stand in no
+need of me or of my services.'
+
+"'Thou mistakest the matter,' Aristodemus, 'the great magnificence they
+have shown in their care of thee, so much the more honor and service
+thou owest them.'
+
+"'Be assured,' said Aristodemus, 'if I once could persuade myself the
+gods take care of man, I should want no monitor to remind me of my
+duty.'
+
+"'And canst thou doubt, Aristodemus, if the gods take care of man? Hath
+not the glorious privilege of walking upright been alone bestowed on
+him, whereby he may with the better advantage survey what is around him,
+contemplate with more ease those splendid objects which are above, and
+avoid the numerous ills and inconveniences which would otherwise befall
+him? Other animals, indeed, they have provided with feet; but to man
+they have also given hands, with which he can form many things for use,
+and make himself happier than creatures of any other kind. A tongue hath
+been bestowed on every other animal; but what animal, except man, hath
+the power of forming words with it whereby to explain his thoughts and
+make them intelligible to others? But it is not with respect to the body
+alone that the gods have shown themselves bountiful to man. Their most
+excellent gift is that of a soul they have infused into him, which so
+far surpasses what is elsewhere to be found; for by what animal except
+man is even the existence of the gods discovered, who have produced and
+still uphold in such regular order this beautiful and stupendous frame
+of the universe? What other creature is to be found that can serve and
+adore them?... In thee, Aristodemus, has been joined to a wonderful soul
+a body no less wonderful; and sayest thou, after this, the gods take no
+thought for me? What wouldst thou, then, more to convince thee of their
+care?'
+
+"'I would they should send and inform me,' said Aristodemus, 'what
+things I ought or ought not to do, in like manner as thou sayest they
+frequently do to thee.'"
+
+In reply, Socrates shows that the revelations of God which are made in
+nature, in history, in consciousness, and by oracles, are made _for_ all
+men and _to_ all men. He then concludes with these remarkable words:
+"As, therefore, amongst men we make best trial of the affection and
+gratitude of our neighbor by showing him kindness, and make discovery of
+his wisdom by consulting him in our distress, do thou, in like manner,
+behave towards the gods; and if thou wouldst experience what their
+wisdom and their love, render thyself deserving of some of those divine
+secrets which may not be penetrated by man, and are imparted to those
+alone who consult, who adore, and who obey the Deity. Then shalt thou,
+my Aristodemus, understand _there is a Being whose eye passes through
+all nature, and whose ear is open to every sound; extended to all
+places, extending through all time; and whose bounty and care can know
+no other bounds than those fixed by his own creation_".[482]
+
+[Footnote 482: Lewes's translation, in "Biog. History of Philosophy,"
+pp. 160-165.]
+
+Socrates was no less earnest in his belief in the immortality of the
+soul, and a state of future retribution. He had reverently listened to
+the intuitions of his own soul--the instinctive longings and aspirations
+of his own heart, as a revelation from God. He felt that all the powers
+and susceptibilities of his inward nature were in conscious adaptation
+to the idea of immortality, and that its realization was the appropriate
+destiny of man. He was convinced that a future life was needed to avenge
+the wrongs and reverse the unjust judgments of the present life;[483]
+needed that virtue may receive its meet reward, and the course of
+Providence may have its amplest vindication. He saw this faith reflected
+in the universal convictions of mankind, and the "common traditions" of
+all ages.[484] No one refers more frequently than Socrates to the grand
+old mythologic stories which express this faith; to Minos, and
+Rhadamanthus, and Æacus, and Triptolemus, who are "real judges," and
+who, in "the Place of Departed Spirits, administer _justice_."[485] He
+believed that in that future state the pursuit of wisdom would be his
+chief employment, and he anticipated the pleasure of mingling in the
+society of the wise, and good, and great of every age.
+
+[Footnote 483: "Apology," § 32, p. 329 (Whewell's edition).]
+
+[Footnote 484: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 485: "Apology," p. 330.]
+
+Whilst, then, Socrates was not the first to teach the doctrine of
+immortality, because no one could be said to have first _discovered_ it
+any more than to have first discovered the existence of a God, he was
+certainly the first to place it upon a philosophic basis. The Phædo
+presents the doctrine and the _reasoning_ by which Socrates had elevated
+his mind above the fear of death. Some of the arguments may be purely
+Platonic, the argument especially grounded on "ideas;" still, as a
+whole, it must be regarded as a tolerably correct presentation of the
+manner in which Socrates would prove the immortality of the soul.
+
+In _Ethics_, Socrates was pre-eminently himself. The systematic
+resolution of the whole theory of society into the elementary principle
+of natural law, was peculiar to him. _Justice_ was the cardinal
+principle which must lie at the foundation of all good government. The
+word σοφια--_wisdom_--included all excellency in personal morals,
+whether as manifested (reflectively) in the conduct of one's self, or
+(socially) towards others. And _Happiness_, in its purity and
+perfection, can only be found in virtuous action.[486]
+
+[Footnote 486: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp.
+360, 361.]
+
+Socrates left nothing behind him that could with propriety be called a
+_school_. His chief glory is that he inaugurated a new _method_ of
+inquiry, which, in Plato and Aristotle, we shall see applied. He gave a
+new and vital impulse to human thought, which endured for ages; "and he
+left, as an inheritance for humanity, the example of a heroic life
+devoted wholly to the pursuit of truth, and crowned with martyrdom."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_).
+
+THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (_continued_).
+
+PLATO.
+
+
+We have seen that the advent of Socrates marks a new era in the history
+of speculative thought. Greek philosophy, which at first was a
+philosophy of nature, now changes its direction, its character, and its
+method, and becomes a philosophy of mind. This, of course, does not mean
+that now it had mind alone for its object; on the contrary, it tended,
+as indeed philosophy must always tend, to the conception of a rational
+ideal or _intellectual system of the universe_. It started from the
+phenomena of mind, began with the study of human thought, and it made
+the knowledge of mind, of its ideas and laws, the basis of a higher
+philosophy, which should interpret all nature. In other words, it
+proceeded from psychology, through dialectics, to ontology.[487]
+
+[Footnote 487: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 413.]
+
+This new movement we have designated in general terms as the _Socratic
+School_. Not that we are to suppose that, in any technical sense,
+Socrates founded _a_ school. The Academy, the Lyceum, the Stoa, and the
+Garden, were each the chosen resort of distinct philosophic sects, the
+locality of separate schools; but Athens itself, the whole city, was the
+scene of the studies, the conversations, and the labors of Socrates. He
+wandered through the streets absorbed in thought. Sometimes he stood
+still for hours lost in profoundest meditation; at other times he might
+be seen in the market-place, surrounded by a crowd of Athenians, eagerly
+discussing the great questions of the day.
+
+Socrates, then, was not, in the usual sense of the word, a teacher. He
+is not to be found in the Stoa or the Grove, with official aspect,
+expounding a system of doctrine. He is "the garrulous oddity" of the
+streets, putting the most searching and perplexing questions to every
+bystander, and making every man conscious of his ignorance. He delivered
+no lectures; he simply talked. He wrote no books; he only argued: and
+what is usually styled his school must be understood as embracing those
+who attended him in public as listeners and admirers, and who caught his
+spirit, adopted his philosophic _method_, and, in after life, elaborated
+and systematized the ideas they had gathered from him.
+
+Among the regular or the occasional hearers of Socrates were many who
+were little addicted to philosophic speculation. Some were warriors, as
+Nicias and Laches; some statesmen, as Critias and Critobulus; some were
+politicians, in the worst sense of that word, as Glaucon; and some were
+young men of fashion, as Euthydemus and Alcibiades. These were all alike
+delighted with his inimitable irony, his versatility of genius, his
+charming modes of conversation, his adroitness of reply; and they were
+compelled to confess the wisdom and justness of his opinions, and to
+admire the purity and goodness of his life. The magic power which he
+wielded, even over men of dissolute character, is strikingly depicted by
+Alcibiades in his speech at "the Banquet."[488] Of these listeners,
+however, we can not now speak. Our business is with those only who
+imbibed his philosophic spirit, and became the future teachers of
+philosophy. And even of those who, as Euclid of Megara, and Antisthenes
+the Cynic, and Aristippus of Cyrenaica, borrowed somewhat from the
+dialectic of Socrates, we shall say nothing. They left no lasting
+impression upon the current of philosophic thought, because their
+systems were too partial, and narrow, and fragmentary. It is in Plato
+and Aristotle that the true development of the Socratic philosophy is to
+be sought, and in Plato chiefly, as the disciple and friend of Socrates.
+
+[Footnote 488: "Banquet," §§ 39, 40.]
+
+Plato (B.C. 430-347) was pre-eminently the pupil of Socrates. He came to
+Socrates when he was but twenty years of age, and remained with him to
+the day of his death.
+
+Diogenes Laertius reports the story of Socrates having dreamed he found
+an unfledged cygnet on his knee. In a few moments it became winged and
+flew away, uttering a sweet sound. The next day a young man came to him
+who was said to reckon Solon among his near ancestors, and who looked,
+through him, to Codrus and the god Poseidon. That young man was Plato,
+and Socrates pronounced him to be the bird he had seen in his
+dream.[489]
+
+[Footnote 489: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. iii.
+ch. vii.]
+
+Some have supposed that this old tradition intimates that Plato departed
+from the method of his master--he became fledged and flew away into the
+air. But we know that Plato did not desert his master whilst he was
+living, and there is no evidence that he abandoned his method after he
+was dead. He was the best expounder and the most rigid observer of the
+Socratic "organon." The influence of Socrates upon the philosophy of
+Plato is everywhere discernible. Plato had been taught by Socrates, that
+beyond the world of sense there is a world of eternal truth, seen by the
+eye of reason alone. He had also learned from him that the eye of reason
+is purified and strengthened by _reflection_, and that to reflect is to
+observe, and analyze, and define, and classify the facts of
+consciousness. Self-reflection, then, he had been taught to regard as
+the key of real knowledge. By a completer induction, a more careful and
+exact analysis, and a more accurate definition, he carried this
+philosophic method forward towards maturity. He sought to solve the
+problem of _being_ by the principles revealed in his own consciousness,
+and in the _ultimate ideas of the reason_ to find the foundation of all
+real knowledge, of all truth, and of all certitude.
+
+Plato was admirably fitted for these sublime investigations by the
+possession of those moral qualities which were so prominent in the
+character of his master. He had that same deep seriousness of spirit,
+that earnestness and rectitude of purpose, that longing after truth,
+that inward sympathy with, and reverence for justice, and purity, and
+goodness, which dwelt in the heart of Socrates, and which constrained
+him to believe in their reality and permanence. He could not endure the
+thought that all ideas of right were arbitrary and factitious, that all
+knowledge was unreal, that truth was a delusion, and certainty a dream.
+The world of sense might be fleeting and delusive, but the voice of
+reason and conscience would not mislead the upright man. The opinions of
+individual men might vary, but the universal consciousness of the race
+could not prevaricate. However conflicting the opinions of men
+concerning beautiful things, right actions, and good sentiments, Plato
+was persuaded there are ideas of Order, and Right, and Good, which are
+universal, unchangeable, and eternal. Untruth, injustice, and wrong may
+endure for a day or two, perhaps for a century or two, but they can not
+always last; they must perish. The _just_ thing and the _true_ thing are
+the only enduring things; these are eternal. Plato had a sublime
+conviction that his mission was to draw the Athenian mind away from the
+fleeting, the transitory, and the uncertain, and lead them to the
+contemplation of an Eternal Truth, an Eternal Justice, an Eternal
+Beauty, all proceeding from and united in an Eternal Being--the ultimate
+ἀγαθόν--_the Supremely Good_. The knowledge of this "Supreme Good" he
+regarded as the highest science.[490]
+
+[Footnote 490: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xvi. p. 193.]
+
+Added to these moral qualifications, Plato had the further qualification
+of a comprehensive knowledge of all that had been achieved by his
+predecessors. In this regard he had enjoyed advantages superior to those
+of Socrates. Socrates was deficient in erudition, properly so called. He
+had studied men rather than books. His wisdom consisted in an extensive
+_observation_, the results of which he had generalized with more or less
+accuracy. A complete philosophic method demands not only a knowledge of
+contemporaneous opinions and modes of thought, but also a knowledge of
+the succession and development of thought in past ages. Its instrument
+is not simply psychological analysis, but also historical analysis as a
+counterproof.[491] And this erudition Plato supplied. He studied
+carefully the doctrines of the Ionian, Italian, and Eleatic schools.
+Cratylus gave him special instruction in the theories of
+Heraclitus.[492] He secured an intimate acquaintance with the lofty
+speculations of Pythagoras, under Archytas of Tarentum, and in the
+writings of Philolaus, whose books he is said to have purchased. He
+studied the principles of Parmenides under Hermogenes,[493] and he more
+than once speaks of Parmenides in terms of admiration, as one whom he
+had early learned to reverence.[494] He studied mathematics under
+Theodoras, the most eminent geometrician of his day. He travelled in
+Southern Italy, in Sicily, and, in search of a deeper wisdom, he pursued
+his course to Egypt.[495] Enriched by the fruits of all previous
+speculations, he returned to Athens, and devoted the remainder of his
+life to the development of a comprehensive system "which was to combine,
+to conciliate, and to supersede them all."[496] The knowledge he had
+derived from travel, from books, from oral instruction, he fused and
+blended with his own speculations, whilst the Socratic spirit mellowed
+the whole, and gave to it a unity and scientific completeness which has
+excited the admiration and wonder of succeeding ages.[497]
+
+[Footnote 491: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 31.]
+
+[Footnote 492: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 493: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. iii.
+ch. viii. p. 115.]
+
+[Footnote 494: See especially "Theætetus," § 101.]
+
+[Footnote 495: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+147.]
+
+[Footnote 496: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+22.]
+
+[Footnote 497: Encyclopædia Britannica, article "Plato."]
+
+The question as to _the nature, the sources, and the validity of human
+knowledge_ had attracted general attention previous to the time of
+Socrates and Plato. As the results of this protracted controversy, the
+opinions of philosophers had finally crystallized in two well-defined
+and opposite theories of knowledge.
+
+1. That which reduced all knowledge to the accidental and passively
+receptive quality of the organs of sense and which asserted, as its
+fundamental maxim, that "_Science consists in_
+αἴσθησις--_sensation_."[498]
+
+This doctrine had its foundation in the physical philosophy of
+Heraclitus. He had taught that all things are in a perpetual flux and
+change. "Motion gives the appearance of existence and of generation."
+"Nothing _is_, but is always a _becoming"_[499] Material substances are
+perpetually losing their identity, and there is no permanent essence or
+being to be found. Hence Protagoras inferred that truth must vary with
+the ever-varying sensations of the individual. "Man (the individual) is
+the measure of all things." Knowledge is a purely relative thing, and
+every man's opinion is truth for him.[500] The law of right, as
+exemplified in the dominion of a party, is the law of the strongest;
+fluctuating with the accidents of power, and never attaining a permanent
+being. "Whatever a city enacts as appearing just to itself, this also is
+just to the city that enacts it, so long as it continues in force."[501]
+"The just, then, is nothing else but that which is expedient for the
+strongest."[502]
+
+[Footnote 498: "Theætetus," § 23.]
+
+[Footnote 499: Ibid., §§ 25, 26.]
+
+[Footnote 500: Ibid., §§ 39, 87.]
+
+[Footnote 501: Ibid., § 87.]
+
+[Footnote 502: "Republic," bk. i. ch. xii.]
+
+2. The second theory is that which denies the existence (except as
+phantasms, images, or mere illusions of the mind) of the whole of
+sensible phenomena, and refers all knowledge to the _rational
+apperception of unity_ (τὸ ἔν) _or the One_.
+
+This was the doctrine of the later Eleatics. The world of sense was, to
+Parmenides and Zeno, a blank negation, the _non ens_. The identity of
+thought and existence was the fundamental principle of their philosophy.
+
+      "Thought is the same thing as the cause of thought; For
+      without the thing in which it is announced, You can not find
+      the thought; for there is nothing, nor shall be, Except the
+      existing."[503]
+
+[Footnote 503: Parmenides, quoted in Lewes's "Biog. History of
+Philosophy," p. 54.]
+
+This theory, therefore, denied to man any valid knowledge of the
+external world.
+
+It will at once be apparent to the intelligent reader that the direct
+and natural result of both these theories[504] of knowledge was a
+tendency to universal skepticism. A spirit of utter indifference to
+truth and righteousness was the prevailing spirit of Athenian society.
+That spirit is strikingly exhibited in the speech of Callicles, "the
+shrewd man of the world," in "Gorgias" (§85, 86). Is this new to our
+ears?" My dear Socrates, you talk of _law_. Now the laws, in my
+judgment, are just the work of the weakest and most numerous; in framing
+them they never thought but of themselves and their own interests; they
+never approve or censure except in reference to _this._ Hence it is that
+the cant arises that tyranny is improper and unjust, and to struggle for
+eminence, guilt. Unable to rise themselves, of course they would wish to
+preach liberty and equality. But nature proclaims the law of the
+stronger.... We surround our children from their infancy with
+preposterous prejudices about liberty and justice. The man of sense
+tramples on such impositions, and shows what Nature's justice is.... I
+confess, Socrates, philosophy is a highly amusing study--in moderation,
+and for boys. But protracted too long, it becomes a perfect plague. Your
+philosopher is a complete novice in the life _comme il faut_.... I like
+very well to see a child babble and stammer; there is even a grace about
+it when it becomes his age. But to see a man continue the prattle of the
+child, is absurd. Just so with your philosophy." The consequence of this
+prevalent spirit of universal skepticism was a general laxity of morals.
+The Aleibiades, of the "_Symposium_," is the ideal representative of the
+young aristocracy of Athens. Such was the condition of society
+generally, and such the degeneracy of even the Government itself, that
+Plato impressively declares "that God alone could save the young men of
+his age from ruin."[505]
+
+[Footnote 504: Between these two extreme theories there were offered
+two, apparently less extravagant, accounts of the nature and limits of
+human knowledge--one declaring that "_Science_(real knowledge) _consists
+in right opinion_" (δόξα ἀληθής), but having no further basis in the
+reason of man ("Theæstetus," § 108); and the other affirming that
+"_Science is right opinion with logical explication or definition_"
+(μετὰ λόχου), ("Theætetus," § 139). A close examination will, however,
+convince us that these are but modifications of the sensational theory.
+The latter forcibly remind us of the system of Locke, who adds
+"reflection" to "sensation," but still maintains that all on "simple
+ideas" are obtained from without, and that these are the only material
+upon which reflection can be exercised. Thus the human mind has no
+criterion of truth within itself, no elements of knowledge which are
+connatural and inborn.]
+
+[Footnote 505: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vii.]
+
+Therefore the grand, the vital, the most urgent question for his times,
+as indeed for all times, was, _What is Truth? What is Right_? In the
+midst of all this variableness and uncertainty of human opinion, is
+there no ground of certainty? Amid all the fluctuations and changes
+around us and within us, is there nothing that is immutable and
+permanent? Have we no ultimate standard of Right? Is there no criterion
+of Truth? Plato believed most confidently there was such a criterion and
+standard. He had learned from Socrates, his master, to cherish an
+unwavering faith in the existence of an Eternal Truth, an Eternal Order,
+an Eternal Good, the knowledge of which is essential to the perfection
+and happiness of man, and which knowledge must therefore be presumed to
+be attainable by man. Henceforth, therefore, the ceaseless effort of
+Plato's life is to attain a standard (κριτήριον)[506]--a CRITERION OF
+TRUTH.
+
+[Footnote 506: "Theætetus," § 89.]
+
+At the outset of his philosophic studies, Plato had derived from
+Socrates an important principle, which became the guide of all his
+subsequent inquiries. He had learned from him that the criterion of
+truth must be no longer sought amid the ever-changing phenomena of the
+"sensible world." This had been attempted by the philosophers of the
+Ionian school, and ended in failure and defeat. It must therefore be
+sought in the metaphenomenal--the "intelligible world;" that is, it must
+be sought in the apperceptions of the reason, and not in opinions
+founded on sensation. In other words, he must look _within_. Here, by
+reflection, he could recognize, dimly and imperfectly at first, but
+increasing gradually in clearness and distinctness, two classes of
+cognitions, having essentially distinct and opposite characteristics. He
+found one class that was complex (σνγκεγυμένον), changeable (θάτερον),
+contingent and relative (τὰ προς τι σχέσιν ἔχοντα); the other, simple
+(κεχωρισμένον), unchangeable (ἀκίνητον), constant (ταὐτόν), permanent
+(τὸ ὂν ἀει), and absolute (ἀνυπόθετον = ἁπλοῦν). One class that may be
+questioned, the other admitting of no question, because self-evident and
+necessary, and therefore compelling belief. One class grounded on
+sense-perception, the other conceived by reason alone. But whilst the
+reason recognizes, it does not create them. They are not particular and
+individual, but universal. They belong not to the man, but to the race.
+
+He found, then, that there are in all minds certain "principles" which
+are fundamental--principles which lie at the basis of all our cognitions
+of the objective world, and which, as "mental laws," determine all our
+forms of thought; and principles, too, which have this marvellous and
+undeniable character, that they are encountered in the most common
+experiences, and, at the same time, instead of being circumscribed
+within the limits of experience, transcend and govern it--principles
+which are _universal_ in the midst of particular phenomena--_necessary,_
+though mingled with things contingent--to our eyes _infinite_ and
+_absolute_, even when appearing in us the relative and finite beings
+that we are.[507] These first or fundamental principles Plato called
+IDEAS (ἰδέαι).
+
+[Footnote 507: Cousin's "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," p. 40.]
+
+In attempting to present to the reader an adequate representation of the
+Platonic Ideas, we shall be under the necessity of anticipating some of
+the results of his Dialectical method before we have expounded that
+method. And, further, in order that it may be properly appreciated by
+the modern student, we shall avail ourselves of the lights which modern
+psychology, faithful to the method of Plato, has thrown upon the
+subject. Whilst, however, we admit that modern psychology has succeeded
+in giving more definiteness and precision to the "doctrine of Ideas," we
+shall find that all that is fundamentally valuable and true was present
+to the mind of Plato. Whatever superiority the "Spiritual" philosophy of
+to-day may have over the philosophy of past ages, it has attained that
+superiority by its adherence to the principles and method of Plato.
+
+In order to the completeness of our preliminary exposition of the
+Platonic doctrine of Ideas, we shall conditionally assume, as a natural
+and legitimate hypothesis, the doctrine so earnestly asserted by Plato,
+that the visible universe, at least in its present form, is an _effect_
+which must have had a _cause_,[508] and that the Order, and Beauty, and
+Excellence of the universe are the result of the presence and operation
+of a "regulating Intelligence"--a _Supreme Mind_.[509] Now that,
+anterior to the creation of the universe, there must have existed in the
+Eternal Mind certain fundamental principles of Order, Right, and Good,
+will not be denied. Every conceivable _form_, every possible _relation_,
+every principle of _right_, must have been eternally present to the
+Divine thought. As pure intelligence, the Deity must have always been
+self-conscious--must have known himself as substance and cause, as the
+Infinite and Perfect. If then the Divine Energy is put forth in creative
+acts, that energy must obey those eternal principles of Order, Right,
+and Good. If the Deity operate at all, he must operate rightly, wisely,
+and well. The created universe must be an _image_, in the sphere of
+sense, of the ideas which inhere in the reason of the great First Cause.
+
+[Footnote 508: "Timæus," ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 509: "Phædo," § 105.]
+
+"Let us declare," says Plato, "with what _motive_ the Creator hath
+formed nature and the universe. He was _good_, and in the good no manner
+of envy can, on any subject, possibly subsist. Exempt from envy, he had
+wished that all things should, as far as possible, _resemble
+himself_.... It was not, and is not to be allowed for the Supremely Good
+to do any thing except what is most _excellent_ (κάλλιστον)--most
+_fair_, most _beautiful_."[510] Therefore, argues Plato, "inasmuch as
+the world is the most beautiful of things, and its artificer the best of
+causes, it is evident that the Creator and Father of the universe looked
+to the _Eternal Model_(παράδειγμα), pattern, or plan,"[511] which lay in
+his own mind. And thus this one, only-generated universe, is the _image_
+(εἰκών) of that God who is the object of the intellect, the greatest,
+the best, and the most perfect Being.[512]
+
+[Footnote 510: "Timæus," ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 511: Ibid., ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 512: "Timæus," ch. lxxiii.]
+
+And then, furthermore, if this Supreme Intelligence, this Eternal Mind,
+shall create another _mind_, it must, in a still higher degree, resemble
+him. Inasmuch as it is a rational nature, it must, in a peculiar sense,
+partake of the Divine characteristics. "The soul," says Plato, "is that
+which most partakes of the _Divine_"[513] The soul must, therefore, have
+native _ideas_ and sentiments which correlate it with the Divine
+original. The ideas of substance and cause, of unity and identity, of
+the infinite and perfect, must be mirrored there. As it is the
+"offspring of God,"[514] it must bear some traces and lineaments of its
+Divine parentage. That soul must be configured and correlated to those
+principles of Order, Right, and Good which dwell in the Eternal Mind.
+And because it has within itself the same ideas and laws, according to
+which the great Architect built the universe, therefore it is capable of
+knowing, and, in some degree, of comprehending, the intellectual system
+of the universe. It apprehends the external world by a light which the
+reason supplies. It interprets nature according to principles and laws
+which God has inwrought within the very essence of the soul. "That which
+imparts truth to knowable things, and gives the knower his power of
+knowing truth, is the _idea of the good_, and you are to conceive of
+this as the source of knowledge and of truth."[515]
+
+[Footnote 513: "Laws," bk. v. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 514: Ibid., bk. x.]
+
+[Footnote 515: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xviii.]
+
+And now we are prepared to form a clear conception of the Platonic
+doctrine of Ideas. Viewed in their relation to the Eternal Reason, as
+giving the primordial thought and law of all being, these principles are
+simply εἴδη αὐτὰ καθ᾽ αὑτά--_ideas in themselves_--the essential
+qualities or attributes of Him who is the supreme and ultimate Cause of
+all existence. When regarded as before the Divine imagination, giving
+definite forms and relations, they are the τύποι, the παραδείγματα--_the
+types_, _models, patterns, ideals_ according to which the universe was
+fashioned. Contemplated in their actual embodiment in the laws, and
+typical forms of the material world, they are εἰκόνες--_images_ of the
+eternal perfections of God. The world of sense pictures the world of
+reason by a participation (μέθεξις) of the ideas. And viewed as
+interwoven in the very texture and framework of the soul, they are
+ὁμοιώματα--copies of the Divine Ideas which are the primordial laws of
+knowing, thinking, and reasoning. Ideas are thus the nexus of relation
+between God and the visible universe, and between the human and the
+Divine reason.[516] There is something divine in the world, and in the
+human soul, namely, _the eternal laws and reasons of things_, mingled
+with the endless diversity and change of sensible phenomena. These ideas
+are "the light of the intelligible world;" they render the invisible
+world of real Being perceptible to the reason of man. "Light is the
+offspring of the Good, which the Good has produced in his own likeness.
+Light in the visible world is what the _idea of the Good_ is in the
+intelligible world. And this offspring of the Good--light--has the same
+relation to vision and visible things which the Good has to intellect
+and intelligible things."[517]
+
+[Footnote 516: "Now, Idea is, as regards God, a mental operation by him
+(the notions of God, eternal and perfect in themselves); as regards us,
+the first things perceptible by mind; as regards Matter, a standard; but
+as regards the world, perceptible by sense, a pattern; but as considered
+with reference to itself, an existence."--Alcinous, "Introduction to the
+Doctrines of Plato," p. 261.
+
+"What general notions are to our minds, he (Plato) held, ideas are to
+the Supreme Reason (νοῦς βασιλευς); they are the eternal thoughts of the
+Divine Intellect, and we attain truth when our thoughts conform with
+His--when our general notions are in conformity with the
+ideas."--Thompson, "Laws of Thought," p. 119.]
+
+[Footnote 517: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xix.]
+
+_Science_ is, then, according to Plato, _the knowledge of universal,
+necessary, unchangeable, and eternal ideas_. The simple cognition of the
+concrete phenomena of the universe is not regarded by him as _real_
+knowledge. "Science, or real knowledge, belongs to _Being_, and
+ignorance to _non_-Being." Whilst that which is conversant only "with
+that which partakes of both--of being and non-being--and which can not
+be said either to be or not to be"--that which is perpetually
+"becoming," but never "really is," is "simply _opinion_, and not real
+knowledge."[518] And those only are "philosophers" who have a knowledge
+of the _really-existing_, in opposition to the mere seeming; of the
+_always-existing_, in opposition to the transitory; and of that which
+exists _permanently_, in opposition to that which waxes and wanes--is
+developed and destroyed alternately. "Those who recognize many beautiful
+things, but who can not see the Beautiful itself, and can not even
+follow those who would lead them to it, they _opine_, but do not _know_.
+And the same may be said of those who recognize right actions, but do
+not recognize an absolute righteousness. And so of other ideas. But they
+who look at these ideas--permanent and unchangeable ideas--these men
+_really know_."[519] Those are the true philosophers alone who love the
+sight of truth, and who have attained to the vision of the eternal
+order, and righteousness, and beauty, and goodness in the Eternal Being.
+And the means by which the soul is raised to this vision of real Being
+(τὸ ὄντως ὄν) is THE SCIENCE OF REAL KNOWLEDGE.
+
+Plato, in the "Theætetus," puts this question by the interlocutor
+Socrates, "What is Science (᾽Επιστήμη) or positive knowledge?"[520]
+Theætetus essays a variety of answers, such as, "Science is sensation,"
+"Science is right judgment or opinion," "Science is right opinion with
+logical definition." These, in the estimation of the Platonic Socrates,
+are all unsatisfactory and inadequate. But after you have toiled to the
+end of this remarkable discussion, in which Socrates demolishes all the
+then received theories of knowledge, he gives you no answer of his own.
+He abruptly closes the discussion by naïvely remarking that, at any
+rate, Theætetus will learn that he does not understand the subject; and
+the ground is now cleared for an original investigation.
+
+[Footnote 518: "Republic," bk. v. ch. xx.]
+
+[Footnote 519: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxii.]
+
+[Footnote 520: "Theætetus," § 10.]
+
+This investigation is resumed in the "Republic." This greatest work of
+Plato's was designed not only to exhibit a scheme of Polity, and present
+a system of Ethics, but also, at least in its digressions, to propound a
+system of Metaphysics more complete and solid than had yet appeared. The
+discussion as to the _powers_ or _faculties_ by which we obtain
+knowledge, the _method_ or _process_ by which real knowledge is
+attained, and the ultimate _objects_ or _ontological grounds_ of all
+real knowledge, commences at § 18, book v., and extends to the end of
+book vii.
+
+That we may reach a comprehensive view of this "sublimest of sciences,"
+we shall find it necessary to consider--
+
+1st. _What are the powers or faculties by which we obtain knowledge, and
+what are the limits and degrees of human knowledge?_
+
+2d. _What is the method in which, or the processes and laws according to
+which, the mind operates in obtaining knowledge?_
+
+3d. _What are the ultimate results attained by this method? what are the
+objective and ontological grounds of all real knowledge?_
+
+The answer to the first question will give the PLATONIC PSYCHOLOGY; the
+answer to the second will exhibit the PLATONIC DIALECTIC; the answer to
+the last will reveal the PLATONIC ONTOLOGY.
+
+I. PLATONIC PSYCHOLOGY.
+
+Every successful inquiry as to the reality and validity of human
+knowledge must commence by clearly determining, by rigid analysis, what
+are the actual phenomena presented in consciousness, what are the powers
+or faculties supposed by these phenomena, and what reliance are we to
+place upon the testimony of these faculties? And, especially, if it be
+asserted that there is a science of absolute Reality, of ultimate and
+essential Being, then the most important and vital question is, By what
+power do we cognize real Being? through what faculty do we obtain the
+knowledge of that which absolutely _is_? If by sensation we only obtain
+the knowledge of the fleeting and the transitory, "_the becoming_" how
+do we attain to the knowledge of the unchangeable and permanent, "the
+_Being_?" Have we a faculty of universal, necessary, and eternal
+principles? Have we a faculty, an interior eye which beholds "_the
+intelligible_," ideal, spiritual world, as the eye of sense beholds the
+visible or "_sensible world_?"[521]
+
+Plato commences this inquiry by first defining his understanding of the
+word δύναμις--_power_ or _faculty_. "We will say _faculties_ (δυνάμεις)
+are a certain kind of real existences by which we can do whatever we are
+able (_e.g._, to know), as there are powers by which every thing does
+what it does: the eye has a _power_ of seeing; the ear has a _power_ of
+hearing. But these powers (of which I now speak) have no color or figure
+to which I can so refer that I can distinguish one power from another.
+_In order to make such distinction, I must look at the power itself, and
+see what it is, and what it does. In that way I discern the power of
+each thing, and that is the same power which produces the same effect,
+and that is a different power which produces a different effect_."[522]
+That which is employed about, and accomplishes one and the same purpose,
+this Plato calls a _faculty_.
+
+[Footnote 521: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xviii.]
+
+[Footnote 522: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxi.]
+
+We have seen that our first conceptions (_i.e._, first in the order of
+time) are of the mingled, the concrete (τὸ συγκεχυμένον), "the
+multiplicity of things to which the multitude ascribe beauty, etc.[523]
+The mind "contemplates what is great and small, not as distinct from
+each other, but as confused.[524] Prior to the discipline of
+_reflection_, men are curious about mere sights and sounds, love
+beautiful voices, beautiful colors, beautiful forms, but their
+intelligence can not see, can not embrace, the essential nature of the
+Beautiful itself.[525] Man's condition previous to the education of
+philosophy is vividly presented in Plato's simile of the cave.[526] He
+beholds only the images and shadows of the ectypal world, which are but
+dim and distant adumbrations of the real and archetypal world.
+
+Primarily nothing is given in the abstract (τὸ κεγωρισμένον), but every
+thing in the concrete. The primary faculties of the mind enter into
+action spontaneously and simultaneously; all our primary notions are
+consequently synthetic. When reflection is applied to this primary
+totality of consciousness, that is, when we analyze our notions, we find
+them composed of diverse and opposite elements, some of which are
+variable, contingent, individual, and relative, others are permanent,
+unchangeable, universal, necessary, and absolute. Now these elements, so
+diverse, so opposite, can not have been obtained from the same source;
+they must be supplied by separate powers. "Can any man with common sense
+reduce under one what _is infallible_, and what is _not
+infallible?_"[527] Can that which is "_perpetually becoming_" be
+apprehended by the same faculty as that which "_always is?_"[528] Most
+assuredly not.
+
+[Footnote 523: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxii.]
+
+[Footnote 524: Ibid., bk. vii. ch. viii.]
+
+[Footnote 525: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xx.]
+
+[Footnote 526: Ibid., bk. vii. ch. i., ii.]
+
+[Footnote 527: "Republic," bk. v. ch. xxi.]
+
+[Footnote 528: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxii.; also "Timæus," § 9.]
+
+These primitive intuitions--the simple perceptions of sense, and the _à
+priori_ intuitions of the reason, which constitute the elements of all
+our complex notions, have essentially _diverse objects_--the sensible or
+ectypal world, seen by the eye and touched by the hand, which Plato
+calls δοξαστήν--_the subject of opinion_; and the noetic or archetypal
+world, perceived by reason, and which he calls διανοητικήν--_the subject
+of rational intuition or science_. "It is plain," therefore, argues
+Plato, "that _opinion_ is a different thing from _science_. They must,
+therefore, have a different _faculty_ in reference to a different
+object--science as regards that which _is_, so as to know the nature of
+real _being_--opinion as regards that which can not be said absolutely
+to be, or not to be. That which is known and that which is opined can
+not possibly be the same,... since they are naturally faculties of
+different things, and both of them are faculties--_opinion_ and
+_science_, and each of them different from the other."[529] Here then
+are two grand divisions of the mental powers--a faculty of apprehending
+universal and necessary Truth, of intuitively beholding absolute
+Reality, and a faculty of perceiving sensible objects, and of judging
+according to appearance.
+
+[Footnote 529: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxi., xxii.]
+
+According to the scheme of Plato, these two general divisions of the
+mental powers are capable of a further subdivision. He says: Consider
+that there are two kinds of things, the _intelligible_ and the
+_visible_; two different regions, the intelligible world and the
+sensible world. Now take a line divided into two equal segments to
+represent these two regions, and again divide each segment in the same
+ratio--both that of the visible and that of the intelligible species.
+The parts of each segment are to represent differences of clearness and
+indistinctness. In the visible world the parts are _things_ and
+_images_. By _images_ I mean shadows,[530] reflections in water and in
+polished bodies, and all such like representations; and by _things_ I
+mean that of which images are resemblances, as animals, plants, and
+things made by man.
+
+You allow that this difference corresponds to the difference of
+_knowledge_ and _opinion_; and the _opinionable_ is to the _knowable_ as
+the _image_ to the _reality_.[531]
+
+[Footnote 530: As in the simile of the cave ("Republic," bk. vii. ch. i.
+and ii.).]
+
+[Footnote 531: The analogy between the "images produced by reflections
+in water and on polished surfaces" and "the images of external objects
+produced in the mind by sensation" is more fully presented in the
+"Timæus," ch. 19.
+
+The eye is a light-bearer, "made of that part of elemental fire which
+does not burn, but sheds a mild light, like the light of day.... When
+the light of the day meets the light which beams from the eye, then
+light meets like, and make a homogeneous body; the external light
+meeting the internal light, in the direction in which the eye looks. And
+by this homogeneity like feels like; and if this beam touches any
+object, or any object touches it, it transmits the motions through the
+body to the soul, and produces that sensation which we call _seeing_....
+And if (in sleep) some of the strong motions remain in some part of the
+frame, they produce within us likenesses of external objects,... and
+thus give rise to dreams.... As to the images produced by mirrors and by
+smooth surfaces, they are now easily explained, for all such phenomena
+result from the mutual affinity of the external and internal fires. The
+light that proceeds from the face (as an object of vision), and the
+light that proceeds from the eye, become one continuous ray on the
+smooth surface."]
+
+Now we have to divide the segment which represents intelligible things
+in this way: The one part represents the knowledge which the mind gets
+by using things as images--the other; that which it has by dealing with
+the ideas themselves; the one part that which it gets by reasoning
+downward from principles--the other, the principles themselves; the one
+part, truth which depends on hypotheses--the other, unhypothetical or
+absolute truth.
+
+Thus, to explain a problem in geometry, the geometers make certain
+hypotheses (namely, definitions and postulates) about numbers and
+angles, and the like, and reason from them--giving no reason for their
+assumptions, but taking them as evident to all; and, reasoning from
+them, they prove the propositions which they have in view. And in such
+reasonings, they use visible figures or diagrams--to reason about a
+square, for instance, with its diagonals; but these reasonings are not
+really about these visible figures, but about the mental figures, and
+which they conceive in thought.
+
+The diagrams which they draw, being visible, are the images of thoughts
+which the geometer has in his mind, and these images he uses in his
+reasoning. There may be images of these images--shadows and reflections
+in water, as of other visible things; but still these diagrams are only
+images of conceptions.
+
+This, then, is _one_ kind of intelligible things: _conceptions_--for
+instance, geometrical conceptions of figures. But in dealing with these
+the mind depends upon assumptions, and does not ascend to first
+principles. It does not ascend above these assumptions, but uses images
+borrowed from a lower region (the visible world), these images being
+chosen so as to be as distinct as may be.
+
+Now the _other_ kind of intelligible things is this: that which the
+_Reason_ includes, in virtue of its power of reasoning, when it regards
+the assumptions of the sciences as (what they are) assumptions only, and
+uses them as occasions and starting-points, that from these it may
+ascend to the _Absolute_, which does not depend upon assumption, the
+origin of scientific truth.
+
+_The reason takes hold of this first principle of truth_, and availing
+itself of all the connections and relations of this principle, it
+proceeds to the conclusion--using no sensible image in doing this, but
+contemplates the _idea alone_; and with these ideas the process begins,
+goes on, and terminates.
+
+"I apprehend," said Glaucon, "but not very clearly, for the matter is
+somewhat abstruse. _You wish to prove that the knowledge which by the
+reason, in an intuitive manner, we may acquire of real existence and
+intelligible things is of a higher degree of certainty than the
+knowledge which belongs to what are commonly called the Sciences_. Such
+sciences, you say, have certain assumptions for their basis; and these
+assumptions are by the student of such sciences apprehended not by
+sense, but by a mental operation--by conception.
+
+"But inasmuch as such students ascend no higher than assumptions, and do
+not go to the first principles of truth, they do not seem to have true
+knowledge, intellectual insight, intuitive reason, on the subjects of
+their reasonings, though the subjects are intelligible things. And you
+call this habit and practice of the geometers and others by the name of
+JUDGMENT (διάνοια), not reason, or insight, or intuition--taking
+judgment to be something between opinion, on the one side, and intuitive
+reason, on the other.
+
+"You have explained it well," said I. "And now consider these four kinds
+of things we have spoken of, as corresponding to four affections (or
+faculties) of the mind. INTUITIVE REASON (νόησις), the highest; JUDGMENT
+(διάνοια)(or _discursive reason_), the next; the third, BELIEF (πίστις);
+and the fourth, CONJECTURE, or _guess_ (εὶκασία); and arrange them in
+order, so that they may be held to have more or less certainty, as their
+objects have more or less truth."[532] The completeness, and even
+accuracy of this classification of all the objects of human cognition,
+and of the corresponding mental powers, will be seen at once by studying
+the diagram proposed by Plato, as figured on the opposite page.
+
+[Footnote 532: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xx. and xxi.]
+
+PLATONIC SCHEME OF THE OBJECTS OF COGNITION, AND THE RELATIVE MENTAL POWERS
+___________________________________________________________________________
+            |                                 |
+            | VISIBLE WORLD                   | INTELLIGIBLE WORLD
+            | (the object of Opinion--δόξα).  |(the object of Knowledge or
+            |                                 | Science--ίπυττήμη).
+            |_________________________________|____________________________
+            |                |                |              |
+            | Things.        | Images.        | Intuitions.  | Conceptions.
+____________|________________|________________|______________|_____________
+
+And may be thus further expanded:
+___________________________________________________________________________
+            |                                 |
+            | VISIBLE WORLD.                  |   INTELLIGIBLE WORLD.
+____________|_________________________________|____________________________
+            |                |                |             |
+            | Things         | Images         | Ideas       | Conceptions
+OBJECT      |                |                |             |
+            | ζὼα. κ.τ.λ.    | ικονες.        | ιδεαί.      | δυενοήματα.
+____________|________________|________________|_____________|______________
+            |                |                |             |
+            | Belief.        | Conjecture.    | Intuition.  |Demonstration.
+PROCESS     |                |                |             |
+            | πιοτις.        | ειkασια.       | νόησις.     | ίπισιηιη.
+____________|________________|________________|_____________|______________
+            |                |                |             |
+            | SENSATION.     | PHANTASY.      | INTUITIVE   | DISCURSIVE
+FACULTY     |                |                |   REASON.   |    REASON.
+            | αiσθησις.      | ϕαντασία.       | νούς.       | λόγος.
+____________|________________|________________|_____________|______________
+            |                |                |             |
+MODERN      | SENSE.         | IMAGINATION.   | REASON.     | JUDGMENT.
+NOMENCLATURE|Presentative    |Representative  |Regulative   | Logical
+            | Faculty.       | Faculty        | Faculty.    |    Faculty.
+____________|________________|________________|_____________|______________
+            |                                 |
+            | MEMORY.                         | REMINISCENCE
+            | μνημη.                          |   αναμησις.
+            | The Conservative Faculty--      | The Reproductive Faculty--
+            | "the preserver of sensation"    |"the recollection of the
+            | (σωτηρια αισιν, σεως.) [533]    | things which the soul
+            |                                 | saw (in Eternity) when
+            |                                 | journeying in the train of
+            |                                 | the Deity."[534]
+            |[Footnote 533: "Philebus," § 67] | [Footnote 534: Phædrus,
+            |                                 |                     § 62.]
+____________|_________________________________|____________________________
+
+
+The foregoing diagram, borrowed from Whewell, with some modifications
+and additions we have ventured to make, exhibits a perfect view of the
+Platonic scheme of the _cognitive powers_--the faculties by which the
+mind attains to different degrees of knowledge, "having more or less
+certainty, as their objects have more or less truth."[535]
+
+1st. SENSATION (αἴσθησις).--This term is employed by Plato to denote the
+passive mental states or affections which are produced within us by
+external objects through the medium of the vital organization, and also
+the cognition or vital perception or consciousness[536] which the mind
+has of these mental states.
+
+2d. PHANTASY (φαντασία).--This term is employed to describe the power
+which the mind possesses of imagining or representing whatever has once
+been the object of sensation. This may be done involuntarily as "in
+dreams, disease, and hallucination,"[537] or voluntarily, as in
+reminiscence. Φαντάσματα are the images, the life-pictures (ζωγράφημα)
+of sensible things which are present to the mind, even when no external
+object is present to the sense.
+
+[Footnote 535: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xix.]
+
+[Footnote 536: "In Greek philosophy there was no term for
+'consciousness' until the decline of philosophy, and in the latter ages
+of the language. Plato and Aristotle, to say nothing of other
+philosophers, had no special term to express the knowledge which the
+mind has of the operation of its own faculties, though this, of course,
+was necessarily a frequent matter of consideration. Intellect was
+supposed by them to be cognizant of its own operations.... In his
+'Theætetus' Plato accords to sense the power of perceiving that it
+perceives."--Hamilton's "Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 198 (Eng. ed.).]
+
+[Footnote 537: "Theætetus," § 39.]
+
+The conjoint action of these two powers results in what Plato calls
+_opinion_ (δόξα). "Opinion is the complication of memory and sensation.
+For when we meet for the first time with a thing perceptible by a sense,
+and a sensation is produced by it, and from this sensation a memory, and
+we subsequently meet again with the same thing perceived by a sense, we
+combine the memory previously brought into action with the sensation
+produced a second time, and we say within ourselves [this is] Socrates,
+or a horse, or fire, or whatever thing there may be of such a kind. Now
+this is called _opinion_, through our combining the recollection brought
+previously into action with the sensation recently produced. And when
+these, placed along each other, agree, a true opinion is produced; but
+when they swerve from each other, a false one."[538] The δόξα of Plato,
+therefore answers to the experience, or the _empirical knowledge_ of
+modern philosophy, which is concerned only with appearances (phenomena),
+and not with absolute realities, and can not be elevated to the dignity
+of _science_ or real knowledge.
+
+We are not from hence to infer that Plato intended to deny all reality
+whatever to the objects of sensible experience. These transitory
+phenomena were not real existences, but they were _images_ of real
+existences. The world itself is but the image, in the sphere of sense,
+of those ideas of Order, and Proportion, and Harmony, which dwell in the
+Divine Intellect, and are mirrored in the soul of man. "Time itself is a
+moving image of Eternity."[539] But inasmuch as the immediate object of
+sense-perception is a representative image generated in the vital
+organism, and all empirical cognitions are mere "conjectures" (εἰκασίαι)
+founded on representative images, they need to be certified by a higher
+faculty, which immediately apprehends real Being (τὸ ὄν). Of things, as
+they are in themselves, the senses give us no knowledge; all that in
+sensation we are conscious of is certain affections of the mind (πάθος);
+the existence of self, or the perceiving subject, and a something
+external to self, a perceived object, are revealed to us, not by the
+senses, but by the reason.
+
+[Footnote 538: Alcinous, "Introduction to the Doctrine of Plato," p.
+247.]
+
+[Footnote 539: "Timæus," § 14.]
+
+3d. JUDGMENT (διάνοια, λόγος), _the Discursive Faculty, or the Faculty
+of Relations_.--According to Plato, this faculty proceeds on the
+assumption of certain principles as true, without inquiring into their
+validity, and reasons, by deduction, to the conclusions which
+necessarily flow from these principles. These assumptions Plato calls
+hypotheses (ὑποθέσεις). But by hypotheses he does not mean baseless
+assumptions--"mere theories--"but things self-evident and "obvious to
+all;"[540] as for example, the postulates and definitions of Geometry.
+"After laying down hypotheses of the odd and even, and three kinds of
+angles [right, acute, and obtuse], and figures [as the triangle, square,
+circle, and the like], he _proceeds on them as known, and gives no
+further reason about them_, and reasons downward from these
+principles,"[541] affirming certain judgments as consequences deducible
+therefrom.
+
+[Footnote 540: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xx.]
+
+[Footnote 541: Ibid., bk. vi. ch. xx.]
+
+All judgments are therefore founded on _relations_. To judge is to
+compare two terms. "Every judgment has three parts: the subject, or
+notion about which the judgment is; the predicate, or notion with which
+the subject is compared; and the copula, or nexus, which expresses the
+connection or relation between them.[542] Every act of affirmative
+judgment asserts the agreement of the predicate and subject; every act
+of negative judgment asserts the predicate and subject do not agree. All
+judgment is thus an attempt to reduce to unity two cognitions, and
+reasoning (λογίζεσθαι) is simply the extension of this process. When we
+look at two straight lines of equal length, we do not merely think of
+them separately as _this_ straight line, and _that_ straight line, but
+they are immediately connected together by a comparison which takes
+place in the mind. We perceive that these two lines are alike; they are
+of equal length, and they are both straight; and the connection which is
+perceived as existing between them is a _relation of sameness or
+identity._[543] When we observe any change occurring in nature, as, for
+example, the melting of wax in the presence of heat, the mind recognizes
+a causal efficiency in the fire to produce that change, and the relation
+now apprehended is a _relation of cause and effect_[544] But the
+fundamental principles, the necessary ideas which lie at the basis of
+all the judgments (as the ideas of space and time, of unity and
+identity, of substance and cause, of the infinite and perfect) are not
+given by the judgment, but by the "highest faculty"--"the _Intuitive
+Reason_,[545] which is, for us, the source of all unhypothetical and
+absolute knowledge.
+
+[Footnote 542: Thompson's "Laws of Thought," p. 134.]
+
+[Footnote 543: "Phædo," §§ 50-57, 62.]
+
+[Footnote 544: "Timæus," ch. ix.; "Sophocles," § 109.]
+
+[Footnote 545: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xxi.]
+
+The knowledge, therefore, which is furnished by the Discursive Reason,
+Plato does not regard as "real Science." "It is something between
+Opinion on the one hand, and Intuition on the other."[546]
+
+[Footnote 546: Ibid., bk. vi. ch. xxi.]
+
+4th. REASON (νοῦς)--_Intuitive Reason_, is the organ of self-evident,
+necessary, and universal Truth. In an immediate, direct, and intuitive
+manner, it takes hold on truth with absolute certainty. The reason,
+through the medium of _ideas_, holds communion with the world of real
+Being. These ideas are the _light_ which reveals the world of unseen
+realities, as the sun reveals the world of sensible forms. "_The idea of
+the good_ is the _sun_ of the Intelligible World; it sheds on objects
+the light of truth, and gives to the soul that knows, the power of
+knowing."[547] Under this light, the eye of reason apprehends the
+eternal world of being as truly, yes more truly, than the eye of sense
+apprehends the world of phenomena. This power the rational soul
+possesses by virtue of its having a nature kindred, or even homogeneous
+with the Divinity. It was "generated by the Divine Father," and, like
+him, it is in a certain sense "_eternal_."[548] Not that we are to
+understand Plato as teaching that the rational soul had an independent
+and underived existence; it was created or "generated" in eternity,[549]
+and even now, in its incorporate state, is not amenable to the
+conditions of time and space, but, in a peculiar sense, dwells in
+eternity; and therefore is capable of beholding eternal realities, and
+coming into communion with absolute beauty, and goodness, and
+truth--that is, with God, the _Absolute Being_.
+
+[Footnote 547: Ibid., bk. vi. ch. xix.; see also ch. xviii.]
+
+[Footnote 548: The reader must familiarize himself with the Platonic
+notion of _"eternity" as a fixed state out of time existing
+contemporaneous with one in time_, to appreciate the doctrine of Plato
+as stated above. If we regard his idea of eternity as merely an
+indefinite extension of time, with a past, a present, and a future, we
+can offer no rational interpretation of his doctrine of the eternal
+nature of the rational essence of the soul. An eternal nature
+"generated" in a "past" or "present" time is a contradiction. But that
+was not Plato's conception of "eternity," as the reader will discover on
+perusing the "Timæus" (ch. xiv.). "God resolved to create a moving image
+of eternity, and out of that eternity which reposes in its own
+_unchangeable unity_ he framed an eternal image moving according to
+numerical succession, which we call _Time_. Nothing can be more
+inaccurate than to apply the terms, _past, present, future_, to real
+Being, which is immovable. Past and future are expressions only suitable
+to generation which proceeds through time." Time reposes on the bosom of
+eternity, as all bodies are in space.]
+
+[Footnote 549: "Timæus," ch. xvi., and "Phædrus," where the soul is
+pronounced ἀρχὴ δὲ ἁγένητον.]
+
+Thus the soul (ψυχή) as a composite nature is on one side linked to the
+eternal world, its essence being generated of that ineffable element
+which constitutes the real, the immutable, and the permanent. It is a
+beam of the eternal Sun, a spark of the Divinity, an emanation from God.
+On the other side it is linked to the phenomenal or sensible world, its
+emotive part[550] being formed of that which is relative and phenomenal.
+The soul of man thus stands midway between the eternal and the
+contingent, the real and the phenomenal, and as such, it is the mediator
+between, and the interpreter of, both.
+
+[Footnote 550: Θυμειδές, the seat of the nobler--ἐπιθυμητικόν, the seat
+of the baser passions.]
+
+In the allegory of the "Chariot and Winged Steeds"[551] Plato represents
+the lower or inferior part of man's nature as dragging the soul down to
+the earth, and subjecting it to the slavery and debasement of corporeal
+conditions. Out of these conditions there arise numerous evils that
+disorder the mind and becloud the reason, for evil is inherent to the
+condition of finite and multiform being into which we have "fallen by
+our own fault." The present earthly life is a fall and a punishment. The
+soul is now dwelling in "the grave we call the body." In its incorporate
+state, and previous to the discipline of education, the rational element
+is "asleep." "Life is more of a dream than a reality." Men are utterly
+the slaves of sense, the sport of phantoms and illusions. We now
+resemble those "captives chained in a subterraneous cave," so poetically
+described in the seventh book of the "Republic;" their backs are turned
+to the light, and consequently they see but the shadows of the objects
+which pass behind them, and they "attribute to these shadows a perfect
+reality." Their sojourn upon earth is thus a dark imprisonment in the
+body, a dreamy exile from their proper home. "Nevertheless these pale
+fugitive shadows suffice to revive in us the reminiscence of that higher
+world we once inhabited, if we have not absolutely given the reins to
+the impetuous untamed horse which in Platonic symbolism represents the
+emotive sensuous nature of man." The soul has some dim and shadowy
+recollection of its ante-natal state of bliss, and some instinctive and
+proleptic yearnings for its return.
+
+[Footnote 551: "Phædrus," § 54-62.]
+
+     "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
+     The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
+       Has had elsewhere its setting,
+       And cometh from afar,
+       Not in entire forgetfulness,
+       And not in utter nakedness,
+     But trailing clouds of glory, do we come
+     From God, who is our home."[552]
+
+[Footnote 552: Wordsworth, "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality," vol.
+v.]
+
+Exiled from the true home of the spirit, imprisoned in the body,
+disordered by passion, and beclouded by sense, the soul has yet longings
+after that state of perfect knowledge, and purity, and bliss, in which
+it was first created. Its affinities are still on high. It yearns for a
+higher and nobler form of life. It essays to rise, but its eye is
+darkened by sense, its wings are besmeared by passion and lust; it is
+"borne downward, until at length it falls upon and attaches itself to
+that which is material and sensual," and it flounders and grovels still
+amid the objects of sense.
+
+And now, with all that seriousness and earnestness of spirit which is
+peculiarly Christian, Plato asks how the soul may be delivered from the
+illusions of sense, the distempering influence of the body, and the
+disturbances of passion, which becloud its vision of the real, the good,
+and the true?
+
+Plato believed and hoped this could be accomplished by _philosophy_.
+This he regarded as a grand intellectual discipline for the purification
+of the soul. By this it was to be disenthralled from the bondage of
+sense[553] and raised into the empyrean of pure thought "where truth and
+reality shine forth." All souls have the faculty of knowing, but it is
+only by reflection, and self-knowledge, and intellectual discipline,
+that the soul can be raised to the vision of eternal truth, goodness,
+and beauty--that is, to the vision of God. And this intellectual
+discipline was the _Platonic Dialectic_.
+
+[Footnote 553: Not, however, fully in this life. The consummation of the
+intellectual struggle into "the intelligible world" is death. The
+intellectual discipline was therefore μελέτη θανατου, _a preparation for
+death_.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_.)
+
+THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (_continued_).
+
+PLATO.
+
+II. THE PLATONIC DIALECTIC.
+
+
+The Platonic Dialectic is the Science of Eternal and Immutable
+Principles, and the _method_ (ὄργανον) by which these first principles
+are brought forward into the clear light of consciousness. The student
+of Plato will have discovered that he makes no distinction between logic
+and metaphysics. These are closely united in the one science to which he
+gives the name of "_Dialectic_" and which was at once the science of the
+ideas and laws of the Reason, and of the mental process by which the
+knowledge of Real Being is attained, and a ground of absolute certainty
+is found. This science has, in modern times, been called _Primordial_ or
+_Transcendental Logic_.
+
+We have seen that Plato taught that the human reason is originally in
+possession of fundamental and necessary ideas--the copies of the
+archetypal ideas which dwell in the eternal Reason; and that these ideas
+are the primordial laws of thought--that is, they are the laws under
+which we conceive of all objective things, and reason concerning all
+existence. These ideas, he held, are not derived from sensation, neither
+are they generalizations from experience, but they are inborn and
+connatural. And, further, he entertained the belief, more, however, as a
+reasonable hypothesis[554] than as a demonstrable truth, that these
+standard principles were acquired by the soul in a pre-existent state in
+which it stood face to face with ideas of eternal order, beauty,
+goodness, and truth.[555] "Journeying with the Deity," the soul
+contemplated justice, wisdom, science--not that science which is
+concerned with change, and which appears under a different manifestation
+in different objects, which we choose to call beings; but such science
+as is in that which alone is indeed _being_.[556] Ideas, therefore,
+belong to, and inhere in, that portion of the soul which is properly
+οὐσία--_essence_ or _being_; which had an existence anterior to time,
+and even now has no relation to time, because it is now in
+eternity--that is, in a sphere of being to which past, present, and
+future can have no relation.[557]
+
+[Footnote 554: Within "the εἰκότων μύθων ἰδέα--the category of
+probability."--"Phædo."]
+
+[Footnote 555: "Phædo," § 50-56.]
+
+[Footnote 556: "Phædrus," § 58.]
+
+[Footnote 557: See note on p. 349.]
+
+All knowledge of truth and reality is, therefore, according to Plato, a
+REMINISCENCE (ἀνάμνησις)--a recovery of partially forgotten ideas which
+the soul possessed in another state of existence; and the _dialectic_ of
+Plato is simply the effort, by apt _interrogation_, to lead the mind to
+"_recollect_"[558] the truth which has been formerly perceived by it,
+and is even now in the memory though not in consciousness. An
+illustration of this method is attempted in the "_Meno_" where Plato
+introduces Socrates as making an experiment on the mind of an uneducated
+person. Socrates puts a series of questions to a slave of Meno, and at
+length elicits from the youth a right enunciation of a geometrical
+truth. Socrates then points triumphantly to this instance, and bids Meno
+observe that he had not taught the youth any thing, but simply
+interrogated him as to his opinions, whilst the youth had recalled the
+knowledge previously existing in his own mind.[559]
+
+[Footnote 558: "To learn is to recover our own previous knowledge, and
+this is properly to _recollect._"--"Phædo" § 55.]
+
+[Footnote 559: "Meno," § 16-20. "Now for a person to recover knowledge
+himself through himself, is not this to _recollect_."]
+
+Now whilst we readily grant that the instance given in the "_Meno_" does
+not sustain the inference of Plato that "the boy" had learnt these
+geometrical truths "in eternity," and that they had simply been brought
+forward into the view of his consciousness by the "questioning" of
+Socrates, yet it certainly does prove that _there are ideas or
+principles in the human reason which are not derived from without--which
+are anterior to all experience, and for the development of which,
+experience furnishes the occasion, but is not the origin and source_. By
+a kind of lofty inspiration, he caught sight of that most important
+doctrine of modern philosophy, so clearly and logically presented by
+Kant, _that the Reason is the source of a pure_ à priori _knowledge_--a
+knowledge native to, and potentially in the mind, antecedent to all
+experience, and which is simply brought out into the field of
+consciousness by experience conditions. Around this greatest of all
+metaphysical truths Plato threw a gorgeous mythic dress, and presented
+it under the most picturesque imagery.[560] But, when divested of the
+rich coloring which the glowing imagination of Plato threw over it, it
+is but a vivid presentation of the cardinal truth that _there are ideas
+in the mind which have not been derived from without_, and which,
+therefore, the mind brought with it into the present sphere of being.
+The validity and value of this fundamental doctrine, even as presented
+by Plato, is unaffected by any speculations in which he may have
+indulged, as to the pre-existence of the soul. He simply regarded this
+doctrine of pre-existence as highly probable--a plausible explanation of
+the facts. That there are ideas, innate and connatural to the human
+mind, he clung to as the most vital, most precious, most certain of all
+truths; and to lead man to the recognitions of these ideas, to bring
+them within the field of consciousness, was, in his judgment, the great
+business of philosophy.
+
+And this was the grand aim of his _Dialectic_--to elicit, to bring to
+light the truths which are already in the mind--"a μαίευσις" a kind of
+intellectual midwifery[561]--a delivering of the mind of the ideas with
+which it was pregnant.
+
+[Footnote 560: As in the "Phædo," §§ 48-57; "Phædrus," §§ 52-64;
+"Republic," bk. x.]
+
+[Footnote 561: "Theætetus," §§ 17-20.]
+
+It is thus, at first sight, obvious that it was a higher and more
+comprehensive science than the art of deduction. For it was directed to
+the discovery and establishment of First Principles. Its sole object was
+the discovery of truth. His dialectic was an _analytical_ and _inductive
+method_. "In Dialectic Science," says _Alcinous_, "there is a dividing
+and a defining, and an analyzing, and, moreover, that which is inductive
+and syllogistic."[562] Even _Bacon_, who is usually styled "the Father
+of the Inductive method," and who, too often, speaks disparagingly of
+Plato, is constrained to admit that he followed the inductive method.
+"An induction such as will be of advantage for the invention and
+demonstration of Arts and Sciences must distinguish the essential nature
+of things (naturam) by proper rejections and exclusions, and then after
+as many of these negatives as are sufficient, by comprising, above all
+(super), the positives. Up to this time this had not been done, nor even
+attempted, _except by Plato alone, who, in order to attain his
+definitions and ideas, has used, to a certain extent, the method of
+Induction_."[563]
+
+[Footnote 562: "Introduction to the Doctrines of Plato," vol. vi. p.
+249. "The Platonic Method was the method of induction."--Cousin's
+"History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 307.]
+
+[Footnote 563: "Novum Organum," vol. i. p. 105.]
+
+The process of investigation adopted by Plato thus corresponds with the
+inductive method of modern times, with this simple difference, that
+Bacon conducted science into the world of _matter_, whilst Plato
+directed it to the world of _mind_. The dialectic of Plato aimed at the
+discovery of the "laws of thought;" the modern inductive philosophy aims
+at the discovery of the "laws of nature." The latter concerns itself
+chiefly with the inquiry after the "causes" of material phenomena; the
+former concerned itself with the inquiry after the "first principles" of
+all knowledge and of all existence. Both processes are, therefore,
+carried on by _interrogation_. The analysis which seeks for a law of
+nature proceeds by the interrogation of nature. The analysis of Plato
+proceeds by the interrogation of mind, in order to discover the
+fundamental _ideas_ which lie at the basis of all cognition, which
+determine all our processes of thought, and which, in their final
+analysis, reveal the REAL BEING, which is the ground and explanation of
+all existence.
+
+Now the fact that such an inquiry has originated in the human mind, and
+that it can not rest satisfied without some solution, is conclusive
+evidence that the mind has an instinctive belief, a proleptic
+anticipation, that such knowledge can be attained. There must
+unquestionably be some mental initiative which is the _motive_ and
+_guide_ to all philosophical inquiry. We must have some well-grounded
+conviction, some _à priori_ belief, some pre-cognition "ad intentionem
+ejus quod quæritur,"[564] which determines the direction of our
+thinking. The mind does not go to work aimlessly; it asks a specific
+question; it demands the "_whence_" and the "_why_" of that which is.
+Neither does it go to work unfurnished with any guiding principles. That
+which impels the mind to a determinate act of thinking is the possession
+of a _knowledge_ which is different from, and independent of, the
+process of thinking itself. "A rational anticipation is, then, the
+ground of the _prudens quæstio_--"the forethought query, which, in fact,
+is the prior half of the knowledge sought."[565] If the mind inquire
+after "laws," and "causes," and "reasons," and "grounds,"--the first
+principles of all knowledge and of all existence,--"it must have the _à
+priori_ ideas of "law," and "cause," and "reason," and "being _in se"_
+which, though dimly revealed to the mind previous to the discipline of
+reflection, are yet unconsciously governing its spontaneous modes of
+thought. The whole process of induction has, then, some rational ground
+to proceed upon--some principles deeper than science, and more certain
+than demonstration, which reason contains within itself, and which
+induction "draws out" into clearer light.
+
+[Footnote 564: Bacon.]
+
+[Footnote 565: Coleridge, vol. ii. p. 413.]
+
+Now this mental initiative of every process of induction is the
+intuitive and necessary conviction _that there must be a sufficient
+reason why every thing exists, and why it is as it is, and not
+otherwise_;[566] or in other words, if any thing begins to be, some
+thing else must be supposed[567] as the ground, and reason, and cause,
+and law of its existence. This "_law of sufficient_ (or _determinant)
+reason_"[568] is the fundamental principle of all metaphysical inquiry.
+It is contained, at least in a negative form, in that famous maxim of
+ancient philosophy, "_De nihilo nihil_"--"Ἀδύνατον γίνεσθαί τι ἐκ
+μηδενὸς προϋπάρχοντος." "It is impossible for a real entity to be made
+or generated from nothing pre-existing;" or in other words, "nothing can
+be made or produced without an efficient cause."[569] This principle is
+also distinctly announced by Plato: "Whatever is generated, is
+necessarily generated from a certain αἰτίαν"--_ground, reason_, or
+_cause_; "for it is wholly impossible that any thing should be generated
+without a cause."[570]
+
+[Footnote 566: "Phædo," § 103.]
+
+[Footnote 567: _Suppono_, to place under as a support, to take as a
+ground.]
+
+[Footnote 568: This generic principle, viewed under different relations,
+gives--
+
+1st. _The principle of Substance_--every quality supposes a subject or
+real being.
+
+2d. _The principle of Causality_--every thing which begins to be must
+have a cause.
+
+3d. _The principle of Law_--every phenomenon must obey some uniform law.
+
+4th. _The principle of Final Cause_--every means supposes an end, every
+existence has a purpose or reason why.
+
+5th. _The principle of Unity_--all plurality supposes a unity as its
+basis and ground.]
+
+[Footnote 569: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. ii. p. 161.]
+
+[Footnote 570: "Timæus," ch. ix.]
+
+The first business of Plato's dialectic is to demonstrate that the
+ground and reason of all existence can not be found in the mere objects
+of sense, nor in any opinions or judgments founded upon sensation.
+Principles are only so far "first principles" as they are permanent and
+unchangeable, depending on neither time, nor place, nor circumstances.
+But the objects of sense are in ceaseless flux and change; they are
+"_always becoming_;" they can not be said to have any "_real being_."
+They are not to-day what they were yesterday, and they will never again
+be what they are now; consequently all opinions founded on mere
+phenomena are equally fluctuating and uncertain. Setting out, therefore,
+from the assumption of the fallaciousness of "_opinion_" it examined the
+various hypotheses which had been bequeathed by previous schools of
+philosophy, or were now offered by contemporaneous speculators, and
+showed they were utterly inadequate to the solution of the problem. This
+scrutiny consisted in searching for the ground of "contradiction"[571]
+with regard to each opinion founded on sensation, and showing that
+opposite views were equally tenable. It inquired on what ground these
+opinions were maintained, and what consequences flowed therefrom, and it
+showed that the grounds upon which "opinion" was founded, and the
+conclusions which were drawn from it, were contradictory, and
+consequently untrue.[572] "They," the Dialecticians, "examined the
+opinions of men as if they were error; and bringing them together by a
+reasoning process to the same point, they placed them by the side of
+each other: and by so placing, they showed that _the opinions are at one
+and the same time contrary to themselves, about the same things, with
+reference to the same circumstances, and according to the same
+premises_."[573] And inasmuch as the same attribute can not, at the same
+time, be affirmed and denied of the same subject,[574] therefore a thing
+can not be at once "changeable" and "unchangeable," "movable" and
+"immovable," "generated" and "eternal."[575] The objects of sense,
+however generalized and classified, can only give the contingent, the
+relative, and the finite; therefore the permanent ground and sufficient
+reason of all phenomenal existence can not be found in opinions and
+judgments founded upon sensation.
+
+[Footnote 571: "The Dialectitian is one who syllogistically infers the
+contradictions implied in popular opinions."--Aristotle, "Sophist," §§
+1, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 572: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xiii.]
+
+[Footnote 573: "Sophist," § 33; "Republic," bk. iv. ch. xii.]
+
+[Footnote 574: See the "Phædo," § 119, and "Republic," bk. iv. ch.
+xiii., where the Law of Non-contradiction is announced.]
+
+[Footnote 575 "Parmenides," § 3.]
+
+The dialectic process thus consisted almost entirely of
+_refutation_,[576] or what both he and Aristotle denominated _elenchus_
+(ἔλεγχος)--a process of reasoning by which the contradictory of a given
+proposition is inferred. "When refutation had done its utmost, and all
+the points of difficulty and objection had been fully brought out, the
+dialectic method had accomplished its purpose; and the affirmation which
+remained, after this discussion, might be regarded as setting forth the
+truth of the question under consideration;"[577] or in other words,
+_when a system of error is destroyed by refutation, the contradictory
+opposite principle, with its logical developments, must be accepted as
+an established truth_.
+
+[Footnote 576: Confutation is the greatest and chiefest of
+purification.--"Sophist," § 34.]
+
+[Footnote 577: Article "Plato," Encyclopædia Britannica.]
+
+By the application of this method, Plato had not only exposed the
+insufficiency and self-contradiction of all results obtained by a mere
+_à posteriori_ generalization of the simple facts of experience, but he
+demonstrated, as a consequence, that we are in possession of some
+elements of knowledge which have not been derived from sensation; that
+there are, in all minds, certain notions, principles, or ideas, which
+have been furnished by a higher faculty than sense; and that these
+notions, principles, or ideas, transcend the limits of experience, and
+reveal the knowledge of _real being_--τὸ ὄντως ὄν--_Being in se_.
+
+To determine what these principles or ideas are, Plato now addresses
+himself to the _analysis of thought_. "It is the glory of Plato to have
+borne the light of analysis into the most obscure and inmost region; he
+searched out what, in this totality which forms consciousness, is the
+province of reason; what comes from it, and not from the imagination and
+the senses--from within, and not from without."[578] Now to analyze is
+to decompose, that is, to divide, and to define, in order to see better
+that which really is. The chief logical instruments of the dialectic
+method are, therefore, _Division_ and _Definition_. "The being able to
+_divide_ according to genera, and not to consider the same species as
+different, nor a different as the same,"[579] and "to see under one
+aspect, and bring together under one general idea, many things scattered
+in various places, that, by _defining_ each, a person may make it clear
+what the subject is," is, according to Plato, "dialectical."[580]
+
+[Footnote 578: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 328.]
+
+[Footnote 579: "Sophist," § 83.]
+
+[Footnote 580: "Phædrus," §§ 109, 111.]
+
+We have already seen that, in his first efforts at applying reflection
+to the concrete phenomena of consciousness, Plato had recognized two
+distinct classes of cognitions, marked by characteristics essentially
+opposite;--one of "_sensible_" objects having a definite outline, limit,
+and figure, and capable of being imaged and represented to the mind in a
+determinate form--the other of "_intelligible_" objects, which can not
+be outlined or represented in the memory or the imagination by any
+figures or images, and are, therefore, the objects of purely rational
+conception. He found, also, that we arrive at one class of cognitions
+"_mediately_" through images generated in the vital organism, or by some
+testimony, definition, or explication of others; whilst we arrive at the
+other class "_immediately_" by simple intuition, or rational
+apperception. The mind stands face to face with the object, and gazes
+directly upon it. The reality of that object is revealed in its own
+light, and we find it impossible to refuse our assent--that is, it is
+_self-evident_. One class consisted of _contingent_ ideas--that is,
+their objects are conceived as existing, with the possibility, without
+any contradiction, of conceiving of their non-existence; the other
+consisted of _necessary_ ideas--their objects are conceived as existing
+with the absolute impossibility of conceiving of their non-existence.
+Thus we can conceive of this book, this table, this earth, as not
+existing, but we can not conceive the non-existence of space. We can
+conceive of succession in time as not existing, but we can not, in
+thought, annihilate duration. We can imagine this or that particular
+thing not to have been, but we can not conceive of the extinction of
+Being in itself. He further observed, that one class of our cognitions
+are _conditional_ ideas; the existence of their objects is conceived
+only on the supposition of some antecedent existence, as for example,
+the idea of qualities, phenomena, events; whilst the other class of
+cognitions are _unconditional_ and _absolute_--we can conceive of their
+objects as existing independently and unconditionally--existing whether
+any thing else does or does not exist, as space, duration, the infinite,
+Being _in se_. And, finally, whilst some ideas appear in us as
+_particular_ and _individual_, determined and modified by our own
+personality and liberty, there are others which are, in the fullest
+sense, _universal_. They are not the creations of our own minds, and
+they can not be changed by our own volitions. They depend upon neither
+times, nor places, nor circumstances; they are common to all minds, in
+all times, and in all places. These ideas are the witnesses in our
+inmost being that there is something beyond us, and above us; and beyond
+and above all the contingent and fugitive phenomena around us. Beneath
+all changes there is a _permanent_ being. Beyond all finite and
+conditional existance there is something _unconditional_ and _absolute_.
+Having determined that there are truths which are independent of our own
+minds--truths which are not individual, but universal--truths which
+would be truths even if our minds did not perceive them, we are led
+onward to a _super-sensual_ and super-natural ground, on which they
+rest.
+
+To reach this objective reality on which the ideas of reason repose, is
+the grand effort of Plato's dialectic. He seeks, by a rigid analysis,
+clearly to _separate_, and accurately to _define_ the _à priori_
+conceptions of reason. And it was only when he had eliminated every
+element which is particular, contingent, and relative, and had defined
+the results in precise and accurate language, that he regarded the
+process as complete. The ideas which are self-evident, universal, and
+necessary, were then clearly disengaged, and raised to their pure and
+absolute form. "You call the man dialectical who requires a reason of
+the essence or being of each thing. As the dialectical man can define
+the essence of every thing, so can he of the good. He can _define_ the
+idea of the good, _separating_ it from all others--follow it through all
+windings, as in a battle, resolved to mark it, not according to opinion,
+but according to science."[581]
+
+[Footnote 581: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xiv.]
+
+_Abstraction_ is thus the process, the instrument of the Platonic
+dialectic. It is important, however, that we should distinguish between
+the method of _comparative_ abstraction, as employed in physical
+inquiry, and that _immediate_ abstraction, which is the special
+instrument of philosophy. The former proceeds by comparison and
+generalization, the latter by simple separation. The one yields a
+contingent general principle as the result of the comparison of a number
+of individual cases, the other gives an universal and necessary
+principle by the analysis of a single concrete fact. As an illustration
+we may instance "the principle of causality." To enable us to affirm
+"that every event must have a cause," we do not need to compare and
+generalize a great number of events. "The principle which compels us to
+pronounce the judgment is already complete in the first as in the last
+event; it can change in regard to its object, it can not change in
+itself; it neither increases nor decreases with the greater or less
+number of applications."[582] In the presence of a single event, the
+universality and necessity of this principle of causality is recognized
+with just as much clearness and certainty as in the presence of a
+million events, however carefully generalized.
+
+[Footnote 582: Cousin's "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," pp. 57,
+58.]
+
+Abstraction, then, it will be seen, creates nothing; neither does it add
+any new element to the store of actual cognitions already possessed by
+all human minds. It simply brings forward into a clearer and more
+definite recognition, that which necessarily belongs to the mind as part
+of its latent furniture, and which, as a law of thought, has always
+unconsciously governed all its spontaneous movements. As a process of
+rational inquiry, it was needful to bring the mind into intelligible and
+conscious communion with the world of _Ideas_. These ideas are partially
+revealed in the sensible world, all things being formed, as Plato
+believed, according to ideas as models and exemplars, of which sensible
+objects are the copies. They are more fully manifested in the
+constitution of the human mind which, by virtue of its kindred nature
+with the original essence or being, must know them intuitively and
+immediately. And they are brought out fully by the dialectic process,
+which disengages them from all that is individual and phenomenal, and
+sets them forth in their pure and absolute form.
+
+But whilst Plato has certainly exhibited the true method of
+investigation by which the ideas of reason are to be separated from all
+concrete phenomena and set clearly before the mind, he has not attempted
+a complete enumeration of the ideas of reason; indeed, such an
+enumeration is still the grand desideratum of philosophy. We can not
+fail, however, in the careful study of his writings, to recognize the
+grand Triad of Absolute Ideas--ideas which Cousin, after Plato, has so
+fully exhibited, viz., the _True_, the _Beautiful_, and the _Good_.
+
+PLATONIC SCHEME OF IDEAS
+
+I. _The idea of_ ABSOLUTE TRUTH or REALITY (τὸ ἀληθές--τὸ ὄν)--the
+ground and efficient cause of all existence, and by participating in
+which all phenomenal existence has only so far a reality, sensible
+things being merely shadows and resemblances of ideas. This idea is
+developed in the human intelligence in its relation with the phenomenal
+world; as,
+
+1. _The idea of_ SUBSTANCE (οὐσία)--the ground of all phenomena, "the
+being or essence of all things," the permanent reality.--"Timæeus," ch.
+ix. and xii.; "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xiv.; "Phædo,"§§ 63-67, 73.
+
+2. _The idea of_ CAUSE (αἰτία)--the power or efficiency by which things
+that "become," or begin to be, are generated or produced.--"Timæus," ch.
+ix.; "Sophist," § 109; "Philebus," §§ 45, 46.
+
+3. _The idea of_ IDENTITY (αὐτὸ τὸ ἴσον)--that which "does not change,"
+"is always the same, simple and uniform, incomposite and
+indissoluble,"--that which constitutes personality or
+self-hood.--"Phædo," §§ 61-75; "Timæus," ch. ix.; "Republic," bk. ii.
+ch. xix. and xx.
+
+4. _The idea of_ UNITY (τὸ ἕν)--one _mind_ or intelligence pervading the
+universe, the comprehensive conscious _thought_ or _plan_ which binds
+all parts of the universe in one great whole (τὸ πᾶν)--the principle of
+_order_.--"Timæus," ch. xi. and xv.; "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xiii.;
+"Philebus," §§ 50-51.
+
+5. _The idea of the_ INFINITE (τὸ ἄπειρον)--that which is unlimited and
+unconditioned, "has no parts, bounds, no beginning, nor middle, nor
+end."--"Parmenides," §§ 22, 23.
+
+II. _The idea of_ ABSOLUTE BEAUTY (τὸ καλόν)--the formal cause of the
+universe, and by participation in which all created things have only so
+far a real beauty.--"Timæus," ch. xi, "Greater Hippias," §§ 17, 18;
+"Republic," bk. v. ch. 22.
+
+This idea is developed in the human intelligence in its relation to the
+organic world; as:
+
+      1. _The Idea of_ PROPORTION or SYMMETRY (συμμετρἰα)--the
+      proper relation of parts to an organic whole resulting in a
+      harmony (κόσμος), and which relation admits of mathematical
+      expression.--"Timæus," ch. lxix.; "Philebus," § 155
+      ("Timæus," ch. xi. and xii., where the relation of numerical
+      proportions to material elements is expounded).
+
+      2. _The idea of_ DETERMINATE FORM (παράδειγμα
+      ἀρχέτυπος)--the eternal models or archetypes according to
+      which all things are framed, and which admit of geometrical
+      representation.--"Timæus," ch. ix.; "Phædo," §112 ("Timæus,"
+      ch. xxviii.-xxxi., where the relation of geometrical forms
+      to material elements is exhibited).
+
+      3. _The idea of_ RHYTHM (ῥυθμός)--measured movement in time
+      and space, resulting in melody and grace.--"Republic," bk.
+      iii. ch. xi. and xii.; "Philebus," § 21.
+
+      4. _The idea of_ FITNESS or ADAPTATION
+      (χρήσιοω)--effectiveness to some purpose or end.--"Greater
+      Hippias," § 35.
+
+      5. _The idea of_ PERFECTION (τελειότης)--that which is
+      complete, "a structure which is whole and finished--of whole
+      and perfect parts."--"Timæus," ch. xi., xii., and xliii.
+
+III. _The idea of_ ABSOLUTE GOOD (τὸ ἀγαθόν)--the final _cause_ or
+_reason_ of all existence, the sun of the invisible world, that pours
+upon all things the revealing light of truth.
+
+The first Good[583] (_summum bonum_) is God the highest, and Mind or
+Intelligence (νοῦς), which renders man capable of knowing and resembling
+God. The second flows from the first, and are virtues of mind. They are
+good by a participation of the chief good, and constitute in man a
+likeness or _resemblance_ to God.--"Phædo," §§110-114; "Laws," bk. i.
+ch. vi., bk. iv. ch. viii.; "Theætetus," §§ 84, 85; "Republic," bk. vi.
+ch. xix., bk. vii. ch. iii., bk. x. ch. xii.[584]
+
+[Footnote 583: "Let us declare, then, on what account the framing
+Artificer settled the formation of the universe. He was GOOD;" and being
+good, "he desired that all things should as much as possible resemble
+himself."--"Timæus," ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 584: "At the utmost bounds of the intellectual world is the
+_idea of the Good_, perceived with difficulty, but which, once seen,
+makes itself known as the cause of all that is beautiful and good; which
+in the visible world produces light, and the orb that gives it; and
+which in the invisible world directly produces Truth and
+Intelligence."--"Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.]
+
+This idea is developed in the human intelligence in its relation to the
+world of moral order; as,
+
+1. _The idea of_ WISDOM or PRUDENCE (φρόνησις)--thoughtfulness,
+rightness of intention, following the guidance of reason, the right
+direction of the energy or will.--"Republic," bk. iv. ch. vii., bk. vi.
+ch. ii.
+
+2. _The idea of_ COURAGE or FORTITUDE (ἀνδρία)--zeal, energy, firmness
+in the maintenance of honor and right, virtuous indignation against
+wrong.--"Republic," bk. iv. ch. viii.; "Laches;" "Meno," § 24.
+
+3. _The idea of_ SELF-CONTROL or TEMPERANCE
+(σωφροσύνη)--sound-mindedness, moderation, dignity.--"Republic," bk. iv.
+ch. ix.; "Meno," § 24; "Phædo," § 35.
+
+4. _The idea of_ JUSTICE (δικαιοσύνη)--the harmony or perfect
+proportional action of all the powers of the soul.--"Republic," bk. i.
+ch. vi., bk. iv. ch. x.-xii., bk. vi. ch. ii. and xvi.; "Philebus," §
+155; "Phædo," § 54; "Theætetus," §§ 84, 85.
+
+Plato's idea of Justice comprehends--
+
+(1) EQUITY (ὶσότης)--the rendering to every man his due.--"Republic,"
+bk. i. ch. vi.
+
+(2.) VERACITY (ἀλήθεια)--the utterance of what is true.--"Republic," bk.
+i. ch. v., bk. ii. ch. xx., bk. vi. ch. ii.
+
+(3.) FAITHFULNESS (πιστὸτης)--the strict performance of a
+trust.--"Republic," bk. i. ch. v., bk. vi. ch. ii.
+
+(4.) USEFULNESS (ώφέλτμον)--the answering of some valuable
+end.--"Republic," bk. ii. ch. xviii., bk. iv. ch. xviii.; "Meno," § 22.
+
+(5.) BENEVOLENCE (εὔνοια)--seeking the well-being of
+others.--"Republic," bk. i. ch. xvii., bk. ii. ch. xviii.
+
+(6.) HOLINESS (ὁσιότης)--purity of mind, piety.--"Protagoras," §§ 52-54;
+"Phædo," § 32; "Theætetus," § 84.
+
+The final effort of Plato's Dialectic was to ascend from these ideas of
+Absolute Truth, and Absolute Beauty, and Absolute Goodness to the
+_Absolute Being_, in whom they are all united, and from whom they all
+proceed. "He who possesses the true love of science is naturally carried
+in his aspirations to the _real Being_; and his love, so far from
+suffering itself to be retarded by the multitude of things whose reality
+is only apparent, knows no repose until it have arrived at union with
+the _essence_ of each object, by the part of the soul which is akin to
+the permanent and essential; so that this divine conjunction having
+produced intelligence and truth, the knowledge of _being_ is won."[585]
+
+[Footnote 585: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. v.]
+
+To the mind of Plato, there was in every thing, even the smallest and
+most insignificant of sensible objects, a _reality_ just in so far as it
+participates in some archetypal form or idea. These archetypal forms or
+ideas are the "_thoughts of God_"[586]--they are the plan according to
+which he framed the universe. "The Creator and Father of the universe
+looked to an _eternal model_.... Being thus generated, the universe is
+framed according to principles that can be comprehended by reason and
+reflection."[587] Plato, also, regarded all individual conceptions of
+the mind as hypothetical notions which have in them an _à priori_
+element--an idea which is unchangeable, universal, and necessary. These
+unchangeable, universal, and necessary ideas are copies of the Divine
+Ideas, which are, for man, the primordial laws of all cognition, and all
+reasoning. They are possessed by the soul "in virtue of its kindred
+nature to that which is permanent, unchangeable, and eternal." He also
+believed that every archetypal form, and every _à priori_ idea, has its
+ground and root in a higher idea, which is _unhypothetical_ and
+_absolute_--an idea which needs no other supposition for its
+explanation, and which is, itself, needful to the explanation of all
+existence--even the idea of an _absolute_ and _perfect Being_, in whose
+mind the ideas of absolute truth, and beauty, and goodness inhere, and
+in whose eternity they can only be regarded as eternal.[588] Thus do the
+"ideas of reason" not only cast a bridge across the abyss that separates
+the sensible and the ideal world, but they also carry us beyond the
+limits of our personal consciousness, and discover to us a realm of real
+Being, which is the foundation, and cause, and explanation of the
+phenomenal world that appears around us and within us.
+
+[Footnote 586: Alcinous, "Doctrines of Plato," p. 262.]
+
+[Footnote 587: "Timæus," ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 588: Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 149.]
+
+This passage from psychology to ontology is not achieved _per saltum_,
+or effected by any arbitrary or unwarrantable assumption. There are
+principles revealed in the centre of our consciousness, whose regular
+development carry us beyond the limits of consciousness, and attain to
+the knowledge of actual being. The absolute principles of _causality_
+and _substance_, of _intentionality_ and _unity_, unquestionably give us
+the absolute Being. Indeed the absolute truth _that every idea supposes
+a being in which it resides_, and which is but another form of the law
+or principle of substance, viz., _that every quality supposes a
+substance or being in which it inheres_, is adequate to carry us from
+Idea to Being. "There is not a single cognition which does not suggest
+to us the notion of existence, and there is not an unconditional and
+absolute truth which does not necessarily imply an absolute and
+unconditional Being."[589]
+
+[Footnote 589: Cousin's "Elements of Psychology," p. 506.]
+
+This, then, is the dialectic of Plato. Instead of losing himself amid
+the endless variety of particular phenomena, he would search for
+principles and laws, and from thence ascend to the great Legislator, the
+_First Principle of all Principles_. Instead of stopping at the
+relations of sensible objects to the general ideas with which they are
+commingled, he will pass to their _eternal Paradigms_--from the just
+thing to the idea of absolute justice, from the particular good to the
+absolute good, from beautiful things to the absolute beauty, and thence
+to the ultimate reality--_the absolute Being_. By the realization of the
+lower idea, embodied in the forms of the visible universe and in the
+necessary laws of thought, he sought to rise to the higher idea, in its
+pure and abstract form--the _Supreme Idea_, containing in itself all
+other ideas--the _One Intelligence_ which unites the universe in a
+harmonious whole. "The Dialectic faculty proceeds from hypothesis to an
+unhypothetical principle.... It uses hypotheses as steps, and
+starting-points, in order to proceed from thence to the _absolute_. The
+Intuitive Reason takes hold of the First Principle of the Universe, and
+avails itself of all the connections and relations of that principle. It
+ascends from idea to idea, until it has reached the Supreme Idea"--the
+_Absolute Good_--that is, _God_.[590]
+
+[Footnote 590: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xx. and xxi.]
+
+We are thus brought, in the course of our examination of the Platonic
+method, to the _results_ obtained by this method--or, in other words, to
+
+III. THE PLATONIC ONTOLOGY.
+
+The grand object of all philosophic inquiry in ancient Greece was to
+attain to the knowledge of real Being--that Being which is permanent,
+unchangeable, and eternal. It had proceeded on the intuitive conviction,
+that beneath all the endless diversity of the universe there must be a
+principle of _unity_--below all fleeting appearances there must be a
+permanent _substance_--beyond all this everlasting flow and change, this
+beginning and end of finite existence, there must be an eternal Being,
+which is the _cause_, and which contains, in itself, the _reason_ of the
+order, and harmony, and beauty, and excellency which pervades the
+universe. And it had perpetually asked what is this permanent,
+unchangeable, and eternal substance or being?
+
+Plato had assiduously labored at the solution of this problem. The
+object of his dialectic was "to lead upward the soul to the knowledge of
+real being,"[591] and the conclusions to which he attained may be summed
+up as follows:
+
+1st. _Beneath all_ SENSIBLE _phenomena there is an unchangeable
+subject-matter, the mysterious substratum of the world of sense, which
+he calls the receptacle (ἱποδοχή) the nurse (τιθήνη) of all that is
+produced_.[592]
+
+It is this "substratum or physical groundwork" which gives a reality and
+definiteness to the evanescent phantoms of sense, for, in their
+ceaseless change, _they_ can not justify any title whatever. It alone
+can be styled "_this_" or "_that_" (τόδε or τοῦτο); they rise no higher
+than "_of such kind_" or "_of what kind or quality" (τοιοῦτον or
+ὁποιονοῦν τι).[593] It is not earth, or air, or fire, or water, but "an
+invisible _species_ and formless universal receiver, which, in the most
+obscure way, receives the immanence of the intelligible."[594] And in
+relation to the other two principles (_i.e._, ideas and objects of
+sense), "it is _the mother_" to the father and the offspring.[595] But
+perhaps the most remarkable passage is that in which he seems to
+identify it with _pure space_, which, "itself imperishable, furnishes a
+_seat_ (ἕδραν) to all that is produced, not apprehensible by direct
+perception, but caught by a certain spurious reasoning, scarcely
+admissible, but which we see as in a dream; gaining it by that judgment
+which pronounces it necessary that all which is, be _somewhere_, and
+occupy a _certain space_."[596] This, it will be seen, approaches the
+Cartesian doctrine, which resolves matter into _simple extension.[597]
+
+[Footnote 591: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xii. and xiii.]
+
+[Footnote 592: "Timæus," ch. xxii.]
+
+[Footnote 593: "Timæus," ch. xxiii.]
+
+[Footnote 594: Ibid., ch. xxiv.]
+
+[Footnote 595: Ibid., ch. xxiv.]
+
+[Footnote 596: Ibid., ch. xxvi.]
+
+[Footnote 597: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+171.]
+
+It should, however, be distinctly noted that Plato does not use the word
+ὓλη--matter. This term is first employed by Aristotle to express "the
+substance which is the subject of all changes."[598] The subject or
+substratum of which Plato speaks, would seem to be rather a logical than
+a material entity. It is the _condition or supposition_ necessary for
+the production of a world of phenomena. It is thus the
+_transition-element_ between the real and the apparent, the eternal and
+the contingent; and, lying thus on the border of both territories, we
+must not be surprised that it can hardly be characterized by any
+definite attribute.[599] Still, this unknown recipient of forms or ideas
+has a _reality_; it has "an abiding nature," "a constancy of existence;"
+and we are forbidden to call it by any name denoting quality, but
+permitted to style it "_this_" and "_that_" (τόδε καὶ τοῦτο).[600]
+Beneath the perpetual changes of sensible phenomena there is, then, an
+unchangeable subject, which yet is neither the Deity, nor ideas, nor the
+soul of man, which exists as the means and occasion of the manifestation
+of Divine Intelligence in the organization of the world.[601]
+
+[Footnote 598: "Metaphysics," bk. vii. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 599: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+178.]
+
+[Footnote 600: "Timæus," ch. xxiii.]
+
+[Footnote 601: Ibid., ch. xiiii]
+
+There has been much discussion as to whether Plato held that this
+"_Receptacle_" and "_Nurse_" of forms and ideas was eternal, or
+generated in time. Perhaps no one has more carefully studied the
+writings of Plato than William Archer Butler, and his conclusions in
+regard to this subject are presented in the following words: "As, on the
+one hand, he maintained a strict system of dualism, and avoided, without
+a single deviation, that seduction of pantheism to which so many
+abstract speculators of his own school have fallen victims; so, on the
+other hand, it appears to me that he did not scruple to place this
+principle, the opposite of the Divine intelligence, in a sphere
+independent of temporal origination.... But we can scarcely enter into
+his views, unless we ascertain his notions of the nature of _Time_
+itself. This was considered to have been created with the rest of the
+sensible world, to finish with it, if it ever finished--to be altogether
+related to this phenomenal scene.[602] 'The generating Father determined
+to create a moving image of eternity (αἰῶνος); and in disposing the
+heavens, he framed of this eternity, reposing in its own unchangeable
+unity, an eternal _image_, moving according to numerical succession,
+which he called _Time_. With the world arose days, nights, months,
+years, which all had no previous existence. The past and future are but
+forms of time, which we most erroneously transfer to the eternal
+substance (ἀίδιον οὐσίαν); we say it was, and is, and will be, whereas
+we can only fitly say _it is_. Past and future are appropriate to the
+successive nature of generated beings, for they bespeak motion; but the
+Being eternally and immovably the same is subject neither to youth nor
+age, nor to any accident of time; it neither was, nor hath been, nor
+will be, which are the attributes of fleeting sense--the circumstances
+of time, imitating eternity in the shape of number and motion. Nor can
+any thing be more inaccurate than to apply the term _real being_ to
+past, or present, or future, or even to non-existence. Of this, however,
+we can not now speak fully. _Time_, then, was formed with the heavens,
+that, together created, they may together end, _if indeed an end be in
+the purpose of the Creator_; and it is designed as closely as possible
+to resemble the eternal nature, its exemplar. The model exists through
+all eternity; the world has been, is, and will be through all
+_time_.'[603] In this ineffable eternity Plato places the Supreme Being,
+and the archetypal ideas of which the sensible world of time partakes.
+Whether he also includes under the same mode of existence the
+_subject-matter_ of the sensible world, it is not easy to pronounce; and
+it appears to me evident that he did not himself undertake to speak with
+assurance on this obscure problem."[604] The creation of matter "out of
+nothing" is an idea which, in all probability, did not occur to the mind
+of Plato. But that he regarded it as, in some sense, a _dependent_
+existence--as existing, like time, by "the purpose or will of the
+Creator"--perhaps as an eternal "generation" from the "eternal
+substance," is also highly probable; for in the last analysis he
+evidently desires to embrace all things in some ultimate _unity_--a
+tendency which it seems impossible for human reason to avoid.
+
+[Footnote 602: See _ante_, note 4, p. 349.]
+
+[Footnote 603: "Timæus," ch. xiv.]
+
+[Footnote 604: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+171-175.]
+
+2d. _Beneath all mental phenomena there is a permanent subject or
+substratum which he designates_ THE IDENTICAL (τὸ αὐτό)--_the rational
+element of the soul--"the principle of self-activity" or
+self-determination_.[605]
+
+There are three principles into which Plato analyzes the soul--the
+principle of the _Identical_, the _Diverse_, and the _Intermediate
+Essence_.[606] The first is indivisible and eternal, always existing in
+_sameness_, the very substance of _Intelligence_ itself, and of the same
+nature with the Divine.[607] The second is divisible and corporeal,
+answering to our notion of the passive _sensibilities_, and placing the
+soul in relation with the visible world. The third is an intermediate
+essence, partaking of the natures of both, and constituting a medium
+between the eternal and the mutable--the conscious _energy_ of the soul
+developed in the contingent world of time. Thus the soul is, on one
+side, linked to the unchangeable and the eternal, being formed of that
+ineffable element which constitutes the _real_ or _immutable Being_, and
+on the other side, linked to the sensible and the contingent, being
+formed of that element which is purely _relative_ and _contingent_. This
+last element of the soul is regarded by Plato as "mortal" and
+"corruptible," the former element as "immortal" and "indestructible,"
+having its foundations laid in eternity.
+
+[Footnote 605: "Laws," bk. x. ch. vi. and vii.; "Phædrus," § 51; "άρχὴ
+κινήσεως."]
+
+[Footnote 606: "Timæus," ch. xii.; ταὐτον, θάτερον, and οὐσία or τὸ
+σνμμισγόμενον.]
+
+[Footnote 607: "Laws," bk. v. ch. i.]
+
+This doctrine of the eternity of the free and rational element of the
+soul must, of course, appear strange and even repulsive to those who are
+unacquainted with the Platonic notion of eternity as a fixed state out
+of time, which has no past, present, or future, and is simply that which
+"always _is_"--an everlasting _now_. The soul, in its elements of
+rationality and freedom, has existed anterior to time, because it now
+exists in eternity.[608] In its actual manifestations and personal
+history it is to be contemplated as a "generated being," having a
+commencement in time.
+
+Now, that the human soul, like the uncreated Deity, has always had a
+distinct, conscious, personal, independent being, does not appear to be
+the doctrine of Plato. He teaches, most distinctly, that the "divine,"
+the immortal part, was created, or rather "generated," in eternity. "The
+Deity himself _formed the divine_, and he delivered over to his
+celestial offspring [the subordinate and generated gods] the task of
+_forming the mortal_. These subordinate deities, copying the example of
+their parent, and receiving from his hands the _immortal principle_ of
+the human soul, fashioned subsequently to this the mortal body, which
+they consigned to the soul as a vehicle, and in which they placed
+another kind of soul, mortal, the seat of violent and fatal
+affections."[609] He also regarded the soul as having a derived and
+dependent existence. He draws a marked distinction between the divine
+and human forms of the "self-moving principle," and makes its
+continuance dependent upon the will and wisdom of the Almighty Disposer
+and Parent, of whom it is "the first-born offspring."[610]
+
+[Footnote 608: See _ante_, note 4, p. 349, as to the Platonic notions of
+"Time" and "Eternity."]
+
+[Footnote 609: "Timaeus," ch. xliv.]
+
+[Footnote 610: See the elaborate exposition in "Laws," bk. x. ch. xii.
+and xiii.]
+
+That portion of the soul which Plato regarded as "immortal" and "to be
+entitled divine," is thus the "_offspring of God_"--a ray of the
+Divinity "generated" by, or emanating from, the Deity. He seems to have
+conceived it as co-eternal with its ideal objects, in some mysterious
+ultimate _unity_. "The true foundation of the Platonic theory of the
+constitution of the soul is this fundamental principle of his
+philosophy--the _oneness of truth and knowledge_.[611] This led him
+naturally to derive the _rational_ element of the soul (that element
+that _knows_), that possesses the power of νόησις from the _real_
+element in things (the element that _is_)--the νοούμενον; and in the
+original, the final, and, though imperfectly, the present state of that
+rational element, he, doubtless, conceived it united with its object in
+an eternal conjunction, or even identity. But though intelligence and
+its correlative intelligibles were and are thus combined, the soul is
+_more_ than pure intelligence; it possesses an element of personality
+and consciousness distinct to each individual, of which we have no
+reason to suppose, from any thing his writings contain, Plato ever meant
+to deprive it."[612] On the contrary, he not only regarded it as having
+now, under temporal conditions, a distinct personal existence, but he
+also claimed for it a conscious, personal existence after death. He is
+most earnest, and unequivocal, and consistent in his assertion of the
+doctrine of the immortality of the soul. The arguments which human
+reason can supply are exhibited with peculiar force and beauty in the
+"Phædo," the "Phædrus," and the tenth book of the "Republic." The most
+important of these arguments may be presented in a few words.
+
+[Footnote 611: See Grant's "Aristotle," vol. i. pp. 150, 151.]
+
+[Footnote 612: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+209, note.]
+
+1. _The soul is immortal, because it is incorporeal_. There are two
+kinds of existences, one compounded, the other simple; the former
+subject to change, the latter unchangeable; one perceptible to sense,
+the other comprehended by mind alone. The one is visible, the other is
+invisible. When the soul employs the bodily senses, it wanders and is
+confused; but when it abstracts itself from the body, it attains to
+knowledge which is stable, unchangeable, and immortal. The soul,
+therefore, being uncompounded, incorporeal, invisible, must be
+indissoluble--that is to say, immortal.[613]
+
+[Footnote 613: "Phædo," §§ 61-75.]
+
+2. _The soul is immortal, because it has an independent power of
+self-motion_--that is, it has self-activity and self-determination. No
+arrangement of matter, no configuration of body, can be conceived as the
+originator of free and voluntary movement.
+
+Now that which can not move itself, but derives its motion from
+something else, may cease to move, and perish. "But that which is
+self-moved, never ceases to be active, and is also the cause of motion
+to all other things that are moved." And "whatever is continually active
+is immortal." This "self-activity is," says Plato, "the very essence and
+true notion of the soul."[614] Being thus essentially _causative_, it
+therefore partakes of the nature of a "principle," and it is the nature
+of a principle to exclude its _contrary_. That which is essentially
+self-active can never cease to be active; that which is the cause of
+motion and of change, can not be extinguished by the change called
+death.[615]
+
+3. _The soul is immortal, because it possesses universal, necessary, and
+absolute ideas_, which transcend all material conditions, and bespeak an
+origin immeasurably above the body. No modifications of matter, however
+refined, however elaborated, can give the Absolute, the Necessary, the
+Eternal. But the soul has the ideas of absolute beauty, goodness,
+perfection, identity, and duration, and it possesses these ideas in
+virtue of its having a nature which is one, simple, identical, and in
+some sense, eternal.[616] If the soul can conceive an immortality, it
+can not be less than immortal. If, by its very nature, "it has hopes
+that will not be bounded by the grave, and desires and longings that
+grasp eternity," its nature and its destiny must correspond.
+
+In the concluding sections of the "Phædo" he urges the doctrine with
+earnestness and feeling as the grand motive to a virtuous life, for "the
+reward is noble and the hope is great."[617] And in the "Laws" he
+insists upon the doctrine of a future state, in which men are to be
+rewarded or punished as the most conclusive evidence that we are under
+the moral government of God.[618]
+
+[Footnote 614: "Phædrus," §§ 51-53.]
+
+[Footnote 615: "Phædo," §§ 112-128.]
+
+[Footnote 616: Ibid., §§ 48-57, 110-115.]
+
+[Footnote 617: Ibid., §§ 129-145.]
+
+[Footnote 618: The doctrine of Metempsychosis, or transmigration of
+souls, can scarcely be regarded as part of the philosophic system of
+Plato. He seems to have accepted it as a venerable tradition, coming
+within the range of probability, rather than as a philosophic truth, and
+it is always presented by him in a highly mythical dress. Now of these
+mythical representations he remarks in the "Phædo" (§ 145) that "no man
+in his senses would dream of insisting _that they correspond to the
+reality_, but that, the soul having been shown to be immortal, this, or
+something like this, is true of individual souls or their habitations."
+If, as in the opinions of the ablest critics, "the Laws" is to be placed
+amongst the last and maturest of Plato's writings, the evidence is
+conclusive that whatever may have been his earlier opinions, he did not
+entertain the doctrine of "Metempsychosis" in his riper years. But when,
+on the one hand, the soul shall remain having an intercourse with divine
+virtue, it becomes divine pre-eminently; and pre-eminently, after having
+been conveyed to a _place_ entirely holy, it is changed for the better;
+but when it acts in a contrary manner, it has, under contrary
+circumstances, placed its existence in some _unholy spot_.
+
+     _This is the judgment of the gods, who hold Olympus._
+
+"O thou young man," [know] "that the person who has become more wicked,
+_departs to the more wicked souls;_ but he who has become better, to the
+better both in life and in all deaths, to do and suffer what is fitting
+for the like."--"Laws," bk. x. ch. xii. and xiii.]
+
+4. _Beyond all finite existences and secondary causes, all laws, ideas,
+and principles, there is an_ INTELLIGENCE _or_ MIND, _the First
+Principle of all Principles, the Supreme Idea on which all other ideas
+are grounded; the Monarch and Lawgiver of the universe, the ultimate
+Substance from which all other things derive their being and essence,
+the First and efficient Cause of all the order, and harmony, and beauty,
+and excellency, and goodness, which pervades the universe, who is called
+by way of pre-eminence and excellence the Supreme Good_, THE GOD (ὁ
+θεός), "_the God over all_," (ὁ ἐπὶ πᾶσι θεός).
+
+_This_ SUPREME MIND,[619] Plato taught, is incorporeal,[620]
+unchangeable,[621] infinite,[622] absolutely perfect,[623] essentially
+good,[624] unoriginated,[625] and eternal.[626] He is "the Father, and
+Architect, and Maker of the Universe,"[627] "the efficient Cause of all
+things."[628] "the Monarch and Ruler of the world,"[629] "the sovereign
+Mind that orders all things, and pervades all things,"[630] "the sole
+Principle of all things,"[631] and "the Measure of all things,"[632] He
+is "the Beginning of all truth,"[633] "the Fountain of all law and
+justice,"[634] "the Source of all order and beauty,"[635] "the Cause of
+all good;"[636] in short, "he is the Beginning, the Middle, and End of
+all things."[637]
+
+[Footnote 619: "Phædo," §§ 105-107.]
+
+[Footnote 620: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," bk. iii. ch. 77.]
+
+[Footnote 621: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xix.; "Timæus," ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 622: "Apeleius," bk. i. ch. v.]
+
+[Footnote 623: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xx.]
+
+[Footnote 624: "Timæus," ch. x.; "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xviii.]
+
+[Footnote 625: "Timæus," ch. ix.-x.]
+
+[Footnote 626: Ibid., ch. xii.]
+
+[Footnote 627: Ibid., ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 628: "Phædo," § 105.]
+
+[Footnote 629: "Laws," bk. x. ch. xii.; "Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.;
+"Philebus," § 50.]
+
+[Footnote 630: "Philebus," §51.]
+
+[Footnote 631: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xix.]
+
+[Footnote 632: "Laws," bk. iv. ch. viii.]
+
+[Footnote 633: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xxi.]
+
+[Footnote 634: "Laws," bk. iv. ch. vii.]
+
+[Footnote 635: "Philebus," § 51; "Timæus," ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 636: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xviii.; "Timæus," ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 637: "Laws," bk. iv, ch. vii.]
+
+Beyond the sensible world, Plato conceived another world of
+intelligibles or _ideas_. These ideas are not, however, distinct and
+independent existences. "What general notions are to our own minds,
+ideas are to the Supreme Reason (νοῦς βασιλεύς); they are the _eternal
+thoughts_ of the Divine Intellect."[638] Ideas are not substances, they
+are qualities, and there must, therefore, be some ultimate substance or
+being to whom, as attributes, they belong. "It must not be believed, as
+has been taught, that Plato gave to ideas a substantial existence. When
+they are not objects of pure conception for human reason, they are
+attributes of the Divine Reason. It is there they substantially
+exist."[639] These eternal laws and reasons of things indicate to us the
+character of that Supreme Essence of essences, the Being of beings. He
+is not the simple aggregate of all laws, but he is the Author, and
+Sustainer, and Substance of all laws. At the utmost summit of the
+intellectual world of Ideas blazes, with an eternal splendor, the idea
+of the _Supreme Good_ from which all others emanate.[640] This Supreme
+Good is "far beyond all existence in dignity and power, and it is that
+from which all things else derive their being and essence."[641] The
+Supreme Good is not the truth, nor the intelligence; "it is the Father
+of it." In the same manner as the sun, which is the visible image of the
+good, reigns over the world, in that it illumes and vivifies it; so the
+Supreme Good, of which the sun is only the work, reigns over the
+intelligible world, in that it gives birth to it by virtue of its
+inexhaustible fruitfulness.[642] _The Supreme Good is_ GOD _himself_,
+and he is designated "the good" because this term seems most fittingly
+to express his essential character and essence.[643] It is towards this
+superlative perfection that the reason lifts itself; it is towards this
+infinite beauty the heart aspires. "Marvellous Beauty!" exclaims Plato;
+"eternal, uncreated, imperishable beauty, free from increase and
+diminution... beauty which has nothing sensible, nothing corporeal, as
+hands or face: which does not reside in any being different from itself,
+in the earth, or the heavens, or in any other thing, but which exists
+_eternally and absolutely in itself, and by itself;_ beauty of which
+every other beauty partakes, without their birth or destruction bringing
+to it the least increase or diminution."[644] The absolute being--God,
+is the last reason, the ultimate foundation, the complete ideal of all
+beauty. God is, _par excellent_, the Beautiful.
+
+[Footnote 638: Thompson's "Laws of Thought," p. 119.]
+
+[Footnote 639: Cousin, "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 415. "There is no quintessential metaphysics which can prevail
+against common sense, and if such be the Platonic theory of ideas,
+Aristotle was right in opposing it. But such a theory is only a chimera
+which Aristotle created for the purpose of combating it."--"The True,
+the Beautiful, and the Good," p. 77.]
+
+[Footnote 640: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 641: "Ibid.," bk. vi. ch. xviii. and xix.]
+
+[Footnote 642: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 642: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+275.]
+
+[Footnote 644: "Banquet," § 35. See Cousin, "The True, the Beautiful,
+and the Good," Lecture IV., also Lecture VII. pp. 150-153; Denis,
+"Histoire des Théories et Ideés Morales dans l'Antiquité," vol. i. p.
+149.]
+
+God is therefore, with Plato, _the First Principle of all Principles;_
+the Divine energy or power is the _efficient cause_, the Divine beauty
+the _formal cause_, and the Divine goodness the _final cause_ of all
+existence.
+
+_The eternal unity of the principles of Order, Goodness, and Truth, in
+an ultimate reality--the_ ETERNAL MIND, is thus the fundamental
+principle which pervades the whole of the Platonic philosophy. And now,
+having attained this sublime elevation, he looks down from thence upon
+the _sensible, the phenomenal world_, and upon _the temporal life of
+man;_ and in the light of this great principle he attempts to explain
+their meaning and purpose. The results he attained in the former case
+constitute the Platonic _Physics_, in the latter, the Platonic _Ethics_.
+
+I. PLATONIC PHYSICS.
+
+Firmly believing in the absolute excellence of the Deity, and regarding
+the Divine Goodness as the Final Cause of the universe, he pronounces
+the physical world to be an _image_ of the perfection of God.
+Anaxagoras, no doubt, prepared the way for this theory. Every one who
+has read the "Phædo," will remember the remarkable passage in which
+Socrates gives utterance to the disappointment which he had experienced
+when expecting from physical science an explanation of the universe.
+"When I was young," he said--"it is not to be told how eager I was about
+physical inquiries, and curious to know _how the universe came to be as
+it is_; and when I heard that Anaxagoras was teaching that all was
+arranged by _mind_, I was delighted with the prospect of hearing such a
+doctrine unfolded; I thought to myself, if he teaches that mind made
+every thing to be as it is, he will explain _how it is_ BEST _for it to
+be_, and show that so it is." But Anaxagoras, it appears, lost sight of
+this principle, and descended to the explanation of the universe by
+material causes. "Great was my hope," says Socrates, "and equally great
+my disappointment."[645]
+
+[Footnote 645: "Phædo," §§ 105, 106.]
+
+Plato accepted this suggestion of Anaxagoras with all his peculiar
+earnestness, and devoted himself to its fuller development. It were a
+vain and profitless theory, which, whilst it assumed the existence of a
+Supreme Mind, did not represent that mind as operating in the universe
+by _design_, and as exhibiting his intelligence, and justice, and
+goodness, as well as his power, in every thing. If it be granted that
+there is a Supreme Mind, then, argued Plato, he must be regarded as "the
+measure of all things," and all things must have been framed according
+to a plan or "model" which that mind supplied. Intelligence must be
+regarded as having a _purpose_, and as working towards an _end_, for it
+is this alone which distinguishes reason from unreason, and mind from
+mere unintelligent force. The only proper model which could be presented
+to the Supreme Intelligence is "the eternal and unchangeable model"[646]
+which his own perfection supplies, "for he is the most excellent of
+causes."[647] Thus God is not simply the maker of the universe, but the
+model of the universe, because he designed that it should be an IMAGE,
+in the sphere of sense, of his own perfections--a revelation of his
+eternal beauty, and wisdom, and goodness, and truth. "God was _good_,
+and being good, he desired that the universe should, as far as possible,
+_resemble_ himself.... Desiring that all things should be _good_, and,
+as far as might be, nothing evil, he took the fluctuating mass of things
+visible, which had been in orderless confusion, and reduced it to
+_order_, considering this to be the _better_ state. Now it was and is
+utterly impossible for the supremely good to form any thing except that
+which is _most excellent_ (κάλλιστον--most fair, most beautiful").[648]
+The object at which the supreme mind aimed being that which is "_best_,"
+we must, in tracing his operations in the universe, always look for
+"_the best_" in every thing.[649] Starting out thus, upon the assumption
+that the goodness of God is the final cause of the universe, Plato
+evolved a system of _optimism_.
+
+The physical system of Plato being thus intended to illustrate a
+principle of optimism, the following results may be expected:
+
+1. That it will mainly concern itself with _final causes_. The universe
+being regarded chiefly, as indeed it is, an indication of the Divine
+Intelligence--every phenomenon will be contemplated in that light.
+Nature is the volume in which the Deity reveals his own perfections; it
+is therefore to be studied solely with this motive, that we may learn
+from thence the perfection of God. The _Timæus_ is a series of ingenious
+hypotheses designed to deepen and vivify our sense of the harmony, and
+symmetry, and beauty of the universe, and, as a consequence, of the
+wisdom, and excellence, and goodness, of its Author.[650]
+
+[Footnote 646: "Timæus," ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 647: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 648: Ibid., ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 649: Ibid., ch. xix.]
+
+[Footnote 650: "Being is related to Becoming (the Absolute to the
+Contingent) as Truth is to Belief; consequently we must not marvel
+should we find it impossible to arrive at any certain and conclusive
+results in our speculations upon the creation of the visible universe
+and its authors; it should be enough for us if the account we have to
+give be as probable as any other, remembering that we are but men, and
+therefore bound to acquiesce in merely probable results, without looking
+for a higher degree of certainty than the subject admits of"--"Timæus,"
+ch. ix.]
+
+Whatever physical truths were within the author's reach, took their
+place in the general array: the vacancies were filled up with the best
+suppositions admitted by the limited science of the time.[651] And it is
+worthy of remark that, whilst proceeding by this "high _à priori_ road,"
+he made some startling guesses at the truth, and anticipated some of the
+discoveries of the modern inductive method, which proceeds simply by the
+observation, comparison, and generalization of facts. Of these prophetic
+anticipations we may instance that of the definite proportions of
+chemistry,[652] the geometrical forms of crystallography,[653] the
+doctrine of complementary colors,[654] and that grand principle that all
+the highest laws of nature assume the form of a precise quantitative
+statement.[655]
+
+2. It may be expected that a system of physics raised on optimistic
+principles will be _mathematical_ rather than experimental. "Intended to
+embody conceptions of proportion and harmony, it will have recourse to
+that department of science which deals with the proportions in space and
+number. Such applications of mathematical truths, not being raised on
+ascertained facts, can only accidentally represent the real laws of the
+physical system; they will, however, vivify the student's apprehension
+of harmony in the same manner as a happy parable, though not founded in
+real history, will enliven his perceptions of moral truth."[656]
+
+[Footnote 651: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+157.]
+
+[Footnote 652: "Timæus," ch. xxxi.]
+
+[Footnote 653: Ibid., ch. xxvii.]
+
+[Footnote 654: Ibid., ch. xlii.]
+
+[Footnote 655: "It is Plato's merit to have discovered that the laws of
+the physical universe are resolvable into numerical relations, and
+therefore capable of being represented by mathematical
+formulæ."--Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 163.]
+
+[Footnote 656: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+163.]
+
+3. Another peculiarity of such a system will be an impatience of every
+merely _mechanical_ theory of the operations of nature.
+
+"The psychology of Plato led him to recognize mind wherever there was
+motion, and hence not only to require a Deity as first mover of the
+universe, but also to conceive the propriety of separate and subordinate
+agents attached to each of its parts, as principles of motion, no less
+than intelligent directors. These agents were entitled '_gods_' by an
+easy figure, discernible even in the sacred language,[657] and which
+served, besides, to accommodate philosophical hypotheses to the popular
+religion. Plato, however, carefully distinguished between the sole,
+Eternal Author of the Universe, on the one hand, and that 'soul,' vital
+and intelligent, which he attaches to the world, as well as the spheral
+intelligences, on the other. These 'subordinate deities,' though
+intrusted with a sort of deputed creation, were still only the deputies
+of the Supreme Framer and Director of all."[658] The "gods" of the
+Platonic system are "subordinate divinities," "generated gods," brought
+into existence by the will and wisdom of the Eternal Father and Maker of
+the universe.[659] Even Jupiter, the governing divinity of the popular
+mythology, is a descendant from powers which are included in the
+creation.[660] The offices they fulfill, and the relations they sustain
+to the Supreme Being, correspond to those of the "angels" of Christian
+theology. They are the ministers of his providential government of the
+world.[661]
+
+[Footnote 657: Psalm lxxxii. I; John x. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 658: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+164.]
+
+[Footnote 659: "Timæus," ch. xv.]
+
+[Footnote 660: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 661: "Laws," bk. x.]
+
+The application of this fundamental conception of the Platonic
+system--_the eternal unity of the principles of Order, Goodness, and
+Truth in an ultimate reality, the Eternal Mind_--to the elucidation of
+the _temporal life_ of man, yields, as a result--
+
+II. THE PLATONIC ETHICS.
+
+Believing firmly that there are unchangeable, necessary, and absolute
+principles, which are the perfections of the Eternal Mind, Plato must,
+of course, have been a believer in an _immutable morality_. He held that
+there is a rightness, a justice, an equity, not arbitrarily constituted
+by the Divine will or legislation, but founded in the nature of God, and
+therefore eternal. The independence of the principles of morality upon
+the mere will of the Supreme Governor is proclaimed in all his
+writings.[662] The Divine will is the fountain of efficiency, the Divine
+reason, the fountain of law. God is no more the creator of _virtue_ than
+he is the creator of _truth_.
+
+And inasmuch as man is a partaker of the Divine essence, and as the
+ideas which dwell in the human reason are "copies" of those which dwell
+in the Divine reason, man may rise to the apprehension and recognition
+of the immutable and eternal principles of righteousness, and "by
+communion with that which is Divine, and subject to the law of order,
+may become himself a subject of order, and divine, so far as it is
+possible for man."[663]
+
+[Footnote 662: In "Euthyphron" especially.]
+
+[Footnote 663: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xiii.]
+
+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 (σοφία) 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" (τὸ ἀγαθόν), 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 God, 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 God; philosophy is the "_Love of God_."[665] Ethically
+viewed, it is this one motive of _love_ for the Supreme Wisdom and
+Goodness, predominating over and purifying and assimilating every desire
+of the soul, and governing every movement of the man, raising man to a
+participation of and communion with Divinity, and restoring him to "the
+_likeness_ of God." "This flight," says Plato, "consists in resembling
+God (όμοίωσιϛ Θεῷ), and this resemblance is the becoming just and holy
+with wisdom."[666] "This assimilation to God is the enfranchisement of
+the divine element of the soul. To approach to God 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: "Phædrus," § 145.]
+
+[Footnote 665: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+61.]
+
+[Footnote 666: "Theætetus," § 84.]
+
+[Footnote 667: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+277.]
+
+[Footnote 668: "Timæsus," 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 God. 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, constitute 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 passions 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 passion 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 participation of the Supreme, the Absolute Good.
+
+This, then, is the meaning of the oft-repeated assertion 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 circumstances 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 passions 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 God 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 God, and
+death must complete the final emancipation 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: "Phædo," §§ 130, 131.]
+
+Independent of all other considerations, virtue is, therefore, to be
+pursued as the true good of the soul. Wisdom, Fortitude, 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
+God."
+
+
+
+
+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 circumstances
+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 analytical. 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 classify 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 classification.
+
+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 analysis 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" (τὰ
+νοουμενα γένη) 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 pass beyond the sensible world and
+ascend to "the absolute," that is, to God.[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 repetition 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 (τῶν καθέκαστα); art is that of universals (τῶν
+καθόλου)."[677]
+
+[Footnote 674: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xx.]
+
+[Footnote 675: "Timæus," 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 classification 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 transmuted
+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
+entitled 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 (νοῦς) 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. Analytic," bk. i. ch. xxxi.]
+
+[Footnote 681: "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 682: "Topics," bk. i. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 683: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 684: "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 685: Ibid., bk. vi. ch. xi.]
+
+[Footnote 686: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 687: Hamilton attempts the following mode of reconciling the
+contradictory positions of Aristotle:
+
+"On the supposition of the mind virtually containing, antecedent to all
+experience, certain universal principles of knowledge, in the form of
+certain necessities of thinking; still it is only by repeated and
+comparative experiments that we compass the certainty; on the one hand,
+that such and such cognitions can not but be thought as necessary,
+native generalities; and, on the other, that such and such cognitions
+may or may not be thought, and are, therefore, as contingent, factitious
+generalizations. To this process of experiment, analysis, and
+classification, through which we attain to a scientific knowledge of
+principles, it might be shown that Aristotle, not improperly, applies
+the term _Induction_."--"Philosophy," p. 88.]
+
+The human mind, he tells us, has two kinds of intelligence--the
+_passive_ intelligence (νοῦς παθητικός), which is the receptacle of
+forms (δεκτικὸν τοῦ εὶδους); and the _active_ intelligence (νοῦς
+ποιητικός), which impresses the seal of thought upon the data furnished
+by experience, and combines them into the unity of a single judgment,
+thus attaining "general notions."[688] The passive intelligence (the
+"external perception" of modern psychology) perceives the individual
+forms which appear in the external world, and the active intelligence
+(the intellect proper) classifies and generalizes according to fixed
+laws or principles inherent in itself; but of these fixed laws--πρῶτα
+νοήματα--first thoughts, or _à priori_ ideas, he offers no proper
+account; they are, at most, purely subjective. This, it would seem, was,
+in effect, a return to the doctrine of Protagoras and his school, "that
+man--the individual--is the measure of all things." The aspects under
+which objects present themselves in consciousness, constitute our only
+ground of knowledge; we have no direct, intuitive knowledge of Being _in
+se_. The noetic faculty is simply a _regulative_ faculty; it furnishes
+the laws under which we compare and judge, but it does not supply any
+original elements of knowledge. Individual things are the only real
+entities,[689] and "universals" have no separate existence apart from
+individuals in which they inhere as attributes or properties. They are
+consequently pure mental conceptions, which are fixed and recalled by
+general names. He thus substitutes a species of conceptual-nominalism in
+place of the realism of Plato. It is true that "real being" (τὸ ὄν) is
+with Aristotle a subject of metaphysical inquiry, but the proper, if not
+the only subsistence, or οὐαία, is the form or abstract nature of
+things. "The essence or very nature of a thing is inherent in the _form_
+and _energy_"[690] The science of Metaphysics is strictly conversant
+about these abstract intellectual forms just as Natural Philosophy is
+conversant about external objects, of which the senses give us
+information. Our knowledge of these intellectual forms is, however,
+founded upon "beliefs" rather than upon immediate intuition, and the
+objective certainty of science, upon the subjective necessity of
+believing, and not upon direct apperception.
+
+[Footnote 688: "On the Soul," ch. vi.; "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 689: "Metaphysics," bk. vi. ch. xiii.]
+
+[Footnote 690: Ibid., bk. vii. ch. iii.]
+
+The points of contrast between the two methods may now be presented in a
+few sentences. Plato held that all our cognitions are reducible to two
+elements--one derived from _sense_, the other from _pure reason_; one
+element particular, contingent, and relative, the other universal,
+necessary, and absolute. By an act of _immediate abstraction_ Plato will
+eliminate the particular, contingent, and relative phenomena, and
+disengage the universal, necessary, and absolute _ideas_ which underlie
+and determine all phenomena. These ideas are the thoughts of the Divine
+Mind, according to which all particular and individual existences are
+generated, and, as divine thoughts, they are real and permanent
+existences. Thus by a process of immediate abstraction, he will rise
+from particular and contingent phenomena to universal and necessary
+principles, and from these to the First Principle of all principles, the
+First Cause of all causes--that is, to _God_.
+
+Aristotle, on the contrary, held that all of our knowledge begins with
+"the singular," that is, with the particular and the relative, and is
+derived from sensation and experience. The "sensible object," taken as
+it is without any sifting and probing, is the basis of science, and
+reason is simply the architect constructing science according to certain
+"forms" or laws inherent in mind. The object, then, of metaphysical
+science is to investigate those "universal notions" under which the mind
+conceives of and represents to itself external objects, and speculates
+concerning them. Aristotle, therefore, agrees with Plato in teaching
+"that science can only be a science of universals,"[691] and "that
+sensation alone can not furnish us with scientific knowledge."[692] How,
+then, does he propose to attain the knowledge of universal principles?
+How will he perform that feat which he calls "passing from the known to
+the unknown?" The answer is, by _comparative abstraction_. The universal
+being constituted by a relation of the object to the thinking subject,
+that is, by a property recognized by the intelligence alone, in virtue
+of which it can be retained as an object of thought, and compared with
+other objects, he proposes to _compare, analyze, define,_ and _classify_
+the primary cognitions, and thus evoke into energy, and clearly present
+those principles or forms of the intelligence which he denominate
+"universals." As yet, however, he has only attained to "general
+notions," which are purely subjective, that is, to logical definitions,
+and these logical definitions are subsequently elevated to the dignity
+of "universal principles and causes" by a species of philosophic
+legerdemain. Philosophy is thus stripped of its metaphysical character,
+and assumes a strictly _logical_ aspect. The key of the Aristotelian
+method is therefore the
+
+ARISTOTELIAN LOGIC.
+
+Pure Logic is the science of the formal laws of thought. Its office is
+to ascertain the rules or conditions under which the mind, by its own
+constitution, reasons and discourses. The office of Applied Logic--of
+logic as an art--is "to form and judge of conclusions, and, through
+conclusions, to establish proof. The conclusions, however, arise from
+propositions, and the propositions from conceptions." It is chiefly
+under the latter aspect that logic is treated by Aristotle. According to
+this natural point of view he has divided the contents of the logical
+and dialectic teaching in the different treatises of the _Organon_.
+
+[Footnote 691: "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 692: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. xxxi.]
+
+The first treatise is the "_Categories_" or "Predicaments"--a work which
+treats of the universal determinations of Being. It is a classification
+of all our mental conceptions. As a matter of fact, the mind forms
+notions or conceptions about those natures and essences of things which
+present an outward image to the senses, or those, equally real, which
+utter themselves to the mind. These may be defined and classified; there
+may be general conceptions to which all particular conceptions are
+referable. This classification has been attempted by Aristotle, and as
+the result we have the ten "Categories" of _Substance, Quantity,
+Quality, Relation, Time, Place, Position, Possession, Action, Passion_.
+He does not pretend that this classification is complete, but he held
+these "Predicaments" to be the most universal expressions for the
+various relations of things, under some one of which every thing might
+be reduced.
+
+The second treatise, "_On Interpretation_," investigates language as the
+expression of thought; and inasmuch as a true or false thought must be
+expressed by the union or separation of a subject and a predicate, he
+deems it necessary to discuss the parts of speech--the general term and
+the verb--and the modes of affirmation and denial. In this treatise he
+develops the nature and limitations of propositions, the meaning of
+contraries and contradictions, and the force of affirmations and denials
+in _possible, contingent_, and _necessary_ matter.
+
+The third are the "_Analytics_," which show how conclusions are to be
+referred back to their principles, and arranged in the order of their
+precedence.
+
+The First or Prior Analytic presents the universal doctrine of the
+Syllogism, its principles and forms, and teaches how must reason, if we
+would not violate the laws of our own mind. The theory of reasoning,
+generally, with a view to accurate demonstration, depends upon the
+construction of a perfect syllogism, which is defined as "a discourse in
+which, certain things being laid down, something else different from the
+premises necessarily results, in consequence of their existence."[693]
+Conclusions are, according to their own contents and end, either
+_Apodeictic_, which deal with necessary and demonstrable matter, or
+_Dialectic_, which deal with probable matter, or _Sophistical_, which
+are imperfect in matter or form, and announced, deceptively, as correct
+conclusions, when they are not. The doctrine of Apodeictic conclusions
+is given in the "_Posterior Analytic_," that of Dialectic conclusions in
+the "_Topics_," and that of the Sophistical in the "_Sophistical
+Elenchi_."
+
+Now, if Logic is of any value as an instrument for the discovery of
+truth, the attainment of certitude, it must teach us not only how to
+deduce conclusions from premises, but it must certify to us the validity
+of the principles from whence we reason and this is attempted by
+Aristotle in the Posterior Analytic. This treatise opens with the
+following statement: All doctrine, and all intellectual discipline,
+arises from a prior or pre-existent knowledge. This is evident, if we
+survey them all; for both mathematical sciences, and also each of the
+arts, are obtained in this manner. The same holds true in the case of
+reasonings, whether through [deductive] _Syllogism_ or through
+_Induction_, for both accomplish the instruction they afford from
+information previously known--the former (syllogistic reasoning)
+receiving it, as it were, from the traditions of the intelligent, the
+latter (inductive reasoning) manifesting the universal through the light
+of the singular.[694] Induction and Syllogism are thus the grand
+instruments of logic.[695]
+
+[Footnote 693: "Prior Analytic," bk. i. ch. i.; "Topics," bk. i. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 694: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 695: "We believe all things through syllogism, or from
+induction."--"Prior Analytic," bk. ii. ch. xxiii.]
+
+Both these processes are based upon an _anterior_ knowledge.
+Demonstrative science must be from things true, first, immediate, more
+known than, prior to, and the causes of, the conclusion, for thus there
+will be the appropriate first principles of whatever is
+demonstrated.[696] The first principles of demonstration, the material
+of thought, must, consequently, be supplied by some power or faculty of
+the mind other than that which is engaged in generalization and
+deductive reasoning. Whence, then, is this "anterior knowledge" derived,
+and what tests or criteria have we of its validity?
+
+1. In regard to deductive or syllogistic reasoning, the views of
+Aristotle are very distinctly expressed.
+
+Syllogistic reasoning "proceeds from generals to particulars."[697] The
+general must therefore be supplied as the foundation of the deductive
+reasoning. Whence, then, is this knowledge of "the general" derived? The
+answer of Aristotle is that the universal major proposition, out of
+which the conclusion of the syllogism is drawn, _is itself necessarily
+the conclusion of a previous induction, and mediately or immediately an
+inference_--a collection from individual objects of sensation or of
+self-consciousness. "Now," says he, "demonstration is from universals,
+but induction from particulars. It is impossible, however, to
+investigate universals except through induction, since things which are
+said to be from abstraction will be known only by induction."[698] It is
+thus clear that Aristotle makes _deduction necessarily dependent upon
+induction_. He maintains that the highest or most universal principles
+which constitute the primary and immediate propositions of the former
+are furnished by the latter.
+
+[Footnote 696: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 697: Ibid., bk. i. ch. xviii.; "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 698: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. xviii.]
+
+2. General principles being thus furnished by induction, we may now
+inquire whence, according to Aristotle, are the materials for induction
+derived? What is the character of that "anterior knowledge" which is the
+basis of the inductive process?
+
+Induction, says Aristotle, is "the progression from singulars to
+universals."[699] It is an illation of the universal from the singular
+as legitimated by the laws of thought. All knowledge, therefore, begins
+with singulars--that is, with individual objects. And inasmuch as all
+knowledge begins with "individual objects," and as the individual is
+constantly regarded by Aristotle as the "object of sense," it is claimed
+that his doctrine is that all knowledge is derived from _sensation_, and
+that science and art result to man (_solely_) by means of _experience._
+He is thus placed at the head of the empirical school of philosophy, as
+Plato is placed at the head of the ideal school.
+
+[Footnote 699: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. xviii.]
+
+This classification, however, is based upon a very superficial
+acquaintance with the philosophy of Aristotle as a whole. The practice,
+so commonly resorted to, of determining the character of the
+Aristotelian philosophy by the light of one or two passages quoted from
+his "Metaphysics," is unjust both to Aristotle and to the history of
+philosophic thought. We can not expect to attain a correct understanding
+of the views of Aristotle concerning the sources and grounds of all
+knowledge without some attention to his psychology. A careful study of
+his writings will show that the terms "sensation" (αὶσθησις) and
+"experience" (ἐμπειρία) are employed in a much more comprehensive sense
+than is usual in modern philosophic writings.
+
+"Sensation," in its lowest form, is defined by Aristotle as "an
+excitation of the soul through the body,"[700] and, in its higher form,
+as the excitation of the soul by any object of knowledge. In this latter
+form it is used by him as synonymous with "intuition," and embraces all
+immediate intuitive perceptions, whether of sense, consciousness, or
+reason. "The universe is derived from particulars, therefore we ought to
+have a sensible perception (αὶσθησις) of these; and this is intellect
+(νοῦς)."[701] Intelligence proper, the faculty of first principles, is,
+in certain respects, a sense, because it is the source of a class of
+truths which, like the perceptions of the senses, are immediately
+revealed as facts to be received upon their own evidence. It thus
+answers to the "sensus communis" of Cicero, and the "Common Sense" of
+the Scottish school. Under this aspect, "Sense is equal to or has the
+force of Science."[702] The term "Experience" is also used to denote,
+not merely the perception and remembrance of the impressions which
+external objects make upon the mind, but as co-extensive with the whole
+contents of consciousness--all that the mind _does_ of its own native
+energy, as well as all that it _suffers_ from without. It is evidently
+used in the Posterior Analytic (bk. ii. ch. xix.) to describe the whole
+process by which the knowledge of universals is obtained. "From
+experience, or from every universal remaining in the soul, the
+principles of art and science arise." The office of experience is "to
+furnish the principles of every science"[703]--that is, to evoke them
+into energy in the mind. 'Experience thus seems to be a thing almost
+similar to science and art.[704] In the most general sense, "sensation"
+would thus appear to be the immediate perception or intuition of facts
+and principles, and "experience" the operation of the mind upon these
+facts and principles, elaborating them into scientific form according to
+its own inherent laws. The "experience" of Aristotle is analogous to the
+"reflection" of Locke.
+
+[Footnote 700: "De Somn.," bk. i.]
+
+[Footnote 701: "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. xi.; see also ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 702: "De Cen. Anim."]
+
+[Footnote 703: "Prior Analytic," bk. i. ch. xix.]
+
+[Footnote 704: "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. i.]
+
+So much being premised, we proceed to remark that there is a distinction
+perpetually recurring in the writings of Aristotle between the elements
+or first principles of knowledge which are "clearest in their own
+nature" and those which "are clearest to our perception."[705] The
+causes or principles of knowledge "are _prior_ and _more known_ to us in
+two ways, for what is prior in nature is not the same as that which is
+prior to us, nor that which is more known (simply in itself) the same as
+that which is more known to us. Now I call things prior and more known
+to us, those which are _nearer to sense_; and things prior and more
+known simply in themselves, those which are _remote from sense_; and
+those things are most remote which are especially _universal_, and those
+nearest which are _singular_; and these are mutually opposed."[706] Here
+we have a distribution of the first or prior elements of knowledge into
+two fundamentally opposite classes.
+
+(i.) _The immediate or intuitive perceptions of sense,_
+
+(ii.) _The immediate or intuitive apperceptions of pure reason,_
+
+[Footnote 705: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. iv.; "Metaphysics," bk. ii. ch. i.;
+"Rhetoric," bk. i. ch. ii.; "Prior Analytic," bk. ii. ch. xxiii.]
+
+[Footnote 706: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. ii.]
+
+The objects of sense-perception are external, individual, "nearest to
+sense," and occasionally or contingently present to sense. The objects
+of the intellect are inward, universal, and the essential property of
+the soul. They are "remote from sense," "prior by nature;" they are
+"forms" essentially inherent in the soul previous to experience; and it
+is the office of experience to bring them forward into the light of
+consciousness, or, in the language of Aristotle, "to evoke them from
+potentiality into actuality." And further, from the "prior" and
+immediate intuitions of sense and intellect, all our secondary, our
+scientific and practical knowledge is drawn by logical processes.
+
+The Aristotelian distribution of the intellectual faculties corresponds
+fully to this division of the objects of knowledge. The human intellect
+is divided by Aristotle into,
+
+1. The Passive or Receptive Intellect (νοῦς παφητικός).--Its office is
+the reception of sensible impressions or images (Φαντάσματα) and their
+retention in the mind (μνήμη). These sensible forms or images are
+essentially immaterial. "Each sensoriurn (αἰσθητήρων) is receptive of
+the sensible quality _without the matter_, and hence when the sensibles
+themselves are absent, sensations and φαντασίκός remain."[707]
+
+[Footnote 707: "De Anima," bk. iii. ch. ii.]
+
+2. The Active or Creative Intellect (νοῦς ποιητικός).--This is the power
+or faculty which, by its own inherent power, impresses "form" upon the
+material of thought supplied by sense-perception, exactly as the First
+Cause combines it, in the universe, with the recipient matter.
+
+"It is necessary," says Aristotle, "that these two modes should be
+opposed to each other, as matter is opposed to form, and to all that
+gives form. The receptive reason, which is as matter, becomes all things
+by receiving their forms. The creative reason gives existence to all
+things, as light calls color into being. The creative reason transcends
+the body, being capable of separation from it, and from all things; it
+is an everlasting existence, incapable of being mingled with matter, or
+affected by it; prior, and subsequent to the individual mind. The
+receptive reason is necessary to individual thought, but it is
+perishable, and by its decay all memory, and therefore individuality, is
+lost to the higher and immortal reason."[708]
+
+This "Active or Creative Intellect" is again further subdivided, by
+Aristotle--
+
+1. The _Scientific_ (έπιστημονικον) part--the "virtue," faculty, or
+"habit of principles." He also designates it as the "place of
+principles," and further defines it as the power "which apprehends those
+existences whose principles can not be otherwise than they are"--that
+is, self-evident, immutable, and necessary truths[709]--the _intuitive
+reason_.
+
+2. The _Reasoning_ (λογιστικόν) part--the power by which we draw
+conclusions from premises, and "contemplate contingent matter"[710]--the
+_discursive reason_.
+
+The correlatives _noetic_ and _dianoetic_, says Hamilton, would afford
+the best philosophic designation of these two faculties; the knowledge
+attained by the former is an "intuitive principle"--a truth at first
+hand; that obtained by the latter is a "demonstrative proposition"--a
+truth at second hand.
+
+The preceding notices of the psychology of Aristotle will aid us
+materially in interpreting his remarks "_Upon the Method and Habits
+necessary to the ascertainment of Principles_."[711]
+
+[Footnote 708: "De Anima," bk. iii. ch. v.]
+
+[Footnote 709: "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 710: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 711: "Post. Analytic," bk. ii, ch. xix., the concluding
+chapter of the Organon.]
+
+"That it is impossible to have scientific knowledge through
+demonstration without a knowledge of first immediate principles, has
+been elucidated before." This being established, he proceeds to explain
+how that "knowledge of first, immediate principles" is developed in the
+mind.
+
+1. The knowledge of first principles is attained by the _intuition of
+sense_--the immediate perception of external objects, as the _exciting_
+or _occasional cause_ of their development in the mind.
+
+"Now there appears inherent in all animals an innate power called
+_sensible perception_ (αἴσθησις); but sense being inherent, in some
+animals a permanency of the sensible object is engendered, but in others
+it is not engendered. Those, therefore, wherein the sensible object does
+not remain have no knowledge without sensible perception, but others,
+when they perceive, retain one certain thing in the soul,... with some,
+_reason_ is produced from the permanency (of the sensible impression),
+[as in man], but in others it is not [as in the brute]. From sense,
+therefore, as we say, memory is produced, and from the repeated
+remembrance of the same thing we get experience.... From experience, or
+_from every universal remaining in the soul_--the one besides the many
+which in all of them is _one_ and the _same_--the principles of art and
+science arise. If experience is conversant with generation, the
+principles of art; if with being, the principles of science.... Let us
+again explain: When one thing without difference abides, there is then
+the first universal (notion) [developed] in the soul; for the singular
+indeed is perceived by sense, _but sense is [also] of the
+universal_"--that is, the universal is immanent in the sensible object
+as a property giving it "form." "It is manifest, then, that primary
+things become necessarily known by induction, for thus sensible
+perception produces [develops or evokes] the _universal_." 2. The
+knowledge of first principles is attained by the _intuition of pure
+intellect_ (νοῦς)--that is, "_intellect itself is the principle of
+science_" or, in other words, intellect is the _efficient, essential
+cause_ of the knowledge of first principles.
+
+"Of those habits which are about intellect by which we ascertain truth,
+_some[712] are always true_, but others[713] admit the false, as opinion
+and reasoning. But science and (pure) intellect are always true, and no
+other kind of knowledge, except intellect [intellectual intuition], is
+more accurate than science. And since the principles of demonstration
+are more known, and all science is connected with reason, there could
+not be a science of principles. But since nothing can be more true than
+science, except intellect, intellect will belong to principles. From
+these [considerations] it is evident that, as demonstration is not the
+principle of demonstration, so neither is science the principle of
+science. If, then, we have no other true genus (of habit) besides
+science, _intellect will be the principle of science_; it will also be
+the principle (or cause of the knowledge) of the principle."
+
+[Footnote 712: The "noetic."]
+
+[Footnote 713: The "dianætic."]
+
+The doctrine of Aristotle regarding "first principles" may perhaps be
+summed up as follows: All demonstrative science is based upon
+_universals_ "prior in nature"--that is, upon _à priori_, self-evident,
+necessary, and immutable principles. Our knowledge of these "first and
+immediate principles" is dependent primarily on _intellect_ (νοῦς) or
+intuitive reason, and secondarily on sense, experience, and induction.
+Prior to experience, the intellect contains these principles in itself
+potentially, as "forms," "laws," "habitudes," or "predicaments" of
+thought; but they can not be "evoked into energy," can not be revealed
+in consciousness, except on condition of experience, and they can only
+be scientifically developed by logical abstraction and definition. The
+ultimate ground of all truth and certainty is thus a mode of our own
+mind, a subjective necessity of thinking, and truth is not in things,
+but in our own minds.[714] "Ultimate knowledge, as well as primary
+knowledge, the most perfect knowledge which the philosopher can attain,
+as well as the point from which he starts, is still a proposition. All
+knowledge seems to be included under two forms--knowledge _that_ it is
+so; knowledge _why_ it is so. Neither of these can, of course, include
+the knowledge at which Plato is aiming--knowledge which is correlated
+with Being--a knowledge, not _about_ things or persons, but _of_
+them."[715]
+
+[Footnote 714: "Metaphysics," bk. v. ch. iv.]
+
+[Footnote 715: Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 190.]
+
+ARISTOTELIAN THEOLOGY
+
+Theoretical philosophy, "the science which has truth for its end," is
+divided by Aristotle into Physics, Mathematics, and Theology, or the
+First Philosophy, now commonly known as "Metaphysics," because it is
+beyond or above physics, and is concerned with the primitive ground and
+cause of all things.[716]
+
+In the former two we have now no immediate interest, but with Theology,
+as "the science of the Divine,"[717] the _First Moving Cause_, which is
+the source of all other causes, and the original ground of all other
+things, we are specially concerned, inasmuch as our object is to
+determine, if possible, whether Greek philosophy exerted any influence
+upon Christian thought, and has bequeathed any valuable results to the
+Theology of modern times.
+
+"The Metaphysics" of Aristotle opens by an enumeration of "the
+principles or causes"[718] into which all existences can be resolved by
+philosophical analysis. This enumeration is at present to be regarded as
+provisional, and in part hypothetical--a verbal generalization of the
+different principles which seem to be demanded to explain the existence
+of a thing, or constitute it what it is. These he sets down as--
+
+[Footnote 716: "Physics are concerned with things which have a principle
+of motion in themselves; mathematics speculate on permanent, but not
+transcendental and self-existent things; and there is another science
+separate from these two, which treats of that which is immutable and
+transcendental, if indeed there exists such a substance, as we shall
+endeavor to show that there does. This transcendental and permanent
+substance, if it exist at all, must surely be the sphere of the
+_divine_--it must be the first and highest principle. Hence it follows
+that there are three kinds of speculative science--Physics, Mathematics,
+and Theology."--"Metaphysics," bk. x. ch. vii.]
+
+[Footnote 717: "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 718: Αἴτιον--cause--is here used by Aristotle in the sense of
+"account of" or "reason why."]
+
+1. The Material Cause (τὴν ὕλην καὶ τὸ ὑποκείμενον)--the matter and
+subject--that _out of_ which a given thing has been originated. "From
+the analogy which this principle has to wood or stone, or any actual
+matter out of which a work of nature or of art is produced, the name
+'material' is assigned to this class." It does not always necessarily
+mean "matter" in the now common use of the term, but "antecedents--that
+is, principles whose inherence and priority is implied in any existing
+thing, as, for example, the premises of a syllogism, which are the
+material cause of the conclusion."[719] With Aristotle there is,
+therefore, "matter as an object of sense," and "matter as an object of
+thought."
+
+2. The Formal Cause (τὴν οὐσίαν καὶ τό τι εἶναι)--the being or abstract
+essence of a thing--that primary nature on which all its properties
+depend. To this Aristotle gave the name of εἶδος--the form or exemplar
+_according to_ which a thing is produced.
+
+3. The Moving or Efficient Cause (ὃθεν ἦ ἆρχη τῆς κινήσεως)--the origin
+and principle of motion--that _by which_ a thing is produced.
+
+4. The Final Cause (τὸ οὗ ἕνεκεν καὶ τὸ ἀγαθόν)--the good end answered
+by the existence of any thing--that for the sake of which_ any thing is
+produced--the ἕνεκα τοῦ, or reason for it.[720] Thus, for instance, in a
+house, the wood out of which it is produced is the _matter (ὕλη), the
+idea or conception according to which it is produced is _the form_
+(εἶδος῏῏μορφή), the builder who erects the house is the _efficient_
+cause, and the reason for its production, or the end of its existence is
+the _final_ cause.
+
+[Footnote 719: Encyclopædia Britannica, article "Aristotle;" "Post.
+Analytic," bk. ii. ch. xi.]
+
+[Footnote 720: "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. iii.]
+
+Causes are, therefore, the elements into which the mind resolves its
+first rough conception of an object. That object is what it is, by
+reason of the matter out of which it sprang, the moving cause which gave
+it birth, the idea or form which it realizes, and the end or object
+which it attains. The knowledge of a thing implies knowing it from these
+four points of view--that is, knowing its four causes or principles.
+
+These four determinations of being are, on a further and closer
+analysis, resolved into the fundamental antithesis of MATTER and FORM.
+
+"All things that are produced," says Aristotle,[721] "are produced from
+something (that is, from _matter_), by something (that is, _form_), and
+become something (the totality--τὸ σύνολον);" as, for example, a statue,
+a plant, a man. To every subject there belongs, therefore, first,
+_matter_ (ὕλη); secondly, _form_ (μορφή). The synthesis of these two
+produces and constitutes _substance_, or οὐσία. Matter and form are thus
+the two grand causes or principles whence proceed all things. The
+formative cause is, at the same time, the moving cause and the final
+cause; for it is evidently the element of determination which impresses
+movement upon matter whilst determining it; and it is also the end of
+being, since being only really exists when it has passed from an
+indeterminate to a determinate state.
+
+[Footnote 721: "Metaphysics," bk. vi. ch. vii.]
+
+In proof that the εἶδος or form is an _efficient_ principle operating in
+every object, which makes it, to our conception, what it is, Aristotle
+brings forward the subject of generation or production.[722] There are
+three modes of production--natural, artificial, and automatic. In
+natural production we discern at once a matter; indeed Nature, in the
+largest sense, may be defined as "that out of which things are
+produced." Now the result formed out of this matter or nature is a given
+substance--a vegetable, a beast, or a man. But what is the _producing_
+cause in each case? Clearly something akin to the result. A man
+generates a man, a plant produces another plant like to itself. There
+is, therefore, implied in the resulting thing a _productive force_
+distinct from matter, upon which it works. And this is the εἶδος, or
+form. Let us now consider artificial production. Here again the form is
+the producing power. And this is in the soul. The art of the physician
+is the εἶδος, which produces actual health; the plan of the architect is
+the conception, which produces an actual house. Here, however, a
+distinction arises. In these artificial productions there is supposed a
+νόησις and a ποίησις. The νόησις is the previous conception which the
+architect forms in his own mind; the ποίησις is the actual creation of
+the house out of the given matter. In this case the conception is the
+moving cause of the production. The form of the statue in the mind of
+the artist is the motive or cause of the movement by which the statue is
+produced; and health must be in the thought of the physician before it
+can become the moving cause of the healing art. Moreover, that which is
+true of artificial production or change is also true of spontaneous
+production. For example, a cure may take place by the application of
+warmth, and this result is accomplished by means of friction. This
+warmth in the body is either itself a portion of health, or something is
+consequent upon it which is like itself, which is a portion of health.
+Evidently this implies the previous presence either of nature or of an
+artificer. It is also clearly evident that this kind of generating
+influence (the automatic) should combine with another. There must be a
+productive power, and there must be something out of which it is
+produced. In this case, then, there will be a ὕλη and an εἶδος.[723]
+
+[Footnote 722: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 723: Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," pp. 205, 206.]
+
+From the above it appears that the _efficient_ cause is regarded by
+Aristotle as identical with the _formal_ cause. So also the _final_
+cause--the end for the sake of which any thing exists--can hardly be
+separated from the perfection of that thing, that is, from its
+conception or form. The desire for the end gives the first impulse of
+motion; thus the final cause of any thing becomes identical with the
+good of that thing. "The moving cause of the house is the builder, but
+the moving cause of the builder is the end to be attained--that is, the
+house." From such examples as these it would seem that the
+determinations of form and end are considered by Aristotle as one, in so
+far as both are merged in the conception of _actuality_; for he regarded
+the end of every thing to be its completed being--the perfect
+realization of its idea or form. The only fundamental determinations,
+therefore, which can not be wholly resolved into each other are _matter
+and form_.[724]
+
+[Footnote 724: Schwegler's "History of Philosophy," pp. 120, 123.]
+
+The opposition of matter and form, with Aristotle, corresponds to the
+opposition between the element of _generality_ and the element of
+_particularity_. Matter is indeterminate; form is determinate. Matter,
+abstracted from form, in thought, is entirely without predicate and
+distinction; form is that which enters into the definition of every
+subject, and without which it could not be defined. Matter is capable of
+the widest diversity of forms, but is itself without form. Pure form is,
+in fact, that which is without matter, or, in other words, it is the
+pure conception of being. Matter is the necessary condition of the
+existence of a thing; form is the essence of each thing, that in virtue
+of which substance is possible, and without which it is inconceivable.
+On the one side is passivity, possibility of existence, capacity of
+action; on the other side is activity, actuality, thought. The unity of
+these two in the realm of determined being constitutes every individual
+substance. The relation of matter and form, logically apprehended, is
+thus the relation of POTENTIALITY and ACTUALITY.
+
+This is a further and indeed a most important step in the Aristotelian
+theology. Matter, as we have seen, after all, amounts to merely capacity
+for action, and if we can not discover some productive power to develop
+potentiality into actuality, we look in vain for some explanation of the
+phenomena around us. The discovery, however, of energy (ἐνέργεια), as a
+principle of this description, is precisely what we wanted, and a
+momentary glance at the actual phenomena will show its perfect identity
+with the εἶδος, or form.[725] "For instance, what is a calm? It is
+evenness in the surface of the sea. Here the sea is the subject, that
+is, the matter in _capacity_, but the evenness is the _energy_ or
+actuality;... energy is thus as form."[726] The form (or idea) is thus
+an energy or actuality (ἐνέργεια); the matter is a capacity or
+potentiality (δύναμις), requiring the co-operation of the energy to
+produce a result.
+
+These terms, which are first employed by Aristotle in their
+philosophical signification, are characteristic of his whole system. It
+is, therefore, important we should grasp their precise philosophical
+import; and this can only be done by considering them in the strictest
+relation to each other. It is in this relation they are defined by
+Aristotle. "Now ἐνέργεια is the existence of a thing not in the sense of
+its potentially existing. The term _potentially_ we use, for instance,
+of the statue in the block, and of the half in the whole (since it may
+be subtracted), and of a person knowing a thing, even when he is not
+thinking of it, but might be so; whereas ἐνέργεια is the opposite. By
+applying the various instances our meaning will be plain, and one must
+not seek a definition in each case, but rather grasp the conception of
+the analogy as a whole,--that it is as that which builds to that which
+has a capacity for building; as the waking to the sleeping; as that
+which sees to that which has sight, but whose eyes are closed; as the
+definite form to the shapeless matter; as the complete to the
+unaccomplished. In this contrast, let the ἐνέργεια be set off as forming
+the one side, and on the other let the potential stand. Things are said
+to be in ἐνέργεια not always in like manner (except so far as there is
+an analogy, that as this thing is in this, and related to this, so is
+that in that, or related to that); for sometimes it implies _motion_ as
+opposed to the _capacity of motion_, and sometimes _complete existence_
+opposed to _undeveloped matter_".[727] As the term δύναμις has the
+double meaning of "_possibility of existence_" as well as "_capacity of
+action_" so there is the double contrast of "_action_" as opposed to the
+capacity of action; and "_actual existence_" opposed to possible
+existence or potentiality. To express accurately this latter antithesis,
+Aristotle introduced the term ἐντελέχεια[728]--entelechy, of which the
+most natural account is that it is a compound of ἐν τέλει ἔχειν--"being
+in a state of perfection."[729] This term, however, rarely occurs in the
+"Metaphysics," whilst ἐνέργεια is everywhere employed, not only to
+express activity as opposed to passivity, but complete existence as
+opposed to undeveloped matter.
+
+[Footnote 725: "That which Aristotle calls 'form' is not to be
+confounded with what we may perhaps call shape [or figure]; a hand
+severed from the arm, for instance, has still the outward shape of a
+hand, but, according to Aristotelian apprehension, it is only a hand now
+as to matter, and not as to form; an actual hand, a hand as to form, is
+only that which can do the proper work of a hand."--Schwegler's "History
+of Philosophy," p. 122.]
+
+[Footnote 726: "Metaphysics," bk. vii. ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 727: "Metaphysics," bk. viii. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 728: "Entelechy indicates the perfected act, the completely
+actual."--Schw.]
+
+[Footnote 729: Grant's Aristotle's "Ethics," vol. i. p. 184.]
+
+"In Physics δύναμις answers to the necessary conditions for the
+existence of any thing before that thing exists. It thus corresponds to
+ὕλη, both to the πρώτη ὕλη--the first matter, or matter devoid of all
+qualities, which is capable of becoming any definite substance, as, for
+example, marble; and also to the ἐσχάτη ὕλη--or matter capable of
+receiving form, as marble the form of the statue." Marble then exists
+potentially in the simple elements before it is marble. The statue
+exists potentially in the marble before it is carved. All objects of
+thought exist, either purely in potentiality, or purely in actuality, or
+both in potentiality and in actuality. This division makes an entire
+chain of all existence. At the one end is matter, the πρώτη ὕλη which
+has a merely potential existence, which is necessary as a condition, but
+which having no form and no qualities, is totally incapable of being
+realized by the mind. At the other end of the chain is pure form, which
+is not at all matter, the absolute and the unconditioned, the eternal
+substance and energy without matter (οὐσία ἀίδιος καὶ ἐνέργεια ἄνευ
+δυνάμεως), who can not be thought as non-existing--the self-existent
+God. Between these two extremes is the whole row of creatures, which out
+of potentiality evermore spring into actual being.[730]
+
+[Footnote 730: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 185.]
+
+The relation of actuality to potentiality is the subject of an extended
+and elaborate discussion in book viii., the general results of which may
+be summed up in the following propositions:
+
+1. _The relation of Actuality to Potentiality is as the Perfect to the
+Imperfect_.--The progress from potentiality to actuality is motion or
+production (κίνησις or γένεσις). But this motion is transitional, and in
+itself imperfect--it tends towards an end, but does not include the end
+in itself. But actuality, if it implies motion, has an end in itself and
+for itself; it is a motion desirable for its own sake.[731] The relation
+of the potential to the actual Aristotle exhibits by the relation of the
+unfinished to the finished work, of the unemployed builder to the one at
+work upon his building, of the seed-corn to the tree, of the man who has
+the capacity to think, to the man actually engaged in thought.[732]
+Potentially the seed-corn is the tree, but the grown-up tree is the
+actuality; the potential philosopher is he who is not at this moment in
+a philosophic condition; indeed, every thing is potential which
+possesses a principle of development, or of change. Actuality or
+entelechy, on the other hand, indicates the _perfect act_, the end
+gained, the completed actual; that activity in which the act and the
+completeness of the act fall together--as, for example, to see, to
+think, where the acting and the completed act are one and the same.
+
+2. _The Relation of Actuality to Potentiality is a causal Relation_.--A
+thing which is endued with a simple capacity of being may nevertheless
+not actually exist, and a thing may have a capacity of being and really
+exist. Since this is the case, there must ensue between non-being and
+real being some such principle as _energy_, in order to account for the
+transition or change.[733] Energy has here some analogy to motion,
+though it must not be confounded with motion. Now you can not predicate
+either motion or energy of things which are not. The moment energy is
+added to them they are. This transition from potentiality to actuality
+must be through the medium of such principles as propension or _free
+will_, because propension or free will possess in themselves the power
+of originating motion in other things.[734]
+
+[Footnote 731: "Metaphysics," bk. viii. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 732: Ibid., bk. viii. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 733: Ibid., bk. viii. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 734: Ibid., bk. viii. ch. v.]
+
+3. _The Relation of Actuality and Potentiality is a Relation of
+Priority_.--Actuality, says Aristotle, is prior to potentiality in the
+order of reason, in the order of substance, and also (though not
+invariably) in the order of time. The first of all capacities is a
+capacity of energizing or assuming a state of activity; for example, a
+man who has the capacity of building is one who is skilled in building,
+and thus able to use his energy in the art of building.[735] The primary
+energizing power must precede that which receives the impression of it,
+Form being older than Matter. But if you take the case of any particular
+person or thing, we say that its capacity of being that particular
+person or thing precedes its being so actually. Yet, though this is the
+case in each particular thing, there is always a foregone energy
+presumed in some other thing (as a prior seed, plant, man) to which it
+owes its existence. One pregnant thought presents itself in the course
+of the discussion which has a direct bearing upon our subject. [Greek:
+Δὑναμιϛ] has been previously defined as "a principle of motion or change
+in another thing in so far forth as it is another thing"[736]--that is,
+it is fitted by nature to have motion imparted to it, and to communicate
+motion to something else. But this motion wants a resting-place. There
+can be no infinite regression of causes. There is some primary [Greek:
+δύναμιϛ] presupposed in all others, which is the beginning of change.
+This is [Greek: Φύσις], or nature. But the first and original cause of
+all motion and change still precedes and surpasses nature. The final
+cause of all potentiality is energy or _actuality_. The one proposed is
+prior to the means through which the end is accomplished. A process of
+actualization, a tendency towards completeness or perfection ([Greek:
+τέλοϛ]) presupposes an absolute actuality which is at once its beginning
+and end. "One energy is invariably antecedent to another in time, up to
+that which is primarily and eternally the Moving Cause."[737]
+
+[Footnote 735: "Metaphysics," bk. viii. ch. viii.]
+
+[Footnote 736: Ibid., bk. iv. ch. xii.]
+
+[Footnote 737: Ibid., bk. viii. ch. viii.]
+
+And now having laid down these fundamental principles of metaphysical
+science, as preparatory to Theology, Aristotle proceeds to establish the
+conception of the Absolute or Divine Spirit _as the eternal, immutable
+Substance, the immaterial Energy, the unchangeable Form of Forms, the
+first moving Cause_.
+
+I. _The Ontological Form of Proof_.--It is necessary to conceive an
+eternal and immutable substance--an actuality which is absolute and
+prior, both logically and chronologically, to all potentiality; for that
+which is potential is simply contingent, it may just as easily not be as
+be; that which exists only in capacity is temporal and corruptible, and
+may cease to be. Matter we know subsists merely in capacity and
+passivity, and without the operation of Energy,(ἐνέργεια), or the
+formative cause, would be to us as non-entity. The phenomena of the
+world exhibits to us the presence of Energy, and energy presupposes the
+existence of an eternal substance. Furthermore, matter and potentiality
+are convertible terms, therefore the primal Energy or Actuality must be
+_immaterial_.[738]
+
+2. _The Cosmological Form of Proof_.--It is impossible that there should
+be _motion_, genesis, or a chain of causes, except on the assumption of
+a first Moving Cause, since that which exists only in capacity can not,
+of itself energize, and consequently without a principle of motion which
+is essentially active, we have only a principle of immobility. The
+principle "ex nihilo nihil" forbids us to assume that motion can arise
+out of immobility, being out of non-being. "How can matter be put in
+motion if nothing that subsists in energy exist, and is its cause?" All
+becoming, therefore, necessarily supposes that which has not become,
+that which is eternally self-active as the principle and cause of all
+motion. There is no refuge from the notion that all things are "born of
+night and nothingness" except in this belief.[739]
+
+[Footnote 738: "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 739: Ibid., bk. xi. ch. vii., viii.]
+
+The existence of an eternal principle subsisting in energy is also
+demanded to explain the _order_ of the world. "For how, let me ask, will
+there prevail _order_ on the supposition that there is no subsistence of
+that which is eternal, and which involves a separable existence, and is
+permanent."[740] "All things in nature are constituted in the best
+possible manner."[741] All things strive after "the good." "The
+appearance of ends and means in nature is a proof of design."[742] Now
+an end or final cause presupposes intelligence,--implies a _mind_ to see
+and desire it. That which is "fair," "beautiful," "good," an "object of
+desire," can only be perceived by Mind. The "final cause" must therefore
+subsist in that which is prior and immovable and eternal; and _Mind_ is
+"that substance which subsists absolutely, and according to
+energy."[743] "The First Mover of all things, moves all things without
+being moved, being an eternal substance and energy; and he moves all
+things as the object of reason and of desire, or love."[744]
+
+[Footnote 740: Ibid., bk. x. ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 741: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 742: "Nat. Ausc.," bk. ii. ch. viii.]
+
+[Footnote 743: "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. vii.]
+
+[Footnote 744: Ibid.]
+
+3. _The Moral Form of Proof_.--So far as the relation of potentiality
+and actuality is identical with the relation of matter and form, the
+argument for the existence of God may be thus presented: The conception
+of an absolute matter without form, involves the supposition of an
+absolute form without matter. And since the conception of form resolves
+itself into _motion_, _conception_, _purpose_ or _end_, so the Eternal
+One is the absolute principle of motion (the πρῶτον κινοῦν), the
+absolute conception or pure intelligence (the pure τί ἦν εἶναι), and the
+absolute ground, reason, or end of all being. All the other predicates
+of the First Cause follow from the above principles with logical
+necessity.
+
+(i.) _He is, of course, pure intellect_, because he is absolutely
+immaterial and free from nature. He is active intelligence, because his
+essence is pure actuality. He is self-contemplating and self-conscious
+intelligence, because the divine thought can not attain its actuality in
+any thing extrinsic; it would depend on something else than self--some
+potential existence for its actualization. Hence the famous definition
+of the absolute as "the thought of thought" (νόησις νοήσεως).[745] "And
+therefore the first and actual perception by mind of Mind itself, doth
+subsist in this way throughout all eternity."[746]
+
+[Footnote 745: Schwegler's "History of Philosophy," p. 125.]
+
+[Footnote 746: "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. ix.]
+
+(ii.) _He is also essential life_. "The principle of life is inherent in
+the Deity, for the energy or active exercise of mind constitutes life,
+and God constitutes this energy; and essential energy belongs to God as
+his best and everlasting life. Now our statement is this--that the Deity
+is a living being that is everlasting and most excellent in nature, so
+that with the Deity life and duration are uninterrupted and eternal; for
+this constitutes the essence of God."[747]
+
+(iii.) _Unity belongs to him_, since multiplicity implies matter; and
+the highest idea or form of the world must be absolutely
+immaterial.[748] The Divine nature is "devoid of parts and indivisible,
+for magnitude can not in any way involve this Divine nature; for God
+imparts motion through infinite duration, and nothing finite--as
+magnitude is--can be possessed of an infinite capacity."[749]
+
+(iv.) _He is immovable and ever abideth the same_; since otherwise he
+could not be the absolute mover, and the cause of all becoming, if he
+were subject to change.[750] God is impassive and unalterable ([Greek:
+ἀπαθὴϛ καὶ ὰναλλοίωτον]); for all such notions as are involved in
+passion or alteration are outside the sphere of the Divine
+existence.[751]
+
+[Footnote 747: "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. vii.]
+
+[Footnote 748: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 749: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 750: Ibid., bk. xi. ch. viii.]
+
+[Footnote 751: Ibid., bk. xi. ch. vii.]
+
+(v.) _He is the ever-blessed God_.--"The life of God is of a kind with
+those highest moods which, with us, last a brief space, it being
+impossible they should be permanent; whereas, with Him they are
+permanent, since His ever-present consciousness is pleasure itself. And
+it is because they are vivid states of consciousness, that waking, and
+perception, and thought, are the sweetest of all things. Now essential
+perception is the perception of that which is most excellent,... and the
+mind perceives itself by participating of its own object of perception;
+but it is a sort of coalescence of both that, in the Divine Mind,
+creates a regular identity between the two, so that with God both (the
+thinker and the thought, the subject and object) are the same. In
+possession of this prerogative, He subsists in the exercise of energy;
+and the contemplation of his own perfections is what, to God, must be
+most agreeable and excellent. This condition of existence, after so
+excellent a manner, is what is "so astonishing to us when we examine
+God's nature, and the more we do so the more wonderful that nature
+appears to us. The mood of the Divine existence is essential energy,
+and, as such, it is a life that is most excellent, blessed, and
+everlasting.[752]
+
+[Footnote 752: "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. vii.]
+
+The theology of Aristotle may be summed up in the following sentences
+selected from book xi. of his "Metaphysics:"
+
+"This motionless cause of motion is a necessary being; and, by virtue of
+such necessity, is the all-perfect being. This all-pervading principle
+penetrates heaven and all nature. It eternally possesses perfect
+happiness; and its happiness is in action. This primal mover is
+immaterial; for its essence is in energy. It is pure thought--thought
+thinking itself--the thought of thought. The activity of pure
+intelligence--such is the perfect, eternal life of God. This primal
+cause of change, this absolute perfection, moves the world by the
+universal desire for the absolute good, by the attraction exercised upon
+it by the Eternal Mind--the serene energy of Divine Intelligence."
+
+It can not be denied that, so far as it goes, this conception of the
+Deity is admirable, worthy, and just. Viewed from a Christian
+stand-point, we at once concede that it is essentially defective. There
+is no clear and distinct recognition of God as Creator and Governor of
+the universe; he is chiefly regarded as the Life of the universe--the
+Intellect, the Energy--that which gives excellence, and perfection, and
+gladness to the whole system of things. The Theology of Aristotle is, in
+fact, metaphysical rather than practical. He does not contemplate the
+Deity as a moral Governor. Whilst Plato speaks of "being made like God
+through becoming just and holy," Aristotle asserts that "all moral
+virtues are totally unworthy of being ascribed to God."[753] He is not
+the God of providence. He dwells alone, supremely indifferent to human
+cares, and interests, and sorrows. He takes no cognizance of individual
+men, and holds no intercourse with man. The God of Aristotle is not a
+being that meets and satisfies the wants of the human heart, however
+well it may meet the demands of the reason.
+
+[Footnote 753: "Ethics," bk. x. ch. viii.]
+
+Morality has no basis in the Divine nature, no eternal type in the
+perfections and government of God, and no supports and aids from above.
+The theology of Aristotle foreshadows the character of the
+
+ARISTOTELIAN ETHICS.
+
+We do not find in Aristotle any distinct recognition of an eternal and
+immutable morality, an absolute right, which has its foundation in the
+nature of God. Plato had taught that there was "an absolute Good, above
+and beyond all existence in dignity and power;" which is, in fact, "the
+cause of all existence and all knowledge," and which is God; that all
+other things are good in proportion as they "partake of this absolute
+Good;" and that all men are so far good as they "resemble God." But with
+this position Aristotle joins issue. After stating the doctrine of Plato
+in the following words--"Some have thought that, besides all these
+manifold goods upon earth, there is some _absolute good_, which is the
+cause to all these of their being good"--he proceeds to criticise that
+idea, and concludes his argument by saying--"we must dismiss the idea at
+present, for if there is any one good, universal and generic, or
+transcendental and absolute, it obviously can never be realized nor
+possessed by man; whereas something of this latter kind is what we are
+inquiring after." He follows up these remarks by saying that "Perhaps
+the knowledge of the idea may be regarded by some as useful, as a
+pattern (παράδειγμα) by which to judge of relative good." Against this
+he argues that "There is no trace of the arts making use of any such
+conception; the cobbler, the carpenter, the physician, and the general,
+all pursue their vocations without respect to the _absolute good_, nor
+is it easy to see how they would be benefited by apprehending it."[754]
+The good after which Aristotle would inquire is, therefore, a _relative
+good_, since the knowledge of the absolute good can not possibly be
+realized.
+
+[Footnote 754: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. vi.]
+
+Instead, therefore, of seeking to attain to "a transcendental and
+absolute good "--a fundamental idea of right, which may be useful as a
+paradigm by which we may judge of relative good, he addresses himself
+solely to the question, "what is good for man"--what is the good
+attainable in action? And having identified the Chief Good with the
+final and perfect end of all action, the great question of the _Ethics_
+is, "_What is the end of human action?_" (τί ἐστι τὸ τῶν πρακτῶν
+τέλος).[755]
+
+[Footnote 755: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. xiii.]
+
+Now an end or final cause implies an intelligence--implies a mind to
+perceive and desire it. This is distinctly recognized by Aristotle. The
+question, therefore, naturally arises--is that end fixed for man by a
+higher intelligence, and does it exist for man both as an idea and as an
+ideal? Can man, first, intellectually apprehend the idea, and then
+consciously strive after its realization? Is it the duty of man to aim
+at fulfilling the purposes of his Creator? To this it may be answered
+that Aristotle is not at all explicit as to God's moral government of
+the world. "Moral government," in the now common acceptation of the
+term, has no place in the system of Aristotle, and the idea of "duty" is
+scarcely recognized. He considers "the good" chiefly in relation to the
+constitution and natural condition of man. "_It is_" says he, "_the end
+towards which nature tends_." As physical things strive unconsciously
+after the end of their existence, so man strives after the good
+attainable in life. Socrates had identified virtue and knowledge, he had
+taught that "virtue is a Science." Aristotle contended that virtue is an
+art, like music and architecture, which must be attained by exercise. It
+is not purely intellectual, it is the bloom of the physical, which has
+become ethical. As the flower of the field, obeying the laws of its
+organization, springs up, blooms, and attains its own peculiar
+perfection, so there is an instinctive desire (ὄρεξις) in the soul which
+at first unconsciously yearns after the good, and subsequently the good
+is sought with full moral intent and insight. Aristotle assumes that the
+desires or instincts of man are so framed as to imply the existence of
+this end (τέλος).[756] And he asserts that man can only realize it in
+the sphere of his own proper functions, and in accordance with the laws
+of his own proper nature and its harmonious development.[757] It is not,
+then, through instruction, or through the perfection of knowledge, that
+man is to attain the good, but through exercise and habit (ἔθος). By
+practice of moral acts we become virtuous, just as by practice of
+building and of music, we become architects and musicians; for the
+habit, which is the ground of moral character, is only a fruit of
+oft-repeated moral acts. Hence it is by these three things--nature,
+habit, reason--that men become good.
+
+[Footnote 756: Ibid, bk. i. ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 757: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. vii.]
+
+Aristotle's question, therefore, is, _What is the chief good for man as
+man_? not what is his chief good as a spiritual and an immortal being?
+or what is his chief good as a being related to and dependent upon God?
+And the conclusion at which he arrives is, that it is _the absolute
+satisfaction of our whole nature_--that which men are agreed in calling
+_happiness_. This happiness, however, is not mere sensual pleasure. The
+brute shares this in common with man, therefore it can not constitute
+the happiness of man. Human happiness must express the completeness of
+rational existence. And inasmuch as intelligence is essential activity,
+as the soul is the _entelechy_ of the body, therefore the happiness of
+man can not consist in a mere passive condition. It must, therefore,
+consist in _perfect activity_ in well-doing, and especially in
+contemplative thought,[758] or as Aristotle defines it--"_It is a
+perfect practical activity in a perfect life_."[759] His conception of
+the chief good has thus two sides, one internal, that which exists in
+and for the consciousness--a "complete and perfect life," the other
+external and practical. The latter, however, is a means to the former.
+That complete and perfect life is the complete satisfaction and
+perfection of our rational nature. It is a state of peace which is the
+crown of exertion. It is the realization of the divine in man, and
+constitutes the absolute and all-sufficient happiness.[760] A good
+action is thus an End-in-itself (τέλειον τέλος) inasmuch as it secures
+the _perfection_ of our nature; it is that for the sake of which our
+moral faculties before existed, hence bringing an inward pleasure and
+satisfaction with it; something in which the mind can rest and fully
+acquiesce; something which can be pronounced beautiful, fitting,
+honorable, and perfect.
+
+[Footnote 758: "If it be true to say that happiness consists in doing
+well, a life of action must be best both for the state and the
+individual. But we need not, as some do, suppose that a life of action
+implies relation to others, or that those only are active thoughts which
+are concerned with the results of action; but far rather we must
+consider those speculations and thoughts to be so which have their _end
+in themselves_, and which are for their own sake."--"Politics," bk. vii.
+ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 759: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 760: "Ethics," bk. x. ch. viii.]
+
+From what has been already stated, it will be seen that the Aristotelian
+conception of _Virtue_ is not conformity to an absolute and immutable
+standard of right. It is defined by him as _the observation of the right
+mean (μεσότης) in action_--that is, the right mean relatively to
+ourselves. "Virtue is a habit deliberately choosing, existing as a mean
+(μέσον) which refers to us, and is defined by reason, and as a prudent
+man would define it; and it is a mean between two evils, the one
+consisting in excess, the other in defect; and further, it is a mean, in
+that one of these falls short of, and the other exceeds, what is right
+both in passions and actions; and that virtue both finds and chooses the
+mean."[761] The perfection of an action thus consists in its containing
+the right degree--the true mean between too much, and too little. The
+law of the μεσότης is illustrated by the following examples: Man has a
+fixed relation to pleasure and pain. In relation to pain, the true mean
+is found in neither fearing it nor courting it, and this is _fortitude_.
+In relation to pleasure, the true mean stands between greediness and
+indifference; this is _temperance_. The true mean between prodigality
+and narrowness is _liberality_; between simplicity and cunning is
+_prudence_; between suffering wrong and doing wrong is _justice_.
+Extending this law to certain qualifications of temper, speech, and
+manners, you have the portrait of a graceful Grecian gentleman. Virtue
+is thus _proportion, grace, harmony, beauty in action_.
+
+[Footnote 761: Ibid, bk. ii. ch. vi.]
+
+It will at once be seen that this classification has no stable
+foundation. It furnishes no ultimate standard of right. The _mean_ is a
+wavering line. It differs under different circumstances and relations,
+and in different times and places. That mean which is sufficient for one
+individual is insufficient for another. The virtue of a man, of a slave,
+and of a child, is respectively different. There are as many virtues as
+there are circumstances in life; and as men are ever entering into new
+relations, in which it is difficult to determine the correct method of
+action, the separate virtues can not be limited to any definite number.
+
+Imperfect as the ethical system of Aristotle may appear to us who live
+in Christian times, it must be admitted that his writings abound with
+just and pure sentiments. His science of Ethics is a _discipline of
+human character in order to human happiness_. And whilst it must be
+admitted that it is directed solely to the improvement of man in the
+present life, he aims to build that improvement on pure and noble
+principles, and seeks to elevate man to the highest perfection of which
+he could conceive. "And no greater praise can be given to a work of
+heathen morality than to say, as may be said of the ethical writings of
+Aristotle, that they contain nothing which a Christian may dispense
+with, no precept of life which is not an element of Christian character;
+and that they only fail in elevating the heart and the mind to objects
+which it needed Divine Wisdom to reveal."[762]
+
+[Footnote 762: Encyclopædia Britannica, article "Aristotle."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS _(continued)_
+
+POST-SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+
+EPICURUS AND ZENO.
+
+
+Philosophy, after the time of Aristotle, takes a new direction. In the
+pre-Socratic schools, we have seen it was mainly a philosophy of nature;
+in the Socratic school it was characterized as a philosophy of mind; and
+now in the post-Socratic schools it becomes a philosophy of life--a
+moral philosophy. Instead of aiming at the knowledge of real Being--of
+the permanent, unchangeable, eternal principles which underlie all
+phenomena, it was now content to aim, chiefly, at individual happiness.
+The primary question now discussed, as of the most vital importance, is,
+What is the ultimate standard by which, amid all the diversities of
+human conduct and opinion, we may determine what is right and good in
+individual and social life?
+
+This remarkable change in the course of philosophic inquiry was mainly
+due--
+
+1st. _To the altered circumstances of the times_. An age of civil
+disturbance and political intrigue succeeded the Alexandrian period. The
+different states of Greece lost their independence, and became gradually
+subject to a foreign yoke. Handed over from one domination to another,
+in the struggles of Alexander's lieutenants, they endeavored to
+reconquer their independence by forming themselves into confederations,
+but were powerless to unite in the defense of a common cause. The Achæan
+and Etolian leagues were weakened by internal discords; and it was in
+vain that Sparta tried to recover her ancient liberties.
+
+Divided amongst themselves, the smaller states invoked the aid of
+dangerous allies--at one time appealing to Macedon, at another to Egypt.
+In this way they prepared for the total ruin of Greek liberty, which was
+destined to be extinguished by Rome.[763]
+
+[Footnote 763: Pressensé, "Religions before Christ," pp. 136-140.]
+
+During this period of hopeless turmoil and social disorder, all lofty
+pursuits and all great principles were lost sight of and abandoned. The
+philosophic movement followed the downward course of society, and men
+became chiefly concerned for their personal interest and safety. The
+wars of the Succession almost obliterated the idea of society, and
+philosophy was mainly directed to the securing of personal happiness; it
+became, in fact, "the art of making one's self happy." The sad reverses
+to which the Grecian mind had been subjected produced a feeling of
+exhaustion and indifference, which soon reflected itself in the
+philosophy of the age.
+
+2d. In connection with the altered circumstances of the age, we must
+also take account of _the apparent failure of the Socratic method to
+solve the problem of Being_.
+
+The teaching of Aristotle had fostered the suspicion that the dialectic
+method was a failure, and thus prepared the way for a return to
+sensualism. He had taught that individuals alone have a real existence,
+and that the "essence" of things is not to be sought in the elements of
+unity and generality, or in the _idea_, as Plato taught, but in the
+elements of diversity and speciality. And furthermore, in opposition to
+Plato, he had taught his disciples to attach themselves to sensation, as
+the source of all knowledge. As the direct consequence of this teaching,
+we find his immediate successors, Dicearchus and Straton, deliberately
+setting aside "the god of philosophy," affirming "that a _divinity_ was
+unnecessary to the explanation of the existence and order of the
+universe." Stimulated by the social degeneracy of the times, the
+characteristic skepticism of the Greek intellect bursts forth anew. As
+the skepticism of the Sophists marked the close of the first period of
+philosophy, so the skepticism of Pyrrhonism marked the close of the
+second. The new skepticism arrayed Aristotle against Plato as the
+earlier skeptics arrayed atomism against the doctrine of the Eleatics.
+They naturally said: "We have been seeking a long time; what have we
+gained? Have we obtained any thing certain and determinate? Plato says
+we have. But Aristotle and Plato do not agree. May not our opinion be as
+good as theirs? What a diversity of opinions have been presented during
+the past three hundred years! One may be as good as another, or they may
+be all alike untrue!" Timon and Pyrrhon declared that, of each thing, it
+might be said to be, and not to be; and that, consequently, we should
+cease tormenting ourselves, and seek to obtain an _absolute calm_, which
+they dignified with the name of _ataraxie_. Beholding the overthrow and
+disgrace of their country, surrounded by examples of pusillanimity and
+corruption, and infected with the spirit of the times themselves, they
+wrote this maxim: "Nothing is infamous; nothing is in itself just; laws
+and customs alone constitute what is justice and what is iniquity."
+Having reached this extreme, nothing can be too absurd, and they cap the
+climax by saying, "We assert nothing; no, not even that we assert
+nothing!"
+
+And yet there must some function, undoubtedly, remain for the "wise man"
+(σοφός).
+
+Reason was given for some purpose. Philosophy must have some end. And
+inasmuch as it is not to determine speculative questions, it must be to
+determine practical questions. May it not teach men to _act_ rather than
+to _think_? The philosopher, the schools, the disciples, survive the
+darkening flood of skepticism.
+
+Three centuries before Christ, the Peripatetic and Platonic schools are
+succeeded by two other schools, which inherit their importance, and
+which, in other forms, and by an under-current, perpetuate the disputes
+of the Peripatetics and Platonists, namely, the Epicureans and Stoics.
+With Aristotle and Plato, philosophy embraced in its circle nature,
+humanity, and God; but now, in the systems of Epicurus and Zeno, moral
+philosophy is placed in the foreground, and assumes the chief, the
+overshadowing pre-eminence. The conduct of life--morality--is now the
+grand subject of inquiry, and the great theme of discourse.
+
+In dealing with _morals_ two opposite methods of inquiry were possible:
+
+1. _To judge of the quality of actions by their_ RESULTS.
+
+2. _To search for the quality of actions in the actions them selves_.
+
+Utility, which in its last analysis is _Pleasure_, is the test of right,
+in the first method; an assumed or discovered _Law of Nature_, in the
+second. If the world were perfect, and the balance of the human
+faculties undisturbed, it is evident that both systems would give
+identical results. As it is, there is a tendency to error on each side,
+which is fully developed in the rival schools of the Epicureans and
+Stoics, who practically divided the suffrages of the mass of educated
+men until the coming of Christ.
+
+EPICUREANS.
+
+Epicurus was born B.C. 342, and died B.C. 270. He purchased a Garden
+within the city, and commenced, at thirty-six years of age, to teach
+philosophy. The Platonists had their academic Grove: the Aristotelians
+walked in the Lyceum: the Stoics occupied the Porch: the Epicureans had
+their Garden, where they lived a tranquil life, and seem to have had a
+community of goods.
+
+There is not one of all the various founders of the ancient
+philosophical schools whose memory was cherished with so much veneration
+by his disciples as that of Epicurus. For several centuries after his
+death, his portrait was treated by them with all the honors of a sacred
+relic: it was carried about with them in their journeys, it was hung up
+in their schools, it was preserved with reverence in their private
+chambers; his birthday was celebrated with sacrifices and other
+religious observances, and a special festival in his honor was held
+every month.
+
+So much honor having been paid to the memory of Epicurus, we naturally
+expect that his works would have been preserved with religious care. He
+was one of the most prolific of the ancient Greek writers. Diogenes
+calls him "a most voluminous writer," and estimates the number of works
+composed by him at no less than three hundred, the principal of which he
+enumerates.[764] But out of all this prodigious collection, not a single
+book has reached us in a complete, or at least an independent form.
+Three letters, which contain some outlines of his philosophy, are
+preserved by Diogenes, who has also embodied his "Fundamental
+Maxims"--forty-four propositions, containing a summary of his ethical
+system. These, with part of his work "On Nature," found during the last
+century among the Greek MSS. recovered at Herculaneum, constitute all
+that has survived the general wreck.
+
+[Footnote 764: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xvi., xvii.]
+
+We are thus left to depend mainly on his disciples and successors for
+any general account of his system. And of the earliest and most
+immediate of these the writings have perished.[765] Our sole original
+authority is Diogenes Laertius, who was unquestionably an Epicurean. The
+sketch of Epicurus which is given in his "Lives" is evidently a "labor
+of love." Among all the systems of ancient philosophy described by him,
+there is none of whose general character he has given so skillful and so
+elaborate an analysis. And even as regards the particulars of the
+system, nothing could be more complete than Laertius's account of his
+physical speculations. Additional light is also furnished by the
+philosophic poem of Lucretius "On the Nature of Things," which was
+written to advocate the physical theory of Epicurus. These are the chief
+sources of our information.
+
+[Footnote 765: Some fragments of the writings of Metrodorus, Phædrus,
+Polystratus, and Philodemus, have been found among the Herculanean
+Papyri, and published in Europe, which are said to throw some additional
+light on the doctrines of Epicurus. See article on "Herculanean Papyri,"
+in Edinburgh Review, October, 1862.]
+
+It is said of Epicurus that he loved to hearken to the stories of the
+indifference and apathy of Pyrrhon, and that, in these qualities, he
+aspired to imitate him. But Epicurus was not, like Pyrrhon, a skeptic;
+on the contrary, he was the most imperious dogmatist. No man ever showed
+so little respect for the opinions of his predecessors, or so much
+confidence in his own. He was fond of boasting that he had made his own
+philosophy--_he_ was a "self-taught" man! Now "Epicurus might be
+perfectly honest in saying he had read very little, and had worked out
+the conclusions in his own mind, but he was a copyist, nevertheless; few
+men more entirely so."[766] His psychology was certainly borrowed from
+the Ionian school. From thence he had derived his fundamental maxim,
+that "sensation is the source of all knowledge, and the standard of all
+truth." His physics were copied from Democritus. With both, "atoms are
+the first principle of all things." And in Ethics he had learned from
+Aristotle, that if an absolute good is not the end of a practical life,
+_happiness_ must be its end.[767] All that is fundamental in the system
+of Epicurus was borrowed from his predecessors, and there is little that
+can be called new in his teaching.
+
+[Footnote 766: Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 236.]
+
+[Footnote 767: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. vi]
+
+The grand object of philosophy, according to Epicurus, _is the
+attainment of a happy life_. "Philosophy," says he, "is the power by
+which reason conducts men to happiness." Truth is a merely relative
+thing, a variable quantity; and therefore the pursuit of truth for its
+own sake is superfluous and useless. There is no such thing as absolute,
+unchangeable right: no action is intrinsically right or wrong. "We
+choose the virtues, not on their own account, but for the sake of
+pleasure, just as we seek the skill of the physician for the sake of
+health."[768] That which is nominally right in morals, that which is
+relatively good in human conduct, is, therefore, to be determined by the
+effects upon ourselves; that which is agreeable--pleasurable, is right;
+that which is disagreeable--painful, is wrong. "The virtues are connate
+with living pleasantly."[769] Pleasure (ἡδονή), then, is the great end
+to be sought in human action. "Pleasure is the chief good, the beginning
+and end of living happily."[770]
+
+[Footnote 768: "Fundamental Maxims," preserved in Diogenes Laertius,
+"Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxx.]
+
+[Footnote 769: "Epicurus to Menæceus," in Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of
+the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxvii.]
+
+[Footnote 770: Id., ib.]
+
+The proof which Epicurus offers in support of his doctrine, "that
+pleasure is the chief good," is truly characteristic. "All animals from
+the moment of their birth are delighted with pleasure and offended with
+pain, by their natural instincts, and without the employment of reason.
+Therefore we, also, of our own inclination, flee from pain."[771] "All
+men like pleasure and dislike pain; they naturally shun the latter and
+pursue the former." "If happiness is present, we have every thing, and
+when it is absent, we do every thing with a view to possess it."[772]
+Virtue thus consists in man's doing deliberately what the animals do
+instinctively--that is, choose pleasure and avoid pain.
+
+[Footnote 771: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xxix.]
+
+[Footnote 772: Id., ib., bk. x. ch. xxvii.]
+
+"Every kind of pleasure" is, in the estimation of Epicurus, "alike
+good," and alike proper. "If those things which make the pleasures of
+debauched men put an end to the fears of the mind, and to those which
+arise about the heavenly bodies [supernatural powers], and death and
+pain,... we should have no pretense for blaming those who wholly devote
+themselves to pleasure, and who never feel any pain, or grief (which is
+the chief evil) from any quarter."[773] Whilst, however, all pleasures
+of the body, as well as the mind, are equal in dignity, and alike good,
+they differ in intensity, in duration, and, especially, in their
+consequences. He therefore divides pleasure into two classes; and in
+this, as Cousin remarks, is found the only element of originality in his
+philosophy. These two kinds of pleasure are:
+
+1. _The pleasure of movement, excitement, energy_ (ἡδονὴ ἐν
+κινήσει).[774] This is the most lively pleasure; it supposes the
+greatest development of physical and mental power. "Joy and cheerfulness
+are beheld in motion and energy." But it is not the most enduring
+pleasure, and it is not the most perfect. It is accompanied by
+uneasiness; it "brings with it many perturbations," and it yields some
+bitter fruits.
+
+[Footnote 773: "Fundamental Maxims," No. 9, in Diogenes Laertius, "Lives
+of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxxi.]
+
+[Footnote 774: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xxviii.]
+
+2. _The second kind of pleasure is the pleasure of repose, tranquillity,
+impassibility_ (ἡδονὴ καταστηματική). This is a state, a "condition,"
+rather than a motion. It is "the freedom of the body from pain, and the
+soul from confusion."[775] This is perfect and unmixed happiness--the
+happiness of God; and he who attains it "will be like a god among men."
+"The storm of the soul is at an end, and body and soul are perfected."
+
+Now, whilst "no pleasure is intrinsically bad,"[776] prudence
+(φρόνησις), or practical wisdom, would teach us to choose the highest
+and most perfect happiness. Morality is therefore the application of
+reason to the conduct of life, and virtue is wisdom. The office of
+reason is to "determine our choices"--to take account of the duration of
+pleasures, to estimate their consequences, and to regard the happiness
+of a whole lifetime, and not the enjoyment of a single hour. Without
+wisdom men will choose the momentary excitements of passion, and follow
+after agitating pleasures, which are succeeded by pain; they will
+consequently lose "tranquillity of mind." "It is not possible," says
+Epicurus, "to live pleasantly without living prudently and honorably and
+justly."[777] The difference, then, between the philosopher and the
+ordinary man is this--that while both seek pleasure, the former knows
+how to forego certain indulgences which cause pain and vexation
+hereafter, whereas the ordinary man seeks only immediate enjoyment.
+Epicurus does not dispense with virtue, but he simply employs it as a
+means to an end, namely, the securing of happiness.[778]
+
+[Footnote 775: Id., ib.]
+
+[Footnote 776: "Fundamental Maxims," No. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 777: Ibid., No. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 778: Pressensé, "Religions before Christ," p. 141.]
+
+Social morality is, like private morality, founded upon _utility._ As
+nothing is intrinsically right or wrong in private life, so nothing is
+intrinsically just or unjust in social life. "Justice has no independent
+existence: it results from mutual contracts, and establishes itself
+wherever there is a mutual engagement to guard against doing or
+sustaining any injury. Injustice is not intrinsically bad; it has this
+character only because there is joined with it the fear of not escaping
+those who are appointed to punish actions marked with this
+character."[779] Society is thus a contract--an agreement to promote
+each other's happiness. And inasmuch as the happiness of the individual
+depends in a great degree upon the general happiness, the essence of his
+ethical system, in its political aspects, is contained in inculcating
+"the greatest happiness of the greatest number."
+
+If you ask Epicurus what a man shall do when it is clearly his immediate
+interest to violate the social contract, he would answer, that if your
+general interest is secured by always observing it, you must make
+momentary sacrifices for the sake of future good. But "when, in
+consequence of new circumstances, a thing which has been pronounced just
+does not any longer appear to agree with utility, the thing which was
+just... ceases to be just the moment it ceases to be useful."[780] So
+that self-interest is still the basis of all virtue. And if, by the
+performance of duty, you are exposed to great suffering, and especially
+to death, you are perfectly justified in the violation of any and all
+contracts. Such is the social morality of Epicurus.
+
+With coarse and energetic minds the doctrine of Epicurus would
+inevitably lead to the grossest sensuality and crime; with men whose
+temperament was more apathetic, or whose tastes were more pure, it would
+develop a refined selfishness--a perfect egoism, which Epicurus has
+adorned with the name "tranquillity of mind--impassibility,"
+(ἀταραξία).[781]
+
+[Footnote 779: "Fundamental Maxims," Nos. 35, 36.]
+
+[Footnote 780: Ibid., No. 41.]
+
+[Footnote 781: It is scarcely necessary to discuss the question whether,
+by making pleasure the standard of right, Epicurus intended to encourage
+what is usually called sensuality. He earnestly protested against any
+such unfavorable interpretation of his doctrine:--"When we say that
+pleasure is a chief good, we are not speaking of the pleasures of the
+debauched man, or those which lie in sensual enjoyment, as some think
+who are ignorant, and who do not entertain our opinions, or else
+interpret them perversely; but we mean the freedom of the body from
+pain, and the soul from confusion" ("Epicurus to Menæceus," in Diogenes
+Laertius, "Lives," bk. x. ch. xxvii.). The most obvious tendency of this
+doctrine is to extreme selfishness, rather than extreme sensuality--a
+selfishness which prefers one's own comfort and case to every other
+consideration.
+
+As to the personal character of Epicurus, opinions have been divided
+both in ancient and modern times. By some the garden has been called a
+"sty." Epicurus has been branded as a libertine, and the name
+"Epicurean" has, in almost all languages, become the synonym of
+sensualism. Diogenes Laertius repels all the imputations which are cast
+upon the moral character of his favorite author, and ascribes them to
+the malignity and falsehood of the Stoics. "The most modern criticism
+seems rather inclined to revert to the vulgar opinion respecting him,
+rejecting, certainly with good reason, the fanatical panegyrics of some
+French and English writers of the last century. Upon the whole, we are
+inclined to believe that Epicurus was an apathetic, decorous, formal
+man, who was able, without much difficulty, to cultivate a measured and
+even habit of mind, who may have occasionally indulged in sensual
+gratifications to prove that he thought them lawful, but who generally
+preferred, as a matter of taste, the exercises of the intellect to the
+more violent forms of self-indulgence. And this life, it seems to us,
+would be most consistent with his opinions. To avoid commotion, to make
+the stream of life flow on as easily as possible, was clearly the aim of
+his philosophy."--Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 236.]
+
+To secure this highest kind of happiness--this pure impassivity, it was
+necessary to get rid of all superstitious fears of death, of
+supernatural beings, and of a future retribution.[782] The chief causes
+of man's misery are his illusions, his superstitions, and his
+prejudices. "That which principally contributes to trouble the spirit of
+men, is the persuasion which they cherish that the stars are beings
+imperishable and happy (_i.e.,_ that they are gods), and that then our
+thoughts and actions are contrary to the will of those superior beings;
+they also, being deluded by these fables, apprehend an eternity of
+evils, they fear the insensibility of death, as though that could affect
+them...." "The real freedom from this kind of trouble consists in being
+emancipated from all these things."[783] And this emancipation is to be
+secured by the study of philosophy--that is, of that philosophy which
+explains every thing on natural or physical principles, and excludes all
+supernatural powers.
+
+[Footnote 782: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. 1. 100-118.]
+
+[Footnote 783: Epicurus to Herodotus, in Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of
+the Philosophers," p. 453 (Bohn's edition).]
+
+That ignorance which occasions man's misery is two-fold, (i.) _Ignorance
+of the external world, which leads to superstition._ All unexplained
+phenomena are ascribed to unseen, supernatural powers; often to
+malignant powers, which take pleasure in tormenting man; sometimes to a
+Supreme and Righteous Power, which rewards and punishes men for their
+good or evil conduct. Hence a knowledge of Physics, particularly the
+physics which Democritus taught, was needful to deliver men from false
+hopes and false fears.[784] (ii.) _Ignorance of the nature of man, of
+his faculties, powers, and the sources and limits of his knowledge_,
+from whence arise illusions, prejudices, and errors. Hence the need of
+Psychology to ascertain the real grounds of human knowledge, to explain
+the origin of man's illusions, to exhibit the groundlessness of his
+fears, and lead him to a just conception of the nature and end of his
+existence.
+
+[Footnote 784: "The study of physics contributes more than any thing
+else to the tranquillity and happiness of life."--Diogenes Laertius,
+"Lives," bk. x. ch. xxiv. "For thus it is that _fear_ restrains all men,
+because they observe many things effected on the earth and in heaven, of
+which effects they can by no means see the causes, and therefore think
+that they are wrought by a _divine_ power. For which reasons, when we
+have clearly seen that _nothing can be produced from nothing_, we shall
+have a more accurate perception of that of which we are in search, and
+shall understand whence each individual thing is generated, and how all
+things are done without the agency of the gods."--Lucretius, "On the
+Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 145-150.]
+
+Physics and Psychology are thus the only studies which Epicurus would
+tolerate as "conducive to the happiness of man." The pursuit of truth
+for its own sake was useless. Dialectics, which distinguish the true
+from the false, the good from the bad, on _à priori_ grounds, must be
+banished as an unnecessary toil, which yields no enjoyment. Theology
+must be cancelled entirely, because it fosters superstitious fears. The
+idea of God's taking knowledge of, disapproving, condemning, punishing
+the evil conduct of men, is an unpleasant thought. Physics and
+Psychology are the most useful, because the most "agreeable," the most
+"comfortable" sciences.
+
+EPICUREAN PHYSICS.
+
+In his physical theories Epicurus followed Leucippus and Democritus. He
+expounds these theories in his letters to Herodotus and Pythocles, which
+are preserved in Diogenes Laertius.[785] We shall be guided mainly by
+his own statements, and when his meaning is obscure, or his exposition
+is incomplete, we shall avail ourselves of the more elaborate statements
+of Lucretius,[786] who is uniformly faithful to the doctrine of
+Epicurus, and universally regarded as its best expounder.
+
+The fundamental principle of his philosophy is the ancient maxim--"_de
+nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil fosse reverti_;" but instead of employing
+this maxim in the sense in which it is used by Parmenides, Anaxagoras,
+Empedocles, and others, to prove there must be something self-existent
+and eternal, or in other words, "that nothing which once was not can
+ever of itself come into being," he uses it to disprove a divine
+creation, and even presents the maxim in an altered form--viz., "nothing
+is ever _divinely_ generated from nothing;"[787] and he thence concludes
+that the world was by no means made for us by _divine_ power.[788]
+Nature is eternal. "The universal whole always was such as it now is,
+and always will be such." "The universe also is infinite, for that which
+is finite has a limit, but the universe has no limit."[789]
+
+[Footnote 785: "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.]
+
+[Footnote 786: "De Natura Rerum."]
+
+[Footnote 787: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i.]
+
+[Footnote 788: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 789: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xxiv.]
+
+The two great principles of nature are a _vacuum_, and a _plenum._ The
+plenum is _body_, or tangible nature; the vacuum is _space_, or
+intangible nature. "We know by the evidences of the senses (which are
+our only rule of reasoning) that _bodies_ have a real existence, and we
+infer from the evidence of the senses that the vacuum has a real
+existence; for if space have no real existence, there would be nothing
+in which bodies can move, as we see they really do move. Let us add to
+this reflection that one can not conceive, either in virtue of
+perception, or of any analogy founded on perception, any general quality
+peculiar to all beings, which is not either an attribute, or an
+accident, of the body or of the vacuum."[790]
+
+Of bodies some are "combinations"--concrete bodies--and some are
+primordial "elements," out of which combinations are formed. These
+primordial elements, out of which the universe is generated, are
+"_atoms_" (ἄτομοι). These atoms are "the first principles" and "seeds"
+of all things.[791] They are "_infinite_ in number," and, as their name
+implies, they are "_infrangible" "unchangeable_" and
+"_indestructible."_[792] Matter is, therefore, not infinitely divisible;
+there must be a point at which division ends.[793]
+
+The only qualities of atoms are _form_, _magnitude_, and _density._ All
+the other sensible qualities of matter--the secondary qualities--as
+color, odor, sweetness, bitterness, etc.--are necessarily inherent in
+form. All secondary qualities are changeable, but the primary atoms are
+unchangeable; "for in the dissolution of combined bodies there must be
+something _solid_ and _indestructible,_ of such a kind that it will not
+change, either into what does not exist, or out of what does not exist,
+but the change results from a simple displacement of parts, which is the
+most usual case, or from an addition or subtraction of particles."[794]
+
+[Footnote 790: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xxiv.]
+
+[Footnote 791: Id., ib., bk. x. ch. xxv.]
+
+[Footnote 792: Id., ib., bk. x. ch. xxiv.]
+
+[Footnote 793: Id., ib.; Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l.
+616-620.]
+
+[Footnote 794: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xxiv.]
+
+The atoms are not all of one _form_, but of different forms suited to
+the production of different substances by combination; some are square,
+some triangular, some smooth and spherical, some are hooked with points.
+They are also diversified in _magnitude_ and _density_. The number of
+original forms is "incalculably varied," but not infinite. "Every
+variety of forms contains an infinitude of atoms, but there is not, for
+that reason, an infinitude of forms; it is only the number of them which
+is beyond computation."[795] To assert that atoms are of every kind of
+form, magnitude, and density, would be "to contradict the phenomena;
+"for experience teaches us that objects have a finite magnitude, and
+form necessarily supposes limitation.
+
+[Footnote 795: Id., ib.]
+
+A variety of these primordial forms enter into the composition of all
+sensible objects, because sensible objects possess different qualities,
+and these diversified qualities can only result from the combination of
+different original forms. "The earth has, in itself, primary atoms from
+which springs, rolling forth cool _water_, incessantly recruit the
+immense sea; it has also atoms from which _fire_ arises.... Moreover,
+the earth contains atoms from which it can raise up rich _corn_ and
+cheerful _groves_ for the tribes of men...." So that "no object in
+nature is constituted of one kind of elements, and whatever possesses in
+itself must numerous powers and energies, thus demonstrates that it
+contains more numerous kinds of primary particles,"[796] or primordial
+"seeds of things."
+
+"The atoms are in a continual state of _motion_" and "have moved with
+_equal rapidity_ from all eternity, since it is evident the vacuum can
+offer no resistance to the heaviest, any more than the lightest." The
+primary and original movement of all atoms is _in straight lines, by
+virtue of their own weight_. The vacuum separates all atoms one from
+another, at greater or less distances, and they preserve their own
+peculiar motion in the densest substances.[797]
+
+[Footnote 796: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 582-600.]
+
+[Footnote 797: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xxiv.; Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 80-92.]
+
+And now the grand crucial question arises--_How do atoms combine so as
+to form concrete bodies?_ If they move in straight lines, and with equal
+rapidity from all eternity, then they can never unite so as to form
+concrete substances. They can only coalesce by deviating from a straight
+line.[798] How are they made to deviate from a straight line? This
+deviation must be introduced _arbitrarily_, or by some _external cause_.
+And inasmuch as Epicurus admits of no causes "but space and matter," and
+rejects all divine or supernatural interposition, the _new_ movement
+must be purely arbitrary. They deviate _spontaneously,_ and of their own
+accord. "The system of nature immediately appears _as a free agent_,
+released from tyrant masters, to do every thing of itself spontaneously,
+without the help of the gods."[799] The manner in which Lucretius proves
+this doctrine is a good example of the petitio principii. He assumes, in
+opposition to the whole spirit and tendency of the Epicurean philosophy,
+that man has "a free will," and then argues that if man who is nothing
+but an aggregation of atoms, can "turn aside and alter his own
+movements," the primary elements, of which his soul is composed, must
+have some original spontaneity. "If all motion is connected and
+dependent, and a new movement perpetually arises from a former one in a
+certain order, and if the primary elements do not produce any
+commencement of motion by deviating from the straight line to break the
+laws of fate, so that cause may not follow cause in infinite succession,
+_whence comes this freedom of will_ to all animals in the world? whence,
+I say, is this liberty of action wrested from the fates, by means of
+which we go wheresoever inclination leads each of us? whence is it that
+we ourselves turn aside, and alter our motions, not at any fixed time,
+nor in any fixed part of space, but just as our own minds prompt?....
+Wherefore we must necessarily confess that the same is the case with the
+seeds of matter, and there is some other cause besides strokes and
+weight [resistance and density] from which this power [of free movement]
+is innate in them, since we see that _nothing is produced from
+nothing_."[800] Besides form, extension, and density, Epicurus has found
+another inherent or essential quality of matter or atoms, namely,
+"_spontaneous" motion._
+
+[Footnote 798: "At some time, though at no fixed and determinate time,
+and at some point, though at no fixed and determinate point, they turn
+aside from the right line, but only so far as you can call the least
+possible deviation."--Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. ii. l.
+216-222.]
+
+[Footnote 799: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things" bk. ii. 1.
+1092-1096.]
+
+[Footnote 800: Id., ib., bk. ii. l. 250-290.]
+
+By a slight "voluntary" deflection from the straight line, atoms are now
+brought into contact with each other; "they strike against each other,
+and by the percussion new movements and new complications
+arise"--"movements from high to low, from low to high, and horizontal
+movements to and fro, in virtue of this reciprocal percussion." The
+atoms "jostling about, _of their own accord_, in infinite modes, were
+often brought together confusedly, irregularly, and to no purpose, but
+at length they _successfully coalesced_; at least, such of them as were
+thrown together suddenly became, in succession, the beginnings of great
+things--as earth, and air, and sea, and heaven."[801]
+
+[Footnote 801: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. ii. l.
+1051-1065.]
+
+And now Lucretius shall describe the formation of the different parts of
+the world according to the cosmogony of Epicurus. We quote from Good's
+translation:
+
+     But from this boundless mass of matter first
+     How heaven, and earth, and ocean, sun, and moon,
+     Rose in nice order, now the muse shall tell.
+     For never, doubtless, from result of thought,
+     Or mutual compact, could primordial seeds
+     First harmonize, or move with powers precise.
+     But countless crowds in countless manners urged,
+     From time eternal, by intrinsic weight
+     And ceaseless repercussion, to combine
+     In all the possibilities of forms,
+     Of actions, and connections, and exert
+     In every change some effort to create--
+     Reared the rude frame at length, abruptly reared,
+     Which, when once gendered, must the basis prove
+     Of things sublime; and whence eventual rose
+     Heaven, earth, and ocean, and the tribes of sense.
+
+     Yet now nor sun on fiery wheel was seen
+     Riding sublime, nor stars adorned the pole,
+     Nor heaven, nor earth, nor air, nor ocean lived,
+     Nor aught of prospect mortal sight surveyed;
+     But one vast chaos, boisterous and confused.
+     Yet order hence began; congenial parts
+     Parts joined congenial; and the rising world
+     Gradual evolved: its mighty members each
+     From each divided, and matured complete
+     From seeds appropriate; whose wild discortderst,
+     Reared by their strange diversities of form,
+     With ruthless war so broke their proper paths,
+     Their motions, intervals, conjunctions, weights,
+     And repercussions, nought of genial act
+     Till now could follow, nor the seeds themselves
+     E'en though conjoined in mutual bonds, co
+     Thus air, secreted, rose o'er laboring earth;
+     Secreted ocean flowed; and the pure fire,
+     Secreted too, toward ether sprang sublime.
+
+     But first the seeds terrene, since ponderous most
+     And most perplext, in close embraces clung,
+     And towards the centre conglobating sunk.
+     And as the bond grew firmer, ampler forth
+     Pressed they the fluid essences that reared
+     Sun, moon, and stars, and main, and heaven's high wall.
+     For those of atoms lighter far consist,
+     Subtiler, and more rotund than those of earth.
+     Whence, from the pores terrene, with foremost haste
+     Rushed the bright ether, towering high, and swift
+     Streams of fire attracting as it flowed.
+
+     Then mounted, next, the base of sun and moon,
+     'Twixt earth and ether, in the midway air
+     Rolling their orbs; for into neither these
+     Could blend harmonious, since too light with earth
+     To sink deprest, while yet too ponderous far
+     To fly with ether toward the realms extreme:
+     So 'twixt the two they hovered; _vital_ there
+     Moving forever, parts of the vast whole;
+     As move forever in the frame of man
+     Some active organs, while some oft repose.[802]
+
+[Footnote 802: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," b. v. l. 431-498]
+
+After explaining the origin and causes of the varied celestial
+phenomena, he proceeds to give an account of the production of plants,
+animals, and man:
+
+     Once more return we to the world's pure prime,
+     Her fields yet liquid, and the tribes survey
+     First she put forth, and trusted to the winds.
+
+     And first the race she reared of verdant herbs,
+     Glistening o'er every hill; the fields at large
+     Shone with the verdant tincture, and the trees
+     Felt the deep impulse, and with outstretched arms
+     Broke from their bonds rejoicing. As the down
+     Shoots from the winged nations, or from beasts
+     Bristles or hair, so poured the new-born earth
+     Plants, fruits, and herbage. Then, in order next,
+     Raised she the sentient tribes, in various modes,
+     By various powers distinguished: for not heaven
+     Down dropped them, nor from ocean's briny waves
+     Sprang they, terrestrial sole; whence, justly _Earth_
+     Claims the dear name of mother, since alone
+     Flowed from herself whate'er the sight surveys.
+
+     E'en now oft rears she many a sentient tribe
+     By showers and sunshine ushered into day.[803]
+     Whence less stupendous tribes should then have risen
+     More, and of ampler make, herself new-formed,
+     In flower of youth, and _Ether_ all mature.[804]
+
+     Of these birds first, of wing and plume diverse,
+     Broke their light shells in spring-time: as in spring
+     Still breaks the grasshopper his curious web,
+     And seeks, spontaneous, foods and vital air.
+
+     Then rushed the ranks of mortals; for the soil,
+     Exuberant then, with warmth and moisture teemed.
+     So, o'er each scene appropriate, myriad wombs
+     Shot, and expanded, to the genial sward
+     By fibres fixt; and as, in ripened hour,
+     Their liquid orbs the daring foetus broke
+     Of breath impatient, nature here transformed
+     Th' assenting earth, and taught her opening veins
+     With juice to flow lacteal; as the fair
+     Now with sweet milk o'erflows, whose raptured breast
+     First hails the stranger-babe, since all absorbed
+     Of nurture, to the genial tide converts.
+     Earth fed the nursling, the warm ether clothed,
+     And the soft downy grass his couch compressed.[805]
+
+[Footnote 803: The doctrine of "spontaneous generations" is still more
+explicitly announced in book ii. "Manifest appearances compel us to
+believe that animals, though possessed of sense, are generated from
+senseless atoms. For you may observe living worms proceed from foul
+dung, when the earth, moistened with immoderate showers, has contracted
+a kind of putrescence; and you may see all other things change
+themselves, similarly, into other things."--Lucretius, "On the Nature of
+Things," bk. i. l. 867-880.]
+
+[Footnote 804: Ether is the father, earth the mother of all organized
+being.--Id., ib., bk. i. l. 250-255.]
+
+[Footnote 805: Id., ib., bk. v. l. 795-836.]
+
+A state of pure savagism, or rather of mere animalism, was the primitive
+condition of man. He wandered naked in the woods, feeding on acorns and
+wild fruits, and quenched his thirst at the "echoing waterfalls," in
+company with the wild beast.
+
+Through the remaining part of book v. Lucretius describes how speech was
+invented; how society originated, and governments were instituted; how
+civilization commenced; and how religion arose out of ignorance of
+natural causes; how the arts of life were discovered, and how science
+sprang up. And all this, as he is careful to tell us, without any divine
+instruction, or any assistance from the gods.
+
+Such are the physical theories of the Epicureans. The primordial
+elements of matter are infinite, eternal, and self-moved. After ages
+upon ages of chaotic strife, the universe at length arose out of an
+_infinite_ number of atoms, and a _finite_ number of forms, by a
+fortuitous combination. Plants, animals, and man were spontaneously
+generated from ether and earth. Languages, society, governments, arts
+were gradually developed. And all was achieved simply by blind,
+unconscious nature-forces, without any designing, presiding, and
+governing Intelligence--that is, without a God.
+
+The evil genius which presided over the method of Epicurus, and
+perverted all his processes of thought, is clearly apparent. The end of
+his philosophy was not the discovery of truth. He does not commence his
+inquiry into the principles or causes which are adequate to the
+explanation of the universe, with an unprejudiced mind. He everywhere
+develops a malignant hostility to religion, and the avowed object of his
+physical theories is to rid the human mind of all fear of supernatural
+powers--that is, of all fear of God.[806] "The phenomena which men
+observe to occur in the earth and the heavens, when, as often happens,
+they are perplexed with fearful thoughts, overawe their minds with a
+dread of the gods, and humble and depress them to the earth. For
+ignorance of natural causes obliges them to refer all things to the
+power of the divinities, and to resign the dominion of the world to
+them; because of those effects they can by no means see the origin, and
+accordingly suppose that they are produced by divine influence."[807]
+
+[Footnote 806: "Let us trample religion underfoot, that the victory
+gained over it may place us on an equality with heaven" (book i.). See
+Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxiv. pp.
+453,454 (Bohn's edition); Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i.
+l. 54-120.]
+
+[Footnote 807: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. vi. l. 51-60.]
+
+To "expel these fancies from the mind" as "inconsistent with its
+tranquillity and opposed to human happiness," is the end, and, as
+Lucretius believes, the glory of the Epicurean philosophy. To accomplish
+this, God must be placed at an infinite distance from the universe, and
+must be represented as indifferent to every thing that transpires within
+it. We "must beware of making the Deity interpose here, for that Being
+we ought to suppose _exempt from all occupation_, and perfectly
+happy,"[808]--that is, absolutely impassible. God did not make the
+world, and he does not govern the world. There is no evidence of design
+or intelligence in its structure, and "such is the faultiness with which
+it stands affected, that it can not be the work of a Divine power."[809]
+
+Epicurus is, then, an unmistakable Atheist. He did not admit a God in
+any rational sense. True, he _professed_ to believe in gods, but
+evidently in a very equivocal manner, and solely to escape the popular
+condemnation. "They are not pure spirits, for there is no spirit in the
+atomic theory; they are not bodies, for where are the bodies that we may
+call gods? In this embarrassment, Epicurus, compelled to acknowledge
+that the human race believes in the existence of gods, addresses himself
+to an old theory of Democritus--that is, he appeals to dreams. As in
+dreams there are images that act upon and determine in us agreeable or
+painful sensations, without proceeding from exterior bodies, so the gods
+are images similar to those of dreams, but greater, having the human
+form; images which are not precisely bodies, and yet not deprived of
+materiality which are whatever you please, but which, in short, must be
+admitted, since the human race believes in gods, and since the
+universality of the religious sentiment is a fact which demands a
+cause."[810]
+
+[Footnote 808: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xxv.; Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 55-60.]
+
+[Footnote 809: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. v. l. 195-200.]
+
+[Footnote 810: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 431.]
+
+It is needless to offer any criticism on the reasoning of Epicurus. One
+fact will have obviously presented itself to the mind of the reflecting
+reader. He starts with atoms having form, magnitude, and density, and
+essays to construct a universe; but he is obliged to be continually
+introducing, in addition, a "_nameless something_" which "remains in
+secret," to help him out in the explanation of the phenomena.[811] He
+makes life to arise out of dead matter, sense out of senseless atoms,
+consciousness out of unconsciousness, reason out of unreason, without an
+adequate cause, and thus violates the fundamental principle from which
+he starts, "_that nothing can arise from nothing_."
+
+EPICUREAN PSYCHOLOGY.
+
+In the system of Epicurus, the soul is regarded as corporeal or
+material, like the body; they form, together, one nature or substance.
+The soul is composed of atoms exceedingly diminutive, smooth, and round,
+and connected with or diffused through the veins, viscera, and nerves.
+The substance of the soul is not to be regarded as simple and
+uncompounded; its constituent parts are _aura_, heat, and air. These are
+not sufficient, however, even in the judgment of Epicurus, to account
+for _sensation_; they are not adequate to generate sensible motives such
+as revolve any thoughts in the mind. "A certain fourth nature, or
+substance, must, therefore, necessarily be added to these, _that is
+wholly without a name_; it is a substance, however, than which nothing
+exists more active or more subtile, nor is any thing more essentially
+composed of small and smooth elementary particles; and it is this
+substance which first distributes sensible motions through the
+members."[812]
+
+[Footnote 811: As, _e.g._, Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk.
+iii. l. 260-290.]
+
+[Footnote 812: Id., ib., bk. iii. l. 237-250.]
+
+Epicurus is at great pains to prove that the soul is material; and it
+can not be denied that he marshals his arguments with great skill.
+Modern materialism may have added additional illustrations, but it has
+contributed no new lines of proof. The weapons are borrowed from the old
+arsenal, and they are not wielded with any greater skill than they were
+by Epicurus himself, I. The soul and the body act and react upon each
+other; and mutual reaction can only take place between substances of
+similar nature. "Such effects can only be produced by _touch_, and touch
+can not take place without _body_."[813] 2. The mind is produced
+together with the body, it grows up along with it, and waxes old at the
+same time with it.[814] 3. The mind is diseased along with the body, "it
+loses its faculties by material causes, as intoxication, or by severe
+blows; and is sometimes, by a heavy lethargy, borne down into a deep
+eternal sleep."[815] 4. The mind, like the body, is healed by medicines,
+which proves that it exists only as a mortal substance.[816] 5. The mind
+does not always, and at the same time, continue _entire_ and
+_unimpaired_, some faculties decay before the others, "the substance of
+the soul is therefore divided." On all these grounds the soul must be
+deemed mortal; it is dissolved along with the body, and has no conscious
+existence after death.
+
+[Footnote 813: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. iii. l.
+138-168.]
+
+[Footnote 814: Id., ib., bk. iii. l. 444-460.]
+
+[Footnote 815: Id., ib., bk. iii. l. 438-490.]
+
+[Footnote 816: Id., ib., bk. iii. l. 500-520.]
+
+Such being the nature of the soul, inasmuch as it is material, all its
+knowledge must be derived from sensation. The famous doctrine of
+perception, as taught by Epicurus, is grounded upon this pre-supposition
+that the soul is corporeal. "The ειδωλα ἀπόῤῥοιαι--_imagines, simulacra
+rerum, etc_., are, like pellicles, continually flying off from objects;
+and these material 'likenesses,' diffusing themselves everywhere in the
+air, are propelled to the perceptive organs." These images of things
+coming in contact with the senses produce _sensation_ (αἴσθησις). A
+sensation may be considered either as regards its object, or as regards
+him who experiences it. As regards him who experiences it, it is simply
+a passive affection, an agreeable or disagreeable feeling, passion, or
+sentiment (τὸ πάθος). But along with sensation there is inseparably
+associated some knowledge of the object which excites sensation; and it
+is for this reason that Epicurus marked the intimate relation of these
+two phenomena by giving them analogous names. Because the second
+phenomenon is joined to the first, he calls it ἐπαίσθησις--_perception_.
+It is sensation viewed especially in regard to its
+object--_representative sensation_, or the "sensible idea" of modern
+philosophy. It is from perception that we draw our general ideas by a
+kind of prolepsis (πρόληψις) an anticipation or laying hold by reason of
+that which is implied in sensation. Now all sensations are alike true in
+so far as they are sensations, and error arises from false reasoning
+about the testimony of sense. All knowledge is purely relative and
+contingent, and there is no such thing as necessary and absolute truth.
+
+The system of Epicurus is thus a system of pure materialism, but not a
+system of materialism drawn, as a logical consequence, from a careful
+and unprejudiced study of the whole phenomena of mind. His openly avowed
+design is to deliver men from the fear of death, and rid them of all
+apprehension of a future retribution. "Did men but know that there was a
+fixed limit to their woes, they would be able, in some measure, to defy
+the religious fictions and menaces of the poets; but now, since we must
+fear eternal punishment at death, there is no mode, no means of
+resisting them."[817] To emancipate men from "these terrors of the
+mind," they must be taught "that the soul is mortal, and dissolves with
+the body"--that "death is nothing to us, for that which is dissolved is
+devoid of sensation, and that which is devoid of sensation is nothing to
+us."[818] Starting with the fixed determination to prove that
+
+     "Death is nothing, and naught after death,"
+
+he will not permit any mental phenomena to suggest to him the idea of an
+incorporeal spiritual substance. Matter, under any form known to
+Epicurus, is confessedly insufficient to explain sensation and thought;
+a "nameless something" must be _supposed_. But may not "that principle
+which _lies entirely hid, and remains in secret_"[819]--and about which
+even Epicurus does not know any thing--be a spiritual, an _immaterial_
+principle? For aught that he knows it may as properly be called
+"_spirit_" as matter. May not _sensation_ and _cognition_ be the result
+of the union of matter and spirit; and if so, may not their mutual
+affections, their common sympathies, be the necessary conditions of
+sensation and cognition in the present life? A reciprocal relation
+between body and mind appears in all mental phenomena. A certain
+proportion in this relation is called mental health. A deviation from it
+is termed disease. This proportion is by no means an equilibrium, but
+the perfect adaptation of the body, without injury to its integrity, to
+the purposes of the mind. And if this be so, all the arguments of
+materialism fall to the ground.
+
+[Footnote 817: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 100-118.]
+
+[Footnote 818: Diogenes Laertius, Maxim 2, in "Lives of the
+Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxxi.]
+
+[Footnote 819: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. iii. l.
+275-280.]
+
+The concluding portion of the third book, in which Lucretius discourses
+on _death_, is a mournful picture of the condition of the heathen mind
+before Christianity "brought life and immortality fully to light." It
+comes to us, like a voice from the grave of two thousand years, to prove
+they were "without hope." To be delivered from the fear of future
+retribution, they would sacrifice the hope of an immortal life. To
+extintinguish guilt they would annihilate the soul. The only way in
+which Lucretius can console man in prospect of death is, by reminding
+him that he will _escape the ills of life_.
+
+     "'But thy dear home shall never greet thee more!
+     No more the best of wives!--thy babes beloved,
+     Whose haste half-met thee, emulous to snatch
+     The dulcet kiss that roused thy secret soul,
+     Again shall never hasten!--nor thine arm,
+     With deeds heroic, guard thy country's weal!--
+     Oh mournful, mournful fate!' thy friends exclaim!
+     'One envious hour of these invalued joys
+     Robs thee forever!--But they add not here,
+     '_It robs thee, too, of all desire of joy_'--
+     A truth, once uttered, that the mind would free
+     From every dread and trouble. 'Thou art safe
+     The sleep of death protects thee, _and secures
+     From all the unnumbered woes of mortal life!_
+     While we, alas! the sacred urn around
+     That holds thine ashes, shall insatiate weep,
+     Nor time destroy the eternal grief we feel!'
+     What, then, has death, if death be mere repose,
+     And quiet only in a peaceful grave,--
+     What has it thus to mar this life of man?"[820]
+
+[Footnote 820: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. iii. l.
+906-926.]
+
+This is all the comfort that Epicureanism can offer; and if "the wretch
+still laments the approach of death," she addresses him "with voice
+severe"--
+
+     "Vile coward! dry thine eyes--
+     Hence with thy snivelling sorrows, and depart!"
+
+It is evident that such a system of philosophy outrages the purest and
+noblest sentiments of humanity, and, in fact, condemns itself. It was
+born of selfishness and social degeneracy, and could perpetuate itself
+only in an age of corruption, because it inculcated the lawfulness of
+sensuality and the impunity of injustice. Its existence at this precise
+period in Grecian history forcibly illustrates the truth, that Atheism
+is a disease of the heart rather than the head. It seeks to set man free
+to follow his own inclinations, by ridding him of all faith in a
+Divinity and in an immortal life, and thus exonerating him from all
+accountability and all future retribution. But it failed to perceive
+that, in the most effectual manner, it annihilated all real liberty, all
+true nobleness, and made of man an abject slave.
+
+STOICISM.
+
+The Stoical school was founded by Zeno of Citium, who flourished B.C.
+290. He taught in the Stoa Poecile, or Painted Porch; and his disciples
+thence derived the name of Stoics. Zeno was succeeded by Cleanthes (B.C.
+260); and Cleanthes by Chrysippus (B.C. 240), whose vigorous intellect
+gave unity and completeness to the Stoical philosophy. He is reported to
+have said to Cleanthes,--"Give me your doctrines, and I will find the
+demonstrations."[821]
+
+[Footnote 821: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. vii.]
+
+None of the writings of the early Stoics, save a "Hymn to Jupiter," by
+Cleanthes, have survived. We are chiefly indebted to Diogenes
+Laertius[822] and Cicero[823] for an insight into their system. The Hymn
+of Cleanthes sheds some light on their Theology, and their moral
+principles are exhibited in "The Fragments" of Epictetus, and "The Life
+and Meditations" of Marcus Aurelius.
+
+[Footnote 822: "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.]
+
+[Footnote 823: "De Fm.," and "De Natura Deorum."]
+
+The philosophy of the Stoics, like that of the Epicureans, was mainly a
+philosophy of life--that is, a _moral_ philosophy. The manner in which
+they approached the study of morals, and the principles upon which they
+grounded morality, were, however, essentially different.
+
+The grand object of Epicurus was to make the current of life flow on as
+comfortably as possible, without any distracting thoughts of the past or
+any disturbing visions of the future. He therefore starts with this
+fundamental principle, that the true philosophy of life is to enjoy
+one's self--the aim of existence is to be happy. Whatever in a man's
+beliefs or conduct tends to secure happiness is _right_; whatever
+awakens uneasiness, apprehension, or fear, is _wrong_. And inasmuch as
+the idea of a Divine Creator and Governor of the universe, and the
+belief in a future life and retribution, are uncomfortable thoughts,
+exciting superstitious fears, they ought to be rejected. The Physics and
+the Psychology of Epicurus are thus the natural outgrowth of his
+Morality.
+
+Zeno was evidently a more earnest, serious, and thoughtful man. He
+cherished a nobler ideal of life than to suppose "man must do
+voluntarily, what the brute does instinctively--eschew pain, and seek
+pleasure." He therefore seeks to ascertain whether there be not some
+"principle of nature," or some law of nature, which determines what is
+right in human action--whether there be not some light under which, on
+contemplating an action, we may at once pronounce upon its intrinsic
+_rightness_, or otherwise. This he believes he has found in the
+_universal reason_ which fashioned, and permeates, and vivifies the
+universe, and is the light and life of the human soul. The chief good
+is, confessedly, to live according to nature; which is to live according
+to virtue, for nature leads us to that point.... For our individual
+natures are all part of the universal nature; on which account, the
+chief good is to live in a manner corresponding to one's own nature, and
+to universal nature; doing none of those things which the common law of
+mankind (the universal conscience of our race) forbids. _That common law
+is identical with_ RIGHT REASON _which pervades every thing, being the
+same with Jupiter_ (Ζεύς), _who is the regulator and chief manager of
+all existing things_.[824] The foundation of the ethical system of the
+Stoics is thus laid in their philosophy of nature--their Physiology and
+Psychology. If, therefore, we would apprehend the logical connection and
+unity of Stoicism, we must follow their order of thought--that is, we
+must commence with their
+
+PHYSIOLOGY.
+
+Diogenes Laertius tells us that the Stoics held "that there are two
+general principles in the universe--the _passive_ principle (τὸ πάσχον),
+which is matter, an existence without any distinctive quality, and the
+_active_ principle (τὸ ποιοῦν), which is the reason existing in the
+passive, that is to say, God. For that He, being eternal, and existing
+throughout all matter, makes every thing."[825] This Divine Reason,
+acting upon matter, originates the necessary and unchangeable laws which
+govern matter--laws which the Stoics called λόγοι
+σπερματικοί--generating reasons or causes of things. The laws of the
+world are, like eternal reason, necessary and immutable; hence the
+εἱμαρμένη--the _Destiny_ of the Stoics, which is also one of the names
+of the Deity.[826] But by Destiny the Stoics could not understand a
+blind unconscious necessity; it is rather the highest reason in the
+universe. "Destiny (εἱμαρμένη) is a connected (εἰρομένη) cause of
+things, or the reason according to which the world is regulated."[827]
+
+[Footnote 824: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. liii.]
+
+[Footnote 825: Id., ib., bk. vii. ch. lxviii.]
+
+[Footnote 826: "They teach that God is unity, and that he is called
+Mind, and _Fate_, and Jupiter."--Id., ib., bk. vii. ch. lxviii.]
+
+[Footnote 827: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. lxxiv.]
+
+These two principles are not, however, regarded by the Stoics as having
+a distinct, separate, and independent existence. One is substance
+(οὐσία); the other is quality (ποῖος). The primordial matter is the
+passive ground of all existence--the original substratum for the Divine
+activity. The Divine Reason is the active or formative energy which
+dwells within, and is essentially united to, the primary substance. The
+Stoics, therefore, regarded all existence as reducible, in its last
+analysis, to _one substance_, which on the side of its passivity and
+capacity of change, they called _hyle_ (ὕλη);[828] and on the side of
+its changeless energy and immutable order, they called God. The
+corporeal world--physical nature--is "a peculiar manifestation" of God,
+generated from his own substance, and, after certain periods, absorbed
+in himself. Thus God, considered in the evolution of His power, is
+nature. And nature, as attached to its immanent principle, is called
+God.[829] The fundamental doctrine of the Stoics was a spiritual, ideal,
+intellectual pantheism, of which the proper formula is, _All things are
+God, but God is not all things_.
+
+[Footnote 828: Or "matter." A good deal of misapprehension has arisen
+from confounding the intellectual ὕλη of Aristotle and the Stoics with
+the gross physical "matter" of the modern physicist. By "matter" we now
+understand that which is corporeal, tangible, sensible; whereas by ὕλη,
+Aristotle and the Stoics (who borrowed the term from him) understood
+that which is incorporeal, intangible, and inapprehensible to sense,--an
+"unknown something" which must necessarily be _supposed_ as the
+condition of the existence of things. The _formal_ cause of Aristotle is
+"the substance and essence"--the primary nature of things, on which all
+their properties depend. The _material_ cause is "the matter or subject"
+through which the primary nature manifests itself. Unfortunately the
+term "material" misleads the modern thinker. He is in danger of
+supposing the _hyle_ of Aristotle to be something sensible and physical,
+whereas it is an intellectual principle whose inherence is implied in
+any physical thing. It is something distinct from _body_, and has none
+of those properties we are now accustomed to ascribe to matter. Body,
+corporeity, is the result of the union of "hyle" and "form." Stobaeus
+thus expounds the doctrine of Aristotle: Form alone, separate from
+matter (ὕλη) is _incorporeal_; so matter alone, separated from form, is
+not _body_. But there is need of the joint concurrence of both
+these--matter and form--to make the substance of body. Every individual
+substance is thus a totality of matter and form--a σίνολον.
+
+The Stoics taught that God is _oneliness_ (Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of
+the Philosophers," bk. vii. ch. lxviii.); that he is _eternal_ and
+_immortal_ (bk. vii. ch. lxxii.); he could not, therefore, be corporeal,
+for "body _infinite, divisible,_ and _perishable_" (bk. vii. ch.
+lxxvii.). "All the parts of the world are perishable, for they change
+one into another; therefore the world is perishable" (bk. vii. ch.
+lxx.). The Deity is not, therefore, absolutely identified with the world
+by the Stoics. He permeates all things, creates and dissolves all
+things, and is, therefore, _more_ than all things. The world is finite;
+God is infinite.]
+
+[Footnote 829: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. lxx.]
+
+Schwegler affirms that, in physics, the Stoics, for the most part,
+followed Heraclitus, and especially "carried out the proposition that
+nothing incorporeal exists; every thing is essentially _corporeal_." The
+pantheism of Zeno is therefore "_materialistic._"[830] This is not a
+just representation of the views of the early Stoics, and can not be
+sustained by a fair interpretation of their teaching. They say that
+principles and elements differ from each other. Principles have no
+generation or beginning, and will have no end; but elements may be
+destroyed. Also, that elements have bodies, and have forms, _but
+principles have no bodies, and no forms_.[831] Principles are,
+therefore, _incorporeal._ Furthermore, Cicero tells us that they taught
+that the universal harmony of the world resulted from all things being
+"contained by one _Divine_ SPIRIT;"[832] and also, that reason in man is
+"nothing else but part of the _Divine_ SPIRIT merged into a human
+body."[833] It thus seems evident that the Stoics made a distinction
+between corruptible _elements_ (fire, air, earth, water) and
+incorruptible _principles_, by which and out of which elements were
+generated, and also between corporeal and incorporeal substances.
+
+[Footnote 830: Schwegler's "History of Philosophy," p. 140.]
+
+[Footnote 831: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. lxviii.]
+
+[Footnote 832: "De Natura Deorum," bk. ii. ch. xiii.]
+
+[Footnote 833: Ibid, bk. ii. ch. xxxi.]
+
+On a careful collation of the fragmentary remains of the early Stoics,
+we fancy we catch glimpses of the theory held by some modern pantheists,
+that the material elements, "having body and form," are a vital
+transformation of the Divine substance; and that the forces of
+nature--"the generating causes or reasons of things" (λόγοι
+σπερματικοί)--are a conscious transmutation of the Divine energy. This
+theory is more than hinted in the following passages, which we slightly
+transpose from the order in which they stand in Diogenes Laertius,
+without altering their meaning. "They teach that the Deity was in the
+beginning by _himself_".... that "first of all, he made the four
+elements, fire, water, air, and earth." "The fire is the highest, and
+that is called æther, in which, first of all, the sphere was generated
+in which the fixed stars are set...; after that the air; then the water;
+and the sediment, as it were, of all, is the earth, which is placed in
+the centre of the rest." "He turned into water the whole substance which
+pervaded the air; and as the seed is contained in the product, so, too,
+He, being the seminal principle of the world, remained still in
+moisture, making matter fit to be employed by himself in the production
+of things which were to come after."[834] The Deity thus draws the
+universe out of himself, transmuting the divine substance into body and
+form. "God is a being of a certain quality, having for his peculiar
+manifestation universal substance. He is a being imperishable, and who
+never had any generation, being the maker of the arrangement and order
+that we see; and who at certain periods of time _absorbs all substance
+in himself and then reproduces it from himself_."[835] And now, in the
+last analysis, it would seem as though every thing is resolved into
+_force_. God and the world are _power, and its manifestation_, and these
+are ultimately one. "This identification of God and the world, according
+to which the Stoics regarded the whole formation of the universe as but
+a period in the development of God, renders their remaining doctrine
+concerning the world very simple. Every thing in the world seemed to be
+permeated by the Divine life, and was regarded as the flowing out of
+this most perfect life through certain channels, until it returns, in a
+necessary circle, back to itself."[836]
+
+[Footnote 834: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. lxviii., lxix.]
+
+[Footnote 835: Id., ib., bk. vii. ch. lxx.]
+
+[Footnote 836: Schwegler's "History of Philosophy," p. 141.]
+
+The God of the Stoics is not, however, a mere principle of life
+vitalizing nature, but an _intelligent_ principle directing nature; and,
+above all, a _moral_ principle, governing the human race. "God is a
+living being, immortal, rational, perfect, and intellectual in his
+happiness, unsusceptible of any kind of evil; having a foreknowledge of
+the world, and of all that is in the world."[837] He is also the
+gracious Providence which cares for the individual as well as for the
+whole; and he is the author of that natural law which commands the good
+and prohibits the bad. "He made men to this end that they might be
+happy; as becomes his fatherly care of us, he placed our good and evil
+in those things which are in our own power."[838] The Providence and
+Fatherhood of God are strikingly presented in the "Hymn of Cleanthes" to
+Jupiter--
+
+[Footnote 837: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. lxxii.]
+
+[Footnote 838: Marcus Aurelius, bk. iii. ch. xxiv.]
+
+     Most glorious of the immortal Powers above!
+     O thou of many names! mysterious Jove:
+     For evermore almighty! Nature's source!
+     Thou governest all things in their order'd course!
+     All hail to thee! since, innocent of blame,
+     E'en mortal creatures may address thy name;
+     For all that breathe, and creep the lowly earth,
+     Echo thy being with reflected birth--
+     Thee will I sing, thy strength for aye resound:
+     The universe, that rolls this globe around,
+     Moves wheresoe'er thy plastic influence guides,
+     And, ductile, owns the god whose arm presides.
+     The lightnings are thy ministers of ire;
+     The double-forked and ever-living fire;
+     In thy unconquerable hands they glow,
+     And at the flash all nature quakes below.
+     Thus, thunder-armed, thou dost creation draw
+     To one immense, inevitable law:
+     And, with the various mass of breathing souls,
+     Thy power is mingled, and thy spirit rolls.
+     Dread genius of creation! all things bow
+     To thee: the universal monarch thou!
+
+     Nor aught is done without thy wise control,
+     On earth, or sea, or round the ethereal pole,
+     Save when the wicked, in their frenzy blind,
+     Act o'er the follies of a senseless mind,
+     Thou curb'st th' excess; confusion, to thy sight,
+     Moves regular; th' unlovely scene is bright.
+     Thy hand, educing good from evil, brings
+     To one apt harmony the strife of things.
+     One ever-during law still binds the whole,
+     Though shunned, resisted, by the sinner's soul.
+     Wretches! while still they course the glittering prize
+     The law of God eludes their ears and eyes.
+     Life, then, were virtue, did they thus obey;
+     But wide from life's chief good they headlong stray.
+     Now glory's arduous toils the breast inflame;
+     Now avarice thirsts, insensible of shame;
+     Now sloth unnerves them in voluptuous ease,
+     And the sweet pleasures of the body please.
+     With eager haste they rush the gulf within,
+     And their whole souls are centred in their sin.
+     But, oh, great Jove! by whom all good is given!
+     Dweller with lightnings and the clouds of heaven!
+     Save from their dreadful error lost mankind!
+     Father! disperse these shadows of the mind!
+     Give them thy pure and righteous law to know;
+     Wherewith thy justice governs all below.
+     Thus honored by the knowledge of thy way,
+     Shall men that honor to thyself repay;
+     And bid thy mighty works in praises ring,
+     As well befits a mortal's lips to sing:
+     More blest, nor men, nor heavenly powers can be,
+     Than when their songs are of thy law and thee.[839]
+
+[Footnote 839: Sir C. A. Elton's version, published in "Specimens of
+Ancient Poets," edited by William Peters, A. M., Christ Church, Oxford.]
+
+PSYCHOLOGY.
+
+As in the world there are two principles, the passive and the active, so
+in the understanding there are two elements: a passive
+element--_sensation_, and an active element--_reason_.
+
+All knowledge commences with the phenomena of sensation (αἴσθησις). This
+produces in the soul an image (φαντασία), which corresponds to the
+exterior object, and which Chrysippus regarded as a modification of the
+mind (ἀλλοίωσις).[840]
+
+Associate with sensibility is thought--the faculty of general ideas--the
+ὀρθὸς λόγος, or right reason, as the supreme power and the guiding light
+of humanity. This active principle is of divine origin, "a part or shred
+of the Divinity."
+
+[Footnote 840: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. xxxiv.]
+
+This "right reason," or "common reason," is the source and criterion of
+all truth; "for our individual natures are all parts of the universal
+nature," and, therefore, all the dictates of "common reason" are
+"identical with that right reason which pervades every thing, being the
+same with Jupiter, who is the regulator and chief manager of all
+things."
+
+The fundamental canon of the logic of the Stoics, therefore, was that
+"what appears to all, that is to be believed, for it is apprehended by
+the reason, which is common and Divine."
+
+It is needless to remark that the Stoics were compelled by their
+physiological theory to deny the proper immortality of the soul. Some of
+them seem to have supposed that it might, for a season, survive the
+death of the body, but its ultimate destination was absorption into the
+Divine essence. It must return to its original source.
+
+ETHICS.
+
+If reason be the great organizing and controlling law of the universe,
+then, to live conformable to reason is the great practical law of life.
+Accordingly, the fundamental ethical maxim of the Stoics is, "Live
+conformably with nature--that is, with reason, or the will of the
+universal governor and manager of all things."[841] Thus the chief good
+(εὐδαιμονία) is the conformity of man's actions to reason--that is, to
+the will of God, "for nothing is well done without a reference to
+God."[842]
+
+[Footnote 841: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. liii.]
+
+[Footnote 842: Marcus Aurelius, bk. iii. § II.]
+
+It is obvious that this doctrine must lead to a social morality and a
+jurisprudence the very opposite of the Epicurean. If we must do that
+which is good--that is, that which is reasonable, regardless of all
+consequences, then it is not for the pleasurable or useful results which
+flow from it that justice should be practised, but because of its
+intrinsic excellence. Justice is constituted good, not by the law of
+man, but by the law of God. The highest pleasure is to do right; "this
+very thing is the virtue of the happy man, and the perfect happiness of
+life, when every thing is done according to a harmony of the genius of
+each individual to the will of the Universal Governor and Manager of all
+things."[843] Every thing which interferes with a purely rational
+existence is to be eschewed; the pleasures and pains of the body are to
+be despised. To triumph over emotion, over suffering, over passion; to
+give the fullest ascendency to reason; to attain courage, moral energy,
+magnanimity, constancy, was to realize true manhood, nay, "to be
+godlike; for they have something in them which is, as it were, a
+god"[844]
+
+The sublime heroism of the Stoic school is well expressed in the manly
+precept, "Ἀνεχοῦ"--_sustine_--endure. "Endure the sorrows engendered by
+the bitter struggle between the passions support all the evils which
+fortune shall send thee--calumny, betrayal, poverty, exile, irons, death
+itself." In Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius this spirit seems to rise
+almost to the grandeur of Christian resignation. "Dare to lift up thine
+eyes to God and say, 'Use me hereafter to whatsoever thou pleasest. I
+agree, and am of the same mind with thee, indifferent to all things.
+Lead me whither thou pleasest. Let me act what part thou wilt, either of
+a public or a private person, of a rich man or a beggar.'"[845] "Show
+those qualities," says Marcus Aurelius, "which God hath put in thy
+power--sincerity, gravity, endurance of labor, aversion to pleasure,
+contentment with thy portion and with few things, benevolence,
+frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling,
+magnanimity."[846]
+
+[Footnote 843: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. liii.]
+
+[Footnote 844: Id., ib., bk. vii. ch. xliv.]
+
+[Footnote 845: Arrian, "Diss. Epict.," bk. ii. ch. xviii.]
+
+[Footnote 846: "I read to-day part of the 'Meditations of Marcus
+Antonius' [Aurelius]. What a strange emperor! And what a strange
+heathen! Giving thanks to God for all the good things he enjoyed! In
+particular for his good inspirations, and for twice revealing to him, in
+dreams, things wherby he was cured of (otherwise) incurable distempers.
+I make no doubt but this is one of the 'many' who shall come from the
+east and the west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,' while
+the 'children of the kingdom'--nominal Christians--are 'shut
+out.'"--Wesley's "Journal," vol. i, p. 353.]
+
+Amid the fearful moral degeneracy of imperial Rome, Stoicism became the
+refuge of all noble spirits. But, in spite of its severity, and its
+apparent triumph over the feelings, it brought no real freedom and
+peace. "Stoical morality, strictly speaking, is, at bottom, only a
+slavish morality, excellent in Epictetus; admirable still, but useless
+to the world, in Marcus Aurelius." Pride takes the place of real
+disinterestedness. It stands alone in haughty grandeur and solitary
+isolation, tainted with an incurable egoism. Disheartened by its
+metaphysical impotence, which robs God of all personality, and man of
+all hope of immortality; defeated in its struggle to obtain purity of
+soul, it sinks into despair, and often terminates, as in the case of its
+two first leaders, Zeno and Cleanthes, and the two Romans, Cato and
+Seneca, in self-murder. "Thus philosophy is only an apprenticeship of
+death, and not of life; it tends to death by its image, _apathy_ and
+_ataraxy._"[847]
+
+[Footnote 847: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 439.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE PROPÆDEUTIC OFFICE OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY.
+
+
+"Philosophy, before the coming of the Lord, was necessary to the Greeks
+for righteousness, and it now proved useful for godliness, being in some
+part a preliminary discipline (προπαιδεία τις οὖσα) for those who reap
+the fruits of faith through demonstration. Perhaps we may say it was
+given to the Greeks with this special object; for philosophy was to the
+Greeks what the Law was to the Jews, 'a schoolmaster to bring them to
+Christ.'"--CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS.
+
+Philosophy, says Cousin, is the effort of _reflection_--the attempt of
+the human mind to develop in systematic and logical form that which has
+dimly revealed itself in the spontaneous thought of ages, and to account
+to itself in some manner for its native and instinctive beliefs. We may
+further add, it is the effort of the human mind to attain to truth and
+certitude on purely rational grounds, uncontrolled by traditional
+authorities. The sublime era of Greek philosophy was, in fact, an
+independent effort of human reason to solve the great problems of
+existence, of knowledge, and of duty. It was an attempt to explain the
+phenomenal history of the universe, to interpret the fundamental ideas
+and laws of human reason, to comprehend the utterances of conscience,
+and to ascertain what Ultimate and Supreme Reality underlies the world
+of phenomena, of thought, and of moral feeling.[848] And it is this
+which, for us, constitutes its especial value; that it was, as far as
+possible, a result of simple reason; or, if at any time Faith asserted
+its authority, the distinction is clearly marked: If this inquiry was
+fully, and honestly, and logically conducted, we are entitled to presume
+that the results attain by this effort of speculative thought must
+harmonize with the positive utterances of the Divine Logos--the Eternal
+Reason, whose revelations are embalmed and transmitted to us in the Word
+of God. If the great truth that man is "the _offspring of God"_ and as
+such "_the image and glory of God_" which is asserted, alike, by Paul
+and the poet-philosophers of Tarsus and Mysia, be admitted, then we may
+expect that the reason of man shall have some correlation with the
+Divine reason. The mind of man is the _chef-d'œuvre_ of Divine art. It
+is fashioned after the model which the Divine nature supplies. "Let us
+make man in _our_ image after _our_ likeness." That image consists in
+ἐπίγνωσις--_knowledge;_ δικαιοσύνη--_justice_; and
+ὁσιότης--_benevolence._ It is not merely the _capacity_ to know, to be
+just, and to be beneficent; it is _actual_ knowledge, justice, and
+benevolence. It supposes, first, that the fundamental ideas of the true,
+the just, and the good, are connate to the human mind; second, that the
+native determination of the mind is towards the realization of these
+ideas in every mental state and every form of human activity; third,
+that there is a constitutional sympathy of reason with the ideas of
+truth, and righteousness, and goodness, as they dwell in the reason of
+God. And though man be now fallen, there is still within his heart some
+vestige of his primal nature. There is still a sense of the divine, a
+religious aptitude, "a feeling after God," and some longing to return to
+Him. There are still ideas in the reason, which, in their natural and
+logical development compel him to recognize a God. There is within his
+conscience a sense of duty, of obligation, and accountability to a
+Superior Power--"a law of the mind," thought opposed and antagonized by
+depraved passions and appetites--"the law in the members." There is yet
+a natural, constitutional sympathy of reason with the law of God--"it
+delights in that law," and consents "that it is good," but it is
+overborne and obstructed by passion. Man, even as unregenerate, "wills
+to do that which is good," but "how to perform that which is good he
+finds not," and in the agony of his soul he exclaims, "Oh, wretched man
+that I am, who shall deliver me!"[849]
+
+[Footnote 848: Plato sought also to attain to the Ultimate Reality
+underlying all æsthetic feeling--the Supreme Beauty as well as the
+Supreme Good.]
+
+[Footnote 849: Romans, ch. vii.]
+
+The Author of nature is also the Author of revelation. The Eternal
+Father of the Eternal Son, who is the grand medium of all God's direct
+communications to our race--the revealer of God, is also "the Father of
+the spirits of all flesh." That divine inbreathing which first
+constituted man "a living soul"--that "inspiration of the Almighty which
+giveth man understanding," and still "teacheth him knowledge," proceeds
+from the same Spirit as that which inspires the prophets and seers of
+the Old Testament Church, and the Apostles and teachers of the new. That
+"true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" shone
+on the mind of Anaxagoras, and Socrates, and Plato, as well as on the
+mind of Abraham and Rahab, Cornelius and the Syro-Phoenician woman, and,
+in a higher form, and with a clearer and richer effulgence, on the mind
+of Moses, Isaiah, Paul and John. It is not to be wondered at, then, if,
+in the teaching of Socrates and Plato, we should find a striking
+_harmony_ of sentiment, and even form of expression, with some parts of
+the Christian revelation. No short-sighted jealousy ought to impugn the
+honesty of our judgment, if, in the speculations of Plato, we catch
+glimpses of a world of ideas not unlike that which Christianity
+discloses, and hear words not unfamiliar to those who spake as they were
+moved by the Holy Ghost.
+
+If, then, there exists some correlation between Divine and human reason,
+and if the light which illuminates all minds in Christian and in heathen
+lands is the _same_ "true light," though differing in degrees of
+brightness, it is most natural and reasonable to expect some connection
+and some correspondence between the discoveries of philosophy and the
+revelations of the Sacred Oracles.
+
+Although Christianity is confessedly something which is above reason and
+nature--something communicated from above, and therefore in the fullest
+sense supernatural and superhuman, yet it must stand in _relation_ to
+reason and nature, and to their historic development; otherwise it could
+not operate on man at all. "We have no knowledge of a dynamic influence,
+spiritual or natural, without a dynamic reaction." Matter can only be
+moved by forces, and according to laws, as it has properties which
+correlate it with these forces and laws. And mind can not be determined
+from without to any specific form of cognition, unless it have powers of
+apprehension and conception which are governed by uniform laws. If man
+is to be instructed by a verbal revelation, he must, at least, be
+capacitated for the reception of divine communication--must have a power
+of forming supersensuous conceptions, and there must be some original
+community of thought and idea between the mind that teaches and the mind
+that is taught. A revelation from an invisible God--a being "whom no man
+has ever seen or ever can see" with the eye of sense--would have no
+affinity for, and no power to affect and enlighten, a being who had no
+presentiment of an invisible Power to which he is in some way related. A
+revealed law promulgated from an unseen and utterly unknown Power would
+have no constraining authority, if man had no idea of right, no sense of
+duty, no feeling of obligation to a Supreme Being. If, therefore,
+religious instruction be not already preceded by an innate consciousness
+of God, and of obligation to God, as an operative predisposition, there
+would be nothing for revelation to act upon. Some relation between the
+reason which planned the universe, and which has expressed its thoughts
+in the numerical relations and archetypal forms which are displayed
+therein, and the reason of man, with its ideas of form and number,
+proportion and harmony, is necessarily supposed in the statement of Paul
+that "the invisible things of God from the creation are seen." Nature to
+us could be no symbol of the Divine Thought, if there were no
+correlation between the reason of man and the reason of God. All
+revelation, indeed, supposes some community of nature, some affinities
+of thought, some correlation of ideas, between the mind communicating
+spiritual knowledge, and the mind to which the communication is made. In
+approaching man, it must traverse ground already occupied by man; it
+must employ phrases already employed, and assume forms of thought
+already familiar to man. It must address itself to some ideas,
+sentiments, and feelings already possessed by man. If religion is the
+great end and destination of man, then the nature of man must be
+constituted for religion. Now religion, in its inmost nature, is a
+communion, a fellowship with God. But no creature can be brought into
+this communion "save one that is constitutionally related to God in
+terms that admit of correspondence." There must be intelligence offered
+to his intelligence, sentiment to his sentiment, reason to his reason,
+thought to his thought. There must be implanted in the human mind some
+fundamental ideas and determinations grounded upon this fact, that the
+real end and destination of man is for religion, so that when that
+higher sphere of life and action is presented to man, by an outward
+verbal revelation, there shall be a recognized harmony between the inner
+idea and determination, and the outer revelation. We can not doubt that
+such a relation between human nature and reason, and Christianity,
+exists. We see evidences of this in the perpetual strivings of humanity
+to attain to some fuller and clearer apprehension of that Supreme Power
+which is consciously near to human thought, and in the historic
+development of humanity towards those higher forms of thought and
+existence which demand a revelation in order to their completion. This
+original capacity, and this historical development, have unquestionably
+prepared the way for the reception of Christianity.
+
+Christianity, then, must have some connection with the reason of man,
+and it must also have some relation to the progressive developments of
+human thought in the ages which preceded the advent of Christ.
+Christianity did not break suddenly upon the world as a new commencement
+altogether unconnected with the past, and wanting in all points of
+sympathy and contact with the then present. It proceeded along lines of
+thought which had been laid through ages of preparation; it clothed
+itself in forms of speech which had been moulded by centuries of
+education, and it appropriated to itself a moral and intellectual
+culture which had been effected by long periods of severest discipline.
+It was, in fact, the consummation of the whole moral and religious
+history of the world.
+
+A revelation of new truths, presented in entirely new forms of thought
+and speech, would have defeated its own ends, and, practically, would
+have been no revelation at all. The divine light, in passing through
+such a medium, would have been darkened and obscured. The lens through
+which the heavenly rays are to be transmitted must first be prepared and
+polished. The intellectual eye itself must be gradually accustomed to
+the light. Hence it is that all revelation has been _progressive_,
+commencing, in the infancy of our race, with images and symbols
+addressed to sense, and advancing, with the education of the race, to
+abstract conceptions and spiritual ideas. The first communications to
+the patriarchs were always accompanied by some external, sensible
+appearance; they were often made through some preternatural personage in
+human form. Subsequently, as human thought becomes assimilated to the
+Divine idea, God uses man as his organ, and communicates divine
+knowledge as an internal and spiritual gift. The theistic conception of
+the earliest times was therefore more or less anthropomorphic, in the
+prophetic age it was unquestionably more spiritual. The education of
+Hebraic, Mosaic, and prophetic ages had gradually developed a purer
+theism, and prepared the Jewish mind for that sublime announcement of
+our Lord's--"God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship in
+spirit." For ages the Jews had worshipped in Samaria and Jerusalem, and
+the inevitable tendency of thought was to localize the divine presence;
+but the gradual withdrawment from these localities of all visible tokens
+of Jehovah's presence, prepared the way for the Saviour's explicit
+declaration that "neither in this mountain of Samaria, nor yet at
+Jerusalem, shall men worship the Father," to the exclusion of any other
+spot on earth; the real temple of the living God is now the heart of
+man. The _Holiness_ of God was an idea too lofty for human thought to
+grasp at once. The light of God's ineffable purity was too bright and
+dazzling to burst at once on human eyes. Therefore it was gradually
+displayed. The election of a chosen seed in Abraham's race to a nearer
+approach to God than the rest of pagan humanity; the announcement of the
+Decalogue at Sinai amidst awe-inspiring wonders; the separation of a
+single tribe to the priestly office, who were dedicated to, and purified
+in an especial manner for the service of the tabernacle; the
+sanctification of the High-priest by sacrifice and lustration before he
+dared to enter "the holiest place"--the presence-chamber of Jehovah: and
+then the direct and explicit teaching of the prophets--were all
+advancing steps by which the Jewish mind was lifted up to the clearer
+apprehension of the holiness of God, the impurity of man, the distance
+of man from God, and the need of Mediation.
+
+The ideas of _Redemption_ and _Salvation_--of atonement, expiation,
+pardon, adoption, and regeneration--are unique and _sui-generis_. Before
+these conceptions could be presented in the fullness and maturity of the
+Christian system, there was needed the culture and education of the ages
+of Mosaic ritualism, with its sacrificial system, its rights of
+purification, its priestly absolution, and its family of God.[850]
+Redemption itself, as an economy, is a development, and has
+consequently, a history--a history which had its commencement in the
+first Eden, and which shall have its consummation in the second Eden of
+a regenerated world. It was germinally infolded in the first promise,
+gradually unfolded in successive types and prophecies, more fully
+developed in the life, and sayings, and sufferings of the Son of God,
+and its ripened fruit is presented to the eye of faith in the closing
+scenic representations of the grand Apocalypse of John. "Judaism was not
+given as a perfect religion. Whatever may have been its superiority over
+surrounding forms of worship, it was, notwithstanding, a provisional
+form only. The consciousness that it was a preparatory, and not a
+definite dispensation, is evident throughout. It points to an end beyond
+itself, suggests a grander thought than any in itself; its glory
+precisely consists in its constant looking forward to a glorious future
+destined to surpass it."[851]
+
+[Footnote 850: Romans, IX 4-6.]
+
+[Footnote 851: Pressensé, "Religions before Christ," p. 202.]
+
+Thus the determinations which, through Redemption, fall to the lot of
+history, as Nitzsch justly remarks, obey the emancipating law of
+_gradual progress_.[852] Christianity was preceded by ages of
+preparation, in which we have a gradual development of religious phrases
+and ideas, of forms of social life and intellectual culture, and of
+national and political institutions most favorable to its advent and its
+promulgation; and "in the fullness of time"--the maturity and fitness of
+the age--"God sent his own Son into the world."
+
+[Footnote 852: "System of Doctrine," p. 73.]
+
+This work of preparation was not confined alone to Judaism. The divine
+plan of redemption comprehended all the race; its provisions are made in
+view of the wants of all the race; and we must therefore believe that
+the entire history of the race, previous to the coming of the Redeemer,
+was under a divine supervision, and directed towards the grand centre of
+our world's history. Greek philosophy and Grecian civilization must
+therefore have a place in the divine plan of history, and they must
+stand in an important relation to Christianity. He who "determined the
+time of each nation's existence, and fixed the geographical boundaries
+of their habitation in order that they may seek the Lord," can not have
+been unmindful of the Greek nation, and of its grandest age of
+philosophy. "The Father of the spirits of all flesh" could not be
+unconcerned in the moral and spiritual welfare of any of his children.
+He was as deeply interested in the Athenian as in the Hebrew. He is the
+God of the Gentile as well as the Jew. His tender mercies are over all
+his works. If the Hebrew race was selected to be the agent of his
+providence in one special field, and if the Jewish theocracy was one
+grand instrument of preparatory discipline, it was simply because,
+through these, God designed to bless all the nations of the earth. And
+surely no one will presume to say that a civilization and an
+intellectual culture which was second only to the Hebrew, and, in some
+of its aspects, even in advance of the Hebrew, was not determined and
+supervised by Divine Providence, and made subservient to the education
+and development of the whole race. The grand results of Hebrew
+civilization were appropriated and assimilated by Christianity, and
+remain to this day. And no one can deny that the same is true of Greek
+civilization. Through a kind of historic preparation the heathen world
+was made ready for Christ, as a soil is prepared to receive the seed,
+and some precious fruits of knowledge, of truth, and of righteousness,
+even, were largely matured, which have been reaped, and appropriated,
+and vitalized by the heaven-descended life of Christianity.
+
+The chief points of excellence in the civilization of the Greeks are
+strikingly obvious, and may be readily presented. High perfection of the
+intellect and the imagination displaying itself in the various forms of
+art, poetry, literature, and philosophy. A wonderful freedom and
+activity of body and of mind, developed in trade, and colonization, in
+military achievement, and in subtile dialectics. A striking love of the
+beautiful, revealing itself in their sculpture and architecture, in the
+free music of prosaic numbers, and the graceful movement and measure of
+their poetry. A quickness of perception, a dignity of demeanor, a
+refinement of taste, a delicacy of moral sense, and a high degree of
+reverence for the divine in nature and humanity. And, in general, a ripe
+and all-pervading culture, which has made Athens a synonym for all that
+is greatest and best in the genius of man; so that literature, in its
+most flourishing periods has rekindled its torch at her altars, and art
+has looked back to the age of Pericles for her purest models.[853] All
+these enter into the very idea of Greek civilization. We can not resist
+the conviction that, by a Divine Providence, it was made subservient to
+the purpose of Redemption; it prepared the way for, and contributed to,
+the spread of the Gospel.
+
+[Footnote 853: In Lord Brougham's celebrated letter to the father of the
+historian Macaulay in regard to the education of the latter, we read:
+"If he would be a great orator, he must go at once to the fountain-head,
+and be familiar with every one of the great orations of Demosthenes....
+I know from experience that nothing is half so successful in these times
+(bad though they be) as what has been formed on the Greek models. I use
+poor illustrations in giving my own experience, but I do assure you that
+both in courts and Parliament, and even to mobs, I have never made so
+much play (to use a very modern phrase) as when I was almost translating
+from the Greek. I composed the peroration of my speech for the Queen, in
+the Lords, after reading and repeating Demosthenes for three or four
+weeks."]
+
+Its subserviency to this grand purpose is seen in the Greek tendency to
+trade and colonization. Their mental activity was accompanied by great
+physical freedom of movement. They displayed an inherent disposition to
+extensive emigration. "Without aiming at universal conquest, they
+developed (if we may use the word) a remarkable catholicity of
+character, and a singular power of adaptation to those whom they called
+Barbarians. In this respect they were strongly contrasted with the
+Egyptians, whose immemorial civilization was confined to the long valley
+which extended from the cataracts to the mouth of the Nile. The Hellenic
+tribes, on the other hand, though they despised the foreigners, were
+never unwilling to visit them and to cultivate their acquaintance. At
+the earliest period at which history enables us to discover them, we see
+them moving about in their ships on the shores and among the islands of
+their native seas; and, three or four centuries before the Christian
+era, Asia Minor, beyond which the Persians had not been permitted to
+advance, was bordered by a fringe of Greek colonies; and lower Italy,
+when the Roman Republic was just becoming conscious of its strength, had
+received the name of Greece itself. To all these places they carried
+their arts and literature, their philosophy, their mythology, and their
+amusements.... They were gradually taking the place of the Phœnicians in
+the empire of the Mediterranean. They were, indeed, less exclusively
+mercantile than those old discoverers. Their voyages were not so long.
+But their influence on general civilization was greater and more
+permanent. The earliest ideas of scientific navigation and geography are
+due to the Greeks. The later Greek travellers, Pausanias and Strabo, are
+our best sources of information on the topography of St. Paul's
+journeys.
+
+"With this view of the Hellenic character before us, we are prepared to
+appreciate the vast results of Alexander's conquests. He took the meshes
+of the net of Greek civilization which were lying in disorder on the
+edge of the Asiatic shore, and spread them over all the countries he
+traversed in his wonderful campaigns. The East and the West were
+suddenly brought together. Separate tribes were united under a common
+government. New cities were built as the centres of political life. New
+lines of communication were opened as the channels of commercial
+activity. The new culture penetrated the mountain ranges of Pisidia and
+Lycaonia. The Tigris and Euphrates became Greek rivers. The language of
+Athens was heard among the Jewish colonies of Babylonia, and a Grecian
+Babylon was built by the conqueror in Egypt, and called by his name.
+
+"The empire of Alexander was divided, but the effects of his campaigns
+and policy did not cease. The influence of these fresh elements of
+social life was rather increased by being brought into independent
+action within the sphere of distinct kingdoms. Our attention is
+particularly directed to two of the monarchical lines which descended
+from Alexander's generals--the Ptolemies, or the Greek kings of Egypt,
+and the Seleucidæ, or the Greek kings of Syria. Their respective
+capitals, Alexandria and Antioch, became the metropolitan centres of
+commercial and civilized life in the East."[854] Antioch was for ages
+the home of science and philosophy. Here the religious opinions of the
+East and the West were blended and mutually modified. Here it was
+discovered by the heathen mind that a new religion had appeared, and a
+new revelation had been given.[855] In Alexandria all nations were
+invited to exchange their commodities and, with equal freedom, their
+opinions. The representatives of all religions met here. "Beside the
+Temple of Jupiter there rose the white marble Temple of Serapis, and
+close at hand stood the synagogue of the Jews." The Alexandrian library
+contained all the treasures of ancient culture, and even a copy of the
+Hebrew Scriptures.
+
+[Footnote 854: Conybeare and Howson, "Life and Epistles of St. Paul,"
+vol. i. pp. 8-10.]
+
+[Footnote 855: Acts, xi. 26.]
+
+The spread of the Greek _language_ was one of the most important
+services which the cities of Antioch and Alexandria rendered to
+Christianity. The Greek tongue is intimately connected with the whole
+system of Christian doctrine.
+
+This language, which, in symmetry of structure, in flexibility and
+compass of expression, in exactness and precision, in grace and
+elegance, exceeds every other language, became the language of theology.
+Next in importance to the inspiration which communicates the superhuman
+thought, must be the gradual development of the language in which the
+thought can clothe itself. That development by which the Greek language
+became the adequate vehicle of Divine thought, the perfect medium of the
+mature revelation of truth contained in the Christian Scriptures, must
+be regarded as the subject of a Divine providence. Christianity waited
+for that development, and it awaited Christianity. "The Greek tongue
+became to the Christian more than it had been to the Roman or the Jew.
+The mother-tongue of Ignatius at Antioch was that in which Philo
+composed his treatises at Alexandria, and which Cicero spoke at Athens.
+It is difficult to state in a few words the important relation which
+Alexandria, more especially, was destined to bear to the whole Christian
+Church." In that city, the Old Testament was translated into Greek;
+there the writings of Plato were diligently studied; there Philo, the
+Platonizing Jew, had sought to blend into one system the teachings of
+the Old Testament theology and the dialectic speculations of Plato.
+Numenius learns of Philo, and Plotinus of Numenius, and the ecstasy of
+Plotinus is the development of Philo's intuitions. A _theological
+language_ by this means was developed, rich in the phrases of various
+schools, and suited to convey the spiritual revelation of Christian
+ideas to all the world. "It was not an accident that the New Testament
+was written in Greek, the language which can best express the highest
+thoughts and worthiest feelings of the intellect and heart, and which is
+adapted to be the instrument of education for all nations; nor was it an
+accident that the composition of these books and the promulgation of the
+Gospels were delayed till the instruction of our Lord, and the writings
+of his Apostles could be expressed in the dialect [of Athens and] of
+Alexandria."[856] This must be ascribed to the foreordination of Him
+who, in the history of nations and of civilizations, "worketh all things
+according to the counsel of his own will."
+
+[Footnote 856: Conybeare and Howson, "Life and Epistles of St. Paul,"
+vol. i. p. 10.]
+
+Now it is the doctrine of the best philologists that language is a
+_growth_. Gradually, and by combined efforts of successive generations,
+it has been brought to the perfection which we so much admire in the
+idioms of the Bible, the poetry of Homer, Dante, and Shakspeare, and the
+prose compositions of Demosthenes, Cicero, Johnson, and Macaulay. The
+material or root-element of language may have been the product of mental
+instinct, or perhaps the immediate gift of God by revelation; but the
+formal element must have been the creation of thought, and the result of
+rational combination. Language is really the incarnation of thought;
+consequently the growth of a language, its affluence, comprehension, and
+fullness must depend on the vigor and activity of thought, and the
+acquisition of general ideas. Language is thus the best index of
+intellectual progress, the best standard of the intellectual attainment
+of an age or nation. The language of barbaric tribes is exceedingly
+simple and meagre; the paucity of general terms clearly indicating the
+absence of all attempts at classification and all speculative thought.
+Whilst the language of educated peoples is characterized by great
+fullness and affluence of terms, especially such as are expressive of
+general notions and abstract ideas. All grammar, all philology, all
+scientific nomenclature are thus, in fact, _psychological deposits_,
+which register the progressive advancement of human thought and
+knowledge in the world of mind, as the geological strata bear testimony
+to the progressive development of the material world. "Language," says
+Trench, "is fossil poetry, fossil history," and, we will add, fossil
+philosophy. Many a single word is a concentrated poem. The record of
+great social and national revolutions is embalmed in a single term.[857]
+And the history of an age of philosophic thought is sometimes condensed
+and deposited in one imperishable word.[858]
+
+[Footnote 857: See Trench "On the Study of Words," p. 20, where the word
+"frank" is given as an illustration.]
+
+[Footnote 858: For example, the κόσμος of the Pythagoreans, the εὶδη of
+the Platonists, and the ἀταραξία of the Stoics.]
+
+If, then, language is the creation of thought, the sensible vesture with
+which it clothes itself, and becomes, as it were, incarnate--if the
+perfection and efficiency of language depends on the maturity and
+clearness of thought, we conclude that the wonderful adequacy and
+fitness of the Greek language to be the vehicle of the Divine thought,
+the medium of the most perfect revelation of God to men, can only be
+explained on the assumption that the ages of philosophic thought which,
+in Greece, preceded the advent of Christianity, were under the immediate
+supervision of a providence, and, in some degree, illuminated by the
+Spirit of God.
+
+Greek philosophy must therefore have fulfilled a propædeutic office for
+Christianity. "As it had been intrusted to the Hebrews to preserve and
+transmit the heaven-derived element of the Monotheistic religion, so it
+was ordained that, among the Greeks, all seeds of human culture should
+unfold themselves in beautiful harmony, and then Christianity, taking up
+the opposition between the divine and human, was to unite both in one,
+and show how it was necessary that both should co-operate to prepare for
+the appearance of itself and the unfolding of what it contains."[859]
+During the period of Greek philosophy which preceded the coming of
+Christ, human reason, unfolding itself from beneath, had aspired after
+that knowledge of divine things which is from above. It had felt within
+itself the deep-seated consciousness of God--the sporadic revelation of
+Him "who is not far from any one of us"--the immanent thought of that
+Being "in whom we live and move and are," and it had striven by analysis
+and definition to attain a more distinct and logical apprehension. The
+heart of man had been stirred with "the feeling after God"--the longing
+for a clearer sense of the divine, and had struggled to attain, by
+abstraction or by ecstasy, a more immediate communion with God. Man had
+been conscious of an imperative obligation to conform to the will of the
+great Supreme, and he sought to interpret more clearly the utterances of
+conscience as to what duty was. He had felt the sense of sin and guilt,
+and had endeavored to appease his conscience by expiatory offerings, and
+to deliver himself from the power of sin by intellectual culture and
+moral discipline. And surely no one, at all familiar with the history of
+that interesting epoch in the development of humanity, will have the
+hardihood to assert that no steps were taken in the right direction, and
+no progress made towards the distant goal of human desire and hope. The
+language, the philosophy, the ideals of moral beauty and excellence, the
+noble lives and nobler utterances of the men who stand forth in history
+as the representatives of Greek civilization, all attest that their
+noble aspiration and effort did not end in ignominious failure and utter
+defeat. It is true they fell greatly beneath the realization of even
+their own moral ideals, and they became painfully conscious of their
+moral weakness, as men do even in Christian times. They learned that,
+neither by intellectual abstraction, nor by ecstasy of feeling, could
+they lift themselves to a living, conscious fellowship with God. The
+sense of guilt was unrelieved by expiations, penances, and prayers. And
+whilst some cultivated a proud indifference, a Stoical apathy, and
+others sank down to Epicurean ease and pleasure, there was a noble few
+who longed and hoped with increasing ardor for a living Redeemer, a
+personal Mediator, who should "stand between God and man and lay his
+hand on both." Christ became in some dim consciousness "the Desire of
+Nations," and the Moral Law became even to the Greek as well as the Jew
+"a school-master to lead them to Him."
+
+[Footnote 859: Neander's "Church History," vol. i. p. 4.]
+
+The arrival of Paul at Athens, in the close of this brilliant period of
+Greek philosophy, now assumes an aspect of deeper interest and
+profounder significance. It was a grand climacteric in the life of
+humanity--an epoch in the moral and religious history of the world. It
+marked the consummation of a periodic dispensation, and it opened a new
+era in that wonderful progression through which an overruling Providence
+is carrying the human race. As the coming of the Son of God to Judea in
+the ripeness of events--"the fullness of time"--was the consummation of
+the Jewish dispensation, and the event for which the Jewish age had been
+a preparatory discipline, so the coming of a Christian teacher to
+Athens, in the person of "the Apostle of the Gentiles," was the
+_terminus ad quem_ towards which all the phases in the past history of
+philosophic thought had looked, and for which they had prepared.
+Christianity was brought to Athens--brought into contact with Grecian
+philosophy at the moment of its exhaustion--at the moment when, after
+ages of unwearied effort, it had become conscious of its weakness, and
+its comparative failure, and had abandoned many questions in despair.
+Greek philosophy had therefore its place in the plan of Divine
+Providence. It had a mission to the world; that mission was now
+fulfilled. If it had laid any foundation in the Athenian mind on which
+the Christian system could plant its higher truths--if it had raised up
+into the clearer light of consciousness any of those _ideas_ imbedded in
+the human reason which are germane to Christian truth--if it had
+revealed more fully the wants and instincts of the human heart, or if it
+had attained the least knowledge of eternal truth and immutable right,
+upon this Christianity placed its _imprimatur_. And at those points
+where human reason had been made conscious of its own inefficiency, and
+compelled to own its weakness and its failure, Christianity shed an
+effulgent and convincing light.
+
+Therefore the preparatory office of Greek religion and Greek philosophy
+is fully recognized by Paul in his address to the Athenians. He begins
+by saying that the observations he had made enabled him to bear witness
+that the Athenians were indeed, in every respect, "a God-fearing
+people;"--that the God whom they knew so imperfectly as to designate Him
+"the Unknown," but whom "they worshipped," was the God he worshipped,
+and would now more fully declare to them. He assures them that their
+past history, and their present geographical position, had been the
+object of Divine foreknowledge and determination. "He hath determined
+beforehand the times of each nation's existence, and fixed the
+geographical boundaries of their habitation," all with this specific
+design, that they might "seek after," "feel after," and "find the Lord,"
+who had never been far from any one of them. He admits that their
+poet-philosophers had risen to a lofty apprehension of "the Fatherhood
+of God," for they had taught that "we are all his offspring;" and he
+seems to have felt that in asserting the common brotherhood of our race,
+he would strike a chord of sympathy in the loftiest school of Gentile
+philosophy. He thus "recognized the Spirit of God brooding over the face
+of heathenism, and fructifying the spiritual element in the heart even
+of the natural man. He feels that in these human principles there were
+some faint adumbrations of the divine, and he looked for their firmer
+delineation to the figure of that gracious Master, higher and holier
+than man, whom he contemplated in his own imagination, and whom he was
+about to present to them."[860]
+
+[Footnote 860: Merivale's "Conversion of the Roman Empire," p. 78.]
+
+This function of ancient philosophy is distinctly recognized by many of
+the greatest of the Fathers, as Justin, Clement, Origen, Augustine, and
+Theodoret. Justin Martyr believed that a ray of the Divine Logos shone
+on the mind of the heathen, and that the human soul instinctively turned
+towards God as the plant turns towards the sun. "Every race of men
+participated in the Word. And they who lived with the Word were
+Christians, even if they were held to be godless; as, for example, among
+the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and those like them."[861] Clement
+taught that "philosophy, before the coming of the Lord, was necessary to
+the Greeks for righteousness; and now it proved useful for godliness,
+being a sort of preliminary discipline for those who reap the fruits of
+faith through demonstration.... Perhaps we may say that it was given to
+the Greeks with this special object, for it brought the Greek nation to
+Christ as the Law brought the Hebrews."[862] "Philosophy was given as a
+peculiar testament to the Greeks, as forming the basis of the Christian
+philosophy."[863] Referring to the words of Paul, Origen says, the
+truths which philosophers taught were from God, for "God manifested
+these to them, and all things that have been nobly said."[864] And
+Augustine, whilst deprecating the extravagant claims made for the great
+Gentile teachers, allows "that some of them made great discoveries, so
+far as they received help from heaven; whilst they erred as far as they
+were hindered by human frailty."[865] They had, as he elsewhere
+observes, "a distant vision of the truth, and learnt, from the teaching
+of nature, what prophets learnt from the spirit."[866] In addressing the
+Greeks, Theodoret says, "Obey your own philosophers; let them be your
+initiators; for they announced beforehand our doctrines." He held that
+"in the depths of human nature there are characters inscribed by the
+hand of God." And that "if the race of Abraham received the divine law,
+and the gift of prophecy, the God of the universe led other nations to
+piety by natural revelation, and the spectacle of nature."[867]
+
+[Footnote 861: "First Apology," ch. xlvi.]
+
+[Footnote 862: "Stromata," bk. i. ch. v.]
+
+[Footnote 863: "Stromata," bk. vi. ch. viii.]
+
+[Footnote 864: "Contra Celsum," bk. vi. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 865: "De Civitate Dei," bk. ii. ch. vii.]
+
+[Footnote 866: Sermon lxviii. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 867: See Smith's "Bible Dictionary," article "Philosophy;"
+Pressensé, "Religions before Christ," p. II; Butler's "Lectures on
+Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. pp. 28-40.]
+
+In attempting to account for this partial harmony between Philosophy and
+Revelation, we find the Patristic writers adopting different theories.
+They are generally agreed in maintaining some original connection, but
+they differ as to its immediate source. Some of them maintained that the
+ancient philosophers derived their purest light from the fountain of
+Divine Revelation. The doctrines of the Old Testament Scriptures were
+traditionally diffused throughout the West before the rise of
+philosophic speculation. If the theistic conceptions of Plato are
+superior to those of Homer it is accounted for by his (hypothetical)
+tour of inquiry among the Hebrew nation, as well as his Egyptian
+investigations. Others maintained that the similarity of views on the
+character of the Supreme Being and the ultimate destination of humanity
+which is found in the writings of Plato and the teachings of the Bible
+is the consequence of _immediate_ inspiration. Origen, Jerome, Eusebius,
+Clement, do not hesitate to affirm that Christ himself revealed his own
+high prerogatives to the gifted Grecian. From this hypothesis, however,
+the facts of the case compel them to make some abatements. In the
+mid-current of this divine revelation are found many acknowledged
+errors, which it is impossible to ascribe to the celestial illuminator.
+Plato, then, was _partially_ inspired, and clouded the heavenly beam
+with the remaining grossnesses of the natural sense.[868] Whilst a
+third, and more reasonable, hypothesis was maintained by others. They
+regarded man as "the offspring and image of the Deity," and maintained
+there must be a correlation of the human and divine reason, and,
+consequently, of all discovered truth to God. Therefore they expected to
+find some traces of connection and correspondence between Divine and
+human thought, and some kindred ideas in Philosophy and Revelation.
+"Ideas," says St. Augustine, "are the primordial forms, as it were, the
+immutable reason of things; they are not created, they are eternal, and
+always the same: they are contained in the Divine intelligence and
+without being subject to birth and death, they are _types_ according to
+which is formed every thing that is born and dies." The copies of these
+archetypes are seen in nature, and are participated in by the reason of
+man; and there may therefore be some community of idea between man and
+God, and some relation between Philosophy and Christianity.
+
+[Footnote 868: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+41.]
+
+The various attempts which have been made to trace the elevated theism
+and morality of Socrates and Plato to Jewish sources have signally
+failed. Justin Martyr and Tertullian claim that the ancient philosophers
+"borrowed from the Jewish prophets." Pythagoras and Plato are supposed
+to have travelled in the East in quest of knowledge.[869] The latter is
+imagined to have had access to an existing Greek version of the Old
+Testament in Egypt, and a strange oversight in chronology brings him
+into personal intercourse with the prophet Jeremiah. A sober and
+enlightened criticism is compelled to pronounce all these statements as
+mere exaggerations of later times.[870] They are obviously mere
+suppositions by which over-zealous Christians sought to maintain the
+supremacy and authority of Scripture. The travels of Pythagoras are
+altogether mythical, the mere invention of Alexandrian writers, who
+believed that all wisdom flowed from the East.[871] That Plato visited
+Egypt at all, rests on the single authority of Strabo, who lived at
+least four centuries after Plato; there is no trace in his own works of
+Egyptian research. His pretended travels in Phœnicia, where he gained
+from the Jews a knowledge of the true God, are more unreliable still.
+Plato lived in the fourth century before Christ (born B.C. 430), and
+there is no good evidence of the existence of a Greek version of the Old
+Testament before that of "the Seventy" (Septuagint), made by order of
+Ptolemy Philadelphus, B.C. 270. Jeremiah, the prophet of Israel, lived
+two centuries before Plato; consequently any personal intercourse
+between the two was simply impossible. Greek philosophy was
+unquestionably a development of Reason alone.[872]
+
+[Footnote 869: Mr. Watson adopts this hypothesis to account for the
+theistic opinions of the ancient philosophers of Greece. See "Institutes
+of Theology," vol. i. pp. 26-34.]
+
+[Footnote 870: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+147.]
+
+[Footnote 871: Max Muller, "Science of Language," p. 94.]
+
+[Footnote 872: See on this subject, Ritter's "History of Ancient
+Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 147, 148; Encyclopædia Britannica, article
+"Plato," vol. xvii. p. 787; Smith's "Bible Dictionary," article
+"Philosophy;" and Thompson's "Laws of Thought," p. 326.]
+
+Some of the ablest Christian scholars and divines of modern times, as
+Cudworth, Neander, Trench, Pressensé, Merivale, Schaff, after the most
+careful and conscientious investigation, have come to this conclusion,
+that Greek philosophy fulfilled a preparatory mission for Christianity.
+The general conclusions they reached are forcibly presented in the words
+of Pressensé:
+
+It would be difficult to overstate the importance of Greek philosophy
+when viewed as a preparation to Christianity. Disinterested pursuit of
+truth is always a great and noble task. The imperishable want of the
+human mind to go back to first principles, suffices to prove that this
+principle is divine. We may abuse speculation; we may turn it into one
+of the most powerful dissolvents of moral truths; and the defenders of
+positive creeds, alarmed by the attitude too often assumed by
+speculation in the presence of religion, have condemned it as
+mischievous in itself, confounding in their unjust prejudice its use and
+its abuse. But, for all serious thinkers, philosophy is one of the
+highest titles of nobility that humanity possesses: and when we consider
+its mission previous to Christianity, we feel convinced that it had its
+place in the Divine plan. It was not religion in itself that philosophy,
+through its noblest representatives, combated, but polytheism. It
+dethroned the false gods. Adopting what was best in paganism, philosophy
+employed it as an instrument to destroy paganism, and thus clear the way
+for definite religion. Above all, it effectually contributed to purify
+the idea of Divinity, though this purification was but an approximation.
+If at times it caught glimpses of the highest spiritualism, yet it was
+unable to protect itself against the return and reaction of Oriental
+dualism. In spite of this imperfection, which in its way served the
+cause of Christianity by demonstrating the necessity of revelation, men
+like Socrates and Plato fulfilled amongst their people a really sublime
+mission.
+
+They were to the heathen world the great prophets of the human
+conscience, which woke up at their call. And the awakening of the moral
+sense was at once the glory and ruin of philosophy; for conscience, once
+aroused, could only be satisfied by One greater than they, and must
+necessarily reject all systems which proved themselves insufficient to
+realize the moral idea they had evoked.
+
+"But to perish thus, and for such a cause, is a high honor to a
+philosophy. It was this made the philosophy of Greece, like the Hebrew
+laws, though in an inferior sense, a schoolmaster that led to Jesus
+Christ, according to the expression of Clement of Alexandria. Viewed in
+this light, it was a true gift of God, and had, too, the shadow of good
+things to come, awakening the presentiment and desire of them, though it
+could not communicate them. Nor can we conceive a better way to prepare
+for the advent of Him who was to be 'the Desire of Nations' before
+becoming their Saviour."[873]
+
+[Footnote 873: "Religions before Christ," pp. 101, 102.]
+
+In previous chapters we have endeavored to sketch the history of the
+development of metaphysical thought, of moral feeling and idea, and of
+religious sentiment and want, which characterized Grecian civilization.
+In now offering a brief _résumé_ of the history of that development,
+with the design of more fully exhibiting the preparatory office it
+fulfilled for Christianity, we shall assume that the mind of the reader
+has already been furnished and disciplined by preparatory principles. He
+can scarce have failed to recognize that this development obeyed a
+_general law_, however modified by exterior and geographical conditions;
+the same law, in fact, which governs the development of all individual
+finite minds, and which law may be formulated thus:--_All finite mind
+develops itself, first, in instinctive determinations and spontaneous
+faiths; then in rising doubt, and earnest questioning, and ill-directed
+inquiry; and, finally, in systematic philosophic thought, and rational
+belief_. These different stages succeed each other in the individual
+mind. There is, first, the simplicity and trust of childhood; secondly,
+the undirected and unsettled force of youth; and, thirdly, the wisdom of
+mature age. And these different stages have also succeeded each other in
+the universal mind of humanity. There has been, 1st. _The era of
+spontaneous beliefs_--of popular and semi-conscious theism, morality,
+and religion, 2d. _The transitional age_--the age of doubt, of inquiry,
+and of ill-directed mental effort, ending in fruitless sophism, or in
+skepticism. 3d. _The philosophic or conscious age_--the age of
+reflective consciousness, in which, by the analysis of thought, the
+first principles of knowledge are attained, the necessary laws of
+thought are discovered, and man arrives at positive convictions, and
+rational beliefs. In the history of Grecian civilization, the first is
+the Homeric age; the second is the pre-Socratic age, ending with the
+Sophists; and the third is the grand Socratic period. History is thus
+the development of the fundamental elements of humanity, according to an
+established law, and under conditions which are ordained and supervised
+by the providence of God. "The unity of civilization is in the unity of
+human nature; its varieties, in the variety of the elements of
+humanity," which elements have been successively developed in the course
+of history. All that is fundamental in human nature passes into the
+movement of civilization. "I say all that is fundamental; for it is the
+excellency of history to take out, and throw away all that is not
+necessary and essential. That which is individual shines for a day, and
+is extinguished forever, or stops at biography." Nothing endures, except
+that which is fundamental and true--that which is vital, and organizes
+itself, develops itself, and arrives at an historical existence.
+"Therefore as human nature is the matter and basis of history, history
+is, so to speak, the judge of human nature, and historical analysis is
+the counter-proof of psychological analysis."[874]
+
+[Footnote 874: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 31.] Nature, individual mind, and collective humanity, all obey the
+law of progressive development; otherwise there could be no history, for
+history is only of that which has movement and progress. Now, all
+progress is from the indefinite to the definite, from the inorganic to
+the organic and vital, from the instinctive to the rational, from a dim,
+nebulous self-feeling to a high reflective consciousness, from sensuous
+images to abstract conceptions and spiritual ideas. This progressive
+development of nature and humanity has not been a series of creations
+_de novo_, without any relation, in matter or form, to that which
+preceded. All of the present was contained in embryonic infoldment in
+the past, and the past has contributed its results to the present.[875]
+The present, both in nature, and history, and civilization, is, so to
+speak, the aggregate and sum-total of the past. As the natural history
+of the earth may now be read in the successive strata and deposits which
+form its crust, so the history of humanity may be read in the successive
+deposits of thought and language, of philosophy and art, which register
+its gradual progression. As the paleontological remains imbedded in the
+rocks present a succession of organic types which gradually improve in
+form and function, from the first sea-weed to the palm-tree, and from
+the protozoa to the highest vertebrate, so the history of ancient
+philosophy presents a gradual progress in metaphysical, ethical, and
+theistic conceptions, from the unreflective consciousness of the Homeric
+age, to the high reflective consciousness of the Platonic period. And as
+all the successive forms of life in pre-Adamic ages were a preparation
+for and a prophecy of the coming of man, so the advancing forms of
+philosophic thought, during the grand ages of Grecian civilization, were
+a preparation and a prophecy of the coming of the Son of God.
+
+[Footnote 875: The writer would not be understood as favoring the idea
+that this development is simply the result of "natural law." The
+connection between the past and the present is not a material, but a
+_mental_ connection. It is the bond of Creative Thought and Will giving
+to organic forces a foreseen direction towards the working out of a
+grand plan. See Agassiz, "Contributions to Natural History," vol. i. pp.
+9, 10; Duke of Argyll, "Reign of Law," ch. v.]
+
+We shall now endeavor to trace this process of gradual preparation for
+Christianity in the Greek mind--
+
+(i.) _In the field of_ THEISTIC _conceptions_.
+
+(ii.) _In the department of_ ETHICAL _ideas and principles_.
+
+(iii.) _In the region of_ RELIGIOUS _sentiment_.
+
+In the field of theistic conception the propædeutic office of Grecian
+philosophy is seen--
+
+I. _In the release of the popular mind from Polytheistic notion, and the
+purifying and spiritualizing of the Theistic idea_.
+
+The idea of a Supreme Power, a living Personality, energizing in nature,
+and presiding over the affairs of men, is not the product of philosophy.
+It is the immanent, spontaneous thought of humanity. It has, therefore,
+existed in all ages, and revealed itself in all minds, even when it has
+not been presented to the understanding as a definite conception, and
+expressed by human language in a logical form. It is the thought which
+instinctively arises in the opening reason of childhood, as the dim and
+shadowy consciousness of a living mind behind all the movement and
+change of the universe. Then comes the period of doubt, of anxious
+questioning, and independent inquiry. The youth seeks to account to
+himself for this peculiar sentiment. He turns his earnest gaze towards
+nature, and through this living vesture of the infinite he seeks to
+catch some glimpses of the living Soul. In some fact appreciable to
+sense, in some phenomenon he can see, or hear, or touch, he would fain
+grasp the cause and reason of all that is. But in this field of inquiry
+and by this method he finds only a "receding God," who falls back as he
+approaches, and is ever still beyond; and he sinks down in exhaustion
+and feebleness, the victim of doubt, perhaps despair. Still the
+sentiment of the Divine remains, a living force, in the centre of his
+moral being. He turns his scrutinizing gaze within, and by
+self-reflection seeks for some rational ground for his instinctive
+faith. There he finds some convictions he can not doubt, some ideas he
+can not call in question, some thoughts he is compelled to think, some
+necessary and universal principles which in their natural and logical
+development ally him to an unseen world, and correlate and bind him fast
+to an invisible, but real God. The more his mind is disciplined by
+abstract thought, the clearer do these necessary and universal
+principles become, and the purer and more spiritual his ideas of God.
+God is now for him the First Principle of all principles, the First
+Truth of all truths; the Eternal Reason, the Immutable Righteousness,
+the Supreme Good. The normal and healthy development of reason, the
+maturity of thought, conduct to the recognition of the true God.
+
+And so it has been in the universal consciousness of our race as
+revealed in history. There was first a period of spontaneous and
+unreflective Theism, in which man felt the consciousness of God, but
+could not or did not attempt a rational explanation of his instinctive
+faith. He saw God in clouds and heard Him in the wind. His smile
+nourished the corn, and cheered the vine. The lightnings were the
+flashes of his vengeful ire, and the thunder was his angry voice. But
+the unity of God was feebly grasped, the rays of the Divinity seemed
+divided and scattered amidst the separate manifestations of power, and
+wisdom, and goodness, and retribution, which nature presented. Then
+plastic art, to aid and impress the imagination, created its symbols of
+these separate powers and principles, chiefly in human form, and gods
+were multiplied. But all this polytheism still rested on a dim
+monotheistic background, and all the gods were subordinated to
+Zeus--"the Father of gods and men." Humanity had still the sense of the
+dependence of all finite being on one great fountain-head of
+Intelligence and Power, and all the "generated gods" were the subjects
+and ministers of that One Supreme. This was the childhood of humanity so
+vividly represented in Homeric poetry.
+
+Then came a period of incipient reflection, and speculative thought, in
+which the attention of man is drawn outward to the study of nature, of
+which he can yet only recognize himself as an integral part. He searches
+for some ἀρχή--some first principle, appreciable to sense, which in its
+evolution shall furnish an explanation of the problem of existence. He
+tries the hypothesis of "_water_" then of "_air_" then of "_fire_" as
+the primal element, which either is itself, or in some way infolds
+within itself an informing Soul, and out of which, by vital
+transformation, all things else are produced. But here he failed to find
+an adequate explanation; his reason was not satisfied. Then he sought
+his first principle in "_numbers_" as symbols, and, in some sense, as
+the embodiment of the rational conceptions of order, proportion, and
+harmony,--God is the original _μονάς_--unity--One;--or else he sought it
+in purely abstract "_ideas_" as unity, infinity, identity, and all
+things are the evolution of an eternal thought, one and identical, which
+is God. And here again he fails. Then he supposes an unlimited
+_μῑγμα_--a chaotic mixture of elements existing from eternity, which was
+separated, combined, and organized by the energy of a Supreme Mind, the
+_νοῦς_ of Anaxagoras. But he holds not firmly to this great principle;
+"he recurs again to air, and ether, and water, as _causes_ for the
+ordering of all things."[876] And after repeated attempts and failures,
+he is disappointed in his inquiry, and falls a prey to doubt and
+skepticism. This was the early youth of our humanity, the period that
+opens with Thales and ends with the Sophists.
+
+[Footnote 876: Thus Socrates complains of Anaxagoras. See "Phædo," §
+108.]
+
+The problem of existence still waits for and demands a solution. The
+heart of man, also, still cries out for the living God. The Socratic
+maxim, "know thyself," introverts the mental gaze, and self-reflection
+now becomes the method of philosophy. The Platonic analysis of thought
+reveals elements of knowledge which are not derived from the outer
+world. There are universal and necessary principles revealed in
+consciousness which, in their natural and logical development, transcend
+consciousness, and furnish the cognition of a world of Real Being,
+beyond the world of sense. There are absolute truths which bridge the
+chasm between the seen and the unseen, the fleeting and the permanent,
+the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal. There are
+necessary laws of thought which are also found to be laws of things, and
+which correlate man to a living, personal, righteous Lord and Lawgiver.
+From absolute ideas Plato ascends to an _absolute Being_, the author of
+all finite existence. From absolute truths to an _absolute Reason_, the
+foundation and essence of all truth. From the principle of immutable
+right to an _absolutely righteous Being_. From the necessary idea of the
+good to a being of _absolute Goodness_--that is, to _God_. This is the
+maturity of humanity, the ripening manhood of our race which was
+attained in the Socratic age.
+
+The inevitable tendency of this effort of speculative thought, spread
+over ages, and of the intellectual culture which necessarily resulted,
+was to undermine the old polytheistic religion, and to purify and
+elevate the theistic conception. The school of Elea rejected the gross
+anthropomorphism of the Homeric theology. Xenophanes, the founder of the
+school, was a believer in
+
+      "_ One God_, of all beings divine and human the greatest,
+      Neither in body alike unto mortals, neither in ideas."
+
+And he repels with indignation the anthropomorphic representations of
+the Deity.
+
+"But men foolishly think that gods are born as men are,
+And have, too, a dress like their own, and their voice, and their figure:
+But if oxen and lions had hands like ours, and fingers,
+Then would horses like unto horses, and oxen to oxen,
+Paint and fashion their god-forms, and give to them bodies
+Of like shape to their own, as they themselves too are fashioned."[877]
+
+Empedocles also wages uncompromising war against all representations of
+the Deity in human form--
+
+      "For neither with head adjusted to limbs, like the human,
+      Nor yet with two branches down from the shoulders outstretching,
+      Neither with feet, nor swift-moving limbs,....
+      He is, wholly and perfectly, _mind_, ineffable, holy,
+      With rapid and swift-glancing thought pervading the world."[878]
+
+[Footnote 877: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp.
+431, 432.]
+
+[Footnote 878: Ibid., vol. i. pp. 495, 496.]
+
+When speaking of the mythology of the older Greeks, Socrates maintains a
+becoming prudence; he is evidently desirous to avoid every thing which
+would tend to loosen the popular reverence for divine things.[879] But
+he was opposed to all anthropomorphic conceptions of the Deity. His
+fundamental position was that the Deity is the Supreme Reason, which is
+to be honored by men as the source of all existence and the end of all
+human endeavor. Notwithstanding his recognition of a number of
+subordinate divinities, he held that the Divine is one, because Reason
+is one. He taught that the Supreme Being is the immaterial, infinite
+Governor of all;[880] that the world bears the stamp of his
+intelligence, and attests it by irrefragable evidence;[881] and that he
+is the author and vindicator of all moral laws.[882] So that, in
+reality, he did more to overthrow polytheism than any of his
+predecessors, and on that account was doomed to death.
+
+[Footnote 879: Xenophon, "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iii. § 3.]
+
+[Footnote 880: Id., ib., bk. i. ch. iv. §§ 17, 18.]
+
+[Footnote 881: Id., ib., bk. i. ch. i. § 19.]
+
+[Footnote 882: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 63;
+Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 359.]
+
+It was, however, the matured dialectic of Plato which gave the
+death-blow to polytheism. "Plato, the poet-philosopher, sacrificed Homer
+himself to monotheism. We may measure the energy of his conviction by
+the greatness of the sacrifice. He could not pardon the syren whose
+songs had fascinated Greece, the fresh brilliant poetry that had
+inspired its religion. He crowned it with flowers, but banished it,
+because it had lowered the religious ideal of conscience." He was
+sensible of the beauty of the Homeric fables, but he was also keenly
+alive to their religious falsehood, and therefore he excluded the poets
+from his ideal republic. In the education of youth, he would forbid
+parents and teachers repeating "the stories which Hesiod and Homer and
+the other poets told us." And after instancing a number of these stories
+"which deserve the gravest condemnation," he enjoins that God must be
+represented as he is in reality. "God," says he, "is, beyond all else,
+good in reality, and therefore so to be represented;" "he can not do
+evil, or be the cause of evil;" "he is of simple essence, and can not
+change, or be the subject of change;" "there is no imperfection in the
+beauty or goodness of God;" "he is a God of truth, and can not lie;" "he
+is a being of perfect simplicity and truth in deed and word."[883] The
+reader can not fail to recognize the close resemblance between the
+language of Plato and the language of inspiration.
+
+The theistic conception, in Plato, reaches the highest purity and
+spirituality. God is "_the Supreme Mind_," "incorporeal,"
+"unchangeable," "infinite," "absolutely perfect," "essentially good,"
+"unoriginated and eternal." He is "the Father and Maker of the world,"
+"the efficient Cause of all things," "the Monarch and Ruler of the
+world," "the Sovereign Mind that orders all things," and "pervades all
+things." He is "the sole principle of all things," "the beginning of all
+truth," "the fountain of all law and justice," "the source of all order
+and beauty;" in short, He is "the beginning, middle, and end of all
+things."[884]
+
+[Footnote 883: "Republic," bk. ii. §§ 18-21.]
+
+[Footnote 884: See _ante_, ch. xi. pp. 377, 378, where the references to
+Plato's writings are given.]
+
+Aristotle continued the work of undermining polytheism. He defines God
+as "the Eternal Reason"--the Supreme Mind. "He is the immovable cause of
+all movement in the universe, the all-perfect principle. This principle
+or essence pervades all things. It eternally possesses perfect
+happiness, and its happiness consists in energy. This primeval mover is
+immaterial, for its essence is energy--it is pure thought, thought
+thinking itself--the thought of thought."[885] Polytheism is thus swept
+away from the higher regions of the intelligence. "For several to
+command," says he, "is not good, there should be but one chief. A
+tradition, handed down from the remotest antiguity, and transmitted
+under the veil of fable, says that all the stars are gods, and that the
+Divinity embraces the whole of nature. And round this idea other
+mythical statements have been agglomerated, with a view to influencing
+the vulgar, and for political and moral expediency; as for instance,
+they feigned that these gods have human shape, and are like certain of
+the animals; and other stories of the kind are added on. Now, if any one
+will separate from all this the first point alone, namely, that they
+thought the first and deepest grounds of existence to be Divine, he may
+consider it a divine utterance."[886] The popular polytheism, then, was
+but a perverted fragment of a deeper and purer "Theology." This passage
+is a sort of obituary of polytheism. The ancient glory of paganism had
+passed away. Philosophy had exploded the old theology. Man had learned
+enough to make him renounce the ancient religion, but not enough to
+found a new faith that could satisfy both the intellect and the heart.
+"Wherefore we are not to be surprised that the grand philosophic period
+should be followed by one of incredulity and moral collapse,
+inaugurating the long and universal _decadence_ which was, perhaps, as
+necessary to the work of preparation, as was the period of religious and
+philosophic development."
+
+[Footnote 885: "Metaphysics," bk. xii.]
+
+[Footnote 886: "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. viii. § 19.]
+
+The preparatory office of Greek philosophy in the region of speculative
+thought is seen--
+
+2. _In the development of the Theistic argument in a logical
+form._--Every form of the theistic proof which is now employed by
+writers on natural theology to demonstrate the being of God was
+apprehended, and logically presented, by one or other of the ancient
+philosophers, excepting, perhaps, the "moral argument" drawn from the
+facts of conscience.
+
+(I.) _The_ ÆTIOLOGICAL _proof_, or the argument based upon the principle
+of causality, which may be presented in the following form:
+
+      All genesis or becoming supposes a permanent and uncaused
+      Being, adequate to the production of all phenomena.
+
+      The sensible universe is a perpetual genesis, a succession
+      of appearances: it is "always becoming, and never really
+      is."
+
+      Therefore, it must have its cause and origin in a permanent
+      and unoriginated Being, adequate to its production.
+
+The major premise of this syllogism is a fundamental principle of
+reason--a self-evident truth, an axiom of common sense, and as such has
+been recognized from the very dawn of philosophy. [Greek: Ἀδύνατον
+γίνεσθαί τι ἐκ μηδενὸς προὔπάρχοντος]--_Ex nihilo nihil_--_Nothing which
+once was not, could ever of itself come into being_. Nothing can be made
+or produced without an efficient cause, is the oldest maxim of
+philosophy. It is true that this maxim was abusively employed by
+Democritus and Epicurus to disprove a Divine creation of any thing out
+of nothing, yet the great body of ancient philosophers, as Pythagoras,
+Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Plato, and
+Aristotle, regarded it as the announcement of an universal conviction,
+that nothing can be produced without an efficient cause;--order can not
+be generated out of chaos, life out of dead matter, consciousness out of
+unconsciousness, reason out of unreason. A first principle of life, of
+order, of reason, must have existed anterior to all manifestions of
+order, of life, of intelligence, in the visible universe. It was clearly
+in this sense that Cicero understood this great maxim of the ancient
+philosophers of Greece. With him "_De nihilo nihil fit"_ is equivalent
+to "_Nihil sine causa_"--nothing exists without a cause. This is
+unquestionably the form in which that fundamental law of thought is
+stated by Plato: "Whatever is generated is necessarily generated from a
+certain cause, for it is wholly impossible that any thing should be
+generated without a cause."[887] And the efficient cause is defined as
+"a power whereby that which did not previously exist was afterwards made
+to be."[888] It is scarcely needful to remark that Aristotle, the
+scholar of Plato, frequently lays it down as a postulate of reason,
+"that we admit nothing without a cause."[889] By an irresistible law of
+thought, "_all phenomena present themselves to us as the expression of
+power_, and refer us to a causal ground whence they issue."
+
+[Footnote 887: "Timæus," ch. ix.; also "Philebus," § 45.]
+
+[Footnote 888: "Sophist," § 109.]
+
+[Footnote 889: "Post. Analytic," bk. ii. ch. xvi.; "Metaphysics," bk. i.
+ch. i. § 3.]
+
+The major premise of this syllogism is a fact of observation.
+
+To the eye of sense and sensible observation, to scientific induction
+even in its highest generalizations, the visible universe presents
+nothing but a history and aggregation of phenomena--a succession of
+appearances or effects having more or less resemblance. It is a
+ceaseless flow and change, "a generation and corruption," "a becoming,
+but never really _is_;" it is never in two successive moments the
+_same_.[890] All our cognitions of sameness, uniformity, causal
+connection, permanent Being, real Power, are purely rational conceptions
+_given in thought_, supplied by the spontaneous intuition of reason as
+the correlative prefix to the phenomena observed.[891]
+
+[Footnote 890: "Timæus," ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 891: Ibid.]
+
+Therefore the ancient philosophers concluded justly, there must be
+something [Greek: ἀγέννητον]--something which was never generated,
+something [Greek: αὐτοϕυής] and [Greek: αὐθυπόστατον]--self-originated
+and self-existing, something [Greek: ταὐτόν] and [Greek:
+αἰώνιον]--immutable and eternal, the object of rational
+apperception--which is the real ground and efficient cause of all that
+appears.
+
+(2.) The COSMOLOGICAL proof, or the argument based upon the principle of
+order, and thus presented:
+
+      Order, proportion, harmony, are the product and expression
+      of Mind.
+
+      The created universe reveals order, proportion, and harmony.
+
+      Therefore, the created universe is the product of Mind.
+
+The fundamental law of thought which underlies this mode of proof was
+clearly recognized by Pythagoras. All harmony and proportion and
+symmetry is the result of _unity_ evolving itself in and pervading
+_multiplicity_. Mind or reason is unity and indivisibility; matter is
+diverse and multiple. Mind is the determinating principle; matter is
+indeterminate and indefinite. Confused matter receives form, and
+proportion, and order, and symmetry, by the action and interpenetration
+of the spiritual and indivisible element. In presence of facts of order,
+the human reason instinctively and necessarily affirms the presence and
+action of Mind.
+
+"Pythagoras had long devoted his intellectual adoration to the lofty
+idea of Order. To his mind it seemed as the presiding genius of the
+serene and silent world. He had from his youth dwelt with delight upon
+the eternal relations of space and number, in which the very idea of
+proportion seems to find its first and immediate development, until at
+length it seemed as if the whole secret of the universe was hidden in
+these mysterious correspondences. The world, in all its departments,
+moral and material, is a living arithmetic in its development, a
+realized geometry in its repose; it is a '_cosmos_' (for the word is
+Pythagorean), the expression of harmony, the manifestation to sense of
+everlasting order; and the science of _numbers_ is the truest
+representation of its eternal laws." Therefore, argued Pythagoras and
+the Pythagoreans, as the reason of man can perceive the relations of an
+eternal order in the proportions of extension and number, the laws of
+proportion, and symmetry, and harmony must inhere in a Divine reason, an
+intelligent soul, which moves and animates the universe. The harmonies
+of the world which address themselves to the human mind must be the
+product of a Divine mind. The world, in its real structure, must be the
+image and copy of that divine proportion which the mind of man adores.
+It is the sensible type of the Divinity, the outward and multiple
+development of the Eternal Unity, the Eternal One--that is, God.
+
+The same argument is elaborated by Plato in his philosophy of beauty.
+God is with him the last reason, the ultimate foundation, the perfect
+ideal of all beauty--of all the order, proportion, harmony, sublimity,
+and excellence which reigns in the physical, the intellectual, and the
+moral world. He is the "Eternal Beauty, unbegotten and imperishable,
+exempt from all decay as well as increase--the perfect--the Divine
+Beauty"[892] which is beheld by the pure mind in the celestial world.
+
+[Footnote 892: "Banquet," § 35.]
+
+(3.) The Teleological proof, or the argument based upon the principle of
+intentionality or Final Cause, and is presented in the following form:
+
+      The choice and adaptation of means to the accomplishment of
+      special ends supposes an intelligent purpose, a Designing
+      Mind.
+
+      In the universe we see such choice and adaptation of means
+      to ends.
+
+      Therefore, the universe is the product of an intelligent,
+      personal Cause.
+
+This is peculiarly the Socratic proof. He recognized the necessity and
+the irresistibility of the conviction that the choice and adaptation of
+means to ends is the effect of Purpose, the expression of Will.[893]
+There is an obviousness and a directness in this mode of argument which
+is felt by every human mind. In the "Memorabilia" Xenophon has preserved
+a conversation of Socrates with Aristodemus in which he develops this
+proof at great length. In reading the dialogue[894] in which Socrates
+instances the adaptation of our organization to the external world, and
+the examples of design in the human frame, we are forcibly reminded of
+the chapters of Paley, Whewell, and M'Cosh. Well might Aristodemus
+exclaim: "The more I consider it, the more it is evident to me that man
+must be the masterpiece of some great Artificer, carrying along with it
+infinite marks of the love and favor of Him who has thus formed it." The
+argument from Final Causes is pursued by Plato in the "Timæus;" and in
+Aristotle, God is the Final Cause of all things.[895]
+
+[Footnote 893: "Canst thou doubt, Aristodemus, whether a disposition of
+parts like this (in the human body) should be the work of chance, or of
+wisdom and contrivance?"--"Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iv.]
+
+[Footnote 894: "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iv.]
+
+[Footnote 895: Aristotle clearly recognizes that an end or final cause
+implies Intelligence. "The appearance of ends and means is a proof of
+Design."--"Nat. Ausc.," bk. ii. ch. viii.]
+
+(4.) The Ontological or Ideological proof, or the argument grounded on
+necessary and absolute ideas, which may be thrown into the following
+syllogism:
+
+      Every attribute or quality implies a subject, and absolute
+      modes necessarily suppose an Absolute Being. Necessary and
+      absolute truths or ideas are revealed in human reason as
+      absolute modes.
+
+      Therefore universal, necessary, and absolute ideas are modes
+      of the absolute subject--that is, God, the foundation and
+      source of all truth.
+
+This is the Platonic proof. Plato recognized the principle of substance
+(οὐσία--ὑποκείμενον), and therefore he proceeds in the "Timæus" to
+inquire for the real ground of all existence; and in the "Republic," for
+the real ground of all truth and certitude.
+
+The universe consists of two parts, permanent existences and transient
+phenomena--being and genesis; the one eternally constant, the other
+mutable and subject to change; the former apprehended by the reason, the
+latter perceived by sense. For each of these there must be a principle,
+subject, or substratum--a principle or subject-matter, which is the
+ground or condition of the sensible world, and a principle or substance,
+which is the ground and reason of the intelligible world or world of
+ideas. The subject-matter, or ground of the sensible world, is "the
+receptacle" and "nurse" of forms, an "invisible species and formless
+receiver (which is not earth, or air, or fire, or water) which receives
+the immanence of the intelligible."[896] The subject or ground of the
+intelligible world is that in which ideal forms, or eternal archetypes
+inhere, and which impresses form upon the transitional element, and
+fashions the world after its own eternal models. This eternal and
+immutable substance is God, who created the universe as a copy of the
+eternal archetypes--the everlasting thoughts which dwell in his infinite
+mind.
+
+[Footnote 896: "Timæus," ch. xxiv.]
+
+These copies of the eternal archetypes or models are perceived by the
+reason of man in virtue of its participation in the Ultimate Reason. The
+reason of man is the organ of truth; by an innate and inalienable right,
+it grasps unseen and eternal realities. The essence of the soul is akin
+to that which is real, permanent, and eternal;--_It is the offspring and
+image of God_; therefore it has a true communion with the realities of
+things, by virtue of this kindred and homogeneous nature. It can,
+therefore, ascend from the universal and necessary ideas, which are
+apprehended by the reason, to the absolute and supreme Idea, which is
+the attribute and perfection of God. When the human mind has
+contemplated any object of beauty, any fact of order, proportion,
+harmony, and excellency, it may rise to the notion of a quality common
+to all objects of beauty--from a single beautiful body to two, from two
+to all others; from beautiful bodies to beautiful sentiments, from
+beautiful sentiments to beautiful thoughts, until, from thought to
+thought, we arrive at the highest thought, which has no other object
+than the perfect, absolute, _Divine Beauty_.[897] When a man has, from
+the contemplation of instances of virtue, risen to the notion of a
+quality common to all these instances, this quality becomes the
+representative of an ineffable something which, in the sphere of
+immutable reality, answers to the conception in his soul. "At the
+extreme limits of the intellectual world is the _Idea of the Good_,
+which is perceived with difficulty, but, in fine, can not be perceived
+without concluding that it is the source of all that is beautiful and
+good; that in the visible world it produces light, and the star whence
+light directly comes; that in the invisible world it directly produces
+truth and intelligence."[898] This _absolute Good is God_.
+
+[Footnote 897: "Banquet," § 34.]
+
+[Footnote 898: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.]
+
+The order in which these several methods of proof were developed, will
+at once present itself to the mind of the reader as the natural order of
+thought. The first and most obvious aspect which nature presents to the
+opening mind is that of movement and change--a succession of phenomena
+suggesting the idea of _power_. Secondly, a closer attention reveals a
+resemblance of phenomena among themselves, a uniformity of nature--an
+order, proportion, and harmony pervading the _cosmos_, which suggest an
+_identity and unity of power and of reason_, pervading and controlling
+all things. Thirdly, a still closer inspection of nature reveals a
+wonderful adaptation of means to the fulfillment of special ends, of
+organs designed to fulfill specific functions, suggesting the idea of
+_purpose_, _contrivance_, and _choice_, and indicating that the power
+which moves and determines the universe is a _personal_, _thinking_, and
+_voluntary_ agent. And fourthly, a profounder study of the nature of
+thought, an analysis of personal consciousness, reveals that there are
+necessary principles, ideas, and laws, which universally govern and
+determine thought to definite and immovable conceptions--as, for
+example, the principles of causality, of substance, of identity or
+unity, of order, of intentionality; and that it is only under these laws
+that we can conceive the universe. By the law of substance we are
+compelled to regard these ideas, which are not only laws of thought but
+also of things, as inherent in a subject, or Being, who made all things,
+and whose ideas are reflected in the reason of man. Thus from universal
+and necessary ideas we rise to the _absolute Idea_, from immutable
+principles to a _First Principle of all principles_, a _First Thought_
+of all thoughts--that is, to _God_. This is the history of the
+development of thought in the individual, and in the race--_cause_,
+_order_, _design_, _idea_, _being_, GOD.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE PROPÆDEUTIC OFFICE OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY _(continued)_.
+
+
+
+      "If we regard this sublime philosophy as a preparation for
+      Christianity instead of seeking in it a substitute for the
+      Gospel, we shall not need to overstate its grandeur in order
+      to estimate its real value."--Pressensé.
+
+      "Plato made me to know the true God. Jesus Christ showed me
+      the way to Him."--St. Augustine.
+
+The preparatory office of Grecian philosophy is also seen in _the
+department of morals_.
+
+I. _In the awakening and enthronement of Conscience as a law of duty,
+and the elevation and purification of the Moral Idea_.
+
+The same law of evolution, which we have seen governing the history of
+speculative thought, may also be traced as determining the progress of
+ethical inquiry. In this department there are successive stages marked,
+both in the individual and the national mind. There is, first, the
+simplicity and trust of childhood, submitting with unquestioning faith
+to prescribed and arbitrary laws; then the unsettled and ill-directed
+force of youth, questioning the authority of laws, and asking reasons
+why this or that is obligatory; then the philosophic wisdom of riper
+years, recognizing an inherent law of duty, which has an absolute
+rightness and an imperative obligation. There is first a dim and shadowy
+apprehension of some lines of moral distinction, and some consciousness
+of obligation, but these rest mainly upon an outward law--the observed
+practice of others, or the command of the parent as, in some sense, the
+command of God. Then, to attain to personal convictions, man passes
+through a stage of doubt; he asks for a ground of obligation, for an
+authority that shall approve itself to his own judgment and reason. At
+last he arrives at some ultimate principles of right, some immutable
+standard of duty; he recognizes an inward law of conscience, and it
+becomes to him as the voice of God. He extends his analysis to history,
+and he finds that the universal conscience of the race has, in all ages,
+uttered the same behest. Should he live in Christian times, he discovers
+a wondrous harmony between the voice of God within the heart, and the
+voice of God within the pages of inspiration. And now the convention of
+public opinion, and the laws of the state, are revered and upheld by
+him, just so far as they bear the imprimatur of reason and of
+conscience--that is, of God.
+
+This history of the normal development of the individual mind has its
+counterpart in the history of humanity. There is (1.) _The age of
+popular and unconscious morality_; (2.) _The transitional, skeptical, or
+sophistical age_; and (3.) _The philosophic or conscious age of
+morality_.[899] In the "Republic" of Plato, we have these three eras
+represented by different persons, through the course of the dialogue.
+The question is started--what is Justice? and an answer is given from
+the stand-point of popular morality, by Polemarchus, who quotes the
+words of the poet Simonides,
+
+      "To give to each his due is just;"[900]
+
+that is, justice is paying your debts. This doctrine being proved
+inadequate, an answer is given from the Sophistical point of view by
+Thrasymachus, who defines justice as "the advantage of the
+strongest"--that is, might is right, and right is might.[901] This
+answer being sharply refuted, the way is opened for a more philosophic
+account, which is gradually evolved in book iv., Glaucon and Adimantus
+personifying the practical understanding, which is gradually brought
+into harmony with philosophy, and Socrates the higher reason, as the
+purely philosophic conception. Justice is found to be the right
+proportion and harmonious development of all the elements of the soul,
+and the equal balance of all the interests of society, so as to secure a
+well-regulated and harmonious whole.
+
+[Footnote 899: Grant's "Aristotle's Ethics," vol. i. p. 46.]
+
+[Footnote 900: "Republic," bk. i. § 6.]
+
+[Footnote 901: Ibid., bk. i. § 12.]
+
+The era of _popular and unconscious morality_ is represented by the
+times of Homer, Hesiod, the Gnomic poets, and "the Seven Wise Men of
+Greece."
+
+This was an age of instinctive action, rather than reflection--of poetry
+and feeling, rather than analytic thought. The rules of life were
+presented in maxims and proverbs, which do not rise above prudential
+counsels or empirical deductions. Morality was immediately associated
+with the religion of the state, and the will of the gods was the highest
+law for men. "Homer and Hesiod, and the Gnomic poets, constituted the
+educational course," to which may be added the saws and aphorisms of the
+Seven Wise Men, and we have before us the main sources of Greek views of
+duty. When the question was asked--"What is right?" the answer was given
+by a quotation from Homer, Hesiod, Simonides, and the like. The morality
+of Homer "is concrete, not abstract; it expresses the conception of a
+heroic life, rather than a philosophic theory. It is mixed up with a
+religion which really consists in a celebration of the beauty of nature,
+and in a deification of the strong and brilliant qualities of human
+nature. It is a morality uninfluenced by a regard for a future life. It
+clings with intense enjoyment and love to the present world, and the
+state after death looms up in the distance as a cold and repugnant
+shadow. And yet it would often hold death preferable to disgrace. The
+distinction between a noble and ignoble life is strongly marked in
+Homer, and yet a sense of right and wrong about particular actions seems
+fluctuating" and confused.[902] A sensuous conception of happiness is
+the chief good, and mere temporal advantage the principal reward of
+virtue. We hear nothing of the approving smile of conscience, of inward
+self-satisfaction, and peace, and harmony, resulting from the practice
+of virtue. Justice, energy, temperance, chastity, are enjoined, because
+they secure temporal good. And yet, with all this imperfection, the
+poets present "a remarkable picture of primitive simplicity, chastity,
+justice, and practical piety, under the three-fold influence of right
+moral feeling, mutual and fear of the divine displeasure."[903]
+
+[Footnote 902: Grant's "Aristotle's Ethics," vol. i. p. 51.]
+
+[Footnote 903: Tyler, "Theology of the Greek Poets," p. 167.]
+
+The _transitional, skeptical_, or _sophistical era_ begins with
+Protagoras. Poetry and proverbs had ceased to satisfy the reason of man.
+The awakening intellect had begun to call in question the old maxims and
+"wise saws," to dispute the arbitrary authority of the poets, and even
+to arraign the institutions of society. It had already begun to seek for
+some reasonable foundation of authority for the opinions, customs, laws,
+and institutions which had descended to them from the past, and to ask
+why men were obliged to do this or that? The question whether there is
+at bottom any real difference between truth and error, right and wrong,
+was now fairly before the human mind. The ultimate standard of all truth
+and all right, was now the grand object of pursuit. These inquiries were
+not, however, conducted by the Sophists with the best motives. They were
+not always prompted by an earnest desire to know the truth, and an
+earnest purpose to embrace and do the right. They talked and argued for
+mere effect--to display their dialectic subtilty, or their rhetorical
+power. They taught virtue for mere emolument and pay. They delighted, as
+Cicero tells us, to plead the opposite sides of a cause with equal
+effect. And they found exquisite pleasure in raising difficulties,
+maintaining paradoxes, and passing off mere tricks of oratory for solid
+proofs. This is the uniform representation of the sophistical spirit
+which is given by all the best writers who lived nearest to their times,
+and who are, therefore, to be presumed to have known them best.
+Grote[904] has made an elaborate defense of the Sophists; he charges
+Plato with gross misrepresentation. His portraits of them are denounced
+as mere caricatures, prompted by a spirit of antagonism; all antiquity
+is presumed to have been misled by him. No one, however, can read
+Grant's "Essay on the History of Moral Philosophy in Greece"[905]
+without feeling that his vindication of Plato is complete and
+unanswerable: "Plato never represents the Sophists as teaching a lax
+morality to their disciples. He does not make sophistry to consist in
+holding wicked opinions; he represents them as only too orthodox in
+general,[906] but capable of giving utterance to immoral paradoxes for
+the sake of vanity. Sophistry rather tampers and trifles with the moral
+convictions than directly attacks them." The Sophists were wanting in
+deep conviction, in moral earnestness, in sincere love of truth, in
+reverence for goodness and purity, and therefore their trifling,
+insincere, and paradoxical teaching was unfavorable to goodness of life.
+The tendency of their method is forcibly depicted in the words of Plato:
+"There are certain dogmas relating to what is _just_ and _good_ in which
+we have been brought up from childhood--obeying and reverencing them.
+Other opinions recommending pleasure and license we resist, out of
+respect for the old hereditary maxims. Well, then, a question comes up
+concerning what is right? He gives some answer such as he has been
+taught, and straightway is refuted. He tries again, and is again
+refuted. And, when this has happened pretty often, he is reduced to the
+opinion that _nothing is either right or wrong_; and in the same way it
+happens about the just and the good, and all that before we have held in
+reverence. On this, he naturally abandons his allegiance to the old
+principles and takes up with those he before resisted, and so, from
+being a good citizen, he becomes lawless."[907] And, in point of fact,
+this was the theoretical landing-place of the Sophists. We do not say
+they became practically "lawless" and antinomian, but they did arrive at
+the settled opinion that right and wrong, truth and error, are solely
+matter of private opinion and conventional usage. Man's own fluctuating
+opinion is the measure and standard of all things.[908] They who "make
+the laws, make them for their own advantage."[909] There is no such
+thing as Eternal Right. "That which _appears_ just and honorable to each
+city is so for that city, as long as the opinion prevails."[910]
+
+[Footnote 904: "History of Greece."]
+
+[Footnote 905: Aristotle's "Ethics," vol. i. ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 906: "His teachings will be good counsels about a man's own
+affairs, how best to govern his family; and also about the affairs of
+the state, how most ably to administer and speak of state
+affairs."--"Protag.," § 26.]
+
+[Footnote 907: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xvii.]
+
+[Footnote 908: "Theætetus," § 23.]
+
+[Footnote 909: "Gorgias," §§ 85-89.]
+
+[Footnote 910: "Theætetus," §§ 65-75.]
+
+The age of the Sophists was a transitional period--a necessary, though,
+in itself considered, an unhappy stage in the progress of the human
+mind; but it opened the way for, _The Socratic, philosophic_, or
+_conscious age of morals_. It has been said that "before Socrates there
+was no morality in Greece, but only propriety of conduct." If by this is
+meant that prior to Socrates men simply followed the maxims of "the
+Theologians,"[911] and obeyed the laws of the state, without reflection
+and inquiry as to the intrinsic character of the acts, and without any
+analysis and exact definition, so as to attain to principles of ultimate
+and absolute right, it must be accepted as true--there was no philosophy
+of morals. Socrates is therefore justly regarded as "the father of moral
+philosophy." Aristotle says that he confined himself chiefly to ethical
+inquiries. He sought a determinate conception and an exact definition of
+virtue. As Xenophon has said of him, "he never ceased asking, What is
+piety? what is impiety? what is noble? what is base? what is just? what
+is unjust? what is temperance? what is madness?"[912] And these
+questions were not asked in the Sophistic spirit, as a dialectic
+exercise, or from idle curiosity. He was a perfect contrast to the
+Sophists. They had slighted Truth, he made her the mistress of his soul.
+They had turned away from her, he longed for more perfect communion with
+her. They had deserted her for money and renown, he was faithful to her
+in poverty.[913] He wanted to know what piety was, that he might be
+pious. He desired to know what justice, temperance, nobility, courage
+were, that he might cultivate and practise them. He wrote no books,
+delivered no lectures; he instituted no school; he simply conversed in
+the shop, the market-place, the banquet-hall, and the prison. This
+philosophy was not so much a _doctrine_ as a _life_. "What is remarkable
+in him is not the _system_ but the _man_. The memory he left behind him
+amongst his disciples, though idealized--the affection, blended with
+reverence, which they never ceased to feel for his person, bear
+testimony to the elevation of his character and his moral purity. We
+recognize in him a Greek of Athens--one who had imbibed many dangerous
+errors, and on whom the yoke of pagan custom still weighed; but his life
+was nevertheless a noble life; and it is to calumny we must have
+recourse if we are to tarnish its beauty by odious insinuations, as
+Lucian did, and as has been too frequently done, after him, by
+unskillful defenders of Christianity,[914] who imagine it is the gainer
+by all that degrades human nature. Born in a humble position, destitute
+of all the temporal advantages which the Greeks so passionately loved,
+Socrates exerted a kingship over minds. His dominion was the more real
+for being less apparent.... His power consisted of three things: his
+devoted affection for his disciples, his disinterested love of truth,
+and the perfect harmony of his life and doctrine.... If he recommended
+temperance and sobriety, he also set the example; poorly clad, satisfied
+with little, he disdained all the delicacies of life. He possessed every
+species of courage. On the field of battle he was intrepid, and still
+more intrepid when he resisted the caprices of the multitude who
+demanded of him, when he was a senator, to commit the injustice of
+summoning ten generals before the tribunals. He also infringed the
+iniquitous orders of the thirty tyrants of Athens. The satires of
+Aristophanes neither moved nor irritated him. The same dauntless
+firmness he displayed when brought before his judges, charged with
+impiety. 'If it is your wish to absolve me on condition that I
+henceforth be silent, I reply I love and honor you, but I ought rather
+to obey the gods than you. Neither in the presence of judges nor of the
+enemy is it permitted me, or any other man, to use every sort of means
+to escape death. It is not death but crime that it is difficult to
+avoid; crime moves faster than death. So I, old and heavy as I am, have
+allowed myself to be overtaken by death, while my accusers, light and
+vigorous, have allowed themselves to be overtaken by the light-footed
+crime. I go, then, to suffer death; they to suffer shame and iniquity. I
+abide by my punishment, as they by theirs. All is according to order.'
+It was the same fidelity to duty that made Socrates refuse to escape
+from prison, in order not to violate the laws of his country, to which,
+even though irritated, more respect is due than to a father. 'Let us
+walk in the path,' he says 'that God has traced for us.' These last
+words show the profound religious sentiment which animated Socrates....
+It is impossible not to feel that there was something divine in such a
+life crowned with such a death."[914]
+
+[Footnote 911: Homer, Hesiod, etc.]
+
+[Footnote 912: "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. i. p. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 913: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 122.]
+
+[Footnote 914: Watson's "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 374.]
+
+[Footnote 915: Pressensé, "Religions before Christ," pp. 109-111.]
+
+Socrates laid the foundation for conscious morality by placing the
+ground of right and wrong in an eternal and unchangeable reason which
+illuminates the reason and conscience of every man. He often asserted
+that morality is a science which can not be taught. It depends mainly
+upon principles which are discovered by an inward light. Accordingly he
+regarded it as the main business of education to "draw out" into the
+light of consciousness the principles of right and justice which are
+infolded within the conscience of man--to deliver the mind of the secret
+truth which was striving towards the light of day. Therefore he called
+his method the "maieutic" or "obstetric" art. He felt there was
+something divine in all men (answering to his _τὸ δαιμόνιον_ or
+_δαιμόνιον τι_--a divine and supernatural something--a warning
+"voice"--a gnomic "sign"--a "law of God written on the heart"), which by
+a system of skillful interrogations he sought to elicit, so that each
+might hear for himself the voice of God, and, hearing, might obey. Thus
+was he the "great prophet of the human conscience," and a messenger of
+God to the heathen world, to prepare the way of the Lord.
+
+The morality of conscience was carried to its highest point by Plato.
+From the moment he became the disciple of Socrates he sympathized deeply
+with the spirit and the method of his master. He had the same deep
+seriousness of spirit, that same earnestness of purpose, that same
+inward reverence for justice, and purity, and goodness, which dwelt in
+the heart of Socrates. A naturally noble nature, he loved truth with all
+the glow and fervor of his young heart. He felt that if any thing gave
+meaning and value to life, it must be the contemplation of absolute
+truth, absolute beauty, and absolute Good. This absolute Good is God,
+who is the first principle of all ideas, the fountain of all the order
+and proportion and beauty of the universe, the source of all the good
+which exists in nature and in man. To practise goodness--to conform the
+character to the eternal models of order, proportion, and excellence, is
+to resemble God. To aspire after perfection of moral being, to secure
+assimilation to God ([Greek: όμοίωσις θεῷ]) is the noble aspiration of
+Plato's soul.
+
+When we read the "Gorgias," the "Philebus," and especially the
+"Republic," with what noble joy are we filled on hearing the voice of
+conscience, like a harp swept by a seraph's hand, uttering such
+deep-toned melodies! How does he drown the clamors of passion, the
+calculations of mere expediency, the sophism of mere personal interest
+and utility. If he calls us to witness the triumph of the wicked in the
+first part of the "Republic," it is in order that we may at the end of
+the book see the deceitfulness of their triumph. "As to the wicked," he
+says, "I maintain that even if they succeed at first in concealing what
+they are, most of them betray themselves at the end of their career.
+They are covered with opprobrium, and present evils are nothing compared
+with those that _await them in the other life_. As to the just man,
+whether in sickness or in poverty, these imaginary evils will turn to
+his advantage in this life, _and after his death_; because the
+providence of the gods is necessarily attentive to the interests of him
+who labors to become just, and to attain, by the practice of virtue, to
+the most perfect resemblance to God which is possible to man."[916] He
+rises above all "greatest happiness principles," and asserts distinctly
+in the "Gorgias" that it is better to suffer wrong than to do
+wrong.[917] "I maintain," says he, "that what is most shameful is not to
+be struck unjustly on the cheek, or to be wounded in the body; but that
+to strike and wound me unjustly, to rob me, or reduce me to slavery--to
+commit, in a word, any kind of injustice towards me, or what is mine--is
+a thing far worse and more odious for him who commits the injustice,
+than for me who suffer it."[918] It is a great combat, he says, greater
+than we think, that wherein the issue is whether we shall be virtuous or
+wicked. Neither glory, nor riches, nor dignities, nor poetry, deserves
+that we should neglect justice for them. The moral idea in Plato has
+such intense truth and force, that it has at times a striking analogy
+with the language of the Holy Scriptures.[919]
+
+[Footnote 916: "Republic," bk. x. ch. xii.]
+
+[Footnote 917: "Gorgias," §§ 59-80.]
+
+[Footnote 918: Ibid., § 137.]
+
+[Footnote 919: Pressensé, "Religions before Christ," p. 129.]
+
+The obligation of moral rectitude is, by Plato, derived from the
+authoritative utterances of conscience as the voice of God. We must do
+right because reason and conscience say it is right. In the "Euthyphron"
+he maintains that the moral quality of actions is not dependent on the
+arbitrary will of a Supreme Governor;--"an act is not holy because the
+gods love it, but the gods love it because it is holy." The eternal law
+of right dwells in the Eternal Reason of God, the idea of right in all
+human minds is a ray of that Eternal Reason; and the requirement of the
+divine law that we shall do right is, and must be, in harmony with both.
+
+The present life is regarded by Plato as a state of probation and
+discipline, the future life as one of reward and punishment.[920]
+
+[Footnote 920: "Republic," bk. x. ch. xv., xvi.; "Laws," bk. x. ch.
+xiii.]
+
+Plato was thus to the heathen world "the great apostle of the moral
+idea;" he followed up and completed the work of Socrates. "The voice of
+God, that still found a profound echo in man's heart, possessed in him
+an organ to which all Greece gave ear; and the austere revelation of
+conscience this time embodied in language too harmonious not to entice
+by the beauty of form, a nation of artists, they received it. The tables
+of the eternal law, carved in purest marble and marvellously sculptured,
+were read by them."
+
+In Plato both the theistic conception and the moral idea seem to have
+touched the zenith. The philosophy of Aristotle, considered as a whole,
+appears on one side to have passed the line of the great Hellenic
+period. If it did not inaugurate, it at least prepared the way for the
+decline. It perfected logic, as the instrument of ratiocination, and
+gave it exactness and precision, Yet taken all in all, it was greatly
+inferior to its predecessor. From the moral point of view it is a
+decided retrogression. The god of Aristotle is indifferent to virtue. He
+is pure thought rather than moral perfection. He takes no cognizance of
+man. Morality has no eternal basis, no divine type, and no future
+reward. Therefore Aristotle's philosophy had little power over the
+conscience and heart.
+
+During the grand Platonic period human reason made its loftiest flight,
+it rose aloft and soared towards heaven, but alas! its wings, like those
+of Icarus, melted in the sun and it fell to earth again. Instead of wax
+it needed the strong "eagle pinions of faith" which revelation only can
+supply. The decadence is strongly marked both in the Epicurean and Stoic
+schools. They both express the feeling of exhaustion, disappointment,
+and despair. The popular theology had lost its hold upon the public
+mind. The gods no longer visited the earth. "The mysterious voice which,
+according to the poetic legend related by Plutarch, was heard out at
+sea--'Great Pan is dead'--rose up from every heart; the voice of an
+incredulous age proclaimed the coming end of paganism. The oracles were
+dumb." There was no vision in the land. All faith in a beneficent
+overruling Providence was lost, and the hope of immortality was
+well-nigh gone. The doctrines of a resurrection and a judgment to come,
+were objects of derisive mockery.[921] Philosophy directed her attention
+solely to the problem of individual well-being on earth; it became
+simply a philosophy of life, and not, as with Plato, "a preparation for
+death." The grosser minds sought refuge in the doctrines of Epicurus.
+They said, "Pleasure is the chief good, the end of life is to enjoy
+yourself;" to this end "dismiss the fear of gods, and, above all, the
+fear of death." The nobler souls found an asylum with the Stoics. They
+said, "Fata nos ducunt--The Fates lead us! Live conformable to reason.
+Endure and abstain!" Notwithstanding numerous and serious errors, the
+ethical system of the Stoics was wonderfully pure. This must be
+confessed by any one who reads the "Enchiridion" of Epictetus, and the
+"Meditations" of Aurelius. "The highest end of life is to contemplate
+truth and to obey the Eternal Reason. God is to be reverenced above all
+things, and universally submitted to. The noblest office of reason is to
+subjugate passion and conduct to virtue. Virtue is the supreme good,
+which is to be pursued for its own sake, and not from fear or hope. That
+is sufficient for happiness which is seated only in the mind, and
+therefore independent of external things. The consciousness of
+well-doing is reward enough without the applause of others. And no fear
+of loss, or pain, or even death, must be suffered to turn us aside from
+truth and virtue."[922]
+
+[Footnote 921: Acts xvii. 32.]
+
+[Footnote 922: Marcus Aurelius.]
+
+The preparatory office of Christianity in the field of ethics is further
+seen,
+
+II. _In the fact that, by an experiment conducted on the largest scale,
+it demonstrated the insufficiency of reason to elaborate a perfect ideal
+of moral excellence, and develop the moral forces necessary to secure
+its realization_.
+
+We have seen that the moral idea in Socrates, Plato, Epictetus, Marcus
+Aurelius, and Seneca rose to a sublime height, and that, under its
+influence, they developed a noble and heroic character. At the same time
+it must be conceded that their ethical system was marked by signal
+blemishes and radical defects. After all its excellence, it did not give
+roundness, completeness, and symmetry to moral life. The elements which
+really purify and ennoble man, and lend grace and beauty to life, were
+utterly wanting. Their systems were rather a discipline of the reason
+than a culture of the heart. The reason held in check the lower passions
+and propensities of the nature but it did not evoke the softer, gentler,
+purer emotions of the soul. The cardinal virtues of the ancient ethical
+systems are Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Courage, all which are in
+the last analysis reduced to Wisdom. Humility, Meekness, Forgiveness of
+injuries, Love of even enemies, Universal Benevolence, Real
+Philanthropy, the graces which give beauty to character and bless
+society, are scarcely known. It is true that in Epictetus and Seneca we
+have some counsels to humility, to forbearance, and forgiveness; but it
+must be borne in mind that Christianity was now in the air, exerting an
+indirect influence beyond the limits of the labors of the indefatigable
+missionaries of the Cross.[923] By their predecessors, these qualities
+were disparaged rather than upheld. Resentment of injuries was applauded
+as a virtue, and meekness was proclaimed a defect and a weakness. They
+knew nothing of a forgiving spirit, and were strangers to the charity
+"which endureth all things, hopeth all things, and never fails." The
+enlarged philanthrophy which overleaps the bounds of kindred and
+nationality, and embraces a common humanity in its compassionate regards
+and benevolent efforts, was unknown. Socrates, the noblest of all the
+Grecians, was in no sense cosmopolitan in his feeling. His whole nature
+and character wore a Greek impress. He could scarce be tempted to go
+beyond the gates of Athens, and his care was all for the Athenian
+people. He could not conceive an universal philanthropy. Plato, in his
+solicitude to reduce his ideal state to a harmonious whole, answering to
+his idea of Justice, sacrificed the individual. He superseded private
+property, broke up the sacred relations of family and home, degraded
+woman, and tolerated slavery. Selfishness was to be overcome, and
+political order maintained, by a rigid communism. To harmonize
+individual rights and national interests, was the wisdom reserved for
+the fishermen of Galilee. The whole method of Plato's "Politeia,"
+breathes the spirit of legalism in all its severity, untempered by the
+spirit of Love. This was the living force which was wanting to give
+energy to the ideals of the reason and conscience, to furnish high
+motive to virtue, to prompt to deeds of heroic sacrifice and suffering
+for the good of others; and this could not be inspired by philosophy,
+nor constrained by legislation. This love must descend from above. "The
+Platonic love" was a mere intellectual appreciation of beauty, and
+order, and proportion, and excellence. It was not the love of man as the
+offspring and image of God, as the partaker of a common nature, and the
+heir of a common immortality. Such love was first revealed on earth by
+the incarnate Son of God, and can only be attained by human hearts under
+the inspiration of his teaching and life, and the renewing influence of
+the Holy Spirit. "Love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of
+God and knoweth God." To "love our neighbor as ourself" is the golden
+precept of the Son of God, who is incarnate Love. The equality of all
+men as "the offspring of God" had been nominally recognized by the Stoic
+philosophers; its realization had been rendered possible to the popular
+thought by Roman conquest, law, and jurisprudence; these had prepared
+the way for its fullest announcement and practical recognition by the
+world. At this providential juncture St. Paul appears on Mars' Hill, and
+in the presence of the assembled philosophers proclaims, "_God hath made
+of one blood all nations of men_." A lofty ideal of moral excellence had
+been attained by Plato--the conception of a high and inflexible
+morality, which contrasted most vividly with the depravity which
+prevailed in Athenian society. The education "of the public assemblies,
+the courts, the theatres, or wherever the multitude gathered" was
+unfavorable to virtue. And the inadequacy of all mere human teaching to
+resist this current of evil, and save the young men of the age from
+ruin, is touchingly and mournfully confessed by Plato. "There is not,
+there never was, there never will be a moral education possible that can
+countervail the education of which these are the dispensers; that is,
+_human_ education: I except, with the proverb, that which is Divine.
+And, truly, any soul that in such governments escapes the common wreck,
+can only escape _by the special favor of heaven."_[924] He affirms again
+and again that man can not by himself rise to purity and goodness.
+"Virtue is not natural to man, neither is it to be learned, but it comes
+to us by a divine influence. Virtue is the gift of God in those who
+possess it."[925] That "gift of God" was about to be bestowed, in all
+its fullness of power and blessing, "_through Jesus Christ our Lord_."
+
+[Footnote 923: Seneca lived in the second century; Epictetus, in the
+latter part of the first century.]
+
+[Footnote 924: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vi., vii.]
+
+[Footnote 925: "Meno;" see conclusion.]
+
+In the department of _religious feeling_ and _sentiment_, the
+propædeutic office of Greek philosophy is seen, in general, in the
+revealing of the immediate spiritual wants of the soul, and the distinct
+presentation of the problem which Christianity alone can solve.
+
+I. _It awakened in man the sense of distance and estrangement from God,
+and the need of a Mediator--"a daysman betwixt us, that might lay his
+hand upon us both_"[926]
+
+[Footnote 926: Job ix. 33.]
+
+During the period of unconscious and unreflective theism, the sentiment
+of the Divine was one of objective nearness and personal intimacy. The
+gods interposed directly in the affairs of men, and held frequent and
+familiar intercourse with our race. They descend to the battle-field of
+Troy, and mingle in the bloody strife. They grace the wedding-feast by
+their presence, and heighten the gladness with celestial music. They
+visit the poor and the stranger, and sometimes clothe the old and
+shrivelled beggar with celestial beauty. They inspire their favorites
+with strength and courage, and fill their mouths with wisdom and
+eloquence. They manifest their presence by signs and wonders, by visions
+and dreams, by auguries and prophetic voices. But more frequently than
+all, they are seen in the ordinary phenomena of nature, the sunshine and
+storm, the winds and tempests, the hail and rain. The natural is, in
+fact, the supernatural, and all the changes of nature are the movement
+and action of the Divine. The feeling of dependence is immediate and
+universal, and worship is the natural and spontaneous act of man.
+
+But the period of reflection is inevitable. Man turns his inquiring gaze
+towards nature and desires, by an imperfect effort of physical
+induction, to reach "the first principle and cause of things." Soon he
+discovers the prevalence of uniformity in nature, the actions of
+physical properties and agencies, and he catches some glimpses of the
+reign of universal law. The natural tendency of this discovery is
+obvious in the weakening of his sense of dependence on the immediate
+agency of God. The Egyptians told Herodotus that, as their fields were
+regularly irrigated by the waters of the Nile, they were less dependent
+on God than the Greeks, whose lands were watered by rains, and who must
+perish if Jupiter did not send them showers.[927] As man advances in the
+field of mere physical inquiry, God recedes; from the region of
+explained phenomena, he retires into the region of unexplained
+phenomena--the border-land of mystery. The gods are driven from the
+woods and streams, the winds and waves. Neptune does not absolutely
+control the seas, nor Æolus the winds. The Divine becomes, no more a
+physical ἀρχή--a nature-power, but a Supreme Mind, an ineffable Spirit,
+an invisible God, the Supreme Essence of Essences, the Supreme Idea of
+Ideas (εἶδος αὐτὸ καθ᾿ αὑτό) apprehended by human reason alone, but
+having an independent, eternal, substantial, personal being. Through the
+instrumentality of Platonism, the idea of God becomes clearer and purer.
+Man had learned that communion with the Divinity was something more than
+an apotheosis of humanity, or a pantheistic absorption. He caught
+glimpses of a higher and holier union. He had surrendered the ideal of a
+national communion with God, and of personal protection through a
+federal religion, and now was thrown back upon himself to find some
+channel of personal approach to God. But alas! he could not find it. A
+God so vastly elevated beyond human comprehension, who could only be
+apprehended by the most painful effort of abstract thought; a God so
+infinitely removed from man by the purity and rectitude of his
+character; a God who was all pure reason, seemed alien to all the
+yearnings and sympathies of the human heart; and such a God, dwelling in
+pure light, seemed inapproachable and inacessible to man.[928] The
+purifying of the religious idea had evoked a new ideal, and this ideal
+was painfully remote. By the energy of abstract thought man had striven
+to pierce the veil, and press into "the Holy of Holies," to come into
+the presence of God, and he had failed. And he had sought by moral
+discipline, by self-mortification, by inward purification, to raise
+himself to that lofty plane of purity, where he might catch some
+glimpses of the vision of a holy God, and still he failed. Nay, more, he
+had tried the power of prayer. Socrates, and Plato, and Cleanthes had
+bowed the knee and moved the lips in prayer. The emperor Aurelius, and
+the slave Epictetus had prayed, and prayer, no doubt, intensified their
+longing, and sharpened and agonized their desire, but it did not raise
+them to a satisfying and holy _koinonia_ in the divine life. "It seems
+to me"--said Plato--as Homer says of Minerva, that she removed the mist
+from before the eyes of Diomede,
+
+      'That he might clearly see 'twixt Gods and men.'
+
+so must he, in the first place, remove from your soul the mist that now
+dwells there, and then apply those things through which you will be able
+to know[929] and rightly pray to God.
+
+[Footnote 927: Herodotus, vol. ii. bk. ii. ch. xiii. p. 14 (Rawlinson's
+edition).]
+
+[Footnote 928: "To discover the Maker and Father of the universe is a
+hard task;.... to make him known to all is impossible."--"Timæus," ch.
+ix.]
+
+[Footnote 929: "Second Alcibiades," § 23.]
+
+To develop this innate desire and "feeling after God" was the grand
+design of providence in "fixing the times" of the Greek nation, and "the
+boundaries of their habitation."[930] Man was brought, through a period
+of discipline, to feel his need of a personal relation to God. He was
+made to long for a realizing sense of his presence--to desire above all
+things a Father, a Counsellor, and a Friend--a living ear into which he
+might groan his anguish, or hymn his joy; and a living heart that could
+beat towards him in compassion, and prompt immediate succor and aid. The
+idea of a pure Spiritual Essence without form, and without emotion,
+pervading all, and transcending all, is too vague and abstract to yield
+us comfort, and to exert over us any persuasive power. "Our moral
+weakness shrinks from it in trembling awe. The heart can not feed on
+sublimities. We can not make a home of cold magnificence; we can not
+take immensity by the hand."[931] Hence the need and the desire that God
+shall condescendingly approach to man, and by some manifestation of
+himself in human form, and through the sensibilities of the human heart,
+commend himself to the heart of man--in other words, the need of an
+_Incarnation_. Thus did the education of our race, by the dispensation
+of philosophy, prepare the way for him who was consciously or
+unconsciously "_the Desire of Nations_," and the deepening earnestness
+and spiritual solicitude of the heathen world heralded the near approach
+of Him who was not only "the Hope of Israel" but "the Saviour of the
+world."
+
+[Footnote 930: Acts xvii. 26, 27.]
+
+[Footnote 931: Caird.]
+
+The idea of an _Incarnation_ was not unfamiliar to human thought, it was
+no new or strange idea to the heathen mind. The numberless metamorphoses
+of Grecian mythology, the incarnations of Brahm, the avatars of Vishnu,
+and the human form of Krishna had naturalized the thought.[932] So that
+when the people of Lystra saw the apostles Paul and Barnabas exercising
+supernatural powers of healing, they said, "The gods have come down to
+us in the likeness of men!" and they called Barnabas Jupiter, and Paul,
+Mercurius. The idea in its more definite form may have been, and indeed
+was, communicated to the world through the agency of the dispersed Jews.
+So that Virgil, the Roman poet, who was contemporary with Christ, seems
+to re-echo the prophecy of Isaiah--
+
+     The last age decreëd by the Fates is come,
+     And a new frame of all things does begin;
+     A holy progeny from heaven descends
+     Auspicious in his birth, which puts an end
+     To the iron age, and from which shall arise
+     A golden age, most glorious to behold.
+
+[Footnote 932: Young's "Christ of History," p. 248.]
+
+II. _Finally, Greek philosophy prepared the way for Christianity by
+awakening and deepening the consciousness of guilt, and the desire for
+Redemption_.
+
+The consciousness of sin, and the consequent need of expiation for sin,
+were gradually unfolded in the Greek mind. The idea of sin was at first
+revealed in a confused and indefinite feeling of some external,
+supernatural, and bewildering influence which man can not successfully
+resist; but yet so in harmony with the sinner's inclination, that he can
+not divest himself of all responsibility. "Homer has no word answering
+in comprehensiveness or depth of meaning to the word _sin_, as it is
+used in the Bible..... The noun _ἁμαρτία_ which is appropriated to
+express this idea in the Greek of the New Testament, does not occur in
+the Homeric poems..... The word which is most frequently employed to
+express wrong-doing of every kind is _ἄτη_, with its corresponding
+verb..... The radical signification of the word seems to be a
+befooling--a depriving one of his senses and his reason, as by
+unseasonable sleep, and excess of wine, joined with the influence of
+evil companions, and the power of destiny, or the deity. Hence, the
+Greek imagination, which impersonated every great power, very naturally
+conceived of Ἄτη as a person, a sort of omnipresent and universal cause
+of folly and sin, of mischief and misery, who, though the daughter of
+Jupiter, yet once fooled or misled Jupiter himself, and thenceforth,
+cast down from heaven to earth, walks with light feet over the heads of
+men, and makes all things go wrong. Hence, too, when men come to their
+senses, and see what folly and wrong they have perpetrated, they cast
+the blame on Ἄτη, and so, ultimately, on Jupiter and the gods."[933]
+
+[Footnote 933: Tyler, "Theology of the Greek Poets," pp. 174, 175.]
+
+     "Oft hath this matter been by Greeks discussed,
+      And I their frequent censure have incurred:
+      Yet was not I the cause; but Jove, and Fate,
+      And gloomy Erinnys, who combined to throw
+      A strong delusion o'er my mind, that day
+      I robb'd Achilles of his lawful prize.
+      What could I do? a Goddess all o'erruled,
+      Daughter of Jove, dread Até, baleful power
+      Misleading all; with light step she moves,
+      Not on the earth, but o'er the heads of men.
+      With blighting touch, and many hath caused to err."[934]
+
+And yet, though Agamemnon here attempts to shuffle off the guilt of his
+transgression upon Até, Jove, and Fate, yet at other times he confesses
+his folly and wrong, and makes no attempt to cast the responsibility on
+the gods.[935] Though misled by a "baleful power," he was not compelled.
+Though tempted by an evil goddess, he yet followed his own sinful
+passions, and therefore he owns himself responsible.
+
+To satisfy the demands of divine justice, to show its hatred of sin, and
+to deter others from transgression, sin is punished. Punishment is the
+penalty due to sin; in the language of Homer, it is the payment of a
+debt incurred by sin. When the transgressor is punished he is said to
+"pay off," or "pay back" his crimes; in other words, to expatiate or
+atone for them.
+
+                             "If not at once,
+     Yet soon or late will Jove assert their claim,
+     And heavy penalty the perjured pay
+     With their own blood, their children's, and their wives'."[936]
+
+At the same time the belief is expressed that the gods may be, and often
+are, propitiated by prayers and sacrifices, and thus the penalty is
+remitted.
+
+     "The Gods themselves, in virtue, honor, strength,
+      Excelling thee, may yet be mollified;
+      For they when mortals have transgressed, or fail'd
+      To do aright, by sacrifice and pray'r,
+      Libations and burnt-off'rings, may be sooth'd."[937]
+
+[Footnote 934: "Iliad," bk. xix. l. 91-101 (Lord Derby's translation).]
+
+[Footnote 935: Ibid., bk. ix. l. 132-136.]
+
+[Footnote 936: Ibid., bk. iv. l. 185-188.]
+
+[Footnote 937: Ibid., bk. ix. l. 581-585.]
+
+Polytheism, then, as Dr. Schaff has remarked, had the voice of
+conscience, and a sense, however obscure, of sin. It felt the need of
+reconciliation with deity, and sought that reconciliation by prayer,
+penance, and sacrifice.[938]
+
+The sense of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the absolute need of
+expiation, is determined with increasing clearness and definiteness in
+the tragic poets.
+
+The first great law which the Tragedians recognize, as a law written on
+the heart, is "that the sinner must suffer for his sins." The connection
+between sin and suffering is constantly recognized as a natural and
+necessary connection, like that between sowing and reaping.
+
+     A haughty spirit, blossoming, bears a crop
+     Of woe, and reaps a harvest of despair.[939]
+
+"Lust and violence beget lust and violence, and vengeance too, at the
+appointed time."[940] "Impiety multiplies and perpetuates itself."[941]
+"The sinner pays the debt he contracted, ends the career that he
+begins,"[942] "and drinks to the dregs the cup of cursing which he
+himself had filled."[943] Conscience is the instrument in the hands of
+Justice and Vengeance by which the Most High inflicts punishment. The
+retributions of sin are "wrought out by God."
+
+The consequences of great crimes, especially in high places, extend to
+every person and every thing connected with them. "The country and the
+country's gods are polluted."[944] "The army and the people share in the
+curse."[945] "The earth itself is polluted with the shedding of
+blood,"[946] "and even the innocent and the virtuous who share the
+enterprises of the wicked may be involved in their ruin, as the pious
+man must sink with the ungodly when he embarks in the same ship."[947]
+
+[Footnote 938: Tyler, "Theology of the Greek Poets," p. 258.]
+
+[Footnote 938: Æschylus, "Persæ," l. 821.]
+
+[Footnote 940: "Agamemnon," l. 763.]
+
+[Footnote 941: Ibid., l. 788.]
+
+[Footnote 942: Ibid., l. 1529.]
+
+[Footnote 943: Ibid., l. 1397.]
+
+[Footnote 944: Ibid., l. 1645.]
+
+[Footnote 945: "Persæ," _passim._]
+
+[Footnote 946: "Sup.," 265.]
+
+[Footnote 947: "Theb.," p. 602.]
+
+The pollution and curse of sin, when once contracted by an individual,
+or entailed upon a family, will rest upon them and pursue them till the
+polluted individual or the hated and accursed race is extinct, unless in
+some way the sin can be expiated, or some god interpose to arrest the
+penalty. The criminal must die by the hand of justice, and even in Hades
+vengeance will still pursue him.[948] Others may in time be washed away
+by ablutions, worn away by exile and pilgrimage, and expiated by
+offerings of blood.[949] But great crimes can not be washed away; "For
+what expiation is there for blood when once it has fallen on the
+ground."[950] Thus the law (_[Greek: νόμος]_)--for so it is expressly
+called--as from an Attic Sinai, rolls its reverberating thunders, and
+pronounces its curses upon sin, from act to act and from chorus to
+chorus of that grand trilogy--the "Agamemnon," the "Choephoroe," and the
+"Eumenides."
+
+[Footnote 948: "Sup.," l. 227.]
+
+[Footnote 949: "Eum.," l. 445 seq.]
+
+[Footnote 950: "Choeph.," l. 47.]
+
+But after the law comes the gospel. First the controversy, then the
+reconciliation. A dim consciousness of sin and retribution as a fact,
+and of reconciliation as a _want_, seems to have revealed itself even in
+the darkest periods of history. This consciousness underlies not a few
+of the Greek tragedies. "The 'Prometheus Bound' was followed by the
+'Prometheus Unbound,' reconciled and restored through the intervention
+of Jove's son. The 'Œdipus Tyrannus' of Sophocles was completed by the
+'Œdipus Colonus,' where he dies in peace amid tokens of divine favor.
+And so the 'Agamemnon' and 'Choephoroe' reach their consummation only in
+the 'Eumenides,' where the Erinyes themselves are appeased, and the
+Furies become the gracious ones. This is not, however, without a special
+divine interposition, and then only after a severe struggle between the
+powers that cry for justice and those that plead for mercy."
+
+The office and work which, in this trilogy, is assigned to Jove's son,
+Apollo, must strike every reader as at least a remarkable resemblance,
+if not a foreshadowing of the Christian doctrine of _reconciliation_.
+"This becomes yet more striking when we bring into view the relation in
+which this reconciling work stands to [Greek: Ζεὺς Σωτήρ], Jupiter
+Saviour--[Greek: Ζεὺς τρίτος], Jupiter the third, who, in connection
+with Apollo and Athena, consummates the reconciliation. Not only is
+Apollo a [Greek: Σωτήρ], a Saviour, who, having himself been exiled from
+heaven among men, will pity the poor and needy;[951] not only does
+Athena sympathize with the defendant at her tribunal, and, uniting the
+office of advocate and judge, persuade the avenging deities to be
+appeased;[952] but Zeus is the beginning and end of the whole process.
+Apollo appears as the advocate of Orestes only at her bidding;[953]
+Athena inclines to the side of the accused, as the offspring of the
+brain of Zeus, and of like mind with him."[954] Orestes, after his
+acquittal, says that he obtained it
+
+     "By means of Pallas and of Loxias
+      And the third Saviour who doth all things sway."[955]
+
+Platonism reveals a still closer affinity with Christianity in its
+doctrine of sin, and its sense of the need of salvation. Plato is
+sacredly jealous for the honor and purity of the divine character, and
+rejects with indignation every hypothesis which would make God the
+author of sin. "God, inasmuch as he is good, can not be the cause of all
+things, as the common doctrine represents him to be. On the contrary, he
+is the author of only a small part of human affairs; of the larger part
+he is not the author; for our evil things far outnumber our good things.
+The good things we must ascribe to God, whilst we must seek elsewhere,
+and not in him, the causes of evil."[956] The doctrine of the poets,
+which would in some way charge on the gods the errors of men, he sternly
+resists. We must express our disapprobation of Homer, or any other poet,
+if guilty of such foolish blunders about the gods as to tell us[957]
+
+     'Fast by the threshold of Jove's court are placed
+      Two casks, one stored with evil, one with good,'
+
+And that he for whom the Thunderer mingles both
+
+     'He leads a life checker'd with good and ill.'
+
+[Footnote 951: "Sup.," l. 214.]
+
+[Footnote 952: "Eum.," l. 970.]
+
+[Footnote 953: Ibid., l. 616.]
+
+[Footnote 954: Ibid., l. 664, 737.]
+
+[Footnote 955: Tyler's "Theology of the Greek Poets," especially ch. v.,
+from which the above materials are drawn.]
+
+[Footnote 956: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xviii.]
+
+[Footnote 957: "Iliad," xxiv., l. 660.]
+
+Nor can we let our young people know that, in the words of Æschylus--
+
+     "'When to destruction God will plague a house
+       He plants among the members guilt and sin.'"[958]
+
+Whatever in the writings of Homer and the tragic poets give countenance
+to the notion that God is, in the remotest sense the author of sin, must
+be expunged. Here is clearly a great advance in ethical conceptions.
+
+The great defect in the ethical system of Plato was the identification
+of evil with the inferior or corporeal nature of man--"the irascible and
+concupiscible elements," fashioned by the junior divinities. The
+rational and immortal part of man's nature, which is derived immediately
+from God--the Supreme Good, naturally chooses the good as its supreme
+end and destination. Hence he adopted the Socratic maxim "that no man is
+willingly evil," that is, no man deliberately chooses evil as evil, but
+only as a _seeming_ good--he does not choose evil as an end, though he
+may choose it voluntarily as a means. Plato manifests great solicitude
+to guard this maxim from misconception and abuse. Man has, in his
+judgment, the power to act in harmony with his higher reason, or
+contrary to reason; to obey the voice of conscience or the clamors of
+passion, and consequently he is the object of praise or blame, reward or
+punishment. "When a man does not consider himself, but others, as the
+cause of his own sins,.... and even seeks to excuse himself from blame,
+he dishonors and injures his own soul; so, also, when contrary to
+reason.... he indulges in pleasure, he dishonors it by filling it with
+vice and remorse."[959] The work and effort of life, the end of this
+probationary economy, is to make reason triumphant over passion, and
+discipline ourselves to a purer and nobler life.
+
+[Footnote 958: "Republic," bk. ii. ch, xviii., xix.]
+
+[Footnote 959: "Laws," bk. v. ch. i.]
+
+The obstacles to a virtuous life are, however, confessedly numberless,
+and, humanly speaking, insurmountable. To raise one's self above the
+clamor of passion, the power of evil, the bondage of the flesh, is
+acknowledged, in mournful language, to be a hopeless task. A cloud of
+sadness shades the brow of Plato as he contemplates the fallen state of
+man. In the "Phædrus" he describes, in gorgeous imagery, the purity, and
+beauty, and felicity of the soul in its anterior and primeval state,
+when, charioteering through the highest arch of heaven in company with
+the Deity, it contemplated the divine justice and beauty; but "this
+happy life," says he, "we forfeited by our transgression." Allured by
+strange affections, our souls forgot the sacred things that we were made
+to contemplate and love--we _fell_. And now, in our fallen state, the
+soul has lost its pristine beauty and excellence. It has become more
+disfigured than was Glaucus, the seaman "whose primitive form was not
+recognizable, so disfigured had he become by his long dwelling in the
+sea."[960] To restore this lost image of the good,--to regain "this
+primitive form," is not the work of man, but God. Man can not save
+himself. "Virtue is not natural to man, neither is it to be learned, but
+it comes by a divine influence. _Virtue, is the gift of God_."[961] He
+needs a discipline, "an education which is divine." If he is saved from
+the common wreck, it must be "by the special favor of Heaven."[962] He
+must be delivered from sin, if ever delivered, by the interposition of
+God.
+
+[Footnote 960: "Republic," bk. x. ch. xi.]
+
+[Footnote 961: "Meno."]
+
+[Footnote 962: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vi., vii.]
+
+Plato was, in some way, able to discover the need of a Saviour, to
+desire a Saviour, but he could not predict his appearing. Hints are
+obscurely given of a Conqueror of sin, an Assuager of pain, an Averter
+of evil in this life, and of the impending retributions of the future
+life; but they are exceedingly indefinite and shadowy. In all instances
+they are rather the language of _desire_, than of hope. Platonism
+awakened in the heart of humanity a consciousness of sin and a profound
+feeling of want--the want of a Redeemer from sin, a spiritual, a divine
+Remedy for its moral malady--and it strove after some remedial power.
+But it was equally conscious of failure and defeat. It could enlighten
+the reason, but it could only act imperfectly on the will. Platonic was
+a striking counterpart to Pauline experience prior to the apostle's
+deliverance by the power and grace of Christ. It discovered that "the
+Law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and just, and good." It
+recognized that "it is spiritual, but man is carnal, the slave of sin."
+It could say, "What I do I approve not; for I do not what I would, but
+what I hate. But if my will [my better judgment] is against what I do, I
+consent unto the Law that it is good. And now it is no more I that do
+it, but sin, that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me, that is, in my
+flesh, good abideth not, for to will is present with me, but the power
+to do the right is absent: the good that I would, I do not; but the evil
+that I would not, that I do. I consent gladly to the law of God in my
+inner man ['the rational and immortal nature'[963]]; but I behold a law
+in my members ['the irascible and concupiscible nature'[964]] warring
+against the law of my mind (or reason), and bringing me into captivity
+to the law of sin which is in my members. _Oh wretched man that I am!
+who shall deliver me from the body of this death_?"[965] Paul was able
+to say, "I thank God (that he hath now delivered me), through Jesus
+Christ our Lord!" Platonism could only desire, and hope, and wait for
+the coming of a Deliverer.
+
+[Footnote 963: Plato.]
+
+[Footnote 964: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 965: Romans, vii.]
+
+This consciousness of the need of supernatural light and help, and this
+aspiration after a light supernatural and divine, which Plato inherited
+from Socrates, constrained him to regard with toleration, and even
+reverence, every apparent approach, every pretension, even, to a divine
+inspiration and guidance in the age in which he lived. "'The greatest
+blessings which men receive come through the operation of _phrensy_
+([Greek: μανία]--inspired exaltation), when phrensy is the gift of God.
+The prophetess of Delphi, and the priestess of Dodona, many are the
+benefits which in their phrensies (moments of inspiration) they have
+bestowed upon Greece; but in their hours of self-possession, few or
+none. And too long were it to speak of the Sibyl, and others, who,
+inspired and prophetic, have delivered utterances beneficial to the
+hearers. Indeed, this word phrenetic or maniac is no reproach; it is
+identical with mantic--prophetic.[966] And often when diseases and
+plagues have fallen upon men for the sins of their forefathers, some
+phrensy too has broken forth, and in prophetic strain has pointed out a
+remedy, _showing how the sin might be expiated, and the gods appeased_
+(by prayers, and purifications, and atoning rites).... So many and yet
+more great effects could I tell you of the phrensy which comes from the
+gods."[967] Some have discerned in all this merely the food for a feeble
+ridicule. They regard these sentiments as simply an evidence of the
+power and prevalence of superstition clouding the loftiest intellects in
+ancient times. By the more thoughtful and philosophic mind, however,
+they will be accepted as an indication of the imperishable and universal
+faith of humanity in a supernatural and supersensuous world, and in the
+possibility of some communication between heaven and earth.[968] And
+above all, it is a conclusive proof that Plato believed that the
+knowledge of _salvation_--of a remedy for sin, a method of expiation for
+sin, a means of deliverance from the power and punishment of sin, must
+be revealed from Heaven.
+
+[Footnote 966: [Greek: Mανία], phrensy; _[Greek: μάντις]_, a
+prophet--one who utters oracles in a state of divine phrensy; _[Greek:
+μαντική]_, the prophetic art.]
+
+[Footnote 967: "Phædrus," § 47-50 (Whewell's translation).]
+
+[Footnote 968: "_Vetus opinio est_, jam usque ab heroicis ducta
+temporibus, eaque et populi Romani et _omnium gentium_ firmata consensu,
+versari quandem inter homines divinationem."--Cicero, "De Divin.," i.
+I.]
+
+Paul, then, found, even in that focus of Paganism, the city of Athens,
+religious aspirations tending towards Jesus Christ. A true philosophic
+method, notwithstanding its shortcomings and imperfections, concluded by
+desiring and seeking "the Unknown God," by demanding him from all forms
+of worship, from all schools of philosophy. The great work of
+preparation in the heathen world consisted in the developing of the
+_desire_ for salvation. It proved that God is the great want of every
+human soul; that there is a profound affinity between conscience and the
+living God; and that Tertullian was right when he wrote the "Testimonium
+Animæ naturaliter Christianæ."[969] And when it was sufficiently
+demonstrated that "the world by philosophy knew not God (as a Redeeming
+God and Saviour), then it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to
+save them that believe." This was all a dispensation of divine
+providence, which was determined by, or "in, the wisdom of God."[970]
+
+The history of the religions and philosophies of human origin thus
+becomes to us a striking confirmation of the truth of Christianity. It
+shows there is a wondrous harmony between the instinctive wants and
+yearnings of the human heart, as well as the necessary ideas and laws of
+the reason, and the fundamental principles of revealed religion. There
+is "a law written on the heart"--written by the finger of God, which
+corresponds to the laws written by the same finger on "tables of stone."
+There are certain necessary and immutable principles and ideas infolded
+in the reason of man, which harmonize with the revelations of the
+Eternal Logos in the written word.[971] There are instinctive longings,
+mysterious yearnings of the human heart, to which that unveiling of the
+heart of God which is made in the teaching and life of the incarnate God
+most satisfyingly answers. Within the depths of the human spirit there
+is an "oracle" which responds to the voice of "the living oracles of
+God."
+
+[Footnote 969: Pressensé, "Religions before Christ" (Introduction);
+Neander, "Church History," vol. i. (Introduction).]
+
+[Footnote 970: I Corinthians, i. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 971: "The surmise of Plato, that the world of appearance
+subsists in and by a higher world of Divine Thought, is confirmed by
+Christianity when it tells us of a Divine subsistence--that Eternal Word
+by whom and in whom all things consist."--Vaughan, "Hours with the
+Mystics," vol. i. p. 213.]
+
+Here, then, are two distinct and independent revelations--the unwritten
+revelation which God has made to all men in the constitution of the
+human mind, and the external written revelation which he has made in the
+person and teaching of his Son. And these two are perfectly harmonious.
+We have here two great volumes--the volume of conscience, and the volume
+of the New Testament. We open them, and find they announce the _same_
+truths--one in dim outline, the other in a full portraiture. There are
+the same fundamental principles underlying both revelations. They both
+bear the impress of _divinity_. The history of philosophy may have been
+marked by many errors of interpretation; so, also, has the history of
+dogmatic theology. Men may have often misunderstood and misinterpreted
+the dictates of conscience; so have theologians misunderstood and
+misinterpreted the dictates of revelation. The perversions of conscience
+and reason have been plead in defense of error and sin; and so, for
+ages, have the perversions of Scripture been urged in defense of
+slavery, oppression, falsehood, and wrong. Sometimes the misunderstood
+utterances of conscience, of philosophy, and of science have been
+arrayed against the incorrect interpretations of the Word of God. But
+when both are better understood, and more justly conceived, they are
+found in wondrous harmony. When the New Testament speaks to man of God,
+of duty, of immortality, and of retribution, man feels that its
+teachings "commend themselves to his conscience" and reason. When it
+speaks to him of redemption, of salvation, of eternal life and
+blessedness, he feels that it meets and answers all the wants and
+longings of his heart. Thus does Christianity throw light upon the
+original revelations of God in the human conscience, and answers all the
+yearnings of the human soul. So it is found in individual experiences,
+so it has been found in the history of humanity. As Leverrier and Adams
+were enabled to affirm, from purely mathematical reasoning, that another
+planet must exist beyond _Uranus_ which had never yet been seen by human
+eyes, and then, afterwards, that affirmation was gloriously verified in
+the discovery of _Neptune_ by the telescope of Galle; so the reasonings
+of ancient philosophy, based on certain necessary laws of mind, enabled
+man to affirm the existence of a God, of the soul, of a future
+retribution, and an eternal life beyond the grave; and, then,
+subsequently, these were brought fully into light, and verified by the
+Gospel.
+
+We conclude in the words of Pressensé: "To isolate it from the past,
+would be to refuse to comprehend the nature of Christianity itself, and
+the extent of its triumphs. Although the Gospel is not, as has been
+affirmed, the product of anterior civilizations--a mere compound of
+Greek and Oriental elements--it is not the less certain that it brings
+to the human mind the satisfaction vainly sought by it in the East as in
+the West. _Omnia subito_ is not its device, but that of the Gnostic
+heresy. Better to say, with Clement of Alexandria and Origen, that the
+night of paganism had its stars to light it, but that they called to the
+Morning-star which stood over Bethlehem."
+
+"If we regard philosophy as a preparation for Christianity, instead of
+seeking in it a substitute for the Gospel, we shall not need to
+overstate its grandeur in order to estimate its real value."
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+A.
+
+     Abstraction, comparative and immediate, 187-189; 362-364.
+
+     Æschylus, his conception of the Supreme Divinity, 146;
+       his recognition of human guilt, and need of expiation, 515-517.
+
+     Ætiological proof of the existence of God, 487-489.
+
+     Anaxagoras, an Eclectic, 311;
+       in his physical theory an Atomist, 312;
+       taught that the Order of the universe can only be explained by
+       Intelligence, 312;
+       his psychology, 313;
+       the teacher of Socrates, 313.
+
+     Anaximander, his first principle _the infinite_, 290;
+       his infinite a chaos of primary elements, 290.
+
+     Anaximenes, a vitalist, 286;
+       his first principle _air_, 287.
+
+     Aristotle, his opinion of the popular polytheism of Greece, 157;
+       his classification of causes, 280, 404, 405;
+       his misrepresentations of Pythagoras, 299;
+       his classification of the sciences, 389;
+       his Organon, 389-394;
+       his Logic, 394-403;
+       his Theology, 404-417;
+       his Ethics, 417-421;
+       his Categories, 395;
+       his logical treatises, 396;
+       on induction and deduction, 396-398;
+       his psychology, 398, 401;
+       on how the knowledge of first principles is attained, 394, 402,
+          403;
+       on Matter and Form, 405-408;
+       on Potentiality and Actuality, 408-412;
+       his proof of the Divine existence, 412-415;
+       on the chief good of man, 419, 420;
+       his doctrine of the Mean, 420, 421;
+       defect of his ethical system, 505.
+
+     [Archai], or first principles, the grand object of
+        investigation in Greek Philosophy, 271, 274, 279, 280.
+
+     Athenians, criticism on Plutarch's sketch of their character, 45;
+       their vivacity, 45;
+       love of freedom, 46--and of country, 46;
+       private life of, 47;
+       intellectual character of, 48;
+       inquisitive and analytic, 48;
+       rare combinations of imagination and reasoning powers, 49;
+       religion of, 98;
+       the Athenians a religious people, 102;
+       their faith in the being and providence of God, 107;
+       their consciousness of dependence on God, 110, 116;
+       their religious emotions, 117;
+       their deep consciousness of sin and guilt, 122-124;
+       their sense of the need of expiation, 124, 125;
+       their religion exerted some wholesome moral influence, 162, 163.
+
+     Athens, topography of 27;
+       the Agora, 28;
+       its porticoes, 29;
+       the Acropolis, 30;
+       its temples, 31;
+       the Areopagus, 33;
+       sacred objects in, 98, 99;
+       images of the gods, 99;
+       localities of schools of philosophy in, 266-268.
+
+     Attica, geographical boundaries of, 26;
+       a classic land, 34;
+       its geographical and cosmical conditions providentially ordained
+       for great moral   ends, 34, 35; soil of, not favorable to
+       agriculture, 40--necessitated industry and frugality, 41; the
+       climate of, 41--its influence on the mental character of the
+       people, 42.
+
+
+B.
+
+     Bacon, his assertion that the search after final causes had misled
+       scientific inquirers, 222.
+
+
+C.
+
+     Categories of Aristotle, 395.
+
+     Causality, principle of, 189;
+       assailed by the Materialists, 194--especially by Comte, 203-209;
+       the intuition of _power_ a fact of immediate consciousness, 204;
+       consciousness of _effort_ the type of all force, 211;
+       Aristotle on Causality, 413;
+       ætiological proof of existence of God, 487-489.
+
+     Cause, origin of the idea of, 204, 205.
+
+     Causes, Aristotle's classification of, 280, 404, 405.
+
+     Chief good of man, Aristotle on, 419, 420.
+
+     Cleanthes, his hymn to Jupiter, 452, 453.
+
+     Comte, his theory of the origin of religion, 57-65;
+       his doctrine that all knowledge is confined to material
+       phenomena, 203; denies all causation, both efficient and final,
+       203-214.
+
+     Conditioned, law of the, 227, 228;
+       is contradictory, 250;
+       as a ground of faith, meaningless and void, 251.
+
+     Cosmological proof of the existence of God, 489, 490.
+
+     Cousin, his theory that religion had its outbirth in the
+       spontaneous apperceptions
+       of reason, 78-84;
+       criticism thereon, 84-86.
+
+     Criterion of truth, Plato's search after, 333, 334.
+
+     Cudworth, his interpretation of Grecian mythology, 139, 143.
+
+     Cuvier, on final causes, 216, 222.
+
+D.
+
+     Darwin, his inability to explain the facts of nature without
+       recognizing design, 221, 222.
+
+     Democritus, taught that atoms and the vacuum are the beginning of
+       all things, 292; an absolute materialist, 293.
+
+     Dependence, consciousness of, the foundation of primary religious
+       emotions, 110-113.
+
+     Development, law of mental, 478; three successive stages clearly
+       marked, in the individual, 478--in the universal mind of
+       humanity, 479, 480;
+           (1) in the field of Theistic conceptions, 481-494;
+           (2) in the department of morals, 495-509;
+           (3) in the department of religious sentiment, 509-522.
+
+     Dialectic of Plato, 353-369.
+
+     Dogmatic Theologians, assert that all our knowledge of God is
+       derived from the teaching of the Scriptures, 86,167; cast doubt
+       upon the principle of causality, 253-255--upon the principle of
+       the unconditioned, 255-257--upon the principle of unity,
+       258-261--and upon the immutable principles of morality, 261-263.
+
+     Dynamical or Vital school of ancient philosophers, 282-289.
+
+E.
+
+     Eclecticism of Anaxagoras, 311.
+
+     Emotions, the religious, 117-122;
+       sentiment of the Divine exists in all minds, 119-121;
+       also instinctive yearning after the Invisible, 121, 122.
+
+     Empedocles, a believer in one Supreme God, 153.
+
+     Epicurus, his theory of the origin of religion, 56, 57;
+       his Ethics, 427-432;
+       his Physics, 433-438;
+       taught that pleasure is the chief end of life, 428--that
+       ignorance of nature is the sole cause of unhappiness, 432--that
+       Physics and Psychology are the only studies conducive to
+       happiness, 432--that the universe is eternal and infinite,
+       433--that concrete bodies are combinations of atoms, 434--that
+       atoms have spontaneity, 436, and some degree of freedom, 436,
+       437; the parts of the world self-formed, 437, 438; plants,
+       animals, and man are spontaneously generated, 438; a state of
+       savagism the primitive condition of man, 439; his Atheism, 441;
+       his Psychology, 442-444; the soul material and mortal, 445, 446.
+
+     Eternity, Platonic notion of, 349 (_note_), 372, 373.
+
+     Eternity of Matter, how taught by Plato, 371-373;
+       distinctly affirmed by Epicurus, 433.
+
+     Eternity of the Soul, Plato's doctrine of, 373-375.
+
+     Ethical ideas and principles, gradual development of, 495, 496;
+       (1) the age of popular and unconscious morals, 497, 498;
+       (2) the transitional or sophistical age, 498-500;
+       (3) the philosophic or conscious age, 500-506.
+
+     Ethics of Plato, 383-387, 502-505;
+       of Aristotle, 417-42l;
+       of Epicurus, 427-432;
+       of the Stoics, 454, 456.
+
+     Expiation for sin, the need of, 124;
+       universally acknowledged, 124--especially in Grecian mythology,
+       125--and in the language of Greece and Rome, 125.
+
+F.
+
+     Facts of the universe, classification of, 175-177.
+
+     Fathers, the early, recognized the propædeutic office of Greek
+       philosophy, 473-475.
+
+     Feeling, theories which ground all religion on, 70-74;
+       its inadequacy, 74-78.
+
+     Final Causes, impossibility of interpreting nature without
+       recognizing, 221, 222;
+       the assumption of final causes a means of discovery, 222, 223;
+       Cuvier on, 216, 222;
+       argument of Socrates from, 320-324;
+       Plato on, 380-382;
+       Aristotle on, 405, 413, 414;
+       teleological proof of the existence of God, 490, 491.
+
+     Force, the idea of, rejected by Comte, 207.
+
+     Forces, all of one type, and that type mind, 211.
+
+     Freedom, human, 19;
+       exists under limitations, 20;
+       both admitted and denied by Comte, 208, 209;
+       of Will, as taught by Plato, 386, 387;
+       admitted by Epicurus, 486.
+
+G.
+
+     Geoffrey St. Hilaire, his pretense of not ascribing any intentions
+       to nature, 216, 217.
+
+     Geography and History, relations between, 14;
+       opposite theories concerning, 15;
+       theory of Buckle, 16--of Ritter, Guyot, and Coubin, 16;
+       the relation one of adjustment and harmony, 16.
+
+     God, universality of idea of, 89;
+       Athenians believed in one God, 107, 147, 148;
+       idea of God a common phenomenon of human intelligence, 168, 169;
+       the development of this idea dependent on experience conditions,
+       169-172; the phenomena of the universe demand a God for their
+       explanation, 172-175: there are principles revealed in
+       consciousness which necessitate the idea of God, 184-189; proofs
+       of the existence of God employed by Aristotle, 412-416--by
+       Socrates, 320-324; views of God entertained by the Stoics, 452,
+       453; logical proofs of the existence of God developed by Greek
+       philosophy, 487-494; gradual development of Theistic conception,
+       481-487.
+
+     Gods of Grecian Mythology, how regarded by the philosophers,
+       151-157; views of Plato regarding them, 383.
+
+     Great men, represent the spirit of their age, 20;
+       the creation of a providence interposing in history, 21.
+
+     Greece, its geographical relations favorable to free intercourse
+       with the great historic nations, 35--to commerce, 36--to the
+       diffusion of knowledge, 36--and to a high degree of civilization,
+       36; peculiar configuration of Greece conducive to activity and
+       freedom, 36-38--and independence, 38; natural scenery, 43--its
+       influence on imagination and taste, 44.
+
+     Greek Civilization, a preparation for Christianity, 465-468.
+
+     Greek Language, a providentially prepared vehicle for the perfect
+       revelation of Christianity, 468-470.
+
+     Greek Philosophy, first a philosophy of Nature, 271, 281, 282;
+       next a philosophy of Mind, 271, 316-318;
+       lastly a philosophy of Life, 271, 422;
+       prepared the way for Christianity, 457-522.
+
+     Greeks, the masses of the people believed in one Supreme God, 147,
+       148.
+
+     Guilt, consciousness of, a universal fact, 122, 123;
+       recognized in Grecian mythology, 123, 124;
+       awakened and deepened by philosophy, 513-518.
+
+H.
+
+     Hamilton, Sir W., teaches that philosophic knowledge is the
+       knowledge of effects as dependent on causes, 224, 225;
+       and of qualities as inherent in substances, 225, 226;
+       and yet asserts all human knowledge is necessarily confined to
+       phenomena, 227;
+       his doctrine of the relativity of all knowledge, 227, 229-236;
+       his philosophy of the conditioned, 228;
+       conditional limitation the law of all thought, 236-242;
+       the Infinite a mere negation of thought, 242-246;
+       asserts we must believe in the infinity of God, 246;
+       takes refuge in faith, 247;
+       faith grounded on the law of the conditioned, 243, 249--that is,
+       on contradiction, 249, 250.
+
+     Hegel, his philosophy of religion, 65-70.
+
+     Heraclitus, his first principle _ether_, 288;
+       change, the universal law of all existence, 288;
+       a Materialistic Pantheist, 289.
+
+     Hesiod, on the generation of the gods, 142.
+
+     Homer, his conception of Zeus, 144, 145.
+
+     Homeric doctrine of sin, 513,514.
+
+     Homeric theology, 143-145, 509, 510.
+
+     Humanity, fundamental ideas and laws of, 18;
+       developed and modified by exterior conditions, 19;
+       the most favorable conditions existed in Athens.
+
+I.
+
+     Idealism, furnishes no adequate explanation of the common belief
+       in an external world, 193,199--and of a personal self, 200-202;
+       Cosmothetic Idealism, 305;
+       absolute Idealism, 305.
+
+     Ideas, Platonic doctrine of, 334-337;
+       Platonic scheme of, 364-367.
+
+     Images of the gods, how regarded by Cicero, 129--by Plutarch, 129;
+       the heathens apologized for the use of images, 159.
+
+     Immortality of the soul, taught by Socrates, 324--and by Plato,
+       375, 376; denied by Epicurus, 444-446.
+
+     Incarnation, the idea of, not unfamiliar to heathen thought, 512.
+
+     Induction, the psychological method of Plato, 356, 357.
+
+     Induction and Deduction, Aristotle on, 397, 398.
+
+     Infinite, the, not a mere negation of thought, 242-244;
+       known as the necessary correlative of the finite, 245;
+       as comprehensible in itself, as the finite is comprehensible in
+       itself, 246;
+       in what sense known, 252.
+
+     Infinite Series, the phrase, when literally construed, a
+       contradiction, 181,182.
+
+     Infinity, qualitative and quantitative, 239;
+       qualitative infinity possessed by God alone, 184, 239.
+
+     Intentionality, principle of, 190;
+       denied by Materialists, 194;
+       a first law of thought, 221-223; recognized by Socrates, 320-324.
+
+     Ionian School of Philosophy, a physical and sensational school,
+       281; subdivided into Mechanical and Dynamical, 282, 283.
+
+     Italian School of Philosophy, an Idealist school, 281;
+       subdivided into the Mathematical and Metaphysical, 282, 296.
+
+J.
+
+     Jacobi, his faith-philosophy, 71.
+
+K.
+
+     Knowledge, Hamilton's doctrine of relativity of, 229-236;
+       opposite theories of knowledge among ancient philosophers, 330,
+       331; the tendency of these theories, 332;
+       Plato's theory of, 333, 334;
+       Plato's science of real knowledge, 337, 338.
+
+
+     L.
+
+     Language, inadequate to convey the idea of God, 92-94;
+       Greek language the best medium for the Christian revelation,
+       468-470.
+
+     Leucippus, his first principles _atoms_ and _space_, 291;
+       a pure Materialist, 292.
+
+     Logic of Aristotle, 394-403.
+
+     Logical Treatises of Aristotle, 395, 396.
+
+     Lucretius, the expounder of the doctrines of Epicurus, 426,427;
+       his account of the origin of worlds, 437, 438;
+       of plants, animals, and man, 438.
+
+M.
+
+     Mansel, bases religion on feeling of dependence, 72--and sense of
+       obligation, 73.
+
+     Materialists deny the principle of causality, 194, 203--and of
+       intentionality or final cause, 211-225;
+       Anaximander, Leucippus, and Democritus belong to the
+       materialistic school, 286-293:
+       Epicurus a materialist, 442-446.
+
+     Mathematical Infinite, not absolute, 179, 180;
+       capable of exact measurement, therefore limited, 180;
+       infinite sphere, radius, line, etc., self-contradictory, 180,
+       181.
+
+     Matter, did Plato teach the eternity of? 371-373;
+       the doctrine of the Stoics concerning matter, 449 (_note_).
+
+     Matter and Form, Aristotle on, 405-408.
+
+     Mean, Aristotle's doctrine of the, 420.
+
+     Mediator, consciousness of the need of a, awakened by Greek
+       philosophy, 509-513.
+
+     Metaphysical thought, law of its development, 478-480;
+       three different stages in the individual mind, 478, 479;
+       and in the universal consciousness of our race, 479.
+
+     Metempsychosis regarded by Plato as a mere hypothesis, 376
+       (_note_).
+
+     Mill, J. S., his doctrine that all knowledge is confined to mental
+       phenomena, 193;
+       his definition of matter, 196;
+       his views of personal identity, 196, 197;
+       his theological opinions, 197.
+
+     Miracles, not designed to prove the existence of God, 95.
+
+     Moral principles, universal and immutable, which lead to the
+       recognition of a God, 190;
+       the Dogmatic Theologians seek to invalidate the argument
+       therefrom, 261-263.
+
+     Mystics, base all religious knowledge on internal feeling, 70.
+
+     Mythology, philosophy of Greek, 134-139;
+       Cudworth's interpretation of, 139-143;
+       recognized the consciousness of guilt and need of expiation,
+       123-125.
+
+ N.
+
+     National Character, a complex result, 17;
+       conjoint effect of moral and physical influences, 17;
+       human freedom not to be disregarded in the study of, 20;
+       influence of geographical surroundings, 23--of climate and
+       natural scenery, on the pursuits and mental character of nations,
+       23--on creative art, 24--and literature of nations, 25.
+
+     Nations, individuality of, 22;
+       determined mainly from without, 22.
+
+     Natural Realism, 305;
+       Anaxagoras a natural realist, 311-313.
+
+     Nature, interpreted by man according to fundamental laws of his
+      reason, 133.
+
+O.
+
+     Obligation, the sense of, lies at the foundation of religion, 115.
+
+     Ontological proof of the existence of God, 491-493.
+
+     Ontology, of Plato, 369-379;
+       the subject-matter of the world of sense, 370-373;
+       the permanent substratum of mental phenomena, 373-376;
+       the first Principle of all principles--God, 377-379, 491-493.
+
+     Optimism of Plato, 382.
+
+     Order of the Universe, had it a beginning, or is it eternal?
+       178-184.
+
+     Order, principle of, pervades the universe, 220, 221;
+       recognized by Pythagoras, 301;
+       Cosmological proof of the existence of God, 489, 490.
+
+ P.
+
+     Parmenides, his theory of knowledge, 307-308;
+      a spiritualistic Pantheist, 308, 309.
+
+     Paul, St., at Athens, 14;
+       his emotion when he saw the city full of idols, 100;
+       the subject of his discourse, 101;
+       brought into contact with all the phases of philosophic thought,
+       268, 269;
+       his arrival at Athens an epoch in the moral history of the world,
+       472;
+       he recognized the preparatory office of Greek philosophy, 473.
+
+     Philosophers of Athens, 101;
+       believed in one supreme, uncreated, eternal God, 151-157;
+       their views of the mythological deities, 158, 159;
+       their apologies for images and image-worship, 159, 160.
+
+     Philosophic Schools, classification of, 271-273;
+       Pre-Socratic 280-314;
+       Socratic, 314-421;
+       Post-Socratic, 422-456.
+
+     Philosophy, the world-enduring monument of the glory of Athens,
+       265, 260;
+       defined, 270, 271;
+       an inquiry after first causes and principles, 271, 457;
+       not in any proper sense a theological inquiry, 273-277, 279;
+       the love of wisdom, 384, 385.
+
+     Philosophy in its relation to Christianity, 268-270;
+       sympathy of Platonism, 268;
+       antagonism of Epicureanism and Stoicism, 269;
+       the Propædeutic office of philosophy, 457-524--recognized by St.
+       Paul, 473--and many of the early Fathers, 473-475;
+       philosophy undermined Polytheism, and purified the Theistic idea,
+       481-487;
+       developed the Theistic argument in a logical form, 487-494;
+       it awakened Conscience and purified the Ethical idea, 495-506;
+       demonstrated the insufficiency of reason to elaborate a perfect
+       ideal of moral excellence, 506-509;
+       awakened in man the sense of distance from God, and the need of
+       a Mediator, 509-513;
+       deepened the consciousness of sin, and the desire for a Redeemer,
+       513-522;
+       the history of philosophy a confirmation of the truth of
+       Christianity, 522-524.
+
+     Philosophy of Religion, 53;
+       based on the correlation between Divine and human reason,
+       458-462.
+
+     Plato, condemns the poets for their unworthy representations of
+       the gods, 130-132;
+       his views of the gods of Grecian mythology, 154-157:
+       the sympathy of his philosophy with Christianity, 268:
+       followed the philosophic method of Socrates, 328;
+       his moral qualifications for the study of philosophy, 328, 329;
+       his literary qualifications, 329, 330;
+       his search after a criterion of truth, 333, 334;
+       his doctrine of Ideas, 334-337;
+       his science of real knowledge, 337, 338;
+       his answer to the question, What is Science? 338, 339;
+       his Psychology 339-352;
+       his scheme of the intellectual powers, 345;
+       on the nature of the soul, 350;
+       his dialectic, 353-369;
+       his grand scheme of ideas, 364-367;
+       his Ontology, 369-379;
+       on the creation of time, 372;
+       did he teach that matter is eternal? 371, 372;
+       on the eternity of the rational element of the soul, 373-375;
+       on the immortality of the soul, 375, 376;
+       on God as the First Principle of all principles, 377-379;
+       his Physics, 380-383;
+       his Ethics, 383-387, 502-505;
+       defects of his
+       ethical system, 518;
+       his philosophy not derived from Jewish sources, 476;
+       felt the need of a superhuman deliverer from sin and guilt,
+       519-521.
+
+     Plutarch, his sketches of Athenian character, 44;
+       criticism on, 45;
+       on the universality of prayer and sacrifice, 115.
+
+     Poets, the Greek, believed in the existence of one uncreated Mind,
+       141;
+       their theogony was a cosmogony, 142;
+       the theologians of Greece, 274, 275.
+
+     Polytheism, Greek, a poetico-historical religion of myth and
+       symbol, 134;
+       its immoralities, 160, 161;
+       undermined by Philosophy, 484-487.
+
+     Post-Socratic Schools, classification of, 425;
+       a philosophy of life, 422-424.
+
+     Potentiality and Actuality, Aristotle on, 408-412.
+
+     Prayer, natural to man, 115.
+
+     Preparation for Christianity, not confined to Judaism alone,
+       464, 465;
+       Greek civilization also prepared the way for Christ, 465-468;
+       Greek language a providential development as the vehicle of a
+       more perfect revelation, 468-470;
+       Greek philosophy fulfilled a propædeutic office, 470-472.
+
+     Pre-Socratic Schools, classification of, 280-282; 295, 296.
+
+     Principles, _universal and necessary_, how attained by the method
+       of Plato, 361-364, 390;
+       how, by the method of Aristotle, 390-394, 402, 403.
+
+     Psychological analysis, logical demonstration of the existence of
+       God begins with, 170;
+       reveals principles which in their logical development attain to
+       the knowledge of God, 184-189.
+
+     Psychology of Heraclitus, 289;
+       of Pythagoras, 304;
+       of Parmenides, 307, 308;
+       of Anaxagoras, 313;
+       of Protagoras, 315;
+       of Socrates, 317, 318;
+       of Plato, 339-352;
+       of Aristotle, 392, 398-401;
+       of Epicurus, 442-444;
+       of the Stoics, 453, 454.
+
+     Pythagoras, his doctrine that numbers are the first principles of
+       things, 297;
+       how to be interpreted, 297-304;
+       misrepresented by Aristotle, 298-300;
+       psychology of, 304.
+
+R.
+
+     Reason, insufficiency of, to elaborate a perfect ideal of moral
+       excellence, 505-509.
+
+     Redemption, desire of, awakened and defined by Greek philosophy,
+       513-521.
+
+     Relativity of all knowledge, Hamilton's doctrine of, 229-236.
+
+     Religion, the philosophy of, 53;
+       defined 53, 106;
+       universality of religious phenomena, 54;
+       hypothesis offered in explanation of, 55;
+       hypothesis of Epicurus and Comte, 56-65--of Hegel, 65-70--of
+       Jacobi and Schleiermacher, 70-78--of Cousin, 78-86--of Dogmatic
+       Theologians, 86-96--author's theory, 96, 97;
+       religion of the Athenians, 98--its mythological and symbolic
+       aspects, 128--exerted some wholesome influences, 161-163.
+
+     Reminiscence, Plato on, 354, 355.
+
+     Revelation, progressive, 462-464;
+       harmony of the two revelations in the volume of conscience and
+       the volume of the New Testament, 522-524.
+
+S.
+
+     Sacrifice, universal prevalence of, 115, 124;
+       prompted by the universal consciousness of guilt, 126:
+       expiatory sacrifices grounded on a primitive revelation, 127.
+
+     Schleiermacher, his theory that all religion is grounded on the
+       feeling of absolute dependence, 71, 72.
+
+     Science, Plato's answer to the question, What is Science? 338, 339.
+
+     Self-determination, limited by idea of duty, 113;
+       implies accountability, 114;
+       recognizes a Lawgiver and Judge, 115.
+
+     Socrates, his desire for truth, 316;
+       his dæmon, 317 _(note_);
+       his philosophic method, 318, 319;
+       a believer in one Supreme God, 320;
+       his argument for the existence of God from final causes, 320-324;
+       his belief in immortality and a future retribution, 324, 325;
+       his Ethics, 325;
+       the great prophet of the human conscience, 500-502.
+
+     Socratic School, 314.
+
+     Sophists, 315, 316;
+       their skeptical tendency, 315;
+       their defective ethics, 498, 499.
+
+     Sophocles, believed in one Supreme God, 147.
+
+     Soul, Plato on the nature of the, 350, 373;
+       eternity of the rational element, 373-375.
+
+     Spencer, H., carries the law of the Conditioned forward to its
+       logical consequences, Atheism, 241, 242.
+
+     Stoical School, 446;
+       its philosophy a moral philosophy, 447.
+
+     Stoics, their Physiology, 448-453; their
+       Psychology, 453, 454;
+       their Ethics, 454-456;
+       their Theology, 452,453.
+
+     Substance, principle of, 189;
+       Idealism seeks to undermine it, 193;
+       Reason affirms a permanent substance as the ground of all mental
+       phenomena, 201--and of the phenomena of the sensible world,
+       202, 203.
+
+     Sufficient Reason, law of, recognized by Plato, 359.
+
+     Superstition, meaning of the term as used by Paul, 103.
+
+ T.
+
+     Teleological proof of the existence of God, 490, 491.
+
+     Thales, a believer in one uncreated God, 152;
+       his first principles, 283;
+       he regards _water_ as the material cause, 284;
+       and God as the efficient cause, 285.
+
+     Theistic argument, in its logical form, 487-494.
+
+     Theistic conception, gradual development of, 481-484,
+
+     Theological opinions of the early periods of Greek civilization,
+       150, 151; 276-278.
+
+     Theology of Aristotle, 404-417;
+       identical with Metaphysics, 404, 416.
+
+     Theology of the Greek poets, 143-151;
+       proposed reform of Poetry by Plato, 131, 132.
+
+     Thinking, conditionality of, 228;
+       in what sense to be understood, 237;
+       thought imposes no limits upon the object of thought, 237, 238.
+
+     Thought, negative and positive, 242, 243;
+       negative thought an impossibility, 243;
+       all thought must be positive, 243.
+
+     Time, Platonic notion of, 371, 372.
+
+     Tragedians, the Greek, were the public religious teachers of the
+       Athenians, 145;
+       their theology, 146, 147;
+       influence of the religious dramas on the Athenian mind, 161-163;
+       guiltiness of man, and need of reconciliation confessed by,
+       515-517.
+
+U.
+
+     Unconditioned, principle of, 189;
+       assailed by Hamilton, 194.
+
+     Unity of God, 259;
+       an affirmation of reason, 259-261;
+       Xenophanes taught the unity of God, 307--also Parmenides,
+       309--and Plato, 377--and Aristotle, 415.
+
+     Unity, principle of, 189;
+       attempt of Dogmatic Theologians to prove its insufficiency, 194,
+       258-261;
+       recognized by Pythagoras, 296;
+       his effort to reduce all the phenomena of nature to a Unity, 303,
+       304.
+
+     Universal and necessary Principles, classification of, 189, 190;
+       these the foundation of our cognition of a God, 191;
+       how attained according to Plato, 360-364;
+       how by the method of Aristotle, 390-394, 402, 403.
+
+     Universe, the, is it finite or infinite? 178-184;
+       Epicurus teaches that it is infinite, 433.
+
+     Unknown God, the true God, 104;
+       God not absolutely unknown, 107-110;
+       classification of opponents to the doctrine that God can be
+       cognized by reason, 166-168;
+       Idealist School of Mill, 194-203;
+       Materialistic School of Comte, 203-223;
+       Hamiltonian School, 224-252;
+       School of Dogmatic Theologians, 252-263.
+
+W.
+
+     Watson, Richard, represents the views of Dogmatic Theologians 86;
+       asserts that all our religious knowledge is derived from oral
+       revelation, 86-88, 167;
+       incompleteness and inadequacy of this theory, 88-96;
+       in vindicating for the Scriptures the honor of revealing all our
+       knowledge of God, he casts doubt upon the principle of Causality,
+       253-255--on the principle of the Unconditioned, 255-257--on the
+       principle of Unity, 258-261--and on the immutable principles of
+       Morality, 261-263.
+
+     Wordsworth, on the Sentiment of the Divine, 118.
+
+X.
+
+     Xenophanes, his attack on Polytheism, 130;
+       his faith in one God, 153, 306, 307.
+
+Z.
+
+     Zeno of Citium, the founder of the Stoical School, 446;
+       a Spiritualistic Pantheist, 450, 451.
+
+     Zeno of Elea, maintained the doctrine of Absolute Identity, 309.
+
+     Zeus, originally the Supreme and only God of the Greeks, 143;
+       the Homeric Zeus, the Supreme God, 144, 145.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
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+MOTLEY'S DUTCH REPUBLIC. The Rise of the Dutch Republic. By John Lothrop
+Motley, LL.D., D.C.L. With a Portrait of William of Orange. 3 vols.,
+8vo, Cloth, $10 50.
+
+MOTLEY'S UNITED NETHERLANDS. History of the United Netherlands: from the
+Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Years' Truce--1609. With a
+full View of the English-Dutch Struggle against Spain, and of the Origin
+and Destruction of the Spanish Armada. By John Lothrop Motley, LL.D.,
+D.C.L Portraits. 4 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $14 00.
+
+NAPOLEON'S LIFE OF CÆSAR. The History of Julius Cæsar. By His Imperial
+Majesty Napoleon III. Two Volumes ready. Library Edition, 8vo, Cloth, $3
+50 per vol. _Maps to Vols. I. and II. sold separately. Price_ $1 50
+_each_, NET.
+
+HAYDN'S DICTIONARY OF DATES, relating to all Ages and Nations. For
+Universal Reference. Edited by Benjamin Vincent, Assistant Secretary and
+Keeper of the Library of the Royal Institution of Great Britain; and
+Revised for the Use of American Readers. 8vo, Cloth, $5 00; Sheep, $6
+00.
+
+HARTWIG'S POLAR WORLD. The Polar World: a Popular Description of Man and
+Nature in the Arctic and Antarctic Regions of the Globe. By Dr. G.
+Hartwig, Author of "The Sea and its Living Wonders," "The Harmonies of
+Nature," and "The Tropical World." With Additional Chapters and 163
+Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, Beveled Edges, $3 75.
+
+WALLACE'S MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. The Malay Archipelago: the Land of the
+Orang-Utan and the Bird of Paradise. A Narrative of Travel, 1854--1862.
+With Studies of Man and Nature. By Alfred Russel Wallace. With Ten Maps
+and Fifty-one Elegant Illustrations. Crown 8vo, Cloth, $3 50.
+
+WHYMPER'S ALASKA. Travel and Adventure in the Territory of Alaska,
+formerly Russian America--now Ceded to the United States--and in various
+other parts of the North Pacific. By Frederick Whymper. With Map and
+Illustrations. Crown 8vo, Cloth, $2 50.
+
+ORTON'S ANDES AND THE AMAZON. The Andes and the Amazon; or, Across the
+Continent of South America. By James Orton, M.A., Professor of Natural
+History in Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and Corresponding Member
+of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. With a New Map of
+Equatorial America and numerous Illustrations. Crown 8vo, Cloth, $2 00.
+
+WINCHELL'S SKETCHES OF CREATION. Sketches of Creation: a Popular View of
+some of the Grand Conclusions of the Sciences in reference to the
+History of Matter and of Life. Together with a Statement of the
+Intimations of Science respecting the Primordial Condition and the
+Ultimate Destiny of the Earth and the Solar System. By Alexander
+Winchell, LL.D., Professor of Geology, Zoology, and Botany in the
+University of Michigan, and Director of the State Geological Survey.
+With Illustrations. 12mo, Cloth, $2 00.
+
+WHITE'S MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew:
+Preceded by a History of the Religious Wars in the Reign of Charles IX.
+By Henry White, M.A. With Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, $1 75.
+
+LOSSING'S FIELD-BOOK OF THE REVOLUTION. Pictorial Field-Book of the
+Revolution; or, Illustrations, by Pen and Pencil, of the History,
+Biography, Scenery, Relics, and Traditions of the War for Independence.
+By Benson J. Lossing. 2 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $14 00; Sheep, $15 00; Half
+Calf, $18 00; Full Turkey Morocco, $22 00.
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+LOSSING'S FIELD-BOOK OF THE WAR OF 1812. Pictorial Field-Book of the War
+of 1812; or, Illustrations, by Pen and Pencil, of the History,
+Biography, Scenery, Relics, and Traditions of the Last War for American
+Independence. By Benson J. Lossing. With several hundred Engravings on
+Wood, by Lossing and Barritt, chiefly from Original Sketches by the
+Author. 1088 pages, 8vo, Cloth, $7 00; Sheep, $8 50; Half Calf, $10 00.
+
+ALFORD'S GREEK TESTAMENT. The Greek Testament: with a critically-revised
+Text; a Digest of Various Readings; Marginal References to Verbal and
+Idiomatic Usage; Prolegomena; and a Critical and Exegetical Commentary.
+For the Use of Theological Students and Ministers. By Henry Alford,
+D.D., Dean of Canterbury. Vol. I., containing the Four Gospels. 944
+pages, 8vo, Cloth, $6 00; Sheep, $6 50.
+
+ABBOTT'S HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. The French Revolution of
+1789, as viewed in the Light of Republican Institutions. By John S.C.
+Abbott. With 100 Engravings. 8vo, Cloth, $5 00.
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+ABBOTT'S NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. The History of Napoleon Bonaparte. By John
+S.C. Abbott. With Maps, Woodcuts, and Portraits on Steel. 2 vols., 8vo,
+Cloth, $10 00.
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+ABBOTT'S NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA; or, Interesting Anecdotes and
+Remarkable Conversations of the Emperor during the Five and a Half Years
+of his Captivity. Collected from the Memorials of Las Casas, O'Meara,
+Montholon, Antommarchi, and others. By John S.C. Abbott. With
+Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, $5 00.
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+ADDISON'S COMPLETE WORKS. The Works of Joseph Addison, embracing the
+whole of the "Spectator." Complete in 3 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $6 00.
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+ALCOCK'S JAPAN. The Capital of the Tycoon: a Narrative of a Three Years'
+Residence in Japan. By Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B., Her Majesty's
+Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in Japan. With Maps and
+Engravings. 2 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $3 50.
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+ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. First Series: From the Commencement of the
+French Revolution, in 1789, to the Restoration of the Bourbons, in 1815.
+[In addition to the Notes on Chapter LXXVI., which correct the errors of
+the original work concerning the United States, a copious Analytical
+Index has been appended to this American edition.] Second Series: From
+the Fall of Napoleon, in 1815, to the Accession of Louis Napoleon, in
+1852. 8 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $16 00.
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+BANCROFT'S MISCELLANIES. Literary and Historical Miscellanies. By George
+Bancroft. 8vo, Cloth, $3 00.
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+BALDWIN'S PRE-HISTORIC NATIONS. Pre-Historic Nations; or, Inquiries
+concerning some of the Great Peoples and Civilizations of Antiquity, and
+their Probable Relation to a still Older Civilization of the Ethiopians
+or Cushites of Arabia. By John D. Baldwin, Member of the American
+Oriental Society. 12mo, Cloth, $1 75.
+
+BARTH'S NORTH AND CENTRAL AFRICA. Travels and Discoveries in North and
+Central Africa: being a Journal of an Expedition undertaken under the
+Auspices of H.B.M.'s Government, in the Years 1849-1855. By Henry Barth,
+Ph.D., D.C.L. Illustrated. 3 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $12 00.
+
+HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SERMONS. Sermons by Henry Ward Beecher, Plymouth
+Church, Brooklyn. Selected from Published and Unpublished Discourses,
+and Revised by their Author. With Steel Portrait. Complete in 2 vols.,
+8vo, Cloth, $5 00.
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+LYMAN BEECHER'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY, &c. Autobiography, Correspondence, &c.,
+of Lyman Beecher, D.D. Edited by his Son, Charles Beecher. With Three
+Steel Portraits, and Engravings on Wood. In 2 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $5 00.
+
+BOSWELL'S JOHNSON. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Including a Journey
+to the Hebrides. By James Boswell, Esq. A New Edition, with numerous
+Additions and Notes. By John Wilson Croker, LL.D., F.R.S. Portrait of
+Boswell. 2 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $4 00.
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+DRAPER'S CIVIL WAR. History of the American Civil War. By John W.
+Draper, M.D., LL.D., Professor of Chemistry and Physiology in the
+University of New York. In Three Vols. 8vo, Cloth, $3 50 per vol.
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+DRAPER'S INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPE. A History of the
+Intellectual Development of Europe. By John W. Draper, M.D., LL.D.,
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+DRAPER'S AMERICAN CIVIL POLICY. Thoughts on the Future Civil Policy of
+America. By John W. Draper, M. D., LL. D, Professor of Chemistry and
+Physiology in the University of New York. Crown 8vo, Cloth, $2 50.
+
+DU CHAILLU'S AFRICA. Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa:
+with Accounts of the Manners and Customs of the People, and of the Chase
+of the Gorilla, the Crocodile, Leopard, Elephant, Hippopotamus and other
+Animals. By Paul B. Du Chaillu. Numerous Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, $5
+00.
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+DU CHAILLU'S ASHANGO LAND. A Journey to Ashango Land: and Further
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+BURNS'S LIFE AND WORKS. The Life and Works of Robert Burns. Edited by
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+BELLOWS'S OLD WORLD. The Old World in its New Face: Impressions of
+Europe in 1867--1868. By Henry W. Bellows. 2 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $3 50.
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+BRODHEAD'S HISTORY OF NEW YORK. History of the State of New York. By
+John Romlyn Brodhead. First Period, 1609--1664. 8vo, Cloth, $3 00.
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+BULWER'S PROSE WORKS. Miscellaneous Prose Works of Edward Bulwer, Lord
+Lytton. 2 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $3 50.
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+CARLYLE'S FREDERICK THE GREAT. History of Friedrich II., called
+Frederick the Great By Thomas Carlyle. Portraits, Maps, Plans, &c. 6
+vols., 12mo, Cloth, $12 00.
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+CARLYLE'S FRENCH REVOLUTION. History of the French Revolution. Newly
+Revised by the Author, with Index, &c. 2 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $3 50.
+
+CARLYLE'S OLIVER CROMWELL. Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell. With
+Elucidations and Connecting Narrative. 2 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $3 50.
+
+CHALMERS'S POSTHUMOUS WORKS. The Posthumous Works of Dr. Chalmers.
+Edited by his Son-in-Law, Rev. William Hanna, LL.D. Complete in 9 vols.,
+12mo, Cloth, $13 50.
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+COLERIDGE'S COMPLETE WORKS. The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor
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+Theological Opinions. Edited by Professor Shedd. Complete in Seven Vols.
+With a fine Portrait. Small 8vo, Cloth, $10 50.
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+CURTIS'S HISTORY OF THE CONSTITUTION. History of the Origin, Formation,
+and Adoption of the Constitution of the United States. By George Ticknor
+Curtis. 2 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $6 00.
+
+DOOLITTLE'S CHINA. Social Life of the Chinese: with some Account of
+their Religious, Governmental, Educational, and Business Customs and
+Opinions. With special but not exclusive Reference to Fuhchau. By Rev.
+Justis Doolittle, Fourteen Years Member of the Fuhchau Mission of the
+American Board. Illustrated with more than 150 characteristic Engravings
+on Wood. 2 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $5 00.
+
+DAVIS'S CARTHAGE. Carthage and her Remains: being an Account of the
+Excavations and Researches on the Site of the Phœnician Metropolis in
+Africa and other adjacent Places. Conducted under the Auspices of Her
+Majesty's Government. By Dr. Davis, F.R.G.S. Profusely Illustrated with
+Maps, Woodcuts, Chromo-Lithographs, &c. 8vo, Cloth, $4 00.
+
+EDGEWORTH'S (Miss) NOVELS. With Engravings. 10 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $15
+00.
+
+GIBBON'S ROME. History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. By
+Edward Gibbon. With Notes by Rev. H.H. Milman and M. Guizot. A new cheap
+Edition. To which is added a complete Index of the whole Work, and a
+Portrait of the Author. 6 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $9 00.
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+HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE REBELLION. Harper's Pictorial History
+of the Great Rebellion in the United States. With nearly 1000
+Illustrations. In Two Vols., 4to. Price $6 00 per vol.
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+HARPER'S NEW CLASSICAL LIBRARY. Literal Translations.
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+The following Volumes are now ready. Portraits. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50 each.
+Cæsar.--Virgil.--Sallust.--Horace.--Cicero's Orations.--Cicero's
+Offices, &c.--Cicero on Oratory and Orators.--Tacitus (2
+vols.).--Terence.--Sophocles.--Juvenal.--Xenophon.--Homer's
+Iliad.--Homer's
+Odyssey.--Herodotus.--Demosthenes.--Thucydides.--Æschylus.--Euripides (2
+vols.).
+
+HELPS'S SPANISH CONQUEST. The Spanish Conquest in America, and its
+Relation to the History of Slavery and to the Government of Colonies. By
+Arthur Helps. 4 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $6 00.
+
+HUME'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. History of England, from the Invasion of
+Julius Cæsar to the Abdication of James II., 1688. By David Hume. A new
+Edition, with the Author's last Corrections and Improvements. To which
+is Prefixed a short Account of his Life, written by Himself. With a
+Portrait of the Author. 6 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $9 00.
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+GROTE'S HISTORY OF GREECE. 12 vols., 12mo, Cloth. $18 00.
+
+HALE'S (Mrs.) WOMAN'S RECORD. Woman's Record; or, Biographical Sketches
+of all Distinguished Women, from the Creation to the Present Time.
+Arranged In Four Eras, with Selections from Female Writers of each Era.
+By Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale. Illustrated with more than 200 Portraits.
+8vo, Cloth, $5 00.
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+HALL'S ARCTIC RESEARCHES. Arctic Researches and Life among the
+Esquimaux: being the Narrative of an Expedition in Search of Sir John
+Franklin, in the Years 1860, 1861, and 1862. By Charles Francis Hall.
+With Maps and 100 Illustrations. The Illustrations are from Original
+Drawings by Charles Parsons, Henry L. Stephens, Solomon Eytinge, W.S.L.
+Jewett, and Granville Perkins, after Sketches by Captain Hall. 8vo,
+Cloth, $5 00.
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+HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND, from the Accession of Henry
+VII. to the Death of George II. 8vo, Cloth, $2 00.
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+HALLAM'S LITERATURE. Introduction to the Literature of Europe during the
+Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries. By Henry Hallam. 2
+vols. 8vo, Cloth, $4 00.
+
+HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES. State of Europe during the Middle Ages. By Henry
+Hallam. 8vo, Cloth, $2 00.
+
+HILDRETH'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. First Series: From the First
+Settlement of the Country to the Adoption of the Federal Constitution.
+Second Series: From the Adoption of the Federal Constitution to the End
+of the Sixteenth Congress. 6 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $18 00.
+
+JAY'S WORKS. Complete Works of Rev. William Jay: comprising his Sermons,
+Family Discourses, Morning and Evening Exercises for every Day in the
+Year, Family Prayers, &c. Author's enlarged Edition, revised. 3 vols.,
+8vo, Cloth, $6 00.
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+JOHNSON'S COMPLETE WORKS. The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. With an
+Essay on his Life and Genius, by Arthur Murphy, Esq. Portrait of Johnson
+2 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $4 00.
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+KINGLAKE'S CRIMEAN WAR. The Invasion of the Crimea, and an Account of
+its Progress down to the Death of Lord Raglan. By Alexander William
+Kinglake. With Maps and Plans. Two Vols. ready. 12mo, Cloth, $2 00 per
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+KRUMMACHER'S DAVID, KING OF ISRAEL. David, the King of Israel: a
+Portrait drawn from Bible History and the Book of Psalms. By Frederick
+William Krummacher, D.D., Author of "Elijah the Tishbite," &c.
+Translated under the express Sanction of the Author by the Rev. M.G.
+Easton, M.A. With a Letter from Dr. Krummacher to his American Readers,
+and a Portrait. 12mo, Cloth, $1 75.
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+LAMB'S COMPLETE WORKS. The Works of Charles Lamb. Comprising his
+Letters, Poems, Essays of Elia. Essays upon Shakspeare, Hogarth, &c.,
+and a Sketch of his Life, with the Final Memorials, by T. Noon Talfourd.
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Christianity and Greek Philosophy, by 
+Benjamin Franklin Cocker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Christianity and Greek Philosophy
+       or, the relation between spontaneous and reflective thought
+       in Greece and the positive teaching of Christ and His
+       Apostles
+
+Author: Benjamin Franklin Cocker
+
+Release Date: December 20, 2008 [EBook #27571]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTIANITY AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, R�nald L�vesque and the
+Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at
+http://dp.rastko.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHRISTIANITY
+
+AND
+
+GREEK PHILOSOPHY;
+
+OR, THE RELATION BETWEEN
+SPONTANEOUS AND REFLECTIVE THOUGHT IN GREECE
+AND THE POSITIVE TEACHING OF
+CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES.
+
+
+BY B.F. COCKER, D.D.,
+
+PROFESSOR OF MORAL AND MENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
+
+"Plato made me know the true God, Jesus Christ showed me the way to
+him."
+                                                        ST. AUGUSTINE
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK: CARLTON & LANAHAN.
+SAN FRANCISCO: E. THOMAS.
+CINCINNATI: HITCHCOCK & WALDEN.
+
+1870.
+
+
+
+Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by HARPER &
+BROTHERS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United
+States for the Southern District of New York.
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+D.D. WHEDON, D.D.,
+
+MY EARLIEST LITERARY FRIEND, WHOSE VIGOROUS WRITINGS HAVE
+STIMULATED MY INQUIRIES, WHOSE COUNSELS HAVE GUIDED
+MY STUDIES, AND WHOSE KIND AND GENEROUS WORDS
+HAVE ENCOURAGED ME TO PERSEVERANCE
+AMID NUMEROUS DIFFICULTIES,
+I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME AS A TOKEN OF MY MORE THAN ORDINARY AFFECTION
+
+_THE AUTHOR_.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+In preparing the present volume, the writer has been actuated by a
+conscientious desire to deepen and vivify our faith in the Christian
+system of truth, by showing that it does not rest _solely_ on a special
+class of facts, but upon all the facts of nature and humanity; that its
+authority does not repose _alone_ on the peculiar and supernatural
+events which transpired in Palestine, but also on the still broader
+foundations of the ideas and laws of the reason, and the common wants
+and instinctive yearnings of the human heart. It is his conviction that
+the course and constitution of nature, the whole current of history, and
+the entire development of human thought in the ages anterior to the
+advent of the Redeemer centre in, and can only be interpreted by, the
+purpose of redemption.
+
+The method hitherto most prevalent, of treating the history of human
+thought as a series of isolated, disconnected, and lawless movements,
+without unity and purpose; and the practice of denouncing the religions
+and philosophies of the ancient world as inventions of satanic mischief,
+or as the capricious and wicked efforts of humanity to relegate itself
+from the bonds of allegiance to the One Supreme Lord and Lawgiver, have,
+in his judgment, been prejudicial to the interests of all truth, and
+especially injurious to the cause of Christianity. They betray an utter
+insensibility to the grand unities of nature and of thought, and a
+strange forgetfulness of that universal Providence which comprehends all
+nature and all history, and is yet so minute in its regards that it
+numbers the hairs on every human head, and takes note of every sparrow's
+fall, A juster method will lead us to regard the entire history of human
+thought as a development towards a specific end, and the providence of
+God as an all-embracing plan, which sweeps over all ages and all
+nations, and which, in its final consummation, will, through Christ,
+"gather together all things in one, both things which are in heaven and
+things which are on earth."
+
+The central and unifying thought of this volume is _that the necessary
+ideas and laws of the reason, and the native instincts of the human
+heart, originally implanted by God, are the primal and germinal forces
+of history; and that these have been developed under conditions which
+were first ordained, and have been continually supervised by the
+providence of God_. God is the Father of humanity, and he is also the
+Guide and Educator of our race. As "the offspring of God," humanity is
+not a bare, indeterminate potentiality, but a living energy, an active
+reason, having definite qualities, and inheriting fundamental principles
+and necessary ideas which constitute it "the image and likeness of God."
+And though it has suffered a moral lapse, and, in the exercise of its
+freedom, has become alienated from the life of God, yet God has never
+abandoned the human race. He still "magnifies man, and sets his heart
+upon him." "He visits him every morning, and tries him every moment."
+"The inspiration of the Almighty still gives him understanding." The
+illumination of the Divine Logos still "teacheth man knowledge." The
+Spirit of God still comes near to and touches with strong emotion every
+human heart. "God has never left himself without a witness" in any
+nation, or in any age. The providence of God has always guided the
+dispersions and migrations of the families of the earth, and presided
+over and directed the education of the race. "He has foreordained the
+times of each nation's existence, and fixed the geographical boundaries
+of their habitations, _in order that they should seek the Lord_, and
+feel after and find Him who is not far from any one of us." The
+religions of the ancient world were the painful effort of the human
+spirit to return to its true rest and centre--the struggle to "find Him"
+who is so intimately near to every human heart, and who has never ceased
+to be the want of the human race. The philosophies of the ancient world
+were the earnest effort of human reason to reconcile the finite and the
+infinite, the human and the Divine, the subject and God. An overruling
+Providence, which makes even the wrath of man to praise Him, took up all
+these sincere, though often mistaken, efforts into his own plan, and
+made them sub-serve the purpose of redemption. They aided in developing
+among the nations "the desire of salvation," and in preparing the world
+for the advent of the Son of God. The entire course and history of
+Divine providence, in every nation, and in every age, has been directed
+towards the one grand purpose of "reconciling all things to Himself."
+Christianity, as a comprehensive scheme of reconciliation, embracing
+"all things," can not, therefore, be properly studied apart from the
+ages of earnest thought, of profound inquiry, and of intense religious
+feeling which preceded it. To despise the religions of the ancient
+world, to sneer at the efforts and achievements of the old philosophers,
+or even to cut them off in thought from all relation to the plans and
+movements of that Providence which has cared for, and watched over, and
+pitied, and guided all the nations of the earth, is to refuse to
+comprehend Christianity itself.
+
+The author is not indifferent to the possibility that his purpose may be
+misconceived. The effort may be regarded by many conscientious and
+esteemed theologians with suspicion and mistrust. They can not easily
+emancipate themselves from the ancient prejudice against speculative
+thought. Philosophy has always been regarded by them as antagonistic to
+Christian faith. They are inspired by a commendable zeal for the honor
+of dogmatic theology. Every essay towards a profounder conviction, a
+broader faith in the unity of all truth, is branded with the opprobrious
+name of "rationalism." Let us not be terrified by a harmless word.
+Surely religion and right reason must be found in harmony. The author
+believes, with Bacon, that "the foundation of all religion is right
+reason." The abnegation of reason is not the evidence of faith, but the
+confession of despair. Sustained by these convictions, he submits this
+humble contribution to theological science to the thoughtful
+consideration of all lovers of Truth, and of Christ, the fountain of
+Truth. He can sincerely ask upon it the blessing of Him in whose fear it
+has been written, and whose cause it is the purpose of his life to
+serve.
+
+The second series, on "Christianity and Modern Thought," is in an
+advanced state of preparation for the press.
+
+      NOTE.--It has been the aim of the writer, as far as the
+      nature of the subject would permit, to adapt this work to
+      general readers. The references to classic authors are,
+      therefore, in all cases made to accessible English
+      translations (in Bohn's Classical Library); such changes,
+      however, have been made in the rendering as shall present
+      the doctrine of the writers in a clearer and more forcible
+      manner. For valuable services rendered in this department of
+      the work, by Martin L. D'Ooge, M. A., Acting Professor of
+      Greek Language and Literature in the University of Michigan,
+      the author would here express his grateful acknowledgment.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+     CHAPTER I.
+     ATHENS, AND THE MEN OF ATHENS.
+
+     CHAPTER II.
+     THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.
+
+     CHAPTER III.
+     THE RELIGION OF THE ATHENIANS.
+
+     CHAPTER IV.
+     THE RELIGION OF THE ATHENIANS: ITS MYTHOLOGICAL AND SYMBOLICAL
+     ASPECTS.
+
+     CHAPTER V.
+     THE UNKNOWN GOD.
+
+     CHAPTER VI.
+     THE UNKNOWN GOD (_continued_).
+       IS GOD COGNIZABLE BY REASON?
+
+     CHAPTER VII.
+     THE UNKNOWN GOD (_continued_).
+       IS GOD COGNIZABLE BY REASON? (_continued_).
+
+     CHAPTER VIII.
+     THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS.
+       PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+     _Sensational_: THALES--ANAXIMENES--HERACLITUS--ANAXIMANDER
+     LEOCIPPUS--DEMOCRITUS.
+
+     CHAPTER IX.
+     THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_).
+       PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOL (_continued_)
+     _Idealist_: Pythagoras--Xenophanes--Parmenides--Zeno. _Natural
+     Realist_: Anaxagoras.
+       THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+       Socrates.
+
+     CHAPTER X
+     THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_).
+       THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (_continued_).
+       Plato.
+
+     CHAPTER XI.
+     THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_).
+       THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (_continued_).
+       Plato.
+
+     CHAPTER XII.
+
+     THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_).
+       THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (_continued_).
+       Aristotle.
+
+     CHAPTER XIII.
+     THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_).
+       POST-SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+       Epicurus and Zeno.
+
+     CHAPTER XIV.
+     The Prop�deutic Office of Greek Philosophy.
+
+     CHAPTER XV.
+     The Prop�deutic Office of Greek Philosophy (_continued_).
+
+
+
+
+"_Ye men of Athens_, all things which I behold bear witness to your
+carefulness in religion; for, as I passed through your city and beheld
+the objects of your worship, I found amongst them an altar with this
+inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD; whom, therefore, ye worship, though ye
+know; Him not, Him declare I unto you. God who made the world and all
+things therein, seeing He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in
+temples made with hands; neither is He served by the hands of men, as
+though he needed any thing; for He giveth unto all life, and breath, and
+all things. And He made of one blood all the nations of mankind to dwell
+upon the face of the whole earth; and ordained to each the appointed
+seasons of their existence, and the bounds of their habitation, that
+they should seek God, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him,
+though he be not far from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move,
+and have our being; as certain of your own poets have said, _For we are
+also His offspring_. Forasmuch, then, as we are the offspring of God, we
+ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or
+stone, graven by the art and device of man. Howbeit, those past times of
+ignorance God hath overlooked; but now He commandeth all men everywhere
+to repent, because He hath appointed a day wherein He will judge the
+world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained; whereof He
+hath given assurance unto all, in that He hath raised Him from the
+dead."--Acts xvii. 22-31.
+
+
+
+
+CHRISTIANITY
+AND
+GREEK PHILOSOPHY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ATHENS, AND THE MEN OF ATHENS.
+
+
+"Is it not worth while, for the sake of the history of men and nations,
+to study the surface of the globe in its relation to the inhabitants
+thereof?"--Goethe.
+
+There is no event recorded in the annals of the early church so replete
+with interest to the Christian student, or which takes so deep a hold on
+the imagination, and the sympathies of him who is at all familiar with
+the history of Ancient Greece, as the one recited above. Here we see the
+Apostle Paul standing on the Areopagus at Athens, surrounded by the
+temples, statues, and altars, which Grecian art had consecrated to Pagan
+worship, and proclaiming to the inquisitive Athenians, "the strangers"
+who had come to Athens for business or for pleasure, and the
+philosophers and students of the Lyceum, the Academy, the Stoa, and the
+Garden, "_the unknown God_."
+
+Whether we dwell in our imagination on the artistic grandeur and
+imposing magnificence of the city in which Paul found himself a solitary
+stranger, or recall the illustrious names which by their achievements in
+arts and philosophy have shed around the city of Athens an immortal
+glory,--or whether, fixing our attention on the lonely wanderer amid the
+porticoes, and groves, and temples of this classic city, we attempt to
+conceive the emotion which stirred his heart as he beheld it "wholly
+given to idolatry;" or whether we contrast the sublime, majestic theism
+proclaimed by Paul with the degrading polytheism and degenerate
+philosophy which then prevailed in Athens, or consider the prudent and
+sagacious manner in which the apostle conducts his argument in view of
+the religious opinions and prejudices of his audience, we can not but
+feel that this event is fraught with lessons of instruction to the
+Church in every age.
+
+That the objects which met the eye of Paul on every hand, and the
+opinions he heard everywhere expressed in Athens, must have exerted a
+powerful influence upon the current of his thoughts, as well as upon the
+state of his emotions, is a legitimate and natural presumption. Not only
+was "his spirit stirred within him"--his heart deeply moved and agitated
+when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry--but his thoughtful,
+philosophic mind would be engaged in pondering those deeply interesting
+questions which underlie the whole system of Grecian polytheism. The
+circumstances of the hour would, no doubt, in a large degree determine
+the line of argument, the form of his discourse, and the peculiarities
+of his phraseology. The more vividly, therefore, we can represent the
+scenes and realize the surrounding incidents; the more thoroughly we can
+enter into sympathy with the modes of thought and feeling peculiar to
+the Athenians; the more perfectly we can comprehend the spirit and
+tendency of the age; the more immediate our acquaintance with the
+religious opinions and philosophical ideas then prevalent in Athens, the
+more perfect will be our comprehension of the apostle's argument, the
+deeper our interest in his theme. Some preliminary notices of Athens and
+"the Men of Athens" will therefore be appropriate as introductory to a
+series of discourses on Paul's sermon on Mars' Hill.
+
+The peculiar connection that subsists between Geography and History,
+between a people and the country they inhabit, will justify the
+extension of our survey beyond the mere topography of Athens. The people
+of the entire province of Attica were called Athenians (_Ath�naioi_) in
+their relation to the state, and Attics _(Attikoi_) in regard to their
+manners, customs, and dialect.[1] The climate and the scenery, the forms
+of contour and relief, the geographical position and relations of
+Attica, and, indeed, of the whole peninsula of Greece, must be taken
+into our account if we would form a comprehensive judgment of the
+character of the Athenian people.
+
+The soil on which a people dwell, the air they breathe, the mountains
+and seas by which they are surrounded, the skies that overshadow
+them,--all these exert a powerful influence on their pursuits, their
+habits, their institutions, their sentiments, and their ideas. So that
+could we clearly group, and fully grasp all the characteristics of a
+region--its position, configuration, climate, scenery, and natural
+products, we could, with tolerable accuracy, determine what are the
+characteristics of the people who inhabit it. A comprehensive knowledge
+of the physical geography of any country will therefore aid us
+materially in elucidating the natural history, and, to some extent, the
+moral history of its population. "History does not stand _outside_ of
+nature, but in her very heart, so that the historian only grasps a
+people's character with true precision when he keeps in full view its
+geographical position, and the influences which its surroundings have
+wrought upon it."[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Niebuhr's "Lectures on Ethnography and Geography," p. 91.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ritter's "Geographical Studies," p. 34.]
+
+It is, however, of the utmost consequence the reader should understand
+that there are two widely different methods of treating this deeply
+interesting subject--methods which proceed on fundamentally opposite
+views of man and of nature. One method is that pursued by Buckle in his
+"History of Civilization in England." The tendency of his work is the
+assertion of the supremacy of material conditions over the development
+of human history, and indeed of every individual mind. Here man is
+purely passive in the hands of nature. Exterior conditions are the
+chief, if not the _only_ causes of man's intellectual and social
+development. So that, such a climate and soil, such aspects of nature
+and local circumstances being given, such a nation necessarily
+follows.[3] The other method is that of Carl Ritter, Arnold Guyot, and
+Cousin.[4] These take account of the freedom of the human will, and the
+power of man to control and modify the forces of nature. They also take
+account of the original constitution of man, and the primitive type of
+nations; and they allow for results arising from the mutual conflict of
+geographical conditions. And they, especially, recognize the agency of a
+Divine Providence controlling those forces in nature by which the
+configuration of the earth's surface is determined, and the distribution
+of its oceans, continents, and islands is secured; and a providence,
+also, directing the dispersions and migrations of nations--determining
+the times of each nation's existence, and fixing the geographical bounds
+of their habitation, all in view of the _moral_ history and spiritual
+development of the race,--"that they may feel after, and find the living
+God." The relation of man and nature is not, in their estimation, a
+relation of cause and effect. It is a relation of adjustment, of
+harmony, and of reciprocal action and reaction. "Man is not"--says
+Cousin--"an effect, and nature the cause, but there is between man and
+nature a manifest harmony of general laws."... "Man and nature are two
+great effects which, coming from the same cause, bear the same
+characteristics; so that the earth, and he who inhabits it, man and
+nature, are in perfect harmony."[5] God has created both man and the
+universe, and he has established between them a striking harmony. The
+earth was made for man; not simply to supply his physical wants, but
+also to minister to his intellectual and moral development. The earth is
+not a mere dwelling-place of nations, but a school-house, in which God
+himself is superintending the education of the race. Hence we must not
+only study the _events_ of history in their chronological order, but we
+must study the earth itself as the _theatre_ of history. A knowledge of
+all the circumstances, both physical and moral, in the midst of which
+events take place, is absolutely necessary to a right judgment of the
+events themselves. And we can only elucidate properly the character of
+the actors by a careful study of all their geographical and ethological
+conditions.
+
+[Footnote 3: See chap. ii. "History of Civilization."]
+
+[Footnote 4: Ritter's "Geographical Studies;" Guyot's "Earth and Man;"
+Cousin's "History of Philosophy," lec. vii., viii., ix.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Lectures, vol. i. pp. 162, 169.]
+
+It will be readily perceived that, in attempting to estimate the
+influence which exterior conditions exert in the determination of
+national character, we encounter peculiar difficulties. We can not in
+these studies expect the precision and accuracy which is attained in the
+mathematical, or the purely physical sciences. We possess no control
+over the "materiel" of our inquiry; we have no power of placing it in
+new conditions, and submitting it to the test of new experiments, as in
+the physical sciences. National character is a _complex_ result--a
+product of the action and reaction of primary and secondary causes. It
+is a conjoint effect of the action of the primitive elements and laws
+originally implanted in humanity by the Creator, of the free causality
+and self-determining power of man, and of all the conditions, permanent
+and accidental, within which the national life has been developed. And
+in cases where _physical_ and _moral_ causes are blended, and
+reciprocally conditioned and modified in their operation;--where primary
+results undergo endless modifications from the influence of surrounding
+circumstances, and the reaction of social and political
+institutions;--and where each individual of the great aggregate wields a
+causal power that obeys no specific law, and by his own inherent power
+sets in motion new trains of causes which can not be reduced to
+statistics, we grant that we are in possession of no instrument of exact
+analysis by which the complex phenomena of national character may be
+reduced to primitive elements. All that we can hope is, to ascertain, by
+psychological analysis, what are the fundamental ideas and laws of
+humanity; to grasp the exterior conditions which are, on all hands,
+recognized as exerting a powerful influence upon national character; to
+watch, under these lights, the manifestations of human nature on the
+theatre of history, and then apply the principles of a sound historic
+criticism to the recorded opinions of contemporaneous historians and
+their immediate successors. In this manner we may expect, at least, to
+approximate to a true judgment of history.
+
+There are unquestionably fundamental powers and laws in human nature
+which have their development in the course of history. There are certain
+primitive ideas, imbedded in the constitution of each individual mind,
+which are revealed in the universal consciousness of our race, under the
+conditions of experience--the exterior conditions of physical nature and
+human society. Such are the ideas of cause and substance; of unity and
+infinity, which govern all the processes of discursive thought, and lead
+us to the recognition of Being _in se_;--such the ideas of right, of
+duty, of accountability, and of retribution, which regulate all the
+conceptions we form of our relations to all other moral beings, and
+constitute _morality_;--such the ideas of order, of proportion, and of
+harmony, which preside in the realms of art, and constitute the
+beau-ideal of _esthetics_;--such the ideas of God, the soul, and
+immortality, which rule in the domains of _religion_, and determine man
+a religious being. These constitute the identity of human nature under
+all circumstances; these characterize humanity in all conditions. Like
+permanent germs in vegetable life, always producing the same species of
+plants; or like fundamental types in the animal kingdom, securing the
+same homologous structures in all classes and orders; so these
+fundamental ideas in human nature constitute its sameness and unity,
+under all the varying conditions of life and society. The acorn must
+produce an oak, and nothing else. The grain of wheat must always produce
+its kind. The offspring of man must always bear his image, and always
+exhibit the same fundamental characteristics, not only in his corporeal
+nature, but also in his mental constitution.
+
+But the germination of every seed depends on conditions _ab extra_, and
+all germs are modified, in their development, by geographical and
+climatal surroundings. The development of the acorn into a mature and
+perfect oak greatly depends on the exterior conditions of soil, and
+moisture, light, and heat. By these it may be rendered luxuriant in its
+growth, or it may be stunted in its growth. It may barely exist under
+one class of conditions, or it may perish under another. The Brassica
+oleracea, in its native habitat on the shore of the sea, is a bitter
+plant with wavy sea-green leaves; in the cultivated garden it is the
+cauliflower. The single rose, under altered conditions, becomes a double
+rose; and creepers rear their stalks and stand erect. Plants, which in a
+cold climate are annuals, become perennial when transported to the
+torrid zone.[6] And so human nature, fundamentally the same under all
+circumstances, may be greatly modified, both physically and mentally, by
+geographical, social, and political conditions. The corporeal nature of
+man--his complexion, his physiognomy, his stature; the intellectual
+nature of man--his religious, ethical, and esthetical ideas are all
+modified by his surroundings. These modifications, of which all men
+dwelling in the same geographical regions, and under the same social and
+political institutions, partake, constitute the _individuality_ of
+nations. Thus, whilst there is a fundamental basis of unity in the
+corporeal and spiritual nature of man, the causes of diversity are to be
+sought in the circumstances in which tribes and nations are placed in
+the overruling providence of God.
+
+[Footnote 6: See Carpenter's "Compar. Physiology," p. 625; Lyell's
+"Principles of Geology," pp. 588, 589.]
+
+The power which man exerts over material conditions, by virtue of his
+intelligence and freedom, is also an important element which, in these
+studies, we should not depreciate or ignore. We must accept, with all
+its consequences, the dictum of universal consciousness that man is
+_free_. He is not absolutely subject to, and moulded by nature. He has
+the power to control the circumstances by which he is surrounded--to
+originate new social and physical conditions--to determine his own
+individual and responsible character--and he can wield a mighty
+influence over the character of his fellow-men. Individual men, as
+Lycurgus, Solon, Pericles, Alexander, C�sar, and Napoleon have left the
+impress of their own mind and character upon the political institutions
+of nations, and, in indirect manner, upon the character of succeeding
+generations of men. Homer, Plato, Cicero, Bacon, Kant, Locke, Newton,
+Shakspeare, Milton have left a deep and permanent impression upon the
+forms of thought and speech, the language and literature, the science
+and philosophy of nations. And inasmuch as a nation is the aggregate of
+individual beings endowed with spontaneity and freedom, we must grant
+that exterior conditions are not omnipotent in the formation of national
+character. Still the free causality of man is exercised within a narrow
+field. "There is a strictly necessitative limitation drawing an
+impassable boundary-line around the area of volitional freedom." The
+human will "however subjectively free" is often "objectively unfree;"
+thus a large "uniformity of volitions" is the natural consequence.[7]
+The child born in the heart of China, whilst he may, in his personal
+freedom, develop such traits of character as constitute his
+individuality, must necessarily be conformed in his language, habits,
+modes of thought, and religious sentiments to the spirit of his country
+and age. We no more expect a development of Christian thought and
+character in the centre of Africa, unvisited by Christian teaching, than
+we expect to find the climate and vegetation of New England. And we no
+more expect that a New England child shall be a Mohammedan, a Parsee, or
+a Buddhist, than that he shall have an Oriental physiognomy, and speak
+an Oriental language. Indeed it is impossible for a man to exist in
+human society without partaking in the spirit and manners of his country
+and his age. Thus all the individuals of a nation represent, in a
+greater or less degree, the spirit of the nation. They who do this most
+perfectly are the _great_ men of that nation, because they are at once
+both the product and the impersonation of their country and their age.
+"We allow ourselves to think of Shakspeare, or of Raphael, or of Phidias
+as having accomplished their work by the power of their individual
+genius, but greatness like theirs is never more than the highest degree
+of perfection which prevails widely around it, and forms the environment
+in which it grows. No such single mind in single contact with the facts
+of nature could have created a Pallas, a Madonna, or a Lear; such vast
+conceptions are the growth of ages, the creation of a nation's spirit;
+and the artist and poet, filled full with the power of that spirit, but
+gave it form, and nothing but form. Nor would the form itself have been
+attained by any isolated talent. No genius can dispense with
+experience.... Noble conceptions already existing, and a noble school of
+execution which will launch mind and hand upon their true courses, are
+indispensable to transcendent excellence. Shakspeare's plays were as
+much the offspring of the long generations who had pioneered the road
+for him, as the discoveries of Newton were the offspring of those of
+Copernicus."[8] The principles here enounced apply with equal force to
+philosophers and men of science. The philosophy of Plato was but the
+ripened fruit of the pregnant thoughts and seminal utterances of his
+predecessors,--Socrates, Anaxagoras, and Pythagoras; whilst all of them
+do but represent the general tendency and spirit of their country and
+their times. The principles of Lord Bacon's "Instauratio Magna" were
+incipient in the "Opus Majus" of Roger Bacon, the Franciscan friar. The
+sixteenth century matured the thought of the thirteenth century. The
+inductive method in scientific inquiry was immanent in the British mind,
+and the latter Bacon only gave to it a permanent form. It is true that
+great men have occasionally appeared on the stage of history who, like
+the reformers Luther and Wesley, have seemed to be in conflict with the
+prevailing spirit of their age and nation, but these men were the
+creations of a providence--that providence which, from time to time, has
+_supernaturally_ interposed in the moral history of our race by
+corrective and remedial measures. These men were inspired and led by a
+spirit which descended from on high. And yet even they had their
+precursors and harbingers. Wyckliffe and John Huss, and Jerome of Prague
+are but the representatives of numbers whose names do not grace the
+historic page, who pioneered the way for Luther and the Reformation. And
+no one can read the history of that great movement of the sixteenth
+century without being persuaded there were thousands of Luther's
+predecessors and contemporaries who, like Staupitz and Erasmus, lamented
+the corruptions of the Church of Rome, and only needed the heroic
+courage of Luther to make them reformers also. Whilst, therefore, we
+recognize a free causal power in man, by which he determines his
+individual and responsible character, we are compelled to recognize the
+general law, that national character is mainly the result of those
+geographical and ethological, and political and religious conditions in
+which the nations have been placed in the providence of God.
+
+[Footnote 7: See Dr. Wheedon's "Freedom of the Will," pp. 164, 165.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Froude, "Hist. of England," pp. 73, 74.]
+
+Nations, like persons, have an _Individuality_. They present certain
+characteristic marks which constitute their proper identity, and
+separate them from the surrounding nations of the earth; such, for
+example, as complexion, physiognomy, language, pursuits, customs,
+institutions, sentiments, ideas. The individuality of a nation is
+determined mainly from _without_, and not, like human individuality,
+from within. The laws of a man's personal character have their home in
+the soul; and the peculiarities and habits, and that conduct of life,
+which constitute his responsible character are, in a great degree, the
+consequence of his own free choice. But dwelling, as he does, in
+society, where he is continually influenced by the example and opinions
+of his neighbors; subject, as he is, to the ceaseless influence of
+climate, scenery, and other terrestrial conditions, the characteristics
+which result from these relations, and which are common to all who dwell
+in the same regions, and under the same institutions, constitute a
+national individuality. Individual character is _variable_ under the
+same general conditions, national character is _uniform_, because it
+results from causes which operate alike upon all individuals.
+
+Now, that man's complexion, his pursuits, his habits, his ideas are
+greatly modified by his geographical surroundings, is the most obvious
+of truths. No one doubts that the complexion of man is greatly affected
+by climatic conditions. The appearance, habits, pursuits of the man who
+lives within the tropics must, necessarily, differ from those of the man
+who dwells within the temperate zone. No one expects that the dweller on
+the mountain will have the same characteristics as the man who resides
+on the plains; or that he whose home is in the interior of a continent
+will have the same habits as the man whose home is on the islands of the
+sea. The denizen of the primeval forest will most naturally become a
+huntsman. The dweller on the extended plain, or fertile mountain slope,
+will lead a pastoral, or an agricultural life. Those who live on the
+margin of great rivers, or the borders of the sea, will "do business on
+the great waters." Commerce and navigation will be their chief pursuits.
+The people whose home is on the margin of the lake, or bay, or inland
+sea, or the thickly studded archipelago, are mostly fishermen. And then
+it is a no less obvious truth that men's pursuits exert a moulding
+influence on their habits, their forms of speech, their sentiments, and
+their ideas. Let any one take pains to observe the peculiarities which
+characterize the huntsman, the shepherd, the agriculturist, or the
+fisherman, and he will be convinced that their occupations stamp the
+whole of their thoughts and feelings; color all their conceptions of
+things outside their own peculiar field; direct their simple philosophy
+of life; and give a tone, even, to their religious emotions.
+
+The general aspects of nature, the climate and the scenery, exert an
+appreciable and an acknowledged influence on the _mental_
+characteristics of a people. The sprightliness and vivacity of the
+Frank, the impetuosity of the Arab, the immobility of the Russ, the
+rugged sternness of the Scot, the repose and dreaminess of the Hindoo
+are largely due to the country in which they dwell, the air they
+breathe, the food they eat, and the landscapes and skies they daily look
+upon. The nomadic Arab is not only indebted to the country in which he
+dwells for his habit of hunting for daily food, but for that love of a
+free, untrammelled life, and for those soaring dreams of fancy in which
+he so ardently delights. Not only is the Swiss determined by the
+peculiarities of his geographical position to lead a pastoral life, but
+the climate, and mountain scenery, and bracing atmosphere inspire him
+with the love of liberty. The reserved and meditative Hindoo, accustomed
+to the profuse luxuriance of nature, borrows the fantastic ideas of his
+mythology from plants, and flowers, and trees. The vastness and infinite
+diversity of nature, the colossal magnitude of all the forms of animal
+and vegetable life, the broad and massive features of the landscape, the
+aspects of beauty and of terror which surround him, and daily pour their
+silent influences upon his soul, give vividness, grotesqueness, even, to
+his imagination, and repress his active powers. His mental character
+bears a peculiar and obvious relation to his geographical
+surroundings.[9]
+
+[Footnote 9: Ritter, "Geograph. Studies," p. 287.]
+
+The influence of external nature on the imagination--the _creative_
+faculty in man--is obvious and remarkable. It reveals itself in all the
+productions of man--his architecture, his sculpture, his painting, and
+his poetry. Oriental architecture is characterized by the boldness and
+massiveness of all its parts, and the monotonous uniformity of all its
+features. This is but the expression, in a material form, of that
+shadowy feeling of infinity, and unity, and immobility which an unbroken
+continent of vast deserts and continuous lofty mountain chains would
+naturally inspire. The simple grandeur and perfect harmony and graceful
+blending of light and shade so peculiar to Grecian architecture are the
+product of a country whose area is diversified by the harmonious
+blending of land and water, mountain and plain, all bathed in purest
+light, and canopied with skies of serenest blue. And they are also the
+product of a country where man is released from the imprisonment within
+the magic circle of surrounding nature, and made conscious of his power
+and freedom. In Grecian architecture, therefore, there is less of the
+massiveness and immobility of nature, and more of the grace and dignity
+of man. It adds to the idea of permanence a _vital_ expression. "The
+Doric column," says Vitruvius, "has the proportion, strength, and beauty
+of man." The Gothic architecture had its birthplace among a people who
+had lived and worshipped for ages amidst the dense forests of the north,
+and was no doubt an imitation of the interlacing of the overshadowing
+trees. The clustered shaft, and lancet arch, and flowing tracery,
+reflect the impression which the surrounding scenery had woven into the
+texture of the Teutonic mind.
+
+The history of painting and of sculpture will also show that the varied
+"styles of art" are largely the result of the aspects which external
+nature presented to the eye of man. Oriental sculpture, like its
+architecture, was characterized by massiveness of form and tranquillity
+of expression; and its painting was, at best, but colored sculpture. The
+most striking objects are colossal figures, in which the human form is
+strangely combined with the brute, as in the winged bulls of Nineveh and
+the sphinxes of Egypt. Man is regarded simply as a part of nature, he
+does not rise above the plane of animal life. The soul has its
+immortality only in an eternal metempsychosis--a cycle of life which
+sweeps through all the brute creation. But in Grecian sculpture we have
+less of nature, more of man; less of massiveness, more of grace and
+elegance; less repose, and more of action. Now the connection between
+these styles of art, and the countries in which they were developed, is
+at once suggested to the thoughtful mind.
+
+And then, finally, the literature of a people equally reveals the
+impress of surrounding cosmical conditions. "The poems of Ossian are but
+the echo of the wild, rough, cloudy highlands of his Scottish home." The
+forest songs of the wild Indian, the negro's plaintive melodies in the
+rice-fields of Carolina, the refrains in which the hunter of Kamtchatka
+relates his adventures with the polar bear, and in which the South Sea
+Islander celebrates his feats and dangers on the deep, all betoken the
+influence which the scenes of daily life exert upon the thoughts and
+feelings of our race. "To what an extent nature can express herself in,
+and modify the culture of the individual, as well as of an entire
+people, can be seen on Ionian soil in the verse of Homer, which, called
+forth under the most favorable sky, and on the most luxuriant shore of
+the Grecian archipelago, not only charms us to-day, but bearing this
+impress, has determined what shall be the classic form throughout all
+coming time."[10]
+
+[Footnote 10: See Ritter, pp. 288, 289. Poetic art has unquestionably
+its _geographical_ distributions like the fauna and flora of the globe.
+"If you love the images, not merely of a rich, but of a luxuriant fancy;
+if you are pleased with the most daring flights; if you would see a
+poetic creation full of wonders, then turn your eye to the poetry of the
+_orient_, where all forms appear in purple; where each flower glows like
+the morning ray resting on the earth. But if, on the contrary, you
+prefer depth of thought, and earnestness of reflection; if you delight
+in the colossal, yet pale forms, which float about in mist, and whisper
+of the mysteries of the spirit-land, and of the vanity of all things,
+except honor, then I must point you to the hoary _north_.... Or if you
+sympathize with that deep feeling, that longing of the soul, which does
+not linger on the earth, but evermore looks up to the azure tent of the
+stars, where happiness dwells, where the unquiet of the beating heart is
+still, then you must resort to the romantic poetry of the
+_west_."--"_Study of Greek Literature_," Bishop Esaias Tegn�r, p. 38.]
+
+In seeking, therefore, to determine correctly what are the
+characteristics of a nation, we must endeavor to trace how far the
+physical constitution of that people, their temperament, their habits,
+their sentiments, and their ideas have been formed, or modified, under
+the surrounding geographical conditions, which, as we have seen, greatly
+determine a nation's individuality. Guided by these lights, let us
+approach the study of "_the men of Athens_."
+
+_Attica_, of which Athens was the capital, and whose entire populations
+were called "Athenians," was the most important of all the Hellenic
+states. It is a triangular peninsula, the base of which is defined by
+the high mountain ranges of Cith�ron and Parnes, whilst the two other
+sides are washed by the sea, having their vertex at the promontory of
+Sunium, or Cape Colonna. The prolongation of the south-western line
+towards the north until it reaches the base at the foot of Mount
+Cith�ron, served as the line of demarkation between the Athenian
+territory and the State of Megara. Thus Attica may be generally
+described as bounded on the north-east by the channel of the Negropont;
+on the south-west by the gulf of �gina and part of Megara; and on the
+north-west by the territory which formed the ancient Boeotia, including
+within its limits an area of about 750 miles.[11]
+
+Hills of inferior elevation connect the mountain ranges of Cith�ron and
+Parnes with the mountainous surface of the south-east of the peninsula.
+These hills, commencing with the promontory of Sunium itself, which
+forms the vertex of the triangle, rise gradually on the south-east to
+the round summit of Hymettus, and onward to the higher peak of
+Pentelicus, near Marathon, on the east. The rest of Attica is all a
+plain, one reach of which comes down to the sea on the south, at the
+very base of Hymettus. Here, about five miles from the shore, an abrupt
+rock rises from the plain, about 200 feet high, bordered on the south by
+lower eminences. That rock is the Acropolis. Those lower eminences are
+the Areopagus, the Pmyx, and the Museum. In the valley formed by these
+four hills we have the Agora, and the varied undulations of these hills
+determine the features of the city of Athens.[12]
+
+[Footnote 11: See art. "Attica," _Encyc. Brit._]
+
+[Footnote 12: See Conybeare and Howson's "Life and Epistles of St.
+Paul," vol. i. p. 346.]
+
+Nearly all writers on the topography of Athens derive their materials
+from Pausanias, who visited the city in the early part of the second
+century, and whose "Itinerary of Greece" is still extant.[13] He entered
+the city by the Peiraic gate, the same gate at which Paul entered some
+sixty years before. We shall place ourselves under his guidance, and, so
+far as we are able, follow the same course, supplying some omissions, as
+we go along, from other sources. On entering the city, the first
+building which arrested the attention of Pausanias was the Pompeium, so
+called because it was the depository of the sacred vessels, and also of
+the garments used in the annual procession in honor of Athena (Minerva),
+the tutelary deity of Athens, from whom the city derived its name. Near
+this edifice stood a temple of Demeter (Ceres), containing statues of
+that goddess, of her daughter Persephone, and of Iacchus, all executed
+by Praxiteles; and beyond were several porticoes leading from the city
+gates to the outer Ceramicus, while the intervening space was occupied
+by various temples, the Gymnasium of Hermes, and the house of Polytion,
+the most magnificent private residence in Athens.
+
+[Footnote 13: The account here given of the topography of Athens is
+derived mainly from the article on "Athens" in the _Encyc. Brit._]
+
+There were two places in Athens known by the name of Ceramicus, one
+without the walls, forming part of the suburbs; and the other within the
+walls, embracing a very important section of the city. The outer
+Ceramicus was covered with the sepulchres of the Athenians who had been
+slain in battle, and buried at the public expense; it communicated with
+the inner Ceramicus by the gate Dipylum. The Ceramicus within the city
+probably included the Agora, the Stoa Basileios, and the Stoa Poecile,
+besides various other temples and public buildings.
+
+Having fairly passed the city gates, a long street is before us with a
+colonnade or cloister on either hand; and at the end of this street, by
+turning to the left, we might go through the whole Ceramicus to the open
+country, and the groves of the Academy. But we turn to the right, and
+enter the Agora,--the market-place, as it is called in the English
+translation of the sacred narrative.
+
+We are not, however, to conceive of the market-place at Athens as
+bearing any resemblance to the bare, undecorated spaces appropriated to
+business in our modern towns; but rather as a magnificent public square,
+closed in by grand historic buildings, of the highest style of
+architecture; planted with palm-trees in graceful distribution, and
+adorned with statues of the great men of Athens and the deified heroes
+of her mythology, from the hands of the immortal masters of the plastic
+art. This "market-place" was the great centre of the public life of the
+Athenians,--the meeting-place of poets, orators, statesmen, warriors,
+and philosophers,--a grand resort for leisure, for conversation, for
+business, and for news. Standing in the Agora, and looking towards the
+south, is the _Museum,_ so called because it was believed that _Mus�us_,
+the father of poetry, was buried there. Towards the north-west is the
+_Pnyx,_ a sloping hill, partially levelled into an open area for
+political assemblies. To the north is seen the craggy eminence of the
+_Areopagus_, and on the north-east is the _Acropolis_ towering high
+above the scene, "the crown and glory of the whole."
+
+The most important buildings of the Agora are the Porticoes or
+cloisters, the most remarkable of which are the Stoa Basileios, or
+Portico of the king; the Stoa Eleutherius, or Portico of the Jupiter of
+Freedom; and the Stoa Poecile, or Painted Porch. These Porticoes were
+covered walks, the roof being supported by columns, at least on one
+side, and by solid masonry on the other. Such shaded walks are almost
+indispensable in the south of Europe, where the people live much in the
+open air, and they afford a grateful protection from the heat of the
+sun, as well as a shelter from the rain. Seats were also provided where
+the loungers might rest, and the philosophers and rhetoricians sit down
+for intellectual conversation. The "Stoic" school of philosophy derived
+its name from the circumstance that its founder, Zeno, used to meet and
+converse with his disciples under one of these porticoes,--the Stoa
+Poecile. These porticoes were not only built in the most magnificent
+style of architecture, but adorned with paintings and statuary by the
+best masters. On the roof of the Stoa Basileios were statues of Theseus
+and the Day. In front of the Stoa Eleutherius was placed the divinity to
+whom it was dedicated; and within were allegorical paintings,
+celebrating the rise of "the fierce democracy." The Stoa Poecile derived
+its name from the celebrated paintings which adorned its walls, and
+which were almost exclusively devoted to the representation of national
+subjects, as the contest of Theseus with the Amazons, the more glorious
+struggle at Marathon, and the other achievements of the Athenians; here
+also were suspended the shields of the Scion�ans of Thrace, together
+with those of the Lacedemonians, taken at the island of Sphacteria.
+
+It is beyond our purpose to describe all the public edifices,--the
+temples, gymnasia, and theatres which crowd the Ceramic area, and that
+portion of the city lying to the west and south of the Acropolis. Our
+object is, if possible, to convey to the reader some conception of the
+ancient splendor and magnificence of Athens; to revive the scenes amidst
+which the Athenians daily moved, and which may be presumed to have
+exerted a powerful influence upon the manners, the taste, the habits of
+thought, and the entire character of the Athenian people. To secure this
+object we need only direct attention to the Acropolis, which was crowded
+with the monuments of Athenian glory, and exhibited an amazing
+concentration of all that was most perfect in art, unsurpassed in
+excellence, and unrivalled in richness and splendor. It was "the
+peerless gem of Greece, the glory and pride of art, the wonder and envy
+of the world."
+
+The western side of the Acropolis, which furnished the only access to
+the summit of the hill, was about 168 feet in breadth; an opening so
+narrow that, to the artists of Pericles, it appeared practicable to fill
+up the space with a single building, which, in serving the purpose of a
+gateway to the Acropolis, should also contribute to adorn, as well as
+fortify the citadel. This work, the greatest achievement of civil
+architecture in Athens, which rivalled the Parthenon in felicity of
+execution, and surpassed it in boldness and originality of design,
+consisted of a grand central colonnade closed by projecting wings. This
+incomparable edifice, built of Pentelic marble, received the name of
+Propyl�a from its forming the vestibule to the five-fold gates by which
+the citadel was entered. In front of the right wing there stood a small
+Ionic temple of pure white marble, dedicated to Nik� Apteros (Wingless
+Victory).
+
+A gigantic flight of steps conducted from the five-fold gates to the
+platform of the Acropolis, which was, in fact, one vast composition of
+architecture and sculpture dedicated to the national glory. Here stood
+the Parthenon, or temple of the Virgin Goddess, the glorious temple
+which rose in the proudest period of Athenian history to the honor of
+Minerva, and which ages have only partially effaced. This magnificent
+temple, "by its united excellences of materials, design, and decoration,
+internal as well as external, has been universally considered the most
+perfect which human genius ever planned and executed. Its dimensions
+were sufficiently large to produce an impression of grandeur and
+sublimity, which was not disturbed by any obtrusive subdivision of
+parts; and, whether viewed at a small or greater distance, there was
+nothing to divert the mind of the spectator from contemplating the unity
+as well as majesty of mass and outline; circumstances which form the
+first and most remarkable characteristic of every Greek temple erected
+during the purer ages of Grecian taste and genius."[14]
+
+[Footnote 14: Leake's "Topography of Athens," p. 209 et seq.]
+
+It would be impossible to convey any just and adequate conception of the
+artistic decorations of this wonderful edifice. The two pediments of the
+temple were decorated with magnificent compositions of statuary, each
+consisting of about twenty entire figures of colossal size; the one on
+the western pediment representing the birth of Minerva, and the other,
+on the eastern pediment, the contest between that goddess and Neptune
+for the possession of Attica. Under the outer cornice were ninety-two
+groups, raised in high relief from tablets about four feet square,
+representing the victories achieved by her companions. Round the inner
+frieze was presented the procession of the Parthenon on the grand
+quinquennial festival of the Panathen�a. The procession is represented
+as advancing in two parallel columns from west to east; one proceeding
+along the northern, the other along the southern side of the temple;
+part facing inward after turning the angle of the eastern front, and
+part meeting towards the centre of that front.
+
+The statue of the virgin goddess, the work of Phidias, stood in the
+eastern chamber of the cella, and was composed of ivory and gold. It had
+but one rival in the world, the Jupiter Olympus of the same famous
+artist. On the summit or apex of the helmet was placed a sphinx, with
+griffins on either side. The figure of the goddess was represented in an
+erect martial attitude, and clothed in a robe reaching to the feet. On
+the breast was a head of Medusa, wrought in ivory, and a figure of
+Victory about four cubits high. The goddess held a spear in her hand,
+and an �gis lay at her feet, while on her right, and near the spear, was
+a figure of a serpent, believed to represent that of Erichthonius.
+
+According to Pliny, the entire height of the statue was twenty-six
+cubits (about forty feet), and the artist, Phidias, had ingeniously
+contrived that the gold with which the statue was encrusted might be
+removed at pleasure. The battle of the Centaurs and Lapith� was carved
+upon the sandals; the battle of the Amazons was represented on the �gis
+which lay at her feet, and on the pedestal was sculptured the birth of
+Pandora.
+
+The temple of Erechtheus, the most ancient structure in Athens, stood on
+the northern side of the Acropolis. The statue of Zeus Polieus stood
+between the Propyl�a and the Parthenon. The brazen colossus of Minerva,
+cast from the spoils of Marathon, appears to have occupied the space
+between the Erechtheium and the Propyl�a, near the Pelasgic or northern
+wall. This statue of the tutelary divinity of Athens and Attica rose in
+gigantic proportions above all the buildings of the Acropolis, the
+flashing of whose helmet plumes met the sailor's eye as he approached
+from the Sunian promontory. And the remaining space of the wide area was
+literally crowded with statuary, amongst which were Theseus contending
+with the Minotaur; Hercules strangling the serpents; the Earth imploring
+showers from Jupiter; and Minerva causing the olive to sprout, while
+Neptune raises the waves. After these works of art, it is needless to
+speak of others. It may be sufficient to state that Pausanias mentions
+by name towards three hundred remarkable statues which adorned this part
+of the city even after it had been robbed and despoiled by its several
+conquerors.
+
+The Areopagus, or hill of Ares (Mars), so called, it is said, in
+consequence of that god having been the first person tried there for the
+crime of murder, was, beyond all doubt, the rocky height which is
+separated from the western end of the Acropolis by a hollow, forming a
+communication between the northern and southern divisions of the city.
+The court of the Areopagus was simply an open space on the highest
+summit of the hill, the judges sitting in the open air, on rude seats of
+stone, hewn out of the solid rock. Near to the spot on which the court
+was held was the sanctuary of the Furies, the avenging deities of
+Grecian mythology, whose presence gave additional solemnity to the
+scene. The place and the court were regarded by the people with
+superstitious reverence.
+
+This completes, our survey of the principal buildings, monuments, and
+localities within the city of Athens. We do not imagine we have
+succeeded in conveying any adequate idea of the ancient splendor and
+glory of this city, which was not only the capital of Attica, but also
+
+     "The eye of Greece, mother of art and eloquence."
+
+We trust, however, that we have contributed somewhat towards awakening
+in the reader's mind a deeper interest in these classic scenes, and
+enabling him to appreciate, more vividly, the allusions we may hereafter
+make to them.
+
+The mere dry recital of geographical details, and topographical notices
+is, however, of little interest in itself, and by itself. A tract of
+country derives its chief interest from its historic _associations_--its
+immediate relations to man. The events which have transpired therein,
+the noble or ignoble deeds, the grand achievements, or the great
+disasters of which it has been the theatre, these constitute the living
+heart of its geography. Palestine has been rendered forever memorable,
+not by any remarkable peculiarities in its climate or scenery, but by
+the fact that it was the home of God's ancient people--the Hebrews and
+still more, because the ardent imagination of the modern traveller still
+sees upon its mountains and plains the lingering footprints of the Son
+of God. And so Attica will always be regarded as a classic land, because
+it was the theatre of the most illustrious period of ancient
+history--_the period of youthful vigor in the life of humanity, when
+viewed as a grand organic whole_.
+
+Here on a narrow spot of less superficies than the little State of Rhode
+Island there flourished a republic which, in the grandeur of her
+military and naval achievements, at Marathon, Thermopyl�, Plat�a, and
+Salamis, in the sublime creations of her painters, sculptors, and
+architects, and the unrivalled productions of her poets, orators, and
+philosophers, has left a lingering glory on the historic page, which
+twenty centuries have not been able to eclipse or dim. The names of
+Solon and Pericles; of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; of Isocrates and
+Demosthenes; of Myron, Phidias, and Praxiteles; of Herodotus, Xenophon,
+and Thucydides; of Sophocles and Euripides, have shed an undying lustre
+on Athens and Attica.
+
+How much of this universal renown, this imperishable glory attained by
+the Athenian people, is to be ascribed to their geographical position
+and surroundings, and to the elastic, bracing air, the enchanting
+scenery, the glorious skies, which poured their daily inspiration on the
+Athenian mind, is a problem we may scarcely hope to solve.
+
+Of this, at least, we may be sure, that all these geographical and
+cosmical conditions were ordained by God, and ordained, also, for some
+noble and worthy end. That God, "the Father of all the families of the
+earth," cared for the Athenian people as much as for Jewish and
+Christian nations, we can not doubt. That they were the subjects of a
+Providence, and that, in God's great plan of human history, they had an
+important part to fulfill, we must believe. That God "determined the
+time of each nation's existence, and fixed the geographical bounds of
+its habitation," is affirmed by Paul. And that the _specific_ end for
+which the nation had its existence was fulfilled, we have the fullest
+confidence. _So far, therefore, as we can trace the relation that
+subsists between the geographical position and surroundings of that
+nation, and its national characteristics and actual history, so far are
+we able to solve the problem of its destiny; and by so much do we
+enlarge our comprehension of the plan of God in the history of our
+race_.
+
+The geographical position of Greece was favorable to the freest
+commercial and maritime intercourse with the great historic
+nations--those nations most advanced in science, literature, and art.
+Bounded on the west by the Adriatic and Ionian seas, by the
+Mediterranean on the south, and on the east by the �gean Sea, her
+populations enjoyed a free intercommunication with the Egyptians,
+Hebrews, Persians, Phoenicians, Romans, and Carthaginians. This
+peculiarity in the geographical position of the Grecian peninsula could
+not fail to awaken in its people a taste for navigation, and lead them
+to active commercial intercourse with foreign nations.[15] The boundless
+oceans on the south and east, the almost impassable mountains on the
+west and north of Asia, presented insurmountable obstacles to commercial
+intercourse. But the extended border-lands and narrow inland seas of
+Southern Europe allured man, in presence of their opposite shores, to
+the perpetual exchange of his productions. An arm of the sea is not a
+barrier, but rather a tie between the nations. Appearing to separate, it
+in reality draws them together without confounding them.[16] On such a
+theatre we may expect that commerce will be developed on an extensive
+scale.[17] And, along with commerce, there will be increased activity in
+all departments of productive industry, and an enlarged diffusion of
+knowledge. "Commerce," says Ritter, "is the great mover and combiner of
+the world's activities." And it also furnishes the channels through
+which flow the world's ideas. Commerce, both in a material and moral
+point of view, is the life of nations. Along with the ivory and ebony,
+the fabrics and purple dyes, the wines and spices of the Syrian
+merchant, there flowed into Greece the science of numbers and of
+navigation, and the art of alphabetical writing from Phoenicia. Along
+with the fine wheat, and embroidered linen, and riches of the farther
+Indias which came from Egypt, there came, also, into Greece some
+knowledge of the sciences of astronomy and geometry, of architecture and
+mechanics, of medicine and chemistry; together with the mystic wisdom of
+the distant Orient. The scattered rays of light which gleamed in the
+eastern skies were thus converged in Greece, as on a focal point, to be
+rendered more brilliant by contact with the powerful Grecian intellect,
+and then diffused throughout the western world. Thus intercourse with
+surrounding nations, by commerce and travel, contact therewith by
+immigrations and colonizations, even collisions and invasions also,
+became, in the hands of a presiding Providence, the means of diffusing
+knowledge, of quickening and enlarging the active powers of man, and
+thus, ultimately, of a higher civilization.
+
+[Footnote 15: Humboldt's "Cosmos," vol. ii. p. 143.]
+
+[Footnote 16: Cousin, vol. i. pp. 169, 170.]
+
+[Footnote 17: The advantageous situation of Britain for commerce, and
+the nature of the climate have powerfully contributed to the perfection
+of industry among her population. Had she occupied a central, internal
+station, like that of Switzerland, the facilities of her people for
+dealing with others being so much the less, their progress would have
+been comparatively slow, and, instead of being highly improved, their
+manufactures would have been still in infancy. But being surrounded on
+all sides by the sea, that "great highway of nations," they have been
+able to maintain an intercourse with the most remote as well as the
+nearest countries, to supply them on the easiest terms with their
+manufactures, and to profit by the peculiar products and capacities of
+production possessed by other nations. To the geographical position and
+climate of Great Britain, her people are mainly indebted for their
+position as the first commercial nation on earth.--See art.
+"Manufactrues," p. 277, _Encyc. Brit_.]
+
+Then further, the peculiar configuration of Greece, the wonderful
+complexity of its coast-line, its peninsular forms, the number of its
+islands, and the singular distribution of its mountains, all seem to
+mark it as the theatre of activity, of movement, of individuality, and
+of freedom. An extensive continent, unbroken by lakes and inland seas,
+as Asia, where vast deserts and high mountain chains separate the
+populations, is the seat of immobility.[18] Commerce is limited to the
+bare necessities of life, and there are no inducements to movement, to
+travel, and to enterprise. There are no conditions prompting man to
+attempt the conquest of nature. Society is therefore stationary as in
+China and India. Enfolded and imprisoned within the overpowering
+vastness and illimitable sweep of nature, man is almost unconscious of
+his freedom and his personality. He surrenders himself to the disposal
+of a mysterious "_fate_" and yields readily to the despotic sway of
+superhuman powers. The State is consequently the reign of a single
+despotic will. The laws of the Medes and Persians are unalterable. But
+in Greece we have extended border-lands on the coast of navigable seas;
+peninsulas elaborately articulated, and easy of access. We have
+mountains sufficiently elevated to shade the land and diversify the
+scenery, and yet of such a form as not to impede communication. They are
+usually placed neither in parallel chains nor in massive groups, but are
+so disposed as to inclose extensive tracts of land admirably adapted to
+become the seats of small and independent communities, separated by
+natural boundaries, sometimes impossible to overleap. The face of the
+interior country,--its forms of relief, seemed as though Providence
+designed, from the beginning, to keep its populations socially and
+politically disunited. These difficulties of internal transit by land
+were, however, counteracted by the large proportion of coast, and the
+accessibility of the country by sea. The promontories and indentations
+in the line of the Grecian coast are hardly less remarkable than the
+peculiar elevations and depressions of the surface. "The shape of
+Peloponnesus, with its three southern gulfs, the Argolic, Laconian, and
+Messenian, was compared by the ancient geographers to the leaf of a
+plane-tree: the Pagas�an gulf on the eastern side of Greece, and the
+Ambrakian gulf on the western, with their narrow entrances and
+considerable area, are equivalent to internal lakes: Xenophon boasts of
+the double sea which embraces so large a portion of Attica; Ephorus, of
+the triple sea by which Boeotia was accessible from west, north, and
+south--the Euboean strait, opening a long line of country on both sides
+to coasting navigation. But the most important of all Grecian gulfs are
+the Corinthian and Saronic, washing the northern and north-eastern
+shores of Peloponnesus, and separated by the narrow barrier of the
+Isthmus of Corinth. The former, especially, lays open �tolia, Phokis,
+and Boeotia, as the whole northern coast of Peloponnesus, to water
+approach.... It will thus appear that there was no part of Greece proper
+which could be considered as out of the reach of the sea, whilst most
+parts of it were easy of access. The sea was thus the sole channel for
+transmitting improvements and ideas as well as for maintaining
+sympathies" between the Hellenic tribes.[19] The sea is not only the
+grand highway of commercial intercourse, but the empire of movement, of
+progress, and of freedom. Here man is set free from the bondage imposed
+by the overpowering magnitude and vastness of continental and oceanic
+forms. The boisterous and, apparently, lawless winds are made to obey
+his will. He mounts the sea as on a fiery steed and "lays his hand upon
+her mane." And whilst thus he succeeds, in any measure, to triumph over
+nature, he wakes to conscious power and freedom. It is in this region of
+contact and commingling of sea and land where man attains the highest
+superiority. Refreshing our historic recollections, and casting our eyes
+upon the map of the world, we can not fail to see that all the most
+highly civilized nations have lived, or still live, on the margin of the
+sea.
+
+[Footnote 18: Cousin, vol. i. pp. 151, 170.]
+
+[Footnote 19: Grote's "Hist, of Greece," vol. ii. pp. 221, 225.]
+
+The peculiar configuration of the territory of Greece, its forms of
+relief, "so like, in many respects, to Switzerland," could not fail to
+exert a powerful influence on the character and destiny of its people.
+Its inclosing mountains materially increased their defensive power, and,
+at the same time, inspired them with the love of liberty. Those
+mountains, as we have seen, so unique in their distribution, were
+natural barriers against the invasion of foreign nations, and they
+rendered each separate community secure against the encroachments of the
+rest. The pass of Thermopyl�, between Thessaly and Phocis, that of
+Cith�ron, between Boeotia and Attica; and the mountain ranges of Oneion
+and Geraneia, along the Isthmus of Corinth, were positions which could
+be defended against any force of invaders. This signal peculiarity in
+the forms of relief protected each section of the Greeks from being
+conquered, and at the same time maintained their separate autonomy. The
+separate states of Greece lived, as it were, in the presence of each
+other, and at the same time resisted all influences and all efforts
+towards a coalescence with each other, until the time of Alexander.
+Their country, a word of indefinite meaning to the Asiatic, conveyed to
+them as definite an idea as that of their own homes. Its whole
+landscape, with all its historic associations, its glorious monuments of
+heroic deeds, were perpetually present to their eyes. Thus their
+patriotism, concentrated within a narrow sphere, and kept alive by the
+sense of their individual importance, their democratic spirit, and their
+struggles with surrounding communities to maintain their independence,
+became a strong and ruling passion. Their geographical surroundings had,
+therefore, a powerful influence upon their political institutions.
+Conquest, which forces nations of different habits, characters, and
+languages into unity, is at last the parent of degrading servitude.
+These nations are only held together, as in the Roman empire, by the
+iron hand of military power. The despot, surrounded by a foreign
+soldiery, appears in the conquered provinces, simply to enforce tribute,
+and compel obedience to his arbitrary will. But the small Greek
+communities, protected by the barriers of their seas and gulfs and
+mountains, escaped, for centuries, this evil destiny. The people, united
+by identity of language and manners and religion, by common interest and
+facile intercommunication, could readily combine to resist the invasions
+of foreign nations, as well as the encroachments of their own rulers.
+And they were able to easily model their own government according to
+their own necessities and circumstances and common interests, and to
+make the end for which it existed the sole measure of the powers it was
+permitted to wield.[20]
+
+[Footnote 20: _Encyc. Brit_, art. "Greece."]
+
+The soil of Attica was not the most favorable to agricultural pursuits.
+In many places it was stony and uneven, and a considerable proportion
+was bare rock, on which nothing could be grown. Not half the surface was
+capable of cultivation. In this respect it may be fitly compared to some
+of the New England States. The light, dry soil produced excellent
+barley, but not enough of wheat for their own consumption. Demosthenes
+informs us that Athens brought every year, from Byzantium, four hundred
+thousand _medimni_ of wheat. The alluvial plains, under industrious
+cultivation, would furnish a frugal subsistence for a large population,
+and the mildness of the climate allowed all the more valuable products
+to ripen early, and go out of season last. Such conditions, of course,
+would furnish motives for skill and industry, and demand of the people
+frugal and temperate habits. The luxuriance of a tropical climate tends
+to improvidence and indolence. Where nature pours her fullness into the
+lap of ease, forethought and providence are little needed. There is none
+of that struggle for existence which awakens sagacity, and calls into
+exercise the active powers of man. But in a country where nature only
+yields her fruits as the reward of toil, and yet enough to the
+intelligent culture of the soil, there habits of patient industry must
+be formed. The alternations of summer and winter excite to forethought
+and providence, and the comparative poverty of the soil will prompt to
+frugality. Man naturally aspires to improve his condition by all the
+means within his power. He becomes a careful observer of nature, he
+treasures up the results of observation, he compares one fact with
+another and notes their relations, and he makes new experiments to test
+his conclusions, and thus he awakes to the vigorous exercise of all his
+powers. These physical conditions must develop a hardy, vigorous,
+prudent, and temperate race; and such, unquestionably, were the Greeks.
+"Theophrastus, and other authors, amply attest the observant and
+industrious agriculture prevalent in Greece. The culture of the vine and
+olive appears to have been particularly elaborate and the many different
+accidents of soil, level, and exposure which were to be found, afforded
+to observant planters materials for study and comparison."[21] The
+Greeks were frugal in their habits and simple in their modes of life.
+The barley loaf seems to have been more generally eaten than the wheaten
+loaf; this, with salt fish and vegetables, was the common food of the
+population. Economy in domestic life was universal. In their manners,
+their dress, their private dwellings, they were little disposed to
+ostentation or display.
+
+[Footnote 21: Grote, "Hist. of Greece," vol. ii. p. 230.]
+
+The climate of Attica is what, in physical geography, would be called
+_maritime_. "Here are allied the continental vigor and oceanic softness,
+in a fortunate union, mutually tempering each other."[22] The climate of
+the whole peninsula of Greece seems to be distinguished from that of
+Spain and Italy, by having more of the character of an inland region.
+The diversity of local temperature is greater; the extremes of summer
+and winter more severe. In Arcadia the snow has been found eighteen
+inches thick in January, with the thermometer at 16� Fahrenheit, and it
+sometimes lies on the ground for six weeks. The summits of the central
+chains of Pindus and most of the Albanian mountains are covered with
+snow from the beginning of November to the end of March. In Attica,
+which, being freely exposed to the sea, has in some measure an insular
+climate, the winter sets in about the beginning of January. About the
+middle of that month the snow begins to fall, but seldom remains upon
+the plain for more than a few days, though it lies on the summit of the
+mountain for a month.[23] And then, whilst Boeotia, which joins to
+Attica, is higher and colder, and often covered with dense fogs, Attica
+is remarkable for the wonderful transparency, dryness, and elasticity of
+its atmosphere. All these climatal conditions exerted, no doubt, a
+modifying influence upon the character of the inhabitants.[24] In a
+tropical climate man is enfeebled by excessive heat. His natural
+tendency is to inaction and repose. His life is passed in a "strenuous
+idleness." His intellectual, his reflective faculties are overmastered
+by his physical instincts. Passion, sentiment, imagination prevail over
+the sober exercises of his reasoning powers. Poetry universally
+predominates over philosophy. The whole character of Oriental language,
+religion, literature is intensely imaginative. In the frozen regions of
+the frigid zone, where a perpetual winter reigns, and where lichens and
+mosses are the only forms of vegetable life, man is condemned to the
+life of a huntsman, and depends mainly for his subsistence on the
+precarious chances of the chase. He is consequently nomadic in his
+habits, and barbarous withal. His whole life is spent in the bare
+process of procuring a living. He consumes a large amount of oleaginous
+food, and breathes a damp heavy atmosphere, and is, consequently, of a
+dull phlegmatic temperament. Notwithstanding his uncertain supplies of
+food, he is recklessly improvident, and indifferent to all the lessons
+of experience. Intellectual pursuits are all precluded. There is no
+motive, no opportunity, and indeed no disposition for mental culture.
+But in a temperate climate man is stimulated to high mental activity.
+The alternations of heat and cold, of summer and of winter, an elastic,
+fresh, and bracing atmosphere, a diversity in the aspects of nature,
+these develop a vivacity of temperament, a quickness of sensibility as
+well as apprehension, and a versatility of feeling as well as genius.
+History marks out the temperate zone as the seat of the refined and
+cultivated nations.
+
+[Footnote 22: Guyot, "Earth and Man," p. 181.]
+
+[Footnote 23: _Encyc. Brit._, art. "Greece."]
+
+[Footnote 24: The influence of climatic conditions did not escape the
+attention of the Greeks. Herodotus, Hippocrates, and Aristotle speak of
+the climate of Asia as more enervating than that of Greece. They
+regarded the changeful character and diversity of local temperature in
+Greece as highly stimulating to the energies of the populations. The
+marked contrast between the Athenians and the Boeotians was supposed to
+be represented in the light and heavy atmosphere which they respectively
+breathed.--_Grote_, vol. ii. pp. 232-3.]
+
+The natural scenery of Greece was of unrivalled grandeur--surpassing
+Italy, perhaps every country in the world. It combined in the highest
+degree every feature essential to the highest beauty of a landscape
+except, perhaps, large rivers. But this was more than compensated for by
+the proximity of the sea, which, by its numerous arms, seemed to embrace
+the land on nearly every side. Its mountains, encircled with zones of
+wood, and capped with snow, though much lower than the Alps, are as
+imposing by the suddenness of their elevation--"pillars of heaven, the
+fosterers of enduring snows."[25] Rich sheltered plains lie at their
+feet, covered with an unequally woven mantle of trees, and shrubs, and
+flowers,--"the verdant gloom of the thickly-mantling ivy, the narcissus
+steeped in heavenly dew, the golden-beaming crocus, the hardy and
+ever-fresh-sprouting olive-tree,"[26] and the luxuriant palm, which
+nourishes amid its branches the grape swelling with juice. But it is the
+combination of these features, in the most diversified manner, with
+beautiful inland bays and seas, broken by headlands, inclosed by
+mountains, and studded with islands of every form and magnitude, which
+gives to the scenery of Greece its proud pre-eminence. "Greek scenery,"
+says Humboldt, "presents the peculiar charm of an intimate blending of
+sea and land, of shores adorned with vegetation, or picturesquely girt
+with rocks gleaming in the light of aerial tints, and an ocean beautiful
+in the play of the ever-changing brightness of its deep-toned wave."[27]
+And over all the serene, deep azure skies, occasionally veiled by light
+fleecy clouds, with vapory purple mists resting on the distant mountain
+tops. This glorious scenery of Greece is evermore the admiration of the
+modern traveller. "In wandering about Athens on a sunny day in March,
+when the asphodels are blooming on Colones, when the immortal mountains
+are folded in a transparent haze, and the �gean slumbers afar among his
+isles," he is reminded of the lines of Byron penned amid these scenes--
+
+[Footnote 25: Pindar.]
+
+[Footnote 26: Sophocles, "oedipus at Colonna."]
+
+[Footnote 27: "Cosmos," vol. ii. p. 25.]
+
+     "Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild;
+     Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields,
+     Thine olives ripe as when Minerva smiled,
+     And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields;
+     There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds,
+     The freeborn wanderer of the mountain air;
+     Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds,
+     Still in his beams Mendeli's marbles glare;
+     Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but nature still is fair."[28]
+
+[Footnote 28: Canto ii., v. lxxxvi., "Childe Harold."]
+
+The effect of this scenery upon the character, the imagination, the
+taste of the Athenians must have been immense. Under the influence of
+such sublime objects, the human mind becomes gifted as with inspiration,
+and is by nature filled with poetic images. "Greece became the
+birth-place of taste, of art, and eloquence, the chosen sanctuary of the
+muses, the prototype of all that is graceful, and dignified, and grand
+in sentiment and action."
+
+And now, if we have succeeded in clearly presenting and properly
+grouping the facts, and in estimating the influence of geographical
+position and surroundings on national character, we have secured the
+natural _criteria_ by which we examine, and even correct the portraiture
+of the Athenian character usually presented by the historian.
+
+The character of the Athenians has been sketched by Plutarch[29] with
+considerable minuteness, and his representations have been permitted,
+until of late years, to pass unchallenged. He has described them as at
+once passionate and placable, easily moved to anger, and as easily
+appeased; fond of pleasantry and repartee, and heartily enjoying a
+laugh; pleased to hear themselves praised, and yet not annoyed by
+criticism and censure; naturally generous towards those who were poor
+and in humble circumstances, and humane even towards their enemies;
+jealous of their liberties, and keeping even their rulers in awe. In
+regard to their intellectual traits, he affirms their minds were not
+formed for laborious research, and though they seized a subject as it
+were by intuition, yet wanted patience and perseverance for a thorough
+examination of all its bearings. "An observation," says the writer of
+the article on "_Attica_," in the Encyclop�dia Britannica, "more
+superficial in itself, and arguing a greater ignorance of the Athenians,
+can not easily be imagined." Plutarch lived more than three hundred
+years after the palmy days of the Athenian Demos had passed away. He was
+a Boeotian by birth, not an Attic, and more of a Roman than a Greek in
+all his sympathies. We are tempted to regard him as writing under the
+influence of prejudice, if not of envy. He was scarcely reliable as a
+biographer, and as materials for history his "Parallel Lives" have been
+pronounced "not altogether trustworthy."[30]
+
+[Footnote 29: "De Pr�cept."]
+
+[Footnote 30: _Encyc. of Biography_, art. "Plutarch."]
+
+That the Athenians were remarkable for the ardor and vivacity of their
+temperament,--that they were liable to sudden gusts of passion,--that
+they were inconstant in their affections, intolerant of dictation,
+impatient of control, and hasty to resent every assumption of
+superiority,--that they were pleased with flattery, and too ready to
+lend a willing ear to the adulation of the demagogue,--and that they
+were impetuous and brave, yet liable to be excessively elated by
+success, and depressed by misfortune, we may readily believe, because
+such traits of character are in perfect harmony with all the facts and
+conclusions already presented. Such characteristics were the natural
+product of the warm and genial sunlight, the elastic bracing air, the
+ethereal skies, the glorious mountain scenery, and the elaborate
+blending of sea and land, so peculiar to Greece and the whole of
+Southern Europe.[31] These characteristics were shared in a greater or
+less degree by all the nations of Southern Europe in ancient times, and
+they are still distinctive traits in the Frenchman, the Italian, and the
+modern Greek.[32]
+
+[Footnote 31: "As the skies of Hellas surpassed nearly all other
+climates in brightness and elasticity, so, also, had nature dealt most
+lovingly with the inhabitants of this land. Throughout the whole being
+of the Greek there reigned supreme a quick susceptibility, out of which
+sprang a gladsome serenity of temper, and a keen enjoyment of life;
+acute sense, and nimbleness of apprehension; a guileless and child-like
+feeling, full of trust and faith, combined with prudence and forecast.
+These peculiarities lay so deeply imbedded in the inmost nature of the
+Greeks that no revolutions of time and circumstances have yet been able
+to destroy them; nay, it may be asserted that even now, after centuries
+of degradation, they have not been wholly extinguished in the
+inhabitants of ancient Hellas."--"_Education of the Moral Sentiment
+amongst the Ancient Greeks_." By FREDERICK JACOBS, p. 320.]
+
+[Footnote 32: These are described by the modern historian and traveller
+as lively, versatile, and witty. "The love of liberty and independence
+does not seem to be rooted out of the national character by centuries of
+subjugation. They love to command; but though they are loyal to a good
+government, they are apt readily to rise when their rights and liberties
+are infringed. As there is little love of obedience among them, so
+neither is there any toleration of aristocratic pretensions."--_Encyc.
+Brit._, art. "Greece."]
+
+The consciousness of power, the feeling of independence, the ardent love
+of freedom induced in the Athenian mind by the objective freedom of
+movement which his geographical position afforded, and that
+subordination and subserviency of physical nature to man so peculiar to
+Greece, determined the democratic character of all their political
+institutions. And these institutions reacted upon the character of the
+people and intensified their love of liberty. This passionate love of
+personal freedom, amounting almost to disease, excited them to a
+constant and almost distressing vigilance. And it is not to be wondered
+at if it displayed itself in an extreme jealousy of their rulers, an
+incessant supervision and criticism of all their proceedings, and an
+intense and passionate hatred of tyrants and of tyranny. The popular
+legislator or the successful soldier might dare to encroach upon their
+liberties in the moment when the nation was intoxicated and dazzled with
+their genius, their prowess, and success; but a sudden revulsion of
+popular feeling, and an explosion of popular indignation, would overturn
+the one, and ostracism expel the other. Thus while inconstancy, and
+turbulence, and faction seem to have been inseparable from the
+democratic spirit, the Athenians were certainly constant in their love
+of liberty, faithful in their affection for their country,[33] and
+invariable in their sympathy and admiration for that genius which shed
+glory upon their native land. And then they were ever ready to repair
+the errors, and make amends for the injustice committed under the
+influence of passionate excitement, or the headlong impetuosity of their
+too ardent temperament. The history of Greece supplies numerous
+illustrations of this spirit. The sentence of death which had been
+hastily passed on the inhabitants of Mytilene was, on sober reflection,
+revoked the following day. The immediate repentance and general sorrow
+which followed the condemnation of the ten generals, as also of
+Socrates, are notable instances.
+
+[Footnote 33: When immense bribes were offered by the king of Persia to
+induce the Athenians to detach themselves from the alliance with the
+rest of the Hellenic States, she answered by the mouth of Aristides
+"that it was impossible for all the gold in the world to tempt the
+Republic of Athens, or prevail with it to sell its liberty and that of
+Greece!"]
+
+In their private life the Athenians were courteous, generous, and
+humane. Whilst bold and free in the expression of their opinions, they
+paid the greatest attention to rules of politeness, and were nicely
+delicate on points of decorum. They had a natural sense of what was
+becoming and appropriate, and an innate aversion to all extravagance. A
+graceful demeanor and a quiet dignity were distinguishing traits of
+Athenian character. They were temperate and frugal[34] in their habits,
+and little addicted to ostentation and display. Even after their
+victories had brought them into contact with Oriental luxury and
+extravagance, and their wealth enabled them to rival, in costliness and
+splendor, the nations they had conquered, they still maintained a
+republican simplicity. The private dwellings of the principal citizens
+were small, and usually built of clay; their interior embellishments
+also were insignificant--the house of Polytion alone formed an
+exception.[35] All their sumptuousness and magnificence were reserved
+for and lavished on their public edifices and monuments of art, which
+made Athens the pride of Greece and the wonder of the world.
+Intellectually, the Athenians were remarkable for their quickness of
+apprehension, their nice and delicate perception, their intuitional
+power, and their versatile genius. Nor were they at all incapable of
+pursuing laborious researches, or wanting in persevering application and
+industry, notwithstanding Plutarch's assertion to the contrary. The
+circumstances of every-day life in Attica, the conditions which
+surrounded the Athenian from childhood to age, were such as to call for
+the exercise of these qualities of mind in the highest degree. Habits of
+patient industry were induced in the Athenian character by the poverty
+and comparative barrenness of the soil, demanding greater exertion to
+supply their natural wants. And an annual period of dormancy, though
+unaccompanied by the rigors of a northern winter, called for prudence in
+husbanding, and forethought and skill in endeavoring to increase their
+natural resources. The aspects of nature were less massive and
+awe-inspiring, her features more subdued, and her areas more
+circumscribed and broken, inviting and emboldening man to attempt her
+conquest. The whole tendency of natural phenomena in Greece was to
+restrain the imagination, and discipline the observing and reasoning
+faculties in man. Thus was man inspired with confidence in his own
+resources, and allured to cherish an inquisitive, analytic, and
+scientific spirit. "The French, in point of national character, hold
+nearly the same relative place amongst the nations of Europe that the
+Athenians held amongst the States of Ancient Greece." And whilst it is
+admitted the French are quick, sprightly, vivacious, perhaps sometimes
+light even to frivolity, it must be conceded they have cultivated the
+natural and exact sciences with a patience, and perseverance, and
+success unsurpassed by any of the nations of Europe. And so the
+Athenians were the Frenchmen of Greece. Whilst they spent their "leisure
+time"[36] in the place of public resort, the porticoes and groves,
+"hearing and telling the latest news" (no undignified or improper mode
+of recreation in a city where newspapers were unknown), whilst they are
+condemned as "garrulous," "frivolous," "full of curiosity," and
+"restlessly fond of novelties," we must insist that a love of study, of
+patient thought and profound research, was congenial to their natural
+temperament, and that an inquisitive and analytic spirit, as well as a
+taste for subtile and abstract speculation, were inherent in the
+national character. The affluence, and fullness, and flexibility, and
+sculpture-like finish of the language of the Attics, which leaves far
+behind not only the languages of antiquity, but also the most cultivated
+of modern times, is an enduring monument of the patient industry of the
+Athenians.[37] Language is unquestionably the highest creation of
+reason, and in the language of a nation we can see reflected as in a
+mirror the amount of culture to which it has attained. The rare balance
+of the imagination and the reasoning powers, in which the perfection of
+the human intellect is regarded as consisting, the exact correspondence
+between the thought and the expression, "the free music of prosaic
+numbers in the most diversified forms of style," the calmness, and
+perspicuity, and order, even in the stormiest moments of inspiration,
+revealed in every department of Greek literature, were not a mere happy
+stroke of chance, but a product of unwearied effort--and effort too
+which was directed by the criteria which reason supplied. The plastic
+art of Greece, which after the lapse of ages still stands forth in
+unrivalled beauty, so that, in presence of the eternal models it
+created, the modern artist feels the painful lack of progress was not a
+spontaneous outburst of genius, but the result of intense application
+and unwearied discipline. The achievements of the philosophic spirit,
+the ethical and political systems of the Academy, the Lyceum, the Stoa,
+and the Garden, the anticipations, scattered here and there like
+prophetic hints, of some of the profoundest discoveries of "inductive
+science" in more modern days,--all these are an enduring protest against
+the strange misrepresentations of Plutarch.
+
+[Footnote 34: These are still characteristics of the Greeks. "They are
+an exceedingly temperate people; drunkenness is a vice remarkably rare
+amongst them; their food also is spare and simple; even the richest are
+content with a dish of vegetables for each meal, and the poor with a
+handful of olives or a piece of salt fish.... All other pleasures are
+indulged with similar propriety; their passions are moderate, and
+insanity is almost unknown amongst them."--_Encyc. Brit._, art.
+"Greece."]
+
+[Footnote 35: Niebuhr's Lectures, vol. i. p. 101.]
+
+[Footnote 36: Eukaire� corresponds exactly to the Latin _vacare_, "to be
+at leisure."]
+
+[Footnote 37: Frederick Jacobs, on "Study of Classic Antiquity," p. 57.]
+
+In Athens there existed a providential collocation of the most favorable
+conditions in which humanity can be placed for securing its highest
+natural development. Athenian civilization is the solution, on the
+theatre of history, of the problem--What degree of perfection can
+humanity, under the most favorable conditions, attain, without the
+supernatural light, and guidance, and grace of Christianity?[38] "Like
+their own goddess Athene the people of Athens seem to spring full-armed
+into the arena of history, and we look in vain to Egypt, Syria, and
+India, for more than a few seeds that burst into such marvellous growth
+on the soil of Attica."[39]
+
+[Footnote 38: It has been asserted by some theological writers, Watson
+for example, that no society of civilized men has been, or can be
+constituted without the aid of a religion directly communicated by
+revelation, and transmitted by oral tradition;--"that it is possible to
+raise a body of men into that degree of civil improvement which would
+excite the passion for philosophic investigation, without the aid of
+religion... can have no proof, and is contradicted by every fact and
+analogy with which we are acquainted." (_Institutes_, vol. i. p. 271;
+see also Archbishop Whately, "Dissertation," etc., vol. i. _Encyc.
+Brit._, p. 449-455).
+
+The fallacy of the reasoning by which this doctrine is sought to be
+sustained is found in the assumption "that to all our race the existence
+of a First Cause is a question of philosophy," and that the idea of God
+lies at the end of "a gradual process of inquiry" and induction, for
+which a high degree of "scientific culture" is needed. Whereas the idea
+of a First Cause lies at the beginning, not at the end of philosophy;
+and philosophy is simply the analysis of our natural consciousness of
+God, and the presentation of the idea in a logical form. Faith in the
+existence of God is not the result of a conscious process of reflection;
+it is the spontaneous and instinctive logic of the human mind, which, in
+view of phenomena presented to sense, by a necessary law of thought
+immediately and intuitively affirms a personal Power, an intelligent
+Mind as the author. In this regard, there is no difference between men
+except the clearness with which they apprehend, and the logical account
+they can render to themselves, of this instinctive belief. Spontaneous
+intuition, says Cousin, is the genius of all men; reflection the genius
+of few men. "But Leibnitz had no more confidence in the principle of
+causality, and even in his favorite principle of sufficient reason, than
+the most ignorant of men;" the latter have this principle within them,
+as a law of thought, controlling their conception of the universe, and
+doing this almost unconsciously; the former, by an analysis of thought,
+succeeded in defining and formulating the ideas and laws which
+necessitate the cognition of a God. The function of philosophy is simply
+to transform al�th�s doxa into itist�m�--right opinion into science,--to
+elucidate and logically present the immanent thought which lies in the
+universal consciousness of man.
+
+That the possession of the idea of God is essential to the social and
+moral elevation of man,--that is, to the civilization of our race, is
+most cheerfully conceded. That humanity has an end and destination which
+can only be secured by the true knowledge of God, and by a participation
+of the nature of God, is equally the doctrine of Plato and of Christ.
+Now, if humanity has a special end and destination, it must have some
+instinctive tendings, some spermatic ideas, some original forces or
+laws, which determine it towards that end. All development supposes some
+original elements to be unfolded or developed. Civilization is but the
+development of humanity according to its primal idea and law, and under
+the best exterior conditions. That the original elements of humanity
+were unfolded in some noble degree under the influence of philosophy is
+clear from the history of Greece; there the most favorable natural
+conditions for that development existed, and Christianity alone was
+needed to crown the result with ideal perfection.]
+
+[Footnote 39: Max Muller, "Science of Language," p. 404, 2d series.]
+
+Here the most perfect ideals of beauty and excellence in physical
+development, in manners, in plastic art, in literary creations, were
+realized. The songs of Homer, the dialogues of Plato, the speeches of
+Demosthenes, and the statues of Phidias, if not unrivalled, are at least
+unsurpassed by any thing that has been achieved by their successors.
+Literature in its most flourishing periods has rekindled its torch at
+her altars, and art has looked back to the age of Pericles for her
+purest models. Here the ideas of personal liberty, of individual rights,
+of freedom in thought and action, had a wonderful expansion. Here the
+lasting foundations of the principal arts and sciences were laid, and in
+some of them triumphs were achieved which have not been eclipsed. Here
+the sun of human reason attained a meridian splendor, and illuminated
+every field in the domain of moral truth. And here humanity reached the
+highest degree of civilization of which it is capable under purely
+_natural_ conditions.
+
+And now, the question with which we are more immediately concerned is,
+what were the specific and valuable results attained by the Athenian
+mind in _religion_ and _philosophy_, the two momenta of the human mind?
+This will be the subject of discussion in subsequent chapters.
+
+The order in which the discussion shall proceed is determined for us by
+the natural development of thought. The two fundamental momenta of
+thought and its development are spontaneity and reflection, and the two
+essential forms they assume are religion and philosophy. In the natural
+order of thought spontaneity is first, and reflection succeeds
+spontaneous thought. And so religion is first developed, and
+subsequently comes philosophy. As religion supposes spontaneous
+intuition, so philosophy has religion for its basis, but upon this basis
+it is developed in an original manner. "Turn your attention to history,
+that living image of thought: everywhere you perceive religions and
+philosophies: everywhere you see them produced in an invariable order.
+Everywhere religion appears with new societies, and everywhere, just so
+far as societies advance, from religion springs philosophy."[40] This
+was pre-eminently the case in Athens, and we shall therefore direct our
+attention first to the Religion of the Athenians.
+
+[Footnote 40: Cousin, "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 302.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.
+
+
+      All things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness
+      in religion deisidaimonesterois.--ST. PAUL.
+
+As a prelude and preparation for the study of the religion of the
+Athenians, it may be well to consider religion in its more abstract and
+universal form; and inquire in what does religion essentially consist;
+how far is it grounded in the nature of man; and especially, what is
+there in the mental constitution of man, or in his exterior conditions,
+which determines him to a mode of life which may be denominated
+_religious?_ As a preliminary inquiry, this may materially aid us in
+understanding the nature, and estimating the value of the religious
+conceptions and sentiments which were developed by the Greek mind.
+
+Religion, in its most generic conception, may be defined as a form of
+thought, feeling, and action, which has the _Divine_ for its object,
+basis, and end. Or, in other words, it is a mode of life determined by
+the recognition of some relation to, and consciousness of dependence
+upon, a _Supreme Being_. This general conception of religion underlies
+all the specific forms of religion which have appeared in the world,
+whether heathen, Jewish, Mohammedan, or Christian.
+
+That a religious destination appertains to man as man, whether he has
+been raised to a full religious consciousness, or is simply considered
+as capable of being so raised, can not be denied. In all ages man has
+revealed an instinctive tendency, or natural aptitude for religion, and
+he has developed feelings and emotions which have always characterized
+him as a religious being. Religious ideas and sentiments have prevailed
+among all nations, and have exerted a powerful influence on the entire
+course of human history. Religious worship, addressed to a Supreme Being
+believed to control the destiny of man, has been coeval and coextensive
+with the race. Every nation has had its mythology, and each mythologic
+system has been simply an effort of humanity to realize and embody in
+some visible form the relations in which it feels itself to be connected
+with an external, overshadowing, and all-controlling Power and Presence.
+The voice of all ancient, and all contemporaneous history, clearly
+attests that the _religious principle_ is deeply seated in the nature of
+man; and that it has occupied the thought, and stirred the feelings of
+every rational man, in every age. It has interwoven itself with the
+entire framework of human society, and ramified into all the relations
+of human life. By its agency, nations have been revolutionized, and
+empires have been overthrown; and it has formed a mighty element in all
+the changes which have marked the history of man.
+
+This universality of religious sentiment and religious worship must be
+conceded as a fact of human nature, and, as a universal fact, it demands
+an explanation. Every event must have a cause. Every phenomenon must
+have its ground, and reason, and law. The facts of religious history,
+the past and present religious phenomena of the world can be no
+exception to this fundamental principle; they press their imperious
+demand to be studied and explained, as much as the phenomena of the
+material or the events of the moral world. The phenomena of religion,
+being universally revealed wherever man is found, must be grounded in
+some universal principle, on some original law, which is connate with,
+and natural to man. At any rate, there must be something in the nature
+of man, or in the exterior conditions of humanity, which invariably
+leads man to worship, and which determines him, as by the force of an
+original instinct, or an outward, conditioning necessity, to recognize
+and bow down before a Superior Power. The full recognition and adequate
+explanation of the facts of religious history will constitute a
+_philosophy of religion_.
+
+The hypotheses which have been offered in explanation of the religious
+phenomena of the world are widely divergent, and most of them are, in
+our judgment, eminently inadequate and unsatisfactory. The following
+enumeration may be regarded as embracing all that are deemed worthy of
+consideration.
+
+I. The phenomenon of religion had its origin in SUPERSTITION, that is,
+in a _fear_ of invisible and supernatural powers, generated by ignorance
+of nature.
+
+II. The phenomenon of religion is part of that PROCESS or EVOLUTION OF
+THE ABSOLUTE (i.e., the Deity), which gradually unfolding itself in
+nature, mind, history, and _religion_, attains to perfect
+self-consciousness in philosophy.
+
+III. The phenomenon of religion has its foundation in FEELING--_the
+feeling of dependence and of obligation_; and that to which the mind, by
+spontaneous intuition or instinctive faith, traces this dependence and
+obligation we call God.
+
+IV. The phenomenon of religion had its outbirth in the spontaneous
+apperceptions of REASON, that is, the necessary _� priori ideas of the
+Infinite, the Perfect, the Unconditioned Cause, the Eternal Being_,
+which are evoked into consciousness in presence of the changeful and
+contingent phenomena of the world.
+
+V. The phenomenon of religion had its origin in EXTERNAL REVELATION, to
+which _reason_ is related as a purely passive organ, and _heathenism_ as
+a feeble relic.
+
+As a philosophy of religion--an attempt to supply the rationale of the
+religious phenomena of the world, the first hypothesis is a skeptical
+philosophy, which necessarily leads to _Atheism_. The second is an
+idealistic philosophy (absolute idealism), which inevitably lands in
+_Pantheism_. The third is an intuitional or "faith-philosophy," which
+finally ends in _Mysticism_. The fourth is a rationalistic or
+"spiritualistic" philosophy, which yields pure _Theism_. The last is an
+empirical philosophy, which derives all religion from instruction, and
+culminates in _Dogmatic Theology_.
+
+In view of these diverse and conflicting theories, the question which
+now presents itself for our consideration is,--does any one of these
+hypotheses meet and satisfy the demands of the problem? does it fully
+account for and adequately explain all the facts of religious history?
+The answer to this question must not be hastily or dogmatically given.
+The arbitrary rejection of any theory that may be offered, without a
+fair and candid examination, will leave our minds in uncertainty and
+doubt as to the validity of our own position. A blind faith is only one
+remove from a pusillanimous skepticism. We can not render our own
+position secure except by comprehending, assaulting, and capturing the
+position of our foe. It is, therefore, due to ourselves and to the cause
+of truth, that we shall examine the evidence upon which each separate
+theory is based, and the arguments which are marshalled in its support,
+before we pronounce it inadequate and unphilosophical. Such a criticism
+of opposite theories will prepare the way for the presentation of a
+philosophy of religion which we flatter ourselves will be found most in
+harmony with all the facts of the case.
+
+I. _It is affirmed that the religious phenomena of the world had their
+origin in_ SUPERSTITION, _that is, in a fear of unseen and supernatural
+powers, generated from ignorance of nature_.
+
+This explanation was first offered by Epicurus. He felt that the
+universality of the religious sentiment is a fact which demands a cause;
+and he found it, or presumed he found it not in a spiritual God, which
+he claims can not exist, nor in corporeal god which no one has seen, but
+in "phantoms of the mind generated by fear." When man has been unable to
+explain any natural phenomenon, to assign a cause within the sphere of
+nature, he has had recourse to supernatural powers, or living
+personalities behind nature, which move and control nature in an
+arbitrary and capricious manner. These imaginary powers are supposed to
+be continually interfering in the affairs of individuals and nations.
+They bestow blessings or inflict calamities. They reward virtue and
+punish vice. They are, therefore, the objects of "sacred awe" and
+"superstitious fear."
+
+                           Whate'er in heaven,
+     In earth, man sees mysterious, shakes his mind
+     With sacred awe o'erwhelms him, and his soul
+     Bows to the dust; the cause of things conceal
+     Once from his vision, instant to the gods
+     All empire he transfers, all rule supreme,
+     And doubtful whence they spring, with headlong haste
+     Calls them the workmanship of power divine.
+     For he who, justly, deems the Immortals live
+     Safe, and at ease, yet fluctuates in his mind
+     How things are swayed; how, chiefly, those discerned
+     In heaven sublime--to SUPERSTITION back
+     Lapses, and fears a tyrant host, and then
+     Conceives, dull reasoner, they can all things do,
+     While yet himself nor knows what may be done,
+     Nor what may never, nature powers defined
+     Stamping on all, and bounds that none can pass:
+     Hence wide, and wider errs he as he walks.[41]
+
+[Footnote 41: Lucretius, "De Natura Rerum," book vi. vs. 50-70.]
+
+In order to rid men of all superstitious fear, and, consequently, of all
+religion, Epicurus endeavors to show that "nature" alone is adequate to
+the production of all things, and there is no need to drag in a "divine
+power" to explain the phenomena of the world.
+
+This theory has been wrought into a somewhat plausible form by the
+brilliant and imposing generalizations of Aug. Comte. The religious
+phenomena of the world are simply one stage in the necessary development
+of mind, whether in the individual or the race. He claims to have been
+the first to discover the great law of the three successive stages or
+phases of human evolution. That law is thus enounced. Both in the
+individual mind, and in the history of humanity, thought, in dealing
+with its problems, passes, of necessity, through, first, a
+_Theological_, second, a _Metaphysical_, and finally reaches a third, or
+_Positive_ stage.
+
+In attempting an explanation of the universe, human thought, in its
+earliest stages of development, resorts to the idea of living personal
+agents enshrined in and moving every object, whether organic or
+inorganic, natural or artificial. In an advanced stage, it conceives a
+number of personal beings distinct from, and superior to nature, which
+preside over the different provinces of nature--the sea, the air, the
+winds, the rivers, the heavenly bodies, and assume the guardianship of
+individuals, tribes, and nations. As a further, and still higher stage,
+it asserts the unity of the Supreme Power which moves and vitalizes the
+universe, and guides and governs in the affairs of men and nations. The
+_Theological_ stage is thus subdivided into three epochs, and
+represented as commencing in _Fetichism_, then advancing to
+_Polytheism_, and, finally, consummating in _Monotheism_.
+
+The next stage, the _Metaphysical_, is a transitional stage, in which
+man substitutes abstract entities, as substance, force, Being _in se_,
+the Infinite, the Absolute, in the place of theological conceptions.
+During this period all theological opinions undergo a process of
+disintegration, and lose their hold on the mind of man. Metaphysical
+speculation is a powerful solvent, which decomposes and dissipates
+theology.
+
+It is only in the last--the _Positive_ stage--that man becomes willing
+to relinquish all theological ideas and metaphysical notions, and
+confine his attention to the study of phenomena in their relation to
+time and space; discarding all inquiries as to causes, whether efficient
+or final, and denying the existence of all entities and powers beyond
+nature.
+
+The first stage, in its religious phase, is _Theistic_, the second is
+_Pantheistic_, the last is _Atheistic_.
+
+The proofs offered by Comte in support of this theory are derived:
+
+I. _From Cerebral Organization_. There are three grand divisions of the
+Brain, the Medulla Oblongata, the Cerebellum, and the Cerebrum; the
+first represents the merely animal instincts the second, the more
+elevated sentiments, the third, the intellectual powers. Human nature
+must, therefore, both in the individual and in the race, be developed in
+the following order: (1.) in animal instincts; (2.) in social affections
+and communal tendencies; (3.) in intellectual pursuits. Infant life is a
+merely animal existence, shared in common with the brute; in childhood
+the individual being realizes his relation to external nature and human
+society; in youth and manhood he compares, generalizes, and classifies
+the objects of knowledge, and attains to science. And so the infancy of
+our race was a mere animal or savage state, the childhood of our race
+the organization of society, the youth and manhood of our race the
+development of science.
+
+Now, without offering any opinion as to the merits of the phrenological
+theories of Gall and Spurzheim, we may ask, what relation has this order
+to the law of development presented by Comte? Is there any imaginable
+connection between animal propensities and theological ideas; between
+social affections and metaphysical speculations? Are not the
+intellectual powers as much concerned with theological ideas and
+metaphysical speculations as with positive science? And is it not more
+probable, more in accordance with facts, that all the powers of the
+mind, instinct, feeling, and thought, enter into action simultaneously,
+and condition each other? The very first act of perception, the first
+distinct cognition of an object, involves _thought_ as much as the last
+generalization of science. We know nothing of _mind_ except as the
+development of thought, and the first unfolding, even of the infant
+mind, reveals an intellectual act, a discrimination between a self and
+an object which is not self, and a recognition of resemblance, or
+difference between _this_ object and _that_. And what does Positive
+science, in its most mature and perfect form, claim to do more than "to
+study actual phenomena in their orders of resemblance, coexistence, and
+succession."
+
+Cerebral organization may furnish plausible analogies in favor of some
+theory of human development, but certainly not the one proposed by Aug.
+Comte. The attempt, however, to construct a chart of human history on
+such an _� priori_ method,--to construct an ideal framework into which
+human nature must necessarily grow, is a violation of the first and most
+fundamental principle of the Positive science, which demands that we
+shall confine ourselves strictly to the study of actual phenomena in
+their orders of resemblance, coexistence, and succession. The history of
+the human race must be based on facts, not on hypotheses, and the facts
+must be ascertained by the study of ancient records and existing
+monuments of the past. Mere plausible analogies and _� priori_ theories
+based upon them, are only fitted to mislead the mind; they insert a
+prism between the perceiving mind and the course of events which
+decomposes the pure white light of fact, and throws a false light over
+the entire field of history.
+
+2. _The second order of proof is attempted to be drawn from the
+analogies of individual experience_.
+
+It is claimed that the history of the race is the same as that of each
+individual mind; and it is affirmed that man is _religious_ in infancy,
+_metaphysical_ in youth, and _positive_, that is, scientific without
+being religious, in mature manhood; the history of the race must
+therefore have followed the same order.
+
+We are under no necessity of denying that there is some analogy between
+the development of mind in the individual man, and in humanity as a
+whole, in order to refute the theory of Comte. Still, it must not be
+overlooked that the development of mind, in all cases and in all ages,
+is materially affected by exterior conditions. The influence of
+geographical and climatic conditions, of social and national
+institutions, and especially of education, however difficult to be
+estimated, can not be utterly disregarded. And whether all these
+influences have not been controlled, and collocated, and adjusted by a
+Supreme Mind in the education of humanity, is also a question which can
+not be pushed aside as of no consequence. Now, unless it can be shown
+that the same outward conditions which have accompanied the individual
+and modified his mental development, have been repealed in the history
+of the race, and repeated in the same order of succession, the argument
+has no value.
+
+But, even supposing it could be shown that the development of mind in
+humanity has followed the same order as that of the individual, we
+confidently affirm that Comte has not given the true history of the
+development of the individual mind. The account he has given may perhaps
+be the history of his own mental progress, but it certainly is not the
+history of every individual mind, nor indeed, of a majority even, of
+educated minds that have arrived at maturity. It would be much more in
+harmony with facts to say childhood is the period of pure receptivity,
+youth of doubt and skepticism, and maturity of well-grounded and
+rational belief. In the ripeness and maturity of the nineteenth century
+the number of scientific men of the Comtean model is exceedingly small
+compared with the number of religious men. There are minds in every part
+of Europe and America as thoroughly scientific as that of Comte, and as
+deeply imbued with the spirit of the Inductive Philosophy, which are not
+conscious of any discordance between the facts of science and the
+fundamental principles of theology. It may be that, in his own immediate
+circle at Paris there may be a tendency to Atheism, but certainly no
+such tendency exists in the most scientific minds of Europe and America.
+The faith of Bacon, and Newton, and Boyle, of Descartes, Leibnitz, and
+Pascal, in regard to the fundamental principles of theology, is still
+the faith of Sedgwick, Whewell, Herschel, Brewster, Owen, Agassiz,
+Silliman, Mitchell, Hitchcock, Dana, and, indeed of the leading
+scientific minds of the world--the men who, as Comte would say, "belong
+to the �lite of humanity." The mature mind, whether of the individual or
+the race, is not Atheistical.
+
+3. _The third proof is drawn from a survey of the history of certain
+portions of our race._
+
+Comte is far from being assured that the progress of humanity, under the
+operation of his grand law of development, has been uniform and
+invariable. The majority of the human race, the vast populations of
+India, China, and Japan, have remained stationary; they are still in the
+Theological stage, and consequently furnish no evidence in support of
+his theory. For this reason he confines himself to the "�lite" or
+advance-guard of humanity, and in this way makes the history of humanity
+a very "abstract history" indeed. Starting with Greece as the
+representative of ancient civilization, passing thence to Roman
+civilization, and onward to Western Europe, he attempts to show that the
+actual progress of humanity has been, on the whole, in conformity with
+his law. To secure, however, even this semblance of harmony between the
+facts of history and his hypothetical law, he has to treat the facts
+very much as Procrustes treated his victims,--he must stretch some, and
+mutilate others, so as to make their forms fit the iron bed. The natural
+organization of European civilization is distorted and torn asunder. "As
+the third or positive stage had accomplished its advent in his own
+person, it was necessary to find the metaphysical period just before;
+and so the whole life of the Reformed Christianity, in embryo and in
+manifest existence, is stripped of its garb of _faith_, and turned out
+of view as a naked metaphysical phenomenon. But metaphysics, again, have
+to be ushered in by theology; and of the three stages of theology
+Monotheism is the last, necessarily following on Polytheism, as that,
+again, on Fetichism. There is nothing for it, therefore, but to let the
+medi�val Catholic Christianity stand as the world's first monotheism,
+and to treat it as the legitimate offspring and necessary development of
+the Greek and Roman polytheism. This, accordingly, Comte actually does.
+Protestantism he illegitimates, and outlaws from religion altogether,
+and the genuine Christianity he fathers upon the faith of Homer and the
+Scipios! Once or twice, indeed, it seems to cross him that there was
+such a people as the Hebrews, and that they were not the polytheists
+they ought to have been. He sees the fact, but pushes it out of his way
+with the remark that the Jewish monotheism was 'premature.'"[42]
+
+[Footnote 42: Martineau's Essays, pp. 61, 62.]
+
+The signal defect of Comte's historical survey, however, is, that it
+furnishes no evidence of the general prevalence of Fetichism in
+primitive times. The writings of Moses are certainly entitled to as much
+consideration and credence as the writings of Berosus, Manetho, and
+Herodotus; and, it will not be denied, they teach that the faith of the
+earliest families and races of men was _monotheistic_. The early Vedas,
+the Institutes of Menu, the writings of Confucius, the Zendavesta, all
+bear testimony that the ancient faith of India, China, and Persia, was,
+at any rate, pantheistic; and learned and trustworthy critics, Asiatic
+as well as European, confidently affirm that the ground of the
+Brahminical, Buddhist, and Parsist faith is _monotheistic_; and that
+_one_ Being is assumed, in the earliest books, to be the origin of all
+things.[43] Without evidence, Comte assumes that the savage state is the
+original condition of man; and instead of going to Asia, the cradle of
+the race, for some light as to the early condition and opinions of the
+remotest families of men, he turns to Africa, the _soudan_ of the earth,
+for his illustration of the habit of man, in the infancy of our race, to
+endow every object in nature, whether organic or inorganic, with life
+and intelligence. The theory of a primitive state of ignorance and
+barbarism is a mere assumption--an hypothesis in conflict with the
+traditionary legends of all nations, the earliest records of our race,
+and the unanimous voice of antiquity, which attest the general belief in
+a primitive state of light and innocence.
+
+[Footnote 43: "The Religions of the World in their Relation to
+Christianity" (Maurice, ch. ii., iii., iv.).]
+
+The three stages of development which Comte describes as necessarily
+successive, have, for centuries past, been simultaneous. The
+theological, the metaphysical, and the scientific elements coexist now,
+and there is no real, radical, or necessary conflict between them.
+Theological and metaphysical ideas hold their ground as securely under
+the influence of enlarged scientific discovery as before; and there is
+no reason to suppose they ever had more power over the mind of man than
+they have to-day. The notion that God is dethroned by the wonderful
+discoveries of modern science, and theology is dead, is the dream of the
+"_profond orage c�r�bral_" which interrupted the course of Comte's
+lectures in 1826. As easily may the hand of Positivism arrest the course
+of the sun, as prevent the instinctive thought of human reason
+recognizing and affirming the existence of a God. And so long as ever
+the human mind is governed by necessary laws of thought, so long will it
+seek...
+
+[Transcriber's note: In the original document, page 64 is a duplication
+of page 63. The real page 64 seems to be missing.]
+
+....eur, and consequently to develop its true philosophy. Its
+fundamental error is the assumption that all our knowledge is confined
+to the observation and classification of sensible phenomena--that is, to
+changes perceptible by the senses. Psychology, based, as it is, upon
+self-observation and self-reflection, is a "mere illusion; and logic and
+ethics, so far as they are built upon it as their foundation, are
+altogether baseless." Spiritual entities, forces, causes, efficient or
+final, are unknown and unknowable; all inquiry regarding them must be
+inhibited, "for Theology is inevitable if we permit the inquiry into
+causes at all."
+
+II. The second hypothesis offered in explanation of the facts of
+religious history is, _that religion is part of that_ PROCESS OR
+EVOLUTION OF THE ABSOLUTE (_i.e._, the Deity) _which, gradually
+unfolding itself in nature, mind, history, and religion, attains to the
+fullest self-consciousness in philosophy_.
+
+This is the theory of Hegel, in whose system of philosophy the
+subjective idealism of Kant culminates in the doctrine of "_Absolute
+Identity_." Its fundamental position is that thought and being, subject
+and object, the perceiving mind and the thing perceived, are ultimately
+and essentially _one_, and that the only actual reality is that which
+results from their mutual relation. The outward thing is nothing, the
+inward perception is nothing, for neither could exist alone; the only
+reality is the relation, or rather synthesis of the two; the essence or
+nature of being in itself accordingly consists in the coexistence of two
+contrarieties. Ideas, arising from the union or synthesis of two
+opposites, are therefore the _concrete realities_ of Hegel; and the
+_process_ of the evolution of ideas, in the human mind, is the process
+of all existence--_the Absolute Idea_.
+
+_The Absolute_(die Id�e) thus forms the beginning, middle, and end of
+the system of Hegel. It is the one infinite existence or thought, of
+which nature, mind, history, religion, and philosophy, are the
+manifestation. "The absolute is, with him, not the infinite _substance_,
+as with Spinoza; nor the infinite _subject_, as with Fichte; nor the
+infinite _mind_, as with Schelling; it is a perpetual _process_, an
+eternal thinking, without beginning and without end."[44] This _living,
+eternal process of absolute existence is the God of Hegel_.
+
+It will thus be seen that the _Absolute_ is, with Hegel, the sum of all
+actual and possible existence; "nothing is true and real except so far
+as it forms an element of the Absolute Spirit."[45] "What kind of an
+Absolute Being," he asks, "is that which does not contain in itself all
+that is actual, even evil included?"[46] The Absolute, therefore, in
+Hegel's conception, does not allow of any existence out of itself. It is
+the _unity_ of the finite and the infinite, the eternal and the
+temporal, the ideal and the real, the subject and the object. And it is
+not only the unity of these opposites so as to exclude all difference,
+but it contains in itself, all the differences and opposites as elements
+of its being; otherwise the distinctions would stand over against
+absolute as a limit, and the absolute would cease to be absolute.
+
+God is, therefore, according to Hegel, "no motionless, eternally
+self-identical and unchangeable being, but a living, eternal _process_
+of absolute self-existence. This process consists in the eternal
+self-distinction, or antithesis, and equally self-reconciliation or
+synthesis of those opposites which enter, as necessary elements, into
+the constitution of the Divine Being. This _self-evolution_, whereby the
+absolute enters into antithesis, and returns to itself again, is the
+eternal _self-actualization_ of its being, and which at once constitutes
+the beginning, middle, and end, as in the circle, where the beginning is
+at the same time the end, and the end the beginning."[47]
+
+[Footnote 44: Morell, "Hist, of Philos., p. 461."]
+
+[Footnote 45: "Philos. of Religion," p. 204.]
+
+[Footnote 46: Ibid., chap. xi. p. 24.]
+
+[Footnote 47: Herzog's _Real-Encyc._, art. "Hegelian Philos.," by
+Ulrici.]
+
+The whole philosophy of Hegel consists in the development of this idea
+of God by means of his, so-called, dialectic method, which reflects the
+objective life-process of the Absolute, and is, in fact, identical with
+it; for God, says he, "is only the Absolute Intelligence in so far as he
+knows himself to be the Absolute Intelligence, _and this he knows only
+in science_ [dialectics], _and this knowledge alone constitutes his true
+existence._"[48] This life-process of the Absolute has three "moments."
+It may be considered as the idea _in itself_--bare, naked, undetermined,
+unconscious idea; as the idea _out of itself_, in its objective form, or
+in its differentiation; and, finally, as the idea _in itself_, and _for
+itself_, in its regressive or reflective form. This movement of thought
+gives, _first_, bare, naked, indeterminate thought, or thought in the
+mere antithesis of Being and non-Being; _secondly_, thought
+externalizing itself in nature; and, _thirdly_, thought returning to
+itself, and knowing itself in mind, or consciousness. Philosophy has,
+accordingly, three corresponding divisions:--1. LOGIC, which here is
+identical with metaphysics; 2. PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE; 3. PHILOSOPHY OF
+MIND.
+
+[Footnote 48: "Hist, of Philos.," iii. p. 399.]
+
+It is beyond our design to present an expanded view of the entire
+philosophy of Hegel. But as he has given to the world a _new_ logic, it
+may be needful to glance at its general features as a help to the
+comprehension of his philosophy of religion. The fundamental law of his
+logic is the _identity of contraries or contradictions_. All thought is
+a synthesis of contraries or opposites. This antithesis not only exists
+in all ideas, but constitutes them. In every idea we form, there must be
+_two_ things opposed and distinguished, in order to afford a clear
+conception. Light can not be conceived but as the opposite of darkness;
+good can not be thought except in opposition to evil. All life, all
+reality is thus, essentially, the union of two elements, which,
+together, are mutually opposed to, and yet imply each other.
+
+The identity of Being and Nothing is one of the consequences of this
+law.
+
+1. _The Absolute is the Being_ (das Absolute ist das Seyn), and "the
+Being" is here, according to Hegel, bare, naked, abstract,
+undistinguished, indeterminate, unconscious idea.
+
+2. _The Absolute is the Nothing_ (das Absolute ist das Nichts). "Pure
+being is pure abstraction, and consequently the absolute-negative, which
+in like manner, directly taken, is _nothing_." Being and Nothing are the
+positive and negative poles of the Idea, that is, the Absolute. They
+both alike exist, they are both pure abstractions, both absolutely
+unconditioned, without attributes, and without consciousness. Hence
+follows the conclusion--
+
+3. _Being and Nothing are identical_ (das Seyn und das Nichts ist
+dasselbe), Being is non-Being. Non-Being _is_ Being--the
+Anders-seyn--which becomes _as_ Being to the Seyn. Nothing is, in some
+sense, an actual thing.
+
+_Being_ and _Nothing_ are thus the two elements which enter into the one
+Absolute Idea as contradictories, and both together combine to form a
+complete notion of bare production, or the _becoming_ of something out
+of nothing,--the unfolding of real existence in its lowest form, that
+is, of _nature_.
+
+The "_Philosophy of Nature_" exhibits a series of necessary movements
+which carry the idea forward in the ascending scale of sensible
+existence. The laws of mechanics, chemistry, and physiology are resolved
+into a series of oppositions. But the law which governs this development
+requires the self-reconciliation of these opposites. The idea,
+therefore, which in nature was unconscious and ignorant of itself,
+returns upon itself, and becomes conscious of itself, that is, becomes
+_mind_. The science of the regression or self-reflection of the idea, is
+the "_Philosophy of Mind_."
+
+The "_Philosophy of Mind_" is subdivided by Hegel into three parts.
+There is, first, the subjective or individual mind (_psychology_); then
+the objective or universal mind, as represented in society, the state,
+and in history (_ethics, political philosophy,_ or _jurisprudence_, and
+_philosophy of history_); and, finally, the union of the subjective and
+objective mind, or _the absolute mind_. This last manifests itself again
+under three forms, representing the three degrees of the
+self-consciousness of the Spirit, as the eternal truth. These are,
+first, _art_, or the representation of beauty (�sthetics); secondly,
+_religion_, in the general acceptation of the term (philosophy of
+religion); and, thirdly, _philosophy_ itself, as the purest and most
+perfect form of the scientific knowledge of truth. All historical
+religions, the Oriental, the Jewish, the Greek, the Roman, and the
+Christian, are _the successive stages in the development or
+self-actualization of God_.[49]
+
+It is unnecessary to indicate to the reader that the philosophy of Hegel
+is essentially pantheistic. "God is not a _person_, but personality
+itself, _i.e._, the universal personality, which realizes itself in
+every human consciousness, as so many separate thoughts of one eternal
+mind. The idea we form of the absolute is, to Hegel, the absolute
+itself, its essential existence being identical with our conception of
+it. Apart from, and out of the world, there is no God; and so also,
+apart from the universal consciousness of man, there is no Divine
+consciousness or personality."[50]
+
+[Footnote 49: See art. "Hegelian Philosophy," in Herzog's _Real-Encyc._,
+from whence our materials are chiefly drawn.]
+
+[Footnote 50: Morell, "Hist. of Philos.," p. 473.]
+
+This whole conception of religion, however, is false, and conflicts with
+the actual facts of man's religious nature and religious history. If the
+word "religion" has any meaning at all, it is "a mode of life determined
+by the consciousness of dependence upon, and obligation to God." It is
+reverence for, gratitude to, and worship of God as a being distinct from
+humanity. But in the philosophy of Hegel religion is a part of God--a
+stage in the development or self-actualization of God. Viewed under one
+aspect, religion is the self-adoration of God--the worship of God by
+God; under another aspect it is the worship of humanity, since God only
+becomes conscious of himself in humanity. The fundamental fallacy is
+that upon which his entire method proceeds, viz., "the identity of
+subject and object, being and thought." Against this false position the
+consciousness of each individual man, and the universal consciousness of
+our race, as revealed in history, alike protest. If thought and being
+are identical, then whatever is true of ideas is also true of objects,
+and then, as Kant had before remarked, there is no difference between
+_thinking_ we possess a hundred dollars, and actually _possessing_ them.
+Such absurdities may be rendered plausible by a logic which asserts the
+"identity of contradictions," but against such logic common sense
+rebels. "The law of non-contradiction" has been accepted by all
+logicians, from the days of Aristotle, as a fundamental law of thought.
+"Whatever is contradictory is unthinkable. A=not A=O, or A--A=O."[51]
+Non-existence can not exist. Being can not be nothing.
+
+[Footnote 51: Hamilton's Logic, p. 58.]
+
+III. The third hypothesis affirms _that the phenomenon of religion has
+its foundation in_ FEELING--_the feeling of dependence and of
+obligation_; and that to which the mind, by spontaneous intuition of
+instinctive faith, traces that dependence and obligation we call God.
+
+This, with some slight modification in each case, consequent upon the
+differences in their philosophic systems, is the theory of Jacobi,
+Schleiermacher, Nitzsch, Mansel, and probably Hamilton. Its fundamental
+position is, that we can not gain truth with absolute certainty either
+from sense or reason, and, consequently, the only valid source of real
+knowledge is _feeling--faith, intuition_, or, as it is called by some,
+_inspiration_.
+
+There have been those, in all ages, who have made all knowledge of
+invisible, supersensuous, divine things, to rest upon an internal
+_feeling_, or immediate, inward vision. The Oriental Mystics, the
+Neo-Platonists, the Mystics of the Greek and Latin Church, the German
+Mystics of the 14th century, the Theosophists of the Reformation, the
+Quietists of France, the Quakers, have all appealed to some _special_
+faculty, distinct from the understanding and reason, for the immediate
+cognition of invisible and spiritual existences. By some, that special
+faculty was regarded as an "interior eye" which was illuminated by the
+"Universal Light;" by others, as a peculiar sensibility of the soul--a
+_feeling_ in whose perfect calm and utter quiescence the Divinity was
+mirrored; or which, in an ecstatic state, rose to a communion with, and
+final absorption in the Infinite.
+
+Jacobi was the first, in modern times, to give the "faith-philosophy,"
+as it is now designated, a definite form. He assumes the position that
+all knowledge, of whatever kind, must ultimately rest upon intuition or
+faith. As it regards sensible objects, the understanding finds the
+impression from which all our knowledge of the external flows, ready
+formed. The process of sensation is a mystery; we know nothing of it
+until it is past, and the feeling it produces is present. Our knowledge
+of matter, therefore, rests upon faith in these intuitions. We can not
+doubt that the feeling has an objective cause. In every act of
+perception there is something actual and present, which can not be
+referred to a mere subjective law of thought. We are also conscious of
+another class of feelings which correlate us with a supersensuous world,
+and these feelings, also, must have their cause in some objective
+reality. Just as sensation gives us an immediate knowledge of an
+external world, so there is an internal sense which gives us an
+immediate knowledge of a spiritual world--God, the soul, freedom,
+immortality. Our knowledge of the invisible world, like our knowledge of
+the visible world, is grounded upon faith in our intuitions. All
+philosophic knowledge is thus based upon _belief_, which Jacobi regards
+as a fact of our inward sensibility--a sort of knowledge produced by an
+immediate _feeling_ of the soul--a direct apprehension, without proof,
+of the True, the Supersensuous, the Eternal.
+
+Jacobi prepared the way for, and was soon eclipsed by the deservedly
+greater name of Schleiermacher. His fundamental position was that truth
+in Theology could not be obtained by reason, but by a feeling,
+_insight_, or intuition, which in its lowest form he called
+_God-consciousness_, and in its highest form, _Christian-consciousness._
+The God-consciousness, in its original form, is the _feeling of
+dependence_ on the Infinite. The Christian consciousness is the perfect
+union of the human consciousness with the Divine, through the mediation
+of Christ, or what we would call a Christian experience of communion
+with God.
+
+Rightly to understand the position of Schleiermacher we must take
+account of his doctrine of _self_-consciousness. "In all
+self-consciousness," says he, "there are two elements, a Being ein Seyn,
+and a Somehow-having-become (Irgendweigewordenseyn). The last, however,
+presupposes, for every self-consciousness, besides the ego, yet
+something else from whence the certainty of the same
+[self-consciousness] exists, and without which self-consciousness would
+not be just this."[52] Every determinate mode of the sensibility
+supposes an _object_, and a _relation_ between the subject and the
+object, the subjective feeling deriving its determinations from the
+object. External sensation, the feeling, say of extension and
+resistance, gives world-consciousness. Internal sensation, the _feeling
+of dependence_, gives God consciousness. And it is only by the presence
+of world consciousness and God-consciousness that self consciousness can
+be what it is.
+
+We have, then, in our self-consciousness a _feeling of direct
+dependence_, and that to which our minds instinctively trace that
+dependence we call God. "By means of the religious feeling, the Primal
+Cause is revealed in us, as in perception, the things external, are
+revealed in us."[53] The _felt_, therefore, is not only the first
+religious sense, but the ruling, abiding, and perfect form of the
+religious spirit; whatever lays any claim to religion must maintain its
+ground and principle in _feeling_, upon which it depends for its
+development; and the sum-total of the forces constituting religious
+life, inasmuch as it is a _life_, is based upon immediate
+self-consciousness.[54]
+
+[Footnote 52: Glaubenslehre, ch. i. � 4.]
+
+[Footnote 53: Dialectic, p. 430.]
+
+[Footnote 54: Nitzsch, "System of Doctrine," p. 23.]
+
+The doctrine of Schleiermacher is somewhat modified by Mansel, in his
+"_Limits of Religious Thought_." He maintains, with Schleiermacher, that
+religion is grounded in _feeling_, and that the _felt_ is the first
+intimation or presentiment of the Divine. Man "_feels_ within him the
+consciousness of a Supreme Being, and the instinct to worship, before he
+can argue from effects to causes, or estimate the traces of wisdom and
+benevolence scattered through the creation."[55] He also agrees with
+Schleiermacher in regarding the _feeling of dependence_ as _a_ state of
+the sensibility, out of which reflection builds up the edifice of
+Religious Consciousness, but he does not, with Schleiermacher, regard it
+as pre-eminently _the_ basis of religious consciousness. "The mere
+consciousness of dependence does not, of itself, exhibit the character
+of the Being on whom we depend. It is as consistent with superstition as
+with religion; with the belief in a malevolent, as in a benevolent
+Deity."[56] To the feeling of dependence he has added the _consciousness
+of moral obligation_, which he imagines supplies the deficiency. By this
+consciousness of moral obligation "we are compelled to assume the
+existence of a moral Deity, and to regard the absolute standard of right
+and wrong as constituted by the nature of that Deity."[57] "To these two
+facts of the inner consciousness the feeling of dependence, and
+consciousness of moral obligation may be traced, as to their sources,
+the two great outward acts by which religion, in its various forms, has
+been manifested among men--_Prayer_, by which they seek to win God's
+blessing upon the future, and _Expiation_, by which they strive to atone
+for the offenses of the past. The feeling of dependence is the instinct
+which urges us to pray. It is the feeling that our existence and welfare
+are in the hands of a superior power; not an inexorable fate, not an
+immutable law; but a Being having at least so far the attribute of
+personality that he can show favor or severity to those who are
+dependent upon Him, and can be regarded by them with feelings of hope
+and fear, and reverence and gratitude."[58] The feeling of moral
+obligation--"the law written in the heart"--leads man to recognize a
+Lawgiver. "Man can be a law unto himself only on the supposition that he
+reflects in himself the law of God."[59] The conclusion from the whole
+is, there must be an _object_ answering to this consciousness: there
+must be a God to explain these facts of the soul.
+
+[Footnote 55: Mansel, "Limits of Religious Thought," p. 115.]
+
+[Footnote 56: Id., ib., p. 120.]
+
+[Footnote 57: Id., ib., p. 122.]
+
+[Footnote 58: Id., ib., pp. 119, 120.]
+
+[Footnote 59: Id., ib., p. 122.]
+
+This "philosophy of feeling," or of faith generated by feeling, has an
+interest and a significance which has not been adequately recognized by
+writers on natural theology. Feeling, sentiment, enthusiasm, have always
+played an important part in the history of religion. Indeed it must be
+conceded that religion is a _right state of feeling towards
+God_--religion is _piety_. A philosophy of the religious emotion is,
+therefore, demanded in order to the full interpretation of the religious
+phenomena of the world.
+
+But the notion that internal feeling, a peculiar determination of the
+sensibility, is the source of religious ideas:--that God can be known
+immediately by feeling without the mediation of the truth that manifests
+God; that he can be _felt_ as the qualities of matter can be felt; and
+that this affection of the inward sense can reveal the character and
+perfections of God, is an unphilosophical and groundless assumption. To
+assert, with Nitzsch, that "feeling has reason, and is reason, and that
+the sensible and felt God-consciousness generates out of itself
+fundamental conceptions," is to confound the most fundamental
+psychological distinctions, and arbitrarily bend the recognized
+classifications of mental science to the necessities of a theory.
+Indeed, we are informed that it is "by means of an _independent_
+psychology, and conformably to it," that Schleiermacher illustrates his
+"philosophy of feeling."[60] But all psychology must be based upon the
+observation and classification of mental phenomena, as revealed in
+consciousness, and not constructed in an "independent" and � priori
+method. The most careful psychological analysis has resolved the whole
+complex phenomena of mind into thought, feeling, and volition.[61] These
+orders of phenomena are radically and essentially distinct. They differ
+not simply in degree but in kind, and it is only by an utter disregard
+of the facts of consciousness that they can be confounded. Feeling is
+not reason, nor can it by any logical dexterity be transformed into
+reason.
+
+[Footnote 60: Nitzsch, "System of Doctrine," p. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 61: Kant, "Critique of Judg.," ch. xxii.; Cousin, "Hist, of
+Philos.," vol. ii. p. 399; Hamilton, vol. i. p. 183, Eng. ed.]
+
+The question as to the relative order of cognition and feeling, that is,
+as to whether feeling is the first or original form of the religious
+consciousness, or whether feeling be not consequent upon some idea or
+cognition of God, is one which can not be determined on empirical
+grounds. We are precluded from all scrutiny of the incipient stages of
+mental development in the individual mind and in collective humanity. If
+we attempt to trace the early history of the soul, its beginnings are
+lost in a period of blank unconsciousness, beyond all scrutiny of memory
+or imagination. If we attempt the inquiry on the wider field of
+universal consciousness, the first unfoldings of mind in humanity are
+lost in the border-land of mystery, of which history furnishes no
+authentic records. All dogmatic affirmation must, therefore, be
+unjustifiable. The assertion that religious feeling precedes all
+cognition,--that "the consciousness of dependence on a Supreme Being,
+and the instinct of worship" are developed _first_ in the mind, before
+the reason is exercised, is utterly groundless. The more probable
+doctrine is that all the primary faculties enter into spontaneous action
+_simultaneously_--the reason with the senses, the feelings with the
+reason, the judgment with both the senses and the reason, and that from
+their primary and simultaneous action arises the complex result, called
+consciousness, or conjoint knowledge.[62] There can be no clear and
+distinct consciousness without the cognition of a _self_ and a
+_not-self_ in mutual relation and opposition. Now the knowledge of the
+self--the personal ego--is an intuition of reason; the knowledge of the
+not-self is an intuition of sense. All knowledge is possible only under
+condition of plurality, difference, and relation.[63] Now the judgment
+is "the Faculty of Relations," or of comparison; and the affirmation
+"_this_ is not _that_" is an act of judgment; to know is, consequently,
+to judge.[64] Self-consciousness must, therefore, be regarded as a
+synthesis of sense, reason, and judgment, and not a mere self-feeling
+(coen�sthesis).
+
+[Footnote 62: Cousin, "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 357; vol. ii. p.
+337.]
+
+[Footnote 63: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 88.]
+
+[Footnote 64: Hamilton, "Metaphys.," p. 277]
+
+A profound analysis will further lead to the conclusion that if ideas of
+reason are not chronologically antecedent to sensation, they are, at
+least, the logical antecedents of all cognition. The mere feeling of
+resistance can not give the notion of without the � priori idea of
+space. The feeling of movement of change, can not give the cognition of
+event without the rational idea of time or duration. Simple
+consciousness can not generate the idea of personality, or selfhood,
+without the rational idea of identity or unity. And so the mere "feeling
+of dependence," of finiteness and imperfection, can not give the idea of
+God, without the rational � priori idea of the Infinite, the Perfect,
+the Unconditioned Cause. Sensation is not knowledge, and never can
+become knowledge, without the intervention of reason, and a concentrated
+self feeling can not rise essentially above animal life until it has,
+through the mediation of reason, attained the idea of the existence of a
+Supreme Being ruling over nature and man.
+
+Mere feeling is essentially blind. In its _pathological_ form, it may
+indicate a want, and even develop an unconscious appetency, but it can
+not, itself, reveal an _object_, any more than the feeling of hunger can
+reveal the actual presence, or determine the character and fitness, of
+any food. An undefinable fear, a mysterious presentiment, an instinctive
+yearning, a hunger of the soul, these are all irrational emotions which
+can never rise to the dignity of knowledge. An object must be conjured
+by the imagination, or conceived by the understanding, or intuitively
+apprehended by the reason, before the feeling can have any significance.
+
+Regarded in its _moral_ form, as "the feeling of obligation," it can
+have no real meaning unless a "law of duty" be known and recognized.
+Feeling, alone, can not reveal what duty is. When that which is right,
+and just, and good is revealed to the mind, then the sense of obligation
+may urge man to the performance of duty. But the right, the just, the
+good, are ideas which are apprehended by the reason, and, consequently,
+our moral sentiments are the result of the harmonious and living
+relation between the reason and the sensibilities.
+
+Mr. Mansel asserts the inadequacy of Schleiermacher's "feeling of
+dependence" to reveal the character of the Being on whom we depend. He
+has therefore supplemented his doctrine by the "feeling of moral
+obligation," which he thinks "compels us to _assume_ the existence of a
+moral Deity." We think his "fact of religious intuition" is as
+inadequate as Schleiermacher's to explain the whole phenomena of
+religion. In neither instance does feeling supply the actual knowledge
+of God. The feeling of dependence may indicate that there is a Power or
+Being upon whom we depend for existence and well-being, and which Power
+or Being "we call God." The feeling of obligation certainly indicates
+the existence of a Being to whom we are accountable, and which Being Mr.
+Mansel calls a "moral Deity." But in both instances the character, and
+even the existence of God is "_assumed_" and we are entitled to ask on
+what ground it is assumed. It will not be asserted that feeling alone
+generates the idea, or that the feeling is transformed into idea without
+the intervention of thought and reflection. Is there, then, a _logical_
+connection between the feeling of dependence and of obligation, and the
+idea of the Uncreated Mind, the Infinite First Cause, the Righteous
+Governor of the world. Or is there a fixed and changeless co-relation
+between _the feeling_ and the _idea_, so that when the feeling is
+present, the idea also necessarily arises in the mind? This latter
+opinion seems to be the doctrine of Mansel. We accept it as the
+statement of a fact of consciousness, but we can not regard it as an
+account of the genesis of the idea of God in the human mind. The idea of
+God as the First Cause, the Infinite Mind, the Perfect Being, the
+personal Lord and Lawgiver, the creator, sustainer, and ruler of the
+world, is not a simple, primitive intuition of the mind. It is
+manifestly a complex, concrete idea, and, as such, can not be developed
+in consciousness, by the operation of a single faculty of the mind, in a
+simple, undivided act. It originates in the spontaneous operation of the
+whole mind. It is a necessary deduction from the facts of the universe,
+and the primitive intuitions of the reason,--a logical inference from
+the facts of sense, consciousness, and reason. A philosophy of religion
+which regards the feelings as supreme, and which brands the decisions of
+reason as uncertain, and well-nigh valueless, necessarily degenerates
+into mysticism--a mysticism "which pretends to elevate man directly to
+God, and does not see that, in depriving reason of its power, it really
+deprives man of that which enables him to know God, and puts him in a
+just communication with God by the intermediary of eternal and infinite
+truth."[65]
+
+[Footnote 65: Cousin, "True, Beautiful, and Good," p. 110.]
+
+The religious sentiments in all minds, and in all ages, have resulted
+from the union of _thought_ and _feeling_--the living and harmonious
+relation of reason and sensibility; and a philosophy which disregards
+either is inadequate to the explanation of the phenomena.
+
+IV. The fourth hypothesis is, _that religion has had its outbirth in the
+spontaneous apperceptions of_ REASON; that is, in the necessary, �
+priori ideas of the infinite, the perfect, the unconditioned Cause, the
+Eternal Being, which are evoked into consciousness in presence of the
+changeful, contingent phenomena of the world.
+
+This will at once be recognized by the intelligent reader as the
+doctrine of Cousin, by whom _pure reason_ is regarded as the grand
+faculty or organ of religion.
+
+Religion, in the estimation of Cousin, is grounded on _cognition_ rather
+than upon feeling. It is the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of duty
+in its relation to God and to human happiness; and as reason is the
+general faculty of all knowing, it must be the faculty of religion. "In
+its most elevated point of view, religion is the relation of absolute
+truth to absolute Being," and as absolute truth is apprehended by the
+reason alone, reason "is the veridical and religious part of the nature
+of man."[66] By "reason," however, as we shall see presently, Cousin
+does not mean the discursive or reflective reason, but the spontaneous
+or intuitive reason. That act of the mind by which we attain to
+religious knowledge is not a _process of reasoning_, but a pure
+appreciation, an instinctive and involuntary movement of the soul.
+
+[Footnote 66: Henry's Cousin, p. 510.]
+
+The especial function of reason, therefore, is to reveal to us the
+invisible, the supersensuous, the Divine. "It was bestowed upon us for
+this very purpose of going, without any circuit of reasoning, from the
+visible to the invisible, from the finite to the infinite, from the
+imperfect to the perfect, and from necessary and eternal truths, to the
+eternal and necessary principle" that is God.[67] Reason is thus, as it
+were, the bridge between consciousness and being; it rests, at the same
+time, on both; it descends from God, and approaches man; it makes its
+appearance in consciousness as a guest which brings intelligence of
+another world of real Being which lies beyond the world of sense.
+
+Reason does not, however, attain to the Absolute Being directly and
+immediately, without any intervening medium. To assert this would be to
+fall into the error of Plotinus, and the Alexandrian Mystics. Reason is
+the offspring of God, a ray of the Eternal Reason, but it is not to be
+identified with God. Reason attains to the Absolute Being indirectly,
+and by the interposition of truth. Absolute truth is an attribute and a
+manifestation of God. "Truth is incomprehensible without God, and God is
+incomprehensible without truth. Truth is placed between human
+intelligence, and the supreme intelligence as a kind of mediator."[68]
+Incapable of contemplating God face to face, reason adores God in the
+truth which represents and manifests Him.
+
+[Footnote 67: Cousin, "True, Beautiful, and Good," p. 103.]
+
+[Footnote 68: Id., ib., p. 99.]
+
+Absolute truth is thus a revelation of God, made by God to the reason of
+man, and as it is a light which illuminates every man, and is
+perpetually perceived by all men, it is a universal and perpetual
+revelation of God to man. The mind of man is "the offspring of God,"
+and, as such, must have some resemblance to, and some correlation with
+God. Now that which constitutes the image of God in man must be found in
+the reason which is correlated with, and capable of perceiving the truth
+which manifests God, just as the eye is correlated to the light which
+manifests the external world. Absolute truth is, therefore, the sole
+medium of bringing the human mind into communion with God; and human
+reason, in becoming united to absolute truth, becomes united to God in
+his manifestation in spirit and in truth. The supreme law, and highest
+destination of man, is to become united to God by seeking a full
+consciousness of, and loving and practising the Truth.[69]
+
+[Footnote 69: Henry's Cousin, p. 511, 512.]
+
+It will at once be obvious that the grand crucial questions by which
+this philosophy of religion is to be tested are--
+
+1st. _How will Cousin prove to us that human reason is in possession of
+universal and necessary principles or absolute truths?_ and,
+
+2d. _How are these principles shown to be absolute? how far do these
+principles of reason possess absolute authority?_
+
+The answer of Cousin to the first question is that we prove reason to be
+in possession of universal and necessary principles by the analysis of
+the contents of consciousness, that is, by psychological analysis. The
+phenomena of consciousness, in their primitive condition, are
+necessarily complex, concrete, and particular. All our primary ideas are
+complex ideas, for the evident reason that all, or nearly all, our
+faculties enter at once into exercise; their simultaneous action giving
+us, at the same time, a certain number of ideas connected with each
+other, and forming a whole. For example, the idea of the exterior world,
+which is given us so quickly, is a complex idea, which contains a number
+of ideas. There is the idea of the secondary qualities of exterior
+objects; there is the idea of the primary qualities; there is the idea
+of the permanent reality of something to which you refer these
+qualities, to wit, matter; there is the idea of space which contains
+bodies; there is the idea of time in which movements are effected. All
+these ideas are acquired simultaneously, or nearly simultaneously, and
+together form one complex idea.
+
+The application of analysis to this complex phenomenon clearly reveals
+that there are simple ideas, beliefs, principles in the mind which can
+not have been derived from sense and experience, which sense and
+experience do not account for, and which are the suggestions of reason
+alone: the idea of the _Infinite_, the _Perfect_, the _Eternal_; the
+true, the beautiful, the good; the principle of causality, of substance,
+of unity, of intentionality; the principle of duty, of obligation, of
+accountability, of retribution. These principles, in their natural and
+regular development, carry us beyond the limits of consciousness, and
+reveal to us a world of real being beyond the world of sense. They carry
+us up to an absolute Being, the fountain of all existence--a living,
+personal, righteous God--the author, the sustainer, and ruler of the
+universe.
+
+The proof that these principles are absolute, and possessed of absolute
+authority, is drawn, first, from the _impersonality of reason_, or,
+rather, the impersonality of the ideas, principles, or truths of reason.
+
+It is not we who create these ideas, neither can we change them at our
+pleasure. We are conscious that the will, in all its various efforts, is
+enstamped with the impress of our personality. Our volitions are our
+own. So, also, our desires are our own, our emotions are our own. But
+this is not the same with our rational ideas or principles. The ideas of
+substance, of cause, of unity, of intentionality do not belong to one
+person any more than to another; they belong to mind as mind, they are
+revealed in the universal intelligence of the race. Absolute truth has
+no element of personality about it. Man may say "my reason," but give
+him credit for never having dared to say "_my_ truth." So far from
+rational ideas being individual, their peculiar characteristic is that
+they are opposed to individuality, that is, they are universal and
+necessary. Instead of being circumscribed within the limits of
+experience, they surpass and govern it; they are universal in the midst
+of particular phenomena; necessary, although mingled with things
+contingent; and absolute, even when appearing within us the relative and
+finite beings that we are.[70] Necessary, universal, absolute truth is a
+direct emanation from God. "Such being the case, the decision of reason
+within its own peculiar province possesses an authority almost divine.
+If we are led astray by it, we must be led astray by a light from
+heaven."[71]
+
+[Footnote 70: Cousin, "True, Beautiful, and Good," p. 40.]
+
+[Footnote 71: Id., "Lectures," vol. ii. p. 32.]
+
+The second proof is derived from _the distinction between the
+spontaneous and reflective movements of reason_.
+
+Reflection is voluntary, spontaneity is involuntary; reflection is
+personal, spontaneity is impersonal; reflection is analytic, spontaneity
+is synthetic; reflection begins with doubt, spontaneity with
+affirmation; reflection belongs to certain ones, spontaneity belongs to
+all; reflection produces science, spontaneity gives truth. Reflection is
+a process, more or less tardy, in the individual and in the race. It
+sometimes engenders error and skepticism, sometimes convictions that,
+from being rational, are only the more profound. It constructs systems,
+it creates artificial logic, and all those formulas which we now use by
+the force of habit, as if they were natural to us. But spontaneous
+intuition is the true logic of nature,--instant, direct, and infallible.
+It is a primitive affirmation which implies no negation, and therefore
+yields positive knowledge. To reflect is to return to that which was. It
+is, by the aid of memory, to return to the past, and to render it
+present to the eye of consciousness. Reflection, therefore, creates
+nothing; it supposes an anterior operation of the mind in which there
+necessarily must be as many terms as are discovered by reflection.
+Before all reflection there comes spontaneity--a spontaneity of the
+intellect, which seizes truth at once, without traversing doubt and
+error. "We thus attain to a judgment free from all reflection, to an
+affirmation without any mixture of negation, to an immediate intuition,
+the legitimate daughter of the natural energy of thought, like the
+inspiration of the poet, the instinct of the hero, the enthusiasm of the
+prophet." Such is the first act of knowing, and in this first act the
+mind passes from _idea to being_ without ever suspecting the depth of
+the chasm it has passed. It passes by means of the power which is in it,
+and is not astonished at what it has done. It is subsequently astonished
+when by reflection it returns to the analysis of the results, and, by
+the aid of the liberty with which it is endowed, to do the opposite of
+what it has done, to deny what it has affirmed. "Hence comes the strife
+between sophism and common sense, between false science and natural
+truth, between good and bad philosophy, both of which come from free
+reflection."[72]
+
+It is this spontaneity of thought which gives birth to _religion._ The
+instinctive thought which darts through the world, even to God, is
+natural religion. "All thought implies a spontaneous faith in God, and
+there is no such thing as natural atheism. Doubt and skepticism may
+mingle with reflective thought, but beneath reflection there is still
+spontaneity. When the scholar has denied the existence of God, listen to
+the man, interrogate him, take him unawares, and you will see that all
+his words envelop the idea of God, and that faith in God is, without his
+recognition, at the bottom, in his heart."[73]
+
+Religion, then, in the system of Cousin, does not begin with reflection,
+with science, but with _faith_. There is, however, this difference to be
+noted between the theory of the "faith-philosophers" (Jacobi,
+Schleiermacher, etc.) and the theory of Cousin. With them, faith is
+grounded on sensation or _feeling_; with him, it is grounded on
+_reason_. "Faith, whatever may be its form, whatever may be its object,
+common or sublime, can be nothing else than the _consent of reason_.
+That is the foundation of faith."[74]
+
+[Footnote 72: Cousin, "True, Beautiful, and Good," p. 106.]
+
+[Footnote 73: "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 137.]
+
+[Footnote 74: Ibid., vol. i. p. 90.]
+
+Religion is, therefore, with Cousin, at bottom, pure Theism. He thinks,
+however, that "true theism is not a dead religion that forgets precisely
+the fundamental attributes of God." It recognizes God as creator,
+preserver, and governor; it celebrates a providence; it adores a
+perfect, holy, righteous, benevolent God. It holds the principle of
+duty, of obligation, of moral desert. It not only perceives the divine
+character, but feels its relation to God. The revelation of the
+Infinite, by reason, moves the feelings, and passes into sentiment,
+producing reverence, and love, and gratitude. And it creates worship,
+which recalls man to God a thousand times more forcibly than the order,
+harmony, and beauty of the universe can do.
+
+The spontaneous action of reason, in its greatest energy, is
+_inspiration_. "Inspiration, daughter of the soul and heaven, speaks
+from on high with an absolute authority. It commands faith; so all its
+words are hymns, and its natural language is poetry." "Thus, in the
+cradle of civilization, he who possessed in a higher degree than his
+fellows the gift of inspiration, passed for the confidant and the
+interpreter of God. He is so for others, because he is so for himself;
+and he is so, in fact, in a philosophic sense. Behold the sacred origin
+of prophecies, of pontificates, and of modes of worship."[75]
+
+[Footnote 75: "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 129.]
+
+As an account of the genesis of the idea of God in the human
+intelligence, the doctrine of Cousin must be regarded as eminently
+logical, adequate, and satisfactory. As a theory of the origin of
+religion, as a philosophy which shall explain all the phenomena of
+religion, it must be pronounced defective, and, in some of its aspects,
+erroneous.
+
+First, it does not take proper account of that _living force_ which has
+in all ages developed so much energy, and wrought such vast results in
+the history of religion, viz., the _power of the heart_. Cousin
+discourses eloquently on the spontaneous, instinctive movements of the
+reason, but he overlooks, in a great measure, the instinctive movements
+of the heart. He does not duly estimate the feeling of reverence and awe
+which rises spontaneously in presence of the vastness and grandeur of
+the universe, and of the power and glory of which the created universe
+is a symbol and shadow. He disregards that sense of an overshadowing
+Presence which, at least in seasons of tenderness and deep sensibility,
+seems to compass us about, and lay its hand upon us. He scarcely
+recognizes the deep consciousness of imperfection and weakness, and
+utter dependence, which prompts man to seek for and implore the aid of a
+Superior Being; and, above all, he takes no proper account of the sense
+of guilt and the conscious need of expiation. His theory, therefore, can
+not adequately explain the universal prevalence of sacrifices, penances,
+and prayers. In short, it does not meet and answer to the deep longings
+of the human heart, the wants, sufferings, fears, and hopes of man.
+
+Cousin claims that the universal reason of man is illuminated by the
+light of God. It is quite pertinent to ask, Why may not the universal
+heart of humanity be touched and moved by the spirit of God? If the
+ideas of reason be a revelation from God, may not the instinctive
+feelings of the heart be an inspiration of God? May not God come near to
+the heart of man and awaken a mysterious presentiment of an invisible
+Presence, and an instinctive longing to come nearer to Him? May he not
+draw men towards himself by sweet, persuasive influences, and raise man
+to a conscious fellowship? Is not God indeed the _great want_ of the
+human heart?
+
+Secondly, Cousin does not give due importance to the influence of
+revealed truth as given in the sacred Scriptures, and of the positive
+institutions of religion, as a divine economy, supernaturally originated
+in the world. He grants, indeed, that "a primitive revelation throws
+light upon the cradle of human civilization," and that "all antique
+traditions refer to an age in which man, at his departure from the hand
+of God, received from him immediately all lights, and all truths."[76]
+He also believes that "the Mosaic religion, by its developments, is
+mingled with the history of all the surrounding people of Egypt, of
+Assyria, of Persia, and of Greece and Rome."[77] Christianity, however,
+is regarded as "the summing and crown of the two great religious systems
+which reigned by turn in the East and in Greece"--the maturity of
+Ethnicism and Judaism; a development rather than a new creation. The
+explanation which he offers of the phenomena of inspiration opens the
+door to religious skepticism. Those who were termed seers, prophets,
+inspired teachers of ancient times, were simply men who resigned
+themselves wholly to their intellectual instincts, and thus gazed upon
+truth in its pure and perfect form. They did not reason, they did not
+reflect, they made no pretensions to philosophy they received truth
+spontaneously as it flowed in upon them from heaven.[78] This immediate
+reception of Divine light was nothing more than the _natural_ play of
+spontaneous reason nothing more than what has existed to a greater or
+less degree in every man of great genius; nothing more than may now
+exist in any mind which resigns itself to its own unreflective
+apperceptions. Thus revelation, in its proper sense, loses all its
+peculiar value, and Christianity is robbed of its pre-eminent authority.
+The extremes of Mysticism and Rationalism here meet on the same ground,
+and Plotinus and Cousin are at one.
+
+[Footnote 76: "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 148.]
+
+[Footnote 77: Ibid., vol. i. p. 216.]
+
+[Footnote 78: Morell, "Hist. of Philos.," p. 661.]
+
+V. The fifth hypothesis offered in explanation of the religious
+phenomena of the world is that they had their origin _in_ EXTERNAL
+REVELATION, _to which reason is related as a purely passive organ, and
+Ethnicism as a feeble relic_.
+
+This is the theory of the school of "dogmatic theologians," of which the
+ablest and most familiar presentation is found in the "Theological
+Institutes" of R. Watson.[79] He claims that all our religious knowledge
+is derived from _oral revelation alone_, and that all the forms of
+religion and modes of worship which have prevailed in the heathen world
+have been perversions and corruptions of the one true religion first
+taught to the earliest families of men by God himself. All the ideas of
+God, duty, immortality, and future retribution which are now possessed,
+or have ever been possessed by the heathen nations, are only broken and
+scattered rays of the primitive traditions descending from the family of
+Noah, and revived by subsequent intercourses with the Hebrew race; and
+all the modes of religious worship--prayers, lustrations,
+sacrifices--that have obtained in the world, are but feeble relics,
+faint reminiscences of the primitive worship divinely instituted among
+the first families of men. "The first man received the knowledge of God
+by sensible converse with him, and that doctrine was transmitted, with
+the confirmation of successive manifestations, to the early ancestors of
+all nations."[80] This belief in the existence of a Supreme Being was
+preserved among the Jews by continual manifestations of the presence of
+Jehovah. "The intercourses between the Jews and the states of Syria and
+Babylon, on the one hand, and Egypt on the other, powers which rose to
+great eminence and influence in the ancient world, was maintained for
+ages. Their frequent dispersions and captivities would tend to preserve
+in part, and in part to revive, the knowledge of the once common and
+universal faith."[81] And the Greek sages who resorted for instruction
+to the Chaldean philosophic schools derived from thence their knowledge
+of the theological system of the Jews.[82] Among the heathen nations
+this primitive revelation was corrupted by philosophic speculation, as
+in India and China, Greece and Rome; and in some cases it was entirely
+obliterated by ignorance, superstition, and vice, as among the
+Hottentots of Africa and the aboriginal tribes of New South Wales, who
+"have no idea of one Supreme Creator."[83]
+
+[Footnote 79: We might have referred the reader to Ellis's "Knowledge of
+Divine Things from Revelation, not from Reason or Nature;" Leland's
+"Necessity of Revelation;" and Horsley's "Dissertations," etc.; but as
+we are not aware of their having been reprinted in this country, we
+select the "Institutes" of Watson as the best presentation of the views
+of "the dogmatic theologians" accessible to American readers.]
+
+[Footnote 80: Watson, "Theol. Inst," vol. i. p. 270.]
+
+[Footnote 81: Id. ib., vol. i. p. 31.]
+
+[Footnote 82: See ch. v. and vi., "On the Origin of those Truths which
+are found in the Writings and Religious Systems of the Heathen."]
+
+[Footnote 83: Ibid., vol. i. p. 274.]
+
+The same course of reasoning is pursued in regard to the idea of duty,
+and the knowledge of right and wrong. "A direct communication of the
+Divine Will was made to the primogenitors of our race," and to this
+source _alone_ we are indebted for all correct ideas of right and wrong.
+"Whatever is found pure in morals, in ancient or modern writers, may be
+traced to _indirect_ revelation."[84] Verbal instruction--tradition or
+scripture--thus becomes the source of all our moral ideas. The doctrine
+of immortality, and of a future retribution,[85] the practice of
+sacrifice--precatory and expiatory, are also ascribed to the same
+source.[86] Thus the only medium by which religious truth can possibly
+become known to the masses of mankind is _tradition_. The ultimate
+foundation on which the religious faith and the religious practices of
+universal humanity have rested, with the exception of the Jews, and the
+favored few to whom the Gospel has come, is uncertain, precarious, and
+easily corrupted tradition.
+
+[Footnote 84: Watson, "Theol. Inst.," vol. ii. p. 470.]
+
+[Footnote 85: Id. ib., vol. i. p. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 86: Id. ib., vol. i. p. 26.]
+
+The improbability, inadequacy, and incompleteness of this theory will be
+obvious from the following considerations:
+
+1. It is highly improbable that truths so important and vital to man, so
+essential to the well-being of the human race, so necessary to the
+perfect development of humanity as are the ideas of God, duty, and
+immortality, should rest on so precarious and uncertain a basis as
+tradition is admitted, even by Mr. Watson, to be.
+
+The human mind needs the idea of God to satisfy its deep moral
+necessities, and to harmonize all its powers. The perfection of humanity
+can never be secured, the destination of humanity can never be achieved,
+the purpose of God in the existence of humanity can never be
+accomplished, without the idea of God, and of the relation of man to
+God, being present to the human mind. Society needs the idea of a
+Supreme Ruler as the foundation of law and government, and as the basis
+of social order. Without it, these can not be, or be conserved.
+Intellectual creatureship, social order, human progress, are
+inconceivable and impossible without the idea of God, and of
+accountability to God. Now that truths so fundamental should, to the
+masses of men, rest on tradition _alone_, is incredible. Is there no
+known and accessible God to the outlying millions of our race who, in
+consequence of the circumstances of birth and education, which are
+beyond their control, have had no access to an oral revelation, and
+among whom the dim shadowy rays of an ancient tradition have long ago
+expired? Are the eight hundred millions of our race upon whom the light
+of Christianity has not shone unvisited by the common Father of our
+race? Has the universal Father left his "own offspring" without a single
+native power of recognizing the existence of the Divine Parent, and
+abandoned them to solitary and dreary orphanage? Could not he who gave
+to matter its properties and laws,--the properties and laws through
+whose operation he is working out his own purposes in the realm of
+nature,--could not he have also given to mind ideas and principles
+which, logically developed, would lead to recognition of a God, and of
+our duty to God, and, by these ideas and principles, have wrought out
+his sublime purposes in the realm of mind? Could not he who gave to man
+the appetency for food, and implanted in his nature the social instincts
+to preserve his physical being, have implanted in his heart a "feeling
+after God," and an instinct to worship God in order to the conservation
+of his spiritual being? How otherwise can we affirm the responsibility
+and accountability of all the race before God? Those theologians who are
+so earnest in the assertion that God has not endowed man with the native
+power of attaining the knowledge of God can not, on any principle of
+equity, show how the heathen are "without excuse" when, in involuntary
+ignorance of God, they "worship the creature instead of the Creator,"
+and violate a law of duty of which they have no possible means to attain
+the barest knowledge.
+
+2. This theory is utterly inadequate to the explanation of the
+_universality_ of religious rites, and especially of religious ideas.
+
+Take, for example, the idea of God. As a matter of fact we affirm, in
+opposition to Watson, the universality of this idea. The idea of God is
+connatural to the human mind. Wherever human reason has had its normal
+and healthy development[87], this idea has arisen spontaneously and
+necessarily. There has not been found a race of men who were utterly
+destitute of some knowledge of a Supreme Being. All the instances
+alleged have, on further and more accurate inquiry, been found
+incorrect. The tendency of the last century, arbitrarily to quadrate all
+the facts of religious history with the prevalent sensational
+philosophy, had its influence upon the minds of the first missionaries
+to India, China, Africa, Australia, and the islands of the Pacific. They
+_expected_ to find that the heathen had no knowledge of a Supreme Being,
+and before they had mastered the idioms of their language, or become
+familiar with their mythological and cosmological systems, they reported
+them as _utterly ignorant of God_, destitute of the idea and even the
+name of a Supreme Being. These mistaken and hasty conclusions have,
+however, been corrected by a more intimate acquaintance with the people,
+their languages and religions. Even in the absence of any better
+information, we should be constrained to doubt the accuracy of the
+authorities quoted by Mr. Watson in relation to Hindooism, when by one
+(Ward) we are told that the Hindoo "believes in a God destitute of
+_intelligence_" and by another (Moore) that "Brahm is the one eternal
+_Mind_, the self-existent, incomprehensible Spirit". Learned and
+trustworthy critics, Asiatic as well as European, however, confidently
+affirm that "the ground of the Brahminical faith is Monotheistic;" it
+recognizes "an Absolute and Supreme Being" as the source of all that
+exists.[88] Eugene Burnouf, M. Barth�lemy Saint-Hilaire, Koeppen, and
+indeed nearly all who have written on the subject of Buddhism, have
+shown that the metaphysical doctrines of Buddha were borrowed from the
+earlier systems of the Brahminic philosophy. "Buddha." we are told, is
+"_pure intelligence_" "_clear light_", "_perfect wisdom_;" the same as
+Brahm. This is surely Theism in its highest conception.[89] In regard to
+the peoples of South Africa, Dr. Livingstone assures us "there is no
+need for beginning to tell even the most degraded of these people of the
+existence of a God, or of a future state--the facts being universally
+admitted.... On questioning intelligent men among the Backwains as to
+their former knowledge of good and evil, of God, and of a future state,
+they have scouted the idea of any of them ever having been without a
+tolerably clear conception on all these subjects."[90] And so far from
+the New Hollanders having no idea of a Supreme Being, we are assured by
+E. Stone Parker, the protector of the aborigines of New Holland, they
+have a clear and well-defined idea of a "_Great Spirit_," the maker of
+all things.
+
+[Footnote 87: Watson, "Theol. Inst.," vol. i. p. 46.]
+
+[Footnote 88: Maurice, "Religions of the World," p. 59: _Edin.
+Review_,1862, art "Recent Researches on Buddhism." See also M�ller's
+"Chips from a German Workshop," vol. i. ch. i. to vi.]
+
+[Footnote 89: "It has been said that Buddha and Kapila were both
+atheists, and that Buddha borrowed his atheism from Kapila. But atheism
+is an indefinite term, and may mean very different things. In one sense
+every Indian philosopher was an atheist, for they all perceived that the
+gods of the populace could not claim the attributes that belong to a
+Supreme Being. But all the important philosophical systems of the
+Brahmans admit, in some form or another, the existence of an Absolute
+and Supreme Being, the source of all that exists, or seems to
+exist."--M�ller, "Chips from a German Workshop," vol. i. pp. 224,5.
+
+Buddha, which means "intelligence," "clear light," "perfect wisdom," was
+not only the name of the founder of the religion of Eastern Asia, but
+Adi Buddha was the name of the Absolute, Eternal Intelligence.--Maurice,
+"Religions of the World," p. 102.]
+
+[Footnote 90: "Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa," p.
+158.]
+
+Now had the idea of God rested _solely_ on tradition, it were the most
+natural probability that it might be lost, nay, _must_ be lost, amongst
+those races of men who were geographically and chronologically far
+removed from the primitive cradle of humanity in the East. The people
+who, in their migrations, had wandered to the remotest parts of the
+earth, and had become isolated from the rest of mankind, might, after
+the lapse of ages, be expected to lose the idea of God, if it were not a
+spontaneous and native intuition of the mind,--a necessity of thought. A
+fact of history must be presumed to stick to the mind with much greater
+tenacity than a purely rational idea which has no visible symbol in the
+sensible world, and yet, even in regard to the events of history, the
+persistence and pertinacity of tradition is exceedingly feeble. The
+South Sea Islanders know not from whence, or at what time, their
+ancestors came. There are monuments in Tonga and Fiji of which the
+present inhabitants can give no account. How, then, can a pure, abstract
+idea which can have no sensible representation, no visible image, retain
+its hold upon the memory of humanity for thousands of years? The Fijian
+may not remember whence his immediate ancestors came, but he knows that
+the race came originally from the hands of the Creator. He can not tell
+who built the monuments of solid masonry which are found in his
+island-home, but he can tell who reared the everlasting hills and built
+the universe. He may not know who reigned in Vewa a hundred years ago,
+but he knows who now reigns, and has always reigned, over the whole
+earth. "The idea of a God is familiar to the Fijian, and the existence
+of an invisible superhuman power controlling and influencing nature, and
+all earthly things, is fully recognized by him."[91] The idea of God is
+a common fact of human consciousness, and tradition alone is manifestly
+inadequate to account for its _universality_.
+
+[Footnote 91: "Fiji and the Fijians," p. 215.]
+
+3. A verbal revelation would be inadequate to convey the knowledge of
+God to an intelligence "_purely passive_" and utterly unfurnished with
+any _� priori_ ideas or necessary laws of cognition and thought.
+
+Of course it is not denied that important verbal communications relating
+to the character of God, and the duties we owe to God, were given to the
+first human pair, more clear and definite, it may be, than any knowledge
+attained by Socrates and Plato through their dialectic processes, and
+that these oral revelations were successively repeated and enlarged to
+the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament church. And
+furthermore, that some rays of light proceeding from this pure fountain
+of truth were diffused, and are still lingering among the heathen
+nations, we have no desire, and no need to deny.
+
+All this, however, supposes, at least, a natural power and aptitude for
+the knowledge of God, and some configuration and correlation of the
+human intelligence to the Divine. "We have no knowledge of a dynamic
+influence, spiritual or natural, without a dynamic reaction." Matter can
+not be moved and controlled by forces and laws, unless it have
+properties which correlate it with those forces and laws. And mind can
+not be determined from without to any specific form of cognition, unless
+it have active powers of apprehension and conception which are governed
+by uniform laws. The "material" of thought may be supplied from without,
+but the "form" is determined by the necessary laws of our inward being.
+All our cognition of the external world is conditioned by the _� priori_
+ideas of time and space, and all our thinking is governed by the
+principles of causality and substance, and the law of "sufficient
+reason." The mind itself supplies an element of knowledge in all our
+cognitions. Man can not be taught the knowledge of God if he be not
+naturally possessed of a presentiment, or an apperception of a God, as
+the cause and reason of the universe. "If education be not already
+preceded by an innate consciousness of God, as an operative
+predisposition, there would be nothing for education and culture to act
+upon."[92] A mere verbal revelation can not communicate the knowledge of
+God, if man have not already the idea of a God in his mind. A name is a
+mere empty sign, a meaningless symbol, without a mental image of the
+object which it represents, or an innate perception, or an abstract
+conception of the mind, of which the word is the sign. The mental image
+or the abstract conception must, therefore, precede the name; cognition
+must be anterior to, and give the meaning of language.[93] The child
+knows a thing even before it can speak its name. And, universally, we
+must know the _thing_ in itself, or image it by analogies and
+resemblances to some other thing we do know, before the name can have
+any meaning for us. As to purely rational ideas and abstract
+conceptions,--as space, cause, the infinite, the perfect,--language can
+never convey these to the mind, nor can the mind ever attain them by
+experience if they are not an original, connate part of our mental
+equipment and furniture. The mere verbal affirmation "there is a God"
+made to one who has no idea of a God, would be meaningless and
+unintelligible. What notion can a man form of "the First Cause" if the
+principle of causality is not inherent in his mind? What conception can
+he form of "the Infinite Mind" if the infinite be not a primitive
+intuition? How can he conceive of "a Righteous Governor" if he have no
+idea of right, no sense of obligation, no apprehension of a retribution?
+Words are empty sounds without ideas, and God is a mere name if the mind
+has no apperception of a God.
+
+[Footnote 92: Nitzsch, "System of Christian Doctrine," p. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 93: "Ideas must pre-exist their sensible signs." See De
+Boismont on "Hallucination," etc., p. iii.]
+
+It may be affirmed that, preceding or accompanying the announcement of
+the Divine Name, there was given to the first human pair, and to the
+early fathers of our race, some visible manifestation of the presence of
+God, and some supernatural display of divine power. What, then, was the
+character of these early manifestations, and were they adequate to
+convey the proper idea of God? Did God first reveal himself in human
+form, and if so, how could their conception of God advance beyond a rude
+anthropomorphism? Did he reveal his presence in a vast columnar cloud or
+a pillar of fire? How could such an image convey any conception of the
+intelligence, the omnipresence, the eternity of God? Nay, can the
+infinite and eternal Mind be represented by any visible manifestation?
+Can the human mind conceive an image of God? The knowledge of God, it is
+clear, can not be conveyed by any sensible sign or symbol if man has no
+prior rational idea of God as the Infinite and the Perfect Being.
+
+If the facts of order, and design, and special adaptation which crowd
+the universe, and the _� priori_ ideas of an unconditioned Cause and an
+infinite Intelligence which arise in the mind in presence of these
+facts, are inadequate to produce the logical conviction that it is the
+work of an intelligent mind, how can any preternatural display of
+_power_ produce a rational conviction that God exists? "If the universe
+could come by chance or fate, surely all the lesser phenomena, termed
+miraculous, might occur so too."[94] If we find ourselves standing amid
+an eternal series of events, may not miracles be a part of that series?
+Or if all things are the result of necessary and unchangeable laws, may
+not miracles also result from some natural or psychological law of which
+we are yet in ignorance? Let it be granted that man is _not_ so
+constituted that, by the necessary laws of his intelligence, he must
+affirm that facts of order having a commencement in time prove mind; let
+it be granted that man has _no_ intuitive belief in the Infinite and
+Perfect--in short, no idea of God; how, then, could a marvellous display
+of _power_, a new, peculiar, and startling phenomenon which even seemed
+to transcend nature, prove to him the existence of an infinite
+_intelligence_--a personal God? The proof would be simply inadequate,
+because not the right kind of proof. Power does not indicate
+intelligence, force does not imply personality.
+
+[Footnote 94: Morell, "Hist. of Philos." p. 737.]
+
+Miracles, in short, were never intended to prove the existence of God.
+The foundation of this truth had already been laid in the constitution
+and laws of the human mind, and miracles were designed to convince us
+that He of whose existence we had a prior certainty, spoke to us by His
+Messenger, and in this way attested his credentials. To the man who has
+a rational belief in the existence of God this evidence of a divine
+mission is at once appropriate and conclusive. "Master, we know thou art
+a teacher sent from God; for no man can do the works which thou doest,
+except God be with him." The Christian missionary does not commence his
+instruction to the heathen, who have an imperfect, or even erroneous
+conception of "the Great Spirit," by narrating the miracles of Christ,
+or quoting the testimony of the Divine Book he carries along with him.
+He points to the heavens and the earth, and says, "There is a Being who
+made all these things, and Jehovah is his name; I have come to you with
+a message from Him!" Or he need scarce do even so much; for already the
+heathen, in view of the order and beauty which pervades the universe,
+has been constrained, by the laws of his own intelligence, to believe in
+and offer worship to the "Agnostos Theos"--the unseen and
+incomprehensible God; and pointing to their altars, he may announce with
+Paul, "this God _whom ye worship_, though ignorantly, him declare I unto
+you!"
+
+The results of our study of the various hypotheses which have been
+offered in explanation of the religious phenomena of the world may be
+summed up as follows: The first and second theories we have rejected as
+utterly false. Instead of being faithful to and adequately explaining
+the facts, they pervert, and maltreat, and distort the facts of
+religious history. The last three each contain a precious element of
+truth which must not be undervalued, and which can not be omitted in an
+explanation which can be pronounced complete. Each theory, taken by
+itself, is incomplete and inadequate. The third hypothesis overrates
+_feeling_; the fourth, _reason_; the fifth, _verbal instruction_. The
+first extreme is Mysticism, the second is Rationalism, the last is
+Dogmatism. Reason, feeling, and faith in testimony must be combined, and
+mutually condition each other. No purely rationalistic hypothesis will
+meet and satisfy the wants and yearnings of the heart. No theory based
+on feeling alone can satisfy the demands of the human intellect. And,
+finally, an hypothesis which bases all religion upon historical
+testimony and outward fact, and despises and tramples upon the
+intuitions of the reason and the instincts of the heart can never
+command the general faith of mankind. Religion embraces and
+conditionates the whole sphere of life--thought, feeling, faith, and
+action; it must therefore be grounded in the entire spiritual nature of
+man.
+
+Our criticism of opposite theories has thus prepared the way for, and
+obviated the necessity of an extended discussion of the hypothesis we
+now advance.
+
+_The universal phenomenon of religion has originated in the � priori
+apperceptions of reason, and the natural instinctive feelings of the
+heart, which, from age to age, have been vitalized, unfolded, and
+perfected by supernatural communications and testamentary revelations_.
+
+There are universal facts of religious history which can only be
+explained on the first principle of this hypothesis; there are special
+facts which can only be explained on the latter principle. The universal
+prevalence of the idea of God, and the feeling of obligation to obey and
+worship God, belong to the first order of facts; the general prevalence
+of expiatory sacrifices, of the rite of circumcision, and the observance
+of sacred and holy days, belong to the latter. To the last class of
+facts the observance of the Christian Sabbath, and the rites of Baptism
+and the Lord's Supper may be added.
+
+The history of all religions clearly attests that there are two orders
+of principles--the _natural_ and the _positive_, and, in some measure,
+two authorities of religious life which are intimately related without
+negativing each other. The characteristic of the natural is that it is
+_intrinsic_, of the positive, that it is _extrinsic_. In all ages men
+have sought the authority of the positive in that which is immediately
+_beyond_ and above man--in some "voice of the Divinity" toning down the
+stream of ages, or speaking through a prophet or oracle, or written in
+some inspired and sacred book. They have sought for the authority of the
+natural in that which is immediately _within_ man--the voice of the
+Divinity speaking in the conscience and heart of man. A careful study of
+the history of religion will show a reciprocal relation between the two,
+and indicate their common source.
+
+We expect to find that our hypothesis will be abundantly sustained by
+the study of the _Religion of the Athenians_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE RELIGION OF THE ATHENIANS.
+
+
+"All things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness in religion
+(deisidaimonesterous). For as I passed through your city, and beheld the
+objects of your worship, I found amongst them an altar with this
+inscription--'TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.' Whom therefore ye worship...."--ST.
+PAUL.
+
+Through one of those remarkable counter-strokes of Divine Providence by
+which the evil designs of men are overruled, and made to subserve the
+purposes of God, the Apostle Paul was brought to Athens. He walked
+beneath its stately porticoes, he entered its solemn temples, he stood
+before its glorious statuary, he viewed its beautiful altars--all
+devoted to pagan worship. And "his spirit was stirred within him," he
+was moved with indignation "when he saw the city full of images of the
+gods."[95] At the very entrance of the city he met the evidence of this
+peculiar tendency of the Athenians to multiply the objects of their
+devotion; for here at the gateway stands an image of Neptune, seated on
+horseback, and brandishing the trident. Passing through the gate, his
+attention would be immediately arrested by the sculptured forms of
+Minerva, Jupiter, Apollo, Mercury, and the Muses, standing near a
+sanctuary of Bacchus. A long street is now before him, with temples,
+statues, and altars crowded on either hand. Walking to the end of this
+street, and turning to the right, he entered the Agora, a public square
+surrounded with porticoes and temples, which were adorned with statuary
+and paintings in honor of the gods of Grecian mythology. Amid the
+plane-trees planted by the hand of Cimon are the statues of the deified
+heroes of Athens, Hercules and Theseus, and the whole series of the
+Eponymi, together with the memorials of the older divinities; Mercuries
+which gave the name to the streets on which they were placed; statues
+dedicated to Apollo as patron of the city and her deliverer from the
+plague; and in the centre of all the altar of the Twelve Gods.
+
+[Footnote 95: Lange's Commentary, Acts xvii. 16.]
+
+Standing in the market-place, and looking up to the Areopagus, Paul
+would see the temple of Mars, from whom the hill derived its name. And
+turning toward the Acropolis, he would behold, closing the long
+perspective, a series of little sanctuaries on the very ledges of the
+rocks, shrines of Bacchus and �sculapius, Venus, Earth, and Ceres,
+ending with the lovely form of the Temple of Unwinged Victory, which
+glittered in front of the Propyl�a.
+
+If the apostle entered the "fivefold gates," and ascended the flight of
+stone steps to the platform of the Acropolis, he would find the whole
+area one grand composition of architecture and statuary dedicated to the
+worship of the gods. Here stood the Parthenon, the Virgin House, the
+glorious temple which was erected during the proudest days of Athenian
+glory, an entire offering to Minerva, the tutelary divinity of Athens.
+Within was the colossal statue of the goddess wrought in ivory and gold.
+Outside the temple there stood another statue of Minerva, cast from the
+brazen spoils of Marathon; and near by yet another brazen Pallas, which
+was called by pre-eminence "the Beautiful."
+
+Indeed, to whatever part of Athens the apostle wandered, he would meet
+the evidences of their "carefulness in religion," for every public place
+and every public building was a sanctuary of some god. The Metroum, or
+record-house, was a temple to the mother of the gods. The council-house
+held statues of Apollo and Jupiter, with an altar to Vesta. The theatre
+at the base of the Acropolis was consecrated to Bacchus. The Pnyx was
+dedicated to Jupiter on high. And as if, in this direction, the Attic
+imagination knew no bounds, abstractions were deified; altars were
+erected to Fame, to Energy, to Modesty, and even to Pity, and these
+abstractions were honored and worshipped as gods.
+
+The impression made upon the mind of Paul was, that the city was
+literally "full of idols," or images of the gods. This impression is
+sustained by the testimony of numerous Greek and Roman writers.
+Pausanias declares that Athens "had more images than all the rest of
+Greece;" and Petronius, the Roman satirist, says, "it was easier to find
+a god in Athens than a man."[96]
+
+[Footnote 96: See Conybeare and Howson's "Life and Epistles of St.
+Paul;" also, art. "Athens," in _Encyclop�dia Britannica_, whence our
+account of the "sacred objects" in Athens is chiefly gathered.]
+
+No wonder, then, that as Paul wandered amid these scenes "his spirit was
+stirred in him." He burned with holy zeal to maintain the honor of the
+true and only God, whom now he saw dishonored on every side. He was
+filled with compassion for those Athenians who, notwithstanding their
+intellectual greatness, had changed the glory of God into an image made
+in the likeness of corruptible man, and who really worshipped the
+creature _more_ than the Creator. The images intended to symbolize the
+invisible perfections of God were usurping the place of God, and
+receiving the worship due alone to him. We may presume the apostle was
+not insensible to the beauties of Grecian art. The sublime architecture
+of the Propyl�a and the Parthenon, the magnificent sculpture of Phidias
+and Praxiteles, could not fail to excite his wonder. But he remembered
+that those superb temples and this glorious statuary were the creation
+of the pagan spirit, and devoted to polytheistic worship. The glory of
+the supreme God was obscured by all this symbolism. The creatures formed
+by God, the symbols of his power and presence in nature, the ministers
+of his providence and moral government, were receiving the honor due to
+him. Over all this scene of material beauty and �sthetic perfection
+there rose in dark and hideous proportions the errors and delusions and
+sins against the living God which Polytheism nurtured, and unable any
+longer to restrain himself, he commenced to "reason" with the crowds of
+Athenians who stood beneath the shadows of the plane-trees, or lounged
+beneath the porticoes that surrounded the Agora. Among these groups of
+idlers were mingled the disciples of Zeno and Epicurus, who
+"encountered" Paul. The nature of these "disputations" may be easily
+conjectured, The opinions of these philosophers are even now familiarly
+known: they are, in one form or another, current in the literature of
+modern times. Materialism and Pantheism still "encounter" Christianity.
+The apostle asserted the personal being and spirituality of one supreme
+and only God, who has in divers ways revealed himself to man, and
+therefore may be "known." He proclaimed that Jesus is the fullest and
+most perfect revelation of God--the _only_ "manifestation of God in the
+flesh." He pointed to his "resurrection" as the proof of his superhuman
+character and mission to the world. Some of his hearers were disposed to
+treat him with contempt; they represented him as an ignorant "babbler,"
+who had picked up a few scraps of learning, and who now sought to palm
+them off as a "new" philosophy. But most of them regarded him with that
+peculiar Attic curiosity which was always anxious to be hearing some
+"new thing." So they led him away from the tumult of the market-place to
+the top of Mars' Hill, where, in its serene atmosphere, they might hear
+him more carefully, and said, "May we hear what this new doctrine is
+whereof thou speakest?"
+
+Surrounded by these men of thoughtful, philosophic mind--men who had
+deeply pondered the great problem of existence, who had earnestly
+inquired after the "first principles of things;" men who had reasoned
+high of creation, fate, and providence; of right and wrong; of
+conscience, law, and retribution; and had formed strong and decided
+opinions on all these questions--he delivered his discourse on the
+_being_, the _providence_, the _spirituality_, and the _moral
+government_ of God.
+
+This grand theme was suggested by an inscription he had observed on one
+of the altars of the city, which was dedicated "To the Unknown God." "Ye
+men of Athens! every thing which I behold bears witness to your
+_carefulness in religion_. For as I passed by and beheld your sacred
+objects I found an altar with this inscription, 'To the Unknown God;'
+whom, therefore, ye worship, though ye know him not [adequately], Him
+declare I unto you." Starting from this point, the manifest carefulness
+of the Athenians in religion, and accepting this inscription as the
+evidence that they had some presentiment, some native intuition, some
+dim conception of the one true and living God, he strives to lead them
+to a deeper knowledge of Him. It is here conceded by the apostle that
+the Athenians were a _religious people_. The observations he had made
+during his short stay in Athens enabled him to bear witness that the
+Athenians were "a God-fearing people,"[97] and he felt that fairness and
+candor demanded that this trait should receive from him an ample
+recognition and a full acknowledgment. Accordingly he commences by
+saying in gentle terms, well fitted to conciliate his audience, "All
+things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness in religion." I
+recognize you as most devout; ye appear to me to be a God-fearing
+people,[98] for as I passed by and beheld your sacred objects I found an
+altar with this inscription, "To the Unknown God," whom therefore ye
+worship.
+
+[Footnote 97: Lange's Commentary, _in loco_.]
+
+[Footnote 98: "�s before deisid.--so imports. I recognize you as
+such."--Lange's Commentary.]
+
+The assertion that the Athenians were "a religious people" will, to many
+of our readers, appear a strange and startling utterance, which has in
+it more of novelty than truth. Nay, some will be shocked to hear the
+Apostle Paul described as complimenting these Athenians--these pagan
+worshippers--on their "carefulness in religion." We have been so long
+accustomed to use the word "heathen" as an opprobrious
+epithet--expressing, indeed, the utmost extremes of ignorance, and
+barbarism, and cruelty, that it has become difficult for us to believe
+that in a heathen there can be any good.
+
+From our childhood we have read in our English Bibles, Ye men of Athens,
+I perceive in all things ye are _too superstitious_ and we can scarcely
+tolerate another version, even if it can be shown that it approaches
+nearer to the actual language employed by Paul. We must, therefore, ask
+the patience and candor of the reader, while we endeavor to show, on the
+authority of Paul's words, that the Athenians were a "religious people,"
+and that all our notions to the contrary are founded on prejudice and
+misapprehension.
+
+First, then, let us commence even with our English version: "Ye men of
+Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are _too superstitious_." And
+what now is the meaning of the word "superstition?" It is true, we now
+use it only in an evil sense, to express a belief in the agency of
+invisible, capricious, malignant powers, which fills the mind with fear
+and terror, and sees in every unexplained phenomenon of nature an omen,
+or prognostic, of some future evil. But this is not its proper and
+original meaning. Superstition is from the Latin _superstitio_, which
+means a superabundance of religion,[99] an extreme exactitude in
+religious observance. And this is precisely the sense in which the
+corresponding Greek term is used by the Apostle Paul. Deisidaimonia
+properly means "reverence for the gods." "It is used," says Barnes, "in
+the classic writers, in a good sense, to denote piety towards the gods,
+or suitable fear and reverence for them." "The word," says Lechler, "is,
+without doubt, to be understood here in a good sense; although it seems
+to have been intentionally chosen, in order to indicate the conception
+of _fear_(deid�), which predominated in the religion of the apostle's
+hearers."[100] This reading is sustained by the ablest critics and
+scholars of modern times. Bengel reads the sentence, "I perceive that ye
+are _very religious_"[101] Cudworth translates it thus: "Ye are every
+way _more than ordinarily religious."[102]_ Conybeare and Howson read
+the text as we have already given it, "All things which I behold bear
+witness to your _carefulness in religion_."[103] Lechler reads "very
+devout;"[104] Alford, "carrying your _religious reverence very
+far_;"[105] and Albert Barnes,[106] "I perceive ye are greatly devoted
+to _reverence for religion_."[107] Whoever, therefore, will give
+attention to the actual words of the apostle, and search for their real
+meaning, must be convinced he opens his address by complimenting the
+Athenians on their being more than ordinarily religious.
+
+[Footnote 99: Nitzsch, "System of Christ. Doctrine," p. 33.]
+
+[Footnote 100: Lange's Commentary, _in loco_.]
+
+[Footnote 101: "Gnomon of the New Testament."]
+
+[Footnote 102: "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 626.]
+
+[Footnote 103: "Life and Epistles of St. Paul," vol. i. p. 378.]
+
+[Footnote 104: Lange's Commentary.]
+
+[Footnote 105: Greek Test.]
+
+[Footnote 106: Notes on Acts.]
+
+[Footnote 107: Also Clarke's Comment., _in loco_.]
+
+Nor are we for a moment to suppose the apostle is here dealing in hollow
+compliments, or having recourse to a "pious fraud." Such a course would
+have been altogether out of character with Paul, and to suppose him
+capable of pursuing such a course is to do him great injustice. If "to
+the Jews he became as a Jew," it was because he recognized in Judaism
+the same fundamental truths which underlie the Christian system. And if
+here he seems to become, in any sense, at one with "heathenism," that he
+might gain the heathen to the faith of Christ, it was because he found
+in heathenism some elements of truth akin to Christianity, and a state
+of feeling favorable to an inquiry into the truths he had to present. He
+beheld in Athens an altar reared to the God _he_ worshipped, and it
+afforded him some pleasure to find that God was not totally forgotten,
+and his worship totally neglected, by the Athenians. The God whom they
+knew imperfectly, "_Him_" said he, "I declare unto you;" I now desire to
+make him more fully known. The worship of "the Unknown God" was a
+recognition of the being of a God whose nature transcends all human
+thought, a God who is ineffable; who, as Plato said, "is hard to be
+discovered, and having discovered him, to make him known to all,
+impossible."[108] It is the confession of a _want_ of knowledge, the
+expression of a _desire_ to know, the acknowledgment of the _duty_ of
+worshipping him. Underlying all the forms of idol-worship the eye of
+Paul recognized an influential Theism. Deep down in the pagan heart he
+discovered a "feeling after God"--a yearning for a deeper knowledge of
+the "unknown," the invisible, the incomprehensible, which he could not
+despise or disregard. The mysterious _sentiments_ of fear, of reverence,
+of conscious dependence on a supernatural power and presence
+overshadowing man, which were expressed in the symbolism of the "sacred
+objects" which Paul saw everywhere in Athens, commanded his respect. And
+he alludes to their "devotions," not in the language of reproach or
+censure, but as furnishing to his own mind the evidence of the strength
+of their _religious instincts_, and the proof of the existence in their
+hearts of that _native apprehension_ of the supernatural, the divine,
+which dwells alike in all human souls.
+
+[Footnote 108: Tim�us, ch. ix.]
+
+The case of the Athenians has, therefore, a peculiar interest to every
+thoughtful mind. It confirms the belief that religion is a necessity to
+every human mind, a want of every human heart.[109] Without religion,
+the nature of man can never be properly developed; the noblest part of
+man--the divine, the spiritual element which dwells in man, as "the
+offspring of God"--must remain utterly dwarfed. The spirit, the personal
+being, the rational nature, is religious, and Atheism is the vain and
+the wicked attempt to be something less than man. If the spiritual
+nature of man has its normal and healthy development, he must become a
+worshipper. This is attested by the universal history of man. We look
+down the long-drawn aisles of antiquity, and everywhere we behold the
+smoking altar, the ascending incense, the prostrate form, the attitude
+of devotion. Athens, with her four thousand deities--Rome, with her
+crowded Pantheon of gods--Egypt, with her degrading
+superstitions--Hindostan, with her horrid and revolting rites--all
+attest that the religious principle is deeply seated in the nature of
+man. And we are sure religion can never be robbed of her supremacy, she
+can never be dethroned in the hearts of men. It were easier to satisfy
+the cravings of hunger by logical syllogisms, than to satisfy the
+yearnings of the human heart without religion. The attempt of Xerxes to
+bind the rushing floods of the Hellespont in chains was not more futile
+nor more impotent than the attempt of skepticism to repress the
+universal tendency to worship, so peculiar and so natural to man in
+every age and clime.
+
+[Footnote 109: The indispensable necessity for a religion of some kind
+to satisfy the emotional nature of man is tacitly confessed by the
+atheist Comte in the publication of his "Catechism of Positive
+Religion."]
+
+The unwillingness of many to recognize a religious element in the
+Athenian mind is further accounted for by their misconception of the
+meaning of the word "religion." We are all too much accustomed to regard
+religion as a mere system of dogmatic teaching. We use the terms
+"Christian religion," "Jewish religion," "Mohammedan religion," as
+comprehending simply the characteristic doctrines by which each is
+distinguished; whereas religion is a mode of thought, and feeling, and
+action, determined by the consciousness of our relation to and our
+dependence upon God. It does not appropriate to itself any specific
+department of our mental powers and susceptibilities, but it conditions
+the entire functions and circle of our spiritual life. It is not simply
+a mode of conceiving God in thought, nor simply a mode of venerating God
+in the affections, nor yet simply a mode of worshipping God in outward
+and formal acts, but it comprehends the whole. Religion (_religere_,
+respect, awe, reverence) regulates our thoughts, feelings, and acts
+towards God. "It is a reference and a relationship of our finite
+consciousness to the Creator and Sustainer and Governor of the
+universe." It is such a consciousness of the Divine as shall awaken in
+the heart of man the sentiments of reverence, fear, and gratitude
+towards God; such a sense of dependence as shall prompt man to pray, and
+lead him to perform external acts of worship.
+
+Religion does not, therefore, consist exclusively in knowledge, however
+correct; and yet it must be preceded and accompanied by some intuitive
+cognition of a Supreme Being, and some conception of him as a free moral
+personality. But the religious sentiments, which belong rather to the
+heart than to the understanding of man--the consciousness of dependence,
+the sense of obligation, the feeling of reverence, the instinct to pray,
+the appetency to worship--these may all exist and be largely developed
+in a human mind even when, as in the case of the Athenians, there is a
+very imperfect knowledge of the real character of God.
+
+Regarding this, then, as the generic conception of religion, namely,
+_that it is a mode of thought and feeling and action determined by our
+consciousness of dependence on a Supreme Being_, we claim that the
+apostle was perfectly right in complimenting the Athenians on their
+"more than ordinary religiousness," for,
+
+1. They had, in some degree at least, that faith in the being and
+providence of God which precedes and accompanies all religion.
+
+They had erected an altar to the unseen, the unsearchable, the
+incomprehensible, the unknown God. And this "unknown God" whom the
+Athenians "worshipped" was the true God, the God whom Paul worshipped,
+and whom he desired more fully to reveal to them; "_Him_ declare I unto
+you." The Athenians had, therefore, some knowledge of the true God, some
+dim recognition, at least, of his being, and some conception, however
+imperfect, of his character. The Deity to whom the Athenians reared this
+altar is called "the unknown God," because he is unseen by all human
+eyes and incomprehensible to human thought. There is a sense in which to
+Paul, as well as to the Athenians--to the Christian as well as to the
+pagan--to the philosopher as well as to the peasant--God is "_the
+unknown_," and in which he must forever remain the incomprehensible.
+This has been confessed by all thoughtful minds in every age. It was
+confessed by Plato. To his mind God is "the ineffable," the unspeakable.
+Zophar, the friend of Job, asks, "Canst thou by searching find out God?
+Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?" This knowledge is "high
+as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?"
+Does not Wesley teach us to sing,
+
+                 "Hail, Father, whose creating call
+                    Unnumbered worlds attend;
+                  Jehovah, comprehending all,
+                    Whom none can comprehend?"
+
+To his mind, as well as to the mind of the Athenian, God was "the great
+unseen, unknown." "Beyond the universe and man," says Cousin, "there
+remains in God something unknown, impenetrable, incomprehensible. Hence,
+in the immeasurable spaces of the universe, and beneath all the
+profundities of the human soul, God escapes us in this inexhaustible
+infinitude, whence he is able to draw without limit new worlds, new
+beings, new manifestations. God is therefore to us
+_incomprehensible_."[110] And without making ourselves in the least
+responsible for Hamilton's "negative" doctrine of the Infinite, or even
+responsible for the full import of his words, we may quote his
+remarkable utterances on this subject: "The Divinity is in part
+concealed and in part revealed. He is at once known and unknown. But the
+last and highest consecration of all true religion must be an altar 'to
+the unknown God.' In this consummation nature and religion, Paganism and
+Christianity, are at one."[111]
+
+[Footnote 110: "Lectures," vol. i. p. 104.]
+
+[Footnote 111: "Discussions on Philosophy," p. 23.]
+
+When, therefore, the apostle affirms that while the Athenians worshipped
+the God whom he proclaimed they "knew him not," we can not understand
+him as saying they were destitute of all faith in the being of God, and
+of all ideas of his real character. Because for him to have asserted
+they had _no_ knowledge of God would not only have been contrary to all
+the facts of the case, but also an utter contradiction of all his
+settled convictions and his recorded opinions. There is not in modern
+times a more earnest asserter of the doctrine that the human mind has an
+intuitive cognition of God, and that the external world reveals God to
+man. There is a passage in his letter to the Romans which is justly
+entitled to stand at the head of all discourses on "natural theology,"
+Rom. i. 19-21. Speaking of the heathen world, who had not been favored,
+as the Jews, with a verbal revelation, he says, "That which may be known
+of God is manifest _in_ them," that is, in the constitution and laws of
+their spiritual nature, "for God hath showed it unto them" in the voice
+of reason and of conscience, so that in the instincts of our hearts, in
+the elements of our moral nature, in the ideas and laws of our reason,
+we are taught the being of a God. These are the subjective teachings of
+the human soul.
+
+Not only is the being of God revealed to man in the constitution and
+laws of his rational and moral nature, but God is also manifested to us
+objectively in the realm of things around us; therefore Paul adds, "The
+invisible things of him, even his eternal power and Godhead, from the
+creation are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are
+made." The world of sense, therefore, discloses the being and
+perfections of God. The invisible attributes of God are made apparent by
+the things that are visible. Forth out of nature, as the product of the
+Divine Mind, the supernatural shines. The forces, laws, and harmonies of
+the universe are indices of the presence of a presiding and informing
+Intelligence. The creation itself is an example of God's coming forth
+out of the mysterious depths of his own eternal and invisible being, and
+making himself apparent to man. There, on the pages of the volume of
+nature, we may read, in the marvellous language of symbol, the grand
+conceptions, the glorious thoughts, the ideals of beauty which dwell in
+the uncreated Mind, These two sources of knowledge--the subjective
+teachings of God in the human soul, and the objective manifestations of
+God in the visible universe--harmonize, and, together, fill up the
+complement of our natural idea of God. They are two hemispheres of
+thought, which together form one full-orbed fountain of light, and ought
+never to be separated in our philosophy. And, inasmuch as this divine
+light shines on all human minds, and these works of God are seen by all
+human eyes, the apostle argues that the heathen world "is without
+excuse, because, knowing God (gnontes ton Theon) they did not glorify
+him as God, neither were thankful; but in their reasonings they went
+astray after vanities, and their hearts, being void of wisdom, were
+filled with darkness. Calling themselves wise, they were turned into
+fools, and changed the glory of the imperishable God for idols graven in
+the likeness of perishable man, or of birds, and beasts, and creeping
+things,...and they bartered the truth of God for lies, and reverenced
+and worshipped the things made rather than the Maker, who is blessed
+forever. Amen."[112]
+
+[Footnote 112: Rom. i. 21-25, Conybeare and Howson's translation.]
+
+The brief and elliptical report of Paul's address on Mars' Hill must
+therefore, in all fairness, be interpreted in the light of his more
+carefully elaborated statements in the Epistle to the Romans. And when
+Paul intimates that the Athenians "knew not God," we can not understand
+him as saying they had _no_ knowledge, but that their knowledge was
+imperfect. They did not know God as Creator, Father, and Ruler; above
+all, they did not know him as a pardoning God and a sanctifying Spirit.
+They had not that knowledge of God which purifies the heart, and changes
+the character, and gives its possessor eternal life.
+
+The apostle clearly and unequivocally recognizes this truth, that the
+idea of God is connatural to the human mind; that in fact there is not
+to be found a race of men upon the face of the globe utterly destitute
+of some idea of a Supreme Being. Wherever human reason has had its
+normal and healthful development, it has spontaneously and necessarily
+led the human mind to the recognition of a God. The Athenians were no
+exception to this general law. They believed in the existence of one
+supreme and eternal Mind, invisible, incomprehensible, infeffable--"the
+unknown God."
+
+2. The Athenians had also that consciousness of dependence upon God
+which is the foundation of all the primary religious emotions.
+
+When the apostle affirmed that "in God we live, and move, and have our
+being," he uttered the sentiments of many, if not all, of his hearers,
+and in support of that affirmation he could quote the words of their own
+poets, for we are also his offspring; [113] and, as his offspring, we
+have a derived and a dependent being. Indeed, this consciousness of
+dependence is analogous to the feeling which is awakened in the heart of
+a child when its parent is first manifested to its opening mind as the
+giver of those things which it immediately needs, as its continual
+protector, and as the preserver of its life. The moment a man becomes
+conscious of his own personality, that moment he becomes conscious of
+some relation to another personality, to which he is subject, and on
+which he depends.[114]
+
+[Footnote 113:
+
+           "Jove's presence fills all space, upholds this ball;
+            All need his aid; his power sustains us all,
+              _For we his offspring are_."
+                            Aratus, "The Ph�nomena," book v. p. 5.
+
+Aratus was a poet of Cilicia, Paul's native province. He flourished B.C.
+277.
+
+       "Great and divine Father, whose names are many,
+        But who art one and the same unchangeable, almighty power;
+        O thou supreme Author of nature!
+        That governest by a single unerring law!
+                      Hail King!
+        For thou art able, to enforce obedience from all frail mortals,
+        _Because we are all thine offspring,_
+        The image and the echo only of thy eternal voice."
+                                        Cleanthes, "Hymn to Jupiter."
+
+Cleanthes was the pupil of Zeno, and his successor as chief of the Stoic
+philosophers.]
+
+[Footnote 114: "As soon as a man becomes conscious of himself, as soon
+as he perceives himself as distinct from other persons and things, he at
+the same moment becomes conscious of a higher self, a higher power,
+without which he feels that neither he nor any thing else would have any
+life or reality. We are so fashioned that as soon as we awake we feel on
+all sides our dependence on something else; and all nations join in some
+way or another in the words of the Psalmist, 'It is He that made us, not
+we ourselves.' This is the first _sense_ of the Godhead, the _sensus
+numinis_, as it has well been called; for it is a _sensus_, an immediate
+perception, not the result of reasoning or generalization, but an
+intuition as irresistible as the impressions of our senses.... This
+_sensus numinis_, or, as we may call it in more homely language,
+_faith_, is the source of all religion; it is that without which no
+religion, whether true or false, is possible."--Max M�ller, "Science of
+Language," Second Series, p. 455.]
+
+A little reflection will convince us that this is the necessary order in
+which human consciousness is developed.
+
+There are at least two fundamental and radical tendencies in human
+personality, namely, to _know_ and to _act_. If we would conceive of
+them as they exist in the innermost sphere of selfhood, we must
+distinguish the first as _self-consciousness_, and the second as
+_self-determination_. These are unquestionably the two factors of human
+personality.
+
+If we consider the first of these factors more closely, we shall
+discover that self-consciousness exists under limitations and
+conditions. Man can not become clearly conscious of _self_ without
+distinguishing himself from the outer world of sensation, nor without
+distinguishing self and the world from another being upon whom they
+depend as the ultimate substance and cause. Mere _coenoeesthesis_ is not
+consciousness. Common feeling is unquestionably found among the lowest
+forms of animal life, the protozoa; but it can never rise to a clear
+consciousness of personality until it can distinguish itself from
+sensation, and acquire a presentiment of a divine power, on which self
+and the outer world depend. The _Ego_ does not exist for itself, can not
+perceive itself, but by distinguishing itself from the ceaseless flow
+and change of sensation, and by this act of distinguishing, the _Ego_
+takes place in consciousness. And the _Ego_ can not perceive itself, nor
+cognize sensation as a state or affection of the _Ego_ except by the
+intervention of the reason, which supplies the two great fundamental
+laws of causality and substance. The facts of consciousness thus
+comprehend three elements--self, nature, and God. The determinate being,
+the _Ego_, is never an absolutely independent being, but is always in
+some way or other codetermined by another; it can not, therefore, be an
+absolutely original and independent, but must in some way or another be
+a _derived_ and _conditioned_ existence.
+
+Now that which limits and conditions human self-consciousness can not be
+mere _nature_, because nature can not give what it does not possess; it
+can not produce what is _toto genere_ different from itself.
+Self-consciousness can not arise out of unconsciousness. This new
+beginning is beyond the power of nature. Personal power, the creative
+principle of all new beginnings, is alone adequate to its production.
+If, then, self-consciousness exists in man, it necessarily presupposes
+an absolutely _original_, therefore _unconditioned, self-consciousness_.
+Human self-consciousness, in its temporal actualization, of course
+presupposes a nature-basis upon which it elevates itself; but it is only
+possible on the ground that an eternal self-conscious Mind ordained and
+rules over all the processes of nature, and implants the divine spark of
+the personal spirit with the corporeal frame, to realize itself in the
+light-flame of human self-consciousness. The original light of the
+divine self-consciousness is eternally and absolutely first and before
+all. "Thus, in the depths of our own self-consciousness, as its
+concealed background, the God-consciousness reveals itself to us. This
+descent into our inmost being is at the same time an ascent to God.
+Every deep reflection on ourselves breaks through the mere crust of
+world-consciousness, which separates us from the inmost truth of our
+existence, and leads us up to Him in whom we live and move and
+are."[115]
+
+[Footnote 115: M�ller, "Christian Doctrine of Sin," vol. i. p. 81.]
+
+Self-determination, equally with self-consciousness, exists in us under
+manifold _limitations_. Self-determination is limited by physical,
+corporeal, and mental conditions, so that there is "an impassable
+boundary line drawn around the area of volitional freedom." But the most
+fundamental and original limitation is that of _duty_. The
+self-determining power of man is not only circumscribed by necessary
+conditions, but also by the _moral law_ in the consciousness of man.
+Self-determination alone does not suffice for the full conception of
+responsible freedom; it only becomes, _will_, properly by its being an
+intelligent and conscious determination; that is, the rational subject
+is able previously to recognize "the right," and present before his mind
+that which he _ought_ to do, that which he is morally bound to realize
+and actualize by his own self-determination and choice. Accordingly we
+find in our inmost being a _sense of obligation_ to obey the moral law
+as revealed in the conscience. As we can not become conscious of self
+without also becoming conscious of God, so we can not become properly
+conscious of self-determination until we have recognized in the
+conscience a law for the movements of the will.
+
+Now this moral law, as revealed in the conscience, is not a mere
+autonomy--a simple subjective law having no relation to a personal
+lawgiver out of and above man. Every admonition of conscience directly
+excites the consciousness of a God to whom man is accountable. The
+universal consciousness of our race, as revealed in history, has always
+associated the phenomena of conscience with the idea of a personal Power
+above man, to whom he is subject and upon whom he depends. In every age,
+the voice of conscience has been regarded as the voice of God, so that
+when it has filled man with guilty apprehensions, he has had recourse to
+sacrifices, and penances, and prayers to expatiate his wrath.
+
+It is clear, then, that if man has _duties_ there must he a
+self-conscious Will by whom these duties are imposed, for only a real
+will can be legislative. If man has a _sense of obligation_, there must
+be a supreme authority by which he is obliged. If he is _responsible_,
+there must be a being to whom he is accountable.[116] It can not be said
+that he is accountable to himself, for by that supposition the idea of
+duty is obliterated, and "right" becomes identical with mere interest or
+pleasure. It can not be said that he is simply responsible to
+society--to mere conventions of human opinions and human
+governments--for then "_right_" becomes a mere creature of human
+legislation, and "_justice_" is nothing but the arbitrary will of the
+strong who tyrannize over the weak. Might constitutes right. Against
+such hypotheses the human mind, however, instinctively revolts. Mankind
+feel, universally, that there is an authority beyond all human
+governments, and a higher law above all human laws, from whence all
+their powers are derived. That higher law is the Law of God, that
+supreme authority is the God of Justice. To this eternally just God,
+innocence, under oppression and wrong, has made its proud appeal, like
+that of Prometheus to the elements, to the witnessing clouds, to coming
+ages, and has been sustained and comforted. And to that higher law the
+weak have confidently appealed against the unrighteous enactments of the
+strong, and have finally conquered. The last and inmost ground of all
+obligation is thus the conscious relation of the moral creature to God.
+The sense of absolute dependence upon a Supreme Being compels man, even
+while conscious of subjective freedom, to recognize at the same time his
+obligation to determine himself in harmony with the will of Him "in whom
+we live, and move, and are."
+
+[Footnote 116: "The thought of God will wake up a terrible monitor whose
+name is Judge."--Kant.]
+
+This feeling of dependence, and this consequent sense of obligation, lie
+at the very foundation of all religion. They lead the mind towards God,
+and anchor it in the Divine. They prompt man to pray, and inspire him
+with an instinctive confidence in the efficacy of prayer. So that prayer
+is natural to man, and necessary to man. Never yet has the traveller
+found a people on earth without prayer. Races of men have been found
+without houses, without raiment, without arts and sciences, but never
+without prayer any more than without speech. Plutarch wrote, eighteen
+centuries ago, If you go through all the world, you may find cities
+without walls, without letters, without rulers, without money, without
+theatres, but never without temples and gods, or without _prayers_,
+oaths, prophecies, and sacrifices, used to obtain blessings and
+benefits, or to avert curses and calamities.[117] The naturalness of
+prayer is admitted even by the modern unbeliever. Gerrit Smith says,
+"Let us who believe that the religion of reason calls for the religion
+of nature, remember that the flow of prayer is just as natural as the
+flow of water; the prayerless man has become an unnatural man."[118] Is
+man in sorrow or in danger, his most natural and spontaneous refuge is
+in prayer. The suffering, bewildered, terror-stricken soul turns towards
+God. "Nature in an agony is no atheist; the soul that knows not where to
+fly, flies to God." And in the hour of deliverance and joy, a feeling of
+gratitude pervades the soul--and gratitude, too, not to some blind
+nature-force, to some unconscious and impersonal power, but gratitude to
+God. The soul's natural and appropriate language in the hour of
+deliverance is thanksgiving and praise.
+
+[Footnote 117: "Against Kalotes," ch. xxxi.]
+
+[Footnote 118: "Religion of Reason."]
+
+This universal tendency to recognize a superior Power upon whom we are
+dependent, and by whose hand our well-being and our destinies are
+absolutely controlled, has revealed itself even amid the most
+complicated forms of polytheistic worship. Amid the even and undisturbed
+flow of every-day life they might be satisfied with the worship of
+subordinate deities, but in the midst of sudden and unexpected
+calamities, and of terrible catastrophes, then they cried to the Supreme
+God.[119] "When alarmed by an earthquake," says Aulus Gellius, "the
+ancient Romans were accustomed to pray, not to some one of the gods
+individually, but to God in general, _as to the Unknown_."[120]
+
+[Footnote 119: "At critical moments, when the deepest feelings of the
+human heart are stirred, the old Greeks and Romans seem suddenly to have
+dropped all mythological ideas, and to have fallen back on the universal
+language of true religion."--Max M�ller, "Science of Language." p. 436.]
+
+[Footnote 120: Tholuck, "Nature and Influence of Heathenism," p. 23.]
+
+"Thus also Minutius Felix says, 'When they stretch out their hands to
+heaven they mention only God; and these forms of speech, _He is great_,
+and _God is true_, and _If God grant_(which are the natural language of
+the vulgar), are a plain confession of the truth of Christianity.' And
+also Lactantius testifies, 'When they swear, and when they wish, and
+when they give thanks, they name not many gods, but God only; the truth,
+by a secret force of nature, thus breaking forth from them whether they
+will or no;' and again he says, 'They fly to God; aid is desired of God;
+they pray that God would help them; and when one is reduced to extreme
+necessity, he begs for God's sake, and by his divine power alone
+implores the mercy of men.'"[121] The account which is given by Diogenes
+Laertius[122] of the erection of altars bearing the inscription "to the
+unknown God," clearly shows that they had their origin in this general
+sentiment of dependence on a higher Power. "The Athenians being
+afflicted with pestilence invited Epimenides to lustrate their city. The
+method adopted by him was to carry several sheep to the Areopagus,
+whence they were left to wander as they pleased, under the observation
+of persons sent to attend them. As each sheep lay down it was sacrificed
+to _the propitious God_. By this ceremony it is said the city was
+relieved; but as it was still unknown what deity was propitious, an
+altar was erected _to the unknown God_ on every spot where a sheep had
+been sacrificed."[123]
+
+[Footnote 121: Cudworth, vol. i. p. 300.]
+
+[Footnote 122: "Lives of Philosophers," book i., Epimenides.]
+
+[Footnote 123: See Townsend's "Chronological Arrangement of New
+Testament," note 19, part xii.; Doddridge's "Exposition;" and Barnes's
+"Notes on Acts."]
+
+"The unknown God" was their deliverer from the plague. And the erection
+of an altar to him was a confession of their absolute dependence upon
+him, of their obligation to worship him, as well as of their need of a
+deeper knowledge of him. The gods who were known and named were not able
+to deliver them in times of calamity, and they were compelled to look
+beyond the existing forms of Grecian mythology for relief. Beyond all
+the gods of the Olympus there was "one God over all," the Father of gods
+and men, the Creator of all the subordinate local deities, upon whom
+even these created gods were dependent, upon whom man was absolutely
+dependent, and therefore in times of deepest need, of severest
+suffering, of extremest peril, then they cried to the living, supreme,
+eternal God.[124]
+
+[Footnote 124: "The men and women of the Iliad and Odyssey are
+habitually religious. The language of religion is often on their
+tongues, as it is ever on the lips of every body in the East at this
+day. The thought of the gods, and of their providence and government of
+the world, is a familiar thought. They seem to have an abiding
+conviction of their _dependence_ on the gods. The results of all actions
+depend on the will of the gods; _it lies on their knees_ (The�n ev
+gounasi keitai, Od. i. 267), is the often repeated and significant
+expression of their feeling of dependence."--Tyler, "Theology of Greek
+Poets," p. 165.]
+
+3. The Athenians developed in a high degree those religious emotions
+which always accompany the consciousness of dependence on a Supreme
+Being.
+
+The first emotional element of all religion is _fear_. This is
+unquestionably true, whether religion be considered from a Christian or
+a heathen stand-point. "The _fear_ of the Lord is the beginning of
+wisdom." Associated with, perhaps preceding, all definite ideas of God,
+there exists in the human mind certain feelings of _awe_, and
+_reverence_, and _fear_ which arise spontaneously in presence of the
+vastness, and grandeur, and magnificence of the universe, and of the
+power and glory of which the created universe is but the symbol and
+shadow. There is the felt apprehension that, beyond and back of the
+visible and the tangible, there is a _personal, living Power_, which is
+the foundation of all, and which fashions all, and fills all with its
+light and life; that "the universe is the living vesture in which the
+Invisible has robed his mysterious loveliness." There is the feeling of
+an _overshadowing Presence_ which "compasseth man behind and before, and
+lays its hand upon him."
+
+This wonderful presentiment of an invisible power and presence pervading
+and informing all nature is beautifully described by Wordsworth in his
+history of the development of the Scottish herdsman's mind:
+
+     So the foundations of his mind were laid
+     In such communion, not from terror free.
+     While yet a child, and long before his time,
+     Had he perceived the presence and the power
+     Of greatness; and deep feelings had impressed
+     So vividly great objects, that they lay
+     Upon his mind like substances, whose presence
+     Perplexed the bodily sense.
+                        ... In the after-day
+     Of boyhood, many an hour in caves forlorn,
+     And 'mid the hollow depths of naked crags,
+     He sat, and even in their fixed lineaments,
+     Or from the power of a peculiar eye,
+     Or by creative feeling overborne,
+     Or by predominance of thought oppressed,
+     Even in their fixed and steady lineaments
+     He traced an ebbing and a flowing mind....
+     Such was the Boy,--but for the growing Youth,
+     What soul was his, when, from the naked top
+     Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun
+     Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He looked:
+     Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth
+     And ocean's liquid mass, in gladness lay
+     Beneath him; far and wide the clouds were touched.
+     And in their silent faces could he read
+     Unutterable love. Sound needed none,
+     Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank
+     The spectacle: sensation, soul, and form
+     All melted into him; they swallowed up
+     His animal being; in them did he live,
+     And by them did he live; they were his life,
+     In such access of mind, in such high hour
+     Of visitation from the living God.[125]
+
+But it may be said this is all mere poetry; to which we answer, in the
+words of Aristotle, "Poetry is a thing more philosophical and weightier
+than history."[126] The true poet is the interpreter of nature. His soul
+is in the fullest sympathy with the grand ideas which nature symbolizes,
+and he "deciphers the universe as the autobiography of the Infinite
+Spirit." Spontaneous feeling is a kind of inspiration.
+
+It is true that all minds may not be developed in precisely the same
+manner as Wordsworth's herdsman's, because the development of every
+individual mind is modified in some measure by exterior conditions. Men
+may contemplate nature from different points of view. Some may be
+impressed with one aspect of nature, some with another. But none will
+fail to recognize a mysterious _presence_ and invisible _power_ beneath
+all the fleeting and changeful phenomena of the universe. "And sometimes
+there are moments of tenderness, of sorrow, and of vague mystery which
+bring the feeling of the Infinite Presence close to the human
+heart."[127]
+
+[Footnote 125: "The Wanderer."]
+
+[Footnote 126: Poet, ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 127: Robertson.]
+
+Now we hold that _this feeling and sentiment of the Divine_--the
+supernatural--exists in every mind. It may be, it undoubtedly is,
+somewhat modified in its manifestations by the circumstances in which
+men are placed, and the degree of culture they have enjoyed. The African
+Fetichist, in his moral and intellectual debasement, conceives a
+supernatural power enshrined in every object of nature. The rude Fijian
+regards with dread, and even terror, the Being who darts the lightnings
+and wields the thunderbolts. The Indian "sees God in clouds, and hears
+him in the wind." The Scottish "herdsman" on the lonely mountain-top
+"feels the presence and the power of greatness," and "in its fixed and
+steady lineaments he sees an ebbing and a flowing mind." The
+philosopher[128] lifts his eyes to "the starry heavens" in all the depth
+of their concave, and with all their constellations of glory moving on
+in solemn grandeur, and, to his mind, these immeasurable regions seem
+"filled with the splendors of the Deity, and crowded with the monuments
+of his power;" or he turns his eye to "the Moral Law within," and he
+hears the voice of an intelligent and a righteous God. In all these
+cases we have a revelation of the sentiment of the Divine, which dwells
+alike in all human minds. In the Athenians this sentiment was developed
+in a high degree. The serene heaven which Greece enjoyed, and which was
+the best-loved roof of its inhabitants, the brilliant sun, the mountain
+scenery of unsurpassed grandeur, the deep blue sea, an image of the
+infinite, these poured all their fullness on the Athenian mind, and
+furnished the most favorable conditions for the development of the
+religious sentiments. The people of Athens spent most of their time in
+the open air in communion with nature, and in the cheerful and temperate
+enjoyment of existence. To recognize the Deity in the living powers of
+nature, and especially in man, as the highest sensible manifestation of
+the Divine, was the peculiar prerogative of the Grecian mind. And here
+in Athens, art also vied with nature to deepen the religious sentiments.
+It raised the mind to ideal conceptions of a beauty and a sublimity
+which transcended all mere nature-forms, and by images, of supernatural
+grandeur and loveliness presented to the Athenians symbolic
+representations of the separate attributes and operations of the
+invisible God. The plastic art of Greece was designed to express
+religious ideas, and was consecrated by religious feeling. Thus the
+facts of the case are strikingly in harmony with the words of the
+Apostle: "All things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness in
+religion," your "reverence for the Deity," your "fear of God."[129] "The
+sacred objects" in Athens, and especially "the altar to the Unknown
+God," were all regarded by Paul as evidences of their instinctive faith
+in the invisible, the supernatural, the divine.
+
+[Footnote 128: Kant, in "Critique of Practical Reason."]
+
+[Footnote 129: See Parkhurst's Lexicon, under _Deisidaimonia_, which
+Suidas explains by eulabeia peri to Theion--_reverence for the Divine_,
+and Hesychius by Phubutheia--_fear of God_. Also, Josephus, Antiq., book
+x. ch. iii, � 2: "Manasseh, after his repentance and reformation, strove
+to behave himself (t� deisidaimonia chr�stheia) in the _most religious
+manner_ towards God." Also see A. Clarke on Acts xvii.]
+
+Along with this sentiment of the Divine there is also associated, in all
+human minds, an _instinctive yearning_ after the Invisible; not a mere
+feeling of curiosity to pierce the mystery of being and of life, but
+what Paul designates "a feeling after God," which prompts man to seek
+after a deeper knowledge, and a more immediate consciousness. To attain
+this deeper knowledge--this more conscious realization of the being and
+the presence of God, has been the effort of all philosophy and all
+religion in all ages. The Hindoo Yogis proposes to withdraw into his
+inmost self, and by a complete suspension of all his active powers to
+become absorbed and swallowed up in the Infinite.[130] Plato and his
+followers sought by an immediate abstraction to apprehend "the
+unchangeable and permanent Being," and, by a loving contemplation, to
+become "assimilated to the Deity," and in this way to attain the
+immediate consciousness of God. The Neo-Platonic mystic sought by
+asceticism and self-mortification to prepare himself for divine
+communings. He would contemplate the divine perfections in himself; and
+in an _ecstatic_ state, wherein all individuality vanishes, he would
+realize a union, or identity, with the Divine Essence.[131] While the
+universal Church of God, indeed, has in her purest days always taught
+that man may, by inward purity and a believing love, be rendered capable
+of spiritually apprehending, and consciously feeling, the presence of
+God. Some may be disposed to pronounce this as all mere mysticism. We
+answer, The living internal energy of religion is always _mystical_, it
+is grounded in _feeling_--a "_sensus numinis_" common to humanity. It is
+the mysterious sentiment of the Divine; it is the prolepsis of the human
+spirit reaching out towards the Infinite; the living susceptibility of
+our spiritual nature stretching after the powers and influences of the
+higher world. It is upon this inner instinct of the supernatural that
+all religion rests. I do not say every religious idea, but whatever is
+positive, practical, powerful, durable, and popular. Everywhere, in all
+climates, in all epochs of history, and in all degrees of civilization,
+man is animated by the sentiment--I would rather say, the
+presentiment--that the world in which he lives, the order of things in
+the midst of which he moves, the facts which regularly and constantly
+succeed each other, are not _all_. In vain he daily makes discoveries
+and conquests in this vast universe; in vain he observes and learnedly
+verifies the general laws which govern it; _his thought is not inclosed
+in the world surrendered to his science_; the spectacle of it does not
+suffice his soul, it is raised beyond it; it searches after and catches
+glimpses of something beyond it; it aspires higher both for the universe
+and itself; it aims at another destiny, another master.
+
+[Footnote 130: Vaughan, "Hours with the Mystics," vol. i. p. 44.]
+
+[Footnote 131: Id. ib., vol. i. p. 65.]
+
+      "'Par del� tous ces cieux le Dieu des cieux r�side.'"[132]
+
+So Voltaire has said, and the God who is beyond the skies is not nature
+personified, but a supernatural Personality. It is to this highest
+Personality that all religions address themselves. It is to bring man
+into communion with Him that they exist.[133]
+
+[Footnote 132: "Beyond all these heavens the God of the heavens
+resides."]
+
+[Footnote 133: Guizot, "L'Eglise et la Societ� Chretiennes" en 1861.]
+
+4. The Athenians had that deep consciousness of sin and guilt, and of
+consequent liability to punishment, which confesses the need of
+expiation by piacular sacrifices.
+
+Every man feels himself to be an accountable being, and he is conscious
+that in wrong-doing he is deserving of blame and of punishment. Deep
+within the soul of the transgressor is the consciousness that he is a
+guilty man, and he is haunted with the perpetual apprehension of a
+retribution which, like the spectre of evil omen, crosses his every
+path, and meets him at every turn.
+
+     "'Tis guilt alone,
+       Like brain-sick frenzy in its feverish mode,
+       Fills the light air with visionary terrors,
+       And shapeless forms of fear."
+
+Man does not possess this consciousness of guilt so much as it holds
+possession of him. It pursues the fugitive from justice, and it lays
+hold on the man who has resisted or escaped the hand of the executioner.
+The sense of guilt is a power over and above man; a power so wonderful
+that it often compels the most reckless criminal to deliver himself up,
+with the confession of his deed, to the sword of justice, when a
+falsehood would have easily protected him. Man is only able by
+persevering, ever-repeated efforts at self-induration, against the
+remonstrances of conscience, to withdraw himself from its power. His
+success is, however, but very partial; for sometimes, in the moments of
+his greatest security, the reproaches of conscience break in upon him
+like a flood, and sweep away all his refuge of lies. "The evil
+conscience is the divine bond which binds the created spirit, even in
+deep apostasy, to its Original. In the consciousness of guilt there is
+revealed the essential relation of our spirit to God, although
+misunderstood by man until he has something higher than his evil
+conscience. The trouble and anguish which the remonstrances of this
+consciousness excite--the inward unrest which sometimes seizes the slave
+of sin--are proofs that he has not quite broken away from God."[134]
+
+[Footnote 134: M�ller, "Christian Doctrine of Sin," vol. i. pp. 225,
+226.]
+
+In Grecian mythology there was a very distinct recognition of the power
+of conscience, and a reference of its authority to the Divinity,
+together with the idea of retribution. Nemesis was regarded as the
+impersonation of the upbraidings of conscience, of the natural dread of
+punishment that springs up in the human heart after the commission of
+sin. And as the feeling of remorse may be considered as the consequence
+of the displeasure and vengeance of an offended God, Nemesis came to be
+regarded as the goddess of retribution, relentlessly pursuing the guilty
+until she has driven them into irretrievable woe and ruin. The Erinyes
+or Eumenides are the deities whose business it is to punish, in hades,
+the crimes committed upon earth. When an aggravated crime has excited
+their displeasure they manifest their greatest power in the disquietude
+of conscience.
+
+Along with this deep consciousness of guilt, and this fear of
+retribution which haunts the guilty mind, there has also rested upon the
+heart of universal humanity a deep and abiding conviction that
+_something must be done to expiate the guilt of sin_--some restitution
+must be made, some suffering must be endured,[135] some sacrifice
+offered to atone for past misdeeds. Hence it is that men in all ages
+have had recourse to penances and prayers, to self-inflicted tortures
+and costly sacrifices to appease a righteous anger which their sins had
+excited, and avert an impending punishment. That sacrifice to atone for
+sin has prevailed universally--that it has been practised "_sem-per,
+ubique, et ab omnibus,_" always, in all places, and by all men--will not
+be denied by the candid and competent inquirer. The evidence which has
+been collected from ancient history by Grotius and Magee, and the
+additional evidence from contemporaneous history, which is being now
+furnished by the researches of ethnologists and Christian missionaries,
+is conclusive. No intelligent man can doubt the fact. Sacrificial
+offerings have prevailed in every nation and in every age. "Almost the
+entire worship of the pagan nations consisted in rites of deprecation.
+Fear of the Divine displeasure seems to have been the leading feature of
+their religious impressions; and in the diversity, the costliness, the
+cruelty of their sacrifices they sought to appease gods to whose wrath
+they felt themselves exposed, from a consciousness of sin, unrelieved by
+any information as to the means of escaping its effects."[136]
+
+[Footnote 135: Punishment is the penalty due to sin; or, to use the
+favorite expression of Homer, not unusual in the Scriptures also, it is
+the payment of a debt incurred by sin. When he is punished, the criminal
+is said to pay off or pay back (apotinein) his crimes; in other words,
+to expiate or atone for them (Iliad, iv. 161,162),
+
+      syn te megal� apetisan syn sph�sin kephal�si gynaixi te kai
+      tekeessin.
+
+that is, they shall pay off, pay back, atone, etc., for their treachery
+with a great price, with their lives, and their wives and
+children.--Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," p. 194.]
+
+[Footnote 136: Magee, "On the Atonement," No. V. p. 30.]
+
+It must be known to every one at all acquainted with Greek mythology
+that the idea of _expiation_--atonement--was a fundamental idea of their
+religion. Independent of any historical research, a very slight glance
+at the Greek and Roman classics, especially the poets, who were the
+theologians of that age, can leave little doubt upon this head.[137]
+Their language everywhere announces the notion of _propitiation_, and,
+particularly the Latin, furnishes the terms which are still employed in
+theology. We need only mention the words ilasmos, ilaskomai, lytron,
+perips�ma, as examples from the Greek, and _placare, propitiare,
+expiare, piaculum_, from the Latin. All these indicate that the notion
+of expiation was interwoven into the very modes of thought and framework
+of the language of the ancient Greeks.
+
+[Footnote 137: In Homer the doctrine is expressly taught that the gods
+may, and sometimes do, remit the penalty, when duly propitiated by
+prayers and sacrifices accompanied by suitable reparations ("Iliad," ix.
+497 sqq.). "We have a practical illustration of this doctrine in the
+first book of the Iliad, where Apollo averts the pestilence from the
+army, when the daughter of his priest is returned without ransom, and a
+_sacrifice_ (elatomb�) is sent to the altar of the god at sacred
+Chrysa.... Apollo hearkens to the intercession of his priest, accepts
+the sacred hecatomb, is delighted with the accompanying songs and
+libations, and sends back the embassy with a favoring breeze, and a
+favorable answer to the army, who meanwhile had been _purifying_
+(apelymainonto) themselves, and offering unblemished hecatombs of bulls
+and goats on the shore of the sea which washes the place of their
+encampment."
+
+"The object of the propitiatory embassy to Apollo is thus stated by
+Ulysses: Agamemnon, king of men, has sent me to bring back thy daughter
+Chryses, and to offer a sacred hecatomb for (yper) the Greeks, that we
+may _propitiate_ (ilasomestha) the king, who now sends woes and many
+groans upon the Argives" (442 sqq.).--Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets,"
+pp. 196, 197.]
+
+We do not deem it needful to discuss at length the question which has
+been so earnestly debated among theologians, as to whether the idea of
+expiation be a primitive and necessary idea of the human mind, or
+whether the practice of piacular sacrifices came into the post-diluvian
+world with Noah, as a positive institution of a primitive religion then
+first directly instituted by God. On either hypothesis the practice of
+expiatory rites derives its authority from God; in the latter case, by
+an outward and verbal revelation, in the former by an inward and
+intuitive revelation.
+
+This much, however, must be conceded on all hands, that there are
+certain fundamental intuitions, universal and necessary, which underlie
+the almost universal practice of expiatory sacrifice, namely, _the
+universal consciousness of guilt, and the universal conviction that
+something must be done to expiate guilt_, to compensate for wrong, and
+to atone for past misdeeds. But _how_ that expiation can be effected,
+how that atonement can be made, is a question which reason does not seem
+competent to answer. That personal sin can be atoned for by vicarious
+suffering, that national guilt can be expiated and national punishment
+averted by animal sacrifices, or even by human sacrifices, is repugnant
+to rather than conformable with natural reason. There exists no
+discernible connection between the one and the other. We may suppose
+that eucharistic, penitential, and even deprecatory sacrifices may have
+originated in the light of nature and reason, but we are unable to
+account for the practice of piacular sacrifices for substitutional
+atonement, on the same principle. The ethical principle, that one's own
+sins are not transferable either in their guilt or punishment, is so
+obviously just that we feel it must have been as clear to the mind of
+the Greek who brought his victim to be offered to Zeus, as it is to the
+philosophic mind of to-day.[138] The knowledge that the Divine
+displeasure can be averted by sacrifice is not, by Plato, grounded upon
+any intuition of reason, as is the existence of God, the idea of the
+true, the just, and good, but on "tradition,"[139] and the
+"interpretations" of Apollo. "To the Delphian Apollo there remains the
+greatest, noblest, and most important of legal institutions--the
+erection of temples, sacrifices, and other services to the gods,... and
+what other services should be gone through with a view to their
+_propitiation_. Such things as these, indeed, _we neither know
+ourselves, nor in founding the State would we intrust them to others_,
+if we be wise;... the god of the country is the natural interpreter to
+all men about such matters."[140]
+
+[Footnote 138: "He that hath done the deed, to suffer for it--thus cries
+a proverb thrice hallowed by age."--�schylus, "Cho�ph," 311.]
+
+[Footnote 139: "Laws," book vi. ch. xv.]
+
+[Footnote 140: "Republic," book iv. ch. v.]
+
+The origin of expiatory sacrifices can not, we think, be explained
+except on the principle of a primitive revelation and a positive
+appointment of God. They can not be understood except as a
+divinely-appointed symbolism, in which there is exhibited a confession
+of personal guilt and desert of punishment; an intimation and a hope
+that God will be propitious and merciful; and a typical promise and
+prophecy of a future Redeemer from sin, who shall "put away sin by the
+sacrifice of himself." This sacred rite was instituted in connection
+with the _protevangelium_ given to our first parents; it was diffused
+among the nations by tradition, and has been kept alive as a general,
+and, indeed, almost universal observance, by that deep sense of sin, and
+consciousness of guilt, and personal urgency of the need of a
+reconciliation, which are so clearly displayed in Grecian mythology.
+
+The legitimate inference we find ourselves entitled to draw from the
+words of Paul, when fairly interpreted in the light of the past
+religious history of the world, is, that the Athenians were a religious
+people; that is, _they were, however unknowing, believers in and
+worshippers of the One Supreme God_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE RELIGION OF THE ATHENIANS: ITS MYTHOLOGICAL AND SYMBOLICAL ASPECTS.
+
+
+"That there is one Supreme Deity, both philosophers and poets, and even
+the vulgar worshippers of the gods themselves frequently acknowledge;
+which because the assertors of gods well understood, they affirm these
+gods of theirs to preside over the several parts of the world, yet so
+that there is only one chief governor. Whence it follows, that all their
+other gods can be no other than ministers and officers which one
+greatest God, who is omnipotent, hath variously appointed, and
+constituted so as to serve his command."--LACTANTIUS.
+
+The conclusion reached in the previous chapter that the Athenians were
+believers in and worshippers of the One Supreme God, has been challenged
+with some considerable show of reason and force, on the ground that they
+were _Polytheists_ and _Idolaters_.
+
+An objection which presents itself so immediately on the very face of
+the sacred narrative, and which is sustained by the unanimous voice of
+history, is entitled to the fullest consideration. And as the interests
+of truth are infinitely more precious than the maintenance of any
+theory, however plausible, we are constrained to accord to this
+objection the fullest weight, and give to it the most impartial
+consideration. We can not do otherwise than at once admit that the
+Athenians were _Polytheists_--they worshipped "many gods" besides "the
+unknown God." It is equally true that they were _Idolaters_--they
+worshipped images or statues of the gods, which images were also, by an
+easy metonymy, called "gods."
+
+But surely no one supposes that this is all that can be said upon the
+subject, and that, after such admissions, the discussion must be closed.
+On the contrary, we have, as yet, scarce caught a glimpse of the real
+character and genius of Grecian polytheistic worship, and we have not
+made the first approach towards a philosophy of Grecian mythology.
+
+The assumption that the heathen regarded the images "graven by art and
+device of man" as the real creators of the world and man, or as having
+any control over the destinies of men, sinks at once under the weight of
+its own absurdity. Such hypothesis is repudiated with scorn and
+indignation by the heathens themselves. Cotta, in _Cicero_, declares
+explicitly: "though it be common and familiar language amongst us to
+call corn Ceres, and wine Bacchus, yet who can think any one so mad as
+to take that to be really a god that he feeds upon?"[141] And _Plutarch_
+condemns the whole practice of giving the names of gods and goddesses to
+inanimate objects, as absurd, impious, and atheistical: "they who give
+the names of gods to senseless matter and inanimate things, and such as
+are destroyed by men in the using, beget most wicked and atheistical
+opinions in the minds of men, since it can not be conceived how these
+things should be gods, for nothing that is inanimate is a god."[142] And
+so also the Hindoo, the Buddhist, the American Indian, the Fijian of
+to-day, repel the notion that their visible images are real gods, or
+that they worship them instead of the unseen God.
+
+[Footnote 141: Cudworth's "Intell. System," vol. ii. p. 257, Eng. ed.]
+
+[Footnote 142: Quoted in Cudworth's "Intell. System," vol. ii. p. 258,
+Eng. ed.]
+
+And furthermore, that even the invisible divinities which these images
+were designed to represent, were each independent, self-existent beings,
+and that the stories which are told concerning them by Homer and Hesiod
+were received in a literal sense, is equally improbable. The earliest
+philosophers knew as well as we know, that the Deity, in order to be
+Deity, must be either _perfect_ or nothing--that he must be _one_, not
+many--without parts and passions; and they were scandalized and shocked
+by the religious fables of the ancient mythology as much as we are.
+_Xenophanes_, who lived, as we know, before Pythagoras, accuses Homer
+and Hesiod of having ascribed to the gods every thing that is
+disgraceful amongst men, as stealing, adultery, and deceit. He remarks
+"that men seem to have created their gods, and to have given them their
+own mind, and voice, and figure." He himself declares that "God is
+_one,_ the greatest amongst gods and men, neither in form nor in thought
+like unto men." He calls the battles of the Titans and the Giants, and
+the Centaurs, "the inventions of former generations," and he demands
+that God shall be praised in holy songs and nobler strains.[143]
+Diogenes Laertius relates the following of _Pythagoras_, "that when he
+descended to the shades below, he saw the soul of Hesiod bound to a
+pillar of brass and gnashing his teeth; and that of Homer, as suspended
+on a tree, and surrounded by serpents; as a punishment for the things
+they had said of the gods."[144] These poets, who had corrupted
+theology, _Plato_ proposes to exclude from his ideal Republic; or if
+permitted at all, they must be subjected to a rigid expurgation. "We
+shall," says he, "have to repudiate a large part of those fables which
+are now in vogue; and, especially, of what I call the greater
+fables,--the stories which Hesiod and Homer tell us. In these stories
+there is a fault which deserves the gravest condemnation; namely, when
+an author gives a _bad representation of gods and heroes_. We must
+condemn such a poet, as we should condemn a painter, whose pictures bear
+no resemblance to the objects which he tries to imitate. For instance,
+the poet Hesiod related an ugly story when he told how Uranus acted, and
+how Kronos had his revenge upon him. They are offensive stories, and
+must not be repeated in our cities. Not yet is it proper to say, in any
+case,--what is indeed untrue--that gods wage war against gods, and
+intrigue and fight among themselves. Stories like the chaining of Juno
+by her son Vulcan, and the flinging of Vulcan out of heaven for trying
+to take his mother's part when his father was beating her, and all other
+battles of the gods which are found in Homer, must be refused admission
+into our state, _whether they are allegorical or not_. For a child can
+not discriminate between what is allegorical and what is not; and
+whatever is adopted, as a matter of belief, in childhood, has a tendency
+to become fixed and indelible; and therefore we ought to esteem it as of
+the greatest importance that the fables which children first hear should
+be adapted, as far as possible, to promote virtue."[145]
+
+[Footnote 143: Max Muller, "Science of Language," pp. 405, 406.]
+
+[Footnote 144: "Lives," bk. viii. ch. xix. p. 347.]
+
+[Footnote 145: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xvii.]
+
+If, then, poetic and allegorical representations of divine things are to
+be permitted in the ideal republic, then the founders of the state are
+to prescribe "the moulds in which the poets are to cast their fictions."
+
+"Now what are these moulds to be in the case of _Theology?_ They may be
+described as follows: It is right always to represent God as he really
+is, whether the poet describe him in an epic, or a lyric, or a dramatic
+poem. Now God is, beyond all else, _good in reality_, and therefore so
+to be represented. But nothing that is good is hurtful. That which is
+good hurts not; does no evil; is the cause of no evil. That which is
+good is beneficial; is the cause of good. And, therefore, that which is
+good is not the cause of _all_ which is and happens, but only of that
+which is as it should be.... The good things we must ascribe to God,
+whilst we must seek elsewhere, and not in him, the causes of evil
+things."
+
+We must, then, express our disapprobation of Homer, or any other poet,
+who is guilty of such a foolish blunder as to tell us (Iliad, xxiv. 660)
+that:
+
+     'Fast by the threshold of Jove's court are placed
+     Two casks--one stored with evil, one with good:'
+
+and that he for whom the Thunderer mingles both--
+
+     'He leads a life checkered with good and ill.'
+
+But as for the man to whom he gives the bitter cup unmixed--
+
+                                         'He walks
+     The blessed earth unbless'd, go where he will.'
+
+And if any one asserts that the violation of oaths and treaties by the
+act of Pandarus was brought about by Athen� and Zeus (Iliad, ii. 60), we
+should refuse our approbation. Nor can we allow it to be said that the
+strife and trial of strength between tween the gods (Iliad, xx.) was
+instigated by Themis and Zeus.... Such language can not be used without
+irreverence; it is both injurious to us, and contradictory in
+itself.[146]
+
+Inasmuch as God is perfect to the utmost in beauty and goodness, _he
+abides ever the same_, and without any variation in his form. Then let
+no poet tell us that (Odyss. xvii. 582)
+
+                   'In similitude of strangers oft
+     The Gods, who can with ease all shapes assume,
+     Repair to populous cities.'
+
+And let no one slander Proteus and Thetis, or introduce in tragedies, or
+any other poems, Hera transformed into the guise of a princess
+collecting
+
+     'Alms for the life-giving children of Inachus, river of Argos,'
+
+not to mention many other falsehoods which we must interdict.[147]
+
+"When a poet holds such language concerning the gods, we shall be angry
+with him, and refuse him a chorus. Neither shall we allow our teachers
+to use his writings for the instruction of the young, if we would have
+our guards grow up to be as god-like and god-fearing as it is possible
+for men to be."[148]
+
+We are thus constrained by the statements of the heathens themselves, as
+well as by the dictates of common sense, to look beyond the external
+drapery and the material forms of Polytheism for some deeper and truer
+meaning that shall be more in harmony with the facts of the universal
+religious consciousness of our race. The religion of ancient Greece
+consisted in something more than the fables of Jupiter and Juno, of
+Apollo and Minerva, of Venus and Bacchus. "Through the rank and
+poisonous vegetation of mythic phraseology, we may always catch a
+glimpse of an original stem round which it creeps and winds itself, and
+without which it can not enjoy that parasitical existence which has been
+mistaken for independent vitality."[149]
+
+[Footnote 146: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xix.]
+
+[Footnote 147: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xx. Much more to the same effect
+may be seen in ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 148: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xxi.]
+
+[Footnote 149: Max M�ller, "Science of Language," 2d series, p. 433.]
+
+It is an obvious truth, attested by the voice of universal consciousness
+as revealed in history, that the human mind can never rest satisfied
+within the sphere of sensible phenomena. Man is impelled by an inward
+necessity to pass, in thought, beyond the boundary-line of sense, and
+inquire after causes and entities which his reason assures him must lie
+beneath all sensible appearances. He must and will interpret nature
+according to the forms of his own personality, or according to the
+fundamental ideas of his own reason. In the childlike subjectivity of
+the undisciplined mind he will either transfer to nature the phenomena
+of his own personality, regarding the world as a living organism which
+has within it an informing soul, and thus attain a _pantheistic_
+conception of the universe; or else he will fix upon some extraordinary
+and inexplicable phenomenon of nature, and, investing it with
+_super-natural_ significance, will rise from thence to a religious and
+_theocratic_ conception of nature as a whole. An intelligence--a mind
+_within_ nature, and inseparable from nature, or else _above_ nature and
+governing nature, is, for man, an inevitable thought.
+
+It is equally obvious that humanity can never relegate itself from a
+supernatural origin, neither can it ever absolve itself from a permanent
+correlation with the Divine. Man feels within him an instinctive
+nobility. He did not arise out of the bosom of nature; in some
+mysterious way he has descended from an eternal mind, he is "the
+offspring of God." And furthermore, a theocratic conception of nature,
+associated with a pre-eminent regard for certain apparently supernatural
+experiences in the history of humanity, becomes the foundation of
+governments, of civil authority, and of laws. Society can not be founded
+without the aid of the Deity, and a commonwealth can only be organized
+by Divine interposition. "A Ceres must appear and sow the fields with
+corn." And a Numa or a Lycurgus must be heralded by the oracle as
+
+     "Dear to Jove, and all who sit in the halls of the Olympus."
+
+He must be a "descendant of Zeus," appointed by the gods to rule, and
+one who will "prove himself a god." These divinely-appointed rulers were
+regarded as the ministers of God, the visible representatives of the
+unseen Power which really governs all. The divine government must also
+have its invisible agents--its Nemesis, and Themis, and Dik�, the
+ministers of law, of justice, and of retribution; and its Jupiter, and
+Juno, and Neptune, and Pluto, ruling, with delegated powers, in the
+heavens, the air, the sea, and the nethermost regions. So that, in fact,
+there exists no nation, no commonwealth, no history without a Theophany,
+and along with it certain sacred legends detailing the origin of the
+people, the government, the country itself, and the world at large. This
+is especially true of India, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Their primitive
+history is eminently _mythological_.
+
+Grecian polytheism can not be otherwise regarded than as a
+poetico-historical religion of _myth_ and _symbol_ which is under-laid
+by a natural Theism; a parasitical growth which winds itself around the
+original stem of instinctive faith in a supernatural Power and Presence
+which pervades the universe. The myths are oral traditions, floating
+down from that dim; twilight of _poetic_ history, which separates real
+history, with its fixed chronology, from the unmeasured and unrecorded
+eternity--faint echoes from that mystic border-land which divides the
+natural from the supernatural, and in which they seem to have been
+marvellously commingled. They are the lingering memories of those
+manifestations of God to men, in which he or his celestial ministers
+came into visible intercourse with our race; the reality of which is
+attested by sacred history. In all these myths there is a theogonic and
+cosmogonic element. They tell of the generation of the celestial and
+a�rial divinities--the subordinate agents and ministers of the Divine
+government. They attempt an explanation of the genesis of the visible
+universe, the origin of humanity, and the development of human society.
+In the presence of history, the substance of these myths is preserved by
+_symbols_, that is, by means of natural or artificial, real or striking
+objects, which, by some analogy or arbitrary association, shall suggest
+the _idea_ to the mind. These symbols were designed to represent the
+invisible attributes and operations of the Deity; the powers that
+vitalize nature, that control the elements, that preside over cities,
+that protect the nations: indeed, all the agencies of the physical and
+moral government of God. Beneath all the pagan legends of gods, and
+underlying all the elaborate mechanism of pagan worship, there are
+unquestionably philosophical ideas, and theological conceptions, and
+religious sentiments, which give as meaning, and even a mournful
+grandeur to the whole.
+
+Whilst the pagan polytheistic worship is, under one aspect, to be
+regarded as a departure from God, inasmuch as it takes away the honor
+due to God alone, and transfers it to the creature; still, under another
+aspect, we can not fail to recognize in it the effort of the human mind
+to fill up the chasm that seemed, to the undisciplined mind, to separate
+God and man--and to bridge the gulf between the visible and the
+invisible, the finite and the infinite. It was unquestionably an attempt
+to bring God nearer to the sense and comprehension of man. It had its
+origin in that instinctive yearning after the supernatural, the Divine,
+which dwells in all human hearts, and which has revealed itself in all
+philosophies, mysticisms, and religions.[150] This longing was
+stimulated by the contemplation of the living beauty and grandeur of the
+visible universe, which, to the lively fancy and deep feeling of the
+Greeks, seemed as the living vesture of the Infinite Mind,--the temple
+of the eternal Deity. In this visible universe the Divinity was partly
+revealed, and partly concealed. The unity of the all-pervading
+Intelligence was veiled beneath an apparent diversity of power, and a
+manifoldness of operations. They caught some glimpses of this universal
+presence in nature, but were more immediately and vividly impressed by
+the several manifestations of the divine perfections and divine
+operations, as so many separate rays of the Divinity, or so many
+subordinate agents and functionaries employed to execute the will and
+carry out the purposes of the Supreme Mind.[151] That unseen,
+incomprehensible Power and Presence was perceived in the sublimity of
+the deep blue sky, the energy of the vitalizing sun, the surging of the
+sea, the rushing wind, the roaring thunder, the ripening corn, and the
+clustering vine. To these separate manifestations of the Deity they gave
+_personal names_, as Jupiter to the heavens, Juno to the air, Neptune to
+the sea, Ceres to the corn, and Bacchus to the vine. These personals
+denoted, not the things themselves, but the invisible, divine powers
+supposed to preside over those several departments of nature. By a kind
+of prosopopoeia "they spake of the things in nature, and parts of the
+world, as persons--and consequently as so many gods and goddesses--yet
+so as the intelligent might easily understand their meaning, _that these
+were in reality nothing else but so many names and notions of that one
+Numen,--divine force and power which runs through all the world,
+multiformly displaying itself._"[152] "Their various deities were but
+different names, different conceptions, of that Incomprehensible Being
+which no _thought_ can reach, and no _language_ express."[153] Having
+given to these several manifestations of the Divinity personal names,
+they now sought to represent them to the eye of sense by _visible
+forms_, as the symbols or images of the perfections of the unseen, the
+incomprehensible, the unknown God. And as the Greeks regarded man as the
+first and noblest among the phenomena of nature, they selected the human
+form as the highest sensible manifestation of God, the purest symbol of
+the Divinity. Grecian polytheism was thus a species of _mythical
+anthropomorphism_.
+
+[Footnote 150: The original constitution of man is such that he "seeks
+after" God Acts xvii. 27. "All men yearn after the gods" (Homer,
+"Odyss." iii. 48).]
+
+[Footnote 151: "Heathenism springs directly from this, that the mind
+lays undue stress upon the bare letter in the book of creation; that it
+separates and individualizes its objects as far as possible; that it
+places the sense of the individual part, in opposition to the sense of
+the whole,--to the _analogia fidei_ or _spiritus_ which alone gives
+unity to the book of nature, while it dilutes and renders as transitory
+as possible the sense of the universal in the whole.... And as it laid
+great stress upon the letter in the book of nature, it fell into
+polytheism. The particular symbol of the divine, or of the Godhead,
+became a myth of some special deity."--Lange's "Bible-work," Genesis, p.
+23.]
+
+[Footnote 152: Cudworth, "Intellect. System," vol. i. p. 308.]
+
+[Footnote 153: Max M�ller, "Science of Language," p. 431.]
+
+A philosophy of Grecian mythology, such as we have outlined in the
+preceding paragraphs, is, in our judgment, perfectly consistent with the
+views announced by Paul in his address to the Athenians. He intimates
+that the Athenians "thought that the Godhead was _like unto_ (e nai
+omoion)--to be imaged or represented by human art--by gold, and silver,
+and precious stone graven by art, and device of man;" that is, they
+thought the perfections of God could be represented to the eye by an
+image, or symbol. The views of Paul are still more articulately
+expressed in Romans, i. 23, 25: "They changed the glory of the
+incorruptible God into the _similitude of an image_ of corruptible
+man,.... and they worshipped and served the thing made, para--_rather_
+than, or _more_ than the Creator." Here, then, the apostle intimates,
+first, that the heathen _knew_ God,[154] and that they worshipped God.
+They worshipped the creature besides or even more than God, but still
+they also worshipped God. And, secondly, they represented the
+perfections of God by an image, and under this, as a "_likeness_" or
+symbol, they indirectly worshipped God. Their religious system was,
+then, even to the eye of Paul, a _symbolic_ worship--that is, the
+objects of their devotion were the _omoi�mata_--the similitudes, the
+likenesses, the images of the perfections of the invisible God.
+
+[Footnote 154: Verse 21.]
+
+It is at once conceded by us, that the "sensus numinis," the natural
+intuition of a Supreme Mind, whose power and presence are revealed in
+nature, can not maintain itself, as an influential, and vivifying, and
+regulative belief amongst men, without the continual supernatural
+interposition of God; that is, without a succession of Divine
+revelations. And further, we grant that, instead of this symbolic mode
+of worship deepening and vitalizing the sense of God as a living power
+and presence, there is great danger that the symbol shall at length
+unconsciously take the place of God, and be worshipped instead of Him.
+From the purest form of symbolism which prevailed in the earliest ages,
+there may be an inevitable descent to the rudest form of false worship,
+with its accompanying darkness, and abominations, and crimes; but, at
+the same time, let us do justice to the religions of the ancient
+world--the childhood stammerings of religious life--which were something
+more than the inventions of designing men, or the mere creations of
+human fancy; they were, in the words of Paul, "a _seeking after God_, if
+haply they might feel after him, and find him, who is not far from any
+one of us." It can not be denied that the more thoughtful and
+intelligent Greeks regarded the visible objects of their devotion as
+mere symbols of the perfections and operations of the unseen God, and of
+the invisible powers and subordinate agencies which are employed by him
+in his providential and moral government of the world. And whatever
+there was of misapprehension and of "ignorance" in the popular mind, we
+have the assurance of Paul that it was "_overlooked_" by God.
+
+The views here presented will, we venture to believe, be found most in
+harmony with a true philosophy of the human mind; with the religious
+phenomena of the world; and, as we shall subsequently see, with the
+writings of those poets and philosophers who may be fairly regarded as
+representing the sentiments and opinions of the ancient world. At the
+same time, we have no desire to conceal the fact that this whole
+question as to the origin, and character, and philosophy of the
+mythology and symbolism of the religions of the ancient world has been a
+subject of earnest controversy from Patristic times down to the present
+hour, and that even to-day there exists a wide diversity of opinion
+among philosophers, as well as theologians.
+
+The principal theories offered may be classed as the _ethical_, the
+_physical_, and the _historical_, according to the different objects the
+framers of the myths are supposed to have had in view. Some have
+regarded the myths as invented by the priests and wise men of old for
+the improvement and government of society, as designed to give authority
+to laws, and maintain social order.[155] Others have regarded them as
+intended to be allegorical interpretations of physical phenomena--the
+poetic embodiment of the natural philosophy of the primitive races of
+men;[156] whilst others have looked upon them as historical legends,
+having a substratum of fact, and, when stripped of the supernatural and
+miraculous drapery which accompanies fable, as containing the history of
+primitive times.[157] Some of the latter class have imagined they could
+recognize in Grecian mythology traces of sacred personages, as well as
+profane; in fact, a dimmed image of the patriarchal traditions which are
+preserved in the Old Testament scriptures.[158]
+
+It is beyond our design to discuss all the various theories presented,
+or even to give a history of opinions entertained.[159] We are fully
+convinced that the hypothesis we have presented in the preceding pages,
+viz., _that Grecian mythology was a grand symbolic representation of the
+Divine as manifested in nature and providence_, is the only hypothesis
+which meets and harmonizes all the facts of the case. This is the theory
+of Plato, of Cudworth, Baumgarten, Max M�ller, and many other
+distinguished scholars.
+
+[Footnote 155: Empedocles, Metrodorus.]
+
+[Footnote 156: Aristotle.]
+
+[Footnote 157: Hecat�us, Herodotus, some of the early Fathers, Niebuhr,
+J.H. Voss, Arnold.]
+
+[Footnote 158: Bochart, G.J. Vossius, Faber, Gladstone.]
+
+[Footnote 159: To the English reader who desires an extended and
+accurate acquaintance with the classic and patristic literature of this
+deeply interesting subject, we commend the careful study of Cudworth's
+"Intellectual System of the Universe," especially ch. iv. The style of
+Cudworth is perplexingly involved, and his great work is unmethodical in
+its arrangement and discussion. Nevertheless, the patient and
+persevering student will be amply rewarded for his pains. A work of more
+profound research into the doctrine of antiquity concerning God, and
+into the real import of the religious systems of the ancient world, is,
+probably, not extant in any language.]
+
+There are two fundamental propositions laid down by Cudworth which
+constitute the basis of this hypothesis.
+
+1. _No well-authenticated instance can be furnished from among the Greek
+Polytheists of one who taught the existence of a multiplicity of
+independenty uncreated, self-existent deities; they almost universally_
+_believed in the existence of_ ONE SUPREME, UNCREATED, ETERNAL GOD,
+"_The Maker of all things_"--"_the Father of gods and men_,"--"_the
+sole Monarch and Ruler of the world_."
+
+2. _The Greek Polytheists taught a plurality of_"GENERATED DEITIES,"
+_who owe their existence to the power and will of the Supreme God, who
+are by Him invested with delegated powers, and who, as the agents of his
+universal providence, preside over different departments of the created
+universe_.
+
+The evidence presented by Cudworth in support of his theses is so varied
+and so voluminous, that it defies all attempts at condensation. His
+volumes exhibit an extent of reading, of patient research, and of varied
+learning, which is truly amazing. The discussion of these propositions
+involves, in fact, nothing less than a complete and exhaustive survey of
+the entire field of ancient literature, a careful study of the Greek and
+Latin poets, of the Oriental, Greek, and Alexandrian philosophers, and a
+review of the statements and criticisms of Rabbinical and Patristic
+writers in regard to the religions of the pagan world. An adequate
+conception of the varied and weighty evidence which is collected by our
+author from these fields, in support of his views, could only be
+conveyed by transcribing to our pages the larger portion of his
+memorable _fourth_ chapter. But inasmuch as Grecian polytheism is, in
+fact, the culmination of all the mythological systems of the ancient
+world, the fully-developed flower and ripened fruit of the cosmical and
+theological conceptions of the childhood-condition of humanity, we
+propose to epitomize the results of his inquiry as to the _theological_,
+opinions of the Greeks, supplying additional confirmation of his views
+from other sources.
+
+And first, he proves most conclusively that Orpheus, Homer, and
+Hesiod,[160] who are usually designated "the theologians" of Greece, but
+who were in fact the depravers and corrupters of pagan theology, do not
+teach the existence of a multitude of _unmade, self-existent, and
+independent deities_. Even they believed in the existence of _one_
+uncreated and eternal mind, _one Supreme God_, anterior and superior to
+all the gods of their mythology. They had some intuition, some
+apperception of the _Divine_, even before they had attached to it a
+sacred name. The gods of their mythology had all, save one, a temporal
+origin; they were generated of Chaos and Night, by an active principle
+called _Love_. "One might suspect," says Aristotle, that Hesiod, and if
+there be any other who made _love_ or _desire_ a principle of things,
+aimed at these very things (viz., the designation of the efficient cause
+of the world); for Parmenides, describing the generation of the
+universe, says:
+
+     'First of all the gods planned he _love_;'
+
+and further, Hesiod:
+
+     'First of all was Chaos, afterwards Earth,
+     With her spacious bosom,
+     And _Love_, who is pre-eminent among all the immortals;'
+
+as intimating here that in entities there should exist some _cause_ that
+will impart motion, and hold bodies in union together. But how, in
+regard to these, one ought to distribute them, as to the order of
+priority, can be decided afterwards.[161]
+
+[Footnote 160: We do not concern ourselves with the chronological
+antecedence of these ancient Greek poets. It is of little consequence to
+us whether Homer preceded Orpheus, or Orpheus Homer. They were not the
+real creators of the mythology of ancient Greece. The myths were a
+spontaneous growth of the earliest human thought even before the
+separation of the Aryan family into its varied branches.
+
+The study of Comparative Mythology, as well as of Comparative Language,
+assures us that the myths had an origin much earlier than the times of
+Homer and Orpheus. They floated down from ages on the tide of oral
+tradition before they were systematized, embellished, and committed to
+writing by Homer, and Orpheus, and Hesiod. And between the systems of
+these three poets a perceptible difference is recognizable, which
+reflects the changes that verbal recitations necessarily and
+imperceptibly undergo.]
+
+[Footnote 161: "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. iv.]
+
+Now whether this "first principle," called "_Love_," "the cause of
+motion and of union" in the universe, was regarded as a personal Being,
+and whether, as the ancient scholiast taught, Hesiod's love was "the
+heavenly Love, which is also God, that other love that was born of Venus
+being junior," is just now of no moment to the argument. The more
+important inference is, that amongst the gods of Pagan theology but
+_one_ is self-existent, or else none are. Because the Hesiodian gods,
+which are, in fact, all the gods of the Greek mythology, "were either
+all of them derived from chaos, love itself likewise being generated out
+of it; or else love was supposed to be distinct from chaos, and the
+active principle of the universe, from whence, together with chaos, all
+the theogony and cosmogony was derived."[162] Hence it is evident the
+poets did not teach the existence of a multiplicity of unmade,
+self-existent, independent deities.
+
+[Footnote 162: "Cudworth," vol. i. p. 287.]
+
+The careful reader of Cudworth will also learn another truth of the
+utmost importance in this connection, viz., _that the theogony of the
+Greek poets was, in fact, a cosmogony_, the generation of the gods
+being, in reality, the generation of the heavens, the sun, the moon, the
+stars, and all the various powers and phenomena of nature. This is dimly
+shadowed forth in the very names which are given to some of these
+divinities. Thus Helios is the sun, Selena is the moon, Zeus the
+sky--the deep blue heaven, Eos the dawn, and Ers� the dew. It is
+rendered still more evident by the opening lines of Hesiod's
+"Theogonia," in which he invokes the muses:
+
+     "Hail ye daughters of Jupiter! Grant a delightsome song.
+     Tell of the race of immortal gods, always existing,
+     Who are the offspring of the earth, of the starry sky,
+     And of the gloomy night, whom also the ocean nourisheth.
+     Tell how the gods and the earth at first were made,
+     And the rivers, and the mighty deep, boiling with waves,
+     And the glowing stars, and the broad heavens above,
+     And the gods, givers of good, born of these."
+
+Where we see plainly that the generation of the gods is the generation
+of the earth, the heaven, the stars, the seas, the rivers, and other
+things produced by them. "But immediately after invocation of the Muses
+the poet begins with Chaos, and Tartara, and Love, as the first
+principles, and then proceeds to the production of the earth and of
+night out of chaos; of the ether and of day, from night; of the starry
+heavens, mountains, and seas. All which generation of gods is really
+nothing but a poetic description of the cosmogonia; as through the
+sequel of the poem all seems to be physiology veiled under fiction and
+allegory.... Hesiod's gods are thus not only the animated parts of the
+world, but also the other things of nature personified and deified, or
+abusively called gods and goddesses."[163] The same is true both of the
+Orphic and Homeric gods. "Their generation of the gods is the same with
+the generation or creation of the world, both of them having, in all
+probability, derived it from the Mosaic cabala, or tradition."[164]
+
+But in spite of all this mythological obscuration, the belief in one
+Supreme God is here and there most clearly recognizable. "That Zeus was
+originally to the Greeks the Supreme God, the true God--nay, at some
+time their only God--can be perceived in spite of the haze which
+mythology has raised around his name."[165] True, they sometimes used
+the word "Zeus" in a physical sense to denote the deep expanse of
+heaven, and sometimes in a historic sense, to designate a hero or
+deified man said to have been born in Crete. It is also true that the
+Homeric Zeus is full of contradictions. He is "all-seeing," yet he is
+cheated; he is "omnipotent," yet he is defied; he is "eternal," yet he
+has a father; he is "just," yet he is guilty of crime. Now, as M�ller
+very justly remarks, these contradictions may teach us a lesson. If all
+the conceptions of Zeus had sprung from one origin, these contradictions
+could not have existed. If Zeus had simply and only meant the Supreme
+God, he could not have been the son of Kronos (Time). If, on the other
+hand, Zeus had been a mere mythological personage, as Eos, the dawn, and
+Helios, the sun, he could never have been addressed as he is addressed
+in the famous prayer of Achilles (Iliad, bk. xxi.).[166]
+
+[Footnote 163: Cudworth, vol. i. pp. 321, 332.]
+
+[Footnote 164: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 478.]
+
+[Footnote 165: Max M�ller, "Science of Language," p. 457.]
+
+[Footnote 166: Id., ib., p. 458.]
+
+In Homer there is a perpetual blending of the natural and the
+supernatural, the human and divine. The _Iliad_ is an incongruous medley
+of theology, physics, and history. In its gorgeous scenic
+representations, nature, humanity, and deity are mingled in inextricable
+confusion. The gods are sometimes supernatural and superhuman
+personages; sometimes the things and powers of nature personified; and
+sometimes they are deified men. And yet there are passages, even in
+Homer, which clearly distinguish Zeus from all the other divinities, and
+mark him out as the Supreme. He is "the highest, first of Gods" (bk.
+xix. 284); "most great, most glorious Jove" (bk. ii. 474). He is "the
+universal Lord" (bk. xi. 229); "of mortals and immortals king supreme,"
+(bk. xii. 263); "over all the immortal gods he reigns in unapproached
+pre-eminence of power" (bk. xv. 125). He is "the King of kings" (bk.
+viii. 35), whose "will is sovereign" (bk. iv. 65), and his "power
+invincible" (bk. viii. 35). He is the "eternal Father" (bk. viii. 77).
+He "excels in wisdom gods and men; all human things from him proceed"
+(bk. xiii. 708-10); "the Lord of counsel" (bk. i. 208), "the all-seeing
+Jove" (bk. xiii. 824). Indeed the mere expression "Father of gods and
+men" (bk. i. 639), so often applied to Zeus, and him _alone_, is proof
+sufficient that, in spite of all the legendary stories of gods and
+heroes, the idea of Zeus as the Supreme God, the maker of the world, the
+Father of gods and men, the monarch and ruler of the world, was not
+obliterated from the Greek mind.[167]
+
+[Footnote 167: "In the order of legendary chronology Zeus comes after
+Kronos and Uranos, but in the order of Grecian conception Zeus is the
+prominent person, and Kronos and Uranos are inferior and introductory
+precursors, set up in order to be overthrown, and to serve as mementos
+of the powers of their conqueror. To Homer and Hesiod, as well as to the
+Greeks universally, Zeus is the great, the predominant God, 'the Father
+of gods and men,' whose power none of the gods can hope to resist, or
+even deliberately think of questioning. All the other gods have their
+specific potency, and peculiar sphere of action and duty, with which
+Zeus does not usually interfere; but it is he who maintains the
+lineaments of a providential government, as well over the phenomena of
+Olympus as over the earth."--Grote, "Hist. of Greece," vol. i. p. 3.
+
+Zeus is not only lord of heaven but likewise the ruler of the lower
+world, and the master of the sea.--Welcher, "Griechische G�tterlehre,"
+vol. i. p. 164. The Zeus of the Greek poets is unquestionably the god of
+whom Paul declared: In him we live and move, and have our being, as
+certain of your own poets have also said--
+
+     "'For we are his offspring.'"
+
+Now whether this be a quotation from Aratus or Cleanthes, the language
+of the poets is, "We are the offspring of Zeus;" consequently the Zeus
+of the poets and the God of Christianity are the same God.
+
+"The father of gods and men in Homer is, of course, the Universal Father
+of the Scriptures."--Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," p. 171.]
+
+"When Homer introduces Eumaios, the swineherd, speaking of this life and
+the higher powers that rule it, he knows only of just gods 'who hate
+cruel deeds, but honor justice and the righteous works of men' (Od. xiv.
+83). His whole life is built up on a complete trust in the divine
+government of the world without any artificial helps, as the Erinys, the
+Nemesis, or Moira. 'Eat,' says the swineherd, 'and enjoy what is here,
+for _God_[168] will grant one thing, but another he will refuse,
+whatever he will in his mind, for he can do all things' (Od. xiv. 444;
+x. 306). This surely is religion, and it is religion untainted by
+mythology. Again, the prayer of the female slave, grinding corn in the
+house of Ulysses is religious in the truest sense--'Father Zeus, thou
+who rulest over gods and men, surely thou hast just thundered in the
+starry sky, and there is no cloud anywhere. Thou showest this as a sign
+to some one. Fulfill now, even to me, miserable wretch, the prayer which
+I now offer'" (Od. xx. 141-150).[169]
+
+[Footnote 168: No sound reason can be assigned for translating _Theos_
+by "_a_ god" as some have proposed, rather than "_God_." But even if it
+were translated "a god," this god must certainly be understood as Zeus.
+Plato tells us that Zeus is the most appropriate name for God. "For in
+reality the name Zeus is, as it were, a sentence; and persons dividing
+it in two parts, some of us make use of one part, and some of another;
+for some call him Z�n, and some Dis. But these parts, collected together
+into one, exhibit the nature of the God;... for there is no one who is
+more the cause of living, both to us and everything else, than he who is
+the ruler and king of all. It follows, therefore, that this god is
+rightly named, through whom _life_ is present in all living
+beings."--Cratylus, � 28.
+
+Theos was usually employed, says Cudworth, to designate _God_ by way of
+pre-eminence, Theoi to designate inferior divinities.]
+
+[Footnote 169: M�ller, "Science of Language," p. 434.]
+
+The Greek tragedians were the great religious instructors of the
+Athenian people. "Greek tragedy grew up in connection with religious
+worship, and constituted not only a popular but a sacred element in the
+festivals of the gods.... In short, strange as it may sound to modern
+ears, the Greek stage was, more nearly than any thing else, the Greek
+pulpit.[170] With a priesthood that offered sacrifice, but did not
+preach, with few books of any kind, the people were, in a great measure,
+dependent on oral instruction for knowledge; and as they learned their
+rights and duties as citizens from their orators, so they hung on the
+lips of the 'lofty, grave tragedians' for instruction touching their
+origin, duty, and destiny as mortal and immortal beings.... Greek
+tragedy is essentially didactic, ethical, mythological, and
+religious."[171]
+
+[Footnote 170: Pulpitum, a stage.]
+
+[Footnote 171: Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," pp. 205, 206.]
+
+Now it is unquestionable that, with the tragedians, Zeus is the Supreme
+God. �schylus is pre-eminently the theological poet of Greece. The great
+problems which lie at the foundation of religious faith and practice are
+the main staple of nearly all his tragedies. Homer, Hesiod, the sacred
+poets, had looked at these questions in their purely poetic aspects. The
+subsequent philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, developed them more fully
+by their didactic method. �schylus stands on the dividing-line between
+them, no less poetic than the former, scarcely less philosophical than
+the latter, but more intensely practical, personal, and _theological_
+than either. The character of the Supreme Divinity, as represented in
+his tragedies, approaches more nearly to the Christian idea of God. He
+is the Universal Father--Father of gods and men; the Universal Cause
+(panaitios, Agamem. 1485); the All-seer and All-doer (pantopi�s,
+panerget�s, ibid, and Sup. 139); the All-wise and All-controlling
+(pankrat�s, Sup. 813); the Just and the Executor of justice (dik�phoros,
+Agamem. 525); true and incapable of falsehood (Prom. 1031);
+
+     pseud�gorein gar ouk epistatai stoma
+     to dion, alla pan epos telei,--
+
+holy (agnos, Sup. 650); merciful (preumen�s, ibid. 139); the God
+especially of the suppliant and the stranger (Supplices, passim); the
+most high and perfect One (teleion upsiston, Eumen. 28); King of kings,
+of the happy, most happy, of the perfect, most perfect power, blessed
+Zeus (Sup. 522).[172] Such are some of the titles by which Zeus is most
+frequently addressed; such the attributes commonly ascribed to him in
+�schylus.
+
+Sophocles was the great master who carried Greek tragedy to its highest
+perfection. Only seven out of more than a hundred of his tragedies have
+come down to us. There are passages cited by Justin Martyr, Clemens
+Alexandrinus, and others which are not found in those tragedies now
+extant. The most famous and extensively quoted passage is given by
+Cudworth.[173]
+
+     Eis tais al�theiaisin, eis estin Theos,
+     Os ouranon t' eteuxe kai gaian makran,
+     Poniou te karapon oidma, kan�m�n bian, k. t. l.[174]
+
+This "one only God" is Zeus, who is the God of justice, and reigns
+supreme:
+
+     "Still in yon starry heaven supreme,
+     Jove, all-beholding, all-directing, dwells--
+     To him commit thy vengeance."--"Electra," p. 174 sqq.
+
+This description of the unsleeping, undecaying power and dominion of
+Zeus is worthy of some Hebrew prophet--
+
+     "Spurning the power of age, enthroned in might,
+     Thou dwell'st mid heaven's broad light;
+     This was in ages past thy firm decree,
+     Is now, and shall forever be:
+     That none of mortal race on earth shall know
+     A life of joy serene, a course unmarked by woe."
+
+     "Antigone," pp. 606-614.[175]
+
+[Footnote 172: Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," pp. 213, 214.]
+
+[Footnote 173: "Intellectual Syst.," vol. i. p. 483.]
+
+[Footnote 174: "There is, in truth, one only God, who made heaven and
+earth, the sea, air, and winds," etc.]
+
+[Footnote 175: "Theology of Greek Poets," p. 322.]
+
+Whether we regard the poets as the principal theological teachers of the
+ancient Greeks, or as the compilers, systematizers, and artistic
+embellishers of the theological traditions and myths which were afloat
+in the primitive Hellenic families, we can not resist the conclusion
+that, for the masses of the people Zeus was the Supreme God, "the God of
+gods" as Plato calls him. Whilst all other deities in Greece are more or
+less local and tribal gods, Zeus was known in every village and to every
+clan. "He is at home on Ida,[176] on Olympus, at Dodona.[177] While
+Poseidon drew to himself the �olian family, Apollo the Dorian, Athene
+the Ionian, there was one powerful God for all the sons of
+Hellen--Dorians, �olians, Ionians, Ach�ans, viz., the Panhellenic
+Zeus."[178] Zeus was the name invoked in their solemn nuncupations of
+vows--
+
+     "O Zeus, father, O Zeus, king."
+
+In moments of deepest sorrow, of immediate urgency and need, of greatest
+stress and danger, they had recourse to Zeus.
+
+     "Courage, courage, my child!
+     There is still in heaven the great Zeus;
+     He watches over all things, and he rules.
+     Commit thy exceeding bitter griefs to him,
+     And be not angry against thine enemies,
+     Nor forget them."[179]
+
+[Footnote 176: "Iliad," bk. iii. 324.]
+
+[Footnote 177: Bk. xvi. 268.]
+
+[Footnote 178: M�ller, p. 452.]
+
+[Footnote 179: Sophocles, "Electra," v. 188.]
+
+He was supplicated, as the God who reigns on high, in the prayer of the
+Athenian--
+
+     "Rain, rain, O dear Zeus, on the land of the Athenians and on their
+     fields."
+
+It has been urged that, as Zeus means the sky, therefore he is no more
+than the deep concave of heaven personified and deified, and that
+consequently Zeus is not the true, the only God. This argument is only
+equalled in feebleness by that of the materialist, who argues that
+"spiritus" means simply breath, therefore the breath is the soul. Even
+if the Greeks remembered that, originally, Zeus meant the sky, that
+would have no more perplexed their minds than the remembrance that
+"thymos"--mind--meant originally blast. "The fathers of Greek theology
+gave to that Supreme Intelligence, which they instinctively recognized
+as above and ruling over the universe, the name of Zeus; but in doing
+so, they knew well that by Zeus they meant more than the sky. The
+unfathomable depth, the everlasting calm of the ethereal sky was to
+their minds an image of that Infinite Presence which overshadows all,
+and looks down on all. As the question perpetually recurred to their
+minds, 'Where is he who abideth forever?' they lifted up their eyes, and
+saw, as they thought, beyond sun, and moon, and stars, and all which
+changes, and will change, the clear blue sky, the boundless firmament of
+heaven. That never changed, that was always the same. The clouds and
+storms rolled far below it, and all the bustle of this noisy world; but
+there the sky was still, as bright and calm as ever. The Almighty Father
+must be there, unchangeable in the unchangeable heaven; bright, and
+pure, and boundless like the heavens, and like the heavens, too, afar
+off."[180] So they named him after the sky, _Zeus_, the God who lives in
+the clear heaven--the heavenly Father.
+
+[Footnote 180: Kingsley, "Good News from God," p. 237, Am. ed.]
+
+The high and brilliant sky has, in many languages and many religions,
+been regarded as the dwelling-place of God. Indeed, to all of us in
+Christian times "God is above;" he is "the God of heaven;" "his throne
+is in the heavens;" "he reigns on high." Now, without doing any violence
+to thought, the name of the abode might be transferred to him who dwells
+in heaven. So that in our own language "heaven" may still be used as a
+synonym for "God." The prodigal son is still represented as saying, I
+have sinned against "_heaven_." And a Christian poet has taught us to
+sing--
+
+     "High _heaven_, that heard my solemn vow,
+     That vow renewed shall daily hear," etc.
+
+Whenever, therefore, we find the name of heaven thus used to designate
+also the Deity, we must bear in mind that those by whom it was
+originally employed were simply transferring that name from an object
+visible to the eye of sense to another object perceived by the eye of
+reason. They who at first called God "_Heaven_" had some conception
+within them they wished to name--the growing image of a God, and they
+fixed upon the vastest, grandest, purest object in nature, the deep blue
+concave of heaven, overshadowing all, and embracing all, as the symbol
+of the Deity. Those who at a later period called heaven "_God_" had
+forgotten that they were predicating of heaven something more which was
+vastly higher than the heaven.[181]
+
+[Footnote 181: See "Science of Language," p. 457.]
+
+Notwithstanding, then, that the instinctive, native faith of humanity in
+the existence of one supreme God was overlaid and almost buried beneath
+the rank and luxuriant vegetation of Grecian mythology, we can still
+catch glimpses here and there of the solid trunk of native faith, around
+which this parasitic growth of fancy is entwined. Above all the
+phantasmata of gods and goddesses who descended to the plains of Troy,
+and mingled in the din and strife of battle, we can recognize an
+overshadowing, all-embracing Power and Providence that dwells on high,
+which never descends into the battle-field, and is never seen by mortal
+eyes--_the Universal King and Father,--the "God of gods_."
+
+Besides the direct evidence, which is furnished by the poets and
+mythologists, of the presence of this universal faith in "_the heavenly
+Father_," there is also a large amount of collateral testimony that this
+idea of one Supreme God was generally entertained by the Greek pagans,
+whether learned or unlearned.[182] Dio Chrysostomus says that "all the
+poets call the first and greatest God the Father, universally, of all
+rational kind, as also the King thereof. Agreeably with which doctrine
+of the poets do mankind erect altars to Jupiter-King (Dios Basile�s) and
+hesitate not to call him Father in their devotions" (Orat. xxxvi.). And
+Maximus Tyrius declares that both the learned and the unlearned
+throughout the pagan world universally agree in this; that there is one
+Supreme God, the Father of gods and men. "If," says he, "there were a
+meeting called of all the several trades and professions,... and all
+were required to declare their sense concerning God, do you think that
+the painter would say one thing, the sculptor another, the poet another,
+and the philosopher another? No; nor the Scythian neither, nor the
+Greek, nor the hyperborean. In regard to other things, we find men
+speaking discordantly one to another, all men, as it were, differing
+from all men... Nevertheless, on this subject, you may find universally
+throughout the world one agreeing law and opinion; _that there is one
+God, the King and Father of all, and many gods, the sons of God,
+co-reigners together with God_"(Diss. i. p. 450).
+
+[Footnote 182: Cudworth, vol. i. pp. 593, 594.]
+
+From the poets we now pass to the philosophers. The former we have
+regarded as reflecting the traditional beliefs of the unreasoning
+multitude. The philosophers unquestionably represent the reflective
+spirit, the speculative thought, of the educated classes of Greek
+society. Turning to the writings of the philosophers, we may therefore
+reasonably expect that, instead of the dim, undefined, and nebulous form
+in which the religious sentiment revealed itself amongst the
+unreflecting portions of the Greek populations, we shall find their
+theological ideas distinctly and articulately expressed, and that we
+shall consequently be able to determine their religious opinions with
+considerable accuracy.
+
+Now that Thales, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Anaxagoras, Empedocles,
+Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were all believers in the existence of
+one supreme, uncreated, eternal God, has been, we think, clearly shown
+by Cudworth.[183]
+
+[Footnote 183: Vol. i. pp. 491-554.]
+
+In subsequent chapters on "_the Philosophers of Athens_," we shall enter
+more fully into the discussion of this question. Meantime we assume
+that, with few exceptions, the Greek philosophers were "genuine
+Theists."
+
+The point, however, with which we are now concerned is, _that whilst
+they believed in one supreme, uncreated, eternal God, they at the same
+time recognized the existence of a plurality of generated deities who
+owe their existence to the power and will of the Supreme God, and who,
+as the agents and ministers of His universal providence, preside over
+different departments of the created universe_. They are at once
+Monotheists and Polytheists--believers in "one God" and "many gods."
+This is a peculiarity, an anomaly which challenges our attention, and
+demands an explanation, if we would vindicate for these philosophers a
+rational Theism.
+
+Now that there can be but one infinite and absolutely perfect Being--one
+supreme, uncreated, eternal God--is self-evident; therefore a
+multiplicity of such gods is a contradiction and an impossibility. The
+early philosophers knew this as well as the modern. The Deity, in order
+to be Deity, must be one and not many: must be perfect or nothing. If,
+therefore, we would do justice to these old Greeks, we must inquire what
+explanations they have offered in regard to "the many gods" of which
+they speak. We must ascertain whether they regarded these "gods" as
+created or uncreated beings, dependent or independent, temporal or
+eternal We must inquire in what sense the term "god" is applied to these
+lesser divinities,--whether it is not applied in an accommodated and
+therefore allowable sense, as in the sacred Scriptures it is applied to
+kings and magistrates, and those who are appointed by God as the
+teachers and rulers of men. "_They are called gods_ to whom the word of
+God came."[184] And if it shall be found that all the gods of which they
+speak, save _one_, are "generated deities"--dependent beings--creatures
+and subjects of the one eternal King and Father, and that the name of
+"god" is applied to them in an accommodated sense, then we have
+vindicated for the old Greek philosophers a consistent and rational
+Theism. In what relation, then, do the philosophers place "_the gods_"
+to the one Supreme Being?
+
+_Thales_, one of the most ancient of the Greek philosophers, taught the
+existence of a plurality of gods, as is evident from that saying of his,
+preserved by Diogenes Laertius, "The world has life, and is full of
+gods."[185] At the same time he asserts his belief in one supreme,
+uncreated Deity; "God is the oldest of all things, because he is unmade,
+or ungenerated."[186] All the other gods must therefore have been
+"generated deities," since there is but one unmade God, one only that
+had "no beginning."[187]
+
+[Footnote 184: See John x. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 185: "Lives," bk. i.; see also Aristotle's "De Anima," bk. i.
+ch. viii. panta Thi�n pl�r�.]
+
+[Footnote 186: "Lives," bk. i.]
+
+[Footnote 187: "Lives," bk. i.]
+
+_Xenophanes_ was also an assertor of many gods, and one God; but his one
+God is unquestionably supreme. "There is one God, the greatest amongst
+gods and men;" or, "God is one, the greatest amongst gods and men."[188]
+
+_Empedocles_ also believed in one Supreme God, who "is wholly and
+perfectly mind, ineffable, holy, with rapid and swift-glancing thought
+pervading the whole world," and from whom all things else are
+derived,--"all things that are upon the earth, and in the air and water,
+may be truly called the works of God, who ruleth over the world, out of
+whom, according to Empedocles, proceed all things, plants, men, beasts,
+and _gods_."[189] The minor deities are therefore _made_ by God. It will
+not be denied that _Socrates_ was a devout and earnest Theist. He taught
+that "there is a Being whose eye pierces throughout all nature, and
+whose ear is open to every sound; extending through all time, extended
+to all places; and whose bounty and care can know no other bounds than
+those fixed by his own creation."[190] And yet he also recognized the
+existence of a plurality of gods, and in his last moments expressed his
+belief that "it is lawful and right to pray to the gods that his
+departure hence may be happy."[191] We see, however, in his words
+addressed to Euthydemus, a marked distinction between these subordinate
+deities and "Him who raised this whole universe, and still upholds the
+mighty frame, who perfected every part of it in beauty and in goodness,
+suffering none of these parts to decay through age, but renewing them
+daily with unfading vigor;... even he, _the Supreme God_, still holds
+himself invisible, and it is only in his works that we are capable of
+admiring him."[192]
+
+[Footnote 188: Clem. Alex., "Stromat." bk. v.]
+
+[Footnote 189: Aristotle, "De Mundo," ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 190: Xenophon's "Memorabilia," i. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 191: "Ph�do," � 152.]
+
+[Footnote 192: "Memorabilia," iv. 3.]
+
+It were needless to attempt the proof that _Plato_ believed in one
+Supreme God, and _only_ one. This one Being is, with him, "the first
+God;" "the greatest of the gods;" "the God over all;" "the sole
+Principle of the universe." He is "the Immutable;" "the All-perfect;"
+"the eternal Being." He is "the Architect of the world; "the Maker of
+the universe; the Father of gods and men; the sovereign Mind which
+orders all things, and passes through all things; the sole Monarch and
+Ruler of the world.[193]
+
+And yet remarkable as these expressions are, sounding, as they do, so
+like the language of inspiration,[194] there can be no doubt that Plato
+was also a sincere believer in a plurality of gods, of which, indeed,
+any one may assure himself by reading the _tenth_ book of "the Laws."
+
+[Footnote 193: See chap. xi.]
+
+[Footnote 194: Some writers have supposed that Plato must have had
+access through some medium to "the Oracles of God." See Butler, vol. ii.
+p. 41.]
+
+And, now that we have in Plato the culmination of Grecian speculative
+thought, we may learn from him the mature and final judgment of the
+ancients in regard to the gods of pagan mythology. We open the _Tim�us_,
+and here we find his views most definitely expressed. After giving an
+account of the "generation" of the sun, and moon, and planets, which are
+by him designated as "visible gods," he then proceeds "to speak
+concerning the other divinities:" "We must on this subject assent to
+those who in former times have spoken thereon; who were, as they said,
+the offspring of the gods, and who doubtless were well acquainted with
+their own ancestors..... Let then the genealogy of the gods be, and be
+acknowledged to be, that which they deliver. Of Earth and Heaven the
+children were Oceanus and Tethys; and of these the children were
+Phorcys, and Kronos, and Rhea, and all that followed these; and from
+these were born Zeus and Hera, and those who are regarded as brothers
+and sisters of these, and others their offspring.
+
+"When, then, _all the gods were brought into existence_, both those
+which move around in manifest courses [the stars and planets], and those
+which appear when it pleases them [the mythological deities], the
+Creator of the Universe thus addressed them: 'Gods, and sons of gods, of
+whom I am the father and the author, produced by me, ye are
+indestructible because I will.... Now inasmuch as you have been
+_generated_, you are hence _not_ immortal, nor wholly indissoluble; yet
+you shall never be dissolved nor become subject to the fatality of
+death, because _so I have willed_.... Learn, therefore, my commands.
+Three races of mortals yet remain to be created. Unless these be
+created, the universe will be imperfect, for it will not contain within
+it every kind of animal.... In order that these mortal creatures may be,
+and that this world may be really a cosmos, do you apply yourselves to
+the creation of animals, imitating the exercises of my power in
+_creating_ you.'"[195]
+
+[Footnote 195: "Tim�us," ch. xv.]
+
+Here, then, we see that Plato carefully distinguishes between the sole
+Eternal Author of the universe, on one hand, and the "souls," vital and
+intelligent, which he attaches to the heavenly orbs, and diffuses
+through all nature, on the other. These subordinate powers or agents are
+all created, "_generated_ deities," who owe their continued existence to
+the _will_ of God; and though intrusted with a sort of deputed creation,
+and a subsequent direction and government of created things, they are
+still only the _servants_ and the _deputies_ of the Supreme Creator, and
+Director, and Ruler of all things. These subordinate agents and
+ministers employed in the creation and providential government of the
+world appear, in the estimation of Plato, to have been needed--
+
+1. _To satisfy the demands of the popular faith_, which presented its
+facts to be explained no less than those of external nature. Plato had
+evidently a great veneration for antiquity, a peculiar regard for
+"tradition venerable through ancient report," and "doctrines hoary with
+years."[196] He aspired after supernatural light and guidance; he longed
+for some intercourse with, some communication from, the Deity. And
+whilst he found many things in the ancient legends which revolted his
+moral sense, and which his reason rejected, yet the sentiment and the
+lesson which pervades the whole of Grecian mythology, viz., that the
+gods are in ceaseless intercourse with the human race, and if men will
+do right the gods will protect and help them, was one which commended
+itself to his heart.
+
+[Footnote 196: Ibid., ch. v.]
+
+2. These intermediate agents seem to have been demanded to _satisfy the
+disposition and tendency which has revealed itself in all systems, of
+interposing some scale of ascent between the material creation and the
+infinite Creator_.
+
+The mechanical theory of the universe has interposed its long series of
+secondary causes--the qualities, properties, laws, forces of nature; the
+vital theory which attaches a separate "soul" to the various parts of
+nature as the cause and intelligent director of its movements. Of these
+"souls" or gods, there were different orders and degrees--deified men or
+heroes, a�rial, terrestrial, and celestial divinities, ascending from
+nature up to God. And this tendency to supply some scale of ascent
+towards the Deity, or at least to people the vast territory which seems
+to swell between the world and God, finds some countenance in "the
+angels and archangels," "the thrones, and dominions, and principalities,
+and powers" of the Christian scriptures.[197]
+
+3. These inferior ministers also seemed to Plato to _increase the
+stately grandeur and imperial majesty of the Divine government._ They
+swell the retinue of the Deity in his grand "circuit through the highest
+arch of heaven."[198] They wait to execute the Divine commands. They are
+the agents of Divine providence, "the messengers of God" to men.
+
+[Footnote 197: "The gods of the Platonic system answer, in office and
+conception, to the angels of Christian Theology."--Butler, vol. i. p.
+225.]
+
+[Footnote 198: "Ph�drus," � 56,7.]
+
+4. And, finally, the host of inferior deities interposed between the
+material sensible world and God seemed to Plato as _needful in order to
+explain the apparent defects and disorders of sublunary affairs_. Plato
+was jealous of the Divine honor. "All good must be ascribed to God, and
+nothing but good. We must find evil, disorder, suffering, in some other
+cause."[199] He therefore commits to the junior deities the task of
+creating animals, and of forming "the mortal part of man," because the
+mortal part is "possessed of certain dire and necessary passions."[200]
+
+[Footnote 199: "Republic," bk. ii. p.18.]
+
+[Footnote 200: "Tim�us," xliv.]
+
+Aristotle seems to have regarded the popular polytheism of Greece as a
+perverted relic of a deeper and purer "Theology" which he conceives to
+have been, in all probability, perfected in the distant past, and then
+comparatively lost. He says--"The tradition has come down from very
+ancient times, being left in a mythical garb to succeeding generations,
+that these (the heavenly bodies) are gods, and that the Divinity
+_encompasses the whole of nature_. There have been made, however, to
+these certain fabulous additions for the purpose of winning the belief
+of the multitude, and thus securing their obedience to the laws, and
+their co-operation towards advancing the general welfare of the state.
+These additions have been to the effect that these gods were of the same
+form as men, and even that some of them were in appearance similar to
+certain others amongst the rest of the animal creation. The wise course,
+however, would be for the philosopher to disengage from these traditions
+the false element, and to embrace that which is true; and the truth lies
+in that portion of this ancient doctrine which regards the first and
+deepest ground of all existence to be the _Divine_, and this he may
+regard as a divine utterance. In all probability, every art, and
+science, and philosophy has been over and over again discovered to the
+farthest extent possible, and then again lost; and we may conceive these
+opinions to have been preserved to us as a sort of fragment of these
+lost philosophers. We see, then, to some extent the relation of the
+popular belief to these ancient opinions."[201] This conception of a
+deep Divine ground of all existence (for the immateriality and unity of
+which he elsewhere earnestly contends)[202] is thus regarded by
+Aristotle as underlying the popular polytheism of Greece.
+
+[Footnote 201: "Metaph.," xi. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 202: Bk. xi. ch. ii. � 4.]
+
+The views of the educated and philosophic mind of Greece in regard to
+the mythological deities may, in conclusion, be thus briefly stated--
+
+I. _They are all created beings_--"GENERATED DEITIES," _who are
+dependent on, and subject to, the will of one supreme God_.
+
+II. _They are the_ AGENTS _employed by God in the creation of, at least
+some parts of, the universe, and in the movement and direction of the
+entire cosmos; and they are also the_ MINISTERS _and_ MESSENGERS _of
+that universal providence which he exercises over the human race_.
+
+These subordinate deities are, 1. the greater parts of the visible
+mundane system animated by intelligent souls, and called "_sensible
+gods_"--the sun, the moon, the stars, and even the earth itself, and
+known by the names Helios, Selena, Kronos, Hermes, etc.
+
+2. Some are _invisible powers_, having peculiar offices and functions
+and presiding over special places provinces and departments of the
+universe;--one ruling in the heavens (Zeus), another in the air (Juno),
+another in the sea (Neptune), another in the subterranean regions
+(Pluto); one god presiding over learning and wisdom (Minerva), another
+over poetry, music, and religion (Apollo), another over justice and
+political order (Themis), another over war (Mars), another over corn
+(Ceres), and another the vine (Bacchus).
+
+3. Others, again, are _ethereal_ and _a�rial_ beings, who have the
+guardianship of individual persons and things, and are called _demons,
+genii_, and _lares_; superior indeed to men, but inferior to the gods
+above named.
+
+"Wherefore, since there were no other gods among the Pagans besides
+those above enumerated, unless their images, statues, and symbols should
+be accounted such (because they were also sometimes abusively called
+'gods'), which could not be supposed by them to have been unmade or
+without beginning, they being the workmanship of their own hands, we
+conclude, universally, that all that multiplicity of Pagan gods which
+make so great a show and noise was really either nothing but several
+names and notions of one supreme Deity, according to his different
+manifestations, gifts, and effects upon the world personated, or else
+many inferior understanding beings, generated or created by one supreme:
+so that one unmade, self-existent Deity, and no more, was acknowledged
+by the more intelligent Pagans, and, consequently, the Pagan Polytheism
+(or idolatry) consisted not in worshipping a multiplicity of unmade
+minds, deities, and creators, self-existent from eternity, and
+independent upon one Supreme, but in mingling and blending some way or
+other, unduly, creature-worship with the worship of the Creator."[203]
+
+[Footnote 203: Cudworth, "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 311.]
+
+That the heathen regard the one Supreme Being as the first and chief
+object of worship is evident from the apologies which they offered for
+worshipping, besides Him, many inferior divinities.
+
+1. They claimed to worship them _only_ as inferior beings, and that
+therefore they were not guilty of giving them that honor which belonged
+to the Supreme. They claimed to worship the supreme God incomparably
+above all. 2. That this honor which is bestowed upon the inferior
+divinities does ultimately redound to the supreme God, and aggrandize
+his state and majesty, they being all his ministers and attendants. 3.
+That as demons are mediators between the celestial gods and men, so
+those celestial gods are also mediators between men and the supreme God,
+and, as it were, convenient steps by which we ought with reverence to
+approach him. 4. That demons or angels being appointed to preside over
+kingdoms, cities, and persons, and being many ways benefactors to us,
+thanks ought to be returned to them by sacrifice. 5. Lastly, that it can
+not be thought that the Supreme Being will envy those inferior beings
+that worship or honor which is bestowed upon them; nor suspect that any
+of these inferior deities will factiously go about to set up themselves
+against the Supreme God.
+
+The Pagans, furthermore, apologized for worshipping God in images,
+statues, and symbols, on the ground that these were only schetically
+worshipped by them, the honor passing from them to the prototype. And
+since we live in bodies, and can scarcely, conceive of any thing without
+having some image or phantasm, we may therefore be indulged in this
+infirmity of human nature (at least in the vulgar) to worship God under
+a corporeal image, as a means of preventing men from falling into
+Atheism.
+
+To the Christian conscience the above reasons assigned furnish no real
+justification of Polytheism and Idolatry; but they are certainly a tacit
+confession of their belief in the one Supreme God, and their conviction
+that, notwithstanding their idolatry, He only ought to be worshipped.
+The heathen polytheists are therefore justly condemned in Scripture, and
+pronounced to be "_inexcusable_." They had the knowledge of the true
+God--" they _knew God_" and yet "they glorified him not as God." "They
+changed the glory of the incorruptible God into a likeness of
+corruptible man." And, finally, they ended in "worshipping and serving
+the creature _more_ than the Creator."[204]
+
+[Footnote 204: Romans i. 21, 25.]
+
+It can not, then, with justice be denied that the Athenians had some
+knowledge of the true God, and some just and worthy conceptions of his
+character. It is equally certain that a powerful and influential
+religious sentiment pervaded the Athenian mind. Their extreme
+"carefulness in religion" must be conceded by us, and, in some sense,
+commended by us, as it was by Paul in his address on Mars' Hill. At the
+same time it must also be admitted and deplored that the purer theology
+of primitive times was corrupted by offensive legends, and encrusted by
+polluting myths, though not utterly defaced.[205] The Homeric gods were
+for the most part idealized, human personalities, with all the passions
+and weaknesses of humanity. They had their favorites and their enemies;
+sometimes they fought in one camp, sometimes in another. They were
+susceptible of hatred, jealousy, sensual passion. It would be strange
+indeed if their worshippers were not like unto them. The conduct of the
+Homeric heroes was, however, better than their creed. And there is this
+strange incongruity and inconsistency in the conduct of the Homeric
+gods,--they punish mortals for crimes of which they themselves are
+guilty, and reward virtues in men which they do not themselves always
+practise. "They punish with especial severity social and political
+crimes, such as perjury (Iliad, iii. 279), oppression of the poor (Od.
+xvii. 475), and unjust judgment in courts of justice (Iliad, xvi. 386)."
+Jupiter is the god of justice, and of the domestic hearth; he is the
+protector of the exile, the avenger of the poor, and the vigilant
+guardian of hospitality. "And with all the imperfections of society,
+government, and religion, the poem presents a remarkable picture of
+primitive simplicity, chastity, justice, and practical piety, under the
+three-fold influence of moral feeling, mutual respect, and fear of the
+divine displeasure; such, at least, are the motives to which Telemachus
+makes his appeal when he endeavors to rouse the assembled people of
+Ithaca to the performance of their duty (Od. ii. 64)."[206]
+
+[Footnote 205: "There was always a double current of religious ideas in
+Greece; one spiritualist, the other tainted with impure
+legends."--Pressens�.]
+
+[Footnote 206: Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," pp. 167, 168;
+Pressens�, "Religion before Christ," p. 77.]
+
+The influence of the religious dramas of �schylus and Sophocles on the
+Athenian mind must not be overlooked. No writer of pagan antiquity made
+the voice of conscience speak with the same power and authority that
+�schylus did. "Crime," he says, "never dies without posterity." "Blood
+that has been shed congeals on the ground, crying out for an avenger."
+The old poet made himself the echo of what he called "the lyreless hymn
+of the Furies," who, with him, represented severe Justice striking the
+guilty when his hour comes, and giving warning beforehand by the terrors
+which haunt him. His dramas are characterized by deep religious feeling.
+Reverence for the gods, the recognition of an inflexible moral order,
+resignation to the decisions of Heaven, an abiding presentiment of a
+future state of reward and punishment, are strikingly predominant.
+
+Whilst �schylus reveals to us the sombre, terror-stricken side of
+conscience, Sophocles shows us the divine and luminous side. No one has
+ever spoken with nobler eloquence than he of moral obligation--of this
+immortal, inflexible law, in which dwells a God that never grows old--
+
+        "Oh be the lot forever mine
+            Unsullied to maintain,
+         In act and word, with awe divine,
+            What potent laws ordain.
+
+     "Laws spring from purer realms above:
+      Their father is the Olympian Jove.
+      Ne'er shall oblivion veil their front sublime,
+      Th' indwelling god is great, nor fears the wastes of time."[207]
+
+The religious inspiration that animates Sophocles breaks out with
+incomparable beauty in the last words of oedipus, when the old banished
+king sees through the darkness of death a mysterious light dawn, which
+illumines his blind eyes, and which brings to him the assurance of a
+blessed immortality.[208]
+
+[Footnote 207: "oedipus Tyran.," pp. 863-872.]
+
+[Footnote 208: Pressens�, "Religion before Christ," pp. 85-87.]
+
+Such a theology could not have been utterly powerless. The influence of
+truth, in every measure and degree, must be salutary, and especially of
+truth in relation to God, to duty, and to immortality. The religion of
+the Athenians must have had some wholesome and conserving influence of
+the social and political life of Athens.[209] Those who resign the
+government of this lower world almost exclusively to Satan, may see, in
+the religion of the Greeks, a simple creation of Satanic powers. But he
+who believes that the entire progress of humanity has been under the
+control and direction of a benignant Providence, must suppose that, in
+the purposes of God, even Ethnicism has fulfilled some end, or it would
+not have been permitted to live. God has "_never left himself without a
+witness_" in any nation under heaven. And some preparatory office has
+been fulfilled by Heathenism which, at least, repealed the _want_, and
+prepared the mind for, the advent of Christianity.
+
+[Footnote 209: The practice, so common with some theological writers, of
+drawing dark pictures of heathenism, in which not one luminous spot is
+visible, in order to exalt the revelations given to the Jews, is
+exceedingly unfortunate, and highly reprehensible. It is unfortunate,
+because the skeptical scholar knows that there were some elements of
+truth and excellence, and even of grandeur, in the religion and
+civilization of the republics of Greece and Rome; and it is
+reprehensible, because it is a one-sided and unjust procedure, in so far
+as it withholds part of the truth. This species of argument is a
+two-edged sword which cuts both ways. The prevalence of murder, and
+slavery, and treachery, and polygamy, in Greece and Rome, is no more a
+proof that "the religions of the pagan nations were destructive of
+morality" (Watson, vol. i. p. 59), than the polygamy of the Hebrews, the
+falsehoods and impositions of Mediaeval Christianity, the persecutions
+and martyrdoms of Catholic Christianity, the oppressions and wrongs of
+Christian England, and the slavery of Protestant America, are proofs
+that the Christian religion is "destructive of morality." What a fearful
+picture of the history of Christian nations might be drawn to-day, if
+all the lines of light, and goodness, and charity were left out, and the
+crimes, and wrongs, and cruelties of the Christian nations were alone
+exhibited!
+
+How much more convincing a proof of the truth of Christianity to find in
+the religions of the ancient world a latent sympathy with, and an
+unconscious preparation for, the religion of Christ. "The history of
+religions of human origin is the most striking evidence of the agreement
+of revealed religion with the soul of man--for each of these forms of
+worship is the expression of the wants of conscience, its eternal thirst
+for pardon and restoration--rather let us say, its thirst for
+God."--Pressens�, p. 6.]
+
+The religion of the Athenians was unable to deliver them from the guilt
+of sin, redeem them from its power, and make them pure and holy. It gave
+the Athenian no victory over himself, and, practically, brought him no
+nearer to the living God. But it awakened and educated the conscience,
+it developed more fully the sense of sin and guilt, and it made man
+conscious of his inability to save himself from sin and guilt; and "the
+day that humanity awakens to the want of something more than mere
+embellishment and culture, that day it feels the need of being saved and
+restored from the consequences of sin" by a higher power. �sthetic taste
+had found its fullest gratification in Athens; poetry, sculpture,
+architecture, had been carried to the highest perfection; a noble
+civilization had been reached; but "the need of something deeper and
+truer was written on the very stones." The highest consummation of
+Paganism was an altar to "the unknown God," the knowledge of whom it
+needed, as the source of purity and peace.
+
+The strength and the weakness of Grecian mythology consisted in the
+contradictory character of its divinities. It was a strange blending of
+the natural and the supernatural, the human and the divine. Zeus, the
+eternal Father,--the immortal King, whose will is sovereign, and whose
+power is invincible,--the All-seeing Jove, has some of the weaknesses
+and passions of humanity. God and man are thus, in some mysterious way,
+united. And here that deepest longing of the human heart is met--the
+unconquerable desire to bring God nearer to the human apprehension, and
+closer to the human heart. Hence the hold which Polytheism had upon the
+Grecian mind. But in this human aspect was also found its weakness, for
+when philosophic thought is brought into contact with, and permitted
+critically to test mythology, it dethrones the false gods. The age of
+spontaneous religious sentiment must necessarily be succeeded by the age
+of reflective thought. Popular theological faiths must be placed in the
+hot crucible of dialectic analysis, that the false and the frivolous may
+be separated from the pure and the true. The reason of man demands to be
+satisfied, as well as the heart. Faith in God must have a logical basis,
+it must be grounded on demonstration and proof. Or, at any rate, the
+question must be answered, _whether God is cognizable by human reason_?
+If this can be achieved, then a deeper foundation is laid in the mind of
+humanity, upon which Christianity can rear its higher and nobler truths.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE UNKNOWN GOD.
+
+
+"As I passed by, and beheld your sacred objects, I found an altar with
+this inscription, _To the Unknown God_."--ST. PAUL.
+
+"That which can be _known_ of God is manifested in their hearts, God
+himself having shown it to them" [the heathen nations].--ST. PAUL.
+
+Having now reached our first landing-place, from whence we may survey
+the fields that we have traversed, it may be well to set down in
+definite propositions the results we have attained. We may then carry
+them forward, as torches, to illuminate the path of future and still
+profounder inquiries.
+
+The principles we have assumed as the only adequate and legitimate
+interpretation of the facts of religious history, and which an extended
+study of the most fully-developed religious system of the ancient world
+confirms, may be thus announced:
+
+I. A religious nature and destination appertain to man, so that the
+purposes of his existence and the perfection of his being can only be
+secured in and through religion.
+
+II. The idea of God as the unconditioned Cause, the infinite Mind, the
+personal Lord and Lawgiver, and the consciousness of dependence upon and
+obligation to God, are the fundamental principles of all religion.
+
+III. Inasmuch as man is a religious being, the instincts and emotions of
+his nature constraining him to worship, there must also be implanted in
+his rational nature some original _� priori_ ideas or laws of thought
+which furnish the necessary cognition of the object of worship; that is,
+some native, spontaneous cognition of God.
+
+A mere blind impulse would not be adequate to guide man to the true end
+and perfection of his being without rational ideas; a tendency or
+appetency, without a revealed object, would be the mockery and misery of
+his nature--an "ignis fatuus" perpetually alluring and forever deceiving
+man.
+
+That man has a native, spontaneous apperception of a God, in the true
+import of that sacred name, has been denied by men of totally opposite
+schools and tendencies of thought--by the Idealist and the Materialist;
+by the Theologian and the Atheist. Though differing essentially in their
+general principles and method, they are agreed in asserting that God is
+absolutely "_the unknown_;" and that, so far as reason and logic are
+concerned, man can not attain to any knowledge of the first principles
+and causes of the universe, and, consequently, can not determine whether
+the first principle or principles be intelligent or unintelligent,
+personal or impersonal, finite or infinite, one or many righteous or
+non-righteous, evil or good.
+
+The various opponents of the doctrine that God can be cognized by human
+reason may be classified as follows: I. _Those who assert that all human
+knowledge is necessarily confined to the observation and classification
+of phenomena in their orders of co-existence, succession, and
+resemblance_. Man has no faculty for cognizing substances, causes,
+forces, reasons, first principles--no power by which he can _know_ God.
+This class may be again subdivided into--
+
+1. Those who limit all knowledge to the observation and classification
+of _mental_ phenomena (_e. g_., Idealists like J. S. Mill).
+
+2. Those who limit all knowledge to the observation and classification
+of _material_ phenomena (_e. g_., Materialists like Comte).
+
+II. _The second class comprises all who admit that philosophic knowledge
+is the knowledge of effects as dependent on causes, and of qualities as
+inherent in substances; but at the same time assert that "all knowledge
+is of the phenomenal_." Philosophy can never attain to a positive
+knowledge of the First Cause. Of existence, absolutely and in itself, we
+know nothing. The infinite can not by us be comprehended, conceived, or
+thought. _Faith_ is the organ by which we apprehend what is beyond
+knowledge. We believe in the existence of God, but we can not _know_
+God. This class, also, may be again subdivided into--
+
+1. Those who affirm that our idea of the Infinite First Cause is
+grounded on an _intuitional_ or subjective faith, necessitated by an
+"impotence of thought"--that is, by a mental inability to conceive an
+absolute limitation or an infinite illimitation, an absolute
+commencement or an infinite non-commencement. Both contradictory
+opposites are equally incomprehensible and inconceivable to us; and yet,
+though unable to view either as possible, we are forced by a higher
+law--the "Law of Excluded Middle"--to admit that one, and only one, is
+necessary (_e. g_., Hamilton and Mansel).
+
+2. Those who assert that our idea of God rests solely on an _historical_
+or objective faith in testimony--the testimony of Scripture, which
+assures us that, in the course of history, God has manifested his
+existence in an objective manner to the senses, and given verbal
+communications of his character and will to men; human reason being
+utterly incapacitated by the fall, and the consequent depravity of man,
+to attain any knowledge of the unity, spirituality, and righteousness of
+God (_e. g_., Watson, and Dogmatic Theologians generally).
+
+It will thus be manifest that the great question, the central and vital
+question which demands a thorough and searching consideration, is the
+following, to wit: _Is God cognizable by human reason_? Can man attain
+to a positive cognition of God--can he _know_ God; or is all our
+supposed knowledge "a learned ignorance,"[210] an unreasoning faith? We
+venture to answer this question in the affirmative. Human reason is now
+adequate to the cognition of God; it is able, with the fullest
+confidence, to affirm the being of a God, and, in some degree, to
+determine his character. The parties and schools above referred to
+answer this question in the negative form. Whether Theologians or
+Atheists, they are singularly agreed in denying to human reason all
+possibility of _knowing_ God.
+
+[Footnote 210: Hamilton's "Philosophy," p. 512.]
+
+Before entering upon the discussion of the negative positions enumerated
+in the above classification, it may be important we should state our own
+position explicitly, and exhibit what we regard as the true doctrine of
+the genesis of the idea of God in the human intelligence. The real
+question at issue will then stand out in clear relief, and precision
+will be given to the entire discussion.
+
+(i.) _We hold that the idea of God is a common phenomenon of the
+universal human intelligence_. It is found in all minds where reason has
+had its normal and healthy development; and no race of men has ever been
+found utterly destitute of the idea of God. The proof of this position
+has already been furnished in chap, ii.,[211] and needs not be re-stated
+here. We have simply to remark that the appeal which is made by Locke
+and others of the sensational school to the experiences of infants,
+idiots, the deaf and dumb, or, indeed, any cases wherein the proper
+conditions for the normal development of reason are wanting, are utterly
+irrelevant to the question. The acorn contains within itself the
+rudimental germ of the future oak, but its mature and perfect
+development depends on the exterior conditions of moisture, light, and
+heat. By these exterior conditions it may be rendered luxuriant in its
+growth, or it may be stunted in its growth. It may barely exist under
+one class of conditions; it may be distorted and perverted, or it may
+perish utterly under another. And so in the idiotic mind the ideas of
+reason may be wanting, or they may be imprisoned by impervious walls of
+cerebral malformation. In the infant mind the development of reason is
+yet in an incipient stage. The idea of God is immanent to the infant
+thought, but the infant thought is not yet matured. The deaf and dumb
+are certainly not in that full and normal correlation to the world of
+sense which is a necessary condition of the development of reason.
+Language, the great vehiculum and instrument of thought, is wanting, and
+reason can not develop itself without words. "Words without thought are
+dead sounds, _thoughts without words are nothing_. The word is the
+thought incarnate."[212] Under proper and normal conditions, the idea of
+God is the natural and necessary form in which human thought must be
+developed. And, with these explanations, we repeat our affirmation that
+the idea of God is a common phenomenon of the universal human
+intelligence.
+
+[Footnote 211: Pp. 89,90.]
+
+[Footnote 212: M�ller, "Science of Language," p. 384.]
+
+(ii.) _We do not hold that the idea of God, in its completeness, is a
+simple, direct, and immediate intuition of the reason alone, independent
+of all experience, and all knowledge of the external world_. The idea of
+God is a complex idea, and not a simple idea. The affirmation, "God
+exists," is a _synthetic_ and _primitive_ judgment spontaneously
+developed in the mind, and developed, too, independent of all reflective
+reasoning. It is a necessary deduction from the facts of the outer world
+of nature and the primary intuitions of the inner world of reason--a
+logical deduction from the self-evident truths given in sense,
+consciousness, and reason. "We do not _perceive_ God, but we _conceive_
+Him upon the faith of this admirable world exposed to view, and upon the
+other world, more admirable still, which we bear in ourselves."[213]
+Therefore we do not say that man is born with an "innate idea" of God,
+nor with the definite proposition, "there is a God," written upon his
+soul; but we do say that the mind is pregnant with certain natural
+principles, and governed, in its development, by certain necessary laws
+of thought, which determine it, by a _spontaneous logic_, to affirm the
+being of a God; and, furthermore, that this judgment may be called
+_innate_ in the sense, that it is the primitive, universal, and
+necessary development of the human understanding which "is innate to
+itself and equal to itself in all men."[214]
+
+[Footnote 213: Cousin, "True, Beautiful and Good," p.102.]
+
+[Footnote 214: Leibnitz.]
+
+As the vital and rudimentary germ of the oak is contained in the acorn;
+as it is quickened and excited to activity by the external conditions of
+moisture, light, and heat, and is fully de developed under the fixed and
+determinative laws of vegetable life--so the germs of the idea of God
+are present in the human mind as the intuitions of pure reason
+(_Rational Psychology_); these intuitions are excited to energy by our
+experiential and historical knowledge of the facts and laws of the
+universe (_Phenomenology_); and these facts and intuitions are developed
+into form by the necessary laws of the intellect (_Nomology_, or
+_Primordial Logic_).
+
+The _logical demonstration_ of the being of God commences with the
+analysis of thought. It asks, What are the ideas which exist in the
+human intelligence? What are their actual characteristics, and what
+their primitive characteristics? What is their origin, and what their
+validity? Having, by this process, found that some of our ideas are
+subjective, and some objective that some are derived from experience,
+and that some can not be derived from experience, but are inherent in
+the very constitution of the mind itself, as _� priori_ ideas of reason;
+that these are characterized as self-evident, universal, and necessary
+and that, as laws of thought, they govern the mind in all its
+conceptions of the universe; it has formulated these necessary
+judgments, and presented them as distinct and articulate propositions.
+These _� priori_, necessary judgments constitute the major premise of
+the Theistic syllogism, and, in view of the facts of the universe,
+necessitate the affirmation of the existence of a God as the only valid
+explanation of the facts.
+
+The _natural_ or _chronological order_ in which the idea of God is
+developed in the human intelligence, is the reverse process of the
+scientific or logical order, in which the demonstration of the being of
+God is presented by philosophy; the latter is _reflective_ and
+_analytic_, the former is _spontaneous_ and _synthetic._ The natural
+order commences with the knowledge of the facts of the universe,
+material and mental, as revealed by sensation and experience. In
+presence of these facts of the universe, the _� priori_ ideas of power,
+cause, reason, and end are evoked into consciousness with greater or
+less distinctness; and the judgment, by a natural and spontaneous logic,
+free from all reflection, and consequently from all possibility of
+error, affirms a necessary relation between the facts of experience and
+the _� priori_ ideas of the reason. The result of this involuntary and
+almost unconscious process of thought is that natural cognition of a God
+found, with greater or less clearness and definiteness, in all rational
+minds. The _� posteriori_, or empirical knowledge of the phenomena of
+the universe, in their relations to time and space, constitute the minor
+premise of the Theistic syllogism.
+
+The Theistic argument is, therefore, necessarily composed of both
+experiential and _� priori_ elements. An _� posteriori_ element exists
+as a condition of the logical demonstration The rational _� priori_
+element is, however, the logical basis, the only valid foundation of the
+Theistic demonstration. The facts of the universe alone would never lead
+man to the recognition of a God, if the reason, in presence of these
+facts, did not enounce certain necessary and universal principles which
+are the logical antecedents, and adequate explanation of the facts. Of
+what use would it be to point to the events and changes of the material
+universe as proofs of the existence of a _First Cause,_ unless we take
+account of the universal and necessary truth that "every change must
+have an efficient cause;" that all phenomena are an indication of
+_power_; and that "there is an ultimate and sufficient reason why all
+things exist, and are as they are, and not otherwise." There would be no
+logical force in enumerating the facts of order and special adaptation
+which literally crowd the universe, as proofs of the existence of an
+_Intelligent Creator_, if the mind did not affirm the necessary
+principle that "facts of order, having a commencement in time, suppose
+mind as their source and exponent." There is no logical conclusiveness
+in the assertion of Paley, "that _experience_ teaches us that a designer
+must be a person," because, as Hume justly remarks, our "experience" is
+narrowed down to a mere point, "and can not be a rule for a universe;"
+but there is an infinitude of force in that dictum of reason, that
+"intelligence, self-consciousness, and self-determination necessarily
+constitute personality." A multiplicity of different effects, of which
+experience does not always reveal the connection, would not conduct to a
+single cause and to _one_ God, but rather to a plurality of causes and a
+plurality of gods, did not reason teach us that "all plurality implies
+an ultimate indivisible unity," and therefore there must be a _First
+Cause_ of all causes, a _First Principle_ of all principles, _the
+Substance_ of all substances, _the Being_ of all beings--_a God_ "of
+whom, in whom, and to whom are all things" (panta ek tou Theou, en t�
+The� eis ton Theon).
+
+The conclusion, therefore, is, that, as the idea of God is a complex
+idea, so there are necessarily a number of simple _� priori_ principles,
+and a variety of experiential facts conspiring to its development in the
+human intelligence.
+
+(iii.) _The universe presents to the human mind an aggregation and
+history of phenomena which demands the idea of a God--a self-existent,
+intelligent, personal, righteous First Cause--as its adequate
+explanation._
+
+The attempt of Positivism to confine all human knowledge to the
+observation and classification of phenomena, and arrest and foreclose
+all inquiry as to causes, efficient, final, and ultimate, is simply
+futile and absurd. It were just as easy to arrest the course of the sun
+in mid-heaven as to prevent the human mind from seeking to pass beyond
+phenomena, and ascertain the ground, and reason, and cause of all
+phenomena. The history of speculative thought clearly attests that, in
+all ages, the inquiry after the Ultimate Cause and Reason of all
+existence--the arch�, or First Principle of all things--has been the
+inevitable and necessary tendency of the human mind; to resist which,
+skepticism and positivism have been utterly impotent. The first
+philosophers, of the Ionian school, had just as strong a faith in the
+existence of a Supreme Reality--an Ultimate Cause--as Leibnitz and
+Cousin. But when, by reflective thought, they attempted to render an
+account to themselves of this instinctive faith, they imagined that its
+object must be in some way appreciable to sense, and they sought it in
+some physical element, or under some visible and tangible shrine. Still,
+however imperfect and inadequate the method, and however unsatisfactory
+the results, humanity has never lost its positive and ineradicable
+confidence that the problem of existence could be solved. The resistless
+tide of spontaneous and necessary thought has always borne the race
+onward towards the recognition of a great First Cause; and though
+philosophy may have erred, again and again, in tracing the logical order
+of this inevitable thought, and exhibiting the necessary nexus between
+the premises and conclusion, yet the human mind has never wavered in the
+confidence which it has reposed in the natural logic of thought, and man
+has never ceased to believe in a God.
+
+We readily grant that all our empirical knowledge is confined to
+phenomena in their orders of co-existence, succession, and resemblance.
+"To our objective perception and comparison nothing is given but
+qualities and changes; to our inductive generalization nothing but the
+shifting and grouping of these in time and space." Were it, however, our
+immediate concern to discuss the question, we could easily show that
+sensationalism has never succeeded in tracing the genetic origin of our
+ideas of space and time to observation and experience; and, without the
+_� priori_ idea of _space_, as the place of bodies, and of _time_, as
+the condition of succession, we can not conceive of phenomena at all.
+If, therefore, we know any thing beyond phenomena and their mutual
+relations; if we have any cognition of realities underlying phenomena,
+and of the relations of phenomena to their objective ground, it must be
+given by some faculty distinct from sense-perception, and in some
+process distinct from inductive generalization. The knowledge of real
+Being and real Power, of an ultimate Reason and a personal Will, is
+derived from the apperception of pure reason, which affirms the
+necessary existence of a Supreme Reality--an Uncreated Being beyond all
+phenomena, which is the ground and reason of the existence--the
+contemporaneousness and succession--the likeness and unlikeness, of all
+phenomena.
+
+The immediate presentation of phenomena to sensation is the _occasion_
+of the development in consciousness of these _� priori_ ideas of reason:
+the possession of these ideas or the immanence of these ideas, in the
+human intellect, constitutes the original _power_ to know external
+phenomena. The ideas of space, time, power, law, reason, and end, are
+the logical antecedents of the ideas of body, succession, event,
+consecution, order, and adaptation. The latter can not be conceived as
+distinct notions without the former. The former will not be revealed in
+thought without the presentation to sense, of resistance, movement,
+change, uniformity, etc. All actual knowledge must, therefore, be
+impure; that is, it must involve both _� priori_ and _� posteriori_
+elements; and between these elements there must be a necessary relation.
+
+This necessary relation between the _� priori_ and _� posteriori_
+elements of knowledge is not a mere subjective law of thought. It is
+both a law of thought and a law of things. Between the _� posteriori_
+facts of the universe and the _� priori_ ideas of the reason there is an
+absolute nexus, a universal and necessary correlation; so that the
+cognition of the latter is possible only on the cognition of the former;
+and the objective existence of the realities, represented by the ideas
+of reason, is the condition, _sine qua non_, of the existence of the
+phenomena presented to sense. If, in one indivisible act of
+consciousness, we immediately perceive extended matter exterior to our
+percipient mind, then Extension exists objectively; and if Extension
+exists objectively, then Space, its _conditio sine qua non_, also exists
+objectively. And if a definite body reveals to us the _Space_ in which
+it is contained, if a succession of pulsations or movements exhibit the
+uniform _Time_ beneath, so do the changeful phenomena of the universe
+demand a living _Power_ behind, and the existing order and regular
+evolution of the universe presuppose _Thought_--prevision, and
+predetermination, by an intelligent mind.
+
+If, then, the universe is a created effect, it must furnish some
+indications of the character of its cause. If, as Plato taught, the
+world is a "created image" of the eternal archetypes which dwell in the
+uncreated Mind, and if the subjective ideas which dwell in the human
+reason, as the offspring of God, are "copies" of the ideas of the
+Infinite Reason--if the universe be "the autobiography of the Infinite
+Spirit which has also repeated itself in miniature within our finite
+spirit," then may we decipher its symbols, and read its lessons straight
+off. Then every approach towards a scientific comprehension and
+generalization of the facts of the universe must carry us upward towards
+the higher realities of reason. The more we can understand of Nature--of
+her comprehensive laws, of her archetypal forms, of her far-reaching
+plan spread through the almost infinite ages, and stretching through
+illimitable space--the more do we comprehend the divine Thought. The
+inductive generalization of science gradually _ascends_ towards the
+universal; the pure, essential, _� priori_ reason, with its universal
+and necessary ideas, _descends_ from above to meet it. The general
+conceptions of science are thus a kind of _ideoe umbratiles_--shadowy
+assimilations to those immutable ideas which dwell in essential reason,
+as possessed by the Supreme Intelligence, and which are participated in
+by rational man as the offspring and image of God.
+
+Without making any pretension to profound scientific accuracy, we offer
+the following tentative classification of the facts of the universe,
+material and mental, which may be regarded as hints and adumbrations of
+the ultimate ground, and reason, and cause, of the universe. We shall
+venture to classify these facts as indicative of some fundamental
+relation; (i.) to Permanent Being or Reality; (ii.) to Reason and
+Thought; (iii.) to Moral Ideas and Ends.
+
+(i.) _Facts of the universe which indicate some fundamental relation to
+Permanent Being or Reality_.
+
+1. _Qualitative_ Phenomena (properties, attributes, qualities)--the
+predicates of a _subject_; which phenomena, being characterized by
+likeness and unlikeness, are capable of comparison and classification,
+and thus of revealing something as to the nature of the _subject_.
+
+2. _Dynamical_ Phenomena (protension, movement, succession)--events
+transpiring in _time_, having beginning, succession, and end, which
+present themselves to us as the expression of _power_, and throw back
+their distinctive characteristics on their _dynamic_ source.
+
+3. _Quantitative_ Phenomena (totality, multiplicity, relative unity)--a
+multiplicity of objects having relative and composite unity, which
+suggests some relation to an absolute and indivisible _unity_.
+
+4. _Statical_ Phenomena (extension, magnitude, divisibility)--bodies
+co-existing in _space_ which are limited, conditioned, relative,
+dependent, and indicate some relation to that which is self-existent,
+unconditioned, and absolute.
+
+(ii.) _Facts of the universe which indicate some fundamental relation to
+Reason or Thought_.
+
+1. _Numerical and Geometrical Proportion_.--Definite proportion of
+elements (Chemistry), symmetrical arrangement of parts
+(Crystallography), numerical and geometrical relation of the forms and
+movements of the heavenly bodies (Spherical Astronomy), all of which are
+capable of exact mathematical expression.
+
+2. _Archetypal Forms_.--The uniform succession of new existences, and
+the progressive evolution of new orders and species, conformable to
+fixed and definite ideal archetypes, the indication of a comprehensive
+_plan_(Morphological Botany, Comparative Anatomy).
+
+3. _Teleology of Organs_.--The adaptation of organs to the fulfillment
+of special functions, indicating _design_(Comparative Physiology).
+
+4. _Combination of Homotypes and Analogues_.--Diversified homologous
+forms made to fulfill analogous functions, or special purposes fulfilled
+whilst maintaining a general plan, indicating _choice_ and
+_alternativity_.
+
+(iii.) _Facts of the universe which indicate some fundamental relation
+to Moral Ideas and Ends_.
+
+1. _Ethical Distinctions_.--The universal tendency to discriminate
+between voluntary acts as right or wrong, indicating some relation to an
+_immutable moral standard of right_.
+
+2. _Sense of Obligation_.--The universal consciousness of dependence and
+obligation, indicating some relation to Supreme _Power_, an Absolute
+_Authority_.
+
+3. _Feeling of Responsibility_.--The universal consciousness of
+liability to be required to give account for, and endure the
+consequences of our action, indicating some relation to a Supreme
+_Judge_.
+
+4. _Retributive Issues_.--The pleasure and pain resulting from moral
+action in this life, and the universal anticipation of pleasure or pain
+in the future, as the consequence of present conduct, indicate an
+_absolute Justice_ ruling the world and man.
+
+Now, if the universe be a _created effect_, it must, in some degree at
+least, reveal the character of its Author and cause. We are entitled to
+regard it as a created symbol and image of the Deity; it must bear the
+impress of his _power_; it must reveal his infinite _presence_; it must
+express his _thoughts_; it must embody and realize his _ideals_, so far,
+at least, as material symbols will permit. Just as we see the power and
+thought of man revealed in his works, his energy and skill, his ideal
+and his taste expressed in his mechanical, artistic, and literary
+creations, so we may see the mind and character of God displayed in his
+works. The skill and contrivance of Watts, and Fulton, and Stephenson
+were exhibited in their mechanical productions. The pure, the intense,
+the visionary impersonation of the soul which the artist had conjured in
+his own imagination was wrought out in Psych�. The colossal grandeur of
+Michael Angelo's ideals, the ethereal and saintly elegance of Raphael's
+were realized upon the canvas. So he who is familiar with the ideal of
+the sculptor or the painter can identify his creations even when the
+author's name is not affixed. And so the "eternal Power" of God is
+"clearly seen" in the mighty orbs which float in the illimitable space.
+The vastness of the universe shadows forth the infinity of God. The
+indivisible unity of space and the ideal unity of the universe reflect
+the unity of God. The material forms around us are symbols of divine
+ideas, and the successive history of the universe is an expression of
+the divine thought; whilst the ethical ideas and sentiments inherent in
+the human mind are a reflection of the moral character of God.
+
+The reader can not have failed to observe the form in which the Theistic
+argument is stated; "_if_ the finite universe is a created effect, it
+must reveal something as to the nature of its cause: _if_ the existing
+order and arrangement of the universe had a commencement in time, it
+must have an ultimate and adequate cause." The question, therefore,
+presents itself in a definite form: "_Is the universe finite or
+infinite; had the order of the universe a beginning, or is it eternal_?"
+
+It will be seen at a glance that this is the central and vital question
+in the Theistic argument. If the order and arrangement of the universe
+is _eternal_, then that order is an inherent law of nature, and, as
+eternal, does not imply a cause _ab extra:_ if it is not eternal, then
+the ultimate cause of that order must be a power above and beyond
+nature. In the former case the minor premise of the Theistic syllogism
+is utterly invalidated; in the latter case it is abundantly sustained.
+
+Some Theistic writers--as Descartes, Pascal, Leibnitz, and Saisset--have
+made the fatal admission that the universe is, in some sense, _infinite_
+and _eternal_. In making this admission they have unwittingly
+surrendered the citadel of strength, and deprived the argument by which
+they would prove the being of a God of all its logical force. That
+argument is thus presented by Saisset: "The finite supposes the
+infinite. Extension supposes first space, then immensity: duration
+supposes first time, then eternity. A sudden and irresistible judgment
+refers this to the necessary, infinite, perfect being."[215] But if "the
+world is infinite and eternal,"[216] may not nature, or the totality of
+all existence (to pan), be the necessary, infinite, and perfect Being?
+An infinite and eternal universe has the reason of its existence in
+itself, and the existence of such a universe can never prove to us the
+existence of an infinite and eternal God.
+
+[Footnote 215: "Modern Pantheism," vol. ii. p. 205.]
+
+[Footnote 216: Ibid, p. 123.]
+
+A closer examination of the statements and reasonings of Descartes,
+Pascal, and Leibnitz, as furnished by Saisset, will show that these
+distinguished mathematicans were misled by the false notion of
+"_mathematical_ infinitude." Their infinite universe, after all, is not
+an "absolute," but a "relative" infinite; that is, the indefinite. "The
+universe must extend _indefinitely_ in time and space, in the infinite
+greatness, and in the infinite littleness of its parts--in the infinite
+variety of its species, of its forms, and of its degrees of existence.
+The finite can not express the infinite but by being _multiplied_
+infinitely. The finite, so far as it is finite, is not in any reasonable
+relation, or in any intelligible proportion to the infinite. But the
+finite, as _multiplied_ infinitely,[217] ages upon ages, spaces upon
+spaces, stars beyond stars, worlds beyond worlds, is a true expression
+of the Infinite Being. Does it follow, because the universe has no
+limits,--that it must therefore be eternal, immense, infinite as God
+himself? No; that is but a vain scruple, which springs from the
+imagination, and not from the reason. The imagination is always
+confounding what reason should ever distinguish, eternity and time,
+immensity and space, _relative_ infinity and _absolute_ infinity. The
+Creator alone is eternal, immense, absolutely infinite."[218]
+
+[Footnote 217: "The infinite is distinct from the finite, and
+consequently from the multiplication of the finite by itself; that is,
+from the _indefinite_. That which is not infinite, added as many times
+as you please to itself, will not become infinite."--Cousin, "Hist, of
+Philos.," vol. ii. p. 231.]
+
+[Footnote 218: Saisset, "Modern Pantheism," vol. ii. pp. 127, 128.]
+
+The introduction of the idea of "the mathematical infinite" into
+metaphysical speculation, especially by Kant and Hamilton, with the
+design, it would seem, of transforming the idea of infinity into a
+sensuous conception, has generated innumerable paralogisms which
+disfigure the pages of their philosophical writings. This procedure is
+grounded in the common fallacy of supposing that _infinity_ and
+_quantity_ are compatible attributes, and susceptible of mathematical
+synthesis. This insidious and plausible error is ably refuted by a
+writer in the "North American Review."[219] We can not do better than
+transfer his argument to our pages in an abridged form.
+
+[Footnote 219: "The Conditioned and the Unconditioned," No. CCV. art.
+iii. (1864).]
+
+Mathematics is conversant with quantities and quantitative relations.
+The conception of quantity, therefore, if rigorously analyzed, will
+indicate _� priori_ the natural and impassable boundaries of the
+science; while a subsequent examination of the quantities called
+infinite in the mathematical sense, and of the algebraic symbol of
+infinity, will be seen to verify the results of this _� priori_
+analysis.
+
+Quantity is that attribute of things in virtue of which they are
+susceptible of exact mensuration. The question _how much_, or _how many_
+(_quantus_), implies the answer, _so much_, or _so many_ (_tantus_); but
+the answer is possible only through reference to some standard of
+magnitude or multitude arbitrarily assumed. Every object, therefore, of
+which quantity, in the mathematical sense, is predicable, must be by its
+essential nature _mensurable._ Now mensurability implies the existence
+of actual, definite limits, since without them there could be no fixed
+relation between the given object and the standard of measurement, and,
+consequently, no possibility of exact mensuration. In fact, since
+quantification is the object of all mathematical operations, mathematics
+may be not inaptly defined as _the science of the determinations of
+limits_. It is evident, therefore, that the terms _quantity_ and
+_finitude_ express the same attribute, namely, _limitation_--the former
+relatively, the latter absolutely; for quantity is limitation considered
+with relation to some standard of measurement, and finitude is
+limitation considered simply in itself. The sphere of quantity,
+therefore, is absolutely identical with the sphere of the finite; and
+the phrase _infinite quantity_, if strictly construed, is a
+contradiction in terms.
+
+The result thus attained by considering abstract quantity is
+corroborated by considering concrete and discrete quantities. Such
+expressions as _infinite sphere, radius, parallelogram, line,_ and so
+forth, are self-contradictory. A sphere is limited by its own periphery,
+and a radius by the centre and circumference of its circle. A
+parallelogram of infinite altitude is impossible, because the limit of
+its altitude is assigned in the side which must be parallel to its base
+in order to constitute it a parallelogram. In brief, all figuration is
+limitation. The contradiction in the term _infinite line_ is not quite
+so obvious, but can readily be made apparent. Objectively, a line is
+only the termination of a surface, and a surface the termination of a
+solid; hence a line can not exist apart from an extended quantity, nor
+an infinite line apart from an infinite quantity. But as this term has
+just been shown to be self-contradictory, an infinite line can not exist
+objectively at all. Again, every line is extension in one dimension;
+hence a mathematical quantity, hence mensurable, hence finite; you must
+therefore, deny that a line is a quantity, or else affirm that it is
+finite.
+
+The same conclusion is forced upon us, if from geometry we turn to
+arithmetic. The phrases _infinite number, infinite series, infinite
+process_, and so forth, are all contradictory when literally construed.
+Number is a relation among separate unities or integers, which,
+considered objectively as independent of our cognitive powers, must
+constitute an exact sum; and this exactitude, or synthetic totality, is
+limitation. If considered subjectively in the mode of its cognition, a
+number is infinite only in the sense that it is beyond the power of our
+imagination or conception, which is an abuse of the term. In either case
+the totality is fixed; that is, finite. So, too, of _series_ and
+_process_. Since every series involves a succession of terms or numbers,
+and every process a succession of steps or stages, the notion of series
+and process plainly involves that of _number_, and must be rigorously
+dissociated from the idea of infinity. At any one step, at any one term,
+the number attained is determinate, hence finite. The fact that, by the
+law of the series or of the process, _we_ may continue the operation _as
+long as we please_, does not justify the application of the term
+infinite to the operation itself; if any thing is infinite, it is the
+will which continues the operation, which is absurd if said of human
+wills.
+
+Consequently, the attribute of infinity is not predicable either of
+'diminution without limit,' 'augmentation without limit,' or 'endless
+approximation to a fixed limit,' for these mathematical processes
+continue only as we continue them, consist of steps successively
+accomplished, and are limited by the very fact of this serial
+incompletion.
+
+"We can not forbear pointing out an important application of these
+results to the Critical Philosophy. Kant bases each of his famous four
+antinomies on the demand of pure reason for unconditioned totality in a
+regressive series of conditions. This, he says, must be realized either
+in an absolute first of the series, conditioning all the other members,
+but itself unconditioned, or else in the absolute infinity of the series
+without a first; but reason is utterly unable, on account of mutual
+contradiction, to decide in which of the two alternatives the
+unconditioned is found. By the principles we have laid down, however,
+the problem is solved. The absolute infinity of a series is a
+contradiction _in adjecto_. As every number, although immeasurably and
+inconceivably great, is impossible unless _unity_ is given as its basis,
+so every series, being itself a number, is impossible unless a _first
+term_ is given as a commencement. Through a first term alone is the
+unconditioned possible; that is, if it does not exist in a first term,
+it can not exist at all; of the two alternatives, therefore, one
+altogether disappears, and reason is freed from the dilemma of a
+compulsory yet impossible decision. Even if it should be allowed that
+the series has no first term, but has originated _ab �terno_, it must
+always at each instant have a _last term_; the series, as a whole, can
+not be infinite, and hence can not, as Kant claims it can, realize in
+its wholeness unconditioned totality. Since countless terms forever
+remain unreached, the series is forever limited by them. Kant himself
+admits that it _can never be completed_, and is only potentially
+infinite; actually, therefore, by his own admission, it is finite. But a
+last term implies a first, as absolutely as one end of a string implies
+the other; the only possibility of an unconditioned lies in Kant's first
+alternative, and if, as he maintains Reason must demand it, she can not
+hesitate in her decisions. That _number is a limitation_ is no new
+truth, and that every series involves number is self-evident; and it is
+surprising that so radical a criticism on Kant's system should never
+have suggested itself to his opponents. Even the so-called _moments_ of
+time can not be regarded as constituting a real series, for a series can
+not be real except through its divisibility into members whereas time is
+indivisible, and its partition into moments is a conventional fiction.
+Exterior limitability and interior divisibility result equally from the
+possibility of discontinuity. Exterior illimitability and interior
+indivisibility are simple phases of the same attribute of _necessary
+continuity_ contemplated under different aspects. From this principle
+flows another upon which it is impossible to lay too much stress,
+namely; _illimitability and indivisibility, infinity and unity,
+reciprocally necessitate each other_. Hence the Quantitative Infinites
+must be also Units, and the division of space and time, implying
+absolute contradiction, is not even cogitable as an hypothesis.[220]
+
+"The word _infinite_, therefore, in mathematical usage, as applied to
+_process_ and to _quantity_, has a two-fold signification. An infinite
+process is one which we can continue _as long as we please_, but which
+exists solely in our continuance of it.[221] An infinite quantity is one
+which exceeds our powers of mensuration or of conception, but which,
+nevertheless, has bounds and limits in itself.[222] Hence the
+possibility of relation among infinite quantities, and of different
+orders of infinities. If the words _infinite, infinity, infinitesimal_,
+should be banished from mathematical treatises and replaced by the words
+_indefinite, indefinity,_ and _indefinitesimal_, mathematics would
+suffer no loss, while, by removing a perpetual source of confusion,
+metaphysics would get great gain."
+
+[Footnote 220: By the application of these principles the writer in the
+"North American Review" completely dissolves the antinomies by which
+Hamilton seeks to sustain his "Philosophy of the Conditioned." See
+"North American Review," 1864, pp. 432-437.]
+
+[Footnote 221: De Morgan, "Diff. and Integ. Calc." p. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 222: Id., ib., p. 25.]
+
+The above must be regarded as a complete refutation of the position
+taken by _Hume_, to wit, that the idea of nature eternally existing in a
+state of order, without a cause other than the eternally inherent laws
+of nature, is no more self-contradictory than the idea of an
+eternally-existing and infinite mind, who originated this order--a God
+existing without a cause. The eternal and infinite Mind is indivisible
+and illimitable; nature, in its totality, as well as in its individual
+parts, has interior divisibility, and exterior limitability. The
+infinity of God is not a _quantitative_, but a _qualitative_ infinity.
+The miscalled eternity and infinity of nature is an _indefinite_
+extension and protension in time and space, and, as _quantitative_, must
+necessarily be limited and measurable, therefore _finite_.
+
+The universe of sense-perception and sensuous imagination is a
+phenomenal universe, a genesis, a perpetual becoming, an entrance into
+existence, and an exit thence; the Theist is, therefore, perfectly
+justified in regarding it as disqualified for _self-existence_, and in
+passing behind it for the Supreme Entity that needs no cause. Phenomena
+demand causation, entities dispense with it. No one asks for a cause of
+the _space_ which contains the universe, or of the Eternity on the bosom
+of which it floats. Everywhere the line is necessarily drawn upon the
+same principle; that entities _may_ have self-existence, phenomena
+_must_ have a cause.[223]
+
+[Footnote 223: "Science, Nescience, and Faith," in Martineau's "Essays,"
+p. 206.]
+
+IV. _Psychological analysis clearly attests that in the phenomena of
+consciousness there are found elements or principles which, in their
+regular and normal development, transcend the limits of consciousness,
+and attain to the knowledge of Absolute Being, Absolute Reason, Absolute
+Good_, i.e., GOD.
+
+The analysis of thought clearly reveals that the mind of man is in
+possession of ideas, notions, beliefs, principles (as _e.g._, the idea
+of space, duration, cause, substance, unity, infinity), which are not
+derived from sensation and experience, and which can not be drawn out of
+sensation and experience by any process of generalization. These ideas
+have this incontestable peculiarity, as distinguished from all the
+phenomena of sensation, that, whilst the latter are particular,
+contingent, and relative, the former are _universal_, _necessary_, and
+_absolute_. As an example, and a proof of the reality and validity of
+this distinction, take the ideas of _body_ and of _space_, the former
+unquestionably derived from experience, the latter supplied by reason
+alone. "I ask you, can not you conceive this book to be destroyed?
+Without doubt you can. And can not you conceive the whole world to be
+destroyed, and no matter whatever in existence? You can. For you,
+constituted as you are, the supposition of the non-existence of bodies
+implies no contradiction. And what do we call the idea of a thing which
+we can conceive of as non-existing? We call it a _contingent_ and
+_relative_ idea. But if you can conceive this book to be destroyed, all
+bodies destroyed, can you suppose space to be destroyed? You can not. It
+is in the power of man's thought to conceive the non-existence of
+bodies; it is not in the power of man's thought to conceive the
+non-existence of space. The idea of space is thus a _necessary_ and
+_absolute_ idea."[224]
+
+[Footnote 224: Cousin's "Hist. of Philos.," vol. ii. p. 214.]
+
+Take, again, the ideas of _event_ and _cause_. The idea of an event is a
+_contingent_ idea; it is the idea of something which might or might not
+have happened. There is no impossibility or contradiction in either
+supposition. The idea of cause is a _necessary_ idea. An event being
+given, the idea of cause is necessarily implied. An uncaused event is an
+impossible conception. The idea of cause is also a _universal_ idea
+extending to all events, actual or conceivable, and affirmed by all
+minds. It is a rational fact, attested by universal consciousness, that
+we can not think of an event transpiring without a cause; of a thing
+being the author of its own existence; of something generated by and out
+of nothing. _Ex nihilo nihil_ is a universal law of thought and of
+things. This universal "law of causality" is clearly distinguishable
+from a _general_ truth reached by induction. For example, it is a very
+general truth that, during twenty-four hours, day is succeeded by night.
+But this is not a necessary truth, neither is it a universal truth. It
+does not extend to all known lands, as, for example, to Nova Zembla. It
+does not hold true of the other planets. Nor does it extend to all
+possible lands. We can easily conceive of lands plunged in eternal
+night, or rolling in eternal day. With another system of worlds, one can
+conceive other physics, but one can not conceive other metaphysics. It
+is impossible to imagine a world in which the law of causality does not
+reign. Here, then, we have one absolute principle (among others which
+may be enumerated), the existence and reality of which is revealed, not
+by sensation, but by reason--a principle which transcends the limits of
+experience, and which, in its regular and logical development, attains
+the knowledge of the Absolute Cause--the First Cause of all causes--God.
+
+Thus it is evident that the human mind is in possession of two distinct
+orders of primitive cognitions,--one, contingent, relative, and
+phenomenal; the other universal, necessary, and absolute. These two
+distinct orders of cognition presuppose the existence in man of two
+distinct faculties or organs of knowledge--_sensation_, external and
+internal, which perceives the contingent, relative, and phenomenal, and
+_reason_, which apprehends the universal, necessary, and absolute. The
+knowledge which is derived from sensation and experience is called
+_empirical_ knowledge, or knowledge _� posteriori_, because subsequent
+to, and consequent upon, the exercise of the faculties of observation.
+The knowledge derived from reason is called _transcendental_ knowledge,
+or knowledge _� priori_, because it furnishes laws to, and governs the
+exercise of the faculties of observation and thought, and is not the
+result of their exercise. The sensibility brings the mind into relation
+with the _physical_ world, the reason puts mind in communication with
+the _intelligible_ world--the sphere of _� priori_ principles, of
+necessary and absolute truths, which depend upon neither the world nor
+the conscious self, and which reveal to man the existence of the soul,
+nature, and God. Every distinct fact of consciousness is thus at once
+_psychological_ and _ontological_, and contains these three fundamental
+ideas, which we can not go beyond, or cancel by any possible
+analysis--the _soul_, with its faculties; _matter_, with its qualities;
+_God_, with his perfections.
+
+We do not profess to be able to give a clear explication and complete
+enumeration of all the ideas of reason, and of the necessary and
+universal principles or axioms which are grounded on these ideas. This
+is still the grand desideratum of metaphysical science. Its achievement
+will give us a primordial logic, which shall be as exact in its
+procedure and as certain in its conclusions as the mathematical
+sciences. Meantime, it may be affirmed that philosophic analysis, in the
+person of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Cousin, has succeeded in
+disengaging such _� priori_ ideas, and formulating such principles and
+laws of thought, as lead infallibly to the cognition of the _Absolute
+Being_, the _Absolute Reason_, the _Absolute Good_, that is, GOD.
+
+It would carry us too far beyond our present design were we to exhibit,
+in each instance, the process of _immediate abstraction_ by which the
+contingent and relative element of knowledge is eliminated, and the
+necessary and absolute principle is disengaged. We shall simply state
+the method, and show its application by a single illustration.
+
+There are unquestionably _two_ sorts of abstraction: 1. "_Comparative_
+abstraction, operating upon several real objects, and seizing their
+resemblances in order to form an abstract idea, which is collective and
+mediate; collective, because different individuals concur in its
+formation; mediate, because it requires several intermediate
+operations." This is the method of the physical sciences, which
+comprises comparison, abstraction, and generalization. The result in
+this process is the attainment of a _general_ truth. 2. "_Immediate_
+abstraction, not comparative; operating not upon several concretes, but
+upon a single one, eliminating and neglecting its individual and
+variable part, and disengaging the absolute part, which it raises at
+once to its pure form." The parts to be eliminated in a concrete
+cognition are, first, the quality of the object, and the circumstances
+under which the absolute unfolds itself; and secondly, the quality of
+the subject, which perceives but does not constitute it. The phenomena
+of the me and the not-me being eliminated, the absolute remains. This is
+the process of rational psychology, and the result obtained is a
+_universal_ and _necessary_ truth.
+
+"Let us take, as an example, the principle of cause. To be able to say
+that the event I see must have a cause, it is not indispensable to have
+seen several events succeed each other. The principle which compels me
+to pronounce this judgment is already complete in the first as in the
+last event; it can not change in respect to its object, it can not
+change in itself; it neither increases nor decreases with the greater or
+less number of applications. The only difference that it is subject to
+in regard to us is that we apply it, whether we remark it or not,
+whether we disengage it or not from its particular application. The
+question is not to eliminate the particularity of the phenomenon wherein
+it appears to us, whether it be the fall of a leaf or the murder of a
+man, in order immediately to conceive, in a general and abstract manner,
+the necessity of a cause for every event that begins to exist. Here it
+is not because I am the same, or have been affected in the same manner
+in several different cases, that I have come to this general and
+abstract conception. A leaf falls; at the same moment I think, I
+believe, I declare that this falling of the leaf must have a cause. A
+man has been killed; at the same instant I believe, I proclaim that this
+death must have a cause. Each one of these facts contains particular and
+variable circumstances, and something universal and necessary, to wit,
+both of them can not but have a cause. Now I am perfectly able to
+disengage the universal from the particular in regard to the first fact
+as well as in regard to the second fact, for the universal is in the
+first quite as well as in the second. In fact, if the principle of
+causality is not universal in the first fact, neither will it be in the
+second, nor in the third, nor in the thousandth; for a thousandth is not
+nearer than the first to the infinite--to absolute universality. It is
+the same, and still more evidently, with _necessity_. Pay particular
+attention to this point; if necessity is not in the first fact, it can
+not be in any; for necessity can not be formed little by little, and by
+successive increments. If, on the first murder I see, I do not exclaim
+that this murder had necessarily a cause, at the thousandth murder,
+although it shall be proved that all the others had causes, I shall have
+the right to think that this murder has, very probably, also a cause,
+but I shall never have the right to say that it _necessarily_ had a
+cause. But when universality and necessity are already in a single case,
+that case is sufficient to entitle me to deduce them from it,"[225] and
+we may add, also, to affirm them of every other event that may
+transpire.
+
+[Footnote 225: Cousin, "True, Beautiful, and Good," pp. 57, 58.]
+
+The following _schema_ will exhibit the generally accepted results of
+this method of analysis applied to the phenomena of thought:
+
+(i.) _Universal and necessary principles, or primitive judgments from
+whence is derived the cognition of Absolute Being_.
+
+1. _The principle of Substance_; thus enounced--"every quality supposes
+a _subject_ or real being."
+
+2. _The principle of Causality_; "every thing that begins to be supposes
+a _power_ adequate to its production, _i.e._, an efficient cause."
+
+3. _The principle of Unity_; "all differentiation and plurality supposes
+an incomposite unity; all diversity, an ultimate and indivisible
+identity."
+
+4. _The principle of the Unconditioned_; "the finite supposes the
+infinite, the dependent supposes the self-existent, the temporal
+supposes the eternal."
+
+(ii.) _Universal and necessary principles, or primitive judgments, from
+which is derived the cognition of the Absolute Reason_.
+
+1. _The principle of Ideality_; thus enounced, "facts of order--definite
+proportion, symmetrical arrangement, numerical relation, geometrical
+form--having a commencement in time, present themselves to us as the
+expression of _Ideas_, and refer us to _Mind_ as their analogon, and
+exponent, and source."
+
+2. _The principle of Consecution_; "the uniform succession and
+progressive evolution of new existences, according to fixed definite
+archetypes, suppose a unity of _thought_--a comprehensive _plan_
+embracing all existence."
+
+3. _The principle of Intentionality or Final Cause_; "every means
+supposes an _end_ contemplated, and a choice and adaptation of means to
+secure the _end_."
+
+4. _The principle of Personality_; "intelligent purpose and voluntary
+choice imply a personal agent."
+
+(iii.) _Universal and necessary principles, or primitive judgments, from
+whence is derived the cognition of the Absolute Good_.
+
+1. _The principle of Moral Law_; thus enounced, "the action of a
+voluntary agent necessarily characterized as _right_ or _wrong_,
+supposes an immutable and universal standard of right--an absolute moral
+Law."
+
+2. _The principle of Moral Obligation_; "the feeling of obligation to
+obey a law of duty supposes a _Lawgiver_ by whose authority we are
+obliged."
+
+3. _The principle of Moral Desert_; "the feeling of personal
+accountability and of moral desert supposes a _judge_ to whom we must
+give account, and who shall determine our award."
+
+4. _The pnnciple of Retribution_; "retributive issues in this life, and
+the existence in all minds of an impersonal justice which demands that,
+in the final issue, every being shall receive his just deserts, suppose
+a being of _absolute justice_ who shall render to every man according to
+his works."
+
+A more profound and exhaustive analysis may perhaps resolve all these
+primitive judgments into one universal principle or law, which Leibnitz
+has designated "_The principle or law of sufficient reason_," and which
+is thus enounced--there must be an ultimate and sufficient reason why
+any thing exists, and why it is, rather than otherwise; that is, if any
+thing begins to be, something else must be supposed as the adequate
+ground, and reason, and cause of its existence; or again, to state the
+law in view of our present discussion, "_if the finite universe, with
+its existing order and arrangement, had a beginning, there must be an
+ultimate and sufficient reason why it exists, and why it is as it is,
+rather than otherwise_." In view of one particular class of phenomena,
+or special order of facts, this "principle of sufficient reason" may be
+varied in the form of its statement, and denominated "the principle of
+substance," "the principle of causality," "the principle of
+intentionality," etc.; and, it may be, these are but specific judgments
+under the one fundamental and generic law of thought which constitutes
+the _major_ premise of every Theistic syllogism.
+
+These fundamental principles, primitive judgments, axioms, or necessary
+and determinate forms of thought, exist potentially or germinally in all
+human minds; they are spontaneously developed in presence of the
+phenomena of the universe, material and mental; they govern the original
+movement of the mind, even when not appearing in consciousness in their
+pure and abstract form; and they compel us to affirm _a permanent being_
+or _reality_ behind all phenomena--a _power_ adequate to the production
+of change, back of all events; a _personal Mind_, as the explanation of
+all the facts of order, and uniform succession, and regular evolution;
+and a _personal Lawgiver_ and _Righteous Judge_ as the ultimate ground
+and reason of all the phenomena of the moral world; in short, to affirm
+_an Unconditioned Cause of all finite and secondary causes; a First
+Principle of all principles; an Ultimate Reason of all reasons; an
+immutable Uncreated Justice, the living light of conscience; a King
+immortal, eternal, invisible, the only wise God, the ruler of the world
+and man_.
+
+Our position, then, is, that the idea of God is revealed to man in the
+natural and spontaneous development of his intelligence, and that the
+existence of a Supreme Reality corresponding to, and represented by this
+idea, is rationally and logically demonstrable, and therefore justly
+entitled to take rank as part of our legitimate, valid, and positive
+_knowledge_.
+
+And now from this position, which we regard as impregnable, we shall be
+prepared more deliberately and intelligibly to contemplate the various
+assaults which are openly or covertly made upon the doctrine that _God
+is cognizable by human reason_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE UNKNOWN GOD (_continued_).
+
+IS GOD COGNIZABLE BY REASON?
+
+
+"The abnegation of reason is not the evidence of faith, but the
+confession of despair."--LIGHTFOOT.
+
+At the outset of this inquiry we attempted a hasty grouping of the
+various parties and schools which are arrayed against the doctrine that
+God is cognizable by human reason, and in general terms we sought to
+indicate the ground they occupy.
+
+Viewed from a philosophical stand-point, we found one party marshalled
+under the standard of Idealism; another of Materialism and, again,
+another of Natural Realism. Regarded in their theological aspects, some
+are positive Atheists; others, strange to say, are earnest Theists;
+whilst others occupy a position of mere Indifferentism. Yet,
+notwithstanding the remarkable diversity, and even antagonism of their
+philosophical and theological opinions, they are all agreed in denying
+to reason any valid cognition of God.
+
+The survey of Natural Theism we have completed in the previous chapter
+will enable us still further to indicate the exact points against which
+their attacks are directed, and also to estimate the character and force
+of the weapons employed. With or without design, they are, each in their
+way, assailing one or other of the principles upon which we rest our
+demonstration of the being of God. As we proceed, we shall find that
+Mill and the Constructive Idealists are really engaged in undermining
+"the _principle of substance_;" their doctrine is a virtual denial of
+all objective realities answering to our subjective ideas of matter,
+mind, and God. The assaults of Comte and the Materialists of his school
+are mainly directed against "_the principle of causality_" and "_the
+principle of intentionality_;" they would deny to man all knowledge of
+causes, efficient and final. The attacks of Hamilton and his school are
+directed against "the _principle of the unconditioned_," his philosophy
+of the conditioned is a plausible attempt to deprive man of all power to
+think the Infinite and Perfect, to conceive the Unconditioned and
+Ultimate Cause; whilst the Dogmatic Theologians are borrowing, and
+recklessly brandishing, the weapons of all these antagonists, and, in
+addition to all this, are endeavoring to show the insufficiency of "_the
+principle of unity_" and the weakness and invalidity of "the _moral
+principles_," which are regarded by us as relating man to a Moral
+Personality, and as indicating to him the existence of a righteous God,
+the ruler of the world. It is necessary, therefore, that we should
+concentrate our attention yet more specifically on these separate lines
+of attack, and attempt a minuter examination of the positions assumed by
+each, and of the arguments by which they are seeking, directly or
+indirectly, to invalidate the fundamental principles of Natural Theism.
+
+(i.) _We commence with the Idealistic School_, of which John Stuart Mill
+must be regarded as the ablest living representative.
+
+The doctrine of this school is that all our knowledge is necessarily
+confined to _mental_ phenomena; that is, "to _feelings_ or states of
+consciousness," and "the succession and co-existence, the likeness and
+unlikeness between these feelings or states of consciousness."[226] All
+our general notions, all our abstract ideas, are generated out of these
+feelings[227] by "_inseparable association_," which registers their
+inter-relations of recurrence, co-existence, and resemblance. The
+results of this inseparable association constitute at once the sum total
+and the absolute limit of all possible cognition.
+
+[Footnote 226: J. S. Mill, "Logic," vol. i. p. 83 (English edition).]
+
+[Footnote 227: In the language of Mill, every thing of which we are
+conscious is called "feeling." "Feeling, in the proper sense of the
+term, is a genus of which Sensation, Emotion, and Thought are the
+subordinate species."--"Logic," bk. i. ch. iii. � 3.]
+
+It is admitted by Mill that one _apparent_ element in this total result
+is the general conviction that our own existence is really distinct from
+the external world, and that the personal _ego_ has an essential
+identity distinct from the fleeting phenomena of sensation. But this
+persuasion is treated by him as a mere illusion--a leap beyond the
+original datum for which we have no authority. Of a real substance or
+substratum called Mind, of a real substance or substratum called Matter,
+underlying the series of feelings--"the thread of consciousness"--we do
+know and can know nothing; and in affirming the existence of such
+substrata we are making a supposition we can not possibly verify. The
+ultimate datum of speculative philosophy is not "_I think_," but simply
+"_Thoughts or feelings are_." The belief in a permanent subject or
+substance, called matter, as the ground and plexus of physical
+phenomena, and of a permanent subject or substance, called mind, as the
+ground and plexus of mental phenomena, is not a primitive and original
+intuition of reason. It is simply through the action of the principle of
+association among the ultimate phenomena, called feelings, that this
+(erroneous) separation of the phenomena into two orders or
+aggregates--one called mind or self; the other matter, or not
+self--takes place; and without this curdling or associating process no
+such notion or belief could have been generated. "The principle of
+substance," as an ultimate law of thought, is, therefore, to be regarded
+as a transcendental dream.
+
+But now that the notion of _mind_ or _self_, and of _matter_ or not
+_self_, do exist as common convictions of our race, what is philosophy
+to make of them? After a great many qualifications and explanations, Mr.
+Mill has, in his "Logic," summed up his doctrine of Constructive
+Idealism in the following words: "As body is the mysterious _something_
+which excites the mind to feel, so mind is the mysterious _something_
+which feels and thinks."[228] But what is this "mysterious something?"
+Is it a reality, an entity, a subject; or is it a shadow, an illusion, a
+dream? In his "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," where it
+may be presumed, we have his maturest opinions, Mr. Mill, in still more
+abstract and idealistic phraseology, attempts an answer. Here he defines
+matter as "_a permanent possibility of sensation_,"[229] and mind as "_a
+permanent possibility of feeling_."[230] And "the belief in these
+permanent possibilities," he assures us, "includes all that is essential
+or characteristic in the belief in substance."[231] "If I am asked,"
+says he, "whether I believe in matter, I ask whether the questioner
+accepts this definition of it. If he does, I believe in matter: and so
+do all Berkeleians. In any other sense than this, I do not. But I affirm
+with confidence that this conception of matter includes the whole
+meaning attached to it by the common world, apart from philosophical,
+and sometimes from theological theories. The reliance of mankind on the
+real existence of visible and tangible objects, means reliance on the
+reality and permanence of possibilities of visual and tactual
+sensations, when no sensations are actually experienced."[232]
+"Sensations," however, let it be borne in mind, are but a subordinate
+species of the genus feeling.[233] They are "states of
+consciousness"--phenomena of mind, not of matter; and we are still
+within the impassable boundary of ideal phenomena; we have yet no
+cognition of an external world. The sole cosmical conception, for us, is
+still a succession of sensations, or states of consciousness. This is
+the one phenomenon which we can not transcend in knowledge, do what we
+will; all else is hypothesis and illusion. The _non-ego_, after all,
+then, may be but a mode in which the mind represents to itself the
+possible modifications of the _ego_.
+
+[Footnote 228: "Logic," bk. i, ch. iii. � 8.]
+
+[Footnote 229: "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 243.]
+
+[Footnote 230: Ibid., vol. i. p. 253.]
+
+[Footnote 231: Ibid., vol. i. p. 246.]
+
+[Footnote 232: Ibid., vol. i. pp. 243, 244.]
+
+[Footnote 233: "Logic," bk. i. ch. iii. � 3.]
+
+And now that matter, as a real existence, has disappeared under Mr.
+Mill's analysis, what shall be said of mind or self? Is there any
+permanent subject or real entity underlying the phenomena of feeling? In
+feeling, is there a personal self that feels, thinks, and wills? It
+would seem not. Mind, as well as matter, resolves itself into a "series
+of feelings," varying and fugitive from moment to moment, in a sea of
+possibilities of feeling. "My mind," says Mill, "is but a series of
+feelings, or, as it has been called, a thread of consciousness, however
+supplemented by believed possibilities of consciousness, which are not,
+though they might be, realized."[234]
+
+[Footnote 234: "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 254.]
+
+The ultimate fact of the phenomenal world, then, in the philosophy of
+Mill, is neither matter nor mind, but feelings or states of
+consciousness associated together by the relations, amongst themselves,
+of recurrence, co-existence, and resemblance. The existence of self,
+except as "a series of feelings;" the existence of any thing other than
+self, except as a feigned unknown cause of sensation, is rigorously
+denied. Mr. Mill does not content himself with saying that we are
+ignorant of the _nature_ of matter and mind, but he asserts we are
+ignorant of the _existence_ of matter and mind as real entities.
+
+The bearing of this doctrine of Idealism upon Theism and Theology will
+be instantly apparent to the reader. If I am necessarily ignorant of the
+existence of the external world, and of the personal _ego_, or real
+self, I must be equally ignorant of the existence of God. If one is a
+mere supposition, an illusion, so the other must be. Mr. Mill, however,
+is one of those courteous and affable writers who are always conscious,
+as it were, of the presence of their readers, and extremely careful not
+to shock their feelings or prejudices; besides, he has too much
+conscious self-respect to avow himself an atheist. As a speculative
+philosopher, he would rather regard Theism and Theology as "open
+questions," and he satisfies himself with saying, if you believe in the
+existence of God, or in Christianity, I do not interfere with you. "As a
+theory," he tells us that his doctrine leaves the evidence of the
+existence of God exactly as it was before. Supposing me to believe that
+the Divine mind is simply the series of the Divine thoughts and feelings
+prolonged through eternity, that would be, at any rate, believing God's
+existence to be _as real as my own_[235]. And as for evidence, the
+argument of Paley's 'Natural Theology,' or, for that matter, of his
+'Evidences of Christianity,' would stand exactly as it does.
+
+The design argument is drawn from the analogies of human experience.
+From the relation which human works bear to human thoughts and feelings,
+it infers a corresponding relation between works more or less similar,
+but superhuman, and superhuman thoughts and feelings. _If_ it prove
+these, nobody but a metaphysician needs care whether or not it proves a
+mysterious _substratum_ for them.[236] The argument from design, it
+seems to us, however, would have no validity if there be no external
+world offering marks of design. If the external world is only a mode of
+feeling, a series of mental states, then our notion of the Divine
+Existence may be only "an association of feelings"--a mode of Self. And
+if we have no positive knowledge of a real self as existing, and God's
+existence is no more "real than our own," then the Divine existence
+stands on a very dubious and uncertain foundation. It can have no very
+secure hold upon the human mind, and certainly has no claim to be
+regarded as a fundamental and necessary belief. That it has a very
+precarious hold upon the mind of Mr. Mill, is evident from the following
+passage in his article on "_Later Speculations of A. Comte_."[237] "We
+venture to think that a religion may exist without a belief in a God,
+and that a religion without a God may be, even to Christians, an
+instructive and profitable object of contemplation."
+
+And now let us close Mr. Mill's book, and, introverting our mental gaze,
+interrogate _consciousness_, the verdict of which, even Mr. Mill assures
+us, is admitted on all hands to be a decision without appeal.[238]
+
+[Footnote 235: "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 254.]
+
+[Footnote 236: "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 259.]
+
+[Footnote 237: Westminster Review, July, 1835 (American edition), p. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 238: "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 161.]
+
+1. We have an ineradicable, and, as it would seem, an intuitive faith in
+the real existence of an external world distinct from our sensations,
+and also of a personal self, which we call "I," "myself," as distinct
+from "my sensations," and "my feelings." We find, also, that this is
+confessedly the common belief of mankind. There have been a few
+philosophers who have affected to treat this belief as a "mere
+prejudice," an "illusion;" but they have never been able, practically,
+so to regard and treat it. Their language, just as plainly as the
+language of the common people, betrays their instinctive faith in an
+outer world, and proves their utter inability to emancipate themselves
+from this "prejudice," if such it may please them to call it. In view of
+this acknowledged fact, we ask--Does the term "_permanent possibility of
+sensations_" exhaust all that is contained in this conception of an
+external world? This evening I _remember_ that at noonday I beheld the
+sun, and experienced a sensation of warmth whilst exposing myself to his
+rays; and I _expect_ that to-morrow, under the same conditions, I shall
+experience the same sensations. I now _remember_ that last evening I
+extinguished my light and attempted to leave my study, but, coming in
+contact with the closed door, experienced a sense of resistance to my
+muscular effort, by a solid and extended body exterior to myself; and I
+_expect_ that this evening, under the same circumstances, I shall
+experience the same sensations. Now, does a belief in "a permanent
+possibility of sensations" explain all these experiences? does it
+account for that immediate knowledge of an _external_ object which I had
+on looking at the sun, or that presentative knowledge of _resistance_
+and _extension_, and of an extended, resisting _substance_, I had when
+in contact with the door of my study? Mr. Mill very confidently affirms
+that this belief includes all; and this phrase expresses all the meaning
+attached to extended "matter" and resisting "substance" by the common
+world.[239] We as confidently affirm that it does no such thing; and as
+"the common world" must be supposed to understand the language of
+consciousness as well as the philosopher, we are perfectly willing to
+leave the decision of that question to the common consciousness of our
+race. If all men do not believe in a permanent _reality_--a substance
+which is external to themselves, a substance which offers resistance to
+their muscular effort, and which produces in them the sensations of
+solidity, extension, resistance, etc.--they believe nothing and know
+nothing at all about the matter.
+
+[Footnote 239: "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 243.]
+
+Still less does the phrase "_a permanent possibility of feelings"_
+exhaust all our conception of a personal self. Recurring to the
+experiences of yesterday, I _remember_ the feelings I experienced on
+beholding the sun, and also on pressing against the closed door, and I
+confidently _expect_ the recurrence, under the same circumstances, of
+the same feelings. Does the belief in "a permanent possibility of
+feelings" explain the act of memory by which I recall the past event,
+and the act of prevision by which I anticipate the recurrence of the
+like experience in the future? Who or what is the "I" that remembers and
+the "I" that anticipates? The "ego," the personal mind, is, according to
+Mill, a mere "series of feelings," or, more correctly, a flash of
+"_present_ feelings" on "a background of possibilities of present
+feelings."[240] If, then, there be no permanent substance or reality
+which is the subject of the present feeling, which receives and retains
+the impress of the past feeling, and which anticipates the recurrence of
+like feelings in the future, how can the _past_ be recalled, how
+distinguished from the present? and how, without a knowledge of the past
+as distinguished from the present, can the _future_ be forecast? Mr.
+Mill feels the pressure of this difficulty, and frankly acknowledges it.
+He admits that, on the hypothesis that mind is simply "a series of
+feelings," the phenomena of memory and expectation are "inexplicable"
+and "incomprehensible."[241] He is, therefore, under the necessity of
+completing his definition of mind by adding that it is a series of
+feelings which "_is aware of itself as a series_;" and, still further,
+of supplementing this definition by the conjecture that "_something
+which has ceased to exist, or is not yet in existence, can still, in a
+manner, be present_."[242] Now he who can understand how a series of
+feelings can flow on in time, and from moment to moment drop out of the
+present into non-existence, and yet be _present_ and _conscious of
+itself as a series_, may be accorded the honor of understanding Mr.
+Mill's definition of mind or self, and may be permitted to rank himself
+as a distinguished disciple of the Idealist school; for ourselves, we
+acknowledge we are destitute of the capacity to do the one, and of all
+ambition to be the other. And he who can conceive how the _past_ feeling
+of yesterday and the _possible_ feeling of to-morrow can be in any
+manner _present_ to-day; or, in other words, how any thing which has
+ceased to exist, or which never had an existence, can _now_ exist, may
+be permitted to believe that a thing can be and not be at the same
+moment, that a part is greater than the whole, and that two and two make
+five; but we are not ashamed to confess our inability to believe a
+contradiction. To our understanding, "possibilities of feeling" are not
+actualities. They may or may not be realized, and until realized in
+consciousness, they have no real being. If there be no other background
+of mental phenomena save mere "possibilities of feeling," then present
+feelings are the only existences, the only reality, and a loss of
+immediate consciousness, as in narcosis and coma, is the loss of all
+personality, all self-hood, and of all real being.
+
+[Footnote 240: "Exam. of Hamilton," vol. i. p. 260.]
+
+[Footnote 241: Ibid, p. 262.]
+
+[Footnote 242: Ibid.]
+
+2. What, then, is the verdict of consciousness as to the existence of a
+permanent substance, an abiding existence which is the subject of all
+the varying phenomena? Of what are we really conscious when we say "I
+think," "I feel," "I will?" Are we simply conscious of thought, feeling,
+and volition, or of a self, a person, which thinks, feels, and wills?
+The man who honestly and unreservedly accepts the testimony of
+consciousness in all its integrity must answer at once, _we have an
+immediate consciousness, not merely of the phenomena of mind, but of a
+personal self as passively or actively related to the phenomena_. We are
+conscious not merely of the act of volition, but of a self, a power,
+producing the volition. We are conscious not merely of feeling, but of a
+being who is the subject of the feeling. We are conscious not simply of
+thought, but of a real entity that thinks. "It is clearly a flat
+contradiction to maintain that I am not immediately conscious of myself,
+but only of my sensations or volitions. Who, then, is that _I_ that is
+conscious, and how can I be conscious of such states as _mine?_"[243]
+
+[Footnote 243: Mansel, "Prolegomena Logica," p. 122, and note E, p.
+281.]
+
+The testimony of consciousness, then, is indubitable that we have a
+direct, immediate cognition of _self_--I know myself as a distinctly
+existing being. This permanent self, to which I refer the earlier and
+later stages of consciousness, the past as well as the present feeling,
+and which I know abides the same under all phenomenal changes,
+constitutes my personal identity. It is this abiding self which unites
+the past and the present, and, from the present stretches onward to the
+future. We know self immediately, as existing, as in active operation,
+and as having permanence--or, in other words, as a "_substance_." This
+one immediately presented substance, myself, may be regarded as
+furnishing a positive basis for that other notion of substance, which is
+representatively thought, as the subject of all sensible qualities.
+
+3. We may now inquire what is the testimony of consciousness as to the
+existence of the extra-mental world? Are we conscious of perceiving
+external objects immediately and in themselves, or only mediately
+through some vicarious image or representative idea to which we
+fictitiously ascribe an objective reality?
+
+The answer of common sense is that we are immediately conscious, in
+perception, of an _ego_ and a _non-ego_ known together, and known in
+contrast to each other; we are conscious of a perceiving subject, and of
+an external reality, as the object perceived.[244] To state this
+doctrine of natural realism still more explicitly we add, that we are
+conscious of the immediate perception of certain essential attributes of
+matter objectively existing. Of these primary qualities, which are
+immediately perceived as real and objectively existing, we mention
+_extension_ in space and _resistance_ to muscular effort, with which is
+indissolubly associated the idea of _externality_. It is true that
+extension and resistance are only qualities, but it is equally true that
+they are qualities of something, and of something which is external to
+ourselves. Let any one attempt to conceive of extension without
+something which is extended, or of resistance apart from something which
+offers resistance, and he will be convinced that we can never know
+qualities without knowing substance, just as we can not know substance
+without knowing qualities. This, indeed, is admitted by Mr. Mill.[245]
+And if this be admitted, it must certainly be absurd to speak of
+substance as something "unknown." Substance is known just as much as
+quality is known, no less and no more.
+
+[Footnote 244: Hamilton, "Lectures," vol. 1. p. 288.]
+
+[Footnote 245: "Logic," bk. i. ch. iii. � 6.]
+
+We remark, in conclusion, that if the testimony of consciousness is not
+accepted in all its integrity, we are necessarily involved in the
+Nihilism of Hume and Fichte; the phenomena of mind and matter are, on
+analysis, resolved into an absolute nothingness--"a play of phantasms in
+a void."[246]
+
+(ii.) We turn, secondly, to the _Materialistic School_ as represented by
+Aug. Comte.
+
+The doctrine of this school is that all knowledge is limited to
+_material_ phenomena--that is, to appearances _perceptible to sense_. We
+do not know the essence of any object, nor the real mode of procedure of
+any event, but simply its relations to other events, as similar or
+dissimilar, co-existent or successive. These relations are constant;
+under the same conditions, they are always the same. The constant
+resemblances which link phenomena together, and the constant sequences
+which unite them, as antecedent and consequent, are termed _laws_. The
+laws of phenomena are all we know respecting them. Their essential
+nature and their ultimate causes, _efficient_ or _final_, are unknown
+and inscrutable to us.[247]
+
+[Footnote 246: Masson, "Recent British Philos.," p. 62.]
+
+[Footnote 247: See art. "Positive Philos. of A. Comte," _Westminster
+Review_, April, 1865, p. 162, Am. ed.]
+
+It is not our intention to review the system of philosophy propounded by
+Aug. Comte; we are now chiefly concerned with his denial of all
+causation.
+
+1. _As to Efficient Causes_.--Had Comte contented himself with the
+assertion that causes lie beyond the field of sensible observation, and
+that inductive science can not carry us beyond the relations of
+co-existence and succession among phenomena, he would have stated an
+important truth, but certainly not a new truth. It had already been
+announced by distinguished mental philosophers, as, for example, M. de
+Biran and Victor Cousin.[248] The senses give us only the succession of
+one phenomenon to another. I hold a piece of wax to the fire and it
+melts. Here my senses inform me of two successive phenomena--the
+proximity of fire and the melting of wax. It is now agreed among all
+schools of philosophy that this is all the knowledge the senses can
+possibly supply. The observation of a great number of like cases assures
+us that this relation is uniform. The highest scientific generalization
+does not carry us one step beyond this fact. Induction, therefore, gives
+us no access to causes beyond phenomena. Still, this does not justify
+Comte in the assertion that causes are to us absolutely _unknown_. The
+question would still arise whether we have not some faculty of
+knowledge, distinct from sensation, which is adequate to furnish a valid
+cognition of cause. It does not by any means follow that, because the
+idea of causation is not given as a "physical qu�situm" at the end of a
+process of scientific generalization, it should not be a "metaphysical
+datum" posited at the very beginning of scientific inquiry, as the
+indispensable condition of our being able to cognize phenomena at all,
+and as the law under which all thought, and all conception of the system
+of nature, is alone possible.
+
+[Footnote 248: "It is now universally admitted that we have no
+perception of the causal nexus in the material world."--Hamilton,
+"Discussions," p. 522.]
+
+Now we affirm that the human mind has just as direct, immediate, and
+positive knowledge of _cause_ as it has of _effect._ The idea of cause,
+the intuition _power_, is given in the immediate consciousness of _mind
+as determining its own_ operations. Our first, and, in fact, our only
+presentation of power or cause, is that of _self as willing_. In every
+act of volition I am fully conscious that it is in my power to form a
+resolution or to refrain from it, to determine on this course of action
+or that; and this constitutes the immediate presentative knowledge of
+power.[249] The will is a power, a power in action, a productive power,
+and, consequently, a cause. This doctrine is stated with remarkable
+clearness and accuracy by Cousin: "If we seek the notion of cause in the
+action of one ball upon another, as was previously done by Hume, or in
+the action of the hand upon the ball, or the primary muscles upon the
+extremities, or even in the action of the will upon the muscles, as was
+done by M. Maine de Biran, we shall find it in none of these cases, not
+even in the last; for it is possible there should be a paralysis of the
+muscles which deprives the will of power over them, makes it
+unproductive, incapable of being a cause, and, consequently, of
+suggesting the notion of one. But what no paralysis can prevent is the
+action of the will upon itself, the production of a resolution; that is
+to say, the act of causation entirely mental, the primitive type of all
+causality, of which all external movements are only symbols more or less
+imperfect. The first cause for us, is, therefore, the _will_, of which
+the first effect is volition. This is at once the highest and the purest
+source of the notion of cause, which thus becomes identical with that of
+personality. And it is the taking possession, so to speak, of the cause,
+as revealed in will and personality, which is the condition for us of
+the ulterior or simultaneous conception of external, impersonal
+causes."[250]
+
+[Footnote 249: "It is our _immediate consciousness of effort_, when we
+exert force to put matter in motion, or to oppose and neutralize force,
+which gives us this internal conviction of _power_ and _causation_, so
+far as it refers to the material world, and compels us to believe that
+whenever we see material objects put in motion from a state of rest, or
+deflected from their rectilinear paths and changed in their velocities
+if already in motion, it is in consequence of such an _effort_ somehow
+exerted."--Herschel's "Outlines of Astronomy," p. 234; see Mansel's
+"Prolegomena," p. 133.]
+
+[Footnote 250: "Philosophical Fragments," Preface to first edition.]
+
+Thus much for the origin of the idea of cause. We have the same direct
+intuitive knowledge of cause that we have of effect; but we have not yet
+rendered a full and adequate account of the _principle of causality_. We
+have simply attained the notion of our personal causality, and we can
+not arbitrarily substitute our personal causality for all the causes of
+the universe, and erect our own experience as a law of the entire
+universe. We have, however, already seen (Chap. V.) that the belief in
+exterior causation is _necessary_ and _universal_. When a change takes
+place, when a new phenomenon presents itself to our senses, we can not
+avoid the conviction that it must have a cause. We can not even express
+in language the relations of phenomena in time and space, without
+speaking of causes. And there is not a rational being on the face of the
+globe--a child, a savage, or a philosopher--who does not instinctively
+and spontaneously affirm that every movement, every change, every new
+existence, _must_ have a cause. Now what account can philosophy render
+of this universal belief? One answer, and only one, is possible. The
+_reason_ of man (that power of which Comte takes no account) is in fixed
+and changeless relation to the principle of causation, just as _sense_
+is in fixed and changeless relation to exterior phenomena, so that we
+can not know the external world, can not think or speak of phenomenal
+existence, except as _effects_. In the expressive and forcible language
+of Jas. Martineau: "By an irresistible law of thought _all phenomena
+present themselves to us as the expression of power_, and refer us to a
+causal ground whence they issue. This dynamic source we neither see, nor
+hear, nor feel; it is given in _thought_, supplied by the spontaneous
+activity of mind as the correlative prefix to the phenomena
+observed."[251] Unless, then, we are prepared to deny the validity of
+all our rational intuitions, we can not avoid accepting "this subjective
+postulate as a valid law for objective nature." If the intuitions of our
+reason are pronounced deceptive and mendacious, so also must the
+intuitions of the senses be pronounced illusory and false. Our whole
+intellectual constitution is built up on false and erroneous principles,
+and all knowledge of whatever kind must perish by "the contagion of
+uncertainty."
+
+[Footnote 251: "Essays," p. 47.]
+
+Comte, however, is determined to treat the idea of causation as an
+illusion, whether under its psychological form, as _will_, or under its
+scientific form, as _force_. He feels that Theology is inevitable if we
+permit the inquiry into causes;[252] and he is more anxious that
+theology should perish than that truth should prevail. The human will
+must, therefore, be robbed of all semblance of freedom, lest it should
+suggest the idea of a Supreme Will governing nature; and human action,
+like all other phenomena, must be reduced to uniform and necessary law.
+All feelings, ideas, and principles guaranteed to us by consciousness
+are to be cast out of the account. Psychology, resting on
+self-observation, is pronounced a delusion. The immediate consciousness
+of freedom is a dream. Such a procedure, to say the least of it, is
+highly unphilosophical; to say the truth about it, it is obviously
+dishonest. Every fact of human nature, just as much as every fact of
+physical nature, must be accepted in all its integrity, or all must be
+alike rejected. The phenomena of mind can no more be disregarded than
+the phenomena of matter. Rational intuitions, necessary and universal
+beliefs, can no more be ignored than the uniform facts of
+sense-perception, without rendering a system of knowledge necessarily
+incomplete, and a system of truth utterly impossible. Every one truth is
+connected with every other truth in the universe. And yet Comte demands
+that a large class of facts, the most immediate and direct of all our
+cognitions, shall be rejected because they are not in harmony with the
+fundamental assumption of the positive philosophy that all knowledge is
+confined to _phenomena perceptible to sense_. Now it were just as easy
+to cast the Alps into the Mediterranean as to obliterate from the human
+intelligence the primary cognitions of immediate consciousness, or to
+relegate the human reason from the necessary laws of thought. Comte
+himself can not emancipate his own mind from a belief in the validity of
+the testimony of consciousness. How can he know himself as distinct from
+nature, as a living person, as the same being he was ten years ago, or
+even yesterday, except by an appeal to consciousness? Despite his
+earnestly-avowed opinions as to the inutility and fallaciousness of all
+psychological inquiries, he is compelled to admit that "the phenomena of
+life" are "_known by immediate consciousness_."[253] Now the knowledge
+of our personal freedom rests on precisely the same grounds as the
+knowledge of our personal existence. The same "immediate consciousness"
+which attests that I exist, attests also, with equal distinctness and
+directness, that I am self-determined and free.
+
+[Footnote 252: "The _inevitable tendency_ of our intelligence is towards
+a philosophy radically theological, so often as we seek to penetrate, on
+whatever pretext, into the intimate nature of phenomena" (vol. iv. p.
+664).]
+
+[Footnote 253: "Positive Philos," vol. ii. p. 648.]
+
+In common with most atheistical writers, Comte is involved in the fatal
+contradiction of at one time assuming, and at another of denying the
+freedom of the will, to serve the exigencies of his theory. To prove
+that the order of the universe can not be the product of a Supreme
+Intelligence, he assumes that the products of mind must be characterized
+by freedom and variety--the phenomena of mind must not be subject to
+uniform and necessary laws; and inasmuch as the phenomena presented by
+external nature are subject to uniform and changeless laws, they can not
+be the product of mind. "Look at the whole frame of things," says he;
+"how can it be the product of mind--of a supernatural Will? Is it not
+subject to regular laws, and do we not actually obtain _prevision_ of
+its phenomena? If it were the product of mind, its order would be
+variable and free." Here, then, it is admitted that _freedom is an
+essential characteristic of mind_. And this admission is no doubt a
+thoughtless, unconscious betrayal of the innate belief of all minds in
+the freedom of the will. But when Comte comes to deal with this freedom
+as an objective question of philosophy, when he directs his attention to
+the only will of which we have a direct and immediate knowledge, he
+denies freedom and variety, and asserts in the most arbitrary manner
+that the movements of the mind, like all the phenomena of nature, must
+be subject to uniform, changeless, and necessary laws. And if we have
+not yet been able to reduce the movements of mind, like the movements of
+the planets, to statistics, and have not already obtained accurate
+prevision of its successions or sequences as we have of physical
+phenomena, it is simply the consequence of our inattention to, or
+ignorance of, all the facts. We answer, there are no facts so directly
+and intuitively known as the facts of consciousness; and, therefore, an
+argument based upon our supposed ignorance of these facts is not likely
+to have much weight against our immediate consciousness of personal
+freedom. There is not any thing we know so immediately, so certainly, so
+positively, as this fact--_we are free_.
+
+The word "force," representing as it does a subtile menial conception,
+and not a phenomenon of sense, must also be banished from the domains of
+Positive Science as an intruder, lest its presence should lend any
+countenance to the idea of causation. "Forces in mechanics are only
+_movements_, produced, or tending to be produced." In order to "cancel
+altogether the old metaphysical notion of force," another form of
+expression is demanded. It is claimed that all we do know or can
+possibly know is the successions of phenomena in time. What, then, is
+the term which henceforth, in our dynamics, shall take the place of
+"force?" Is it "Time-succession?" Then let any one attempt to express
+the various forms and intensities of movement and change presented to
+the senses (as _e.g._, the phenomena of heat, electricity, galvanism,
+magnetism, muscular and nervous action, etc.) in terms of
+Time-succession, and he will at once become conscious of the utter
+hopelessness of physics, without the hyperphysical idea of force, to
+render itself intelligible.[254] What account can be rendered of
+planetary motion if the terms "centrifugal force" and "centripetal
+force" are abandoned? "From the two great conditions of every Newtonian
+solution, viz., projectile impulse and centripetal tendency, eject the
+idea of _force_, and what remains? The entire conception is simply made
+up of this, and has not the faintest existence without it. It is useless
+to give it notice to quit, and pretend that it is gone when you have
+only put a new name upon the door. We must not call it 'attraction,'
+lest there should seem to be a _power_ within; we are to speak of it
+only as 'gravitation,' because that is only 'weight,' which is nothing
+but a 'fact,' as if it were not a fact that holds a power, a true
+dynamic affair, which no imagination can chop into incoherent
+successions.[255] Nor is the evasion more successful when we try the
+phrase, 'tendency of bodies to mutual approach.' The approach itself may
+be called a phenomenon; but the 'tendency' is no phenomenon, and can not
+be attributed by us to the bodies without regarding them as the
+residence of force. And what are we to say of the _projectile impulse_
+in the case of the planets? Is that also a phenomenon? Who witnessed and
+reported it? Is it not evident that the whole scheme of physical
+astronomy is a resolution of observed facts into dynamic equivalents,
+and that the hypothesis posits for its calculations not phenomena, but
+proper forces? Its logic is this: _If_ an impulse of certain intensity
+were given, and _if_ such and such mutual attractions were constantly
+present, then the sort of motions which we observe in the bodies of our
+system _would follow_. So, however, they also would _if_ willed by an
+Omnipotent Intelligence."[256] It is thus clearly evident that human
+science is unable to offer any explanation of the existing order of the
+universe except in terms expressive of Power or Force; that, in fact,
+all explanations are utterly unintelligible without the idea of
+causation. The language of universal rational intuition is, "all
+phenomena are the expression of power;" the language of science is,
+"every law implies a force."
+
+[Footnote 254: See Grote's "Essay on Correlation of Physical Forces,"
+pp. 18-20; and Martineau's "Essays," p. 135.]
+
+[Footnote 255: "Gravity is a real _power_ of whose agency we have daily
+experience."--Herschel, "Outlines of Astronomy," p. 236.]
+
+[Footnote 256: Martineau's "Essays," p. 56.]
+
+It is furthermore worthy of being noted that, in the modern doctrine of
+the Correlation and Conservation of Forces, science is inevitably
+approaching the idea that all kinds of force are but forms or
+manifestations of some _one_ central force issuing from some _one_
+fountain-head of power. Dr. Carpenter, perhaps the greatest living
+physiologist, teaches that "the form of force _which may be taken as the
+type of all the rest_" is the consciousness of living effort in
+volition.[257] All force, then, is of one type, and that type is mind;
+in its last analysis external causation may be resolved into Divine
+energy. Sir John Herschel does not hesitate to say that "it is
+reasonable to regard the force of gravitation as the direct or indirect
+result of a consciousness or will exerted somewhere."[258] The humble
+Christian may, therefore, feel himself amply justified in still
+believing that "power belongs to God;" that it is through the Divine
+energy "all things are, and are upheld;" and that "in God we live, and
+move, and have our being;" he is the Great First Cause, the
+Fountain-head of all power.
+
+[Footnote 257: "Human Physiology," p. 542.]
+
+[Footnote 258: "Outlines of Astronomy," p. 234.]
+
+2. _As to Final Causes_--that is, reasons, purposes, or ends _for_ which
+things exist--these, we are told by Comte, are all "disproved" by
+Positive Science, which rigidly limits us to "the history of _what is_,"
+and forbids all inquiry into reasons _why it is_. The question whether
+there be any intelligent purpose in the order and arrangement of the
+universe, is not a subject of scientific inquiry at all; and whenever it
+has been permitted to obtrude itself, it has thrown a false light over
+the facts, and led the inquirer astray.
+
+The discoveries of modern astronomy are specially instanced by Comte as
+completely overthrowing the notion of any conscious design or
+intelligent purpose in the universe. The order and stability of the
+solar system are found to be the _necessary_ consequences of
+gravitation, and are adequately explained without any reference to
+purposes or ends to be fulfilled in the disposition and arrangement of
+the heavenly bodies. "With persons unused to the study of the celestial
+bodies, though very likely informed on other parts of natural
+philosophy, astronomy has still the reputation of being a science
+eminently religious, as if the famous words, 'The heavens declare the
+glory of God, had lost none of their truth... No science has given more
+terrible shocks to the doctrine of _final causes_ than astronomy.[259]
+The simple knowledge of the movement of the earth must have destroyed
+the original and real foundation of this doctrine--the idea of the
+universe subordinated to the earth, and consequently to man. Besides,
+the accurate exploration of the solar system could not fail to dispel
+that blind and unlimited admiration which the general order of nature
+inspires, by showing in the most sensible manner, and in a great number
+of different respects, that the orbs were certainly not disposed in the
+most advantageous manner, and that science permits us easily to conceive
+a better arrangement, by the development of true celestial mechanism,
+since Newton. All the theological philosophy, even the most perfect, has
+been henceforth deprived of its principal intellectual function, the
+most regular order being thus consigned as necessarily established and
+maintained in our world, and even in the whole universe, _by the simple
+mutual gravity of its several parts_."[260]
+
+The task of "conceiving a better arrangement" of the celestial orbs, and
+improving the system of the universe generally, we shall leave to those
+who imagine themselves possessed of that omniscience which comprehends
+all the facts and relations of the actual universe, and foreknows all
+the details and relations of all possible universes so accurately as to
+be able to pronounce upon their relative "advantages." The arrogance of
+these critics is certainly in startling and ludicrous contrast with the
+affected modesty which, on other occasions, restrains them from
+"imputing any intentions to nature." It is quite enough for our purpose
+to know that the tracing of evidences of _design_ in those parts of
+nature accessible to our observation is an essentially different thing
+from the construction of a scheme of _optimism_ on _� priori_ grounds
+which shall embrace a universe the larger portion of which is virtually
+beyond the field of observation. We are conscious of possessing some
+rational data and some mental equipment for the former task, but for the
+latter we feel utterly incompetent.[261]
+
+[Footnote 259: In a foot-note Comte adds: "Nowadays, to minds
+familiarized betimes with the true astronomical philosophy, the heavens
+declare no other glory than that of Hipparchus, Kepler, Newton, and all
+those who have contributed to the ascertainment of their laws." It seems
+remarkable that the great men who _ascertained_ these laws did not see
+that the saying of the Psalmist was emptied of all meaning by their
+discoveries. No persons seem to have been more willing than these very
+men named to ascribe all the glory to Him who _established_ these laws.
+Kepler says: "The astronomer, to whom God has given to see more clearly
+with his inward eye, from what he has discovered, both can and will
+glorify God;" and Newton says: "This beautiful system of sun, planets,
+comets could have its origin in no other way than by the purpose and
+command of an intelligent and powerful Being. We admire him on account
+of his perfections, we venerate and worship him on account of his
+government."--Whewell's "Astronomy and Physics," pp. 197, 198.]
+
+[Footnote 260: "Positive Philosophy," vol. ii. pp. 36-38; Tulloch,
+"Theism," p. 115.]
+
+[Footnote 261: Chalmers's "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. pp. 117,
+118.]
+
+The only plausible argument in the above quotation from Comte is, that
+the whole phenomena of the solar system are adequately explained by the
+law of gravitation, without the intervention of any intelligent purpose.
+Let it be borne in mind that it is a fundamental principle of the
+Positive philosophy that all human knowledge is necessarily confined to
+phenomena _perceptible to sense_, and that the fast and highest
+achievement of human science is to observe and record "the invariable
+relations of resemblance and succession among phenomena." We can not
+possibly know any thing of even the existence of "causes" or "forces"
+lying back of phenomena, nor of "reasons" or "purposes" determining the
+relations of phenomena. The "law of gravitation" must, therefore, be
+simply the statement of a fact, the expression of an observed order of
+phenomena. But the simple statement of a fact is no _explanation_ of the
+fact. The formal expression of an observed order of succession among
+phenomena is no _explanation_ of that order. For what do we mean by an
+explanation? Is it not a "making plain" to the understanding? It is, in
+short, a complete answer to the questions _how_ is it so? and _why_ is
+it so? Now, if Comte denies to himself and to us all knowledge of
+efficient and final causation, if we are in utter ignorance of "forces"
+operating in nature, and of "reasons" for which things exist in nature,
+he can not answer either question, and consequently nothing is
+explained.
+
+Practically, however, Comte regards gravitation as a force. The order of
+the solar system has been established and is still maintained by the
+mutual gravity of its several parts. We shall not stop here to note the
+inconsistency of his denying to us the knowledge of, even the existence
+of, force, and yet at the same time assuming to treat gravitation as a
+force really adequate to the explanation of the _how_ and _why_ of the
+phenomena of the universe, without any reference to a supernatural will
+or an intelligent mind. The question with which we are immediately
+concerned is whether gravitation _alone_ is adequate to the explanation
+of the phenomena of the heavens? A review _in extenso_ of Comte's answer
+to this question would lead us into all the inextricable mazes of the
+nebular hypothesis, and involve us in a more extended discussion than
+our space permits and our limited scientific knowledge justifies. For
+the masses of the people the whole question of cosmical development
+resolves itself into "a balancing of authorities;" they are not in a
+position to verify the reasonings for and against this theory by actual
+observation of astral phenomena, and the application of mathematical
+calculus; they are, therefore, guided by balancing in their own minds
+the statements of the distinguished astronomers who, by the united
+suffrages of the scientific world, are regarded as "authorities." For
+us, at present, it is enough that the nebular hypothesis is rejected by
+some of the greatest astronomers that have lived. We need only mention
+the names of Sir William Herschel, Sir John Herschel, Prof. Nichol, Earl
+Rosse, Sir David Brewster, and Prof. Whewell.
+
+But if we grant that the nebular hypothesis is entitled to take rank as
+an established theory of the development of the solar system, it by no
+means proves that the solar system was formed without the intervention
+of intelligence and design. On this point we shall content ourselves
+with quoting the words of one whose encyclop�dian knowledge was
+confessedly equal to that of Comte, and who in candor and accuracy was
+certainly his superior. Prof. Whewell, in his "Astronomy and Physics,"
+says: "This hypothesis by no means proves that the solar system was
+formed without the intervention of intelligence and design. It only
+transfers our view of the skill exercised and the means employed to
+another part of the work; for how came the sun and its atmosphere to
+have such materials, such motions, such a constitution, and these
+consequences followed from their primordial condition? How came the
+parent vapor thus to be capable of coherence, separation, contraction,
+solidification? How came the laws of its motion, attraction, repulsion,
+condensation, to be so fixed as to lead to a beautiful and harmonious
+system in the end? How came it to be neither too fluid nor too
+tenacious, to contract neither too quickly nor too slowly for the
+successive formation of the several planetary bodies? How came that
+substance, which at one time was a luminous vapor, to be at a subsequent
+period solids and fluids of many various kinds? What but design and
+intelligence prepared and tempered this previously-existing element, so
+that it should, by its natural changes, produce such an orderly
+system"?[262] "_The laws of motion alone will not produce the regularity
+which we admire in the motion of the heavenly bodies_. There must be an
+original adjustment of the system on which these laws are to act; a
+selection of the arbitrary quantities which they are to involve; a
+primitive cause which shall dispose the elements in due relation to each
+other, in order that regular recurrence may accompany constant change,
+and that perpetual motion may be combined with perpetual
+stability."[263]
+
+[Footnote 262: "Astronomy and Physics," p. 109.]
+
+[Footnote 263: Chalmers's "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 119.]
+
+The harmony of the solar system in all its phenomena does not depend
+upon the operation of any _one_ law, but from the special adjustment of
+several laws. There are certain agents operating throughout the entire
+system which have different properties, and which require special
+adjustment to each other, in order to their beneficial operation. 1st.
+There is _Gravitation,_ prevailing apparently through all space. But it
+does not prevail alone. It is a force whose function is to balance other
+forces of which we know little, except that these, again, are needed to
+balance the force of gravitation. Each force, if left to itself, would
+be the destruction of the universe. Were it not for the force of
+gravitation, the centrifugal forces which impel the planets would fling
+them off into space. Were it not for these centrifugal forces, the force
+of gravitation would dash them against the sun. The ultimate fact of
+astronomical science, therefore, is not the law of gravitation, but the
+_adjustment_ between this law and other laws, so as to produce and
+maintain the existing order.[264] 2d. There is _Light_, flowing from
+numberless luminaries; and _Heat_, radiating everywhere from the warmer
+to the colder regions; and there are a number of adjustments needed in
+order to the beneficial operation of these agents. Suppose we grant that
+by merely mechanical causes the sun became the centre of our system, how
+did it become also the _source of its vivifying influences_? "How was
+the fire deposited on this hearth? How was the candle placed on this
+candlestick?" 3d. There is an all-pervading _Ether_, through which light
+is transmitted, which offers resistance to the movement of the planetary
+and cometary bodies, and tends to a dissipation of mechanical energy,
+and which needs to be counter-balanced by well-adjusted arrangements to
+secure the stability of the solar system. All this balancing of opposite
+properties and forces carries our minds upward towards Him who holds the
+balances in his hands, and to a Supreme Intelligence on whose
+adjustments and collocations the harmony and stability of the universe
+depends.[265]
+
+[Footnote 264: Duke of Argyll, "Reign of Law," pp. 91, 92.]
+
+[Footnote 265: M'Cosh, "Typical Forms and Special Ends," ch. xiii.]
+
+The recognition of all teleology of organs in vegetable and animal
+physiology is also persistently repudiated by this school. When Cuvier
+speaks of the combination of organs in such order as to adapt the animal
+to the part which it has to play in nature, Geoffroy Saint Hilaire
+replies, "I know nothing of animals which have to play a part in
+nature." "I have read, concerning fishes, that, because they live in a
+medium which resists more than air, their motive forces are calculated
+so as to give them the power of progression under these circumstances.
+By this mode of reasoning, you would say of a man who makes use of
+crutches, that he was originally destined to the misfortune of having a
+leg paralyzed or amputated.[266] "With a modesty which savors of
+affectation, he says, "I ascribe no intentions to God, for I mistrust
+the feeble powers of my reason. I observe facts merely, and go no
+farther. I only pretend to the character of the historian of _what is_."
+"I can not make Nature an intelligent being who does nothing in vain,
+who acts by the shortest mode, who does all for the best."[267] All the
+supposed consorting of means to ends which has hitherto been regarded as
+evidencing Intelligence is simply the result of "the elective affinities
+of organic elements" and "the differentiation of organs" consequent
+mainly upon exterior conditions. "_Functions are a result, not an end_.
+The animal undergoes the kind of life that his organs impose, and
+submits to the imperfections of his organization. The naturalist studies
+the play of his apparatus, and if he has the right of admiring most of
+its parts, he has likewise that of showing the imperfection of other
+parts, and the practical uselessness of those which fulfill no
+functions."[268] And it is further claimed that there are a great many
+structures which are clearly useless; that is, they fulfill no purpose
+at all. Thus there are monkeys, which have no thumbs for use, but only
+rudimental thumb-bones hid beneath the skin; the wingless bird of New
+Zealand (Apteryx) has wing-bones similarly developed, which serve no
+purpose; young whalebone whales are born with teeth that never cut the
+gums, and are afterwards absorbed; and some sheep have horns turned
+about their ears which fulfill no end. And inasmuch as there are some
+organisms in nature which serve no purpose of utility, it is argued
+there is no design in nature; things are _used_ because there are
+antecedent conditions favorable for _use_, but that use is not the _end_
+for which the organ exists. The true naturalist will never say, "Birds
+have wings given them _in order_ to fly;" he will rather say, "Birds fly
+_because_ they have wings." The doctrine of final causes must,
+therefore, be abandoned.
+
+[Footnote 266: Whewell, "History of Inductive Sciences," vol. ii. p.
+486.]
+
+[Footnote 267: Id., ib., vol. ii. p. 490.]
+
+[Footnote 268: Martin's "Organic Unity in Animals and Vegetables," in M.
+Q. Review, January, 1863.]
+
+It is hardly worth while to reply to the lame argument of Geoffroy,
+which needs a "crutch" for its support. The very illustration,
+undignified and irrelevant as it is, tells altogether against its
+author. For, first, the crutch is certainly a _contrivance_ designed for
+locomotion; secondly, the length and strength and lightness of the
+crutch are all matters of calculation and _adjustment_; and, thirdly,
+all the adaptations of the crutch are well-considered, in order to
+enable the lame man to walk; the function of the crutch is the final
+cause of its creation. This crutch is clearly out of place in Geoffroy's
+argument, and utterly breaks down. It is in its place in the
+teleological argument, and stands well, though it may not behave as well
+as the living limb. The understanding of a child can perceive that the
+design-argument does not assert that men were intended to have amputated
+limbs, but that crutches are designed for those whose limbs are
+paralyzed or amputated.
+
+The existence of useless members, of rudimentary and abortive limbs,
+does seem, at first sight, to be unfavorable to the idea of supremacy of
+purpose and all-pervading design. It should be remarked, however, that
+this is an argument based upon our ignorance, and not upon our
+knowledge. It does not by any means follow that because we have
+discovered no reasons for their existence, therefore there are no
+reasons. Science, in enlarging its conquests of nature, is perpetually
+discovering the usefulness of arrangements of which our fathers were
+ignorant, and the reasons of things which to their minds, were
+concealed; and it ill becomes the men who so far "mistrust their own
+feeble powers" as to be afraid of ascribing any intention to God or
+nature, to dogmatically affirm there is no purpose in the existence of
+any thing. And then we may ask, what right have these men to set up the
+idea of "utility" as the only standard to which the Creator must
+conform? How came they to know that God is a mere "utilitarian;" or, if
+they do not believe in God, that nature is a miserable "Benthamite?" Why
+may not the idea of beauty, of symmetry, of order, be a standard for the
+universe, as much as the idea of utility, or mere subordination to some
+practical end? May not conformity to one grand and comprehensive plan,
+sweeping over all nature, be perfectly compatible with the adaptation of
+individual existences to the fulfillment of special ends? In civil
+architecture we have conformity to a general plan; we have embellishment
+and ornament, and we have adaptation to a special purpose, all combined;
+why may not these all be combined in the architecture of the universe?
+The presence of any one of these is sufficient to prove design, for mere
+ornament or beauty is itself a purpose, an object, and an end. The
+concurrence of all these is an overwhelming evidence of design. Wherever
+found, they are universally recognized as the product of intelligence;
+they address themselves at once to the intelligence of man, and they
+place him in immediate relation to and in deepest sympathy with the
+Intelligence which gave them birth. He that formed the eye of man to
+see, and the heart of man to admire beauty, shall He not delight in it?
+He that gave the hand of man its cunning to create beauty, shall He not
+himself work for it? And if man can and does combine both "ornament" and
+"use" in one and the same implement or machine, why should not the
+Creator of the world do the same? "When the savage carves the handle of
+his war-club, the immediate purpose of his carving is to give his own
+hand a firmer hold. But any shapeless scratches would be enough for
+this. When he carves it in an elaborate pattern, he does so for the love
+of ornament, and to satisfy the sense of beauty." And so "the harmonies,
+on which all beauty depends, are so connected in nature that _use_ and
+_ornament_ may often both arise out of the same conditions."[269]
+
+[Footnote 269: Duke of Argyll, "Reign of Law," p. 203.]
+
+The "true naturalist," therefore, recognizes two great principles
+pervading the universe--_a principle of order_--a unity of plan, and _a
+principle of special adaptation_, by which each object, though
+constructed upon a general plan, is at the same time accommodated to the
+place it has to occupy and the purpose it has to serve. In other words,
+there is _homology of structure_ and _analogy of function_, conformity
+to _archetypal forms_ and _Teleology of organs_, in wonderful
+combination. Now, in the Materialistic school, it has been the prevalent
+practice to set up the unity of plan in animal structures, in opposition
+to the principle of Final Causes: Morphology has been opposed to
+Teleology. But in nature there is no such opposition; on the contrary,
+there is a beautiful co-ordination. The same bones, in different
+animals, are made subservient to the widest possible diversity of
+functions. The same limbs are converted into fins, paddles, wings, legs,
+and arms. "No comparative anatomist has the slightest hesitation in
+admitting that the pectoral fin of a fish, the wing of a bird, the
+paddle of the dolphin, the fore-leg of a deer, the wing of a bat, and
+the arm of a man, are the same organs, notwithstanding that their forms
+are so varied, and the uses to which they are applied so unlike each
+other."[270] All these are homologous in structure--they are formed
+after an ideal archetype or model, but that model or type is variously
+modified to adapt the animal to the sphere of life in which it is
+destined to move, and the organ itself to the functions it has to
+perform, whether swimming, flying, walking, or burrowing, or that varied
+manipulation of which the human hand is capable. These varied
+modifications of the vertebrated type, for special purposes, are
+unmistakable examples of final causation. Whilst the silent members, the
+rudimental limbs instanced by Oken, Martins, and others--as fulfilling
+no purpose, and serving no end, exist in conformity to an ideal
+archetype on which the bony skeletons of all vertebrated animals are
+formed,[271] and which has never been departed from since time began.
+This type, or model, or plan, is, however, itself an evidence of
+_design_ as much as the plan of a house. For to what standard are we
+referring when we say that two limbs are morphologically the same? Is it
+not an _ideal_ plan, a _mental_ pattern, a metaphysical conception? Now
+an _ideal_ implies a mind which preconceived the idea, and in which
+alone it really exists. It is only as "an _order of Divine thought_"
+that the doctrine of animal homologies is at all intelligible; and
+Homology is, therefore, the science which traces the outward embodiment
+of a Divine Idea.[272] The principle of intentionality or final
+causation, then, is not in any sense invalidated by the discovery of "a
+unity of plan" sweeping through the entire universe.
+
+[Footnote 270: Carpenter's "Comparative Physiology," p. 37.]
+
+[Footnote 271: Agassiz, "Essay on Classification," p. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 272: Whewell's "History of Inductive Sciences," vol. i. p.
+644; "The Reign of Law," p. 208; Agassiz, "Essay on Classification," pp.
+9-11.]
+
+We conclude that we are justly entitled to regard "the principle of
+intentionality" as a primary and necessary law of thought, under which
+we can not avoid conceiving and describing the facts of the
+universe--_the special adaptation of means to ends necessarily implies
+mind_. Whenever and wherever we observe the adaptation of an organism to
+the fulfillment of a special end, we can not avoid conceiving of that
+_end_ as foreseen and premeditated, the _means_ as selected and adjusted
+with a view to that end, and creative energy put forth to secure the
+end--all which is the work of intelligence and will.[273] And we can not
+describe these facts of nature, so as to render that account
+intelligible to other minds, without using such terms as "contrivance,"
+"purpose," "adaptation," "design." A striking illustration of this may
+be found in Darwin's volume "On the Fertilization of Orchids." We select
+from his volume with all the more pleasure because he is one of the
+writers who enjoins "caution in ascribing intentions to nature." In one
+sentence he says: "The _Labellum_ is developed into a long nectary, _in
+order_ to attract _Lepidoptera_; and we shall presently give reasons for
+suspecting the nectar is _purposely_ so lodged that it can be sucked
+only slowly, _in order_ to give time for the curious chemical quality of
+the viscid matter settling hard and dry" (p. 29). Of one particular
+structure he says: "This _contrivance_ of the guiding ridges may be
+compared to the little instrument sometimes used for guiding a thread
+into the eye of a needle." The notion that every organism has a use or
+purpose seems to have guided him in his discoveries. "The strange
+position of the _Labellum_, perched on the summit of the column, ought
+to have shown me that here was the place for experiment. I ought to have
+scorned the notion that the _Labellum_ was thus placed _for no good
+purpose_. I neglected this plain guide, and for a long time completely
+failed to understand the flower" (p. 262).[274]
+
+[Footnote 273: Carpenter's "Principles of Comparative Physiology," p.
+723.]
+
+[Footnote 274: Edinburgh Review, October, 1862; article, "The
+Supernatural."]
+
+So that the assumption of final causes has not, as Bacon affirms, "led
+men astray" and "prejudiced further discovery;" on the contrary, it has
+had a large share in every discovery in anatomy and physiology, zoology
+and botany. The use of every organ has been discovered by starting from
+the assumption _that it must have some use_. The belief in a creative
+purpose led Harvey to discover the circulation of the blood. He says:
+"When I took notice that the valves in the veins of so many parts of the
+body were so placed that they gave a free passage to the blood towards
+the heart, but opposed the passage of the venal blood the contrary way,
+I was incited to imagine that so provident a cause as Nature has not
+placed so many valves _without design_, and no design seemed more
+probable than the circulation of the blood."[275] The wonderful
+discoveries in Zoology which have immortalized the name of Cuvier were
+made under the guidance of this principle. He proceeds on the
+supposition not only that animal forms have _some_ plan, _some_ purpose,
+but that they have an intelligible plan, a discoverable purpose. At the
+outset of his "_R�gne Animal_" he says: "Zoology has a principle of
+reasoning which is peculiar to it, and which it employs to advantage on
+many occasions; that is, the principle of the conditions of existence,
+commonly called final causes."[276] The application of this principle
+enabled him to understand and arrange the structures of animals with
+astonishing clearness and completeness of order; and to restore the
+forms of extinct animals which are found in the rocks, in a manner which
+excited universal admiration, and has commanded universal assent.
+Indeed, as Professor Whewell remarks, at the conclusion of his "History
+of the Inductive Sciences," "those who have been discoverers in science
+have generally had minds, the disposition of which was to believe in an
+_intelligent Maker_ of the universe, and that the scientific
+speculations which produced an opposite tendency were generally those
+which, though they might deal familiarly with known physical truths, and
+conjecture boldly with regard to unknown, do not add to the number of
+solid generalizations."[277]
+
+[Footnote 275: "History of Inductive Science," vol. ii. p. 449.]
+
+[Footnote 276: "History of Inductive Science," vol. ii. p. 2, Eng. ed.]
+
+[Footnote 277: Ibid., vol. ii. p. 491. A list of the "great discoverers"
+is given in his "Astronomy and Physics," bk. iii. ch. v.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE UNKNOWN GOD (_continued_).
+
+IS GOD COGNIZABLE BY REASON? (_continued_).
+
+
+      "The faith which can not stand unless buttressed by
+      contradictions is built upon the sand. The profoundest faith
+      is faith in the unity of truth. If there is found any
+      conflict in the results of a right reason, no appeal to
+      practical interests, or traditionary authority, or
+      intuitional or theological faith, can stay the flood of
+      skepticism."--ABBOT.
+
+In the previous chapter we have considered the answers to this question
+which are given by the Idealistic and Materialistic schools; it devolves
+upon us now to review (iii.) the position of the school of _Natural
+Realism_ or _Natural Dualism_, at the head of which stands Sir William
+Hamilton.
+
+It is admitted by this school that philosophic knowledge is "the
+knowledge of effects as dependent on their causes,"[278] and "of
+qualities as inherent in substances."[279]
+
+[Footnote 278: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 58.]
+
+[Footnote 279: Ibid., vol. i. p. 138.]
+
+1. _As to Events and Causes_.--"Events do not occur isolated, apart, by
+themselves; they occur and are conceived by us only in connection. Our
+observation affords us no example of a phenomenon which is not an
+effect; nay, our thought can not even realize to itself the possibility
+of a phenomenon without a cause. By the necessity we are under of
+thinking some cause for every phenomenon, and by our original ignorance
+of what particular causes belong to what particular effects, it is
+rendered impossible for us to acquiesce in the mere knowledge of the
+fact of the phenomenon; on the contrary, we are determined, we are
+necessitated to regard each phenomenon as _only partially known until we
+discover the causes_ on which it depends for its existence.[280]
+Philosophic knowledge is thus, in its widest acceptation, the knowledge
+of effects as dependent on causes. Now what does this imply? In the
+first place, as every cause to which we can ascend is only an effect, it
+follows that it is the scope, that is, the aim, of philosophy to trace
+up the series of effects and causes until we arrive at _causes which are
+not in themselves effects_,"[281]--that is, to ultimate and final
+causes. And then, finally, "Philosophy, as the knowledge of effects in
+their causes, necessarily tends, not towards a plurality of ultimate or
+final causes, but towards _one_ alone."[282]
+
+[Footnote 280: Ibid., vol. i. p. 56.]
+
+[Footnote 281: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 58.]
+
+[Footnote 282: Ibid., vol. i. p. 60.]
+
+2. _As to Qualities and Substance, or Phenomena and Reality_.--As
+phenomena appear only in conjunction, we are compelled, by the
+constitution of our nature, to think them conjoined in and by something;
+and as they are phenomena, we can not think them phenomena of nothing,
+but must regard them as properties or qualities of something.[283] Now
+that which manifests its qualities--in other words, that in which the
+appearing causes inhere, that to which they belong--is called their
+_subject_, or _substance_, or _substratum_.[284] The subject of one
+grand series of phenomena (as, _e.g._, extension, solidity, figure,
+etc.) is called _matter_, or _material substance_. The subject of the
+other grand series of phenomena (as, _e.g._, thought, feeling, volition,
+etc.) is termed _mind_, or _mental substance_. We may, therefore, lay it
+down as an undisputed truth that consciousness gives, as an ultimate
+fact, a primitive duality--a knowledge of the _ego_ in relation and
+contrast to the _non-ego_, and a knowledge of the _non-ego_ in relation
+and contrast to the _ego_[285] Natural Dualism thus establishes the
+existence of two worlds of _mind_ and _matter_ on the immediate
+knowledge we possess of both series of phenomena; whilst the Cosmothetic
+Idealists discredit the veracity of consciousness as to our immediate
+knowledge of material phenomena, and, consequently, our _immediate
+knowledge of the existence of matter_.[286]
+
+[Footnote 283: Ibid., vol. i. p. 137.]
+
+[Footnote 284: Ibid., vol. i. p. 137.]
+
+[Footnote 285: Ibid., vol. i. p. 292.]
+
+[Footnote 286: Ibid., vol. i. pp. 292, 295.]
+
+The obvious doctrine of the above quotations is, that we have an
+immediate knowledge of the "_existence_ of matter" as well as of "the
+_phenomena_ of matter;" that is, we know "_substance_" as immediately
+and directly as we know "_qualities_." Phenomena are known only as
+inherent in substance; substance is known only as manifesting its
+qualities. We never know qualities without knowing substance, and we can
+never know substance without knowing qualities. Both are known in one
+concrete act; substance is known quite as much as quality; quality is
+known no more than substance. That we have a direct, immediate,
+presentative "face to face" knowledge of matter and mind in every act of
+consciousness is asserted again and again by Hamilton, in his
+"Philosophy of Perception."[287] In the course of the discussion he
+starts the question, "_Is the knowledge of mind and matter equally
+immediate?_" His answer to this question may be condensed in the
+following sentences. In regard to the immediate knowledge of _mind_
+there is no difficulty; it is admitted to be direct and immediate. The
+problem, therefore, exclusively regards the intuitive perception of the
+qualities of _matter_. Now, says Hamilton, "if we interrogate
+consciousness concerning the point in question, the response is
+categorical and clear. In the simplest act of perception I am conscious
+of _myself_ as a perceiving _subject_, and of an external _reality_ as
+the object perceived; and I am conscious of both existences in the same
+indivisible amount of intuition."[288] Again he says, "I have frequently
+asserted that in perception we are conscious of the external object,
+immediately and _in itself_." "If, then, the veracity of consciousness
+be unconditionally admitted--_if the intuitive knowledge of matter and
+mind_, and the consequent reality of their antithesis, be taken as
+truths," the doctrine of Natural Realism is established, and, "without
+any hypothesis or demonstration, the _reality of mind_ and the _reality
+of matter_."[289]
+
+[Footnote 287: Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, part ii.]
+
+[Footnote 288: Ibid., p. 181.]
+
+[Footnote 289: Ibid., pp. 34, 182.]
+
+Now, after these explicit statements that we have an intuitive knowledge
+of matter and mind--a direct and immediate consciousness of self as a
+real, "self-subsisting entity," and a knowledge of "an external reality,
+immediately and _in itself_," it seems unaccountably strange that
+Hamilton should assert "_that all human knowledge, consequently all
+human philosophy, is only of the Relative or Phenomenal_;"[290] and that
+"_of existence absolutely and in itself we know nothing_."[291] Whilst
+teaching that the proper sphere and aim of philosophy is to trace
+secondary causes up to ultimate or first causes, and that it
+_necessarily tends_ towards one First and Ultimate Cause, he at the same
+time asserts that "first causes do not lie within the reach of
+philosophy,"[292] and that it can never attain to the knowledge of the
+First Cause.[293] "The Infinite God can not, by us, be comprehended,
+conceived, or thought."[294] God, as First Cause, as infinite, as
+unconditioned, as eternal, is to us absolutely "_The Unknown_." The
+science of Real Being--of Being _in se_--of self-subsisting entities, is
+declared to be impossible. All science is only of the phenomenal, the
+conditioned, the relative. Ontology is a delusive dream. Thus, after
+pages of explanations and qualifications, of affirmations and denials,
+we find Hamilton virtually assuming the same position as Comte and
+Mill--_all human knowledge is necessarily confined to phenomena_.
+
+[Footnote 290: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 136]
+
+[Footnote 291: Ibid., vol. i. p. 138.]
+
+[Footnote 292: Ibid., vol. i. p. 58.]
+
+[Footnote 293: Ibid., vol. i. p. 60.]
+
+[Footnote 294: Ibid., vol. ii. p. 375.]
+
+It has been supposed that the chief glory of Sir William Hamilton rested
+upon his able exposition and defense of the doctrine of Natural Realism.
+There are, however, indications in his writings that he regarded "the
+Philosophy of the Conditioned" as his grand achievement. The Law of the
+Conditioned had "not been generalized by any previous philosopher;" and,
+in laying down that law, he felt that he had made a new and important
+contribution to speculative thought.
+
+The principles upon which this philosophy is based are:
+
+1. _The Relativity of all Human Knowledge._--Existence is not cognized
+absolutely and in itself, but only under special modes which are related
+to our faculties, and, in fact, determined by these faculties
+themselves. All knowledge, therefore, is _relative_--that is, it is of
+phenomena only, and of phenomena "under modifications determined by our
+own faculties." Now, as the Absolute is that which exists out of all
+relation either to phenomena or to our faculties of knowledge, it can
+not possibly be _known_.
+
+2. _The Conditionality of all Thinking_.--Thought necessarily supposes
+conditions. "To think is to condition; and conditional limitation is the
+fundamental law of the possibility of thought. As the eagle can not
+out-soar the atmosphere in which he floats, and by which alone he is
+supported, so the mind can not transcend the sphere of limitation within
+and through which the possibility of thought is realized. Thought is
+only of the conditioned, because, as we have said, to think is to
+condition."[295] Now the Infinite is the unlimited, the unconditioned,
+and as such can not possibly be _thought_.
+
+3. _The notion of the Infinite--the Absolute, as entertained by man, is
+a mere "negation of thought._"--By this Hamilton does not mean that the
+idea of the Infinite is a negative idea. "The Infinite and the Absolute
+are _only_ the names of two counter _imbecilities_ of the human
+mind"[296]--that is, a mental inability to conceive an absolute
+limitation, or an infinite illimitation; an absolute commencement, or an
+infinite non-commencement. In other words, of the absolute and infinite
+we have no conception at all, and, consequently, no knowledge.[297]
+
+The grand law which Hamilton generalizes from the above is, "_that the
+conceivable is in every relation bounded by the inconceivable_." Or,
+again, "The conditioned or the thinkable lies between two extremes or
+poles; and these extremes or poles are each of them unconditioned, each
+of them inconceivable, each of them exclusive or contradictory of the
+other."[298] This is the celebrated "Law of the Conditioned."
+
+[Footnote 295: "Discussions," p. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 296: Ibid., p. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 297: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. pp. 368, 373.]
+
+[Footnote 298: Ibid., vol. ii. p. 373.]
+
+In attempting a brief criticism of "the Philosophy of the Conditioned,"
+we may commence by inquiring:
+
+I. _What is the real import and significance of the doctrine "that all
+human knowledge is only of the relative or phenomenal_?"
+
+Hamilton calls this "the great axiom" of philosophy. That we may
+distinctly comprehend its meaning, and understand its bearing on the
+subject under discussion, we must ascertain the sense in which he uses
+the words "_phenomenal_" and "_relative._" The importance of an exact
+terminology is fully appreciated by our author; and accordingly, in
+three Lectures (VIII., IX., X.), he has given a full explication of the
+terms most commonly employed in philosophic discussions. Here the word
+"_phenomenon_" is set down as the necessary "_correlative_" of the word
+"_subject_" or "_substance_." "These terms can not be explained apart,
+for each is correlative of the other, each can be comprehended only in
+and through its correlative. The term '_subject_' is used to denote the
+unknown (?) basis which lies under the various _phenomena_ or properties
+of which we become aware, whether in our external or internal
+experience."[299] "The term '_relative_' is _opposed_ to the term
+'_absolute_;' therefore, in saying that we know only the relative, I
+virtually assert that we know nothing absolutely, that is, _in and for
+itself, and without relation to us and our faculties_."[300] Now, in the
+philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, "the absolute" is defined as "that
+which is aloof from relation"--"that which is out of all relation."[301]
+The _absolute_ can not, therefore, be "_the correlative_" of the
+conditioned--can not stand in any relation to the phenomenal. The
+_subject,_ however, is the necessary correlative of the phenomenal, and,
+consequently, the subject and the absolute are not identical.
+Furthermore, Hamilton tells us the subject _may be comprehended_ in and
+through its correlative--the phenomenon; but the absolute, being aloof
+from all relation, can not be comprehended or conceived at all. "The
+subject" and "the absolute" are, therefore, not synonymous terms; and,
+if they are not synonymous, then their antithetical terms, "phenomenal"
+and "relative," can not be synonymous.
+
+[Footnote 299: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 148.]
+
+[Footnote 300: Ibid., vol. i. p. 137.]
+
+[Footnote 301: "Discussions," p. 21.]
+
+It is manifest, however, that Hamilton does employ these terms as
+synonymous, and this we apprehend is the first false step in his
+philosophy of the conditioned. "All our knowledge is of the relative
+_or_ phenomenal." Throughout the whole of Lectures VIII. and IX., in
+which he explains the doctrine of the relativity of human knowledge,
+these terms are used as precisely analogous. Now, in opposition to this,
+we maintain that the relative is not always the phenomenal. A thing may
+be "in relation" and yet not be a phenomenon. "The subject or substance"
+may be, and really is, on the admission of Hamilton himself,
+_correlated_ to the phenomenon. The ego, "the conscious _subject_"[302]
+as a "_self-subsisting entity_" is necessarily related to the phenomena
+of thought, feeling, etc.; but no one would repudiate the idea that the
+conscious subject is a mere phenomenon, or "series of phenomena," with
+more indignation than Hamilton. Notwithstanding the contradictory
+assertion, "that the _subject_ is unknown," he still teaches, with equal
+positiveness, "that in every act of perception I am conscious of self,
+as a perceiving _subject."_ And still more explicitly he says: "As
+clearly as I am conscious of existing, so clearly am I conscious, at
+every moment of my existence, that the conscious Ego is not itself a
+mere modification [a phenomenon], nor a series of modifications
+[phenomena], but that it is itself different from all its modifications,
+and a _self-subsisting entity_."[303] Again: "Thought is possible only
+in and through the consciousness of Self. The Self, the I, is recognized
+in every act of intelligence as the _subject_ to which the act belongs.
+It is I that perceive, I that imagine, I that remember, etc.; these
+special modes are all only the phenomena of the I."[304] We are,
+therefore, conscious of the _subject_ in the most immediate, and direct,
+and intuitive manner, and the subject of which we are conscious can not
+be "_unknown_." We regret that so distinguished a philosophy should deal
+in such palpable contradictions; but it is the inevitable consequence of
+violating that fundamental principle of philosophy on which Hamilton so
+frequently and earnestly insists, viz., "that the testimony of
+consciousness must be accepted in all its integrity".
+
+[Footnote 302: Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton (edited by O.W.
+Wight), p. 181.]
+
+[Footnote 303: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 373.]
+
+[Footnote 304: Ibid., vol. i. p. 166.]
+
+It is thus obvious that, with proper qualifications, we may admit _the
+relativity of human knowledge_, and yet at the same time reject the
+doctrine of Hamilton, _that all human knowledge is only of the
+phenomenal_.
+
+"The relativity of human knowledge," like most other phrases into which
+the word "relative" enters, is vague, and admits of a variety of
+meanings. If by this phrase is meant "that we can not know objects
+except as related to our faculties, or as our faculties are related to
+them," we accept the statement, but regard it as a mere truism leading
+to no consequences, and hardly worth stating in words. It is simply
+another way of saying that, in order to an object's being known, it must
+come within the range of our intellectual vision, and that we can only
+know as much as we are capable of knowing. Or, if by this phrase is
+meant "that we can only know things by and through the phenomena they
+present," we admit this also, for we can no more know substances apart
+from their properties, than we can know qualities apart from the
+substances in which they inhere. Substances can be known only in and
+through their phenomena. Take away the properties, and the thing has no
+longer any existence. Eliminate extension, form, density, etc., from
+matter, and what have you left? "The thing in itself," apart from its
+qualities, is nothing. Or, again, if by the relativity of knowledge is
+meant "that all consciousness, all thought are relative," we accept this
+statement also. To conceive, to reflect, to know, is to deal with
+difference and relation; the relation of subject and object; the
+relation of objects among themselves; the relation of phenomena to
+reality, of becoming to being. The reason of man is unquestionably
+correlated to that which is beyond phenomena; it is able to apprehend
+the necessary relation between phenomena and being, extension and space,
+succession and time, event and cause, the finite and the infinite. We
+may thus admit the _relative character of human thought_, and at the
+same time deny that it is an ontological disqualification.[305]
+
+It is not, however, in any of these precise forms that Hamilton holds
+the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge. He assumes a middle place
+between Reid and Kant, and endeavors to blend the subjective idealism of
+the latter with the realism of the former. "He identifies the
+_phenomenon_ of the German with the _quality_ of the British
+philosophy,"[306] and asserts, as a regulative law of thought, that the
+quality implies the substance, and the phenomenon the noumenon, but
+makes the substratum or noumenon (the object in itself) unknown and
+unknowable. The "phenomenon" of Kant was, however, something essentially
+different from the "quality" of Reid. In the philosophy of Kant,
+_phenomenon_ means an object as we envisage or represent it to
+ourselves, in opposition to the _noumenon_, or a thing as it is in
+itself. The phenomenon is composed, in part, of subjective elements
+supplied by the mind itself; as regards intuition, the forms of space
+and time; as regards thought, the categories of Quantity, Quality,
+Relation, and Modality. To perceive a thing in itself would be to
+perceive it neither in space nor in time. To think a thing in itself
+would be not to think it under any of the categories. The phenomenal is
+thus the product of the inherent laws of our own constitution, and, as
+such, is the sum and limit of all our knowledge.[307]
+
+[Footnote 305: Martineau's "Essays," p. 234.]
+
+[Footnote 306: M'Cosh's "Defense of Fundamental Truth," p. 106.]
+
+[Footnote 307: Mansel's "Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant," pp. 21,
+22.]
+
+This, in its main features, is evidently the doctrine propounded by
+Hamilton. The special modes in which existence is cognizable" are
+presented to, and known by, the mind _under modifications determined by
+the faculties themselves_."[308] This doctrine he illustrates by the
+following supposition: "Suppose the total object of consciousness in
+perception is=12; and suppose that the external reality contributes 6,
+the material sense 3, and the mind 3; this may enable you to form some
+rude conjecture of the nature of the object of perception."[309] The
+conclusion at which Hamilton arrives, therefore, is that things are not
+known to us as they exist, but simply as they appear, and as our minds
+are capable of perceiving them.
+
+[Footnote 308: Hamilton's "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 148.]
+
+[Footnote 309: Hamilton's "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 129;
+and also vol. i. p. 147.]
+
+Let us test the validity of this majestic deliverance. No man is
+justified in making this assertion unless, 1. He knows things as they
+exist; 2. He knows things not only as they exist but as they appear; 3.
+He is able to compare things as they exist with the same things as they
+appear. Now, inasmuch as Sir William Hamilton affirms we do not know
+things as they exist, but only as they appear, how can he know that
+there is any difference between things as they exist and as they appear?
+What is this "_thing in itself_" about which Hamilton has so much to
+say, and yet about which he professes to know nothing? We readily
+understand what is meant by the _thing_; it is the object as existing--a
+substance manifesting certain characteristic qualities. But what is
+meant by _in itself_? There can be no _in itself_ besides or beyond the
+_thing_. If Hamilton means that "the thing itself" is the thing apart
+from all relation, and devoid of all properties or qualities, we do not
+acknowledge any such thing. A thing apart from all relation, and devoid
+of all qualities, is simply pure nothing, if such a solecism may be
+permitted. With such a definition of Being _in se_, the logic of Hegel
+is invincible, "Being and Nothing are identical."
+
+And now, if "the thing in itself" be, as Hamilton says it is, absolutely
+_unknown_, how can he affirm or deny any thing in regard to it? By what
+right does he prejudge a hidden reality, and give or refuse its
+predicates; as, for example, that it is conditioned or unconditioned, in
+relation or aloof from relation, finite or infinite? Is it not plain
+that, in declaring a thing in its inmost nature or essence to be
+inscrutable, it is assumed to be partially _known_? And it is obvious,
+notwithstanding some unguarded expressions to the contrary, that
+Hamilton does regard "the thing in itself" as partially known. "The
+external reality" is, at least, six elements out of twelve in the "total
+object of consciousness."[310] The primary qualities of matter are known
+as in the things themselves; "they develop themselves with rigid
+necessity out of the simple datum of _substance occupying space_."[311]
+"The Primary Qualities are apprehended as they are in bodies"--"they are
+the attributes of _body as body_," and as such "are known immediately in
+themselves,"[312] as well as mediately by their effects upon us. So that
+we not only know by direct consciousness certain properties of things as
+they exist in things themselves, but we can also deduce them in an _�
+priori_ manner. "The bare notion of matter being given, the Primary
+Qualities may be deduced _� priori_; they being, in fact, only
+evolutions of the conditions which that notion necessarily implies." If,
+then, we know the qualities of things as "in the things themselves,"
+"the things themselves" must also be, at least, partially known; and
+Hamilton can not consistently assert the relativity of _all_ knowledge.
+Even if it be granted that our cognitions of objects are only in part
+dependent on the objects themselves, and in part on elements superadded
+by our organism, or by our minds, it can not warrant the assertion that
+all our knowledge, but only the part so added, is relative. "The
+admixture of the relative element not only does not take away the
+absolute character of the remainder, but does not even (if our author is
+right) prevent us from recognizing it. The confusion, according to him,
+is not inextricable. It is for us 'to analyze and distinguish what
+elements,' in an 'act of knowledge,' are contributed by the object, and
+what by the organs or by the mind."[313]
+
+[Footnote 310: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 129.]
+
+[Footnote 311: Philosophy of Sir Wm. Hamilton, p. 357]
+
+[Footnote 312: Ibid., pp. 377, 378.]
+
+[Footnote 313: Mill's "Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i. p.
+44.]
+
+Admitting the relative character of human thought as a psychological
+fact, Mr. Martineau has conclusively shown that this law, instead of
+visiting us with disability to transcend phenomena, _operates as a
+revelation of what exists beyond_. "The finite body cut out before our
+visual perception, or embraced by the hands, lies as an island in the
+emptiness around, and without comparative reference to this can not be
+represented: the same experience which gives us the definite object
+gives us also the infinite space; and both terms--the limited appearance
+and the unlimited ground--are apprehended with equal certitude and
+clearness, and furnished with names equally susceptible of distinct use
+in predication and reasoning. The transient successions, for instance,
+the strokes of a clock, which we count, present themselves to us as
+dotted out upon a line of permanent duration; of which, without them, we
+should have no apprehension, but which as their condition, is
+unreservedly known."[314]
+
+"What we have said with regard to space and time applies equally to the
+case of Causation. Here, too, the finite offered to perception
+introduces to an Infinite supplied by thought. As a definite body
+reveals also the space around, and an interrupted succession exhibits
+the uniform time beneath, so does the passing phenomenon demand for
+itself a power beneath. The space, and time, and power, not being part
+of the thing perceived, but its conditions, are guaranteed to us,
+therefore, on the warrant, not of sense, but of intellect."[315]
+
+"We conclude, then, on reviewing these examples of Space, and Time, and
+Causation, that ontological ideas introducing us to certain fixed
+entities belong no less to our knowledge than scientific ideas of
+phenomenal disposition and succession."[316] In these instances of
+relation between a phenomenon given in perception and an entity as a
+logical condition, the correlatives are on a perfect equality of
+intellectual validity, and the relative character of human thought is
+not an ontological disqualification, but a cognitive power.
+
+[Footnote 314: "Essays," pp. 193,194.]
+
+[Footnote 315: Ibid., p. 197.]
+
+[Footnote 316: Ibid., p. 195.]
+
+There is a thread of fallacy running through the whole of Hamilton's
+reasonings, consequent upon a false definition of the Absolute at the
+outset. The Absolute is defined as _that which exists in and by itself,
+aloof from and out of all relation_. An absolute, as thus defined, does
+not and can not exist; it is a pure abstraction, and, in fact, a pure
+non-entity. "The Absolute expresses perfect independence both in being
+and in action, and is applicable to God as self-existent."[317] It may
+mean the absence of all _necessary_ relation, but it does not mean the
+absence of _all_ relation. If God can not _voluntarily_ call a finite
+existence into being, and thus stand in the relation of cause, He is
+certainly under the severest limitation. But surely that is not a limit
+which substitutes choice for necessity. To be unable to know God out of
+all relation--that is, apart from his attributes, apart from his created
+universe, is not felt by us to be any privation at all. A God without
+attributes, and out of all relations, is for us no God at all. God as a
+being of unlimited perfection, as infinitely wise and good, as the
+unconditioned cause of all finite being, and, consequently, as
+voluntarily related to nature and humanity, we can and do know; this is
+the living and true God. The God of a false philosophy is not the true
+God; the pure abstractions of Hegel and Hamilton are negations, and not
+realities.
+
+2. We proceed to consider the second fundamental principle of Hamilton's
+philosophy of the conditioned, viz., that "conditional limitation is the
+fundamental law of the possibility of thought," and that thought
+necessarily imposes conditions on its object.
+
+"Thought," says Hamilton, "can not transcend consciousness:
+consciousness is only possible under the antithesis of a subject and an
+object known only in correlation, and _mutually limiting each
+other_"[318] Thought necessarily supposes conditions; "to think is
+simply to condition," that is, to predicate limits; and as the infinite
+is the unlimited, it can not be thought. The very attempt to think the
+infinite renders it finite; therefore there can be no infinite _in
+thought_, and, consequently, the infinite can not be known.
+
+[Footnote 317: Calderwood's "Philosophy of the Infinite," p. 179.]
+
+[Footnote 318: "Discussions," p. 21.]
+
+If by "the infinite in thought" is here meant the infinite compassed or
+contained in thought, we readily grant that the finite can not contain
+the infinite; it is a simple truism which no one has ever been so
+foolish as to deny. Even Cousin is not so unwise as to assert the
+absolutely comprehensibility of God. "In order absolutely to comprehend
+the Infinite, it is necessary to have an infinite power of
+comprehension, and this is not granted to us."[319] A finite mind can
+not have "an infinite thought." But it by no means follows that, because
+we can not have infinite thought, we can have no clear and definite
+thought of or concerning the Infinite. We have a precise and definite
+idea of infinitude; we can define the idea; we can set it apart without
+danger of being confounded with another, and we can reason concerning
+it. There is nothing we more certainly and intuitively know than that
+space is infinite, and yet we can not comprehend or grasp within the
+compass of our thought the infinite space. We can not form an _image_ of
+infinite space, can not traverse it in perception, or represent it by
+any combination of numbers; but we can have the _thought_ of it as an
+idea of Reason, and can argue concerning it with precision and
+accuracy.[320] Hamilton has an idea of the Infinite; he defines it; he
+reasons concerning it; he says "we must believe in the infinity of God."
+But how can he define the Infinite unless he possesses some knowledge,
+however limited, of the infinite Being? How can he believe in the
+infinity of God if he has no definite idea of infinitude? He can not
+reason about, can not affirm or deny any thing concerning, that of which
+he knows absolutely nothing.
+
+[Footnote 319: "Lectures on History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 104.]
+
+[Footnote 320: "To form an _image_ of any infinitude--be it of time or
+space [or power]; to go mentally through it by successive steps of
+representation--is indeed impossible; not less so than to traverse it in
+our finite perception and experience. But to have the _thought_ of it as
+an idea of the reason, not of the phantasy, and assign that thought a
+constituent place in valid beliefs and consistent reasonings, appears to
+us as not only possible, but inevitable."--Martineau's "Essays," p.
+205.]
+
+The grand logical barrier which Hamilton perpetually interposes to all
+possible cognition of God _as infinite_ is, that to think is to
+condition--to limit; and as the Infinite is the unconditioned, the
+unlimited, therefore "the Infinite can not be _thought_." We grant at
+once that all human thought is limited and finite, but, at the same
+time, we emphatically deny that the limitation of our thought imposes
+any conditions or limits upon the object of thought. No such affirmation
+can be consistently made, except on the Hegelian hypothesis that
+"Thought and Being are identical;" and this is a maxim which Hamilton
+himself repudiates. Our thought does not create, neither does it impose
+conditions upon, any thing.
+
+There is a lurking sophism in the whole phraseology of Hamilton in
+regard to this subject. He is perpetually talking about "thinking a
+thing"--"thinking the Infinite." Now we do not think a thing, but we
+think _of_ or _concerning_ a thing. We do not think a man, neither does
+our thought impose any conditions upon the man, so that he must be as
+our thought conceives or represents him; but our thought is of the man,
+concerning or about the man, and is only so far true and valid as it
+conforms to the objective reality. And so we do not "think the
+Infinite;" that is, our thought neither contains nor conditions the
+Infinite Being, but our thoughts are _about_ the Infinite One; and if we
+do not think of Him as a being of infinite perfection, our thought is
+neither worthy, nor just, nor true.[321]
+
+[Footnote 321: Calderwood's "Philosophy of the Infinite," pp. 255, 256.]
+
+But we are told the law of all thought and of all being is
+determination; consequently, negation of some quality or some
+potentiality; whereas the Infinite is "_the One and the All_" (ti En kai
+Pyn),[322] or, as Dr. Mansel, the disciple and annotator of Hamilton,
+affirms, "the sum of all reality," and "the sum of all possible modes of
+being."[323] The Infinite, as thus defined, must include in itself all
+being, and all modes of being, actual and possible, not even excepting
+evil. And this, let it be observed, Dr. Mansel has the hardihood to
+affirm. "If the Absolute and the Infinite is an object of human
+conception at all, this, and none other, is the conception
+required."[324] "The Infinite Whole," as thus defined, can not be
+thought, and therefore it is argued the Infinite God can not be known.
+Such a doctrine shocks our moral sense, and we shrink from the thought
+of an Infinite which includes evil. There is certainly a moral
+impropriety, if not a logical impossibility, in such a conception of
+God.
+
+[Footnote 322: Hamilton's "Lectures on Metaphysics," Appendix, vol. ii.
+p. 531.]
+
+[Footnote 323: "Limits of Religious Thought," p. 76.]
+
+[Footnote 324: Ibid.]
+
+The fallacy of this reasoning consists in confounding a _supposed_
+Quantitative Infinite with _the_ Qualitative Infinite--the totality of
+existence with the infinitely perfect One. "Qualitative infinity is a
+secondary predicate; that is, the attribute of an attribute, and is
+expressed by the adverb _infinitely_ rather than the adjective
+_infinite_. For instance, it is a strict use of language to say, that
+space is infinite, but it is an elliptical use of language to say, God
+is infinite. Precision of language would require us to say, God is
+infinitely good, wise, and great; or God is good, and his goodness is
+infinite. The distinction may seem trivial, but it is based upon an
+important difference between the infinity of space and time on the one
+hand, and the infinity of God on the other. Neither philosophy nor
+theology can afford to disregard the difference. Quantitative Infinity
+is illimitation by _quantity_. Qualitative Infinity is illimitation by
+_degree_. Quantity and degree alike imply finitude, and are categories
+of the finite alone. The danger of arguing from the former kind of
+infinitude to the latter can not be overstated. God alone possesses
+Qualitative Infinity, which is strictly synonymous with _absolute
+perfection_; and the neglect of the distinction between this and
+Quantitative Infinity, leads irresistibly to pantheistic and
+materialistic notions. Spinozism is possible only by the elevation of
+'infinite extension' to the dignity of a divine attribute. Dr. Samuel
+Clarke's identification of God's immensity with space has been shown by
+Martin to ultimate in Pantheism. From ratiocinations concerning the
+incomprehensibility of infinite space and time, Hamilton and Mansel pass
+at once to conclusions concerning the incomprehensibility of God. The
+inconsequence of all such arguments is absolute; and if philosophy
+tolerates the transference of spatial or temporal analogies to the
+nature of God, she must reconcile herself to the negation of his
+personality and spirituality."[325] An Infinite Being, quite remote from
+the notion of _quantity_, may and does exist; which, on the one hand,
+does not include finite existence, and, on the other hand, does not
+render the finite impossible to thought. Without contradiction they may
+coexist, and be correlated.
+
+The thought will have already suggested itself to the mind of the reader
+that for Hamilton to assert that the Infinite, as thus defined (the One
+and the All), is absolutely unknown, is certainly the greatest
+absurdity, for in that case nothing can be known. This Infinite must be
+at least partially known, or all human knowledge is reduced to zero. To
+the all-inclusive Infinite every thing affirmative belongs, not only to
+be, but to be known. To claim it for being, yet deny it to thought, is
+thus impossible. The Infinite, which includes all real existence, is
+certainly possible to cognition.
+
+The whole argument as regards the conditionating nature of all thought
+is condensed into four words by Spinoza--"_Omnis determinatio est
+negatio_;" all determination is negation. Nothing can be more arbitrary
+or more fallacious than this principle. It arises from the confusion of
+two things essentially different--_the limits of a being_, and _its
+determinate and distinguishing characteristics_. The limit of a being is
+its imperfection; the determination of a being is its perfection. The
+less a thing is determined, the more it sinks in the scale of being; the
+most determinate being is the most perfect being. "In this sense God is
+the only being absolutely determined. For there must be something
+indetermined in all finite beings, since they have all imperfect powers
+which tend towards their development after an indefinite manner. God
+alone, the complete Being in whom all powers are actualized, escapes by
+His own perfection from all progress, and development, and
+indetermination."[326]
+
+[Footnote 325: North American Review, October, 1864, article, "The
+Conditioned and the Unconditioned," pp. 422, 423. See also Young's
+"Province of Reason," p. 72; and Calderwood's "Philosophy of the
+Infinite," p. 183.]
+
+[Footnote 326: Saisset, "Modern Pantheism," vol. ii. p. 71.]
+
+All real being must be determined; only pure Nothing can be
+undetermined. _Determination_ is, however, one thing; and _limitation_
+is essentially another thing. "Even space and time, though cognized
+solely by negative characteristics, are determined in so far as
+differentiated from the existences they contain; but this
+differentiation involves no limitation of their infinity." If all
+distinction is determination, and if all determination is negation, that
+is (as here used), limitation, then the infinite, as distinguished from
+the finite, loses its own infinity, and either becomes identical with
+the finite, or else vanishes into pure nothing. If Hamilton will persist
+in affirming that all determination is limitation, he has no other
+alternatives but to accept the doctrine of Absolute Nihilism, or of
+Absolute Identity. If the Absolute is the indeterminate--that is, no
+attributes, no consciousness, no relations--it is pure non-being. If the
+Infinite is "the One and All," then there is but one substance, one
+absolute entity.
+
+Herbert Spencer professes to be carrying out, a step farther, the
+doctrine put into shape by Hamilton and Mansel, viz., "the philosophy of
+the Unconditioned." In other words, he carries that doctrine forward to
+its rigidly logical consequences, and utters the last word which
+Hamilton and Mansel dare not utter--"Apprehensible by us there is no
+God." The Ultimate Reality is absolutely unknown; it can not be
+apprehended by the human intellect, and it can not present itself to the
+intellect at all. This Ultimate Reality can not be _intelligent_,
+because to think is to condition, and the Absolute is the unconditioned;
+can not be _conscious_, because all consciousness is of plurality and
+difference, and the Absolute is one; can not be _personal_, because
+personality is determination or limitation, and the Infinite is the
+illimitable. It is "audacious," "irreverent," "impious," to apply any of
+these predicates to it; to regard it as Mind, or speak of it as
+Righteous.[327] The ultimate goal of the philosophy of the Unconditioned
+is a purely subjective Atheism.
+
+[Footnote 327: "First Principles," pp. 111, 112.]
+
+And yet of this Primary Existence--inscrutable, and absolutely
+unknown--Spencer knows something; knows as much as he pleases to know.
+He knows that this "ultimate of ultimates is _Force_,"[328] an
+"_Omnipresent Power_,"[329] is "_One_" and "_Eternal_."[330] He knows
+also that it can not be intelligent, self-conscious, and a
+personality.[331] This is a great deal to affirm and deny of an
+existence "absolutely unknown." May we not be permitted to affirm of
+this hidden and unknown something that it is _conscious Mind_,
+especially as Mind is admitted to be the only analogon of Power; and
+"the _force_ by which we produce change, and which serves to symbolize
+the causes of changes in general, is the final disclosure of
+analysis."[332]
+
+[Footnote 328: "First Principles," p. 235.]
+
+[Footnote 329: Ibid., p. 99.]
+
+[Footnote 330: Ibid., p. 81.]
+
+[Footnote 331: Ibid., pp. 108-112.]
+
+[Footnote 332: Ibid., p. 235.]
+
+3. We advance to the review of the third fundamental principle of
+Hamilton's philosophy of the Unconditioned, viz., that the terms
+infinite and absolute are names for a "mere negation of thought"--a
+"mental impotence" to think, or, in other words, the absence of all the
+conditions under which thought is possible.
+
+This principle is based upon a distinction between "positive" and
+"negative" thought, which is made with an air of wonderful precision and
+accuracy in "the Alphabet of Human Thought."[333] "Thinking is
+_positive_ when existence is predicated of an object." "Thinking is
+_negative_ when existence is not attributed to an object." "Negative
+thinking," therefore, is not the thinking of an object as devoid of this
+or that particular attribute, but as devoid of all attributes, and thus
+of all existence; that is, it is "the negation of all
+thought"--_nothing_. "When we think a thing, that is done by conceiving
+it as possessed of certain modes of being or qualities, _and the sum of
+these qualities constitutes its concept or notion_." "When we perform an
+act of negative thought, this is done by thinking _something_ as _not_
+existing in this or that determinate mode; and when we think it as
+existing in no determinate mode, _we cease to think at all--it becomes a
+nothing_."[334] Now the Infinite, according to Hamilton, can not be
+thought in any determinate mode; therefore we do not think it at all,
+and therefore it is for us "a logical Non-entity."
+
+[Footnote 333: "Discussions," Appendix I. p. 567.]
+
+[Footnote 334: "Logic," pp. 54, 55.]
+
+It is barely conceivable that Hamilton might imagine himself possessed
+of this singular power of "performing an act of negative thought"--that
+is, of thinking and not thinking at once, or of "thinking something"
+that "becomes nothing;" we are not conscious of any such power. To think
+without an object of thought, or to think of something without any
+qualities, or to think "something" which in the act of thought melts
+away into "nothing," is an absurdity and a contradiction. We can not
+think about nothing. All thought must have an object, and every object
+must have some predicate. Even space has some predicates--as
+receptivity, unity, and infinity. Thought can only be realized by
+thinking something existing, and existing in a determinate manner; and
+when we cease to think something having predicates, we cease to think at
+all. This is emphatically asserted by Hamilton himself.[335] "Negative
+thinking" is, therefore, a meaningless phrase, a contradiction in terms;
+it is no thought at all. We are cautioned, however, against regarding
+"the negation of thought" as "a negation of all mental ability." It is,
+we are told, "an attempt to think, and a failure in the attempt." An
+attempt to think about _what_? Surely it must be about some object, and
+an object which is _known_ by some sign, else there can be no thought.
+Let any one make the attempt to think without something to think about,
+and he will find that both the process and the result are blank
+nothingness. All thought, therefore, as Calderwood has amply shown, is,
+must be, _positive_. "Thought is nothing else than the comparison of
+objects known; and as knowledge is always positive, so must our thought
+be. All knowledge implies an object _known_; and so all thought involves
+an object about which we think, and must, therefore, be positive--that
+is, it must embrace within itself the conception of certain qualities as
+belonging to the object."[336]
+
+[Footnote 335: "Logic," p. 55.]
+
+[Footnote 336: "Philosophy of the Infinite," p. 272.]
+
+The conclusion of Hamilton's reasoning in regard to "negative thinking"
+is, that we can form no notion of the Infinite Being. We have no
+positive idea of such a Being. We can think of him only by "the thinking
+away of every characteristic" which can be conceived, and thus "ceasing
+to think at all." We can only form a "negative concept," which, we are
+told, "is in fact no concept at all." We can form only a "negative
+notion," which, we are informed, "is only the negation of a notion."
+This is the impenetrable abyss of total gloom and emptiness into which
+the philosophy of the conditions leads us at last.[337]
+
+[Footnote 337: Whilst Spencer accepts the general doctrine of Hamilton,
+that the Ultimate Reality is inscrutable, he argues earnestly against
+his assertion that the Absolute is a "mere negation of thought."
+
+"Every one of the arguments by which the relativity of our knowledge is
+demonstrated distinctly postulates the _positive existence_ of something
+beyond the relative. To say we can not know the Absolute is, by
+implication, to affirm there _is_ an Absolute. In the very denial of our
+power to learn _what_ the Absolute is, there lies hidden the assumption
+_that_ it is; and the making of this assumption proves that the Absolute
+has been present to the mind, not as nothing, but as _something_. And so
+with every step in the reasoning by which the doctrine is upheld, the
+Noumenon, everywhere named as the antithesis of the Phenomenon, is
+throughout thought as actuality. It is rigorously impossible to conceive
+that our knowledge is a knowledge of appearances only, without, at the
+same time, conceiving a Reality of which these are appearances, for
+appearances without reality are unthinkable.
+
+"Truly to represent or realize in thought any one of the propositions of
+which the argument consists, the unconditioned must be represented as
+_positive_, and not negative. How, then, can it be a legitimate
+conclusion from the argument that our consciousness of it is negative?
+An argument, the very construction of which assigns to a certain term a
+certain meaning, but which ends in showing that this term has no
+meaning, is simply an elaborate suicide. Clearly, then, the very
+demonstration that a definite consciousness [comprehension] of the
+Absolute is impossible, unavoidably presupposes an indefinite
+consciousness of it [an apprehension]."--"First Principles," p. 88.]
+
+Still we have the word _infinite_, and we have _the notion_ which the
+word expresses. This, at least, is spared to us by Sir William Hamilton.
+He who says we have no such notion asks the question _how we have it?_
+Here it may be asked, how have we, then, the word infinite? How have we
+the notion which this word expresses? The answer to this question is
+contained in the distinction of positive and negative thought.
+
+We have a positive concept of a thing when we think of it by the
+qualities of which it is the complement. But as the attribution of
+qualities is an affirmation, as affirmation and negation are relatives,
+and as relatives _are known only in and through each other_, we can not,
+therefore, have a _consciousness_ of the affirmation of any quality
+without having, at the same time, the _correlative consciousness_ of its
+negation. Now the one consciousness is a positive, the other
+consciousness is a negative notion; and as all language is the reflex of
+thought, the positive and negative notions are expressed by positive and
+negative names. Thus it is with the Infinite.[338] Now let us carefully
+scrutinize the above deliverance. We are told that "relatives are known
+only in and through each other;" that is, such relatives as _finite_ and
+_infinite_ are known necessarily in the same act of thought. The
+knowledge of one is as necessary as the knowledge of the other. We can
+not have a consciousness of the one without the correlative
+consciousness of the other. "For," says Hamilton, "a relation is, in
+truth, a thought, one and indivisible; and while the thinking a relation
+_necessarily involves the thought of its two terms,_, so it is, with
+equal necessity, itself involved in the thought of either." If, then, we
+are _conscious_ of the two terms of the relation in the same "one and
+indivisible" mental act--if we can not have "the consciousness of the
+one without the consciousness of the other"--if space and position, time
+and succession, substance and quality, infinite and finite, are given to
+us in pairs, then 'the _knowledge of one is as necessary as the
+knowledge of the other,_' and they must stand or fall together. The
+finite is known no more positively than the infinite; the infinite is
+known as positively as the finite. The one can not be taken and the
+other left. The infinite, discharged from all relation to the finite,
+could never come into apprehension; and the finite, discharged of all
+relation to the infinite, is incognizable too. "There can be no
+objection to call the one 'positive' and the other 'negative,' provided
+it be understood that _each_ is so with regard to the other, and that
+the relation is convertible; the finite, for instance, being the
+negative of the infinite, not less than the infinite of the
+finite."[339]
+
+[Footnote 338: _Logic,_ p. 73.]
+
+[Footnote 339: Martineau's "Essays," p. 237.]
+
+To say that the finite is comprehensible in and by itself, and the
+infinite is incomprehensible in and by itself, is to make an assertion
+utterly at variance both with psychology and logic. The finite is no
+more comprehensible _in itself_ than the infinite. "Relatives are known
+only in and through each other."[340] "The conception of one term of a
+relation necessarily implies that of the other, it being the very nature
+of a relative to be thinkable only through the conjunct thought of its
+correlative." We comprehend nothing more completely than the infinite;
+"for the idea of illimitation is as clear, precise, and intelligible as
+the idea of limitability, which is its basis. The propositions "A is X"
+"A is not X," are equally comprehensible; the conceptions A and X are in
+both cases positive data of experience, while the affirmation and
+negation consist solely in the copulative or disjunctive nature of the
+predication. Consequently, if X is comprehensible, so is not--X; if the
+finite is comprehensible, so is the infinite."[341]
+
+Whilst denying that the infinite can by us be _known_, Hamilton tells us
+he is "far from denying that it is, must, and ought to be
+_believed_."[342] "We must believe in the infinity of God."
+"Faith--belief--is the organ by which we apprehend what is beyond
+knowledge."[343] We heartily assent to the doctrine that the Infinite
+Being is the object of faith, but we earnestly deny that the Infinite
+Being is not an object of knowledge. May not knowledge be grounded upon
+faith, and does not faith imply knowledge? Can we not obtain knowledge
+through faith? Is not the belief in the Infinite Being implied in our
+knowledge of finite existence? If so, then God as the infinite and
+perfect, God as the unconditioned Cause, is not absolutely "the
+unknown."
+
+[Footnote 340: Hamilton's "Logic," p. 73.]
+
+[Footnote 341: North American Review, October, 1864, article
+"Conditioned and the Unconditioned," pp. 441, 442.]
+
+[Footnote 342: Letter to Calderwood, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 530.]
+
+[Footnote 343: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 374.]
+
+A full exposition of Sir William Hamilton's views of _Faith_ in its
+connection with Philosophy would have been deeply interesting to us, and
+it would have filled up a gap in the interpretation of his system. The
+question naturally presents itself, how would he have discriminated
+between faith and knowledge, so as to assign to each its province? If
+our notion of the Infinite Being rests entirely upon faith, then upon
+what ultimate ground does faith itself rest? On the authority of
+Scripture, of the Church, or of reason? The only explicit statement of
+his view which has fallen in our way is a note in his edition of
+Reid.[344] "We _know_ what rests upon reason; we _believe_ what rests
+upon authority. But reason itself must rest at last upon authority; for
+the original data of reason do not rest upon reason, but are necessarily
+accepted by reason on the authority of what is beyond itself. These data
+are, therefore, in rigid propriety, Beliefs or Trusts. Thus it is that,
+in the last resort, we must, per force, philosophically admit that
+belief is the primary condition of reason, and not reason the ultimate
+ground of belief."
+
+[Footnote 344: P. 760; also Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, p. 61.]
+
+Here we have, first, an attempted distinction between faith and
+knowledge. "We _know_ what rests upon reason;" that is, whatever we
+obtain by deduction or induction, whatever is capable of explication and
+proof, is _knowledge_. "We _believe_ what rests upon authority;" that
+is, whatever we obtain by intellectual intuition or pure apperception,
+and is incapable of explication and of proof, is "a _belief or trust_."
+These instinctive beliefs, which are, as it were, the first principles
+upon which all knowledge rests, are, however, indiscriminately called by
+Hamilton "cognitions," "beliefs," "judgments." He declares most
+explicitly "that the principles of our knowledge must themselves be
+_knowledges_;"[345] and these first principles, which are "the primary
+condition of reason," are elsewhere called "_� priori cognitions_;" also
+"native, pure, or transcendental _knowledge_," in contradistinction to
+"_� posteriori cognitions_," or that knowledge which is obtained in the
+exercise of reason.[346] All this confusion results from an attempt to
+put asunder what God has joined together. As Clemens of Alexandria has
+said, "Neither is faith without knowledge, nor knowledge without faith."
+All faith implies knowledge, and all knowledge implies faith. They are
+mingled in the one operation of the human mind, by which we apprehend
+first principles or ultimate truths. These have their light and dark
+side, as Hamilton has remarked. They afford enough light to show _that_
+they are and must be, and thus communicate knowledge; they furnish no
+light to show _how_ they are and _why_ they are, and under that aspect
+demand the exercise of faith. There must, therefore, first be something
+_known_ before there can be any _faith_.[347]
+
+[Footnote 345: Ibid., p. 69.]
+
+[Footnote 346: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 347: M'Cosh, "Intuitions," pp. 197, 198; Calderwood,
+"Philosophy of the Infinite," p. 24.]
+
+And now we seem to have penetrated to the centre of Hamilton's
+philosophy, and the vital point may be touched by one crucial question,
+_Upon what ultimate ground does faith itself rest?_ Hamilton says, "we
+believe what rests upon _authority_." But what is that authority? I. It
+is not the authority of Divine Revelation, because beliefs are called
+"instinctive," "native," "innate," "common," "catholic,"[348] all which
+terms seem to indicate that this "authority" lies within the sphere of
+the human mind; at any rate, this faith does not rest on the authority
+of Scripture. Neither is it the authority of Reason. "The original data
+of reason [the first principles of knowledge] do not rest upon the
+authority of reason, but _on the authority of what is beyond itself_."
+The question thus recurs, what is this ultimate ground beyond reason
+upon which faith rests? Does it rest upon any thing, or nothing?
+
+[Footnote 348: Philosophy of Sir Wm. Hamilton, pp. 68, 69.]
+
+The answer to this question is given in the so-called "Law of the
+Conditioned," which is thus laid down: "_All that is conceivable in
+thought lies between two extremes, which, as contradictory of each
+other, can not both be true, but of which, as mutual contradictories,
+one must_." For example, we conceive _space_, but we can not conceive it
+as absolutely bounded or infinitely unbounded. We can conceive _time_,
+but we can not conceive it as having an absolute commencement or an
+infinite non-commencement. We can conceive of _degree_, but we can not
+conceive it as absolutely limited or as infinitely unlimited. We can
+conceive of _existence_, but not as an absolute part or an infinite
+whole. Therefore, "the Conditioned is that which is alone conceivable or
+cogitable; the Unconditioned, that which is inconceivable or
+incogitable. The conditioned, or the thinkable, lies between two
+extremes or poles; and each of these extremes or poles are
+unconditioned, each of them inconceivable, each of them exclusive or
+contradictory of the other. Of these two repugnant opposites, the one is
+that of Unconditional or Absolute Limitation; the other that of
+Unconditional or Infinite Illimitation, or, more simply, the Absolute
+and the Infinite; the term _absolute_ expressing that which is finished
+or complete, the term _infinite_ that which can not be terminated or
+concluded."[349]
+
+"The conditioned is the mean between two extremes--two inconditionates,
+exclusive of each other, neither of which _can be conceived as
+possible_, but of which, on the principle of contradiction, and excluded
+middle, _one must be admitted as necessary_. We are thus warned from
+recognizing the domain of our knowledge as necessarily co-extensive with
+the horizon of our faith. And by a _wonderful revelation_, we are thus,
+in the very consciousness of our inability to conceive aught above the
+relative and the finite, _inspired with a belief in_ the existence of
+something unconditioned beyond the sphere of all comprehensible
+reality."[350] Here, then, we have found the ultimate ground of our
+faith in the Infinite God. It is built upon a "mental imbecility," and
+buttressed up by "contradictions!"[351]
+
+[Footnote 349: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. pp. 368, 374. With
+Hamilton, the Unconditioned is a genus, of which the Infinite and
+Absolute are species.]
+
+[Footnote 350: "Discussions on Philosophy," p. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 351: The warmest admirers of Sir William Hamilton hesitate to
+apply the doctrine of the unconditioned to Cause and Free-will. See
+"Mansel's Prolegom.," Note C, p. 265.]
+
+Such a faith, however, is built upon the clouds, and the whole structure
+of this philosophy is "a castle in the air"--an attempt to organize
+Nescience into Science, and evoke something out of nothing. To pretend
+to believe in that respecting which I can form no notion is in reality
+not to believe at all. The nature which compels me to believe in the
+Infinite must supply me some object upon which my belief can take hold.
+We can not believe in contradictions. Our faith must be a rational
+belief--a faith in the ultimate harmony and unity of all truth, in the
+veracity and integrity of human reason as the organ of truth; and, above
+all, a faith in the veracity of God, who is the author and illuminator
+of our mental constitution. "We can not suppose that we are created
+capable of intelligence in order to be made victims of delusion--that
+God is a deceiver, and the root of our nature a lie."[352] We close our
+review of Hamilton by remarking:
+
+[Footnote 352: Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, p. 21.]
+
+1. "The Law of the Conditioned," as enounced by Hamilton, is
+contradictory. It predicates contradiction of two extremes, which are
+asserted to be equally incomprehensible and incognizable. If they are
+utterly incognizable, how does Hamilton _know_ that they are
+contradictory? The mutual _relation_ of two objects is said to be known,
+but the objects themselves are absolutely unknown. But how can we know
+any relation except by an act of comparison, and how can we compare two
+objects so as to affirm their relation, if the objects are absolutely
+unknown? "The Infinite is defined as Unconditional Illimitation; the
+Absolute as Conditional Limitation. Yet almost in the same breath we are
+told that each is utterly inconceivable, each the mere negation of
+thought. On the one hand, we are told they _differ_; on the other, we
+are told they do _not differ_. Now which does Hamilton mean? If he
+insist upon the definitions as yielding a ground of conceivable
+difference, he must abandon the inconceivability; but if he insist upon
+the inconceivability, he must abandon the definition as sheer verbiage,
+devoid of all conceivable meaning. There is no possible escape from this
+dilemma. Further, two negations can never contradict; for contradiction
+is the asserting and the denying of the same proposition; two denials
+can not conflict. If Illimitation is negative, Limitation, its
+contradictory, is positive, whether conditional or unconditional. In
+brief, if the Infinite and Absolute are wholly incomprehensible, they
+are not distinguishable; but if they are distinguishable, they are not
+wholly incomprehensible. If they are indistinguishable, they are to us
+identical; and identity precludes contradiction. But if they are
+distinguishable, distinction is made by difference, which involves
+positive cognition; hence one, at least, must be conceivable. It
+follows, therefore, by inexorable logic, that either the contradiction
+or the inconceivability must be abandoned."[353]
+
+[Footnote 353: North American Review, October, 1864, pp. 407, 408.]
+
+2. "The Law of the Conditioned," as a ground of faith in the Infinite
+Being, is utterly void, meaningless, and ineffectual. Let us re-state it
+in Hamilton's own words: "The conditioned is the _mean_ between two
+extremes, two inconditionates exclusive of each other, neither of which
+_can be conceived as possible_, but of which, on the principle of
+Contradiction and Excluded Middle, _one must be admitted as necessary_."
+It is scarcely needful to explain to the intelligent reader the above
+logical principles; that they may, however, be clearly before the mind
+in this connection, we state that the principle of Contradiction is
+this: "A thing can not at the same time be and not be; _A is_, _A is
+not_, are propositions which can not both be true at once." The
+principle of Excluded Middle is this: "A thing either is or is not--_A
+either is or is not B_; there is no _medium_."[354] Now, to mention the
+law of Excluded Middle and two contradictories with a _mean_ between
+them, in the same sentence, is really astounding. "If the two
+contradictory extremes are equally incogitable, yet include a cogitable
+mean, why insist upon the necessity of accepting either extreme? This
+necessity of accepting one of the contradictories is wholly based upon
+the supposed impossibility of a _mean_; if a mean exists, _that_ may be
+true, and both contradictories together false. But if a mean between two
+contradictories be both impossible and absurd, Hamilton's 'conditioned'
+entirely vanishes."[355] If both contradictories are equally unknown and
+equally unthinkable, we can not discover _why_, on his principles, we
+are bound to believe _either_.
+
+[Footnote 354: Hamilton's "Logic," pp. 58, 59; "Metaphysics," vol. ii.
+p. 368.]
+
+[Footnote 355: North British Review, October, 1864, pp. 415, 416.]
+
+3. The whole of this confusion in thought and expression results from
+the habit of confounding the sensuous imagination with the non-sensuous
+reason, and the consequent co-ordination of an imageable conception with
+an abstract idea. The objects of sense and the sensuous imagination may
+be characterized as extension, limitation, figure, position, etc.; the
+objects of the non-sensuous reason may be characterized as universality,
+eternity, infinity. I can form an _image_ of an extended and figured
+object, but I can not form an _image_ of space, time, or God; neither,
+indeed, can I form an image of Goodness, Justice, or Truth. But I can
+have a clear and precise idea of space, and time, and God, as I can of
+Justice, Goodness, and Truth. There are many things which I can most
+surely _know_ that I can not possibly _comprehend_, if to comprehend is
+to form a mental image of a thing. There is nothing which I more
+certainly know than that space is infinite, and eternity unbeginning and
+endless; but I can not comprehend the infinity of space or the
+illimitability of eternity. I know that God is, that he is a being of
+infinite perfection, but I can not throw my thoughts around and
+comprehend the infinity of God.
+
+(iv.) We come, lastly, to consider the position of the _Dogmatic
+Theologians_.[356] In their zeal to demonstrate the necessity of Divine
+Revelation, and to vindicate for it the honor of supplying to us all our
+knowledge of God, they assail every fundamental principle of reason,
+often by the very weapons which are supplied by an Atheistical
+philosophy. As a succinct presentation of the views of this school, we
+select the "_Theological Institutes_" of R. Watson.
+
+[Footnote 356: Ellis, Leland, Locke, and Horsley, whose writings are
+extensively quoted in Watson's "Institutes of Theology" (reprinted by
+Carlton & Lanahan, New York).]
+
+1st. The invalidity of "_the principle of causality_" is asserted by
+this author. "We allow that the argument which proves that the _effects_
+with which we are surrounded have been _caused_, and thus leads us up
+through a chain of subordinate causes to one First Cause, has a
+simplicity, an obviousness, and a force which, when we are previously
+furnished with the idea of God, makes it, at first sight, difficult to
+conceive that men, under any degree of cultivation, should be inadequate
+to it; yet if ever the human mind commenced such an inquiry at all, it
+is highly probable that it would rest in the notion of an _eternal
+succession of causes and effects_, rather than acquire the ideas of
+creation, in the proper sense, and of a Supreme Creator."[357] "We feel
+that our reason rests with full satisfaction in the doctrine that all
+things are created by one eternal and self-existent Being; but the Greek
+philosophers held that matter was eternally co-existent with God. This
+was the opinion of Plato, who has been called the Moses of
+philosophy."[358]
+
+For a defense of "the principle of causality" we must refer the reader
+to our remarks on the philosophy of Comte. We shall now only remark on
+one or two peculiarities in the above statement which betray an utter
+misapprehension of the nature of the argument. We need scarcely direct
+attention to the unfortunate and, indeed, absurd phrase, "an eternal
+succession of causes and effects." An "eternal succession" is a
+_contradictio in adjecto_, and as such inconceivable and unthinkable. No
+human mind can "rest" in any such thing, because an eternal succession
+is no rest at all. All "succession" is finite and temporal, capable of
+numeration, and therefore can not be eternal.[359] Again, in attaining
+the conception of a First Cause the human mind does not pass up "through
+a chain of subordinate causes," either definite or indefinite, "to one
+First Cause."
+
+[Footnote 357: Watson's "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 273.]
+
+[Footnote 358: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 359: See _ante_, pp. 181, 182, ch. v.]
+
+Let us re-state the principle of causality as a universal and necessary
+law of thought. "_All phenomena present themselves to us as the
+expression of_ POWER, and refer us to a causal ground whence they
+issue." That "power" is intuitively and spontaneously apprehended by the
+human mind as Supreme and Ultimate--"the causal ground" is a personal
+God. All the phenomena of nature present themselves to us as "effects,"
+and we know nothing of "subordinate causes" except as modes of the
+Divine Efficiency.[360] The principle of causality compels us to think
+causation behind nature, and under causation to think of Volition.
+"Other forces we have no sort of ground for believing; or, except by
+artifices of abstraction, even power of conceiving. The dynamic idea is
+either this or nothing; and the logical alternative assuredly is that
+nature is either a mere Time-march of phenomena or an expression of
+Mind."[361] The true doctrine of philosophy, of science, and of
+revelation is not simply that God did create "in the beginning," but
+that he still creates. All the operations of Nature are the operations
+of the Divine Mind. "Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return
+to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created; and thou
+renewest the face of the earth."[362]
+
+[Footnote 360: The modern doctrine of the Correlation and Homogenity of
+all Forces clearly proves that they are not many, but _one_--"a dynamic
+self-identity masked by transmigration."--Martineau's "Essays," pp.
+134-144.]
+
+[Footnote 361: Martineau's "Essays," pp. 140, 141.]
+
+[Footnote 362: Psalm civ.]
+
+The assertion that Plato taught "the eternity of matter," and that
+consequently he did not arrive at the idea of a Supreme and Ultimate
+Cause, is incapable of proof. The term yl�=matter does not occur in the
+writings of Plato, or, indeed, of any of his predecessors, and is
+peculiarly Aristotelian. The ground of the world of sense is called by
+Plato "the receptacle" (ypodoch�), "the nurse" (tith�n�) of all that is
+produced, and was apparently identified, in his mind, with _pure
+space_--a logical rather than a physical entity--the mere negative
+condition and medium of Divine manifestation. He never regards it as a
+"cause," or ascribes to it any efficiency. We grant that he places this
+very indefinite something (opoionoun ti) out of the sphere of temporal
+origination; but it must be borne in mind that he speaks of "creation in
+eternity" as well as of "creation in time;" and of time itself, though
+created, as "an eternal image of the generating Father."[363] This one
+thing, at any rate, can not be denied, that Plato recognizes creation in
+its fullest sense as the act of God.
+
+The admission that something has always existed besides the Deity, as a
+mere logical condition of the exercise of divine power (_e.g._, space),
+would not invalidate the argument for the existence of God. The proof of
+the Divine Existence, as Chalmers has shown, does not rest on the
+existence of matter, but on the orderly arrangement of matter; and the
+grand question of Theism is not whether the _matter of the world_, but
+whether the _present order of the world_ had a commencement.[364]
+
+2d. Doubt is cast by our author upon the validity of "_the principle of
+the Unconditioned or the Infinite_." "Supposing it were conceded that
+some faint glimmering of this great truth [the existence of a First
+Cause] might, by induction, have been discovered by contemplative minds,
+by what means could they have _demonstrated_ to themselves that he is
+eternal, self-existent, immortal, and independent?"[365] "Between things
+visible and invisible, time and eternity, beings finite and beings
+infinite, objects of sense and objects of faith, _the connection is not
+perceptible_ to human observation. Though we push our researches,
+therefore, to the extreme point whither the light of nature can carry
+us, they will in the end be abruptly terminated, and we must stop short
+at an immeasurable distance between the creature and the Creator."[366]
+
+[Footnote 363: Plato, "Tim�us," � xiv.]
+
+[Footnote 364: Chalmers's "Natural Theology," bk. i. ch. v.; also
+Mahan's "Natural Theology," pp. 21-23.]
+
+[Footnote 365: Watson's "Institutes of Theol.," vol. i. p. 274.]
+
+[Footnote 366: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 273.]
+
+To this assertion that the connection of things visible and things
+invisible, finite and infinite, objects of sense and objects of faith,
+is utterly imperceptible to human thought, we might reply by quoting the
+words of that Sacred Book whose supreme authority our author is seeking,
+by this argument, to establish. "The _invisible_ things of God, even his
+eternal power and god-head, from the creation, are clearly _seen_, being
+_understood by the things which are made_." We may also point to the
+fact that in every age and in every land the human mind has
+spontaneously and instinctively recognized the existence of an invisible
+Power and Presence pervading nature and controlling the destinies of
+man, and that religious worship--prayer, and praise, and
+sacrifice--offered to that unseen yet omnipresent Power is an universal
+fact of human nature. The recognition of an _immediate_ and a
+_necessary_ "connection" between the visible and the invisible, the
+objects of sense and the objects of faith, is one of the most obvious
+facts of consciousness--of universal consciousness as revealed in
+history, and of individual consciousness as developed in every rational
+mind.
+
+That this connection is "not perceptible to human observation," if by
+this our author means "not perceptible to sense," we readily admit. No
+one ever asserted it was perceptible to human observation. We say that
+this connection is perceptible to human _reason_, and is revealed in
+every attempt to think about, and seek an explanation of, the phenomenal
+world. The Phenomenal and the Real, Genesis and Being, Space and
+Extension, Succession and Duration, Time and Eternity, the Finite and
+the Infinite, are correlatives which are given in one and the same
+indivisible act of thought. "The conception of one term of a relation
+necessarily implies that of the other; it being the very nature of a
+correlative to be thinkable only through the conjunct thought of its
+correlative; for a relation is, in truth, a thought one and indivisible;
+and whilst the thinking of one relation necessarily involves the thought
+of its two terms, so it is, with equal necessity, itself involved in the
+thought of either."[367] Finite, dependent, contingent, temporal
+existence, therefore, necessarily supposes infinite, self-existent,
+independent, eternal Being; the Conditioned and Relative implies the
+Unconditioned and Absolute--one is known only in and through the other.
+But inasmuch as the unconditioned is cognized solely _� priori_, and the
+conditioned solely _� posteriori_, the recognition by the human mind of
+their necessary correlation becomes the bridge whereby the chasm between
+the subjective and the objective may be spanned, and whereby Thought may
+be brought face to face with Existence.
+
+[Footnote 367: Hamilton's "Metaphysics," vol. ii. pp. 536, 537.]
+
+The reverence which, from boyhood, we have entertained for the
+distinguished author of the "Institutes" restrains us from speaking in
+adequate terms of reprobation of the statement that "the _First Cause_"
+may be known, and yet not conceived "as eternal, self-existent,
+immortal, and independent". Surely that which is the ground and reason
+of all existence must have the ground and reason of its own existence in
+itself. That which is _first_ in the order of existence, and in the
+logical order of thought, can have nothing prior to itself. If the
+supposed First Cause is not necessarily self-existent and independent,
+it is not the _first_; if it has a dependent existence, there must be a
+prior being on which it depends. If the First Cause is not eternal, then
+prior to this Ultimate Cause there was nothingness and vacuity, and pure
+nothing, by its own act, became something. But "_Ex nihilo nihil_" is a
+universal law of thought. To ask the question whether the First Cause be
+self-existent and eternal, is, in effect, to ask the question "who made
+God?" and this is not the question of an adult theologian, but of a
+little child. Surely Mr. Watson must have penned the above passage
+without any reflection on its real import[368].
+
+[Footnote 368: In an article on "the Impending Revolution in Anglo-Saxon
+Theology" Methodist Quarterly Review, (July, 1863), Dr. Warren seems to
+take it for granted that the "aiteological" and "teleological" arguments
+for the existence of God are utterly invalidated by the Dynamical theory
+of matter. "Once admit that _real power_ can and does reside in matter,
+and all these reasonings fail. If inherent forces of matter are
+competent to the production of all the innumerable miracles of movement
+in the natural world, what is there in the natural world which they can
+not produce. If all _the exertions of power_ in the universe can be
+accounted for without resort to something back of, and superior to,
+nature, what is there which can force the mind to such a resort?" (p.
+463). "Having granted that _power_, or _self-activity_, is a natural
+attribute of all matter, what right have we to deny it _intelligence_?"
+(p. 465). "_Self-moving matter must have thought and design_" (p. 469).
+
+It is not our intention to offer an extended criticism of the above
+positions in this note. We shall discuss "the Dynamical theory" more
+fully in a subsequent work. If the theory apparently accepted by Dr.
+Warren be true, that "_the ultimate atoms of matter are as uniformly
+efficient as minds_, and that we have the same ground to regard the
+force exerted by the one _innate_ and _natural_ as that exerted by the
+other" (p. 464), then we grant that the conclusions of Dr. Warren, as
+above stated, are unavoidable. We proceed one step farther, and boldly
+assert that the existence of God is, on this hypothesis, incapable of
+proof, and the only logical position Dr. Warren can occupy is that of
+spiritualistic Pantheism.
+
+Dr. Warren asserts that "the Dynamical theory of matter" is now
+generally accepted by "Anglo-Saxon _naturalists_." "One can scarcely
+open a scientific treatise without observing the altered stand-point"
+(p. 160). We confess that we are disappointed with Dr. Warren's
+treatment of this simple question of fact. On so fundamental an issue,
+the Doctor ought to have given the name of at least _one_ "naturalist"
+who asserts that "the ultimate atoms of matter are as uniformly
+efficient as minds." Leibnitz, Morrell, Ulrici, Hickok, the authorities
+quoted by him, are metaphysicians and idealists of the extremest school.
+At present we shall, therefore, content ourselves with a general denial
+of this wholesale statement of Dr. Warren; and we shall sustain that
+denial by a selection from the many authorities we shall hereafter
+present. "No particle of matter possesses within itself the power of
+changing its existing state of motion or of rest. Matter has no
+spontaneous power either of rest or motion, but is equally susceptible
+to each as it may be acted on by _external_ causes" (Silliman's
+"Principles of Physics," p. 13). The above proposition is "a truth on
+which the whole science of mechanical philosophy ultimately depends"
+(Encyclop�dia Britannica, art. "Dynamics," vol. viii. p. 326). "A
+material substance existing alone in the universe could not produce any
+effects. There is not, so far as we know, a self-acting material
+substance in the universe" (M'Cosh, "Divine Government, Physical and
+Moral," p. 78). "Perhaps the only true indication of matter is
+_inertia_." "The cause of gravitation is _not resident_ in the particles
+of matter merely," but also "_in all space_" (Dr. Faraday on
+"Conservation of Force," in "Correlation and Conservation of Force." (p.
+368). He also quotes with approbation the words of Newton, "That gravity
+should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, is so great an
+absurdity, that I believe no man who has in philosophic matters a
+competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it" p. 368). "The
+'force of gravity' is an improper expression" (p. 340). "Forces are
+transformable, indestructible, and, _in contradistinction from matter_,
+imponderable" (p. 346). "The first cause of things is Deity" (Dr. Mayer,
+in "Correlation and Conservation of Force," p. 341). "Although the word
+_cause_ may be used in a secondary and subordinate sense, as meaning
+antecedent forces, yet in an abstract sense it is totally inapplicable;
+we can not predicate of any physical agent that it is abstractedly the
+cause of another" (p. 15). "Causation is the _will_," "creation is the
+act, of God" Grove on "Correlation of Physical Forces," (p. 199).
+"Between gravity and motion it is impossible to establish the equation
+required for a rightly-conceived _causal_ relation" ("Correlation and
+Conservation of Force," p. 253). See also Herschel's "Outlines of
+Astronomy," p. 234.
+
+It certainly must have required a wonderful effort of imagination on the
+part of Dr. Warren to transform "weight" and "density," mere passive
+affections of matter, into self-activity, intelligence, thought, and
+design. Weight or density are merely relative terms. Supposing one
+particle or mass of matter to exist alone, and there can be no
+attractive or gravitating force. There must be a cause of gravity which
+is distinct from matter.]
+
+3d. The validity of "_the principle of unity_" is also discredited by
+Watson. "If, however, it were conceded that some glimmerings of this
+great truth, the existence of a First Cause, might, by induction, have
+been discovered, by what means could they have demonstrated to
+themselves that the great collection of bodies which we call the world
+had but _one_ Creator."[369]
+
+[Footnote 369: "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 275.]
+
+We might answer directly, and at once, that the oneness or unity of God
+is necessarily contained in "the very notion of a First Cause"--a
+_first_ cause is not many causes, but _one_. By a First Cause we do not,
+however, understand the first of a numerical series, but an arch�--a
+principle, itself unbeginning, which is the source of all beginning. Our
+categorical answer, therefore, must be that the unity of God is a
+sublime deliverance of reason--God is one God. It is a first principle
+of reason that all differentiation and plurality supposes an incomposite
+unity, all diversity implies an indivisible identity. The sensuous
+perception of a plurality of parts supposes the rational idea of an
+absolute unity, which has no parts, as its necessary correlative. For
+example, extension is a congeries of indefinitesimal parts; the
+continuity of matter, as _empirically_ known by us, is never absolute.
+Space is absolutely continuous, incapable of division into integral
+parts, illimitable, and, as _rationally_ known by us, an absolute unity.
+The cognition of limited extension, which is the subject of quantitative
+measurement, involves the conception of unlimited space, which is the
+negation of all plurality and complexity of parts. And so the cognition
+of a phenomenal universe in which we see only difference, plurality, and
+change, implies the existence of a Being who is absolutely unchangeable,
+identical, and one.
+
+This law of thought lies at the basis of that universal desire of unity,
+and that universal effort to reduce all our knowledge to unity, which
+has revealed itself in the history of philosophy, and also of inductive
+science. "Reason, intellect, nous, concatenating thoughts and objects
+into system, and tending upward from particular facts to general laws,
+from general laws to universal principles, is never satisfied in its
+ascent till it comprehends all laws in a single formula, and consummates
+all conditional knowledge in the unity of unconditional existence." "The
+history of philosophy is only the history of this tendency, and
+philosophers have borne ample testimony to its reality. 'The mind,' says
+Anaxagoras, 'only knows when it subdues its objects, when it reduces the
+many to the one.' 'The end of philosophy,' says Plato, 'is the intuition
+of unity.' 'All knowledge,' say the Platonists, 'is the gathering up
+into one, and the indivisible apprehension of this unity by the knowing
+mind.'"[370]
+
+[Footnote 370: Hamilton's "Metaphysics," vol. i. pp. 68, 69.]
+
+This law has been the guiding principle of the Inductive Sciences, and
+has led to some of its most important discoveries. The unity which has
+been attained in physical science is not, however, the absolute unity of
+a material substratum, but a unity of _Will_ and of _Thought_. The late
+discovery of the monogenesis, reciprocal convertibility, and
+indestructibility of all Forces in nature, leads us upward towards the
+recognition of one Omnipresent and Omnipotent Will, which, like a mighty
+tide, sweeps through the universe and effects all its changes. The
+universal prevalence of the same physical laws and numerical relations
+throughout all space, and of the same archetypal forms and teleology of
+organs throughout all past time, reveals to us a Unity of Thought which
+grasps the entire details of the universe in one comprehensive
+plan.[371] The positive _� priori_ intuitions of reason and the _�
+posteriori_ inductions of science equally attest _that God is one_.
+
+[Footnote 371: We refer with pleasure to the articles of Dr. Winchell,
+in the North-western Christian Advocate, in which the _� posteriori_
+proof of "the Unity of God" is forcibly exhibited, and take occasion to
+express the hope they will soon be presented to the public in a more
+permanent form.]
+
+4th. By denying that man has any intuitive cognitions of right and
+wrong, or any native and original feeling of obligation, Mr. Watson
+invalidates "the moral argument" for the existence of a Righteous God.
+
+"As far as man's reason has applied itself to the discovery of truth or
+_duty_ it has generally gone astray."[372] "Questions of morals do not,
+for the most part, lie level to the minds of the populace."[373] "Their
+conclusions have no _authority_, and place them under no
+_obligation_."[374] And, indeed, man without a revelation "is without
+_moral control_, without _principles of justice_, except such as may be
+slowly elaborated from those relations which concern the grosser
+interests of life, without _conscience_, without hope or fear in another
+life."[375]
+
+[Footnote 372: "Institutes of Theology," vol. ii. p. 470.]
+
+[Footnote 373: Ibid., vol. i. p. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 374: Ibid., vol. i. p. 228.]
+
+[Footnote 375: Ibid., vol. ii. p. 271.]
+
+Now we shall not occupy our space in the elaboration of the proposition
+that the universal consciousness of our race, as revealed in human
+history, languages, legislations, and sentiments, bears testimony to the
+fact that the ideas of right, duty, and responsibility are native to the
+human mind; we shall simply make our appeal to those Sacred Writings
+whose verdict must be final with all theologians. That the fundamental
+principles of the moral law do exist, subjectively, in all human minds
+is distinctly affirmed by Paul, in a passage which deserves to be
+regarded as the chief corner-stone of moral science. "The Gentiles
+(ephn�, heathen), which have not the written law, do by the guidance of
+nature (reason or conscience) the works enjoined by the revealed law;
+these, having no written law, are a law unto themselves; who show
+plainly the works of the law written on their hearts, their conscience
+bearing witness, and also their reasonings one with another, when they
+accuse, or else excuse, each other."[376] To deny this is to relegate
+the heathen from all responsibility. For Mr. Watson admits "that the
+will of a superior is not in justice binding unless it be in some mode
+sufficiently declared." Now in the righteous adjudgments of revelation
+the heathen are "without excuse." The will of God must, therefore, be
+"sufficiently declared" to constitute them accountable. Who will presume
+to say that the shadowy, uncertain, variable, easily and unavoidably
+corrupted medium of tradition running through forty muddy centuries is a
+"sufficient declaration of the will of God?" The law is "written on the
+heart" of every man, or all men are not accountable.
+
+[Footnote 376: Romans, ch. ii. ver. 14-15.]
+
+Now this "law written within the heart" immediately and naturally
+suggests the idea of a Lawgiver who is over us. This felt presence of
+Conscience, approving or condemning our conduct, suggests, as with the
+speed of the lightning-flash, the notion of a Judge who will finally
+call us to account. This "accusing or excusing of each other," this
+recognition of good or ill desert, points us to, and constrains us to
+recognize, a future Retribution; so that some hope or fear of another
+life has been in all ages a universal phenomenon of humanity.
+
+It is affirmed, however, that whilst this capacity to know God may have
+been an original endowment of human nature, yet, in consequence of the
+fall, "the understanding and reason are weakened by the deterioration of
+his whole intellectual nature."[377] "Without some degree of education,
+man is _wholly_ the creature of appetite. Labor, feasting, and sleeping
+divide his time, and wholly occupy his thoughts."[378]
+
+[Footnote 377: "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 378: Ibid., vol. i. p. 271.]
+
+We reverently and believingly accept the teaching of Scripture as to the
+depravity of man. We acknowledge that "the understanding is darkened" by
+sin. At the same time, we earnestly maintain that the Scriptures do not
+teach that the fundamental laws of mind, the first principles of reason,
+are utterly traversed and obliterated by sin, so that man is not able to
+recognize the existence of God, and feel his obligation to Him. "_Though
+they_(the heathen) _knew God_ (dioti gnontes), they did not glorify him
+as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imagination, and
+their foolish hearts were darkened. They changed the truth of God into a
+lie, and worshipped and served the creature _more_ than the Creator."
+"And as they did not _approve of holding God with acknowledgment_, God
+delivered them over to an unapproving mind, to work those things which
+are not suitable." After drawing a fearful picture of the darkness and
+depravity of the heathen, the Apostle adds, "Who, _though they_ KNOW
+_the law of God_, that they who practise such things are worthy of
+death, not only do them, but even are well pleased with those who
+practise them."[379] The obvious and direct teaching of this passage is
+that the heathen, in the midst of their depravity and idolatry, are not
+utterly ignorant of God; "they _know_ God"--"they _know_ the law of God
+"--"they worship Him," though they worship the creature _more than_ Him.
+They know God, and are unwilling to "acknowledge God." "They know the
+righteousness of God," and are "haters of God" on account of his purity;
+and their worshipping of idols does not proceed from ignorance of God,
+from an intellectual inability to know God, but from "corruption of
+heart," and a voluntary choice of, and a "pleasure" in, the sinful
+practices accompanying idol worship. Therefore, argues the Apostle, they
+are "without excuse." The whole drift and aim of the argument of Paul
+is, not to show that the heathen were, by their depravity, incapacitated
+to know God, but that because they knew God and knew his righteous law,
+therefore their depravity and licentiousness was "inexcusable."
+
+[Footnote 379: Romans, ch. i. ver. 23-32.]
+
+We conclude our review of opposing schools by the re-affirmation of our
+position, _that God is cognizable by human reason._ The human mind,
+under the guidance of necessary laws of thought, is able, from the facts
+of the universe, to affirm the existence of God, and to attain some
+valid knowledge of his character and will. Every attempt to solve the
+great problem of existence, to offer an explanation of the phenomenal
+world, or to explore the fundamental idea of reason, when fairly and
+fully conducted, has resulted in the recognition of a Supreme
+_Intelligence_, a personal _Mind_ and _Will_, as the ground, and reason,
+and cause of all existence. A survey of the history of Greek Philosophy
+will abundantly sustain this position, and to this we shall, in
+subsequent chapters, invite the reader's attention.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS.
+
+PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+
+SENSATIONAL:
+THALES--ANAXIMENES--HERACLITUS--ANAXIMANDER--LEUCIPPUS--DEMOCRITUS.
+
+
+      "Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the
+      Stoics encountered Paul."--Acts xvii. 18.
+
+      "Plato affirms that this is the most just cause of the
+      creation of the world, that works which are good should be
+      wrought by the God who is good; whether he had read these
+      things in the Bible, or whether by his penetrating genius he
+      beheld _the invisible things of God as understood by the
+      things which are made_"--ST. AUGUSTINE, "De Civ. Dei," lib.
+      xi. ch. 21.
+
+Of all the monuments of the greatness of Athens which have survived the
+changes and the wastes of time, the most perfect and the most enduring
+is her philosophy. The Propyl�a, the Parthenon, and the Erechtheum,
+those peerless gems of Grecian architecture, are now in ruins. The
+magnificent sculpture of Phidias, which adorned the pediment, and outer
+cornice, and inner frieze of these temples, and the unrivalled statuary
+of gods and heroes which crowded the platform of the Acropolis, making
+it an earthly Olympus, are now no more, save a few broken fragments
+which have been carried to other lands, and, in their exile, tell the
+mournful story of the departed grandeur of their ancient home. The
+brazen statue of Minerva, cast from the spoils of Marathon, which rose
+in giant grandeur above the buildings of the Acropolis, and the flashing
+of whose helmet plumes was seen by the mariner as soon as he had rounded
+the Sunian promontory; and that other brazen Pallas, called, by
+pre-eminence, "the Beautiful;" and the enormous Colossus of ivory and of
+gold, "the Immortal Maid"--the protecting goddess of the
+Parthenon--these have perished. But whilst the fingers of time have
+crumbled the Pentelic marble, and the glorious statuary has been broken
+to pieces by vandal hands, and the gold and brass have been melted in
+the crucibles of needy monarchs and converted into vulgar money, the
+philosophic _thought_ of Athens, which culminated in the dialectic of
+Plato, still survives. Not one of all the vessels, freighted with
+immortal thought, which Plato launched upon the stream of time, has
+foundered. And after the vast critical movement of European thought
+during the past two centuries, in which all philosophic systems have
+been subjected to the severest scrutiny, the _method_ of Plato still
+preserves, if not its exclusive authority unquestioned, at least its
+intellectual pre-eminence unshaken. "Platonism is immortal, because its
+principles are immortal in the human intellect and heart."[380]
+
+[Footnote 380: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+9.]
+
+Philosophy is, then, the world-enduring monument of the greatness and
+the glory of Athens. Whilst Greece will be forever memorable as "the
+country of wisdom and of wise men," Athens will always be pre-eminently
+memorable as the University of Greece. This was the home of Socrates,
+and Plato, and Aristotle--the three imperial names which, for twenty
+centuries, reigned supreme in the world of philosophic thought. Here
+schools of philosophy were founded to which students were attracted from
+every part of the civilized world, and by which an impulse and a
+direction was given to human thought in every land and in every age.
+Standing on the Acropolis at Athens, and looking over the city and the
+open country, the Apostle would see these _places_ which are inseparably
+associated with the names of the men who have always been recognized as
+the great teachers of the pagan world, and who have also exerted a
+powerful influence upon Christian minds of every age. "In opposite
+directions he would see the suburbs where Plato and Aristotle, the two
+pupils of Socrates, held their illustrious schools. The streamless bed
+of the Ilissus passes between the Acropolis and Hymettus in a
+south-westerly direction, until it vanishes in the low ground which
+separates the city from the Pir�us." Looking towards the upper part of
+this channel, Paul would see gardens of plane-trees and thickets of
+angus-castus, "with other torrent-loving shrubs of Greece." Near the
+base of Lycabettus was a sacred inclosure which Pericles had ornamented
+with fountains. Here stood a statue of Apollo Lycius, which gave the
+name to the _Lyceum_. Here, among the plane-trees, Aristotle _walked_,
+and, as he walked, taught his disciples. Hence the name Peripatetics
+(the Walkers), which has always designated the disciples of the
+Stagirite philosopher.
+
+On the opposite side of the city, the most beautiful of the Athenian
+suburbs, we have the scene of Plato's teaching. Beyond the outer
+Ceramicus, which was crowded with the sepulchres of those Athenians who
+had fallen in battle, and were buried at the public expense, the eye of
+Paul would rest on the favored stream of the Cephisus, flowing towards
+the west. On the banks of this stream the _Academy_ was situated. A
+wall, built at great expense by Hipparchus, surrounded it, and Cimon
+planted long avenues of trees and erected fountains. Beneath the
+plane-trees which shaded the numerous walks there assembled the
+master-spirits of the age. This was the favorite resort of poets and
+philosophers. Here the divine spirit of Plato poured forth its sublimest
+speculations in streams of matchless eloquence; and here he founded a
+school which was destined to exert a powerful and perennial influence on
+human minds and hearts in all coming time.
+
+Looking down from the Acropolis upon the Agora, Paul would distinguish a
+cloister or colonnade. This is the Stoa Poecile, or "Painted Porch," so
+called because its walls were decorated with fresco paintings of the
+legendary wars of Greece, and the more glorious struggle at Marathon. It
+was here that Zeno first opened that celebrated school which thence
+received the name of _Stoic_. The site of the _garden_ where Epicurus
+taught is now unknown. It was no doubt within the city walls, and not
+far distant from the Agora. It was well known in the time of Cicero, who
+visited Athens as a student little more than a century before the
+Apostle. It could not have been forgotten in the time of Paul. In this
+"tranquil garden," in the society of his friends, Epicurus passed a life
+of speculation and of pleasure. His disciples were called, after him,
+the Epicureans.[381]
+
+[Footnote 381: See Conybeare and Howson's "Life and Epistles of St.
+Paul," vol. i., Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy;" and
+Encyclop�dia Britannica, article, "Athens," from whence our materials
+for the description of these "places" are mainly derived.]
+
+Here, then, in Athens the Apostle was brought into immediate contact
+with all the phases of philosophic thought which had appeared in the
+ancient world. "Amongst those who sauntered beneath the cool shadows of
+the plane-trees in the Agora, and gathered in knots under the porticoes,
+eagerly discussing the questions of the day, were the philosophers, in
+the garb of their several sects, ready for any new question on which
+they might exercise their subtlety or display their rhetoric." If there
+were any in that motley group who cherished the principles and retained
+the spirit of the true Platonic school, we may presume they felt an
+inward intellectual sympathy with the doctrine enounced by Paul. With
+Plato, "philosophy was only another name for _religion_: philosophy is
+the love of perfect Wisdom; perfect Wisdom and perfect Goodness are
+identical: the perfect Good is God himself; philosophy is the love of
+God."[382] He confessed the need of divine assistance to attain "the
+good," and of divine interposition to deliver men from moral ruin.[383]
+Like Socrates, he longed for a supernatural--a divine light to guide
+him, and he acknowledged his need thereof continually.[384] He was one
+of those who, in heathen lands, waited for "the desire of nations;" and,
+had he lived in Christian times, no doubt his "spirit of faith" would
+have joyfully "embraced the Saviour in all the completeness of his
+revelation and advent."[385] And in so far as the spirit of Plato
+survived among his disciples, we may be sure they were not among the
+number who "mocked," and ridiculed, and opposed the "new doctrine"
+proclaimed by Paul. It was "the philosophers of the Epicureans and of
+the Stoics who _encountered_ Paul." The leading tenets of both these
+sects were diametrically opposed to the doctrines of Christianity. The
+ruling spirit of each was alien from the spirit of Christ. The haughty
+_pride_ of the Stoic, the Epicurean abandonment to _pleasure_, placed
+them in direct antagonism to him who proclaimed the crucified and risen
+Christ to be "_the wisdom_ of God."
+
+[Footnote 382: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+61.]
+
+[Footnote 383: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vi. vii.]
+
+[Footnote 384: Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. p. 362.]
+
+[Footnote 385: Wheedon on "The Will," p. 352; also Butler's "Lectures,"
+vol. ii. p. 252]
+
+If, however, we would justly appreciate the relation of pagan philosophy
+to Christian truth, we must note that, when Paul arrived in Athens, the
+age of Athenian glory had passed away. Not only had her national
+greatness waned, and her national spirit degenerated, but her
+intellectual power exhibited unmistakable signs of exhaustion, and
+weakness, and decay. If philosophy had borne any fruit, of course that
+fruit remained. If, in the palmy days of Athenian greatness, any field
+of human inquiry had been successfully explored; if human reason had
+achieved any conquests; if any thing true and good had been obtained,
+that must endure as an heir-loom for all coming time; and if those
+centuries of agonizing wrestlings with nature, and of ceaseless
+questioning of the human heart, had yielded no results, then, at least,
+the _lesson_ of their failure and defeat remained for the instruction of
+future generations. Either the problems they sought to solve were proved
+to be insoluble, or their methods of solution were found to be
+inadequate; for here the mightiest minds had grappled with the great
+problems of being and of destiny. Here vigorous intellects had struggled
+to pierce the darkness which hangs alike over the beginning and the end
+of human existence. Here profoundly earnest men had questioned nature,
+reason, antiquity, oracles, in the hope they might learn something of
+that invisible world of _real_ being which they instinctively felt must
+lie beneath the world of fleeting forms and ever-changing appearances.
+Here philosophy had directed her course towards every point in the
+compass of thought, and touched every _accessible_ point. The sun of
+human reason had reached its zenith, and illuminated every field that
+lay within the reach of human ken. And this sublime era of Greek
+philosophy is of inestimable value to us who live in Christian times,
+because _it is an exhaustive effort of human reason to solve the problem
+of being_, and in its history we have a record of the power and weakness
+of the human mind, at once on the grandest scale and in the fairest
+characters.[386]
+
+[Footnote 386: See article "Philosophy," in Smith's "Dictionary of the
+Bible."]
+
+These preliminary considerations will have prepared the way for, and
+awakened in our minds a profound interest in, the inquiry--1st. What
+permanent _results_ has Greek philosophy bequeathed to the world? 2d. In
+what manner did Greek philosophy fulfill for Christianity a
+_propoedeutic_ office?
+
+It will at once be obvious, even to those who are least conversant with
+our theme, that it would be fruitless to attempt the answer to these
+important questions before we have made a careful survey of the entire
+history of philosophic thought in Greece. We must have a clear and
+definite conception of the problems they sought to solve, and we must
+comprehend their methods of inquiry, before we can hope to appreciate
+the results they reached, or determine whether they did arrive at any
+definite and valuable conclusions. It will, therefore, devolve upon us
+to present a brief and yet comprehensive epitome of the history of
+Grecian speculative thought.
+
+"_Philosophy_," says Cousin, "_is reflection_, and nothing else than
+reflection, in a vast form"--"Reflection elevated to the rank and
+authority of a _method_." It is the mind looking back upon its own
+sensations, perceptions, cognitions, ideas, and from thence to the
+_causes_ of these sensations, cognitions, and ideas. It is thought
+passing beyond the simple perceptions of things, beyond the mere
+spontaneous operations of the mind in the cognition of things to seek
+the _ground_, and _reason_, and _law_ of things. It is the effort of
+reason to solve the great problem of "Being and Becoming," of appearance
+and reality, of the changeful and the permanent. Beneath the endless
+diversity of the universe, of existence and action, there must be a
+principle of unity; below all fleeting appearances there must be a
+permanent substance; beyond this everlasting flow and change, this
+beginning and ending of finite existence, there must be an _eternal
+being_, the source and cause of all we see and know, _What is that
+principle of unity, that permanent substance_, or principle, or being?
+
+This fundamental question has assumed three separate forms or aspects in
+the history of philosophy. These forms have been determined by the
+objective phenomena which most immediately arrested and engaged the
+attention of men. If external nature has been the chief object of
+attention, then the problem of philosophy has been, _What is the
+arch�--_the beginning; what are the first principles_--the elements from
+which, the ideas or laws according to which, the efficient cause or
+energy by which, and the reason or end for which the universe exists?_
+During this period reflective thought was a PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. If the
+phenomena of mind--the opinions, beliefs, judgments of men--are the
+chief object of attention, then the problem of philosophy has been,
+_What are the fundamental Ideas which are unchangeable and permanent
+amid all the diversities of human opinions, connecting appearance with
+reality, and constituting a ground of certain knowledge or absolute
+truth?_ Reflective thought is now a PHILOSOPHY OF IDEAS. Then, lastly,
+if the practical activities of life and the means of well-being be the
+grand object of attention, then the problem of philosophy has been,
+_What is the ultimate standard by which, amid all the diversities of
+human conduct, we may determine what is right and good in individual,
+social, and political life?_ And now reflective thought is a PHILOSOPHY
+OF LIFE. These are the grand problems with which philosophy has grappled
+ever since the dawn of reflection. They all appear in Greek philosophy,
+and have a marked chronology. As systems they succeed each other, just
+as rigorously as the phenomena of Greek civilization.
+
+The Greek schools of philosophy have been classified from various points
+of view. In view of their geographical relations, they have been divided
+into the _Ionian_, the _Italian_, the _Eleatic_, the _Athenian_, and the
+_Alexandrian_. In view of their prevailing spirit and tendency, they
+have been classified by Cousin as the Sensational, the Idealistic, the
+Skeptical, and the Mystical. The most natural and obvious method is that
+which (regarding Socrates as the father of Greek philosophy in the
+truest sense) arranges all schools from the Socratic stand point, and
+therefore in the chronological order of development:
+
+     I. THE PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.
+     II. THE SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.
+     III. THE POST-SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.
+
+The history of philosophy is thus divided into three grand epochs. The
+first reaching from Thales to the time of Socrates (B.C. 639-469): the
+second from the birth of Socrates to the death of Aristotle (B.C.
+469-322); the third from the death of Aristotle to the Christian era
+(B.C. 322, A.D. 1). Greek philosophy during the first period was almost
+exclusively a philosophy of nature; during the second period, a
+philosophy of mind; during the last period, a philosophy of life.
+Nature, man, and society complete the circle of thought. Successive
+systems, of course, overlap each other, both in the order of time and as
+subjects of human speculation; and the results of one epoch of thought
+are transmitted to and appropriated by another; but, in a general sense,
+the order of succession has been very much as here indicated. Setting
+aside minor schools and merely incidental discussions, and fixing our
+attention on the general aspects of each historic period, we shall
+discover that the first period was eminently _Physical_, the second
+_Psychological_, the last _Ethical_. Every stage of progress which
+reason, on _� priori_ grounds, would suggest as the natural order of
+thought, or of which the development of an individual mind would furnish
+an analogy, had a corresponding realization in the development of
+Grecian thought from the time of Thales to the Christian era. "Thought,"
+says Cousin, "in the first trial of its strength is drawn without." The
+first object which engages the attention of the child is the outer
+world. He asks the "_how_" and "_why_" of all he sees. His reason urges
+him to seek an explanation of the universe. So it was in the _childhood_
+of philosophy. The first essays of human thought were, almost without
+exception, discourses peri physe�s (De rerum natura), of the nature of
+things. Then the rebound of baffled reason from the impenetrable
+bulwarks of the universe drove the mind back upon itself. If the youth
+can not interpret nature, he can at least "know himself," and find
+within himself the ground and reason of all existence. There are
+"_ideas_" in the human mind which are copies of those "_archetypal
+ideas_" which dwell in the Creative Mind, and after which the universe
+was built. If by "analysis" and "definition" these universal notions can
+be distinguished from that which is particular and contingent in the
+aggregate of human knowledge, then so much of eternal truth has been
+attained. The achievements of philosophic thought in this direction,
+during the Socratic age, have marked it as the most brilliant period in
+the history of philosophy--the period of its _youthful_ vigor. Deeply
+immersed in the practical concerns and conflicts of public life,
+_manhood_ is mainly occupied with questions of personal duty, and
+individual and social well-being. And so, during the hopeless turmoil of
+civil disturbance which marked the decline of national greatness in
+Grecian history, philosophy was chiefly occupied with questions of
+personal interest and personal happiness. The poetic enthusiasm with
+which a nobler age had longed for _truth_, and sought it as the highest
+good, has all disappeared, and now one sect seeks refuge from the storms
+and agitations of the age in Stoical indifference, the other in
+Epicurean effeminacy.
+
+If now we have succeeded in presenting the real problem of philosophy,
+it will at once be obvious that the inquiry was not, in any proper
+sense, _theological_. Speculative thought, during the period we have
+marked as the era of Greek philosophy, was not an inquiry concerning the
+existence or nature of God, or concerning the relations of man to God,
+or the duties which man owes to God. These questions were all remitted
+to the _theologian_. There was a clear line of demarkation separating
+the domains of religion and philosophy. Religion rested solely on
+authority, and appealed to the instinctive faith of the human heart. She
+permitted no encroachment upon her settled usages, and no questioning of
+her ancient beliefs. Philosophy rested on reason alone. It was an
+independent effort of thought to interpret nature, and attain the
+fundamental grounds of human knowledge--to find an arch�--a first
+principle, which, being assumed, should furnish a rational explanation
+of all existence. If philosophy reach the conclusion that the arch� was
+water, or air, or fire, or a chaotic mixture of all the elements or
+atoms, extended and self-moved, or monads, or to pan, or uncreated mind,
+and that conclusion harmonized with the ancient standards of religious
+faith--well; if not, philosophy must present some method of
+conciliation. The conflicts of faith and reason; the stragglings of
+traditional authority to maintain supremacy; the accommodations and
+conciliations attempted in those primitive times, would furnish a
+chapter of peculiar interest, could it now be written.
+
+The poets who appeared in the dim twilight of Grecian
+civilization--Orpheus, Mus�us, Homer, Hesiod--seem to have occupied the
+same relation to the popular mind in Greece which the Bible now sustains
+to Christian communities.[387] Not that we regard them as standing on
+equal ground of authority, or in any sense a revelation. But, in the eye
+of the wondering Greek, they were invested with the highest sacredness
+and the supremest authority. The high poetic inspiration which pervaded
+them was a supernatural gift. Their sublime utterances were accepted as
+proceeding from a divine afflatus. They were the product of an age in
+which it was believed by all that the gods assumed a human form,[388]
+and held a real intercourse with gifted men. This universal faith is
+regarded by some as being a relic of still more distant times, a faint
+remembrance of the glory of patriarchal days. The more natural opinion
+is, that it was begotten of that universal longing of the human heart
+for some knowledge of that unseen world of real being, which man
+instinctively felt must lie beyond the world of fleeting change and
+delusive appearances. It was a prolepsis of the soul, reaching upward
+towards its source and goal. The poet felt within him some native
+affinities therewith, and longed for some stirring breath of heaven to
+sweep the harp-strings of the soul. He invoked the inspiration of the
+Goddess of Song, and waited for, no doubt believed in, some "deific
+impulse" descending on him. And the people eagerly accepted his
+utterance as the teaching of the gods. They were too eager for some
+knowledge from that unseen world to question their credentials. Orpheus,
+Hesiod, Homer, were the theologoi--the theologians of that age.[389]
+
+[Footnote 387: "Homer was, in a certain sense, the Bible of the
+Greeks."--Whewell, "Platonic Dialogues," p. 283.]
+
+[Footnote 388: The universality of this belief is asserted by Cicero:
+"Vetus opinio est, jam usque ab heroicis ducta temporibus, eaque et
+populi Romani et omnium gentium firmata consensu, versari quandem inter
+homines divinationem."--Cicero, "De Divin." bk. i. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 389: Cicero.]
+
+These ancient poems, then, were the public documents of the religion of
+Greece--the repositories of the national faith. And it is deserving of
+especial note that the philosopher was just as anxious to sustain his
+speculations by quoting the high traditional authority of the ancient
+theologian, as the propounder of modern novelties is to sustain his
+notions by the authority of the Sacred Scriptures. Numerous examples of
+this solicitude will recur at once to the remembrance of the student of
+Plato. All encroachments of philosophy upon the domains of religion were
+watched as jealously in Athens in the sixth century before Christ, as
+the encroachments of science upon the fields of theology were watched in
+Rome in the seventeenth century after Christ. The court of the Areopagus
+was as earnest, though not as fanatical and cruel, in the defense of the
+ancient faith, as the court of the Inquisition was in the defense of the
+dogmas of the Romish Church. The people, also, as "the sacred wars" of
+Greece attest, were ready quickly to repel every assault upon the
+majesty of their religion. And so philosophy even had its martyrs. The
+tears of Pericles were needed to save Aspasia, because she was suspected
+of philosophy. But neither his eloquence nor his tears could save his
+friend Anaxagoras, and he was ostracized. Aristotle had the greatest
+difficulty to save his life. And Plato was twice imprisoned, and once
+sold into slavery.[390]
+
+[Footnote 390: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 305.]
+
+It is unnecessary that we should, in this place, again attempt the
+delineation of the theological opinions of the earlier periods of
+Grecian civilization. That the ancient Greeks believed in _one Supreme
+God_ has been conclusively proved by Cudworth. The argument of his
+fourth chapter is incontrovertible.[391] However great the number of
+"generated gods" who crowded the Olympus, and composed the ghostly array
+of Greek mythology, they were all subordinate agents, "demiurges,"
+employed in the framing of the world and all material things, or else
+the ministers of the moral and providential government of the eis Theos
+agentos--the one uncreated God. Beneath, or beyond the whole system of
+pagan polytheism, we recognize a faith in an _Uncreated Mind_, the
+Source of all the intelligence, and order, and harmony which pervades
+the universe the Fountain of law and justice; the Ruler of the world;
+the Avenger of injured innocence; and the final Judge of men. The
+immortality of the soul and a state of future retribution were necessary
+corollaries of this sublime faith. This primitive theology was
+unquestionably the people's faith; the faith, also, of the philosopher,
+in his inmost heart, however far he might wander in speculative thought.
+The instinctive feeling of the human heart, the spontaneous intuitions
+of the human reason, have led man, in every age, to recognize a God. It
+is within the fields of speculative thought that skepticism has had its
+birth. Any thing like atheism has only made its appearance amid the
+efforts of human reason to explain the universe. The native sentiments
+of the heart and the spontaneous movements of the reason have always
+been towards faith, that is, towards "a religious movement of the
+soul."[392] Unbridled speculative thought, which turns towards the outer
+world alone, and disregards "the voices of the soul," tends towards
+_doubt_ and irreligion. But, as Cousin has said, "a complete
+extravagance, a total delusion (except in case of real derangement), is
+impossible." "Beneath reflection there is still spontaneity, when the
+scholar has denied the existence of a God; listen to the man,
+interrogate him unawares, and you will see that all his words betray the
+idea of a God, and that faith in a God is, without his recognition, at
+the bottom of his heart."[393]
+
+[Footnote 391: "Intellectual System of the Universe;" see also ch. iii.,
+"On the Religion of the Athenians."]
+
+[Footnote 392: Cousin's "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 393: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 137.]
+
+Let us not, therefore, be too hasty in representing the early
+philosophers as destitute of the idea of a God, because in the imperfect
+and fragmentary representations which are given us of the philosophical
+opinions of Thales, and Anaximenes, and Heraclitus, and Diogenes of
+Apollonia, we find no explicit allusions to the _Uncreated Mind_ as the
+first principle and cause of all. A few sentences will comprehend the
+whole of what remains of the opinions of the earliest philosophers, and
+these were transmitted for ages by _oral_ tradition. To Plato and
+Aristotle we are chiefly indebted for a stereotype of those scattered,
+fragmentary sentences which came to their hands through the dim and
+distorting medium of more than two centuries. Surely no one imagines
+these few sentences contain and sum up the results of a lifetime of
+earnest thought, or represent all the opinions and beliefs of the
+earliest philosophers! And should we find therein no recognition of a
+personal God, would it not be most unfair and illogical to assert that
+they were utterly ignorant of a God, or wickedly denied his being? If
+they say "there is no God," then they are foolish Atheists; if they are
+silent on that subject, we have a right to assume they were Theists, for
+it is most natural to believe in God. And yet it has been quite
+customary for Christian teachers, after the manner of some Patristic
+writers, to deny to those early sages the smallest glimpse of underived
+and independent knowledge of a Divine Being, in their zeal to assert for
+the Sacred Scriptures the exclusive prerogative of revealing Him.
+
+Now in regard to the theological opinions of the Greek philosophers, we
+shall venture this general _lemma_--_the majority of them recognized an
+"incorporeal substance"_[394]_ an uncreated Intelligence, an ordering,
+governing Mind_. Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus, who were
+Materialists, are perhaps the only exceptions. Many of them were
+Pantheists, in the higher form of Pantheism, which, though it associates
+the universe with its framer and mover, still makes "the moving
+principle" superior to that which is moved. The world was a living
+organism,
+
+     "Whose body nature is, and God the soul."
+
+Unquestionably most on them recognized the existence of _two_ first
+principles, substances essentially distinct, which had co-existed from
+eternity--an incorporeal Deity and matter.[395] We grant that the free
+production of a universe by a creative fiat--the calling of matter into
+being by a simple act of omnipotence--is not elementary to human reason.
+The famous physical axiom of antiquity, "_De nihilo nihil, in nihilum
+posse reverti"_ under one aspect, may be regarded as the expression of
+the universal consciousness of a mental inability to conceive a creation
+out of nothing, or an annihilation.[396] "We can not conceive, either,
+on the one hand, nothing becoming something, or something becoming
+nothing, on the other hand. When God is said to create the universe out
+of nothing, we think this by supposing that he evolves the universe out
+of himself; and in like manner, we conceive annihilation only by
+conceiving the Creator to withdraw his creation from actuality into
+power."[397] "It is by _faith_ we understand the worlds were framed by
+the _word of God_, so that things which are were not made from things
+which do appear"--that is, from pre-existent matter.
+
+[Footnote 394: "Ousian as�maton."--Plato.]
+
+[Footnote 395: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 269.]
+
+[Footnote 396: Mansell's "Limits of Religious Thought," p. 100.]
+
+[Footnote 397: Sir William Hamilton's "Discussions on Philosophy," p.
+575.]
+
+Those writers[398] are, therefore, clearly in error who assert that the
+earliest question of Greek philosophy was, What is God? and that various
+and discordant answers were given, Thales saying, water is God,
+Anaximenes, air; Heraclitus, fire; Pythagoras, numbers; and so on. The
+idea of God is a native intuition of the mind. It springs up
+spontaneously from the depths of the human soul. The human mind
+naturally recognizes God as an uncreated Mind, and recognizes itself as
+"the offspring of God." And, therefore, it is simply impossible for it
+to acknowledge water, or air, or fire, or any material thing to be its
+God. Now they who reject this fundamental principle evidently
+misapprehend the real problem of early Grecian philosophic thought. The
+external world, the material universe, was the first object of their
+inquiry, and the method of their inquiry was, at the first stage, purely
+physical. Every object of sense had a beginning and an end; it rose out
+of something, and it fell back into something. Beneath this ceaseless
+flow and change there must be some permanent principle. What is that
+stoicheon--that first element? The changes in the universe seem to obey
+some principle of law--they have an orderly succession. What is that
+morph�--that form, or ideal, or archetype, proper to each thing, and
+according to which all things are produced? These changes must be
+produced by some efficient cause, some power or being which is itself
+immobile, and permanent, and eternal, and adequate to their production.
+What is that arch� t�s kin�se�s--that first principle of movement Then,
+lastly, there must be an end for which all things exist--a good reason
+why things are as they are, and not otherwise. What is that to ou eneken
+kai to agathon--that reason and good of all things? Now these are all
+archai or first principles of the universe. "Common to all first
+principles," says Aristotle, "is the being, the original, from which a
+thing is, or is produced, or is known."[399] First principles,
+therefore, include both elements and causes, and, under certain aspects,
+elements are also causes, in so far as they are that without which a
+thing can not be produced. Hence that highest generalization by
+Aristotle of all first principles; as--1. The Material Cause; 2. The
+Formal Cause; 3. The Efficient Cause; 4. The Final Cause. The grand
+subject of inquiry in ancient philosophy was not alone what is the final
+_element_ from which all things have been produced? nor yet what is the
+_efficient cause_ of the movement and the order of the universe? _but
+what are those First Principles which, being assumed, shall furnish a
+rational explanation of all phenomena, of all becoming?_
+
+[Footnote 398: As the writer of the article "Attica," in the
+Encyclop�dia Britannica.]
+
+[Footnote 399: "Metaphysics," bk. iv. ch. i. p. 112 (Bohn's edition).]
+
+So much being premised, we proceed to consider the efforts and the
+results of philosophic thought in
+
+
+
+THE PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.
+
+"The first act in the drama of Grecian speculation was performed on the
+varied theatre of the Grecian colonies--Asiatic, insular, and Italian,
+verging at length (in Anaxagoras) towards Athens." During the progress
+of this drama two distinct schools of philosophy were developed, having
+distinct geographical provinces, one on the east, the other on the west,
+of the peninsula of Greece, and deriving their names from the localities
+in which they flourished. The earliest was the _Ionian;_ the latter was
+the _Italian_ school.
+
+It would be extremely difficult, at this remote period, to estimate the
+influence which geographical conditions and ethnical relations exerted
+in determining the course of philosophic thought in these schools.
+Unquestionably those conditions contributed somewhat towards fixing
+their individuality. At the same time, it must be granted that the
+distinction in these two schools of philosophy is of a deeper character
+than can be represented or explained by geographical surroundings; it is
+a distinction reaching to the very foundation of their habits of
+thought. These schools represent two distinct aspects of philosophic
+thought, two distinct methods in which the human mind has essayed to
+solve the problem of the universe.
+
+The ante-Socratic schools were chiefly occupied with the study of
+external nature. "Greek philosophy was, at its first appearance, a
+philosophy of nature." It was an effort of the reason to reach a "first
+principle" which should explain the universe. This early attempt was
+purely speculative. It sought to interpret all phenomena by
+_hypotheses_, that is, by suppositions, more or less plausible,
+suggested by physical analogies or by _� priori_ rational conceptions.
+
+Now there are two distinct aspects under which nature presents itself to
+the observant mind. The first and most obvious is the _simple phenomena_
+as perceived by the senses. The second is the _relations_ of
+_phenomena_, cognized by the reason alone. Let phenomena, which are
+indeed the first objects of perception, continue to be the chief and
+almost exclusive object of thought, and philosophy is on the highway of
+pure physics. On the other hand, instead of stopping at phenomena, let
+their relations become the sole object of thought, and philosophy is now
+on the road of purely mathematical or metaphysical abstraction. Thus two
+schools of philosophy are developed, the one SENSATIONAL, the other
+IDEALIST. Now these, it will be found, are the leading and
+characteristic tendencies of the two grand divisions of the pre-Socratic
+schools; the Ionian is _sensational_, the Italian is _idealist_.
+
+These two schools have again been the subject of a further subdivision
+based upon diverse habits of thought. The Ionian school sought to
+explain the universe by _physical analogies._ Of these there are two
+clear and obvious divisions--analogies suggested by living organisms,
+and analogies suggested by mechanical arrangements. One class of
+philosophers in the Ionian school laid hold on the first analogy. They
+regarded the world as a living being, spontaneously evolving itself--a
+vital organism whose successive developments and transformations
+constitute all visible phenomena. A second class laid hold on the
+analogy suggested by mechanical arrangements. For them the universe was
+a grand superstructure, built up from elemental particles, arranged and
+united by some ab-extra power or force, or else aggregated by some
+inherent mutual affinity. Thus we have two sects of the Ionian school;
+the first, _Dynamical_ or vital; the second, _Mechanical_.[400]
+
+[Footnote 400: Ritter's "Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 191, 192.]
+
+The Italian school sought to explain the universe by rational
+conceptions and _� priori_ ideas. Now to those who seek, by simple
+reflection, to investigate the relations of the external world this
+marked distinction will present itself: some are relations _between_
+sensible phenomena--relations of time, of place, of number, of
+proportion, and of harmony; others are relations _of_ phenomena to
+essential being--relations of qualities to substance, of becoming to
+being, of the finite to the infinite. The former constituted the field
+of Pythagorean the latter of Eleatic contemplation. The Pythagoreans
+sought to explain the universe by numbers, forms, and harmonies; the
+Eleatics by the _� priori_ ideas of unity, substance, Being _in se_, the
+Infinite. Thus were constituted a _Mathematical_ and a _Metaphysical_
+sect in the Italian school. The pre-Socratic schools may, therefore, be
+tabulated in the following order:
+
+     I. IONIAN (Sensational), (1.) PHYSICAL {Dynamical or Vital.
+                                            {Mechanical.
+
+     II. Italian (Idealist), {(2.) MATHEMATICAL Pythagoreans.
+                             {(3.) METAPHYSICAL Eleatics.
+
+I. _The Ionian or Physical School._--We have premised that the
+philosophers of this school attempted the explanation of the universe by
+physical analogies.
+
+One class of these early speculators, the _Dynamical_, or vital
+theorists, proceeded on the supposition of a living energy infolded in
+nature, which in its spontaneous development continuously undergoes
+alteration both of quality and form. This imperfect analogy is the first
+hypothesis of childhood. The child personifies the stone that hurts him,
+and his first impulse is to resent the injury as though he imagined it
+to be endowed with consciousness, and to be acting with design. The
+childhood of superstition (whose genius is multiplicity) personifies
+each individual existence--a rude Fetichism, which imagines a
+supernatural power and presence enshrined in every object of nature, in
+every plant, and stock, and stone. The childhood of philosophy (whose
+genius is unity) personifies the universe. It regards the earth as one
+vast organism, animated by one soul, and this soul of the world as a
+"created god."[401] The first efforts of philosophy were, therefore,
+simply an attempt to explain the universe in harmony with the popular
+theological beliefs. The cosmogonies of the early speculators in the
+Ionian school were an elaboration of the ancient theogonies, but still
+an elaboration conducted under the guidance of that law of thought which
+constrains man to seek for _unity_, and reduce the many to the one.
+
+Therefore, in attempting to construct a theory of the universe they
+commenced by postulating an arch�--a first principle or element out of
+which, by a _vital_ process, all else should be produced. "Accordingly,
+whatever seemed the most subtle or pliable, as well as _universal_
+element in the mass of the visible world, was marked as the seminal
+principle whose successive developments and transformations produced all
+the rest."[402] With this seminal principle the living, _animating_
+principle seems to have been associated--in some instances perhaps
+confounded, and in most instances called by the same name. And having
+pursued this analogy so far, we shall find the _most decided and
+conclusive_ evidence of a tendency to regard the soul of man as similar,
+in its nature, to the soul which animates the world.
+
+[Footnote 401: Plato's "Laws," bk. x. ch. i.; "Tim�us," ch. xii.]
+
+[Footnote 402: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. 1. p.
+292.]
+
+_Thales of Miletus_(B.C. 636-542) was the first to lead the way in the
+perilous inquiry after an arch�, or first principle, which should
+furnish a rational explanation of the universe. Following, as it would
+seem, the genealogy of Hesiod, he supposed _water_ to be the primal
+element out of which all material things were produced. Aristotle
+supposes he was impressed with this idea from observing that all things
+are nourished by moisture; warmth itself, he declared, proceeded from
+moisture; the seeds of all things are moist; water, when condensed,
+becomes earth.
+
+Thus convinced of the universal presence of water, he declared it to be
+the first principle of things.[403]
+
+And now, from this brief statement of the Thalean physics, are we to
+conclude that he recognized only a _material_ cause of the universe?
+Such is the impression we receive from the reading of the First Book of
+Aristotle's Metaphysics. His evident purpose is to prove that the first
+philosophers of the Ionian school did not recognize an _efficient_
+cause. In his opinion, they were decidedly materialistic. Now to
+question the authority of Aristotle may appear to many an act of
+presumption. But Aristotle was not infallible; and nothing is more
+certain than that in more than one instance he does great injustice to
+his predecessors.[404] To him, unquestionably, belongs the honor of
+having made a complete and exhaustive classification of causes, but
+there certainly does appear something more than vanity in the assumption
+that he, of all the Greek philosophers, was the only one who recognized
+them all. His sagacious classification was simply a resum� of the labors
+of his predecessors. His "principles" or "causes" were incipient in the
+thought of the first speculators in philosophy. Their accurate
+definition and clearer presentation was the work of ages of analytic
+thought. The phrases "efficient," "formal," "final" cause, are, we
+grant, peculiar to Aristotle; the ideas were equally the possession of
+his predecessors.
+
+[Footnote 403: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 404: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 77;
+Cousin's "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," p. 77.]
+
+The evidence, we think, is conclusive that, with this primal element
+(water), Thales associated a formative principle of motion; to the
+"material" he added the "efficient" cause. A strong presumption in favor
+of this opinion is grounded on the psychological views of Thales. The
+author of "De Placitis Philosophorum" associates him with Pythagoras and
+Plato, in teaching that the soul is incorporeal, making it naturally
+self-active, and an intelligent substance.[405] And it is admitted by
+Aristotle (rather unwillingly, we grant, but his testimony is all the
+more valuable on that account) that, in his time, the opinion that the
+soul is a principle, aeikin�ton--ever moving, or essentially
+self-active, was currently ascribed to Thales. "If we may rely on the
+notices of Thales, he too would seem to have conceived the soul as a
+_moving principle_."[406] Extending this idea, that the soul is a moving
+principle, he held that all motion in the universe was due to the
+presence of a living soul. "He is reported to have said that the
+loadstone possessed a soul because it could move iron."[407] And he
+taught that "the world itself is _animated_, and full of gods."[408]
+"Some think that _soul_ and _life_ is mingled with the whole universe;
+and thence, perhaps, was that [opinion] of Thales that all things are
+full of gods,"[409] portions, as Aristotle said, of the universal soul.
+These views are quite in harmony with the theology which makes the Deity
+the moving energy of the universe--the energy which wrought the
+successive transformations of the primitive aqueous element. They also
+furnish a strong corroboration of the positive statement of
+Cicero--"Aquam, dixit Thales, esse initium rerum, Deum autem eam mentem
+qu� ex aqua cuncta fingeret." Thales said that water is the first
+principle of things, but God was that mind which formed all things out
+of water;[410] as also that still more remarkable saying of Thales,
+recorded by Diogenes Laertius; "God is the most ancient of all things,
+for he had no birth; the world is the most beautiful of all things, for
+it is the workmanship of God."[411] We are aware that some historians of
+philosophy reject the statement of Cicero, because, say they, "it does
+violence to the chronology of speculation."[412] Following Hegel, they
+assert that Thales could have no conception of God as Intelligence,
+since that is a conception of a more advanced philosophy. Such an
+opinion may be naturally expected from the philosopher who places God,
+not at the commencement, but at the _end_ of things, God becoming
+conscious and intelligent in humanity. If, then, Hegel teaches that God
+himself has had a progressive development, it is no wonder he should
+assert that the idea of God has also had an historic development, the
+_last_ term of which is an _intelligent God_. But he who believes that
+the idea of God as the infinite and the perfect is native to the human
+mind, and that God stands at the beginning of the entire system of
+things, will feel there is a strong _� priori_ ground for the belief
+that Thales recognized the existence of an _intelligent God who
+fashioned the universe_.
+
+[Footnote 405: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 71.]
+
+[Footnote 406: Aristotle, "De Anima," i. 2, 17.]
+
+[Footnote 407: Id., ib., i. 2, 17.]
+
+[Footnote 408: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," p. 18
+(Bohn's ed.).]
+
+[Footnote 409: Aristotle, "De Anima," i. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 410: "De Natura Deor.," bk. i. ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 411: "Lives," etc., p. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 412: Lewes's "Hist. Philos.," p. 4.]
+
+_Anaximenes of Miletus_ (B.C. 529-480) we place next to Thales in the
+consecutive history of thought. It has been usual to rank Anaximander
+next to the founder of the Ionian School. The entire complexion of his
+system is, however, unlike that of a pupil of Thales. And we think a
+careful consideration of his views will justify our placing him at the
+head of the Mechanical or Atomic division of the Ionian school.
+Anaximenes is the historical successor of Thales; he was unquestionably
+a vitalist. He took up the speculation where Thales had left it, and he
+carried it a step forward in its development.[413]
+
+Pursuing the same method as Thales, he was not, however, satisfied with
+the conclusion he had reached. Water was not to Anaximenes the most
+significant, neither was it the most universal element. But air seemed
+universally present. "The earth was a broad leaf resting upon it. All
+things were produced from it; all things were resolved into it. When he
+breathed he drew in a part of this universal life. All things are
+nourished by air."[414] Was not, therefore, _air_ the arch�, or primal
+element of things?
+
+[Footnote 413: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p.
+203.]
+
+[Footnote 414: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 7.]
+
+This brief notice of the physical speculations of Anaximenes is all that
+has survived of his opinions. We search in vain for some intimations of
+his theological views. On this merely negative ground, some writers have
+unjustly charged him with Atheism. Were we to venture a conjecture, we
+would rather say that there are indications of a tendency to Pantheism
+in that form of it which associates God necessarily with the universe,
+but does not utterly confound them. His fixing upon "_air_" as the
+primal element, seems an effort to reconcile, in some apparently
+intermediate substance, the opposite qualities of corporeal and
+spiritual natures. Air is invisible, impalpable, all-penetrating, and
+yet in some manner appreciable to sense. May not the vital
+transformations of this element have produced all the rest? The writer
+of the Article on Anaximenes in the Encyclop�dia Britannica tells us (on
+what ancient authorities he saith not) that "he asserted this air was
+God, since the divine power resides in it and agitates it."
+
+Some indications of the views of Anaximenes may perhaps be gathered from
+the teachings of Diogenes of Apollonia (B.C. 520-490,) who was the
+disciple, and is generally regarded as the commentator and expounder of
+the views of Anaximenes. The air of Diogenes was a soul; therefore it
+was _living_, and not only living, but conscious and _intelligent_. "It
+knows much," says he; "for without _reason_ it would be impossible for
+all to be arranged duly and proportionately; and whatever objects we
+consider will be found to be so arranged and ordered in the best and
+most beautiful manner."[415] Here we have a distinct recognition of the
+fundamental axiom that _mind is the only valid explanation of the order
+and harmony which pervades the universe_. With Diogenes the first
+principle is a "divine air," which is vital, conscious, and intelligent,
+which spontaneously evolves itself, and which, by its ceaseless
+transformations, produces all phenomena. The soul of man is a detached
+portion of this divine element; his body is developed or evolved
+therefrom. The theology of Diogenes, and, as we believe, of his master,
+Anaximenes also, was a species of Materialistic Pantheism.
+
+[Footnote 415: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 8;
+Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 214.]
+
+_Heraclitus of Ephesus_(B.C. 503-420) comes next in the order of
+speculative thought. In his philosophy, _fire_ is the arch�, or first
+principle; but not fire in the usual acceptation of that term. The
+Heraclitean "fire" is not flame, which is only an intensity of fire, but
+a warm, dry vapor--an _ether_, which may be illustrated, perhaps, by the
+"caloric" of modern chemistry. This "_ether_" was the primal element out
+of which the universe was formed; it was also a vital power or principle
+which animated the universe, and, in fact, the _cause_ of all its
+successive phenomenal changes. "The world," he said, "was neither made
+by the gods nor men, and it was, and is, and ever shall be, an
+_ever-living fire_, in due proportion self-enkindled, and in due measure
+self-extinguished."[416] The universe is thus reduced to "an eternal
+fire," whose ceaseless energy is manifested openly in the work of
+dissolution, and yet secretly, but universally, in the work of
+renovation. The phenomena of the universe are explained by Heraclitus as
+"the concurrence of opposite tendencies and efforts in the motions of
+this ever-living fire, out of which results the most beautiful harmony.
+This harmony of the world is one of conflicting impulses, like the lyre
+and the bow. The strife between opposite tendencies is the parent of all
+things. All life is change, and change is strife."[417]
+
+[Footnote 416: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p.
+235.]
+
+[Footnote 417: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 70;
+Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 244.]
+
+Heraclitus was the first to proclaim the doctrine of the perpetual
+fluxion of the universe (to reon, to gignomenon--Unrest and
+Development), the endless changes of matter, and the mutability and
+perishability of all individual things. This restless, changing flow of
+things, which never _are_, but always are _becoming_, he pronounced to
+be the _One_ and the _All_.
+
+From this statement of the physical theory of Heraclitus we might
+naturally infer that he was a Hylopathean Atheist. Such an hypothesis
+would not, however, be truthful or legitimate. On a more careful
+examination, his system will be found to stand half-way between the
+materialistic and the spiritual conception of the Author of the
+universe, and marks, indeed, a transition from the one to the other.
+Heraclitus unquestionably held that all substance is material, for a
+philosopher who proclaims, as he did, that the senses are the only
+source of knowledge, must necessarily attach himself to a material
+element as the primary one. And yet he seems to have _spiritualized_
+matter. "The moving unit of Heraclitus--the Becoming--is as immaterial
+as the resting unit of the Eleatics--the Being."[418] The Heraclitean
+"_fire_" is endowed with _spiritual_ attributes. "Aristotle calls it
+psych�--soul, and says that it is as�mat�taton, or absolutely
+incorporeal ("De Anima," i. 2. 16). It is, in effect, the common ground
+of the phenomena both of mind and matter it is not only the animating,
+but also the intelligent and regulating principle of the universe; the
+Zynos Logos, or universal Word or Reason, which it behooves all men to
+follow."[419] The psychology of Heraclitus throws additional light upon
+his theological opinions. With him human intelligence is a detached
+portion of the Universal Reason. "Inhaling," said he, "through the
+breath the Universal Ether, which is Divine Reason, we become
+conscious." The errors and imperfections of humanity are consequently to
+be ascribed to a deficiency of the Divine Reason in man. Whilst,
+therefore, the theory of Heraclitus seems to materialize mind, it may,
+with equal fairness, be said to spiritualize matter.
+
+[Footnote 418: Zeller's "History of Greek Philosophy," vol. i. p. 57.]
+
+[Footnote 419: Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. p. 297, note.]
+
+The general inference, therefore, from all that remains of the doctrine
+of Heraclitus is that he was a Materialistic Pantheist. His God was a
+living, rational, intelligent Ether--a soul pervading the universe. The
+form of the universe, its ever-changing phenomena, were a necessary
+emanation from, or a perpetual transformation of, this universal soul.
+
+With Heraclitus we close our survey of that sect of the physical school
+which regarded the world as a living organism.
+
+The second subdivision of the physical school, _the Mechanical_ or
+_Atomist theorists_, attempted the explanation of the universe by
+analogies derived from mechanical collocations, arrangements, and
+movements. The universe was regarded by them as a vast superstructure
+built up from elemental particles, aggregated by some inherent force or
+mutual affinity.
+
+_Anaximander of Miletus_ (born B.C. 610) we place at the head of the
+Mechanical sect of the Ionian school; first, on the authority of
+Aristotle, who intimates that the philosophic dogmata of Anaximander
+"resemble those of Democritus," who was certainly an Atomist; and,
+secondly, because we can clearly trace a genetic connection between the
+opinions of Democritus and Leucippus and those of Anaximander.
+
+The arch�, or first principle of Anaximander, was to apeiron, _the
+boundless, the illimitable, the infinite_. Some historians of philosophy
+have imagined that the infinite of Anaximander was the "unlimited all,"
+and have therefore placed him at the head of the Italian or "idealistic
+school." These writers are manifestly in error. Anaximander was
+unquestionably a sensationalist. Whatever his "infinite" may be found to
+be, one thing is clear, it was not a "metaphysical infinite"--it did not
+include infinite power, much less infinite mind.
+
+The testimony of Aristotle is conclusive that by "the infinite"
+Anaximander understood the multitude of primary, material particles. He
+calls it "a migma, or mixture of elements."[420] It was, in fact, a
+_chaos_--an original state in which the primary elements existed in a
+chaotic combination without _limitation_ or division. He assumed a
+certain "_prima materia_," which was neither air, nor water, nor fire,
+but a "mixture" of all, to be the first principle of the universe. The
+account of the opinions of Anaximander which is given by Plutarch ("De
+Placita," etc.) is a further confirmation of our interpretation of his
+infinite. "Anaximander, the Milesian, affirmed the infinite to be the
+first principle, and that all things are generated out of it, and
+corrupted again into it. _His infinite is nothing else but matter._"
+"Whence," says Cudworth, "we conclude that Anaximander's infinite was
+nothing else but an infinite chaos of matter, in which were actually or
+potentially contained all manner of qualities, by the fortuitous
+secretion and segregation of which he supposed infinite worlds to be
+successively generated and corrupted. So that we may easily guess whence
+Leucippus and Democritus had their infinite worlds, and perceive how
+near akin these two Atheistic hypotheses were."[421] The reader, whose
+curiosity may lead him to consult the authorities collected by Cudworth
+(pp. 185-188), will find in the doctrine of Anaximander a rude
+anticipation of the modern theories of "spontaneous generation" and "the
+transmutation of species." In the fragments of Anaximander that remain
+we find no recognition of an ordering Mind, and his philosophy is the
+dawn of a Materialistic school.
+
+[Footnote 420: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 421: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. pp. 186, 187.]
+
+_Leucippus of Miletus_ (B.C. 500-400) appears, in the order of
+speculation, as the successor of Anaximander. _Atoms_ and _space_ are,
+in his philosophy, the archai, or first principles of all things.
+"Leucippus (and his companion, Democritus) assert that the plenum and
+the vacuum [_i.e._, body and space] are the first principles, whereof
+one is the Ens, the other Non-ens; the differences of the body, which
+are only figure, order, and position, are the causes of all
+others."[422]
+
+[Footnote 422: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," p. 21 (Bohn's edition).]
+
+He also taught that the elements, and the worlds derived from them, are
+_infinite_. He describes the manner in which the worlds are produced as
+follows: "Many bodies of various kinds and shapes are borne by
+amputation from the infinite [_i.e._, the chaotic migma of Anaximander]
+into a vast vacuum, and then they, being collected together, produce a
+vortex; according to which, they, dashing against each other, and
+whirling about in every direction, are separated in such a way that like
+attaches itself to like; bodies are thus, without ceasing, united
+according to the impulse given by the vortex, and in this way the earth
+was produced."[423] Thus, through a boundless void, atoms infinite in
+number and endlessly diversified in form are eternally wandering; and,
+by their aggregation, infinite worlds are successively produced. These
+atoms are governed in their movements by a dark negation of
+intelligence, designated "Fate," and all traces of a Supreme Mind
+disappear in his philosophy. It is a system of pure materialism, which,
+in fact, is Atheism.
+
+[Footnote 423: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," p. 389.]
+
+_Democritus of Abdera_ (B.C. 460-357), the companion of Leucippus, also
+taught "that _atoms_ and the _vacuum_ were the beginning of the
+universe."[424] These atoms, he taught, were infinite in number,
+homogeneous, extended, and possessed of those primary qualities of
+matter which are necessarily involved in extension in space--as size,
+figure, situation, divisibility, and mobility. From the combination of
+these atoms all other existences are produced; fire, air, earth, and
+water; sun, moon, and stars; plants, animals, and men; the soul itself
+is an aggregation of round, moving atoms. And "motion, which is the
+cause of the production of every thing, he calls _necessity_."[425]
+Atoms are thus the only real existences; these, without any pre-existent
+mind, or intelligence, were the original of all things.
+
+[Footnote 424: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," p. 395.]
+
+[Footnote 425: Id, ib., p. 394.]
+
+The psychological opinions of Democritus were as decidedly materialistic
+as his physical theories. All knowledge is derived from sensation. It is
+only by material impact that we can know the external world, and every
+sense is, in reality, a kind of touch. Material images are being
+continually thrown off from the surface of external objects which come
+into actual contact with the organs of sense. The primary qualities of
+matter, that is, those which are involved in extension in space, are the
+only objects of real knowledge; the secondary qualities of matter, as
+softness, hardness, sweetness, bitterness, and the like, are but
+modifications of the human sensibilities. "The sweet exists only in
+form--the bitter in form, hot in form, color in form; but in causal
+reality only atoms and space exist. The sensible things which are
+supposed by opinion to exist have no real existence, but atoms and space
+alone exist."[426]
+
+[Footnote 426: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 96. The
+words of Democritus, as reported by Sextus Empiricus.]
+
+Thus by Democritus was laid the basis of a system of absolute
+materialism, which was elaborated and completed by Epicurus, and has
+been transmitted to our times. It has undergone some slight
+modifications, adapting it to the progress of physical science; but it
+is to-day substantially the theory of Democritus. In Democritus we have
+the culmination of the mechanical theory of the Ionian or Physical
+school. In physics and psychology it terminated in pure materialism. In
+theology it ends in positive Atheism.
+
+The fundamental error of all the philosophers of the physical school was
+the assumption, tacitly or avowedly, that sense-perception is the only
+source of knowledge. This was the fruitful source of all their erroneous
+conclusions, the parent of all their materialistic tendencies. This led
+them continually to seek an arch�, or first principle of the universe,
+which should, under some form, be appreciable to _sense_; and
+consequently the course of thought tended naturally towards materialism.
+
+Thales was unquestionably a dualist. Instructed by traditional
+intimations, or more probably guided by the spontaneous apperceptions of
+reason, he recognized, with more or less distinctness, an incorporeal
+Deity as the moving, animating, and organizing cause of the universe.
+The idea of God is a truth so self-evident as to need no demonstration.
+The human mind does not attain to the idea of a God as the last
+consequence of a series of antecedent principles. It comes at once, by
+an inherent and necessary movement of thought, to the recognition of God
+as the First Principle of all principles. But when, instead of
+hearkening to the simple and spontaneous intuitions of the mind, man
+turns to the world of sense, and loses himself in discursive thought,
+the conviction of a personal God becomes obscured. Then, amid the
+endlessly diversified phenomena of the universe, he seeks for a cause or
+origin which in some form shall be appreciable to sense. The mere study
+of material phenomena, scientifically or unscientifically conducted,
+will never yield the sense of the living God. Nature must be
+interpreted, can only be interpreted in the light of certain _� priori_
+principles of reason, or we can never "ascend from nature up to nature's
+God." Within the circle of mere sense-perception, the dim and
+undeveloped consciousness of God will be confounded with the universe.
+Thus, in Anaximenes, God is partially confounded with "air," which
+becomes a symbol; then a vehicle of the informing mind; and the result
+is a semi-pantheism. In Heraclitus, the "ether" is, at first, a
+semi-symbol of the Deity; at length, God is utterly confounded with this
+ether, or "rational fire," and the result is a definite _materialistic
+pantheism_. And, finally, when this feeling or dim consciousness of God,
+which dwells in all human souls, is not only disregarded, but pronounced
+to be an illusion--a phantasy; when all the analogies which intelligence
+suggests are disregarded, and a purely mechanical theory of the universe
+is adopted, the result is the utter negation of an Intelligent Cause,
+that is, _absolute Atheism_, as in Leucippus and Democritus.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS _(continued_).
+
+PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOL _(continued_).
+
+IDEALIST: PYTHAGORAS--XENOPHANES--PARMENIDES--ZENO. NATURAL REALIST:
+ANAXAGORAS.
+
+
+SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+
+SOCRATES.
+
+
+In the previous chapter we commenced our inquiry with the assumption
+that, in the absence of the true inductive method of philosophy which
+observes, and classifies, and generalizes facts, and thence attains a
+general principle or law, two only methods were possible to the early
+speculators who sought an explanation of the universe--1st, That of
+reasoning from physical analogies; or, 2d, That of deduction from
+rational conceptions, or _� priori_ ideas.
+
+Accordingly we found that one class of speculators fixed their attention
+solely on the mere phenomena of nature, and endeavored, amid sensible
+things, to find a _single_ element which, being more subtile, and
+pliable, and universally diffused, could be regarded as the ground and
+original of all the rest, and from which, by a vital transformation, or
+by a mechanical combination and arrangement of parts, all the rest
+should be evolved. The other class passed beyond the simple phenomena,
+and considered only the abstract _relations_ of phenomena among
+themselves, or the relations of phenomena to the necessary and universal
+ideas of the reason, and supposed that, in these relations, they had
+found an explanation of the universe. The former was the Ionian or
+Sensation school; the latter was the Italian or Idealist school.
+
+We have traced the method according to which the Ionian school
+proceeded, and estimated the results attained. We now come to consider
+the method and results of
+
+THE ITALIAN OR IDEALIST SCHOOL.
+
+This school we have found to be naturally subdivided into--1st, The
+_Mathematical_ sect, which attempted the explanation of the universe by
+the abstract conceptions of number, proportion, order, and harmony; and,
+2d, The _Metaphysical_ school, which attempted the interpretation of the
+universe according to the _� priori_ ideas of unity, of Being _in se_,
+of the Infinite, and the Absolute.
+
+_Pythagoras of Samos_(born B.C. 605) was the founder of the Mathematical
+school.
+
+We are conscious of the difficulties which are to be encountered by the
+student who seeks to attain a definite comprehension of the real
+opinions of Pythagoras. The genuineness of many of those writings which
+were once supposed to represent his views, is now questioned. "Modern
+criticism has clearly shown that the works ascribed to Tim�us and
+Archytas are spurious; and the treatise of Ocellus Lucanus on 'The
+Nature of the All' can not have been written by a Pythagorean."[427] The
+only writers who can be regarded as at all reliable are Plato and
+Aristotle; and the opinions they represent are not so much those of
+Pythagoras as "the Pythagoreans." This is at once accounted for by the
+fact that Pythagoras taught in secret, and did not commit his opinions
+to writing. His disciples, therefore, represent the _tendency_ rather
+than the actual tenets of his system; these were no doubt modified by
+the mental habits and tastes of his successors.
+
+[Footnote 427: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 24.]
+
+We may safely assume that the proposition from which Pythagoras started
+was the fundamental idea of all Greek speculation--_that beneath the
+fleeting forms and successive changes of the universe there is some
+permanent principle of unity_[428] The Ionian school sought that
+principle in some common physical element; Pythagoras sought, not for
+"elements," but for "relations," and through these relations for
+ultimate laws indicating primal forces.
+
+[Footnote 428: See Plato, "Tim�us," ch. ix. p. 331 (Bohn's edition);
+Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. v. ch. iii.]
+
+Aristotle affirms that Pythagoras taught "that _numbers_ are the first
+principles of all entities," and, "as it were, a _material_ cause of
+things,"[429] or, in other words, "that numbers are substances that
+involve a separate subsistence, and are primary causes of
+entities."[430]
+
+[Footnote 429: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. v.]
+
+[Footnote 430: Id., ib., bk. xii. ch. vi.]
+
+Are we then required to accept the dictum of Aristotle as final and
+decisive? Did Pythagoras really teach that numbers are real
+entities--the _substance_ and cause of all other existences? The reader
+may be aware that this is a point upon which the historians of
+philosophy are not agreed. Ritter is decidedly of opinion that the
+Pythagorean formula "can only be taken symbolically."[431] Lewes insists
+it must be understood literally.[432] On a careful review of all the
+arguments, we are constrained to regard the conclusion of Ritter as most
+reasonable. The hypothesis "that numbers are real entities" does
+violence to every principle of common sense. This alone constitutes a
+strong _� priori_ presumption that Pythagoras did not entertain so
+glaring an absurdity. The man who contributed so much towards perfecting
+the mathematical sciences, who played so conspicuous a part in the
+development of ancient philosophy, and who exerted so powerful a
+determining influence on the entire current of speculative thought, did
+not obtain his ascendency over the intellectual manhood of Greece by the
+utterance of such enigmas. And further, in interpreting the philosophic
+opinions of the ancients, we must be guided by this fundamental
+canon--"The human mind has, under the necessary operation of its own
+laws, been compelled to entertain the same fundamental ideas, and the
+human heart to cherish the same feelings in all ages." Now if a careful
+philosophic criticism can not render the _reported_ opinions of an
+ancient teacher into the universal language of the reason and heart of
+humanity, we must conclude either that his opinions were misunderstood
+and misrepresented by some of his successors, or else that he stands in
+utter isolation, both from the present and the past. His doctrine has,
+then, no relation to the successions of thought, and no place in the
+history of philosophy. Nay, more, such a doctrine has in it no element
+of vitality, no germ of eternal truth, and must speedily perish. Now it
+is well known that the teaching of Pythagoras awakened the deepest
+intellectual sympathy of his age; that his doctrine exerted a powerful
+influence on the mind of Plato, and, through him, upon succeeding ages;
+and that, in some of its aspects, it now survives, and is more
+influential to-day than in any previous age; but this element of
+immutable and eternal truth was certainly not contained in the inane and
+empty formula, "that numbers are real existences, the causes of all
+other existences!" If the fame of Pythagoras had rested on such "airy
+nothings," it would have melted away before the time of Plato.
+
+[Footnote 431: "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 359.]
+
+[Footnote 432: "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 38.]
+
+We grant there is considerable force in the argument of Lewes. He urges,
+with some pertinence, the unquestionable fact that Aristotle asserts,
+again and again, that the Pythagoreans taught "that numbers are the
+principles and substance of things as well as the causes of their
+modifications;" and he argues that we are not justified in rejecting the
+authority of Aristotle, unless better evidence can be produced.
+
+So far, however, as the authority of Aristotle is concerned, even Lewes
+himself charges him, in more than one instance, with strangely
+misrepresenting the opinions of his predecessors.[433] Aristotle is
+evidently wanting in that impartiality which ought to characterize the
+historian of philosophy, and, sometimes, we are compelled to question
+his integrity. Indeed, throughout his "Metaphysics" he exhibits the
+egotism and vanity of one who imagines that he alone, of all men, has
+the full vision of the truth. In Books I. and XII. he uniformly
+associates the "_numbers_" of Pythagoras with the "_forms_" and
+"_ideas_" of Plato. He asserts that Plato identifies "forms" and
+"numbers," and regards them as real entities--substances, and causes of
+all other things. "_Forms are numbers_[434]... so Plato affirmed,
+similar with the Pythagoreans; and the dogma that numbers are causes to
+other things--of their substance-_he, in like manner, asserted with
+them_."[435] And then, finally, he employs the _same_ arguments in
+refuting the doctrines of both.
+
+[Footnote 433: "Aristotle uniformly speaks disparagingly of Anaxagoras"
+(Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy"). He represents him as
+employing mind (nous) simply as "a _machine_" for the production of the
+world;--"when he finds himself in perplexity as to the cause of its
+being necessarily an orderly system, he then drags it (mind) in by force
+to his assistance" "Metaphysics," (bk. i. ch. iv.). But he is evidently
+inconsistent with himself, for in "De Anima" (bk. i. ch. ii.) he tells
+us that "Anaxagoras saith that mind is at once a _cause of motion_ in
+the whole universe, and also of _well_ and _fit_." We may further ask,
+is not the idea of fitness--of the good and the befitting--the final
+cause, even according to Aristotle?
+
+He also totally misrepresents Plato's doctrine of "Ideas." "Plato's
+Ideas," he says, "are substantial existences--real beings"
+("Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. ix.). Whereas, as we shall subsequently show,
+"they are objects of pure conception for human reason, and they are
+attributes of the Divine Reason. It is there they substantially exist."
+(Cousin, "History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 415). It is also pertinent
+to inquire, what is the difference between the "formal cause" of
+Aristotle and the archetypal ideas of Plato? and is not Plato's to
+agathon the "final cause?" Yet Aristotle is forever congratulating
+himself that he alone has properly treated the "formal" and the "final
+cause!"]
+
+[Footnote 434: This, however, was not the doctrine of Plato. He does not
+say "forms are numbers." He says: "God formed things as they first arose
+according to forms _and_ numbers." See "Timaeus," ch. xiv. and xxvii.]
+
+[Footnote 435: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. vi.]
+
+Now the writings of Plato are all extant to-day, and accessible in an
+excellent English translation to any of our readers. Cousin has
+shown,[436] most conclusively (and we can verify his conclusions for
+ourselves), that Aristotle has totally misrepresented Plato. And if, in
+the same connection, and in the course of the same argument, and in
+regard to the same subjects, he misrepresents Plato, it is most probable
+he also misrepresents Pythagoras.
+
+[Footnote 436: "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," pp. 77-81.]
+
+It is, however, a matter of the deepest interest for us to find the
+evidence gleaming out here and there, on the pages of Aristotle, that he
+had some knowledge of the fact that the Pythagorean numbers were
+regarded as _symbols_. The "numbers" of Pythagoras are, in the mind of
+Aristotle, clearly identified with the "forms" of Plato. Now, in Chapter
+VI. of the First Book he says that Plato taught that these "forms" were
+paradeigmata--models, patterns, exemplars after which created things
+were framed. The numbers of Pythagoras, then, are also models and
+exemplars. This also is admitted by Aristotle. The Pythagoreans indeed
+affirm that entities subsist by an _imitation_ (mim�sis) of
+numbers.[437] Now if ideas, forms, numbers, were the models or paradigms
+after which "the Operator" formed all things, surely it can not be
+logical to say they were the "material" out of which all things were
+framed, much less the "efficient cause" of things. The most legitimate
+conclusion we can draw, even from the statements of Aristotle, is that
+the Pythagoreans regarded numbers as the best expression or
+representation of those laws of proportion, and order, and harmony,
+which seemed, to their eyes, to pervade the universe. Their doctrine was
+a faint glimpse of that grand discovery of modern science--that all the
+higher laws of nature assume the form of a precise quantitative
+statement.
+
+[Footnote 437: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. vi.]
+
+The fact seems to be this, the Pythagoreans busied themselves chiefly
+with what Aristotle designates "the _formal_ cause," and gave little
+attention to the inquiry concerning "the _material_ cause." This is
+admitted by Aristotle. Concerning fire, or earth, or the other bodies of
+such kind, they have declared nothing whatsoever, inasmuch as affirming,
+in my opinion, nothing that is peculiar concerning _sensible_
+natures.[438] They looked, as we have previously remarked, to the
+relations of phenomena, and having discovered certain "numerical
+similitudes," they imagined they had attained an universal principle, or
+law. "If all the essential properties and attributes of things were
+fully represented by the relations of numbers, the philosophy which
+supplied such an explanation of the universe might well be excused from
+explaining, also, that existence of objects, which is distinct from the
+existence of all their qualities and properties. The Pythagorean
+doctrine of numbers might have been combined with the doctrine of atoms,
+and the combination might have led to results worthy of notice. But, so
+far as we are aware, no such combination was attempted, and perhaps we
+of the present day are only just beginning to perceive, through the
+disclosures of chemistry and crystallography, the importance of such an
+inquiry."[439]
+
+[Footnote 4398: Id., ib., bk. i. ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 439: Whewell's "History of Inductive Sciences," vol. i. p.
+78.]
+
+These preliminary considerations will have cleared and prepared the way
+for a fuller presentation of the philosophic system of Pythagoras. The
+most comprehensive and satisfactory exposition of his "method" is that
+given by Wm Archer Butler in his "_Lectures on Ancient Philosophy_," and
+we feel we can not do better than condense his pages.[440]
+
+[Footnote 440: Lecture VI. vol. i.]
+
+Pythagoras had long devoted his intellectual adoration to the lofty idea
+of _order_, which seemed to reveal itself to his mind, as the presiding
+genius of the serene and silent world. He had, from his youth, dwelt
+with delight upon the eternal relations of space, and determinate form,
+and number, in which the very idea of _proportion_ seems to find its
+first and immediate development, and without the latter of which
+(number), all proportion is absolutely inconceivable. To this ardent
+genius, whose inventive energies were daily adding new and surprising
+contributions to the sum of discoverable relations, it at length began
+to appear as if the whole secret of the universe was hidden in these
+mysterious correspondences.
+
+In making this extensive generalization, Pythagoras may, on his known
+principles, be supposed to have reasoned as follows: The mind of man
+perceives the relations of an eternal _order_ in the proportions of
+space, and form, and number. That mind is, no doubt, a portion of the
+soul which animates and governs the universe; for on what other
+supposition shall we account for its internal principle of activity--the
+very principle which characterizes the prime mover, and can scarce be
+ascribed to an inferior nature? And on what other supposition are we to
+explain the identity which subsists between the principles of order,
+authenticated by the reason and the facts of order which are found to
+exist in the forms and multiplicities around us, and independent of us?
+Can this sameness be other than the sameness of the internal and
+external principles of a common nature? The proportions of the universe
+inhere in its divine soul; they are indeed its very essence, or at
+least, its attributes. The ideas or principles of Order which are
+implanted in the human reason, must inhere in the Divine Reason, and
+must be reflected in the visible world, which is its product. Man, then,
+can boldly affirm the necessary harmony of the world, because he has in
+his own mind a revelation which declares that the world, in its real
+structure, must be the image and copy of that divine _proportion_ which
+he inwardly adores.[441]
+
+[Footnote 441: It is an opinion which goes as far back as the time of
+Plato, and even Pythagoras, and has ever since been widely entertained,
+that beauty of _form_ consists in some sort of _proportion_ or _harmony_
+which may admit of a mathematical expression; and later and more
+scientific research is altogether in its favor. It is now established
+that complementary colors, that is, colors which when combined make up
+the full beam, are felt to be beautiful when seen simultaneously; that
+is, the mind is made to delight in the unities of nature. At the basis
+of music there are certain fixed ratios; and in poetry, of every
+description, there are measures, and correspondencies. Pythagoras has
+often been ridiculed for his doctrine of "the music of the spheres;" and
+probably his doctrine was somewhat fanciful, but later science shows
+that there is a harmony in all nature--in its forms, in its forces, and
+in its motions. The highest unorganized and all organized objects take
+definite forms which are regulated by mathematical laws. The forces of
+nature can be estimated in numbers, and light and heat go in
+undulations, whilst the movements of the great bodies in nature admit of
+a precise quantitative expression. The harmonies of nature in respect of
+color, of number, of form, and of time are forcibly exhibited in
+"Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation," by M'Cosh.]
+
+Again, the world is assuredly _perfect_, as being the sensible image and
+copy of the Divinity, the outward and multiple development of the
+Eternal Unity. It must, therefore, when thoroughly known and properly
+interpreted, answer to all which we can conceive as perfect; that is, it
+must be regulated by laws, of which we have the highest principles in
+those first and elementary properties of numbers which stand next to
+_unity_. "The world is then, through all its departments, _a living
+arithmetic in its development, a realized geometry in its repose_." It
+is a kosmos (for the word is purely Pythagorean)--the expression of
+_harmony_, the manifestation, to sense, of everlasting _order_.
+
+Though Pythagoras found in geometry the fitting initiative for abstract
+speculation, it is remarkable that he himself preferred to constitute
+the science of Numbers as the true representative of the laws of the
+universe. The reason appears to be this: that though geometry speaks
+indeed of eternal truths, yet when the notion of symmetry and proportion
+is introduced, it is often necessary to insist, in preference, upon the
+properties of numbers. Hence, though the universe displays the geometry
+of its Constructor or Animator, yet nature was eminently defined as the
+mim�sis t�n arithm�n--the imitation of numbers.
+
+The key to all the Pythagorean dogmas, then, seems to be the general
+formula of _unity in multiplicity_:--unity either evolving itself into
+multiplicity, or unity discovered as pervading multiplicity. The
+principle of all things, the same principle which in this philosophy, as
+in others, was customarily called _Deity_, is the primitive unit from
+which all proceeds in the accordant relations of the universal scheme.
+Into the sensible world of multitude, the all-pervading Unity has
+infused his own ineffable nature; he has impressed his own image upon
+that world which is to represent him in the sphere of sense and man.
+What, then, is that which is at once single and multiple, identical and
+diversified--which we perceive as the combination of a thousand
+elements, yet as the expression of a single spirit--which is a chaos to
+the sense, a cosmos to the reason? What is it but
+harmony--proportion--the one governing the many, the many lost in the
+one? The world is therefore a _harmony_ in innumerable degrees, from the
+most complicated to the most simple: it is now a Triad, combining the
+Monad and the Duad, and partaking of the nature of both; now a Tetrad,
+the form of perfection; now a Decad, which, in combining the four
+former, involves, in its mystic nature, all the possible accordances of
+the universe.[442]
+
+The psychology of the Pythagoreans was greatly modified by their
+physical, and still more, by their moral tenets. The soul was arithmos
+eauton kin�n--a self-moving number or Monad, the copy (as we have seen)
+of that Infinite Monad which unfolds from its own incomprehensible
+essence all the relations of the universe. This soul has three elements,
+Reason (nous), Intelligence (phr�n), and Passion (Thymos). The two last,
+man has in common with brutes, the first is his grand and peculiar
+characteristic. It has, hence, been argued that Pythagoras could not
+have held the doctrine of "transmigration." This clear separation of man
+from the brute, by this signal endowment of reason, which is
+sempiternal, seems a refutation of those who charge him with the
+doctrine.
+
+In the department of morals, the legislator of Crotona found his
+appropriate sphere. In his use of numerical notation, moral good was
+essential unity--evil, essential plurality and division. In the fixed
+truths of mathematical abstractions he found the exemplars of social and
+personal virtue. The rule or law of all morality is resemblance to God;
+that is, the return of number to its root, to unity,[443] and virtue is
+thus a harmony.
+
+[Footnote 442: That is, 1+2+3+4=10. There are intimations that the
+Pythagoreans regarded the Monad as God, the Duad as matter, the Triad as
+the complex phenomena of the world, the Tetrad as the completeness of
+all its relations, the Decad as the cosmos, or harmonious whole.]
+
+[Footnote 443: Aristotle, "Nichomachian Ethics," bk. i. ch. vi.]
+
+Thus have we, in Pythagoras, the dawn of an _Idealist_ school; for
+mathematics are founded upon abstractions, and there is consequently an
+intimate connection between mathematics and idealism. The relations of
+space, and number, and determinate form, are, like the relations of
+cause and effect, of phenomena and substance, perceptible _only in
+thought_; and the mind which has been disciplined to abstract thought by
+the study of mathematics, is prepared and disposed for purely
+metaphysical studies. "The looking into mathematical learning is a kind
+of prelude to the contemplation of real being."[444] Therefore Plato
+inscribed over the door of his academy, "Let none but Geometricians
+enter here." To the mind thus disciplined in abstract thinking, the
+conceptions and ideas of reason have equal authority, sometimes even
+superior authority, to the perceptions of sense.
+
+[Footnote 444: Alcinous, "Introduction to the Doctrines of Plato," ch.
+vii.]
+
+Now if the testimony of both reason and sense, as given in
+consciousness, is accepted as of equal authority, and each faculty is
+regarded as, within its own sphere, a source of real, valid knowledge,
+then a consistent and harmonious system of _Natural Realism_ or _Natural
+Dualism_ will be the result. If the testimony of sense is questioned and
+distrusted, and the mind is denied any immediate knowledge of the
+sensible world, and yet the existence of an external world is maintained
+by various hypotheses and reasonings, the consequence will be a species
+of _Hypothetical Dualism_ or _Cosmothetic Idealism_. But if the
+affirmations of reason, as to the unity of the cosmos, are alone
+accepted, and the evidence of the senses, as to the variety and
+multiplicity of the world, is entirely disregarded, then we have a
+system of _Absolute Idealism_. Pythagoras regarded the harmony which
+pervades the diversified phenomena of the outer world as a manifestation
+of the unity of its eternal principle, or as the perpetual evolution of
+that unity, and the consequent _tendency_ of his system was to
+depreciate the _sensible_. Following out this tendency, the Eleatics
+first neglected, and finally denied the variety of the universe--denied
+the real existence of the external world, and asserted an absolute
+_metaphysical_ unity.
+
+_Xenophanes of Colophon_, in Ionia (B.C. 616-516), was the founder of
+this celebrated school of Elea. He left Ionia, and arrived in Italy
+about the same time as Pythagoras, bringing with him to Italy his Ionian
+tendencies; he there amalgamated them with Pythagorean speculations.
+
+Pythagoras had succeeded in fixing the attention of his countrymen on
+the harmony which pervades the material world, and had taught them to
+regard that harmony as the manifestation of the intelligence, and unity,
+and perfection of its eternal principle. Struck with this idea of
+harmony and of unity, Xenophanes, who was a poet, a rhapsodist, and
+therefore by native tendency, rather than by intellectual discipline, an
+Idealist, begins already to attach more importance to _unity_ than
+multiplicity in his philosophy of nature. He regards the testimony of
+reason as of more authority than the testimony of sense; "and he holds
+badly enough the balance between the unity of the Pythagoreans and the
+variety which Heraclitus and the Ionians had alone considered."[445]
+
+We are not, however, to suppose that Xenophanes denied entirely the
+existence of _plurality_. "The great Rhapsodist of Truth" was guided by
+the spontaneous intuitions of his mind (which seemed to partake of the
+character of an inspiration), to a clearer vision of the truth than were
+his successors of the same school by their discursive reasonings. "The
+One" of Xenophanes was clearly distinguished from the outward universe
+(ta polla) on the one hand, and from the "_non-ens_" on the other. It
+was his disciple, Parmenides, who imagined the logical necessity of
+identifying plurality with the "_non-ens_" and thus denying all
+immediate cognition of the phenomenal world. The compactness and logical
+coherence of the system of Parmenides seems to have had a peculiar charm
+for the Grecian mind, and to have diverted the eyes of antiquity from
+the views of the more earnest and devout Xenophanes, whose opinions were
+too often confounded with those of his successors of the Eleatic school.
+"Accordingly we find that Xenophanes has obtained credit for much that
+is, exclusively, the property of Parmenides and Zeno, in particular for
+denying plurality, and for identifying God with the universe."[446]
+
+[Footnote 445: Cousin, "History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 440.]
+
+[Footnote 446: See note by editor, W.H. Thompson, M.A., on pages 331,
+332 of Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. His authorities are "Fragments of
+Xenophanes" and the treatise "De Melisso, Xenophane, et Gorgia," by
+Aristotle.]
+
+In theology, Xenophanes was unquestionably a _Theist_. He had a profound
+and earnest conviction of the existence of a God, and he ridiculed with
+sarcastic force, the anthropomorphic absurdities of the popular
+religion. This one God, he taught, was self-existent, eternal, and
+infinite; supreme in power, in goodness, and intelligence.[447] These
+characteristics are ascribed to the Deity in the sublime words with
+which he opens his philosophic poem--
+
+     "There is one God, of all beings, divine and human, the greatest:
+     Neither in body alike unto mortals, neither in mind."
+
+He has no parts, no organs, as men have, being
+
+     "All sight, all ear, all intelligence;
+     Wholly exempt from toil, he sways all things by _thought_ and
+                                                           _will_."[448]
+
+Xenophanes also taught that God is "uncreated" or "uncaused," and that
+he is "excellent" as well as "all-powerful."[449] And yet, regardless of
+these explicit utterances, Lewes cautions his readers against supposing
+that, by the "one God," Xenophanes meant a Personal God; and he asserts
+that his Monotheism was Pantheism. A doctrine, however, which ascribes
+to the Divine Being moral as well as intellectual supremacy, which
+acknowledges an outward world distinct from Him, and which represents
+Him as causing the changes in that universe by the acts of an
+intelligent volition, can only by a strange perversion of language be
+called pantheism.
+
+[Footnote 447: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 38;
+Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 428, 429.]
+
+[Footnote 448: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp.
+432, 434.]
+
+[Footnote 449: Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. p. 331, note; Ritter's
+"History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 428.]
+
+_Parmenides of Elea_ (born B.C. 536) was the philosopher who framed the
+psychological opinions of the Idealist school into a precise and
+comprehensive system. He was the first carefully to distinguish between
+_Truth_ (al�theian) and _Opinion_ (doxan)--between ideas obtained
+through the reason and the simple perceptions of sense. Assuming that
+reason and sense are the only sources of knowledge, he held that they
+furnish the mind with two distinct classes of cognitions--one variable,
+fleeting, and uncertain; the other immutable, necessary, and eternal.
+Sense is dependent on the variable organization of the individual, and
+therefore its evidence is changeable, uncertain, and nothing but a mere
+"_seeming_." Reason is the same in all individuals, and therefore its
+evidence is constant, real, and true. Philosophy is, therefore, divided
+into two branches--_Physics_ and _Metaphysics_; one, a science of
+absolute knowledge; the other, a science of mere appearances. The first
+science, Physics, is pronounced illusory and uncertain; the latter,
+Metaphysics, is infallible and immutable.[450]
+
+Proceeding on these principles, he rejects the dualistic system of the
+universe, and boldly declared that all essences are fundamentally
+_one_--that, in fact, there is no real plurality, and that all the
+diversity which "appears" is merely presented under a peculiar aesthetic
+or sensible law. The senses, it is true, teach us that there are "many
+things," but reason affirms that, at bottom, there exists only "the
+one." Whatever, therefore, manifests itself in the field of sense is
+merely illusory--the mental representation of a phenomenal world, which
+to experience seems diversified, but which reason can not possibly admit
+to be other than "immovable" and "one." There is but one Being in the
+universe, eternal, immovable, absolute; and of this unconditioned being
+all phenomenal existences, whether material or mental, are but the
+attributes and modes. Hence the two great maxims of the Eleatic school,
+derived from Parmenides--ta panta en, "_The All is One_" and to auto
+noein te kai einai (Idem est cogitare atque esse), "_Thought and Being
+are identical._" The last remarkable dictum is the fundamental principle
+of the modern pantheistic doctrine of "absolute identity" as taught by
+Schelling and Hegel.[451]
+
+[Footnote 450: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp.
+447, 451.]
+
+[Footnote 451: Id., ib., vol. i. pp. 450, 455.]
+
+Lewes asserts that "Parmenides did not, with Xenophanes, call 'the One'
+God; he called it Being.[452] In support of this statement he, however,
+cites no ancient authorities. We are therefore justified in rejecting
+his opinion, and receiving the testimony of Simplicius, "the only
+authority for the fragments of the Eleatics,"[453] and who had a copy of
+the philosophic poems of Parmenides. He assures us that Parmenides and
+Xenophanes "affirmed that '_the One,_' or unity, was the first Principle
+of all,....they meaning by this One _that highest or supreme God_, as
+being the cause of unity to all things.... It remaineth, therefore, that
+that _Intelligence_ which is the cause of all things, and therefore of
+mind and understanding also, in which all things are comprehended in
+unity, was Parmenides' one Ens or Being.[454] Parmenides was, therefore,
+a spiritualistic or idealistic Pantheist.
+
+_Zeno of Elea_ (born B.C. 500) was the logician of the Eleatic school.
+He was, says Diogenes Laertius, "the inventor of Dialectics."[455] Logic
+henceforth becomes the organon[456]--organon of the Eleatics.
+
+[Footnote 452: "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 50.]
+
+[Footnote 453: Encyclop�dia Britannica, article "Simplicius."]
+
+[Footnote 454: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 511.]
+
+[Footnote 455: "Lives," p. 387 (Bohn's edition).]
+
+[Footnote 456: Plato in "Parmen."]
+
+This organon, however, Zeno used very imperfectly. In his hands it was
+simply the "reductio ad absurdum" of opposing opinions as the means of
+sustaining the tenets of his own sect. Parmenides had asserted, on _�
+priori_ grounds, the existence of "the One." Zeno would prove by his
+dialectic the non-existence of "the many." His grand position was that
+all phenomena, all that appears to sense, is but a _modification_ of the
+absolute One. And he displays a vast amount of dialectic subtilty in the
+effort to prove that all "appearances" are unreal, and that all movement
+and change is a mere "seeming"--not a reality. What men call motion is
+only a name given to a series of conditions, each of which, considered
+separately, is rest. "Rest is force resistant; motion is force
+triumphant."[457] The famous puzzle of "Achilles and the Tortoise," by
+which he endeavored to prove the unreality of motion, has been rendered
+familiar to the English reader.[458]
+
+[Footnote 457: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 60.]
+
+[Footnote 458: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp.
+475, 476.]
+
+Aristotle assures us that Zeno, "by his one Ens, which neither was moved
+nor movable, meaneth God." And he also informs us that "Zeno endeavored
+to demonstrate that there is but one God, from the idea which all men
+have of him, as that which is the best, supremest, most powerful of all,
+or an absolutely perfect being" ("De Xenophane, Zenone, et
+Gorgia").[459]
+
+With Zeno we close our survey of the second grand line of independent
+inquiry by which philosophy sought to solve the problem of the universe.
+The reader will be struck with the resemblance which subsists between
+the history of its development and that of the modern Idealist school.
+Pythagoras was the Descartes, Parmenides the Spinoza, and Zeno the Hegel
+of the Italian school.
+
+In this survey of the speculations of the pre-Socratic schools of
+philosophy, we have followed the course of two opposite streams of
+thought which had their common origin in one fundamental principle or
+law of the human mind--the _intuition of unity_--"or the desire to
+comprehend all the facts of the universe in a single formula, and
+consummate all conditional knowledge in the unity of unconditioned
+existence." The history of this tendency is, in fact, the history of all
+philosophy. "The end of all philosophy," says Plato, "is the intuition
+of unity." "All knowledge," said the Platonists, "is the gathering up
+into one."[460]
+
+[Footnote 459: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 518.]
+
+[Footnote 460: Hamilton's "Metaphysics," vol. i. pp. 67-70 (English
+edition).]
+
+Starting from this fundamental idea, _that, beneath the endless flux and
+change of the visible universe, there must be a permanent principle of
+unity_, we have seen developed two opposite schools of speculative
+thought. As the traveller, standing on the ridges of the Andes, may see
+the head-waters of the great South American rivers mingling in one, so
+the student of philosophy, standing on the elevated plane of analytic
+thought, may discover, in this fundamental principle, the common source
+of the two great systems of speculative thought which divided the
+ancient world. Here are the head-waters of the sensational and the
+idealist schools. The Ionian school started its course of inquiry in the
+direction of _sense_; it occupied itself solely with the phenomena of
+the external world, and it sought this principle of unity in a
+_physical_ element. The Italian school started its course of inquiry in
+the direction of _reason_; it occupied itself chiefly with rational
+conceptions or _� priori_ ideas, and it sought this principle of unity
+in purely _metaphysical_ being. And just as the Amazon and La Plata
+sweep on, in opposite directions, until they reach the extremities of
+the continent, so these two opposite streams of thought rush onward, by
+the force of a logical necessity, until they terminate in the two
+Unitarian systems of _Absolute Materialism_ and _Absolute Idealism_,
+and, in their theological aspects, in a pantheism which, on the one
+hand, identifies God with matter, or, on the other hand, swallows up the
+universe in God.
+
+The radical error of both these systems is at once apparent. The
+testimony of the primary faculties of the mind was not regarded as each,
+within its sphere, final and decisive. The duality of consciousness was
+not accepted in all its integrity; one school rejected the testimony of
+reason, the other denied the veracity of the senses, and both prepared
+the way for the _skepticism_ of the Sophists.
+
+We must not, however, lose sight of the fact that there were some
+philosophers of the pre-Socratic school, as Anaxagoras and Empedocles,
+who recognized the partial and exclusive character of both these
+systems, and sought, by a method which Cousin would designate as
+Eclecticism, to combine the element of truth contained in each.
+
+_Anaxagoras of Clazomencoe_ (B.C. 500-428) added to the Ionian
+philosophy of a material element or elements the Italian idea of a
+_spirit_ distinct from, and independent of the world, which has within
+itself the principle of a spontaneous activity--Nous autocrat�s, and
+which is the first cause of motion in the universe--arch� t�s
+kin�se�s.[461]
+
+[Footnote 461: Cousin, "History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 411.]
+
+In his physical theory, Anaxagoras was an Atomist. Instead of one
+element, he declared that the elements or first principles were
+numerous, or even infinite. No point in space is unoccupied by these
+atoms, which are infinitely divisible. He imagined that, in nature,
+there are as many kinds of principles as there are species of compound
+bodies, and that the peculiar form of the primary particles of which any
+body is composed is the same with the qualities of the compound body
+itself. This was the celebrated doctrine of _Homoeomeria_, of which
+Lucretius furnishes a luminous account in his philosophic poem "De
+Natura Rerum"--
+
+                        "That bone from bones
+     Minute, and embryon; nerve from nerves arise;
+     And blood from blood, by countless drops increased.
+     Gold, too, from golden atoms, earths concrete,
+     From earths extreme; from fiery matters, fire;
+     And lymph from limpen dews. And thus throughout
+     From primal kinds that kinds perpetual spring."[462]
+
+These primary particles were regarded by Anaxagoras as eternal; because
+he held the dogma, peculiar to all the Ionians, that nothing can be
+really created or annihilated (de nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse
+reverti). But he saw, nevertheless, that the simple existence of
+"_inert_" matter, even from eternity, could not explain the motion and
+the harmony of the material world. Hence he saw the necessity of another
+power--_the power of Intelligence_. "All things were in chaos; then came
+Intelligence and introduced Order."[463]
+
+Anaxagoras, unlike the pantheistic speculators of the Ionian school,
+rigidly separated the Supreme Intelligence from the material universe.
+The Nous of Anaxagoras is a principle, infinite, independent
+(autocrat�s), omnipresent (en panti pantos moioa enon), the subtilest
+and purest of things (lepitotaton pani�n chr�mat�n kaikai kathar�taton);
+and incapable of mixture with aught besides; it is also omniscient
+(panta egn�), and unchangeable (pas omoios esti).--Simplicius, in
+"Arist. Phys." i. 33.[464]
+
+[Footnote 462: Good's translation, bk. i. p. 325.]
+
+[Footnote 463: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," p. 59.]
+
+[Footnote 464: Butler's "Lectures on Philosophy," vol. i. p. 305, note.]
+
+Thus did Anaxagoras bridge the chasm between the Ionian and the Italian
+schools. He accepted both doctrines with some modifications. He believed
+in the real existence of the phenomenal world, and he also believed in
+the real existence of "The Infinite Mind," whose Intelligence and
+Omnipotence were manifested in the laws and relations which pervade the
+world. He proclaimed the existence of the Infinite Intelligence ("the
+ONE"), who was the Architect and Governor of the Infinite Matter ("the
+MANY").
+
+On the question as to the origin and certainty of human knowledge,
+Anaxagoras differed both from the Ionians and the Eleatics. Neither the
+sense alone, nor the reason alone, were for him a ground of certitude.
+He held that reason (logos) was the regulative faculty of the mind, as
+the Nous, or Supreme Intelligence, was the regulative power of the
+universe. And he admitted that the senses were veracious in their
+reports; but they reported only in regard to phenomena. The senses,
+then, perceive _phenomena_, but it is the reason alone which recognizes
+_noumena_, that is, the reason perceives being in and through phenomena,
+substance in and through qualities; an anticipation of the fundamental
+principle of modern psychology--"_that every power or substance in
+existence is knowable to us, so far only, as we know its phenomena_."
+Thus, again, does he bridge the chasm that separates between the
+Sensationalist and the Idealist. The Ionians relied solely on the
+intuitions of sense; the Eleatics accepted only the apperceptions of
+pure reason; he accepted the testimony of both, and in the synthesis of
+subject and object--the union of an element supplied by sensation, and
+an element supplied by reason, he found real, certain knowledge.
+
+The harmony which the doctrine of Anaxagoras introduced into the
+philosophy of Athens, soon attracted attention and multiplied disciples.
+He was teaching when Socrates arrived in Athens, and the latter attended
+his school. The influence which the doctrine of Anaxagoras exerted upon
+the mind of Socrates (leading him to recognize Intelligence as the cause
+of order and special adaptation in the universe),[465] and also upon the
+course of philosophy in the Socratic schools, is the most enduring
+memorial of his name.[466]
+
+[Footnote 465: "Phaedo," � 105.]
+
+[Footnote 466: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. iii.]
+
+We have devoted a much larger space than we originally designed to the
+ante-Socratic schools--quite out of proportion, indeed, with that we
+shall be able to appropriate to their successors. But inasmuch as all
+the great primary problems of thought, which are subsequently discussed
+by Plato and Aristotle, were started, and received, at least, typical
+answers in those schools, we can not hope to understand Plato, or
+Aristotle, or even Epicurus, or Zeno of Cittium, unless we have first
+mastered the doctrines of Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Parmenides, and
+Anaxagoras.[467] The attention we have bestowed on these early thinkers
+will, therefore, have been a valuable preparatory discipline for the
+study of
+
+II. THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+
+The first cycle of philosophy was now complete. That form of Grecian
+speculative thought which, during the first period of its development,
+was a philosophy of nature, had reached its maturity; it had sought "the
+first principles of all things" in the study of external nature, and had
+signally failed. In this pursuit of first principles as the basis of a
+true and certain knowledge of the system of the universe, the two
+leading schools had been carried to opposite poles of thought. One had
+asserted that _experience_ alone, the other, that _reason_ alone was the
+sole criterion of truth. As the last consequence of this imperfect
+method, Leucippus had denied the existence of "the one," and Zeno had
+denied the existence of "the many." The Ionian school, in Democritus,
+had landed in Materialism; the Italian, in Parmenides, had ended in
+Pantheism; and, as the necessary result of this partial and defective
+method of inquiry, which ended in doubt and contradiction, a spirit of
+general skepticism was generated in the Athenian mind. If doubt be cast
+upon the veracity of the primary cognitive faculties of the mind, the
+flood-gates of universal skepticism are opened. If the senses are
+pronounced to be mendacious and illusory in their reports regarding
+external phenomena, and if the intuitions of the reason, in regard to
+the ground and cause of phenomena, are delusive, then we have no ground
+of certitude. If one faculty is unveracious and unreliable, how can we
+determine that the other is not equally so? There is, then, no such
+thing as universal and necessary truth. Truth is variable and uncertain,
+as the variable opinion of each individual.
+
+[Footnote 467: Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 114; Butler's
+"Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. pp. 87, 88.]
+
+The Sophists, who belonged to no particular school, laid hold on the
+elements of skepticism contained in both the pre-Socratic schools of
+philosophy, and they declared that "the sophia" was not only
+unattainable, but that no relative degree of it was possible for the
+human faculties.[468] Protagoras of Abdera accepted the doctrine of
+Heraclitus, that thought is identical with sensation, and limited by it;
+he therefore declared that there is no criterion of truth, and _Man is
+the measure of all things_.[469] Sextus Empiricus gives the
+psychological opinions of Protagoras with remarkable explicitness.
+"Matter is in a perpetual flux, whilst it undergoes augmentations and
+losses; the senses also are modified according to the age and
+disposition of the body. He said, also, that the reason of all phenomena
+resides in matter as substrata, so that matter, in itself, might be
+whatever it appeared to each. But men have different perceptions at
+different periods, according to the changes in the things perceived....
+Man is, therefore, the criterion of that which exists; all that is
+perceived by him exists; _that which is perceived by no man does not
+exist_."[470] These conclusions were rigidly and fearlessly applied to
+ethics and political science. If there is no Eternal Truth, there can be
+no Immutable Right. The distinction of right and wrong is solely a
+matter of human opinion and conventional usage.[471] "That which
+_appears_ just and honorable to each city, is so for _that city_, so
+long as the opinion prevails."[472]
+
+[Footnote 468: Encyclop�dia Britannica, article "Sophist."]
+
+[Footnote 469: Plato's "The�tetus" (anthropos--"the individual is the
+measure of all things"), vol. i. p. 381 (Bohn's edition).]
+
+[Footnote 470: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 117.]
+
+[Footnote 471: "Gorgias," � 85-89.]
+
+[Footnote 472: Plato's "The�tetus," � 65-75.]
+
+There were others who laid hold on the weapons which Zeno had prepared
+to their hands. He had asserted that all the objects of sense were mere
+phantoms--delusive and transitory. By the subtilties of dialectic
+quibbling, he had attempted to prove that "change" meant "permanence,"
+and "motion" meant "rest."[473] Words may, therefore, have the most
+opposite and contradictory meanings; and all language and all opinion
+may, by such a process, be rendered uncertain. One opinion is,
+consequently, for the individual, just as good as another; and all
+opinions are equally true and untrue. It was nevertheless desirable, for
+the good of society, that there should be some agreement, and that, for
+a time at least, certain opinions should prevail; and if philosophy had
+failed to secure this agreement, rhetoric, at least, was effectual; and,
+with the Sophist, rhetoric was "the art of making the worst appear the
+better reason." All wisdom was now confined to a species of "word
+jugglery," which in Athens was dignified as "the art of disputation."
+
+[Footnote 473: "And do we not know that the Eleatic Palamedes (Zeno)
+spoke by art in such a manner that the same things appeared to be
+similar and dissimilar, one and many, at rest and in
+motion?"--"Ph�drus," � 97.]
+
+SOCRATES (B.C. 469-399), the grand central figure in the group of
+ancient philosophers, arrived in Athens in the midst of this general
+skepticism. He had an invincible faith in truth. "He made her the
+mistress of his soul, and with patient labor, and unwearied energy, did
+his great and noble soul toil after perfect communion with her." He was
+disappointed and dissatisfied with the results that had been reached by
+the methods of his predecessors, and he was convinced that by these
+methods the problem of the universe could not be solved. He therefore
+turned away from physical inquiries, and devoted his whole attention to
+the study of the human mind, its fundamental beliefs, ideas, and laws.
+If he can not penetrate the mysteries of the outer world, he will turn
+his attention to the world within. He will "know himself," and find
+within himself the reason, and ground, and law of all existence. There
+he discovered certain truths which can not possibly be questioned. He
+felt he had within his own heart a faithful monitor--a _conscience_,
+which he regarded as the voice of God.[474] He believed "he had a divine
+teacher with him at all times. Though he did not possess wisdom, this
+teacher could put him on the road to seek it, could preserve him from
+delusions which might turn him out of the way, could keep his mind fixed
+upon the end for which he ought to act and live."[475] In himself,
+therefore, he sought that ground of certitude which should save him from
+the prevailing skepticism of his times. The Delphic inscription, Gn�ti
+seauton, "_know thyself_" becomes henceforth the fundamental maxim of
+philosophy.
+
+[Footnote 474: The D�mon of Socrates has been the subject of much
+discussion among learned men. The notion, once generally received, that
+his _daim�n_ was "a familiar genius," is now regarded as an exploded
+error. "Nowhere does Socrates, in Plato or Xenophon, speak of _a_ genius
+or demon, but always of a _doemoniac something (to daimonion_, or
+_daimonin ti_), or of a _sign_, a _voice_, a _divine sign_, a _divine
+voice_" (Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 166).
+"Socrates always speaks of a _divine or supernatural somewhat_ ('divinum
+quiddam,' as Cicero has it), the nature of which he does not attempt to
+divine, and to which he never attributes personality" (Butler's
+"Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 357). The scholar need not
+to be informed that _to daimonion_, in classic literature, means the
+divine Essence (Lat. _numen_), to which are attributed events beyond
+man's power, yet not to be assigned to any special god.]
+
+[Footnote 475: Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 124.]
+
+Truth has a rational, _� priori_ foundation in the constitution of the
+human mind. There are _ideas_ connatural to the human reason which are
+the copies of those archetypal ideas which belong to the Eternal Reason.
+The grand problem of philosophy, therefore, now is--_What are these
+fundamental_ IDEAS _which are unchangeable and permanent, amid all the
+diversifies of human opinion, connecting appearance with reality, and
+constituting a ground of certain knowledge or absolute truth_? Socrates
+may not have held the doctrine of ideas as exhibited by Plato, but he
+certainly believed that there were germs of truth latent in the human
+mind--principles which governed, unconsciously, the processes of
+thought, and that these could be developed by reflection and by
+questioning. These were embryonate in the womb of reason, coming to the
+birth, but needing the "maieutic" or "obstetric" art, that they might be
+brought forth.[476] He would, therefore, become the accoucheur of ideas,
+and deliver minds of that secret truth which lay in their mental
+constitution. And thus _Psychology_ becomes the basis of all legitimate
+metaphysics.
+
+[Footnote 476: Plato's "The�tetus," � 22.]
+
+By the general consent of antiquity, as well as by the concurrent
+judgment of all modern historians of philosophy, Socrates is regarded as
+having effected a complete revolution in philosophic thought, and, by
+universal consent, he is placed at the commencement of a new era in
+philosophy. Schleiermacher has said, "the service which Socrates
+rendered to philosophy consisted not so much in the truths arrived at
+_as in the_ METHOD _by which truth is sought_." As Bacon inaugurated a
+new method in physical inquiry, so Socrates inaugurated a new method in
+metaphysical inquiry.
+
+What, then, was this _new method_? It was no other than the _inductive_
+method applied to the facts of consciousness. This method is thus
+defined by Aristotle: "Induction is the process from particulars to
+generals;" that is, it is the process of discovering laws from facts,
+causes from effects, being from phenomena. But how is this process of
+induction conducted? By observing and enumerating the real facts which
+are presented in consciousness, by noting their relations of resemblance
+or difference, and by classifying these facts by the aid of these
+relations. In other words, it is _analysis_ applied to the phenomena of
+mind.[477] Now Socrates gave this method of psychological analysis to
+Greek philosophy. There are two things of which Socrates must justly be
+regarded as the author,--the _inductive reasoning_ and _abstract
+definition_.[478] We readily grant that Socrates employed this method
+imperfectly, for methods are the last things perfected in science; but
+still, the Socratic movement was a vast movement in the right direction.
+
+[Footnote 477: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 478: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," vol. xii. ch. iv. p. 359
+(Bohn's edition).]
+
+In what are usually regarded as the purely Socratic dialogues,[479]
+Plato evidently designs to exhibit this method of Socrates. They proceed
+continually on the firm conviction that there is a standard or criterion
+of truth in the reason of man, and that, by _reflection_, man can
+apprehend and recognize the truth. To awaken this power of reflection;
+to compel men to analyze their language and their thoughts; to lead them
+from the particular and the contingent, to the universal and the
+necessary; and to teach them to test their opinions by the inward
+standard of truth, was the aim of Socrates. These dialogues are a
+picture of the conversations of Socrates. They are literally an
+education of the thinking faculty. Their purpose is to discipline men to
+think for themselves, rather than to furnish opinions for them. In many
+of these dialogues Socrates affirms nothing. After producing many
+arguments, and examining a question on all sides, he leaves it
+undetermined. At the close of the dialogue he is as far from a
+declaration of opinions as at the commencement. His grand effort, like
+that of Bacon's, is to furnish men a correct method of inquiry, rather
+than to apply that method and give them results.
+
+[Footnote 479: "Laches," "Charmides," "Lysis," "The Rivals," "First and
+Second Alcibiades," "Theages," "Clitophon." See Whewell's translation,
+vol. i.]
+
+We must not, however, from thence conclude that Socrates did not himself
+attain any definite conclusions, or reach any specific and valuable
+results. When, in reply to his friends who reported the answer of the
+oracle of Delphi, that "Socrates was the wisest of men," he said, "he
+supposed the oracle declared him wise _because he knew nothing_," he did
+not mean that true knowledge was unattainable, for his whole life had
+been spent in efforts to attain it. He simply indicates the disposition
+of mind which is most befitting and most helpful to the seeker after
+truth. He must be conscious of his own ignorance. He must not exalt
+himself. He must not put his own conceits in the way of the thing he
+would know. He must have an open eye, a single purpose, an honest mind,
+to prepare him to receive light when it comes. And that there is light,
+that there is a source whence light comes, he avowed in every word and
+act.
+
+Socrates unquestionably believed in one Supreme God, the immaterial,
+infinite Governor of all. He cherished that instinctive, spontaneous
+faith in God and his Providence which is the universal faith of the
+human heart. He saw this faith revealed in the religious sentiments of
+all nations, and in the tendency to worship so universally
+characteristic of humanity.[480] He appealed to the consciousness of
+absolute dependence--the persuasion, wrought by God in the minds of all
+men, that "He is able to make men happy or miserable," and the
+consequent sense of obligation which teaches man he ought to obey God.
+And he regarded with some degree of affectionate tenderness the common
+sentiment of his countrymen, that the Divine Government was conducted
+through the ministry of subordinate deities or generated gods. But he
+sought earnestly to prevent the presence of these subordinate agents
+from intercepting the clear view of the Supreme God.
+
+The faith of Socrates was not, however, grounded on mere feeling and
+sentiment. He endeavored to place the knowledge of God on a rational
+basis. We can not read the arguments he employed without being convinced
+that he anticipated all the subsequent writers on Natural Theology in
+his treatment of the argument from _special ends_ or _final causes_. We
+venture to abridge the account which is given by Xenophon of the
+conversation with Aristodemus:[481]
+
+[Footnote 480: "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iv. � 16.]
+
+[Footnote 481: Ibid., bk. i. ch. iv.]
+
+"I will now relate the manner in which I once heard Socrates discoursing
+with Aristodemus concerning the Deity; for, observing that he never
+prayed nor sacrificed to the gods, but, on the contrary, ridiculed those
+who did, he said to him:
+
+"'Tell me, Aristodemus, is there any man you admire on account of his
+merits? Aristodemus having answered, 'Many,--'Name some of them, I pray
+you,' said Socrates. 'I admire,' said Aristodemus, 'Homer for his Epic
+poetry, Melanippides for his dithyrambics, Sophocles for his tragedy,
+Polycletus for statuary, and Zeuxis for painting.'
+
+"'But which seemed to you most worthy of admiration, Aristodemus--the
+artist who forms images void of motion and intelligence, or one who has
+skill to produce animals that are endued, not only with activity, but
+understanding?'
+
+"'The latter, there can be no doubt,' replied Aristodemus, 'provided the
+production was not the effect of chance, but of wisdom and contrivance.'
+
+"'But since there are many things, some of which we can easily see the
+use of, while we can not say of others to what purpose they are
+produced, which of these, Aristodemus, do you suppose the work of
+wisdom?'
+
+"'It would seem the most reasonable to affirm it of those whose fitness
+and utility are so evidently apparent,' answered Aristodemus.
+
+"'But it is evidently apparent that He who, at the beginning, made man,
+endued him with senses because they were good for him; eyes wherewith to
+behold what is visible, and ears to hear whatever was heard; for, say,
+Aristodemus, to what purpose should odor be prepared, if the sense of
+smelling had been denied or why the distinction of bitter or sweet, of
+savory or unsavory, unless a palate had been likewise given,
+conveniently placed to arbitrate between them and proclaim the
+difference? Is not that Providence, Aristodemus, in a most eminent
+manner conspicuous, which, because the eye of a man is so delicate in
+its contexture, hath therefore prepared eyelids like doors whereby to
+secure it, which extend of themselves whenever it is needful, and again
+close when sleep approaches? Are not these eyelids provided, as it were,
+with a fence on the edge of them to keep off the wind and guard the eye?
+Even the eyebrow itself is not without its office, but, as a penthouse,
+is prepared to turn off the sweat, which falling from the forehead might
+enter and annoy that no less tender than astonishing part of us. Is it
+not to be admired that the ears should take in sounds of every sort, and
+yet are not too much filled with them? That the fore teeth of the animal
+should be formed in such a manner as is evidently best for cutting, and
+those on the side for grinding it to pieces? That the mouth, through
+which this food is conveyed, should be placed so near the nose and eyes
+as to prevent the passing unnoticed whatever is unfit for
+nourishment?... And canst thou still doubt, Aristodemus, whether a
+_disposition of parts like this should be a work of chance, or of wisdom
+and contrivance_?'
+
+"'I have no longer any doubt,' replied Aristodemus; 'and, indeed, the
+more I consider it, the more evident it appears to me that man must be
+the masterpiece of some great Artificer, carrying along with it infinite
+marks of the love and favor of Him who hath thus formed it.'
+
+"'But, further (unless thou desirest to ask me questions), seeing,
+Aristodemus, thou thyself art conscious of reason and intelligence,
+supposest thou there is no intelligence elsewhere? Thou knowest thy body
+to be a small part of that wide-extended earth thou everywhere
+beholdest; the moisture contained in it thou also knowest to be a
+portion of that mighty mass of waters whereof seas themselves are but a
+part, while the rest of the elements contribute out of their abundance
+to thy formation. It is the _soul_, then, alone, that intellectual part
+of us, which is come to thee by some lucky chance, from I know not
+where. If so, there is no intelligence elsewhere; and we must be forced
+to confess that this stupendous universe, with all the various bodies
+contained therein--equally amazing, whether we consider their magnitude
+or number, whatever their use, whatever their order--all have been
+produced by chance, not by intelligence!'
+
+"'It is with difficulty that I can suppose otherwise,' returned
+Aristodemus; 'for I behold none of those gods whom you speak of as
+framing and governing the world; whereas I see the artists when at their
+work here among us.'
+
+"'Neither yet seest thou thy soul, Aristodemus, which, however, most
+assuredly governs thy body; although it may well seem, by thy manner of
+talking, that it is chance and not reason which governs thee.'
+
+"'I do not despise the gods,' said Aristodemus; 'on the contrary, I
+conceive so highly of their excellency, as to suppose they stand in no
+need of me or of my services.'
+
+"'Thou mistakest the matter,' Aristodemus, 'the great magnificence they
+have shown in their care of thee, so much the more honor and service
+thou owest them.'
+
+"'Be assured,' said Aristodemus, 'if I once could persuade myself the
+gods take care of man, I should want no monitor to remind me of my
+duty.'
+
+"'And canst thou doubt, Aristodemus, if the gods take care of man? Hath
+not the glorious privilege of walking upright been alone bestowed on
+him, whereby he may with the better advantage survey what is around him,
+contemplate with more ease those splendid objects which are above, and
+avoid the numerous ills and inconveniences which would otherwise befall
+him? Other animals, indeed, they have provided with feet; but to man
+they have also given hands, with which he can form many things for use,
+and make himself happier than creatures of any other kind. A tongue hath
+been bestowed on every other animal; but what animal, except man, hath
+the power of forming words with it whereby to explain his thoughts and
+make them intelligible to others? But it is not with respect to the body
+alone that the gods have shown themselves bountiful to man. Their most
+excellent gift is that of a soul they have infused into him, which so
+far surpasses what is elsewhere to be found; for by what animal except
+man is even the existence of the gods discovered, who have produced and
+still uphold in such regular order this beautiful and stupendous frame
+of the universe? What other creature is to be found that can serve and
+adore them?... In thee, Aristodemus, has been joined to a wonderful soul
+a body no less wonderful; and sayest thou, after this, the gods take no
+thought for me? What wouldst thou, then, more to convince thee of their
+care?'
+
+"'I would they should send and inform me,' said Aristodemus, 'what
+things I ought or ought not to do, in like manner as thou sayest they
+frequently do to thee.'"
+
+In reply, Socrates shows that the revelations of God which are made in
+nature, in history, in consciousness, and by oracles, are made _for_ all
+men and _to_ all men. He then concludes with these remarkable words:
+"As, therefore, amongst men we make best trial of the affection and
+gratitude of our neighbor by showing him kindness, and make discovery of
+his wisdom by consulting him in our distress, do thou, in like manner,
+behave towards the gods; and if thou wouldst experience what their
+wisdom and their love, render thyself deserving of some of those divine
+secrets which may not be penetrated by man, and are imparted to those
+alone who consult, who adore, and who obey the Deity. Then shalt thou,
+my Aristodemus, understand _there is a Being whose eye passes through
+all nature, and whose ear is open to every sound; extended to all
+places, extending through all time; and whose bounty and care can know
+no other bounds than those fixed by his own creation_".[482]
+
+[Footnote 482: Lewes's translation, in "Biog. History of Philosophy,"
+pp. 160-165.]
+
+Socrates was no less earnest in his belief in the immortality of the
+soul, and a state of future retribution. He had reverently listened to
+the intuitions of his own soul--the instinctive longings and aspirations
+of his own heart, as a revelation from God. He felt that all the powers
+and susceptibilities of his inward nature were in conscious adaptation
+to the idea of immortality, and that its realization was the appropriate
+destiny of man. He was convinced that a future life was needed to avenge
+the wrongs and reverse the unjust judgments of the present life;[483]
+needed that virtue may receive its meet reward, and the course of
+Providence may have its amplest vindication. He saw this faith reflected
+in the universal convictions of mankind, and the "common traditions" of
+all ages.[484] No one refers more frequently than Socrates to the grand
+old mythologic stories which express this faith; to Minos, and
+Rhadamanthus, and �acus, and Triptolemus, who are "real judges," and
+who, in "the Place of Departed Spirits, administer _justice_."[485] He
+believed that in that future state the pursuit of wisdom would be his
+chief employment, and he anticipated the pleasure of mingling in the
+society of the wise, and good, and great of every age.
+
+[Footnote 483: "Apology," � 32, p. 329 (Whewell's edition).]
+
+[Footnote 484: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 485: "Apology," p. 330.]
+
+Whilst, then, Socrates was not the first to teach the doctrine of
+immortality, because no one could be said to have first _discovered_ it
+any more than to have first discovered the existence of a God, he was
+certainly the first to place it upon a philosophic basis. The Ph�do
+presents the doctrine and the _reasoning_ by which Socrates had elevated
+his mind above the fear of death. Some of the arguments may be purely
+Platonic, the argument especially grounded on "ideas;" still, as a
+whole, it must be regarded as a tolerably correct presentation of the
+manner in which Socrates would prove the immortality of the soul.
+
+In _Ethics_, Socrates was pre-eminently himself. The systematic
+resolution of the whole theory of society into the elementary principle
+of natural law, was peculiar to him. _Justice_ was the cardinal
+principle which must lie at the foundation of all good government. The
+word sophia--_wisdom_--included all excellency in personal morals,
+whether as manifested (reflectively) in the conduct of one's self, or
+(socially) towards others. And _Happiness_, in its purity and
+perfection, can only be found in virtuous action.[486]
+
+[Footnote 486: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp.
+360, 361.]
+
+Socrates left nothing behind him that could with propriety be called a
+_school_. His chief glory is that he inaugurated a new _method_ of
+inquiry, which, in Plato and Aristotle, we shall see applied. He gave a
+new and vital impulse to human thought, which endured for ages; "and he
+left, as an inheritance for humanity, the example of a heroic life
+devoted wholly to the pursuit of truth, and crowned with martyrdom."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_).
+
+THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (_continued_).
+
+PLATO.
+
+
+We have seen that the advent of Socrates marks a new era in the history
+of speculative thought. Greek philosophy, which at first was a
+philosophy of nature, now changes its direction, its character, and its
+method, and becomes a philosophy of mind. This, of course, does not mean
+that now it had mind alone for its object; on the contrary, it tended,
+as indeed philosophy must always tend, to the conception of a rational
+ideal or _intellectual system of the universe_. It started from the
+phenomena of mind, began with the study of human thought, and it made
+the knowledge of mind, of its ideas and laws, the basis of a higher
+philosophy, which should interpret all nature. In other words, it
+proceeded from psychology, through dialectics, to ontology.[487]
+
+[Footnote 487: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 413.]
+
+This new movement we have designated in general terms as the _Socratic
+School_. Not that we are to suppose that, in any technical sense,
+Socrates founded _a_ school. The Academy, the Lyceum, the Stoa, and the
+Garden, were each the chosen resort of distinct philosophic sects, the
+locality of separate schools; but Athens itself, the whole city, was the
+scene of the studies, the conversations, and the labors of Socrates. He
+wandered through the streets absorbed in thought. Sometimes he stood
+still for hours lost in profoundest meditation; at other times he might
+be seen in the market-place, surrounded by a crowd of Athenians, eagerly
+discussing the great questions of the day.
+
+Socrates, then, was not, in the usual sense of the word, a teacher. He
+is not to be found in the Stoa or the Grove, with official aspect,
+expounding a system of doctrine. He is "the garrulous oddity" of the
+streets, putting the most searching and perplexing questions to every
+bystander, and making every man conscious of his ignorance. He delivered
+no lectures; he simply talked. He wrote no books; he only argued: and
+what is usually styled his school must be understood as embracing those
+who attended him in public as listeners and admirers, and who caught his
+spirit, adopted his philosophic _method_, and, in after life, elaborated
+and systematized the ideas they had gathered from him.
+
+Among the regular or the occasional hearers of Socrates were many who
+were little addicted to philosophic speculation. Some were warriors, as
+Nicias and Laches; some statesmen, as Critias and Critobulus; some were
+politicians, in the worst sense of that word, as Glaucon; and some were
+young men of fashion, as Euthydemus and Alcibiades. These were all alike
+delighted with his inimitable irony, his versatility of genius, his
+charming modes of conversation, his adroitness of reply; and they were
+compelled to confess the wisdom and justness of his opinions, and to
+admire the purity and goodness of his life. The magic power which he
+wielded, even over men of dissolute character, is strikingly depicted by
+Alcibiades in his speech at "the Banquet."[488] Of these listeners,
+however, we can not now speak. Our business is with those only who
+imbibed his philosophic spirit, and became the future teachers of
+philosophy. And even of those who, as Euclid of Megara, and Antisthenes
+the Cynic, and Aristippus of Cyrenaica, borrowed somewhat from the
+dialectic of Socrates, we shall say nothing. They left no lasting
+impression upon the current of philosophic thought, because their
+systems were too partial, and narrow, and fragmentary. It is in Plato
+and Aristotle that the true development of the Socratic philosophy is to
+be sought, and in Plato chiefly, as the disciple and friend of Socrates.
+
+[Footnote 488: "Banquet," �� 39, 40.]
+
+Plato (B.C. 430-347) was pre-eminently the pupil of Socrates. He came to
+Socrates when he was but twenty years of age, and remained with him to
+the day of his death.
+
+Diogenes Laertius reports the story of Socrates having dreamed he found
+an unfledged cygnet on his knee. In a few moments it became winged and
+flew away, uttering a sweet sound. The next day a young man came to him
+who was said to reckon Solon among his near ancestors, and who looked,
+through him, to Codrus and the god Poseidon. That young man was Plato,
+and Socrates pronounced him to be the bird he had seen in his
+dream.[489]
+
+[Footnote 489: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. iii.
+ch. vii.]
+
+Some have supposed that this old tradition intimates that Plato departed
+from the method of his master--he became fledged and flew away into the
+air. But we know that Plato did not desert his master whilst he was
+living, and there is no evidence that he abandoned his method after he
+was dead. He was the best expounder and the most rigid observer of the
+Socratic "organon." The influence of Socrates upon the philosophy of
+Plato is everywhere discernible. Plato had been taught by Socrates, that
+beyond the world of sense there is a world of eternal truth, seen by the
+eye of reason alone. He had also learned from him that the eye of reason
+is purified and strengthened by _reflection_, and that to reflect is to
+observe, and analyze, and define, and classify the facts of
+consciousness. Self-reflection, then, he had been taught to regard as
+the key of real knowledge. By a completer induction, a more careful and
+exact analysis, and a more accurate definition, he carried this
+philosophic method forward towards maturity. He sought to solve the
+problem of _being_ by the principles revealed in his own consciousness,
+and in the _ultimate ideas of the reason_ to find the foundation of all
+real knowledge, of all truth, and of all certitude.
+
+Plato was admirably fitted for these sublime investigations by the
+possession of those moral qualities which were so prominent in the
+character of his master. He had that same deep seriousness of spirit,
+that earnestness and rectitude of purpose, that longing after truth,
+that inward sympathy with, and reverence for justice, and purity, and
+goodness, which dwelt in the heart of Socrates, and which constrained
+him to believe in their reality and permanence. He could not endure the
+thought that all ideas of right were arbitrary and factitious, that all
+knowledge was unreal, that truth was a delusion, and certainty a dream.
+The world of sense might be fleeting and delusive, but the voice of
+reason and conscience would not mislead the upright man. The opinions of
+individual men might vary, but the universal consciousness of the race
+could not prevaricate. However conflicting the opinions of men
+concerning beautiful things, right actions, and good sentiments, Plato
+was persuaded there are ideas of Order, and Right, and Good, which are
+universal, unchangeable, and eternal. Untruth, injustice, and wrong may
+endure for a day or two, perhaps for a century or two, but they can not
+always last; they must perish. The _just_ thing and the _true_ thing are
+the only enduring things; these are eternal. Plato had a sublime
+conviction that his mission was to draw the Athenian mind away from the
+fleeting, the transitory, and the uncertain, and lead them to the
+contemplation of an Eternal Truth, an Eternal Justice, an Eternal
+Beauty, all proceeding from and united in an Eternal Being--the ultimate
+agathon--_the Supremely Good_. The knowledge of this "Supreme Good" he
+regarded as the highest science.[490]
+
+[Footnote 490: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xvi. p. 193.]
+
+Added to these moral qualifications, Plato had the further qualification
+of a comprehensive knowledge of all that had been achieved by his
+predecessors. In this regard he had enjoyed advantages superior to those
+of Socrates. Socrates was deficient in erudition, properly so called. He
+had studied men rather than books. His wisdom consisted in an extensive
+_observation_, the results of which he had generalized with more or less
+accuracy. A complete philosophic method demands not only a knowledge of
+contemporaneous opinions and modes of thought, but also a knowledge of
+the succession and development of thought in past ages. Its instrument
+is not simply psychological analysis, but also historical analysis as a
+counterproof.[491] And this erudition Plato supplied. He studied
+carefully the doctrines of the Ionian, Italian, and Eleatic schools.
+Cratylus gave him special instruction in the theories of
+Heraclitus.[492] He secured an intimate acquaintance with the lofty
+speculations of Pythagoras, under Archytas of Tarentum, and in the
+writings of Philolaus, whose books he is said to have purchased. He
+studied the principles of Parmenides under Hermogenes,[493] and he more
+than once speaks of Parmenides in terms of admiration, as one whom he
+had early learned to reverence.[494] He studied mathematics under
+Theodoras, the most eminent geometrician of his day. He travelled in
+Southern Italy, in Sicily, and, in search of a deeper wisdom, he pursued
+his course to Egypt.[495] Enriched by the fruits of all previous
+speculations, he returned to Athens, and devoted the remainder of his
+life to the development of a comprehensive system "which was to combine,
+to conciliate, and to supersede them all."[496] The knowledge he had
+derived from travel, from books, from oral instruction, he fused and
+blended with his own speculations, whilst the Socratic spirit mellowed
+the whole, and gave to it a unity and scientific completeness which has
+excited the admiration and wonder of succeeding ages.[497]
+
+[Footnote 491: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 31.]
+
+[Footnote 492: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 493: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. iii.
+ch. viii. p. 115.]
+
+[Footnote 494: See especially "The�tetus," � 101.]
+
+[Footnote 495: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+147.]
+
+[Footnote 496: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+22.]
+
+[Footnote 497: Encyclop�dia Britannica, article "Plato."]
+
+The question as to _the nature, the sources, and the validity of human
+knowledge_ had attracted general attention previous to the time of
+Socrates and Plato. As the results of this protracted controversy, the
+opinions of philosophers had finally crystallized in two well-defined
+and opposite theories of knowledge.
+
+1. That which reduced all knowledge to the accidental and passively
+receptive quality of the organs of sense and which asserted, as its
+fundamental maxim, that "_Science consists in_
+aisth�sis--_sensation_."[498]
+
+This doctrine had its foundation in the physical philosophy of
+Heraclitus. He had taught that all things are in a perpetual flux and
+change. "Motion gives the appearance of existence and of generation."
+"Nothing _is_, but is always a _becoming"_[499] Material substances are
+perpetually losing their identity, and there is no permanent essence or
+being to be found. Hence Protagoras inferred that truth must vary with
+the ever-varying sensations of the individual. "Man (the individual) is
+the measure of all things." Knowledge is a purely relative thing, and
+every man's opinion is truth for him.[500] The law of right, as
+exemplified in the dominion of a party, is the law of the strongest;
+fluctuating with the accidents of power, and never attaining a permanent
+being. "Whatever a city enacts as appearing just to itself, this also is
+just to the city that enacts it, so long as it continues in force."[501]
+"The just, then, is nothing else but that which is expedient for the
+strongest."[502]
+
+[Footnote 498: "The�tetus," � 23.]
+
+[Footnote 499: Ibid., �� 25, 26.]
+
+[Footnote 500: Ibid., �� 39, 87.]
+
+[Footnote 501: Ibid., � 87.]
+
+[Footnote 502: "Republic," bk. i. ch. xii.]
+
+2. The second theory is that which denies the existence (except as
+phantasms, images, or mere illusions of the mind) of the whole of
+sensible phenomena, and refers all knowledge to the _rational
+apperception of unity_ (to en) _or the One_.
+
+This was the doctrine of the later Eleatics. The world of sense was, to
+Parmenides and Zeno, a blank negation, the _non ens_. The identity of
+thought and existence was the fundamental principle of their philosophy.
+
+      "Thought is the same thing as the cause of thought; For
+      without the thing in which it is announced, You can not find
+      the thought; for there is nothing, nor shall be, Except the
+      existing."[503]
+
+[Footnote 503: Parmenides, quoted in Lewes's "Biog. History of
+Philosophy," p. 54.]
+
+This theory, therefore, denied to man any valid knowledge of the
+external world.
+
+It will at once be apparent to the intelligent reader that the direct
+and natural result of both these theories[504] of knowledge was a
+tendency to universal skepticism. A spirit of utter indifference to
+truth and righteousness was the prevailing spirit of Athenian society.
+That spirit is strikingly exhibited in the speech of Callicles, "the
+shrewd man of the world," in "Gorgias" (�85, 86). Is this new to our
+ears?" My dear Socrates, you talk of _law_. Now the laws, in my
+judgment, are just the work of the weakest and most numerous; in framing
+them they never thought but of themselves and their own interests; they
+never approve or censure except in reference to _this._ Hence it is that
+the cant arises that tyranny is improper and unjust, and to struggle for
+eminence, guilt. Unable to rise themselves, of course they would wish to
+preach liberty and equality. But nature proclaims the law of the
+stronger.... We surround our children from their infancy with
+preposterous prejudices about liberty and justice. The man of sense
+tramples on such impositions, and shows what Nature's justice is.... I
+confess, Socrates, philosophy is a highly amusing study--in moderation,
+and for boys. But protracted too long, it becomes a perfect plague. Your
+philosopher is a complete novice in the life _comme il faut_.... I like
+very well to see a child babble and stammer; there is even a grace about
+it when it becomes his age. But to see a man continue the prattle of the
+child, is absurd. Just so with your philosophy." The consequence of this
+prevalent spirit of universal skepticism was a general laxity of morals.
+The Aleibiades, of the "_Symposium_," is the ideal representative of the
+young aristocracy of Athens. Such was the condition of society
+generally, and such the degeneracy of even the Government itself, that
+Plato impressively declares "that God alone could save the young men of
+his age from ruin."[505]
+
+[Footnote 504: Between these two extreme theories there were offered
+two, apparently less extravagant, accounts of the nature and limits of
+human knowledge--one declaring that "_Science_(real knowledge) _consists
+in right opinion_" (doxa al�th�s), but having no further basis in the
+reason of man ("The�stetus," � 108); and the other affirming that
+"_Science is right opinion with logical explication or definition_"
+(meta loxou, "The�tetus," � 139). A close examination will, however,
+convince us that these are but modifications of the sensational theory.
+The latter forcibly remind us of the system of Locke, who adds
+"reflection" to "sensation," but still maintains that all on "simple
+ideas" are obtained from without, and that these are the only material
+upon which reflection can be exercised. Thus the human mind has no
+criterion of truth within itself, no elements of knowledge which are
+connatural and inborn.]
+
+[Footnote 505: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vii.]
+
+Therefore the grand, the vital, the most urgent question for his times,
+as indeed for all times, was, _What is Truth? What is Right_? In the
+midst of all this variableness and uncertainty of human opinion, is
+there no ground of certainty? Amid all the fluctuations and changes
+around us and within us, is there nothing that is immutable and
+permanent? Have we no ultimate standard of Right? Is there no criterion
+of Truth? Plato believed most confidently there was such a criterion and
+standard. He had learned from Socrates, his master, to cherish an
+unwavering faith in the existence of an Eternal Truth, an Eternal Order,
+an Eternal Good, the knowledge of which is essential to the perfection
+and happiness of man, and which knowledge must therefore be presumed to
+be attainable by man. Henceforth, therefore, the ceaseless effort of
+Plato's life is to attain a standard (krit�rion)[506]--a CRITERION OF
+TRUTH.
+
+[Footnote 506: "The�tetus," � 89.]
+
+At the outset of his philosophic studies, Plato had derived from
+Socrates an important principle, which became the guide of all his
+subsequent inquiries. He had learned from him that the criterion of
+truth must be no longer sought amid the ever-changing phenomena of the
+"sensible world." This had been attempted by the philosophers of the
+Ionian school, and ended in failure and defeat. It must therefore be
+sought in the metaphenomenal--the "intelligible world;" that is, it must
+be sought in the apperceptions of the reason, and not in opinions
+founded on sensation. In other words, he must look _within_. Here, by
+reflection, he could recognize, dimly and imperfectly at first, but
+increasing gradually in clearness and distinctness, two classes of
+cognitions, having essentially distinct and opposite characteristics. He
+found one class that was complex (synkegumenon), changeable (thateron),
+contingent and relative (ta pros ti schesin echonta); the other, simple
+(kex�rismenon), unchangeable (akin�ton), constant (tauton), permanent
+(to on aei), and absolute (anypotheton = aploun). One class that may be
+questioned, the other admitting of no question, because self-evident and
+necessary, and therefore compelling belief. One class grounded on
+sense-perception, the other conceived by reason alone. But whilst the
+reason recognizes, it does not create them. They are not particular and
+individual, but universal. They belong not to the man, but to the race.
+
+He found, then, that there are in all minds certain "principles" which
+are fundamental--principles which lie at the basis of all our cognitions
+of the objective world, and which, as "mental laws," determine all our
+forms of thought; and principles, too, which have this marvellous and
+undeniable character, that they are encountered in the most common
+experiences, and, at the same time, instead of being circumscribed
+within the limits of experience, transcend and govern it--principles
+which are _universal_ in the midst of particular phenomena--_necessary,_
+though mingled with things contingent--to our eyes _infinite_ and
+_absolute_, even when appearing in us the relative and finite beings
+that we are.[507] These first or fundamental principles Plato called
+IDEAS (ideai).
+
+[Footnote 507: Cousin's "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," p. 40.]
+
+In attempting to present to the reader an adequate representation of the
+Platonic Ideas, we shall be under the necessity of anticipating some of
+the results of his Dialectical method before we have expounded that
+method. And, further, in order that it may be properly appreciated by
+the modern student, we shall avail ourselves of the lights which modern
+psychology, faithful to the method of Plato, has thrown upon the
+subject. Whilst, however, we admit that modern psychology has succeeded
+in giving more definiteness and precision to the "doctrine of Ideas," we
+shall find that all that is fundamentally valuable and true was present
+to the mind of Plato. Whatever superiority the "Spiritual" philosophy of
+to-day may have over the philosophy of past ages, it has attained that
+superiority by its adherence to the principles and method of Plato.
+
+In order to the completeness of our preliminary exposition of the
+Platonic doctrine of Ideas, we shall conditionally assume, as a natural
+and legitimate hypothesis, the doctrine so earnestly asserted by Plato,
+that the visible universe, at least in its present form, is an _effect_
+which must have had a _cause_,[508] and that the Order, and Beauty, and
+Excellence of the universe are the result of the presence and operation
+of a "regulating Intelligence"--a _Supreme Mind_.[509] Now that,
+anterior to the creation of the universe, there must have existed in the
+Eternal Mind certain fundamental principles of Order, Right, and Good,
+will not be denied. Every conceivable _form_, every possible _relation_,
+every principle of _right_, must have been eternally present to the
+Divine thought. As pure intelligence, the Deity must have always been
+self-conscious--must have known himself as substance and cause, as the
+Infinite and Perfect. If then the Divine Energy is put forth in creative
+acts, that energy must obey those eternal principles of Order, Right,
+and Good. If the Deity operate at all, he must operate rightly, wisely,
+and well. The created universe must be an _image_, in the sphere of
+sense, of the ideas which inhere in the reason of the great First Cause.
+
+[Footnote 508: "Tim�us," ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 509: "Ph�do," � 105.]
+
+"Let us declare," says Plato, "with what _motive_ the Creator hath
+formed nature and the universe. He was _good_, and in the good no manner
+of envy can, on any subject, possibly subsist. Exempt from envy, he had
+wished that all things should, as far as possible, _resemble
+himself_.... It was not, and is not to be allowed for the Supremely Good
+to do any thing except what is most _excellent_ (kalliston)--most
+_fair_, most _beautiful_."[510] Therefore, argues Plato, "inasmuch as
+the world is the most beautiful of things, and its artificer the best of
+causes, it is evident that the Creator and Father of the universe looked
+to the _Eternal Model_(paradeigma), pattern, or plan,"[511] which lay in
+his own mind. And thus this one, only-generated universe, is the _image_
+(eik�n) of that God who is the object of the intellect, the greatest,
+the best, and the most perfect Being.[512]
+
+[Footnote 510: "Tim�us," ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 511: Ibid., ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 512: "Tim�us," ch. lxxiii.]
+
+And then, furthermore, if this Supreme Intelligence, this Eternal Mind,
+shall create another _mind_, it must, in a still higher degree, resemble
+him. Inasmuch as it is a rational nature, it must, in a peculiar sense,
+partake of the Divine characteristics. "The soul," says Plato, "is that
+which most partakes of the _Divine_"[513] The soul must, therefore, have
+native _ideas_ and sentiments which correlate it with the Divine
+original. The ideas of substance and cause, of unity and identity, of
+the infinite and perfect, must be mirrored there. As it is the
+"offspring of God,"[514] it must bear some traces and lineaments of its
+Divine parentage. That soul must be configured and correlated to those
+principles of Order, Right, and Good which dwell in the Eternal Mind.
+And because it has within itself the same ideas and laws, according to
+which the great Architect built the universe, therefore it is capable of
+knowing, and, in some degree, of comprehending, the intellectual system
+of the universe. It apprehends the external world by a light which the
+reason supplies. It interprets nature according to principles and laws
+which God has inwrought within the very essence of the soul. "That which
+imparts truth to knowable things, and gives the knower his power of
+knowing truth, is the _idea of the good_, and you are to conceive of
+this as the source of knowledge and of truth."[515]
+
+[Footnote 513: "Laws," bk. v. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 514: Ibid., bk. x.]
+
+[Footnote 515: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xviii.]
+
+And now we are prepared to form a clear conception of the Platonic
+doctrine of Ideas. Viewed in their relation to the Eternal Reason, as
+giving the primordial thought and law of all being, these principles are
+simply eid� auta kath auta--_ideas in themselves_--the essential
+qualities or attributes of Him who is the supreme and ultimate Cause of
+all existence. When regarded as before the Divine imagination, giving
+definite forms and relations, they are the tupoi, the paradeigmata--_the
+types_, _models, patterns, ideals_ according to which the universe was
+fashioned. Contemplated in their actual embodiment in the laws, and
+typical forms of the material world, they are eikones--_images_ of the
+eternal perfections of God. The world of sense pictures the world of
+reason by a participation (methexis) of the ideas. And viewed as
+interwoven in the very texture and framework of the soul, they are
+omoi�mata--copies of the Divine Ideas which are the primordial laws of
+knowing, thinking, and reasoning. Ideas are thus the nexus of relation
+between God and the visible universe, and between the human and the
+Divine reason.[516] There is something divine in the world, and in the
+human soul, namely, _the eternal laws and reasons of things_, mingled
+with the endless diversity and change of sensible phenomena. These ideas
+are "the light of the intelligible world;" they render the invisible
+world of real Being perceptible to the reason of man. "Light is the
+offspring of the Good, which the Good has produced in his own likeness.
+Light in the visible world is what the _idea of the Good_ is in the
+intelligible world. And this offspring of the Good--light--has the same
+relation to vision and visible things which the Good has to intellect
+and intelligible things."[517]
+
+[Footnote 516: "Now, Idea is, as regards God, a mental operation by him
+(the notions of God, eternal and perfect in themselves); as regards us,
+the first things perceptible by mind; as regards Matter, a standard; but
+as regards the world, perceptible by sense, a pattern; but as considered
+with reference to itself, an existence."--Alcinous, "Introduction to the
+Doctrines of Plato," p. 261.
+
+"What general notions are to our minds, he (Plato) held, ideas are to
+the Supreme Reason (nous basileus); they are the eternal thoughts of the
+Divine Intellect, and we attain truth when our thoughts conform with
+His--when our general notions are in conformity with the
+ideas."--Thompson, "Laws of Thought," p. 119.]
+
+[Footnote 517: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xix.]
+
+_Science_ is, then, according to Plato, _the knowledge of universal,
+necessary, unchangeable, and eternal ideas_. The simple cognition of the
+concrete phenomena of the universe is not regarded by him as _real_
+knowledge. "Science, or real knowledge, belongs to _Being_, and
+ignorance to _non_-Being." Whilst that which is conversant only "with
+that which partakes of both--of being and non-being--and which can not
+be said either to be or not to be"--that which is perpetually
+"becoming," but never "really is," is "simply _opinion_, and not real
+knowledge."[518] And those only are "philosophers" who have a knowledge
+of the _really-existing_, in opposition to the mere seeming; of the
+_always-existing_, in opposition to the transitory; and of that which
+exists _permanently_, in opposition to that which waxes and wanes--is
+developed and destroyed alternately. "Those who recognize many beautiful
+things, but who can not see the Beautiful itself, and can not even
+follow those who would lead them to it, they _opine_, but do not _know_.
+And the same may be said of those who recognize right actions, but do
+not recognize an absolute righteousness. And so of other ideas. But they
+who look at these ideas--permanent and unchangeable ideas--these men
+_really know_."[519] Those are the true philosophers alone who love the
+sight of truth, and who have attained to the vision of the eternal
+order, and righteousness, and beauty, and goodness in the Eternal Being.
+And the means by which the soul is raised to this vision of real Being
+(to ont�s on) is THE SCIENCE OF REAL KNOWLEDGE.
+
+Plato, in the "The�tetus," puts this question by the interlocutor
+Socrates, "What is Science (Epist�m�) or positive knowledge?"[520]
+The�tetus essays a variety of answers, such as, "Science is sensation,"
+"Science is right judgment or opinion," "Science is right opinion with
+logical definition." These, in the estimation of the Platonic Socrates,
+are all unsatisfactory and inadequate. But after you have toiled to the
+end of this remarkable discussion, in which Socrates demolishes all the
+then received theories of knowledge, he gives you no answer of his own.
+He abruptly closes the discussion by na�vely remarking that, at any
+rate, The�tetus will learn that he does not understand the subject; and
+the ground is now cleared for an original investigation.
+
+[Footnote 518: "Republic," bk. v. ch. xx.]
+
+[Footnote 519: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxii.]
+
+[Footnote 520: "The�tetus," � 10.]
+
+This investigation is resumed in the "Republic." This greatest work of
+Plato's was designed not only to exhibit a scheme of Polity, and present
+a system of Ethics, but also, at least in its digressions, to propound a
+system of Metaphysics more complete and solid than had yet appeared. The
+discussion as to the _powers_ or _faculties_ by which we obtain
+knowledge, the _method_ or _process_ by which real knowledge is
+attained, and the ultimate _objects_ or _ontological grounds_ of all
+real knowledge, commences at � 18, book v., and extends to the end of
+book vii.
+
+That we may reach a comprehensive view of this "sublimest of sciences,"
+we shall find it necessary to consider--
+
+1st. _What are the powers or faculties by which we obtain knowledge, and
+what are the limits and degrees of human knowledge?_
+
+2d. _What is the method in which, or the processes and laws according to
+which, the mind operates in obtaining knowledge?_
+
+3d. _What are the ultimate results attained by this method? what are the
+objective and ontological grounds of all real knowledge?_
+
+The answer to the first question will give the PLATONIC PSYCHOLOGY; the
+answer to the second will exhibit the PLATONIC DIALECTIC; the answer to
+the last will reveal the PLATONIC ONTOLOGY.
+
+I. PLATONIC PSYCHOLOGY.
+
+Every successful inquiry as to the reality and validity of human
+knowledge must commence by clearly determining, by rigid analysis, what
+are the actual phenomena presented in consciousness, what are the powers
+or faculties supposed by these phenomena, and what reliance are we to
+place upon the testimony of these faculties? And, especially, if it be
+asserted that there is a science of absolute Reality, of ultimate and
+essential Being, then the most important and vital question is, By what
+power do we cognize real Being? through what faculty do we obtain the
+knowledge of that which absolutely _is_? If by sensation we only obtain
+the knowledge of the fleeting and the transitory, "_the becoming_" how
+do we attain to the knowledge of the unchangeable and permanent, "the
+_Being_?" Have we a faculty of universal, necessary, and eternal
+principles? Have we a faculty, an interior eye which beholds "_the
+intelligible_," ideal, spiritual world, as the eye of sense beholds the
+visible or "_sensible world_?"[521]
+
+Plato commences this inquiry by first defining his understanding of the
+word dynamis--_power_ or _faculty_. "We will say _faculties_ (dynameis)
+are a certain kind of real existences by which we can do whatever we are
+able (_e.g._, to know), as there are powers by which every thing does
+what it does: the eye has a _power_ of seeing; the ear has a _power_ of
+hearing. But these powers (of which I now speak) have no color or figure
+to which I can so refer that I can distinguish one power from another.
+_In order to make such distinction, I must look at the power itself, and
+see what it is, and what it does. In that way I discern the power of
+each thing, and that is the same power which produces the same effect,
+and that is a different power which produces a different effect_."[522]
+That which is employed about, and accomplishes one and the same purpose,
+this Plato calls a _faculty_.
+
+[Footnote 521: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xviii.]
+
+[Footnote 522: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxi.]
+
+We have seen that our first conceptions (_i.e._, first in the order of
+time) are of the mingled, the concrete (to synkechymenon), "the
+multiplicity of things to which the multitude ascribe beauty, etc.[523]
+The mind "contemplates what is great and small, not as distinct from
+each other, but as confused.[524] Prior to the discipline of
+_reflection_, men are curious about mere sights and sounds, love
+beautiful voices, beautiful colors, beautiful forms, but their
+intelligence can not see, can not embrace, the essential nature of the
+Beautiful itself.[525] Man's condition previous to the education of
+philosophy is vividly presented in Plato's simile of the cave.[526] He
+beholds only the images and shadows of the ectypal world, which are but
+dim and distant adumbrations of the real and archetypal world.
+
+Primarily nothing is given in the abstract (to keg�rismenon), but every
+thing in the concrete. The primary faculties of the mind enter into
+action spontaneously and simultaneously; all our primary notions are
+consequently synthetic. When reflection is applied to this primary
+totality of consciousness, that is, when we analyze our notions, we find
+them composed of diverse and opposite elements, some of which are
+variable, contingent, individual, and relative, others are permanent,
+unchangeable, universal, necessary, and absolute. Now these elements, so
+diverse, so opposite, can not have been obtained from the same source;
+they must be supplied by separate powers. "Can any man with common sense
+reduce under one what _is infallible_, and what is _not
+infallible?_"[527] Can that which is "_perpetually becoming_" be
+apprehended by the same faculty as that which "_always is?_"[528] Most
+assuredly not.
+
+[Footnote 523: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxii.]
+
+[Footnote 524: Ibid., bk. vii. ch. viii.]
+
+[Footnote 525: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xx.]
+
+[Footnote 526: Ibid., bk. vii. ch. i., ii.]
+
+[Footnote 527: "Republic," bk. v. ch. xxi.]
+
+[Footnote 528: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxii.; also "Tim�us," � 9.]
+
+These primitive intuitions--the simple perceptions of sense, and the _�
+priori_ intuitions of the reason, which constitute the elements of all
+our complex notions, have essentially _diverse objects_--the sensible or
+ectypal world, seen by the eye and touched by the hand, which Plato
+calls doxast�n--_the subject of opinion_; and the noetic or archetypal
+world, perceived by reason, and which he calls dianontik�n--_the subject
+of rational intuition or science_. "It is plain," therefore, argues
+Plato, "that _opinion_ is a different thing from _science_. They must,
+therefore, have a different _faculty_ in reference to a different
+object--science as regards that which _is_, so as to know the nature of
+real _being_--opinion as regards that which can not be said absolutely
+to be, or not to be. That which is known and that which is opined can
+not possibly be the same,... since they are naturally faculties of
+different things, and both of them are faculties--_opinion_ and
+_science_, and each of them different from the other."[529] Here then
+are two grand divisions of the mental powers--a faculty of apprehending
+universal and necessary Truth, of intuitively beholding absolute
+Reality, and a faculty of perceiving sensible objects, and of judging
+according to appearance.
+
+[Footnote 529: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxi., xxii.]
+
+According to the scheme of Plato, these two general divisions of the
+mental powers are capable of a further subdivision. He says: Consider
+that there are two kinds of things, the _intelligible_ and the
+_visible_; two different regions, the intelligible world and the
+sensible world. Now take a line divided into two equal segments to
+represent these two regions, and again divide each segment in the same
+ratio--both that of the visible and that of the intelligible species.
+The parts of each segment are to represent differences of clearness and
+indistinctness. In the visible world the parts are _things_ and
+_images_. By _images_ I mean shadows,[530] reflections in water and in
+polished bodies, and all such like representations; and by _things_ I
+mean that of which images are resemblances, as animals, plants, and
+things made by man.
+
+You allow that this difference corresponds to the difference of
+_knowledge_ and _opinion_; and the _opinionable_ is to the _knowable_ as
+the _image_ to the _reality_.[531]
+
+[Footnote 530: As in the simile of the cave ("Republic," bk. vii. ch. i.
+and ii.).]
+
+[Footnote 531: The analogy between the "images produced by reflections
+in water and on polished surfaces" and "the images of external objects
+produced in the mind by sensation" is more fully presented in the
+"Tim�us," ch. 19.
+
+The eye is a light-bearer, "made of that part of elemental fire which
+does not burn, but sheds a mild light, like the light of day.... When
+the light of the day meets the light which beams from the eye, then
+light meets like, and make a homogeneous body; the external light
+meeting the internal light, in the direction in which the eye looks. And
+by this homogeneity like feels like; and if this beam touches any
+object, or any object touches it, it transmits the motions through the
+body to the soul, and produces that sensation which we call _seeing_....
+And if (in sleep) some of the strong motions remain in some part of the
+frame, they produce within us likenesses of external objects,... and
+thus give rise to dreams.... As to the images produced by mirrors and by
+smooth surfaces, they are now easily explained, for all such phenomena
+result from the mutual affinity of the external and internal fires. The
+light that proceeds from the face (as an object of vision), and the
+light that proceeds from the eye, become one continuous ray on the
+smooth surface."]
+
+Now we have to divide the segment which represents intelligible things
+in this way: The one part represents the knowledge which the mind gets
+by using things as images--the other; that which it has by dealing with
+the ideas themselves; the one part that which it gets by reasoning
+downward from principles--the other, the principles themselves; the one
+part, truth which depends on hypotheses--the other, unhypothetical or
+absolute truth.
+
+Thus, to explain a problem in geometry, the geometers make certain
+hypotheses (namely, definitions and postulates) about numbers and
+angles, and the like, and reason from them--giving no reason for their
+assumptions, but taking them as evident to all; and, reasoning from
+them, they prove the propositions which they have in view. And in such
+reasonings, they use visible figures or diagrams--to reason about a
+square, for instance, with its diagonals; but these reasonings are not
+really about these visible figures, but about the mental figures, and
+which they conceive in thought.
+
+The diagrams which they draw, being visible, are the images of thoughts
+which the geometer has in his mind, and these images he uses in his
+reasoning. There may be images of these images--shadows and reflections
+in water, as of other visible things; but still these diagrams are only
+images of conceptions.
+
+This, then, is _one_ kind of intelligible things: _conceptions_--for
+instance, geometrical conceptions of figures. But in dealing with these
+the mind depends upon assumptions, and does not ascend to first
+principles. It does not ascend above these assumptions, but uses images
+borrowed from a lower region (the visible world), these images being
+chosen so as to be as distinct as may be.
+
+Now the _other_ kind of intelligible things is this: that which the
+_Reason_ includes, in virtue of its power of reasoning, when it regards
+the assumptions of the sciences as (what they are) assumptions only, and
+uses them as occasions and starting-points, that from these it may
+ascend to the _Absolute_, which does not depend upon assumption, the
+origin of scientific truth.
+
+_The reason takes hold of this first principle of truth_, and availing
+itself of all the connections and relations of this principle, it
+proceeds to the conclusion--using no sensible image in doing this, but
+contemplates the _idea alone_; and with these ideas the process begins,
+goes on, and terminates.
+
+"I apprehend," said Glaucon, "but not very clearly, for the matter is
+somewhat abstruse. _You wish to prove that the knowledge which by the
+reason, in an intuitive manner, we may acquire of real existence and
+intelligible things is of a higher degree of certainty than the
+knowledge which belongs to what are commonly called the Sciences_. Such
+sciences, you say, have certain assumptions for their basis; and these
+assumptions are by the student of such sciences apprehended not by
+sense, but by a mental operation--by conception.
+
+"But inasmuch as such students ascend no higher than assumptions, and do
+not go to the first principles of truth, they do not seem to have true
+knowledge, intellectual insight, intuitive reason, on the subjects of
+their reasonings, though the subjects are intelligible things. And you
+call this habit and practice of the geometers and others by the name of
+JUDGMENT (dianoia), not reason, or insight, or intuition--taking
+judgment to be something between opinion, on the one side, and intuitive
+reason, on the other.
+
+"You have explained it well," said I. "And now consider these four kinds
+of things we have spoken of, as corresponding to four affections (or
+faculties) of the mind. INTUITIVE REASON (no�sis), the highest; JUDGMENT
+(dianoia)(or _discursive reason_), the next; the third, BELIEF (pistis);
+and the fourth, CONJECTURE, or _guess_ (eikasia); and arrange them in
+order, so that they may be held to have more or less certainty, as their
+objects have more or less truth."[532] The completeness, and even
+accuracy of this classification of all the objects of human cognition,
+and of the corresponding mental powers, will be seen at once by studying
+the diagram proposed by Plato, as figured on the opposite page.
+
+[Footnote 532: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xx. and xxi.]
+
+PLATONIC SCHEME OF THE OBJECTS OF COGNITION, AND THE RELATIVE MENTAL POWERS
+___________________________________________________________________________
+            |                                 |
+            | VISIBLE WORLD                   | INTELLIGIBLE WORLD
+            | (the object of Opinion--doxa).  |(the object of Knowledge or
+            |                                 | Science--ipytt�m�).
+            |_________________________________|____________________________
+            |                |                |              |
+            | Things.        | Images.        | Intuitions.  | Conceptions.
+____________|________________|________________|______________|_____________
+
+And may be thus further expanded:
+___________________________________________________________________________
+            |                                 |
+            | VISIBLE WORLD.                  |   INTELLIGIBLE WORLD.
+____________|_________________________________|____________________________
+            |                |                |             |
+            | Things         | Images         | Ideas       | Conceptions
+OBJECT      |                |                |             |
+            | zoa. k. t. l.  | icones.        | ideai.      | dueno�mata.
+____________|________________|________________|_____________|______________
+            |                |                |             |
+            | Belief.        | Conjecture.    | Intuition.  |Demonstration.
+PROCESS     |                |                |             |
+            | piotis.        | eikasia.       | no�sis.     | ipisi�i�.
+____________|________________|________________|_____________|______________
+            |                |                |             |
+            | SENSATION.     | PHANTASY.      | INTUITIVE   | DISCURSIVE
+FACULTY     |                |                |   REASON.   |    REASON.
+            | aisth�sis.     | phantasia.     | nous.       | logos.
+____________|________________|________________|_____________|______________
+            |                |                |             |
+MODERN      | SENSE.         | IMAGINATION.   | REASON.     | JUDGMENT.
+NOMENCLATURE|Presentative    |Representative  |Regulative   | Logical
+            | Faculty.       | Faculty        | Faculty.    |    Faculty.
+____________|________________|________________|_____________|______________
+            |                                 |
+            | MEMORY.                         | REMINISCENCE
+            | mn�m�.                          |   anam�sis.
+            | The Conservative Faculty--      | The Reproductive Faculty--
+            | "the preserver of sensation"    |"the recollection of the
+            | (sot�ria aisin, se�s.) [533]    | things which the soul
+            |                                 | saw (in Eternity) when
+            |                                 | journeying in the train of
+            |                                 | the Deity."[534]
+            |[Footnote 533: "Philebus," � 67] | [Footnote 534: Ph�drus,
+            |                                 |                     � 62.]
+____________|_________________________________|____________________________
+
+
+The foregoing diagram, borrowed from Whewell, with some modifications
+and additions we have ventured to make, exhibits a perfect view of the
+Platonic scheme of the _cognitive powers_--the faculties by which the
+mind attains to different degrees of knowledge, "having more or less
+certainty, as their objects have more or less truth."[535]
+
+1st. SENSATION (aisth�sis).--This term is employed by Plato to denote
+the passive mental states or affections which are produced within us by
+external objects through the medium of the vital organization, and also
+the cognition or vital perception or consciousness[536] which the mind
+has of these mental states.
+
+2d. PHANTASY (phantasia).--This term is employed to describe the power
+which the mind possesses of imagining or representing whatever has once
+been the object of sensation. This may be done involuntarily as "in
+dreams, disease, and hallucination,"[537] or voluntarily, as in
+reminiscence. Phantasmata are the images, the life-pictures (zograph�na)
+of sensible things which are present to the mind, even when no external
+object is present to the sense.
+
+[Footnote 535: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xix.]
+
+[Footnote 536: "In Greek philosophy there was no term for
+'consciousness' until the decline of philosophy, and in the latter ages
+of the language. Plato and Aristotle, to say nothing of other
+philosophers, had no special term to express the knowledge which the
+mind has of the operation of its own faculties, though this, of course,
+was necessarily a frequent matter of consideration. Intellect was
+supposed by them to be cognizant of its own operations.... In his
+'The�tetus' Plato accords to sense the power of perceiving that it
+perceives."--Hamilton's "Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 198 (Eng. ed.).]
+
+[Footnote 537: "The�tetus," � 39.]
+
+The conjoint action of these two powers results in what Plato calls
+_opinion_ (doxa). "Opinion is the complication of memory and sensation.
+For when we meet for the first time with a thing perceptible by a sense,
+and a sensation is produced by it, and from this sensation a memory, and
+we subsequently meet again with the same thing perceived by a sense, we
+combine the memory previously brought into action with the sensation
+produced a second time, and we say within ourselves [this is] Socrates,
+or a horse, or fire, or whatever thing there may be of such a kind. Now
+this is called _opinion_, through our combining the recollection brought
+previously into action with the sensation recently produced. And when
+these, placed along each other, agree, a true opinion is produced; but
+when they swerve from each other, a false one."[538] The dixa of Plato,
+therefore answers to the experience, or the _empirical knowledge_ of
+modern philosophy, which is concerned only with appearances (phenomena),
+and not with absolute realities, and can not be elevated to the dignity
+of _science_ or real knowledge.
+
+We are not from hence to infer that Plato intended to deny all reality
+whatever to the objects of sensible experience. These transitory
+phenomena were not real existences, but they were _images_ of real
+existences. The world itself is but the image, in the sphere of sense,
+of those ideas of Order, and Proportion, and Harmony, which dwell in the
+Divine Intellect, and are mirrored in the soul of man. "Time itself is a
+moving image of Eternity."[539] But inasmuch as the immediate object of
+sense-perception is a representative image generated in the vital
+organism, and all empirical cognitions are mere "conjectures" (eikasiai)
+founded on representative images, they need to be certified by a higher
+faculty, which immediately apprehends real Being (to on). Of things, as
+they are in themselves, the senses give us no knowledge; all that in
+sensation we are conscious of is certain affections of the mind
+(pathos); the existence of self, or the perceiving subject, and a
+something external to self, a perceived object, are revealed to us, not
+by the senses, but by the reason.
+
+[Footnote 538: Alcinous, "Introduction to the Doctrine of Plato," p.
+247.]
+
+[Footnote 539: "Tim�us," � 14.]
+
+3d. JUDGMENT (dianoia, logos), _the Discursive Faculty, or the Faculty
+of Relations_.--According to Plato, this faculty proceeds on the
+assumption of certain principles as true, without inquiring into their
+validity, and reasons, by deduction, to the conclusions which
+necessarily flow from these principles. These assumptions Plato calls
+hypotheses (ypotheseis). But by hypotheses he does not mean baseless
+assumptions--"mere theories--"but things self-evident and "obvious to
+all;"[540] as for example, the postulates and definitions of Geometry.
+"After laying down hypotheses of the odd and even, and three kinds of
+angles [right, acute, and obtuse], and figures [as the triangle, square,
+circle, and the like], he _proceeds on them as known, and gives no
+further reason about them_, and reasons downward from these
+principles,"[541] affirming certain judgments as consequences deducible
+therefrom.
+
+[Footnote 540: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xx.]
+
+[Footnote 541: Ibid., bk. vi. ch. xx.]
+
+All judgments are therefore founded on _relations_. To judge is to
+compare two terms. "Every judgment has three parts: the subject, or
+notion about which the judgment is; the predicate, or notion with which
+the subject is compared; and the copula, or nexus, which expresses the
+connection or relation between them.[542] Every act of affirmative
+judgment asserts the agreement of the predicate and subject; every act
+of negative judgment asserts the predicate and subject do not agree. All
+judgment is thus an attempt to reduce to unity two cognitions, and
+reasoning (logizesthai) is simply the extension of this process. When we
+look at two straight lines of equal length, we do not merely think of
+them separately as _this_ straight line, and _that_ straight line, but
+they are immediately connected together by a comparison which takes
+place in the mind. We perceive that these two lines are alike; they are
+of equal length, and they are both straight; and the connection which is
+perceived as existing between them is a _relation of sameness or
+identity._[543] When we observe any change occurring in nature, as, for
+example, the melting of wax in the presence of heat, the mind recognizes
+a causal efficiency in the fire to produce that change, and the relation
+now apprehended is a _relation of cause and effect_[544] But the
+fundamental principles, the necessary ideas which lie at the basis of
+all the judgments (as the ideas of space and time, of unity and
+identity, of substance and cause, of the infinite and perfect) are not
+given by the judgment, but by the "highest faculty"--"the _Intuitive
+Reason_,[545] which is, for us, the source of all unhypothetical and
+absolute knowledge.
+
+[Footnote 542: Thompson's "Laws of Thought," p. 134.]
+
+[Footnote 543: "Ph�do," �� 50-57, 62.]
+
+[Footnote 544: "Tim�us," ch. ix.; "Sophocles," � 109.]
+
+[Footnote 545: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xxi.]
+
+The knowledge, therefore, which is furnished by the Discursive Reason,
+Plato does not regard as "real Science." "It is something between
+Opinion on the one hand, and Intuition on the other."[546]
+
+[Footnote 546: Ibid., bk. vi. ch. xxi.]
+
+4th. REASON (nous)--_Intuitive Reason_, is the organ of self-evident,
+necessary, and universal Truth. In an immediate, direct, and intuitive
+manner, it takes hold on truth with absolute certainty. The reason,
+through the medium of _ideas_, holds communion with the world of real
+Being. These ideas are the _light_ which reveals the world of unseen
+realities, as the sun reveals the world of sensible forms. "_The idea of
+the good_ is the _sun_ of the Intelligible World; it sheds on objects
+the light of truth, and gives to the soul that knows, the power of
+knowing."[547] Under this light, the eye of reason apprehends the
+eternal world of being as truly, yes more truly, than the eye of sense
+apprehends the world of phenomena. This power the rational soul
+possesses by virtue of its having a nature kindred, or even homogeneous
+with the Divinity. It was "generated by the Divine Father," and, like
+him, it is in a certain sense "_eternal_."[548] Not that we are to
+understand Plato as teaching that the rational soul had an independent
+and underived existence; it was created or "generated" in eternity,[549]
+and even now, in its incorporate state, is not amenable to the
+conditions of time and space, but, in a peculiar sense, dwells in
+eternity; and therefore is capable of beholding eternal realities, and
+coming into communion with absolute beauty, and goodness, and
+truth--that is, with God, the _Absolute Being_.
+
+[Footnote 547: Ibid., bk. vi. ch. xix.; see also ch. xviii.]
+
+[Footnote 548: The reader must familiarize himself with the Platonic
+notion of _"eternity" as a fixed state out of time existing
+contemporaneous with one in time_, to appreciate the doctrine of Plato
+as stated above. If we regard his idea of eternity as merely an
+indefinite extension of time, with a past, a present, and a future, we
+can offer no rational interpretation of his doctrine of the eternal
+nature of the rational essence of the soul. An eternal nature
+"generated" in a "past" or "present" time is a contradiction. But that
+was not Plato's conception of "eternity," as the reader will discover on
+perusing the "Tim�us" (ch. xiv.). "God resolved to create a moving image
+of eternity, and out of that eternity which reposes in its own
+_unchangeable unity_ he framed an eternal image moving according to
+numerical succession, which we call _Time_. Nothing can be more
+inaccurate than to apply the terms, _past, present, future_, to real
+Being, which is immovable. Past and future are expressions only suitable
+to generation which proceeds through time." Time reposes on the bosom of
+eternity, as all bodies are in space.]
+
+[Footnote 549: "Tim�us," ch. xvi., and "Ph�drus," where the soul is
+pronounced arch� de agen�ton.]
+
+Thus the soul (psych�) as a composite nature is on one side linked to
+the eternal world, its essence being generated of that ineffable element
+which constitutes the real, the immutable, and the permanent. It is a
+beam of the eternal Sun, a spark of the Divinity, an emanation from God.
+On the other side it is linked to the phenomenal or sensible world, its
+emotive part[550] being formed of that which is relative and phenomenal.
+The soul of man thus stands midway between the eternal and the
+contingent, the real and the phenomenal, and as such, it is the mediator
+between, and the interpreter of, both.
+
+[Footnote 550: thymeides, the seat of the nobler--epithym�tikon, the
+seat of the baser passions.]
+
+In the allegory of the "Chariot and Winged Steeds"[551] Plato represents
+the lower or inferior part of man's nature as dragging the soul down to
+the earth, and subjecting it to the slavery and debasement of corporeal
+conditions. Out of these conditions there arise numerous evils that
+disorder the mind and becloud the reason, for evil is inherent to the
+condition of finite and multiform being into which we have "fallen by
+our own fault." The present earthly life is a fall and a punishment. The
+soul is now dwelling in "the grave we call the body." In its incorporate
+state, and previous to the discipline of education, the rational element
+is "asleep." "Life is more of a dream than a reality." Men are utterly
+the slaves of sense, the sport of phantoms and illusions. We now
+resemble those "captives chained in a subterraneous cave," so poetically
+described in the seventh book of the "Republic;" their backs are turned
+to the light, and consequently they see but the shadows of the objects
+which pass behind them, and they "attribute to these shadows a perfect
+reality." Their sojourn upon earth is thus a dark imprisonment in the
+body, a dreamy exile from their proper home. "Nevertheless these pale
+fugitive shadows suffice to revive in us the reminiscence of that higher
+world we once inhabited, if we have not absolutely given the reins to
+the impetuous untamed horse which in Platonic symbolism represents the
+emotive sensuous nature of man." The soul has some dim and shadowy
+recollection of its ante-natal state of bliss, and some instinctive and
+proleptic yearnings for its return.
+
+[Footnote 551: "Ph�drus," � 54-62.]
+
+     "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
+     The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
+       Has had elsewhere its setting,
+       And cometh from afar,
+       Not in entire forgetfulness,
+       And not in utter nakedness,
+     But trailing clouds of glory, do we come
+     From God, who is our home."[552]
+
+[Footnote 552: Wordsworth, "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality," vol.
+v.]
+
+Exiled from the true home of the spirit, imprisoned in the body,
+disordered by passion, and beclouded by sense, the soul has yet longings
+after that state of perfect knowledge, and purity, and bliss, in which
+it was first created. Its affinities are still on high. It yearns for a
+higher and nobler form of life. It essays to rise, but its eye is
+darkened by sense, its wings are besmeared by passion and lust; it is
+"borne downward, until at length it falls upon and attaches itself to
+that which is material and sensual," and it flounders and grovels still
+amid the objects of sense.
+
+And now, with all that seriousness and earnestness of spirit which is
+peculiarly Christian, Plato asks how the soul may be delivered from the
+illusions of sense, the distempering influence of the body, and the
+disturbances of passion, which becloud its vision of the real, the good,
+and the true?
+
+Plato believed and hoped this could be accomplished by _philosophy_.
+This he regarded as a grand intellectual discipline for the purification
+of the soul. By this it was to be disenthralled from the bondage of
+sense[553] and raised into the empyrean of pure thought "where truth and
+reality shine forth." All souls have the faculty of knowing, but it is
+only by reflection, and self-knowledge, and intellectual discipline,
+that the soul can be raised to the vision of eternal truth, goodness,
+and beauty--that is, to the vision of God. And this intellectual
+discipline was the _Platonic Dialectic_.
+
+[Footnote 553: Not, however, fully in this life. The consummation of the
+intellectual struggle into "the intelligible world" is death. The
+intellectual discipline was therefore melet� thanatou, _a preparation
+for death_.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_.)
+
+THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (_continued_).
+
+PLATO.
+
+
+II. THE PLATONIC DIALECTIC.
+
+The Platonic Dialectic is the Science of Eternal and Immutable
+Principles, and the _method_ (organon) by which these first principles
+are brought forward into the clear light of consciousness. The student
+of Plato will have discovered that he makes no distinction between logic
+and metaphysics. These are closely united in the one science to which he
+gives the name of "_Dialectic_" and which was at once the science of the
+ideas and laws of the Reason, and of the mental process by which the
+knowledge of Real Being is attained, and a ground of absolute certainty
+is found. This science has, in modern times, been called _Primordial_ or
+_Transcendental Logic_.
+
+We have seen that Plato taught that the human reason is originally in
+possession of fundamental and necessary ideas--the copies of the
+archetypal ideas which dwell in the eternal Reason; and that these ideas
+are the primordial laws of thought--that is, they are the laws under
+which we conceive of all objective things, and reason concerning all
+existence. These ideas, he held, are not derived from sensation, neither
+are they generalizations from experience, but they are inborn and
+connatural. And, further, he entertained the belief, more, however, as a
+reasonable hypothesis[554] than as a demonstrable truth, that these
+standard principles were acquired by the soul in a pre-existent state in
+which it stood face to face with ideas of eternal order, beauty,
+goodness, and truth.[555] "Journeying with the Deity," the soul
+contemplated justice, wisdom, science--not that science which is
+concerned with change, and which appears under a different manifestation
+in different objects, which we choose to call beings; but such science
+as is in that which alone is indeed _being_.[556] Ideas, therefore,
+belong to, and inhere in, that portion of the soul which is properly
+ousia--_essence_ or _being_; which had an existence anterior to time,
+and even now has no relation to time, because it is now in
+eternity--that is, in a sphere of being to which past, present, and
+future can have no relation.[557]
+
+[Footnote 554: Within "the eikot�n myth�n idea--the category of
+probability."--"Ph�do."]
+
+[Footnote 555: "Ph�do," � 50-56.]
+
+[Footnote 556: "Ph�drus," � 58.]
+
+[Footnote 557: See note on p. 349.]
+
+All knowledge of truth and reality is, therefore, according to Plato, a
+REMINISCENCE (anamn�sis)--a recovery of partially forgotten ideas which
+the soul possessed in another state of existence; and the _dialectic_ of
+Plato is simply the effort, by apt _interrogation_, to lead the mind to
+"_recollect_"[558] the truth which has been formerly perceived by it,
+and is even now in the memory though not in consciousness. An
+illustration of this method is attempted in the "_Meno_" where Plato
+introduces Socrates as making an experiment on the mind of an uneducated
+person. Socrates puts a series of questions to a slave of Meno, and at
+length elicits from the youth a right enunciation of a geometrical
+truth. Socrates then points triumphantly to this instance, and bids Meno
+observe that he had not taught the youth any thing, but simply
+interrogated him as to his opinions, whilst the youth had recalled the
+knowledge previously existing in his own mind.[559]
+
+[Footnote 558: "To learn is to recover our own previous knowledge, and
+this is properly to _recollect._"--"Ph�do" � 55.]
+
+[Footnote 559: "Meno," � 16-20. "Now for a person to recover knowledge
+himself through himself, is not this to _recollect_."]
+
+Now whilst we readily grant that the instance given in the "_Meno_" does
+not sustain the inference of Plato that "the boy" had learnt these
+geometrical truths "in eternity," and that they had simply been brought
+forward into the view of his consciousness by the "questioning" of
+Socrates, yet it certainly does prove that _there are ideas or
+principles in the human reason which are not derived from without--which
+are anterior to all experience, and for the development of which,
+experience furnishes the occasion, but is not the origin and source_. By
+a kind of lofty inspiration, he caught sight of that most important
+doctrine of modern philosophy, so clearly and logically presented by
+Kant, _that the Reason is the source of a pure_ � priori _knowledge_--a
+knowledge native to, and potentially in the mind, antecedent to all
+experience, and which is simply brought out into the field of
+consciousness by experience conditions. Around this greatest of all
+metaphysical truths Plato threw a gorgeous mythic dress, and presented
+it under the most picturesque imagery.[560] But, when divested of the
+rich coloring which the glowing imagination of Plato threw over it, it
+is but a vivid presentation of the cardinal truth that _there are ideas
+in the mind which have not been derived from without_, and which,
+therefore, the mind brought with it into the present sphere of being.
+The validity and value of this fundamental doctrine, even as presented
+by Plato, is unaffected by any speculations in which he may have
+indulged, as to the pre-existence of the soul. He simply regarded this
+doctrine of pre-existence as highly probable--a plausible explanation of
+the facts. That there are ideas, innate and connatural to the human
+mind, he clung to as the most vital, most precious, most certain of all
+truths; and to lead man to the recognitions of these ideas, to bring
+them within the field of consciousness, was, in his judgment, the great
+business of philosophy.
+
+And this was the grand aim of his _Dialectic_--to elicit, to bring to
+light the truths which are already in the mind--"a maieusis" a kind of
+intellectual midwifery[561]--a delivering of the mind of the ideas with
+which it was pregnant.
+
+[Footnote 560: As in the "Ph�do," �� 48-57; "Ph�drus," �� 52-64;
+"Republic," bk. x.]
+
+[Footnote 561: "The�tetus," �� 17-20.]
+
+It is thus, at first sight, obvious that it was a higher and more
+comprehensive science than the art of deduction. For it was directed to
+the discovery and establishment of First Principles. Its sole object was
+the discovery of truth. His dialectic was an _analytical_ and _inductive
+method_. "In Dialectic Science," says _Alcinous_, "there is a dividing
+and a defining, and an analyzing, and, moreover, that which is inductive
+and syllogistic."[562] Even _Bacon_, who is usually styled "the Father
+of the Inductive method," and who, too often, speaks disparagingly of
+Plato, is constrained to admit that he followed the inductive method.
+"An induction such as will be of advantage for the invention and
+demonstration of Arts and Sciences must distinguish the essential nature
+of things (naturam) by proper rejections and exclusions, and then after
+as many of these negatives as are sufficient, by comprising, above all
+(super), the positives. Up to this time this had not been done, nor even
+attempted, _except by Plato alone, who, in order to attain his
+definitions and ideas, has used, to a certain extent, the method of
+Induction_."[563]
+
+[Footnote 562: "Introduction to the Doctrines of Plato," vol. vi. p.
+249. "The Platonic Method was the method of induction."--Cousin's
+"History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 307.]
+
+[Footnote 563: "Novum Organum," vol. i. p. 105.]
+
+The process of investigation adopted by Plato thus corresponds with the
+inductive method of modern times, with this simple difference, that
+Bacon conducted science into the world of _matter_, whilst Plato
+directed it to the world of _mind_. The dialectic of Plato aimed at the
+discovery of the "laws of thought;" the modern inductive philosophy aims
+at the discovery of the "laws of nature." The latter concerns itself
+chiefly with the inquiry after the "causes" of material phenomena; the
+former concerned itself with the inquiry after the "first principles" of
+all knowledge and of all existence. Both processes are, therefore,
+carried on by _interrogation_. The analysis which seeks for a law of
+nature proceeds by the interrogation of nature. The analysis of Plato
+proceeds by the interrogation of mind, in order to discover the
+fundamental _ideas_ which lie at the basis of all cognition, which
+determine all our processes of thought, and which, in their final
+analysis, reveal the REAL BEING, which is the ground and explanation of
+all existence.
+
+Now the fact that such an inquiry has originated in the human mind, and
+that it can not rest satisfied without some solution, is conclusive
+evidence that the mind has an instinctive belief, a proleptic
+anticipation, that such knowledge can be attained. There must
+unquestionably be some mental initiative which is the _motive_ and
+_guide_ to all philosophical inquiry. We must have some well-grounded
+conviction, some _� priori_ belief, some pre-cognition "ad intentionem
+ejus quod qu�ritur,"[564] which determines the direction of our
+thinking. The mind does not go to work aimlessly; it asks a specific
+question; it demands the "_whence_" and the "_why_" of that which is.
+Neither does it go to work unfurnished with any guiding principles. That
+which impels the mind to a determinate act of thinking is the possession
+of a _knowledge_ which is different from, and independent of, the
+process of thinking itself. "A rational anticipation is, then, the
+ground of the _prudens qu�stio_--"the forethought query, which, in
+fact, is the prior half of the knowledge sought."[565] If the mind
+inquire after "laws," and "causes," and "reasons," and "grounds,"--the
+first principles of all knowledge and of all existence,--"it must have
+the _� priori_ ideas of "law," and "cause," and "reason," and "being _in
+se"_ which, though dimly revealed to the mind previous to the discipline
+of reflection, are yet unconsciously governing its spontaneous modes of
+thought. The whole process of induction has, then, some rational ground
+to proceed upon--some principles deeper than science, and more certain
+than demonstration, which reason contains within itself, and which
+induction "draws out" into clearer light.
+
+[Footnote 564: Bacon.]
+
+[Footnote 565: Coleridge, vol. ii. p. 413.]
+
+Now this mental initiative of every process of induction is the
+intuitive and necessary conviction _that there must be a sufficient
+reason why every thing exists, and why it is as it is, and not
+otherwise_;[566] or in other words, if any thing begins to be, some
+thing else must be supposed[567] as the ground, and reason, and cause,
+and law of its existence. This "_law of sufficient_ (or _determinant)
+reason_"[568] is the fundamental principle of all metaphysical inquiry.
+It is contained, at least in a negative form, in that famous maxim of
+ancient philosophy, "_De nihilo nihil_"--"Adynaton ginestai ti ek
+m�denos prouparxontos." "It is impossible for a real entity to be made
+or generated from nothing pre-existing;" or in other words, "nothing can
+be made or produced without an efficient cause."[569] This principle is
+also distinctly announced by Plato: "Whatever is generated, is
+necessarily generated from a certain aitian"--_ground, reason_, or
+_cause_; "for it is wholly impossible that any thing should be generated
+without a cause."[570]
+
+[Footnote 566: "Ph�do," � 103.]
+
+[Footnote 567: _Suppono_, to place under as a support, to take as a
+ground.]
+
+[Footnote 568: This generic principle, viewed under different relations,
+gives--
+
+     1st. _The principle of Substance_--every quality supposes a subject
+       or real being.
+
+     2d. _The principle of Causality_--every thing which begins to be
+       must have a cause.
+
+     3d. _The principle of Law_--every phenomenon must obey some uniform
+       law.
+
+     4th. _The principle of Final Cause_--every means supposes an end,
+       every existence has a purpose or reason why.
+
+     5th. _The principle of Unity_--all plurality supposes a unity as
+       its basis and ground.]
+
+[Footnote 569: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. ii. p. 161.]
+
+[Footnote 570: "Tim�us," ch. ix.]
+
+The first business of Plato's dialectic is to demonstrate that the
+ground and reason of all existence can not be found in the mere objects
+of sense, nor in any opinions or judgments founded upon sensation.
+Principles are only so far "first principles" as they are permanent and
+unchangeable, depending on neither time, nor place, nor circumstances.
+But the objects of sense are in ceaseless flux and change; they are
+"_always becoming_;" they can not be said to have any "_real being_."
+They are not to-day what they were yesterday, and they will never again
+be what they are now; consequently all opinions founded on mere
+phenomena are equally fluctuating and uncertain. Setting out, therefore,
+from the assumption of the fallaciousness of "_opinion_" it examined the
+various hypotheses which had been bequeathed by previous schools of
+philosophy, or were now offered by contemporaneous speculators, and
+showed they were utterly inadequate to the solution of the problem. This
+scrutiny consisted in searching for the ground of "contradiction"[571]
+with regard to each opinion founded on sensation, and showing that
+opposite views were equally tenable. It inquired on what ground these
+opinions were maintained, and what consequences flowed therefrom, and it
+showed that the grounds upon which "opinion" was founded, and the
+conclusions which were drawn from it, were contradictory, and
+consequently untrue.[572] "They," the Dialecticians, "examined the
+opinions of men as if they were error; and bringing them together by a
+reasoning process to the same point, they placed them by the side of
+each other: and by so placing, they showed that _the opinions are at one
+and the same time contrary to themselves, about the same things, with
+reference to the same circumstances, and according to the same
+premises_."[573] And inasmuch as the same attribute can not, at the same
+time, be affirmed and denied of the same subject,[574] therefore a thing
+can not be at once "changeable" and "unchangeable," "movable" and
+"immovable," "generated" and "eternal."[575] The objects of sense,
+however generalized and classified, can only give the contingent, the
+relative, and the finite; therefore the permanent ground and sufficient
+reason of all phenomenal existence can not be found in opinions and
+judgments founded upon sensation.
+
+[Footnote 571: "The Dialectitian is one who syllogistically infers the
+contradictions implied in popular opinions."--Aristotle, "Sophist," ��
+1, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 572: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xiii.]
+
+[Footnote 573: "Sophist," � 33; "Republic," bk. iv. ch. xii.]
+
+[Footnote 574: See the "Ph�do," � 119, and "Republic," bk. iv. ch.
+xiii., where the Law of Non-contradiction is announced.]
+
+[Footnote 575 "Parmenides," � 3.]
+
+The dialectic process thus consisted almost entirely of
+_refutation_,[576] or what both he and Aristotle denominated _elenchus_
+(elenchos)--a process of reasoning by which the contradictory of a given
+proposition is inferred. "When refutation had done its utmost, and all
+the points of difficulty and objection had been fully brought out, the
+dialectic method had accomplished its purpose; and the affirmation which
+remained, after this discussion, might be regarded as setting forth the
+truth of the question under consideration;"[577] or in other words,
+_when a system of error is destroyed by refutation, the contradictory
+opposite principle, with its logical developments, must be accepted as
+an established truth_.
+
+[Footnote 576: Confutation is the greatest and chiefest of
+purification.--"Sophist," � 34.]
+
+[Footnote 577: Article "Plato," Encyclop�dia Britannica.]
+
+By the application of this method, Plato had not only exposed the
+insufficiency and self-contradiction of all results obtained by a mere
+_� posteriori_ generalization of the simple facts of experience, but he
+demonstrated, as a consequence, that we are in possession of some
+elements of knowledge which have not been derived from sensation; that
+there are, in all minds, certain notions, principles, or ideas, which
+have been furnished by a higher faculty than sense; and that these
+notions, principles, or ideas, transcend the limits of experience, and
+reveal the knowledge of _real being_--to ont�s on--_Being in se_.
+
+To determine what these principles or ideas are, Plato now addresses
+himself to the _analysis of thought_. "It is the glory of Plato to have
+borne the light of analysis into the most obscure and inmost region; he
+searched out what, in this totality which forms consciousness, is the
+province of reason; what comes from it, and not from the imagination and
+the senses--from within, and not from without."[578] Now to analyze is
+to decompose, that is, to divide, and to define, in order to see better
+that which really is. The chief logical instruments of the dialectic
+method are, therefore, _Division_ and _Definition_. "The being able to
+_divide_ according to genera, and not to consider the same species as
+different, nor a different as the same,"[579] and "to see under one
+aspect, and bring together under one general idea, many things scattered
+in various places, that, by _defining_ each, a person may make it clear
+what the subject is," is, according to Plato, "dialectical."[580]
+
+[Footnote 578: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 328.]
+
+[Footnote 579: "Sophist," � 83.]
+
+[Footnote 580: "Ph�drus," �� 109, 111.]
+
+We have already seen that, in his first efforts at applying reflection
+to the concrete phenomena of consciousness, Plato had recognized two
+distinct classes of cognitions, marked by characteristics essentially
+opposite;--one of "_sensible_" objects having a definite outline, limit,
+and figure, and capable of being imaged and represented to the mind in a
+determinate form--the other of "_intelligible_" objects, which can not
+be outlined or represented in the memory or the imagination by any
+figures or images, and are, therefore, the objects of purely rational
+conception. He found, also, that we arrive at one class of cognitions
+"_mediately_" through images generated in the vital organism, or by some
+testimony, definition, or explication of others; whilst we arrive at the
+other class "_immediately_" by simple intuition, or rational
+apperception. The mind stands face to face with the object, and gazes
+directly upon it. The reality of that object is revealed in its own
+light, and we find it impossible to refuse our assent--that is, it is
+_self-evident_. One class consisted of _contingent_ ideas--that is,
+their objects are conceived as existing, with the possibility, without
+any contradiction, of conceiving of their non-existence; the other
+consisted of _necessary_ ideas--their objects are conceived as existing
+with the absolute impossibility of conceiving of their non-existence.
+Thus we can conceive of this book, this table, this earth, as not
+existing, but we can not conceive the non-existence of space. We can
+conceive of succession in time as not existing, but we can not, in
+thought, annihilate duration. We can imagine this or that particular
+thing not to have been, but we can not conceive of the extinction of
+Being in itself. He further observed, that one class of our cognitions
+are _conditional_ ideas; the existence of their objects is conceived
+only on the supposition of some antecedent existence, as for example,
+the idea of qualities, phenomena, events; whilst the other class of
+cognitions are _unconditional_ and _absolute_--we can conceive of their
+objects as existing independently and unconditionally--existing whether
+any thing else does or does not exist, as space, duration, the infinite,
+Being _in se_. And, finally, whilst some ideas appear in us as
+_particular_ and _individual_, determined and modified by our own
+personality and liberty, there are others which are, in the fullest
+sense, _universal_. They are not the creations of our own minds, and
+they can not be changed by our own volitions. They depend upon neither
+times, nor places, nor circumstances; they are common to all minds, in
+all times, and in all places. These ideas are the witnesses in our
+inmost being that there is something beyond us, and above us; and beyond
+and above all the contingent and fugitive phenomena around us. Beneath
+all changes there is a _permanent_ being. Beyond all finite and
+conditional existance there is something _unconditional_ and _absolute_.
+Having determined that there are truths which are independent of our own
+minds--truths which are not individual, but universal--truths which
+would be truths even if our minds did not perceive them, we are led
+onward to a _super-sensual_ and super-natural ground, on which they
+rest.
+
+To reach this objective reality on which the ideas of reason repose, is
+the grand effort of Plato's dialectic. He seeks, by a rigid analysis,
+clearly to _separate_, and accurately to _define_ the _� priori_
+conceptions of reason. And it was only when he had eliminated every
+element which is particular, contingent, and relative, and had defined
+the results in precise and accurate language, that he regarded the
+process as complete. The ideas which are self-evident, universal, and
+necessary, were then clearly disengaged, and raised to their pure and
+absolute form. "You call the man dialectical who requires a reason of
+the essence or being of each thing. As the dialectical man can define
+the essence of every thing, so can he of the good. He can _define_ the
+idea of the good, _separating_ it from all others--follow it through all
+windings, as in a battle, resolved to mark it, not according to opinion,
+but according to science."[581]
+
+[Footnote 581: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xiv.]
+
+_Abstraction_ is thus the process, the instrument of the Platonic
+dialectic. It is important, however, that we should distinguish between
+the method of _comparative_ abstraction, as employed in physical
+inquiry, and that _immediate_ abstraction, which is the special
+instrument of philosophy. The former proceeds by comparison and
+generalization, the latter by simple separation. The one yields a
+contingent general principle as the result of the comparison of a number
+of individual cases, the other gives an universal and necessary
+principle by the analysis of a single concrete fact. As an illustration
+we may instance "the principle of causality." To enable us to affirm
+"that every event must have a cause," we do not need to compare and
+generalize a great number of events. "The principle which compels us to
+pronounce the judgment is already complete in the first as in the last
+event; it can change in regard to its object, it can not change in
+itself; it neither increases nor decreases with the greater or less
+number of applications."[582] In the presence of a single event, the
+universality and necessity of this principle of causality is recognized
+with just as much clearness and certainty as in the presence of a
+million events, however carefully generalized.
+
+[Footnote 582: Cousin's "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," pp. 57,
+58.]
+
+Abstraction, then, it will be seen, creates nothing; neither does it add
+any new element to the store of actual cognitions already possessed by
+all human minds. It simply brings forward into a clearer and more
+definite recognition, that which necessarily belongs to the mind as part
+of its latent furniture, and which, as a law of thought, has always
+unconsciously governed all its spontaneous movements. As a process of
+rational inquiry, it was needful to bring the mind into intelligible and
+conscious communion with the world of _Ideas_. These ideas are partially
+revealed in the sensible world, all things being formed, as Plato
+believed, according to ideas as models and exemplars, of which sensible
+objects are the copies. They are more fully manifested in the
+constitution of the human mind which, by virtue of its kindred nature
+with the original essence or being, must know them intuitively and
+immediately. And they are brought out fully by the dialectic process,
+which disengages them from all that is individual and phenomenal, and
+sets them forth in their pure and absolute form.
+
+But whilst Plato has certainly exhibited the true method of
+investigation by which the ideas of reason are to be separated from all
+concrete phenomena and set clearly before the mind, he has not attempted
+a complete enumeration of the ideas of reason; indeed, such an
+enumeration is still the grand desideratum of philosophy. We can not
+fail, however, in the careful study of his writings, to recognize the
+grand Triad of Absolute Ideas--ideas which Cousin, after Plato, has so
+fully exhibited, viz., the _True_, the _Beautiful_, and the _Good_.
+
+PLATONIC SCHEME OF IDEAS
+
+I. _The idea of_ ABSOLUTE TRUTH or REALITY (to al�thes--to on)--the
+ground and efficient cause of all existence, and by participating in
+which all phenomenal existence has only so far a reality, sensible
+things being merely shadows and resemblances of ideas. This idea is
+developed in the human intelligence in its relation with the phenomenal
+world; as,
+
+1. _The idea of_ SUBSTANCE (ousia)--the ground of all phenomena, "the
+being or essence of all things," the permanent reality.--"Tim�eus," ch.
+ix. and xii.; "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xiv.; "Ph�do,"�� 63-67, 73.
+
+2. _The idea of_ CAUSE (aitia)--the power or efficiency by which things
+that "become," or begin to be, are generated or produced.--"Tim�us," ch.
+ix.; "Sophist," � 109; "Philebus," �� 45, 46.
+
+3. _The idea of_ IDENTITY (auto to ison)--that which "does not change,"
+"is always the same, simple and uniform, incomposite and
+indissoluble,"--that which constitutes personality or
+self-hood.--"Ph�do," �� 61-75; "Tim�us," ch. ix.; "Republic," bk. ii.
+ch. xix. and xx.
+
+4. _The idea of_ UNITY (to en)--one _mind_ or intelligence pervading the
+universe, the comprehensive conscious _thought_ or _plan_ which binds
+all parts of the universe in one great whole (to pan)--the principle of
+_order_.--"Tim�us," ch. xi. and xv.; "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xiii.;
+"Philebus," �� 50-51.
+
+5. _The idea of the_ INFINITE (to apeiron)--that which is unlimited and
+unconditioned, "has no parts, bounds, no beginning, nor middle, nor
+end."--"Parmenides," �� 22, 23.
+
+II. _The idea of_ ABSOLUTE BEAUTY (to kalon)--the formal cause of the
+universe, and by participation in which all created things have only so
+far a real beauty.--"Tim�us," ch. xi, "Greater Hippias," �� 17, 18;
+"Republic," bk. v. ch. 22.
+
+This idea is developed in the human intelligence in its relation to the
+organic world; as,
+
+      1. _The Idea of_ PROPORTION or SYMMETRY (symmetria)--the
+      proper relation of parts to an organic whole resulting in a
+      harmony (cosmos), and which relation admits of mathematical
+      expression.--"Tim�us," ch. lxix.; "Philebus," � 155
+      ("Tim�us," ch. xi. and xii., where the relation of numerical
+      proportions to material elements is expounded).
+
+      2. _The idea of_ DETERMINATE FORM (paradeigma
+      archetypos)--the eternal models or archetypes according to
+      which all things are framed, and which admit of geometrical
+      representation.--"Tim�us," ch. ix.; "Ph�do," �112 ("Tim�us,"
+      ch. xxviii.-xxxi., where the relation of geometrical forms
+      to material elements is exhibited).
+
+      3. _The idea of_ RHYTHM (rythmos)--measured movement in time
+      and space, resulting in melody and grace.--"Republic," bk.
+      iii. ch. xi. and xii.; "Philebus," � 21.
+
+      4. _The idea of_ FITNESS or ADAPTATION
+      (chr�simon)--effectiveness to some purpose or end.--"Greater
+      Hippias," � 35.
+
+      5. _The idea of_ PERFECTION (teleiot�s)--that which is
+      complete, "a structure which is whole and finished--of whole
+      and perfect parts."--"Tim�us," ch. xi., xii., and xliii.
+
+
+III. _The idea of_ ABSOLUTE GOOD (to agathon)--the final _cause_ or
+_reason_ of all existence, the sun of the invisible world, that pours
+upon all things the revealing light of truth.
+
+The first Good[583] (_summum bonum_) is God the highest, and Mind or
+Intelligence (nous), which renders man capable of knowing and resembling
+God. The second flows from the first, and are virtues of mind. They are
+good by a participation of the chief good, and constitute in man a
+likeness or _resemblance_ to God.--"Ph�do," ��110-114; "Laws," bk. i.
+ch. vi., bk. iv. ch. viii.; "The�tetus," �� 84, 85; "Republic," bk. vi.
+ch. xix., bk. vii. ch. iii., bk. x. ch. xii.[584]
+
+[Footnote 583: "Let us declare, then, on what account the framing
+Artificer settled the formation of the universe. He was GOOD;" and being
+good, "he desired that all things should as much as possible resemble
+himself."--"Tim�us," ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 584: "At the utmost bounds of the intellectual world is the
+_idea of the Good_, perceived with difficulty, but which, once seen,
+makes itself known as the cause of all that is beautiful and good; which
+in the visible world produces light, and the orb that gives it; and
+which in the invisible world directly produces Truth and
+Intelligence."--"Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.]
+
+This idea is developed in the human intelligence in its relation to the
+world of moral order; as,
+
+1. _The idea of_ WISDOM or PRUDENCE (phron�sis)--thoughtfulness,
+rightness of intention, following the guidance of reason, the right
+direction of the energy or will.--"Republic," bk. iv. ch. vii., bk. vi.
+ch. ii.
+
+2. _The idea of_ COURAGE or FORTITUDE (andria)--zeal, energy, firmness
+in the maintenance of honor and right, virtuous indignation against
+wrong.--"Republic," bk. iv. ch. viii.; "Laches;" "Meno," � 24.
+
+3. _The idea of_ SELF-CONTROL or TEMPERANCE
+(sophrosyn�)--sound-mindedness, moderation, dignity.--"Republic," bk.
+iv. ch. ix.; "Meno," � 24; "Ph�do," � 35.
+
+4. _The idea of_ JUSTICE (dikalosyn�)--the harmony or perfect
+proportional action of all the powers of the soul.--"Republic," bk. i.
+ch. vi., bk. iv. ch. x.-xii., bk. vi. ch. ii. and xvi.; "Philebus," �
+155; "Ph�do," � 54; "The�tetus," �� 84, 85.
+
+Plato's idea of Justice comprehends--
+
+(1) EQUITY (isot�s)--the rendering to every man his due.--"Republic,"
+bk. i. ch. vi.
+
+(2.) VERACITY (al�pheia)--the utterance of what is true.--"Republic,"
+bk. i. ch. v., bk. ii. ch. xx., bk. vi. ch. ii.
+
+(3.) FAITHFULNESS (pistot�s)--the strict performance of a
+trust.--"Republic," bk. i. ch. v., bk. vi. ch. ii.
+
+(4.) USEFULNESS (�pheltmon)--the answering of some valuable
+end.--"Republic," bk. ii. ch. xviii., bk. iv. ch. xviii.; "Meno," � 22.
+
+(5.) BENEVOLENCE (eunoia)--seeking the well-being of
+others.--"Republic," bk. i. ch. xvii., bk. ii. ch. xviii.
+
+(6.) HOLINESS (osiot�s)--purity of mind, piety.--"Protagoras," �� 52-54;
+"Ph�do," � 32; "The�tetus," � 84.
+
+The final effort of Plato's Dialectic was to ascend from these ideas of
+Absolute Truth, and Absolute Beauty, and Absolute Goodness to the
+_Absolute Being_, in whom they are all united, and from whom they all
+proceed. "He who possesses the true love of science is naturally carried
+in his aspirations to the _real Being_; and his love, so far from
+suffering itself to be retarded by the multitude of things whose reality
+is only apparent, knows no repose until it have arrived at union with
+the _essence_ of each object, by the part of the soul which is akin to
+the permanent and essential; so that this divine conjunction having
+produced intelligence and truth, the knowledge of _being_ is won."[585]
+
+[Footnote 585: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. v.]
+
+To the mind of Plato, there was in every thing, even the smallest and
+most insignificant of sensible objects, a _reality_ just in so far as it
+participates in some archetypal form or idea. These archetypal forms or
+ideas are the "_thoughts of God_"[586]--they are the plan according to
+which he framed the universe. "The Creator and Father of the universe
+looked to an _eternal model_.... Being thus generated, the universe is
+framed according to principles that can be comprehended by reason and
+reflection."[587] Plato, also, regarded all individual conceptions of
+the mind as hypothetical notions which have in them an _� priori_
+element--an idea which is unchangeable, universal, and necessary. These
+unchangeable, universal, and necessary ideas are copies of the Divine
+Ideas, which are, for man, the primordial laws of all cognition, and all
+reasoning. They are possessed by the soul "in virtue of its kindred
+nature to that which is permanent, unchangeable, and eternal." He also
+believed that every archetypal form, and every _� priori_ idea, has its
+ground and root in a higher idea, which is _unhypothetical_ and
+_absolute_--an idea which needs no other supposition for its
+explanation, and which is, itself, needful to the explanation of all
+existence--even the idea of an _absolute_ and _perfect Being_, in whose
+mind the ideas of absolute truth, and beauty, and goodness inhere, and
+in whose eternity they can only be regarded as eternal.[588] Thus do the
+"ideas of reason" not only cast a bridge across the abyss that separates
+the sensible and the ideal world, but they also carry us beyond the
+limits of our personal consciousness, and discover to us a realm of real
+Being, which is the foundation, and cause, and explanation of the
+phenomenal world that appears around us and within us.
+
+[Footnote 586: Alcinous, "Doctrines of Plato," p. 262.]
+
+[Footnote 587: "Tim�us," ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 588: Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 149.]
+
+This passage from psychology to ontology is not achieved _per saltum_,
+or effected by any arbitrary or unwarrantable assumption. There are
+principles revealed in the centre of our consciousness, whose regular
+development carry us beyond the limits of consciousness, and attain to
+the knowledge of actual being. The absolute principles of _causality_
+and _substance_, of _intentionality_ and _unity_, unquestionably give us
+the absolute Being. Indeed the absolute truth _that every idea supposes
+a being in which it resides_, and which is but another form of the law
+or principle of substance, viz., _that every quality supposes a
+substance or being in which it inheres_, is adequate to carry us from
+Idea to Being. "There is not a single cognition which does not suggest
+to us the notion of existence, and there is not an unconditional and
+absolute truth which does not necessarily imply an absolute and
+unconditional Being."[589]
+
+[Footnote 589: Cousin's "Elements of Psychology," p. 506.]
+
+This, then, is the dialectic of Plato. Instead of losing himself amid
+the endless variety of particular phenomena, he would search for
+principles and laws, and from thence ascend to the great Legislator, the
+_First Principle of all Principles_. Instead of stopping at the
+relations of sensible objects to the general ideas with which they are
+commingled, he will pass to their _eternal Paradigms_--from the just
+thing to the idea of absolute justice, from the particular good to the
+absolute good, from beautiful things to the absolute beauty, and thence
+to the ultimate reality--_the absolute Being_. By the realization of the
+lower idea, embodied in the forms of the visible universe and in the
+necessary laws of thought, he sought to rise to the higher idea, in its
+pure and abstract form--the _Supreme Idea_, containing in itself all
+other ideas--the _One Intelligence_ which unites the universe in a
+harmonious whole. "The Dialectic faculty proceeds from hypothesis to an
+unhypothetical principle.... It uses hypotheses as steps, and
+starting-points, in order to proceed from thence to the _absolute_. The
+Intuitive Reason takes hold of the First Principle of the Universe, and
+avails itself of all the connections and relations of that principle. It
+ascends from idea to idea, until it has reached the Supreme Idea"--the
+_Absolute Good_--that is, _God_.[590]
+
+[Footnote 590: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xx. and xxi.]
+
+We are thus brought, in the course of our examination of the Platonic
+method, to the _results_ obtained by this method--or, in other words, to
+
+III. THE PLATONIC ONTOLOGY.
+
+The grand object of all philosophic inquiry in ancient Greece was to
+attain to the knowledge of real Being--that Being which is permanent,
+unchangeable, and eternal. It had proceeded on the intuitive conviction,
+that beneath all the endless diversity of the universe there must be a
+principle of _unity_--below all fleeting appearances there must be a
+permanent _substance_--beyond all this everlasting flow and change, this
+beginning and end of finite existence, there must be an eternal Being,
+which is the _cause_, and which contains, in itself, the _reason_ of the
+order, and harmony, and beauty, and excellency which pervades the
+universe. And it had perpetually asked what is this permanent,
+unchangeable, and eternal substance or being?
+
+Plato had assiduously labored at the solution of this problem. The
+object of his dialectic was "to lead upward the soul to the knowledge of
+real being,"[591] and the conclusions to which he attained may be summed
+up as follows:
+
+1st. _Beneath all_ SENSIBLE _phenomena there is an unchangeable
+subject-matter, the mysterious substratum of the world of sense, which
+he calls the receptacle (ipodoch�) the nurse (tith�n�) of all that is
+produced_.[592]
+
+It is this "substratum or physical groundwork" which gives a reality and
+definiteness to the evanescent phantoms of sense, for, in their
+ceaseless change, _they_ can not justify any title whatever. It alone
+can be styled "_this_" or "_that_" (tode or touto); they rise no higher
+than "_of such kind_" or "_of what kind or quality" (toiouton or
+opoionoun ti).[593] It is not earth, or air, or fire, or water, but "an
+invisible _species_ and formless universal receiver, which, in the most
+obscure way, receives the immanence of the intelligible."[594] And in
+relation to the other two principles (_i.e._, ideas and objects of
+sense), "it is _the mother_" to the father and the offspring.[595] But
+perhaps the most remarkable passage is that in which he seems to
+identify it with _pure space_, which, "itself imperishable, furnishes a
+_seat_ (edran) to all that is produced, not apprehensible by direct
+perception, but caught by a certain spurious reasoning, scarcely
+admissible, but which we see as in a dream; gaining it by that judgment
+which pronounces it necessary that all which is, be _somewhere_, and
+occupy a _certain space_."[596] This, it will be seen, approaches the
+Cartesian doctrine, which resolves matter into _simple extension.[597]
+
+[Footnote 591: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xii. and xiii.]
+
+[Footnote 592: "Tim�us," ch. xxii.]
+
+[Footnote 593: "Tim�us," ch. xxiii.]
+
+[Footnote 594: Ibid., ch. xxiv.]
+
+[Footnote 595: Ibid., ch. xxiv.]
+
+[Footnote 596: Ibid., ch. xxvi.]
+
+[Footnote 597: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+171.]
+
+It should, however, be distinctly noted that Plato does not use the word
+yl�--matter. This term is first employed by Aristotle to express "the
+substance which is the subject of all changes."[598] The subject or
+substratum of which Plato speaks, would seem to be rather a logical than
+a material entity. It is the _condition or supposition_ necessary for
+the production of a world of phenomena. It is thus the
+_transition-element_ between the real and the apparent, the eternal and
+the contingent; and, lying thus on the border of both territories, we
+must not be surprised that it can hardly be characterized by any
+definite attribute.[599] Still, this unknown recipient of forms or ideas
+has a _reality_; it has "an abiding nature," "a constancy of existence;"
+and we are forbidden to call it by any name denoting quality, but
+permitted to style it "_this_" and "_that_" (tode kai touto).[600]
+Beneath the perpetual changes of sensible phenomena there is, then, an
+unchangeable subject, which yet is neither the Deity, nor ideas, nor the
+soul of man, which exists as the means and occasion of the manifestation
+of Divine Intelligence in the organization of the world.[601]
+
+[Footnote 598: "Metaphysics," bk. vii. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 599: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+178.]
+
+[Footnote 600: "Tim�us," ch. xxiii.]
+
+[Footnote 601: Ibid., ch. xiiii]
+
+There has been much discussion as to whether Plato held that this
+"_Receptacle_" and "_Nurse_" of forms and ideas was eternal, or
+generated in time. Perhaps no one has more carefully studied the
+writings of Plato than William Archer Butler, and his conclusions in
+regard to this subject are presented in the following words: "As, on the
+one hand, he maintained a strict system of dualism, and avoided, without
+a single deviation, that seduction of pantheism to which so many
+abstract speculators of his own school have fallen victims; so, on the
+other hand, it appears to me that he did not scruple to place this
+principle, the opposite of the Divine intelligence, in a sphere
+independent of temporal origination.... But we can scarcely enter into
+his views, unless we ascertain his notions of the nature of _Time_
+itself. This was considered to have been created with the rest of the
+sensible world, to finish with it, if it ever finished--to be altogether
+related to this phenomenal scene.[602] 'The generating Father determined
+to create a moving image of eternity (ai�nos); and in disposing the
+heavens, he framed of this eternity, reposing in its own unchangeable
+unity, an eternal _image_, moving according to numerical succession,
+which he called _Time_. With the world arose days, nights, months,
+years, which all had no previous existence. The past and future are but
+forms of time, which we most erroneously transfer to the eternal
+substance (aidion ousian); we say it was, and is, and will be, whereas
+we can only fitly say _it is_. Past and future are appropriate to the
+successive nature of generated beings, for they bespeak motion; but the
+Being eternally and immovably the same is subject neither to youth nor
+age, nor to any accident of time; it neither was, nor hath been, nor
+will be, which are the attributes of fleeting sense--the circumstances
+of time, imitating eternity in the shape of number and motion. Nor can
+any thing be more inaccurate than to apply the term _real being_ to
+past, or present, or future, or even to non-existence. Of this, however,
+we can not now speak fully. _Time_, then, was formed with the heavens,
+that, together created, they may together end, _if indeed an end be in
+the purpose of the Creator_; and it is designed as closely as possible
+to resemble the eternal nature, its exemplar. The model exists through
+all eternity; the world has been, is, and will be through all
+_time_.'[603] In this ineffable eternity Plato places the Supreme Being,
+and the archetypal ideas of which the sensible world of time partakes.
+Whether he also includes under the same mode of existence the
+_subject-matter_ of the sensible world, it is not easy to pronounce; and
+it appears to me evident that he did not himself undertake to speak with
+assurance on this obscure problem."[604] The creation of matter "out of
+nothing" is an idea which, in all probability, did not occur to the mind
+of Plato. But that he regarded it as, in some sense, a _dependent_
+existence--as existing, like time, by "the purpose or will of the
+Creator"--perhaps as an eternal "generation" from the "eternal
+substance," is also highly probable; for in the last analysis he
+evidently desires to embrace all things in some ultimate _unity_--a
+tendency which it seems impossible for human reason to avoid.
+
+[Footnote 602: See _ante_, note 4, p. 349.]
+
+[Footnote 603: "Tim�us," ch. xiv.]
+
+[Footnote 604: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+171-175.]
+
+2d. _Beneath all mental phenomena there is a permanent subject or
+substratum which he designates_ THE IDENTICAL (to auto)--_the rational
+element of the soul--"the principle of self-activity" or
+self-determination_.[605]
+
+There are three principles into which Plato analyzes the soul--the
+principle of the _Identical_, the _Diverse_, and the _Intermediate
+Essence_.[606] The first is indivisible and eternal, always existing in
+_sameness_, the very substance of _Intelligence_ itself, and of the same
+nature with the Divine.[607] The second is divisible and corporeal,
+answering to our notion of the passive _sensibilities_, and placing the
+soul in relation with the visible world. The third is an intermediate
+essence, partaking of the natures of both, and constituting a medium
+between the eternal and the mutable--the conscious _energy_ of the soul
+developed in the contingent world of time. Thus the soul is, on one
+side, linked to the unchangeable and the eternal, being formed of that
+ineffable element which constitutes the _real_ or _immutable Being_, and
+on the other side, linked to the sensible and the contingent, being
+formed of that element which is purely _relative_ and _contingent_. This
+last element of the soul is regarded by Plato as "mortal" and
+"corruptible," the former element as "immortal" and "indestructible,"
+having its foundations laid in eternity.
+
+[Footnote 605: "Laws," bk. x. ch. vi. and vii.; "Ph�drus," � 51; "arch�
+kin�se�s."]
+
+[Footnote 606: "Tim�us," ch. xii.; tauton, thateron, and ousia or to
+symmisgomenon.]
+
+[Footnote 607: "Laws," bk. v. ch. i.]
+
+This doctrine of the eternity of the free and rational element of the
+soul must, of course, appear strange and even repulsive to those who are
+unacquainted with the Platonic notion of eternity as a fixed state out
+of time, which has no past, present, or future, and is simply that which
+"always _is_"--an everlasting _now_. The soul, in its elements of
+rationality and freedom, has existed anterior to time, because it now
+exists in eternity.[608] In its actual manifestations and personal
+history it is to be contemplated as a "generated being," having a
+commencement in time.
+
+Now, that the human soul, like the uncreated Deity, has always had a
+distinct, conscious, personal, independent being, does not appear to be
+the doctrine of Plato. He teaches, most distinctly, that the "divine,"
+the immortal part, was created, or rather "generated," in eternity. "The
+Deity himself _formed the divine_, and he delivered over to his
+celestial offspring [the subordinate and generated gods] the task of
+_forming the mortal_. These subordinate deities, copying the example of
+their parent, and receiving from his hands the _immortal principle_ of
+the human soul, fashioned subsequently to this the mortal body, which
+they consigned to the soul as a vehicle, and in which they placed
+another kind of soul, mortal, the seat of violent and fatal
+affections."[609] He also regarded the soul as having a derived and
+dependent existence. He draws a marked distinction between the divine
+and human forms of the "self-moving principle," and makes its
+continuance dependent upon the will and wisdom of the Almighty Disposer
+and Parent, of whom it is "the first-born offspring."[610]
+
+[Footnote 608: See _ante_, note 4, p. 349, as to the Platonic notions of
+"Time" and "Eternity."]
+
+[Footnote 609: "Timaeus," ch. xliv.]
+
+[Footnote 610: See the elaborate exposition in "Laws," bk. x. ch. xii.
+and xiii.]
+
+That portion of the soul which Plato regarded as "immortal" and "to be
+entitled divine," is thus the "_offspring of God_"--a ray of the
+Divinity "generated" by, or emanating from, the Deity. He seems to have
+conceived it as co-eternal with its ideal objects, in some mysterious
+ultimate _unity_. "The true foundation of the Platonic theory of the
+constitution of the soul is this fundamental principle of his
+philosophy--the _oneness of truth and knowledge_.[611] This led him
+naturally to derive the _rational_ element of the soul (that element
+that _knows_), that possesses the power of no�sis from the _real_
+element in things (the element that _is_)--the nooumenon; and in the
+original, the final, and, though imperfectly, the present state of that
+rational element, he, doubtless, conceived it united with its object in
+an eternal conjunction, or even identity. But though intelligence and
+its correlative intelligibles were and are thus combined, the soul is
+_more_ than pure intelligence; it possesses an element of personality
+and consciousness distinct to each individual, of which we have no
+reason to suppose, from any thing his writings contain, Plato ever meant
+to deprive it."[612] On the contrary, he not only regarded it as having
+now, under temporal conditions, a distinct personal existence, but he
+also claimed for it a conscious, personal existence after death. He is
+most earnest, and unequivocal, and consistent in his assertion of the
+doctrine of the immortality of the soul. The arguments which human
+reason can supply are exhibited with peculiar force and beauty in the
+"Ph�do," the "Ph�drus," and the tenth book of the "Republic." The most
+important of these arguments may be presented in a few words.
+
+[Footnote 611: See Grant's "Aristotle," vol. i. pp. 150, 151.]
+
+[Footnote 612: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+209, note.]
+
+1. _The soul is immortal, because it is incorporeal_. There are two
+kinds of existences, one compounded, the other simple; the former
+subject to change, the latter unchangeable; one perceptible to sense,
+the other comprehended by mind alone. The one is visible, the other is
+invisible. When the soul employs the bodily senses, it wanders and is
+confused; but when it abstracts itself from the body, it attains to
+knowledge which is stable, unchangeable, and immortal. The soul,
+therefore, being uncompounded, incorporeal, invisible, must be
+indissoluble--that is to say, immortal.[613]
+
+[Footnote 613: "Ph�do," �� 61-75.]
+
+2. _The soul is immortal, because it has an independent power of
+self-motion_--that is, it has self-activity and self-determination. No
+arrangement of matter, no configuration of body, can be conceived as the
+originator of free and voluntary movement.
+
+Now that which can not move itself, but derives its motion from
+something else, may cease to move, and perish. "But that which is
+self-moved, never ceases to be active, and is also the cause of motion
+to all other things that are moved." And "whatever is continually active
+is immortal." This "self-activity is," says Plato, "the very essence and
+true notion of the soul."[614] Being thus essentially _causative_, it
+therefore partakes of the nature of a "principle," and it is the nature
+of a principle to exclude its _contrary_. That which is essentially
+self-active can never cease to be active; that which is the cause of
+motion and of change, can not be extinguished by the change called
+death.[615]
+
+3. _The soul is immortal, because it possesses universal, necessary, and
+absolute ideas_, which transcend all material conditions, and bespeak an
+origin immeasurably above the body. No modifications of matter, however
+refined, however elaborated, can give the Absolute, the Necessary, the
+Eternal. But the soul has the ideas of absolute beauty, goodness,
+perfection, identity, and duration, and it possesses these ideas in
+virtue of its having a nature which is one, simple, identical, and in
+some sense, eternal.[616] If the soul can conceive an immortality, it
+can not be less than immortal. If, by its very nature, "it has hopes
+that will not be bounded by the grave, and desires and longings that
+grasp eternity," its nature and its destiny must correspond.
+
+In the concluding sections of the "Ph�do" he urges the doctrine with
+earnestness and feeling as the grand motive to a virtuous life, for "the
+reward is noble and the hope is great."[617] And in the "Laws" he
+insists upon the doctrine of a future state, in which men are to be
+rewarded or punished as the most conclusive evidence that we are under
+the moral government of God.[618]
+
+[Footnote 614: "Ph�drus," �� 51-53.]
+
+[Footnote 615: "Ph�do," �� 112-128.]
+
+[Footnote 616: Ibid., �� 48-57, 110-115.]
+
+[Footnote 617: Ibid., �� 129-145.]
+
+[Footnote 618: The doctrine of Metempsychosis, or transmigration of
+souls, can scarcely be regarded as part of the philosophic system of
+Plato. He seems to have accepted it as a venerable tradition, coming
+within the range of probability, rather than as a philosophic truth, and
+it is always presented by him in a highly mythical dress. Now of these
+mythical representations he remarks in the "Ph�do" (� 145) that "no man
+in his senses would dream of insisting _that they correspond to the
+reality_, but that, the soul having been shown to be immortal, this, or
+something like this, is true of individual souls or their habitations."
+If, as in the opinions of the ablest critics, "the Laws" is to be placed
+amongst the last and maturest of Plato's writings, the evidence is
+conclusive that whatever may have been his earlier opinions, he did not
+entertain the doctrine of "Metempsychosis" in his riper years. But when,
+on the one hand, the soul shall remain having an intercourse with divine
+virtue, it becomes divine pre-eminently; and pre-eminently, after having
+been conveyed to a _place_ entirely holy, it is changed for the better;
+but when it acts in a contrary manner, it has, under contrary
+circumstances, placed its existence in some _unholy spot_.
+
+     _This is the judgment of the gods, who hold Olympus._
+
+"O thou young man," [know] "that the person who has become more wicked,
+_departs to the more wicked souls;_ but he who has become better, to the
+better both in life and in all deaths, to do and suffer what is fitting
+for the like."--"Laws," bk. x. ch. xii. and xiii.]
+
+4. _Beyond all finite existences and secondary causes, all laws, ideas,
+and principles, there is an_ INTELLIGENCE _or_ MIND, _the First
+Principle of all Principles, the Supreme Idea on which all other ideas
+are grounded; the Monarch and Lawgiver of the universe, the ultimate
+Substance from which all other things derive their being and essence,
+the First and efficient Cause of all the order, and harmony, and beauty,
+and excellency, and goodness, which pervades the universe, who is called
+by way of pre-eminence and excellence the Supreme Good_, THE GOD (o
+Theos), "_the God over all_," (o epi pasi Theos).
+
+_This_ SUPREME MIND,[619] Plato taught, is incorporeal,[620]
+unchangeable,[621] infinite,[622] absolutely perfect,[623] essentially
+good,[624] unoriginated,[625] and eternal.[626] He is "the Father, and
+Architect, and Maker of the Universe,"[627] "the efficient Cause of all
+things."[628] "the Monarch and Ruler of the world,"[629] "the sovereign
+Mind that orders all things, and pervades all things,"[630] "the sole
+Principle of all things,"[631] and "the Measure of all things,"[632] He
+is "the Beginning of all truth,"[633] "the Fountain of all law and
+justice,"[634] "the Source of all order and beauty,"[635] "the Cause of
+all good;"[636] in short, "he is the Beginning, the Middle, and End of
+all things."[637]
+
+[Footnote 619: "Ph�do," �� 105-107.]
+
+[Footnote 620: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," bk. iii. ch. 77.]
+
+[Footnote 621: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xix.; "Tim�us," ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 622: "Apeleius," bk. i. ch. v.]
+
+[Footnote 623: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xx.]
+
+[Footnote 624: "Tim�us," ch. x.; "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xviii.]
+
+[Footnote 625: "Tim�us," ch. ix.-x.]
+
+[Footnote 626: Ibid., ch. xii.]
+
+[Footnote 627: Ibid., ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 628: "Ph�do," � 105.]
+
+[Footnote 629: "Laws," bk. x. ch. xii.; "Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.;
+"Philebus," � 50.]
+
+[Footnote 630: "Philebus," �51.]
+
+[Footnote 631: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xix.]
+
+[Footnote 632: "Laws," bk. iv. ch. viii.]
+
+[Footnote 633: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xxi.]
+
+[Footnote 634: "Laws," bk. iv. ch. vii.]
+
+[Footnote 635: "Philebus," � 51; "Tim�us," ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 636: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xviii.; "Tim�us," ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 637: "Laws," bk. iv, ch. vii.]
+
+Beyond the sensible world, Plato conceived another world of
+intelligibles or _ideas_. These ideas are not, however, distinct and
+independent existences. "What general notions are to our own minds,
+ideas are to the Supreme Reason (nous basileus); they are the _eternal
+thoughts_ of the Divine Intellect."[638] Ideas are not substances, they
+are qualities, and there must, therefore, be some ultimate substance or
+being to whom, as attributes, they belong. "It must not be believed, as
+has been taught, that Plato gave to ideas a substantial existence. When
+they are not objects of pure conception for human reason, they are
+attributes of the Divine Reason. It is there they substantially
+exist."[639] These eternal laws and reasons of things indicate to us the
+character of that Supreme Essence of essences, the Being of beings. He
+is not the simple aggregate of all laws, but he is the Author, and
+Sustainer, and Substance of all laws. At the utmost summit of the
+intellectual world of Ideas blazes, with an eternal splendor, the idea
+of the _Supreme Good_ from which all others emanate.[640] This Supreme
+Good is "far beyond all existence in dignity and power, and it is that
+from which all things else derive their being and essence."[641] The
+Supreme Good is not the truth, nor the intelligence; "it is the Father
+of it." In the same manner as the sun, which is the visible image of the
+good, reigns over the world, in that it illumes and vivifies it; so the
+Supreme Good, of which the sun is only the work, reigns over the
+intelligible world, in that it gives birth to it by virtue of its
+inexhaustible fruitfulness.[642] _The Supreme Good is_ GOD _himself_,
+and he is designated "the good" because this term seems most fittingly
+to express his essential character and essence.[643] It is towards this
+superlative perfection that the reason lifts itself; it is towards this
+infinite beauty the heart aspires. "Marvellous Beauty!" exclaims Plato;
+"eternal, uncreated, imperishable beauty, free from increase and
+diminution... beauty which has nothing sensible, nothing corporeal, as
+hands or face: which does not reside in any being different from itself,
+in the earth, or the heavens, or in any other thing, but which exists
+_eternally and absolutely in itself, and by itself;_ beauty of which
+every other beauty partakes, without their birth or destruction bringing
+to it the least increase or diminution."[644] The absolute being--God,
+is the last reason, the ultimate foundation, the complete ideal of all
+beauty. God is, _par excellent_, the Beautiful.
+
+[Footnote 638: Thompson's "Laws of Thought," p. 119.]
+
+[Footnote 639: Cousin, "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 415. "There is no quintessential metaphysics which can prevail
+against common sense, and if such be the Platonic theory of ideas,
+Aristotle was right in opposing it. But such a theory is only a chimera
+which Aristotle created for the purpose of combating it."--"The True,
+the Beautiful, and the Good," p. 77.]
+
+[Footnote 640: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 641: "Ibid.," bk. vi. ch. xviii. and xix.]
+
+[Footnote 642: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 642: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+275.]
+
+[Footnote 644: "Banquet," � 35. See Cousin, "The True, the Beautiful,
+and the Good," Lecture IV., also Lecture VII. pp. 150-153; Denis,
+"Histoire des Th�ories et Ide�s Morales dans l'Antiquit�," vol. i. p.
+149.]
+
+God is therefore, with Plato, _the First Principle of all Principles;_
+the Divine energy or power is the _efficient cause_, the Divine beauty
+the _formal cause_, and the Divine goodness the _final cause_ of all
+existence.
+
+_The eternal unity of the principles of Order, Goodness, and Truth, in
+an ultimate reality--the_ ETERNAL MIND, is thus the fundamental
+principle which pervades the whole of the Platonic philosophy. And now,
+having attained this sublime elevation, he looks down from thence upon
+the _sensible, the phenomenal world_, and upon _the temporal life of
+man;_ and in the light of this great principle he attempts to explain
+their meaning and purpose. The results he attained in the former case
+constitute the Platonic _Physics_, in the latter, the Platonic _Ethics_.
+
+I. PLATONIC PHYSICS.
+
+Firmly believing in the absolute excellence of the Deity, and regarding
+the Divine Goodness as the Final Cause of the universe, he pronounces
+the physical world to be an _image_ of the perfection of God.
+Anaxagoras, no doubt, prepared the way for this theory. Every one who
+has read the "Ph�do," will remember the remarkable passage in which
+Socrates gives utterance to the disappointment which he had experienced
+when expecting from physical science an explanation of the universe.
+"When I was young," he said--"it is not to be told how eager I was about
+physical inquiries, and curious to know _how the universe came to be as
+it is_; and when I heard that Anaxagoras was teaching that all was
+arranged by _mind_, I was delighted with the prospect of hearing such a
+doctrine unfolded; I thought to myself, if he teaches that mind made
+every thing to be as it is, he will explain _how it is_ BEST _for it to
+be_, and show that so it is." But Anaxagoras, it appears, lost sight of
+this principle, and descended to the explanation of the universe by
+material causes. "Great was my hope," says Socrates, "and equally great
+my disappointment."[645]
+
+[Footnote 645: "Ph�do," �� 105, 106.]
+
+Plato accepted this suggestion of Anaxagoras with all his peculiar
+earnestness, and devoted himself to its fuller development. It were a
+vain and profitless theory, which, whilst it assumed the existence of a
+Supreme Mind, did not represent that mind as operating in the universe
+by _design_, and as exhibiting his intelligence, and justice, and
+goodness, as well as his power, in every thing. If it be granted that
+there is a Supreme Mind, then, argued Plato, he must be regarded as "the
+measure of all things," and all things must have been framed according
+to a plan or "model" which that mind supplied. Intelligence must be
+regarded as having a _purpose_, and as working towards an _end_, for it
+is this alone which distinguishes reason from unreason, and mind from
+mere unintelligent force. The only proper model which could be presented
+to the Supreme Intelligence is "the eternal and unchangeable model"[646]
+which his own perfection supplies, "for he is the most excellent of
+causes."[647] Thus God is not simply the maker of the universe, but the
+model of the universe, because he designed that it should be an IMAGE,
+in the sphere of sense, of his own perfections--a revelation of his
+eternal beauty, and wisdom, and goodness, and truth. "God was _good_,
+and being good, he desired that the universe should, as far as possible,
+_resemble_ himself.... Desiring that all things should be _good_, and,
+as far as might be, nothing evil, he took the fluctuating mass of things
+visible, which had been in orderless confusion, and reduced it to
+_order_, considering this to be the _better_ state. Now it was and is
+utterly impossible for the supremely good to form any thing except that
+which is _most excellent_ (kalliston--most fair, most beautiful").[648]
+The object at which the supreme mind aimed being that which is "_best_,"
+we must, in tracing his operations in the universe, always look for
+"_the best_" in every thing.[649] Starting out thus, upon the assumption
+that the goodness of God is the final cause of the universe, Plato
+evolved a system of _optimism_.
+
+The physical system of Plato being thus intended to illustrate a
+principle of optimism, the following results may be expected:
+
+1. That it will mainly concern itself with _final causes_. The universe
+being regarded chiefly, as indeed it is, an indication of the Divine
+Intelligence--every phenomenon will be contemplated in that light.
+Nature is the volume in which the Deity reveals his own perfections; it
+is therefore to be studied solely with this motive, that we may learn
+from thence the perfection of God. The _Tim�us_ is a series of ingenious
+hypotheses designed to deepen and vivify our sense of the harmony, and
+symmetry, and beauty of the universe, and, as a consequence, of the
+wisdom, and excellence, and goodness, of its Author.[650]
+
+[Footnote 646: "Tim�us," ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 647: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 648: Ibid., ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 649: Ibid., ch. xix.]
+
+[Footnote 650: "Being is related to Becoming (the Absolute to the
+Contingent) as Truth is to Belief; consequently we must not marvel
+should we find it impossible to arrive at any certain and conclusive
+results in our speculations upon the creation of the visible universe
+and its authors; it should be enough for us if the account we have to
+give be as probable as any other, remembering that we are but men, and
+therefore bound to acquiesce in merely probable results, without looking
+for a higher degree of certainty than the subject admits of"--"Tim�us,"
+ch. ix.]
+
+Whatever physical truths were within the author's reach, took their
+place in the general array: the vacancies were filled up with the best
+suppositions admitted by the limited science of the time.[651] And it is
+worthy of remark that, whilst proceeding by this "high _� priori_ road,"
+he made some startling guesses at the truth, and anticipated some of the
+discoveries of the modern inductive method, which proceeds simply by the
+observation, comparison, and generalization of facts. Of these prophetic
+anticipations we may instance that of the definite proportions of
+chemistry,[652] the geometrical forms of crystallography,[653] the
+doctrine of complementary colors,[654] and that grand principle that all
+the highest laws of nature assume the form of a precise quantitative
+statement.[655]
+
+2. It may be expected that a system of physics raised on optimistic
+principles will be _mathematical_ rather than experimental. "Intended to
+embody conceptions of proportion and harmony, it will have recourse to
+that department of science which deals with the proportions in space and
+number. Such applications of mathematical truths, not being raised on
+ascertained facts, can only accidentally represent the real laws of the
+physical system; they will, however, vivify the student's apprehension
+of harmony in the same manner as a happy parable, though not founded in
+real history, will enliven his perceptions of moral truth."[656]
+
+[Footnote 651: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+157.]
+
+[Footnote 652: "Tim�us," ch. xxxi.]
+
+[Footnote 653: Ibid., ch. xxvii.]
+
+[Footnote 654: Ibid., ch. xlii.]
+
+[Footnote 655: "It is Plato's merit to have discovered that the laws of
+the physical universe are resolvable into numerical relations, and
+therefore capable of being represented by mathematical
+formul�."--Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 163.]
+
+[Footnote 656: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+163.]
+
+3. Another peculiarity of such a system will be an impatience of every
+merely _mechanical_ theory of the operations of nature.
+
+"The psychology of Plato led him to recognize mind wherever there was
+motion, and hence not only to require a Deity as first mover of the
+universe, but also to conceive the propriety of separate and subordinate
+agents attached to each of its parts, as principles of motion, no less
+than intelligent directors. These agents were entitled '_gods_' by an
+easy figure, discernible even in the sacred language,[657] and which
+served, besides, to accommodate philosophical hypotheses to the popular
+religion. Plato, however, carefully distinguished between the sole,
+Eternal Author of the Universe, on the one hand, and that 'soul,' vital
+and intelligent, which he attaches to the world, as well as the spheral
+intelligences, on the other. These 'subordinate deities,' though
+intrusted with a sort of deputed creation, were still only the deputies
+of the Supreme Framer and Director of all."[658] The "gods" of the
+Platonic system are "subordinate divinities," "generated gods," brought
+into existence by the will and wisdom of the Eternal Father and Maker of
+the universe.[659] Even Jupiter, the governing divinity of the popular
+mythology, is a descendant from powers which are included in the
+creation.[660] The offices they fulfill, and the relations they sustain
+to the Supreme Being, correspond to those of the "angels" of Christian
+theology. They are the ministers of his providential government of the
+world.[661]
+
+[Footnote 657: Psalm lxxxii. I; John x. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 658: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+164.]
+
+[Footnote 659: "Tim�us," ch. xv.]
+
+[Footnote 660: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 661: "Laws," bk. x.]
+
+The application of this fundamental conception of the Platonic
+system--_the eternal unity of the principles of Order, Goodness, and
+Truth in an ultimate reality, the Eternal Mind_--to the elucidation of
+the _temporal life_ of man, yields, as a result--
+
+II. THE PLATONIC ETHICS.
+
+Believing firmly that there are unchangeable, necessary, and absolute
+principles, which are the perfections of the Eternal Mind, Plato must,
+of course, have been a believer in an _immutable morality_. He held that
+there is a rightness, a justice, an equity, not arbitrarily constituted
+by the Divine will or legislation, but founded in the nature of God, and
+therefore eternal. The independence of the principles of morality upon
+the mere will of the Supreme Governor is proclaimed in all his
+writings.[662] The Divine will is the fountain of efficiency, the Divine
+reason, the fountain of law. God is no more the creator of _virtue_ than
+he is the creator of _truth_.
+
+And inasmuch as man is a partaker of the Divine essence, and as the
+ideas which dwell in the human reason are "copies" of those which dwell
+in the Divine reason, man may rise to the apprehension and recognition
+of the immutable and eternal principles of righteousness, and "by
+communion with that which is Divine, and subject to the law of order,
+may become himself a subject of order, and divine, so far as it is
+possible for man."[663]
+
+[Footnote 662: In "Euthyphron" especially.]
+
+[Footnote 663: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xiii.]
+
+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 (sophia) 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" (to agathon), 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 God, 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 God; philosophy is the "_Love of God_."[665] Ethically
+viewed, it is this one motive of _love_ for the Supreme Wisdom and
+Goodness, predominating over and purifying and assimilating every desire
+of the soul, and governing every movement of the man, raising man to a
+participation of and communion with Divinity, and restoring him to "the
+_likeness_ of God." "This flight," says Plato, "consists in resembling
+God (omoi�sis Theo), and this resemblance is the becoming just and holy
+with wisdom."[666] "This assimilation to God is the enfranchisement of
+the divine element of the soul. To approach to God 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: "Ph�drus," � 145.]
+
+[Footnote 665: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+61.]
+
+[Footnote 666: "The�tetus," � 84.]
+
+[Footnote 667: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+277.]
+
+[Footnote 668: "Tim�sus," 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 God. 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, constitute 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 passions 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 passion 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 participation of the Supreme, the Absolute Good.
+
+This, then, is the meaning of the oft-repeated assertion 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 circumstances 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 passions 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 God 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 God, and
+death must complete the final emancipation 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: "Ph�do," �� 130, 131.]
+
+Independent of all other considerations, virtue is, therefore, to be
+pursued as the true good of the soul. Wisdom, Fortitude, 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
+God."
+
+
+
+
+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 circumstances
+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 analytical. 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 classify 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 classification.
+
+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 analysis 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" (ta
+nooumena gen�) 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 pass beyond the sensible world and
+ascend to "the absolute," that is, to God.[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 repetition 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�n kathekasta); art is that of universals (t�n
+katholou)."[677]
+
+[Footnote 674: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xx.]
+
+[Footnote 675: "Tim�us," 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 classification 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 transmuted
+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
+entitled 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 (nous) 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. Analytic," bk. i. ch. xxxi.]
+
+[Footnote 681: "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 682: "Topics," bk. i. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 683: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 684: "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 685: Ibid., bk. vi. ch. xi.]
+
+[Footnote 686: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 687: Hamilton attempts the following mode of reconciling the
+contradictory positions of Aristotle:
+
+"On the supposition of the mind virtually containing, antecedent to all
+experience, certain universal principles of knowledge, in the form of
+certain necessities of thinking; still it is only by repeated and
+comparative experiments that we compass the certainty; on the one hand,
+that such and such cognitions can not but be thought as necessary,
+native generalities; and, on the other, that such and such cognitions
+may or may not be thought, and are, therefore, as contingent, factitious
+generalizations. To this process of experiment, analysis, and
+classification, through which we attain to a scientific knowledge of
+principles, it might be shown that Aristotle, not improperly, applies
+the term _Induction_."--"Philosophy," p. 88.]
+
+The human mind, he tells us, has two kinds of intelligence--the
+_passive_ intelligence (nous path�tikos), which is the receptacle of
+forms (dectikon tou eidous); and the _active_ intelligence (nous
+poi�tikos), which impresses the seal of thought upon the data furnished
+by experience, and combines them into the unity of a single judgment,
+thus attaining "general notions."[688] The passive intelligence (the
+"external perception" of modern psychology) perceives the individual
+forms which appear in the external world, and the active intelligence
+(the intellect proper) classifies and generalizes according to fixed
+laws or principles inherent in itself; but of these fixed laws--pr�ta
+no�mata--first thoughts, or _� priori_ ideas, he offers no proper
+account; they are, at most, purely subjective. This, it would seem, was,
+in effect, a return to the doctrine of Protagoras and his school, "that
+man--the individual--is the measure of all things." The aspects under
+which objects present themselves in consciousness, constitute our only
+ground of knowledge; we have no direct, intuitive knowledge of Being _in
+se_. The noetic faculty is simply a _regulative_ faculty; it furnishes
+the laws under which we compare and judge, but it does not supply any
+original elements of knowledge. Individual things are the only real
+entities,[689] and "universals" have no separate existence apart from
+individuals in which they inhere as attributes or properties. They are
+consequently pure mental conceptions, which are fixed and recalled by
+general names. He thus substitutes a species of conceptual-nominalism in
+place of the realism of Plato. It is true that "real being" (to on) is
+with Aristotle a subject of metaphysical inquiry, but the proper, if not
+the only subsistence, or ouaia, is the form or abstract nature of
+things. "The essence or very nature of a thing is inherent in the _form_
+and _energy_"[690] The science of Metaphysics is strictly conversant
+about these abstract intellectual forms just as Natural Philosophy is
+conversant about external objects, of which the senses give us
+information. Our knowledge of these intellectual forms is, however,
+founded upon "beliefs" rather than upon immediate intuition, and the
+objective certainty of science, upon the subjective necessity of
+believing, and not upon direct apperception.
+
+[Footnote 688: "On the Soul," ch. vi.; "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 689: "Metaphysics," bk. vi. ch. xiii.]
+
+[Footnote 690: Ibid., bk. vii. ch. iii.]
+
+The points of contrast between the two methods may now be presented in a
+few sentences. Plato held that all our cognitions are reducible to two
+elements--one derived from _sense_, the other from _pure reason_; one
+element particular, contingent, and relative, the other universal,
+necessary, and absolute. By an act of _immediate abstraction_ Plato will
+eliminate the particular, contingent, and relative phenomena, and
+disengage the universal, necessary, and absolute _ideas_ which underlie
+and determine all phenomena. These ideas are the thoughts of the Divine
+Mind, according to which all particular and individual existences are
+generated, and, as divine thoughts, they are real and permanent
+existences. Thus by a process of immediate abstraction, he will rise
+from particular and contingent phenomena to universal and necessary
+principles, and from these to the First Principle of all principles, the
+First Cause of all causes--that is, to _God_.
+
+Aristotle, on the contrary, held that all of our knowledge begins with
+"the singular," that is, with the particular and the relative, and is
+derived from sensation and experience. The "sensible object," taken as
+it is without any sifting and probing, is the basis of science, and
+reason is simply the architect constructing science according to certain
+"forms" or laws inherent in mind. The object, then, of metaphysical
+science is to investigate those "universal notions" under which the mind
+conceives of and represents to itself external objects, and speculates
+concerning them. Aristotle, therefore, agrees with Plato in teaching
+"that science can only be a science of universals,"[691] and "that
+sensation alone can not furnish us with scientific knowledge."[692] How,
+then, does he propose to attain the knowledge of universal principles?
+How will he perform that feat which he calls "passing from the known to
+the unknown?" The answer is, by _comparative abstraction_. The universal
+being constituted by a relation of the object to the thinking subject,
+that is, by a property recognized by the intelligence alone, in virtue
+of which it can be retained as an object of thought, and compared with
+other objects, he proposes to _compare, analyze, define,_ and _classify_
+the primary cognitions, and thus evoke into energy, and clearly present
+those principles or forms of the intelligence which he denominate
+"universals." As yet, however, he has only attained to "general
+notions," which are purely subjective, that is, to logical definitions,
+and these logical definitions are subsequently elevated to the dignity
+of "universal principles and causes" by a species of philosophic
+legerdemain. Philosophy is thus stripped of its metaphysical character,
+and assumes a strictly _logical_ aspect. The key of the Aristotelian
+method is therefore the
+
+ARISTOTELIAN LOGIC.
+
+Pure Logic is the science of the formal laws of thought. Its office is
+to ascertain the rules or conditions under which the mind, by its own
+constitution, reasons and discourses. The office of Applied Logic--of
+logic as an art--is "to form and judge of conclusions, and, through
+conclusions, to establish proof. The conclusions, however, arise from
+propositions, and the propositions from conceptions." It is chiefly
+under the latter aspect that logic is treated by Aristotle. According to
+this natural point of view he has divided the contents of the logical
+and dialectic teaching in the different treatises of the _Organon_.
+
+[Footnote 691: "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 692: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. xxxi.]
+
+The first treatise is the "_Categories_" or "Predicaments"--a work which
+treats of the universal determinations of Being. It is a classification
+of all our mental conceptions. As a matter of fact, the mind forms
+notions or conceptions about those natures and essences of things which
+present an outward image to the senses, or those, equally real, which
+utter themselves to the mind. These may be defined and classified; there
+may be general conceptions to which all particular conceptions are
+referable. This classification has been attempted by Aristotle, and as
+the result we have the ten "Categories" of _Substance, Quantity,
+Quality, Relation, Time, Place, Position, Possession, Action, Passion_.
+He does not pretend that this classification is complete, but he held
+these "Predicaments" to be the most universal expressions for the
+various relations of things, under some one of which every thing might
+be reduced.
+
+The second treatise, "_On Interpretation_," investigates language as the
+expression of thought; and inasmuch as a true or false thought must be
+expressed by the union or separation of a subject and a predicate, he
+deems it necessary to discuss the parts of speech--the general term and
+the verb--and the modes of affirmation and denial. In this treatise he
+develops the nature and limitations of propositions, the meaning of
+contraries and contradictions, and the force of affirmations and denials
+in _possible, contingent_, and _necessary_ matter.
+
+The third are the "_Analytics_," which show how conclusions are to be
+referred back to their principles, and arranged in the order of their
+precedence.
+
+The First or Prior Analytic presents the universal doctrine of the
+Syllogism, its principles and forms, and teaches how must reason, if we
+would not violate the laws of our own mind. The theory of reasoning,
+generally, with a view to accurate demonstration, depends upon the
+construction of a perfect syllogism, which is defined as "a discourse in
+which, certain things being laid down, something else different from the
+premises necessarily results, in consequence of their existence."[693]
+Conclusions are, according to their own contents and end, either
+_Apodeictic_, which deal with necessary and demonstrable matter, or
+_Dialectic_, which deal with probable matter, or _Sophistical_, which
+are imperfect in matter or form, and announced, deceptively, as correct
+conclusions, when they are not. The doctrine of Apodeictic conclusions
+is given in the "_Posterior Analytic_," that of Dialectic conclusions in
+the "_Topics_," and that of the Sophistical in the "_Sophistical
+Elenchi_."
+
+Now, if Logic is of any value as an instrument for the discovery of
+truth, the attainment of certitude, it must teach us not only how to
+deduce conclusions from premises, but it must certify to us the validity
+of the principles from whence we reason and this is attempted by
+Aristotle in the Posterior Analytic. This treatise opens with the
+following statement: All doctrine, and all intellectual discipline,
+arises from a prior or pre-existent knowledge. This is evident, if we
+survey them all; for both mathematical sciences, and also each of the
+arts, are obtained in this manner. The same holds true in the case of
+reasonings, whether through [deductive] _Syllogism_ or through
+_Induction_, for both accomplish the instruction they afford from
+information previously known--the former (syllogistic reasoning)
+receiving it, as it were, from the traditions of the intelligent, the
+latter (inductive reasoning) manifesting the universal through the light
+of the singular.[694] Induction and Syllogism are thus the grand
+instruments of logic.[695]
+
+[Footnote 693: "Prior Analytic," bk. i. ch. i.; "Topics," bk. i. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 694: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 695: "We believe all things through syllogism, or from
+induction."--"Prior Analytic," bk. ii. ch. xxiii.]
+
+Both these processes are based upon an _anterior_ knowledge.
+Demonstrative science must be from things true, first, immediate, more
+known than, prior to, and the causes of, the conclusion, for thus there
+will be the appropriate first principles of whatever is
+demonstrated.[696] The first principles of demonstration, the material
+of thought, must, consequently, be supplied by some power or faculty of
+the mind other than that which is engaged in generalization and
+deductive reasoning. Whence, then, is this "anterior knowledge" derived,
+and what tests or criteria have we of its validity?
+
+1. In regard to deductive or syllogistic reasoning, the views of
+Aristotle are very distinctly expressed.
+
+Syllogistic reasoning "proceeds from generals to particulars."[697] The
+general must therefore be supplied as the foundation of the deductive
+reasoning. Whence, then, is this knowledge of "the general" derived? The
+answer of Aristotle is that the universal major proposition, out of
+which the conclusion of the syllogism is drawn, _is itself necessarily
+the conclusion of a previous induction, and mediately or immediately an
+inference_--a collection from individual objects of sensation or of
+self-consciousness. "Now," says he, "demonstration is from universals,
+but induction from particulars. It is impossible, however, to
+investigate universals except through induction, since things which are
+said to be from abstraction will be known only by induction."[698] It is
+thus clear that Aristotle makes _deduction necessarily dependent upon
+induction_. He maintains that the highest or most universal principles
+which constitute the primary and immediate propositions of the former
+are furnished by the latter.
+
+[Footnote 696: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 697: Ibid., bk. i. ch. xviii.; "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 698: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. xviii.]
+
+2. General principles being thus furnished by induction, we may now
+inquire whence, according to Aristotle, are the materials for induction
+derived? What is the character of that "anterior knowledge" which is the
+basis of the inductive process?
+
+Induction, says Aristotle, is "the progression from singulars to
+universals."[699] It is an illation of the universal from the singular
+as legitimated by the laws of thought. All knowledge, therefore, begins
+with singulars--that is, with individual objects. And inasmuch as all
+knowledge begins with "individual objects," and as the individual is
+constantly regarded by Aristotle as the "object of sense," it is claimed
+that his doctrine is that all knowledge is derived from _sensation_, and
+that science and art result to man (_solely_) by means of _experience._
+He is thus placed at the head of the empirical school of philosophy, as
+Plato is placed at the head of the ideal school.
+
+[Footnote 699: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. xviii.]
+
+This classification, however, is based upon a very superficial
+acquaintance with the philosophy of Aristotle as a whole. The practice,
+so commonly resorted to, of determining the character of the
+Aristotelian philosophy by the light of one or two passages quoted from
+his "Metaphysics," is unjust both to Aristotle and to the history of
+philosophic thought. We can not expect to attain a correct understanding
+of the views of Aristotle concerning the sources and grounds of all
+knowledge without some attention to his psychology. A careful study of
+his writings will show that the terms "sensation" (aisth�sis) and
+"experience" (empeira) are employed in a much more comprehensive sense
+than is usual in modern philosophic writings.
+
+"Sensation," in its lowest form, is defined by Aristotle as "an
+excitation of the soul through the body,"[700] and, in its higher form,
+as the excitation of the soul by any object of knowledge. In this latter
+form it is used by him as synonymous with "intuition," and embraces all
+immediate intuitive perceptions, whether of sense, consciousness, or
+reason. "The universe is derived from particulars, therefore we ought to
+have a sensible perception (aisth�sis) of these; and this is intellect
+(nous)."[701] Intelligence proper, the faculty of first principles, is,
+in certain respects, a sense, because it is the source of a class of
+truths which, like the perceptions of the senses, are immediately
+revealed as facts to be received upon their own evidence. It thus
+answers to the "sensus communis" of Cicero, and the "Common Sense" of
+the Scottish school. Under this aspect, "Sense is equal to or has the
+force of Science."[702] The term "Experience" is also used to denote,
+not merely the perception and remembrance of the impressions which
+external objects make upon the mind, but as co-extensive with the whole
+contents of consciousness--all that the mind _does_ of its own native
+energy, as well as all that it _suffers_ from without. It is evidently
+used in the Posterior Analytic (bk. ii. ch. xix.) to describe the whole
+process by which the knowledge of universals is obtained. "From
+experience, or from every universal remaining in the soul, the
+principles of art and science arise." The office of experience is "to
+furnish the principles of every science"[703]--that is, to evoke them
+into energy in the mind. 'Experience thus seems to be a thing almost
+similar to science and art.[704] In the most general sense, "sensation"
+would thus appear to be the immediate perception or intuition of facts
+and principles, and "experience" the operation of the mind upon these
+facts and principles, elaborating them into scientific form according to
+its own inherent laws. The "experience" of Aristotle is analogous to the
+"reflection" of Locke.
+
+[Footnote 700: "De Somn.," bk. i.]
+
+[Footnote 701: "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. xi.; see also ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 702: "De Cen. Anim."]
+
+[Footnote 703: "Prior Analytic," bk. i. ch. xix.]
+
+[Footnote 704: "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. i.]
+
+So much being premised, we proceed to remark that there is a distinction
+perpetually recurring in the writings of Aristotle between the elements
+or first principles of knowledge which are "clearest in their own
+nature" and those which "are clearest to our perception."[705] The
+causes or principles of knowledge "are _prior_ and _more known_ to us in
+two ways, for what is prior in nature is not the same as that which is
+prior to us, nor that which is more known (simply in itself) the same as
+that which is more known to us. Now I call things prior and more known
+to us, those which are _nearer to sense_; and things prior and more
+known simply in themselves, those which are _remote from sense_; and
+those things are most remote which are especially _universal_, and those
+nearest which are _singular_; and these are mutually opposed."[706] Here
+we have a distribution of the first or prior elements of knowledge into
+two fundamentally opposite classes.
+
+(i.) _The immediate or intuitive perceptions of sense,_
+
+(ii.) _The immediate or intuitive apperceptions of pure reason,_
+
+[Footnote 705: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. iv.; "Metaphysics," bk. ii. ch. i.;
+"Rhetoric," bk. i. ch. ii.; "Prior Analytic," bk. ii. ch. xxiii.]
+
+[Footnote 706: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. ii.]
+
+The objects of sense-perception are external, individual, "nearest to
+sense," and occasionally or contingently present to sense. The objects
+of the intellect are inward, universal, and the essential property of
+the soul. They are "remote from sense," "prior by nature;" they are
+"forms" essentially inherent in the soul previous to experience; and it
+is the office of experience to bring them forward into the light of
+consciousness, or, in the language of Aristotle, "to evoke them from
+potentiality into actuality." And further, from the "prior" and
+immediate intuitions of sense and intellect, all our secondary, our
+scientific and practical knowledge is drawn by logical processes.
+
+The Aristotelian distribution of the intellectual faculties corresponds
+fully to this division of the objects of knowledge. The human intellect
+is divided by Aristotle into,
+
+1. The Passive or Receptive Intellect (nous paph�tikos).--Its office is
+the reception of sensible impressions or images (Phantasmata) and their
+retention in the mind (my�m�). These sensible forms or images are
+essentially immaterial. "Each sensoriurn (aisth�t�r�n) is receptive of
+the sensible quality _without the matter_, and hence when the sensibles
+themselves are absent, sensations and phantasikos remain."[707]
+
+[Footnote 707: "De Anima," bk. iii. ch. ii.]
+
+2. The Active or Creative Intellect (nous pointikos).--This is the power
+or faculty which, by its own inherent power, impresses "form" upon the
+material of thought supplied by sense-perception, exactly as the First
+Cause combines it, in the universe, with the recipient matter.
+
+"It is necessary," says Aristotle, "that these two modes should be
+opposed to each other, as matter is opposed to form, and to all that
+gives form. The receptive reason, which is as matter, becomes all things
+by receiving their forms. The creative reason gives existence to all
+things, as light calls color into being. The creative reason transcends
+the body, being capable of separation from it, and from all things; it
+is an everlasting existence, incapable of being mingled with matter, or
+affected by it; prior, and subsequent to the individual mind. The
+receptive reason is necessary to individual thought, but it is
+perishable, and by its decay all memory, and therefore individuality, is
+lost to the higher and immortal reason."[708]
+
+This "Active or Creative Intellect" is again further subdivided, by
+Aristotle--
+
+1. The _Scientific_ (epist�monikon) part--the "virtue," faculty, or
+"habit of principles." He also designates it as the "place of
+principles," and further defines it as the power "which apprehends those
+existences whose principles can not be otherwise than they are"--that
+is, self-evident, immutable, and necessary truths[709]--the _intuitive
+reason_.
+
+2. The _Reasoning_ (logistikon) part--the power by which we draw
+conclusions from premises, and "contemplate contingent matter"[710]--the
+_discursive reason_.
+
+The correlatives _noetic_ and _dianoetic_, says Hamilton, would afford
+the best philosophic designation of these two faculties; the knowledge
+attained by the former is an "intuitive principle"--a truth at first
+hand; that obtained by the latter is a "demonstrative proposition"--a
+truth at second hand.
+
+The preceding notices of the psychology of Aristotle will aid us
+materially in interpreting his remarks "_Upon the Method and Habits
+necessary to the ascertainment of Principles_."[711]
+
+[Footnote 708: "De Anima," bk. iii. ch. v.]
+
+[Footnote 709: "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 710: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 711: "Post. Analytic," bk. ii, ch. xix., the concluding
+chapter of the Organon.]
+
+"That it is impossible to have scientific knowledge through
+demonstration without a knowledge of first immediate principles, has
+been elucidated before." This being established, he proceeds to explain
+how that "knowledge of first, immediate principles" is developed in the
+mind.
+
+1. The knowledge of first principles is attained by the _intuition of
+sense_--the immediate perception of external objects, as the _exciting_
+or _occasional cause_ of their development in the mind.
+
+"Now there appears inherent in all animals an innate power called
+_sensible perception_ (aisth�sis); but sense being inherent, in some
+animals a permanency of the sensible object is engendered, but in others
+it is not engendered. Those, therefore, wherein the sensible object does
+not remain have no knowledge without sensible perception, but others,
+when they perceive, retain one certain thing in the soul,... with some,
+_reason_ is produced from the permanency (of the sensible impression),
+[as in man], but in others it is not [as in the brute]. From sense,
+therefore, as we say, memory is produced, and from the repeated
+remembrance of the same thing we get experience.... From experience, or
+_from every universal remaining in the soul_--the one besides the many
+which in all of them is _one_ and the _same_--the principles of art and
+science arise. If experience is conversant with generation, the
+principles of art; if with being, the principles of science.... Let us
+again explain: When one thing without difference abides, there is then
+the first universal (notion) [developed] in the soul; for the singular
+indeed is perceived by sense, _but sense is [also] of the
+universal_"--that is, the universal is immanent in the sensible object
+as a property giving it "form." "It is manifest, then, that primary
+things become necessarily known by induction, for thus sensible
+perception produces [develops or evokes] the _universal_." 2. The
+knowledge of first principles is attained by the _intuition of pure
+intellect_ (nous)--that is, "_intellect itself is the principle of
+science_" or, in other words, intellect is the _efficient, essential
+cause_ of the knowledge of first principles.
+
+"Of those habits which are about intellect by which we ascertain truth,
+_some[712] are always true_, but others[713] admit the false, as opinion
+and reasoning. But science and (pure) intellect are always true, and no
+other kind of knowledge, except intellect [intellectual intuition], is
+more accurate than science. And since the principles of demonstration
+are more known, and all science is connected with reason, there could
+not be a science of principles. But since nothing can be more true than
+science, except intellect, intellect will belong to principles. From
+these [considerations] it is evident that, as demonstration is not the
+principle of demonstration, so neither is science the principle of
+science. If, then, we have no other true genus (of habit) besides
+science, _intellect will be the principle of science_; it will also be
+the principle (or cause of the knowledge) of the principle."
+
+[Footnote 712: The "noetic."]
+
+[Footnote 713: The "dian�tic."]
+
+The doctrine of Aristotle regarding "first principles" may perhaps be
+summed up as follows: All demonstrative science is based upon
+_universals_ "prior in nature"--that is, upon _� priori_, self-evident,
+necessary, and immutable principles. Our knowledge of these "first and
+immediate principles" is dependent primarily on _intellect_ (nous) or
+intuitive reason, and secondarily on sense, experience, and induction.
+Prior to experience, the intellect contains these principles in itself
+potentially, as "forms," "laws," "habitudes," or "predicaments" of
+thought; but they can not be "evoked into energy," can not be revealed
+in consciousness, except on condition of experience, and they can only
+be scientifically developed by logical abstraction and definition. The
+ultimate ground of all truth and certainty is thus a mode of our own
+mind, a subjective necessity of thinking, and truth is not in things,
+but in our own minds.[714] "Ultimate knowledge, as well as primary
+knowledge, the most perfect knowledge which the philosopher can attain,
+as well as the point from which he starts, is still a proposition. All
+knowledge seems to be included under two forms--knowledge _that_ it is
+so; knowledge _why_ it is so. Neither of these can, of course, include
+the knowledge at which Plato is aiming--knowledge which is correlated
+with Being--a knowledge, not _about_ things or persons, but _of_
+them."[715]
+
+[Footnote 714: "Metaphysics," bk. v. ch. iv.]
+
+[Footnote 715: Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 190.]
+
+ARISTOTELIAN THEOLOGY
+
+Theoretical philosophy, "the science which has truth for its end," is
+divided by Aristotle into Physics, Mathematics, and Theology, or the
+First Philosophy, now commonly known as "Metaphysics," because it is
+beyond or above physics, and is concerned with the primitive ground and
+cause of all things.[716]
+
+In the former two we have now no immediate interest, but with Theology,
+as "the science of the Divine,"[717] the _First Moving Cause_, which is
+the source of all other causes, and the original ground of all other
+things, we are specially concerned, inasmuch as our object is to
+determine, if possible, whether Greek philosophy exerted any influence
+upon Christian thought, and has bequeathed any valuable results to the
+Theology of modern times.
+
+"The Metaphysics" of Aristotle opens by an enumeration of "the
+principles or causes"[718] into which all existences can be resolved by
+philosophical analysis. This enumeration is at present to be regarded as
+provisional, and in part hypothetical--a verbal generalization of the
+different principles which seem to be demanded to explain the existence
+of a thing, or constitute it what it is. These he sets down as--
+
+[Footnote 716: "Physics are concerned with things which have a principle
+of motion in themselves; mathematics speculate on permanent, but not
+transcendental and self-existent things; and there is another science
+separate from these two, which treats of that which is immutable and
+transcendental, if indeed there exists such a substance, as we shall
+endeavor to show that there does. This transcendental and permanent
+substance, if it exist at all, must surely be the sphere of the
+_divine_--it must be the first and highest principle. Hence it follows
+that there are three kinds of speculative science--Physics, Mathematics,
+and Theology."--"Metaphysics," bk. x. ch. vii.]
+
+[Footnote 717: "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 718: Aition--cause--is here used by Aristotle in the sense of
+"account of" or "reason why."]
+
+1. The Material Cause (t�n yl�n kai to ypokeimenon)--the matter and
+subject--that _out of_ which a given thing has been originated. "From
+the analogy which this principle has to wood or stone, or any actual
+matter out of which a work of nature or of art is produced, the name
+'material' is assigned to this class." It does not always necessarily
+mean "matter" in the now common use of the term, but "antecedents--that
+is, principles whose inherence and priority is implied in any existing
+thing, as, for example, the premises of a syllogism, which are the
+material cause of the conclusion."[719] With Aristotle there is,
+therefore, "matter as an object of sense," and "matter as an object of
+thought."
+
+2. The Formal Cause (T�n ausian kai to ti einai)--the being or abstract
+essence of a thing--that primary nature on which all its properties
+depend. To this Aristotle gave the name of eidos--the form or exemplar
+_according to_ which a thing is produced.
+
+3. The Moving or Efficient Cause (othen � arch� t�s kin�se�s)--the
+origin and principle of motion--that _by which_ a thing is produced.
+
+4. The Final Cause (to ou eneken kai to agathon)--the good end answered
+by the existence of any thing--that for the sake of which_ any thing is
+produced--the eneka tou, or reason for it.[720] Thus, for instance, in a
+house, the wood out of which it is produced is the _matter (yl�), the
+idea or conception according to which it is produced is _the form_
+(eidos morph�), the builder who erects the house is the _efficient_
+cause, and the reason for its production, or the end of its existence is
+the _final_ cause.
+
+[Footnote 719: Encyclop�dia Britannica, article "Aristotle;" "Post.
+Analytic," bk. ii. ch. xi.]
+
+[Footnote 720: "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. iii.]
+
+Causes are, therefore, the elements into which the mind resolves its
+first rough conception of an object. That object is what it is, by
+reason of the matter out of which it sprang, the moving cause which gave
+it birth, the idea or form which it realizes, and the end or object
+which it attains. The knowledge of a thing implies knowing it from these
+four points of view--that is, knowing its four causes or principles.
+
+These four determinations of being are, on a further and closer
+analysis, resolved into the fundamental antithesis of MATTER and FORM.
+
+"All things that are produced," says Aristotle,[721] "are produced from
+something (that is, from _matter_), by something (that is, _form_), and
+become something (the totality--to synolon);" as, for example, a statue,
+a plant, a man. To every subject there belongs, therefore, first,
+_matter_ (yl�); secondly, _form_ (morph�). The synthesis of these two
+produces and constitutes _substance_, or ousia. Matter and form are thus
+the two grand causes or principles whence proceed all things. The
+formative cause is, at the same time, the moving cause and the final
+cause; for it is evidently the element of determination which impresses
+movement upon matter whilst determining it; and it is also the end of
+being, since being only really exists when it has passed from an
+indeterminate to a determinate state.
+
+[Footnote 721: "Metaphysics," bk. vi. ch. vii.]
+
+In proof that the eidos or form is an _efficient_ principle operating in
+every object, which makes it, to our conception, what it is, Aristotle
+brings forward the subject of generation or production.[722] There are
+three modes of production--natural, artificial, and automatic. In
+natural production we discern at once a matter; indeed Nature, in the
+largest sense, may be defined as "that out of which things are
+produced." Now the result formed out of this matter or nature is a given
+substance--a vegetable, a beast, or a man. But what is the _producing_
+cause in each case? Clearly something akin to the result. A man
+generates a man, a plant produces another plant like to itself. There
+is, therefore, implied in the resulting thing a _productive force_
+distinct from matter, upon which it works. And this is the eidos, or
+form. Let us now consider artificial production. Here again the form is
+the producing power. And this is in the soul. The art of the physician
+is the eidos, which produces actual health; the plan of the architect is
+the conception, which produces an actual house. Here, however, a
+distinction arises. In these artificial productions there is supposed a
+no�sis and a poi�sis. The no�sis is the previous conception which the
+architect forms in his own mind; the poi�sis is the actual creation of
+the house out of the given matter. In this case the conception is the
+moving cause of the production. The form of the statue in the mind of
+the artist is the motive or cause of the movement by which the statue is
+produced; and health must be in the thought of the physician before it
+can become the moving cause of the healing art. Moreover, that which is
+true of artificial production or change is also true of spontaneous
+production. For example, a cure may take place by the application of
+warmth, and this result is accomplished by means of friction. This
+warmth in the body is either itself a portion of health, or something is
+consequent upon it which is like itself, which is a portion of health.
+Evidently this implies the previous presence either of nature or of an
+artificer. It is also clearly evident that this kind of generating
+influence (the automatic) should combine with another. There must be a
+productive power, and there must be something out of which it is
+produced. In this case, then, there will be a yl� and an eidos.[723]
+
+[Footnote 722: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 723: Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," pp. 205, 206.]
+
+From the above it appears that the _efficient_ cause is regarded by
+Aristotle as identical with the _formal_ cause. So also the _final_
+cause--the end for the sake of which any thing exists--can hardly be
+separated from the perfection of that thing, that is, from its
+conception or form. The desire for the end gives the first impulse of
+motion; thus the final cause of any thing becomes identical with the
+good of that thing. "The moving cause of the house is the builder, but
+the moving cause of the builder is the end to be attained--that is, the
+house." From such examples as these it would seem that the
+determinations of form and end are considered by Aristotle as one, in so
+far as both are merged in the conception of _actuality_; for he regarded
+the end of every thing to be its completed being--the perfect
+realization of its idea or form. The only fundamental determinations,
+therefore, which can not be wholly resolved into each other are _matter
+and form_.[724]
+
+[Footnote 724: Schwegler's "History of Philosophy," pp. 120, 123.]
+
+The opposition of matter and form, with Aristotle, corresponds to the
+opposition between the element of _generality_ and the element of
+_particularity_. Matter is indeterminate; form is determinate. Matter,
+abstracted from form, in thought, is entirely without predicate and
+distinction; form is that which enters into the definition of every
+subject, and without which it could not be defined. Matter is capable of
+the widest diversity of forms, but is itself without form. Pure form is,
+in fact, that which is without matter, or, in other words, it is the
+pure conception of being. Matter is the necessary condition of the
+existence of a thing; form is the essence of each thing, that in virtue
+of which substance is possible, and without which it is inconceivable.
+On the one side is passivity, possibility of existence, capacity of
+action; on the other side is activity, actuality, thought. The unity of
+these two in the realm of determined being constitutes every individual
+substance. The relation of matter and form, logically apprehended, is
+thus the relation of POTENTIALITY and ACTUALITY.
+
+This is a further and indeed a most important step in the Aristotelian
+theology. Matter, as we have seen, after all, amounts to merely capacity
+for action, and if we can not discover some productive power to develop
+potentiality into actuality, we look in vain for some explanation of the
+phenomena around us. The discovery, however, of energy (energeia), as a
+principle of this description, is precisely what we wanted, and a
+momentary glance at the actual phenomena will show its perfect identity
+with the eidos, or form.[725] "For instance, what is a calm? It is
+evenness in the surface of the sea. Here the sea is the subject, that
+is, the matter in _capacity_, but the evenness is the _energy_ or
+actuality;... energy is thus as form."[726] The form (or idea) is thus
+an energy or actuality (energeia); the matter is a capacity or
+potentiality (dynamis), requiring the co-operation of the energy to
+produce a result.
+
+These terms, which are first employed by Aristotle in their
+philosophical signification, are characteristic of his whole system. It
+is, therefore, important we should grasp their precise philosophical
+import; and this can only be done by considering them in the strictest
+relation to each other. It is in this relation they are defined by
+Aristotle. "Now energeia is the existence of a thing not in the sense of
+its potentially existing. The term _potentially_ we use, for instance,
+of the statue in the block, and of the half in the whole (since it may
+be subtracted), and of a person knowing a thing, even when he is not
+thinking of it, but might be so; whereas energeia is the opposite. By
+applying the various instances our meaning will be plain, and one must
+not seek a definition in each case, but rather grasp the conception of
+the analogy as a whole,--that it is as that which builds to that which
+has a capacity for building; as the waking to the sleeping; as that
+which sees to that which has sight, but whose eyes are closed; as the
+definite form to the shapeless matter; as the complete to the
+unaccomplished. In this contrast, let the energeia be set off as forming
+the one side, and on the other let the potential stand. Things are said
+to be in energeia not always in like manner (except so far as there is
+an analogy, that as this thing is in this, and related to this, so is
+that in that, or related to that); for sometimes it implies _motion_ as
+opposed to the _capacity of motion_, and sometimes _complete existence_
+opposed to _undeveloped matter_".[727] As the term dynamis has the
+double meaning of "_possibility of existence_" as well as "_capacity of
+action_" so there is the double contrast of "_action_" as opposed to the
+capacity of action; and "_actual existence_" opposed to possible
+existence or potentiality. To express accurately this latter antithesis,
+Aristotle introduced the term entelecheia[728]--entelechy, of which the
+most natural account is that it is a compound of en telei echein--"being
+in a state of perfection."[729] This term, however, rarely occurs in the
+"Metaphysics," whilst energeia is everywhere employed, not only to
+express activity as opposed to passivity, but complete existence as
+opposed to undeveloped matter.
+
+[Footnote 725: "That which Aristotle calls 'form' is not to be
+confounded with what we may perhaps call shape [or figure]; a hand
+severed from the arm, for instance, has still the outward shape of a
+hand, but, according to Aristotelian apprehension, it is only a hand now
+as to matter, and not as to form; an actual hand, a hand as to form, is
+only that which can do the proper work of a hand."--Schwegler's "History
+of Philosophy," p. 122.]
+
+[Footnote 726: "Metaphysics," bk. vii. ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 727: "Metaphysics," bk. viii. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 728: "Entelechy indicates the perfected act, the completely
+actual."--Schw.]
+
+[Footnote 729: Grant's Aristotle's "Ethics," vol. i. p. 184.]
+
+"In Physics dynamis answers to the necessary conditions for the
+existence of any thing before that thing exists. It thus corresponds to
+yl�, both to the prot� yl�--the first matter, or matter devoid of all
+qualities, which is capable of becoming any definite substance, as, for
+example, marble; and also to the eschat� yl�--or matter capable of
+receiving form, as marble the form of the statue." Marble then exists
+potentially in the simple elements before it is marble. The statue
+exists potentially in the marble before it is carved. All objects of
+thought exist, either purely in potentiality, or purely in actuality, or
+both in potentiality and in actuality. This division makes an entire
+chain of all existence. At the one end is matter, the prot� yl� which
+has a merely potential existence, which is necessary as a condition, but
+which having no form and no qualities, is totally incapable of being
+realized by the mind. At the other end of the chain is pure form, which
+is not at all matter, the absolute and the unconditioned, the eternal
+substance and energy without matter (ousia aldios kai energeia aneu
+dyname�s), who can not be thought as non-existing--the self-existent
+God. Between these two extremes is the whole row of creatures, which out
+of potentiality evermore spring into actual being.[730]
+
+[Footnote 730: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 185.]
+
+The relation of actuality to potentiality is the subject of an extended
+and elaborate discussion in book viii., the general results of which may
+be summed up in the following propositions:
+
+1. _The relation of Actuality to Potentiality is as the Perfect to the
+Imperfect_.--The progress from potentiality to actuality is motion or
+production (kin�sis or genesis). But this motion is transitional, and in
+itself imperfect--it tends towards an end, but does not include the end
+in itself. But actuality, if it implies motion, has an end in itself and
+for itself; it is a motion desirable for its own sake.[731] The relation
+of the potential to the actual Aristotle exhibits by the relation of the
+unfinished to the finished work, of the unemployed builder to the one at
+work upon his building, of the seed-corn to the tree, of the man who has
+the capacity to think, to the man actually engaged in thought.[732]
+Potentially the seed-corn is the tree, but the grown-up tree is the
+actuality; the potential philosopher is he who is not at this moment in
+a philosophic condition; indeed, every thing is potential which
+possesses a principle of development, or of change. Actuality or
+entelechy, on the other hand, indicates the _perfect act_, the end
+gained, the completed actual; that activity in which the act and the
+completeness of the act fall together--as, for example, to see, to
+think, where the acting and the completed act are one and the same.
+
+2. _The Relation of Actuality to Potentiality is a causal Relation_.--A
+thing which is endued with a simple capacity of being may nevertheless
+not actually exist, and a thing may have a capacity of being and really
+exist. Since this is the case, there must ensue between non-being and
+real being some such principle as _energy_, in order to account for the
+transition or change.[733] Energy has here some analogy to motion,
+though it must not be confounded with motion. Now you can not predicate
+either motion or energy of things which are not. The moment energy is
+added to them they are. This transition from potentiality to actuality
+must be through the medium of such principles as propension or _free
+will_, because propension or free will possess in themselves the power
+of originating motion in other things.[734]
+
+[Footnote 731: "Metaphysics," bk. viii. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 732: Ibid., bk. viii. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 733: Ibid., bk. viii. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 734: Ibid., bk. viii. ch. v.]
+
+3. _The Relation of Actuality and Potentiality is a Relation of
+Priority_.--Actuality, says Aristotle, is prior to potentiality in the
+order of reason, in the order of substance, and also (though not
+invariably) in the order of time. The first of all capacities is a
+capacity of energizing or assuming a state of activity; for example, a
+man who has the capacity of building is one who is skilled in building,
+and thus able to use his energy in the art of building.[735] The primary
+energizing power must precede that which receives the impression of it,
+Form being older than Matter. But if you take the case of any particular
+person or thing, we say that its capacity of being that particular
+person or thing precedes its being so actually. Yet, though this is the
+case in each particular thing, there is always a foregone energy
+presumed in some other thing (as a prior seed, plant, man) to which it
+owes its existence. One pregnant thought presents itself in the course
+of the discussion which has a direct bearing upon our subject. [Dynamis]
+has been previously defined as "a principle of motion or change in
+another thing in so far forth as it is another thing"[736]--that is, it
+is fitted by nature to have motion imparted to it, and to communicate
+motion to something else. But this motion wants a resting-place. There
+can be no infinite regression of causes. There is some primary [dynamis]
+presupposed in all others, which is the beginning of change. This is
+[Greek: physis], or nature. But the first and original cause of all
+motion and change still precedes and surpasses nature. The final cause
+of all potentiality is energy or _actuality_. The one proposed is prior
+to the means through which the end is accomplished. A process of
+actualization, a tendency towards completeness or perfection ([Greek:
+telos]) presupposes an absolute actuality which is at once its beginning
+and end. "One energy is invariably antecedent to another in time, up to
+that which is primarily and eternally the Moving Cause."[737]
+
+[Footnote 735: "Metaphysics," bk. viii. ch. viii.]
+
+[Footnote 736: Ibid., bk. iv. ch. xii.]
+
+[Footnote 737: Ibid., bk. viii. ch. viii.]
+
+And now having laid down these fundamental principles of metaphysical
+science, as preparatory to Theology, Aristotle proceeds to establish the
+conception of the Absolute or Divine Spirit _as the eternal, immutable
+Substance, the immaterial Energy, the unchangeable Form of Forms, the
+first moving Cause_.
+
+I. _The Ontological Form of Proof_.--It is necessary to conceive an
+eternal and immutable substance--an actuality which is absolute and
+prior, both logically and chronologically, to all potentiality; for that
+which is potential is simply contingent, it may just as easily not be as
+be; that which exists only in capacity is temporal and corruptible, and
+may cease to be. Matter we know subsists merely in capacity and
+passivity, and without the operation of Energy,(energeia), or the
+formative cause, would be to us as non-entity. The phenomena of the
+world exhibits to us the presence of Energy, and energy presupposes the
+existence of an eternal substance. Furthermore, matter and potentiality
+are convertible terms, therefore the primal Energy or Actuality must be
+_immaterial_.[738]
+
+2. _The Cosmological Form of Proof_.--It is impossible that there should
+be _motion_, genesis, or a chain of causes, except on the assumption of
+a first Moving Cause, since that which exists only in capacity can not,
+of itself energize, and consequently without a principle of motion which
+is essentially active, we have only a principle of immobility. The
+principle "ex nihilo nihil" forbids us to assume that motion can arise
+out of immobility, being out of non-being. "How can matter be put in
+motion if nothing that subsists in energy exist, and is its cause?" All
+becoming, therefore, necessarily supposes that which has not become,
+that which is eternally self-active as the principle and cause of all
+motion. There is no refuge from the notion that all things are "born of
+night and nothingness" except in this belief.[739]
+
+[Footnote 738: "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 739: Ibid., bk. xi. ch. vii., viii.]
+
+The existence of an eternal principle subsisting in energy is also
+demanded to explain the _order_ of the world. "For how, let me ask, will
+there prevail _order_ on the supposition that there is no subsistence of
+that which is eternal, and which involves a separable existence, and is
+permanent."[740] "All things in nature are constituted in the best
+possible manner."[741] All things strive after "the good." "The
+appearance of ends and means in nature is a proof of design."[742] Now
+an end or final cause presupposes intelligence,--implies a _mind_ to see
+and desire it. That which is "fair," "beautiful," "good," an "object of
+desire," can only be perceived by Mind. The "final cause" must therefore
+subsist in that which is prior and immovable and eternal; and _Mind_ is
+"that substance which subsists absolutely, and according to
+energy."[743] "The First Mover of all things, moves all things without
+being moved, being an eternal substance and energy; and he moves all
+things as the object of reason and of desire, or love."[744]
+
+[Footnote 740: Ibid., bk. x. ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 741: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 742: "Nat. Ausc.," bk. ii. ch. viii.]
+
+[Footnote 743: "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. vii.]
+
+[Footnote 744: Ibid.]
+
+3. _The Moral Form of Proof_.--So far as the relation of potentiality
+and actuality is identical with the relation of matter and form, the
+argument for the existence of God may be thus presented: The conception
+of an absolute matter without form, involves the supposition of an
+absolute form without matter. And since the conception of form resolves
+itself into _motion_, _conception_, _purpose_ or _end_, so the Eternal
+One is the absolute principle of motion (the pr�ton kinoun), the
+absolute conception or pure intelligence (the pure ti �n einai), and the
+absolute ground, reason, or end of all being. All the other predicates
+of the First Cause follow from the above principles with logical
+necessity.
+
+(i.) _He is, of course, pure intellect_, because he is absolutely
+immaterial and free from nature. He is active intelligence, because his
+essence is pure actuality. He is self-contemplating and self-conscious
+intelligence, because the divine thought can not attain its actuality in
+any thing extrinsic; it would depend on something else than self--some
+potential existence for its actualization. Hence the famous definition
+of the absolute as "the thought of thought" (no�sis no�se�s).[745] "And
+therefore the first and actual perception by mind of Mind itself, doth
+subsist in this way throughout all eternity."[746]
+
+[Footnote 745: Schwegler's "History of Philosophy," p. 125.]
+
+[Footnote 746: "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. ix.]
+
+(ii.) _He is also essential life_. "The principle of life is inherent in
+the Deity, for the energy or active exercise of mind constitutes life,
+and God constitutes this energy; and essential energy belongs to God as
+his best and everlasting life. Now our statement is this--that the Deity
+is a living being that is everlasting and most excellent in nature, so
+that with the Deity life and duration are uninterrupted and eternal; for
+this constitutes the essence of God."[747]
+
+(iii.) _Unity belongs to him_, since multiplicity implies matter; and
+the highest idea or form of the world must be absolutely
+immaterial.[748] The Divine nature is "devoid of parts and indivisible,
+for magnitude can not in any way involve this Divine nature; for God
+imparts motion through infinite duration, and nothing finite--as
+magnitude is--can be possessed of an infinite capacity."[749]
+
+(iv.) _He is immovable and ever abideth the same_; since otherwise he
+could not be the absolute mover, and the cause of all becoming, if he
+were subject to change.[750] God is impassive and unalterable ([Greek:
+apath�s kai analloi�ton]); for all such notions as are involved in
+passion or alteration are outside the sphere of the Divine
+existence.[751]
+
+[Footnote 747: "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. vii.]
+
+[Footnote 748: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 749: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 750: Ibid., bk. xi. ch. viii.]
+
+[Footnote 751: Ibid., bk. xi. ch. vii.]
+
+(v.) _He is the ever-blessed God_.--"The life of God is of a kind with
+those highest moods which, with us, last a brief space, it being
+impossible they should be permanent; whereas, with Him they are
+permanent, since His ever-present consciousness is pleasure itself. And
+it is because they are vivid states of consciousness, that waking, and
+perception, and thought, are the sweetest of all things. Now essential
+perception is the perception of that which is most excellent,... and the
+mind perceives itself by participating of its own object of perception;
+but it is a sort of coalescence of both that, in the Divine Mind,
+creates a regular identity between the two, so that with God both (the
+thinker and the thought, the subject and object) are the same. In
+possession of this prerogative, He subsists in the exercise of energy;
+and the contemplation of his own perfections is what, to God, must be
+most agreeable and excellent. This condition of existence, after so
+excellent a manner, is what is "so astonishing to us when we examine
+God's nature, and the more we do so the more wonderful that nature
+appears to us. The mood of the Divine existence is essential energy,
+and, as such, it is a life that is most excellent, blessed, and
+everlasting.[752]
+
+[Footnote 752: "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. vii.]
+
+The theology of Aristotle may be summed up in the following sentences
+selected from book xi. of his "Metaphysics:"
+
+"This motionless cause of motion is a necessary being; and, by virtue of
+such necessity, is the all-perfect being. This all-pervading principle
+penetrates heaven and all nature. It eternally possesses perfect
+happiness; and its happiness is in action. This primal mover is
+immaterial; for its essence is in energy. It is pure thought--thought
+thinking itself--the thought of thought. The activity of pure
+intelligence--such is the perfect, eternal life of God. This primal
+cause of change, this absolute perfection, moves the world by the
+universal desire for the absolute good, by the attraction exercised upon
+it by the Eternal Mind--the serene energy of Divine Intelligence."
+
+It can not be denied that, so far as it goes, this conception of the
+Deity is admirable, worthy, and just. Viewed from a Christian
+stand-point, we at once concede that it is essentially defective. There
+is no clear and distinct recognition of God as Creator and Governor of
+the universe; he is chiefly regarded as the Life of the universe--the
+Intellect, the Energy--that which gives excellence, and perfection, and
+gladness to the whole system of things. The Theology of Aristotle is, in
+fact, metaphysical rather than practical. He does not contemplate the
+Deity as a moral Governor. Whilst Plato speaks of "being made like God
+through becoming just and holy," Aristotle asserts that "all moral
+virtues are totally unworthy of being ascribed to God."[753] He is not
+the God of providence. He dwells alone, supremely indifferent to human
+cares, and interests, and sorrows. He takes no cognizance of individual
+men, and holds no intercourse with man. The God of Aristotle is not a
+being that meets and satisfies the wants of the human heart, however
+well it may meet the demands of the reason.
+
+[Footnote 753: "Ethics," bk. x. ch. viii.]
+
+Morality has no basis in the Divine nature, no eternal type in the
+perfections and government of God, and no supports and aids from above.
+The theology of Aristotle foreshadows the character of the
+
+ARISTOTELIAN ETHICS.
+
+We do not find in Aristotle any distinct recognition of an eternal and
+immutable morality, an absolute right, which has its foundation in the
+nature of God. Plato had taught that there was "an absolute Good, above
+and beyond all existence in dignity and power;" which is, in fact, "the
+cause of all existence and all knowledge," and which is God; that all
+other things are good in proportion as they "partake of this absolute
+Good;" and that all men are so far good as they "resemble God." But with
+this position Aristotle joins issue. After stating the doctrine of Plato
+in the following words--"Some have thought that, besides all these
+manifold goods upon earth, there is some _absolute good_, which is the
+cause to all these of their being good"--he proceeds to criticise that
+idea, and concludes his argument by saying--"we must dismiss the idea at
+present, for if there is any one good, universal and generic, or
+transcendental and absolute, it obviously can never be realized nor
+possessed by man; whereas something of this latter kind is what we are
+inquiring after." He follows up these remarks by saying that "Perhaps
+the knowledge of the idea may be regarded by some as useful, as a
+pattern (paradeigma) by which to judge of relative good." Against this
+he argues that "There is no trace of the arts making use of any such
+conception; the cobbler, the carpenter, the physician, and the general,
+all pursue their vocations without respect to the _absolute good_, nor
+is it easy to see how they would be benefited by apprehending it."[754]
+The good after which Aristotle would inquire is, therefore, a _relative
+good_, since the knowledge of the absolute good can not possibly be
+realized.
+
+[Footnote 754: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. vi.]
+
+Instead, therefore, of seeking to attain to "a transcendental and
+absolute good "--a fundamental idea of right, which may be useful as a
+paradigm by which we may judge of relative good, he addresses himself
+solely to the question, "what is good for man"--what is the good
+attainable in action? And having identified the Chief Good with the
+final and perfect end of all action, the great question of the _Ethics_
+is, "_What is the end of human action?_" (ti esti to t�n prakt�n
+teloa).[755]
+
+[Footnote 755: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. xiii.]
+
+Now an end or final cause implies an intelligence--implies a mind to
+perceive and desire it. This is distinctly recognized by Aristotle. The
+question, therefore, naturally arises--is that end fixed for man by a
+higher intelligence, and does it exist for man both as an idea and as an
+ideal? Can man, first, intellectually apprehend the idea, and then
+consciously strive after its realization? Is it the duty of man to aim
+at fulfilling the purposes of his Creator? To this it may be answered
+that Aristotle is not at all explicit as to God's moral government of
+the world. "Moral government," in the now common acceptation of the
+term, has no place in the system of Aristotle, and the idea of "duty" is
+scarcely recognized. He considers "the good" chiefly in relation to the
+constitution and natural condition of man. "_It is_" says he, "_the end
+towards which nature tends_." As physical things strive unconsciously
+after the end of their existence, so man strives after the good
+attainable in life. Socrates had identified virtue and knowledge, he had
+taught that "virtue is a Science." Aristotle contended that virtue is an
+art, like music and architecture, which must be attained by exercise. It
+is not purely intellectual, it is the bloom of the physical, which has
+become ethical. As the flower of the field, obeying the laws of its
+organization, springs up, blooms, and attains its own peculiar
+perfection, so there is an instinctive desire (orexis) in the soul which
+at first unconsciously yearns after the good, and subsequently the good
+is sought with full moral intent and insight. Aristotle assumes that the
+desires or instincts of man are so framed as to imply the existence of
+this end (telos).[756] And he asserts that man can only realize it in
+the sphere of his own proper functions, and in accordance with the laws
+of his own proper nature and its harmonious development.[757] It is not,
+then, through instruction, or through the perfection of knowledge, that
+man is to attain the good, but through exercise and habit (ephos). By
+practice of moral acts we become virtuous, just as by practice of
+building and of music, we become architects and musicians; for the
+habit, which is the ground of moral character, is only a fruit of
+oft-repeated moral acts. Hence it is by these three things--nature,
+habit, reason--that men become good.
+
+[Footnote 756: Ibid, bk. i. ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 757: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. vii.]
+
+Aristotle's question, therefore, is, _What is the chief good for man as
+man_? not what is his chief good as a spiritual and an immortal being?
+or what is his chief good as a being related to and dependent upon God?
+And the conclusion at which he arrives is, that it is _the absolute
+satisfaction of our whole nature_--that which men are agreed in calling
+_happiness_. This happiness, however, is not mere sensual pleasure. The
+brute shares this in common with man, therefore it can not constitute
+the happiness of man. Human happiness must express the completeness of
+rational existence. And inasmuch as intelligence is essential activity,
+as the soul is the _entelechy_ of the body, therefore the happiness of
+man can not consist in a mere passive condition. It must, therefore,
+consist in _perfect activity_ in well-doing, and especially in
+contemplative thought,[758] or as Aristotle defines it--"_It is a
+perfect practical activity in a perfect life_."[759] His conception of
+the chief good has thus two sides, one internal, that which exists in
+and for the consciousness--a "complete and perfect life," the other
+external and practical. The latter, however, is a means to the former.
+That complete and perfect life is the complete satisfaction and
+perfection of our rational nature. It is a state of peace which is the
+crown of exertion. It is the realization of the divine in man, and
+constitutes the absolute and all-sufficient happiness.[760] A good
+action is thus an End-in-itself (teleion telos) inasmuch as it secures
+the _perfection_ of our nature; it is that for the sake of which our
+moral faculties before existed, hence bringing an inward pleasure and
+satisfaction with it; something in which the mind can rest and fully
+acquiesce; something which can be pronounced beautiful, fitting,
+honorable, and perfect.
+
+[Footnote 758: "If it be true to say that happiness consists in doing
+well, a life of action must be best both for the state and the
+individual. But we need not, as some do, suppose that a life of action
+implies relation to others, or that those only are active thoughts which
+are concerned with the results of action; but far rather we must
+consider those speculations and thoughts to be so which have their _end
+in themselves_, and which are for their own sake."--"Politics," bk. vii.
+ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 759: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 760: "Ethics," bk. x. ch. viii.]
+
+From what has been already stated, it will be seen that the Aristotelian
+conception of _Virtue_ is not conformity to an absolute and immutable
+standard of right. It is defined by him as _the observation of the right
+mean (mesot�s) in action_--that is, the right mean relatively to
+ourselves. "Virtue is a habit deliberately choosing, existing as a mean
+(meson) which refers to us, and is defined by reason, and as a prudent
+man would define it; and it is a mean between two evils, the one
+consisting in excess, the other in defect; and further, it is a mean, in
+that one of these falls short of, and the other exceeds, what is right
+both in passions and actions; and that virtue both finds and chooses the
+mean."[761] The perfection of an action thus consists in its containing
+the right degree--the true mean between too much, and too little. The
+law of the mesot�s is illustrated by the following examples: Man has a
+fixed relation to pleasure and pain. In relation to pain, the true mean
+is found in neither fearing it nor courting it, and this is _fortitude_.
+In relation to pleasure, the true mean stands between greediness and
+indifference; this is _temperance_. The true mean between prodigality
+and narrowness is _liberality_; between simplicity and cunning is
+_prudence_; between suffering wrong and doing wrong is _justice_.
+Extending this law to certain qualifications of temper, speech, and
+manners, you have the portrait of a graceful Grecian gentleman. Virtue
+is thus _proportion, grace, harmony, beauty in action_.
+
+[Footnote 761: Ibid, bk. ii. ch. vi.]
+
+It will at once be seen that this classification has no stable
+foundation. It furnishes no ultimate standard of right. The _mean_ is a
+wavering line. It differs under different circumstances and relations,
+and in different times and places. That mean which is sufficient for one
+individual is insufficient for another. The virtue of a man, of a slave,
+and of a child, is respectively different. There are as many virtues as
+there are circumstances in life; and as men are ever entering into new
+relations, in which it is difficult to determine the correct method of
+action, the separate virtues can not be limited to any definite number.
+
+Imperfect as the ethical system of Aristotle may appear to us who live
+in Christian times, it must be admitted that his writings abound with
+just and pure sentiments. His science of Ethics is a _discipline of
+human character in order to human happiness_. And whilst it must be
+admitted that it is directed solely to the improvement of man in the
+present life, he aims to build that improvement on pure and noble
+principles, and seeks to elevate man to the highest perfection of which
+he could conceive. "And no greater praise can be given to a work of
+heathen morality than to say, as may be said of the ethical writings of
+Aristotle, that they contain nothing which a Christian may dispense
+with, no precept of life which is not an element of Christian character;
+and that they only fail in elevating the heart and the mind to objects
+which it needed Divine Wisdom to reveal."[762]
+
+[Footnote 762: Encyclop�dia Britannica, article "Aristotle."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS _(continued)_
+
+POST-SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+
+EPICURUS AND ZENO.
+
+
+Philosophy, after the time of Aristotle, takes a new direction. In the
+pre-Socratic schools, we have seen it was mainly a philosophy of nature;
+in the Socratic school it was characterized as a philosophy of mind; and
+now in the post-Socratic schools it becomes a philosophy of life--a
+moral philosophy. Instead of aiming at the knowledge of real Being--of
+the permanent, unchangeable, eternal principles which underlie all
+phenomena, it was now content to aim, chiefly, at individual happiness.
+The primary question now discussed, as of the most vital importance, is,
+What is the ultimate standard by which, amid all the diversities of
+human conduct and opinion, we may determine what is right and good in
+individual and social life?
+
+This remarkable change in the course of philosophic inquiry was mainly
+due--
+
+1st. _To the altered circumstances of the times_. An age of civil
+disturbance and political intrigue succeeded the Alexandrian period. The
+different states of Greece lost their independence, and became gradually
+subject to a foreign yoke. Handed over from one domination to another,
+in the struggles of Alexander's lieutenants, they endeavored to
+reconquer their independence by forming themselves into confederations,
+but were powerless to unite in the defense of a common cause. The Ach�an
+and Etolian leagues were weakened by internal discords; and it was in
+vain that Sparta tried to recover her ancient liberties.
+
+Divided amongst themselves, the smaller states invoked the aid of
+dangerous allies--at one time appealing to Macedon, at another to Egypt.
+In this way they prepared for the total ruin of Greek liberty, which was
+destined to be extinguished by Rome.[763]
+
+[Footnote 763: Pressens�, "Religions before Christ," pp. 136-140.]
+
+During this period of hopeless turmoil and social disorder, all lofty
+pursuits and all great principles were lost sight of and abandoned. The
+philosophic movement followed the downward course of society, and men
+became chiefly concerned for their personal interest and safety. The
+wars of the Succession almost obliterated the idea of society, and
+philosophy was mainly directed to the securing of personal happiness; it
+became, in fact, "the art of making one's self happy." The sad reverses
+to which the Grecian mind had been subjected produced a feeling of
+exhaustion and indifference, which soon reflected itself in the
+philosophy of the age.
+
+2d. In connection with the altered circumstances of the age, we must
+also take account of _the apparent failure of the Socratic method to
+solve the problem of Being_.
+
+The teaching of Aristotle had fostered the suspicion that the dialectic
+method was a failure, and thus prepared the way for a return to
+sensualism. He had taught that individuals alone have a real existence,
+and that the "essence" of things is not to be sought in the elements of
+unity and generality, or in the _idea_, as Plato taught, but in the
+elements of diversity and speciality. And furthermore, in opposition to
+Plato, he had taught his disciples to attach themselves to sensation, as
+the source of all knowledge. As the direct consequence of this teaching,
+we find his immediate successors, Dicearchus and Straton, deliberately
+setting aside "the god of philosophy," affirming "that a _divinity_ was
+unnecessary to the explanation of the existence and order of the
+universe." Stimulated by the social degeneracy of the times, the
+characteristic skepticism of the Greek intellect bursts forth anew. As
+the skepticism of the Sophists marked the close of the first period of
+philosophy, so the skepticism of Pyrrhonism marked the close of the
+second. The new skepticism arrayed Aristotle against Plato as the
+earlier skeptics arrayed atomism against the doctrine of the Eleatics.
+They naturally said: "We have been seeking a long time; what have we
+gained? Have we obtained any thing certain and determinate? Plato says
+we have. But Aristotle and Plato do not agree. May not our opinion be as
+good as theirs? What a diversity of opinions have been presented during
+the past three hundred years! One may be as good as another, or they may
+be all alike untrue!" Timon and Pyrrhon declared that, of each thing, it
+might be said to be, and not to be; and that, consequently, we should
+cease tormenting ourselves, and seek to obtain an _absolute calm_, which
+they dignified with the name of _ataraxie_. Beholding the overthrow and
+disgrace of their country, surrounded by examples of pusillanimity and
+corruption, and infected with the spirit of the times themselves, they
+wrote this maxim: "Nothing is infamous; nothing is in itself just; laws
+and customs alone constitute what is justice and what is iniquity."
+Having reached this extreme, nothing can be too absurd, and they cap the
+climax by saying, "We assert nothing; no, not even that we assert
+nothing!"
+
+And yet there must some function, undoubtedly, remain for the "wise man"
+(sophos).
+
+Reason was given for some purpose. Philosophy must have some end. And
+inasmuch as it is not to determine speculative questions, it must be to
+determine practical questions. May it not teach men to _act_ rather than
+to _think_? The philosopher, the schools, the disciples, survive the
+darkening flood of skepticism.
+
+Three centuries before Christ, the Peripatetic and Platonic schools are
+succeeded by two other schools, which inherit their importance, and
+which, in other forms, and by an under-current, perpetuate the disputes
+of the Peripatetics and Platonists, namely, the Epicureans and Stoics.
+With Aristotle and Plato, philosophy embraced in its circle nature,
+humanity, and God; but now, in the systems of Epicurus and "Zeno", moral
+philosophy is placed in the foreground, and assumes the chief, the
+overshadowing pre-eminence. The conduct of life--morality--is now the
+grand subject of inquiry, and the great theme of discourse.
+
+In dealing with _morals_ two opposite methods of inquiry were possible:
+
+1. _To judge of the quality of actions by their_ RESULTS.
+
+2. _To search for the quality of actions in the actions them selves_.
+
+Utility, which in its last analysis is _Pleasure_, is the test of right,
+in the first method; an assumed or discovered _Law of Nature_, in the
+second. If the world were perfect, and the balance of the human
+faculties undisturbed, it is evident that both systems would give
+identical results. As it is, there is a tendency to error on each side,
+which is fully developed in the rival schools of the Epicureans and
+Stoics, who practically divided the suffrages of the mass of educated
+men until the coming of Christ.
+
+EPICUREANS.
+
+Epicurus was born B.C. 342, and died B.C. 270. He purchased a Garden
+within the city, and commenced, at thirty-six years of age, to teach
+philosophy. The Platonists had their academic Grove: the Aristotelians
+walked in the Lyceum: the Stoics occupied the Porch: the Epicureans had
+their Garden, where they lived a tranquil life, and seem to have had a
+community of goods.
+
+There is not one of all the various founders of the ancient
+philosophical schools whose memory was cherished with so much veneration
+by his disciples as that of Epicurus. For several centuries after his
+death, his portrait was treated by them with all the honors of a sacred
+relic: it was carried about with them in their journeys, it was hung up
+in their schools, it was preserved with reverence in their private
+chambers; his birthday was celebrated with sacrifices and other
+religious observances, and a special festival in his honor was held
+every month.
+
+So much honor having been paid to the memory of Epicurus, we naturally
+expect that his works would have been preserved with religious care. He
+was one of the most prolific of the ancient Greek writers. Diogenes
+calls him "a most voluminous writer," and estimates the number of works
+composed by him at no less than three hundred, the principal of which he
+enumerates.[764] But out of all this prodigious collection, not a single
+book has reached us in a complete, or at least an independent form.
+Three letters, which contain some outlines of his philosophy, are
+preserved by Diogenes, who has also embodied his "Fundamental
+Maxims"--forty-four propositions, containing a summary of his ethical
+system. These, with part of his work "On Nature," found during the last
+century among the Greek MSS. recovered at Herculaneum, constitute all
+that has survived the general wreck.
+
+[Footnote 764: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xvi., xvii.]
+
+We are thus left to depend mainly on his disciples and successors for
+any general account of his system. And of the earliest and most
+immediate of these the writings have perished.[765] Our sole original
+authority is Diogenes Laertius, who was unquestionably an Epicurean. The
+sketch of Epicurus which is given in his "Lives" is evidently a "labor
+of love." Among all the systems of ancient philosophy described by him,
+there is none of whose general character he has given so skillful and so
+elaborate an analysis. And even as regards the particulars of the
+system, nothing could be more complete than Laertius's account of his
+physical speculations. Additional light is also furnished by the
+philosophic poem of Lucretius "On the Nature of Things," which was
+written to advocate the physical theory of Epicurus. These are the chief
+sources of our information.
+
+[Footnote 765: Some fragments of the writings of Metrodorus, Ph�drus,
+Polystratus, and Philodemus, have been found among the Herculanean
+Papyri, and published in Europe, which are said to throw some additional
+light on the doctrines of Epicurus. See article on "Herculanean Papyri,"
+in Edinburgh Review, October, 1862.]
+
+It is said of Epicurus that he loved to hearken to the stories of the
+indifference and apathy of Pyrrhon, and that, in these qualities, he
+aspired to imitate him. But Epicurus was not, like Pyrrhon, a skeptic;
+on the contrary, he was the most imperious dogmatist. No man ever showed
+so little respect for the opinions of his predecessors, or so much
+confidence in his own. He was fond of boasting that he had made his own
+philosophy--_he_ was a "self-taught" man! Now "Epicurus might be
+perfectly honest in saying he had read very little, and had worked out
+the conclusions in his own mind, but he was a copyist, nevertheless; few
+men more entirely so."[766] His psychology was certainly borrowed from
+the Ionian school. From thence he had derived his fundamental maxim,
+that "sensation is the source of all knowledge, and the standard of all
+truth." His physics were copied from Democritus. With both, "atoms are
+the first principle of all things." And in Ethics he had learned from
+Aristotle, that if an absolute good is not the end of a practical life,
+_happiness_ must be its end.[767] All that is fundamental in the system
+of Epicurus was borrowed from his predecessors, and there is little that
+can be called new in his teaching.
+
+[Footnote 766: Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 236.]
+
+[Footnote 767: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. vi]
+
+The grand object of philosophy, according to Epicurus, _is the
+attainment of a happy life_. "Philosophy," says he, "is the power by
+which reason conducts men to happiness." Truth is a merely relative
+thing, a variable quantity; and therefore the pursuit of truth for its
+own sake is superfluous and useless. There is no such thing as absolute,
+unchangeable right: no action is intrinsically right or wrong. "We
+choose the virtues, not on their own account, but for the sake of
+pleasure, just as we seek the skill of the physician for the sake of
+health."[768] That which is nominally right in morals, that which is
+relatively good in human conduct, is, therefore, to be determined by the
+effects upon ourselves; that which is agreeable--pleasurable, is right;
+that which is disagreeable--painful, is wrong. "The virtues are connate
+with living pleasantly."[769] Pleasure (�don�), then, is the great end
+to be sought in human action. "Pleasure is the chief good, the beginning
+and end of living happily."[770]
+
+[Footnote 768: "Fundamental Maxims," preserved in Diogenes Laertius,
+"Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxx.]
+
+[Footnote 769: "Epicurus to Men�ceus," in Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of
+the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxvii.]
+
+[Footnote 770: Id., ib.]
+
+The proof which Epicurus offers in support of his doctrine, "that
+pleasure is the chief good," is truly characteristic. "All animals from
+the moment of their birth are delighted with pleasure and offended with
+pain, by their natural instincts, and without the employment of reason.
+Therefore we, also, of our own inclination, flee from pain."[771] "All
+men like pleasure and dislike pain; they naturally shun the latter and
+pursue the former." "If happiness is present, we have every thing, and
+when it is absent, we do every thing with a view to possess it."[772]
+Virtue thus consists in man's doing deliberately what the animals do
+instinctively--that is, choose pleasure and avoid pain.
+
+[Footnote 771: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xxix.]
+
+[Footnote 772: Id., ib., bk. x. ch. xxvii.]
+
+"Every kind of pleasure" is, in the estimation of Epicurus, "alike
+good," and alike proper. "If those things which make the pleasures of
+debauched men put an end to the fears of the mind, and to those which
+arise about the heavenly bodies [supernatural powers], and death and
+pain,... we should have no pretense for blaming those who wholly devote
+themselves to pleasure, and who never feel any pain, or grief (which is
+the chief evil) from any quarter."[773] Whilst, however, all pleasures
+of the body, as well as the mind, are equal in dignity, and alike good,
+they differ in intensity, in duration, and, especially, in their
+consequences. He therefore divides pleasure into two classes; and in
+this, as Cousin remarks, is found the only element of originality in his
+philosophy. These two kinds of pleasure are:
+
+1. _The pleasure of movement, excitement, energy_ (�don� en
+kin�sei).[774] This is the most lively pleasure; it supposes the
+greatest development of physical and mental power. "Joy and cheerfulness
+are beheld in motion and energy." But it is not the most enduring
+pleasure, and it is not the most perfect. It is accompanied by
+uneasiness; it "brings with it many perturbations," and it yields some
+bitter fruits.
+
+[Footnote 773: "Fundamental Maxims," No. 9, in Diogenes Laertius, "Lives
+of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxxi.]
+
+[Footnote 774: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xxviii.]
+
+2. _The second kind of pleasure is the pleasure of repose, tranquillity,
+impassibility_ (�don� katast�matik�). This is a state, a "condition,"
+rather than a motion. It is "the freedom of the body from pain, and the
+soul from confusion."[775] This is perfect and unmixed happiness--the
+happiness of God; and he who attains it "will be like a god among men."
+"The storm of the soul is at an end, and body and soul are perfected."
+
+Now, whilst "no pleasure is intrinsically bad,"[776] prudence
+(phron�sis), or practical wisdom, would teach us to choose the highest
+and most perfect happiness. Morality is therefore the application of
+reason to the conduct of life, and virtue is wisdom. The office of
+reason is to "determine our choices"--to take account of the duration of
+pleasures, to estimate their consequences, and to regard the happiness
+of a whole lifetime, and not the enjoyment of a single hour. Without
+wisdom men will choose the momentary excitements of passion, and follow
+after agitating pleasures, which are succeeded by pain; they will
+consequently lose "tranquillity of mind." "It is not possible," says
+Epicurus, "to live pleasantly without living prudently and honorably and
+justly."[777] The difference, then, between the philosopher and the
+ordinary man is this--that while both seek pleasure, the former knows
+how to forego certain indulgences which cause pain and vexation
+hereafter, whereas the ordinary man seeks only immediate enjoyment.
+Epicurus does not dispense with virtue, but he simply employs it as a
+means to an end, namely, the securing of happiness.[778]
+
+[Footnote 775: Id., ib.]
+
+[Footnote 776: "Fundamental Maxims," No. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 777: Ibid., No. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 778: Pressens�, "Religions before Christ," p. 141.]
+
+Social morality is, like private morality, founded upon _utility._ As
+nothing is intrinsically right or wrong in private life, so nothing is
+intrinsically just or unjust in social life. "Justice has no independent
+existence: it results from mutual contracts, and establishes itself
+wherever there is a mutual engagement to guard against doing or
+sustaining any injury. Injustice is not intrinsically bad; it has this
+character only because there is joined with it the fear of not escaping
+those who are appointed to punish actions marked with this
+character."[779] Society is thus a contract--an agreement to promote
+each other's happiness. And inasmuch as the happiness of the individual
+depends in a great degree upon the general happiness, the essence of his
+ethical system, in its political aspects, is contained in inculcating
+"the greatest happiness of the greatest number."
+
+If you ask Epicurus what a man shall do when it is clearly his immediate
+interest to violate the social contract, he would answer, that if your
+general interest is secured by always observing it, you must make
+momentary sacrifices for the sake of future good. But "when, in
+consequence of new circumstances, a thing which has been pronounced just
+does not any longer appear to agree with utility, the thing which was
+just... ceases to be just the moment it ceases to be useful."[780] So
+that self-interest is still the basis of all virtue. And if, by the
+performance of duty, you are exposed to great suffering, and especially
+to death, you are perfectly justified in the violation of any and all
+contracts. Such is the social morality of Epicurus.
+
+With coarse and energetic minds the doctrine of Epicurus would
+inevitably lead to the grossest sensuality and crime; with men whose
+temperament was more apathetic, or whose tastes were more pure, it would
+develop a refined selfishness--a perfect egoism, which Epicurus has
+adorned with the name "tranquillity of mind--impassibility,"
+(ataraxia).[781]
+
+[Footnote 779: "Fundamental Maxims," Nos. 35, 36.]
+
+[Footnote 780: Ibid., No. 41.]
+
+[Footnote 781: It is scarcely necessary to discuss the question whether,
+by making pleasure the standard of right, Epicurus intended to encourage
+what is usually called sensuality. He earnestly protested against any
+such unfavorable interpretation of his doctrine:--"When we say that
+pleasure is a chief good, we are not speaking of the pleasures of the
+debauched man, or those which lie in sensual enjoyment, as some think
+who are ignorant, and who do not entertain our opinions, or else
+interpret them perversely; but we mean the freedom of the body from
+pain, and the soul from confusion" ("Epicurus to Men�ceus," in Diogenes
+Laertius, "Lives," bk. x. ch. xxvii.). The most obvious tendency of this
+doctrine is to extreme selfishness, rather than extreme sensuality--a
+selfishness which prefers one's own comfort and case to every other
+consideration.
+
+As to the personal character of Epicurus, opinions have been divided
+both in ancient and modern times. By some the garden has been called a
+"sty." Epicurus has been branded as a libertine, and the name
+"Epicurean" has, in almost all languages, become the synonym of
+sensualism. Diogenes Laertius repels all the imputations which are cast
+upon the moral character of his favorite author, and ascribes them to
+the malignity and falsehood of the Stoics. "The most modern criticism
+seems rather inclined to revert to the vulgar opinion respecting him,
+rejecting, certainly with good reason, the fanatical panegyrics of some
+French and English writers of the last century. Upon the whole, we are
+inclined to believe that Epicurus was an apathetic, decorous, formal
+man, who was able, without much difficulty, to cultivate a measured and
+even habit of mind, who may have occasionally indulged in sensual
+gratifications to prove that he thought them lawful, but who generally
+preferred, as a matter of taste, the exercises of the intellect to the
+more violent forms of self-indulgence. And this life, it seems to us,
+would be most consistent with his opinions. To avoid commotion, to make
+the stream of life flow on as easily as possible, was clearly the aim of
+his philosophy."--Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 236.]
+
+To secure this highest kind of happiness--this pure impassivity, it was
+necessary to get rid of all superstitious fears of death, of
+supernatural beings, and of a future retribution.[782] The chief causes
+of man's misery are his illusions, his superstitions, and his
+prejudices. "That which principally contributes to trouble the spirit of
+men, is the persuasion which they cherish that the stars are beings
+imperishable and happy (_i.e.,_ that they are gods), and that then our
+thoughts and actions are contrary to the will of those superior beings;
+they also, being deluded by these fables, apprehend an eternity of
+evils, they fear the insensibility of death, as though that could affect
+them...." "The real freedom from this kind of trouble consists in being
+emancipated from all these things."[783] And this emancipation is to be
+secured by the study of philosophy--that is, of that philosophy which
+explains every thing on natural or physical principles, and excludes all
+supernatural powers.
+
+[Footnote 782: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. 1. 100-118.]
+
+[Footnote 783: Epicurus to Herodotus, in Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of
+the Philosophers," p. 453 (Bohn's edition).]
+
+That ignorance which occasions man's misery is two-fold, (i.) _Ignorance
+of the external world, which leads to superstition._ All unexplained
+phenomena are ascribed to unseen, supernatural powers; often to
+malignant powers, which take pleasure in tormenting man; sometimes to a
+Supreme and Righteous Power, which rewards and punishes men for their
+good or evil conduct. Hence a knowledge of Physics, particularly the
+physics which Democritus taught, was needful to deliver men from false
+hopes and false fears.[784] (ii.) _Ignorance of the nature of man, of
+his faculties, powers, and the sources and limits of his knowledge_,
+from whence arise illusions, prejudices, and errors. Hence the need of
+Psychology to ascertain the real grounds of human knowledge, to explain
+the origin of man's illusions, to exhibit the groundlessness of his
+fears, and lead him to a just conception of the nature and end of his
+existence.
+
+[Footnote 784: "The study of physics contributes more than any thing
+else to the tranquillity and happiness of life."--Diogenes Laertius,
+"Lives," bk. x. ch. xxiv. "For thus it is that _fear_ restrains all men,
+because they observe many things effected on the earth and in heaven, of
+which effects they can by no means see the causes, and therefore think
+that they are wrought by a _divine_ power. For which reasons, when we
+have clearly seen that _nothing can be produced from nothing_, we shall
+have a more accurate perception of that of which we are in search, and
+shall understand whence each individual thing is generated, and how all
+things are done without the agency of the gods."--Lucretius, "On the
+Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 145-150.]
+
+Physics and Psychology are thus the only studies which Epicurus would
+tolerate as "conducive to the happiness of man." The pursuit of truth
+for its own sake was useless. Dialectics, which distinguish the true
+from the false, the good from the bad, on _� priori_ grounds, must be
+banished as an unnecessary toil, which yields no enjoyment. Theology
+must be cancelled entirely, because it fosters superstitious fears. The
+idea of God's taking knowledge of, disapproving, condemning, punishing
+the evil conduct of men, is an unpleasant thought. Physics and
+Psychology are the most useful, because the most "agreeable," the most
+"comfortable" sciences.
+
+EPICUREAN PHYSICS.
+
+In his physical theories Epicurus followed Leucippus and Democritus. He
+expounds these theories in his letters to Herodotus and Pythocles, which
+are preserved in Diogenes Laertius.[785] We shall be guided mainly by
+his own statements, and when his meaning is obscure, or his exposition
+is incomplete, we shall avail ourselves of the more elaborate statements
+of Lucretius,[786] who is uniformly faithful to the doctrine of
+Epicurus, and universally regarded as its best expounder.
+
+The fundamental principle of his philosophy is the ancient maxim--"_de
+nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil fosse reverti_;" but instead of employing
+this maxim in the sense in which it is used by Parmenides, Anaxagoras,
+Empedocles, and others, to prove there must be something self-existent
+and eternal, or in other words, "that nothing which once was not can
+ever of itself come into being," he uses it to disprove a divine
+creation, and even presents the maxim in an altered form--viz., "nothing
+is ever _divinely_ generated from nothing;"[787] and he thence concludes
+that the world was by no means made for us by _divine_ power.[788]
+Nature is eternal. "The universal whole always was such as it now is,
+and always will be such." "The universe also is infinite, for that which
+is finite has a limit, but the universe has no limit."[789]
+
+[Footnote 785: "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.]
+
+[Footnote 786: "De Natura Rerum."]
+
+[Footnote 787: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i.]
+
+[Footnote 788: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 789: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xxiv.]
+
+The two great principles of nature are a _vacuum_, and a _plenum._ The
+plenum is _body_, or tangible nature; the vacuum is _space_, or
+intangible nature. "We know by the evidences of the senses (which are
+our only rule of reasoning) that _bodies_ have a real existence, and we
+infer from the evidence of the senses that the vacuum has a real
+existence; for if space have no real existence, there would be nothing
+in which bodies can move, as we see they really do move. Let us add to
+this reflection that one can not conceive, either in virtue of
+perception, or of any analogy founded on perception, any general quality
+peculiar to all beings, which is not either an attribute, or an
+accident, of the body or of the vacuum."[790]
+
+Of bodies some are "combinations"--concrete bodies--and some are
+primordial "elements," out of which combinations are formed. These
+primordial elements, out of which the universe is generated, are
+"_atoms_" (atomoi). These atoms are "the first principles" and "seeds"
+of all things.[791] They are "_infinite_ in number," and, as their name
+implies, they are "_infrangible" "unchangeable_" and
+"_indestructible."_[792] Matter is, therefore, not infinitely divisible;
+there must be a point at which division ends.[793]
+
+The only qualities of atoms are _form_, _magnitude_, and _density._ All
+the other sensible qualities of matter--the secondary qualities--as
+color, odor, sweetness, bitterness, etc.--are necessarily inherent in
+form. All secondary qualities are changeable, but the primary atoms are
+unchangeable; "for in the dissolution of combined bodies there must be
+something _solid_ and _indestructible,_ of such a kind that it will not
+change, either into what does not exist, or out of what does not exist,
+but the change results from a simple displacement of parts, which is the
+most usual case, or from an addition or subtraction of particles."[794]
+
+[Footnote 790: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xxiv.]
+
+[Footnote 791: Id., ib., bk. x. ch. xxv.]
+
+[Footnote 792: Id., ib., bk. x. ch. xxiv.]
+
+[Footnote 793: Id., ib.; Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l.
+616-620.]
+
+[Footnote 794: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xxiv.]
+
+The atoms are not all of one _form_, but of different forms suited to
+the production of different substances by combination; some are square,
+some triangular, some smooth and spherical, some are hooked with points.
+They are also diversified in _magnitude_ and _density_. The number of
+original forms is "incalculably varied," but not infinite. "Every
+variety of forms contains an infinitude of atoms, but there is not, for
+that reason, an infinitude of forms; it is only the number of them which
+is beyond computation."[795] To assert that atoms are of every kind of
+form, magnitude, and density, would be "to contradict the phenomena;
+"for experience teaches us that objects have a finite magnitude, and
+form necessarily supposes limitation.
+
+[Footnote 795: Id., ib.]
+
+A variety of these primordial forms enter into the composition of all
+sensible objects, because sensible objects possess different qualities,
+and these diversified qualities can only result from the combination of
+different original forms. "The earth has, in itself, primary atoms from
+which springs, rolling forth cool _water_, incessantly recruit the
+immense sea; it has also atoms from which _fire_ arises.... Moreover,
+the earth contains atoms from which it can raise up rich _corn_ and
+cheerful _groves_ for the tribes of men...." So that "no object in
+nature is constituted of one kind of elements, and whatever possesses in
+itself must numerous powers and energies, thus demonstrates that it
+contains more numerous kinds of primary particles,"[796] or primordial
+"seeds of things."
+
+"The atoms are in a continual state of _motion_" and "have moved with
+_equal rapidity_ from all eternity, since it is evident the vacuum can
+offer no resistance to the heaviest, any more than the lightest." The
+primary and original movement of all atoms is _in straight lines, by
+virtue of their own weight_. The vacuum separates all atoms one from
+another, at greater or less distances, and they preserve their own
+peculiar motion in the densest substances.[797]
+
+[Footnote 796: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 582-600.]
+
+[Footnote 797: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xxiv.; Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 80-92.]
+
+And now the grand crucial question arises--_How do atoms combine so as
+to form concrete bodies?_ If they move in straight lines, and with equal
+rapidity from all eternity, then they can never unite so as to form
+concrete substances. They can only coalesce by deviating from a straight
+line.[798] How are they made to deviate from a straight line? This
+deviation must be introduced _arbitrarily_, or by some _external cause_.
+And inasmuch as Epicurus admits of no causes "but space and matter," and
+rejects all divine or supernatural interposition, the _new_ movement
+must be purely arbitrary. They deviate _spontaneously,_ and of their own
+accord. "The system of nature immediately appears _as a free agent_,
+released from tyrant masters, to do every thing of itself spontaneously,
+without the help of the gods."[799] The manner in which Lucretius proves
+this doctrine is a good example of the petitio principii. He assumes, in
+opposition to the whole spirit and tendency of the Epicurean philosophy,
+that man has "a free will," and then argues that if man who is nothing
+but an aggregation of atoms, can "turn aside and alter his own
+movements," the primary elements, of which his soul is composed, must
+have some original spontaneity. "If all motion is connected and
+dependent, and a new movement perpetually arises from a former one in a
+certain order, and if the primary elements do not produce any
+commencement of motion by deviating from the straight line to break the
+laws of fate, so that cause may not follow cause in infinite succession,
+_whence comes this freedom of will_ to all animals in the world? whence,
+I say, is this liberty of action wrested from the fates, by means of
+which we go wheresoever inclination leads each of us? whence is it that
+we ourselves turn aside, and alter our motions, not at any fixed time,
+nor in any fixed part of space, but just as our own minds prompt?....
+Wherefore we must necessarily confess that the same is the case with the
+seeds of matter, and there is some other cause besides strokes and
+weight [resistance and density] from which this power [of free movement]
+is innate in them, since we see that _nothing is produced from
+nothing_."[800] Besides form, extension, and density, Epicurus has found
+another inherent or essential quality of matter or atoms, namely,
+"_spontaneous" motion._
+
+[Footnote 798: "At some time, though at no fixed and determinate time,
+and at some point, though at no fixed and determinate point, they turn
+aside from the right line, but only so far as you can call the least
+possible deviation."--Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. ii. l.
+216-222.]
+
+[Footnote 799: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things" bk. ii. 1.
+1092-1096.]
+
+[Footnote 800: Id., ib., bk. ii. l. 250-290.]
+
+By a slight "voluntary" deflection from the straight line, atoms are now
+brought into contact with each other; "they strike against each other,
+and by the percussion new movements and new complications
+arise"--"movements from high to low, from low to high, and horizontal
+movements to and fro, in virtue of this reciprocal percussion." The
+atoms "jostling about, _of their own accord_, in infinite modes, were
+often brought together confusedly, irregularly, and to no purpose, but
+at length they _successfully coalesced_; at least, such of them as were
+thrown together suddenly became, in succession, the beginnings of great
+things--as earth, and air, and sea, and heaven."[801]
+
+[Footnote 801: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. ii. l.
+1051-1065.]
+
+And now Lucretius shall describe the formation of the different parts of
+the world according to the cosmogony of Epicurus. We quote from Good's
+translation:
+
+     But from this boundless mass of matter first
+     How heaven, and earth, and ocean, sun, and moon,
+     Rose in nice order, now the muse shall tell.
+     For never, doubtless, from result of thought,
+     Or mutual compact, could primordial seeds
+     First harmonize, or move with powers precise.
+     But countless crowds in countless manners urged,
+     From time eternal, by intrinsic weight
+     And ceaseless repercussion, to combine
+     In all the possibilities of forms,
+     Of actions, and connections, and exert
+     In every change some effort to create--
+     Reared the rude frame at length, abruptly reared,
+     Which, when once gendered, must the basis prove
+     Of things sublime; and whence eventual rose
+     Heaven, earth, and ocean, and the tribes of sense.
+
+     Yet now nor sun on fiery wheel was seen
+     Riding sublime, nor stars adorned the pole,
+     Nor heaven, nor earth, nor air, nor ocean lived,
+     Nor aught of prospect mortal sight surveyed;
+     But one vast chaos, boisterous and confused.
+     Yet order hence began; congenial parts
+     Parts joined congenial; and the rising world
+     Gradual evolved: its mighty members each
+     From each divided, and matured complete
+     From seeds appropriate; whose wild discortderst,
+     Reared by their strange diversities of form,
+     With ruthless war so broke their proper paths,
+     Their motions, intervals, conjunctions, weights,
+     And repercussions, nought of genial act
+     Till now could follow, nor the seeds themselves
+     E'en though conjoined in mutual bonds, co
+     Thus air, secreted, rose o'er laboring earth;
+     Secreted ocean flowed; and the pure fire,
+     Secreted too, toward ether sprang sublime.
+
+     But first the seeds terrene, since ponderous most
+     And most perplext, in close embraces clung,
+     And towards the centre conglobating sunk.
+     And as the bond grew firmer, ampler forth
+     Pressed they the fluid essences that reared
+     Sun, moon, and stars, and main, and heaven's high wall.
+     For those of atoms lighter far consist,
+     Subtiler, and more rotund than those of earth.
+     Whence, from the pores terrene, with foremost haste
+     Rushed the bright ether, towering high, and swift
+     Streams of fire attracting as it flowed.
+
+     Then mounted, next, the base of sun and moon,
+     'Twixt earth and ether, in the midway air
+     Rolling their orbs; for into neither these
+     Could blend harmonious, since too light with earth
+     To sink deprest, while yet too ponderous far
+     To fly with ether toward the realms extreme:
+     So 'twixt the two they hovered; _vital_ there
+     Moving forever, parts of the vast whole;
+     As move forever in the frame of man
+     Some active organs, while some oft repose.[802]
+
+[Footnote 802: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," b. v. l. 431-498]
+
+After explaining the origin and causes of the varied celestial
+phenomena, he proceeds to give an account of the production of plants,
+animals, and man:
+
+     Once more return we to the world's pure prime,
+     Her fields yet liquid, and the tribes survey
+     First she put forth, and trusted to the winds.
+
+     And first the race she reared of verdant herbs,
+     Glistening o'er every hill; the fields at large
+     Shone with the verdant tincture, and the trees
+     Felt the deep impulse, and with outstretched arms
+     Broke from their bonds rejoicing. As the down
+     Shoots from the winged nations, or from beasts
+     Bristles or hair, so poured the new-born earth
+     Plants, fruits, and herbage. Then, in order next,
+     Raised she the sentient tribes, in various modes,
+     By various powers distinguished: for not heaven
+     Down dropped them, nor from ocean's briny waves
+     Sprang they, terrestrial sole; whence, justly _Earth_
+     Claims the dear name of mother, since alone
+     Flowed from herself whate'er the sight surveys.
+
+     E'en now oft rears she many a sentient tribe
+     By showers and sunshine ushered into day.[803]
+     Whence less stupendous tribes should then have risen
+     More, and of ampler make, herself new-formed,
+     In flower of youth, and _Ether_ all mature.[804]
+
+     Of these birds first, of wing and plume diverse,
+     Broke their light shells in spring-time: as in spring
+     Still breaks the grasshopper his curious web,
+     And seeks, spontaneous, foods and vital air.
+
+     Then rushed the ranks of mortals; for the soil,
+     Exuberant then, with warmth and moisture teemed.
+     So, o'er each scene appropriate, myriad wombs
+     Shot, and expanded, to the genial sward
+     By fibres fixt; and as, in ripened hour,
+     Their liquid orbs the daring foetus broke
+     Of breath impatient, nature here transformed
+     Th' assenting earth, and taught her opening veins
+     With juice to flow lacteal; as the fair
+     Now with sweet milk o'erflows, whose raptured breast
+     First hails the stranger-babe, since all absorbed
+     Of nurture, to the genial tide converts.
+     Earth fed the nursling, the warm ether clothed,
+     And the soft downy grass his couch compressed.[805]
+
+[Footnote 803: The doctrine of "spontaneous generations" is still more
+explicitly announced in book ii. "Manifest appearances compel us to
+believe that animals, though possessed of sense, are generated from
+senseless atoms. For you may observe living worms proceed from foul
+dung, when the earth, moistened with immoderate showers, has contracted
+a kind of putrescence; and you may see all other things change
+themselves, similarly, into other things."--Lucretius, "On the Nature of
+Things," bk. i. l. 867-880.]
+
+[Footnote 804: Ether is the father, earth the mother of all organized
+being.--Id., ib., bk. i. l. 250-255.]
+
+[Footnote 805: Id., ib., bk. v. l. 795-836.]
+
+A state of pure savagism, or rather of mere animalism, was the primitive
+condition of man. He wandered naked in the woods, feeding on acorns and
+wild fruits, and quenched his thirst at the "echoing waterfalls," in
+company with the wild beast.
+
+Through the remaining part of book v. Lucretius describes how speech was
+invented; how society originated, and governments were instituted; how
+civilization commenced; and how religion arose out of ignorance of
+natural causes; how the arts of life were discovered, and how science
+sprang up. And all this, as he is careful to tell us, without any divine
+instruction, or any assistance from the gods.
+
+Such are the physical theories of the Epicureans. The primordial
+elements of matter are infinite, eternal, and self-moved. After ages
+upon ages of chaotic strife, the universe at length arose out of an
+_infinite_ number of atoms, and a _finite_ number of forms, by a
+fortuitous combination. Plants, animals, and man were spontaneously
+generated from ether and earth. Languages, society, governments, arts
+were gradually developed. And all was achieved simply by blind,
+unconscious nature-forces, without any designing, presiding, and
+governing Intelligence--that is, without a God.
+
+The evil genius which presided over the method of Epicurus, and
+perverted all his processes of thought, is clearly apparent. The end of
+his philosophy was not the discovery of truth. He does not commence his
+inquiry into the principles or causes which are adequate to the
+explanation of the universe, with an unprejudiced mind. He everywhere
+develops a malignant hostility to religion, and the avowed object of his
+physical theories is to rid the human mind of all fear of supernatural
+powers--that is, of all fear of God.[806] "The phenomena which men
+observe to occur in the earth and the heavens, when, as often happens,
+they are perplexed with fearful thoughts, overawe their minds with a
+dread of the gods, and humble and depress them to the earth. For
+ignorance of natural causes obliges them to refer all things to the
+power of the divinities, and to resign the dominion of the world to
+them; because of those effects they can by no means see the origin, and
+accordingly suppose that they are produced by divine influence."[807]
+
+[Footnote 806: "Let us trample religion underfoot, that the victory
+gained over it may place us on an equality with heaven" (book i.). See
+Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxiv. pp.
+453,454 (Bohn's edition); Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i.
+l. 54-120.]
+
+[Footnote 807: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. vi. l. 51-60.]
+
+To "expel these fancies from the mind" as "inconsistent with its
+tranquillity and opposed to human happiness," is the end, and, as
+Lucretius believes, the glory of the Epicurean philosophy. To accomplish
+this, God must be placed at an infinite distance from the universe, and
+must be represented as indifferent to every thing that transpires within
+it. We "must beware of making the Deity interpose here, for that Being
+we ought to suppose _exempt from all occupation_, and perfectly
+happy,"[808]--that is, absolutely impassible. God did not make the
+world, and he does not govern the world. There is no evidence of design
+or intelligence in its structure, and "such is the faultiness with which
+it stands affected, that it can not be the work of a Divine power."[809]
+
+Epicurus is, then, an unmistakable Atheist. He did not admit a God in
+any rational sense. True, he _professed_ to believe in gods, but
+evidently in a very equivocal manner, and solely to escape the popular
+condemnation. "They are not pure spirits, for there is no spirit in the
+atomic theory; they are not bodies, for where are the bodies that we may
+call gods? In this embarrassment, Epicurus, compelled to acknowledge
+that the human race believes in the existence of gods, addresses himself
+to an old theory of Democritus--that is, he appeals to dreams. As in
+dreams there are images that act upon and determine in us agreeable or
+painful sensations, without proceeding from exterior bodies, so the gods
+are images similar to those of dreams, but greater, having the human
+form; images which are not precisely bodies, and yet not deprived of
+materiality which are whatever you please, but which, in short, must be
+admitted, since the human race believes in gods, and since the
+universality of the religious sentiment is a fact which demands a
+cause."[810]
+
+[Footnote 808: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xxv.; Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 55-60.]
+
+[Footnote 809: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. v. l. 195-200.]
+
+[Footnote 810: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 431.]
+
+It is needless to offer any criticism on the reasoning of Epicurus. One
+fact will have obviously presented itself to the mind of the reflecting
+reader. He starts with atoms having form, magnitude, and density, and
+essays to construct a universe; but he is obliged to be continually
+introducing, in addition, a "_nameless something_" which "remains in
+secret," to help him out in the explanation of the phenomena.[811] He
+makes life to arise out of dead matter, sense out of senseless atoms,
+consciousness out of unconsciousness, reason out of unreason, without an
+adequate cause, and thus violates the fundamental principle from which
+he starts, "_that nothing can arise from nothing_."
+
+EPICUREAN PSYCHOLOGY.
+
+In the system of Epicurus, the soul is regarded as corporeal or
+material, like the body; they form, together, one nature or substance.
+The soul is composed of atoms exceedingly diminutive, smooth, and round,
+and connected with or diffused through the veins, viscera, and nerves.
+The substance of the soul is not to be regarded as simple and
+uncompounded; its constituent parts are _aura_, heat, and air. These are
+not sufficient, however, even in the judgment of Epicurus, to account
+for _sensation_; they are not adequate to generate sensible motives such
+as revolve any thoughts in the mind. "A certain fourth nature, or
+substance, must, therefore, necessarily be added to these, _that is
+wholly without a name_; it is a substance, however, than which nothing
+exists more active or more subtile, nor is any thing more essentially
+composed of small and smooth elementary particles; and it is this
+substance which first distributes sensible motions through the
+members."[812]
+
+[Footnote 811: As, _e.g._, Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk.
+iii. l. 260-290.]
+
+[Footnote 812: Id., ib., bk. iii. l. 237-250.]
+
+Epicurus is at great pains to prove that the soul is material; and it
+can not be denied that he marshals his arguments with great skill.
+Modern materialism may have added additional illustrations, but it has
+contributed no new lines of proof. The weapons are borrowed from the old
+arsenal, and they are not wielded with any greater skill than they were
+by Epicurus himself, I. The soul and the body act and react upon each
+other; and mutual reaction can only take place between substances of
+similar nature. "Such effects can only be produced by _touch_, and touch
+can not take place without _body_."[813] 2. The mind is produced
+together with the body, it grows up along with it, and waxes old at the
+same time with it.[814] 3. The mind is diseased along with the body, "it
+loses its faculties by material causes, as intoxication, or by severe
+blows; and is sometimes, by a heavy lethargy, borne down into a deep
+eternal sleep."[815] 4. The mind, like the body, is healed by medicines,
+which proves that it exists only as a mortal substance.[816] 5. The mind
+does not always, and at the same time, continue _entire_ and
+_unimpaired_, some faculties decay before the others, "the substance of
+the soul is therefore divided." On all these grounds the soul must be
+deemed mortal; it is dissolved along with the body, and has no conscious
+existence after death.
+
+[Footnote 813: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. iii. l.
+138-168.]
+
+[Footnote 814: Id., ib., bk. iii. l. 444-460.]
+
+[Footnote 815: Id., ib., bk. iii. l. 438-490.]
+
+[Footnote 816: Id., ib., bk. iii. l. 500-520.]
+
+Such being the nature of the soul, inasmuch as it is material, all its
+knowledge must be derived from sensation. The famous doctrine of
+perception, as taught by Epicurus, is grounded upon this pre-supposition
+that the soul is corporeal. "The eid�la aporroiai--_imagines, simulacra
+rerum, etc_., are, like pellicles, continually flying off from objects;
+and these material 'likenesses,' diffusing themselves everywhere in the
+air, are propelled to the perceptive organs." These images of things
+coming in contact with the senses produce _sensation_ (aisth�sis). A
+sensation may be considered either as regards its object, or as regards
+him who experiences it. As regards him who experiences it, it is simply
+a passive affection, an agreeable or disagreeable feeling, passion, or
+sentiment (to pathos). But along with sensation there is inseparably
+associated some knowledge of the object which excites sensation; and it
+is for this reason that Epicurus marked the intimate relation of these
+two phenomena by giving them analogous names. Because the second
+phenomenon is joined to the first, he calls it
+epaisth�sis--_perception_. It is sensation viewed especially in regard
+to its object--_representative sensation_, or the "sensible idea" of
+modern philosophy. It is from perception that we draw our general ideas
+by a kind of prolepsis (prol�psis) an anticipation or laying hold by
+reason of that which is implied in sensation. Now all sensations are
+alike true in so far as they are sensations, and error arises from false
+reasoning about the testimony of sense. All knowledge is purely relative
+and contingent, and there is no such thing as necessary and absolute
+truth.
+
+The system of Epicurus is thus a system of pure materialism, but not a
+system of materialism drawn, as a logical consequence, from a careful
+and unprejudiced study of the whole phenomena of mind. His openly avowed
+design is to deliver men from the fear of death, and rid them of all
+apprehension of a future retribution. "Did men but know that there was a
+fixed limit to their woes, they would be able, in some measure, to defy
+the religious fictions and menaces of the poets; but now, since we must
+fear eternal punishment at death, there is no mode, no means of
+resisting them."[817] To emancipate men from "these terrors of the
+mind," they must be taught "that the soul is mortal, and dissolves with
+the body"--that "death is nothing to us, for that which is dissolved is
+devoid of sensation, and that which is devoid of sensation is nothing to
+us."[818] Starting with the fixed determination to prove that
+
+     "Death is nothing, and naught after death,"
+
+he will not permit any mental phenomena to suggest to him the idea of an
+incorporeal spiritual substance. Matter, under any form known to
+Epicurus, is confessedly insufficient to explain sensation and thought;
+a "nameless something" must be _supposed_. But may not "that principle
+which _lies entirely hid, and remains in secret_"[819]--and about which
+even Epicurus does not know any thing--be a spiritual, an _immaterial_
+principle? For aught that he knows it may as properly be called
+"_spirit_" as matter. May not _sensation_ and _cognition_ be the result
+of the union of matter and spirit; and if so, may not their mutual
+affections, their common sympathies, be the necessary conditions of
+sensation and cognition in the present life? A reciprocal relation
+between body and mind appears in all mental phenomena. A certain
+proportion in this relation is called mental health. A deviation from it
+is termed disease. This proportion is by no means an equilibrium, but
+the perfect adaptation of the body, without injury to its integrity, to
+the purposes of the mind. And if this be so, all the arguments of
+materialism fall to the ground.
+
+[Footnote 817: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 100-118.]
+
+[Footnote 818: Diogenes Laertius, Maxim 2, in "Lives of the
+Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxxi.]
+
+[Footnote 819: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. iii. l.
+275-280.]
+
+The concluding portion of the third book, in which Lucretius discourses
+on _death_, is a mournful picture of the condition of the heathen mind
+before Christianity "brought life and immortality fully to light." It
+comes to us, like a voice from the grave of two thousand years, to prove
+they were "without hope." To be delivered from the fear of future
+retribution, they would sacrifice the hope of an immortal life. To
+extintinguish guilt they would annihilate the soul. The only way in
+which Lucretius can console man in prospect of death is, by reminding
+him that he will _escape the ills of life_.
+
+     "'But thy dear home shall never greet thee more!
+     No more the best of wives!--thy babes beloved,
+     Whose haste half-met thee, emulous to snatch
+     The dulcet kiss that roused thy secret soul,
+     Again shall never hasten!--nor thine arm,
+     With deeds heroic, guard thy country's weal!--
+     Oh mournful, mournful fate!' thy friends exclaim!
+     'One envious hour of these invalued joys
+     Robs thee forever!--But they add not here,
+     '_It robs thee, too, of all desire of joy_'--
+     A truth, once uttered, that the mind would free
+     From every dread and trouble. 'Thou art safe
+     The sleep of death protects thee, _and secures
+     From all the unnumbered woes of mortal life!_
+     While we, alas! the sacred urn around
+     That holds thine ashes, shall insatiate weep,
+     Nor time destroy the eternal grief we feel!'
+     What, then, has death, if death be mere repose,
+     And quiet only in a peaceful grave,--
+     What has it thus to mar this life of man?"[820]
+
+[Footnote 820: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. iii. l.
+906-926.]
+
+This is all the comfort that Epicureanism can offer; and if "the wretch
+still laments the approach of death," she addresses him "with voice
+severe"--
+
+     "Vile coward! dry thine eyes--
+     Hence with thy snivelling sorrows, and depart!"
+
+It is evident that such a system of philosophy outrages the purest and
+noblest sentiments of humanity, and, in fact, condemns itself. It was
+born of selfishness and social degeneracy, and could perpetuate itself
+only in an age of corruption, because it inculcated the lawfulness of
+sensuality and the impunity of injustice. Its existence at this precise
+period in Grecian history forcibly illustrates the truth, that Atheism
+is a disease of the heart rather than the head. It seeks to set man free
+to follow his own inclinations, by ridding him of all faith in a
+Divinity and in an immortal life, and thus exonerating him from all
+accountability and all future retribution. But it failed to perceive
+that, in the most effectual manner, it annihilated all real liberty, all
+true nobleness, and made of man an abject slave.
+
+STOICISM.
+
+The Stoical school was founded by Zeno of Citium, who flourished B.C.
+290. He taught in the Stoa Poecile, or Painted Porch; and his disciples
+thence derived the name of Stoics. Zeno was succeeded by Cleanthes (B.C.
+260); and Cleanthes by Chrysippus (B.C. 240), whose vigorous intellect
+gave unity and completeness to the Stoical philosophy. He is reported to
+have said to Cleanthes,--"Give me your doctrines, and I will find the
+demonstrations."[821]
+
+[Footnote 821: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. vii.]
+
+None of the writings of the early Stoics, save a "Hymn to Jupiter," by
+Cleanthes, have survived. We are chiefly indebted to Diogenes
+Laertius[822] and Cicero[823] for an insight into their system. The Hymn
+of Cleanthes sheds some light on their Theology, and their moral
+principles are exhibited in "The Fragments" of Epictetus, and "The Life
+and Meditations" of Marcus Aurelius.
+
+[Footnote 822: "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.]
+
+[Footnote 823: "De Fm.," and "De Natura Deorum."]
+
+The philosophy of the Stoics, like that of the Epicureans, was mainly a
+philosophy of life--that is, a _moral_ philosophy. The manner in which
+they approached the study of morals, and the principles upon which they
+grounded morality, were, however, essentially different.
+
+The grand object of Epicurus was to make the current of life flow on as
+comfortably as possible, without any distracting thoughts of the past or
+any disturbing visions of the future. He therefore starts with this
+fundamental principle, that the true philosophy of life is to enjoy
+one's self--the aim of existence is to be happy. Whatever in a man's
+beliefs or conduct tends to secure happiness is _right_; whatever
+awakens uneasiness, apprehension, or fear, is _wrong_. And inasmuch as
+the idea of a Divine Creator and Governor of the universe, and the
+belief in a future life and retribution, are uncomfortable thoughts,
+exciting superstitious fears, they ought to be rejected. The Physics and
+the Psychology of Epicurus are thus the natural outgrowth of his
+Morality.
+
+Zeno was evidently a more earnest, serious, and thoughtful man. He
+cherished a nobler ideal of life than to suppose "man must do
+voluntarily, what the brute does instinctively--eschew pain, and seek
+pleasure." He therefore seeks to ascertain whether there be not some
+"principle of nature," or some law of nature, which determines what is
+right in human action--whether there be not some light under which, on
+contemplating an action, we may at once pronounce upon its intrinsic
+_rightness_, or otherwise. This he believes he has found in the
+_universal reason_ which fashioned, and permeates, and vivifies the
+universe, and is the light and life of the human soul. The chief good
+is, confessedly, to live according to nature; which is to live according
+to virtue, for nature leads us to that point.... For our individual
+natures are all part of the universal nature; on which account, the
+chief good is to live in a manner corresponding to one's own nature, and
+to universal nature; doing none of those things which the common law of
+mankind (the universal conscience of our race) forbids. _That common law
+is identical with_ RIGHT REASON _which pervades every thing, being the
+same with Jupiter_ (Zeus), _who is the regulator and chief manager of
+all existing things_.[824] The foundation of the ethical system of the
+Stoics is thus laid in their philosophy of nature--their Physiology and
+Psychology. If, therefore, we would apprehend the logical connection and
+unity of Stoicism, we must follow their order of thought--that is, we
+must commence with their
+
+PHYSIOLOGY.
+
+Diogenes Laertius tells us that the Stoics held "that there are two
+general principles in the universe--the _passive_ principle (to
+naschon), which is matter, an existence without any distinctive quality,
+and the _active_ principle (to poioun), which is the reason existing in
+the passive, that is to say, God. For that He, being eternal, and
+existing throughout all matter, makes every thing."[825] This Divine
+Reason, acting upon matter, originates the necessary and unchangeable
+laws which govern matter--laws which the Stoics called logoi
+spermatikoi--generating reasons or causes of things. The laws of the
+world are, like eternal reason, necessary and immutable; hence the
+eimarmen�--the _Destiny_ of the Stoics, which is also one of the names
+of the Deity.[826] But by Destiny the Stoics could not understand a
+blind unconscious necessity; it is rather the highest reason in the
+universe. "Destiny (eimarmen�) is a connected (eiromen�) cause of
+things, or the reason according to which the world is regulated."[827]
+
+[Footnote 824: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. liii.]
+
+[Footnote 825: Id., ib., bk. vii. ch. lxviii.]
+
+[Footnote 826: "They teach that God is unity, and that he is called
+Mind, and _Fate_, and Jupiter."--Id., ib., bk. vii. ch. lxviii.]
+
+[Footnote 827: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. lxxiv.]
+
+These two principles are not, however, regarded by the Stoics as having
+a distinct, separate, and independent existence. One is substance
+(ousia); the other is quality (poios). The primordial matter is the
+passive ground of all existence--the original substratum for the Divine
+activity. The Divine Reason is the active or formative energy which
+dwells within, and is essentially united to, the primary substance. The
+Stoics, therefore, regarded all existence as reducible, in its last
+analysis, to _one substance_, which on the side of its passivity and
+capacity of change, they called _hyle_ (yl�);[828] and on the side of
+its changeless energy and immutable order, they called God. The
+corporeal world--physical nature--is "a peculiar manifestation" of God,
+generated from his own substance, and, after certain periods, absorbed
+in himself. Thus God, considered in the evolution of His power, is
+nature. And nature, as attached to its immanent principle, is called
+God.[829] The fundamental doctrine of the Stoics was a spiritual, ideal,
+intellectual pantheism, of which the proper formula is, _All things are
+God, but God is not all things_.
+
+[Footnote 828: Or "matter." A good deal of misapprehension has arisen
+from confounding the intellectual yl� of Aristotle and the Stoics with
+the gross physical "matter" of the modern physicist. By "matter" we now
+understand that which is corporeal, tangible, sensible; whereas by yl�,
+Aristotle and the Stoics (who borrowed the term from him) understood
+that which is incorporeal, intangible, and inapprehensible to sense,--an
+"unknown something" which must necessarily be _supposed_ as the
+condition of the existence of things. The _formal_ cause of Aristotle is
+"the substance and essence"--the primary nature of things, on which all
+their properties depend. The _material_ cause is "the matter or subject"
+through which the primary nature manifests itself. Unfortunately the
+term "material" misleads the modern thinker. He is in danger of
+supposing the _hyle_ of Aristotle to be something sensible and physical,
+whereas it is an intellectual principle whose inherence is implied in
+any physical thing. It is something distinct from _body_, and has none
+of those properties we are now accustomed to ascribe to matter. Body,
+corporeity, is the result of the union of "hyle" and "form." Stobaeus
+thus expounds the doctrine of Aristotle: Form alone, separate from
+matter (yl�) is _incorporeal_; so matter alone, separated from form, is
+not _body_. But there is need of the joint concurrence of both
+these--matter and form--to make the substance of body. Every individual
+substance is thus a totality of matter and form--a sinolon.
+
+The Stoics taught that God is _oneliness_ (Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of
+the Philosophers," bk. vii. ch. lxviii.); that he is _eternal_ and
+_immortal_ (bk. vii. ch. lxxii.); he could not, therefore, be corporeal,
+for "body _infinite, divisible,_ and _perishable_" (bk. vii. ch.
+lxxvii.). "All the parts of the world are perishable, for they change
+one into another; therefore the world is perishable" (bk. vii. ch.
+lxx.). The Deity is not, therefore, absolutely identified with the world
+by the Stoics. He permeates all things, creates and dissolves all
+things, and is, therefore, _more_ than all things. The world is finite;
+God is infinite.]
+
+[Footnote 829: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. lxx.]
+
+Schwegler affirms that, in physics, the Stoics, for the most part,
+followed Heraclitus, and especially "carried out the proposition that
+nothing incorporeal exists; every thing is essentially _corporeal_." The
+pantheism of Zeno is therefore "_materialistic._"[830] This is not a
+just representation of the views of the early Stoics, and can not be
+sustained by a fair interpretation of their teaching. They say that
+principles and elements differ from each other. Principles have no
+generation or beginning, and will have no end; but elements may be
+destroyed. Also, that elements have bodies, and have forms, _but
+principles have no bodies, and no forms_.[831] Principles are,
+therefore, _incorporeal._ Furthermore, Cicero tells us that they taught
+that the universal harmony of the world resulted from all things being
+"contained by one _Divine_ SPIRIT;"[832] and also, that reason in man is
+"nothing else but part of the _Divine_ SPIRIT merged into a human
+body."[833] It thus seems evident that the Stoics made a distinction
+between corruptible _elements_ (fire, air, earth, water) and
+incorruptible _principles_, by which and out of which elements were
+generated, and also between corporeal and incorporeal substances.
+
+[Footnote 830: Schwegler's "History of Philosophy," p. 140.]
+
+[Footnote 831: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. lxviii.]
+
+[Footnote 832: "De Natura Deorum," bk. ii. ch. xiii.]
+
+[Footnote 833: Ibid, bk. ii. ch. xxxi.]
+
+On a careful collation of the fragmentary remains of the early Stoics,
+we fancy we catch glimpses of the theory held by some modern pantheists,
+that the material elements, "having body and form," are a vital
+transformation of the Divine substance; and that the forces of
+nature--"the generating causes or reasons of things" (logoi
+spermatikoi)--are a conscious transmutation of the Divine energy. This
+theory is more than hinted in the following passages, which we slightly
+transpose from the order in which they stand in Diogenes Laertius,
+without altering their meaning. "They teach that the Deity was in the
+beginning by _himself_".... that "first of all, he made the four
+elements, fire, water, air, and earth." "The fire is the highest, and
+that is called �ther, in which, first of all, the sphere was generated
+in which the fixed stars are set...; after that the air; then the water;
+and the sediment, as it were, of all, is the earth, which is placed in
+the centre of the rest." "He turned into water the whole substance which
+pervaded the air; and as the seed is contained in the product, so, too,
+He, being the seminal principle of the world, remained still in
+moisture, making matter fit to be employed by himself in the production
+of things which were to come after."[834] The Deity thus draws the
+universe out of himself, transmuting the divine substance into body and
+form. "God is a being of a certain quality, having for his peculiar
+manifestation universal substance. He is a being imperishable, and who
+never had any generation, being the maker of the arrangement and order
+that we see; and who at certain periods of time _absorbs all substance
+in himself and then reproduces it from himself_."[835] And now, in the
+last analysis, it would seem as though every thing is resolved into
+_force_. God and the world are _power, and its manifestation_, and these
+are ultimately one. "This identification of God and the world, according
+to which the Stoics regarded the whole formation of the universe as but
+a period in the development of God, renders their remaining doctrine
+concerning the world very simple. Every thing in the world seemed to be
+permeated by the Divine life, and was regarded as the flowing out of
+this most perfect life through certain channels, until it returns, in a
+necessary circle, back to itself."[836]
+
+[Footnote 834: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. lxviii., lxix.]
+
+[Footnote 835: Id., ib., bk. vii. ch. lxx.]
+
+[Footnote 836: Schwegler's "History of Philosophy," p. 141.]
+
+The God of the Stoics is not, however, a mere principle of life
+vitalizing nature, but an _intelligent_ principle directing nature; and,
+above all, a _moral_ principle, governing the human race. "God is a
+living being, immortal, rational, perfect, and intellectual in his
+happiness, unsusceptible of any kind of evil; having a foreknowledge of
+the world, and of all that is in the world."[837] He is also the
+gracious Providence which cares for the individual as well as for the
+whole; and he is the author of that natural law which commands the good
+and prohibits the bad. "He made men to this end that they might be
+happy; as becomes his fatherly care of us, he placed our good and evil
+in those things which are in our own power."[838] The Providence and
+Fatherhood of God are strikingly presented in the "Hymn of Cleanthes" to
+Jupiter--
+
+[Footnote 837: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. lxxii.]
+
+[Footnote 838: Marcus Aurelius, bk. iii. ch. xxiv.]
+
+     Most glorious of the immortal Powers above!
+     O thou of many names! mysterious Jove:
+     For evermore almighty! Nature's source!
+     Thou governest all things in their order'd course!
+     All hail to thee! since, innocent of blame,
+     E'en mortal creatures may address thy name;
+     For all that breathe, and creep the lowly earth,
+     Echo thy being with reflected birth--
+     Thee will I sing, thy strength for aye resound:
+     The universe, that rolls this globe around,
+     Moves wheresoe'er thy plastic influence guides,
+     And, ductile, owns the god whose arm presides.
+     The lightnings are thy ministers of ire;
+     The double-forked and ever-living fire;
+     In thy unconquerable hands they glow,
+     And at the flash all nature quakes below.
+     Thus, thunder-armed, thou dost creation draw
+     To one immense, inevitable law:
+     And, with the various mass of breathing souls,
+     Thy power is mingled, and thy spirit rolls.
+     Dread genius of creation! all things bow
+     To thee: the universal monarch thou!
+
+     Nor aught is done without thy wise control,
+     On earth, or sea, or round the ethereal pole,
+     Save when the wicked, in their frenzy blind,
+     Act o'er the follies of a senseless mind,
+     Thou curb'st th' excess; confusion, to thy sight,
+     Moves regular; th' unlovely scene is bright.
+     Thy hand, educing good from evil, brings
+     To one apt harmony the strife of things.
+     One ever-during law still binds the whole,
+     Though shunned, resisted, by the sinner's soul.
+     Wretches! while still they course the glittering prize
+     The law of God eludes their ears and eyes.
+     Life, then, were virtue, did they thus obey;
+     But wide from life's chief good they headlong stray.
+     Now glory's arduous toils the breast inflame;
+     Now avarice thirsts, insensible of shame;
+     Now sloth unnerves them in voluptuous ease,
+     And the sweet pleasures of the body please.
+     With eager haste they rush the gulf within,
+     And their whole souls are centred in their sin.
+     But, oh, great Jove! by whom all good is given!
+     Dweller with lightnings and the clouds of heaven!
+     Save from their dreadful error lost mankind!
+     Father! disperse these shadows of the mind!
+     Give them thy pure and righteous law to know;
+     Wherewith thy justice governs all below.
+     Thus honored by the knowledge of thy way,
+     Shall men that honor to thyself repay;
+     And bid thy mighty works in praises ring,
+     As well befits a mortal's lips to sing:
+     More blest, nor men, nor heavenly powers can be,
+     Than when their songs are of thy law and thee.[839]
+
+[Footnote 839: Sir C. A. Elton's version, published in "Specimens of
+Ancient Poets," edited by William Peters, A. M., Christ Church, Oxford.]
+
+PSYCHOLOGY.
+
+As in the world there are two principles, the passive and the active, so
+in the understanding there are two elements: a passive
+element--_sensation_, and an active element--_reason_.
+
+All knowledge commences with the phenomena of sensation (aisth�sis).
+This produces in the soul an image (phantasia), which corresponds to the
+exterior object, and which Chrysippus regarded as a modification of the
+mind (alloi�sis).[840]
+
+Associate with sensibility is thought--the faculty of general ideas--the
+orthos logos, or right reason, as the supreme power and the guiding
+light of humanity. This active principle is of divine origin, "a part or
+shred of the Divinity."
+
+[Footnote 840: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. xxxiv.]
+
+This "right reason," or "common reason," is the source and criterion of
+all truth; "for our individual natures are all parts of the universal
+nature," and, therefore, all the dictates of "common reason" are
+"identical with that right reason which pervades every thing, being the
+same with Jupiter, who is the regulator and chief manager of all
+things."
+
+The fundamental canon of the logic of the Stoics, therefore, was that
+"what appears to all, that is to be believed, for it is apprehended by
+the reason, which is common and Divine."
+
+It is needless to remark that the Stoics were compelled by their
+physiological theory to deny the proper immortality of the soul. Some of
+them seem to have supposed that it might, for a season, survive the
+death of the body, but its ultimate destination was absorption into the
+Divine essence. It must return to its original source.
+
+ETHICS.
+
+If reason be the great organizing and controlling law of the universe,
+then, to live conformable to reason is the great practical law of life.
+Accordingly, the fundamental ethical maxim of the Stoics is, "Live
+conformably with nature--that is, with reason, or the will of the
+universal governor and manager of all things."[841] Thus the chief good
+(eudaimonia) is the conformity of man's actions to reason--that is, to
+the will of God, "for nothing is well done without a reference to
+God."[842]
+
+[Footnote 841: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. liii.]
+
+[Footnote 842: Marcus Aurelius, bk. iii. � II.]
+
+It is obvious that this doctrine must lead to a social morality and a
+jurisprudence the very opposite of the Epicurean. If we must do that
+which is good--that is, that which is reasonable, regardless of all
+consequences, then it is not for the pleasurable or useful results which
+flow from it that justice should be practised, but because of its
+intrinsic excellence. Justice is constituted good, not by the law of
+man, but by the law of God. The highest pleasure is to do right; "this
+very thing is the virtue of the happy man, and the perfect happiness of
+life, when every thing is done according to a harmony of the genius of
+each individual to the will of the Universal Governor and Manager of all
+things."[843] Every thing which interferes with a purely rational
+existence is to be eschewed; the pleasures and pains of the body are to
+be despised. To triumph over emotion, over suffering, over passion; to
+give the fullest ascendency to reason; to attain courage, moral energy,
+magnanimity, constancy, was to realize true manhood, nay, "to be
+godlike; for they have something in them which is, as it were, a
+god"[844]
+
+The sublime heroism of the Stoic school is well expressed in the manly
+precept, "Anechou"--_sustine_--endure. "Endure the sorrows engendered by
+the bitter struggle between the passions support all the evils which
+fortune shall send thee--calumny, betrayal, poverty, exile, irons, death
+itself." In Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius this spirit seems to rise
+almost to the grandeur of Christian resignation. "Dare to lift up thine
+eyes to God and say, 'Use me hereafter to whatsoever thou pleasest. I
+agree, and am of the same mind with thee, indifferent to all things.
+Lead me whither thou pleasest. Let me act what part thou wilt, either of
+a public or a private person, of a rich man or a beggar.'"[845] "Show
+those qualities," says Marcus Aurelius, "which God hath put in thy
+power--sincerity, gravity, endurance of labor, aversion to pleasure,
+contentment with thy portion and with few things, benevolence,
+frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling,
+magnanimity."[846]
+
+[Footnote 843: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. liii.]
+
+[Footnote 844: Id., ib., bk. vii. ch. xliv.]
+
+[Footnote 845: Arrian, "Diss. Epict.," bk. ii. ch. xviii.]
+
+[Footnote 846: "I read to-day part of the 'Meditations of Marcus
+Antonius' [Aurelius]. What a strange emperor! And what a strange
+heathen! Giving thanks to God for all the good things he enjoyed! In
+particular for his good inspirations, and for twice revealing to him, in
+dreams, things wherby he was cured of (otherwise) incurable distempers.
+I make no doubt but this is one of the 'many' who shall come from the
+east and the west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,' while
+the 'children of the kingdom'--nominal Christians--are 'shut
+out.'"--Wesley's "Journal," vol. i, p. 353.]
+
+Amid the fearful moral degeneracy of imperial Rome, Stoicism became the
+refuge of all noble spirits. But, in spite of its severity, and its
+apparent triumph over the feelings, it brought no real freedom and
+peace. "Stoical morality, strictly speaking, is, at bottom, only a
+slavish morality, excellent in Epictetus; admirable still, but useless
+to the world, in Marcus Aurelius." Pride takes the place of real
+disinterestedness. It stands alone in haughty grandeur and solitary
+isolation, tainted with an incurable egoism. Disheartened by its
+metaphysical impotence, which robs God of all personality, and man of
+all hope of immortality; defeated in its struggle to obtain purity of
+soul, it sinks into despair, and often terminates, as in the case of its
+two first leaders, Zeno and Cleanthes, and the two Romans, Cato and
+Seneca, in self-murder. "Thus philosophy is only an apprenticeship of
+death, and not of life; it tends to death by its image, _apathy_ and
+_ataraxy._"[847]
+
+[Footnote 847: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 439.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE PROP�DEUTIC OFFICE OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY.
+
+
+"Philosophy, before the coming of the Lord, was necessary to the Greeks
+for righteousness, and it now proved useful for godliness, being in some
+part a preliminary discipline (propaideia tis ousa) for those who reap
+the fruits of faith through demonstration. Perhaps we may say it was
+given to the Greeks with this special object; for philosophy was to the
+Greeks what the Law was to the Jews, 'a schoolmaster to bring them to
+Christ.'"--CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS.
+
+Philosophy, says Cousin, is the effort of _reflection_--the attempt of
+the human mind to develop in systematic and logical form that which has
+dimly revealed itself in the spontaneous thought of ages, and to account
+to itself in some manner for its native and instinctive beliefs. We may
+further add, it is the effort of the human mind to attain to truth and
+certitude on purely rational grounds, uncontrolled by traditional
+authorities. The sublime era of Greek philosophy was, in fact, an
+independent effort of human reason to solve the great problems of
+existence, of knowledge, and of duty. It was an attempt to explain the
+phenomenal history of the universe, to interpret the fundamental ideas
+and laws of human reason, to comprehend the utterances of conscience,
+and to ascertain what Ultimate and Supreme Reality underlies the world
+of phenomena, of thought, and of moral feeling.[848] And it is this
+which, for us, constitutes its especial value; that it was, as far as
+possible, a result of simple reason; or, if at any time Faith asserted
+its authority, the distinction is clearly marked: If this inquiry was
+fully, and honestly, and logically conducted, we are entitled to presume
+that the results attain by this effort of speculative thought must
+harmonize with the positive utterances of the Divine Logos--the Eternal
+Reason, whose revelations are embalmed and transmitted to us in the Word
+of God. If the great truth that man is "the _offspring of God"_ and as
+such "_the image and glory of God_" which is asserted, alike, by Paul
+and the poet-philosophers of Tarsus and Mysia, be admitted, then we may
+expect that the reason of man shall have some correlation with the
+Divine reason. The mind of man is the _chef-d'oeuvre_ of Divine art. It
+is fashioned after the model which the Divine nature supplies. "Let us
+make man in _our_ image after _our_ likeness." That image consists in
+epign�sis--_knowledge;_ dikalosyn�--_justice_; and
+osiot�s--_benevolence._ It is not merely the _capacity_ to know, to be
+just, and to be beneficent; it is _actual_ knowledge, justice, and
+benevolence. It supposes, first, that the fundamental ideas of the true,
+the just, and the good, are connate to the human mind; second, that the
+native determination of the mind is towards the realization of these
+ideas in every mental state and every form of human activity; third,
+that there is a constitutional sympathy of reason with the ideas of
+truth, and righteousness, and goodness, as they dwell in the reason of
+God. And though man be now fallen, there is still within his heart some
+vestige of his primal nature. There is still a sense of the divine, a
+religious aptitude, "a feeling after God," and some longing to return to
+Him. There are still ideas in the reason, which, in their natural and
+logical development compel him to recognize a God. There is within his
+conscience a sense of duty, of obligation, and accountability to a
+Superior Power--"a law of the mind," thought opposed and antagonized by
+depraved passions and appetites--"the law in the members." There is yet
+a natural, constitutional sympathy of reason with the law of God--"it
+delights in that law," and consents "that it is good," but it is
+overborne and obstructed by passion. Man, even as unregenerate, "wills
+to do that which is good," but "how to perform that which is good he
+finds not," and in the agony of his soul he exclaims, "Oh, wretched man
+that I am, who shall deliver me!"[849]
+
+[Footnote 848: Plato sought also to attain to the Ultimate Reality
+underlying all �sthetic feeling--the Supreme Beauty as well as the
+Supreme Good.]
+
+[Footnote 849: Romans, ch. vii.]
+
+The Author of nature is also the Author of revelation. The Eternal
+Father of the Eternal Son, who is the grand medium of all God's direct
+communications to our race--the revealer of God, is also "the Father of
+the spirits of all flesh." That divine inbreathing which first
+constituted man "a living soul"--that "inspiration of the Almighty
+which giveth man understanding," and still "teacheth him knowledge,"
+proceeds from the same Spirit as that which inspires the prophets and
+seers of the Old Testament Church, and the Apostles and teachers of the
+new. That "true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the
+world" shone on the mind of Anaxagoras, and Socrates, and Plato, as well
+as on the mind of Abraham and Rahab, Cornelius and the Syro-Phoenician
+woman, and, in a higher form, and with a clearer and richer effulgence,
+on the mind of Moses, Isaiah, Paul and John. It is not to be wondered
+at, then, if, in the teaching of Socrates and Plato, we should find a
+striking _harmony_ of sentiment, and even form of expression, with some
+parts of the Christian revelation. No short-sighted jealousy ought to
+impugn the honesty of our judgment, if, in the speculations of Plato, we
+catch glimpses of a world of ideas not unlike that which Christianity
+discloses, and hear words not unfamiliar to those who spake as they were
+moved by the Holy Ghost.
+
+If, then, there exists some correlation between Divine and human reason,
+and if the light which illuminates all minds in Christian and in heathen
+lands is the _same_ "true light," though differing in degrees of
+brightness, it is most natural and reasonable to expect some connection
+and some correspondence between the discoveries of philosophy and the
+revelations of the Sacred Oracles.
+
+Although Christianity is confessedly something which is above reason and
+nature--something communicated from above, and therefore in the fullest
+sense supernatural and superhuman, yet it must stand in _relation_ to
+reason and nature, and to their historic development; otherwise it could
+not operate on man at all. "We have no knowledge of a dynamic influence,
+spiritual or natural, without a dynamic reaction." Matter can only be
+moved by forces, and according to laws, as it has properties which
+correlate it with these forces and laws. And mind can not be determined
+from without to any specific form of cognition, unless it have powers of
+apprehension and conception which are governed by uniform laws. If man
+is to be instructed by a verbal revelation, he must, at least, be
+capacitated for the reception of divine communication--must have a power
+of forming supersensuous conceptions, and there must be some original
+community of thought and idea between the mind that teaches and the mind
+that is taught. A revelation from an invisible God--a being "whom no man
+has ever seen or ever can see" with the eye of sense--would have no
+affinity for, and no power to affect and enlighten, a being who had no
+presentiment of an invisible Power to which he is in some way related. A
+revealed law promulgated from an unseen and utterly unknown Power would
+have no constraining authority, if man had no idea of right, no sense of
+duty, no feeling of obligation to a Supreme Being. If, therefore,
+religious instruction be not already preceded by an innate consciousness
+of God, and of obligation to God, as an operative predisposition, there
+would be nothing for revelation to act upon. Some relation between the
+reason which planned the universe, and which has expressed its thoughts
+in the numerical relations and archetypal forms which are displayed
+therein, and the reason of man, with its ideas of form and number,
+proportion and harmony, is necessarily supposed in the statement of Paul
+that "the invisible things of God from the creation are seen." Nature to
+us could be no symbol of the Divine Thought, if there were no
+correlation between the reason of man and the reason of God. All
+revelation, indeed, supposes some community of nature, some affinities
+of thought, some correlation of ideas, between the mind communicating
+spiritual knowledge, and the mind to which the communication is made. In
+approaching man, it must traverse ground already occupied by man; it
+must employ phrases already employed, and assume forms of thought
+already familiar to man. It must address itself to some ideas,
+sentiments, and feelings already possessed by man. If religion is the
+great end and destination of man, then the nature of man must be
+constituted for religion. Now religion, in its inmost nature, is a
+communion, a fellowship with God. But no creature can be brought into
+this communion "save one that is constitutionally related to God in
+terms that admit of correspondence." There must be intelligence offered
+to his intelligence, sentiment to his sentiment, reason to his reason,
+thought to his thought. There must be implanted in the human mind some
+fundamental ideas and determinations grounded upon this fact, that the
+real end and destination of man is for religion, so that when that
+higher sphere of life and action is presented to man, by an outward
+verbal revelation, there shall be a recognized harmony between the inner
+idea and determination, and the outer revelation. We can not doubt that
+such a relation between human nature and reason, and Christianity,
+exists. We see evidences of this in the perpetual strivings of humanity
+to attain to some fuller and clearer apprehension of that Supreme Power
+which is consciously near to human thought, and in the historic
+development of humanity towards those higher forms of thought and
+existence which demand a revelation in order to their completion. This
+original capacity, and this historical development, have unquestionably
+prepared the way for the reception of Christianity.
+
+Christianity, then, must have some connection with the reason of man,
+and it must also have some relation to the progressive developments of
+human thought in the ages which preceded the advent of Christ.
+Christianity did not break suddenly upon the world as a new commencement
+altogether unconnected with the past, and wanting in all points of
+sympathy and contact with the then present. It proceeded along lines of
+thought which had been laid through ages of preparation; it clothed
+itself in forms of speech which had been moulded by centuries of
+education, and it appropriated to itself a moral and intellectual
+culture which had been effected by long periods of severest discipline.
+It was, in fact, the consummation of the whole moral and religious
+history of the world.
+
+A revelation of new truths, presented in entirely new forms of thought
+and speech, would have defeated its own ends, and, practically, would
+have been no revelation at all. The divine light, in passing through
+such a medium, would have been darkened and obscured. The lens through
+which the heavenly rays are to be transmitted must first be prepared and
+polished. The intellectual eye itself must be gradually accustomed to
+the light. Hence it is that all revelation has been _progressive_,
+commencing, in the infancy of our race, with images and symbols
+addressed to sense, and advancing, with the education of the race, to
+abstract conceptions and spiritual ideas. The first communications to
+the patriarchs were always accompanied by some external, sensible
+appearance; they were often made through some preternatural personage in
+human form. Subsequently, as human thought becomes assimilated to the
+Divine idea, God uses man as his organ, and communicates divine
+knowledge as an internal and spiritual gift. The theistic conception of
+the earliest times was therefore more or less anthropomorphic, in the
+prophetic age it was unquestionably more spiritual. The education of
+Hebraic, Mosaic, and prophetic ages had gradually developed a purer
+theism, and prepared the Jewish mind for that sublime announcement of
+our Lord's--"God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship in
+spirit." For ages the Jews had worshipped in Samaria and Jerusalem, and
+the inevitable tendency of thought was to localize the divine presence;
+but the gradual withdrawment from these localities of all visible tokens
+of Jehovah's presence, prepared the way for the Saviour's explicit
+declaration that "neither in this mountain of Samaria, nor yet at
+Jerusalem, shall men worship the Father," to the exclusion of any other
+spot on earth; the real temple of the living God is now the heart of
+man. The _Holiness_ of God was an idea too lofty for human thought to
+grasp at once. The light of God's ineffable purity was too bright and
+dazzling to burst at once on human eyes. Therefore it was gradually
+displayed. The election of a chosen seed in Abraham's race to a nearer
+approach to God than the rest of pagan humanity; the announcement of the
+Decalogue at Sinai amidst awe-inspiring wonders; the separation of a
+single tribe to the priestly office, who were dedicated to, and purified
+in an especial manner for the service of the tabernacle; the
+sanctification of the High-priest by sacrifice and lustration before he
+dared to enter "the holiest place"--the presence-chamber of Jehovah: and
+then the direct and explicit teaching of the prophets--were all
+advancing steps by which the Jewish mind was lifted up to the clearer
+apprehension of the holiness of God, the impurity of man, the distance
+of man from God, and the need of Mediation.
+
+The ideas of _Redemption_ and _Salvation_--of atonement, expiation,
+pardon, adoption, and regeneration--are unique and _sui-generis_. Before
+these conceptions could be presented in the fullness and maturity of the
+Christian system, there was needed the culture and education of the ages
+of Mosaic ritualism, with its sacrificial system, its rights of
+purification, its priestly absolution, and its family of God.[850]
+Redemption itself, as an economy, is a development, and has
+consequently, a history--a history which had its commencement in the
+first Eden, and which shall have its consummation in the second Eden of
+a regenerated world. It was germinally infolded in the first promise,
+gradually unfolded in successive types and prophecies, more fully
+developed in the life, and sayings, and sufferings of the Son of God,
+and its ripened fruit is presented to the eye of faith in the closing
+scenic representations of the grand Apocalypse of John. "Judaism was not
+given as a perfect religion. Whatever may have been its superiority over
+surrounding forms of worship, it was, notwithstanding, a provisional
+form only. The consciousness that it was a preparatory, and not a
+definite dispensation, is evident throughout. It points to an end beyond
+itself, suggests a grander thought than any in itself; its glory
+precisely consists in its constant looking forward to a glorious future
+destined to surpass it."[851]
+
+[Footnote 850: Romans, IX 4-6.]
+
+[Footnote 851: Pressens�, "Religions before Christ," p. 202.]
+
+Thus the determinations which, through Redemption, fall to the lot of
+history, as Nitzsch justly remarks, obey the emancipating law of
+_gradual progress_.[852] Christianity was preceded by ages of
+preparation, in which we have a gradual development of religious phrases
+and ideas, of forms of social life and intellectual culture, and of
+national and political institutions most favorable to its advent and its
+promulgation; and "in the fullness of time"--the maturity and fitness of
+the age--"God sent his own Son into the world."
+
+[Footnote 852: "System of Doctrine," p. 73.]
+
+This work of preparation was not confined alone to Judaism. The divine
+plan of redemption comprehended all the race; its provisions are made in
+view of the wants of all the race; and we must therefore believe that
+the entire history of the race, previous to the coming of the Redeemer,
+was under a divine supervision, and directed towards the grand centre of
+our world's history. Greek philosophy and Grecian civilization must
+therefore have a place in the divine plan of history, and they must
+stand in an important relation to Christianity. He who "determined the
+time of each nation's existence, and fixed the geographical boundaries
+of their habitation in order that they may seek the Lord," can not have
+been unmindful of the Greek nation, and of its grandest age of
+philosophy. "The Father of the spirits of all flesh" could not be
+unconcerned in the moral and spiritual welfare of any of his children.
+He was as deeply interested in the Athenian as in the Hebrew. He is the
+God of the Gentile as well as the Jew. His tender mercies are over all
+his works. If the Hebrew race was selected to be the agent of his
+providence in one special field, and if the Jewish theocracy was one
+grand instrument of preparatory discipline, it was simply because,
+through these, God designed to bless all the nations of the earth. And
+surely no one will presume to say that a civilization and an
+intellectual culture which was second only to the Hebrew, and, in some
+of its aspects, even in advance of the Hebrew, was not determined and
+supervised by Divine Providence, and made subservient to the education
+and development of the whole race. The grand results of Hebrew
+civilization were appropriated and assimilated by Christianity, and
+remain to this day. And no one can deny that the same is true of Greek
+civilization. Through a kind of historic preparation the heathen world
+was made ready for Christ, as a soil is prepared to receive the seed,
+and some precious fruits of knowledge, of truth, and of righteousness,
+even, were largely matured, which have been reaped, and appropriated,
+and vitalized by the heaven-descended life of Christianity.
+
+The chief points of excellence in the civilization of the Greeks are
+strikingly obvious, and may be readily presented. High perfection of the
+intellect and the imagination displaying itself in the various forms of
+art, poetry, literature, and philosophy. A wonderful freedom and
+activity of body and of mind, developed in trade, and colonization, in
+military achievement, and in subtile dialectics. A striking love of the
+beautiful, revealing itself in their sculpture and architecture, in the
+free music of prosaic numbers, and the graceful movement and measure of
+their poetry. A quickness of perception, a dignity of demeanor, a
+refinement of taste, a delicacy of moral sense, and a high degree of
+reverence for the divine in nature and humanity. And, in general, a ripe
+and all-pervading culture, which has made Athens a synonym for all that
+is greatest and best in the genius of man; so that literature, in its
+most flourishing periods has rekindled its torch at her altars, and art
+has looked back to the age of Pericles for her purest models.[853] All
+these enter into the very idea of Greek civilization. We can not resist
+the conviction that, by a Divine Providence, it was made subservient to
+the purpose of Redemption; it prepared the way for, and contributed to,
+the spread of the Gospel.
+
+[Footnote 853: In Lord Brougham's celebrated letter to the father of the
+historian Macaulay in regard to the education of the latter, we read:
+"If he would be a great orator, he must go at once to the fountain-head,
+and be familiar with every one of the great orations of Demosthenes....
+I know from experience that nothing is half so successful in these times
+(bad though they be) as what has been formed on the Greek models. I use
+poor illustrations in giving my own experience, but I do assure you that
+both in courts and Parliament, and even to mobs, I have never made so
+much play (to use a very modern phrase) as when I was almost translating
+from the Greek. I composed the peroration of my speech for the Queen, in
+the Lords, after reading and repeating Demosthenes for three or four
+weeks."]
+
+Its subserviency to this grand purpose is seen in the Greek tendency to
+trade and colonization. Their mental activity was accompanied by great
+physical freedom of movement. They displayed an inherent disposition to
+extensive emigration. "Without aiming at universal conquest, they
+developed (if we may use the word) a remarkable catholicity of
+character, and a singular power of adaptation to those whom they called
+Barbarians. In this respect they were strongly contrasted with the
+Egyptians, whose immemorial civilization was confined to the long valley
+which extended from the cataracts to the mouth of the Nile. The Hellenic
+tribes, on the other hand, though they despised the foreigners, were
+never unwilling to visit them and to cultivate their acquaintance. At
+the earliest period at which history enables us to discover them, we see
+them moving about in their ships on the shores and among the islands of
+their native seas; and, three or four centuries before the Christian
+era, Asia Minor, beyond which the Persians had not been permitted to
+advance, was bordered by a fringe of Greek colonies; and lower Italy,
+when the Roman Republic was just becoming conscious of its strength, had
+received the name of Greece itself. To all these places they carried
+their arts and literature, their philosophy, their mythology, and their
+amusements.... They were gradually taking the place of the Phoenicians
+in the empire of the Mediterranean. They were, indeed, less exclusively
+mercantile than those old discoverers. Their voyages were not so long.
+But their influence on general civilization was greater and more
+permanent. The earliest ideas of scientific navigation and geography are
+due to the Greeks. The later Greek travellers, Pausanias and Strabo, are
+our best sources of information on the topography of St. Paul's
+journeys.
+
+"With this view of the Hellenic character before us, we are prepared to
+appreciate the vast results of Alexander's conquests. He took the meshes
+of the net of Greek civilization which were lying in disorder on the
+edge of the Asiatic shore, and spread them over all the countries he
+traversed in his wonderful campaigns. The East and the West were
+suddenly brought together. Separate tribes were united under a common
+government. New cities were built as the centres of political life. New
+lines of communication were opened as the channels of commercial
+activity. The new culture penetrated the mountain ranges of Pisidia and
+Lycaonia. The Tigris and Euphrates became Greek rivers. The language of
+Athens was heard among the Jewish colonies of Babylonia, and a Grecian
+Babylon was built by the conqueror in Egypt, and called by his name.
+
+"The empire of Alexander was divided, but the effects of his campaigns
+and policy did not cease. The influence of these fresh elements of
+social life was rather increased by being brought into independent
+action within the sphere of distinct kingdoms. Our attention is
+particularly directed to two of the monarchical lines which descended
+from Alexander's generals--the Ptolemies, or the Greek kings of Egypt,
+and the Seleucid�, or the Greek kings of Syria. Their respective
+capitals, Alexandria and Antioch, became the metropolitan centres of
+commercial and civilized life in the East."[854] Antioch was for ages
+the home of science and philosophy. Here the religious opinions of the
+East and the West were blended and mutually modified. Here it was
+discovered by the heathen mind that a new religion had appeared, and a
+new revelation had been given.[855] In Alexandria all nations were
+invited to exchange their commodities and, with equal freedom, their
+opinions. The representatives of all religions met here. "Beside the
+Temple of Jupiter there rose the white marble Temple of Serapis, and
+close at hand stood the synagogue of the Jews." The Alexandrian library
+contained all the treasures of ancient culture, and even a copy of the
+Hebrew Scriptures.
+
+[Footnote 854: Conybeare and Howson, "Life and Epistles of St. Paul,"
+vol. i. pp. 8-10.]
+
+[Footnote 855: Acts, xi. 26.]
+
+The spread of the Greek _language_ was one of the most important
+services which the cities of Antioch and Alexandria rendered to
+Christianity. The Greek tongue is intimately connected with the whole
+system of Christian doctrine.
+
+This language, which, in symmetry of structure, in flexibility and
+compass of expression, in exactness and precision, in grace and
+elegance, exceeds every other language, became the language of theology.
+Next in importance to the inspiration which communicates the superhuman
+thought, must be the gradual development of the language in which the
+thought can clothe itself. That development by which the Greek language
+became the adequate vehicle of Divine thought, the perfect medium of the
+mature revelation of truth contained in the Christian Scriptures, must
+be regarded as the subject of a Divine providence. Christianity waited
+for that development, and it awaited Christianity. "The Greek tongue
+became to the Christian more than it had been to the Roman or the Jew.
+The mother-tongue of Ignatius at Antioch was that in which Philo
+composed his treatises at Alexandria, and which Cicero spoke at Athens.
+It is difficult to state in a few words the important relation which
+Alexandria, more especially, was destined to bear to the whole Christian
+Church." In that city, the Old Testament was translated into Greek;
+there the writings of Plato were diligently studied; there Philo, the
+Platonizing Jew, had sought to blend into one system the teachings of
+the Old Testament theology and the dialectic speculations of Plato.
+Numenius learns of Philo, and Plotinus of Numenius, and the ecstasy of
+Plotinus is the development of Philo's intuitions. A _theological
+language_ by this means was developed, rich in the phrases of various
+schools, and suited to convey the spiritual revelation of Christian
+ideas to all the world. "It was not an accident that the New Testament
+was written in Greek, the language which can best express the highest
+thoughts and worthiest feelings of the intellect and heart, and which is
+adapted to be the instrument of education for all nations; nor was it an
+accident that the composition of these books and the promulgation of the
+Gospels were delayed till the instruction of our Lord, and the writings
+of his Apostles could be expressed in the dialect [of Athens and] of
+Alexandria."[856] This must be ascribed to the foreordination of Him
+who, in the history of nations and of civilizations, "worketh all things
+according to the counsel of his own will."
+
+[Footnote 856: Conybeare and Howson, "Life and Epistles of St. Paul,"
+vol. i. p. 10.]
+
+Now it is the doctrine of the best philologists that language is a
+_growth_. Gradually, and by combined efforts of successive generations,
+it has been brought to the perfection which we so much admire in the
+idioms of the Bible, the poetry of Homer, Dante, and Shakspeare, and the
+prose compositions of Demosthenes, Cicero, Johnson, and Macaulay. The
+material or root-element of language may have been the product of mental
+instinct, or perhaps the immediate gift of God by revelation; but the
+formal element must have been the creation of thought, and the result of
+rational combination. Language is really the incarnation of thought;
+consequently the growth of a language, its affluence, comprehension, and
+fullness must depend on the vigor and activity of thought, and the
+acquisition of general ideas. Language is thus the best index of
+intellectual progress, the best standard of the intellectual attainment
+of an age or nation. The language of barbaric tribes is exceedingly
+simple and meagre; the paucity of general terms clearly indicating the
+absence of all attempts at classification and all speculative thought.
+Whilst the language of educated peoples is characterized by great
+fullness and affluence of terms, especially such as are expressive of
+general notions and abstract ideas. All grammar, all philology, all
+scientific nomenclature are thus, in fact, _psychological deposits_,
+which register the progressive advancement of human thought and
+knowledge in the world of mind, as the geological strata bear testimony
+to the progressive development of the material world. "Language," says
+Trench, "is fossil poetry, fossil history," and, we will add, fossil
+philosophy. Many a single word is a concentrated poem. The record of
+great social and national revolutions is embalmed in a single term.[857]
+And the history of an age of philosophic thought is sometimes condensed
+and deposited in one imperishable word.[858]
+
+[Footnote 857: See Trench "On the Study of Words," p. 20, where the word
+"frank" is given as an illustration.]
+
+[Footnote 858: For example, the cosmos of the Pythagoreans, the eid� of
+the Platonists, and the ataraxia of the Stoics.]
+
+If, then, language is the creation of thought, the sensible vesture with
+which it clothes itself, and becomes, as it were, incarnate--if the
+perfection and efficiency of language depends on the maturity and
+clearness of thought, we conclude that the wonderful adequacy and
+fitness of the Greek language to be the vehicle of the Divine thought,
+the medium of the most perfect revelation of God to men, can only be
+explained on the assumption that the ages of philosophic thought which,
+in Greece, preceded the advent of Christianity, were under the immediate
+supervision of a providence, and, in some degree, illuminated by the
+Spirit of God.
+
+Greek philosophy must therefore have fulfilled a prop�deutic office for
+Christianity. "As it had been intrusted to the Hebrews to preserve and
+transmit the heaven-derived element of the Monotheistic religion, so it
+was ordained that, among the Greeks, all seeds of human culture should
+unfold themselves in beautiful harmony, and then Christianity, taking up
+the opposition between the divine and human, was to unite both in one,
+and show how it was necessary that both should co-operate to prepare for
+the appearance of itself and the unfolding of what it contains."[859]
+During the period of Greek philosophy which preceded the coming of
+Christ, human reason, unfolding itself from beneath, had aspired after
+that knowledge of divine things which is from above. It had felt within
+itself the deep-seated consciousness of God--the sporadic revelation of
+Him "who is not far from any one of us"--the immanent thought of that
+Being "in whom we live and move and are," and it had striven by analysis
+and definition to attain a more distinct and logical apprehension. The
+heart of man had been stirred with "the feeling after God"--the longing
+for a clearer sense of the divine, and had struggled to attain, by
+abstraction or by ecstasy, a more immediate communion with God. Man had
+been conscious of an imperative obligation to conform to the will of the
+great Supreme, and he sought to interpret more clearly the utterances of
+conscience as to what duty was. He had felt the sense of sin and guilt,
+and had endeavored to appease his conscience by expiatory offerings, and
+to deliver himself from the power of sin by intellectual culture and
+moral discipline. And surely no one, at all familiar with the history of
+that interesting epoch in the development of humanity, will have the
+hardihood to assert that no steps were taken in the right direction, and
+no progress made towards the distant goal of human desire and hope. The
+language, the philosophy, the ideals of moral beauty and excellence, the
+noble lives and nobler utterances of the men who stand forth in history
+as the representatives of Greek civilization, all attest that their
+noble aspiration and effort did not end in ignominious failure and utter
+defeat. It is true they fell greatly beneath the realization of even
+their own moral ideals, and they became painfully conscious of their
+moral weakness, as men do even in Christian times. They learned that,
+neither by intellectual abstraction, nor by ecstasy of feeling, could
+they lift themselves to a living, conscious fellowship with God. The
+sense of guilt was unrelieved by expiations, penances, and prayers. And
+whilst some cultivated a proud indifference, a Stoical apathy, and
+others sank down to Epicurean ease and pleasure, there was a noble few
+who longed and hoped with increasing ardor for a living Redeemer, a
+personal Mediator, who should "stand between God and man and lay his
+hand on both." Christ became in some dim consciousness "the Desire of
+Nations," and the Moral Law became even to the Greek as well as the Jew
+"a school-master to lead them to Him."
+
+[Footnote 859: Neander's "Church History," vol. i. p. 4.]
+
+The arrival of Paul at Athens, in the close of this brilliant period of
+Greek philosophy, now assumes an aspect of deeper interest and
+profounder significance. It was a grand climacteric in the life of
+humanity--an epoch in the moral and religious history of the world. It
+marked the consummation of a periodic dispensation, and it opened a new
+era in that wonderful progression through which an overruling Providence
+is carrying the human race. As the coming of the Son of God to Judea in
+the ripeness of events--"the fullness of time"--was the consummation of
+the Jewish dispensation, and the event for which the Jewish age had been
+a preparatory discipline, so the coming of a Christian teacher to
+Athens, in the person of "the Apostle of the Gentiles," was the
+_terminus ad quem_ towards which all the phases in the past history of
+philosophic thought had looked, and for which they had prepared.
+Christianity was brought to Athens--brought into contact with Grecian
+philosophy at the moment of its exhaustion--at the moment when, after
+ages of unwearied effort, it had become conscious of its weakness, and
+its comparative failure, and had abandoned many questions in despair.
+Greek philosophy had therefore its place in the plan of Divine
+Providence. It had a mission to the world; that mission was now
+fulfilled. If it had laid any foundation in the Athenian mind on which
+the Christian system could plant its higher truths--if it had raised up
+into the clearer light of consciousness any of those _ideas_ imbedded in
+the human reason which are germane to Christian truth--if it had
+revealed more fully the wants and instincts of the human heart, or if it
+had attained the least knowledge of eternal truth and immutable right,
+upon this Christianity placed its _imprimatur_. And at those points
+where human reason had been made conscious of its own inefficiency, and
+compelled to own its weakness and its failure, Christianity shed an
+effulgent and convincing light.
+
+Therefore the preparatory office of Greek religion and Greek philosophy
+is fully recognized by Paul in his address to the Athenians. He begins
+by saying that the observations he had made enabled him to bear witness
+that the Athenians were indeed, in every respect, "a God-fearing
+people;"--that the God whom they knew so imperfectly as to designate Him
+"the Unknown," but whom "they worshipped," was the God he worshipped,
+and would now more fully declare to them. He assures them that their
+past history, and their present geographical position, had been the
+object of Divine foreknowledge and determination. "He hath determined
+beforehand the times of each nation's existence, and fixed the
+geographical boundaries of their habitation," all with this specific
+design, that they might "seek after," "feel after," and "find the Lord,"
+who had never been far from any one of them. He admits that their
+poet-philosophers had risen to a lofty apprehension of "the Fatherhood
+of God," for they had taught that "we are all his offspring;" and he
+seems to have felt that in asserting the common brotherhood of our race,
+he would strike a chord of sympathy in the loftiest school of Gentile
+philosophy. He thus "recognized the Spirit of God brooding over the face
+of heathenism, and fructifying the spiritual element in the heart even
+of the natural man. He feels that in these human principles there were
+some faint adumbrations of the divine, and he looked for their firmer
+delineation to the figure of that gracious Master, higher and holier
+than man, whom he contemplated in his own imagination, and whom he was
+about to present to them."[860]
+
+[Footnote 860: Merivale's "Conversion of the Roman Empire," p. 78.]
+
+This function of ancient philosophy is distinctly recognized by many of
+the greatest of the Fathers, as Justin, Clement, Origen, Augustine, and
+Theodoret. Justin Martyr believed that a ray of the Divine Logos shone
+on the mind of the heathen, and that the human soul instinctively turned
+towards God as the plant turns towards the sun. "Every race of men
+participated in the Word. And they who lived with the Word were
+Christians, even if they were held to be godless; as, for example, among
+the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and those like them."[861] Clement
+taught that "philosophy, before the coming of the Lord, was necessary to
+the Greeks for righteousness; and now it proved useful for godliness,
+being a sort of preliminary discipline for those who reap the fruits of
+faith through demonstration.... Perhaps we may say that it was given to
+the Greeks with this special object, for it brought the Greek nation to
+Christ as the Law brought the Hebrews."[862] "Philosophy was given as a
+peculiar testament to the Greeks, as forming the basis of the Christian
+philosophy."[863] Referring to the words of Paul, Origen says, the
+truths which philosophers taught were from God, for "God manifested
+these to them, and all things that have been nobly said."[864] And
+Augustine, whilst deprecating the extravagant claims made for the great
+Gentile teachers, allows "that some of them made great discoveries, so
+far as they received help from heaven; whilst they erred as far as they
+were hindered by human frailty."[865] They had, as he elsewhere
+observes, "a distant vision of the truth, and learnt, from the teaching
+of nature, what prophets learnt from the spirit."[866] In addressing the
+Greeks, Theodoret says, "Obey your own philosophers; let them be your
+initiators; for they announced beforehand our doctrines." He held that
+"in the depths of human nature there are characters inscribed by the
+hand of God." And that "if the race of Abraham received the divine law,
+and the gift of prophecy, the God of the universe led other nations to
+piety by natural revelation, and the spectacle of nature."[867]
+
+[Footnote 861: "First Apology," ch. xlvi.]
+
+[Footnote 862: "Stromata," bk. i. ch. v.]
+
+[Footnote 863: "Stromata," bk. vi. ch. viii.]
+
+[Footnote 864: "Contra Celsum," bk. vi. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 865: "De Civitate Dei," bk. ii. ch. vii.]
+
+[Footnote 866: Sermon lxviii. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 867: See Smith's "Bible Dictionary," article "Philosophy;"
+Pressens�, "Religions before Christ," p. II; Butler's "Lectures on
+Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. pp. 28-40.]
+
+In attempting to account for this partial harmony between Philosophy and
+Revelation, we find the Patristic writers adopting different theories.
+They are generally agreed in maintaining some original connection, but
+they differ as to its immediate source. Some of them maintained that the
+ancient philosophers derived their purest light from the fountain of
+Divine Revelation. The doctrines of the Old Testament Scriptures were
+traditionally diffused throughout the West before the rise of
+philosophic speculation. If the theistic conceptions of Plato are
+superior to those of Homer it is accounted for by his (hypothetical)
+tour of inquiry among the Hebrew nation, as well as his Egyptian
+investigations. Others maintained that the similarity of views on the
+character of the Supreme Being and the ultimate destination of humanity
+which is found in the writings of Plato and the teachings of the Bible
+is the consequence of _immediate_ inspiration. Origen, Jerome, Eusebius,
+Clement, do not hesitate to affirm that Christ himself revealed his own
+high prerogatives to the gifted Grecian. From this hypothesis, however,
+the facts of the case compel them to make some abatements. In the
+mid-current of this divine revelation are found many acknowledged
+errors, which it is impossible to ascribe to the celestial illuminator.
+Plato, then, was _partially_ inspired, and clouded the heavenly beam
+with the remaining grossnesses of the natural sense.[868] Whilst a
+third, and more reasonable, hypothesis was maintained by others. They
+regarded man as "the offspring and image of the Deity," and maintained
+there must be a correlation of the human and divine reason, and,
+consequently, of all discovered truth to God. Therefore they expected to
+find some traces of connection and correspondence between Divine and
+human thought, and some kindred ideas in Philosophy and Revelation.
+"Ideas," says St. Augustine, "are the primordial forms, as it were, the
+immutable reason of things; they are not created, they are eternal, and
+always the same: they are contained in the Divine intelligence and
+without being subject to birth and death, they are _types_ according to
+which is formed every thing that is born and dies." The copies of these
+archetypes are seen in nature, and are participated in by the reason of
+man; and there may therefore be some community of idea between man and
+God, and some relation between Philosophy and Christianity.
+
+[Footnote 868: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+41.]
+
+The various attempts which have been made to trace the elevated theism
+and morality of Socrates and Plato to Jewish sources have signally
+failed. Justin Martyr and Tertullian claim that the ancient philosophers
+"borrowed from the Jewish prophets." Pythagoras and Plato are supposed
+to have travelled in the East in quest of knowledge.[869] The latter is
+imagined to have had access to an existing Greek version of the Old
+Testament in Egypt, and a strange oversight in chronology brings him
+into personal intercourse with the prophet Jeremiah. A sober and
+enlightened criticism is compelled to pronounce all these statements as
+mere exaggerations of later times.[870] They are obviously mere
+suppositions by which over-zealous Christians sought to maintain the
+supremacy and authority of Scripture. The travels of Pythagoras are
+altogether mythical, the mere invention of Alexandrian writers, who
+believed that all wisdom flowed from the East.[871] That Plato visited
+Egypt at all, rests on the single authority of Strabo, who lived at
+least four centuries after Plato; there is no trace in his own works of
+Egyptian research. His pretended travels in Phoenicia, where he gained
+from the Jews a knowledge of the true God, are more unreliable still.
+Plato lived in the fourth century before Christ (born B.C. 430), and
+there is no good evidence of the existence of a Greek version of the Old
+Testament before that of "the Seventy" (Septuagint), made by order of
+Ptolemy Philadelphus, B.C. 270. Jeremiah, the prophet of Israel, lived
+two centuries before Plato; consequently any personal intercourse
+between the two was simply impossible. Greek philosophy was
+unquestionably a development of Reason alone.[872]
+
+[Footnote 869: Mr. Watson adopts this hypothesis to account for the
+theistic opinions of the ancient philosophers of Greece. See "Institutes
+of Theology," vol. i. pp. 26-34.]
+
+[Footnote 870: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+147.]
+
+[Footnote 871: Max Muller, "Science of Language," p. 94.]
+
+[Footnote 872: See on this subject, Ritter's "History of Ancient
+Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 147, 148; Encyclop�dia Britannica, article
+"Plato," vol. xvii. p. 787; Smith's "Bible Dictionary," article
+"Philosophy;" and Thompson's "Laws of Thought," p. 326.]
+
+Some of the ablest Christian scholars and divines of modern times, as
+Cudworth, Neander, Trench, Pressens�, Merivale, Schaff, after the most
+careful and conscientious investigation, have come to this conclusion,
+that Greek philosophy fulfilled a preparatory mission for Christianity.
+The general conclusions they reached are forcibly presented in the words
+of Pressens�:
+
+It would be difficult to overstate the importance of Greek philosophy
+when viewed as a preparation to Christianity. Disinterested pursuit of
+truth is always a great and noble task. The imperishable want of the
+human mind to go back to first principles, suffices to prove that this
+principle is divine. We may abuse speculation; we may turn it into one
+of the most powerful dissolvents of moral truths; and the defenders of
+positive creeds, alarmed by the attitude too often assumed by
+speculation in the presence of religion, have condemned it as
+mischievous in itself, confounding in their unjust prejudice its use and
+its abuse. But, for all serious thinkers, philosophy is one of the
+highest titles of nobility that humanity possesses: and when we consider
+its mission previous to Christianity, we feel convinced that it had its
+place in the Divine plan. It was not religion in itself that philosophy,
+through its noblest representatives, combated, but polytheism. It
+dethroned the false gods. Adopting what was best in paganism, philosophy
+employed it as an instrument to destroy paganism, and thus clear the way
+for definite religion. Above all, it effectually contributed to purify
+the idea of Divinity, though this purification was but an approximation.
+If at times it caught glimpses of the highest spiritualism, yet it was
+unable to protect itself against the return and reaction of Oriental
+dualism. In spite of this imperfection, which in its way served the
+cause of Christianity by demonstrating the necessity of revelation, men
+like Socrates and Plato fulfilled amongst their people a really sublime
+mission.
+
+They were to the heathen world the great prophets of the human
+conscience, which woke up at their call. And the awakening of the moral
+sense was at once the glory and ruin of philosophy; for conscience, once
+aroused, could only be satisfied by One greater than they, and must
+necessarily reject all systems which proved themselves insufficient to
+realize the moral idea they had evoked.
+
+"But to perish thus, and for such a cause, is a high honor to a
+philosophy. It was this made the philosophy of Greece, like the Hebrew
+laws, though in an inferior sense, a schoolmaster that led to Jesus
+Christ, according to the expression of Clement of Alexandria. Viewed in
+this light, it was a true gift of God, and had, too, the shadow of good
+things to come, awakening the presentiment and desire of them, though it
+could not communicate them. Nor can we conceive a better way to prepare
+for the advent of Him who was to be 'the Desire of Nations' before
+becoming their Saviour."[873]
+
+[Footnote 873: "Religions before Christ," pp. 101, 102.]
+
+In previous chapters we have endeavored to sketch the history of the
+development of metaphysical thought, of moral feeling and idea, and of
+religious sentiment and want, which characterized Grecian civilization.
+In now offering a brief _r�sum�_ of the history of that development,
+with the design of more fully exhibiting the preparatory office it
+fulfilled for Christianity, we shall assume that the mind of the reader
+has already been furnished and disciplined by preparatory principles. He
+can scarce have failed to recognize that this development obeyed a
+_general law_, however modified by exterior and geographical conditions;
+the same law, in fact, which governs the development of all individual
+finite minds, and which law may be formulated thus:--_All finite mind
+develops itself, first, in instinctive determinations and spontaneous
+faiths; then in rising doubt, and earnest questioning, and ill-directed
+inquiry; and, finally, in systematic philosophic thought, and rational
+belief_. These different stages succeed each other in the individual
+mind. There is, first, the simplicity and trust of childhood; secondly,
+the undirected and unsettled force of youth; and, thirdly, the wisdom of
+mature age. And these different stages have also succeeded each other in
+the universal mind of humanity. There has been, 1st. _The era of
+spontaneous beliefs_--of popular and semi-conscious theism, morality,
+and religion, 2d. _The transitional age_--the age of doubt, of inquiry,
+and of ill-directed mental effort, ending in fruitless sophism, or in
+skepticism. 3d. _The philosophic or conscious age_--the age of
+reflective consciousness, in which, by the analysis of thought, the
+first principles of knowledge are attained, the necessary laws of
+thought are discovered, and man arrives at positive convictions, and
+rational beliefs. In the history of Grecian civilization, the first is
+the Homeric age; the second is the pre-Socratic age, ending with the
+Sophists; and the third is the grand Socratic period. History is thus
+the development of the fundamental elements of humanity, according to an
+established law, and under conditions which are ordained and supervised
+by the providence of God. "The unity of civilization is in the unity of
+human nature; its varieties, in the variety of the elements of
+humanity," which elements have been successively developed in the course
+of history. All that is fundamental in human nature passes into the
+movement of civilization. "I say all that is fundamental; for it is the
+excellency of history to take out, and throw away all that is not
+necessary and essential. That which is individual shines for a day, and
+is extinguished forever, or stops at biography." Nothing endures, except
+that which is fundamental and true--that which is vital, and organizes
+itself, develops itself, and arrives at an historical existence.
+"Therefore as human nature is the matter and basis of history, history
+is, so to speak, the judge of human nature, and historical analysis is
+the counter-proof of psychological analysis."[874]
+
+[Footnote 874: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 31.] Nature, individual mind, and collective humanity, all obey the
+law of progressive development; otherwise there could be no history, for
+history is only of that which has movement and progress. Now, all
+progress is from the indefinite to the definite, from the inorganic to
+the organic and vital, from the instinctive to the rational, from a dim,
+nebulous self-feeling to a high reflective consciousness, from sensuous
+images to abstract conceptions and spiritual ideas. This progressive
+development of nature and humanity has not been a series of creations
+_de novo_, without any relation, in matter or form, to that which
+preceded. All of the present was contained in embryonic infoldment in
+the past, and the past has contributed its results to the present.[875]
+The present, both in nature, and history, and civilization, is, so to
+speak, the aggregate and sum-total of the past. As the natural history
+of the earth may now be read in the successive strata and deposits which
+form its crust, so the history of humanity may be read in the successive
+deposits of thought and language, of philosophy and art, which register
+its gradual progression. As the paleontological remains imbedded in the
+rocks present a succession of organic types which gradually improve in
+form and function, from the first sea-weed to the palm-tree, and from
+the protozoa to the highest vertebrate, so the history of ancient
+philosophy presents a gradual progress in metaphysical, ethical, and
+theistic conceptions, from the unreflective consciousness of the Homeric
+age, to the high reflective consciousness of the Platonic period. And as
+all the successive forms of life in pre-Adamic ages were a preparation
+for and a prophecy of the coming of man, so the advancing forms of
+philosophic thought, during the grand ages of Grecian civilization, were
+a preparation and a prophecy of the coming of the Son of God.
+
+[Footnote 875: The writer would not be understood as favoring the idea
+that this development is simply the result of "natural law." The
+connection between the past and the present is not a material, but a
+_mental_ connection. It is the bond of Creative Thought and Will giving
+to organic forces a foreseen direction towards the working out of a
+grand plan. See Agassiz, "Contributions to Natural History," vol. i. pp.
+9, 10; Duke of Argyll, "Reign of Law," ch. v.]
+
+We shall now endeavor to trace this process of gradual preparation for
+Christianity in the Greek mind--
+
+(i.) _In the field of_ THEISTIC _conceptions_.
+
+(ii.) _In the department of_ ETHICAL _ideas and principles_.
+
+(iii.) _In the region of_ RELIGIOUS _sentiment_.
+
+In the field of theistic conception the prop�deutic office of Grecian
+philosophy is seen--
+
+I. _In the release of the popular mind from Polytheistic notion, and the
+purifying and spiritualizing of the Theistic idea_.
+
+The idea of a Supreme Power, a living Personality, energizing in nature,
+and presiding over the affairs of men, is not the product of philosophy.
+It is the immanent, spontaneous thought of humanity. It has, therefore,
+existed in all ages, and revealed itself in all minds, even when it has
+not been presented to the understanding as a definite conception, and
+expressed by human language in a logical form. It is the thought which
+instinctively arises in the opening reason of childhood, as the dim and
+shadowy consciousness of a living mind behind all the movement and
+change of the universe. Then comes the period of doubt, of anxious
+questioning, and independent inquiry. The youth seeks to account to
+himself for this peculiar sentiment. He turns his earnest gaze towards
+nature, and through this living vesture of the infinite he seeks to
+catch some glimpses of the living Soul. In some fact appreciable to
+sense, in some phenomenon he can see, or hear, or touch, he would fain
+grasp the cause and reason of all that is. But in this field of inquiry
+and by this method he finds only a "receding God," who falls back as he
+approaches, and is ever still beyond; and he sinks down in exhaustion
+and feebleness, the victim of doubt, perhaps despair. Still the
+sentiment of the Divine remains, a living force, in the centre of his
+moral being. He turns his scrutinizing gaze within, and by
+self-reflection seeks for some rational ground for his instinctive
+faith. There he finds some convictions he can not doubt, some ideas he
+can not call in question, some thoughts he is compelled to think, some
+necessary and universal principles which in their natural and logical
+development ally him to an unseen world, and correlate and bind him fast
+to an invisible, but real God. The more his mind is disciplined by
+abstract thought, the clearer do these necessary and universal
+principles become, and the purer and more spiritual his ideas of God.
+God is now for him the First Principle of all principles, the First
+Truth of all truths; the Eternal Reason, the Immutable Righteousness,
+the Supreme Good. The normal and healthy development of reason, the
+maturity of thought, conduct to the recognition of the true God.
+
+And so it has been in the universal consciousness of our race as
+revealed in history. There was first a period of spontaneous and
+unreflective Theism, in which man felt the consciousness of God, but
+could not or did not attempt a rational explanation of his instinctive
+faith. He saw God in clouds and heard Him in the wind. His smile
+nourished the corn, and cheered the vine. The lightnings were the
+flashes of his vengeful ire, and the thunder was his angry voice. But
+the unity of God was feebly grasped, the rays of the Divinity seemed
+divided and scattered amidst the separate manifestations of power, and
+wisdom, and goodness, and retribution, which nature presented. Then
+plastic art, to aid and impress the imagination, created its symbols of
+these separate powers and principles, chiefly in human form, and gods
+were multiplied. But all this polytheism still rested on a dim
+monotheistic background, and all the gods were subordinated to
+Zeus--"the Father of gods and men." Humanity had still the sense of the
+dependence of all finite being on one great fountain-head of
+Intelligence and Power, and all the "generated gods" were the subjects
+and ministers of that One Supreme. This was the childhood of humanity so
+vividly represented in Homeric poetry.
+
+Then came a period of incipient reflection, and speculative thought, in
+which the attention of man is drawn outward to the study of nature, of
+which he can yet only recognize himself as an integral part. He searches
+for some arch�--some first principle, appreciable to sense, which in its
+evolution shall furnish an explanation of the problem of existence. He
+tries the hypothesis of "_water_" then of "_air_" then of "_fire_" as
+the primal element, which either is itself, or in some way infolds
+within itself an informing Soul, and out of which, by vital
+transformation, all things else are produced. But here he failed to find
+an adequate explanation; his reason was not satisfied. Then he sought
+his first principle in "_numbers_" as symbols, and, in some sense, as
+the embodiment of the rational conceptions of order, proportion, and
+harmony,--God is the original _monas_--unity--One;--or else he sought it
+in purely abstract "_ideas_" as unity, infinity, identity, and all
+things are the evolution of an eternal thought, one and identical, which
+is God. And here again he fails. Then he supposes an unlimited
+_migma_--a chaotic mixture of elements existing from eternity, which was
+separated, combined, and organized by the energy of a Supreme Mind, the
+_nous_ of Anaxagoras. But he holds not firmly to this great principle;
+"he recurs again to air, and ether, and water, as _causes_ for the
+ordering of all things."[876] And after repeated attempts and failures,
+he is disappointed in his inquiry, and falls a prey to doubt and
+skepticism. This was the early youth of our humanity, the period that
+opens with Thales and ends with the Sophists.
+
+[Footnote 876: Thus Socrates complains of Anaxagoras. See "Ph�do," �
+108.]
+
+The problem of existence still waits for and demands a solution. The
+heart of man, also, still cries out for the living God. The Socratic
+maxim, "know thyself," introverts the mental gaze, and self-reflection
+now becomes the method of philosophy. The Platonic analysis of thought
+reveals elements of knowledge which are not derived from the outer
+world. There are universal and necessary principles revealed in
+consciousness which, in their natural and logical development, transcend
+consciousness, and furnish the cognition of a world of Real Being,
+beyond the world of sense. There are absolute truths which bridge the
+chasm between the seen and the unseen, the fleeting and the permanent,
+the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal. There are
+necessary laws of thought which are also found to be laws of things, and
+which correlate man to a living, personal, righteous Lord and Lawgiver.
+From absolute ideas Plato ascends to an _absolute Being_, the author of
+all finite existence. From absolute truths to an _absolute Reason_, the
+foundation and essence of all truth. From the principle of immutable
+right to an _absolutely righteous Being_. From the necessary idea of the
+good to a being of _absolute Goodness_--that is, to _God_. This is the
+maturity of humanity, the ripening manhood of our race which was
+attained in the Socratic age.
+
+The inevitable tendency of this effort of speculative thought, spread
+over ages, and of the intellectual culture which necessarily resulted,
+was to undermine the old polytheistic religion, and to purify and
+elevate the theistic conception. The school of Elea rejected the gross
+anthropomorphism of the Homeric theology. Xenophanes, the founder of the
+school, was a believer in
+
+      "_ One God_, of all beings divine and human the greatest,
+      Neither in body alike unto mortals, neither in ideas."
+
+And he repels with indignation the anthropomorphic representations of
+the Deity.
+
+"But men foolishly think that gods are born as men are,
+And have, too, a dress like their own, and their voice, and their figure:
+But if oxen and lions had hands like ours, and fingers,
+Then would horses like unto horses, and oxen to oxen,
+Paint and fashion their god-forms, and give to them bodies
+Of like shape to their own, as they themselves too are fashioned."[877]
+
+Empedocles also wages uncompromising war against all representations of
+the Deity in human form--
+
+      "For neither with head adjusted to limbs, like the human,
+      Nor yet with two branches down from the shoulders outstretching,
+      Neither with feet, nor swift-moving limbs,....
+      He is, wholly and perfectly, _mind_, ineffable, holy,
+      With rapid and swift-glancing thought pervading the world."[878]
+
+[Footnote 877: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp.
+431, 432.]
+
+[Footnote 878: Ibid., vol. i. pp. 495, 496.]
+
+When speaking of the mythology of the older Greeks, Socrates maintains a
+becoming prudence; he is evidently desirous to avoid every thing which
+would tend to loosen the popular reverence for divine things.[879] But
+he was opposed to all anthropomorphic conceptions of the Deity. His
+fundamental position was that the Deity is the Supreme Reason, which is
+to be honored by men as the source of all existence and the end of all
+human endeavor. Notwithstanding his recognition of a number of
+subordinate divinities, he held that the Divine is one, because Reason
+is one. He taught that the Supreme Being is the immaterial, infinite
+Governor of all;[880] that the world bears the stamp of his
+intelligence, and attests it by irrefragable evidence;[881] and that he
+is the author and vindicator of all moral laws.[882] So that, in
+reality, he did more to overthrow polytheism than any of his
+predecessors, and on that account was doomed to death.
+
+[Footnote 879: Xenophon, "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iii. � 3.]
+
+[Footnote 880: Id., ib., bk. i. ch. iv. �� 17, 18.]
+
+[Footnote 881: Id., ib., bk. i. ch. i. � 19.]
+
+[Footnote 882: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 63;
+Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 359.]
+
+It was, however, the matured dialectic of Plato which gave the
+death-blow to polytheism. "Plato, the poet-philosopher, sacrificed Homer
+himself to monotheism. We may measure the energy of his conviction by
+the greatness of the sacrifice. He could not pardon the syren whose
+songs had fascinated Greece, the fresh brilliant poetry that had
+inspired its religion. He crowned it with flowers, but banished it,
+because it had lowered the religious ideal of conscience." He was
+sensible of the beauty of the Homeric fables, but he was also keenly
+alive to their religious falsehood, and therefore he excluded the poets
+from his ideal republic. In the education of youth, he would forbid
+parents and teachers repeating "the stories which Hesiod and Homer and
+the other poets told us." And after instancing a number of these stories
+"which deserve the gravest condemnation," he enjoins that God must be
+represented as he is in reality. "God," says he, "is, beyond all else,
+good in reality, and therefore so to be represented;" "he can not do
+evil, or be the cause of evil;" "he is of simple essence, and can not
+change, or be the subject of change;" "there is no imperfection in the
+beauty or goodness of God;" "he is a God of truth, and can not lie;" "he
+is a being of perfect simplicity and truth in deed and word."[883] The
+reader can not fail to recognize the close resemblance between the
+language of Plato and the language of inspiration.
+
+The theistic conception, in Plato, reaches the highest purity and
+spirituality. God is "_the Supreme Mind_," "incorporeal,"
+"unchangeable," "infinite," "absolutely perfect," "essentially good,"
+"unoriginated and eternal." He is "the Father and Maker of the world,"
+"the efficient Cause of all things," "the Monarch and Ruler of the
+world," "the Sovereign Mind that orders all things," and "pervades all
+things." He is "the sole principle of all things," "the beginning of all
+truth," "the fountain of all law and justice," "the source of all order
+and beauty;" in short, He is "the beginning, middle, and end of all
+things."[884]
+
+[Footnote 883: "Republic," bk. ii. �� 18-21.]
+
+[Footnote 884: See _ante_, ch. xi. pp. 377, 378, where the references to
+Plato's writings are given.]
+
+Aristotle continued the work of undermining polytheism. He defines God
+as "the Eternal Reason"--the Supreme Mind. "He is the immovable cause of
+all movement in the universe, the all-perfect principle. This principle
+or essence pervades all things. It eternally possesses perfect
+happiness, and its happiness consists in energy. This primeval mover is
+immaterial, for its essence is energy--it is pure thought, thought
+thinking itself--the thought of thought."[885] Polytheism is thus swept
+away from the higher regions of the intelligence. "For several to
+command," says he, "is not good, there should be but one chief. A
+tradition, handed down from the remotest antiguity, and transmitted
+under the veil of fable, says that all the stars are gods, and that the
+Divinity embraces the whole of nature. And round this idea other
+mythical statements have been agglomerated, with a view to influencing
+the vulgar, and for political and moral expediency; as for instance,
+they feigned that these gods have human shape, and are like certain of
+the animals; and other stories of the kind are added on. Now, if any one
+will separate from all this the first point alone, namely, that they
+thought the first and deepest grounds of existence to be Divine, he may
+consider it a divine utterance."[886] The popular polytheism, then, was
+but a perverted fragment of a deeper and purer "Theology." This passage
+is a sort of obituary of polytheism. The ancient glory of paganism had
+passed away. Philosophy had exploded the old theology. Man had learned
+enough to make him renounce the ancient religion, but not enough to
+found a new faith that could satisfy both the intellect and the heart.
+"Wherefore we are not to be surprised that the grand philosophic period
+should be followed by one of incredulity and moral collapse,
+inaugurating the long and universal _decadence_ which was, perhaps, as
+necessary to the work of preparation, as was the period of religious and
+philosophic development."
+
+[Footnote 885: "Metaphysics," bk. xii.]
+
+[Footnote 886: "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. viii. � 19.]
+
+The preparatory office of Greek philosophy in the region of speculative
+thought is seen--
+
+2. _In the development of the Theistic argument in a logical
+form._--Every form of the theistic proof which is now employed by
+writers on natural theology to demonstrate the being of God was
+apprehended, and logically presented, by one or other of the ancient
+philosophers, excepting, perhaps, the "moral argument" drawn from the
+facts of conscience.
+
+(I.) _The_ �TIOLOGICAL _proof_, or the argument based upon the principle
+of causality, which may be presented in the following form:
+
+      All genesis or becoming supposes a permanent and uncaused
+      Being, adequate to the production of all phenomena.
+
+      The sensible universe is a perpetual genesis, a succession
+      of appearances: it is "always becoming, and never really
+      is."
+
+      Therefore, it must have its cause and origin in a permanent
+      and unoriginated Being, adequate to its production.
+
+The major premise of this syllogism is a fundamental principle of
+reason--a self-evident truth, an axiom of common sense, and as such has
+been recognized from the very dawn of philosophy. [Greek: Adounaton
+ginesthai ti ek m�denos prouparxonios]--_Ex nihilo nihil_--_Nothing
+which once was not, could ever of itself come into being_. Nothing can
+be made or produced without an efficient cause, is the oldest maxim of
+philosophy. It is true that this maxim was abusively employed by
+Democritus and Epicurus to disprove a Divine creation of any thing out
+of nothing, yet the great body of ancient philosophers, as Pythagoras,
+Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Plato, and
+Aristotle, regarded it as the announcement of an universal conviction,
+that nothing can be produced without an efficient cause;--order can not
+be generated out of chaos, life out of dead matter, consciousness out of
+unconsciousness, reason out of unreason. A first principle of life, of
+order, of reason, must have existed anterior to all manifestions of
+order, of life, of intelligence, in the visible universe. It was clearly
+in this sense that Cicero understood this great maxim of the ancient
+philosophers of Greece. With him "_De nihilo nihil fit"_ is equivalent
+to "_Nihil sine causa_"--nothing exists without a cause. This is
+unquestionably the form in which that fundamental law of thought is
+stated by Plato: "Whatever is generated is necessarily generated from a
+certain cause, for it is wholly impossible that any thing should be
+generated without a cause."[887] And the efficient cause is defined as
+"a power whereby that which did not previously exist was afterwards made
+to be."[888] It is scarcely needful to remark that Aristotle, the
+scholar of Plato, frequently lays it down as a postulate of reason,
+"that we admit nothing without a cause."[889] By an irresistible law of
+thought, "_all phenomena present themselves to us as the expression of
+power_, and refer us to a causal ground whence they issue."
+
+[Footnote 887: "Tim�us," ch. ix.; also "Philebus," � 45.]
+
+[Footnote 888: "Sophist," � 109.]
+
+[Footnote 889: "Post. Analytic," bk. ii. ch. xvi.; "Metaphysics," bk. i.
+ch. i. � 3.]
+
+The major premise of this syllogism is a fact of observation.
+
+To the eye of sense and sensible observation, to scientific induction
+even in its highest generalizations, the visible universe presents
+nothing but a history and aggregation of phenomena--a succession of
+appearances or effects having more or less resemblance. It is a
+ceaseless flow and change, "a generation and corruption," "a becoming,
+but never really _is_;" it is never in two successive moments the
+_same_.[890] All our cognitions of sameness, uniformity, causal
+connection, permanent Being, real Power, are purely rational conceptions
+_given in thought_, supplied by the spontaneous intuition of reason as
+the correlative prefix to the phenomena observed.[891]
+
+[Footnote 890: "Tim�us," ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 891: Ibid.]
+
+Therefore the ancient philosophers concluded justly, there must be
+something [Greek: ag�nn�ton]--something which was never generated,
+something [Greek: autophy�s] and [Greek: authypostaton]--self-originated
+and self-existing, something [Greek: tauton] and [Greek:
+ai�nion]--immutable and eternal, the object of rational
+apperception--which is the real ground and efficient cause of all that
+appears.
+
+(2.) The COSMOLOGICAL proof, or the argument based upon the principle of
+order, and thus presented:
+
+      Order, proportion, harmony, are the product and expression
+      of Mind.
+
+      The created universe reveals order, proportion, and harmony.
+
+      Therefore, the created universe is the product of Mind.
+
+The fundamental law of thought which underlies this mode of proof was
+clearly recognized by Pythagoras. All harmony and proportion and
+symmetry is the result of _unity_ evolving itself in and pervading
+_multiplicity_. Mind or reason is unity and indivisibility; matter is
+diverse and multiple. Mind is the determinating principle; matter is
+indeterminate and indefinite. Confused matter receives form, and
+proportion, and order, and symmetry, by the action and interpenetration
+of the spiritual and indivisible element. In presence of facts of order,
+the human reason instinctively and necessarily affirms the presence and
+action of Mind.
+
+"Pythagoras had long devoted his intellectual adoration to the lofty
+idea of Order. To his mind it seemed as the presiding genius of the
+serene and silent world. He had from his youth dwelt with delight upon
+the eternal relations of space and number, in which the very idea of
+proportion seems to find its first and immediate development, until at
+length it seemed as if the whole secret of the universe was hidden in
+these mysterious correspondences. The world, in all its departments,
+moral and material, is a living arithmetic in its development, a
+realized geometry in its repose; it is a '_cosmos_' (for the word is
+Pythagorean), the expression of harmony, the manifestation to sense of
+everlasting order; and the science of _numbers_ is the truest
+representation of its eternal laws." Therefore, argued Pythagoras and
+the Pythagoreans, as the reason of man can perceive the relations of an
+eternal order in the proportions of extension and number, the laws of
+proportion, and symmetry, and harmony must inhere in a Divine reason, an
+intelligent soul, which moves and animates the universe. The harmonies
+of the world which address themselves to the human mind must be the
+product of a Divine mind. The world, in its real structure, must be the
+image and copy of that divine proportion which the mind of man adores.
+It is the sensible type of the Divinity, the outward and multiple
+development of the Eternal Unity, the Eternal One--that is, God.
+
+The same argument is elaborated by Plato in his philosophy of beauty.
+God is with him the last reason, the ultimate foundation, the perfect
+ideal of all beauty--of all the order, proportion, harmony, sublimity,
+and excellence which reigns in the physical, the intellectual, and the
+moral world. He is the "Eternal Beauty, unbegotten and imperishable,
+exempt from all decay as well as increase--the perfect--the Divine
+Beauty"[892] which is beheld by the pure mind in the celestial world.
+
+[Footnote 892: "Banquet," � 35.]
+
+(3.) The Teleological proof, or the argument based upon the principle of
+intentionality or Final Cause, and is presented in the following form:
+
+      The choice and adaptation of means to the accomplishment of
+      special ends supposes an intelligent purpose, a Designing
+      Mind.
+
+      In the universe we see such choice and adaptation of means
+      to ends.
+
+      Therefore, the universe is the product of an intelligent,
+      personal Cause.
+
+This is peculiarly the Socratic proof. He recognized the necessity and
+the irresistibility of the conviction that the choice and adaptation of
+means to ends is the effect of Purpose, the expression of Will.[893]
+There is an obviousness and a directness in this mode of argument which
+is felt by every human mind. In the "Memorabilia" Xenophon has preserved
+a conversation of Socrates with Aristodemus in which he develops this
+proof at great length. In reading the dialogue[894] in which Socrates
+instances the adaptation of our organization to the external world, and
+the examples of design in the human frame, we are forcibly reminded of
+the chapters of Paley, Whewell, and M'Cosh. Well might Aristodemus
+exclaim: "The more I consider it, the more it is evident to me that man
+must be the masterpiece of some great Artificer, carrying along with it
+infinite marks of the love and favor of Him who has thus formed it." The
+argument from Final Causes is pursued by Plato in the "Tim�us;" and in
+Aristotle, God is the Final Cause of all things.[895]
+
+[Footnote 893: "Canst thou doubt, Aristodemus, whether a disposition of
+parts like this (in the human body) should be the work of chance, or of
+wisdom and contrivance?"--"Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iv.]
+
+[Footnote 894: "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iv.]
+
+[Footnote 895: Aristotle clearly recognizes that an end or final cause
+implies Intelligence. "The appearance of ends and means is a proof of
+Design."--"Nat. Ausc.," bk. ii. ch. viii.]
+
+(4.) The Ontological or Ideological proof, or the argument grounded on
+necessary and absolute ideas, which may be thrown into the following
+syllogism:
+
+      Every attribute or quality implies a subject, and absolute
+      modes necessarily suppose an Absolute Being. Necessary and
+      absolute truths or ideas are revealed in human reason as
+      absolute modes.
+
+      Therefore universal, necessary, and absolute ideas are modes
+      of the absolute subject--that is, God, the foundation and
+      source of all truth.
+
+This is the Platonic proof. Plato recognized the principle of substance
+([Greek: ousia ypokeimenon]), and therefore he proceeds in the "Tim�us"
+to inquire for the real ground of all existence; and in the "Republic,"
+for the real ground of all truth and certitude.
+
+The universe consists of two parts, permanent existences and transient
+phenomena--being and genesis; the one eternally constant, the other
+mutable and subject to change; the former apprehended by the reason, the
+latter perceived by sense. For each of these there must be a principle,
+subject, or substratum--a principle or subject-matter, which is the
+ground or condition of the sensible world, and a principle or substance,
+which is the ground and reason of the intelligible world or world of
+ideas. The subject-matter, or ground of the sensible world, is "the
+receptacle" and "nurse" of forms, an "invisible species and formless
+receiver (which is not earth, or air, or fire, or water) which receives
+the immanence of the intelligible."[896] The subject or ground of the
+intelligible world is that in which ideal forms, or eternal archetypes
+inhere, and which impresses form upon the transitional element, and
+fashions the world after its own eternal models. This eternal and
+immutable substance is God, who created the universe as a copy of the
+eternal archetypes--the everlasting thoughts which dwell in his infinite
+mind.
+
+[Footnote 896: "Tim�us," ch. xxiv.]
+
+These copies of the eternal archetypes or models are perceived by the
+reason of man in virtue of its participation in the Ultimate Reason. The
+reason of man is the organ of truth; by an innate and inalienable right,
+it grasps unseen and eternal realities. The essence of the soul is akin
+to that which is real, permanent, and eternal;--_It is the offspring and
+image of God_; therefore it has a true communion with the realities of
+things, by virtue of this kindred and homogeneous nature. It can,
+therefore, ascend from the universal and necessary ideas, which are
+apprehended by the reason, to the absolute and supreme Idea, which is
+the attribute and perfection of God. When the human mind has
+contemplated any object of beauty, any fact of order, proportion,
+harmony, and excellency, it may rise to the notion of a quality common
+to all objects of beauty--from a single beautiful body to two, from two
+to all others; from beautiful bodies to beautiful sentiments, from
+beautiful sentiments to beautiful thoughts, until, from thought to
+thought, we arrive at the highest thought, which has no other object
+than the perfect, absolute, _Divine Beauty_.[897] When a man has, from
+the contemplation of instances of virtue, risen to the notion of a
+quality common to all these instances, this quality becomes the
+representative of an ineffable something which, in the sphere of
+immutable reality, answers to the conception in his soul. "At the
+extreme limits of the intellectual world is the _Idea of the Good_,
+which is perceived with difficulty, but, in fine, can not be perceived
+without concluding that it is the source of all that is beautiful and
+good; that in the visible world it produces light, and the star whence
+light directly comes; that in the invisible world it directly produces
+truth and intelligence."[898] This _absolute Good is God_.
+
+[Footnote 897: "Banquet," � 34.]
+
+[Footnote 898: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.]
+
+The order in which these several methods of proof were developed, will
+at once present itself to the mind of the reader as the natural order of
+thought. The first and most obvious aspect which nature presents to the
+opening mind is that of movement and change--a succession of phenomena
+suggesting the idea of _power_. Secondly, a closer attention reveals a
+resemblance of phenomena among themselves, a uniformity of nature--an
+order, proportion, and harmony pervading the _cosmos_, which suggest an
+_identity and unity of power and of reason_, pervading and controlling
+all things. Thirdly, a still closer inspection of nature reveals a
+wonderful adaptation of means to the fulfillment of special ends, of
+organs designed to fulfill specific functions, suggesting the idea of
+_purpose_, _contrivance_, and _choice_, and indicating that the power
+which moves and determines the universe is a _personal_, _thinking_, and
+_voluntary_ agent. And fourthly, a profounder study of the nature of
+thought, an analysis of personal consciousness, reveals that there are
+necessary principles, ideas, and laws, which universally govern and
+determine thought to definite and immovable conceptions--as, for
+example, the principles of causality, of substance, of identity or
+unity, of order, of intentionality; and that it is only under these laws
+that we can conceive the universe. By the law of substance we are
+compelled to regard these ideas, which are not only laws of thought but
+also of things, as inherent in a subject, or Being, who made all things,
+and whose ideas are reflected in the reason of man. Thus from universal
+and necessary ideas we rise to the _absolute Idea_, from immutable
+principles to a _First Principle of all principles_, a _First Thought_
+of all thoughts--that is, to _God_. This is the history of the
+development of thought in the individual, and in the race--_cause_,
+_order_, _design_, _idea_, _being_, GOD.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE PROP�DEUTIC OFFICE OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY _(continued)_.
+
+
+      "If we regard this sublime philosophy as a preparation for
+      Christianity instead of seeking in it a substitute for the
+      Gospel, we shall not need to overstate its grandeur in order
+      to estimate its real value."--Pressens�.
+
+      "Plato made me to know the true God. Jesus Christ showed me
+      the way to Him."--St. Augustine.
+
+The preparatory office of Grecian philosophy is also seen in _the
+department of morals_.
+
+I. _In the awakening and enthronement of Conscience as a law of duty,
+and the elevation and purification of the Moral Idea_.
+
+The same law of evolution, which we have seen governing the history of
+speculative thought, may also be traced as determining the progress of
+ethical inquiry. In this department there are successive stages marked,
+both in the individual and the national mind. There is, first, the
+simplicity and trust of childhood, submitting with unquestioning faith
+to prescribed and arbitrary laws; then the unsettled and ill-directed
+force of youth, questioning the authority of laws, and asking reasons
+why this or that is obligatory; then the philosophic wisdom of riper
+years, recognizing an inherent law of duty, which has an absolute
+rightness and an imperative obligation. There is first a dim and shadowy
+apprehension of some lines of moral distinction, and some consciousness
+of obligation, but these rest mainly upon an outward law--the observed
+practice of others, or the command of the parent as, in some sense, the
+command of God. Then, to attain to personal convictions, man passes
+through a stage of doubt; he asks for a ground of obligation, for an
+authority that shall approve itself to his own judgment and reason. At
+last he arrives at some ultimate principles of right, some immutable
+standard of duty; he recognizes an inward law of conscience, and it
+becomes to him as the voice of God. He extends his analysis to history,
+and he finds that the universal conscience of the race has, in all ages,
+uttered the same behest. Should he live in Christian times, he discovers
+a wondrous harmony between the voice of God within the heart, and the
+voice of God within the pages of inspiration. And now the convention of
+public opinion, and the laws of the state, are revered and upheld by
+him, just so far as they bear the imprimatur of reason and of
+conscience--that is, of God.
+
+This history of the normal development of the individual mind has its
+counterpart in the history of humanity. There is (1.) _The age of
+popular and unconscious morality_; (2.) _The transitional, skeptical, or
+sophistical age_; and (3.) _The philosophic or conscious age of
+morality_.[899] In the "Republic" of Plato, we have these three eras
+represented by different persons, through the course of the dialogue.
+The question is started--what is Justice? and an answer is given from
+the stand-point of popular morality, by Polemarchus, who quotes the
+words of the poet Simonides,
+
+      "To give to each his due is just;"[900]
+
+that is, justice is paying your debts. This doctrine being proved
+inadequate, an answer is given from the Sophistical point of view by
+Thrasymachus, who defines justice as "the advantage of the
+strongest"--that is, might is right, and right is might.[901] This
+answer being sharply refuted, the way is opened for a more philosophic
+account, which is gradually evolved in book iv., Glaucon and Adimantus
+personifying the practical understanding, which is gradually brought
+into harmony with philosophy, and Socrates the higher reason, as the
+purely philosophic conception. Justice is found to be the right
+proportion and harmonious development of all the elements of the soul,
+and the equal balance of all the interests of society, so as to secure a
+well-regulated and harmonious whole.
+
+[Footnote 899: Grant's "Aristotle's Ethics," vol. i. p. 46.]
+
+[Footnote 900: "Republic," bk. i. � 6.]
+
+[Footnote 901: Ibid., bk. i. � 12.]
+
+The era of _popular and unconscious morality_ is represented by the
+times of Homer, Hesiod, the Gnomic poets, and "the Seven Wise Men of
+Greece."
+
+This was an age of instinctive action, rather than reflection--of poetry
+and feeling, rather than analytic thought. The rules of life were
+presented in maxims and proverbs, which do not rise above prudential
+counsels or empirical deductions. Morality was immediately associated
+with the religion of the state, and the will of the gods was the highest
+law for men. "Homer and Hesiod, and the Gnomic poets, constituted the
+educational course," to which may be added the saws and aphorisms of the
+Seven Wise Men, and we have before us the main sources of Greek views of
+duty. When the question was asked--"What is right?" the answer was given
+by a quotation from Homer, Hesiod, Simonides, and the like. The morality
+of Homer "is concrete, not abstract; it expresses the conception of a
+heroic life, rather than a philosophic theory. It is mixed up with a
+religion which really consists in a celebration of the beauty of nature,
+and in a deification of the strong and brilliant qualities of human
+nature. It is a morality uninfluenced by a regard for a future life. It
+clings with intense enjoyment and love to the present world, and the
+state after death looms up in the distance as a cold and repugnant
+shadow. And yet it would often hold death preferable to disgrace. The
+distinction between a noble and ignoble life is strongly marked in
+Homer, and yet a sense of right and wrong about particular actions seems
+fluctuating" and confused.[902] A sensuous conception of happiness is
+the chief good, and mere temporal advantage the principal reward of
+virtue. We hear nothing of the approving smile of conscience, of inward
+self-satisfaction, and peace, and harmony, resulting from the practice
+of virtue. Justice, energy, temperance, chastity, are enjoined, because
+they secure temporal good. And yet, with all this imperfection, the
+poets present "a remarkable picture of primitive simplicity, chastity,
+justice, and practical piety, under the three-fold influence of right
+moral feeling, mutual and fear of the divine displeasure."[903]
+
+[Footnote 902: Grant's "Aristotle's Ethics," vol. i. p. 51.]
+
+[Footnote 903: Tyler, "Theology of the Greek Poets," p. 167.]
+
+The _transitional, skeptical_, or _sophistical era_ begins with
+Protagoras. Poetry and proverbs had ceased to satisfy the reason of man.
+The awakening intellect had begun to call in question the old maxims and
+"wise saws," to dispute the arbitrary authority of the poets, and even
+to arraign the institutions of society. It had already begun to seek for
+some reasonable foundation of authority for the opinions, customs, laws,
+and institutions which had descended to them from the past, and to ask
+why men were obliged to do this or that? The question whether there is
+at bottom any real difference between truth and error, right and wrong,
+was now fairly before the human mind. The ultimate standard of all truth
+and all right, was now the grand object of pursuit. These inquiries were
+not, however, conducted by the Sophists with the best motives. They were
+not always prompted by an earnest desire to know the truth, and an
+earnest purpose to embrace and do the right. They talked and argued for
+mere effect--to display their dialectic subtilty, or their rhetorical
+power. They taught virtue for mere emolument and pay. They delighted, as
+Cicero tells us, to plead the opposite sides of a cause with equal
+effect. And they found exquisite pleasure in raising difficulties,
+maintaining paradoxes, and passing off mere tricks of oratory for solid
+proofs. This is the uniform representation of the sophistical spirit
+which is given by all the best writers who lived nearest to their times,
+and who are, therefore, to be presumed to have known them best.
+Grote[904] has made an elaborate defense of the Sophists; he charges
+Plato with gross misrepresentation. His portraits of them are denounced
+as mere caricatures, prompted by a spirit of antagonism; all antiquity
+is presumed to have been misled by him. No one, however, can read
+Grant's "Essay on the History of Moral Philosophy in Greece"[905]
+without feeling that his vindication of Plato is complete and
+unanswerable: "Plato never represents the Sophists as teaching a lax
+morality to their disciples. He does not make sophistry to consist in
+holding wicked opinions; he represents them as only too orthodox in
+general,[906] but capable of giving utterance to immoral paradoxes for
+the sake of vanity. Sophistry rather tampers and trifles with the moral
+convictions than directly attacks them." The Sophists were wanting in
+deep conviction, in moral earnestness, in sincere love of truth, in
+reverence for goodness and purity, and therefore their trifling,
+insincere, and paradoxical teaching was unfavorable to goodness of life.
+The tendency of their method is forcibly depicted in the words of Plato:
+"There are certain dogmas relating to what is _just_ and _good_ in which
+we have been brought up from childhood--obeying and reverencing them.
+Other opinions recommending pleasure and license we resist, out of
+respect for the old hereditary maxims. Well, then, a question comes up
+concerning what is right? He gives some answer such as he has been
+taught, and straightway is refuted. He tries again, and is again
+refuted. And, when this has happened pretty often, he is reduced to the
+opinion that _nothing is either right or wrong_; and in the same way it
+happens about the just and the good, and all that before we have held in
+reverence. On this, he naturally abandons his allegiance to the old
+principles and takes up with those he before resisted, and so, from
+being a good citizen, he becomes lawless."[907] And, in point of fact,
+this was the theoretical landing-place of the Sophists. We do not say
+they became practically "lawless" and antinomian, but they did arrive at
+the settled opinion that right and wrong, truth and error, are solely
+matter of private opinion and conventional usage. Man's own fluctuating
+opinion is the measure and standard of all things.[908] They who "make
+the laws, make them for their own advantage."[909] There is no such
+thing as Eternal Right. "That which _appears_ just and honorable to each
+city is so for that city, as long as the opinion prevails."[910]
+
+[Footnote 904: "History of Greece."]
+
+[Footnote 905: Aristotle's "Ethics," vol. i. ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 906: "His teachings will be good counsels about a man's own
+affairs, how best to govern his family; and also about the affairs of
+the state, how most ably to administer and speak of state
+affairs."--"Protag.," � 26.]
+
+[Footnote 907: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xvii.]
+
+[Footnote 908: "The�tetus," � 23.]
+
+[Footnote 909: "Gorgias," �� 85-89.]
+
+[Footnote 910: "The�tetus," �� 65-75.]
+
+The age of the Sophists was a transitional period--a necessary, though,
+in itself considered, an unhappy stage in the progress of the human
+mind; but it opened the way for, _The Socratic, philosophic_, or
+_conscious age of morals_. It has been said that "before Socrates there
+was no morality in Greece, but only propriety of conduct." If by this is
+meant that prior to Socrates men simply followed the maxims of "the
+Theologians,"[911] and obeyed the laws of the state, without reflection
+and inquiry as to the intrinsic character of the acts, and without any
+analysis and exact definition, so as to attain to principles of ultimate
+and absolute right, it must be accepted as true--there was no philosophy
+of morals. Socrates is therefore justly regarded as "the father of moral
+philosophy." Aristotle says that he confined himself chiefly to ethical
+inquiries. He sought a determinate conception and an exact definition of
+virtue. As Xenophon has said of him, "he never ceased asking, What is
+piety? what is impiety? what is noble? what is base? what is just? what
+is unjust? what is temperance? what is madness?"[912] And these
+questions were not asked in the Sophistic spirit, as a dialectic
+exercise, or from idle curiosity. He was a perfect contrast to the
+Sophists. They had slighted Truth, he made her the mistress of his soul.
+They had turned away from her, he longed for more perfect communion with
+her. They had deserted her for money and renown, he was faithful to her
+in poverty.[913] He wanted to know what piety was, that he might be
+pious. He desired to know what justice, temperance, nobility, courage
+were, that he might cultivate and practise them. He wrote no books,
+delivered no lectures; he instituted no school; he simply conversed in
+the shop, the market-place, the banquet-hall, and the prison. This
+philosophy was not so much a _doctrine_ as a _life_. "What is remarkable
+in him is not the _system_ but the _man_. The memory he left behind him
+amongst his disciples, though idealized--the affection, blended with
+reverence, which they never ceased to feel for his person, bear
+testimony to the elevation of his character and his moral purity. We
+recognize in him a Greek of Athens--one who had imbibed many dangerous
+errors, and on whom the yoke of pagan custom still weighed; but his life
+was nevertheless a noble life; and it is to calumny we must have
+recourse if we are to tarnish its beauty by odious insinuations, as
+Lucian did, and as has been too frequently done, after him, by
+unskillful defenders of Christianity,[914] who imagine it is the gainer
+by all that degrades human nature. Born in a humble position, destitute
+of all the temporal advantages which the Greeks so passionately loved,
+Socrates exerted a kingship over minds. His dominion was the more real
+for being less apparent.... His power consisted of three things: his
+devoted affection for his disciples, his disinterested love of truth,
+and the perfect harmony of his life and doctrine.... If he recommended
+temperance and sobriety, he also set the example; poorly clad, satisfied
+with little, he disdained all the delicacies of life. He possessed every
+species of courage. On the field of battle he was intrepid, and still
+more intrepid when he resisted the caprices of the multitude who
+demanded of him, when he was a senator, to commit the injustice of
+summoning ten generals before the tribunals. He also infringed the
+iniquitous orders of the thirty tyrants of Athens. The satires of
+Aristophanes neither moved nor irritated him. The same dauntless
+firmness he displayed when brought before his judges, charged with
+impiety. 'If it is your wish to absolve me on condition that I
+henceforth be silent, I reply I love and honor you, but I ought rather
+to obey the gods than you. Neither in the presence of judges nor of the
+enemy is it permitted me, or any other man, to use every sort of means
+to escape death. It is not death but crime that it is difficult to
+avoid; crime moves faster than death. So I, old and heavy as I am, have
+allowed myself to be overtaken by death, while my accusers, light and
+vigorous, have allowed themselves to be overtaken by the light-footed
+crime. I go, then, to suffer death; they to suffer shame and iniquity. I
+abide by my punishment, as they by theirs. All is according to order.'
+It was the same fidelity to duty that made Socrates refuse to escape
+from prison, in order not to violate the laws of his country, to which,
+even though irritated, more respect is due than to a father. 'Let us
+walk in the path,' he says 'that God has traced for us.' These last
+words show the profound religious sentiment which animated Socrates....
+It is impossible not to feel that there was something divine in such a
+life crowned with such a death."[914]
+
+[Footnote 911: Homer, Hesiod, etc.]
+
+[Footnote 912: "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. i. p. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 913: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 122.]
+
+[Footnote 914: Watson's "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 374.]
+
+[Footnote 915: Pressens�, "Religions before Christ," pp. 109-111.]
+
+Socrates laid the foundation for conscious morality by placing the
+ground of right and wrong in an eternal and unchangeable reason which
+illuminates the reason and conscience of every man. He often asserted
+that morality is a science which can not be taught. It depends mainly
+upon principles which are discovered by an inward light. Accordingly he
+regarded it as the main business of education to "draw out" into the
+light of consciousness the principles of right and justice which are
+infolded within the conscience of man--to deliver the mind of the secret
+truth which was striving towards the light of day. Therefore he called
+his method the "maieutic" or "obstetric" art. He felt there was
+something divine in all men (answering to his _to daimonion_ or
+_daimonion ti_--a divine and supernatural something--a warning
+"voice"--a gnomic "sign"--a "law of God written on the heart"), which by
+a system of skillful interrogations he sought to elicit, so that each
+might hear for himself the voice of God, and, hearing, might obey. Thus
+was he the "great prophet of the human conscience," and a messenger of
+God to the heathen world, to prepare the way of the Lord.
+
+The morality of conscience was carried to its highest point by Plato.
+From the moment he became the disciple of Socrates he sympathized deeply
+with the spirit and the method of his master. He had the same deep
+seriousness of spirit, that same earnestness of purpose, that same
+inward reverence for justice, and purity, and goodness, which dwelt in
+the heart of Socrates. A naturally noble nature, he loved truth with all
+the glow and fervor of his young heart. He felt that if any thing gave
+meaning and value to life, it must be the contemplation of absolute
+truth, absolute beauty, and absolute Good. This absolute Good is God,
+who is the first principle of all ideas, the fountain of all the order
+and proportion and beauty of the universe, the source of all the good
+which exists in nature and in man. To practise goodness--to conform the
+character to the eternal models of order, proportion, and excellence, is
+to resemble God. To aspire after perfection of moral being, to secure
+assimilation to God ([Greek: omoiosis The�]) is the noble aspiration of
+Plato's soul.
+
+When we read the "Gorgias," the "Philebus," and especially the
+"Republic," with what noble joy are we filled on hearing the voice of
+conscience, like a harp swept by a seraph's hand, uttering such
+deep-toned melodies! How does he drown the clamors of passion, the
+calculations of mere expediency, the sophism of mere personal interest
+and utility. If he calls us to witness the triumph of the wicked in the
+first part of the "Republic," it is in order that we may at the end of
+the book see the deceitfulness of their triumph. "As to the wicked," he
+says, "I maintain that even if they succeed at first in concealing what
+they are, most of them betray themselves at the end of their career.
+They are covered with opprobrium, and present evils are nothing compared
+with those that _await them in the other life_. As to the just man,
+whether in sickness or in poverty, these imaginary evils will turn to
+his advantage in this life, _and after his death_; because the
+providence of the gods is necessarily attentive to the interests of him
+who labors to become just, and to attain, by the practice of virtue, to
+the most perfect resemblance to God which is possible to man."[916] He
+rises above all "greatest happiness principles," and asserts distinctly
+in the "Gorgias" that it is better to suffer wrong than to do
+wrong.[917] "I maintain," says he, "that what is most shameful is not to
+be struck unjustly on the cheek, or to be wounded in the body; but that
+to strike and wound me unjustly, to rob me, or reduce me to slavery--to
+commit, in a word, any kind of injustice towards me, or what is mine--is
+a thing far worse and more odious for him who commits the injustice,
+than for me who suffer it."[918] It is a great combat, he says, greater
+than we think, that wherein the issue is whether we shall be virtuous or
+wicked. Neither glory, nor riches, nor dignities, nor poetry, deserves
+that we should neglect justice for them. The moral idea in Plato has
+such intense truth and force, that it has at times a striking analogy
+with the language of the Holy Scriptures.[919]
+
+[Footnote 916: "Republic," bk. x. ch. xii.]
+
+[Footnote 917: "Gorgias," �� 59-80.]
+
+[Footnote 918: Ibid., � 137.]
+
+[Footnote 919: Pressens�, "Religions before Christ," p. 129.]
+
+The obligation of moral rectitude is, by Plato, derived from the
+authoritative utterances of conscience as the voice of God. We must do
+right because reason and conscience say it is right. In the "Euthyphron"
+he maintains that the moral quality of actions is not dependent on the
+arbitrary will of a Supreme Governor;--"an act is not holy because the
+gods love it, but the gods love it because it is holy." The eternal law
+of right dwells in the Eternal Reason of God, the idea of right in all
+human minds is a ray of that Eternal Reason; and the requirement of the
+divine law that we shall do right is, and must be, in harmony with both.
+
+The present life is regarded by Plato as a state of probation and
+discipline, the future life as one of reward and punishment.[920]
+
+[Footnote 920: "Republic," bk. x. ch. xv., xvi.; "Laws," bk. x. ch.
+xiii.]
+
+Plato was thus to the heathen world "the great apostle of the moral
+idea;" he followed up and completed the work of Socrates. "The voice of
+God, that still found a profound echo in man's heart, possessed in him
+an organ to which all Greece gave ear; and the austere revelation of
+conscience this time embodied in language too harmonious not to entice
+by the beauty of form, a nation of artists, they received it. The tables
+of the eternal law, carved in purest marble and marvellously sculptured,
+were read by them."
+
+In Plato both the theistic conception and the moral idea seem to have
+touched the zenith. The philosophy of Aristotle, considered as a whole,
+appears on one side to have passed the line of the great Hellenic
+period. If it did not inaugurate, it at least prepared the way for the
+decline. It perfected logic, as the instrument of ratiocination, and
+gave it exactness and precision, Yet taken all in all, it was greatly
+inferior to its predecessor. From the moral point of view it is a
+decided retrogression. The god of Aristotle is indifferent to virtue. He
+is pure thought rather than moral perfection. He takes no cognizance of
+man. Morality has no eternal basis, no divine type, and no future
+reward. Therefore Aristotle's philosophy had little power over the
+conscience and heart.
+
+During the grand Platonic period human reason made its loftiest flight,
+it rose aloft and soared towards heaven, but alas! its wings, like those
+of Icarus, melted in the sun and it fell to earth again. Instead of wax
+it needed the strong "eagle pinions of faith" which revelation only can
+supply. The decadence is strongly marked both in the Epicurean and Stoic
+schools. They both express the feeling of exhaustion, disappointment,
+and despair. The popular theology had lost its hold upon the public
+mind. The gods no longer visited the earth. "The mysterious voice which,
+according to the poetic legend related by Plutarch, was heard out at
+sea--'Great Pan is dead'--rose up from every heart; the voice of an
+incredulous age proclaimed the coming end of paganism. The oracles were
+dumb." There was no vision in the land. All faith in a beneficent
+overruling Providence was lost, and the hope of immortality was
+well-nigh gone. The doctrines of a resurrection and a judgment to come,
+were objects of derisive mockery.[921] Philosophy directed her attention
+solely to the problem of individual well-being on earth; it became
+simply a philosophy of life, and not, as with Plato, "a preparation for
+death." The grosser minds sought refuge in the doctrines of Epicurus.
+They said, "Pleasure is the chief good, the end of life is to enjoy
+yourself;" to this end "dismiss the fear of gods, and, above all, the
+fear of death." The nobler souls found an asylum with the Stoics. They
+said, "Fata nos ducunt--The Fates lead us! Live conformable to reason.
+Endure and abstain!" Notwithstanding numerous and serious errors, the
+ethical system of the Stoics was wonderfully pure. This must be
+confessed by any one who reads the "Enchiridion" of Epictetus, and the
+"Meditations" of Aurelius. "The highest end of life is to contemplate
+truth and to obey the Eternal Reason. God is to be reverenced above all
+things, and universally submitted to. The noblest office of reason is to
+subjugate passion and conduct to virtue. Virtue is the supreme good,
+which is to be pursued for its own sake, and not from fear or hope. That
+is sufficient for happiness which is seated only in the mind, and
+therefore independent of external things. The consciousness of
+well-doing is reward enough without the applause of others. And no fear
+of loss, or pain, or even death, must be suffered to turn us aside from
+truth and virtue."[922]
+
+[Footnote 921: Acts xvii. 32.]
+
+[Footnote 922: Marcus Aurelius.]
+
+The preparatory office of Christianity in the field of ethics is further
+seen,
+
+II. _In the fact that, by an experiment conducted on the largest scale,
+it demonstrated the insufficiency of reason to elaborate a perfect ideal
+of moral excellence, and develop the moral forces necessary to secure
+its realization_.
+
+We have seen that the moral idea in Socrates, Plato, Epictetus, Marcus
+Aurelius, and Seneca rose to a sublime height, and that, under its
+influence, they developed a noble and heroic character. At the same time
+it must be conceded that their ethical system was marked by signal
+blemishes and radical defects. After all its excellence, it did not give
+roundness, completeness, and symmetry to moral life. The elements which
+really purify and ennoble man, and lend grace and beauty to life, were
+utterly wanting. Their systems were rather a discipline of the reason
+than a culture of the heart. The reason held in check the lower passions
+and propensities of the nature but it did not evoke the softer, gentler,
+purer emotions of the soul. The cardinal virtues of the ancient ethical
+systems are Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Courage, all which are in
+the last analysis reduced to Wisdom. Humility, Meekness, Forgiveness of
+injuries, Love of even enemies, Universal Benevolence, Real
+Philanthropy, the graces which give beauty to character and bless
+society, are scarcely known. It is true that in Epictetus and Seneca we
+have some counsels to humility, to forbearance, and forgiveness; but it
+must be borne in mind that Christianity was now in the air, exerting an
+indirect influence beyond the limits of the labors of the indefatigable
+missionaries of the Cross.[923] By their predecessors, these qualities
+were disparaged rather than upheld. Resentment of injuries was applauded
+as a virtue, and meekness was proclaimed a defect and a weakness. They
+knew nothing of a forgiving spirit, and were strangers to the charity
+"which endureth all things, hopeth all things, and never fails." The
+enlarged philanthrophy which overleaps the bounds of kindred and
+nationality, and embraces a common humanity in its compassionate regards
+and benevolent efforts, was unknown. Socrates, the noblest of all the
+Grecians, was in no sense cosmopolitan in his feeling. His whole nature
+and character wore a Greek impress. He could scarce be tempted to go
+beyond the gates of Athens, and his care was all for the Athenian
+people. He could not conceive an universal philanthropy. Plato, in his
+solicitude to reduce his ideal state to a harmonious whole, answering to
+his idea of Justice, sacrificed the individual. He superseded private
+property, broke up the sacred relations of family and home, degraded
+woman, and tolerated slavery. Selfishness was to be overcome, and
+political order maintained, by a rigid communism. To harmonize
+individual rights and national interests, was the wisdom reserved for
+the fishermen of Galilee. The whole method of Plato's "Politeia,"
+breathes the spirit of legalism in all its severity, untempered by the
+spirit of Love. This was the living force which was wanting to give
+energy to the ideals of the reason and conscience, to furnish high
+motive to virtue, to prompt to deeds of heroic sacrifice and suffering
+for the good of others; and this could not be inspired by philosophy,
+nor constrained by legislation. This love must descend from above. "The
+Platonic love" was a mere intellectual appreciation of beauty, and
+order, and proportion, and excellence. It was not the love of man as the
+offspring and image of God, as the partaker of a common nature, and the
+heir of a common immortality. Such love was first revealed on earth by
+the incarnate Son of God, and can only be attained by human hearts under
+the inspiration of his teaching and life, and the renewing influence of
+the Holy Spirit. "Love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of
+God and knoweth God." To "love our neighbor as ourself" is the golden
+precept of the Son of God, who is incarnate Love. The equality of all
+men as "the offspring of God" had been nominally recognized by the Stoic
+philosophers; its realization had been rendered possible to the popular
+thought by Roman conquest, law, and jurisprudence; these had prepared
+the way for its fullest announcement and practical recognition by the
+world. At this providential juncture St. Paul appears on Mars' Hill, and
+in the presence of the assembled philosophers proclaims, "_God hath made
+of one blood all nations of men_." A lofty ideal of moral excellence had
+been attained by Plato--the conception of a high and inflexible
+morality, which contrasted most vividly with the depravity which
+prevailed in Athenian society. The education "of the public assemblies,
+the courts, the theatres, or wherever the multitude gathered" was
+unfavorable to virtue. And the inadequacy of all mere human teaching to
+resist this current of evil, and save the young men of the age from
+ruin, is touchingly and mournfully confessed by Plato. "There is not,
+there never was, there never will be a moral education possible that can
+countervail the education of which these are the dispensers; that is,
+_human_ education: I except, with the proverb, that which is Divine.
+And, truly, any soul that in such governments escapes the common wreck,
+can only escape _by the special favor of heaven."_[924] He affirms again
+and again that man can not by himself rise to purity and goodness.
+"Virtue is not natural to man, neither is it to be learned, but it comes
+to us by a divine influence. Virtue is the gift of God in those who
+possess it."[925] That "gift of God" was about to be bestowed, in all
+its fullness of power and blessing, "_through Jesus Christ our Lord_."
+
+[Footnote 923: Seneca lived in the second century; Epictetus, in the
+latter part of the first century.]
+
+[Footnote 924: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vi., vii.]
+
+[Footnote 925: "Meno;" see conclusion.]
+
+In the department of _religious feeling_ and _sentiment_, the
+prop�deutic office of Greek philosophy is seen, in general, in the
+revealing of the immediate spiritual wants of the soul, and the distinct
+presentation of the problem which Christianity alone can solve.
+
+I. _It awakened in man the sense of distance and estrangement from God,
+and the need of a Mediator--"a daysman betwixt us, that might lay his
+hand upon us both_"[926]
+
+[Footnote 926: Job ix. 33.]
+
+During the period of unconscious and unreflective theism, the sentiment
+of the Divine was one of objective nearness and personal intimacy. The
+gods interposed directly in the affairs of men, and held frequent and
+familiar intercourse with our race. They descend to the battle-field of
+Troy, and mingle in the bloody strife. They grace the wedding-feast by
+their presence, and heighten the gladness with celestial music. They
+visit the poor and the stranger, and sometimes clothe the old and
+shrivelled beggar with celestial beauty. They inspire their favorites
+with strength and courage, and fill their mouths with wisdom and
+eloquence. They manifest their presence by signs and wonders, by visions
+and dreams, by auguries and prophetic voices. But more frequently than
+all, they are seen in the ordinary phenomena of nature, the sunshine and
+storm, the winds and tempests, the hail and rain. The natural is, in
+fact, the supernatural, and all the changes of nature are the movement
+and action of the Divine. The feeling of dependence is immediate and
+universal, and worship is the natural and spontaneous act of man.
+
+But the period of reflection is inevitable. Man turns his inquiring gaze
+towards nature and desires, by an imperfect effort of physical
+induction, to reach "the first principle and cause of things." Soon he
+discovers the prevalence of uniformity in nature, the actions of
+physical properties and agencies, and he catches some glimpses of the
+reign of universal law. The natural tendency of this discovery is
+obvious in the weakening of his sense of dependence on the immediate
+agency of God. The Egyptians told Herodotus that, as their fields were
+regularly irrigated by the waters of the Nile, they were less dependent
+on God than the Greeks, whose lands were watered by rains, and who must
+perish if Jupiter did not send them showers.[927] As man advances in the
+field of mere physical inquiry, God recedes; from the region of
+explained phenomena, he retires into the region of unexplained
+phenomena--the border-land of mystery. The gods are driven from the
+woods and streams, the winds and waves. Neptune does not absolutely
+control the seas, nor �olus the winds. The Divine becomes, no more a
+physical arch�--a nature-power, but a Supreme Mind, an ineffable Spirit,
+an invisible God, the Supreme Essence of Essences, the Supreme Idea of
+Ideas (eidos auto kath auto) apprehended by human reason alone, but
+having an independent, eternal, substantial, personal being. Through the
+instrumentality of Platonism, the idea of God becomes clearer and purer.
+Man had learned that communion with the Divinity was something more than
+an apotheosis of humanity, or a pantheistic absorption. He caught
+glimpses of a higher and holier union. He had surrendered the ideal of a
+national communion with God, and of personal protection through a
+federal religion, and now was thrown back upon himself to find some
+channel of personal approach to God. But alas! he could not find it. A
+God so vastly elevated beyond human comprehension, who could only be
+apprehended by the most painful effort of abstract thought; a God so
+infinitely removed from man by the purity and rectitude of his
+character; a God who was all pure reason, seemed alien to all the
+yearnings and sympathies of the human heart; and such a God, dwelling in
+pure light, seemed inapproachable and inacessible to man.[928] The
+purifying of the religious idea had evoked a new ideal, and this ideal
+was painfully remote. By the energy of abstract thought man had striven
+to pierce the veil, and press into "the Holy of Holies," to come into
+the presence of God, and he had failed. And he had sought by moral
+discipline, by self-mortification, by inward purification, to raise
+himself to that lofty plane of purity, where he might catch some
+glimpses of the vision of a holy God, and still he failed. Nay, more, he
+had tried the power of prayer. Socrates, and Plato, and Cleanthes had
+bowed the knee and moved the lips in prayer. The emperor Aurelius, and
+the slave Epictetus had prayed, and prayer, no doubt, intensified their
+longing, and sharpened and agonized their desire, but it did not raise
+them to a satisfying and holy _koinonia_ in the divine life. "It seems
+to me"--said Plato--as Homer says of Minerva, that she removed the mist
+from before the eyes of Diomede,
+
+      'That he might clearly see 'twixt Gods and men.'
+
+so must he, in the first place, remove from your soul the mist that now
+dwells there, and then apply those things through which you will be able
+to know[929] and rightly pray to God.
+
+[Footnote 927: Herodotus, vol. ii. bk. ii. ch. xiii. p. 14 (Rawlinson's
+edition).]
+
+[Footnote 928: "To discover the Maker and Father of the universe is a
+hard task;.... to make him known to all is impossible."--"Tim�us," ch.
+ix.]
+
+[Footnote 929: "Second Alcibiades," � 23.]
+
+To develop this innate desire and "feeling after God" was the grand
+design of providence in "fixing the times" of the Greek nation, and "the
+boundaries of their habitation."[930] Man was brought, through a period
+of discipline, to feel his need of a personal relation to God. He was
+made to long for a realizing sense of his presence--to desire above all
+things a Father, a Counsellor, and a Friend--a living ear into which he
+might groan his anguish, or hymn his joy; and a living heart that could
+beat towards him in compassion, and prompt immediate succor and aid. The
+idea of a pure Spiritual Essence without form, and without emotion,
+pervading all, and transcending all, is too vague and abstract to yield
+us comfort, and to exert over us any persuasive power. "Our moral
+weakness shrinks from it in trembling awe. The heart can not feed on
+sublimities. We can not make a home of cold magnificence; we can not
+take immensity by the hand."[931] Hence the need and the desire that God
+shall condescendingly approach to man, and by some manifestation of
+himself in human form, and through the sensibilities of the human heart,
+commend himself to the heart of man--in other words, the need of an
+_Incarnation_. Thus did the education of our race, by the dispensation
+of philosophy, prepare the way for him who was consciously or
+unconsciously "_the Desire of Nations_," and the deepening earnestness
+and spiritual solicitude of the heathen world heralded the near approach
+of Him who was not only "the Hope of Israel" but "the Saviour of the
+world."
+
+[Footnote 930: Acts xvii. 26, 27.]
+
+[Footnote 931: Caird.]
+
+The idea of an _Incarnation_ was not unfamiliar to human thought, it was
+no new or strange idea to the heathen mind. The numberless metamorphoses
+of Grecian mythology, the incarnations of Brahm, the avatars of Vishnu,
+and the human form of Krishna had naturalized the thought.[932] So that
+when the people of Lystra saw the apostles Paul and Barnabas exercising
+supernatural powers of healing, they said, "The gods have come down to
+us in the likeness of men!" and they called Barnabas Jupiter, and Paul,
+Mercurius. The idea in its more definite form may have been, and indeed
+was, communicated to the world through the agency of the dispersed Jews.
+So that Virgil, the Roman poet, who was contemporary with Christ, seems
+to re-echo the prophecy of Isaiah--
+
+     The last age decre�d by the Fates is come,
+     And a new frame of all things does begin;
+     A holy progeny from heaven descends
+     Auspicious in his birth, which puts an end
+     To the iron age, and from which shall arise
+     A golden age, most glorious to behold.
+
+[Footnote 932: Young's "Christ of History," p. 248.]
+
+II. _Finally, Greek philosophy prepared the way for Christianity by
+awakening and deepening the consciousness of guilt, and the desire for
+Redemption_.
+
+The consciousness of sin, and the consequent need of expiation for sin,
+were gradually unfolded in the Greek mind. The idea of sin was at first
+revealed in a confused and indefinite feeling of some external,
+supernatural, and bewildering influence which man can not successfully
+resist; but yet so in harmony with the sinner's inclination, that he can
+not divest himself of all responsibility. "Homer has no word answering
+in comprehensiveness or depth of meaning to the word _sin_, as it is
+used in the Bible..... The noun _amartia_ which is appropriated to
+express this idea in the Greek of the New Testament, does not occur in
+the Homeric poems..... The word which is most frequently employed to
+express wrong-doing of every kind is _at�_, with its corresponding
+verb..... The radical signification of the word seems to be a
+befooling--a depriving one of his senses and his reason, as by
+unseasonable sleep, and excess of wine, joined with the influence of
+evil companions, and the power of destiny, or the deity. Hence, the
+Greek imagination, which impersonated every great power, very naturally
+conceived of At� as a person, a sort of omnipresent and universal cause
+of folly and sin, of mischief and misery, who, though the daughter of
+Jupiter, yet once fooled or misled Jupiter himself, and thenceforth,
+cast down from heaven to earth, walks with light feet over the heads of
+men, and makes all things go wrong. Hence, too, when men come to their
+senses, and see what folly and wrong they have perpetrated, they cast
+the blame on At�, and so, ultimately, on Jupiter and the gods."[933]
+
+[Footnote 933: Tyler, "Theology of the Greek Poets," pp. 174, 175.]
+
+     "Oft hath this matter been by Greeks discussed,
+      And I their frequent censure have incurred:
+      Yet was not I the cause; but Jove, and Fate,
+      And gloomy Erinnys, who combined to throw
+      A strong delusion o'er my mind, that day
+      I robb'd Achilles of his lawful prize.
+      What could I do? a Goddess all o'erruled,
+      Daughter of Jove, dread At�, baleful power
+      Misleading all; with light step she moves,
+      Not on the earth, but o'er the heads of men.
+      With blighting touch, and many hath caused to err."[934]
+
+And yet, though Agamemnon here attempts to shuffle off the guilt of his
+transgression upon At�, Jove, and Fate, yet at other times he confesses
+his folly and wrong, and makes no attempt to cast the responsibility on
+the gods.[935] Though misled by a "baleful power," he was not compelled.
+Though tempted by an evil goddess, he yet followed his own sinful
+passions, and therefore he owns himself responsible.
+
+To satisfy the demands of divine justice, to show its hatred of sin, and
+to deter others from transgression, sin is punished. Punishment is the
+penalty due to sin; in the language of Homer, it is the payment of a
+debt incurred by sin. When the transgressor is punished he is said to
+"pay off," or "pay back" his crimes; in other words, to expatiate or
+atone for them.
+
+                             "If not at once,
+     Yet soon or late will Jove assert their claim,
+     And heavy penalty the perjured pay
+     With their own blood, their children's, and their wives'."[936]
+
+At the same time the belief is expressed that the gods may be, and often
+are, propitiated by prayers and sacrifices, and thus the penalty is
+remitted.
+
+     "The Gods themselves, in virtue, honor, strength,
+      Excelling thee, may yet be mollified;
+      For they when mortals have transgressed, or fail'd
+      To do aright, by sacrifice and pray'r,
+      Libations and burnt-off'rings, may be sooth'd."[937]
+
+[Footnote 934: "Iliad," bk. xix. l. 91-101 (Lord Derby's translation).]
+
+[Footnote 935: Ibid., bk. ix. l. 132-136.]
+
+[Footnote 936: Ibid., bk. iv. l. 185-188.]
+
+[Footnote 937: Ibid., bk. ix. l. 581-585.]
+
+Polytheism, then, as Dr. Schaff has remarked, had the voice of
+conscience, and a sense, however obscure, of sin. It felt the need of
+reconciliation with deity, and sought that reconciliation by prayer,
+penance, and sacrifice.[938]
+
+The sense of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the absolute need of
+expiation, is determined with increasing clearness and definiteness in
+the tragic poets.
+
+The first great law which the Tragedians recognize, as a law written on
+the heart, is "that the sinner must suffer for his sins." The connection
+between sin and suffering is constantly recognized as a natural and
+necessary connection, like that between sowing and reaping.
+
+     A haughty spirit, blossoming, bears a crop
+     Of woe, and reaps a harvest of despair.[939]
+
+"Lust and violence beget lust and violence, and vengeance too, at the
+appointed time."[940] "Impiety multiplies and perpetuates itself."[941]
+"The sinner pays the debt he contracted, ends the career that he
+begins,"[942] "and drinks to the dregs the cup of cursing which he
+himself had filled."[943] Conscience is the instrument in the hands of
+Justice and Vengeance by which the Most High inflicts punishment. The
+retributions of sin are "wrought out by God."
+
+The consequences of great crimes, especially in high places, extend to
+every person and every thing connected with them. "The country and the
+country's gods are polluted."[944] "The army and the people share in the
+curse."[945] "The earth itself is polluted with the shedding of
+blood,"[946] "and even the innocent and the virtuous who share the
+enterprises of the wicked may be involved in their ruin, as the pious
+man must sink with the ungodly when he embarks in the same ship."[947]
+
+[Footnote 938: Tyler, "Theology of the Greek Poets," p. 258.]
+
+[Footnote 938: �schylus, "Pers�," l. 821.]
+
+[Footnote 940: "Agamemnon," l. 763.]
+
+[Footnote 941: Ibid., l. 788.]
+
+[Footnote 942: Ibid., l. 1529.]
+
+[Footnote 943: Ibid., l. 1397.]
+
+[Footnote 944: Ibid., l. 1645.]
+
+[Footnote 945: "Pers�," _passim._]
+
+[Footnote 946: "Sup.," 265.]
+
+[Footnote 947: "Theb.," p. 602.]
+
+The pollution and curse of sin, when once contracted by an individual,
+or entailed upon a family, will rest upon them and pursue them till the
+polluted individual or the hated and accursed race is extinct, unless in
+some way the sin can be expiated, or some god interpose to arrest the
+penalty. The criminal must die by the hand of justice, and even in Hades
+vengeance will still pursue him.[948] Others may in time be washed away
+by ablutions, worn away by exile and pilgrimage, and expiated by
+offerings of blood.[949] But great crimes can not be washed away; "For
+what expiation is there for blood when once it has fallen on the
+ground."[950] Thus the law (_[Greek: nomos]_)--for so it is expressly
+called--as from an Attic Sinai, rolls its reverberating thunders, and
+pronounces its curses upon sin, from act to act and from chorus to
+chorus of that grand trilogy--the "Agamemnon," the "Choephoroe," and the
+"Eumenides."
+
+[Footnote 948: "Sup.," l. 227.]
+
+[Footnote 949: "Eum.," l. 445 seq.]
+
+[Footnote 950: "Choeph.," l. 47.]
+
+But after the law comes the gospel. First the controversy, then the
+reconciliation. A dim consciousness of sin and retribution as a fact,
+and of reconciliation as a _want_, seems to have revealed itself even in
+the darkest periods of history. This consciousness underlies not a few
+of the Greek tragedies. "The 'Prometheus Bound' was followed by the
+'Prometheus Unbound,' reconciled and restored through the intervention
+of Jove's son. The 'oedipus Tyrannus' of Sophocles was completed by the
+'oedipus Colonus,' where he dies in peace amid tokens of divine favor.
+And so the 'Agamemnon' and 'Choephoroe' reach their consummation only in
+the 'Eumenides,' where the Erinyes themselves are appeased, and the
+Furies become the gracious ones. This is not, however, without a special
+divine interposition, and then only after a severe struggle between the
+powers that cry for justice and those that plead for mercy."
+
+The office and work which, in this trilogy, is assigned to Jove's son,
+Apollo, must strike every reader as at least a remarkable resemblance,
+if not a foreshadowing of the Christian doctrine of _reconciliation_.
+"This becomes yet more striking when we bring into view the relation in
+which this reconciling work stands to [Greek: Zeus S�t�r], Jupiter
+Saviour--[Greek: Zeus tritos], Jupiter the third, who, in connection
+with Apollo and Athena, consummates the reconciliation. Not only is
+Apollo a [Greek: S�t�r], a Saviour, who, having himself been exiled from
+heaven among men, will pity the poor and needy;[951] not only does
+Athena sympathize with the defendant at her tribunal, and, uniting the
+office of advocate and judge, persuade the avenging deities to be
+appeased;[952] but Zeus is the beginning and end of the whole process.
+Apollo appears as the advocate of Orestes only at her bidding;[953]
+Athena inclines to the side of the accused, as the offspring of the
+brain of Zeus, and of like mind with him."[954] Orestes, after his
+acquittal, says that he obtained it
+
+     "By means of Pallas and of Loxias
+      And the third Saviour who doth all things sway."[955]
+
+Platonism reveals a still closer affinity with Christianity in its
+doctrine of sin, and its sense of the need of salvation. Plato is
+sacredly jealous for the honor and purity of the divine character, and
+rejects with indignation every hypothesis which would make God the
+author of sin. "God, inasmuch as he is good, can not be the cause of all
+things, as the common doctrine represents him to be. On the contrary, he
+is the author of only a small part of human affairs; of the larger part
+he is not the author; for our evil things far outnumber our good things.
+The good things we must ascribe to God, whilst we must seek elsewhere,
+and not in him, the causes of evil."[956] The doctrine of the poets,
+which would in some way charge on the gods the errors of men, he sternly
+resists. We must express our disapprobation of Homer, or any other poet,
+if guilty of such foolish blunders about the gods as to tell us[957]
+
+     'Fast by the threshold of Jove's court are placed
+      Two casks, one stored with evil, one with good,'
+
+And that he for whom the Thunderer mingles both
+
+     'He leads a life checker'd with good and ill.'
+
+[Footnote 951: "Sup.," l. 214.]
+
+[Footnote 952: "Eum.," l. 970.]
+
+[Footnote 953: Ibid., l. 616.]
+
+[Footnote 954: Ibid., l. 664, 737.]
+
+[Footnote 955: Tyler's "Theology of the Greek Poets," especially ch. v.,
+from which the above materials are drawn.]
+
+[Footnote 956: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xviii.]
+
+[Footnote 957: "Iliad," xxiv., l. 660.]
+
+Nor can we let our young people know that, in the words of �schylus--
+
+     "'When to destruction God will plague a house
+       He plants among the members guilt and sin.'"[958]
+
+Whatever in the writings of Homer and the tragic poets give countenance
+to the notion that God is, in the remotest sense the author of sin, must
+be expunged. Here is clearly a great advance in ethical conceptions.
+
+The great defect in the ethical system of Plato was the identification
+of evil with the inferior or corporeal nature of man--"the irascible and
+concupiscible elements," fashioned by the junior divinities. The
+rational and immortal part of man's nature, which is derived immediately
+from God--the Supreme Good, naturally chooses the good as its supreme
+end and destination. Hence he adopted the Socratic maxim "that no man is
+willingly evil," that is, no man deliberately chooses evil as evil, but
+only as a _seeming_ good--he does not choose evil as an end, though he
+may choose it voluntarily as a means. Plato manifests great solicitude
+to guard this maxim from misconception and abuse. Man has, in his
+judgment, the power to act in harmony with his higher reason, or
+contrary to reason; to obey the voice of conscience or the clamors of
+passion, and consequently he is the object of praise or blame, reward or
+punishment. "When a man does not consider himself, but others, as the
+cause of his own sins,.... and even seeks to excuse himself from blame,
+he dishonors and injures his own soul; so, also, when contrary to
+reason.... he indulges in pleasure, he dishonors it by filling it with
+vice and remorse."[959] The work and effort of life, the end of this
+probationary economy, is to make reason triumphant over passion, and
+discipline ourselves to a purer and nobler life.
+
+[Footnote 958: "Republic," bk. ii. ch, xviii., xix.]
+
+[Footnote 959: "Laws," bk. v. ch. i.]
+
+The obstacles to a virtuous life are, however, confessedly numberless,
+and, humanly speaking, insurmountable. To raise one's self above the
+clamor of passion, the power of evil, the bondage of the flesh, is
+acknowledged, in mournful language, to be a hopeless task. A cloud of
+sadness shades the brow of Plato as he contemplates the fallen state of
+man. In the "Ph�drus" he describes, in gorgeous imagery, the purity, and
+beauty, and felicity of the soul in its anterior and primeval state,
+when, charioteering through the highest arch of heaven in company with
+the Deity, it contemplated the divine justice and beauty; but "this
+happy life," says he, "we forfeited by our transgression." Allured by
+strange affections, our souls forgot the sacred things that we were made
+to contemplate and love--we _fell_. And now, in our fallen state, the
+soul has lost its pristine beauty and excellence. It has become more
+disfigured than was Glaucus, the seaman "whose primitive form was not
+recognizable, so disfigured had he become by his long dwelling in the
+sea."[960] To restore this lost image of the good,--to regain "this
+primitive form," is not the work of man, but God. Man can not save
+himself. "Virtue is not natural to man, neither is it to be learned, but
+it comes by a divine influence. _Virtue, is the gift of God_."[961] He
+needs a discipline, "an education which is divine." If he is saved from
+the common wreck, it must be "by the special favor of Heaven."[962] He
+must be delivered from sin, if ever delivered, by the interposition of
+God.
+
+[Footnote 960: "Republic," bk. x. ch. xi.]
+
+[Footnote 961: "Meno."]
+
+[Footnote 962: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vi., vii.]
+
+Plato was, in some way, able to discover the need of a Saviour, to
+desire a Saviour, but he could not predict his appearing. Hints are
+obscurely given of a Conqueror of sin, an Assuager of pain, an Averter
+of evil in this life, and of the impending retributions of the future
+life; but they are exceedingly indefinite and shadowy. In all instances
+they are rather the language of _desire_, than of hope. Platonism
+awakened in the heart of humanity a consciousness of sin and a profound
+feeling of want--the want of a Redeemer from sin, a spiritual, a divine
+Remedy for its moral malady--and it strove after some remedial power.
+But it was equally conscious of failure and defeat. It could enlighten
+the reason, but it could only act imperfectly on the will. Platonic was
+a striking counterpart to Pauline experience prior to the apostle's
+deliverance by the power and grace of Christ. It discovered that "the
+Law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and just, and good." It
+recognized that "it is spiritual, but man is carnal, the slave of sin."
+It could say, "What I do I approve not; for I do not what I would, but
+what I hate. But if my will [my better judgment] is against what I do, I
+consent unto the Law that it is good. And now it is no more I that do
+it, but sin, that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me, that is, in my
+flesh, good abideth not, for to will is present with me, but the power
+to do the right is absent: the good that I would, I do not; but the evil
+that I would not, that I do. I consent gladly to the law of God in my
+inner man ['the rational and immortal nature'[963]]; but I behold a law
+in my members ['the irascible and concupiscible nature'[964]] warring
+against the law of my mind (or reason), and bringing me into captivity
+to the law of sin which is in my members. _Oh wretched man that I am!
+who shall deliver me from the body of this death_?"[965] Paul was able
+to say, "I thank God (that he hath now delivered me), through Jesus
+Christ our Lord!" Platonism could only desire, and hope, and wait for
+the coming of a Deliverer.
+
+[Footnote 963: Plato.]
+
+[Footnote 964: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 965: Romans, vii.]
+
+This consciousness of the need of supernatural light and help, and this
+aspiration after a light supernatural and divine, which Plato inherited
+from Socrates, constrained him to regard with toleration, and even
+reverence, every apparent approach, every pretension, even, to a divine
+inspiration and guidance in the age in which he lived. "'The greatest
+blessings which men receive come through the operation of _phrensy_
+([Greek: mania]--inspired exaltation), when phrensy is the gift of God.
+The prophetess of Delphi, and the priestess of Dodona, many are the
+benefits which in their phrensies (moments of inspiration) they have
+bestowed upon Greece; but in their hours of self-possession, few or
+none. And too long were it to speak of the Sibyl, and others, who,
+inspired and prophetic, have delivered utterances beneficial to the
+hearers. Indeed, this word phrenetic or maniac is no reproach; it is
+identical with mantic--prophetic.[966] And often when diseases and
+plagues have fallen upon men for the sins of their forefathers, some
+phrensy too has broken forth, and in prophetic strain has pointed out a
+remedy, _showing how the sin might be expiated, and the gods appeased_
+(by prayers, and purifications, and atoning rites).... So many and yet
+more great effects could I tell you of the phrensy which comes from the
+gods."[967] Some have discerned in all this merely the food for a feeble
+ridicule. They regard these sentiments as simply an evidence of the
+power and prevalence of superstition clouding the loftiest intellects in
+ancient times. By the more thoughtful and philosophic mind, however,
+they will be accepted as an indication of the imperishable and universal
+faith of humanity in a supernatural and supersensuous world, and in the
+possibility of some communication between heaven and earth.[968] And
+above all, it is a conclusive proof that Plato believed that the
+knowledge of _salvation_--of a remedy for sin, a method of expiation for
+sin, a means of deliverance from the power and punishment of sin, must
+be revealed from Heaven.
+
+[Footnote 966: [Greek: Mania], phrensy; _[Greek: pantis]_, a
+prophet--one who utters oracles in a state of divine phrensy; _[Greek:
+pantik�]_, the prophetic art.]
+
+[Footnote 967: "Ph�drus," � 47-50 (Whewell's translation).]
+
+[Footnote 968: "_Vetus opinio est_, jam usque ab heroicis ducta
+temporibus, eaque et populi Romani et _omnium gentium_ firmata consensu,
+versari quandem inter homines divinationem."--Cicero, "De Divin.," i.
+I.]
+
+Paul, then, found, even in that focus of Paganism, the city of Athens,
+religious aspirations tending towards Jesus Christ. A true philosophic
+method, notwithstanding its shortcomings and imperfections, concluded by
+desiring and seeking "the Unknown God," by demanding him from all forms
+of worship, from all schools of philosophy. The great work of
+preparation in the heathen world consisted in the developing of the
+_desire_ for salvation. It proved that God is the great want of every
+human soul; that there is a profound affinity between conscience and the
+living God; and that Tertullian was right when he wrote the "Testimonium
+Anim� naturaliter Christian�."[969] And when it was sufficiently
+demonstrated that "the world by philosophy knew not God (as a Redeeming
+God and Saviour), then it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to
+save them that believe." This was all a dispensation of divine
+providence, which was determined by, or "in, the wisdom of God."[970]
+
+The history of the religions and philosophies of human origin thus
+becomes to us a striking confirmation of the truth of Christianity. It
+shows there is a wondrous harmony between the instinctive wants and
+yearnings of the human heart, as well as the necessary ideas and laws of
+the reason, and the fundamental principles of revealed religion. There
+is "a law written on the heart"--written by the finger of God, which
+corresponds to the laws written by the same finger on "tables of stone."
+There are certain necessary and immutable principles and ideas infolded
+in the reason of man, which harmonize with the revelations of the
+Eternal Logos in the written word.[971] There are instinctive longings,
+mysterious yearnings of the human heart, to which that unveiling of the
+heart of God which is made in the teaching and life of the incarnate God
+most satisfyingly answers. Within the depths of the human spirit there
+is an "oracle" which responds to the voice of "the living oracles of
+God."
+
+[Footnote 969: Pressens�, "Religions before Christ" (Introduction);
+Neander, "Church History," vol. i. (Introduction).]
+
+[Footnote 970: I Corinthians, i. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 971: "The surmise of Plato, that the world of appearance
+subsists in and by a higher world of Divine Thought, is confirmed by
+Christianity when it tells us of a Divine subsistence--that Eternal Word
+by whom and in whom all things consist."--Vaughan, "Hours with the
+Mystics," vol. i. p. 213.]
+
+Here, then, are two distinct and independent revelations--the unwritten
+revelation which God has made to all men in the constitution of the
+human mind, and the external written revelation which he has made in the
+person and teaching of his Son. And these two are perfectly harmonious.
+We have here two great volumes--the volume of conscience, and the volume
+of the New Testament. We open them, and find they announce the _same_
+truths--one in dim outline, the other in a full portraiture. There are
+the same fundamental principles underlying both revelations. They both
+bear the impress of _divinity_. The history of philosophy may have been
+marked by many errors of interpretation; so, also, has the history of
+dogmatic theology. Men may have often misunderstood and misinterpreted
+the dictates of conscience; so have theologians misunderstood and
+misinterpreted the dictates of revelation. The perversions of conscience
+and reason have been plead in defense of error and sin; and so, for
+ages, have the perversions of Scripture been urged in defense of
+slavery, oppression, falsehood, and wrong. Sometimes the misunderstood
+utterances of conscience, of philosophy, and of science have been
+arrayed against the incorrect interpretations of the Word of God. But
+when both are better understood, and more justly conceived, they are
+found in wondrous harmony. When the New Testament speaks to man of God,
+of duty, of immortality, and of retribution, man feels that its
+teachings "commend themselves to his conscience" and reason. When it
+speaks to him of redemption, of salvation, of eternal life and
+blessedness, he feels that it meets and answers all the wants and
+longings of his heart. Thus does Christianity throw light upon the
+original revelations of God in the human conscience, and answers all the
+yearnings of the human soul. So it is found in individual experiences,
+so it has been found in the history of humanity. As Leverrier and Adams
+were enabled to affirm, from purely mathematical reasoning, that another
+planet must exist beyond _Uranus_ which had never yet been seen by human
+eyes, and then, afterwards, that affirmation was gloriously verified in
+the discovery of _Neptune_ by the telescope of Galle; so the reasonings
+of ancient philosophy, based on certain necessary laws of mind, enabled
+man to affirm the existence of a God, of the soul, of a future
+retribution, and an eternal life beyond the grave; and, then,
+subsequently, these were brought fully into light, and verified by the
+Gospel.
+
+We conclude in the words of Pressens�: "To isolate it from the past,
+would be to refuse to comprehend the nature of Christianity itself, and
+the extent of its triumphs. Although the Gospel is not, as has been
+affirmed, the product of anterior civilizations--a mere compound of
+Greek and Oriental elements--it is not the less certain that it brings
+to the human mind the satisfaction vainly sought by it in the East as in
+the West. _Omnia subito_ is not its device, but that of the Gnostic
+heresy. Better to say, with Clement of Alexandria and Origen, that the
+night of paganism had its stars to light it, but that they called to the
+Morning-star which stood over Bethlehem."
+
+"If we regard philosophy as a preparation for Christianity, instead of
+seeking in it a substitute for the Gospel, we shall not need to
+overstate its grandeur in order to estimate its real value."
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+A.
+
+     Abstraction, comparative and immediate, 187-189; 362-364.
+
+     �schylus, his conception of the Supreme Divinity, 146;
+       his recognition of human guilt, and need of expiation, 515-517.
+
+     �tiological proof of the existence of God, 487-489.
+
+     Anaxagoras, an Eclectic, 311;
+       in his physical theory an Atomist, 312;
+       taught that the Order of the universe can only be explained by
+       Intelligence, 312;
+       his psychology, 313;
+       the teacher of Socrates, 313.
+
+     Anaximander, his first principle _the infinite_, 290;
+       his infinite a chaos of primary elements, 290.
+
+     Anaximenes, a vitalist, 286;
+       his first principle _air_, 287.
+
+     Aristotle, his opinion of the popular polytheism of Greece, 157;
+       his classification of causes, 280, 404, 405;
+       his misrepresentations of Pythagoras, 299;
+       his classification of the sciences, 389;
+       his Organon, 389-394;
+       his Logic, 394-403;
+       his Theology, 404-417;
+       his Ethics, 417-421;
+       his Categories, 395;
+       his logical treatises, 396;
+       on induction and deduction, 396-398;
+       his psychology, 398, 401;
+       on how the knowledge of first principles is attained, 394, 402,
+          403;
+       on Matter and Form, 405-408;
+       on Potentiality and Actuality, 408-412;
+       his proof of the Divine existence, 412-415;
+       on the chief good of man, 419, 420;
+       his doctrine of the Mean, 420, 421;
+       defect of his ethical system, 505.
+
+     [Archai], or first principles, the grand object of
+        investigation in Greek Philosophy, 271, 274, 279, 280.
+
+     Athenians, criticism on Plutarch's sketch of their character, 45;
+       their vivacity, 45;
+       love of freedom, 46--and of country, 46;
+       private life of, 47;
+       intellectual character of, 48;
+       inquisitive and analytic, 48;
+       rare combinations of imagination and reasoning powers, 49;
+       religion of, 98;
+       the Athenians a religious people, 102;
+       their faith in the being and providence of God, 107;
+       their consciousness of dependence on God, 110, 116;
+       their religious emotions, 117;
+       their deep consciousness of sin and guilt, 122-124;
+       their sense of the need of expiation, 124, 125;
+       their religion exerted some wholesome moral influence, 162, 163.
+
+     Athens, topography of 27;
+       the Agora, 28;
+       its porticoes, 29;
+       the Acropolis, 30;
+       its temples, 31;
+       the Areopagus, 33;
+       sacred objects in, 98, 99;
+       images of the gods, 99;
+       localities of schools of philosophy in, 266-268.
+
+     Attica, geographical boundaries of, 26;
+       a classic land, 34;
+       its geographical and cosmical conditions providentially ordained
+       for great moral   ends, 34, 35; soil of, not favorable to
+       agriculture, 40--necessitated industry and frugality, 41; the
+       climate of, 41--its influence on the mental character of the
+       people, 42.
+
+
+B.
+
+     Bacon, his assertion that the search after final causes had misled
+       scientific inquirers, 222.
+
+
+C.
+
+     Categories of Aristotle, 395.
+
+     Causality, principle of, 189;
+       assailed by the Materialists, 194--especially by Comte, 203-209;
+       the intuition of _power_ a fact of immediate consciousness, 204;
+       consciousness of _effort_ the type of all force, 211;
+       Aristotle on Causality, 413;
+       �tiological proof of existence of God, 487-489.
+
+     Cause, origin of the idea of, 204, 205.
+
+     Causes, Aristotle's classification of, 280, 404, 405.
+
+     Chief good of man, Aristotle on, 419, 420.
+
+     Cleanthes, his hymn to Jupiter, 452, 453.
+
+     Comte, his theory of the origin of religion, 57-65;
+       his doctrine that all knowledge is confined to material
+       phenomena, 203; denies all causation, both efficient and final,
+       203-214.
+
+     Conditioned, law of the, 227, 228;
+       is contradictory, 250;
+       as a ground of faith, meaningless and void, 251.
+
+     Cosmological proof of the existence of God, 489, 490.
+
+     Cousin, his theory that religion had its outbirth in the
+       spontaneous apperceptions
+       of reason, 78-84;
+       criticism thereon, 84-86.
+
+     Criterion of truth, Plato's search after, 333, 334.
+
+     Cudworth, his interpretation of Grecian mythology, 139, 143.
+
+     Cuvier, on final causes, 216, 222.
+
+D.
+
+     Darwin, his inability to explain the facts of nature without
+       recognizing design, 221, 222.
+
+     Democritus, taught that atoms and the vacuum are the beginning of
+       all things, 292; an absolute materialist, 293.
+
+     Dependence, consciousness of, the foundation of primary religious
+       emotions, 110-113.
+
+     Development, law of mental, 478; three successive stages clearly
+       marked, in the individual, 478--in the universal mind of
+       humanity, 479, 480;
+           (1) in the field of Theistic conceptions, 481-494;
+           (2) in the department of morals, 495-509;
+           (3) in the department of religious sentiment, 509-522.
+
+     Dialectic of Plato, 353-369.
+
+     Dogmatic Theologians, assert that all our knowledge of God is
+       derived from the teaching of the Scriptures, 86,167; cast doubt
+       upon the principle of causality, 253-255--upon the principle of
+       the unconditioned, 255-257--upon the principle of unity,
+       258-261--and upon the immutable principles of morality, 261-263.
+
+     Dynamical or Vital school of ancient philosophers, 282-289.
+
+E.
+
+     Eclecticism of Anaxagoras, 311.
+
+     Emotions, the religious, 117-122;
+       sentiment of the Divine exists in all minds, 119-121;
+       also instinctive yearning after the Invisible, 121, 122.
+
+     Empedocles, a believer in one Supreme God, 153.
+
+     Epicurus, his theory of the origin of religion, 56, 57;
+       his Ethics, 427-432;
+       his Physics, 433-438;
+       taught that pleasure is the chief end of life, 428--that
+       ignorance of nature is the sole cause of unhappiness, 432--that
+       Physics and Psychology are the only studies conducive to
+       happiness, 432--that the universe is eternal and infinite,
+       433--that concrete bodies are combinations of atoms, 434--that
+       atoms have spontaneity, 436, and some degree of freedom, 436,
+       437; the parts of the world self-formed, 437, 438; plants,
+       animals, and man are spontaneously generated, 438; a state of
+       savagism the primitive condition of man, 439; his Atheism, 441;
+       his Psychology, 442-444; the soul material and mortal, 445, 446.
+
+     Eternity, Platonic notion of, 349 (_note_), 372, 373.
+
+     Eternity of Matter, how taught by Plato, 371-373;
+       distinctly affirmed by Epicurus, 433.
+
+     Eternity of the Soul, Plato's doctrine of, 373-375.
+
+     Ethical ideas and principles, gradual development of, 495, 496;
+       (1) the age of popular and unconscious morals, 497, 498;
+       (2) the transitional or sophistical age, 498-500;
+       (3) the philosophic or conscious age, 500-506.
+
+     Ethics of Plato, 383-387, 502-505;
+       of Aristotle, 417-42l;
+       of Epicurus, 427-432;
+       of the Stoics, 454, 456.
+
+     Expiation for sin, the need of, 124;
+       universally acknowledged, 124--especially in Grecian mythology,
+       125--and in the language of Greece and Rome, 125.
+
+F.
+
+     Facts of the universe, classification of, 175-177.
+
+     Fathers, the early, recognized the prop�deutic office of Greek
+       philosophy, 473-475.
+
+     Feeling, theories which ground all religion on, 70-74;
+       its inadequacy, 74-78.
+
+     Final Causes, impossibility of interpreting nature without
+       recognizing, 221, 222;
+       the assumption of final causes a means of discovery, 222, 223;
+       Cuvier on, 216, 222;
+       argument of Socrates from, 320-324;
+       Plato on, 380-382;
+       Aristotle on, 405, 413, 414;
+       teleological proof of the existence of God, 490, 491.
+
+     Force, the idea of, rejected by Comte, 207.
+
+     Forces, all of one type, and that type mind, 211.
+
+     Freedom, human, 19;
+       exists under limitations, 20;
+       both admitted and denied by Comte, 208, 209;
+       of Will, as taught by Plato, 386, 387;
+       admitted by Epicurus, 486.
+
+G.
+
+     Geoffrey St. Hilaire, his pretense of not ascribing any intentions
+       to nature, 216, 217.
+
+     Geography and History, relations between, 14;
+       opposite theories concerning, 15;
+       theory of Buckle, 16--of Ritter, Guyot, and Coubin, 16;
+       the relation one of adjustment and harmony, 16.
+
+     God, universality of idea of, 89;
+       Athenians believed in one God, 107, 147, 148;
+       idea of God a common phenomenon of human intelligence, 168, 169;
+       the development of this idea dependent on experience conditions,
+       169-172; the phenomena of the universe demand a God for their
+       explanation, 172-175: there are principles revealed in
+       consciousness which necessitate the idea of God, 184-189; proofs
+       of the existence of God employed by Aristotle, 412-416--by
+       Socrates, 320-324; views of God entertained by the Stoics, 452,
+       453; logical proofs of the existence of God developed by Greek
+       philosophy, 487-494; gradual development of Theistic conception,
+       481-487.
+
+     Gods of Grecian Mythology, how regarded by the philosophers,
+       151-157; views of Plato regarding them, 383.
+
+     Great men, represent the spirit of their age, 20;
+       the creation of a providence interposing in history, 21.
+
+     Greece, its geographical relations favorable to free intercourse
+       with the great historic nations, 35--to commerce, 36--to the
+       diffusion of knowledge, 36--and to a high degree of civilization,
+       36; peculiar configuration of Greece conducive to activity and
+       freedom, 36-38--and independence, 38; natural scenery, 43--its
+       influence on imagination and taste, 44.
+
+     Greek Civilization, a preparation for Christianity, 465-468.
+
+     Greek Language, a providentially prepared vehicle for the perfect
+       revelation of Christianity, 468-470.
+
+     Greek Philosophy, first a philosophy of Nature, 271, 281, 282;
+       next a philosophy of Mind, 271, 316-318;
+       lastly a philosophy of Life, 271, 422;
+       prepared the way for Christianity, 457-522.
+
+     Greeks, the masses of the people believed in one Supreme God, 147,
+       148.
+
+     Guilt, consciousness of, a universal fact, 122, 123;
+       recognized in Grecian mythology, 123, 124;
+       awakened and deepened by philosophy, 513-518.
+
+H.
+
+     Hamilton, Sir W., teaches that philosophic knowledge is the
+       knowledge of effects as dependent on causes, 224, 225;
+       and of qualities as inherent in substances, 225, 226;
+       and yet asserts all human knowledge is necessarily confined to
+       phenomena, 227;
+       his doctrine of the relativity of all knowledge, 227, 229-236;
+       his philosophy of the conditioned, 228;
+       conditional limitation the law of all thought, 236-242;
+       the Infinite a mere negation of thought, 242-246;
+       asserts we must believe in the infinity of God, 246;
+       takes refuge in faith, 247;
+       faith grounded on the law of the conditioned, 243, 249--that is,
+       on contradiction, 249, 250.
+
+     Hegel, his philosophy of religion, 65-70.
+
+     Heraclitus, his first principle _ether_, 288;
+       change, the universal law of all existence, 288;
+       a Materialistic Pantheist, 289.
+
+     Hesiod, on the generation of the gods, 142.
+
+     Homer, his conception of Zeus, 144, 145.
+
+     Homeric doctrine of sin, 513,514.
+
+     Homeric theology, 143-145, 509, 510.
+
+     Humanity, fundamental ideas and laws of, 18;
+       developed and modified by exterior conditions, 19;
+       the most favorable conditions existed in Athens.
+
+I.
+
+     Idealism, furnishes no adequate explanation of the common belief
+       in an external world, 193,199--and of a personal self, 200-202;
+       Cosmothetic Idealism, 305;
+       absolute Idealism, 305.
+
+     Ideas, Platonic doctrine of, 334-337;
+       Platonic scheme of, 364-367.
+
+     Images of the gods, how regarded by Cicero, 129--by Plutarch, 129;
+       the heathens apologized for the use of images, 159.
+
+     Immortality of the soul, taught by Socrates, 324--and by Plato,
+       375, 376; denied by Epicurus, 444-446.
+
+     Incarnation, the idea of, not unfamiliar to heathen thought, 512.
+
+     Induction, the psychological method of Plato, 356, 357.
+
+     Induction and Deduction, Aristotle on, 397, 398.
+
+     Infinite, the, not a mere negation of thought, 242-244;
+       known as the necessary correlative of the finite, 245;
+       as comprehensible in itself, as the finite is comprehensible in
+       itself, 246;
+       in what sense known, 252.
+
+     Infinite Series, the phrase, when literally construed, a
+       contradiction, 181,182.
+
+     Infinity, qualitative and quantitative, 239;
+       qualitative infinity possessed by God alone, 184, 239.
+
+     Intentionality, principle of, 190;
+       denied by Materialists, 194;
+       a first law of thought, 221-223; recognized by Socrates, 320-324.
+
+     Ionian School of Philosophy, a physical and sensational school,
+       281; subdivided into Mechanical and Dynamical, 282, 283.
+
+     Italian School of Philosophy, an Idealist school, 281;
+       subdivided into the Mathematical and Metaphysical, 282, 296.
+
+J.
+
+     Jacobi, his faith-philosophy, 71.
+
+K.
+
+     Knowledge, Hamilton's doctrine of relativity of, 229-236;
+       opposite theories of knowledge among ancient philosophers, 330,
+       331; the tendency of these theories, 332;
+       Plato's theory of, 333, 334;
+       Plato's science of real knowledge, 337, 338.
+
+
+     L.
+
+     Language, inadequate to convey the idea of God, 92-94;
+       Greek language the best medium for the Christian revelation,
+       468-470.
+
+     Leucippus, his first principles _atoms_ and _space_, 291;
+       a pure Materialist, 292.
+
+     Logic of Aristotle, 394-403.
+
+     Logical Treatises of Aristotle, 395, 396.
+
+     Lucretius, the expounder of the doctrines of Epicurus, 426,427;
+       his account of the origin of worlds, 437, 438;
+       of plants, animals, and man, 438.
+
+M.
+
+     Mansel, bases religion on feeling of dependence, 72--and sense of
+       obligation, 73.
+
+     Materialists deny the principle of causality, 194, 203--and of
+       intentionality or final cause, 211-225;
+       Anaximander, Leucippus, and Democritus belong to the
+       materialistic school, 286-293:
+       Epicurus a materialist, 442-446.
+
+     Mathematical Infinite, not absolute, 179, 180;
+       capable of exact measurement, therefore limited, 180;
+       infinite sphere, radius, line, etc., self-contradictory, 180,
+       181.
+
+     Matter, did Plato teach the eternity of? 371-373;
+       the doctrine of the Stoics concerning matter, 449 (_note_).
+
+     Matter and Form, Aristotle on, 405-408.
+
+     Mean, Aristotle's doctrine of the, 420.
+
+     Mediator, consciousness of the need of a, awakened by Greek
+       philosophy, 509-513.
+
+     Metaphysical thought, law of its development, 478-480;
+       three different stages in the individual mind, 478, 479;
+       and in the universal consciousness of our race, 479.
+
+     Metempsychosis regarded by Plato as a mere hypothesis, 376
+       (_note_).
+
+     Mill, J. S., his doctrine that all knowledge is confined to mental
+       phenomena, 193;
+       his definition of matter, 196;
+       his views of personal identity, 196, 197;
+       his theological opinions, 197.
+
+     Miracles, not designed to prove the existence of God, 95.
+
+     Moral principles, universal and immutable, which lead to the
+       recognition of a God, 190;
+       the Dogmatic Theologians seek to invalidate the argument
+       therefrom, 261-263.
+
+     Mystics, base all religious knowledge on internal feeling, 70.
+
+     Mythology, philosophy of Greek, 134-139;
+       Cudworth's interpretation of, 139-143;
+       recognized the consciousness of guilt and need of expiation,
+       123-125.
+
+ N.
+
+     National Character, a complex result, 17;
+       conjoint effect of moral and physical influences, 17;
+       human freedom not to be disregarded in the study of, 20;
+       influence of geographical surroundings, 23--of climate and
+       natural scenery, on the pursuits and mental character of nations,
+       23--on creative art, 24--and literature of nations, 25.
+
+     Nations, individuality of, 22;
+       determined mainly from without, 22.
+
+     Natural Realism, 305;
+       Anaxagoras a natural realist, 311-313.
+
+     Nature, interpreted by man according to fundamental laws of his
+      reason, 133.
+
+O.
+
+     Obligation, the sense of, lies at the foundation of religion, 115.
+
+     Ontological proof of the existence of God, 491-493.
+
+     Ontology, of Plato, 369-379;
+       the subject-matter of the world of sense, 370-373;
+       the permanent substratum of mental phenomena, 373-376;
+       the first Principle of all principles--God, 377-379, 491-493.
+
+     Optimism of Plato, 382.
+
+     Order of the Universe, had it a beginning, or is it eternal?
+       178-184.
+
+     Order, principle of, pervades the universe, 220, 221;
+       recognized by Pythagoras, 301;
+       Cosmological proof of the existence of God, 489, 490.
+
+ P.
+
+     Parmenides, his theory of knowledge, 307-308;
+      a spiritualistic Pantheist, 308, 309.
+
+     Paul, St., at Athens, 14;
+       his emotion when he saw the city full of idols, 100;
+       the subject of his discourse, 101;
+       brought into contact with all the phases of philosophic thought,
+       268, 269;
+       his arrival at Athens an epoch in the moral history of the world,
+       472;
+       he recognized the preparatory office of Greek philosophy, 473.
+
+     Philosophers of Athens, 101;
+       believed in one supreme, uncreated, eternal God, 151-157;
+       their views of the mythological deities, 158, 159;
+       their apologies for images and image-worship, 159, 160.
+
+     Philosophic Schools, classification of, 271-273;
+       Pre-Socratic 280-314;
+       Socratic, 314-421;
+       Post-Socratic, 422-456.
+
+     Philosophy, the world-enduring monument of the glory of Athens,
+       265, 260;
+       defined, 270, 271;
+       an inquiry after first causes and principles, 271, 457;
+       not in any proper sense a theological inquiry, 273-277, 279;
+       the love of wisdom, 384, 385.
+
+     Philosophy in its relation to Christianity, 268-270;
+       sympathy of Platonism, 268;
+       antagonism of Epicureanism and Stoicism, 269;
+       the Prop�deutic office of philosophy, 457-524--recognized by St.
+       Paul, 473--and many of the early Fathers, 473-475;
+       philosophy undermined Polytheism, and purified the Theistic idea,
+       481-487;
+       developed the Theistic argument in a logical form, 487-494;
+       it awakened Conscience and purified the Ethical idea, 495-506;
+       demonstrated the insufficiency of reason to elaborate a perfect
+       ideal of moral excellence, 506-509;
+       awakened in man the sense of distance from God, and the need of
+       a Mediator, 509-513;
+       deepened the consciousness of sin, and the desire for a Redeemer,
+       513-522;
+       the history of philosophy a confirmation of the truth of
+       Christianity, 522-524.
+
+     Philosophy of Religion, 53;
+       based on the correlation between Divine and human reason,
+       458-462.
+
+     Plato, condemns the poets for their unworthy representations of
+       the gods, 130-132;
+       his views of the gods of Grecian mythology, 154-157:
+       the sympathy of his philosophy with Christianity, 268:
+       followed the philosophic method of Socrates, 328;
+       his moral qualifications for the study of philosophy, 328, 329;
+       his literary qualifications, 329, 330;
+       his search after a criterion of truth, 333, 334;
+       his doctrine of Ideas, 334-337;
+       his science of real knowledge, 337, 338;
+       his answer to the question, What is Science? 338, 339;
+       his Psychology 339-352;
+       his scheme of the intellectual powers, 345;
+       on the nature of the soul, 350;
+       his dialectic, 353-369;
+       his grand scheme of ideas, 364-367;
+       his Ontology, 369-379;
+       on the creation of time, 372;
+       did he teach that matter is eternal? 371, 372;
+       on the eternity of the rational element of the soul, 373-375;
+       on the immortality of the soul, 375, 376;
+       on God as the First Principle of all principles, 377-379;
+       his Physics, 380-383;
+       his Ethics, 383-387, 502-505;
+       defects of his
+       ethical system, 518;
+       his philosophy not derived from Jewish sources, 476;
+       felt the need of a superhuman deliverer from sin and guilt,
+       519-521.
+
+     Plutarch, his sketches of Athenian character, 44;
+       criticism on, 45;
+       on the universality of prayer and sacrifice, 115.
+
+     Poets, the Greek, believed in the existence of one uncreated Mind,
+       141;
+       their theogony was a cosmogony, 142;
+       the theologians of Greece, 274, 275.
+
+     Polytheism, Greek, a poetico-historical religion of myth and
+       symbol, 134;
+       its immoralities, 160, 161;
+       undermined by Philosophy, 484-487.
+
+     Post-Socratic Schools, classification of, 425;
+       a philosophy of life, 422-424.
+
+     Potentiality and Actuality, Aristotle on, 408-412.
+
+     Prayer, natural to man, 115.
+
+     Preparation for Christianity, not confined to Judaism alone,
+       464, 465;
+       Greek civilization also prepared the way for Christ, 465-468;
+       Greek language a providential development as the vehicle of a
+       more perfect revelation, 468-470;
+       Greek philosophy fulfilled a prop�deutic office, 470-472.
+
+     Pre-Socratic Schools, classification of, 280-282; 295, 296.
+
+     Principles, _universal and necessary_, how attained by the method
+       of Plato, 361-364, 390;
+       how, by the method of Aristotle, 390-394, 402, 403.
+
+     Psychological analysis, logical demonstration of the existence of
+       God begins with, 170;
+       reveals principles which in their logical development attain to
+       the knowledge of God, 184-189.
+
+     Psychology of Heraclitus, 289;
+       of Pythagoras, 304;
+       of Parmenides, 307, 308;
+       of Anaxagoras, 313;
+       of Protagoras, 315;
+       of Socrates, 317, 318;
+       of Plato, 339-352;
+       of Aristotle, 392, 398-401;
+       of Epicurus, 442-444;
+       of the Stoics, 453, 454.
+
+     Pythagoras, his doctrine that numbers are the first principles of
+       things, 297;
+       how to be interpreted, 297-304;
+       misrepresented by Aristotle, 298-300;
+       psychology of, 304.
+
+R.
+
+     Reason, insufficiency of, to elaborate a perfect ideal of moral
+       excellence, 505-509.
+
+     Redemption, desire of, awakened and defined by Greek philosophy,
+       513-521.
+
+     Relativity of all knowledge, Hamilton's doctrine of, 229-236.
+
+     Religion, the philosophy of, 53;
+       defined 53, 106;
+       universality of religious phenomena, 54;
+       hypothesis offered in explanation of, 55;
+       hypothesis of Epicurus and Comte, 56-65--of Hegel, 65-70--of
+       Jacobi and Schleiermacher, 70-78--of Cousin, 78-86--of Dogmatic
+       Theologians, 86-96--author's theory, 96, 97;
+       religion of the Athenians, 98--its mythological and symbolic
+       aspects, 128--exerted some wholesome influences, 161-163.
+
+     Reminiscence, Plato on, 354, 355.
+
+     Revelation, progressive, 462-464;
+       harmony of the two revelations in the volume of conscience and
+       the volume of the New Testament, 522-524.
+
+S.
+
+     Sacrifice, universal prevalence of, 115, 124;
+       prompted by the universal consciousness of guilt, 126:
+       expiatory sacrifices grounded on a primitive revelation, 127.
+
+     Schleiermacher, his theory that all religion is grounded on the
+       feeling of absolute dependence, 71, 72.
+
+     Science, Plato's answer to the question, What is Science? 338, 339.
+
+     Self-determination, limited by idea of duty, 113;
+       implies accountability, 114;
+       recognizes a Lawgiver and Judge, 115.
+
+     Socrates, his desire for truth, 316;
+       his d�mon, 317 _(note_);
+       his philosophic method, 318, 319;
+       a believer in one Supreme God, 320;
+       his argument for the existence of God from final causes, 320-324;
+       his belief in immortality and a future retribution, 324, 325;
+       his Ethics, 325;
+       the great prophet of the human conscience, 500-502.
+
+     Socratic School, 314.
+
+     Sophists, 315, 316;
+       their skeptical tendency, 315;
+       their defective ethics, 498, 499.
+
+     Sophocles, believed in one Supreme God, 147.
+
+     Soul, Plato on the nature of the, 350, 373;
+       eternity of the rational element, 373-375.
+
+     Spencer, H., carries the law of the Conditioned forward to its
+       logical consequences, Atheism, 241, 242.
+
+     Stoical School, 446;
+       its philosophy a moral philosophy, 447.
+
+     Stoics, their Physiology, 448-453; their
+       Psychology, 453, 454;
+       their Ethics, 454-456;
+       their Theology, 452,453.
+
+     Substance, principle of, 189;
+       Idealism seeks to undermine it, 193;
+       Reason affirms a permanent substance as the ground of all mental
+       phenomena, 201--and of the phenomena of the sensible world,
+       202, 203.
+
+     Sufficient Reason, law of, recognized by Plato, 359.
+
+     Superstition, meaning of the term as used by Paul, 103.
+
+ T.
+
+     Teleological proof of the existence of God, 490, 491.
+
+     Thales, a believer in one uncreated God, 152;
+       his first principles, 283;
+       he regards _water_ as the material cause, 284;
+       and God as the efficient cause, 285.
+
+     Theistic argument, in its logical form, 487-494.
+
+     Theistic conception, gradual development of, 481-484,
+
+     Theological opinions of the early periods of Greek civilization,
+       150, 151; 276-278.
+
+     Theology of Aristotle, 404-417;
+       identical with Metaphysics, 404, 416.
+
+     Theology of the Greek poets, 143-151;
+       proposed reform of Poetry by Plato, 131, 132.
+
+     Thinking, conditionality of, 228;
+       in what sense to be understood, 237;
+       thought imposes no limits upon the object of thought, 237, 238.
+
+     Thought, negative and positive, 242, 243;
+       negative thought an impossibility, 243;
+       all thought must be positive, 243.
+
+     Time, Platonic notion of, 371, 372.
+
+     Tragedians, the Greek, were the public religious teachers of the
+       Athenians, 145;
+       their theology, 146, 147;
+       influence of the religious dramas on the Athenian mind, 161-163;
+       guiltiness of man, and need of reconciliation confessed by,
+       515-517.
+
+U.
+
+     Unconditioned, principle of, 189;
+       assailed by Hamilton, 194.
+
+     Unity of God, 259;
+       an affirmation of reason, 259-261;
+       Xenophanes taught the unity of God, 307--also Parmenides,
+       309--and Plato, 377--and Aristotle, 415.
+
+     Unity, principle of, 189;
+       attempt of Dogmatic Theologians to prove its insufficiency, 194,
+       258-261;
+       recognized by Pythagoras, 296;
+       his effort to reduce all the phenomena of nature to a Unity, 303,
+       304.
+
+     Universal and necessary Principles, classification of, 189, 190;
+       these the foundation of our cognition of a God, 191;
+       how attained according to Plato, 360-364;
+       how by the method of Aristotle, 390-394, 402, 403.
+
+     Universe, the, is it finite or infinite? 178-184;
+       Epicurus teaches that it is infinite, 433.
+
+     Unknown God, the true God, 104;
+       God not absolutely unknown, 107-110;
+       classification of opponents to the doctrine that God can be
+       cognized by reason, 166-168;
+       Idealist School of Mill, 194-203;
+       Materialistic School of Comte, 203-223;
+       Hamiltonian School, 224-252;
+       School of Dogmatic Theologians, 252-263.
+
+W.
+
+     Watson, Richard, represents the views of Dogmatic Theologians 86;
+       asserts that all our religious knowledge is derived from oral
+       revelation, 86-88, 167;
+       incompleteness and inadequacy of this theory, 88-96;
+       in vindicating for the Scriptures the honor of revealing all our
+       knowledge of God, he casts doubt upon the principle of Causality,
+       253-255--on the principle of the Unconditioned, 255-257--on the
+       principle of Unity, 258-261--and on the immutable principles of
+       Morality, 261-263.
+
+     Wordsworth, on the Sentiment of the Divine, 118.
+
+X.
+
+     Xenophanes, his attack on Polytheism, 130;
+       his faith in one God, 153, 306, 307.
+
+Z.
+
+     Zeno of Citium, the founder of the Stoical School, 446;
+       a Spiritualistic Pantheist, 450, 451.
+
+     Zeno of Elea, maintained the doctrine of Absolute Identity, 309.
+
+     Zeus, originally the Supreme and only God of the Greeks, 143;
+       the Homeric Zeus, the Supreme God, 144, 145.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
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+  <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
+  <title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christianity and Greek Phisolophy, par B.F. Cocker</title>
+
+
+<style type="text/css">
+<!--
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Christianity and Greek Philosophy, by 
+Benjamin Franklin Cocker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Christianity and Greek Philosophy
+       or, the relation between spontaneous and reflective thought
+              in Greece and the positive teaching of Christ and His
+              Apostles
+
+Author: Benjamin Franklin Cocker
+
+Release Date: December 20, 2008 [EBook #27571]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTIANITY AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Rénald Lévesque and the
+Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at
+http://dp.rastko.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<br><br>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="i" id="i">i</a></span>
+
+<h1>CHRISTIANITY</h1>
+
+<h4>AND</h4>
+
+<h1>GREEK PHILOSOPHY;</h1>
+
+<h3>OR, THE RELATION BETWEEN<br>
+
+SPONTANEOUS AND REFLECTIVE THOUGHT IN GREECE<br>
+
+AND THE POSITIVE TEACHING OF<br>
+
+CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES.</h3>
+
+<br><br>
+
+<h2>By B.F. COCKER, D.D.,</h2>
+
+<h4>PROFESSOR OF MORAL AND MENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN</h4>
+
+<h4>"Plato made me know the true God, Jesus Christ showed me the way to him."</h4>
+
+<h4><span class="rig">ST. AUGUSTINE</span></h4>
+
+<br><br><br><br>
+
+<p class="mid">NEW YORK:<br>
+CARLTON &amp; LANAHAN.<br>
+
+SAN FRANCISCO: E. THOMAS.<br>
+
+CINCINNATI: HITCHCOCK &amp; WALDEN.<br>
+
+<p class="mid">1870.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="ii" id="ii">ii</a></span>
+
+<p class="mid">Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by<br>
+HARPER &amp; BROTHERS,<br>
+in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the<br>
+Southern District of New York.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="iii" id="iii">iii</a></span>
+
+<br><br><br>
+
+<p class="mid">TO<br>
+
+D.D. WHEDON, D.D.,<br>
+
+MY EARLIEST LITERARY FRIEND, WHOSE VIGOROUS WRITINGS HAVE<br>
+
+STIMULATED MY INQUIRIES, WHOSE COUNSELS HAVE GUIDED<br>
+
+MY STUDIES, AND WHOSE KIND AND GENEROUS WORDS<br>
+
+HAVE ENCOURAGED ME TO PERSEVERANCE<br>
+
+AMID NUMEROUS DIFFICULTIES,<br>
+
+I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME AS A TOKEN OF MY MORE THAN<br>
+ORDINARY AFFECTION<br></p>
+
+<p><span class="rig"><i>THE AUTHOR</i>.</span></p>
+<br>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="iv" id="iv">iv [Blank Page]</a></span>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="v" id="v">v</a></span>
+<br>
+
+<h3>PREFACE.</h3>
+
+<p>In preparing the present volume, the writer has been actuated
+by a conscientious desire to deepen and vivify our
+faith in the Christian system of truth, by showing that it does
+not rest <i>solely</i> on a special class of facts, but upon all the facts
+of nature and humanity; that its authority does not repose
+<i>alone</i> on the peculiar and supernatural events which transpired
+in Palestine, but also on the still broader foundations of the
+ideas and laws of the reason, and the common wants and instinctive
+yearnings of the human heart. It is his conviction
+that the course and constitution of nature, the whole current
+of history, and the entire development of human thought in
+the ages anterior to the advent of the Redeemer centre in, and
+can only be interpreted by, the purpose of redemption.</p>
+
+<p>The method hitherto most prevalent, of treating the history
+of human thought as a series of isolated, disconnected, and
+lawless movements, without unity and purpose; and the practice
+of denouncing the religions and philosophies of the ancient
+world as inventions of satanic mischief, or as the capricious
+and wicked efforts of humanity to relegate itself from the bonds
+of allegiance to the One Supreme Lord and Lawgiver, have, in
+his judgment, been prejudicial to the interests of all truth, and
+especially injurious to the cause of Christianity. They betray
+an utter insensibility to the grand unities of nature and of
+thought, and a strange forgetfulness of that universal Providence
+which comprehends all nature and all history, and is
+yet so minute in its regards that it numbers the hairs on every
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="vi" id="vi">vi</a></span>
+human head, and takes note of every sparrow's fall, A juster
+method will lead us to regard the entire history of human
+thought as a development towards a specific end, and the providence
+of God as an all-embracing plan, which sweeps over all
+ages and all nations, and which, in its final consummation, will,
+through Christ, "gather together all things in one, both things
+which are in heaven and things which are on earth."</p>
+
+<p>The central and unifying thought of this volume is <i>that the
+necessary ideas and laws of the reason, and the native instincts
+of the human heart, originally implanted by God, are the primal
+and germinal forces of history; and that these have been developed
+under conditions which were first ordained, and have been continually
+supervised by the providence of God</i>. God is the Father of
+humanity, and he is also the Guide and Educator of our race.
+As "the offspring of God," humanity is not a bare, indeterminate
+potentiality, but a living energy, an active reason, having
+definite qualities, and inheriting fundamental principles and
+necessary ideas which constitute it "the image and likeness of
+God." And though it has suffered a moral lapse, and, in the
+exercise of its freedom, has become alienated from the life of
+God, yet God has never abandoned the human race. He still
+"magnifies man, and sets his heart upon him." "He visits
+him every morning, and tries him every moment." "The inspiration
+of the Almighty still gives him understanding." The
+illumination of the Divine Logos still "teacheth man knowledge."
+The Spirit of God still comes near to and touches
+with strong emotion every human heart. "God has never left
+himself without a witness" in any nation, or in any age. The
+providence of God has always guided the dispersions and migrations
+of the families of the earth, and presided over and
+directed the education of the race. "He has foreordained the
+times of each nation's existence, and fixed the geographical
+boundaries of their habitations, <i>in order that they should seek
+the Lord</i>, and feel after and find Him who is not far from any
+one of us." The religions of the ancient world were the painful
+effort of the human spirit to return to its true rest and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="vii" id="vii">vii</a></span>
+centre--the struggle to "find Him" who is so intimately near
+to every human heart, and who has never ceased to be the
+want of the human race. The philosophies of the ancient
+world were the earnest effort of human reason to reconcile the
+finite and the infinite, the human and the Divine, the subject
+and God. An overruling Providence, which makes even the
+wrath of man to praise Him, took up all these sincere, though
+often mistaken, efforts into his own plan, and made them sub-serve
+the purpose of redemption. They aided in developing
+among the nations "the desire of salvation," and in preparing
+the world for the advent of the Son of God. The entire course
+and history of Divine providence, in every nation, and in every
+age, has been directed towards the one grand purpose of "reconciling
+all things to Himself." Christianity, as a comprehensive
+scheme of reconciliation, embracing "all things," can
+not, therefore, be properly studied apart from the ages of earnest
+thought, of profound inquiry, and of intense religious feeling
+which preceded it. To despise the religions of the ancient
+world, to sneer at the efforts and achievements of the old philosophers,
+or even to cut them off in thought from all relation
+to the plans and movements of that Providence which has
+cared for, and watched over, and pitied, and guided all the
+nations of the earth, is to refuse to comprehend Christianity
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>The author is not indifferent to the possibility that his purpose
+may be misconceived. The effort may be regarded by
+many conscientious and esteemed theologians with suspicion
+and mistrust. They can not easily emancipate themselves
+from the ancient prejudice against speculative thought. Philosophy
+has always been regarded by them as antagonistic to
+Christian faith. They are inspired by a commendable zeal for
+the honor of dogmatic theology. Every essay towards a profounder
+conviction, a broader faith in the unity of all truth, is
+branded with the opprobrious name of "rationalism." Let us
+not be terrified by a harmless word. Surely religion and right
+reason must be found in harmony. The author believes, with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="viii" id="viii">viii</a></span>
+Bacon, that "the foundation of all religion is right reason."
+The abnegation of reason is not the evidence of faith, but the
+confession of despair. Sustained by these convictions, he
+submits this humble contribution to theological science to the
+thoughtful consideration of all lovers of Truth, and of Christ,
+the fountain of Truth. He can sincerely ask upon it the
+blessing of Him in whose fear it has been written, and whose
+cause it is the purpose of his life to serve.</p>
+
+<p>The second series, on "Christianity and Modern Thought,"
+is in an advanced state of preparation for the press.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+NOTE.--It has been the aim of the writer, as far as the nature of the
+subject would permit, to adapt this work to general readers. The references
+to classic authors are, therefore, in all cases made to accessible English
+translations (in Bohn's Classical Library); such changes, however, have
+been made in the rendering as shall present the doctrine of the writers in a
+clearer and more forcible manner. For valuable services rendered in this
+department of the work, by Martin L. D'Ooge, m. A., Acting Professor of
+Greek Language and Literature in the University of Michigan, the author
+would here express his grateful acknowledgment.
+</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="ix" id="ix">ix</a></span>
+
+<h3>CONTENTS.</h3>
+
+<pre>
+                                                PAGE
+CHAPTER I.
+ATHENS, AND THE MEN OF ATHENS                    <a href="#13">13</a>
+
+CHAPTER II.
+THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION                       <a href="#53">53</a>
+
+CHAPTER III.
+THE RELIGION OF THE ATHENIANS                    <a href="#98">98</a>
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+THE RELIGION OF THE ATHENIANS:
+ITS MYTHOLOGICAL AND SYMBOLICAL ASPECTS         <a href="#128">128</a>
+
+CHAPTER V.
+THE UNKNOWN GOD                                 <a href="#165">165</a>
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+THE UNKNOWN GOD (<i>continued</i>)                     <a href="#193">193</a>
+  IS GOD COGNIZABLE BY REASON?
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+THE UNKNOWN GOD (<i>continued</i>)                     <a href="#224">224</a>
+  IS GOD COGNIZABLE BY REASON? (<i>continued</i>).
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS                      <a href="#265">265</a>
+  PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+<i>Sensational</i>: THALES--ANAXIMENES--HERACLITUS--
+ANAXIMANDER--LEOCIPPUS--DEMOCRITUS.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="x" id="x">x</a></span>
+CHAPTER IX.
+THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (<i>continued</i>)          <a href="#295">295</a>
+PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOL (<i>continued</i>)
+<i>Idealist</i>: Pythagoras--Xenophanes--Parmenides--Zeno.
+<i>Natural Realist</i>: Anaxagoras.
+THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+Socrates.
+
+CHAPTER X
+THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (<i>continued</i>)          <a href="#326">326</a>
+THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (<i>continued</i>).
+Plato.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (<i>continued</i>)          <a href="#353">353</a>
+THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (<i>continued</i>).
+Plato.
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (<i>continued</i>)          <a href="#388">388</a>
+THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (<i>continued</i>).
+Aristotle.
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (<i>continued</i>)          <a href="#422">422</a>
+POST-SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+Epicurus and Zeno.
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+THE PROPÆDEUTIC OFFICE OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY.     <a href="#457">457</a>
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+THE PROPÆDEUTIC OFFICE OF GREEK
+    PHILOSOPHY. (<i>continued</i>)                     <a href="#495">495</a>
+</pre>
+
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="xi" id="xi">xi [Blank Page]</a></span>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="xii" id="xii">xii</a></span>
+
+<blockquote>
+"<i>Ye men of Athens</i>, all things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness
+in religion; for, as I passed through your city and beheld the objects
+of your worship, I found amongst them an altar with this inscription,
+TO THE UNKNOWN GOD; whom, therefore, ye worship, though ye know;
+Him not, Him declare I unto you. God who made the world and all things
+therein, seeing He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples
+made with hands; neither is He served by the hands of men, as though he
+needed any thing; for He giveth unto all life, and breath, and all things.
+And He made of one blood all the nations of mankind to dwell upon the face
+of the whole earth; and ordained to each the appointed seasons of their existence,
+and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek God, if
+haply they might feel after Him and find Him, though he be not far from
+every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain
+of your own poets have said, <i>For we are also His offspring</i>. Forasmuch,
+then, as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead
+is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by the art and device of
+man. Howbeit, those past times of ignorance God hath overlooked; but now
+He commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because He hath appointed
+a day wherein He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom
+He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all, in that He
+hath raised Him from the dead."--Acts xvii. 22-31.
+</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="13"></a></span>
+
+<br><br><br>
+
+<h2>CHRISTIANITY<br>
+
+AND<br>
+
+GREEK PHILOSOPHY</h2>
+
+<br>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<h3>ATHENS, AND THE MEN OF ATHENS.</h3>
+
+<blockquote>
+"Is it not worth while, for the sake of the history of men and nations, to
+study the surface of the globe in its relation to the inhabitants thereof?"--Goethe.
+</blockquote>
+
+<p><p>There is no event recorded in the annals of the early
+church so replete with interest to the Christian student,
+or which takes so deep a hold on the imagination, and the sympathies
+of him who is at all familiar with the history of Ancient
+Greece, as the one recited above. Here we see the Apostle
+Paul standing on the Areopagus at Athens, surrounded by
+the temples, statues, and altars, which Grecian art had consecrated
+to Pagan worship, and proclaiming to the inquisitive
+Athenians, "the strangers" who had come to Athens for business
+or for pleasure, and the philosophers and students of the
+Lyceum, the Academy, the Stoa, and the Garden, "<i>the unknown
+God</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Whether we dwell in our imagination on the artistic grandeur
+and imposing magnificence of the city in which Paul
+found himself a solitary stranger, or recall the illustrious
+names which by their achievements in arts and philosophy
+have shed around the city of Athens an immortal glory,--or
+whether, fixing our attention on the lonely wanderer amid the
+porticoes, and groves, and temples of this classic city, we attempt
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="14"> </a></span>
+to conceive the emotion which stirred his heart as he
+beheld it "wholly given to idolatry;" or whether we contrast
+the sublime, majestic theism proclaimed by Paul with the degrading
+polytheism and degenerate philosophy which then prevailed
+in Athens, or consider the prudent and sagacious manner
+in which the apostle conducts his argument in view of the
+religious opinions and prejudices of his audience, we can not
+but feel that this event is fraught with lessons of instruction to
+the Church in every age.</p>
+
+<p>That the objects which met the eye of Paul on every hand,
+and the opinions he heard everywhere expressed in Athens,
+must have exerted a powerful influence upon the current of his
+thoughts, as well as upon the state of his emotions, is a legitimate
+and natural presumption. Not only was "his spirit
+stirred within him"--his heart deeply moved and agitated
+when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry--but his thoughtful,
+philosophic mind would be engaged in pondering those
+deeply interesting questions which underlie the whole system
+of Grecian polytheism. The circumstances of the hour would,
+no doubt, in a large degree determine the line of argument,
+the form of his discourse, and the peculiarities of his phraseology.
+The more vividly, therefore, we can represent the
+scenes and realize the surrounding incidents; the more thoroughly
+we can enter into sympathy with the modes of thought
+and feeling peculiar to the Athenians; the more perfectly we
+can comprehend the spirit and tendency of the age; the more
+immediate our acquaintance with the religious opinions and
+philosophical ideas then prevalent in Athens, the more perfect
+will be our comprehension of the apostle's argument, the deeper
+our interest in his theme. Some preliminary notices of
+Athens and "the Men of Athens" will therefore be appropriate
+as introductory to a series of discourses on Paul's sermon
+on Mars' Hill.</p>
+
+<p>The peculiar connection that subsists between Geography
+and History, between a people and the country they inhabit,
+will justify the extension of our survey beyond the mere topography
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="15" >15</a></span>
+of Athens. The people of the entire province of Attica
+were called Athenians (<i>Αθηναίοι</i>) in their relation to the state,
+and Attics <i>(Αττικοί</i>) in regard to their manners, customs, and
+dialect.<a id="footnotetag1" name="footnotetag1"></a>
+<a href="#footnote1"><sup class="sml">1</sup></a> The climate and the scenery, the forms of contour
+and relief, the geographical position and relations of Attica,
+and, indeed, of the whole peninsula of Greece, must be taken
+into our account if we would form a comprehensive judgment
+of the character of the Athenian people.</p>
+
+<p>The soil on which a people dwell, the air they breathe, the
+mountains and seas by which they are surrounded, the skies
+that overshadow them,--all these exert a powerful influence on
+their pursuits, their habits, their institutions, their sentiments,
+and their ideas. So that could we clearly group, and fully
+grasp all the characteristics of a region--its position, configuration,
+climate, scenery, and natural products, we could, with
+tolerable accuracy, determine what are the characteristics of
+the people who inhabit it. A comprehensive knowledge of the
+physical geography of any country will therefore aid us materially
+in elucidating the natural history, and, to some extent,
+the moral history of its population. "History does not stand
+<i>outside</i> of nature, but in her very heart, so that the historian
+only grasps a people's character with true precision when he
+keeps in full view its geographical position, and the influences
+which its surroundings have wrought upon it."<a id="footnotetag2" name="footnotetag2"></a>
+<a href="#footnote2"><sup class="sml">2</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote1"
+name="footnote1"></a><b>Footnote 1: </b><a href="#footnotetag1">
+(return) </a> Niebuhr's "Lectures on Ethnography and Geography," p. 91.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote2"
+name="footnote2"><b>Footnote 2: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag2">
+(return) </a> Ritter's "Geographical Studies," p. 34.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It is, however, of the utmost consequence the reader should
+understand that there are two widely different methods of treating
+this deeply interesting subject--methods which proceed on
+fundamentally opposite views of man and of nature. One
+method is that pursued by Buckle in his "History of Civilization
+in England." The tendency of his work is the assertion
+of the supremacy of material conditions over the development
+of human history, and indeed of every individual mind. Here
+man is purely passive in the hands of nature. Exterior conditions
+are the chief, if not the <i>only</i> causes of man's intellectual
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="16" >16</a></span>
+and social development. So that, such a climate and soil,
+such aspects of nature and local circumstances being given,
+such a nation necessarily follows.<a id="footnotetag3" name="footnotetag3"></a>
+<a href="#footnote3"><sup class="sml">3</sup></a> The other method is that
+of Carl Ritter, Arnold Guyot, and Cousin.<a id="footnotetag4" name="footnotetag4"></a>
+<a href="#footnote4"><sup class="sml">4</sup></a> These take account
+of the freedom of the human will, and the power of man
+to control and modify the forces of nature. They also take account
+of the original constitution of man, and the primitive type
+of nations; and they allow for results arising from the mutual
+conflict of geographical conditions. And they, especially, recognize
+the agency of a Divine Providence controlling those
+forces in nature by which the configuration of the earth's surface
+is determined, and the distribution of its oceans, continents,
+and islands is secured; and a providence, also, directing
+the dispersions and migrations of nations--determining the
+times of each nation's existence, and fixing the geographical
+bounds of their habitation, all in view of the <i>moral</i> history and
+spiritual development of the race,--"that they may feel after,
+and find the living God." The relation of man and nature is
+not, in their estimation, a relation of cause and effect. It is a
+relation of adjustment, of harmony, and of reciprocal action
+and reaction. "Man is not"--says Cousin--"an effect, and
+nature the cause, but there is between man and nature a manifest
+harmony of general laws."... "Man and nature are two
+great effects which, coming from the same cause, bear the same
+characteristics; so that the earth, and he who inhabits it, man
+and nature, are in perfect harmony."<a id="footnotetag5" name="footnotetag5"></a>
+<a href="#footnote5"><sup class="sml">5</sup></a> God has created both
+man and the universe, and he has established between them a
+striking harmony. The earth was made for man; not simply
+to supply his physical wants, but also to minister to his intellectual
+and moral development. The earth is not a mere
+dwelling-place of nations, but a school-house, in which God
+himself is superintending the education of the race. Hence
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="17" >17</a></span>
+we must not only study the <i>events</i> of history in their chronological
+order, but we must study the earth itself as the <i>theatre</i> of
+history. A knowledge of all the circumstances, both physical
+and moral, in the midst of which events take place, is absolutely
+necessary to a right judgment of the events themselves.
+And we can only elucidate properly the character of the actors
+by a careful study of all their geographical and ethological conditions.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote3"
+name="footnote3"><b>Footnote 3: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag3">
+(return) </a> See chap. ii. "History of Civilization."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote4"
+name="footnote4"><b>Footnote 4: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag4">
+(return) </a> Ritter's "Geographical Studies;" Guyot's "Earth and Man;" Cousin's
+"History of Philosophy," lec. vii., viii., ix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote5"
+name="footnote5"><b>Footnote 5: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag5">
+(return) </a> Lectures, vol. i. pp. 162, 169.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It will be readily perceived that, in attempting to estimate
+the influence which exterior conditions exert in the determination
+of national character, we encounter peculiar difficulties.
+We can not in these studies expect the precision and accuracy
+which is attained in the mathematical, or the purely physical
+sciences. We possess no control over the "materiel" of our
+inquiry; we have no power of placing it in new conditions, and
+submitting it to the test of new experiments, as in the physical
+sciences. National character is a <i>complex</i> result--a product
+of the action and reaction of primary and secondary causes.
+It is a conjoint effect of the action of the primitive elements
+and laws originally implanted in humanity by the Creator, of
+the free causality and self-determining power of man, and of
+all the conditions, permanent and accidental, within which the
+national life has been developed. And in cases where <i>physical</i>
+and <i>moral</i> causes are blended, and reciprocally conditioned
+and modified in their operation;--where primary results undergo
+endless modifications from the influence of surrounding
+circumstances, and the reaction of social and political institutions;--and
+where each individual of the great aggregate
+wields a causal power that obeys no specific law, and by his
+own inherent power sets in motion new trains of causes which
+can not be reduced to statistics, we grant that we are in possession
+of no instrument of exact analysis by which the complex
+phenomena of national character may be reduced to primitive
+elements. All that we can hope is, to ascertain, by
+psychological analysis, what are the fundamental ideas and
+laws of humanity; to grasp the exterior conditions which are,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="18" >18</a></span>
+on all hands, recognized as exerting a powerful influence upon
+national character; to watch, under these lights, the manifestations
+of human nature on the theatre of history, and then apply
+the principles of a sound historic criticism to the recorded
+opinions of contemporaneous historians and their immediate
+successors. In this manner we may expect, at least, to approximate
+to a true judgment of history.</p>
+
+<p>There are unquestionably fundamental powers and laws in
+human nature which have their development in the course of
+history. There are certain primitive ideas, imbedded in the
+constitution of each individual mind, which are revealed in the
+universal consciousness of our race, under the conditions of
+experience--the exterior conditions of physical nature and human
+society. Such are the ideas of cause and substance; of
+unity and infinity, which govern all the processes of discursive
+thought, and lead us to the recognition of Being <i>in se</i>;--such
+the ideas of right, of duty, of accountability, and of retribution,
+which regulate all the conceptions we form of our relations to
+all other moral beings, and constitute <i>morality</i>;--such the ideas
+of order, of proportion, and of harmony, which preside in the
+realms of art, and constitute the beau-ideal of <i>esthetics</i>;--such
+the ideas of God, the soul, and immortality, which rule in the
+domains of <i>religion</i>, and determine man a religious being.
+These constitute the identity of human nature under all circumstances;
+these characterize humanity in all conditions.
+Like permanent germs in vegetable life, always producing the
+same species of plants; or like fundamental types in the animal
+kingdom, securing the same homologous structures in all
+classes and orders; so these fundamental ideas in human nature
+constitute its sameness and unity, under all the varying
+conditions of life and society. The acorn must produce an
+oak, and nothing else. The grain of wheat must always produce
+its kind. The offspring of man must always bear his
+image, and always exhibit the same fundamental characteristics,
+not only in his corporeal nature, but also in his mental
+constitution.<span class="pagenum"><a name="19">19</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But the germination of every seed depends on conditions <i>ab
+extra</i>, and all germs are modified, in their development, by geographical
+and climatal surroundings. The development of
+the acorn into a mature and perfect oak greatly depends on the
+exterior conditions of soil, and moisture, light, and heat. By
+these it may be rendered luxuriant in its growth, or it may be
+stunted in its growth. It may barely exist under one class of
+conditions, or it may perish under another. The Brassica oleracea,
+in its native habitat on the shore of the sea, is a bitter
+plant with wavy sea-green leaves; in the cultivated garden it
+is the cauliflower. The single rose, under altered conditions,
+becomes a double rose; and creepers rear their stalks and
+stand erect. Plants, which in a cold climate are annuals, become
+perennial when transported to the torrid zone.<a id="footnotetag6" name="footnotetag6"></a>
+<a href="#footnote6"><sup class="sml">6</sup></a> And so
+human nature, fundamentally the same under all circumstances,
+may be greatly modified, both physically and mentally, by geographical,
+social, and political conditions. The corporeal nature
+of man--his complexion, his physiognomy, his stature;
+the intellectual nature of man--his religious, ethical, and esthetical
+ideas are all modified by his surroundings. These
+modifications, of which all men dwelling in the same geographical
+regions, and under the same social and political institutions,
+partake, constitute the <i>individuality</i> of nations. Thus,
+whilst there is a fundamental basis of unity in the corporeal
+and spiritual nature of man, the causes of diversity are to be
+sought in the circumstances in which tribes and nations are
+placed in the overruling providence of God.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote6"
+name="footnote6"><b>Footnote 6: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag6">
+(return) </a> See Carpenter's "Compar. Physiology," p. 625; Lyell's "Principles of
+Geology," pp. 588, 589.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The power which man exerts over material conditions, by
+virtue of his intelligence and freedom, is also an important element
+which, in these studies, we should not depreciate or ignore.
+We must accept, with all its consequences, the dictum
+of universal consciousness that man is <i>free</i>. He is not absolutely
+subject to, and moulded by nature. He has the power
+to control the circumstances by which he is surrounded--to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="20">20</a></span>
+originate new social and physical conditions--to determine his
+own individual and responsible character--and he can wield a
+mighty influence over the character of his fellow-men. Individual
+men, as Lycurgus, Solon, Pericles, Alexander, Cæsar,
+and Napoleon have left the impress of their own mind and
+character upon the political institutions of nations, and, in
+indirect manner, upon the character of succeeding generations
+of men. Homer, Plato, Cicero, Bacon, Kant, Locke, Newton,
+Shakspeare, Milton have left a deep and permanent impression
+upon the forms of thought and speech, the language and
+literature, the science and philosophy of nations. And inasmuch
+as a nation is the aggregate of individual beings endowed
+with spontaneity and freedom, we must grant that exterior conditions
+are not omnipotent in the formation of national character.
+Still the free causality of man is exercised within a narrow
+field. "There is a strictly necessitative limitation drawing
+an impassable boundary-line around the area of volitional freedom."
+The human will "however subjectively free" is often
+"objectively unfree;" thus a large "uniformity of volitions" is
+the natural consequence.<a id="footnotetag7" name="footnotetag7"></a>
+<a href="#footnote7"><sup class="sml">7</sup></a> The child born in the heart of China,
+whilst he may, in his personal freedom, develop such traits
+of character as constitute his individuality, must necessarily be
+conformed in his language, habits, modes of thought, and religious
+sentiments to the spirit of his country and age. We no
+more expect a development of Christian thought and character
+in the centre of Africa, unvisited by Christian teaching, than
+we expect to find the climate and vegetation of New England.
+And we no more expect that a New England child shall be a
+Mohammedan, a Parsee, or a Buddhist, than that he shall have
+an Oriental physiognomy, and speak an Oriental language.
+Indeed it is impossible for a man to exist in human society
+without partaking in the spirit and manners of his country and
+his age. Thus all the individuals of a nation represent, in a
+greater or less degree, the spirit of the nation. They who
+do this most perfectly are the <i>great</i> men of that nation, because
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="21">21</a></span>
+they are at once both the product and the impersonation of
+their country and their age. "We allow ourselves to think of
+Shakspeare, or of Raphael, or of Phidias as having accomplished
+their work by the power of their individual genius, but
+greatness like theirs is never more than the highest degree of
+perfection which prevails widely around it, and forms the
+environment in which it grows. No such single mind in single
+contact with the facts of nature could have created a Pallas,
+a Madonna, or a Lear; such vast conceptions are the
+growth of ages, the creation of a nation's spirit; and the artist
+and poet, filled full with the power of that spirit, but gave it
+form, and nothing but form. Nor would the form itself have
+been attained by any isolated talent. No genius can dispense
+with experience.... Noble conceptions already existing, and a
+noble school of execution which will launch mind and hand
+upon their true courses, are indispensable to transcendent excellence.
+Shakspeare's plays were as much the offspring of
+the long generations who had pioneered the road for him, as
+the discoveries of Newton were the offspring of those of Copernicus."<a id="footnotetag8" name="footnotetag8"></a>
+<a href="#footnote8"><sup class="sml">8</sup></a>
+The principles here enounced apply with equal force
+to philosophers and men of science. The philosophy of Plato
+was but the ripened fruit of the pregnant thoughts and seminal
+utterances of his predecessors,--Socrates, Anaxagoras, and
+Pythagoras; whilst all of them do but represent the general
+tendency and spirit of their country and their times. The
+principles of Lord Bacon's "Instauratio Magna" were incipient
+in the "Opus Majus" of Roger Bacon, the Franciscan friar.
+The sixteenth century matured the thought of the thirteenth
+century. The inductive method in scientific inquiry was immanent
+in the British mind, and the latter Bacon only gave to it
+a permanent form. It is true that great men have occasionally
+appeared on the stage of history who, like the reformers Luther
+and Wesley, have seemed to be in conflict with the prevailing
+spirit of their age and nation, but these men were the creations
+of a providence--that providence which, from time to time, has
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="22">22</a></span>
+<i>supernaturally</i> interposed in the moral history of our race by
+corrective and remedial measures. These men were inspired
+and led by a spirit which descended from on high. And yet
+even they had their precursors and harbingers. Wyckliffe and
+John Huss, and Jerome of Prague are but the representatives
+of numbers whose names do not grace the historic page, who
+pioneered the way for Luther and the Reformation. And no
+one can read the history of that great movement of the sixteenth
+century without being persuaded there were thousands
+of Luther's predecessors and contemporaries who, like Staupitz
+and Erasmus, lamented the corruptions of the Church of
+Rome, and only needed the heroic courage of Luther to make
+them reformers also. Whilst, therefore, we recognize a free
+causal power in man, by which he determines his individual
+and responsible character, we are compelled to recognize the
+general law, that national character is mainly the result of those
+geographical and ethological, and political and religious conditions
+in which the nations have been placed in the providence
+of God.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote7"
+name="footnote7"><b>Footnote 7: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag7">
+(return) </a> See Dr. Wheedon's "Freedom of the Will," pp. 164, 165.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote8"
+name="footnote8"><b>Footnote 8: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag8">
+(return) </a> Froude, "Hist. of England," pp. 73, 74.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Nations, like persons, have an <i>Individuality</i>. They present
+certain characteristic marks which constitute their proper identity,
+and separate them from the surrounding nations of the
+earth; such, for example, as complexion, physiognomy, language,
+pursuits, customs, institutions, sentiments, ideas. The
+individuality of a nation is determined mainly from <i>without</i>, and
+not, like human individuality, from within. The laws of a
+man's personal character have their home in the soul; and the
+peculiarities and habits, and that conduct of life, which constitute
+his responsible character are, in a great degree, the consequence
+of his own free choice. But dwelling, as he does, in society,
+where he is continually influenced by the example and
+opinions of his neighbors; subject, as he is, to the ceaseless
+influence of climate, scenery, and other terrestrial conditions,
+the characteristics which result from these relations, and which
+are common to all who dwell in the same regions, and under
+the same institutions, constitute a national individuality. Individual
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="23">23</a></span>
+character is <i>variable</i> under the same general conditions,
+national character is <i>uniform</i>, because it results from
+causes which operate alike upon all individuals.</p>
+
+<p>Now, that man's complexion, his pursuits, his habits, his
+ideas are greatly modified by his geographical surroundings, is
+the most obvious of truths. No one doubts that the complexion
+of man is greatly affected by climatic conditions. The appearance,
+habits, pursuits of the man who lives within the tropics
+must, necessarily, differ from those of the man who dwells
+within the temperate zone. No one expects that the dweller
+on the mountain will have the same characteristics as the man
+who resides on the plains; or that he whose home is in the interior
+of a continent will have the same habits as the man
+whose home is on the islands of the sea. The denizen of the
+primeval forest will most naturally become a huntsman. The
+dweller on the extended plain, or fertile mountain slope, will
+lead a pastoral, or an agricultural life. Those who live on the
+margin of great rivers, or the borders of the sea, will "do business
+on the great waters." Commerce and navigation will be
+their chief pursuits. The people whose home is on the margin
+of the lake, or bay, or inland sea, or the thickly studded archipelago,
+are mostly fishermen. And then it is a no less obvious
+truth that men's pursuits exert a moulding influence on
+their habits, their forms of speech, their sentiments, and their
+ideas. Let any one take pains to observe the peculiarities
+which characterize the huntsman, the shepherd, the agriculturist,
+or the fisherman, and he will be convinced that their occupations
+stamp the whole of their thoughts and feelings; color
+all their conceptions of things outside their own peculiar field;
+direct their simple philosophy of life; and give a tone, even, to
+their religious emotions.</p>
+
+<p>The general aspects of nature, the climate and the scenery,
+exert an appreciable and an acknowledged influence on the
+<i>mental</i> characteristics of a people. The sprightliness and vivacity
+of the Frank, the impetuosity of the Arab, the immobility
+of the Russ, the rugged sternness of the Scot, the repose and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="24">24</a></span>
+dreaminess of the Hindoo are largely due to the country in
+which they dwell, the air they breathe, the food they eat, and
+the landscapes and skies they daily look upon. The nomadic
+Arab is not only indebted to the country in which he dwells for
+his habit of hunting for daily food, but for that love of a free,
+untrammelled life, and for those soaring dreams of fancy in
+which he so ardently delights. Not only is the Swiss determined
+by the peculiarities of his geographical position to lead
+a pastoral life, but the climate, and mountain scenery, and
+bracing atmosphere inspire him with the love of liberty. The
+reserved and meditative Hindoo, accustomed to the profuse
+luxuriance of nature, borrows the fantastic ideas of his mythology
+from plants, and flowers, and trees. The vastness and infinite
+diversity of nature, the colossal magnitude of all the
+forms of animal and vegetable life, the broad and massive features
+of the landscape, the aspects of beauty and of terror which
+surround him, and daily pour their silent influences upon his
+soul, give vividness, grotesqueness, even, to his imagination,
+and repress his active powers. His mental character bears a
+peculiar and obvious relation to his geographical surroundings.<a id="footnotetag9" name="footnotetag9"></a>
+<a href="#footnote9"><sup class="sml">9</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote9"
+name="footnote9"><b>Footnote 9: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag9">
+(return) </a> Ritter, "Geograph. Studies," p. 287.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The influence of external nature on the imagination--the
+<i>creative</i> faculty in man--is obvious and remarkable. It reveals
+itself in all the productions of man--his architecture, his
+sculpture, his painting, and his poetry. Oriental architecture
+is characterized by the boldness and massiveness of all its
+parts, and the monotonous uniformity of all its features. This
+is but the expression, in a material form, of that shadowy feeling
+of infinity, and unity, and immobility which an unbroken
+continent of vast deserts and continuous lofty mountain chains
+would naturally inspire. The simple grandeur and perfect harmony
+and graceful blending of light and shade so peculiar to
+Grecian architecture are the product of a country whose area
+is diversified by the harmonious blending of land and water,
+mountain and plain, all bathed in purest light, and canopied
+with skies of serenest blue. And they are also the product of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="25">25</a></span>
+a country where man is released from the imprisonment within
+the magic circle of surrounding nature, and made conscious of
+his power and freedom. In Grecian architecture, therefore,
+there is less of the massiveness and immobility of nature, and
+more of the grace and dignity of man. It adds to the idea of
+permanence a <i>vital</i> expression. "The Doric column," says
+Vitruvius, "has the proportion, strength, and beauty of man."
+The Gothic architecture had its birthplace among a people who
+had lived and worshipped for ages amidst the dense forests of
+the north, and was no doubt an imitation of the interlacing of
+the overshadowing trees. The clustered shaft, and lancet
+arch, and flowing tracery, reflect the impression which the surrounding
+scenery had woven into the texture of the Teutonic
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>The history of painting and of sculpture will also show that
+the varied "styles of art" are largely the result of the aspects
+which external nature presented to the eye of man. Oriental
+sculpture, like its architecture, was characterized by massiveness
+of form and tranquillity of expression; and its painting
+was, at best, but colored sculpture. The most striking objects
+are colossal figures, in which the human form is strangely combined
+with the brute, as in the winged bulls of Nineveh and
+the sphinxes of Egypt. Man is regarded simply as a part of
+nature, he does not rise above the plane of animal life. The
+soul has its immortality only in an eternal metempsychosis--a
+cycle of life which sweeps through all the brute creation. But
+in Grecian sculpture we have less of nature, more of man; less
+of massiveness, more of grace and elegance; less repose, and
+more of action. Now the connection between these styles of
+art, and the countries in which they were developed, is at once
+suggested to the thoughtful mind.</p>
+
+<p>And then, finally, the literature of a people equally reveals
+the impress of surrounding cosmical conditions. "The poems
+of Ossian are but the echo of the wild, rough, cloudy highlands
+of his Scottish home." The forest songs of the wild Indian,
+the negro's plaintive melodies in the rice-fields of Carolina, the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="26">26</a></span>
+refrains in which the hunter of Kamtchatka relates his adventures
+with the polar bear, and in which the South Sea Islander
+celebrates his feats and dangers on the deep, all betoken the
+influence which the scenes of daily life exert upon the thoughts
+and feelings of our race. "To what an extent nature can express
+herself in, and modify the culture of the individual, as
+well as of an entire people, can be seen on Ionian soil in the
+verse of Homer, which, called forth under the most favorable
+sky, and on the most luxuriant shore of the Grecian archipelago,
+not only charms us to-day, but bearing this impress, has
+determined what shall be the classic form throughout all coming
+time."<a id="footnotetag10" name="footnotetag10"></a>
+<a href="#footnote10"><sup class="sml">10</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote10"
+name="footnote10"><b>Footnote 10: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag10">
+(return) </a> See Ritter, pp. 288, 289. Poetic art has unquestionably its <i>geographical</i>
+distributions like the fauna and flora of the globe. "If you love the images,
+not merely of a rich, but of a luxuriant fancy; if you are pleased with the
+most daring flights; if you would see a poetic creation full of wonders, then
+turn your eye to the poetry of the <i>orient</i>, where all forms appear in purple;
+where each flower glows like the morning ray resting on the earth. But if,
+on the contrary, you prefer depth of thought, and earnestness of reflection;
+if you delight in the colossal, yet pale forms, which float about in mist, and
+whisper of the mysteries of the spirit-land, and of the vanity of all things, except
+honor, then I must point you to the hoary <i>north</i>.... Or if you sympathize
+with that deep feeling, that longing of the soul, which does not linger on the
+earth, but evermore looks up to the azure tent of the stars, where happiness
+dwells, where the unquiet of the beating heart is still, then you must resort to
+the romantic poetry of the <i>west</i>."--"<i>Study of Greek Literature</i>," Bishop
+Esaias Tegnér, p. 38.</blockquote>
+
+<p>In seeking, therefore, to determine correctly what are the
+characteristics of a nation, we must endeavor to trace how far
+the physical constitution of that people, their temperament,
+their habits, their sentiments, and their ideas have been formed,
+or modified, under the surrounding geographical conditions,
+which, as we have seen, greatly determine a nation's individuality.
+Guided by these lights, let us approach the study of
+"<i>the men of Athens</i>."</p>
+
+<p><i>Attica</i>, of which Athens was the capital, and whose entire
+populations were called "Athenians," was the most important
+of all the Hellenic states. It is a triangular peninsula, the
+base of which is defined by the high mountain ranges of Cithæron
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="27">27</a></span>
+and Parnes, whilst the two other sides are washed by the
+sea, having their vertex at the promontory of Sunium, or Cape
+Colonna. The prolongation of the south-western line towards
+the north until it reaches the base at the foot of Mount Cithæron,
+served as the line of demarkation between the Athenian
+territory and the State of Megara. Thus Attica may be generally
+described as bounded on the north-east by the channel
+of the Negropont; on the south-west by the gulf of Ægina and
+part of Megara; and on the north-west by the territory which
+formed the ancient Bœotia, including within its limits an area
+of about 750 miles.<a id="footnotetag11" name="footnotetag11"></a>
+<a href="#footnote11"><sup class="sml">11</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Hills of inferior elevation connect the mountain ranges of
+Cithæron and Parnes with the mountainous surface of the south-east
+of the peninsula. These hills, commencing with the promontory
+of Sunium itself, which forms the vertex of the triangle,
+rise gradually on the south-east to the round summit of Hymettus,
+and onward to the higher peak of Pentelicus, near Marathon,
+on the east. The rest of Attica is all a plain, one reach
+of which comes down to the sea on the south, at the very base
+of Hymettus. Here, about five miles from the shore, an abrupt
+rock rises from the plain, about 200 feet high, bordered on the
+south by lower eminences. That rock is the Acropolis. Those
+lower eminences are the Areopagus, the Pmyx, and the Museum.
+In the valley formed by these four hills we have the Agora,
+and the varied undulations of these hills determine the features
+of the city of Athens.<a id="footnotetag12" name="footnotetag12"></a>
+<a href="#footnote12"><sup class="sml">12</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote11"
+name="footnote11"><b>Footnote 11: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag11">
+(return) </a> See art. "Attica," <i>Encyc. Brit.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote12"
+name="footnote12"><b>Footnote 12: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag12">
+(return) </a> See Conybeare and Howson's "Life and Epistles of St. Paul," vol. i.
+p. 346.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Nearly all writers on the topography of Athens derive their
+materials from Pausanias, who visited the city in the early part
+of the second century, and whose "Itinerary of Greece" is
+still extant.<a id="footnotetag13" name="footnotetag13"></a>
+<a href="#footnote13"><sup class="sml">13</sup></a> He entered the city by the Peiraic gate, the same
+gate at which Paul entered some sixty years before. We shall
+place ourselves under his guidance, and, so far as we are able,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="28">28</a></span>
+follow the same course, supplying some omissions, as we go
+along, from other sources. On entering the city, the first building
+which arrested the attention of Pausanias was the Pompeium,
+so called because it was the depository of the sacred vessels,
+and also of the garments used in the annual procession
+in honor of Athena (Minerva), the tutelary deity of Athens,
+from whom the city derived its name. Near this edifice stood
+a temple of Demeter (Ceres), containing statues of that goddess,
+of her daughter Persephone, and of Iacchus, all executed by
+Praxiteles; and beyond were several porticoes leading from
+the city gates to the outer Ceramicus, while the intervening
+space was occupied by various temples, the Gymnasium of
+Hermes, and the house of Polytion, the most magnificent private
+residence in Athens.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote13"
+name="footnote13"><b>Footnote 13: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag13">
+(return) </a> The account here given of the topography of Athens is derived mainly
+from the article on "Athens" in the <i>Encyc. Brit.</i></blockquote>
+
+<p>There were two places in Athens known by the name of
+Ceramicus, one without the walls, forming part of the suburbs;
+and the other within the walls, embracing a very important
+section of the city. The outer Ceramicus was covered with
+the sepulchres of the Athenians who had been slain in battle,
+and buried at the public expense; it communicated with the
+inner Ceramicus by the gate Dipylum. The Ceramicus within
+the city probably included the Agora, the Stoa Basileios, and
+the Stoa Pœcile, besides various other temples and public
+buildings.</p>
+
+<p>Having fairly passed the city gates, a long street is before
+us with a colonnade or cloister on either hand; and at the end
+of this street, by turning to the left, we might go through the
+whole Ceramicus to the open country, and the groves of the
+Academy. But we turn to the right, and enter the Agora,--the
+market-place, as it is called in the English translation of
+the sacred narrative.</p>
+
+<p>We are not, however, to conceive of the market-place at
+Athens as bearing any resemblance to the bare, undecorated
+spaces appropriated to business in our modern towns; but
+rather as a magnificent public square, closed in by grand historic
+buildings, of the highest style of architecture; planted
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="29" >29</a></span>
+with palm-trees in graceful distribution, and adorned with
+statues of the great men of Athens and the deified heroes of
+her mythology, from the hands of the immortal masters of the
+plastic art. This "market-place" was the great centre of the
+public life of the Athenians,--the meeting-place of poets, orators,
+statesmen, warriors, and philosophers,--a grand resort for
+leisure, for conversation, for business, and for news. Standing
+in the Agora, and looking towards the south, is the <i>Museum,</i>
+so called because it was believed that <i>Musæus</i>, the father of
+poetry, was buried there. Towards the north-west is the <i>Pnyx,</i>
+a sloping hill, partially levelled into an open area for political
+assemblies. To the north is seen the craggy eminence of the
+<i>Areopagus</i>, and on the north-east is the <i>Acropolis</i> towering high
+above the scene, "the crown and glory of the whole."</p>
+
+<p>The most important buildings of the Agora are the Porticoes
+or cloisters, the most remarkable of which are the Stoa
+Basileios, or Portico of the king; the Stoa Eleutherius, or Portico
+of the Jupiter of Freedom; and the Stoa Pœcile, or Painted
+Porch. These Porticoes were covered walks, the roof being
+supported by columns, at least on one side, and by solid masonry
+on the other. Such shaded walks are almost indispensable
+in the south of Europe, where the people live much in the
+open air, and they afford a grateful protection from the heat of
+the sun, as well as a shelter from the rain. Seats were also
+provided where the loungers might rest, and the philosophers
+and rhetoricians sit down for intellectual conversation. The
+"Stoic" school of philosophy derived its name from the circumstance
+that its founder, Zeno, used to meet and converse
+with his disciples under one of these porticoes,--the Stoa Pœcile.
+These porticoes were not only built in the most magnificent
+style of architecture, but adorned with paintings and
+statuary by the best masters. On the roof of the Stoa Basileios
+were statues of Theseus and the Day. In front of the Stoa
+Eleutherius was placed the divinity to whom it was dedicated;
+and within were allegorical paintings, celebrating the rise of
+"the fierce democracy." The Stoa Pœcile derived its name
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="30">30</a></span>
+from the celebrated paintings which adorned its walls, and
+which were almost exclusively devoted to the representation of
+national subjects, as the contest of Theseus with the Amazons,
+the more glorious struggle at Marathon, and the other achievements
+of the Athenians; here also were suspended the shields
+of the Scionæans of Thrace, together with those of the Lacedemonians,
+taken at the island of Sphacteria.</p>
+
+<p>It is beyond our purpose to describe all the public edifices,--the
+temples, gymnasia, and theatres which crowd the Ceramic
+area, and that portion of the city lying to the west and south
+of the Acropolis. Our object is, if possible, to convey to the
+reader some conception of the ancient splendor and magnificence
+of Athens; to revive the scenes amidst which the Athenians
+daily moved, and which may be presumed to have exerted
+a powerful influence upon the manners, the taste, the habits of
+thought, and the entire character of the Athenian people. To
+secure this object we need only direct attention to the Acropolis,
+which was crowded with the monuments of Athenian
+glory, and exhibited an amazing concentration of all that
+was most perfect in art, unsurpassed in excellence, and unrivalled
+in richness and splendor. It was "the peerless gem of
+Greece, the glory and pride of art, the wonder and envy of the
+world."</p>
+
+<p>The western side of the Acropolis, which furnished the only
+access to the summit of the hill, was about 168 feet in breadth;
+an opening so narrow that, to the artists of Pericles, it appeared
+practicable to fill up the space with a single building, which, in
+serving the purpose of a gateway to the Acropolis, should also
+contribute to adorn, as well as fortify the citadel. This work,
+the greatest achievement of civil architecture in Athens, which
+rivalled the Parthenon in felicity of execution, and surpassed it
+in boldness and originality of design, consisted of a grand central
+colonnade closed by projecting wings. This incomparable
+edifice, built of Pentelic marble, received the name of Propylæa
+from its forming the vestibule to the five-fold gates by which the
+citadel was entered. In front of the right wing there stood a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="31">31</a></span>
+small Ionic temple of pure white marble, dedicated to Niké
+Apteros (Wingless Victory).</p>
+
+<p>A gigantic flight of steps conducted from the five-fold gates
+to the platform of the Acropolis, which was, in fact, one vast
+composition of architecture and sculpture dedicated to the national
+glory. Here stood the Parthenon, or temple of the Virgin
+Goddess, the glorious temple which rose in the proudest
+period of Athenian history to the honor of Minerva, and which
+ages have only partially effaced. This magnificent temple, "by
+its united excellences of materials, design, and decoration, internal
+as well as external, has been universally considered the
+most perfect which human genius ever planned and executed.
+Its dimensions were sufficiently large to produce an impression
+of grandeur and sublimity, which was not disturbed by any obtrusive
+subdivision of parts; and, whether viewed at a small or
+greater distance, there was nothing to divert the mind of the
+spectator from contemplating the unity as well as majesty of
+mass and outline; circumstances which form the first and most
+remarkable characteristic of every Greek temple erected during
+the purer ages of Grecian taste and genius."<a id="footnotetag14" name="footnotetag14"></a>
+<a href="#footnote14"><sup class="sml">14</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote14"
+name="footnote14"><b>Footnote 14: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag14">
+(return) </a> Leake's "Topography of Athens," p. 209 et seq.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It would be impossible to convey any just and adequate
+conception of the artistic decorations of this wonderful edifice.
+The two pediments of the temple were decorated with magnificent
+compositions of statuary, each consisting of about twenty
+entire figures of colossal size; the one on the western pediment
+representing the birth of Minerva, and the other, on the eastern
+pediment, the contest between that goddess and Neptune for
+the possession of Attica. Under the outer cornice were ninety-two
+groups, raised in high relief from tablets about four feet
+square, representing the victories achieved by her companions.
+Round the inner frieze was presented the procession of the Parthenon
+on the grand quinquennial festival of the Panathenæa.
+The procession is represented as advancing in two parallel columns
+from west to east; one proceeding along the northern,
+the other along the southern side of the temple; part facing
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="32">32</a></span>
+inward after turning the angle of the eastern front, and part
+meeting towards the centre of that front.</p>
+
+<p>The statue of the virgin goddess, the work of Phidias, stood
+in the eastern chamber of the cella, and was composed of ivory
+and gold. It had but one rival in the world, the Jupiter Olympus
+of the same famous artist. On the summit or apex of the
+helmet was placed a sphinx, with griffins on either side. The
+figure of the goddess was represented in an erect martial attitude,
+and clothed in a robe reaching to the feet. On the breast
+was a head of Medusa, wrought in ivory, and a figure of Victory
+about four cubits high. The goddess held a spear in her hand,
+and an ægis lay at her feet, while on her right, and near the
+spear, was a figure of a serpent, believed to represent that of
+Erichthonius.</p>
+
+<p>According to Pliny, the entire height of the statue was twenty-six
+cubits (about forty feet), and the artist, Phidias, had ingeniously
+contrived that the gold with which the statue was encrusted
+might be removed at pleasure. The battle of the Centaurs
+and Lapithæ was carved upon the sandals; the battle of
+the Amazons was represented on the ægis which lay at her feet,
+and on the pedestal was sculptured the birth of Pandora.</p>
+
+<p>The temple of Erechtheus, the most ancient structure in
+Athens, stood on the northern side of the Acropolis. The
+statue of Zeus Polieus stood between the Propylæa and the
+Parthenon. The brazen colossus of Minerva, cast from the
+spoils of Marathon, appears to have occupied the space between
+the Erechtheium and the Propylæa, near the Pelasgic or northern
+wall. This statue of the tutelary divinity of Athens and
+Attica rose in gigantic proportions above all the buildings of
+the Acropolis, the flashing of whose helmet plumes met the
+sailor's eye as he approached from the Sunian promontory.
+And the remaining space of the wide area was literally crowded
+with statuary, amongst which were Theseus contending with
+the Minotaur; Hercules strangling the serpents; the Earth
+imploring showers from Jupiter; and Minerva causing the olive
+to sprout, while Neptune raises the waves. After these works
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="33" >33</a></span>
+of art, it is needless to speak of others. It may be sufficient to
+state that Pausanias mentions by name towards three hundred
+remarkable statues which adorned this part of the city even
+after it had been robbed and despoiled by its several conquerors.</p>
+
+<p>The Areopagus, or hill of Ares (Mars), so called, it is said,
+in consequence of that god having been the first person tried
+there for the crime of murder, was, beyond all doubt, the rocky
+height which is separated from the western end of the Acropolis
+by a hollow, forming a communication between the northern
+and southern divisions of the city. The court of the Areopagus
+was simply an open space on the highest summit of the hill,
+the judges sitting in the open air, on rude seats of stone, hewn
+out of the solid rock. Near to the spot on which the court was
+held was the sanctuary of the Furies, the avenging deities of
+Grecian mythology, whose presence gave additional solemnity
+to the scene. The place and the court were regarded by the
+people with superstitious reverence.</p>
+
+<p>This completes, our survey of the principal buildings, monuments,
+and localities within the city of Athens. We do not imagine
+we have succeeded in conveying any adequate idea of the
+ancient splendor and glory of this city, which was not only the
+capital of Attica, but also</p>
+
+<p class="mid">
+"The eye of Greece, mother of art and eloquence."
+</p>
+
+<p>We trust, however, that we have contributed somewhat towards
+awakening in the reader's mind a deeper interest in these classic
+scenes, and enabling him to appreciate, more vividly, the allusions
+we may hereafter make to them.</p>
+
+<p>The mere dry recital of geographical details, and topographical
+notices is, however, of little interest in itself, and by itself.
+A tract of country derives its chief interest from its historic <i>associations</i>--its
+immediate relations to man. The events which
+have transpired therein, the noble or ignoble deeds, the grand
+achievements, or the great disasters of which it has been the
+theatre, these constitute the living heart of its geography. Palestine
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="34" >34</a></span>
+has been rendered forever memorable, not by any remarkable
+peculiarities in its climate or scenery, but by the fact
+that it was the home of God's ancient people--the Hebrews
+and still more, because the ardent imagination of the modern
+traveller still sees upon its mountains and plains the lingering
+footprints of the Son of God. And so Attica will always be
+regarded as a classic land, because it was the theatre of the
+most illustrious period of ancient history--<i>the period of youthful
+vigor in the life of humanity, when viewed as a grand organic
+whole</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Here on a narrow spot of less superficies than the little
+State of Rhode Island there flourished a republic which, in the
+grandeur of her military and naval achievements, at Marathon,
+Thermopylæ, Platæa, and Salamis, in the sublime creations of
+her painters, sculptors, and architects, and the unrivalled productions
+of her poets, orators, and philosophers, has left a lingering
+glory on the historic page, which twenty centuries have
+not been able to eclipse or dim. The names of Solon and
+Pericles; of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; of Isocrates and
+Demosthenes; of Myron, Phidias, and Praxiteles; of Herodotus,
+Xenophon, and Thucydides; of Sophocles and Euripides,
+have shed an undying lustre on Athens and Attica.</p>
+
+<p>How much of this universal renown, this imperishable glory
+attained by the Athenian people, is to be ascribed to their geographical
+position and surroundings, and to the elastic, bracing
+air, the enchanting scenery, the glorious skies, which poured
+their daily inspiration on the Athenian mind, is a problem we
+may scarcely hope to solve.</p>
+
+<p>Of this, at least, we may be sure, that all these geographical
+and cosmical conditions were ordained by God, and ordained,
+also, for some noble and worthy end. That God, "the Father
+of all the families of the earth," cared for the Athenian people
+as much as for Jewish and Christian nations, we can not doubt.
+That they were the subjects of a Providence, and that, in God's
+great plan of human history, they had an important part to
+fulfill, we must believe. That God "determined the time of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="35">35</a></span>
+each nation's existence, and fixed the geographical bounds of
+its habitation," is affirmed by Paul. And that the <i>specific</i> end
+for which the nation had its existence was fulfilled, we have the
+fullest confidence. <i>So far, therefore, as we can trace the relation
+that subsists between the geographical position and surroundings
+of that nation, and its national characteristics and actual history,
+so far are we able to solve the problem of its destiny; and by so
+much do we enlarge our comprehension of the plan of God in the
+history of our race</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The geographical position of Greece was favorable to the
+freest commercial and maritime intercourse with the great historic
+nations--those nations most advanced in science, literature,
+and art. Bounded on the west by the Adriatic and Ionian
+seas, by the Mediterranean on the south, and on the east by the
+Ægean Sea, her populations enjoyed a free intercommunication
+with the Egyptians, Hebrews, Persians, Phœnicians, Romans,
+and Carthaginians. This peculiarity in the geographical position
+of the Grecian peninsula could not fail to awaken in its
+people a taste for navigation, and lead them to active commercial
+intercourse with foreign nations.<a id="footnotetag15" name="footnotetag15"></a>
+<a href="#footnote15"><sup class="sml">15</sup></a> The boundless oceans
+on the south and east, the almost impassable mountains on the
+west and north of Asia, presented insurmountable obstacles to
+commercial intercourse. But the extended border-lands and
+narrow inland seas of Southern Europe allured man, in presence
+of their opposite shores, to the perpetual exchange of his productions.
+An arm of the sea is not a barrier, but rather a tie
+between the nations. Appearing to separate, it in reality draws
+them together without confounding them.<a id="footnotetag16" name="footnotetag16"></a>
+<a href="#footnote16"><sup class="sml">16</sup></a> On such a theatre
+we may expect that commerce will be developed on an extensive
+scale.<a id="footnotetag17" name="footnotetag17"></a>
+<a href="#footnote17"><sup class="sml">17</sup></a> And, along with commerce, there will be increased
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="36">36</a></span>
+activity in all departments of productive industry, and an enlarged
+diffusion of knowledge. "Commerce," says Ritter, "is
+the great mover and combiner of the world's activities." And
+it also furnishes the channels through which flow the world's
+ideas. Commerce, both in a material and moral point of view,
+is the life of nations. Along with the ivory and ebony, the fabrics
+and purple dyes, the wines and spices of the Syrian merchant,
+there flowed into Greece the science of numbers and
+of navigation, and the art of alphabetical writing from Phœnicia.
+Along with the fine wheat, and embroidered linen, and riches
+of the farther Indias which came from Egypt, there came, also,
+into Greece some knowledge of the sciences of astronomy and
+geometry, of architecture and mechanics, of medicine and
+chemistry; together with the mystic wisdom of the distant
+Orient. The scattered rays of light which gleamed in the eastern
+skies were thus converged in Greece, as on a focal point,
+to be rendered more brilliant by contact with the powerful Grecian
+intellect, and then diffused throughout the western world.
+Thus intercourse with surrounding nations, by commerce and
+travel, contact therewith by immigrations and colonizations,
+even collisions and invasions also, became, in the hands of a
+presiding Providence, the means of diffusing knowledge, of
+quickening and enlarging the active powers of man, and thus,
+ultimately, of a higher civilization.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote15"
+name="footnote15"><b>Footnote 15: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag15">
+(return) </a> Humboldt's "Cosmos," vol. ii. p. 143.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote16"
+name="footnote16"><b>Footnote 16: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag16">
+(return) </a> Cousin, vol. i. pp. 169, 170.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote17"
+name="footnote17"><b>Footnote 17: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag17">
+(return) </a> The advantageous situation of Britain for commerce, and the nature of
+the climate have powerfully contributed to the perfection of industry among
+her population. Had she occupied a central, internal station, like that of
+Switzerland, the facilities of her people for dealing with others being so
+much the less, their progress would have been comparatively slow, and,
+instead of being highly improved, their manufactures would have been still in
+infancy. But being surrounded on all sides by the sea, that "great highway
+of nations," they have been able to maintain an intercourse with the most remote
+as well as the nearest countries, to supply them on the easiest terms
+with their manufactures, and to profit by the peculiar products and capacities
+of production possessed by other nations. To the geographical position
+and climate of Great Britain, her people are mainly indebted for their position
+as the first commercial nation on earth.--See art. "Manufactrues," p.
+277, <i>Encyc. Brit</i>.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Then further, the peculiar configuration of Greece, the wonderful
+complexity of its coast-line, its peninsular forms, the number
+of its islands, and the singular distribution of its mountains,
+all seem to mark it as the theatre of activity, of movement,
+of individuality, and of freedom. An extensive continent,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="37" >37</a></span>
+unbroken by lakes and inland seas, as Asia, where vast
+deserts and high mountain chains separate the populations, is
+the seat of immobility.<a id="footnotetag18" name="footnotetag18"></a>
+<a href="#footnote18"><sup class="sml">18</sup></a> Commerce is limited to the bare necessities
+of life, and there are no inducements to movement, to
+travel, and to enterprise. There are no conditions prompting
+man to attempt the conquest of nature. Society is therefore
+stationary as in China and India. Enfolded and imprisoned
+within the overpowering vastness and illimitable sweep of nature,
+man is almost unconscious of his freedom and his personality.
+He surrenders himself to the disposal of a mysterious
+"<i>fate</i>" and yields readily to the despotic sway of superhuman
+powers. The State is consequently the reign of a single despotic
+will. The laws of the Medes and Persians are unalterable.
+But in Greece we have extended border-lands on the
+coast of navigable seas; peninsulas elaborately articulated, and
+easy of access. We have mountains sufficiently elevated to
+shade the land and diversify the scenery, and yet of such a
+form as not to impede communication. They are usually
+placed neither in parallel chains nor in massive groups, but
+are so disposed as to inclose extensive tracts of land admirably
+adapted to become the seats of small and independent
+communities, separated by natural boundaries, sometimes impossible
+to overleap. The face of the interior country,--its
+forms of relief, seemed as though Providence designed, from
+the beginning, to keep its populations socially and politically
+disunited. These difficulties of internal transit by land were,
+however, counteracted by the large proportion of coast, and the
+accessibility of the country by sea. The promontories and indentations
+in the line of the Grecian coast are hardly less remarkable
+than the peculiar elevations and depressions of the
+surface. "The shape of Peloponnesus, with its three southern
+gulfs, the Argolic, Laconian, and Messenian, was compared by
+the ancient geographers to the leaf of a plane-tree: the Pagasæan
+gulf on the eastern side of Greece, and the Ambrakian
+gulf on the western, with their narrow entrances and considerable
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="38" >38</a></span>
+area, are equivalent to internal lakes: Xenophon boasts
+of the double sea which embraces so large a portion of Attica;
+Ephorus, of the triple sea by which Bœotia was accessible from
+west, north, and south--the Eubœan strait, opening a long line
+of country on both sides to coasting navigation. But the most
+important of all Grecian gulfs are the Corinthian and Saronic,
+washing the northern and north-eastern shores of Peloponnesus,
+and separated by the narrow barrier of the Isthmus of
+Corinth. The former, especially, lays open Ætolia, Phokis, and
+Bœotia, as the whole northern coast of Peloponnesus, to water
+approach.... It will thus appear that there was no part of
+Greece proper which could be considered as out of the reach
+of the sea, whilst most parts of it were easy of access. The sea
+was thus the sole channel for transmitting improvements and
+ideas as well as for maintaining sympathies" between the Hellenic
+tribes.<a id="footnotetag19" name="footnotetag19"></a>
+<a href="#footnote19"><sup class="sml">19</sup></a> The sea is not only the grand highway of commercial
+intercourse, but the empire of movement, of progress,
+and of freedom. Here man is set free from the bondage imposed
+by the overpowering magnitude and vastness of continental
+and oceanic forms. The boisterous and, apparently, lawless
+winds are made to obey his will. He mounts the sea as on a
+fiery steed and "lays his hand upon her mane." And whilst
+thus he succeeds, in any measure, to triumph over nature, he
+wakes to conscious power and freedom. It is in this region of
+contact and commingling of sea and land where man attains
+the highest superiority. Refreshing our historic recollections,
+and casting our eyes upon the map of the world, we can not
+fail to see that all the most highly civilized nations have lived,
+or still live, on the margin of the sea.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote18"
+name="footnote18"><b>Footnote 18: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag18">
+(return) </a> Cousin, vol. i. pp. 151, 170.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote19"
+name="footnote19"><b>Footnote 19: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag19">
+(return) </a> Grote's "Hist, of Greece," vol. ii. pp. 221, 225.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The peculiar configuration of the territory of Greece, its
+forms of relief, "so like, in many respects, to Switzerland," could
+not fail to exert a powerful influence on the character and destiny
+of its people. Its inclosing mountains materially increased
+their defensive power, and, at the same time, inspired
+them with the love of liberty. Those mountains, as we have
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="39">39</a></span>
+seen, so unique in their distribution, were natural barriers
+against the invasion of foreign nations, and they rendered each
+separate community secure against the encroachments of the
+rest. The pass of Thermopylæ, between Thessaly and Phocis,
+that of Cithæron, between Bœotia and Attica; and the mountain
+ranges of Oneion and Geraneia, along the Isthmus of Corinth,
+were positions which could be defended against any force
+of invaders. This signal peculiarity in the forms of relief protected
+each section of the Greeks from being conquered, and
+at the same time maintained their separate autonomy. The
+separate states of Greece lived, as it were, in the presence of
+each other, and at the same time resisted all influences and
+all efforts towards a coalescence with each other, until the time
+of Alexander. Their country, a word of indefinite meaning to
+the Asiatic, conveyed to them as definite an idea as that of their
+own homes. Its whole landscape, with all its historic associations,
+its glorious monuments of heroic deeds, were perpetually
+present to their eyes. Thus their patriotism, concentrated
+within a narrow sphere, and kept alive by the sense of their individual
+importance, their democratic spirit, and their struggles
+with surrounding communities to maintain their independence,
+became a strong and ruling passion. Their geographical surroundings
+had, therefore, a powerful influence upon their political
+institutions. Conquest, which forces nations of different
+habits, characters, and languages into unity, is at last the parent
+of degrading servitude. These nations are only held together,
+as in the Roman empire, by the iron hand of military
+power. The despot, surrounded by a foreign soldiery, appears
+in the conquered provinces, simply to enforce tribute, and compel
+obedience to his arbitrary will. But the small Greek communities,
+protected by the barriers of their seas and gulfs and
+mountains, escaped, for centuries, this evil destiny. The people,
+united by identity of language and manners and religion,
+by common interest and facile intercommunication, could readily
+combine to resist the invasions of foreign nations, as well as
+the encroachments of their own rulers. And they were able to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="40" >40</a></span>
+easily model their own government according to their own necessities
+and circumstances and common interests, and to make
+the end for which it existed the sole measure of the powers it
+was permitted to wield.<a id="footnotetag20" name="footnotetag20"></a>
+<a href="#footnote20"><sup class="sml">20</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote20"
+name="footnote20"><b>Footnote 20: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag20">
+(return) </a> <i>Encyc. Brit</i>, art. "Greece."</blockquote>
+
+<p>The soil of Attica was not the most favorable to agricultural
+pursuits. In many places it was stony and uneven, and a considerable
+proportion was bare rock, on which nothing could be
+grown. Not half the surface was capable of cultivation. In
+this respect it may be fitly compared to some of the New England
+States. The light, dry soil produced excellent barley, but
+not enough of wheat for their own consumption. Demosthenes
+informs us that Athens brought every year, from Byzantium,
+four hundred thousand <i>medimni</i> of wheat. The alluvial plains,
+under industrious cultivation, would furnish a frugal subsistence
+for a large population, and the mildness of the climate allowed
+all the more valuable products to ripen early, and go out of
+season last. Such conditions, of course, would furnish motives
+for skill and industry, and demand of the people frugal and
+temperate habits. The luxuriance of a tropical climate tends
+to improvidence and indolence. Where nature pours her fullness
+into the lap of ease, forethought and providence are little
+needed. There is none of that struggle for existence which
+awakens sagacity, and calls into exercise the active powers of
+man. But in a country where nature only yields her fruits as
+the reward of toil, and yet enough to the intelligent culture of
+the soil, there habits of patient industry must be formed. The
+alternations of summer and winter excite to forethought and
+providence, and the comparative poverty of the soil will prompt
+to frugality. Man naturally aspires to improve his condition
+by all the means within his power. He becomes a careful observer
+of nature, he treasures up the results of observation, he
+compares one fact with another and notes their relations, and
+he makes new experiments to test his conclusions, and thus he
+awakes to the vigorous exercise of all his powers. These physical
+conditions must develop a hardy, vigorous, prudent, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="41">41</a></span>
+temperate race; and such, unquestionably, were the Greeks.
+"Theophrastus, and other authors, amply attest the observant
+and industrious agriculture prevalent in Greece. The culture
+of the vine and olive appears to have been particularly elaborate
+and the many different accidents of soil, level, and exposure
+which were to be found, afforded to observant planters
+materials for study and comparison."<a id="footnotetag21" name="footnotetag21"></a>
+<a href="#footnote21"><sup class="sml">21</sup></a> The Greeks were frugal
+in their habits and simple in their modes of life. The barley
+loaf seems to have been more generally eaten than the
+wheaten loaf; this, with salt fish and vegetables, was the common
+food of the population. Economy in domestic life was
+universal. In their manners, their dress, their private dwellings,
+they were little disposed to ostentation or display.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote21"
+name="footnote21"><b>Footnote 21: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag21">
+(return) </a> Grote, "Hist. of Greece," vol. ii. p. 230.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The climate of Attica is what, in physical geography, would
+be called <i>maritime</i>. "Here are allied the continental vigor
+and oceanic softness, in a fortunate union, mutually tempering
+each other."<a id="footnotetag22" name="footnotetag22"></a>
+<a href="#footnote22"><sup class="sml">22</sup></a> The climate of the whole peninsula of Greece
+seems to be distinguished from that of Spain and Italy, by
+having more of the character of an inland region. The diversity
+of local temperature is greater; the extremes of summer
+and winter more severe. In Arcadia the snow has been found
+eighteen inches thick in January, with the thermometer at 16°
+Fahrenheit, and it sometimes lies on the ground for six weeks.
+The summits of the central chains of Pindus and most of the
+Albanian mountains are covered with snow from the beginning
+of November to the end of March. In Attica, which, being
+freely exposed to the sea, has in some measure an insular climate,
+the winter sets in about the beginning of January.
+About the middle of that month the snow begins to fall, but
+seldom remains upon the plain for more than a few days, though
+it lies on the summit of the mountain for a month.<a id="footnotetag23" name="footnotetag23"></a>
+<a href="#footnote23"><sup class="sml">23</sup></a> And then,
+whilst Bœotia, which joins to Attica, is higher and colder, and
+often covered with dense fogs, Attica is remarkable for the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="42" >42</a></span>
+wonderful transparency, dryness, and elasticity of its atmosphere.
+All these climatal conditions exerted, no doubt, a modifying
+influence upon the character of the inhabitants.<a id="footnotetag24" name="footnotetag24"></a>
+<a href="#footnote24"><sup class="sml">24</sup></a> In a
+tropical climate man is enfeebled by excessive heat. His natural
+tendency is to inaction and repose. His life is passed in
+a "strenuous idleness." His intellectual, his reflective faculties
+are overmastered by his physical instincts. Passion, sentiment,
+imagination prevail over the sober exercises of his reasoning
+powers. Poetry universally predominates over philosophy.
+The whole character of Oriental language, religion, literature
+is intensely imaginative. In the frozen regions of the frigid
+zone, where a perpetual winter reigns, and where lichens and
+mosses are the only forms of vegetable life, man is condemned
+to the life of a huntsman, and depends mainly for his subsistence
+on the precarious chances of the chase. He is consequently
+nomadic in his habits, and barbarous withal. His
+whole life is spent in the bare process of procuring a living.
+He consumes a large amount of oleaginous food, and breathes
+a damp heavy atmosphere, and is, consequently, of a dull
+phlegmatic temperament. Notwithstanding his uncertain supplies
+of food, he is recklessly improvident, and indifferent to all
+the lessons of experience. Intellectual pursuits are all precluded.
+There is no motive, no opportunity, and indeed no
+disposition for mental culture. But in a temperate climate
+man is stimulated to high mental activity. The alternations
+of heat and cold, of summer and of winter, an elastic, fresh,
+and bracing atmosphere, a diversity in the aspects of nature,
+these develop a vivacity of temperament, a quickness of sensibility
+as well as apprehension, and a versatility of feeling as
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="43" >43</a></span>
+well as genius. History marks out the temperate zone as the
+seat of the refined and cultivated nations.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote22"
+name="footnote22"><b>Footnote 22: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag22">
+(return) </a> Guyot, "Earth and Man," p. 181.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote23"
+name="footnote23"><b>Footnote 23: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag23">
+(return) </a> <i>Encyc. Brit.</i>, art. "Greece."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote24"
+name="footnote24"><b>Footnote 24: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag24">
+(return) </a> The influence of climatic conditions did not escape the attention of
+the Greeks. Herodotus, Hippocrates, and Aristotle speak of the climate
+of Asia as more enervating than that of Greece. They regarded the changeful
+character and diversity of local temperature in Greece as highly stimulating
+to the energies of the populations. The marked contrast between
+the Athenians and the Bœotians was supposed to be represented in the
+light and heavy atmosphere which they respectively
+breathed.--<i>Grote</i>, vol.
+ii. pp. 232-3.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The natural scenery of Greece was of unrivalled grandeur--surpassing
+Italy, perhaps every country in the world. It combined
+in the highest degree every feature essential to the highest
+beauty of a landscape except, perhaps, large rivers. But
+this was more than compensated for by the proximity of the
+sea, which, by its numerous arms, seemed to embrace the land
+on nearly every side. Its mountains, encircled with zones of
+wood, and capped with snow, though much lower than the Alps,
+are as imposing by the suddenness of their elevation--"pillars
+of heaven, the fosterers of enduring snows."<a id="footnotetag25" name="footnotetag25"></a>
+<a href="#footnote25"><sup class="sml">25</sup></a> Rich sheltered
+plains lie at their feet, covered with an unequally woven mantle
+of trees, and shrubs, and flowers,--"the verdant gloom of the
+thickly-mantling ivy, the narcissus steeped in heavenly dew,
+the golden-beaming crocus, the hardy and ever-fresh-sprouting
+olive-tree,"<a id="footnotetag26" name="footnotetag26"></a>
+<a href="#footnote26"><sup class="sml">26</sup></a> and the luxuriant palm, which nourishes amid its
+branches the grape swelling with juice. But it is the combination
+of these features, in the most diversified manner, with
+beautiful inland bays and seas, broken by headlands, inclosed
+by mountains, and studded with islands of every form and
+magnitude, which gives to the scenery of Greece its proud pre-eminence.
+"Greek scenery," says Humboldt, "presents the
+peculiar charm of an intimate blending of sea and land, of
+shores adorned with vegetation, or picturesquely girt with rocks
+gleaming in the light of aerial tints, and an ocean beautiful in
+the play of the ever-changing brightness of its deep-toned
+wave."<a id="footnotetag27" name="footnotetag27"></a>
+<a href="#footnote27"><sup class="sml">27</sup></a> And over all the serene, deep azure skies, occasionally
+veiled by light fleecy clouds, with vapory purple mists resting
+on the distant mountain tops. This glorious scenery of
+Greece is evermore the admiration of the modern traveller.
+"In wandering about Athens on a sunny day in March, when
+the asphodels are blooming on Colones, when the immortal
+mountains are folded in a transparent haze, and the Ægean
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="44">44</a></span>
+slumbers afar among his isles," he is reminded of the lines of
+Byron penned amid these scenes--</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i8">"Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild;</p>
+<p class="i8">Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields,</p>
+<p class="i8">Thine olives ripe as when Minerva smiled,</p>
+<p class="i8">And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields;</p>
+<p class="i8">There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds,</p>
+<p class="i8">The freeborn wanderer of the mountain air;</p>
+<p class="i8">Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds,</p>
+<p class="i8">Still in his beams Mendeli's marbles glare;</p>
+<p class="i8">Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but nature still is fair."<a id="footnotetag28" name="footnotetag28"></a>
+<a href="#footnote28"><sup class="sml">28</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote25"
+name="footnote25"><b>Footnote 25: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag25">
+(return) </a> Pindar.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote26"
+name="footnote26"><b>Footnote 26: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag26">
+(return) </a> Sophocles, "Œdipus at Colonna."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote27"
+name="footnote27"><b>Footnote 27: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag27">
+(return) </a> "Cosmos," vol. ii. p. 25.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote28"
+name="footnote28"><b>Footnote 28: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag28">
+(return) </a> Canto ii., v. lxxxvi., "Childe Harold."</blockquote>
+
+<p>The effect of this scenery upon the character, the imagination,
+the taste of the Athenians must have been immense.
+Under the influence of such sublime objects, the human mind
+becomes gifted as with inspiration, and is by nature filled with
+poetic images. "Greece became the birth-place of taste, of
+art, and eloquence, the chosen sanctuary of the muses, the prototype
+of all that is graceful, and dignified, and grand in sentiment
+and action."</p>
+
+<p>And now, if we have succeeded in clearly presenting and
+properly grouping the facts, and in estimating the influence of
+geographical position and surroundings on national character,
+we have secured the natural <i>criteria</i> by which we examine, and
+even correct the portraiture of the Athenian character usually
+presented by the historian.</p>
+
+<p>The character of the Athenians has been sketched by Plutarch<a id="footnotetag29" name="footnotetag29"></a>
+<a href="#footnote29"><sup class="sml">29</sup></a>
+with considerable minuteness, and his representations
+have been permitted, until of late years, to pass unchallenged.
+He has described them as at once passionate and placable,
+easily moved to anger, and as easily appeased; fond of pleasantry
+and repartee, and heartily enjoying a laugh; pleased to
+hear themselves praised, and yet not annoyed by criticism and
+censure; naturally generous towards those who were poor and
+in humble circumstances, and humane even towards their enemies;
+jealous of their liberties, and keeping even their rulers
+in awe. In regard to their intellectual traits, he affirms their
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="45">45</a></span>
+minds were not formed for laborious research, and though they
+seized a subject as it were by intuition, yet wanted patience and
+perseverance for a thorough examination of all its bearings.
+"An observation," says the writer of the article on "<i>Attica</i>,"
+in the Encyclopædia Britannica, "more superficial in itself, and
+arguing a greater ignorance of the Athenians, can not easily be
+imagined." Plutarch lived more than three hundred years
+after the palmy days of the Athenian Demos had passed away.
+He was a Bœotian by birth, not an Attic, and more of a Roman
+than a Greek in all his sympathies. We are tempted to regard
+him as writing under the influence of prejudice, if not of envy.
+He was scarcely reliable as a biographer, and as materials for
+history his "Parallel Lives" have been pronounced "not altogether
+trustworthy."<a id="footnotetag30" name="footnotetag30"></a>
+<a href="#footnote30"><sup class="sml">30</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote29"
+name="footnote29"><b>Footnote 29: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag29">
+(return) </a> "De Præcept."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote30"
+name="footnote30"><b>Footnote 30: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag30">
+(return) </a> <i>Encyc. of Biography</i>, art. "Plutarch."</blockquote>
+
+<p>That the Athenians were remarkable for the ardor and vivacity
+of their temperament,--that they were liable to sudden
+gusts of passion,--that they were inconstant in their affections,
+intolerant of dictation, impatient of control, and hasty to resent
+every assumption of superiority,--that they were pleased with
+flattery, and too ready to lend a willing ear to the adulation of
+the demagogue,--and that they were impetuous and brave,
+yet liable to be excessively elated by success, and depressed
+by misfortune, we may readily believe, because such traits of
+character are in perfect harmony with all the facts and conclusions
+already presented. Such characteristics were the natural
+product of the warm and genial sunlight, the elastic bracing air,
+the ethereal skies, the glorious mountain scenery, and the elaborate
+blending of sea and land, so peculiar to Greece and the
+whole of Southern Europe.<a id="footnotetag31" name="footnotetag31"></a>
+<a href="#footnote31"><sup class="sml">31</sup></a> These characteristics were shared
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="46" >46</a></span>
+in a greater or less degree by all the nations of Southern Europe
+in ancient times, and they are still distinctive traits in the
+Frenchman, the Italian, and the modern Greek.<a id="footnotetag32" name="footnotetag32"></a>
+<a href="#footnote32"><sup class="sml">32</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote31"
+name="footnote31"><b>Footnote 31: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag31">
+(return) </a> "As the skies of Hellas surpassed nearly all other climates in brightness
+and elasticity, so, also, had nature dealt most lovingly with the inhabitants
+of this land. Throughout the whole being of the Greek there reigned
+supreme a quick susceptibility, out of which sprang a gladsome serenity of
+temper, and a keen enjoyment of life; acute sense, and nimbleness of apprehension;
+a guileless and child-like feeling, full of trust and faith, combined
+with prudence and forecast. These peculiarities lay so deeply imbedded
+in the inmost nature of the Greeks that no revolutions of time and
+circumstances have yet been able to destroy them; nay, it may be asserted
+that even now, after centuries of degradation, they have not been wholly extinguished
+in the inhabitants of ancient Hellas."--"<i>Education of the Moral
+Sentiment amongst the Ancient Greeks</i>." By FREDERICK JACOBS, p. 320.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote32"
+name="footnote32"><b>Footnote 32: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag32">
+(return) </a> These are described by the modern historian and traveller as lively, versatile,
+and witty. "The love of liberty and independence does not seem to
+be rooted out of the national character by centuries of subjugation. They
+love to command; but though they are loyal to a good government, they
+are apt readily to rise when their rights and liberties are infringed. As
+there is little love of obedience among them, so neither is there any toleration
+of aristocratic pretensions."--<i>Encyc. Brit.</i>, art. "Greece."</blockquote>
+
+<p>The consciousness of power, the feeling of independence,
+the ardent love of freedom induced in the Athenian mind by
+the objective freedom of movement which his geographical position
+afforded, and that subordination and subserviency of
+physical nature to man so peculiar to Greece, determined the
+democratic character of all their political institutions. And
+these institutions reacted upon the character of the people and
+intensified their love of liberty. This passionate love of personal
+freedom, amounting almost to disease, excited them to a
+constant and almost distressing vigilance. And it is not to be
+wondered at if it displayed itself in an extreme jealousy of their
+rulers, an incessant supervision and criticism of all their proceedings,
+and an intense and passionate hatred of tyrants and
+of tyranny. The popular legislator or the successful soldier
+might dare to encroach upon their liberties in the moment
+when the nation was intoxicated and dazzled with their genius,
+their prowess, and success; but a sudden revulsion of popular
+feeling, and an explosion of popular indignation, would overturn
+the one, and ostracism expel the other. Thus while inconstancy,
+and turbulence, and faction seem to have been inseparable
+from the democratic spirit, the Athenians were certainly
+constant in their love of liberty, faithful in their affection
+for their country,<a id="footnotetag33" name="footnotetag33"></a>
+<a href="#footnote33"><sup class="sml">33</sup></a> and invariable in their sympathy and admiration
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="47" >47</a></span>
+for that genius which shed glory upon their native land.
+And then they were ever ready to repair the errors, and make
+amends for the injustice committed under the influence of passionate
+excitement, or the headlong impetuosity of their too ardent
+temperament. The history of Greece supplies numerous
+illustrations of this spirit. The sentence of death which had
+been hastily passed on the inhabitants of Mytilene was, on sober
+reflection, revoked the following day. The immediate repentance
+and general sorrow which followed the condemnation
+of the ten generals, as also of Socrates, are notable instances.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote33"
+name="footnote33"><b>Footnote 33: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag33">
+(return) </a> When immense bribes were offered by the king of Persia to induce the
+Athenians to detach themselves from the alliance with the rest of the
+Hellenic States, she answered by the mouth of Aristides "that it was impossible
+for all the gold in the world to tempt the Republic of Athens, or prevail
+with it to sell its liberty and that of Greece!"</blockquote>
+
+<p>In their private life the Athenians were courteous, generous,
+and humane. Whilst bold and free in the expression of their
+opinions, they paid the greatest attention to rules of politeness,
+and were nicely delicate on points of decorum. They had a
+natural sense of what was becoming and appropriate, and an
+innate aversion to all extravagance. A graceful demeanor and
+a quiet dignity were distinguishing traits of Athenian character.
+They were temperate and frugal<a id="footnotetag34" name="footnotetag34"></a>
+<a href="#footnote34"><sup class="sml">34</sup></a> in their habits, and little addicted
+to ostentation and display. Even after their victories had
+brought them into contact with Oriental luxury and extravagance,
+and their wealth enabled them to rival, in costliness and
+splendor, the nations they had conquered, they still maintained
+a republican simplicity. The private dwellings of the principal
+citizens were small, and usually built of clay; their interior embellishments
+also were insignificant--the house of Polytion alone
+formed an exception.<a id="footnotetag35" name="footnotetag35"></a>
+<a href="#footnote35"><sup class="sml">35</sup></a> All their sumptuousness and magnificence
+were reserved for and lavished on their public edifices
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="48">48</a></span>
+and monuments of art, which made Athens the pride of Greece
+and the wonder of the world. Intellectually, the Athenians
+were remarkable for their quickness of apprehension, their nice
+and delicate perception, their intuitional power, and their versatile
+genius. Nor were they at all incapable of pursuing laborious
+researches, or wanting in persevering application and industry,
+notwithstanding Plutarch's assertion to the contrary.
+The circumstances of every-day life in Attica, the conditions
+which surrounded the Athenian from childhood to age, were
+such as to call for the exercise of these qualities of mind in the
+highest degree. Habits of patient industry were induced in
+the Athenian character by the poverty and comparative barrenness
+of the soil, demanding greater exertion to supply their
+natural wants. And an annual period of dormancy, though unaccompanied
+by the rigors of a northern winter, called for prudence
+in husbanding, and forethought and skill in endeavoring
+to increase their natural resources. The aspects of nature
+were less massive and awe-inspiring, her features more subdued,
+and her areas more circumscribed and broken, inviting and
+emboldening man to attempt her conquest. The whole tendency
+of natural phenomena in Greece was to restrain the imagination,
+and discipline the observing and reasoning faculties
+in man. Thus was man inspired with confidence in his own
+resources, and allured to cherish an inquisitive, analytic, and
+scientific spirit. "The French, in point of national character,
+hold nearly the same relative place amongst the nations of Europe
+that the Athenians held amongst the States of Ancient
+Greece." And whilst it is admitted the French are quick,
+sprightly, vivacious, perhaps sometimes light even to frivolity, it
+must be conceded they have cultivated the natural and exact
+sciences with a patience, and perseverance, and success unsurpassed
+by any of the nations of Europe. And so the Athenians
+were the Frenchmen of Greece. Whilst they spent their
+"leisure time"<a id="footnotetag36" name="footnotetag36"></a>
+<a href="#footnote36"><sup class="sml">36</sup></a> in the place of public resort, the porticoes and
+groves, "hearing and telling the latest news" (no undignified
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="49" >49</a></span>
+or improper mode of recreation in a city where newspapers
+were unknown), whilst they are condemned as "garrulous,"
+"frivolous," "full of curiosity," and "restlessly fond of novelties,"
+we must insist that a love of study, of patient thought
+and profound research, was congenial to their natural temperament,
+and that an inquisitive and analytic spirit, as well as a
+taste for subtile and abstract speculation, were inherent in the
+national character. The affluence, and fullness, and flexibility,
+and sculpture-like finish of the language of the Attics, which
+leaves far behind not only the languages of antiquity, but also
+the most cultivated of modern times, is an enduring monument
+of the patient industry of the Athenians.<a id="footnotetag37" name="footnotetag37"></a>
+<a href="#footnote37"><sup class="sml">37</sup></a> Language is unquestionably
+the highest creation of reason, and in the language
+of a nation we can see reflected as in a mirror the amount of
+culture to which it has attained. The rare balance of the imagination
+and the reasoning powers, in which the perfection of
+the human intellect is regarded as consisting, the exact correspondence
+between the thought and the expression, "the free
+music of prosaic numbers in the most diversified forms of style,"
+the calmness, and perspicuity, and order, even in the stormiest
+moments of inspiration, revealed in every department of Greek
+literature, were not a mere happy stroke of chance, but a product
+of unwearied effort--and effort too which was directed by
+the criteria which reason supplied. The plastic art of Greece,
+which after the lapse of ages still stands forth in unrivalled
+beauty, so that, in presence of the eternal models it created,
+the modern artist feels the painful lack of progress was not
+a spontaneous outburst of genius, but the result of intense
+application and unwearied discipline. The achievements of
+the philosophic spirit, the ethical and political systems of the
+Academy, the Lyceum, the Stoa, and the Garden, the anticipations,
+scattered here and there like prophetic hints, of some of
+the profoundest discoveries of "inductive science" in more
+modern days,--all these are an enduring protest against the
+strange misrepresentations of Plutarch.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote34"
+name="footnote34"><b>Footnote 34: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag34">
+(return) </a> These are still characteristics of the Greeks. "They are an exceedingly
+temperate people; drunkenness is a vice remarkably rare amongst
+them; their food also is spare and simple; even the richest are content
+with a dish of vegetables for each meal, and the poor with a handful of olives
+or a piece of salt fish.... All other pleasures are indulged with similar propriety;
+their passions are moderate, and insanity is almost unknown amongst
+them."--<i>Encyc. Brit.</i>, art. "Greece."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote35"
+name="footnote34"><b>Footnote 35: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag35">
+(return) </a> Niebuhr's Lectures, vol. i. p. 101.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote36"
+name="footnote36"><b>Footnote 36: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag36">
+(return) </a> Εύκαιρέω corresponds exactly to the Latin <i>vacare</i>, "to be at leisure."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote37"
+name="footnote37"><b>Footnote 37: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag37">
+(return) </a> Frederick Jacobs, on "Study of Classic Antiquity," p. 57.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="50">50</a></span>
+
+<p>In Athens there existed a providential collocation of the
+most favorable conditions in which humanity can be placed for
+securing its highest natural development. Athenian civilization
+is the solution, on the theatre of history, of the problem--What
+degree of perfection can humanity, under the most favorable
+conditions, attain, without the supernatural light, and
+guidance, and grace of Christianity?<a id="footnotetag38" name="footnotetag38"></a>
+<a href="#footnote38"><sup class="sml">38</sup></a> "Like their own goddess
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="51" >51</a></span>
+Athene the people of Athens seem to spring full-armed
+into the arena of history, and we look in vain to Egypt, Syria,
+and India, for more than a few seeds that burst into such marvellous
+growth on the soil of Attica."<a id="footnotetag39" name="footnotetag39"></a>
+<a href="#footnote39"><sup class="sml">39</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote38"
+name="footnote38"><b>Footnote 38: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag38">
+(return) </a> It has been asserted by some theological writers, Watson for example,
+that no society of civilized men has been, or can be constituted without the
+aid of a religion directly communicated by revelation, and transmitted by
+oral tradition;--"that it is possible to raise a body of men into that degree
+of civil improvement which would excite the passion for philosophic investigation,
+without the aid of religion... can have no proof, and is contradicted
+by every fact and analogy with which we are acquainted." (<i>Institutes</i>, vol.
+i. p. 271; see also Archbishop Whately, "Dissertation," etc., vol. i. <i>Encyc.
+Brit.</i>, p. 449-455).
+
+<p>The fallacy of the reasoning by which this doctrine is sought to be sustained
+is found in the assumption "that to all our race the existence of a
+First Cause is a question of philosophy," and that the idea of God lies at
+the end of "a gradual process of inquiry" and induction, for which a high
+degree of "scientific culture" is needed. Whereas the idea of a First Cause
+lies at the beginning, not at the end of philosophy; and philosophy is simply
+the analysis of our natural consciousness of God, and the presentation of
+the idea in a logical form. Faith in the existence of God is not the result
+of a conscious process of reflection; it is the spontaneous and instinctive
+logic of the human mind, which, in view of phenomena presented to sense,
+by a necessary law of thought immediately and intuitively affirms a personal
+Power, an intelligent Mind as the author. In this regard, there is no difference
+between men except the clearness with which they apprehend, and the
+logical account they can render to themselves, of this instinctive belief.
+Spontaneous intuition, says Cousin, is the genius of all men; reflection the
+genius of few men. "But Leibnitz had no more confidence in the principle
+of causality, and even in his favorite principle of sufficient reason, than the
+most ignorant of men;" the latter have this principle within them, as a law
+of thought, controlling their conception of the universe, and doing this almost
+unconsciously; the former, by an analysis of thought, succeeded in defining
+and formulating the ideas and laws which necessitate the cognition of
+a God. The function of philosophy is simply to transform ἀληθὴς δόξα into
+ίτιστήµη--right opinion into science,--to elucidate and logically present the
+immanent thought which lies in the universal consciousness of man.</p>
+
+<p>That the possession of the idea of God is essential to the social and moral
+elevation of man,--that is, to the civilization of our race, is most cheerfully
+conceded. That humanity has an end and destination which can only be
+secured by the true knowledge of God, and by a participation of the nature
+of God, is equally the doctrine of Plato and of Christ. Now, if humanity
+has a special end and destination, it must have some instinctive tendings,
+some spermatic ideas, some original forces or laws, which determine it towards
+that end. All development supposes some original elements to be
+unfolded or developed. Civilization is but the development of humanity according
+to its primal idea and law, and under the best exterior conditions.
+That the original elements of humanity were unfolded in some noble degree
+under the influence of philosophy is clear from the history of Greece; there
+the most favorable natural conditions for that development existed, and
+Christianity alone was needed to crown the result with ideal perfection.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote39"
+name="footnote39"><b>Footnote 39: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag39">
+(return) </a> Max Muller, "Science of Language," p. 404, 2d series.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Here the most perfect ideals of beauty and excellence in
+physical development, in manners, in plastic art, in literary
+creations, were realized. The songs of Homer, the dialogues
+of Plato, the speeches of Demosthenes, and the statues of Phidias,
+if not unrivalled, are at least unsurpassed by any thing that
+has been achieved by their successors. Literature in its most
+flourishing periods has rekindled its torch at her altars, and art
+has looked back to the age of Pericles for her purest models.
+Here the ideas of personal liberty, of individual rights, of freedom
+in thought and action, had a wonderful expansion. Here
+the lasting foundations of the principal arts and sciences were
+laid, and in some of them triumphs were achieved which have
+not been eclipsed. Here the sun of human reason attained a
+meridian splendor, and illuminated every field in the domain
+of moral truth. And here humanity reached the highest degree
+of civilization of which it is capable under purely <i>natural</i> conditions.</p>
+
+<p>And now, the question with which we are more immediately
+concerned is, what were the specific and valuable results attained
+by the Athenian mind in <i>religion</i> and <i>philosophy</i>, the two
+momenta of the human mind? This will be the subject of discussion
+in subsequent chapters.</p>
+
+<p>The order in which the discussion shall proceed is determined
+for us by the natural development of thought. The two
+fundamental momenta of thought and its development are spontaneity
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="52" >52</a></span>
+and reflection, and the two essential forms they assume
+are religion and philosophy. In the natural order of thought
+spontaneity is first, and reflection succeeds spontaneous thought.
+And so religion is first developed, and subsequently comes philosophy.
+As religion supposes spontaneous intuition, so philosophy
+has religion for its basis, but upon this basis it is developed
+in an original manner. "Turn your attention to history,
+that living image of thought: everywhere you perceive religions
+and philosophies: everywhere you see them produced in an invariable
+order. Everywhere religion appears with new societies,
+and everywhere, just so far as societies advance, from religion
+springs philosophy."<a id="footnotetag40" name="footnotetag40"></a>
+<a href="#footnote40"><sup class="sml">40</sup></a> This was pre-eminently the case
+in Athens, and we shall therefore direct our attention first to
+the Religion of the Athenians.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote40"
+name="footnote40"><b>Footnote 40: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag40">
+(return) </a> Cousin, "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 302.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="53">53</a></span>
+<br>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<h3>THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.</h3>
+
+<blockquote>
+All things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness in religion
+δεισιδαιµονεστέροις.--ST. PAUL.
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>As a prelude and preparation for the study of the religion
+of the Athenians, it may be well to consider religion in its
+more abstract and universal form; and inquire in what does
+religion essentially consist; how far is it grounded in the nature
+of man; and especially, what is there in the mental constitution
+of man, or in his exterior conditions, which determines
+him to a mode of life which may be denominated <i>religious?</i>
+As a preliminary inquiry, this may materially aid us in understanding
+the nature, and estimating the value of the religious
+conceptions and sentiments which were developed by the Greek
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>Religion, in its most generic conception, may be defined as
+a form of thought, feeling, and action, which has the <i>Divine</i> for
+its object, basis, and end. Or, in other words, it is a mode of
+life determined by the recognition of some relation to, and consciousness
+of dependence upon, a <i>Supreme Being</i>. This general
+conception of religion underlies all the specific forms of
+religion which have appeared in the world, whether heathen,
+Jewish, Mohammedan, or Christian.</p>
+
+<p>That a religious destination appertains to man as man,
+whether he has been raised to a full religious consciousness, or
+is simply considered as capable of being so raised, can not be
+denied. In all ages man has revealed an instinctive tendency,
+or natural aptitude for religion, and he has developed feelings
+and emotions which have always characterized him as a religious
+being. Religious ideas and sentiments have prevailed
+among all nations, and have exerted a powerful influence on
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="54" >54</a></span>
+the entire course of human history. Religious worship, addressed
+to a Supreme Being believed to control the destiny of
+man, has been coeval and coextensive with the race. Every
+nation has had its mythology, and each mythologic system has
+been simply an effort of humanity to realize and embody in
+some visible form the relations in which it feels itself to be
+connected with an external, overshadowing, and all-controlling
+Power and Presence. The voice of all ancient, and all contemporaneous
+history, clearly attests that the <i>religious principle</i>
+is deeply seated in the nature of man; and that it has occupied
+the thought, and stirred the feelings of every rational man, in
+every age. It has interwoven itself with the entire framework
+of human society, and ramified into all the relations of human
+life. By its agency, nations have been revolutionized, and empires
+have been overthrown; and it has formed a mighty element
+in all the changes which have marked the history of man.</p>
+
+<p>This universality of religious sentiment and religious worship
+must be conceded as a fact of human nature, and, as a
+universal fact, it demands an explanation. Every event must
+have a cause. Every phenomenon must have its ground, and
+reason, and law. The facts of religious history, the past and
+present religious phenomena of the world can be no exception
+to this fundamental principle; they press their imperious demand
+to be studied and explained, as much as the phenomena
+of the material or the events of the moral world. The phenomena
+of religion, being universally revealed wherever man
+is found, must be grounded in some universal principle, on
+some original law, which is connate with, and natural to man.
+At any rate, there must be something in the nature of man, or
+in the exterior conditions of humanity, which invariably leads
+man to worship, and which determines him, as by the force of
+an original instinct, or an outward, conditioning necessity, to
+recognize and bow down before a Superior Power. The full
+recognition and adequate explanation of the facts of religious
+history will constitute a <i>philosophy of religion</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The hypotheses which have been offered in explanation of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="55" >55</a></span>
+the religious phenomena of the world are widely divergent, and
+most of them are, in our judgment, eminently inadequate and
+unsatisfactory. The following enumeration may be regarded
+as embracing all that are deemed worthy of consideration.</p>
+
+<p>I. The phenomenon of religion had its origin in SUPERSTITION,
+that is, in a <i>fear</i> of invisible and supernatural powers,
+generated by ignorance of nature.</p>
+
+<p>II. The phenomenon of religion is part of that PROCESS or
+EVOLUTION OF THE ABSOLUTE (i.e., the Deity), which gradually
+unfolding itself in nature, mind, history, and <i>religion</i>, attains to
+perfect self-consciousness in philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>III. The phenomenon of religion has its foundation in FEELING--<i>the
+feeling of dependence and of obligation</i>; and that to
+which the mind, by spontaneous intuition or instinctive faith,
+traces this dependence and obligation we call God.</p>
+
+<p>IV. The phenomenon of religion had its outbirth in the
+spontaneous apperceptions of REASON, that is, the necessary <i>à
+priori ideas of the Infinite, the Perfect, the Unconditioned Cause,
+the Eternal Being</i>, which are evoked into consciousness in presence
+of the changeful and contingent phenomena of the world.</p>
+
+<p>V. The phenomenon of religion had its origin in EXTERNAL
+REVELATION, to which <i>reason</i> is related as a purely passive organ,
+and <i>heathenism</i> as a feeble relic.</p>
+
+<p>As a philosophy of religion--an attempt to supply the rationale
+of the religious phenomena of the world, the first hypothesis
+is a skeptical philosophy, which necessarily leads to
+<i>Atheism</i>. The second is an idealistic philosophy (absolute
+idealism), which inevitably lands in <i>Pantheism</i>. The third is
+an intuitional or "faith-philosophy," which finally ends in <i>Mysticism</i>.
+The fourth is a rationalistic or "spiritualistic" philosophy,
+which yields pure <i>Theism</i>. The last is an empirical philosophy,
+which derives all religion from instruction, and culminates
+in <i>Dogmatic Theology</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In view of these diverse and conflicting theories, the question
+which now presents itself for our consideration is,--does
+any one of these hypotheses meet and satisfy the demands of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="56" >56</a></span>
+the problem? does it fully account for and adequately explain
+all the facts of religious history? The answer to this question
+must not be hastily or dogmatically given. The arbitrary rejection
+of any theory that may be offered, without a fair and
+candid examination, will leave our minds in uncertainty and
+doubt as to the validity of our own position. A blind faith is
+only one remove from a pusillanimous skepticism. We can
+not render our own position secure except by comprehending,
+assaulting, and capturing the position of our foe. It is, therefore,
+due to ourselves and to the cause of truth, that we shall
+examine the evidence upon which each separate theory is based,
+and the arguments which are marshalled in its support, before
+we pronounce it inadequate and unphilosophical. Such
+a criticism of opposite theories will prepare the way for the
+presentation of a philosophy of religion which we flatter ourselves
+will be found most in harmony with all the facts of the
+case.</p>
+
+<p>I. <i>It is affirmed that the religious phenomena of the world had
+their origin in</i> SUPERSTITION, <i>that is, in a fear of unseen and supernatural
+powers, generated from ignorance of nature</i>.</p>
+
+<p>This explanation was first offered by Epicurus. He felt
+that the universality of the religious sentiment is a fact which
+demands a cause; and he found it, or presumed he found it
+not in a spiritual God, which he claims can not exist, nor in
+corporeal god which no one has seen, but in "phantoms of the
+mind generated by fear." When man has been unable to explain
+any natural phenomenon, to assign a cause within the
+sphere of nature, he has had recourse to supernatural powers,
+or living personalities behind nature, which move and control
+nature in an arbitrary and capricious manner. These imaginary
+powers are supposed to be continually interfering in the affairs
+of individuals and nations. They bestow blessings or inflict
+calamities. They reward virtue and punish vice. They
+are, therefore, the objects of "sacred awe" and "superstitious
+fear."</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="57" >57</a></span>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i30">                      Whate'er in heaven,</p>
+<p class="i10">In earth, man sees mysterious, shakes his mind</p>
+<p class="i10">With sacred awe o'erwhelms him, and his soul</p>
+<p class="i10">Bows to the dust; the cause of things conceal</p>
+<p class="i10">Once from his vision, instant to the gods</p>
+<p class="i10">All empire he transfers, all rule supreme,</p>
+<p class="i10">And doubtful whence they spring, with headlong haste</p>
+<p class="i10">Calls them the workmanship of power divine.</p>
+<p class="i10">For he who, justly, deems the Immortals live</p>
+<p class="i10">Safe, and at ease, yet fluctuates in his mind</p>
+<p class="i10">How things are swayed; how, chiefly, those discerned</p>
+<p class="i10">In heaven sublime--to SUPERSTITION back</p>
+<p class="i10">Lapses, and fears a tyrant host, and then</p>
+<p class="i10">Conceives, dull reasoner, they can all things do,</p>
+<p class="i10">While yet himself nor knows what may be done,</p>
+<p class="i10">Nor what may never, nature powers defined</p>
+<p class="i10">Stamping on all, and bounds that none can pass:
+<p class="i10">Hence wide, and wider errs he as he walks.<a id="footnotetag41" name="footnotetag41"></a>
+<a href="#footnote41"><sup class="sml">41</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote41"
+name="footnote41"><b>Footnote 41: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag41">
+(return) </a> Lucretius, "De Natura Rerum," book vi. vs. 50-70.</blockquote>
+
+<p>In order to rid men of all superstitious fear, and, consequently,
+of all religion, Epicurus endeavors to show that "nature"
+alone is adequate to the production of all things, and
+there is no need to drag in a "divine power" to explain the
+phenomena of the world.</p>
+
+<p>This theory has been wrought into a somewhat plausible
+form by the brilliant and imposing generalizations of Aug.
+Comte. The religious phenomena of the world are simply one
+stage in the necessary development of mind, whether in the individual
+or the race. He claims to have been the first to discover
+the great law of the three successive stages or phases of
+human evolution. That law is thus enounced. Both in the
+individual mind, and in the history of humanity, thought, in
+dealing with its problems, passes, of necessity, through, first, a
+<i>Theological</i>, second, a <i>Metaphysical</i>, and finally reaches a third,
+or <i>Positive</i> stage.</p>
+
+<p>In attempting an explanation of the universe, human
+thought, in its earliest stages of development, resorts to the
+idea of living personal agents enshrined in and moving every
+object, whether organic or inorganic, natural or artificial. In
+an advanced stage, it conceives a number of personal beings
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="58" >58</a></span>
+distinct from, and superior to nature, which preside over the
+different provinces of nature--the sea, the air, the winds, the
+rivers, the heavenly bodies, and assume the guardianship of individuals,
+tribes, and nations. As a further, and still higher
+stage, it asserts the unity of the Supreme Power which moves
+and vitalizes the universe, and guides and governs in the affairs
+of men and nations. The <i>Theological</i> stage is thus subdivided
+into three epochs, and represented as commencing in <i>Fetichism</i>,
+then advancing to <i>Polytheism</i>, and, finally, consummating in
+<i>Monotheism</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The next stage, the <i>Metaphysical</i>, is a transitional stage, in
+which man substitutes abstract entities, as substance, force,
+Being <i>in se</i>, the Infinite, the Absolute, in the place of theological
+conceptions. During this period all theological opinions
+undergo a process of disintegration, and lose their hold on
+the mind of man. Metaphysical speculation is a powerful solvent,
+which decomposes and dissipates theology.</p>
+
+<p>It is only in the last--the <i>Positive</i> stage--that man becomes
+willing to relinquish all theological ideas and metaphysical notions,
+and confine his attention to the study of phenomena in
+their relation to time and space; discarding all inquiries as to
+causes, whether efficient or final, and denying the existence of
+all entities and powers beyond nature.</p>
+
+<p>The first stage, in its religious phase, is <i>Theistic</i>, the second
+is <i>Pantheistic</i>, the last is <i>Atheistic</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The proofs offered by Comte in support of this theory are
+derived:</p>
+
+<p>I. <i>From Cerebral Organization</i>. There are three grand divisions
+of the Brain, the Medulla Oblongata, the Cerebellum,
+and the Cerebrum; the first represents the merely animal instincts
+the second, the more elevated sentiments, the third,
+the intellectual powers. Human nature must, therefore, both
+in the individual and in the race, be developed in the following
+order: (1.) in animal instincts; (2.) in social affections and
+communal tendencies; (3.) in intellectual pursuits. Infant life
+is a merely animal existence, shared in common with the brute;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="59" >59</a></span>
+in childhood the individual being realizes his relation to external
+nature and human society; in youth and manhood he compares,
+generalizes, and classifies the objects of knowledge, and
+attains to science. And so the infancy of our race was a mere
+animal or savage state, the childhood of our race the organization
+of society, the youth and manhood of our race the development
+of science.</p>
+
+<p>Now, without offering any opinion as to the merits of the
+phrenological theories of Gall and Spurzheim, we may ask,
+what relation has this order to the law of development presented
+by Comte? Is there any imaginable connection between
+animal propensities and theological ideas; between social affections
+and metaphysical speculations? Are not the intellectual
+powers as much concerned with theological ideas and metaphysical
+speculations as with positive science? And is it not
+more probable, more in accordance with facts, that all the powers
+of the mind, instinct, feeling, and thought, enter into action
+simultaneously, and condition each other? The very first act
+of perception, the first distinct cognition of an object, involves
+<i>thought</i> as much as the last generalization of science. We
+know nothing of <i>mind</i> except as the development of thought,
+and the first unfolding, even of the infant mind, reveals an intellectual
+act, a discrimination between a self and an object
+which is not self, and a recognition of resemblance, or difference
+between <i>this</i> object and <i>that</i>. And what does Positive
+science, in its most mature and perfect form, claim to do more
+than "to study actual phenomena in their orders of resemblance,
+coexistence, and succession."</p>
+
+<p>Cerebral organization may furnish plausible analogies in favor
+of some theory of human development, but certainly not
+the one proposed by Aug. Comte. The attempt, however, to
+construct a chart of human history on such an <i>à priori</i> method,--to
+construct an ideal framework into which human nature
+must necessarily grow, is a violation of the first and most
+fundamental principle of the Positive science, which demands
+that we shall confine ourselves strictly to the study of actual
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="60" >60</a></span>
+phenomena in their orders of resemblance, coexistence, and
+succession. The history of the human race must be based on
+facts, not on hypotheses, and the facts must be ascertained by
+the study of ancient records and existing monuments of the
+past. Mere plausible analogies and <i>à priori</i> theories based
+upon them, are only fitted to mislead the mind; they insert a
+prism between the perceiving mind and the course of events
+which decomposes the pure white light of fact, and throws a
+false light over the entire field of history.</p>
+
+<p>2. <i>The second order of proof is attempted to be drawn from the
+analogies of individual experience</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is claimed that the history of the race is the same as that
+of each individual mind; and it is affirmed that man is <i>religious</i>
+in infancy, <i>metaphysical</i> in youth, and <i>positive</i>, that is, scientific
+without being religious, in mature manhood; the history of the
+race must therefore have followed the same order.</p>
+
+<p>We are under no necessity of denying that there is some
+analogy between the development of mind in the individual
+man, and in humanity as a whole, in order to refute the theory
+of Comte. Still, it must not be overlooked that the development
+of mind, in all cases and in all ages, is materially affected
+by exterior conditions. The influence of geographical and climatic
+conditions, of social and national institutions, and especially
+of education, however difficult to be estimated, can not be
+utterly disregarded. And whether all these influences have
+not been controlled, and collocated, and adjusted by a Supreme
+Mind in the education of humanity, is also a question which
+can not be pushed aside as of no consequence. Now, unless it
+can be shown that the same outward conditions which have accompanied
+the individual and modified his mental development,
+have been repealed in the history of the race, and repeated in
+the same order of succession, the argument has no value.</p>
+
+<p>But, even supposing it could be shown that the development
+of mind in humanity has followed the same order as that of the
+individual, we confidently affirm that Comte has not given the
+true history of the development of the individual mind. The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="61" >61</a></span>
+account he has given may perhaps be the history of his own
+mental progress, but it certainly is not the history of every individual
+mind, nor indeed, of a majority even, of educated
+minds that have arrived at maturity. It would be much more
+in harmony with facts to say childhood is the period of pure
+receptivity, youth of doubt and skepticism, and maturity of well-grounded
+and rational belief. In the ripeness and maturity of
+the nineteenth century the number of scientific men of the
+Comtean model is exceedingly small compared with the number
+of religious men. There are minds in every part of Europe
+and America as thoroughly scientific as that of Comte, and as
+deeply imbued with the spirit of the Inductive Philosophy, which
+are not conscious of any discordance between the facts of science
+and the fundamental principles of theology. It may be
+that, in his own immediate circle at Paris there may be a tendency
+to Atheism, but certainly no such tendency exists in the
+most scientific minds of Europe and America. The faith of Bacon,
+and Newton, and Boyle, of Descartes, Leibnitz, and Pascal,
+in regard to the fundamental principles of theology, is still the
+faith of Sedgwick, Whewell, Herschel, Brewster, Owen, Agassiz,
+Silliman, Mitchell, Hitchcock, Dana, and, indeed of the leading
+scientific minds of the world--the men who, as Comte
+would say, "belong to the élite of humanity." The mature
+mind, whether of the individual or the race, is not Atheistical.</p>
+
+<p>3. <i>The third proof is drawn from a survey of the history of certain
+portions of our race.</i></p>
+
+<p>Comte is far from being assured that the progress of humanity,
+under the operation of his grand law of development,
+has been uniform and invariable. The majority of the human
+race, the vast populations of India, China, and Japan, have remained
+stationary; they are still in the Theological stage, and
+consequently furnish no evidence in support of his theory. For
+this reason he confines himself to the "élite" or advance-guard
+of humanity, and in this way makes the history of humanity a
+very "abstract history" indeed. Starting with Greece as the
+representative of ancient civilization, passing thence to Roman
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="62" >62</a></span>
+civilization, and onward to Western Europe, he attempts to
+show that the actual progress of humanity has been, on the
+whole, in conformity with his law. To secure, however, even
+this semblance of harmony between the facts of history and his
+hypothetical law, he has to treat the facts very much as Procrustes
+treated his victims,--he must stretch some, and mutilate
+others, so as to make their forms fit the iron bed. The
+natural organization of European civilization is distorted and
+torn asunder. "As the third or positive stage had accomplished
+its advent in his own person, it was necessary to find
+the metaphysical period just before; and so the whole life of
+the Reformed Christianity, in embryo and in manifest existence,
+is stripped of its garb of <i>faith</i>, and turned out of view as
+a naked metaphysical phenomenon. But metaphysics, again,
+have to be ushered in by theology; and of the three stages of
+theology Monotheism is the last, necessarily following on Polytheism,
+as that, again, on Fetichism. There is nothing for it,
+therefore, but to let the mediæval Catholic Christianity stand
+as the world's first monotheism, and to treat it as the legitimate
+offspring and necessary development of the Greek and Roman
+polytheism. This, accordingly, Comte actually does. Protestantism
+he illegitimates, and outlaws from religion altogether,
+and the genuine Christianity he fathers upon the faith of Homer
+and the Scipios! Once or twice, indeed, it seems to cross
+him that there was such a people as the Hebrews, and that
+they were not the polytheists they ought to have been. He
+sees the fact, but pushes it out of his way with the remark that
+the Jewish monotheism was 'premature.'"<a id="footnotetag42" name="footnotetag42"></a>
+<a href="#footnote42"><sup class="sml">42</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote42"
+name="footnote42"><b>Footnote 42: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag42">
+(return) </a> Martineau's Essays, pp. 61, 62.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The signal defect of Comte's historical survey, however, is,
+that it furnishes no evidence of the general prevalence of Fetichism
+in primitive times. The writings of Moses are certainly
+entitled to as much consideration and credence as the writings
+of Berosus, Manetho, and Herodotus; and, it will not be denied,
+they teach that the faith of the earliest families and races of
+men was <i>monotheistic</i>. The early Vedas, the Institutes of Menu,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="63" >63</a></span>
+the writings of Confucius, the Zendavesta, all bear testimony
+that the ancient faith of India, China, and Persia, was, at any
+rate, pantheistic; and learned and trustworthy critics, Asiatic
+as well as European, confidently affirm that the ground of the
+Brahminical, Buddhist, and Parsist faith is <i>monotheistic</i>; and
+that <i>one</i> Being is assumed, in the earliest books, to be the
+origin of all things.<a id="footnotetag43" name="footnotetag43"></a>
+<a href="#footnote43"><sup class="sml">43</sup></a> Without evidence, Comte assumes that
+the savage state is the original condition of man; and instead
+of going to Asia, the cradle of the race, for some light as to the
+early condition and opinions of the remotest families of men,
+he turns to Africa, the <i>soudan</i> of the earth, for his illustration
+of the habit of man, in the infancy of our race, to endow every
+object in nature, whether organic or inorganic, with life and intelligence.
+The theory of a primitive state of ignorance and
+barbarism is a mere assumption--an hypothesis in conflict with
+the traditionary legends of all nations, the earliest records of
+our race, and the unanimous voice of antiquity, which attest the
+general belief in a primitive state of light and innocence.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote43"
+name="footnote43"><b>Footnote 43: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag43">
+(return) </a> "The Religions of the World in their Relation to Christianity" (Maurice,
+ch. ii., iii., iv.).</blockquote>
+
+<p>The three stages of development which Comte describes as
+necessarily successive, have, for centuries past, been simultaneous.
+The theological, the metaphysical, and the scientific elements
+coexist now, and there is no real, radical, or necessary
+conflict between them. Theological and metaphysical ideas
+hold their ground as securely under the influence of enlarged
+scientific discovery as before; and there is no reason to suppose
+they ever had more power over the mind of man than they
+have to-day. The notion that God is dethroned by the wonderful
+discoveries of modern science, and theology is dead, is the
+dream of the "<i>profond orage cérébral</i>" which interrupted the
+course of Comte's lectures in 1826. As easily may the hand
+of Positivism arrest the course of the sun, as prevent the instinctive
+thought of human reason recognizing and affirming
+the existence of a God. And so long as ever the human mind
+is governed by necessary laws of thought, so long will it seek...</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="64">64</a></span>
+
+<p>[Transcriber's note: In the original document, page 64 is a duplication of
+page 63. The real page 64 seems to be missing.]</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="65">65</a></span>
+
+<p>....eur, and consequently to develop its true philosophy. Its fundamental
+error is the assumption that all our knowledge is confined
+to the observation and classification of sensible phenomena--that
+is, to changes perceptible by the senses. Psychology,
+based, as it is, upon self-observation and self-reflection, is a
+"mere illusion; and logic and ethics, so far as they are built
+upon it as their foundation, are altogether baseless." Spiritual
+entities, forces, causes, efficient or final, are unknown and unknowable;
+all inquiry regarding them must be inhibited, "for
+Theology is inevitable if we permit the inquiry into causes at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>II. The second hypothesis offered in explanation of the facts
+of religious history is, <i>that religion is part of that</i> PROCESS OR EVOLUTION
+OF THE ABSOLUTE (<i>i.e.</i>, the Deity) <i>which, gradually unfolding
+itself in nature, mind, history, and religion, attains to the
+fullest self-consciousness in philosophy</i>.</p>
+
+<p>This is the theory of Hegel, in whose system of philosophy
+the subjective idealism of Kant culminates in the doctrine of
+"<i>Absolute Identity</i>." Its fundamental position is that thought
+and being, subject and object, the perceiving mind and the
+thing perceived, are ultimately and essentially <i>one</i>, and that the
+only actual reality is that which results from their mutual relation.
+The outward thing is nothing, the inward perception is
+nothing, for neither could exist alone; the only reality is the
+relation, or rather synthesis of the two; the essence or nature
+of being in itself accordingly consists in the coexistence of two
+contrarieties. Ideas, arising from the union or synthesis of two
+opposites, are therefore the <i>concrete realities</i> of Hegel; and the
+<i>process</i> of the evolution of ideas, in the human mind, is the process
+of all existence--<i>the Absolute Idea</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Absolute</i>(die Idée) thus forms the beginning, middle, and
+end of the system of Hegel. It is the one infinite existence or
+thought, of which nature, mind, history, religion, and philosophy,
+are the manifestation. "The absolute is, with him, not the
+infinite <i>substance</i>, as with Spinoza; nor the infinite <i>subject</i>, as
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="66">66</a></span>
+with Fichte; nor the infinite <i>mind</i>, as with Schelling; it is a
+perpetual <i>process</i>, an eternal thinking, without beginning and
+without end."<a id="footnotetag44" name="footnotetag44"></a>
+<a href="#footnote44"><sup class="sml">44</sup></a> This <i>living, eternal process of absolute existence
+is the God of Hegel</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It will thus be seen that the <i>Absolute</i> is, with Hegel, the sum
+of all actual and possible existence; "nothing is true and real
+except so far as it forms an element of the Absolute Spirit."<a id="footnotetag45" name="footnotetag45"></a>
+<a href="#footnote45"><sup class="sml">45</sup></a>
+"What kind of an Absolute Being," he asks, "is that which
+does not contain in itself all that is actual, even evil included?"<a id="footnotetag46" name="footnotetag46"></a>
+<a href="#footnote46"><sup class="sml">46</sup></a>
+The Absolute, therefore, in Hegel's conception, does not allow
+of any existence out of itself. It is the <i>unity</i> of the finite and
+the infinite, the eternal and the temporal, the ideal and the real,
+the subject and the object. And it is not only the unity of
+these opposites so as to exclude all difference, but it contains
+in itself, all the differences and opposites as elements of its being;
+otherwise the distinctions would stand over against
+absolute as a limit, and the absolute would cease to be absolute.</p>
+
+<p>God is, therefore, according to Hegel, "no motionless, eternally
+self-identical and unchangeable being, but a living, eternal
+<i>process</i> of absolute self-existence. This process consists in the
+eternal self-distinction, or antithesis, and equally self-reconciliation
+or synthesis of those opposites which enter, as necessary
+elements, into the constitution of the Divine Being. This <i>self-evolution</i>,
+whereby the absolute enters into antithesis, and returns
+to itself again, is the eternal <i>self-actualization</i> of its being,
+and which at once constitutes the beginning, middle, and
+end, as in the circle, where the beginning is at the same time the
+end, and the end the beginning."<a id="footnotetag47" name="footnotetag47"></a>
+<a href="#footnote47"><sup class="sml">47</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote44"
+name="footnote44"><b>Footnote 44: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag44">
+(return) </a> Morell, "Hist, of Philos., p. 461."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote45"
+name="footnote45"><b>Footnote 45: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag45">
+(return) </a> "Philos. of Religion," p. 204.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote46"
+name="footnote46"><b>Footnote 46: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag46">
+(return) </a> Ibid., chap. xi. p. 24.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote47"
+name="footnote47"><b>Footnote 47: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag47">
+(return) </a> Herzog's <i>Real-Encyc.</i>, art. "Hegelian Philos.," by Ulrici.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The whole philosophy of Hegel consists in the development
+of this idea of God by means of his, so-called, dialectic method,
+which reflects the objective life-process of the Absolute, and is,
+in fact, identical with it; for God, says he, "is only the Absolute
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="67" >67</a></span>
+Intelligence in so far as he knows himself to be the Absolute
+Intelligence, <i>and this he knows only in science</i> [dialectics],
+<i>and this knowledge alone constitutes his true existence.</i>"<a id="footnotetag48" name="footnotetag48"></a>
+<a href="#footnote48"><sup class="sml">48</sup></a> This
+life-process of the Absolute has three "moments." It may be
+considered as the idea <i>in itself</i>--bare, naked, undetermined, unconscious
+idea; as the idea <i>out of itself</i>, in its objective form,
+or in its differentiation; and, finally, as the idea <i>in itself</i>, and <i>for
+itself</i>, in its regressive or reflective form. This movement of
+thought gives, <i>first</i>, bare, naked, indeterminate thought, or
+thought in the mere antithesis of Being and non-Being; <i>secondly</i>,
+thought externalizing itself in nature; and, <i>thirdly</i>, thought
+returning to itself, and knowing itself in mind, or consciousness.
+Philosophy has, accordingly, three corresponding divisions:--1.
+LOGIC, which here is identical with metaphysics; 2. PHILOSOPHY
+OF NATURE; 3. PHILOSOPHY OF MIND.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote48"
+name="footnote48"><b>Footnote 48: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag48">
+(return) </a> "Hist, of Philos.," iii. p. 399.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It is beyond our design to present an expanded view of the
+entire philosophy of Hegel. But as he has given to the world
+a <i>new</i> logic, it may be needful to glance at its general features
+as a help to the comprehension of his philosophy of religion.
+The fundamental law of his logic is the <i>identity of contraries or
+contradictions</i>. All thought is a synthesis of contraries or opposites.
+This antithesis not only exists in all ideas, but constitutes
+them. In every idea we form, there must be <i>two</i> things
+opposed and distinguished, in order to afford a clear conception.
+Light can not be conceived but as the opposite of darkness;
+good can not be thought except in opposition to evil.
+All life, all reality is thus, essentially, the union of two elements,
+which, together, are mutually opposed to, and yet imply each
+other.</p>
+
+<p>The identity of Being and Nothing is one of the consequences
+of this law.</p>
+
+<p>1. <i>The Absolute is the Being</i> (das Absolute ist das Seyn), and
+"the Being" is here, according to Hegel, bare, naked, abstract,
+undistinguished, indeterminate, unconscious idea.</p>
+
+<p>2. <i>The Absolute is the Nothing</i> (das Absolute ist das Nichts).
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="68">68</a></span>
+"Pure being is pure abstraction, and consequently the absolute-negative,
+which in like manner, directly taken, is <i>nothing</i>."
+Being and Nothing are the positive and negative poles of the
+Idea, that is, the Absolute. They both alike exist, they are
+both pure abstractions, both absolutely unconditioned, without
+attributes, and without consciousness. Hence follows the conclusion--</p>
+
+<p>3. <i>Being and Nothing are identical</i> (das Seyn und das Nichts
+ist dasselbe), Being is non-Being. Non-Being <i>is</i> Being--the
+Anders-seyn--which becomes <i>as</i> Being to the Seyn. Nothing is,
+in some sense, an actual thing.</p>
+
+<p><i>Being</i> and <i>Nothing</i> are thus the two elements which enter
+into the one Absolute Idea as contradictories, and both together
+combine to form a complete notion of bare production, or
+the <i>becoming</i> of something out of nothing,--the unfolding of real
+existence in its lowest form, that is, of <i>nature</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The "<i>Philosophy of Nature</i>" exhibits a series of necessary
+movements which carry the idea forward in the ascending scale
+of sensible existence. The laws of mechanics, chemistry, and
+physiology are resolved into a series of oppositions. But the
+law which governs this development requires the self-reconciliation
+of these opposites. The idea, therefore, which in nature
+was unconscious and ignorant of itself, returns upon itself, and
+becomes conscious of itself, that is, becomes <i>mind</i>. The science
+of the regression or self-reflection of the idea, is the "<i>Philosophy
+of Mind</i>."</p>
+
+<p>The "<i>Philosophy of Mind</i>" is subdivided by Hegel into
+three parts. There is, first, the subjective or individual mind
+(<i>psychology</i>); then the objective or universal mind, as represented
+in society, the state, and in history (<i>ethics, political philosophy,</i>
+or <i>jurisprudence</i>, and <i>philosophy of history</i>); and, finally, the
+union of the subjective and objective mind, or <i>the absolute mind</i>.
+This last manifests itself again under three forms, representing
+the three degrees of the self-consciousness of the Spirit, as the
+eternal truth. These are, first, <i>art</i>, or the representation of
+beauty (æsthetics); secondly, <i>religion</i>, in the general acceptation
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="69" >69</a></span>
+of the term (philosophy of religion); and, thirdly, <i>philosophy</i> itself,
+as the purest and most perfect form of the scientific knowledge
+of truth. All historical religions, the Oriental, the Jewish,
+the Greek, the Roman, and the Christian, are <i>the successive
+stages in the development or self-actualization of God</i>.<a id="footnotetag49" name="footnotetag49"></a>
+<a href="#footnote49"><sup class="sml">49</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>It is unnecessary to indicate to the reader that the philosophy
+of Hegel is essentially pantheistic. "God is not a <i>person</i>,
+but personality itself, <i>i.e.</i>, the universal personality, which realizes
+itself in every human consciousness, as so many separate
+thoughts of one eternal mind. The idea we form of the absolute
+is, to Hegel, the absolute itself, its essential existence being
+identical with our conception of it. Apart from, and out
+of the world, there is no God; and so also, apart from the universal
+consciousness of man, there is no Divine consciousness
+or personality."<a id="footnotetag50" name="footnotetag50"></a>
+<a href="#footnote50"><sup class="sml">50</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote49"
+name="footnote49"><b>Footnote 49: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag49">
+(return) </a> See art. "Hegelian Philosophy," in Herzog's <i>Real-Encyc.</i>, from whence
+our materials are chiefly drawn.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote50"
+name="footnote50"><b>Footnote 50: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag50">
+(return) </a> Morell, "Hist. of Philos.," p. 473.</blockquote>
+
+<p>This whole conception of religion, however, is false, and conflicts
+with the actual facts of man's religious nature and religious
+history. If the word "religion" has any meaning at all,
+it is "a mode of life determined by the consciousness of dependence
+upon, and obligation to God." It is reverence for,
+gratitude to, and worship of God as a being distinct from humanity.
+But in the philosophy of Hegel religion is a part of
+God--a stage in the development or self-actualization of God.
+Viewed under one aspect, religion is the self-adoration of God--the
+worship of God by God; under another aspect it is the
+worship of humanity, since God only becomes conscious of
+himself in humanity. The fundamental fallacy is that upon
+which his entire method proceeds, viz., "the identity of subject
+and object, being and thought." Against this false position the
+consciousness of each individual man, and the universal consciousness
+of our race, as revealed in history, alike protest. If
+thought and being are identical, then whatever is true of ideas
+is also true of objects, and then, as Kant had before remarked,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="70" >70</a></span>
+there is no difference between <i>thinking</i> we possess a hundred
+dollars, and actually <i>possessing</i> them. Such absurdities may be
+rendered plausible by a logic which asserts the "identity of
+contradictions," but against such logic common sense rebels.
+"The law of non-contradiction" has been accepted by all logicians,
+from the days of Aristotle, as a fundamental law of
+thought. "Whatever is contradictory is unthinkable. A=not
+A=O, or A--A=O."<a id="footnotetag51" name="footnotetag51"></a>
+<a href="#footnote51"><sup class="sml">51</sup></a> Non-existence can not exist. Being
+can not be nothing.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote51"
+name="footnote51"><b>Footnote 51: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag51">
+(return) </a> Hamilton's Logic, p. 58.</blockquote>
+
+<p>III. The third hypothesis affirms <i>that the phenomenon of religion
+has its foundation in</i> FEELING--<i>the feeling of dependence and
+of obligation</i>; and that to which the mind, by spontaneous intuition
+of instinctive faith, traces that dependence and obligation
+we call God.</p>
+
+<p>This, with some slight modification in each case, consequent
+upon the differences in their philosophic systems, is the theory
+of Jacobi, Schleiermacher, Nitzsch, Mansel, and probably Hamilton.
+Its fundamental position is, that we can not gain truth
+with absolute certainty either from sense or reason, and, consequently,
+the only valid source of real knowledge is <i>feeling--faith,
+intuition</i>, or, as it is called by some, <i>inspiration</i>.</p>
+
+<p>There have been those, in all ages, who have made all
+knowledge of invisible, supersensuous, divine things, to rest
+upon an internal <i>feeling</i>, or immediate, inward vision. The
+Oriental Mystics, the Neo-Platonists, the Mystics of the Greek
+and Latin Church, the German Mystics of the 14th century, the
+Theosophists of the Reformation, the Quietists of France, the
+Quakers, have all appealed to some <i>special</i> faculty, distinct
+from the understanding and reason, for the immediate cognition
+of invisible and spiritual existences. By some, that
+special faculty was regarded as an "interior eye" which was
+illuminated by the "Universal Light;" by others, as a peculiar
+sensibility of the soul--a <i>feeling</i> in whose perfect calm and utter
+quiescence the Divinity was mirrored; or which, in an ecstatic
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="71" >71</a></span>
+state, rose to a communion with, and final absorption in
+the Infinite.</p>
+
+<p>Jacobi was the first, in modern times, to give the "faith-philosophy,"
+as it is now designated, a definite form. He assumes
+the position that all knowledge, of whatever kind, must
+ultimately rest upon intuition or faith. As it regards sensible
+objects, the understanding finds the impression from which all
+our knowledge of the external flows, ready formed. The process
+of sensation is a mystery; we know nothing of it until it is
+past, and the feeling it produces is present. Our knowledge of
+matter, therefore, rests upon faith in these intuitions. We can
+not doubt that the feeling has an objective cause. In every act
+of perception there is something actual and present, which can
+not be referred to a mere subjective law of thought. We are
+also conscious of another class of feelings which correlate us
+with a supersensuous world, and these feelings, also, must have
+their cause in some objective reality. Just as sensation gives
+us an immediate knowledge of an external world, so there is an
+internal sense which gives us an immediate knowledge of a spiritual
+world--God, the soul, freedom, immortality. Our knowledge
+of the invisible world, like our knowledge of the visible
+world, is grounded upon faith in our intuitions. All philosophic
+knowledge is thus based upon <i>belief</i>, which Jacobi regards as
+a fact of our inward sensibility--a sort of knowledge produced
+by an immediate <i>feeling</i> of the soul--a direct apprehension,
+without proof, of the True, the Supersensuous, the Eternal.</p>
+
+<p>Jacobi prepared the way for, and was soon eclipsed by the
+deservedly greater name of Schleiermacher. His fundamental
+position was that truth in Theology could not be obtained by reason,
+but by a feeling, <i>insight</i>, or intuition, which in its lowest form
+he called <i>God-consciousness</i>, and in its highest form,
+<i>Christian-consciousness.</i> The God-consciousness, in its original form, is
+the <i>feeling of dependence</i> on the Infinite. The Christian consciousness
+is the perfect union of the human consciousness with
+the Divine, through the mediation of Christ, or what we would
+call a Christian experience of communion with God.<span class="pagenum"><a name="72">72</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Rightly to understand the position of Schleiermacher we
+must take account of his doctrine of <i>self</i>-consciousness. "In
+all self-consciousness," says he, "there are two elements, a Being
+ein Seyn, and a Somehow-having-become (Irgendweigewordenseyn).
+The last, however, presupposes, for every self-consciousness,
+besides the ego, yet something else from whence
+the certainty of the same [self-consciousness] exists, and without
+which self-consciousness would not be just this."<a id="footnotetag52" name="footnotetag52"></a>
+<a href="#footnote52"><sup class="sml">52</sup></a> Every
+determinate mode of the sensibility supposes an <i>object</i>, and a <i>relation</i>
+between the subject and the object, the subjective feeling
+deriving its determinations from the object. External sensation,
+the feeling, say of extension and resistance, gives world-consciousness.
+Internal sensation, the <i>feeling of dependence</i>,
+gives God consciousness. And it is only by the presence of
+world consciousness and God-consciousness that self consciousness
+can be what it is.</p>
+
+<p>We have, then, in our self-consciousness a <i>feeling of direct dependence</i>,
+and that to which our minds instinctively trace that
+dependence we call God. "By means of the religious feeling,
+the Primal Cause is revealed in us, as in perception, the things
+external, are revealed in us."<a id="footnotetag53" name="footnotetag53"></a>
+<a href="#footnote53"><sup class="sml">53</sup></a> The <i>felt</i>, therefore, is not only
+the first religious sense, but the ruling, abiding, and perfect form
+of the religious spirit; whatever lays any claim to religion must
+maintain its ground and principle in <i>feeling</i>, upon which it depends
+for its development; and the sum-total of the forces constituting
+religious life, inasmuch as it is a <i>life</i>, is based upon
+immediate self-consciousness.<a id="footnotetag54" name="footnotetag54"></a>
+<a href="#footnote54"><sup class="sml">54</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote52"
+name="footnote52"><b>Footnote 52: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag52">
+(return) </a> Glaubenslehre, ch. i. § 4.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote53"
+name="footnote53"><b>Footnote 53: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag53">
+(return) </a> Dialectic, p. 430.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote54"
+name="footnote54"><b>Footnote 54: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag54">
+(return) </a> Nitzsch, "System of Doctrine," p. 23.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The doctrine of Schleiermacher is somewhat modified by
+Mansel, in his "<i>Limits of Religious Thought</i>." He maintains,
+with Schleiermacher, that religion is grounded in <i>feeling</i>, and
+that the <i>felt</i> is the first intimation or presentiment of the Divine.
+Man "<i>feels</i> within him the consciousness of a Supreme
+Being, and the instinct to worship, before he can argue from
+effects to causes, or estimate the traces of wisdom and benevolence
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="73" >73</a></span>
+scattered through the creation."<a id="footnotetag55" name="footnotetag55"></a>
+<a href="#footnote55"><sup class="sml">55</sup></a> He also agrees with
+Schleiermacher in regarding the <i>feeling of dependence</i> as <i>a</i> state
+of the sensibility, out of which reflection builds up the edifice
+of Religious Consciousness, but he does not, with Schleiermacher,
+regard it as pre-eminently <i>the</i> basis of religious consciousness.
+"The mere consciousness of dependence does
+not, of itself, exhibit the character of the Being on whom we
+depend. It is as consistent with superstition as with religion;
+with the belief in a malevolent, as in a benevolent Deity."<a id="footnotetag56" name="footnotetag56"></a>
+<a href="#footnote56"><sup class="sml">56</sup></a>
+To the feeling of dependence he has added the <i>consciousness
+of moral obligation</i>, which he imagines supplies the deficiency.
+By this consciousness of moral obligation "we are compelled
+to assume the existence of a moral Deity, and to regard the
+absolute standard of right and wrong as constituted by the
+nature of that Deity."<a id="footnotetag57" name="footnotetag57"></a>
+<a href="#footnote57"><sup class="sml">57</sup></a> "To these two facts of the inner consciousness
+the feeling of dependence, and consciousness of
+moral obligation may be traced, as to their sources, the two
+great outward acts by which religion, in its various forms, has
+been manifested among men--<i>Prayer</i>, by which they seek to
+win God's blessing upon the future, and <i>Expiation</i>, by which
+they strive to atone for the offenses of the past. The feeling
+of dependence is the instinct which urges us to pray. It is the
+feeling that our existence and welfare are in the hands of a superior
+power; not an inexorable fate, not an immutable law;
+but a Being having at least so far the attribute of personality
+that he can show favor or severity to those who are dependent
+upon Him, and can be regarded by them with feelings of hope
+and fear, and reverence and gratitude."<a id="footnotetag58" name="footnotetag58"></a>
+<a href="#footnote58"><sup class="sml">58</sup></a> The feeling of moral
+obligation--"the law written in the heart"--leads man to recognize
+a Lawgiver. "Man can be a law unto himself only on
+the supposition that he reflects in himself the law of God."<a id="footnotetag59" name="footnotetag549"></a>
+<a href="#footnote59"><sup class="sml">59</sup></a>
+The conclusion from the whole is, there must be an <i>object</i> answering
+to this consciousness: there must be a God to explain
+these facts of the soul.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote55"
+name="footnote55"><b>Footnote 55: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag55">
+(return) </a> Mansel, "Limits of Religious Thought," p. 115.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote56"
+name="footnote56"><b>Footnote 56: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag56">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., p. 120.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote57"
+name="footnote57"><b>Footnote 57: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag57">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., p. 122.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote58"
+name="footnote58"><b>Footnote 58: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag58">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., pp. 119, 120.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote59"
+name="footnote59"><b>Footnote 59: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag59">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., p. 122.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="74" >74</a></span>
+
+<p>This "philosophy of feeling," or of faith generated by feeling,
+has an interest and a significance which has not been adequately
+recognized by writers on natural theology. Feeling,
+sentiment, enthusiasm, have always played an important part in
+the history of religion. Indeed it must be conceded that religion
+is a <i>right state of feeling towards God</i>--religion is <i>piety</i>. A philosophy
+of the religious emotion is, therefore, demanded in order
+to the full interpretation of the religious phenomena of the world.</p>
+
+<p>But the notion that internal feeling, a peculiar determination
+of the sensibility, is the source of religious ideas:--that God
+can be known immediately by feeling without the mediation of
+the truth that manifests God; that he can be <i>felt</i> as the qualities
+of matter can be felt; and that this affection of the inward
+sense can reveal the character and perfections of God, is an
+unphilosophical and groundless assumption. To assert, with
+Nitzsch, that "feeling has reason, and is reason, and that the
+sensible and felt God-consciousness generates out of itself fundamental
+conceptions," is to confound the most fundamental
+psychological distinctions, and arbitrarily bend the recognized
+classifications of mental science to the necessities of a theory.
+Indeed, we are informed that it is "by means of an <i>independent</i>
+psychology, and conformably to it," that Schleiermacher illustrates
+his "philosophy of feeling."<a id="footnotetag60" name="footnotetag60"></a>
+<a href="#footnote60"><sup class="sml">60</sup></a> But all psychology must
+be based upon the observation and classification of mental
+phenomena, as revealed in consciousness, and not constructed
+in an "independent" and à priori method. The most careful
+psychological analysis has resolved the whole complex phenomena
+of mind into thought, feeling, and volition.<a id="footnotetag61" name="footnotetag61"></a>
+<a href="#footnote61"><sup class="sml">61</sup></a> These orders
+of phenomena are radically and essentially distinct. They differ
+not simply in degree but in kind, and it is only by an utter
+disregard of the facts of consciousness that they can be confounded.
+Feeling is not reason, nor can it by any logical dexterity
+be transformed into reason.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote60"
+name="footnote60"><b>Footnote 60: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag60">
+(return) </a> Nitzsch, "System of Doctrine," p. 21.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote61"
+name="footnote61"><b>Footnote 61: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag61">
+(return) </a> Kant, "Critique of Judg.," ch. xxii.; Cousin, "Hist, of Philos.," vol. ii.
+p. 399; Hamilton, vol. i. p. 183, Eng. ed.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="75" >75</a></span>
+
+<p>The question as to the relative order of cognition and feeling,
+that is, as to whether feeling is the first or original form of
+the religious consciousness, or whether feeling be not consequent
+upon some idea or cognition of God, is one which can
+not be determined on empirical grounds. We are precluded
+from all scrutiny of the incipient stages of mental development
+in the individual mind and in collective humanity. If we attempt
+to trace the early history of the soul, its beginnings are
+lost in a period of blank unconsciousness, beyond all scrutiny
+of memory or imagination. If we attempt the inquiry on the
+wider field of universal consciousness, the first unfoldings of
+mind in humanity are lost in the border-land of mystery, of
+which history furnishes no authentic records. All dogmatic affirmation
+must, therefore, be unjustifiable. The assertion that
+religious feeling precedes all cognition,--that "the consciousness
+of dependence on a Supreme Being, and the instinct of
+worship" are developed <i>first</i> in the mind, before the reason is
+exercised, is utterly groundless. The more probable doctrine
+is that all the primary faculties enter into spontaneous action
+<i>simultaneously</i>--the reason with the senses, the feelings with
+the reason, the judgment with both the senses and the reason,
+and that from their primary and simultaneous action arises
+the complex result, called consciousness, or conjoint knowledge.<a id="footnotetag62" name="footnotetag62"></a>
+<a href="#footnote62"><sup class="sml">62</sup></a>
+There can be no clear and distinct consciousness without
+the cognition of a <i>self</i> and a <i>not-self</i> in mutual relation and
+opposition. Now the knowledge of the self--the personal ego--is
+an intuition of reason; the knowledge of the not-self is an
+intuition of sense. All knowledge is possible only under condition
+of plurality, difference, and relation.<a id="footnotetag63" name="footnotetag63"></a>
+<a href="#footnote63"><sup class="sml">63</sup></a> Now the judgment
+is "the Faculty of Relations," or of comparison; and the affirmation
+"<i>this</i> is not <i>that</i>" is an act of judgment; to know is,
+consequently, to judge.<a id="footnotetag64" name="footnotetag64"></a>
+<a href="#footnote64"><sup class="sml">64</sup></a> Self-consciousness must, therefore, be
+regarded as a synthesis of sense, reason, and judgment, and
+not a mere self-feeling (cœnæsthesis).</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote62"
+name="footnote62"><b>Footnote 62: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag62">
+(return) </a> Cousin, "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 357; vol. ii. p. 337.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote63"
+name="footnote63"><b>Footnote 63: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag63">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., vol. i. p. 88.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote64"
+name="footnotexx"><b>Footnote 64: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag64">
+(return) </a> Hamilton, "Metaphys.," p. 277</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="76" >76</a></span>
+
+<p>A profound analysis will further lead to the conclusion that
+if ideas of reason are not chronologically antecedent to sensation,
+they are, at least, the logical antecedents of all cognition.
+The mere feeling of resistance can not give the notion of
+without the à priori idea of space. The feeling of movement
+of change, can not give the cognition of event without the rational
+idea of time or duration. Simple consciousness can not
+generate the idea of personality, or selfhood, without the rational
+idea of identity or unity. And so the mere "feeling of dependence,"
+of finiteness and imperfection, can not give the idea
+of God, without the rational à priori idea of the Infinite, the
+Perfect, the Unconditioned Cause. Sensation is not knowledge,
+and never can become knowledge, without the intervention
+of reason, and a concentrated self feeling can not rise essentially
+above animal life until it has, through the mediation
+of reason, attained the idea of the existence of a Supreme Being
+ruling over nature and man.</p>
+
+<p>Mere feeling is essentially blind. In its <i>pathological</i> form, it
+may indicate a want, and even develop an unconscious appetency,
+but it can not, itself, reveal an <i>object</i>, any more than the
+feeling of hunger can reveal the actual presence, or determine the
+character and fitness, of any food. An undefinable fear, a mysterious
+presentiment, an instinctive yearning, a hunger of the
+soul, these are all irrational emotions which can never rise to
+the dignity of knowledge. An object must be conjured by the
+imagination, or conceived by the understanding, or intuitively
+apprehended by the reason, before the feeling can have any
+significance.</p>
+
+<p>Regarded in its <i>moral</i> form, as "the feeling of obligation," it
+can have no real meaning unless a "law of duty" be known
+and recognized. Feeling, alone, can not reveal what duty
+is. When that which is right, and just, and good is revealed
+to the mind, then the sense of obligation may urge man to
+the performance of duty. But the right, the just, the good,
+are ideas which are apprehended by the reason, and, consequently,
+our moral sentiments are the result of the harmonious
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="77" >77</a></span>
+and living relation between the reason and the sensibilities.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Mansel asserts the inadequacy of Schleiermacher's
+"feeling of dependence" to reveal the character of the Being
+on whom we depend. He has therefore supplemented his doctrine
+by the "feeling of moral obligation," which he thinks
+"compels us to <i>assume</i> the existence of a moral Deity." We
+think his "fact of religious intuition" is as inadequate as
+Schleiermacher's to explain the whole phenomena of religion.
+In neither instance does feeling supply the actual knowledge
+of God. The feeling of dependence may indicate that there is
+a Power or Being upon whom we depend for existence and
+well-being, and which Power or Being "we call God." The
+feeling of obligation certainly indicates the existence of a Being
+to whom we are accountable, and which Being Mr. Mansel
+calls a "moral Deity." But in both instances the character,
+and even the existence of God is "<i>assumed</i>" and we are entitled
+to ask on what ground it is assumed. It will not be asserted
+that feeling alone generates the idea, or that the feeling
+is transformed into idea without the intervention of thought
+and reflection. Is there, then, a <i>logical</i> connection between the
+feeling of dependence and of obligation, and the idea of the
+Uncreated Mind, the Infinite First Cause, the Righteous Governor
+of the world. Or is there a fixed and changeless co-relation
+between <i>the feeling</i> and the <i>idea</i>, so that when the feeling
+is present, the idea also necessarily arises in the mind? This
+latter opinion seems to be the doctrine of Mansel. We accept
+it as the statement of a fact of consciousness, but we can not
+regard it as an account of the genesis of the idea of God in
+the human mind. The idea of God as the First Cause, the Infinite
+Mind, the Perfect Being, the personal Lord and Lawgiver,
+the creator, sustainer, and ruler of the world, is not a
+simple, primitive intuition of the mind. It is manifestly a complex,
+concrete idea, and, as such, can not be developed in consciousness,
+by the operation of a single faculty of the mind, in
+a simple, undivided act. It originates in the spontaneous operation
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="78">78</a></span>
+of the whole mind. It is a necessary deduction from
+the facts of the universe, and the primitive intuitions of the reason,--a
+logical inference from the facts of sense, consciousness,
+and reason. A philosophy of religion which regards the feelings
+as supreme, and which brands the decisions of reason as
+uncertain, and well-nigh valueless, necessarily degenerates into
+mysticism--a mysticism "which pretends to elevate man directly
+to God, and does not see that, in depriving reason of its
+power, it really deprives man of that which enables him to know
+God, and puts him in a just communication with God by the intermediary
+of eternal and infinite truth."<a id="footnotetag65" name="footnotetag65"></a>
+<a href="#footnote65"><sup class="sml">65</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote65"
+name="footnote65"><b>Footnote 65: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag65">
+(return) </a> Cousin, "True, Beautiful, and Good," p. 110.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The religious sentiments in all minds, and in all ages, have
+resulted from the union of <i>thought</i> and <i>feeling</i>--the living and
+harmonious relation of reason and sensibility; and a philosophy
+which disregards either is inadequate to the explanation of
+the phenomena.</p>
+
+<p>IV. The fourth hypothesis is, <i>that religion has had its outbirth
+in the spontaneous apperceptions of</i> REASON; that is, in the
+necessary, à priori ideas of the infinite, the perfect, the unconditioned
+Cause, the Eternal Being, which are evoked into consciousness
+in presence of the changeful, contingent phenomena
+of the world.</p>
+
+<p>This will at once be recognized by the intelligent reader as
+the doctrine of Cousin, by whom <i>pure reason</i> is regarded as the
+grand faculty or organ of religion.</p>
+
+<p>Religion, in the estimation of Cousin, is grounded on <i>cognition</i>
+rather than upon feeling. It is the knowledge of God, and the
+knowledge of duty in its relation to God and to human happiness;
+and as reason is the general faculty of all knowing, it must
+be the faculty of religion. "In its most elevated point of view,
+religion is the relation of absolute truth to absolute Being," and
+as absolute truth is apprehended by the reason alone, reason
+"is the veridical and religious part of the nature of man."<a id="footnotetag66" name="footnotetag66"></a>
+<a href="#footnote66"><sup class="sml">66</sup></a> By
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="79" >79</a></span>
+"reason," however, as we shall see presently, Cousin does not
+mean the discursive or reflective reason, but the spontaneous
+or intuitive reason. That act of the mind by which we attain
+to religious knowledge is not a <i>process of reasoning</i>, but a pure
+appreciation, an instinctive and involuntary movement of the
+soul.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote66"
+name="footnote66"><b>Footnote 66: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag66">
+(return) </a> Henry's Cousin, p. 510.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The especial function of reason, therefore, is to reveal to us
+the invisible, the supersensuous, the Divine. "It was bestowed
+upon us for this very purpose of going, without any circuit of
+reasoning, from the visible to the invisible, from the finite to the
+infinite, from the imperfect to the perfect, and from necessary
+and eternal truths, to the eternal and necessary principle" that
+is God.<a id="footnotetag67" name="footnotetag67"></a>
+<a href="#footnote67"><sup class="sml">67</sup></a> Reason is thus, as it were, the bridge between consciousness
+and being; it rests, at the same time, on both; it descends
+from God, and approaches man; it makes its appearance
+in consciousness as a guest which brings intelligence of
+another world of real Being which lies beyond the world of
+sense.</p>
+
+<p>Reason does not, however, attain to the Absolute Being directly
+and immediately, without any intervening medium. To
+assert this would be to fall into the error of Plotinus, and the
+Alexandrian Mystics. Reason is the offspring of God, a ray
+of the Eternal Reason, but it is not to be identified with God.
+Reason attains to the Absolute Being indirectly, and by the interposition
+of truth. Absolute truth is an attribute and a manifestation
+of God. "Truth is incomprehensible without God,
+and God is incomprehensible without truth. Truth is placed
+between human intelligence, and the supreme intelligence as a
+kind of mediator."<a id="footnotetag68" name="footnotetag68"></a>
+<a href="#footnote68"><sup class="sml">68</sup></a> Incapable of contemplating God face to
+face, reason adores God in the truth which represents and
+manifests Him.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote67"
+name="footnote68"><b>Footnote 67: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag67">
+(return) </a> Cousin, "True, Beautiful, and Good," p. 103.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote68"
+name="footnote68"><b>Footnote 68: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag68">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., p. 99.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Absolute truth is thus a revelation of God, made by God to
+the reason of man, and as it is a light which illuminates every
+man, and is perpetually perceived by all men, it is a universal
+and perpetual revelation of God to man. The mind of man is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="80" >80</a></span>
+"the offspring of God," and, as such, must have some resemblance
+to, and some correlation with God. Now that which
+constitutes the image of God in man must be found in the reason
+which is correlated with, and capable of perceiving the
+truth which manifests God, just as the eye is correlated to the
+light which manifests the external world. Absolute truth is,
+therefore, the sole medium of bringing the human mind into
+communion with God; and human reason, in becoming united
+to absolute truth, becomes united to God in his manifestation
+in spirit and in truth. The supreme law, and highest destination
+of man, is to become united to God by seeking a full consciousness
+of, and loving and practising the Truth.<a id="footnotetag69" name="footnotetag69"></a>
+<a href="#footnote69"><sup class="sml">69</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote69"
+name="footnote69"><b>Footnote 69: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag69">
+(return) </a> Henry's Cousin, p. 511, 512.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It will at once be obvious that the grand crucial questions
+by which this philosophy of religion is to be tested are--</p>
+
+<p>1st. <i>How will Cousin prove to us that human reason is in possession
+of universal and necessary principles or absolute truths?</i> and,</p>
+
+<p>2d. <i>How are these principles shown to be absolute? how far do
+these principles of reason possess absolute authority?</i></p>
+
+<p>The answer of Cousin to the first question is that we prove
+reason to be in possession of universal and necessary principles
+by the analysis of the contents of consciousness, that is, by
+psychological analysis. The phenomena of consciousness, in
+their primitive condition, are necessarily complex, concrete, and
+particular. All our primary ideas are complex ideas, for the
+evident reason that all, or nearly all, our faculties enter at once
+into exercise; their simultaneous action giving us, at the same
+time, a certain number of ideas connected with each other, and
+forming a whole. For example, the idea of the exterior world,
+which is given us so quickly, is a complex idea, which contains
+a number of ideas. There is the idea of the secondary qualities
+of exterior objects; there is the idea of the primary qualities;
+there is the idea of the permanent reality of something to
+which you refer these qualities, to wit, matter; there is the idea
+of space which contains bodies; there is the idea of time in
+which movements are effected. All these ideas are acquired
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="81" >81</a></span>
+simultaneously, or nearly simultaneously, and together form
+one complex idea.</p>
+
+<p>The application of analysis to this complex phenomenon
+clearly reveals that there are simple ideas, beliefs, principles in
+the mind which can not have been derived from sense and experience,
+which sense and experience do not account for, and
+which are the suggestions of reason alone: the idea of the <i>Infinite</i>,
+the <i>Perfect</i>, the <i>Eternal</i>; the true, the beautiful, the good;
+the principle of causality, of substance, of unity, of intentionality;
+the principle of duty, of obligation, of accountability, of
+retribution. These principles, in their natural and regular development,
+carry us beyond the limits of consciousness, and reveal
+to us a world of real being beyond the world of sense.
+They carry us up to an absolute Being, the fountain of all existence--a
+living, personal, righteous God--the author, the sustainer,
+and ruler of the universe.</p>
+
+<p>The proof that these principles are absolute, and possessed
+of absolute authority, is drawn, first, from the <i>impersonality of
+reason</i>, or, rather, the impersonality of the ideas, principles, or
+truths of reason.</p>
+
+<p>It is not we who create these ideas, neither can we change
+them at our pleasure. We are conscious that the will, in all
+its various efforts, is enstamped with the impress of our personality.
+Our volitions are our own. So, also, our desires are our
+own, our emotions are our own. But this is not the same with
+our rational ideas or principles. The ideas of substance, of
+cause, of unity, of intentionality do not belong to one person
+any more than to another; they belong to mind as mind, they
+are revealed in the universal intelligence of the race. Absolute
+truth has no element of personality about it. Man may
+say "my reason," but give him credit for never having dared to
+say "<i>my</i> truth." So far from rational ideas being individual,
+their peculiar characteristic is that they are opposed to individuality,
+that is, they are universal and necessary. Instead of
+being circumscribed within the limits of experience, they surpass
+and govern it; they are universal in the midst of particular
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="82" >82</a></span>
+phenomena; necessary, although mingled with things contingent;
+and absolute, even when appearing within us the relative
+and finite beings that we are.<a id="footnotetag70" name="footnotetag70"></a>
+<a href="#footnote70"><sup class="sml">70</sup></a> Necessary, universal, absolute
+truth is a direct emanation from God. "Such being the
+case, the decision of reason within its own peculiar province
+possesses an authority almost divine. If we are led astray by
+it, we must be led astray by a light from heaven."<a id="footnotetag71" name="footnotetag71"></a>
+<a href="#footnote71"><sup class="sml">71</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote70"
+name="footnote70"><b>Footnote 70: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag70">
+(return) </a> Cousin, "True, Beautiful, and Good," p. 40.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote71"
+name="footnote71"><b>Footnote 71: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag71">
+(return) </a> Id., "Lectures," vol. ii. p. 32.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The second proof is derived from <i>the distinction between the
+spontaneous and reflective movements of reason</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Reflection is voluntary, spontaneity is involuntary; reflection
+is personal, spontaneity is impersonal; reflection is analytic,
+spontaneity is synthetic; reflection begins with doubt, spontaneity
+with affirmation; reflection belongs to certain ones,
+spontaneity belongs to all; reflection produces science, spontaneity
+gives truth. Reflection is a process, more or less tardy,
+in the individual and in the race. It sometimes engenders error
+and skepticism, sometimes convictions that, from being rational,
+are only the more profound. It constructs systems, it
+creates artificial logic, and all those formulas which we now use
+by the force of habit, as if they were natural to us. But spontaneous
+intuition is the true logic of nature,--instant, direct,
+and infallible. It is a primitive affirmation which implies no
+negation, and therefore yields positive knowledge. To reflect
+is to return to that which was. It is, by the aid of memory, to
+return to the past, and to render it present to the eye of consciousness.
+Reflection, therefore, creates nothing; it supposes
+an anterior operation of the mind in which there necessarily
+must be as many terms as are discovered by reflection. Before
+all reflection there comes spontaneity--a spontaneity of the intellect,
+which seizes truth at once, without traversing doubt and
+error. "We thus attain to a judgment free from all reflection,
+to an affirmation without any mixture of negation, to an immediate
+intuition, the legitimate daughter of the natural energy of
+thought, like the inspiration of the poet, the instinct of the hero,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="83">83</a></span>
+the enthusiasm of the prophet." Such is the first act of knowing,
+and in this first act the mind passes from <i>idea to being</i> without
+ever suspecting the depth of the chasm it has passed. It
+passes by means of the power which is in it, and is not astonished
+at what it has done. It is subsequently astonished when
+by reflection it returns to the analysis of the results, and, by the
+aid of the liberty with which it is endowed, to do the opposite
+of what it has done, to deny what it has affirmed. "Hence
+comes the strife between sophism and common sense, between
+false science and natural truth, between good and bad philosophy,
+both of which come from free reflection."<a id="footnotetag72" name="footnotetag72"></a>
+<a href="#footnote72"><sup class="sml">72</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>It is this spontaneity of thought which gives birth to <i>religion.</i>
+The instinctive thought which darts through the world, even to
+God, is natural religion. "All thought implies a spontaneous
+faith in God, and there is no such thing as natural atheism.
+Doubt and skepticism may mingle with reflective thought, but
+beneath reflection there is still spontaneity. When the scholar
+has denied the existence of God, listen to the man, interrogate
+him, take him unawares, and you will see that all his words envelop
+the idea of God, and that faith in God is, without his
+recognition, at the bottom, in his heart."<a id="footnotetag73" name="footnotetag73"></a>
+<a href="#footnote73"><sup class="sml">73</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Religion, then, in the system of Cousin, does not begin with
+reflection, with science, but with <i>faith</i>. There is, however, this
+difference to be noted between the theory of the "faith-philosophers"
+(Jacobi, Schleiermacher, etc.) and the theory of Cousin.
+With them, faith is grounded on sensation or <i>feeling</i>; with him,
+it is grounded on <i>reason</i>. "Faith, whatever may be its form,
+whatever may be its object, common or sublime, can be nothing
+else than the <i>consent of reason</i>. That is the foundation of
+faith."<a id="footnotetag74" name="footnotetag74"></a>
+<a href="#footnote74"><sup class="sml">74</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote72"
+name="footnote72"><b>Footnote 72: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag72">
+(return) </a> Cousin, "True, Beautiful, and Good," p. 106.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote73"
+name="footnote73"><b>Footnote 73: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag73">
+(return) </a> "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 137.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote74"
+name="footnote74"><b>Footnote 74: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag74">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. p. 90.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Religion is, therefore, with Cousin, at bottom, pure Theism.
+He thinks, however, that "true theism is not a dead religion
+that forgets precisely the fundamental attributes of God." It
+recognizes God as creator, preserver, and governor; it celebrates
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="84" >84</a></span>
+a providence; it adores a perfect, holy, righteous, benevolent
+God. It holds the principle of duty, of obligation, of
+moral desert. It not only perceives the divine character, but
+feels its relation to God. The revelation of the Infinite, by reason,
+moves the feelings, and passes into sentiment, producing
+reverence, and love, and gratitude. And it creates worship,
+which recalls man to God a thousand times more forcibly than
+the order, harmony, and beauty of the universe can do.</p>
+
+<p>The spontaneous action of reason, in its greatest energy, is
+<i>inspiration</i>. "Inspiration, daughter of the soul and heaven,
+speaks from on high with an absolute authority. It commands
+faith; so all its words are hymns, and its natural language is
+poetry." "Thus, in the cradle of civilization, he who possessed
+in a higher degree than his fellows the gift of inspiration,
+passed for the confidant and the interpreter of God. He is so
+for others, because he is so for himself; and he is so, in fact, in
+a philosophic sense. Behold the sacred origin of prophecies,
+of pontificates, and of modes of worship."<a id="footnotetag75" name="footnotetag75"></a>
+<a href="#footnote75"><sup class="sml">75</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote75"
+name="footnote75"><b>Footnote 75: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag75">
+(return) </a> "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 129.</blockquote>
+
+<p>As an account of the genesis of the idea of God in the human
+intelligence, the doctrine of Cousin must be regarded as
+eminently logical, adequate, and satisfactory. As a theory of
+the origin of religion, as a philosophy which shall explain all
+the phenomena of religion, it must be pronounced defective,
+and, in some of its aspects, erroneous.</p>
+
+<p>First, it does not take proper account of that <i>living force</i>
+which has in all ages developed so much energy, and wrought
+such vast results in the history of religion, viz., the <i>power of the heart</i>.
+Cousin discourses eloquently on the spontaneous, instinctive
+movements of the reason, but he overlooks, in a great
+measure, the instinctive movements of the heart. He does not
+duly estimate the feeling of reverence and awe which rises spontaneously
+in presence of the vastness and grandeur of the universe,
+and of the power and glory of which the created universe
+is a symbol and shadow. He disregards that sense of an overshadowing
+Presence which, at least in seasons of tenderness
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="85" >85</a></span>
+and deep sensibility, seems to compass us about, and lay its
+hand upon us. He scarcely recognizes the deep consciousness
+of imperfection and weakness, and utter dependence, which
+prompts man to seek for and implore the aid of a Superior Being;
+and, above all, he takes no proper account of the sense of
+guilt and the conscious need of expiation. His theory, therefore,
+can not adequately explain the universal prevalence of
+sacrifices, penances, and prayers. In short, it does not meet
+and answer to the deep longings of the human heart, the wants,
+sufferings, fears, and hopes of man.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin claims that the universal reason of man is illuminated
+by the light of God. It is quite pertinent to ask, Why may
+not the universal heart of humanity be touched and moved by
+the spirit of God? If the ideas of reason be a revelation from
+God, may not the instinctive feelings of the heart be an inspiration
+of God? May not God come near to the heart of man and
+awaken a mysterious presentiment of an invisible Presence, and
+an instinctive longing to come nearer to Him? May he not
+draw men towards himself by sweet, persuasive influences, and
+raise man to a conscious fellowship? Is not God indeed the
+<i>great want</i> of the human heart?</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, Cousin does not give due importance to the influence
+of revealed truth as given in the sacred Scriptures, and
+of the positive institutions of religion, as a divine economy, supernaturally
+originated in the world. He grants, indeed, that
+"a primitive revelation throws light upon the cradle of human
+civilization," and that "all antique traditions refer to an age in
+which man, at his departure from the hand of God, received
+from him immediately all lights, and all truths."<a id="footnotetag76" name="footnotetag76"></a>
+<a href="#footnote76"><sup class="sml">76</sup></a> He also believes
+that "the Mosaic religion, by its developments, is mingled
+with the history of all the surrounding people of Egypt, of Assyria,
+of Persia, and of Greece and Rome."<a id="footnotetag77" name="footnotetag77"></a>
+<a href="#footnote77"><sup class="sml">77</sup></a> Christianity, however,
+is regarded as "the summing and crown of the two great
+religious systems which reigned by turn in the East and in
+Greece"--the maturity of Ethnicism and Judaism; a development
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="86" >86</a></span>
+rather than a new creation. The explanation which he
+offers of the phenomena of inspiration opens the door to religious
+skepticism. Those who were termed seers, prophets, inspired
+teachers of ancient times, were simply men who resigned
+themselves wholly to their intellectual instincts, and thus gazed
+upon truth in its pure and perfect form. They did not reason,
+they did not reflect, they made no pretensions to philosophy
+they received truth spontaneously as it flowed in upon them
+from heaven.<a id="footnotetag78" name="footnotetag78"></a>
+<a href="#footnote78"><sup class="sml">78</sup></a> This immediate reception of Divine light was
+nothing more than the <i>natural</i> play of spontaneous reason
+nothing more than what has existed to a greater or less degree
+in every man of great genius; nothing more than may
+now exist in any mind which resigns itself to its own unreflective
+apperceptions. Thus revelation, in its proper sense, loses
+all its peculiar value, and Christianity is robbed of its pre-eminent
+authority. The extremes of Mysticism and Rationalism
+here meet on the same ground, and Plotinus and Cousin are at
+one.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote76"
+name="footnote76"><b>Footnote 76: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag76">
+(return) </a> "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 148.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote77"
+name="footnote77"><b>Footnote 77: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag77">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. p. 216.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote78"
+name="footnote78"><b>Footnote 78: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag78">
+(return) </a> Morell, "Hist. of Philos.," p. 661.</blockquote>
+
+<p>V. The fifth hypothesis offered in explanation of the religious
+phenomena of the world is that they had their origin <i>in</i> EXTERNAL
+REVELATION, <i>to which reason is related as a purely passive
+organ, and Ethnicism as a feeble relic</i>.</p>
+
+<p>This is the theory of the school of "dogmatic theologians,"
+of which the ablest and most familiar presentation is found in
+the "Theological Institutes" of R. Watson.<a id="footnotetag79" name="footnotetag79"></a>
+<a href="#footnote79"><sup class="sml">79</sup></a> He claims that
+all our religious knowledge is derived from <i>oral revelation alone</i>,
+and that all the forms of religion and modes of worship which
+have prevailed in the heathen world have been perversions and
+corruptions of the one true religion first taught to the earliest
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="87" >87</a></span>
+families of men by God himself. All the ideas of God, duty,
+immortality, and future retribution which are now possessed, or
+have ever been possessed by the heathen nations, are only
+broken and scattered rays of the primitive traditions descending
+from the family of Noah, and revived by subsequent intercourses
+with the Hebrew race; and all the modes of religious
+worship--prayers, lustrations, sacrifices--that have obtained
+in the world, are but feeble relics, faint reminiscences of
+the primitive worship divinely instituted among the first families
+of men. "The first man received the knowledge of God by
+sensible converse with him, and that doctrine was transmitted,
+with the confirmation of successive manifestations, to the early
+ancestors of all nations."<a id="footnotetag80" name="footnotetag80"></a>
+<a href="#footnote80"><sup class="sml">80</sup></a> This belief in the existence of a
+Supreme Being was preserved among the Jews by continual
+manifestations of the presence of Jehovah. "The intercourses
+between the Jews and the states of Syria and Babylon, on the
+one hand, and Egypt on the other, powers which rose to great
+eminence and influence in the ancient world, was maintained
+for ages. Their frequent dispersions and captivities would tend
+to preserve in part, and in part to revive, the knowledge of the
+once common and universal faith."<a id="footnotetag81" name="footnotetag81"></a>
+<a href="#footnote81"><sup class="sml">81</sup></a> And the Greek sages who
+resorted for instruction to the Chaldean philosophic schools
+derived from thence their knowledge of the theological system
+of the Jews.<a id="footnotetag82" name="footnotetag82"></a>
+<a href="#footnote82"><sup class="sml">82</sup></a> Among the heathen nations this primitive revelation
+was corrupted by philosophic speculation, as in India and
+China, Greece and Rome; and in some cases it was entirely
+obliterated by ignorance, superstition, and vice, as among the
+Hottentots of Africa and the aboriginal tribes of New South
+Wales, who "have no idea of one Supreme Creator."<a id="footnotetag83" name="footnotetag83"></a>
+<a href="#footnote83"><sup class="sml">83</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote79"
+name="footnote79"><b>Footnote 79: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag79">
+(return) </a> We might have referred the reader to Ellis's "Knowledge of Divine
+Things from Revelation, not from Reason or Nature;" Leland's "Necessity
+of Revelation;" and Horsley's "Dissertations," etc.; but as we are not aware
+of their having been reprinted in this country, we select the "Institutes"
+of Watson as the best presentation of the views of "the dogmatic theologians"
+accessible to American readers.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote80"
+name="footnote80"><b>Footnote 80: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag80">
+(return) </a> Watson, "Theol. Inst," vol. i. p. 270.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote81"
+name="footnote81"><b>Footnote 81: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag81">
+(return) </a> Id. ib., vol. i. p. 31.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote82"
+name="footnote82"><b>Footnote 82: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag82">
+(return) </a> See ch. v. and vi., "On the Origin of those Truths which are found in
+the Writings and Religious Systems of the Heathen."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote83"
+name="footnote83"><b>Footnote 83: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag83">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. p. 274.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The same course of reasoning is pursued in regard to the
+idea of duty, and the knowledge of right and wrong. "A direct
+communication of the Divine Will was made to the primogenitors
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="88">88</a></span>
+of our race," and to this source <i>alone</i> we are indebted
+for all correct ideas of right and wrong. "Whatever is found
+pure in morals, in ancient or modern writers, may be traced to
+<i>indirect</i> revelation."<a id="footnotetag84" name="footnotetag84"></a>
+<a href="#footnote84"><sup class="sml">84</sup></a> Verbal instruction--tradition or
+scripture--thus
+becomes the source of all our moral ideas. The doctrine
+of immortality, and of a future retribution,<a id="footnotetag85" name="footnotetag85"></a>
+<a href="#footnote85"><sup class="sml">85</sup></a> the practice of
+sacrifice--precatory and expiatory, are also ascribed to the
+same source.<a id="footnotetag86" name="footnotetag86"></a>
+<a href="#footnote86"><sup class="sml">86</sup></a> Thus the only medium by which religious truth
+can possibly become known to the masses of mankind is <i>tradition</i>.
+The ultimate foundation on which the religious faith
+and the religious practices of universal humanity have rested,
+with the exception of the Jews, and the favored few to whom
+the Gospel has come, is uncertain, precarious, and easily corrupted
+tradition.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote84"
+name="footnote84"><b>Footnote 84: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag84">
+(return) </a> Watson, "Theol. Inst.," vol. ii. p. 470.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote85"
+name="footnote85"><b>Footnote 85: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag85">
+(return) </a> Id. ib., vol. i. p. 11.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote86"
+name="footnote86"><b>Footnote 86: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag86">
+(return) </a> Id. ib., vol. i. p. 26.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The improbability, inadequacy, and incompleteness of this
+theory will be obvious from the following considerations:</p>
+
+<p>1. It is highly improbable that truths so important and vital
+to man, so essential to the well-being of the human race, so
+necessary to the perfect development of humanity as are the
+ideas of God, duty, and immortality, should rest on so precarious
+and uncertain a basis as tradition is admitted, even by Mr.
+Watson, to be.</p>
+
+<p>The human mind needs the idea of God to satisfy its deep
+moral necessities, and to harmonize all its powers. The perfection
+of humanity can never be secured, the destination of
+humanity can never be achieved, the purpose of God in the existence
+of humanity can never be accomplished, without the idea
+of God, and of the relation of man to God, being present to
+the human mind. Society needs the idea of a Supreme Ruler
+as the foundation of law and government, and as the basis of
+social order. Without it, these can not be, or be conserved.
+Intellectual creatureship, social order, human progress, are inconceivable
+and impossible without the idea of God, and of accountability
+to God. Now that truths so fundamental should,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="89" >89</a></span>
+to the masses of men, rest on tradition <i>alone</i>, is incredible. Is
+there no known and accessible God to the outlying millions of
+our race who, in consequence of the circumstances of birth and
+education, which are beyond their control, have had no access
+to an oral revelation, and among whom the dim shadowy rays
+of an ancient tradition have long ago expired? Are the eight
+hundred millions of our race upon whom the light of Christianity
+has not shone unvisited by the common Father of our race?
+Has the universal Father left his "own offspring" without a
+single native power of recognizing the existence of the Divine
+Parent, and abandoned them to solitary and dreary orphanage?
+Could not he who gave to matter its properties and laws,--the
+properties and laws through whose operation he is working out
+his own purposes in the realm of nature,--could not he have
+also given to mind ideas and principles which, logically developed,
+would lead to recognition of a God, and of our duty to
+God, and, by these ideas and principles, have wrought out his
+sublime purposes in the realm of mind? Could not he who
+gave to man the appetency for food, and implanted in his nature
+the social instincts to preserve his physical being, have implanted
+in his heart a "feeling after God," and an instinct to
+worship God in order to the conservation of his spiritual being?
+How otherwise can we affirm the responsibility and accountability
+of all the race before God? Those theologians who are
+so earnest in the assertion that God has not endowed man with
+the native power of attaining the knowledge of God can not,
+on any principle of equity, show how the heathen are "without
+excuse" when, in involuntary ignorance of God, they "worship
+the creature instead of the Creator," and violate a law of duty
+of which they have no possible means to attain the barest
+knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>2. This theory is utterly inadequate to the explanation of the
+<i>universality</i> of religious rites, and especially of religious ideas.</p>
+
+<p>Take, for example, the idea of God. As a matter of fact we
+affirm, in opposition to Watson, the universality of this idea.
+The idea of God is connatural to the human mind. Wherever
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="90" >90</a></span>
+human reason has had its normal and healthy development<a id="footnotetag87" name="footnotetag87"></a>
+<a href="#footnote87"><sup class="sml">87</sup></a>,
+this idea has arisen spontaneously and necessarily. There has
+not been found a race of men who were utterly destitute of
+some knowledge of a Supreme Being. All the instances alleged
+have, on further and more accurate inquiry, been found
+incorrect. The tendency of the last century, arbitrarily to quadrate
+all the facts of religious history with the prevalent sensational
+philosophy, had its influence upon the minds of the first
+missionaries to India, China, Africa, Australia, and the islands
+of the Pacific. They <i>expected</i> to find that the heathen had no
+knowledge of a Supreme Being, and before they had mastered
+the idioms of their language, or become familiar with their mythological
+and cosmological systems, they reported them as <i>utterly
+ignorant of God</i>, destitute of the idea and even the name of
+a Supreme Being. These mistaken and hasty conclusions
+have, however, been corrected by a more intimate acquaintance
+with the people, their languages and religions. Even in the
+absence of any better information, we should be constrained to
+doubt the accuracy of the authorities quoted by Mr. Watson in
+relation to Hindooism, when by one (Ward) we are told that
+the Hindoo "believes in a God destitute of <i>intelligence</i>" and by
+another (Moore) that "Brahm is the one eternal <i>Mind</i>, the self-existent,
+incomprehensible Spirit". Learned and trustworthy
+critics, Asiatic as well as European, however, confidently affirm
+that "the ground of the Brahminical faith is Monotheistic;" it
+recognizes "an Absolute and Supreme Being" as the source of
+all that exists.<a id="footnotetag88" name="footnotetag88"></a>
+<a href="#footnote88"><sup class="sml">88</sup></a> Eugene Burnouf, M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire,
+Kœppen, and indeed nearly all who have written on the subject
+of Buddhism, have shown that the metaphysical doctrines of
+Buddha were borrowed from the earlier systems of the Brahminic
+philosophy. "Buddha." we are told, is "<i>pure intelligence</i>"
+"<i>clear light</i>", "<i>perfect wisdom</i>;" the same as Brahm. This is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="91" >91</a></span>
+surely Theism in its highest conception.<a id="footnotetag89" name="footnotetag89"></a>
+<a href="#footnote89"><sup class="sml">89</sup></a> In regard to the
+peoples of South Africa, Dr. Livingstone assures us "there is
+no need for beginning to tell even the most degraded of these
+people of the existence of a God, or of a future state--the facts
+being universally admitted.... On questioning intelligent men
+among the Backwains as to their former knowledge of good
+and evil, of God, and of a future state, they have scouted the
+idea of any of them ever having been without a tolerably clear
+conception on all these subjects."<a id="footnotetag90" name="footnotetag90"></a>
+<a href="#footnote90"><sup class="sml">90</sup></a> And so far from the New
+Hollanders having no idea of a Supreme Being, we are assured
+by E. Stone Parker, the protector of the aborigines of New Holland,
+they have a clear and well-defined idea of a "<i>Great Spirit</i>,"
+the maker of all things.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote87"
+name="footnote87"><b>Footnote 87: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag87">
+(return) </a> Watson, "Theol. Inst.," vol. i. p. 46.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote88"
+name="footnote88"><b>Footnote 88: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag88">
+(return) </a> Maurice, "Religions of the World," p. 59: <i>Edin. Review</i>,1862, art
+"Recent Researches on Buddhism." See also Müller's "Chips from a German
+Workshop," vol. i. ch. i. to vi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote89"
+name="footnote89"><b>Footnote 89: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag89">
+(return) </a> "It has been said that Buddha and Kapila were both atheists, and
+that Buddha borrowed his atheism from Kapila. But atheism is an indefinite
+term, and may mean very different things. In one sense every Indian
+philosopher was an atheist, for they all perceived that the gods of the populace
+could not claim the attributes that belong to a Supreme Being. But
+all the important philosophical systems of the Brahmans admit, in some
+form or another, the existence of an Absolute and Supreme Being, the source
+of all that exists, or seems to exist."--Müller, "Chips from a German Workshop,"
+vol. i. pp. 224,5.
+
+<p>Buddha, which means "intelligence," "clear light," "perfect wisdom,"
+was not only the name of the founder of the religion of Eastern Asia, but
+Adi Buddha was the name of the Absolute, Eternal Intelligence.--Maurice,
+"Religions of the World," p. 102.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote90"
+name="footnote90"><b>Footnote 90: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag90">
+(return) </a> "Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa," p. 158.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Now had the idea of God rested <i>solely</i> on tradition, it were
+the most natural probability that it might be lost, nay, <i>must</i> be
+lost, amongst those races of men who were geographically and
+chronologically far removed from the primitive cradle of humanity
+in the East. The people who, in their migrations, had
+wandered to the remotest parts of the earth, and had become
+isolated from the rest of mankind, might, after the lapse of ages,
+be expected to lose the idea of God, if it were not a spontaneous
+and native intuition of the mind,--a necessity of thought.
+A fact of history must be presumed to stick to the mind with
+much greater tenacity than a purely rational idea which has no
+visible symbol in the sensible world, and yet, even in regard to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="92" >92</a></span>
+the events of history, the persistence and pertinacity of tradition
+is exceedingly feeble. The South Sea Islanders know
+not from whence, or at what time, their ancestors came. There
+are monuments in Tonga and Fiji of which the present inhabitants
+can give no account. How, then, can a pure, abstract
+idea which can have no sensible representation, no visible
+image, retain its hold upon the memory of humanity for thousands
+of years? The Fijian may not remember whence his immediate
+ancestors came, but he knows that the race came originally
+from the hands of the Creator. He can not tell who
+built the monuments of solid masonry which are found in his
+island-home, but he can tell who reared the everlasting hills
+and built the universe. He may not know who reigned in
+Vewa a hundred years ago, but he knows who now reigns, and
+has always reigned, over the whole earth. "The idea of a God
+is familiar to the Fijian, and the existence of an invisible superhuman
+power controlling and influencing nature, and all
+earthly things, is fully recognized by him."<a id="footnotetag91" name="footnotetag91"></a>
+<a href="#footnote91"><sup class="sml">91</sup></a> The idea of God
+is a common fact of human consciousness, and tradition alone
+is manifestly inadequate to account for its <i>universality</i>.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote91"
+name="footnote91"><b>Footnote 91: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag91">
+(return) </a> "Fiji and the Fijians," p. 215.</blockquote>
+
+<p>3. A verbal revelation would be inadequate to convey the
+knowledge of God to an intelligence "<i>purely passive</i>" and utterly
+unfurnished with any <i>à priori</i> ideas or necessary laws of
+cognition and thought.</p>
+
+<p>Of course it is not denied that important verbal communications
+relating to the character of God, and the duties we owe
+to God, were given to the first human pair, more clear and definite,
+it may be, than any knowledge attained by Socrates and
+Plato through their dialectic processes, and that these oral
+revelations were successively repeated and enlarged to the patriarchs
+and prophets of the Old Testament church. And furthermore,
+that some rays of light proceeding from this pure
+fountain of truth were diffused, and are still lingering among
+the heathen nations, we have no desire, and no need to deny.</p>
+
+<p>All this, however, supposes, at least, a natural power and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="93" >93</a></span>
+aptitude for the knowledge of God, and some configuration and
+correlation of the human intelligence to the Divine. "We
+have no knowledge of a dynamic influence, spiritual or natural,
+without a dynamic reaction." Matter can not be moved and
+controlled by forces and laws, unless it have properties which
+correlate it with those forces and laws. And mind can not be
+determined from without to any specific form of cognition, unless
+it have active powers of apprehension and conception
+which are governed by uniform laws. The "material" of
+thought may be supplied from without, but the "form" is determined
+by the necessary laws of our inward being. All our
+cognition of the external world is conditioned by the <i>à priori</i>
+ideas of time and space, and all our thinking is governed by
+the principles of causality and substance, and the law of "sufficient
+reason." The mind itself supplies an element of knowledge
+in all our cognitions. Man can not be taught the knowledge
+of God if he be not naturally possessed of a presentiment,
+or an apperception of a God, as the cause and reason of the
+universe. "If education be not already preceded by an innate
+consciousness of God, as an operative predisposition, there
+would be nothing for education and culture to act upon."<a id="footnotetag92" name="footnotetag92"></a>
+<a href="#footnote92"><sup class="sml">92</sup></a> A
+mere verbal revelation can not communicate the knowledge of
+God, if man have not already the idea of a God in his mind.
+A name is a mere empty sign, a meaningless symbol, without a
+mental image of the object which it represents, or an innate
+perception, or an abstract conception of the mind, of which the
+word is the sign. The mental image or the abstract conception
+must, therefore, precede the name; cognition must be anterior
+to, and give the meaning of language.<a id="footnotetag93" name="footnotetag93"></a>
+<a href="#footnote93"><sup class="sml">93</sup></a> The child knows
+a thing even before it can speak its name. And, universally,
+we must know the <i>thing</i> in itself, or image it by analogies and
+resemblances to some other thing we do know, before the name
+can have any meaning for us. As to purely rational ideas and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="94" >94</a></span>
+abstract conceptions,--as space, cause, the infinite, the perfect,--language
+can never convey these to the mind, nor can
+the mind ever attain them by experience if they are not an original,
+connate part of our mental equipment and furniture. The
+mere verbal affirmation "there is a God" made to one who has
+no idea of a God, would be meaningless and unintelligible.
+What notion can a man form of "the First Cause" if the principle
+of causality is not inherent in his mind? What conception
+can he form of "the Infinite Mind" if the infinite be not
+a primitive intuition? How can he conceive of "a Righteous
+Governor" if he have no idea of right, no sense of obligation,
+no apprehension of a retribution? Words are empty sounds
+without ideas, and God is a mere name if the mind has no apperception
+of a God.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote92"
+name="footnote92"><b>Footnote 92: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag92">
+(return) </a> Nitzsch, "System of Christian Doctrine," p. 10.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote93"
+name="footnote93"><b>Footnote 93: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag93">
+(return) </a> "Ideas must pre-exist their sensible signs." See De Boismont on
+"Hallucination," etc., p. iii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It may be affirmed that, preceding or accompanying the announcement
+of the Divine Name, there was given to the first
+human pair, and to the early fathers of our race, some visible
+manifestation of the presence of God, and some supernatural
+display of divine power. What, then, was the character of
+these early manifestations, and were they adequate to convey
+the proper idea of God? Did God first reveal himself in human
+form, and if so, how could their conception of God advance
+beyond a rude anthropomorphism? Did he reveal his
+presence in a vast columnar cloud or a pillar of fire? How
+could such an image convey any conception of the intelligence,
+the omnipresence, the eternity of God? Nay, can the infinite
+and eternal Mind be represented by any visible manifestation?
+Can the human mind conceive an image of God? The knowledge
+of God, it is clear, can not be conveyed by any sensible
+sign or symbol if man has no prior rational idea of God as the
+Infinite and the Perfect Being.</p>
+
+<p>If the facts of order, and design, and special adaptation
+which crowd the universe, and the <i>à priori</i> ideas of an unconditioned
+Cause and an infinite Intelligence which arise in the
+mind in presence of these facts, are inadequate to produce the
+logical conviction that it is the work of an intelligent mind, how
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="95" >95</a></span>
+can any preternatural display of <i>power</i> produce a rational conviction
+that God exists? "If the universe could come by
+chance or fate, surely all the lesser phenomena, termed miraculous,
+might occur so too."<a id="footnotetag94" name="footnotetag94"></a>
+<a href="#footnote94"><sup class="sml">94</sup></a> If we find ourselves standing
+amid an eternal series of events, may not miracles be a part of
+that series? Or if all things are the result of necessary and
+unchangeable laws, may not miracles also result from some natural
+or psychological law of which we are yet in ignorance?
+Let it be granted that man is <i>not</i> so constituted that, by the
+necessary laws of his intelligence, he must affirm that facts of
+order having a commencement in time prove mind; let it be
+granted that man has <i>no</i> intuitive belief in the Infinite and Perfect--in
+short, no idea of God; how, then, could a marvellous
+display of <i>power</i>, a new, peculiar, and startling phenomenon
+which even seemed to transcend nature, prove to him the existence
+of an infinite <i>intelligence</i>--a personal God? The proof
+would be simply inadequate, because not the right kind of
+proof. Power does not indicate intelligence, force does not
+imply personality.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote94"
+name="footnote94"><b>Footnote 94: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag94">
+(return) </a> Morell, "Hist. of Philos." p. 737.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Miracles, in short, were never intended to prove the existence
+of God. The foundation of this truth had already been
+laid in the constitution and laws of the human mind, and miracles
+were designed to convince us that He of whose existence
+we had a prior certainty, spoke to us by His Messenger, and
+in this way attested his credentials. To the man who has a
+rational belief in the existence of God this evidence of a divine
+mission is at once appropriate and conclusive. "Master, we
+know thou art a teacher sent from God; for no man can do the
+works which thou doest, except God be with him." The Christian
+missionary does not commence his instruction to the
+heathen, who have an imperfect, or even erroneous conception
+of "the Great Spirit," by narrating the miracles of Christ, or
+quoting the testimony of the Divine Book he carries along with
+him. He points to the heavens and the earth, and says,
+"There is a Being who made all these things, and Jehovah is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="96" >96</a></span>
+his name; I have come to you with a message from Him!"
+Or he need scarce do even so much; for already the heathen,
+in view of the order and beauty which pervades the universe,
+has been constrained, by the laws of his own intelligence, to believe
+in and offer worship to the "Ἄγνωστος Θεος"--the unseen
+and incomprehensible God; and pointing to their altars, he
+may announce with Paul, "this God <i>whom ye worship</i>, though
+ignorantly, him declare I unto you!"</p>
+
+<p>The results of our study of the various hypotheses which
+have been offered in explanation of the religious phenomena of
+the world may be summed up as follows: The first and second
+theories we have rejected as utterly false. Instead of being
+faithful to and adequately explaining the facts, they pervert,
+and maltreat, and distort the facts of religious history. The
+last three each contain a precious element of truth which must
+not be undervalued, and which can not be omitted in an explanation
+which can be pronounced complete. Each theory,
+taken by itself, is incomplete and inadequate. The third hypothesis
+overrates <i>feeling</i>; the fourth, <i>reason</i>; the fifth, <i>verbal
+instruction</i>. The first extreme is Mysticism, the second is Rationalism,
+the last is Dogmatism. Reason, feeling, and faith
+in testimony must be combined, and mutually condition each
+other. No purely rationalistic hypothesis will meet and satisfy
+the wants and yearnings of the heart. No theory based on
+feeling alone can satisfy the demands of the human intellect.
+And, finally, an hypothesis which bases all religion upon historical
+testimony and outward fact, and despises and tramples
+upon the intuitions of the reason and the instincts of the heart
+can never command the general faith of mankind. Religion
+embraces and conditionates the whole sphere of life--thought,
+feeling, faith, and action; it must therefore be grounded in the
+entire spiritual nature of man.</p>
+
+<p>Our criticism of opposite theories has thus prepared the way
+for, and obviated the necessity of an extended discussion of the
+hypothesis we now advance.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="97" >97</a></span>
+
+<p><i>The universal phenomenon of religion has originated in the à
+priori apperceptions of reason, and the natural instinctive feelings
+of the heart, which, from age to age, have been vitalized, unfolded,
+and perfected by supernatural communications and testamentary
+revelations</i>.</p>
+
+<p>There are universal facts of religious history which can only
+be explained on the first principle of this hypothesis; there are
+special facts which can only be explained on the latter principle.
+The universal prevalence of the idea of God, and the feeling
+of obligation to obey and worship God, belong to the first
+order of facts; the general prevalence of expiatory sacrifices,
+of the rite of circumcision, and the observance of sacred and
+holy days, belong to the latter. To the last class of facts the
+observance of the Christian Sabbath, and the rites of Baptism
+and the Lord's Supper may be added.</p>
+
+<p>The history of all religions clearly attests that there are two
+orders of principles--the <i>natural</i> and the <i>positive</i>, and, in some
+measure, two authorities of religious life which are intimately
+related without negativing each other. The characteristic of
+the natural is that it is <i>intrinsic</i>, of the positive, that it is <i>extrinsic</i>.
+In all ages men have sought the authority of the positive
+in that which is immediately <i>beyond</i> and above man--in some
+"voice of the Divinity" toning down the stream of ages, or
+speaking through a prophet or oracle, or written in some inspired
+and sacred book. They have sought for the authority
+of the natural in that which is immediately <i>within</i> man--the
+voice of the Divinity speaking in the conscience and heart of
+man. A careful study of the history of religion will show a reciprocal
+relation between the two, and indicate their common
+source.</p>
+
+<p>We expect to find that our hypothesis will be abundantly
+sustained by the study of the <i>Religion of the Athenians</i>.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="98">98</a></span>
+<br>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<h3>THE RELIGION OF THE ATHENIANS.</h3>
+
+<p>"All things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness in religion
+(δεισιδαιµονεστέρους). For as I passed through your city, and beheld the objects
+of your worship, I found amongst them an altar with this inscription--'TO
+THE UNKNOWN GOD.' Whom therefore ye worship...."--ST. PAUL.</p>
+
+<p>Through one of those remarkable counter-strokes of
+Divine Providence by which the evil designs of men are
+overruled, and made to subserve the purposes of God, the Apostle
+Paul was brought to Athens. He walked beneath its stately
+porticoes, he entered its solemn temples, he stood before its
+glorious statuary, he viewed its beautiful altars--all devoted to
+pagan worship. And "his spirit was stirred within him," he
+was moved with indignation "when he saw the city full of images
+of the gods."<a id="footnotetag95" name="footnotetag95"></a>
+<a href="#footnote95"><sup class="sml">95</sup></a> At the very entrance of the city he met the
+evidence of this peculiar tendency of the Athenians to multiply
+the objects of their devotion; for here at the gateway stands
+an image of Neptune, seated on horseback, and brandishing
+the trident. Passing through the gate, his attention would be
+immediately arrested by the sculptured forms of Minerva, Jupiter,
+Apollo, Mercury, and the Muses, standing near a sanctuary
+of Bacchus. A long street is now before him, with temples,
+statues, and altars crowded on either hand. Walking to the
+end of this street, and turning to the right, he entered the Agora,
+a public square surrounded with porticoes and temples, which
+were adorned with statuary and paintings in honor of the
+gods of Grecian mythology. Amid the plane-trees planted by
+the hand of Cimon are the statues of the deified heroes of
+Athens, Hercules and Theseus, and the whole series of the
+Eponymi, together with the memorials of the older divinities;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="99" >99</a></span>
+Mercuries which gave the name to the streets on which they
+were placed; statues dedicated to Apollo as patron of the
+city and her deliverer from the plague; and in the centre of all
+the altar of the Twelve Gods.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote95"
+name="footnote95"><b>Footnote 95: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag95">
+(return) </a> Lange's Commentary, Acts xvii. 16.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Standing in the market-place, and looking up to the Areopagus,
+Paul would see the temple of Mars, from whom the hill
+derived its name. And turning toward the Acropolis, he
+would behold, closing the long perspective, a series of little
+sanctuaries on the very ledges of the rocks, shrines of Bacchus
+and Æsculapius, Venus, Earth, and Ceres, ending with the
+lovely form of the Temple of Unwinged Victory, which glittered
+in front of the Propylæa.</p>
+
+<p>If the apostle entered the "fivefold gates," and ascended the
+flight of stone steps to the platform of the Acropolis, he would
+find the whole area one grand composition of architecture and
+statuary dedicated to the worship of the gods. Here stood the
+Parthenon, the Virgin House, the glorious temple which was
+erected during the proudest days of Athenian glory, an entire
+offering to Minerva, the tutelary divinity of Athens. Within
+was the colossal statue of the goddess wrought in ivory and
+gold. Outside the temple there stood another statue of
+Minerva, cast from the brazen spoils of Marathon; and near
+by yet another brazen Pallas, which was called by pre-eminence
+"the Beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, to whatever part of Athens the apostle wandered,
+he would meet the evidences of their "carefulness in religion,"
+for every public place and every public building was a sanctuary
+of some god. The Metroum, or record-house, was a temple
+to the mother of the gods. The council-house held statues of
+Apollo and Jupiter, with an altar to Vesta. The theatre at
+the base of the Acropolis was consecrated to Bacchus. The
+Pnyx was dedicated to Jupiter on high. And as if, in this direction,
+the Attic imagination knew no bounds, abstractions
+were deified; altars were erected to Fame, to Energy, to Modesty,
+and even to Pity, and these abstractions were honored
+and worshipped as gods.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="100">100</a></span>
+
+<p>The impression made upon the mind of Paul was, that the
+city was literally "full of idols," or images of the gods. This
+impression is sustained by the testimony of numerous Greek
+and Roman writers. Pausanias declares that Athens "had
+more images than all the rest of Greece;" and Petronius, the
+Roman satirist, says, "it was easier to find a god in Athens
+than a man."<a id="footnotetag96" name="footnotetag96"></a>
+<a href="#footnote96"><sup class="sml">96</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote96"
+name="footnote96"><b>Footnote 96: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag96">
+(return) </a> See Conybeare and Howson's "Life and Epistles of St. Paul;" also,
+art. "Athens," in <i>Encyclopædia Britannica</i>, whence our account of the "sacred
+objects" in Athens is chiefly gathered.</blockquote>
+
+<p>No wonder, then, that as Paul wandered amid these scenes
+"his spirit was stirred in him." He burned with holy zeal
+to maintain the honor of the true and only God, whom now he
+saw dishonored on every side. He was filled with compassion
+for those Athenians who, notwithstanding their intellectual
+greatness, had changed the glory of God into an image made
+in the likeness of corruptible man, and who really worshipped
+the creature <i>more</i> than the Creator. The images intended to
+symbolize the invisible perfections of God were usurping the
+place of God, and receiving the worship due alone to him.
+We may presume the apostle was not insensible to the beauties
+of Grecian art. The sublime architecture of the Propylæa
+and the Parthenon, the magnificent sculpture of Phidias and
+Praxiteles, could not fail to excite his wonder. But he remembered
+that those superb temples and this glorious statuary
+were the creation of the pagan spirit, and devoted to polytheistic
+worship. The glory of the supreme God was obscured
+by all this symbolism. The creatures formed by God, the
+symbols of his power and presence in nature, the ministers of
+his providence and moral government, were receiving the honor
+due to him. Over all this scene of material beauty and
+æsthetic perfection there rose in dark and hideous proportions
+the errors and delusions and sins against the living God which
+Polytheism nurtured, and unable any longer to restrain himself,
+he commenced to "reason" with the crowds of Athenians
+who stood beneath the shadows of the plane-trees, or lounged
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="101">101</a></span>
+beneath the porticoes that surrounded the Agora. Among
+these groups of idlers were mingled the disciples of Zeno and
+Epicurus, who "encountered" Paul. The nature of these
+"disputations" may be easily conjectured, The opinions of
+these philosophers are even now familiarly known: they are,
+in one form or another, current in the literature of modern
+times. Materialism and Pantheism still "encounter" Christianity.
+The apostle asserted the personal being and spirituality
+of one supreme and only God, who has in divers ways revealed
+himself to man, and therefore may be "known." He
+proclaimed that Jesus is the fullest and most perfect revelation
+of God--the <i>only</i> "manifestation of God in the flesh." He
+pointed to his "resurrection" as the proof of his superhuman
+character and mission to the world. Some of his hearers were
+disposed to treat him with contempt; they represented him as
+an ignorant "babbler," who had picked up a few scraps of
+learning, and who now sought to palm them off as a "new"
+philosophy. But most of them regarded him with that peculiar
+Attic curiosity which was always anxious to be hearing
+some "new thing." So they led him away from the tumult
+of the market-place to the top of Mars' Hill, where, in its serene
+atmosphere, they might hear him more carefully, and
+said, "May we hear what this new doctrine is whereof thou
+speakest?"</p>
+
+<p>Surrounded by these men of thoughtful, philosophic mind--men
+who had deeply pondered the great problem of existence,
+who had earnestly inquired after the "first principles of
+things;" men who had reasoned high of creation, fate, and
+providence; of right and wrong; of conscience, law, and retribution;
+and had formed strong and decided opinions on all
+these questions--he delivered his discourse on the <i>being</i>, the
+<i>providence</i>, the <i>spirituality</i>, and the <i>moral government</i> of God.</p>
+
+<p>This grand theme was suggested by an inscription he had
+observed on one of the altars of the city, which was dedicated
+"To the Unknown God." "Ye men of Athens! every thing
+which I behold bears witness to your <i>carefulness in religion</i>.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="102">102</a></span>
+For as I passed by and beheld your sacred objects I found an
+altar with this inscription, 'To the Unknown God;' whom,
+therefore, ye worship, though ye know him not [adequately],
+Him declare I unto you." Starting from this point, the manifest
+carefulness of the Athenians in religion, and accepting
+this inscription as the evidence that they had some presentiment,
+some native intuition, some dim conception of the one
+true and living God, he strives to lead them to a deeper knowledge
+of Him. It is here conceded by the apostle that the
+Athenians were a <i>religious people</i>. The observations he had
+made during his short stay in Athens enabled him to bear
+witness that the Athenians were "a God-fearing people,"<a id="footnotetag97" name="footnotetag97"></a>
+<a href="#footnote97"><sup class="sml">97</sup></a> and
+he felt that fairness and candor demanded that this trait should
+receive from him an ample recognition and a full acknowledgment.
+Accordingly he commences by saying in gentle terms,
+well fitted to conciliate his audience, "All things which I behold
+bear witness to your carefulness in religion." I recognize
+you as most devout; ye appear to me to be a God-fearing people,<a id="footnotetag98" name="footnotetag98"></a>
+<a href="#footnote98"><sup class="sml">98</sup></a>
+for as I passed by and beheld your sacred objects I found
+an altar with this inscription, "To the Unknown God," whom
+therefore ye worship.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote97"
+name="footnote97"><b>Footnote 97: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag97">
+(return) </a> Lange's Commentary, <i>in loco</i>.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote98"
+name="footnote98"><b>Footnote 98: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag98">
+(return) </a> "Ως before δεισιδ.--so imports. I recognize you as such."--Lange's
+Commentary.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The assertion that the Athenians were "a religious people"
+will, to many of our readers, appear a strange and startling
+utterance, which has in it more of novelty than truth. Nay,
+some will be shocked to hear the Apostle Paul described as
+complimenting these Athenians--these pagan worshippers--on
+their "carefulness in religion." We have been so long accustomed
+to use the word "heathen" as an opprobrious epithet--expressing,
+indeed, the utmost extremes of ignorance, and
+barbarism, and cruelty, that it has become difficult for us to believe
+that in a heathen there can be any good.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="103">103</a></span>
+From our childhood we have read in our English Bibles,
+Ye men of Athens, I perceive in all things ye are <i>too superstitious</i></p>
+
+<p>and we can scarcely tolerate another version, even if
+it can be shown that it approaches nearer to the actual language
+employed by Paul. We must, therefore, ask the patience
+and candor of the reader, while we endeavor to show, on the
+authority of Paul's words, that the Athenians were a "religious
+people," and that all our notions to the contrary are founded
+on prejudice and misapprehension.</p>
+
+<p>First, then, let us commence even with our English version:
+"Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are <i>too
+superstitious</i>." And what now is the meaning of the word
+"superstition?" It is true, we now use it only in an evil sense,
+to express a belief in the agency of invisible, capricious, malignant
+powers, which fills the mind with fear and terror, and sees
+in every unexplained phenomenon of nature an omen, or prognostic,
+of some future evil. But this is not its proper and original
+meaning. Superstition is from the Latin <i>superstitio</i>, which
+means a superabundance of religion,<a id="footnotetag99" name="footnotetag99"></a>
+<a href="#footnote99"><sup class="sml">99</sup></a> an extreme exactitude
+in religious observance. And this is precisely the sense in
+which the corresponding Greek term is used by the Apostle
+Paul. Δεισιδαιµονία properly means "reverence for the gods."
+"It is used," says Barnes, "in the classic writers, in a good
+sense, to denote piety towards the gods, or suitable fear and
+reverence for them." "The word," says Lechler, "is, without
+doubt, to be understood here in a good sense; although it
+seems to have been intentionally chosen, in order to indicate
+the conception of <i>fear</i> (δειδω), which predominated in the religion
+of the apostle's hearers."<a id="footnotetag100" name="footnotetag100"></a>
+<a href="#footnote100"><sup class="sml">100</sup></a> This reading is sustained by
+the ablest critics and scholars of modern times. Bengel reads
+the sentence, "I perceive that ye are <i>very religious</i>"<a id="footnotetag101" name="footnotetag101"></a>
+<a href="#footnote101"><sup class="sml">101</sup></a> Cudworth
+translates it thus: "Ye are every way <i>more than ordinarily religious."<a id="footnotetag102" name="footnotetag102"></a>
+<a href="#footnote102"><sup class="sml">102</sup></a></i>
+Conybeare and Howson read the text as we have
+already given it, "All things which I behold bear witness to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="104">104</a></span>
+your <i>carefulness in religion</i>."<a id="footnotetag103" name="footnotetag103"></a>
+<a href="#footnote103"><sup class="sml">103</sup></a> Lechler reads "very devout;"<a id="footnotetag104" name="footnotetag104"></a>
+<a href="#footnote104"><sup class="sml">104</sup></a>
+Alford, "carrying your <i>religious reverence very far</i>;"<a id="footnotetag105" name="footnotetag105"></a>
+<a href="#footnote105"><sup class="sml">105</sup></a> and Albert
+Barnes,<a id="footnotetag106" name="footnotetag106"></a>
+<a href="#footnote106"><sup class="sml">106</sup></a> "I perceive ye are greatly devoted to <i>reverence for religion</i>."<a id="footnotetag107" name="footnotetag107"></a>
+<a href="#footnote107"><sup class="sml">107</sup></a>
+Whoever, therefore, will give attention to the actual
+words of the apostle, and search for their real meaning, must
+be convinced he opens his address by complimenting the
+Athenians on their being more than ordinarily religious.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote99"
+name="footnote99"><b>Footnote 99: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag99">
+(return) </a> Nitzsch, "System of Christ. Doctrine," p. 33.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote100"
+name="footnote100"><b>Footnote 100: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag100">
+(return) </a> Lange's Commentary, <i>in loco</i>.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote101"
+name="footnote101"><b>Footnote 101: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag101">
+(return) </a> "Gnomon of the New Testament."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote102"
+name="footnote102"><b>Footnote 102: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag102">
+(return) </a> "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 626.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote103"
+name="footnote103"><b>Footnote 103: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag103">
+(return) </a> "Life and Epistles of St. Paul," vol. i. p. 378.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote104"
+name="footnote104"><b>Footnote 104: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag104">
+(return) </a> Lange's Commentary.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote105"
+name="footnote105"><b>Footnote 105: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag105">
+(return) </a> Greek Test.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote106"
+name="footnote106"><b>Footnote 106: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag106">
+(return) </a> Notes on Acts.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote107"
+name="footnote107"><b>Footnote 107: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag107">
+(return) </a> Also Clarke's Comment., <i>in loco</i>.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Nor are we for a moment to suppose the apostle is here
+dealing in hollow compliments, or having recourse to a "pious
+fraud." Such a course would have been altogether out of
+character with Paul, and to suppose him capable of pursuing
+such a course is to do him great injustice. If "to the Jews he
+became as a Jew," it was because he recognized in Judaism
+the same fundamental truths which underlie the Christian system.
+And if here he seems to become, in any sense, at one
+with "heathenism," that he might gain the heathen to the faith
+of Christ, it was because he found in heathenism some elements
+of truth akin to Christianity, and a state of feeling favorable
+to an inquiry into the truths he had to present. He beheld in
+Athens an altar reared to the God <i>he</i> worshipped, and it afforded
+him some pleasure to find that God was not totally forgotten,
+and his worship totally neglected, by the Athenians. The
+God whom they knew imperfectly, "<i>Him</i>" said he, "I declare
+unto you;" I now desire to make him more fully known. The
+worship of "the Unknown God" was a recognition of the being
+of a God whose nature transcends all human thought, a God
+who is ineffable; who, as Plato said, "is hard to be discovered,
+and having discovered him, to make him known to all, impossible."<a id="footnotetag108" name="footnotetag108"></a>
+<a href="#footnote108"><sup class="sml">108</sup></a>
+It is the confession of a <i>want</i> of knowledge, the expression
+of a <i>desire</i> to know, the acknowledgment of the <i>duty</i>
+of worshipping him. Underlying all the forms of idol-worship
+the eye of Paul recognized an influential Theism. Deep down
+in the pagan heart he discovered a "feeling after God"--a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="105">105</a></span>
+yearning for a deeper knowledge of the "unknown," the invisible,
+the incomprehensible, which he could not despise or disregard.
+The mysterious <i>sentiments</i> of fear, of reverence, of conscious
+dependence on a supernatural power and presence
+overshadowing man, which were expressed in the symbolism
+of the "sacred objects" which Paul saw everywhere in Athens,
+commanded his respect. And he alludes to their "devotions,"
+not in the language of reproach or censure, but as furnishing
+to his own mind the evidence of the strength of their <i>religious
+instincts</i>, and the proof of the existence in their hearts of that
+<i>native apprehension</i> of the supernatural, the divine, which dwells
+alike in all human souls.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote108"
+name="footnote108"><b>Footnote 108: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag108">
+(return) </a> Timæus, ch. ix.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The case of the Athenians has, therefore, a peculiar interest
+to every thoughtful mind. It confirms the belief that religion
+is a necessity to every human mind, a want of every human
+heart.<a id="footnotetag109" name="footnotetag109"></a>
+<a href="#footnote109"><sup class="sml">109</sup></a> Without religion, the nature of man can never be properly
+developed; the noblest part of man--the divine, the spiritual
+element which dwells in man, as "the offspring of God"--must
+remain utterly dwarfed. The spirit, the personal being,
+the rational nature, is religious, and Atheism is the vain
+and the wicked attempt to be something less than man. If
+the spiritual nature of man has its normal and healthy development,
+he must become a worshipper. This is attested by
+the universal history of man. We look down the long-drawn
+aisles of antiquity, and everywhere we behold the smoking altar,
+the ascending incense, the prostrate form, the attitude of devotion.
+Athens, with her four thousand deities--Rome, with her
+crowded Pantheon of gods--Egypt, with her degrading superstitions--Hindostan,
+with her horrid and revolting rites--all
+attest that the religious principle is deeply seated in the nature
+of man. And we are sure religion can never be robbed of her
+supremacy, she can never be dethroned in the hearts of men.
+It were easier to satisfy the cravings of hunger by logical syllogisms,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="106">106</a></span>
+than to satisfy the yearnings of the human heart without
+religion. The attempt of Xerxes to bind the rushing floods
+of the Hellespont in chains was not more futile nor more impotent
+than the attempt of skepticism to repress the universal
+tendency to worship, so peculiar and so natural to man in
+every age and clime.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote109"
+name="footnote109"><b>Footnote 109: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag109">
+(return) </a> The indispensable necessity for a religion of some kind to satisfy the
+emotional nature of man is tacitly confessed by the atheist Comte in the
+publication of his "Catechism of Positive Religion."</blockquote>
+
+<p>The unwillingness of many to recognize a religious element
+in the Athenian mind is further accounted for by their misconception
+of the meaning of the word "religion." We are all
+too much accustomed to regard religion as a mere system of
+dogmatic teaching. We use the terms "Christian religion,"
+"Jewish religion," "Mohammedan religion," as comprehending
+simply the characteristic doctrines by which each is distinguished;
+whereas religion is a mode of thought, and feeling,
+and action, determined by the consciousness of our relation to
+and our dependence upon God. It does not appropriate to
+itself any specific department of our mental powers and susceptibilities,
+but it conditions the entire functions and circle
+of our spiritual life. It is not simply a mode of conceiving
+God in thought, nor simply a mode of venerating God in the
+affections, nor yet simply a mode of worshipping God in outward
+and formal acts, but it comprehends the whole. Religion
+(<i>religere</i>, respect, awe, reverence) regulates our thoughts, feelings,
+and acts towards God. "It is a reference and a relationship
+of our finite consciousness to the Creator and Sustainer
+and Governor of the universe." It is such a consciousness of
+the Divine as shall awaken in the heart of man the sentiments
+of reverence, fear, and gratitude towards God; such a sense of
+dependence as shall prompt man to pray, and lead him to perform
+external acts of worship.</p>
+
+<p>Religion does not, therefore, consist exclusively in knowledge,
+however correct; and yet it must be preceded and accompanied
+by some intuitive cognition of a Supreme Being,
+and some conception of him as a free moral personality. But
+the religious sentiments, which belong rather to the heart than
+to the understanding of man--the consciousness of dependence,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="107" >107</a></span>
+the sense of obligation, the feeling of reverence, the instinct
+to pray, the appetency to worship--these may all exist
+and be largely developed in a human mind even when, as in
+the case of the Athenians, there is a very imperfect knowledge
+of the real character of God.</p>
+
+<p>Regarding this, then, as the generic conception of religion,
+namely, <i>that it is a mode of thought and feeling and action determined
+by our consciousness of dependence on a Supreme Being</i>,
+we claim that the apostle was perfectly right in complimenting
+the Athenians on their "more than ordinary religiousness,"
+for,</p>
+
+<p>1. They had, in some degree at least, that faith in the being
+and providence of God which precedes and accompanies all religion.</p>
+
+<p>They had erected an altar to the unseen, the unsearchable,
+the incomprehensible, the unknown God. And this "unknown
+God" whom the Athenians "worshipped" was the true God,
+the God whom Paul worshipped, and whom he desired more
+fully to reveal to them; "<i>Him</i> declare I unto you." The
+Athenians had, therefore, some knowledge of the true God,
+some dim recognition, at least, of his being, and some conception,
+however imperfect, of his character. The Deity to whom
+the Athenians reared this altar is called "the unknown God,"
+because he is unseen by all human eyes and incomprehensible
+to human thought. There is a sense in which to Paul, as well
+as to the Athenians--to the Christian as well as to the pagan--to
+the philosopher as well as to the peasant--God is
+"<i>the unknown</i>," and in which he must forever remain the
+incomprehensible. This has been confessed by all thoughtful
+minds in every age. It was confessed by Plato. To his
+mind God is "the ineffable," the unspeakable. Zophar, the
+friend of Job, asks, "Canst thou by searching find out God?
+Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?" This knowledge
+is "high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than
+hell; what canst thou know?" Does not Wesley teach us to
+sing,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i16">            "Hail, Father, whose creating call</p>
+<p class="i18">               Unnumbered worlds attend;</p>
+<p class="i16">             Jehovah, comprehending all,</p>
+<p class="i18">               Whom none can comprehend?"</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="108" >108</a></span>
+
+<p>To his mind, as well as to the mind of the Athenian, God was
+"the great unseen, unknown." "Beyond the universe and
+man," says Cousin, "there remains in God something unknown,
+impenetrable, incomprehensible. Hence, in the immeasurable
+spaces of the universe, and beneath all the profundities of the
+human soul, God escapes us in this inexhaustible infinitude,
+whence he is able to draw without limit new worlds, new beings,
+new manifestations. God is therefore to us <i>incomprehensible</i>."<a id="footnotetag110" name="footnotetag110"></a>
+<a href="#footnote110"><sup class="sml">110</sup></a>
+And without making ourselves in the least responsible
+for Hamilton's "negative" doctrine of the Infinite, or even responsible
+for the full import of his words, we may quote his remarkable
+utterances on this subject: "The Divinity is in part
+concealed and in part revealed. He is at once known and unknown.
+But the last and highest consecration of all true religion
+must be an altar 'to the unknown God.' In this consummation
+nature and religion, Paganism and Christianity, are at
+one."<a id="footnotetag111" name="footnotetag111"></a>
+<a href="#footnote111"><sup class="sml">111</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote110"
+name="footnote110"><b>Footnote 110: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag110">
+(return) </a> "Lectures," vol. i. p. 104.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote111"
+name="footnote111"><b>Footnote 111: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag111">
+(return) </a> "Discussions on Philosophy," p. 23.</blockquote>
+
+<p>When, therefore, the apostle affirms that while the Athenians
+worshipped the God whom he proclaimed they "knew him not,"
+we can not understand him as saying they were destitute of all
+faith in the being of God, and of all ideas of his real character.
+Because for him to have asserted they had <i>no</i> knowledge of
+God would not only have been contrary to all the facts of the
+case, but also an utter contradiction of all his settled convictions
+and his recorded opinions. There is not in modern
+times a more earnest asserter of the doctrine that the human
+mind has an intuitive cognition of God, and that the external
+world reveals God to man. There is a passage in his letter to
+the Romans which is justly entitled to stand at the head of all
+discourses on "natural theology," Rom. i. 19-21. Speaking of
+the heathen world, who had not been favored, as the Jews, with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="109">109</a></span>
+a verbal revelation, he says, "That which may be known of God
+is manifest <i>in</i> them," that is, in the constitution and laws of
+their spiritual nature, "for God hath showed it unto them" in
+the voice of reason and of conscience, so that in the instincts
+of our hearts, in the elements of our moral nature, in the ideas
+and laws of our reason, we are taught the being of a God.
+These are the subjective teachings of the human soul.</p>
+
+<p>Not only is the being of God revealed to man in the constitution
+and laws of his rational and moral nature, but God is
+also manifested to us objectively in the realm of things around
+us; therefore Paul adds, "The invisible things of him, even his
+eternal power and Godhead, from the creation are clearly seen,
+being understood by the things that are made." The world of
+sense, therefore, discloses the being and perfections of God.
+The invisible attributes of God are made apparent by the things
+that are visible. Forth out of nature, as the product of the Divine
+Mind, the supernatural shines. The forces, laws, and harmonies
+of the universe are indices of the presence of a presiding
+and informing Intelligence. The creation itself is an example
+of God's coming forth out of the mysterious depths of his
+own eternal and invisible being, and making himself apparent
+to man. There, on the pages of the volume of nature, we may
+read, in the marvellous language of symbol, the grand conceptions,
+the glorious thoughts, the ideals of beauty which dwell in
+the uncreated Mind, These two sources of knowledge--the subjective
+teachings of God in the human soul, and the objective
+manifestations of God in the visible universe--harmonize, and,
+together, fill up the complement of our natural idea of God.
+They are two hemispheres of thought, which together form one
+full-orbed fountain of light, and ought never to be separated in
+our philosophy. And, inasmuch as this divine light shines on
+all human minds, and these works of God are seen by all human
+eyes, the apostle argues that the heathen world "is without
+excuse, because, knowing God (γνόντες τὸν Θεόν) they did
+not glorify him as God, neither were thankful; but in their reasonings
+they went astray after vanities, and their hearts, being
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="110">110</a></span>
+void of wisdom, were filled with darkness. Calling themselves
+wise, they were turned into fools, and changed the glory of the
+imperishable God for idols graven in the likeness of perishable
+man, or of birds, and beasts, and creeping things,...and
+they bartered the truth of God for lies, and reverenced and
+worshipped the things made rather than the Maker, who is blessed
+forever. Amen."<a id="footnotetag112" name="footnotetag112"></a>
+<a href="#footnote112"><sup class="sml">112</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote112"
+name="footnote112"><b>Footnote 112: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag112">
+(return) </a> Rom. i. 21-25, Conybeare and Howson's translation.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The brief and elliptical report of Paul's address on Mars'
+Hill must therefore, in all fairness, be interpreted in the light
+of his more carefully elaborated statements in the Epistle to
+the Romans. And when Paul intimates that the Athenians
+"knew not God," we can not understand him as saying they
+had <i>no</i> knowledge, but that their knowledge was imperfect.
+They did not know God as Creator, Father, and Ruler; above
+all, they did not know him as a pardoning God and a sanctifying
+Spirit. They had not that knowledge of God which purifies
+the heart, and changes the character, and gives its possessor
+eternal life.</p>
+
+<p>The apostle clearly and unequivocally recognizes this truth,
+that the idea of God is connatural to the human mind; that
+in fact there is not to be found a race of men upon the face of
+the globe utterly destitute of some idea of a Supreme Being.
+Wherever human reason has had its normal and healthful development,
+it has spontaneously and necessarily led the human
+mind to the recognition of a God. The Athenians were no exception
+to this general law. They believed in the existence of
+one supreme and eternal Mind, invisible, incomprehensible, infeffable--"the
+unknown God."</p>
+
+<p>2. The Athenians had also that consciousness of dependence
+upon God which is the foundation of all the primary religious
+emotions.</p>
+
+<p>When the apostle affirmed that "in God we live, and move,
+and have our being," he uttered the sentiments of many, if not
+all, of his hearers, and in support of that affirmation he could
+quote the words of their own poets, for we are also his offspring;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="111">111</a></span>
+<a id="footnotetag113" name="footnotetag113"></a>
+<a href="#footnote113"><sup class="sml">113</sup></a> and, as his offspring, we have a derived and a dependent
+being. Indeed, this consciousness of dependence is analogous
+to the feeling which is awakened in the heart of a child
+when its parent is first manifested to its opening mind as the
+giver of those things which it immediately needs, as its continual
+protector, and as the preserver of its life. The moment a
+man becomes conscious of his own personality, that moment he
+becomes conscious of some relation to another personality, to
+which he is subject, and on which he depends.<a id="footnotetag114" name="footnotetag114"></a>
+<a href="#footnote114"><sup class="sml">114</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote113"
+name="footnote113"><b>Footnote 113: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag113">
+(return) </a>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>      "Jove's presence fills all space, upholds this ball;</p>
+<p>       All need his aid; his power sustains us all,</p>
+<p class="i4">         <i>For we his offspring are</i>."</p>
+<p class="i16">                       Aratus, "The Phænomena," book v. p. 5.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Aratus was a poet of Cilicia, Paul's native province. He flourished B.C. 277.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>     "Great and divine Father, whose names are many,</p>
+<p>      But who art one and the same unchangeable, almighty power;</p>
+<p>      O thou supreme Author of nature!</p>
+<p>      That governest by a single unerring law!</p>
+<p class="i16">                    Hail King!</p>
+<p>      For thou art able, to enforce obedience from all frail mortals,</p>
+<p>   <i>Because we are all thine offspring,</i></p>
+<p>      The image and the echo only of thy eternal voice."</p>
+<p class="i16">                                      Cleanthes, "Hymn to Jupiter."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Cleanthes was the pupil of Zeno, and his successor as chief of the Stoic
+philosophers.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote114"
+name="footnote114"><b>Footnote 114: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag114">
+(return) </a> "As soon as a man becomes conscious of himself, as soon as he perceives
+himself as distinct from other persons and things, he at the same moment
+becomes conscious of a higher self, a higher power, without which he
+feels that neither he nor any thing else would have any life or reality. We
+are so fashioned that as soon as we awake we feel on all sides our dependence
+on something else; and all nations join in some way or another in the
+words of the Psalmist, 'It is He that made us, not we ourselves.' This is
+the first <i>sense</i> of the Godhead, the <i>sensus numinis</i>, as it has well been called;
+for it is a <i>sensus</i>, an immediate perception, not the result of reasoning or
+generalization, but an intuition as irresistible as the impressions of our
+senses.... This <i>sensus numinis</i>, or, as we may call it in more homely language,
+<i>faith</i>, is the source of all religion; it is that without which no religion,
+whether true or false, is possible."--Max Müller, "Science of Language,"
+Second Series, p. 455.</blockquote>
+
+<p>A little reflection will convince us that this is the necessary
+order in which human consciousness is developed.</p>
+
+<p>There are at least two fundamental and radical tendencies
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="112">112</a></span>
+in human personality, namely, to <i>know</i> and to <i>act</i>. If we would
+conceive of them as they exist in the innermost sphere of selfhood,
+we must distinguish the first as <i>self-consciousness</i>, and the
+second as <i>self-determination</i>. These are unquestionably the two
+factors of human personality.</p>
+
+<p>If we consider the first of these factors more closely, we shall
+discover that self-consciousness exists under limitations and
+conditions. Man can not become clearly conscious of <i>self</i> without
+distinguishing himself from the outer world of sensation, nor
+without distinguishing self and the world from another being
+upon whom they depend as the ultimate substance and cause.
+Mere <i>cœnœesthesis</i> is not consciousness. Common feeling is unquestionably
+found among the lowest forms of animal life, the
+protozoa; but it can never rise to a clear consciousness of personality
+until it can distinguish itself from sensation, and acquire
+a presentiment of a divine power, on which self and the outer
+world depend. The <i>Ego</i> does not exist for itself, can not perceive
+itself, but by distinguishing itself from the ceaseless flow
+and change of sensation, and by this act of distinguishing, the
+<i>Ego</i> takes place in consciousness. And the <i>Ego</i> can not perceive
+itself, nor cognize sensation as a state or affection of the
+<i>Ego</i> except by the intervention of the reason, which supplies
+the two great fundamental laws of causality and substance.
+The facts of consciousness thus comprehend three elements--self,
+nature, and God. The determinate being, the <i>Ego</i>, is never
+an absolutely independent being, but is always in some way or
+other codetermined by another; it can not, therefore, be an absolutely
+original and independent, but must in some way or
+another be a <i>derived</i> and <i>conditioned</i> existence.</p>
+
+<p>Now that which limits and conditions human self-consciousness
+can not be mere <i>nature</i>, because nature can not give what
+it does not possess; it can not produce what is <i>toto genere</i> different
+from itself. Self-consciousness can not arise out of unconsciousness.
+This new beginning is beyond the power of
+nature. Personal power, the creative principle of all new beginnings,
+is alone adequate to its production. If, then, self-consciousness
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="113">113</a></span>
+exists in man, it necessarily presupposes an absolutely
+<i>original</i>, therefore <i>unconditioned, self-consciousness</i>. Human
+self-consciousness, in its temporal actualization, of course
+presupposes a nature-basis upon which it elevates itself; but
+it is only possible on the ground that an eternal self-conscious
+Mind ordained and rules over all the processes of nature, and
+implants the divine spark of the personal spirit with the corporeal
+frame, to realize itself in the light-flame of human self-consciousness.
+The original light of the divine self-consciousness
+is eternally and absolutely first and before all. "Thus, in the
+depths of our own self-consciousness, as its concealed background,
+the God-consciousness reveals itself to us. This descent
+into our inmost being is at the same time an ascent to God.
+Every deep reflection on ourselves breaks through the mere
+crust of world-consciousness, which separates us from the inmost
+truth of our existence, and leads us up to Him in whom
+we live and move and are."<a id="footnotetag115" name="footnotetag115"></a>
+<a href="#footnote115"><sup class="sml">115</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote115"
+name="footnote115"><b>Footnote 115: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag115">
+(return) </a> Müller, "Christian Doctrine of Sin," vol. i. p. 81.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Self-determination, equally with self-consciousness, exists in
+us under manifold <i>limitations</i>. Self-determination is limited
+by physical, corporeal, and mental conditions, so that there is
+"an impassable boundary line drawn around the area of volitional
+freedom." But the most fundamental and original limitation
+is that of <i>duty</i>. The self-determining power of man is
+not only circumscribed by necessary conditions, but also by
+the <i>moral law</i> in the consciousness of man. Self-determination
+alone does not suffice for the full conception of responsible
+freedom; it only becomes, <i>will</i>, properly by its being an intelligent
+and conscious determination; that is, the rational subject
+is able previously to recognize "the right," and present before
+his mind that which he <i>ought</i> to do, that which he is morally
+bound to realize and actualize by his own self-determination
+and choice. Accordingly we find in our inmost being a <i>sense
+of obligation</i> to obey the moral law as revealed in the conscience.
+As we can not become conscious of self without also
+becoming conscious of God, so we can not become properly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="114">114</a></span>
+conscious of self-determination until we have recognized in the
+conscience a law for the movements of the will.</p>
+
+<p>Now this moral law, as revealed in the conscience, is not a
+mere autonomy--a simple subjective law having no relation to
+a personal lawgiver out of and above man. Every admonition
+of conscience directly excites the consciousness of a God to
+whom man is accountable. The universal consciousness of
+our race, as revealed in history, has always associated the phenomena
+of conscience with the idea of a personal Power above
+man, to whom he is subject and upon whom he depends. In
+every age, the voice of conscience has been regarded as the
+voice of God, so that when it has filled man with guilty apprehensions,
+he has had recourse to sacrifices, and penances, and
+prayers to expatiate his wrath.</p>
+
+<p>It is clear, then, that if man has <i>duties</i> there must he a
+self-conscious Will by whom these duties are imposed, for only
+a real will can be legislative. If man has a <i>sense of obligation</i>,
+there must be a supreme authority by which he is obliged. If
+he is <i>responsible</i>, there must be a being to whom he is
+accountable.<a id="footnotetag116" name="footnotetag116"></a>
+<a href="#footnote116"><sup class="sml">116</sup></a> It can not be said that he is accountable to himself, for
+by that supposition the idea of duty is obliterated, and "right"
+becomes identical with mere interest or pleasure. It can not
+be said that he is simply responsible to society--to mere conventions
+of human opinions and human governments--for then
+"<i>right</i>" becomes a mere creature of human legislation, and
+"<i>justice</i>" is nothing but the arbitrary will of the strong who
+tyrannize over the weak. Might constitutes right. Against
+such hypotheses the human mind, however, instinctively revolts.
+Mankind feel, universally, that there is an authority beyond all
+human governments, and a higher law above all human laws,
+from whence all their powers are derived. That higher law is
+the Law of God, that supreme authority is the God of Justice.
+To this eternally just God, innocence, under oppression and
+wrong, has made its proud appeal, like that of Prometheus to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="115">115</a></span>
+the elements, to the witnessing clouds, to coming ages, and has
+been sustained and comforted. And to that higher law the
+weak have confidently appealed against the unrighteous enactments
+of the strong, and have finally conquered. The last and
+inmost ground of all obligation is thus the conscious relation
+of the moral creature to God. The sense of absolute dependence
+upon a Supreme Being compels man, even while conscious
+of subjective freedom, to recognize at the same time his obligation
+to determine himself in harmony with the will of Him
+"in whom we live, and move, and are."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote116"
+name="footnote116"><b>Footnote 116: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag116">
+(return) </a> "The thought of God will wake up a terrible monitor whose
+name is Judge."--Kant.</blockquote>
+
+<p>This feeling of dependence, and this consequent sense of
+obligation, lie at the very foundation of all religion. They lead
+the mind towards God, and anchor it in the Divine. They
+prompt man to pray, and inspire him with an instinctive confidence
+in the efficacy of prayer. So that prayer is natural to
+man, and necessary to man. Never yet has the traveller found
+a people on earth without prayer. Races of men have been
+found without houses, without raiment, without arts and sciences,
+but never without prayer any more than without speech.
+Plutarch wrote, eighteen centuries ago, If you go through all
+the world, you may find cities without walls, without letters,
+without rulers, without money, without theatres, but never without
+temples and gods, or without <i>prayers</i>, oaths, prophecies,
+and sacrifices, used to obtain blessings and benefits, or to avert
+curses and calamities.<a id="footnotetag117" name="footnotetag117"></a>
+<a href="#footnote117"><sup class="sml">117</sup></a> The naturalness of prayer is admitted
+even by the modern unbeliever. Gerrit Smith says, "Let us
+who believe that the religion of reason calls for the religion of
+nature, remember that the flow of prayer is just as natural as
+the flow of water; the prayerless man has become an unnatural
+man."<a id="footnotetag118" name="footnotetag118"></a>
+<a href="#footnote118"><sup class="sml">118</sup></a> Is man in sorrow or in danger, his most natural
+and spontaneous refuge is in prayer. The suffering, bewildered,
+terror-stricken soul turns towards God. "Nature in an
+agony is no atheist; the soul that knows not where to fly, flies
+to God." And in the hour of deliverance and joy, a feeling of
+gratitude pervades the soul--and gratitude, too, not to some
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="116">116</a></span>
+blind nature-force, to some unconscious and impersonal power,
+but gratitude to God. The soul's natural and appropriate language
+in the hour of deliverance is thanksgiving and praise.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote117"
+name="footnote117"><b>Footnote 117: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag117">
+(return) </a> "Against Kalotes," ch. xxxi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote118"
+name="footnote118"><b>Footnote 118: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag118">
+(return) </a> "Religion of Reason."</blockquote>
+
+<p>This universal tendency to recognize a superior Power upon
+whom we are dependent, and by whose hand our well-being
+and our destinies are absolutely controlled, has revealed itself
+even amid the most complicated forms of polytheistic worship.
+Amid the even and undisturbed flow of every-day life they
+might be satisfied with the worship of subordinate deities, but in
+the midst of sudden and unexpected calamities, and of terrible
+catastrophes, then they cried to the Supreme God.<a id="footnotetag119" name="footnotetag119"></a>
+<a href="#footnote119"><sup class="sml">119</sup></a> "When
+alarmed by an earthquake," says Aulus Gellius, "the ancient
+Romans were accustomed to pray, not to some one of the gods
+individually, but to God in general, <i>as to the Unknown</i>."<a id="footnotetag120" name="footnotetag120"></a>
+<a href="#footnote120"><sup class="sml">120</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote119"
+name="footnote119"><b>Footnote 119: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag119">
+(return) </a> "At critical moments, when the deepest feelings of the human heart are
+stirred, the old Greeks and Romans seem suddenly to have dropped all
+mythological ideas, and to have fallen back on the universal language of true
+religion."--Max Müller, "Science of Language." p. 436.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote120"
+name="footnote120"><b>Footnote 120: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag120">
+(return) </a> Tholuck, "Nature and Influence of Heathenism," p. 23.</blockquote>
+
+<p>"Thus also Minutius Felix says, 'When they stretch out
+their hands to heaven they mention only God; and these forms
+of speech, <i>He is great</i>, and <i>God is true</i>, and <i>If God grant</i>(which
+are the natural language of the vulgar), are a plain confession
+of the truth of Christianity.' And also Lactantius testifies,
+'When they swear, and when they wish, and when they give
+thanks, they name not many gods, but God only; the truth, by
+a secret force of nature, thus breaking forth from them whether
+they will or no;' and again he says, 'They fly to God; aid is
+desired of God; they pray that God would help them; and
+when one is reduced to extreme necessity, he begs for God's
+sake, and by his divine power alone implores the mercy of
+men.'"<a id="footnotetag121" name="footnotetag121"></a>
+<a href="#footnote121"><sup class="sml">121</sup></a> The account which is given by Diogenes Laertius<a id="footnotetag122" name="footnotetag122"></a>
+<a href="#footnote122"><sup class="sml">122</sup></a> of
+the erection of altars bearing the inscription "to the unknown
+God," clearly shows that they had their origin in this general
+sentiment of dependence on a higher Power. "The Athenians
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="117">117</a></span>
+being afflicted with pestilence invited Epimenides to lustrate
+their city. The method adopted by him was to carry several
+sheep to the Areopagus, whence they were left to wander as
+they pleased, under the observation of persons sent to attend
+them. As each sheep lay down it was sacrificed to <i>the propitious
+God</i>. By this ceremony it is said the city was relieved;
+but as it was still unknown what deity was propitious, an altar
+was erected <i>to the unknown God</i> on every spot where a sheep
+had been sacrificed."<a id="footnotetag123" name="footnotetag123"></a>
+<a href="#footnote123"><sup class="sml">123</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote121"
+name="footnote121"><b>Footnote 121: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag121">
+(return) </a> Cudworth, vol. i. p. 300.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote122"
+name="footnote122"><b>Footnote 122: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag122">
+(return) </a> "Lives of Philosophers," book i., Epimenides.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote123"
+name="footnote123"><b>Footnote 123: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag123">
+(return) </a> See Townsend's "Chronological Arrangement of New Testament,"
+note 19, part xii.; Doddridge's "Exposition;" and Barnes's "Notes on Acts."</blockquote>
+
+<p>"The unknown God" was their deliverer from the plague.
+And the erection of an altar to him was a confession of their
+absolute dependence upon him, of their obligation to worship
+him, as well as of their need of a deeper knowledge of him.
+The gods who were known and named were not able to deliver
+them in times of calamity, and they were compelled to look beyond
+the existing forms of Grecian mythology for relief. Beyond
+all the gods of the Olympus there was "one God over
+all," the Father of gods and men, the Creator of all the subordinate
+local deities, upon whom even these created gods were
+dependent, upon whom man was absolutely dependent, and
+therefore in times of deepest need, of severest suffering, of extremest
+peril, then they cried to the living, supreme, eternal
+God.<a id="footnotetag124" name="footnotetag124"></a>
+<a href="#footnote124"><sup class="sml">124</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote124"
+name="footnote124"><b>Footnote 124: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag124">
+(return) </a> "The men and women of the Iliad and Odyssey are habitually religious.
+The language of religion is often on their tongues, as it is ever on the lips of
+every body in the East at this day. The thought of the gods, and of their
+providence and government of the world, is a familiar thought. They seem
+to have an abiding conviction of their <i>dependence</i> on the gods. The results
+of all actions depend on the will of the gods; <i>it lies on their knees</i>
+(θεῶν ἐν γούνασι κεἶται, Od. i. 267), is the often repeated and significant expression of
+their feeling of dependence."--Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," p. 165.</blockquote>
+
+<p>3. The Athenians developed in a high degree those religious
+emotions which always accompany the consciousness of dependence
+on a Supreme Being.</p>
+
+<p>The first emotional element of all religion is <i>fear</i>. This is
+unquestionably true, whether religion be considered from a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="118" >118</a></span>
+Christian or a heathen stand-point. "The <i>fear</i> of the Lord is
+the beginning of wisdom." Associated with, perhaps preceding,
+all definite ideas of God, there exists in the human mind
+certain feelings of <i>awe</i>, and <i>reverence</i>, and <i>fear</i> which arise
+spontaneously in presence of the vastness, and grandeur, and
+magnificence of the universe, and of the power and glory of
+which the created universe is but the symbol and shadow.
+There is the felt apprehension that, beyond and back of the
+visible and the tangible, there is a <i>personal, living Power</i>, which
+is the foundation of all, and which fashions all, and fills all
+with its light and life; that "the universe is the living vesture
+in which the Invisible has robed his mysterious loveliness."
+There is the feeling of an <i>overshadowing Presence</i> which "compasseth
+man behind and before, and lays its hand upon him."</p>
+
+<p>This wonderful presentiment of an invisible power and presence
+pervading and informing all nature is beautifully described
+by Wordsworth in his history of the development of the Scottish
+herdsman's mind:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">    So the foundations of his mind were laid</p>
+<p class="i10">    In such communion, not from terror free.</p>
+<p class="i10">    While yet a child, and long before his time,</p>
+<p class="i10">    Had he perceived the presence and the power</p>
+<p class="i10">    Of greatness; and deep feelings had impressed</p>
+<p class="i10">    So vividly great objects, that they lay</p>
+<p class="i10">    Upon his mind like substances, whose presence</p>
+<p class="i10">    Perplexed the bodily sense.</p>
+<p class="i30">                       ... In the after-day</p>
+<p class="i10">    Of boyhood, many an hour in caves forlorn,</p>
+<p class="i10">    And 'mid the hollow depths of naked crags,</p>
+<p class="i10">    He sat, and even in their fixed lineaments,</p>
+<p class="i10">    Or from the power of a peculiar eye,</p>
+<p class="i10">    Or by creative feeling overborne,</p>
+<p class="i10">    Or by predominance of thought oppressed,</p>
+<p class="i10">    Even in their fixed and steady lineaments</p>
+<p class="i10">    He traced an ebbing and a flowing mind....</p>
+<p class="i10">    Such was the Boy,--but for the growing Youth,</p>
+<p class="i10">    What soul was his, when, from the naked top</p>
+<p class="i10">    Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun</p>
+<p class="i10">    Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He looked:</p>
+<p class="i10">    Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth</p>
+<p class="i10">    And ocean's liquid mass, in gladness lay</p>
+<p class="i10">    Beneath him; far and wide the clouds were touched.</p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="119">119</a></span>
+<p class="i10">    And in their silent faces could he read</p>
+<p class="i10">    Unutterable love. Sound needed none,</p>
+<p class="i10">    Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank</p>
+<p class="i10">    The spectacle: sensation, soul, and form</p>
+<p class="i10">    All melted into him; they swallowed up</p>
+<p class="i10">    His animal being; in them did he live,</p>
+<p class="i10">    And by them did he live; they were his life,</p>
+<p class="i10">    In such access of mind, in such high hour</p>
+<p class="i10">    Of visitation from the living God.<a id="footnotetag125" name="footnotetag125"></a>
+<a href="#footnote125"><sup class="sml">125</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But it may be said this is all mere poetry; to which we answer,
+in the words of Aristotle, "Poetry is a thing more philosophical
+and weightier than history."<a id="footnotetag126" name="footnotetag126"></a>
+<a href="#footnote126"><sup class="sml">126</sup></a> The true poet is the
+interpreter of nature. His soul is in the fullest sympathy with
+the grand ideas which nature symbolizes, and he "deciphers
+the universe as the autobiography of the Infinite Spirit."
+Spontaneous feeling is a kind of inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that all minds may not be developed in precisely
+the same manner as Wordsworth's herdsman's, because the
+development of every individual mind is modified in some
+measure by exterior conditions. Men may contemplate nature
+from different points of view. Some may be impressed with one
+aspect of nature, some with another. But none will fail to recognize
+a mysterious <i>presence</i> and invisible <i>power</i> beneath all
+the fleeting and changeful phenomena of the universe. "And
+sometimes there are moments of tenderness, of sorrow, and of
+vague mystery which bring the feeling of the Infinite Presence
+close to the human heart."<a id="footnotetag127" name="footnotetag127"></a>
+<a href="#footnote127"><sup class="sml">127</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote125"
+name="footnote125"><b>Footnote 125: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag125">
+(return) </a> "The Wanderer."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote126"
+name="footnote126"><b>Footnote 126: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag126">
+(return) </a> Poet, ch. ix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote127"
+name="footnote127"><b>Footnote 127: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag127">
+(return) </a> Robertson.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Now we hold that <i>this feeling and sentiment of the Divine</i>--the
+supernatural--exists in every mind. It may be, it undoubtedly
+is, somewhat modified in its manifestations by the circumstances
+in which men are placed, and the degree of culture they
+have enjoyed. The African Fetichist, in his moral and intellectual
+debasement, conceives a supernatural power enshrined
+in every object of nature. The rude Fijian regards with dread,
+and even terror, the Being who darts the lightnings and wields
+the thunderbolts. The Indian "sees God in clouds, and hears
+him in the wind." The Scottish "herdsman" on the lonely
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="120">120</a></span>
+mountain-top "feels the presence and the power of greatness,"
+and "in its fixed and steady lineaments he sees an ebbing and
+a flowing mind." The philosopher<a id="footnotetag128" name="footnotetag128"></a>
+<a href="#footnote128"><sup class="sml">128</sup></a> lifts his eyes to "the starry
+heavens" in all the depth of their concave, and with all their constellations
+of glory moving on in solemn grandeur, and, to his
+mind, these immeasurable regions seem "filled with the splendors
+of the Deity, and crowded with the monuments of his
+power;" or he turns his eye to "the Moral Law within," and he
+hears the voice of an intelligent and a righteous God. In all
+these cases we have a revelation of the sentiment of the Divine,
+which dwells alike in all human minds. In the Athenians this
+sentiment was developed in a high degree. The serene heaven
+which Greece enjoyed, and which was the best-loved roof of its
+inhabitants, the brilliant sun, the mountain scenery of unsurpassed
+grandeur, the deep blue sea, an image of the infinite,
+these poured all their fullness on the Athenian mind, and furnished
+the most favorable conditions for the development of the
+religious sentiments. The people of Athens spent most of their
+time in the open air in communion with nature, and in the
+cheerful and temperate enjoyment of existence. To recognize
+the Deity in the living powers of nature, and especially in man,
+as the highest sensible manifestation of the Divine, was the peculiar
+prerogative of the Grecian mind. And here in Athens,
+art also vied with nature to deepen the religious sentiments.
+It raised the mind to ideal conceptions of a beauty and a sublimity
+which transcended all mere nature-forms, and by images,
+of supernatural grandeur and loveliness presented to the Athenians
+symbolic representations of the separate attributes and operations
+of the invisible God. The plastic art of Greece was
+designed to express religious ideas, and was consecrated by religious
+feeling. Thus the facts of the case are strikingly in harmony
+with the words of the Apostle: "All things which I behold
+bear witness to your carefulness in religion," your "reverence
+for the Deity," your "fear of God."<a id="footnotetag129" name="footnotetag129"></a>
+<a href="#footnote129"><sup class="sml">129</sup></a> "The sacred objects" in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="121">121</a></span>
+Athens, and especially "the altar to the Unknown God," were
+all regarded by Paul as evidences of their instinctive faith in
+the invisible, the supernatural, the divine.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote128"
+name="footnote128"><b>Footnote 128: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag128">
+(return) </a> Kant, in "Critique of Practical Reason."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote129"
+name="footnote129"><b>Footnote 129: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag129">
+(return) </a> See Parkhurst's Lexicon, under <i>Δεισιδαιµονία</i>, which Suidas explains by
+εὐλάßεια περὶ τὸ θεῖον--<i>reverence for the Divine</i>, and Hesychius by Φυßυθέια--<i>fear
+of God</i>. Also, Josephus, Antiq., book x. ch. iii, § 2: "Manasseh, after
+his repentance and reformation, strove to behave himself (τῇ δεισιδαιµονία
+χρῆσθαί) in the <i>most religious manner</i> towards God." Also see A. Clarke on
+Acts xvii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Along with this sentiment of the Divine there is also associated,
+in all human minds, an <i>instinctive yearning</i> after the Invisible;
+not a mere feeling of curiosity to pierce the mystery of being
+and of life, but what Paul designates "a feeling after God,"
+which prompts man to seek after a deeper knowledge, and a
+more immediate consciousness. To attain this deeper knowledge--this
+more conscious realization of the being and the presence
+of God, has been the effort of all philosophy and all religion
+in all ages. The Hindoo Yogis proposes to withdraw into
+his inmost self, and by a complete suspension of all his active
+powers to become absorbed and swallowed up in the Infinite.<a id="footnotetag130" name="footnotetag130"></a>
+<a href="#footnote130"><sup class="sml">130</sup></a>
+Plato and his followers sought by an immediate abstraction to
+apprehend "the unchangeable and permanent Being," and, by
+a loving contemplation, to become "assimilated to the Deity,"
+and in this way to attain the immediate consciousness of God.
+The Neo-Platonic mystic sought by asceticism and self-mortification
+to prepare himself for divine communings. He would
+contemplate the divine perfections in himself; and in an <i>ecstatic</i>
+state, wherein all individuality vanishes, he would realize a union,
+or identity, with the Divine Essence.<a id="footnotetag131" name="footnotetag131"></a>
+<a href="#footnote131"><sup class="sml">131</sup></a> While the universal
+Church of God, indeed, has in her purest days always taught
+that man may, by inward purity and a believing love, be rendered
+capable of spiritually apprehending, and consciously feeling,
+the presence of God. Some may be disposed to pronounce
+this as all mere mysticism. We answer, The living internal
+energy of religion is always <i>mystical</i>, it is grounded in
+<i>feeling</i>--a "<i>sensus numinis</i>" common to humanity. It is the mysterious
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="122" >122</a></span>
+sentiment of the Divine; it is the prolepsis of the human spirit
+reaching out towards the Infinite; the living susceptibility of our
+spiritual nature stretching after the powers and influences of
+the higher world. It is upon this inner instinct of the supernatural
+that all religion rests. I do not say every religious idea,
+but whatever is positive, practical, powerful, durable, and popular.
+Everywhere, in all climates, in all epochs of history, and
+in all degrees of civilization, man is animated by the sentiment--I
+would rather say, the presentiment--that the world in which
+he lives, the order of things in the midst of which he moves,
+the facts which regularly and constantly succeed each other, are
+not <i>all</i>. In vain he daily makes discoveries and conquests in
+this vast universe; in vain he observes and learnedly verifies
+the general laws which govern it; <i>his thought is not inclosed in
+the world surrendered to his science</i>; the spectacle of it does not
+suffice his soul, it is raised beyond it; it searches after and
+catches glimpses of something beyond it; it aspires higher both
+for the universe and itself; it aims at another destiny, another
+master.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote130"
+name="footnote130"><b>Footnote 130: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag130">
+(return) </a> Vaughan, "Hours with the Mystics," vol. i. p. 44.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote131"
+name="footnote131"><b>Footnote 131: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag131">
+(return) </a> Id. ib., vol. i. p. 65.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="mid">
+"'Par delà tous ces cieux le Dieu des cieux réside.'"<a id="footnotetag132" name="footnotetag132"></a>
+<a href="#footnote132"><sup class="sml">132</sup></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>So Voltaire has said, and the God who is beyond the skies is
+not nature personified, but a supernatural Personality. It is to
+this highest Personality that all religions address themselves.
+It is to bring man into communion with Him that they exist.<a id="footnotetag133" name="footnotetag133"></a>
+<a href="#footnote133"><sup class="sml">133</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote132"
+name="footnote132"><b>Footnote 132: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag132">
+(return) </a> "Beyond all these heavens the God of the heavens resides."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote133"
+name="footnote133"><b>Footnote 133: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag133">
+(return) </a> Guizot, "L'Eglise et la Societé Chretiennes" en 1861.</blockquote>
+
+<p>4. The Athenians had that deep consciousness of sin and
+guilt, and of consequent liability to punishment, which confesses
+the need of expiation by piacular sacrifices.</p>
+
+<p>Every man feels himself to be an accountable being, and he
+is conscious that in wrong-doing he is deserving of blame and
+of punishment. Deep within the soul of the transgressor is the
+consciousness that he is a guilty man, and he is haunted with
+the perpetual apprehension of a retribution which, like the
+spectre of evil omen, crosses his every path, and meets him at
+every turn.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="123">123</a></span>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">        "Tis guilt alone,</p>
+<p class="i10">        Like brain-sick frenzy in its feverish mode,</p>
+<p class="i10">        Fills the light air with visionary terrors,</p>
+<p class="i10">        And shapeless forms of fear."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Man does not possess this consciousness of guilt so much
+as it holds possession of him. It pursues the fugitive from
+justice, and it lays hold on the man who has resisted or escaped
+the hand of the executioner. The sense of guilt is a
+power over and above man; a power so wonderful that it often
+compels the most reckless criminal to deliver himself up, with
+the confession of his deed, to the sword of justice, when a falsehood
+would have easily protected him. Man is only able by
+persevering, ever-repeated efforts at self-induration, against the
+remonstrances of conscience, to withdraw himself from its power.
+His success is, however, but very partial; for sometimes,
+in the moments of his greatest security, the reproaches of conscience
+break in upon him like a flood, and sweep away all his
+refuge of lies. "The evil conscience is the divine bond which
+binds the created spirit, even in deep apostasy, to its Original.
+In the consciousness of guilt there is revealed the essential relation
+of our spirit to God, although misunderstood by man until
+he has something higher than his evil conscience. The
+trouble and anguish which the remonstrances of this consciousness
+excite--the inward unrest which sometimes seizes the
+slave of sin--are proofs that he has not quite broken away
+from God."<a id="footnotetag134" name="footnotetag134"></a>
+<a href="#footnote134"><sup class="sml">134</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote134"
+name="footnote134"><b>Footnote 134: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag134">
+(return) </a> Müller, "Christian Doctrine of Sin," vol. i. pp. 225, 226.</blockquote>
+
+<p>In Grecian mythology there was a very distinct recognition
+of the power of conscience, and a reference of its authority to
+the Divinity, together with the idea of retribution. Nemesis
+was regarded as the impersonation of the upbraidings of conscience,
+of the natural dread of punishment that springs up in
+the human heart after the commission of sin. And as the
+feeling of remorse may be considered as the consequence of
+the displeasure and vengeance of an offended God, Nemesis
+came to be regarded as the goddess of retribution, relentlessly
+pursuing the guilty until she has driven them into irretrievable
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="124">124</a></span>
+woe and ruin. The Erinyes or Eumenides are the deities
+whose business it is to punish, in hades, the crimes committed
+upon earth. When an aggravated crime has excited their displeasure
+they manifest their greatest power in the disquietude
+of conscience.</p>
+
+<p>Along with this deep consciousness of guilt, and this fear of
+retribution which haunts the guilty mind, there has also rested
+upon the heart of universal humanity a deep and abiding
+conviction that <i>something must be done to expiate the guilt of
+sin</i>--some restitution must be made, some suffering must be
+endured,<a id="footnotetag135" name="footnotetag135"></a>
+<a href="#footnote135"><sup class="sml">135</sup></a> some sacrifice offered to atone for past misdeeds.
+Hence it is that men in all ages have had recourse to penances
+and prayers, to self-inflicted tortures and costly sacrifices to
+appease a righteous anger which their sins had excited, and
+avert an impending punishment. That sacrifice to atone for
+sin has prevailed universally--that it has been practised "<i>sem-per,
+ubique, et ab omnibus,</i>" always, in all places, and by all men--will
+not be denied by the candid and competent inquirer.
+The evidence which has been collected from ancient history by
+Grotius and Magee, and the additional evidence from contemporaneous
+history, which is being now furnished by the researches
+of ethnologists and Christian missionaries, is conclusive.
+No intelligent man can doubt the fact. Sacrificial offerings
+have prevailed in every nation and in every age. "Almost
+the entire worship of the pagan nations consisted in rites
+of deprecation. Fear of the Divine displeasure seems to have
+been the leading feature of their religious impressions; and in
+the diversity, the costliness, the cruelty of their sacrifices they
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="125" >125</a></span>
+sought to appease gods to whose wrath they felt themselves
+exposed, from a consciousness of sin, unrelieved by any information
+as to the means of escaping its effects."<a id="footnotetag136" name="footnotetag136"></a>
+<a href="#footnote136"><sup class="sml">136</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote135"
+name="footnote135"><b>Footnote 135: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag135">
+(return) </a> Punishment is the penalty due to sin; or, to use the favorite expression
+of Homer, not unusual in the Scriptures also, it is the payment of a
+debt incurred by sin. When he is punished, the criminal is said to pay off
+or pay back (άποτίνειν) his crimes; in other words, to expiate or atone for
+them (Iliad, iv. 161,162),
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i30">                              σύν τε µεγάλω ἀπέτισαν</p>
+<p class="i10">         σίν σφῇσιν κεφαλῇσι γυναιξί τε καὶ τεκέεσσιν,</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>that is, they shall pay off, pay back, atone, etc., for their treachery with a
+great price, with their lives, and their wives and children.--Tyler, "Theology
+of Greek Poets," p. 194.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote136"
+name="footnote136"><b>Footnote 136: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag136">
+(return) </a> Magee, "On the Atonement," No. V. p. 30.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It must be known to every one at all acquainted with Greek
+mythology that the idea of <i>expiation</i>--atonement--was a fundamental
+idea of their religion. Independent of any historical
+research, a very slight glance at the Greek and Roman classics,
+especially the poets, who were the theologians of that age, can
+leave little doubt upon this head.<a id="footnotetag137" name="footnotetag137"></a>
+<a href="#footnote137"><sup class="sml">137</sup></a> Their language everywhere
+announces the notion of <i>propitiation</i>, and, particularly the Latin,
+furnishes the terms which are still employed in theology. We
+need only mention the words ἱλασµός, ἱλάσκοµαι, λύτρον, περίψηµα,
+as examples from the Greek, and <i>placare, propitiare, expiare,
+piaculum</i>, from the Latin. All these indicate that the notion of
+expiation was interwoven into the very modes of thought and
+framework of the language of the ancient Greeks.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote137"
+name="footnote137"><b>Footnote 137: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag137">
+(return) </a> In Homer the doctrine is expressly taught that the gods may, and sometimes
+do, remit the penalty, when duly propitiated by prayers and sacrifices
+accompanied by suitable reparations ("Iliad," ix. 497 sqq.). "We have a
+practical illustration of this doctrine in the first book of the Iliad, where
+Apollo averts the pestilence from the army, when the daughter of his priest
+is returned without ransom, and a <i>sacrifice</i> (ἑλατόµßη) is sent to the altar of
+the god at sacred Chrysa.... Apollo hearkens to the intercession of his
+priest, accepts the sacred hecatomb, is delighted with the accompanying
+songs and libations, and sends back the embassy with a favoring breeze,
+and a favorable answer to the army, who meanwhile had been <i>purifying</i>
+(ἀπελυµαίνοντο) themselves, and offering unblemished hecatombs of bulls
+and goats on the shore of the sea which washes the place of their encampment."
+
+<p>"The object of the propitiatory embassy to Apollo is thus stated by
+Ulysses: Agamemnon, king of men, has sent me to bring back thy daughter
+Chryses, and to offer a sacred hecatomb for (ὑπέρ) the Greeks, that we may
+<i>propitiate</i> (ιλασόµεσθα) the king, who now sends woes and many groans upon
+the Argives" (442 sqq.).--Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," pp. 196, 197.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>We do not deem it needful to discuss at length the question
+which has been so earnestly debated among theologians,
+as to whether the idea of expiation be a primitive and necessary
+idea of the human mind, or whether the practice of piacular
+sacrifices came into the post-diluvian world with Noah, as a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="126" >126</a></span>
+positive institution of a primitive religion then first directly instituted
+by God. On either hypothesis the practice of expiatory
+rites derives its authority from God; in the latter case, by
+an outward and verbal revelation, in the former by an inward
+and intuitive revelation.</p>
+
+<p>This much, however, must be conceded on all hands, that
+there are certain fundamental intuitions, universal and necessary,
+which underlie the almost universal practice of expiatory
+sacrifice, namely, <i>the universal consciousness of guilt, and the
+universal conviction that something must be done to expiate guilt</i>,
+to compensate for wrong, and to atone for past misdeeds. But
+<i>how</i> that expiation can be effected, how that atonement can be
+made, is a question which reason does not seem competent to
+answer. That personal sin can be atoned for by vicarious
+suffering, that national guilt can be expiated and national punishment
+averted by animal sacrifices, or even by human sacrifices,
+is repugnant to rather than conformable with natural reason.
+There exists no discernible connection between the one
+and the other. We may suppose that eucharistic, penitential,
+and even deprecatory sacrifices may have originated in the
+light of nature and reason, but we are unable to account for
+the practice of piacular sacrifices for substitutional atonement,
+on the same principle. The ethical principle, that one's own
+sins are not transferable either in their guilt or punishment, is
+so obviously just that we feel it must have been as clear to the
+mind of the Greek who brought his victim to be offered to Zeus,
+as it is to the philosophic mind of to-day.<a id="footnotetag138" name="footnotetag138"></a>
+<a href="#footnote138"><sup class="sml">138</sup></a> The knowledge
+that the Divine displeasure can be averted by sacrifice is not,
+by Plato, grounded upon any intuition of reason, as is the existence
+of God, the idea of the true, the just, and good, but on
+"tradition,"<a id="footnotetag139" name="footnotetag139"></a>
+<a href="#footnote139"><sup class="sml">139</sup></a> and the "interpretations" of Apollo. "To the
+Delphian Apollo there remains the greatest, noblest, and most
+important of legal institutions--the erection of temples, sacrifices,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="127">127</a></span>
+and other services to the gods,... and what other services
+should be gone through with a view to their <i>propitiation</i>. Such
+things as these, indeed, <i>we neither know ourselves, nor in founding
+the State would we intrust them to others</i>, if we be wise;...
+the god of the country is the natural interpreter to all men
+about such matters."<a id="footnotetag140" name="footnotetag140"></a>
+<a href="#footnote140"><sup class="sml">140</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote138"
+name="footnote138"><b>Footnote 138: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag138">
+(return) </a> "He that hath done the deed, to suffer for it--thus cries a proverb thrice
+hallowed by age."--Æschylus, "Choëph," 311.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote139"
+name="footnote139"><b>Footnote 139: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag139">
+(return) </a> "Laws," book vi. ch. xv.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote140"
+name="footnote140"><b>Footnote 140: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag140">
+(return) </a> "Republic," book iv. ch. v.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The origin of expiatory sacrifices can not, we think, be explained
+except on the principle of a primitive revelation and
+a positive appointment of God. They can not be understood
+except as a divinely-appointed symbolism, in which there is
+exhibited a confession of personal guilt and desert of punishment;
+an intimation and a hope that God will be propitious
+and merciful; and a typical promise and prophecy of a future
+Redeemer from sin, who shall "put away sin by the sacrifice
+of himself." This sacred rite was instituted in connection with
+the <i>protevangelium</i> given to our first parents; it was diffused
+among the nations by tradition, and has been kept alive as a
+general, and, indeed, almost universal observance, by that deep
+sense of sin, and consciousness of guilt, and personal urgency
+of the need of a reconciliation, which are so clearly displayed
+in Grecian mythology.</p>
+
+<p>The legitimate inference we find ourselves entitled to draw
+from the words of Paul, when fairly interpreted in the light of
+the past religious history of the world, is, that the Athenians
+were a religious people; that is, <i>they were, however unknowing,
+believers in and worshippers of the One Supreme God</i>.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="128" >128</a></span>
+<br>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+
+<h3>THE RELIGION OF THE ATHENIANS: ITS MYTHOLOGICAL AND
+SYMBOLICAL ASPECTS.</h3>
+
+<blockquote>
+"That there is one Supreme Deity, both philosophers and poets, and even
+the vulgar worshippers of the gods themselves frequently acknowledge;
+which because the assertors of gods well understood, they affirm these gods
+of theirs to preside over the several parts of the world, yet so that there is
+only one chief governor. Whence it follows, that all their other gods can be
+no other than ministers and officers which one greatest God, who is omnipotent,
+hath variously appointed, and constituted so as to serve his command."
+--LACTANTIUS.
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>The conclusion reached in the previous chapter that the
+Athenians were believers in and worshippers of the One
+Supreme God, has been challenged with some considerable
+show of reason and force, on the ground that they were <i>Polytheists</i>
+and <i>Idolaters</i>.</p>
+
+<p>An objection which presents itself so immediately on the
+very face of the sacred narrative, and which is sustained by the
+unanimous voice of history, is entitled to the fullest consideration.
+And as the interests of truth are infinitely more precious
+than the maintenance of any theory, however plausible, we are
+constrained to accord to this objection the fullest weight, and
+give to it the most impartial consideration. We can not do
+otherwise than at once admit that the Athenians were <i>Polytheists</i>--they
+worshipped "many gods" besides "the unknown
+God." It is equally true that they were <i>Idolaters</i>--they worshipped
+images or statues of the gods, which images were also,
+by an easy metonymy, called "gods."</p>
+
+<p>But surely no one supposes that this is all that can be said
+upon the subject, and that, after such admissions, the discussion
+must be closed. On the contrary, we have, as yet, scarce
+caught a glimpse of the real character and genius of Grecian
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="129">129</a></span>
+polytheistic worship, and we have not made the first approach
+towards a philosophy of Grecian mythology.</p>
+
+<p>The assumption that the heathen regarded the images
+"graven by art and device of man" as the real creators of the
+world and man, or as having any control over the destinies of
+men, sinks at once under the weight of its own absurdity. Such
+hypothesis is repudiated with scorn and indignation by the heathens
+themselves. Cotta, in <i>Cicero</i>, declares explicitly: "though
+it be common and familiar language amongst us to call corn
+Ceres, and wine Bacchus, yet who can think any one so mad
+as to take that to be really a god that he feeds upon?"<a id="footnotetag141" name="footnotetag141"></a>
+<a href="#footnote141"><sup class="sml">141</sup></a> And
+<i>Plutarch</i> condemns the whole practice of giving the names of
+gods and goddesses to inanimate objects, as absurd, impious,
+and atheistical: "they who give the names of gods to senseless
+matter and inanimate things, and such as are destroyed by
+men in the using, beget most wicked and atheistical opinions
+in the minds of men, since it can not be conceived how these
+things should be gods, for nothing that is inanimate is a god."<a id="footnotetag142" name="footnotetag142"></a>
+<a href="#footnote142"><sup class="sml">142</sup></a>
+And so also the Hindoo, the Buddhist, the American Indian, the
+Fijian of to-day, repel the notion that their visible images are
+real gods, or that they worship them instead of the unseen God.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote141"
+name="footnote141"><b>Footnote 141: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag141">
+(return) </a> Cudworth's "Intell. System," vol. ii. p. 257, Eng. ed.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote142"
+name="footnote142"><b>Footnote 142: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag142">
+(return) </a> Quoted in Cudworth's "Intell. System," vol. ii. p. 258, Eng. ed.</blockquote>
+
+<p>And furthermore, that even the invisible divinities which
+these images were designed to represent, were each independent,
+self-existent beings, and that the stories which are told
+concerning them by Homer and Hesiod were received in a
+literal sense, is equally improbable. The earliest philosophers
+knew as well as we know, that the Deity, in order to be Deity,
+must be either <i>perfect</i> or nothing--that he must be <i>one</i>, not
+many--without parts and passions; and they were scandalized
+and shocked by the religious fables of the ancient mythology
+as much as we are. <i>Xenophanes</i>, who lived, as we know, before
+Pythagoras, accuses Homer and Hesiod of having ascribed to
+the gods every thing that is disgraceful amongst men, as stealing,
+adultery, and deceit. He remarks "that men seem to have
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="130">130</a></span>
+created their gods, and to have given them their own mind, and
+voice, and figure." He himself declares that "God is <i>one,</i> the
+greatest amongst gods and men, neither in form nor in thought
+like unto men." He calls the battles of the Titans and the
+Giants, and the Centaurs, "the inventions of former generations,"
+and he demands that God shall be praised in holy
+songs and nobler strains.<a id="footnotetag143" name="footnotetag143"></a>
+<a href="#footnote143"><sup class="sml">143</sup></a> Diogenes Laertius relates the
+following of <i>Pythagoras</i>, "that when he descended to the shades
+below, he saw the soul of Hesiod bound to a pillar of brass
+and gnashing his teeth; and that of Homer, as suspended on
+a tree, and surrounded by serpents; as a punishment for the
+things they had said of the gods."<a id="footnotetag144" name="footnotetag144"></a>
+<a href="#footnote144"><sup class="sml">144</sup></a> These poets, who had
+corrupted theology, <i>Plato</i> proposes to exclude from his ideal
+Republic; or if permitted at all, they must be subjected to a rigid
+expurgation. "We shall," says he, "have to repudiate a large
+part of those fables which are now in vogue; and, especially,
+of what I call the greater fables,--the stories which Hesiod and
+Homer tell us. In these stories there is a fault which deserves
+the gravest condemnation; namely, when an author gives a
+<i>bad representation of gods and heroes</i>. We must condemn such
+a poet, as we should condemn a painter, whose pictures bear no
+resemblance to the objects which he tries to imitate. For instance,
+the poet Hesiod related an ugly story when he told how
+Uranus acted, and how Kronos had his revenge upon him.
+They are offensive stories, and must not be repeated in our
+cities. Not yet is it proper to say, in any case,--what is indeed
+untrue--that gods wage war against gods, and intrigue and
+fight among themselves. Stories like the chaining of Juno
+by her son Vulcan, and the flinging of Vulcan out of heaven
+for trying to take his mother's part when his father was beating
+her, and all other battles of the gods which are found in Homer,
+must be refused admission into our state, <i>whether they are allegorical
+or not</i>. For a child can not discriminate between what
+is allegorical and what is not; and whatever is adopted, as a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="131" >131</a></span>
+matter of belief, in childhood, has a tendency to become fixed
+and indelible; and therefore we ought to esteem it as of the
+greatest importance that the fables which children first hear
+should be adapted, as far as possible, to promote virtue."<a id="footnotetag145" name="footnotetag145"></a>
+<a href="#footnote145"><sup class="sml">145</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote143"
+name="footnote143"><b>Footnote 143: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag143">
+(return) </a> Max Muller, "Science of Language," pp. 405, 406.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote144"
+name="footnote144"><b>Footnote 144: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag144">
+(return) </a> "Lives," bk. viii. ch. xix. p. 347.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote145"
+name="footnote145"><b>Footnote 145: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag145">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xvii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>If, then, poetic and allegorical representations of divine
+things are to be permitted in the ideal republic, then the founders
+of the state are to prescribe "the moulds in which the poets
+are to cast their fictions."</p>
+
+<p>"Now what are these moulds to be in the case of <i>Theology?</i>
+They may be described as follows: It is right always to represent
+God as he really is, whether the poet describe him in an
+epic, or a lyric, or a dramatic poem. Now God is, beyond all
+else, <i>good in reality</i>, and therefore so to be represented. But
+nothing that is good is hurtful. That which is good hurts not;
+does no evil; is the cause of no evil. That which is good is
+beneficial; is the cause of good. And, therefore, that which
+is good is not the cause of <i>all</i> which is and happens, but only
+of that which is as it should be.... The good things we must
+ascribe to God, whilst we must seek elsewhere, and not in him,
+the causes of evil things."</p>
+
+<p>We must, then, express our disapprobation of Homer, or any
+other poet, who is guilty of such a foolish blunder as to tell us
+(Iliad, xxiv. 660) that:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">'Fast by the threshold of Jove's court are placed</p>
+<p class="i10">Two casks--one stored with evil, one with good:'placed</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and that he for whom the Thunderer mingles both--</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">'He leads a life checkered with good and ill.'</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But as for the man to whom he gives the bitter cup unmixed--</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i30">                                    'He walks</p>
+<p class="i10">The blessed earth unbless'd, go where he will.'</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And if any one asserts that the violation of oaths and treaties
+by the act of Pandarus was brought about by Athené and Zeus
+(Iliad, ii. 60), we should refuse our approbation. Nor can
+we allow it to be said that the strife and trial of strength between
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="132">132</a></span>
+the gods (Iliad, xx.) was instigated by Themis and
+Zeus.... Such language can not be used without irreverence;
+it is both injurious to us, and contradictory in itself.<a id="footnotetag146" name="footnotetag146"></a>
+<a href="#footnote146"><sup class="sml">146</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Inasmuch as God is perfect to the utmost in beauty and
+goodness, <i>he abides ever the same</i>, and without any variation in
+his form. Then let no poet tell us that (Odyss. xvii. 582)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i20">              'In similitude of strangers oft</p>
+<p class="i10">The Gods, who can with ease all shapes assume,</p>
+<p class="i10">Repair to populous cities.'</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And let no one slander Proteus and Thetis, or introduce in
+tragedies, or any other poems, Hera transformed into the guise
+of a princess collecting</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">'Alms for the life-giving children of Inachus, river of Argos,'</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>not to mention many other falsehoods which we must interdict.<a id="footnotetag147" name="footnotetag147"></a>
+<a href="#footnote147"><sup class="sml">147</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>"When a poet holds such language concerning the gods, we
+shall be angry with him, and refuse him a chorus. Neither shall
+we allow our teachers to use his writings for the instruction of
+the young, if we would have our guards grow up to be as god-like
+and god-fearing as it is possible for men to be."<a id="footnotetag148" name="footnotetag148"></a>
+<a href="#footnote148"><sup class="sml">148</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>We are thus constrained by the statements of the heathens
+themselves, as well as by the dictates of common sense, to look
+beyond the external drapery and the material forms of Polytheism
+for some deeper and truer meaning that shall be more
+in harmony with the facts of the universal religious consciousness
+of our race. The religion of ancient Greece consisted in
+something more than the fables of Jupiter and Juno, of Apollo
+and Minerva, of Venus and Bacchus. "Through the rank and
+poisonous vegetation of mythic phraseology, we may always
+catch a glimpse of an original stem round which it creeps and
+winds itself, and without which it can not enjoy that parasitical
+existence which has been mistaken for independent vitality."<a id="footnotetag149" name="footnotetag149"></a>
+<a href="#footnote149"><sup class="sml">149</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote146"
+name="footnote146"><b>Footnote 146: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag146">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote147"
+name="footnote147"><b>Footnote 147: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag147">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xx. Much more to the same effect may be seen
+in ch. ii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote148"
+name="footnote148"><b>Footnote 148: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag148">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xxi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote149"
+name="footnote149"><b>Footnote 149: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag149">
+(return) </a> Max Müller, "Science of Language," 2d series, p. 433.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="133" >133</a></span>
+
+<p>It is an obvious truth, attested by the voice of universal
+consciousness as revealed in history, that the human mind can
+never rest satisfied within the sphere of sensible phenomena.
+Man is impelled by an inward necessity to pass, in thought,
+beyond the boundary-line of sense, and inquire after causes
+and entities which his reason assures him must lie beneath all
+sensible appearances. He must and will interpret nature according
+to the forms of his own personality, or according to the
+fundamental ideas of his own reason. In the childlike subjectivity
+of the undisciplined mind he will either transfer to nature
+the phenomena of his own personality, regarding the world
+as a living organism which has within it an informing soul, and
+thus attain a <i>pantheistic</i> conception of the universe; or else he
+will fix upon some extraordinary and inexplicable phenomenon
+of nature, and, investing it with <i>super</i>natural significance, will
+rise from thence to a religious and <i>theocratic</i> conception of nature
+as a whole. An intelligence--a mind <i>within</i> nature, and
+inseparable from nature, or else <i>above</i> nature and governing
+nature, is, for man, an inevitable thought.</p>
+
+<p>It is equally obvious that humanity can never relegate itself
+from a supernatural origin, neither can it ever absolve itself
+from a permanent correlation with the Divine. Man feels
+within him an instinctive nobility. He did not arise out of the
+bosom of nature; in some mysterious way he has descended
+from an eternal mind, he is "the offspring of God." And furthermore,
+a theocratic conception of nature, associated with a
+pre-eminent regard for certain apparently supernatural experiences
+in the history of humanity, becomes the foundation of
+governments, of civil authority, and of laws. Society can not
+be founded without the aid of the Deity, and a commonwealth
+can only be organized by Divine interposition. "A Ceres
+must appear and sow the fields with corn." And a Numa or
+a Lycurgus must be heralded by the oracle as</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">"Dear to Jove, and all who sit in the halls of the Olympus."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>He must be a "descendant of Zeus," appointed by the gods
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="134" >134</a></span>
+to rule, and one who will "prove himself a god." These divinely-appointed
+rulers were regarded as the ministers of God,
+the visible representatives of the unseen Power which really
+governs all. The divine government must also have its invisible
+agents--its Nemesis, and Themis, and Diké, the ministers
+of law, of justice, and of retribution; and its Jupiter, and Juno,
+and Neptune, and Pluto, ruling, with delegated powers, in the
+heavens, the air, the sea, and the nethermost regions. So that,
+in fact, there exists no nation, no commonwealth, no history
+without a Theophany, and along with it certain sacred legends
+detailing the origin of the people, the government, the country
+itself, and the world at large. This is especially true of India,
+Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Their primitive history is eminently
+<i>mythological</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Grecian polytheism can not be otherwise regarded than as
+a poetico-historical religion of <i>myth</i> and <i>symbol</i> which is under-laid
+by a natural Theism; a parasitical growth which winds
+itself around the original stem of instinctive faith in a supernatural
+Power and Presence which pervades the universe.
+The myths are oral traditions, floating down from that dim;
+twilight of <i>poetic</i> history, which separates real history, with its
+fixed chronology, from the unmeasured and unrecorded eternity--faint
+echoes from that mystic border-land which divides
+the natural from the supernatural, and in which they seem to
+have been marvellously commingled. They are the lingering
+memories of those manifestations of God to men, in which he
+or his celestial ministers came into visible intercourse with our
+race; the reality of which is attested by sacred history. In
+all these myths there is a theogonic and cosmogonic element.
+They tell of the generation of the celestial and aërial divinities--the
+subordinate agents and ministers of the Divine government.
+They attempt an explanation of the genesis of the visible
+universe, the origin of humanity, and the development of
+human society. In the presence of history, the substance of
+these myths is preserved by <i>symbols</i>, that is, by means of natural
+or artificial, real or striking objects, which, by some analogy
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="135">135</a></span>
+or arbitrary association, shall suggest the <i>idea</i> to the mind.
+These symbols were designed to represent the invisible attributes
+and operations of the Deity; the powers that vitalize
+nature, that control the elements, that preside over cities, that
+protect the nations: indeed, all the agencies of the physical
+and moral government of God. Beneath all the pagan legends
+of gods, and underlying all the elaborate mechanism of pagan
+worship, there are unquestionably philosophical ideas, and theological
+conceptions, and religious sentiments, which give as
+meaning, and even a mournful grandeur to the whole.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst the pagan polytheistic worship is, under one aspect,
+to be regarded as a departure from God, inasmuch as it takes
+away the honor due to God alone, and transfers it to the creature;
+still, under another aspect, we can not fail to recognize
+in it the effort of the human mind to fill up the chasm that
+seemed, to the undisciplined mind, to separate God and man--and
+to bridge the gulf between the visible and the invisible,
+the finite and the infinite. It was unquestionably an attempt
+to bring God nearer to the sense and comprehension of man.
+It had its origin in that instinctive yearning after the supernatural,
+the Divine, which dwells in all human hearts, and
+which has revealed itself in all philosophies, mysticisms, and
+religions.<a id="footnotetag150" name="footnotetag150"></a>
+<a href="#footnote150"><sup class="sml">150</sup></a> This longing was stimulated by the contemplation
+of the living beauty and grandeur of the visible universe, which,
+to the lively fancy and deep feeling of the Greeks, seemed as
+the living vesture of the Infinite Mind,--the temple of the eternal
+Deity. In this visible universe the Divinity was partly revealed,
+and partly concealed. The unity of the all-pervading
+Intelligence was veiled beneath an apparent diversity of power,
+and a manifoldness of operations. They caught some glimpses
+of this universal presence in nature, but were more immediately
+and vividly impressed by the several manifestations of the divine
+perfections and divine operations, as so many separate
+rays of the Divinity, or so many subordinate agents and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="136">136</a></span>
+functionaries employed to execute the will and carry out the purposes
+of the Supreme Mind.<a id="footnotetag151" name="footnotetag151"></a>
+<a href="#footnote151"><sup class="sml">151</sup></a> That unseen, incomprehensible
+Power and Presence was perceived in the sublimity of the deep
+blue sky, the energy of the vitalizing sun, the surging of the
+sea, the rushing wind, the roaring thunder, the ripening corn,
+and the clustering vine. To these separate manifestations of
+the Deity they gave <i>personal names</i>, as Jupiter to the heavens,
+Juno to the air, Neptune to the sea, Ceres to the corn, and
+Bacchus to the vine. These personals denoted, not the things
+themselves, but the invisible, divine powers supposed to preside
+over those several departments of nature. By a kind of
+prosopopœia "they spake of the things in nature, and parts of
+the world, as persons--and consequently as so many gods and
+goddesses--yet so as the intelligent might easily understand
+their meaning, <i>that these were in reality nothing else but so many
+names and notions of that one Numen,--divine force and power
+which runs through all the world, multiformly displaying itself.</i>"<a id="footnotetag152" name="footnotetag152"></a>
+<a href="#footnote152"><sup class="sml">152</sup></a>
+"Their various deities were but different names, different conceptions,
+of that Incomprehensible Being which no <i>thought</i> can
+reach, and no <i>language</i> express."<a id="footnotetag153" name="footnotetag153"></a>
+<a href="#footnote153"><sup class="sml">153</sup></a> Having given to these several
+manifestations of the Divinity personal names, they now
+sought to represent them to the eye of sense by <i>visible forms</i>,
+as the symbols or images of the perfections of the unseen, the
+incomprehensible, the unknown God. And as the Greeks regarded
+man as the first and noblest among the phenomena of
+nature, they selected the human form as the highest sensible
+manifestation of God, the purest symbol of the Divinity. Grecian
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="137" >137</a></span>
+polytheism was thus a species of <i>mythical anthropomorphism</i>.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote150"
+name="footnote150"><b>Footnote 150: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag150">
+(return) </a> The original constitution of man is such that he
+"seeks after" God
+Acts xvii. 27. "All men yearn after the gods" (Homer, "Odyss." iii. 48).</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote151"
+name="footnote151"><b>Footnote 151: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag151">
+(return) </a> "Heathenism springs directly from this, that the mind lays undue stress
+upon the bare letter in the book of creation; that it separates and individualizes
+its objects as far as possible; that it places the sense of the individual
+part, in opposition to the sense of the whole,--to the <i>analogia fidei</i> or <i>spiritus</i>
+which alone gives unity to the book of nature, while it dilutes and renders as
+transitory as possible the sense of the universal in the whole.... And as it
+laid great stress upon the letter in the book of nature, it fell into polytheism.
+The particular symbol of the divine, or of the Godhead, became a myth of
+some special deity."--Lange's "Bible-work," Genesis, p. 23.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote152"
+name="footnote152"><b>Footnote 152: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag152">
+(return) </a> Cudworth, "Intellect. System," vol. i. p. 308.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote153"
+name="footnote153"><b>Footnote 153: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag153">
+(return) </a> Max Müller, "Science of Language," p. 431.</blockquote>
+
+<p>A philosophy of Grecian mythology, such as we have outlined
+in the preceding paragraphs, is, in our judgment, perfectly
+consistent with the views announced by Paul in his address to
+the Athenians. He intimates that the Athenians "thought that
+the Godhead was <i>like unto</i> (ἐ ναι ὄµοιον)--to be imaged or represented
+by human art--by gold, and silver, and precious stone
+graven by art, and device of man;" that is, they thought the
+perfections of God could be represented to the eye by an image,
+or symbol. The views of Paul are still more articulately
+expressed in Romans, i. 23, 25: "They changed the glory of
+the incorruptible God into the <i>similitude of an image</i> of corruptible
+man,.... and they worshipped and served the thing made,
+παρά--<i>rather</i> than, or <i>more</i> than the Creator." Here, then, the
+apostle intimates, first, that the heathen <i>knew</i> God,<a id="footnotetag154" name="footnotetag154"></a>
+<a href="#footnote154"><sup class="sml">154</sup></a> and that
+they worshipped God. They worshipped the creature besides or
+even more than God, but still they also worshipped God. And,
+secondly, they represented the perfections of God by an image,
+and under this, as a "<i>likeness</i>" or symbol, they indirectly worshipped
+God. Their religious system was, then, even to the
+eye of Paul, a <i>symbolic</i> worship--that is, the objects of their devotion
+were the <i>ὁµοιώµατα</i>--the similitudes, the likenesses, the
+images of the perfections of the invisible God.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote154"
+name="footnote154"><b>Footnote 154: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag154">
+(return) </a> Verse 21.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It is at once conceded by us, that the "sensus numinis," the
+natural intuition of a Supreme Mind, whose power and presence
+are revealed in nature, can not maintain itself, as an influential,
+and vivifying, and regulative belief amongst men, without
+the continual supernatural interposition of God; that is,
+without a succession of Divine revelations. And further, we
+grant that, instead of this symbolic mode of worship deepening
+and vitalizing the sense of God as a living power and presence,
+there is great danger that the symbol shall at length unconsciously
+take the place of God, and be worshipped instead of
+Him. From the purest form of symbolism which prevailed in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="138" >138</a></span>
+the earliest ages, there may be an inevitable descent to the
+rudest form of false worship, with its accompanying darkness,
+and abominations, and crimes; but, at the same time, let us
+do justice to the religions of the ancient world--the childhood
+stammerings of religious life--which were something more than
+the inventions of designing men, or the mere creations of human
+fancy; they were, in the words of Paul, "a <i>seeking after
+God</i>, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, who is
+not far from any one of us." It can not be denied that the
+more thoughtful and intelligent Greeks regarded the visible
+objects of their devotion as mere symbols of the perfections
+and operations of the unseen God, and of the invisible powers
+and subordinate agencies which are employed by him in his
+providential and moral government of the world. And whatever
+there was of misapprehension and of "ignorance" in the
+popular mind, we have the assurance of Paul that it was "<i>overlooked</i>"
+by God.</p>
+
+<p>The views here presented will, we venture to believe, be
+found most in harmony with a true philosophy of the human
+mind; with the religious phenomena of the world; and, as we
+shall subsequently see, with the writings of those poets and
+philosophers who may be fairly regarded as representing the
+sentiments and opinions of the ancient world. At the same
+time, we have no desire to conceal the fact that this whole
+question as to the origin, and character, and philosophy of the
+mythology and symbolism of the religions of the ancient world
+has been a subject of earnest controversy from Patristic times
+down to the present hour, and that even to-day there exists a
+wide diversity of opinion among philosophers, as well as theologians.</p>
+
+<p>The principal theories offered may be classed as the <i>ethical</i>,
+the <i>physical</i>, and the <i>historical</i>, according to the different objects
+the framers of the myths are supposed to have had in view.
+Some have regarded the myths as invented by the priests and
+wise men of old for the improvement and government of society,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="139">139</a></span>
+as designed to give authority to laws, and maintain social
+order.<a id="footnotetag155" name="footnotetag155"></a>
+<a href="#footnote155"><sup class="sml">155</sup></a> Others have regarded them as intended to be allegorical
+interpretations of physical phenomena--the poetic embodiment
+of the natural philosophy of the primitive races of men;<a id="footnotetag156" name="footnotetag156"></a>
+<a href="#footnote156"><sup class="sml">156</sup></a>
+whilst others have looked upon them as historical legends,
+having a substratum of fact, and, when stripped of the supernatural
+and miraculous drapery which accompanies fable, as
+containing the history of primitive times.<a id="footnotetag157" name="footnotetag157"></a>
+<a href="#footnote157"><sup class="sml">157</sup></a> Some of the latter
+class have imagined they could recognize in Grecian mythology
+traces of sacred personages, as well as profane; in fact,
+a dimmed image of the patriarchal traditions which are preserved
+in the Old Testament scriptures.<a id="footnotetag158" name="footnotetag158"></a>
+<a href="#footnote158"><sup class="sml">158</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>It is beyond our design to discuss all the various theories
+presented, or even to give a history of opinions entertained.<a id="footnotetag159" name="footnotetag159"></a>
+<a href="#footnote159"><sup class="sml">159</sup></a>
+We are fully convinced that the hypothesis we have presented in
+the preceding pages, viz., <i>that Grecian mythology was a grand
+symbolic representation of the Divine as manifested in nature and
+providence</i>, is the only hypothesis which meets and harmonizes
+all the facts of the case. This is the theory of Plato, of Cudworth,
+Baumgarten, Max Müller, and many other distinguished
+scholars.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote155"
+name="footnote155"><b>Footnote 155: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag155">
+(return) </a> Empedocles, Metrodorus.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote156"
+name="footnote156"><b>Footnote 156: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag156">
+(return) </a> Aristotle.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote157"
+name="footnote157"><b>Footnote 157: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag157">
+(return) </a> Hecatæus, Herodotus, some of the early Fathers, Niebuhr, J.H. Voss,
+Arnold.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote158"
+name="footnote158"><b>Footnote 158: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag158">
+(return) </a> Bochart, G.J. Vossius, Faber, Gladstone.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote159"
+name="footnote159"><b>Footnote 159: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag159">
+(return) </a> To the English reader who desires an extended and accurate acquaintance
+with the classic and patristic literature of this deeply interesting subject,
+we commend the careful study of Cudworth's "Intellectual System
+of the Universe," especially ch. iv. The style of Cudworth is perplexingly
+involved, and his great work is unmethodical in its arrangement and discussion.
+Nevertheless, the patient and persevering student will be amply rewarded
+for his pains. A work of more profound research into the doctrine
+of antiquity concerning God, and into the real import of the religious systems
+of the ancient world, is, probably, not extant in any language.</blockquote>
+
+<p>There are two fundamental propositions laid down by Cudworth
+which constitute the basis of this hypothesis.</p>
+
+<p>1. <i>No well-authenticated instance can be furnished from among
+the Greek Polytheists of one who taught the existence of a multiplicity
+of independenty uncreated, self-existent deities; they almost universally</i>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="140" >140</a></span>
+<i>believed in the existence of</i> ONE SUPREME, UNCREATED, ETERNAL
+GOD, "<i>The Maker of all things</i>"--"<i>the Father of gods and men</i>,"
+--"<i>the sole Monarch and Ruler of the world</i>."</p>
+
+<p>2. <i>The Greek Polytheists taught a plurality of</i> "GENERATED
+DEITIES," <i>who owe their existence to the power and will of the
+Supreme God, who are by Him invested with delegated powers,
+and who, as the agents of his universal providence, preside over
+different departments of the created universe</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The evidence presented by Cudworth in support of his theses
+is so varied and so voluminous, that it defies all attempts at
+condensation. His volumes exhibit an extent of reading, of
+patient research, and of varied learning, which is truly amazing.
+The discussion of these propositions involves, in fact, nothing
+less than a complete and exhaustive survey of the entire field
+of ancient literature, a careful study of the Greek and Latin
+poets, of the Oriental, Greek, and Alexandrian philosophers, and
+a review of the statements and criticisms of Rabbinical and
+Patristic writers in regard to the religions of the pagan world.
+An adequate conception of the varied and weighty evidence
+which is collected by our author from these fields, in support
+of his views, could only be conveyed by transcribing to our
+pages the larger portion of his memorable <i>fourth</i> chapter. But
+inasmuch as Grecian polytheism is, in fact, the culmination of
+all the mythological systems of the ancient world, the fully-developed
+flower and ripened fruit of the cosmical and theological
+conceptions of the childhood-condition of humanity, we propose
+to epitomize the results of his inquiry as to the <i>theological</i>,
+opinions of the Greeks, supplying additional confirmation of his
+views from other sources.</p>
+
+<p>And first, he proves most conclusively that Orpheus, Homer,
+and Hesiod,<a id="footnotetag160" name="footnotetag160"></a>
+<a href="#footnote160"><sup class="sml">160</sup></a> who are usually designated "the theologians"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="141">141</a></span>
+of Greece, but who were in fact the depravers and corrupters of
+pagan theology, do not teach the existence of a multitude of
+<i>unmade, self-existent, and independent deities</i>. Even they believed
+in the existence of <i>one</i> uncreated and eternal mind, <i>one Supreme
+God</i>, anterior and superior to all the gods of their mythology.
+They had some intuition, some apperception of the <i>Divine</i>, even
+before they had attached to it a sacred name. The gods of
+their mythology had all, save one, a temporal origin; they were
+generated of Chaos and Night, by an active principle called
+<i>Love</i>. "One might suspect," says Aristotle, that Hesiod, and
+if there be any other who made <i>love</i> or <i>desire</i> a principle of
+things, aimed at these very things (viz., the designation of the
+efficient cause of the world); for Parmenides, describing the
+generation of the universe, says:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">    'First of all the gods planned he <i>love</i>;'</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and further, Hesiod:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">         'First of all was Chaos, afterwards Earth,</p>
+<p class="i10">         With her spacious bosom,</p>
+<p class="i10">         And <i>Love</i>, who is pre-eminent among all the immortals;'</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>as intimating here that in entities there should exist some <i>cause</i>
+that will impart motion, and hold bodies in union together.
+But how, in regard to these, one ought to distribute them, as
+to the order of priority, can be decided afterwards.<a id="footnotetag161" name="footnotetag161"></a>
+<a href="#footnote161"><sup class="sml">161</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote160"
+name="footnote160"><b>Footnote 160: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag160">
+(return) </a> We do not concern ourselves with the chronological antecedence of
+these ancient Greek poets. It is of little consequence to us whether Homer
+preceded Orpheus, or Orpheus Homer. They were not the real creators of
+the mythology of ancient Greece. The myths were a spontaneous growth
+of the earliest human thought even before the separation of the Aryan family
+into its varied branches.
+
+<p>The study of Comparative Mythology, as well as of Comparative Language,
+assures us that the myths had an origin much earlier than the times
+of Homer and Orpheus. They floated down from ages on the tide of oral
+tradition before they were systematized, embellished, and committed to writing
+by Homer, and Orpheus, and Hesiod. And between the systems of these
+three poets a perceptible difference is recognizable, which reflects the changes
+that verbal recitations necessarily and imperceptibly undergo.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote161"
+name="footnote161"><b>Footnote 161: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag161">
+(return) </a> "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. iv.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Now whether this "first principle," called "<i>Love</i>," "the
+cause of motion and of union" in the universe, was regarded as
+a personal Being, and whether, as the ancient scholiast taught,
+Hesiod's love was "the heavenly Love, which is also God, that
+other love that was born of Venus being junior," is just now of
+no moment to the argument. The more important inference is,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="142">142</a></span>
+that amongst the gods of Pagan theology but <i>one</i> is self-existent,
+or else none are. Because the Hesiodian gods, which are, in fact,
+all the gods of the Greek mythology, "were either all of them
+derived from chaos, love itself likewise being generated out of
+it; or else love was supposed to be distinct from chaos, and
+the active principle of the universe, from whence, together with
+chaos, all the theogony and cosmogony was derived."<a id="footnotetag162" name="footnotetag162"></a>
+<a href="#footnote162"><sup class="sml">162</sup></a> Hence
+it is evident the poets did not teach the existence of a multiplicity
+of unmade, self-existent, independent deities.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote162"
+name="footnote162"><b>Footnote 162: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag162">
+(return) </a> "Cudworth," vol. i. p. 287.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The careful reader of Cudworth will also learn another truth
+of the utmost importance in this connection, viz., <i>that the theogony
+of the Greek poets was, in fact, a cosmogony</i>, the generation
+of the gods being, in reality, the generation of the heavens, the
+sun, the moon, the stars, and all the various powers and phenomena
+of nature. This is dimly shadowed forth in the very
+names which are given to some of these divinities. Thus Helios
+is the sun, Selena is the moon, Zeus the sky--the deep
+blue heaven, Eos the dawn, and Ersē the dew. It is rendered
+still more evident by the opening lines of Hesiod's "Theogonia,"
+in which he invokes the muses:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">"Hail ye daughters of Jupiter! Grant a delightsome song.</p>
+<p class="i10">Tell of the race of immortal gods, always existing,</p>
+<p class="i10">Who are the offspring of the earth, of the starry sky,</p>
+<p class="i10">And of the gloomy night, whom also the ocean nourisheth.</p>
+<p class="i10">Tell how the gods and the earth at first were made,</p>
+<p class="i10">And the rivers, and the mighty deep, boiling with waves,</p>
+<p class="i10">And the glowing stars, and the broad heavens above,</p>
+<p class="i10">And the gods, givers of good, born of these."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Where we see plainly that the generation of the gods is the
+generation of the earth, the heaven, the stars, the seas, the rivers,
+and other things produced by them. "But immediately
+after invocation of the Muses the poet begins with Chaos, and
+Tartara, and Love, as the first principles, and then proceeds to
+the production of the earth and of night out of chaos; of the
+ether and of day, from night; of the starry heavens, mountains,
+and seas. All which generation of gods is really nothing but
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="143">143</a></span>
+a poetic description of the cosmogonia; as through the sequel
+of the poem all seems to be physiology veiled under fiction
+and allegory.... Hesiod's gods are thus not only the animated
+parts of the world, but also the other things of nature
+personified and deified, or abusively called gods and goddesses."<a id="footnotetag163" name="footnotetag163"></a>
+<a href="#footnote163"><sup class="sml">163</sup></a>
+The same is true both of the Orphic and Homeric gods.
+"Their generation of the gods is the same with the generation
+or creation of the world, both of them having, in all probability,
+derived it from the Mosaic cabala, or tradition."<a id="footnotetag164" name="footnotetag164"></a>
+<a href="#footnote164"><sup class="sml">164</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>But in spite of all this mythological obscuration, the belief
+in one Supreme God is here and there most clearly recognizable.
+"That Zeus was originally to the Greeks the Supreme
+God, the true God--nay, at some time their only God--can be
+perceived in spite of the haze which mythology has raised
+around his name."<a id="footnotetag165" name="footnotetag165"></a>
+<a href="#footnote165"><sup class="sml">165</sup></a> True, they sometimes used the word
+"Zeus" in a physical sense to denote the deep expanse of heaven,
+and sometimes in a historic sense, to designate a hero or
+deified man said to have been born in Crete. It is also true
+that the Homeric Zeus is full of contradictions. He is "all-seeing,"
+yet he is cheated; he is "omnipotent," yet he is defied;
+he is "eternal," yet he has a father; he is "just," yet he is
+guilty of crime. Now, as Müller very justly remarks, these contradictions
+may teach us a lesson. If all the conceptions of
+Zeus had sprung from one origin, these contradictions could
+not have existed. If Zeus had simply and only meant the Supreme
+God, he could not have been the son of Kronos (Time).
+If, on the other hand, Zeus had been a mere mythological personage,
+as Eos, the dawn, and Helios, the sun, he could never
+have been addressed as he is addressed in the famous prayer
+of Achilles (Iliad, bk. xxi.).<a id="footnotetag166" name="footnotetag166"></a>
+<a href="#footnote166"><sup class="sml">166</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote163"
+name="footnote163"><b>Footnote 163: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag163">
+(return) </a> Cudworth, vol. i. pp. 321, 332.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote164"
+name="footnote164"><b>Footnote 164: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag164">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., vol. i. p. 478.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote165"
+name="footnote165"><b>Footnote 165: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag165">
+(return) </a> Max Müller, "Science of Language," p. 457.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote166"
+name="footnote166"><b>Footnote 166: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag166">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., p. 458.</blockquote>
+
+<p>In Homer there is a perpetual blending of the natural and
+the supernatural, the human and divine. The <i>Iliad</i> is an incongruous
+medley of theology, physics, and history. In its
+gorgeous scenic representations, nature, humanity, and deity are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="144">144</a></span>
+mingled in inextricable confusion. The gods are sometimes
+supernatural and superhuman personages; sometimes the
+things and powers of nature personified; and sometimes they
+are deified men. And yet there are passages, even in Homer,
+which clearly distinguish Zeus from all the other divinities,
+and mark him out as the Supreme. He is "the highest, first
+of Gods" (bk. xix. 284); "most great, most glorious Jove"
+(bk. ii. 474). He is "the universal Lord" (bk. xi. 229); "of
+mortals and immortals king supreme," (bk. xii. 263); "over
+all the immortal gods he reigns in unapproached pre-eminence
+of power" (bk. xv. 125). He is "the King of kings" (bk. viii.
+35), whose "will is sovereign" (bk. iv. 65), and his "power
+invincible" (bk. viii. 35). He is the "eternal Father" (bk.
+viii. 77). He "excels in wisdom gods and men; all human
+things from him proceed" (bk. xiii. 708-10); "the Lord of
+counsel" (bk. i. 208), "the all-seeing Jove" (bk. xiii. 824). Indeed
+the mere expression "Father of gods and men" (bk. i.
+639), so often applied to Zeus, and him <i>alone</i>, is proof sufficient
+that, in spite of all the legendary stories of gods and heroes, the
+idea of Zeus as the Supreme God, the maker of the world, the
+Father of gods and men, the monarch and ruler of the world,
+was not obliterated from the Greek mind.<a id="footnotetag167" name="footnotetag167"></a>
+<a href="#footnote167"><sup class="sml">167</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote167"
+name="footnote167"><b>Footnote 167: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag167">
+(return) </a> "In the order of legendary chronology Zeus comes after Kronos and
+Uranos, but in the order of Grecian conception Zeus is the prominent person,
+and Kronos and Uranos are inferior and introductory precursors, set up
+in order to be overthrown, and to serve as mementos of the powers of their
+conqueror. To Homer and Hesiod, as well as to the Greeks universally,
+Zeus is the great, the predominant God, 'the Father of gods and men,'
+whose power none of the gods can hope to resist, or even deliberately think
+of questioning. All the other gods have their specific potency, and peculiar
+sphere of action and duty, with which Zeus does not usually interfere; but
+it is he who maintains the lineaments of a providential government, as well
+over the phenomena of Olympus as over the earth."--Grote, "Hist. of
+Greece," vol. i. p. 3.
+
+<p>Zeus is not only lord of heaven but likewise the ruler of the lower world,
+and the master of the sea.--Welcher, "Griechische Götterlehre," vol. i. p.
+164. The Zeus of the Greek poets is unquestionably the god of whom Paul
+declared: In him we live and move, and have our being, as certain of your
+own poets have also said--</p>
+
+<p class="mid">
+"'For we are his offspring.'"
+</p>
+
+<p>Now whether this be a quotation from Aratus or Cleanthes, the language of
+the poets is, "We are the offspring of Zeus;" consequently the Zeus of the
+poets and the God of Christianity are the same God.</p>
+
+<p>"The father of gods and men in Homer is, of course, the Universal Father
+of the Scriptures."--Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," p. 171.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"When Homer introduces Eumaios, the swineherd, speaking
+of this life and the higher powers that rule it, he knows
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="145">145</a></span>
+only of just gods 'who hate cruel deeds, but honor justice and
+the righteous works of men' (Od. xiv. 83). His whole life is
+built up on a complete trust in the divine government of the
+world without any artificial helps, as the Erinys, the Nemesis,
+or Moira. 'Eat,' says the swineherd, 'and enjoy what is here,
+for <i>God</i><a id="footnotetag168" name="footnotetag168"></a>
+<a href="#footnote168"><sup class="sml">168</sup></a> will grant one thing, but another he will refuse, whatever
+he will in his mind, for he can do all things' (Od. xiv.
+444; x. 306). This surely is religion, and it is religion untainted
+by mythology. Again, the prayer of the female slave,
+grinding corn in the house of Ulysses is religious in the truest
+sense--'Father Zeus, thou who rulest over gods and men, surely
+thou hast just thundered in the starry sky, and there is no
+cloud anywhere. Thou showest this as a sign to some one.
+Fulfill now, even to me, miserable wretch, the prayer which I
+now offer'" (Od. xx. 141-150).<a id="footnotetag169" name="footnotetag169"></a>
+<a href="#footnote169"><sup class="sml">169</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote168"
+name="footnote168"><b>Footnote 168: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag168">
+(return) </a> No sound reason can be assigned for translating <i>θεός</i> by "<i>a</i> god" as
+some have proposed, rather than "<i>God</i>." But even if it were translated
+"a god," this god must certainly be understood as Zeus. Plato tells us
+that Zeus is the most appropriate name for God. "For in reality the name
+Zeus is, as it were, a sentence; and persons dividing it in two parts, some
+of us make use of one part, and some of another; for some call him Ζήν, and
+some Δίς. But these parts, collected together into one, exhibit the nature of
+the God;... for there is no one who is more the cause of living, both to
+us and everything else, than he who is the ruler and king of all. It follows,
+therefore, that this god is rightly named, through whom <i>life</i> is present in all
+living beings."--Cratylus, § 28.
+
+<p>Θεός was usually employed, says Cudworth, to designate <i>God</i> by way of
+pre-eminence, θεοί to designate inferior divinities.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote169"
+name="footnote169"><b>Footnote 169: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag169">
+(return) </a> Müller, "Science of Language," p. 434.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The Greek tragedians were the great religious instructors of
+the Athenian people. "Greek tragedy grew up in connection
+with religious worship, and constituted not only a popular but
+a sacred element in the festivals of the gods.... In short,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="146">146</a></span>
+strange as it may sound to modern ears, the Greek stage was,
+more nearly than any thing else, the Greek pulpit.<a id="footnotetag170" name="footnotetag170"></a>
+<a href="#footnote170"><sup class="sml">170</sup></a> With a
+priesthood that offered sacrifice, but did not preach, with few
+books of any kind, the people were, in a great measure, dependent
+on oral instruction for knowledge; and as they learned
+their rights and duties as citizens from their orators, so
+they hung on the lips of the 'lofty, grave tragedians' for instruction
+touching their origin, duty, and destiny as mortal and
+immortal beings.... Greek tragedy is essentially didactic,
+ethical, mythological, and religious."<a id="footnotetag171" name="footnotetag171"></a>
+<a href="#footnote171"><sup class="sml">171</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote170"
+name="footnote170"><b>Footnote 170: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag170">
+(return) </a> Pulpitum, a stage.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote171"
+name="footnote171"><b>Footnote 171: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag171">
+(return) </a> Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," pp. 205, 206.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Now it is unquestionable that, with the tragedians, Zeus is
+the Supreme God. Æschylus is pre-eminently the theological
+poet of Greece. The great problems which lie at the foundation
+of religious faith and practice are the main staple of nearly
+all his tragedies. Homer, Hesiod, the sacred poets, had
+looked at these questions in their purely poetic aspects. The
+subsequent philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, developed them
+more fully by their didactic method. Æschylus stands on the
+dividing-line between them, no less poetic than the former,
+scarcely less philosophical than the latter, but more intensely
+practical, personal, and <i>theological</i> than either. The character
+of the Supreme Divinity, as represented in his tragedies, approaches
+more nearly to the Christian idea of God. He is
+the Universal Father--Father of gods and men; the Universal
+Cause (παναίτιος, Agamem. 1485); the All-seer and All-doer
+(παντόπτης, πανεργέτης, ibid, and Sup. 139); the All-wise and
+All-controlling (παγκρατής, Sup. 813); the Just and the Executor
+of justice (δικηφόρος, Agamem. 525); true and incapable of
+falsehood (Prom. 1031);</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">    ψευδηγορεῖν γὰρ οὐκ ἐπίσταταί στόµα</p>
+<p class="i10">    τὸ δίον, ἀλλὰ πᾶν ἔπος τελεῖ,--</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>holy (ἁγνός, Sup. 650); merciful (πρευµένης, ibid. 139); the God
+especially of the suppliant and the stranger (Supplices, passim);
+the most high and perfect One (τέλειον ὕψιστον, Eumen.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="147" >147</a></span>
+28); King of kings, of the happy, most happy, of the perfect,
+most perfect power, blessed Zeus (Sup. 522).<a id="footnotetag172" name="footnotetag172"></a>
+<a href="#footnote172"><sup class="sml">172</sup></a> Such are some
+of the titles by which Zeus is most frequently addressed; such
+the attributes commonly ascribed to him in Æschylus.</p>
+
+<p>Sophocles was the great master who carried Greek tragedy
+to its highest perfection. Only seven out of more than a hundred
+of his tragedies have come down to us. There are passages
+cited by Justin Martyr, Clemens Alexandrinus, and others
+which are not found in those tragedies now extant. The most
+famous and extensively quoted passage is given by Cudworth.<a id="footnotetag173" name="footnotetag173"></a>
+<a href="#footnote173"><sup class="sml">173</sup></a></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">Εἶς ταῖς ἀληθείαισιν, εἰς ἐστίν θεὸς,</p>
+<p class="i10">Ὂς οὐρανόν τ᾽ έτευξε καὶ γαῖαν µακρὰν,</p>
+<p class="i10">Πόντου τε χαροπὸν οἶδµα, κἀνέµων ßίαν, κ. τ. λ.<a id="footnotetag174" name="footnotetag174"></a>
+<a href="#footnote174"><sup class="sml">174</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This "one only God" is Zeus, who is the God of justice, and
+reigns supreme:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">"Still in yon starry heaven supreme,</p>
+<p class="i10">Jove, all-beholding, all-directing, dwells--</p>
+<p class="i10">To him commit thy vengeance."--"Electra," p. 174 sqq.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This description of the unsleeping, undecaying power and dominion
+of Zeus is worthy of some Hebrew prophet--</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">"Spurning the power of age, enthroned in might,</p>
+<p class="i10">Thou dwell'st mid heaven's broad light;</p>
+<p class="i10">This was in ages past thy firm decree,</p>
+<p class="i10">Is now, and shall forever be:</p>
+<p class="i10">That none of mortal race on earth shall know</p>
+<p class="i10">A life of joy serene, a course unmarked by woe."</p>
+
+<p class="i30">"Antigone," pp. 606-614.<a id="footnotetag175" name="footnotetag175"></a>
+<a href="#footnote175"><sup class="sml">175</sup></a>
+</div></div>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote172"
+name="footnote172"><b>Footnote 172: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag172">
+(return) </a> Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," pp. 213, 214.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote173"
+name="footnote173"><b>Footnote 173: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag173">
+(return) </a> "Intellectual Syst.," vol. i. p. 483.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote174"
+name="footnote174"><b>Footnote 174: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag174">
+(return) </a> "There is, in truth, one only God, who made heaven and earth, the sea,
+air, and winds," etc.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote175"
+name="footnote175"><b>Footnote 175: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag175">
+(return) </a> "Theology of Greek Poets," p. 322.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Whether we regard the poets as the principal theological
+teachers of the ancient Greeks, or as the compilers, systematizers,
+and artistic embellishers of the theological traditions and
+myths which were afloat in the primitive Hellenic families, we
+can not resist the conclusion that, for the masses of the people
+Zeus was the Supreme God, "the God of gods" as Plato calls
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="148">148</a></span>
+him. Whilst all other deities in Greece are more or less local
+and tribal gods, Zeus was known in every village and to every
+clan. "He is at home on Ida,<a id="footnotetag176" name="footnotetag176"></a>
+<a href="#footnote176"><sup class="sml">176</sup></a> on Olympus, at Dodona.<a id="footnotetag177" name="footnotetag177"></a>
+<a href="#footnote177"><sup class="sml">177</sup></a>
+While Poseidon drew to himself the Æolian family, Apollo the
+Dorian, Athene the Ionian, there was one powerful God for all
+the sons of Hellen--Dorians, Æolians, Ionians, Achæans, viz.,
+the Panhellenic Zeus."<a id="footnotetag178" name="footnotetag178"></a>
+<a href="#footnote178"><sup class="sml">178</sup></a> Zeus was the name invoked in their
+solemn nuncupations of vows--</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">"O Zeus, father, O Zeus, king."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In moments of deepest sorrow, of immediate urgency and need,
+of greatest stress and danger, they had recourse to Zeus.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">"Courage, courage, my child!</p>
+<p class="i10">There is still in heaven the great Zeus;</p>
+<p class="i10">He watches over all things, and he rules.</p>
+<p class="i10">Commit thy exceeding bitter griefs to him,</p>
+<p class="i10">And be not angry against thine enemies,</p>
+<p class="i10">Nor forget them."<a id="footnotetag179" name="footnotetag179"></a>
+<a href="#footnote179"><sup class="sml">179</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote176"
+name="footnote176"><b>Footnote 176: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag176">
+(return) </a> "Iliad," bk. iii. 324.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote177"
+name="footnote177"><b>Footnote 177: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag177">
+(return) </a> Bk. xvi. 268.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote178"
+name="footnote178"><b>Footnote 178: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag178">
+(return) </a> Müller, p. 452.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote179"
+name="footnote179"><b>Footnote 179: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag179">
+(return) </a> Sophocles, "Electra," v. 188.</blockquote>
+
+<p>He was supplicated, as the God who reigns on high, in the
+prayer of the Athenian--</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>"Rain, rain, O dear Zeus, on the land of the Athenians and on their
+fields."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It has been urged that, as Zeus means the sky, therefore he
+is no more than the deep concave of heaven personified and
+deified, and that consequently Zeus is not the true, the only
+God. This argument is only equalled in feebleness by that of
+the materialist, who argues that "spiritus" means simply breath,
+therefore the breath is the soul. Even if the Greeks remembered
+that, originally, Zeus meant the sky, that would have no more
+perplexed their minds than the remembrance that "thymos"--mind--meant
+originally blast. "The fathers of Greek theology
+gave to that Supreme Intelligence, which they instinctively recognized
+as above and ruling over the universe, the name of
+Zeus; but in doing so, they knew well that by Zeus they meant
+more than the sky. The unfathomable depth, the everlasting
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="149">149</a></span>
+calm of the ethereal sky was to their minds an image of that Infinite
+Presence which overshadows all, and looks down on all.
+As the question perpetually recurred to their minds, 'Where is
+he who abideth forever?' they lifted up their eyes, and saw, as
+they thought, beyond sun, and moon, and stars, and all which
+changes, and will change, the clear blue sky, the boundless firmament
+of heaven. That never changed, that was always the
+same. The clouds and storms rolled far below it, and all the
+bustle of this noisy world; but there the sky was still, as bright
+and calm as ever. The Almighty Father must be there, unchangeable
+in the unchangeable heaven; bright, and pure, and
+boundless like the heavens, and like the heavens, too, afar off."<a id="footnotetag180" name="footnotetag180"></a>
+<a href="#footnote180"><sup class="sml">180</sup></a>
+So they named him after the sky, <i>Zeus</i>, the God who lives in the
+clear heaven--the heavenly Father.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote180"
+name="footnote180"><b>Footnote 180: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag180">
+(return) </a> Kingsley, "Good News from God," p. 237, Am. ed.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The high and brilliant sky has, in many languages and many
+religions, been regarded as the dwelling-place of God. Indeed,
+to all of us in Christian times "God is above;" he is "the God
+of heaven;" "his throne is in the heavens;" "he reigns on
+high." Now, without doing any violence to thought, the name
+of the abode might be transferred to him who dwells in heaven.
+So that in our own language "heaven" may still be used as a
+synonym for "God." The prodigal son is still represented as
+saying, I have sinned against "<i>heaven</i>." And a Christian poet
+has taught us to sing--</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">"High <i>heaven</i>, that heard my solemn vow,</p>
+<p class="i10">That vow renewed shall daily hear," etc.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Whenever, therefore, we find the name of heaven thus used to
+designate also the Deity, we must bear in mind that those by
+whom it was originally employed were simply transferring that
+name from an object visible to the eye of sense to another object
+perceived by the eye of reason. They who at first called God
+"<i>Heaven</i>" had some conception within them they wished to
+name--the growing image of a God, and they fixed upon the
+vastest, grandest, purest object in nature, the deep blue concave
+of heaven, overshadowing all, and embracing all, as the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="150">150</a></span>
+symbol of the Deity. Those who at a later period called heaven
+"<i>God</i>" had forgotten that they were predicating of heaven something
+more which was vastly higher than the heaven.<a id="footnotetag181" name="footnotetag181"></a>
+<a href="#footnote181"><sup class="sml">181</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote181"
+name="footnote181"><b>Footnote 181: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag181">
+(return) </a> See "Science of Language," p. 457.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding, then, that the instinctive, native faith of
+humanity in the existence of one supreme God was overlaid
+and almost buried beneath the rank and luxuriant vegetation
+of Grecian mythology, we can still catch glimpses here and
+there of the solid trunk of native faith, around which this parasitic
+growth of fancy is entwined. Above all the phantasmata
+of gods and goddesses who descended to the plains of Troy,
+and mingled in the din and strife of battle, we can recognize
+an overshadowing, all-embracing Power and Providence that
+dwells on high, which never descends into the battle-field, and
+is never seen by mortal eyes--<i>the Universal King and Father,--the
+"God of gods</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Besides the direct evidence, which is furnished by the poets
+and mythologists, of the presence of this universal faith in "<i>the
+heavenly Father</i>," there is also a large amount of collateral testimony
+that this idea of one Supreme God was generally entertained
+by the Greek pagans, whether learned or unlearned.<a id="footnotetag182" name="footnotetag172"></a>
+<a href="#footnote182"><sup class="sml">182</sup></a>
+Dio Chrysostomus says that "all the poets call the first and
+greatest God the Father, universally, of all rational kind, as
+also the King thereof. Agreeably with which doctrine of the
+poets do mankind erect altars to Jupiter-King (Διὸς ßασιλέως)
+and hesitate not to call him Father in their devotions" (Orat.
+xxxvi.). And Maximus Tyrius declares that both the learned
+and the unlearned throughout the pagan world universally
+agree in this; that there is one Supreme God, the Father of
+gods and men. "If," says he, "there were a meeting called
+of all the several trades and professions,... and all were required
+to declare their sense concerning God, do you think
+that the painter would say one thing, the sculptor another, the
+poet another, and the philosopher another? No; nor the
+Scythian neither, nor the Greek, nor the hyperborean. In regard
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="151">151</a></span>
+to other things, we find men speaking discordantly one to
+another, all men, as it were, differing from all men... Nevertheless,
+on this subject, you may find universally throughout
+the world one agreeing law and opinion; <i>that there is one God,
+the King and Father of all, and many gods, the sons of God, co-reigners
+together with God</i>"(Diss. i. p. 450).</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote182"
+name="footnote182"><b>Footnote 182: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag182">
+(return) </a> Cudworth, vol. i. pp. 593, 594.</blockquote>
+
+<p>From the poets we now pass to the philosophers. The
+former we have regarded as reflecting the traditional beliefs of
+the unreasoning multitude. The philosophers unquestionably
+represent the reflective spirit, the speculative thought, of the
+educated classes of Greek society. Turning to the writings of
+the philosophers, we may therefore reasonably expect that, instead
+of the dim, undefined, and nebulous form in which the
+religious sentiment revealed itself amongst the unreflecting
+portions of the Greek populations, we shall find their theological
+ideas distinctly and articulately expressed, and that we shall
+consequently be able to determine their religious opinions with
+considerable accuracy.</p>
+
+<p>Now that Thales, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Anaxagoras,
+Empedocles, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were all believers
+in the existence of one supreme, uncreated, eternal God, has
+been, we think, clearly shown by Cudworth.<a id="footnotetag183" name="footnotetag183"></a>
+<a href="#footnote183"><sup class="sml">183</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote183"
+name="footnote183"><b>Footnote 183: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag183">
+(return) </a> Vol. i. pp. 491-554.</blockquote>
+
+<p>In subsequent chapters on "<i>the Philosophers of Athens</i>," we
+shall enter more fully into the discussion of this question.
+Meantime we assume that, with few exceptions, the Greek philosophers
+were "genuine Theists."</p>
+
+<p>The point, however, with which we are now concerned is,
+<i>that whilst they believed in one supreme, uncreated, eternal God,
+they at the same time recognized the existence of a plurality of generated
+deities who owe their existence to the power and will of the
+Supreme God, and who, as the agents and ministers of His universal
+providence, preside over different departments of the created
+universe</i>. They are at once Monotheists and Polytheists--believers
+in "one God" and "many gods." This is a peculiarity,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="152">152</a></span>
+an anomaly which challenges our attention, and demands
+an explanation, if we would vindicate for these philosophers a
+rational Theism.</p>
+
+<p>Now that there can be but one infinite and absolutely perfect
+Being--one supreme, uncreated, eternal God--is self-evident;
+therefore a multiplicity of such gods is a contradiction and an
+impossibility. The early philosophers knew this as well as the
+modern. The Deity, in order to be Deity, must be one and
+not many: must be perfect or nothing. If, therefore, we would
+do justice to these old Greeks, we must inquire what explanations
+they have offered in regard to "the many gods" of which
+they speak. We must ascertain whether they regarded these
+"gods" as created or uncreated beings, dependent or independent,
+temporal or eternal We must inquire in what sense the
+term "god" is applied to these lesser divinities,--whether it is
+not applied in an accommodated and therefore allowable
+sense, as in the sacred Scriptures it is applied to kings and
+magistrates, and those who are appointed by God as the teachers
+and rulers of men. "<i>They are called gods</i> to whom the word
+of God came."<a id="footnotetag184" name="footnotetag184"></a>
+<a href="#footnote184"><sup class="sml">184</sup></a> And if it shall be found that all the gods of
+which they speak, save <i>one</i>, are "generated deities"--dependent
+beings--creatures and subjects of the one eternal King
+and Father, and that the name of "god" is applied to them in
+an accommodated sense, then we have vindicated for the old
+Greek philosophers a consistent and rational Theism. In what
+relation, then, do the philosophers place "<i>the gods</i>" to the one
+Supreme Being?</p>
+
+<p><i>Thales</i>, one of the most ancient of the Greek philosophers,
+taught the existence of a plurality of gods, as is evident from
+that saying of his, preserved by Diogenes Laertius, "The world
+has life, and is full of gods."<a id="footnotetag185" name="footnotetag185"></a>
+<a href="#footnote185"><sup class="sml">185</sup></a> At the same time he asserts his
+belief in one supreme, uncreated Deity; "God is the oldest of
+all things, because he is unmade, or ungenerated."<a id="footnotetag186" name="footnotetag186"></a>
+<a href="#footnote186"><sup class="sml">186</sup></a> All the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="153">153</a></span>
+other gods must therefore have been "generated deities," since
+there is but one unmade God, one only that had "no beginning."<a id="footnotetag187" name="footnotetag187"></a>
+<a href="#footnote187"><sup class="sml">187</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote184"
+name="footnote184"><b>Footnote 184: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag184">
+(return) </a> See John x. 35.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote185"
+name="footnote185"><b>Footnote 185: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag185">
+(return) </a> "Lives," bk. i.; see also Aristotle's "De Anima," bk. i. ch. viii. πάντα
+θιῶν πληρη.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote186"
+name="footnote186"><b>Footnote 186: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag186">
+(return) </a> "Lives," bk. i.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote187"
+name="footnote187"><b>Footnote 187: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag187">
+(return) </a> "Lives," bk. i.</blockquote>
+
+<p><i>Xenophanes</i> was also an assertor of many gods, and one God;
+but his one God is unquestionably supreme. "There is one
+God, the greatest amongst gods and men;" or, "God is one, the
+greatest amongst gods and men."<a id="footnotetag188" name="footnotetag188x"></a>
+<a href="#footnote188"><sup class="sml">188</sup></a></p>
+
+<p><i>Empedocles</i> also believed in one Supreme God, who "is
+wholly and perfectly mind, ineffable, holy, with rapid and swift-glancing
+thought pervading the whole world," and from whom
+all things else are derived,--"all things that are upon the earth,
+and in the air and water, may be truly called the works of God,
+who ruleth over the world, out of whom, according to Empedocles,
+proceed all things, plants, men, beasts, and <i>gods</i>."<a id="footnotetag189" name="footnotetag189"></a>
+<a href="#footnote189"><sup class="sml">189</sup></a>
+The minor deities are therefore <i>made</i> by God. It will not be
+denied that <i>Socrates</i> was a devout and earnest Theist. He
+taught that "there is a Being whose eye pierces throughout all
+nature, and whose ear is open to every sound; extending through
+all time, extended to all places; and whose bounty and care can
+know no other bounds than those fixed by his own creation."<a id="footnotetag190" name="footnotetag190"></a>
+<a href="#footnote190"><sup class="sml">190</sup></a>
+And yet he also recognized the existence of a plurality of gods,
+and in his last moments expressed his belief that "it is lawful
+and right to pray to the gods that his departure hence may be
+happy."<a id="footnotetag191" name="footnotetag191"></a>
+<a href="#footnote191"><sup class="sml">191</sup></a> We see, however, in his words addressed to Euthydemus,
+a marked distinction between these subordinate deities
+and "Him who raised this whole universe, and still upholds
+the mighty frame, who perfected every part of it in beauty and
+in goodness, suffering none of these parts to decay through age,
+but renewing them daily with unfading vigor;... even he,
+<i>the Supreme God</i>, still holds himself invisible, and it is only
+in his works that we are capable of admiring him."<a id="footnotetag192" name="footnotetag192"></a>
+<a href="#footnote192"><sup class="sml">192</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote188"
+name="footnote188"><b>Footnote 188: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag188">
+(return) </a> Clem. Alex., "Stromat." bk. v.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote189"
+name="footnote189"><b>Footnote 189: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag189">
+(return) </a> Aristotle, "De Mundo," ch. vi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote190"
+name="footnote190"><b>Footnote 190: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag190">
+(return) </a> Xenophon's "Memorabilia," i. 4.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote191"
+name="footnote191"><b>Footnote 191: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag191">
+(return) </a> "Phædo," § 152.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote192"
+name="footnote192"><b>Footnote 192: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag192">
+(return) </a> "Memorabilia," iv. 3.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It were needless to attempt the proof that <i>Plato</i> believed in
+one Supreme God, and <i>only</i> one. This one Being is, with him,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="154">154</a></span>
+"the first God;" "the greatest of the gods;" "the God over
+all;" "the sole Principle of the universe." He is "the Immutable;"
+"the All-perfect;" "the eternal Being." He is "the
+Architect of the world; "the Maker of the universe; the Father
+of gods and men; the sovereign Mind which orders all
+things, and passes through all things; the sole Monarch and
+Ruler of the world.<a id="footnotetag193" name="footnotetag193"></a>
+<a href="#footnote193"><sup class="sml">193</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>And yet remarkable as these expressions are, sounding, as
+they do, so like the language of inspiration,<a id="footnotetag194" name="footnotetag194"></a>
+<a href="#footnote194"><sup class="sml">194</sup></a> there can be no
+doubt that Plato was also a sincere believer in a plurality of
+gods, of which, indeed, any one may assure himself by reading
+the <i>tenth</i> book of "the Laws."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote193"
+name="footnote193"><b>Footnote 193: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag193">
+(return) </a> See chap. xi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote194"
+name="footnote194"><b>Footnote 194: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag194">
+(return) </a> Some writers have supposed that Plato must have had access through
+some medium to "the Oracles of God." See Butler, vol. ii. p. 41.</blockquote>
+
+<p>And, now that we have in Plato the culmination of Grecian
+speculative thought, we may learn from him the mature and
+final judgment of the ancients in regard to the gods of pagan
+mythology. We open the <i>Timæus</i>, and here we find his views
+most definitely expressed. After giving an account of the
+"generation" of the sun, and moon, and planets, which are by
+him designated as "visible gods," he then proceeds "to speak
+concerning the other divinities:" "We must on this subject assent
+to those who in former times have spoken thereon; who
+were, as they said, the offspring of the gods, and who doubtless
+were well acquainted with their own ancestors..... Let then
+the genealogy of the gods be, and be acknowledged to be, that
+which they deliver. Of Earth and Heaven the children were
+Oceanus and Tethys; and of these the children were Phorcys,
+and Kronos, and Rhea, and all that followed these; and from
+these were born Zeus and Hera, and those who are regarded as
+brothers and sisters of these, and others their offspring.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="155">155</a></span>
+"When, then, <i>all the gods were brought into existence</i>, both those
+which move around in manifest courses [the stars and planets],
+and those which appear when it pleases them [the mythological
+deities], the Creator of the Universe thus addressed them:</p>
+
+<p>'Gods, and sons of gods, of whom I am the father and the author,
+produced by me, ye are indestructible because I will....
+Now inasmuch as you have been <i>generated</i>, you are hence <i>not</i> immortal,
+nor wholly indissoluble; yet you shall never be dissolved
+nor become subject to the fatality of death, because <i>so I have
+willed</i>.... Learn, therefore, my commands. Three races of
+mortals yet remain to be created. Unless these be created, the
+universe will be imperfect, for it will not contain within it every
+kind of animal.... In order that these mortal creatures may
+be, and that this world may be really a cosmos, do you apply
+yourselves to the creation of animals, imitating the exercises of
+my power in <i>creating</i> you.'"<a id="footnotetag195" name="footnotetag195"></a>
+<a href="#footnote195"><sup class="sml">195</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote195"
+name="footnote195"><b>Footnote 195: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag195">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. xv.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Here, then, we see that Plato carefully distinguishes between
+the sole Eternal Author of the universe, on one hand, and the
+"souls," vital and intelligent, which he attaches to the heavenly
+orbs, and diffuses through all nature, on the other. These subordinate
+powers or agents are all created, "<i>generated</i> deities,"
+who owe their continued existence to the <i>will</i> of God; and
+though intrusted with a sort of deputed creation, and a subsequent
+direction and government of created things, they are still
+only the <i>servants</i> and the <i>deputies</i> of the Supreme Creator, and
+Director, and Ruler of all things. These subordinate agents
+and ministers employed in the creation and providential government
+of the world appear, in the estimation of Plato, to have
+been needed--</p>
+
+<p>1. <i>To satisfy the demands of the popular faith</i>, which presented
+its facts to be explained no less than those of external nature.
+Plato had evidently a great veneration for antiquity, a peculiar
+regard for "tradition venerable through ancient report," and
+"doctrines hoary with years."<a id="footnotetag196" name="footnotetag196"></a>
+<a href="#footnote196"><sup class="sml">196</sup></a> He aspired after supernatural
+light and guidance; he longed for some intercourse with, some
+communication from, the Deity. And whilst he found many
+things in the ancient legends which revolted his moral sense,
+and which his reason rejected, yet the sentiment and the lesson
+which pervades the whole of Grecian mythology, viz., that the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="156">156</a></span>
+gods are in ceaseless intercourse with the human race, and if
+men will do right the gods will protect and help them, was
+one which commended itself to his heart.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote196"
+name="footnote196"><b>Footnote 196: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag196">
+(return) </a> Ibid., ch. v.</blockquote>
+
+<p>2. These intermediate agents seem to have been demanded
+to <i>satisfy the disposition and tendency which has revealed itself in
+all systems, of interposing some scale of ascent between the material
+creation and the infinite Creator</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The mechanical theory of the universe has interposed its
+long series of secondary causes--the qualities, properties, laws,
+forces of nature; the vital theory which attaches a separate
+"soul" to the various parts of nature as the cause and intelligent
+director of its movements. Of these "souls" or gods,
+there were different orders and degrees--deified men or heroes,
+aërial, terrestrial, and celestial divinities, ascending from nature
+up to God. And this tendency to supply some scale of
+ascent towards the Deity, or at least to people the vast territory
+which seems to swell between the world and God, finds some
+countenance in "the angels and archangels," "the thrones, and
+dominions, and principalities, and powers" of the Christian
+scriptures.<a id="footnotetag197" name="footnotetag197"></a>
+<a href="#footnote197"><sup class="sml">197</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>3. These inferior ministers also seemed to Plato to <i>increase
+the stately grandeur and imperial majesty of the Divine government.</i>
+They swell the retinue of the Deity in his grand "circuit
+through the highest arch of heaven."<a id="footnotetag198" name="footnotetag198"></a>
+<a href="#footnote198"><sup class="sml">198</sup></a> They wait to execute
+the Divine commands. They are the agents of Divine
+providence, "the messengers of God" to men.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote197"
+name="footnote197"><b>Footnote 197: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag197">
+(return) </a> "The gods of the Platonic system answer, in office and conception, to
+the angels of Christian Theology."--Butler, vol. i. p. 225.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote198"
+name="footnote198"><b>Footnote 198: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag198">
+(return) </a> "Phædrus," § 56,7.</blockquote>
+
+<p>4. And, finally, the host of inferior deities interposed between
+the material sensible world and God seemed to Plato as
+<i>needful in order to explain the apparent defects and disorders of
+sublunary affairs</i>. Plato was jealous of the Divine honor.
+"All good must be ascribed to God, and nothing but good.
+We must find evil, disorder, suffering, in some other cause."<a id="footnotetag199" name="footnotetag199"></a>
+<a href="#footnote199"><sup class="sml">199</sup></a>
+He therefore commits to the junior deities the task of creating
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="157">157</a></span>
+animals, and of forming "the mortal part of man," because the
+mortal part is "possessed of certain dire and necessary passions."<a id="footnotetag200" name="footnotetag200"></a>
+<a href="#footnote200"><sup class="sml">200</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote199"
+name="footnote199"><b>Footnote 199: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag199">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. ii. p.18.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote200"
+name="footnote200"><b>Footnote 200: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag200">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," xliv.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Aristotle seems to have regarded the popular polytheism of
+Greece as a perverted relic of a deeper and purer "Theology"
+which he conceives to have been, in all probability, perfected
+in the distant past, and then comparatively lost. He says--
+"The tradition has come down from very ancient times, being
+left in a mythical garb to succeeding generations, that these
+(the heavenly bodies) are gods, and that the Divinity <i>encompasses
+the whole of nature</i>. There have been made, however,
+to these certain fabulous additions for the purpose of winning
+the belief of the multitude, and thus securing their obedience
+to the laws, and their co-operation towards advancing the general
+welfare of the state. These additions have been to the
+effect that these gods were of the same form as men, and even
+that some of them were in appearance similar to certain others
+amongst the rest of the animal creation. The wise course,
+however, would be for the philosopher to disengage from these
+traditions the false element, and to embrace that which is true;
+and the truth lies in that portion of this ancient doctrine which
+regards the first and deepest ground of all existence to be the
+<i>Divine</i>, and this he may regard as a divine utterance. In all
+probability, every art, and science, and philosophy has been
+over and over again discovered to the farthest extent possible,
+and then again lost; and we may conceive these opinions to
+have been preserved to us as a sort of fragment of these lost
+philosophers. We see, then, to some extent the relation of the
+popular belief to these ancient opinions."<a id="footnotetag201" name="footnotetag201"></a>
+<a href="#footnote201"><sup class="sml">201</sup></a> This conception of
+a deep Divine ground of all existence (for the immateriality and
+unity of which he elsewhere earnestly contends)<a id="footnotetag202" name="footnotetag202"></a>
+<a href="#footnote202"><sup class="sml">202</sup></a> is thus regarded
+by Aristotle as underlying the popular polytheism of Greece.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote201"
+name="footnote201"><b>Footnote 201: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag201">
+(return) </a> "Metaph.," xi. 8.
+</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote202"
+name="footnote202"><b>Footnote 202: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag202">
+(return) </a> Bk. xi. ch. ii. § 4.
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>The views of the educated and philosophic mind of Greece
+in regard to the mythological deities may, in conclusion, be
+thus briefly stated--</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="158">158</a></span>
+
+<p>I. <i>They are all created beings</i>--"GENERATED DEITIES," <i>who are
+dependent on, and subject to, the will of one supreme God</i>.</p>
+
+<p>II. <i>They are the</i> AGENTS <i>employed by God in the creation of, at
+least some parts of, the universe, and in the movement and direction
+of the entire cosmos; and they are also the</i> MINISTERS <i>and</i> MESSENGERS
+<i>of that universal providence which he exercises over the
+human race</i>.</p>
+
+<p>These subordinate deities are, 1. the greater parts of the
+visible mundane system animated by intelligent souls, and called
+"<i>sensible gods</i>"--the sun, the moon, the stars, and even the
+earth itself, and known by the names Helios, Selena, Kronos,
+Hermes, etc.</p>
+
+<p>2. Some are <i>invisible powers</i>, having peculiar offices and
+functions and presiding over special places provinces and departments
+of the universe;--one ruling in the heavens (Zeus),
+another in the air (Juno), another in the sea (Neptune), another
+in the subterranean regions (Pluto); one god presiding over
+learning and wisdom (Minerva), another over poetry, music,
+and religion (Apollo), another over justice and political order
+(Themis), another over war (Mars), another over corn (Ceres),
+and another the vine (Bacchus).</p>
+
+<p>3. Others, again, are <i>ethereal</i> and <i>aërial</i> beings, who have
+the guardianship of individual persons and things, and are called
+<i>demons, genii</i>, and <i>lares</i>; superior indeed to men, but inferior
+to the gods above named.</p>
+
+<p>"Wherefore, since there were no other gods among the
+Pagans besides those above enumerated, unless their images,
+statues, and symbols should be accounted such (because they
+were also sometimes abusively called 'gods'), which could
+not be supposed by them to have been unmade or without beginning,
+they being the workmanship of their own hands, we
+conclude, universally, that all that multiplicity of Pagan gods
+which make so great a show and noise was really either nothing
+but several names and notions of one supreme Deity, according
+to his different manifestations, gifts, and effects upon
+the world personated, or else many inferior understanding beings,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="159">159</a></span>
+generated or created by one supreme: so that one unmade,
+self-existent Deity, and no more, was acknowledged by
+the more intelligent Pagans, and, consequently, the Pagan Polytheism
+(or idolatry) consisted not in worshipping a multiplicity
+of unmade minds, deities, and creators, self-existent from
+eternity, and independent upon one Supreme, but in mingling
+and blending some way or other, unduly, creature-worship with
+the worship of the Creator."<a id="footnotetag203" name="footnotetag203"></a>
+<a href="#footnote203"><sup class="sml">203</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote203"
+name="footnote203"><b>Footnote 203: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag203">
+(return) </a> Cudworth, "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 311.</blockquote>
+
+<p>That the heathen regard the one Supreme Being as the first
+and chief object of worship is evident from the apologies which
+they offered for worshipping, besides Him, many inferior divinities.</p>
+
+<p>1. They claimed to worship them <i>only</i> as inferior beings,
+and that therefore they were not guilty of giving them that
+honor which belonged to the Supreme. They claimed to worship
+the supreme God incomparably above all. 2. That this
+honor which is bestowed upon the inferior divinities does ultimately
+redound to the supreme God, and aggrandize his state
+and majesty, they being all his ministers and attendants. 3.
+That as demons are mediators between the celestial gods and
+men, so those celestial gods are also mediators between men
+and the supreme God, and, as it were, convenient steps by
+which we ought with reverence to approach him. 4. That
+demons or angels being appointed to preside over kingdoms,
+cities, and persons, and being many ways benefactors to us,
+thanks ought to be returned to them by sacrifice. 5. Lastly,
+that it can not be thought that the Supreme Being will envy
+those inferior beings that worship or honor which is bestowed
+upon them; nor suspect that any of these inferior deities will
+factiously go about to set up themselves against the Supreme
+God.</p>
+
+<p>The Pagans, furthermore, apologized for worshipping God
+in images, statues, and symbols, on the ground that these were
+only schetically worshipped by them, the honor passing from
+them to the prototype. And since we live in bodies, and can
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="160" >160</a></span>
+scarcely, conceive of any thing without having some image or
+phantasm, we may therefore be indulged in this infirmity of
+human nature (at least in the vulgar) to worship God under a
+corporeal image, as a means of preventing men from falling into
+Atheism.</p>
+
+<p>To the Christian conscience the above reasons assigned
+furnish no real justification of Polytheism and Idolatry; but
+they are certainly a tacit confession of their belief in the one
+Supreme God, and their conviction that, notwithstanding their
+idolatry, He only ought to be worshipped. The heathen polytheists
+are therefore justly condemned in Scripture, and pronounced
+to be "<i>inexcusable</i>." They had the knowledge of the
+true God--" they <i>knew God</i>" and yet "they glorified him not
+as God." "They changed the glory of the incorruptible God
+into a likeness of corruptible man." And, finally, they ended
+in "worshipping and serving the creature <i>more</i> than the Creator."<a id="footnotetag204" name="footnotetag204"></a>
+<a href="#footnote204"><sup class="sml">204</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote204"
+name="footnote204"><b>Footnote 204: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag204">
+(return) </a> Romans i. 21, 25.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It can not, then, with justice be denied that the Athenians
+had some knowledge of the true God, and some just and worthy
+conceptions of his character. It is equally certain that a
+powerful and influential religious sentiment pervaded the Athenian
+mind. Their extreme "carefulness in religion" must be
+conceded by us, and, in some sense, commended by us, as it
+was by Paul in his address on Mars' Hill. At the same time
+it must also be admitted and deplored that the purer theology
+of primitive times was corrupted by offensive legends, and encrusted
+by polluting myths, though not utterly defaced.<a id="footnotetag205" name="footnotetag205"></a>
+<a href="#footnote205"><sup class="sml">205</sup></a> The
+Homeric gods were for the most part idealized, human personalities,
+with all the passions and weaknesses of humanity.
+They had their favorites and their enemies; sometimes they
+fought in one camp, sometimes in another. They were susceptible
+of hatred, jealousy, sensual passion. It would be strange
+indeed if their worshippers were not like unto them. The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="161">161</a></span>
+conduct of the Homeric heroes was, however, better than their
+creed. And there is this strange incongruity and inconsistency
+in the conduct of the Homeric gods,--they punish mortals for
+crimes of which they themselves are guilty, and reward virtues
+in men which they do not themselves always practise. "They
+punish with especial severity social and political crimes, such
+as perjury (Iliad, iii. 279), oppression of the poor (Od. xvii.
+475), and unjust judgment in courts of justice (Iliad, xvi. 386)."
+Jupiter is the god of justice, and of the domestic hearth; he is
+the protector of the exile, the avenger of the poor, and the vigilant
+guardian of hospitality. "And with all the imperfections
+of society, government, and religion, the poem presents a remarkable
+picture of primitive simplicity, chastity, justice, and
+practical piety, under the three-fold influence of moral feeling,
+mutual respect, and fear of the divine displeasure; such, at
+least, are the motives to which Telemachus makes his appeal
+when he endeavors to rouse the assembled people of Ithaca to
+the performance of their duty (Od. ii. 64)."<a id="footnotetag206" name="footnotetag206"></a>
+<a href="#footnote206"><sup class="sml">206</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote205"
+name="footnote205"><b>Footnote 205: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag205">
+(return) </a> "There was always a double current of religious ideas in Greece; one
+spiritualist, the other tainted with impure legends."--Pressensé.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote206"
+name="footnote206"><b>Footnote 206: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag206">
+(return) </a>: Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," pp. 167, 168; Pressensé, "Religion
+before Christ," p. 77.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The influence of the religious dramas of Æschylus and
+Sophocles on the Athenian mind must not be overlooked.
+No writer of pagan antiquity made the voice of conscience
+speak with the same power and authority that Æschylus did.
+"Crime," he says, "never dies without posterity." "Blood
+that has been shed congeals on the ground, crying out for an
+avenger." The old poet made himself the echo of what he
+called "the lyreless hymn of the Furies," who, with him, represented
+severe Justice striking the guilty when his hour comes,
+and giving warning beforehand by the terrors which haunt him.
+His dramas are characterized by deep religious feeling. Reverence
+for the gods, the recognition of an inflexible moral
+order, resignation to the decisions of Heaven, an abiding presentiment
+of a future state of reward and punishment, are strikingly
+predominant.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst Æschylus reveals to us the sombre, terror-stricken
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="162">162</a></span>
+side of conscience, Sophocles shows us the divine and luminous
+side. No one has ever spoken with nobler eloquence than
+he of moral obligation--of this immortal, inflexible law, in
+which dwells a God that never grows old--</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">        "Oh be the lot forever mine</p>
+<p class="i12">            Unsullied to maintain,</p>
+<p class="i10">         In act and word, with awe divine,</p>
+<p class="i12">            What potent laws ordain.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="i6">     "Laws spring from purer realms above:</p>
+<p class="i6">      Their father is the Olympian Jove.</p>
+<p class="i6">      Ne'er shall oblivion veil their front sublime,</p>
+<p class="i6">      Th' indwelling god is great, nor fears the wastes of time."<a id="footnotetag207" name="footnotetag207"></a>
+<a href="#footnote207"><sup class="sml">207</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The religious inspiration that animates Sophocles breaks
+out with incomparable beauty in the last words of Œdipus,
+when the old banished king sees through the darkness of death
+a mysterious light dawn, which illumines his blind eyes, and
+which brings to him the assurance of a blessed immortality.<a id="footnotetag208" name="footnotetag208"></a>
+<a href="#footnote208"><sup class="sml">208</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote207"
+name="footnote207"><b>Footnote 207: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag207">
+(return) </a> "Œdipus Tyran.," pp. 863-872.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote208"
+name="footnote208"><b>Footnote 208: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag208">
+(return) </a> Pressensé, "Religion before Christ," pp. 85-87.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Such a theology could not have been utterly powerless. The
+influence of truth, in every measure and degree, must be salutary,
+and especially of truth in relation to God, to duty, and to
+immortality. The religion of the Athenians must have had
+some wholesome and conserving influence of the social and
+political life of Athens.<a id="footnotetag209" name="footnotetag209"></a>
+<a href="#footnote209"><sup class="sml">209</sup></a> Those who resign the government of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="163">163</a></span>
+this lower world almost exclusively to Satan, may see, in the religion
+of the Greeks, a simple creation of Satanic powers. But
+he who believes that the entire progress of humanity has been
+under the control and direction of a benignant Providence,
+must suppose that, in the purposes of God, even Ethnicism has
+fulfilled some end, or it would not have been permitted to live.
+God has "<i>never left himself without a witness</i>" in any nation
+under heaven. And some preparatory office has been fulfilled
+by Heathenism which, at least, repealed the <i>want</i>, and prepared
+the mind for, the advent of Christianity.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote209"
+name="footnote209"><b>Footnote 209: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag209">
+(return) </a> The practice, so common with some theological writers, of drawing dark
+pictures of heathenism, in which not one luminous spot is visible, in order
+to exalt the revelations given to the Jews, is exceedingly unfortunate, and
+highly reprehensible. It is unfortunate, because the skeptical scholar knows
+that there were some elements of truth and excellence, and even of grandeur,
+in the religion and civilization of the republics of Greece and Rome; and
+it is reprehensible, because it is a one-sided and unjust procedure, in so far
+as it withholds part of the truth. This species of argument is a two-edged
+sword which cuts both ways. The prevalence of murder, and slavery, and
+treachery, and polygamy, in Greece and Rome, is no more a proof that "the
+religions of the pagan nations were destructive of morality" (Watson, vol.
+i. p. 59), than the polygamy of the Hebrews, the falsehoods and impositions
+of Mediaeval Christianity, the persecutions and martyrdoms of Catholic
+Christianity, the oppressions and wrongs of Christian England, and the slavery
+of Protestant America, are proofs that the Christian religion is "destructive
+of morality." What a fearful picture of the history of Christian
+nations might be drawn to-day, if all the lines of light, and goodness, and
+charity were left out, and the crimes, and wrongs, and cruelties of the Christian
+nations were alone exhibited!
+
+<p>How much more convincing a proof of the truth of Christianity to find in
+the religions of the ancient world a latent sympathy with, and an unconscious
+preparation for, the religion of Christ. "The history of religions of
+human origin is the most striking evidence of the agreement of revealed religion
+with the soul of man--for each of these forms of worship is the expression
+of the wants of conscience, its eternal thirst for pardon and restoration--rather
+let us say, its thirst for God."--Pressensé, p. 6.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The religion of the Athenians was unable to deliver them
+from the guilt of sin, redeem them from its power, and make
+them pure and holy. It gave the Athenian no victory over
+himself, and, practically, brought him no nearer to the living
+God. But it awakened and educated the conscience, it developed
+more fully the sense of sin and guilt, and it made man
+conscious of his inability to save himself from sin and guilt;
+and "the day that humanity awakens to the want of something
+more than mere embellishment and culture, that day it feels the
+need of being saved and restored from the consequences of
+sin" by a higher power. Æsthetic taste had found its fullest
+gratification in Athens; poetry, sculpture, architecture, had
+been carried to the highest perfection; a noble civilization had
+been reached; but "the need of something deeper and truer
+was written on the very stones." The highest consummation of
+Paganism was an altar to "the unknown God," the knowledge
+of whom it needed, as the source of purity and peace.</p>
+
+<p>The strength and the weakness of Grecian mythology
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="164">164</a></span>
+consisted in the contradictory character of its divinities. It was
+a strange blending of the natural and the supernatural, the human
+and the divine. Zeus, the eternal Father,--the immortal
+King, whose will is sovereign, and whose power is invincible,--the
+All-seeing Jove, has some of the weaknesses and passions
+of humanity. God and man are thus, in some mysterious way,
+united. And here that deepest longing of the human heart is
+met--the unconquerable desire to bring God nearer to the human
+apprehension, and closer to the human heart. Hence the
+hold which Polytheism had upon the Grecian mind. But in this
+human aspect was also found its weakness, for when philosophic
+thought is brought into contact with, and permitted critically
+to test mythology, it dethrones the false gods. The age
+of spontaneous religious sentiment must necessarily be succeeded
+by the age of reflective thought. Popular theological
+faiths must be placed in the hot crucible of dialectic analysis,
+that the false and the frivolous may be separated from the pure
+and the true. The reason of man demands to be satisfied, as
+well as the heart. Faith in God must have a logical basis, it
+must be grounded on demonstration and proof. Or, at any
+rate, the question must be answered, <i>whether God is cognizable
+by human reason</i>? If this can be achieved, then a deeper
+foundation is laid in the mind of humanity, upon which Christianity
+can rear its higher and nobler truths.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="165">165</a></span>
+<br>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER V.</h3>
+
+<h3>THE UNKNOWN GOD.</h3>
+
+<p>"As I passed by, and beheld your sacred objects, I found an altar with
+this inscription, <i>To the Unknown God</i>."--ST. PAUL.</p>
+
+<p>"That which can be <i>known</i> of God is manifested in their hearts, God
+himself having shown it to them" [the heathen nations].--ST. PAUL.</p>
+
+<p>Having now reached our first landing-place, from whence
+we may survey the fields that we have traversed, it may
+be well to set down in definite propositions the results we have
+attained. We may then carry them forward, as torches, to illuminate
+the path of future and still profounder inquiries.</p>
+
+<p>The principles we have assumed as the only adequate and
+legitimate interpretation of the facts of religious history, and
+which an extended study of the most fully-developed religious
+system of the ancient world confirms, may be thus announced:</p>
+
+<p>I. A religious nature and destination appertain to man, so
+that the purposes of his existence and the perfection of his
+being can only be secured in and through religion.</p>
+
+<p>II. The idea of God as the unconditioned Cause, the infinite
+Mind, the personal Lord and Lawgiver, and the consciousness
+of dependence upon and obligation to God, are the fundamental
+principles of all religion.</p>
+
+<p>III. Inasmuch as man is a religious being, the instincts and
+emotions of his nature constraining him to worship, there must
+also be implanted in his rational nature some original <i>à priori</i>
+ideas or laws of thought which furnish the necessary cognition
+of the object of worship; that is, some native, spontaneous
+cognition of God.</p>
+
+<p>A mere blind impulse would not be adequate to guide man
+to the true end and perfection of his being without rational
+ideas; a tendency or appetency, without a revealed object,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="166" >166</a></span>
+would be the mockery and misery of his nature--an "ignis
+fatuus" perpetually alluring and forever deceiving man.</p>
+
+<p>That man has a native, spontaneous apperception of a God,
+in the true import of that sacred name, has been denied by
+men of totally opposite schools and tendencies of thought--by
+the Idealist and the Materialist; by the Theologian and the
+Atheist. Though differing essentially in their general principles
+and method, they are agreed in asserting that God is absolutely
+"<i>the unknown</i>;" and that, so far as reason and logic
+are concerned, man can not attain to any knowledge of the first
+principles and causes of the universe, and, consequently, can
+not determine whether the first principle or principles be intelligent
+or unintelligent, personal or impersonal, finite or infinite,
+one or many righteous or non-righteous, evil or good.</p>
+
+<p>The various opponents of the doctrine that God can be
+cognized by human reason may be classified as follows:
+I. <i>Those who assert that all human knowledge is necessarily
+confined to the observation and classification of phenomena in their
+orders of co-existence, succession, and resemblance</i>. Man has no
+faculty for cognizing substances, causes, forces, reasons, first
+principles--no power by which he can <i>know</i> God. This class
+may be again subdivided into--</p>
+
+<p>1. Those who limit all knowledge to the observation and
+classification of <i>mental</i> phenomena (<i>e. g</i>., Idealists like J. S.
+Mill).</p>
+
+<p>2. Those who limit all knowledge to the observation and
+classification of <i>material</i> phenomena (<i>e. g</i>., Materialists like
+Comte).</p>
+
+<p>II. <i>The second class comprises all who admit that philosophic
+knowledge is the knowledge of effects as dependent on causes, and of
+qualities as inherent in substances; but at the same time assert that
+"all knowledge is of the phenomenal</i>." Philosophy can never
+attain to a positive knowledge of the First Cause. Of existence,
+absolutely and in itself, we know nothing. The infinite
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="167">167</a></span>
+can not by us be comprehended, conceived, or thought. <i>Faith</i>
+is the organ by which we apprehend what is beyond knowledge.
+We believe in the existence of God, but we can not <i>know</i> God.
+This class, also, may be again subdivided into--</p>
+
+<p>1. Those who affirm that our idea of the Infinite First
+Cause is grounded on an <i>intuitional</i> or subjective faith, necessitated
+by an "impotence of thought"--that is, by a
+mental inability to conceive an absolute limitation or an
+infinite illimitation, an absolute commencement or an infinite
+non-commencement. Both contradictory opposites are
+equally incomprehensible and inconceivable to us; and yet,
+though unable to view either as possible, we are forced by a
+higher law--the "Law of Excluded Middle"--to admit that
+one, and only one, is necessary (<i>e. g</i>., Hamilton and Mansel).</p>
+
+<p>2. Those who assert that our idea of God rests solely on
+an <i>historical</i> or objective faith in testimony--the testimony
+of Scripture, which assures us that, in the course of history,
+God has manifested his existence in an objective manner to
+the senses, and given verbal communications of his character
+and will to men; human reason being utterly incapacitated
+by the fall, and the consequent depravity of man, to attain
+any knowledge of the unity, spirituality, and righteousness
+of God (<i>e. g</i>., Watson, and Dogmatic Theologians generally).</p>
+
+<p>It will thus be manifest that the great question, the central
+and vital question which demands a thorough and searching
+consideration, is the following, to wit: <i>Is God cognizable by human
+reason</i>? Can man attain to a positive cognition of God--can
+he <i>know</i> God; or is all our supposed knowledge "a learned
+ignorance,"<a id="footnotetag210" name="footnotetag210"></a>
+<a href="#footnote210"><sup class="sml">210</sup></a> an unreasoning faith? We venture to answer this
+question in the affirmative. Human reason is now adequate
+to the cognition of God; it is able, with the fullest confidence,
+to affirm the being of a God, and, in some degree, to determine
+his character. The parties and schools above referred to answer
+this question in the negative form. Whether Theologians
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="168">168</a></span>
+or Atheists, they are singularly agreed in denying to human
+reason all possibility of <i>knowing</i> God.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote210"
+name="footnote210"><b>Footnote 210: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag210">
+(return) </a> Hamilton's "Philosophy," p. 512.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Before entering upon the discussion of the negative positions
+enumerated in the above classification, it may be important we
+should state our own position explicitly, and exhibit what we
+regard as the true doctrine of the genesis of the idea of God in
+the human intelligence. The real question at issue will then
+stand out in clear relief, and precision will be given to the entire
+discussion.</p>
+
+<p>(i.) <i>We hold that the idea of God is a common phenomenon of
+the universal human intelligence</i>. It is found in all minds where
+reason has had its normal and healthy development; and no
+race of men has ever been found utterly destitute of the idea
+of God. The proof of this position has already been furnished
+in chap, ii.,<a id="footnotetag211" name="footnotetag211"></a>
+<a href="#footnote211"><sup class="sml">211</sup></a> and needs not be re-stated here. We have simply
+to remark that the appeal which is made by Locke and others
+of the sensational school to the experiences of infants, idiots,
+the deaf and dumb, or, indeed, any cases wherein the proper
+conditions for the normal development of reason are wanting,
+are utterly irrelevant to the question. The acorn contains
+within itself the rudimental germ of the future oak, but its mature
+and perfect development depends on the exterior conditions
+of moisture, light, and heat. By these exterior conditions
+it may be rendered luxuriant in its growth, or it may be stunted
+in its growth. It may barely exist under one class of conditions;
+it may be distorted and perverted, or it may perish utterly
+under another. And so in the idiotic mind the ideas of
+reason may be wanting, or they may be imprisoned by impervious
+walls of cerebral malformation. In the infant mind the development
+of reason is yet in an incipient stage. The idea of
+God is immanent to the infant thought, but the infant thought
+is not yet matured. The deaf and dumb are certainly not in
+that full and normal correlation to the world of sense which is a
+necessary condition of the development of reason. Language,
+the great vehiculum and instrument of thought, is wanting, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="169">169</a></span>
+reason can not develop itself without words. "Words without thought
+are dead sounds, <i>thoughts without words are nothing</i>.
+The word is the thought incarnate."<a id="footnotetag212" name="footnotetag212"></a>
+<a href="#footnote212"><sup class="sml">212</sup></a> Under proper and
+normal conditions, the idea of God is the natural and necessary
+form in which human thought must be developed. And, with
+these explanations, we repeat our affirmation that the idea of
+God is a common phenomenon of the universal human intelligence.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote211"
+name="footnote211"><b>Footnote 211: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag211">
+(return) </a> Pp. 89,90.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote212"
+name="footnote212"><b>Footnote 212: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag212">
+(return) </a> Müller, " Science of Language," p. 384.</blockquote>
+
+<p>(ii.) <i>We do not hold that the idea of God, in its completeness, is a
+simple, direct, and immediate intuition of the reason alone, independent
+of all experience, and all knowledge of the external world</i>. The
+idea of God is a complex idea, and not a simple idea. The affirmation,
+"God exists," is a <i>synthetic</i> and <i>primitive</i> judgment
+spontaneously developed in the mind, and developed, too, independent
+of all reflective reasoning. It is a necessary deduction
+from the facts of the outer world of nature and the primary intuitions
+of the inner world of reason--a logical deduction from
+the self-evident truths given in sense, consciousness, and reason.
+"We do not <i>perceive</i> God, but we <i>conceive</i> Him upon the faith
+of this admirable world exposed to view, and upon the other
+world, more admirable still, which we bear in ourselves."<a id="footnotetag213" name="footnotetag213"></a>
+<a href="#footnote213"><sup class="sml">213</sup></a>
+Therefore we do not say that man is born with an "innate
+idea" of God, nor with the definite proposition, "there is a
+God," written upon his soul; but we do say that the mind is
+pregnant with certain natural principles, and governed, in its
+development, by certain necessary laws of thought, which determine
+it, by a <i>spontaneous logic</i>, to affirm the being of a God;
+and, furthermore, that this judgment may be called <i>innate</i> in
+the sense, that it is the primitive, universal, and necessary development
+of the human understanding which "is innate to itself
+and equal to itself in all men."<a id="footnotetag214" name="footnotetag214"></a>
+<a href="#footnote214"><sup class="sml">214</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote213"
+name="footnote213"><b>Footnote 213: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag213">
+(return) </a> Cousin, "True, Beautiful and Good," p.102.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote214"
+name="footnote214"><b>Footnote 214: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag214">
+(return) </a> Leibnitz.</blockquote>
+
+<p>As the vital and rudimentary germ of the oak is contained
+in the acorn; as it is quickened and excited to activity by the
+external conditions of moisture, light, and heat, and is fully de
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="170">170</a></span>
+developed under the fixed and determinative laws of vegetable
+life--so the germs of the idea of God are present in the human
+mind as the intuitions of pure reason (<i>Rational Psychology</i>);
+these intuitions are excited to energy by our experiential and
+historical knowledge of the facts and laws of the universe (<i>Phenomenology</i>);
+and these facts and intuitions are developed into
+form by the necessary laws of the intellect (<i>Nomology</i>, or <i>Primordial
+Logic</i>).</p>
+
+<p>The <i>logical demonstration</i> of the being of God commences
+with the analysis of thought. It asks, What are the ideas which
+exist in the human intelligence? What are their actual characteristics,
+and what their primitive characteristics? What is
+their origin, and what their validity? Having, by this process,
+found that some of our ideas are subjective, and some objective
+that some are derived from experience, and that some can
+not be derived from experience, but are inherent in the very constitution
+of the mind itself, as <i>à priori</i> ideas of reason; that
+these are characterized as self-evident, universal, and necessary
+and that, as laws of thought, they govern the mind in all
+its conceptions of the universe; it has formulated these necessary
+judgments, and presented them as distinct and articulate
+propositions. These <i>à priori</i>, necessary judgments constitute
+the major premise of the Theistic syllogism, and, in view of the
+facts of the universe, necessitate the affirmation of the existence
+of a God as the only valid explanation of the facts.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>natural</i> or <i>chronological order</i> in which the idea of God
+is developed in the human intelligence, is the reverse process
+of the scientific or logical order, in which the demonstration
+of the being of God is presented by philosophy; the latter is
+<i>reflective</i> and <i>analytic</i>, the former is <i>spontaneous</i> and <i>synthetic.</i>
+The natural order commences with the knowledge of the facts
+of the universe, material and mental, as revealed by sensation
+and experience. In presence of these facts of the universe,
+the <i>à priori</i> ideas of power, cause, reason, and end are evoked
+into consciousness with greater or less distinctness; and the
+judgment, by a natural and spontaneous logic, free from all
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="171" >171</a></span>
+reflection, and consequently from all possibility of error, affirms
+a necessary relation between the facts of experience and the
+<i>à priori</i> ideas of the reason. The result of this involuntary
+and almost unconscious process of thought is that natural cognition
+of a God found, with greater or less clearness and definiteness,
+in all rational minds. The <i>à posteriori</i>, or empirical
+knowledge of the phenomena of the universe, in their relations
+to time and space, constitute the minor premise of the Theistic
+syllogism.</p>
+
+<p>The Theistic argument is, therefore, necessarily composed
+of both experiential and <i>à priori</i> elements. An <i>à posteriori</i>
+element exists as a condition of the logical demonstration
+The rational <i>à priori</i> element is, however, the logical basis, the
+only valid foundation of the Theistic demonstration. The facts
+of the universe alone would never lead man to the recognition
+of a God, if the reason, in presence of these facts, did not
+enounce certain necessary and universal principles which are
+the logical antecedents, and adequate explanation of the facts.
+Of what use would it be to point to the events and changes of
+the material universe as proofs of the existence of a <i>First Cause,</i>
+unless we take account of the universal and necessary truth
+that "every change must have an efficient cause;" that all
+phenomena are an indication of <i>power</i>; and that "there is an
+ultimate and sufficient reason why all things exist, and are as
+they are, and not otherwise." There would be no logical force
+in enumerating the facts of order and special adaptation which
+literally crowd the universe, as proofs of the existence of an
+<i>Intelligent Creator</i>, if the mind did not affirm the necessary principle
+that "facts of order, having a commencement in time,
+suppose mind as their source and exponent." There is no
+logical conclusiveness in the assertion of Paley, "that <i>experience</i>
+teaches us that a designer must be a person," because, as
+Hume justly remarks, our "experience" is narrowed down to
+a mere point, "and can not be a rule for a universe;" but
+there is an infinitude of force in that dictum of reason, that
+"intelligence, self-consciousness, and self-determination necessarily
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="172">172</a></span>
+constitute personality." A multiplicity of different effects,
+of which experience does not always reveal the connection,
+would not conduct to a single cause and to <i>one</i> God, but rather
+to a plurality of causes and a plurality of gods, did not reason
+teach us that "all plurality implies an ultimate indivisible
+unity," and therefore there must be a <i>First Cause</i> of all causes,
+a <i>First Principle</i> of all principles, <i>the Substance</i> of all substances,
+<i>the Being</i> of all beings--<i>a God</i> "of whom, in whom, and to
+whom are all things" (πάντα ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ, ἐν τῷ θεῷ, εἰς τὸν θεόν).</p>
+
+<p>The conclusion, therefore, is, that, as the idea of God is a
+complex idea, so there are necessarily a number of simple <i>à
+priori</i> principles, and a variety of experiential facts conspiring
+to its development in the human intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>(iii.) <i>The universe presents to the human mind an aggregation
+and history of phenomena which demands the idea of a God--a
+self-existent, intelligent, personal, righteous First Cause--as its adequate
+explanation.</i></p>
+
+<p>The attempt of Positivism to confine all human knowledge
+to the observation and classification of phenomena, and arrest
+and foreclose all inquiry as to causes, efficient, final, and ultimate,
+is simply futile and absurd. It were just as easy to arrest
+the course of the sun in mid-heaven as to prevent the human
+mind from seeking to pass beyond phenomena, and ascertain
+the ground, and reason, and cause of all phenomena. The history
+of speculative thought clearly attests that, in all ages, the
+inquiry after the Ultimate Cause and Reason of all existence--the
+ἀρχή, or First Principle of all things--has been the inevitable
+and necessary tendency of the human mind; to resist which,
+skepticism and positivism have been utterly impotent. The
+first philosophers, of the Ionian school, had just as strong a
+faith in the existence of a Supreme Reality--an Ultimate Cause--as
+Leibnitz and Cousin. But when, by reflective thought,
+they attempted to render an account to themselves of this instinctive
+faith, they imagined that its object must be in some
+way appreciable to sense, and they sought it in some physical
+element, or under some visible and tangible shrine. Still, however
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="173">173</a></span>
+imperfect and inadequate the method, and however unsatisfactory
+the results, humanity has never lost its positive and
+ineradicable confidence that the problem of existence could be
+solved. The resistless tide of spontaneous and necessary
+thought has always borne the race onward towards the recognition
+of a great First Cause; and though philosophy may have
+erred, again and again, in tracing the logical order of this inevitable
+thought, and exhibiting the necessary nexus between the
+premises and conclusion, yet the human mind has never wavered
+in the confidence which it has reposed in the natural
+logic of thought, and man has never ceased to believe in a God.</p>
+
+<p>We readily grant that all our empirical knowledge is confined
+to phenomena in their orders of co-existence, succession,
+and resemblance. "To our objective perception and comparison
+nothing is given but qualities and changes; to our inductive
+generalization nothing but the shifting and grouping of
+these in time and space." Were it, however, our immediate
+concern to discuss the question, we could easily show that sensationalism
+has never succeeded in tracing the genetic origin
+of our ideas of space and time to observation and experience;
+and, without the <i>à priori</i> idea of <i>space</i>, as the place of bodies,
+and of <i>time</i>, as the condition of succession, we can not conceive
+of phenomena at all. If, therefore, we know any thing beyond
+phenomena and their mutual relations; if we have any cognition
+of realities underlying phenomena, and of the relations
+of phenomena to their objective ground, it must be given by
+some faculty distinct from sense-perception, and in some process
+distinct from inductive generalization. The knowledge of
+real Being and real Power, of an ultimate Reason and a personal
+Will, is derived from the apperception of pure reason,
+which affirms the necessary existence of a Supreme Reality--an
+Uncreated Being beyond all phenomena, which is the ground
+and reason of the existence--the contemporaneousness and
+succession--the likeness and unlikeness, of all phenomena.</p>
+
+<p>The immediate presentation of phenomena to sensation is
+the <i>occasion</i> of the development in consciousness of these <i>à</i>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="174">174</a></span>
+<i>priori</i> ideas of reason: the possession of these ideas or the immanence
+of these ideas, in the human intellect, constitutes the
+original <i>power</i> to know external phenomena. The ideas of
+space, time, power, law, reason, and end, are the logical antecedents
+of the ideas of body, succession, event, consecution, order,
+and adaptation. The latter can not be conceived as distinct
+notions without the former. The former will not be revealed
+in thought without the presentation to sense, of resistance,
+movement, change, uniformity, etc. All actual knowledge must,
+therefore, be impure; that is, it must involve both <i>à priori</i> and
+<i>à posteriori</i> elements; and between these elements there must
+be a necessary relation.</p>
+
+<p>This necessary relation between the <i>à priori</i> and <i>à posteriori</i>
+elements of knowledge is not a mere subjective law of thought.
+It is both a law of thought and a law of things. Between the
+<i>à posteriori</i> facts of the universe and the <i>à priori</i> ideas of the
+reason there is an absolute nexus, a universal and necessary
+correlation; so that the cognition of the latter is possible only
+on the cognition of the former; and the objective existence of
+the realities, represented by the ideas of reason, is the condition,
+<i>sine qua non</i>, of the existence of the phenomena presented
+to sense. If, in one indivisible act of consciousness, we immediately
+perceive extended matter exterior to our percipient
+mind, then Extension exists objectively; and if Extension exists
+objectively, then Space, its <i>conditio sine qua non</i>, also exists objectively.
+And if a definite body reveals to us the <i>Space</i> in
+which it is contained, if a succession of pulsations or movements
+exhibit the uniform <i>Time</i> beneath, so do the changeful
+phenomena of the universe demand a living <i>Power</i> behind,
+and the existing order and regular evolution of the universe
+presuppose <i>Thought</i>--prevision, and predetermination, by an
+intelligent mind.</p>
+
+<p>If, then, the universe is a created effect, it must furnish some
+indications of the character of its cause. If, as Plato taught,
+the world is a "created image" of the eternal archetypes which
+dwell in the uncreated Mind, and if the subjective ideas which
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="175">175</a></span>
+dwell in the human reason, as the offspring of God, are "copies"
+of the ideas of the Infinite Reason--if the universe be
+"the autobiography of the Infinite Spirit which has also repeated
+itself in miniature within our finite spirit," then may we decipher
+its symbols, and read its lessons straight off. Then every
+approach towards a scientific comprehension and generalization
+of the facts of the universe must carry us upward towards
+the higher realities of reason. The more we can understand
+of Nature--of her comprehensive laws, of her archetypal forms,
+of her far-reaching plan spread through the almost infinite ages,
+and stretching through illimitable space--the more do we comprehend
+the divine Thought. The inductive generalization of
+science gradually <i>ascends</i> towards the universal; the pure, essential,
+<i>à priori</i> reason, with its universal and necessary ideas, <i>descends</i>
+from above to meet it. The general conceptions of science
+are thus a kind of <i>ideœ umbratiles</i>--shadowy assimilations
+to those immutable ideas which dwell in essential reason, as
+possessed by the Supreme Intelligence, and which are participated
+in by rational man as the offspring and image of God.</p>
+
+<p>Without making any pretension to profound scientific accuracy,
+we offer the following tentative classification of the facts
+of the universe, material and mental, which may be regarded
+as hints and adumbrations of the ultimate ground, and reason,
+and cause, of the universe. We shall venture to classify these
+facts as indicative of some fundamental relation; (i.) to Permanent
+Being or Reality; (ii.) to Reason and Thought; (iii.) to
+Moral Ideas and Ends.</p>
+
+<p>(i.) <i>Facts of the universe which indicate some fundamental relation
+to Permanent Being or Reality</i>.</p>
+
+<p>1. <i>Qualitative</i> Phenomena (properties, attributes, qualities)--the
+predicates of a <i>subject</i>; which phenomena, being characterized
+by likeness and unlikeness, are capable of comparison
+and classification, and thus of revealing something as to
+the nature of the <i>subject</i>.</p>
+
+<p>2. <i>Dynamical</i> Phenomena (protension, movement,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="176">176</a></span>
+succession)--events
+transpiring in <i>time</i>, having beginning, succession,
+and end, which present themselves to us as the expression
+of <i>power</i>, and throw back their distinctive characteristics
+on their <i>dynamic</i> source.</p>
+
+<p>3. <i>Quantitative</i> Phenomena (totality, multiplicity, relative
+unity)--a multiplicity of objects having relative and composite
+unity, which suggests some relation to an absolute and
+indivisible <i>unity</i>.</p>
+
+<p>4. <i>Statical</i> Phenomena (extension, magnitude, divisibility)--bodies
+co-existing in <i>space</i> which are limited, conditioned,
+relative, dependent, and indicate some relation to that which
+is self-existent, unconditioned, and absolute.</p>
+
+<p>(ii.) <i>Facts of the universe which indicate some fundamental relation
+to Reason or Thought</i>.</p>
+
+<p>1. <i>Numerical and Geometrical Proportion</i>.--Definite proportion
+of elements (Chemistry), symmetrical arrangement of
+parts (Crystallography), numerical and geometrical relation of
+the forms and movements of the heavenly bodies (Spherical
+Astronomy), all of which are capable of exact mathematical
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>2. <i>Archetypal Forms</i>.--The uniform succession of new existences,
+and the progressive evolution of new orders and
+species, conformable to fixed and definite ideal archetypes,
+the indication of a comprehensive <i>plan</i>(Morphological Botany,
+Comparative Anatomy).</p>
+
+<p>3. <i>Teleology of Organs</i>.--The adaptation of organs to the
+fulfillment of special functions, indicating <i>design</i>(Comparative
+Physiology).</p>
+
+<p>4. <i>Combination of Homotypes and Analogues</i>.--Diversified
+homologous forms made to fulfill analogous functions, or
+special purposes fulfilled whilst maintaining a general plan,
+indicating <i>choice</i> and <i>alternativity</i>.</p>
+
+<p>(iii.) <i>Facts of the universe which indicate some fundamental
+relation to Moral Ideas and Ends</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="177">177</a></span></p>
+
+<p>1. <i>Ethical Distinctions</i>.--The universal tendency to discriminate
+between voluntary acts as right or wrong, indicating
+some relation to an <i>immutable moral standard of right</i>.</p>
+
+<p>2. <i>Sense of Obligation</i>.--The universal consciousness of
+dependence and obligation, indicating some relation to
+Supreme <i>Power</i>, an Absolute <i>Authority</i>.</p>
+
+<p>3. <i>Feeling of Responsibility</i>.--The universal consciousness
+of liability to be required to give account for, and endure the
+consequences of our action, indicating some relation to a
+Supreme <i>Judge</i>.</p>
+
+<p>4. <i>Retributive Issues</i>.--The pleasure and pain resulting
+from moral action in this life, and the universal anticipation
+of pleasure or pain in the future, as the consequence of present
+conduct, indicate an <i>absolute Justice</i> ruling the world
+and man.</p>
+
+<p>Now, if the universe be a <i>created effect</i>, it must, in some degree
+at least, reveal the character of its Author and cause. We
+are entitled to regard it as a created symbol and image of the
+Deity; it must bear the impress of his <i>power</i>; it must reveal
+his infinite <i>presence</i>; it must express his <i>thoughts</i>; it must embody
+and realize his <i>ideals</i>, so far, at least, as material symbols
+will permit. Just as we see the power and thought of man revealed
+in his works, his energy and skill, his ideal and his taste
+expressed in his mechanical, artistic, and literary creations, so
+we may see the mind and character of God displayed in his
+works. The skill and contrivance of Watts, and Fulton, and
+Stephenson were exhibited in their mechanical productions.
+The pure, the intense, the visionary impersonation of the soul
+which the artist had conjured in his own imagination was wrought
+out in Psyché. The colossal grandeur of Michael Angelo's
+ideals, the ethereal and saintly elegance of Raphael's were realized
+upon the canvas. So he who is familiar with the ideal of
+the sculptor or the painter can identify his creations even when
+the author's name is not affixed. And so the "eternal Power"
+of God is "clearly seen" in the mighty orbs which float in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="178">178</a></span>
+illimitable space. The vastness of the universe shadows forth
+the infinity of God. The indivisible unity of space and the
+ideal unity of the universe reflect the unity of God. The material
+forms around us are symbols of divine ideas, and the successive
+history of the universe is an expression of the divine
+thought; whilst the ethical ideas and sentiments inherent in the
+human mind are a reflection of the moral character of God.</p>
+
+<p>The reader can not have failed to observe the form in which
+the Theistic argument is stated; "<i>if</i> the finite universe is a
+created effect, it must reveal something as to the nature of its
+cause: <i>if</i> the existing order and arrangement of the universe
+had a commencement in time, it must have an ultimate and
+adequate cause." The question, therefore, presents itself in a
+definite form: "<i>Is the universe finite or infinite; had the order
+of the universe a beginning, or is it eternal</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>It will be seen at a glance that this is the central and vital
+question in the Theistic argument. If the order and arrangement
+of the universe is <i>eternal</i>, then that order is an inherent
+law of nature, and, as eternal, does not imply a cause <i>ab extra:</i>
+if it is not eternal, then the ultimate cause of that order must
+be a power above and beyond nature. In the former case the
+minor premise of the Theistic syllogism is utterly invalidated;
+in the latter case it is abundantly sustained.</p>
+
+<p>Some Theistic writers--as Descartes, Pascal, Leibnitz, and
+Saisset--have made the fatal admission that the universe is, in
+some sense, <i>infinite</i> and <i>eternal</i>. In making this admission they
+have unwittingly surrendered the citadel of strength, and deprived
+the argument by which they would prove the being of a
+God of all its logical force. That argument is thus presented by
+Saisset: "The finite supposes the infinite. Extension supposes
+first space, then immensity: duration supposes first time, then
+eternity. A sudden and irresistible judgment refers this to the
+necessary, infinite, perfect being."<a id="footnotetag215" name="footnotetag215"></a>
+<a href="#footnote215"><sup class="sml">215</sup></a> But if "the world is infinite
+and eternal,"<a id="footnotetag216" name="footnotetag216"></a>
+<a href="#footnote216"><sup class="sml">216</sup></a> may not nature, or the totality of all existence
+(τὺ πᾶν), be the necessary, infinite, and perfect Being? An
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="179">179</a></span>
+infinite and eternal universe has the reason of its existence in
+itself, and the existence of such a universe can never prove to
+us the existence of an infinite and eternal God.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote215"
+name="footnote215"><b>Footnote 215: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag215">
+(return) </a> "Modern Pantheism," vol. ii. p. 205.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote216"
+name="footnote216"><b>Footnote 216: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag216">
+(return) </a> Ibid, p. 123.</blockquote>
+
+<p>A closer examination of the statements and reasonings of Descartes,
+Pascal, and Leibnitz, as furnished by Saisset, will show
+that these distinguished mathematicans were misled by the false
+notion of "<i>mathematical</i> infinitude." Their infinite universe,
+after all, is not an "absolute," but a "relative" infinite; that is,
+the indefinite. "The universe must extend <i>indefinitely</i> in time
+and space, in the infinite greatness, and in the infinite littleness
+of its parts--in the infinite variety of its species, of its forms,
+and of its degrees of existence. The finite can not express the
+infinite but by being <i>multiplied</i> infinitely. The finite, so far as
+it is finite, is not in any reasonable relation, or in any intelligible
+proportion to the infinite. But the finite, as <i>multiplied</i> infinitely,<a id="footnotetag217" name="footnotetag217"></a>
+<a href="#footnote217"><sup class="sml">217</sup></a>
+ages upon ages, spaces upon spaces, stars beyond stars,
+worlds beyond worlds, is a true expression of the Infinite Being.
+Does it follow, because the universe has no limits,--that it
+must therefore be eternal, immense, infinite as God himself?
+No; that is but a vain scruple, which springs from the imagination,
+and not from the reason. The imagination is always
+confounding what reason should ever distinguish, eternity and
+time, immensity and space, <i>relative</i> infinity and <i>absolute</i> infinity.
+The Creator alone is eternal, immense, absolutely infinite."<a id="footnotetag218" name="footnotetag218"></a>
+<a href="#footnote218"><sup class="sml">218</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote217"
+name="footnote217"><b>Footnote 217: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag217">
+(return) </a> "The infinite is distinct from the finite, and consequently from the multiplication
+of the finite by itself; that is, from the <i>indefinite</i>. That which is
+not infinite, added as many times as you please to itself, will not become infinite."--Cousin,
+"Hist, of Philos.," vol. ii. p. 231.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote218"
+name="footnote218"><b>Footnote 218: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag218">
+(return) </a> Saisset, "Modern Pantheism," vol. ii. pp. 127, 128.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The introduction of the idea of "the mathematical infinite"
+into metaphysical speculation, especially by Kant and Hamilton,
+with the design, it would seem, of transforming the idea of
+infinity into a sensuous conception, has generated innumerable
+paralogisms which disfigure the pages of their philosophical
+writings. This procedure is grounded in the common fallacy
+of supposing that <i>infinity</i> and <i>quantity</i> are compatible attributes,
+and susceptible of mathematical synthesis. This insidious and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="180">180</a></span>
+plausible error is ably refuted by a writer in the "North American
+Review."<a id="footnotetag219" name="footnotetag219"></a>
+<a href="#footnote219"><sup class="sml">219</sup></a> We can not do better than transfer his argument
+to our pages in an abridged form.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote219"
+name="footnote219"><b>Footnote 219: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag219">
+(return) </a> "The Conditioned and the Unconditioned," No. CCV. art. iii. (1864).</blockquote>
+
+<p>Mathematics is conversant with quantities and quantitative
+relations. The conception of quantity, therefore, if rigorously
+analyzed, will indicate <i>à priori</i> the natural and impassable
+boundaries of the science; while a subsequent examination of
+the quantities called infinite in the mathematical sense, and of
+the algebraic symbol of infinity, will be seen to verify the results
+of this <i>á priori</i> analysis.</p>
+
+<p>Quantity is that attribute of things in virtue of which they
+are susceptible of exact mensuration. The question <i>how much</i>,
+or <i>how many</i> (<i>quantus</i>), implies the answer, <i>so much</i>, or <i>so many</i>
+(<i>tantus</i>); but the answer is possible only through reference to
+some standard of magnitude or multitude arbitrarily assumed.
+Every object, therefore, of which quantity, in the mathematical
+sense, is predicable, must be by its essential nature <i>mensurable.</i>
+Now mensurability implies the existence of actual, definite limits,
+since without them there could be no fixed relation between
+the given object and the standard of measurement, and, consequently,
+no possibility of exact mensuration. In fact, since
+quantification is the object of all mathematical operations,
+mathematics may be not inaptly defined as <i>the science of the determinations
+of limits</i>. It is evident, therefore, that the terms
+<i>quantity</i> and <i>finitude</i> express the same attribute, namely, <i>limitation</i>--the
+former relatively, the latter absolutely; for quantity is
+limitation considered with relation to some standard of measurement,
+and finitude is limitation considered simply in itself.
+The sphere of quantity, therefore, is absolutely identical with
+the sphere of the finite; and the phrase <i>infinite quantity</i>, if
+strictly construed, is a contradiction in terms.</p>
+
+<p>The result thus attained by considering abstract quantity
+is corroborated by considering concrete and discrete quantities.
+Such expressions as <i>infinite sphere, radius, parallelogram, line,</i>
+and so forth, are self-contradictory. A sphere is limited by its
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="181">181</a></span>
+own periphery, and a radius by the centre and circumference
+of its circle. A parallelogram of infinite altitude is impossible,
+because the limit of its altitude is assigned in the side which
+must be parallel to its base in order to constitute it a parallelogram.
+In brief, all figuration is limitation. The contradiction
+in the term <i>infinite line</i> is not quite so obvious, but can readily
+be made apparent. Objectively, a line is only the termination
+of a surface, and a surface the termination of a solid; hence a
+line can not exist apart from an extended quantity, nor an infinite
+line apart from an infinite quantity. But as this term has
+just been shown to be self-contradictory, an infinite line can
+not exist objectively at all. Again, every line is extension in
+one dimension; hence a mathematical quantity, hence mensurable,
+hence finite; you must therefore, deny that a line is a
+quantity, or else affirm that it is finite.</p>
+
+<p>The same conclusion is forced upon us, if from geometry
+we turn to arithmetic. The phrases <i>infinite number, infinite series,
+infinite process</i>, and so forth, are all contradictory when
+literally construed. Number is a relation among separate unities
+or integers, which, considered objectively as independent
+of our cognitive powers, must constitute an exact sum; and
+this exactitude, or synthetic totality, is limitation. If considered
+subjectively in the mode of its cognition, a number is infinite
+only in the sense that it is beyond the power of our imagination
+or conception, which is an abuse of the term. In
+either case the totality is fixed; that is, finite. So, too, of <i>series</i>
+and <i>process</i>. Since every series involves a succession of terms
+or numbers, and every process a succession of steps or stages,
+the notion of series and process plainly involves that of <i>number</i>,
+and must be rigorously dissociated from the idea of infinity.
+At any one step, at any one term, the number attained is determinate,
+hence finite. The fact that, by the law of the series
+or of the process, <i>we</i> may continue the operation <i>as long as we
+please</i>, does not justify the application of the term infinite to
+the operation itself; if any thing is infinite, it is the will which
+continues the operation, which is absurd if said of human wills.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="182">182</a></span>
+
+<p>Consequently, the attribute of infinity is not predicable either
+of 'diminution without limit,' 'augmentation without limit,' or
+'endless approximation to a fixed limit,' for these mathematical
+processes continue only as we continue them, consist of
+steps successively accomplished, and are limited by the very
+fact of this serial incompletion.</p>
+
+<p>"We can not forbear pointing out an important application
+of these results to the Critical Philosophy. Kant bases each
+of his famous four antinomies on the demand of pure reason
+for unconditioned totality in a regressive series of conditions.
+This, he says, must be realized either in an absolute first of the
+series, conditioning all the other members, but itself unconditioned,
+or else in the absolute infinity of the series without a
+first; but reason is utterly unable, on account of mutual contradiction,
+to decide in which of the two alternatives the unconditioned
+is found. By the principles we have laid down, however,
+the problem is solved. The absolute infinity of a series
+is a contradiction <i>in adjecto</i>. As every number, although immeasurably
+and inconceivably great, is impossible unless <i>unity</i>
+is given as its basis, so every series, being itself a number, is
+impossible unless a <i>first term</i> is given as a commencement.
+Through a first term alone is the unconditioned possible; that
+is, if it does not exist in a first term, it can not exist at all; of
+the two alternatives, therefore, one altogether disappears, and
+reason is freed from the dilemma of a compulsory yet impossible
+decision. Even if it should be allowed that the series has
+no first term, but has originated <i>ab œterno</i>, it must always at
+each instant have a <i>last term</i>; the series, as a whole, can not
+be infinite, and hence can not, as Kant claims it can, realize in
+its wholeness unconditioned totality. Since countless terms
+forever remain unreached, the series is forever limited by them.
+Kant himself admits that it <i>can never be completed</i>, and is only
+potentially infinite; actually, therefore, by his own admission, it
+is finite. But a last term implies a first, as absolutely as one end
+of a string implies the other; the only possibility of an unconditioned
+lies in Kant's first alternative, and if, as he maintains
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="183">183</a></span>
+Reason must demand it, she can not hesitate in her decisions.
+That <i>number is a limitation</i> is no new truth, and that every series
+involves number is self-evident; and it is surprising that so
+radical a criticism on Kant's system should never have suggested
+itself to his opponents. Even the so-called <i>moments</i>
+of time can not be regarded as constituting a real series, for a
+series can not be real except through its divisibility into members
+whereas time is indivisible, and its partition into moments
+is a conventional fiction. Exterior limitability and interior
+divisibility result equally from the possibility of discontinuity.
+Exterior illimitability and interior indivisibility are simple
+phases of the same attribute of <i>necessary continuity</i> contemplated
+under different aspects. From this principle flows another
+upon which it is impossible to lay too much stress, namely;
+<i>illimitability and indivisibility, infinity and unity, reciprocally necessitate
+each other</i>. Hence the Quantitative Infinites must be
+also Units, and the division of space and time, implying absolute
+contradiction, is not even cogitable as an hypothesis.<a id="footnotetag220" name="footnotetag220"></a>
+<a href="#footnote220"><sup class="sml">220</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>"The word <i>infinite</i>, therefore, in mathematical usage, as applied
+to <i>process</i> and to <i>quantity</i>, has a two-fold signification.
+An infinite process is one which we can continue <i>as long as we
+please</i>, but which exists solely in our continuance of it.<a id="footnotetag221" name="footnotetag221"></a>
+<a href="#footnote221"><sup class="sml">221</sup></a> An
+infinite quantity is one which exceeds our powers of mensuration
+or of conception, but which, nevertheless, has bounds and
+limits in itself.<a id="footnotetag222" name="footnotetag222"></a>
+<a href="#footnote222"><sup class="sml">222</sup></a> Hence the possibility of relation among infinite
+quantities, and of different orders of infinities. If the words
+<i>infinite, infinity, infinitesimal</i>, should be banished from mathematical
+treatises and replaced by the words <i>indefinite, indefinity,</i>
+and <i>indefinitesimal</i>, mathematics would suffer no loss, while, by
+removing a perpetual source of confusion, metaphysics would
+get great gain."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote220"
+name="footnote220"><b>Footnote 220: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag220">
+(return) </a> By the application of these principles the writer in the "North American
+Review" completely dissolves the antinomies by which Hamilton seeks to
+sustain his "Philosophy of the Conditioned." See "North American Review,"
+1864, pp. 432-437.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote221"
+name="footnote221"><b>Footnote 221: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag221">
+(return) </a> De Morgan, "Diff. and Integ. Calc." p. 9.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote222"
+name="footnote222"><b>Footnote 222: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag222">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., p. 25.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The above must be regarded as a complete refutation of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="184">184</a></span>
+position taken by <i>Hume</i>, to wit, that the idea of nature eternally
+existing in a state of order, without a cause other than the
+eternally inherent laws of nature, is no more self-contradictory
+than the idea of an eternally-existing and infinite mind, who
+originated this order--a God existing without a cause. The
+eternal and infinite Mind is indivisible and illimitable; nature,
+in its totality, as well as in its individual parts, has interior divisibility,
+and exterior limitability. The infinity of God is not
+a <i>quantitative</i>, but a <i>qualitative</i> infinity. The miscalled eternity
+and infinity of nature is an <i>indefinite</i> extension and protension
+in time and space, and, as <i>quantitative</i>, must necessarily be limited
+and measurable, therefore <i>finite</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The universe of sense-perception and sensuous imagination
+is a phenomenal universe, a genesis, a perpetual becoming, an
+entrance into existence, and an exit thence; the Theist is,
+therefore, perfectly justified in regarding it as disqualified for
+<i>self-existence</i>, and in passing behind it for the Supreme Entity
+that needs no cause. Phenomena demand causation, entities
+dispense with it. No one asks for a cause of the <i>space</i> which
+contains the universe, or of the Eternity on the bosom of which
+it floats. Everywhere the line is necessarily drawn upon the
+same principle; that entities <i>may</i> have self-existence, phenomena
+<i>must</i> have a cause.<a id="footnotetag223" name="footnotetag223"></a>
+<a href="#footnote223"><sup class="sml">223</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote223"
+name="footnote223"><b>Footnote 223: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag223">
+(return) </a> "Science, Nescience, and Faith," in Martineau's "Essays," p. 206.</blockquote>
+
+<p>IV. <i>Psychological analysis clearly attests that in the phenomena
+of consciousness there are found elements or principles which, in
+their regular and normal development, transcend the limits of consciousness,
+and attain to the knowledge of Absolute Being, Absolute
+Reason, Absolute Good</i>, i.e., GOD.</p>
+
+<p>The analysis of thought clearly reveals that the mind of man
+is in possession of ideas, notions, beliefs, principles (as <i>e.g.</i>, the
+idea of space, duration, cause, substance, unity, infinity), which
+are not derived from sensation and experience, and which can
+not be drawn out of sensation and experience by any process
+of generalization. These ideas have this incontestable peculiarity,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="185">185</a></span>
+as distinguished from all the phenomena of sensation, that,
+whilst the latter are particular, contingent, and relative, the
+former are <i>universal</i>, <i>necessary</i>, and <i>absolute</i>. As an example,
+and a proof of the reality and validity of this distinction, take
+the ideas of <i>body</i> and of <i>space</i>, the former unquestionably derived
+from experience, the latter supplied by reason alone. "I ask
+you, can not you conceive this book to be destroyed? Without
+doubt you can. And can not you conceive the whole world to
+be destroyed, and no matter whatever in existence? You can.
+For you, constituted as you are, the supposition of the non-existence
+of bodies implies no contradiction. And what do we
+call the idea of a thing which we can conceive of as non-existing?
+We call it a <i>contingent</i> and <i>relative</i> idea. But if you can
+conceive this book to be destroyed, all bodies destroyed, can
+you suppose space to be destroyed? You can not. It is in the
+power of man's thought to conceive the non-existence of bodies;
+it is not in the power of man's thought to conceive the
+non-existence of space. The idea of space is thus a <i>necessary</i>
+and <i>absolute</i> idea."<a id="footnotetag224" name="footnotetag224"></a>
+<a href="#footnote224"><sup class="sml">224</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote224"
+name="footnote224"><b>Footnote 224: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag224">
+(return) </a> Cousin's "Hist. of Philos.," vol. ii. p. 214.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Take, again, the ideas of <i>event</i> and <i>cause</i>. The idea of an
+event is a <i>contingent</i> idea; it is the idea of something which
+might or might not have happened. There is no impossibility
+or contradiction in either supposition. The idea of cause is a
+<i>necessary</i> idea. An event being given, the idea of cause is necessarily
+implied. An uncaused event is an impossible conception.
+The idea of cause is also a <i>universal</i> idea extending to
+all events, actual or conceivable, and affirmed by all minds.
+It is a rational fact, attested by universal consciousness, that
+we can not think of an event transpiring without a cause; of a
+thing being the author of its own existence; of something generated
+by and out of nothing. <i>Ex nihilo nihil</i> is a universal
+law of thought and of things. This universal "law of causality"
+is clearly distinguishable from a <i>general</i> truth reached by
+induction. For example, it is a very general truth that, during
+twenty-four hours, day is succeeded by night. But this is not
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="186">186</a></span>
+a necessary truth, neither is it a universal truth. It does not
+extend to all known lands, as, for example, to Nova Zembla.
+It does not hold true of the other planets. Nor does it extend
+to all possible lands. We can easily conceive of lands plunged
+in eternal night, or rolling in eternal day. With another system
+of worlds, one can conceive other physics, but one can not
+conceive other metaphysics. It is impossible to imagine a
+world in which the law of causality does not reign. Here,
+then, we have one absolute principle (among others which may
+be enumerated), the existence and reality of which is revealed,
+not by sensation, but by reason--a principle which transcends
+the limits of experience, and which, in its regular and logical
+development, attains the knowledge of the Absolute Cause--the
+First Cause of all causes--God.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it is evident that the human mind is in possession of
+two distinct orders of primitive cognitions,--one, contingent,
+relative, and phenomenal; the other universal, necessary, and
+absolute. These two distinct orders of cognition presuppose
+the existence in man of two distinct faculties or organs of
+knowledge--<i>sensation</i>, external and internal, which perceives
+the contingent, relative, and phenomenal, and <i>reason</i>, which apprehends
+the universal, necessary, and absolute. The knowledge
+which is derived from sensation and experience is called
+<i>empirical</i> knowledge, or knowledge <i>à posteriori</i>, because subsequent
+to, and consequent upon, the exercise of the faculties of
+observation. The knowledge derived from reason is called
+<i>transcendental</i> knowledge, or knowledge <i>à priori</i>, because it furnishes
+laws to, and governs the exercise of the faculties of observation
+and thought, and is not the result of their exercise.
+The sensibility brings the mind into relation with the <i>physical</i>
+world, the reason puts mind in communication with the <i>intelligible</i>
+world--the sphere of <i>à priori</i> principles, of necessary
+and absolute truths, which depend upon neither the world nor
+the conscious self, and which reveal to man the existence of
+the soul, nature, and God. Every distinct fact of consciousness
+is thus at once <i>psychological</i> and <i>ontological</i>, and contains these
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="187" >187</a></span>
+three fundamental ideas, which we can not go beyond, or cancel
+by any possible analysis--the <i>soul</i>, with its faculties; <i>matter</i>,
+with its qualities; <i>God</i>, with his perfections.</p>
+
+<p>We do not profess to be able to give a clear explication and
+complete enumeration of all the ideas of reason, and of the necessary
+and universal principles or axioms which are grounded
+on these ideas. This is still the grand desideratum of metaphysical
+science. Its achievement will give us a primordial
+logic, which shall be as exact in its procedure and as certain
+in its conclusions as the mathematical sciences. Meantime,
+it may be affirmed that philosophic analysis, in the person
+of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Cousin, has succeeded in disengaging
+such <i>à priori</i> ideas, and formulating such principles
+and laws of thought, as lead infallibly to the cognition of the
+<i>Absolute Being</i>, the <i>Absolute Reason</i>, the <i>Absolute Good</i>, that is,
+GOD.</p>
+
+<p>It would carry us too far beyond our present design were
+we to exhibit, in each instance, the process of <i>immediate abstraction</i>
+by which the contingent and relative element of knowledge
+is eliminated, and the necessary and absolute principle
+is disengaged. We shall simply state the method, and show
+its application by a single illustration.</p>
+
+<p>There are unquestionably <i>two</i> sorts of abstraction: 1. "<i>Comparative</i>
+abstraction, operating upon several real objects, and
+seizing their resemblances in order to form an abstract idea,
+which is collective and mediate; collective, because different
+individuals concur in its formation; mediate, because it requires
+several intermediate operations." This is the method
+of the physical sciences, which comprises comparison, abstraction,
+and generalization. The result in this process is the attainment
+of a <i>general</i> truth. 2. "<i>Immediate</i> abstraction, not
+comparative; operating not upon several concretes, but upon a
+single one, eliminating and neglecting its individual and variable
+part, and disengaging the absolute part, which it raises at
+once to its pure form." The parts to be eliminated in a concrete
+cognition are, first, the quality of the object, and the circumstances
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="188">188</a></span>
+under which the absolute unfolds itself; and secondly,
+the quality of the subject, which perceives but does not
+constitute it. The phenomena of the me and the not-me being
+eliminated, the absolute remains. This is the process of rational
+psychology, and the result obtained is a <i>universal</i> and
+<i>necessary</i> truth.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us take, as an example, the principle of cause. To be
+able to say that the event I see must have a cause, it is not
+indispensable to have seen several events succeed each other.
+The principle which compels me to pronounce this judgment
+is already complete in the first as in the last event; it can not
+change in respect to its object, it can not change in itself; it
+neither increases nor decreases with the greater or less number
+of applications. The only difference that it is subject to
+in regard to us is that we apply it, whether we remark it or not,
+whether we disengage it or not from its particular application.
+The question is not to eliminate the particularity of the phenomenon
+wherein it appears to us, whether it be the fall of a
+leaf or the murder of a man, in order immediately to conceive,
+in a general and abstract manner, the necessity of a cause for
+every event that begins to exist. Here it is not because I am
+the same, or have been affected in the same manner in several
+different cases, that I have come to this general and abstract
+conception. A leaf falls; at the same moment I think, I believe,
+I declare that this falling of the leaf must have a cause.
+A man has been killed; at the same instant I believe, I proclaim
+that this death must have a cause. Each one of these
+facts contains particular and variable circumstances, and something
+universal and necessary, to wit, both of them can not but
+have a cause. Now I am perfectly able to disengage the universal
+from the particular in regard to the first fact as well as
+in regard to the second fact, for the universal is in the first
+quite as well as in the second. In fact, if the principle of
+causality is not universal in the first fact, neither will it be in
+the second, nor in the third, nor in the thousandth; for a thousandth
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="189">189</a></span>
+is not nearer than the first to the infinite--to absolute
+universality. It is the same, and still more evidently, with
+<i>necessity</i>. Pay particular attention to this point; if necessity is
+not in the first fact, it can not be in any; for necessity can not
+be formed little by little, and by successive increments. If, on
+the first murder I see, I do not exclaim that this murder had
+necessarily a cause, at the thousandth murder, although it shall
+be proved that all the others had causes, I shall have the right
+to think that this murder has, very probably, also a cause, but
+I shall never have the right to say that it <i>necessarily</i> had a
+cause. But when universality and necessity are already in a
+single case, that case is sufficient to entitle me to deduce them
+from it,"<a id="footnotetag225" name="footnotetag225"></a>
+<a href="#footnote225"><sup class="sml">225</sup></a> and we may add, also, to affirm them of every other
+event that may transpire.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote225"
+name="footnote225"><b>Footnote 225: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag225">
+(return) </a> Cousin, "True, Beautiful, and Good," pp. 57, 58.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The following <i>schema</i> will exhibit the generally accepted results
+of this method of analysis applied to the phenomena of
+thought:</p>
+
+<p>(i.) <i>Universal and necessary principles, or primitive judgments
+from whence is derived the cognition of Absolute Being</i>.</p>
+
+<p>1. <i>The principle of Substance</i>; thus enounced--"every
+quality supposes a <i>subject</i> or real being."</p>
+
+<p>2. <i>The principle of Causality</i>; "every thing that begins to
+be supposes a <i>power</i> adequate to its production, <i>i.e.</i>, an efficient
+cause."</p>
+
+<p>3. <i>The principle of Unity</i>; "all differentiation and plurality
+supposes an incomposite unity; all diversity, an ultimate and
+indivisible identity."</p>
+
+<p>4. <i>The principle of the Unconditioned</i>; "the finite supposes
+the infinite, the dependent supposes the self-existent, the
+temporal supposes the eternal."</p>
+
+<p>(ii.) <i>Universal and necessary principles, or primitive judgments,
+from which is derived the cognition of the Absolute Reason</i>.</p>
+
+<p>1. <i>The principle of Ideality</i>; thus enounced, "facts of order--definite
+proportion, symmetrical arrangement, numerical
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="190" >190</a></span>
+relation, geometrical form--having a commencement in time,
+present themselves to us as the expression of <i>Ideas</i>, and refer
+us to <i>Mind</i> as their analogon, and exponent, and source."</p>
+
+<p>2. <i>The principle of Consecution</i>; "the uniform succession
+and progressive evolution of new existences, according to fixed
+definite archetypes, suppose a unity of <i>thought</i>--a comprehensive
+<i>plan</i> embracing all existence."</p>
+
+<p>3. <i>The principle of Intentionality or Final Cause</i>; "every
+means supposes an <i>end</i> contemplated, and a choice and
+adaptation of means to secure the <i>end</i>."</p>
+
+<p>4. <i>The principle of Personality</i>; "intelligent purpose and
+voluntary choice imply a personal agent."</p>
+
+<p>(iii.) <i>Universal and necessary principles, or primitive judgments,
+from whence is derived the cognition of the Absolute Good</i>.</p>
+
+<p>1. <i>The principle of Moral Law</i>; thus enounced, "the action
+of a voluntary agent necessarily characterized as <i>right</i> or
+<i>wrong</i>, supposes an immutable and universal standard of
+right--an absolute moral Law."</p>
+
+<p>2. <i>The principle of Moral Obligation</i>; "the feeling of obligation
+to obey a law of duty supposes a <i>Lawgiver</i> by whose
+authority we are obliged."</p>
+
+<p>3. <i>The principle of Moral Desert</i>; "the feeling of personal
+accountability and of moral desert supposes a <i>judge</i> to whom
+we must give account, and who shall determine our award."</p>
+
+<p>4. <i>The pnnciple of Retribution</i>; "retributive issues in this
+life, and the existence in all minds of an impersonal justice
+which demands that, in the final issue, every being shall receive
+his just deserts, suppose a being of <i>absolute justice</i>
+who shall render to every man according to his works."</p>
+
+<p>A more profound and exhaustive analysis may perhaps resolve
+all these primitive judgments into one universal principle
+or law, which Leibnitz has designated "<i>The principle or law
+of sufficient reason</i>," and which is thus enounced--there must
+be an ultimate and sufficient reason why any thing exists, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="191">191</a></span>
+why it is, rather than otherwise; that is, if any thing
+begins to be, something else must be supposed as the adequate
+ground, and reason, and cause of its existence; or again, to
+state the law in view of our present discussion, "<i>if the finite
+universe, with its existing order and arrangement, had a beginning,
+there must be an ultimate and sufficient reason why it exists, and
+why it is as it is, rather than otherwise</i>." In view of one particular
+class of phenomena, or special order of facts, this "principle
+of sufficient reason" may be varied in the form of its statement,
+and denominated "the principle of substance," "the
+principle of causality," "the principle of intentionality," etc.;
+and, it may be, these are but specific judgments under the one
+fundamental and generic law of thought which constitutes the
+<i>major</i> premise of every Theistic syllogism.</p>
+
+<p>These fundamental principles, primitive judgments, axioms,
+or necessary and determinate forms of thought, exist potentially
+or germinally in all human minds; they are spontaneously
+developed in presence of the phenomena of the universe,
+material and mental; they govern the original movement of the
+mind, even when not appearing in consciousness in their pure
+and abstract form; and they compel us to affirm <i>a permanent
+being</i> or <i>reality</i> behind all phenomena--a <i>power</i> adequate to
+the production of change, back of all events; a <i>personal Mind</i>,
+as the explanation of all the facts of order, and uniform succession,
+and regular evolution; and a <i>personal Lawgiver</i> and
+<i>Righteous Judge</i> as the ultimate ground and reason of all the
+phenomena of the moral world; in short, to affirm <i>an Unconditioned
+Cause of all finite and secondary causes; a First Principle
+of all principles; an Ultimate Reason of all reasons; an immutable
+Uncreated Justice, the living light of conscience; a King
+immortal, eternal, invisible, the only wise God, the ruler of the
+world and man</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Our position, then, is, that the idea of God is revealed to
+man in the natural and spontaneous development of his intelligence,
+and that the existence of a Supreme Reality corresponding
+to, and represented by this idea, is rationally and logically
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="192">192</a></span>
+demonstrable, and therefore justly entitled to take rank as part
+of our legitimate, valid, and positive <i>knowledge</i>.</p>
+
+<p>And now from this position, which we regard as impregnable,
+we shall be prepared more deliberately and intelligibly to
+contemplate the various assaults which are openly or covertly
+made upon the doctrine that <i>God is cognizable by human reason</i>.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="193">193</a></span>
+<br>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VI.</h3>
+
+<h3>THE UNKNOWN GOD (<i>continued</i>).</h3>
+
+<h3>IS GOD COGNIZABLE BY REASON?</h3>
+
+<p>"The abnegation of reason is not the evidence of faith, but the confession
+of despair."--LIGHTFOOT.</p>
+
+<p>At the outset of this inquiry we attempted a hasty grouping
+of the various parties and schools which are arrayed
+against the doctrine that God is cognizable by human reason,
+and in general terms we sought to indicate the ground they
+occupy.</p>
+
+<p>Viewed from a philosophical stand-point, we found one party
+marshalled under the standard of Idealism; another of Materialism
+and, again, another of Natural Realism. Regarded
+in their theological aspects, some are positive Atheists; others,
+strange to say, are earnest Theists; whilst others occupy a position
+of mere Indifferentism. Yet, notwithstanding the remarkable
+diversity, and even antagonism of their philosophical and
+theological opinions, they are all agreed in denying to reason
+any valid cognition of God.</p>
+
+<p>The survey of Natural Theism we have completed in the
+previous chapter will enable us still further to indicate the
+exact points against which their attacks are directed, and also
+to estimate the character and force of the weapons employed.
+With or without design, they are, each in their way, assailing
+one or other of the principles upon which we rest our demonstration
+of the being of God. As we proceed, we shall find
+that Mill and the Constructive Idealists are really engaged in
+undermining "the <i>principle of substance</i>;" their doctrine is a
+virtual denial of all objective realities answering to our subjective
+ideas of matter, mind, and God. The assaults of Comte
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="194">194</a></span>
+and the Materialists of his school are mainly directed against
+"<i>the principle of causality</i>" and "<i>the principle of intentionality</i>;"
+they would deny to man all knowledge of causes, efficient and
+final. The attacks of Hamilton and his school are directed
+against "the <i>principle of the unconditioned</i>," his philosophy of
+the conditioned is a plausible attempt to deprive man of all
+power to think the Infinite and Perfect, to conceive the Unconditioned
+and Ultimate Cause; whilst the Dogmatic Theologians
+are borrowing, and recklessly brandishing, the weapons of all
+these antagonists, and, in addition to all this, are endeavoring
+to show the insufficiency of "<i>the principle of unity</i>" and the
+weakness and invalidity of "the <i>moral principles</i>," which are regarded
+by us as relating man to a Moral Personality, and as
+indicating to him the existence of a righteous God, the ruler of
+the world. It is necessary, therefore, that we should concentrate
+our attention yet more specifically on these separate lines of attack,
+and attempt a minuter examination of the positions assumed
+by each, and of the arguments by which they are seeking,
+directly or indirectly, to invalidate the fundamental principles
+of Natural Theism.</p>
+
+<p>(i.) <i>We commence with the Idealistic School</i>, of which John Stuart
+Mill must be regarded as the ablest living representative.</p>
+
+<p>The doctrine of this school is that all our knowledge is necessarily
+confined to <i>mental</i> phenomena; that is, "to <i>feelings</i> or
+states of consciousness," and "the succession and co-existence,
+the likeness and unlikeness between these feelings or states of
+consciousness."<a id="footnotetag226" name="footnotetag226"></a>
+<a href="#footnote226"><sup class="sml">226</sup></a> All our general notions, all our abstract
+ideas, are generated out of these feelings<a id="footnotetag227" name="footnotetag227"></a>
+<a href="#footnote227"><sup class="sml">227</sup></a> by "<i>inseparable association</i>,"
+which registers their inter-relations of recurrence, co-existence,
+and resemblance. The results of this inseparable
+association constitute at once the sum total and the absolute
+limit of all possible cognition.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote226"
+name="footnote226"><b>Footnote 226: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag226">
+(return) </a> J. S. Mill, "Logic," vol. i. p. 83 (English edition).</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote227"
+name="footnote227"><b>Footnote 227: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag227">
+(return) </a> In the language of Mill, every thing of which we are conscious is called
+"feeling." "Feeling, in the proper sense of the term, is a genus of which
+Sensation, Emotion, and Thought are the subordinate species."--"Logic,"
+bk. i. ch. iii. § 3.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="195">195</a></span>
+
+<p>It is admitted by Mill that one <i>apparent</i> element in this total
+result is the general conviction that our own existence is
+really distinct from the external world, and that the personal <i>ego</i>
+has an essential identity distinct from the fleeting phenomena
+of sensation. But this persuasion is treated by him as a mere
+illusion--a leap beyond the original datum for which we have
+no authority. Of a real substance or substratum called Mind,
+of a real substance or substratum called Matter, underlying the
+series of feelings--"the thread of consciousness"--we do know
+and can know nothing; and in affirming the existence of such
+substrata we are making a supposition we can not possibly
+verify. The ultimate datum of speculative philosophy is not
+"<i>I think</i>," but simply "<i>Thoughts or feelings are</i>." The belief
+in a permanent subject or substance, called matter, as the
+ground and plexus of physical phenomena, and of a permanent
+subject or substance, called mind, as the ground and plexus of
+mental phenomena, is not a primitive and original intuition οf
+reason. It is simply through the action of the principle of association
+among the ultimate phenomena, called feelings, that
+this (erroneous) separation of the phenomena into two orders
+or aggregates--one called mind or self; the other matter, or
+not self--takes place; and without this curdling or associating
+process no such notion or belief could have been generated.
+"The principle of substance," as an ultimate law of thought, is,
+therefore, to be regarded as a transcendental dream.</p>
+
+<p>But now that the notion of <i>mind</i> or <i>self</i>, and of <i>matter</i> or
+not <i>self</i>, do exist as common convictions of our race, what is
+philosophy to make of them? After a great many qualifications
+and explanations, Mr. Mill has, in his "Logic," summed up his
+doctrine of Constructive Idealism in the following words: "As
+body is the mysterious <i>something</i> which excites the mind to feel,
+so mind is the mysterious <i>something</i> which feels and thinks."<a id="footnotetag228" name="footnotetag228"></a>
+<a href="#footnote228"><sup class="sml">228</sup></a>
+But what is this "mysterious something?" Is it a reality, an
+entity, a subject; or is it a shadow, an illusion, a dream? In
+his "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," where
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="196">196</a></span>
+it may be presumed, we have his maturest opinions, Mr. Mill,
+in still more abstract and idealistic phraseology, attempts an
+answer. Here he defines matter as "<i>a permanent possibility
+of sensation</i>,"<a id="footnotetag229" name="footnotetag229"></a>
+<a href="#footnote229"><sup class="sml">229</sup></a> and mind as "<i>a permanent possibility of feeling</i>."<a id="footnotetag230" name="footnotetag230"></a>
+<a href="#footnote230"><sup class="sml">230</sup></a>
+And "the belief in these permanent possibilities," he assures
+us, "includes all that is essential or characteristic in the belief
+in substance."<a id="footnotetag231" name="footnotetag231"></a>
+<a href="#footnote231"><sup class="sml">231</sup></a> "If I am asked," says he, "whether I believe
+in matter, I ask whether the questioner accepts this definition
+of it. If he does, I believe in matter: and so do all Berkeleians.
+In any other sense than this, I do not. But I affirm with confidence
+that this conception of matter includes the whole
+meaning attached to it by the common world, apart from philosophical,
+and sometimes from theological theories. The reliance
+of mankind on the real existence of visible and tangible
+objects, means reliance on the reality and permanence of possibilities
+of visual and tactual sensations, when no sensations
+are actually experienced."<a id="footnotetag232" name="footnotetag232"></a>
+<a href="#footnote232"><sup class="sml">232</sup></a> "Sensations," however, let it be
+borne in mind, are but a subordinate species of the genus feeling.<a id="footnotetag233" name="footnotetag233"></a>
+<a href="#footnote233"><sup class="sml">233</sup></a>
+They are "states of consciousness"--phenomena of
+mind, not of matter; and we are still within the impassable
+boundary of ideal phenomena; we have yet no cognition of an
+external world. The sole cosmical conception, for us, is still a
+succession of sensations, or states of consciousness. This is
+the one phenomenon which we can not transcend in knowledge,
+do what we will; all else is hypothesis and illusion. The
+<i>non-ego</i>, after all, then, may be but a mode in which the mind
+represents to itself the possible modifications of the <i>ego</i>.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote228"
+name="footnote228"><b>Footnote 228: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag228">
+(return) </a> "Logic," bk. i, ch. iii. § 8.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote229"
+name="footnote229"><b>Footnote 229: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag229">
+(return) </a> "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i. p. 243.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote230"
+name="footnote230"><b>Footnote 230: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag230">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. p. 253.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote231"
+name="footnote231"><b>Footnote 231: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag231">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. p. 246.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote232"
+name="footnote232"><b>Footnote 232: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag232">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. pp. 243, 244.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote233"
+name="footnote233"><b>Footnote 233: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag233">
+(return) </a> "Logic," bk. i. ch. iii. § 3.</blockquote>
+
+<p>And now that matter, as a real existence, has disappeared
+under Mr. Mill's analysis, what shall be said of mind or self?
+Is there any permanent subject or real entity underlying the
+phenomena of feeling? In feeling, is there a personal self that
+feels, thinks, and wills? It would seem not. Mind, as well as
+matter, resolves itself into a "series of feelings," varying and
+fugitive from moment to moment, in a sea of possibilities of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="197">197</a></span>
+feeling. "My mind," says Mill, "is but a series of feelings,
+or, as it has been called, a thread of consciousness, however
+supplemented by believed possibilities of consciousness, which
+are not, though they might be, realized."<a id="footnotetag234" name="footnotetag234"></a>
+<a href="#footnote234"><sup class="sml">234</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote234"
+name="footnote234"><b>Footnote 234: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag234">
+(return) </a> "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i. p. 254.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The ultimate fact of the phenomenal world, then, in the
+philosophy of Mill, is neither matter nor mind, but feelings or
+states of consciousness associated together by the relations,
+amongst themselves, of recurrence, co-existence, and resemblance.
+The existence of self, except as "a series of feelings;"
+the existence of any thing other than self, except as a
+feigned unknown cause of sensation, is rigorously denied. Mr.
+Mill does not content himself with saying that we are ignorant
+of the <i>nature</i> of matter and mind, but he asserts we are ignorant
+of the <i>existence</i> of matter and mind as real entities.</p>
+
+<p>The bearing of this doctrine of Idealism upon Theism and
+Theology will be instantly apparent to the reader. If I am necessarily
+ignorant of the existence of the external world, and of
+the personal <i>ego</i>, or real self, I must be equally ignorant of the
+existence of God. If one is a mere supposition, an illusion, so
+the other must be. Mr. Mill, however, is one of those courteous
+and affable writers who are always conscious, as it were, of the
+presence of their readers, and extremely careful not to shock
+their feelings or prejudices; besides, he has too much conscious
+self-respect to avow himself an atheist. As a speculative
+philosopher, he would rather regard Theism and Theology
+as "open questions," and he satisfies himself with saying, if you
+believe in the existence of God, or in Christianity, I do not interfere
+with you. "As a theory," he tells us that his doctrine
+leaves the evidence of the existence of God exactly as it was
+before. Supposing me to believe that the Divine mind is simply
+the series of the Divine thoughts and feelings prolonged
+through eternity, that would be, at any rate, believing God's existence
+to be <i>as real as my own</i><a id="footnotetag235" name="footnotetag235"></a>
+<a href="#footnote235"><sup class="sml">235</sup></a>. And as for evidence, the
+argument of Paley's 'Natural Theology,' or, for that matter, of
+his 'Evidences of Christianity,' would stand exactly as it does.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="198">198</a></span>
+
+<p>The design argument is drawn from the analogies of human experience.
+From the relation which human works bear to human
+thoughts and feelings, it infers a corresponding relation
+between works more or less similar, but superhuman, and superhuman
+thoughts and feelings. <i>If</i> it prove these, nobody
+but a metaphysician needs care whether or not it proves a
+mysterious <i>substratum</i> for them.<a id="footnotetag236" name="footnotetag236"></a>
+<a href="#footnote236"><sup class="sml">236</sup></a> The argument from design,
+it seems to us, however, would have no validity if there be no
+external world offering marks of design. If the external world
+is only a mode of feeling, a series of mental states, then our
+notion of the Divine Existence may be only "an association
+of feelings"--a mode of Self. And if we have no positive
+knowledge of a real self as existing, and God's existence is no
+more "real than our own," then the Divine existence stands on
+a very dubious and uncertain foundation. It can have no very
+secure hold upon the human mind, and certainly has no claim
+to be regarded as a fundamental and necessary belief. That
+it has a very precarious hold upon the mind of Mr. Mill, is evident
+from the following passage in his article on "<i>Later Speculations
+of A. Comte</i>."<a id="footnotetag237" name="footnotetag237"></a>
+<a href="#footnote237"><sup class="sml">237</sup></a> "We venture to think that a religion
+may exist without a belief in a God, and that a religion without
+a God may be, even to Christians, an instructive and profitable
+object of contemplation."</p>
+
+<p>And now let us close Mr. Mill's book, and, introverting our
+mental gaze, interrogate <i>consciousness</i>, the verdict of which, even
+Mr. Mill assures us, is admitted on all hands to be a decision
+without appeal.<a id="footnotetag238" name="footnotetag238"></a>
+<a href="#footnote238"><sup class="sml">238</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote235"
+name="footnote235"><b>Footnote 235: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag235">
+(return) </a> "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i. p. 254.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote236"
+name="footnote236"><b>Footnote 236: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag236">
+(return) </a> "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i. p. 259.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote237"
+name="footnote237"><b>Footnote 237: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag237">
+(return) </a> Westminster Review, July, 1835 (American edition), p. 3.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote238"
+name="footnote238"><b>Footnote 238: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag238">
+(return) </a> "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i. p. 161.</blockquote>
+
+<p>1. We have an ineradicable, and, as it would seem, an intuitive
+faith in the real existence of an external world distinct
+from our sensations, and also of a personal self, which we call
+"I," "myself," as distinct from "my sensations," and "my
+feelings." We find, also, that this is confessedly the common
+belief of mankind. There have been a few philosophers who
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="199">199</a></span>
+have affected to treat this belief as a "mere prejudice," an
+"illusion;" but they have never been able, practically, so to
+regard and treat it. Their language, just as plainly as the language
+of the common people, betrays their instinctive faith in
+an outer world, and proves their utter inability to emancipate
+themselves from this "prejudice," if such it may please them to
+call it. In view of this acknowledged fact, we ask--Does the
+term "<i>permanent possibility of sensations</i>" exhaust all that is
+contained in this conception of an external world? This evening
+I <i>remember</i> that at noonday I beheld the sun, and experienced
+a sensation of warmth whilst exposing myself to his rays;
+and I <i>expect</i> that to-morrow, under the same conditions, I shall
+experience the same sensations. I now <i>remember</i> that last
+evening I extinguished my light and attempted to leave my
+study, but, coming in contact with the closed door, experienced
+a sense of resistance to my muscular effort, by a solid and extended
+body exterior to myself; and I <i>expect</i> that this evening,
+under the same circumstances, I shall experience the same
+sensations. Now, does a belief in "a permanent possibility of
+sensations" explain all these experiences? does it account for
+that immediate knowledge of an <i>external</i> object which I had
+on looking at the sun, or that presentative knowledge of <i>resistance</i>
+and <i>extension</i>, and of an extended, resisting <i>substance</i>, I had
+when in contact with the door of my study? Mr. Mill very
+confidently affirms that this belief includes all; and this phrase
+expresses all the meaning attached to extended "matter" and
+resisting "substance" by the common world.<a id="footnotetag239" name="footnotetag239"></a>
+<a href="#footnote239"><sup class="sml">239</sup></a> We as confidently
+affirm that it does no such thing; and as "the common
+world" must be supposed to understand the language of consciousness
+as well as the philosopher, we are perfectly willing
+to leave the decision of that question to the common consciousness
+of our race. If all men do not believe in a permanent
+<i>reality</i>--a substance which is external to themselves, a substance
+which offers resistance to their muscular effort, and
+which produces in them the sensations of solidity, extension,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="200">200</a></span>
+resistance, etc.--they believe nothing and know nothing at all
+about the matter.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote239"
+name="footnote239"><b>Footnote 239: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag239">
+(return) </a> "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i. p. 243.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Still less does the phrase "<i>a permanent possibility of feelings"</i>
+exhaust all our conception of a personal self. Recurring to the
+experiences of yesterday, I <i>remember</i> the feelings I experienced
+on beholding the sun, and also on pressing against the closed
+door, and I confidently <i>expect</i> the recurrence, under the same
+circumstances, of the same feelings. Does the belief in "a
+permanent possibility of feelings" explain the act of memory
+by which I recall the past event, and the act of prevision by
+which I anticipate the recurrence of the like experience in the
+future? Who or what is the "I" that remembers and the "I"
+that anticipates? The "ego," the personal mind, is, according
+to Mill, a mere "series of feelings," or, more correctly, a flash
+of "<i>present</i> feelings" on "a background of possibilities of present
+feelings."<a id="footnotetag240" name="footnotetag240"></a>
+<a href="#footnote240"><sup class="sml">240</sup></a> If, then, there be no permanent substance or
+reality which is the subject of the present feeling, which receives
+and retains the impress of the past feeling, and which
+anticipates the recurrence of like feelings in the future, how can
+the <i>past</i> be recalled, how distinguished from the present? and
+how, without a knowledge of the past as distinguished from the
+present, can the <i>future</i> be forecast? Mr. Mill feels the pressure
+of this difficulty, and frankly acknowledges it. He admits
+that, on the hypothesis that mind is simply "a series of feelings,"
+the phenomena of memory and expectation are "inexplicable"
+and "incomprehensible."<a id="footnotetag241" name="footnotetag241"></a>
+<a href="#footnote241"><sup class="sml">241</sup></a> He is, therefore, under
+the necessity of completing his definition of mind by adding
+that it is a series of feelings which "<i>is aware of itself as a series</i>;"
+and, still further, of supplementing this definition by the conjecture
+that "<i>something which has ceased to exist, or is not yet in existence,
+can still, in a manner, be present</i>."<a id="footnotetag242" name="footnotetag242"></a>
+<a href="#footnote242"><sup class="sml">242</sup></a> Now he who can understand
+how a series of feelings can flow on in time, and from
+moment to moment drop out of the present into non-existence,
+and yet be <i>present</i> and <i>conscious of itself as a series</i>, may be
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="201" >201</a></span>
+accorded the honor of understanding Mr. Mill's definition of
+mind or self, and may be permitted to rank himself as a distinguished
+disciple of the Idealist school; for ourselves, we acknowledge
+we are destitute of the capacity to do the one, and
+of all ambition to be the other. And he who can conceive how
+the <i>past</i> feeling of yesterday and the <i>possible</i> feeling of to-morrow
+can be in any manner <i>present</i> to-day; or, in other words,
+how any thing which has ceased to exist, or which never had an
+existence, can <i>now</i> exist, may be permitted to believe that a
+thing can be and not be at the same moment, that a part is
+greater than the whole, and that two and two make five; but
+we are not ashamed to confess our inability to believe a contradiction.
+To our understanding, "possibilities of feeling" are
+not actualities. They may or may not be realized, and until
+realized in consciousness, they have no real being. If there be
+no other background of mental phenomena save mere "possibilities
+of feeling," then present feelings are the only existences,
+the only reality, and a loss of immediate consciousness, as in
+narcosis and coma, is the loss of all personality, all self-hood,
+and of all real being.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote240"
+name="footnote240"><b>Footnote 240: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag240">
+(return) </a> "Exam. of Hamilton," vol. i. p. 260.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote241"
+name="footnote241"><b>Footnote 241: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag241">
+(return) </a> Ibid, p. 262.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote242"
+name="footnote242"><b>Footnote 242: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag242">
+(return) </a> Ibid.</blockquote>
+
+<p>2. What, then, is the verdict of consciousness as to the existence
+of a permanent substance, an abiding existence which is
+the subject of all the varying phenomena? Of what are we
+really conscious when we say "I think," "I feel," "I will?" Are
+we simply conscious of thought, feeling, and volition, or of a
+self, a person, which thinks, feels, and wills? The man who
+honestly and unreservedly accepts the testimony of consciousness
+in all its integrity must answer at once, <i>we have an immediate
+consciousness, not merely of the phenomena of mind, but of a
+personal self as passively or actively related to the phenomena</i>. We
+are conscious not merely of the act of volition, but of a self, a
+power, producing the volition. We are conscious not merely
+of feeling, but of a being who is the subject of the feeling. We
+are conscious not simply of thought, but of a real entity that
+thinks. "It is clearly a flat contradiction to maintain that I
+am not immediately conscious of myself, but only of my sensations
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="202">202</a></span>
+or volitions. Who, then, is that <i>I</i> that is conscious, and
+how can I be conscious of such states as <i>mine?</i>"<a id="footnotetag243" name="footnotetag243"></a>
+<a href="#footnote243"><sup class="sml">243</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote243"
+name="footnote243"><b>Footnote 243: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag243">
+(return) </a> Mansel, "Prolegomena Logica," p. 122, and note E, p. 281.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The testimony of consciousness, then, is indubitable that we
+have a direct, immediate cognition of <i>self</i>--I know myself as a
+distinctly existing being. This permanent self, to which I refer
+the earlier and later stages of consciousness, the past as well as
+the present feeling, and which I know abides the same under
+all phenomenal changes, constitutes my personal identity. It
+is this abiding self which unites the past and the present, and,
+from the present stretches onward to the future. We know
+self immediately, as existing, as in active operation, and as having
+permanence--or, in other words, as a "<i>substance</i>." This
+one immediately presented substance, myself, may be regarded
+as furnishing a positive basis for that other notion of substance,
+which is representatively thought, as the subject of all sensible
+qualities.</p>
+
+<p>3. We may now inquire what is the testimony of consciousness
+as to the existence of the extra-mental world? Are we
+conscious of perceiving external objects immediately and in
+themselves, or only mediately through some vicarious image or
+representative idea to which we fictitiously ascribe an objective
+reality?</p>
+
+<p>The answer of common sense is that we are immediately
+conscious, in perception, of an <i>ego</i> and a <i>non-ego</i> known together,
+and known in contrast to each other; we are conscious of a
+perceiving subject, and of an external reality, as the object perceived.<a id="footnotetag244" name="footnotetag244"></a>
+<a href="#footnote244"><sup class="sml">244</sup></a>
+To state this doctrine of natural realism still more explicitly
+we add, that we are conscious of the immediate perception
+of certain essential attributes of matter objectively existing.
+Of these primary qualities, which are immediately perceived
+as real and objectively existing, we mention <i>extension</i> in
+space and <i>resistance</i> to muscular effort, with which is indissolubly
+associated the idea of <i>externality</i>. It is true that extension
+and resistance are only qualities, but it is equally true that they
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="203" >203</a></span>
+are qualities of something, and of something which is external
+to ourselves. Let any one attempt to conceive of extension
+without something which is extended, or of resistance apart from
+something which offers resistance, and he will be convinced that
+we can never know qualities without knowing substance, just as
+we can not know substance without knowing qualities. This,
+indeed, is admitted by Mr. Mill.<a id="footnotetag245" name="footnotetag245"></a>
+<a href="#footnote245"><sup class="sml">245</sup></a> And if this be admitted, it
+must certainly be absurd to speak of substance as something
+"unknown." Substance is known just as much as quality is
+known, no less and no more.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote244"
+name="footnote244"><b>Footnote 244: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag244">
+(return) </a> Hamilton, "Lectures," vol. 1. p. 288.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote245"
+name="footnote245"><b>Footnote 245: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag245">
+(return) </a> "Logic," bk. i. ch. iii. § 6.</blockquote>
+
+<p>We remark, in conclusion, that if the testimony of consciousness
+is not accepted in all its integrity, we are necessarily involved
+in the Nihilism of Hume and Fichte; the phenomena
+of mind and matter are, on analysis, resolved into an absolute
+nothingness--"a play of phantasms in a void."<a id="footnotetag246" name="footnotetag246"></a>
+<a href="#footnote246"><sup class="sml">246</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>(ii.) We turn, secondly, to the <i>Materialistic School</i> as represented
+by Aug. Comte.</p>
+
+<p>The doctrine of this school is that all knowledge is limited
+to <i>material</i> phenomena--that is, to appearances <i>perceptible to
+sense</i>. We do not know the essence of any object, nor the real
+mode of procedure of any event, but simply its relations to other
+events, as similar or dissimilar, co-existent or successive. These
+relations are constant; under the same conditions, they are
+always the same. The constant resemblances which link phenomena
+together, and the constant sequences which unite them,
+as antecedent and consequent, are termed <i>laws</i>. The laws of
+phenomena are all we know respecting them. Their essential
+nature and their ultimate causes, <i>efficient</i> or <i>final</i>, are unknown
+and inscrutable to us.<a id="footnotetag247" name="footnotetag247"></a>
+<a href="#footnote247"><sup class="sml">247</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote246"
+name="footnote246"><b>Footnote 246: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag246">
+(return) </a> Masson, "Recent British Philos.," p. 62.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote247"
+name="footnote247"><b>Footnote 247: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag247">
+(return) </a> See art. "Positive Philos. of A. Comte," <i>Westminster Review</i>, April, 1865,
+p. 162, Am. ed.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It is not our intention to review the system of philosophy
+propounded by Aug. Comte; we are now chiefly concerned
+with his denial of all causation.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="204">204</a></span>
+
+<p>1. <i>As to Efficient Causes</i>.--Had Comte contented himself with
+the assertion that causes lie beyond the field of sensible observation,
+and that inductive science can not carry us beyond
+the relations of co-existence and succession among phenomena,
+he would have stated an important truth, but certainly not a
+new truth. It had already been announced by distinguished
+mental philosophers, as, for example, M. de Biran and Victor
+Cousin.<a id="footnotetag248" name="footnotetag248"></a>
+<a href="#footnote248"><sup class="sml">248</sup></a> The senses give us only the succession of one phenomenon
+to another. I hold a piece of wax to the fire and it
+melts. Here my senses inform me of two successive phenomena--the
+proximity of fire and the melting of wax. It is now agreed
+among all schools of philosophy that this is all the knowledge
+the senses can possibly supply. The observation of a great
+number of like cases assures us that this relation is uniform.
+The highest scientific generalization does not carry us one step
+beyond this fact. Induction, therefore, gives us no access to
+causes beyond phenomena. Still, this does not justify Comte
+in the assertion that causes are to us absolutely <i>unknown</i>. The
+question would still arise whether we have not some faculty of
+knowledge, distinct from sensation, which is adequate to furnish
+a valid cognition of cause. It does not by any means follow
+that, because the idea of causation is not given as a "physical
+quæsitum" at the end of a process of scientific generalization,
+it should not be a "metaphysical datum" posited at the
+very beginning of scientific inquiry, as the indispensable condition
+of our being able to cognize phenomena at all, and as the
+law under which all thought, and all conception of the system
+of nature, is alone possible.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote248"
+name="footnote248"><b>Footnote 248: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag248">
+(return) </a> "It is now universally admitted that we have no perception of the causal
+nexus in the material world."--Hamilton, "Discussions," p. 522.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Now we affirm that the human mind has just as direct, immediate,
+and positive knowledge of <i>cause</i> as it has of <i>effect.</i>
+The idea of cause, the intuition <i>power</i>, is given in the immediate
+consciousness of <i>mind as determining its own</i> operations.
+Our first, and, in fact, our only presentation of power or cause,
+is that of <i>self as willing</i>. In every act of volition I am fully
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="205">205</a></span>
+conscious that it is in my power to form a resolution or to refrain
+from it, to determine on this course of action or that; and
+this constitutes the immediate presentative knowledge of power.<a id="footnotetag249" name="footnotetag249"></a>
+<a href="#footnote249"><sup class="sml">249</sup></a>
+The will is a power, a power in action, a productive power,
+and, consequently, a cause. This doctrine is stated with remarkable
+clearness and accuracy by Cousin: "If we seek the
+notion of cause in the action of one ball upon another, as was
+previously done by Hume, or in the action of the hand upon
+the ball, or the primary muscles upon the extremities, or even
+in the action of the will upon the muscles, as was done by M.
+Maine de Biran, we shall find it in none of these cases, not even
+in the last; for it is possible there should be a paralysis of the
+muscles which deprives the will of power over them, makes
+it unproductive, incapable of being a cause, and, consequently,
+of suggesting the notion of one. But what no paralysis can
+prevent is the action of the will upon itself, the production of a
+resolution; that is to say, the act of causation entirely mental,
+the primitive type of all causality, of which all external movements
+are only symbols more or less imperfect. The
+first cause for us, is, therefore, the <i>will</i>, of which the first effect
+is volition. This is at once the highest and the purest source
+of the notion of cause, which thus becomes identical with that
+of personality. And it is the taking possession, so to speak,
+of the cause, as revealed in will and personality, which is the
+condition for us of the ulterior or simultaneous conception of
+external, impersonal causes."<a id="footnotetag250" name="footnotetag250"></a>
+<a href="#footnote250"><sup class="sml">250</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote249"
+name="footnote249"><b>Footnote 249: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag249">
+(return) </a> "It is our <i>immediate consciousness of effort</i>, when we exert force to put matter
+in motion, or to oppose and neutralize force, which gives us this internal
+conviction of <i>power</i> and <i>causation</i>, so far as it refers to the material world,
+and compels us to believe that whenever we see material objects put in motion
+from a state of rest, or deflected from their rectilinear paths and changed
+in their velocities if already in motion, it is in consequence of such an <i>effort</i>
+somehow exerted."--Herschel's "Outlines of Astronomy," p. 234; see Mansel's
+"Prolegomena," p. 133.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote250"
+name="footnote250"><b>Footnote 250: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag250">
+(return) </a> "Philosophical Fragments," Preface to first edition.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Thus much for the origin of the idea of cause. We have
+the same direct intuitive knowledge of cause that we have of
+effect; but we have not yet rendered a full and adequate account
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="206">206</a></span>
+of the <i>principle of causality</i>. We have simply attained
+the notion of our personal causality, and we can not arbitrarily
+substitute our personal causality for all the causes of the universe,
+and erect our own experience as a law of the entire universe.
+We have, however, already seen (Chap. V.) that the
+belief in exterior causation is <i>necessary</i> and <i>universal</i>. When a
+change takes place, when a new phenomenon presents itself to
+our senses, we can not avoid the conviction that it must have a
+cause. We can not even express in language the relations of
+phenomena in time and space, without speaking of causes. And
+there is not a rational being on the face of the globe--a child,
+a savage, or a philosopher--who does not instinctively and
+spontaneously affirm that every movement, every change, every
+new existence, <i>must</i> have a cause. Now what account can
+philosophy render of this universal belief? One answer, and
+only one, is possible. The <i>reason</i> of man (that power of which
+Comte takes no account) is in fixed and changeless relation to
+the principle of causation, just as <i>sense</i> is in fixed and changeless
+relation to exterior phenomena, so that we can not know
+the external world, can not think or speak of phenomenal existence,
+except as <i>effects</i>. In the expressive and forcible language
+of Jas. Martineau: "By an irresistible law of thought <i>all
+phenomena present themselves to us as the expression of power</i>, and
+refer us to a causal ground whence they issue. This dynamic
+source we neither see, nor hear, nor feel; it is given in <i>thought</i>,
+supplied by the spontaneous activity of mind as the correlative
+prefix to the phenomena observed."<a id="footnotetag251" name="footnotetag251"></a>
+<a href="#footnote251"><sup class="sml">251</sup></a> Unless, then, we are prepared
+to deny the validity of all our rational intuitions, we can
+not avoid accepting "this subjective postulate as a valid law
+for objective nature." If the intuitions of our reason are pronounced
+deceptive and mendacious, so also must the intuitions
+of the senses be pronounced illusory and false. Our whole intellectual
+constitution is built up on false and erroneous principles,
+and all knowledge of whatever kind must perish by "the
+contagion of uncertainty."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote251"
+name="footnote251"><b>Footnote 251: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag251">
+(return) </a> "Essays," p. 47.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="207">207</a></span>
+
+<p>Comte, however, is determined to treat the idea of causation
+as an illusion, whether under its psychological form, as <i>will</i>,
+or under its scientific form, as <i>force</i>. He feels that Theology
+is inevitable if we permit the inquiry into causes;<a id="footnotetag252" name="footnotetag252"></a>
+<a href="#footnote252"><sup class="sml">252</sup></a> and he is
+more anxious that theology should perish than that truth should
+prevail. The human will must, therefore, be robbed of all semblance
+of freedom, lest it should suggest the idea of a Supreme
+Will governing nature; and human action, like all other phenomena,
+must be reduced to uniform and necessary law. All
+feelings, ideas, and principles guaranteed to us by consciousness
+are to be cast out of the account. Psychology, resting on
+self-observation, is pronounced a delusion. The immediate
+consciousness of freedom is a dream. Such a procedure, to
+say the least of it, is highly unphilosophical; to say the truth
+about it, it is obviously dishonest. Every fact of human nature,
+just as much as every fact of physical nature, must be accepted
+in all its integrity, or all must be alike rejected. The
+phenomena of mind can no more be disregarded than the phenomena
+of matter. Rational intuitions, necessary and universal
+beliefs, can no more be ignored than the uniform facts of
+sense-perception, without rendering a system of knowledge
+necessarily incomplete, and a system of truth utterly impossible.
+Every one truth is connected with every other truth in
+the universe. And yet Comte demands that a large class of
+facts, the most immediate and direct of all our cognitions, shall
+be rejected because they are not in harmony with the fundamental
+assumption of the positive philosophy that all knowledge
+is confined to <i>phenomena perceptible to sense</i>. Now it were
+just as easy to cast the Alps into the Mediterranean as to obliterate
+from the human intelligence the primary cognitions of
+immediate consciousness, or to relegate the human reason from
+the necessary laws of thought. Comte himself can not emancipate
+his own mind from a belief in the validity of the testimony
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="208" >208</a></span>
+of consciousness. How can he know himself as distinct
+from nature, as a living person, as the same being he was ten
+years ago, or even yesterday, except by an appeal to consciousness?
+Despite his earnestly-avowed opinions as to the inutility
+and fallaciousness of all psychological inquiries, he is compelled
+to admit that "the phenomena of life" are "<i>known by
+immediate consciousness</i>."<a id="footnotetag253" name="footnotetag253"></a>
+<a href="#footnote253"><sup class="sml">253</sup></a> Now the knowledge of our personal
+freedom rests on precisely the same grounds as the knowledge
+of our personal existence. The same "immediate consciousness"
+which attests that I exist, attests also, with equal distinctness
+and directness, that I am self-determined and free.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote252"
+name="footnote252"><b>Footnote 252: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag252">
+(return) </a> "The <i>inevitable tendency</i> of our intelligence is towards a philosophy radically
+theological, so often as we seek to penetrate, on whatever pretext, into
+the intimate nature of phenomena" (vol. iv. p. 664).</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote253"
+name="footnote253"><b>Footnote 253: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag253">
+(return) </a> "Positive Philos," vol. ii. p. 648.</blockquote>
+
+<p>In common with most atheistical writers, Comte is involved
+in the fatal contradiction of at one time assuming, and at another
+of denying the freedom of the will, to serve the exigencies
+of his theory. To prove that the order of the universe can not
+be the product of a Supreme Intelligence, he assumes that the
+products of mind must be characterized by freedom and variety--the
+phenomena of mind must not be subject to uniform and
+necessary laws; and inasmuch as the phenomena presented
+by external nature are subject to uniform and changeless laws,
+they can not be the product of mind. "Look at the whole
+frame of things," says he; "how can it be the product of mind--of
+a supernatural Will? Is it not subject to regular laws,
+and do we not actually obtain <i>prevision</i> of its phenomena? If
+it were the product of mind, its order would be variable and
+free." Here, then, it is admitted that <i>freedom is an essential
+characteristic of mind</i>. And this admission is no doubt a thoughtless,
+unconscious betrayal of the innate belief of all minds in
+the freedom of the will. But when Comte comes to deal with
+this freedom as an objective question of philosophy, when he
+directs his attention to the only will of which we have a direct
+and immediate knowledge, he denies freedom and variety, and
+asserts in the most arbitrary manner that the movements of the
+mind, like all the phenomena of nature, must be subject to
+uniform, changeless, and necessary laws. And if we have not
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="209">209</a></span>
+yet been able to reduce the movements of mind, like the movements
+of the planets, to statistics, and have not already obtained
+accurate prevision of its successions or sequences as we
+have of physical phenomena, it is simply the consequence of our
+inattention to, or ignorance of, all the facts. We answer, there
+are no facts so directly and intuitively known as the facts of
+consciousness; and, therefore, an argument based upon our
+supposed ignorance of these facts is not likely to have much
+weight against our immediate consciousness of personal freedom.
+There is not any thing we know so immediately, so certainly,
+so positively, as this fact--<i>we are free</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The word "force," representing as it does a subtile menial
+conception, and not a phenomenon of sense, must also be banished
+from the domains of Positive Science as an intruder, lest
+its presence should lend any countenance to the idea of causation.
+"Forces in mechanics are only <i>movements</i>, produced, or
+tending to be produced." In order to "cancel altogether the
+old metaphysical notion of force," another form of expression
+is demanded. It is claimed that all we do know or can possibly
+know is the successions of phenomena in time. What,
+then, is the term which henceforth, in our dynamics, shall take
+the place of "force?" Is it "Time-succession?" Then let any
+one attempt to express the various forms and intensities of
+movement and change presented to the senses (as <i>e.g.</i>, the
+phenomena of heat, electricity, galvanism, magnetism, muscular
+and nervous action, etc.) in terms of Time-succession, and
+he will at once become conscious of the utter hopelessness
+of physics, without the hyperphysical idea of force, to render
+itself intelligible.<a id="footnotetag254" name="footnotetag254"></a>
+<a href="#footnote254"><sup class="sml">254</sup></a> What account can be rendered of planetary
+motion if the terms "centrifugal force" and "centripetal force"
+are abandoned? "From the two great conditions of every
+Newtonian solution, viz., projectile impulse and centripetal tendency,
+eject the idea of <i>force</i>, and what remains? The entire
+conception is simply made up of this, and has not the faintest
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="210" >210</a></span>
+existence without it. It is useless to give it notice to quit, and
+pretend that it is gone when you have only put a new name
+upon the door. We must not call it 'attraction,' lest there
+should seem to be a <i>power</i> within; we are to speak of it only
+as 'gravitation,' because that is only 'weight,' which is nothing
+but a 'fact,' as if it were not a fact that holds a power, a
+true dynamic affair, which no imagination can chop into incoherent
+successions.<a id="footnotetag255" name="footnotetag255"></a>
+<a href="#footnote255"><sup class="sml">255</sup></a> Nor is the evasion more successful when
+we try the phrase, 'tendency of bodies to mutual approach.'
+The approach itself may be called a phenomenon; but the
+'tendency' is no phenomenon, and can not be attributed by
+us to the bodies without regarding them as the residence of
+force. And what are we to say of the <i>projectile impulse</i> in the
+case of the planets? Is that also a phenomenon? Who witnessed
+and reported it? Is it not evident that the whole
+scheme of physical astronomy is a resolution of observed facts
+into dynamic equivalents, and that the hypothesis posits for its
+calculations not phenomena, but proper forces? Its logic is
+this: <i>If</i> an impulse of certain intensity were given, and <i>if</i> such
+and such mutual attractions were constantly present, then the
+sort of motions which we observe in the bodies of our system
+<i>would follow</i>. So, however, they also would <i>if</i> willed by an
+Omnipotent Intelligence."<a id="footnotetag256" name="footnotetag256"></a>
+<a href="#footnote256"><sup class="sml">256</sup></a> It is thus clearly evident that
+human science is unable to offer any explanation of the existing
+order of the universe except in terms expressive of Power
+or Force; that, in fact, all explanations are utterly unintelligible
+without the idea of causation. The language of universal
+rational intuition is, "all phenomena are the expression
+of power;" the language of science is, "every law implies a
+force."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote254"
+name="footnote254"><b>Footnote 254: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag254">
+(return) </a> See Grote's "Essay on Correlation of Physical Forces," pp. 18-20; and
+Martineau's "Essays," p. 135.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote255"
+name="footnote255"><b>Footnote 255: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag255">
+(return) </a> "Gravity is a real <i>power</i> of whose agency we have daily experience."--Herschel,
+"Outlines of Astronomy," p. 236.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote256"
+name="footnote256"><b>Footnote 256: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag256">
+(return) </a> Martineau's "Essays," p. 56.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It is furthermore worthy of being noted that, in the modern
+doctrine of the Correlation and Conservation of Forces, science
+is inevitably approaching the idea that all kinds of force are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="211">211</a></span>
+but forms or manifestations of some <i>one</i> central force issuing
+from some <i>one</i> fountain-head of power. Dr. Carpenter, perhaps
+the greatest living physiologist, teaches that "the form of force
+<i>which may be taken as the type of all the rest</i>" is the consciousness
+of living effort in volition.<a id="footnotetag257" name="footnotetag257"></a>
+<a href="#footnote257"><sup class="sml">257</sup></a> All force, then, is of one type,
+and that type is mind; in its last analysis external causation
+may be resolved into Divine energy. Sir John Herschel does
+not hesitate to say that "it is reasonable to regard the force of
+gravitation as the direct or indirect result of a consciousness
+or will exerted somewhere."<a id="footnotetag258" name="footnotetag258"></a>
+<a href="#footnote258"><sup class="sml">258</sup></a> The humble Christian may,
+therefore, feel himself amply justified in still believing that
+"power belongs to God;" that it is through the Divine energy
+"all things are, and are upheld;" and that "in God we live,
+and move, and have our being;" he is the Great First Cause,
+the Fountain-head of all power.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote257"
+name="footnote257"><b>Footnote 257: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag257">
+(return) </a> "Human Physiology," p. 542.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote258"
+name="footnote258"><b>Footnote 258: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag258">
+(return) </a> "Outlines of Astronomy," p. 234.</blockquote>
+
+<p>2. <i>As to Final Causes</i>--that is, reasons, purposes, or ends
+<i>for</i> which things exist--these, we are told by Comte, are all
+"disproved" by Positive Science, which rigidly limits us to
+"the history of <i>what is</i>," and forbids all inquiry into reasons
+<i>why it is</i>. The question whether there be any intelligent purpose
+in the order and arrangement of the universe, is not a
+subject of scientific inquiry at all; and whenever it has been
+permitted to obtrude itself, it has thrown a false light over the
+facts, and led the inquirer astray.</p>
+
+<p>The discoveries of modern astronomy are specially instanced
+by Comte as completely overthrowing the notion of
+any conscious design or intelligent purpose in the universe.
+The order and stability of the solar system are found to be the
+<i>necessary</i> consequences of gravitation, and are adequately explained
+without any reference to purposes or ends to be fulfilled
+in the disposition and arrangement of the heavenly
+bodies. "With persons unused to the study of the celestial
+bodies, though very likely informed on other parts of natural
+philosophy, astronomy has still the reputation of being a science
+eminently religious, as if the famous words, 'The heavens
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="212" >212</a></span>
+declare the glory of God, had lost none of their truth... No
+science has given more terrible shocks to the doctrine of <i>final
+causes</i> than astronomy.<a id="footnotetag259" name="footnotetag259"></a>
+<a href="#footnote259"><sup class="sml">259</sup></a> The simple knowledge of the movement
+of the earth must have destroyed the original and real
+foundation of this doctrine--the idea of the universe subordinated
+to the earth, and consequently to man. Besides, the accurate
+exploration of the solar system could not fail to dispel
+that blind and unlimited admiration which the general order of
+nature inspires, by showing in the most sensible manner, and
+in a great number of different respects, that the orbs were certainly
+not disposed in the most advantageous manner, and that
+science permits us easily to conceive a better arrangement, by
+the development of true celestial mechanism, since Newton.
+All the theological philosophy, even the most perfect, has been
+henceforth deprived of its principal intellectual function, the
+most regular order being thus consigned as necessarily established
+and maintained in our world, and even in the whole
+universe, <i>by the simple mutual gravity of its several parts</i>."<a id="footnotetag260" name="footnotetag260"></a>
+<a href="#footnote260"><sup class="sml">260</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>The task of "conceiving a better arrangement" of the celestial
+orbs, and improving the system of the universe generally,
+we shall leave to those who imagine themselves possessed of
+that omniscience which comprehends all the facts and relations
+of the actual universe, and foreknows all the details and relations
+of all possible universes so accurately as to be able to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="213">213</a></span>
+pronounce upon their relative "advantages." The arrogance
+of these critics is certainly in startling and ludicrous contrast
+with the affected modesty which, on other occasions, restrains
+them from "imputing any intentions to nature." It is quite
+enough for our purpose to know that the tracing of evidences
+of <i>design</i> in those parts of nature accessible to our observation
+is an essentially different thing from the construction of a
+scheme of <i>optimism</i> on <i>à priori</i> grounds which shall embrace
+a universe the larger portion of which is virtually beyond the
+field of observation. We are conscious of possessing some rational
+data and some mental equipment for the former task,
+but for the latter we feel utterly incompetent.<a id="footnotetag261" name="footnotetag261"></a>
+<a href="#footnote261"><sup class="sml">261</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote259"
+name="footnote259"><b>Footnote 259: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag259">
+(return) </a> In a foot-note Comte adds: "Nowadays, to minds familiarized betimes
+with the true astronomical philosophy, the heavens declare no other glory
+than that of Hipparchus, Kepler, Newton, and all those who have contributed
+to the ascertainment of their laws." It seems remarkable that the
+great men who <i>ascertained</i> these laws did not see that the saying of the
+Psalmist was emptied of all meaning by their discoveries. No persons
+seem to have been more willing than these very men named to ascribe all
+the glory to Him who <i>established</i> these laws. Kepler says: "The astronomer,
+to whom God has given to see more clearly with his inward eye, from
+what he has discovered, both can and will glorify God;" and Newton says:
+"This beautiful system of sun, planets, comets could have its origin in no
+other way than by the purpose and command of an intelligent and powerful
+Being. We admire him on account of his perfections, we venerate and
+worship him on account of his government."--Whewell's "Astronomy and
+Physics," pp. 197, 198.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote260"
+name="footnote260"><b>Footnote 260: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag260">
+(return) </a> "Positive Philosophy," vol. ii. pp. 36-38; Tulloch, "Theism," p. 115.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote261"
+name="footnote261"><b>Footnote 261: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag261">
+(return) </a> Chalmers's "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. pp. 117, 118.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The only plausible argument in the above quotation from
+Comte is, that the whole phenomena of the solar system are
+adequately explained by the law of gravitation, without the intervention
+of any intelligent purpose. Let it be borne in mind
+that it is a fundamental principle of the Positive philosophy
+that all human knowledge is necessarily confined to phenomena
+<i>perceptible to sense</i>, and that the fast and highest achievement
+of human science is to observe and record "the invariable
+relations of resemblance and succession among phenomena."
+We can not possibly know any thing of even the existence of
+"causes" or "forces" lying back of phenomena, nor of "reasons"
+or "purposes" determining the relations of phenomena.
+The "law of gravitation" must, therefore, be simply the statement
+of a fact, the expression of an observed order of phenomena.
+But the simple statement of a fact is no <i>explanation</i> of
+the fact. The formal expression of an observed order of succession
+among phenomena is no <i>explanation</i> of that order.
+For what do we mean by an explanation? Is it not a "making
+plain" to the understanding? It is, in short, a complete answer
+to the questions <i>how</i> is it so? and <i>why</i> is it so? Now, if
+Comte denies to himself and to us all knowledge of efficient
+and final causation, if we are in utter ignorance of "forces"
+operating in nature, and of "reasons" for which things exist in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="214" >214</a></span>
+nature, he can not answer either question, and consequently
+nothing is explained.</p>
+
+<p>Practically, however, Comte regards gravitation as a force.
+The order of the solar system has been established and is still
+maintained by the mutual gravity of its several parts. We
+shall not stop here to note the inconsistency of his denying to
+us the knowledge of, even the existence of, force, and yet at the
+same time assuming to treat gravitation as a force really adequate
+to the explanation of the <i>how</i> and <i>why</i> of the phenomena
+of the universe, without any reference to a supernatural will or
+an intelligent mind. The question with which we are immediately
+concerned is whether gravitation <i>alone</i> is adequate to
+the explanation of the phenomena of the heavens? A review
+<i>in extenso</i> of Comte's answer to this question would lead us into
+all the inextricable mazes of the nebular hypothesis, and involve
+us in a more extended discussion than our space permits
+and our limited scientific knowledge justifies. For the masses
+of the people the whole question of cosmical development resolves
+itself into "a balancing of authorities;" they are not in
+a position to verify the reasonings for and against this theory
+by actual observation of astral phenomena, and the application
+of mathematical calculus; they are, therefore, guided by balancing
+in their own minds the statements of the distinguished
+astronomers who, by the united suffrages of the scientific
+world, are regarded as "authorities." For us, at present, it is
+enough that the nebular hypothesis is rejected by some of the
+greatest astronomers that have lived. We need only mention
+the names of Sir William Herschel, Sir John Herschel, Prof.
+Nichol, Earl Rosse, Sir David Brewster, and Prof. Whewell.</p>
+
+<p>But if we grant that the nebular hypothesis is entitled to
+take rank as an established theory of the development of the
+solar system, it by no means proves that the solar system was
+formed without the intervention of intelligence and design. On
+this point we shall content ourselves with quoting the words of
+one whose encyclopædian knowledge was confessedly equal to
+that of Comte, and who in candor and accuracy was certainly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="215" >215</a></span>
+his superior. Prof. Whewell, in his "Astronomy and Physics,"
+says: "This hypothesis by no means proves that the solar system
+was formed without the intervention of intelligence and
+design. It only transfers our view of the skill exercised and
+the means employed to another part of the work; for how
+came the sun and its atmosphere to have such materials, such
+motions, such a constitution, and these consequences followed
+from their primordial condition? How came the parent vapor
+thus to be capable of coherence, separation, contraction, solidification?
+How came the laws of its motion, attraction, repulsion,
+condensation, to be so fixed as to lead to a beautiful and
+harmonious system in the end? How came it to be neither
+too fluid nor too tenacious, to contract neither too quickly nor
+too slowly for the successive formation of the several planetary
+bodies? How came that substance, which at one time was a
+luminous vapor, to be at a subsequent period solids and fluids
+of many various kinds? What but design and intelligence prepared
+and tempered this previously-existing element, so that it
+should, by its natural changes, produce such an orderly system"?<a id="footnotetag262" name="footnotetag262"></a>
+<a href="#footnote262"><sup class="sml">262</sup></a>
+"<i>The laws of motion alone will not produce the regularity
+which we admire in the motion of the heavenly bodies</i>.
+There must be an original adjustment of the system on which
+these laws are to act; a selection of the arbitrary quantities
+which they are to involve; a primitive cause which shall dispose
+the elements in due relation to each other, in order that
+regular recurrence may accompany constant change, and that
+perpetual motion may be combined with perpetual stability."<a id="footnotetag263" name="footnotetag263"></a>
+<a href="#footnote263"><sup class="sml">263</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote262"
+name="footnote262"><b>Footnote 262: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag262">
+(return) </a> "Astronomy and Physics," p. 109.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote263"
+name="footnote263"><b>Footnote 263: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag263">
+(return) </a> Chalmers's "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 119.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The harmony of the solar system in all its phenomena does
+not depend upon the operation of any <i>one</i> law, but from the
+special adjustment of several laws. There are certain agents
+operating throughout the entire system which have different
+properties, and which require special adjustment to each other,
+in order to their beneficial operation. 1st. There is <i>Gravitation,</i>
+prevailing apparently through all space. But it does not
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="216" >216</a></span>
+prevail alone. It is a force whose function is to balance other
+forces of which we know little, except that these, again, are
+needed to balance the force of gravitation. Each force, if left
+to itself, would be the destruction of the universe. Were it not
+for the force of gravitation, the centrifugal forces which impel
+the planets would fling them off into space. Were it not for
+these centrifugal forces, the force of gravitation would dash
+them against the sun. The ultimate fact of astronomical science,
+therefore, is not the law of gravitation, but the <i>adjustment</i>
+between this law and other laws, so as to produce and maintain
+the existing order.<a id="footnotetag264" name="footnotetag264"></a>
+<a href="#footnote264"><sup class="sml">264</sup></a> 2d. There is <i>Light</i>, flowing from numberless
+luminaries; and <i>Heat</i>, radiating everywhere from the
+warmer to the colder regions; and there are a number of adjustments
+needed in order to the beneficial operation of these
+agents. Suppose we grant that by merely mechanical causes
+the sun became the centre of our system, how did it become
+also the <i>source of its vivifying influences</i>? "How was the fire
+deposited on this hearth? How was the candle placed on this
+candlestick?" 3d. There is an all-pervading <i>Ether</i>, through
+which light is transmitted, which offers resistance to the movement
+of the planetary and cometary bodies, and tends to a dissipation
+of mechanical energy, and which needs to be counter-balanced
+by well-adjusted arrangements to secure the stability
+of the solar system. All this balancing of opposite properties
+and forces carries our minds upward towards Him who holds
+the balances in his hands, and to a Supreme Intelligence on
+whose adjustments and collocations the harmony and stability
+of the universe depends.<a id="footnotetag265" name="footnotetag265"></a>
+<a href="#footnote265"><sup class="sml">265</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote264"
+name="footnote264"><b>Footnote 264: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag264">
+(return) </a> Duke of Argyll, "Reign of Law," pp. 91, 92.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote265"
+name="footnote265"><b>Footnote 265: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag265">
+(return) </a> M'Cosh, "Typical Forms and Special Ends," ch. xiii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The recognition of all teleology of organs in vegetable and
+animal physiology is also persistently repudiated by this school.
+When Cuvier speaks of the combination of organs in such
+order as to adapt the animal to the part which it has to play in
+nature, Geoffroy Saint Hilaire replies, "I know nothing of animals
+which have to play a part in nature." "I have read,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="217" >217</a></span>
+concerning fishes, that, because they live in a medium which resists
+more than air, their motive forces are calculated so as to
+give them the power of progression under these circumstances.
+By this mode of reasoning, you would say of a man who makes
+use of crutches, that he was originally destined to the misfortune
+of having a leg paralyzed or amputated.<a id="footnotetag266" name="footnotetag266"></a>
+<a href="#footnote266"><sup class="sml">266</sup></a> "With a modesty
+which savors of affectation, he says, "I ascribe no intentions
+to God, for I mistrust the feeble powers of my reason. I
+observe facts merely, and go no farther. I only pretend to the
+character of the historian of <i>what is</i>." "I can not make Nature
+an intelligent being who does nothing in vain, who acts by the
+shortest mode, who does all for the best."<a id="footnotetag267" name="footnotetag267"></a>
+<a href="#footnote267"><sup class="sml">267</sup></a> All the supposed
+consorting of means to ends which has hitherto been regarded
+as evidencing Intelligence is simply the result of "the elective
+affinities of organic elements" and "the differentiation of organs"
+consequent mainly upon exterior conditions. "<i>Functions
+are a result, not an end</i>. The animal undergoes the kind
+of life that his organs impose, and submits to the imperfections
+of his organization. The naturalist studies the play of his apparatus,
+and if he has the right of admiring most of its parts,
+he has likewise that of showing the imperfection of other parts,
+and the practical uselessness of those which fulfill no functions."<a id="footnotetag268" name="footnotetag268"></a>
+<a href="#footnote268"><sup class="sml">268</sup></a>
+And it is further claimed that there are a great many
+structures which are clearly useless; that is, they fulfill no purpose
+at all. Thus there are monkeys, which have no thumbs
+for use, but only rudimental thumb-bones hid beneath the
+skin; the wingless bird of New Zealand (Apteryx) has wing-bones
+similarly developed, which serve no purpose; young
+whalebone whales are born with teeth that never cut the gums,
+and are afterwards absorbed; and some sheep have horns
+turned about their ears which fulfill no end. And inasmuch as
+there are some organisms in nature which serve no purpose of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="218">218</a></span>
+utility, it is argued there is no design in nature; things are <i>used</i>
+because there are antecedent conditions favorable for <i>use</i>, but
+that use is not the <i>end</i> for which the organ exists. The true
+naturalist will never say, "Birds have wings given them <i>in order</i>
+to fly;" he will rather say, "Birds fly <i>because</i> they have wings."
+The doctrine of final causes must, therefore, be abandoned.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote266"
+name="footnote266"><b>Footnote 266: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag266">
+(return) </a> Whewell, "History of Inductive Sciences," vol. ii. p. 486.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote267"
+name="footnote267"><b>Footnote 267: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag267">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., vol. ii. p. 490.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote268"
+name="footnote268"><b>Footnote 268: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag268">
+(return) </a> Martin's "Organic Unity in Animals and Vegetables," in M. Q. Review,
+January, 1863.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It is hardly worth while to reply to the lame argument of
+Geoffroy, which needs a "crutch" for its support. The very
+illustration, undignified and irrelevant as it is, tells altogether
+against its author. For, first, the crutch is certainly a <i>contrivance</i>
+designed for locomotion; secondly, the length and
+strength and lightness of the crutch are all matters of calculation
+and <i>adjustment</i>; and, thirdly, all the adaptations of the
+crutch are well-considered, in order to enable the lame man to
+walk; the function of the crutch is the final cause of its creation.
+This crutch is clearly out of place in Geoffroy's argument,
+and utterly breaks down. It is in its place in the teleological
+argument, and stands well, though it may not behave as
+well as the living limb. The understanding of a child can perceive
+that the design-argument does not assert that men were
+intended to have amputated limbs, but that crutches are designed
+for those whose limbs are paralyzed or amputated.</p>
+
+<p>The existence of useless members, of rudimentary and abortive
+limbs, does seem, at first sight, to be unfavorable to the
+idea of supremacy of purpose and all-pervading design. It
+should be remarked, however, that this is an argument based
+upon our ignorance, and not upon our knowledge. It does
+not by any means follow that because we have discovered no
+reasons for their existence, therefore there are no reasons.
+Science, in enlarging its conquests of nature, is perpetually discovering
+the usefulness of arrangements of which our fathers
+were ignorant, and the reasons of things which to their minds,
+were concealed; and it ill becomes the men who so far "mistrust
+their own feeble powers" as to be afraid of ascribing any
+intention to God or nature, to dogmatically affirm there is no
+purpose in the existence of any thing. And then we may ask,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="219">219</a></span>
+what right have these men to set up the idea of "utility" as the
+only standard to which the Creator must conform? How came
+they to know that God is a mere "utilitarian;" or, if they do
+not believe in God, that nature is a miserable "Benthamite?"
+Why may not the idea of beauty, of symmetry, of order, be a
+standard for the universe, as much as the idea of utility, or mere
+subordination to some practical end? May not conformity to
+one grand and comprehensive plan, sweeping over all nature,
+be perfectly compatible with the adaptation of individual existences
+to the fulfillment of special ends? In civil architecture
+we have conformity to a general plan; we have embellishment
+and ornament, and we have adaptation to a special purpose,
+all combined; why may not these all be combined in the architecture
+of the universe? The presence of any one of these is
+sufficient to prove design, for mere ornament or beauty is itself
+a purpose, an object, and an end. The concurrence of all
+these is an overwhelming evidence of design. Wherever
+found, they are universally recognized as the product of intelligence;
+they address themselves at once to the intelligence of
+man, and they place him in immediate relation to and in deepest
+sympathy with the Intelligence which gave them birth. He
+that formed the eye of man to see, and the heart of man to
+admire beauty, shall He not delight in it? He that gave the
+hand of man its cunning to create beauty, shall He not himself
+work for it? And if man can and does combine both "ornament"
+and "use" in one and the same implement or machine,
+why should not the Creator of the world do the same? "When
+the savage carves the handle of his war-club, the immediate
+purpose of his carving is to give his own hand a firmer hold.
+But any shapeless scratches would be enough for this. When
+he carves it in an elaborate pattern, he does so for the love of
+ornament, and to satisfy the sense of beauty." And so "the
+harmonies, on which all beauty depends, are so connected in
+nature that <i>use</i> and <i>ornament</i> may often both arise out of the
+same conditions."<a id="footnotetag269" name="footnotetag269"></a>
+<a href="#footnote269"><sup class="sml">269</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote269"
+name="footnote269"><b>Footnote 269: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag269">
+(return) </a> Duke of Argyll, "Reign of Law," p. 203.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="220" >220</a></span>
+
+<p>The "true naturalist," therefore, recognizes two great principles
+pervading the universe--<i>a principle of order</i>--a unity
+of plan, and <i>a principle of special adaptation</i>, by which each
+object, though constructed upon a general plan, is at the same
+time accommodated to the place it has to occupy and the purpose
+it has to serve. In other words, there is <i>homology of
+structure</i> and <i>analogy of function</i>, conformity to <i>archetypal forms</i>
+and <i>Teleology of organs</i>, in wonderful combination. Now, in
+the Materialistic school, it has been the prevalent practice to
+set up the unity of plan in animal structures, in opposition to
+the principle of Final Causes: Morphology has been opposed
+to Teleology. But in nature there is no such opposition; on
+the contrary, there is a beautiful co-ordination. The same
+bones, in different animals, are made subservient to the widest
+possible diversity of functions. The same limbs are converted
+into fins, paddles, wings, legs, and arms. "No comparative
+anatomist has the slightest hesitation in admitting that the
+pectoral fin of a fish, the wing of a bird, the paddle of the dolphin,
+the fore-leg of a deer, the wing of a bat, and the arm of a
+man, are the same organs, notwithstanding that their forms are
+so varied, and the uses to which they are applied so unlike
+each other."<a id="footnotetag270" name="footnotetag270"></a>
+<a href="#footnote270"><sup class="sml">270</sup></a> All these are homologous in structure--they are
+formed after an ideal archetype or model, but that model or
+type is variously modified to adapt the animal to the sphere of
+life in which it is destined to move, and the organ itself to the
+functions it has to perform, whether swimming, flying, walking,
+or burrowing, or that varied manipulation of which the human
+hand is capable. These varied modifications of the vertebrated
+type, for special purposes, are unmistakable examples of final
+causation. Whilst the silent members, the rudimental limbs
+instanced by Oken, Martins, and others--as fulfilling no purpose,
+and serving no end, exist in conformity to an ideal archetype
+on which the bony skeletons of all vertebrated animals
+are formed,<a id="footnotetag271" name="footnotetag271"></a>
+<a href="#footnote271"><sup class="sml">271</sup></a> and which has never been departed from since
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="221" >221</a></span>
+time began. This type, or model, or plan, is, however, itself
+an evidence of <i>design</i> as much as the plan of a house. For to
+what standard are we referring when we say that two limbs
+are morphologically the same? Is it not an <i>ideal</i> plan, a <i>mental</i>
+pattern, a metaphysical conception? Now an <i>ideal</i> implies
+a mind which preconceived the idea, and in which alone it
+really exists. It is only as "an <i>order of Divine thought</i>" that
+the doctrine of animal homologies is at all intelligible; and
+Homology is, therefore, the science which traces the outward
+embodiment of a Divine Idea.<a id="footnotetag272" name="footnotetag272"></a>
+<a href="#footnote272"><sup class="sml">272</sup></a> The principle of intentionality
+or final causation, then, is not in any sense invalidated by the
+discovery of "a unity of plan" sweeping through the entire
+universe.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote270"
+name="footnote270"><b>Footnote 270: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag270">
+(return) </a> Carpenter's "Comparative Physiology," p. 37.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote271"
+name="footnote271"><b>Footnote 271: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag271">
+(return) </a> Agassiz, "Essay on Classification," p. 10.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote272"
+name="footnote272"><b>Footnote 272: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag272">
+(return) </a> Whewell's "History of Inductive Sciences," vol. i. p. 644; "The Reign
+of Law," p. 208; Agassiz, "Essay on Classification," pp. 9-11.</blockquote>
+
+<p>We conclude that we are justly entitled to regard "the
+principle of intentionality" as a primary and necessary law of
+thought, under which we can not avoid conceiving and describing
+the facts of the universe--<i>the special adaptation of means to
+ends necessarily implies mind</i>. Whenever and wherever we observe
+the adaptation of an organism to the fulfillment of a special
+end, we can not avoid conceiving of that <i>end</i> as foreseen and
+premeditated, the <i>means</i> as selected and adjusted with a view
+to that end, and creative energy put forth to secure the end--all
+which is the work of intelligence and will.<a id="footnotetag273" name="footnotetag273"></a>
+<a href="#footnote273"><sup class="sml">273</sup></a> And we can
+not describe these facts of nature, so as to render that account
+intelligible to other minds, without using such terms as "contrivance,"
+"purpose," "adaptation," "design." A striking illustration
+of this may be found in Darwin's volume "On the
+Fertilization of Orchids." We select from his volume with all
+the more pleasure because he is one of the writers who enjoins
+"caution in ascribing intentions to nature." In one sentence
+he says: "The <i>Labellum</i> is developed into a long nectary, <i>in
+order</i> to attract <i>Lepidoptera</i>; and we shall presently give reasons
+for suspecting the nectar is <i>purposely</i> so lodged that it can
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="222">222</a></span>
+be sucked only slowly, <i>in order</i> to give time for the curious
+chemical quality of the viscid matter settling hard and dry"
+(p. 29). Of one particular structure he says: "This <i>contrivance</i>
+of the guiding ridges may be compared to the little instrument
+sometimes used for guiding a thread into the eye of a
+needle." The notion that every organism has a use or purpose
+seems to have guided him in his discoveries. "The
+strange position of the <i>Labellum</i>, perched on the summit of the
+column, ought to have shown me that here was the place for
+experiment. I ought to have scorned the notion that the <i>Labellum</i>
+was thus placed <i>for no good purpose</i>. I neglected this
+plain guide, and for a long time completely failed to understand
+the flower" (p. 262).<a id="footnotetag274" name="footnotetag274"></a>
+<a href="#footnote274"><sup class="sml">274</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote273"
+name="footnote273"><b>Footnote 273: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag273">
+(return) </a> Carpenter's "Principles of Comparative Physiology," p. 723.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote274"
+name="footnote274"><b>Footnote 274: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag274">
+(return) </a> Edinburgh Review, October, 1862; article, "The Supernatural."</blockquote>
+
+<p>So that the assumption of final causes has not, as Bacon
+affirms, "led men astray" and "prejudiced further discovery;"
+on the contrary, it has had a large share in every discovery in
+anatomy and physiology, zoology and botany. The use of
+every organ has been discovered by starting from the assumption
+<i>that it must have some use</i>. The belief in a creative purpose
+led Harvey to discover the circulation of the blood. He
+says: "When I took notice that the valves in the veins of so
+many parts of the body were so placed that they gave a free
+passage to the blood towards the heart, but opposed the passage
+of the venal blood the contrary way, I was incited to imagine
+that so provident a cause as Nature has not placed so
+many valves <i>without design</i>, and no design seemed more probable
+than the circulation of the blood."<a id="footnotetag275" name="footnotetag275"></a>
+<a href="#footnote275"><sup class="sml">275</sup></a> The wonderful discoveries
+in Zoology which have immortalized the name of Cuvier
+were made under the guidance of this principle. He proceeds
+on the supposition not only that animal forms have <i>some</i> plan,
+<i>some</i> purpose, but that they have an intelligible plan, a discoverable
+purpose. At the outset of his "<i>Règne Animal</i>" he says:
+"Zoology has a principle of reasoning which is peculiar to it,
+and which it employs to advantage on many occasions; that is,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="223">223</a></span>
+the principle of the conditions of existence, commonly called
+final causes."<a id="footnotetag276" name="footnotetag276"></a>
+<a href="#footnote276"><sup class="sml">276</sup></a> The application of this principle enabled him
+to understand and arrange the structures of animals with astonishing
+clearness and completeness of order; and to restore
+the forms of extinct animals which are found in the rocks, in a
+manner which excited universal admiration, and has commanded
+universal assent. Indeed, as Professor Whewell remarks,
+at the conclusion of his "History of the Inductive Sciences,"
+"those who have been discoverers in science have generally
+had minds, the disposition of which was to believe in an <i>intelligent
+Maker</i> of the universe, and that the scientific speculations
+which produced an opposite tendency were generally those
+which, though they might deal familiarly with known physical
+truths, and conjecture boldly with regard to unknown, do not
+add to the number of solid generalizations."<a id="footnotetag277" name="footnotetag277"></a>
+<a href="#footnote277"><sup class="sml">277</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote275"
+name="footnote275"><b>Footnote 275: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag275">
+(return) </a> "History of Inductive Science," vol. ii. p. 449.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote276"
+name="footnote276"><b>Footnote 276: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag276">
+(return) </a> "History of Inductive Science," vol. ii. p. 2, Eng. ed.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote277"
+name="footnote277"><b>Footnote 277: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag277">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. ii. p. 491. A list of the "great discoverers" is given in his
+"Astronomy and Physics," bk. iii. ch. v.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="224" >224</a></span><br>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VII.</h3>
+
+<h3>THE UNKNOWN GOD (<i>continued</i>).</h3>
+
+<h3>IS GOD COGNIZABLE BY REASON? (<i>continued</i>).</h3>
+
+<blockquote>
+"The faith which can not stand unless buttressed by contradictions is
+built upon the sand. The profoundest faith is faith in the unity of truth.
+If there is found any conflict in the results of a right reason, no appeal to
+practical interests, or traditionary authority, or intuitional or theological
+faith, can stay the flood of skepticism."--ABBOT.
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>In the previous chapter we have considered the answers to
+this question which are given by the Idealistic and Materialistic
+schools; it devolves upon us now to review (iii.) the position
+of the school of <i>Natural Realism</i> or <i>Natural Dualism</i>, at
+the head of which stands Sir William Hamilton.</p>
+
+<p>It is admitted by this school that philosophic knowledge is
+"the knowledge of effects as dependent on their causes,"<a id="footnotetag278" name="footnotetag278"></a>
+<a href="#footnote278"><sup class="sml">278</sup></a> and
+"of qualities as inherent in substances."<a id="footnotetag279" name="footnotetag279"></a>
+<a href="#footnote279"><sup class="sml">279</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote278"
+name="footnote278"><b>Footnote 278: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag278">
+(return) </a> "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 58.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote279"
+name="footnote279"><b>Footnote 279: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag279">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. p. 138.</blockquote>
+
+<p>1. <i>As to Events and Causes</i>.--"Events do not occur isolated,
+apart, by themselves; they occur and are conceived by us only
+in connection. Our observation affords us no example of a
+phenomenon which is not an effect; nay, our thought can not
+even realize to itself the possibility of a phenomenon without a
+cause. By the necessity we are under of thinking some cause
+for every phenomenon, and by our original ignorance of what
+particular causes belong to what particular effects, it is rendered
+impossible for us to acquiesce in the mere knowledge
+of the fact of the phenomenon; on the contrary, we are determined,
+we are necessitated to regard each phenomenon as <i>only
+partially known until we discover the causes</i> on which it depends
+for its existence.<a id="footnotetag280" name="footnotetag280"></a>
+<a href="#footnote280"><sup class="sml">280</sup></a> Philosophic knowledge is thus, in its widest
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="225">225</a></span>
+acceptation, the knowledge of effects as dependent on causes.
+Now what does this imply? In the first place, as every cause
+to which we can ascend is only an effect, it follows that it is
+the scope, that is, the aim, of philosophy to trace up the series
+of effects and causes until we arrive at <i>causes which are not in
+themselves effects</i>,"<a id="footnotetag281" name="footnotetag281"></a>
+<a href="#footnote281"><sup class="sml">281</sup></a>--that is, to ultimate and final causes. And
+then, finally, "Philosophy, as the knowledge of effects in their
+causes, necessarily tends, not towards a plurality of ultimate or
+final causes, but towards <i>one</i> alone."<a id="footnotetag282" name="footnotetag282"></a>
+<a href="#footnote282"><sup class="sml">282</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote280"
+name="footnote280"><b>Footnote 280: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag280">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. p. 56.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote281"
+name="footnote281"><b>Footnote 281: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag281">
+(return) </a> "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 58.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote282"
+name="footnote282"><b>Footnote 282: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag282">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. p. 60.</blockquote>
+
+<p>2. <i>As to Qualities and Substance, or Phenomena and Reality</i>.--As
+phenomena appear only in conjunction, we are compelled,
+by the constitution of our nature, to think them conjoined in
+and by something; and as they are phenomena, we can not
+think them phenomena of nothing, but must regard them as
+properties or qualities of something.<a id="footnotetag283" name="footnotetag283"></a>
+<a href="#footnote283"><sup class="sml">283</sup></a> Now that which manifests
+its qualities--in other words, that in which the appearing
+causes inhere, that to which they belong--is called their <i>subject</i>,
+or <i>substance</i>, or <i>substratum</i>.<a id="footnotetag284" name="footnotetag284"></a>
+<a href="#footnote284"><sup class="sml">284</sup></a> The subject of one grand series
+of phenomena (as, <i>e.g.</i>, extension, solidity, figure, etc.) is called
+<i>matter</i>, or <i>material substance</i>. The subject of the other grand
+series of phenomena (as, <i>e.g.</i>, thought, feeling, volition, etc.) is
+termed <i>mind</i>, or <i>mental substance</i>. We may, therefore, lay it
+down as an undisputed truth that consciousness gives, as an
+ultimate fact, a primitive duality--a knowledge of the <i>ego</i> in relation
+and contrast to the <i>non-ego</i>, and a knowledge of the <i>non-ego</i>
+in relation and contrast to the <i>ego</i><a id="footnotetag285" name="footnotetag285"></a>
+<a href="#footnote285"><sup class="sml">285</sup></a> Natural Dualism thus
+establishes the existence of two worlds of <i>mind</i> and <i>matter</i> on
+the immediate knowledge we possess of both series of phenomena;
+whilst the Cosmothetic Idealists discredit the veracity
+of consciousness as to our immediate knowledge of material
+phenomena, and, consequently, our <i>immediate knowledge of the
+existence of matter</i>.<a id="footnotetag286" name="footnotetag286"></a>
+<a href="#footnote286"><sup class="sml">286</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote283"
+name="footnote283"><b>Footnote 283: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag283">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. p. 137.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote284"
+name="footnote284"><b>Footnote 284: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag284">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. p. 137.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote285"
+name="footnote285"><b>Footnote 285: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag285">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. p. 292.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote286"
+name="footnote286"><b>Footnote 286: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag286">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. pp. 292, 295.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The obvious doctrine of the above quotations is, that we
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="226" >226</a></span>
+have an immediate knowledge of the "<i>existence</i> of matter" as
+well as of "the <i>phenomena</i> of matter;" that is, we know "<i>substance</i>"
+as immediately and directly as we know "<i>qualities</i>."
+Phenomena are known only as inherent in substance; substance
+is known only as manifesting its qualities. We never
+know qualities without knowing substance, and we can never
+know substance without knowing qualities. Both are known
+in one concrete act; substance is known quite as much as
+quality; quality is known no more than substance. That we
+have a direct, immediate, presentative "face to face" knowledge
+of matter and mind in every act of consciousness is asserted
+again and again by Hamilton, in his "Philosophy of
+Perception."<a id="footnotetag287" name="footnotetag287"></a>
+<a href="#footnote287"><sup class="sml">287</sup></a> In the course of the discussion he starts the
+question, "<i>Is the knowledge of mind and matter equally immediate?</i>"
+His answer to this question may be condensed in the
+following sentences. In regard to the immediate knowledge
+of <i>mind</i> there is no difficulty; it is admitted to be direct and
+immediate. The problem, therefore, exclusively regards the
+intuitive perception of the qualities of <i>matter</i>. Now, says Hamilton,
+"if we interrogate consciousness concerning the point in
+question, the response is categorical and clear. In the simplest
+act of perception I am conscious of <i>myself</i> as a perceiving
+<i>subject</i>, and of an external <i>reality</i> as the object perceived;
+and I am conscious of both existences in the same indivisible
+amount of intuition."<a id="footnotetag288" name="footnotetag288"></a>
+<a href="#footnote288"><sup class="sml">288</sup></a> Again he says, "I have frequently asserted
+that in perception we are conscious of the external object,
+immediately and <i>in itself</i>." "If, then, the veracity of consciousness
+be unconditionally admitted--<i>if the intuitive knowledge
+of matter and mind</i>, and the consequent reality of their antithesis,
+be taken as truths," the doctrine of Natural Realism is
+established, and, "without any hypothesis or demonstration,
+the <i>reality of mind</i> and the <i>reality of matter</i>."<a id="footnotetag289" name="footnotetag289"></a>
+<a href="#footnote289"><sup class="sml">289</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote287"
+name="footnote287"><b>Footnote 287: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag287">
+(return) </a> Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, part ii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote288"
+name="footnote288"><b>Footnote 288: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag288">
+(return) </a> Ibid., p. 181.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote289"
+name="footnote289"><b>Footnote 289: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag289">
+(return) </a> Ibid., pp. 34, 182.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Now, after these explicit statements that we have an intuitive
+knowledge of matter and mind--a direct and immediate
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="227">227</a></span>
+consciousness of self as a real, "self-subsisting entity," and a
+knowledge of "an external reality, immediately and <i>in itself</i>,"
+it seems unaccountably strange that Hamilton should assert
+"<i>that all human knowledge, consequently all human philosophy, is
+only of the Relative or Phenomenal</i>;"<a id="footnotetag290" name="footnotetag290"></a>
+<a href="#footnote290"><sup class="sml">290</sup></a> and that "<i>of existence absolutely
+and in itself we know nothing</i>."<a id="footnotetag291" name="footnotetag291"></a>
+<a href="#footnote291"><sup class="sml">291</sup></a> Whilst teaching that the
+proper sphere and aim of philosophy is to trace secondary
+causes up to ultimate or first causes, and that it <i>necessarily tends</i>
+towards one First and Ultimate Cause, he at the same time asserts
+that "first causes do not lie within the reach of philosophy,"<a id="footnotetag292" name="footnotetag292x"></a>
+<a href="#footnote292"><sup class="sml">292</sup></a>
+and that it can never attain to the knowledge of the
+First Cause.<a id="footnotetag293" name="footnotetag293"></a>
+<a href="#footnote293"><sup class="sml">293</sup></a> "The Infinite God can not, by us, be comprehended,
+conceived, or thought."<a id="footnotetag294" name="footnotetag294"></a>
+<a href="#footnote294"><sup class="sml">294</sup></a> God, as First Cause, as infinite,
+as unconditioned, as eternal, is to us absolutely "<i>The
+Unknown</i>." The science of Real Being--of Being <i>in se</i>--of
+self-subsisting entities, is declared to be impossible. All science
+is only of the phenomenal, the conditioned, the relative.
+Ontology is a delusive dream. Thus, after pages of explanations
+and qualifications, of affirmations and denials, we find
+Hamilton virtually assuming the same position as Comte and
+Mill--<i>all human knowledge is necessarily confined to phenomena</i>.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote290"
+name="footnote290"><b>Footnote 290: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag290">
+(return) </a> "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 136.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote291"
+name="footnote291"><b>Footnote 291: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag291">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. p. 138.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote292"
+name="footnote292"><b>Footnote 292: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag292">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. p. 58.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote293"
+name="footnote293"><b>Footnote 293: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag293">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. p. 60.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote294"
+name="footnote294"><b>Footnote 294: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag294">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. ii. p. 375.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It has been supposed that the chief glory of Sir William
+Hamilton rested upon his able exposition and defense of the
+doctrine of Natural Realism. There are, however, indications
+in his writings that he regarded "the Philosophy of the Conditioned"
+as his grand achievement. The Law of the Conditioned
+had "not been generalized by any previous philosopher;"
+and, in laying down that law, he felt that he had made
+a new and important contribution to speculative thought.</p>
+
+<p>The principles upon which this philosophy is based are:</p>
+
+<p>1. <i>The Relativity of all Human Knowledge.</i>--Existence is not
+cognized absolutely and in itself, but only under special modes
+which are related to our faculties, and, in fact, determined by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="228" >228</a></span>
+these faculties themselves. All knowledge, therefore, is <i>relative</i>--that
+is, it is of phenomena only, and of phenomena "under
+modifications determined by our own faculties." Now, as
+the Absolute is that which exists out of all relation either to
+phenomena or to our faculties of knowledge, it can not possibly
+be <i>known</i>.</p>
+
+<p>2. <i>The Conditionality of all Thinking</i>.--Thought necessarily
+supposes conditions. "To think is to condition; and conditional
+limitation is the fundamental law of the possibility of
+thought. As the eagle can not out-soar the atmosphere in
+which he floats, and by which alone he is supported, so the
+mind can not transcend the sphere of limitation within and
+through which the possibility of thought is realized. Thought
+is only of the conditioned, because, as we have said, to think is
+to condition."<a id="footnotetag295" name="footnotetag295"></a>
+<a href="#footnote295"><sup class="sml">295</sup></a> Now the Infinite is the unlimited, the unconditioned,
+and as such can not possibly be <i>thought</i>.</p>
+
+<p>3. <i>The notion of the Infinite--the Absolute, as entertained by
+man, is a mere "negation of thought.</i>"--By this Hamilton does
+not mean that the idea of the Infinite is a negative idea. "The
+Infinite and the Absolute are <i>only</i> the names of two counter
+<i>imbecilities</i> of the human mind"<a id="footnotetag296" name="footnotetag296"></a>
+<a href="#footnote296"><sup class="sml">296</sup></a>--that is, a mental inability to
+conceive an absolute limitation, or an infinite illimitation; an
+absolute commencement, or an infinite non-commencement.
+In other words, of the absolute and infinite we have no conception
+at all, and, consequently, no knowledge.<a id="footnotetag297" name="footnotetag297"></a>
+<a href="#footnote297"><sup class="sml">297</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>The grand law which Hamilton generalizes from the above
+is, "<i>that the conceivable is in every relation bounded by the inconceivable</i>."
+Or, again, "The conditioned or the thinkable lies
+between two extremes or poles; and these extremes or poles
+are each of them unconditioned, each of them inconceivable,
+each of them exclusive or contradictory of the other."<a id="footnotetag298" name="footnotetag298"></a>
+<a href="#footnote298"><sup class="sml">298</sup></a> This
+is the celebrated "Law of the Conditioned."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote295"
+name="footnote295"><b>Footnote 295: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag295">
+(return) </a> "Discussions," p. 21.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote296"
+name="footnote296"><b>Footnote 296: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag296">
+(return) </a> Ibid., p. 28.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote297"
+name="footnote297"><b>Footnote 297: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag297">
+(return) </a> "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. pp. 368, 373.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote298"
+name="footnote298"><b>Footnote 298: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag298">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. ii. p. 373.</blockquote>
+
+<p>In attempting a brief criticism of "the Philosophy of the
+Conditioned," we may commence by inquiring:</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="229">229</a></span>
+
+<p>I. <i>What is the real import and significance of the doctrine "that
+all human knowledge is only of the relative or phenomenal</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>Hamilton calls this "the great axiom" of philosophy. That
+we may distinctly comprehend its meaning, and understand its
+bearing on the subject under discussion, we must ascertain the
+sense in which he uses the words "<i>phenomenal</i>" and "<i>relative.</i>"
+The importance of an exact terminology is fully appreciated by
+our author; and accordingly, in three Lectures (VIII., IX., X.),
+he has given a full explication of the terms most commonly employed
+in philosophic discussions. Here the word "<i>phenomenon</i>"
+is set down as the necessary "<i>correlative</i>" of the word
+"<i>subject</i>" or "<i>substance</i>." "These terms can not be explained
+apart, for each is correlative of the other, each can be comprehended
+only in and through its correlative. The term '<i>subject</i>'
+is used to denote the unknown (?) basis which lies under
+the various <i>phenomena</i> or properties of which we become aware,
+whether in our external or internal experience."<a id="footnotetag299" name="footnotetag299"></a>
+<a href="#footnote299"><sup class="sml">299</sup></a> "The term
+'<i>relative</i>' is <i>opposed</i> to the term '<i>absolute</i>;' therefore, in saying
+that we know only the relative, I virtually assert that we know
+nothing absolutely, that is, <i>in and for itself, and without relation
+to us and our faculties</i>."<a id="footnotetag300" name="footnotetag300"></a>
+<a href="#footnote300"><sup class="sml">300</sup></a> Now, in the philosophy of Sir William
+Hamilton, "the absolute" is defined as "that which is aloof
+from relation"--"that which is out of all relation."<a id="footnotetag301" name="footnotetag301"></a>
+<a href="#footnote301"><sup class="sml">301</sup></a> The <i>absolute</i>
+can not, therefore, be "<i>the correlative</i>" of the conditioned--can
+not stand in any relation to the phenomenal. The <i>subject,</i>
+however, is the necessary correlative of the phenomenal,
+and, consequently, the subject and the absolute are not identical.
+Furthermore, Hamilton tells us the subject <i>may be comprehended</i>
+in and through its correlative--the phenomenon; but
+the absolute, being aloof from all relation, can not be comprehended
+or conceived at all. "The subject" and "the absolute"
+are, therefore, not synonymous terms; and, if they are
+not synonymous, then their antithetical terms, "phenomenal"
+and "relative," can not be synonymous.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote299"
+name="footnote299"><b>Footnote 299: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag299">
+(return) </a> "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 148.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote300"
+name="footnote300"><b>Footnote 300: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag300">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. p. 137.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote301"
+name="footnote301"><b>Footnote 301: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag301">
+(return) </a> "Discussions," p. 21.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="230">230</a></span>
+
+<p>It is manifest, however, that Hamilton does employ these
+terms as synonymous, and this we apprehend is the first false
+step in his philosophy of the conditioned. "All our knowledge
+is of the relative <i>or</i> phenomenal." Throughout the whole of
+Lectures VIII. and IX., in which he explains the doctrine of
+the relativity of human knowledge, these terms are used as precisely
+analogous. Now, in opposition to this, we maintain that
+the relative is not always the phenomenal. A thing may be
+"in relation" and yet not be a phenomenon. "The subject or
+substance" may be, and really is, on the admission of Hamilton
+himself, <i>correlated</i> to the phenomenon. The ego, "the conscious
+<i>subject</i>"<a id="footnotetag302" name="footnotetag302"></a>
+<a href="#footnote302"><sup class="sml">302</sup></a> as a "<i>self-subsisting entity</i>" is necessarily related
+to the phenomena of thought, feeling, etc.; but no one
+would repudiate the idea that the conscious subject is a mere
+phenomenon, or "series of phenomena," with more indignation
+than Hamilton. Notwithstanding the contradictory assertion,
+"that the <i>subject</i> is unknown," he still teaches, with equal positiveness,
+"that in every act of perception I am conscious of
+self, as a perceiving <i>subject."</i> And still more explicitly he
+says: "As clearly as I am conscious of existing, so clearly am
+I conscious, at every moment of my existence, that the conscious
+Ego is not itself a mere modification [a phenomenon],
+nor a series of modifications [phenomena], but that it is itself
+different from all its modifications, and a <i>self-subsisting entity</i>."<a id="footnotetag303" name="footnotetag303"></a>
+<a href="#footnote303"><sup class="sml">303</sup></a>
+Again: "Thought is possible only in and through the consciousness
+of Self. The Self, the I, is recognized in every act
+of intelligence as the <i>subject</i> to which the act belongs. It is I
+that perceive, I that imagine, I that remember, etc.; these special
+modes are all only the phenomena of the I."<a id="footnotetag304" name="footnotetag304"></a>
+<a href="#footnote304"><sup class="sml">304</sup></a> We are,
+therefore, conscious of the <i>subject</i> in the most immediate, and
+direct, and intuitive manner, and the subject of which we are
+conscious can not be "<i>unknown</i>." We regret that so distinguished
+a philosophy should deal in such palpable contradictions;
+but it is the inevitable consequence of violating that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="231">231</a></span>
+fundamental principle of philosophy on which Hamilton so frequently
+and earnestly insists, viz., "that the testimony of consciousness
+must be accepted in all its integrity".</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote302"
+name="footnote302"><b>Footnote 302: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag302">
+(return) </a> Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton (edited by O.W. Wight), p. 181.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote303"
+name="footnote303"><b>Footnote 303: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag303">
+(return) </a> "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 373.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote304"
+name="footnote304"><b>Footnote 304: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag304">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. p. 166.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It is thus obvious that, with proper qualifications, we may
+admit <i>the relativity of human knowledge</i>, and yet at the same
+time reject the doctrine of Hamilton, <i>that all human knowledge
+is only of the phenomenal</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"The relativity of human knowledge," like most other
+phrases into which the word "relative" enters, is vague, and
+admits of a variety of meanings. If by this phrase is meant
+"that we can not know objects except as related to our faculties,
+or as our faculties are related to them," we accept the
+statement, but regard it as a mere truism leading to no consequences,
+and hardly worth stating in words. It is simply
+another way of saying that, in order to an object's being known,
+it must come within the range of our intellectual vision, and
+that we can only know as much as we are capable of knowing.
+Or, if by this phrase is meant "that we can only know things
+by and through the phenomena they present," we admit this
+also, for we can no more know substances apart from their
+properties, than we can know qualities apart from the substances
+in which they inhere. Substances can be known only in
+and through their phenomena. Take away the properties, and
+the thing has no longer any existence. Eliminate extension,
+form, density, etc., from matter, and what have you left? "The
+thing in itself," apart from its qualities, is nothing. Or, again,
+if by the relativity of knowledge is meant "that all consciousness,
+all thought are relative," we accept this statement also.
+To conceive, to reflect, to know, is to deal with difference and
+relation; the relation of subject and object; the relation of
+objects among themselves; the relation of phenomena to reality,
+of becoming to being. The reason of man is unquestionably
+correlated to that which is beyond phenomena; it is able
+to apprehend the necessary relation between phenomena and
+being, extension and space, succession and time, event and
+cause, the finite and the infinite. We may thus admit the <i>relative
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="232">232</a></span>
+character of human thought</i>, and at the same time deny
+that it is an ontological disqualification.<a id="footnotetag305" name="footnotetag305"></a>
+<a href="#footnote305"><sup class="sml">305</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>It is not, however, in any of these precise forms that Hamilton
+holds the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge. He
+assumes a middle place between Reid and Kant, and endeavors
+to blend the subjective idealism of the latter with the realism
+of the former. "He identifies the <i>phenomenon</i> of the
+German with the <i>quality</i> of the British philosophy,"<a id="footnotetag306" name="footnotetag306"></a>
+<a href="#footnote306"><sup class="sml">306</sup></a> and asserts,
+as a regulative law of thought, that the quality implies
+the substance, and the phenomenon the noumenon, but makes
+the substratum or noumenon (the object in itself) unknown
+and unknowable. The "phenomenon" of Kant was, however,
+something essentially different from the "quality" of Reid.
+In the philosophy of Kant, <i>phenomenon</i> means an object as we
+envisage or represent it to ourselves, in opposition to the
+<i>noumenon</i>, or a thing as it is in itself. The phenomenon is
+composed, in part, of subjective elements supplied by the mind
+itself; as regards intuition, the forms of space and time; as
+regards thought, the categories of Quantity, Quality, Relation,
+and Modality. To perceive a thing in itself would be to perceive
+it neither in space nor in time. To think a thing in itself
+would be not to think it under any of the categories. The
+phenomenal is thus the product of the inherent laws of our
+own constitution, and, as such, is the sum and limit of all our
+knowledge.<a id="footnotetag307" name="footnotetag307"></a>
+<a href="#footnote307"><sup class="sml">307</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote305"
+name="footnote305"><b>Footnote 305: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag305">
+(return) </a> Martineau's "Essays," p. 234.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote306"
+name="footnote306"><b>Footnote 306: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag306">
+(return) </a> M'Cosh's "Defense of Fundamental Truth," p. 106.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote307"
+name="footnote307"><b>Footnote 307: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag307">
+(return) </a> Mansel's "Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant," pp. 21, 22.</blockquote>
+
+<p>This, in its main features, is evidently the doctrine propounded
+by Hamilton. The special modes in which existence
+is cognizable" are presented to, and known by, the mind <i>under
+modifications determined by the faculties themselves</i>."<a id="footnotetag308" name="footnotetag308"></a>
+<a href="#footnote308"><sup class="sml">308</sup></a> This doctrine
+he illustrates by the following supposition: "Suppose the
+total object of consciousness in perception is=12; and suppose
+that the external reality contributes 6, the material sense 3,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="233" >233</a></span>
+and the mind 3; this may enable you to form some rude conjecture
+of the nature of the object of perception."<a id="footnotetag309" name="footnotetag309"></a>
+<a href="#footnote309"><sup class="sml">309</sup></a> The conclusion
+at which Hamilton arrives, therefore, is that things are
+not known to us as they exist, but simply as they appear, and
+as our minds are capable of perceiving them.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote308"
+name="footnote308"><b>Footnote 308: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag308">
+(return) </a> Hamilton's "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 148.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote309"
+name="footnote309"><b>Footnote 309: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag309">
+(return) </a> Hamilton's "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 129; and also vol. i.
+p. 147.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Let us test the validity of this majestic deliverance. No
+man is justified in making this assertion unless, 1. He knows
+things as they exist; 2. He knows things not only as they exist
+but as they appear; 3. He is able to compare things as they
+exist with the same things as they appear. Now, inasmuch as
+Sir William Hamilton affirms we do not know things as they
+exist, but only as they appear, how can he know that there is
+any difference between things as they exist and as they appear?
+What is this "<i>thing in itself</i>" about which Hamilton has so
+much to say, and yet about which he professes to know nothing?
+We readily understand what is meant by the <i>thing</i>; it is the
+object as existing--a substance manifesting certain characteristic
+qualities. But what is meant by <i>in itself</i>? There can be
+no <i>in itself</i> besides or beyond the <i>thing</i>. If Hamilton means
+that "the thing itself" is the thing apart from all relation, and
+devoid of all properties or qualities, we do not acknowledge
+any such thing. A thing apart from all relation, and devoid
+of all qualities, is simply pure nothing, if such a solecism may
+be permitted. With such a definition of Being <i>in se</i>, the logic
+of Hegel is invincible, "Being and Nothing are identical."</p>
+
+<p>And now, if "the thing in itself" be, as Hamilton says it is,
+absolutely <i>unknown</i>, how can he affirm or deny any thing in
+regard to it? By what right does he prejudge a hidden reality,
+and give or refuse its predicates; as, for example, that it is
+conditioned or unconditioned, in relation or aloof from relation,
+finite or infinite? Is it not plain that, in declaring a thing in
+its inmost nature or essence to be inscrutable, it is assumed to
+be partially <i>known</i>? And it is obvious, notwithstanding some
+unguarded expressions to the contrary, that Hamilton does
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="234" >234</a></span>
+regard "the thing in itself" as partially known. "The external
+reality" is, at least, six elements out of twelve in the "total object
+of consciousness."<a id="footnotetag310" name="footnotetag310"></a>
+<a href="#footnote310"><sup class="sml">310</sup></a> The primary qualities of matter are
+known as in the things themselves; "they develop themselves
+with rigid necessity out of the simple datum of <i>substance occupying
+space</i>."<a id="footnotetag311" name="footnotetag311"></a>
+<a href="#footnote311"><sup class="sml">311</sup></a> "The Primary Qualities are apprehended as they
+are in bodies"--"they are the attributes of <i>body as body</i>," and
+as such "are known immediately in themselves,"<a id="footnotetag312" name="footnotetag312"></a>
+<a href="#footnote312"><sup class="sml">312</sup></a> as well as
+mediately by their effects upon us. So that we not only know
+by direct consciousness certain properties of things as they exist
+in things themselves, but we can also deduce them in an <i>à priori</i>
+manner. "The bare notion of matter being given, the Primary
+Qualities may be deduced <i>à priori</i>; they being, in fact,
+only evolutions of the conditions which that notion necessarily
+implies." If, then, we know the qualities of things as "in the
+things themselves," "the things themselves" must also be, at
+least, partially known; and Hamilton can not consistently assert
+the relativity of <i>all</i> knowledge. Even if it be granted that
+our cognitions of objects are only in part dependent on the
+objects themselves, and in part on elements superadded by our
+organism, or by our minds, it can not warrant the assertion
+that all our knowledge, but only the part so added, is relative.
+"The admixture of the relative element not only does not take
+away the absolute character of the remainder, but does not
+even (if our author is right) prevent us from recognizing it.
+The confusion, according to him, is not inextricable. It is
+for us 'to analyze and distinguish what elements,' in an 'act
+of knowledge,' are contributed by the object, and what by the
+organs or by the mind."<a id="footnotetag313" name="footnotetag313"></a>
+<a href="#footnote313"><sup class="sml">313</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote310"
+name="footnote310"><b>Footnote 310: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag310">
+(return) </a> "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 129.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote311"
+name="footnote311"><b>Footnote 311: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag311">
+(return) </a> Philosophy of Sir Wm. Hamilton, p. 357.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote312"
+name="footnote312"><b>Footnote 312: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag312">
+(return) </a> Ibid., pp. 377, 378.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote313"
+name="footnote313"><b>Footnote 313: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag313">
+(return) </a> Mill's "Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i. p. 44.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Admitting the relative character of human thought as a psychological
+fact, Mr. Martineau has conclusively shown that this
+law, instead of visiting us with disability to transcend phenomena,
+<i>operates as a revelation of what exists beyond</i>. "The finite
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="235">235</a></span>
+body cut out before our visual perception, or embraced by the
+hands, lies as an island in the emptiness around, and without
+comparative reference to this can not be represented: the same
+experience which gives us the definite object gives us also the
+infinite space; and both terms--the limited appearance and
+the unlimited ground--are apprehended with equal certitude
+and clearness, and furnished with names equally susceptible of
+distinct use in predication and reasoning. The transient successions,
+for instance, the strokes of a clock, which we count,
+present themselves to us as dotted out upon a line of permanent
+duration; of which, without them, we should have no apprehension,
+but which as their condition, is unreservedly known."<a id="footnotetag314" name="footnotetag314"></a>
+<a href="#footnote314"><sup class="sml">314</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>"What we have said with regard to space and time applies
+equally tο the case of Causation. Here, too, the finite offered
+to perception introduces to an Infinite supplied by thought.
+As a definite body reveals also the space around, and an interrupted
+succession exhibits the uniform time beneath, so does
+the passing phenomenon demand for itself a power beneath.
+The space, and time, and power, not being part of the thing
+perceived, but its conditions, are guaranteed to us, therefore,
+on the warrant, not of sense, but of intellect."<a id="footnotetag315" name="footnotetag315"></a>
+<a href="#footnote315"><sup class="sml">315</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>"We conclude, then, on reviewing these examples of Space,
+and Time, and Causation, that ontological ideas introducing us
+to certain fixed entities belong no less to our knowledge than
+scientific ideas of phenomenal disposition and succession."<a id="footnotetag316" name="footnotetag316"></a>
+<a href="#footnote316"><sup class="sml">316</sup></a>
+In these instances of relation between a phenomenon given in
+perception and an entity as a logical condition, the correlatives
+are on a perfect equality of intellectual validity, and the relative
+character of human thought is not an ontological disqualification,
+but a cognitive power.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote314"
+name="footnote314"><b>Footnote 314: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag314">
+(return) </a> "Essays," pp. 193,194.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote315"
+name="footnote315"><b>Footnote 315: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag315">
+(return) </a> Ibid., p. 197.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote316"
+name="footnote316"><b>Footnote 316: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag316">
+(return) </a> Ibid., p. 195.</blockquote>
+
+<p>There is a thread of fallacy running through the whole of
+Hamilton's reasonings, consequent upon a false definition of
+the Absolute at the outset. The Absolute is defined as <i>that
+which exists in and by itself, aloof from and out of all relation</i>.
+An absolute, as thus defined, does not and can not exist; it is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="236" >236</a></span>
+a pure abstraction, and, in fact, a pure non-entity. "The Absolute
+expresses perfect independence both in being and in
+action, and is applicable to God as self-existent."<a id="footnotetag317" name="footnotetag317"></a>
+<a href="#footnote317"><sup class="sml">317</sup></a> It may
+mean the absence of all <i>necessary</i> relation, but it does not mean
+the absence of <i>all</i> relation. If God can not <i>voluntarily</i> call a
+finite existence into being, and thus stand in the relation of
+cause, He is certainly under the severest limitation. But surely
+that is not a limit which substitutes choice for necessity. To
+be unable to know God out of all relation--that is, apart from
+his attributes, apart from his created universe, is not felt by us
+to be any privation at all. A God without attributes, and out
+of all relations, is for us no God at all. God as a being of unlimited
+perfection, as infinitely wise and good, as the unconditioned
+cause of all finite being, and, consequently, as voluntarily
+related to nature and humanity, we can and do know; this is
+the living and true God. The God of a false philosophy is not
+the true God; the pure abstractions of Hegel and Hamilton
+are negations, and not realities.</p>
+
+<p>2. We proceed to consider the second fundamental principle
+of Hamilton's philosophy of the conditioned, viz., that "conditional
+limitation is the fundamental law of the possibility of
+thought," and that thought necessarily imposes conditions on
+its object.</p>
+
+<p>"Thought," says Hamilton, "can not transcend consciousness:
+consciousness is only possible under the antithesis of a
+subject and an object known only in correlation, and <i>mutually
+limiting each other</i>"<a id="footnotetag318" name="footnotetag318"></a>
+<a href="#footnote318"><sup class="sml">318</sup></a> Thought necessarily supposes conditions;
+"to think is simply to condition," that is, to predicate limits;
+and as the infinite is the unlimited, it can not be thought.
+The very attempt to think the infinite renders it finite; therefore
+there can be no infinite <i>in thought</i>, and, consequently, the
+infinite can not be known.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote317"
+name="footnote317"><b>Footnote 317: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag317">
+(return) </a> Calderwood's "Philosophy of the Infinite," p. 179.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote318"
+name="footnote318"><b>Footnote 318: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag318">
+(return) </a> "Discussions," p. 21.</blockquote>
+
+<p>If by "the infinite in thought" is here meant the infinite
+compassed or contained in thought, we readily grant that the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="237">237</a></span>
+finite can not contain the infinite; it is a simple truism which no
+one has ever been so foolish as to deny. Even Cousin is not
+so unwise as to assert the absolutely comprehensibility of God.
+"In order absolutely to comprehend the Infinite, it is necessary
+to have an infinite power of comprehension, and this is
+not granted to us."<a id="footnotetag319" name="footnotetag319"></a>
+<a href="#footnote319"><sup class="sml">319</sup></a> A finite mind can not have "an infinite
+thought." But it by no means follows that, because we can
+not have infinite thought, we can have no clear and definite
+thought of or concerning the Infinite. We have a precise and
+definite idea of infinitude; we can define the idea; we can set
+it apart without danger of being confounded with another, and
+we can reason concerning it. There is nothing we more certainly
+and intuitively know than that space is infinite, and yet
+we can not comprehend or grasp within the compass of our
+thought the infinite space. We can not form an <i>image</i> of infinite
+space, can not traverse it in perception, or represent it
+by any combination of numbers; but we can have the <i>thought</i>
+of it as an idea of Reason, and can argue concerning it with
+precision and accuracy.<a id="footnotetag320" name="footnotetag320"></a>
+<a href="#footnote320"><sup class="sml">320</sup></a> Hamilton has an idea of the Infinite;
+he defines it; he reasons concerning it; he says "we must believe
+in the infinity of God." But how can he define the Infinite
+unless he possesses some knowledge, however limited, of
+the infinite Being? How can he believe in the infinity of God
+if he has no definite idea of infinitude? He can not reason
+about, can not affirm or deny any thing concerning, that of
+which he knows absolutely nothing.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote319"
+name="footnote319"><b>Footnote 319: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag319">
+(return) </a> "Lectures on History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 104.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote320"
+name="footnote320"><b>Footnote 320: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag320">
+(return) </a> "To form an <i>image</i> of any infinitude--be it of time or space [or power];
+to go mentally through it by successive steps of representation--is indeed
+impossible; not less so than to traverse it in our finite perception and experience.
+But to have the <i>thought</i> of it as an idea of the reason, not of the
+phantasy, and assign that thought a constituent place in valid beliefs and
+consistent reasonings, appears to us as not only possible, but inevitable."--Martineau's
+"Essays," p. 205.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The grand logical barrier which Hamilton perpetually interposes
+to all possible cognition of God <i>as infinite</i> is, that to
+think is to condition--to limit; and as the Infinite is the unconditioned,
+the unlimited, therefore "the Infinite can not be
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="238">238</a></span>
+<i>thought</i>." We grant at once that all human thought is limited
+and finite, but, at the same time, we emphatically deny that the
+limitation of our thought imposes any conditions or limits upon
+the object of thought. No such affirmation can be consistently
+made, except on the Hegelian hypothesis that "Thought and
+Being are identical;" and this is a maxim which Hamilton
+himself repudiates. Our thought does not create, neither does
+it impose conditions upon, any thing.</p>
+
+<p>There is a lurking sophism in the whole phraseology of
+Hamilton in regard to this subject. He is perpetually talking
+about "thinking a thing"--"thinking the Infinite." Now we
+do not think a thing, but we think <i>of</i> or <i>concerning</i> a thing. We
+do not think a man, neither does our thought impose any conditions
+upon the man, so that he must be as our thought conceives
+or represents him; but our thought is of the man, concerning
+or about the man, and is only so far true and valid as
+it conforms to the objective reality. And so we do not "think
+the Infinite;" that is, our thought neither contains nor conditions
+the Infinite Being, but our thoughts are <i>about</i> the Infinite
+One; and if we do not think of Him as a being of infinite
+perfection, our thought is neither worthy, nor just, nor true.<a id="footnotetag321" name="footnotetag321"></a>
+<a href="#footnote321"><sup class="sml">321</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote321"
+name="footnote321"><b>Footnote 321: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag321">
+(return) </a> Calderwood's "Philosophy of the Infinite," pp. 255, 256.</blockquote>
+
+<p>But we are told the law of all thought and of all being is
+determination; consequently, negation of some quality or some
+potentiality; whereas the Infinite is "<i>the One and the All</i>"
+(τὸ Ἕν καὶ Πῦν),<a id="footnotetag322" name="footnotetag322"></a>
+<a href="#footnote322"><sup class="sml">322</sup></a> or, as Dr. Mansel, the disciple and annotator
+of Hamilton, affirms, "the sum of all reality," and "the sum of
+all possible modes of being."<a id="footnotetag323" name="footnotetag323"></a>
+<a href="#footnote323"><sup class="sml">323</sup></a> The Infinite, as thus defined,
+must include in itself all being, and all modes of being, actual
+and possible, not even excepting evil. And this, let it be observed,
+Dr. Mansel has the hardihood to affirm. "If the Absolute
+and the Infinite is an object of human conception at all,
+this, and none other, is the conception required."<a id="footnotetag324" name="footnotetag324"></a>
+<a href="#footnote324"><sup class="sml">324</sup></a> "The Infinite
+Whole," as thus defined, can not be thought, and therefore
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="239">239</a></span>
+it is argued the Infinite God can not be known. Such a
+doctrine shocks our moral sense, and we shrink from the thought
+of an Infinite which includes evil. There is certainly a moral
+impropriety, if not a logical impossibility, in such a conception
+of God.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote322"
+name="footnote322"><b>Footnote 322: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag322">
+(return) </a> Hamilton's "Lectures on Metaphysics," Appendix, vol. ii. p. 531.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote323"
+name="footnote323"><b>Footnote 323: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag323">
+(return) </a> "Limits of Religious Thought," p. 76.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote324"
+name="footnote324"><b>Footnote 324: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag324">
+(return) </a> Ibid.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The fallacy of this reasoning consists in confounding a <i>supposed</i>
+Quantitative Infinite with <i>the</i> Qualitative Infinite--the totality
+of existence with the infinitely perfect One. "Qualitative
+infinity is a secondary predicate; that is, the attribute of an attribute,
+and is expressed by the adverb <i>infinitely</i> rather than
+the adjective <i>infinite</i>. For instance, it is a strict use of language
+to say, that space is infinite, but it is an elliptical use of
+language to say, God is infinite. Precision of language would
+require us to say, God is infinitely good, wise, and great; or
+God is good, and his goodness is infinite. The distinction may
+seem trivial, but it is based upon an important difference between
+the infinity of space and time on the one hand, and the
+infinity of God on the other. Neither philosophy nor theology
+can afford to disregard the difference. Quantitative Infinity is
+illimitation by <i>quantity</i>. Qualitative Infinity is illimitation by
+<i>degree</i>. Quantity and degree alike imply finitude, and are categories
+of the finite alone. The danger of arguing from the former
+kind of infinitude to the latter can not be overstated. God
+alone possesses Qualitative Infinity, which is strictly synonymous
+with <i>absolute perfection</i>; and the neglect of the distinction
+between this and Quantitative Infinity, leads irresistibly to pantheistic
+and materialistic notions. Spinozism is possible only
+by the elevation of 'infinite extension' to the dignity of a divine
+attribute. Dr. Samuel Clarke's identification of God's immensity
+with space has been shown by Martin to ultimate in
+Pantheism. From ratiocinations concerning the incomprehensibility
+of infinite space and time, Hamilton and Mansel pass
+at once to conclusions concerning the incomprehensibility of
+God. The inconsequence of all such arguments is absolute;
+and if philosophy tolerates the transference of spatial or temporal
+analogies to the nature of God, she must reconcile herself
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="240" >240</a></span>
+to the negation of his personality and spirituality."<a id="footnotetag325" name="footnotetag325"></a>
+<a href="#footnote325"><sup class="sml">325</sup></a> An
+Infinite Being, quite remote from the notion of <i>quantity</i>, may
+and does exist; which, on the one hand, does not include finite
+existence, and, on the other hand, does not render the finite
+impossible to thought. Without contradiction they may coexist,
+and be correlated.</p>
+
+<p>The thought will have already suggested itself to the mind
+of the reader that for Hamilton to assert that the Infinite, as
+thus defined (the One and the All), is absolutely unknown, is
+certainly the greatest absurdity, for in that case nothing can
+be known. This Infinite must be at least partially known, or
+all human knowledge is reduced to zero. To the all-inclusive
+Infinite every thing affirmative belongs, not only to be, but to
+be known. To claim it for being, yet deny it to thought, is
+thus impossible. The Infinite, which includes all real existence,
+is certainly possible to cognition.</p>
+
+<p>The whole argument as regards the conditionating nature of
+all thought is condensed into four words by Spinoza--"<i>Omnis
+determinatio est negatio</i>;" all determination is negation. Nothing
+can be more arbitrary or more fallacious than this principle.
+It arises from the confusion of two things essentially different--<i>the
+limits of a being</i>, and <i>its determinate and distinguishing
+characteristics</i>. The limit of a being is its imperfection; the
+determination of a being is its perfection. The less a thing is
+determined, the more it sinks in the scale of being; the most
+determinate being is the most perfect being. "In this sense
+God is the only being absolutely determined. For there must
+be something indetermined in all finite beings, since they have
+all imperfect powers which tend towards their development
+after an indefinite manner. God alone, the complete Being in
+whom all powers are actualized, escapes by His own perfection
+from all progress, and development, and indetermination."<a id="footnotetag326" name="footnotetag326"></a>
+<a href="#footnote326"><sup class="sml">326</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote325"
+name="footnote325"><b>Footnote 325: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag325">
+(return) </a> North American Review, October, 1864, article, "The Conditioned and
+the Unconditioned," pp. 422, 423. See also Young's "Province of Reason,"
+p. 72; and Calderwood's "Philosophy of the Infinite," p. 183.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote326"
+name="footnote326"><b>Footnote 326: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag326">
+(return) </a> Saisset, "Modern Pantheism," vol. ii. p. 71.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="241">241</a></span>
+
+<p>All real being must be determined; only pure Nothing can be
+undetermined. <i>Determination</i> is, however, one thing; and <i>limitation</i>
+is essentially another thing. "Even space and time,
+though cognized solely by negative characteristics, are determined
+in so far as differentiated from the existences they contain;
+but this differentiation involves no limitation of their
+infinity." If all distinction is determination, and if all determination
+is negation, that is (as here used), limitation, then the
+infinite, as distinguished from the finite, loses its own infinity,
+and either becomes identical with the finite, or else vanishes
+into pure nothing. If Hamilton will persist in affirming that
+all determination is limitation, he has no other alternatives but
+to accept the doctrine of Absolute Nihilism, or of Absolute
+Identity. If the Absolute is the indeterminate--that is, no
+attributes, no consciousness, no relations--it is pure non-being.
+If the Infinite is "the One and All," then there is but one
+substance, one absolute entity.</p>
+
+<p>Herbert Spencer professes to be carrying out, a step farther,
+the doctrine put into shape by Hamilton and Mansel, viz., "the
+philosophy of the Unconditioned." In other words, he carries
+that doctrine forward to its rigidly logical consequences, and utters
+the last word which Hamilton and Mansel dare not utter--"Apprehensible
+by us there is no God." The Ultimate
+Reality is absolutely unknown; it can not be apprehended by
+the human intellect, and it can not present itself to the intellect
+at all. This Ultimate Reality can not be <i>intelligent</i>, because
+to think is to condition, and the Absolute is the unconditioned;
+can not be <i>conscious</i>, because all consciousness is of plurality
+and difference, and the Absolute is one; can not be <i>personal</i>,
+because personality is determination or limitation, and the Infinite
+is the illimitable. It is "audacious," "irreverent," "impious,"
+to apply any of these predicates to it; to regard it as
+Mind, or speak of it as Righteous.<a id="footnotetag327" name="footnotetag327"></a>
+<a href="#footnote327"><sup class="sml">327</sup></a> The ultimate goal of the
+philosophy of the Unconditioned is a purely subjective Atheism.</p>
+
+<p>And yet of this Primary Existence--inscrutable, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="242">242</a></span>
+absolutely unknown--Spencer knows something; knows as much
+as he pleases to know. He knows that this "ultimate of ultimates
+is <i>Force</i>,"<a id="footnotetag328" name="footnotetag328"></a>
+<a href="#footnote328"><sup class="sml">328</sup></a> an "<i>Omnipresent Power</i>,"<a id="footnotetag329" name="footnotetag329"></a>
+<a href="#footnote329"><sup class="sml">329</sup></a> is "<i>One</i>" and
+"<i>Eternal</i>."<a id="footnotetag330" name="footnotetag330"></a>
+<a href="#footnote330"><sup class="sml">330</sup></a> He knows also that it can not be intelligent,
+self-conscious, and a personality.<a id="footnotetag331" name="footnotetag331"></a>
+<a href="#footnote331"><sup class="sml">331</sup></a> This is a great deal to
+affirm and deny of an existence "absolutely unknown." May
+we not be permitted to affirm of this hidden and unknown
+something that it is <i>conscious Mind</i>, especially as Mind is admitted
+to be the only analogon of Power; and "the <i>force</i> by
+which we produce change, and which serves to symbolize the
+causes of changes in general, is the final disclosure of analysis."<a id="footnotetag332" name="footnotetag332"></a>
+<a href="#footnote332"><sup class="sml">332</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote327"
+name="footnote327"><b>Footnote 327: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag327">
+(return) </a> "First Principles," pp. 111, 112.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote328"
+name="footnote328"><b>Footnote 328: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag328">
+(return) </a> "First Principles," p. 235.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote329"
+name="footnote329"><b>Footnote 329: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag329">
+(return) </a> Ibid., p. 99.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote330"
+name="footnote330"><b>Footnote 330: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag330">
+(return) </a> Ibid., p. 81.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote331"
+name="footnote331"><b>Footnote 331: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag331">
+(return) </a> Ibid., pp. 108-112.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote332"
+name="footnote332"><b>Footnote 332: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag332">
+(return) </a> Ibid., p. 235.</blockquote>
+
+<p>3. We advance to the review of the third fundamental principle
+of Hamilton's philosophy of the Unconditioned, viz., that
+the terms infinite and absolute are names for a "mere negation
+of thought"--a "mental impotence" to think, or, in other
+words, the absence of all the conditions under which thought is
+possible.</p>
+
+<p>This principle is based upon a distinction between "positive"
+and "negative" thought, which is made with an air of
+wonderful precision and accuracy in "the Alphabet of Human
+Thought."<a id="footnotetag333" name="footnotetag333"></a>
+<a href="#footnote333"><sup class="sml">333</sup></a> "Thinking is <i>positive</i> when existence is predicated
+of an object." "Thinking is <i>negative</i> when existence is not attributed
+to an object." "Negative thinking," therefore, is not
+the thinking of an object as devoid of this or that particular
+attribute, but as devoid of all attributes, and thus of all existence;
+that is, it is "the negation of all thought"--<i>nothing</i>.
+"When we think a thing, that is done by conceiving it as possessed
+of certain modes of being or qualities, <i>and the sum of
+these qualities constitutes its concept or notion</i>." "When we perform
+an act of negative thought, this is done by thinking <i>something</i>
+as <i>not</i> existing in this or that determinate mode; and
+when we think it as existing in no determinate mode, <i>we cease
+to think at all--it becomes a nothing</i>."<a id="footnotetag334" name="footnotetag334"></a>
+<a href="#footnote334"><sup class="sml">334</sup></a> Now the Infinite,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="243" >243</a></span>
+according to Hamilton, can not be thought in any determinate
+mode; therefore we do not think it at all, and therefore it is
+for us "a logical Non-entity."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote333"
+name="footnote333"><b>Footnote 333: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag333">
+(return) </a> "Discussions," Appendix I. p. 567.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote334"
+name="footnote334"><b>Footnote 334: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag334">
+(return) </a> "Logic," pp. 54, 55.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It is barely conceivable that Hamilton might imagine himself
+possessed of this singular power of "performing an act of
+negative thought"--that is, of thinking and not thinking at
+once, or of "thinking something" that "becomes nothing;"
+we are not conscious of any such power. To think without an
+object of thought, or to think of something without any qualities,
+or to think "something" which in the act of thought melts
+away into "nothing," is an absurdity and a contradiction. We
+can not think about nothing. All thought must have an object,
+and every object must have some predicate. Even space
+has some predicates--as receptivity, unity, and infinity.
+Thought can only be realized by thinking something existing,
+and existing in a determinate manner; and when we cease to
+think something having predicates, we cease to think at all.
+This is emphatically asserted by Hamilton himself.<a id="footnotetag335" name="footnotetag335"></a>
+<a href="#footnote335"><sup class="sml">335</sup></a> "Negative
+thinking" is, therefore, a meaningless phrase, a contradiction
+in terms; it is no thought at all. We are cautioned, however,
+against regarding "the negation of thought" as "a negation
+of all mental ability." It is, we are told, "an attempt to
+think, and a failure in the attempt." An attempt to think
+about <i>what</i>? Surely it must be about some object, and an object
+which is <i>known</i> by some sign, else there can be no thought.
+Let any one make the attempt to think without something to
+think about, and he will find that both the process and the result
+are blank nothingness. All thought, therefore, as Calderwood
+has amply shown, is, must be, <i>positive</i>. "Thought is
+nothing else than the comparison of objects known; and as
+knowledge is always positive, so must our thought be. All
+knowledge implies an object <i>known</i>; and so all thought involves
+an object about which we think, and must, therefore, be
+positive--that is, it must embrace within itself the conception
+of certain qualities as belonging to the object."<a id="footnotetag336" name="footnotetag336"></a>
+<a href="#footnote336"><sup class="sml">336</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote335"
+name="footnote335"><b>Footnote 335: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag335">
+(return) </a> "Logic," p. 55.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote336"
+name="footnote336"><b>Footnote 336: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag336">
+(return) </a> "Philosophy of the Infinite," p. 272.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="244">244</a></span>
+
+<p>The conclusion of Hamilton's reasoning in regard to "negative
+thinking" is, that we can form no notion of the Infinite
+Being. We have no positive idea of such a Being. We can
+think of him only by "the thinking away of every characteristic"
+which can be conceived, and thus "ceasing to think at
+all." We can only form a "negative concept," which, we are
+told, "is in fact no concept at all." We can form only a "negative
+notion," which, we are informed, "is only the negation of
+a notion." This is the impenetrable abyss of total gloom and
+emptiness into which the philosophy of the conditions leads us
+at last.<a id="footnotetag337" name="footnotetag337"></a>
+<a href="#footnote337"><sup class="sml">337</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote337"
+name="footnote337"><b>Footnote 337: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag337">
+(return) </a> Whilst Spencer accepts the general doctrine of Hamilton, that the Ultimate
+Reality is inscrutable, he argues earnestly against his assertion that
+the Absolute is a "mere negation of thought."
+
+<p>"Every one of the arguments by which the relativity of our knowledge is
+demonstrated distinctly postulates the <i>positive existence</i> of something beyond
+the relative. To say we can not know the Absolute is, by implication, to
+affirm there <i>is</i> an Absolute. In the very denial of our power to learn <i>what</i>
+the Absolute is, there lies hidden the assumption <i>that</i> it is; and the making
+of this assumption proves that the Absolute has been present to the mind,
+not as nothing, but as <i>something</i>. And so with every step in the reasoning
+by which the doctrine is upheld, the Noumenon, everywhere named as the
+antithesis of the Phenomenon, is throughout thought as actuality. It is
+rigorously impossible to conceive that our knowledge is a knowledge of
+appearances only, without, at the same time, conceiving a Reality of which
+these are appearances, for appearances without reality are unthinkable.</p>
+
+<p>"Truly to represent or realize in thought any one of the propositions of
+which the argument consists, the unconditioned must be represented as <i>positive</i>,
+and not negative. How, then, can it be a legitimate conclusion from
+the argument that our consciousness of it is negative? An argument, the
+very construction of which assigns to a certain term a certain meaning, but
+which ends in showing that this term has no meaning, is simply an elaborate
+suicide. Clearly, then, the very demonstration that a definite consciousness
+[comprehension] of the Absolute is impossible, unavoidably presupposes an
+indefinite consciousness of it [an apprehension]."--"First Principles," p. 88.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Still we have the word <i>infinite</i>, and we have <i>the notion</i> which
+the word expresses. This, at least, is spared to us by Sir William
+Hamilton. He who says we have no such notion asks
+the question <i>how we have it?</i> Here it may be asked, how
+have we, then, the word infinite? How have we the notion
+which this word expresses? The answer to this question is
+contained in the distinction of positive and negative thought.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="245">245</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We have a positive concept of a thing when we think of it by
+the qualities of which it is the complement. But as the attribution
+of qualities is an affirmation, as affirmation and negation
+are relatives, and as relatives <i>are known only in and through
+each other</i>, we can not, therefore, have a <i>consciousness</i> of the
+affirmation of any quality without having, at the same time, the
+<i>correlative consciousness</i> of its negation. Now the one consciousness
+is a positive, the other consciousness is a negative notion;
+and as all language is the reflex of thought, the positive and
+negative notions are expressed by positive and negative names.
+Thus it is with the Infinite.<a id="footnotetag338" name="footnotetag338"></a>
+<a href="#footnote338"><sup class="sml">338</sup></a> Now let us carefully scrutinize
+the above deliverance. We are told that "relatives are known
+only in and through each other;" that is, such relatives as
+<i>finite</i> and <i>infinite</i> are known necessarily in the same act of
+thought. The knowledge of one is as necessary as the knowledge
+of the other. We can not have a consciousness of the
+one without the correlative consciousness of the other. "For,"
+says Hamilton, "a relation is, in truth, a thought, one and indivisible;
+and while the thinking a relation <i>necessarily involves
+the thought of its two terms,</i>, so it is, with equal necessity, itself
+involved in the thought of either." If, then, we are <i>conscious</i>
+of the two terms of the relation in the same "one and indivisible"
+mental act--if we can not have "the consciousness of the
+one without the consciousness of the other"--if space and position,
+time and succession, substance and quality, infinite and
+finite, are given to us in pairs, then 'the <i>knowledge of one is as
+necessary as the knowledge of the other,</i>' and they must stand or
+fall together. The finite is known no more positively than the
+infinite; the infinite is known as positively as the finite. The
+one can not be taken and the other left. The infinite, discharged
+from all relation to the finite, could never come into
+apprehension; and the finite, discharged of all relation to the
+infinite, is incognizable too. "There can be no objection to
+call the one 'positive' and the other 'negative,' provided it
+be understood that <i>each</i> is so with regard to the other, and that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="246" >246</a></span>
+the relation is convertible; the finite, for instance, being the
+negative of the infinite, not less than the infinite of the finite."<a id="footnotetag339" name="footnotetag339"></a>
+<a href="#footnote339"><sup class="sml">339</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote338"
+name="footnote338"><b>Footnote 338: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag338">
+(return) </a> <i>Logic,</i> p. 73.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote339"
+name="footnote339"><b>Footnote 339: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag339">
+(return) </a> Martineau's "Essays," p. 237.</blockquote>
+
+<p>To say that the finite is comprehensible in and by itself, and
+the infinite is incomprehensible in and by itself, is to make an
+assertion utterly at variance both with psychology and logic.
+The finite is no more comprehensible <i>in itself</i> than the infinite.
+"Relatives are known only in and through each other."<a id="footnotetag340" name="footnotetag340"></a>
+<a href="#footnote340"><sup class="sml">340</sup></a>] "The
+conception of one term of a relation necessarily implies that of
+the other, it being the very nature of a relative to be thinkable
+only through the conjunct thought of its correlative." We
+comprehend nothing more completely than the infinite; "for
+the idea of illimitation is as clear, precise, and intelligible as
+the idea of limitability, which is its basis. The propositions
+"A is X" "A is not X," are equally comprehensible; the conceptions
+A and X are in both cases positive data of experience,
+while the affirmation and negation consist solely in the copulative
+or disjunctive nature of the predication. Consequently,
+if X is comprehensible, so is not--X; if the finite is comprehensible,
+so is the infinite."<a id="footnotetag341" name="footnotetag341"></a>
+<a href="#footnote341"><sup class="sml">341</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Whilst denying that the infinite can by us be <i>known</i>, Hamilton
+tells us he is "far from denying that it is, must, and ought
+to be <i>believed</i>."<a id="footnotetag342" name="footnotetag342"></a>
+<a href="#footnote342"><sup class="sml">342</sup></a> "We must believe in the infinity of God."
+"Faith--belief--is the organ by which we apprehend what is
+beyond knowledge."<a id="footnotetag343" name="footnotetag343"></a>
+<a href="#footnote343"><sup class="sml">343</sup></a> We heartily assent to the doctrine that
+the Infinite Being is the object of faith, but we earnestly deny
+that the Infinite Being is not an object of knowledge. May
+not knowledge be grounded upon faith, and does not faith imply
+knowledge? Can we not obtain knowledge through faith?
+Is not the belief in the Infinite Being implied in our knowledge
+of finite existence? If so, then God as the infinite and perfect,
+God as the unconditioned Cause, is not absolutely "the unknown."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote340"
+name="footnote340"><b>Footnote 340: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag340">
+(return) </a> Hamilton's "Logic," p. 73.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote341"
+name="footnote341"><b>Footnote 341: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag341">
+(return) </a> North American Review, October, 1864, article "Conditioned and the
+Unconditioned," pp. 441, 442.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote342"
+name="footnote342"><b>Footnote 342: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag342">
+(return) </a> Letter to Calderwood, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 530.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote343"
+name="footnote343"><b>Footnote 343: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag343">
+(return) </a> "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 374.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="247">247</a></span>
+
+<p>A full exposition of Sir William Hamilton's views of <i>Faith</i>
+in its connection with Philosophy would have been deeply interesting
+to us, and it would have filled up a gap in the interpretation
+of his system. The question naturally presents itself,
+how would he have discriminated between faith and knowledge,
+so as to assign to each its province? If our notion of the Infinite
+Being rests entirely upon faith, then upon what ultimate
+ground does faith itself rest? On the authority of Scripture,
+of the Church, or of reason? The only explicit statement of
+his view which has fallen in our way is a note in his edition of
+Reid.<a id="footnotetag344" name="footnotetag344"></a>
+<a href="#footnote344"><sup class="sml">344</sup></a> "We <i>know</i> what rests upon reason; we <i>believe</i> what
+rests upon authority. But reason itself must rest at last upon
+authority; for the original data of reason do not rest upon
+reason, but are necessarily accepted by reason on the authority
+of what is beyond itself. These data are, therefore, in rigid
+propriety, Beliefs or Trusts. Thus it is that, in the last resort,
+we must, per force, philosophically admit that belief is the primary
+condition of reason, and not reason the ultimate ground
+of belief."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote344"
+name="footnote344"><b>Footnote 344: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag344">
+(return) </a> P. 760; also Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, p. 61.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Here we have, first, an attempted distinction between faith
+and knowledge. "We <i>know</i> what rests upon reason;" that is,
+whatever we obtain by deduction or induction, whatever is capable
+of explication and proof, is <i>knowledge</i>. "We <i>believe</i> what
+rests upon authority;" that is, whatever we obtain by intellectual
+intuition or pure apperception, and is incapable of explication
+and of proof, is "a <i>belief or trust</i>." These instinctive
+beliefs, which are, as it were, the first principles upon which all
+knowledge rests, are, however, indiscriminately called by Hamilton
+"cognitions," "beliefs," "judgments." He declares most
+explicitly "that the principles of our knowledge must themselves
+be <i>knowledges</i>;"<a id="footnotetag345" name="footnotetag345"></a>
+<a href="#footnote345"><sup class="sml">345</sup></a> and these first principles, which are
+"the primary condition of reason," are elsewhere called "<i>à
+priori cognitions</i>;" also "native, pure, or transcendental <i>knowledge</i>,"
+in contradistinction to "<i>à posteriori cognitions</i>," or that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="248" >248</a></span>
+knowledge which is obtained in the exercise of reason.<a id="footnotetag346" name="footnotetag346"></a>
+<a href="#footnote346"><sup class="sml">346</sup></a> All
+this confusion results from an attempt to put asunder what
+God has joined together. As Clemens of Alexandria has said,
+"Neither is faith without knowledge, nor knowledge without
+faith." All faith implies knowledge, and all knowledge implies
+faith. They are mingled in the one operation of the human
+mind, by which we apprehend first principles or ultimate truths.
+These have their light and dark side, as Hamilton has remarked.
+They afford enough light to show <i>that</i> they are and
+must be, and thus communicate knowledge; they furnish no
+light to show <i>how</i> they are and <i>why</i> they are, and under that
+aspect demand the exercise of faith. There must, therefore,
+first be something <i>known</i> before there can be any <i>faith</i>.<a id="footnotetag347" name="footnotetag347"></a>
+<a href="#footnote347"><sup class="sml">347</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote345"
+name="footnote345"><b>Footnote 345: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag345">
+(return) </a> Ibid., p. 69.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote346"
+name="footnote346"><b>Footnote 346: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag346">
+(return) </a> "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 26.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote347"
+name="footnote347"><b>Footnote 347: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag347">
+(return) </a> M'Cosh, "Intuitions," pp. 197, 198; Calderwood, "Philosophy of the
+Infinite," p. 24.</blockquote>
+
+<p>And now we seem to have penetrated to the centre of Hamilton's
+philosophy, and the vital point may be touched by one
+crucial question, <i>Upon what ultimate ground does faith itself rest?</i>
+Hamilton says, "we believe what rests upon <i>authority</i>." But
+what is that authority? I. It is not the authority of Divine
+Revelation, because beliefs are called "instinctive," "native,"
+"innate," "common," "catholic,"<a id="footnotetag348" name="footnotetag348"></a>
+<a href="#footnote348"><sup class="sml">348</sup></a> all which terms seem to indicate
+that this "authority" lies within the sphere of the human
+mind; at any rate, this faith does not rest on the authority of
+Scripture. Neither is it the authority of Reason. "The original
+data of reason [the first principles of knowledge] do not
+rest upon the authority of reason, but <i>on the authority of what is
+beyond itself</i>." The question thus recurs, what is this ultimate
+ground beyond reason upon which faith rests? Does it rest
+upon any thing, or nothing?</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote348"
+name="footnote348"><b>Footnote 348: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag348">
+(return) </a> Philosophy of Sir Wm. Hamilton, pp. 68, 69.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The answer to this question is given in the so-called "Law
+of the Conditioned," which is thus laid down: "<i>All that is conceivable
+in thought lies between two extremes, which, as contradictory
+of each other, can not both be true, but of which, as mutual
+contradictories, one must</i>." For example, we conceive <i>space</i>, but
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="249" >249</a></span>
+we can not conceive it as absolutely bounded or infinitely unbounded.
+We can conceive <i>time</i>, but we can not conceive it
+as having an absolute commencement or an infinite non-commencement.
+We can conceive of <i>degree</i>, but we can not conceive
+it as absolutely limited or as infinitely unlimited. We
+can conceive of <i>existence</i>, but not as an absolute part or an infinite
+whole. Therefore, "the Conditioned is that which is
+alone conceivable or cogitable; the Unconditioned, that which
+is inconceivable or incogitable. The conditioned, or the thinkable,
+lies between two extremes or poles; and each of these
+extremes or poles are unconditioned, each of them inconceivable,
+each of them exclusive or contradictory of the other. Of
+these two repugnant opposites, the one is that of Unconditional
+or Absolute Limitation; the other that of Unconditional or Infinite
+Illimitation, or, more simply, the Absolute and the Infinite;
+the term <i>absolute</i> expressing that which is finished or
+complete, the term <i>infinite</i> that which can not be terminated or
+concluded."<a id="footnotetag349" name="footnotetag349"></a>
+<a href="#footnote349"><sup class="sml">349</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>"The conditioned is the mean between two extremes--two
+inconditionates, exclusive of each other, neither of which <i>can be
+conceived as possible</i>, but of which, on the principle of contradiction,
+and excluded middle, <i>one must be admitted as necessary</i>.
+We are thus warned from recognizing the domain of our knowledge
+as necessarily co-extensive with the horizon of our faith.
+And by a <i>wonderful revelation</i>, we are thus, in the very consciousness
+of our inability to conceive aught above the relative
+and the finite, <i>inspired with a belief in</i> the existence of something
+unconditioned beyond the sphere of all comprehensible
+reality."<a id="footnotetag350" name="footnotetag350"></a>
+<a href="#footnote350"><sup class="sml">350</sup></a> Here, then, we have found the ultimate ground of
+our faith in the Infinite God. It is built upon a "mental imbecility,"
+and buttressed up by "contradictions!"<a id="footnotetag351" name="footnotetag351"></a>
+<a href="#footnote351"><sup class="sml">351</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote349"
+name="footnote349"><b>Footnote 349: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag349">
+(return) </a> "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. pp. 368, 374. With Hamilton, the
+Unconditioned is a genus, of which the Infinite and Absolute are species.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote350"
+name="footnote350"><b>Footnote 350: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag350">
+(return) </a> "Discussions on Philosophy," p. 22.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote351"
+name="footnote351"><b>Footnote 351: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag351">
+(return) </a> The warmest admirers of Sir William Hamilton hesitate to apply the
+doctrine of the unconditioned to Cause and Free-will. See "Mansel's Prolegom.,"
+Note C, p. 265.</blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="250">250</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Such a faith, however, is built upon the clouds, and the whole
+structure of this philosophy is "a castle in the air"--an attempt
+to organize Nescience into Science, and evoke something out
+of nothing. To pretend to believe in that respecting which
+I can form no notion is in reality not to believe at all. The
+nature which compels me to believe in the Infinite must supply
+me some object upon which my belief can take hold. We can
+not believe in contradictions. Our faith must be a rational
+belief--a faith in the ultimate harmony and unity of all truth,
+in the veracity and integrity of human reason as the organ of
+truth; and, above all, a faith in the veracity of God, who is the
+author and illuminator of our mental constitution. "We can
+not suppose that we are created capable of intelligence in order
+to be made victims of delusion--that God is a deceiver, and
+the root of our nature a lie."<a id="footnotetag352" name="footnotetag352"></a>
+<a href="#footnote352"><sup class="sml">352</sup></a> We close our review of Hamilton
+by remarking:</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote352"
+name="footnote352"><b>Footnote 352: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag352">
+(return) </a> Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, p. 21.</blockquote>
+
+<p>1. "The Law of the Conditioned," as enounced by Hamilton,
+is contradictory. It predicates contradiction of two extremes,
+which are asserted to be equally incomprehensible and
+incognizable. If they are utterly incognizable, how does Hamilton
+<i>know</i> that they are contradictory? The mutual <i>relation</i>
+of two objects is said to be known, but the objects themselves
+are absolutely unknown. But how can we know any relation
+except by an act of comparison, and how can we compare two
+objects so as to affirm their relation, if the objects are absolutely
+unknown? "The Infinite is defined as Unconditional Illimitation;
+the Absolute as Conditional Limitation. Yet almost in
+the same breath we are told that each is utterly inconceivable,
+each the mere negation of thought. On the one hand, we are
+told they <i>differ</i>; on the other, we are told they do <i>not differ</i>.
+Now which does Hamilton mean? If he insist upon the definitions
+as yielding a ground of conceivable difference, he must
+abandon the inconceivability; but if he insist upon the inconceivability,
+he must abandon the definition as sheer verbiage,
+devoid of all conceivable meaning. There is no possible
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="251" >251</a></span>
+escape from this dilemma. Further, two negations can never
+contradict; for contradiction is the asserting and the denying
+of the same proposition; two denials can not conflict. If Illimitation
+is negative, Limitation, its contradictory, is positive,
+whether conditional or unconditional. In brief, if the Infinite
+and Absolute are wholly incomprehensible, they are not distinguishable;
+but if they are distinguishable, they are not
+wholly incomprehensible. If they are indistinguishable, they
+are to us identical; and identity precludes contradiction. But
+if they are distinguishable, distinction is made by difference,
+which involves positive cognition; hence one, at least, must be
+conceivable. It follows, therefore, by inexorable logic, that
+either the contradiction or the inconceivability must be abandoned."<a id="footnotetag353" name="footnotetag353"></a>
+<a href="#footnote353"><sup class="sml">353</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote353"
+name="footnote353"><b>Footnote 353: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag353">
+(return) </a> North American Review, October, 1864, pp. 407, 408.</blockquote>
+
+<p>2. "The Law of the Conditioned," as a ground of faith in
+the Infinite Being, is utterly void, meaningless, and ineffectual.
+Let us re-state it in Hamilton's own words: "The conditioned
+is the <i>mean</i> between two extremes, two inconditionates exclusive
+of each other, neither of which <i>can be conceived as possible</i>, but of
+which, on the principle of Contradiction and Excluded Middle,
+<i>one must be admitted as necessary</i>." It is scarcely needful to explain
+to the intelligent reader the above logical principles; that
+they may, however, be clearly before the mind in this connection,
+we state that the principle of Contradiction is this: "A
+thing can not at the same time be and not be; <i>A is</i>, <i>A is not</i>,
+are propositions which can not both be true at once." The
+principle of Excluded Middle is this: "A thing either is or is
+not--<i>A either is or is not B</i>; there is no <i>medium</i>."<a id="footnotetag354" name="footnotetag354"></a>
+<a href="#footnote354"><sup class="sml">354</sup></a> Now, to
+mention the law of Excluded Middle and two contradictories
+with a <i>mean</i> between them, in the same sentence, is really astounding.
+"If the two contradictory extremes are equally incogitable,
+yet include a cogitable mean, why insist upon the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="252" >252</a></span>
+necessity of accepting either extreme? This necessity of accepting
+one of the contradictories is wholly based upon the
+supposed impossibility of a <i>mean</i>; if a mean exists, <i>that</i> may
+be true, and both contradictories together false. But if a mean
+between two contradictories be both impossible and absurd,
+Hamilton's 'conditioned' entirely vanishes."<a id="footnotetag355" name="footnotetag355"></a>
+<a href="#footnote355"><sup class="sml">355</sup></a> If both contradictories
+are equally unknown and equally unthinkable, we can
+not discover <i>why</i>, on his principles, we are bound to believe
+<i>either</i>.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote354"
+name="footnote354"><b>Footnote 354: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag354">
+(return) </a> Hamilton's "Logic," pp. 58, 59; "Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 368.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote355"
+name="footnote355"><b>Footnote 355: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag355">
+(return) </a> North British Review, October, 1864, pp. 415, 416.</blockquote>
+
+<p>3. The whole of this confusion in thought and expression
+results from the habit of confounding the sensuous imagination
+with the non-sensuous reason, and the consequent co-ordination
+of an imageable conception with an abstract idea. The
+objects of sense and the sensuous imagination may be characterized
+as extension, limitation, figure, position, etc.; the objects
+of the non-sensuous reason may be characterized as universality,
+eternity, infinity. I can form an <i>image</i> of an extended and
+figured object, but I can not form an <i>image</i> of space, time, or
+God; neither, indeed, can I form an image of Goodness, Justice,
+or Truth. But I can have a clear and precise idea of
+space, and time, and God, as I can of Justice, Goodness, and
+Truth. There are many things which I can most surely <i>know</i>
+that I can not possibly <i>comprehend</i>, if to comprehend is to form
+a mental image of a thing. There is nothing which I more
+certainly know than that space is infinite, and eternity unbeginning
+and endless; but I can not comprehend the infinity of
+space or the illimitability of eternity. I know that God is, that
+he is a being of infinite perfection, but I can not throw my
+thoughts around and comprehend the infinity of God.</p>
+
+<p>(iv.) We come, lastly, to consider the position of the <i>Dogmatic
+Theologians</i>.<a id="footnotetag356" name="footnotetag356"></a>
+<a href="#footnote356"><sup class="sml">356</sup></a> In their zeal to demonstrate the necessity of Divine
+Revelation, and to vindicate for it the honor of supplying
+to us all our knowledge of God, they assail every fundamental
+principle of reason, often by the very weapons which are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="253" >253</a></span>
+supplied by an Atheistical philosophy. As a succinct presentation
+of the views of this school, we select the "<i>Theological Institutes</i>"
+of R. Watson.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote356"
+name="footnote356"><b>Footnote 356: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag356">
+(return) </a> Ellis, Leland, Locke, and Horsley, whose writings are extensively
+quoted in Watson's "Institutes of Theology" (reprinted by Carlton &amp; Lanahan,
+New York).</blockquote>
+
+<p>1st. The invalidity of "<i>the principle of causality</i>" is asserted
+by this author. "We allow that the argument which proves
+that the <i>effects</i> with which we are surrounded have been <i>caused</i>,
+and thus leads us up through a chain of subordinate causes to
+one First Cause, has a simplicity, an obviousness, and a force
+which, when we are previously furnished with the idea of God,
+makes it, at first sight, difficult to conceive that men, under any
+degree of cultivation, should be inadequate to it; yet if ever
+the human mind commenced such an inquiry at all, it is highly
+probable that it would rest in the notion of an <i>eternal succession
+of causes and effects</i>, rather than acquire the ideas of creation, in
+the proper sense, and of a Supreme Creator."<a id="footnotetag357" name="footnotetag357"></a>
+<a href="#footnote357"><sup class="sml">357</sup></a> "We feel that
+our reason rests with full satisfaction in the doctrine that all
+things are created by one eternal and self-existent Being; but
+the Greek philosophers held that matter was eternally co-existent
+with God. This was the opinion of Plato, who has been
+called the Moses of philosophy."<a id="footnotetag358" name="footnotetag358"></a>
+<a href="#footnote358"><sup class="sml">358</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>For a defense of "the principle of causality" we must refer
+the reader to our remarks on the philosophy of Comte. We
+shall now only remark on one or two peculiarities in the above
+statement which betray an utter misapprehension of the nature
+of the argument. We need scarcely direct attention to the unfortunate
+and, indeed, absurd phrase, "an eternal succession of
+causes and effects." An "eternal succession" is a <i>contradictio
+in adjecto</i>, and as such inconceivable and unthinkable. No
+human mind can "rest" in any such thing, because an eternal
+succession is no rest at all. All "succession" is finite and
+temporal, capable of numeration, and therefore can not be eternal.<a id="footnotetag359" name="footnotetag359"></a>
+<a href="#footnote359"><sup class="sml">359</sup></a>
+Again, in attaining the conception of a First Cause the
+human mind does not pass up "through a chain of subordinate
+causes," either definite or indefinite, "to one First Cause."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote357"
+name="footnote357"><b>Footnote 357: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag357">
+(return) </a> Watson's "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 273.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote358"
+name="footnote358"><b>Footnote 358: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag358">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., vol. i. p. 21.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote359"
+name="footnote359"><b>Footnote 359: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag359">
+(return) </a> See <i>ante</i>, pp. 181, 182, ch. v.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="254">254</a></span>
+
+<p>Let us re-state the principle of causality as a universal and
+necessary law of thought. "<i>All phenomena present themselves to
+us as the expression of</i> POWER, and refer us to a causal ground
+whence they issue." That "power" is intuitively and spontaneously
+apprehended by the human mind as Supreme and Ultimate--"the
+causal ground" is a personal God. All the phenomena
+of nature present themselves to us as "effects," and we
+know nothing of "subordinate causes" except as modes of the
+Divine Efficiency.<a id="footnotetag360" name="footnotetag360"></a>
+<a href="#footnote360"><sup class="sml">360</sup></a> The principle of causality compels us to
+think causation behind nature, and under causation to think of
+Volition. "Other forces we have no sort of ground for believing;
+or, except by artifices of abstraction, even power of conceiving.
+The dynamic idea is either this or nothing; and the
+logical alternative assuredly is that nature is either a mere
+Time-march of phenomena or an expression of Mind."<a id="footnotetag361" name="footnotetag361"></a>
+<a href="#footnote361"><sup class="sml">361</sup></a> The
+true doctrine of philosophy, of science, and of revelation is not
+simply that God did create "in the beginning," but that he
+still creates. All the operations of Nature are the operations
+of the Divine Mind. "Thou takest away their breath, they
+die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit,
+they are created; and thou renewest the face of the earth."<a id="footnotetag362" name="footnotetag362"></a>
+<a href="#footnote362"><sup class="sml">362</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote360"
+name="footnote360"><b>Footnote 360: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag360">
+(return) </a> The modern doctrine of the Correlation and Homogenity of all Forces
+clearly proves that they are not many, but <i>one</i>--"a dynamic self-identity
+masked by transmigration."--Martineau's "Essays," pp. 134-144.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote361"
+name="footnote361"><b>Footnote 361: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag361">
+(return) </a> Martineau's "Essays," pp. 140, 141.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote362"
+name="footnote362"><b>Footnote 362: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag362">
+(return) </a> Psalm civ.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The assertion that Plato taught "the eternity of matter,"
+and that consequently he did not arrive at the idea of a Supreme
+and Ultimate Cause, is incapable of proof. The term
+ὕλη = matter does not occur in the writings of Plato, or, indeed,
+of any of his predecessors, and is peculiarly Aristotelian. The
+ground of the world of sense is called by Plato "the receptacle"
+(ὑποδοχή), "the nurse" (τιθήνη) of all that is produced,
+and was apparently identified, in his mind, with <i>pure space</i>--a
+logical rather than a physical entity--the mere negative condition
+and medium of Divine manifestation. He never regards
+it as a "cause," or ascribes to it any efficiency. We grant that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="255">255</a></span>
+he places this very indefinite something (ὁποιονοῦν τι) out of the
+sphere of temporal origination; but it must be borne in mind
+that he speaks of "creation in eternity" as well as of "creation
+in time;" and of time itself, though created, as "an eternal
+image of the generating Father."<a id="footnotetag363" name="footnotetag363"></a>
+<a href="#footnote363"><sup class="sml">363</sup></a> This one thing, at any rate,
+can not be denied, that Plato recognizes creation in its fullest
+sense as the act of God.</p>
+
+<p>The admission that something has always existed besides the
+Deity, as a mere logical condition of the exercise of divine power
+(<i>e.g.</i>, space), would not invalidate the argument for the existence
+of God. The proof of the Divine Existence, as Chalmers
+has shown, does not rest on the existence of matter, but on the
+orderly arrangement of matter; and the grand question of Theism
+is not whether the <i>matter of the world</i>, but whether the <i>present
+order of the world</i> had a commencement.<a id="footnotetag364" name="footnotetag364"></a>
+<a href="#footnote364"><sup class="sml">364</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>2d. Doubt is cast by our author upon the validity of "<i>the
+principle of the Unconditioned or the Infinite</i>." "Supposing it
+were conceded that some faint glimmering of this great truth
+[the existence of a First Cause] might, by induction, have been
+discovered by contemplative minds, by what means could they
+have <i>demonstrated</i> to themselves that he is eternal, self-existent,
+immortal, and independent?"<a id="footnotetag365" name="footnotetag365"></a>
+<a href="#footnote365"><sup class="sml">365</sup></a> "Between things visible and invisible,
+time and eternity, beings finite and beings infinite, objects
+of sense and objects of faith, <i>the connection is not perceptible</i>
+to human observation. Though we push our researches,
+therefore, to the extreme point whither the light of nature can
+carry us, they will in the end be abruptly terminated, and we
+must stop short at an immeasurable distance between the
+creature and the Creator."<a id="footnotetag366" name="footnotetag366"></a>
+<a href="#footnote366"><sup class="sml">366</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote363"
+name="footnote363"><b>Footnote 363: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag363">
+(return) </a> Plato, "Timæus," § xiv.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote364"
+name="footnote364"><b>Footnote 364: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag364">
+(return) </a> Chalmers's "Natural Theology," bk. i. ch. v.; also Mahan's "Natural
+Theology," pp. 21-23.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote365"
+name="footnote365"><b>Footnote 365: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag365">
+(return) </a> Watson's "Institutes of Theol.," vol. i. p. 274.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote366"
+name="footnote366"><b>Footnote 366: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag366">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., vol. i. p. 273.</blockquote>
+
+<p>To this assertion that the connection of things visible and
+things invisible, finite and infinite, objects of sense and objects
+of faith, is utterly imperceptible to human thought, we might
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="256">256</a></span>
+reply by quoting the words of that Sacred Book whose supreme
+authority our author is seeking, by this argument, to establish.
+"The <i>invisible</i> things of God, even his eternal power and god-head,
+from the creation, are clearly <i>seen</i>, being <i>understood by the
+things which are made</i>." We may also point to the fact that in
+every age and in every land the human mind has spontaneously
+and instinctively recognized the existence of an invisible Power
+and Presence pervading nature and controlling the destinies of
+man, and that religious worship--prayer, and praise, and sacrifice--offered
+to that unseen yet omnipresent Power is an universal
+fact of human nature. The recognition of an <i>immediate</i>
+and a <i>necessary</i> "connection" between the visible and the invisible,
+the objects of sense and the objects of faith, is one of
+the most obvious facts of consciousness--of universal consciousness
+as revealed in history, and of individual consciousness
+as developed in every rational mind.</p>
+
+<p>That this connection is "not perceptible to human observation,"
+if by this our author means "not perceptible to sense,"
+we readily admit. No one ever asserted it was perceptible to
+human observation. We say that this connection is perceptible
+to human <i>reason</i>, and is revealed in every attempt to think
+about, and seek an explanation of, the phenomenal world.
+The Phenomenal and the Real, Genesis and Being, Space and
+Extension, Succession and Duration, Time and Eternity, the
+Finite and the Infinite, are correlatives which are given in one
+and the same indivisible act of thought. "The conception of
+one term of a relation necessarily implies that of the other; it
+being the very nature of a correlative to be thinkable only
+through the conjunct thought of its correlative; for a relation
+is, in truth, a thought one and indivisible; and whilst the
+thinking of one relation necessarily involves the thought of its
+two terms, so it is, with equal necessity, itself involved in the
+thought of either."<a id="footnotetag367" name="footnotetag367"></a>
+<a href="#footnote367"><sup class="sml">367</sup></a> Finite, dependent, contingent, temporal
+existence, therefore, necessarily supposes infinite, self-existent,
+independent, eternal Being; the Conditioned and Relative
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="257" >257</a></span>
+implies the Unconditioned and Absolute--one is known only in
+and through the other. But inasmuch as the unconditioned is
+cognized solely <i>à priori</i>, and the conditioned solely <i>à posteriori</i>,
+the recognition by the human mind of their necessary correlation
+becomes the bridge whereby the chasm between the subjective
+and the objective may be spanned, and whereby Thought
+may be brought face to face with Existence.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote367"
+name="footnote367"><b>Footnote 367: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag367">
+(return) </a> Hamilton's "Metaphysics," vol. ii. pp. 536, 537.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The reverence which, from boyhood, we have entertained
+for the distinguished author of the "Institutes" restrains us
+from speaking in adequate terms of reprobation of the statement
+that "the <i>First Cause</i>" may be known, and yet not conceived
+"as eternal, self-existent, immortal, and independent".
+Surely that which is the ground and reason of all existence
+must have the ground and reason of its own existence in itself.
+That which is <i>first</i> in the order of existence, and in the logical
+order of thought, can have nothing prior to itself. If the supposed
+First Cause is not necessarily self-existent and independent,
+it is not the <i>first</i>; if it has a dependent existence, there
+must be a prior being on which it depends. If the First Cause
+is not eternal, then prior to this Ultimate Cause there was
+nothingness and vacuity, and pure nothing, by its own act, became
+something. But "<i>Ex nihilo nihil</i>" is a universal law of
+thought. To ask the question whether the First Cause be self-existent
+and eternal, is, in effect, to ask the question "who
+made God?" and this is not the question of an adult theologian,
+but of a little child. Surely Mr. Watson must have
+penned the above passage without any reflection on its real
+import<a id="footnotetag368" name="footnotetag368"></a>
+<a href="#footnote368"><sup class="sml">368</sup></a>.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote368"
+name="footnote368"><b>Footnote 368: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag368">
+(return) </a> In an article on "the Impending Revolution in Anglo-Saxon Theology"
+Methodist Quarterly Review, (July, 1863), Dr. Warren seems to take it for
+granted that the "aiteological" and "teleological" arguments for the existence
+of God are utterly invalidated by the Dynamical theory of matter.
+"Once admit that <i>real power</i> can and does reside in matter, and all these
+reasonings fail. If inherent forces of matter are competent to the production
+of all the innumerable miracles of movement in the natural world, what
+is there in the natural world which they can not produce. If all <i>the exertions
+of power</i> in the universe can be accounted for without resort to something
+back of, and superior to, nature, what is there which can force the mind
+to such a resort?" (p. 463). "Having granted that <i>power</i>, or <i>self-activity</i>, is
+a natural attribute of all matter, what right have we to deny it <i>intelligence</i>?"
+(p. 465). "<i>Self-moving matter must have thought and design</i>" (p. 469).
+
+<p>It is not our intention to offer an extended criticism of the above positions
+in this note. We shall discuss "the Dynamical theory" more fully in
+a subsequent work. If the theory apparently accepted by Dr. Warren be
+true, that "<i>the ultimate atoms of matter are as uniformly efficient as minds</i>,
+and that we have the same ground to regard the force exerted by the one
+<i>innate</i> and <i>natural</i> as that exerted by the other" (p. 464), then we grant that
+the conclusions of Dr. Warren, as above stated, are unavoidable. We proceed
+one step farther, and boldly assert that the existence of God is, on this
+hypothesis, incapable of proof, and the only logical position Dr. Warren can
+occupy is that of spiritualistic Pantheism.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Warren asserts that "the Dynamical theory of matter" is now generally
+accepted by "Anglo-Saxon <i>naturalists</i>." "One can scarcely open a scientific
+treatise without observing the altered stand-point" (p. 160). We confess
+that we are disappointed with Dr. Warren's treatment of this simple question
+of fact. On so fundamental an issue, the Doctor ought to have given
+the name of at least <i>one</i> "naturalist" who asserts that "the ultimate atoms
+of matter are as uniformly efficient as minds." Leibnitz, Morrell, Ulrici,
+Hickok, the authorities quoted by him, are metaphysicians and idealists of
+the extremest school. At present we shall, therefore, content ourselves with
+a general denial of this wholesale statement of Dr. Warren; and we shall
+sustain that denial by a selection from the many authorities we shall hereafter
+present. "No particle of matter possesses within itself the power of
+changing its existing state of motion or of rest. Matter has no spontaneous
+power either of rest or motion, but is equally susceptible to each as it may
+be acted on by <i>external</i> causes" (Silliman's "Principles of Physics," p. 13).
+The above proposition is "a truth on which the whole science of mechanical
+philosophy ultimately depends" (Encyclopædia Britannica, art. "Dynamics,"
+vol. viii. p. 326). "A material substance existing alone in the universe could
+not produce any effects. There is not, so far as we know, a self-acting material
+substance in the universe" (M'Cosh, "Divine Government, Physical and
+Moral," p. 78). "Perhaps the only true indication of matter is <i>inertia</i>."
+"The cause of gravitation is <i>not resident</i> in the particles of matter merely,"
+but also "<i>in all space</i>" (Dr. Faraday on "Conservation of Force," in "Correlation
+and Conservation of Force." (p. 368). He also quotes with approbation
+the words of Newton, "That gravity should be innate, inherent, and
+essential to matter, is so great an absurdity, that I believe no man who has
+in philosophic matters a competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it"
+p. 368). "The 'force of gravity' is an improper expression" (p. 340).
+"Forces are transformable, indestructible, and, <i>in contradistinction from
+matter</i>, imponderable" (p. 346). "The first cause of things is Deity" (Dr.
+Mayer, in "Correlation and Conservation of Force," p. 341). "Although
+the word <i>cause</i> may be used in a secondary and subordinate sense, as meaning
+antecedent forces, yet in an abstract sense it is totally inapplicable; we
+can not predicate of any physical agent that it is abstractedly the cause of
+another" (p. 15). "Causation is the <i>will</i>," "creation is the act, of God"
+Grove on "Correlation of Physical Forces," (p. 199). "Between gravity
+and motion it is impossible to establish the equation required for a rightly-conceived
+<i>causal</i> relation" ("Correlation and Conservation of Force," p.
+253). See also Herschel's "Outlines of Astronomy," p. 234.</p>
+
+<p>It certainly must have required a wonderful effort of imagination on the
+part of Dr. Warren to transform "weight" and "density," mere passive
+affections of matter, into self-activity, intelligence, thought, and design.
+Weight or density are merely relative terms. Supposing one particle or
+mass of matter to exist alone, and there can be no attractive or gravitating
+force. There must be a cause of gravity which is distinct from matter.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="258">258</a></span>
+
+<p>3d. The validity of "<i>the principle of unity</i>" is also discredited
+by Watson. "If, however, it were conceded that some glimmerings
+of this great truth, the existence of a First Cause,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="259" >259</a></span>
+might, by induction, have been discovered, by what means
+could they have demonstrated to themselves that the great collection
+of bodies which we call the world had but <i>one</i> Creator."<a id="footnotetag369" name="footnotetag369"></a>
+<a href="#footnote369"><sup class="sml">369</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote369"
+name="footnote369"><b>Footnote 369: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag369">
+(return) </a> "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 275.</blockquote>
+
+<p>We might answer directly, and at once, that the oneness or
+unity of God is necessarily contained in "the very notion of a
+First Cause"--a <i>first</i> cause is not many causes, but <i>one</i>. By
+a First Cause we do not, however, understand the first of a numerical
+series, but an ἀρχή--a principle, itself unbeginning,
+which is the source of all beginning. Our categorical answer,
+therefore, must be that the unity of God is a sublime deliverance
+of reason--God is one God. It is a first principle of
+reason that all differentiation and plurality supposes an incomposite
+unity, all diversity implies an indivisible identity. The
+sensuous perception of a plurality of parts supposes the rational
+idea of an absolute unity, which has no parts, as its necessary
+correlative. For example, extension is a congeries of indefinitesimal
+parts; the continuity of matter, as <i>empirically</i> known
+by us, is never absolute. Space is absolutely continuous, incapable
+of division into integral parts, illimitable, and, as <i>rationally</i>
+known by us, an absolute unity. The cognition of
+limited extension, which is the subject of quantitative measurement,
+involves the conception of unlimited space, which is the
+negation of all plurality and complexity of parts. And so the
+cognition of a phenomenal universe in which we see only difference,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="260" >260</a></span>
+plurality, and change, implies the existence of a Being
+who is absolutely unchangeable, identical, and one.</p>
+
+<p>This law of thought lies at the basis of that universal desire
+of unity, and that universal effort to reduce all our knowledge
+to unity, which has revealed itself in the history of philosophy,
+and also of inductive science. "Reason, intellect, νοῦς, concatenating
+thoughts and objects into system, and tending upward
+from particular facts to general laws, from general laws
+to universal principles, is never satisfied in its ascent till it
+comprehends all laws in a single formula, and consummates all
+conditional knowledge in the unity of unconditional existence."
+"The history of philosophy is only the history of this tendency,
+and philosophers have borne ample testimony to its reality.
+'The mind,' says Anaxagoras, 'only knows when it subdues its
+objects, when it reduces the many to the one.' 'The end of
+philosophy,' says Plato, 'is the intuition of unity.' 'All knowledge,'
+say the Platonists, 'is the gathering up into one, and the
+indivisible apprehension of this unity by the knowing mind.'"<a id="footnotetag370" name="footnotetag370"></a>
+<a href="#footnote370"><sup class="sml">370</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote370"
+name="footnote370"><b>Footnote 370: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag370">
+(return) </a> Hamilton's "Metaphysics," vol. i. pp. 68, 69.</blockquote>
+
+<p>This law has been the guiding principle of the Inductive
+Sciences, and has led to some of its most important discoveries.
+The unity which has been attained in physical science is not,
+however, the absolute unity of a material substratum, but a
+unity of <i>Will</i> and of <i>Thought</i>. The late discovery of the monogenesis,
+reciprocal convertibility, and indestructibility of all
+Forces in nature, leads us upward towards the recognition of
+one Omnipresent and Omnipotent Will, which, like a mighty
+tide, sweeps through the universe and effects all its changes.
+The universal prevalence of the same physical laws and numerical
+relations throughout all space, and of the same archetypal
+forms and teleology of organs throughout all past time, reveals
+to us a Unity of Thought which grasps the entire details of the
+universe in one comprehensive plan.<a id="footnotetag371" name="footnotetag371"></a>
+<a href="#footnote371"><sup class="sml">371</sup></a> The positive <i>à priori</i>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="261">261</a></span>
+intuitions of reason and the <i>à posteriori</i> inductions of science
+equally attest <i>that God is one</i>.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote371"
+name="footnote371"><b>Footnote 371: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag371">
+(return) </a> We refer with pleasure to the articles of Dr. Winchell, in the North-western
+Christian Advocate, in which the <i>à posteriori</i> proof of "the Unity
+of God" is forcibly exhibited, and take occasion to express the hope they
+will soon be presented to the public in a more permanent form.</blockquote>
+
+<p>4th. By denying that man has any intuitive cognitions of
+right and wrong, or any native and original feeling of obligation,
+Mr. Watson invalidates "the moral argument" for the existence
+of a Righteous God.</p>
+
+<p>"As far as man's reason has applied itself to the discovery
+of truth or <i>duty</i> it has generally gone astray."<a id="footnotetag372" name="footnotetag372"></a>
+<a href="#footnote372"><sup class="sml">372</sup></a> "Questions of
+morals do not, for the most part, lie level to the minds of the
+populace."<a id="footnotetag373" name="footnotetag373"></a>
+<a href="#footnote373"><sup class="sml">373</sup></a> "Their conclusions have no <i>authority</i>, and place
+them under no <i>obligation</i>."<a id="footnotetag374" name="footnotetag374"></a>
+<a href="#footnote374"><sup class="sml">374</sup></a> And, indeed, man without a revelation
+"is without <i>moral control</i>, without <i>principles of justice</i>,
+except such as may be slowly elaborated from those relations
+which concern the grosser interests of life, without <i>conscience</i>,
+without hope or fear in another life."<a id="footnotetag375" name="footnotetag375"></a>
+<a href="#footnote375"><sup class="sml">375</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote372"
+name="footnote372"><b>Footnote 372: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag372">
+(return) </a> "Institutes of Theology," vol. ii. p. 470.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote373"
+name="footnote373"><b>Footnote 373: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag373">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. p. 15.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote374"
+name="footnote374"><b>Footnote 374: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag374">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. p. 228.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote375"
+name="footnote375"><b>Footnote 375: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag375">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. ii. p. 271.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Now we shall not occupy our space in the elaboration of the
+proposition that the universal consciousness of our race, as revealed
+in human history, languages, legislations, and sentiments,
+bears testimony to the fact that the ideas of right, duty, and responsibility
+are native to the human mind; we shall simply
+make our appeal to those Sacred Writings whose verdict must
+be final with all theologians. That the fundamental principles
+of the moral law do exist, subjectively, in all human minds is
+distinctly affirmed by Paul, in a passage which deserves to be
+regarded as the chief corner-stone of moral science. "The
+Gentiles (ἔθνη, heathen), which have not the written law, do by
+the guidance of nature (reason or conscience) the works enjoined
+by the revealed law; these, having no written law, are
+a law unto themselves; who show plainly the works of the law
+written on their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and
+also their reasonings one with another, when they accuse, or
+else excuse, each other."<a id="footnotetag376" name="footnotetag376"></a>
+<a href="#footnote376"><sup class="sml">376</sup></a> To deny this is to relegate the heathen
+from all responsibility. For Mr. Watson admits "that the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="262" >262</a></span>
+will of a superior is not in justice binding unless it be in some
+mode sufficiently declared." Now in the righteous adjudgments
+of revelation the heathen are "without excuse." The will
+of God must, therefore, be "sufficiently declared" to constitute
+them accountable. Who will presume to say that the shadowy,
+uncertain, variable, easily and unavoidably corrupted medium
+of tradition running through forty muddy centuries is a "sufficient
+declaration of the will of God?" The law is "written on
+the heart" of every man, or all men are not accountable.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote376"
+name="footnote376"><b>Footnote 376: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag376">
+(return) </a> Romans, ch. ii. ver. 14-15.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Now this "law written within the heart" immediately and
+naturally suggests the idea of a Lawgiver who is over us.
+This felt presence of Conscience, approving or condemning our
+conduct, suggests, as with the speed of the lightning-flash, the
+notion of a Judge who will finally call us to account. This
+"accusing or excusing of each other," this recognition of good
+or ill desert, points us to, and constrains us to recognize, a future
+Retribution; so that some hope or fear of another life has
+been in all ages a universal phenomenon of humanity.</p>
+
+<p>It is affirmed, however, that whilst this capacity to know
+God may have been an original endowment of human nature,
+yet, in consequence of the fall, "the understanding and reason
+are weakened by the deterioration of his whole intellectual nature."<a id="footnotetag377" name="footnotetag377"></a>
+<a href="#footnote377"><sup class="sml">377</sup></a>
+"Without some degree of education, man is <i>wholly</i> the
+creature of appetite. Labor, feasting, and sleeping divide his
+time, and wholly occupy his thoughts."<a id="footnotetag378" name="footnotetag378"></a>
+<a href="#footnote378"><sup class="sml">378</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote377"
+name="footnote377"><b>Footnote 377: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag377">
+(return) </a> "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 15.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote378"
+name="footnote378"><b>Footnote 378: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag378">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. p. 271.</blockquote>
+
+<p>We reverently and believingly accept the teaching of Scripture
+as to the depravity of man. We acknowledge that "the
+understanding is darkened" by sin. At the same time, we
+earnestly maintain that the Scriptures do not teach that the
+fundamental laws of mind, the first principles of reason, are
+utterly traversed and obliterated by sin, so that man is not able
+to recognize the existence of God, and feel his obligation to
+Him. "<i>Though they</i>(the heathen) <i>knew God</i> (διότι γνόντες),
+they did not glorify him as God, neither were thankful, but became
+vain in their imagination, and their foolish hearts were
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="263">263</a></span>
+darkened. They changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped
+and served the creature <i>more</i> than the Creator." "And
+as they did not <i>approve of holding God with acknowledgment</i>, God
+delivered them over to an unapproving mind, to work those
+things which are not suitable." After drawing a fearful picture
+of the darkness and depravity of the heathen, the Apostle adds,
+"Who, <i>though they</i> KNOW <i>the law of God</i>, that they who practise
+such things are worthy of death, not only do them, but even are
+well pleased with those who practise them."<a id="footnotetag379" name="footnotetag379"></a>
+<a href="#footnote379"><sup class="sml">379</sup></a> The obvious and
+direct teaching of this passage is that the heathen, in the midst
+of their depravity and idolatry, are not utterly ignorant of God;
+"they <i>know</i> God"--"they <i>know</i> the law of God "--"they worship
+Him," though they worship the creature <i>more than</i> Him.
+They know God, and are unwilling to "acknowledge God."
+"They know the righteousness of God," and are "haters of
+God" on account of his purity; and their worshipping of idols
+does not proceed from ignorance of God, from an intellectual
+inability to know God, but from "corruption of heart," and a
+voluntary choice of, and a "pleasure" in, the sinful practices
+accompanying idol worship. Therefore, argues the Apostle,
+they are "without excuse." The whole drift and aim of the
+argument of Paul is, not to show that the heathen were, by
+their depravity, incapacitated to know God, but that because
+they knew God and knew his righteous law, therefore their depravity
+and licentiousness was "inexcusable."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote379"
+name="footnote379"><b>Footnote 379: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag379">
+(return) </a> Romans, ch. i. ver. 23-32.</blockquote>
+
+<p>We conclude our review of opposing schools by the re-affirmation
+of our position, <i>that God is cognizable by human reason.</i>
+The human mind, under the guidance of necessary laws of
+thought, is able, from the facts of the universe, to affirm the existence
+of God, and to attain some valid knowledge of his character
+and will. Every attempt to solve the great problem of
+existence, to offer an explanation of the phenomenal world, or
+to explore the fundamental idea of reason, when fairly and
+fully conducted, has resulted in the recognition of a Supreme
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="264">264</a></span>
+<i>Intelligence</i>, a personal <i>Mind</i> and <i>Will</i>, as the ground, and reason,
+and cause of all existence. A survey of the history of
+Greek Philosophy will abundantly sustain this position, and to
+this we shall, in subsequent chapters, invite the reader's attention.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="265">265</a></span>
+<br>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII.</h3>
+
+<h3>THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS.</h3>
+
+<h3>PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOL.</h3>
+
+<h3>SENSATIONAL: THALES--ANAXIMENES--HERACLITUS--ANAXIMANDER--LEUCIPPUS--DEMOCRITUS.</h3>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered
+Paul."--Acts xvii. 18.</p>
+
+<p>"Plato affirms that this is the most just cause of the creation of the world,
+that works which are good should be wrought by the God who is good;
+whether he had read these things in the Bible, or whether by his penetrating
+genius he beheld <i>the invisible things of God as understood by the things which
+are made</i>"--ST. AUGUSTINE, "De Civ. Dei," lib. xi. ch. 21.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Of all the monuments of the greatness of Athens which
+have survived the changes and the wastes of time, the
+most perfect and the most enduring is her philosophy. The
+Propylæa, the Parthenon, and the Erechtheum, those peerless
+gems of Grecian architecture, are now in ruins. The magnificent
+sculpture of Phidias, which adorned the pediment, and
+outer cornice, and inner frieze of these temples, and the unrivalled
+statuary of gods and heroes which crowded the platform
+of the Acropolis, making it an earthly Olympus, are now no
+more, save a few broken fragments which have been carried to
+other lands, and, in their exile, tell the mournful story of the
+departed grandeur of their ancient home. The brazen statue
+of Minerva, cast from the spoils of Marathon, which rose in
+giant grandeur above the buildings of the Acropolis, and the
+flashing of whose helmet plumes was seen by the mariner as
+soon as he had rounded the Sunian promontory; and that other
+brazen Pallas, called, by pre-eminence, "the Beautiful;" and
+the enormous Colossus of ivory and of gold, "the Immortal
+Maid"--the protecting goddess of the Parthenon--these have
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="266">266</a></span>
+perished. But whilst the fingers of time have crumbled the
+Pentelic marble, and the glorious statuary has been broken to
+pieces by vandal hands, and the gold and brass have been
+melted in the crucibles of needy monarchs and converted into
+vulgar money, the philosophic <i>thought</i> of Athens, which culminated
+in the dialectic of Plato, still survives. Not one of all
+the vessels, freighted with immortal thought, which Plato
+launched upon the stream of time, has foundered. And after
+the vast critical movement of European thought during the
+past two centuries, in which all philosophic systems have been
+subjected to the severest scrutiny, the <i>method</i> of Plato still preserves,
+if not its exclusive authority unquestioned, at least its
+intellectual pre-eminence unshaken. "Platonism is immortal,
+because its principles are immortal in the human intellect and
+heart."<a id="footnotetag380" name="footnotetag380"></a>
+<a href="#footnote380"><sup class="sml">380</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote380"
+name="footnote380"><b>Footnote 380: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag380">
+(return) </a> Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii.
+p. 9.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Philosophy is, then, the world-enduring monument of the
+greatness and the glory of Athens. Whilst Greece will be forever
+memorable as "the country of wisdom and of wise men,"
+Athens will always be pre-eminently memorable as the University
+of Greece. This was the home of Socrates, and Plato, and
+Aristotle--the three imperial names which, for twenty centuries,
+reigned supreme in the world of philosophic thought. Here
+schools of philosophy were founded to which students were attracted
+from every part of the civilized world, and by which an
+impulse and a direction was given to human thought in every
+land and in every age. Standing on the Acropolis at Athens,
+and looking over the city and the open country, the Apostle
+would see these <i>places</i> which are inseparably associated with the
+names of the men who have always been recognized as the great
+teachers of the pagan world, and who have also exerted a powerful
+influence upon Christian minds of every age. "In opposite
+directions he would see the suburbs where Plato and Aristotle,
+the two pupils of Socrates, held their illustrious schools. The
+streamless bed of the Ilissus passes between the Acropolis and
+Hymettus in a south-westerly direction, until it vanishes in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="267">267</a></span>
+low ground which separates the city from the Piræus." Looking
+towards the upper part of this channel, Paul would see
+gardens of plane-trees and thickets of angus-castus, "with other
+torrent-loving shrubs of Greece." Near the base of Lycabettus
+was a sacred inclosure which Pericles had ornamented with
+fountains. Here stood a statue of Apollo Lycius, which gave
+the name to the <i>Lyceum</i>. Here, among the plane-trees, Aristotle
+<i>walked</i>, and, as he walked, taught his disciples. Hence
+the name Peripatetics (the Walkers), which has always designated
+the disciples of the Stagirite philosopher.</p>
+
+<p>On the opposite side of the city, the most beautiful of the
+Athenian suburbs, we have the scene of Plato's teaching. Beyond
+the outer Ceramicus, which was crowded with the sepulchres
+of those Athenians who had fallen in battle, and were
+buried at the public expense, the eye of Paul would rest on the
+favored stream of the Cephisus, flowing towards the west. On
+the banks of this stream the <i>Academy</i> was situated. A wall,
+built at great expense by Hipparchus, surrounded it, and Cimon
+planted long avenues of trees and erected fountains. Beneath
+the plane-trees which shaded the numerous walks there assembled
+the master-spirits of the age. This was the favorite resort
+of poets and philosophers. Here the divine spirit of Plato
+poured forth its sublimest speculations in streams of matchless
+eloquence; and here he founded a school which was destined
+to exert a powerful and perennial influence on human minds
+and hearts in all coming time.</p>
+
+<p>Looking down from the Acropolis upon the Agora, Paul
+would distinguish a cloister or colonnade. This is the Stoa
+Pœcile, or "Painted Porch," so called because its walls were
+decorated with fresco paintings of the legendary wars of Greece,
+and the more glorious struggle at Marathon. It was here that
+Zeno first opened that celebrated school which thence received
+the name of <i>Stoic</i>. The site of the <i>garden</i> where Epicurus
+taught is now unknown. It was no doubt within the city walls,
+and not far distant from the Agora. It was well known in the
+time of Cicero, who visited Athens as a student little more than
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="268">268</a></span>
+a century before the Apostle. It could not have been forgotten
+in the time of Paul. In this "tranquil garden," in the society
+of his friends, Epicurus passed a life of speculation and of pleasure.
+His disciples were called, after him, the Epicureans.<a id="footnotetag381" name="footnotetag381"></a>
+<a href="#footnote381"><sup class="sml">381</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote381"
+name="footnote381"><b>Footnote 381: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag381">
+(return) </a> See Conybeare and Howson's "Life and Epistles of St. Paul," vol. i.,
+Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy;" and Encyclopædia Britannica,
+article, "Athens," from whence our materials for the description of
+these "places" are mainly derived.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Here, then, in Athens the Apostle was brought into immediate
+contact with all the phases of philosophic thought which
+had appeared in the ancient world. "Amongst those who
+sauntered beneath the cool shadows of the plane-trees in the
+Agora, and gathered in knots under the porticoes, eagerly discussing
+the questions of the day, were the philosophers, in the
+garb of their several sects, ready for any new question on which
+they might exercise their subtlety or display their rhetoric."
+If there were any in that motley group who cherished the principles
+and retained the spirit of the true Platonic school, we
+may presume they felt an inward intellectual sympathy with the
+doctrine enounced by Paul. With Plato, "philosophy was only
+another name for <i>religion</i>: philosophy is the love of perfect
+Wisdom; perfect Wisdom and perfect Goodness are identical:
+the perfect Good is God himself; philosophy is the love of
+God."<a id="footnotetag382" name="footnotetag382"></a>
+<a href="#footnote382"><sup class="sml">382</sup></a> He confessed the need of divine assistance to attain
+"the good," and of divine interposition to deliver men from
+moral ruin.<a id="footnotetag383" name="footnotetag383"></a>
+<a href="#footnote383"><sup class="sml">383</sup></a> Like Socrates, he longed for a supernatural--a
+divine light to guide him, and he acknowledged his need thereof
+continually.<a id="footnotetag384" name="footnotetag384"></a>
+<a href="#footnote384"><sup class="sml">384</sup></a> He was one of those who, in heathen lands,
+waited for "the desire of nations;" and, had he lived in Christian
+times, no doubt his "spirit of faith" would have joyfully
+"embraced the Saviour in all the completeness of his revelation
+and advent."<a id="footnotetag385" name="footnotetag385"></a>
+<a href="#footnote385"><sup class="sml">385</sup></a> And in so far as the spirit of Plato survived
+among his disciples, we may be sure they were not among the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="269">269</a></span>
+number who "mocked," and ridiculed, and opposed the "new
+doctrine" proclaimed by Paul. It was "the philosophers of
+the Epicureans and of the Stoics who <i>encountered</i> Paul." The
+leading tenets of both these sects were diametrically opposed
+to the doctrines of Christianity. The ruling spirit of each was
+alien from the spirit of Christ. The haughty <i>pride</i> of the Stoic,
+the Epicurean abandonment to <i>pleasure</i>, placed them in direct
+antagonism to him who proclaimed the crucified and risen
+Christ to be "<i>the wisdom</i> of God."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote382"
+name="footnote382"><b>Footnote 382: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag382">
+(return) </a> Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 61.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote383"
+name="footnote383"><b>Footnote 383: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag383">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vi. vii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote384"
+name="footnote384"><b>Footnote 384: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag384">
+(return) </a> Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. p. 362.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote385"
+name="footnote385"><b>Footnote 385: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag385">
+(return) </a> Wheedon on "The Will," p. 352; also Butler's
+"Lectures," vol. ii. p. 252.</blockquote>
+
+<p>If, however, we would justly appreciate the relation of pagan
+philosophy to Christian truth, we must note that, when Paul arrived
+in Athens, the age of Athenian glory had passed away.
+Not only had her national greatness waned, and her national
+spirit degenerated, but her intellectual power exhibited unmistakable
+signs of exhaustion, and weakness, and decay. If philosophy
+had borne any fruit, of course that fruit remained. If,
+in the palmy days of Athenian greatness, any field of human
+inquiry had been successfully explored; if human reason had
+achieved any conquests; if any thing true and good had been
+obtained, that must endure as an heir-loom for all coming time;
+and if those centuries of agonizing wrestlings with nature, and
+of ceaseless questioning of the human heart, had yielded no
+results, then, at least, the <i>lesson</i> of their failure and defeat remained
+for the instruction of future generations. Either the
+problems they sought to solve were proved to be insoluble, or
+their methods of solution were found to be inadequate; for
+here the mightiest minds had grappled with the great problems
+of being and of destiny. Here vigorous intellects had struggled
+to pierce the darkness which hangs alike over the beginning
+and the end of human existence. Here profoundly earnest
+men had questioned nature, reason, antiquity, oracles, in the
+hope they might learn something of that invisible world of <i>real</i>
+being which they instinctively felt must lie beneath the world
+of fleeting forms and ever-changing appearances. Here philosophy
+had directed her course towards every point in the
+compass of thought, and touched every <i>accessible</i> point. The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="270" >270</a></span>
+sun of human reason had reached its zenith, and illuminated
+every field that lay within the reach of human ken. And this
+sublime era of Greek philosophy is of inestimable value to us
+who live in Christian times, because <i>it is an exhaustive effort of
+human reason to solve the problem of being</i>, and in its history we
+have a record of the power and weakness of the human mind,
+at once on the grandest scale and in the fairest characters.<a id="footnotetag386" name="footnotetag386"></a>
+<a href="#footnote386"><sup class="sml">386</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote386"
+name="footnote386"><b>Footnote 386: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag386">
+(return) </a> See article "Philosophy," in Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible."</blockquote>
+
+<p>These preliminary considerations will have prepared the way
+for, and awakened in our minds a profound interest in, the inquiry--1st.
+What permanent <i>results</i> has Greek philosophy bequeathed
+to the world? 2d. In what manner did Greek philosophy
+fulfill for Christianity a <i>propœdeutic</i> office?</p>
+
+<p>It will at once be obvious, even to those who are least conversant
+with our theme, that it would be fruitless to attempt
+the answer to these important questions before we have made
+a careful survey of the entire history of philosophic thought in
+Greece. We must have a clear and definite conception of the
+problems they sought to solve, and we must comprehend their
+methods of inquiry, before we can hope to appreciate the results
+they reached, or determine whether they did arrive at any
+definite and valuable conclusions. It will, therefore, devolve
+upon us to present a brief and yet comprehensive epitome of
+the history of Grecian speculative thought.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Philosophy</i>," says Cousin, "<i>is reflection</i>, and nothing else
+than reflection, in a vast form"--"Reflection elevated to the
+rank and authority of a <i>method</i>." It is the mind looking back
+upon its own sensations, perceptions, cognitions, ideas, and
+from thence to the <i>causes</i> of these sensations, cognitions, and
+ideas. It is thought passing beyond the simple perceptions of
+things, beyond the mere spontaneous operations of the mind in
+the cognition of things to seek the <i>ground</i>, and <i>reason</i>, and <i>law</i>
+of things. It is the effort of reason to solve the great problem
+of "Being and Becoming," of appearance and reality, of the
+changeful and the permanent. Beneath the endless diversity
+of the universe, of existence and action, there must be a principle
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="271">271</a></span>
+of unity; below all fleeting appearances there must be a
+permanent substance; beyond this everlasting flow and change,
+this beginning and ending of finite existence, there must be an
+<i>eternal being</i>, the source and cause of all we see and know,
+<i>What is that principle of unity, that permanent substance</i>, or principle,
+or being?</p>
+
+<p>This fundamental question has assumed three separate
+forms or aspects in the history of philosophy. These forms
+have been determined by the objective phenomena which most
+immediately arrested and engaged the attention of men. If
+external nature has been the chief object of attention, then the
+problem of philosophy has been, <i>What is the ἀρχή--</i>the beginning;
+what are the first principles<i>--the elements from which, the
+ideas or laws according to which, the efficient cause or energy by
+which, and the reason or end for which the universe exists?</i> During
+this period reflective thought was a PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE.
+If the phenomena of mind--the opinions, beliefs, judgments of
+men--are the chief object of attention, then the problem of
+philosophy has been, <i>What are the fundamental Ideas which are
+unchangeable and permanent amid all the diversities of human
+opinions, connecting appearance with reality, and constituting a
+ground of certain knowledge or absolute truth?</i> Reflective
+thought is now a PHILOSOPHY OF IDEAS. Then, lastly, if the practical
+activities of life and the means of well-being be the grand
+object of attention, then the problem of philosophy has been,
+<i>What is the ultimate standard by which, amid all the diversities
+of human conduct, we may determine what is right and good in individual,
+social, and political life?</i> And now reflective thought
+is a PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. These are the grand problems with
+which philosophy has grappled ever since the dawn of reflection.
+They all appear in Greek philosophy, and have a marked
+chronology. As systems they succeed each other, just as rigorously
+as the phenomena of Greek civilization.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="272">272</a></span>
+The Greek schools of philosophy have been classified from
+various points of view. In view of their geographical relations,
+
+they have been divided into the <i>Ionian</i>, the <i>Italian</i>, the <i>Eleatic</i>,
+the <i>Athenian</i>, and the <i>Alexandrian</i>. In view of their prevailing
+spirit and tendency, they have been classified by Cousin as the
+Sensational, the Idealistic, the Skeptical, and the Mystical.
+The most natural and obvious method is that which (regarding
+Socrates as the father of Greek philosophy in the truest sense)
+arranges all schools from the Socratic stand point, and therefore
+in the chronological order of development:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i16"><b>I. THE PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.</b></p>
+<p class="i16"><b>II. THE SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.</b></p>
+<p class="i16"><b>III. THE POST-SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.</b></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The history of philosophy is thus divided into three grand
+epochs. The first reaching from Thales to the time of Socrates
+(B.C. 639-469): the second from the birth of Socrates to the
+death of Aristotle (B.C. 469-322); the third from the death of
+Aristotle to the Christian era (B.C. 322, A.D. 1). Greek philosophy
+during the first period was almost exclusively a philosophy
+of nature; during the second period, a philosophy of mind;
+during the last period, a philosophy of life. Nature, man, and
+society complete the circle of thought. Successive systems, of
+course, overlap each other, both in the order of time and as
+subjects of human speculation; and the results of one epoch
+of thought are transmitted to and appropriated by another;
+but, in a general sense, the order of succession has been very
+much as here indicated. Setting aside minor schools and
+merely incidental discussions, and fixing our attention on the
+general aspects of each historic period, we shall discover that
+the first period was eminently <i>Physical</i>, the second <i>Psychological</i>,
+the last <i>Ethical</i>. Every stage of progress which reason, on
+<i>à priori</i> grounds, would suggest as the natural order of thought,
+or of which the development of an individual mind would furnish
+an analogy, had a corresponding realization in the development
+of Grecian thought from the time of Thales to the
+Christian era. "Thought," says Cousin, "in the first trial of
+its strength is drawn without." The first object which engages
+the attention of the child is the outer world. He asks the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="273">273</a></span>
+"<i>how</i>" and "<i>why</i>" of all he sees. His reason urges him to
+seek an explanation of the universe. So it was in the <i>childhood</i>
+of philosophy. The first essays of human thought were,
+almost without exception, discourses περὶ φύσεως (De rerum natura),
+of the nature of things. Then the rebound of baffled
+reason from the impenetrable bulwarks of the universe drove
+the mind back upon itself. If the youth can not interpret
+nature, he can at least "know himself," and find within himself
+the ground and reason of all existence. There are "<i>ideas</i>"
+in the human mind which are copies of those "<i>archetypal ideas</i>"
+which dwell in the Creative Mind, and after which the universe
+was built. If by "analysis" and "definition" these universal
+notions can be distinguished from that which is particular and
+contingent in the aggregate of human knowledge, then so much
+of eternal truth has been attained. The achievements of philosophic
+thought in this direction, during the Socratic age, have
+marked it as the most brilliant period in the history of philosophy--the
+period of its <i>youthful</i> vigor. Deeply immersed in
+the practical concerns and conflicts of public life, <i>manhood</i> is
+mainly occupied with questions of personal duty, and individual
+and social well-being. And so, during the hopeless turmoil
+of civil disturbance which marked the decline of national
+greatness in Grecian history, philosophy was chiefly occupied
+with questions of personal interest and personal happiness.
+The poetic enthusiasm with which a nobler age had longed for
+<i>truth</i>, and sought it as the highest good, has all disappeared,
+and now one sect seeks refuge from the storms and agitations
+of the age in Stoical indifference, the other in Epicurean effeminacy.</p>
+
+<p>If now we have succeeded in presenting the real problem
+of philosophy, it will at once be obvious that the inquiry was
+not, in any proper sense, <i>theological</i>. Speculative thought, during
+the period we have marked as the era of Greek philosophy,
+was not an inquiry concerning the existence or nature of God,
+or concerning the relations of man to God, or the duties which
+man owes to God. These questions were all remitted to the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="274" >274</a></span>
+<i>theologian</i>. There was a clear line of demarkation separating
+the domains of religion and philosophy. Religion rested
+solely on authority, and appealed to the instinctive faith of the
+human heart. She permitted no encroachment upon her settled
+usages, and no questioning of her ancient beliefs. Philosophy
+rested on reason alone. It was an independent effort of
+thought to interpret nature, and attain the fundamental grounds
+of human knowledge--to find an ἀρχή--a first principle, which,
+being assumed, should furnish a rational explanation of all existence.
+If philosophy reach the conclusion that the άρχή was
+water, or air, or fire, or a chaotic mixture of all the elements or
+atoms, extended and self-moved, or monads, or τὸ πᾶν, or uncreated
+mind, and that conclusion harmonized with the ancient
+standards of religious faith--well; if not, philosophy must present
+some method of conciliation. The conflicts of faith and
+reason; the stragglings of traditional authority to maintain
+supremacy; the accommodations and conciliations attempted
+in those primitive times, would furnish a chapter of peculiar
+interest, could it now be written.</p>
+
+<p>The poets who appeared in the dim twilight of Grecian civilization--Orpheus,
+Musæus, Homer, Hesiod--seem to have occupied
+the same relation to the popular mind in Greece which
+the Bible now sustains to Christian communities.<a id="footnotetag387" name="footnotetag387"></a>
+<a href="#footnote387"><sup class="sml">387</sup></a> Not that
+we regard them as standing on equal ground of authority, or
+in any sense a revelation. But, in the eye of the wondering
+Greek, they were invested with the highest sacredness and the
+supremest authority. The high poetic inspiration which pervaded
+them was a supernatural gift. Their sublime utterances
+were accepted as proceeding from a divine afflatus. They were
+the product of an age in which it was believed by all that the gods
+assumed a human form,<a id="footnotetag388" name="footnotetag388"></a>
+<a href="#footnote388"><sup class="sml">388</sup></a> and held a real intercourse with gifted
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="275" >275</a></span>
+men. This universal faith is regarded by some as being a
+relic of still more distant times, a faint remembrance of the
+glory of patriarchal days. The more natural opinion is, that it
+was begotten of that universal longing of the human heart for
+some knowledge of that unseen world of real being, which man
+instinctively felt must lie beyond the world of fleeting change
+and delusive appearances. It was a prolepsis of the soul,
+reaching upward towards its source and goal. The poet felt
+within him some native affinities therewith, and longed for some
+stirring breath of heaven to sweep the harp-strings of the soul.
+He invoked the inspiration of the Goddess of Song, and waited
+for, no doubt believed in, some "deific impulse" descending on
+him. And the people eagerly accepted his utterance as the
+teaching of the gods. They were too eager for some knowledge
+from that unseen world to question their credentials.
+Orpheus, Hesiod, Homer, were the θεολόγοι--the theologians
+of that age.<a id="footnotetag389" name="footnotetag389"></a>
+<a href="#footnote389"><sup class="sml">389</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote387"
+name="footnote387"><b>Footnote 387: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag387">
+(return) </a> "Homer was, in a certain sense, the Bible of the Greeks."--Whewell,
+"Platonic Dialogues," p. 283.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote388"
+name="footnote388"><b>Footnote 388: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag388">
+(return) </a> The universality of this belief is asserted by Cicero: "Vetus opinio est,
+jam usque ab heroicis ducta temporibus, eaque et populi Romani et omnium
+gentium firmata consensu, versari quandem inter homines divinationem."--Cicero,
+"De Divin." bk. i. ch. i.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote389"
+name="footnote389"><b>Footnote 389: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag389">
+(return) </a> Cicero.</blockquote>
+
+<p>These ancient poems, then, were the public documents of
+the religion of Greece--the repositories of the national faith.
+And it is deserving of especial note that the philosopher was
+just as anxious to sustain his speculations by quoting the high
+traditional authority of the ancient theologian, as the propounder
+of modern novelties is to sustain his notions by the
+authority of the Sacred Scriptures. Numerous examples of
+this solicitude will recur at once to the remembrance of the
+student of Plato. All encroachments of philosophy upon the
+domains of religion were watched as jealously in Athens in the
+sixth century before Christ, as the encroachments of science
+upon the fields of theology were watched in Rome in the seventeenth
+century after Christ. The court of the Areopagus was
+as earnest, though not as fanatical and cruel, in the defense of
+the ancient faith, as the court of the Inquisition was in the defense
+of the dogmas of the Romish Church. The people, also,
+as "the sacred wars" of Greece attest, were ready quickly to
+repel every assault upon the majesty of their religion. And so
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="276" >276</a></span>
+philosophy even had its martyrs. The tears of Pericles were
+needed to save Aspasia, because she was suspected of philosophy.
+But neither his eloquence nor his tears could save his
+friend Anaxagoras, and he was ostracized. Aristotle had the
+greatest difficulty to save his life. And Plato was twice imprisoned,
+and once sold into slavery.<a id="footnotetag390" name="footnotetag390"></a>
+<a href="#footnote390"><sup class="sml">390</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote390"
+name="footnote390"><b>Footnote 390: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag390">
+(return) </a> Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 305.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It is unnecessary that we should, in this place, again attempt
+the delineation of the theological opinions of the earlier
+periods of Grecian civilization. That the ancient Greeks believed
+in <i>one Supreme God</i> has been conclusively proved by
+Cudworth. The argument of his fourth chapter is incontrovertible.<a id="footnotetag391" name="footnotetag391"></a>
+<a href="#footnote391"><sup class="sml">391</sup></a>
+However great the number of "generated gods"
+who crowded the Olympus, and composed the ghostly array
+of Greek mythology, they were all subordinate agents, "demiurges,"
+employed in the framing of the world and all material
+things, or else the ministers of the moral and providential government
+of the εἷς θεὸς ἀγέντος--the one uncreated God. Beneath,
+or beyond the whole system of pagan polytheism, we
+recognize a faith in an <i>Uncreated Mind</i>, the Source of all the intelligence,
+and order, and harmony which pervades the universe
+the Fountain of law and justice; the Ruler of the world;
+the Avenger of injured innocence; and the final Judge of men.
+The immortality of the soul and a state of future retribution
+were necessary corollaries of this sublime faith. This primitive
+theology was unquestionably the people's faith; the faith, also,
+of the philosopher, in his inmost heart, however far he might
+wander in speculative thought. The instinctive feeling of the
+human heart, the spontaneous intuitions of the human reason,
+have led man, in every age, to recognize a God. It is within
+the fields of speculative thought that skepticism has had its
+birth. Any thing like atheism has only made its appearance
+amid the efforts of human reason to explain the universe. The
+native sentiments of the heart and the spontaneous movements
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="277" >277</a></span>
+of the reason have always been towards faith, that is, towards
+"a religious movement of the soul."<a id="footnotetag392" name="footnotetag392"></a>
+<a href="#footnote392"><sup class="sml">392</sup></a> Unbridled speculative
+thought, which turns towards the outer world alone, and disregards
+"the voices of the soul," tends towards <i>doubt</i> and irreligion.
+But, as Cousin has said, "a complete extravagance, a
+total delusion (except in case of real derangement), is impossible."
+"Beneath reflection there is still spontaneity, when the
+scholar has denied the existence of a God; listen to the man,
+interrogate him unawares, and you will see that all his words
+betray the idea of a God, and that faith in a God is, without
+his recognition, at the bottom of his heart."<a id="footnotetag393" name="footnotetag393"></a>
+<a href="#footnote393"><sup class="sml">393</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote391"
+name="footnote391"><b>Footnote 391: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag391">
+(return) </a> "Intellectual System of the Universe;" see also ch. iii., "On the Religion
+of the Athenians."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote392"
+name="footnote392"><b>Footnote 392: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag392">
+(return) </a> Cousin's "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 22.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote393"
+name="footnote393"><b>Footnote 393: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag393">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., vol. i. p. 137.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Let us not, therefore, be too hasty in representing the early
+philosophers as destitute of the idea of a God, because in the
+imperfect and fragmentary representations which are given us
+of the philosophical opinions of Thales, and Anaximenes, and
+Heraclitus, and Diogenes of Apollonia, we find no explicit allusions
+to the <i>Uncreated Mind</i> as the first principle and cause of
+all. A few sentences will comprehend the whole of what remains
+of the opinions of the earliest philosophers, and these
+were transmitted for ages by <i>oral</i> tradition. To Plato and
+Aristotle we are chiefly indebted for a stereotype of those scattered,
+fragmentary sentences which came to their hands through
+the dim and distorting medium of more than two centuries.
+Surely no one imagines these few sentences contain and sum
+up the results of a lifetime of earnest thought, or represent all
+the opinions and beliefs of the earliest philosophers! And
+should we find therein no recognition of a personal God,
+would it not be most unfair and illogical to assert that they
+were utterly ignorant of a God, or wickedly denied his being?
+If they say "there is no God," then they are foolish Atheists;
+if they are silent on that subject, we have a right to assume
+they were Theists, for it is most natural to believe in God.
+And yet it has been quite customary for Christian teachers,
+after the manner of some Patristic writers, to deny to those
+early sages the smallest glimpse of underived and independent
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="278" >278</a></span>
+knowledge of a Divine Being, in their zeal to assert for the
+Sacred Scriptures the exclusive prerogative of revealing Him.</p>
+
+<p>Now in regard to the theological opinions of the Greek philosophers,
+we shall venture this general <i>lemma</i>--<i>the majority of
+them recognized an "incorporeal substance"</i><a id="footnotetag394" name="footnotetag394"></a>
+<a href="#footnote394"><sup class="sml">394</sup></a><i> an uncreated Intelligence,
+an ordering, governing Mind</i>. Leucippus, Democritus,
+and Epicurus, who were Materialists, are perhaps the only exceptions.
+Many of them were Pantheists, in the higher form
+of Pantheism, which, though it associates the universe with its
+framer and mover, still makes "the moving principle" superior
+to that which is moved. The world was a living organism,</p>
+
+<p class="mid">"Whose body nature is, and God the soul."</p>
+
+<p>Unquestionably most on them recognized the existence of <i>two</i>
+first principles, substances essentially distinct, which had co-existed
+from eternity--an incorporeal Deity and matter.<a id="footnotetag395" name="footnotetag395"></a>
+<a href="#footnote395"><sup class="sml">395</sup></a> We
+grant that the free production of a universe by a creative fiat--the
+calling of matter into being by a simple act of omnipotence--is
+not elementary to human reason. The famous physical
+axiom of antiquity, "<i>De nihilo nihil, in nihilum posse reverti"</i>
+under one aspect, may be regarded as the expression of the
+universal consciousness of a mental inability to conceive a
+creation out of nothing, or an annihilation.<a id="footnotetag396" name="footnotetag396"></a>
+<a href="#footnote396"><sup class="sml">396</sup></a> "We can not conceive,
+either, on the one hand, nothing becoming something, or
+something becoming nothing, on the other hand. When God
+is said to create the universe out of nothing, we think this by
+supposing that he evolves the universe out of himself; and in
+like manner, we conceive annihilation only by conceiving the
+Creator to withdraw his creation from actuality into power."<a id="footnotetag397" name="footnotetag397"></a>
+<a href="#footnote397"><sup class="sml">397</sup></a>
+"It is by <i>faith</i> we understand the worlds were framed by the
+<i>word of God</i>, so that things which are were not made from
+things which do appear"--that is, from pre-existent matter.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote394"
+name="footnote394"><b>Footnote 394: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag394">
+(return) </a> "Οὐσίαν ἀσώµατον."--Plato.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote395"
+name="footnote395"><b>Footnote 395: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag395">
+(return) </a> Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 269.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote396"
+name="footnote396"><b>Footnote 396: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag396">
+(return) </a> Mansell's "Limits of Religious Thought," p. 100.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote397"
+name="footnote397"><b>Footnote 397: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag397">
+(return) </a> Sir William Hamilton's "Discussions on Philosophy," p. 575.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="279">279</a></span>
+
+<p>Those writers<a id="footnotetag398" name="footnotetag398"></a>
+<a href="#footnote398"><sup class="sml">398</sup></a> are, therefore, clearly in error who assert that
+the earliest question of Greek philosophy was, What is God?
+and that various and discordant answers were given, Thales
+saying, water is God, Anaximenes, air; Heraclitus, fire; Pythagoras,
+numbers; and so on. The idea of God is a native
+intuition of the mind. It springs up spontaneously from the
+depths of the human soul. The human mind naturally recognizes
+God as an uncreated Mind, and recognizes itself as "the
+offspring of God." And, therefore, it is simply impossible for
+it to acknowledge water, or air, or fire, or any material thing to
+be its God. Now they who reject this fundamental principle
+evidently misapprehend the real problem of early Grecian philosophic
+thought. The external world, the material universe,
+was the first object of their inquiry, and the method of their inquiry
+was, at the first stage, purely physical. Every object of
+sense had a beginning and an end; it rose out of something,
+and it fell back into something. Beneath this ceaseless flow
+and change there must be some permanent principle. What
+is that στοιχεῖον--that first element? The changes in the universe
+seem to obey some principle of law--they have an orderly
+succession. What is that µορφή--that form, or ideal, or archetype,
+proper to each thing, and according to which all things
+are produced? These changes must be produced by some
+efficient cause, some power or being which is itself immobile,
+and permanent, and eternal, and adequate to their production.
+What is that ἀρχὴ τῆς κινήσεως--that first principle of movement
+Then, lastly, there must be an end for which all things
+exist--a good reason why things are as they are, and not otherwise.
+What is that τὸ οὗ ἕνεκεν καῖ τὸ ἀγαθόν--that reason and
+good of all things? Now these are all ἀρχαί or first principles
+of the universe. "Common to all first principles," says Aristotle,
+"is the being, the original, from which a thing is, or is produced,
+or is known."<a id="footnotetag399" name="footnotetag399"></a>
+<a href="#footnote399"><sup class="sml">399</sup></a> First principles, therefore, include both
+elements and causes, and, under certain aspects, elements are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="280" >280</a></span>
+also causes, in so far as they are that without which a thing can
+not be produced. Hence that highest generalization by Aristotle
+of all first principles; as--1. The Material Cause; 2. The
+Formal Cause; 3. The Efficient Cause; 4. The Final Cause.
+The grand subject of inquiry in ancient philosophy was not
+alone what is the final <i>element</i> from which all things have been
+produced? nor yet what is the <i>efficient cause</i> of the movement
+and the order of the universe? <i>but what are those First Principles
+which, being assumed, shall furnish a rational explanation
+of all phenomena, of all becoming?</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote398"
+name="footnote398"><b>Footnote 398: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag398">
+(return) </a> As the writer of the article "Attica," in the Encyclopædia Britannica.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote399"
+name="footnote399"><b>Footnote 399: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag399">
+(return) </a> "Metaphysics," bk. iv. ch. i. p. 112 (Bohn's edition).</blockquote>
+
+<p>So much being premised, we proceed to consider the efforts
+and the results of philosophic thought in</p>
+
+<p class="mid"><b>THE PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.</b></p>
+
+<p>"The first act in the drama of Grecian speculation was performed
+on the varied theatre of the Grecian colonies--Asiatic,
+insular, and Italian, verging at length (in Anaxagoras) towards
+Athens." During the progress of this drama two distinct
+schools of philosophy were developed, having distinct geographical
+provinces, one on the east, the other on the west, of
+the peninsula of Greece, and deriving their names from the
+localities in which they flourished. The earliest was the <i>Ionian;</i>
+the latter was the <i>Italian</i> school.</p>
+
+<p>It would be extremely difficult, at this remote period, to estimate
+the influence which geographical conditions and ethnical
+relations exerted in determining the course of philosophic
+thought in these schools. Unquestionably those conditions
+contributed somewhat towards fixing their individuality. At
+the same time, it must be granted that the distinction in these
+two schools of philosophy is of a deeper character than can be
+represented or explained by geographical surroundings; it is a
+distinction reaching to the very foundation of their habits of
+thought. These schools represent two distinct aspects of philosophic
+thought, two distinct methods in which the human
+mind has essayed to solve the problem of the universe.</p>
+
+<p>The ante-Socratic schools were chiefly occupied with the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="281" >281</a></span>
+study of external nature. "Greek philosophy was, at its first
+appearance, a philosophy of nature." It was an effort of the
+reason to reach a "first principle" which should explain the
+universe. This early attempt was purely speculative. It
+sought to interpret all phenomena by <i>hypotheses</i>, that is, by
+suppositions, more or less plausible, suggested by physical analogies
+or by <i>à priori</i> rational conceptions.</p>
+
+<p>Now there are two distinct aspects under which nature presents
+itself to the observant mind. The first and most obvious
+is the <i>simple phenomena</i> as perceived by the senses. The second
+is the <i>relations</i> of <i>phenomena</i>, cognized by the reason alone.
+Let phenomena, which are indeed the first objects of perception,
+continue to be the chief and almost exclusive object of thought,
+and philosophy is on the highway of pure physics. On the
+other hand, instead of stopping at phenomena, let their relations
+become the sole object of thought, and philosophy is now
+on the road of purely mathematical or metaphysical abstraction.
+Thus two schools of philosophy are developed, the one SENSATIONAL,
+the other IDEALIST. Now these, it will be found, are
+the leading and characteristic tendencies of the two grand divisions
+of the pre-Socratic schools; the Ionian is <i>sensational</i>,
+the Italian is <i>idealist</i>.</p>
+
+<p>These two schools have again been the subject of a further
+subdivision based upon diverse habits of thought. The Ionian
+school sought to explain the universe by <i>physical analogies.</i>
+Of these there are two clear and obvious divisions--analogies
+suggested by living organisms, and analogies suggested by mechanical
+arrangements. One class of philosophers in the Ionian
+school laid hold on the first analogy. They regarded the
+world as a living being, spontaneously evolving itself--a vital
+organism whose successive developments and transformations
+constitute all visible phenomena. A second class laid hold
+on the analogy suggested by mechanical arrangements. For
+them the universe was a grand superstructure, built up from
+elemental particles, arranged and united by some ab-extra
+power or force, or else aggregated by some inherent mutual
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="282" >282</a></span>
+affinity. Thus we have two sects of the Ionian school; the
+first, <i>Dynamical</i> or vital; the second, <i>Mechanical</i>.<a id="footnotetag400" name="footnotetag400"></a>
+<a href="#footnote400"><sup class="sml">400</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote400"
+name="footnote400"><b>Footnote 400: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag400">
+(return) </a> Ritter's "Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 191, 192.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The Italian school sought to explain the universe by rational
+conceptions and <i>à priori</i> ideas. Now to those who seek, by
+simple reflection, to investigate the relations of the external
+world this marked distinction will present itself: some are relations
+<i>between</i> sensible phenomena--relations of time, of place,
+of number, of proportion, and of harmony; others are relations
+<i>of</i> phenomena to essential being--relations of qualities to substance,
+of becoming to being, of the finite to the infinite. The
+former constituted the field of Pythagorean the latter of Eleatic
+contemplation. The Pythagoreans sought to explain the universe
+by numbers, forms, and harmonies; the Eleatics by the
+<i>à priori</i> ideas of unity, substance, Being <i>in se</i>, the Infinite.
+Thus were constituted a <i>Mathematical</i> and a <i>Metaphysical</i> sect
+in the Italian school. The pre-Socratic schools may, therefore,
+be tabulated in the following order:</p>
+
+<pre>
+I. IONIAN (Sensational),   (1.) PHYSICAL {Dynamical or Vital.
+                                       {Mechanical.
+
+II. Italian (Idealist),    {(2.) MATHEMATICAL Pythagoreans.
+                           {(3.) METAPHYSICAL Eleatics.
+</pre>
+
+<p>I. <i>The Ionian or Physical School.</i>--We have premised that
+the philosophers of this school attempted the explanation of
+the universe by physical analogies.</p>
+
+<p>One class of these early speculators, the <i>Dynamical</i>, or vital
+theorists, proceeded on the supposition of a living energy infolded
+in nature, which in its spontaneous development continuously
+undergoes alteration both of quality and form. This
+imperfect analogy is the first hypothesis of childhood. The
+child personifies the stone that hurts him, and his first impulse
+is to resent the injury as though he imagined it to be endowed
+with consciousness, and to be acting with design. The childhood
+of superstition (whose genius is multiplicity) personifies
+each individual existence--a rude Fetichism, which imagines a
+supernatural power and presence enshrined in every object of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="283" >283</a></span>
+nature, in every plant, and stock, and stone. The childhood
+of philosophy (whose genius is unity) personifies the universe.
+It regards the earth as one vast organism, animated by one
+soul, and this soul of the world as a "created god."<a id="footnotetag401" name="footnotetag401"></a>
+<a href="#footnote401"><sup class="sml">401</sup></a> The first
+efforts of philosophy were, therefore, simply an attempt to explain
+the universe in harmony with the popular theological beliefs.
+The cosmogonies of the early speculators in the Ionian
+school were an elaboration of the ancient theogonies, but still
+an elaboration conducted under the guidance of that law of
+thought which constrains man to seek for <i>unity</i>, and reduce the
+many to the one.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, in attempting to construct a theory of the universe
+they commenced by postulating an ἀρχή--a first principle or
+element out of which, by a <i>vital</i> process, all else should be produced. "Accordingly, whatever seemed the most subtle or pliable,
+as well as <i>universal</i> element in the mass of the visible
+world, was marked as the seminal principle whose successive
+developments and transformations produced all the rest."<a id="footnotetag402" name="footnotetag402"></a>
+<a href="#footnote402"><sup class="sml">402</sup></a>
+With this seminal principle the living, <i>animating</i> principle
+seems to have been associated--in some instances perhaps
+confounded, and in most instances called by the same name.
+And having pursued this analogy so far, we shall find the
+<i>most decided and conclusive</i> evidence of a tendency to regard
+the soul of man as similar, in its nature, to the soul which animates
+the world.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote401"
+name="footnote401"><b>Footnote 401: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag401">
+(return) </a> Plato's "Laws," bk. x. ch. i.; "Timæus," ch. xii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote402"
+name="footnote402"><b>Footnote 402: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag402">
+(return) </a> Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. 1. p. 292.</blockquote>
+
+<p><i>Thales of Miletus</i>(B.C. 636-542) was the first to lead the way
+in the perilous inquiry after an ἀρχή, or first principle, which
+should furnish a rational explanation of the universe. Following,
+as it would seem, the genealogy of Hesiod, he supposed
+<i>water</i> to be the primal element out of which all material things
+were produced. Aristotle supposes he was impressed with this
+idea from observing that all things are nourished by moisture;
+warmth itself, he declared, proceeded from moisture; the seeds
+of all things are moist; water, when condensed, becomes earth.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="284" >284</a></span>
+Thus convinced of the universal presence of water, he declared
+it to be the first principle of things.<a id="footnotetag403" name="footnotetag403"></a>
+<a href="#footnote403"><sup class="sml">403</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>And now, from this brief statement of the Thalean physics,
+are we to conclude that he recognized only a <i>material</i> cause of
+the universe? Such is the impression we receive from the
+reading of the First Book of Aristotle's Metaphysics. His evident
+purpose is to prove that the first philosophers of the Ionian
+school did not recognize an <i>efficient</i> cause. In his opinion, they
+were decidedly materialistic. Now to question the authority of
+Aristotle may appear to many an act of presumption. But
+Aristotle was not infallible; and nothing is more certain than
+that in more than one instance he does great injustice to his
+predecessors.<a id="footnotetag404" name="footnotetag404"></a>
+<a href="#footnote404"><sup class="sml">404</sup></a> To him, unquestionably, belongs the honor of
+having made a complete and exhaustive classification of causes,
+but there certainly does appear something more than vanity in
+the assumption that he, of all the Greek philosophers, was the
+only one who recognized them all. His sagacious classification
+was simply a resumè of the labors of his predecessors. His
+"principles" or "causes" were incipient in the thought of the
+first speculators in philosophy. Their accurate definition and
+clearer presentation was the work of ages of analytic thought.
+The phrases "efficient," "formal," "final" cause, are, we grant,
+peculiar to Aristotle; the ideas were equally the possession of
+his predecessors.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote403"
+name="footnote403"><b>Footnote 403: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag403">
+(return) </a> Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. iii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote404"
+name="footnote404"><b>Footnote 404: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag404">
+(return) </a> Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 77; Cousin's "The
+True, the Beautiful, and the Good," p. 77.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The evidence, we think, is conclusive that, with this primal
+element (water), Thales associated a formative principle of motion;
+to the "material" he added the "efficient" cause. A
+strong presumption in favor of this opinion is grounded on the
+psychological views of Thales. The author of "De Placitis
+Philosophorum" associates him with Pythagoras and Plato, in
+teaching that the soul is incorporeal, making it naturally self-active,
+and an intelligent substance.<a id="footnotetag405" name="footnotetag405"></a>
+<a href="#footnote405"><sup class="sml">405</sup></a> And it is admitted by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="285" >285</a></span>
+Aristotle (rather unwillingly, we grant, but his testimony is all
+the more valuable on that account) that, in his time, the opinion
+that the soul is a principle, ἀεικίνητον--ever moving, or essentially
+self-active, was currently ascribed to Thales. "If we
+may rely on the notices of Thales, he too would seem to have
+conceived the soul as a <i>moving principle</i>."<a id="footnotetag406" name="footnotetag406"></a>
+<a href="#footnote406"><sup class="sml">406</sup></a> Extending this
+idea, that the soul is a moving principle, he held that all motion
+in the universe was due to the presence of a living soul.
+"He is reported to have said that the loadstone possessed a
+soul because it could move iron."<a id="footnotetag407" name="footnotetag407"></a>
+<a href="#footnote407"><sup class="sml">407</sup></a> And he taught that "the
+world itself is <i>animated</i>, and full of gods."<a id="footnotetag408" name="footnotetag408"></a>
+<a href="#footnote408"><sup class="sml">408</sup></a> "Some think that
+<i>soul</i> and <i>life</i> is mingled with the whole universe; and thence,
+perhaps, was that [opinion] of Thales that all things are full of
+gods,"<a id="footnotetag409" name="footnotetag408"></a>
+<a href="#footnote409"><sup class="sml">409</sup></a> portions, as Aristotle said, of the universal soul. These
+views are quite in harmony with the theology which makes
+the Deity the moving energy of the universe--the energy
+which wrought the successive transformations of the primitive
+aqueous element. They also furnish a strong corroboration of
+the positive statement of Cicero--"Aquam, dixit Thales, esse
+initium rerum, Deum autem eam mentem quæ ex aqua cuncta
+fingeret." Thales said that water is the first principle of things,
+but God was that mind which formed all things out of water;<a id="footnotetag410" name="footnotetag410"></a>
+<a href="#footnote410"><sup class="sml">410</sup></a>
+as also that still more remarkable saying of Thales, recorded
+by Diogenes Laertius; "God is the most ancient of all things,
+for he had no birth; the world is the most beautiful of all
+things, for it is the workmanship of God."<a id="footnotetag411" name="footnotetag411"></a>
+<a href="#footnote411"><sup class="sml">411</sup></a> We are aware that
+some historians of philosophy reject the statement of Cicero,
+because, say they, "it does violence to the chronology of speculation."<a id="footnotetag412" name="footnotetag412"></a>
+<a href="#footnote412"><sup class="sml">412</sup></a>
+Following Hegel, they assert that Thales could have
+no conception of God as Intelligence, since that is a conception
+of a more advanced philosophy. Such an opinion may be
+naturally expected from the philosopher who places God, not
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="286" >286</a></span>
+at the commencement, but at the <i>end</i> of things, God becoming
+conscious and intelligent in humanity. If, then, Hegel teaches
+that God himself has had a progressive development, it is no
+wonder he should assert that the idea of God has also had an
+historic development, the <i>last</i> term of which is an <i>intelligent
+God</i>. But he who believes that the idea of God as the infinite
+and the perfect is native to the human mind, and that God
+stands at the beginning of the entire system of things, will feel
+there is a strong <i>à priori</i> ground for the belief that Thales recognized
+the existence of an <i>intelligent God who fashioned the
+universe</i>.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote405"
+name="footnote405"><b>Footnote 405: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag405">
+(return) </a> Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 71.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote406"
+name="footnote406"><b>Footnote 406: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag406">
+(return) </a> Aristotle, "De Anima," i. 2, 17.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote407"
+name="footnote407"><b>Footnote 407: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag407">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., i. 2, 17.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote408"
+name="footnote408"><b>Footnote 408: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag408">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," p. 18 (Bohn's ed.).</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote409"
+name="footnote409"><b>Footnote 409: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag409">
+(return) </a> Aristotle, "De Anima," i. 17.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote410"
+name="footnote410"><b>Footnote 410: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag410">
+(return) </a> "De Natura Deor.," bk. i. ch. x.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote411"
+name="footnote411"><b>Footnote 411: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag411">
+(return) </a> "Lives," etc., p. 19.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote412"
+name="footnote412"><b>Footnote 412: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag412">
+(return) </a> Lewes's "Hist. Philos.," p. 4.</blockquote>
+
+<p><i>Anaximenes of Miletus</i> (B.C. 529-480) we place next to
+Thales in the consecutive history of thought. It has been
+usual to rank Anaximander next to the founder of the Ionian
+School. The entire complexion of his system is, however, unlike
+that of a pupil of Thales. And we think a careful consideration
+of his views will justify our placing him at the head
+of the Mechanical or Atomic division of the Ionian school.
+Anaximenes is the historical successor of Thales; he was unquestionably
+a vitalist. He took up the speculation where
+Thales had left it, and he carried it a step forward in its development.<a id="footnotetag413" name="footnotetag413"></a>
+<a href="#footnote413"><sup class="sml">413</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Pursuing the same method as Thales, he was not, however,
+satisfied with the conclusion he had reached. Water was not
+to Anaximenes the most significant, neither was it the most
+universal element. But air seemed universally present. "The
+earth was a broad leaf resting upon it. All things were produced
+from it; all things were resolved into it. When he
+breathed he drew in a part of this universal life. All things
+are nourished by air."<a id="footnotetag414" name="footnotetag414"></a>
+<a href="#footnote414"><sup class="sml">414</sup></a> Was not, therefore, <i>air</i> the ἀρχή, or primal
+element of things?</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote413"
+name="footnote413"><b>Footnote 413: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag413">
+(return) </a> Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 203.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote414"
+name="footnote414"><b>Footnote 414: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag414">
+(return) </a> Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 7.</blockquote>
+
+<p>This brief notice of the physical speculations of Anaximenes
+is all that has survived of his opinions. We search in vain for
+some intimations of his theological views. On this merely
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="287" >287</a></span>
+negative ground, some writers have unjustly charged him with
+Atheism. Were we to venture a conjecture, we would rather
+say that there are indications of a tendency to Pantheism in
+that form of it which associates God necessarily with the universe,
+but does not utterly confound them. His fixing upon
+"<i>air</i>" as the primal element, seems an effort to reconcile, in
+some apparently intermediate substance, the opposite qualities
+of corporeal and spiritual natures. Air is invisible, impalpable,
+all-penetrating, and yet in some manner appreciable to sense.
+May not the vital transformations of this element have produced
+all the rest? The writer of the Article on Anaximenes
+in the Encyclopædia Britannica tells us (on what ancient authorities
+he saith not) that "he asserted this air was God, since
+the divine power resides in it and agitates it."</p>
+
+<p>Some indications of the views of Anaximenes may perhaps
+be gathered from the teachings of Diogenes of Apollonia (B.C.
+520-490,) who was the disciple, and is generally regarded as
+the commentator and expounder of the views of Anaximenes.
+The air of Diogenes was a soul; therefore it was <i>living</i>, and not
+only living, but conscious and <i>intelligent</i>. "It knows much,"
+says he; "for without <i>reason</i> it would be impossible for all to
+be arranged duly and proportionately; and whatever objects
+we consider will be found to be so arranged and ordered in the
+best and most beautiful manner."<a id="footnotetag415" name="footnotetag415"></a>
+<a href="#footnote415"><sup class="sml">415</sup></a> Here we have a distinct
+recognition of the fundamental axiom that <i>mind is the only valid
+explanation of the order and harmony which pervades the universe</i>.
+With Diogenes the first principle is a "divine air,"
+which is vital, conscious, and intelligent, which spontaneously
+evolves itself, and which, by its ceaseless transformations, produces
+all phenomena. The soul of man is a detached portion
+of this divine element; his body is developed or evolved therefrom.
+The theology of Diogenes, and, as we believe, of his
+master, Anaximenes also, was a species of Materialistic Pantheism.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote415"
+name="footnote415"><b>Footnote 415: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag415">
+(return) </a> Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 8; Ritter's "History
+of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 214.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="288">288</a></span>
+
+<p><i>Heraclitus of Ephesus</i>(B.C. 503-420) comes next in the order
+of speculative thought. In his philosophy, <i>fire</i> is the ἀρχή, or
+first principle; but not fire in the usual acceptation of that
+term. The Heraclitean "fire" is not flame, which is only an
+intensity of fire, but a warm, dry vapor--an <i>ether</i>, which may
+be illustrated, perhaps, by the "caloric" of modern chemistry.
+This "<i>ether</i>" was the primal element out of which the universe
+was formed; it was also a vital power or principle which animated
+the universe, and, in fact, the <i>cause</i> of all its successive
+phenomenal changes. "The world," he said, "was neither
+made by the gods nor men, and it was, and is, and ever shall
+be, an <i>ever-living fire</i>, in due proportion self-enkindled, and in
+due measure self-extinguished."<a id="footnotetag416" name="footnotetag416"></a>
+<a href="#footnote416"><sup class="sml">416</sup></a> The universe is thus reduced
+to "an eternal fire," whose ceaseless energy is manifested
+openly in the work of dissolution, and yet secretly, but universally,
+in the work of renovation. The phenomena of the universe
+are explained by Heraclitus as "the concurrence of opposite
+tendencies and efforts in the motions of this ever-living fire,
+out of which results the most beautiful harmony. This harmony
+of the world is one of conflicting impulses, like the lyre and
+the bow. The strife between opposite tendencies is the parent
+of all things. All life is change, and change is strife."<a id="footnotetag417" name="footnotetag417"></a>
+<a href="#footnote417"><sup class="sml">417</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote416"
+name="footnote416"><b>Footnote 416: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag416">
+(return) </a> Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 235.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote417"
+name="footnote417"><b>Footnote 417: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag417">
+(return) </a> Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 70; Ritter's "History
+of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 244.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Heraclitus was the first to proclaim the doctrine of the perpetual
+fluxion of the universe (τὸ ῥέον, τὸ γιγνόµενον--Unrest
+and Development), the endless changes of matter, and the mutability
+and perishability of all individual things. This restless,
+changing flow of things, which never <i>are</i>, but always are <i>becoming</i>,
+he pronounced to be the <i>One</i> and the <i>All</i>.</p>
+
+<p>From this statement of the physical theory of Heraclitus we
+might naturally infer that he was a Hylopathean Atheist. Such
+an hypothesis would not, however, be truthful or legitimate. On
+a more careful examination, his system will be found to stand
+half-way between the materialistic and the spiritual conception
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="289">289</a></span>
+of the Author of the universe, and marks, indeed, a transition
+from the one to the other. Heraclitus unquestionably held
+that all substance is material, for a philosopher who proclaims,
+as he did, that the senses are the only source of knowledge,
+must necessarily attach himself to a material element as the
+primary one. And yet he seems to have <i>spiritualized</i> matter.
+"The moving unit of Heraclitus--the Becoming--is as immaterial
+as the resting unit of the Eleatics--the Being."<a id="footnotetag418" name="footnotetag418"></a>
+<a href="#footnote418"><sup class="sml">418</sup></a> The
+Heraclitean "<i>fire</i>" is endowed with <i>spiritual</i> attributes. "Aristotle
+calls it ψυχή--soul, and says that it is ἀσωµατώτατον, or
+absolutely incorporeal ("De Anima," i. 2. 16). It is, in effect,
+the common ground of the phenomena both of mind and matter
+it is not only the animating, but also the intelligent and
+regulating principle of the universe; the Ξυνὸς Λόγος, or universal
+Word or Reason, which it behooves all men to follow."<a id="footnotetag419" name="footnotetag419"></a>
+<a href="#footnote419"><sup class="sml">419</sup></a>
+The psychology of Heraclitus throws additional light upon his
+theological opinions. With him human intelligence is a detached
+portion of the Universal Reason. "Inhaling," said he,
+"through the breath the Universal Ether, which is Divine Reason,
+we become conscious." The errors and imperfections of
+humanity are consequently to be ascribed to a deficiency of the
+Divine Reason in man. Whilst, therefore, the theory of Heraclitus
+seems to materialize mind, it may, with equal fairness, be
+said to spiritualize matter.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote418"
+name="footnote418"><b>Footnote 418: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag418">
+(return) </a> Zeller's "History of Greek Philosophy," vol. i. p. 57.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote419"
+name="footnote419"><b>Footnote 419: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag419">
+(return) </a> Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. p. 297, note.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The general inference, therefore, from all that remains of
+the doctrine of Heraclitus is that he was a Materialistic Pantheist.
+His God was a living, rational, intelligent Ether--a
+soul pervading the universe. The form of the universe, its
+ever-changing phenomena, were a necessary emanation from, or
+a perpetual transformation of, this universal soul.</p>
+
+<p>With Heraclitus we close our survey of that sect of the physical
+school which regarded the world as a living organism.</p>
+
+<p>The second subdivision of the physical school, <i>the Mechanical</i>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="290" >290</a></span>
+or <i>Atomist theorists</i>, attempted the explanation of the universe
+by analogies derived from mechanical collocations, arrangements,
+and movements. The universe was regarded by
+them as a vast superstructure built up from elemental particles,
+aggregated by some inherent force or mutual affinity.</p>
+
+<p><i>Anaximander of Miletus</i> (born B.C. 610) we place at the head
+of the Mechanical sect of the Ionian school; first, on the authority
+of Aristotle, who intimates that the philosophic dogmata
+of Anaximander "resemble those of Democritus," who was certainly
+an Atomist; and, secondly, because we can clearly trace
+a genetic connection between the opinions of Democritus and
+Leucippus and those of Anaximander.</p>
+
+<p>The ἀρχή, or first principle of Anaximander, was τὸ ἄπειρον,
+<i>the boundless, the illimitable, the infinite</i>. Some historians of
+philosophy have imagined that the infinite of Anaximander was
+the "unlimited all," and have therefore placed him at the head
+of the Italian or "idealistic school." These writers are manifestly
+in error. Anaximander was unquestionably a sensationalist.
+Whatever his "infinite" may be found to be, one thing
+is clear, it was not a "metaphysical infinite"--it did not include
+infinite power, much less infinite mind.</p>
+
+<p>The testimony of Aristotle is conclusive that by "the infinite"
+Anaximander understood the multitude of primary, material
+particles. He calls it "a µῖγµα, or mixture of elements."<a id="footnotetag420" name="footnotetag420"></a>
+<a href="#footnote420"><sup class="sml">420</sup></a>
+It was, in fact, a <i>chaos</i>--an original state in which the primary
+elements existed in a chaotic combination without <i>limitation</i> or
+division. He assumed a certain "<i>prima materia</i>," which was
+neither air, nor water, nor fire, but a "mixture" of all, to be
+the first principle of the universe. The account of the opinions
+of Anaximander which is given by Plutarch ("De Placita," etc.)
+is a further confirmation of our interpretation of his infinite.
+"Anaximander, the Milesian, affirmed the infinite to be the
+first principle, and that all things are generated out of it, and
+corrupted again into it. <i>His infinite is nothing else but matter.</i>"
+"Whence," says Cudworth, "we conclude that Anaximander's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="291" >291</a></span>
+infinite was nothing else but an infinite chaos of matter, in
+which were actually or potentially contained all manner of
+qualities, by the fortuitous secretion and segregation of which
+he supposed infinite worlds to be successively generated and
+corrupted. So that we may easily guess whence Leucippus
+and Democritus had their infinite worlds, and perceive how
+near akin these two Atheistic hypotheses were."<a id="footnotetag421" name="footnotetag421"></a>
+<a href="#footnote421"><sup class="sml">421</sup></a> The reader,
+whose curiosity may lead him to consult the authorities collected
+by Cudworth (pp. 185-188), will find in the doctrine of
+Anaximander a rude anticipation of the modern theories of
+"spontaneous generation" and "the transmutation of species."
+In the fragments of Anaximander that remain we find no recognition
+of an ordering Mind, and his philosophy is the dawn
+of a Materialistic school.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote420"
+name="footnote420"><b>Footnote 420: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag420">
+(return) </a> Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. ii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote421"
+name="footnote421"><b>Footnote 421: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag421">
+(return) </a> Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. pp. 186, 187.</blockquote>
+
+<p><i>Leucippus of Miletus</i> (B.C. 500-400) appears, in the order of
+speculation, as the successor of Anaximander. <i>Atoms</i> and
+<i>space</i> are, in his philosophy, the ἀρχαί, or first principles of all
+things. "Leucippus (and his companion, Democritus) assert
+that the plenum and the vacuum [<i>i.e.</i>, body and space] are the
+first principles, whereof one is the Ens, the other Non-ens; the
+differences of the body, which are only figure, order, and position,
+are the causes of all others."<a id="footnotetag422" name="footnotetag422"></a>
+<a href="#footnote422"><sup class="sml">422</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote422"
+name="footnote422"><b>Footnote 422: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag422">
+(return) </a> Aristotle's "Metaphysics," p. 21 (Bohn's edition).</blockquote>
+
+<p>He also taught that the elements, and the worlds derived
+from them, are <i>infinite</i>. He describes the manner in which
+the worlds are produced as follows: "Many bodies of various
+kinds and shapes are borne by amputation from the infinite
+[<i>i.e.</i>, the chaotic µῖγµα of Anaximander] into a vast vacuum,
+and then they, being collected together, produce a vortex;
+according to which, they, dashing against each other, and
+whirling about in every direction, are separated in such a way
+that like attaches itself to like; bodies are thus, without ceasing,
+united according to the impulse given by the vortex, and
+in this way the earth was produced."<a id="footnotetag423" name="footnotetag423"></a>
+<a href="#footnote423"><sup class="sml">423</sup></a> Thus, through a boundless
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="292">292</a></span>
+void, atoms infinite in number and endlessly diversified in
+form are eternally wandering; and, by their aggregation, infinite
+worlds are successively produced. These atoms are governed
+in their movements by a dark negation of intelligence,
+designated "Fate," and all traces of a Supreme Mind disappear
+in his philosophy. It is a system of pure materialism,
+which, in fact, is Atheism.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote423"
+name="footnote423"><b>Footnote 423: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag423">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," p. 389.</blockquote>
+
+<p><i>Democritus of Abdera</i> (B.C. 460-357), the companion of Leucippus,
+also taught "that <i>atoms</i> and the <i>vacuum</i> were the beginning
+of the universe."<a id="footnotetag424" name="footnotetag424"></a>
+<a href="#footnote424"><sup class="sml">424</sup></a> These atoms, he taught, were infinite
+in number, homogeneous, extended, and possessed of those primary
+qualities of matter which are necessarily involved in extension
+in space--as size, figure, situation, divisibility, and mobility.
+From the combination of these atoms all other existences
+are produced; fire, air, earth, and water; sun, moon, and
+stars; plants, animals, and men; the soul itself is an aggregation
+of round, moving atoms. And "motion, which is the
+cause of the production of every thing, he calls <i>necessity</i>."<a id="footnotetag425" name="footnotetag425"></a>
+<a href="#footnote425"><sup class="sml">425</sup></a>
+Atoms are thus the only real existences; these, without any
+pre-existent mind, or intelligence, were the original of all
+things.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote424"
+name="footnote424"><b>Footnote 424: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag424">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," p. 395.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote425"
+name="footnote425"><b>Footnote 425: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag425">
+(return) </a> Id, ib., p. 394.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The psychological opinions of Democritus were as decidedly
+materialistic as his physical theories. All knowledge is derived
+from sensation. It is only by material impact that we
+can know the external world, and every sense is, in reality, a
+kind of touch. Material images are being continually thrown
+off from the surface of external objects which come into actual
+contact with the organs of sense. The primary qualities of
+matter, that is, those which are involved in extension in space,
+are the only objects of real knowledge; the secondary qualities
+of matter, as softness, hardness, sweetness, bitterness, and
+the like, are but modifications of the human sensibilities.
+"The sweet exists only in form--the bitter in form, hot in
+form, color in form; but in causal reality only atoms and
+space exist. The sensible things which are supposed by opinion
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="293">293</a></span>
+to exist have no real existence, but atoms and space alone
+exist."<a id="footnotetag426" name="footnotetag426"></a>
+<a href="#footnote426"><sup class="sml">426</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote426"
+name="footnote426"><b>Footnote 426: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag426">
+(return) </a> Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 96. The words of
+Democritus, as reported by Sextus Empiricus.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Thus by Democritus was laid the basis of a system of absolute
+materialism, which was elaborated and completed by Epicurus,
+and has been transmitted to our times. It has undergone
+some slight modifications, adapting it to the progress of
+physical science; but it is to-day substantially the theory of
+Democritus. In Democritus we have the culmination of the
+mechanical theory of the Ionian or Physical school. In physics
+and psychology it terminated in pure materialism. In theology
+it ends in positive Atheism.</p>
+
+<p>The fundamental error of all the philosophers of the physical
+school was the assumption, tacitly or avowedly, that sense-perception
+is the only source of knowledge. This was the fruitful
+source of all their erroneous conclusions, the parent of all their
+materialistic tendencies. This led them continually to seek
+an ἀρχή, or first principle of the universe, which should, under
+some form, be appreciable to <i>sense</i>; and consequently the
+course of thought tended naturally towards materialism.</p>
+
+<p>Thales was unquestionably a dualist. Instructed by traditional
+intimations, or more probably guided by the spontaneous
+apperceptions of reason, he recognized, with more or less distinctness,
+an incorporeal Deity as the moving, animating, and
+organizing cause of the universe. The idea of God is a truth
+so self-evident as to need no demonstration. The human mind
+does not attain to the idea of a God as the last consequence of
+a series of antecedent principles. It comes at once, by an inherent
+and necessary movement of thought, to the recognition
+of God as the First Principle of all principles. But when, instead
+of hearkening to the simple and spontaneous intuitions
+of the mind, man turns to the world of sense, and loses himself
+in discursive thought, the conviction of a personal God becomes
+obscured. Then, amid the endlessly diversified phenomena of
+the universe, he seeks for a cause or origin which in some form
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="294">294</a></span>
+shall be appreciable to sense. The mere study of material
+phenomena, scientifically or unscientifically conducted, will
+never yield the sense of the living God. Nature must be interpreted,
+can only be interpreted in the light of certain <i>à priori</i>
+principles of reason, or we can never "ascend from nature
+up to nature's God." Within the circle of mere sense-perception,
+the dim and undeveloped consciousness of God will be
+confounded with the universe. Thus, in Anaximenes, God is
+partially confounded with "air," which becomes a symbol; then
+a vehicle of the informing mind; and the result is a semi-pantheism.
+In Heraclitus, the "ether" is, at first, a semi-symbol
+of the Deity; at length, God is utterly confounded with this
+ether, or "rational fire," and the result is a definite <i>materialistic
+pantheism</i>. And, finally, when this feeling or dim consciousness
+of God, which dwells in all human souls, is not only disregarded,
+but pronounced to be an illusion--a phantasy; when
+all the analogies which intelligence suggests are disregarded,
+and a purely mechanical theory of the universe is adopted, the
+result is the utter negation of an Intelligent Cause, that is, <i>absolute
+Atheism</i>, as in Leucippus and Democritus.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="295">295</a></span>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER IX.</h3>
+
+<h3>THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS <i>(continued</i>).</h3>
+
+<h3>PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOL <i>(continued</i>).</h3>
+
+<h3>IDEALIST: PYTHAGORAS--XENOPHANES--PARMENIDES--ZENO. NATURAL
+REALIST: ANAXAGORAS.</h3>
+
+<h3>SOCRATIC SCHOOL.</h3>
+
+<h3>SOCRATES.</h3>
+
+<p>In the previous chapter we commenced our inquiry with the
+assumption that, in the absence of the true inductive method
+of philosophy which observes, and classifies, and generalizes
+facts, and thence attains a general principle or law, two only
+methods were possible to the early speculators who sought an
+explanation of the universe--1st, That of reasoning from physical
+analogies; or, 2d, That of deduction from rational conceptions,
+or <i>à priori</i> ideas.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly we found that one class of speculators fixed
+their attention solely on the mere phenomena of nature, and
+endeavored, amid sensible things, to find a <i>single</i> element
+which, being more subtile, and pliable, and universally diffused,
+could be regarded as the ground and original of all the
+rest, and from which, by a vital transformation, or by a mechanical
+combination and arrangement of parts, all the rest
+should be evolved. The other class passed beyond the simple
+phenomena, and considered only the abstract <i>relations</i> of phenomena
+among themselves, or the relations of phenomena to
+the necessary and universal ideas of the reason, and supposed
+that, in these relations, they had found an explanation of the
+universe. The former was the Ionian or Sensation school;
+the latter was the Italian or Idealist school.</p>
+
+<p>We have traced the method according to which the Ionian
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="296">296</a></span>
+school proceeded, and estimated the results attained. We
+now come to consider the method and results of</p>
+
+<p class="mid"><b>THE ITALIAN OR IDEALIST SCHOOL.</b></p>
+
+<p>This school we have found to be naturally subdivided into--1st,
+The <i>Mathematical</i> sect, which attempted the explanation
+of the universe by the abstract conceptions of number, proportion,
+order, and harmony; and, 2d, The <i>Metaphysical</i> school,
+which attempted the interpretation of the universe according
+to the <i>à priori</i> ideas of unity, of Being <i>in se</i>, of the Infinite, and
+the Absolute.</p>
+
+<p><i>Pythagoras of Samos</i>(born B.C. 605) was the founder of the
+Mathematical school.</p>
+
+<p>We are conscious of the difficulties which are to be encountered
+by the student who seeks to attain a definite comprehension
+of the real opinions of Pythagoras. The genuineness of
+many of those writings which were once supposed to represent
+his views, is now questioned. "Modern criticism has clearly
+shown that the works ascribed to Timæus and Archytas are
+spurious; and the treatise of Ocellus Lucanus on 'The Nature
+of the All' can not have been written by a Pythagorean."<a id="footnotetag427" name="footnotetag427"></a>
+<a href="#footnote427"><sup class="sml">427</sup></a>
+The only writers who can be regarded as at all reliable are
+Plato and Aristotle; and the opinions they represent are not
+so much those of Pythagoras as "the Pythagoreans." This is
+at once accounted for by the fact that Pythagoras taught in
+secret, and did not commit his opinions to writing. His disciples,
+therefore, represent the <i>tendency</i> rather than the actual
+tenets of his system; these were no doubt modified by the
+mental habits and tastes of his successors.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote427"
+name="footnote427"><b>Footnote 427: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag427">
+(return) </a> Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 24.</blockquote>
+
+<p>We may safely assume that the proposition from which
+Pythagoras started was the fundamental idea of all Greek
+speculation--<i>that beneath the fleeting forms and successive changes
+of the universe there is some permanent principle of unity</i><a id="footnotetag428" name="footnotetag428"></a>
+<a href="#footnote428"><sup class="sml">428</sup></a> The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="297">297</a></span>
+Ionian school sought that principle in some common physical
+element; Pythagoras sought, not for "elements," but for "relations,"
+and through these relations for ultimate laws indicating
+primal forces.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote428"
+name="footnote428"><b>Footnote 428: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag428">
+(return) </a> See Plato, "Timæus," ch. ix. p. 331 (Bohn's edition); Aristotle's "Metaphysics,"
+bk. v. ch. iii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Aristotle affirms that Pythagoras taught "that <i>numbers</i> are
+the first principles of all entities," and, "as it were, a <i>material</i>
+cause of things,"<a id="footnotetag429" name="footnotetag429"></a>
+<a href="#footnote429"><sup class="sml">429</sup></a> or, in other words, "that numbers are substances
+that involve a separate subsistence, and are primary
+causes of entities."<a id="footnotetag430" name="footnotetag430"></a>
+<a href="#footnote430"><sup class="sml">430</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote429"
+name="footnote429"><b>Footnote 429: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag429">
+(return) </a> Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. v.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote430"
+name="footnote430"><b>Footnote 430: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag430">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., bk. xii. ch. vi.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Are we then required to accept the dictum of Aristotle as
+final and decisive? Did Pythagoras really teach that numbers
+are real entities--the <i>substance</i> and cause of all other existences?
+The reader may be aware that this is a point upon
+which the historians of philosophy are not agreed. Ritter is
+decidedly of opinion that the Pythagorean formula "can only
+be taken symbolically."<a id="footnotetag431" name="footnotetag431"></a>
+<a href="#footnote431"><sup class="sml">431</sup></a> Lewes insists it must be understood
+literally.<a id="footnotetag432" name="footnotetag432"></a>
+<a href="#footnote432"><sup class="sml">432</sup></a> On a careful review of all the arguments, we are
+constrained to regard the conclusion of Ritter as most reasonable.
+The hypothesis "that numbers are real entities" does
+violence to every principle of common sense. This alone constitutes
+a strong <i>à priori</i> presumption that Pythagoras did not
+entertain so glaring an absurdity. The man who contributed
+so much towards perfecting the mathematical sciences, who
+played so conspicuous a part in the development of ancient
+philosophy, and who exerted so powerful a determining influence
+on the entire current of speculative thought, did not obtain
+his ascendency over the intellectual manhood of Greece
+by the utterance of such enigmas. And further, in interpreting
+the philosophic opinions of the ancients, we must be guided
+by this fundamental canon--"The human mind has, under the
+necessary operation of its own laws, been compelled to entertain
+the same fundamental ideas, and the human heart to cherish
+the same feelings in all ages." Now if a careful philosophic
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="298">298</a></span>
+criticism can not render the <i>reported</i> opinions of an ancient
+teacher into the universal language of the reason and
+heart of humanity, we must conclude either that his opinions
+were misunderstood and misrepresented by some of his successors,
+or else that he stands in utter isolation, both from the
+present and the past. His doctrine has, then, no relation to
+the successions of thought, and no place in the history of philosophy.
+Nay, more, such a doctrine has in it no element of
+vitality, no germ of eternal truth, and must speedily perish.
+Now it is well known that the teaching of Pythagoras awakened
+the deepest intellectual sympathy of his age; that his doctrine
+exerted a powerful influence on the mind of Plato, and,
+through him, upon succeeding ages; and that, in some of its
+aspects, it now survives, and is more influential to-day than in
+any previous age; but this element of immutable and eternal
+truth was certainly not contained in the inane and empty formula,
+"that numbers are real existences, the causes of all other
+existences!" If the fame of Pythagoras had rested on such
+"airy nothings," it would have melted away before the time of
+Plato.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote431"
+name="footnote431"><b>Footnote 431: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag431">
+(return) </a> "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 359.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote432"
+name="footnote432"><b>Footnote 432: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag432">
+(return) </a> "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 38.</blockquote>
+
+<p>We grant there is considerable force in the argument of
+Lewes. He urges, with some pertinence, the unquestionable
+fact that Aristotle asserts, again and again, that the Pythagoreans
+taught "that numbers are the principles and substance
+of things as well as the causes of their modifications;" and he
+argues that we are not justified in rejecting the authority of
+Aristotle, unless better evidence can be produced.</p>
+
+<p>So far, however, as the authority of Aristotle is concerned,
+even Lewes himself charges him, in more than one instance,
+with strangely misrepresenting the opinions of his predecessors.<a id="footnotetag433" name="footnotetag433"></a>
+<a href="#footnote433"><sup class="sml">433</sup></a>
+Aristotle is evidently wanting in that impartiality which
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="299">299</a></span>
+ought to characterize the historian of philosophy, and, sometimes,
+we are compelled to question his integrity. Indeed,
+throughout his "Metaphysics" he exhibits the egotism and
+vanity of one who imagines that he alone, of all men, has the
+full vision of the truth. In Books I. and XII. he uniformly associates
+the "<i>numbers</i>" of Pythagoras with the "<i>forms</i>" and
+"<i>ideas</i>" of Plato. He asserts that Plato identifies "forms"
+and "numbers," and regards them as real entities--substances,
+and causes of all other things. "<i>Forms are numbers</i><a id="footnotetag434" name="footnotetag434"></a>
+<a href="#footnote434"><sup class="sml">434</sup></a>... so
+Plato affirmed, similar with the Pythagoreans; and the dogma
+that numbers are causes to other things--of their substance-<i>he,
+in like manner, asserted with them</i>."<a id="footnotetag435" name="footnotetag435"></a>
+<a href="#footnote435"><sup class="sml">435</sup></a> And then, finally, he
+employs the <i>same</i> arguments in refuting the doctrines of both.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote433"
+name="footnote433"><b>Footnote 433: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag433">
+(return) </a> "Aristotle uniformly speaks disparagingly of Anaxagoras" (Lewes's
+"Biographical History of Philosophy"). He represents him as employing
+mind (νοῦς) simply as "a <i>machine</i>" for the production of the world;--"when
+he finds himself in perplexity as to the cause of its being necessarily
+an orderly system, he then drags it (mind) in by force to his assistance"
+"Metaphysics," (bk. i. ch. iv.). But he is evidently inconsistent with himself,
+for in "De Anima" (bk. i. ch. ii.) he tells us that "Anaxagoras saith that
+mind is at once a <i>cause of motion</i> in the whole universe, and also of <i>well</i> and
+<i>fit</i>." We may further ask, is not the idea of fitness--of the good and the
+befitting--the final cause, even according to Aristotle?
+
+<p>He also totally misrepresents Plato's doctrine of "Ideas." "Plato's
+Ideas," he says, "are substantial existences--real beings" ("Metaphysics,"
+bk. i. ch. ix.). Whereas, as we shall subsequently show, "they are objects
+of pure conception for human reason, and they are attributes of the Divine
+Reason. It is there they substantially exist." (Cousin, "History of Philosophy,"
+vol. i. p. 415). It is also pertinent to inquire, what is the difference
+between the "formal cause" of Aristotle and the archetypal ideas of Plato?
+and is not Plato's τὸ ἀγαθόν the "final cause?" Yet Aristotle is forever
+congratulating himself that he alone has properly treated the "formal" and
+the "final cause!"</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote434"
+name="footnote434"><b>Footnote 434: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag434">
+(return) </a> This, however, was not the doctrine of Plato. He does not say "forms
+are numbers." He says: "God formed things as they first arose according
+to forms <i>and</i> numbers." See "Timaeus," ch. xiv. and xxvii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote435"
+name="footnote435"><b>Footnote 435: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag435">
+(return) </a> Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. vi.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Now the writings of Plato are all extant to-day, and accessible
+in an excellent English translation to any of our readers.
+Cousin has shown,<a id="footnotetag436" name="footnotetag436"></a>
+<a href="#footnote436"><sup class="sml">436</sup></a> most conclusively (and we can verify his
+conclusions for ourselves), that Aristotle has totally misrepresented
+Plato. And if, in the same connection, and in the course
+of the same argument, and in regard to the same subjects, he
+misrepresents Plato, it is most probable he also misrepresents
+Pythagoras.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote436"
+name="footnote436"><b>Footnote 436: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag436">
+(return) </a> "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," pp. 77-81.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="300" >300</a></span>
+
+<p>It is, however, a matter of the deepest interest for us to find
+the evidence gleaming out here and there, on the pages of Aristotle,
+that he had some knowledge of the fact that the Pythagorean
+numbers were regarded as <i>symbols</i>. The "numbers"
+of Pythagoras are, in the mind of Aristotle, clearly identified
+with the "forms" of Plato. Now, in Chapter VI. of the First
+Book he says that Plato taught that these "forms" were
+παραδείγµατα--models, patterns, exemplars after which created
+things were framed. The numbers of Pythagoras, then, are
+also models and exemplars. This also is admitted by Aristotle.
+The Pythagoreans indeed affirm that entities subsist by
+an <i>imitation</i> (µίµησις) of numbers.<a id="footnotetag437" name="footnotetag437"></a>
+<a href="#footnote437"><sup class="sml">437</sup></a> Now if ideas, forms, numbers,
+were the models or paradigms after which "the Operator"
+formed all things, surely it can not be logical to say they
+were the "material" out of which all things were framed, much
+less the "efficient cause" of things. The most legitimate conclusion
+we can draw, even from the statements of Aristotle, is
+that the Pythagoreans regarded numbers as the best expression
+or representation of those laws of proportion, and order,
+and harmony, which seemed, to their eyes, to pervade the universe.
+Their doctrine was a faint glimpse of that grand discovery
+of modern science--that all the higher laws of nature
+assume the form of a precise quantitative statement.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote437"
+name="footnote437"><b>Footnote 437: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag437">
+(return) </a> Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. vi.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The fact seems to be this, the Pythagoreans busied themselves
+chiefly with what Aristotle designates "the <i>formal</i>
+cause," and gave little attention to the inquiry concerning "the
+<i>material</i> cause." This is admitted by Aristotle. Concerning
+fire, or earth, or the other bodies of such kind, they have declared
+nothing whatsoever, inasmuch as affirming, in my opinion,
+nothing that is peculiar concerning <i>sensible</i> natures.<a id="footnotetag438" name="footnotetag438"></a>
+<a href="#footnote438"><sup class="sml">438</sup></a> They
+looked, as we have previously remarked, to the relations of
+phenomena, and having discovered certain "numerical similitudes,"
+they imagined they had attained an universal principle,
+or law. "If all the essential properties and attributes of things
+were fully represented by the relations of numbers, the philosophy
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="301" >301</a></span>
+which supplied such an explanation of the universe might
+well be excused from explaining, also, that existence of objects,
+which is distinct from the existence of all their qualities and
+properties. The Pythagorean doctrine of numbers might have
+been combined with the doctrine of atoms, and the combination
+might have led to results worthy of notice. But, so far as we
+are aware, no such combination was attempted, and perhaps
+we of the present day are only just beginning to perceive,
+through the disclosures of chemistry and crystallography, the
+importance of such an inquiry."<a id="footnotetag439" name="footnotetag439"></a>
+<a href="#footnote439"><sup class="sml">439</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote438"
+name="footnote438"><b>Footnote 438: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag438">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., bk. i. ch. ix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote439"
+name="footnote439"><b>Footnote 439: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag439">
+(return) </a> Whewell's "History of Inductive Sciences," vol. i. p. 78.</blockquote>
+
+<p>These preliminary considerations will have cleared and prepared
+the way for a fuller presentation of the philosophic system
+of Pythagoras. The most comprehensive and satisfactory
+exposition of his "method" is that given by Wm Archer Butler
+in his "<i>Lectures on Ancient Philosophy</i>," and we feel we can
+not do better than condense his pages.<a id="footnotetag440" name="footnotetag440"></a>
+<a href="#footnote440"><sup class="sml">440</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote440"
+name="footnote440"><b>Footnote 440: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag440">
+(return) </a> Lecture VI. vol. i.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Pythagoras had long devoted his intellectual adoration to
+the lofty idea of <i>order</i>, which seemed to reveal itself to his
+mind, as the presiding genius of the serene and silent world.
+He had, from his youth, dwelt with delight upon the eternal relations
+of space, and determinate form, and number, in which
+the very idea of <i>proportion</i> seems to find its first and immediate
+development, and without the latter of which (number), all
+proportion is absolutely inconceivable. To this ardent genius,
+whose inventive energies were daily adding new and surprising
+contributions to the sum of discoverable relations, it at length
+began to appear as if the whole secret of the universe was hidden
+in these mysterious correspondences.</p>
+
+<p>In making this extensive generalization, Pythagoras may, on
+his known principles, be supposed to have reasoned as follows:
+The mind of man perceives the relations of an eternal <i>order</i> in
+the proportions of space, and form, and number. That mind
+is, no doubt, a portion of the soul which animates and governs
+the universe; for on what other supposition shall we account
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="302">302</a></span>
+for its internal principle of activity--the very principle which
+characterizes the prime mover, and can scarce be ascribed to
+an inferior nature? And on what other supposition are we to
+explain the identity which subsists between the principles of
+order, authenticated by the reason and the facts of order which
+are found to exist in the forms and multiplicities around us, and
+independent of us? Can this sameness be other than the
+sameness of the internal and external principles of a common
+nature? The proportions of the universe inhere in its divine
+soul; they are indeed its very essence, or at least, its attributes.
+The ideas or principles of Order which are implanted in the
+human reason, must inhere in the Divine Reason, and must be
+reflected in the visible world, which is its product. Man, then,
+can boldly affirm the necessary harmony of the world, because
+he has in his own mind a revelation which declares that the
+world, in its real structure, must be the image and copy of that
+divine <i>proportion</i> which he inwardly adores.<a id="footnotetag441" name="footnotetag441"></a>
+<a href="#footnote441"><sup class="sml">441</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote441"
+name="footnote441"><b>Footnote 441: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag441">
+(return) </a> It is an opinion which goes as far back as the time of Plato, and even
+Pythagoras, and has ever since been widely entertained, that beauty of <i>form</i>
+consists in some sort of <i>proportion</i> or <i>harmony</i> which may admit of a mathematical
+expression; and later and more scientific research is altogether in
+its favor. It is now established that complementary colors, that is, colors
+which when combined make up the full beam, are felt to be beautiful when
+seen simultaneously; that is, the mind is made to delight in the unities of
+nature. At the basis of music there are certain fixed ratios; and in poetry,
+of every description, there are measures, and correspondencies. Pythagoras
+has often been ridiculed for his doctrine of "the music of the spheres;"
+and probably his doctrine was somewhat fanciful, but later science shows
+that there is a harmony in all nature--in its forms, in its forces, and in its
+motions. The highest unorganized and all organized objects take definite
+forms which are regulated by mathematical laws. The forces of nature can be
+estimated in numbers, and light and heat go in undulations, whilst the movements
+of the great bodies in nature admit of a precise quantitative expression.
+The harmonies of nature in respect of color, of number, of form, and
+of time are forcibly exhibited in "Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation,"
+by M'Cosh.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Again, the world is assuredly <i>perfect</i>, as being the sensible
+image and copy of the Divinity, the outward and multiple development
+of the Eternal Unity. It must, therefore, when
+thoroughly known and properly interpreted, answer to all which
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="303" >303</a></span>
+we can conceive as perfect; that is, it must be regulated by laws,
+of which we have the highest principles in those first and elementary
+properties of numbers which stand next to <i>unity</i>.
+"The world is then, through all its departments, <i>a living arithmetic
+in its development, a realized geometry in its repose</i>." It is
+a κόσµος (for the word is purely Pythagorean)--the expression
+of <i>harmony</i>, the manifestation, to sense, of everlasting <i>order</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Though Pythagoras found in geometry the fitting initiative
+for abstract speculation, it is remarkable that he himself preferred
+to constitute the science of Numbers as the true representative
+of the laws of the universe. The reason appears to
+be this: that though geometry speaks indeed of eternal truths,
+yet when the notion of symmetry and proportion is introduced,
+it is often necessary to insist, in preference, upon the properties
+of numbers. Hence, though the universe displays the geometry
+of its Constructor or Animator, yet nature was eminently defined
+as the µίµησις τῶν ἀριθµῶν--the imitation of numbers.</p>
+
+<p>The key to all the Pythagorean dogmas, then, seems to be
+the general formula of <i>unity in multiplicity</i>:--unity either
+evolving itself into multiplicity, or unity discovered as pervading
+multiplicity. The principle of all things, the same principle
+which in this philosophy, as in others, was customarily called
+<i>Deity</i>, is the primitive unit from which all proceeds in the accordant
+relations of the universal scheme. Into the sensible
+world of multitude, the all-pervading Unity has infused his own
+ineffable nature; he has impressed his own image upon that
+world which is to represent him in the sphere of sense and
+man. What, then, is that which is at once single and multiple,
+identical and diversified--which we perceive as the combination
+of a thousand elements, yet as the expression of a single
+spirit--which is a chaos to the sense, a cosmos to the reason?
+What is it but harmony--proportion--the one governing the
+many, the many lost in the one? The world is therefore a
+<i>harmony</i> in innumerable degrees, from the most complicated
+to the most simple: it is now a Triad, combining the Monad
+and the Duad, and partaking of the nature of both; now a Tetrad,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="304" >304</a></span>
+the form of perfection; now a Decad, which, in combining
+the four former, involves, in its mystic nature, all the possible
+accordances of the universe.<a id="footnotetag442" name="footnotetag442"></a>
+<a href="#footnote442"><sup class="sml">442</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>The psychology of the Pythagoreans was greatly modified
+by their physical, and still more, by their moral tenets. The
+soul was ἀριθµὸς ἑαυτὸν κινῶν--a self-moving number or Monad,
+the copy (as we have seen) of that Infinite Monad which unfolds
+from its own incomprehensible essence all the relations of the
+universe. This soul has three elements, Reason (νοῦς), Intelligence
+(φρήν), and Passion (θυµός). The two last, man has in
+common with brutes, the first is his grand and peculiar characteristic.
+It has, hence, been argued that Pythagoras could not
+have held the doctrine of "transmigration." This clear separation
+of man from the brute, by this signal endowment of reason,
+which is sempiternal, seems a refutation of those who charge
+him with the doctrine.</p>
+
+<p>In the department of morals, the legislator of Crotona found
+his appropriate sphere. In his use of numerical notation, moral
+good was essential unity--evil, essential plurality and division.
+In the fixed truths of mathematical abstractions he found the
+exemplars of social and personal virtue. The rule or law of
+all morality is resemblance to God; that is, the return of number
+to its root, to unity,<a id="footnotetag443" name="footnotetag443"></a>
+<a href="#footnote443"><sup class="sml">443</sup></a> and virtue is thus a harmony.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote442"
+name="footnote442"><b>Footnote 442: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag442">
+(return) </a> That is, 1+2+3+4=10. There are intimations that the Pythagoreans
+regarded the Monad as God, the Duad as matter, the Triad as the complex
+phenomena of the world, the Tetrad as the completeness of all its relations,
+the Decad as the cosmos, or harmonious whole.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote443"
+name="footnote443"><b>Footnote 443: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag443">
+(return) </a> Aristotle, "Nichomachian Ethics," bk. i. ch. vi.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Thus have we, in Pythagoras, the dawn of an <i>Idealist</i> school;
+for mathematics are founded upon abstractions, and there is
+consequently an intimate connection between mathematics and
+idealism. The relations of space, and number, and determinate
+form, are, like the relations of cause and effect, of phenomena
+and substance, perceptible <i>only in thought</i>; and the mind which
+has been disciplined to abstract thought by the study of
+mathematics, is prepared and disposed for purely metaphysical
+studies. "The looking into mathematical learning is a kind
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="305">305</a></span>
+of prelude to the contemplation of real being."<a id="footnotetag444" name="footnotetag444"></a>
+<a href="#footnote444"><sup class="sml">444</sup></a> Therefore
+Plato inscribed over the door of his academy, "Let none but
+Geometricians enter here." To the mind thus disciplined in
+abstract thinking, the conceptions and ideas of reason have
+equal authority, sometimes even superior authority, to the perceptions
+of sense.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote444"
+name="footnote444"><b>Footnote 444: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag444">
+(return) </a> Alcinous, "Introduction to the Doctrines of Plato," ch. vii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Now if the testimony of both reason and sense, as given in
+consciousness, is accepted as of equal authority, and each faculty
+is regarded as, within its own sphere, a source of real, valid
+knowledge, then a consistent and harmonious system of <i>Natural
+Realism</i> or <i>Natural Dualism</i> will be the result. If the testimony
+of sense is questioned and distrusted, and the mind is
+denied any immediate knowledge of the sensible world, and
+yet the existence of an external world is maintained by various
+hypotheses and reasonings, the consequence will be a species of
+<i>Hypothetical Dualism</i> or <i>Cosmothetic Idealism</i>. But if the affirmations
+of reason, as to the unity of the cosmos, are alone accepted,
+and the evidence of the senses, as to the variety and
+multiplicity of the world, is entirely disregarded, then we have
+a system of <i>Absolute Idealism</i>. Pythagoras regarded the harmony
+which pervades the diversified phenomena of the outer
+world as a manifestation of the unity of its eternal principle, or
+as the perpetual evolution of that unity, and the consequent
+<i>tendency</i> of his system was to depreciate the <i>sensible</i>. Following
+out this tendency, the Eleatics first neglected, and finally
+denied the variety of the universe--denied the real existence
+of the external world, and asserted an absolute <i>metaphysical</i>
+unity.</p>
+
+<p><i>Xenophanes of Colophon</i>, in Ionia (B.C. 616-516), was the
+founder of this celebrated school of Elea. He left Ionia, and
+arrived in Italy about the same time as Pythagoras, bringing
+with him to Italy his Ionian tendencies; he there amalgamated
+them with Pythagorean speculations.</p>
+
+<p>Pythagoras had succeeded in fixing the attention of his
+countrymen on the harmony which pervades the material world,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="306" >306</a></span>
+and had taught them to regard that harmony as the manifestation
+of the intelligence, and unity, and perfection of its eternal
+principle. Struck with this idea of harmony and of unity,
+Xenophanes, who was a poet, a rhapsodist, and therefore by
+native tendency, rather than by intellectual discipline, an Idealist,
+begins already to attach more importance to <i>unity</i> than
+multiplicity in his philosophy of nature. He regards the testimony
+of reason as of more authority than the testimony of
+sense; "and he holds badly enough the balance between the
+unity of the Pythagoreans and the variety which Heraclitus
+and the Ionians had alone considered."<a id="footnotetag445" name="footnotetag445"></a>
+<a href="#footnote445"><sup class="sml">445</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>We are not, however, to suppose that Xenophanes denied
+entirely the existence of <i>plurality</i>. "The great Rhapsodist of
+Truth" was guided by the spontaneous intuitions of his mind
+(which seemed to partake of the character of an inspiration),
+to a clearer vision of the truth than were his successors of the
+same school by their discursive reasonings. "The One" of
+Xenophanes was clearly distinguished from the outward universe
+(τὰ πολλά) on the one hand, and from the "<i>non-ens</i>" on
+the other. It was his disciple, Parmenides, who imagined the
+logical necessity of identifying plurality with the "<i>non-ens</i>" and
+thus denying all immediate cognition of the phenomenal world.
+The compactness and logical coherence of the system of Parmenides
+seems to have had a peculiar charm for the Grecian
+mind, and to have diverted the eyes of antiquity from the views
+of the more earnest and devout Xenophanes, whose opinions
+were too often confounded with those of his successors of the
+Eleatic school. "Accordingly we find that Xenophanes has
+obtained credit for much that is, exclusively, the property of
+Parmenides and Zeno, in particular for denying plurality, and
+for identifying God with the universe."<a id="footnotetag446" name="footnotetag446"></a>
+<a href="#footnote446"><sup class="sml">446</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote445"
+name="footnote445"><b>Footnote 445: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag445">
+(return) </a> Cousin, "History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 440.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote446"
+name="footnote446"><b>Footnote 446: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag446">
+(return) </a> See note by editor, W.H. Thompson, M.A., on pages 331, 332 of Butler's
+"Lectures," vol. i. His authorities are "Fragments of Xenophanes"
+and the treatise "De Melisso, Xenophane, et Gorgia," by Aristotle.</blockquote>
+
+<p>In theology, Xenophanes was unquestionably a <i>Theist</i>. He
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="307" >307</a></span>
+had a profound and earnest conviction of the existence of a
+God, and he ridiculed with sarcastic force, the anthropomorphic
+absurdities of the popular religion. This one God, he taught,
+was self-existent, eternal, and infinite; supreme in power, in
+goodness, and intelligence.<a id="footnotetag447" name="footnotetag447"></a>
+<a href="#footnote447"><sup class="sml">447</sup></a> These characteristics are ascribed
+to the Deity in the sublime words with which he opens his
+philosophic poem--</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>"There is one God, of all beings, divine and human, the greatest:</p>
+<p>Neither in body alike unto mortals, neither in mind."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>He has no parts, no organs, as men have, being</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>"All sight, all ear, all intelligence;</p>
+<p>Wholly exempt from toil, he sways all things by <i>thought</i> and <i>will</i>."<a id="footnotetag448" name="footnotetag448"></a>
+<a href="#footnote448"><sup class="sml">448</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Xenophanes also taught that God is "uncreated" or "uncaused,"
+and that he is "excellent" as well as "all-powerful."<a id="footnotetag449" name="footnotetag449"></a>
+<a href="#footnote449"><sup class="sml">449</sup></a>
+And yet, regardless of these explicit utterances, Lewes cautions
+his readers against supposing that, by the "one God," Xenophanes
+meant a Personal God; and he asserts that his Monotheism
+was Pantheism. A doctrine, however, which ascribes
+to the Divine Being moral as well as intellectual supremacy,
+which acknowledges an outward world distinct from Him, and
+which represents Him as causing the changes in that universe
+by the acts of an intelligent volition, can only by a strange perversion
+of language be called pantheism.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote447"
+name="footnote447"><b>Footnote 447: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag447">
+(return) </a> Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 38; Ritter's "History
+of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 428, 429.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote448"
+name="footnote448"><b>Footnote 448: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag448">
+(return) </a> Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 432, 434.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote449"
+name="footnote449"><b>Footnote 449: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag449">
+(return) </a> Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. p. 331, note; Ritter's "History of Ancient
+Philosophy," vol. i. p. 428.</blockquote>
+
+<p><i>Parmenides of Elea</i> (born B.C. 536) was the philosopher who
+framed the psychological opinions of the Idealist school into a
+precise and comprehensive system. He was the first carefully
+to distinguish between <i>Truth</i> (ἀλήθειαν) and <i>Opinion</i> (δοξαν)--between
+ideas obtained through the reason and the simple perceptions
+of sense. Assuming that reason and sense are the
+only sources of knowledge, he held that they furnish the mind
+with two distinct classes of cognitions--one variable, fleeting,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="308" >308</a></span>
+and uncertain; the other immutable, necessary, and eternal.
+Sense is dependent on the variable organization of the individual,
+and therefore its evidence is changeable, uncertain, and
+nothing but a mere "<i>seeming</i>." Reason is the same in all individuals,
+and therefore its evidence is constant, real, and true.
+Philosophy is, therefore, divided into two branches--<i>Physics</i>
+and <i>Metaphysics</i>; one, a science of absolute knowledge; the
+other, a science of mere appearances. The first science, Physics,
+is pronounced illusory and uncertain; the latter, Metaphysics,
+is infallible and immutable.<a id="footnotetag450" name="footnotetag450"></a>
+<a href="#footnote450"><sup class="sml">450</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Proceeding on these principles, he rejects the dualistic system
+of the universe, and boldly declared that all essences are
+fundamentally <i>one</i>--that, in fact, there is no real plurality, and
+that all the diversity which "appears" is merely presented
+under a peculiar aesthetic or sensible law. The senses, it is
+true, teach us that there are "many things," but reason affirms
+that, at bottom, there exists only "the one." Whatever, therefore,
+manifests itself in the field of sense is merely illusory--the
+mental representation of a phenomenal world, which to experience
+seems diversified, but which reason can not possibly
+admit to be other than "immovable" and "one." There is
+but one Being in the universe, eternal, immovable, absolute;
+and of this unconditioned being all phenomenal existences,
+whether material or mental, are but the attributes and modes.
+Hence the two great maxims of the Eleatic school, derived
+from Parmenides--τὰ πάντα ἕν, "<i>The All is One</i>" and τὸ αὐτὸ
+νοεῖν τε καὶ εἶναι (Idem est cogitare atque esse), "<i>Thought and
+Being are identical.</i>" The last remarkable dictum is the fundamental
+principle of the modern pantheistic doctrine of "absolute
+identity" as taught by Schelling and Hegel.<a id="footnotetag451" name="footnotetag451"></a>
+<a href="#footnote451"><sup class="sml">451</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote450"
+name="footnote450"><b>Footnote 450: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag450">
+(return) </a> Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 447, 451.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote451"
+name="footnote451"><b>Footnote 451: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag451">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., vol. i. pp. 450, 455.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Lewes asserts that "Parmenides did not, with Xenophanes,
+call 'the One' God; he called it Being.<a id="footnotetag452" name="footnotetag452"></a>
+<a href="#footnote452"><sup class="sml">452</sup></a> In support of this
+statement he, however, cites no ancient authorities. We are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="309" >309</a></span>
+therefore justified in rejecting his opinion, and receiving the
+testimony of Simplicius, "the only authority for the fragments
+of the Eleatics,"<a id="footnotetag453" name="footnotetag453"></a>
+<a href="#footnote453"><sup class="sml">453</sup></a> and who had a copy of the philosophic poems
+of Parmenides. He assures us that Parmenides and Xenophanes
+"affirmed that '<i>the One,</i>' or unity, was the first Principle
+of all,....they meaning by this One <i>that highest or supreme
+God</i>, as being the cause of unity to all things.... It remaineth,
+therefore, that that <i>Intelligence</i> which is the cause of
+all things, and therefore of mind and understanding also, in
+which all things are comprehended in unity, was Parmenides'
+one Ens or Being.<a id="footnotetag454" name="footnotetag454"></a>
+<a href="#footnote454"><sup class="sml">454</sup></a> Parmenides was, therefore, a spiritualistic
+or idealistic Pantheist.</p>
+
+<p><i>Zeno of Elea</i> (born B.C. 500) was the logician of the Eleatic
+school. He was, says Diogenes Laertius, "the inventor of Dialectics."<a id="footnotetag455" name="footnotetag455"></a>
+<a href="#footnote455"><sup class="sml">455</sup></a>
+Logic henceforth becomes the ὄργανον<a id="footnotetag456" name="footnotetag456"></a>
+<a href="#footnote456"><sup class="sml">456</sup></a>--organon
+of the Eleatics.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote452"
+name="footnote452"><b>Footnote 452: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag452">
+(return) </a> "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 50.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote453"
+name="footnote453"><b>Footnote 453: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag453">
+(return) </a> Encyclopædia Britannica, article "Simplicius."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote454"
+name="footnote454"><b>Footnote 454: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag454">
+(return) </a> Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 511.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote455"
+name="footnote455"><b>Footnote 455: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag455">
+(return) </a> "Lives," p. 387 (Bohn's edition).</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote456"
+name="footnote456"><b>Footnote 456: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag456">
+(return) </a> Plato in "Parmen."</blockquote>
+
+<p>This organon, however, Zeno used very imperfectly. In his
+hands it was simply the "reductio ad absurdum" of opposing
+opinions as the means of sustaining the tenets of his own sect.
+Parmenides had asserted, on <i>à priori</i> grounds, the existence of
+"the One." Zeno would prove by his dialectic the non-existence
+of "the many." His grand position was that all phenomena,
+all that appears to sense, is but a <i>modification</i> of the
+absolute One. And he displays a vast amount of dialectic
+subtilty in the effort to prove that all "appearances" are unreal,
+and that all movement and change is a mere "seeming"--not
+a reality. What men call motion is only a name given
+to a series of conditions, each of which, considered separately,
+is rest. "Rest is force resistant; motion is force triumphant."<a id="footnotetag457" name="footnotetag457"></a>
+<a href="#footnote457"><sup class="sml">457</sup></a>
+The famous puzzle of "Achilles and the Tortoise," by which
+he endeavored to prove the unreality of motion, has been rendered
+familiar to the English reader.<a id="footnotetag458" name="footnotetag458"></a>
+<a href="#footnote458"><sup class="sml">458</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote457"
+name="footnote457"><b>Footnote 457: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag457">
+(return) </a> Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 60.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote458"
+name="footnote458"><b>Footnote 458: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag458">
+(return) </a> Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 475, 476.</blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="310">310</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Aristotle assures us that Zeno, "by his one Ens, which neither
+was moved nor movable, meaneth God." And he also informs
+us that "Zeno endeavored to demonstrate that there is
+but one God, from the idea which all men have of him, as that
+which is the best, supremest, most powerful of all, or an absolutely
+perfect being" ("De Xenophane, Zenone, et Gorgia").<a id="footnotetag459" name="footnotetag459"></a>
+<a href="#footnote459"><sup class="sml">459</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>With Zeno we close our survey of the second grand line of
+independent inquiry by which philosophy sought to solve the
+problem of the universe. The reader will be struck with the
+resemblance which subsists between the history of its development
+and that of the modern Idealist school. Pythagoras was
+the Descartes, Parmenides the Spinoza, and Zeno the Hegel
+of the Italian school.</p>
+
+<p>In this survey of the speculations of the pre-Socratic schools
+of philosophy, we have followed the course of two opposite
+streams of thought which had their common origin in one fundamental
+principle or law of the human mind--the <i>intuition of
+unity</i>--"or the desire to comprehend all the facts of the universe
+in a single formula, and consummate all conditional
+knowledge in the unity of unconditioned existence." The history
+of this tendency is, in fact, the history of all philosophy.
+"The end of all philosophy," says Plato, "is the intuition of
+unity." "All knowledge," said the Platonists, "is the gathering
+up into one."<a id="footnotetag460" name="footnotetag460"></a>
+<a href="#footnote460"><sup class="sml">460</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote459"
+name="footnote459"><b>Footnote 459: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag459">
+(return) </a> Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 518.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote460"
+name="footnote460"><b>Footnote 460: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag460">
+(return) </a> Hamilton's "Metaphysics," vol. i. pp. 67-70 (English edition).</blockquote>
+
+<p>Starting from this fundamental idea, <i>that, beneath the endless
+flux and change of the visible universe, there must be a permanent
+principle of unity</i>, we have seen developed two opposite schools
+of speculative thought. As the traveller, standing on the ridges
+of the Andes, may see the head-waters of the great South
+American rivers mingling in one, so the student of philosophy,
+standing on the elevated plane of analytic thought, may discover,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="311" >311</a></span>
+in this fundamental principle, the common source of the
+two great systems of speculative thought which divided the
+ancient world. Here are the head-waters of the sensational
+and the idealist schools. The Ionian school started its course
+of inquiry in the direction of <i>sense</i>; it occupied itself solely
+with the phenomena of the external world, and it sought this
+principle of unity in a <i>physical</i> element. The Italian school
+started its course of inquiry in the direction of <i>reason</i>; it occupied
+itself chiefly with rational conceptions or <i>à priori</i> ideas,
+and it sought this principle of unity in purely <i>metaphysical</i>
+being. And just as the Amazon and La Plata sweep on, in
+opposite directions, until they reach the extremities of the continent,
+so these two opposite streams of thought rush onward,
+by the force of a logical necessity, until they terminate in the
+two Unitarian systems of <i>Absolute Materialism</i> and <i>Absolute
+Idealism</i>, and, in their theological aspects, in a pantheism
+which, on the one hand, identifies God with matter, or, on the
+other hand, swallows up the universe in God.</p>
+
+<p>The radical error of both these systems is at once apparent.
+The testimony of the primary faculties of the mind was not
+regarded as each, within its sphere, final and decisive. The
+duality of consciousness was not accepted in all its integrity;
+one school rejected the testimony of reason, the other denied
+the veracity of the senses, and both prepared the way for the
+<i>skepticism</i> of the Sophists.</p>
+
+<p>We must not, however, lose sight of the fact that there were
+some philosophers of the pre-Socratic school, as Anaxagoras
+and Empedocles, who recognized the partial and exclusive
+character of both these systems, and sought, by a method
+which Cousin would designate as Eclecticism, to combine the
+element of truth contained in each.</p>
+
+<p><i>Anaxagoras of Clazomencœ</i> (B.C. 500-428) added to the Ionian
+philosophy of a material element or elements the Italian
+idea of a <i>spirit</i> distinct from, and independent of the world,
+which has within itself the principle of a spontaneous activity--Νοῦς
+ αὐτοκρατής, and which is the first cause of motion in the
+universe--ἀρχὴ τῆς κινήσεως.<a id="footnotetag461" name="footnotetag461"></a>
+<a href="#footnote461"><sup class="sml">461</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote461"
+name="footnote461"><b>Footnote 461: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag461">
+(return) </a> Cousin, "History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 411.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="312">312</a></span>
+
+<p>In his physical theory, Anaxagoras was an Atomist. Instead
+of one element, he declared that the elements or first principles
+were numerous, or even infinite. No point in space is unoccupied
+by these atoms, which are infinitely divisible. He imagined
+that, in nature, there are as many kinds of principles as
+there are species of compound bodies, and that the peculiar
+form of the primary particles of which any body is composed
+is the same with the qualities of the compound body itself.
+This was the celebrated doctrine of <i>Homœomeria</i>, of which Lucretius
+furnishes a luminous account in his philosophic poem
+"De Natura Rerum"--</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i30">                       "That bone from bones</p>
+<p class="i10">    Minute, and embryon; nerve from nerves arise;</p>
+<p class="i10">    And blood from blood, by countless drops increased.</p>
+<p class="i10">    Gold, too, from golden atoms, earths concrete,</p>
+<p class="i10">    From earths extreme; from fiery matters, fire;</p>
+<p class="i10">    And lymph from limpen dews. And thus throughout</p>
+<p class="i10">    From primal kinds that kinds perpetual spring."<a id="footnotetag462" name="footnotetag462"></a>
+<a href="#footnote462"><sup class="sml">462</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>These primary particles were regarded by Anaxagoras as eternal;
+because he held the dogma, peculiar to all the Ionians,
+that nothing can be really created or annihilated (de nihilo nihil,
+in nihilum nil posse reverti). But he saw, nevertheless,
+that the simple existence of "<i>inert</i>" matter, even from eternity,
+could not explain the motion and the harmony of the material
+world. Hence he saw the necessity of another power--<i>the
+power of Intelligence</i>. "All things were in chaos; then came
+Intelligence and introduced Order."<a id="footnotetag463" name="footnotetag463"></a>
+<a href="#footnote463"><sup class="sml">463</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Anaxagoras, unlike the pantheistic speculators of the Ionian
+school, rigidly separated the Supreme Intelligence from the
+material universe. The Νοῦς of Anaxagoras is a principle,
+infinite, independent (αὺτοκρατές), omnipresent (ἐν παντὶ παντὸς
+µοίοα ἔνον), the subtilest and purest of things (λεπτότατον πάντων
+χρηµάτων καὶ καθαρώτατον); and incapable of mixture with aught
+besides; it is also omniscient (πάντα ἔγνω), and unchangeable
+(πᾶς ὁµοῖός ἐστι).--Simplicius, in "Arist. Phys." i. 33.<a id="footnotetag464" name="footnotetag464"></a>
+<a href="#footnote464"><sup class="sml">464</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote462"
+name="footnote462"><b>Footnote 462: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag462">
+(return) </a> Good's translation, bk. i. p. 325.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote463"
+name="footnote463"><b>Footnote 463: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag463">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," p. 59.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote464"
+name="footnote464"><b>Footnote 464: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag464">
+(return) </a> Butler's "Lectures on Philosophy," vol. i. p. 305, note.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="313" >313</a></span>
+
+<p>Thus did Anaxagoras bridge the chasm between the Ionian
+and the Italian schools. He accepted both doctrines with
+some modifications. He believed in the real existence of the
+phenomenal world, and he also believed in the real existence
+of "The Infinite Mind," whose Intelligence and Omnipotence
+were manifested in the laws and relations which pervade the
+world. He proclaimed the existence of the Infinite Intelligence
+("the ONE"), who was the Architect and Governor of the
+Infinite Matter ("the MANY").</p>
+
+<p>On the question as to the origin and certainty of human
+knowledge, Anaxagoras differed both from the Ionians and the
+Eleatics. Neither the sense alone, nor the reason alone, were
+for him a ground of certitude. He held that reason (λόγος)
+was the regulative faculty of the mind, as the Νοῦς, or Supreme
+Intelligence, was the regulative power of the universe. And
+he admitted that the senses were veracious in their reports;
+but they reported only in regard to phenomena. The senses,
+then, perceive <i>phenomena</i>, but it is the reason alone which recognizes
+<i>noumena</i>, that is, the reason perceives being in and
+through phenomena, substance in and through qualities; an
+anticipation of the fundamental principle of modern psychology--"<i>that
+every power or substance in existence is knowable to us,
+so far only, as we know its phenomena</i>." Thus, again, does he
+bridge the chasm that separates between the Sensationalist
+and the Idealist. The Ionians relied solely on the intuitions
+of sense; the Eleatics accepted only the apperceptions of pure
+reason; he accepted the testimony of both, and in the synthesis
+of subject and object--the union of an element supplied by
+sensation, and an element supplied by reason, he found real,
+certain knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>The harmony which the doctrine of Anaxagoras introduced
+into the philosophy of Athens, soon attracted attention and
+multiplied disciples. He was teaching when Socrates arrived
+in Athens, and the latter attended his school. The influence
+which the doctrine of Anaxagoras exerted upon the mind of
+Socrates (leading him to recognize Intelligence as the cause
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="314" >314</a></span>
+of order and special adaptation in the universe),<a id="footnotetag465" name="footnotetag465"></a>
+<a href="#footnote465"><sup class="sml">465</sup></a> and also upon
+the course of philosophy in the Socratic schools, is the most
+enduring memorial of his name.<a id="footnotetag466" name="footnotetag466"></a>
+<a href="#footnote466"><sup class="sml">466</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote465"
+name="footnote465"><b>Footnote 465: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag465">
+(return) </a> "Phaedo," § 105.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote466"
+name="footnote466"><b>Footnote 466: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag466">
+(return) </a> Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. iii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>We have devoted a much larger space than we originally
+designed to the ante-Socratic schools--quite out of proportion,
+indeed, with that we shall be able to appropriate to their successors.
+But inasmuch as all the great primary problems of
+thought, which are subsequently discussed by Plato and Aristotle,
+were started, and received, at least, typical answers in
+those schools, we can not hope to understand Plato, or Aristotle,
+or even Epicurus, or Zeno of Cittium, unless we have first
+mastered the doctrines of Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Parmenides,
+and Anaxagoras.<a id="footnotetag467" name="footnotetag467"></a>
+<a href="#footnote467"><sup class="sml">467</sup></a> The attention we have bestowed on these
+early thinkers will, therefore, have been a valuable preparatory
+discipline for the study of</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote467"
+name="footnote467"><b>Footnote 467: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag467">
+(return) </a> Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 114; Butler's "Lectures on Ancient
+Philosophy," vol. ii. pp. 87, 88.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p class="mid"><b>II. THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL.</b></p>
+
+<p>The first cycle of philosophy was now complete. That form
+of Grecian speculative thought which, during the first period of
+its development, was a philosophy of nature, had reached its
+maturity; it had sought "the first principles of all things" in the
+study of external nature, and had signally failed. In this pursuit
+of first principles as the basis of a true and certain knowledge
+of the system of the universe, the two leading schools had
+been carried to opposite poles of thought. One had asserted
+that <i>experience</i> alone, the other, that <i>reason</i> alone was the
+sole criterion of truth. As the last consequence of this imperfect
+method, Leucippus had denied the existence of "the
+one," and Zeno had denied the existence of "the many."
+The Ionian school, in Democritus, had landed in Materialism;
+the Italian, in Parmenides, had ended in Pantheism; and, as
+the necessary result of this partial and defective method of inquiry,
+which ended in doubt and contradiction, a spirit of general
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="315" >315</a></span>
+skepticism was generated in the Athenian mind. If doubt
+be cast upon the veracity of the primary cognitive faculties of
+the mind, the flood-gates of universal skepticism are opened.
+If the senses are pronounced to be mendacious and illusory in
+their reports regarding external phenomena, and if the intuitions
+of the reason, in regard to the ground and cause of phenomena,
+are delusive, then we have no ground of certitude. If
+one faculty is unveracious and unreliable, how can we determine
+that the other is not equally so? There is, then, no such
+thing as universal and necessary truth. Truth is variable and
+uncertain, as the variable opinion of each individual.</p>
+
+<p>The Sophists, who belonged to no particular school, laid
+hold on the elements of skepticism contained in both the pre-Socratic
+schools of philosophy, and they declared that "the
+σοφία" was not only unattainable, but that no relative degree
+of it was possible for the human faculties.<a id="footnotetag468" name="footnotetag468"></a>
+<a href="#footnote468"><sup class="sml">468</sup></a> Protagoras of Abdera
+accepted the doctrine of Heraclitus, that thought is identical
+with sensation, and limited by it; he therefore declared
+that there is no criterion of truth, and <i>Man is the measure of
+all things</i>.<a id="footnotetag469" name="footnotetag469"></a>
+<a href="#footnote469"><sup class="sml">469</sup></a> Sextus Empiricus gives the psychological opinions
+of Protagoras with remarkable explicitness. "Matter is in a
+perpetual flux, whilst it undergoes augmentations and losses;
+the senses also are modified according to the age and disposition
+of the body. He said, also, that the reason of all phenomena
+resides in matter as substrata, so that matter, in itself,
+might be whatever it appeared to each. But men have different
+perceptions at different periods, according to the changes
+in the things perceived.... Man is, therefore, the criterion
+of that which exists; all that is perceived by him exists; <i>that
+which is perceived by no man does not exist</i>."<a id="footnotetag470" name="footnotetag470"></a>
+<a href="#footnote470"><sup class="sml">470</sup></a> These conclusions
+were rigidly and fearlessly applied to ethics and political science.
+If there is no Eternal Truth, there can be no Immutable
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="316">316</a></span>
+Right. The distinction of right and wrong is solely a matter
+of human opinion and conventional usage.<a id="footnotetag471" name="footnotetag471"></a>
+<a href="#footnote471"><sup class="sml">471</sup></a> "That which <i>appears</i>
+just and honorable to each city, is so for <i>that city</i>, so long
+as the opinion prevails."<a id="footnotetag472" name="footnotetag472"></a>
+<a href="#footnote472"><sup class="sml">472</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote468"
+name="footnote468"><b>Footnote 468: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag468">
+(return) </a> Encyclopædia Britannica, article "Sophist."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote469"
+name="footnote469"><b>Footnote 469: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag469">
+(return) </a> Plato's "Theætetus" (άνθρωπος--"the individual is the measure of all
+things"), vol. i. p. 381 (Bohn's edition).</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote470"
+name="footnote470"><b>Footnote 470: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag470">
+(return) </a> Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 117.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote471"
+name="footnote471"><b>Footnote 471: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag471">
+(return) </a> "Gorgias," § 85-89.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote472"
+name="footnote472"><b>Footnote 472: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag472">
+(return) </a> Plato's "Theætetus," § 65-75.</blockquote>
+
+<p>There were others who laid hold on the weapons which Zeno
+had prepared to their hands. He had asserted that all the objects
+of sense were mere phantoms--delusive and transitory.
+By the subtilties of dialectic quibbling, he had attempted to
+prove that "change" meant "permanence," and "motion"
+meant "rest."<a id="footnotetag473" name="footnotetag473"></a>
+<a href="#footnote473"><sup class="sml">473</sup></a> Words may, therefore, have the most opposite
+and contradictory meanings; and all language and all opinion
+may, by such a process, be rendered uncertain. One opinion
+is, consequently, for the individual, just as good as another; and
+all opinions are equally true and untrue. It was nevertheless
+desirable, for the good of society, that there should be some
+agreement, and that, for a time at least, certain opinions should
+prevail; and if philosophy had failed to secure this agreement,
+rhetoric, at least, was effectual; and, with the Sophist,
+rhetoric was "the art of making the worst appear the better
+reason." All wisdom was now confined to a species of "word
+jugglery," which in Athens was dignified as "the art of disputation."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote473"
+name="footnote473"><b>Footnote 473: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag473">
+(return) </a> "And do we not know that the Eleatic Palamedes (Zeno) spoke by art
+in such a manner that the same things appeared to be similar and dissimilar,
+one and many, at rest and in motion?"--"Phædrus," § 97.</blockquote>
+
+<p>SOCRATES (B.C. 469-399), the grand central figure in the
+group of ancient philosophers, arrived in Athens in the midst
+of this general skepticism. He had an invincible faith in truth.
+"He made her the mistress of his soul, and with patient labor,
+and unwearied energy, did his great and noble soul toil after
+perfect communion with her." He was disappointed and dissatisfied
+with the results that had been reached by the methods
+of his predecessors, and he was convinced that by these methods
+the problem of the universe could not be solved. He
+therefore turned away from physical inquiries, and devoted his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="317" >317</a></span>
+whole attention to the study of the human mind, its fundamental
+beliefs, ideas, and laws. If he can not penetrate the
+mysteries of the outer world, he will turn his attention to the
+world within. He will "know himself," and find within himself
+the reason, and ground, and law of all existence. There
+he discovered certain truths which can not possibly be questioned.
+He felt he had within his own heart a faithful monitor--a
+<i>conscience</i>, which he regarded as the voice of God.<a id="footnotetag474" name="footnotetag474"></a>
+<a href="#footnote474"><sup class="sml">474</sup></a> He
+believed "he had a divine teacher with him at all times.
+Though he did not possess wisdom, this teacher could put him
+on the road to seek it, could preserve him from delusions
+which might turn him out of the way, could keep his mind
+fixed upon the end for which he ought to act and live."<a id="footnotetag475" name="footnotetag475"></a>
+<a href="#footnote475"><sup class="sml">475</sup></a> In
+himself, therefore, he sought that ground of certitude which
+should save him from the prevailing skepticism of his times.
+The Delphic inscription, Γνῶθι σεαντόν, "<i>know thyself</i>" becomes
+henceforth the fundamental maxim of philosophy.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote474"
+name="footnote474"><b>Footnote 474: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag474">
+(return) </a> The Dæmon of Socrates has been the subject of much discussion among
+learned men. The notion, once generally received, that his <i>δαίµων</i> was "a
+familiar genius," is now regarded as an exploded error. "Nowhere does
+Socrates, in Plato or Xenophon, speak of <i>a</i> genius or demon, but always of
+a <i>dœmoniac something (το δαιµόνιον</i>, or <i>δαιµόνιν τι</i>), or of a <i>sign</i>, a <i>voice</i>, a
+<i>divine sign</i>, a <i>divine voice</i>" (Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy,"
+p. 166). "Socrates always speaks of a <i>divine or supernatural somewhat</i>
+('divinum quiddam,' as Cicero has it), the nature of which he does not attempt
+to divine, and to which he never attributes personality" (Butler's
+"Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 357). The scholar need not to
+be informed that <i>το δαιµόνιον</i>, in classic literature, means the divine Essence
+(Lat. <i>numen</i>), to which are attributed events beyond man's power, yet not
+to be assigned to any special god.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote475"
+name="footnote475"><b>Footnote 475: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag475">
+(return) </a> Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 124.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Truth has a rational, <i>à priori</i> foundation in the constitution
+of the human mind. There are <i>ideas</i> connatural to the human
+reason which are the copies of those archetypal ideas which
+belong to the Eternal Reason. The grand problem of philosophy,
+therefore, now is--<i>What are these fundamental</i> IDEAS <i>which
+are unchangeable and permanent, amid all the diversifies of human
+opinion, connecting appearance with reality, and constituting a
+ground of certain knowledge or absolute truth</i>? Socrates may
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="318">318</a></span>
+not have held the doctrine of ideas as exhibited by Plato, but
+he certainly believed that there were germs of truth latent in
+the human mind--principles which governed, unconsciously,
+the processes of thought, and that these could be developed by
+reflection and by questioning. These were embryonate in the
+womb of reason, coming to the birth, but needing the "maieutic"
+or "obstetric" art, that they might be brought forth.<a id="footnotetag476" name="footnotetag476"></a>
+<a href="#footnote476"><sup class="sml">476</sup></a> He
+would, therefore, become the accoucheur of ideas, and deliver
+minds of that secret truth which lay in their mental constitution.
+And thus <i>Psychology</i> becomes the basis of all legitimate
+metaphysics.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote476"
+name="footnote476"><b>Footnote 476: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag476">
+(return) </a> Plato's "Theætetus," § 22.</blockquote>
+
+<p>By the general consent of antiquity, as well as by the concurrent
+judgment of all modern historians of philosophy, Socrates
+is regarded as having effected a complete revolution in
+philosophic thought, and, by universal consent, he is placed at
+the commencement of a new era in philosophy. Schleiermacher
+has said, "the service which Socrates rendered tο philosophy
+consisted not so much in the truths arrived at <i>as in
+the</i> METHOD <i>by which truth is sought</i>." As Bacon inaugurated
+a new method in physical inquiry, so Socrates inaugurated a
+new method in metaphysical inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>What, then, was this <i>new method</i>? It was no other than the
+<i>inductive</i> method applied to the facts of consciousness. This
+method is thus defined by Aristotle: "Induction is the process
+from particulars to generals;" that is, it is the process of
+discovering laws from facts, causes from effects, being from
+phenomena. But how is this process of induction conducted?
+By observing and enumerating the real facts which are presented
+in consciousness, by noting their relations of resemblance
+or difference, and by classifying these facts by the aid of these
+relations. In other words, it is <i>analysis</i> applied to the phenomena
+of mind.<a id="footnotetag477" name="footnotetag477"></a>
+<a href="#footnote477"><sup class="sml">477</sup></a> Now Socrates gave this method of psychological
+analysis to Greek philosophy. There are two things
+of which Socrates must justly be regarded as the author,--the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="319" >319</a></span>
+<i>inductive reasoning</i> and <i>abstract definition</i>.<a id="footnotetag478" name="footnotetag478"></a>
+<a href="#footnote478"><sup class="sml">478</sup></a> We readily grant
+that Socrates employed this method imperfectly, for methods
+are the last things perfected in science; but still, the Socratic
+movement was a vast movement in the right direction.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote477"
+name="footnote477"><b>Footnote 477: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag477">
+(return) </a> Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 30.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote478"
+name="footnote478"><b>Footnote 478: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag478">
+(return) </a> Aristotle's "Metaphysics," vol. xii. ch. iv. p. 359 (Bohn's edition).</blockquote>
+
+<p>In what are usually regarded as the purely Socratic dialogues,<a id="footnotetag479" name="footnotetag479"></a>
+<a href="#footnote479"><sup class="sml">479</sup></a>
+Plato evidently designs to exhibit this method of Socrates.
+They proceed continually on the firm conviction that
+there is a standard or criterion of truth in the reason of man,
+and that, by <i>reflection</i>, man can apprehend and recognize the
+truth. To awaken this power of reflection; to compel men to
+analyze their language and their thoughts; to lead them from
+the particular and the contingent, to the universal and the necessary;
+and to teach them to test their opinions by the inward
+standard of truth, was the aim of Socrates. These dialogues
+are a picture of the conversations of Socrates. They are literally
+an education of the thinking faculty. Their purpose is to
+discipline men to think for themselves, rather than to furnish
+opinions for them. In many of these dialogues Socrates affirms
+nothing. After producing many arguments, and examining a
+question on all sides, he leaves it undetermined. At the close
+of the dialogue he is as far from a declaration of opinions as at
+the commencement. His grand effort, like that of Bacon's, is
+to furnish men a correct method of inquiry, rather than to apply
+that method and give them results.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote479"
+name="footnote479"><b>Footnote 479: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag479">
+(return) </a> "Laches," "Charmides," "Lysis," "The Rivals," "First and Second
+Alcibiades," "Theages," "Clitophon." See Whewell's translation, vol. i.</blockquote>
+
+<p>We must not, however, from thence conclude that Socrates
+did not himself attain any definite conclusions, or reach any
+specific and valuable results. When, in reply to his friends who
+reported the answer of the oracle of Delphi, that "Socrates was
+the wisest of men," he said, "he supposed the oracle declared
+him wise <i>because he knew nothing</i>," he did not mean that true
+knowledge was unattainable, for his whole life had been spent
+in efforts to attain it. He simply indicates the disposition of
+mind which is most befitting and most helpful to the seeker
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="320" >320</a></span>
+after truth. He must be conscious of his own ignorance. He
+must not exalt himself. He must not put his own conceits in
+the way of the thing he would know. He must have an open
+eye, a single purpose, an honest mind, to prepare him to receive
+light when it comes. And that there is light, that there is a
+source whence light comes, he avowed in every word and act.</p>
+
+<p>Socrates unquestionably believed in one Supreme God, the
+immaterial, infinite Governor of all. He cherished that instinctive,
+spontaneous faith in God and his Providence which
+is the universal faith of the human heart. He saw this faith
+revealed in the religious sentiments of all nations, and in the
+tendency to worship so universally characteristic of humanity.<a id="footnotetag480" name="footnotetag480"></a>
+<a href="#footnote480"><sup class="sml">480</sup></a>
+He appealed to the consciousness of absolute dependence--the
+persuasion, wrought by God in the minds of all men, that
+"He is able to make men happy or miserable," and the consequent
+sense of obligation which teaches man he ought to obey
+God. And he regarded with some degree of affectionate tenderness
+the common sentiment of his countrymen, that the Divine
+Government was conducted through the ministry of subordinate
+deities or generated gods. But he sought earnestly to
+prevent the presence of these subordinate agents from intercepting
+the clear view of the Supreme God.</p>
+
+<p>The faith of Socrates was not, however, grounded on mere
+feeling and sentiment. He endeavored to place the knowledge
+of God on a rational basis. We can not read the arguments
+he employed without being convinced that he anticipated all
+the subsequent writers on Natural Theology in his treatment
+of the argument from <i>special ends</i> or <i>final causes</i>. We venture
+to abridge the account which is given by Xenophon of the conversation
+with Aristodemus:<a id="footnotetag481" name="footnotetag481"></a>
+<a href="#footnote481"><sup class="sml">481</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote480"
+name="footnote480"><b>Footnote 480: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag480">
+(return) </a> "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iv. § 16.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote481"
+name="footnote481"><b>Footnote 481: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag481">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. i. ch. iv.</blockquote>
+
+<p>"I will now relate the manner in which I once heard Socrates
+discoursing with Aristodemus concerning the Deity; for,
+observing that he never prayed nor sacrificed to the gods, but,
+on the contrary, ridiculed those who did, he said to him:</p>
+
+<p>"'Tell me, Aristodemus, is there any man you admire on
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="321">321</a></span>
+account of his merits? Aristodemus having answered, 'Many,--'Name
+some of them, I pray you,' said Socrates. 'I admire,'
+said Aristodemus, 'Homer for his Epic poetry, Melanippides
+for his dithyrambics, Sophocles for his tragedy, Polycletus for
+statuary, and Zeuxis for painting.'</p>
+
+<p>"'But which seemed to you most worthy of admiration,
+Aristodemus--the artist who forms images void of motion and
+intelligence, or one who has skill to produce animals that are
+endued, not only with activity, but understanding?'</p>
+
+<p>"'The latter, there can be no doubt,' replied Aristodemus,
+'provided the production was not the effect of chance, but of
+wisdom and contrivance.'</p>
+
+<p>"'But since there are many things, some of which we can
+easily see the use of, while we can not say of others to what
+purpose they are produced, which of these, Aristodemus, do
+you suppose the work of wisdom?'</p>
+
+<p>"'It would seem the most reasonable to affirm it of those
+whose fitness and utility are so evidently apparent,' answered
+Aristodemus.</p>
+
+<p>"'But it is evidently apparent that He who, at the beginning,
+made man, endued him with senses because they were good for
+him; eyes wherewith to behold what is visible, and ears to hear
+whatever was heard; for, say, Aristodemus, to what purpose
+should odor be prepared, if the sense of smelling had been denied
+or why the distinction of bitter or sweet, of savory or unsavory,
+unless a palate had been likewise given, conveniently
+placed to arbitrate between them and proclaim the difference?
+Is not that Providence, Aristodemus, in a most eminent manner
+conspicuous, which, because the eye of a man is so delicate
+in its contexture, hath therefore prepared eyelids like doors
+whereby to secure it, which extend of themselves whenever it
+is needful, and again close when sleep approaches? Are not
+these eyelids provided, as it were, with a fence on the edge of
+them to keep off the wind and guard the eye? Even the eyebrow
+itself is not without its office, but, as a penthouse, is prepared
+to turn off the sweat, which falling from the forehead
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="322" >322</a></span>
+might enter and annoy that no less tender than astonishing
+part of us. Is it not to be admired that the ears should take
+in sounds of every sort, and yet are not too much filled with
+them? That the fore teeth of the animal should be formed in
+such a manner as is evidently best for cutting, and those on the
+side for grinding it to pieces? That the mouth, through which
+this food is conveyed, should be placed so near the nose and
+eyes as to prevent the passing unnoticed whatever is unfit for
+nourishment?... And canst thou still doubt, Aristodemus,
+whether a <i>disposition of parts like this should be a work of chance,
+or of wisdom and contrivance</i>?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I have no longer any doubt,' replied Aristodemus; 'and,
+indeed, the more I consider it, the more evident it appears to
+me that man must be the masterpiece of some great Artificer,
+carrying along with it infinite marks of the love and favor of
+Him who hath thus formed it.'</p>
+
+<p>"'But, further (unless thou desirest to ask me questions),
+seeing, Aristodemus, thou thyself art conscious of reason and
+intelligence, supposest thou there is no intelligence elsewhere?
+Thou knowest thy body to be a small part of that wide-extended
+earth thou everywhere beholdest; the moisture contained in it
+thou also knowest to be a portion of that mighty mass of waters
+whereof seas themselves are but a part, while the rest of the
+elements contribute out of their abundance to thy formation.
+It is the <i>soul</i>, then, alone, that intellectual part of us, which is
+come to thee by some lucky chance, from I know not where. If
+so, there is no intelligence elsewhere; and we must be forced to
+confess that this stupendous universe, with all the various bodies
+contained therein--equally amazing, whether we consider
+their magnitude or number, whatever their use, whatever their
+order--all have been produced by chance, not by intelligence!'</p>
+
+<p>"'It is with difficulty that I can suppose otherwise,' returned
+Aristodemus; 'for I behold none of those gods whom you
+speak of as framing and governing the world; whereas I see
+the artists when at their work here among us.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Neither yet seest thou thy soul, Aristodemus, which, however,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="323" >323</a></span>
+most assuredly governs thy body; although it may well
+seem, by thy manner of talking, that it is chance and not reason
+which governs thee.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I do not despise the gods,' said Aristodemus; 'on the
+contrary, I conceive so highly of their excellency, as to suppose
+they stand in no need of me or of my services.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Thou mistakest the matter,' Aristodemus, 'the great magnificence
+they have shown in their care of thee, so much the
+more honor and service thou owest them.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Be assured,' said Aristodemus, 'if I once could persuade
+myself the gods take care of man, I should want no monitor to
+remind me of my duty.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And canst thou doubt, Aristodemus, if the gods take care
+of man? Hath not the glorious privilege of walking upright
+been alone bestowed on him, whereby he may with the better
+advantage survey what is around him, contemplate with more
+ease those splendid objects which are above, and avoid the numerous
+ills and inconveniences which would otherwise befall
+him? Other animals, indeed, they have provided with feet;
+but to man they have also given hands, with which he can form
+many things for use, and make himself happier than creatures
+of any other kind. A tongue hath been bestowed on every
+other animal; but what animal, except man, hath the power of
+forming words with it whereby to explain his thoughts and
+make them intelligible to others? But it is not with respect to
+the body alone that the gods have shown themselves bountiful
+to man. Their most excellent gift is that of a soul they have
+infused into him, which so far surpasses what is elsewhere to be
+found; for by what animal except man is even the existence
+of the gods discovered, who have produced and still uphold in
+such regular order this beautiful and stupendous frame of the
+universe? What other creature is to be found that can serve
+and adore them?... In thee, Aristodemus, has been joined
+to a wonderful soul a body no less wonderful; and sayest thou,
+after this, the gods take no thought for me? What wouldst
+thou, then, more to convince thee of their care?'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="324" >324</a></span>
+
+<p>"'I would they should send and inform me,' said Aristodemus,
+'what things I ought or ought not to do, in like manner
+as thou sayest they frequently do to thee.'"</p>
+
+<p>In reply, Socrates shows that the revelations of God which
+are made in nature, in history, in consciousness, and by oracles,
+are made <i>for</i> all men and <i>to</i> all men. He then concludes
+with these remarkable words: "As, therefore, amongst men we
+make best trial of the affection and gratitude of our neighbor
+by showing him kindness, and make discovery of his wisdom
+by consulting him in our distress, do thou, in like manner, behave
+towards the gods; and if thou wouldst experience what
+their wisdom and their love, render thyself deserving of some
+of those divine secrets which may not be penetrated by man,
+and are imparted to those alone who consult, who adore, and
+who obey the Deity. Then shalt thou, my Aristodemus, understand
+<i>there is a Being whose eye passes through all nature, and
+whose ear is open to every sound; extended to all places, extending
+through all time; and whose bounty and care can know no other
+bounds than those fixed by his own creation</i>".<a id="footnotetag482" name="footnotetag482"></a>
+<a href="#footnote482"><sup class="sml">482</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote482"
+name="footnote482"><b>Footnote 482: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag482">
+(return) </a> Lewes's translation, in "Biog. History of Philosophy," pp. 160-165.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Socrates was no less earnest in his belief in the immortality
+of the soul, and a state of future retribution. He had reverently
+listened to the intuitions of his own soul--the instinctive
+longings and aspirations of his own heart, as a revelation from
+God. He felt that all the powers and susceptibilities of his inward
+nature were in conscious adaptation to the idea of immortality,
+and that its realization was the appropriate destiny
+of man. He was convinced that a future life was needed to
+avenge the wrongs and reverse the unjust judgments of the
+present life;<a id="footnotetag483" name="footnotetag483"></a>
+<a href="#footnote483"><sup class="sml">483</sup></a> needed that virtue may receive its meet reward,
+and the course of Providence may have its amplest vindication.
+He saw this faith reflected in the universal convictions of mankind,
+and the "common traditions" of all ages.<a id="footnotetag484" name="footnotetag484"></a>
+<a href="#footnote484"><sup class="sml">484</sup></a> No one refers
+more frequently than Socrates to the grand old mythologic
+stories which express this faith; to Minos, and Rhadamanthus,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="325" >325</a></span>
+and Æacus, and Triptolemus, who are "real judges," and who,
+in "the Place of Departed Spirits, administer <i>justice</i>."<a id="footnotetag485" name="footnotetag485"></a>
+<a href="#footnote485"><sup class="sml">485</sup></a> He
+believed that in that future state the pursuit of wisdom would
+be his chief employment, and he anticipated the pleasure of
+mingling in the society of the wise, and good, and great of
+every age.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote483"
+name="footnote483"><b>Footnote 483: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag483">
+(return) </a> "Apology," § 32, p. 329 (Whewell's edition).</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote484"
+name="footnote484"><b>Footnote 484: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag484">
+(return) </a> Ibid.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote485"
+name="footnote485"><b>Footnote 485: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag485">
+(return) </a> "Apology," p. 330.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Whilst, then, Socrates was not the first to teach the doctrine
+of immortality, because no one could be said to have first <i>discovered</i>
+it any more than to have first discovered the existence
+of a God, he was certainly the first to place it upon a philosophic
+basis. The Phædo presents the doctrine and the <i>reasoning</i>
+by which Socrates had elevated his mind above the fear
+of death. Some of the arguments may be purely Platonic, the
+argument especially grounded on "ideas;" still, as a whole, it
+must be regarded as a tolerably correct presentation of the
+manner in which Socrates would prove the immortality of the
+soul.</p>
+
+<p>In <i>Ethics</i>, Socrates was pre-eminently himself. The systematic
+resolution of the whole theory of society into the elementary
+principle of natural law, was peculiar to him. <i>Justice</i> was
+the cardinal principle which must lie at the foundation of all
+good government. The word σοφια--<i>wisdom</i>--included all
+excellency in personal morals, whether as manifested (reflectively)
+in the conduct of one's self, or (socially) towards others.
+And <i>Happiness</i>, in its purity and perfection, can only be found
+in virtuous action.<a id="footnotetag486" name="footnotetag486"></a>
+<a href="#footnote486"><sup class="sml">486</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote486"
+name="footnote486"><b>Footnote 486: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag486">
+(return) </a> Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 360, 361.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Socrates left nothing behind him that could with propriety
+be called a <i>school</i>. His chief glory is that he inaugurated a
+new <i>method</i> of inquiry, which, in Plato and Aristotle, we shall
+see applied. He gave a new and vital impulse to human
+thought, which endured for ages; "and he left, as an inheritance
+for humanity, the example of a heroic life devoted wholly
+to the pursuit of truth, and crowned with martyrdom."</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="326" >326</a></span>
+<br>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER X.</h3>
+
+<h3>THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (<i>continued</i>).</h3>
+
+<h3>THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (<i>continued</i>).</h3>
+
+<h3>PLATO.</h3>
+
+<p>We have seen that the advent of Socrates marks a new
+era in the history of speculative thought. Greek philosophy,
+which at first was a philosophy of nature, now changes
+its direction, its character, and its method, and becomes a philosophy
+of mind. This, of course, does not mean that now it
+had mind alone for its object; on the contrary, it tended, as
+indeed philosophy must always tend, to the conception of a
+rational ideal or <i>intellectual system of the universe</i>. It started
+from the phenomena of mind, began with the study of human
+thought, and it made the knowledge of mind, of its ideas and
+laws, the basis of a higher philosophy, which should interpret
+all nature. In other words, it proceeded from psychology,
+through dialectics, to ontology.<a id="footnotetag487" name="footnotetag487"></a>
+<a href="#footnote487"><sup class="sml">487</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote487"
+name="footnote487"><b>Footnote 487: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag487">
+(return) </a> Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 413.</blockquote>
+
+<p>This new movement we have designated in general terms
+as the <i>Socratic School</i>. Not that we are to suppose that, in any
+technical sense, Socrates founded <i>a</i> school. The Academy,
+the Lyceum, the Stoa, and the Garden, were each the chosen
+resort of distinct philosophic sects, the locality of separate
+schools; but Athens itself, the whole city, was the scene of
+the studies, the conversations, and the labors of Socrates. He
+wandered through the streets absorbed in thought. Sometimes
+he stood still for hours lost in profoundest meditation; at other
+times he might be seen in the market-place, surrounded by a
+crowd of Athenians, eagerly discussing the great questions of
+the day.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="327">327</a></span>
+
+<p>Socrates, then, was not, in the usual sense of the word, a
+teacher. He is not to be found in the Stoa or the Grove, with
+official aspect, expounding a system of doctrine. He is "the
+garrulous oddity" of the streets, putting the most searching
+and perplexing questions to every bystander, and making every
+man conscious of his ignorance. He delivered no lectures;
+he simply talked. He wrote no books; he only argued: and
+what is usually styled his school must be understood as embracing
+those who attended him in public as listeners and
+admirers, and who caught his spirit, adopted his philosophic
+<i>method</i>, and, in after life, elaborated and systematized the ideas
+they had gathered from him.</p>
+
+<p>Among the regular or the occasional hearers of Socrates
+were many who were little addicted to philosophic speculation.
+Some were warriors, as Nicias and Laches; some statesmen,
+as Critias and Critobulus; some were politicians, in the worst
+sense of that word, as Glaucon; and some were young men of
+fashion, as Euthydemus and Alcibiades. These were all alike
+delighted with his inimitable irony, his versatility of genius, his
+charming modes of conversation, his adroitness of reply; and
+they were compelled to confess the wisdom and justness of his
+opinions, and to admire the purity and goodness of his life.
+The magic power which he wielded, even over men of dissolute
+character, is strikingly depicted by Alcibiades in his speech at
+"the Banquet."<a id="footnotetag488" name="footnotetag488"></a>
+<a href="#footnote488"><sup class="sml">488</sup></a> Of these listeners, however, we can not now
+speak. Our business is with those only who imbibed his philosophic
+spirit, and became the future teachers of philosophy.
+And even of those who, as Euclid of Megara, and Antisthenes
+the Cynic, and Aristippus of Cyrenaica, borrowed somewhat
+from the dialectic of Socrates, we shall say nothing. They left
+no lasting impression upon the current of philosophic thought,
+because their systems were too partial, and narrow, and fragmentary.
+It is in Plato and Aristotle that the true development
+of the Socratic philosophy is to be sought, and in Plato
+chiefly, as the disciple and friend of Socrates.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote488"
+name="footnote488"><b>Footnote 488: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag488">
+(return) </a> "Banquet," §§ 39, 40.
+</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="328" >328</a></span>
+
+<p>Plato (B.C. 430-347) was pre-eminently the pupil of Socrates.
+He came to Socrates when he was but twenty years of
+age, and remained with him to the day of his death.</p>
+
+<p>Diogenes Laertius reports the story of Socrates having
+dreamed he found an unfledged cygnet on his knee. In a few
+moments it became winged and flew away, uttering a sweet
+sound. The next day a young man came to him who was said
+to reckon Solon among his near ancestors, and who looked,
+through him, to Codrus and the god Poseidon. That young
+man was Plato, and Socrates pronounced him to be the bird
+he had seen in his dream.<a id="footnotetag489" name="footnotetag489"></a>
+<a href="#footnote489"><sup class="sml">489</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote489"
+name="footnote489"><b>Footnote 489: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag489">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. iii. ch. vii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Some have supposed that this old tradition intimates that
+Plato departed from the method of his master--he became
+fledged and flew away into the air. But we know that Plato
+did not desert his master whilst he was living, and there is no
+evidence that he abandoned his method after he was dead.
+He was the best expounder and the most rigid observer of the
+Socratic "organon." The influence of Socrates upon the philosophy
+of Plato is everywhere discernible. Plato had been
+taught by Socrates, that beyond the world of sense there is a
+world of eternal truth, seen by the eye of reason alone. He
+had also learned from him that the eye of reason is purified
+and strengthened by <i>reflection</i>, and that to reflect is to observe,
+and analyze, and define, and classify the facts of consciousness.
+Self-reflection, then, he had been taught to regard as the key
+of real knowledge. By a completer induction, a more careful
+and exact analysis, and a more accurate definition, he carried
+this philosophic method forward towards maturity. He sought
+to solve the problem of <i>being</i> by the principles revealed in his
+own consciousness, and in the <i>ultimate ideas of the reason</i> to
+find the foundation of all real knowledge, of all truth, and of
+all certitude.</p>
+
+<p>Plato was admirably fitted for these sublime investigations
+by the possession of those moral qualities which were so prominent
+in the character of his master. He had that same deep
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="329" >329</a></span>
+seriousness of spirit, that earnestness and rectitude of purpose,
+that longing after truth, that inward sympathy with, and reverence
+for justice, and purity, and goodness, which dwelt in the
+heart of Socrates, and which constrained him to believe in their
+reality and permanence. He could not endure the thought
+that all ideas of right were arbitrary and factitious, that all
+knowledge was unreal, that truth was a delusion, and certainty
+a dream. The world of sense might be fleeting and delusive,
+but the voice of reason and conscience would not mislead the
+upright man. The opinions of individual men might vary, but
+the universal consciousness of the race could not prevaricate.
+However conflicting the opinions of men concerning beautiful
+things, right actions, and good sentiments, Plato was persuaded
+there are ideas of Order, and Right, and Good, which are universal,
+unchangeable, and eternal. Untruth, injustice, and
+wrong may endure for a day or two, perhaps for a century or
+two, but they can not always last; they must perish. The <i>just</i>
+thing and the <i>true</i> thing are the only enduring things; these
+are eternal. Plato had a sublime conviction that his mission
+was to draw the Athenian mind away from the fleeting, the
+transitory, and the uncertain, and lead them to the contemplation
+of an Eternal Truth, an Eternal Justice, an Eternal Beauty,
+all proceeding from and united in an Eternal Being--the ultimate
+ἀγαθόν--<i>the Supremely Good</i>. The knowledge of this
+"Supreme Good" he regarded as the highest science.<a id="footnotetag490" name="footnotetag490"></a>
+<a href="#footnote490"><sup class="sml">490</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote490"
+name="footnote490"><b>Footnote 490: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag490">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xvi. p. 193.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Added to these moral qualifications, Plato had the further
+qualification of a comprehensive knowledge of all that had
+been achieved by his predecessors. In this regard he had
+enjoyed advantages superior to those of Socrates. Socrates
+was deficient in erudition, properly so called. He had studied
+men rather than books. His wisdom consisted in an extensive
+<i>observation</i>, the results of which he had generalized with more
+or less accuracy. A complete philosophic method demands
+not only a knowledge of contemporaneous opinions and modes
+of thought, but also a knowledge of the succession and development
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="330" >330</a></span>
+of thought in past ages. Its instrument is not simply
+psychological analysis, but also historical analysis as a counterproof.<a id="footnotetag491" name="footnotetag491"></a>
+<a href="#footnote491"><sup class="sml">491</sup></a>
+And this erudition Plato supplied. He studied carefully
+the doctrines of the Ionian, Italian, and Eleatic schools.
+Cratylus gave him special instruction in the theories of Heraclitus.<a id="footnotetag492" name="footnotetag492"></a>
+<a href="#footnote492"><sup class="sml">492</sup></a>
+He secured an intimate acquaintance with the lofty
+speculations of Pythagoras, under Archytas of Tarentum, and
+in the writings of Philolaus, whose books he is said to have
+purchased. He studied the principles of Parmenides under
+Hermogenes,<a id="footnotetag493" name="footnotetag493"></a>
+<a href="#footnote493"><sup class="sml">493</sup></a> and he more than once speaks of Parmenides in
+terms of admiration, as one whom he had early learned to reverence.<a id="footnotetag494" name="footnotetag494"></a>
+<a href="#footnote494"><sup class="sml">494</sup></a>
+He studied mathematics under Theodoras, the most
+eminent geometrician of his day. He travelled in Southern
+Italy, in Sicily, and, in search of a deeper wisdom, he pursued
+his course to Egypt.<a id="footnotetag495" name="footnotetag495"></a>
+<a href="#footnote495"><sup class="sml">495</sup></a> Enriched by the fruits of all previous
+speculations, he returned to Athens, and devoted the remainder
+of his life to the development of a comprehensive system
+"which was to combine, to conciliate, and to supersede them
+all."<a id="footnotetag496" name="footnotetag496"></a>
+<a href="#footnote496"><sup class="sml">496</sup></a> The knowledge he had derived from travel, from books,
+from oral instruction, he fused and blended with his own speculations,
+whilst the Socratic spirit mellowed the whole, and
+gave to it a unity and scientific completeness which has excited
+the admiration and wonder of succeeding ages.<a id="footnotetag497" name="footnotetag497"></a>
+<a href="#footnote497"><sup class="sml">497</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote491"
+name="footnote491"><b>Footnote 491: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag491">
+(return) </a> Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 31.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote492"
+name="footnote492"><b>Footnote 492: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag492">
+(return) </a> Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. vi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote493"
+name="footnote493"><b>Footnote 493: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag493">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. iii. ch. viii. p. 115.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote494"
+name="footnote494"><b>Footnote 494: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag494">
+(return) </a> See especially "Theætetus," § 101.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote495"
+name="footnote495"><b>Footnote 495: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag495">
+(return) </a> Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 147.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote496"
+name="footnote496"><b>Footnote 496: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag496">
+(return) </a> Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 22.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote497"
+name="footnote497"><b>Footnote 497: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag497">
+(return) </a> Encyclopædia Britannica, article "Plato."</blockquote>
+
+<p>The question as to <i>the nature, the sources, and the validity of
+human knowledge</i> had attracted general attention previous to
+the time of Socrates and Plato. As the results of this protracted
+controversy, the opinions of philosophers had finally
+crystallized in two well-defined and opposite theories of knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>1. That which reduced all knowledge to the accidental and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="331">331</a></span>
+passively receptive quality of the organs of sense and which
+asserted, as its fundamental maxim, that "<i>Science consists in</i>
+αἴσθησις--<i>sensation</i>."<a id="footnotetag498" name="footnotetag498"></a>
+<a href="#footnote498"><sup class="sml">498</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>This doctrine had its foundation in the physical philosophy
+of Heraclitus. He had taught that all things are in a perpetual
+flux and change. "Motion gives the appearance of existence
+and of generation." "Nothing <i>is</i>, but is always a <i>becoming"</i><a id="footnotetag499" name="footnotetag499"></a>
+<a href="#footnote499"><sup class="sml">499</sup></a>
+Material substances are perpetually losing their identity, and
+there is no permanent essence or being to be found. Hence
+Protagoras inferred that truth must vary with the ever-varying
+sensations of the individual. "Man (the individual) is the
+measure of all things." Knowledge is a purely relative thing,
+and every man's opinion is truth for him.<a id="footnotetag500" name="footnotetag500"></a>
+<a href="#footnote500"><sup class="sml">500</sup></a> The law of right,
+as exemplified in the dominion of a party, is the law of the
+strongest; fluctuating with the accidents of power, and never
+attaining a permanent being. "Whatever a city enacts as appearing
+just to itself, this also is just to the city that enacts it,
+so long as it continues in force."<a id="footnotetag501" name="footnotetag501"></a>
+<a href="#footnote501"><sup class="sml">501</sup></a> "The just, then, is nothing
+else but that which is expedient for the strongest."<a id="footnotetag502" name="footnotetag502"></a>
+<a href="#footnote502"><sup class="sml">502</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote498"
+name="footnote498"><b>Footnote 498: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag498">
+(return) </a> "Theætetus," § 23.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote499"
+name="footnote499"><b>Footnote 499: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag499">
+(return) </a> Ibid., §§ 25, 26.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote500"
+name="footnote500"><b>Footnote 500: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag500">
+(return) </a> Ibid., §§ 39, 87.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote501"
+name="footnote501"><b>Footnote 501: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag501">
+(return) </a> Ibid., § 87.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote502"
+name="footnote502"><b>Footnote 502: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag502">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. i. ch. xii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>2. The second theory is that which denies the existence (except
+as phantasms, images, or mere illusions of the mind) of
+the whole of sensible phenomena, and refers all knowledge to
+the <i>rational apperception of unity</i> (τὸ ἔν) <i>or the One</i>.</p>
+
+<p>This was the doctrine of the later Eleatics. The world of
+sense was, to Parmenides and Zeno, a blank negation, the <i>non
+ens</i>. The identity of thought and existence was the fundamental
+principle of their philosophy.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>"Thought is the same thing as the cause of thought;</p>
+<p>For without the thing in which it is announced,</p>
+<p>You can not find the thought; for there is nothing, nor shall be,</p>
+<p>Except the existing."<a id="footnotetag503" name="footnotetag503"></a>
+<a href="#footnote503"><sup class="sml">503</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote503"
+name="footnote503"><b>Footnote 503: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag503">
+(return) </a> Parmenides, quoted in Lewes's "Biog. History of Philosophy," p. 54.</blockquote>
+
+<p>This theory, therefore, denied to man any valid knowledge of
+the external world.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="332" >332</a></span>
+
+<p>It will at once be apparent to the intelligent reader that the
+direct and natural result of both these theories<a id="footnotetag504" name="footnotetag504"></a>
+<a href="#footnote504"><sup class="sml">504</sup></a> of knowledge
+was a tendency to universal skepticism. A spirit of utter indifference
+to truth and righteousness was the prevailing spirit
+of Athenian society. That spirit is strikingly exhibited in the
+speech of Callicles, "the shrewd man of the world," in "Gorgias"
+(§85, 86). Is this new to our ears?" My dear Socrates,
+you talk of <i>law</i>. Now the laws, in my judgment, are just
+the work of the weakest and most numerous; in framing them
+they never thought but of themselves and their own interests;
+they never approve or censure except in reference to <i>this.</i>
+Hence it is that the cant arises that tyranny is improper and
+unjust, and to struggle for eminence, guilt. Unable to rise
+themselves, of course they would wish to preach liberty and
+equality. But nature proclaims the law of the stronger....
+We surround our children from their infancy with preposterous
+prejudices about liberty and justice. The man of sense tramples
+on such impositions, and shows what Nature's justice
+is.... I confess, Socrates, philosophy is a highly amusing
+study--in moderation, and for boys. But protracted too long,
+it becomes a perfect plague. Your philosopher is a complete
+novice in the life <i>comme il faut</i>.... I like very well to see a
+child babble and stammer; there is even a grace about it when
+it becomes his age. But to see a man continue the prattle of
+the child, is absurd. Just so with your philosophy." The consequence
+of this prevalent spirit of universal skepticism was a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="333" >333</a></span>
+general laxity of morals. The Aleibiades, of the "<i>Symposium</i>,"
+is the ideal representative of the young aristocracy of Athens.
+Such was the condition of society generally, and such the degeneracy
+of even the Government itself, that Plato impressively
+declares "that God alone could save the young men of his age
+from ruin."<a id="footnotetag505" name="footnotetag505"></a>
+<a href="#footnote505"><sup class="sml">505</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote504"
+name="footnote504"><b>Footnote 504: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag504">
+(return) </a> Between these two extreme theories there were offered two, apparently
+less extravagant, accounts of the nature and limits of human knowledge--one
+declaring that "<i>Science</i>(real knowledge) <i>consists in right opinion</i>" (δόξα
+ἀληθής), but having no further basis in the reason of man ("Theæstetus,"
+§ 108); and the other affirming that "<i>Science is right opinion with logical explication
+or definition</i>" (µετὰ λόχου), ("Theætetus," § 139). A close examination
+will, however, convince us that these are but modifications of the
+sensational theory. The latter forcibly remind us of the system of Locke,
+who adds "reflection" to "sensation," but still maintains that all on "simple
+ideas" are obtained from without, and that these are the only material
+upon which reflection can be exercised. Thus the human mind has no criterion
+of truth within itself, no elements of knowledge which are connatural
+and inborn.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote505"
+name="footnote505"><b>Footnote 505: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag505">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Therefore the grand, the vital, the most urgent question for
+his times, as indeed for all times, was, <i>What is Truth? What
+is Right</i>? In the midst of all this variableness and uncertainty
+of human opinion, is there no ground of certainty? Amid all
+the fluctuations and changes around us and within us, is there
+nothing that is immutable and permanent? Have we no ultimate
+standard of Right? Is there no criterion of Truth?
+Plato believed most confidently there was such a criterion and
+standard. He had learned from Socrates, his master, to cherish
+an unwavering faith in the existence of an Eternal Truth, an
+Eternal Order, an Eternal Good, the knowledge of which is
+essential to the perfection and happiness of man, and which
+knowledge must therefore be presumed to be attainable by
+man. Henceforth, therefore, the ceaseless effort of Plato's life
+is to attain a standard (κριτήριον)<a id="footnotetag506" name="footnotetag506"></a>
+<a href="#footnote506"><sup class="sml">506</sup></a>--a CRITERION OF TRUTH.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote506"
+name="footnote506"><b>Footnote 506: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag506">
+(return) </a> "Theætetus," § 89.</blockquote>
+
+<p>At the outset of his philosophic studies, Plato had derived
+from Socrates an important principle, which became the guide
+of all his subsequent inquiries. He had learned from him that
+the criterion of truth must be no longer sought amid the ever-changing
+phenomena of the "sensible world." This had been
+attempted by the philosophers of the Ionian school, and ended
+in failure and defeat. It must therefore be sought in the metaphenomenal--the
+"intelligible world;" that is, it must be sought
+in the apperceptions of the reason, and not in opinions founded
+on sensation. In other words, he must look <i>within</i>. Here, by
+reflection, he could recognize, dimly and imperfectly at first,
+but increasing gradually in clearness and distinctness, two
+classes of cognitions, having essentially distinct and opposite
+characteristics. He found one class that was complex (σνγκεγυµένον),
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="334">334</a></span>
+changeable (θάτερον), contingent and relative (τὰ προς
+τι σχέσιν ἔχοντα); the other, simple (κεχωρισµένον), unchangeable
+(ἀκίνητον), constant (ταὐτόν), permanent (τὸ ὂν ἀει), and
+absolute (ἀνυπόθετον = ἁπλοῦν). One class that may be questioned,
+the other admitting of no question, because self-evident
+and necessary, and therefore compelling belief. One class
+grounded on sense-perception, the other conceived by reason
+alone. But whilst the reason recognizes, it does not create
+them. They are not particular and individual, but universal.
+They belong not to the man, but to the race.</p>
+
+<p>He found, then, that there are in all minds certain "principles"
+which are fundamental--principles which lie at the basis
+of all our cognitions of the objective world, and which, as
+"mental laws," determine all our forms of thought; and principles,
+too, which have this marvellous and undeniable character,
+that they are encountered in the most common experiences,
+and, at the same time, instead of being circumscribed within
+the limits of experience, transcend and govern it--principles
+which are <i>universal</i> in the midst of particular phenomena--<i>necessary,</i>
+though mingled with things contingent--to our eyes
+<i>infinite</i> and <i>absolute</i>, even when appearing in us the relative and
+finite beings that we are.<a id="footnotetag507" name="footnotetag507"></a>
+<a href="#footnote507"><sup class="sml">507</sup></a> These first or fundamental principles
+Plato called IDEAS (ἰδέαι).</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote507"
+name="footnote507"><b>Footnote 507: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag507">
+(return) </a> Cousin's "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," p. 40.</blockquote>
+
+<p>In attempting to present to the reader an adequate representation
+of the Platonic Ideas, we shall be under the necessity
+of anticipating some of the results of his Dialectical method
+before we have expounded that method. And, further, in
+order that it may be properly appreciated by the modern student,
+we shall avail ourselves of the lights which modern psychology,
+faithful to the method of Plato, has thrown upon the
+subject. Whilst, however, we admit that modern psychology
+has succeeded in giving more definiteness and precision to the
+"doctrine of Ideas," we shall find that all that is fundamentally
+valuable and true was present to the mind of Plato. Whatever
+superiority the "Spiritual" philosophy of to-day may have over
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="335">335</a></span>
+the philosophy of past ages, it has attained that superiority by
+its adherence to the principles and method of Plato.</p>
+
+<p>In order to the completeness of our preliminary exposition
+of the Platonic doctrine of Ideas, we shall conditionally assume,
+as a natural and legitimate hypothesis, the doctrine so
+earnestly asserted by Plato, that the visible universe, at least
+in its present form, is an <i>effect</i> which must have had a <i>cause</i>,<a id="footnotetag508" name="footnotetag508"></a>
+<a href="#footnote508"><sup class="sml">508</sup></a>
+and that the Order, and Beauty, and Excellence of the universe
+are the result of the presence and operation of a "regulating
+Intelligence"--a <i>Supreme Mind</i>.<a id="footnotetag509" name="footnotetag509"></a>
+<a href="#footnote509"><sup class="sml">509</sup></a> Now that, anterior to the
+creation of the universe, there must have existed in the Eternal
+Mind certain fundamental principles of Order, Right, and Good,
+will not be denied. Every conceivable <i>form</i>, every possible
+<i>relation</i>, every principle of <i>right</i>, must have been eternally present
+to the Divine thought. As pure intelligence, the Deity
+must have always been self-conscious--must have known himself
+as substance and cause, as the Infinite and Perfect. If
+then the Divine Energy is put forth in creative acts, that energy
+must obey those eternal principles of Order, Right, and Good.
+If the Deity operate at all, he must operate rightly, wisely, and
+well. The created universe must be an <i>image</i>, in the sphere
+of sense, of the ideas which inhere in the reason of the great
+First Cause.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote508"
+name="footnote508"><b>Footnote 508: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag508">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. ix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote509"
+name="footnote509"><b>Footnote 509: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag509">
+(return) </a> "Phædo," § 105.</blockquote>
+
+<p>"Let us declare," says Plato, "with what <i>motive</i> the Creator
+hath formed nature and the universe. He was <i>good</i>, and in
+the good no manner of envy can, on any subject, possibly subsist.
+Exempt from envy, he had wished that all things should,
+as far as possible, <i>resemble himself</i>.... It was not, and is not
+to be allowed for the Supremely Good to do any thing except
+what is most <i>excellent</i> (κάλλιστον)--most <i>fair</i>, most <i>beautiful</i>."<a id="footnotetag510" name="footnotetag510"></a>
+<a href="#footnote510"><sup class="sml">510</sup></a>
+Therefore, argues Plato, "inasmuch as the world is the most
+beautiful of things, and its artificer the best of causes, it is evident
+that the Creator and Father of the universe looked to the
+<i>Eternal Model</i> (παράδειγµα), pattern, or plan,"<a id="footnotetag511" name="footnotetag511"></a>
+<a href="#footnote511"><sup class="sml">511</sup></a> which lay in his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="336" >336</a></span>
+own mind. And thus this one, only-generated universe, is the
+<i>image</i> (εἰκών) of that God who is the object of the intellect, the
+greatest, the best, and the most perfect Being.<a id="footnotetag512" name="footnotetag512"></a>
+<a href="#footnote512"><sup class="sml">512</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote510"
+name="footnote510"><b>Footnote 510: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag510">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. x.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote511"
+name="footnote511"><b>Footnote 511: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag511">
+(return) </a> Ibid., ch. ix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote512"
+name="footnote512"><b>Footnote 512: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag512">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. lxxiii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>And then, furthermore, if this Supreme Intelligence, this
+Eternal Mind, shall create another <i>mind</i>, it must, in a still
+higher degree, resemble him. Inasmuch as it is a rational
+nature, it must, in a peculiar sense, partake of the Divine characteristics.
+"The soul," says Plato, "is that which most partakes
+of the <i>Divine</i>"<a id="footnotetag513" name="footnotetag513"></a>
+<a href="#footnote513"><sup class="sml">513</sup></a> The soul must, therefore, have native
+<i>ideas</i> and sentiments which correlate it with the Divine original.
+The ideas of substance and cause, of unity and identity,
+of the infinite and perfect, must be mirrored there. As it is
+the "offspring of God,"<a id="footnotetag514" name="footnotetag514"></a>
+<a href="#footnote514"><sup class="sml">514</sup></a> it must bear some traces and lineaments
+of its Divine parentage. That soul must be configured
+and correlated to those principles of Order, Right, and Good
+which dwell in the Eternal Mind. And because it has within
+itself the same ideas and laws, according to which the great
+Architect built the universe, therefore it is capable of knowing,
+and, in some degree, of comprehending, the intellectual system
+of the universe. It apprehends the external world by a light
+which the reason supplies. It interprets nature according to
+principles and laws which God has inwrought within the very
+essence of the soul. "That which imparts truth to knowable
+things, and gives the knower his power of knowing truth, is the
+<i>idea of the good</i>, and you are to conceive of this as the source
+of knowledge and of truth."<a id="footnotetag515" name="footnotetag515"></a>
+<a href="#footnote515"><sup class="sml">515</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote513"
+name="footnote513"><b>Footnote 513: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag513">
+(return) </a> "Laws," bk. v. ch. i.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote514"
+name="footnote514"><b>Footnote 514: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag514">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. x.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote515"
+name="footnote515"><b>Footnote 515: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag515">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xviii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>And now we are prepared to form a clear conception of the
+Platonic doctrine of Ideas. Viewed in their relation to the
+Eternal Reason, as giving the primordial thought and law of
+all being, these principles are simply εἴδη αὐτὰ καθ᾽ αὑτά--<i>ideas
+in themselves</i>--the essential qualities or attributes of Him who
+is the supreme and ultimate Cause of all existence. When regarded
+as before the Divine imagination, giving definite forms
+and relations, they are the τύποι, the παραδείγµατα--<i>the types</i>,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="337" >337</a></span>
+<i>models, patterns, ideals</i> according to which the universe was
+fashioned. Contemplated in their actual embodiment in the
+laws, and typical forms of the material world, they are εἰκόνες--<i>images</i>
+of the eternal perfections of God. The world of sense
+pictures the world of reason by a participation (µέθεξις) of the
+ideas. And viewed as interwoven in the very texture and
+framework of the soul, they are ὁµοιώµατα--copies of the Divine
+Ideas which are the primordial laws of knowing, thinking, and
+reasoning. Ideas are thus the nexus of relation between God
+and the visible universe, and between the human and the
+Divine reason.<a id="footnotetag516" name="footnotetag516"></a>
+<a href="#footnote516"><sup class="sml">516</sup></a> There is something divine in the world, and
+in the human soul, namely, <i>the eternal laws and reasons of
+things</i>, mingled with the endless diversity and change of sensible
+phenomena. These ideas are "the light of the intelligible
+world;" they render the invisible world of real Being perceptible
+to the reason of man. "Light is the offspring of the Good,
+which the Good has produced in his own likeness. Light in
+the visible world is what the <i>idea of the Good</i> is in the intelligible
+world. And this offspring of the Good--light--has the
+same relation to vision and visible things which the Good has
+to intellect and intelligible things."<a id="footnotetag517" name="footnotetag517"></a>
+<a href="#footnote517"><sup class="sml">517</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote516"
+name="footnote516"><b>Footnote 516: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag516">
+(return) </a> "Now, Idea is, as regards God, a mental operation by him (the notions
+of God, eternal and perfect in themselves); as regards us, the first things
+perceptible by mind; as regards Matter, a standard; but as regards the
+world, perceptible by sense, a pattern; but as considered with reference to
+itself, an existence."--Alcinous, "Introduction to the Doctrines of Plato,"
+p. 261.
+
+<p>"What general notions are to our minds, he (Plato) held, ideas are to
+the Supreme Reason (νοῦς ßασιλευς); they are the eternal thoughts of the
+Divine Intellect, and we attain truth when our thoughts conform with
+His--when our general notions are in conformity with the ideas."--Thompson,
+"Laws of Thought," p. 119.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote517"
+name="footnote517"><b>Footnote 517: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag517">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xix.</blockquote>
+
+<p><i>Science</i> is, then, according to Plato, <i>the knowledge of universal,
+necessary, unchangeable, and eternal ideas</i>. The simple cognition
+of the concrete phenomena of the universe is not regarded by
+him as <i>real</i> knowledge. "Science, or real knowledge, belongs
+to <i>Being</i>, and ignorance to <i>non</i>-Being." Whilst that which is
+conversant only "with that which partakes of both--of being
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="338" >338</a></span>
+and non-being--and which can not be said either to be or not
+to be"--that which is perpetually "becoming," but never
+"really is," is "simply <i>opinion</i>, and not real knowledge."<a id="footnotetag518" name="footnotetag518"></a>
+<a href="#footnote518"><sup class="sml">518</sup></a>
+And those only are "philosophers" who have a knowledge of
+the <i>really-existing</i>, in opposition to the mere seeming; of the
+<i>always-existing</i>, in opposition to the transitory; and of that
+which exists <i>permanently</i>, in opposition to that which waxes and
+wanes--is developed and destroyed alternately. "Those who
+recognize many beautiful things, but who can not see the Beautiful
+itself, and can not even follow those who would lead them
+to it, they <i>opine</i>, but do not <i>know</i>. And the same may be said
+of those who recognize right actions, but do not recognize an
+absolute righteousness. And so of other ideas. But they who
+look at these ideas--permanent and unchangeable ideas--these
+men <i>really know</i>."<a id="footnotetag519" name="footnotetag519"></a>
+<a href="#footnote519"><sup class="sml">519</sup></a> Those are the true philosophers alone who
+love the sight of truth, and who have attained to the vision of
+the eternal order, and righteousness, and beauty, and goodness
+in the Eternal Being. And the means by which the soul is
+raised to this vision of real Being (τὸ ὄντως ὄν) is THE SCIENCE
+OF REAL KNOWLEDGE.</p>
+
+<p>Plato, in the "Theætetus," puts this question by the interlocutor
+Socrates, "What is Science (᾽Επιστήµη) or positive
+knowledge?"<a id="footnotetag520" name="footnotetag520"></a>
+<a href="#footnote520"><sup class="sml">520</sup></a> Theætetus essays a variety of answers, such as,
+"Science is sensation," "Science is right judgment or opinion,"
+"Science is right opinion with logical definition." These,
+in the estimation of the Platonic Socrates, are all unsatisfactory
+and inadequate. But after you have toiled to the end of
+this remarkable discussion, in which Socrates demolishes all
+the then received theories of knowledge, he gives you no answer
+of his own. He abruptly closes the discussion by naïvely
+remarking that, at any rate, Theætetus will learn that he does
+not understand the subject; and the ground is now cleared for
+an original investigation.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote518"
+name="footnote518"><b>Footnote 518: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag518">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. v. ch. xx.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote519"
+name="footnote519"><b>Footnote 519: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag519">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote520"
+name="footnote520"><b>Footnote 520: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag520">
+(return) </a> "Theætetus," § 10.</blockquote>
+
+<p>This investigation is resumed in the "Republic." This
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="339">339</a></span>
+greatest work of Plato's was designed not only to exhibit a
+scheme of Polity, and present a system of Ethics, but also, at
+least in its digressions, to propound a system of Metaphysics
+more complete and solid than had yet appeared. The discussion
+as to the <i>powers</i> or <i>faculties</i> by which we obtain knowledge,
+the <i>method</i> or <i>process</i> by which real knowledge is attained, and
+the ultimate <i>objects</i> or <i>ontological grounds</i> of all real knowledge,
+commences at § 18, book v., and extends to the end of book vii.</p>
+
+<p>That we may reach a comprehensive view of this "sublimest
+of sciences," we shall find it necessary to consider--</p>
+
+<p>1st. <i>What are the powers or faculties by which we obtain
+knowledge, and what are the limits and degrees of human knowledge?</i></p>
+
+<p>2d. <i>What is the method in which, or the processes and laws according
+to which, the mind operates in obtaining knowledge?</i></p>
+
+<p>3d. <i>What are the ultimate results attained by this method?
+what are the objective and ontological grounds of all real knowledge?</i></p>
+
+<p>The answer to the first question will give the PLATONIC
+PSYCHOLOGY; the answer to the second will exhibit the PLATONIC
+DIALECTIC; the answer to the last will reveal the PLATONIC
+ONTOLOGY.</p>
+
+<p class="mid"><b>I. PLATONIC PSYCHOLOGY.</b></p>
+
+<p>Every successful inquiry as to the reality and validity of
+human knowledge must commence by clearly determining, by
+rigid analysis, what are the actual phenomena presented in
+consciousness, what are the powers or faculties supposed by
+these phenomena, and what reliance are we to place upon the
+testimony of these faculties? And, especially, if it be asserted
+that there is a science of absolute Reality, of ultimate and essential
+Being, then the most important and vital question is,
+By what power do we cognize real Being? through what faculty
+do we obtain the knowledge of that which absolutely <i>is</i>? If
+by sensation we only obtain the knowledge of the fleeting and
+the transitory, "<i>the becoming</i>" how do we attain to the knowledge
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="340" >340</a></span>
+of the unchangeable and permanent, "the <i>Being</i>?" Have
+we a faculty of universal, necessary, and eternal principles?
+Have we a faculty, an interior eye which beholds "<i>the intelligible</i>,"
+ideal, spiritual world, as the eye of sense beholds the visible
+or "<i>sensible world</i>?"<a id="footnotetag521" name="footnotetag521"></a>
+<a href="#footnote521"><sup class="sml">521</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Plato commences this inquiry by first defining his understanding
+of the word δύναµις--<i>power</i> or <i>faculty</i>. "We will say
+<i>faculties</i> (δυνάµεις) are a certain kind of real existences by
+which we can do whatever we are able (<i>e.g.</i>, to know), as there
+are powers by which every thing does what it does: the eye
+has a <i>power</i> of seeing; the ear has a <i>power</i> of hearing. But
+these powers (of which I now speak) have no color or figure to
+which I can so refer that I can distinguish one power from
+another. <i>In order to make such distinction, I must look at the
+power itself, and see what it is, and what it does. In that way
+I discern the power of each thing, and that is the same power
+which produces the same effect, and that is a different power which
+produces a different effect</i>."<a id="footnotetag522" name="footnotetag522"></a>
+<a href="#footnote522"><sup class="sml">522</sup></a> That which is employed about,
+and accomplishes one and the same purpose, this Plato calls
+a <i>faculty</i>.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote521"
+name="footnote521"><b>Footnote 521: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag521">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xviii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote522"
+name="footnote522"><b>Footnote 522: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag522">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxi.</blockquote>
+
+<p>We have seen that our first conceptions (<i>i.e.</i>, first in the
+order of time) are of the mingled, the concrete (τὸ συγκεχυµένον),
+"the multiplicity of things to which the multitude ascribe
+beauty, etc.<a id="footnotetag523" name="footnotetag523"></a>
+<a href="#footnote523"><sup class="sml">523</sup></a> The mind "contemplates what is great and
+small, not as distinct from each other, but as confused.<a id="footnotetag524" name="footnotetag524"></a>
+<a href="#footnote524"><sup class="sml">524</sup></a>
+Prior to the discipline of <i>reflection</i>, men are curious about
+mere sights and sounds, love beautiful voices, beautiful colors,
+beautiful forms, but their intelligence can not see, can not embrace,
+the essential nature of the Beautiful itself.<a id="footnotetag525" name="footnotetag525"></a>
+<a href="#footnote525"><sup class="sml">525</sup></a> Man's condition
+previous to the education of philosophy is vividly presented
+in Plato's simile of the cave.<a id="footnotetag526" name="footnotetag526"></a>
+<a href="#footnote526"><sup class="sml">526</sup></a> He beholds only the images
+and shadows of the ectypal world, which are but dim and
+distant adumbrations of the real and archetypal world.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="341" >341</a></span>
+
+<p>Primarily nothing is given in the abstract (τὸ κεγωρισµένον), but
+every thing in the concrete. The primary faculties of the
+mind enter into action spontaneously and simultaneously; all
+our primary notions are consequently synthetic. When reflection
+is applied to this primary totality of consciousness, that
+is, when we analyze our notions, we find them composed of
+diverse and opposite elements, some of which are variable,
+contingent, individual, and relative, others are permanent, unchangeable,
+universal, necessary, and absolute. Now these
+elements, so diverse, so opposite, can not have been obtained
+from the same source; they must be supplied by separate
+powers. "Can any man with common sense reduce under
+one what <i>is infallible</i>, and what is <i>not infallible?</i>"<a id="footnotetag527" name="footnotetag527"></a>
+<a href="#footnote527"><sup class="sml">527</sup></a> Can that
+which is "<i>perpetually becoming</i>" be apprehended by the same
+faculty as that which "<i>always is?</i>"<a id="footnotetag528" name="footnotetag528"></a>
+<a href="#footnote528"><sup class="sml">528</sup></a> Most assuredly not.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote523"
+name="footnote523"><b>Footnote 523: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag523">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote524"
+name="footnote524"><b>Footnote 524: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag524">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. vii. ch. viii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote525"
+name="footnote525"><b>Footnote 525: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag525">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. v. ch. xx.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote526"
+name="footnote526"><b>Footnote 526: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag526">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. vii. ch. i., ii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote527"
+name="footnote527"><b>Footnote 527: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag527">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. v. ch. xxi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote528"
+name="footnote528"><b>Footnote 528: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag528">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxii.; also "Timæus," § 9.</blockquote>
+
+<p>These primitive intuitions--the simple perceptions of sense,
+and the <i>à priori</i> intuitions of the reason, which constitute the
+elements of all our complex notions, have essentially <i>diverse
+objects</i>--the sensible or ectypal world, seen by the eye and
+touched by the hand, which Plato calls δοξαστήν--<i>the subject of
+opinion</i>; and the noetic or archetypal world, perceived by reason,
+and which he calls διανοητικήν--<i>the subject of rational intuition
+or science</i>. "It is plain," therefore, argues Plato, "that
+<i>opinion</i> is a different thing from <i>science</i>. They must, therefore,
+have a different <i>faculty</i> in reference to a different object--science
+as regards that which <i>is</i>, so as to know the nature of real
+<i>being</i>--opinion as regards that which can not be said absolutely
+to be, or not to be. That which is known and that
+which is opined can not possibly be the same,... since they
+are naturally faculties of different things, and both of them are
+faculties--<i>opinion</i> and <i>science</i>, and each of them different from
+the other."<a id="footnotetag529" name="footnotetag529"></a>
+<a href="#footnote529"><sup class="sml">529</sup></a> Here then are two grand divisions of the mental
+powers--a faculty of apprehending universal and necessary
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="342">342</a></span>
+Truth, of intuitively beholding absolute Reality, and a faculty
+of perceiving sensible objects, and of judging according to appearance.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote529"
+name="footnote529"><b>Footnote 529: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag529">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxi., xxii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>According to the scheme of Plato, these two general divisions
+of the mental powers are capable of a further subdivision.
+He says: Consider that there are two kinds of things, the <i>intelligible</i>
+and the <i>visible</i>; two different regions, the intelligible
+world and the sensible world. Now take a line divided into
+two equal segments to represent these two regions, and again
+divide each segment in the same ratio--both that of the visible
+and that of the intelligible species. The parts of each segment
+are to represent differences of clearness and indistinctness. In
+the visible world the parts are <i>things</i> and <i>images</i>. By <i>images</i>
+I mean shadows,<a id="footnotetag530" name="footnotetag530"></a>
+<a href="#footnote530"><sup class="sml">530</sup></a> reflections in water and in polished bodies,
+and all such like representations; and by <i>things</i> I mean that
+of which images are resemblances, as animals, plants, and
+things made by man.</p>
+
+<p>You allow that this difference corresponds to the difference
+of <i>knowledge</i> and <i>opinion</i>; and the <i>opinionable</i> is to the
+<i>knowable</i> as the <i>image</i> to the <i>reality</i>.<a id="footnotetag531" name="footnotetag531"></a>
+<a href="#footnote531"><sup class="sml">531</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote530"
+name="footnote530"><b>Footnote 530: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag530">
+(return) </a> As in the simile of the cave ("Republic," bk. vii. ch. i. and ii.).</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote531"
+name="footnote531"><b>Footnote 531: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag531">
+(return) </a> The analogy between the "images produced by reflections in water
+and on polished surfaces" and "the images of external objects produced in
+the mind by sensation" is more fully presented in the "Timæus," ch. 19.
+
+<p>The eye is a light-bearer, "made of that part of elemental fire which
+does not burn, but sheds a mild light, like the light of day.... When the
+light of the day meets the light which beams from the eye, then light meets
+like, and make a homogeneous body; the external light meeting the internal
+light, in the direction in which the eye looks. And by this homogeneity
+like feels like; and if this beam touches any object, or any object touches it,
+it transmits the motions through the body to the soul, and produces that
+sensation which we call <i>seeing</i>.... And if (in sleep) some of the strong
+motions remain in some part of the frame, they produce within us likenesses
+of external objects,... and thus give rise to dreams.... As to the images
+produced by mirrors and by smooth surfaces, they are now easily explained,
+for all such phenomena result from the mutual affinity of the external and
+internal fires. The light that proceeds from the face (as an object of vision),
+and the light that proceeds from the eye, become one continuous ray on the
+smooth surface."</blockquote>
+
+<p>Now we have to divide the segment which represents
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="343" >343</a></span>
+intelligible things in this way: The one part represents the knowledge
+which the mind gets by using things as images--the other;
+that which it has by dealing with the ideas themselves; the
+one part that which it gets by reasoning downward from principles--the
+other, the principles themselves; the one part,
+truth which depends on hypotheses--the other, unhypothetical
+or absolute truth.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, to explain a problem in geometry, the geometers
+make certain hypotheses (namely, definitions and postulates)
+about numbers and angles, and the like, and reason from them--giving
+no reason for their assumptions, but taking them as
+evident to all; and, reasoning from them, they prove the propositions
+which they have in view. And in such reasonings,
+they use visible figures or diagrams--to reason about a square,
+for instance, with its diagonals; but these reasonings are not
+really about these visible figures, but about the mental figures,
+and which they conceive in thought.</p>
+
+<p>The diagrams which they draw, being visible, are the images
+of thoughts which the geometer has in his mind, and these
+images he uses in his reasoning. There may be images of
+these images--shadows and reflections in water, as of other
+visible things; but still these diagrams are only images of conceptions.</p>
+
+<p>This, then, is <i>one</i> kind of intelligible things: <i>conceptions</i>--for
+instance, geometrical conceptions of figures. But in dealing
+with these the mind depends upon assumptions, and does not
+ascend to first principles. It does not ascend above these assumptions,
+but uses images borrowed from a lower region (the
+visible world), these images being chosen so as to be as distinct
+as may be.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="344">344</a></span>
+
+<p>Now the <i>other</i> kind of intelligible things is this: that which
+the <i>Reason</i> includes, in virtue of its power of reasoning, when
+it regards the assumptions of the sciences as (what they are)
+assumptions only, and uses them as occasions and starting-points,
+that from these it may ascend to the <i>Absolute</i>, which
+does not depend upon assumption, the origin of scientific truth.</p>
+
+<p><i>The reason takes hold of this first principle of truth</i>, and availing
+itself of all the connections and relations of this principle, it
+proceeds to the conclusion--using no sensible image in doing
+this, but contemplates the <i>idea alone</i>; and with these ideas the
+process begins, goes on, and terminates.</p>
+
+<p>"I apprehend," said Glaucon, "but not very clearly, for the
+matter is somewhat abstruse. <i>You wish to prove that the knowledge
+which by the reason, in an intuitive manner, we may acquire
+of real existence and intelligible things is of a higher degree of certainty
+than the knowledge which belongs to what are commonly
+called the Sciences</i>. Such sciences, you say, have certain assumptions
+for their basis; and these assumptions are by the
+student of such sciences apprehended not by sense, but by a
+mental operation--by conception.</p>
+
+<p>"But inasmuch as such students ascend no higher than assumptions,
+and do not go to the first principles of truth, they
+do not seem to have true knowledge, intellectual insight, intuitive
+reason, on the subjects of their reasonings, though the subjects
+are intelligible things. And you call this habit and practice
+of the geometers and others by the name of JUDGMENT
+(διάνοια), not reason, or insight, or intuition--taking judgment
+to be something between opinion, on the one side, and intuitive
+reason, on the other.</p>
+
+<p>"You have explained it well," said I. "And now consider
+these four kinds of things we have spoken of, as corresponding
+to four affections (or faculties) of the mind. INTUITIVE REASON
+(νόησις), the highest; JUDGMENT (διάνοια)(or <i>discursive reason</i>),
+the next; the third, BELIEF (πίστις); and the fourth, CONJECTURE,
+or <i>guess</i> (εὶκασία); and arrange them in order, so that
+they may be held to have more or less certainty, as their objects
+have more or less truth."<a id="footnotetag532" name="footnotetag532"></a>
+<a href="#footnote532"><sup class="sml">532</sup></a> The completeness, and even
+accuracy of this classification of all the objects of human cognition,
+and of the corresponding mental powers, will be seen
+at once by studying the diagram proposed by Plato, as figured
+on the opposite page.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote532"
+name="footnote532"><b>Footnote 532: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag532">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xx. and xxi.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="345">345</a></span>
+
+<pre>
+PLATONIC SCHEME OF THE OBJECTS OF COGNITION, AND THE RELATIVE MENTAL POWERS
+__________________________________________________________________________
+            |                                 |
+            | VISIBLE WORLD                   | INTELLIGIBLE WORLD
+            | (the object of Opinion--δόξα).  |(the object of Knowledge or
+            |                                 | Science--ίπυττήµη).
+____________|_________________________________|___________________________
+            |                |                |              |
+            | Things.        | Images.        | Intuitions.  |Conceptions.
+____________|________________|________________|______________|____________
+ And may be thus further expanded:
+__________________________________________________________________________
+            |                                 |
+            | VISIBLE WORLD.                  |   INTELLIGIBLE WORLD.
+____________|_________________________________|___________________________
+            |                |                |             |
+            | Things         | Images         | Ideas       | Conceptions
+OBJECT      |                |                |             |
+            | ζὼα. κ.τ.λ.    | ικονες.        | ιδεαί.      | δυενοήµατα.
+____________|________________|________________|_____________|_____________
+            |                |                |             |
+            | Belief.        | Conjecture.    | Intuition.  |Demonstration.
+PROCESS     |                |                |             |
+            | πιοτις.        | ειϰασια.       | νόησις.     | ίπισιηιη.
+____________|________________|________________|_____________|_____________
+            |                |                |             |
+            | SENSATION.     | PHANTASY.      | INTUITIVE   | DISCURSIVE
+FACULTY     |                |                |   REASON.   |    REASON.
+            | αiσθησις.      | ϕαντασία.       | νούς.       | λόγος.
+____________|________________|________________|_____________|_____________
+            |                |                |             |
+MODERN      | SENSE.         | IMAGINATION.   | REASON.     | JUDGMENT.
+NOMENCLATURE|Presentative    |Representative  |Regulative   | Logical
+            | Faculty.       | Faculty        | Faculty.    |    Faculty.
+____________|________________|________________|_____________|_____________
+            |                                 |
+            | MEMORY.                         | REMINISCENCE
+            | µνηµη.                          |   αναµησις.
+            | The Conservative Faculty--      | The Reproductive Faculty--
+            | "the preserver of sensation"    |"the recollection of the
+            | (σωτηρια αισιν, σεως) [533]     | things which the soul
+            |                                 | saw (in Eternity) when
+            |                                 | journeying in the train of
+            |                                 | the Deity."[534]
+            |[Footnote 533: "Philebus," § 67] | [Footnote 534: Phædrus,
+            |                                 |                     § 62.]
+____________|_________________________________|___________________________
+</pre>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="346" >346</a></span>
+
+<p>The foregoing diagram, borrowed from Whewell, with some
+modifications and additions we have ventured to make, exhibits
+a perfect view of the Platonic scheme of the <i>cognitive powers</i>--the
+faculties by which the mind attains to different degrees of
+knowledge, "having more or less certainty, as their objects
+have more or less truth."<a id="footnotetag535" name="footnotetag535"></a>
+<a href="#footnote535"><sup class="sml">535</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>1st. SENSATION (αἴσθησις).--This term is employed by Plato
+to denote the passive mental states or affections which are produced
+within us by external objects through the medium of the
+vital organization, and also the cognition or vital perception or
+consciousness<a id="footnotetag536" name="footnotetag536"></a>
+<a href="#footnote536"><sup class="sml">536</sup></a> which the mind has of these mental states.</p>
+
+<p>2d. PHANTASY (φαντασία).--This term is employed to describe
+the power which the mind possesses of imagining or
+representing whatever has once been the object of sensation.
+This may be done involuntarily as "in dreams, disease, and
+hallucination,"<a id="footnotetag537" name="footnotetag537"></a>
+<a href="#footnote537"><sup class="sml">537</sup></a> or voluntarily, as in reminiscence. Φαντάσµατα
+are the images, the life-pictures (ζωγράφηµα) of sensible things
+which are present to the mind, even when no external object
+is present to the sense.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote535"
+name="footnote535"><b>Footnote 535: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag535">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote536"
+name="footnote536"><b>Footnote 536: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag536">
+(return) </a> "In Greek philosophy there was no term for 'consciousness' until the
+decline of philosophy, and in the latter ages of the language. Plato and
+Aristotle, to say nothing of other philosophers, had no special term to express
+the knowledge which the mind has of the operation of its own faculties,
+though this, of course, was necessarily a frequent matter of consideration.
+Intellect was supposed by them to be cognizant of its own operations....
+In his 'Theætetus' Plato accords to sense the power of perceiving
+that it perceives."--Hamilton's "Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 198 (Eng. ed.).</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote537"
+name="footnote537"><b>Footnote 537: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag537">
+(return) </a> "Theætetus," § 39.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The conjoint action of these two powers results in what Plato
+calls <i>opinion</i> (δόξα). "Opinion is the complication of memory
+and sensation. For when we meet for the first time with a
+thing perceptible by a sense, and a sensation is produced by it,
+and from this sensation a memory, and we subsequently meet
+again with the same thing perceived by a sense, we combine
+the memory previously brought into action with the sensation
+produced a second time, and we say within ourselves [this is]
+Socrates, or a horse, or fire, or whatever thing there may be of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="347" >347</a></span>
+such a kind. Now this is called <i>opinion</i>, through our combining
+the recollection brought previously into action with the sensation
+recently produced. And when these, placed along each
+other, agree, a true opinion is produced; but when they swerve
+from each other, a false one."<a id="footnotetag538" name="footnotetag538"></a>
+<a href="#footnote538"><sup class="sml">538</sup></a> The δόξα of Plato, therefore
+answers to the experience, or the <i>empirical knowledge</i> of modern
+philosophy, which is concerned only with appearances (phenomena),
+and not with absolute realities, and can not be elevated
+to the dignity of <i>science</i> or real knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>We are not from hence to infer that Plato intended to deny
+all reality whatever to the objects of sensible experience. These
+transitory phenomena were not real existences, but they were
+<i>images</i> of real existences. The world itself is but the image,
+in the sphere of sense, of those ideas of Order, and Proportion,
+and Harmony, which dwell in the Divine Intellect, and are
+mirrored in the soul of man. "Time itself is a moving image
+of Eternity."<a id="footnotetag539" name="footnotetag539"></a>
+<a href="#footnote539"><sup class="sml">539</sup></a> But inasmuch as the immediate object of sense-perception
+is a representative image generated in the vital organism,
+and all empirical cognitions are mere "conjectures"
+(εἰκασίαι) founded on representative images, they need to be
+certified by a higher faculty, which immediately apprehends
+real Being (τὸ ὄν). Of things, as they are in themselves, the
+senses give us no knowledge; all that in sensation we are conscious
+of is certain affections of the mind (πάθος); the existence
+of self, or the perceiving subject, and a something external
+to self, a perceived object, are revealed to us, not by the senses,
+but by the reason.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote538"
+name="footnote538"><b>Footnote 538: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag538">
+(return) </a> Alcinous, "Introduction to the Doctrine of Plato," p. 247.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote539"
+name="footnote539"><b>Footnote 539: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag539">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," § 14.</blockquote>
+
+<p>3d. JUDGMENT (διάνοια, λόγος), <i>the Discursive Faculty, or the
+Faculty of Relations</i>.--According to Plato, this faculty proceeds
+on the assumption of certain principles as true, without inquiring
+into their validity, and reasons, by deduction, to the conclusions
+which necessarily flow from these principles. These assumptions
+Plato calls hypotheses (ὑποθέσεις). But by hypotheses
+he does not mean baseless assumptions--"mere theories--"but
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="348">348</a></span>
+things self-evident and "obvious to all;"<a id="footnotetag540" name="footnotetag540"></a>
+<a href="#footnote540"><sup class="sml">540</sup></a> as for example, the
+postulates and definitions of Geometry. "After laying down
+hypotheses of the odd and even, and three kinds of angles
+[right, acute, and obtuse], and figures [as the triangle, square,
+circle, and the like], he <i>proceeds on them as known, and gives no
+further reason about them</i>, and reasons downward from these
+principles,"<a id="footnotetag541" name="footnotetag541"></a>
+<a href="#footnote541"><sup class="sml">541</sup></a> affirming certain judgments as consequences deducible
+therefrom.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote540"
+name="footnote540"><b>Footnote 540: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag540">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xx.
+</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote541"
+name="footnote541"><b>Footnote 541: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag541">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. vi. ch. xx.
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>All judgments are therefore founded on <i>relations</i>. To judge
+is to compare two terms. "Every judgment has three parts:
+the subject, or notion about which the judgment is; the predicate,
+or notion with which the subject is compared; and the
+copula, or nexus, which expresses the connection or relation between
+them.<a id="footnotetag542" name="footnotetag542"></a>
+<a href="#footnote542"><sup class="sml">542</sup></a> Every act of affirmative judgment asserts the
+agreement of the predicate and subject; every act of negative
+judgment asserts the predicate and subject do not agree. All
+judgment is thus an attempt to reduce to unity two cognitions,
+and reasoning (λογίζεσθαι) is simply the extension of this process.
+When we look at two straight lines of equal length, we do not
+merely think of them separately as <i>this</i> straight line, and <i>that</i>
+straight line, but they are immediately connected together by a
+comparison which takes place in the mind. We perceive that
+these two lines are alike; they are of equal length, and they
+are both straight; and the connection which is perceived as
+existing between them is a <i>relation of sameness or identity.</i><a id="footnotetag543" name="footnotetag543"></a>
+<a href="#footnote543"><sup class="sml">543</sup></a>
+When we observe any change occurring in nature, as, for example,
+the melting of wax in the presence of heat, the mind
+recognizes a causal efficiency in the fire to produce that change,
+and the relation now apprehended is a <i>relation of cause and effect</i><a id="footnotetag544" name="footnotetag544"></a>
+<a href="#footnote544"><sup class="sml">544</sup></a>
+But the fundamental principles, the necessary ideas
+which lie at the basis of all the judgments (as the ideas of
+space and time, of unity and identity, of substance and cause,
+of the infinite and perfect) are not given by the judgment, but
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="349">349</a></span>
+by the "highest faculty"--"the <i>Intuitive Reason</i>,<a id="footnotetag545" name="footnotetag545"></a>
+<a href="#footnote545"><sup class="sml">545</sup></a> which is, for
+us, the source of all unhypothetical and absolute knowledge.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote542"
+name="footnote542"><b>Footnote 542: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag542">
+(return) </a> Thompson's "Laws of Thought," p. 134.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote543"
+name="footnote543"><b>Footnote 543: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag543">
+(return) </a> "Phædo," §§ 50-57, 62.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote544"
+name="footnotexx"><b>Footnote 544: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag544">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. ix.; "Sophocles," § 109.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote545"
+name="footnote545"><b>Footnote 545: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag545">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xxi.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The knowledge, therefore, which is furnished by the Discursive
+Reason, Plato does not regard as "real Science." "It is
+something between Opinion on the one hand, and Intuition on
+the other."<a id="footnotetag546" name="footnotetag546"></a>
+<a href="#footnote546"><sup class="sml">546</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote546"
+name="footnote546"><b>Footnote 546: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag546">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. vi. ch. xxi.</blockquote>
+
+<p>4th. REASON (νοῦς)--<i>Intuitive Reason</i>, is the organ of self-evident,
+necessary, and universal Truth. In an immediate,
+direct, and intuitive manner, it takes hold on truth with absolute
+certainty. The reason, through the medium of <i>ideas</i>, holds
+communion with the world of real Being. These ideas are the
+<i>light</i> which reveals the world of unseen realities, as the sun reveals
+the world of sensible forms. "<i>The idea of the good</i> is the
+<i>sun</i> of the Intelligible World; it sheds on objects the light of
+truth, and gives to the soul that knows, the power of knowing."<a id="footnotetag547" name="footnotetag547"></a>
+<a href="#footnote547"><sup class="sml">547</sup></a>
+Under this light, the eye of reason apprehends the eternal
+world of being as truly, yes more truly, than the eye of sense
+apprehends the world of phenomena. This power the rational
+soul possesses by virtue of its having a nature kindred, or even
+homogeneous with the Divinity. It was "generated by the Divine
+Father," and, like him, it is in a certain sense "<i>eternal</i>."<a id="footnotetag548" name="footnotetag548"></a>
+<a href="#footnote548"><sup class="sml">548</sup></a>
+Not that we are to understand Plato as teaching that the rational
+soul had an independent and underived existence; it
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="350">350</a></span>
+was created or "generated" in eternity,<a id="footnotetag549" name="footnotetag549"></a>
+<a href="#footnote549"><sup class="sml">549</sup></a> and even now, in its
+incorporate state, is not amenable to the conditions of time
+and space, but, in a peculiar sense, dwells in eternity; and
+therefore is capable of beholding eternal realities, and coming
+into communion with absolute beauty, and goodness, and truth--that
+is, with God, the <i>Absolute Being</i>.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote547"
+name="footnote547"><b>Footnote 547: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag547">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. vi. ch. xix.; see also ch. xviii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote548"
+name="footnote548"><b>Footnote 548: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag548">
+(return) </a> The reader must familiarize himself with the Platonic notion of <i>"eternity"
+as a fixed state out of time existing contemporaneous with one in time</i>, to appreciate
+the doctrine of Plato as stated above. If we regard his idea of
+eternity as merely an indefinite extension of time, with a past, a present,
+and a future, we can offer no rational interpretation of his doctrine of the
+eternal nature of the rational essence of the soul. An eternal nature "generated"
+in a "past" or "present" time is a contradiction. But that was
+not Plato's conception of "eternity," as the reader will discover on perusing
+the "Timæus" (ch. xiv.). "God resolved to create a moving image of eternity,
+and out of that eternity which reposes in its own <i>unchangeable unity</i>
+he framed an eternal image moving according to numerical succession,
+which we call <i>Time</i>. Nothing can be more inaccurate than to apply the
+terms, <i>past, present, future</i>, to real Being, which is immovable. Past and
+future are expressions only suitable to generation which proceeds through
+time." Time reposes on the bosom of eternity, as all bodies are in space.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote549"
+name="footnote649"><b>Footnote 549: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag549">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. xvi., and "Phædrus," where the soul is pronounced
+ἀρχὴ δὲ ἁγένητον.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Thus the soul (ψυχή) as a composite nature is on one side
+linked to the eternal world, its essence being generated of that
+ineffable element which constitutes the real, the immutable,
+and the permanent. It is a beam of the eternal Sun, a spark
+of the Divinity, an emanation from God. On the other side it
+is linked to the phenomenal or sensible world, its emotive part<a id="footnotetag550" name="footnotetag550"></a>
+<a href="#footnote550"><sup class="sml">550</sup></a>
+being formed of that which is relative and phenomenal. The
+soul of man thus stands midway between the eternal and the
+contingent, the real and the phenomenal, and as such, it is the
+mediator between, and the interpreter of, both.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote550"
+name="footnote550"><b>Footnote 550: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag550">
+(return) </a> Θυµειδές, the seat of the nobler--ἐπιθυµητικόν, the seat of the baser
+passions.</blockquote>
+
+<p>In the allegory of the "Chariot and Winged Steeds"<a id="footnotetag551" name="footnotetag551"></a>
+<a href="#footnote551"><sup class="sml">551</sup></a> Plato
+represents the lower or inferior part of man's nature as dragging
+the soul down to the earth, and subjecting it to the slavery
+and debasement of corporeal conditions. Out of these conditions
+there arise numerous evils that disorder the mind and
+becloud the reason, for evil is inherent to the condition of finite
+and multiform being into which we have "fallen by our own
+fault." The present earthly life is a fall and a punishment. The
+soul is now dwelling in "the grave we call the body." In its
+incorporate state, and previous to the discipline of education,
+the rational element is "asleep." "Life is more of a dream
+than a reality." Men are utterly the slaves of sense, the sport
+of phantoms and illusions. We now resemble those "captives
+chained in a subterraneous cave," so poetically described in the
+seventh book of the "Republic;" their backs are turned to the
+light, and consequently they see but the shadows of the objects
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="351">351</a></span>
+which pass behind them, and they "attribute to these shadows
+a perfect reality." Their sojourn upon earth is thus a dark
+imprisonment in the body, a dreamy exile from their proper
+home. "Nevertheless these pale fugitive shadows suffice to
+revive in us the reminiscence of that higher world we once inhabited,
+if we have not absolutely given the reins to the impetuous
+untamed horse which in Platonic symbolism represents
+the emotive sensuous nature of man." The soul has some dim
+and shadowy recollection of its ante-natal state of bliss, and
+some instinctive and proleptic yearnings for its return.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote551"
+name="footnote551"><b>Footnote 551: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag551">
+(return) </a> "Phædrus," § 54-62.</blockquote>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i10">"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;</p>
+<p class="i10">The soul that rises with us, our life's star,</p>
+<p class="i12">  Has had elsewhere its setting,</p>
+<p class="i12">  And cometh from afar,</p>
+<p class="i12">  Not in entire forgetfulness,</p>
+<p class="i12">  And not in utter nakedness,</p>
+<p class="i10">But trailing clouds of glory, do we come</p>
+<p class="i10">From God, who is our home."<a id="footnotetag552" name="footnotetag552"></a>
+<a href="#footnote552"><sup class="sml">552</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote552"
+name="footnote552"><b>Footnote 552: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag552">
+(return) </a> Wordsworth, "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality," vol. v.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Exiled from the true home of the spirit, imprisoned in the
+body, disordered by passion, and beclouded by sense, the soul
+has yet longings after that state of perfect knowledge, and
+purity, and bliss, in which it was first created. Its affinities
+are still on high. It yearns for a higher and nobler form of
+life. It essays to rise, but its eye is darkened by sense, its
+wings are besmeared by passion and lust; it is "borne downward,
+until at length it falls upon and attaches itself to that
+which is material and sensual," and it flounders and grovels
+still amid the objects of sense.</p>
+
+<p>And now, with all that seriousness and earnestness of spirit
+which is peculiarly Christian, Plato asks how the soul may be
+delivered from the illusions of sense, the distempering influence
+of the body, and the disturbances of passion, which becloud
+its vision of the real, the good, and the true?</p>
+
+<p>Plato believed and hoped this could be accomplished by
+<i>philosophy</i>. This he regarded as a grand intellectual discipline
+for the purification of the soul. By this it was to be
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="352" >352</a></span>
+disenthralled from the bondage of sense<a id="footnotetag553" name="footnotetag553"></a>
+<a href="#footnote553"><sup class="sml">553</sup></a> and raised into the empyrean
+of pure thought "where truth and reality shine forth."
+All souls have the faculty of knowing, but it is only by reflection,
+and self-knowledge, and intellectual discipline, that the
+soul can be raised to the vision of eternal truth, goodness, and
+beauty--that is, to the vision of God. And this intellectual discipline
+was the <i>Platonic Dialectic</i>.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote553"
+name="footnote553"><b>Footnote 553: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag553">
+(return) </a> Not, however, fully in this life. The consummation of the intellectual
+struggle into "the intelligible world" is death. The intellectual discipline
+was therefore µελέτη θανατου, <i>a preparation for death</i>.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="353">353</a></span>
+<br>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XI.</h3>
+
+<h3>THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (<i>continued</i>.)</h3>
+
+<h3>THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (<i>continued</i>).</h3>
+
+<h3>PLATO.</h3>
+
+<h3>II. THE PLATONIC DIALECTIC.</h3>
+
+<p>The Platonic Dialectic is the Science of Eternal and Immutable
+Principles, and the <i>method</i> (ὄργανον) by which
+these first principles are brought forward into the clear light
+of consciousness. The student of Plato will have discovered
+that he makes no distinction between logic and metaphysics.
+These are closely united in the one science to which he gives
+the name of "<i>Dialectic</i>" and which was at once the science of
+the ideas and laws of the Reason, and of the mental process
+by which the knowledge of Real Being is attained, and a
+ground of absolute certainty is found. This science has, in
+modern times, been called <i>Primordial</i> or <i>Transcendental Logic</i>.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen that Plato taught that the human reason is
+originally in possession of fundamental and necessary ideas--the
+copies of the archetypal ideas which dwell in the eternal
+Reason; and that these ideas are the primordial laws of
+thought--that is, they are the laws under which we conceive
+of all objective things, and reason concerning all existence.
+These ideas, he held, are not derived from sensation, neither
+are they generalizations from experience, but they are inborn
+and connatural. And, further, he entertained the belief, more,
+however, as a reasonable hypothesis<a id="footnotetag554" name="footnotetag554"></a>
+<a href="#footnote554"><sup class="sml">554</sup></a> than as a demonstrable
+truth, that these standard principles were acquired by the soul
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="354">354</a></span>
+in a pre-existent state in which it stood face to face with ideas
+of eternal order, beauty, goodness, and truth.<a id="footnotetag555" name="footnotetag555"></a>
+<a href="#footnote555"><sup class="sml">555</sup></a> "Journeying
+with the Deity," the soul contemplated justice, wisdom, science--not
+that science which is concerned with change, and
+which appears under a different manifestation in different objects,
+which we choose to call beings; but such science as is
+in that which alone is indeed <i>being</i>.<a id="footnotetag556" name="footnotetag556"></a>
+<a href="#footnote556"><sup class="sml">556</sup></a> Ideas, therefore, belong
+to, and inhere in, that portion of the soul which is properly
+οὐσία--<i>essence</i> or <i>being</i>; which had an existence anterior to
+time, and even now has no relation to time, because it is now
+in eternity--that is, in a sphere of being to which past, present,
+and future can have no relation.<a id="footnotetag557" name="footnotetag557"></a>
+<a href="#footnote557"><sup class="sml">557</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote554"
+name="footnote554"><b>Footnote 554: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag554">
+(return) </a>: Within "the εἰκότων µύθων ἰδέα--the category of probability."--"Phædo."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote555"
+name="footnote555"><b>Footnote 555: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag555">
+(return) </a> "Phædo," § 50-56.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote556"
+name="footnote556"><b>Footnote 556: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag556">
+(return) </a> "Phædrus," § 58.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote557"
+name="footnote557"><b>Footnote 557: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag557">
+(return) </a> See note on p. 349.</blockquote>
+
+<p>All knowledge of truth and reality is, therefore, according
+to Plato, a REMINISCENCE (ἀνάµνησις)--a recovery of partially
+forgotten ideas which the soul possessed in another state of
+existence; and the <i>dialectic</i> of Plato is simply the effort, by apt
+<i>interrogation</i>, to lead the mind to "<i>recollect</i>"<a id="footnotetag558" name="footnotetag558"></a>
+<a href="#footnote558"><sup class="sml">558</sup></a> the truth which has
+been formerly perceived by it, and is even now in the memory
+though not in consciousness. An illustration of this method
+is attempted in the "<i>Meno</i>" where Plato introduces Socrates
+as making an experiment on the mind of an uneducated person.
+Socrates puts a series of questions to a slave of Meno,
+and at length elicits from the youth a right enunciation of a
+geometrical truth. Socrates then points triumphantly to this
+instance, and bids Meno observe that he had not taught the
+youth any thing, but simply interrogated him as to his opinions,
+whilst the youth had recalled the knowledge previously existing
+in his own mind.<a id="footnotetag559" name="footnotetag559"></a>
+<a href="#footnote559"><sup class="sml">559</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote558"
+name="footnote558"><b>Footnote 558: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag558">
+(return) </a> "To learn is to recover our own previous knowledge, and this is properly
+to <i>recollect.</i>"--"Phædo" § 55.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote559"
+name="footnote559"><b>Footnote 559: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag559">
+(return) </a> "Meno," § 16-20. "Now for a person to recover knowledge himself
+through himself, is not this to <i>recollect</i>."</blockquote>
+
+<p>Now whilst we readily grant that the instance given in the
+"<i>Meno</i>" does not sustain the inference of Plato that "the boy"
+had learnt these geometrical truths "in eternity," and that they
+had simply been brought forward into the view of his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="355" >355</a></span>
+consciousness by the "questioning" of Socrates, yet it certainly
+does prove that <i>there are ideas or principles in the human reason
+which are not derived from without--which are anterior to all
+experience, and for the development of which, experience furnishes
+the occasion, but is not the origin and source</i>. By a kind of lofty
+inspiration, he caught sight of that most important doctrine of
+modern philosophy, so clearly and logically presented by Kant,
+<i>that the Reason is the source of a pure</i> à priori <i>knowledge</i>--a
+knowledge native to, and potentially in the mind, antecedent
+to all experience, and which is simply brought out into the field
+of consciousness by experience conditions. Around this greatest
+of all metaphysical truths Plato threw a gorgeous mythic
+dress, and presented it under the most picturesque imagery.<a id="footnotetag560" name="footnotetag560"></a>
+<a href="#footnote560"><sup class="sml">560</sup></a>
+But, when divested of the rich coloring which the glowing imagination
+of Plato threw over it, it is but a vivid presentation
+of the cardinal truth that <i>there are ideas in the mind which have
+not been derived from without</i>, and which, therefore, the mind
+brought with it into the present sphere of being. The validity
+and value of this fundamental doctrine, even as presented by
+Plato, is unaffected by any speculations in which he may have
+indulged, as to the pre-existence of the soul. He simply regarded
+this doctrine of pre-existence as highly probable--a
+plausible explanation of the facts. That there are ideas, innate
+and connatural to the human mind, he clung to as the
+most vital, most precious, most certain of all truths; and to
+lead man to the recognitions of these ideas, to bring them within
+the field of consciousness, was, in his judgment, the great
+business of philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>And this was the grand aim of his <i>Dialectic</i>--to elicit, to
+bring to light the truths which are already in the mind--"a
+µαίευσις" a kind of intellectual midwifery<a id="footnotetag561" name="footnotetag561"></a>
+<a href="#footnote561"><sup class="sml">561</sup></a>--a delivering of the
+mind of the ideas with which it was pregnant.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote560"
+name="footnote560"><b>Footnote 560: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag560">
+(return) </a> As in the "Phædo," §§ 48-57; "Phædrus," §§ 52-64; "Republic," bk. x.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote561"
+name="footnote561"><b>Footnote 561: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag561">
+(return) </a> "Theætetus," §§ 17-20.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It is thus, at first sight, obvious that it was a higher and
+more comprehensive science than the art of deduction. For it
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="356">356</a></span>
+was directed to the discovery and establishment of First Principles.
+Its sole object was the discovery of truth. His dialectic
+was an <i>analytical</i> and <i>inductive method</i>. "In Dialectic Science,"
+says <i>Alcinous</i>, "there is a dividing and a defining, and
+an analyzing, and, moreover, that which is inductive and syllogistic."<a id="footnotetag562" name="footnotetag562"></a>
+<a href="#footnote562"><sup class="sml">562</sup></a>
+Even <i>Bacon</i>, who is usually styled "the Father of
+the Inductive method," and who, too often, speaks disparagingly
+of Plato, is constrained to admit that he followed the
+inductive method. "An induction such as will be of advantage
+for the invention and demonstration of Arts and Sciences
+must distinguish the essential nature of things (naturam) by
+proper rejections and exclusions, and then after as many of
+these negatives as are sufficient, by comprising, above all (super),
+the positives. Up to this time this had not been done,
+nor even attempted, <i>except by Plato alone, who, in order to attain
+his definitions and ideas, has used, to a certain extent, the
+method of Induction</i>."<a id="footnotetag563" name="footnotetag563"></a>
+<a href="#footnote563"><sup class="sml">563</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote562"
+name="footnote562"><b>Footnote 562: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag562">
+(return) </a> "Introduction to the Doctrines of Plato," vol. vi. p. 249. "The Platonic
+Method was the method of induction."--Cousin's "History of Philosophy,"
+vol. i. p. 307.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote563"
+name="footnote563"><b>Footnote 563: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag563">
+(return) </a> "Novum Organum," vol. i. p. 105.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The process of investigation adopted by Plato thus corresponds
+with the inductive method of modern times, with this
+simple difference, that Bacon conducted science into the world
+of <i>matter</i>, whilst Plato directed it to the world of <i>mind</i>. The
+dialectic of Plato aimed at the discovery of the "laws of
+thought;" the modern inductive philosophy aims at the discovery
+of the "laws of nature." The latter concerns itself
+chiefly with the inquiry after the "causes" of material phenomena;
+the former concerned itself with the inquiry after the
+"first principles" of all knowledge and of all existence. Both
+processes are, therefore, carried on by <i>interrogation</i>. The analysis
+which seeks for a law of nature proceeds by the interrogation
+of nature. The analysis of Plato proceeds by the interrogation
+of mind, in order to discover the fundamental <i>ideas</i>
+which lie at the basis of all cognition, which determine all our
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="357">357</a></span>
+processes of thought, and which, in their final analysis, reveal
+the REAL BEING, which is the ground and explanation of all
+existence.</p>
+
+<p>Now the fact that such an inquiry has originated in the
+human mind, and that it can not rest satisfied without some
+solution, is conclusive evidence that the mind has an instinctive
+belief, a proleptic anticipation, that such knowledge can be
+attained. There must unquestionably be some mental initiative
+which is the <i>motive</i> and <i>guide</i> to all philosophical inquiry.
+We must have some well-grounded conviction, some <i>à priori</i>
+belief, some pre-cognition "ad intentionem ejus quod quæritur,"<a id="footnotetag564" name="footnotetag564"></a>
+<a href="#footnote564"><sup class="sml">564</sup></a>
+which determines the direction of our thinking. The
+mind does not go to work aimlessly; it asks a specific question;
+it demands the "<i>whence</i>" and the "<i>why</i>" of that which
+is. Neither does it go to work unfurnished with any guiding
+principles. That which impels the mind to a determinate act
+of thinking is the possession of a <i>knowledge</i> which is different
+from, and independent of, the process of thinking itself. "A
+rational anticipation is, then, the ground of the <i>prudens quæstio</i>
+--"the forethought query, which, in fact, is the prior half of the
+knowledge sought."<a id="footnotetag565" name="footnotetag565"></a>
+<a href="#footnote565"><sup class="sml">565</sup></a> If the mind inquire after "laws," and
+"causes," and "reasons," and "grounds,"--the first principles
+of all knowledge and of all existence,--"it must have the <i>à priori</i>
+ideas of "law," and "cause," and "reason," and "being <i>in se"</i>
+which, though dimly revealed to the mind previous to the discipline
+of reflection, are yet unconsciously governing its spontaneous
+modes of thought. The whole process of induction
+has, then, some rational ground to proceed upon--some principles
+deeper than science, and more certain than demonstration,
+which reason contains within itself, and which induction
+"draws out" into clearer light.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote564"
+name="footnote564"><b>Footnote 564: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag564">
+(return) </a> Bacon.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote565"
+name="footnote565"><b>Footnote 565: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag565">
+(return) </a> Coleridge, vol. ii. p. 413.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Now this mental initiative of every process of induction is
+the intuitive and necessary conviction <i>that there must be a
+sufficient reason why every thing exists, and why it is as it is, and not
+otherwise</i>;<a id="footnotetag566" name="footnotetag566"></a>
+<a href="#footnote566"><sup class="sml">566</sup></a> or in other words, if any thing begins to be, some
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="358" >358</a></span>
+thing else must be supposed<a id="footnotetag567" name="footnotetag567"></a>
+<a href="#footnote567"><sup class="sml">567</sup></a> as the ground, and reason, and
+cause, and law of its existence. This "<i>law of sufficient</i> (or <i>determinant)
+reason</i>"<a id="footnotetag568" name="footnotetag568"></a>
+<a href="#footnote568"><sup class="sml">568</sup></a> is the fundamental principle of all metaphysical
+inquiry. It is contained, at least in a negative form,
+in that famous maxim of ancient philosophy, "<i>De nihilo nihil</i>"--"Ἀδύνατον
+γίνεσθαί τι ἐκ µηδενὸς προϋπάρχοντος." "It is impossible
+for a real entity to be made or generated from nothing
+pre-existing;" or in other words, "nothing can be made or
+produced without an efficient cause."<a id="footnotetag569" name="footnotetag569"></a>
+<a href="#footnote569"><sup class="sml">569</sup></a> This principle is also
+distinctly announced by Plato: "Whatever is generated, is
+necessarily generated from a certain αἰτίαν"--<i>ground, reason</i>,
+or <i>cause</i>; "for it is wholly impossible that any thing should be
+generated without a cause."<a id="footnotetag570" name="footnotetag570"></a>
+<a href="#footnote570"><sup class="sml">570</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote566"
+name="footnote566"><b>Footnote 566: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag566">
+(return) </a> "Phædo," § 103.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote567"
+name="footnote567"><b>Footnote 567: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag567">
+(return) </a> <i>Suppono</i>, to place under as a support, to take as a ground.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote568"
+name="footnote568"><b>Footnote 568: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag568">
+(return) </a> This generic principle, viewed under different relations, gives--
+
+<p>
+1st. <i>The principle of Substance</i>--every quality supposes a subject or real being.</p>
+
+<p>2d. <i>The principle of Causality</i>--every thing which begins to be must have
+a cause.</p>
+
+<p>3d. <i>The principle of Law</i>--every phenomenon must obey some uniform law.</p>
+
+<p>4th. <i>The principle of Final Cause</i>--every means supposes an end, every
+existence has a purpose or reason why.</p>
+
+<p>5th. <i>The principle of Unity</i>--all plurality supposes a unity as its basis and
+ground.</p></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote569"
+name="footnote569"><b>Footnote 569: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag569">
+(return) </a> Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. ii. p. 161.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote570"
+name="footnote570"><b>Footnote 570: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag570">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. ix.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The first business of Plato's dialectic is to demonstrate that
+the ground and reason of all existence can not be found in the
+mere objects of sense, nor in any opinions or judgments founded
+upon sensation. Principles are only so far "first principles"
+as they are permanent and unchangeable, depending on
+neither time, nor place, nor circumstances. But the objects
+of sense are in ceaseless flux and change; they are "<i>always
+becoming</i>;" they can not be said to have any "<i>real being</i>."
+They are not to-day what they were yesterday, and they will
+never again be what they are now; consequently all opinions
+founded on mere phenomena are equally fluctuating and uncertain.
+Setting out, therefore, from the assumption of the fallaciousness
+of "<i>opinion</i>" it examined the various hypotheses
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="359">359</a></span>
+which had been bequeathed by previous schools of philosophy,
+or were now offered by contemporaneous speculators, and
+showed they were utterly inadequate to the solution of the
+problem. This scrutiny consisted in searching for the ground
+of "contradiction"<a id="footnotetag571" name="footnotetag571"></a>
+<a href="#footnote571"><sup class="sml">571</sup></a> with regard to each opinion founded on
+sensation, and showing that opposite views were equally tenable.
+It inquired on what ground these opinions were maintained,
+and what consequences flowed therefrom, and it showed
+that the grounds upon which "opinion" was founded, and the
+conclusions which were drawn from it, were contradictory, and
+consequently untrue.<a id="footnotetag572" name="footnotetag572"></a>
+<a href="#footnote572"><sup class="sml">572</sup></a> "They," the Dialecticians, "examined
+the opinions of men as if they were error; and bringing them
+together by a reasoning process to the same point, they placed
+them by the side of each other: and by so placing, they showed
+that <i>the opinions are at one and the same time contrary to themselves,
+about the same things, with reference to the same circumstances,
+and according to the same premises</i>."<a id="footnotetag573" name="footnotetag573"></a>
+<a href="#footnote573"><sup class="sml">573</sup></a> And inasmuch as
+the same attribute can not, at the same time, be affirmed and
+denied of the same subject,<a id="footnotetag574" name="footnotetag574"></a>
+<a href="#footnote574"><sup class="sml">574</sup></a> therefore a thing can not be at
+once "changeable" and "unchangeable," "movable" and "immovable,"
+"generated" and "eternal."<a id="footnotetag575" name="footnotetag575"></a>
+<a href="#footnote575"><sup class="sml">575</sup></a> The objects of sense,
+however generalized and classified, can only give the contingent,
+the relative, and the finite; therefore the permanent
+ground and sufficient reason of all phenomenal existence can
+not be found in opinions and judgments founded upon sensation.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote571"
+name="footnote571"><b>Footnote 571: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag571">
+(return) </a> "The Dialectitian is one who syllogistically infers the contradictions
+implied in popular opinions."--Aristotle, "Sophist," §§ 1, 2.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote572"
+name="footnote572"><b>Footnote 572: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag572">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xiii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote573"
+name="footnote573"><b>Footnote 573: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag573">
+(return) </a> "Sophist," § 33; "Republic," bk. iv. ch. xii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote574"
+name="footnote574"><b>Footnote 574: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag574">
+(return) </a> See the "Phædo," § 119, and "Republic," bk. iv. ch. xiii., where the
+Law of Non-contradiction is announced.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote575"
+name="footnote575"><b>Footnote 575: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag575">
+(return) </a> "Parmenides," § 3.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The dialectic process thus consisted almost entirely of <i>refutation</i>,<a id="footnotetag576" name="footnotetag576"></a>
+<a href="#footnote576"><sup class="sml">576</sup></a>
+or what both he and Aristotle denominated <i>elenchus</i>
+(ἔλεγχος)--a process of reasoning by which the contradictory
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="360">360</a></span>
+of a given proposition is inferred. "When refutation had done
+its utmost, and all the points of difficulty and objection had
+been fully brought out, the dialectic method had accomplished
+its purpose; and the affirmation which remained, after this discussion,
+might be regarded as setting forth the truth of the
+question under consideration;"<a id="footnotetag577" name="footnotetag577"></a>
+<a href="#footnote577"><sup class="sml">577</sup></a> or in other words, <i>when a system
+of error is destroyed by refutation, the contradictory opposite
+principle, with its logical developments, must be accepted as an established
+truth</i>.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote576"
+name="footnote576"><b>Footnote 576: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag576">
+(return) </a> Confutation is the greatest and chiefest of
+purification.--"Sophist," § 34.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote577"
+name="footnote577"><b>Footnote 577: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag577">
+(return) </a> Article "Plato," Encyclopædia Britannica.</blockquote>
+
+<p>By the application of this method, Plato had not only exposed
+the insufficiency and self-contradiction of all results obtained
+by a mere <i>à posteriori</i> generalization of the simple facts
+of experience, but he demonstrated, as a consequence, that we
+are in possession of some elements of knowledge which have
+not been derived from sensation; that there are, in all minds,
+certain notions, principles, or ideas, which have been furnished
+by a higher faculty than sense; and that these notions, principles,
+or ideas, transcend the limits of experience, and reveal
+the knowledge of <i>real being</i>--τὸ ὄντως ὄν--<i>Being in se</i>.</p>
+
+<p>To determine what these principles or ideas are, Plato now
+addresses himself to the <i>analysis of thought</i>. "It is the glory
+of Plato to have borne the light of analysis into the most obscure
+and inmost region; he searched out what, in this totality
+which forms consciousness, is the province of reason; what
+comes from it, and not from the imagination and the senses--from
+within, and not from without."<a id="footnotetag578" name="footnotetag578"></a>
+<a href="#footnote578"><sup class="sml">578</sup></a> Now to analyze is to decompose,
+that is, to divide, and to define, in order to see better
+that which really is. The chief logical instruments of the dialectic
+method are, therefore, <i>Division</i> and <i>Definition</i>. "The
+being able to <i>divide</i> according to genera, and not to consider
+the same species as different, nor a different as the same,"<a id="footnotetag579" name="footnotetag579"></a>
+<a href="#footnote579"><sup class="sml">579</sup></a> and
+"to see under one aspect, and bring together under one general
+idea, many things scattered in various places, that, by <i>defining</i>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="361">361</a></span>
+each, a person may make it clear what the subject is," is, according
+to Plato, "dialectical."<a id="footnotetag580" name="footnotetag580"></a>
+<a href="#footnote580"><sup class="sml">580</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote578"
+name="footnote578"><b>Footnote 578: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag578">
+(return) </a> Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 328.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote579"
+name="footnote579"><b>Footnote 579: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag579">
+(return) </a> "Sophist," § 83.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote580"
+name="footnote280"><b>Footnote 280: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag580">
+(return) </a> "Phædrus," §§ 109, 111.</blockquote>
+
+<p>We have already seen that, in his first efforts at applying
+reflection to the concrete phenomena of consciousness, Plato
+had recognized two distinct classes of cognitions, marked by
+characteristics essentially opposite;--one of "<i>sensible</i>" objects
+having a definite outline, limit, and figure, and capable of being
+imaged and represented to the mind in a determinate form--the
+other of "<i>intelligible</i>" objects, which can not be outlined
+or represented in the memory or the imagination by any figures
+or images, and are, therefore, the objects of purely rational
+conception. He found, also, that we arrive at one class of cognitions
+"<i>mediately</i>" through images generated in the vital organism,
+or by some testimony, definition, or explication of
+others; whilst we arrive at the other class "<i>immediately</i>" by
+simple intuition, or rational apperception. The mind stands
+face to face with the object, and gazes directly upon it. The
+reality of that object is revealed in its own light, and we find it
+impossible to refuse our assent--that is, it is <i>self-evident</i>. One
+class consisted of <i>contingent</i> ideas--that is, their objects are
+conceived as existing, with the possibility, without any contradiction,
+of conceiving of their non-existence; the other consisted
+of <i>necessary</i> ideas--their objects are conceived as existing with
+the absolute impossibility of conceiving of their non-existence.
+Thus we can conceive of this book, this table, this earth, as not
+existing, but we can not conceive the non-existence of space.
+We can conceive of succession in time as not existing, but we
+can not, in thought, annihilate duration. We can imagine this
+or that particular thing not to have been, but we can not conceive
+of the extinction of Being in itself. He further observed,
+that one class of our cognitions are <i>conditional</i> ideas; the existence
+of their objects is conceived only on the supposition of
+some antecedent existence, as for example, the idea of qualities,
+phenomena, events; whilst the other class of cognitions are
+<i>unconditional</i> and <i>absolute</i>--we can conceive of their objects as
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="362" >362</a></span>
+existing independently and unconditionally--existing whether
+any thing else does or does not exist, as space, duration, the
+infinite, Being <i>in se</i>. And, finally, whilst some ideas appear in
+us as <i>particular</i> and <i>individual</i>, determined and modified by
+our own personality and liberty, there are others which are, in
+the fullest sense, <i>universal</i>. They are not the creations of our
+own minds, and they can not be changed by our own volitions.
+They depend upon neither times, nor places, nor circumstances;
+they are common to all minds, in all times, and in all places.
+These ideas are the witnesses in our inmost being that there
+is something beyond us, and above us; and beyond and above
+all the contingent and fugitive phenomena around us. Beneath
+all changes there is a <i>permanent</i> being. Beyond all finite and
+conditional existance there is something <i>unconditional</i> and
+<i>absolute</i>. Having determined that there are truths which are independent
+of our own minds--truths which are not individual,
+but universal--truths which would be truths even if our minds
+did not perceive them, we are led onward to a <i>super-sensual</i>
+and super-natural ground, on which they rest.</p>
+
+<p>To reach this objective reality on which the ideas of reason
+repose, is the grand effort of Plato's dialectic. He seeks, by a
+rigid analysis, clearly to <i>separate</i>, and accurately to <i>define</i> the <i>à
+priori</i> conceptions of reason. And it was only when he had
+eliminated every element which is particular, contingent, and
+relative, and had defined the results in precise and accurate
+language, that he regarded the process as complete. The
+ideas which are self-evident, universal, and necessary, were then
+clearly disengaged, and raised to their pure and absolute form.
+"You call the man dialectical who requires a reason of the
+essence or being of each thing. As the dialectical man can
+define the essence of every thing, so can he of the good. He
+can <i>define</i> the idea of the good, <i>separating</i> it from all others--follow
+it through all windings, as in a battle, resolved to mark
+it, not according to opinion, but according to science."<a id="footnotetag581" name="footnotetag581"></a>
+<a href="#footnote581"><sup class="sml">581</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote581"
+name="footnote581"><b>Footnote 581: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag581">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xiv.</blockquote>
+
+<p><i>Abstraction</i> is thus the process, the instrument of the Platonic
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="363" >363</a></span>
+dialectic. It is important, however, that we should distinguish
+between the method of <i>comparative</i> abstraction, as employed
+in physical inquiry, and that <i>immediate</i> abstraction,
+which is the special instrument of philosophy. The former
+proceeds by comparison and generalization, the latter by simple
+separation. The one yields a contingent general principle
+as the result of the comparison of a number of individual cases,
+the other gives an universal and necessary principle by the
+analysis of a single concrete fact. As an illustration we may
+instance "the principle of causality." To enable us to affirm
+"that every event must have a cause," we do not need to compare
+and generalize a great number of events. "The principle
+which compels us to pronounce the judgment is already complete
+in the first as in the last event; it can change in regard
+to its object, it can not change in itself; it neither increases
+nor decreases with the greater or less number of applications."<a id="footnotetag582" name="footnotetag582"></a>
+<a href="#footnote582"><sup class="sml">582</sup></a>
+In the presence of a single event, the universality and necessity
+of this principle of causality is recognized with just as much
+clearness and certainty as in the presence of a million events,
+however carefully generalized.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote582"
+name="footnote582"><b>Footnote 582: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag582">
+(return) </a> Cousin's "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," pp. 57, 58.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Abstraction, then, it will be seen, creates nothing; neither
+does it add any new element to the store of actual cognitions
+already possessed by all human minds. It simply brings forward
+into a clearer and more definite recognition, that which
+necessarily belongs to the mind as part of its latent furniture,
+and which, as a law of thought, has always unconsciously governed
+all its spontaneous movements. As a process of rational
+inquiry, it was needful to bring the mind into intelligible and
+conscious communion with the world of <i>Ideas</i>. These ideas
+are partially revealed in the sensible world, all things being
+formed, as Plato believed, according to ideas as models and
+exemplars, of which sensible objects are the copies. They are
+more fully manifested in the constitution of the human mind
+which, by virtue of its kindred nature with the original essence
+or being, must know them intuitively and immediately. And
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="364">364</a></span>
+they are brought out fully by the dialectic process, which disengages
+them from all that is individual and phenomenal, and
+sets them forth in their pure and absolute form.</p>
+
+<p>But whilst Plato has certainly exhibited the true method of
+investigation by which the ideas of reason are to be separated
+from all concrete phenomena and set clearly before the mind,
+he has not attempted a complete enumeration of the ideas of
+reason; indeed, such an enumeration is still the grand desideratum
+of philosophy. We can not fail, however, in the careful
+study of his writings, to recognize the grand Triad of Absolute
+Ideas--ideas which Cousin, after Plato, has so fully exhibited,
+viz., the <i>True</i>, the <i>Beautiful</i>, and the <i>Good</i>.</p>
+
+<h3>PLATONIC SCHEME OF IDEAS</h3>
+
+<p>I. <i>The idea of</i> ABSOLUTE TRUTH or REALITY (τὸ ἀληθές--τὸ ὄν)--the
+ground and efficient cause of all existence, and by participating
+in which all phenomenal existence has only so far a
+reality, sensible things being merely shadows and resemblances
+of ideas. This idea is developed in the human intelligence in
+its relation with the phenomenal world; as,</p>
+
+<p>1. <i>The idea of</i> SUBSTANCE (οὐσία)--the ground of all phenomena,
+"the being or essence of all things," the permanent
+reality.--"Timæeus," ch. ix. and xii.; "Republic," bk. vii. ch.
+xiv.; "Phædo,"§§ 63-67, 73.</p>
+
+<p>2. <i>The idea of</i> CAUSE (αἰτία)--the power or efficiency by
+which things that "become," or begin to be, are generated
+or produced.--"Timæus," ch. ix.; "Sophist," § 109; "Philebus,"
+§§ 45, 46.</p>
+
+<p>3. <i>The idea of</i> IDENTITY (αὐτὸ τὸ ἴσον)--that which "does
+not change," "is always the same, simple and uniform, incomposite
+and indissoluble,"--that which constitutes personality
+or self-hood.--"Phædo," §§ 61-75; "Timæus," ch.
+ix.; "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xix. and xx.</p>
+
+<p>4. <i>The idea of</i> UNITY (τὸ ἕν)--one <i>mind</i> or intelligence
+pervading the universe, the comprehensive conscious <i>thought</i>
+or <i>plan</i> which binds all parts of the universe in one great
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="365" >365</a></span>
+whole (τὸ πᾶν)--the principle of <i>order</i>.--"Timæus," ch. xi.
+and xv.; "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xiii.; "Philebus," §§ 50-51.</p>
+
+<p>5. <i>The idea of the</i> INFINITE (τὸ ἄπειρον)--that which is unlimited
+and unconditioned, "has no parts, bounds, no beginning,
+nor middle, nor end."--"Parmenides," §§ 22, 23.</p>
+
+<p>II. <i>The idea of</i> ABSOLUTE BEAUTY (τὸ καλόν)--the formal
+cause of the universe, and by participation in which all created
+things have only so far a real beauty.--"Timæus," ch. xi,
+"Greater Hippias," §§ 17, 18; "Republic," bk. v. ch. 22.</p>
+
+<p>This idea is developed in the human intelligence in its relation
+to the organic world; as,</p>
+
+<p>
+1. <i>The Idea of</i> PROPORTION or SYMMETRY (συµµετρἰα)--the
+proper relation of parts to an organic whole resulting in a
+harmony (κόσµος), and which relation admits of mathematical
+expression.--"Timæus," ch. lxix.; "Philebus," § 155
+("Timæus," ch. xi. and xii., where the relation of numerical
+proportions to material elements is expounded).</p>
+
+<p>2. <i>The idea of</i> DETERMINATE FORM (παράδειγµα ἀρχέτυπος)--the
+eternal models or archetypes according to which all
+things are framed, and which admit of geometrical representation.--"Timæus,"
+ch. ix.; "Phædo," §112 ("Timæus," ch.
+xxviii.-xxxi., where the relation of geometrical forms to material
+elements is exhibited).</p>
+
+<p>3. <i>The idea of</i> RHYTHM (ῥυθµός)--measured movement in
+time and space, resulting in melody and grace.--"Republic,"
+bk. iii. ch. xi. and xii.; "Philebus," § 21.</p>
+
+<p>4. <i>The idea of</i> FITNESS or ADAPTATION (χρήσιον)--effectiveness
+to some purpose or end.--"Greater Hippias," § 35.</p>
+
+<p>5. <i>The idea of</i> PERFECTION (τελειότης)--that which is complete,
+"a structure which is whole and finished--of whole
+and perfect parts."--"Timæus," ch. xi., xii., and xliii.
+</p>
+
+<p>III. <i>The idea of</i> ABSOLUTE GOOD (τὸ ἀγαθόν)--the final <i>cause</i>
+or <i>reason</i> of all existence, the sun of the invisible world, that
+pours upon all things the revealing light of truth.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="366">366</a></span>
+
+<p>The first Good<a id="footnotetag583" name="footnotetag583"></a>
+<a href="#footnote583"><sup class="sml">583</sup></a> (<i>summum bonum</i>) is God the highest, and
+Mind or Intelligence (νοῦς), which renders man capable of
+knowing and resembling God. The second flows from the
+first, and are virtues of mind. They are good by a participation
+of the chief good, and constitute in man a likeness or <i>resemblance</i>
+to God.--"Phædo," §§110-114; "Laws," bk. i. ch. vi.,
+bk. iv. ch. viii.; "Theætetus," §§ 84, 85; "Republic," bk. vi. ch.
+xix., bk. vii. ch. iii., bk. x. ch. xii.<a id="footnotetag584" name="footnotetag584"></a>
+<a href="#footnote584"><sup class="sml">584</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote583"
+name="footnote583"><b>Footnote 583: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag583">
+(return) </a> "Let us declare, then, on what account the framing Artificer settled the
+formation of the universe. He was GOOD;" and being good, "he desired
+that all things should as much as possible resemble himself."--"Timæus," ch. x.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote584"
+name="footnote584"><b>Footnote 584: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag584">
+(return) </a> "At the utmost bounds of the intellectual world is the <i>idea of the Good</i>,
+perceived with difficulty, but which, once seen, makes itself known as the
+cause of all that is beautiful and good; which in the visible world produces
+light, and the orb that gives it; and which in the invisible world directly
+produces Truth and Intelligence."--"Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>This idea is developed in the human intelligence in its relation
+to the world of moral order; as,</p>
+
+<p>1. <i>The idea of</i> WISDOM or PRUDENCE (φρόνησις)--thoughtfulness,
+rightness of intention, following the guidance of reason,
+the right direction of the energy or will.--"Republic,"
+bk. iv. ch. vii., bk. vi. ch. ii.</p>
+
+<p>2. <i>The idea of</i> COURAGE or FORTITUDE (ἀνδρία)--zeal, energy,
+firmness in the maintenance of honor and right, virtuous
+indignation against wrong.--"Republic," bk. iv. ch. viii.;
+"Laches;" "Meno," § 24.</p>
+
+<p>3. <i>The idea of</i> SELF-CONTROL or TEMPERANCE (σωφροσύνη)--sound-mindedness,
+moderation, dignity.--"Republic," bk.
+iv. ch. ix.; "Meno," § 24; "Phædo," § 35.</p>
+
+<p>4. <i>The idea of</i> JUSTICE (δικαιοσύνη)--the harmony or perfect
+proportional action of all the powers of the soul.--"Republic,"
+bk. i. ch. vi., bk. iv. ch. x.-xii., bk. vi. ch. ii. and xvi.;
+"Philebus," § 155; "Phædo," § 54; "Theætetus," §§ 84, 85.</p>
+
+<p>Plato's idea of Justice comprehends--</p>
+
+<p>(1) EQUITY (ὶσότης)--the rendering to every man his
+due.--"Republic," bk. i. ch. vi.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="367" >367</a></span></p>
+
+<p>(2.) VERACITY (ἀλήθεια)--the utterance of what is true.--"Republic,"
+bk. i. ch. v., bk. ii. ch. xx., bk. vi. ch. ii.</p>
+
+<p>(3.) FAITHFULNESS (πιστὸτης)--the strict performance
+of a trust.--"Republic," bk. i. ch. v., bk. vi. ch. ii.</p>
+
+<p>(4.) USEFULNESS (ώφέλτµον)--the answering of some
+valuable end.--"Republic," bk. ii. ch. xviii., bk. iv. ch.
+xviii.; "Meno," § 22.</p>
+
+<p>(5.) BENEVOLENCE (εὔνοια)--seeking the well-being of
+others.--"Republic," bk. i. ch. xvii., bk. ii. ch. xviii.</p>
+
+<p>(6.) HOLINESS (ὁσιότης)--purity of mind, piety.--"Protagoras,"
+§§ 52-54; "Phædo," § 32; "Theætetus," § 84.</p>
+
+<p>The final effort of Plato's Dialectic was to ascend from these
+ideas of Absolute Truth, and Absolute Beauty, and Absolute
+Goodness to the <i>Absolute Being</i>, in whom they are all united,
+and from whom they all proceed. "He who possesses the true
+love of science is naturally carried in his aspirations to the
+<i>real Being</i>; and his love, so far from suffering itself to be retarded
+by the multitude of things whose reality is only apparent,
+knows no repose until it have arrived at union with the
+<i>essence</i> of each object, by the part of the soul which is akin to
+the permanent and essential; so that this divine conjunction
+having produced intelligence and truth, the knowledge of <i>being</i>
+is won."<a id="footnotetag585" name="footnotetag585"></a>
+<a href="#footnote585"><sup class="sml">585</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote585"
+name="footnote585"><b>Footnote 585: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag585">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vi. ch. v.</blockquote>
+
+<p>To the mind of Plato, there was in every thing, even the
+smallest and most insignificant of sensible objects, a <i>reality</i> just
+in so far as it participates in some archetypal form or idea.
+These archetypal forms or ideas are the "<i>thoughts of God</i>"<a id="footnotetag586" name="footnotetag586"></a>
+<a href="#footnote586"><sup class="sml">586</sup></a>--they
+are the plan according to which he framed the universe.
+"The Creator and Father of the universe looked to an <i>eternal
+model</i>.... Being thus generated, the universe is framed according
+to principles that can be comprehended by reason and
+reflection."<a id="footnotetag587" name="footnotetag587"></a>
+<a href="#footnote587"><sup class="sml">587</sup></a> Plato, also, regarded all individual conceptions
+of the mind as hypothetical notions which have in them an <i>à</i>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="368">368</a></span>
+<i>priori</i> element--an idea which is unchangeable, universal, and
+necessary. These unchangeable, universal, and necessary ideas
+are copies of the Divine Ideas, which are, for man, the primordial
+laws of all cognition, and all reasoning. They are possessed
+by the soul "in virtue of its kindred nature to that
+which is permanent, unchangeable, and eternal." He also believed
+that every archetypal form, and every <i>à priori</i> idea, has
+its ground and root in a higher idea, which is <i>unhypothetical</i>
+and <i>absolute</i>--an idea which needs no other supposition for
+its explanation, and which is, itself, needful to the explanation
+of all existence--even the idea of an <i>absolute</i> and <i>perfect Being</i>,
+in whose mind the ideas of absolute truth, and beauty, and
+goodness inhere, and in whose eternity they can only be regarded
+as eternal.<a id="footnotetag588" name="footnotetag588"></a>
+<a href="#footnote588"><sup class="sml">588</sup></a> Thus do the "ideas of reason" not only
+cast a bridge across the abyss that separates the sensible and
+the ideal world, but they also carry us beyond the limits of our
+personal consciousness, and discover to us a realm of real Being,
+which is the foundation, and cause, and explanation of the
+phenomenal world that appears around us and within us.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote586"
+name="footnote586"><b>Footnote 586: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag586">
+(return) </a> Alcinous, "Doctrines of Plato," p. 262.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote587"
+name="footnote587"><b>Footnote 587: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag587">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. ix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote588"
+name="footnote588"><b>Footnote 588: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag588">
+(return) </a> Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 149.</blockquote>
+
+<p>This passage from psychology to ontology is not achieved
+<i>per saltum</i>, or effected by any arbitrary or unwarrantable assumption.
+There are principles revealed in the centre of our
+consciousness, whose regular development carry us beyond the
+limits of consciousness, and attain to the knowledge of actual
+being. The absolute principles of <i>causality</i> and <i>substance</i>, of
+<i>intentionality</i> and <i>unity</i>, unquestionably give us the absolute Being.
+Indeed the absolute truth <i>that every idea supposes a being
+in which it resides</i>, and which is but another form of the law or
+principle of substance, viz., <i>that every quality supposes a substance
+or being in which it inheres</i>, is adequate to carry us from
+Idea to Being. "There is not a single cognition which does
+not suggest to us the notion of existence, and there is not an
+unconditional and absolute truth which does not necessarily
+imply an absolute and unconditional Being."<a id="footnotetag589" name="footnotetag589"></a>
+<a href="#footnote589"><sup class="sml">589</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote589"
+name="footnote589"><b>Footnote 589: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag589">
+(return) </a> Cousin's "Elements of Psychology," p. 506.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="369" >369</a></span>
+
+<p>This, then, is the dialectic of Plato. Instead of losing himself
+amid the endless variety of particular phenomena, he would
+search for principles and laws, and from thence ascend to the
+great Legislator, the <i>First Principle of all Principles</i>. Instead
+of stopping at the relations of sensible objects to the general
+ideas with which they are commingled, he will pass to their
+<i>eternal Paradigms</i>--from the just thing to the idea of absolute
+justice, from the particular good to the absolute good, from
+beautiful things to the absolute beauty, and thence to the ultimate
+reality--<i>the absolute Being</i>. By the realization of the
+lower idea, embodied in the forms of the visible universe and
+in the necessary laws of thought, he sought to rise to the higher
+idea, in its pure and abstract form--the <i>Supreme Idea</i>, containing
+in itself all other ideas--the <i>One Intelligence</i> which unites
+the universe in a harmonious whole. "The Dialectic faculty
+proceeds from hypothesis to an unhypothetical principle....
+It uses hypotheses as steps, and starting-points, in order to
+proceed from thence to the <i>absolute</i>. The Intuitive Reason
+takes hold of the First Principle of the Universe, and avails itself
+of all the connections and relations of that principle. It
+ascends from idea to idea, until it has reached the Supreme
+Idea"--the <i>Absolute Good</i>--that is, <i>God</i>.<a id="footnotetag590" name="footnotetag590"></a>
+<a href="#footnote590"><sup class="sml">590</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote590"
+name="footnote590"><b>Footnote 590: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag590">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xx. and xxi.</blockquote>
+
+<p>We are thus brought, in the course of our examination of the
+Platonic method, to the <i>results</i> obtained by this method--or, in
+other words, to</p>
+
+<h3>III. THE PLATONIC ONTOLOGY.</h3>
+
+<p>The grand object of all philosophic inquiry in ancient
+Greece was to attain to the knowledge of real Being--that Being
+which is permanent, unchangeable, and eternal. It had
+proceeded on the intuitive conviction, that beneath all the endless
+diversity of the universe there must be a principle of <i>unity</i>--below
+all fleeting appearances there must be a permanent
+<i>substance</i>--beyond all this everlasting flow and change, this
+beginning and end of finite existence, there must be an eternal
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="370">370</a></span>
+Being, which is the <i>cause</i>, and which contains, in itself, the
+<i>reason</i> of the order, and harmony, and beauty, and excellency
+which pervades the universe. And it had perpetually asked
+what is this permanent, unchangeable, and eternal substance
+or being?</p>
+
+<p>Plato had assiduously labored at the solution of this problem.
+The object of his dialectic was "to lead upward the
+soul to the knowledge of real being,"<a id="footnotetag591" name="footnotetag591"></a>
+<a href="#footnote591"><sup class="sml">591</sup></a> and the conclusions to
+which he attained may be summed up as follows:</p>
+
+<p>1st. <i>Beneath all</i> SENSIBLE <i>phenomena there is an unchangeable
+subject-matter, the mysterious substratum of the world of sense,
+which he calls the receptacle (ἱποδοχή) the nurse (τιθήνη) of all that
+is produced</i>.<a id="footnotetag592" name="footnotetag592"></a>
+<a href="#footnote592"><sup class="sml">592</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>It is this "substratum or physical groundwork" which gives
+a reality and definiteness to the evanescent phantoms of sense,
+for, in their ceaseless change, <i>they</i> can not justify any title whatever.
+It alone can be styled "<i>this</i>" or "<i>that</i>" (τόδε or τοῦτο);
+they rise no higher than "<i>of such kind</i>" or " of what kind or
+quality" (τοιοῦτον or ὁποιονοῦν τι).<a id="footnotetag593" name="footnotetag593"></a>
+<a href="#footnote593"><sup class="sml">593</sup></a> It is not earth, or air, or fire,
+or water, but "an invisible <i>species</i> and formless universal receiver,
+which, in the most obscure way, receives the immanence
+of the intelligible."<a id="footnotetag594" name="footnotetag594"></a>
+<a href="#footnote594"><sup class="sml">594</sup></a> And in relation to the other two principles
+(<i>i.e.</i>, ideas and objects of sense), "it is <i>the mother</i>" to the father
+and the offspring.<a id="footnotetag595" name="footnotetag595"></a>
+<a href="#footnote595"><sup class="sml">595</sup></a> But perhaps the most remarkable passage
+is that in which he seems to identify it with <i>pure space</i>,
+which, "itself imperishable, furnishes a <i>seat</i> (ἕδραν) to all that is
+produced, not apprehensible by direct perception, but caught
+by a certain spurious reasoning, scarcely admissible, but which
+we see as in a dream; gaining it by that judgment which pronounces
+it necessary that all which is, be <i>somewhere</i>, and occupy
+a <i>certain space</i>."<a id="footnotetag596" name="footnotetag596"></a>
+<a href="#footnote596"><sup class="sml">596</sup></a> This, it will be seen, approaches the Cartesian
+doctrine, which resolves matter into simple extension.<a id="footnotetag597" name="footnotetag597"></a>
+<a href="#footnote597"><sup class="sml">597</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote591"
+name="footnote591"><b>Footnote 591: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag591">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xii. and xiii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote592"
+name="footnote592"><b>Footnote 592: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag592">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. xxii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote593"
+name="footnote593"><b>Footnote 593: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag593">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. xxiii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote594"
+name="footnote594"><b>Footnote 594: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag594">
+(return) </a> Ibid., ch. xxiv.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote595"
+name="footnote595"><b>Footnote 595: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag595">
+(return) </a> Ibid., ch. xxiv.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote596"
+name="footnote596"><b>Footnote 596: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag596">
+(return) </a> Ibid., ch. xxvi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote597"
+name="footnote597"><b>Footnote 597: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag597">
+(return) </a> Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 171.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="371" >371</a></span>
+
+<p>It should, however, be distinctly noted that Plato does not
+use the word ὓλη--matter. This term is first employed by
+Aristotle to express "the substance which is the subject of all
+changes."<a id="footnotetag598" name="footnotetag598"></a>
+<a href="#footnote598"><sup class="sml">598</sup></a> The subject or substratum of which Plato speaks,
+would seem to be rather a logical than a material entity. It
+is the <i>condition or supposition</i> necessary for the production of a
+world of phenomena. It is thus the <i>transition-element</i> between
+the real and the apparent, the eternal and the contingent; and,
+lying thus on the border of both territories, we must not be surprised
+that it can hardly be characterized by any definite attribute.<a id="footnotetag599" name="footnotetag599"></a>
+<a href="#footnote599"><sup class="sml">599</sup></a>
+Still, this unknown recipient of forms or ideas has
+a <i>reality</i>; it has "an abiding nature," "a constancy of existence;"
+and we are forbidden to call it by any name denoting
+quality, but permitted to style it "<i>this</i>" and "<i>that</i>" (τόδε καὶ
+τοῦτο).<a id="footnotetag600" name="footnotetag600"></a>
+<a href="#footnote600"><sup class="sml">600</sup></a> Beneath the perpetual changes of sensible phenomena
+there is, then, an unchangeable subject, which yet is neither
+the Deity, nor ideas, nor the soul of man, which exists as the
+means and occasion of the manifestation of Divine Intelligence
+in the organization of the world.<a id="footnotetag601" name="footnotetag601"></a>
+<a href="#footnote601"><sup class="sml">601</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote598"
+name="footnote598"><b>Footnote 598: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag598">
+(return) </a> "Metaphysics," bk. vii. ch. i.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote599"
+name="footnote599"><b>Footnote 599: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag599">
+(return) </a> Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 178.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote600"
+name="footnote600"><b>Footnote 600: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag600">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. xxiii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote601"
+name="footnote601"><b>Footnote 601: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag601">
+(return) </a> Ibid., ch. xiiii</blockquote>
+
+<p>There has been much discussion as to whether Plato held
+that this "<i>Receptacle</i>" and "<i>Nurse</i>" of forms and ideas was
+eternal, or generated in time. Perhaps no one has more carefully
+studied the writings of Plato than William Archer Butler,
+and his conclusions in regard to this subject are presented in
+the following words: "As, on the one hand, he maintained a
+strict system of dualism, and avoided, without a single deviation,
+that seduction of pantheism to which so many abstract
+speculators of his own school have fallen victims; so, on the
+other hand, it appears to me that he did not scruple to place
+this principle, the opposite of the Divine intelligence, in a
+sphere independent of temporal origination.... But we can
+scarcely enter into his views, unless we ascertain his notions
+of the nature of <i>Time</i> itself. This was considered to have been
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="372" >372</a></span>
+created with the rest of the sensible world, to finish with it, if
+it ever finished--to be altogether related to this phenomenal
+scene.<a id="footnotetag602" name="footnotetag602"></a>
+<a href="#footnote602"><sup class="sml">602</sup></a> 'The generating Father determined to create a moving
+image of eternity (αἰῶνος); and in disposing the heavens,
+he framed of this eternity, reposing in its own unchangeable
+unity, an eternal <i>image</i>, moving according to numerical succession,
+which he called <i>Time</i>. With the world arose days, nights,
+months, years, which all had no previous existence. The past
+and future are but forms of time, which we most erroneously
+transfer to the eternal substance (ἀίδιον οὐσίαν); we say it was,
+and is, and will be, whereas we can only fitly say <i>it is</i>. Past
+and future are appropriate to the successive nature of generated
+beings, for they bespeak motion; but the Being eternally and
+immovably the same is subject neither to youth nor age, nor
+to any accident of time; it neither was, nor hath been, nor will
+be, which are the attributes of fleeting sense--the circumstances
+of time, imitating eternity in the shape of number and
+motion. Nor can any thing be more inaccurate than to apply
+the term <i>real being</i> to past, or present, or future, or even to
+non-existence. Of this, however, we can not now speak fully.
+<i>Time</i>, then, was formed with the heavens, that, together created,
+they may together end, <i>if indeed an end be in the purpose of the
+Creator</i>; and it is designed as closely as possible to resemble
+the eternal nature, its exemplar. The model exists through all
+eternity; the world has been, is, and will be through all <i>time</i>.'<a id="footnotetag603" name="footnotetag603"></a>
+<a href="#footnote603"><sup class="sml">603</sup></a>
+In this ineffable eternity Plato places the Supreme Being,
+and the archetypal ideas of which the sensible world of time
+partakes. Whether he also includes under the same mode of
+existence the <i>subject-matter</i> of the sensible world, it is not easy
+to pronounce; and it appears to me evident that he did not
+himself undertake to speak with assurance on this obscure
+problem."<a id="footnotetag604" name="footnotetag604"></a>
+<a href="#footnote604"><sup class="sml">604</sup></a> The creation of matter "out of nothing" is an
+idea which, in all probability, did not occur to the mind of
+Plato. But that he regarded it as, in some sense, a <i>dependent</i>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="373" >373</a></span>
+existence--as existing, like time, by "the purpose or will of the
+Creator"--perhaps as an eternal "generation" from the "eternal
+substance," is also highly probable; for in the last analysis
+he evidently desires to embrace all things in some ultimate
+<i>unity</i>--a tendency which it seems impossible for human reason
+to avoid.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote602"
+name="footnote602"><b>Footnote 602: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag602">
+(return) </a> See <i>ante</i>, note 4, p. 349.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote603"
+name="footnote603"><b>Footnote 603: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag603">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. xiv.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote604"
+name="footnote604"><b>Footnote 604: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag604">
+(return) </a> Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 171-175.</blockquote>
+
+<p>2d. <i>Beneath all mental phenomena there is a permanent subject
+or substratum which he designates</i> THE IDENTICAL (τὸ αὐτό)--<i>the
+rational element of the soul--"the principle of self-activity" or self-determination</i>.<a id="footnotetag605" name="footnotetag605"></a>
+<a href="#footnote605"><sup class="sml">605</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>There are three principles into which Plato analyzes the
+soul--the principle of the <i>Identical</i>, the <i>Diverse</i>, and the <i>Intermediate
+Essence</i>.<a id="footnotetag606" name="footnotetag606"></a>
+<a href="#footnote606"><sup class="sml">606</sup></a> The first is indivisible and eternal, always
+existing in <i>sameness</i>, the very substance of <i>Intelligence</i> itself, and
+of the same nature with the Divine.<a id="footnotetag607" name="footnotetag607"></a>
+<a href="#footnote607"><sup class="sml">607</sup></a> The second is divisible
+and corporeal, answering to our notion of the passive <i>sensibilities</i>,
+and placing the soul in relation with the visible world.
+The third is an intermediate essence, partaking of the natures
+of both, and constituting a medium between the eternal and
+the mutable--the conscious <i>energy</i> of the soul developed in the
+contingent world of time. Thus the soul is, on one side, linked
+to the unchangeable and the eternal, being formed of that ineffable
+element which constitutes the <i>real</i> or <i>immutable Being</i>,
+and on the other side, linked to the sensible and the contingent,
+being formed of that element which is purely <i>relative</i> and
+<i>contingent</i>. This last element of the soul is regarded by Plato
+as "mortal" and "corruptible," the former element as "immortal"
+and "indestructible," having its foundations laid in
+eternity.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote605"
+name="footnote605"><b>Footnote 605: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag605">
+(return) </a> "Laws," bk. x. ch. vi. and vii.; "Phædrus," § 51; "άρχὴ κινήσεως."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote606"
+name="footnote606"><b>Footnote 606: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag606">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. xii.; ταὐτον, θάτερον, and οὐσία or τὸ σνµµισγόµενον.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote607"
+name="footnote607"><b>Footnote 607: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag607">
+(return) </a> "Laws," bk. v. ch. i.</blockquote>
+
+<p>This doctrine of the eternity of the free and rational element
+of the soul must, of course, appear strange and even repulsive
+to those who are unacquainted with the Platonic notion of
+eternity as a fixed state out of time, which has no past, present,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="374">374</a></span>
+or future, and is simply that which "always <i>is</i>"--an everlasting
+<i>now</i>. The soul, in its elements of rationality and freedom, has
+existed anterior to time, because it now exists in eternity.<a id="footnotetag608" name="footnotetag608"></a>
+<a href="#footnote608"><sup class="sml">608</sup></a> In
+its actual manifestations and personal history it is to be contemplated
+as a "generated being," having a commencement in
+time.</p>
+
+<p>Now, that the human soul, like the uncreated Deity, has always
+had a distinct, conscious, personal, independent being,
+does not appear to be the doctrine of Plato. He teaches, most
+distinctly, that the "divine," the immortal part, was created, or
+rather "generated," in eternity. "The Deity himself <i>formed
+the divine</i>, and he delivered over to his celestial offspring [the
+subordinate and generated gods] the task of <i>forming the mortal</i>.
+These subordinate deities, copying the example of their parent,
+and receiving from his hands the <i>immortal principle</i> of the
+human soul, fashioned subsequently to this the mortal body,
+which they consigned to the soul as a vehicle, and in which
+they placed another kind of soul, mortal, the seat of violent
+and fatal affections."<a id="footnotetag609" name="footnotetag609"></a>
+<a href="#footnote609"><sup class="sml">609</sup></a> He also regarded the soul as having a
+derived and dependent existence. He draws a marked distinction
+between the divine and human forms of the "self-moving
+principle," and makes its continuance dependent upon the
+will and wisdom of the Almighty Disposer and Parent, of
+whom it is "the first-born offspring."<a id="footnotetag610" name="footnotetag610"></a>
+<a href="#footnote610"><sup class="sml">610</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote608"
+name="footnote608"><b>Footnote 608: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag608">
+(return) </a> See <i>ante</i>, note 4, p. 349, as to the Platonic notions of "Time" and
+"Eternity."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote609"
+name="footnote609"><b>Footnote 609: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag609">
+(return) </a> "Timaeus," ch. xliv.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote610"
+name="footnote610"><b>Footnote 610: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag610">
+(return) </a> See the elaborate exposition in "Laws," bk. x. ch. xii. and xiii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>That portion of the soul which Plato regarded as "immortal"
+and "to be entitled divine," is thus the "<i>offspring of God</i>"--a
+ray of the Divinity "generated" by, or emanating from, the
+Deity. He seems to have conceived it as co-eternal with its
+ideal objects, in some mysterious ultimate <i>unity</i>. "The true
+foundation of the Platonic theory of the constitution of the soul
+is this fundamental principle of his philosophy--the <i>oneness of
+truth and knowledge</i>.<a id="footnotetag611" name="footnotetag611"></a>
+<a href="#footnote611"><sup class="sml">611</sup></a> This led him naturally to derive the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="375" >375</a></span>
+<i>rational</i> element of the soul (that element that <i>knows</i>), that possesses
+the power of νόησις from the <i>real</i> element in things (the
+element that <i>is</i>)--the νοούµενον; and in the original, the final,
+and, though imperfectly, the present state of that rational element,
+he, doubtless, conceived it united with its object in an
+eternal conjunction, or even identity. But though intelligence
+and its correlative intelligibles were and are thus combined,
+the soul is <i>more</i> than pure intelligence; it possesses an element
+of personality and consciousness distinct to each individual, of
+which we have no reason to suppose, from any thing his writings
+contain, Plato ever meant to deprive it."<a id="footnotetag612" name="footnotetag612"></a>
+<a href="#footnote612"><sup class="sml">612</sup></a> On the contrary,
+he not only regarded it as having now, under temporal conditions,
+a distinct personal existence, but he also claimed for it a
+conscious, personal existence after death. He is most earnest,
+and unequivocal, and consistent in his assertion of the doctrine
+of the immortality of the soul. The arguments which human
+reason can supply are exhibited with peculiar force and beauty
+in the "Phædo," the "Phædrus," and the tenth book of the
+"Republic." The most important of these arguments may be
+presented in a few words.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote611"
+name="footnote611"><b>Footnote 611: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag611">
+(return) </a> See Grant's "Aristotle," vol. i. pp. 150, 151.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote612"
+name="footnote612"><b>Footnote 612: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag612">
+(return) </a> Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 209, note.</blockquote>
+
+<p>1. <i>The soul is immortal, because it is incorporeal</i>. There are
+two kinds of existences, one compounded, the other simple;
+the former subject to change, the latter unchangeable; one
+perceptible to sense, the other comprehended by mind alone.
+The one is visible, the other is invisible. When the soul employs
+the bodily senses, it wanders and is confused; but when
+it abstracts itself from the body, it attains to knowledge which
+is stable, unchangeable, and immortal. The soul, therefore,
+being uncompounded, incorporeal, invisible, must be indissoluble--that
+is to say, immortal.<a id="footnotetag613" name="footnotetag613"></a>
+<a href="#footnote613"><sup class="sml">613</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote613"
+name="footnote613"><b>Footnote 613: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag613">
+(return) </a> "Phædo," §§ 61-75.</blockquote>
+
+<p>2. <i>The soul is immortal, because it has an independent power
+of self-motion</i>--that is, it has self-activity and self-determination.
+No arrangement of matter, no configuration of body, can be
+conceived as the originator of free and voluntary movement.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="376">376</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Now that which can not move itself, but derives its motion
+from something else, may cease to move, and perish. "But
+that which is self-moved, never ceases to be active, and is also
+the cause of motion to all other things that are moved." And
+"whatever is continually active is immortal." This "self-activity
+is," says Plato, "the very essence and true notion of the
+soul."<a id="footnotetag614" name="footnotetag614"></a>
+<a href="#footnote614"><sup class="sml">614</sup></a> Being thus essentially <i>causative</i>, it therefore partakes
+of the nature of a "principle," and it is the nature of a principle
+to exclude its <i>contrary</i>. That which is essentially self-active
+can never cease to be active; that which is the cause of motion
+and of change, can not be extinguished by the change called
+death.<a id="footnotetag615" name="footnotetag615"></a>
+<a href="#footnote615"><sup class="sml">615</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>3. <i>The soul is immortal, because it possesses universal, necessary,
+and absolute ideas</i>, which transcend all material conditions,
+and bespeak an origin immeasurably above the body. No modifications
+of matter, however refined, however elaborated, can
+give the Absolute, the Necessary, the Eternal. But the soul has
+the ideas of absolute beauty, goodness, perfection, identity, and
+duration, and it possesses these ideas in virtue of its having a
+nature which is one, simple, identical, and in some sense, eternal.<a id="footnotetag616" name="footnotetag616"></a>
+<a href="#footnote616"><sup class="sml">616</sup></a>
+If the soul can conceive an immortality, it can not be
+less than immortal. If, by its very nature, "it has hopes that
+will not be bounded by the grave, and desires and longings
+that grasp eternity," its nature and its destiny must correspond.</p>
+
+<p>In the concluding sections of the "Phædo" he urges the
+doctrine with earnestness and feeling as the grand motive to a
+virtuous life, for "the reward is noble and the hope is great."<a id="footnotetag617" name="footnotetag617"></a>
+<a href="#footnote617"><sup class="sml">617</sup></a>
+And in the "Laws" he insists upon the doctrine of a future
+state, in which men are to be rewarded or punished as the
+most conclusive evidence that we are under the moral government
+of God.<a id="footnotetag618" name="footnotetag618"></a>
+<a href="#footnote618"><sup class="sml">618</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote614"
+name="footnote614"><b>Footnote 614: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag614">
+(return) </a> "Phædrus," §§ 51-53.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote615"
+name="footnote615"><b>Footnote 615: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag615">
+(return) </a> "Phædo," §§ 112-128.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote616"
+name="footnote616"><b>Footnote 616: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag616">
+(return) </a> Ibid., §§ 48-57, 110-115.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote617"
+name="footnote617"><b>Footnote 617: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag617">
+(return) </a> Ibid., §§ 129-145.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote618"
+name="footnote618"><b>Footnote 618: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag618">
+(return) </a> The doctrine of Metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls, can scarcely
+be regarded as part of the philosophic system of Plato. He seems to
+have accepted it as a venerable tradition, coming within the range of probability,
+rather than as a philosophic truth, and it is always presented by him
+in a highly mythical dress. Now of these mythical representations he remarks
+in the "Phædo" (§ 145) that "no man in his senses would dream of
+insisting <i>that they correspond to the reality</i>, but that, the soul having been
+shown to be immortal, this, or something like this, is true of individual souls
+or their habitations." If, as in the opinions of the ablest critics, "the Laws"
+is to be placed amongst the last and maturest of Plato's writings, the evidence
+is conclusive that whatever may have been his earlier opinions, he did
+not entertain the doctrine of "Metempsychosis" in his riper years. But
+when, on the one hand, the soul shall remain having an intercourse with divine
+virtue, it becomes divine pre-eminently; and pre-eminently, after having
+been conveyed to a <i>place</i> entirely holy, it is changed for the better; but
+when it acts in a contrary manner, it has, under contrary circumstances,
+placed its existence in some <i>unholy spot</i>.
+
+<p class="mid">
+<i>This is the judgment of the gods, who hold Olympus.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>"O thou young man," [know] "that the person who has become more
+wicked, <i>departs to the more wicked souls;</i> but he who has become better, to
+the better both in life and in all deaths, to do and suffer what is fitting for
+the like."--"Laws," bk. x. ch. xii. and xiii.</p></blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="377" >377</a></span>
+
+<p>4. <i>Beyond all finite existences and secondary causes, all laws,
+ideas, and principles, there is an</i> INTELLIGENCE <i>or</i> MIND, <i>the First
+Principle of all Principles, the Supreme Idea on which all other
+ideas are grounded; the Monarch and Lawgiver of the universe,
+the ultimate Substance from which all other things derive their being
+and essence, the First and efficient Cause of all the order, and
+harmony, and beauty, and excellency, and goodness, which pervades
+the universe, who is called by way of pre-eminence and excellence the
+Supreme Good</i>, THE GOD (ὁ θεός), "<i>the God over all</i>," (ὁ ἐπὶ πᾶσι
+θεός).</p>
+
+<p><i>This</i> SUPREME MIND,<a id="footnotetag619" name="footnotetag619"></a>
+<a href="#footnote619"><sup class="sml">619</sup></a> Plato taught, is incorporeal,<a id="footnotetag620" name="footnotetag620"></a>
+<a href="#footnote620"><sup class="sml">620</sup></a> unchangeable,<a id="footnotetag621" name="footnotetag621"></a>
+<a href="#footnote621"><sup class="sml">621</sup></a>
+infinite,<a id="footnotetag622" name="footnotetag622"></a>
+<a href="#footnote622"><sup class="sml">622</sup></a> absolutely perfect,<a id="footnotetag623" name="footnotetag623"></a>
+<a href="#footnote623"><sup class="sml">623</sup></a> essentially good,<a id="footnotetag624" name="footnotetag624"></a>
+<a href="#footnote624"><sup class="sml">624</sup></a> unoriginated,<a id="footnotetag625" name="footnotetag625"></a>
+<a href="#footnote625"><sup class="sml">625</sup></a>
+and eternal.<a id="footnotetag626" name="footnotetag626"></a>
+<a href="#footnote626"><sup class="sml">626</sup></a> He is "the Father, and Architect, and
+Maker of the Universe,"<a id="footnotetag627" name="footnotetag627"></a>
+<a href="#footnote627"><sup class="sml">627</sup></a> "the efficient Cause of all things."<a id="footnotetag628" name="footnotetag628"></a>
+<a href="#footnote628"><sup class="sml">628</sup></a>
+"the Monarch and Ruler of the world,"<a id="footnotetag629" name="footnotetag629"></a>
+<a href="#footnote629"><sup class="sml">629</sup></a> "the sovereign Mind
+that orders all things, and pervades all things,"<a id="footnotetag630" name="footnotetag630"></a>
+<a href="#footnote630"><sup class="sml">630</sup></a> "the sole
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="378">378</a></span>
+Principle of all things,"<a id="footnotetag631" name="footnotetag631"></a>
+<a href="#footnote631"><sup class="sml">631</sup></a> and "the Measure of all things,"<a id="footnotetag632" name="footnotetag632"></a>
+<a href="#footnote632"><sup class="sml">632</sup></a>
+He is "the Beginning of all truth,"<a id="footnotetag633" name="footnotetag633"></a>
+<a href="#footnote633"><sup class="sml">633</sup></a> "the Fountain of all law
+and justice,"<a id="footnotetag634" name="footnotetag634"></a>
+<a href="#footnote634"><sup class="sml">634</sup></a> "the Source of all order and beauty,"<a id="footnotetag635" name="footnotetag635"></a>
+<a href="#footnote635"><sup class="sml">635</sup></a> "the
+Cause of all good;"<a id="footnotetag636" name="footnotetag636"></a>
+<a href="#footnote636"><sup class="sml">636</sup></a> in short, "he is the Beginning, the Middle,
+and End of all things."<a id="footnotetag637" name="footnotetag637"></a>
+<a href="#footnote637"><sup class="sml">637</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote619"
+name="footnote619"><b>Footnote 619: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag619">
+(return) </a> "Phædo," §§ 105-107.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote620"
+name="footnote620"><b>Footnote 620: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag620">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," bk. iii. ch. 77.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote621"
+name="footnote621"><b>Footnote 621: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag621">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xix.; "Timæus," ch. ix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote622"
+name="footnote622"><b>Footnote 622: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag622">
+(return) </a> "Apeleius," bk. i. ch. v.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote623"
+name="footnote623"><b>Footnote 623: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag623">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xx.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote624"
+name="footnote624"><b>Footnote 624: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag624">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. x.; "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xviii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote625"
+name="footnote625"><b>Footnote625: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag625">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. ix.-x.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote626"
+name="footnote626"><b>Footnote 626: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag626">
+(return) </a> Ibid., ch. xii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote627"
+name="footnote627"><b>Footnote 627: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag627">
+(return) </a> Ibid., ch. ix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote628"
+name="footnote628"><b>Footnote 628: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag628">
+(return) </a> "Phædo," § 105.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote629"
+name="footnote629"><b>Footnote 629: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag629">
+(return) </a> "Laws," bk. x. ch. xii.; "Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.; "Philebus," § 50.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote630"
+name="footnote630"><b>Footnote 630: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag630">
+(return) </a> "Philebus," §51.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote631"
+name="footnote631"><b>Footnote 631: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag631">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote632"
+name="footnote632"><b>Footnote 632: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag632">
+(return) </a> "Laws," bk. iv. ch. viii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote633"
+name="footnote633"><b>Footnote 633: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag633">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xxi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote634"
+name="footnote634"><b>Footnote 634: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag634">
+(return) </a> "Laws," bk. iv. ch. vii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote635"
+name="footnote635"><b>Footnote 635: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag635">
+(return) </a> "Philebus," § 51; "Timæus," ch. x.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote636"
+name="footnote636"><b>Footnote 636: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag636">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xviii.; "Timæus," ch. x.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote637"
+name="footnote637"><b>Footnote 637: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag637">
+(return) </a> "Laws," bk. iv, ch. vii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Beyond the sensible world, Plato conceived another world
+of intelligibles or <i>ideas</i>. These ideas are not, however, distinct
+and independent existences. "What general notions are to
+our own minds, ideas are to the Supreme Reason (νοῦς ßασιλεύς);
+they are the <i>eternal thoughts</i> of the Divine Intellect."<a id="footnotetag638" name="footnotetag638"></a>
+<a href="#footnote638"><sup class="sml">638</sup></a> Ideas
+are not substances, they are qualities, and there must, therefore,
+be some ultimate substance or being to whom, as attributes,
+they belong. "It must not be believed, as has been
+taught, that Plato gave to ideas a substantial existence. When
+they are not objects of pure conception for human reason, they
+are attributes of the Divine Reason. It is there they substantially
+exist."<a id="footnotetag639" name="footnotetag639"></a>
+<a href="#footnote639"><sup class="sml">639</sup></a> These eternal laws and reasons of things indicate
+to us the character of that Supreme Essence of essences,
+the Being of beings. He is not the simple aggregate of all
+laws, but he is the Author, and Sustainer, and Substance of all
+laws. At the utmost summit of the intellectual world of Ideas
+blazes, with an eternal splendor, the idea of the <i>Supreme Good</i>
+from which all others emanate.<a id="footnotetag640" name="footnotetag640"></a>
+<a href="#footnote640"><sup class="sml">640</sup></a> This Supreme Good is "far
+beyond all existence in dignity and power, and it is that from
+which all things else derive their being and essence."<a id="footnotetag641" name="footnotetag641"></a>
+<a href="#footnote641"><sup class="sml">641</sup></a> The
+Supreme Good is not the truth, nor the intelligence; "it is the
+Father of it." In the same manner as the sun, which is the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="379" >379</a></span>
+visible image of the good, reigns over the world, in that it illumes
+and vivifies it; so the Supreme Good, of which the sun
+is only the work, reigns over the intelligible world, in that it
+gives birth to it by virtue of its inexhaustible fruitfulness.<a id="footnotetag642" name="footnotetag642"></a>
+<a href="#footnote642"><sup class="sml">642</sup></a> <i>The
+Supreme Good is</i> GOD <i>himself</i>, and he is designated "the good"
+because this term seems most fittingly to express his essential
+character and essence.<a id="footnotetag643" name="footnotetag643"></a>
+<a href="#footnote643"><sup class="sml">643</sup></a> It is towards this superlative perfection
+that the reason lifts itself; it is towards this infinite beauty
+the heart aspires. "Marvellous Beauty!" exclaims Plato;
+"eternal, uncreated, imperishable beauty, free from increase
+and diminution... beauty which has nothing sensible, nothing
+corporeal, as hands or face: which does not reside in any
+being different from itself, in the earth, or the heavens, or in
+any other thing, but which exists <i>eternally and absolutely in itself,
+and by itself;</i> beauty of which every other beauty partakes,
+without their birth or destruction bringing to it the least increase
+or diminution."<a id="footnotetag644" name="footnotetag644"></a>
+<a href="#footnote644"><sup class="sml">644</sup></a> The absolute being--God, is the last
+reason, the ultimate foundation, the complete ideal of all beauty.
+God is, <i>par excellent</i>, the Beautiful.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote638"
+name="footnote638"><b>Footnote 638: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag638">
+(return) </a> Thompson's "Laws of Thought," p. 119.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote639"
+name="footnote639"><b>Footnote 639: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag639">
+(return) </a> Cousin, "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 415. "There
+is no quintessential metaphysics which can prevail against common sense,
+and if such be the Platonic theory of ideas, Aristotle was right in opposing
+it. But such a theory is only a chimera which Aristotle created for the purpose
+of combating it."--"The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," p. 77.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote640"
+name="footnote640"><b>Footnote 640: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag640">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote641"
+name="footnote641"><b>Footnote 641: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag641">
+(return) </a> "Ibid.," bk. vi. ch. xviii. and xix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote642"
+name="footnote641"><b>Footnote 642: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag642">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote643"
+name="footnote643"><b>Footnote 643: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag643">
+(return) </a> Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 275.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote644"
+name="footnote644"><b>Footnote 644: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag644">
+(return) </a> "Banquet," § 35. See Cousin, "The True, the Beautiful, and the
+Good," Lecture IV., also Lecture VII. pp. 150-153; Denis, "Histoire des
+Théories et Ideés Morales dans l'Antiquité," vol. i. p. 149.</blockquote>
+
+<p>God is therefore, with Plato, <i>the First Principle of all Principles;</i>
+the Divine energy or power is the <i>efficient cause</i>, the Divine
+beauty the <i>formal cause</i>, and the Divine goodness the
+<i>final cause</i> of all existence.</p>
+
+<p><i>The eternal unity of the principles of Order, Goodness, and
+Truth, in an ultimate reality--the</i> ETERNAL MIND, is thus the
+fundamental principle which pervades the whole of the Platonic
+philosophy. And now, having attained this sublime elevation,
+he looks down from thence upon the <i>sensible, the phenomenal
+world</i>, and upon <i>the temporal life of man;</i> and in the light
+of this great principle he attempts to explain their meaning
+and purpose. The results he attained in the former case constitute
+the Platonic <i>Physics</i>, in the latter, the Platonic <i>Ethics</i>.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="380">380</a></span>
+
+<h3>I. PLATONIC PHYSICS.</h3>
+
+<p>Firmly believing in the absolute excellence of the Deity,
+and regarding the Divine Goodness as the Final Cause of the
+universe, he pronounces the physical world to be an <i>image</i> of
+the perfection of God. Anaxagoras, no doubt, prepared the
+way for this theory. Every one who has read the "Phædo,"
+will remember the remarkable passage in which Socrates gives
+utterance to the disappointment which he had experienced
+when expecting from physical science an explanation of the
+universe. "When I was young," he said--"it is not to be told
+how eager I was about physical inquiries, and curious to know
+<i>how the universe came to be as it is</i>; and when I heard that
+Anaxagoras was teaching that all was arranged by <i>mind</i>, I was
+delighted with the prospect of hearing such a doctrine unfolded;
+I thought to myself, if he teaches that mind made every
+thing to be as it is, he will explain <i>how it is</i> BEST <i>for it to be</i>,
+and show that so it is." But Anaxagoras, it appears, lost sight
+of this principle, and descended to the explanation of the universe
+by material causes. "Great was my hope," says Socrates,
+"and equally great my disappointment."<a id="footnotetag645" name="footnotetag645"></a>
+<a href="#footnote645"><sup class="sml">645</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote645"
+name="footnote645"><b>Footnote 645: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag645">
+(return) </a> "Phædo," §§ 105, 106.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Plato accepted this suggestion of Anaxagoras with all his
+peculiar earnestness, and devoted himself to its fuller development.
+It were a vain and profitless theory, which, whilst it
+assumed the existence of a Supreme Mind, did not represent
+that mind as operating in the universe by <i>design</i>, and as exhibiting
+his intelligence, and justice, and goodness, as well as his
+power, in every thing. If it be granted that there is a Supreme
+Mind, then, argued Plato, he must be regarded as "the measure
+of all things," and all things must have been framed according
+to a plan or "model" which that mind supplied. Intelligence
+must be regarded as having a <i>purpose</i>, and as working
+towards an <i>end</i>, for it is this alone which distinguishes reason
+from unreason, and mind from mere unintelligent force. The
+only proper model which could be presented to the Supreme
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="381" >381</a></span>
+Intelligence is "the eternal and unchangeable model"<a id="footnotetag646" name="footnotetag646"></a>
+<a href="#footnote646"><sup class="sml">646</sup></a> which
+his own perfection supplies, "for he is the most excellent of
+causes."<a id="footnotetag647" name="footnotetag647"></a>
+<a href="#footnote647"><sup class="sml">647</sup></a> Thus God is not simply the maker of the universe,
+but the model of the universe, because he designed that it
+should be an IMAGE, in the sphere of sense, of his own perfections--a
+revelation of his eternal beauty, and wisdom, and
+goodness, and truth. "God was <i>good</i>, and being good, he desired
+that the universe should, as far as possible, <i>resemble</i> himself....
+Desiring that all things should be <i>good</i>, and, as far
+as might be, nothing evil, he took the fluctuating mass of
+things visible, which had been in orderless confusion, and reduced
+it to <i>order</i>, considering this to be the <i>better</i> state. Now
+it was and is utterly impossible for the supremely good to form
+any thing except that which is <i>most excellent</i> (κάλλιστον--most
+fair, most beautiful").<a id="footnotetag648" name="footnotetag648"></a>
+<a href="#footnote648"><sup class="sml">648</sup></a> The object at which the supreme mind
+aimed being that which is "<i>best</i>," we must, in tracing his operations
+in the universe, always look for "<i>the best</i>" in every
+thing.<a id="footnotetag649" name="footnotetag649"></a>
+<a href="#footnote649"><sup class="sml">649</sup></a> Starting out thus, upon the assumption that the goodness
+of God is the final cause of the universe, Plato evolved a
+system of <i>optimism</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The physical system of Plato being thus intended to illustrate
+a principle of optimism, the following results may be expected:</p>
+
+<p>1. That it will mainly concern itself with <i>final causes</i>. The
+universe being regarded chiefly, as indeed it is, an indication
+of the Divine Intelligence--every phenomenon will be contemplated
+in that light. Nature is the volume in which the Deity
+reveals his own perfections; it is therefore to be studied solely
+with this motive, that we may learn from thence the perfection
+of God. The <i>Timæus</i> is a series of ingenious hypotheses
+designed to deepen and vivify our sense of the harmony, and
+symmetry, and beauty of the universe, and, as a consequence,
+of the wisdom, and excellence, and goodness, of its Author.<a id="footnotetag650" name="footnotetag650"></a>
+<a href="#footnote650"><sup class="sml">650</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote646"
+name="footnote646"><b>Footnote 646: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag646">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. ix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote647"
+name="footnote647"><b>Footnote 647: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag647">
+(return) </a> Ibid.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote648"
+name="footnote648"><b>Footnote 648: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag648">
+(return) </a> Ibid., ch. x.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote649"
+name="footnote649"><b>Footnote 649: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag649">
+(return) </a> Ibid., ch. xix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote650"
+name="footnote650"><b>Footnote 650: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag650">
+(return) </a> "Being is related to Becoming (the Absolute to the Contingent) as
+Truth is to Belief; consequently we must not marvel should we find it
+impossible to arrive at any certain and conclusive results in our speculations
+upon the creation of the visible universe and its authors; it should be
+enough for us if the account we have to give be as probable as any other,
+remembering that we are but men, and therefore bound to acquiesce in
+merely probable results, without looking for a higher degree of certainty
+than the subject admits of"--"Timæus," ch. ix.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="382" >382</a></span>
+
+<p>Whatever physical truths were within the author's reach, took
+their place in the general array: the vacancies were filled up
+with the best suppositions admitted by the limited science of
+the time.<a id="footnotetag651" name="footnotetag651"></a>
+<a href="#footnote651"><sup class="sml">651</sup></a> And it is worthy of remark that, whilst proceeding
+by this "high <i>à priori</i> road," he made some startling guesses
+at the truth, and anticipated some of the discoveries of the
+modern inductive method, which proceeds simply by the observation,
+comparison, and generalization of facts. Of these prophetic
+anticipations we may instance that of the definite proportions
+of chemistry,<a id="footnotetag652" name="footnotetag652"></a>
+<a href="#footnote652"><sup class="sml">652</sup></a> the geometrical forms of crystallography,<a id="footnotetag653" name="footnotetag653"></a>
+<a href="#footnote653"><sup class="sml">653</sup></a>
+the doctrine of complementary colors,<a id="footnotetag654" name="footnotetag654"></a>
+<a href="#footnote654"><sup class="sml">654</sup></a> and that grand
+principle that all the highest laws of nature assume the form of
+a precise quantitative statement.<a id="footnotetag655" name="footnotetag655x"></a>
+<a href="#footnote655"><sup class="sml">655</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>2. It may be expected that a system of physics raised on
+optimistic principles will be <i>mathematical</i> rather than experimental.
+"Intended to embody conceptions of proportion and
+harmony, it will have recourse to that department of science
+which deals with the proportions in space and number. Such
+applications of mathematical truths, not being raised on ascertained
+facts, can only accidentally represent the real laws of
+the physical system; they will, however, vivify the student's apprehension
+of harmony in the same manner as a happy parable,
+though not founded in real history, will enliven his perceptions
+of moral truth."<a id="footnotetag656" name="footnotetag656"></a>
+<a href="#footnote656"><sup class="sml">656</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote651"
+name="footnote651"><b>Footnote 651: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag651">
+(return) </a> Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 157.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote652"
+name="footnote652"><b>Footnote 652: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag652">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. xxxi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote653"
+name="footnote653"><b>Footnote 653: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag653">
+(return) </a> Ibid., ch. xxvii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote654"
+name="footnote654"><b>Footnote 654: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag654">
+(return) </a> Ibid., ch. xlii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote655"
+name="footnote655"><b>Footnote 655: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag655">
+(return) </a> "It is Plato's merit to have discovered that the laws of the physical
+universe are resolvable into numerical relations, and therefore capable of
+being represented by mathematical formulæ."--Butler's "Lectures on Ancient
+Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 163.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote656"
+name="footnote656"><b>Footnote 656: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag656">
+(return) </a> Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 163.</blockquote>
+
+<p>3. Another peculiarity of such a system will be an impatience
+of every merely <i>mechanical</i> theory of the operations of nature.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="383" >383</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The psychology of Plato led him to recognize mind wherever
+there was motion, and hence not only to require a Deity as first
+mover of the universe, but also to conceive the propriety of
+separate and subordinate agents attached to each of its parts,
+as principles of motion, no less than intelligent directors.
+These agents were entitled '<i>gods</i>' by an easy figure, discernible
+even in the sacred language,<a id="footnotetag657" name="footnotetag657"></a>
+<a href="#footnote657"><sup class="sml">657</sup></a> and which served, besides, to
+accommodate philosophical hypotheses to the popular religion.
+Plato, however, carefully distinguished between the sole, Eternal
+Author of the Universe, on the one hand, and that 'soul,'
+vital and intelligent, which he attaches to the world, as well as
+the spheral intelligences, on the other. These 'subordinate
+deities,' though intrusted with a sort of deputed creation, were
+still only the deputies of the Supreme Framer and Director of
+all."<a id="footnotetag658" name="footnotetag658"></a>
+<a href="#footnote658"><sup class="sml">658</sup></a> The "gods" of the Platonic system are "subordinate
+divinities," "generated gods," brought into existence by the
+will and wisdom of the Eternal Father and Maker of the universe.<a id="footnotetag659" name="footnotetag659"></a>
+<a href="#footnote659"><sup class="sml">659</sup></a>
+Even Jupiter, the governing divinity of the popular
+mythology, is a descendant from powers which are included in
+the creation.<a id="footnotetag660" name="footnotetag660"></a>
+<a href="#footnote660"><sup class="sml">660</sup></a> The offices they fulfill, and the relations they
+sustain to the Supreme Being, correspond to those of the "angels"
+of Christian theology. They are the ministers of his providential
+government of the world.<a id="footnotetag661" name="footnotetag661"></a>
+<a href="#footnote661"><sup class="sml">661</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote657"
+name="footnote657"><b>Footnote 657: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag657">
+(return) </a> Psalm lxxxii. I; John x. 34.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote658"
+name="footnote659"><b>Footnote 658: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag658">
+(return) </a> Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 164.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote659"
+name="footnote659"><b>Footnote 659: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag659">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. xv.</blockquote>
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote660"
+name="footnote660"><b>Footnote 660: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag660">
+(return) </a> Ibid.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote661"
+name="footnote661"><b>Footnote 661: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag661">
+(return) </a> "Laws," bk. x.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The application of this fundamental conception of the Platonic
+system--<i>the eternal unity of the principles of Order, Goodness,
+and Truth in an ultimate reality, the Eternal Mind</i>--to the
+elucidation of the <i>temporal life</i> of man, yields, as a result--</p>
+
+<h3>II. THE PLATONIC ETHICS.</h3>
+
+<p>Believing firmly that there are unchangeable, necessary, and
+absolute principles, which are the perfections of the Eternal
+Mind, Plato must, of course, have been a believer in an <i>immutable
+morality</i>. He held that there is a rightness, a justice, an
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="384">384</a></span>
+equity, not arbitrarily constituted by the Divine will or legislation,
+but founded in the nature of God, and therefore eternal.
+The independence of the principles of morality upon the mere
+will of the Supreme Governor is proclaimed in all his writings.<a id="footnotetag662" name="footnotetag662"></a>
+<a href="#footnote662"><sup class="sml">662</sup></a>
+The Divine will is the fountain of efficiency, the Divine reason,
+the fountain of law. God is no more the creator of <i>virtue</i> than
+he is the creator of <i>truth</i>.</p>
+
+<p>And inasmuch as man is a partaker of the Divine essence,
+and as the ideas which dwell in the human reason are "copies"
+of those which dwell in the Divine reason, man may rise to the
+apprehension and recognition of the immutable and eternal
+principles of righteousness, and "by communion with that
+which is Divine, and subject to the law of order, may become
+himself a subject of order, and divine, so far as it is possible for
+man."<a id="footnotetag663" name="footnotetag663"></a>
+<a href="#footnote663"><sup class="sml">663</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote662"
+name="footnote662"><b>Footnote 662: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag662">
+(return) </a> In "Euthyphron" especially.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote663"
+name="footnote663"><b>Footnote 663: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag663">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xiii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The attainment of this consummation is the grand purpose
+of the Platonic philosophy. Its ultimate object is "<i>the purification
+of the soul</i>," and its pervading spirit is the aspiration after
+perfection. The whole system of Plato has therefore an eminently
+<i>ethical</i> character. It is a speculative philosophy directed
+to a practical purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Philosophy is the <i>love of wisdom</i>. Now wisdom (σοφία) is
+expressly declared by Plato to belong alone to the Supreme
+Divinity,<a id="footnotetag664" name="footnotetag664"></a>
+<a href="#footnote664"><sup class="sml">664</sup></a> 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 <i>love</i> of which
+Plato so often speaks. The eternal and unchangeable Essence
+which is the proper object of philosophy is also endowed with
+<i>moral</i> attributes. He is not only "the Being," but "the Good"
+(τὸ ἀγαθόν), and all in the system of the universe which can be
+the object of rational contemplation, is an emanation from that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="385">385</a></span>
+goodness. The love of truth is therefore the love of God, 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 God; philosophy is the "<i>Love of God</i>."<a id="footnotetag665" name="footnotetag665"></a>
+<a href="#footnote665"><sup class="sml">665</sup></a> Ethically
+viewed, it is this one motive of <i>love</i> for the Supreme Wisdom
+and Goodness, predominating over and purifying and assimilating
+every desire of the soul, and governing every movement
+of the man, raising man to a participation of and communion
+with Divinity, and restoring him to "the <i>likeness</i> of
+God." "This flight," says Plato, "consists in resembling God
+(όµοίωσιϛ Θεῷ), and this resemblance is the becoming just and
+holy with wisdom."<a id="footnotetag666" name="footnotetag666"></a>
+<a href="#footnote666"><sup class="sml">666</sup></a> "This assimilation to God is the enfranchisement
+of the divine element of the soul. To approach to
+God as the substance of truth is <i>Science</i>; as the substance of
+goodness in truth is <i>Wisdom</i>, and as the substance of Beauty
+in goodness and truth is <i>Love</i>."<a id="footnotetag667" name="footnotetag667"></a>
+<a href="#footnote667"><sup class="sml">667</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>The two great principles which can be clearly traced as pervading
+the ethical system of Plato are--</p>
+
+<p>1. <i>That no man is willingly evil</i>.<a id="footnotetag668" name="footnotetag668"></a>
+<a href="#footnote668"><sup class="sml">668</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>2. <i>That every man is endued with the power of producing
+changes in his moral character</i><a id="footnotetag669" name="footnotetag669"></a>
+<a href="#footnote669"><sup class="sml">669</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote664"
+name="footnote664"><b>Footnote 664: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag664">
+(return) </a> "Phædrus," § 145.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote665"
+name="footnote665"><b>Footnote 665: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag665">
+(return) </a> Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 61.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote666"
+name="footnote666"><b>Footnote 666: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag666">
+(return) </a> "Theætetus," § 84.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote667"
+name="footnote667"><b>Footnote 667: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag667">
+(return) </a> Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 277.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote668"
+name="footnote668"><b>Footnote 668: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag668">
+(return) </a> "Timæsus," ch. xlviii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote669"
+name="footnote669"><b>Footnote 669: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag669">
+(return) </a> "Laws," bk. v. ch. i., bk. ix. ch. vi., bk. x. ch. xii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The first of these principles is the counterpart ethical expression
+of his theory of <i>immutable Being</i>. The second is the
+counterpart of his theory of phenomenal change, or <i>mere Becoming</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The soul of man is framed after the pattern of the immutable
+ideas of the <i>just</i>, and the <i>true</i>, and the <i>good</i>, which dwell in the
+Eternal Mind--that is, it is made in the image of God. 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, constitute him a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="386" >386</a></span>
+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 passions 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 <i>good</i> and
+the <i>true</i> 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 <i>good</i>. But
+man does not clearly perceive what the <i>good</i> really is. The rational
+element of the soul has become clouded by passion 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 participation of the Supreme, the Absolute Good.</p>
+
+<p>This, then, is the meaning of the oft-repeated assertion of
+Plato "<i>that no man is willingly evil</i>;" 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.<a id="footnotetag670" name="footnotetag670"></a>
+<a href="#footnote670"><sup class="sml">670</sup></a> 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 <i>apparent</i>
+good; because the end of volition is not the immediate act,
+but the object for the sake of which the act is undertaken.<a id="footnotetag671" name="footnotetag671"></a>
+<a href="#footnote671"><sup class="sml">671</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote670"
+name="footnote670"><b>Footnote 670: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag670">
+(return) </a> "Laws," bk. ix. ch. vi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote671"
+name="footnote671"><b>Footnote 671: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag671">
+(return) </a> "Gorgias," §§ 52, 53.</blockquote>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="387">387</a></span>
+of reason. The circumstances 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.<a id="footnotetag672" name="footnotetag675"></a>
+<a href="#footnote672"><sup class="sml">672</sup></a> "Pleasures
+and pains are unduly magnified; the democracy of the
+passions 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 God 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 God, and
+death must complete the final emancipation 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.<a id="footnotetag673" name="footnotetag673"></a>
+<a href="#footnote673"><sup class="sml">673</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote672"
+name="footnote672"><b>Footnote 672: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag672">
+(return) </a> "Gorgias," §§ 74-76.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote673"
+name="footnote673"><b>Footnote 673: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag673">
+(return) </a> "Phædo," §§ 130, 131.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Independent of all other considerations, virtue is, therefore,
+to be pursued as the true good of the soul. Wisdom, Fortitude,
+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
+God."</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="388" >388</a></span>
+<br>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XII.</h3>
+
+<h3>THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (<i>continued</i>).</h3>
+
+<h3>THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (<i>continued</i>).</h3>
+
+<h3>ARISTOTLE.</h3>
+
+<p>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 circumstances
+which surrounded him in early life, and which exerted
+a determining influence upon the studies of his riper years.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 analytical. 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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="389" >389</a></span>
+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 classify 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.) <i>Theoretic</i>; (ii.) <i>Efficient</i>;
+(iii.) <i>Practical</i>. The Theoretic he divided into--1. <i>Physics</i>;
+<i>2. Mathematics</i>; 3. <i>Theology</i>, or the Prime Philosophy--the
+science known in modern times as Metaphysics. The Efficient
+embraces what we now term the arts,--1. <i>Logic; 2. Rhetoric</i>;
+3. <i>Poetics</i>. The Practical comprises--<i>1. Ethics</i>; 2. <i>Politics</i>. On
+all these subjects he wrote separate treatises. Thus, whilst
+Plato is the genius of abstraction, Aristotle is eminently the
+genius of classification.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Organon</i>
+from that of Plato, and that the teachings of Aristotle
+will give a new direction to philosophic thought.</p>
+
+<p class="mid"><b>ARISTOTELIAN ORGANON.</b></p>
+
+<p>Plato made use of psychological and logical analysis in order
+to draw from the depth of consciousness certain fundamental
+ideas which are inherent in the mind--born with it, and not
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="390" >390</a></span>
+derived from sense or experience. These ideas he designates
+"the intelligible species" (τὰ νοουµενα γένη) 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 pass beyond the sensible world and ascend to
+"the absolute," that is, to God.<a id="footnotetag674" name="footnotetag674"></a>
+<a href="#footnote674"><sup class="sml">674</sup></a> 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.<a id="footnotetag675" name="footnotetag675"></a>
+<a href="#footnote675"><sup class="sml">675</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Aristotle will reverse this process. He will commence with
+<i>sensation</i>, and proceed, by induction, from the known to the unknown.</p>
+
+<p>The repetition of sensations produces <i>recollection</i>, recollection
+<i>experience</i>, and experience produces <i>science</i>.<a id="footnotetag676" name="footnotetag676"></a>
+<a href="#footnote676"><sup class="sml">676</sup></a> "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 <i>Experience</i>; but to know that a certain remedy will cure all
+persons attacked with that disease, is <i>Art</i>. Experience is a
+knowledge of individual things (τῶν καθέκαστα); art is that of
+universals (τῶν καθόλου)."<a id="footnotetag677" name="footnotetag677"></a>
+<a href="#footnote677"><sup class="sml">677</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote674"
+name="footnote674"><b>Footnote 674: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag674">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xx.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote675"
+name="footnote675"><b>Footnote 675: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag675">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. ix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote676"
+name="footnote676"><b>Footnote 676: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag676">
+(return) </a> "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. i.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote677"
+name="footnote677"><b>Footnote 677: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag677">
+(return) </a> Ibid.</blockquote>
+
+<p>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 classification 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 <i>general</i>; and then, by a strange paralogism,
+"the <i>universal</i>" is confounded with "the <i>general</i>" or, by
+a species of logical sleight-of-hand, the general is transmuted
+into the universal. Thus "induction is the pathway from
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="391">391</a></span>
+particulars to universals."<a id="footnotetag678" name="footnotetag678"></a>
+<a href="#footnote678"><sup class="sml">678</sup></a> 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.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote678"
+name="footnote678"><b>Footnote 678: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag678">
+(return) </a> "Topics," bk. i. ch. xii.; "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. iii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Aristotle admits, however, that there are ideas or principles
+in the mind which can not be explained by experience, and we
+are therefore entitled to an answer to the question--how are
+these obtained? "Sensible experience gives us what is <i>here</i>,
+<i>there</i>, <i>now</i>, in such and such a manner, but it is impossible for
+it to give what is <i>everywhere</i> and <i>at all times</i>."<a id="footnotetag680" name="footnotetag680"></a>
+<a href="#footnote680"><sup class="sml">680</sup></a> 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 <i>principles of things demonstrable and of every science</i>
+(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 (νοῦς) pure intellect," or the intuitive
+reason.<a id="footnotetag681" name="footnotetag681"></a>
+<a href="#footnote681"><sup class="sml">681</sup></a> He also characterizes these principles as <i>self-evident</i>.
+"First truths are those which obtain belief, not through others,
+but through themselves, as there is no necessity to investigate
+the '<i>why</i>' in scientific principles, but each principle ought to
+be credible by itself."<a id="footnotetag682" name="footnotetag682"></a>
+<a href="#footnote682"><sup class="sml">682</sup></a> They are also <i>necessary</i> and <i>eternal</i>.
+"Demonstrative science is from necessary principles, and those
+which are <i>per se</i> inherent, are necessarily so in things."<a id="footnotetag683" name="footnotetag683"></a>
+<a href="#footnote683"><sup class="sml">683</sup></a> "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 <i>eternal</i>. For those things which exist in
+themselves, by necessity, are all eternal."<a id="footnotetag684" name="footnotetag684"></a>
+<a href="#footnote684"><sup class="sml">684</sup></a> But whilst Aristotle
+admits that there are "immutable and first principles,"<a id="footnotetag685" name="footnotetag685"></a>
+<a href="#footnote685"><sup class="sml">685</sup></a> which
+are not derived from sense and experience--"principles which
+are the foundation of all science and demonstration, but which
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="392" >392</a></span>
+are themselves indemonstrable,"<a id="footnotetag686" name="footnotetag686"></a>
+<a href="#footnote686"><sup class="sml">686</sup></a> 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.<a id="footnotetag687" name="footnotetag687"></a>
+<a href="#footnote687"><sup class="sml">687</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote680"
+name="footnote680"><b>Footnote 680: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag680">
+(return) </a> "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. xxxi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote681"
+name="footnote681"><b>Footnote 681: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag681">
+(return) </a> "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. vi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote682"
+name="footnote682"><b>Footnote 682: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag682">
+(return) </a> "Topics," bk. i. ch. i.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote683"
+name="footnote683"><b>Footnote 683: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag683">
+(return) </a> "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. vi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote684"
+name="footnote684"><b>Footnote 684: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag684">
+(return) </a> "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. iii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote685"
+name="footnote685"><b>Footnote 685: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag685">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. vi. ch. xi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote686"
+name="footnote686"><b>Footnote 686: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag686">
+(return) </a> "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. iii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote687"
+name="footnote687"><b>Footnote 687: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag687">
+(return) </a> Hamilton attempts the following mode of reconciling the contradictory
+positions of Aristotle:
+
+<p>"On the supposition of the mind virtually containing, antecedent to all
+experience, certain universal principles of knowledge, in the form of certain
+necessities of thinking; still it is only by repeated and comparative experiments
+that we compass the certainty; on the one hand, that such and such
+cognitions can not but be thought as necessary, native generalities; and, on
+the other, that such and such cognitions may or may not be thought, and
+are, therefore, as contingent, factitious generalizations. To this process of
+experiment, analysis, and classification, through which we attain to a scientific
+knowledge of principles, it might be shown that Aristotle, not improperly,
+applies the term <i>Induction</i>."--"Philosophy," p. 88.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The human mind, he tells us, has two kinds of intelligence--the
+<i>passive</i> intelligence (νοῦς παθητικός), which is the receptacle
+of forms (δεκτικὸν τοῦ εὶδους); and the <i>active</i> intelligence (νοῦς
+ποιητικός), which impresses the seal of thought upon the data
+furnished by experience, and combines them into the unity of a
+single judgment, thus attaining "general notions."<a id="footnotetag688" name="footnotetag688"></a>
+<a href="#footnote688"><sup class="sml">688</sup></a> The passive
+intelligence (the "external perception" of modern psychology)
+perceives the individual forms which appear in the
+external world, and the active intelligence (the intellect proper)
+classifies and generalizes according to fixed laws or principles
+inherent in itself; but of these fixed laws--πρῶτα νοήµατα--first
+thoughts, or <i>à priori</i> ideas, he offers no proper account; they
+are, at most, purely subjective. This, it would seem, was, in
+effect, a return to the doctrine of Protagoras and his school,
+"that man--the individual--is the measure of all things." The
+aspects under which objects present themselves in consciousness,
+constitute our only ground of knowledge; we have no
+direct, intuitive knowledge of Being <i>in se</i>. The noetic faculty
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="393">393</a></span>
+is simply a <i>regulative</i> faculty; it furnishes the laws under which
+we compare and judge, but it does not supply any original elements
+of knowledge. Individual things are the only real entities,<a id="footnotetag689" name="footnotetag689"></a>
+<a href="#footnote689"><sup class="sml">689</sup></a>
+and "universals" have no separate existence apart from
+individuals in which they inhere as attributes or properties.
+They are consequently pure mental conceptions, which are fixed
+and recalled by general names. He thus substitutes a species
+of conceptual-nominalism in place of the realism of Plato. It is
+true that "real being" (τὸ ὄν) is with Aristotle a subject of metaphysical
+inquiry, but the proper, if not the only subsistence, or
+οὐαία, is the form or abstract nature of things. "The essence
+or very nature of a thing is inherent in the <i>form</i> and <i>energy</i>"<a id="footnotetag690" name="footnotetag690"></a>
+<a href="#footnote690"><sup class="sml">690</sup></a>
+The science of Metaphysics is strictly conversant about these
+abstract intellectual forms just as Natural Philosophy is conversant
+about external objects, of which the senses give us information.
+Our knowledge of these intellectual forms is, however,
+founded upon "beliefs" rather than upon immediate intuition,
+and the objective certainty of science, upon the subjective
+necessity of believing, and not upon direct apperception.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote688"
+name="footnote688"><b>Footnote 688: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag688">
+(return) </a> "On the Soul," ch. vi.; "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. i.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote689"
+name="footnote689"><b>Footnote 689: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag689">
+(return) </a> "Metaphysics," bk. vi. ch. xiii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote690"
+name="footnote690"><b>Footnote 690: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag690">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. vii. ch. iii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The points of contrast between the two methods may now
+be presented in a few sentences. Plato held that all our cognitions
+are reducible to two elements--one derived from <i>sense</i>,
+the other from <i>pure reason</i>; one element particular, contingent,
+and relative, the other universal, necessary, and absolute. By
+an act of <i>immediate abstraction</i> Plato will eliminate the particular,
+contingent, and relative phenomena, and disengage the
+universal, necessary, and absolute <i>ideas</i> which underlie and
+determine all phenomena. These ideas are the thoughts of
+the Divine Mind, according to which all particular and individual
+existences are generated, and, as divine thoughts, they
+are real and permanent existences. Thus by a process of immediate
+abstraction, he will rise from particular and contingent
+phenomena to universal and necessary principles, and from
+these to the First Principle of all principles, the First Cause
+of all causes--that is, to <i>God</i>.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="394" >394</a></span>
+
+<p>Aristotle, on the contrary, held that all of our knowledge begins
+with "the singular," that is, with the particular and the
+relative, and is derived from sensation and experience. The
+"sensible object," taken as it is without any sifting and probing,
+is the basis of science, and reason is simply the architect
+constructing science according to certain "forms" or laws inherent
+in mind. The object, then, of metaphysical science is
+to investigate those "universal notions" under which the mind
+conceives of and represents to itself external objects, and
+speculates concerning them. Aristotle, therefore, agrees with
+Plato in teaching "that science can only be a science of universals,"<a id="footnotetag691" name="footnotetag691"></a>
+<a href="#footnote691"><sup class="sml">691</sup></a>
+and "that sensation alone can not furnish us with
+scientific knowledge."<a id="footnotetag692" name="footnotetag692"></a>
+<a href="#footnote692"><sup class="sml">692</sup></a> How, then, does he propose to attain
+the knowledge of universal principles? How will he perform
+that feat which he calls "passing from the known to the unknown?"
+The answer is, by <i>comparative abstraction</i>. The universal
+being constituted by a relation of the object to the thinking
+subject, that is, by a property recognized by the intelligence
+alone, in virtue of which it can be retained as an object
+of thought, and compared with other objects, he proposes to
+<i>compare, analyze, define,</i> and <i>classify</i> the primary cognitions, and
+thus evoke into energy, and clearly present those principles or
+forms of the intelligence which he denominate "universals."
+As yet, however, he has only attained to "general notions,"
+which are purely subjective, that is, to logical definitions, and
+these logical definitions are subsequently elevated to the dignity
+of "universal principles and causes" by a species of philosophic
+legerdemain. Philosophy is thus stripped of its metaphysical
+character, and assumes a strictly <i>logical</i> aspect. The
+key of the Aristotelian method is therefore the</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote691"
+name="footnote691"><b>Footnote 691: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag691">
+(return) </a> "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. vi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote692"
+name="footnote692"><b>Footnote 692: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag692">
+(return) </a> "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. xxxi.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="mid"><b>ARISTOTELIAN LOGIC.</b></p>
+
+<p>Pure Logic is the science of the formal laws of thought. Its
+office is to ascertain the rules or conditions under which the
+mind, by its own constitution, reasons and discourses. The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="395">395</a></span>
+office of Applied Logic--of logic as an art--is "to form and
+judge of conclusions, and, through conclusions, to establish
+proof. The conclusions, however, arise from propositions, and
+the propositions from conceptions." It is chiefly under the
+latter aspect that logic is treated by Aristotle. According to
+this natural point of view he has divided the contents of the
+logical and dialectic teaching in the different treatises of the
+<i>Organon</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The first treatise is the "<i>Categories</i>" or "Predicaments"--a
+work which treats of the universal determinations of Being. It
+is a classification of all our mental conceptions. As a matter
+of fact, the mind forms notions or conceptions about those
+natures and essences of things which present an outward image
+to the senses, or those, equally real, which utter themselves to
+the mind. These may be defined and classified; there may
+be general conceptions to which all particular conceptions are
+referable. This classification has been attempted by Aristotle,
+and as the result we have the ten "Categories" of <i>Substance,
+Quantity, Quality, Relation, Time, Place, Position, Possession,
+Action, Passion</i>. He does not pretend that this classification
+is complete, but he held these "Predicaments" to be the most
+universal expressions for the various relations of things, under
+some one of which every thing might be reduced.</p>
+
+<p>The second treatise, "<i>On Interpretation</i>," investigates language
+as the expression of thought; and inasmuch as a true
+or false thought must be expressed by the union or separation
+of a subject and a predicate, he deems it necessary to discuss
+the parts of speech--the general term and the verb--and
+the modes of affirmation and denial. In this treatise he develops
+the nature and limitations of propositions, the meaning
+of contraries and contradictions, and the force of affirmations
+and denials in <i>possible, contingent</i>, and <i>necessary</i> matter.</p>
+
+<p>The third are the "<i>Analytics</i>," which show how conclusions
+are to be referred back to their principles, and arranged in the
+order of their precedence.</p>
+
+<p>The First or Prior Analytic presents the universal doctrine
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="396" >396</a></span>
+of the Syllogism, its principles and forms, and teaches how
+must reason, if we would not violate the laws of our own mind.
+The theory of reasoning, generally, with a view to accurate
+demonstration, depends upon the construction of a perfect
+syllogism, which is defined as "a discourse in which, certain
+things being laid down, something else different from the
+premises necessarily results, in consequence of their
+existence."<a id="footnotetag693" name="footnotetag693"></a>
+<a href="#footnote693"><sup class="sml">693</sup></a> Conclusions are, according to their own contents
+and end, either <i>Apodeictic</i>, which deal with necessary and
+demonstrable matter, or <i>Dialectic</i>, which deal with
+probable matter, or <i>Sophistical</i>, which are imperfect in
+matter or form, and announced, deceptively,
+as correct conclusions, when they are not. The doctrine
+of Apodeictic conclusions is given in the "<i>Posterior
+Analytic</i>," that of Dialectic conclusions in the
+"<i>Topics</i>," and that of the Sophistical in the
+"<i>Sophistical Elenchi</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Now, if Logic is of any value as an instrument for the discovery
+of truth, the attainment of certitude, it must teach us
+not only how to deduce conclusions from premises, but it must
+certify to us the validity of the principles from whence we
+reason and this is attempted by Aristotle in the Posterior
+Analytic. This treatise opens with the following statement: All
+doctrine, and all intellectual discipline, arises from a prior or
+pre-existent knowledge. This is evident, if we survey them
+all; for both mathematical sciences, and also each of the arts,
+are obtained in this manner. The same holds true in the case
+of reasonings, whether through [deductive] <i>Syllogism</i> or
+through <i>Induction</i>, for both accomplish the instruction
+they afford from information previously known--the former
+(syllogistic reasoning) receiving it, as it were, from the
+traditions of the intelligent, the latter (inductive reasoning)
+manifesting the universal through the light of the singular.<a id="footnotetag694" name="footnotetag694"></a>
+<a href="#footnote694"><sup class="sml">694</sup></a>
+Induction and Syllogism are thus the grand instruments of
+logic.<a id="footnotetag695" name="footnotetag695"></a>
+<a href="#footnote695"><sup class="sml">695</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote693"
+name="footnote693"><b>Footnote 693: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag693">
+(return) </a> "Prior Analytic," bk. i. ch. i.; "Topics," bk. i. ch. i.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote694"
+name="footnote694"><b>Footnote 694: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag694">
+(return) </a> "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. i.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote695"
+name="footnote695"><b>Footnote 695: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag695">
+(return) </a> "We believe all things through syllogism, or from
+induction."--"Prior Analytic," bk. ii. ch. xxiii.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="397">397</a></span>
+
+<p>Both these processes are based upon an <i>anterior</i> knowledge.
+Demonstrative science must be from things true, first, immediate,
+more known than, prior to, and the causes of, the conclusion,
+for thus there will be the appropriate first principles of
+whatever is demonstrated.<a id="footnotetag696" name="footnotetag696"></a>
+<a href="#footnote696"><sup class="sml">696</sup></a> The first principles of demonstration,
+the material of thought, must, consequently, be supplied
+by some power or faculty of the mind other than that
+which is engaged in generalization and deductive reasoning.
+Whence, then, is this "anterior knowledge" derived, and what
+tests or criteria have we of its validity?</p>
+
+<p>1. In regard to deductive or syllogistic reasoning, the views
+of Aristotle are very distinctly expressed.</p>
+
+<p>Syllogistic reasoning "proceeds from generals to particulars."<a id="footnotetag697" name="footnotetag697"></a>
+<a href="#footnote697"><sup class="sml">697</sup></a>
+The general must therefore be supplied as the foundation
+of the deductive reasoning. Whence, then, is this knowledge
+of "the general" derived? The answer of Aristotle is
+that the universal major proposition, out of which the conclusion
+of the syllogism is drawn, <i>is itself necessarily the conclusion
+of a previous induction, and mediately or immediately an inference</i>--a
+collection from individual objects of sensation or of self-consciousness.
+"Now," says he, "demonstration is from universals,
+but induction from particulars. It is impossible, however,
+to investigate universals except through induction, since
+things which are said to be from abstraction will be known
+only by induction."<a id="footnotetag698" name="footnotetag698"></a>
+<a href="#footnote698"><sup class="sml">698</sup></a> It is thus clear that Aristotle makes <i>deduction
+necessarily dependent upon induction</i>. He maintains that
+the highest or most universal principles which constitute the
+primary and immediate propositions of the former are furnished
+by the latter.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote696"
+name="footnote696"><b>Footnote 696: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag696">
+(return) </a> "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. ii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote697"
+name="footnote697"><b>Footnote 697: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag697">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. i. ch. xviii.; "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. iii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote698"
+name="footnote698"><b>Footnote 698: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag698">
+(return) </a> "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. xviii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>2. General principles being thus furnished by induction, we
+may now inquire whence, according to Aristotle, are the materials
+for induction derived? What is the character of that "anterior
+knowledge" which is the basis of the inductive process?</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="398" >398</a></span>
+
+<p>Induction, says Aristotle, is "the progression from singulars
+to universals."<a id="footnotetag699" name="footnotetag699"></a>
+<a href="#footnote699"><sup class="sml">699</sup></a> It is an illation of the universal from the singular
+as legitimated by the laws of thought. All knowledge,
+therefore, begins with singulars--that is, with individual objects.
+And inasmuch as all knowledge begins with "individual
+objects," and as the individual is constantly regarded by
+Aristotle as the "object of sense," it is claimed that his doctrine
+is that all knowledge is derived from <i>sensation</i>, and that
+science and art result to man (<i>solely</i>) by means of <i>experience.</i>
+He is thus placed at the head of the empirical school of philosophy,
+as Plato is placed at the head of the ideal school.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote699"
+name="footnote699"><b>Footnote 699: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag699">
+(return) </a> "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. xviii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>This classification, however, is based upon a very superficial
+acquaintance with the philosophy of Aristotle as a whole. The
+practice, so commonly resorted to, of determining the character
+of the Aristotelian philosophy by the light of one or two passages
+quoted from his "Metaphysics," is unjust both to Aristotle
+and to the history of philosophic thought. We can not
+expect to attain a correct understanding of the views of Aristotle
+concerning the sources and grounds of all knowledge
+without some attention to his psychology. A careful study of
+his writings will show that the terms "sensation" (αὶσθησις) and
+"experience" (ἐµπειρία) are employed in a much more comprehensive
+sense than is usual in modern philosophic writings.</p>
+
+<p>"Sensation," in its lowest form, is defined by Aristotle as
+"an excitation of the soul through the body,"<a id="footnotetag700" name="footnotetag700"></a>
+<a href="#footnote700"><sup class="sml">700</sup></a> and, in its higher
+form, as the excitation of the soul by any object of knowledge.
+In this latter form it is used by him as synonymous with "intuition,"
+and embraces all immediate intuitive perceptions,
+whether of sense, consciousness, or reason. "The universe is
+derived from particulars, therefore we ought to have a sensible
+perception (αὶσθησις) of these; and this is intellect (νοῦς)."<a id="footnotetag701" name="footnotetag701"></a>
+<a href="#footnote701"><sup class="sml">701</sup></a>
+Intelligence proper, the faculty of first principles, is, in certain
+respects, a sense, because it is the source of a class of truths
+which, like the perceptions of the senses, are immediately
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="399" >399</a></span>
+revealed as facts to be received upon their own evidence. It
+thus answers to the "sensus communis" of Cicero, and the
+"Common Sense" of the Scottish school. Under this aspect,
+"Sense is equal to or has the force of Science."<a id="footnotetag702" name="footnotetag702"></a>
+<a href="#footnote702"><sup class="sml">702</sup></a> The term
+"Experience" is also used to denote, not merely the perception
+and remembrance of the impressions which external objects
+make upon the mind, but as co-extensive with the whole contents
+of consciousness--all that the mind <i>does</i> of its own native
+energy, as well as all that it <i>suffers</i> from without. It is evidently
+used in the Posterior Analytic (bk. ii. ch. xix.) to describe
+the whole process by which the knowledge of universals
+is obtained. "From experience, or from every universal remaining
+in the soul, the principles of art and science arise."
+The office of experience is "to furnish the principles of every
+science"<a id="footnotetag703" name="footnotetag703"></a>
+<a href="#footnote703"><sup class="sml">703</sup></a>--that is, to evoke them into energy in the mind.
+'Experience thus seems to be a thing almost similar to science
+and art.<a id="footnotetag704" name="footnotetag704"></a>
+<a href="#footnote704"><sup class="sml">704</sup></a> In the most general sense, "sensation" would thus
+appear to be the immediate perception or intuition of facts and
+principles, and "experience" the operation of the mind upon
+these facts and principles, elaborating them into scientific form
+according to its own inherent laws. The "experience" of Aristotle
+is analogous to the "reflection" of Locke.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote700"
+name="footnote700"><b>Footnote 700: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag700">
+(return) </a> "De Somn.," bk. i.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote701"
+name="footnote701"><b>Footnote 701: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag701">
+(return) </a> "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. xi.; see also ch. vi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote702"
+name="footnote702"><b>Footnote 702: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag702">
+(return) </a> "De Cen. Anim."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote703"
+name="footnote703"><b>Footnote 703: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag703">
+(return) </a>: "Prior Analytic," bk. i. ch. xix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote704"
+name="footnote704"><b>Footnote 704: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag704">
+(return) </a> "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. i.</blockquote>
+
+<p>So much being premised, we proceed to remark that there
+is a distinction perpetually recurring in the writings of Aristotle
+between the elements or first principles of knowledge which
+are "clearest in their own nature" and those which "are
+clearest to our perception."<a id="footnotetag705" name="footnotetag705"></a>
+<a href="#footnote705"><sup class="sml">705</sup></a> The causes or principles of
+knowledge "are <i>prior</i> and <i>more known</i> to us in two ways, for
+what is prior in nature is not the same as that which is prior to
+us, nor that which is more known (simply in itself) the same as
+that which is more known to us. Now I call things prior and
+more known to us, those which are <i>nearer to sense</i>; and things
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="400">400</a></span>
+prior and more known simply in themselves, those which are
+<i>remote from sense</i>; and those things are most remote which are
+especially <i>universal</i>, and those nearest which are <i>singular</i>; and
+these are mutually opposed."<a id="footnotetag706" name="footnotetag706"></a>
+<a href="#footnote706"><sup class="sml">706</sup></a> Here we have a distribution of
+the first or prior elements of knowledge into two fundamentally
+opposite classes.</p>
+
+<p>(i.) <i>The immediate or intuitive perceptions of sense,</i></p>
+
+<p>(ii.) <i>The immediate or intuitive apperceptions of pure reason,</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote705"
+name="footnote705"><b>Footnote 705: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag705">
+(return) </a> "Ethics," bk. i. ch. iv.; "Metaphysics," bk. ii. ch. i.; "Rhetoric," bk. i.
+ch. ii.; "Prior Analytic," bk. ii. ch. xxiii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote706"
+name="footnote706"><b>Footnote 706: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag706">
+(return) </a> "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. ii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The objects of sense-perception are external, individual,
+"nearest to sense," and occasionally or contingently present to
+sense. The objects of the intellect are inward, universal, and
+the essential property of the soul. They are "remote from
+sense," "prior by nature;" they are "forms" essentially inherent
+in the soul previous to experience; and it is the office of
+experience to bring them forward into the light of consciousness,
+or, in the language of Aristotle, "to evoke them from potentiality
+into actuality." And further, from the "prior" and
+immediate intuitions of sense and intellect, all our secondary,
+our scientific and practical knowledge is drawn by logical
+processes.</p>
+
+<p>The Aristotelian distribution of the intellectual faculties
+corresponds fully to this division of the objects of knowledge.
+The human intellect is divided by Aristotle into,</p>
+
+<p>1. The Passive or Receptive Intellect (νοῦς παφητικός).--Its
+office is the reception of sensible impressions or images
+(Φαντάσµατα) and their retention in the mind (µνήµη).
+These sensible forms or images are essentially immaterial.
+"Each sensoriurn (αἰσθητήρων) is receptive of the sensible
+quality <i>without the matter</i>, and hence when the sensibles
+themselves are absent, sensations and φαντασίκός remain."<a id="footnotetag707" name="footnotetag707"></a>
+<a href="#footnote707"><sup class="sml">707</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote707"
+name="footnote707"><b>Footnote 707: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag707">
+(return) </a> "De Anima," bk. iii. ch. ii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>2. The Active or Creative Intellect (νοῦς ποιητικός).--This is
+the power or faculty which, by its own inherent power, impresses
+"form" upon the material of thought supplied by
+sense-perception, exactly as the First Cause combines it, in
+the universe, with the recipient matter.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="401" >401</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It is necessary," says Aristotle, "that these two modes
+should be opposed to each other, as matter is opposed to form,
+and to all that gives form. The receptive reason, which is as
+matter, becomes all things by receiving their forms. The creative
+reason gives existence to all things, as light calls color
+into being. The creative reason transcends the body, being
+capable of separation from it, and from all things; it is an
+everlasting existence, incapable of being mingled with matter,
+or affected by it; prior, and subsequent to the individual mind.
+The receptive reason is necessary to individual thought, but it
+is perishable, and by its decay all memory, and therefore individuality,
+is lost to the higher and immortal reason."<a id="footnotetag708" name="footnotetag708"></a>
+<a href="#footnote708"><sup class="sml">708</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>This "Active or Creative Intellect" is again further subdivided,
+by Aristotle--</p>
+
+<p>1. The <i>Scientific</i> (έπιστηµονικον) part--the "virtue," faculty,
+or "habit of principles." He also designates it as the "place
+of principles," and further defines it as the power "which
+apprehends those existences whose principles can not be
+otherwise than they are"--that is, self-evident, immutable,
+and necessary truths<a id="footnotetag709" name="footnotetag709"></a>
+<a href="#footnote709"><sup class="sml">709</sup></a>--the <i>intuitive reason</i>.</p>
+
+<p>2. The <i>Reasoning</i> (λογιστικόν) part--the power by which
+we draw conclusions from premises, and "contemplate contingent
+matter"<a id="footnotetag710" name="footnotetag710"></a>
+<a href="#footnote710"><sup class="sml">710</sup></a>--the <i>discursive reason</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The correlatives <i>noetic</i> and <i>dianoetic</i>, says Hamilton, would
+afford the best philosophic designation of these two faculties;
+the knowledge attained by the former is an "intuitive principle"--a
+truth at first hand; that obtained by the latter is a
+"demonstrative proposition"--a truth at second hand.</p>
+
+<p>The preceding notices of the psychology of Aristotle will
+aid us materially in interpreting his remarks "<i>Upon the Method
+and Habits necessary to the ascertainment of Principles</i>."<a id="footnotetag711" name="footnotetag711"></a>
+<a href="#footnote711"><sup class="sml">711</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote708"
+name="footnote708"><b>Footnote 708: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag708">
+(return) </a>: "De Anima," bk. iii. ch. v.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote709"
+name="footnote709"><b>Footnote 709: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag709">
+(return) </a> "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. i.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote710"
+name="footnote710"><b>Footnote 710: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag710">
+(return) </a> Ibid.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote711"
+name="footnote711"><b>Footnote 711: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag711">
+(return) </a> "Post. Analytic," bk. ii, ch. xix., the concluding chapter of the Organon.</blockquote>
+
+<p>"That it is impossible to have scientific knowledge through
+demonstration without a knowledge of first immediate principles,
+has been elucidated before." This being established, he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="402" >402</a></span>
+proceeds to explain how that "knowledge of first, immediate
+principles" is developed in the mind.</p>
+
+<p>1. The knowledge of first principles is attained by the <i>intuition
+of sense</i>--the immediate perception of external objects, as
+the <i>exciting</i> or <i>occasional cause</i> of their development in the mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Now there appears inherent in all animals an innate power
+called <i>sensible perception</i> (αἴσθησις); but sense being inherent,
+in some animals a permanency of the sensible object is engendered,
+but in others it is not engendered. Those, therefore,
+wherein the sensible object does not remain have no knowledge
+without sensible perception, but others, when they perceive,
+retain one certain thing in the soul,... with some, <i>reason</i>
+is produced from the permanency (of the sensible impression),
+[as in man], but in others it is not [as in the brute].
+From sense, therefore, as we say, memory is produced, and
+from the repeated remembrance of the same thing we get experience....
+From experience, or <i>from every universal remaining
+in the soul</i>--the one besides the many which in all of them
+is <i>one</i> and the <i>same</i>--the principles of art and science arise.
+If experience is conversant with generation, the principles of
+art; if with being, the principles of science.... Let us again
+explain: When one thing without difference abides, there is
+then the first universal (notion) [developed] in the soul; for
+the singular indeed is perceived by sense, <i>but sense is [also] of
+the universal</i>"--that is, the universal is immanent in the sensible
+object as a property giving it "form." "It is manifest,
+then, that primary things become necessarily known by induction,
+for thus sensible perception produces [develops or evokes]
+the <i>universal</i>."
+2. The knowledge of first principles is attained by the <i>intuition
+of pure intellect</i> (νοῦς)--that is, "<i>intellect itself is the principle
+of science</i>" or, in other words, intellect is the <i>efficient, essential
+cause</i> of the knowledge of first principles.</p>
+
+<p>"Of those habits which are about intellect by which we ascertain
+truth, <i>some</i><a id="footnotetag712" name="footnotetag712"></a>
+<a href="#footnote712"><sup class="sml">712</sup></a> <i>are always true</i>, but others<a id="footnotetag713" name="footnotetag713"></a>
+<a href="#footnote713"><sup class="sml">713</sup></a> admit the false,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="403" >403</a></span>
+as opinion and reasoning. But science and (pure) intellect are
+always true, and no other kind of knowledge, except intellect
+[intellectual intuition], is more accurate than science. And
+since the principles of demonstration are more known, and all
+science is connected with reason, there could not be a science
+of principles. But since nothing can be more true than science,
+except intellect, intellect will belong to principles. From these
+[considerations] it is evident that, as demonstration is not the
+principle of demonstration, so neither is science the principle
+of science. If, then, we have no other true genus (of habit) besides
+science, <i>intellect will be the principle of science</i>; it will also
+be the principle (or cause of the knowledge) of the principle."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote712"
+name="footnote712"><b>Footnote 712: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag712">
+(return) </a> The "noetic."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote713"
+name="footnote713"><b>Footnote 713: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag713">
+(return) </a> The "dianætic."</blockquote>
+
+<p>The doctrine of Aristotle regarding "first principles" may
+perhaps be summed up as follows: All demonstrative science
+is based upon <i>universals</i> "prior in nature"--that is, upon <i>à
+priori</i>, self-evident, necessary, and immutable principles. Our
+knowledge of these "first and immediate principles" is dependent
+primarily on <i>intellect</i> (νοῦς) or intuitive reason, and secondarily
+on sense, experience, and induction. Prior to experience,
+the intellect contains these principles in itself potentially, as
+"forms," "laws," "habitudes," or "predicaments" of thought;
+but they can not be "evoked into energy," can not be revealed
+in consciousness, except on condition of experience, and they
+can only be scientifically developed by logical abstraction and
+definition. The ultimate ground of all truth and certainty is
+thus a mode of our own mind, a subjective necessity of thinking,
+and truth is not in things, but in our own minds.<a id="footnotetag714" name="footnotetag714"></a>
+<a href="#footnote714"><sup class="sml">714</sup></a> "Ultimate
+knowledge, as well as primary knowledge, the most perfect
+knowledge which the philosopher can attain, as well as the
+point from which he starts, is still a proposition. All knowledge
+seems to be included under two forms--knowledge <i>that</i>
+it is so; knowledge <i>why</i> it is so. Neither of these can, of
+course, include the knowledge at which Plato is aiming--knowledge
+which is correlated with Being--a knowledge, not <i>about</i>
+things or persons, but <i>of</i> them."<a id="footnotetag715" name="footnotetag715"></a>
+<a href="#footnote715"><sup class="sml">715</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote714"
+name="footnote714"><b>Footnote 714: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag714">
+(return) </a> "Metaphysics," bk. v. ch. iv.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote715"
+name="footnote715"><b>Footnote 715: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag715">
+(return) </a> Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 190.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="404" >404</a></span>
+
+<p class="mid"><b>ARISTOTELIAN THEOLOGY</b></p>
+
+<p>Theoretical philosophy, "the science which has truth for its
+end," is divided by Aristotle into Physics, Mathematics, and
+Theology, or the First Philosophy, now commonly known as
+"Metaphysics," because it is beyond or above physics, and is
+concerned with the primitive ground and cause of all things.<a id="footnotetag716" name="footnotetag716"></a>
+<a href="#footnote716"><sup class="sml">716</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>In the former two we have now no immediate interest, but
+with Theology, as "the science of the Divine,"<a id="footnotetag717" name="footnotetag717"></a>
+<a href="#footnote717"><sup class="sml">717</sup></a> the <i>First Moving
+Cause</i>, which is the source of all other causes, and the original
+ground of all other things, we are specially concerned, inasmuch
+as our object is to determine, if possible, whether Greek
+philosophy exerted any influence upon Christian thought, and
+has bequeathed any valuable results to the Theology of modern
+times.</p>
+
+<p>"The Metaphysics" of Aristotle opens by an enumeration
+of "the principles or causes"<a id="footnotetag718" name="footnotetag718"></a>
+<a href="#footnote718"><sup class="sml">718</sup></a> into which all existences can be
+resolved by philosophical analysis. This enumeration is at
+present to be regarded as provisional, and in part hypothetical--a
+verbal generalization of the different principles which seem
+to be demanded to explain the existence of a thing, or constitute
+it what it is. These he sets down as--</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote716"
+name="footnote716"><b>Footnote 716: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag716">
+(return) </a> "Physics are concerned with things which have a principle of motion
+in themselves; mathematics speculate on permanent, but not transcendental
+and self-existent things; and there is another science separate from
+these two, which treats of that which is immutable and transcendental, if
+indeed there exists such a substance, as we shall endeavor to show that
+there does. This transcendental and permanent substance, if it exist at all,
+must surely be the sphere of the <i>divine</i>--it must be the first and highest
+principle. Hence it follows that there are three kinds of speculative
+science--Physics, Mathematics, and Theology."--"Metaphysics," bk. x. ch. vii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote717"
+name="footnote717"><b>Footnote 717: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag717">
+(return) </a> "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. ii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote718"
+name="footnote718"><b>Footnote 718: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag718">
+(return) </a> Αἴτιον--cause--is here used by Aristotle in the sense of "account of"
+or "reason why."</blockquote>
+
+<p>1. The Material Cause (τὴν ὕλην καὶ τὸ ὑποκείµενον)--the matter
+and subject--that <i>out of</i> which a given thing has been originated.
+"From the analogy which this principle has to wood
+or stone, or any actual matter out of which a work of nature
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="405">405</a></span>
+or of art is produced, the name 'material' is assigned to this
+class." It does not always necessarily mean "matter" in the
+now common use of the term, but "antecedents--that is, principles
+whose inherence and priority is implied in any existing
+thing, as, for example, the premises of a syllogism, which are
+the material cause of the conclusion."<a id="footnotetag719" name="footnotetag719"></a>
+<a href="#footnote719"><sup class="sml">719</sup></a> With Aristotle there
+is, therefore, "matter as an object of sense," and "matter as
+an object of thought."</p>
+
+<p>2. The Formal Cause (τὴν οὐσίαν καὶ τό τι εἶναι)--the being
+or abstract essence of a thing--that primary nature on which
+all its properties depend. To this Aristotle gave the name of
+εἶδος--the form or exemplar <i>according to</i> which a thing is produced.</p>
+
+<p>3. The Moving or Efficient Cause (ὃθεν ἦ ἆρχη τῆς κινήσεως)--the
+origin and principle of motion--that <i>by which</i> a thing is
+produced.</p>
+
+<p>4. The Final Cause (τὸ οὗ ἕνεκεν καὶ τὸ ἀγαθόν)--the good
+end answered by the existence of any thing--that for the sake
+of which any thing is produced--the ἕνεκα τοῦ, or reason for it.<a id="footnotetag720" name="footnotetag720"></a>
+<a href="#footnote720"><sup class="sml">720</sup></a>
+Thus, for instance, in a house, the wood out of which it is produced
+is the matter (ὕλη), the idea or conception according to
+which it is produced is <i>the form</i> (εἶδος῏῏µορφή), the builder who
+erects the house is the <i>efficient</i> cause, and the reason for its production,
+or the end of its existence is the <i>final</i> cause.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote719"
+name="footnote719"><b>Footnote 719: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag719">
+(return) </a> Encyclopædia Britannica, article "Aristotle;" "Post. Analytic," bk. ii. ch. xi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote720"
+name="footnote720"><b>Footnote 720: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag720">
+(return) </a> "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. iii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Causes are, therefore, the elements into which the mind resolves
+its first rough conception of an object. That object
+is what it is, by reason of the matter out of which it sprang,
+the moving cause which gave it birth, the idea or form which
+it realizes, and the end or object which it attains. The knowledge
+of a thing implies knowing it from these four points of
+view--that is, knowing its four causes or principles.</p>
+
+<p>These four determinations of being are, on a further and
+closer analysis, resolved into the fundamental antithesis of
+MATTER and FORM.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="406" >406</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"All things that are produced," says Aristotle,<a id="footnotetag721" name="footnotetag721"></a>
+<a href="#footnote721"><sup class="sml">721</sup></a> "are produced
+from something (that is, from <i>matter</i>), by something (that
+is, <i>form</i>), and become something (the totality--τὸ σύνολον);" as,
+for example, a statue, a plant, a man. To every subject there
+belongs, therefore, first, <i>matter</i> (ὕλη); secondly, <i>form</i> (µορφή).
+The synthesis of these two produces and constitutes <i>substance</i>,
+or οὐσία. Matter and form are thus the two grand causes or
+principles whence proceed all things. The formative cause is,
+at the same time, the moving cause and the final cause; for
+it is evidently the element of determination which impresses
+movement upon matter whilst determining it; and it is also
+the end of being, since being only really exists when it has
+passed from an indeterminate to a determinate state.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote721"
+name="footnote721"><b>Footnote 721: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag721">
+(return) </a> "Metaphysics," bk. vi. ch. vii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>In proof that the εἶδος or form is an <i>efficient</i> principle operating
+in every object, which makes it, to our conception, what it
+is, Aristotle brings forward the subject of generation or production.<a id="footnotetag722" name="footnotetag722"></a>
+<a href="#footnote722"><sup class="sml">722</sup></a>
+There are three modes of production--natural, artificial,
+and automatic. In natural production we discern at once
+a matter; indeed Nature, in the largest sense, may be defined
+as "that out of which things are produced." Now the result
+formed out of this matter or nature is a given substance--a
+vegetable, a beast, or a man. But what is the <i>producing</i> cause
+in each case? Clearly something akin to the result. A man
+generates a man, a plant produces another plant like to itself.
+There is, therefore, implied in the resulting thing a <i>productive
+force</i> distinct from matter, upon which it works. And this is
+the εἶδος, or form. Let us now consider artificial production.
+Here again the form is the producing power. And this is in
+the soul. The art of the physician is the εἶδος, which produces
+actual health; the plan of the architect is the conception, which
+produces an actual house. Here, however, a distinction arises.
+In these artificial productions there is supposed a νόησις and a
+ποίησις. The νόησις is the previous conception which the architect
+forms in his own mind; the ποίησις is the actual creation
+of the house out of the given matter. In this case the conception
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="407">407</a></span>
+is the moving cause of the production. The form of the
+statue in the mind of the artist is the motive or cause of the
+movement by which the statue is produced; and health must
+be in the thought of the physician before it can become the
+moving cause of the healing art. Moreover, that which is true
+of artificial production or change is also true of spontaneous
+production. For example, a cure may take place by the application
+of warmth, and this result is accomplished by means of
+friction. This warmth in the body is either itself a portion of
+health, or something is consequent upon it which is like itself,
+which is a portion of health. Evidently this implies the previous
+presence either of nature or of an artificer. It is also
+clearly evident that this kind of generating influence (the automatic)
+should combine with another. There must be a productive
+power, and there must be something out of which it
+is produced. In this case, then, there will be a ὕλη and an
+εἶδος.<a id="footnotetag723" name="footnotetag723"></a>
+<a href="#footnote723"><sup class="sml">723</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote722"
+name="footnote722"><b>Footnote 722: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag722">
+(return) </a> Ibid.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote723"
+name="footnote723"><b>Footnote 723: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag723">
+(return) </a> Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," pp. 205, 206.</blockquote>
+
+<p>From the above it appears that the <i>efficient</i> cause is regarded
+by Aristotle as identical with the <i>formal</i> cause. So also the
+<i>final</i> cause--the end for the sake of which any thing exists--can
+hardly be separated from the perfection of that thing, that
+is, from its conception or form. The desire for the end gives
+the first impulse of motion; thus the final cause of any thing
+becomes identical with the good of that thing. "The moving
+cause of the house is the builder, but the moving cause of the
+builder is the end to be attained--that is, the house." From
+such examples as these it would seem that the determinations
+of form and end are considered by Aristotle as one, in so far
+as both are merged in the conception of <i>actuality</i>; for he regarded
+the end of every thing to be its completed being--the
+perfect realization of its idea or form. The only fundamental
+determinations, therefore, which can not be wholly resolved
+into each other are <i>matter and form</i>.<a id="footnotetag724" name="footnotetag724"></a>
+<a href="#footnote724"><sup class="sml">724</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote724"
+name="footnote724"><b>Footnote 724: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag724">
+(return) </a> Schwegler's "History of Philosophy," pp. 120, 123.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The opposition of matter and form, with Aristotle, corresponds
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="408" >408</a></span>
+to the opposition between the element of <i>generality</i> and
+the element of <i>particularity</i>. Matter is indeterminate; form is
+determinate. Matter, abstracted from form, in thought, is entirely
+without predicate and distinction; form is that which
+enters into the definition of every subject, and without which it
+could not be defined. Matter is capable of the widest diversity
+of forms, but is itself without form. Pure form is, in fact,
+that which is without matter, or, in other words, it is the pure
+conception of being. Matter is the necessary condition of the
+existence of a thing; form is the essence of each thing, that in
+virtue of which substance is possible, and without which it is
+inconceivable. On the one side is passivity, possibility of existence,
+capacity of action; on the other side is activity, actuality,
+thought. The unity of these two in the realm of determined
+being constitutes every individual substance. The relation
+of matter and form, logically apprehended, is thus the relation
+of POTENTIALITY and ACTUALITY.</p>
+
+<p>This is a further and indeed a most important step in the
+Aristotelian theology. Matter, as we have seen, after all,
+amounts to merely capacity for action, and if we can not discover
+some productive power to develop potentiality into actuality,
+we look in vain for some explanation of the phenomena
+around us. The discovery, however, of energy (ἐνέργεια), as a
+principle of this description, is precisely what we wanted, and a
+momentary glance at the actual phenomena will show its perfect
+identity with the εἶδος, or form.<a id="footnotetag725" name="footnotetag725"></a>
+<a href="#footnote725"><sup class="sml">725</sup></a> "For instance, what is a
+calm? It is evenness in the surface of the sea. Here the sea
+is the subject, that is, the matter in <i>capacity</i>, but the evenness
+is the <i>energy</i> or actuality;... energy is thus as form."<a id="footnotetag726" name="footnotetag726"></a>
+<a href="#footnote726"><sup class="sml">726</sup></a> The
+form (or idea) is thus an energy or actuality (ἐνέργεια); the</p>
+
+<p>matter is a capacity or potentiality (δύναµις), requiring the co-operation
+of the energy to produce a result.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="409">409</a></span>
+These terms, which are first employed by Aristotle in their
+philosophical signification, are characteristic of his whole system.
+It is, therefore, important we should grasp their precise
+philosophical import; and this can only be done by considering
+them in the strictest relation to each other. It is in this relation
+they are defined by Aristotle. "Now ἐνέργεια is the existence
+of a thing not in the sense of its potentially existing.
+The term <i>potentially</i> we use, for instance, of the statue in the
+block, and of the half in the whole (since it may be subtracted),
+and of a person knowing a thing, even when he is not thinking
+of it, but might be so; whereas ἐνέργεια is the opposite. By
+applying the various instances our meaning will be plain, and
+one must not seek a definition in each case, but rather grasp
+the conception of the analogy as a whole,--that it is as that
+which builds to that which has a capacity for building; as the
+waking to the sleeping; as that which sees to that which has
+sight, but whose eyes are closed; as the definite form to the
+shapeless matter; as the complete to the unaccomplished. In
+this contrast, let the ἐνέργεια be set off as forming the one side,
+and on the other let the potential stand. Things are said to
+be in ἐνέργεια not always in like manner (except so far as there
+is an analogy, that as this thing is in this, and related to this,
+so is that in that, or related to that); for sometimes it implies
+<i>motion</i> as opposed to the <i>capacity of motion</i>, and sometimes <i>complete
+existence</i> opposed to <i>undeveloped matter</i>".<a id="footnotetag727" name="footnotetag727"></a>
+<a href="#footnote727"><sup class="sml">727</sup></a> As the term
+δύναµις has the double meaning of "<i>possibility of existence</i>" as
+well as "<i>capacity of action</i>" so there is the double contrast of
+"<i>action</i>" as opposed to the capacity of action; and "<i>actual existence</i>"
+opposed to possible existence or potentiality. To express
+accurately this latter antithesis, Aristotle introduced the term
+ἐντελέχεια<a id="footnotetag728" name="footnotetag728"></a>
+<a href="#footnote728"><sup class="sml">728</sup></a>--entelechy, of which the most natural account is
+that it is a compound of ἐν τέλει ἔχειν--"being in a state of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="410">410</a></span>
+perfection."<a id="footnotetag729" name="footnotetag729"></a>
+<a href="#footnote729"><sup class="sml">729</sup></a> This term, however, rarely occurs in the "Metaphysics,"
+whilst ἐνέργεια is everywhere employed, not only to
+express activity as opposed to passivity, but complete existence
+as opposed to undeveloped matter.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote725"
+name="footnote725"><b>Footnote 725: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag725">
+(return) </a> "That which Aristotle calls 'form' is not to be confounded with what
+we may perhaps call shape [or figure]; a hand severed from the arm, for
+instance, has still the outward shape of a hand, but, according to Aristotelian
+apprehension, it is only a hand now as to matter, and not as to form;
+an actual hand, a hand as to form, is only that which can do the proper
+work of a hand."--Schwegler's "History of Philosophy," p. 122.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote726"
+name="footnote726"><b>Footnote 726: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag726">
+(return) </a> "Metaphysics," bk. vii. ch. ii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote727"
+name="footnote727"><b>Footnote 727: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag727">
+(return) </a> "Metaphysics," bk. viii. ch. vi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote728"
+name="footnote728"><b>Footnote 728: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag728">
+(return) </a> "Entelechy indicates the perfected act, the completely actual."--Schw.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote729"
+name="footnote729"><b>Footnote 729: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag729">
+(return) </a> Grant's Aristotle's "Ethics," vol. i. p. 184.</blockquote>
+
+<p>"In Physics δύναµις answers to the necessary conditions for
+the existence of any thing before that thing exists. It thus
+corresponds to ὕλη, both to the πρώτη ὕλη--the first matter, or
+matter devoid of all qualities, which is capable of becoming
+any definite substance, as, for example, marble; and also to
+the ἐσχάτη ὕλη--or matter capable of receiving form, as marble
+the form of the statue." Marble then exists potentially in the
+simple elements before it is marble. The statue exists potentially
+in the marble before it is carved. All objects of thought
+exist, either purely in potentiality, or purely in actuality, or
+both in potentiality and in actuality. This division makes an
+entire chain of all existence. At the one end is matter, the
+πρώτη ὕλη which has a merely potential existence, which is
+necessary as a condition, but which having no form and no
+qualities, is totally incapable of being realized by the mind.
+At the other end of the chain is pure form, which is not at all
+matter, the absolute and the unconditioned, the eternal substance
+and energy without matter (οὐσία ἀίδιος καὶ ἐνέργεια ἄνευ
+δυνάµεως), who can not be thought as non-existing--the self-existent
+God. Between these two extremes is the whole row
+of creatures, which out of potentiality evermore spring into
+actual being.<a id="footnotetag730" name="footnotetag730"></a>
+<a href="#footnote730"><sup class="sml">730</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote730"
+name="footnote730"><b>Footnote 730: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag730">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., vol. i. p. 185.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The relation of actuality to potentiality is the subject of an
+extended and elaborate discussion in book viii., the general results
+of which may be summed up in the following propositions:</p>
+
+<p>1. <i>The relation of Actuality to Potentiality is as the Perfect to
+the Imperfect</i>.--The progress from potentiality to actuality is
+motion or production (κίνησις or γένεσις). But this motion is
+transitional, and in itself imperfect--it tends towards an end,
+but does not include the end in itself. But actuality, if it implies
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="411">411</a></span>
+motion, has an end in itself and for itself; it is a motion desirable
+for its own sake.<a id="footnotetag731" name="footnotetag731"></a>
+<a href="#footnote731"><sup class="sml">731</sup></a> The relation of the potential to the
+actual Aristotle exhibits by the relation of the unfinished to
+the finished work, of the unemployed builder to the one at
+work upon his building, of the seed-corn to the tree, of the man
+who has the capacity to think, to the man actually engaged in
+thought.<a id="footnotetag732" name="footnotetag732"></a>
+<a href="#footnote732"><sup class="sml">732</sup></a> Potentially the seed-corn is the tree, but the grown-up
+tree is the actuality; the potential philosopher is he who is
+not at this moment in a philosophic condition; indeed, every
+thing is potential which possesses a principle of development,
+or of change. Actuality or entelechy, on the other hand, indicates
+the <i>perfect act</i>, the end gained, the completed actual; that
+activity in which the act and the completeness of the act fall
+together--as, for example, to see, to think, where the acting
+and the completed act are one and the same.</p>
+
+<p>2. <i>The Relation of Actuality to Potentiality is a causal Relation</i>.--A
+thing which is endued with a simple capacity of being
+may nevertheless not actually exist, and a thing may have a
+capacity of being and really exist. Since this is the case, there
+must ensue between non-being and real being some such principle
+as <i>energy</i>, in order to account for the transition or change.<a id="footnotetag733" name="footnotetag733"></a>
+<a href="#footnote733"><sup class="sml">733</sup></a>
+Energy has here some analogy to motion, though it must not
+be confounded with motion. Now you can not predicate either
+motion or energy of things which are not. The moment energy
+is added to them they are. This transition from potentiality
+to actuality must be through the medium of such principles as
+propension or <i>free will</i>, because propension or free will possess
+in themselves the power of originating motion in other things.<a id="footnotetag734" name="footnotetag734"></a>
+<a href="#footnote734"><sup class="sml">734</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote731"
+name="footnote731"><b>Footnote 731: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag731">
+(return) </a> "Metaphysics," bk. viii. ch. vi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote732"
+name="footnote732"><b>Footnote 732: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag732">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. viii. ch. vi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote733"
+name="footnote733"><b>Footnote 733: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag733">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. viii. ch. iii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote734"
+name="footnote734"><b>Footnote 734: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag734">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. viii. ch. v.</blockquote>
+
+<p>3. <i>The Relation of Actuality and Potentiality is a Relation of
+Priority</i>.--Actuality, says Aristotle, is prior to potentiality in
+the order of reason, in the order of substance, and also (though
+not invariably) in the order of time. The first of all capacities
+is a capacity of energizing or assuming a state of activity; for
+example, a man who has the capacity of building is one who is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="412">412</a></span>
+skilled in building, and thus able to use his energy in the art
+of building.<a id="footnotetag735" name="footnotetag735"></a>
+<a href="#footnote735"><sup class="sml">735</sup></a> The primary energizing power must precede that
+which receives the impression of it, Form being older than
+Matter. But if you take the case of any particular person or
+thing, we say that its capacity of being that particular person
+or thing precedes its being so actually. Yet, though this is the
+case in each particular thing, there is always a foregone energy
+presumed in some other thing (as a prior seed, plant, man) to
+which it owes its existence. One pregnant thought presents
+itself in the course of the discussion which has a direct bearing
+upon our subject. Δὑναµιϛ has been previously defined as "a
+principle of motion or change in another thing in so far forth as
+it is another thing"<a id="footnotetag736" name="footnotetag736"></a>
+<a href="#footnote736"><sup class="sml">736</sup></a>--that is, it is fitted by nature to have motion
+imparted to it, and to communicate motion to something
+else. But this motion wants a resting-place. There can be
+no infinite regression of causes. There is some primary δύναµιϛ
+presupposed in all others, which is the beginning of change.
+This is Φύσις, or nature. But the first and original cause of all
+motion and change still precedes and surpasses nature. The
+final cause of all potentiality is energy or <i>actuality</i>. The one
+proposed is prior to the means through which the end is accomplished.
+A process of actualization, a tendency towards
+completeness or perfection (τέλοϛ) presupposes an absolute
+actuality which is at once its beginning and end. "One energy
+is invariably antecedent to another in time, up to that which
+is primarily and eternally the Moving Cause."<a id="footnotetag737" name="footnotetag737"></a>
+<a href="#footnote737"><sup class="sml">737</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote735"
+name="footnote735"><b>Footnote 735: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag735">
+(return) </a> "Metaphysics," bk. viii. ch. viii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote736"
+name="footnote736"><b>Footnote 736: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag736">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. iv. ch. xii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote737"
+name="footnote737"><b>Footnote 737: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag737">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. viii. ch. viii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>And now having laid down these fundamental principles
+of metaphysical science, as preparatory to Theology, Aristotle
+proceeds to establish the conception of the Absolute or Divine
+Spirit <i>as the eternal, immutable Substance, the immaterial
+Energy, the unchangeable Form of Forms, the first moving Cause</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I. <i>The Ontological Form of Proof</i>.--It is necessary to conceive
+an eternal and immutable substance--an actuality which
+is absolute and prior, both logically and chronologically, to all
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="413" >4713</a></span>
+potentiality; for that which is potential is simply contingent,
+it may just as easily not be as be; that which exists only in
+capacity is temporal and corruptible, and may cease to be.
+Matter we know subsists merely in capacity and passivity, and
+without the operation of Energy, (ἐνέργεια), or the formative
+cause, would be to us as non-entity. The phenomena of the
+world exhibits to us the presence of Energy, and energy presupposes
+the existence of an eternal substance. Furthermore,
+matter and potentiality are convertible terms, therefore the primal
+Energy or Actuality must be <i>immaterial</i>.<a id="footnotetag738" name="footnotetag738"></a>
+<a href="#footnote738"><sup class="sml">738</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>2. <i>The Cosmological Form of Proof</i>.--It is impossible that
+there should be <i>motion</i>, genesis, or a chain of causes, except on
+the assumption of a first Moving Cause, since that which exists
+only in capacity can not, of itself energize, and consequently
+without a principle of motion which is essentially active,
+we have only a principle of immobility. The principle
+"ex nihilo nihil" forbids us to assume that motion can arise
+out of immobility, being out of non-being. "How can matter
+be put in motion if nothing that subsists in energy exist, and
+is its cause?" All becoming, therefore, necessarily supposes
+that which has not become, that which is eternally self-active
+as the principle and cause of all motion. There is no refuge
+from the notion that all things are "born of night and nothingness"
+except in this belief.<a id="footnotetag739" name="footnotetag739"></a>
+<a href="#footnote739"><sup class="sml">739</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote738"
+name="footnote738"><b>Footnote 738: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag738">
+(return) </a> "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. vi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote739"
+name="footnote739"><b>Footnote 739: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag739">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. xi. ch. vii., viii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The existence of an eternal principle subsisting in energy
+is also demanded to explain the <i>order</i> of the world. "For
+how, let me ask, will there prevail <i>order</i> on the supposition
+that there is no subsistence of that which is eternal, and which
+involves a separable existence, and is permanent."<a id="footnotetag740" name="footnotetag740"></a>
+<a href="#footnote740"><sup class="sml">740</sup></a> "All
+things in nature are constituted in the best possible manner."<a id="footnotetag741" name="footnotetag741"></a>
+<a href="#footnote741"><sup class="sml">741</sup></a>
+All things strive after "the good." "The appearance of ends
+and means in nature is a proof of design."<a id="footnotetag742" name="footnotetag742"></a>
+<a href="#footnote742"><sup class="sml">742</sup></a> Now an end or
+final cause presupposes intelligence,--implies a <i>mind</i> to see
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="414">414</a></span>
+and desire it. That which is "fair," "beautiful," "good," an
+"object of desire," can only be perceived by Mind. The
+"final cause" must therefore subsist in that which is prior and
+immovable and eternal; and <i>Mind</i> is "that substance which
+subsists absolutely, and according to energy."<a id="footnotetag743" name="footnotetag743"></a>
+<a href="#footnote743"><sup class="sml">743</sup></a> "The First
+Mover of all things, moves all things without being moved,
+being an eternal substance and energy; and he moves all
+things as the object of reason and of desire, or love."<a id="footnotetag744" name="footnotetag744"></a>
+<a href="#footnote744"><sup class="sml">744</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote740"
+name="footnote740"><b>Footnote 740: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag740">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. x. ch. ii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote741"
+name="footnote741"><b>Footnote 741: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag741">
+(return) </a> "Ethics," bk. i. ch. ix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote742"
+name="footnote742"><b>Footnote 742: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag742">
+(return) </a> "Nat. Ausc.," bk. ii. ch. viii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote743"
+name="footnote743"><b>Footnote 743: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag743">
+(return) </a>: "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. vii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote744"
+name="footnote744"><b>Footnote 744: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag744">
+(return) </a> Ibid.</blockquote>
+
+<p>3. <i>The Moral Form of Proof</i>.--So far as the relation of potentiality
+and actuality is identical with the relation of matter
+and form, the argument for the existence of God may be thus
+presented: The conception of an absolute matter without form,
+involves the supposition of an absolute form without matter.
+And since the conception of form resolves itself into <i>motion</i>,
+<i>conception</i>, <i>purpose</i> or <i>end</i>, so the Eternal One is the absolute
+principle of motion (the πρῶτον κινοῦν), the absolute conception
+or pure intelligence (the pure τί ἦν εἶναι), and the absolute
+ground, reason, or end of all being. All the other predicates
+of the First Cause follow from the above principles with logical
+necessity.</p>
+
+<p>(i.) <i>He is, of course, pure intellect</i>, because he is absolutely
+immaterial and free from nature. He is active intelligence,
+because his essence is pure actuality. He is self-contemplating
+and self-conscious intelligence, because the divine thought
+can not attain its actuality in any thing extrinsic; it would depend
+on something else than self--some potential existence
+for its actualization. Hence the famous definition of the absolute
+as "the thought of thought" (νόησις νοήσεως).<a id="footnotetag745" name="footnotetag745"></a>
+<a href="#footnote745"><sup class="sml">745</sup></a> "And
+therefore the first and actual perception by mind of Mind itself,
+doth subsist in this way throughout all eternity."<a id="footnotetag746" name="footnotetag746"></a>
+<a href="#footnote746"><sup class="sml">746</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote745"
+name="footnote745"><b>Footnote 745: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag745">
+(return) </a> Schwegler's "History of Philosophy," p. 125.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote746"
+name="footnote746"><b>Footnote 746: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag746">
+(return) </a> "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. ix.</blockquote>
+
+<p>(ii.) <i>He is also essential life</i>. "The principle of life is inherent
+in the Deity, for the energy or active exercise of mind
+constitutes life, and God constitutes this energy; and essential
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="415">415</a></span>
+energy belongs to God as his best and everlasting life. Now
+our statement is this--that the Deity is a living being that is
+everlasting and most excellent in nature, so that with the Deity
+life and duration are uninterrupted and eternal; for this constitutes
+the essence of God."<a id="footnotetag747" name="footnotetag747"></a>
+<a href="#footnote747"><sup class="sml">747</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>(iii.) <i>Unity belongs to him</i>, since multiplicity implies matter;
+and the highest idea or form of the world must be absolutely
+immaterial.<a id="footnotetag748" name="footnotetag748"></a>
+<a href="#footnote748"><sup class="sml">748</sup></a> The Divine nature is "devoid of parts and indivisible,
+for magnitude can not in any way involve this Divine
+nature; for God imparts motion through infinite duration, and
+nothing finite--as magnitude is--can be possessed of an infinite
+capacity."<a id="footnotetag749" name="footnotetag749"></a>
+<a href="#footnote749"><sup class="sml">749</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>(iv.) <i>He is immovable and ever abideth the same</i>; since otherwise
+he could not be the absolute mover, and the cause of all
+becoming, if he were subject to change.<a id="footnotetag750" name="footnotetag750"></a>
+<a href="#footnote750"><sup class="sml">750</sup></a> God is impassive
+and unalterable (ἀπαθὴϛ καὶ ὰναλλοίωτον); for all such notions
+as are involved in passion or alteration are outside the sphere
+of the Divine existence.<a id="footnotetag751" name="footnotetag751"></a>
+<a href="#footnote751"><sup class="sml">751</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote747"
+name="footnote747"><b>Footnote 747: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag747">
+(return) </a> "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. vii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote748"
+name="footnote748"><b>Footnote 748: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag748">
+(return) </a> Ibid.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote749"
+name="footnote749"><b>Footnote 749: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag749">
+(return) </a> Ibid.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote750"
+name="footnote750"><b>Footnote 750: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag750">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. xi. ch. viii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote751"
+name="footnote751"><b>Footnote 751: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag751">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. xi. ch. vii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>(v.) <i>He is the ever-blessed God</i>.--"The life of God is of a
+kind with those highest moods which, with us, last a brief space,
+it being impossible they should be permanent; whereas, with
+Him they are permanent, since His ever-present consciousness
+is pleasure itself. And it is because they are vivid states of
+consciousness, that waking, and perception, and thought, are
+the sweetest of all things. Now essential perception is the
+perception of that which is most excellent,... and the mind
+perceives itself by participating of its own object of perception;
+but it is a sort of coalescence of both that, in the Divine Mind,
+creates a regular identity between the two, so that with God
+both (the thinker and the thought, the subject and object) are
+the same. In possession of this prerogative, He subsists in
+the exercise of energy; and the contemplation of his own perfections
+is what, to God, must be most agreeable and excellent.
+This condition of existence, after so excellent a manner, is what
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="416" >416</a></span>
+is "so astonishing to us when we examine God's nature, and the
+more we do so the more wonderful that nature appears to us.
+The mood of the Divine existence is essential energy, and, as
+such, it is a life that is most excellent, blessed, and everlasting.<a id="footnotetag752" name="footnotetag752"></a>
+<a href="#footnote752"><sup class="sml">752</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote752"
+name="footnote752"><b>Footnote 752: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag752">
+(return) </a> "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. vii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The theology of Aristotle may be summed up in the following
+sentences selected from book xi. of his "Metaphysics:"</p>
+
+<p>"This motionless cause of motion is a necessary being; and,
+by virtue of such necessity, is the all-perfect being. This all-pervading
+principle penetrates heaven and all nature. It eternally
+possesses perfect happiness; and its happiness is in
+action. This primal mover is immaterial; for its essence is
+in energy. It is pure thought--thought thinking itself--the
+thought of thought. The activity of pure intelligence--such is
+the perfect, eternal life of God. This primal cause of change,
+this absolute perfection, moves the world by the universal desire
+for the absolute good, by the attraction exercised upon it by
+the Eternal Mind--the serene energy of Divine Intelligence."</p>
+
+<p>It can not be denied that, so far as it goes, this conception
+of the Deity is admirable, worthy, and just. Viewed from a
+Christian stand-point, we at once concede that it is essentially
+defective. There is no clear and distinct recognition of God
+as Creator and Governor of the universe; he is chiefly regarded
+as the Life of the universe--the Intellect, the Energy--that
+which gives excellence, and perfection, and gladness to the
+whole system of things. The Theology of Aristotle is, in fact,
+metaphysical rather than practical. He does not contemplate
+the Deity as a moral Governor. Whilst Plato speaks of "being
+made like God through becoming just and holy," Aristotle
+asserts that "all moral virtues are totally unworthy of being
+ascribed to God."<a id="footnotetag753" name="footnotetag753"></a>
+<a href="#footnote753"><sup class="sml">753</sup></a> He is not the God of providence. He
+dwells alone, supremely indifferent to human cares, and interests,
+and sorrows. He takes no cognizance of individual men,
+and holds no intercourse with man. The God of Aristotle is
+not a being that meets and satisfies the wants of the human
+heart, however well it may meet the demands of the reason.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote753"
+name="footnote753"><b>Footnote 753: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag753">
+(return) </a> "Ethics," bk. x. ch. viii.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="417" >417</a></span>
+
+<p>Morality has no basis in the Divine nature, no eternal type in
+the perfections and government of God, and no supports and
+aids from above. The theology of Aristotle foreshadows the
+character of the</p>
+
+<p class="mid"><b>ARISTOTELIAN ETHICS.</b></p>
+
+<p>We do not find in Aristotle any distinct recognition of an
+eternal and immutable morality, an absolute right, which has
+its foundation in the nature of God. Plato had taught that
+there was "an absolute Good, above and beyond all existence
+in dignity and power;" which is, in fact, "the cause of all existence
+and all knowledge," and which is God; that all other
+things are good in proportion as they "partake of this absolute
+Good;" and that all men are so far good as they "resemble
+God." But with this position Aristotle joins issue. After
+stating the doctrine of Plato in the following words--"Some
+have thought that, besides all these manifold goods upon earth,
+there is some <i>absolute good</i>, which is the cause to all these of
+their being good"--he proceeds to criticise that idea, and
+concludes his argument by saying--"we must dismiss the
+idea at present, for if there is any one good, universal and
+generic, or transcendental and absolute, it obviously can never
+be realized nor possessed by man; whereas something of this
+latter kind is what we are inquiring after." He follows up
+these remarks by saying that "Perhaps the knowledge of the
+idea may be regarded by some as useful, as a pattern (παράδειγµα)
+by which to judge of relative good." Against this he
+argues that "There is no trace of the arts making use of any
+such conception; the cobbler, the carpenter, the physician, and
+the general, all pursue their vocations without respect to the <i>absolute
+good</i>, nor is it easy to see how they would be benefited by
+apprehending it."<a id="footnotetag754" name="footnotetag754"></a><a href="#footnote754"><sup class="sml">754</sup></a> The good after which Aristotle would inquire
+is, therefore, a <i>relative good</i>, since the knowledge of the
+absolute good can not possibly be realized.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote754"
+name="footnote754"><b>Footnote 754: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag754">
+(return) </a> "Ethics," bk. i. ch. vi.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Instead, therefore, of seeking to attain to "a transcendental
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="418" >418</a></span>
+and absolute good "--a fundamental idea of right, which may
+be useful as a paradigm by which we may judge of relative
+good, he addresses himself solely to the question, "what is
+good for man"--what is the good attainable in action? And
+having identified the Chief Good with the final and perfect end
+of all action, the great question of the <i>Ethics</i> is, "<i>What is the
+end of human action?</i>" (τί ἐστι τὸ τῶν πρακτῶν τέλος).<a id="footnotetag755" name="footnotetag755"></a>
+<a href="#footnote755"><sup class="sml">755</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote755"
+name="footnote755"><b>Footnote 755: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag755">
+(return) </a> "Ethics," bk. i. ch. xiii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Now an end or final cause implies an intelligence--implies
+a mind to perceive and desire it. This is distinctly recognized
+by Aristotle. The question, therefore, naturally arises--is that
+end fixed for man by a higher intelligence, and does it exist for
+man both as an idea and as an ideal? Can man, first, intellectually
+apprehend the idea, and then consciously strive after its
+realization? Is it the duty of man to aim at fulfilling the purposes
+of his Creator? To this it may be answered that Aristotle
+is not at all explicit as to God's moral government of the
+world. "Moral government," in the now common acceptation
+of the term, has no place in the system of Aristotle, and the
+idea of "duty" is scarcely recognized. He considers "the
+good" chiefly in relation to the constitution and natural condition
+of man. "<i>It is</i>" says he, "<i>the end towards which nature
+tends</i>." As physical things strive unconsciously after the end
+of their existence, so man strives after the good attainable in
+life. Socrates had identified virtue and knowledge, he had
+taught that "virtue is a Science." Aristotle contended that
+virtue is an art, like music and architecture, which must be attained
+by exercise. It is not purely intellectual, it is the bloom
+of the physical, which has become ethical. As the flower of
+the field, obeying the laws of its organization, springs up,
+blooms, and attains its own peculiar perfection, so there is an
+instinctive desire (ὄρεξις) in the soul which at first unconsciously
+yearns after the good, and subsequently the good is sought
+with full moral intent and insight. Aristotle assumes that the
+desires or instincts of man are so framed as to imply the existence
+of this end (τέλος).<a id="footnotetag756" name="footnotetag756"></a>
+<a href="#footnote756"><sup class="sml">756</sup></a> And he asserts that man can only
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="419" >419</a></span>
+realize it in the sphere of his own proper functions, and in accordance
+with the laws of his own proper nature and its harmonious
+development.<a id="footnotetag757" name="footnotetag757"></a>
+<a href="#footnote757"><sup class="sml">757</sup></a> It is not, then, through instruction, or
+through the perfection of knowledge, that man is to attain the
+good, but through exercise and habit (ἔθος). By practice of
+moral acts we become virtuous, just as by practice of building
+and of music, we become architects and musicians; for the
+habit, which is the ground of moral character, is only a fruit of
+oft-repeated moral acts. Hence it is by these three things--nature,
+habit, reason--that men become good.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote756"
+name="footnote756"><b>Footnote 756: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag756">
+(return) </a> Ibid, bk. i. ch. ii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote757"
+name="footnote757"><b>Footnote 757: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag757">
+(return) </a> "Ethics," bk. i. ch. vii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Aristotle's question, therefore, is, <i>What is the chief good for
+man as man</i>? not what is his chief good as a spiritual and an
+immortal being? or what is his chief good as a being related to
+and dependent upon God? And the conclusion at which he
+arrives is, that it is <i>the absolute satisfaction of our whole nature</i>--that
+which men are agreed in calling <i>happiness</i>. This happiness,
+however, is not mere sensual pleasure. The brute shares
+this in common with man, therefore it can not constitute the
+happiness of man. Human happiness must express the completeness
+of rational existence. And inasmuch as intelligence
+is essential activity, as the soul is the <i>entelechy</i> of the body,
+therefore the happiness of man can not consist in a mere passive
+condition. It must, therefore, consist in <i>perfect activity</i> in
+well-doing, and especially in contemplative thought,<a id="footnotetag758" name="footnotetag758"></a>
+<a href="#footnote758"><sup class="sml">758</sup></a> or as Aristotle
+defines it--"<i>It is a perfect practical activity in a perfect
+life</i>."<a id="footnotetag759" name="footnotetag759"></a>
+<a href="#footnote759"><sup class="sml">759</sup></a> His conception of the chief good has thus two sides,
+one internal, that which exists in and for the consciousness--a
+"complete and perfect life," the other external and practical.
+The latter, however, is a means to the former. That complete
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="420">420</a></span>
+and perfect life is the complete satisfaction and perfection of
+our rational nature. It is a state of peace which is the crown
+of exertion. It is the realization of the divine in man, and constitutes
+the absolute and all-sufficient happiness.<a id="footnotetag760" name="footnotetag760"></a>
+<a href="#footnote760"><sup class="sml">760</sup></a> A good action
+is thus an End-in-itself (τέλειον τέλος) inasmuch as it secures
+the <i>perfection</i> of our nature; it is that for the sake of which
+our moral faculties before existed, hence bringing an inward
+pleasure and satisfaction with it; something in which the mind
+can rest and fully acquiesce; something which can be pronounced
+beautiful, fitting, honorable, and perfect.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote758"
+name="footnote758"><b>Footnote 758: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag758">
+(return) </a> "If it be true to say that happiness consists in doing well, a life of action
+must be best both for the state and the individual. But we need not,
+as some do, suppose that a life of action implies relation to others, or that
+those only are active thoughts which are concerned with the results of action;
+but far rather we must consider those speculations and thoughts to be
+so which have their <i>end in themselves</i>, and which are for their own sake."--"Politics,"
+bk. vii. ch. iii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote759"
+name="footnote759"><b>Footnote 759: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag759">
+(return) </a> "Ethics," bk. i. ch. x.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote760"
+name="footnote760"><b>Footnote 760: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag760">
+(return) </a> "Ethics," bk. x. ch. viii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>From what has been already stated, it will be seen that the
+Aristotelian conception of <i>Virtue</i> is not conformity to an absolute
+and immutable standard of right. It is defined by him as
+<i>the observation of the right mean (µεσότης) in action</i>--that is, the
+right mean relatively to ourselves. "Virtue is a habit deliberately
+choosing, existing as a mean (µέσον) which refers to us,
+and is defined by reason, and as a prudent man would define
+it; and it is a mean between two evils, the one consisting in
+excess, the other in defect; and further, it is a mean, in that
+one of these falls short of, and the other exceeds, what is right
+both in passions and actions; and that virtue both finds and
+chooses the mean."<a id="footnotetag761" name="footnotetag761"></a>
+<a href="#footnote761"><sup class="sml">761</sup></a> The perfection of an action thus consists
+in its containing the right degree--the true mean between too
+much, and too little. The law of the µεσότης is illustrated by
+the following examples: Man has a fixed relation to pleasure
+and pain. In relation to pain, the true mean is found in neither
+fearing it nor courting it, and this is <i>fortitude</i>. In relation
+to pleasure, the true mean stands between greediness and indifference;
+this is <i>temperance</i>. The true mean between prodigality
+and narrowness is <i>liberality</i>; between simplicity and cunning
+is <i>prudence</i>; between suffering wrong and doing wrong is
+<i>justice</i>. Extending this law to certain qualifications of temper,
+speech, and manners, you have the portrait of a graceful Grecian
+gentleman. Virtue is thus <i>proportion, grace, harmony,
+beauty in action</i>.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote761"
+name="footnote761"><b>Footnote 761: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag761">
+(return) </a> Ibid, bk. ii. ch. vi.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="421">421</a></span>
+
+<p>It will at once be seen that this classification has no stable
+foundation. It furnishes no ultimate standard of right. The
+<i>mean</i> is a wavering line. It differs under different circumstances
+and relations, and in different times and places. That mean
+which is sufficient for one individual is insufficient for another.
+The virtue of a man, of a slave, and of a child, is respectively
+different. There are as many virtues as there are circumstances
+in life; and as men are ever entering into new relations, in
+which it is difficult to determine the correct method of action,
+the separate virtues can not be limited to any definite number.</p>
+
+<p>Imperfect as the ethical system of Aristotle may appear to
+us who live in Christian times, it must be admitted that his
+writings abound with just and pure sentiments. His science
+of Ethics is a <i>discipline of human character in order to human
+happiness</i>. And whilst it must be admitted that it is directed
+solely to the improvement of man in the present life, he aims
+to build that improvement on pure and noble principles, and
+seeks to elevate man to the highest perfection of which he
+could conceive. "And no greater praise can be given to a
+work of heathen morality than to say, as may be said of the
+ethical writings of Aristotle, that they contain nothing which a
+Christian may dispense with, no precept of life which is not an
+element of Christian character; and that they only fail in elevating
+the heart and the mind to objects which it needed Divine
+Wisdom to reveal."<a id="footnotetag762" name="footnotetag762"></a>
+<a href="#footnote762"><sup class="sml">762</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote762"
+name="footnote762"><b>Footnote 762: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag762">
+(return) </a> Encyclopædia Britannica, article "Aristotle."</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="422" >422</a></span>
+<br>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIII.</h3>
+
+<h3>THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS <i>(continued)</i></h3>
+
+<h3>POST-SOCRATIC SCHOOL.</h3>
+
+<h3>EPICURUS AND ZENO.</h3>
+
+<p>Philosophy, after the time of Aristotle, takes a new
+direction. In the pre-Socratic schools, we have seen it
+was mainly a philosophy of nature; in the Socratic school it
+was characterized as a philosophy of mind; and now in the
+post-Socratic schools it becomes a philosophy of life--a moral
+philosophy. Instead of aiming at the knowledge of real Being--of
+the permanent, unchangeable, eternal principles which
+underlie all phenomena, it was now content to aim, chiefly, at
+individual happiness. The primary question now discussed, as
+of the most vital importance, is, What is the ultimate standard
+by which, amid all the diversities of human conduct and opinion,
+we may determine what is right and good in individual
+and social life?</p>
+
+<p>This remarkable change in the course of philosophic inquiry
+was mainly due--</p>
+
+<p>1st. <i>To the altered circumstances of the times</i>. An age of civil
+disturbance and political intrigue succeeded the Alexandrian
+period. The different states of Greece lost their independence,
+and became gradually subject to a foreign yoke. Handed over
+from one domination to another, in the struggles of Alexander's
+lieutenants, they endeavored to reconquer their independence
+by forming themselves into confederations, but were powerless
+to unite in the defense of a common cause. The Achæan and
+Etolian leagues were weakened by internal discords; and it
+was in vain that Sparta tried to recover her ancient liberties.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="423">423</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Divided amongst themselves, the smaller states invoked the
+aid of dangerous allies--at one time appealing to Macedon, at
+another to Egypt. In this way they prepared for the total
+ruin of Greek liberty, which was destined to be extinguished by
+Rome.<a id="footnotetag763" name="footnotetag763"></a>
+<a href="#footnote763"><sup class="sml">763</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote763"
+name="footnote763"><b>Footnote 763: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag763">
+(return) </a> Pressensé, "Religions before Christ," pp. 136-140.</blockquote>
+
+<p>During this period of hopeless turmoil and social disorder,
+all lofty pursuits and all great principles were lost sight of and
+abandoned. The philosophic movement followed the downward
+course of society, and men became chiefly concerned for
+their personal interest and safety. The wars of the Succession
+almost obliterated the idea of society, and philosophy was
+mainly directed to the securing of personal happiness; it became,
+in fact, "the art of making one's self happy." The sad
+reverses to which the Grecian mind had been subjected produced
+a feeling of exhaustion and indifference, which soon reflected
+itself in the philosophy of the age.</p>
+
+<p>2d. In connection with the altered circumstances of the age,
+we must also take account of <i>the apparent failure of the Socratic
+method to solve the problem of Being</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The teaching of Aristotle had fostered the suspicion that
+the dialectic method was a failure, and thus prepared the way
+for a return to sensualism. He had taught that individuals
+alone have a real existence, and that the "essence" of things
+is not to be sought in the elements of unity and generality, or
+in the <i>idea</i>, as Plato taught, but in the elements of diversity
+and speciality. And furthermore, in opposition to Plato, he
+had taught his disciples to attach themselves to sensation, as
+the source of all knowledge. As the direct consequence of
+this teaching, we find his immediate successors, Dicearchus
+and Straton, deliberately setting aside "the god of philosophy,"
+affirming "that a <i>divinity</i> was unnecessary to the explanation
+of the existence and order of the universe." Stimulated by the
+social degeneracy of the times, the characteristic skepticism of
+the Greek intellect bursts forth anew. As the skepticism of
+the Sophists marked the close of the first period of philosophy,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="424" >424</a></span>
+so the skepticism of Pyrrhonism marked the close of the
+second. The new skepticism arrayed Aristotle against Plato
+as the earlier skeptics arrayed atomism against the doctrine of
+the Eleatics. They naturally said: "We have been seeking a
+long time; what have we gained? Have we obtained any
+thing certain and determinate? Plato says we have. But
+Aristotle and Plato do not agree. May not our opinion be as
+good as theirs? What a diversity of opinions have been presented
+during the past three hundred years! One may be as
+good as another, or they may be all alike untrue!" Timon
+and Pyrrhon declared that, of each thing, it might be said to
+be, and not to be; and that, consequently, we should cease tormenting
+ourselves, and seek to obtain an <i>absolute calm</i>, which
+they dignified with the name of <i>ataraxie</i>. Beholding the overthrow
+and disgrace of their country, surrounded by examples
+of pusillanimity and corruption, and infected with the spirit of
+the times themselves, they wrote this maxim: "Nothing is infamous;
+nothing is in itself just; laws and customs alone constitute
+what is justice and what is iniquity." Having reached
+this extreme, nothing can be too absurd, and they cap the climax
+by saying, "We assert nothing; no, not even that we assert
+nothing!"</p>
+
+<p>And yet there must some function, undoubtedly, remain for
+the "wise man" (σοφός).</p>
+
+<p>Reason was given for some purpose. Philosophy must have
+some end. And inasmuch as it is not to determine speculative
+questions, it must be to determine practical questions.
+May it not teach men to <i>act</i> rather than to <i>think</i>? The philosopher,
+the schools, the disciples, survive the darkening flood of
+skepticism.</p>
+
+<p>Three centuries before Christ, the Peripatetic and Platonic
+schools are succeeded by two other schools, which inherit their
+importance, and which, in other forms, and by an under-current,
+perpetuate the disputes of the Peripatetics and Platonists,
+namely, the Epicureans and Stoics. With Aristotle and Plato,
+philosophy embraced in its circle nature, humanity, and God;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="425">425</a></span>
+but now, in the systems of Epicurus and Zeno, moral philosophy
+is placed in the foreground, and assumes the chief, the
+overshadowing pre-eminence. The conduct of life--morality--is
+now the grand subject of inquiry, and the great theme of
+discourse.</p>
+
+<p>In dealing with <i>morals</i> two opposite methods of inquiry were
+possible:</p>
+
+<p>1. <i>To judge of the quality of actions by their</i> RESULTS.</p>
+
+<p>2. <i>To search for the quality of actions in the actions them
+selves</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Utility, which in its last analysis is <i>Pleasure</i>, is the test of
+right, in the first method; an assumed or discovered <i>Law of
+Nature</i>, in the second. If the world were perfect, and the balance
+of the human faculties undisturbed, it is evident that both
+systems would give identical results. As it is, there is a tendency
+to error on each side, which is fully developed in the
+rival schools of the Epicureans and Stoics, who practically
+divided the suffrages of the mass of educated men until the
+coming of Christ.</p>
+
+<p class="mid"><b>EPICUREANS.</b></p>
+
+<p>Epicurus was born B.C. 342, and died B.C. 270. He
+purchased a Garden within the city, and commenced, at
+thirty-six years of age, to teach philosophy. The Platonists
+had their academic Grove: the Aristotelians walked in the
+Lyceum: the Stoics occupied the Porch: the Epicureans had
+their Garden, where they lived a tranquil life, and seem to
+have had a community of goods.</p>
+
+<p>There is not one of all the various founders of the ancient
+philosophical schools whose memory was cherished with so
+much veneration by his disciples as that of Epicurus. For
+several centuries after his death, his portrait was treated by
+them with all the honors of a sacred relic: it was carried
+about with them in their journeys, it was hung up in their
+schools, it was preserved with reverence in their private chambers;
+his birthday was celebrated with sacrifices and other religious
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="426">426</a></span>
+observances, and a special festival in his honor was held
+every month.</p>
+
+<p>So much honor having been paid to the memory of Epicurus,
+we naturally expect that his works would have been preserved
+with religious care. He was one of the most prolific of
+the ancient Greek writers. Diogenes calls him "a most voluminous
+writer," and estimates the number of works composed
+by him at no less than three hundred, the principal of which
+he enumerates.<a id="footnotetag764" name="footnotetag764"></a>
+<a href="#footnote764"><sup class="sml">764</sup></a> But out of all this prodigious collection, not
+a single book has reached us in a complete, or at least an independent
+form. Three letters, which contain some outlines
+of his philosophy, are preserved by Diogenes, who has also embodied
+his "Fundamental Maxims"--forty-four propositions,
+containing a summary of his ethical system. These, with part
+of his work "On Nature," found during the last century among
+the Greek MSS. recovered at Herculaneum, constitute all that
+has survived the general wreck.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote764"
+name="footnote764"><b>Footnote 764: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag764">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xvi., xvii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>We are thus left to depend mainly on his disciples and successors
+for any general account of his system. And of the
+earliest and most immediate of these the writings have perished.<a id="footnotetag765" name="footnotetag765"></a>
+<a href="#footnote765"><sup class="sml">765</sup></a>
+Our sole original authority is Diogenes Laertius, who
+was unquestionably an Epicurean. The sketch of Epicurus
+which is given in his "Lives" is evidently a "labor of love."
+Among all the systems of ancient philosophy described by him,
+there is none of whose general character he has given so skillful
+and so elaborate an analysis. And even as regards the
+particulars of the system, nothing could be more complete than
+Laertius's account of his physical speculations. Additional
+light is also furnished by the philosophic poem of Lucretius
+"On the Nature of Things," which was written to advocate the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="427">427</a></span>
+physical theory of Epicurus. These are the chief sources of
+our information.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote765"
+name="footnote765"><b>Footnote 765: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag765">
+(return) </a> Some fragments of the writings of Metrodorus, Phædrus, Polystratus,
+and Philodemus, have been found among the Herculanean Papyri, and published
+in Europe, which are said to throw some additional light on the doctrines
+of Epicurus. See article on "Herculanean Papyri," in Edinburgh Review,
+October, 1862.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It is said of Epicurus that he loved to hearken to the stories
+of the indifference and apathy of Pyrrhon, and that, in these
+qualities, he aspired to imitate him. But Epicurus was not,
+like Pyrrhon, a skeptic; on the contrary, he was the most imperious
+dogmatist. No man ever showed so little respect for
+the opinions of his predecessors, or so much confidence in his
+own. He was fond of boasting that he had made his own philosophy--<i>he</i>
+was a "self-taught" man! Now "Epicurus might
+be perfectly honest in saying he had read very little, and had
+worked out the conclusions in his own mind, but he was a
+copyist, nevertheless; few men more entirely so."<a id="footnotetag766" name="footnotetag766"></a>
+<a href="#footnote766"><sup class="sml">766</sup></a> His psychology
+was certainly borrowed from the Ionian school. From
+thence he had derived his fundamental maxim, that "sensation
+is the source of all knowledge, and the standard of all truth."
+His physics were copied from Democritus. With both, "atoms
+are the first principle of all things." And in Ethics he had
+learned from Aristotle, that if an absolute good is not the end
+of a practical life, <i>happiness</i> must be its end.<a id="footnotetag767" name="footnotetag767"></a>
+<a href="#footnote767"><sup class="sml">767</sup></a> All that is fundamental
+in the system of Epicurus was borrowed from his predecessors,
+and there is little that can be called new in his teaching.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote766"
+name="footnote766"><b>Footnote 766: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag766">
+(return) </a> Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 236.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote767"
+name="footnote767"><b>Footnote 767: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag767">
+(return) </a> "Ethics," bk. i. ch. vi.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The grand object of philosophy, according to Epicurus, <i>is
+the attainment of a happy life</i>. "Philosophy," says he, "is the
+power by which reason conducts men to happiness." Truth is
+a merely relative thing, a variable quantity; and therefore the
+pursuit of truth for its own sake is superfluous and useless.
+There is no such thing as absolute, unchangeable right: no action
+is intrinsically right or wrong. "We choose the virtues, not
+on their own account, but for the sake of pleasure, just as we
+seek the skill of the physician for the sake of health."<a id="footnotetag768" name="footnotetag768"></a>
+<a href="#footnote768"><sup class="sml">768</sup></a> That
+which is nominally right in morals, that which is relatively good
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="428" >428</a></span>
+in human conduct, is, therefore, to be determined by the effects
+upon ourselves; that which is agreeable--pleasurable, is right;
+that which is disagreeable--painful, is wrong. "The virtues
+are connate with living pleasantly."<a id="footnotetag769" name="footnotetag769"></a>
+<a href="#footnote769"><sup class="sml">769</sup></a> Pleasure (ἡδονή), then, is
+the great end to be sought in human action. "Pleasure is the
+chief good, the beginning and end of living happily."<a id="footnotetag770" name="footnotetag770"></a>
+<a href="#footnote770"><sup class="sml">770</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote768"
+name="footnote768"><b>Footnote 768: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag768">
+(return) </a> "Fundamental Maxims," preserved in Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of
+the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxx.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote769"
+name="footnote769"><b>Footnote 769: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag769">
+(return) </a> "Epicurus to Menæceus," in Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers,"
+bk. x. ch. xxvii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote770"
+name="footnote770"><b>Footnote 770: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag770">
+(return) </a> Id., ib.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The proof which Epicurus offers in support of his doctrine,
+"that pleasure is the chief good," is truly characteristic. "All
+animals from the moment of their birth are delighted with
+pleasure and offended with pain, by their natural instincts,
+and without the employment of reason. Therefore we, also,
+of our own inclination, flee from pain."<a id="footnotetag771" name="footnotetag771"></a>
+<a href="#footnote771"><sup class="sml">771</sup></a> "All men like pleasure
+and dislike pain; they naturally shun the latter and pursue the
+former." "If happiness is present, we have every thing, and
+when it is absent, we do every thing with a view to possess it."<a id="footnotetag772" name="footnotetag772"></a>
+<a href="#footnote772"><sup class="sml">772</sup></a>
+Virtue thus consists in man's doing deliberately what the animals
+do instinctively--that is, choose pleasure and avoid pain.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote771"
+name="footnote771"><b>Footnote 771: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag771">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote772"
+name="footnote772"><b>Footnote 772: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag772">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., bk. x. ch. xxvii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>"Every kind of pleasure" is, in the estimation of Epicurus,
+"alike good," and alike proper. "If those things which make
+the pleasures of debauched men put an end to the fears of the
+mind, and to those which arise about the heavenly bodies [supernatural
+powers], and death and pain,... we should have
+no pretense for blaming those who wholly devote themselves
+to pleasure, and who never feel any pain, or grief (which is the
+chief evil) from any quarter."<a id="footnotetag773" name="footnotetag773"></a>
+<a href="#footnote773"><sup class="sml">773</sup></a> Whilst, however, all pleasures
+of the body, as well as the mind, are equal in dignity, and alike
+good, they differ in intensity, in duration, and, especially, in
+their consequences. He therefore divides pleasure into two
+classes; and in this, as Cousin remarks, is found the only element
+of originality in his philosophy. These two kinds of
+pleasure are:</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="429">429</a></span>
+
+<p>1. <i>The pleasure of movement, excitement, energy</i> (ἡδονὴ ἐν
+κινήσει).<a id="footnotetag774" name="footnotetag774"></a>
+<a href="#footnote774"><sup class="sml">774</sup></a> This is the most lively pleasure; it supposes the
+greatest development of physical and mental power. "Joy
+and cheerfulness are beheld in motion and energy." But it is
+not the most enduring pleasure, and it is not the most perfect.
+It is accompanied by uneasiness; it "brings with it many perturbations,"
+and it yields some bitter fruits.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote773"
+name="footnote773"><b>Footnote 773: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag773">
+(return) </a> "Fundamental Maxims," No. 9, in Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the
+Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxxi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote774"
+name="footnote774"><b>Footnote 774: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag774">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxviii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>2. <i>The second kind of pleasure is the pleasure of repose, tranquillity,
+impassibility</i> (ἡδονὴ καταστηµατική). This is a state, a
+"condition," rather than a motion. It is "the freedom of the
+body from pain, and the soul from confusion."<a id="footnotetag775" name="footnotetag775"></a>
+<a href="#footnote775"><sup class="sml">775</sup></a> This is perfect
+and unmixed happiness--the happiness of God; and he who
+attains it "will be like a god among men." "The storm of
+the soul is at an end, and body and soul are perfected."</p>
+
+<p>Now, whilst "no pleasure is intrinsically bad,"<a id="footnotetag776" name="footnotetag776"></a>
+<a href="#footnote776"><sup class="sml">776</sup></a> prudence
+(φρόνησις), or practical wisdom, would teach us to choose the
+highest and most perfect happiness. Morality is therefore the
+application of reason to the conduct of life, and virtue is wisdom.
+The office of reason is to "determine our choices"--to
+take account of the duration of pleasures, to estimate their consequences,
+and to regard the happiness of a whole lifetime,
+and not the enjoyment of a single hour. Without wisdom men
+will choose the momentary excitements of passion, and follow
+after agitating pleasures, which are succeeded by pain; they
+will consequently lose "tranquillity of mind." "It is not possible,"
+says Epicurus, "to live pleasantly without living prudently
+and honorably and justly."<a id="footnotetag777" name="footnotetag777"></a>
+<a href="#footnote777"><sup class="sml">777</sup></a> The difference, then, between
+the philosopher and the ordinary man is this--that while
+both seek pleasure, the former knows how to forego certain
+indulgences which cause pain and vexation hereafter, whereas
+the ordinary man seeks only immediate enjoyment. Epicurus
+does not dispense with virtue, but he simply employs it as a
+means to an end, namely, the securing of happiness.<a id="footnotetag778" name="footnotetag778"></a>
+<a href="#footnote778"><sup class="sml">778</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote775"
+name="footnote775"><b>Footnote 775: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag775">
+(return) </a> Id., ib.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote776"
+name="footnote776"><b>Footnote 776: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag776">
+(return) </a> "Fundamental Maxims," No. 7.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote777"
+name="footnote777"><b>Footnote 777: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag777">
+(return) </a> Ibid., No. 5.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote778"
+name="footnote778"><b>Footnote 778: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag778">
+(return) </a> Pressensé, "Religions before Christ," p. 141.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="430" >430</a></span>
+
+<p>Social morality is, like private morality, founded upon <i>utility.</i>
+As nothing is intrinsically right or wrong in private life, so
+nothing is intrinsically just or unjust in social life. "Justice
+has no independent existence: it results from mutual contracts,
+and establishes itself wherever there is a mutual engagement
+to guard against doing or sustaining any injury. Injustice is
+not intrinsically bad; it has this character only because there
+is joined with it the fear of not escaping those who are appointed
+to punish actions marked with this character."<a id="footnotetag779" name="footnotetag779"></a>
+<a href="#footnote779"><sup class="sml">779</sup></a> Society is
+thus a contract--an agreement to promote each other's happiness.
+And inasmuch as the happiness of the individual depends
+in a great degree upon the general happiness, the essence
+of his ethical system, in its political aspects, is contained
+in inculcating "the greatest happiness of the greatest number."</p>
+
+<p>If you ask Epicurus what a man shall do when it is clearly
+his immediate interest to violate the social contract, he would
+answer, that if your general interest is secured by always observing
+it, you must make momentary sacrifices for the sake of
+future good. But "when, in consequence of new circumstances,
+a thing which has been pronounced just does not any longer
+appear to agree with utility, the thing which was just...
+ceases to be just the moment it ceases to be useful."<a id="footnotetag780" name="footnotetag780"></a>
+<a href="#footnote780"><sup class="sml">780</sup></a> So that
+self-interest is still the basis of all virtue. And if, by the performance
+of duty, you are exposed to great suffering, and especially
+to death, you are perfectly justified in the violation of
+any and all contracts. Such is the social morality of Epicurus.</p>
+
+<p>With coarse and energetic minds the doctrine of Epicurus
+would inevitably lead to the grossest sensuality and crime;
+with men whose temperament was more apathetic, or whose
+tastes were more pure, it would develop a refined selfishness--
+a perfect egoism, which Epicurus has adorned with the name
+"tranquillity of mind--impassibility," (ἀταραξία).<a id="footnotetag781" name="footnotetag781"></a>
+<a href="#footnote781"><sup class="sml">781</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote779"
+name="footnote779"><b>Footnote 779: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag779">
+(return) </a> "Fundamental Maxims," Nos. 35, 36.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote780"
+name="footnote780"><b>Footnote 780: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag780">
+(return) </a> Ibid., No. 41.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote781"
+name="footnote781"><b>Footnote 781: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag781">
+(return) </a> It is scarcely necessary to discuss the question whether, by making
+pleasure the standard of right, Epicurus intended to encourage what is
+usually called sensuality. He earnestly protested against any such unfavorable
+interpretation of his doctrine:--"When we say that pleasure is a chief
+good, we are not speaking of the pleasures of the debauched man, or those
+which lie in sensual enjoyment, as some think who are ignorant, and who do
+not entertain our opinions, or else interpret them perversely; but we mean
+the freedom of the body from pain, and the soul from confusion" ("Epicurus
+to Menæceus," in Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," bk. x. ch. xxvii.). The most
+obvious tendency of this doctrine is to extreme selfishness, rather than extreme
+sensuality--a selfishness which prefers one's own comfort and case
+to every other consideration.
+
+<p>As to the personal character of Epicurus, opinions have been divided
+both in ancient and modern times. By some the garden has been called a
+"sty." Epicurus has been branded as a libertine, and the name "Epicurean"
+has, in almost all languages, become the synonym of sensualism. Diogenes
+Laertius repels all the imputations which are cast upon the moral character
+of his favorite author, and ascribes them to the malignity and falsehood of
+the Stoics. "The most modern criticism seems rather inclined to revert to
+the vulgar opinion respecting him, rejecting, certainly with good reason, the
+fanatical panegyrics of some French and English writers of the last century.
+Upon the whole, we are inclined to believe that Epicurus was an apathetic,
+decorous, formal man, who was able, without much difficulty, to cultivate a
+measured and even habit of mind, who may have occasionally indulged in
+sensual gratifications to prove that he thought them lawful, but who generally
+preferred, as a matter of taste, the exercises of the intellect to the more
+violent forms of self-indulgence. And this life, it seems to us, would be
+most consistent with his opinions. To avoid commotion, to make the stream
+of life flow on as easily as possible, was clearly the aim of his philosophy."--
+Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 236.</p></blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="431">431</a></span>
+
+<p>To secure this highest kind of happiness--this pure impassivity,
+it was necessary to get rid of all superstitious fears
+of death, of supernatural beings, and of a future retribution.<a id="footnotetag782" name="footnotetag782"></a>
+<a href="#footnote782"><sup class="sml">782</sup></a>
+The chief causes of man's misery are his illusions, his superstitions,
+and his prejudices. "That which principally contributes
+to trouble the spirit of men, is the persuasion which they
+cherish that the stars are beings imperishable and happy (<i>i.e.,</i>
+that they are gods), and that then our thoughts and actions are
+contrary to the will of those superior beings; they also, being
+deluded by these fables, apprehend an eternity of evils, they
+fear the insensibility of death, as though that could affect
+them...." "The real freedom from this kind of trouble
+consists in being emancipated from all these things."<a id="footnotetag783" name="footnotetag783"></a>
+<a href="#footnote783"><sup class="sml">783</sup></a> And
+this emancipation is to be secured by the study of philosophy--
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="432">432</a></span>
+that is, of that philosophy which explains every thing on natural
+or physical principles, and excludes all supernatural powers.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote782"
+name="footnote782"><b>Footnote 782: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag782">
+(return) </a> Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. 1. 100-118.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote783"
+name="footnote783"><b>Footnote 783: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag783">
+(return) </a> Epicurus to Herodotus, in Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers,"
+p. 453 (Bohn's edition).</blockquote>
+
+<p>That ignorance which occasions man's misery is two-fold,
+(i.) <i>Ignorance of the external world, which leads to superstition.</i>
+All unexplained phenomena are ascribed to unseen, supernatural
+powers; often to malignant powers, which take pleasure
+in tormenting man; sometimes to a Supreme and Righteous
+Power, which rewards and punishes men for their good or evil
+conduct. Hence a knowledge of Physics, particularly the
+physics which Democritus taught, was needful to deliver men
+from false hopes and false fears.<a id="footnotetag784" name="footnotetag784"></a>
+<a href="#footnote784"><sup class="sml">784</sup></a> (ii.) <i>Ignorance of the nature
+of man, of his faculties, powers, and the sources and limits of his
+knowledge</i>, from whence arise illusions, prejudices, and errors.
+Hence the need of Psychology to ascertain the real grounds
+of human knowledge, to explain the origin of man's illusions,
+to exhibit the groundlessness of his fears, and lead him to a
+just conception of the nature and end of his existence.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote784"
+name="footnote784"><b>Footnote 784: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag784">
+(return) </a> "The study of physics contributes more than any thing else to the tranquillity
+and happiness of life."--Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," bk. x. ch. xxiv.
+"For thus it is that <i>fear</i> restrains all men, because they observe many
+things effected on the earth and in heaven, of which effects they can by no
+means see the causes, and therefore think that they are wrought by a <i>divine</i>
+power. For which reasons, when we have clearly seen that <i>nothing can be
+produced from nothing</i>, we shall have a more accurate perception of that
+of which we are in search, and shall understand whence each individual
+thing is generated, and how all things are done without the agency of the
+gods."--Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 145-150.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Physics and Psychology are thus the only studies which
+Epicurus would tolerate as "conducive to the happiness of
+man." The pursuit of truth for its own sake was useless.
+Dialectics, which distinguish the true from the false, the good
+from the bad, on <i>à priori</i> grounds, must be banished as an unnecessary
+toil, which yields no enjoyment. Theology must be
+cancelled entirely, because it fosters superstitious fears. The
+idea of God's taking knowledge of, disapproving, condemning,
+punishing the evil conduct of men, is an unpleasant thought.
+Physics and Psychology are the most useful, because the most
+"agreeable," the most "comfortable" sciences.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="433" >433</a></span>
+
+<p class="mid"><b>EPICUREAN PHYSICS.</b></p>
+
+<p>In his physical theories Epicurus followed Leucippus and
+Democritus. He expounds these theories in his letters to
+Herodotus and Pythocles, which are preserved in Diogenes
+Laertius.<a id="footnotetag785" name="footnotetag785"></a>
+<a href="#footnote785"><sup class="sml">785</sup></a> We shall be guided mainly by his own statements,
+and when his meaning is obscure, or his exposition is incomplete,
+we shall avail ourselves of the more elaborate statements
+of Lucretius,<a id="footnotetag786" name="footnotetag786"></a>
+<a href="#footnote786"><sup class="sml">786</sup></a> who is uniformly faithful to the doctrine of Epicurus,
+and universally regarded as its best expounder.</p>
+
+<p>The fundamental principle of his philosophy is the ancient
+maxim--"<i>de nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil fosse reverti</i>;" but instead
+of employing this maxim in the sense in which it is used
+by Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and others, to prove
+there must be something self-existent and eternal, or in other
+words, "that nothing which once was not can ever of itself
+come into being," he uses it to disprove a divine creation, and
+even presents the maxim in an altered form--viz., "nothing is
+ever <i>divinely</i> generated from nothing;"<a id="footnotetag787" name="footnotetag787"></a>
+<a href="#footnote787"><sup class="sml">787</sup></a> and he thence concludes
+that the world was by no means made for us by <i>divine</i>
+power.<a id="footnotetag788" name="footnotetag788"></a>
+<a href="#footnote788"><sup class="sml">788</sup></a> Nature is eternal. "The universal whole always
+was such as it now is, and always will be such." "The universe
+also is infinite, for that which is finite has a limit, but the
+universe has no limit."<a id="footnotetag789" name="footnotetag789"></a>
+<a href="#footnote789"><sup class="sml">789</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote785"
+name="footnote785"><b>Footnote 785: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag785">
+(return) </a> "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote786"
+name="footnote786"><b>Footnote 786: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag786">
+(return) </a> "De Natura Rerum."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote787"
+name="footnote787"><b>Footnote 787: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag787">
+(return) </a> Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote788"
+name="footnote788"><b>Footnote 788: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag788">
+(return) </a> Ibid.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote789"
+name="footnote789"><b>Footnote 789: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag789">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxiv.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The two great principles of nature are a <i>vacuum</i>, and a <i>plenum.</i>
+The plenum is <i>body</i>, or tangible nature; the vacuum is
+<i>space</i>, or intangible nature. "We know by the evidences of
+the senses (which are our only rule of reasoning) that <i>bodies</i>
+have a real existence, and we infer from the evidence of the
+senses that the vacuum has a real existence; for if space have
+no real existence, there would be nothing in which bodies can
+move, as we see they really do move. Let us add to this reflection
+that one can not conceive, either in virtue of perception,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="434">434</a></span>
+or of any analogy founded on perception, any general
+quality peculiar to all beings, which is not either an attribute,
+or an accident, of the body or of the vacuum."<a id="footnotetag790" name="footnotetag790"></a>
+<a href="#footnote790"><sup class="sml">790</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Of bodies some are "combinations"--concrete bodies--and
+some are primordial "elements," out of which combinations
+are formed. These primordial elements, out of which the universe
+is generated, are "<i>atoms</i>" (ἄτοµοι). These atoms are
+"the first principles" and "seeds" of all things.<a id="footnotetag791" name="footnotetag791"></a>
+<a href="#footnote791"><sup class="sml">791</sup></a> They are
+"<i>infinite</i> in number," and, as their name implies, they are
+"<i>infrangible" "unchangeable</i>" and "<i>indestructible."</i><a id="footnotetag792" name="footnotetag792"></a>
+<a href="#footnote792"><sup class="sml">792</sup></a> Matter is,
+therefore, not infinitely divisible; there must be a point at
+which division ends.<a id="footnotetag793" name="footnotetag793"></a>
+<a href="#footnote793"><sup class="sml">793</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>The only qualities of atoms are <i>form</i>, <i>magnitude</i>, and <i>density.</i>
+All the other sensible qualities of matter--the secondary qualities--
+as color, odor, sweetness, bitterness, etc.--are necessarily
+inherent in form. All secondary qualities are changeable, but
+the primary atoms are unchangeable; "for in the dissolution of
+combined bodies there must be something <i>solid</i> and <i>indestructible,</i>
+of such a kind that it will not change, either into what
+does not exist, or out of what does not exist, but the change
+results from a simple displacement of parts, which is the most
+usual case, or from an addition or subtraction of particles."<a id="footnotetag794" name="footnotetag794"></a>
+<a href="#footnote794"><sup class="sml">794</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote790"
+name="footnote790"><b>Footnote 790: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag790">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxiv.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote791"
+name="footnote791"><b>Footnote 791: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag791">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., bk. x. ch. xxv.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote792"
+name="footnote792"><b>Footnote 792: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag792">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., bk. x. ch. xxiv.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote793"
+name="footnote793"><b>Footnote 793: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag793">
+(return) </a> Id., ib.; Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 616-620.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote794"
+name="footnote794"><b>Footnote 794: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag794">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxiv.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The atoms are not all of one <i>form</i>, but of different forms
+suited to the production of different substances by combination;
+some are square, some triangular, some smooth and
+spherical, some are hooked with points. They are also diversified
+in <i>magnitude</i> and <i>density</i>. The number of original forms
+is "incalculably varied," but not infinite. "Every variety of
+forms contains an infinitude of atoms, but there is not, for that
+reason, an infinitude of forms; it is only the number of them
+which is beyond computation."<a id="footnotetag795" name="footnotetag795"></a>
+<a href="#footnote795"><sup class="sml">795</sup></a> To assert that atoms are of
+every kind of form, magnitude, and density, would be "to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="435" >435</a></span>
+contradict the phenomena; "for experience teaches us that objects
+have a finite magnitude, and form necessarily supposes limitation.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote795"
+name="footnote795"><b>Footnote 795: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag795">
+(return) </a> Id., ib.</blockquote>
+
+<p>A variety of these primordial forms enter into the composition
+of all sensible objects, because sensible objects possess
+different qualities, and these diversified qualities can only result
+from the combination of different original forms. "The
+earth has, in itself, primary atoms from which springs, rolling
+forth cool <i>water</i>, incessantly recruit the immense sea; it has
+also atoms from which <i>fire</i> arises.... Moreover, the earth
+contains atoms from which it can raise up rich <i>corn</i> and cheerful
+<i>groves</i> for the tribes of men...." So that "no object in
+nature is constituted of one kind of elements, and whatever
+possesses in itself must numerous powers and energies, thus
+demonstrates that it contains more numerous kinds of primary
+particles,"<a id="footnotetag796" name="footnotetag796"></a>
+<a href="#footnote796"><sup class="sml">796</sup></a> or primordial "seeds of things."</p>
+
+<p>"The atoms are in a continual state of <i>motion</i>" and "have
+moved with <i>equal rapidity</i> from all eternity, since it is evident
+the vacuum can offer no resistance to the heaviest, any more
+than the lightest." The primary and original movement of all
+atoms is <i>in straight lines, by virtue of their own weight</i>. The
+vacuum separates all atoms one from another, at greater or less
+distances, and they preserve their own peculiar motion in the
+densest substances.<a id="footnotetag797" name="footnotetag797"></a>
+<a href="#footnote797"><sup class="sml">797</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote796"
+name="footnote796"><b>Footnote 796: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag796">
+(return) </a> Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 582-600.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote797"
+name="footnote797"><b>Footnote 797: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag797">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxiv.; Lucretius,
+"On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 80-92.</blockquote>
+
+<p>And now the grand crucial question arises--<i>How do atoms
+combine so as to form concrete bodies?</i> If they move in straight
+lines, and with equal rapidity from all eternity, then they can
+never unite so as to form concrete substances. They can only
+coalesce by deviating from a straight line.<a id="footnotetag798" name="footnotetag798"></a>
+<a href="#footnote798"><sup class="sml">798</sup></a> How are they
+made to deviate from a straight line? This deviation must be
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="436" >436</a></span>
+introduced <i>arbitrarily</i>, or by some <i>external cause</i>. And inasmuch
+as Epicurus admits of no causes "but space and matter,"
+and rejects all divine or supernatural interposition, the <i>new</i>
+movement must be purely arbitrary. They deviate <i>spontaneously,</i>
+and of their own accord. "The system of nature immediately
+appears <i>as a free agent</i>, released from tyrant masters, to
+do every thing of itself spontaneously, without the help of the
+gods."<a id="footnotetag799" name="footnotetag799"></a>
+<a href="#footnote799"><sup class="sml">799</sup></a> The manner in which Lucretius proves this doctrine
+is a good example of the petitio principii. He assumes, in
+opposition to the whole spirit and tendency of the Epicurean
+philosophy, that man has "a free will," and then argues that
+if man who is nothing but an aggregation of atoms, can "turn
+aside and alter his own movements," the primary elements, of
+which his soul is composed, must have some original spontaneity.
+"If all motion is connected and dependent, and a new
+movement perpetually arises from a former one in a certain
+order, and if the primary elements do not produce any commencement
+of motion by deviating from the straight line to
+break the laws of fate, so that cause may not follow cause in
+infinite succession, <i>whence comes this freedom of will</i> to all animals
+in the world? whence, I say, is this liberty of action
+wrested from the fates, by means of which we go wheresoever
+inclination leads each of us? whence is it that we ourselves
+turn aside, and alter our motions, not at any fixed time, nor in
+any fixed part of space, but just as our own minds prompt?....
+Wherefore we must necessarily confess that the same is the
+case with the seeds of matter, and there is some other cause
+besides strokes and weight [resistance and density] from which
+this power [of free movement] is innate in them, since we see
+that <i>nothing is produced from nothing</i>."<a id="footnotetag800" name="footnotetag800"></a>
+<a href="#footnote800"><sup class="sml">800</sup></a> Besides form, extension,
+and density, Epicurus has found another inherent or essential
+quality of matter or atoms, namely, "<i>spontaneous" motion.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote798"
+name="footnote798"><b>Footnote 798: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag798">
+(return) </a> "At some time, though at no fixed and determinate time, and at some
+point, though at no fixed and determinate point, they turn aside from the
+right line, but only so far as you can call the least possible deviation."--
+Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. ii. l. 216-222.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote799"
+name="footnote799"><b>Footnote 799: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag799">
+(return) </a> Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things" bk. ii. 1. 1092-1096.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote800"
+name="footnote800"><b>Footnote 800: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag800">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., bk. ii. l. 250-290.</blockquote>
+
+<p>By a slight "voluntary" deflection from the straight line,
+atoms are now brought into contact with each other; "they
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="437" >437</a></span>
+strike against each other, and by the percussion new movements
+and new complications arise"--"movements from high
+to low, from low to high, and horizontal movements to and fro,
+in virtue of this reciprocal percussion." The atoms "jostling
+about, <i>of their own accord</i>, in infinite modes, were often brought
+together confusedly, irregularly, and to no purpose, but at
+length they <i>successfully coalesced</i>; at least, such of them as were
+thrown together suddenly became, in succession, the beginnings
+of great things--as earth, and air, and sea, and heaven."<a id="footnotetag801" name="footnotetag801"></a>
+<a href="#footnote801"><sup class="sml">801</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote801"
+name="footnote801"><b>Footnote 801: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag801">
+(return) </a> Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. ii. l. 1051-1065.</blockquote>
+
+<p>And now Lucretius shall describe the formation of the different
+parts of the world according to the cosmogony of Epicurus.
+We quote from Good's translation:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>But from this boundless mass of matter first</p>
+<p>How heaven, and earth, and ocean, sun, and moon,</p>
+<p>Rose in nice order, now the muse shall tell.</p>
+<p>For never, doubtless, from result of thought,</p>
+<p>Or mutual compact, could primordial seeds</p>
+<p>First harmonize, or move with powers precise.</p>
+<p>But countless crowds in countless manners urged,</p>
+<p>From time eternal, by intrinsic weight</p>
+<p>And ceaseless repercussion, to combine</p>
+<p>In all the possibilities of forms,</p>
+<p>Of actions, and connections, and exert</p>
+<p>In every change some effort to create--</p>
+<p>Reared the rude frame at length, abruptly reared,</p>
+<p>Which, when once gendered, must the basis prove</p>
+<p>Of things sublime; and whence eventual rose</p>
+<p>Heaven, earth, and ocean, and the tribes of sense.</p>
+<br>
+<p>Yet now nor sun on fiery wheel was seen</p>
+<p>Riding sublime, nor stars adorned the pole,</p>
+<p>Nor heaven, nor earth, nor air, nor ocean lived,</p>
+<p>Nor aught of prospect mortal sight surveyed;</p>
+<p>But one vast chaos, boisterous and confused.</p>
+<p>Yet order hence began; congenial parts</p>
+<p>Parts joined congenial; and the rising world</p>
+<p>Gradual evolved: its mighty members each</p>
+<p>From each divided, and matured complete</p>
+<p>From seeds appropriate; whose wild discortderst,</p>
+<p>Reared by their strange diversities of form,</p>
+<p>With ruthless war so broke their proper paths,</p>
+<p>Their motions, intervals, conjunctions, weights,</p>
+<p>And repercussions, nought of genial act</p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="438" >438</a></span>
+<p>Till now could follow, nor the seeds themselves</p>
+<p>E'en though conjoined in mutual bonds, co</p>
+<p>Thus air, secreted, rose o'er laboring earth;</p>
+<p>Secreted ocean flowed; and the pure fire,</p>
+<p>Secreted too, toward ether sprang sublime.</p>
+<br>
+<p>But first the seeds terrene, since ponderous most</p>
+<p>And most perplext, in close embraces clung,</p>
+<p>And towards the centre conglobating sunk.</p>
+<p>And as the bond grew firmer, ampler forth</p>
+<p>Pressed they the fluid essences that reared</p>
+<p>Sun, moon, and stars, and main, and heaven's high wall.</p>
+<p>For those of atoms lighter far consist,</p>
+<p>Subtiler, and more rotund than those of earth.</p>
+<p>Whence, from the pores terrene, with foremost haste</p>
+<p>Rushed the bright ether, towering high, and swift</p>
+<p>Streams of fire attracting as it flowed.</p>
+<br>
+<p>Then mounted, next, the base of sun and moon,</p>
+<p>'Twixt earth and ether, in the midway air</p>
+<p>Rolling their orbs; for into neither these</p>
+<p>Could blend harmonious, since too light with earth</p>
+<p>To sink deprest, while yet too ponderous far</p>
+<p>To fly with ether toward the realms extreme:</p>
+<p>So 'twixt the two they hovered; <i>vital</i> there</p>
+<p>Moving forever, parts of the vast whole;</p>
+<p>As move forever in the frame of man</p>
+<p>Some active organs, while some oft repose.<a id="footnotetag802" name="footnotetag802"></a>
+<a href="#footnote802"><sup class="sml">802</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote802"
+name="footnote802"><b>Footnote 802: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag802">
+(return) </a> Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," b. v. l. 431-498</blockquote>
+
+<p>After explaining the origin and causes of the varied celestial
+phenomena, he proceeds to give an account of the production
+of plants, animals, and man:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>Once more return we to the world's pure prime,</p>
+<p>Her fields yet liquid, and the tribes survey</p>
+<p>First she put forth, and trusted to the winds.</p>
+<br>
+<p>And first the race she reared of verdant herbs,</p>
+<p>Glistening o'er every hill; the fields at large</p>
+<p>Shone with the verdant tincture, and the trees</p>
+<p>Felt the deep impulse, and with outstretched arms</p>
+<p>Broke from their bonds rejoicing. As the down</p>
+<p>Shoots from the winged nations, or from beasts</p>
+<p>Bristles or hair, so poured the new-born earth</p>
+<p>Plants, fruits, and herbage. Then, in order next,</p>
+<p>Raised she the sentient tribes, in various modes,</p>
+<p>By various powers distinguished: for not heaven</p>
+<p>Down dropped them, nor from ocean's briny waves</p>
+<p>Sprang they, terrestrial sole; whence, justly <i>Earth</i></p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="439">439</a></span>
+<p>Claims the dear name of mother, since alone</p>
+<p>Flowed from herself whate'er the sight surveys.</p>
+<br>
+<p>E'en now oft rears she many a sentient tribe</p>
+<p>By showers and sunshine ushered into day.<a id="footnotetag803" name="footnotetag803"></a>
+<a href="#footnote803"><sup class="sml">803</sup></a></p>
+<p>Whence less stupendous tribes should then have risen
+<p>More, and of ampler make, herself new-formed,</p>
+<p>In flower of youth, and <i>Ether</i> all mature.<a id="footnotetag804" name="footnotetag804"></a>
+<a href="#footnote804"><sup class="sml">804</sup></a></p>
+<br>
+<p>Of these birds first, of wing and plume diverse,</p>
+<p>Broke their light shells in spring-time: as in spring</p>
+<p>Still breaks the grasshopper his curious web,</p>
+<p>And seeks, spontaneous, foods and vital air.</p>
+<br>
+<p>Then rushed the ranks of mortals; for the soil,</p>
+<p>Exuberant then, with warmth and moisture teemed.</p>
+<p>So, o'er each scene appropriate, myriad wombs</p>
+<p>Shot, and expanded, to the genial sward</p>
+<p>By fibres fixt; and as, in ripened hour,</p>
+<p>Their liquid orbs the daring foetus broke</p>
+<p>Of breath impatient, nature here transformed</p>
+<p>Th' assenting earth, and taught her opening veins
+<p>With juice to flow lacteal; as the fair</p>
+<p>Now with sweet milk o'erflows, whose raptured breast</p>
+<p>First hails the stranger-babe, since all absorbed</p>
+<p>Of nurture, to the genial tide converts.</p>
+<p>Earth fed the nursling, the warm ether clothed,</p>
+<p>And the soft downy grass his couch compressed.<a id="footnotetag805" name="footnotetag805"></a>
+<a href="#footnote805"><sup class="sml">805</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote803"
+name="footnote803"><b>Footnote 803: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag803">
+(return) </a> The doctrine of "spontaneous generations" is still more explicitly announced
+in book ii. "Manifest appearances compel us to believe that animals,
+though possessed of sense, are generated from senseless atoms. For
+you may observe living worms proceed from foul dung, when the earth,
+moistened with immoderate showers, has contracted a kind of putrescence;
+and you may see all other things change themselves, similarly, into other
+things."--Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 867-880.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote804"
+name="footnote804"><b>Footnote 804: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag804">
+(return) </a> Ether is the father, earth the mother of all organized being.--Id., ib.,
+bk. i. l. 250-255.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote805"
+name="footnote805"><b>Footnote 805: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag805">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., bk. v. l. 795-836.</blockquote>
+
+<p>A state of pure savagism, or rather of mere animalism, was
+the primitive condition of man. He wandered naked in the
+woods, feeding on acorns and wild fruits, and quenched his
+thirst at the "echoing waterfalls," in company with the wild
+beast.</p>
+
+<p>Through the remaining part of book v. Lucretius describes
+how speech was invented; how society originated, and governments
+were instituted; how civilization commenced; and how
+religion arose out of ignorance of natural causes; how the arts
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="440">440</a></span>
+of life were discovered, and how science sprang up. And all
+this, as he is careful to tell us, without any divine instruction,
+or any assistance from the gods.</p>
+
+<p>Such are the physical theories of the Epicureans. The primordial
+elements of matter are infinite, eternal, and self-moved.
+After ages upon ages of chaotic strife, the universe at length
+arose out of an <i>infinite</i> number of atoms, and a <i>finite</i> number
+of forms, by a fortuitous combination. Plants, animals, and
+man were spontaneously generated from ether and earth. Languages,
+society, governments, arts were gradually developed.
+And all was achieved simply by blind, unconscious nature-forces,
+without any designing, presiding, and governing Intelligence--that
+is, without a God.</p>
+
+<p>The evil genius which presided over the method of Epicurus,
+and perverted all his processes of thought, is clearly apparent.
+The end of his philosophy was not the discovery of truth. He
+does not commence his inquiry into the principles or causes
+which are adequate to the explanation of the universe, with an
+unprejudiced mind. He everywhere develops a malignant
+hostility to religion, and the avowed object of his physical theories
+is to rid the human mind of all fear of supernatural powers--that
+is, of all fear of God.<a id="footnotetag806" name="footnotetag806"></a>
+<a href="#footnote806"><sup class="sml">806</sup></a> "The phenomena which men
+observe to occur in the earth and the heavens, when, as often
+happens, they are perplexed with fearful thoughts, overawe their
+minds with a dread of the gods, and humble and depress
+them to the earth. For ignorance of natural causes obliges
+them to refer all things to the power of the divinities, and to
+resign the dominion of the world to them; because of those
+effects they can by no means see the origin, and accordingly
+suppose that they are produced by divine influence."<a id="footnotetag807" name="footnotetag807"></a>
+<a href="#footnote807"><sup class="sml">807</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote806"
+name="footnote806"><b>Footnote 806: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag806">
+(return) </a> "Let us trample religion underfoot, that the victory gained over it may
+place us on an equality with heaven" (book i.). See Diogenes Laertius,
+"Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxiv. pp. 453,454 (Bohn's edition);
+Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 54-120.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote807"
+name="footnote807"><b>Footnote 807: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag807">
+(return) </a> Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. vi. l. 51-60.</blockquote>
+
+<p>To "expel these fancies from the mind" as "inconsistent with
+its tranquillity and opposed to human happiness," is the end,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="441" >441</a></span>
+and, as Lucretius believes, the glory of the Epicurean philosophy.
+To accomplish this, God must be placed at an infinite
+distance from the universe, and must be represented as indifferent
+to every thing that transpires within it. We "must beware
+of making the Deity interpose here, for that Being we
+ought to suppose <i>exempt from all occupation</i>, and perfectly happy,"<a id="footnotetag808" name="footnotetag808"></a>
+<a href="#footnote808"><sup class="sml">808</sup></a>--that
+is, absolutely impassible. God did not make the
+world, and he does not govern the world. There is no evidence
+of design or intelligence in its structure, and "such is
+the faultiness with which it stands affected, that it can not be
+the work of a Divine power."<a id="footnotetag809" name="footnotetag809"></a>
+<a href="#footnote809"><sup class="sml">809</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Epicurus is, then, an unmistakable Atheist. He did not admit
+a God in any rational sense. True, he <i>professed</i> to believe
+in gods, but evidently in a very equivocal manner, and solely
+to escape the popular condemnation. "They are not pure
+spirits, for there is no spirit in the atomic theory; they are not
+bodies, for where are the bodies that we may call gods? In
+this embarrassment, Epicurus, compelled to acknowledge that
+the human race believes in the existence of gods, addresses
+himself to an old theory of Democritus--that is, he appeals to
+dreams. As in dreams there are images that act upon and
+determine in us agreeable or painful sensations, without proceeding
+from exterior bodies, so the gods are images similar to
+those of dreams, but greater, having the human form; images
+which are not precisely bodies, and yet not deprived of materiality
+which are whatever you please, but which, in short, must
+be admitted, since the human race believes in gods, and since
+the universality of the religious sentiment is a fact which demands
+a cause."<a id="footnotetag810" name="footnotetag810"></a>
+<a href="#footnote810"><sup class="sml">810</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote808"
+name="footnote808"><b>Footnote 808: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag808">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxv.; Lucretius,
+"On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 55-60.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote809"
+name="footnote809"><b>Footnote 809: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag809">
+(return) </a> Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. v. l. 195-200.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote810"
+name="footnote810"><b>Footnote 810: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag810">
+(return) </a> Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 431.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It is needless to offer any criticism on the reasoning of Epicurus.
+One fact will have obviously presented itself to the
+mind of the reflecting reader. He starts with atoms having
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="442" >442</a></span>
+form, magnitude, and density, and essays to construct a universe;
+but he is obliged to be continually introducing, in addition,
+a "<i>nameless something</i>" which "remains in secret," to
+help him out in the explanation of the phenomena.<a id="footnotetag811" name="footnotetag811"></a>
+<a href="#footnote811"><sup class="sml">811</sup></a> He makes
+life to arise out of dead matter, sense out of senseless atoms,
+consciousness out of unconsciousness, reason out of unreason,
+without an adequate cause, and thus violates the fundamental
+principle from which he starts, "<i>that nothing can arise from
+nothing</i>."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote811"
+name="footnote811"><b>Footnote 811: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag811">
+(return) </a> As, <i>e.g.</i>, Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. iii. l. 260-290.</blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="mid"><b>EPICUREAN PSYCHOLOGY.</b>
+
+<p>In the system of Epicurus, the soul is regarded as corporeal
+or material, like the body; they form, together, one nature or
+substance. The soul is composed of atoms exceedingly diminutive,
+smooth, and round, and connected with or diffused
+through the veins, viscera, and nerves. The substance of the
+soul is not to be regarded as simple and uncompounded; its
+constituent parts are <i>aura</i>, heat, and air. These are not sufficient,
+however, even in the judgment of Epicurus, to account
+for <i>sensation</i>; they are not adequate to generate sensible motives
+such as revolve any thoughts in the mind. "A certain
+fourth nature, or substance, must, therefore, necessarily be added
+to these, <i>that is wholly without a name</i>; it is a substance,
+however, than which nothing exists more active or more subtile,
+nor is any thing more essentially composed of small and
+smooth elementary particles; and it is this substance which
+first distributes sensible motions through the members."<a id="footnotetag812" name="footnotetag812"></a>
+<a href="#footnote812"><sup class="sml">812</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote812"
+name="footnote812"><b>Footnote 812: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag812">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., bk. iii. l. 237-250.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Epicurus is at great pains to prove that the soul is material;
+and it can not be denied that he marshals his arguments with
+great skill. Modern materialism may have added additional
+illustrations, but it has contributed no new lines of proof. The
+weapons are borrowed from the old arsenal, and they are not
+wielded with any greater skill than they were by Epicurus
+himself, I. The soul and the body act and react upon each
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="443" >443</a></span>
+other; and mutual reaction can only take place between substances
+of similar nature. "Such effects can only be produced
+by <i>touch</i>, and touch can not take place without <i>body</i>."<a id="footnotetag813" name="footnotetag813"></a>
+<a href="#footnote813"><sup class="sml">813</sup></a> 2. The
+mind is produced together with the body, it grows up along
+with it, and waxes old at the same time with it.<a id="footnotetag814" name="footnotetag814"></a>
+<a href="#footnote814"><sup class="sml">814</sup></a> 3. The mind
+is diseased along with the body, "it loses its faculties by material
+causes, as intoxication, or by severe blows; and is sometimes,
+by a heavy lethargy, borne down into a deep eternal
+sleep."<a id="footnotetag815" name="footnotetag815"></a>
+<a href="#footnote815"><sup class="sml">815</sup></a> 4. The mind, like the body, is healed by medicines,
+which proves that it exists only as a mortal substance.<a id="footnotetag816" name="footnotetag816"></a>
+<a href="#footnote816"><sup class="sml">816</sup></a> 5.
+The mind does not always, and at the same time, continue <i>entire</i>
+and <i>unimpaired</i>, some faculties decay before the others,
+"the substance of the soul is therefore divided." On all these
+grounds the soul must be deemed mortal; it is dissolved along
+with the body, and has no conscious existence after death.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote813"
+name="footnote813"><b>Footnote 813: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag813">
+(return) </a> Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. iii. l. 138-168.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote814"
+name="footnote814"><b>Footnote 814: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag814">
+(return) </a>: Id., ib., bk. iii. l. 444-460.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote815"
+name="footnote815"><b>Footnote 815: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag815">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., bk. iii. l. 438-490.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote816"
+name="footnote816"><b>Footnote 816: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag816">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., bk. iii. l. 500-520.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Such being the nature of the soul, inasmuch as it is material,
+all its knowledge must be derived from sensation. The
+famous doctrine of perception, as taught by Epicurus, is grounded
+upon this pre-supposition that the soul is corporeal. "The
+ειδωλα ἀπόῤῥοιαι--<i>imagines, simulacra rerum, etc</i>., are, like pellicles,
+continually flying off from objects; and these material
+'likenesses,' diffusing themselves everywhere in the air, are
+propelled to the perceptive organs." These images of things
+coming in contact with the senses produce <i>sensation</i> (αἴσθησις).
+A sensation may be considered either as regards its object, or
+as regards him who experiences it. As regards him who experiences
+it, it is simply a passive affection, an agreeable or disagreeable
+feeling, passion, or sentiment (τὸ πάθος). But along
+with sensation there is inseparably associated some knowledge
+of the object which excites sensation; and it is for this reason
+that Epicurus marked the intimate relation of these two phenomena
+by giving them analogous names. Because the second
+phenomenon is joined to the first, he calls it ἐπαίσθησις--
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="444">444</a></span>
+<i>perception</i>. It is sensation viewed especially in regard to its
+object--<i>representative sensation</i>, or the "sensible idea" of modern
+philosophy. It is from perception that we draw our general
+ideas by a kind of prolepsis (πρόληψις) an anticipation or
+laying hold by reason of that which is implied in sensation.
+Now all sensations are alike true in so far as they are sensations,
+and error arises from false reasoning about the testimony
+of sense. All knowledge is purely relative and contingent,
+and there is no such thing as necessary and absolute truth.</p>
+
+<p>The system of Epicurus is thus a system of pure materialism,
+but not a system of materialism drawn, as a logical consequence,
+from a careful and unprejudiced study of the whole
+phenomena of mind. His openly avowed design is to deliver
+men from the fear of death, and rid them of all apprehension
+of a future retribution. "Did men but know that there was a
+fixed limit to their woes, they would be able, in some measure,
+to defy the religious fictions and menaces of the poets; but
+now, since we must fear eternal punishment at death, there is
+no mode, no means of resisting them."<a id="footnotetag817" name="footnotetag817"></a>
+<a href="#footnote817"><sup class="sml">817</sup></a>] To emancipate men
+from "these terrors of the mind," they must be taught "that
+the soul is mortal, and dissolves with the body"--that "death
+is nothing to us, for that which is dissolved is devoid of sensation,
+and that which is devoid of sensation is nothing to us."<a id="footnotetag818" name="footnotetag818"></a>
+<a href="#footnote818"><sup class="sml">818</sup></a>
+Starting with the fixed determination to prove that</p>
+
+<p class="mid">"Death is nothing, and naught after death,"</p>
+
+<p>he will not permit any mental phenomena to suggest to him
+the idea of an incorporeal spiritual substance. Matter, under
+any form known to Epicurus, is confessedly insufficient to explain
+sensation and thought; a "nameless something" must
+be <i>supposed</i>. But may not "that principle which <i>lies entirely
+hid, and remains in secret</i>"<a id="footnotetag819" name="footnotetag819"></a>
+<a href="#footnote819"><sup class="sml">819</sup></a>--and about which even Epicurus
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="445">445</a></span>
+does not know any thing--be a spiritual, an <i>immaterial</i> principle?
+For aught that he knows it may as properly be called
+"<i>spirit</i>" as matter. May not <i>sensation</i> and <i>cognition</i> be the result
+of the union of matter and spirit; and if so, may not their
+mutual affections, their common sympathies, be the necessary
+conditions of sensation and cognition in the present life? A
+reciprocal relation between body and mind appears in all mental
+phenomena. A certain proportion in this relation is called
+mental health. A deviation from it is termed disease. This
+proportion is by no means an equilibrium, but the perfect
+adaptation of the body, without injury to its integrity, to the
+purposes of the mind. And if this be so, all the arguments of
+materialism fall to the ground.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote817"
+name="footnote817"><b>Footnote 817: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag817">
+(return) </a> Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 100-118.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote818"
+name="footnote818"><b>Footnote 818: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag818">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, Maxim 2, in "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch.
+xxxi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote819"
+name="footnote819"><b>Footnote 819: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag819">
+(return) </a> Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. iii. l. 275-280.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The concluding portion of the third book, in which Lucretius
+discourses on <i>death</i>, is a mournful picture of the condition
+of the heathen mind before Christianity "brought life and immortality
+fully to light." It comes to us, like a voice from the
+grave of two thousand years, to prove they were "without
+hope." To be delivered from the fear of future retribution,
+they would sacrifice the hope of an immortal life. To extintinguish
+guilt they would annihilate the soul. The only way
+in which Lucretius can console man in prospect of death is,
+by reminding him that he will <i>escape the ills of life</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>"'But thy dear home shall never greet thee more!</p>
+<p>No more the best of wives!--thy babes beloved,</p>
+<p>Whose haste half-met thee, emulous to snatch</p>
+<p>The dulcet kiss that roused thy secret soul,</p>
+<p>Again shall never hasten!--nor thine arm,</p>
+<p>With deeds heroic, guard thy country's weal!--</p>
+<p>Oh mournful, mournful fate!' thy friends exclaim!</p>
+<p>'One envious hour of these invalued joys</p>
+<p>Robs thee forever!--But they add not here,</p>
+<p>'<i>It robs thee, too, of all desire of joy</i>'--</p>
+<p>A truth, once uttered, that the mind would free</p>
+<p>From every dread and trouble. 'Thou art safe</p>
+<p>The sleep of death protects thee, <i>and secures</i></p>
+<p><i>From all the unnumbered woes of mortal life!</i></p>
+<p>While we, alas! the sacred urn around</p>
+<p>That holds thine ashes, shall insatiate weep,</p>
+<p>Nor time destroy the eternal grief we feel!'</p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="446" >446</a></span>
+<p>What, then, has death, if death be mere repose,</p>
+<p>And quiet only in a peaceful grave,--</p>
+<p>What has it thus to mar this life of man?"<a id="footnotetag820" name="footnotetag820"></a>
+<a href="#footnote820"><sup class="sml">820</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote820"
+name="footnote820"><b>Footnote 820: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag820">
+(return) </a> Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. iii. l. 906-926.</blockquote>
+
+<p>This is all the comfort that Epicureanism can offer; and if
+"the wretch still laments the approach of death," she addresses
+him "with voice severe"--</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>"Vile coward! dry thine eyes--<p>
+<p>Hence with thy snivelling sorrows, and depart!"<p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It is evident that such a system of philosophy outrages the
+purest and noblest sentiments of humanity, and, in fact, condemns
+itself. It was born of selfishness and social degeneracy,
+and could perpetuate itself only in an age of corruption, because
+it inculcated the lawfulness of sensuality and the impunity of
+injustice. Its existence at this precise period in Grecian history
+forcibly illustrates the truth, that Atheism is a disease of
+the heart rather than the head. It seeks to set man free to
+follow his own inclinations, by ridding him of all faith in a
+Divinity and in an immortal life, and thus exonerating him
+from all accountability and all future retribution. But it failed
+to perceive that, in the most effectual manner, it annihilated
+all real liberty, all true nobleness, and made of man an abject
+slave.</p>
+
+<p class="mid"><b>STOICISM.</b></p>
+
+<p>The Stoical school was founded by Zeno of Citium, who
+flourished B.C. 290. He taught in the Stoa Poecile, or Painted
+Porch; and his disciples thence derived the name of Stoics.
+Zeno was succeeded by Cleanthes (B.C. 260); and Cleanthes
+by Chrysippus (B.C. 240), whose vigorous intellect gave unity
+and completeness to the Stoical philosophy. He is reported
+to have said to Cleanthes,--"Give me your doctrines, and I
+will find the demonstrations."<a id="footnotetag821" name="footnotetag821"></a>
+<a href="#footnote821"><sup class="sml">821</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote821"
+name="footnote821"><b>Footnote 821: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag821">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii. ch. vii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>None of the writings of the early Stoics, save a "Hymn to
+Jupiter," by Cleanthes, have survived. We are chiefly indebted
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="447" >447</a></span>
+to Diogenes Laertius<a id="footnotetag822" name="footnotetag822"></a>
+<a href="#footnote822"><sup class="sml">822</sup></a> and Cicero<a id="footnotetag823" name="footnotetag823"></a>
+<a href="#footnote823"><sup class="sml">823</sup></a> for an insight into their
+system. The Hymn of Cleanthes sheds some light on their
+Theology, and their moral principles are exhibited in "The
+Fragments" of Epictetus, and "The Life and Meditations" of
+Marcus Aurelius.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote822"
+name="footnote822"><b>Footnote 822: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag822">
+(return) </a> "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote823"
+name="footnote823"><b>Footnote 823: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag823">
+(return) </a> "De Fm.," and "De Natura Deorum."</blockquote>
+
+<p>The philosophy of the Stoics, like that of the Epicureans,
+was mainly a philosophy of life--that is, a <i>moral</i> philosophy.
+The manner in which they approached the study of morals, and
+the principles upon which they grounded morality, were, however,
+essentially different.</p>
+
+<p>The grand object of Epicurus was to make the current of
+life flow on as comfortably as possible, without any distracting
+thoughts of the past or any disturbing visions of the future.
+He therefore starts with this fundamental principle, that the
+true philosophy of life is to enjoy one's self--the aim of existence
+is to be happy. Whatever in a man's beliefs or conduct
+tends to secure happiness is <i>right</i>; whatever awakens uneasiness,
+apprehension, or fear, is <i>wrong</i>. And inasmuch as the
+idea of a Divine Creator and Governor of the universe, and
+the belief in a future life and retribution, are uncomfortable
+thoughts, exciting superstitious fears, they ought to be rejected.
+The Physics and the Psychology of Epicurus are thus the natural
+outgrowth of his Morality.</p>
+
+<p>Zeno was evidently a more earnest, serious, and thoughtful
+man. He cherished a nobler ideal of life than to suppose
+"man must do voluntarily, what the brute does instinctively--
+eschew pain, and seek pleasure." He therefore seeks to ascertain
+whether there be not some "principle of nature," or some
+law of nature, which determines what is right in human action
+--whether there be not some light under which, on contemplating
+an action, we may at once pronounce upon its intrinsic
+<i>rightness</i>, or otherwise. This he believes he has found in the
+<i>universal reason</i> which fashioned, and permeates, and vivifies
+the universe, and is the light and life of the human soul. The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="448">448</a></span>
+chief good is, confessedly, to live according to nature; which is
+to live according to virtue, for nature leads us to that point....
+For our individual natures are all part of the universal nature;
+on which account, the chief good is to live in a manner
+corresponding to one's own nature, and to universal nature;
+doing none of those things which the common law of mankind
+(the universal conscience of our race) forbids. <i>That common
+law is identical with</i> RIGHT REASON <i>which pervades every thing,
+being the same with Jupiter</i> (Ζεύς), <i>who is the regulator and chief
+manager of all existing things</i>.<a id="footnotetag824" name="footnotetag824"></a>
+<a href="#footnote824"><sup class="sml">824</sup></a> The foundation of the ethical
+system of the Stoics is thus laid in their philosophy of nature
+--their Physiology and Psychology. If, therefore, we would
+apprehend the logical connection and unity of Stoicism, we
+must follow their order of thought--that is, we must commence
+with their</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote824"
+name="footnote824"><b>Footnote 824: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag824">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii. ch. liii.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="mid"><b>PHYSIOLOGY.</b></p>
+
+<p>Diogenes Laertius tells us that the Stoics held "that there
+are two general principles in the universe--the <i>passive</i> principle
+(τὸ πάσχον), which is matter, an existence without any distinctive
+quality, and the <i>active</i> principle (τὸ ποιοῦν), which is
+the reason existing in the passive, that is to say, God. For
+that He, being eternal, and existing throughout all matter,
+makes every thing."<a id="footnotetag825" name="footnotetag825"></a>
+<a href="#footnote825"><sup class="sml">825</sup></a> This Divine Reason, acting upon matter,
+originates the necessary and unchangeable laws which govern
+matter--laws which the Stoics called λόγοι σπερµατικοί--
+generating reasons or causes of things. The laws of the world
+are, like eternal reason, necessary and immutable; hence the
+εἱµαρµένη--the <i>Destiny</i> of the Stoics, which is also one of the
+names of the Deity.<a id="footnotetag826" name="footnotetag826"></a>
+<a href="#footnote826"><sup class="sml">826</sup></a> But by Destiny the Stoics could not
+understand a blind unconscious necessity; it is rather the
+highest reason in the universe. "Destiny (εἱµαρµένη) is a connected
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="449" >449</a></span>
+(εἰροµένη) cause of things, or the reason according to
+which the world is regulated."<a id="footnotetag827" name="footnotetag827"></a>
+<a href="#footnote827"><sup class="sml">827</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote825"
+name="footnote825"><b>Footnote 825: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag825">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., bk. vii. ch. lxviii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote826"
+name="footnote826"><b>Footnote 826: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag826">
+(return) </a> "They teach that God is unity, and that he is called Mind, and <i>Fate</i>,
+and Jupiter."--Id., ib., bk. vii. ch. lxviii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote827"
+name="footnote827"><b>Footnote 827: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag827">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii. ch. lxxiv.</blockquote>
+
+<p>These two principles are not, however, regarded by the Stoics
+as having a distinct, separate, and independent existence.
+One is substance (οὐσία); the other is quality (ποῖος). The
+primordial matter is the passive ground of all existence--the
+original substratum for the Divine activity. The Divine Reason
+is the active or formative energy which dwells within, and
+is essentially united to, the primary substance. The Stoics,
+therefore, regarded all existence as reducible, in its last analysis,
+to <i>one substance</i>, which on the side of its passivity and capacity
+of change, they called <i>hyle</i> (ὕλη);<a id="footnotetag828" name="footnotetag828"></a>
+<a href="#footnote828"><sup class="sml">828</sup></a> and on the side of its
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="450">450</a></span>
+changeless energy and immutable order, they called God. The
+corporeal world--physical nature--is "a peculiar manifestation"
+of God, generated from his own substance, and, after certain
+periods, absorbed in himself. Thus God, considered in
+the evolution of His power, is nature. And nature, as attached
+to its immanent principle, is called God.<a id="footnotetag829" name="footnotetag829"></a>
+<a href="#footnote829"><sup class="sml">829</sup></a> The fundamental
+doctrine of the Stoics was a spiritual, ideal, intellectual pantheism,
+of which the proper formula is, <i>All things are God, but God
+is not all things</i>.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote828"
+name="footnote828"><b>Footnote 828: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag828">
+(return) </a> Or "matter." A good deal of misapprehension has arisen from confounding
+the intellectual ὕλη of Aristotle and the Stoics with the gross physical
+"matter" of the modern physicist. By "matter" we now understand
+that which is corporeal, tangible, sensible; whereas by ὕλη, Aristotle and
+the Stoics (who borrowed the term from him) understood that which is incorporeal,
+intangible, and inapprehensible to sense,--an "unknown something"
+which must necessarily be <i>supposed</i> as the condition of the existence
+of things. The <i>formal</i> cause of Aristotle is "the substance and essence"--
+the primary nature of things, on which all their properties depend. The <i>material</i>
+cause is "the matter or subject" through which the primary nature
+manifests itself. Unfortunately the term "material" misleads the modern
+thinker. He is in danger of supposing the <i>hyle</i> of Aristotle to be something
+sensible and physical, whereas it is an intellectual principle whose inherence
+is implied in any physical thing. It is something distinct from <i>body</i>, and has
+none of those properties we are now accustomed to ascribe to matter. Body,
+corporeity, is the result of the union of "hyle" and "form." Stobaeus thus
+expounds the doctrine of Aristotle: Form alone, separate from matter (ὕλη)
+is <i>incorporeal</i>; so matter alone, separated from form, is not <i>body</i>. But there
+is need of the joint concurrence of both these--matter and form--to make
+the substance of body. Every individual substance is thus a totality of
+matter and form--a σίνολον.
+
+<p>The Stoics taught that God is <i>oneliness</i> (Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the
+Philosophers," bk. vii. ch. lxviii.); that he is <i>eternal</i> and <i>immortal</i> (bk. vii.
+ch. lxxii.); he could not, therefore, be corporeal, for "body <i>infinite, divisible,</i>
+and <i>perishable</i>" (bk. vii. ch. lxxvii.). "All the parts of the world are perishable,
+for they change one into another; therefore the world is perishable"
+(bk. vii. ch. lxx.). The Deity is not, therefore, absolutely identified
+with the world by the Stoics. He permeates all things, creates and dissolves
+all things, and is, therefore, <i>more</i> than all things. The world is finite;
+God is infinite.</p></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote829"
+name="footnote829"><b>Footnote 829: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag829">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii. ch. lxx.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Schwegler affirms that, in physics, the Stoics, for the most
+part, followed Heraclitus, and especially "carried out the proposition
+that nothing incorporeal exists; every thing is essentially
+<i>corporeal</i>." The pantheism of Zeno is therefore "<i>materialistic.</i>"<a id="footnotetag830" name="footnotetag830"></a>
+<a href="#footnote830"><sup class="sml">830</sup></a>
+This is not a just representation of the views of the
+early Stoics, and can not be sustained by a fair interpretation
+of their teaching. They say that principles and elements differ
+from each other. Principles have no generation or beginning,
+and will have no end; but elements may be destroyed.
+Also, that elements have bodies, and have forms, <i>but principles
+have no bodies, and no forms</i>.<a id="footnotetag831" name="footnotetag831"></a>
+<a href="#footnote831"><sup class="sml">831</sup></a> Principles are, therefore, <i>incorporeal.</i>
+Furthermore, Cicero tells us that they taught that the
+universal harmony of the world resulted from all things being
+"contained by one <i>Divine</i> SPIRIT;"<a id="footnotetag832" name="footnotetag832"></a>
+<a href="#footnote832"><sup class="sml">832</sup></a> and also, that reason in
+man is "nothing else but part of the <i>Divine</i> SPIRIT merged into
+a human body."<a id="footnotetag833" name="footnotetag833"></a>
+<a href="#footnote833"><sup class="sml">833</sup></a> It thus seems evident that the Stoics made
+a distinction between corruptible <i>elements</i> (fire, air, earth, water)
+and incorruptible <i>principles</i>, by which and out of which elements
+were generated, and also between corporeal and incorporeal
+substances.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote830"
+name="footnote830"><b>Footnote 830: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag830">
+(return) </a> Schwegler's "History of Philosophy," p. 140.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote831"
+name="footnote831"><b>Footnote 831: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag831">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii. ch. lxviii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote832"
+name="footnote832"><b>Footnote 832: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag832">
+(return) </a> "De Natura Deorum," bk. ii. ch. xiii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote833"
+name="footnote833"><b>Footnote 833: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag833">
+(return) </a> Ibid, bk. ii. ch. xxxi.</blockquote>
+
+<p>On a careful collation of the fragmentary remains of the
+early Stoics, we fancy we catch glimpses of the theory held by
+some modern pantheists, that the material elements, "having
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="451">451</a></span>
+body and form," are a vital transformation of the Divine substance;
+and that the forces of nature--"the generating causes
+or reasons of things" (λόγοι σπερµατικοί)--are a conscious transmutation
+of the Divine energy. This theory is more than
+hinted in the following passages, which we slightly transpose
+from the order in which they stand in Diogenes Laertius, without
+altering their meaning. "They teach that the Deity was
+in the beginning by <i>himself</i>".... that "first of all, he made
+the four elements, fire, water, air, and earth." "The fire is the
+highest, and that is called æther, in which, first of all, the
+sphere was generated in which the fixed stars are set...;
+after that the air; then the water; and the sediment, as it were,
+of all, is the earth, which is placed in the centre of the rest."
+"He turned into water the whole substance which pervaded
+the air; and as the seed is contained in the product, so, too,
+He, being the seminal principle of the world, remained still in
+moisture, making matter fit to be employed by himself in the
+production of things which were to come after."<a id="footnotetag834" name="footnotetag834"></a>
+<a href="#footnote834"><sup class="sml">834</sup></a> The Deity
+thus draws the universe out of himself, transmuting the divine
+substance into body and form. "God is a being of a certain
+quality, having for his peculiar manifestation universal substance.
+He is a being imperishable, and who never had any
+generation, being the maker of the arrangement and order that
+we see; and who at certain periods of time <i>absorbs all substance
+in himself and then reproduces it from himself</i>."<a id="footnotetag835" name="footnotetag835"></a>
+<a href="#footnote835"><sup class="sml">835</sup></a> And
+now, in the last analysis, it would seem as though every thing
+is resolved into <i>force</i>. God and the world are <i>power, and its
+manifestation</i>, and these are ultimately one. "This identification
+of God and the world, according to which the Stoics
+regarded the whole formation of the universe as but a period
+in the development of God, renders their remaining doctrine
+concerning the world very simple. Every thing in the world
+seemed to be permeated by the Divine life, and was regarded
+as the flowing out of this most perfect life through certain
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="452">452</a></span>
+channels, until it returns, in a necessary circle, back to
+itself."<a id="footnotetag836" name="footnotetag836"></a>
+<a href="#footnote836"><sup class="sml">836</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote834"
+name="footnote834"><b>Footnote 834: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag834">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii. ch. lxviii., lxix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote835"
+name="footnote835"><b>Footnote 835: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag835">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., bk. vii. ch. lxx.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote836"
+name="footnote836"><b>Footnote 836: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag836">
+(return) </a> Schwegler's "History of Philosophy," p. 141.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The God of the Stoics is not, however, a mere principle of
+life vitalizing nature, but an <i>intelligent</i> principle directing nature;
+and, above all, a <i>moral</i> principle, governing the human
+race. "God is a living being, immortal, rational, perfect, and
+intellectual in his happiness, unsusceptible of any kind of evil;
+having a foreknowledge of the world, and of all that is in the
+world."<a id="footnotetag837" name="footnotetag837"></a>
+<a href="#footnote837"><sup class="sml">837</sup></a> He is also the gracious Providence which cares for
+the individual as well as for the whole; and he is the author of
+that natural law which commands the good and prohibits the
+bad. "He made men to this end that they might be happy;
+as becomes his fatherly care of us, he placed our good and
+evil in those things which are in our own power."<a id="footnotetag838" name="footnotetag838"></a>
+<a href="#footnote838"><sup class="sml">838</sup></a> The Providence
+and Fatherhood of God are strikingly presented in the
+"Hymn of Cleanthes" to Jupiter--</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote837"
+name="footnote837"><b>Footnote 837: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag837">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii. ch. lxxii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote838"
+name="footnote838"><b>Footnote 838: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag838">
+(return) </a> Marcus Aurelius, bk. iii. ch. xxiv.</blockquote>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>Most glorious of the immortal Powers above!</p>
+<p>O thou of many names! mysterious Jove:</p>
+<p>For evermore almighty! Nature's source!</p>
+<p>Thou governest all things in their order'd course!</p>
+<p>All hail to thee! since, innocent of blame,</p>
+<p>E'en mortal creatures may address thy name;</p>
+<p>For all that breathe, and creep the lowly earth,</p>
+<p>Echo thy being with reflected birth--</p>
+<p>Thee will I sing, thy strength for aye resound:</p>
+<p>The universe, that rolls this globe around,</p>
+<p>Moves wheresoe'er thy plastic influence guides,</p>
+<p>And, ductile, owns the god whose arm presides.</p>
+<p>The lightnings are thy ministers of ire;</p>
+<p>The double-forked and ever-living fire;</p>
+<p>In thy unconquerable hands they glow,</p>
+<p>And at the flash all nature quakes below.</p>
+<p>Thus, thunder-armed, thou dost creation draw</p>
+<p>To one immense, inevitable law:</p>
+<p>And, with the various mass of breathing souls,</p>
+<p>Thy power is mingled, and thy spirit rolls.</p>
+<p>Dread genius of creation! all things bow</p>
+<p>To thee: the universal monarch thou!</p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="453" >453</a></span>
+<p>Nor aught is done without thy wise control,</p>
+<p>On earth, or sea, or round the ethereal pole,</p>
+<p>Save when the wicked, in their frenzy blind,</p>
+<p>Act o'er the follies of a senseless mind,</p>
+<p>Thou curb'st th' excess; confusion, to thy sight,</p>
+<p>Moves regular; th' unlovely scene is bright.</p>
+<p>Thy hand, educing good from evil, brings</p>
+<p>To one apt harmony the strife of things.</p>
+<p>One ever-during law still binds the whole,</p>
+<p>Though shunned, resisted, by the sinner's soul.</p>
+<p>Wretches! while still they course the glittering prize</p>
+<p>The law of God eludes their ears and eyes.</p>
+<p>Life, then, were virtue, did they thus obey;</p>
+<p>But wide from life's chief good they headlong stray.</p>
+<p>Now glory's arduous toils the breast inflame;</p>
+<p>Now avarice thirsts, insensible of shame;</p>
+<p>Now sloth unnerves them in voluptuous ease,</p>
+<p>And the sweet pleasures of the body please.</p>
+<p>With eager haste they rush the gulf within,</p>
+<p>And their whole souls are centred in their sin.</p>
+<p>But, oh, great Jove! by whom all good is given!</p>
+<p>Dweller with lightnings and the clouds of heaven!</p>
+<p>Save from their dreadful error lost mankind!</p>
+<p>Father! disperse these shadows of the mind!</p>
+<p>Give them thy pure and righteous law to know;</p>
+<p>Wherewith thy justice governs all below.</p>
+<p>Thus honored by the knowledge of thy way,</p>
+<p>Shall men that honor to thyself repay;</p>
+<p>And bid thy mighty works in praises ring,</p>
+<p>As well befits a mortal's lips to sing:</p>
+<p>More blest, nor men, nor heavenly powers can be,</p>
+<p>Than when their songs are of thy law and thee.<a id="footnotetag839" name="footnotetag839"></a>
+<a href="#footnote839"><sup class="sml">839</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote839"
+name="footnote839"><b>Footnote 839: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag839">
+(return) </a> Sir C. A. Elton's version, published in "Specimens of Ancient Poets,"
+edited by William Peters, A. M., Christ Church, Oxford.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="mid"><b>PSYCHOLOGY.</b></p>
+
+<p>As in the world there are two principles, the passive and
+the active, so in the understanding there are two elements: a
+passive element--<i>sensation</i>, and an active element--<i>reason</i>.</p>
+
+<p>All knowledge commences with the phenomena of sensation
+(αἴσθησις). This produces in the soul an image (φαντασία),
+which corresponds to the exterior object, and which Chrysippus
+regarded as a modification of the mind (ἀλλοίωσις).<a id="footnotetag840" name="footnotetag840"></a>
+<a href="#footnote840"><sup class="sml">840</sup></a></p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="454">454</a></span>
+
+<p>Associate with sensibility is thought--the faculty of general ideas--the
+ὀρθὸς λόγος, or right reason, as the supreme power and the
+guiding light of humanity. This active principle is of divine
+origin, "a part or shred of the Divinity."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote840"
+name="footnote840"><b>Footnote 840: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag840">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii. ch. xxxiv.</blockquote>
+
+<p>This "right reason," or "common reason," is the source
+and criterion of all truth; "for our individual natures are all
+parts of the universal nature," and, therefore, all the dictates
+of "common reason" are "identical with that right reason
+which pervades every thing, being the same with Jupiter, who
+is the regulator and chief manager of all things."</p>
+
+<p>The fundamental canon of the logic of the Stoics, therefore,
+was that "what appears to all, that is to be believed, for it is
+apprehended by the reason, which is common and Divine."</p>
+
+<p>It is needless to remark that the Stoics were compelled by
+their physiological theory to deny the proper immortality of the
+soul. Some of them seem to have supposed that it might, for
+a season, survive the death of the body, but its ultimate destination
+was absorption into the Divine essence. It must return
+to its original source.</p>
+
+<p class="mid"><b>ETHICS.</b></p>
+
+<p>If reason be the great organizing and controlling law of the
+universe, then, to live conformable to reason is the great practical
+law of life. Accordingly, the fundamental ethical maxim
+of the Stoics is, "Live conformably with nature--that is, with
+reason, or the will of the universal governor and manager of all
+things."<a id="footnotetag841" name="footnotetag841"></a>
+<a href="#footnote841"><sup class="sml">841</sup></a> Thus the chief good (εὐδαιµονία) is the conformity
+of man's actions to reason--that is, to the will of God, "for
+nothing is well done without a reference to God."<a id="footnotetag842" name="footnotetag842"></a>
+<a href="#footnote842"><sup class="sml">842</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote841"
+name="footnote841"><b>Footnote 841: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag841">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii. ch. liii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote842"
+name="footnote842"><b>Footnote 842: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag842">
+(return) </a> Marcus Aurelius, bk. iii. § II.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It is obvious that this doctrine must lead to a social morality
+and a jurisprudence the very opposite of the Epicurean.
+If we must do that which is good--that is, that which is reasonable,
+regardless of all consequences, then it is not for the
+pleasurable or useful results which flow from it that justice
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="455" >455</a></span>
+should be practised, but because of its intrinsic excellence.
+Justice is constituted good, not by the law of man, but by the
+law of God. The highest pleasure is to do right; "this very
+thing is the virtue of the happy man, and the perfect happiness
+of life, when every thing is done according to a harmony of the
+genius of each individual to the will of the Universal Governor
+and Manager of all things."<a id="footnotetag843" name="footnotetag843"></a>
+<a href="#footnote843"><sup class="sml">843</sup></a> Every thing which interferes
+with a purely rational existence is to be eschewed; the pleasures
+and pains of the body are to be despised. To triumph
+over emotion, over suffering, over passion; to give the fullest
+ascendency to reason; to attain courage, moral energy, magnanimity,
+constancy, was to realize true manhood, nay, "to be
+godlike; for they have something in them which is, as it were,
+a god"<a id="footnotetag844" name="footnotetag844"></a>
+<a href="#footnote844"><sup class="sml">844</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>The sublime heroism of the Stoic school is well expressed
+in the manly precept, "Ἀνεχοῦ"--<i>sustine</i>--endure. "Endure
+the sorrows engendered by the bitter struggle between the passions
+support all the evils which fortune shall send thee--calumny,
+betrayal, poverty, exile, irons, death itself." In Epictetus
+and Marcus Aurelius this spirit seems to rise almost to
+the grandeur of Christian resignation. "Dare to lift up thine
+eyes to God and say, 'Use me hereafter to whatsoever thou
+pleasest. I agree, and am of the same mind with thee, indifferent
+to all things. Lead me whither thou pleasest. Let me
+act what part thou wilt, either of a public or a private person,
+of a rich man or a beggar.'"<a id="footnotetag845" name="footnotetag845"></a>
+<a href="#footnote845"><sup class="sml">845</sup></a> "Show those qualities," says
+Marcus Aurelius, "which God hath put in thy power--sincerity,
+gravity, endurance of labor, aversion to pleasure, contentment
+with thy portion and with few things, benevolence, frankness,
+no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling, magnanimity."<a id="footnotetag846" name="footnotetag846"></a>
+<a href="#footnote846"><sup class="sml">846</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote843"
+name="footnote843"><b>Footnote 843: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag843">
+(return) </a> Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii. ch. liii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote844"
+name="footnote844"><b>Footnote 844: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag844">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., bk. vii. ch. xliv.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote845"
+name="footnote845"><b>Footnote 845: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag845">
+(return) </a> Arrian, "Diss. Epict.," bk. ii. ch. xviii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote846"
+name="footnote846"><b>Footnote 846: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag846">
+(return) </a> "I read to-day part of the 'Meditations of Marcus Antonius' [Aurelius].
+What a strange emperor! And what a strange heathen! Giving
+thanks to God for all the good things he enjoyed! In particular for his
+good inspirations, and for twice revealing to him, in dreams, things wherby
+he was cured of (otherwise) incurable distempers. I make no doubt but
+this is one of the 'many' who shall come from the east and the west, and
+sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,' while the 'children of the kingdom'--
+nominal Christians--are 'shut out.'"--Wesley's "Journal," vol. i,
+p. 353.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="456">456</a></span>
+
+<p>Amid the fearful moral degeneracy of imperial Rome, Stoicism
+became the refuge of all noble spirits. But, in spite of its
+severity, and its apparent triumph over the feelings, it brought
+no real freedom and peace. "Stoical morality, strictly speaking,
+is, at bottom, only a slavish morality, excellent in Epictetus;
+admirable still, but useless to the world, in Marcus Aurelius."
+Pride takes the place of real disinterestedness. It
+stands alone in haughty grandeur and solitary isolation, tainted
+with an incurable egoism. Disheartened by its metaphysical
+impotence, which robs God of all personality, and man of all
+hope of immortality; defeated in its struggle to obtain purity
+of soul, it sinks into despair, and often terminates, as in the
+case of its two first leaders, Zeno and Cleanthes, and the two
+Romans, Cato and Seneca, in self-murder. "Thus philosophy
+is only an apprenticeship of death, and not of life; it tends to
+death by its image, <i>apathy</i> and <i>ataraxy.</i>"<a id="footnotetag847" name="footnotetag847"></a>
+<a href="#footnote847"><sup class="sml">847</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote847"
+name="footnote847"><b>Footnote 847: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag847">
+(return) </a> Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 439.</blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="457" >457</a></span></p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIV.</h3>
+
+<h3>THE PROPÆDEUTIC OFFICE OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY.</h3>
+
+<p>"Philosophy, before the coming of the Lord, was necessary to the
+Greeks for righteousness, and it now proved useful for godliness, being in
+some part a preliminary discipline (προπαιδεία τις οὖσα) for those who reap
+the fruits of faith through demonstration. Perhaps we may say it was given
+to the Greeks with this special object; for philosophy was to the Greeks
+what the Law was to the Jews, 'a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ.'"
+--CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS.</p>
+
+<p>Philosophy, says Cousin, is the effort of <i>reflection</i>--the
+attempt of the human mind to develop in systematic and
+logical form that which has dimly revealed itself in the spontaneous
+thought of ages, and to account to itself in some manner
+for its native and instinctive beliefs. We may further add, it
+is the effort of the human mind to attain to truth and certitude
+on purely rational grounds, uncontrolled by traditional authorities.
+The sublime era of Greek philosophy was, in fact,
+an independent effort of human reason to solve the great problems
+of existence, of knowledge, and of duty. It was an attempt
+to explain the phenomenal history of the universe, to interpret
+the fundamental ideas and laws of human reason, to
+comprehend the utterances of conscience, and to ascertain
+what Ultimate and Supreme Reality underlies the world of
+phenomena, of thought, and of moral feeling.<a id="footnotetag848" name="footnotetag848"></a>
+<a href="#footnote848"><sup class="sml">848</sup></a> And it is this
+which, for us, constitutes its especial value; that it was, as far
+as possible, a result of simple reason; or, if at any time Faith
+asserted its authority, the distinction is clearly marked: If
+this inquiry was fully, and honestly, and logically conducted,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="458" >458</a></span>
+we are entitled to presume that the results attain by this
+effort of speculative thought must harmonize with the positive
+utterances of the Divine Logos--the Eternal Reason, whose
+revelations are embalmed and transmitted to us in the Word
+of God. If the great truth that man is "the <i>offspring of God"</i>
+and as such "<i>the image and glory of God</i>" which is asserted,
+alike, by Paul and the poet-philosophers of Tarsus and Mysia,
+be admitted, then we may expect that the reason of man shall
+have some correlation with the Divine reason. The mind of
+man is the <i>chef-d'œuvre</i> of Divine art. It is fashioned after the
+model which the Divine nature supplies. "Let us make man
+in <i>our</i> image after <i>our</i> likeness." That image consists in
+ἐπίγνωσις--<i>knowledge;</i> δικαιοσύνη--<i>justice</i>; and ὁσιότης--<i>benevolence.</i>
+It is not merely the <i>capacity</i> to know, to be just, and to
+be beneficent; it is <i>actual</i> knowledge, justice, and benevolence.
+It supposes, first, that the fundamental ideas of the true, the
+just, and the good, are connate to the human mind; second,
+that the native determination of the mind is towards the realization
+of these ideas in every mental state and every form of
+human activity; third, that there is a constitutional sympathy
+of reason with the ideas of truth, and righteousness, and goodness,
+as they dwell in the reason of God. And though man be
+now fallen, there is still within his heart some vestige of his
+primal nature. There is still a sense of the divine, a religious
+aptitude, "a feeling after God," and some longing to return to
+Him. There are still ideas in the reason, which, in their natural
+and logical development compel him to recognize a God.
+There is within his conscience a sense of duty, of obligation,
+and accountability to a Superior Power--"a law of the mind,"
+thought opposed and antagonized by depraved passions and
+appetites--"the law in the members." There is yet a natural,
+constitutional sympathy of reason with the law of God--"it
+delights in that law," and consents "that it is good," but it is
+overborne and obstructed by passion. Man, even as unregenerate,
+"wills to do that which is good," but "how to perform
+that which is good he finds not," and in the agony of his soul
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="459" >459</a></span>
+he exclaims, "Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
+me!"<a id="footnotetag849" name="footnotetag849"></a>
+<a href="#footnote849"><sup class="sml">849</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote848"
+name="footnote848"><b>Footnote 848: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag848">
+(return) </a> Plato sought also to attain to the Ultimate Reality underlying all æsthetic
+feeling--the Supreme Beauty as well as the Supreme Good.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote849"
+name="footnote849"><b>Footnote 849: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag849">
+(return) </a> Romans, ch. vii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The Author of nature is also the Author of revelation. The
+Eternal Father of the Eternal Son, who is the grand medium
+of all God's direct communications to our race--the revealer
+of God, is also "the Father of the spirits of all flesh." That
+divine inbreathing which first constituted man "a living soul"
+--that "inspiration of the Almighty which giveth man understanding,"
+and still "teacheth him knowledge," proceeds from
+the same Spirit as that which inspires the prophets and seers
+of the Old Testament Church, and the Apostles and teachers
+of the new. That "true light which lighteth every man that
+cometh into the world" shone on the mind of Anaxagoras, and
+Socrates, and Plato, as well as on the mind of Abraham and
+Rahab, Cornelius and the Syro-Phoenician woman, and, in a
+higher form, and with a clearer and richer effulgence, on the
+mind of Moses, Isaiah, Paul and John. It is not to be wondered
+at, then, if, in the teaching of Socrates and Plato, we
+should find a striking <i>harmony</i> of sentiment, and even form of
+expression, with some parts of the Christian revelation. No
+short-sighted jealousy ought to impugn the honesty of our judgment,
+if, in the speculations of Plato, we catch glimpses of a
+world of ideas not unlike that which Christianity discloses, and
+hear words not unfamiliar to those who spake as they were
+moved by the Holy Ghost.</p>
+
+<p>If, then, there exists some correlation between Divine and
+human reason, and if the light which illuminates all minds in
+Christian and in heathen lands is the <i>same</i> "true light," though
+differing in degrees of brightness, it is most natural and reasonable
+to expect some connection and some correspondence
+between the discoveries of philosophy and the revelations of
+the Sacred Oracles.</p>
+
+<p>Although Christianity is confessedly something which is
+above reason and nature--something communicated from
+above, and therefore in the fullest sense supernatural and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="460" >460</a></span>
+superhuman, yet it must stand in <i>relation</i> to reason and nature,
+and to their historic development; otherwise it could not operate
+on man at all. "We have no knowledge of a dynamic
+influence, spiritual or natural, without a dynamic reaction."
+Matter can only be moved by forces, and according to laws,
+as it has properties which correlate it with these forces and
+laws. And mind can not be determined from without to any
+specific form of cognition, unless it have powers of apprehension
+and conception which are governed by uniform laws. If
+man is to be instructed by a verbal revelation, he must, at least,
+be capacitated for the reception of divine communication--must
+have a power of forming supersensuous conceptions, and
+there must be some original community of thought and idea
+between the mind that teaches and the mind that is taught.
+A revelation from an invisible God--a being "whom no man
+has ever seen or ever can see" with the eye of sense--would
+have no affinity for, and no power to affect and enlighten, a
+being who had no presentiment of an invisible Power to which
+he is in some way related. A revealed law promulgated from
+an unseen and utterly unknown Power would have no constraining
+authority, if man had no idea of right, no sense of
+duty, no feeling of obligation to a Supreme Being. If, therefore,
+religious instruction be not already preceded by an innate
+consciousness of God, and of obligation to God, as an operative
+predisposition, there would be nothing for revelation to act
+upon. Some relation between the reason which planned the
+universe, and which has expressed its thoughts in the numerical
+relations and archetypal forms which are displayed therein,
+and the reason of man, with its ideas of form and number, proportion
+and harmony, is necessarily supposed in the statement
+of Paul that "the invisible things of God from the creation are
+seen." Nature to us could be no symbol of the Divine
+Thought, if there were no correlation between the reason of
+man and the reason of God. All revelation, indeed, supposes
+some community of nature, some affinities of thought, some
+correlation of ideas, between the mind communicating spiritual
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="461">461</a></span>
+knowledge, and the mind to which the communication is made.
+In approaching man, it must traverse ground already occupied
+by man; it must employ phrases already employed, and assume
+forms of thought already familiar to man. It must address
+itself to some ideas, sentiments, and feelings already
+possessed by man. If religion is the great end and destination
+of man, then the nature of man must be constituted for
+religion. Now religion, in its inmost nature, is a communion,
+a fellowship with God. But no creature can be brought into
+this communion "save one that is constitutionally related to
+God in terms that admit of correspondence." There must be
+intelligence offered to his intelligence, sentiment to his sentiment,
+reason to his reason, thought to his thought. There must
+be implanted in the human mind some fundamental ideas and
+determinations grounded upon this fact, that the real end and
+destination of man is for religion, so that when that higher
+sphere of life and action is presented to man, by an outward
+verbal revelation, there shall be a recognized harmony between
+the inner idea and determination, and the outer revelation.
+We can not doubt that such a relation between human nature
+and reason, and Christianity, exists. We see evidences of this
+in the perpetual strivings of humanity to attain to some fuller
+and clearer apprehension of that Supreme Power which is consciously
+near to human thought, and in the historic development
+of humanity towards those higher forms of thought and
+existence which demand a revelation in order to their completion.
+This original capacity, and this historical development,
+have unquestionably prepared the way for the reception of
+Christianity.</p>
+
+<p>Christianity, then, must have some connection with the reason
+of man, and it must also have some relation to the progressive
+developments of human thought in the ages which
+preceded the advent of Christ. Christianity did not break
+suddenly upon the world as a new commencement altogether
+unconnected with the past, and wanting in all points of sympathy
+and contact with the then present. It proceeded along
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="462">462</a></span>
+lines of thought which had been laid through ages of preparation;
+it clothed itself in forms of speech which had been
+moulded by centuries of education, and it appropriated to itself
+a moral and intellectual culture which had been effected
+by long periods of severest discipline. It was, in fact, the
+consummation of the whole moral and religious history of the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>A revelation of new truths, presented in entirely new forms
+of thought and speech, would have defeated its own ends, and,
+practically, would have been no revelation at all. The divine
+light, in passing through such a medium, would have been
+darkened and obscured. The lens through which the heavenly
+rays are to be transmitted must first be prepared and polished.
+The intellectual eye itself must be gradually accustomed to
+the light. Hence it is that all revelation has been <i>progressive</i>,
+commencing, in the infancy of our race, with images and symbols
+addressed to sense, and advancing, with the education of
+the race, to abstract conceptions and spiritual ideas. The first
+communications to the patriarchs were always accompanied by
+some external, sensible appearance; they were often made
+through some preternatural personage in human form. Subsequently,
+as human thought becomes assimilated to the Divine
+idea, God uses man as his organ, and communicates divine
+knowledge as an internal and spiritual gift. The theistic conception
+of the earliest times was therefore more or less anthropomorphic,
+in the prophetic age it was unquestionably more
+spiritual. The education of Hebraic, Mosaic, and prophetic
+ages had gradually developed a purer theism, and prepared
+the Jewish mind for that sublime announcement of our Lord's--"God
+is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship
+in spirit." For ages the Jews had worshipped in Samaria
+and Jerusalem, and the inevitable tendency of thought was to
+localize the divine presence; but the gradual withdrawment
+from these localities of all visible tokens of Jehovah's presence,
+prepared the way for the Saviour's explicit declaration
+that "neither in this mountain of Samaria, nor yet at Jerusalem,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="463" >463</a></span>
+shall men worship the Father," to the exclusion of any other
+spot on earth; the real temple of the living God is now the
+heart of man. The <i>Holiness</i> of God was an idea too lofty for
+human thought to grasp at once. The light of God's ineffable
+purity was too bright and dazzling to burst at once on human
+eyes. Therefore it was gradually displayed. The election of
+a chosen seed in Abraham's race to a nearer approach to God
+than the rest of pagan humanity; the announcement of the
+Decalogue at Sinai amidst awe-inspiring wonders; the separation
+of a single tribe to the priestly office, who were dedicated
+to, and purified in an especial manner for the service of the
+tabernacle; the sanctification of the High-priest by sacrifice
+and lustration before he dared to enter "the holiest place"--the
+presence-chamber of Jehovah: and then the direct and explicit
+teaching of the prophets--were all advancing steps by
+which the Jewish mind was lifted up to the clearer apprehension
+of the holiness of God, the impurity of man, the distance
+of man from God, and the need of Mediation.</p>
+
+<p>The ideas of <i>Redemption</i> and <i>Salvation</i>--of atonement, expiation,
+pardon, adoption, and regeneration--are unique and
+<i>sui-generis</i>. Before these conceptions could be presented in
+the fullness and maturity of the Christian system, there was
+needed the culture and education of the ages of Mosaic ritualism,
+with its sacrificial system, its rights of purification, its
+priestly absolution, and its family of God.<a id="footnotetag850" name="footnotetag850"></a>
+<a href="#footnote850"><sup class="sml">850</sup></a> Redemption itself,
+as an economy, is a development, and has consequently, a history--a
+history which had its commencement in the first Eden,
+and which shall have its consummation in the second Eden of
+a regenerated world. It was germinally infolded in the first
+promise, gradually unfolded in successive types and prophecies,
+more fully developed in the life, and sayings, and sufferings of
+the Son of God, and its ripened fruit is presented to the eye of
+faith in the closing scenic representations of the grand Apocalypse
+of John. "Judaism was not given as a perfect religion.
+Whatever may have been its superiority over surrounding forms
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="464" >464</a></span>
+of worship, it was, notwithstanding, a provisional form only.
+The consciousness that it was a preparatory, and not a definite
+dispensation, is evident throughout. It points to an end beyond
+itself, suggests a grander thought than any in itself; its
+glory precisely consists in its constant looking forward to a glorious
+future destined to surpass it."<a id="footnotetag851" name="footnotetag851"></a>
+<a href="#footnote851"><sup class="sml">851</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote850"
+name="footnote850"><b>Footnote 850: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag850">
+(return) </a> Romans, IX 4-6.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote851"
+name="footnote851"><b>Footnote 851: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag851">
+(return) </a> Pressensé, "Religions before Christ," p. 202.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Thus the determinations which, through Redemption, fall to
+the lot of history, as Nitzsch justly remarks, obey the emancipating
+law of <i>gradual progress</i>.<a id="footnotetag852" name="footnotetag852"></a>
+<a href="#footnote852"><sup class="sml">852</sup></a> Christianity was preceded by
+ages of preparation, in which we have a gradual development
+of religious phrases and ideas, of forms of social life and intellectual
+culture, and of national and political institutions most
+favorable to its advent and its promulgation; and "in the fullness
+of time"--the maturity and fitness of the age--"God sent
+his own Son into the world."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote852"
+name="footnote852"><b>Footnote 852: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag852">
+(return) </a> "System of Doctrine," p. 73.</blockquote>
+
+<p>This work of preparation was not confined alone to Judaism.
+The divine plan of redemption comprehended all the race; its
+provisions are made in view of the wants of all the race; and
+we must therefore believe that the entire history of the race,
+previous to the coming of the Redeemer, was under a divine
+supervision, and directed towards the grand centre of our
+world's history. Greek philosophy and Grecian civilization
+must therefore have a place in the divine plan of history, and
+they must stand in an important relation to Christianity. He
+who "determined the time of each nation's existence, and fixed
+the geographical boundaries of their habitation in order that
+they may seek the Lord," can not have been unmindful of the
+Greek nation, and of its grandest age of philosophy. "The
+Father of the spirits of all flesh" could not be unconcerned in
+the moral and spiritual welfare of any of his children. He was
+as deeply interested in the Athenian as in the Hebrew. He is
+the God of the Gentile as well as the Jew. His tender mercies
+are over all his works. If the Hebrew race was selected to be
+the agent of his providence in one special field, and if the Jewish
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="465" >465</a></span>
+theocracy was one grand instrument of preparatory discipline,
+it was simply because, through these, God designed to
+bless all the nations of the earth. And surely no one will presume
+to say that a civilization and an intellectual culture which
+was second only to the Hebrew, and, in some of its aspects,
+even in advance of the Hebrew, was not determined and supervised
+by Divine Providence, and made subservient to the
+education and development of the whole race. The grand results
+of Hebrew civilization were appropriated and assimilated
+by Christianity, and remain to this day. And no one can deny
+that the same is true of Greek civilization. Through a kind
+of historic preparation the heathen world was made ready for
+Christ, as a soil is prepared to receive the seed, and some precious
+fruits of knowledge, of truth, and of righteousness, even,
+were largely matured, which have been reaped, and appropriated,
+and vitalized by the heaven-descended life of Christianity.</p>
+
+<p>The chief points of excellence in the civilization of the
+Greeks are strikingly obvious, and may be readily presented.
+High perfection of the intellect and the imagination displaying
+itself in the various forms of art, poetry, literature, and philosophy.
+A wonderful freedom and activity of body and of mind,
+developed in trade, and colonization, in military achievement,
+and in subtile dialectics. A striking love of the beautiful, revealing
+itself in their sculpture and architecture, in the free
+music of prosaic numbers, and the graceful movement and
+measure of their poetry. A quickness of perception, a dignity
+of demeanor, a refinement of taste, a delicacy of moral sense,
+and a high degree of reverence for the divine in nature and humanity.
+And, in general, a ripe and all-pervading culture,
+which has made Athens a synonym for all that is greatest and
+best in the genius of man; so that literature, in its most flourishing
+periods has rekindled its torch at her altars, and art has
+looked back to the age of Pericles for her purest models.<a id="footnotetag853" name="footnotetag853"></a>
+<a href="#footnote853"><sup class="sml">853</sup></a> All
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="466" >466</a></span>
+these enter into the very idea of Greek civilization. We can
+not resist the conviction that, by a Divine Providence, it was
+made subservient to the purpose of Redemption; it prepared
+the way for, and contributed to, the spread of the Gospel.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote853"
+name="footnote853"><b>Footnote 853: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag853">
+(return) </a> In Lord Brougham's celebrated letter to the father of the historian
+Macaulay in regard to the education of the latter, we read: "If he would be
+a great orator, he must go at once to the fountain-head, and be familiar with
+every one of the great orations of Demosthenes.... I know from experience
+that nothing is half so successful in these times (bad though they be)
+as what has been formed on the Greek models. I use poor illustrations in
+giving my own experience, but I do assure you that both in courts and Parliament,
+and even to mobs, I have never made so much play (to use a very
+modern phrase) as when I was almost translating from the Greek. I composed
+the peroration of my speech for the Queen, in the Lords, after reading
+and repeating Demosthenes for three or four weeks."</blockquote>
+
+<p>Its subserviency to this grand purpose is seen in the Greek
+tendency to trade and colonization. Their mental activity was
+accompanied by great physical freedom of movement. They
+displayed an inherent disposition to extensive emigration.
+"Without aiming at universal conquest, they developed (if we
+may use the word) a remarkable catholicity of character, and a
+singular power of adaptation to those whom they called Barbarians.
+In this respect they were strongly contrasted with the
+Egyptians, whose immemorial civilization was confined to the
+long valley which extended from the cataracts to the mouth of
+the Nile. The Hellenic tribes, on the other hand, though they
+despised the foreigners, were never unwilling to visit them
+and to cultivate their acquaintance. At the earliest period at
+which history enables us to discover them, we see them moving
+about in their ships on the shores and among the islands
+of their native seas; and, three or four centuries before the
+Christian era, Asia Minor, beyond which the Persians had not
+been permitted to advance, was bordered by a fringe of Greek
+colonies; and lower Italy, when the Roman Republic was just
+becoming conscious of its strength, had received the name of
+Greece itself. To all these places they carried their arts and
+literature, their philosophy, their mythology, and their amusements....
+They were gradually taking the place of the Phœnicians
+in the empire of the Mediterranean. They were, indeed,
+less exclusively mercantile than those old discoverers.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="467" >467</a></span>
+Their voyages were not so long. But their influence on general
+civilization was greater and more permanent. The earliest
+ideas of scientific navigation and geography are due to
+the Greeks. The later Greek travellers, Pausanias and Strabo,
+are our best sources of information on the topography of St.
+Paul's journeys.</p>
+
+<p>"With this view of the Hellenic character before us, we are
+prepared to appreciate the vast results of Alexander's conquests.
+He took the meshes of the net of Greek civilization
+which were lying in disorder on the edge of the Asiatic shore,
+and spread them over all the countries he traversed in his
+wonderful campaigns. The East and the West were suddenly
+brought together. Separate tribes were united under a common
+government. New cities were built as the centres of
+political life. New lines of communication were opened as
+the channels of commercial activity. The new culture penetrated
+the mountain ranges of Pisidia and Lycaonia. The
+Tigris and Euphrates became Greek rivers. The language of
+Athens was heard among the Jewish colonies of Babylonia,
+and a Grecian Babylon was built by the conqueror in Egypt,
+and called by his name.</p>
+
+<p>"The empire of Alexander was divided, but the effects of
+his campaigns and policy did not cease. The influence of
+these fresh elements of social life was rather increased by being
+brought into independent action within the sphere of distinct
+kingdoms. Our attention is particularly directed to two of the
+monarchical lines which descended from Alexander's generals--the
+Ptolemies, or the Greek kings of Egypt, and the Seleucidæ,
+or the Greek kings of Syria. Their respective capitals,
+Alexandria and Antioch, became the metropolitan centres of
+commercial and civilized life in the East."<a id="footnotetag854" name="footnotetag854"></a>
+<a href="#footnote854"><sup class="sml">854</sup></a> Antioch was for
+ages the home of science and philosophy. Here the religious
+opinions of the East and the West were blended and mutually
+modified. Here it was discovered by the heathen mind that
+a new religion had appeared, and a new revelation had been
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="468" >468</a></span>
+given.<a id="footnotetag855" name="footnotetag855"></a>
+<a href="#footnote855"><sup class="sml">855</sup></a> In Alexandria all nations were invited to exchange
+their commodities and, with equal freedom, their opinions.
+The representatives of all religions met here. "Beside the
+Temple of Jupiter there rose the white marble Temple of Serapis,
+and close at hand stood the synagogue of the Jews." The
+Alexandrian library contained all the treasures of ancient culture,
+and even a copy of the Hebrew Scriptures.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote854"
+name="footnote854"><b>Footnote 854: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag854">
+(return) </a> Conybeare and Howson, "Life and Epistles of St. Paul," vol. i. pp. 8-10.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote855"
+name="footnote855"><b>Footnote 855: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag855">
+(return) </a> Acts, xi. 26.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The spread of the Greek <i>language</i> was one of the most important
+services which the cities of Antioch and Alexandria
+rendered to Christianity. The Greek tongue is intimately connected
+with the whole system of Christian doctrine.</p>
+
+<p>This language, which, in symmetry of structure, in flexibility
+and compass of expression, in exactness and precision, in grace
+and elegance, exceeds every other language, became the language
+of theology. Next in importance to the inspiration
+which communicates the superhuman thought, must be the
+gradual development of the language in which the thought can
+clothe itself. That development by which the Greek language
+became the adequate vehicle of Divine thought, the perfect
+medium of the mature revelation of truth contained in the
+Christian Scriptures, must be regarded as the subject of a
+Divine providence. Christianity waited for that development,
+and it awaited Christianity. "The Greek tongue became to
+the Christian more than it had been to the Roman or the Jew.
+The mother-tongue of Ignatius at Antioch was that in which
+Philo composed his treatises at Alexandria, and which Cicero
+spoke at Athens. It is difficult to state in a few words the important
+relation which Alexandria, more especially, was destined
+to bear to the whole Christian Church." In that city,
+the Old Testament was translated into Greek; there the writings
+of Plato were diligently studied; there Philo, the Platonizing
+Jew, had sought to blend into one system the teachings
+of the Old Testament theology and the dialectic speculations
+of Plato. Numenius learns of Philo, and Plotinus of Numenius,
+and the ecstasy of Plotinus is the development of Philo's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="469">469</a></span>
+intuitions. A <i>theological language</i> by this means was developed,
+rich in the phrases of various schools, and suited to convey the
+spiritual revelation of Christian ideas to all the world. "It
+was not an accident that the New Testament was written in
+Greek, the language which can best express the highest thoughts
+and worthiest feelings of the intellect and heart, and which is
+adapted to be the instrument of education for all nations; nor
+was it an accident that the composition of these books and the
+promulgation of the Gospels were delayed till the instruction
+of our Lord, and the writings of his Apostles could be expressed
+in the dialect [of Athens and] of Alexandria."<a id="footnotetag856" name="footnotetag856"></a>
+<a href="#footnote856"><sup class="sml">856</sup></a>] This
+must be ascribed to the foreordination of Him who, in the history
+of nations and of civilizations, "worketh all things according
+to the counsel of his own will."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote856"
+name="footnote856"><b>Footnote 856: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag856">
+(return) </a> Conybeare and Howson, "Life and Epistles of St. Paul," vol. i. p. 10.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Now it is the doctrine of the best philologists that language
+is a <i>growth</i>. Gradually, and by combined efforts of successive
+generations, it has been brought to the perfection which we so
+much admire in the idioms of the Bible, the poetry of Homer,
+Dante, and Shakspeare, and the prose compositions of Demosthenes,
+Cicero, Johnson, and Macaulay. The material or root-element
+of language may have been the product of mental instinct,
+or perhaps the immediate gift of God by revelation;
+but the formal element must have been the creation of thought,
+and the result of rational combination. Language is really
+the incarnation of thought; consequently the growth of a language,
+its affluence, comprehension, and fullness must depend
+on the vigor and activity of thought, and the acquisition
+of general ideas. Language is thus the best index of intellectual
+progress, the best standard of the intellectual attainment
+of an age or nation. The language of barbaric tribes is exceedingly
+simple and meagre; the paucity of general terms
+clearly indicating the absence of all attempts at classification
+and all speculative thought. Whilst the language of educated
+peoples is characterized by great fullness and affluence of
+terms, especially such as are expressive of general notions and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="470" >470</a></span>
+abstract ideas. All grammar, all philology, all scientific nomenclature
+are thus, in fact, <i>psychological deposits</i>, which register
+the progressive advancement of human thought and knowledge
+in the world of mind, as the geological strata bear testimony to
+the progressive development of the material world. "Language,"
+says Trench, "is fossil poetry, fossil history," and, we
+will add, fossil philosophy. Many a single word is a concentrated
+poem. The record of great social and national revolutions
+is embalmed in a single term.<a id="footnotetag857" name="footnotetag857"></a>
+<a href="#footnote857"><sup class="sml">857</sup></a> And the history of an
+age of philosophic thought is sometimes condensed and deposited
+in one imperishable word.<a id="footnotetag858" name="footnotetag858"></a>
+<a href="#footnote858"><sup class="sml">858</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote857"
+name="footnote857"><b>Footnote 857: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag857">
+(return) </a> See Trench "On the Study of Words," p. 20, where the word "frank"
+is given as an illustration.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote858"
+name="footnote858"><b>Footnote 858: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag858">
+(return) </a> For example, the κόσµος of the Pythagoreans, the εὶδη of the Platonists,
+and the ἀταραξία of the Stoics.</blockquote>
+
+<p>If, then, language is the creation of thought, the sensible
+vesture with which it clothes itself, and becomes, as it were, incarnate--if
+the perfection and efficiency of language depends
+on the maturity and clearness of thought, we conclude that the
+wonderful adequacy and fitness of the Greek language to be
+the vehicle of the Divine thought, the medium of the most perfect
+revelation of God to men, can only be explained on the
+assumption that the ages of philosophic thought which, in
+Greece, preceded the advent of Christianity, were under the
+immediate supervision of a providence, and, in some degree,
+illuminated by the Spirit of God.</p>
+
+<p>Greek philosophy must therefore have fulfilled a propædeutic
+office for Christianity. "As it had been intrusted to the
+Hebrews to preserve and transmit the heaven-derived element
+of the Monotheistic religion, so it was ordained that, among the
+Greeks, all seeds of human culture should unfold themselves
+in beautiful harmony, and then Christianity, taking up the opposition
+between the divine and human, was to unite both in
+one, and show how it was necessary that both should co-operate
+to prepare for the appearance of itself and the unfolding of
+what it contains."<a id="footnotetag859" name="footnotetag859"></a>
+<a href="#footnote859"><sup class="sml">859</sup></a> During the period of Greek philosophy
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="471" >471</a></span>
+which preceded the coming of Christ, human reason, unfolding
+itself from beneath, had aspired after that knowledge of divine
+things which is from above. It had felt within itself the
+deep-seated consciousness of God--the sporadic revelation of
+Him "who is not far from any one of us"--the immanent
+thought of that Being "in whom we live and move and are,"
+and it had striven by analysis and definition to attain a more
+distinct and logical apprehension. The heart of man had been
+stirred with "the feeling after God"--the longing for a clearer
+sense of the divine, and had struggled to attain, by abstraction
+or by ecstasy, a more immediate communion with God. Man
+had been conscious of an imperative obligation to conform to
+the will of the great Supreme, and he sought to interpret more
+clearly the utterances of conscience as to what duty was. He
+had felt the sense of sin and guilt, and had endeavored to appease
+his conscience by expiatory offerings, and to deliver himself
+from the power of sin by intellectual culture and moral
+discipline. And surely no one, at all familiar with the history
+of that interesting epoch in the development of humanity, will
+have the hardihood to assert that no steps were taken in the
+right direction, and no progress made towards the distant goal
+of human desire and hope. The language, the philosophy, the
+ideals of moral beauty and excellence, the noble lives and nobler
+utterances of the men who stand forth in history as the
+representatives of Greek civilization, all attest that their noble
+aspiration and effort did not end in ignominious failure and
+utter defeat. It is true they fell greatly beneath the realization
+of even their own moral ideals, and they became painfully conscious
+of their moral weakness, as men do even in Christian
+times. They learned that, neither by intellectual abstraction,
+nor by ecstasy of feeling, could they lift themselves to a living,
+conscious fellowship with God. The sense of guilt was unrelieved
+by expiations, penances, and prayers. And whilst some
+cultivated a proud indifference, a Stoical apathy, and others
+sank down to Epicurean ease and pleasure, there was a noble
+few who longed and hoped with increasing ardor for a living
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="472" >472</a></span>
+Redeemer, a personal Mediator, who should "stand between
+God and man and lay his hand on both." Christ became in
+some dim consciousness "the Desire of Nations," and the
+Moral Law became even to the Greek as well as the Jew "a
+school-master to lead them to Him."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote859"
+name="footnote859"><b>Footnote 859: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag859">
+(return) </a> Neander's "Church History," vol. i. p. 4.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The arrival of Paul at Athens, in the close of this brilliant
+period of Greek philosophy, now assumes an aspect of deeper
+interest and profounder significance. It was a grand climacteric
+in the life of humanity--an epoch in the moral and religious
+history of the world. It marked the consummation of
+a periodic dispensation, and it opened a new era in that wonderful
+progression through which an overruling Providence is
+carrying the human race. As the coming of the Son of God
+to Judea in the ripeness of events--"the fullness of time"--was
+the consummation of the Jewish dispensation, and the
+event for which the Jewish age had been a preparatory discipline,
+so the coming of a Christian teacher to Athens, in the
+person of "the Apostle of the Gentiles," was the <i>terminus ad
+quem</i> towards which all the phases in the past history of philosophic
+thought had looked, and for which they had prepared.
+Christianity was brought to Athens--brought into contact with
+Grecian philosophy at the moment of its exhaustion--at the
+moment when, after ages of unwearied effort, it had become
+conscious of its weakness, and its comparative failure, and had
+abandoned many questions in despair. Greek philosophy had
+therefore its place in the plan of Divine Providence. It had
+a mission to the world; that mission was now fulfilled. If it
+had laid any foundation in the Athenian mind on which the
+Christian system could plant its higher truths--if it had raised
+up into the clearer light of consciousness any of those <i>ideas</i>
+imbedded in the human reason which are germane to Christian
+truth--if it had revealed more fully the wants and instincts of
+the human heart, or if it had attained the least knowledge of
+eternal truth and immutable right, upon this Christianity placed
+its <i>imprimatur</i>. And at those points where human reason had
+been made conscious of its own inefficiency, and compelled to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="473" >473</a></span>
+own its weakness and its failure, Christianity shed an effulgent
+and convincing light.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore the preparatory office of Greek religion and Greek
+philosophy is fully recognized by Paul in his address to the
+Athenians. He begins by saying that the observations he had
+made enabled him to bear witness that the Athenians were indeed,
+in every respect, "a God-fearing people;"--that the God
+whom they knew so imperfectly as to designate Him "the Unknown,"
+but whom "they worshipped," was the God he worshipped,
+and would now more fully declare to them. He assures
+them that their past history, and their present geographical
+position, had been the object of Divine foreknowledge and
+determination. "He hath determined beforehand the times of
+each nation's existence, and fixed the geographical boundaries
+of their habitation," all with this specific design, that they might
+"seek after," "feel after," and "find the Lord," who had never
+been far from any one of them. He admits that their poet-philosophers
+had risen to a lofty apprehension of "the Fatherhood
+of God," for they had taught that "we are all his offspring;" and
+he seems to have felt that in asserting the common brotherhood
+of our race, he would strike a chord of sympathy in the loftiest
+school of Gentile philosophy. He thus "recognized the Spirit
+of God brooding over the face of heathenism, and fructifying
+the spiritual element in the heart even of the natural man. He
+feels that in these human principles there were some faint adumbrations
+of the divine, and he looked for their firmer delineation
+to the figure of that gracious Master, higher and holier
+than man, whom he contemplated in his own imagination, and
+whom he was about to present to them."<a id="footnotetag860" name="footnotetag860"></a>
+<a href="#footnote860"><sup class="sml">860</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote860"
+name="footnote860"><b>Footnote 860: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag860">
+(return) </a> Merivale's "Conversion of the Roman Empire," p. 78.</blockquote>
+
+<p>This function of ancient philosophy is distinctly recognized
+by many of the greatest of the Fathers, as Justin, Clement,
+Origen, Augustine, and Theodoret. Justin Martyr believed
+that a ray of the Divine Logos shone on the mind of the heathen,
+and that the human soul instinctively turned towards God
+as the plant turns towards the sun. "Every race of men
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="474" >474</a></span>
+participated in the Word. And they who lived with the Word
+were Christians, even if they were held to be godless; as, for
+example, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and those
+like them."<a id="footnotetag861" name="footnotetag861"></a>
+<a href="#footnote861"><sup class="sml">861</sup></a> Clement taught that "philosophy, before the coming
+of the Lord, was necessary to the Greeks for righteousness;
+and now it proved useful for godliness, being a sort of preliminary
+discipline for those who reap the fruits of faith through
+demonstration.... Perhaps we may say that it was given to
+the Greeks with this special object, for it brought the Greek
+nation to Christ as the Law brought the Hebrews."<a id="footnotetag862" name="footnotetag862"></a>
+<a href="#footnote862"><sup class="sml">862</sup></a> "Philosophy
+was given as a peculiar testament to the Greeks, as forming
+the basis of the Christian philosophy."<a id="footnotetag863" name="footnotetag863"></a>
+<a href="#footnote863"><sup class="sml">863</sup></a> Referring to the words
+of Paul, Origen says, the truths which philosophers taught were
+from God, for "God manifested these to them, and all things
+that have been nobly said."<a id="footnotetag864" name="footnotetag864"></a>
+<a href="#footnote864"><sup class="sml">864</sup></a> And Augustine, whilst deprecating
+the extravagant claims made for the great Gentile teachers,
+allows "that some of them made great discoveries, so far
+as they received help from heaven; whilst they erred as far as
+they were hindered by human frailty."<a id="footnotetag865" name="footnotetag865"></a>
+<a href="#footnote865"><sup class="sml">865</sup></a> They had, as he elsewhere
+observes, "a distant vision of the truth, and learnt, from
+the teaching of nature, what prophets learnt from the spirit."<a id="footnotetag866" name="footnotetag866"></a>
+<a href="#footnote866"><sup class="sml">866</sup></a>
+In addressing the Greeks, Theodoret says, "Obey your own
+philosophers; let them be your initiators; for they announced
+beforehand our doctrines." He held that "in the depths of human
+nature there are characters inscribed by the hand of God."
+And that "if the race of Abraham received the divine law, and
+the gift of prophecy, the God of the universe led other nations
+to piety by natural revelation, and the spectacle of nature."<a id="footnotetag867" name="footnotetag867"></a>
+<a href="#footnote867"><sup class="sml">867</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote861"
+name="footnote861"><b>Footnote 861: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag861">
+(return) </a> "First Apology," ch. xlvi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote862"
+name="footnote862"><b>Footnote 862: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag862">
+(return) </a> "Stromata," bk. i. ch. v.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote863"
+name="footnote863"><b>Footnote 863: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag863">
+(return) </a> "Stromata," bk. vi. ch. viii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote864"
+name="footnote864"><b>Footnote 864: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag864">
+(return) </a> "Contra Celsum," bk. vi. ch. iii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote865"
+name="footnote865"><b>Footnote 865: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag865">
+(return) </a> "De Civitate Dei," bk. ii. ch. vii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote866"
+name="footnote866"><b>Footnote 866: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag866">
+(return) </a> Sermon lxviii. 3.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote867"
+name="footnote867"><b>Footnote 867: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag867">
+(return) </a> See Smith's "Bible Dictionary," article "Philosophy;" Pressensé, "Religions
+before Christ," p. II; Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy,"
+vol. ii. pp. 28-40.</blockquote>
+
+<p>In attempting to account for this partial harmony between
+Philosophy and Revelation, we find the Patristic writers adopting
+different theories. They are generally agreed in maintaining
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="475">475</a></span>
+some original connection, but they differ as to its immediate
+source. Some of them maintained that the ancient philosophers
+derived their purest light from the fountain of Divine
+Revelation. The doctrines of the Old Testament Scriptures
+were traditionally diffused throughout the West before the rise
+of philosophic speculation. If the theistic conceptions of
+Plato are superior to those of Homer it is accounted for by his
+(hypothetical) tour of inquiry among the Hebrew nation, as
+well as his Egyptian investigations. Others maintained that
+the similarity of views on the character of the Supreme Being
+and the ultimate destination of humanity which is found in the
+writings of Plato and the teachings of the Bible is the consequence
+of <i>immediate</i> inspiration. Origen, Jerome, Eusebius,
+Clement, do not hesitate to affirm that Christ himself revealed
+his own high prerogatives to the gifted Grecian. From this
+hypothesis, however, the facts of the case compel them to make
+some abatements. In the mid-current of this divine revelation
+are found many acknowledged errors, which it is impossible to
+ascribe to the celestial illuminator. Plato, then, was <i>partially</i>
+inspired, and clouded the heavenly beam with the remaining
+grossnesses of the natural sense.<a id="footnotetag868" name="footnotetag868"></a>
+<a href="#footnote868"><sup class="sml">868</sup></a> Whilst a third, and more
+reasonable, hypothesis was maintained by others. They regarded
+man as "the offspring and image of the Deity," and
+maintained there must be a correlation of the human and divine
+reason, and, consequently, of all discovered truth to God.
+Therefore they expected to find some traces of connection and
+correspondence between Divine and human thought, and some
+kindred ideas in Philosophy and Revelation. "Ideas," says
+St. Augustine, "are the primordial forms, as it were, the immutable
+reason of things; they are not created, they are eternal,
+and always the same: they are contained in the Divine intelligence
+and without being subject to birth and death, they are
+<i>types</i> according to which is formed every thing that is born and
+dies." The copies of these archetypes are seen in nature, and
+are participated in by the reason of man; and there may therefore
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="476" >476</a></span>
+be some community of idea between man and God, and
+some relation between Philosophy and Christianity.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote868"
+name="footnote868"><b>Footnote 868: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag868">
+(return) </a> Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 41.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The various attempts which have been made to trace the
+elevated theism and morality of Socrates and Plato to Jewish
+sources have signally failed. Justin Martyr and Tertullian
+claim that the ancient philosophers "borrowed from the Jewish
+prophets." Pythagoras and Plato are supposed to have travelled
+in the East in quest of knowledge.<a id="footnotetag869" name="footnotetag869"></a>
+<a href="#footnote869"><sup class="sml">869</sup></a> The latter is imagined
+to have had access to an existing Greek version of the
+Old Testament in Egypt, and a strange oversight in chronology
+brings him into personal intercourse with the prophet Jeremiah.
+A sober and enlightened criticism is compelled to pronounce
+all these statements as mere exaggerations of later times.<a id="footnotetag870" name="footnotetag870"></a>
+<a href="#footnote870"><sup class="sml">870</sup></a>
+They are obviously mere suppositions by which over-zealous
+Christians sought to maintain the supremacy and authority of
+Scripture. The travels of Pythagoras are altogether mythical,
+the mere invention of Alexandrian writers, who believed that
+all wisdom flowed from the East.<a id="footnotetag871" name="footnotetag871"></a>
+<a href="#footnote871"><sup class="sml">871</sup></a> That Plato visited Egypt
+at all, rests on the single authority of Strabo, who lived at least
+four centuries after Plato; there is no trace in his own works
+of Egyptian research. His pretended travels in Phœnicia,
+where he gained from the Jews a knowledge of the true God,
+are more unreliable still. Plato lived in the fourth century
+before Christ (born B.C. 430), and there is no good evidence
+of the existence of a Greek version of the Old Testament before
+that of "the Seventy" (Septuagint), made by order of
+Ptolemy Philadelphus, B.C. 270. Jeremiah, the prophet of
+Israel, lived two centuries before Plato; consequently any
+personal intercourse between the two was simply impossible.
+Greek philosophy was unquestionably a development of Reason
+alone.<a id="footnotetag872" name="footnotetag872"></a>
+<a href="#footnote872"><sup class="sml">872</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote869"
+name="footnote869"><b>Footnote 869: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag869">
+(return) </a> Mr. Watson adopts this hypothesis to account for the theistic opinions
+of the ancient philosophers of Greece. See "Institutes of Theology," vol. i.
+pp. 26-34.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote870"
+name="footnote870"><b>Footnote 870: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag870">
+(return) </a> Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 147.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote871"
+name="footnote871"><b>Footnote 871: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag871">
+(return) </a> Max Muller, "Science of Language," p. 94.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote872"
+name="footnote872"><b>Footnote 872: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag872">
+(return) </a> See on this subject, Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i.
+pp. 147, 148; Encyclopædia Britannica, article "Plato," vol. xvii. p. 787;
+Smith's "Bible Dictionary," article "Philosophy;" and Thompson's "Laws
+of Thought," p. 326.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="477" >477</a></span>
+
+<p>Some of the ablest Christian scholars and divines of modern
+times, as Cudworth, Neander, Trench, Pressensé, Merivale,
+Schaff, after the most careful and conscientious investigation,
+have come to this conclusion, that Greek philosophy fulfilled
+a preparatory mission for Christianity. The general conclusions
+they reached are forcibly presented in the words of Pressensé:</p>
+
+<p>It would be difficult to overstate the importance of Greek
+philosophy when viewed as a preparation to Christianity. Disinterested
+pursuit of truth is always a great and noble task.
+The imperishable want of the human mind to go back to first
+principles, suffices to prove that this principle is divine. We
+may abuse speculation; we may turn it into one of the most
+powerful dissolvents of moral truths; and the defenders of
+positive creeds, alarmed by the attitude too often assumed by
+speculation in the presence of religion, have condemned it as
+mischievous in itself, confounding in their unjust prejudice its
+use and its abuse. But, for all serious thinkers, philosophy is
+one of the highest titles of nobility that humanity possesses:
+and when we consider its mission previous to Christianity, we
+feel convinced that it had its place in the Divine plan. It was
+not religion in itself that philosophy, through its noblest representatives,
+combated, but polytheism. It dethroned the false
+gods. Adopting what was best in paganism, philosophy employed
+it as an instrument to destroy paganism, and thus clear
+the way for definite religion. Above all, it effectually contributed
+to purify the idea of Divinity, though this purification was
+but an approximation. If at times it caught glimpses of the
+highest spiritualism, yet it was unable to protect itself against
+the return and reaction of Oriental dualism. In spite of this
+imperfection, which in its way served the cause of Christianity
+by demonstrating the necessity of revelation, men like Socrates
+and Plato fulfilled amongst their people a really sublime mission.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="478">478</a></span>
+
+<p>They were to the heathen world the great prophets of
+the human conscience, which woke up at their call. And the
+awakening of the moral sense was at once the glory and ruin
+of philosophy; for conscience, once aroused, could only be
+satisfied by One greater than they, and must necessarily reject
+all systems which proved themselves insufficient to realize the
+moral idea they had evoked.</p>
+
+<p>"But to perish thus, and for such a cause, is a high honor
+to a philosophy. It was this made the philosophy of Greece,
+like the Hebrew laws, though in an inferior sense, a schoolmaster
+that led to Jesus Christ, according to the expression of
+Clement of Alexandria. Viewed in this light, it was a true
+gift of God, and had, too, the shadow of good things to come,
+awakening the presentiment and desire of them, though it
+could not communicate them. Nor can we conceive a better
+way to prepare for the advent of Him who was to be 'the Desire
+of Nations' before becoming their Saviour."<a id="footnotetag873" name="footnotetag873"></a>
+<a href="#footnote873"><sup class="sml">873</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote873"
+name="footnote873"><b>Footnote 873: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag873">
+(return) </a> "Religions before Christ," pp. 101, 102.</blockquote>
+
+<p>In previous chapters we have endeavored to sketch the
+history of the development of metaphysical thought, of moral
+feeling and idea, and of religious sentiment and want, which
+characterized Grecian civilization. In now offering a brief
+<i>résumé</i> of the history of that development, with the design of
+more fully exhibiting the preparatory office it fulfilled for
+Christianity, we shall assume that the mind of the reader has
+already been furnished and disciplined by preparatory principles.
+He can scarce have failed to recognize that this development
+obeyed a <i>general law</i>, however modified by exterior
+and geographical conditions; the same law, in fact, which
+governs the development of all individual finite minds, and
+which law may be formulated thus:--<i>All finite mind develops
+itself, first, in instinctive determinations and spontaneous faiths;
+then in rising doubt, and earnest questioning, and ill-directed inquiry;
+and, finally, in systematic philosophic thought, and rational
+belief</i>. These different stages succeed each other in the individual
+mind. There is, first, the simplicity and trust of childhood;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="479" >479</a></span>
+secondly, the undirected and unsettled force of youth;
+and, thirdly, the wisdom of mature age. And these different
+stages have also succeeded each other in the universal mind of
+humanity. There has been, 1st. <i>The era of spontaneous beliefs</i>--of
+popular and semi-conscious theism, morality, and religion,
+2d. <i>The transitional age</i>--the age of doubt, of inquiry, and of
+ill-directed mental effort, ending in fruitless sophism, or in
+skepticism. 3d. <i>The philosophic or conscious age</i>--the age of
+reflective consciousness, in which, by the analysis of thought,
+the first principles of knowledge are attained, the necessary
+laws of thought are discovered, and man arrives at positive
+convictions, and rational beliefs. In the history of Grecian
+civilization, the first is the Homeric age; the second is the
+pre-Socratic age, ending with the Sophists; and the third is
+the grand Socratic period. History is thus the development
+of the fundamental elements of humanity, according to an established
+law, and under conditions which are ordained and
+supervised by the providence of God. "The unity of civilization
+is in the unity of human nature; its varieties, in the variety
+of the elements of humanity," which elements have been
+successively developed in the course of history. All that is
+fundamental in human nature passes into the movement of
+civilization. "I say all that is fundamental; for it is the excellency
+of history to take out, and throw away all that is not
+necessary and essential. That which is individual shines for
+a day, and is extinguished forever, or stops at biography."
+Nothing endures, except that which is fundamental and true--that
+which is vital, and organizes itself, develops itself, and
+arrives at an historical existence. "Therefore as human nature
+is the matter and basis of history, history is, so to speak, the
+judge of human nature, and historical analysis is the counter-proof
+of psychological analysis."<a id="footnotetag874" name="footnotetag874"></a>
+<a href="#footnote874"><sup class="sml">874</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote874"
+name="footnote874"><b>Footnote 874: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag874">
+(return) </a> Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 31.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Nature, individual mind, and collective humanity, all obey
+the law of progressive development; otherwise there could be
+no history, for history is only of that which has movement and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="480" >480</a></span>
+progress. Now, all progress is from the indefinite to the definite,
+from the inorganic to the organic and vital, from the instinctive
+to the rational, from a dim, nebulous self-feeling to a
+high reflective consciousness, from sensuous images to abstract
+conceptions and spiritual ideas. This progressive development
+of nature and humanity has not been a series of creations
+<i>de novo</i>, without any relation, in matter or form, to that
+which preceded. All of the present was contained in embryonic
+infoldment in the past, and the past has contributed its
+results to the present.<a id="footnotetag875" name="footnotetag875"></a>
+<a href="#footnote875"><sup class="sml">875</sup></a> The present, both in nature, and history,
+and civilization, is, so to speak, the aggregate and sum-total
+of the past. As the natural history of the earth may now
+be read in the successive strata and deposits which form its
+crust, so the history of humanity may be read in the successive
+deposits of thought and language, of philosophy and art, which
+register its gradual progression. As the paleontological remains
+imbedded in the rocks present a succession of organic
+types which gradually improve in form and function, from the
+first sea-weed to the palm-tree, and from the protozoa to the
+highest vertebrate, so the history of ancient philosophy presents
+a gradual progress in metaphysical, ethical, and theistic conceptions,
+from the unreflective consciousness of the Homeric
+age, to the high reflective consciousness of the Platonic period.
+And as all the successive forms of life in pre-Adamic ages
+were a preparation for and a prophecy of the coming of man,
+so the advancing forms of philosophic thought, during the
+grand ages of Grecian civilization, were a preparation and a
+prophecy of the coming of the Son of God.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote875"
+name="footnote875"><b>Footnote 875: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag875">
+(return) </a> The writer would not be understood as favoring the idea that this development
+is simply the result of "natural law." The connection between
+the past and the present is not a material, but a <i>mental</i> connection. It is
+the bond of Creative Thought and Will giving to organic forces a foreseen
+direction towards the working out of a grand plan. See Agassiz, "Contributions
+to Natural History," vol. i. pp. 9, 10; Duke of Argyll, "Reign of
+Law," ch. v.</blockquote>
+
+<p>We shall now endeavor to trace this process of gradual
+preparation for Christianity in the Greek mind--</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="481" >481</a></span></p>
+
+<p>  (i.) <i>In the field of</i> THEISTIC <i>conceptions</i>.</p>
+
+<p> (ii.) <i>In the department of</i> ETHICAL <i>ideas and principles</i>.</p>
+
+<p>(iii.) <i>In the region of</i> RELIGIOUS <i>sentiment</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In the field of theistic conception the propædeutic office of
+Grecian philosophy is seen--</p>
+
+<p>I. <i>In the release of the popular mind from Polytheistic notion,
+and the purifying and spiritualizing of the Theistic idea</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The idea of a Supreme Power, a living Personality, energizing
+in nature, and presiding over the affairs of men, is not the
+product of philosophy. It is the immanent, spontaneous
+thought of humanity. It has, therefore, existed in all ages,
+and revealed itself in all minds, even when it has not been
+presented to the understanding as a definite conception, and
+expressed by human language in a logical form. It is the
+thought which instinctively arises in the opening reason of
+childhood, as the dim and shadowy consciousness of a living
+mind behind all the movement and change of the universe.
+Then comes the period of doubt, of anxious questioning, and
+independent inquiry. The youth seeks to account to himself
+for this peculiar sentiment. He turns his earnest gaze towards
+nature, and through this living vesture of the infinite he seeks
+to catch some glimpses of the living Soul. In some fact appreciable
+to sense, in some phenomenon he can see, or hear, or
+touch, he would fain grasp the cause and reason of all that is.
+But in this field of inquiry and by this method he finds only a
+"receding God," who falls back as he approaches, and is ever
+still beyond; and he sinks down in exhaustion and feebleness,
+the victim of doubt, perhaps despair. Still the sentiment of
+the Divine remains, a living force, in the centre of his moral
+being. He turns his scrutinizing gaze within, and by self-reflection
+seeks for some rational ground for his instinctive faith.
+There he finds some convictions he can not doubt, some ideas
+he can not call in question, some thoughts he is compelled to
+think, some necessary and universal principles which in their
+natural and logical development ally him to an unseen world,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="482" >482</a></span>
+and correlate and bind him fast to an invisible, but real God.
+The more his mind is disciplined by abstract thought, the
+clearer do these necessary and universal principles become, and
+the purer and more spiritual his ideas of God. God is now for
+him the First Principle of all principles, the First Truth of all
+truths; the Eternal Reason, the Immutable Righteousness, the
+Supreme Good. The normal and healthy development of
+reason, the maturity of thought, conduct to the recognition of
+the true God.</p>
+
+<p>And so it has been in the universal consciousness of our
+race as revealed in history. There was first a period of spontaneous
+and unreflective Theism, in which man felt the consciousness
+of God, but could not or did not attempt a rational
+explanation of his instinctive faith. He saw God in clouds
+and heard Him in the wind. His smile nourished the corn,
+and cheered the vine. The lightnings were the flashes of his
+vengeful ire, and the thunder was his angry voice. But the
+unity of God was feebly grasped, the rays of the Divinity
+seemed divided and scattered amidst the separate manifestations
+of power, and wisdom, and goodness, and retribution,
+which nature presented. Then plastic art, to aid and impress
+the imagination, created its symbols of these separate powers
+and principles, chiefly in human form, and gods were multiplied.
+But all this polytheism still rested on a dim monotheistic
+background, and all the gods were subordinated to Zeus--"the
+Father of gods and men." Humanity had still the sense
+of the dependence of all finite being on one great fountain-head
+of Intelligence and Power, and all the "generated gods"
+were the subjects and ministers of that One Supreme. This
+was the childhood of humanity so vividly represented in Homeric
+poetry.</p>
+
+<p>Then came a period of incipient reflection, and speculative
+thought, in which the attention of man is drawn outward to the
+study of nature, of which he can yet only recognize himself as
+an integral part. He searches for some ἀρχή--some first principle,
+appreciable to sense, which in its evolution shall furnish
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="483" >483</a></span>
+an explanation of the problem of existence. He tries the
+hypothesis of "<i>water</i>" then of "<i>air</i>" then of "<i>fire</i>" as the
+primal element, which either is itself, or in some way infolds
+within itself an informing Soul, and out of which, by vital
+transformation, all things else are produced. But here he
+failed to find an adequate explanation; his reason was not satisfied.
+Then he sought his first principle in "<i>numbers</i>" as
+symbols, and, in some sense, as the embodiment of the rational
+conceptions of order, proportion, and harmony,--God is
+the original <i>µονάς</i>--unity--One;--or else he sought it in purely
+abstract "<i>ideas</i>" as unity, infinity, identity, and all things
+are the evolution of an eternal thought, one and identical,
+which is God. And here again he fails. Then he supposes
+an unlimited <i>µῑγµα</i>--a chaotic mixture of elements existing
+from eternity, which was separated, combined, and organized
+by the energy of a Supreme Mind, the <i>νοῦς</i> of Anaxagoras.
+But he holds not firmly to this great principle; "he recurs
+again to air, and ether, and water, as <i>causes</i> for the ordering of
+all things."<a id="footnotetag876" name="footnotetag876"></a>
+<a href="#footnote876"><sup class="sml">876</sup></a> And after repeated attempts and failures, he is
+disappointed in his inquiry, and falls a prey to doubt and skepticism.
+This was the early youth of our humanity, the period
+that opens with Thales and ends with the Sophists.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote876"
+name="footnote876"><b>Footnote 876: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag876">
+(return) </a> Thus Socrates complains of Anaxagoras. See "Phædo," § 108.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The problem of existence still waits for and demands a solution.
+The heart of man, also, still cries out for the living
+God. The Socratic maxim, "know thyself," introverts the mental
+gaze, and self-reflection now becomes the method of philosophy.
+The Platonic analysis of thought reveals elements
+of knowledge which are not derived from the outer world.
+There are universal and necessary principles revealed in consciousness
+which, in their natural and logical development, transcend
+consciousness, and furnish the cognition of a world of
+Real Being, beyond the world of sense. There are absolute
+truths which bridge the chasm between the seen and the unseen,
+the fleeting and the permanent, the finite and the infinite,
+the temporal and the eternal. There are necessary laws of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="484">484</a></span>
+thought which are also found to be laws of things, and which
+correlate man to a living, personal, righteous Lord and Lawgiver.
+From absolute ideas Plato ascends to an <i>absolute Being</i>,
+the author of all finite existence. From absolute truths to
+an <i>absolute Reason</i>, the foundation and essence of all truth.
+From the principle of immutable right to an <i>absolutely righteous
+Being</i>. From the necessary idea of the good to a being of <i>absolute
+Goodness</i>--that is, to <i>God</i>. This is the maturity of humanity,
+the ripening manhood of our race which was attained
+in the Socratic age.</p>
+
+<p>The inevitable tendency of this effort of speculative thought,
+spread over ages, and of the intellectual culture which necessarily
+resulted, was to undermine the old polytheistic religion,
+and to purify and elevate the theistic conception. The school
+of Elea rejected the gross anthropomorphism of the Homeric
+theology. Xenophanes, the founder of the school, was a believer
+in</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>"<i> One God</i>, of all beings divine and human the greatest,</p>
+<p>   Neither in body alike unto mortals, neither in ideas."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And he repels with indignation the anthropomorphic representations
+of the Deity.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>  "But men foolishly think that gods are born as men are,</p>
+<p>   And have, too, a dress like their own, and their voice, and their figure:</p>
+<p>   But if oxen and lions had hands like ours, and fingers,</p>
+<p>   Then would horses like unto horses, and oxen to oxen,</p>
+<p>   Paint and fashion their god-forms, and give to them bodies</p>
+<p>   Of like shape to their own, as they themselves too are fashioned."<a id="footnotetag877" name="footnotetag877"></a>
+<a href="#footnote877"><sup class="sml">877</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Empedocles also wages uncompromising war against all representations
+of the Deity in human form--</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>  "For neither with head adjusted to limbs, like the human,</p>
+<p>   Nor yet with two branches down from the shoulders outstretching,</p>
+<p>   Neither with feet, nor swift-moving limbs,....</p>
+<p>   He is, wholly and perfectly, <i>mind</i>, ineffable, holy,</p>
+<p>   With rapid and swift-glancing thought pervading the world."<a id="footnotetag878" name="footnotetag878"></a>
+<a href="#footnote878"><sup class="sml">878</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote877"
+name="footnote877"><b>Footnote 877: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag877">
+(return) </a> Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 431, 432.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote878"
+name="footnote878"><b>Footnote 878: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag878">
+(return) </a> Ibid., vol. i. pp. 495, 496.</blockquote>
+
+<p>When speaking of the mythology of the older Greeks, Socrates
+maintains a becoming prudence; he is evidently desirous to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="485" >485</a></span>
+avoid every thing which would tend to loosen the popular reverence
+for divine things.<a id="footnotetag879" name="footnotetag879"></a>
+<a href="#footnote879"><sup class="sml">879</sup></a> But he was opposed to all anthropomorphic
+conceptions of the Deity. His fundamental position
+was that the Deity is the Supreme Reason, which is to be honored
+by men as the source of all existence and the end of all
+human endeavor. Notwithstanding his recognition of a number
+of subordinate divinities, he held that the Divine is one,
+because Reason is one. He taught that the Supreme Being is
+the immaterial, infinite Governor of all;<a id="footnotetag880" name="footnotetag880"></a>
+<a href="#footnote880"><sup class="sml">880</sup></a> that the world bears
+the stamp of his intelligence, and attests it by irrefragable evidence;<a id="footnotetag881" name="footnotetag881"></a>
+<a href="#footnote881"><sup class="sml">881</sup></a>
+and that he is the author and vindicator of all moral
+laws.<a id="footnotetag882" name="footnotetag882"></a>
+<a href="#footnote882"><sup class="sml">882</sup></a> So that, in reality, he did more to overthrow polytheism
+than any of his predecessors, and on that account was doomed
+to death.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote879"
+name="footnote879"><b>Footnote 879: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag879">
+(return) </a> Xenophon, "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iii. § 3.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote880"
+name="footnote880"><b>Footnote 880: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag880">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., bk. i. ch. iv. §§ 17, 18.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote881"
+name="footnote881"><b>Footnote 881: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag881">
+(return) </a> Id., ib., bk. i. ch. i. § 19.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote882"
+name="footnote882"><b>Footnote 882: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag882">
+(return) </a> Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 63; Butler's "Lectures
+on Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 359.</blockquote>
+
+<p>It was, however, the matured dialectic of Plato which gave
+the death-blow to polytheism. "Plato, the poet-philosopher,
+sacrificed Homer himself to monotheism. We may measure
+the energy of his conviction by the greatness of the sacrifice.
+He could not pardon the syren whose songs had fascinated
+Greece, the fresh brilliant poetry that had inspired its religion.
+He crowned it with flowers, but banished it, because it had
+lowered the religious ideal of conscience." He was sensible
+of the beauty of the Homeric fables, but he was also keenly
+alive to their religious falsehood, and therefore he excluded the
+poets from his ideal republic. In the education of youth, he
+would forbid parents and teachers repeating "the stories which
+Hesiod and Homer and the other poets told us." And after
+instancing a number of these stories "which deserve the
+gravest condemnation," he enjoins that God must be represented
+as he is in reality. "God," says he, "is, beyond all else,
+good in reality, and therefore so to be represented;" "he can
+not do evil, or be the cause of evil;" "he is of simple essence,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="486" >486</a></span>
+and can not change, or be the subject of change;" "there is
+no imperfection in the beauty or goodness of God;" "he is a
+God of truth, and can not lie;" "he is a being of perfect simplicity
+and truth in deed and word."<a id="footnotetag883" name="footnotetag883"></a>
+<a href="#footnote883"><sup class="sml">883</sup></a> The reader can not fail
+to recognize the close resemblance between the language of
+Plato and the language of inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>The theistic conception, in Plato, reaches the highest purity
+and spirituality. God is "<i>the Supreme Mind</i>," "incorporeal,"
+"unchangeable," "infinite," "absolutely perfect," "essentially
+good," "unoriginated and eternal." He is "the Father and
+Maker of the world," "the efficient Cause of all things," "the
+Monarch and Ruler of the world," "the Sovereign Mind that
+orders all things," and "pervades all things." He is "the
+sole principle of all things," "the beginning of all truth," "the
+fountain of all law and justice," "the source of all order and
+beauty;" in short, He is "the beginning, middle, and end of
+all things."<a id="footnotetag884" name="footnotetag884"></a>
+<a href="#footnote884"><sup class="sml">884</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote883"
+name="footnote883"><b>Footnote 883: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag883">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. ii. §§ 18-21.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote884"
+name="footnote84"><b>Footnote 884: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag884">
+(return) </a> See <i>ante</i>, ch. xi. pp. 377, 378, where the references to Plato's writings
+are given.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Aristotle continued the work of undermining polytheism.
+He defines God as "the Eternal Reason"--the Supreme
+Mind. "He is the immovable cause of all movement in the
+universe, the all-perfect principle. This principle or essence
+pervades all things. It eternally possesses perfect happiness,
+and its happiness consists in energy. This primeval mover is
+immaterial, for its essence is energy--it is pure thought, thought
+thinking itself--the thought of thought."<a id="footnotetag885" name="footnotetag885"></a>
+<a href="#footnote885"><sup class="sml">885</sup></a> Polytheism is thus
+swept away from the higher regions of the intelligence. "For
+several to command," says he, "is not good, there should be
+but one chief. A tradition, handed down from the remotest
+antiguity, and transmitted under the veil of fable, says that all
+the stars are gods, and that the Divinity embraces the whole of
+nature. And round this idea other mythical statements have
+been agglomerated, with a view to influencing the vulgar, and
+for political and moral expediency; as for instance, they feigned
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="487" >487</a></span>
+that these gods have human shape, and are like certain of the
+animals; and other stories of the kind are added on. Now, if
+any one will separate from all this the first point alone, namely,
+that they thought the first and deepest grounds of existence to
+be Divine, he may consider it a divine utterance."<a id="footnotetag886" name="footnotetag886"></a>
+<a href="#footnote886"><sup class="sml">886</sup></a> The popular
+polytheism, then, was but a perverted fragment of a deeper
+and purer "Theology." This passage is a sort of obituary of
+polytheism. The ancient glory of paganism had passed away.
+Philosophy had exploded the old theology. Man had learned
+enough to make him renounce the ancient religion, but not
+enough to found a new faith that could satisfy both the intellect
+and the heart. "Wherefore we are not to be surprised that
+the grand philosophic period should be followed by one of incredulity
+and moral collapse, inaugurating the long and universal
+<i>decadence</i> which was, perhaps, as necessary to the work of
+preparation, as was the period of religious and philosophic development."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote885"
+name="footnote885"><b>Footnote 885: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag885">
+(return) </a> "Metaphysics," bk. xii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote886"
+name="footnote886"><b>Footnote 886: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag886">
+(return) </a> "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. viii. § 19.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The preparatory office of Greek philosophy in the region of
+speculative thought is seen--</p>
+
+<p>2. <i>In the development of the Theistic argument in a logical form.</i>--Every
+form of the theistic proof which is now employed by
+writers on natural theology to demonstrate the being of God
+was apprehended, and logically presented, by one or other of
+the ancient philosophers, excepting, perhaps, the "moral argument"
+drawn from the facts of conscience.</p>
+
+<p>(I.) <i>The</i> ÆTIOLOGICAL <i>proof</i>, or the argument based upon
+the principle of causality, which may be presented in the following
+form:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>    All genesis or becoming supposes a permanent and uncaused
+    Being, adequate to the production of all phenomena.</p>
+
+<p>    The sensible universe is a perpetual genesis, a succession
+    of appearances: it is "always becoming, and never really is."</p>
+
+<p>    Therefore, it must have its cause and origin in a permanent
+    and unoriginated Being, adequate to its production.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="488">488</a></span>
+
+<p>The major premise of this syllogism is a fundamental principle
+of reason--a self-evident truth, an axiom of common
+sense, and as such has been recognized from the very dawn of
+philosophy. Ἀδύνατον γίνεσθαί τι ἐκ µηδενὸς προὔπάρχοντος--<i>Ex
+nihilo nihil</i>--<i>Nothing which once was not, could ever of itself come
+into being</i>. Nothing can be made or produced without an efficient
+cause, is the oldest maxim of philosophy. It is true that
+this maxim was abusively employed by Democritus and Epicurus
+to disprove a Divine creation of any thing out of nothing,
+yet the great body of ancient philosophers, as Pythagoras,
+Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, Anaxagoras, Empedocles,
+Plato, and Aristotle, regarded it as the announcement of an
+universal conviction, that nothing can be produced without an
+efficient cause;--order can not be generated out of chaos, life
+out of dead matter, consciousness out of unconsciousness, reason
+out of unreason. A first principle of life, of order, of reason,
+must have existed anterior to all manifestions of order, of
+life, of intelligence, in the visible universe. It was clearly in
+this sense that Cicero understood this great maxim of the ancient
+philosophers of Greece. With him "<i>De nihilo nihil fit"</i>
+is equivalent to "<i>Nihil sine causa</i>"--nothing exists without a
+cause. This is unquestionably the form in which that fundamental
+law of thought is stated by Plato: "Whatever is generated
+is necessarily generated from a certain cause, for it is
+wholly impossible that any thing should be generated without
+a cause."<a id="footnotetag887" name="footnotetag887"></a>
+<a href="#footnote887"><sup class="sml">887</sup></a> And the efficient cause is defined as "a power
+whereby that which did not previously exist was afterwards
+made to be."<a id="footnotetag888" name="footnotetag888"></a>
+<a href="#footnote888"><sup class="sml">888</sup></a> It is scarcely needful to remark that Aristotle,
+the scholar of Plato, frequently lays it down as a postulate of
+reason, "that we admit nothing without a cause."<a id="footnotetag889" name="footnotetag889"></a>
+<a href="#footnote889"><sup class="sml">889</sup></a> By an irresistible
+law of thought, "<i>all phenomena present themselves to us
+as the expression of power</i>, and refer us to a causal ground
+whence they issue."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote887"
+name="footnote887"><b>Footnote 887: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag887">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. ix.; also "Philebus," § 45.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote888"
+name="footnote888"><b>Footnote 888: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag888">
+(return) </a> "Sophist," § 109.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote889"
+name="footnote889"><b>Footnote 889: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag889">
+(return) </a> "Post. Analytic," bk. ii. ch. xvi.; "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. i. § 3.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The major premise of this syllogism is a fact of observation.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="489">489</a></span>
+To the eye of sense and sensible observation, to scientific induction
+even in its highest generalizations, the visible universe
+presents nothing but a history and aggregation of phenomena--a
+succession of appearances or effects having more or less
+resemblance. It is a ceaseless flow and change, "a generation
+and corruption," "a becoming, but never really <i>is</i>;" it is never
+in two successive moments the <i>same</i>.<a id="footnotetag890" name="footnotetag890"></a>
+<a href="#footnote890"><sup class="sml">890</sup></a> All our cognitions of
+sameness, uniformity, causal connection, permanent Being, real
+Power, are purely rational conceptions <i>given in thought</i>, supplied
+by the spontaneous intuition of reason as the correlative
+prefix to the phenomena observed.<a id="footnotetag891" name="footnotetag891"></a>
+<a href="#footnote891"><sup class="sml">891</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote890"
+name="footnote890"><b>Footnote 890: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag890">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. ix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote891"
+name="footnote891"><b>Footnote 891: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag891">
+(return) </a> Ibid.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Therefore the ancient philosophers concluded justly, there
+must be something ἀγέννητον--something which was never
+generated, something αὐτοϕυής and αὐθυπόστατον--self-originated
+and self-existing, something ταὐτόν and αἰώνιον--immutable
+and eternal, the object of rational apperception--which is
+the real ground and efficient cause of all that appears.</p>
+
+<p>(2.) The COSMOLOGICAL proof, or the argument based upon
+the principle of order, and thus presented:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>    Order, proportion, harmony, are the product and expression
+    of Mind.</p>
+
+<p>    The created universe reveals order, proportion, and harmony.</p>
+
+<p>    Therefore, the created universe is the product of Mind.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>The fundamental law of thought which underlies this mode
+of proof was clearly recognized by Pythagoras. All harmony
+and proportion and symmetry is the result of <i>unity</i> evolving
+itself in and pervading <i>multiplicity</i>. Mind or reason is unity
+and indivisibility; matter is diverse and multiple. Mind is
+the determinating principle; matter is indeterminate and indefinite.
+Confused matter receives form, and proportion, and
+order, and symmetry, by the action and interpenetration of the
+spiritual and indivisible element. In presence of facts of order,
+the human reason instinctively and necessarily affirms the
+presence and action of Mind.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="490" >490</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Pythagoras had long devoted his intellectual adoration to
+the lofty idea of Order. To his mind it seemed as the presiding
+genius of the serene and silent world. He had from his
+youth dwelt with delight upon the eternal relations of space
+and number, in which the very idea of proportion seems to find
+its first and immediate development, until at length it seemed
+as if the whole secret of the universe was hidden in these mysterious
+correspondences. The world, in all its departments,
+moral and material, is a living arithmetic in its development,
+a realized geometry in its repose; it is a '<i>cosmos</i>' (for the
+word is Pythagorean), the expression of harmony, the manifestation
+to sense of everlasting order; and the science of <i>numbers</i>
+is the truest representation of its eternal laws." Therefore,
+argued Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, as the reason
+of man can perceive the relations of an eternal order in the
+proportions of extension and number, the laws of proportion,
+and symmetry, and harmony must inhere in a Divine reason,
+an intelligent soul, which moves and animates the universe.
+The harmonies of the world which address themselves to the
+human mind must be the product of a Divine mind. The
+world, in its real structure, must be the image and copy of that
+divine proportion which the mind of man adores. It is the
+sensible type of the Divinity, the outward and multiple development
+of the Eternal Unity, the Eternal One--that is, God.</p>
+
+<p>The same argument is elaborated by Plato in his philosophy
+of beauty. God is with him the last reason, the ultimate foundation,
+the perfect ideal of all beauty--of all the order, proportion,
+harmony, sublimity, and excellence which reigns in the
+physical, the intellectual, and the moral world. He is the
+"Eternal Beauty, unbegotten and imperishable, exempt from
+all decay as well as increase--the perfect--the Divine Beauty"<a id="footnotetag892" name="footnotetag892"></a>
+<a href="#footnote892"><sup class="sml">892</sup></a>
+which is beheld by the pure mind in the celestial world.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote892"
+name="footnote892"><b>Footnote 892: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag892">
+(return) </a> "Banquet," § 35.</blockquote>
+
+<p>(3.) The Teleological proof, or the argument based upon
+the principle of intentionality or Final Cause, and is presented
+in the following form:</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="491" >491</a></span>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>    The choice and adaptation of means to the accomplishment
+    of special ends supposes an intelligent purpose, a Designing
+    Mind.</p>
+
+<p>    In the universe we see such choice and adaptation of
+    means to ends.</p>
+
+<p>    Therefore, the universe is the product of an intelligent,
+    personal Cause.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>This is peculiarly the Socratic proof. He recognized the
+necessity and the irresistibility of the conviction that the choice
+and adaptation of means to ends is the effect of Purpose, the
+expression of Will.<a id="footnotetag893" name="footnotetag893"></a>
+<a href="#footnote893"><sup class="sml">893</sup></a> There is an obviousness and a directness
+in this mode of argument which is felt by every human mind.
+In the "Memorabilia" Xenophon has preserved a conversation
+of Socrates with Aristodemus in which he develops this proof
+at great length. In reading the dialogue<a id="footnotetag894" name="footnotetag894"></a>
+<a href="#footnote894"><sup class="sml">894</sup></a> in which Socrates
+instances the adaptation of our organization to the external
+world, and the examples of design in the human frame, we
+are forcibly reminded of the chapters of Paley, Whewell, and
+M'Cosh. Well might Aristodemus exclaim: "The more I
+consider it, the more it is evident to me that man must be the
+masterpiece of some great Artificer, carrying along with it infinite
+marks of the love and favor of Him who has thus formed
+it." The argument from Final Causes is pursued by Plato in
+the "Timæus;" and in Aristotle, God is the Final Cause of all
+things.<a id="footnotetag895" name="footnotetag895"></a>
+<a href="#footnote895"><sup class="sml">895</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote893"
+name="footnote893"><b>Footnote 893: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag893">
+(return) </a> "Canst thou doubt, Aristodemus, whether a disposition of parts like
+this (in the human body) should be the work of chance, or of wisdom and
+contrivance?"--"Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iv.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote894"
+name="footnote894"><b>Footnote 894: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag894">
+(return) </a> "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iv.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote895"
+name="footnote895"><b>Footnote 895: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag895">
+(return) </a> Aristotle clearly recognizes that an end or final cause implies Intelligence.
+"The appearance of ends and means is a proof of Design."--"Nat.
+Ausc.," bk. ii. ch. viii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>(4.) The Ontological or Ideological proof, or the argument
+grounded on necessary and absolute ideas, which may be
+thrown into the following syllogism:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>    Every attribute or quality implies a subject, and absolute
+    modes necessarily suppose an Absolute Being.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="492" >492</a></span>
+    Necessary and absolute truths or ideas are revealed in
+    human reason as absolute modes.</p>
+
+<p>    Therefore universal, necessary, and absolute ideas are
+    modes of the absolute subject--that is, God, the foundation
+    and source of all truth.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>This is the Platonic proof. Plato recognized the principle
+of substance (οὐσία--ὑποκείµενον), and therefore he proceeds in
+the "Timæus" to inquire for the real ground of all existence;
+and in the "Republic," for the real ground of all truth and
+certitude.</p>
+
+<p>The universe consists of two parts, permanent existences
+and transient phenomena--being and genesis; the one eternally
+constant, the other mutable and subject to change; the
+former apprehended by the reason, the latter perceived by
+sense. For each of these there must be a principle, subject, or
+substratum--a principle or subject-matter, which is the ground
+or condition of the sensible world, and a principle or substance,
+which is the ground and reason of the intelligible world or
+world of ideas. The subject-matter, or ground of the sensible
+world, is "the receptacle" and "nurse" of forms, an "invisible
+species and formless receiver (which is not earth, or air, or fire,
+or water) which receives the immanence of the intelligible."<a id="footnotetag896" name="footnotetag896"></a>
+<a href="#footnote896"><sup class="sml">896</sup></a>
+The subject or ground of the intelligible world is that in which
+ideal forms, or eternal archetypes inhere, and which impresses
+form upon the transitional element, and fashions the world
+after its own eternal models. This eternal and immutable substance
+is God, who created the universe as a copy of the eternal
+archetypes--the everlasting thoughts which dwell in his
+infinite mind.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote896"
+name="footnote896"><b>Footnote 896: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag896">
+(return) </a> "Timæus," ch. xxiv.</blockquote>
+
+<p>These copies of the eternal archetypes or models are perceived
+by the reason of man in virtue of its participation in the
+Ultimate Reason. The reason of man is the organ of truth;
+by an innate and inalienable right, it grasps unseen and eternal
+realities. The essence of the soul is akin to that which is
+real, permanent, and eternal;--<i>It is the offspring and image of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="493">493</a></span>
+God</i>; therefore it has a true communion with the realities of
+things, by virtue of this kindred and homogeneous nature. It
+can, therefore, ascend from the universal and necessary ideas,
+which are apprehended by the reason, to the absolute and
+supreme Idea, which is the attribute and perfection of God.
+When the human mind has contemplated any object of beauty,
+any fact of order, proportion, harmony, and excellency, it may
+rise to the notion of a quality common to all objects of beauty--from
+a single beautiful body to two, from two to all others;
+from beautiful bodies to beautiful sentiments, from beautiful
+sentiments to beautiful thoughts, until, from thought to thought,
+we arrive at the highest thought, which has no other object
+than the perfect, absolute, <i>Divine Beauty</i>.<a id="footnotetag897" name="footnotetag897"></a>
+<a href="#footnote897"><sup class="sml">897</sup></a> When a man has,
+from the contemplation of instances of virtue, risen to the notion
+of a quality common to all these instances, this quality
+becomes the representative of an ineffable something which,
+in the sphere of immutable reality, answers to the conception
+in his soul. "At the extreme limits of the intellectual world
+is the <i>Idea of the Good</i>, which is perceived with difficulty, but,
+in fine, can not be perceived without concluding that it is the
+source of all that is beautiful and good; that in the visible
+world it produces light, and the star whence light directly
+comes; that in the invisible world it directly produces truth
+and intelligence."<a id="footnotetag898" name="footnotetag898"></a>
+<a href="#footnote898"><sup class="sml">898</sup></a> This <i>absolute Good is God</i>.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote897"
+name="footnote897"><b>Footnote 897: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag897">
+(return) </a> "Banquet," § 34.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote898"
+name="footnote898"><b>Footnote 898: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag898">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The order in which these several methods of proof were
+developed, will at once present itself to the mind of the reader
+as the natural order of thought. The first and most obvious
+aspect which nature presents to the opening mind is that of
+movement and change--a succession of phenomena suggesting
+the idea of <i>power</i>. Secondly, a closer attention reveals a resemblance
+of phenomena among themselves, a uniformity of
+nature--an order, proportion, and harmony pervading the <i>cosmos</i>,
+which suggest an <i>identity and unity of power and of reason</i>,
+pervading and controlling all things. Thirdly, a still closer
+inspection of nature reveals a wonderful adaptation of means
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="494">494</a></span>
+to the fulfillment of special ends, of organs designed to fulfill
+specific functions, suggesting the idea of <i>purpose</i>, <i>contrivance</i>,
+and <i>choice</i>, and indicating that the power which moves and
+determines the universe is a <i>personal</i>, <i>thinking</i>, and <i>voluntary</i>
+agent. And fourthly, a profounder study of the nature of
+thought, an analysis of personal consciousness, reveals that
+there are necessary principles, ideas, and laws, which universally
+govern and determine thought to definite and immovable
+conceptions--as, for example, the principles of causality, of
+substance, of identity or unity, of order, of intentionality; and
+that it is only under these laws that we can conceive the universe.
+By the law of substance we are compelled to regard
+these ideas, which are not only laws of thought but also of
+things, as inherent in a subject, or Being, who made all things,
+and whose ideas are reflected in the reason of man. Thus
+from universal and necessary ideas we rise to the <i>absolute Idea</i>,
+from immutable principles to a <i>First Principle of all principles</i>,
+a <i>First Thought</i> of all thoughts--that is, to <i>God</i>. This is the
+history of the development of thought in the individual, and in
+the race--<i>cause</i>, <i>order</i>, <i>design</i>, <i>idea</i>, <i>being</i>, GOD.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="495" >495</a></span>
+<br>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XV.</h3>
+
+<h3>THE PROPÆDEUTIC OFFICE OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY <i>(continued)</i>.</h3>
+
+<p>
+"If we regard this sublime philosophy as a preparation for Christianity
+instead of seeking in it a substitute for the Gospel, we shall not need to
+overstate its grandeur in order to estimate its real value."--Pressensé.</p>
+
+<p>"Plato made me to know the true God. Jesus Christ showed me the
+way to Him."--St. Augustine.
+</p>
+
+<p>The preparatory office of Grecian philosophy is also seen
+in <i>the department of morals</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I. <i>In the awakening and enthronement of Conscience as a law
+of duty, and the elevation and purification of the Moral Idea</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The same law of evolution, which we have seen governing
+the history of speculative thought, may also be traced as determining
+the progress of ethical inquiry. In this department
+there are successive stages marked, both in the individual and
+the national mind. There is, first, the simplicity and trust of
+childhood, submitting with unquestioning faith to prescribed
+and arbitrary laws; then the unsettled and ill-directed force
+of youth, questioning the authority of laws, and asking reasons
+why this or that is obligatory; then the philosophic wisdom of
+riper years, recognizing an inherent law of duty, which has an
+absolute rightness and an imperative obligation. There is
+first a dim and shadowy apprehension of some lines of moral
+distinction, and some consciousness of obligation, but these
+rest mainly upon an outward law--the observed practice of
+others, or the command of the parent as, in some sense, the
+command of God. Then, to attain to personal convictions,
+man passes through a stage of doubt; he asks for a ground of
+obligation, for an authority that shall approve itself to his own
+judgment and reason. At last he arrives at some ultimate
+principles of right, some immutable standard of duty; he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="496" >496</a></span>
+recognizes an inward law of conscience, and it becomes to him as
+the voice of God. He extends his analysis to history, and he
+finds that the universal conscience of the race has, in all ages,
+uttered the same behest. Should he live in Christian times,
+he discovers a wondrous harmony between the voice of God
+within the heart, and the voice of God within the pages of inspiration.
+And now the convention of public opinion, and the
+laws of the state, are revered and upheld by him, just so far as
+they bear the imprimatur of reason and of conscience--that is,
+of God.</p>
+
+<p>This history of the normal development of the individual
+mind has its counterpart in the history of humanity. There is
+(1.) <i>The age of popular and unconscious morality</i>; (2.) <i>The transitional,
+skeptical, or sophistical age</i>; and (3.) <i>The philosophic or
+conscious age of morality</i>.<a id="footnotetag899" name="footnotetag899"></a>
+<a href="#footnote899"><sup class="sml">899</sup></a> In the "Republic" of Plato, we
+have these three eras represented by different persons, through
+the course of the dialogue. The question is started--what is
+Justice? and an answer is given from the stand-point of popular
+morality, by Polemarchus, who quotes the words of the poet
+Simonides,</p>
+
+<p class="mid">"To give to each his due is just;"<a id="footnotetag900" name="footnotetag900"></a>
+<a href="#footnote900"><sup class="sml">900</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>that is, justice is paying your debts. This doctrine being
+proved inadequate, an answer is given from the Sophistical
+point of view by Thrasymachus, who defines justice as "the
+advantage of the strongest"--that is, might is right, and right is
+might.<a id="footnotetag901" name="footnotetag901"></a>
+<a href="#footnote901"><sup class="sml">901</sup></a> This answer being sharply refuted, the way is opened
+for a more philosophic account, which is gradually evolved in
+book iv., Glaucon and Adimantus personifying the practical
+understanding, which is gradually brought into harmony with
+philosophy, and Socrates the higher reason, as the purely philosophic
+conception. Justice is found to be the right proportion
+and harmonious development of all the elements of the soul,
+and the equal balance of all the interests of society, so as to
+secure a well-regulated and harmonious whole.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote899"
+name="footnote899"><b>Footnote 899: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag899">
+(return) </a> Grant's "Aristotle's Ethics," vol. i. p. 46.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote900"
+name="footnote900"><b>Footnote 900: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag900">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. i. § 6.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote901"
+name="footnote901"><b>Footnote 901: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag901">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. i. § 12.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="497" >497</a></span>
+
+<p>The era of <i>popular and unconscious morality</i> is represented
+by the times of Homer, Hesiod, the Gnomic poets, and "the
+Seven Wise Men of Greece."</p>
+
+<p>This was an age of instinctive action, rather than reflection--of
+poetry and feeling, rather than analytic thought. The
+rules of life were presented in maxims and proverbs, which do
+not rise above prudential counsels or empirical deductions.
+Morality was immediately associated with the religion of the
+state, and the will of the gods was the highest law for men.
+"Homer and Hesiod, and the Gnomic poets, constituted the
+educational course," to which may be added the saws and
+aphorisms of the Seven Wise Men, and we have before us the
+main sources of Greek views of duty. When the question was
+asked--"What is right?" the answer was given by a quotation
+from Homer, Hesiod, Simonides, and the like. The morality
+of Homer "is concrete, not abstract; it expresses the conception
+of a heroic life, rather than a philosophic theory. It is
+mixed up with a religion which really consists in a celebration
+of the beauty of nature, and in a deification of the strong and
+brilliant qualities of human nature. It is a morality uninfluenced
+by a regard for a future life. It clings with intense
+enjoyment and love to the present world, and the state after
+death looms up in the distance as a cold and repugnant shadow.
+And yet it would often hold death preferable to disgrace.
+The distinction between a noble and ignoble life is strongly
+marked in Homer, and yet a sense of right and wrong about
+particular actions seems fluctuating" and confused.<a id="footnotetag902" name="footnotetag902"></a>
+<a href="#footnote902"><sup class="sml">902</sup></a> A sensuous
+conception of happiness is the chief good, and mere
+temporal advantage the principal reward of virtue. We hear
+nothing of the approving smile of conscience, of inward self-satisfaction,
+and peace, and harmony, resulting from the practice
+of virtue. Justice, energy, temperance, chastity, are enjoined,
+because they secure temporal good. And yet, with all
+this imperfection, the poets present "a remarkable picture of
+primitive simplicity, chastity, justice, and practical piety, under
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="498" >498</a></span>
+the three-fold influence of right moral feeling, mutual
+and fear of the divine displeasure."<a id="footnotetag903" name="footnotetag903"></a>
+<a href="#footnote903"><sup class="sml">903</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote902"
+name="footnote902"><b>Footnote 902: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag902">
+(return) </a> Grant's "Aristotle's Ethics," vol. i. p. 51.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote903"
+name="footnote903"><b>Footnote 903: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag903">
+(return) </a> Tyler, "Theology of the Greek Poets," p. 167.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The <i>transitional, skeptical</i>, or <i>sophistical era</i> begins with Protagoras.
+Poetry and proverbs had ceased to satisfy the reason
+of man. The awakening intellect had begun to call in question
+the old maxims and "wise saws," to dispute the arbitrary
+authority of the poets, and even to arraign the institutions of
+society. It had already begun to seek for some reasonable
+foundation of authority for the opinions, customs, laws, and institutions
+which had descended to them from the past, and to
+ask why men were obliged to do this or that? The question
+whether there is at bottom any real difference between truth
+and error, right and wrong, was now fairly before the human
+mind. The ultimate standard of all truth and all right, was
+now the grand object of pursuit. These inquiries were not,
+however, conducted by the Sophists with the best motives.
+They were not always prompted by an earnest desire to know
+the truth, and an earnest purpose to embrace and do the right.
+They talked and argued for mere effect--to display their dialectic
+subtilty, or their rhetorical power. They taught virtue
+for mere emolument and pay. They delighted, as Cicero tells
+us, to plead the opposite sides of a cause with equal effect.
+And they found exquisite pleasure in raising difficulties, maintaining
+paradoxes, and passing off mere tricks of oratory for
+solid proofs. This is the uniform representation of the sophistical
+spirit which is given by all the best writers who lived
+nearest to their times, and who are, therefore, to be presumed
+to have known them best. Grote<a id="footnotetag904" name="footnotetag904"></a>
+<a href="#footnote904"><sup class="sml">904</sup></a> has made an elaborate defense
+of the Sophists; he charges Plato with gross misrepresentation.
+His portraits of them are denounced as mere caricatures,
+prompted by a spirit of antagonism; all antiquity is presumed
+to have been misled by him. No one, however, can
+read Grant's "Essay on the History of Moral Philosophy in
+Greece"<a id="footnotetag905" name="footnotetag905"></a>
+<a href="#footnote905"><sup class="sml">905</sup></a> without feeling that his vindication of Plato is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="499" >499</a></span>
+complete and unanswerable: "Plato never represents the Sophists
+as teaching a lax morality to their disciples. He does not
+make sophistry to consist in holding wicked opinions; he represents
+them as only too orthodox in general,<a id="footnotetag906" name="footnotetag906"></a>
+<a href="#footnote906"><sup class="sml">906</sup></a> but capable of
+giving utterance to immoral paradoxes for the sake of vanity.
+Sophistry rather tampers and trifles with the moral convictions
+than directly attacks them." The Sophists were wanting in
+deep conviction, in moral earnestness, in sincere love of truth,
+in reverence for goodness and purity, and therefore their trifling,
+insincere, and paradoxical teaching was unfavorable to
+goodness of life. The tendency of their method is forcibly depicted
+in the words of Plato: "There are certain dogmas relating
+to what is <i>just</i> and <i>good</i> in which we have been brought
+up from childhood--obeying and reverencing them. Other
+opinions recommending pleasure and license we resist, out of
+respect for the old hereditary maxims. Well, then, a question
+comes up concerning what is right? He gives some answer
+such as he has been taught, and straightway is refuted. He
+tries again, and is again refuted. And, when this has happened
+pretty often, he is reduced to the opinion that <i>nothing is
+either right or wrong</i>; and in the same way it happens about
+the just and the good, and all that before we have held in
+reverence. On this, he naturally abandons his allegiance to
+the old principles and takes up with those he before resisted,
+and so, from being a good citizen, he becomes lawless."<a id="footnotetag907" name="footnotetag907"></a>
+<a href="#footnote907"><sup class="sml">907</sup></a> And,
+in point of fact, this was the theoretical landing-place of the
+Sophists. We do not say they became practically "lawless"
+and antinomian, but they did arrive at the settled opinion that
+right and wrong, truth and error, are solely matter of private
+opinion and conventional usage. Man's own fluctuating opinion
+is the measure and standard of all things.<a id="footnotetag908" name="footnotetag908"></a>
+<a href="#footnote908"><sup class="sml">908</sup></a> They who
+"make the laws, make them for their own advantage."<a id="footnotetag909" name="footnotetag909"></a>
+<a href="#footnote909"><sup class="sml">909</sup></a> There
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="500" >500</a></span>
+is no such thing as Eternal Right. "That which <i>appears</i> just
+and honorable to each city is so for that city, as long as the
+opinion prevails."<a id="footnotetag910" name="footnotetag910"></a>
+<a href="#footnote910"><sup class="sml">910</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote904"
+name="footnote904"><b>Footnote 904: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag904">
+(return) </a> "History of Greece."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote905"
+name="footnote905"><b>Footnote 905: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag905">
+(return) </a> Aristotle's "Ethics," vol. i. ch. ii</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote906"
+name="footnote906"><b>Footnote 906: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag906">
+(return) </a> "His teachings will be good counsels about a man's own affairs, how
+best to govern his family; and also about the affairs of the state, how most
+ably to administer and speak of state affairs."--"Protag.," § 26.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote907"
+name="footnote907"><b>Footnote 907: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag907">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xvii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote908"
+name="footnote908"><b>Footnote 908: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag908">
+(return) </a> "Theætetus," § 23.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote909"
+name="footnote909"><b>Footnote 909: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag909">
+(return) </a> "Gorgias," §§ 85-89.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote910"
+name="footnote910"><b>Footnote 910: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag910">
+(return) </a> "Theætetus," §§ 65-75.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The age of the Sophists was a transitional period--a necessary,
+though, in itself considered, an unhappy stage in the progress
+of the human mind; but it opened the way for,
+<i>The Socratic, philosophic</i>, or <i>conscious age of morals</i>. It has
+been said that "before Socrates there was no morality in
+Greece, but only propriety of conduct." If by this is meant
+that prior to Socrates men simply followed the maxims of
+"the Theologians,"<a id="footnotetag911" name="footnotetag911"></a>
+<a href="#footnote911"><sup class="sml">911</sup></a> and obeyed the laws of the state, without
+reflection and inquiry as to the intrinsic character of the acts,
+and without any analysis and exact definition, so as to attain
+to principles of ultimate and absolute right, it must be accepted
+as true--there was no philosophy of morals. Socrates is therefore
+justly regarded as "the father of moral philosophy." Aristotle
+says that he confined himself chiefly to ethical inquiries.
+He sought a determinate conception and an exact definition of
+virtue. As Xenophon has said of him, "he never ceased asking,
+What is piety? what is impiety? what is noble? what is
+base? what is just? what is unjust? what is temperance? what
+is madness?"<a id="footnotetag912" name="footnotetag912"></a>
+<a href="#footnote912"><sup class="sml">912</sup></a> And these questions were not asked in the
+Sophistic spirit, as a dialectic exercise, or from idle curiosity.
+He was a perfect contrast to the Sophists. They had slighted
+Truth, he made her the mistress of his soul. They had turned
+away from her, he longed for more perfect communion with
+her. They had deserted her for money and renown, he was
+faithful to her in poverty.<a id="footnotetag913" name="footnotetag913"></a>
+<a href="#footnote913"><sup class="sml">913</sup></a> He wanted to know what piety
+was, that he might be pious. He desired to know what justice,
+temperance, nobility, courage were, that he might cultivate
+and practise them. He wrote no books, delivered no lectures;
+he instituted no school; he simply conversed in the shop, the
+market-place, the banquet-hall, and the prison. This philosophy
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="501" >501</a></span>
+was not so much a <i>doctrine</i> as a <i>life</i>. "What is remarkable
+in him is not the <i>system</i> but the <i>man</i>. The memory he left behind
+him amongst his disciples, though idealized--the affection,
+blended with reverence, which they never ceased to feel
+for his person, bear testimony to the elevation of his character
+and his moral purity. We recognize in him a Greek of Athens--one
+who had imbibed many dangerous errors, and on whom
+the yoke of pagan custom still weighed; but his life was nevertheless
+a noble life; and it is to calumny we must have recourse
+if we are to tarnish its beauty by odious insinuations, as
+Lucian did, and as has been too frequently done, after him, by
+unskillful defenders of Christianity,<a id="footnotetag914" name="footnotetag914"></a>
+<a href="#footnote914"><sup class="sml">914</sup></a> who imagine it is the
+gainer by all that degrades human nature. Born in a humble
+position, destitute of all the temporal advantages which the
+Greeks so passionately loved, Socrates exerted a kingship over
+minds. His dominion was the more real for being less apparent....
+His power consisted of three things: his devoted
+affection for his disciples, his disinterested love of truth, and
+the perfect harmony of his life and doctrine.... If he recommended
+temperance and sobriety, he also set the example;
+poorly clad, satisfied with little, he disdained all the delicacies
+of life. He possessed every species of courage. On the field
+of battle he was intrepid, and still more intrepid when he resisted
+the caprices of the multitude who demanded of him,
+when he was a senator, to commit the injustice of summoning
+ten generals before the tribunals. He also infringed the iniquitous
+orders of the thirty tyrants of Athens. The satires of
+Aristophanes neither moved nor irritated him. The same
+dauntless firmness he displayed when brought before his
+judges, charged with impiety. 'If it is your wish to absolve
+me on condition that I henceforth be silent, I reply I love and
+honor you, but I ought rather to obey the gods than you. Neither
+in the presence of judges nor of the enemy is it permitted
+me, or any other man, to use every sort of means to escape
+death. It is not death but crime that it is difficult to avoid;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="502" >502</a></span>
+crime moves faster than death. So I, old and heavy as I am,
+have allowed myself to be overtaken by death, while my accusers,
+light and vigorous, have allowed themselves to be overtaken
+by the light-footed crime. I go, then, to suffer death;
+they to suffer shame and iniquity. I abide by my punishment,
+as they by theirs. All is according to order.' It was the same
+fidelity to duty that made Socrates refuse to escape from prison,
+in order not to violate the laws of his country, to which, even
+though irritated, more respect is due than to a father. 'Let us
+walk in the path,' he says 'that God has traced for us.' These
+last words show the profound religious sentiment which animated
+Socrates.... It is impossible not to feel that there was
+something divine in such a life crowned with such a death."<a id="footnotetag915" name="footnotetag915"></a>
+<a href="#footnote915"><sup class="sml">915</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote911"
+name="footnote911"><b>Footnote 911: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag911">
+(return) </a> Homer, Hesiod, etc.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote912"
+name="footnote912"><b>Footnote 912: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag912">
+(return) </a> "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. i. p. 16.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote913"
+name="footnote913"><b>Footnote 913: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag913">
+(return) </a> Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 122.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote914"
+name="footnote914"><b>Footnote 914: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag914">
+(return) </a> Watson's "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 374.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote915"
+name="footnote915"><b>Footnote 915: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag915">
+(return) </a> Pressensé, "Religions before Christ," pp. 109-111.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Socrates laid the foundation for conscious morality by
+placing the ground of right and wrong in an eternal and unchangeable
+reason which illuminates the reason and conscience
+of every man. He often asserted that morality is a science
+which can not be taught. It depends mainly upon principles
+which are discovered by an inward light. Accordingly he regarded
+it as the main business of education to "draw out" into
+the light of consciousness the principles of right and justice
+which are infolded within the conscience of man--to deliver
+the mind of the secret truth which was striving towards the
+light of day. Therefore he called his method the "maieutic"
+or "obstetric" art. He felt there was something divine in all
+men (answering to his <i>τὸ δαιµόνιον</i> or <i>δαιµόνιον τι</i>--a divine
+and supernatural something--a warning "voice"--a gnomic
+"sign"--a "law of God written on the heart"), which by a system
+of skillful interrogations he sought to elicit, so that each
+might hear for himself the voice of God, and, hearing, might
+obey. Thus was he the "great prophet of the human conscience,"
+and a messenger of God to the heathen world, to prepare
+the way of the Lord.</p>
+
+<p>The morality of conscience was carried to its highest point
+by Plato. From the moment he became the disciple of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="503">503</a></span>
+Socrates he sympathized deeply with the spirit and the method of
+his master. He had the same deep seriousness of spirit, that
+same earnestness of purpose, that same inward reverence for
+justice, and purity, and goodness, which dwelt in the heart of
+Socrates. A naturally noble nature, he loved truth with all
+the glow and fervor of his young heart. He felt that if any
+thing gave meaning and value to life, it must be the contemplation
+of absolute truth, absolute beauty, and absolute Good.
+This absolute Good is God, who is the first principle of all
+ideas, the fountain of all the order and proportion and beauty
+of the universe, the source of all the good which exists in
+nature and in man. To practise goodness--to conform the
+character to the eternal models of order, proportion, and excellence,
+is to resemble God. To aspire after perfection of
+moral being, to secure assimilation to God (όµοίωσις θεῷ) is the
+noble aspiration of Plato's soul.</p>
+
+<p>When we read the "Gorgias," the "Philebus," and especially
+the "Republic," with what noble joy are we filled on hearing the
+voice of conscience, like a harp swept by a seraph's hand, uttering
+such deep-toned melodies! How does he drown the clamors
+of passion, the calculations of mere expediency, the sophism
+of mere personal interest and utility. If he calls us to witness
+the triumph of the wicked in the first part of the "Republic," it
+is in order that we may at the end of the book see the deceitfulness
+of their triumph. "As to the wicked," he says, "I
+maintain that even if they succeed at first in concealing what
+they are, most of them betray themselves at the end of their
+career. They are covered with opprobrium, and present evils
+are nothing compared with those that <i>await them in the other
+life</i>. As to the just man, whether in sickness or in poverty,
+these imaginary evils will turn to his advantage in this life, <i>and
+after his death</i>; because the providence of the gods is necessarily
+attentive to the interests of him who labors to become
+just, and to attain, by the practice of virtue, to the most perfect
+resemblance to God which is possible to man."<a id="footnotetag916" name="footnotetag916"></a>
+<a href="#footnote916"><sup class="sml">916</sup></a> He rises
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="504" >504</a></span>
+above all "greatest happiness principles," and asserts distinctly
+in the "Gorgias" that it is better to suffer wrong than to do
+wrong.<a id="footnotetag917" name="footnotetag917"></a>
+<a href="#footnote917"><sup class="sml">917</sup></a> "I maintain," says he, "that what is most shameful
+is not to be struck unjustly on the cheek, or to be wounded in
+the body; but that to strike and wound me unjustly, to rob
+me, or reduce me to slavery--to commit, in a word, any kind
+of injustice towards me, or what is mine--is a thing far worse
+and more odious for him who commits the injustice, than for
+me who suffer it."<a id="footnotetag918" name="footnotetag918"></a>
+<a href="#footnote918"><sup class="sml">918</sup></a> It is a great combat, he says, greater than
+we think, that wherein the issue is whether we shall be virtuous
+or wicked. Neither glory, nor riches, nor dignities, nor
+poetry, deserves that we should neglect justice for them. The
+moral idea in Plato has such intense truth and force, that it
+has at times a striking analogy with the language of the Holy
+Scriptures.<a id="footnotetag919" name="footnotetag919"></a>
+<a href="#footnote919"><sup class="sml">919</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote916"
+name="footnote916"><b>Footnote 916: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag916">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. x. ch. xii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote917"
+name="footnote917"><b>Footnote 907: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag917">
+(return) </a> "Gorgias," §§ 59-80.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote918"
+name="footnote918"><b>Footnote 918: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag918">
+(return) </a> Ibid., § 137.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote919"
+name="footnote919"><b>Footnote 919: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag919">
+(return) </a> Pressensé, "Religions before Christ," p. 129.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The obligation of moral rectitude is, by Plato, derived from
+the authoritative utterances of conscience as the voice of God.
+We must do right because reason and conscience say it is right.
+In the "Euthyphron" he maintains that the moral quality of
+actions is not dependent on the arbitrary will of a Supreme
+Governor;--"an act is not holy because the gods love it, but
+the gods love it because it is holy." The eternal law of right
+dwells in the Eternal Reason of God, the idea of right in all
+human minds is a ray of that Eternal Reason; and the requirement
+of the divine law that we shall do right is, and must be,
+in harmony with both.</p>
+
+<p>The present life is regarded by Plato as a state of probation
+and discipline, the future life as one of reward and punishment.<a id="footnotetag920" name="footnotetag920"></a>
+<a href="#footnote920"><sup class="sml">920</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote920"
+name="footnote920"><b>Footnote 920: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag920">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. x. ch. xv., xvi.; "Laws," bk. x. ch. xiii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Plato was thus to the heathen world "the great apostle of
+the moral idea;" he followed up and completed the work of
+Socrates. "The voice of God, that still found a profound echo
+in man's heart, possessed in him an organ to which all Greece
+gave ear; and the austere revelation of conscience this time
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="505" >505</a></span>
+embodied in language too harmonious not to entice by the
+beauty of form, a nation of artists, they received it. The tables
+of the eternal law, carved in purest marble and marvellously
+sculptured, were read by them."</p>
+
+<p>In Plato both the theistic conception and the moral idea
+seem to have touched the zenith. The philosophy of Aristotle,
+considered as a whole, appears on one side to have passed the
+line of the great Hellenic period. If it did not inaugurate, it
+at least prepared the way for the decline. It perfected logic,
+as the instrument of ratiocination, and gave it exactness and
+precision, Yet taken all in all, it was greatly inferior to its
+predecessor. From the moral point of view it is a decided retrogression.
+The god of Aristotle is indifferent to virtue. He
+is pure thought rather than moral perfection. He takes no
+cognizance of man. Morality has no eternal basis, no divine
+type, and no future reward. Therefore Aristotle's philosophy
+had little power over the conscience and heart.</p>
+
+<p>During the grand Platonic period human reason made its
+loftiest flight, it rose aloft and soared towards heaven, but alas!
+its wings, like those of Icarus, melted in the sun and it fell to
+earth again. Instead of wax it needed the strong "eagle pinions
+of faith" which revelation only can supply. The decadence
+is strongly marked both in the Epicurean and Stoic
+schools. They both express the feeling of exhaustion, disappointment,
+and despair. The popular theology had lost its
+hold upon the public mind. The gods no longer visited the
+earth. "The mysterious voice which, according to the poetic
+legend related by Plutarch, was heard out at sea--'Great Pan
+is dead'--rose up from every heart; the voice of an incredulous
+age proclaimed the coming end of paganism. The oracles
+were dumb." There was no vision in the land. All faith in a
+beneficent overruling Providence was lost, and the hope of immortality
+was well-nigh gone. The doctrines of a resurrection
+and a judgment to come, were objects of derisive mockery.<a id="footnotetag921" name="footnotetag921"></a>
+<a href="#footnote921"><sup class="sml">921</sup></a>
+Philosophy directed her attention solely to the problem of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="506" >506</a></span>
+individual well-being on earth; it became simply a philosophy
+of life, and not, as with Plato, "a preparation for death." The
+grosser minds sought refuge in the doctrines of Epicurus.
+They said, "Pleasure is the chief good, the end of life is to enjoy
+yourself;" to this end "dismiss the fear of gods, and, above
+all, the fear of death." The nobler souls found an asylum with
+the Stoics. They said, "Fata nos ducunt--The Fates lead us!
+Live conformable to reason. Endure and abstain!" Notwithstanding
+numerous and serious errors, the ethical system
+of the Stoics was wonderfully pure. This must be confessed
+by any one who reads the "Enchiridion" of Epictetus, and the
+"Meditations" of Aurelius. "The highest end of life is to contemplate
+truth and to obey the Eternal Reason. God is to be
+reverenced above all things, and universally submitted to. The
+noblest office of reason is to subjugate passion and conduct to
+virtue. Virtue is the supreme good, which is to be pursued for
+its own sake, and not from fear or hope. That is sufficient for
+happiness which is seated only in the mind, and therefore independent
+of external things. The consciousness of well-doing
+is reward enough without the applause of others. And no fear
+of loss, or pain, or even death, must be suffered to turn us aside
+from truth and virtue."<a id="footnotetag922" name="footnotetag922"></a>
+<a href="#footnote922"><sup class="sml">922</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote921"
+name="footnote921"><b>Footnote 921: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag921">
+(return) </a> Acts xvii. 32.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote922"
+name="footnote922"><b>Footnote 922: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag922">
+(return) </a> Marcus Aurelius.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The preparatory office of Christianity in the field of ethics is
+further seen,</p>
+
+<p>II. <i>In the fact that, by an experiment conducted on the largest
+scale, it demonstrated the insufficiency of reason to elaborate a perfect
+ideal of moral excellence, and develop the moral forces necessary
+to secure its realization</i>.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen that the moral idea in Socrates, Plato, Epictetus,
+Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca rose to a sublime height, and
+that, under its influence, they developed a noble and heroic
+character. At the same time it must be conceded that their
+ethical system was marked by signal blemishes and radical defects.
+After all its excellence, it did not give roundness, completeness,
+and symmetry to moral life. The elements which
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="507">507</a></span>
+really purify and ennoble man, and lend grace and beauty to
+life, were utterly wanting. Their systems were rather a discipline
+of the reason than a culture of the heart. The reason
+held in check the lower passions and propensities of the nature
+but it did not evoke the softer, gentler, purer emotions of the
+soul. The cardinal virtues of the ancient ethical systems are
+Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Courage, all which are in
+the last analysis reduced to Wisdom. Humility, Meekness,
+Forgiveness of injuries, Love of even enemies, Universal Benevolence,
+Real Philanthropy, the graces which give beauty to
+character and bless society, are scarcely known. It is true
+that in Epictetus and Seneca we have some counsels to humility,
+to forbearance, and forgiveness; but it must be borne in
+mind that Christianity was now in the air, exerting an indirect
+influence beyond the limits of the labors of the indefatigable
+missionaries of the Cross.<a id="footnotetag923" name="footnotetag923"></a>
+<a href="#footnote923"><sup class="sml">923</sup></a> By their predecessors, these qualities
+were disparaged rather than upheld. Resentment of injuries
+was applauded as a virtue, and meekness was proclaimed
+a defect and a weakness. They knew nothing of a forgiving
+spirit, and were strangers to the charity "which endureth all
+things, hopeth all things, and never fails." The enlarged philanthrophy
+which overleaps the bounds of kindred and nationality,
+and embraces a common humanity in its compassionate
+regards and benevolent efforts, was unknown. Socrates, the
+noblest of all the Grecians, was in no sense cosmopolitan in his
+feeling. His whole nature and character wore a Greek impress.
+He could scarce be tempted to go beyond the gates of Athens,
+and his care was all for the Athenian people. He could not
+conceive an universal philanthropy. Plato, in his solicitude
+to reduce his ideal state to a harmonious whole, answering to
+his idea of Justice, sacrificed the individual. He superseded
+private property, broke up the sacred relations of family and
+home, degraded woman, and tolerated slavery. Selfishness
+was to be overcome, and political order maintained, by a rigid
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="508" >508</a></span>
+communism. To harmonize individual rights and national interests,
+was the wisdom reserved for the fishermen of Galilee.
+The whole method of Plato's "Politeia," breathes the spirit of
+legalism in all its severity, untempered by the spirit of Love.
+This was the living force which was wanting to give energy to
+the ideals of the reason and conscience, to furnish high motive
+to virtue, to prompt to deeds of heroic sacrifice and suffering
+for the good of others; and this could not be inspired by philosophy,
+nor constrained by legislation. This love must descend
+from above. "The Platonic love" was a mere intellectual
+appreciation of beauty, and order, and proportion, and excellence.
+It was not the love of man as the offspring and
+image of God, as the partaker of a common nature, and the
+heir of a common immortality. Such love was first revealed
+on earth by the incarnate Son of God, and can only be attained
+by human hearts under the inspiration of his teaching and life,
+and the renewing influence of the Holy Spirit. "Love is of
+God, and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth
+God." To "love our neighbor as ourself" is the golden precept
+of the Son of God, who is incarnate Love. The equality
+of all men as "the offspring of God" had been nominally recognized
+by the Stoic philosophers; its realization had been
+rendered possible to the popular thought by Roman conquest,
+law, and jurisprudence; these had prepared the way for its
+fullest announcement and practical recognition by the world.
+At this providential juncture St. Paul appears on Mars' Hill,
+and in the presence of the assembled philosophers proclaims,
+"<i>God hath made of one blood all nations of men</i>." A lofty ideal
+of moral excellence had been attained by Plato--the conception
+of a high and inflexible morality, which contrasted most
+vividly with the depravity which prevailed in Athenian society.
+The education "of the public assemblies, the courts, the theatres,
+or wherever the multitude gathered" was unfavorable to
+virtue. And the inadequacy of all mere human teaching to resist
+this current of evil, and save the young men of the age from
+ruin, is touchingly and mournfully confessed by Plato. "There
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="509" >509</a></span>
+is not, there never was, there never will be a moral education
+possible that can countervail the education of which these are
+the dispensers; that is, <i>human</i> education: I except, with the
+proverb, that which is Divine. And, truly, any soul that in
+such governments escapes the common wreck, can only escape
+<i>by the special favor of heaven."</i><a id="footnotetag924" name="footnotetag924"></a>
+<a href="#footnote924"><sup class="sml">924</sup></a> He affirms again and again
+that man can not by himself rise to purity and goodness. "Virtue
+is not natural to man, neither is it to be learned, but it
+comes to us by a divine influence. Virtue is the gift of God in
+those who possess it."<a id="footnotetag925" name="footnotetag925"></a>
+<a href="#footnote925"><sup class="sml">925</sup></a> That "gift of God" was about to be
+bestowed, in all its fullness of power and blessing, "<i>through
+Jesus Christ our Lord</i>."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote923"
+name="footnote923"><b>Footnote 923: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag923">
+(return) </a> Seneca lived in the second century; Epictetus, in the latter part of the
+first century.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote924"
+name="footnote924"><b>Footnote 924: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag924">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vi., vii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote925"
+name="footnote925"><b>Footnote 925: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag925">
+(return) </a> "Meno;" see conclusion.</blockquote>
+
+<p>In the department of <i>religious feeling</i> and <i>sentiment</i>, the
+propædeutic office of Greek philosophy is seen, in general, in
+the revealing of the immediate spiritual wants of the soul, and
+the distinct presentation of the problem which Christianity
+alone can solve.</p>
+
+<p>I. <i>It awakened in man the sense of distance and estrangement
+from God, and the need of a Mediator--"a daysman betwixt us,
+that might lay his hand upon us both</i>"<a id="footnotetag926" name="footnotetag926"></a>
+<a href="#footnote926"><sup class="sml">926</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote926"
+name="footnote926"><b>Footnote 926: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag926">
+(return) </a> Job ix. 33.</blockquote>
+
+<p>During the period of unconscious and unreflective theism,
+the sentiment of the Divine was one of objective nearness and
+personal intimacy. The gods interposed directly in the affairs
+of men, and held frequent and familiar intercourse with our
+race. They descend to the battle-field of Troy, and mingle in
+the bloody strife. They grace the wedding-feast by their presence,
+and heighten the gladness with celestial music. They
+visit the poor and the stranger, and sometimes clothe the old
+and shrivelled beggar with celestial beauty. They inspire their
+favorites with strength and courage, and fill their mouths with
+wisdom and eloquence. They manifest their presence by signs
+and wonders, by visions and dreams, by auguries and prophetic
+voices. But more frequently than all, they are seen in the
+ordinary phenomena of nature, the sunshine and storm, the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="510">510</a></span>
+winds and tempests, the hail and rain. The natural is, in fact,
+the supernatural, and all the changes of nature are the movement
+and action of the Divine. The feeling of dependence is
+immediate and universal, and worship is the natural and spontaneous
+act of man.</p>
+
+<p>But the period of reflection is inevitable. Man turns his
+inquiring gaze towards nature and desires, by an imperfect
+effort of physical induction, to reach "the first principle and
+cause of things." Soon he discovers the prevalence of uniformity
+in nature, the actions of physical properties and agencies,
+and he catches some glimpses of the reign of universal
+law. The natural tendency of this discovery is obvious in the
+weakening of his sense of dependence on the immediate agency
+of God. The Egyptians told Herodotus that, as their fields
+were regularly irrigated by the waters of the Nile, they were
+less dependent on God than the Greeks, whose lands were
+watered by rains, and who must perish if Jupiter did not send
+them showers.<a id="footnotetag927" name="footnotetag927"></a>
+<a href="#footnote927"><sup class="sml">927</sup></a> As man advances in the field of mere physical
+inquiry, God recedes; from the region of explained phenomena,
+he retires into the region of unexplained phenomena--the
+border-land of mystery. The gods are driven from the woods
+and streams, the winds and waves. Neptune does not absolutely
+control the seas, nor Æolus the winds. The Divine
+becomes, no more a physical ἀρχή--a nature-power, but a Supreme
+Mind, an ineffable Spirit, an invisible God, the Supreme
+Essence of Essences, the Supreme Idea of Ideas (εἶδος αὐτὸ
+καθ᾿ αὑτό) apprehended by human reason alone, but having an
+independent, eternal, substantial, personal being. Through
+the instrumentality of Platonism, the idea of God becomes
+clearer and purer. Man had learned that communion with
+the Divinity was something more than an apotheosis of humanity,
+or a pantheistic absorption. He caught glimpses of a
+higher and holier union. He had surrendered the ideal of a
+national communion with God, and of personal protection
+through a federal religion, and now was thrown back upon
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="511" >511</a></span>
+himself to find some channel of personal approach to God.
+But alas! he could not find it. A God so vastly elevated beyond
+human comprehension, who could only be apprehended
+by the most painful effort of abstract thought; a God so infinitely
+removed from man by the purity and rectitude of his
+character; a God who was all pure reason, seemed alien to all
+the yearnings and sympathies of the human heart; and such
+a God, dwelling in pure light, seemed inapproachable and
+inacessible to man.<a id="footnotetag928" name="footnotetag928"></a>
+<a href="#footnote928"><sup class="sml">928</sup></a>The purifying of the religious idea had
+evoked a new ideal, and this ideal was painfully remote. By
+the energy of abstract thought man had striven to pierce the
+veil, and press into "the Holy of Holies," to come into the
+presence of God, and he had failed. And he had sought by
+moral discipline, by self-mortification, by inward purification,
+to raise himself to that lofty plane of purity, where he might
+catch some glimpses of the vision of a holy God, and still he
+failed. Nay, more, he had tried the power of prayer. Socrates,
+and Plato, and Cleanthes had bowed the knee and moved
+the lips in prayer. The emperor Aurelius, and the slave Epictetus
+had prayed, and prayer, no doubt, intensified their longing,
+and sharpened and agonized their desire, but it did not
+raise them to a satisfying and holy <i>koinonia</i> in the divine life.
+"It seems to me"--said Plato--as Homer says of Minerva,
+that she removed the mist from before the eyes of Diomede,</p>
+
+<p class="mid">'That he might clearly see 'twixt Gods and men.'</p>
+
+<p>so must he, in the first place, remove from your soul the mist
+that now dwells there, and then apply those things through
+which you will be able to know<a id="footnotetag929" name="footnotetag929"></a>
+<a href="#footnote929"><sup class="sml">929</sup></a> and rightly pray to God.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote927"
+name="footnote927"><b>Footnote 927: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag927">
+(return) </a> Herodotus, vol. ii. bk. ii. ch. xiii. p. 14 (Rawlinson's edition).</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote928"
+name="footnote928"><b>Footnote 928: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag928">
+(return) </a> "To discover the Maker and Father of the universe is a hard task;....
+to make him known to all is impossible."--"Timæus," ch. ix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote929"
+name="footnote929"><b>Footnote 929: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag929">
+(return) </a> "Second Alcibiades," § 23.</blockquote>
+
+<p>To develop this innate desire and "feeling after God" was
+the grand design of providence in "fixing the times" of the
+Greek nation, and "the boundaries of their habitation."<a id="footnotetag930" name="footnotetag930"></a>
+<a href="#footnote930"><sup class="sml">930</sup></a> Man
+was brought, through a period of discipline, to feel his need
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="512" >512</a></span>
+of a personal relation to God. He was made to long for a
+realizing sense of his presence--to desire above all things a
+Father, a Counsellor, and a Friend--a living ear into which
+he might groan his anguish, or hymn his joy; and a living
+heart that could beat towards him in compassion, and prompt
+immediate succor and aid. The idea of a pure Spiritual Essence
+without form, and without emotion, pervading all, and
+transcending all, is too vague and abstract to yield us comfort,
+and to exert over us any persuasive power. "Our moral
+weakness shrinks from it in trembling awe. The heart can
+not feed on sublimities. We can not make a home of cold
+magnificence; we can not take immensity by the hand."<a id="footnotetag931" name="footnotetag931"></a>
+<a href="#footnote931"><sup class="sml">931</sup></a>
+Hence the need and the desire that God shall condescendingly
+approach to man, and by some manifestation of himself in
+human form, and through the sensibilities of the human heart,
+commend himself to the heart of man--in other words, the
+need of an <i>Incarnation</i>. Thus did the education of our race,
+by the dispensation of philosophy, prepare the way for him
+who was consciously or unconsciously "<i>the Desire of Nations</i>,"
+and the deepening earnestness and spiritual solicitude of the
+heathen world heralded the near approach of Him who was not
+only "the Hope of Israel" but "the Saviour of the world."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote930"
+name="footnote930"><b>Footnote 930: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag930">
+(return) </a> Acts xvii. 26, 27.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote931"
+name="footnote931"><b>Footnote 931: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag931">
+(return) </a> Caird.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The idea of an <i>Incarnation</i> was not unfamiliar to human
+thought, it was no new or strange idea to the heathen mind.
+The numberless metamorphoses of Grecian mythology, the incarnations
+of Brahm, the avatars of Vishnu, and the human
+form of Krishna had naturalized the thought.<a id="footnotetag932" name="footnotetag932"></a>
+<a href="#footnote932"><sup class="sml">932</sup></a> So that when
+the people of Lystra saw the apostles Paul and Barnabas exercising
+supernatural powers of healing, they said, "The gods
+have come down to us in the likeness of men!" and they
+called Barnabas Jupiter, and Paul, Mercurius. The idea in
+its more definite form may have been, and indeed was, communicated
+to the world through the agency of the dispersed
+Jews. So that Virgil, the Roman poet, who was contemporary
+with Christ, seems to re-echo the prophecy of Isaiah--</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote932"
+name="footnote932"><b>Footnote 932: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag932">
+(return) </a> Young's "Christ of History," p. 248.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="513" >513</a></span>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>        The last age decreëd by the Fates is come,</p>
+<p>        And a new frame of all things does begin;</p>
+<p>        A holy progeny from heaven descends</p>
+<p>        Auspicious in his birth, which puts an end</p>
+<p>        To the iron age, and from which shall arise</p>
+<p>        A golden age, most glorious to behold.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>II. <i>Finally, Greek philosophy prepared the way for Christianity
+by awakening and deepening the consciousness of guilt, and the desire
+for Redemption</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The consciousness of sin, and the consequent need of expiation
+for sin, were gradually unfolded in the Greek mind. The
+idea of sin was at first revealed in a confused and indefinite
+feeling of some external, supernatural, and bewildering influence
+which man can not successfully resist; but yet so in harmony
+with the sinner's inclination, that he can not divest himself of
+all responsibility. "Homer has no word answering in comprehensiveness
+or depth of meaning to the word <i>sin</i>, as it is used
+in the Bible..... The noun <i>ἁµαρτία</i> which is appropriated to
+express this idea in the Greek of the New Testament, does not
+occur in the Homeric poems..... The word which is most
+frequently employed to express wrong-doing of every kind is
+<i>ἄτη</i>, with its corresponding verb..... The radical signification
+of the word seems to be a befooling--a depriving one of his
+senses and his reason, as by unseasonable sleep, and excess
+of wine, joined with the influence of evil companions, and the
+power of destiny, or the deity. Hence, the Greek imagination,
+which impersonated every great power, very naturally
+conceived of  Ἄτη as a person, a sort of omnipresent and universal
+cause of folly and sin, of mischief and misery, who,
+though the daughter of Jupiter, yet once fooled or misled Jupiter
+himself, and thenceforth, cast down from heaven to earth,
+walks with light feet over the heads of men, and makes all
+things go wrong. Hence, too, when men come to their senses,
+and see what folly and wrong they have perpetrated, they cast
+the blame on Ἄτη, and so, ultimately, on Jupiter and the
+gods."<a id="footnotetag933" name="footnotetag933"></a>
+<a href="#footnote933"><sup class="sml">933</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote933"
+name="footnote933"><b>Footnote 933: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag933">
+(return) </a> Tyler, "Theology of the Greek Poets," pp. 174, 175.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="514" >514</a></span>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>       "Oft hath this matter been by Greeks discussed,</p>
+<p>        And I their frequent censure have incurred:</p>
+<p>        Yet was not I the cause; but Jove, and Fate,</p>
+<p>        And gloomy Erinnys, who combined to throw</p>
+<p>        A strong delusion o'er my mind, that day</p>
+<p>        I robb'd Achilles of his lawful prize.</p>
+<p>        What could I do? a Goddess all o'erruled,</p>
+<p>        Daughter of Jove, dread Até, baleful power</p>
+<p>        Misleading all; with light step she moves,</p>
+<p>        Not on the earth, but o'er the heads of men.</p>
+<p>        With blighting touch, and many hath caused to err."<a id="footnotetag934" name="footnotetag934"></a>
+<a href="#footnote934"><sup class="sml">934</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And yet, though Agamemnon here attempts to shuffle off the
+guilt of his transgression upon Até, Jove, and Fate, yet at other
+times he confesses his folly and wrong, and makes no attempt
+to cast the responsibility on the gods.<a id="footnotetag935" name="footnotetag935"></a>
+<a href="#footnote935"><sup class="sml">935</sup></a> Though misled by a
+"baleful power," he was not compelled. Though tempted by
+an evil goddess, he yet followed his own sinful passions, and
+therefore he owns himself responsible.</p>
+
+<p>To satisfy the demands of divine justice, to show its hatred
+of sin, and to deter others from transgression, sin is punished.
+Punishment is the penalty due to sin; in the language of
+Homer, it is the payment of a debt incurred by sin. When the
+transgressor is punished he is said to "pay off," or "pay back"
+his crimes; in other words, to expatiate or atone for them.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i20">                                "If not at once,</p>
+<p>        Yet soon or late will Jove assert their claim,</p>
+<p>        And heavy penalty the perjured pay</p>
+<p>        With their own blood, their children's, and their wives'."<a id="footnotetag936" name="footnotetag936"></a>
+<a href="#footnote936"><sup class="sml">936</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>At the same time the belief is expressed that the gods may be,
+and often are, propitiated by prayers and sacrifices, and thus
+the penalty is remitted.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>         "The Gods themselves, in virtue, honor, strength,</p>
+<p>          Excelling thee, may yet be mollified;</p>
+<p>          For they when mortals have transgressed, or fail'd</p>
+<p>          To do aright, by sacrifice and pray'r,</p>
+<p>          Libations and burnt-off'rings, may be sooth'd."<a id="footnotetag937" name="footnotetag937"></a>
+<a href="#footnote937"><sup class="sml">937</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote934"
+name="footnote934"><b>Footnote 934: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag934">
+(return) </a> "Iliad," bk. xix. l. 91-101 (Lord Derby's translation).</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote935"
+name="footnote935"><b>Footnote 935: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag935">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. ix. l. 132-136.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote936"
+name="footnote936"><b>Footnote 936: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag936">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. iv. l. 185-188.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote937"
+name="footnote937"><b>Footnote 937: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag937">
+(return) </a> Ibid., bk. ix. l. 581-585.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="515" >515</a></span>
+
+<p>Polytheism, then, as Dr. Schaff has remarked, had the voice
+of conscience, and a sense, however obscure, of sin. It felt
+the need of reconciliation with deity, and sought that reconciliation
+by prayer, penance, and sacrifice.<a id="footnotetag938" name="footnotetag938"></a>
+<a href="#footnote938"><sup class="sml">938</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>The sense of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the absolute
+need of expiation, is determined with increasing clearness
+and definiteness in the tragic poets.</p>
+
+<p>The first great law which the Tragedians recognize, as a law
+written on the heart, is "that the sinner must suffer for his
+sins." The connection between sin and suffering is constantly
+recognized as a natural and necessary connection, like that between
+sowing and reaping.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>            A haughty spirit, blossoming, bears a crop</p>
+<p>             Of woe, and reaps a harvest of despair.<a id="footnotetag939" name="footnotetag939"></a>
+<a href="#footnote939"><sup class="sml">939</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Lust and violence beget lust and violence, and vengeance
+too, at the appointed time."<a id="footnotetag940" name="footnotetag940"></a>
+<a href="#footnote940"><sup class="sml">940</sup></a> "Impiety multiplies and perpetuates
+itself."<a id="footnotetag941" name="footnotetag941"></a>
+<a href="#footnote941"><sup class="sml">941</sup></a> "The sinner pays the debt he contracted,
+ends the career that he begins,"<a id="footnotetag942" name="footnotetag942"></a>
+<a href="#footnote942"><sup class="sml">942</sup></a> "and drinks to the dregs the
+cup of cursing which he himself had filled."<a id="footnotetag943" name="footnotetag943"></a>
+<a href="#footnote943"><sup class="sml">943</sup></a> Conscience is
+the instrument in the hands of Justice and Vengeance by
+which the Most High inflicts punishment. The retributions
+of sin are "wrought out by God."</p>
+
+<p>The consequences of great crimes, especially in high places,
+extend to every person and every thing connected with them.
+"The country and the country's gods are polluted."<a id="footnotetag944" name="footnotetag944"></a>
+<a href="#footnote944"><sup class="sml">944</sup></a> "The
+army and the people share in the curse."<a id="footnotetag945" name="footnotetag945"></a>
+<a href="#footnote945"><sup class="sml">945</sup></a> "The earth itself is
+polluted with the shedding of blood,"<a id="footnotetag946" name="footnotetag946"></a>
+<a href="#footnote946"><sup class="sml">946</sup></a> "and even the innocent
+and the virtuous who share the enterprises of the wicked may
+be involved in their ruin, as the pious man must sink with the
+ungodly when he embarks in the same ship."<a id="footnotetag947" name="footnotetag947"></a>
+<a href="#footnote947"><sup class="sml">947</sup></a></p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote938"
+name="footnote938"><b>Footnote 938: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag938">
+(return) </a> Tyler, "Theology of the Greek Poets," p. 258.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote939"
+name="footnote939"><b>Footnote 939: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag939">
+(return) </a> Æschylus, "Persæ," l. 821.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote940"
+name="footnote940"><b>Footnote 940: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag940">
+(return) </a> "Agamemnon," l. 763.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote941"
+name="footnote941"><b>Footnote 941: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag941">
+(return) </a> Ibid., l. 788.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote942"
+name="footnote942"><b>Footnote 942: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag942">
+(return) </a> Ibid., l. 1529.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote943"
+name="footnote943"><b>Footnote 943: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag943">
+(return) </a> Ibid., l. 1397.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote944"
+name="footnote944"><b>Footnote 944: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag944">
+(return) </a> Ibid., l. 1645.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote945"
+name="footnote945"><b>Footnote 945: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag945">
+(return) </a> "Persæ," <i>passim.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote946"
+name="footnote945"><b>Footnote 946: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag946">
+(return) </a> "Sup.," 265.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote947"
+name="footnote947"><b>Footnote 947: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag947">
+(return) </a> "Theb.," p. 602.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The pollution and curse of sin, when once contracted by an
+individual, or entailed upon a family, will rest upon them and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="516" >516</a></span>
+pursue them till the polluted individual or the hated and accursed
+race is extinct, unless in some way the sin can be expiated,
+or some god interpose to arrest the penalty. The criminal
+must die by the hand of justice, and even in Hades vengeance
+will still pursue him.<a id="footnotetag948" name="footnotetag948"></a>
+<a href="#footnote948"><sup class="sml">948</sup></a> Others may in time be washed
+away by ablutions, worn away by exile and pilgrimage, and expiated
+by offerings of blood.<a id="footnotetag949" name="footnotetag949"></a>
+<a href="#footnote949"><sup class="sml">949</sup></a> But great crimes can not be
+washed away; "For what expiation is there for blood when
+once it has fallen on the ground."<a id="footnotetag950" name="footnotetag950"></a>
+<a href="#footnote950"><sup class="sml">950</sup></a> Thus the law (<i>[νόµος]</i>)--for
+so it is expressly called--as from an Attic Sinai, rolls its reverberating
+thunders, and pronounces its curses upon sin, from
+act to act and from chorus to chorus of that grand trilogy--the
+"Agamemnon," the "Choephoroe," and the "Eumenides."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote948"
+name="footnote948"><b>Footnote 948: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag948">
+(return) </a> "Sup.," l. 227.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote949"
+name="footnote949"><b>Footnote 949: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag949">
+(return) </a> "Eum.," l. 445 seq.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote950"
+name="footnote950"><b>Footnote 950: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag950">
+(return) </a> "Choeph.," l. 47.</blockquote>
+
+<p>But after the law comes the gospel. First the controversy,
+then the reconciliation. A dim consciousness of sin and retribution
+as a fact, and of reconciliation as a <i>want</i>, seems to have
+revealed itself even in the darkest periods of history. This
+consciousness underlies not a few of the Greek tragedies.
+"The 'Prometheus Bound' was followed by the 'Prometheus
+Unbound,' reconciled and restored through the intervention of
+Jove's son. The 'Œdipus Tyrannus' of Sophocles was completed
+by the 'Œdipus Colonus,' where he dies in peace amid
+tokens of divine favor. And so the 'Agamemnon' and 'Choephoroe'
+reach their consummation only in the 'Eumenides,'
+where the Erinyes themselves are appeased, and the Furies become
+the gracious ones. This is not, however, without a special
+divine interposition, and then only after a severe struggle between
+the powers that cry for justice and those that plead for
+mercy."</p>
+
+<p>The office and work which, in this trilogy, is assigned to
+Jove's son, Apollo, must strike every reader as at least a remarkable
+resemblance, if not a foreshadowing of the Christian
+doctrine of <i>reconciliation</i>. "This becomes yet more striking
+when we bring into view the relation in which this reconciling
+work stands to Ζεὺς Σωτήρ, Jupiter Saviour--Ζεὺς τρίτος, Jupiter
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="517" >517</a></span>
+the third, who, in connection with Apollo and Athena, consummates
+the reconciliation. Not only is Apollo a Σωτήρ, a Saviour,
+who, having himself been exiled from heaven among men,
+will pity the poor and needy;<a id="footnotetag951" name="footnotetag951"></a>
+<a href="#footnote951"><sup class="sml">951</sup></a> not only does Athena sympathize
+with the defendant at her tribunal, and, uniting the office
+of advocate and judge, persuade the avenging deities to be appeased;<a id="footnotetag952" name="footnotetag952"></a>
+<a href="#footnote952"><sup class="sml">952</sup></a>
+but Zeus is the beginning and end of the whole process.
+Apollo appears as the advocate of Orestes only at her
+bidding;<a id="footnotetag953" name="footnotetag953"></a>
+<a href="#footnote953"><sup class="sml">953</sup></a> Athena inclines to the side of the accused, as the
+offspring of the brain of Zeus, and of like mind with him."<a id="footnotetag954" name="footnotetag954"></a>
+<a href="#footnote954"><sup class="sml">954</sup></a>
+Orestes, after his acquittal, says that he obtained it</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>          "By means of Pallas and of Loxias</p>
+<p>           And the third Saviour who doth all things sway."<a id="footnotetag955" name="footnotetag955"></a>
+<a href="#footnote955"><sup class="sml">955</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Platonism reveals a still closer affinity with Christianity in its
+doctrine of sin, and its sense of the need of salvation. Plato
+is sacredly jealous for the honor and purity of the divine character,
+and rejects with indignation every hypothesis which would
+make God the author of sin. "God, inasmuch as he is good,
+can not be the cause of all things, as the common doctrine
+represents him to be. On the contrary, he is the author of only
+a small part of human affairs; of the larger part he is not the
+author; for our evil things far outnumber our good things.
+The good things we must ascribe to God, whilst we must seek
+elsewhere, and not in him, the causes of evil."<a id="footnotetag956" name="footnotetag956"></a>
+<a href="#footnote956"><sup class="sml">956</sup></a> The doctrine
+of the poets, which would in some way charge on the gods the
+errors of men, he sternly resists. We must express our disapprobation
+of Homer, or any other poet, if guilty of such foolish
+blunders about the gods as to tell us<a id="footnotetag957" name="footnotetag957"></a>
+<a href="#footnote957"><sup class="sml">957</sup></a></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>             'Fast by the threshold of Jove's court are placed</p>
+<p>              Two casks, one stored with evil, one with good,'</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And that he for whom the Thunderer mingles both</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>             'He leads a life checker'd with good and ill.'</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote951"
+name="footnote951"><b>Footnote 951: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag951">
+(return) </a> "Sup.," l. 214.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote952"
+name="footnote952"><b>Footnote 952: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag952">
+(return) </a> "Eum.," l. 970.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote953"
+name="footnote953"><b>Footnote 953: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag953">
+(return) </a> Ibid., l. 616.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote954"
+name="footnote954"><b>Footnote 954: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag954">
+(return) </a> Ibid., l. 664, 737.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote955"
+name="footnote955"><b>Footnote 955: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag955">
+(return) </a> Tyler's "Theology of the Greek Poets," especially ch. v., from which
+the above materials are drawn.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote956"
+name="footnote956"><b>Footnote 956: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag956">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xviii.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote957"
+name="footnote957"><b>Footnote 957: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag957">
+(return) </a> "Iliad," xxiv., l. 660.</blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="518">518</a></span>
+
+<p>Nor can we let our young people know that, in the words of
+Æschylus--</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>           "'When to destruction God will plague a house</p>
+<p>             He plants among the members guilt and sin.'"<a id="footnotetag958" name="footnotetag958"></a>
+<a href="#footnote958"><sup class="sml">958</sup></a></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Whatever in the writings of Homer and the tragic poets give
+countenance to the notion that God is, in the remotest sense
+the author of sin, must be expunged. Here is clearly a great
+advance in ethical conceptions.</p>
+
+<p>The great defect in the ethical system of Plato was the
+identification of evil with the inferior or corporeal nature of
+man--"the irascible and concupiscible elements," fashioned by
+the junior divinities. The rational and immortal part of man's
+nature, which is derived immediately from God--the Supreme
+Good, naturally chooses the good as its supreme end and destination.
+Hence he adopted the Socratic maxim "that no man
+is willingly evil," that is, no man deliberately chooses evil as
+evil, but only as a <i>seeming</i> good--he does not choose evil as
+an end, though he may choose it voluntarily as a means. Plato
+manifests great solicitude to guard this maxim from misconception
+and abuse. Man has, in his judgment, the power to
+act in harmony with his higher reason, or contrary to reason;
+to obey the voice of conscience or the clamors of passion, and
+consequently he is the object of praise or blame, reward or
+punishment. "When a man does not consider himself, but
+others, as the cause of his own sins,.... and even seeks to excuse
+himself from blame, he dishonors and injures his own
+soul; so, also, when contrary to reason.... he indulges in pleasure,
+he dishonors it by filling it with vice and remorse."<a id="footnotetag959" name="footnotetag959"></a>
+<a href="#footnote959"><sup class="sml">959</sup></a> The
+work and effort of life, the end of this probationary economy,
+is to make reason triumphant over passion, and discipline ourselves
+to a purer and nobler life.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote958"
+name="footnote958"><b>Footnote 958: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag958">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. ii. ch, xviii., xix.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote959"
+name="footnote959"><b>Footnote 959: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag959">
+(return) </a> "Laws," bk. v. ch. i.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The obstacles to a virtuous life are, however, confessedly
+numberless, and, humanly speaking, insurmountable. To raise
+one's self above the clamor of passion, the power of evil, the
+bondage of the flesh, is acknowledged, in mournful language,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="519">519</a></span>
+to be a hopeless task. A cloud of sadness shades the brow of
+Plato as he contemplates the fallen state of man. In the
+"Phædrus" he describes, in gorgeous imagery, the purity, and
+beauty, and felicity of the soul in its anterior and primeval
+state, when, charioteering through the highest arch of heaven
+in company with the Deity, it contemplated the divine justice
+and beauty; but "this happy life," says he, "we forfeited by
+our transgression." Allured by strange affections, our souls
+forgot the sacred things that we were made to contemplate and
+love--we <i>fell</i>. And now, in our fallen state, the soul has lost
+its pristine beauty and excellence. It has become more disfigured
+than was Glaucus, the seaman "whose primitive form
+was not recognizable, so disfigured had he become by his long
+dwelling in the sea."<a id="footnotetag960" name="footnotetag960"></a>
+<a href="#footnote960"><sup class="sml">960</sup></a> To restore this lost image of the good,--to
+regain "this primitive form," is not the work of man, but
+God. Man can not save himself. "Virtue is not natural to
+man, neither is it to be learned, but it comes by a divine influence.
+<i>Virtue, is the gift of God</i>."<a id="footnotetag961" name="footnotetag961"></a>
+<a href="#footnote961"><sup class="sml">961</sup></a> He needs a discipline, "an
+education which is divine." If he is saved from the common
+wreck, it must be "by the special favor of Heaven."<a id="footnotetag962" name="footnotetag962"></a>
+<a href="#footnote962"><sup class="sml">962</sup></a> He must
+be delivered from sin, if ever delivered, by the interposition of
+God.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote960"
+name="footnote960"><b>Footnote 960: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag960">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. x. ch. xi.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote961"
+name="footnote961"><b>Footnote 961: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag961">
+(return) </a> "Meno."</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote962"
+name="footnote962"><b>Footnote 962: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag962">
+(return) </a> "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vi., vii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Plato was, in some way, able to discover the need of a
+Saviour, to desire a Saviour, but he could not predict his
+appearing. Hints are obscurely given of a Conqueror of sin,
+an Assuager of pain, an Averter of evil in this life, and of the
+impending retributions of the future life; but they are exceedingly
+indefinite and shadowy. In all instances they are rather
+the language of <i>desire</i>, than of hope. Platonism awakened in
+the heart of humanity a consciousness of sin and a profound
+feeling of want--the want of a Redeemer from sin, a spiritual,
+a divine Remedy for its moral malady--and it strove after
+some remedial power. But it was equally conscious of failure
+and defeat. It could enlighten the reason, but it could only
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="520" >520</a></span>
+act imperfectly on the will. Platonic was a striking counterpart
+to Pauline experience prior to the apostle's deliverance
+by the power and grace of Christ. It discovered that "the
+Law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and just, and
+good." It recognized that "it is spiritual, but man is carnal,
+the slave of sin." It could say, "What I do I approve not;
+for I do not what I would, but what I hate. But if my will
+[my better judgment] is against what I do, I consent unto the
+Law that it is good. And now it is no more I that do it, but
+sin, that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me, that is, in
+my flesh, good abideth not, for to will is present with me, but
+the power to do the right is absent: the good that I would, I
+do not; but the evil that I would not, that I do. I consent
+gladly to the law of God in my inner man ['the rational and
+immortal nature'<a id="footnotetag963" name="footnotetag963"></a>
+<a href="#footnote963"><sup class="sml">963</sup></a>; but I behold a law in my members ['the
+irascible and concupiscible nature'<a id="footnotetag964" name="footnotetag964"></a>
+<a href="#footnote964"><sup class="sml">964</sup></a> warring against the law
+of my mind (or reason), and bringing me into captivity to the
+law of sin which is in my members. <i>Oh wretched man that I
+am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death</i>?"<a id="footnotetag965" name="footnotetag965"></a>
+<a href="#footnote965"><sup class="sml">965</sup></a> Paul
+was able to say, "I thank God (that he hath now delivered me),
+through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Platonism could only desire,
+and hope, and wait for the coming of a Deliverer.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote963"
+name="footnote963"><b>Footnote 963: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag963">
+(return) </a> Plato.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote964"
+name="footnote964"><b>Footnote 964: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag964">
+(return) </a> Ibid.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote965"
+name="footnote965"><b>Footnote 965: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag965">
+(return) </a> Romans, vii.</blockquote>
+
+<p>This consciousness of the need of supernatural light and
+help, and this aspiration after a light supernatural and divine,
+which Plato inherited from Socrates, constrained him to regard
+with toleration, and even reverence, every apparent approach,
+every pretension, even, to a divine inspiration and guidance
+in the age in which he lived. "'The greatest blessings which
+men receive come through the operation of <i>phrensy</i> (µανία--inspired
+exaltation), when phrensy is the gift of God. The
+prophetess of Delphi, and the priestess of Dodona, many are
+the benefits which in their phrensies (moments of inspiration)
+they have bestowed upon Greece; but in their hours of self-possession,
+few or none. And too long were it to speak of
+the Sibyl, and others, who, inspired and prophetic, have delivered
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="521">521</a></span>
+utterances beneficial to the hearers. Indeed, this word
+phrenetic or maniac is no reproach; it is identical with mantic
+--prophetic.<a id="footnotetag966" name="footnotetag966"></a>
+<a href="#footnote966"><sup class="sml">966</sup></a> And often when diseases and plagues have
+fallen upon men for the sins of their forefathers, some phrensy
+too has broken forth, and in prophetic strain has pointed out
+a remedy, <i>showing how the sin might be expiated, and the gods
+appeased</i> (by prayers, and purifications, and atoning rites)....
+So many and yet more great effects could I tell you of the
+phrensy which comes from the gods."<a id="footnotetag967" name="footnotetag967"></a>
+<a href="#footnote967"><sup class="sml">967</sup></a> Some have discerned
+in all this merely the food for a feeble ridicule. They regard
+these sentiments as simply an evidence of the power and prevalence
+of superstition clouding the loftiest intellects in ancient
+times. By the more thoughtful and philosophic mind, however,
+they will be accepted as an indication of the imperishable
+and universal faith of humanity in a supernatural and supersensuous
+world, and in the possibility of some communication
+between heaven and earth.<a id="footnotetag968" name="footnotetag968"></a>
+<a href="#footnote968"><sup class="sml">968</sup></a> And above all, it is a conclusive
+proof that Plato believed that the knowledge of <i>salvation</i>--of
+a remedy for sin, a method of expiation for sin, a means of
+deliverance from the power and punishment of sin, must be
+revealed from Heaven.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote966"
+name="footnote966"><b>Footnote 966: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag966">
+(return) </a> [Mανία], phrensy; <i>[µάντις]</i>, a prophet--one who utters oracles in a state
+of divine phrensy; <i>[µαντική]</i>, the prophetic art.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote967"
+name="footnote967"><b>Footnote 967: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag967">
+(return) </a> "Phædrus," § 47-50 (Whewell's translation).</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote968"
+name="footnote968"><b>Footnote 968: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag968">
+(return) </a> "<i>Vetus opinio est</i>, jam usque ab heroicis ducta temporibus, eaque et
+populi Romani et <i>omnium gentium</i> firmata consensu, versari quandem inter
+homines divinationem."--Cicero, "De Divin.," i. I.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Paul, then, found, even in that focus of Paganism, the city
+of Athens, religious aspirations tending towards Jesus Christ.
+A true philosophic method, notwithstanding its shortcomings
+and imperfections, concluded by desiring and seeking "the
+Unknown God," by demanding him from all forms of worship,
+from all schools of philosophy. The great work of preparation
+in the heathen world consisted in the developing of the <i>desire</i>
+for salvation. It proved that God is the great want of every
+human soul; that there is a profound affinity between conscience
+and the living God; and that Tertullian was right
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="522" >522</a></span>
+when he wrote the "Testimonium Animæ naturaliter Christianæ."<a id="footnotetag969" name="footnotetag969"></a>
+<a href="#footnote969"><sup class="sml">969</sup></a>
+And when it was sufficiently demonstrated that "the
+world by philosophy knew not God (as a Redeeming God and
+Saviour), then it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching
+to save them that believe." This was all a dispensation of
+divine providence, which was determined by, or "in, the wisdom
+of God."<a id="footnotetag970" name="footnotetag970"></a>
+<a href="#footnote970"><sup class="sml">970</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>The history of the religions and philosophies of human
+origin thus becomes to us a striking confirmation of the truth
+of Christianity. It shows there is a wondrous harmony between
+the instinctive wants and yearnings of the human heart,
+as well as the necessary ideas and laws of the reason, and the
+fundamental principles of revealed religion. There is "a law
+written on the heart"--written by the finger of God, which
+corresponds to the laws written by the same finger on "tables
+of stone." There are certain necessary and immutable principles
+and ideas infolded in the reason of man, which harmonize
+with the revelations of the Eternal Logos in the written
+word.<a id="footnotetag971" name="footnotetag971x"></a>
+<a href="#footnote971"><sup class="sml">971</sup></a> There are instinctive longings, mysterious yearnings
+of the human heart, to which that unveiling of the heart of
+God which is made in the teaching and life of the incarnate
+God most satisfyingly answers. Within the depths of the human
+spirit there is an "oracle" which responds to the voice of
+"the living oracles of God."</p>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote969"
+name="footnote969"><b>Footnote 969: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag969">
+(return) </a> Pressensé, "Religions before Christ" (Introduction); Neander, "Church
+History," vol. i. (Introduction).</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote970"
+name="footnote970"><b>Footnote 970: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag970">
+(return) </a> I Corinthians, i. 21.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote971"
+name="footnote971"><b>Footnote 971: </b></a><a href="#footnotetag971">
+(return) </a> "The surmise of Plato, that the world of appearance subsists in and by
+a higher world of Divine Thought, is confirmed by Christianity when it tells
+us of a Divine subsistence--that Eternal Word by whom and in whom all
+things consist."--Vaughan, "Hours with the Mystics," vol. i. p. 213.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Here, then, are two distinct and independent revelations--the
+unwritten revelation which God has made to all men in
+the constitution of the human mind, and the external written
+revelation which he has made in the person and teaching of
+his Son. And these two are perfectly harmonious. We have
+here two great volumes--the volume of conscience, and the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="523" >523</a></span>
+volume of the New Testament. We open them, and find they
+announce the <i>same</i> truths--one in dim outline, the other in a
+full portraiture. There are the same fundamental principles
+underlying both revelations. They both bear the impress of
+<i>divinity</i>. The history of philosophy may have been marked
+by many errors of interpretation; so, also, has the history of
+dogmatic theology. Men may have often misunderstood and
+misinterpreted the dictates of conscience; so have theologians
+misunderstood and misinterpreted the dictates of revelation.
+The perversions of conscience and reason have been plead
+in defense of error and sin; and so, for ages, have the perversions
+of Scripture been urged in defense of slavery, oppression,
+falsehood, and wrong. Sometimes the misunderstood
+utterances of conscience, of philosophy, and of science have
+been arrayed against the incorrect interpretations of the Word
+of God. But when both are better understood, and more
+justly conceived, they are found in wondrous harmony. When
+the New Testament speaks to man of God, of duty, of immortality,
+and of retribution, man feels that its teachings "commend
+themselves to his conscience" and reason. When it
+speaks to him of redemption, of salvation, of eternal life and
+blessedness, he feels that it meets and answers all the wants
+and longings of his heart. Thus does Christianity throw light
+upon the original revelations of God in the human conscience,
+and answers all the yearnings of the human soul. So it is
+found in individual experiences, so it has been found in the
+history of humanity. As Leverrier and Adams were enabled
+to affirm, from purely mathematical reasoning, that another
+planet must exist beyond <i>Uranus</i> which had never yet been
+seen by human eyes, and then, afterwards, that affirmation was
+gloriously verified in the discovery of <i>Neptune</i> by the telescope
+of Galle; so the reasonings of ancient philosophy, based on
+certain necessary laws of mind, enabled man to affirm the existence
+of a God, of the soul, of a future retribution, and an
+eternal life beyond the grave; and, then, subsequently, these
+were brought fully into light, and verified by the Gospel.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="524">524</a></span>
+
+<p>We conclude in the words of Pressensé: "To isolate it from
+the past, would be to refuse to comprehend the nature of Christianity
+itself, and the extent of its triumphs. Although the
+Gospel is not, as has been affirmed, the product of anterior civilizations--a
+mere compound of Greek and Oriental elements--it
+is not the less certain that it brings to the human mind
+the satisfaction vainly sought by it in the East as in the West.
+<i>Omnia subito</i> is not its device, but that of the Gnostic heresy.
+Better to say, with Clement of Alexandria and Origen, that the
+night of paganism had its stars to light it, but that they called
+to the Morning-star which stood over Bethlehem."</p>
+
+<p>"If we regard philosophy as a preparation for Christianity,
+instead of seeking in it a substitute for the Gospel, we shall not
+need to overstate its grandeur in order to estimate its real
+value."</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="525">525</a></span>
+
+<h3>CONTENTS.</h3>
+
+<p>A.</p>
+
+<p>Abstraction, comparative and immediate, 187-189; 362-364.</p>
+
+<p>Æschylus, his conception of the Supreme Divinity, 146;
+  his recognition of human guilt, and need of expiation, 515-517.</p>
+
+<p>Ætiological proof of the existence of God, 487-489.</p>
+
+<p>Anaxagoras, an Eclectic, 311;
+  in his physical theory an Atomist, 312;
+  taught that the Order of the universe can only be explained by Intelligence, 312;
+  his psychology, 313;
+  the teacher of Socrates, 313.</p>
+
+<p>Anaximander, his first principle <i>the infinite</i>, 290;
+  his infinite a chaos of primary elements, 290.</p>
+
+<p>Anaximenes, a vitalist, 286;
+  his first principle <i>air</i>, 287.</p>
+
+<p>Aristotle, his opinion of the popular polytheism of Greece, 157;
+  his classification of causes, 280, 404, 405;
+  his misrepresentations of Pythagoras, 299;
+  his classification of the sciences, 389;
+  his Organon, 389-394;
+  his Logic, 394-403;
+  his Theology, 404-417;
+  his Ethics, 417-421;
+  his Categories, 395;
+  his logical treatises, 396;
+  on induction and deduction, 396-398;
+  his psychology, 398, 401;
+  on how the knowledge of first principles is attained, 394, 402, 403;
+  on Matter and Form, 405-408;
+  on Potentiality and Actuality, 408-412;
+  his proof of the Divine existence, 412-415;
+  on the chief good of man, 419, 420;
+  his doctrine of the Mean, 420, 421;
+  defect of his ethical system, 505.</p>
+
+<p>[ Ἀρχαί], or first principles, the grand object of investigation in Greek Philosophy, 271, 274, 279, 280.</p>
+
+<p>Athenians, criticism on Plutarch's sketch of their character, 45;
+  their vivacity, 45;
+  love of freedom, 46--and of country, 46;
+  private life of, 47;
+  intellectual character of, 48;
+  inquisitive and analytic, 48;
+  rare combinations of imagination and reasoning powers, 49;
+  religion of, 98;
+  the Athenians a religious people, 102;
+  their faith in the being and providence of God, 107;
+  their consciousness of dependence on God, 110, 116;
+  their religious emotions, 117;
+  their deep consciousness of sin and guilt, 122-124;
+  their sense of the need of expiation, 124, 125;
+  their religion exerted some wholesome moral influence, 162, 163.</p>
+
+<p>Athens, topography of 27;
+  the Agora, 28;
+  its porticoes, 29;
+  the Acropolis, 30;
+  its temples, 31;
+  the Areopagus, 33;
+  sacred objects in, 98, 99;
+  images of the gods, 99;
+  localities of schools of philosophy in, 266-268.</p>
+
+<p>Attica, geographical boundaries of, 26;
+  a classic land, 34;
+  its geographical and cosmical conditions providentially ordained for great moral   ends, 34, 35;
+  soil of, not favorable to agriculture, 40--necessitated industry and frugality, 41;
+  the climate of, 41--its influence on the mental character of the people, 42.</p>
+
+<p>B.</p>
+
+<p>Bacon, his assertion that the search after final causes had misled scientific inquirers, 222.</p>
+
+<p>C.</p>
+
+<p>Categories of Aristotle, 395.</p>
+
+<p>Causality, principle of, 189;
+  assailed by the Materialists, 194--especially by Comte, 203-209;
+  the intuition of <i>power</i> a fact of immediate consciousness, 204;
+  consciousness of <i>effort</i> the type of all force, 211;
+  Aristotle on Causality, 413;
+  ætiological proof of existence of God, 487-489.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="526">526</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Cause, origin of the idea of, 204, 205.</p>
+
+<p>Causes, Aristotle's classification of, 280, 404, 405.</p>
+
+<p>Chief good of man, Aristotle on, 419, 420.</p>
+
+<p>Cleanthes, his hymn to Jupiter, 452, 453.</p>
+
+<p>Comte, his theory of the origin of religion, 57-65;
+  his doctrine that all knowledge is confined to material phenomena, 203;
+  denies all causation, both efficient and final, 203-214.</p>
+
+<p>Conditioned, law of the, 227, 228;
+  is contradictory, 250;
+  as a ground of faith, meaningless and void, 251.</p>
+
+<p>Cosmological proof of the existence of God, 489, 490.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin, his theory that religion had its outbirth in the spontaneous apperceptions
+  of reason, 78-84;
+  criticism thereon, 84-86.</p>
+
+<p>Criterion of truth, Plato's search after, 333, 334.</p>
+
+<p>Cudworth, his interpretation of Grecian mythology, 139, 143.</p>
+
+<p>Cuvier, on final causes, 216, 222.</p>
+
+<p>D.</p>
+
+<p>Darwin, his inability to explain the facts of nature without recognizing design, 221, 222.</p>
+
+<p>Democritus, taught that atoms and the vacuum are the beginning of all things, 292;
+  an absolute materialist, 293.</p>
+
+<p>Dependence, consciousness of, the foundation of primary religious emotions, 110-113.</p>
+
+<p>Development, law of mental, 478;
+  three successive stages clearly marked, in the individual, 478--in the universal mind of
+  humanity, 479, 480;
+  (1) in the field of Theistic conceptions, 481-494;
+  (2) in the department of morals, 495-509;
+  (3) in the department of religious sentiment, 509-522.</p>
+
+<p>Dialectic of Plato, 353-369.</p>
+
+<p>Dogmatic Theologians, assert that all our knowledge of God is derived from the teaching of the Scriptures, 86,167;
+  cast doubt upon the principle of causality, 253-255--upon the principle of the unconditioned, 255-257--upon the principle of
+  unity, 258-261--and upon the immutable principles of morality, 261-263.</p>
+
+<p>Dynamical or Vital school of ancient philosophers, 282-289.</p>
+
+<p>E.</p>
+
+<p>Eclecticism of Anaxagoras, 311.</p>
+
+<p>Emotions, the religious, 117-122;
+  sentiment of the Divine exists in all minds, 119-121;
+  also instinctive yearning after the Invisible, 121, 122.</p>
+
+<p>Empedocles, a believer in one Supreme God, 153.</p>
+
+<p>Epicurus, his theory of the origin of religion, 56, 57;
+  his Ethics, 427-432;
+  his Physics, 433-438;
+  taught that pleasure is the chief end of life, 428--that ignorance of nature is the sole cause of unhappiness, 432--that Physics and Psychology are the
+  only studies conducive to happiness, 432--that the universe is eternal and infinite, 433--that concrete bodies are combinations of atoms, 434--that atoms have
+  spontaneity, 436, and some degree of freedom, 436, 437;
+  the parts of the world self-formed, 437, 438;
+  plants, animals, and man are spontaneously generated, 438;
+  a state of savagism the primitive condition of man, 439;
+  his Atheism, 441;
+  his Psychology, 442-444;
+  the soul material and mortal, 445, 446.</p>
+
+<p>Eternity, Platonic notion of, 349 (<i>note</i>), 372, 373.</p>
+
+<p>Eternity of Matter, how taught by Plato, 371-373;
+  distinctly affirmed by Epicurus, 433.</p>
+
+<p>Eternity of the Soul, Plato's doctrine of, 373-375.</p>
+
+<p>Ethical ideas and principles, gradual development of, 495, 496;
+  (1) the age of popular and unconscious morals, 497, 498;
+  (2) the transitional or sophistical age, 498-500;
+  (3) the philosophic or conscious age, 500-506.</p>
+
+<p>Ethics of Plato, 383-387, 502-505;
+  of Aristotle, 417-42l;
+  of Epicurus, 427-432;
+  of the Stoics, 454, 456.</p>
+
+<p>Expiation for sin, the need of, 124;
+  universally acknowledged, 124--especially in Grecian mythology, 125--and in the language of Greece and Rome, 125.</p>
+
+<p>F.</p>
+
+<p>Facts of the universe, classification of, 175-177.</p>
+
+<p>Fathers, the early, recognized the propædeutic office of Greek philosophy, 473-475.</p>
+
+<p>Feeling, theories which ground all religion on, 70-74;
+  its inadequacy, 74-78.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="527" >527</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Final Causes, impossibility of interpreting nature without recognizing, 221, 222;
+  the assumption of final causes a means of discovery, 222, 223;
+  Cuvier on, 216, 222;
+  argument of Socrates from, 320-324;
+  Plato on, 380-382;
+  Aristotle on, 405, 413, 414;
+  teleological proof of the existence of God, 490, 491.</p>
+
+<p>Force, the idea of, rejected by Comte, 207.</p>
+
+<p>Forces, all of one type, and that type mind, 211.</p>
+
+<p>Freedom, human, 19;
+  exists under limitations, 20;
+  both admitted and denied by Comte, 208, 209;
+  of Will, as taught by Plato, 386, 387;
+  admitted by Epicurus, 486.</p>
+
+<p>G.</p>
+
+<p>Geoffrey St. Hilaire, his pretense of not ascribing any intentions to nature, 216, 217.</p>
+
+<p>Geography and History, relations between, 14;
+  opposite theories concerning, 15;
+  theory of Buckle, 16--of Ritter, Guyot, and Coubin, 16;
+  the relation one of adjustment and harmony, 16.</p>
+
+<p>God, universality of idea of, 89;
+  Athenians believed in one God, 107, 147, 148;
+  idea of God a common phenomenon of human intelligence, 168, 169;
+  the development of this idea dependent on experience conditions, 169-172;
+  the phenomena of the universe demand a God for their explanation, 172-175:
+  there are principles revealed in consciousness which necessitate the idea of God, 184-189;
+  proofs of the existence of God employed by Aristotle, 412-416--by Socrates, 320-324;
+  views of God entertained by the Stoics, 452, 453;
+  logical proofs of the existence of God developed by Greek philosophy, 487-494;
+  gradual development of Theistic conception, 481-487.</p>
+
+<p>Gods of Grecian Mythology, how regarded by the philosophers, 151-157;
+  views of Plato regarding them, 383.</p>
+
+<p>Great men, represent the spirit of their age, 20;
+  the creation of a providence interposing in history, 21.</p>
+
+<p>Greece, its geographical relations favorable to free intercourse with the great historic nations, 35--to commerce, 36--to the diffusion
+  of knowledge, 36--and to a high degree of civilization, 36;
+  peculiar configuration of Greece conducive to activity and freedom, 36-38--and independence, 38;
+  natural scenery, 43--its influence on imagination and taste, 44.</p>
+
+<p>Greek Civilization, a preparation for Christianity, 465-468.</p>
+
+<p>Greek Language, a providentially prepared vehicle for the perfect revelation of Christianity, 468-470.</p>
+
+<p>Greek Philosophy, first a philosophy of Nature, 271, 281, 282;
+  next a philosophy of Mind, 271, 316-318;
+  lastly a philosophy of Life, 271, 422;
+  prepared the way for Christianity, 457-522.</p>
+
+<p>Greeks, the masses of the people believed in one Supreme God, 147, 148.</p>
+
+<p>Guilt, consciousness of, a universal fact, 122, 123;
+  recognized in Grecian mythology, 123, 124;
+  awakened and deepened by philosophy, 513-518.</p>
+
+<p>H.</p>
+
+<p>Hamilton, Sir W., teaches that philosophic knowledge is the knowledge of effects as dependent on causes, 224, 225;
+  and of qualities as inherent in substances, 225, 226;
+  and yet asserts all human knowledge is necessarily confined to phenomena, 227;
+  his doctrine of the relativity of all knowledge, 227, 229-236;
+  his philosophy of the conditioned, 228;
+  conditional limitation the law of all thought, 236-242;
+  the Infinite a mere negation of thought, 242-246;
+  asserts we must believe in the infinity of God, 246;
+  takes refuge in faith, 247;
+  faith grounded on the law of the conditioned, 243, 249--that is, on contradiction, 249, 250.</p>
+
+<p>Hegel, his philosophy of religion, 65-70.</p>
+
+<p>Heraclitus, his first principle <i>ether</i>, 288;
+  change, the universal law of all existence, 288;
+  a Materialistic Pantheist, 289.</p>
+
+<p>Hesiod, on the generation of the gods, 142.</p>
+
+<p>Homer, his conception of Zeus, 144, 145.</p>
+
+<p>Homeric doctrine of sin, 513,514.</p>
+
+<p>Homeric theology, 143-145, 509, 510.</p>
+
+<p>Humanity, fundamental ideas and laws of, 18;
+  developed and modified by exterior conditions, 19;
+  the most favorable conditions existed in Athens.</p>
+
+<p>I.</p>
+
+<p>Idealism, furnishes no adequate explanation of the common belief in an external world, 193,199--and of a personal self,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="528" >528</a></span>
+  200-202;
+  Cosmothetic Idealism, 305;
+  absolute Idealism, 305.</p>
+
+<p>Ideas, Platonic doctrine of, 334-337;
+  Platonic scheme of, 364-367.</p>
+
+<p>Images of the gods, how regarded by Cicero, 129--by Plutarch, 129;
+  the heathens apologized for the use of images, 159.</p>
+
+<p>Immortality of the soul, taught by Socrates, 324--and by Plato, 375, 376;
+  denied by Epicurus, 444-446.</p>
+
+<p>Incarnation, the idea of, not unfamiliar to heathen thought, 512.</p>
+
+<p>Induction, the psychological method of Plato, 356, 357.</p>
+
+<p>Induction and Deduction, Aristotle on, 397, 398.</p>
+
+<p>Infinite, the, not a mere negation of thought, 242-244;
+  known as the necessary correlative of the finite, 245;
+  as comprehensible in itself, as the finite is comprehensible in itself, 246;
+  in what sense known, 252.</p>
+
+<p>Infinite Series, the phrase, when literally construed, a contradiction, 181,182.</p>
+
+<p>Infinity, qualitative and quantitative, 239;
+  qualitative infinity possessed by God alone, 184, 239.</p>
+
+<p>Intentionality, principle of, 190;
+  denied by Materialists, 194;
+  a first law of thought, 221-223; recognized by Socrates, 320-324.</p>
+
+<p>Ionian School of Philosophy, a physical and sensational school, 281;
+  subdivided into Mechanical and Dynamical, 282, 283.</p>
+
+<p>Italian School of Philosophy, an Idealist school, 281;
+  subdivided into the Mathematical and Metaphysical, 282, 296.</p>
+
+<p>J.</p>
+
+<p>Jacobi, his faith-philosophy, 71.</p>
+
+<p>K.</p>
+
+<p>Knowledge, Hamilton's doctrine of relativity of, 229-236;
+  opposite theories of knowledge among ancient philosophers, 330, 331;
+  the tendency of these theories, 332;
+  Plato's theory of, 333, 334;
+  Plato's science of real knowledge, 337, 338.</p>
+
+<p>L.</p>
+
+<p>Language, inadequate to convey the idea of God, 92-94;
+  Greek language the best medium for the Christian revelation, 468-470.</p>
+
+<p>Leucippus, his first principles <i>atoms</i> and <i>space</i>, 291;
+  a pure Materialist, 292.</p>
+
+<p>Logic of Aristotle, 394-403.</p>
+
+<p>Logical Treatises of Aristotle, 395, 396.</p>
+
+<p>Lucretius, the expounder of the doctrines of Epicurus, 426,427;
+  his account of the origin of worlds, 437, 438;
+  of plants, animals, and man, 438.</p>
+
+<p>M.</p>
+
+<p>Mansel, bases religion on feeling of dependence, 72--and sense of obligation, 73.</p>
+
+<p>Materialists deny the principle of causality, 194, 203--and of intentionality or final cause, 211-225;
+  Anaximander, Leucippus, and Democritus belong to the materialistic school, 286-293:
+  Epicurus a materialist, 442-446.</p>
+
+<p>Mathematical Infinite, not absolute, 179, 180;
+  capable of exact measurement, therefore limited, 180;
+  infinite sphere, radius, line, etc., self-contradictory, 180, 181.</p>
+
+<p>Matter, did Plato teach the eternity of? 371-373;
+  the doctrine of the Stoics concerning matter, 449 (<i>note</i>).</p>
+
+<p>Matter and Form, Aristotle on, 405-408.</p>
+
+<p>Mean, Aristotle's doctrine of the, 420.</p>
+
+<p>Mediator, consciousness of the need of a, awakened by Greek philosophy, 509-513.</p>
+
+<p>Metaphysical thought, law of its development, 478-480;
+  three different stages in the individual mind, 478, 479;
+  and in the universal consciousness of our race, 479.</p>
+
+<p>Metempsychosis regarded by Plato as a mere hypothesis, 376 (<i>note</i>).</p>
+
+<p>Mill, J. S., his doctrine that all knowledge is confined to mental phenomena, 193;
+  his definition of matter, 196;
+  his views of personal identity, 196, 197;
+  his theological opinions, 197.</p>
+
+<p>Miracles, not designed to prove the existence of God, 95.</p>
+
+<p>Moral principles, universal and immutable, which lead to the recognition of a God, 190;
+  the Dogmatic Theologians seek to invalidate the argument therefrom, 261-263.</p>
+
+<p>Mystics, base all religious knowledge on internal feeling, 70.</p>
+
+<p>Mythology, philosophy of Greek, 134-139;
+  Cudworth's interpretation of, 139-143;
+  recognized the consciousness of guilt and need of expiation, 123-125.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="529">529</a></span></p>
+
+<p>N.</p>
+
+<p>National Character, a complex result, 17;
+  conjoint effect of moral and physical influences, 17;
+  human freedom not to be disregarded in the study of, 20;
+  influence of geographical surroundings, 23--of climate and natural scenery, on the pursuits
+  and mental character of nations, 23--on creative art, 24--and literature of nations, 25.</p>
+
+<p>Nations, individuality of, 22;
+  determined mainly from without, 22.</p>
+
+<p>Natural Realism, 305;
+  Anaxagoras a natural realist, 311-313.</p>
+
+<p>Nature, interpreted by man according to fundamental laws of his reason, 133.</p>
+
+<p>O.</p>
+
+<p>Obligation, the sense of, lies at the foundation of religion, 115.</p>
+
+<p>Ontological proof of the existence of God, 491-493.</p>
+
+<p>Ontology, of Plato, 369-379;
+  the subject-matter of the world of sense, 370-373;
+  the permanent substratum of mental phenomena, 373-376;
+  the first Principle of all principles--God, 377-379, 491-493.</p>
+
+<p>Optimism of Plato, 382.</p>
+
+<p>Order of the Universe, had it a beginning, or is it eternal? 178-184.</p>
+
+<p>Order, principle of, pervades the universe, 220, 221;
+  recognized by Pythagoras, 301;
+  Cosmological proof of the existence of God, 489, 490.</p>
+
+<p>P.</p>
+
+<p>Parmenides, his theory of knowledge, 307-308;
+ a spiritualistic Pantheist, 308, 309.</p>
+
+<p>Paul, St., at Athens, 14;
+  his emotion when he saw the city full of idols, 100;
+  the subject of his discourse, 101;
+  brought into contact with all the phases of philosophic thought, 268, 269;
+  his arrival at Athens an epoch in the moral history of the world, 472;
+  he recognized the preparatory office of Greek philosophy, 473.</p>
+
+<p>Philosophers of Athens, 101;
+  believed in one supreme, uncreated, eternal God, 151-157;
+  their views of the mythological deities, 158, 159;
+  their apologies for images and image-worship, 159, 160.</p>
+
+<p>Philosophic Schools, classification of, 271-273;
+  Pre-Socratic 280-314;
+  Socratic, 314-421;
+  Post-Socratic, 422-456.</p>
+
+<p>Philosophy, the world-enduring monument of the glory of Athens, 265, 260;
+  defined, 270, 271;
+  an inquiry after first causes and principles, 271, 457;
+  not in any proper sense a theological inquiry, 273-277, 279;
+  the love of wisdom, 384, 385.</p>
+
+<p>Philosophy in its relation to Christianity, 268-270;
+  sympathy of Platonism, 268;
+  antagonism of Epicureanism and Stoicism, 269;
+  the Propædeutic office of philosophy, 457-524--recognized by St. Paul, 473--and many of the early Fathers, 473-475;
+  philosophy undermined Polytheism, and purified the Theistic idea, 481-487;
+  developed the Theistic argument in a logical form, 487-494;
+  it awakened Conscience and purified the Ethical idea, 495-506;
+  demonstrated the insufficiency of reason to elaborate a perfect ideal of moral excellence, 506-509;
+  awakened in man the sense of distance from God, and the need of a Mediator, 509-513;
+  deepened the consciousness of sin, and the desire for a Redeemer, 513-522;
+  the history of philosophy a confirmation of the truth of Christianity, 522-524.</p>
+
+<p>Philosophy of Religion, 53;
+  based on the correlation between Divine and human reason, 458-462.</p>
+
+<p>Plato, condemns the poets for their unworthy representations of the gods, 130-132;
+  his views of the gods of Grecian mythology, 154-157:
+  the sympathy of his philosophy with Christianity, 268:
+  followed the philosophic method of Socrates, 328;
+  his moral qualifications for the study of philosophy, 328, 329;
+  his literary qualifications, 329, 330;
+  his search after a criterion of truth, 333, 334;
+  his doctrine of Ideas, 334-337;
+  his science of real knowledge, 337, 338;
+  his answer to the question, What is Science? 338, 339;
+  his Psychology 339-352;
+  his scheme of the intellectual powers, 345;
+  on the nature of the soul, 350;
+  his dialectic, 353-369;
+  his grand scheme of ideas, 364-367;
+  his Ontology, 369-379;
+  on the creation of time, 372;
+  did he teach that matter is eternal? 371, 372;
+  on the eternity of the rational element of the soul, 373-375;
+  on the immortality of the soul, 375, 376;
+  on God as the First Principle of all principles, 377-379;
+  his Physics, 380-383;
+  his Ethics, 383-387, 502-505;
+  defects of his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="530" >530</a></span>
+  ethical system, 518;
+  his philosophy not derived from Jewish sources, 476;
+  felt the need of a superhuman deliverer from sin and guilt, 519-521.</p>
+
+<p>Plutarch, his sketches of Athenian character, 44;
+  criticism on, 45;
+  on the universality of prayer and sacrifice, 115.</p>
+
+<p>Poets, the Greek, believed in the existence of one uncreated Mind, 141;
+  their theogony was a cosmogony, 142;
+  the theologians of Greece, 274, 275.</p>
+
+<p>Polytheism, Greek, a poetico-historical religion of myth and symbol, 134;
+  its immoralities, 160, 161;
+  undermined by Philosophy, 484-487.</p>
+
+<p>Post-Socratic Schools, classification of, 425;
+  a philosophy of life, 422-424.</p>
+
+<p>Potentiality and Actuality, Aristotle on, 408-412.</p>
+
+<p>Prayer, natural to man, 115.</p>
+
+<p>Preparation for Christianity, not confined to Judaism alone, 464, 465;
+  Greek civilization also prepared the way for Christ, 465-468;
+  Greek language a providential development as the vehicle of a more perfect revelation, 468-470;
+  Greek philosophy fulfilled a propædeutic office, 470-472.</p>
+
+<p>Pre-Socratic Schools, classification of, 280-282; 295, 296.</p>
+
+<p>Principles, <i>universal and necessary</i>, how attained by the method of Plato, 361-364, 390;
+  how, by the method of Aristotle, 390-394, 402, 403.</p>
+
+<p>Psychological analysis, logical demonstration of the existence of God begins with, 170;
+  reveals principles which in their logical development attain to the knowledge of God, 184-189.</p>
+
+<p>Psychology of Heraclitus, 289;
+  of Pythagoras, 304;
+  of Parmenides, 307, 308;
+  of Anaxagoras, 313;
+  of Protagoras, 315;
+  of Socrates, 317, 318;
+  of Plato, 339-352;
+  of Aristotle, 392, 398-401;
+  of Epicurus, 442-444;
+  of the Stoics, 453, 454.</p>
+
+<p>Pythagoras, his doctrine that numbers are the first principles of things, 297;
+  how to be interpreted, 297-304;
+  misrepresented by Aristotle, 298-300;
+  psychology of, 304.</p>
+
+<p>R.</p>
+
+<p>Reason, insufficiency of, to elaborate a perfect ideal of moral excellence, 505-509.</p>
+
+<p>Redemption, desire of, awakened and defined by Greek philosophy, 513-521.</p>
+
+<p>Relativity of all knowledge, Hamilton's doctrine of, 229-236.</p>
+
+<p>Religion, the philosophy of, 53;
+  defined 53, 106;
+  universality of religious phenomena, 54;
+  hypothesis offered in explanation of, 55;
+  hypothesis of Epicurus and Comte, 56-65--of Hegel, 65-70--of Jacobi and Schleiermacher, 70-78--of Cousin, 78-86--of Dogmatic Theologians, 86-96--author's theory, 96, 97;
+  religion of the Athenians, 98--its mythological and symbolic aspects, 128--exerted some wholesome influences, 161-163.</p>
+
+<p>Reminiscence, Plato on, 354, 355.</p>
+
+<p>Revelation, progressive, 462-464;
+  harmony of the two revelations in the volume of conscience and the volume of the New Testament, 522-524.</p>
+
+<p>S.</p>
+
+<p>Sacrifice, universal prevalence of, 115, 124;
+  prompted by the universal consciousness of guilt, 126:
+  expiatory sacrifices grounded on a primitive revelation, 127.</p>
+
+<p>Schleiermacher, his theory that all religion is grounded on the feeling of absolute dependence, 71, 72.</p>
+
+<p>Science, Plato's answer to the question, What is Science? 338, 339.</p>
+
+<p>Self-determination, limited by idea of duty, 113;
+  implies accountability, 114;
+  recognizes a Lawgiver and Judge, 115.</p>
+
+<p>Socrates, his desire for truth, 316;
+  his dæmon, 317 <i>(note</i>);
+  his philosophic method, 318, 319;
+  a believer in one Supreme God, 320;
+  his argument for the existence of God from final causes, 320-324;
+  his belief in immortality and a future retribution, 324, 325;
+  his Ethics, 325;
+  the great prophet of the human conscience, 500-502.</p>
+
+<p>Socratic School, 314.</p>
+
+<p>Sophists, 315, 316;
+  their skeptical tendency, 315;
+  their defective ethics, 498, 499.</p>
+
+<p>Sophocles, believed in one Supreme God, 147.</p>
+
+<p>Soul, Plato on the nature of the, 350, 373;
+  eternity of the rational element, 373-375.</p>
+
+<p>Spencer, H., carries the law of the Conditioned forward to its logical consequences, Atheism, 241, 242.</p>
+
+<p>Stoical School, 446;
+  its philosophy a moral philosophy, 447.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="531" >531</a></span>
+Stoics, their Physiology, 448-453; their</p>
+
+<p>  Psychology, 453, 454;
+  their Ethics, 454-456;
+  their Theology, 452,453.</p>
+
+<p>Substance, principle of, 189;
+  Idealism seeks to undermine it, 193;
+  Reason affirms a permanent substance as the ground of all mental phenomena, 201--and of the phenomena of the sensible world, 202, 203.</p>
+
+<p>Sufficient Reason, law of, recognized by Plato, 359.</p>
+
+<p>Superstition, meaning of the term as used by Paul, 103.</p>
+
+<p>T.</p>
+
+<p>Teleological proof of the existence of God, 490, 491.</p>
+
+<p>Thales, a believer in one uncreated God, 152;
+  his first principles, 283;
+  he regards <i>water</i> as the material cause, 284;
+  and God as the efficient cause, 285.</p>
+
+<p>Theistic argument, in its logical form, 487-494.</p>
+
+<p>Theistic conception, gradual development of, 481-484,</p>
+
+<p>Theological opinions of the early periods of Greek civilization, 150, 151; 276-278.</p>
+
+<p>Theology of Aristotle, 404-417;
+  identical with Metaphysics, 404, 416.</p>
+
+<p>Theology of the Greek poets, 143-151;
+  proposed reform of Poetry by Plato, 131, 132.</p>
+
+<p>Thinking, conditionality of, 228;
+  in what sense to be understood, 237;
+  thought imposes no limits upon the object of thought, 237, 238.</p>
+
+<p>Thought, negative and positive, 242, 243;
+  negative thought an impossibility, 243;
+  all thought must be positive, 243.</p>
+
+<p>Time, Platonic notion of, 371, 372.</p>
+
+<p>Tragedians, the Greek, were the public religious teachers of the Athenians, 145;
+  their theology, 146, 147;
+  influence of the religious dramas on the Athenian mind, 161-163;
+  guiltiness of man, and need of reconciliation confessed by, 515-517.</p>
+
+<p>U.</p>
+
+<p>Unconditioned, principle of, 189;
+  assailed by Hamilton, 194.</p>
+
+<p>Unity of God, 259;
+  an affirmation of reason, 259-261;
+  Xenophanes taught the unity of God, 307--also Parmenides, 309--and Plato, 377--and Aristotle, 415.</p>
+
+<p>Unity, principle of, 189;
+  attempt of Dogmatic Theologians to prove its insufficiency, 194, 258-261;
+  recognized by Pythagoras, 296;
+  his effort to reduce all the phenomena of nature to a Unity, 303, 304.</p>
+
+<p>Universal and necessary Principles, classification of, 189, 190;
+  these the foundation of our cognition of a God, 191;
+  how attained according to Plato, 360-364;
+  how by the method of Aristotle, 390-394, 402, 403.</p>
+
+<p>Universe, the, is it finite or infinite? 178-184;
+  Epicurus teaches that it is infinite, 433.</p>
+
+<p>Unknown God, the true God, 104;
+  God not absolutely unknown, 107-110;
+  classification of opponents to the doctrine that God can be cognized by reason, 166-168;
+  Idealist School of Mill, 194-203;
+  Materialistic School of Comte, 203-223;
+  Hamiltonian School, 224-252;
+  School of Dogmatic Theologians, 252-263.</p>
+
+<p>W.</p>
+
+<p>Watson, Richard, represents the views of Dogmatic Theologians 86;
+  asserts that all our religious knowledge is derived from oral revelation, 86-88, 167;
+  incompleteness and inadequacy of this theory, 88-96;
+  in vindicating for the Scriptures the honor of revealing all our knowledge of God, he casts doubt upon the principle of Causality, 253-255--on the principle of
+  the Unconditioned, 255-257--on the principle of Unity, 258-261--and on the immutable principles of Morality, 261-263.</p>
+
+<p>Wordsworth, on the Sentiment of the Divine, 118.</p>
+
+<p>X.</p>
+
+<p>Xenophanes, his attack on Polytheism, 130;
+  his faith in one God, 153, 306, 307.</p>
+
+<p>Z.</p>
+
+<p>Zeno of Citium, the founder of the Stoical School, 446;
+  a Spiritualistic Pantheist, 450, 451.</p>
+
+<p>Zeno of Elea, maintained the doctrine of Absolute Identity, 309.</p>
+
+<p>Zeus, originally the Supreme and only God of the Greeks, 143;
+  the Homeric Zeus, the Supreme God, 144, 145.
+</p>
+
+<p>THE END.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="532">532</a></span>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="533">533</a></span></p>
+
+<br><br>
+
+<h3>VALUABLE STANDARD WORKS<br>
+
+FOR PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIBRARIES,<br>
+
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+<i>and</i> Catalogue, <i>which may be had gratuitously on application to the Publishers
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+
+<p> HARPER &amp; BROTHERS <i>will send any of the following works by mail, postage prepaid,
+to any part of the United States, on receipt of the price</i>.</p>
+
+<br>
+
+<p>MOTLEY'S DUTCH REPUBLIC. The Rise of the Dutch Republic. By John Lothrop
+Motley, LL.D., D.C.L. With a Portrait of William of Orange. 3 vols.,
+8vo, Cloth, $10 50.</p>
+
+<p>MOTLEY'S UNITED NETHERLANDS. History of the United Netherlands: from
+the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Years' Truce--1609. With a full
+View of the English-Dutch Struggle against Spain, and of the Origin and Destruction
+of the Spanish Armada. By John Lothrop Motley, LL.D., D.C.L
+Portraits. 4 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $14 00.</p>
+
+<p>NAPOLEON'S LIFE OF CÆSAR. The History of Julius Cæsar. By His Imperial
+Majesty Napoleon III. Two Volumes ready. Library Edition, 8vo, Cloth, $3 50
+per vol.
+<i>Maps to Vols. I. and II. sold separately. Price</i> $1 50 <i>each</i>, NET.</p>
+
+<p>HAYDN'S DICTIONARY OF DATES, relating to all Ages and Nations. For Universal
+Reference. Edited by Benjamin Vincent, Assistant Secretary and Keeper
+of the Library of the Royal Institution of Great Britain; and Revised for the
+Use of American Readers. 8vo, Cloth, $5 00; Sheep, $6 00.</p>
+
+<p>HARTWIG'S POLAR WORLD. The Polar World: a Popular Description of Man
+and Nature in the Arctic and Antarctic Regions of the Globe. By Dr. G. Hartwig,
+Author of "The Sea and its Living Wonders," "The Harmonies of Nature,"
+and "The Tropical World." With Additional Chapters and 163 Illustrations.
+8vo, Cloth, Beveled Edges, $3 75.</p>
+
+<p>WALLACE'S MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. The Malay Archipelago: the Land of the
+Orang-Utan and the Bird of Paradise. A Narrative of Travel, 1854--1862. With
+Studies of Man and Nature. By Alfred Russel Wallace. With Ten Maps
+and Fifty-one Elegant Illustrations. Crown 8vo, Cloth, $3 50.</p>
+
+<p>WHYMPER'S ALASKA. Travel and Adventure in the Territory of Alaska, formerly
+Russian America--now Ceded to the United States--and in various other parts of
+the North Pacific. By Frederick Whymper. With Map and Illustrations. Crown
+8vo, Cloth, $2 50.</p>
+
+<p>ORTON'S ANDES AND THE AMAZON. The Andes and the Amazon; or, Across
+the Continent of South America. By James Orton, M.A., Professor of Natural
+History in Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and Corresponding Member of the
+Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. With a New Map of Equatorial
+America and numerous Illustrations. Crown 8vo, Cloth, $2 00.</p>
+
+<p>WINCHELL'S SKETCHES OF CREATION. Sketches of Creation: a Popular View
+of some of the Grand Conclusions of the Sciences in reference to the History of
+Matter and of Life. Together with a Statement of the Intimations of Science
+respecting the Primordial Condition and the Ultimate Destiny of the Earth and
+the Solar System. By Alexander Winchell, LL.D., Professor of Geology,
+Zoology, and Botany in the University of Michigan, and Director of the State
+Geological Survey. With Illustrations. 12mo, Cloth, $2 00.</p>
+
+<p>WHITE'S MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew:
+Preceded by a History of the Religious Wars in the Reign of Charles IX.
+By Henry White, M.A. With Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, $1 75.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="534" >534</a></span></p>
+
+<p>LOSSING'S FIELD-BOOK OF THE REVOLUTION. Pictorial Field-Book of the
+Revolution; or, Illustrations, by Pen and Pencil, of the History, Biography,
+Scenery, Relics, and Traditions of the War for Independence. By Benson J.
+Lossing. 2 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $14 00; Sheep, $15 00; Half Calf, $18 00; Full
+Turkey Morocco, $22 00.</p>
+
+<p>LOSSING'S FIELD-BOOK OF THE WAR OF 1812. Pictorial Field-Book of the
+War of 1812; or, Illustrations, by Pen and Pencil, of the History, Biography,
+Scenery, Relics, and Traditions of the Last War for American Independence. By
+Benson J. Lossing. With several hundred Engravings on Wood, by Lossing and
+Barritt, chiefly from Original Sketches by the Author. 1088 pages, 8vo, Cloth,
+$7 00; Sheep, $8 50; Half Calf, $10 00.</p>
+
+<p>ALFORD'S GREEK TESTAMENT. The Greek Testament: with a critically-revised
+Text; a Digest of Various Readings; Marginal References to Verbal and Idiomatic
+Usage; Prolegomena; and a Critical and Exegetical Commentary. For
+the Use of Theological Students and Ministers. By Henry Alford, D.D., Dean
+of Canterbury. Vol. I., containing the Four Gospels. 944 pages, 8vo, Cloth,
+$6 00; Sheep, $6 50.</p>
+
+<p>ABBOTT'S HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. The French Revolution
+of 1789, as viewed in the Light of Republican Institutions. By John S.C. Abbott.
+With 100 Engravings. 8vo, Cloth, $5 00.</p>
+
+<p>ABBOTT'S NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. The History of Napoleon Bonaparte. By
+John S.C. Abbott. With Maps, Woodcuts, and Portraits on Steel. 2 vols.,
+8vo, Cloth, $10 00.</p>
+
+<p>ABBOTT'S NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA; or, Interesting Anecdotes and Remarkable
+Conversations of the Emperor during the Five and a Half Years of his
+Captivity. Collected from the Memorials of Las Casas, O'Meara, Montholon,
+Antommarchi, and others. By John S.C. Abbott. With Illustrations. 8vo,
+Cloth, $5 00.</p>
+
+<p>ADDISON'S COMPLETE WORKS. The Works of Joseph Addison, embracing the
+whole of the "Spectator." Complete in 3 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $6 00.</p>
+
+<p>ALCOCK'S JAPAN. The Capital of the Tycoon: a Narrative of a Three Years'
+Residence in Japan. By Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B., Her Majesty's Envoy
+Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in Japan. With Maps and Engravings.
+2 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $3 50.</p>
+
+<p>ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. First Series: From the Commencement of
+the French Revolution, in 1789, to the Restoration of the Bourbons, in 1815. [In
+addition to the Notes on Chapter LXXVI., which correct the errors of the
+original work concerning the United States, a copious Analytical Index has been
+appended to this American edition.] Second Series: From the Fall of Napoleon,
+in 1815, to the Accession of Louis Napoleon, in 1852. 8 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $16 00.</p>
+
+<p>BANCROFT'S MISCELLANIES. Literary and Historical Miscellanies. By George
+Bancroft. 8vo, Cloth, $3 00.</p>
+
+<p>BALDWIN'S PRE-HISTORIC NATIONS. Pre-Historic Nations; or, Inquiries concerning
+some of the Great Peoples and Civilizations of Antiquity, and their
+Probable Relation to a still Older Civilization of the Ethiopians or Cushites of
+Arabia. By John D. Baldwin, Member of the American Oriental Society.
+12mo, Cloth, $1 75.</p>
+
+<p>BARTH'S NORTH AND CENTRAL AFRICA. Travels and Discoveries in North
+and Central Africa: being a Journal of an Expedition undertaken under the
+Auspices of H.B.M.'s Government, in the Years 1849-1855. By Henry Barth,
+Ph.D., D.C.L. Illustrated. 3 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $12 00.</p>
+
+<p>HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SERMONS. Sermons by Henry Ward Beecher,
+Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. Selected from Published and Unpublished Discourses,
+and Revised by their Author. With Steel Portrait. Complete in 2 vols.,
+8vo, Cloth, $5 00.</p>
+
+<p>LYMAN BEECHER'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY, &amp;c. Autobiography, Correspondence,
+&amp;c., of Lyman Beecher, D.D. Edited by his Son, Charles Beecher. With Three
+Steel Portraits, and Engravings on Wood. In 2 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $5 00.</p>
+
+<p>BOSWELL'S JOHNSON. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Including a Journey
+to the Hebrides. By James Boswell, Esq. A New Edition, with numerous
+Additions and Notes. By John Wilson Croker, LL.D., F.R.S. Portrait of
+Boswell. 2 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $4 00.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="535" >535</a></span></p>
+
+<p>DRAPER'S CIVIL WAR. History of the American Civil War. By John W. Draper,
+M.D., LL.D., Professor of Chemistry and Physiology in the University of
+New York. In Three Vols. 8vo, Cloth, $3 50 per vol.</p>
+
+<p>DRAPER'S INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPE. A History of the
+Intellectual Development of Europe. By John W. Draper, M.D., LL.D., Professor
+of Chemistry and Physiology in the University of New York. 8vo, Cloth, $5 00.</p>
+
+<p>DRAPER'S AMERICAN CIVIL POLICY. Thoughts on the Future Civil Policy of
+America. By John W. Draper, M. D., LL. D, Professor of Chemistry and Physiology
+in the University of New York. Crown 8vo, Cloth, $2 50.</p>
+
+<p>DU CHAILLU'S AFRICA. Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa: with
+Accounts of the Manners and Customs of the People, and of the Chase of the Gorilla,
+the Crocodile, Leopard, Elephant, Hippopotamus and other Animals. By
+Paul B. Du Chaillu. Numerous Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, $5 00.</p>
+
+<p>DU CHAILLU'S ASHANGO LAND. A Journey to Ashango Land: and Further
+Penetration into Equatorial Africa. By Paul B. Du Chaillu. New Edition.
+Handsomely Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, $5 00.</p>
+
+<p>BURNS'S LIFE AND WORKS. The Life and Works of Robert Burns. Edited
+by Robert Chambers. 4 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $6 00.</p>
+
+<p>BELLOWS'S OLD WORLD. The Old World in its New Face: Impressions of Europe
+in 1867--1868. By Henry W. Bellows. 2 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $3 50.</p>
+
+<p>BRODHEAD'S HISTORY OF NEW YORK. History of the State of New York.
+By John Romlyn Brodhead. First Period, 1609--1664. 8vo, Cloth, $3 00.</p>
+
+<p>BULWER'S PROSE WORKS. Miscellaneous Prose Works of Edward Bulwer,
+Lord Lytton. 2 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $3 50.</p>
+
+<p>CARLYLE'S FREDERICK THE GREAT. History of Friedrich II., called Frederick
+the Great By Thomas Carlyle. Portraits, Maps, Plans, &amp;c. 6 vols., 12mo,
+Cloth, $12 00.</p>
+
+<p>CARLYLE'S FRENCH REVOLUTION. History of the French Revolution. Newly
+Revised by the Author, with Index, &amp;c. 2 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $3 50.</p>
+
+<p>CARLYLE'S OLIVER CROMWELL. Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell.
+With Elucidations and Connecting Narrative. 2 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $3 50.</p>
+
+<p>CHALMERS'S POSTHUMOUS WORKS. The Posthumous Works of Dr. Chalmers.
+Edited by his Son-in-Law, Rev. William Hanna, LL.D. Complete in 9 vols.,
+12mo, Cloth, $13 50.</p>
+
+<p>COLERIDGE'S COMPLETE WORKS. The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor
+Coleridge. With an Introductory Essay upon his Philosophical and Theological
+Opinions. Edited by Professor Shedd. Complete in Seven Vols. With a fine
+Portrait. Small 8vo, Cloth, $10 50.</p>
+
+<p>CURTIS'S HISTORY OF THE CONSTITUTION. History of the Origin, Formation,
+and Adoption of the Constitution of the United States. By George Ticknor
+Curtis. 2 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $6 00.</p>
+
+<p>DOOLITTLE'S CHINA. Social Life of the Chinese: with some Account of their Religious,
+Governmental, Educational, and Business Customs and Opinions. With
+special but not exclusive Reference to Fuhchau. By Rev. Justis Doolittle,
+Fourteen Years Member of the Fuhchau Mission of the American Board. Illustrated
+with more than 150 characteristic Engravings on Wood. 2 vols., 12mo,
+Cloth, $5 00.</p>
+
+<p>DAVIS'S CARTHAGE. Carthage and her Remains: being an Account of the Excavations
+and Researches on the Site of the Phœnician Metropolis in Africa and other
+adjacent Places. Conducted under the Auspices of Her Majesty's Government.
+By Dr. Davis, F.R.G.S. Profusely Illustrated with Maps, Woodcuts, Chromo-Lithographs,
+&amp;c. 8vo, Cloth, $4 00.</p>
+
+<p>EDGEWORTH'S (Miss) NOVELS. With Engravings. 10 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $15 00.</p>
+
+<p>GIBBON'S ROME. History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. By Edward
+Gibbon. With Notes by Rev. H.H. Milman and M. Guizot. A new cheap
+Edition. To which is added a complete Index of the whole Work, and a Portrait
+of the Author. 6 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $9 00.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="536">536</a></span></p>
+
+<p>HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE REBELLION. Harper's Pictorial
+History of the Great Rebellion in the United States. With nearly 1000 Illustrations.
+In Two Vols., 4to. Price $6 00 per vol.</p>
+
+<p>HARPER'S NEW CLASSICAL LIBRARY. Literal Translations.</p>
+
+<p>The following Volumes are now ready. Portraits. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50 each.
+Cæsar. -- Virgil. -- Sallust. -- Horace. -- Cicero's Orations. -- Cicero's Offices,
+&amp;c. -- Cicero on Oratory and Orators. -- Tacitus (2 vols.). --Terence. --
+Sophocles. -- Juvenal. -- Xenophon. --Homer's Iliad. -- omer's Odyssey. --
+Herodotus. -- Demosthenes. -- Thucydides. -- Æschylus. -- Euripides (2 vols.).</p>
+
+<p>HELPS'S SPANISH CONQUEST. The Spanish Conquest in America, and its Relation
+to the History of Slavery and to the Government of Colonies. By Arthur
+Helps. 4 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $6 00.</p>
+
+<p>HUME'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. History of England, from the Invasion of Julius
+Cæsar to the Abdication of James II., 1688. By David Hume. A new Edition,
+with the Author's last Corrections and Improvements. To which is Prefixed
+a short Account of his Life, written by Himself. With a Portrait of the Author.
+6 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $9 00.</p>
+
+<p>GROTE'S HISTORY OF GREECE. 12 vols., 12mo, Cloth. $18 00.</p>
+
+<p>HALE'S (Mrs.) WOMAN'S RECORD. Woman's Record; or, Biographical Sketches
+of all Distinguished Women, from the Creation to the Present Time. Arranged
+In Four Eras, with Selections from Female Writers of each Era. By Mrs. Sarah
+Josepha Hale. Illustrated with more than 200 Portraits. 8vo, Cloth, $5 00.</p>
+
+<p>HALL'S ARCTIC RESEARCHES. Arctic Researches and Life among the Esquimaux:
+being the Narrative of an Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin, in
+the Years 1860, 1861, and 1862. By Charles Francis Hall. With Maps and 100
+Illustrations. The Illustrations are from Original Drawings by Charles Parsons,
+Henry L. Stephens, Solomon Eytinge, W.S.L. Jewett, and Granville Perkins,
+after Sketches by Captain Hall. 8vo, Cloth, $5 00.</p>
+
+<p>HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND, from the Accession of
+Henry VII. to the Death of George II. 8vo, Cloth, $2 00.</p>
+
+<p>HALLAM'S LITERATURE. Introduction to the Literature of Europe during the
+Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries. By Henry Hallam. 2 vols.
+8vo, Cloth, $4 00.</p>
+
+<p>HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES. State of Europe during the Middle Ages. By Henry
+Hallam. 8vo, Cloth, $2 00.</p>
+
+<p>HILDRETH'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. First Series: From the
+First Settlement of the Country to the Adoption of the Federal Constitution.
+Second Series: From the Adoption of the Federal Constitution to the End of
+the Sixteenth Congress. 6 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $18 00.</p>
+
+<p>JAY'S WORKS. Complete Works of Rev. William Jay: comprising his Sermons,
+Family Discourses, Morning and Evening Exercises for every Day in the Year,
+Family Prayers, &amp;c. Author's enlarged Edition, revised. 3 vols., 8vo, Cloth,
+$6 00.</p>
+
+<p>JOHNSON'S COMPLETE WORKS. The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. With
+an Essay on his Life and Genius, by Arthur Murphy, Esq. Portrait of Johnson
+2 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $4 00.</p>
+
+<p>KINGLAKE'S CRIMEAN WAR. The Invasion of the Crimea, and an Account of
+its Progress down to the Death of Lord Raglan. By Alexander William Kinglake.
+With Maps and Plans. Two Vols. ready. 12mo, Cloth, $2 00 per vol.</p>
+
+<p>KRUMMACHER'S DAVID, KING OF ISRAEL. David, the King of Israel: a Portrait
+drawn from Bible History and the Book of Psalms. By Frederick William
+Krummacher, D.D., Author of "Elijah the Tishbite," &amp;c. Translated under the
+express Sanction of the Author by the Rev. M.G. Easton, M.A. With a Letter
+from Dr. Krummacher to his American Readers, and a Portrait. 12mo, Cloth,
+$1 75.</p>
+
+<p>LAMB'S COMPLETE WORKS. The Works of Charles Lamb. Comprising his Letters,
+Poems, Essays of Elia. Essays upon Shakspeare, Hogarth, &amp;c., and a Sketch
+of his Life, with the Final Memorials, by T. Noon Talfourd. Portrait. 2 vols.
+12mo, Cloth, $3 00.</p>
+
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Christianity and Greek Philosophy, by 
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Christianity and Greek Philosophy, by
+Benjamin Franklin Cocker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Christianity and Greek Philosophy
+       or, the relation between spontaneous and reflective thought
+       in Greece and the positive teaching of Christ and His
+       Apostles
+
+Author: Benjamin Franklin Cocker
+
+Release Date: December 20, 2008 [EBook #27571]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTIANITY AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Renald Levesque and the
+Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at
+http://dp.rastko.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHRISTIANITY
+
+AND
+
+GREEK PHILOSOPHY;
+
+OR, THE RELATION BETWEEN
+SPONTANEOUS AND REFLECTIVE THOUGHT IN GREECE
+AND THE POSITIVE TEACHING OF
+CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES.
+
+
+BY B.F. COCKER, D.D.,
+
+PROFESSOR OF MORAL AND MENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
+
+"Plato made me know the true God, Jesus Christ showed me the way to
+him."
+                                                        ST. AUGUSTINE
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK: CARLTON & LANAHAN.
+SAN FRANCISCO: E. THOMAS.
+CINCINNATI: HITCHCOCK & WALDEN.
+
+1870.
+
+
+
+Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by HARPER &
+BROTHERS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United
+States for the Southern District of New York.
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+D.D. WHEDON, D.D.,
+
+MY EARLIEST LITERARY FRIEND, WHOSE VIGOROUS WRITINGS HAVE
+STIMULATED MY INQUIRIES, WHOSE COUNSELS HAVE GUIDED
+MY STUDIES, AND WHOSE KIND AND GENEROUS WORDS
+HAVE ENCOURAGED ME TO PERSEVERANCE
+AMID NUMEROUS DIFFICULTIES,
+I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME AS A TOKEN OF MY MORE THAN ORDINARY AFFECTION
+
+_THE AUTHOR_.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+In preparing the present volume, the writer has been actuated by a
+conscientious desire to deepen and vivify our faith in the Christian
+system of truth, by showing that it does not rest _solely_ on a special
+class of facts, but upon all the facts of nature and humanity; that its
+authority does not repose _alone_ on the peculiar and supernatural
+events which transpired in Palestine, but also on the still broader
+foundations of the ideas and laws of the reason, and the common wants
+and instinctive yearnings of the human heart. It is his conviction that
+the course and constitution of nature, the whole current of history, and
+the entire development of human thought in the ages anterior to the
+advent of the Redeemer centre in, and can only be interpreted by, the
+purpose of redemption.
+
+The method hitherto most prevalent, of treating the history of human
+thought as a series of isolated, disconnected, and lawless movements,
+without unity and purpose; and the practice of denouncing the religions
+and philosophies of the ancient world as inventions of satanic mischief,
+or as the capricious and wicked efforts of humanity to relegate itself
+from the bonds of allegiance to the One Supreme Lord and Lawgiver, have,
+in his judgment, been prejudicial to the interests of all truth, and
+especially injurious to the cause of Christianity. They betray an utter
+insensibility to the grand unities of nature and of thought, and a
+strange forgetfulness of that universal Providence which comprehends all
+nature and all history, and is yet so minute in its regards that it
+numbers the hairs on every human head, and takes note of every sparrow's
+fall, A juster method will lead us to regard the entire history of human
+thought as a development towards a specific end, and the providence of
+God as an all-embracing plan, which sweeps over all ages and all
+nations, and which, in its final consummation, will, through Christ,
+"gather together all things in one, both things which are in heaven and
+things which are on earth."
+
+The central and unifying thought of this volume is _that the necessary
+ideas and laws of the reason, and the native instincts of the human
+heart, originally implanted by God, are the primal and germinal forces
+of history; and that these have been developed under conditions which
+were first ordained, and have been continually supervised by the
+providence of God_. God is the Father of humanity, and he is also the
+Guide and Educator of our race. As "the offspring of God," humanity is
+not a bare, indeterminate potentiality, but a living energy, an active
+reason, having definite qualities, and inheriting fundamental principles
+and necessary ideas which constitute it "the image and likeness of God."
+And though it has suffered a moral lapse, and, in the exercise of its
+freedom, has become alienated from the life of God, yet God has never
+abandoned the human race. He still "magnifies man, and sets his heart
+upon him." "He visits him every morning, and tries him every moment."
+"The inspiration of the Almighty still gives him understanding." The
+illumination of the Divine Logos still "teacheth man knowledge." The
+Spirit of God still comes near to and touches with strong emotion every
+human heart. "God has never left himself without a witness" in any
+nation, or in any age. The providence of God has always guided the
+dispersions and migrations of the families of the earth, and presided
+over and directed the education of the race. "He has foreordained the
+times of each nation's existence, and fixed the geographical boundaries
+of their habitations, _in order that they should seek the Lord_, and
+feel after and find Him who is not far from any one of us." The
+religions of the ancient world were the painful effort of the human
+spirit to return to its true rest and centre--the struggle to "find Him"
+who is so intimately near to every human heart, and who has never ceased
+to be the want of the human race. The philosophies of the ancient world
+were the earnest effort of human reason to reconcile the finite and the
+infinite, the human and the Divine, the subject and God. An overruling
+Providence, which makes even the wrath of man to praise Him, took up all
+these sincere, though often mistaken, efforts into his own plan, and
+made them sub-serve the purpose of redemption. They aided in developing
+among the nations "the desire of salvation," and in preparing the world
+for the advent of the Son of God. The entire course and history of
+Divine providence, in every nation, and in every age, has been directed
+towards the one grand purpose of "reconciling all things to Himself."
+Christianity, as a comprehensive scheme of reconciliation, embracing
+"all things," can not, therefore, be properly studied apart from the
+ages of earnest thought, of profound inquiry, and of intense religious
+feeling which preceded it. To despise the religions of the ancient
+world, to sneer at the efforts and achievements of the old philosophers,
+or even to cut them off in thought from all relation to the plans and
+movements of that Providence which has cared for, and watched over, and
+pitied, and guided all the nations of the earth, is to refuse to
+comprehend Christianity itself.
+
+The author is not indifferent to the possibility that his purpose may be
+misconceived. The effort may be regarded by many conscientious and
+esteemed theologians with suspicion and mistrust. They can not easily
+emancipate themselves from the ancient prejudice against speculative
+thought. Philosophy has always been regarded by them as antagonistic to
+Christian faith. They are inspired by a commendable zeal for the honor
+of dogmatic theology. Every essay towards a profounder conviction, a
+broader faith in the unity of all truth, is branded with the opprobrious
+name of "rationalism." Let us not be terrified by a harmless word.
+Surely religion and right reason must be found in harmony. The author
+believes, with Bacon, that "the foundation of all religion is right
+reason." The abnegation of reason is not the evidence of faith, but the
+confession of despair. Sustained by these convictions, he submits this
+humble contribution to theological science to the thoughtful
+consideration of all lovers of Truth, and of Christ, the fountain of
+Truth. He can sincerely ask upon it the blessing of Him in whose fear it
+has been written, and whose cause it is the purpose of his life to
+serve.
+
+The second series, on "Christianity and Modern Thought," is in an
+advanced state of preparation for the press.
+
+      NOTE.--It has been the aim of the writer, as far as the
+      nature of the subject would permit, to adapt this work to
+      general readers. The references to classic authors are,
+      therefore, in all cases made to accessible English
+      translations (in Bohn's Classical Library); such changes,
+      however, have been made in the rendering as shall present
+      the doctrine of the writers in a clearer and more forcible
+      manner. For valuable services rendered in this department of
+      the work, by Martin L. D'Ooge, M. A., Acting Professor of
+      Greek Language and Literature in the University of Michigan,
+      the author would here express his grateful acknowledgment.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+     CHAPTER I.
+     ATHENS, AND THE MEN OF ATHENS.
+
+     CHAPTER II.
+     THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.
+
+     CHAPTER III.
+     THE RELIGION OF THE ATHENIANS.
+
+     CHAPTER IV.
+     THE RELIGION OF THE ATHENIANS: ITS MYTHOLOGICAL AND SYMBOLICAL
+     ASPECTS.
+
+     CHAPTER V.
+     THE UNKNOWN GOD.
+
+     CHAPTER VI.
+     THE UNKNOWN GOD (_continued_).
+       IS GOD COGNIZABLE BY REASON?
+
+     CHAPTER VII.
+     THE UNKNOWN GOD (_continued_).
+       IS GOD COGNIZABLE BY REASON? (_continued_).
+
+     CHAPTER VIII.
+     THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS.
+       PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+     _Sensational_: THALES--ANAXIMENES--HERACLITUS--ANAXIMANDER
+     LEOCIPPUS--DEMOCRITUS.
+
+     CHAPTER IX.
+     THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_).
+       PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOL (_continued_)
+     _Idealist_: Pythagoras--Xenophanes--Parmenides--Zeno. _Natural
+     Realist_: Anaxagoras.
+       THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+       Socrates.
+
+     CHAPTER X
+     THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_).
+       THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (_continued_).
+       Plato.
+
+     CHAPTER XI.
+     THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_).
+       THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (_continued_).
+       Plato.
+
+     CHAPTER XII.
+
+     THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_).
+       THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (_continued_).
+       Aristotle.
+
+     CHAPTER XIII.
+     THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_).
+       POST-SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+       Epicurus and Zeno.
+
+     CHAPTER XIV.
+     The Propaedeutic Office of Greek Philosophy.
+
+     CHAPTER XV.
+     The Propaedeutic Office of Greek Philosophy (_continued_).
+
+
+
+
+"_Ye men of Athens_, all things which I behold bear witness to your
+carefulness in religion; for, as I passed through your city and beheld
+the objects of your worship, I found amongst them an altar with this
+inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD; whom, therefore, ye worship, though ye
+know; Him not, Him declare I unto you. God who made the world and all
+things therein, seeing He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in
+temples made with hands; neither is He served by the hands of men, as
+though he needed any thing; for He giveth unto all life, and breath, and
+all things. And He made of one blood all the nations of mankind to dwell
+upon the face of the whole earth; and ordained to each the appointed
+seasons of their existence, and the bounds of their habitation, that
+they should seek God, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him,
+though he be not far from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move,
+and have our being; as certain of your own poets have said, _For we are
+also His offspring_. Forasmuch, then, as we are the offspring of God, we
+ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or
+stone, graven by the art and device of man. Howbeit, those past times of
+ignorance God hath overlooked; but now He commandeth all men everywhere
+to repent, because He hath appointed a day wherein He will judge the
+world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained; whereof He
+hath given assurance unto all, in that He hath raised Him from the
+dead."--Acts xvii. 22-31.
+
+
+
+
+CHRISTIANITY
+AND
+GREEK PHILOSOPHY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ATHENS, AND THE MEN OF ATHENS.
+
+
+"Is it not worth while, for the sake of the history of men and nations,
+to study the surface of the globe in its relation to the inhabitants
+thereof?"--Goethe.
+
+There is no event recorded in the annals of the early church so replete
+with interest to the Christian student, or which takes so deep a hold on
+the imagination, and the sympathies of him who is at all familiar with
+the history of Ancient Greece, as the one recited above. Here we see the
+Apostle Paul standing on the Areopagus at Athens, surrounded by the
+temples, statues, and altars, which Grecian art had consecrated to Pagan
+worship, and proclaiming to the inquisitive Athenians, "the strangers"
+who had come to Athens for business or for pleasure, and the
+philosophers and students of the Lyceum, the Academy, the Stoa, and the
+Garden, "_the unknown God_."
+
+Whether we dwell in our imagination on the artistic grandeur and
+imposing magnificence of the city in which Paul found himself a solitary
+stranger, or recall the illustrious names which by their achievements in
+arts and philosophy have shed around the city of Athens an immortal
+glory,--or whether, fixing our attention on the lonely wanderer amid the
+porticoes, and groves, and temples of this classic city, we attempt to
+conceive the emotion which stirred his heart as he beheld it "wholly
+given to idolatry;" or whether we contrast the sublime, majestic theism
+proclaimed by Paul with the degrading polytheism and degenerate
+philosophy which then prevailed in Athens, or consider the prudent and
+sagacious manner in which the apostle conducts his argument in view of
+the religious opinions and prejudices of his audience, we can not but
+feel that this event is fraught with lessons of instruction to the
+Church in every age.
+
+That the objects which met the eye of Paul on every hand, and the
+opinions he heard everywhere expressed in Athens, must have exerted a
+powerful influence upon the current of his thoughts, as well as upon the
+state of his emotions, is a legitimate and natural presumption. Not only
+was "his spirit stirred within him"--his heart deeply moved and agitated
+when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry--but his thoughtful,
+philosophic mind would be engaged in pondering those deeply interesting
+questions which underlie the whole system of Grecian polytheism. The
+circumstances of the hour would, no doubt, in a large degree determine
+the line of argument, the form of his discourse, and the peculiarities
+of his phraseology. The more vividly, therefore, we can represent the
+scenes and realize the surrounding incidents; the more thoroughly we can
+enter into sympathy with the modes of thought and feeling peculiar to
+the Athenians; the more perfectly we can comprehend the spirit and
+tendency of the age; the more immediate our acquaintance with the
+religious opinions and philosophical ideas then prevalent in Athens, the
+more perfect will be our comprehension of the apostle's argument, the
+deeper our interest in his theme. Some preliminary notices of Athens and
+"the Men of Athens" will therefore be appropriate as introductory to a
+series of discourses on Paul's sermon on Mars' Hill.
+
+The peculiar connection that subsists between Geography and History,
+between a people and the country they inhabit, will justify the
+extension of our survey beyond the mere topography of Athens. The people
+of the entire province of Attica were called Athenians (_Athenaioi_) in
+their relation to the state, and Attics _(Attikoi_) in regard to their
+manners, customs, and dialect.[1] The climate and the scenery, the forms
+of contour and relief, the geographical position and relations of
+Attica, and, indeed, of the whole peninsula of Greece, must be taken
+into our account if we would form a comprehensive judgment of the
+character of the Athenian people.
+
+The soil on which a people dwell, the air they breathe, the mountains
+and seas by which they are surrounded, the skies that overshadow
+them,--all these exert a powerful influence on their pursuits, their
+habits, their institutions, their sentiments, and their ideas. So that
+could we clearly group, and fully grasp all the characteristics of a
+region--its position, configuration, climate, scenery, and natural
+products, we could, with tolerable accuracy, determine what are the
+characteristics of the people who inhabit it. A comprehensive knowledge
+of the physical geography of any country will therefore aid us
+materially in elucidating the natural history, and, to some extent, the
+moral history of its population. "History does not stand _outside_ of
+nature, but in her very heart, so that the historian only grasps a
+people's character with true precision when he keeps in full view its
+geographical position, and the influences which its surroundings have
+wrought upon it."[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Niebuhr's "Lectures on Ethnography and Geography," p. 91.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ritter's "Geographical Studies," p. 34.]
+
+It is, however, of the utmost consequence the reader should understand
+that there are two widely different methods of treating this deeply
+interesting subject--methods which proceed on fundamentally opposite
+views of man and of nature. One method is that pursued by Buckle in his
+"History of Civilization in England." The tendency of his work is the
+assertion of the supremacy of material conditions over the development
+of human history, and indeed of every individual mind. Here man is
+purely passive in the hands of nature. Exterior conditions are the
+chief, if not the _only_ causes of man's intellectual and social
+development. So that, such a climate and soil, such aspects of nature
+and local circumstances being given, such a nation necessarily
+follows.[3] The other method is that of Carl Ritter, Arnold Guyot, and
+Cousin.[4] These take account of the freedom of the human will, and the
+power of man to control and modify the forces of nature. They also take
+account of the original constitution of man, and the primitive type of
+nations; and they allow for results arising from the mutual conflict of
+geographical conditions. And they, especially, recognize the agency of a
+Divine Providence controlling those forces in nature by which the
+configuration of the earth's surface is determined, and the distribution
+of its oceans, continents, and islands is secured; and a providence,
+also, directing the dispersions and migrations of nations--determining
+the times of each nation's existence, and fixing the geographical bounds
+of their habitation, all in view of the _moral_ history and spiritual
+development of the race,--"that they may feel after, and find the living
+God." The relation of man and nature is not, in their estimation, a
+relation of cause and effect. It is a relation of adjustment, of
+harmony, and of reciprocal action and reaction. "Man is not"--says
+Cousin--"an effect, and nature the cause, but there is between man and
+nature a manifest harmony of general laws."... "Man and nature are two
+great effects which, coming from the same cause, bear the same
+characteristics; so that the earth, and he who inhabits it, man and
+nature, are in perfect harmony."[5] God has created both man and the
+universe, and he has established between them a striking harmony. The
+earth was made for man; not simply to supply his physical wants, but
+also to minister to his intellectual and moral development. The earth is
+not a mere dwelling-place of nations, but a school-house, in which God
+himself is superintending the education of the race. Hence we must not
+only study the _events_ of history in their chronological order, but we
+must study the earth itself as the _theatre_ of history. A knowledge of
+all the circumstances, both physical and moral, in the midst of which
+events take place, is absolutely necessary to a right judgment of the
+events themselves. And we can only elucidate properly the character of
+the actors by a careful study of all their geographical and ethological
+conditions.
+
+[Footnote 3: See chap. ii. "History of Civilization."]
+
+[Footnote 4: Ritter's "Geographical Studies;" Guyot's "Earth and Man;"
+Cousin's "History of Philosophy," lec. vii., viii., ix.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Lectures, vol. i. pp. 162, 169.]
+
+It will be readily perceived that, in attempting to estimate the
+influence which exterior conditions exert in the determination of
+national character, we encounter peculiar difficulties. We can not in
+these studies expect the precision and accuracy which is attained in the
+mathematical, or the purely physical sciences. We possess no control
+over the "materiel" of our inquiry; we have no power of placing it in
+new conditions, and submitting it to the test of new experiments, as in
+the physical sciences. National character is a _complex_ result--a
+product of the action and reaction of primary and secondary causes. It
+is a conjoint effect of the action of the primitive elements and laws
+originally implanted in humanity by the Creator, of the free causality
+and self-determining power of man, and of all the conditions, permanent
+and accidental, within which the national life has been developed. And
+in cases where _physical_ and _moral_ causes are blended, and
+reciprocally conditioned and modified in their operation;--where primary
+results undergo endless modifications from the influence of surrounding
+circumstances, and the reaction of social and political
+institutions;--and where each individual of the great aggregate wields a
+causal power that obeys no specific law, and by his own inherent power
+sets in motion new trains of causes which can not be reduced to
+statistics, we grant that we are in possession of no instrument of exact
+analysis by which the complex phenomena of national character may be
+reduced to primitive elements. All that we can hope is, to ascertain, by
+psychological analysis, what are the fundamental ideas and laws of
+humanity; to grasp the exterior conditions which are, on all hands,
+recognized as exerting a powerful influence upon national character; to
+watch, under these lights, the manifestations of human nature on the
+theatre of history, and then apply the principles of a sound historic
+criticism to the recorded opinions of contemporaneous historians and
+their immediate successors. In this manner we may expect, at least, to
+approximate to a true judgment of history.
+
+There are unquestionably fundamental powers and laws in human nature
+which have their development in the course of history. There are certain
+primitive ideas, imbedded in the constitution of each individual mind,
+which are revealed in the universal consciousness of our race, under the
+conditions of experience--the exterior conditions of physical nature and
+human society. Such are the ideas of cause and substance; of unity and
+infinity, which govern all the processes of discursive thought, and lead
+us to the recognition of Being _in se_;--such the ideas of right, of
+duty, of accountability, and of retribution, which regulate all the
+conceptions we form of our relations to all other moral beings, and
+constitute _morality_;--such the ideas of order, of proportion, and of
+harmony, which preside in the realms of art, and constitute the
+beau-ideal of _esthetics_;--such the ideas of God, the soul, and
+immortality, which rule in the domains of _religion_, and determine man
+a religious being. These constitute the identity of human nature under
+all circumstances; these characterize humanity in all conditions. Like
+permanent germs in vegetable life, always producing the same species of
+plants; or like fundamental types in the animal kingdom, securing the
+same homologous structures in all classes and orders; so these
+fundamental ideas in human nature constitute its sameness and unity,
+under all the varying conditions of life and society. The acorn must
+produce an oak, and nothing else. The grain of wheat must always produce
+its kind. The offspring of man must always bear his image, and always
+exhibit the same fundamental characteristics, not only in his corporeal
+nature, but also in his mental constitution.
+
+But the germination of every seed depends on conditions _ab extra_, and
+all germs are modified, in their development, by geographical and
+climatal surroundings. The development of the acorn into a mature and
+perfect oak greatly depends on the exterior conditions of soil, and
+moisture, light, and heat. By these it may be rendered luxuriant in its
+growth, or it may be stunted in its growth. It may barely exist under
+one class of conditions, or it may perish under another. The Brassica
+oleracea, in its native habitat on the shore of the sea, is a bitter
+plant with wavy sea-green leaves; in the cultivated garden it is the
+cauliflower. The single rose, under altered conditions, becomes a double
+rose; and creepers rear their stalks and stand erect. Plants, which in a
+cold climate are annuals, become perennial when transported to the
+torrid zone.[6] And so human nature, fundamentally the same under all
+circumstances, may be greatly modified, both physically and mentally, by
+geographical, social, and political conditions. The corporeal nature of
+man--his complexion, his physiognomy, his stature; the intellectual
+nature of man--his religious, ethical, and esthetical ideas are all
+modified by his surroundings. These modifications, of which all men
+dwelling in the same geographical regions, and under the same social and
+political institutions, partake, constitute the _individuality_ of
+nations. Thus, whilst there is a fundamental basis of unity in the
+corporeal and spiritual nature of man, the causes of diversity are to be
+sought in the circumstances in which tribes and nations are placed in
+the overruling providence of God.
+
+[Footnote 6: See Carpenter's "Compar. Physiology," p. 625; Lyell's
+"Principles of Geology," pp. 588, 589.]
+
+The power which man exerts over material conditions, by virtue of his
+intelligence and freedom, is also an important element which, in these
+studies, we should not depreciate or ignore. We must accept, with all
+its consequences, the dictum of universal consciousness that man is
+_free_. He is not absolutely subject to, and moulded by nature. He has
+the power to control the circumstances by which he is surrounded--to
+originate new social and physical conditions--to determine his own
+individual and responsible character--and he can wield a mighty
+influence over the character of his fellow-men. Individual men, as
+Lycurgus, Solon, Pericles, Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon have left the
+impress of their own mind and character upon the political institutions
+of nations, and, in indirect manner, upon the character of succeeding
+generations of men. Homer, Plato, Cicero, Bacon, Kant, Locke, Newton,
+Shakspeare, Milton have left a deep and permanent impression upon the
+forms of thought and speech, the language and literature, the science
+and philosophy of nations. And inasmuch as a nation is the aggregate of
+individual beings endowed with spontaneity and freedom, we must grant
+that exterior conditions are not omnipotent in the formation of national
+character. Still the free causality of man is exercised within a narrow
+field. "There is a strictly necessitative limitation drawing an
+impassable boundary-line around the area of volitional freedom." The
+human will "however subjectively free" is often "objectively unfree;"
+thus a large "uniformity of volitions" is the natural consequence.[7]
+The child born in the heart of China, whilst he may, in his personal
+freedom, develop such traits of character as constitute his
+individuality, must necessarily be conformed in his language, habits,
+modes of thought, and religious sentiments to the spirit of his country
+and age. We no more expect a development of Christian thought and
+character in the centre of Africa, unvisited by Christian teaching, than
+we expect to find the climate and vegetation of New England. And we no
+more expect that a New England child shall be a Mohammedan, a Parsee, or
+a Buddhist, than that he shall have an Oriental physiognomy, and speak
+an Oriental language. Indeed it is impossible for a man to exist in
+human society without partaking in the spirit and manners of his country
+and his age. Thus all the individuals of a nation represent, in a
+greater or less degree, the spirit of the nation. They who do this most
+perfectly are the _great_ men of that nation, because they are at once
+both the product and the impersonation of their country and their age.
+"We allow ourselves to think of Shakspeare, or of Raphael, or of Phidias
+as having accomplished their work by the power of their individual
+genius, but greatness like theirs is never more than the highest degree
+of perfection which prevails widely around it, and forms the environment
+in which it grows. No such single mind in single contact with the facts
+of nature could have created a Pallas, a Madonna, or a Lear; such vast
+conceptions are the growth of ages, the creation of a nation's spirit;
+and the artist and poet, filled full with the power of that spirit, but
+gave it form, and nothing but form. Nor would the form itself have been
+attained by any isolated talent. No genius can dispense with
+experience.... Noble conceptions already existing, and a noble school of
+execution which will launch mind and hand upon their true courses, are
+indispensable to transcendent excellence. Shakspeare's plays were as
+much the offspring of the long generations who had pioneered the road
+for him, as the discoveries of Newton were the offspring of those of
+Copernicus."[8] The principles here enounced apply with equal force to
+philosophers and men of science. The philosophy of Plato was but the
+ripened fruit of the pregnant thoughts and seminal utterances of his
+predecessors,--Socrates, Anaxagoras, and Pythagoras; whilst all of them
+do but represent the general tendency and spirit of their country and
+their times. The principles of Lord Bacon's "Instauratio Magna" were
+incipient in the "Opus Majus" of Roger Bacon, the Franciscan friar. The
+sixteenth century matured the thought of the thirteenth century. The
+inductive method in scientific inquiry was immanent in the British mind,
+and the latter Bacon only gave to it a permanent form. It is true that
+great men have occasionally appeared on the stage of history who, like
+the reformers Luther and Wesley, have seemed to be in conflict with the
+prevailing spirit of their age and nation, but these men were the
+creations of a providence--that providence which, from time to time, has
+_supernaturally_ interposed in the moral history of our race by
+corrective and remedial measures. These men were inspired and led by a
+spirit which descended from on high. And yet even they had their
+precursors and harbingers. Wyckliffe and John Huss, and Jerome of Prague
+are but the representatives of numbers whose names do not grace the
+historic page, who pioneered the way for Luther and the Reformation. And
+no one can read the history of that great movement of the sixteenth
+century without being persuaded there were thousands of Luther's
+predecessors and contemporaries who, like Staupitz and Erasmus, lamented
+the corruptions of the Church of Rome, and only needed the heroic
+courage of Luther to make them reformers also. Whilst, therefore, we
+recognize a free causal power in man, by which he determines his
+individual and responsible character, we are compelled to recognize the
+general law, that national character is mainly the result of those
+geographical and ethological, and political and religious conditions in
+which the nations have been placed in the providence of God.
+
+[Footnote 7: See Dr. Wheedon's "Freedom of the Will," pp. 164, 165.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Froude, "Hist. of England," pp. 73, 74.]
+
+Nations, like persons, have an _Individuality_. They present certain
+characteristic marks which constitute their proper identity, and
+separate them from the surrounding nations of the earth; such, for
+example, as complexion, physiognomy, language, pursuits, customs,
+institutions, sentiments, ideas. The individuality of a nation is
+determined mainly from _without_, and not, like human individuality,
+from within. The laws of a man's personal character have their home in
+the soul; and the peculiarities and habits, and that conduct of life,
+which constitute his responsible character are, in a great degree, the
+consequence of his own free choice. But dwelling, as he does, in
+society, where he is continually influenced by the example and opinions
+of his neighbors; subject, as he is, to the ceaseless influence of
+climate, scenery, and other terrestrial conditions, the characteristics
+which result from these relations, and which are common to all who dwell
+in the same regions, and under the same institutions, constitute a
+national individuality. Individual character is _variable_ under the
+same general conditions, national character is _uniform_, because it
+results from causes which operate alike upon all individuals.
+
+Now, that man's complexion, his pursuits, his habits, his ideas are
+greatly modified by his geographical surroundings, is the most obvious
+of truths. No one doubts that the complexion of man is greatly affected
+by climatic conditions. The appearance, habits, pursuits of the man who
+lives within the tropics must, necessarily, differ from those of the man
+who dwells within the temperate zone. No one expects that the dweller on
+the mountain will have the same characteristics as the man who resides
+on the plains; or that he whose home is in the interior of a continent
+will have the same habits as the man whose home is on the islands of the
+sea. The denizen of the primeval forest will most naturally become a
+huntsman. The dweller on the extended plain, or fertile mountain slope,
+will lead a pastoral, or an agricultural life. Those who live on the
+margin of great rivers, or the borders of the sea, will "do business on
+the great waters." Commerce and navigation will be their chief pursuits.
+The people whose home is on the margin of the lake, or bay, or inland
+sea, or the thickly studded archipelago, are mostly fishermen. And then
+it is a no less obvious truth that men's pursuits exert a moulding
+influence on their habits, their forms of speech, their sentiments, and
+their ideas. Let any one take pains to observe the peculiarities which
+characterize the huntsman, the shepherd, the agriculturist, or the
+fisherman, and he will be convinced that their occupations stamp the
+whole of their thoughts and feelings; color all their conceptions of
+things outside their own peculiar field; direct their simple philosophy
+of life; and give a tone, even, to their religious emotions.
+
+The general aspects of nature, the climate and the scenery, exert an
+appreciable and an acknowledged influence on the _mental_
+characteristics of a people. The sprightliness and vivacity of the
+Frank, the impetuosity of the Arab, the immobility of the Russ, the
+rugged sternness of the Scot, the repose and dreaminess of the Hindoo
+are largely due to the country in which they dwell, the air they
+breathe, the food they eat, and the landscapes and skies they daily look
+upon. The nomadic Arab is not only indebted to the country in which he
+dwells for his habit of hunting for daily food, but for that love of a
+free, untrammelled life, and for those soaring dreams of fancy in which
+he so ardently delights. Not only is the Swiss determined by the
+peculiarities of his geographical position to lead a pastoral life, but
+the climate, and mountain scenery, and bracing atmosphere inspire him
+with the love of liberty. The reserved and meditative Hindoo, accustomed
+to the profuse luxuriance of nature, borrows the fantastic ideas of his
+mythology from plants, and flowers, and trees. The vastness and infinite
+diversity of nature, the colossal magnitude of all the forms of animal
+and vegetable life, the broad and massive features of the landscape, the
+aspects of beauty and of terror which surround him, and daily pour their
+silent influences upon his soul, give vividness, grotesqueness, even, to
+his imagination, and repress his active powers. His mental character
+bears a peculiar and obvious relation to his geographical
+surroundings.[9]
+
+[Footnote 9: Ritter, "Geograph. Studies," p. 287.]
+
+The influence of external nature on the imagination--the _creative_
+faculty in man--is obvious and remarkable. It reveals itself in all the
+productions of man--his architecture, his sculpture, his painting, and
+his poetry. Oriental architecture is characterized by the boldness and
+massiveness of all its parts, and the monotonous uniformity of all its
+features. This is but the expression, in a material form, of that
+shadowy feeling of infinity, and unity, and immobility which an unbroken
+continent of vast deserts and continuous lofty mountain chains would
+naturally inspire. The simple grandeur and perfect harmony and graceful
+blending of light and shade so peculiar to Grecian architecture are the
+product of a country whose area is diversified by the harmonious
+blending of land and water, mountain and plain, all bathed in purest
+light, and canopied with skies of serenest blue. And they are also the
+product of a country where man is released from the imprisonment within
+the magic circle of surrounding nature, and made conscious of his power
+and freedom. In Grecian architecture, therefore, there is less of the
+massiveness and immobility of nature, and more of the grace and dignity
+of man. It adds to the idea of permanence a _vital_ expression. "The
+Doric column," says Vitruvius, "has the proportion, strength, and beauty
+of man." The Gothic architecture had its birthplace among a people who
+had lived and worshipped for ages amidst the dense forests of the north,
+and was no doubt an imitation of the interlacing of the overshadowing
+trees. The clustered shaft, and lancet arch, and flowing tracery,
+reflect the impression which the surrounding scenery had woven into the
+texture of the Teutonic mind.
+
+The history of painting and of sculpture will also show that the varied
+"styles of art" are largely the result of the aspects which external
+nature presented to the eye of man. Oriental sculpture, like its
+architecture, was characterized by massiveness of form and tranquillity
+of expression; and its painting was, at best, but colored sculpture. The
+most striking objects are colossal figures, in which the human form is
+strangely combined with the brute, as in the winged bulls of Nineveh and
+the sphinxes of Egypt. Man is regarded simply as a part of nature, he
+does not rise above the plane of animal life. The soul has its
+immortality only in an eternal metempsychosis--a cycle of life which
+sweeps through all the brute creation. But in Grecian sculpture we have
+less of nature, more of man; less of massiveness, more of grace and
+elegance; less repose, and more of action. Now the connection between
+these styles of art, and the countries in which they were developed, is
+at once suggested to the thoughtful mind.
+
+And then, finally, the literature of a people equally reveals the
+impress of surrounding cosmical conditions. "The poems of Ossian are but
+the echo of the wild, rough, cloudy highlands of his Scottish home." The
+forest songs of the wild Indian, the negro's plaintive melodies in the
+rice-fields of Carolina, the refrains in which the hunter of Kamtchatka
+relates his adventures with the polar bear, and in which the South Sea
+Islander celebrates his feats and dangers on the deep, all betoken the
+influence which the scenes of daily life exert upon the thoughts and
+feelings of our race. "To what an extent nature can express herself in,
+and modify the culture of the individual, as well as of an entire
+people, can be seen on Ionian soil in the verse of Homer, which, called
+forth under the most favorable sky, and on the most luxuriant shore of
+the Grecian archipelago, not only charms us to-day, but bearing this
+impress, has determined what shall be the classic form throughout all
+coming time."[10]
+
+[Footnote 10: See Ritter, pp. 288, 289. Poetic art has unquestionably
+its _geographical_ distributions like the fauna and flora of the globe.
+"If you love the images, not merely of a rich, but of a luxuriant fancy;
+if you are pleased with the most daring flights; if you would see a
+poetic creation full of wonders, then turn your eye to the poetry of the
+_orient_, where all forms appear in purple; where each flower glows like
+the morning ray resting on the earth. But if, on the contrary, you
+prefer depth of thought, and earnestness of reflection; if you delight
+in the colossal, yet pale forms, which float about in mist, and whisper
+of the mysteries of the spirit-land, and of the vanity of all things,
+except honor, then I must point you to the hoary _north_.... Or if you
+sympathize with that deep feeling, that longing of the soul, which does
+not linger on the earth, but evermore looks up to the azure tent of the
+stars, where happiness dwells, where the unquiet of the beating heart is
+still, then you must resort to the romantic poetry of the
+_west_."--"_Study of Greek Literature_," Bishop Esaias Tegner, p. 38.]
+
+In seeking, therefore, to determine correctly what are the
+characteristics of a nation, we must endeavor to trace how far the
+physical constitution of that people, their temperament, their habits,
+their sentiments, and their ideas have been formed, or modified, under
+the surrounding geographical conditions, which, as we have seen, greatly
+determine a nation's individuality. Guided by these lights, let us
+approach the study of "_the men of Athens_."
+
+_Attica_, of which Athens was the capital, and whose entire populations
+were called "Athenians," was the most important of all the Hellenic
+states. It is a triangular peninsula, the base of which is defined by
+the high mountain ranges of Cithaeron and Parnes, whilst the two other
+sides are washed by the sea, having their vertex at the promontory of
+Sunium, or Cape Colonna. The prolongation of the south-western line
+towards the north until it reaches the base at the foot of Mount
+Cithaeron, served as the line of demarkation between the Athenian
+territory and the State of Megara. Thus Attica may be generally
+described as bounded on the north-east by the channel of the Negropont;
+on the south-west by the gulf of AEgina and part of Megara; and on the
+north-west by the territory which formed the ancient Boeotia, including
+within its limits an area of about 750 miles.[11]
+
+Hills of inferior elevation connect the mountain ranges of Cithaeron and
+Parnes with the mountainous surface of the south-east of the peninsula.
+These hills, commencing with the promontory of Sunium itself, which
+forms the vertex of the triangle, rise gradually on the south-east to
+the round summit of Hymettus, and onward to the higher peak of
+Pentelicus, near Marathon, on the east. The rest of Attica is all a
+plain, one reach of which comes down to the sea on the south, at the
+very base of Hymettus. Here, about five miles from the shore, an abrupt
+rock rises from the plain, about 200 feet high, bordered on the south by
+lower eminences. That rock is the Acropolis. Those lower eminences are
+the Areopagus, the Pmyx, and the Museum. In the valley formed by these
+four hills we have the Agora, and the varied undulations of these hills
+determine the features of the city of Athens.[12]
+
+[Footnote 11: See art. "Attica," _Encyc. Brit._]
+
+[Footnote 12: See Conybeare and Howson's "Life and Epistles of St.
+Paul," vol. i. p. 346.]
+
+Nearly all writers on the topography of Athens derive their materials
+from Pausanias, who visited the city in the early part of the second
+century, and whose "Itinerary of Greece" is still extant.[13] He entered
+the city by the Peiraic gate, the same gate at which Paul entered some
+sixty years before. We shall place ourselves under his guidance, and, so
+far as we are able, follow the same course, supplying some omissions, as
+we go along, from other sources. On entering the city, the first
+building which arrested the attention of Pausanias was the Pompeium, so
+called because it was the depository of the sacred vessels, and also of
+the garments used in the annual procession in honor of Athena (Minerva),
+the tutelary deity of Athens, from whom the city derived its name. Near
+this edifice stood a temple of Demeter (Ceres), containing statues of
+that goddess, of her daughter Persephone, and of Iacchus, all executed
+by Praxiteles; and beyond were several porticoes leading from the city
+gates to the outer Ceramicus, while the intervening space was occupied
+by various temples, the Gymnasium of Hermes, and the house of Polytion,
+the most magnificent private residence in Athens.
+
+[Footnote 13: The account here given of the topography of Athens is
+derived mainly from the article on "Athens" in the _Encyc. Brit._]
+
+There were two places in Athens known by the name of Ceramicus, one
+without the walls, forming part of the suburbs; and the other within the
+walls, embracing a very important section of the city. The outer
+Ceramicus was covered with the sepulchres of the Athenians who had been
+slain in battle, and buried at the public expense; it communicated with
+the inner Ceramicus by the gate Dipylum. The Ceramicus within the city
+probably included the Agora, the Stoa Basileios, and the Stoa Poecile,
+besides various other temples and public buildings.
+
+Having fairly passed the city gates, a long street is before us with a
+colonnade or cloister on either hand; and at the end of this street, by
+turning to the left, we might go through the whole Ceramicus to the open
+country, and the groves of the Academy. But we turn to the right, and
+enter the Agora,--the market-place, as it is called in the English
+translation of the sacred narrative.
+
+We are not, however, to conceive of the market-place at Athens as
+bearing any resemblance to the bare, undecorated spaces appropriated to
+business in our modern towns; but rather as a magnificent public square,
+closed in by grand historic buildings, of the highest style of
+architecture; planted with palm-trees in graceful distribution, and
+adorned with statues of the great men of Athens and the deified heroes
+of her mythology, from the hands of the immortal masters of the plastic
+art. This "market-place" was the great centre of the public life of the
+Athenians,--the meeting-place of poets, orators, statesmen, warriors,
+and philosophers,--a grand resort for leisure, for conversation, for
+business, and for news. Standing in the Agora, and looking towards the
+south, is the _Museum,_ so called because it was believed that _Musaeus_,
+the father of poetry, was buried there. Towards the north-west is the
+_Pnyx,_ a sloping hill, partially levelled into an open area for
+political assemblies. To the north is seen the craggy eminence of the
+_Areopagus_, and on the north-east is the _Acropolis_ towering high
+above the scene, "the crown and glory of the whole."
+
+The most important buildings of the Agora are the Porticoes or
+cloisters, the most remarkable of which are the Stoa Basileios, or
+Portico of the king; the Stoa Eleutherius, or Portico of the Jupiter of
+Freedom; and the Stoa Poecile, or Painted Porch. These Porticoes were
+covered walks, the roof being supported by columns, at least on one
+side, and by solid masonry on the other. Such shaded walks are almost
+indispensable in the south of Europe, where the people live much in the
+open air, and they afford a grateful protection from the heat of the
+sun, as well as a shelter from the rain. Seats were also provided where
+the loungers might rest, and the philosophers and rhetoricians sit down
+for intellectual conversation. The "Stoic" school of philosophy derived
+its name from the circumstance that its founder, Zeno, used to meet and
+converse with his disciples under one of these porticoes,--the Stoa
+Poecile. These porticoes were not only built in the most magnificent
+style of architecture, but adorned with paintings and statuary by the
+best masters. On the roof of the Stoa Basileios were statues of Theseus
+and the Day. In front of the Stoa Eleutherius was placed the divinity to
+whom it was dedicated; and within were allegorical paintings,
+celebrating the rise of "the fierce democracy." The Stoa Poecile derived
+its name from the celebrated paintings which adorned its walls, and
+which were almost exclusively devoted to the representation of national
+subjects, as the contest of Theseus with the Amazons, the more glorious
+struggle at Marathon, and the other achievements of the Athenians; here
+also were suspended the shields of the Scionaeans of Thrace, together
+with those of the Lacedemonians, taken at the island of Sphacteria.
+
+It is beyond our purpose to describe all the public edifices,--the
+temples, gymnasia, and theatres which crowd the Ceramic area, and that
+portion of the city lying to the west and south of the Acropolis. Our
+object is, if possible, to convey to the reader some conception of the
+ancient splendor and magnificence of Athens; to revive the scenes amidst
+which the Athenians daily moved, and which may be presumed to have
+exerted a powerful influence upon the manners, the taste, the habits of
+thought, and the entire character of the Athenian people. To secure this
+object we need only direct attention to the Acropolis, which was crowded
+with the monuments of Athenian glory, and exhibited an amazing
+concentration of all that was most perfect in art, unsurpassed in
+excellence, and unrivalled in richness and splendor. It was "the
+peerless gem of Greece, the glory and pride of art, the wonder and envy
+of the world."
+
+The western side of the Acropolis, which furnished the only access to
+the summit of the hill, was about 168 feet in breadth; an opening so
+narrow that, to the artists of Pericles, it appeared practicable to fill
+up the space with a single building, which, in serving the purpose of a
+gateway to the Acropolis, should also contribute to adorn, as well as
+fortify the citadel. This work, the greatest achievement of civil
+architecture in Athens, which rivalled the Parthenon in felicity of
+execution, and surpassed it in boldness and originality of design,
+consisted of a grand central colonnade closed by projecting wings. This
+incomparable edifice, built of Pentelic marble, received the name of
+Propylaea from its forming the vestibule to the five-fold gates by which
+the citadel was entered. In front of the right wing there stood a small
+Ionic temple of pure white marble, dedicated to Nike Apteros (Wingless
+Victory).
+
+A gigantic flight of steps conducted from the five-fold gates to the
+platform of the Acropolis, which was, in fact, one vast composition of
+architecture and sculpture dedicated to the national glory. Here stood
+the Parthenon, or temple of the Virgin Goddess, the glorious temple
+which rose in the proudest period of Athenian history to the honor of
+Minerva, and which ages have only partially effaced. This magnificent
+temple, "by its united excellences of materials, design, and decoration,
+internal as well as external, has been universally considered the most
+perfect which human genius ever planned and executed. Its dimensions
+were sufficiently large to produce an impression of grandeur and
+sublimity, which was not disturbed by any obtrusive subdivision of
+parts; and, whether viewed at a small or greater distance, there was
+nothing to divert the mind of the spectator from contemplating the unity
+as well as majesty of mass and outline; circumstances which form the
+first and most remarkable characteristic of every Greek temple erected
+during the purer ages of Grecian taste and genius."[14]
+
+[Footnote 14: Leake's "Topography of Athens," p. 209 et seq.]
+
+It would be impossible to convey any just and adequate conception of the
+artistic decorations of this wonderful edifice. The two pediments of the
+temple were decorated with magnificent compositions of statuary, each
+consisting of about twenty entire figures of colossal size; the one on
+the western pediment representing the birth of Minerva, and the other,
+on the eastern pediment, the contest between that goddess and Neptune
+for the possession of Attica. Under the outer cornice were ninety-two
+groups, raised in high relief from tablets about four feet square,
+representing the victories achieved by her companions. Round the inner
+frieze was presented the procession of the Parthenon on the grand
+quinquennial festival of the Panathenaea. The procession is represented
+as advancing in two parallel columns from west to east; one proceeding
+along the northern, the other along the southern side of the temple;
+part facing inward after turning the angle of the eastern front, and
+part meeting towards the centre of that front.
+
+The statue of the virgin goddess, the work of Phidias, stood in the
+eastern chamber of the cella, and was composed of ivory and gold. It had
+but one rival in the world, the Jupiter Olympus of the same famous
+artist. On the summit or apex of the helmet was placed a sphinx, with
+griffins on either side. The figure of the goddess was represented in an
+erect martial attitude, and clothed in a robe reaching to the feet. On
+the breast was a head of Medusa, wrought in ivory, and a figure of
+Victory about four cubits high. The goddess held a spear in her hand,
+and an aegis lay at her feet, while on her right, and near the spear, was
+a figure of a serpent, believed to represent that of Erichthonius.
+
+According to Pliny, the entire height of the statue was twenty-six
+cubits (about forty feet), and the artist, Phidias, had ingeniously
+contrived that the gold with which the statue was encrusted might be
+removed at pleasure. The battle of the Centaurs and Lapithae was carved
+upon the sandals; the battle of the Amazons was represented on the aegis
+which lay at her feet, and on the pedestal was sculptured the birth of
+Pandora.
+
+The temple of Erechtheus, the most ancient structure in Athens, stood on
+the northern side of the Acropolis. The statue of Zeus Polieus stood
+between the Propylaea and the Parthenon. The brazen colossus of Minerva,
+cast from the spoils of Marathon, appears to have occupied the space
+between the Erechtheium and the Propylaea, near the Pelasgic or northern
+wall. This statue of the tutelary divinity of Athens and Attica rose in
+gigantic proportions above all the buildings of the Acropolis, the
+flashing of whose helmet plumes met the sailor's eye as he approached
+from the Sunian promontory. And the remaining space of the wide area was
+literally crowded with statuary, amongst which were Theseus contending
+with the Minotaur; Hercules strangling the serpents; the Earth imploring
+showers from Jupiter; and Minerva causing the olive to sprout, while
+Neptune raises the waves. After these works of art, it is needless to
+speak of others. It may be sufficient to state that Pausanias mentions
+by name towards three hundred remarkable statues which adorned this part
+of the city even after it had been robbed and despoiled by its several
+conquerors.
+
+The Areopagus, or hill of Ares (Mars), so called, it is said, in
+consequence of that god having been the first person tried there for the
+crime of murder, was, beyond all doubt, the rocky height which is
+separated from the western end of the Acropolis by a hollow, forming a
+communication between the northern and southern divisions of the city.
+The court of the Areopagus was simply an open space on the highest
+summit of the hill, the judges sitting in the open air, on rude seats of
+stone, hewn out of the solid rock. Near to the spot on which the court
+was held was the sanctuary of the Furies, the avenging deities of
+Grecian mythology, whose presence gave additional solemnity to the
+scene. The place and the court were regarded by the people with
+superstitious reverence.
+
+This completes, our survey of the principal buildings, monuments, and
+localities within the city of Athens. We do not imagine we have
+succeeded in conveying any adequate idea of the ancient splendor and
+glory of this city, which was not only the capital of Attica, but also
+
+     "The eye of Greece, mother of art and eloquence."
+
+We trust, however, that we have contributed somewhat towards awakening
+in the reader's mind a deeper interest in these classic scenes, and
+enabling him to appreciate, more vividly, the allusions we may hereafter
+make to them.
+
+The mere dry recital of geographical details, and topographical notices
+is, however, of little interest in itself, and by itself. A tract of
+country derives its chief interest from its historic _associations_--its
+immediate relations to man. The events which have transpired therein,
+the noble or ignoble deeds, the grand achievements, or the great
+disasters of which it has been the theatre, these constitute the living
+heart of its geography. Palestine has been rendered forever memorable,
+not by any remarkable peculiarities in its climate or scenery, but by
+the fact that it was the home of God's ancient people--the Hebrews and
+still more, because the ardent imagination of the modern traveller still
+sees upon its mountains and plains the lingering footprints of the Son
+of God. And so Attica will always be regarded as a classic land, because
+it was the theatre of the most illustrious period of ancient
+history--_the period of youthful vigor in the life of humanity, when
+viewed as a grand organic whole_.
+
+Here on a narrow spot of less superficies than the little State of Rhode
+Island there flourished a republic which, in the grandeur of her
+military and naval achievements, at Marathon, Thermopylae, Plataea, and
+Salamis, in the sublime creations of her painters, sculptors, and
+architects, and the unrivalled productions of her poets, orators, and
+philosophers, has left a lingering glory on the historic page, which
+twenty centuries have not been able to eclipse or dim. The names of
+Solon and Pericles; of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; of Isocrates and
+Demosthenes; of Myron, Phidias, and Praxiteles; of Herodotus, Xenophon,
+and Thucydides; of Sophocles and Euripides, have shed an undying lustre
+on Athens and Attica.
+
+How much of this universal renown, this imperishable glory attained by
+the Athenian people, is to be ascribed to their geographical position
+and surroundings, and to the elastic, bracing air, the enchanting
+scenery, the glorious skies, which poured their daily inspiration on the
+Athenian mind, is a problem we may scarcely hope to solve.
+
+Of this, at least, we may be sure, that all these geographical and
+cosmical conditions were ordained by God, and ordained, also, for some
+noble and worthy end. That God, "the Father of all the families of the
+earth," cared for the Athenian people as much as for Jewish and
+Christian nations, we can not doubt. That they were the subjects of a
+Providence, and that, in God's great plan of human history, they had an
+important part to fulfill, we must believe. That God "determined the
+time of each nation's existence, and fixed the geographical bounds of
+its habitation," is affirmed by Paul. And that the _specific_ end for
+which the nation had its existence was fulfilled, we have the fullest
+confidence. _So far, therefore, as we can trace the relation that
+subsists between the geographical position and surroundings of that
+nation, and its national characteristics and actual history, so far are
+we able to solve the problem of its destiny; and by so much do we
+enlarge our comprehension of the plan of God in the history of our
+race_.
+
+The geographical position of Greece was favorable to the freest
+commercial and maritime intercourse with the great historic
+nations--those nations most advanced in science, literature, and art.
+Bounded on the west by the Adriatic and Ionian seas, by the
+Mediterranean on the south, and on the east by the AEgean Sea, her
+populations enjoyed a free intercommunication with the Egyptians,
+Hebrews, Persians, Phoenicians, Romans, and Carthaginians. This
+peculiarity in the geographical position of the Grecian peninsula could
+not fail to awaken in its people a taste for navigation, and lead them
+to active commercial intercourse with foreign nations.[15] The boundless
+oceans on the south and east, the almost impassable mountains on the
+west and north of Asia, presented insurmountable obstacles to commercial
+intercourse. But the extended border-lands and narrow inland seas of
+Southern Europe allured man, in presence of their opposite shores, to
+the perpetual exchange of his productions. An arm of the sea is not a
+barrier, but rather a tie between the nations. Appearing to separate, it
+in reality draws them together without confounding them.[16] On such a
+theatre we may expect that commerce will be developed on an extensive
+scale.[17] And, along with commerce, there will be increased activity in
+all departments of productive industry, and an enlarged diffusion of
+knowledge. "Commerce," says Ritter, "is the great mover and combiner of
+the world's activities." And it also furnishes the channels through
+which flow the world's ideas. Commerce, both in a material and moral
+point of view, is the life of nations. Along with the ivory and ebony,
+the fabrics and purple dyes, the wines and spices of the Syrian
+merchant, there flowed into Greece the science of numbers and of
+navigation, and the art of alphabetical writing from Phoenicia. Along
+with the fine wheat, and embroidered linen, and riches of the farther
+Indias which came from Egypt, there came, also, into Greece some
+knowledge of the sciences of astronomy and geometry, of architecture and
+mechanics, of medicine and chemistry; together with the mystic wisdom of
+the distant Orient. The scattered rays of light which gleamed in the
+eastern skies were thus converged in Greece, as on a focal point, to be
+rendered more brilliant by contact with the powerful Grecian intellect,
+and then diffused throughout the western world. Thus intercourse with
+surrounding nations, by commerce and travel, contact therewith by
+immigrations and colonizations, even collisions and invasions also,
+became, in the hands of a presiding Providence, the means of diffusing
+knowledge, of quickening and enlarging the active powers of man, and
+thus, ultimately, of a higher civilization.
+
+[Footnote 15: Humboldt's "Cosmos," vol. ii. p. 143.]
+
+[Footnote 16: Cousin, vol. i. pp. 169, 170.]
+
+[Footnote 17: The advantageous situation of Britain for commerce, and
+the nature of the climate have powerfully contributed to the perfection
+of industry among her population. Had she occupied a central, internal
+station, like that of Switzerland, the facilities of her people for
+dealing with others being so much the less, their progress would have
+been comparatively slow, and, instead of being highly improved, their
+manufactures would have been still in infancy. But being surrounded on
+all sides by the sea, that "great highway of nations," they have been
+able to maintain an intercourse with the most remote as well as the
+nearest countries, to supply them on the easiest terms with their
+manufactures, and to profit by the peculiar products and capacities of
+production possessed by other nations. To the geographical position and
+climate of Great Britain, her people are mainly indebted for their
+position as the first commercial nation on earth.--See art.
+"Manufactrues," p. 277, _Encyc. Brit_.]
+
+Then further, the peculiar configuration of Greece, the wonderful
+complexity of its coast-line, its peninsular forms, the number of its
+islands, and the singular distribution of its mountains, all seem to
+mark it as the theatre of activity, of movement, of individuality, and
+of freedom. An extensive continent, unbroken by lakes and inland seas,
+as Asia, where vast deserts and high mountain chains separate the
+populations, is the seat of immobility.[18] Commerce is limited to the
+bare necessities of life, and there are no inducements to movement, to
+travel, and to enterprise. There are no conditions prompting man to
+attempt the conquest of nature. Society is therefore stationary as in
+China and India. Enfolded and imprisoned within the overpowering
+vastness and illimitable sweep of nature, man is almost unconscious of
+his freedom and his personality. He surrenders himself to the disposal
+of a mysterious "_fate_" and yields readily to the despotic sway of
+superhuman powers. The State is consequently the reign of a single
+despotic will. The laws of the Medes and Persians are unalterable. But
+in Greece we have extended border-lands on the coast of navigable seas;
+peninsulas elaborately articulated, and easy of access. We have
+mountains sufficiently elevated to shade the land and diversify the
+scenery, and yet of such a form as not to impede communication. They are
+usually placed neither in parallel chains nor in massive groups, but are
+so disposed as to inclose extensive tracts of land admirably adapted to
+become the seats of small and independent communities, separated by
+natural boundaries, sometimes impossible to overleap. The face of the
+interior country,--its forms of relief, seemed as though Providence
+designed, from the beginning, to keep its populations socially and
+politically disunited. These difficulties of internal transit by land
+were, however, counteracted by the large proportion of coast, and the
+accessibility of the country by sea. The promontories and indentations
+in the line of the Grecian coast are hardly less remarkable than the
+peculiar elevations and depressions of the surface. "The shape of
+Peloponnesus, with its three southern gulfs, the Argolic, Laconian, and
+Messenian, was compared by the ancient geographers to the leaf of a
+plane-tree: the Pagasaean gulf on the eastern side of Greece, and the
+Ambrakian gulf on the western, with their narrow entrances and
+considerable area, are equivalent to internal lakes: Xenophon boasts of
+the double sea which embraces so large a portion of Attica; Ephorus, of
+the triple sea by which Boeotia was accessible from west, north, and
+south--the Euboean strait, opening a long line of country on both sides
+to coasting navigation. But the most important of all Grecian gulfs are
+the Corinthian and Saronic, washing the northern and north-eastern
+shores of Peloponnesus, and separated by the narrow barrier of the
+Isthmus of Corinth. The former, especially, lays open AEtolia, Phokis,
+and Boeotia, as the whole northern coast of Peloponnesus, to water
+approach.... It will thus appear that there was no part of Greece proper
+which could be considered as out of the reach of the sea, whilst most
+parts of it were easy of access. The sea was thus the sole channel for
+transmitting improvements and ideas as well as for maintaining
+sympathies" between the Hellenic tribes.[19] The sea is not only the
+grand highway of commercial intercourse, but the empire of movement, of
+progress, and of freedom. Here man is set free from the bondage imposed
+by the overpowering magnitude and vastness of continental and oceanic
+forms. The boisterous and, apparently, lawless winds are made to obey
+his will. He mounts the sea as on a fiery steed and "lays his hand upon
+her mane." And whilst thus he succeeds, in any measure, to triumph over
+nature, he wakes to conscious power and freedom. It is in this region of
+contact and commingling of sea and land where man attains the highest
+superiority. Refreshing our historic recollections, and casting our eyes
+upon the map of the world, we can not fail to see that all the most
+highly civilized nations have lived, or still live, on the margin of the
+sea.
+
+[Footnote 18: Cousin, vol. i. pp. 151, 170.]
+
+[Footnote 19: Grote's "Hist, of Greece," vol. ii. pp. 221, 225.]
+
+The peculiar configuration of the territory of Greece, its forms of
+relief, "so like, in many respects, to Switzerland," could not fail to
+exert a powerful influence on the character and destiny of its people.
+Its inclosing mountains materially increased their defensive power, and,
+at the same time, inspired them with the love of liberty. Those
+mountains, as we have seen, so unique in their distribution, were
+natural barriers against the invasion of foreign nations, and they
+rendered each separate community secure against the encroachments of the
+rest. The pass of Thermopylae, between Thessaly and Phocis, that of
+Cithaeron, between Boeotia and Attica; and the mountain ranges of Oneion
+and Geraneia, along the Isthmus of Corinth, were positions which could
+be defended against any force of invaders. This signal peculiarity in
+the forms of relief protected each section of the Greeks from being
+conquered, and at the same time maintained their separate autonomy. The
+separate states of Greece lived, as it were, in the presence of each
+other, and at the same time resisted all influences and all efforts
+towards a coalescence with each other, until the time of Alexander.
+Their country, a word of indefinite meaning to the Asiatic, conveyed to
+them as definite an idea as that of their own homes. Its whole
+landscape, with all its historic associations, its glorious monuments of
+heroic deeds, were perpetually present to their eyes. Thus their
+patriotism, concentrated within a narrow sphere, and kept alive by the
+sense of their individual importance, their democratic spirit, and their
+struggles with surrounding communities to maintain their independence,
+became a strong and ruling passion. Their geographical surroundings had,
+therefore, a powerful influence upon their political institutions.
+Conquest, which forces nations of different habits, characters, and
+languages into unity, is at last the parent of degrading servitude.
+These nations are only held together, as in the Roman empire, by the
+iron hand of military power. The despot, surrounded by a foreign
+soldiery, appears in the conquered provinces, simply to enforce tribute,
+and compel obedience to his arbitrary will. But the small Greek
+communities, protected by the barriers of their seas and gulfs and
+mountains, escaped, for centuries, this evil destiny. The people, united
+by identity of language and manners and religion, by common interest and
+facile intercommunication, could readily combine to resist the invasions
+of foreign nations, as well as the encroachments of their own rulers.
+And they were able to easily model their own government according to
+their own necessities and circumstances and common interests, and to
+make the end for which it existed the sole measure of the powers it was
+permitted to wield.[20]
+
+[Footnote 20: _Encyc. Brit_, art. "Greece."]
+
+The soil of Attica was not the most favorable to agricultural pursuits.
+In many places it was stony and uneven, and a considerable proportion
+was bare rock, on which nothing could be grown. Not half the surface was
+capable of cultivation. In this respect it may be fitly compared to some
+of the New England States. The light, dry soil produced excellent
+barley, but not enough of wheat for their own consumption. Demosthenes
+informs us that Athens brought every year, from Byzantium, four hundred
+thousand _medimni_ of wheat. The alluvial plains, under industrious
+cultivation, would furnish a frugal subsistence for a large population,
+and the mildness of the climate allowed all the more valuable products
+to ripen early, and go out of season last. Such conditions, of course,
+would furnish motives for skill and industry, and demand of the people
+frugal and temperate habits. The luxuriance of a tropical climate tends
+to improvidence and indolence. Where nature pours her fullness into the
+lap of ease, forethought and providence are little needed. There is none
+of that struggle for existence which awakens sagacity, and calls into
+exercise the active powers of man. But in a country where nature only
+yields her fruits as the reward of toil, and yet enough to the
+intelligent culture of the soil, there habits of patient industry must
+be formed. The alternations of summer and winter excite to forethought
+and providence, and the comparative poverty of the soil will prompt to
+frugality. Man naturally aspires to improve his condition by all the
+means within his power. He becomes a careful observer of nature, he
+treasures up the results of observation, he compares one fact with
+another and notes their relations, and he makes new experiments to test
+his conclusions, and thus he awakes to the vigorous exercise of all his
+powers. These physical conditions must develop a hardy, vigorous,
+prudent, and temperate race; and such, unquestionably, were the Greeks.
+"Theophrastus, and other authors, amply attest the observant and
+industrious agriculture prevalent in Greece. The culture of the vine and
+olive appears to have been particularly elaborate and the many different
+accidents of soil, level, and exposure which were to be found, afforded
+to observant planters materials for study and comparison."[21] The
+Greeks were frugal in their habits and simple in their modes of life.
+The barley loaf seems to have been more generally eaten than the wheaten
+loaf; this, with salt fish and vegetables, was the common food of the
+population. Economy in domestic life was universal. In their manners,
+their dress, their private dwellings, they were little disposed to
+ostentation or display.
+
+[Footnote 21: Grote, "Hist. of Greece," vol. ii. p. 230.]
+
+The climate of Attica is what, in physical geography, would be called
+_maritime_. "Here are allied the continental vigor and oceanic softness,
+in a fortunate union, mutually tempering each other."[22] The climate of
+the whole peninsula of Greece seems to be distinguished from that of
+Spain and Italy, by having more of the character of an inland region.
+The diversity of local temperature is greater; the extremes of summer
+and winter more severe. In Arcadia the snow has been found eighteen
+inches thick in January, with the thermometer at 16 deg. Fahrenheit, and it
+sometimes lies on the ground for six weeks. The summits of the central
+chains of Pindus and most of the Albanian mountains are covered with
+snow from the beginning of November to the end of March. In Attica,
+which, being freely exposed to the sea, has in some measure an insular
+climate, the winter sets in about the beginning of January. About the
+middle of that month the snow begins to fall, but seldom remains upon
+the plain for more than a few days, though it lies on the summit of the
+mountain for a month.[23] And then, whilst Boeotia, which joins to
+Attica, is higher and colder, and often covered with dense fogs, Attica
+is remarkable for the wonderful transparency, dryness, and elasticity of
+its atmosphere. All these climatal conditions exerted, no doubt, a
+modifying influence upon the character of the inhabitants.[24] In a
+tropical climate man is enfeebled by excessive heat. His natural
+tendency is to inaction and repose. His life is passed in a "strenuous
+idleness." His intellectual, his reflective faculties are overmastered
+by his physical instincts. Passion, sentiment, imagination prevail over
+the sober exercises of his reasoning powers. Poetry universally
+predominates over philosophy. The whole character of Oriental language,
+religion, literature is intensely imaginative. In the frozen regions of
+the frigid zone, where a perpetual winter reigns, and where lichens and
+mosses are the only forms of vegetable life, man is condemned to the
+life of a huntsman, and depends mainly for his subsistence on the
+precarious chances of the chase. He is consequently nomadic in his
+habits, and barbarous withal. His whole life is spent in the bare
+process of procuring a living. He consumes a large amount of oleaginous
+food, and breathes a damp heavy atmosphere, and is, consequently, of a
+dull phlegmatic temperament. Notwithstanding his uncertain supplies of
+food, he is recklessly improvident, and indifferent to all the lessons
+of experience. Intellectual pursuits are all precluded. There is no
+motive, no opportunity, and indeed no disposition for mental culture.
+But in a temperate climate man is stimulated to high mental activity.
+The alternations of heat and cold, of summer and of winter, an elastic,
+fresh, and bracing atmosphere, a diversity in the aspects of nature,
+these develop a vivacity of temperament, a quickness of sensibility as
+well as apprehension, and a versatility of feeling as well as genius.
+History marks out the temperate zone as the seat of the refined and
+cultivated nations.
+
+[Footnote 22: Guyot, "Earth and Man," p. 181.]
+
+[Footnote 23: _Encyc. Brit._, art. "Greece."]
+
+[Footnote 24: The influence of climatic conditions did not escape the
+attention of the Greeks. Herodotus, Hippocrates, and Aristotle speak of
+the climate of Asia as more enervating than that of Greece. They
+regarded the changeful character and diversity of local temperature in
+Greece as highly stimulating to the energies of the populations. The
+marked contrast between the Athenians and the Boeotians was supposed to
+be represented in the light and heavy atmosphere which they respectively
+breathed.--_Grote_, vol. ii. pp. 232-3.]
+
+The natural scenery of Greece was of unrivalled grandeur--surpassing
+Italy, perhaps every country in the world. It combined in the highest
+degree every feature essential to the highest beauty of a landscape
+except, perhaps, large rivers. But this was more than compensated for by
+the proximity of the sea, which, by its numerous arms, seemed to embrace
+the land on nearly every side. Its mountains, encircled with zones of
+wood, and capped with snow, though much lower than the Alps, are as
+imposing by the suddenness of their elevation--"pillars of heaven, the
+fosterers of enduring snows."[25] Rich sheltered plains lie at their
+feet, covered with an unequally woven mantle of trees, and shrubs, and
+flowers,--"the verdant gloom of the thickly-mantling ivy, the narcissus
+steeped in heavenly dew, the golden-beaming crocus, the hardy and
+ever-fresh-sprouting olive-tree,"[26] and the luxuriant palm, which
+nourishes amid its branches the grape swelling with juice. But it is the
+combination of these features, in the most diversified manner, with
+beautiful inland bays and seas, broken by headlands, inclosed by
+mountains, and studded with islands of every form and magnitude, which
+gives to the scenery of Greece its proud pre-eminence. "Greek scenery,"
+says Humboldt, "presents the peculiar charm of an intimate blending of
+sea and land, of shores adorned with vegetation, or picturesquely girt
+with rocks gleaming in the light of aerial tints, and an ocean beautiful
+in the play of the ever-changing brightness of its deep-toned wave."[27]
+And over all the serene, deep azure skies, occasionally veiled by light
+fleecy clouds, with vapory purple mists resting on the distant mountain
+tops. This glorious scenery of Greece is evermore the admiration of the
+modern traveller. "In wandering about Athens on a sunny day in March,
+when the asphodels are blooming on Colones, when the immortal mountains
+are folded in a transparent haze, and the AEgean slumbers afar among his
+isles," he is reminded of the lines of Byron penned amid these scenes--
+
+[Footnote 25: Pindar.]
+
+[Footnote 26: Sophocles, "oedipus at Colonna."]
+
+[Footnote 27: "Cosmos," vol. ii. p. 25.]
+
+     "Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild;
+     Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields,
+     Thine olives ripe as when Minerva smiled,
+     And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields;
+     There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds,
+     The freeborn wanderer of the mountain air;
+     Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds,
+     Still in his beams Mendeli's marbles glare;
+     Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but nature still is fair."[28]
+
+[Footnote 28: Canto ii., v. lxxxvi., "Childe Harold."]
+
+The effect of this scenery upon the character, the imagination, the
+taste of the Athenians must have been immense. Under the influence of
+such sublime objects, the human mind becomes gifted as with inspiration,
+and is by nature filled with poetic images. "Greece became the
+birth-place of taste, of art, and eloquence, the chosen sanctuary of the
+muses, the prototype of all that is graceful, and dignified, and grand
+in sentiment and action."
+
+And now, if we have succeeded in clearly presenting and properly
+grouping the facts, and in estimating the influence of geographical
+position and surroundings on national character, we have secured the
+natural _criteria_ by which we examine, and even correct the portraiture
+of the Athenian character usually presented by the historian.
+
+The character of the Athenians has been sketched by Plutarch[29] with
+considerable minuteness, and his representations have been permitted,
+until of late years, to pass unchallenged. He has described them as at
+once passionate and placable, easily moved to anger, and as easily
+appeased; fond of pleasantry and repartee, and heartily enjoying a
+laugh; pleased to hear themselves praised, and yet not annoyed by
+criticism and censure; naturally generous towards those who were poor
+and in humble circumstances, and humane even towards their enemies;
+jealous of their liberties, and keeping even their rulers in awe. In
+regard to their intellectual traits, he affirms their minds were not
+formed for laborious research, and though they seized a subject as it
+were by intuition, yet wanted patience and perseverance for a thorough
+examination of all its bearings. "An observation," says the writer of
+the article on "_Attica_," in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, "more
+superficial in itself, and arguing a greater ignorance of the Athenians,
+can not easily be imagined." Plutarch lived more than three hundred
+years after the palmy days of the Athenian Demos had passed away. He was
+a Boeotian by birth, not an Attic, and more of a Roman than a Greek in
+all his sympathies. We are tempted to regard him as writing under the
+influence of prejudice, if not of envy. He was scarcely reliable as a
+biographer, and as materials for history his "Parallel Lives" have been
+pronounced "not altogether trustworthy."[30]
+
+[Footnote 29: "De Praecept."]
+
+[Footnote 30: _Encyc. of Biography_, art. "Plutarch."]
+
+That the Athenians were remarkable for the ardor and vivacity of their
+temperament,--that they were liable to sudden gusts of passion,--that
+they were inconstant in their affections, intolerant of dictation,
+impatient of control, and hasty to resent every assumption of
+superiority,--that they were pleased with flattery, and too ready to
+lend a willing ear to the adulation of the demagogue,--and that they
+were impetuous and brave, yet liable to be excessively elated by
+success, and depressed by misfortune, we may readily believe, because
+such traits of character are in perfect harmony with all the facts and
+conclusions already presented. Such characteristics were the natural
+product of the warm and genial sunlight, the elastic bracing air, the
+ethereal skies, the glorious mountain scenery, and the elaborate
+blending of sea and land, so peculiar to Greece and the whole of
+Southern Europe.[31] These characteristics were shared in a greater or
+less degree by all the nations of Southern Europe in ancient times, and
+they are still distinctive traits in the Frenchman, the Italian, and the
+modern Greek.[32]
+
+[Footnote 31: "As the skies of Hellas surpassed nearly all other
+climates in brightness and elasticity, so, also, had nature dealt most
+lovingly with the inhabitants of this land. Throughout the whole being
+of the Greek there reigned supreme a quick susceptibility, out of which
+sprang a gladsome serenity of temper, and a keen enjoyment of life;
+acute sense, and nimbleness of apprehension; a guileless and child-like
+feeling, full of trust and faith, combined with prudence and forecast.
+These peculiarities lay so deeply imbedded in the inmost nature of the
+Greeks that no revolutions of time and circumstances have yet been able
+to destroy them; nay, it may be asserted that even now, after centuries
+of degradation, they have not been wholly extinguished in the
+inhabitants of ancient Hellas."--"_Education of the Moral Sentiment
+amongst the Ancient Greeks_." By FREDERICK JACOBS, p. 320.]
+
+[Footnote 32: These are described by the modern historian and traveller
+as lively, versatile, and witty. "The love of liberty and independence
+does not seem to be rooted out of the national character by centuries of
+subjugation. They love to command; but though they are loyal to a good
+government, they are apt readily to rise when their rights and liberties
+are infringed. As there is little love of obedience among them, so
+neither is there any toleration of aristocratic pretensions."--_Encyc.
+Brit._, art. "Greece."]
+
+The consciousness of power, the feeling of independence, the ardent love
+of freedom induced in the Athenian mind by the objective freedom of
+movement which his geographical position afforded, and that
+subordination and subserviency of physical nature to man so peculiar to
+Greece, determined the democratic character of all their political
+institutions. And these institutions reacted upon the character of the
+people and intensified their love of liberty. This passionate love of
+personal freedom, amounting almost to disease, excited them to a
+constant and almost distressing vigilance. And it is not to be wondered
+at if it displayed itself in an extreme jealousy of their rulers, an
+incessant supervision and criticism of all their proceedings, and an
+intense and passionate hatred of tyrants and of tyranny. The popular
+legislator or the successful soldier might dare to encroach upon their
+liberties in the moment when the nation was intoxicated and dazzled with
+their genius, their prowess, and success; but a sudden revulsion of
+popular feeling, and an explosion of popular indignation, would overturn
+the one, and ostracism expel the other. Thus while inconstancy, and
+turbulence, and faction seem to have been inseparable from the
+democratic spirit, the Athenians were certainly constant in their love
+of liberty, faithful in their affection for their country,[33] and
+invariable in their sympathy and admiration for that genius which shed
+glory upon their native land. And then they were ever ready to repair
+the errors, and make amends for the injustice committed under the
+influence of passionate excitement, or the headlong impetuosity of their
+too ardent temperament. The history of Greece supplies numerous
+illustrations of this spirit. The sentence of death which had been
+hastily passed on the inhabitants of Mytilene was, on sober reflection,
+revoked the following day. The immediate repentance and general sorrow
+which followed the condemnation of the ten generals, as also of
+Socrates, are notable instances.
+
+[Footnote 33: When immense bribes were offered by the king of Persia to
+induce the Athenians to detach themselves from the alliance with the
+rest of the Hellenic States, she answered by the mouth of Aristides
+"that it was impossible for all the gold in the world to tempt the
+Republic of Athens, or prevail with it to sell its liberty and that of
+Greece!"]
+
+In their private life the Athenians were courteous, generous, and
+humane. Whilst bold and free in the expression of their opinions, they
+paid the greatest attention to rules of politeness, and were nicely
+delicate on points of decorum. They had a natural sense of what was
+becoming and appropriate, and an innate aversion to all extravagance. A
+graceful demeanor and a quiet dignity were distinguishing traits of
+Athenian character. They were temperate and frugal[34] in their habits,
+and little addicted to ostentation and display. Even after their
+victories had brought them into contact with Oriental luxury and
+extravagance, and their wealth enabled them to rival, in costliness and
+splendor, the nations they had conquered, they still maintained a
+republican simplicity. The private dwellings of the principal citizens
+were small, and usually built of clay; their interior embellishments
+also were insignificant--the house of Polytion alone formed an
+exception.[35] All their sumptuousness and magnificence were reserved
+for and lavished on their public edifices and monuments of art, which
+made Athens the pride of Greece and the wonder of the world.
+Intellectually, the Athenians were remarkable for their quickness of
+apprehension, their nice and delicate perception, their intuitional
+power, and their versatile genius. Nor were they at all incapable of
+pursuing laborious researches, or wanting in persevering application and
+industry, notwithstanding Plutarch's assertion to the contrary. The
+circumstances of every-day life in Attica, the conditions which
+surrounded the Athenian from childhood to age, were such as to call for
+the exercise of these qualities of mind in the highest degree. Habits of
+patient industry were induced in the Athenian character by the poverty
+and comparative barrenness of the soil, demanding greater exertion to
+supply their natural wants. And an annual period of dormancy, though
+unaccompanied by the rigors of a northern winter, called for prudence in
+husbanding, and forethought and skill in endeavoring to increase their
+natural resources. The aspects of nature were less massive and
+awe-inspiring, her features more subdued, and her areas more
+circumscribed and broken, inviting and emboldening man to attempt her
+conquest. The whole tendency of natural phenomena in Greece was to
+restrain the imagination, and discipline the observing and reasoning
+faculties in man. Thus was man inspired with confidence in his own
+resources, and allured to cherish an inquisitive, analytic, and
+scientific spirit. "The French, in point of national character, hold
+nearly the same relative place amongst the nations of Europe that the
+Athenians held amongst the States of Ancient Greece." And whilst it is
+admitted the French are quick, sprightly, vivacious, perhaps sometimes
+light even to frivolity, it must be conceded they have cultivated the
+natural and exact sciences with a patience, and perseverance, and
+success unsurpassed by any of the nations of Europe. And so the
+Athenians were the Frenchmen of Greece. Whilst they spent their "leisure
+time"[36] in the place of public resort, the porticoes and groves,
+"hearing and telling the latest news" (no undignified or improper mode
+of recreation in a city where newspapers were unknown), whilst they are
+condemned as "garrulous," "frivolous," "full of curiosity," and
+"restlessly fond of novelties," we must insist that a love of study, of
+patient thought and profound research, was congenial to their natural
+temperament, and that an inquisitive and analytic spirit, as well as a
+taste for subtile and abstract speculation, were inherent in the
+national character. The affluence, and fullness, and flexibility, and
+sculpture-like finish of the language of the Attics, which leaves far
+behind not only the languages of antiquity, but also the most cultivated
+of modern times, is an enduring monument of the patient industry of the
+Athenians.[37] Language is unquestionably the highest creation of
+reason, and in the language of a nation we can see reflected as in a
+mirror the amount of culture to which it has attained. The rare balance
+of the imagination and the reasoning powers, in which the perfection of
+the human intellect is regarded as consisting, the exact correspondence
+between the thought and the expression, "the free music of prosaic
+numbers in the most diversified forms of style," the calmness, and
+perspicuity, and order, even in the stormiest moments of inspiration,
+revealed in every department of Greek literature, were not a mere happy
+stroke of chance, but a product of unwearied effort--and effort too
+which was directed by the criteria which reason supplied. The plastic
+art of Greece, which after the lapse of ages still stands forth in
+unrivalled beauty, so that, in presence of the eternal models it
+created, the modern artist feels the painful lack of progress was not a
+spontaneous outburst of genius, but the result of intense application
+and unwearied discipline. The achievements of the philosophic spirit,
+the ethical and political systems of the Academy, the Lyceum, the Stoa,
+and the Garden, the anticipations, scattered here and there like
+prophetic hints, of some of the profoundest discoveries of "inductive
+science" in more modern days,--all these are an enduring protest against
+the strange misrepresentations of Plutarch.
+
+[Footnote 34: These are still characteristics of the Greeks. "They are
+an exceedingly temperate people; drunkenness is a vice remarkably rare
+amongst them; their food also is spare and simple; even the richest are
+content with a dish of vegetables for each meal, and the poor with a
+handful of olives or a piece of salt fish.... All other pleasures are
+indulged with similar propriety; their passions are moderate, and
+insanity is almost unknown amongst them."--_Encyc. Brit._, art.
+"Greece."]
+
+[Footnote 35: Niebuhr's Lectures, vol. i. p. 101.]
+
+[Footnote 36: Eukaireo corresponds exactly to the Latin _vacare_, "to be
+at leisure."]
+
+[Footnote 37: Frederick Jacobs, on "Study of Classic Antiquity," p. 57.]
+
+In Athens there existed a providential collocation of the most favorable
+conditions in which humanity can be placed for securing its highest
+natural development. Athenian civilization is the solution, on the
+theatre of history, of the problem--What degree of perfection can
+humanity, under the most favorable conditions, attain, without the
+supernatural light, and guidance, and grace of Christianity?[38] "Like
+their own goddess Athene the people of Athens seem to spring full-armed
+into the arena of history, and we look in vain to Egypt, Syria, and
+India, for more than a few seeds that burst into such marvellous growth
+on the soil of Attica."[39]
+
+[Footnote 38: It has been asserted by some theological writers, Watson
+for example, that no society of civilized men has been, or can be
+constituted without the aid of a religion directly communicated by
+revelation, and transmitted by oral tradition;--"that it is possible to
+raise a body of men into that degree of civil improvement which would
+excite the passion for philosophic investigation, without the aid of
+religion... can have no proof, and is contradicted by every fact and
+analogy with which we are acquainted." (_Institutes_, vol. i. p. 271;
+see also Archbishop Whately, "Dissertation," etc., vol. i. _Encyc.
+Brit._, p. 449-455).
+
+The fallacy of the reasoning by which this doctrine is sought to be
+sustained is found in the assumption "that to all our race the existence
+of a First Cause is a question of philosophy," and that the idea of God
+lies at the end of "a gradual process of inquiry" and induction, for
+which a high degree of "scientific culture" is needed. Whereas the idea
+of a First Cause lies at the beginning, not at the end of philosophy;
+and philosophy is simply the analysis of our natural consciousness of
+God, and the presentation of the idea in a logical form. Faith in the
+existence of God is not the result of a conscious process of reflection;
+it is the spontaneous and instinctive logic of the human mind, which, in
+view of phenomena presented to sense, by a necessary law of thought
+immediately and intuitively affirms a personal Power, an intelligent
+Mind as the author. In this regard, there is no difference between men
+except the clearness with which they apprehend, and the logical account
+they can render to themselves, of this instinctive belief. Spontaneous
+intuition, says Cousin, is the genius of all men; reflection the genius
+of few men. "But Leibnitz had no more confidence in the principle of
+causality, and even in his favorite principle of sufficient reason, than
+the most ignorant of men;" the latter have this principle within them,
+as a law of thought, controlling their conception of the universe, and
+doing this almost unconsciously; the former, by an analysis of thought,
+succeeded in defining and formulating the ideas and laws which
+necessitate the cognition of a God. The function of philosophy is simply
+to transform alethes doxa into itisteme--right opinion into science,--to
+elucidate and logically present the immanent thought which lies in the
+universal consciousness of man.
+
+That the possession of the idea of God is essential to the social and
+moral elevation of man,--that is, to the civilization of our race, is
+most cheerfully conceded. That humanity has an end and destination which
+can only be secured by the true knowledge of God, and by a participation
+of the nature of God, is equally the doctrine of Plato and of Christ.
+Now, if humanity has a special end and destination, it must have some
+instinctive tendings, some spermatic ideas, some original forces or
+laws, which determine it towards that end. All development supposes some
+original elements to be unfolded or developed. Civilization is but the
+development of humanity according to its primal idea and law, and under
+the best exterior conditions. That the original elements of humanity
+were unfolded in some noble degree under the influence of philosophy is
+clear from the history of Greece; there the most favorable natural
+conditions for that development existed, and Christianity alone was
+needed to crown the result with ideal perfection.]
+
+[Footnote 39: Max Muller, "Science of Language," p. 404, 2d series.]
+
+Here the most perfect ideals of beauty and excellence in physical
+development, in manners, in plastic art, in literary creations, were
+realized. The songs of Homer, the dialogues of Plato, the speeches of
+Demosthenes, and the statues of Phidias, if not unrivalled, are at least
+unsurpassed by any thing that has been achieved by their successors.
+Literature in its most flourishing periods has rekindled its torch at
+her altars, and art has looked back to the age of Pericles for her
+purest models. Here the ideas of personal liberty, of individual rights,
+of freedom in thought and action, had a wonderful expansion. Here the
+lasting foundations of the principal arts and sciences were laid, and in
+some of them triumphs were achieved which have not been eclipsed. Here
+the sun of human reason attained a meridian splendor, and illuminated
+every field in the domain of moral truth. And here humanity reached the
+highest degree of civilization of which it is capable under purely
+_natural_ conditions.
+
+And now, the question with which we are more immediately concerned is,
+what were the specific and valuable results attained by the Athenian
+mind in _religion_ and _philosophy_, the two momenta of the human mind?
+This will be the subject of discussion in subsequent chapters.
+
+The order in which the discussion shall proceed is determined for us by
+the natural development of thought. The two fundamental momenta of
+thought and its development are spontaneity and reflection, and the two
+essential forms they assume are religion and philosophy. In the natural
+order of thought spontaneity is first, and reflection succeeds
+spontaneous thought. And so religion is first developed, and
+subsequently comes philosophy. As religion supposes spontaneous
+intuition, so philosophy has religion for its basis, but upon this basis
+it is developed in an original manner. "Turn your attention to history,
+that living image of thought: everywhere you perceive religions and
+philosophies: everywhere you see them produced in an invariable order.
+Everywhere religion appears with new societies, and everywhere, just so
+far as societies advance, from religion springs philosophy."[40] This
+was pre-eminently the case in Athens, and we shall therefore direct our
+attention first to the Religion of the Athenians.
+
+[Footnote 40: Cousin, "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 302.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.
+
+
+      All things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness
+      in religion deisidaimonesterois.--ST. PAUL.
+
+As a prelude and preparation for the study of the religion of the
+Athenians, it may be well to consider religion in its more abstract and
+universal form; and inquire in what does religion essentially consist;
+how far is it grounded in the nature of man; and especially, what is
+there in the mental constitution of man, or in his exterior conditions,
+which determines him to a mode of life which may be denominated
+_religious?_ As a preliminary inquiry, this may materially aid us in
+understanding the nature, and estimating the value of the religious
+conceptions and sentiments which were developed by the Greek mind.
+
+Religion, in its most generic conception, may be defined as a form of
+thought, feeling, and action, which has the _Divine_ for its object,
+basis, and end. Or, in other words, it is a mode of life determined by
+the recognition of some relation to, and consciousness of dependence
+upon, a _Supreme Being_. This general conception of religion underlies
+all the specific forms of religion which have appeared in the world,
+whether heathen, Jewish, Mohammedan, or Christian.
+
+That a religious destination appertains to man as man, whether he has
+been raised to a full religious consciousness, or is simply considered
+as capable of being so raised, can not be denied. In all ages man has
+revealed an instinctive tendency, or natural aptitude for religion, and
+he has developed feelings and emotions which have always characterized
+him as a religious being. Religious ideas and sentiments have prevailed
+among all nations, and have exerted a powerful influence on the entire
+course of human history. Religious worship, addressed to a Supreme Being
+believed to control the destiny of man, has been coeval and coextensive
+with the race. Every nation has had its mythology, and each mythologic
+system has been simply an effort of humanity to realize and embody in
+some visible form the relations in which it feels itself to be connected
+with an external, overshadowing, and all-controlling Power and Presence.
+The voice of all ancient, and all contemporaneous history, clearly
+attests that the _religious principle_ is deeply seated in the nature of
+man; and that it has occupied the thought, and stirred the feelings of
+every rational man, in every age. It has interwoven itself with the
+entire framework of human society, and ramified into all the relations
+of human life. By its agency, nations have been revolutionized, and
+empires have been overthrown; and it has formed a mighty element in all
+the changes which have marked the history of man.
+
+This universality of religious sentiment and religious worship must be
+conceded as a fact of human nature, and, as a universal fact, it demands
+an explanation. Every event must have a cause. Every phenomenon must
+have its ground, and reason, and law. The facts of religious history,
+the past and present religious phenomena of the world can be no
+exception to this fundamental principle; they press their imperious
+demand to be studied and explained, as much as the phenomena of the
+material or the events of the moral world. The phenomena of religion,
+being universally revealed wherever man is found, must be grounded in
+some universal principle, on some original law, which is connate with,
+and natural to man. At any rate, there must be something in the nature
+of man, or in the exterior conditions of humanity, which invariably
+leads man to worship, and which determines him, as by the force of an
+original instinct, or an outward, conditioning necessity, to recognize
+and bow down before a Superior Power. The full recognition and adequate
+explanation of the facts of religious history will constitute a
+_philosophy of religion_.
+
+The hypotheses which have been offered in explanation of the religious
+phenomena of the world are widely divergent, and most of them are, in
+our judgment, eminently inadequate and unsatisfactory. The following
+enumeration may be regarded as embracing all that are deemed worthy of
+consideration.
+
+I. The phenomenon of religion had its origin in SUPERSTITION, that is,
+in a _fear_ of invisible and supernatural powers, generated by ignorance
+of nature.
+
+II. The phenomenon of religion is part of that PROCESS or EVOLUTION OF
+THE ABSOLUTE (i.e., the Deity), which gradually unfolding itself in
+nature, mind, history, and _religion_, attains to perfect
+self-consciousness in philosophy.
+
+III. The phenomenon of religion has its foundation in FEELING--_the
+feeling of dependence and of obligation_; and that to which the mind, by
+spontaneous intuition or instinctive faith, traces this dependence and
+obligation we call God.
+
+IV. The phenomenon of religion had its outbirth in the spontaneous
+apperceptions of REASON, that is, the necessary _a priori ideas of the
+Infinite, the Perfect, the Unconditioned Cause, the Eternal Being_,
+which are evoked into consciousness in presence of the changeful and
+contingent phenomena of the world.
+
+V. The phenomenon of religion had its origin in EXTERNAL REVELATION, to
+which _reason_ is related as a purely passive organ, and _heathenism_ as
+a feeble relic.
+
+As a philosophy of religion--an attempt to supply the rationale of the
+religious phenomena of the world, the first hypothesis is a skeptical
+philosophy, which necessarily leads to _Atheism_. The second is an
+idealistic philosophy (absolute idealism), which inevitably lands in
+_Pantheism_. The third is an intuitional or "faith-philosophy," which
+finally ends in _Mysticism_. The fourth is a rationalistic or
+"spiritualistic" philosophy, which yields pure _Theism_. The last is an
+empirical philosophy, which derives all religion from instruction, and
+culminates in _Dogmatic Theology_.
+
+In view of these diverse and conflicting theories, the question which
+now presents itself for our consideration is,--does any one of these
+hypotheses meet and satisfy the demands of the problem? does it fully
+account for and adequately explain all the facts of religious history?
+The answer to this question must not be hastily or dogmatically given.
+The arbitrary rejection of any theory that may be offered, without a
+fair and candid examination, will leave our minds in uncertainty and
+doubt as to the validity of our own position. A blind faith is only one
+remove from a pusillanimous skepticism. We can not render our own
+position secure except by comprehending, assaulting, and capturing the
+position of our foe. It is, therefore, due to ourselves and to the cause
+of truth, that we shall examine the evidence upon which each separate
+theory is based, and the arguments which are marshalled in its support,
+before we pronounce it inadequate and unphilosophical. Such a criticism
+of opposite theories will prepare the way for the presentation of a
+philosophy of religion which we flatter ourselves will be found most in
+harmony with all the facts of the case.
+
+I. _It is affirmed that the religious phenomena of the world had their
+origin in_ SUPERSTITION, _that is, in a fear of unseen and supernatural
+powers, generated from ignorance of nature_.
+
+This explanation was first offered by Epicurus. He felt that the
+universality of the religious sentiment is a fact which demands a cause;
+and he found it, or presumed he found it not in a spiritual God, which
+he claims can not exist, nor in corporeal god which no one has seen, but
+in "phantoms of the mind generated by fear." When man has been unable to
+explain any natural phenomenon, to assign a cause within the sphere of
+nature, he has had recourse to supernatural powers, or living
+personalities behind nature, which move and control nature in an
+arbitrary and capricious manner. These imaginary powers are supposed to
+be continually interfering in the affairs of individuals and nations.
+They bestow blessings or inflict calamities. They reward virtue and
+punish vice. They are, therefore, the objects of "sacred awe" and
+"superstitious fear."
+
+                           Whate'er in heaven,
+     In earth, man sees mysterious, shakes his mind
+     With sacred awe o'erwhelms him, and his soul
+     Bows to the dust; the cause of things conceal
+     Once from his vision, instant to the gods
+     All empire he transfers, all rule supreme,
+     And doubtful whence they spring, with headlong haste
+     Calls them the workmanship of power divine.
+     For he who, justly, deems the Immortals live
+     Safe, and at ease, yet fluctuates in his mind
+     How things are swayed; how, chiefly, those discerned
+     In heaven sublime--to SUPERSTITION back
+     Lapses, and fears a tyrant host, and then
+     Conceives, dull reasoner, they can all things do,
+     While yet himself nor knows what may be done,
+     Nor what may never, nature powers defined
+     Stamping on all, and bounds that none can pass:
+     Hence wide, and wider errs he as he walks.[41]
+
+[Footnote 41: Lucretius, "De Natura Rerum," book vi. vs. 50-70.]
+
+In order to rid men of all superstitious fear, and, consequently, of all
+religion, Epicurus endeavors to show that "nature" alone is adequate to
+the production of all things, and there is no need to drag in a "divine
+power" to explain the phenomena of the world.
+
+This theory has been wrought into a somewhat plausible form by the
+brilliant and imposing generalizations of Aug. Comte. The religious
+phenomena of the world are simply one stage in the necessary development
+of mind, whether in the individual or the race. He claims to have been
+the first to discover the great law of the three successive stages or
+phases of human evolution. That law is thus enounced. Both in the
+individual mind, and in the history of humanity, thought, in dealing
+with its problems, passes, of necessity, through, first, a
+_Theological_, second, a _Metaphysical_, and finally reaches a third, or
+_Positive_ stage.
+
+In attempting an explanation of the universe, human thought, in its
+earliest stages of development, resorts to the idea of living personal
+agents enshrined in and moving every object, whether organic or
+inorganic, natural or artificial. In an advanced stage, it conceives a
+number of personal beings distinct from, and superior to nature, which
+preside over the different provinces of nature--the sea, the air, the
+winds, the rivers, the heavenly bodies, and assume the guardianship of
+individuals, tribes, and nations. As a further, and still higher stage,
+it asserts the unity of the Supreme Power which moves and vitalizes the
+universe, and guides and governs in the affairs of men and nations. The
+_Theological_ stage is thus subdivided into three epochs, and
+represented as commencing in _Fetichism_, then advancing to
+_Polytheism_, and, finally, consummating in _Monotheism_.
+
+The next stage, the _Metaphysical_, is a transitional stage, in which
+man substitutes abstract entities, as substance, force, Being _in se_,
+the Infinite, the Absolute, in the place of theological conceptions.
+During this period all theological opinions undergo a process of
+disintegration, and lose their hold on the mind of man. Metaphysical
+speculation is a powerful solvent, which decomposes and dissipates
+theology.
+
+It is only in the last--the _Positive_ stage--that man becomes willing
+to relinquish all theological ideas and metaphysical notions, and
+confine his attention to the study of phenomena in their relation to
+time and space; discarding all inquiries as to causes, whether efficient
+or final, and denying the existence of all entities and powers beyond
+nature.
+
+The first stage, in its religious phase, is _Theistic_, the second is
+_Pantheistic_, the last is _Atheistic_.
+
+The proofs offered by Comte in support of this theory are derived:
+
+I. _From Cerebral Organization_. There are three grand divisions of the
+Brain, the Medulla Oblongata, the Cerebellum, and the Cerebrum; the
+first represents the merely animal instincts the second, the more
+elevated sentiments, the third, the intellectual powers. Human nature
+must, therefore, both in the individual and in the race, be developed in
+the following order: (1.) in animal instincts; (2.) in social affections
+and communal tendencies; (3.) in intellectual pursuits. Infant life is a
+merely animal existence, shared in common with the brute; in childhood
+the individual being realizes his relation to external nature and human
+society; in youth and manhood he compares, generalizes, and classifies
+the objects of knowledge, and attains to science. And so the infancy of
+our race was a mere animal or savage state, the childhood of our race
+the organization of society, the youth and manhood of our race the
+development of science.
+
+Now, without offering any opinion as to the merits of the phrenological
+theories of Gall and Spurzheim, we may ask, what relation has this order
+to the law of development presented by Comte? Is there any imaginable
+connection between animal propensities and theological ideas; between
+social affections and metaphysical speculations? Are not the
+intellectual powers as much concerned with theological ideas and
+metaphysical speculations as with positive science? And is it not more
+probable, more in accordance with facts, that all the powers of the
+mind, instinct, feeling, and thought, enter into action simultaneously,
+and condition each other? The very first act of perception, the first
+distinct cognition of an object, involves _thought_ as much as the last
+generalization of science. We know nothing of _mind_ except as the
+development of thought, and the first unfolding, even of the infant
+mind, reveals an intellectual act, a discrimination between a self and
+an object which is not self, and a recognition of resemblance, or
+difference between _this_ object and _that_. And what does Positive
+science, in its most mature and perfect form, claim to do more than "to
+study actual phenomena in their orders of resemblance, coexistence, and
+succession."
+
+Cerebral organization may furnish plausible analogies in favor of some
+theory of human development, but certainly not the one proposed by Aug.
+Comte. The attempt, however, to construct a chart of human history on
+such an _a priori_ method,--to construct an ideal framework into which
+human nature must necessarily grow, is a violation of the first and most
+fundamental principle of the Positive science, which demands that we
+shall confine ourselves strictly to the study of actual phenomena in
+their orders of resemblance, coexistence, and succession. The history of
+the human race must be based on facts, not on hypotheses, and the facts
+must be ascertained by the study of ancient records and existing
+monuments of the past. Mere plausible analogies and _a priori_ theories
+based upon them, are only fitted to mislead the mind; they insert a
+prism between the perceiving mind and the course of events which
+decomposes the pure white light of fact, and throws a false light over
+the entire field of history.
+
+2. _The second order of proof is attempted to be drawn from the
+analogies of individual experience_.
+
+It is claimed that the history of the race is the same as that of each
+individual mind; and it is affirmed that man is _religious_ in infancy,
+_metaphysical_ in youth, and _positive_, that is, scientific without
+being religious, in mature manhood; the history of the race must
+therefore have followed the same order.
+
+We are under no necessity of denying that there is some analogy between
+the development of mind in the individual man, and in humanity as a
+whole, in order to refute the theory of Comte. Still, it must not be
+overlooked that the development of mind, in all cases and in all ages,
+is materially affected by exterior conditions. The influence of
+geographical and climatic conditions, of social and national
+institutions, and especially of education, however difficult to be
+estimated, can not be utterly disregarded. And whether all these
+influences have not been controlled, and collocated, and adjusted by a
+Supreme Mind in the education of humanity, is also a question which can
+not be pushed aside as of no consequence. Now, unless it can be shown
+that the same outward conditions which have accompanied the individual
+and modified his mental development, have been repealed in the history
+of the race, and repeated in the same order of succession, the argument
+has no value.
+
+But, even supposing it could be shown that the development of mind in
+humanity has followed the same order as that of the individual, we
+confidently affirm that Comte has not given the true history of the
+development of the individual mind. The account he has given may perhaps
+be the history of his own mental progress, but it certainly is not the
+history of every individual mind, nor indeed, of a majority even, of
+educated minds that have arrived at maturity. It would be much more in
+harmony with facts to say childhood is the period of pure receptivity,
+youth of doubt and skepticism, and maturity of well-grounded and
+rational belief. In the ripeness and maturity of the nineteenth century
+the number of scientific men of the Comtean model is exceedingly small
+compared with the number of religious men. There are minds in every part
+of Europe and America as thoroughly scientific as that of Comte, and as
+deeply imbued with the spirit of the Inductive Philosophy, which are not
+conscious of any discordance between the facts of science and the
+fundamental principles of theology. It may be that, in his own immediate
+circle at Paris there may be a tendency to Atheism, but certainly no
+such tendency exists in the most scientific minds of Europe and America.
+The faith of Bacon, and Newton, and Boyle, of Descartes, Leibnitz, and
+Pascal, in regard to the fundamental principles of theology, is still
+the faith of Sedgwick, Whewell, Herschel, Brewster, Owen, Agassiz,
+Silliman, Mitchell, Hitchcock, Dana, and, indeed of the leading
+scientific minds of the world--the men who, as Comte would say, "belong
+to the elite of humanity." The mature mind, whether of the individual or
+the race, is not Atheistical.
+
+3. _The third proof is drawn from a survey of the history of certain
+portions of our race._
+
+Comte is far from being assured that the progress of humanity, under the
+operation of his grand law of development, has been uniform and
+invariable. The majority of the human race, the vast populations of
+India, China, and Japan, have remained stationary; they are still in the
+Theological stage, and consequently furnish no evidence in support of
+his theory. For this reason he confines himself to the "elite" or
+advance-guard of humanity, and in this way makes the history of humanity
+a very "abstract history" indeed. Starting with Greece as the
+representative of ancient civilization, passing thence to Roman
+civilization, and onward to Western Europe, he attempts to show that the
+actual progress of humanity has been, on the whole, in conformity with
+his law. To secure, however, even this semblance of harmony between the
+facts of history and his hypothetical law, he has to treat the facts
+very much as Procrustes treated his victims,--he must stretch some, and
+mutilate others, so as to make their forms fit the iron bed. The natural
+organization of European civilization is distorted and torn asunder. "As
+the third or positive stage had accomplished its advent in his own
+person, it was necessary to find the metaphysical period just before;
+and so the whole life of the Reformed Christianity, in embryo and in
+manifest existence, is stripped of its garb of _faith_, and turned out
+of view as a naked metaphysical phenomenon. But metaphysics, again, have
+to be ushered in by theology; and of the three stages of theology
+Monotheism is the last, necessarily following on Polytheism, as that,
+again, on Fetichism. There is nothing for it, therefore, but to let the
+mediaeval Catholic Christianity stand as the world's first monotheism,
+and to treat it as the legitimate offspring and necessary development of
+the Greek and Roman polytheism. This, accordingly, Comte actually does.
+Protestantism he illegitimates, and outlaws from religion altogether,
+and the genuine Christianity he fathers upon the faith of Homer and the
+Scipios! Once or twice, indeed, it seems to cross him that there was
+such a people as the Hebrews, and that they were not the polytheists
+they ought to have been. He sees the fact, but pushes it out of his way
+with the remark that the Jewish monotheism was 'premature.'"[42]
+
+[Footnote 42: Martineau's Essays, pp. 61, 62.]
+
+The signal defect of Comte's historical survey, however, is, that it
+furnishes no evidence of the general prevalence of Fetichism in
+primitive times. The writings of Moses are certainly entitled to as much
+consideration and credence as the writings of Berosus, Manetho, and
+Herodotus; and, it will not be denied, they teach that the faith of the
+earliest families and races of men was _monotheistic_. The early Vedas,
+the Institutes of Menu, the writings of Confucius, the Zendavesta, all
+bear testimony that the ancient faith of India, China, and Persia, was,
+at any rate, pantheistic; and learned and trustworthy critics, Asiatic
+as well as European, confidently affirm that the ground of the
+Brahminical, Buddhist, and Parsist faith is _monotheistic_; and that
+_one_ Being is assumed, in the earliest books, to be the origin of all
+things.[43] Without evidence, Comte assumes that the savage state is the
+original condition of man; and instead of going to Asia, the cradle of
+the race, for some light as to the early condition and opinions of the
+remotest families of men, he turns to Africa, the _soudan_ of the earth,
+for his illustration of the habit of man, in the infancy of our race, to
+endow every object in nature, whether organic or inorganic, with life
+and intelligence. The theory of a primitive state of ignorance and
+barbarism is a mere assumption--an hypothesis in conflict with the
+traditionary legends of all nations, the earliest records of our race,
+and the unanimous voice of antiquity, which attest the general belief in
+a primitive state of light and innocence.
+
+[Footnote 43: "The Religions of the World in their Relation to
+Christianity" (Maurice, ch. ii., iii., iv.).]
+
+The three stages of development which Comte describes as necessarily
+successive, have, for centuries past, been simultaneous. The
+theological, the metaphysical, and the scientific elements coexist now,
+and there is no real, radical, or necessary conflict between them.
+Theological and metaphysical ideas hold their ground as securely under
+the influence of enlarged scientific discovery as before; and there is
+no reason to suppose they ever had more power over the mind of man than
+they have to-day. The notion that God is dethroned by the wonderful
+discoveries of modern science, and theology is dead, is the dream of the
+"_profond orage cerebral_" which interrupted the course of Comte's
+lectures in 1826. As easily may the hand of Positivism arrest the course
+of the sun, as prevent the instinctive thought of human reason
+recognizing and affirming the existence of a God. And so long as ever
+the human mind is governed by necessary laws of thought, so long will it
+seek...
+
+[Transcriber's note: In the original document, page 64 is a duplication
+of page 63. The real page 64 seems to be missing.]
+
+....eur, and consequently to develop its true philosophy. Its
+fundamental error is the assumption that all our knowledge is confined
+to the observation and classification of sensible phenomena--that is, to
+changes perceptible by the senses. Psychology, based, as it is, upon
+self-observation and self-reflection, is a "mere illusion; and logic and
+ethics, so far as they are built upon it as their foundation, are
+altogether baseless." Spiritual entities, forces, causes, efficient or
+final, are unknown and unknowable; all inquiry regarding them must be
+inhibited, "for Theology is inevitable if we permit the inquiry into
+causes at all."
+
+II. The second hypothesis offered in explanation of the facts of
+religious history is, _that religion is part of that_ PROCESS OR
+EVOLUTION OF THE ABSOLUTE (_i.e._, the Deity) _which, gradually
+unfolding itself in nature, mind, history, and religion, attains to the
+fullest self-consciousness in philosophy_.
+
+This is the theory of Hegel, in whose system of philosophy the
+subjective idealism of Kant culminates in the doctrine of "_Absolute
+Identity_." Its fundamental position is that thought and being, subject
+and object, the perceiving mind and the thing perceived, are ultimately
+and essentially _one_, and that the only actual reality is that which
+results from their mutual relation. The outward thing is nothing, the
+inward perception is nothing, for neither could exist alone; the only
+reality is the relation, or rather synthesis of the two; the essence or
+nature of being in itself accordingly consists in the coexistence of two
+contrarieties. Ideas, arising from the union or synthesis of two
+opposites, are therefore the _concrete realities_ of Hegel; and the
+_process_ of the evolution of ideas, in the human mind, is the process
+of all existence--_the Absolute Idea_.
+
+_The Absolute_(die Idee) thus forms the beginning, middle, and end of
+the system of Hegel. It is the one infinite existence or thought, of
+which nature, mind, history, religion, and philosophy, are the
+manifestation. "The absolute is, with him, not the infinite _substance_,
+as with Spinoza; nor the infinite _subject_, as with Fichte; nor the
+infinite _mind_, as with Schelling; it is a perpetual _process_, an
+eternal thinking, without beginning and without end."[44] This _living,
+eternal process of absolute existence is the God of Hegel_.
+
+It will thus be seen that the _Absolute_ is, with Hegel, the sum of all
+actual and possible existence; "nothing is true and real except so far
+as it forms an element of the Absolute Spirit."[45] "What kind of an
+Absolute Being," he asks, "is that which does not contain in itself all
+that is actual, even evil included?"[46] The Absolute, therefore, in
+Hegel's conception, does not allow of any existence out of itself. It is
+the _unity_ of the finite and the infinite, the eternal and the
+temporal, the ideal and the real, the subject and the object. And it is
+not only the unity of these opposites so as to exclude all difference,
+but it contains in itself, all the differences and opposites as elements
+of its being; otherwise the distinctions would stand over against
+absolute as a limit, and the absolute would cease to be absolute.
+
+God is, therefore, according to Hegel, "no motionless, eternally
+self-identical and unchangeable being, but a living, eternal _process_
+of absolute self-existence. This process consists in the eternal
+self-distinction, or antithesis, and equally self-reconciliation or
+synthesis of those opposites which enter, as necessary elements, into
+the constitution of the Divine Being. This _self-evolution_, whereby the
+absolute enters into antithesis, and returns to itself again, is the
+eternal _self-actualization_ of its being, and which at once constitutes
+the beginning, middle, and end, as in the circle, where the beginning is
+at the same time the end, and the end the beginning."[47]
+
+[Footnote 44: Morell, "Hist, of Philos., p. 461."]
+
+[Footnote 45: "Philos. of Religion," p. 204.]
+
+[Footnote 46: Ibid., chap. xi. p. 24.]
+
+[Footnote 47: Herzog's _Real-Encyc._, art. "Hegelian Philos.," by
+Ulrici.]
+
+The whole philosophy of Hegel consists in the development of this idea
+of God by means of his, so-called, dialectic method, which reflects the
+objective life-process of the Absolute, and is, in fact, identical with
+it; for God, says he, "is only the Absolute Intelligence in so far as he
+knows himself to be the Absolute Intelligence, _and this he knows only
+in science_ [dialectics], _and this knowledge alone constitutes his true
+existence._"[48] This life-process of the Absolute has three "moments."
+It may be considered as the idea _in itself_--bare, naked, undetermined,
+unconscious idea; as the idea _out of itself_, in its objective form, or
+in its differentiation; and, finally, as the idea _in itself_, and _for
+itself_, in its regressive or reflective form. This movement of thought
+gives, _first_, bare, naked, indeterminate thought, or thought in the
+mere antithesis of Being and non-Being; _secondly_, thought
+externalizing itself in nature; and, _thirdly_, thought returning to
+itself, and knowing itself in mind, or consciousness. Philosophy has,
+accordingly, three corresponding divisions:--1. LOGIC, which here is
+identical with metaphysics; 2. PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE; 3. PHILOSOPHY OF
+MIND.
+
+[Footnote 48: "Hist, of Philos.," iii. p. 399.]
+
+It is beyond our design to present an expanded view of the entire
+philosophy of Hegel. But as he has given to the world a _new_ logic, it
+may be needful to glance at its general features as a help to the
+comprehension of his philosophy of religion. The fundamental law of his
+logic is the _identity of contraries or contradictions_. All thought is
+a synthesis of contraries or opposites. This antithesis not only exists
+in all ideas, but constitutes them. In every idea we form, there must be
+_two_ things opposed and distinguished, in order to afford a clear
+conception. Light can not be conceived but as the opposite of darkness;
+good can not be thought except in opposition to evil. All life, all
+reality is thus, essentially, the union of two elements, which,
+together, are mutually opposed to, and yet imply each other.
+
+The identity of Being and Nothing is one of the consequences of this
+law.
+
+1. _The Absolute is the Being_ (das Absolute ist das Seyn), and "the
+Being" is here, according to Hegel, bare, naked, abstract,
+undistinguished, indeterminate, unconscious idea.
+
+2. _The Absolute is the Nothing_ (das Absolute ist das Nichts). "Pure
+being is pure abstraction, and consequently the absolute-negative, which
+in like manner, directly taken, is _nothing_." Being and Nothing are the
+positive and negative poles of the Idea, that is, the Absolute. They
+both alike exist, they are both pure abstractions, both absolutely
+unconditioned, without attributes, and without consciousness. Hence
+follows the conclusion--
+
+3. _Being and Nothing are identical_ (das Seyn und das Nichts ist
+dasselbe), Being is non-Being. Non-Being _is_ Being--the
+Anders-seyn--which becomes _as_ Being to the Seyn. Nothing is, in some
+sense, an actual thing.
+
+_Being_ and _Nothing_ are thus the two elements which enter into the one
+Absolute Idea as contradictories, and both together combine to form a
+complete notion of bare production, or the _becoming_ of something out
+of nothing,--the unfolding of real existence in its lowest form, that
+is, of _nature_.
+
+The "_Philosophy of Nature_" exhibits a series of necessary movements
+which carry the idea forward in the ascending scale of sensible
+existence. The laws of mechanics, chemistry, and physiology are resolved
+into a series of oppositions. But the law which governs this development
+requires the self-reconciliation of these opposites. The idea,
+therefore, which in nature was unconscious and ignorant of itself,
+returns upon itself, and becomes conscious of itself, that is, becomes
+_mind_. The science of the regression or self-reflection of the idea, is
+the "_Philosophy of Mind_."
+
+The "_Philosophy of Mind_" is subdivided by Hegel into three parts.
+There is, first, the subjective or individual mind (_psychology_); then
+the objective or universal mind, as represented in society, the state,
+and in history (_ethics, political philosophy,_ or _jurisprudence_, and
+_philosophy of history_); and, finally, the union of the subjective and
+objective mind, or _the absolute mind_. This last manifests itself again
+under three forms, representing the three degrees of the
+self-consciousness of the Spirit, as the eternal truth. These are,
+first, _art_, or the representation of beauty (aesthetics); secondly,
+_religion_, in the general acceptation of the term (philosophy of
+religion); and, thirdly, _philosophy_ itself, as the purest and most
+perfect form of the scientific knowledge of truth. All historical
+religions, the Oriental, the Jewish, the Greek, the Roman, and the
+Christian, are _the successive stages in the development or
+self-actualization of God_.[49]
+
+It is unnecessary to indicate to the reader that the philosophy of Hegel
+is essentially pantheistic. "God is not a _person_, but personality
+itself, _i.e._, the universal personality, which realizes itself in
+every human consciousness, as so many separate thoughts of one eternal
+mind. The idea we form of the absolute is, to Hegel, the absolute
+itself, its essential existence being identical with our conception of
+it. Apart from, and out of the world, there is no God; and so also,
+apart from the universal consciousness of man, there is no Divine
+consciousness or personality."[50]
+
+[Footnote 49: See art. "Hegelian Philosophy," in Herzog's _Real-Encyc._,
+from whence our materials are chiefly drawn.]
+
+[Footnote 50: Morell, "Hist. of Philos.," p. 473.]
+
+This whole conception of religion, however, is false, and conflicts with
+the actual facts of man's religious nature and religious history. If the
+word "religion" has any meaning at all, it is "a mode of life determined
+by the consciousness of dependence upon, and obligation to God." It is
+reverence for, gratitude to, and worship of God as a being distinct from
+humanity. But in the philosophy of Hegel religion is a part of God--a
+stage in the development or self-actualization of God. Viewed under one
+aspect, religion is the self-adoration of God--the worship of God by
+God; under another aspect it is the worship of humanity, since God only
+becomes conscious of himself in humanity. The fundamental fallacy is
+that upon which his entire method proceeds, viz., "the identity of
+subject and object, being and thought." Against this false position the
+consciousness of each individual man, and the universal consciousness of
+our race, as revealed in history, alike protest. If thought and being
+are identical, then whatever is true of ideas is also true of objects,
+and then, as Kant had before remarked, there is no difference between
+_thinking_ we possess a hundred dollars, and actually _possessing_ them.
+Such absurdities may be rendered plausible by a logic which asserts the
+"identity of contradictions," but against such logic common sense
+rebels. "The law of non-contradiction" has been accepted by all
+logicians, from the days of Aristotle, as a fundamental law of thought.
+"Whatever is contradictory is unthinkable. A=not A=O, or A--A=O."[51]
+Non-existence can not exist. Being can not be nothing.
+
+[Footnote 51: Hamilton's Logic, p. 58.]
+
+III. The third hypothesis affirms _that the phenomenon of religion has
+its foundation in_ FEELING--_the feeling of dependence and of
+obligation_; and that to which the mind, by spontaneous intuition of
+instinctive faith, traces that dependence and obligation we call God.
+
+This, with some slight modification in each case, consequent upon the
+differences in their philosophic systems, is the theory of Jacobi,
+Schleiermacher, Nitzsch, Mansel, and probably Hamilton. Its fundamental
+position is, that we can not gain truth with absolute certainty either
+from sense or reason, and, consequently, the only valid source of real
+knowledge is _feeling--faith, intuition_, or, as it is called by some,
+_inspiration_.
+
+There have been those, in all ages, who have made all knowledge of
+invisible, supersensuous, divine things, to rest upon an internal
+_feeling_, or immediate, inward vision. The Oriental Mystics, the
+Neo-Platonists, the Mystics of the Greek and Latin Church, the German
+Mystics of the 14th century, the Theosophists of the Reformation, the
+Quietists of France, the Quakers, have all appealed to some _special_
+faculty, distinct from the understanding and reason, for the immediate
+cognition of invisible and spiritual existences. By some, that special
+faculty was regarded as an "interior eye" which was illuminated by the
+"Universal Light;" by others, as a peculiar sensibility of the soul--a
+_feeling_ in whose perfect calm and utter quiescence the Divinity was
+mirrored; or which, in an ecstatic state, rose to a communion with, and
+final absorption in the Infinite.
+
+Jacobi was the first, in modern times, to give the "faith-philosophy,"
+as it is now designated, a definite form. He assumes the position that
+all knowledge, of whatever kind, must ultimately rest upon intuition or
+faith. As it regards sensible objects, the understanding finds the
+impression from which all our knowledge of the external flows, ready
+formed. The process of sensation is a mystery; we know nothing of it
+until it is past, and the feeling it produces is present. Our knowledge
+of matter, therefore, rests upon faith in these intuitions. We can not
+doubt that the feeling has an objective cause. In every act of
+perception there is something actual and present, which can not be
+referred to a mere subjective law of thought. We are also conscious of
+another class of feelings which correlate us with a supersensuous world,
+and these feelings, also, must have their cause in some objective
+reality. Just as sensation gives us an immediate knowledge of an
+external world, so there is an internal sense which gives us an
+immediate knowledge of a spiritual world--God, the soul, freedom,
+immortality. Our knowledge of the invisible world, like our knowledge of
+the visible world, is grounded upon faith in our intuitions. All
+philosophic knowledge is thus based upon _belief_, which Jacobi regards
+as a fact of our inward sensibility--a sort of knowledge produced by an
+immediate _feeling_ of the soul--a direct apprehension, without proof,
+of the True, the Supersensuous, the Eternal.
+
+Jacobi prepared the way for, and was soon eclipsed by the deservedly
+greater name of Schleiermacher. His fundamental position was that truth
+in Theology could not be obtained by reason, but by a feeling,
+_insight_, or intuition, which in its lowest form he called
+_God-consciousness_, and in its highest form, _Christian-consciousness._
+The God-consciousness, in its original form, is the _feeling of
+dependence_ on the Infinite. The Christian consciousness is the perfect
+union of the human consciousness with the Divine, through the mediation
+of Christ, or what we would call a Christian experience of communion
+with God.
+
+Rightly to understand the position of Schleiermacher we must take
+account of his doctrine of _self_-consciousness. "In all
+self-consciousness," says he, "there are two elements, a Being ein Seyn,
+and a Somehow-having-become (Irgendweigewordenseyn). The last, however,
+presupposes, for every self-consciousness, besides the ego, yet
+something else from whence the certainty of the same
+[self-consciousness] exists, and without which self-consciousness would
+not be just this."[52] Every determinate mode of the sensibility
+supposes an _object_, and a _relation_ between the subject and the
+object, the subjective feeling deriving its determinations from the
+object. External sensation, the feeling, say of extension and
+resistance, gives world-consciousness. Internal sensation, the _feeling
+of dependence_, gives God consciousness. And it is only by the presence
+of world consciousness and God-consciousness that self consciousness can
+be what it is.
+
+We have, then, in our self-consciousness a _feeling of direct
+dependence_, and that to which our minds instinctively trace that
+dependence we call God. "By means of the religious feeling, the Primal
+Cause is revealed in us, as in perception, the things external, are
+revealed in us."[53] The _felt_, therefore, is not only the first
+religious sense, but the ruling, abiding, and perfect form of the
+religious spirit; whatever lays any claim to religion must maintain its
+ground and principle in _feeling_, upon which it depends for its
+development; and the sum-total of the forces constituting religious
+life, inasmuch as it is a _life_, is based upon immediate
+self-consciousness.[54]
+
+[Footnote 52: Glaubenslehre, ch. i. Sec. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 53: Dialectic, p. 430.]
+
+[Footnote 54: Nitzsch, "System of Doctrine," p. 23.]
+
+The doctrine of Schleiermacher is somewhat modified by Mansel, in his
+"_Limits of Religious Thought_." He maintains, with Schleiermacher, that
+religion is grounded in _feeling_, and that the _felt_ is the first
+intimation or presentiment of the Divine. Man "_feels_ within him the
+consciousness of a Supreme Being, and the instinct to worship, before he
+can argue from effects to causes, or estimate the traces of wisdom and
+benevolence scattered through the creation."[55] He also agrees with
+Schleiermacher in regarding the _feeling of dependence_ as _a_ state of
+the sensibility, out of which reflection builds up the edifice of
+Religious Consciousness, but he does not, with Schleiermacher, regard it
+as pre-eminently _the_ basis of religious consciousness. "The mere
+consciousness of dependence does not, of itself, exhibit the character
+of the Being on whom we depend. It is as consistent with superstition as
+with religion; with the belief in a malevolent, as in a benevolent
+Deity."[56] To the feeling of dependence he has added the _consciousness
+of moral obligation_, which he imagines supplies the deficiency. By this
+consciousness of moral obligation "we are compelled to assume the
+existence of a moral Deity, and to regard the absolute standard of right
+and wrong as constituted by the nature of that Deity."[57] "To these two
+facts of the inner consciousness the feeling of dependence, and
+consciousness of moral obligation may be traced, as to their sources,
+the two great outward acts by which religion, in its various forms, has
+been manifested among men--_Prayer_, by which they seek to win God's
+blessing upon the future, and _Expiation_, by which they strive to atone
+for the offenses of the past. The feeling of dependence is the instinct
+which urges us to pray. It is the feeling that our existence and welfare
+are in the hands of a superior power; not an inexorable fate, not an
+immutable law; but a Being having at least so far the attribute of
+personality that he can show favor or severity to those who are
+dependent upon Him, and can be regarded by them with feelings of hope
+and fear, and reverence and gratitude."[58] The feeling of moral
+obligation--"the law written in the heart"--leads man to recognize a
+Lawgiver. "Man can be a law unto himself only on the supposition that he
+reflects in himself the law of God."[59] The conclusion from the whole
+is, there must be an _object_ answering to this consciousness: there
+must be a God to explain these facts of the soul.
+
+[Footnote 55: Mansel, "Limits of Religious Thought," p. 115.]
+
+[Footnote 56: Id., ib., p. 120.]
+
+[Footnote 57: Id., ib., p. 122.]
+
+[Footnote 58: Id., ib., pp. 119, 120.]
+
+[Footnote 59: Id., ib., p. 122.]
+
+This "philosophy of feeling," or of faith generated by feeling, has an
+interest and a significance which has not been adequately recognized by
+writers on natural theology. Feeling, sentiment, enthusiasm, have always
+played an important part in the history of religion. Indeed it must be
+conceded that religion is a _right state of feeling towards
+God_--religion is _piety_. A philosophy of the religious emotion is,
+therefore, demanded in order to the full interpretation of the religious
+phenomena of the world.
+
+But the notion that internal feeling, a peculiar determination of the
+sensibility, is the source of religious ideas:--that God can be known
+immediately by feeling without the mediation of the truth that manifests
+God; that he can be _felt_ as the qualities of matter can be felt; and
+that this affection of the inward sense can reveal the character and
+perfections of God, is an unphilosophical and groundless assumption. To
+assert, with Nitzsch, that "feeling has reason, and is reason, and that
+the sensible and felt God-consciousness generates out of itself
+fundamental conceptions," is to confound the most fundamental
+psychological distinctions, and arbitrarily bend the recognized
+classifications of mental science to the necessities of a theory.
+Indeed, we are informed that it is "by means of an _independent_
+psychology, and conformably to it," that Schleiermacher illustrates his
+"philosophy of feeling."[60] But all psychology must be based upon the
+observation and classification of mental phenomena, as revealed in
+consciousness, and not constructed in an "independent" and a priori
+method. The most careful psychological analysis has resolved the whole
+complex phenomena of mind into thought, feeling, and volition.[61] These
+orders of phenomena are radically and essentially distinct. They differ
+not simply in degree but in kind, and it is only by an utter disregard
+of the facts of consciousness that they can be confounded. Feeling is
+not reason, nor can it by any logical dexterity be transformed into
+reason.
+
+[Footnote 60: Nitzsch, "System of Doctrine," p. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 61: Kant, "Critique of Judg.," ch. xxii.; Cousin, "Hist, of
+Philos.," vol. ii. p. 399; Hamilton, vol. i. p. 183, Eng. ed.]
+
+The question as to the relative order of cognition and feeling, that is,
+as to whether feeling is the first or original form of the religious
+consciousness, or whether feeling be not consequent upon some idea or
+cognition of God, is one which can not be determined on empirical
+grounds. We are precluded from all scrutiny of the incipient stages of
+mental development in the individual mind and in collective humanity. If
+we attempt to trace the early history of the soul, its beginnings are
+lost in a period of blank unconsciousness, beyond all scrutiny of memory
+or imagination. If we attempt the inquiry on the wider field of
+universal consciousness, the first unfoldings of mind in humanity are
+lost in the border-land of mystery, of which history furnishes no
+authentic records. All dogmatic affirmation must, therefore, be
+unjustifiable. The assertion that religious feeling precedes all
+cognition,--that "the consciousness of dependence on a Supreme Being,
+and the instinct of worship" are developed _first_ in the mind, before
+the reason is exercised, is utterly groundless. The more probable
+doctrine is that all the primary faculties enter into spontaneous action
+_simultaneously_--the reason with the senses, the feelings with the
+reason, the judgment with both the senses and the reason, and that from
+their primary and simultaneous action arises the complex result, called
+consciousness, or conjoint knowledge.[62] There can be no clear and
+distinct consciousness without the cognition of a _self_ and a
+_not-self_ in mutual relation and opposition. Now the knowledge of the
+self--the personal ego--is an intuition of reason; the knowledge of the
+not-self is an intuition of sense. All knowledge is possible only under
+condition of plurality, difference, and relation.[63] Now the judgment
+is "the Faculty of Relations," or of comparison; and the affirmation
+"_this_ is not _that_" is an act of judgment; to know is, consequently,
+to judge.[64] Self-consciousness must, therefore, be regarded as a
+synthesis of sense, reason, and judgment, and not a mere self-feeling
+(coenaesthesis).
+
+[Footnote 62: Cousin, "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 357; vol. ii. p.
+337.]
+
+[Footnote 63: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 88.]
+
+[Footnote 64: Hamilton, "Metaphys.," p. 277]
+
+A profound analysis will further lead to the conclusion that if ideas of
+reason are not chronologically antecedent to sensation, they are, at
+least, the logical antecedents of all cognition. The mere feeling of
+resistance can not give the notion of without the a priori idea of
+space. The feeling of movement of change, can not give the cognition of
+event without the rational idea of time or duration. Simple
+consciousness can not generate the idea of personality, or selfhood,
+without the rational idea of identity or unity. And so the mere "feeling
+of dependence," of finiteness and imperfection, can not give the idea of
+God, without the rational a priori idea of the Infinite, the Perfect,
+the Unconditioned Cause. Sensation is not knowledge, and never can
+become knowledge, without the intervention of reason, and a concentrated
+self feeling can not rise essentially above animal life until it has,
+through the mediation of reason, attained the idea of the existence of a
+Supreme Being ruling over nature and man.
+
+Mere feeling is essentially blind. In its _pathological_ form, it may
+indicate a want, and even develop an unconscious appetency, but it can
+not, itself, reveal an _object_, any more than the feeling of hunger can
+reveal the actual presence, or determine the character and fitness, of
+any food. An undefinable fear, a mysterious presentiment, an instinctive
+yearning, a hunger of the soul, these are all irrational emotions which
+can never rise to the dignity of knowledge. An object must be conjured
+by the imagination, or conceived by the understanding, or intuitively
+apprehended by the reason, before the feeling can have any significance.
+
+Regarded in its _moral_ form, as "the feeling of obligation," it can
+have no real meaning unless a "law of duty" be known and recognized.
+Feeling, alone, can not reveal what duty is. When that which is right,
+and just, and good is revealed to the mind, then the sense of obligation
+may urge man to the performance of duty. But the right, the just, the
+good, are ideas which are apprehended by the reason, and, consequently,
+our moral sentiments are the result of the harmonious and living
+relation between the reason and the sensibilities.
+
+Mr. Mansel asserts the inadequacy of Schleiermacher's "feeling of
+dependence" to reveal the character of the Being on whom we depend. He
+has therefore supplemented his doctrine by the "feeling of moral
+obligation," which he thinks "compels us to _assume_ the existence of a
+moral Deity." We think his "fact of religious intuition" is as
+inadequate as Schleiermacher's to explain the whole phenomena of
+religion. In neither instance does feeling supply the actual knowledge
+of God. The feeling of dependence may indicate that there is a Power or
+Being upon whom we depend for existence and well-being, and which Power
+or Being "we call God." The feeling of obligation certainly indicates
+the existence of a Being to whom we are accountable, and which Being Mr.
+Mansel calls a "moral Deity." But in both instances the character, and
+even the existence of God is "_assumed_" and we are entitled to ask on
+what ground it is assumed. It will not be asserted that feeling alone
+generates the idea, or that the feeling is transformed into idea without
+the intervention of thought and reflection. Is there, then, a _logical_
+connection between the feeling of dependence and of obligation, and the
+idea of the Uncreated Mind, the Infinite First Cause, the Righteous
+Governor of the world. Or is there a fixed and changeless co-relation
+between _the feeling_ and the _idea_, so that when the feeling is
+present, the idea also necessarily arises in the mind? This latter
+opinion seems to be the doctrine of Mansel. We accept it as the
+statement of a fact of consciousness, but we can not regard it as an
+account of the genesis of the idea of God in the human mind. The idea of
+God as the First Cause, the Infinite Mind, the Perfect Being, the
+personal Lord and Lawgiver, the creator, sustainer, and ruler of the
+world, is not a simple, primitive intuition of the mind. It is
+manifestly a complex, concrete idea, and, as such, can not be developed
+in consciousness, by the operation of a single faculty of the mind, in a
+simple, undivided act. It originates in the spontaneous operation of the
+whole mind. It is a necessary deduction from the facts of the universe,
+and the primitive intuitions of the reason,--a logical inference from
+the facts of sense, consciousness, and reason. A philosophy of religion
+which regards the feelings as supreme, and which brands the decisions of
+reason as uncertain, and well-nigh valueless, necessarily degenerates
+into mysticism--a mysticism "which pretends to elevate man directly to
+God, and does not see that, in depriving reason of its power, it really
+deprives man of that which enables him to know God, and puts him in a
+just communication with God by the intermediary of eternal and infinite
+truth."[65]
+
+[Footnote 65: Cousin, "True, Beautiful, and Good," p. 110.]
+
+The religious sentiments in all minds, and in all ages, have resulted
+from the union of _thought_ and _feeling_--the living and harmonious
+relation of reason and sensibility; and a philosophy which disregards
+either is inadequate to the explanation of the phenomena.
+
+IV. The fourth hypothesis is, _that religion has had its outbirth in the
+spontaneous apperceptions of_ REASON; that is, in the necessary, a
+priori ideas of the infinite, the perfect, the unconditioned Cause, the
+Eternal Being, which are evoked into consciousness in presence of the
+changeful, contingent phenomena of the world.
+
+This will at once be recognized by the intelligent reader as the
+doctrine of Cousin, by whom _pure reason_ is regarded as the grand
+faculty or organ of religion.
+
+Religion, in the estimation of Cousin, is grounded on _cognition_ rather
+than upon feeling. It is the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of duty
+in its relation to God and to human happiness; and as reason is the
+general faculty of all knowing, it must be the faculty of religion. "In
+its most elevated point of view, religion is the relation of absolute
+truth to absolute Being," and as absolute truth is apprehended by the
+reason alone, reason "is the veridical and religious part of the nature
+of man."[66] By "reason," however, as we shall see presently, Cousin
+does not mean the discursive or reflective reason, but the spontaneous
+or intuitive reason. That act of the mind by which we attain to
+religious knowledge is not a _process of reasoning_, but a pure
+appreciation, an instinctive and involuntary movement of the soul.
+
+[Footnote 66: Henry's Cousin, p. 510.]
+
+The especial function of reason, therefore, is to reveal to us the
+invisible, the supersensuous, the Divine. "It was bestowed upon us for
+this very purpose of going, without any circuit of reasoning, from the
+visible to the invisible, from the finite to the infinite, from the
+imperfect to the perfect, and from necessary and eternal truths, to the
+eternal and necessary principle" that is God.[67] Reason is thus, as it
+were, the bridge between consciousness and being; it rests, at the same
+time, on both; it descends from God, and approaches man; it makes its
+appearance in consciousness as a guest which brings intelligence of
+another world of real Being which lies beyond the world of sense.
+
+Reason does not, however, attain to the Absolute Being directly and
+immediately, without any intervening medium. To assert this would be to
+fall into the error of Plotinus, and the Alexandrian Mystics. Reason is
+the offspring of God, a ray of the Eternal Reason, but it is not to be
+identified with God. Reason attains to the Absolute Being indirectly,
+and by the interposition of truth. Absolute truth is an attribute and a
+manifestation of God. "Truth is incomprehensible without God, and God is
+incomprehensible without truth. Truth is placed between human
+intelligence, and the supreme intelligence as a kind of mediator."[68]
+Incapable of contemplating God face to face, reason adores God in the
+truth which represents and manifests Him.
+
+[Footnote 67: Cousin, "True, Beautiful, and Good," p. 103.]
+
+[Footnote 68: Id., ib., p. 99.]
+
+Absolute truth is thus a revelation of God, made by God to the reason of
+man, and as it is a light which illuminates every man, and is
+perpetually perceived by all men, it is a universal and perpetual
+revelation of God to man. The mind of man is "the offspring of God,"
+and, as such, must have some resemblance to, and some correlation with
+God. Now that which constitutes the image of God in man must be found in
+the reason which is correlated with, and capable of perceiving the truth
+which manifests God, just as the eye is correlated to the light which
+manifests the external world. Absolute truth is, therefore, the sole
+medium of bringing the human mind into communion with God; and human
+reason, in becoming united to absolute truth, becomes united to God in
+his manifestation in spirit and in truth. The supreme law, and highest
+destination of man, is to become united to God by seeking a full
+consciousness of, and loving and practising the Truth.[69]
+
+[Footnote 69: Henry's Cousin, p. 511, 512.]
+
+It will at once be obvious that the grand crucial questions by which
+this philosophy of religion is to be tested are--
+
+1st. _How will Cousin prove to us that human reason is in possession of
+universal and necessary principles or absolute truths?_ and,
+
+2d. _How are these principles shown to be absolute? how far do these
+principles of reason possess absolute authority?_
+
+The answer of Cousin to the first question is that we prove reason to be
+in possession of universal and necessary principles by the analysis of
+the contents of consciousness, that is, by psychological analysis. The
+phenomena of consciousness, in their primitive condition, are
+necessarily complex, concrete, and particular. All our primary ideas are
+complex ideas, for the evident reason that all, or nearly all, our
+faculties enter at once into exercise; their simultaneous action giving
+us, at the same time, a certain number of ideas connected with each
+other, and forming a whole. For example, the idea of the exterior world,
+which is given us so quickly, is a complex idea, which contains a number
+of ideas. There is the idea of the secondary qualities of exterior
+objects; there is the idea of the primary qualities; there is the idea
+of the permanent reality of something to which you refer these
+qualities, to wit, matter; there is the idea of space which contains
+bodies; there is the idea of time in which movements are effected. All
+these ideas are acquired simultaneously, or nearly simultaneously, and
+together form one complex idea.
+
+The application of analysis to this complex phenomenon clearly reveals
+that there are simple ideas, beliefs, principles in the mind which can
+not have been derived from sense and experience, which sense and
+experience do not account for, and which are the suggestions of reason
+alone: the idea of the _Infinite_, the _Perfect_, the _Eternal_; the
+true, the beautiful, the good; the principle of causality, of substance,
+of unity, of intentionality; the principle of duty, of obligation, of
+accountability, of retribution. These principles, in their natural and
+regular development, carry us beyond the limits of consciousness, and
+reveal to us a world of real being beyond the world of sense. They carry
+us up to an absolute Being, the fountain of all existence--a living,
+personal, righteous God--the author, the sustainer, and ruler of the
+universe.
+
+The proof that these principles are absolute, and possessed of absolute
+authority, is drawn, first, from the _impersonality of reason_, or,
+rather, the impersonality of the ideas, principles, or truths of reason.
+
+It is not we who create these ideas, neither can we change them at our
+pleasure. We are conscious that the will, in all its various efforts, is
+enstamped with the impress of our personality. Our volitions are our
+own. So, also, our desires are our own, our emotions are our own. But
+this is not the same with our rational ideas or principles. The ideas of
+substance, of cause, of unity, of intentionality do not belong to one
+person any more than to another; they belong to mind as mind, they are
+revealed in the universal intelligence of the race. Absolute truth has
+no element of personality about it. Man may say "my reason," but give
+him credit for never having dared to say "_my_ truth." So far from
+rational ideas being individual, their peculiar characteristic is that
+they are opposed to individuality, that is, they are universal and
+necessary. Instead of being circumscribed within the limits of
+experience, they surpass and govern it; they are universal in the midst
+of particular phenomena; necessary, although mingled with things
+contingent; and absolute, even when appearing within us the relative and
+finite beings that we are.[70] Necessary, universal, absolute truth is a
+direct emanation from God. "Such being the case, the decision of reason
+within its own peculiar province possesses an authority almost divine.
+If we are led astray by it, we must be led astray by a light from
+heaven."[71]
+
+[Footnote 70: Cousin, "True, Beautiful, and Good," p. 40.]
+
+[Footnote 71: Id., "Lectures," vol. ii. p. 32.]
+
+The second proof is derived from _the distinction between the
+spontaneous and reflective movements of reason_.
+
+Reflection is voluntary, spontaneity is involuntary; reflection is
+personal, spontaneity is impersonal; reflection is analytic, spontaneity
+is synthetic; reflection begins with doubt, spontaneity with
+affirmation; reflection belongs to certain ones, spontaneity belongs to
+all; reflection produces science, spontaneity gives truth. Reflection is
+a process, more or less tardy, in the individual and in the race. It
+sometimes engenders error and skepticism, sometimes convictions that,
+from being rational, are only the more profound. It constructs systems,
+it creates artificial logic, and all those formulas which we now use by
+the force of habit, as if they were natural to us. But spontaneous
+intuition is the true logic of nature,--instant, direct, and infallible.
+It is a primitive affirmation which implies no negation, and therefore
+yields positive knowledge. To reflect is to return to that which was. It
+is, by the aid of memory, to return to the past, and to render it
+present to the eye of consciousness. Reflection, therefore, creates
+nothing; it supposes an anterior operation of the mind in which there
+necessarily must be as many terms as are discovered by reflection.
+Before all reflection there comes spontaneity--a spontaneity of the
+intellect, which seizes truth at once, without traversing doubt and
+error. "We thus attain to a judgment free from all reflection, to an
+affirmation without any mixture of negation, to an immediate intuition,
+the legitimate daughter of the natural energy of thought, like the
+inspiration of the poet, the instinct of the hero, the enthusiasm of the
+prophet." Such is the first act of knowing, and in this first act the
+mind passes from _idea to being_ without ever suspecting the depth of
+the chasm it has passed. It passes by means of the power which is in it,
+and is not astonished at what it has done. It is subsequently astonished
+when by reflection it returns to the analysis of the results, and, by
+the aid of the liberty with which it is endowed, to do the opposite of
+what it has done, to deny what it has affirmed. "Hence comes the strife
+between sophism and common sense, between false science and natural
+truth, between good and bad philosophy, both of which come from free
+reflection."[72]
+
+It is this spontaneity of thought which gives birth to _religion._ The
+instinctive thought which darts through the world, even to God, is
+natural religion. "All thought implies a spontaneous faith in God, and
+there is no such thing as natural atheism. Doubt and skepticism may
+mingle with reflective thought, but beneath reflection there is still
+spontaneity. When the scholar has denied the existence of God, listen to
+the man, interrogate him, take him unawares, and you will see that all
+his words envelop the idea of God, and that faith in God is, without his
+recognition, at the bottom, in his heart."[73]
+
+Religion, then, in the system of Cousin, does not begin with reflection,
+with science, but with _faith_. There is, however, this difference to be
+noted between the theory of the "faith-philosophers" (Jacobi,
+Schleiermacher, etc.) and the theory of Cousin. With them, faith is
+grounded on sensation or _feeling_; with him, it is grounded on
+_reason_. "Faith, whatever may be its form, whatever may be its object,
+common or sublime, can be nothing else than the _consent of reason_.
+That is the foundation of faith."[74]
+
+[Footnote 72: Cousin, "True, Beautiful, and Good," p. 106.]
+
+[Footnote 73: "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 137.]
+
+[Footnote 74: Ibid., vol. i. p. 90.]
+
+Religion is, therefore, with Cousin, at bottom, pure Theism. He thinks,
+however, that "true theism is not a dead religion that forgets precisely
+the fundamental attributes of God." It recognizes God as creator,
+preserver, and governor; it celebrates a providence; it adores a
+perfect, holy, righteous, benevolent God. It holds the principle of
+duty, of obligation, of moral desert. It not only perceives the divine
+character, but feels its relation to God. The revelation of the
+Infinite, by reason, moves the feelings, and passes into sentiment,
+producing reverence, and love, and gratitude. And it creates worship,
+which recalls man to God a thousand times more forcibly than the order,
+harmony, and beauty of the universe can do.
+
+The spontaneous action of reason, in its greatest energy, is
+_inspiration_. "Inspiration, daughter of the soul and heaven, speaks
+from on high with an absolute authority. It commands faith; so all its
+words are hymns, and its natural language is poetry." "Thus, in the
+cradle of civilization, he who possessed in a higher degree than his
+fellows the gift of inspiration, passed for the confidant and the
+interpreter of God. He is so for others, because he is so for himself;
+and he is so, in fact, in a philosophic sense. Behold the sacred origin
+of prophecies, of pontificates, and of modes of worship."[75]
+
+[Footnote 75: "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 129.]
+
+As an account of the genesis of the idea of God in the human
+intelligence, the doctrine of Cousin must be regarded as eminently
+logical, adequate, and satisfactory. As a theory of the origin of
+religion, as a philosophy which shall explain all the phenomena of
+religion, it must be pronounced defective, and, in some of its aspects,
+erroneous.
+
+First, it does not take proper account of that _living force_ which has
+in all ages developed so much energy, and wrought such vast results in
+the history of religion, viz., the _power of the heart_. Cousin
+discourses eloquently on the spontaneous, instinctive movements of the
+reason, but he overlooks, in a great measure, the instinctive movements
+of the heart. He does not duly estimate the feeling of reverence and awe
+which rises spontaneously in presence of the vastness and grandeur of
+the universe, and of the power and glory of which the created universe
+is a symbol and shadow. He disregards that sense of an overshadowing
+Presence which, at least in seasons of tenderness and deep sensibility,
+seems to compass us about, and lay its hand upon us. He scarcely
+recognizes the deep consciousness of imperfection and weakness, and
+utter dependence, which prompts man to seek for and implore the aid of a
+Superior Being; and, above all, he takes no proper account of the sense
+of guilt and the conscious need of expiation. His theory, therefore, can
+not adequately explain the universal prevalence of sacrifices, penances,
+and prayers. In short, it does not meet and answer to the deep longings
+of the human heart, the wants, sufferings, fears, and hopes of man.
+
+Cousin claims that the universal reason of man is illuminated by the
+light of God. It is quite pertinent to ask, Why may not the universal
+heart of humanity be touched and moved by the spirit of God? If the
+ideas of reason be a revelation from God, may not the instinctive
+feelings of the heart be an inspiration of God? May not God come near to
+the heart of man and awaken a mysterious presentiment of an invisible
+Presence, and an instinctive longing to come nearer to Him? May he not
+draw men towards himself by sweet, persuasive influences, and raise man
+to a conscious fellowship? Is not God indeed the _great want_ of the
+human heart?
+
+Secondly, Cousin does not give due importance to the influence of
+revealed truth as given in the sacred Scriptures, and of the positive
+institutions of religion, as a divine economy, supernaturally originated
+in the world. He grants, indeed, that "a primitive revelation throws
+light upon the cradle of human civilization," and that "all antique
+traditions refer to an age in which man, at his departure from the hand
+of God, received from him immediately all lights, and all truths."[76]
+He also believes that "the Mosaic religion, by its developments, is
+mingled with the history of all the surrounding people of Egypt, of
+Assyria, of Persia, and of Greece and Rome."[77] Christianity, however,
+is regarded as "the summing and crown of the two great religious systems
+which reigned by turn in the East and in Greece"--the maturity of
+Ethnicism and Judaism; a development rather than a new creation. The
+explanation which he offers of the phenomena of inspiration opens the
+door to religious skepticism. Those who were termed seers, prophets,
+inspired teachers of ancient times, were simply men who resigned
+themselves wholly to their intellectual instincts, and thus gazed upon
+truth in its pure and perfect form. They did not reason, they did not
+reflect, they made no pretensions to philosophy they received truth
+spontaneously as it flowed in upon them from heaven.[78] This immediate
+reception of Divine light was nothing more than the _natural_ play of
+spontaneous reason nothing more than what has existed to a greater or
+less degree in every man of great genius; nothing more than may now
+exist in any mind which resigns itself to its own unreflective
+apperceptions. Thus revelation, in its proper sense, loses all its
+peculiar value, and Christianity is robbed of its pre-eminent authority.
+The extremes of Mysticism and Rationalism here meet on the same ground,
+and Plotinus and Cousin are at one.
+
+[Footnote 76: "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 148.]
+
+[Footnote 77: Ibid., vol. i. p. 216.]
+
+[Footnote 78: Morell, "Hist. of Philos.," p. 661.]
+
+V. The fifth hypothesis offered in explanation of the religious
+phenomena of the world is that they had their origin _in_ EXTERNAL
+REVELATION, _to which reason is related as a purely passive organ, and
+Ethnicism as a feeble relic_.
+
+This is the theory of the school of "dogmatic theologians," of which the
+ablest and most familiar presentation is found in the "Theological
+Institutes" of R. Watson.[79] He claims that all our religious knowledge
+is derived from _oral revelation alone_, and that all the forms of
+religion and modes of worship which have prevailed in the heathen world
+have been perversions and corruptions of the one true religion first
+taught to the earliest families of men by God himself. All the ideas of
+God, duty, immortality, and future retribution which are now possessed,
+or have ever been possessed by the heathen nations, are only broken and
+scattered rays of the primitive traditions descending from the family of
+Noah, and revived by subsequent intercourses with the Hebrew race; and
+all the modes of religious worship--prayers, lustrations,
+sacrifices--that have obtained in the world, are but feeble relics,
+faint reminiscences of the primitive worship divinely instituted among
+the first families of men. "The first man received the knowledge of God
+by sensible converse with him, and that doctrine was transmitted, with
+the confirmation of successive manifestations, to the early ancestors of
+all nations."[80] This belief in the existence of a Supreme Being was
+preserved among the Jews by continual manifestations of the presence of
+Jehovah. "The intercourses between the Jews and the states of Syria and
+Babylon, on the one hand, and Egypt on the other, powers which rose to
+great eminence and influence in the ancient world, was maintained for
+ages. Their frequent dispersions and captivities would tend to preserve
+in part, and in part to revive, the knowledge of the once common and
+universal faith."[81] And the Greek sages who resorted for instruction
+to the Chaldean philosophic schools derived from thence their knowledge
+of the theological system of the Jews.[82] Among the heathen nations
+this primitive revelation was corrupted by philosophic speculation, as
+in India and China, Greece and Rome; and in some cases it was entirely
+obliterated by ignorance, superstition, and vice, as among the
+Hottentots of Africa and the aboriginal tribes of New South Wales, who
+"have no idea of one Supreme Creator."[83]
+
+[Footnote 79: We might have referred the reader to Ellis's "Knowledge of
+Divine Things from Revelation, not from Reason or Nature;" Leland's
+"Necessity of Revelation;" and Horsley's "Dissertations," etc.; but as
+we are not aware of their having been reprinted in this country, we
+select the "Institutes" of Watson as the best presentation of the views
+of "the dogmatic theologians" accessible to American readers.]
+
+[Footnote 80: Watson, "Theol. Inst," vol. i. p. 270.]
+
+[Footnote 81: Id. ib., vol. i. p. 31.]
+
+[Footnote 82: See ch. v. and vi., "On the Origin of those Truths which
+are found in the Writings and Religious Systems of the Heathen."]
+
+[Footnote 83: Ibid., vol. i. p. 274.]
+
+The same course of reasoning is pursued in regard to the idea of duty,
+and the knowledge of right and wrong. "A direct communication of the
+Divine Will was made to the primogenitors of our race," and to this
+source _alone_ we are indebted for all correct ideas of right and wrong.
+"Whatever is found pure in morals, in ancient or modern writers, may be
+traced to _indirect_ revelation."[84] Verbal instruction--tradition or
+scripture--thus becomes the source of all our moral ideas. The doctrine
+of immortality, and of a future retribution,[85] the practice of
+sacrifice--precatory and expiatory, are also ascribed to the same
+source.[86] Thus the only medium by which religious truth can possibly
+become known to the masses of mankind is _tradition_. The ultimate
+foundation on which the religious faith and the religious practices of
+universal humanity have rested, with the exception of the Jews, and the
+favored few to whom the Gospel has come, is uncertain, precarious, and
+easily corrupted tradition.
+
+[Footnote 84: Watson, "Theol. Inst.," vol. ii. p. 470.]
+
+[Footnote 85: Id. ib., vol. i. p. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 86: Id. ib., vol. i. p. 26.]
+
+The improbability, inadequacy, and incompleteness of this theory will be
+obvious from the following considerations:
+
+1. It is highly improbable that truths so important and vital to man, so
+essential to the well-being of the human race, so necessary to the
+perfect development of humanity as are the ideas of God, duty, and
+immortality, should rest on so precarious and uncertain a basis as
+tradition is admitted, even by Mr. Watson, to be.
+
+The human mind needs the idea of God to satisfy its deep moral
+necessities, and to harmonize all its powers. The perfection of humanity
+can never be secured, the destination of humanity can never be achieved,
+the purpose of God in the existence of humanity can never be
+accomplished, without the idea of God, and of the relation of man to
+God, being present to the human mind. Society needs the idea of a
+Supreme Ruler as the foundation of law and government, and as the basis
+of social order. Without it, these can not be, or be conserved.
+Intellectual creatureship, social order, human progress, are
+inconceivable and impossible without the idea of God, and of
+accountability to God. Now that truths so fundamental should, to the
+masses of men, rest on tradition _alone_, is incredible. Is there no
+known and accessible God to the outlying millions of our race who, in
+consequence of the circumstances of birth and education, which are
+beyond their control, have had no access to an oral revelation, and
+among whom the dim shadowy rays of an ancient tradition have long ago
+expired? Are the eight hundred millions of our race upon whom the light
+of Christianity has not shone unvisited by the common Father of our
+race? Has the universal Father left his "own offspring" without a single
+native power of recognizing the existence of the Divine Parent, and
+abandoned them to solitary and dreary orphanage? Could not he who gave
+to matter its properties and laws,--the properties and laws through
+whose operation he is working out his own purposes in the realm of
+nature,--could not he have also given to mind ideas and principles
+which, logically developed, would lead to recognition of a God, and of
+our duty to God, and, by these ideas and principles, have wrought out
+his sublime purposes in the realm of mind? Could not he who gave to man
+the appetency for food, and implanted in his nature the social instincts
+to preserve his physical being, have implanted in his heart a "feeling
+after God," and an instinct to worship God in order to the conservation
+of his spiritual being? How otherwise can we affirm the responsibility
+and accountability of all the race before God? Those theologians who are
+so earnest in the assertion that God has not endowed man with the native
+power of attaining the knowledge of God can not, on any principle of
+equity, show how the heathen are "without excuse" when, in involuntary
+ignorance of God, they "worship the creature instead of the Creator,"
+and violate a law of duty of which they have no possible means to attain
+the barest knowledge.
+
+2. This theory is utterly inadequate to the explanation of the
+_universality_ of religious rites, and especially of religious ideas.
+
+Take, for example, the idea of God. As a matter of fact we affirm, in
+opposition to Watson, the universality of this idea. The idea of God is
+connatural to the human mind. Wherever human reason has had its normal
+and healthy development[87], this idea has arisen spontaneously and
+necessarily. There has not been found a race of men who were utterly
+destitute of some knowledge of a Supreme Being. All the instances
+alleged have, on further and more accurate inquiry, been found
+incorrect. The tendency of the last century, arbitrarily to quadrate all
+the facts of religious history with the prevalent sensational
+philosophy, had its influence upon the minds of the first missionaries
+to India, China, Africa, Australia, and the islands of the Pacific. They
+_expected_ to find that the heathen had no knowledge of a Supreme Being,
+and before they had mastered the idioms of their language, or become
+familiar with their mythological and cosmological systems, they reported
+them as _utterly ignorant of God_, destitute of the idea and even the
+name of a Supreme Being. These mistaken and hasty conclusions have,
+however, been corrected by a more intimate acquaintance with the people,
+their languages and religions. Even in the absence of any better
+information, we should be constrained to doubt the accuracy of the
+authorities quoted by Mr. Watson in relation to Hindooism, when by one
+(Ward) we are told that the Hindoo "believes in a God destitute of
+_intelligence_" and by another (Moore) that "Brahm is the one eternal
+_Mind_, the self-existent, incomprehensible Spirit". Learned and
+trustworthy critics, Asiatic as well as European, however, confidently
+affirm that "the ground of the Brahminical faith is Monotheistic;" it
+recognizes "an Absolute and Supreme Being" as the source of all that
+exists.[88] Eugene Burnouf, M. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, Koeppen, and
+indeed nearly all who have written on the subject of Buddhism, have
+shown that the metaphysical doctrines of Buddha were borrowed from the
+earlier systems of the Brahminic philosophy. "Buddha." we are told, is
+"_pure intelligence_" "_clear light_", "_perfect wisdom_;" the same as
+Brahm. This is surely Theism in its highest conception.[89] In regard to
+the peoples of South Africa, Dr. Livingstone assures us "there is no
+need for beginning to tell even the most degraded of these people of the
+existence of a God, or of a future state--the facts being universally
+admitted.... On questioning intelligent men among the Backwains as to
+their former knowledge of good and evil, of God, and of a future state,
+they have scouted the idea of any of them ever having been without a
+tolerably clear conception on all these subjects."[90] And so far from
+the New Hollanders having no idea of a Supreme Being, we are assured by
+E. Stone Parker, the protector of the aborigines of New Holland, they
+have a clear and well-defined idea of a "_Great Spirit_," the maker of
+all things.
+
+[Footnote 87: Watson, "Theol. Inst.," vol. i. p. 46.]
+
+[Footnote 88: Maurice, "Religions of the World," p. 59: _Edin.
+Review_,1862, art "Recent Researches on Buddhism." See also Mueller's
+"Chips from a German Workshop," vol. i. ch. i. to vi.]
+
+[Footnote 89: "It has been said that Buddha and Kapila were both
+atheists, and that Buddha borrowed his atheism from Kapila. But atheism
+is an indefinite term, and may mean very different things. In one sense
+every Indian philosopher was an atheist, for they all perceived that the
+gods of the populace could not claim the attributes that belong to a
+Supreme Being. But all the important philosophical systems of the
+Brahmans admit, in some form or another, the existence of an Absolute
+and Supreme Being, the source of all that exists, or seems to
+exist."--Mueller, "Chips from a German Workshop," vol. i. pp. 224,5.
+
+Buddha, which means "intelligence," "clear light," "perfect wisdom," was
+not only the name of the founder of the religion of Eastern Asia, but
+Adi Buddha was the name of the Absolute, Eternal Intelligence.--Maurice,
+"Religions of the World," p. 102.]
+
+[Footnote 90: "Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa," p.
+158.]
+
+Now had the idea of God rested _solely_ on tradition, it were the most
+natural probability that it might be lost, nay, _must_ be lost, amongst
+those races of men who were geographically and chronologically far
+removed from the primitive cradle of humanity in the East. The people
+who, in their migrations, had wandered to the remotest parts of the
+earth, and had become isolated from the rest of mankind, might, after
+the lapse of ages, be expected to lose the idea of God, if it were not a
+spontaneous and native intuition of the mind,--a necessity of thought. A
+fact of history must be presumed to stick to the mind with much greater
+tenacity than a purely rational idea which has no visible symbol in the
+sensible world, and yet, even in regard to the events of history, the
+persistence and pertinacity of tradition is exceedingly feeble. The
+South Sea Islanders know not from whence, or at what time, their
+ancestors came. There are monuments in Tonga and Fiji of which the
+present inhabitants can give no account. How, then, can a pure, abstract
+idea which can have no sensible representation, no visible image, retain
+its hold upon the memory of humanity for thousands of years? The Fijian
+may not remember whence his immediate ancestors came, but he knows that
+the race came originally from the hands of the Creator. He can not tell
+who built the monuments of solid masonry which are found in his
+island-home, but he can tell who reared the everlasting hills and built
+the universe. He may not know who reigned in Vewa a hundred years ago,
+but he knows who now reigns, and has always reigned, over the whole
+earth. "The idea of a God is familiar to the Fijian, and the existence
+of an invisible superhuman power controlling and influencing nature, and
+all earthly things, is fully recognized by him."[91] The idea of God is
+a common fact of human consciousness, and tradition alone is manifestly
+inadequate to account for its _universality_.
+
+[Footnote 91: "Fiji and the Fijians," p. 215.]
+
+3. A verbal revelation would be inadequate to convey the knowledge of
+God to an intelligence "_purely passive_" and utterly unfurnished with
+any _a priori_ ideas or necessary laws of cognition and thought.
+
+Of course it is not denied that important verbal communications relating
+to the character of God, and the duties we owe to God, were given to the
+first human pair, more clear and definite, it may be, than any knowledge
+attained by Socrates and Plato through their dialectic processes, and
+that these oral revelations were successively repeated and enlarged to
+the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament church. And
+furthermore, that some rays of light proceeding from this pure fountain
+of truth were diffused, and are still lingering among the heathen
+nations, we have no desire, and no need to deny.
+
+All this, however, supposes, at least, a natural power and aptitude for
+the knowledge of God, and some configuration and correlation of the
+human intelligence to the Divine. "We have no knowledge of a dynamic
+influence, spiritual or natural, without a dynamic reaction." Matter can
+not be moved and controlled by forces and laws, unless it have
+properties which correlate it with those forces and laws. And mind can
+not be determined from without to any specific form of cognition, unless
+it have active powers of apprehension and conception which are governed
+by uniform laws. The "material" of thought may be supplied from without,
+but the "form" is determined by the necessary laws of our inward being.
+All our cognition of the external world is conditioned by the _a priori_
+ideas of time and space, and all our thinking is governed by the
+principles of causality and substance, and the law of "sufficient
+reason." The mind itself supplies an element of knowledge in all our
+cognitions. Man can not be taught the knowledge of God if he be not
+naturally possessed of a presentiment, or an apperception of a God, as
+the cause and reason of the universe. "If education be not already
+preceded by an innate consciousness of God, as an operative
+predisposition, there would be nothing for education and culture to act
+upon."[92] A mere verbal revelation can not communicate the knowledge of
+God, if man have not already the idea of a God in his mind. A name is a
+mere empty sign, a meaningless symbol, without a mental image of the
+object which it represents, or an innate perception, or an abstract
+conception of the mind, of which the word is the sign. The mental image
+or the abstract conception must, therefore, precede the name; cognition
+must be anterior to, and give the meaning of language.[93] The child
+knows a thing even before it can speak its name. And, universally, we
+must know the _thing_ in itself, or image it by analogies and
+resemblances to some other thing we do know, before the name can have
+any meaning for us. As to purely rational ideas and abstract
+conceptions,--as space, cause, the infinite, the perfect,--language can
+never convey these to the mind, nor can the mind ever attain them by
+experience if they are not an original, connate part of our mental
+equipment and furniture. The mere verbal affirmation "there is a God"
+made to one who has no idea of a God, would be meaningless and
+unintelligible. What notion can a man form of "the First Cause" if the
+principle of causality is not inherent in his mind? What conception can
+he form of "the Infinite Mind" if the infinite be not a primitive
+intuition? How can he conceive of "a Righteous Governor" if he have no
+idea of right, no sense of obligation, no apprehension of a retribution?
+Words are empty sounds without ideas, and God is a mere name if the mind
+has no apperception of a God.
+
+[Footnote 92: Nitzsch, "System of Christian Doctrine," p. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 93: "Ideas must pre-exist their sensible signs." See De
+Boismont on "Hallucination," etc., p. iii.]
+
+It may be affirmed that, preceding or accompanying the announcement of
+the Divine Name, there was given to the first human pair, and to the
+early fathers of our race, some visible manifestation of the presence of
+God, and some supernatural display of divine power. What, then, was the
+character of these early manifestations, and were they adequate to
+convey the proper idea of God? Did God first reveal himself in human
+form, and if so, how could their conception of God advance beyond a rude
+anthropomorphism? Did he reveal his presence in a vast columnar cloud or
+a pillar of fire? How could such an image convey any conception of the
+intelligence, the omnipresence, the eternity of God? Nay, can the
+infinite and eternal Mind be represented by any visible manifestation?
+Can the human mind conceive an image of God? The knowledge of God, it is
+clear, can not be conveyed by any sensible sign or symbol if man has no
+prior rational idea of God as the Infinite and the Perfect Being.
+
+If the facts of order, and design, and special adaptation which crowd
+the universe, and the _a priori_ ideas of an unconditioned Cause and an
+infinite Intelligence which arise in the mind in presence of these
+facts, are inadequate to produce the logical conviction that it is the
+work of an intelligent mind, how can any preternatural display of
+_power_ produce a rational conviction that God exists? "If the universe
+could come by chance or fate, surely all the lesser phenomena, termed
+miraculous, might occur so too."[94] If we find ourselves standing amid
+an eternal series of events, may not miracles be a part of that series?
+Or if all things are the result of necessary and unchangeable laws, may
+not miracles also result from some natural or psychological law of which
+we are yet in ignorance? Let it be granted that man is _not_ so
+constituted that, by the necessary laws of his intelligence, he must
+affirm that facts of order having a commencement in time prove mind; let
+it be granted that man has _no_ intuitive belief in the Infinite and
+Perfect--in short, no idea of God; how, then, could a marvellous display
+of _power_, a new, peculiar, and startling phenomenon which even seemed
+to transcend nature, prove to him the existence of an infinite
+_intelligence_--a personal God? The proof would be simply inadequate,
+because not the right kind of proof. Power does not indicate
+intelligence, force does not imply personality.
+
+[Footnote 94: Morell, "Hist. of Philos." p. 737.]
+
+Miracles, in short, were never intended to prove the existence of God.
+The foundation of this truth had already been laid in the constitution
+and laws of the human mind, and miracles were designed to convince us
+that He of whose existence we had a prior certainty, spoke to us by His
+Messenger, and in this way attested his credentials. To the man who has
+a rational belief in the existence of God this evidence of a divine
+mission is at once appropriate and conclusive. "Master, we know thou art
+a teacher sent from God; for no man can do the works which thou doest,
+except God be with him." The Christian missionary does not commence his
+instruction to the heathen, who have an imperfect, or even erroneous
+conception of "the Great Spirit," by narrating the miracles of Christ,
+or quoting the testimony of the Divine Book he carries along with him.
+He points to the heavens and the earth, and says, "There is a Being who
+made all these things, and Jehovah is his name; I have come to you with
+a message from Him!" Or he need scarce do even so much; for already the
+heathen, in view of the order and beauty which pervades the universe,
+has been constrained, by the laws of his own intelligence, to believe in
+and offer worship to the "Agnostos Theos"--the unseen and
+incomprehensible God; and pointing to their altars, he may announce with
+Paul, "this God _whom ye worship_, though ignorantly, him declare I unto
+you!"
+
+The results of our study of the various hypotheses which have been
+offered in explanation of the religious phenomena of the world may be
+summed up as follows: The first and second theories we have rejected as
+utterly false. Instead of being faithful to and adequately explaining
+the facts, they pervert, and maltreat, and distort the facts of
+religious history. The last three each contain a precious element of
+truth which must not be undervalued, and which can not be omitted in an
+explanation which can be pronounced complete. Each theory, taken by
+itself, is incomplete and inadequate. The third hypothesis overrates
+_feeling_; the fourth, _reason_; the fifth, _verbal instruction_. The
+first extreme is Mysticism, the second is Rationalism, the last is
+Dogmatism. Reason, feeling, and faith in testimony must be combined, and
+mutually condition each other. No purely rationalistic hypothesis will
+meet and satisfy the wants and yearnings of the heart. No theory based
+on feeling alone can satisfy the demands of the human intellect. And,
+finally, an hypothesis which bases all religion upon historical
+testimony and outward fact, and despises and tramples upon the
+intuitions of the reason and the instincts of the heart can never
+command the general faith of mankind. Religion embraces and
+conditionates the whole sphere of life--thought, feeling, faith, and
+action; it must therefore be grounded in the entire spiritual nature of
+man.
+
+Our criticism of opposite theories has thus prepared the way for, and
+obviated the necessity of an extended discussion of the hypothesis we
+now advance.
+
+_The universal phenomenon of religion has originated in the a priori
+apperceptions of reason, and the natural instinctive feelings of the
+heart, which, from age to age, have been vitalized, unfolded, and
+perfected by supernatural communications and testamentary revelations_.
+
+There are universal facts of religious history which can only be
+explained on the first principle of this hypothesis; there are special
+facts which can only be explained on the latter principle. The universal
+prevalence of the idea of God, and the feeling of obligation to obey and
+worship God, belong to the first order of facts; the general prevalence
+of expiatory sacrifices, of the rite of circumcision, and the observance
+of sacred and holy days, belong to the latter. To the last class of
+facts the observance of the Christian Sabbath, and the rites of Baptism
+and the Lord's Supper may be added.
+
+The history of all religions clearly attests that there are two orders
+of principles--the _natural_ and the _positive_, and, in some measure,
+two authorities of religious life which are intimately related without
+negativing each other. The characteristic of the natural is that it is
+_intrinsic_, of the positive, that it is _extrinsic_. In all ages men
+have sought the authority of the positive in that which is immediately
+_beyond_ and above man--in some "voice of the Divinity" toning down the
+stream of ages, or speaking through a prophet or oracle, or written in
+some inspired and sacred book. They have sought for the authority of the
+natural in that which is immediately _within_ man--the voice of the
+Divinity speaking in the conscience and heart of man. A careful study of
+the history of religion will show a reciprocal relation between the two,
+and indicate their common source.
+
+We expect to find that our hypothesis will be abundantly sustained by
+the study of the _Religion of the Athenians_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE RELIGION OF THE ATHENIANS.
+
+
+"All things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness in religion
+(deisidaimonesterous). For as I passed through your city, and beheld the
+objects of your worship, I found amongst them an altar with this
+inscription--'TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.' Whom therefore ye worship...."--ST.
+PAUL.
+
+Through one of those remarkable counter-strokes of Divine Providence by
+which the evil designs of men are overruled, and made to subserve the
+purposes of God, the Apostle Paul was brought to Athens. He walked
+beneath its stately porticoes, he entered its solemn temples, he stood
+before its glorious statuary, he viewed its beautiful altars--all
+devoted to pagan worship. And "his spirit was stirred within him," he
+was moved with indignation "when he saw the city full of images of the
+gods."[95] At the very entrance of the city he met the evidence of this
+peculiar tendency of the Athenians to multiply the objects of their
+devotion; for here at the gateway stands an image of Neptune, seated on
+horseback, and brandishing the trident. Passing through the gate, his
+attention would be immediately arrested by the sculptured forms of
+Minerva, Jupiter, Apollo, Mercury, and the Muses, standing near a
+sanctuary of Bacchus. A long street is now before him, with temples,
+statues, and altars crowded on either hand. Walking to the end of this
+street, and turning to the right, he entered the Agora, a public square
+surrounded with porticoes and temples, which were adorned with statuary
+and paintings in honor of the gods of Grecian mythology. Amid the
+plane-trees planted by the hand of Cimon are the statues of the deified
+heroes of Athens, Hercules and Theseus, and the whole series of the
+Eponymi, together with the memorials of the older divinities; Mercuries
+which gave the name to the streets on which they were placed; statues
+dedicated to Apollo as patron of the city and her deliverer from the
+plague; and in the centre of all the altar of the Twelve Gods.
+
+[Footnote 95: Lange's Commentary, Acts xvii. 16.]
+
+Standing in the market-place, and looking up to the Areopagus, Paul
+would see the temple of Mars, from whom the hill derived its name. And
+turning toward the Acropolis, he would behold, closing the long
+perspective, a series of little sanctuaries on the very ledges of the
+rocks, shrines of Bacchus and AEsculapius, Venus, Earth, and Ceres,
+ending with the lovely form of the Temple of Unwinged Victory, which
+glittered in front of the Propylaea.
+
+If the apostle entered the "fivefold gates," and ascended the flight of
+stone steps to the platform of the Acropolis, he would find the whole
+area one grand composition of architecture and statuary dedicated to the
+worship of the gods. Here stood the Parthenon, the Virgin House, the
+glorious temple which was erected during the proudest days of Athenian
+glory, an entire offering to Minerva, the tutelary divinity of Athens.
+Within was the colossal statue of the goddess wrought in ivory and gold.
+Outside the temple there stood another statue of Minerva, cast from the
+brazen spoils of Marathon; and near by yet another brazen Pallas, which
+was called by pre-eminence "the Beautiful."
+
+Indeed, to whatever part of Athens the apostle wandered, he would meet
+the evidences of their "carefulness in religion," for every public place
+and every public building was a sanctuary of some god. The Metroum, or
+record-house, was a temple to the mother of the gods. The council-house
+held statues of Apollo and Jupiter, with an altar to Vesta. The theatre
+at the base of the Acropolis was consecrated to Bacchus. The Pnyx was
+dedicated to Jupiter on high. And as if, in this direction, the Attic
+imagination knew no bounds, abstractions were deified; altars were
+erected to Fame, to Energy, to Modesty, and even to Pity, and these
+abstractions were honored and worshipped as gods.
+
+The impression made upon the mind of Paul was, that the city was
+literally "full of idols," or images of the gods. This impression is
+sustained by the testimony of numerous Greek and Roman writers.
+Pausanias declares that Athens "had more images than all the rest of
+Greece;" and Petronius, the Roman satirist, says, "it was easier to find
+a god in Athens than a man."[96]
+
+[Footnote 96: See Conybeare and Howson's "Life and Epistles of St.
+Paul;" also, art. "Athens," in _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, whence our
+account of the "sacred objects" in Athens is chiefly gathered.]
+
+No wonder, then, that as Paul wandered amid these scenes "his spirit was
+stirred in him." He burned with holy zeal to maintain the honor of the
+true and only God, whom now he saw dishonored on every side. He was
+filled with compassion for those Athenians who, notwithstanding their
+intellectual greatness, had changed the glory of God into an image made
+in the likeness of corruptible man, and who really worshipped the
+creature _more_ than the Creator. The images intended to symbolize the
+invisible perfections of God were usurping the place of God, and
+receiving the worship due alone to him. We may presume the apostle was
+not insensible to the beauties of Grecian art. The sublime architecture
+of the Propylaea and the Parthenon, the magnificent sculpture of Phidias
+and Praxiteles, could not fail to excite his wonder. But he remembered
+that those superb temples and this glorious statuary were the creation
+of the pagan spirit, and devoted to polytheistic worship. The glory of
+the supreme God was obscured by all this symbolism. The creatures formed
+by God, the symbols of his power and presence in nature, the ministers
+of his providence and moral government, were receiving the honor due to
+him. Over all this scene of material beauty and aesthetic perfection
+there rose in dark and hideous proportions the errors and delusions and
+sins against the living God which Polytheism nurtured, and unable any
+longer to restrain himself, he commenced to "reason" with the crowds of
+Athenians who stood beneath the shadows of the plane-trees, or lounged
+beneath the porticoes that surrounded the Agora. Among these groups of
+idlers were mingled the disciples of Zeno and Epicurus, who
+"encountered" Paul. The nature of these "disputations" may be easily
+conjectured, The opinions of these philosophers are even now familiarly
+known: they are, in one form or another, current in the literature of
+modern times. Materialism and Pantheism still "encounter" Christianity.
+The apostle asserted the personal being and spirituality of one supreme
+and only God, who has in divers ways revealed himself to man, and
+therefore may be "known." He proclaimed that Jesus is the fullest and
+most perfect revelation of God--the _only_ "manifestation of God in the
+flesh." He pointed to his "resurrection" as the proof of his superhuman
+character and mission to the world. Some of his hearers were disposed to
+treat him with contempt; they represented him as an ignorant "babbler,"
+who had picked up a few scraps of learning, and who now sought to palm
+them off as a "new" philosophy. But most of them regarded him with that
+peculiar Attic curiosity which was always anxious to be hearing some
+"new thing." So they led him away from the tumult of the market-place to
+the top of Mars' Hill, where, in its serene atmosphere, they might hear
+him more carefully, and said, "May we hear what this new doctrine is
+whereof thou speakest?"
+
+Surrounded by these men of thoughtful, philosophic mind--men who had
+deeply pondered the great problem of existence, who had earnestly
+inquired after the "first principles of things;" men who had reasoned
+high of creation, fate, and providence; of right and wrong; of
+conscience, law, and retribution; and had formed strong and decided
+opinions on all these questions--he delivered his discourse on the
+_being_, the _providence_, the _spirituality_, and the _moral
+government_ of God.
+
+This grand theme was suggested by an inscription he had observed on one
+of the altars of the city, which was dedicated "To the Unknown God." "Ye
+men of Athens! every thing which I behold bears witness to your
+_carefulness in religion_. For as I passed by and beheld your sacred
+objects I found an altar with this inscription, 'To the Unknown God;'
+whom, therefore, ye worship, though ye know him not [adequately], Him
+declare I unto you." Starting from this point, the manifest carefulness
+of the Athenians in religion, and accepting this inscription as the
+evidence that they had some presentiment, some native intuition, some
+dim conception of the one true and living God, he strives to lead them
+to a deeper knowledge of Him. It is here conceded by the apostle that
+the Athenians were a _religious people_. The observations he had made
+during his short stay in Athens enabled him to bear witness that the
+Athenians were "a God-fearing people,"[97] and he felt that fairness and
+candor demanded that this trait should receive from him an ample
+recognition and a full acknowledgment. Accordingly he commences by
+saying in gentle terms, well fitted to conciliate his audience, "All
+things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness in religion." I
+recognize you as most devout; ye appear to me to be a God-fearing
+people,[98] for as I passed by and beheld your sacred objects I found an
+altar with this inscription, "To the Unknown God," whom therefore ye
+worship.
+
+[Footnote 97: Lange's Commentary, _in loco_.]
+
+[Footnote 98: "Os before deisid.--so imports. I recognize you as
+such."--Lange's Commentary.]
+
+The assertion that the Athenians were "a religious people" will, to many
+of our readers, appear a strange and startling utterance, which has in
+it more of novelty than truth. Nay, some will be shocked to hear the
+Apostle Paul described as complimenting these Athenians--these pagan
+worshippers--on their "carefulness in religion." We have been so long
+accustomed to use the word "heathen" as an opprobrious
+epithet--expressing, indeed, the utmost extremes of ignorance, and
+barbarism, and cruelty, that it has become difficult for us to believe
+that in a heathen there can be any good.
+
+From our childhood we have read in our English Bibles, Ye men of Athens,
+I perceive in all things ye are _too superstitious_ and we can scarcely
+tolerate another version, even if it can be shown that it approaches
+nearer to the actual language employed by Paul. We must, therefore, ask
+the patience and candor of the reader, while we endeavor to show, on the
+authority of Paul's words, that the Athenians were a "religious people,"
+and that all our notions to the contrary are founded on prejudice and
+misapprehension.
+
+First, then, let us commence even with our English version: "Ye men of
+Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are _too superstitious_." And
+what now is the meaning of the word "superstition?" It is true, we now
+use it only in an evil sense, to express a belief in the agency of
+invisible, capricious, malignant powers, which fills the mind with fear
+and terror, and sees in every unexplained phenomenon of nature an omen,
+or prognostic, of some future evil. But this is not its proper and
+original meaning. Superstition is from the Latin _superstitio_, which
+means a superabundance of religion,[99] an extreme exactitude in
+religious observance. And this is precisely the sense in which the
+corresponding Greek term is used by the Apostle Paul. Deisidaimonia
+properly means "reverence for the gods." "It is used," says Barnes, "in
+the classic writers, in a good sense, to denote piety towards the gods,
+or suitable fear and reverence for them." "The word," says Lechler, "is,
+without doubt, to be understood here in a good sense; although it seems
+to have been intentionally chosen, in order to indicate the conception
+of _fear_(deido), which predominated in the religion of the apostle's
+hearers."[100] This reading is sustained by the ablest critics and
+scholars of modern times. Bengel reads the sentence, "I perceive that ye
+are _very religious_"[101] Cudworth translates it thus: "Ye are every
+way _more than ordinarily religious."[102]_ Conybeare and Howson read
+the text as we have already given it, "All things which I behold bear
+witness to your _carefulness in religion_."[103] Lechler reads "very
+devout;"[104] Alford, "carrying your _religious reverence very
+far_;"[105] and Albert Barnes,[106] "I perceive ye are greatly devoted
+to _reverence for religion_."[107] Whoever, therefore, will give
+attention to the actual words of the apostle, and search for their real
+meaning, must be convinced he opens his address by complimenting the
+Athenians on their being more than ordinarily religious.
+
+[Footnote 99: Nitzsch, "System of Christ. Doctrine," p. 33.]
+
+[Footnote 100: Lange's Commentary, _in loco_.]
+
+[Footnote 101: "Gnomon of the New Testament."]
+
+[Footnote 102: "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 626.]
+
+[Footnote 103: "Life and Epistles of St. Paul," vol. i. p. 378.]
+
+[Footnote 104: Lange's Commentary.]
+
+[Footnote 105: Greek Test.]
+
+[Footnote 106: Notes on Acts.]
+
+[Footnote 107: Also Clarke's Comment., _in loco_.]
+
+Nor are we for a moment to suppose the apostle is here dealing in hollow
+compliments, or having recourse to a "pious fraud." Such a course would
+have been altogether out of character with Paul, and to suppose him
+capable of pursuing such a course is to do him great injustice. If "to
+the Jews he became as a Jew," it was because he recognized in Judaism
+the same fundamental truths which underlie the Christian system. And if
+here he seems to become, in any sense, at one with "heathenism," that he
+might gain the heathen to the faith of Christ, it was because he found
+in heathenism some elements of truth akin to Christianity, and a state
+of feeling favorable to an inquiry into the truths he had to present. He
+beheld in Athens an altar reared to the God _he_ worshipped, and it
+afforded him some pleasure to find that God was not totally forgotten,
+and his worship totally neglected, by the Athenians. The God whom they
+knew imperfectly, "_Him_" said he, "I declare unto you;" I now desire to
+make him more fully known. The worship of "the Unknown God" was a
+recognition of the being of a God whose nature transcends all human
+thought, a God who is ineffable; who, as Plato said, "is hard to be
+discovered, and having discovered him, to make him known to all,
+impossible."[108] It is the confession of a _want_ of knowledge, the
+expression of a _desire_ to know, the acknowledgment of the _duty_ of
+worshipping him. Underlying all the forms of idol-worship the eye of
+Paul recognized an influential Theism. Deep down in the pagan heart he
+discovered a "feeling after God"--a yearning for a deeper knowledge of
+the "unknown," the invisible, the incomprehensible, which he could not
+despise or disregard. The mysterious _sentiments_ of fear, of reverence,
+of conscious dependence on a supernatural power and presence
+overshadowing man, which were expressed in the symbolism of the "sacred
+objects" which Paul saw everywhere in Athens, commanded his respect. And
+he alludes to their "devotions," not in the language of reproach or
+censure, but as furnishing to his own mind the evidence of the strength
+of their _religious instincts_, and the proof of the existence in their
+hearts of that _native apprehension_ of the supernatural, the divine,
+which dwells alike in all human souls.
+
+[Footnote 108: Timaeus, ch. ix.]
+
+The case of the Athenians has, therefore, a peculiar interest to every
+thoughtful mind. It confirms the belief that religion is a necessity to
+every human mind, a want of every human heart.[109] Without religion,
+the nature of man can never be properly developed; the noblest part of
+man--the divine, the spiritual element which dwells in man, as "the
+offspring of God"--must remain utterly dwarfed. The spirit, the personal
+being, the rational nature, is religious, and Atheism is the vain and
+the wicked attempt to be something less than man. If the spiritual
+nature of man has its normal and healthy development, he must become a
+worshipper. This is attested by the universal history of man. We look
+down the long-drawn aisles of antiquity, and everywhere we behold the
+smoking altar, the ascending incense, the prostrate form, the attitude
+of devotion. Athens, with her four thousand deities--Rome, with her
+crowded Pantheon of gods--Egypt, with her degrading
+superstitions--Hindostan, with her horrid and revolting rites--all
+attest that the religious principle is deeply seated in the nature of
+man. And we are sure religion can never be robbed of her supremacy, she
+can never be dethroned in the hearts of men. It were easier to satisfy
+the cravings of hunger by logical syllogisms, than to satisfy the
+yearnings of the human heart without religion. The attempt of Xerxes to
+bind the rushing floods of the Hellespont in chains was not more futile
+nor more impotent than the attempt of skepticism to repress the
+universal tendency to worship, so peculiar and so natural to man in
+every age and clime.
+
+[Footnote 109: The indispensable necessity for a religion of some kind
+to satisfy the emotional nature of man is tacitly confessed by the
+atheist Comte in the publication of his "Catechism of Positive
+Religion."]
+
+The unwillingness of many to recognize a religious element in the
+Athenian mind is further accounted for by their misconception of the
+meaning of the word "religion." We are all too much accustomed to regard
+religion as a mere system of dogmatic teaching. We use the terms
+"Christian religion," "Jewish religion," "Mohammedan religion," as
+comprehending simply the characteristic doctrines by which each is
+distinguished; whereas religion is a mode of thought, and feeling, and
+action, determined by the consciousness of our relation to and our
+dependence upon God. It does not appropriate to itself any specific
+department of our mental powers and susceptibilities, but it conditions
+the entire functions and circle of our spiritual life. It is not simply
+a mode of conceiving God in thought, nor simply a mode of venerating God
+in the affections, nor yet simply a mode of worshipping God in outward
+and formal acts, but it comprehends the whole. Religion (_religere_,
+respect, awe, reverence) regulates our thoughts, feelings, and acts
+towards God. "It is a reference and a relationship of our finite
+consciousness to the Creator and Sustainer and Governor of the
+universe." It is such a consciousness of the Divine as shall awaken in
+the heart of man the sentiments of reverence, fear, and gratitude
+towards God; such a sense of dependence as shall prompt man to pray, and
+lead him to perform external acts of worship.
+
+Religion does not, therefore, consist exclusively in knowledge, however
+correct; and yet it must be preceded and accompanied by some intuitive
+cognition of a Supreme Being, and some conception of him as a free moral
+personality. But the religious sentiments, which belong rather to the
+heart than to the understanding of man--the consciousness of dependence,
+the sense of obligation, the feeling of reverence, the instinct to pray,
+the appetency to worship--these may all exist and be largely developed
+in a human mind even when, as in the case of the Athenians, there is a
+very imperfect knowledge of the real character of God.
+
+Regarding this, then, as the generic conception of religion, namely,
+_that it is a mode of thought and feeling and action determined by our
+consciousness of dependence on a Supreme Being_, we claim that the
+apostle was perfectly right in complimenting the Athenians on their
+"more than ordinary religiousness," for,
+
+1. They had, in some degree at least, that faith in the being and
+providence of God which precedes and accompanies all religion.
+
+They had erected an altar to the unseen, the unsearchable, the
+incomprehensible, the unknown God. And this "unknown God" whom the
+Athenians "worshipped" was the true God, the God whom Paul worshipped,
+and whom he desired more fully to reveal to them; "_Him_ declare I unto
+you." The Athenians had, therefore, some knowledge of the true God, some
+dim recognition, at least, of his being, and some conception, however
+imperfect, of his character. The Deity to whom the Athenians reared this
+altar is called "the unknown God," because he is unseen by all human
+eyes and incomprehensible to human thought. There is a sense in which to
+Paul, as well as to the Athenians--to the Christian as well as to the
+pagan--to the philosopher as well as to the peasant--God is "_the
+unknown_," and in which he must forever remain the incomprehensible.
+This has been confessed by all thoughtful minds in every age. It was
+confessed by Plato. To his mind God is "the ineffable," the unspeakable.
+Zophar, the friend of Job, asks, "Canst thou by searching find out God?
+Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?" This knowledge is "high
+as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?"
+Does not Wesley teach us to sing,
+
+                 "Hail, Father, whose creating call
+                    Unnumbered worlds attend;
+                  Jehovah, comprehending all,
+                    Whom none can comprehend?"
+
+To his mind, as well as to the mind of the Athenian, God was "the great
+unseen, unknown." "Beyond the universe and man," says Cousin, "there
+remains in God something unknown, impenetrable, incomprehensible. Hence,
+in the immeasurable spaces of the universe, and beneath all the
+profundities of the human soul, God escapes us in this inexhaustible
+infinitude, whence he is able to draw without limit new worlds, new
+beings, new manifestations. God is therefore to us
+_incomprehensible_."[110] And without making ourselves in the least
+responsible for Hamilton's "negative" doctrine of the Infinite, or even
+responsible for the full import of his words, we may quote his
+remarkable utterances on this subject: "The Divinity is in part
+concealed and in part revealed. He is at once known and unknown. But the
+last and highest consecration of all true religion must be an altar 'to
+the unknown God.' In this consummation nature and religion, Paganism and
+Christianity, are at one."[111]
+
+[Footnote 110: "Lectures," vol. i. p. 104.]
+
+[Footnote 111: "Discussions on Philosophy," p. 23.]
+
+When, therefore, the apostle affirms that while the Athenians worshipped
+the God whom he proclaimed they "knew him not," we can not understand
+him as saying they were destitute of all faith in the being of God, and
+of all ideas of his real character. Because for him to have asserted
+they had _no_ knowledge of God would not only have been contrary to all
+the facts of the case, but also an utter contradiction of all his
+settled convictions and his recorded opinions. There is not in modern
+times a more earnest asserter of the doctrine that the human mind has an
+intuitive cognition of God, and that the external world reveals God to
+man. There is a passage in his letter to the Romans which is justly
+entitled to stand at the head of all discourses on "natural theology,"
+Rom. i. 19-21. Speaking of the heathen world, who had not been favored,
+as the Jews, with a verbal revelation, he says, "That which may be known
+of God is manifest _in_ them," that is, in the constitution and laws of
+their spiritual nature, "for God hath showed it unto them" in the voice
+of reason and of conscience, so that in the instincts of our hearts, in
+the elements of our moral nature, in the ideas and laws of our reason,
+we are taught the being of a God. These are the subjective teachings of
+the human soul.
+
+Not only is the being of God revealed to man in the constitution and
+laws of his rational and moral nature, but God is also manifested to us
+objectively in the realm of things around us; therefore Paul adds, "The
+invisible things of him, even his eternal power and Godhead, from the
+creation are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are
+made." The world of sense, therefore, discloses the being and
+perfections of God. The invisible attributes of God are made apparent by
+the things that are visible. Forth out of nature, as the product of the
+Divine Mind, the supernatural shines. The forces, laws, and harmonies of
+the universe are indices of the presence of a presiding and informing
+Intelligence. The creation itself is an example of God's coming forth
+out of the mysterious depths of his own eternal and invisible being, and
+making himself apparent to man. There, on the pages of the volume of
+nature, we may read, in the marvellous language of symbol, the grand
+conceptions, the glorious thoughts, the ideals of beauty which dwell in
+the uncreated Mind, These two sources of knowledge--the subjective
+teachings of God in the human soul, and the objective manifestations of
+God in the visible universe--harmonize, and, together, fill up the
+complement of our natural idea of God. They are two hemispheres of
+thought, which together form one full-orbed fountain of light, and ought
+never to be separated in our philosophy. And, inasmuch as this divine
+light shines on all human minds, and these works of God are seen by all
+human eyes, the apostle argues that the heathen world "is without
+excuse, because, knowing God (gnontes ton Theon) they did not glorify
+him as God, neither were thankful; but in their reasonings they went
+astray after vanities, and their hearts, being void of wisdom, were
+filled with darkness. Calling themselves wise, they were turned into
+fools, and changed the glory of the imperishable God for idols graven in
+the likeness of perishable man, or of birds, and beasts, and creeping
+things,...and they bartered the truth of God for lies, and reverenced
+and worshipped the things made rather than the Maker, who is blessed
+forever. Amen."[112]
+
+[Footnote 112: Rom. i. 21-25, Conybeare and Howson's translation.]
+
+The brief and elliptical report of Paul's address on Mars' Hill must
+therefore, in all fairness, be interpreted in the light of his more
+carefully elaborated statements in the Epistle to the Romans. And when
+Paul intimates that the Athenians "knew not God," we can not understand
+him as saying they had _no_ knowledge, but that their knowledge was
+imperfect. They did not know God as Creator, Father, and Ruler; above
+all, they did not know him as a pardoning God and a sanctifying Spirit.
+They had not that knowledge of God which purifies the heart, and changes
+the character, and gives its possessor eternal life.
+
+The apostle clearly and unequivocally recognizes this truth, that the
+idea of God is connatural to the human mind; that in fact there is not
+to be found a race of men upon the face of the globe utterly destitute
+of some idea of a Supreme Being. Wherever human reason has had its
+normal and healthful development, it has spontaneously and necessarily
+led the human mind to the recognition of a God. The Athenians were no
+exception to this general law. They believed in the existence of one
+supreme and eternal Mind, invisible, incomprehensible, infeffable--"the
+unknown God."
+
+2. The Athenians had also that consciousness of dependence upon God
+which is the foundation of all the primary religious emotions.
+
+When the apostle affirmed that "in God we live, and move, and have our
+being," he uttered the sentiments of many, if not all, of his hearers,
+and in support of that affirmation he could quote the words of their own
+poets, for we are also his offspring; [113] and, as his offspring, we
+have a derived and a dependent being. Indeed, this consciousness of
+dependence is analogous to the feeling which is awakened in the heart of
+a child when its parent is first manifested to its opening mind as the
+giver of those things which it immediately needs, as its continual
+protector, and as the preserver of its life. The moment a man becomes
+conscious of his own personality, that moment he becomes conscious of
+some relation to another personality, to which he is subject, and on
+which he depends.[114]
+
+[Footnote 113:
+
+           "Jove's presence fills all space, upholds this ball;
+            All need his aid; his power sustains us all,
+              _For we his offspring are_."
+                            Aratus, "The Phaenomena," book v. p. 5.
+
+Aratus was a poet of Cilicia, Paul's native province. He flourished B.C.
+277.
+
+       "Great and divine Father, whose names are many,
+        But who art one and the same unchangeable, almighty power;
+        O thou supreme Author of nature!
+        That governest by a single unerring law!
+                      Hail King!
+        For thou art able, to enforce obedience from all frail mortals,
+        _Because we are all thine offspring,_
+        The image and the echo only of thy eternal voice."
+                                        Cleanthes, "Hymn to Jupiter."
+
+Cleanthes was the pupil of Zeno, and his successor as chief of the Stoic
+philosophers.]
+
+[Footnote 114: "As soon as a man becomes conscious of himself, as soon
+as he perceives himself as distinct from other persons and things, he at
+the same moment becomes conscious of a higher self, a higher power,
+without which he feels that neither he nor any thing else would have any
+life or reality. We are so fashioned that as soon as we awake we feel on
+all sides our dependence on something else; and all nations join in some
+way or another in the words of the Psalmist, 'It is He that made us, not
+we ourselves.' This is the first _sense_ of the Godhead, the _sensus
+numinis_, as it has well been called; for it is a _sensus_, an immediate
+perception, not the result of reasoning or generalization, but an
+intuition as irresistible as the impressions of our senses.... This
+_sensus numinis_, or, as we may call it in more homely language,
+_faith_, is the source of all religion; it is that without which no
+religion, whether true or false, is possible."--Max Mueller, "Science of
+Language," Second Series, p. 455.]
+
+A little reflection will convince us that this is the necessary order in
+which human consciousness is developed.
+
+There are at least two fundamental and radical tendencies in human
+personality, namely, to _know_ and to _act_. If we would conceive of
+them as they exist in the innermost sphere of selfhood, we must
+distinguish the first as _self-consciousness_, and the second as
+_self-determination_. These are unquestionably the two factors of human
+personality.
+
+If we consider the first of these factors more closely, we shall
+discover that self-consciousness exists under limitations and
+conditions. Man can not become clearly conscious of _self_ without
+distinguishing himself from the outer world of sensation, nor without
+distinguishing self and the world from another being upon whom they
+depend as the ultimate substance and cause. Mere _coenoeesthesis_ is not
+consciousness. Common feeling is unquestionably found among the lowest
+forms of animal life, the protozoa; but it can never rise to a clear
+consciousness of personality until it can distinguish itself from
+sensation, and acquire a presentiment of a divine power, on which self
+and the outer world depend. The _Ego_ does not exist for itself, can not
+perceive itself, but by distinguishing itself from the ceaseless flow
+and change of sensation, and by this act of distinguishing, the _Ego_
+takes place in consciousness. And the _Ego_ can not perceive itself, nor
+cognize sensation as a state or affection of the _Ego_ except by the
+intervention of the reason, which supplies the two great fundamental
+laws of causality and substance. The facts of consciousness thus
+comprehend three elements--self, nature, and God. The determinate being,
+the _Ego_, is never an absolutely independent being, but is always in
+some way or other codetermined by another; it can not, therefore, be an
+absolutely original and independent, but must in some way or another be
+a _derived_ and _conditioned_ existence.
+
+Now that which limits and conditions human self-consciousness can not be
+mere _nature_, because nature can not give what it does not possess; it
+can not produce what is _toto genere_ different from itself.
+Self-consciousness can not arise out of unconsciousness. This new
+beginning is beyond the power of nature. Personal power, the creative
+principle of all new beginnings, is alone adequate to its production.
+If, then, self-consciousness exists in man, it necessarily presupposes
+an absolutely _original_, therefore _unconditioned, self-consciousness_.
+Human self-consciousness, in its temporal actualization, of course
+presupposes a nature-basis upon which it elevates itself; but it is only
+possible on the ground that an eternal self-conscious Mind ordained and
+rules over all the processes of nature, and implants the divine spark of
+the personal spirit with the corporeal frame, to realize itself in the
+light-flame of human self-consciousness. The original light of the
+divine self-consciousness is eternally and absolutely first and before
+all. "Thus, in the depths of our own self-consciousness, as its
+concealed background, the God-consciousness reveals itself to us. This
+descent into our inmost being is at the same time an ascent to God.
+Every deep reflection on ourselves breaks through the mere crust of
+world-consciousness, which separates us from the inmost truth of our
+existence, and leads us up to Him in whom we live and move and
+are."[115]
+
+[Footnote 115: Mueller, "Christian Doctrine of Sin," vol. i. p. 81.]
+
+Self-determination, equally with self-consciousness, exists in us under
+manifold _limitations_. Self-determination is limited by physical,
+corporeal, and mental conditions, so that there is "an impassable
+boundary line drawn around the area of volitional freedom." But the most
+fundamental and original limitation is that of _duty_. The
+self-determining power of man is not only circumscribed by necessary
+conditions, but also by the _moral law_ in the consciousness of man.
+Self-determination alone does not suffice for the full conception of
+responsible freedom; it only becomes, _will_, properly by its being an
+intelligent and conscious determination; that is, the rational subject
+is able previously to recognize "the right," and present before his mind
+that which he _ought_ to do, that which he is morally bound to realize
+and actualize by his own self-determination and choice. Accordingly we
+find in our inmost being a _sense of obligation_ to obey the moral law
+as revealed in the conscience. As we can not become conscious of self
+without also becoming conscious of God, so we can not become properly
+conscious of self-determination until we have recognized in the
+conscience a law for the movements of the will.
+
+Now this moral law, as revealed in the conscience, is not a mere
+autonomy--a simple subjective law having no relation to a personal
+lawgiver out of and above man. Every admonition of conscience directly
+excites the consciousness of a God to whom man is accountable. The
+universal consciousness of our race, as revealed in history, has always
+associated the phenomena of conscience with the idea of a personal Power
+above man, to whom he is subject and upon whom he depends. In every age,
+the voice of conscience has been regarded as the voice of God, so that
+when it has filled man with guilty apprehensions, he has had recourse to
+sacrifices, and penances, and prayers to expatiate his wrath.
+
+It is clear, then, that if man has _duties_ there must he a
+self-conscious Will by whom these duties are imposed, for only a real
+will can be legislative. If man has a _sense of obligation_, there must
+be a supreme authority by which he is obliged. If he is _responsible_,
+there must be a being to whom he is accountable.[116] It can not be said
+that he is accountable to himself, for by that supposition the idea of
+duty is obliterated, and "right" becomes identical with mere interest or
+pleasure. It can not be said that he is simply responsible to
+society--to mere conventions of human opinions and human
+governments--for then "_right_" becomes a mere creature of human
+legislation, and "_justice_" is nothing but the arbitrary will of the
+strong who tyrannize over the weak. Might constitutes right. Against
+such hypotheses the human mind, however, instinctively revolts. Mankind
+feel, universally, that there is an authority beyond all human
+governments, and a higher law above all human laws, from whence all
+their powers are derived. That higher law is the Law of God, that
+supreme authority is the God of Justice. To this eternally just God,
+innocence, under oppression and wrong, has made its proud appeal, like
+that of Prometheus to the elements, to the witnessing clouds, to coming
+ages, and has been sustained and comforted. And to that higher law the
+weak have confidently appealed against the unrighteous enactments of the
+strong, and have finally conquered. The last and inmost ground of all
+obligation is thus the conscious relation of the moral creature to God.
+The sense of absolute dependence upon a Supreme Being compels man, even
+while conscious of subjective freedom, to recognize at the same time his
+obligation to determine himself in harmony with the will of Him "in whom
+we live, and move, and are."
+
+[Footnote 116: "The thought of God will wake up a terrible monitor whose
+name is Judge."--Kant.]
+
+This feeling of dependence, and this consequent sense of obligation, lie
+at the very foundation of all religion. They lead the mind towards God,
+and anchor it in the Divine. They prompt man to pray, and inspire him
+with an instinctive confidence in the efficacy of prayer. So that prayer
+is natural to man, and necessary to man. Never yet has the traveller
+found a people on earth without prayer. Races of men have been found
+without houses, without raiment, without arts and sciences, but never
+without prayer any more than without speech. Plutarch wrote, eighteen
+centuries ago, If you go through all the world, you may find cities
+without walls, without letters, without rulers, without money, without
+theatres, but never without temples and gods, or without _prayers_,
+oaths, prophecies, and sacrifices, used to obtain blessings and
+benefits, or to avert curses and calamities.[117] The naturalness of
+prayer is admitted even by the modern unbeliever. Gerrit Smith says,
+"Let us who believe that the religion of reason calls for the religion
+of nature, remember that the flow of prayer is just as natural as the
+flow of water; the prayerless man has become an unnatural man."[118] Is
+man in sorrow or in danger, his most natural and spontaneous refuge is
+in prayer. The suffering, bewildered, terror-stricken soul turns towards
+God. "Nature in an agony is no atheist; the soul that knows not where to
+fly, flies to God." And in the hour of deliverance and joy, a feeling of
+gratitude pervades the soul--and gratitude, too, not to some blind
+nature-force, to some unconscious and impersonal power, but gratitude to
+God. The soul's natural and appropriate language in the hour of
+deliverance is thanksgiving and praise.
+
+[Footnote 117: "Against Kalotes," ch. xxxi.]
+
+[Footnote 118: "Religion of Reason."]
+
+This universal tendency to recognize a superior Power upon whom we are
+dependent, and by whose hand our well-being and our destinies are
+absolutely controlled, has revealed itself even amid the most
+complicated forms of polytheistic worship. Amid the even and undisturbed
+flow of every-day life they might be satisfied with the worship of
+subordinate deities, but in the midst of sudden and unexpected
+calamities, and of terrible catastrophes, then they cried to the Supreme
+God.[119] "When alarmed by an earthquake," says Aulus Gellius, "the
+ancient Romans were accustomed to pray, not to some one of the gods
+individually, but to God in general, _as to the Unknown_."[120]
+
+[Footnote 119: "At critical moments, when the deepest feelings of the
+human heart are stirred, the old Greeks and Romans seem suddenly to have
+dropped all mythological ideas, and to have fallen back on the universal
+language of true religion."--Max Mueller, "Science of Language." p. 436.]
+
+[Footnote 120: Tholuck, "Nature and Influence of Heathenism," p. 23.]
+
+"Thus also Minutius Felix says, 'When they stretch out their hands to
+heaven they mention only God; and these forms of speech, _He is great_,
+and _God is true_, and _If God grant_(which are the natural language of
+the vulgar), are a plain confession of the truth of Christianity.' And
+also Lactantius testifies, 'When they swear, and when they wish, and
+when they give thanks, they name not many gods, but God only; the truth,
+by a secret force of nature, thus breaking forth from them whether they
+will or no;' and again he says, 'They fly to God; aid is desired of God;
+they pray that God would help them; and when one is reduced to extreme
+necessity, he begs for God's sake, and by his divine power alone
+implores the mercy of men.'"[121] The account which is given by Diogenes
+Laertius[122] of the erection of altars bearing the inscription "to the
+unknown God," clearly shows that they had their origin in this general
+sentiment of dependence on a higher Power. "The Athenians being
+afflicted with pestilence invited Epimenides to lustrate their city. The
+method adopted by him was to carry several sheep to the Areopagus,
+whence they were left to wander as they pleased, under the observation
+of persons sent to attend them. As each sheep lay down it was sacrificed
+to _the propitious God_. By this ceremony it is said the city was
+relieved; but as it was still unknown what deity was propitious, an
+altar was erected _to the unknown God_ on every spot where a sheep had
+been sacrificed."[123]
+
+[Footnote 121: Cudworth, vol. i. p. 300.]
+
+[Footnote 122: "Lives of Philosophers," book i., Epimenides.]
+
+[Footnote 123: See Townsend's "Chronological Arrangement of New
+Testament," note 19, part xii.; Doddridge's "Exposition;" and Barnes's
+"Notes on Acts."]
+
+"The unknown God" was their deliverer from the plague. And the erection
+of an altar to him was a confession of their absolute dependence upon
+him, of their obligation to worship him, as well as of their need of a
+deeper knowledge of him. The gods who were known and named were not able
+to deliver them in times of calamity, and they were compelled to look
+beyond the existing forms of Grecian mythology for relief. Beyond all
+the gods of the Olympus there was "one God over all," the Father of gods
+and men, the Creator of all the subordinate local deities, upon whom
+even these created gods were dependent, upon whom man was absolutely
+dependent, and therefore in times of deepest need, of severest
+suffering, of extremest peril, then they cried to the living, supreme,
+eternal God.[124]
+
+[Footnote 124: "The men and women of the Iliad and Odyssey are
+habitually religious. The language of religion is often on their
+tongues, as it is ever on the lips of every body in the East at this
+day. The thought of the gods, and of their providence and government of
+the world, is a familiar thought. They seem to have an abiding
+conviction of their _dependence_ on the gods. The results of all actions
+depend on the will of the gods; _it lies on their knees_ (Theon ev
+gounasi keitai, Od. i. 267), is the often repeated and significant
+expression of their feeling of dependence."--Tyler, "Theology of Greek
+Poets," p. 165.]
+
+3. The Athenians developed in a high degree those religious emotions
+which always accompany the consciousness of dependence on a Supreme
+Being.
+
+The first emotional element of all religion is _fear_. This is
+unquestionably true, whether religion be considered from a Christian or
+a heathen stand-point. "The _fear_ of the Lord is the beginning of
+wisdom." Associated with, perhaps preceding, all definite ideas of God,
+there exists in the human mind certain feelings of _awe_, and
+_reverence_, and _fear_ which arise spontaneously in presence of the
+vastness, and grandeur, and magnificence of the universe, and of the
+power and glory of which the created universe is but the symbol and
+shadow. There is the felt apprehension that, beyond and back of the
+visible and the tangible, there is a _personal, living Power_, which is
+the foundation of all, and which fashions all, and fills all with its
+light and life; that "the universe is the living vesture in which the
+Invisible has robed his mysterious loveliness." There is the feeling of
+an _overshadowing Presence_ which "compasseth man behind and before, and
+lays its hand upon him."
+
+This wonderful presentiment of an invisible power and presence pervading
+and informing all nature is beautifully described by Wordsworth in his
+history of the development of the Scottish herdsman's mind:
+
+     So the foundations of his mind were laid
+     In such communion, not from terror free.
+     While yet a child, and long before his time,
+     Had he perceived the presence and the power
+     Of greatness; and deep feelings had impressed
+     So vividly great objects, that they lay
+     Upon his mind like substances, whose presence
+     Perplexed the bodily sense.
+                        ... In the after-day
+     Of boyhood, many an hour in caves forlorn,
+     And 'mid the hollow depths of naked crags,
+     He sat, and even in their fixed lineaments,
+     Or from the power of a peculiar eye,
+     Or by creative feeling overborne,
+     Or by predominance of thought oppressed,
+     Even in their fixed and steady lineaments
+     He traced an ebbing and a flowing mind....
+     Such was the Boy,--but for the growing Youth,
+     What soul was his, when, from the naked top
+     Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun
+     Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He looked:
+     Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth
+     And ocean's liquid mass, in gladness lay
+     Beneath him; far and wide the clouds were touched.
+     And in their silent faces could he read
+     Unutterable love. Sound needed none,
+     Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank
+     The spectacle: sensation, soul, and form
+     All melted into him; they swallowed up
+     His animal being; in them did he live,
+     And by them did he live; they were his life,
+     In such access of mind, in such high hour
+     Of visitation from the living God.[125]
+
+But it may be said this is all mere poetry; to which we answer, in the
+words of Aristotle, "Poetry is a thing more philosophical and weightier
+than history."[126] The true poet is the interpreter of nature. His soul
+is in the fullest sympathy with the grand ideas which nature symbolizes,
+and he "deciphers the universe as the autobiography of the Infinite
+Spirit." Spontaneous feeling is a kind of inspiration.
+
+It is true that all minds may not be developed in precisely the same
+manner as Wordsworth's herdsman's, because the development of every
+individual mind is modified in some measure by exterior conditions. Men
+may contemplate nature from different points of view. Some may be
+impressed with one aspect of nature, some with another. But none will
+fail to recognize a mysterious _presence_ and invisible _power_ beneath
+all the fleeting and changeful phenomena of the universe. "And sometimes
+there are moments of tenderness, of sorrow, and of vague mystery which
+bring the feeling of the Infinite Presence close to the human
+heart."[127]
+
+[Footnote 125: "The Wanderer."]
+
+[Footnote 126: Poet, ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 127: Robertson.]
+
+Now we hold that _this feeling and sentiment of the Divine_--the
+supernatural--exists in every mind. It may be, it undoubtedly is,
+somewhat modified in its manifestations by the circumstances in which
+men are placed, and the degree of culture they have enjoyed. The African
+Fetichist, in his moral and intellectual debasement, conceives a
+supernatural power enshrined in every object of nature. The rude Fijian
+regards with dread, and even terror, the Being who darts the lightnings
+and wields the thunderbolts. The Indian "sees God in clouds, and hears
+him in the wind." The Scottish "herdsman" on the lonely mountain-top
+"feels the presence and the power of greatness," and "in its fixed and
+steady lineaments he sees an ebbing and a flowing mind." The
+philosopher[128] lifts his eyes to "the starry heavens" in all the depth
+of their concave, and with all their constellations of glory moving on
+in solemn grandeur, and, to his mind, these immeasurable regions seem
+"filled with the splendors of the Deity, and crowded with the monuments
+of his power;" or he turns his eye to "the Moral Law within," and he
+hears the voice of an intelligent and a righteous God. In all these
+cases we have a revelation of the sentiment of the Divine, which dwells
+alike in all human minds. In the Athenians this sentiment was developed
+in a high degree. The serene heaven which Greece enjoyed, and which was
+the best-loved roof of its inhabitants, the brilliant sun, the mountain
+scenery of unsurpassed grandeur, the deep blue sea, an image of the
+infinite, these poured all their fullness on the Athenian mind, and
+furnished the most favorable conditions for the development of the
+religious sentiments. The people of Athens spent most of their time in
+the open air in communion with nature, and in the cheerful and temperate
+enjoyment of existence. To recognize the Deity in the living powers of
+nature, and especially in man, as the highest sensible manifestation of
+the Divine, was the peculiar prerogative of the Grecian mind. And here
+in Athens, art also vied with nature to deepen the religious sentiments.
+It raised the mind to ideal conceptions of a beauty and a sublimity
+which transcended all mere nature-forms, and by images, of supernatural
+grandeur and loveliness presented to the Athenians symbolic
+representations of the separate attributes and operations of the
+invisible God. The plastic art of Greece was designed to express
+religious ideas, and was consecrated by religious feeling. Thus the
+facts of the case are strikingly in harmony with the words of the
+Apostle: "All things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness in
+religion," your "reverence for the Deity," your "fear of God."[129] "The
+sacred objects" in Athens, and especially "the altar to the Unknown
+God," were all regarded by Paul as evidences of their instinctive faith
+in the invisible, the supernatural, the divine.
+
+[Footnote 128: Kant, in "Critique of Practical Reason."]
+
+[Footnote 129: See Parkhurst's Lexicon, under _Deisidaimonia_, which
+Suidas explains by eulabeia peri to Theion--_reverence for the Divine_,
+and Hesychius by Phubutheia--_fear of God_. Also, Josephus, Antiq., book
+x. ch. iii, Sec. 2: "Manasseh, after his repentance and reformation, strove
+to behave himself (te deisidaimonia chrestheia) in the _most religious
+manner_ towards God." Also see A. Clarke on Acts xvii.]
+
+Along with this sentiment of the Divine there is also associated, in all
+human minds, an _instinctive yearning_ after the Invisible; not a mere
+feeling of curiosity to pierce the mystery of being and of life, but
+what Paul designates "a feeling after God," which prompts man to seek
+after a deeper knowledge, and a more immediate consciousness. To attain
+this deeper knowledge--this more conscious realization of the being and
+the presence of God, has been the effort of all philosophy and all
+religion in all ages. The Hindoo Yogis proposes to withdraw into his
+inmost self, and by a complete suspension of all his active powers to
+become absorbed and swallowed up in the Infinite.[130] Plato and his
+followers sought by an immediate abstraction to apprehend "the
+unchangeable and permanent Being," and, by a loving contemplation, to
+become "assimilated to the Deity," and in this way to attain the
+immediate consciousness of God. The Neo-Platonic mystic sought by
+asceticism and self-mortification to prepare himself for divine
+communings. He would contemplate the divine perfections in himself; and
+in an _ecstatic_ state, wherein all individuality vanishes, he would
+realize a union, or identity, with the Divine Essence.[131] While the
+universal Church of God, indeed, has in her purest days always taught
+that man may, by inward purity and a believing love, be rendered capable
+of spiritually apprehending, and consciously feeling, the presence of
+God. Some may be disposed to pronounce this as all mere mysticism. We
+answer, The living internal energy of religion is always _mystical_, it
+is grounded in _feeling_--a "_sensus numinis_" common to humanity. It is
+the mysterious sentiment of the Divine; it is the prolepsis of the human
+spirit reaching out towards the Infinite; the living susceptibility of
+our spiritual nature stretching after the powers and influences of the
+higher world. It is upon this inner instinct of the supernatural that
+all religion rests. I do not say every religious idea, but whatever is
+positive, practical, powerful, durable, and popular. Everywhere, in all
+climates, in all epochs of history, and in all degrees of civilization,
+man is animated by the sentiment--I would rather say, the
+presentiment--that the world in which he lives, the order of things in
+the midst of which he moves, the facts which regularly and constantly
+succeed each other, are not _all_. In vain he daily makes discoveries
+and conquests in this vast universe; in vain he observes and learnedly
+verifies the general laws which govern it; _his thought is not inclosed
+in the world surrendered to his science_; the spectacle of it does not
+suffice his soul, it is raised beyond it; it searches after and catches
+glimpses of something beyond it; it aspires higher both for the universe
+and itself; it aims at another destiny, another master.
+
+[Footnote 130: Vaughan, "Hours with the Mystics," vol. i. p. 44.]
+
+[Footnote 131: Id. ib., vol. i. p. 65.]
+
+      "'Par dela tous ces cieux le Dieu des cieux reside.'"[132]
+
+So Voltaire has said, and the God who is beyond the skies is not nature
+personified, but a supernatural Personality. It is to this highest
+Personality that all religions address themselves. It is to bring man
+into communion with Him that they exist.[133]
+
+[Footnote 132: "Beyond all these heavens the God of the heavens
+resides."]
+
+[Footnote 133: Guizot, "L'Eglise et la Societe Chretiennes" en 1861.]
+
+4. The Athenians had that deep consciousness of sin and guilt, and of
+consequent liability to punishment, which confesses the need of
+expiation by piacular sacrifices.
+
+Every man feels himself to be an accountable being, and he is conscious
+that in wrong-doing he is deserving of blame and of punishment. Deep
+within the soul of the transgressor is the consciousness that he is a
+guilty man, and he is haunted with the perpetual apprehension of a
+retribution which, like the spectre of evil omen, crosses his every
+path, and meets him at every turn.
+
+     "'Tis guilt alone,
+       Like brain-sick frenzy in its feverish mode,
+       Fills the light air with visionary terrors,
+       And shapeless forms of fear."
+
+Man does not possess this consciousness of guilt so much as it holds
+possession of him. It pursues the fugitive from justice, and it lays
+hold on the man who has resisted or escaped the hand of the executioner.
+The sense of guilt is a power over and above man; a power so wonderful
+that it often compels the most reckless criminal to deliver himself up,
+with the confession of his deed, to the sword of justice, when a
+falsehood would have easily protected him. Man is only able by
+persevering, ever-repeated efforts at self-induration, against the
+remonstrances of conscience, to withdraw himself from its power. His
+success is, however, but very partial; for sometimes, in the moments of
+his greatest security, the reproaches of conscience break in upon him
+like a flood, and sweep away all his refuge of lies. "The evil
+conscience is the divine bond which binds the created spirit, even in
+deep apostasy, to its Original. In the consciousness of guilt there is
+revealed the essential relation of our spirit to God, although
+misunderstood by man until he has something higher than his evil
+conscience. The trouble and anguish which the remonstrances of this
+consciousness excite--the inward unrest which sometimes seizes the slave
+of sin--are proofs that he has not quite broken away from God."[134]
+
+[Footnote 134: Mueller, "Christian Doctrine of Sin," vol. i. pp. 225,
+226.]
+
+In Grecian mythology there was a very distinct recognition of the power
+of conscience, and a reference of its authority to the Divinity,
+together with the idea of retribution. Nemesis was regarded as the
+impersonation of the upbraidings of conscience, of the natural dread of
+punishment that springs up in the human heart after the commission of
+sin. And as the feeling of remorse may be considered as the consequence
+of the displeasure and vengeance of an offended God, Nemesis came to be
+regarded as the goddess of retribution, relentlessly pursuing the guilty
+until she has driven them into irretrievable woe and ruin. The Erinyes
+or Eumenides are the deities whose business it is to punish, in hades,
+the crimes committed upon earth. When an aggravated crime has excited
+their displeasure they manifest their greatest power in the disquietude
+of conscience.
+
+Along with this deep consciousness of guilt, and this fear of
+retribution which haunts the guilty mind, there has also rested upon the
+heart of universal humanity a deep and abiding conviction that
+_something must be done to expiate the guilt of sin_--some restitution
+must be made, some suffering must be endured,[135] some sacrifice
+offered to atone for past misdeeds. Hence it is that men in all ages
+have had recourse to penances and prayers, to self-inflicted tortures
+and costly sacrifices to appease a righteous anger which their sins had
+excited, and avert an impending punishment. That sacrifice to atone for
+sin has prevailed universally--that it has been practised "_sem-per,
+ubique, et ab omnibus,_" always, in all places, and by all men--will not
+be denied by the candid and competent inquirer. The evidence which has
+been collected from ancient history by Grotius and Magee, and the
+additional evidence from contemporaneous history, which is being now
+furnished by the researches of ethnologists and Christian missionaries,
+is conclusive. No intelligent man can doubt the fact. Sacrificial
+offerings have prevailed in every nation and in every age. "Almost the
+entire worship of the pagan nations consisted in rites of deprecation.
+Fear of the Divine displeasure seems to have been the leading feature of
+their religious impressions; and in the diversity, the costliness, the
+cruelty of their sacrifices they sought to appease gods to whose wrath
+they felt themselves exposed, from a consciousness of sin, unrelieved by
+any information as to the means of escaping its effects."[136]
+
+[Footnote 135: Punishment is the penalty due to sin; or, to use the
+favorite expression of Homer, not unusual in the Scriptures also, it is
+the payment of a debt incurred by sin. When he is punished, the criminal
+is said to pay off or pay back (apotinein) his crimes; in other words,
+to expiate or atone for them (Iliad, iv. 161,162),
+
+      syn te megalo apetisan syn sphesin kephalesi gynaixi te kai
+      tekeessin.
+
+that is, they shall pay off, pay back, atone, etc., for their treachery
+with a great price, with their lives, and their wives and
+children.--Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," p. 194.]
+
+[Footnote 136: Magee, "On the Atonement," No. V. p. 30.]
+
+It must be known to every one at all acquainted with Greek mythology
+that the idea of _expiation_--atonement--was a fundamental idea of their
+religion. Independent of any historical research, a very slight glance
+at the Greek and Roman classics, especially the poets, who were the
+theologians of that age, can leave little doubt upon this head.[137]
+Their language everywhere announces the notion of _propitiation_, and,
+particularly the Latin, furnishes the terms which are still employed in
+theology. We need only mention the words ilasmos, ilaskomai, lytron,
+peripsema, as examples from the Greek, and _placare, propitiare,
+expiare, piaculum_, from the Latin. All these indicate that the notion
+of expiation was interwoven into the very modes of thought and framework
+of the language of the ancient Greeks.
+
+[Footnote 137: In Homer the doctrine is expressly taught that the gods
+may, and sometimes do, remit the penalty, when duly propitiated by
+prayers and sacrifices accompanied by suitable reparations ("Iliad," ix.
+497 sqq.). "We have a practical illustration of this doctrine in the
+first book of the Iliad, where Apollo averts the pestilence from the
+army, when the daughter of his priest is returned without ransom, and a
+_sacrifice_ (elatombe) is sent to the altar of the god at sacred
+Chrysa.... Apollo hearkens to the intercession of his priest, accepts
+the sacred hecatomb, is delighted with the accompanying songs and
+libations, and sends back the embassy with a favoring breeze, and a
+favorable answer to the army, who meanwhile had been _purifying_
+(apelymainonto) themselves, and offering unblemished hecatombs of bulls
+and goats on the shore of the sea which washes the place of their
+encampment."
+
+"The object of the propitiatory embassy to Apollo is thus stated by
+Ulysses: Agamemnon, king of men, has sent me to bring back thy daughter
+Chryses, and to offer a sacred hecatomb for (yper) the Greeks, that we
+may _propitiate_ (ilasomestha) the king, who now sends woes and many
+groans upon the Argives" (442 sqq.).--Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets,"
+pp. 196, 197.]
+
+We do not deem it needful to discuss at length the question which has
+been so earnestly debated among theologians, as to whether the idea of
+expiation be a primitive and necessary idea of the human mind, or
+whether the practice of piacular sacrifices came into the post-diluvian
+world with Noah, as a positive institution of a primitive religion then
+first directly instituted by God. On either hypothesis the practice of
+expiatory rites derives its authority from God; in the latter case, by
+an outward and verbal revelation, in the former by an inward and
+intuitive revelation.
+
+This much, however, must be conceded on all hands, that there are
+certain fundamental intuitions, universal and necessary, which underlie
+the almost universal practice of expiatory sacrifice, namely, _the
+universal consciousness of guilt, and the universal conviction that
+something must be done to expiate guilt_, to compensate for wrong, and
+to atone for past misdeeds. But _how_ that expiation can be effected,
+how that atonement can be made, is a question which reason does not seem
+competent to answer. That personal sin can be atoned for by vicarious
+suffering, that national guilt can be expiated and national punishment
+averted by animal sacrifices, or even by human sacrifices, is repugnant
+to rather than conformable with natural reason. There exists no
+discernible connection between the one and the other. We may suppose
+that eucharistic, penitential, and even deprecatory sacrifices may have
+originated in the light of nature and reason, but we are unable to
+account for the practice of piacular sacrifices for substitutional
+atonement, on the same principle. The ethical principle, that one's own
+sins are not transferable either in their guilt or punishment, is so
+obviously just that we feel it must have been as clear to the mind of
+the Greek who brought his victim to be offered to Zeus, as it is to the
+philosophic mind of to-day.[138] The knowledge that the Divine
+displeasure can be averted by sacrifice is not, by Plato, grounded upon
+any intuition of reason, as is the existence of God, the idea of the
+true, the just, and good, but on "tradition,"[139] and the
+"interpretations" of Apollo. "To the Delphian Apollo there remains the
+greatest, noblest, and most important of legal institutions--the
+erection of temples, sacrifices, and other services to the gods,... and
+what other services should be gone through with a view to their
+_propitiation_. Such things as these, indeed, _we neither know
+ourselves, nor in founding the State would we intrust them to others_,
+if we be wise;... the god of the country is the natural interpreter to
+all men about such matters."[140]
+
+[Footnote 138: "He that hath done the deed, to suffer for it--thus cries
+a proverb thrice hallowed by age."--AEschylus, "Choeph," 311.]
+
+[Footnote 139: "Laws," book vi. ch. xv.]
+
+[Footnote 140: "Republic," book iv. ch. v.]
+
+The origin of expiatory sacrifices can not, we think, be explained
+except on the principle of a primitive revelation and a positive
+appointment of God. They can not be understood except as a
+divinely-appointed symbolism, in which there is exhibited a confession
+of personal guilt and desert of punishment; an intimation and a hope
+that God will be propitious and merciful; and a typical promise and
+prophecy of a future Redeemer from sin, who shall "put away sin by the
+sacrifice of himself." This sacred rite was instituted in connection
+with the _protevangelium_ given to our first parents; it was diffused
+among the nations by tradition, and has been kept alive as a general,
+and, indeed, almost universal observance, by that deep sense of sin, and
+consciousness of guilt, and personal urgency of the need of a
+reconciliation, which are so clearly displayed in Grecian mythology.
+
+The legitimate inference we find ourselves entitled to draw from the
+words of Paul, when fairly interpreted in the light of the past
+religious history of the world, is, that the Athenians were a religious
+people; that is, _they were, however unknowing, believers in and
+worshippers of the One Supreme God_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE RELIGION OF THE ATHENIANS: ITS MYTHOLOGICAL AND SYMBOLICAL ASPECTS.
+
+
+"That there is one Supreme Deity, both philosophers and poets, and even
+the vulgar worshippers of the gods themselves frequently acknowledge;
+which because the assertors of gods well understood, they affirm these
+gods of theirs to preside over the several parts of the world, yet so
+that there is only one chief governor. Whence it follows, that all their
+other gods can be no other than ministers and officers which one
+greatest God, who is omnipotent, hath variously appointed, and
+constituted so as to serve his command."--LACTANTIUS.
+
+The conclusion reached in the previous chapter that the Athenians were
+believers in and worshippers of the One Supreme God, has been challenged
+with some considerable show of reason and force, on the ground that they
+were _Polytheists_ and _Idolaters_.
+
+An objection which presents itself so immediately on the very face of
+the sacred narrative, and which is sustained by the unanimous voice of
+history, is entitled to the fullest consideration. And as the interests
+of truth are infinitely more precious than the maintenance of any
+theory, however plausible, we are constrained to accord to this
+objection the fullest weight, and give to it the most impartial
+consideration. We can not do otherwise than at once admit that the
+Athenians were _Polytheists_--they worshipped "many gods" besides "the
+unknown God." It is equally true that they were _Idolaters_--they
+worshipped images or statues of the gods, which images were also, by an
+easy metonymy, called "gods."
+
+But surely no one supposes that this is all that can be said upon the
+subject, and that, after such admissions, the discussion must be closed.
+On the contrary, we have, as yet, scarce caught a glimpse of the real
+character and genius of Grecian polytheistic worship, and we have not
+made the first approach towards a philosophy of Grecian mythology.
+
+The assumption that the heathen regarded the images "graven by art and
+device of man" as the real creators of the world and man, or as having
+any control over the destinies of men, sinks at once under the weight of
+its own absurdity. Such hypothesis is repudiated with scorn and
+indignation by the heathens themselves. Cotta, in _Cicero_, declares
+explicitly: "though it be common and familiar language amongst us to
+call corn Ceres, and wine Bacchus, yet who can think any one so mad as
+to take that to be really a god that he feeds upon?"[141] And _Plutarch_
+condemns the whole practice of giving the names of gods and goddesses to
+inanimate objects, as absurd, impious, and atheistical: "they who give
+the names of gods to senseless matter and inanimate things, and such as
+are destroyed by men in the using, beget most wicked and atheistical
+opinions in the minds of men, since it can not be conceived how these
+things should be gods, for nothing that is inanimate is a god."[142] And
+so also the Hindoo, the Buddhist, the American Indian, the Fijian of
+to-day, repel the notion that their visible images are real gods, or
+that they worship them instead of the unseen God.
+
+[Footnote 141: Cudworth's "Intell. System," vol. ii. p. 257, Eng. ed.]
+
+[Footnote 142: Quoted in Cudworth's "Intell. System," vol. ii. p. 258,
+Eng. ed.]
+
+And furthermore, that even the invisible divinities which these images
+were designed to represent, were each independent, self-existent beings,
+and that the stories which are told concerning them by Homer and Hesiod
+were received in a literal sense, is equally improbable. The earliest
+philosophers knew as well as we know, that the Deity, in order to be
+Deity, must be either _perfect_ or nothing--that he must be _one_, not
+many--without parts and passions; and they were scandalized and shocked
+by the religious fables of the ancient mythology as much as we are.
+_Xenophanes_, who lived, as we know, before Pythagoras, accuses Homer
+and Hesiod of having ascribed to the gods every thing that is
+disgraceful amongst men, as stealing, adultery, and deceit. He remarks
+"that men seem to have created their gods, and to have given them their
+own mind, and voice, and figure." He himself declares that "God is
+_one,_ the greatest amongst gods and men, neither in form nor in thought
+like unto men." He calls the battles of the Titans and the Giants, and
+the Centaurs, "the inventions of former generations," and he demands
+that God shall be praised in holy songs and nobler strains.[143]
+Diogenes Laertius relates the following of _Pythagoras_, "that when he
+descended to the shades below, he saw the soul of Hesiod bound to a
+pillar of brass and gnashing his teeth; and that of Homer, as suspended
+on a tree, and surrounded by serpents; as a punishment for the things
+they had said of the gods."[144] These poets, who had corrupted
+theology, _Plato_ proposes to exclude from his ideal Republic; or if
+permitted at all, they must be subjected to a rigid expurgation. "We
+shall," says he, "have to repudiate a large part of those fables which
+are now in vogue; and, especially, of what I call the greater
+fables,--the stories which Hesiod and Homer tell us. In these stories
+there is a fault which deserves the gravest condemnation; namely, when
+an author gives a _bad representation of gods and heroes_. We must
+condemn such a poet, as we should condemn a painter, whose pictures bear
+no resemblance to the objects which he tries to imitate. For instance,
+the poet Hesiod related an ugly story when he told how Uranus acted, and
+how Kronos had his revenge upon him. They are offensive stories, and
+must not be repeated in our cities. Not yet is it proper to say, in any
+case,--what is indeed untrue--that gods wage war against gods, and
+intrigue and fight among themselves. Stories like the chaining of Juno
+by her son Vulcan, and the flinging of Vulcan out of heaven for trying
+to take his mother's part when his father was beating her, and all other
+battles of the gods which are found in Homer, must be refused admission
+into our state, _whether they are allegorical or not_. For a child can
+not discriminate between what is allegorical and what is not; and
+whatever is adopted, as a matter of belief, in childhood, has a tendency
+to become fixed and indelible; and therefore we ought to esteem it as of
+the greatest importance that the fables which children first hear should
+be adapted, as far as possible, to promote virtue."[145]
+
+[Footnote 143: Max Muller, "Science of Language," pp. 405, 406.]
+
+[Footnote 144: "Lives," bk. viii. ch. xix. p. 347.]
+
+[Footnote 145: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xvii.]
+
+If, then, poetic and allegorical representations of divine things are to
+be permitted in the ideal republic, then the founders of the state are
+to prescribe "the moulds in which the poets are to cast their fictions."
+
+"Now what are these moulds to be in the case of _Theology?_ They may be
+described as follows: It is right always to represent God as he really
+is, whether the poet describe him in an epic, or a lyric, or a dramatic
+poem. Now God is, beyond all else, _good in reality_, and therefore so
+to be represented. But nothing that is good is hurtful. That which is
+good hurts not; does no evil; is the cause of no evil. That which is
+good is beneficial; is the cause of good. And, therefore, that which is
+good is not the cause of _all_ which is and happens, but only of that
+which is as it should be.... The good things we must ascribe to God,
+whilst we must seek elsewhere, and not in him, the causes of evil
+things."
+
+We must, then, express our disapprobation of Homer, or any other poet,
+who is guilty of such a foolish blunder as to tell us (Iliad, xxiv. 660)
+that:
+
+     'Fast by the threshold of Jove's court are placed
+     Two casks--one stored with evil, one with good:'
+
+and that he for whom the Thunderer mingles both--
+
+     'He leads a life checkered with good and ill.'
+
+But as for the man to whom he gives the bitter cup unmixed--
+
+                                         'He walks
+     The blessed earth unbless'd, go where he will.'
+
+And if any one asserts that the violation of oaths and treaties by the
+act of Pandarus was brought about by Athene and Zeus (Iliad, ii. 60), we
+should refuse our approbation. Nor can we allow it to be said that the
+strife and trial of strength between tween the gods (Iliad, xx.) was
+instigated by Themis and Zeus.... Such language can not be used without
+irreverence; it is both injurious to us, and contradictory in
+itself.[146]
+
+Inasmuch as God is perfect to the utmost in beauty and goodness, _he
+abides ever the same_, and without any variation in his form. Then let
+no poet tell us that (Odyss. xvii. 582)
+
+                   'In similitude of strangers oft
+     The Gods, who can with ease all shapes assume,
+     Repair to populous cities.'
+
+And let no one slander Proteus and Thetis, or introduce in tragedies, or
+any other poems, Hera transformed into the guise of a princess
+collecting
+
+     'Alms for the life-giving children of Inachus, river of Argos,'
+
+not to mention many other falsehoods which we must interdict.[147]
+
+"When a poet holds such language concerning the gods, we shall be angry
+with him, and refuse him a chorus. Neither shall we allow our teachers
+to use his writings for the instruction of the young, if we would have
+our guards grow up to be as god-like and god-fearing as it is possible
+for men to be."[148]
+
+We are thus constrained by the statements of the heathens themselves, as
+well as by the dictates of common sense, to look beyond the external
+drapery and the material forms of Polytheism for some deeper and truer
+meaning that shall be more in harmony with the facts of the universal
+religious consciousness of our race. The religion of ancient Greece
+consisted in something more than the fables of Jupiter and Juno, of
+Apollo and Minerva, of Venus and Bacchus. "Through the rank and
+poisonous vegetation of mythic phraseology, we may always catch a
+glimpse of an original stem round which it creeps and winds itself, and
+without which it can not enjoy that parasitical existence which has been
+mistaken for independent vitality."[149]
+
+[Footnote 146: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xix.]
+
+[Footnote 147: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xx. Much more to the same effect
+may be seen in ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 148: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xxi.]
+
+[Footnote 149: Max Mueller, "Science of Language," 2d series, p. 433.]
+
+It is an obvious truth, attested by the voice of universal consciousness
+as revealed in history, that the human mind can never rest satisfied
+within the sphere of sensible phenomena. Man is impelled by an inward
+necessity to pass, in thought, beyond the boundary-line of sense, and
+inquire after causes and entities which his reason assures him must lie
+beneath all sensible appearances. He must and will interpret nature
+according to the forms of his own personality, or according to the
+fundamental ideas of his own reason. In the childlike subjectivity of
+the undisciplined mind he will either transfer to nature the phenomena
+of his own personality, regarding the world as a living organism which
+has within it an informing soul, and thus attain a _pantheistic_
+conception of the universe; or else he will fix upon some extraordinary
+and inexplicable phenomenon of nature, and, investing it with
+_super-natural_ significance, will rise from thence to a religious and
+_theocratic_ conception of nature as a whole. An intelligence--a mind
+_within_ nature, and inseparable from nature, or else _above_ nature and
+governing nature, is, for man, an inevitable thought.
+
+It is equally obvious that humanity can never relegate itself from a
+supernatural origin, neither can it ever absolve itself from a permanent
+correlation with the Divine. Man feels within him an instinctive
+nobility. He did not arise out of the bosom of nature; in some
+mysterious way he has descended from an eternal mind, he is "the
+offspring of God." And furthermore, a theocratic conception of nature,
+associated with a pre-eminent regard for certain apparently supernatural
+experiences in the history of humanity, becomes the foundation of
+governments, of civil authority, and of laws. Society can not be founded
+without the aid of the Deity, and a commonwealth can only be organized
+by Divine interposition. "A Ceres must appear and sow the fields with
+corn." And a Numa or a Lycurgus must be heralded by the oracle as
+
+     "Dear to Jove, and all who sit in the halls of the Olympus."
+
+He must be a "descendant of Zeus," appointed by the gods to rule, and
+one who will "prove himself a god." These divinely-appointed rulers were
+regarded as the ministers of God, the visible representatives of the
+unseen Power which really governs all. The divine government must also
+have its invisible agents--its Nemesis, and Themis, and Dike, the
+ministers of law, of justice, and of retribution; and its Jupiter, and
+Juno, and Neptune, and Pluto, ruling, with delegated powers, in the
+heavens, the air, the sea, and the nethermost regions. So that, in fact,
+there exists no nation, no commonwealth, no history without a Theophany,
+and along with it certain sacred legends detailing the origin of the
+people, the government, the country itself, and the world at large. This
+is especially true of India, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Their primitive
+history is eminently _mythological_.
+
+Grecian polytheism can not be otherwise regarded than as a
+poetico-historical religion of _myth_ and _symbol_ which is under-laid
+by a natural Theism; a parasitical growth which winds itself around the
+original stem of instinctive faith in a supernatural Power and Presence
+which pervades the universe. The myths are oral traditions, floating
+down from that dim; twilight of _poetic_ history, which separates real
+history, with its fixed chronology, from the unmeasured and unrecorded
+eternity--faint echoes from that mystic border-land which divides the
+natural from the supernatural, and in which they seem to have been
+marvellously commingled. They are the lingering memories of those
+manifestations of God to men, in which he or his celestial ministers
+came into visible intercourse with our race; the reality of which is
+attested by sacred history. In all these myths there is a theogonic and
+cosmogonic element. They tell of the generation of the celestial and
+aerial divinities--the subordinate agents and ministers of the Divine
+government. They attempt an explanation of the genesis of the visible
+universe, the origin of humanity, and the development of human society.
+In the presence of history, the substance of these myths is preserved by
+_symbols_, that is, by means of natural or artificial, real or striking
+objects, which, by some analogy or arbitrary association, shall suggest
+the _idea_ to the mind. These symbols were designed to represent the
+invisible attributes and operations of the Deity; the powers that
+vitalize nature, that control the elements, that preside over cities,
+that protect the nations: indeed, all the agencies of the physical and
+moral government of God. Beneath all the pagan legends of gods, and
+underlying all the elaborate mechanism of pagan worship, there are
+unquestionably philosophical ideas, and theological conceptions, and
+religious sentiments, which give as meaning, and even a mournful
+grandeur to the whole.
+
+Whilst the pagan polytheistic worship is, under one aspect, to be
+regarded as a departure from God, inasmuch as it takes away the honor
+due to God alone, and transfers it to the creature; still, under another
+aspect, we can not fail to recognize in it the effort of the human mind
+to fill up the chasm that seemed, to the undisciplined mind, to separate
+God and man--and to bridge the gulf between the visible and the
+invisible, the finite and the infinite. It was unquestionably an attempt
+to bring God nearer to the sense and comprehension of man. It had its
+origin in that instinctive yearning after the supernatural, the Divine,
+which dwells in all human hearts, and which has revealed itself in all
+philosophies, mysticisms, and religions.[150] This longing was
+stimulated by the contemplation of the living beauty and grandeur of the
+visible universe, which, to the lively fancy and deep feeling of the
+Greeks, seemed as the living vesture of the Infinite Mind,--the temple
+of the eternal Deity. In this visible universe the Divinity was partly
+revealed, and partly concealed. The unity of the all-pervading
+Intelligence was veiled beneath an apparent diversity of power, and a
+manifoldness of operations. They caught some glimpses of this universal
+presence in nature, but were more immediately and vividly impressed by
+the several manifestations of the divine perfections and divine
+operations, as so many separate rays of the Divinity, or so many
+subordinate agents and functionaries employed to execute the will and
+carry out the purposes of the Supreme Mind.[151] That unseen,
+incomprehensible Power and Presence was perceived in the sublimity of
+the deep blue sky, the energy of the vitalizing sun, the surging of the
+sea, the rushing wind, the roaring thunder, the ripening corn, and the
+clustering vine. To these separate manifestations of the Deity they gave
+_personal names_, as Jupiter to the heavens, Juno to the air, Neptune to
+the sea, Ceres to the corn, and Bacchus to the vine. These personals
+denoted, not the things themselves, but the invisible, divine powers
+supposed to preside over those several departments of nature. By a kind
+of prosopopoeia "they spake of the things in nature, and parts of the
+world, as persons--and consequently as so many gods and goddesses--yet
+so as the intelligent might easily understand their meaning, _that these
+were in reality nothing else but so many names and notions of that one
+Numen,--divine force and power which runs through all the world,
+multiformly displaying itself._"[152] "Their various deities were but
+different names, different conceptions, of that Incomprehensible Being
+which no _thought_ can reach, and no _language_ express."[153] Having
+given to these several manifestations of the Divinity personal names,
+they now sought to represent them to the eye of sense by _visible
+forms_, as the symbols or images of the perfections of the unseen, the
+incomprehensible, the unknown God. And as the Greeks regarded man as the
+first and noblest among the phenomena of nature, they selected the human
+form as the highest sensible manifestation of God, the purest symbol of
+the Divinity. Grecian polytheism was thus a species of _mythical
+anthropomorphism_.
+
+[Footnote 150: The original constitution of man is such that he "seeks
+after" God Acts xvii. 27. "All men yearn after the gods" (Homer,
+"Odyss." iii. 48).]
+
+[Footnote 151: "Heathenism springs directly from this, that the mind
+lays undue stress upon the bare letter in the book of creation; that it
+separates and individualizes its objects as far as possible; that it
+places the sense of the individual part, in opposition to the sense of
+the whole,--to the _analogia fidei_ or _spiritus_ which alone gives
+unity to the book of nature, while it dilutes and renders as transitory
+as possible the sense of the universal in the whole.... And as it laid
+great stress upon the letter in the book of nature, it fell into
+polytheism. The particular symbol of the divine, or of the Godhead,
+became a myth of some special deity."--Lange's "Bible-work," Genesis, p.
+23.]
+
+[Footnote 152: Cudworth, "Intellect. System," vol. i. p. 308.]
+
+[Footnote 153: Max Mueller, "Science of Language," p. 431.]
+
+A philosophy of Grecian mythology, such as we have outlined in the
+preceding paragraphs, is, in our judgment, perfectly consistent with the
+views announced by Paul in his address to the Athenians. He intimates
+that the Athenians "thought that the Godhead was _like unto_ (e nai
+omoion)--to be imaged or represented by human art--by gold, and silver,
+and precious stone graven by art, and device of man;" that is, they
+thought the perfections of God could be represented to the eye by an
+image, or symbol. The views of Paul are still more articulately
+expressed in Romans, i. 23, 25: "They changed the glory of the
+incorruptible God into the _similitude of an image_ of corruptible
+man,.... and they worshipped and served the thing made, para--_rather_
+than, or _more_ than the Creator." Here, then, the apostle intimates,
+first, that the heathen _knew_ God,[154] and that they worshipped God.
+They worshipped the creature besides or even more than God, but still
+they also worshipped God. And, secondly, they represented the
+perfections of God by an image, and under this, as a "_likeness_" or
+symbol, they indirectly worshipped God. Their religious system was,
+then, even to the eye of Paul, a _symbolic_ worship--that is, the
+objects of their devotion were the _omoiomata_--the similitudes, the
+likenesses, the images of the perfections of the invisible God.
+
+[Footnote 154: Verse 21.]
+
+It is at once conceded by us, that the "sensus numinis," the natural
+intuition of a Supreme Mind, whose power and presence are revealed in
+nature, can not maintain itself, as an influential, and vivifying, and
+regulative belief amongst men, without the continual supernatural
+interposition of God; that is, without a succession of Divine
+revelations. And further, we grant that, instead of this symbolic mode
+of worship deepening and vitalizing the sense of God as a living power
+and presence, there is great danger that the symbol shall at length
+unconsciously take the place of God, and be worshipped instead of Him.
+From the purest form of symbolism which prevailed in the earliest ages,
+there may be an inevitable descent to the rudest form of false worship,
+with its accompanying darkness, and abominations, and crimes; but, at
+the same time, let us do justice to the religions of the ancient
+world--the childhood stammerings of religious life--which were something
+more than the inventions of designing men, or the mere creations of
+human fancy; they were, in the words of Paul, "a _seeking after God_, if
+haply they might feel after him, and find him, who is not far from any
+one of us." It can not be denied that the more thoughtful and
+intelligent Greeks regarded the visible objects of their devotion as
+mere symbols of the perfections and operations of the unseen God, and of
+the invisible powers and subordinate agencies which are employed by him
+in his providential and moral government of the world. And whatever
+there was of misapprehension and of "ignorance" in the popular mind, we
+have the assurance of Paul that it was "_overlooked_" by God.
+
+The views here presented will, we venture to believe, be found most in
+harmony with a true philosophy of the human mind; with the religious
+phenomena of the world; and, as we shall subsequently see, with the
+writings of those poets and philosophers who may be fairly regarded as
+representing the sentiments and opinions of the ancient world. At the
+same time, we have no desire to conceal the fact that this whole
+question as to the origin, and character, and philosophy of the
+mythology and symbolism of the religions of the ancient world has been a
+subject of earnest controversy from Patristic times down to the present
+hour, and that even to-day there exists a wide diversity of opinion
+among philosophers, as well as theologians.
+
+The principal theories offered may be classed as the _ethical_, the
+_physical_, and the _historical_, according to the different objects the
+framers of the myths are supposed to have had in view. Some have
+regarded the myths as invented by the priests and wise men of old for
+the improvement and government of society, as designed to give authority
+to laws, and maintain social order.[155] Others have regarded them as
+intended to be allegorical interpretations of physical phenomena--the
+poetic embodiment of the natural philosophy of the primitive races of
+men;[156] whilst others have looked upon them as historical legends,
+having a substratum of fact, and, when stripped of the supernatural and
+miraculous drapery which accompanies fable, as containing the history of
+primitive times.[157] Some of the latter class have imagined they could
+recognize in Grecian mythology traces of sacred personages, as well as
+profane; in fact, a dimmed image of the patriarchal traditions which are
+preserved in the Old Testament scriptures.[158]
+
+It is beyond our design to discuss all the various theories presented,
+or even to give a history of opinions entertained.[159] We are fully
+convinced that the hypothesis we have presented in the preceding pages,
+viz., _that Grecian mythology was a grand symbolic representation of the
+Divine as manifested in nature and providence_, is the only hypothesis
+which meets and harmonizes all the facts of the case. This is the theory
+of Plato, of Cudworth, Baumgarten, Max Mueller, and many other
+distinguished scholars.
+
+[Footnote 155: Empedocles, Metrodorus.]
+
+[Footnote 156: Aristotle.]
+
+[Footnote 157: Hecataeus, Herodotus, some of the early Fathers, Niebuhr,
+J.H. Voss, Arnold.]
+
+[Footnote 158: Bochart, G.J. Vossius, Faber, Gladstone.]
+
+[Footnote 159: To the English reader who desires an extended and
+accurate acquaintance with the classic and patristic literature of this
+deeply interesting subject, we commend the careful study of Cudworth's
+"Intellectual System of the Universe," especially ch. iv. The style of
+Cudworth is perplexingly involved, and his great work is unmethodical in
+its arrangement and discussion. Nevertheless, the patient and
+persevering student will be amply rewarded for his pains. A work of more
+profound research into the doctrine of antiquity concerning God, and
+into the real import of the religious systems of the ancient world, is,
+probably, not extant in any language.]
+
+There are two fundamental propositions laid down by Cudworth which
+constitute the basis of this hypothesis.
+
+1. _No well-authenticated instance can be furnished from among the Greek
+Polytheists of one who taught the existence of a multiplicity of
+independenty uncreated, self-existent deities; they almost universally_
+_believed in the existence of_ ONE SUPREME, UNCREATED, ETERNAL GOD,
+"_The Maker of all things_"--"_the Father of gods and men_,"--"_the
+sole Monarch and Ruler of the world_."
+
+2. _The Greek Polytheists taught a plurality of_"GENERATED DEITIES,"
+_who owe their existence to the power and will of the Supreme God, who
+are by Him invested with delegated powers, and who, as the agents of his
+universal providence, preside over different departments of the created
+universe_.
+
+The evidence presented by Cudworth in support of his theses is so varied
+and so voluminous, that it defies all attempts at condensation. His
+volumes exhibit an extent of reading, of patient research, and of varied
+learning, which is truly amazing. The discussion of these propositions
+involves, in fact, nothing less than a complete and exhaustive survey of
+the entire field of ancient literature, a careful study of the Greek and
+Latin poets, of the Oriental, Greek, and Alexandrian philosophers, and a
+review of the statements and criticisms of Rabbinical and Patristic
+writers in regard to the religions of the pagan world. An adequate
+conception of the varied and weighty evidence which is collected by our
+author from these fields, in support of his views, could only be
+conveyed by transcribing to our pages the larger portion of his
+memorable _fourth_ chapter. But inasmuch as Grecian polytheism is, in
+fact, the culmination of all the mythological systems of the ancient
+world, the fully-developed flower and ripened fruit of the cosmical and
+theological conceptions of the childhood-condition of humanity, we
+propose to epitomize the results of his inquiry as to the _theological_,
+opinions of the Greeks, supplying additional confirmation of his views
+from other sources.
+
+And first, he proves most conclusively that Orpheus, Homer, and
+Hesiod,[160] who are usually designated "the theologians" of Greece, but
+who were in fact the depravers and corrupters of pagan theology, do not
+teach the existence of a multitude of _unmade, self-existent, and
+independent deities_. Even they believed in the existence of _one_
+uncreated and eternal mind, _one Supreme God_, anterior and superior to
+all the gods of their mythology. They had some intuition, some
+apperception of the _Divine_, even before they had attached to it a
+sacred name. The gods of their mythology had all, save one, a temporal
+origin; they were generated of Chaos and Night, by an active principle
+called _Love_. "One might suspect," says Aristotle, that Hesiod, and if
+there be any other who made _love_ or _desire_ a principle of things,
+aimed at these very things (viz., the designation of the efficient cause
+of the world); for Parmenides, describing the generation of the
+universe, says:
+
+     'First of all the gods planned he _love_;'
+
+and further, Hesiod:
+
+     'First of all was Chaos, afterwards Earth,
+     With her spacious bosom,
+     And _Love_, who is pre-eminent among all the immortals;'
+
+as intimating here that in entities there should exist some _cause_ that
+will impart motion, and hold bodies in union together. But how, in
+regard to these, one ought to distribute them, as to the order of
+priority, can be decided afterwards.[161]
+
+[Footnote 160: We do not concern ourselves with the chronological
+antecedence of these ancient Greek poets. It is of little consequence to
+us whether Homer preceded Orpheus, or Orpheus Homer. They were not the
+real creators of the mythology of ancient Greece. The myths were a
+spontaneous growth of the earliest human thought even before the
+separation of the Aryan family into its varied branches.
+
+The study of Comparative Mythology, as well as of Comparative Language,
+assures us that the myths had an origin much earlier than the times of
+Homer and Orpheus. They floated down from ages on the tide of oral
+tradition before they were systematized, embellished, and committed to
+writing by Homer, and Orpheus, and Hesiod. And between the systems of
+these three poets a perceptible difference is recognizable, which
+reflects the changes that verbal recitations necessarily and
+imperceptibly undergo.]
+
+[Footnote 161: "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. iv.]
+
+Now whether this "first principle," called "_Love_," "the cause of
+motion and of union" in the universe, was regarded as a personal Being,
+and whether, as the ancient scholiast taught, Hesiod's love was "the
+heavenly Love, which is also God, that other love that was born of Venus
+being junior," is just now of no moment to the argument. The more
+important inference is, that amongst the gods of Pagan theology but
+_one_ is self-existent, or else none are. Because the Hesiodian gods,
+which are, in fact, all the gods of the Greek mythology, "were either
+all of them derived from chaos, love itself likewise being generated out
+of it; or else love was supposed to be distinct from chaos, and the
+active principle of the universe, from whence, together with chaos, all
+the theogony and cosmogony was derived."[162] Hence it is evident the
+poets did not teach the existence of a multiplicity of unmade,
+self-existent, independent deities.
+
+[Footnote 162: "Cudworth," vol. i. p. 287.]
+
+The careful reader of Cudworth will also learn another truth of the
+utmost importance in this connection, viz., _that the theogony of the
+Greek poets was, in fact, a cosmogony_, the generation of the gods
+being, in reality, the generation of the heavens, the sun, the moon, the
+stars, and all the various powers and phenomena of nature. This is dimly
+shadowed forth in the very names which are given to some of these
+divinities. Thus Helios is the sun, Selena is the moon, Zeus the
+sky--the deep blue heaven, Eos the dawn, and Erse the dew. It is
+rendered still more evident by the opening lines of Hesiod's
+"Theogonia," in which he invokes the muses:
+
+     "Hail ye daughters of Jupiter! Grant a delightsome song.
+     Tell of the race of immortal gods, always existing,
+     Who are the offspring of the earth, of the starry sky,
+     And of the gloomy night, whom also the ocean nourisheth.
+     Tell how the gods and the earth at first were made,
+     And the rivers, and the mighty deep, boiling with waves,
+     And the glowing stars, and the broad heavens above,
+     And the gods, givers of good, born of these."
+
+Where we see plainly that the generation of the gods is the generation
+of the earth, the heaven, the stars, the seas, the rivers, and other
+things produced by them. "But immediately after invocation of the Muses
+the poet begins with Chaos, and Tartara, and Love, as the first
+principles, and then proceeds to the production of the earth and of
+night out of chaos; of the ether and of day, from night; of the starry
+heavens, mountains, and seas. All which generation of gods is really
+nothing but a poetic description of the cosmogonia; as through the
+sequel of the poem all seems to be physiology veiled under fiction and
+allegory.... Hesiod's gods are thus not only the animated parts of the
+world, but also the other things of nature personified and deified, or
+abusively called gods and goddesses."[163] The same is true both of the
+Orphic and Homeric gods. "Their generation of the gods is the same with
+the generation or creation of the world, both of them having, in all
+probability, derived it from the Mosaic cabala, or tradition."[164]
+
+But in spite of all this mythological obscuration, the belief in one
+Supreme God is here and there most clearly recognizable. "That Zeus was
+originally to the Greeks the Supreme God, the true God--nay, at some
+time their only God--can be perceived in spite of the haze which
+mythology has raised around his name."[165] True, they sometimes used
+the word "Zeus" in a physical sense to denote the deep expanse of
+heaven, and sometimes in a historic sense, to designate a hero or
+deified man said to have been born in Crete. It is also true that the
+Homeric Zeus is full of contradictions. He is "all-seeing," yet he is
+cheated; he is "omnipotent," yet he is defied; he is "eternal," yet he
+has a father; he is "just," yet he is guilty of crime. Now, as Mueller
+very justly remarks, these contradictions may teach us a lesson. If all
+the conceptions of Zeus had sprung from one origin, these contradictions
+could not have existed. If Zeus had simply and only meant the Supreme
+God, he could not have been the son of Kronos (Time). If, on the other
+hand, Zeus had been a mere mythological personage, as Eos, the dawn, and
+Helios, the sun, he could never have been addressed as he is addressed
+in the famous prayer of Achilles (Iliad, bk. xxi.).[166]
+
+[Footnote 163: Cudworth, vol. i. pp. 321, 332.]
+
+[Footnote 164: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 478.]
+
+[Footnote 165: Max Mueller, "Science of Language," p. 457.]
+
+[Footnote 166: Id., ib., p. 458.]
+
+In Homer there is a perpetual blending of the natural and the
+supernatural, the human and divine. The _Iliad_ is an incongruous medley
+of theology, physics, and history. In its gorgeous scenic
+representations, nature, humanity, and deity are mingled in inextricable
+confusion. The gods are sometimes supernatural and superhuman
+personages; sometimes the things and powers of nature personified; and
+sometimes they are deified men. And yet there are passages, even in
+Homer, which clearly distinguish Zeus from all the other divinities, and
+mark him out as the Supreme. He is "the highest, first of Gods" (bk.
+xix. 284); "most great, most glorious Jove" (bk. ii. 474). He is "the
+universal Lord" (bk. xi. 229); "of mortals and immortals king supreme,"
+(bk. xii. 263); "over all the immortal gods he reigns in unapproached
+pre-eminence of power" (bk. xv. 125). He is "the King of kings" (bk.
+viii. 35), whose "will is sovereign" (bk. iv. 65), and his "power
+invincible" (bk. viii. 35). He is the "eternal Father" (bk. viii. 77).
+He "excels in wisdom gods and men; all human things from him proceed"
+(bk. xiii. 708-10); "the Lord of counsel" (bk. i. 208), "the all-seeing
+Jove" (bk. xiii. 824). Indeed the mere expression "Father of gods and
+men" (bk. i. 639), so often applied to Zeus, and him _alone_, is proof
+sufficient that, in spite of all the legendary stories of gods and
+heroes, the idea of Zeus as the Supreme God, the maker of the world, the
+Father of gods and men, the monarch and ruler of the world, was not
+obliterated from the Greek mind.[167]
+
+[Footnote 167: "In the order of legendary chronology Zeus comes after
+Kronos and Uranos, but in the order of Grecian conception Zeus is the
+prominent person, and Kronos and Uranos are inferior and introductory
+precursors, set up in order to be overthrown, and to serve as mementos
+of the powers of their conqueror. To Homer and Hesiod, as well as to the
+Greeks universally, Zeus is the great, the predominant God, 'the Father
+of gods and men,' whose power none of the gods can hope to resist, or
+even deliberately think of questioning. All the other gods have their
+specific potency, and peculiar sphere of action and duty, with which
+Zeus does not usually interfere; but it is he who maintains the
+lineaments of a providential government, as well over the phenomena of
+Olympus as over the earth."--Grote, "Hist. of Greece," vol. i. p. 3.
+
+Zeus is not only lord of heaven but likewise the ruler of the lower
+world, and the master of the sea.--Welcher, "Griechische Goetterlehre,"
+vol. i. p. 164. The Zeus of the Greek poets is unquestionably the god of
+whom Paul declared: In him we live and move, and have our being, as
+certain of your own poets have also said--
+
+     "'For we are his offspring.'"
+
+Now whether this be a quotation from Aratus or Cleanthes, the language
+of the poets is, "We are the offspring of Zeus;" consequently the Zeus
+of the poets and the God of Christianity are the same God.
+
+"The father of gods and men in Homer is, of course, the Universal Father
+of the Scriptures."--Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," p. 171.]
+
+"When Homer introduces Eumaios, the swineherd, speaking of this life and
+the higher powers that rule it, he knows only of just gods 'who hate
+cruel deeds, but honor justice and the righteous works of men' (Od. xiv.
+83). His whole life is built up on a complete trust in the divine
+government of the world without any artificial helps, as the Erinys, the
+Nemesis, or Moira. 'Eat,' says the swineherd, 'and enjoy what is here,
+for _God_[168] will grant one thing, but another he will refuse,
+whatever he will in his mind, for he can do all things' (Od. xiv. 444;
+x. 306). This surely is religion, and it is religion untainted by
+mythology. Again, the prayer of the female slave, grinding corn in the
+house of Ulysses is religious in the truest sense--'Father Zeus, thou
+who rulest over gods and men, surely thou hast just thundered in the
+starry sky, and there is no cloud anywhere. Thou showest this as a sign
+to some one. Fulfill now, even to me, miserable wretch, the prayer which
+I now offer'" (Od. xx. 141-150).[169]
+
+[Footnote 168: No sound reason can be assigned for translating _Theos_
+by "_a_ god" as some have proposed, rather than "_God_." But even if it
+were translated "a god," this god must certainly be understood as Zeus.
+Plato tells us that Zeus is the most appropriate name for God. "For in
+reality the name Zeus is, as it were, a sentence; and persons dividing
+it in two parts, some of us make use of one part, and some of another;
+for some call him Zen, and some Dis. But these parts, collected together
+into one, exhibit the nature of the God;... for there is no one who is
+more the cause of living, both to us and everything else, than he who is
+the ruler and king of all. It follows, therefore, that this god is
+rightly named, through whom _life_ is present in all living
+beings."--Cratylus, Sec. 28.
+
+Theos was usually employed, says Cudworth, to designate _God_ by way of
+pre-eminence, Theoi to designate inferior divinities.]
+
+[Footnote 169: Mueller, "Science of Language," p. 434.]
+
+The Greek tragedians were the great religious instructors of the
+Athenian people. "Greek tragedy grew up in connection with religious
+worship, and constituted not only a popular but a sacred element in the
+festivals of the gods.... In short, strange as it may sound to modern
+ears, the Greek stage was, more nearly than any thing else, the Greek
+pulpit.[170] With a priesthood that offered sacrifice, but did not
+preach, with few books of any kind, the people were, in a great measure,
+dependent on oral instruction for knowledge; and as they learned their
+rights and duties as citizens from their orators, so they hung on the
+lips of the 'lofty, grave tragedians' for instruction touching their
+origin, duty, and destiny as mortal and immortal beings.... Greek
+tragedy is essentially didactic, ethical, mythological, and
+religious."[171]
+
+[Footnote 170: Pulpitum, a stage.]
+
+[Footnote 171: Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," pp. 205, 206.]
+
+Now it is unquestionable that, with the tragedians, Zeus is the Supreme
+God. AEschylus is pre-eminently the theological poet of Greece. The great
+problems which lie at the foundation of religious faith and practice are
+the main staple of nearly all his tragedies. Homer, Hesiod, the sacred
+poets, had looked at these questions in their purely poetic aspects. The
+subsequent philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, developed them more fully
+by their didactic method. AEschylus stands on the dividing-line between
+them, no less poetic than the former, scarcely less philosophical than
+the latter, but more intensely practical, personal, and _theological_
+than either. The character of the Supreme Divinity, as represented in
+his tragedies, approaches more nearly to the Christian idea of God. He
+is the Universal Father--Father of gods and men; the Universal Cause
+(panaitios, Agamem. 1485); the All-seer and All-doer (pantopies,
+panergetes, ibid, and Sup. 139); the All-wise and All-controlling
+(pankrates, Sup. 813); the Just and the Executor of justice (dikephoros,
+Agamem. 525); true and incapable of falsehood (Prom. 1031);
+
+     pseudegorein gar ouk epistatai stoma
+     to dion, alla pan epos telei,--
+
+holy (agnos, Sup. 650); merciful (preumenes, ibid. 139); the God
+especially of the suppliant and the stranger (Supplices, passim); the
+most high and perfect One (teleion upsiston, Eumen. 28); King of kings,
+of the happy, most happy, of the perfect, most perfect power, blessed
+Zeus (Sup. 522).[172] Such are some of the titles by which Zeus is most
+frequently addressed; such the attributes commonly ascribed to him in
+AEschylus.
+
+Sophocles was the great master who carried Greek tragedy to its highest
+perfection. Only seven out of more than a hundred of his tragedies have
+come down to us. There are passages cited by Justin Martyr, Clemens
+Alexandrinus, and others which are not found in those tragedies now
+extant. The most famous and extensively quoted passage is given by
+Cudworth.[173]
+
+     Eis tais aletheiaisin, eis estin Theos,
+     Os ouranon t' eteuxe kai gaian makran,
+     Poniou te karapon oidma, kanemon bian, k. t. l.[174]
+
+This "one only God" is Zeus, who is the God of justice, and reigns
+supreme:
+
+     "Still in yon starry heaven supreme,
+     Jove, all-beholding, all-directing, dwells--
+     To him commit thy vengeance."--"Electra," p. 174 sqq.
+
+This description of the unsleeping, undecaying power and dominion of
+Zeus is worthy of some Hebrew prophet--
+
+     "Spurning the power of age, enthroned in might,
+     Thou dwell'st mid heaven's broad light;
+     This was in ages past thy firm decree,
+     Is now, and shall forever be:
+     That none of mortal race on earth shall know
+     A life of joy serene, a course unmarked by woe."
+
+     "Antigone," pp. 606-614.[175]
+
+[Footnote 172: Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," pp. 213, 214.]
+
+[Footnote 173: "Intellectual Syst.," vol. i. p. 483.]
+
+[Footnote 174: "There is, in truth, one only God, who made heaven and
+earth, the sea, air, and winds," etc.]
+
+[Footnote 175: "Theology of Greek Poets," p. 322.]
+
+Whether we regard the poets as the principal theological teachers of the
+ancient Greeks, or as the compilers, systematizers, and artistic
+embellishers of the theological traditions and myths which were afloat
+in the primitive Hellenic families, we can not resist the conclusion
+that, for the masses of the people Zeus was the Supreme God, "the God of
+gods" as Plato calls him. Whilst all other deities in Greece are more or
+less local and tribal gods, Zeus was known in every village and to every
+clan. "He is at home on Ida,[176] on Olympus, at Dodona.[177] While
+Poseidon drew to himself the AEolian family, Apollo the Dorian, Athene
+the Ionian, there was one powerful God for all the sons of
+Hellen--Dorians, AEolians, Ionians, Achaeans, viz., the Panhellenic
+Zeus."[178] Zeus was the name invoked in their solemn nuncupations of
+vows--
+
+     "O Zeus, father, O Zeus, king."
+
+In moments of deepest sorrow, of immediate urgency and need, of greatest
+stress and danger, they had recourse to Zeus.
+
+     "Courage, courage, my child!
+     There is still in heaven the great Zeus;
+     He watches over all things, and he rules.
+     Commit thy exceeding bitter griefs to him,
+     And be not angry against thine enemies,
+     Nor forget them."[179]
+
+[Footnote 176: "Iliad," bk. iii. 324.]
+
+[Footnote 177: Bk. xvi. 268.]
+
+[Footnote 178: Mueller, p. 452.]
+
+[Footnote 179: Sophocles, "Electra," v. 188.]
+
+He was supplicated, as the God who reigns on high, in the prayer of the
+Athenian--
+
+     "Rain, rain, O dear Zeus, on the land of the Athenians and on their
+     fields."
+
+It has been urged that, as Zeus means the sky, therefore he is no more
+than the deep concave of heaven personified and deified, and that
+consequently Zeus is not the true, the only God. This argument is only
+equalled in feebleness by that of the materialist, who argues that
+"spiritus" means simply breath, therefore the breath is the soul. Even
+if the Greeks remembered that, originally, Zeus meant the sky, that
+would have no more perplexed their minds than the remembrance that
+"thymos"--mind--meant originally blast. "The fathers of Greek theology
+gave to that Supreme Intelligence, which they instinctively recognized
+as above and ruling over the universe, the name of Zeus; but in doing
+so, they knew well that by Zeus they meant more than the sky. The
+unfathomable depth, the everlasting calm of the ethereal sky was to
+their minds an image of that Infinite Presence which overshadows all,
+and looks down on all. As the question perpetually recurred to their
+minds, 'Where is he who abideth forever?' they lifted up their eyes, and
+saw, as they thought, beyond sun, and moon, and stars, and all which
+changes, and will change, the clear blue sky, the boundless firmament of
+heaven. That never changed, that was always the same. The clouds and
+storms rolled far below it, and all the bustle of this noisy world; but
+there the sky was still, as bright and calm as ever. The Almighty Father
+must be there, unchangeable in the unchangeable heaven; bright, and
+pure, and boundless like the heavens, and like the heavens, too, afar
+off."[180] So they named him after the sky, _Zeus_, the God who lives in
+the clear heaven--the heavenly Father.
+
+[Footnote 180: Kingsley, "Good News from God," p. 237, Am. ed.]
+
+The high and brilliant sky has, in many languages and many religions,
+been regarded as the dwelling-place of God. Indeed, to all of us in
+Christian times "God is above;" he is "the God of heaven;" "his throne
+is in the heavens;" "he reigns on high." Now, without doing any violence
+to thought, the name of the abode might be transferred to him who dwells
+in heaven. So that in our own language "heaven" may still be used as a
+synonym for "God." The prodigal son is still represented as saying, I
+have sinned against "_heaven_." And a Christian poet has taught us to
+sing--
+
+     "High _heaven_, that heard my solemn vow,
+     That vow renewed shall daily hear," etc.
+
+Whenever, therefore, we find the name of heaven thus used to designate
+also the Deity, we must bear in mind that those by whom it was
+originally employed were simply transferring that name from an object
+visible to the eye of sense to another object perceived by the eye of
+reason. They who at first called God "_Heaven_" had some conception
+within them they wished to name--the growing image of a God, and they
+fixed upon the vastest, grandest, purest object in nature, the deep blue
+concave of heaven, overshadowing all, and embracing all, as the symbol
+of the Deity. Those who at a later period called heaven "_God_" had
+forgotten that they were predicating of heaven something more which was
+vastly higher than the heaven.[181]
+
+[Footnote 181: See "Science of Language," p. 457.]
+
+Notwithstanding, then, that the instinctive, native faith of humanity in
+the existence of one supreme God was overlaid and almost buried beneath
+the rank and luxuriant vegetation of Grecian mythology, we can still
+catch glimpses here and there of the solid trunk of native faith, around
+which this parasitic growth of fancy is entwined. Above all the
+phantasmata of gods and goddesses who descended to the plains of Troy,
+and mingled in the din and strife of battle, we can recognize an
+overshadowing, all-embracing Power and Providence that dwells on high,
+which never descends into the battle-field, and is never seen by mortal
+eyes--_the Universal King and Father,--the "God of gods_."
+
+Besides the direct evidence, which is furnished by the poets and
+mythologists, of the presence of this universal faith in "_the heavenly
+Father_," there is also a large amount of collateral testimony that this
+idea of one Supreme God was generally entertained by the Greek pagans,
+whether learned or unlearned.[182] Dio Chrysostomus says that "all the
+poets call the first and greatest God the Father, universally, of all
+rational kind, as also the King thereof. Agreeably with which doctrine
+of the poets do mankind erect altars to Jupiter-King (Dios Basileos) and
+hesitate not to call him Father in their devotions" (Orat. xxxvi.). And
+Maximus Tyrius declares that both the learned and the unlearned
+throughout the pagan world universally agree in this; that there is one
+Supreme God, the Father of gods and men. "If," says he, "there were a
+meeting called of all the several trades and professions,... and all
+were required to declare their sense concerning God, do you think that
+the painter would say one thing, the sculptor another, the poet another,
+and the philosopher another? No; nor the Scythian neither, nor the
+Greek, nor the hyperborean. In regard to other things, we find men
+speaking discordantly one to another, all men, as it were, differing
+from all men... Nevertheless, on this subject, you may find universally
+throughout the world one agreeing law and opinion; _that there is one
+God, the King and Father of all, and many gods, the sons of God,
+co-reigners together with God_"(Diss. i. p. 450).
+
+[Footnote 182: Cudworth, vol. i. pp. 593, 594.]
+
+From the poets we now pass to the philosophers. The former we have
+regarded as reflecting the traditional beliefs of the unreasoning
+multitude. The philosophers unquestionably represent the reflective
+spirit, the speculative thought, of the educated classes of Greek
+society. Turning to the writings of the philosophers, we may therefore
+reasonably expect that, instead of the dim, undefined, and nebulous form
+in which the religious sentiment revealed itself amongst the
+unreflecting portions of the Greek populations, we shall find their
+theological ideas distinctly and articulately expressed, and that we
+shall consequently be able to determine their religious opinions with
+considerable accuracy.
+
+Now that Thales, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Anaxagoras, Empedocles,
+Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were all believers in the existence of
+one supreme, uncreated, eternal God, has been, we think, clearly shown
+by Cudworth.[183]
+
+[Footnote 183: Vol. i. pp. 491-554.]
+
+In subsequent chapters on "_the Philosophers of Athens_," we shall enter
+more fully into the discussion of this question. Meantime we assume
+that, with few exceptions, the Greek philosophers were "genuine
+Theists."
+
+The point, however, with which we are now concerned is, _that whilst
+they believed in one supreme, uncreated, eternal God, they at the same
+time recognized the existence of a plurality of generated deities who
+owe their existence to the power and will of the Supreme God, and who,
+as the agents and ministers of His universal providence, preside over
+different departments of the created universe_. They are at once
+Monotheists and Polytheists--believers in "one God" and "many gods."
+This is a peculiarity, an anomaly which challenges our attention, and
+demands an explanation, if we would vindicate for these philosophers a
+rational Theism.
+
+Now that there can be but one infinite and absolutely perfect Being--one
+supreme, uncreated, eternal God--is self-evident; therefore a
+multiplicity of such gods is a contradiction and an impossibility. The
+early philosophers knew this as well as the modern. The Deity, in order
+to be Deity, must be one and not many: must be perfect or nothing. If,
+therefore, we would do justice to these old Greeks, we must inquire what
+explanations they have offered in regard to "the many gods" of which
+they speak. We must ascertain whether they regarded these "gods" as
+created or uncreated beings, dependent or independent, temporal or
+eternal We must inquire in what sense the term "god" is applied to these
+lesser divinities,--whether it is not applied in an accommodated and
+therefore allowable sense, as in the sacred Scriptures it is applied to
+kings and magistrates, and those who are appointed by God as the
+teachers and rulers of men. "_They are called gods_ to whom the word of
+God came."[184] And if it shall be found that all the gods of which they
+speak, save _one_, are "generated deities"--dependent beings--creatures
+and subjects of the one eternal King and Father, and that the name of
+"god" is applied to them in an accommodated sense, then we have
+vindicated for the old Greek philosophers a consistent and rational
+Theism. In what relation, then, do the philosophers place "_the gods_"
+to the one Supreme Being?
+
+_Thales_, one of the most ancient of the Greek philosophers, taught the
+existence of a plurality of gods, as is evident from that saying of his,
+preserved by Diogenes Laertius, "The world has life, and is full of
+gods."[185] At the same time he asserts his belief in one supreme,
+uncreated Deity; "God is the oldest of all things, because he is unmade,
+or ungenerated."[186] All the other gods must therefore have been
+"generated deities," since there is but one unmade God, one only that
+had "no beginning."[187]
+
+[Footnote 184: See John x. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 185: "Lives," bk. i.; see also Aristotle's "De Anima," bk. i.
+ch. viii. panta Thion plere.]
+
+[Footnote 186: "Lives," bk. i.]
+
+[Footnote 187: "Lives," bk. i.]
+
+_Xenophanes_ was also an assertor of many gods, and one God; but his one
+God is unquestionably supreme. "There is one God, the greatest amongst
+gods and men;" or, "God is one, the greatest amongst gods and men."[188]
+
+_Empedocles_ also believed in one Supreme God, who "is wholly and
+perfectly mind, ineffable, holy, with rapid and swift-glancing thought
+pervading the whole world," and from whom all things else are
+derived,--"all things that are upon the earth, and in the air and water,
+may be truly called the works of God, who ruleth over the world, out of
+whom, according to Empedocles, proceed all things, plants, men, beasts,
+and _gods_."[189] The minor deities are therefore _made_ by God. It will
+not be denied that _Socrates_ was a devout and earnest Theist. He taught
+that "there is a Being whose eye pierces throughout all nature, and
+whose ear is open to every sound; extending through all time, extended
+to all places; and whose bounty and care can know no other bounds than
+those fixed by his own creation."[190] And yet he also recognized the
+existence of a plurality of gods, and in his last moments expressed his
+belief that "it is lawful and right to pray to the gods that his
+departure hence may be happy."[191] We see, however, in his words
+addressed to Euthydemus, a marked distinction between these subordinate
+deities and "Him who raised this whole universe, and still upholds the
+mighty frame, who perfected every part of it in beauty and in goodness,
+suffering none of these parts to decay through age, but renewing them
+daily with unfading vigor;... even he, _the Supreme God_, still holds
+himself invisible, and it is only in his works that we are capable of
+admiring him."[192]
+
+[Footnote 188: Clem. Alex., "Stromat." bk. v.]
+
+[Footnote 189: Aristotle, "De Mundo," ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 190: Xenophon's "Memorabilia," i. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 191: "Phaedo," Sec. 152.]
+
+[Footnote 192: "Memorabilia," iv. 3.]
+
+It were needless to attempt the proof that _Plato_ believed in one
+Supreme God, and _only_ one. This one Being is, with him, "the first
+God;" "the greatest of the gods;" "the God over all;" "the sole
+Principle of the universe." He is "the Immutable;" "the All-perfect;"
+"the eternal Being." He is "the Architect of the world; "the Maker of
+the universe; the Father of gods and men; the sovereign Mind which
+orders all things, and passes through all things; the sole Monarch and
+Ruler of the world.[193]
+
+And yet remarkable as these expressions are, sounding, as they do, so
+like the language of inspiration,[194] there can be no doubt that Plato
+was also a sincere believer in a plurality of gods, of which, indeed,
+any one may assure himself by reading the _tenth_ book of "the Laws."
+
+[Footnote 193: See chap. xi.]
+
+[Footnote 194: Some writers have supposed that Plato must have had
+access through some medium to "the Oracles of God." See Butler, vol. ii.
+p. 41.]
+
+And, now that we have in Plato the culmination of Grecian speculative
+thought, we may learn from him the mature and final judgment of the
+ancients in regard to the gods of pagan mythology. We open the _Timaeus_,
+and here we find his views most definitely expressed. After giving an
+account of the "generation" of the sun, and moon, and planets, which are
+by him designated as "visible gods," he then proceeds "to speak
+concerning the other divinities:" "We must on this subject assent to
+those who in former times have spoken thereon; who were, as they said,
+the offspring of the gods, and who doubtless were well acquainted with
+their own ancestors..... Let then the genealogy of the gods be, and be
+acknowledged to be, that which they deliver. Of Earth and Heaven the
+children were Oceanus and Tethys; and of these the children were
+Phorcys, and Kronos, and Rhea, and all that followed these; and from
+these were born Zeus and Hera, and those who are regarded as brothers
+and sisters of these, and others their offspring.
+
+"When, then, _all the gods were brought into existence_, both those
+which move around in manifest courses [the stars and planets], and those
+which appear when it pleases them [the mythological deities], the
+Creator of the Universe thus addressed them: 'Gods, and sons of gods, of
+whom I am the father and the author, produced by me, ye are
+indestructible because I will.... Now inasmuch as you have been
+_generated_, you are hence _not_ immortal, nor wholly indissoluble; yet
+you shall never be dissolved nor become subject to the fatality of
+death, because _so I have willed_.... Learn, therefore, my commands.
+Three races of mortals yet remain to be created. Unless these be
+created, the universe will be imperfect, for it will not contain within
+it every kind of animal.... In order that these mortal creatures may be,
+and that this world may be really a cosmos, do you apply yourselves to
+the creation of animals, imitating the exercises of my power in
+_creating_ you.'"[195]
+
+[Footnote 195: "Timaeus," ch. xv.]
+
+Here, then, we see that Plato carefully distinguishes between the sole
+Eternal Author of the universe, on one hand, and the "souls," vital and
+intelligent, which he attaches to the heavenly orbs, and diffuses
+through all nature, on the other. These subordinate powers or agents are
+all created, "_generated_ deities," who owe their continued existence to
+the _will_ of God; and though intrusted with a sort of deputed creation,
+and a subsequent direction and government of created things, they are
+still only the _servants_ and the _deputies_ of the Supreme Creator, and
+Director, and Ruler of all things. These subordinate agents and
+ministers employed in the creation and providential government of the
+world appear, in the estimation of Plato, to have been needed--
+
+1. _To satisfy the demands of the popular faith_, which presented its
+facts to be explained no less than those of external nature. Plato had
+evidently a great veneration for antiquity, a peculiar regard for
+"tradition venerable through ancient report," and "doctrines hoary with
+years."[196] He aspired after supernatural light and guidance; he longed
+for some intercourse with, some communication from, the Deity. And
+whilst he found many things in the ancient legends which revolted his
+moral sense, and which his reason rejected, yet the sentiment and the
+lesson which pervades the whole of Grecian mythology, viz., that the
+gods are in ceaseless intercourse with the human race, and if men will
+do right the gods will protect and help them, was one which commended
+itself to his heart.
+
+[Footnote 196: Ibid., ch. v.]
+
+2. These intermediate agents seem to have been demanded to _satisfy the
+disposition and tendency which has revealed itself in all systems, of
+interposing some scale of ascent between the material creation and the
+infinite Creator_.
+
+The mechanical theory of the universe has interposed its long series of
+secondary causes--the qualities, properties, laws, forces of nature; the
+vital theory which attaches a separate "soul" to the various parts of
+nature as the cause and intelligent director of its movements. Of these
+"souls" or gods, there were different orders and degrees--deified men or
+heroes, aerial, terrestrial, and celestial divinities, ascending from
+nature up to God. And this tendency to supply some scale of ascent
+towards the Deity, or at least to people the vast territory which seems
+to swell between the world and God, finds some countenance in "the
+angels and archangels," "the thrones, and dominions, and principalities,
+and powers" of the Christian scriptures.[197]
+
+3. These inferior ministers also seemed to Plato to _increase the
+stately grandeur and imperial majesty of the Divine government._ They
+swell the retinue of the Deity in his grand "circuit through the highest
+arch of heaven."[198] They wait to execute the Divine commands. They are
+the agents of Divine providence, "the messengers of God" to men.
+
+[Footnote 197: "The gods of the Platonic system answer, in office and
+conception, to the angels of Christian Theology."--Butler, vol. i. p.
+225.]
+
+[Footnote 198: "Phaedrus," Sec. 56,7.]
+
+4. And, finally, the host of inferior deities interposed between the
+material sensible world and God seemed to Plato as _needful in order to
+explain the apparent defects and disorders of sublunary affairs_. Plato
+was jealous of the Divine honor. "All good must be ascribed to God, and
+nothing but good. We must find evil, disorder, suffering, in some other
+cause."[199] He therefore commits to the junior deities the task of
+creating animals, and of forming "the mortal part of man," because the
+mortal part is "possessed of certain dire and necessary passions."[200]
+
+[Footnote 199: "Republic," bk. ii. p.18.]
+
+[Footnote 200: "Timaeus," xliv.]
+
+Aristotle seems to have regarded the popular polytheism of Greece as a
+perverted relic of a deeper and purer "Theology" which he conceives to
+have been, in all probability, perfected in the distant past, and then
+comparatively lost. He says--"The tradition has come down from very
+ancient times, being left in a mythical garb to succeeding generations,
+that these (the heavenly bodies) are gods, and that the Divinity
+_encompasses the whole of nature_. There have been made, however, to
+these certain fabulous additions for the purpose of winning the belief
+of the multitude, and thus securing their obedience to the laws, and
+their co-operation towards advancing the general welfare of the state.
+These additions have been to the effect that these gods were of the same
+form as men, and even that some of them were in appearance similar to
+certain others amongst the rest of the animal creation. The wise course,
+however, would be for the philosopher to disengage from these traditions
+the false element, and to embrace that which is true; and the truth lies
+in that portion of this ancient doctrine which regards the first and
+deepest ground of all existence to be the _Divine_, and this he may
+regard as a divine utterance. In all probability, every art, and
+science, and philosophy has been over and over again discovered to the
+farthest extent possible, and then again lost; and we may conceive these
+opinions to have been preserved to us as a sort of fragment of these
+lost philosophers. We see, then, to some extent the relation of the
+popular belief to these ancient opinions."[201] This conception of a
+deep Divine ground of all existence (for the immateriality and unity of
+which he elsewhere earnestly contends)[202] is thus regarded by
+Aristotle as underlying the popular polytheism of Greece.
+
+[Footnote 201: "Metaph.," xi. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 202: Bk. xi. ch. ii. Sec. 4.]
+
+The views of the educated and philosophic mind of Greece in regard to
+the mythological deities may, in conclusion, be thus briefly stated--
+
+I. _They are all created beings_--"GENERATED DEITIES," _who are
+dependent on, and subject to, the will of one supreme God_.
+
+II. _They are the_ AGENTS _employed by God in the creation of, at least
+some parts of, the universe, and in the movement and direction of the
+entire cosmos; and they are also the_ MINISTERS _and_ MESSENGERS _of
+that universal providence which he exercises over the human race_.
+
+These subordinate deities are, 1. the greater parts of the visible
+mundane system animated by intelligent souls, and called "_sensible
+gods_"--the sun, the moon, the stars, and even the earth itself, and
+known by the names Helios, Selena, Kronos, Hermes, etc.
+
+2. Some are _invisible powers_, having peculiar offices and functions
+and presiding over special places provinces and departments of the
+universe;--one ruling in the heavens (Zeus), another in the air (Juno),
+another in the sea (Neptune), another in the subterranean regions
+(Pluto); one god presiding over learning and wisdom (Minerva), another
+over poetry, music, and religion (Apollo), another over justice and
+political order (Themis), another over war (Mars), another over corn
+(Ceres), and another the vine (Bacchus).
+
+3. Others, again, are _ethereal_ and _aerial_ beings, who have the
+guardianship of individual persons and things, and are called _demons,
+genii_, and _lares_; superior indeed to men, but inferior to the gods
+above named.
+
+"Wherefore, since there were no other gods among the Pagans besides
+those above enumerated, unless their images, statues, and symbols should
+be accounted such (because they were also sometimes abusively called
+'gods'), which could not be supposed by them to have been unmade or
+without beginning, they being the workmanship of their own hands, we
+conclude, universally, that all that multiplicity of Pagan gods which
+make so great a show and noise was really either nothing but several
+names and notions of one supreme Deity, according to his different
+manifestations, gifts, and effects upon the world personated, or else
+many inferior understanding beings, generated or created by one supreme:
+so that one unmade, self-existent Deity, and no more, was acknowledged
+by the more intelligent Pagans, and, consequently, the Pagan Polytheism
+(or idolatry) consisted not in worshipping a multiplicity of unmade
+minds, deities, and creators, self-existent from eternity, and
+independent upon one Supreme, but in mingling and blending some way or
+other, unduly, creature-worship with the worship of the Creator."[203]
+
+[Footnote 203: Cudworth, "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 311.]
+
+That the heathen regard the one Supreme Being as the first and chief
+object of worship is evident from the apologies which they offered for
+worshipping, besides Him, many inferior divinities.
+
+1. They claimed to worship them _only_ as inferior beings, and that
+therefore they were not guilty of giving them that honor which belonged
+to the Supreme. They claimed to worship the supreme God incomparably
+above all. 2. That this honor which is bestowed upon the inferior
+divinities does ultimately redound to the supreme God, and aggrandize
+his state and majesty, they being all his ministers and attendants. 3.
+That as demons are mediators between the celestial gods and men, so
+those celestial gods are also mediators between men and the supreme God,
+and, as it were, convenient steps by which we ought with reverence to
+approach him. 4. That demons or angels being appointed to preside over
+kingdoms, cities, and persons, and being many ways benefactors to us,
+thanks ought to be returned to them by sacrifice. 5. Lastly, that it can
+not be thought that the Supreme Being will envy those inferior beings
+that worship or honor which is bestowed upon them; nor suspect that any
+of these inferior deities will factiously go about to set up themselves
+against the Supreme God.
+
+The Pagans, furthermore, apologized for worshipping God in images,
+statues, and symbols, on the ground that these were only schetically
+worshipped by them, the honor passing from them to the prototype. And
+since we live in bodies, and can scarcely, conceive of any thing without
+having some image or phantasm, we may therefore be indulged in this
+infirmity of human nature (at least in the vulgar) to worship God under
+a corporeal image, as a means of preventing men from falling into
+Atheism.
+
+To the Christian conscience the above reasons assigned furnish no real
+justification of Polytheism and Idolatry; but they are certainly a tacit
+confession of their belief in the one Supreme God, and their conviction
+that, notwithstanding their idolatry, He only ought to be worshipped.
+The heathen polytheists are therefore justly condemned in Scripture, and
+pronounced to be "_inexcusable_." They had the knowledge of the true
+God--" they _knew God_" and yet "they glorified him not as God." "They
+changed the glory of the incorruptible God into a likeness of
+corruptible man." And, finally, they ended in "worshipping and serving
+the creature _more_ than the Creator."[204]
+
+[Footnote 204: Romans i. 21, 25.]
+
+It can not, then, with justice be denied that the Athenians had some
+knowledge of the true God, and some just and worthy conceptions of his
+character. It is equally certain that a powerful and influential
+religious sentiment pervaded the Athenian mind. Their extreme
+"carefulness in religion" must be conceded by us, and, in some sense,
+commended by us, as it was by Paul in his address on Mars' Hill. At the
+same time it must also be admitted and deplored that the purer theology
+of primitive times was corrupted by offensive legends, and encrusted by
+polluting myths, though not utterly defaced.[205] The Homeric gods were
+for the most part idealized, human personalities, with all the passions
+and weaknesses of humanity. They had their favorites and their enemies;
+sometimes they fought in one camp, sometimes in another. They were
+susceptible of hatred, jealousy, sensual passion. It would be strange
+indeed if their worshippers were not like unto them. The conduct of the
+Homeric heroes was, however, better than their creed. And there is this
+strange incongruity and inconsistency in the conduct of the Homeric
+gods,--they punish mortals for crimes of which they themselves are
+guilty, and reward virtues in men which they do not themselves always
+practise. "They punish with especial severity social and political
+crimes, such as perjury (Iliad, iii. 279), oppression of the poor (Od.
+xvii. 475), and unjust judgment in courts of justice (Iliad, xvi. 386)."
+Jupiter is the god of justice, and of the domestic hearth; he is the
+protector of the exile, the avenger of the poor, and the vigilant
+guardian of hospitality. "And with all the imperfections of society,
+government, and religion, the poem presents a remarkable picture of
+primitive simplicity, chastity, justice, and practical piety, under the
+three-fold influence of moral feeling, mutual respect, and fear of the
+divine displeasure; such, at least, are the motives to which Telemachus
+makes his appeal when he endeavors to rouse the assembled people of
+Ithaca to the performance of their duty (Od. ii. 64)."[206]
+
+[Footnote 205: "There was always a double current of religious ideas in
+Greece; one spiritualist, the other tainted with impure
+legends."--Pressense.]
+
+[Footnote 206: Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," pp. 167, 168;
+Pressense, "Religion before Christ," p. 77.]
+
+The influence of the religious dramas of AEschylus and Sophocles on the
+Athenian mind must not be overlooked. No writer of pagan antiquity made
+the voice of conscience speak with the same power and authority that
+AEschylus did. "Crime," he says, "never dies without posterity." "Blood
+that has been shed congeals on the ground, crying out for an avenger."
+The old poet made himself the echo of what he called "the lyreless hymn
+of the Furies," who, with him, represented severe Justice striking the
+guilty when his hour comes, and giving warning beforehand by the terrors
+which haunt him. His dramas are characterized by deep religious feeling.
+Reverence for the gods, the recognition of an inflexible moral order,
+resignation to the decisions of Heaven, an abiding presentiment of a
+future state of reward and punishment, are strikingly predominant.
+
+Whilst AEschylus reveals to us the sombre, terror-stricken side of
+conscience, Sophocles shows us the divine and luminous side. No one has
+ever spoken with nobler eloquence than he of moral obligation--of this
+immortal, inflexible law, in which dwells a God that never grows old--
+
+        "Oh be the lot forever mine
+            Unsullied to maintain,
+         In act and word, with awe divine,
+            What potent laws ordain.
+
+     "Laws spring from purer realms above:
+      Their father is the Olympian Jove.
+      Ne'er shall oblivion veil their front sublime,
+      Th' indwelling god is great, nor fears the wastes of time."[207]
+
+The religious inspiration that animates Sophocles breaks out with
+incomparable beauty in the last words of oedipus, when the old banished
+king sees through the darkness of death a mysterious light dawn, which
+illumines his blind eyes, and which brings to him the assurance of a
+blessed immortality.[208]
+
+[Footnote 207: "oedipus Tyran.," pp. 863-872.]
+
+[Footnote 208: Pressense, "Religion before Christ," pp. 85-87.]
+
+Such a theology could not have been utterly powerless. The influence of
+truth, in every measure and degree, must be salutary, and especially of
+truth in relation to God, to duty, and to immortality. The religion of
+the Athenians must have had some wholesome and conserving influence of
+the social and political life of Athens.[209] Those who resign the
+government of this lower world almost exclusively to Satan, may see, in
+the religion of the Greeks, a simple creation of Satanic powers. But he
+who believes that the entire progress of humanity has been under the
+control and direction of a benignant Providence, must suppose that, in
+the purposes of God, even Ethnicism has fulfilled some end, or it would
+not have been permitted to live. God has "_never left himself without a
+witness_" in any nation under heaven. And some preparatory office has
+been fulfilled by Heathenism which, at least, repealed the _want_, and
+prepared the mind for, the advent of Christianity.
+
+[Footnote 209: The practice, so common with some theological writers, of
+drawing dark pictures of heathenism, in which not one luminous spot is
+visible, in order to exalt the revelations given to the Jews, is
+exceedingly unfortunate, and highly reprehensible. It is unfortunate,
+because the skeptical scholar knows that there were some elements of
+truth and excellence, and even of grandeur, in the religion and
+civilization of the republics of Greece and Rome; and it is
+reprehensible, because it is a one-sided and unjust procedure, in so far
+as it withholds part of the truth. This species of argument is a
+two-edged sword which cuts both ways. The prevalence of murder, and
+slavery, and treachery, and polygamy, in Greece and Rome, is no more a
+proof that "the religions of the pagan nations were destructive of
+morality" (Watson, vol. i. p. 59), than the polygamy of the Hebrews, the
+falsehoods and impositions of Mediaeval Christianity, the persecutions
+and martyrdoms of Catholic Christianity, the oppressions and wrongs of
+Christian England, and the slavery of Protestant America, are proofs
+that the Christian religion is "destructive of morality." What a fearful
+picture of the history of Christian nations might be drawn to-day, if
+all the lines of light, and goodness, and charity were left out, and the
+crimes, and wrongs, and cruelties of the Christian nations were alone
+exhibited!
+
+How much more convincing a proof of the truth of Christianity to find in
+the religions of the ancient world a latent sympathy with, and an
+unconscious preparation for, the religion of Christ. "The history of
+religions of human origin is the most striking evidence of the agreement
+of revealed religion with the soul of man--for each of these forms of
+worship is the expression of the wants of conscience, its eternal thirst
+for pardon and restoration--rather let us say, its thirst for
+God."--Pressense, p. 6.]
+
+The religion of the Athenians was unable to deliver them from the guilt
+of sin, redeem them from its power, and make them pure and holy. It gave
+the Athenian no victory over himself, and, practically, brought him no
+nearer to the living God. But it awakened and educated the conscience,
+it developed more fully the sense of sin and guilt, and it made man
+conscious of his inability to save himself from sin and guilt; and "the
+day that humanity awakens to the want of something more than mere
+embellishment and culture, that day it feels the need of being saved and
+restored from the consequences of sin" by a higher power. AEsthetic taste
+had found its fullest gratification in Athens; poetry, sculpture,
+architecture, had been carried to the highest perfection; a noble
+civilization had been reached; but "the need of something deeper and
+truer was written on the very stones." The highest consummation of
+Paganism was an altar to "the unknown God," the knowledge of whom it
+needed, as the source of purity and peace.
+
+The strength and the weakness of Grecian mythology consisted in the
+contradictory character of its divinities. It was a strange blending of
+the natural and the supernatural, the human and the divine. Zeus, the
+eternal Father,--the immortal King, whose will is sovereign, and whose
+power is invincible,--the All-seeing Jove, has some of the weaknesses
+and passions of humanity. God and man are thus, in some mysterious way,
+united. And here that deepest longing of the human heart is met--the
+unconquerable desire to bring God nearer to the human apprehension, and
+closer to the human heart. Hence the hold which Polytheism had upon the
+Grecian mind. But in this human aspect was also found its weakness, for
+when philosophic thought is brought into contact with, and permitted
+critically to test mythology, it dethrones the false gods. The age of
+spontaneous religious sentiment must necessarily be succeeded by the age
+of reflective thought. Popular theological faiths must be placed in the
+hot crucible of dialectic analysis, that the false and the frivolous may
+be separated from the pure and the true. The reason of man demands to be
+satisfied, as well as the heart. Faith in God must have a logical basis,
+it must be grounded on demonstration and proof. Or, at any rate, the
+question must be answered, _whether God is cognizable by human reason_?
+If this can be achieved, then a deeper foundation is laid in the mind of
+humanity, upon which Christianity can rear its higher and nobler truths.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE UNKNOWN GOD.
+
+
+"As I passed by, and beheld your sacred objects, I found an altar with
+this inscription, _To the Unknown God_."--ST. PAUL.
+
+"That which can be _known_ of God is manifested in their hearts, God
+himself having shown it to them" [the heathen nations].--ST. PAUL.
+
+Having now reached our first landing-place, from whence we may survey
+the fields that we have traversed, it may be well to set down in
+definite propositions the results we have attained. We may then carry
+them forward, as torches, to illuminate the path of future and still
+profounder inquiries.
+
+The principles we have assumed as the only adequate and legitimate
+interpretation of the facts of religious history, and which an extended
+study of the most fully-developed religious system of the ancient world
+confirms, may be thus announced:
+
+I. A religious nature and destination appertain to man, so that the
+purposes of his existence and the perfection of his being can only be
+secured in and through religion.
+
+II. The idea of God as the unconditioned Cause, the infinite Mind, the
+personal Lord and Lawgiver, and the consciousness of dependence upon and
+obligation to God, are the fundamental principles of all religion.
+
+III. Inasmuch as man is a religious being, the instincts and emotions of
+his nature constraining him to worship, there must also be implanted in
+his rational nature some original _a priori_ ideas or laws of thought
+which furnish the necessary cognition of the object of worship; that is,
+some native, spontaneous cognition of God.
+
+A mere blind impulse would not be adequate to guide man to the true end
+and perfection of his being without rational ideas; a tendency or
+appetency, without a revealed object, would be the mockery and misery of
+his nature--an "ignis fatuus" perpetually alluring and forever deceiving
+man.
+
+That man has a native, spontaneous apperception of a God, in the true
+import of that sacred name, has been denied by men of totally opposite
+schools and tendencies of thought--by the Idealist and the Materialist;
+by the Theologian and the Atheist. Though differing essentially in their
+general principles and method, they are agreed in asserting that God is
+absolutely "_the unknown_;" and that, so far as reason and logic are
+concerned, man can not attain to any knowledge of the first principles
+and causes of the universe, and, consequently, can not determine whether
+the first principle or principles be intelligent or unintelligent,
+personal or impersonal, finite or infinite, one or many righteous or
+non-righteous, evil or good.
+
+The various opponents of the doctrine that God can be cognized by human
+reason may be classified as follows: I. _Those who assert that all human
+knowledge is necessarily confined to the observation and classification
+of phenomena in their orders of co-existence, succession, and
+resemblance_. Man has no faculty for cognizing substances, causes,
+forces, reasons, first principles--no power by which he can _know_ God.
+This class may be again subdivided into--
+
+1. Those who limit all knowledge to the observation and classification
+of _mental_ phenomena (_e. g_., Idealists like J. S. Mill).
+
+2. Those who limit all knowledge to the observation and classification
+of _material_ phenomena (_e. g_., Materialists like Comte).
+
+II. _The second class comprises all who admit that philosophic knowledge
+is the knowledge of effects as dependent on causes, and of qualities as
+inherent in substances; but at the same time assert that "all knowledge
+is of the phenomenal_." Philosophy can never attain to a positive
+knowledge of the First Cause. Of existence, absolutely and in itself, we
+know nothing. The infinite can not by us be comprehended, conceived, or
+thought. _Faith_ is the organ by which we apprehend what is beyond
+knowledge. We believe in the existence of God, but we can not _know_
+God. This class, also, may be again subdivided into--
+
+1. Those who affirm that our idea of the Infinite First Cause is
+grounded on an _intuitional_ or subjective faith, necessitated by an
+"impotence of thought"--that is, by a mental inability to conceive an
+absolute limitation or an infinite illimitation, an absolute
+commencement or an infinite non-commencement. Both contradictory
+opposites are equally incomprehensible and inconceivable to us; and yet,
+though unable to view either as possible, we are forced by a higher
+law--the "Law of Excluded Middle"--to admit that one, and only one, is
+necessary (_e. g_., Hamilton and Mansel).
+
+2. Those who assert that our idea of God rests solely on an _historical_
+or objective faith in testimony--the testimony of Scripture, which
+assures us that, in the course of history, God has manifested his
+existence in an objective manner to the senses, and given verbal
+communications of his character and will to men; human reason being
+utterly incapacitated by the fall, and the consequent depravity of man,
+to attain any knowledge of the unity, spirituality, and righteousness of
+God (_e. g_., Watson, and Dogmatic Theologians generally).
+
+It will thus be manifest that the great question, the central and vital
+question which demands a thorough and searching consideration, is the
+following, to wit: _Is God cognizable by human reason_? Can man attain
+to a positive cognition of God--can he _know_ God; or is all our
+supposed knowledge "a learned ignorance,"[210] an unreasoning faith? We
+venture to answer this question in the affirmative. Human reason is now
+adequate to the cognition of God; it is able, with the fullest
+confidence, to affirm the being of a God, and, in some degree, to
+determine his character. The parties and schools above referred to
+answer this question in the negative form. Whether Theologians or
+Atheists, they are singularly agreed in denying to human reason all
+possibility of _knowing_ God.
+
+[Footnote 210: Hamilton's "Philosophy," p. 512.]
+
+Before entering upon the discussion of the negative positions enumerated
+in the above classification, it may be important we should state our own
+position explicitly, and exhibit what we regard as the true doctrine of
+the genesis of the idea of God in the human intelligence. The real
+question at issue will then stand out in clear relief, and precision
+will be given to the entire discussion.
+
+(i.) _We hold that the idea of God is a common phenomenon of the
+universal human intelligence_. It is found in all minds where reason has
+had its normal and healthy development; and no race of men has ever been
+found utterly destitute of the idea of God. The proof of this position
+has already been furnished in chap, ii.,[211] and needs not be re-stated
+here. We have simply to remark that the appeal which is made by Locke
+and others of the sensational school to the experiences of infants,
+idiots, the deaf and dumb, or, indeed, any cases wherein the proper
+conditions for the normal development of reason are wanting, are utterly
+irrelevant to the question. The acorn contains within itself the
+rudimental germ of the future oak, but its mature and perfect
+development depends on the exterior conditions of moisture, light, and
+heat. By these exterior conditions it may be rendered luxuriant in its
+growth, or it may be stunted in its growth. It may barely exist under
+one class of conditions; it may be distorted and perverted, or it may
+perish utterly under another. And so in the idiotic mind the ideas of
+reason may be wanting, or they may be imprisoned by impervious walls of
+cerebral malformation. In the infant mind the development of reason is
+yet in an incipient stage. The idea of God is immanent to the infant
+thought, but the infant thought is not yet matured. The deaf and dumb
+are certainly not in that full and normal correlation to the world of
+sense which is a necessary condition of the development of reason.
+Language, the great vehiculum and instrument of thought, is wanting, and
+reason can not develop itself without words. "Words without thought are
+dead sounds, _thoughts without words are nothing_. The word is the
+thought incarnate."[212] Under proper and normal conditions, the idea of
+God is the natural and necessary form in which human thought must be
+developed. And, with these explanations, we repeat our affirmation that
+the idea of God is a common phenomenon of the universal human
+intelligence.
+
+[Footnote 211: Pp. 89,90.]
+
+[Footnote 212: Mueller, "Science of Language," p. 384.]
+
+(ii.) _We do not hold that the idea of God, in its completeness, is a
+simple, direct, and immediate intuition of the reason alone, independent
+of all experience, and all knowledge of the external world_. The idea of
+God is a complex idea, and not a simple idea. The affirmation, "God
+exists," is a _synthetic_ and _primitive_ judgment spontaneously
+developed in the mind, and developed, too, independent of all reflective
+reasoning. It is a necessary deduction from the facts of the outer world
+of nature and the primary intuitions of the inner world of reason--a
+logical deduction from the self-evident truths given in sense,
+consciousness, and reason. "We do not _perceive_ God, but we _conceive_
+Him upon the faith of this admirable world exposed to view, and upon the
+other world, more admirable still, which we bear in ourselves."[213]
+Therefore we do not say that man is born with an "innate idea" of God,
+nor with the definite proposition, "there is a God," written upon his
+soul; but we do say that the mind is pregnant with certain natural
+principles, and governed, in its development, by certain necessary laws
+of thought, which determine it, by a _spontaneous logic_, to affirm the
+being of a God; and, furthermore, that this judgment may be called
+_innate_ in the sense, that it is the primitive, universal, and
+necessary development of the human understanding which "is innate to
+itself and equal to itself in all men."[214]
+
+[Footnote 213: Cousin, "True, Beautiful and Good," p.102.]
+
+[Footnote 214: Leibnitz.]
+
+As the vital and rudimentary germ of the oak is contained in the acorn;
+as it is quickened and excited to activity by the external conditions of
+moisture, light, and heat, and is fully de developed under the fixed and
+determinative laws of vegetable life--so the germs of the idea of God
+are present in the human mind as the intuitions of pure reason
+(_Rational Psychology_); these intuitions are excited to energy by our
+experiential and historical knowledge of the facts and laws of the
+universe (_Phenomenology_); and these facts and intuitions are developed
+into form by the necessary laws of the intellect (_Nomology_, or
+_Primordial Logic_).
+
+The _logical demonstration_ of the being of God commences with the
+analysis of thought. It asks, What are the ideas which exist in the
+human intelligence? What are their actual characteristics, and what
+their primitive characteristics? What is their origin, and what their
+validity? Having, by this process, found that some of our ideas are
+subjective, and some objective that some are derived from experience,
+and that some can not be derived from experience, but are inherent in
+the very constitution of the mind itself, as _a priori_ ideas of reason;
+that these are characterized as self-evident, universal, and necessary
+and that, as laws of thought, they govern the mind in all its
+conceptions of the universe; it has formulated these necessary
+judgments, and presented them as distinct and articulate propositions.
+These _a priori_, necessary judgments constitute the major premise of
+the Theistic syllogism, and, in view of the facts of the universe,
+necessitate the affirmation of the existence of a God as the only valid
+explanation of the facts.
+
+The _natural_ or _chronological order_ in which the idea of God is
+developed in the human intelligence, is the reverse process of the
+scientific or logical order, in which the demonstration of the being of
+God is presented by philosophy; the latter is _reflective_ and
+_analytic_, the former is _spontaneous_ and _synthetic._ The natural
+order commences with the knowledge of the facts of the universe,
+material and mental, as revealed by sensation and experience. In
+presence of these facts of the universe, the _a priori_ ideas of power,
+cause, reason, and end are evoked into consciousness with greater or
+less distinctness; and the judgment, by a natural and spontaneous logic,
+free from all reflection, and consequently from all possibility of
+error, affirms a necessary relation between the facts of experience and
+the _a priori_ ideas of the reason. The result of this involuntary and
+almost unconscious process of thought is that natural cognition of a God
+found, with greater or less clearness and definiteness, in all rational
+minds. The _a posteriori_, or empirical knowledge of the phenomena of
+the universe, in their relations to time and space, constitute the minor
+premise of the Theistic syllogism.
+
+The Theistic argument is, therefore, necessarily composed of both
+experiential and _a priori_ elements. An _a posteriori_ element exists
+as a condition of the logical demonstration The rational _a priori_
+element is, however, the logical basis, the only valid foundation of the
+Theistic demonstration. The facts of the universe alone would never lead
+man to the recognition of a God, if the reason, in presence of these
+facts, did not enounce certain necessary and universal principles which
+are the logical antecedents, and adequate explanation of the facts. Of
+what use would it be to point to the events and changes of the material
+universe as proofs of the existence of a _First Cause,_ unless we take
+account of the universal and necessary truth that "every change must
+have an efficient cause;" that all phenomena are an indication of
+_power_; and that "there is an ultimate and sufficient reason why all
+things exist, and are as they are, and not otherwise." There would be no
+logical force in enumerating the facts of order and special adaptation
+which literally crowd the universe, as proofs of the existence of an
+_Intelligent Creator_, if the mind did not affirm the necessary
+principle that "facts of order, having a commencement in time, suppose
+mind as their source and exponent." There is no logical conclusiveness
+in the assertion of Paley, "that _experience_ teaches us that a designer
+must be a person," because, as Hume justly remarks, our "experience" is
+narrowed down to a mere point, "and can not be a rule for a universe;"
+but there is an infinitude of force in that dictum of reason, that
+"intelligence, self-consciousness, and self-determination necessarily
+constitute personality." A multiplicity of different effects, of which
+experience does not always reveal the connection, would not conduct to a
+single cause and to _one_ God, but rather to a plurality of causes and a
+plurality of gods, did not reason teach us that "all plurality implies
+an ultimate indivisible unity," and therefore there must be a _First
+Cause_ of all causes, a _First Principle_ of all principles, _the
+Substance_ of all substances, _the Being_ of all beings--_a God_ "of
+whom, in whom, and to whom are all things" (panta ek tou Theou, en to
+Theo eis ton Theon).
+
+The conclusion, therefore, is, that, as the idea of God is a complex
+idea, so there are necessarily a number of simple _a priori_ principles,
+and a variety of experiential facts conspiring to its development in the
+human intelligence.
+
+(iii.) _The universe presents to the human mind an aggregation and
+history of phenomena which demands the idea of a God--a self-existent,
+intelligent, personal, righteous First Cause--as its adequate
+explanation._
+
+The attempt of Positivism to confine all human knowledge to the
+observation and classification of phenomena, and arrest and foreclose
+all inquiry as to causes, efficient, final, and ultimate, is simply
+futile and absurd. It were just as easy to arrest the course of the sun
+in mid-heaven as to prevent the human mind from seeking to pass beyond
+phenomena, and ascertain the ground, and reason, and cause of all
+phenomena. The history of speculative thought clearly attests that, in
+all ages, the inquiry after the Ultimate Cause and Reason of all
+existence--the arche, or First Principle of all things--has been the
+inevitable and necessary tendency of the human mind; to resist which,
+skepticism and positivism have been utterly impotent. The first
+philosophers, of the Ionian school, had just as strong a faith in the
+existence of a Supreme Reality--an Ultimate Cause--as Leibnitz and
+Cousin. But when, by reflective thought, they attempted to render an
+account to themselves of this instinctive faith, they imagined that its
+object must be in some way appreciable to sense, and they sought it in
+some physical element, or under some visible and tangible shrine. Still,
+however imperfect and inadequate the method, and however unsatisfactory
+the results, humanity has never lost its positive and ineradicable
+confidence that the problem of existence could be solved. The resistless
+tide of spontaneous and necessary thought has always borne the race
+onward towards the recognition of a great First Cause; and though
+philosophy may have erred, again and again, in tracing the logical order
+of this inevitable thought, and exhibiting the necessary nexus between
+the premises and conclusion, yet the human mind has never wavered in the
+confidence which it has reposed in the natural logic of thought, and man
+has never ceased to believe in a God.
+
+We readily grant that all our empirical knowledge is confined to
+phenomena in their orders of co-existence, succession, and resemblance.
+"To our objective perception and comparison nothing is given but
+qualities and changes; to our inductive generalization nothing but the
+shifting and grouping of these in time and space." Were it, however, our
+immediate concern to discuss the question, we could easily show that
+sensationalism has never succeeded in tracing the genetic origin of our
+ideas of space and time to observation and experience; and, without the
+_a priori_ idea of _space_, as the place of bodies, and of _time_, as
+the condition of succession, we can not conceive of phenomena at all.
+If, therefore, we know any thing beyond phenomena and their mutual
+relations; if we have any cognition of realities underlying phenomena,
+and of the relations of phenomena to their objective ground, it must be
+given by some faculty distinct from sense-perception, and in some
+process distinct from inductive generalization. The knowledge of real
+Being and real Power, of an ultimate Reason and a personal Will, is
+derived from the apperception of pure reason, which affirms the
+necessary existence of a Supreme Reality--an Uncreated Being beyond all
+phenomena, which is the ground and reason of the existence--the
+contemporaneousness and succession--the likeness and unlikeness, of all
+phenomena.
+
+The immediate presentation of phenomena to sensation is the _occasion_
+of the development in consciousness of these _a priori_ ideas of reason:
+the possession of these ideas or the immanence of these ideas, in the
+human intellect, constitutes the original _power_ to know external
+phenomena. The ideas of space, time, power, law, reason, and end, are
+the logical antecedents of the ideas of body, succession, event,
+consecution, order, and adaptation. The latter can not be conceived as
+distinct notions without the former. The former will not be revealed in
+thought without the presentation to sense, of resistance, movement,
+change, uniformity, etc. All actual knowledge must, therefore, be
+impure; that is, it must involve both _a priori_ and _a posteriori_
+elements; and between these elements there must be a necessary relation.
+
+This necessary relation between the _a priori_ and _a posteriori_
+elements of knowledge is not a mere subjective law of thought. It is
+both a law of thought and a law of things. Between the _a posteriori_
+facts of the universe and the _a priori_ ideas of the reason there is an
+absolute nexus, a universal and necessary correlation; so that the
+cognition of the latter is possible only on the cognition of the former;
+and the objective existence of the realities, represented by the ideas
+of reason, is the condition, _sine qua non_, of the existence of the
+phenomena presented to sense. If, in one indivisible act of
+consciousness, we immediately perceive extended matter exterior to our
+percipient mind, then Extension exists objectively; and if Extension
+exists objectively, then Space, its _conditio sine qua non_, also exists
+objectively. And if a definite body reveals to us the _Space_ in which
+it is contained, if a succession of pulsations or movements exhibit the
+uniform _Time_ beneath, so do the changeful phenomena of the universe
+demand a living _Power_ behind, and the existing order and regular
+evolution of the universe presuppose _Thought_--prevision, and
+predetermination, by an intelligent mind.
+
+If, then, the universe is a created effect, it must furnish some
+indications of the character of its cause. If, as Plato taught, the
+world is a "created image" of the eternal archetypes which dwell in the
+uncreated Mind, and if the subjective ideas which dwell in the human
+reason, as the offspring of God, are "copies" of the ideas of the
+Infinite Reason--if the universe be "the autobiography of the Infinite
+Spirit which has also repeated itself in miniature within our finite
+spirit," then may we decipher its symbols, and read its lessons straight
+off. Then every approach towards a scientific comprehension and
+generalization of the facts of the universe must carry us upward towards
+the higher realities of reason. The more we can understand of Nature--of
+her comprehensive laws, of her archetypal forms, of her far-reaching
+plan spread through the almost infinite ages, and stretching through
+illimitable space--the more do we comprehend the divine Thought. The
+inductive generalization of science gradually _ascends_ towards the
+universal; the pure, essential, _a priori_ reason, with its universal
+and necessary ideas, _descends_ from above to meet it. The general
+conceptions of science are thus a kind of _ideoe umbratiles_--shadowy
+assimilations to those immutable ideas which dwell in essential reason,
+as possessed by the Supreme Intelligence, and which are participated in
+by rational man as the offspring and image of God.
+
+Without making any pretension to profound scientific accuracy, we offer
+the following tentative classification of the facts of the universe,
+material and mental, which may be regarded as hints and adumbrations of
+the ultimate ground, and reason, and cause, of the universe. We shall
+venture to classify these facts as indicative of some fundamental
+relation; (i.) to Permanent Being or Reality; (ii.) to Reason and
+Thought; (iii.) to Moral Ideas and Ends.
+
+(i.) _Facts of the universe which indicate some fundamental relation to
+Permanent Being or Reality_.
+
+1. _Qualitative_ Phenomena (properties, attributes, qualities)--the
+predicates of a _subject_; which phenomena, being characterized by
+likeness and unlikeness, are capable of comparison and classification,
+and thus of revealing something as to the nature of the _subject_.
+
+2. _Dynamical_ Phenomena (protension, movement, succession)--events
+transpiring in _time_, having beginning, succession, and end, which
+present themselves to us as the expression of _power_, and throw back
+their distinctive characteristics on their _dynamic_ source.
+
+3. _Quantitative_ Phenomena (totality, multiplicity, relative unity)--a
+multiplicity of objects having relative and composite unity, which
+suggests some relation to an absolute and indivisible _unity_.
+
+4. _Statical_ Phenomena (extension, magnitude, divisibility)--bodies
+co-existing in _space_ which are limited, conditioned, relative,
+dependent, and indicate some relation to that which is self-existent,
+unconditioned, and absolute.
+
+(ii.) _Facts of the universe which indicate some fundamental relation to
+Reason or Thought_.
+
+1. _Numerical and Geometrical Proportion_.--Definite proportion of
+elements (Chemistry), symmetrical arrangement of parts
+(Crystallography), numerical and geometrical relation of the forms and
+movements of the heavenly bodies (Spherical Astronomy), all of which are
+capable of exact mathematical expression.
+
+2. _Archetypal Forms_.--The uniform succession of new existences, and
+the progressive evolution of new orders and species, conformable to
+fixed and definite ideal archetypes, the indication of a comprehensive
+_plan_(Morphological Botany, Comparative Anatomy).
+
+3. _Teleology of Organs_.--The adaptation of organs to the fulfillment
+of special functions, indicating _design_(Comparative Physiology).
+
+4. _Combination of Homotypes and Analogues_.--Diversified homologous
+forms made to fulfill analogous functions, or special purposes fulfilled
+whilst maintaining a general plan, indicating _choice_ and
+_alternativity_.
+
+(iii.) _Facts of the universe which indicate some fundamental relation
+to Moral Ideas and Ends_.
+
+1. _Ethical Distinctions_.--The universal tendency to discriminate
+between voluntary acts as right or wrong, indicating some relation to an
+_immutable moral standard of right_.
+
+2. _Sense of Obligation_.--The universal consciousness of dependence and
+obligation, indicating some relation to Supreme _Power_, an Absolute
+_Authority_.
+
+3. _Feeling of Responsibility_.--The universal consciousness of
+liability to be required to give account for, and endure the
+consequences of our action, indicating some relation to a Supreme
+_Judge_.
+
+4. _Retributive Issues_.--The pleasure and pain resulting from moral
+action in this life, and the universal anticipation of pleasure or pain
+in the future, as the consequence of present conduct, indicate an
+_absolute Justice_ ruling the world and man.
+
+Now, if the universe be a _created effect_, it must, in some degree at
+least, reveal the character of its Author and cause. We are entitled to
+regard it as a created symbol and image of the Deity; it must bear the
+impress of his _power_; it must reveal his infinite _presence_; it must
+express his _thoughts_; it must embody and realize his _ideals_, so far,
+at least, as material symbols will permit. Just as we see the power and
+thought of man revealed in his works, his energy and skill, his ideal
+and his taste expressed in his mechanical, artistic, and literary
+creations, so we may see the mind and character of God displayed in his
+works. The skill and contrivance of Watts, and Fulton, and Stephenson
+were exhibited in their mechanical productions. The pure, the intense,
+the visionary impersonation of the soul which the artist had conjured in
+his own imagination was wrought out in Psyche. The colossal grandeur of
+Michael Angelo's ideals, the ethereal and saintly elegance of Raphael's
+were realized upon the canvas. So he who is familiar with the ideal of
+the sculptor or the painter can identify his creations even when the
+author's name is not affixed. And so the "eternal Power" of God is
+"clearly seen" in the mighty orbs which float in the illimitable space.
+The vastness of the universe shadows forth the infinity of God. The
+indivisible unity of space and the ideal unity of the universe reflect
+the unity of God. The material forms around us are symbols of divine
+ideas, and the successive history of the universe is an expression of
+the divine thought; whilst the ethical ideas and sentiments inherent in
+the human mind are a reflection of the moral character of God.
+
+The reader can not have failed to observe the form in which the Theistic
+argument is stated; "_if_ the finite universe is a created effect, it
+must reveal something as to the nature of its cause: _if_ the existing
+order and arrangement of the universe had a commencement in time, it
+must have an ultimate and adequate cause." The question, therefore,
+presents itself in a definite form: "_Is the universe finite or
+infinite; had the order of the universe a beginning, or is it eternal_?"
+
+It will be seen at a glance that this is the central and vital question
+in the Theistic argument. If the order and arrangement of the universe
+is _eternal_, then that order is an inherent law of nature, and, as
+eternal, does not imply a cause _ab extra:_ if it is not eternal, then
+the ultimate cause of that order must be a power above and beyond
+nature. In the former case the minor premise of the Theistic syllogism
+is utterly invalidated; in the latter case it is abundantly sustained.
+
+Some Theistic writers--as Descartes, Pascal, Leibnitz, and Saisset--have
+made the fatal admission that the universe is, in some sense, _infinite_
+and _eternal_. In making this admission they have unwittingly
+surrendered the citadel of strength, and deprived the argument by which
+they would prove the being of a God of all its logical force. That
+argument is thus presented by Saisset: "The finite supposes the
+infinite. Extension supposes first space, then immensity: duration
+supposes first time, then eternity. A sudden and irresistible judgment
+refers this to the necessary, infinite, perfect being."[215] But if "the
+world is infinite and eternal,"[216] may not nature, or the totality of
+all existence (to pan), be the necessary, infinite, and perfect Being?
+An infinite and eternal universe has the reason of its existence in
+itself, and the existence of such a universe can never prove to us the
+existence of an infinite and eternal God.
+
+[Footnote 215: "Modern Pantheism," vol. ii. p. 205.]
+
+[Footnote 216: Ibid, p. 123.]
+
+A closer examination of the statements and reasonings of Descartes,
+Pascal, and Leibnitz, as furnished by Saisset, will show that these
+distinguished mathematicans were misled by the false notion of
+"_mathematical_ infinitude." Their infinite universe, after all, is not
+an "absolute," but a "relative" infinite; that is, the indefinite. "The
+universe must extend _indefinitely_ in time and space, in the infinite
+greatness, and in the infinite littleness of its parts--in the infinite
+variety of its species, of its forms, and of its degrees of existence.
+The finite can not express the infinite but by being _multiplied_
+infinitely. The finite, so far as it is finite, is not in any reasonable
+relation, or in any intelligible proportion to the infinite. But the
+finite, as _multiplied_ infinitely,[217] ages upon ages, spaces upon
+spaces, stars beyond stars, worlds beyond worlds, is a true expression
+of the Infinite Being. Does it follow, because the universe has no
+limits,--that it must therefore be eternal, immense, infinite as God
+himself? No; that is but a vain scruple, which springs from the
+imagination, and not from the reason. The imagination is always
+confounding what reason should ever distinguish, eternity and time,
+immensity and space, _relative_ infinity and _absolute_ infinity. The
+Creator alone is eternal, immense, absolutely infinite."[218]
+
+[Footnote 217: "The infinite is distinct from the finite, and
+consequently from the multiplication of the finite by itself; that is,
+from the _indefinite_. That which is not infinite, added as many times
+as you please to itself, will not become infinite."--Cousin, "Hist, of
+Philos.," vol. ii. p. 231.]
+
+[Footnote 218: Saisset, "Modern Pantheism," vol. ii. pp. 127, 128.]
+
+The introduction of the idea of "the mathematical infinite" into
+metaphysical speculation, especially by Kant and Hamilton, with the
+design, it would seem, of transforming the idea of infinity into a
+sensuous conception, has generated innumerable paralogisms which
+disfigure the pages of their philosophical writings. This procedure is
+grounded in the common fallacy of supposing that _infinity_ and
+_quantity_ are compatible attributes, and susceptible of mathematical
+synthesis. This insidious and plausible error is ably refuted by a
+writer in the "North American Review."[219] We can not do better than
+transfer his argument to our pages in an abridged form.
+
+[Footnote 219: "The Conditioned and the Unconditioned," No. CCV. art.
+iii. (1864).]
+
+Mathematics is conversant with quantities and quantitative relations.
+The conception of quantity, therefore, if rigorously analyzed, will
+indicate _a priori_ the natural and impassable boundaries of the
+science; while a subsequent examination of the quantities called
+infinite in the mathematical sense, and of the algebraic symbol of
+infinity, will be seen to verify the results of this _a priori_
+analysis.
+
+Quantity is that attribute of things in virtue of which they are
+susceptible of exact mensuration. The question _how much_, or _how many_
+(_quantus_), implies the answer, _so much_, or _so many_ (_tantus_); but
+the answer is possible only through reference to some standard of
+magnitude or multitude arbitrarily assumed. Every object, therefore, of
+which quantity, in the mathematical sense, is predicable, must be by its
+essential nature _mensurable._ Now mensurability implies the existence
+of actual, definite limits, since without them there could be no fixed
+relation between the given object and the standard of measurement, and,
+consequently, no possibility of exact mensuration. In fact, since
+quantification is the object of all mathematical operations, mathematics
+may be not inaptly defined as _the science of the determinations of
+limits_. It is evident, therefore, that the terms _quantity_ and
+_finitude_ express the same attribute, namely, _limitation_--the former
+relatively, the latter absolutely; for quantity is limitation considered
+with relation to some standard of measurement, and finitude is
+limitation considered simply in itself. The sphere of quantity,
+therefore, is absolutely identical with the sphere of the finite; and
+the phrase _infinite quantity_, if strictly construed, is a
+contradiction in terms.
+
+The result thus attained by considering abstract quantity is
+corroborated by considering concrete and discrete quantities. Such
+expressions as _infinite sphere, radius, parallelogram, line,_ and so
+forth, are self-contradictory. A sphere is limited by its own periphery,
+and a radius by the centre and circumference of its circle. A
+parallelogram of infinite altitude is impossible, because the limit of
+its altitude is assigned in the side which must be parallel to its base
+in order to constitute it a parallelogram. In brief, all figuration is
+limitation. The contradiction in the term _infinite line_ is not quite
+so obvious, but can readily be made apparent. Objectively, a line is
+only the termination of a surface, and a surface the termination of a
+solid; hence a line can not exist apart from an extended quantity, nor
+an infinite line apart from an infinite quantity. But as this term has
+just been shown to be self-contradictory, an infinite line can not exist
+objectively at all. Again, every line is extension in one dimension;
+hence a mathematical quantity, hence mensurable, hence finite; you must
+therefore, deny that a line is a quantity, or else affirm that it is
+finite.
+
+The same conclusion is forced upon us, if from geometry we turn to
+arithmetic. The phrases _infinite number, infinite series, infinite
+process_, and so forth, are all contradictory when literally construed.
+Number is a relation among separate unities or integers, which,
+considered objectively as independent of our cognitive powers, must
+constitute an exact sum; and this exactitude, or synthetic totality, is
+limitation. If considered subjectively in the mode of its cognition, a
+number is infinite only in the sense that it is beyond the power of our
+imagination or conception, which is an abuse of the term. In either case
+the totality is fixed; that is, finite. So, too, of _series_ and
+_process_. Since every series involves a succession of terms or numbers,
+and every process a succession of steps or stages, the notion of series
+and process plainly involves that of _number_, and must be rigorously
+dissociated from the idea of infinity. At any one step, at any one term,
+the number attained is determinate, hence finite. The fact that, by the
+law of the series or of the process, _we_ may continue the operation _as
+long as we please_, does not justify the application of the term
+infinite to the operation itself; if any thing is infinite, it is the
+will which continues the operation, which is absurd if said of human
+wills.
+
+Consequently, the attribute of infinity is not predicable either of
+'diminution without limit,' 'augmentation without limit,' or 'endless
+approximation to a fixed limit,' for these mathematical processes
+continue only as we continue them, consist of steps successively
+accomplished, and are limited by the very fact of this serial
+incompletion.
+
+"We can not forbear pointing out an important application of these
+results to the Critical Philosophy. Kant bases each of his famous four
+antinomies on the demand of pure reason for unconditioned totality in a
+regressive series of conditions. This, he says, must be realized either
+in an absolute first of the series, conditioning all the other members,
+but itself unconditioned, or else in the absolute infinity of the series
+without a first; but reason is utterly unable, on account of mutual
+contradiction, to decide in which of the two alternatives the
+unconditioned is found. By the principles we have laid down, however,
+the problem is solved. The absolute infinity of a series is a
+contradiction _in adjecto_. As every number, although immeasurably and
+inconceivably great, is impossible unless _unity_ is given as its basis,
+so every series, being itself a number, is impossible unless a _first
+term_ is given as a commencement. Through a first term alone is the
+unconditioned possible; that is, if it does not exist in a first term,
+it can not exist at all; of the two alternatives, therefore, one
+altogether disappears, and reason is freed from the dilemma of a
+compulsory yet impossible decision. Even if it should be allowed that
+the series has no first term, but has originated _ab aeterno_, it must
+always at each instant have a _last term_; the series, as a whole, can
+not be infinite, and hence can not, as Kant claims it can, realize in
+its wholeness unconditioned totality. Since countless terms forever
+remain unreached, the series is forever limited by them. Kant himself
+admits that it _can never be completed_, and is only potentially
+infinite; actually, therefore, by his own admission, it is finite. But a
+last term implies a first, as absolutely as one end of a string implies
+the other; the only possibility of an unconditioned lies in Kant's first
+alternative, and if, as he maintains Reason must demand it, she can not
+hesitate in her decisions. That _number is a limitation_ is no new
+truth, and that every series involves number is self-evident; and it is
+surprising that so radical a criticism on Kant's system should never
+have suggested itself to his opponents. Even the so-called _moments_ of
+time can not be regarded as constituting a real series, for a series can
+not be real except through its divisibility into members whereas time is
+indivisible, and its partition into moments is a conventional fiction.
+Exterior limitability and interior divisibility result equally from the
+possibility of discontinuity. Exterior illimitability and interior
+indivisibility are simple phases of the same attribute of _necessary
+continuity_ contemplated under different aspects. From this principle
+flows another upon which it is impossible to lay too much stress,
+namely; _illimitability and indivisibility, infinity and unity,
+reciprocally necessitate each other_. Hence the Quantitative Infinites
+must be also Units, and the division of space and time, implying
+absolute contradiction, is not even cogitable as an hypothesis.[220]
+
+"The word _infinite_, therefore, in mathematical usage, as applied to
+_process_ and to _quantity_, has a two-fold signification. An infinite
+process is one which we can continue _as long as we please_, but which
+exists solely in our continuance of it.[221] An infinite quantity is one
+which exceeds our powers of mensuration or of conception, but which,
+nevertheless, has bounds and limits in itself.[222] Hence the
+possibility of relation among infinite quantities, and of different
+orders of infinities. If the words _infinite, infinity, infinitesimal_,
+should be banished from mathematical treatises and replaced by the words
+_indefinite, indefinity,_ and _indefinitesimal_, mathematics would
+suffer no loss, while, by removing a perpetual source of confusion,
+metaphysics would get great gain."
+
+[Footnote 220: By the application of these principles the writer in the
+"North American Review" completely dissolves the antinomies by which
+Hamilton seeks to sustain his "Philosophy of the Conditioned." See
+"North American Review," 1864, pp. 432-437.]
+
+[Footnote 221: De Morgan, "Diff. and Integ. Calc." p. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 222: Id., ib., p. 25.]
+
+The above must be regarded as a complete refutation of the position
+taken by _Hume_, to wit, that the idea of nature eternally existing in a
+state of order, without a cause other than the eternally inherent laws
+of nature, is no more self-contradictory than the idea of an
+eternally-existing and infinite mind, who originated this order--a God
+existing without a cause. The eternal and infinite Mind is indivisible
+and illimitable; nature, in its totality, as well as in its individual
+parts, has interior divisibility, and exterior limitability. The
+infinity of God is not a _quantitative_, but a _qualitative_ infinity.
+The miscalled eternity and infinity of nature is an _indefinite_
+extension and protension in time and space, and, as _quantitative_, must
+necessarily be limited and measurable, therefore _finite_.
+
+The universe of sense-perception and sensuous imagination is a
+phenomenal universe, a genesis, a perpetual becoming, an entrance into
+existence, and an exit thence; the Theist is, therefore, perfectly
+justified in regarding it as disqualified for _self-existence_, and in
+passing behind it for the Supreme Entity that needs no cause. Phenomena
+demand causation, entities dispense with it. No one asks for a cause of
+the _space_ which contains the universe, or of the Eternity on the bosom
+of which it floats. Everywhere the line is necessarily drawn upon the
+same principle; that entities _may_ have self-existence, phenomena
+_must_ have a cause.[223]
+
+[Footnote 223: "Science, Nescience, and Faith," in Martineau's "Essays,"
+p. 206.]
+
+IV. _Psychological analysis clearly attests that in the phenomena of
+consciousness there are found elements or principles which, in their
+regular and normal development, transcend the limits of consciousness,
+and attain to the knowledge of Absolute Being, Absolute Reason, Absolute
+Good_, i.e., GOD.
+
+The analysis of thought clearly reveals that the mind of man is in
+possession of ideas, notions, beliefs, principles (as _e.g._, the idea
+of space, duration, cause, substance, unity, infinity), which are not
+derived from sensation and experience, and which can not be drawn out of
+sensation and experience by any process of generalization. These ideas
+have this incontestable peculiarity, as distinguished from all the
+phenomena of sensation, that, whilst the latter are particular,
+contingent, and relative, the former are _universal_, _necessary_, and
+_absolute_. As an example, and a proof of the reality and validity of
+this distinction, take the ideas of _body_ and of _space_, the former
+unquestionably derived from experience, the latter supplied by reason
+alone. "I ask you, can not you conceive this book to be destroyed?
+Without doubt you can. And can not you conceive the whole world to be
+destroyed, and no matter whatever in existence? You can. For you,
+constituted as you are, the supposition of the non-existence of bodies
+implies no contradiction. And what do we call the idea of a thing which
+we can conceive of as non-existing? We call it a _contingent_ and
+_relative_ idea. But if you can conceive this book to be destroyed, all
+bodies destroyed, can you suppose space to be destroyed? You can not. It
+is in the power of man's thought to conceive the non-existence of
+bodies; it is not in the power of man's thought to conceive the
+non-existence of space. The idea of space is thus a _necessary_ and
+_absolute_ idea."[224]
+
+[Footnote 224: Cousin's "Hist. of Philos.," vol. ii. p. 214.]
+
+Take, again, the ideas of _event_ and _cause_. The idea of an event is a
+_contingent_ idea; it is the idea of something which might or might not
+have happened. There is no impossibility or contradiction in either
+supposition. The idea of cause is a _necessary_ idea. An event being
+given, the idea of cause is necessarily implied. An uncaused event is an
+impossible conception. The idea of cause is also a _universal_ idea
+extending to all events, actual or conceivable, and affirmed by all
+minds. It is a rational fact, attested by universal consciousness, that
+we can not think of an event transpiring without a cause; of a thing
+being the author of its own existence; of something generated by and out
+of nothing. _Ex nihilo nihil_ is a universal law of thought and of
+things. This universal "law of causality" is clearly distinguishable
+from a _general_ truth reached by induction. For example, it is a very
+general truth that, during twenty-four hours, day is succeeded by night.
+But this is not a necessary truth, neither is it a universal truth. It
+does not extend to all known lands, as, for example, to Nova Zembla. It
+does not hold true of the other planets. Nor does it extend to all
+possible lands. We can easily conceive of lands plunged in eternal
+night, or rolling in eternal day. With another system of worlds, one can
+conceive other physics, but one can not conceive other metaphysics. It
+is impossible to imagine a world in which the law of causality does not
+reign. Here, then, we have one absolute principle (among others which
+may be enumerated), the existence and reality of which is revealed, not
+by sensation, but by reason--a principle which transcends the limits of
+experience, and which, in its regular and logical development, attains
+the knowledge of the Absolute Cause--the First Cause of all causes--God.
+
+Thus it is evident that the human mind is in possession of two distinct
+orders of primitive cognitions,--one, contingent, relative, and
+phenomenal; the other universal, necessary, and absolute. These two
+distinct orders of cognition presuppose the existence in man of two
+distinct faculties or organs of knowledge--_sensation_, external and
+internal, which perceives the contingent, relative, and phenomenal, and
+_reason_, which apprehends the universal, necessary, and absolute. The
+knowledge which is derived from sensation and experience is called
+_empirical_ knowledge, or knowledge _a posteriori_, because subsequent
+to, and consequent upon, the exercise of the faculties of observation.
+The knowledge derived from reason is called _transcendental_ knowledge,
+or knowledge _a priori_, because it furnishes laws to, and governs the
+exercise of the faculties of observation and thought, and is not the
+result of their exercise. The sensibility brings the mind into relation
+with the _physical_ world, the reason puts mind in communication with
+the _intelligible_ world--the sphere of _a priori_ principles, of
+necessary and absolute truths, which depend upon neither the world nor
+the conscious self, and which reveal to man the existence of the soul,
+nature, and God. Every distinct fact of consciousness is thus at once
+_psychological_ and _ontological_, and contains these three fundamental
+ideas, which we can not go beyond, or cancel by any possible
+analysis--the _soul_, with its faculties; _matter_, with its qualities;
+_God_, with his perfections.
+
+We do not profess to be able to give a clear explication and complete
+enumeration of all the ideas of reason, and of the necessary and
+universal principles or axioms which are grounded on these ideas. This
+is still the grand desideratum of metaphysical science. Its achievement
+will give us a primordial logic, which shall be as exact in its
+procedure and as certain in its conclusions as the mathematical
+sciences. Meantime, it may be affirmed that philosophic analysis, in the
+person of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Cousin, has succeeded in
+disengaging such _a priori_ ideas, and formulating such principles and
+laws of thought, as lead infallibly to the cognition of the _Absolute
+Being_, the _Absolute Reason_, the _Absolute Good_, that is, GOD.
+
+It would carry us too far beyond our present design were we to exhibit,
+in each instance, the process of _immediate abstraction_ by which the
+contingent and relative element of knowledge is eliminated, and the
+necessary and absolute principle is disengaged. We shall simply state
+the method, and show its application by a single illustration.
+
+There are unquestionably _two_ sorts of abstraction: 1. "_Comparative_
+abstraction, operating upon several real objects, and seizing their
+resemblances in order to form an abstract idea, which is collective and
+mediate; collective, because different individuals concur in its
+formation; mediate, because it requires several intermediate
+operations." This is the method of the physical sciences, which
+comprises comparison, abstraction, and generalization. The result in
+this process is the attainment of a _general_ truth. 2. "_Immediate_
+abstraction, not comparative; operating not upon several concretes, but
+upon a single one, eliminating and neglecting its individual and
+variable part, and disengaging the absolute part, which it raises at
+once to its pure form." The parts to be eliminated in a concrete
+cognition are, first, the quality of the object, and the circumstances
+under which the absolute unfolds itself; and secondly, the quality of
+the subject, which perceives but does not constitute it. The phenomena
+of the me and the not-me being eliminated, the absolute remains. This is
+the process of rational psychology, and the result obtained is a
+_universal_ and _necessary_ truth.
+
+"Let us take, as an example, the principle of cause. To be able to say
+that the event I see must have a cause, it is not indispensable to have
+seen several events succeed each other. The principle which compels me
+to pronounce this judgment is already complete in the first as in the
+last event; it can not change in respect to its object, it can not
+change in itself; it neither increases nor decreases with the greater or
+less number of applications. The only difference that it is subject to
+in regard to us is that we apply it, whether we remark it or not,
+whether we disengage it or not from its particular application. The
+question is not to eliminate the particularity of the phenomenon wherein
+it appears to us, whether it be the fall of a leaf or the murder of a
+man, in order immediately to conceive, in a general and abstract manner,
+the necessity of a cause for every event that begins to exist. Here it
+is not because I am the same, or have been affected in the same manner
+in several different cases, that I have come to this general and
+abstract conception. A leaf falls; at the same moment I think, I
+believe, I declare that this falling of the leaf must have a cause. A
+man has been killed; at the same instant I believe, I proclaim that this
+death must have a cause. Each one of these facts contains particular and
+variable circumstances, and something universal and necessary, to wit,
+both of them can not but have a cause. Now I am perfectly able to
+disengage the universal from the particular in regard to the first fact
+as well as in regard to the second fact, for the universal is in the
+first quite as well as in the second. In fact, if the principle of
+causality is not universal in the first fact, neither will it be in the
+second, nor in the third, nor in the thousandth; for a thousandth is not
+nearer than the first to the infinite--to absolute universality. It is
+the same, and still more evidently, with _necessity_. Pay particular
+attention to this point; if necessity is not in the first fact, it can
+not be in any; for necessity can not be formed little by little, and by
+successive increments. If, on the first murder I see, I do not exclaim
+that this murder had necessarily a cause, at the thousandth murder,
+although it shall be proved that all the others had causes, I shall have
+the right to think that this murder has, very probably, also a cause,
+but I shall never have the right to say that it _necessarily_ had a
+cause. But when universality and necessity are already in a single case,
+that case is sufficient to entitle me to deduce them from it,"[225] and
+we may add, also, to affirm them of every other event that may
+transpire.
+
+[Footnote 225: Cousin, "True, Beautiful, and Good," pp. 57, 58.]
+
+The following _schema_ will exhibit the generally accepted results of
+this method of analysis applied to the phenomena of thought:
+
+(i.) _Universal and necessary principles, or primitive judgments from
+whence is derived the cognition of Absolute Being_.
+
+1. _The principle of Substance_; thus enounced--"every quality supposes
+a _subject_ or real being."
+
+2. _The principle of Causality_; "every thing that begins to be supposes
+a _power_ adequate to its production, _i.e._, an efficient cause."
+
+3. _The principle of Unity_; "all differentiation and plurality supposes
+an incomposite unity; all diversity, an ultimate and indivisible
+identity."
+
+4. _The principle of the Unconditioned_; "the finite supposes the
+infinite, the dependent supposes the self-existent, the temporal
+supposes the eternal."
+
+(ii.) _Universal and necessary principles, or primitive judgments, from
+which is derived the cognition of the Absolute Reason_.
+
+1. _The principle of Ideality_; thus enounced, "facts of order--definite
+proportion, symmetrical arrangement, numerical relation, geometrical
+form--having a commencement in time, present themselves to us as the
+expression of _Ideas_, and refer us to _Mind_ as their analogon, and
+exponent, and source."
+
+2. _The principle of Consecution_; "the uniform succession and
+progressive evolution of new existences, according to fixed definite
+archetypes, suppose a unity of _thought_--a comprehensive _plan_
+embracing all existence."
+
+3. _The principle of Intentionality or Final Cause_; "every means
+supposes an _end_ contemplated, and a choice and adaptation of means to
+secure the _end_."
+
+4. _The principle of Personality_; "intelligent purpose and voluntary
+choice imply a personal agent."
+
+(iii.) _Universal and necessary principles, or primitive judgments, from
+whence is derived the cognition of the Absolute Good_.
+
+1. _The principle of Moral Law_; thus enounced, "the action of a
+voluntary agent necessarily characterized as _right_ or _wrong_,
+supposes an immutable and universal standard of right--an absolute moral
+Law."
+
+2. _The principle of Moral Obligation_; "the feeling of obligation to
+obey a law of duty supposes a _Lawgiver_ by whose authority we are
+obliged."
+
+3. _The principle of Moral Desert_; "the feeling of personal
+accountability and of moral desert supposes a _judge_ to whom we must
+give account, and who shall determine our award."
+
+4. _The pnnciple of Retribution_; "retributive issues in this life, and
+the existence in all minds of an impersonal justice which demands that,
+in the final issue, every being shall receive his just deserts, suppose
+a being of _absolute justice_ who shall render to every man according to
+his works."
+
+A more profound and exhaustive analysis may perhaps resolve all these
+primitive judgments into one universal principle or law, which Leibnitz
+has designated "_The principle or law of sufficient reason_," and which
+is thus enounced--there must be an ultimate and sufficient reason why
+any thing exists, and why it is, rather than otherwise; that is, if any
+thing begins to be, something else must be supposed as the adequate
+ground, and reason, and cause of its existence; or again, to state the
+law in view of our present discussion, "_if the finite universe, with
+its existing order and arrangement, had a beginning, there must be an
+ultimate and sufficient reason why it exists, and why it is as it is,
+rather than otherwise_." In view of one particular class of phenomena,
+or special order of facts, this "principle of sufficient reason" may be
+varied in the form of its statement, and denominated "the principle of
+substance," "the principle of causality," "the principle of
+intentionality," etc.; and, it may be, these are but specific judgments
+under the one fundamental and generic law of thought which constitutes
+the _major_ premise of every Theistic syllogism.
+
+These fundamental principles, primitive judgments, axioms, or necessary
+and determinate forms of thought, exist potentially or germinally in all
+human minds; they are spontaneously developed in presence of the
+phenomena of the universe, material and mental; they govern the original
+movement of the mind, even when not appearing in consciousness in their
+pure and abstract form; and they compel us to affirm _a permanent being_
+or _reality_ behind all phenomena--a _power_ adequate to the production
+of change, back of all events; a _personal Mind_, as the explanation of
+all the facts of order, and uniform succession, and regular evolution;
+and a _personal Lawgiver_ and _Righteous Judge_ as the ultimate ground
+and reason of all the phenomena of the moral world; in short, to affirm
+_an Unconditioned Cause of all finite and secondary causes; a First
+Principle of all principles; an Ultimate Reason of all reasons; an
+immutable Uncreated Justice, the living light of conscience; a King
+immortal, eternal, invisible, the only wise God, the ruler of the world
+and man_.
+
+Our position, then, is, that the idea of God is revealed to man in the
+natural and spontaneous development of his intelligence, and that the
+existence of a Supreme Reality corresponding to, and represented by this
+idea, is rationally and logically demonstrable, and therefore justly
+entitled to take rank as part of our legitimate, valid, and positive
+_knowledge_.
+
+And now from this position, which we regard as impregnable, we shall be
+prepared more deliberately and intelligibly to contemplate the various
+assaults which are openly or covertly made upon the doctrine that _God
+is cognizable by human reason_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE UNKNOWN GOD (_continued_).
+
+IS GOD COGNIZABLE BY REASON?
+
+
+"The abnegation of reason is not the evidence of faith, but the
+confession of despair."--LIGHTFOOT.
+
+At the outset of this inquiry we attempted a hasty grouping of the
+various parties and schools which are arrayed against the doctrine that
+God is cognizable by human reason, and in general terms we sought to
+indicate the ground they occupy.
+
+Viewed from a philosophical stand-point, we found one party marshalled
+under the standard of Idealism; another of Materialism and, again,
+another of Natural Realism. Regarded in their theological aspects, some
+are positive Atheists; others, strange to say, are earnest Theists;
+whilst others occupy a position of mere Indifferentism. Yet,
+notwithstanding the remarkable diversity, and even antagonism of their
+philosophical and theological opinions, they are all agreed in denying
+to reason any valid cognition of God.
+
+The survey of Natural Theism we have completed in the previous chapter
+will enable us still further to indicate the exact points against which
+their attacks are directed, and also to estimate the character and force
+of the weapons employed. With or without design, they are, each in their
+way, assailing one or other of the principles upon which we rest our
+demonstration of the being of God. As we proceed, we shall find that
+Mill and the Constructive Idealists are really engaged in undermining
+"the _principle of substance_;" their doctrine is a virtual denial of
+all objective realities answering to our subjective ideas of matter,
+mind, and God. The assaults of Comte and the Materialists of his school
+are mainly directed against "_the principle of causality_" and "_the
+principle of intentionality_;" they would deny to man all knowledge of
+causes, efficient and final. The attacks of Hamilton and his school are
+directed against "the _principle of the unconditioned_," his philosophy
+of the conditioned is a plausible attempt to deprive man of all power to
+think the Infinite and Perfect, to conceive the Unconditioned and
+Ultimate Cause; whilst the Dogmatic Theologians are borrowing, and
+recklessly brandishing, the weapons of all these antagonists, and, in
+addition to all this, are endeavoring to show the insufficiency of "_the
+principle of unity_" and the weakness and invalidity of "the _moral
+principles_," which are regarded by us as relating man to a Moral
+Personality, and as indicating to him the existence of a righteous God,
+the ruler of the world. It is necessary, therefore, that we should
+concentrate our attention yet more specifically on these separate lines
+of attack, and attempt a minuter examination of the positions assumed by
+each, and of the arguments by which they are seeking, directly or
+indirectly, to invalidate the fundamental principles of Natural Theism.
+
+(i.) _We commence with the Idealistic School_, of which John Stuart Mill
+must be regarded as the ablest living representative.
+
+The doctrine of this school is that all our knowledge is necessarily
+confined to _mental_ phenomena; that is, "to _feelings_ or states of
+consciousness," and "the succession and co-existence, the likeness and
+unlikeness between these feelings or states of consciousness."[226] All
+our general notions, all our abstract ideas, are generated out of these
+feelings[227] by "_inseparable association_," which registers their
+inter-relations of recurrence, co-existence, and resemblance. The
+results of this inseparable association constitute at once the sum total
+and the absolute limit of all possible cognition.
+
+[Footnote 226: J. S. Mill, "Logic," vol. i. p. 83 (English edition).]
+
+[Footnote 227: In the language of Mill, every thing of which we are
+conscious is called "feeling." "Feeling, in the proper sense of the
+term, is a genus of which Sensation, Emotion, and Thought are the
+subordinate species."--"Logic," bk. i. ch. iii. Sec. 3.]
+
+It is admitted by Mill that one _apparent_ element in this total result
+is the general conviction that our own existence is really distinct from
+the external world, and that the personal _ego_ has an essential
+identity distinct from the fleeting phenomena of sensation. But this
+persuasion is treated by him as a mere illusion--a leap beyond the
+original datum for which we have no authority. Of a real substance or
+substratum called Mind, of a real substance or substratum called Matter,
+underlying the series of feelings--"the thread of consciousness"--we do
+know and can know nothing; and in affirming the existence of such
+substrata we are making a supposition we can not possibly verify. The
+ultimate datum of speculative philosophy is not "_I think_," but simply
+"_Thoughts or feelings are_." The belief in a permanent subject or
+substance, called matter, as the ground and plexus of physical
+phenomena, and of a permanent subject or substance, called mind, as the
+ground and plexus of mental phenomena, is not a primitive and original
+intuition of reason. It is simply through the action of the principle of
+association among the ultimate phenomena, called feelings, that this
+(erroneous) separation of the phenomena into two orders or
+aggregates--one called mind or self; the other matter, or not
+self--takes place; and without this curdling or associating process no
+such notion or belief could have been generated. "The principle of
+substance," as an ultimate law of thought, is, therefore, to be regarded
+as a transcendental dream.
+
+But now that the notion of _mind_ or _self_, and of _matter_ or not
+_self_, do exist as common convictions of our race, what is philosophy
+to make of them? After a great many qualifications and explanations, Mr.
+Mill has, in his "Logic," summed up his doctrine of Constructive
+Idealism in the following words: "As body is the mysterious _something_
+which excites the mind to feel, so mind is the mysterious _something_
+which feels and thinks."[228] But what is this "mysterious something?"
+Is it a reality, an entity, a subject; or is it a shadow, an illusion, a
+dream? In his "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," where it
+may be presumed, we have his maturest opinions, Mr. Mill, in still more
+abstract and idealistic phraseology, attempts an answer. Here he defines
+matter as "_a permanent possibility of sensation_,"[229] and mind as "_a
+permanent possibility of feeling_."[230] And "the belief in these
+permanent possibilities," he assures us, "includes all that is essential
+or characteristic in the belief in substance."[231] "If I am asked,"
+says he, "whether I believe in matter, I ask whether the questioner
+accepts this definition of it. If he does, I believe in matter: and so
+do all Berkeleians. In any other sense than this, I do not. But I affirm
+with confidence that this conception of matter includes the whole
+meaning attached to it by the common world, apart from philosophical,
+and sometimes from theological theories. The reliance of mankind on the
+real existence of visible and tangible objects, means reliance on the
+reality and permanence of possibilities of visual and tactual
+sensations, when no sensations are actually experienced."[232]
+"Sensations," however, let it be borne in mind, are but a subordinate
+species of the genus feeling.[233] They are "states of
+consciousness"--phenomena of mind, not of matter; and we are still
+within the impassable boundary of ideal phenomena; we have yet no
+cognition of an external world. The sole cosmical conception, for us, is
+still a succession of sensations, or states of consciousness. This is
+the one phenomenon which we can not transcend in knowledge, do what we
+will; all else is hypothesis and illusion. The _non-ego_, after all,
+then, may be but a mode in which the mind represents to itself the
+possible modifications of the _ego_.
+
+[Footnote 228: "Logic," bk. i, ch. iii. Sec. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 229: "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 243.]
+
+[Footnote 230: Ibid., vol. i. p. 253.]
+
+[Footnote 231: Ibid., vol. i. p. 246.]
+
+[Footnote 232: Ibid., vol. i. pp. 243, 244.]
+
+[Footnote 233: "Logic," bk. i. ch. iii. Sec. 3.]
+
+And now that matter, as a real existence, has disappeared under Mr.
+Mill's analysis, what shall be said of mind or self? Is there any
+permanent subject or real entity underlying the phenomena of feeling? In
+feeling, is there a personal self that feels, thinks, and wills? It
+would seem not. Mind, as well as matter, resolves itself into a "series
+of feelings," varying and fugitive from moment to moment, in a sea of
+possibilities of feeling. "My mind," says Mill, "is but a series of
+feelings, or, as it has been called, a thread of consciousness, however
+supplemented by believed possibilities of consciousness, which are not,
+though they might be, realized."[234]
+
+[Footnote 234: "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 254.]
+
+The ultimate fact of the phenomenal world, then, in the philosophy of
+Mill, is neither matter nor mind, but feelings or states of
+consciousness associated together by the relations, amongst themselves,
+of recurrence, co-existence, and resemblance. The existence of self,
+except as "a series of feelings;" the existence of any thing other than
+self, except as a feigned unknown cause of sensation, is rigorously
+denied. Mr. Mill does not content himself with saying that we are
+ignorant of the _nature_ of matter and mind, but he asserts we are
+ignorant of the _existence_ of matter and mind as real entities.
+
+The bearing of this doctrine of Idealism upon Theism and Theology will
+be instantly apparent to the reader. If I am necessarily ignorant of the
+existence of the external world, and of the personal _ego_, or real
+self, I must be equally ignorant of the existence of God. If one is a
+mere supposition, an illusion, so the other must be. Mr. Mill, however,
+is one of those courteous and affable writers who are always conscious,
+as it were, of the presence of their readers, and extremely careful not
+to shock their feelings or prejudices; besides, he has too much
+conscious self-respect to avow himself an atheist. As a speculative
+philosopher, he would rather regard Theism and Theology as "open
+questions," and he satisfies himself with saying, if you believe in the
+existence of God, or in Christianity, I do not interfere with you. "As a
+theory," he tells us that his doctrine leaves the evidence of the
+existence of God exactly as it was before. Supposing me to believe that
+the Divine mind is simply the series of the Divine thoughts and feelings
+prolonged through eternity, that would be, at any rate, believing God's
+existence to be _as real as my own_[235]. And as for evidence, the
+argument of Paley's 'Natural Theology,' or, for that matter, of his
+'Evidences of Christianity,' would stand exactly as it does.
+
+The design argument is drawn from the analogies of human experience.
+From the relation which human works bear to human thoughts and feelings,
+it infers a corresponding relation between works more or less similar,
+but superhuman, and superhuman thoughts and feelings. _If_ it prove
+these, nobody but a metaphysician needs care whether or not it proves a
+mysterious _substratum_ for them.[236] The argument from design, it
+seems to us, however, would have no validity if there be no external
+world offering marks of design. If the external world is only a mode of
+feeling, a series of mental states, then our notion of the Divine
+Existence may be only "an association of feelings"--a mode of Self. And
+if we have no positive knowledge of a real self as existing, and God's
+existence is no more "real than our own," then the Divine existence
+stands on a very dubious and uncertain foundation. It can have no very
+secure hold upon the human mind, and certainly has no claim to be
+regarded as a fundamental and necessary belief. That it has a very
+precarious hold upon the mind of Mr. Mill, is evident from the following
+passage in his article on "_Later Speculations of A. Comte_."[237] "We
+venture to think that a religion may exist without a belief in a God,
+and that a religion without a God may be, even to Christians, an
+instructive and profitable object of contemplation."
+
+And now let us close Mr. Mill's book, and, introverting our mental gaze,
+interrogate _consciousness_, the verdict of which, even Mr. Mill assures
+us, is admitted on all hands to be a decision without appeal.[238]
+
+[Footnote 235: "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 254.]
+
+[Footnote 236: "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 259.]
+
+[Footnote 237: Westminster Review, July, 1835 (American edition), p. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 238: "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 161.]
+
+1. We have an ineradicable, and, as it would seem, an intuitive faith in
+the real existence of an external world distinct from our sensations,
+and also of a personal self, which we call "I," "myself," as distinct
+from "my sensations," and "my feelings." We find, also, that this is
+confessedly the common belief of mankind. There have been a few
+philosophers who have affected to treat this belief as a "mere
+prejudice," an "illusion;" but they have never been able, practically,
+so to regard and treat it. Their language, just as plainly as the
+language of the common people, betrays their instinctive faith in an
+outer world, and proves their utter inability to emancipate themselves
+from this "prejudice," if such it may please them to call it. In view of
+this acknowledged fact, we ask--Does the term "_permanent possibility of
+sensations_" exhaust all that is contained in this conception of an
+external world? This evening I _remember_ that at noonday I beheld the
+sun, and experienced a sensation of warmth whilst exposing myself to his
+rays; and I _expect_ that to-morrow, under the same conditions, I shall
+experience the same sensations. I now _remember_ that last evening I
+extinguished my light and attempted to leave my study, but, coming in
+contact with the closed door, experienced a sense of resistance to my
+muscular effort, by a solid and extended body exterior to myself; and I
+_expect_ that this evening, under the same circumstances, I shall
+experience the same sensations. Now, does a belief in "a permanent
+possibility of sensations" explain all these experiences? does it
+account for that immediate knowledge of an _external_ object which I had
+on looking at the sun, or that presentative knowledge of _resistance_
+and _extension_, and of an extended, resisting _substance_, I had when
+in contact with the door of my study? Mr. Mill very confidently affirms
+that this belief includes all; and this phrase expresses all the meaning
+attached to extended "matter" and resisting "substance" by the common
+world.[239] We as confidently affirm that it does no such thing; and as
+"the common world" must be supposed to understand the language of
+consciousness as well as the philosopher, we are perfectly willing to
+leave the decision of that question to the common consciousness of our
+race. If all men do not believe in a permanent _reality_--a substance
+which is external to themselves, a substance which offers resistance to
+their muscular effort, and which produces in them the sensations of
+solidity, extension, resistance, etc.--they believe nothing and know
+nothing at all about the matter.
+
+[Footnote 239: "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 243.]
+
+Still less does the phrase "_a permanent possibility of feelings"_
+exhaust all our conception of a personal self. Recurring to the
+experiences of yesterday, I _remember_ the feelings I experienced on
+beholding the sun, and also on pressing against the closed door, and I
+confidently _expect_ the recurrence, under the same circumstances, of
+the same feelings. Does the belief in "a permanent possibility of
+feelings" explain the act of memory by which I recall the past event,
+and the act of prevision by which I anticipate the recurrence of the
+like experience in the future? Who or what is the "I" that remembers and
+the "I" that anticipates? The "ego," the personal mind, is, according to
+Mill, a mere "series of feelings," or, more correctly, a flash of
+"_present_ feelings" on "a background of possibilities of present
+feelings."[240] If, then, there be no permanent substance or reality
+which is the subject of the present feeling, which receives and retains
+the impress of the past feeling, and which anticipates the recurrence of
+like feelings in the future, how can the _past_ be recalled, how
+distinguished from the present? and how, without a knowledge of the past
+as distinguished from the present, can the _future_ be forecast? Mr.
+Mill feels the pressure of this difficulty, and frankly acknowledges it.
+He admits that, on the hypothesis that mind is simply "a series of
+feelings," the phenomena of memory and expectation are "inexplicable"
+and "incomprehensible."[241] He is, therefore, under the necessity of
+completing his definition of mind by adding that it is a series of
+feelings which "_is aware of itself as a series_;" and, still further,
+of supplementing this definition by the conjecture that "_something
+which has ceased to exist, or is not yet in existence, can still, in a
+manner, be present_."[242] Now he who can understand how a series of
+feelings can flow on in time, and from moment to moment drop out of the
+present into non-existence, and yet be _present_ and _conscious of
+itself as a series_, may be accorded the honor of understanding Mr.
+Mill's definition of mind or self, and may be permitted to rank himself
+as a distinguished disciple of the Idealist school; for ourselves, we
+acknowledge we are destitute of the capacity to do the one, and of all
+ambition to be the other. And he who can conceive how the _past_ feeling
+of yesterday and the _possible_ feeling of to-morrow can be in any
+manner _present_ to-day; or, in other words, how any thing which has
+ceased to exist, or which never had an existence, can _now_ exist, may
+be permitted to believe that a thing can be and not be at the same
+moment, that a part is greater than the whole, and that two and two make
+five; but we are not ashamed to confess our inability to believe a
+contradiction. To our understanding, "possibilities of feeling" are not
+actualities. They may or may not be realized, and until realized in
+consciousness, they have no real being. If there be no other background
+of mental phenomena save mere "possibilities of feeling," then present
+feelings are the only existences, the only reality, and a loss of
+immediate consciousness, as in narcosis and coma, is the loss of all
+personality, all self-hood, and of all real being.
+
+[Footnote 240: "Exam. of Hamilton," vol. i. p. 260.]
+
+[Footnote 241: Ibid, p. 262.]
+
+[Footnote 242: Ibid.]
+
+2. What, then, is the verdict of consciousness as to the existence of a
+permanent substance, an abiding existence which is the subject of all
+the varying phenomena? Of what are we really conscious when we say "I
+think," "I feel," "I will?" Are we simply conscious of thought, feeling,
+and volition, or of a self, a person, which thinks, feels, and wills?
+The man who honestly and unreservedly accepts the testimony of
+consciousness in all its integrity must answer at once, _we have an
+immediate consciousness, not merely of the phenomena of mind, but of a
+personal self as passively or actively related to the phenomena_. We are
+conscious not merely of the act of volition, but of a self, a power,
+producing the volition. We are conscious not merely of feeling, but of a
+being who is the subject of the feeling. We are conscious not simply of
+thought, but of a real entity that thinks. "It is clearly a flat
+contradiction to maintain that I am not immediately conscious of myself,
+but only of my sensations or volitions. Who, then, is that _I_ that is
+conscious, and how can I be conscious of such states as _mine?_"[243]
+
+[Footnote 243: Mansel, "Prolegomena Logica," p. 122, and note E, p.
+281.]
+
+The testimony of consciousness, then, is indubitable that we have a
+direct, immediate cognition of _self_--I know myself as a distinctly
+existing being. This permanent self, to which I refer the earlier and
+later stages of consciousness, the past as well as the present feeling,
+and which I know abides the same under all phenomenal changes,
+constitutes my personal identity. It is this abiding self which unites
+the past and the present, and, from the present stretches onward to the
+future. We know self immediately, as existing, as in active operation,
+and as having permanence--or, in other words, as a "_substance_." This
+one immediately presented substance, myself, may be regarded as
+furnishing a positive basis for that other notion of substance, which is
+representatively thought, as the subject of all sensible qualities.
+
+3. We may now inquire what is the testimony of consciousness as to the
+existence of the extra-mental world? Are we conscious of perceiving
+external objects immediately and in themselves, or only mediately
+through some vicarious image or representative idea to which we
+fictitiously ascribe an objective reality?
+
+The answer of common sense is that we are immediately conscious, in
+perception, of an _ego_ and a _non-ego_ known together, and known in
+contrast to each other; we are conscious of a perceiving subject, and of
+an external reality, as the object perceived.[244] To state this
+doctrine of natural realism still more explicitly we add, that we are
+conscious of the immediate perception of certain essential attributes of
+matter objectively existing. Of these primary qualities, which are
+immediately perceived as real and objectively existing, we mention
+_extension_ in space and _resistance_ to muscular effort, with which is
+indissolubly associated the idea of _externality_. It is true that
+extension and resistance are only qualities, but it is equally true that
+they are qualities of something, and of something which is external to
+ourselves. Let any one attempt to conceive of extension without
+something which is extended, or of resistance apart from something which
+offers resistance, and he will be convinced that we can never know
+qualities without knowing substance, just as we can not know substance
+without knowing qualities. This, indeed, is admitted by Mr. Mill.[245]
+And if this be admitted, it must certainly be absurd to speak of
+substance as something "unknown." Substance is known just as much as
+quality is known, no less and no more.
+
+[Footnote 244: Hamilton, "Lectures," vol. 1. p. 288.]
+
+[Footnote 245: "Logic," bk. i. ch. iii. Sec. 6.]
+
+We remark, in conclusion, that if the testimony of consciousness is not
+accepted in all its integrity, we are necessarily involved in the
+Nihilism of Hume and Fichte; the phenomena of mind and matter are, on
+analysis, resolved into an absolute nothingness--"a play of phantasms in
+a void."[246]
+
+(ii.) We turn, secondly, to the _Materialistic School_ as represented by
+Aug. Comte.
+
+The doctrine of this school is that all knowledge is limited to
+_material_ phenomena--that is, to appearances _perceptible to sense_. We
+do not know the essence of any object, nor the real mode of procedure of
+any event, but simply its relations to other events, as similar or
+dissimilar, co-existent or successive. These relations are constant;
+under the same conditions, they are always the same. The constant
+resemblances which link phenomena together, and the constant sequences
+which unite them, as antecedent and consequent, are termed _laws_. The
+laws of phenomena are all we know respecting them. Their essential
+nature and their ultimate causes, _efficient_ or _final_, are unknown
+and inscrutable to us.[247]
+
+[Footnote 246: Masson, "Recent British Philos.," p. 62.]
+
+[Footnote 247: See art. "Positive Philos. of A. Comte," _Westminster
+Review_, April, 1865, p. 162, Am. ed.]
+
+It is not our intention to review the system of philosophy propounded by
+Aug. Comte; we are now chiefly concerned with his denial of all
+causation.
+
+1. _As to Efficient Causes_.--Had Comte contented himself with the
+assertion that causes lie beyond the field of sensible observation, and
+that inductive science can not carry us beyond the relations of
+co-existence and succession among phenomena, he would have stated an
+important truth, but certainly not a new truth. It had already been
+announced by distinguished mental philosophers, as, for example, M. de
+Biran and Victor Cousin.[248] The senses give us only the succession of
+one phenomenon to another. I hold a piece of wax to the fire and it
+melts. Here my senses inform me of two successive phenomena--the
+proximity of fire and the melting of wax. It is now agreed among all
+schools of philosophy that this is all the knowledge the senses can
+possibly supply. The observation of a great number of like cases assures
+us that this relation is uniform. The highest scientific generalization
+does not carry us one step beyond this fact. Induction, therefore, gives
+us no access to causes beyond phenomena. Still, this does not justify
+Comte in the assertion that causes are to us absolutely _unknown_. The
+question would still arise whether we have not some faculty of
+knowledge, distinct from sensation, which is adequate to furnish a valid
+cognition of cause. It does not by any means follow that, because the
+idea of causation is not given as a "physical quaesitum" at the end of a
+process of scientific generalization, it should not be a "metaphysical
+datum" posited at the very beginning of scientific inquiry, as the
+indispensable condition of our being able to cognize phenomena at all,
+and as the law under which all thought, and all conception of the system
+of nature, is alone possible.
+
+[Footnote 248: "It is now universally admitted that we have no
+perception of the causal nexus in the material world."--Hamilton,
+"Discussions," p. 522.]
+
+Now we affirm that the human mind has just as direct, immediate, and
+positive knowledge of _cause_ as it has of _effect._ The idea of cause,
+the intuition _power_, is given in the immediate consciousness of _mind
+as determining its own_ operations. Our first, and, in fact, our only
+presentation of power or cause, is that of _self as willing_. In every
+act of volition I am fully conscious that it is in my power to form a
+resolution or to refrain from it, to determine on this course of action
+or that; and this constitutes the immediate presentative knowledge of
+power.[249] The will is a power, a power in action, a productive power,
+and, consequently, a cause. This doctrine is stated with remarkable
+clearness and accuracy by Cousin: "If we seek the notion of cause in the
+action of one ball upon another, as was previously done by Hume, or in
+the action of the hand upon the ball, or the primary muscles upon the
+extremities, or even in the action of the will upon the muscles, as was
+done by M. Maine de Biran, we shall find it in none of these cases, not
+even in the last; for it is possible there should be a paralysis of the
+muscles which deprives the will of power over them, makes it
+unproductive, incapable of being a cause, and, consequently, of
+suggesting the notion of one. But what no paralysis can prevent is the
+action of the will upon itself, the production of a resolution; that is
+to say, the act of causation entirely mental, the primitive type of all
+causality, of which all external movements are only symbols more or less
+imperfect. The first cause for us, is, therefore, the _will_, of which
+the first effect is volition. This is at once the highest and the purest
+source of the notion of cause, which thus becomes identical with that of
+personality. And it is the taking possession, so to speak, of the cause,
+as revealed in will and personality, which is the condition for us of
+the ulterior or simultaneous conception of external, impersonal
+causes."[250]
+
+[Footnote 249: "It is our _immediate consciousness of effort_, when we
+exert force to put matter in motion, or to oppose and neutralize force,
+which gives us this internal conviction of _power_ and _causation_, so
+far as it refers to the material world, and compels us to believe that
+whenever we see material objects put in motion from a state of rest, or
+deflected from their rectilinear paths and changed in their velocities
+if already in motion, it is in consequence of such an _effort_ somehow
+exerted."--Herschel's "Outlines of Astronomy," p. 234; see Mansel's
+"Prolegomena," p. 133.]
+
+[Footnote 250: "Philosophical Fragments," Preface to first edition.]
+
+Thus much for the origin of the idea of cause. We have the same direct
+intuitive knowledge of cause that we have of effect; but we have not yet
+rendered a full and adequate account of the _principle of causality_. We
+have simply attained the notion of our personal causality, and we can
+not arbitrarily substitute our personal causality for all the causes of
+the universe, and erect our own experience as a law of the entire
+universe. We have, however, already seen (Chap. V.) that the belief in
+exterior causation is _necessary_ and _universal_. When a change takes
+place, when a new phenomenon presents itself to our senses, we can not
+avoid the conviction that it must have a cause. We can not even express
+in language the relations of phenomena in time and space, without
+speaking of causes. And there is not a rational being on the face of the
+globe--a child, a savage, or a philosopher--who does not instinctively
+and spontaneously affirm that every movement, every change, every new
+existence, _must_ have a cause. Now what account can philosophy render
+of this universal belief? One answer, and only one, is possible. The
+_reason_ of man (that power of which Comte takes no account) is in fixed
+and changeless relation to the principle of causation, just as _sense_
+is in fixed and changeless relation to exterior phenomena, so that we
+can not know the external world, can not think or speak of phenomenal
+existence, except as _effects_. In the expressive and forcible language
+of Jas. Martineau: "By an irresistible law of thought _all phenomena
+present themselves to us as the expression of power_, and refer us to a
+causal ground whence they issue. This dynamic source we neither see, nor
+hear, nor feel; it is given in _thought_, supplied by the spontaneous
+activity of mind as the correlative prefix to the phenomena
+observed."[251] Unless, then, we are prepared to deny the validity of
+all our rational intuitions, we can not avoid accepting "this subjective
+postulate as a valid law for objective nature." If the intuitions of our
+reason are pronounced deceptive and mendacious, so also must the
+intuitions of the senses be pronounced illusory and false. Our whole
+intellectual constitution is built up on false and erroneous principles,
+and all knowledge of whatever kind must perish by "the contagion of
+uncertainty."
+
+[Footnote 251: "Essays," p. 47.]
+
+Comte, however, is determined to treat the idea of causation as an
+illusion, whether under its psychological form, as _will_, or under its
+scientific form, as _force_. He feels that Theology is inevitable if we
+permit the inquiry into causes;[252] and he is more anxious that
+theology should perish than that truth should prevail. The human will
+must, therefore, be robbed of all semblance of freedom, lest it should
+suggest the idea of a Supreme Will governing nature; and human action,
+like all other phenomena, must be reduced to uniform and necessary law.
+All feelings, ideas, and principles guaranteed to us by consciousness
+are to be cast out of the account. Psychology, resting on
+self-observation, is pronounced a delusion. The immediate consciousness
+of freedom is a dream. Such a procedure, to say the least of it, is
+highly unphilosophical; to say the truth about it, it is obviously
+dishonest. Every fact of human nature, just as much as every fact of
+physical nature, must be accepted in all its integrity, or all must be
+alike rejected. The phenomena of mind can no more be disregarded than
+the phenomena of matter. Rational intuitions, necessary and universal
+beliefs, can no more be ignored than the uniform facts of
+sense-perception, without rendering a system of knowledge necessarily
+incomplete, and a system of truth utterly impossible. Every one truth is
+connected with every other truth in the universe. And yet Comte demands
+that a large class of facts, the most immediate and direct of all our
+cognitions, shall be rejected because they are not in harmony with the
+fundamental assumption of the positive philosophy that all knowledge is
+confined to _phenomena perceptible to sense_. Now it were just as easy
+to cast the Alps into the Mediterranean as to obliterate from the human
+intelligence the primary cognitions of immediate consciousness, or to
+relegate the human reason from the necessary laws of thought. Comte
+himself can not emancipate his own mind from a belief in the validity of
+the testimony of consciousness. How can he know himself as distinct from
+nature, as a living person, as the same being he was ten years ago, or
+even yesterday, except by an appeal to consciousness? Despite his
+earnestly-avowed opinions as to the inutility and fallaciousness of all
+psychological inquiries, he is compelled to admit that "the phenomena of
+life" are "_known by immediate consciousness_."[253] Now the knowledge
+of our personal freedom rests on precisely the same grounds as the
+knowledge of our personal existence. The same "immediate consciousness"
+which attests that I exist, attests also, with equal distinctness and
+directness, that I am self-determined and free.
+
+[Footnote 252: "The _inevitable tendency_ of our intelligence is towards
+a philosophy radically theological, so often as we seek to penetrate, on
+whatever pretext, into the intimate nature of phenomena" (vol. iv. p.
+664).]
+
+[Footnote 253: "Positive Philos," vol. ii. p. 648.]
+
+In common with most atheistical writers, Comte is involved in the fatal
+contradiction of at one time assuming, and at another of denying the
+freedom of the will, to serve the exigencies of his theory. To prove
+that the order of the universe can not be the product of a Supreme
+Intelligence, he assumes that the products of mind must be characterized
+by freedom and variety--the phenomena of mind must not be subject to
+uniform and necessary laws; and inasmuch as the phenomena presented by
+external nature are subject to uniform and changeless laws, they can not
+be the product of mind. "Look at the whole frame of things," says he;
+"how can it be the product of mind--of a supernatural Will? Is it not
+subject to regular laws, and do we not actually obtain _prevision_ of
+its phenomena? If it were the product of mind, its order would be
+variable and free." Here, then, it is admitted that _freedom is an
+essential characteristic of mind_. And this admission is no doubt a
+thoughtless, unconscious betrayal of the innate belief of all minds in
+the freedom of the will. But when Comte comes to deal with this freedom
+as an objective question of philosophy, when he directs his attention to
+the only will of which we have a direct and immediate knowledge, he
+denies freedom and variety, and asserts in the most arbitrary manner
+that the movements of the mind, like all the phenomena of nature, must
+be subject to uniform, changeless, and necessary laws. And if we have
+not yet been able to reduce the movements of mind, like the movements of
+the planets, to statistics, and have not already obtained accurate
+prevision of its successions or sequences as we have of physical
+phenomena, it is simply the consequence of our inattention to, or
+ignorance of, all the facts. We answer, there are no facts so directly
+and intuitively known as the facts of consciousness; and, therefore, an
+argument based upon our supposed ignorance of these facts is not likely
+to have much weight against our immediate consciousness of personal
+freedom. There is not any thing we know so immediately, so certainly, so
+positively, as this fact--_we are free_.
+
+The word "force," representing as it does a subtile menial conception,
+and not a phenomenon of sense, must also be banished from the domains of
+Positive Science as an intruder, lest its presence should lend any
+countenance to the idea of causation. "Forces in mechanics are only
+_movements_, produced, or tending to be produced." In order to "cancel
+altogether the old metaphysical notion of force," another form of
+expression is demanded. It is claimed that all we do know or can
+possibly know is the successions of phenomena in time. What, then, is
+the term which henceforth, in our dynamics, shall take the place of
+"force?" Is it "Time-succession?" Then let any one attempt to express
+the various forms and intensities of movement and change presented to
+the senses (as _e.g._, the phenomena of heat, electricity, galvanism,
+magnetism, muscular and nervous action, etc.) in terms of
+Time-succession, and he will at once become conscious of the utter
+hopelessness of physics, without the hyperphysical idea of force, to
+render itself intelligible.[254] What account can be rendered of
+planetary motion if the terms "centrifugal force" and "centripetal
+force" are abandoned? "From the two great conditions of every Newtonian
+solution, viz., projectile impulse and centripetal tendency, eject the
+idea of _force_, and what remains? The entire conception is simply made
+up of this, and has not the faintest existence without it. It is useless
+to give it notice to quit, and pretend that it is gone when you have
+only put a new name upon the door. We must not call it 'attraction,'
+lest there should seem to be a _power_ within; we are to speak of it
+only as 'gravitation,' because that is only 'weight,' which is nothing
+but a 'fact,' as if it were not a fact that holds a power, a true
+dynamic affair, which no imagination can chop into incoherent
+successions.[255] Nor is the evasion more successful when we try the
+phrase, 'tendency of bodies to mutual approach.' The approach itself may
+be called a phenomenon; but the 'tendency' is no phenomenon, and can not
+be attributed by us to the bodies without regarding them as the
+residence of force. And what are we to say of the _projectile impulse_
+in the case of the planets? Is that also a phenomenon? Who witnessed and
+reported it? Is it not evident that the whole scheme of physical
+astronomy is a resolution of observed facts into dynamic equivalents,
+and that the hypothesis posits for its calculations not phenomena, but
+proper forces? Its logic is this: _If_ an impulse of certain intensity
+were given, and _if_ such and such mutual attractions were constantly
+present, then the sort of motions which we observe in the bodies of our
+system _would follow_. So, however, they also would _if_ willed by an
+Omnipotent Intelligence."[256] It is thus clearly evident that human
+science is unable to offer any explanation of the existing order of the
+universe except in terms expressive of Power or Force; that, in fact,
+all explanations are utterly unintelligible without the idea of
+causation. The language of universal rational intuition is, "all
+phenomena are the expression of power;" the language of science is,
+"every law implies a force."
+
+[Footnote 254: See Grote's "Essay on Correlation of Physical Forces,"
+pp. 18-20; and Martineau's "Essays," p. 135.]
+
+[Footnote 255: "Gravity is a real _power_ of whose agency we have daily
+experience."--Herschel, "Outlines of Astronomy," p. 236.]
+
+[Footnote 256: Martineau's "Essays," p. 56.]
+
+It is furthermore worthy of being noted that, in the modern doctrine of
+the Correlation and Conservation of Forces, science is inevitably
+approaching the idea that all kinds of force are but forms or
+manifestations of some _one_ central force issuing from some _one_
+fountain-head of power. Dr. Carpenter, perhaps the greatest living
+physiologist, teaches that "the form of force _which may be taken as the
+type of all the rest_" is the consciousness of living effort in
+volition.[257] All force, then, is of one type, and that type is mind;
+in its last analysis external causation may be resolved into Divine
+energy. Sir John Herschel does not hesitate to say that "it is
+reasonable to regard the force of gravitation as the direct or indirect
+result of a consciousness or will exerted somewhere."[258] The humble
+Christian may, therefore, feel himself amply justified in still
+believing that "power belongs to God;" that it is through the Divine
+energy "all things are, and are upheld;" and that "in God we live, and
+move, and have our being;" he is the Great First Cause, the
+Fountain-head of all power.
+
+[Footnote 257: "Human Physiology," p. 542.]
+
+[Footnote 258: "Outlines of Astronomy," p. 234.]
+
+2. _As to Final Causes_--that is, reasons, purposes, or ends _for_ which
+things exist--these, we are told by Comte, are all "disproved" by
+Positive Science, which rigidly limits us to "the history of _what is_,"
+and forbids all inquiry into reasons _why it is_. The question whether
+there be any intelligent purpose in the order and arrangement of the
+universe, is not a subject of scientific inquiry at all; and whenever it
+has been permitted to obtrude itself, it has thrown a false light over
+the facts, and led the inquirer astray.
+
+The discoveries of modern astronomy are specially instanced by Comte as
+completely overthrowing the notion of any conscious design or
+intelligent purpose in the universe. The order and stability of the
+solar system are found to be the _necessary_ consequences of
+gravitation, and are adequately explained without any reference to
+purposes or ends to be fulfilled in the disposition and arrangement of
+the heavenly bodies. "With persons unused to the study of the celestial
+bodies, though very likely informed on other parts of natural
+philosophy, astronomy has still the reputation of being a science
+eminently religious, as if the famous words, 'The heavens declare the
+glory of God, had lost none of their truth... No science has given more
+terrible shocks to the doctrine of _final causes_ than astronomy.[259]
+The simple knowledge of the movement of the earth must have destroyed
+the original and real foundation of this doctrine--the idea of the
+universe subordinated to the earth, and consequently to man. Besides,
+the accurate exploration of the solar system could not fail to dispel
+that blind and unlimited admiration which the general order of nature
+inspires, by showing in the most sensible manner, and in a great number
+of different respects, that the orbs were certainly not disposed in the
+most advantageous manner, and that science permits us easily to conceive
+a better arrangement, by the development of true celestial mechanism,
+since Newton. All the theological philosophy, even the most perfect, has
+been henceforth deprived of its principal intellectual function, the
+most regular order being thus consigned as necessarily established and
+maintained in our world, and even in the whole universe, _by the simple
+mutual gravity of its several parts_."[260]
+
+The task of "conceiving a better arrangement" of the celestial orbs, and
+improving the system of the universe generally, we shall leave to those
+who imagine themselves possessed of that omniscience which comprehends
+all the facts and relations of the actual universe, and foreknows all
+the details and relations of all possible universes so accurately as to
+be able to pronounce upon their relative "advantages." The arrogance of
+these critics is certainly in startling and ludicrous contrast with the
+affected modesty which, on other occasions, restrains them from
+"imputing any intentions to nature." It is quite enough for our purpose
+to know that the tracing of evidences of _design_ in those parts of
+nature accessible to our observation is an essentially different thing
+from the construction of a scheme of _optimism_ on _a priori_ grounds
+which shall embrace a universe the larger portion of which is virtually
+beyond the field of observation. We are conscious of possessing some
+rational data and some mental equipment for the former task, but for the
+latter we feel utterly incompetent.[261]
+
+[Footnote 259: In a foot-note Comte adds: "Nowadays, to minds
+familiarized betimes with the true astronomical philosophy, the heavens
+declare no other glory than that of Hipparchus, Kepler, Newton, and all
+those who have contributed to the ascertainment of their laws." It seems
+remarkable that the great men who _ascertained_ these laws did not see
+that the saying of the Psalmist was emptied of all meaning by their
+discoveries. No persons seem to have been more willing than these very
+men named to ascribe all the glory to Him who _established_ these laws.
+Kepler says: "The astronomer, to whom God has given to see more clearly
+with his inward eye, from what he has discovered, both can and will
+glorify God;" and Newton says: "This beautiful system of sun, planets,
+comets could have its origin in no other way than by the purpose and
+command of an intelligent and powerful Being. We admire him on account
+of his perfections, we venerate and worship him on account of his
+government."--Whewell's "Astronomy and Physics," pp. 197, 198.]
+
+[Footnote 260: "Positive Philosophy," vol. ii. pp. 36-38; Tulloch,
+"Theism," p. 115.]
+
+[Footnote 261: Chalmers's "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. pp. 117,
+118.]
+
+The only plausible argument in the above quotation from Comte is, that
+the whole phenomena of the solar system are adequately explained by the
+law of gravitation, without the intervention of any intelligent purpose.
+Let it be borne in mind that it is a fundamental principle of the
+Positive philosophy that all human knowledge is necessarily confined to
+phenomena _perceptible to sense_, and that the fast and highest
+achievement of human science is to observe and record "the invariable
+relations of resemblance and succession among phenomena." We can not
+possibly know any thing of even the existence of "causes" or "forces"
+lying back of phenomena, nor of "reasons" or "purposes" determining the
+relations of phenomena. The "law of gravitation" must, therefore, be
+simply the statement of a fact, the expression of an observed order of
+phenomena. But the simple statement of a fact is no _explanation_ of the
+fact. The formal expression of an observed order of succession among
+phenomena is no _explanation_ of that order. For what do we mean by an
+explanation? Is it not a "making plain" to the understanding? It is, in
+short, a complete answer to the questions _how_ is it so? and _why_ is
+it so? Now, if Comte denies to himself and to us all knowledge of
+efficient and final causation, if we are in utter ignorance of "forces"
+operating in nature, and of "reasons" for which things exist in nature,
+he can not answer either question, and consequently nothing is
+explained.
+
+Practically, however, Comte regards gravitation as a force. The order of
+the solar system has been established and is still maintained by the
+mutual gravity of its several parts. We shall not stop here to note the
+inconsistency of his denying to us the knowledge of, even the existence
+of, force, and yet at the same time assuming to treat gravitation as a
+force really adequate to the explanation of the _how_ and _why_ of the
+phenomena of the universe, without any reference to a supernatural will
+or an intelligent mind. The question with which we are immediately
+concerned is whether gravitation _alone_ is adequate to the explanation
+of the phenomena of the heavens? A review _in extenso_ of Comte's answer
+to this question would lead us into all the inextricable mazes of the
+nebular hypothesis, and involve us in a more extended discussion than
+our space permits and our limited scientific knowledge justifies. For
+the masses of the people the whole question of cosmical development
+resolves itself into "a balancing of authorities;" they are not in a
+position to verify the reasonings for and against this theory by actual
+observation of astral phenomena, and the application of mathematical
+calculus; they are, therefore, guided by balancing in their own minds
+the statements of the distinguished astronomers who, by the united
+suffrages of the scientific world, are regarded as "authorities." For
+us, at present, it is enough that the nebular hypothesis is rejected by
+some of the greatest astronomers that have lived. We need only mention
+the names of Sir William Herschel, Sir John Herschel, Prof. Nichol, Earl
+Rosse, Sir David Brewster, and Prof. Whewell.
+
+But if we grant that the nebular hypothesis is entitled to take rank as
+an established theory of the development of the solar system, it by no
+means proves that the solar system was formed without the intervention
+of intelligence and design. On this point we shall content ourselves
+with quoting the words of one whose encyclopaedian knowledge was
+confessedly equal to that of Comte, and who in candor and accuracy was
+certainly his superior. Prof. Whewell, in his "Astronomy and Physics,"
+says: "This hypothesis by no means proves that the solar system was
+formed without the intervention of intelligence and design. It only
+transfers our view of the skill exercised and the means employed to
+another part of the work; for how came the sun and its atmosphere to
+have such materials, such motions, such a constitution, and these
+consequences followed from their primordial condition? How came the
+parent vapor thus to be capable of coherence, separation, contraction,
+solidification? How came the laws of its motion, attraction, repulsion,
+condensation, to be so fixed as to lead to a beautiful and harmonious
+system in the end? How came it to be neither too fluid nor too
+tenacious, to contract neither too quickly nor too slowly for the
+successive formation of the several planetary bodies? How came that
+substance, which at one time was a luminous vapor, to be at a subsequent
+period solids and fluids of many various kinds? What but design and
+intelligence prepared and tempered this previously-existing element, so
+that it should, by its natural changes, produce such an orderly
+system"?[262] "_The laws of motion alone will not produce the regularity
+which we admire in the motion of the heavenly bodies_. There must be an
+original adjustment of the system on which these laws are to act; a
+selection of the arbitrary quantities which they are to involve; a
+primitive cause which shall dispose the elements in due relation to each
+other, in order that regular recurrence may accompany constant change,
+and that perpetual motion may be combined with perpetual
+stability."[263]
+
+[Footnote 262: "Astronomy and Physics," p. 109.]
+
+[Footnote 263: Chalmers's "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 119.]
+
+The harmony of the solar system in all its phenomena does not depend
+upon the operation of any _one_ law, but from the special adjustment of
+several laws. There are certain agents operating throughout the entire
+system which have different properties, and which require special
+adjustment to each other, in order to their beneficial operation. 1st.
+There is _Gravitation,_ prevailing apparently through all space. But it
+does not prevail alone. It is a force whose function is to balance other
+forces of which we know little, except that these, again, are needed to
+balance the force of gravitation. Each force, if left to itself, would
+be the destruction of the universe. Were it not for the force of
+gravitation, the centrifugal forces which impel the planets would fling
+them off into space. Were it not for these centrifugal forces, the force
+of gravitation would dash them against the sun. The ultimate fact of
+astronomical science, therefore, is not the law of gravitation, but the
+_adjustment_ between this law and other laws, so as to produce and
+maintain the existing order.[264] 2d. There is _Light_, flowing from
+numberless luminaries; and _Heat_, radiating everywhere from the warmer
+to the colder regions; and there are a number of adjustments needed in
+order to the beneficial operation of these agents. Suppose we grant that
+by merely mechanical causes the sun became the centre of our system, how
+did it become also the _source of its vivifying influences_? "How was
+the fire deposited on this hearth? How was the candle placed on this
+candlestick?" 3d. There is an all-pervading _Ether_, through which light
+is transmitted, which offers resistance to the movement of the planetary
+and cometary bodies, and tends to a dissipation of mechanical energy,
+and which needs to be counter-balanced by well-adjusted arrangements to
+secure the stability of the solar system. All this balancing of opposite
+properties and forces carries our minds upward towards Him who holds the
+balances in his hands, and to a Supreme Intelligence on whose
+adjustments and collocations the harmony and stability of the universe
+depends.[265]
+
+[Footnote 264: Duke of Argyll, "Reign of Law," pp. 91, 92.]
+
+[Footnote 265: M'Cosh, "Typical Forms and Special Ends," ch. xiii.]
+
+The recognition of all teleology of organs in vegetable and animal
+physiology is also persistently repudiated by this school. When Cuvier
+speaks of the combination of organs in such order as to adapt the animal
+to the part which it has to play in nature, Geoffroy Saint Hilaire
+replies, "I know nothing of animals which have to play a part in
+nature." "I have read, concerning fishes, that, because they live in a
+medium which resists more than air, their motive forces are calculated
+so as to give them the power of progression under these circumstances.
+By this mode of reasoning, you would say of a man who makes use of
+crutches, that he was originally destined to the misfortune of having a
+leg paralyzed or amputated.[266] "With a modesty which savors of
+affectation, he says, "I ascribe no intentions to God, for I mistrust
+the feeble powers of my reason. I observe facts merely, and go no
+farther. I only pretend to the character of the historian of _what is_."
+"I can not make Nature an intelligent being who does nothing in vain,
+who acts by the shortest mode, who does all for the best."[267] All the
+supposed consorting of means to ends which has hitherto been regarded as
+evidencing Intelligence is simply the result of "the elective affinities
+of organic elements" and "the differentiation of organs" consequent
+mainly upon exterior conditions. "_Functions are a result, not an end_.
+The animal undergoes the kind of life that his organs impose, and
+submits to the imperfections of his organization. The naturalist studies
+the play of his apparatus, and if he has the right of admiring most of
+its parts, he has likewise that of showing the imperfection of other
+parts, and the practical uselessness of those which fulfill no
+functions."[268] And it is further claimed that there are a great many
+structures which are clearly useless; that is, they fulfill no purpose
+at all. Thus there are monkeys, which have no thumbs for use, but only
+rudimental thumb-bones hid beneath the skin; the wingless bird of New
+Zealand (Apteryx) has wing-bones similarly developed, which serve no
+purpose; young whalebone whales are born with teeth that never cut the
+gums, and are afterwards absorbed; and some sheep have horns turned
+about their ears which fulfill no end. And inasmuch as there are some
+organisms in nature which serve no purpose of utility, it is argued
+there is no design in nature; things are _used_ because there are
+antecedent conditions favorable for _use_, but that use is not the _end_
+for which the organ exists. The true naturalist will never say, "Birds
+have wings given them _in order_ to fly;" he will rather say, "Birds fly
+_because_ they have wings." The doctrine of final causes must,
+therefore, be abandoned.
+
+[Footnote 266: Whewell, "History of Inductive Sciences," vol. ii. p.
+486.]
+
+[Footnote 267: Id., ib., vol. ii. p. 490.]
+
+[Footnote 268: Martin's "Organic Unity in Animals and Vegetables," in M.
+Q. Review, January, 1863.]
+
+It is hardly worth while to reply to the lame argument of Geoffroy,
+which needs a "crutch" for its support. The very illustration,
+undignified and irrelevant as it is, tells altogether against its
+author. For, first, the crutch is certainly a _contrivance_ designed for
+locomotion; secondly, the length and strength and lightness of the
+crutch are all matters of calculation and _adjustment_; and, thirdly,
+all the adaptations of the crutch are well-considered, in order to
+enable the lame man to walk; the function of the crutch is the final
+cause of its creation. This crutch is clearly out of place in Geoffroy's
+argument, and utterly breaks down. It is in its place in the
+teleological argument, and stands well, though it may not behave as well
+as the living limb. The understanding of a child can perceive that the
+design-argument does not assert that men were intended to have amputated
+limbs, but that crutches are designed for those whose limbs are
+paralyzed or amputated.
+
+The existence of useless members, of rudimentary and abortive limbs,
+does seem, at first sight, to be unfavorable to the idea of supremacy of
+purpose and all-pervading design. It should be remarked, however, that
+this is an argument based upon our ignorance, and not upon our
+knowledge. It does not by any means follow that because we have
+discovered no reasons for their existence, therefore there are no
+reasons. Science, in enlarging its conquests of nature, is perpetually
+discovering the usefulness of arrangements of which our fathers were
+ignorant, and the reasons of things which to their minds, were
+concealed; and it ill becomes the men who so far "mistrust their own
+feeble powers" as to be afraid of ascribing any intention to God or
+nature, to dogmatically affirm there is no purpose in the existence of
+any thing. And then we may ask, what right have these men to set up the
+idea of "utility" as the only standard to which the Creator must
+conform? How came they to know that God is a mere "utilitarian;" or, if
+they do not believe in God, that nature is a miserable "Benthamite?" Why
+may not the idea of beauty, of symmetry, of order, be a standard for the
+universe, as much as the idea of utility, or mere subordination to some
+practical end? May not conformity to one grand and comprehensive plan,
+sweeping over all nature, be perfectly compatible with the adaptation of
+individual existences to the fulfillment of special ends? In civil
+architecture we have conformity to a general plan; we have embellishment
+and ornament, and we have adaptation to a special purpose, all combined;
+why may not these all be combined in the architecture of the universe?
+The presence of any one of these is sufficient to prove design, for mere
+ornament or beauty is itself a purpose, an object, and an end. The
+concurrence of all these is an overwhelming evidence of design. Wherever
+found, they are universally recognized as the product of intelligence;
+they address themselves at once to the intelligence of man, and they
+place him in immediate relation to and in deepest sympathy with the
+Intelligence which gave them birth. He that formed the eye of man to
+see, and the heart of man to admire beauty, shall He not delight in it?
+He that gave the hand of man its cunning to create beauty, shall He not
+himself work for it? And if man can and does combine both "ornament" and
+"use" in one and the same implement or machine, why should not the
+Creator of the world do the same? "When the savage carves the handle of
+his war-club, the immediate purpose of his carving is to give his own
+hand a firmer hold. But any shapeless scratches would be enough for
+this. When he carves it in an elaborate pattern, he does so for the love
+of ornament, and to satisfy the sense of beauty." And so "the harmonies,
+on which all beauty depends, are so connected in nature that _use_ and
+_ornament_ may often both arise out of the same conditions."[269]
+
+[Footnote 269: Duke of Argyll, "Reign of Law," p. 203.]
+
+The "true naturalist," therefore, recognizes two great principles
+pervading the universe--_a principle of order_--a unity of plan, and _a
+principle of special adaptation_, by which each object, though
+constructed upon a general plan, is at the same time accommodated to the
+place it has to occupy and the purpose it has to serve. In other words,
+there is _homology of structure_ and _analogy of function_, conformity
+to _archetypal forms_ and _Teleology of organs_, in wonderful
+combination. Now, in the Materialistic school, it has been the prevalent
+practice to set up the unity of plan in animal structures, in opposition
+to the principle of Final Causes: Morphology has been opposed to
+Teleology. But in nature there is no such opposition; on the contrary,
+there is a beautiful co-ordination. The same bones, in different
+animals, are made subservient to the widest possible diversity of
+functions. The same limbs are converted into fins, paddles, wings, legs,
+and arms. "No comparative anatomist has the slightest hesitation in
+admitting that the pectoral fin of a fish, the wing of a bird, the
+paddle of the dolphin, the fore-leg of a deer, the wing of a bat, and
+the arm of a man, are the same organs, notwithstanding that their forms
+are so varied, and the uses to which they are applied so unlike each
+other."[270] All these are homologous in structure--they are formed
+after an ideal archetype or model, but that model or type is variously
+modified to adapt the animal to the sphere of life in which it is
+destined to move, and the organ itself to the functions it has to
+perform, whether swimming, flying, walking, or burrowing, or that varied
+manipulation of which the human hand is capable. These varied
+modifications of the vertebrated type, for special purposes, are
+unmistakable examples of final causation. Whilst the silent members, the
+rudimental limbs instanced by Oken, Martins, and others--as fulfilling
+no purpose, and serving no end, exist in conformity to an ideal
+archetype on which the bony skeletons of all vertebrated animals are
+formed,[271] and which has never been departed from since time began.
+This type, or model, or plan, is, however, itself an evidence of
+_design_ as much as the plan of a house. For to what standard are we
+referring when we say that two limbs are morphologically the same? Is it
+not an _ideal_ plan, a _mental_ pattern, a metaphysical conception? Now
+an _ideal_ implies a mind which preconceived the idea, and in which
+alone it really exists. It is only as "an _order of Divine thought_"
+that the doctrine of animal homologies is at all intelligible; and
+Homology is, therefore, the science which traces the outward embodiment
+of a Divine Idea.[272] The principle of intentionality or final
+causation, then, is not in any sense invalidated by the discovery of "a
+unity of plan" sweeping through the entire universe.
+
+[Footnote 270: Carpenter's "Comparative Physiology," p. 37.]
+
+[Footnote 271: Agassiz, "Essay on Classification," p. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 272: Whewell's "History of Inductive Sciences," vol. i. p.
+644; "The Reign of Law," p. 208; Agassiz, "Essay on Classification," pp.
+9-11.]
+
+We conclude that we are justly entitled to regard "the principle of
+intentionality" as a primary and necessary law of thought, under which
+we can not avoid conceiving and describing the facts of the
+universe--_the special adaptation of means to ends necessarily implies
+mind_. Whenever and wherever we observe the adaptation of an organism to
+the fulfillment of a special end, we can not avoid conceiving of that
+_end_ as foreseen and premeditated, the _means_ as selected and adjusted
+with a view to that end, and creative energy put forth to secure the
+end--all which is the work of intelligence and will.[273] And we can not
+describe these facts of nature, so as to render that account
+intelligible to other minds, without using such terms as "contrivance,"
+"purpose," "adaptation," "design." A striking illustration of this may
+be found in Darwin's volume "On the Fertilization of Orchids." We select
+from his volume with all the more pleasure because he is one of the
+writers who enjoins "caution in ascribing intentions to nature." In one
+sentence he says: "The _Labellum_ is developed into a long nectary, _in
+order_ to attract _Lepidoptera_; and we shall presently give reasons for
+suspecting the nectar is _purposely_ so lodged that it can be sucked
+only slowly, _in order_ to give time for the curious chemical quality of
+the viscid matter settling hard and dry" (p. 29). Of one particular
+structure he says: "This _contrivance_ of the guiding ridges may be
+compared to the little instrument sometimes used for guiding a thread
+into the eye of a needle." The notion that every organism has a use or
+purpose seems to have guided him in his discoveries. "The strange
+position of the _Labellum_, perched on the summit of the column, ought
+to have shown me that here was the place for experiment. I ought to have
+scorned the notion that the _Labellum_ was thus placed _for no good
+purpose_. I neglected this plain guide, and for a long time completely
+failed to understand the flower" (p. 262).[274]
+
+[Footnote 273: Carpenter's "Principles of Comparative Physiology," p.
+723.]
+
+[Footnote 274: Edinburgh Review, October, 1862; article, "The
+Supernatural."]
+
+So that the assumption of final causes has not, as Bacon affirms, "led
+men astray" and "prejudiced further discovery;" on the contrary, it has
+had a large share in every discovery in anatomy and physiology, zoology
+and botany. The use of every organ has been discovered by starting from
+the assumption _that it must have some use_. The belief in a creative
+purpose led Harvey to discover the circulation of the blood. He says:
+"When I took notice that the valves in the veins of so many parts of the
+body were so placed that they gave a free passage to the blood towards
+the heart, but opposed the passage of the venal blood the contrary way,
+I was incited to imagine that so provident a cause as Nature has not
+placed so many valves _without design_, and no design seemed more
+probable than the circulation of the blood."[275] The wonderful
+discoveries in Zoology which have immortalized the name of Cuvier were
+made under the guidance of this principle. He proceeds on the
+supposition not only that animal forms have _some_ plan, _some_ purpose,
+but that they have an intelligible plan, a discoverable purpose. At the
+outset of his "_Regne Animal_" he says: "Zoology has a principle of
+reasoning which is peculiar to it, and which it employs to advantage on
+many occasions; that is, the principle of the conditions of existence,
+commonly called final causes."[276] The application of this principle
+enabled him to understand and arrange the structures of animals with
+astonishing clearness and completeness of order; and to restore the
+forms of extinct animals which are found in the rocks, in a manner which
+excited universal admiration, and has commanded universal assent.
+Indeed, as Professor Whewell remarks, at the conclusion of his "History
+of the Inductive Sciences," "those who have been discoverers in science
+have generally had minds, the disposition of which was to believe in an
+_intelligent Maker_ of the universe, and that the scientific
+speculations which produced an opposite tendency were generally those
+which, though they might deal familiarly with known physical truths, and
+conjecture boldly with regard to unknown, do not add to the number of
+solid generalizations."[277]
+
+[Footnote 275: "History of Inductive Science," vol. ii. p. 449.]
+
+[Footnote 276: "History of Inductive Science," vol. ii. p. 2, Eng. ed.]
+
+[Footnote 277: Ibid., vol. ii. p. 491. A list of the "great discoverers"
+is given in his "Astronomy and Physics," bk. iii. ch. v.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE UNKNOWN GOD (_continued_).
+
+IS GOD COGNIZABLE BY REASON? (_continued_).
+
+
+      "The faith which can not stand unless buttressed by
+      contradictions is built upon the sand. The profoundest faith
+      is faith in the unity of truth. If there is found any
+      conflict in the results of a right reason, no appeal to
+      practical interests, or traditionary authority, or
+      intuitional or theological faith, can stay the flood of
+      skepticism."--ABBOT.
+
+In the previous chapter we have considered the answers to this question
+which are given by the Idealistic and Materialistic schools; it devolves
+upon us now to review (iii.) the position of the school of _Natural
+Realism_ or _Natural Dualism_, at the head of which stands Sir William
+Hamilton.
+
+It is admitted by this school that philosophic knowledge is "the
+knowledge of effects as dependent on their causes,"[278] and "of
+qualities as inherent in substances."[279]
+
+[Footnote 278: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 58.]
+
+[Footnote 279: Ibid., vol. i. p. 138.]
+
+1. _As to Events and Causes_.--"Events do not occur isolated, apart, by
+themselves; they occur and are conceived by us only in connection. Our
+observation affords us no example of a phenomenon which is not an
+effect; nay, our thought can not even realize to itself the possibility
+of a phenomenon without a cause. By the necessity we are under of
+thinking some cause for every phenomenon, and by our original ignorance
+of what particular causes belong to what particular effects, it is
+rendered impossible for us to acquiesce in the mere knowledge of the
+fact of the phenomenon; on the contrary, we are determined, we are
+necessitated to regard each phenomenon as _only partially known until we
+discover the causes_ on which it depends for its existence.[280]
+Philosophic knowledge is thus, in its widest acceptation, the knowledge
+of effects as dependent on causes. Now what does this imply? In the
+first place, as every cause to which we can ascend is only an effect, it
+follows that it is the scope, that is, the aim, of philosophy to trace
+up the series of effects and causes until we arrive at _causes which are
+not in themselves effects_,"[281]--that is, to ultimate and final
+causes. And then, finally, "Philosophy, as the knowledge of effects in
+their causes, necessarily tends, not towards a plurality of ultimate or
+final causes, but towards _one_ alone."[282]
+
+[Footnote 280: Ibid., vol. i. p. 56.]
+
+[Footnote 281: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 58.]
+
+[Footnote 282: Ibid., vol. i. p. 60.]
+
+2. _As to Qualities and Substance, or Phenomena and Reality_.--As
+phenomena appear only in conjunction, we are compelled, by the
+constitution of our nature, to think them conjoined in and by something;
+and as they are phenomena, we can not think them phenomena of nothing,
+but must regard them as properties or qualities of something.[283] Now
+that which manifests its qualities--in other words, that in which the
+appearing causes inhere, that to which they belong--is called their
+_subject_, or _substance_, or _substratum_.[284] The subject of one
+grand series of phenomena (as, _e.g._, extension, solidity, figure,
+etc.) is called _matter_, or _material substance_. The subject of the
+other grand series of phenomena (as, _e.g._, thought, feeling, volition,
+etc.) is termed _mind_, or _mental substance_. We may, therefore, lay it
+down as an undisputed truth that consciousness gives, as an ultimate
+fact, a primitive duality--a knowledge of the _ego_ in relation and
+contrast to the _non-ego_, and a knowledge of the _non-ego_ in relation
+and contrast to the _ego_[285] Natural Dualism thus establishes the
+existence of two worlds of _mind_ and _matter_ on the immediate
+knowledge we possess of both series of phenomena; whilst the Cosmothetic
+Idealists discredit the veracity of consciousness as to our immediate
+knowledge of material phenomena, and, consequently, our _immediate
+knowledge of the existence of matter_.[286]
+
+[Footnote 283: Ibid., vol. i. p. 137.]
+
+[Footnote 284: Ibid., vol. i. p. 137.]
+
+[Footnote 285: Ibid., vol. i. p. 292.]
+
+[Footnote 286: Ibid., vol. i. pp. 292, 295.]
+
+The obvious doctrine of the above quotations is, that we have an
+immediate knowledge of the "_existence_ of matter" as well as of "the
+_phenomena_ of matter;" that is, we know "_substance_" as immediately
+and directly as we know "_qualities_." Phenomena are known only as
+inherent in substance; substance is known only as manifesting its
+qualities. We never know qualities without knowing substance, and we can
+never know substance without knowing qualities. Both are known in one
+concrete act; substance is known quite as much as quality; quality is
+known no more than substance. That we have a direct, immediate,
+presentative "face to face" knowledge of matter and mind in every act of
+consciousness is asserted again and again by Hamilton, in his
+"Philosophy of Perception."[287] In the course of the discussion he
+starts the question, "_Is the knowledge of mind and matter equally
+immediate?_" His answer to this question may be condensed in the
+following sentences. In regard to the immediate knowledge of _mind_
+there is no difficulty; it is admitted to be direct and immediate. The
+problem, therefore, exclusively regards the intuitive perception of the
+qualities of _matter_. Now, says Hamilton, "if we interrogate
+consciousness concerning the point in question, the response is
+categorical and clear. In the simplest act of perception I am conscious
+of _myself_ as a perceiving _subject_, and of an external _reality_ as
+the object perceived; and I am conscious of both existences in the same
+indivisible amount of intuition."[288] Again he says, "I have frequently
+asserted that in perception we are conscious of the external object,
+immediately and _in itself_." "If, then, the veracity of consciousness
+be unconditionally admitted--_if the intuitive knowledge of matter and
+mind_, and the consequent reality of their antithesis, be taken as
+truths," the doctrine of Natural Realism is established, and, "without
+any hypothesis or demonstration, the _reality of mind_ and the _reality
+of matter_."[289]
+
+[Footnote 287: Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, part ii.]
+
+[Footnote 288: Ibid., p. 181.]
+
+[Footnote 289: Ibid., pp. 34, 182.]
+
+Now, after these explicit statements that we have an intuitive knowledge
+of matter and mind--a direct and immediate consciousness of self as a
+real, "self-subsisting entity," and a knowledge of "an external reality,
+immediately and _in itself_," it seems unaccountably strange that
+Hamilton should assert "_that all human knowledge, consequently all
+human philosophy, is only of the Relative or Phenomenal_;"[290] and that
+"_of existence absolutely and in itself we know nothing_."[291] Whilst
+teaching that the proper sphere and aim of philosophy is to trace
+secondary causes up to ultimate or first causes, and that it
+_necessarily tends_ towards one First and Ultimate Cause, he at the same
+time asserts that "first causes do not lie within the reach of
+philosophy,"[292] and that it can never attain to the knowledge of the
+First Cause.[293] "The Infinite God can not, by us, be comprehended,
+conceived, or thought."[294] God, as First Cause, as infinite, as
+unconditioned, as eternal, is to us absolutely "_The Unknown_." The
+science of Real Being--of Being _in se_--of self-subsisting entities, is
+declared to be impossible. All science is only of the phenomenal, the
+conditioned, the relative. Ontology is a delusive dream. Thus, after
+pages of explanations and qualifications, of affirmations and denials,
+we find Hamilton virtually assuming the same position as Comte and
+Mill--_all human knowledge is necessarily confined to phenomena_.
+
+[Footnote 290: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 136]
+
+[Footnote 291: Ibid., vol. i. p. 138.]
+
+[Footnote 292: Ibid., vol. i. p. 58.]
+
+[Footnote 293: Ibid., vol. i. p. 60.]
+
+[Footnote 294: Ibid., vol. ii. p. 375.]
+
+It has been supposed that the chief glory of Sir William Hamilton rested
+upon his able exposition and defense of the doctrine of Natural Realism.
+There are, however, indications in his writings that he regarded "the
+Philosophy of the Conditioned" as his grand achievement. The Law of the
+Conditioned had "not been generalized by any previous philosopher;" and,
+in laying down that law, he felt that he had made a new and important
+contribution to speculative thought.
+
+The principles upon which this philosophy is based are:
+
+1. _The Relativity of all Human Knowledge._--Existence is not cognized
+absolutely and in itself, but only under special modes which are related
+to our faculties, and, in fact, determined by these faculties
+themselves. All knowledge, therefore, is _relative_--that is, it is of
+phenomena only, and of phenomena "under modifications determined by our
+own faculties." Now, as the Absolute is that which exists out of all
+relation either to phenomena or to our faculties of knowledge, it can
+not possibly be _known_.
+
+2. _The Conditionality of all Thinking_.--Thought necessarily supposes
+conditions. "To think is to condition; and conditional limitation is the
+fundamental law of the possibility of thought. As the eagle can not
+out-soar the atmosphere in which he floats, and by which alone he is
+supported, so the mind can not transcend the sphere of limitation within
+and through which the possibility of thought is realized. Thought is
+only of the conditioned, because, as we have said, to think is to
+condition."[295] Now the Infinite is the unlimited, the unconditioned,
+and as such can not possibly be _thought_.
+
+3. _The notion of the Infinite--the Absolute, as entertained by man, is
+a mere "negation of thought._"--By this Hamilton does not mean that the
+idea of the Infinite is a negative idea. "The Infinite and the Absolute
+are _only_ the names of two counter _imbecilities_ of the human
+mind"[296]--that is, a mental inability to conceive an absolute
+limitation, or an infinite illimitation; an absolute commencement, or an
+infinite non-commencement. In other words, of the absolute and infinite
+we have no conception at all, and, consequently, no knowledge.[297]
+
+The grand law which Hamilton generalizes from the above is, "_that the
+conceivable is in every relation bounded by the inconceivable_." Or,
+again, "The conditioned or the thinkable lies between two extremes or
+poles; and these extremes or poles are each of them unconditioned, each
+of them inconceivable, each of them exclusive or contradictory of the
+other."[298] This is the celebrated "Law of the Conditioned."
+
+[Footnote 295: "Discussions," p. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 296: Ibid., p. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 297: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. pp. 368, 373.]
+
+[Footnote 298: Ibid., vol. ii. p. 373.]
+
+In attempting a brief criticism of "the Philosophy of the Conditioned,"
+we may commence by inquiring:
+
+I. _What is the real import and significance of the doctrine "that all
+human knowledge is only of the relative or phenomenal_?"
+
+Hamilton calls this "the great axiom" of philosophy. That we may
+distinctly comprehend its meaning, and understand its bearing on the
+subject under discussion, we must ascertain the sense in which he uses
+the words "_phenomenal_" and "_relative._" The importance of an exact
+terminology is fully appreciated by our author; and accordingly, in
+three Lectures (VIII., IX., X.), he has given a full explication of the
+terms most commonly employed in philosophic discussions. Here the word
+"_phenomenon_" is set down as the necessary "_correlative_" of the word
+"_subject_" or "_substance_." "These terms can not be explained apart,
+for each is correlative of the other, each can be comprehended only in
+and through its correlative. The term '_subject_' is used to denote the
+unknown (?) basis which lies under the various _phenomena_ or properties
+of which we become aware, whether in our external or internal
+experience."[299] "The term '_relative_' is _opposed_ to the term
+'_absolute_;' therefore, in saying that we know only the relative, I
+virtually assert that we know nothing absolutely, that is, _in and for
+itself, and without relation to us and our faculties_."[300] Now, in the
+philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, "the absolute" is defined as "that
+which is aloof from relation"--"that which is out of all relation."[301]
+The _absolute_ can not, therefore, be "_the correlative_" of the
+conditioned--can not stand in any relation to the phenomenal. The
+_subject,_ however, is the necessary correlative of the phenomenal, and,
+consequently, the subject and the absolute are not identical.
+Furthermore, Hamilton tells us the subject _may be comprehended_ in and
+through its correlative--the phenomenon; but the absolute, being aloof
+from all relation, can not be comprehended or conceived at all. "The
+subject" and "the absolute" are, therefore, not synonymous terms; and,
+if they are not synonymous, then their antithetical terms, "phenomenal"
+and "relative," can not be synonymous.
+
+[Footnote 299: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 148.]
+
+[Footnote 300: Ibid., vol. i. p. 137.]
+
+[Footnote 301: "Discussions," p. 21.]
+
+It is manifest, however, that Hamilton does employ these terms as
+synonymous, and this we apprehend is the first false step in his
+philosophy of the conditioned. "All our knowledge is of the relative
+_or_ phenomenal." Throughout the whole of Lectures VIII. and IX., in
+which he explains the doctrine of the relativity of human knowledge,
+these terms are used as precisely analogous. Now, in opposition to this,
+we maintain that the relative is not always the phenomenal. A thing may
+be "in relation" and yet not be a phenomenon. "The subject or substance"
+may be, and really is, on the admission of Hamilton himself,
+_correlated_ to the phenomenon. The ego, "the conscious _subject_"[302]
+as a "_self-subsisting entity_" is necessarily related to the phenomena
+of thought, feeling, etc.; but no one would repudiate the idea that the
+conscious subject is a mere phenomenon, or "series of phenomena," with
+more indignation than Hamilton. Notwithstanding the contradictory
+assertion, "that the _subject_ is unknown," he still teaches, with equal
+positiveness, "that in every act of perception I am conscious of self,
+as a perceiving _subject."_ And still more explicitly he says: "As
+clearly as I am conscious of existing, so clearly am I conscious, at
+every moment of my existence, that the conscious Ego is not itself a
+mere modification [a phenomenon], nor a series of modifications
+[phenomena], but that it is itself different from all its modifications,
+and a _self-subsisting entity_."[303] Again: "Thought is possible only
+in and through the consciousness of Self. The Self, the I, is recognized
+in every act of intelligence as the _subject_ to which the act belongs.
+It is I that perceive, I that imagine, I that remember, etc.; these
+special modes are all only the phenomena of the I."[304] We are,
+therefore, conscious of the _subject_ in the most immediate, and direct,
+and intuitive manner, and the subject of which we are conscious can not
+be "_unknown_." We regret that so distinguished a philosophy should deal
+in such palpable contradictions; but it is the inevitable consequence of
+violating that fundamental principle of philosophy on which Hamilton so
+frequently and earnestly insists, viz., "that the testimony of
+consciousness must be accepted in all its integrity".
+
+[Footnote 302: Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton (edited by O.W.
+Wight), p. 181.]
+
+[Footnote 303: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 373.]
+
+[Footnote 304: Ibid., vol. i. p. 166.]
+
+It is thus obvious that, with proper qualifications, we may admit _the
+relativity of human knowledge_, and yet at the same time reject the
+doctrine of Hamilton, _that all human knowledge is only of the
+phenomenal_.
+
+"The relativity of human knowledge," like most other phrases into which
+the word "relative" enters, is vague, and admits of a variety of
+meanings. If by this phrase is meant "that we can not know objects
+except as related to our faculties, or as our faculties are related to
+them," we accept the statement, but regard it as a mere truism leading
+to no consequences, and hardly worth stating in words. It is simply
+another way of saying that, in order to an object's being known, it must
+come within the range of our intellectual vision, and that we can only
+know as much as we are capable of knowing. Or, if by this phrase is
+meant "that we can only know things by and through the phenomena they
+present," we admit this also, for we can no more know substances apart
+from their properties, than we can know qualities apart from the
+substances in which they inhere. Substances can be known only in and
+through their phenomena. Take away the properties, and the thing has no
+longer any existence. Eliminate extension, form, density, etc., from
+matter, and what have you left? "The thing in itself," apart from its
+qualities, is nothing. Or, again, if by the relativity of knowledge is
+meant "that all consciousness, all thought are relative," we accept this
+statement also. To conceive, to reflect, to know, is to deal with
+difference and relation; the relation of subject and object; the
+relation of objects among themselves; the relation of phenomena to
+reality, of becoming to being. The reason of man is unquestionably
+correlated to that which is beyond phenomena; it is able to apprehend
+the necessary relation between phenomena and being, extension and space,
+succession and time, event and cause, the finite and the infinite. We
+may thus admit the _relative character of human thought_, and at the
+same time deny that it is an ontological disqualification.[305]
+
+It is not, however, in any of these precise forms that Hamilton holds
+the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge. He assumes a middle place
+between Reid and Kant, and endeavors to blend the subjective idealism of
+the latter with the realism of the former. "He identifies the
+_phenomenon_ of the German with the _quality_ of the British
+philosophy,"[306] and asserts, as a regulative law of thought, that the
+quality implies the substance, and the phenomenon the noumenon, but
+makes the substratum or noumenon (the object in itself) unknown and
+unknowable. The "phenomenon" of Kant was, however, something essentially
+different from the "quality" of Reid. In the philosophy of Kant,
+_phenomenon_ means an object as we envisage or represent it to
+ourselves, in opposition to the _noumenon_, or a thing as it is in
+itself. The phenomenon is composed, in part, of subjective elements
+supplied by the mind itself; as regards intuition, the forms of space
+and time; as regards thought, the categories of Quantity, Quality,
+Relation, and Modality. To perceive a thing in itself would be to
+perceive it neither in space nor in time. To think a thing in itself
+would be not to think it under any of the categories. The phenomenal is
+thus the product of the inherent laws of our own constitution, and, as
+such, is the sum and limit of all our knowledge.[307]
+
+[Footnote 305: Martineau's "Essays," p. 234.]
+
+[Footnote 306: M'Cosh's "Defense of Fundamental Truth," p. 106.]
+
+[Footnote 307: Mansel's "Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant," pp. 21,
+22.]
+
+This, in its main features, is evidently the doctrine propounded by
+Hamilton. The special modes in which existence is cognizable" are
+presented to, and known by, the mind _under modifications determined by
+the faculties themselves_."[308] This doctrine he illustrates by the
+following supposition: "Suppose the total object of consciousness in
+perception is=12; and suppose that the external reality contributes 6,
+the material sense 3, and the mind 3; this may enable you to form some
+rude conjecture of the nature of the object of perception."[309] The
+conclusion at which Hamilton arrives, therefore, is that things are not
+known to us as they exist, but simply as they appear, and as our minds
+are capable of perceiving them.
+
+[Footnote 308: Hamilton's "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 148.]
+
+[Footnote 309: Hamilton's "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 129;
+and also vol. i. p. 147.]
+
+Let us test the validity of this majestic deliverance. No man is
+justified in making this assertion unless, 1. He knows things as they
+exist; 2. He knows things not only as they exist but as they appear; 3.
+He is able to compare things as they exist with the same things as they
+appear. Now, inasmuch as Sir William Hamilton affirms we do not know
+things as they exist, but only as they appear, how can he know that
+there is any difference between things as they exist and as they appear?
+What is this "_thing in itself_" about which Hamilton has so much to
+say, and yet about which he professes to know nothing? We readily
+understand what is meant by the _thing_; it is the object as existing--a
+substance manifesting certain characteristic qualities. But what is
+meant by _in itself_? There can be no _in itself_ besides or beyond the
+_thing_. If Hamilton means that "the thing itself" is the thing apart
+from all relation, and devoid of all properties or qualities, we do not
+acknowledge any such thing. A thing apart from all relation, and devoid
+of all qualities, is simply pure nothing, if such a solecism may be
+permitted. With such a definition of Being _in se_, the logic of Hegel
+is invincible, "Being and Nothing are identical."
+
+And now, if "the thing in itself" be, as Hamilton says it is, absolutely
+_unknown_, how can he affirm or deny any thing in regard to it? By what
+right does he prejudge a hidden reality, and give or refuse its
+predicates; as, for example, that it is conditioned or unconditioned, in
+relation or aloof from relation, finite or infinite? Is it not plain
+that, in declaring a thing in its inmost nature or essence to be
+inscrutable, it is assumed to be partially _known_? And it is obvious,
+notwithstanding some unguarded expressions to the contrary, that
+Hamilton does regard "the thing in itself" as partially known. "The
+external reality" is, at least, six elements out of twelve in the "total
+object of consciousness."[310] The primary qualities of matter are known
+as in the things themselves; "they develop themselves with rigid
+necessity out of the simple datum of _substance occupying space_."[311]
+"The Primary Qualities are apprehended as they are in bodies"--"they are
+the attributes of _body as body_," and as such "are known immediately in
+themselves,"[312] as well as mediately by their effects upon us. So that
+we not only know by direct consciousness certain properties of things as
+they exist in things themselves, but we can also deduce them in an _a
+priori_ manner. "The bare notion of matter being given, the Primary
+Qualities may be deduced _a priori_; they being, in fact, only
+evolutions of the conditions which that notion necessarily implies." If,
+then, we know the qualities of things as "in the things themselves,"
+"the things themselves" must also be, at least, partially known; and
+Hamilton can not consistently assert the relativity of _all_ knowledge.
+Even if it be granted that our cognitions of objects are only in part
+dependent on the objects themselves, and in part on elements superadded
+by our organism, or by our minds, it can not warrant the assertion that
+all our knowledge, but only the part so added, is relative. "The
+admixture of the relative element not only does not take away the
+absolute character of the remainder, but does not even (if our author is
+right) prevent us from recognizing it. The confusion, according to him,
+is not inextricable. It is for us 'to analyze and distinguish what
+elements,' in an 'act of knowledge,' are contributed by the object, and
+what by the organs or by the mind."[313]
+
+[Footnote 310: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 129.]
+
+[Footnote 311: Philosophy of Sir Wm. Hamilton, p. 357]
+
+[Footnote 312: Ibid., pp. 377, 378.]
+
+[Footnote 313: Mill's "Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i. p.
+44.]
+
+Admitting the relative character of human thought as a psychological
+fact, Mr. Martineau has conclusively shown that this law, instead of
+visiting us with disability to transcend phenomena, _operates as a
+revelation of what exists beyond_. "The finite body cut out before our
+visual perception, or embraced by the hands, lies as an island in the
+emptiness around, and without comparative reference to this can not be
+represented: the same experience which gives us the definite object
+gives us also the infinite space; and both terms--the limited appearance
+and the unlimited ground--are apprehended with equal certitude and
+clearness, and furnished with names equally susceptible of distinct use
+in predication and reasoning. The transient successions, for instance,
+the strokes of a clock, which we count, present themselves to us as
+dotted out upon a line of permanent duration; of which, without them, we
+should have no apprehension, but which as their condition, is
+unreservedly known."[314]
+
+"What we have said with regard to space and time applies equally to the
+case of Causation. Here, too, the finite offered to perception
+introduces to an Infinite supplied by thought. As a definite body
+reveals also the space around, and an interrupted succession exhibits
+the uniform time beneath, so does the passing phenomenon demand for
+itself a power beneath. The space, and time, and power, not being part
+of the thing perceived, but its conditions, are guaranteed to us,
+therefore, on the warrant, not of sense, but of intellect."[315]
+
+"We conclude, then, on reviewing these examples of Space, and Time, and
+Causation, that ontological ideas introducing us to certain fixed
+entities belong no less to our knowledge than scientific ideas of
+phenomenal disposition and succession."[316] In these instances of
+relation between a phenomenon given in perception and an entity as a
+logical condition, the correlatives are on a perfect equality of
+intellectual validity, and the relative character of human thought is
+not an ontological disqualification, but a cognitive power.
+
+[Footnote 314: "Essays," pp. 193,194.]
+
+[Footnote 315: Ibid., p. 197.]
+
+[Footnote 316: Ibid., p. 195.]
+
+There is a thread of fallacy running through the whole of Hamilton's
+reasonings, consequent upon a false definition of the Absolute at the
+outset. The Absolute is defined as _that which exists in and by itself,
+aloof from and out of all relation_. An absolute, as thus defined, does
+not and can not exist; it is a pure abstraction, and, in fact, a pure
+non-entity. "The Absolute expresses perfect independence both in being
+and in action, and is applicable to God as self-existent."[317] It may
+mean the absence of all _necessary_ relation, but it does not mean the
+absence of _all_ relation. If God can not _voluntarily_ call a finite
+existence into being, and thus stand in the relation of cause, He is
+certainly under the severest limitation. But surely that is not a limit
+which substitutes choice for necessity. To be unable to know God out of
+all relation--that is, apart from his attributes, apart from his created
+universe, is not felt by us to be any privation at all. A God without
+attributes, and out of all relations, is for us no God at all. God as a
+being of unlimited perfection, as infinitely wise and good, as the
+unconditioned cause of all finite being, and, consequently, as
+voluntarily related to nature and humanity, we can and do know; this is
+the living and true God. The God of a false philosophy is not the true
+God; the pure abstractions of Hegel and Hamilton are negations, and not
+realities.
+
+2. We proceed to consider the second fundamental principle of Hamilton's
+philosophy of the conditioned, viz., that "conditional limitation is the
+fundamental law of the possibility of thought," and that thought
+necessarily imposes conditions on its object.
+
+"Thought," says Hamilton, "can not transcend consciousness:
+consciousness is only possible under the antithesis of a subject and an
+object known only in correlation, and _mutually limiting each
+other_"[318] Thought necessarily supposes conditions; "to think is
+simply to condition," that is, to predicate limits; and as the infinite
+is the unlimited, it can not be thought. The very attempt to think the
+infinite renders it finite; therefore there can be no infinite _in
+thought_, and, consequently, the infinite can not be known.
+
+[Footnote 317: Calderwood's "Philosophy of the Infinite," p. 179.]
+
+[Footnote 318: "Discussions," p. 21.]
+
+If by "the infinite in thought" is here meant the infinite compassed or
+contained in thought, we readily grant that the finite can not contain
+the infinite; it is a simple truism which no one has ever been so
+foolish as to deny. Even Cousin is not so unwise as to assert the
+absolutely comprehensibility of God. "In order absolutely to comprehend
+the Infinite, it is necessary to have an infinite power of
+comprehension, and this is not granted to us."[319] A finite mind can
+not have "an infinite thought." But it by no means follows that, because
+we can not have infinite thought, we can have no clear and definite
+thought of or concerning the Infinite. We have a precise and definite
+idea of infinitude; we can define the idea; we can set it apart without
+danger of being confounded with another, and we can reason concerning
+it. There is nothing we more certainly and intuitively know than that
+space is infinite, and yet we can not comprehend or grasp within the
+compass of our thought the infinite space. We can not form an _image_ of
+infinite space, can not traverse it in perception, or represent it by
+any combination of numbers; but we can have the _thought_ of it as an
+idea of Reason, and can argue concerning it with precision and
+accuracy.[320] Hamilton has an idea of the Infinite; he defines it; he
+reasons concerning it; he says "we must believe in the infinity of God."
+But how can he define the Infinite unless he possesses some knowledge,
+however limited, of the infinite Being? How can he believe in the
+infinity of God if he has no definite idea of infinitude? He can not
+reason about, can not affirm or deny any thing concerning, that of which
+he knows absolutely nothing.
+
+[Footnote 319: "Lectures on History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 104.]
+
+[Footnote 320: "To form an _image_ of any infinitude--be it of time or
+space [or power]; to go mentally through it by successive steps of
+representation--is indeed impossible; not less so than to traverse it in
+our finite perception and experience. But to have the _thought_ of it as
+an idea of the reason, not of the phantasy, and assign that thought a
+constituent place in valid beliefs and consistent reasonings, appears to
+us as not only possible, but inevitable."--Martineau's "Essays," p.
+205.]
+
+The grand logical barrier which Hamilton perpetually interposes to all
+possible cognition of God _as infinite_ is, that to think is to
+condition--to limit; and as the Infinite is the unconditioned, the
+unlimited, therefore "the Infinite can not be _thought_." We grant at
+once that all human thought is limited and finite, but, at the same
+time, we emphatically deny that the limitation of our thought imposes
+any conditions or limits upon the object of thought. No such affirmation
+can be consistently made, except on the Hegelian hypothesis that
+"Thought and Being are identical;" and this is a maxim which Hamilton
+himself repudiates. Our thought does not create, neither does it impose
+conditions upon, any thing.
+
+There is a lurking sophism in the whole phraseology of Hamilton in
+regard to this subject. He is perpetually talking about "thinking a
+thing"--"thinking the Infinite." Now we do not think a thing, but we
+think _of_ or _concerning_ a thing. We do not think a man, neither does
+our thought impose any conditions upon the man, so that he must be as
+our thought conceives or represents him; but our thought is of the man,
+concerning or about the man, and is only so far true and valid as it
+conforms to the objective reality. And so we do not "think the
+Infinite;" that is, our thought neither contains nor conditions the
+Infinite Being, but our thoughts are _about_ the Infinite One; and if we
+do not think of Him as a being of infinite perfection, our thought is
+neither worthy, nor just, nor true.[321]
+
+[Footnote 321: Calderwood's "Philosophy of the Infinite," pp. 255, 256.]
+
+But we are told the law of all thought and of all being is
+determination; consequently, negation of some quality or some
+potentiality; whereas the Infinite is "_the One and the All_" (ti En kai
+Pyn),[322] or, as Dr. Mansel, the disciple and annotator of Hamilton,
+affirms, "the sum of all reality," and "the sum of all possible modes of
+being."[323] The Infinite, as thus defined, must include in itself all
+being, and all modes of being, actual and possible, not even excepting
+evil. And this, let it be observed, Dr. Mansel has the hardihood to
+affirm. "If the Absolute and the Infinite is an object of human
+conception at all, this, and none other, is the conception
+required."[324] "The Infinite Whole," as thus defined, can not be
+thought, and therefore it is argued the Infinite God can not be known.
+Such a doctrine shocks our moral sense, and we shrink from the thought
+of an Infinite which includes evil. There is certainly a moral
+impropriety, if not a logical impossibility, in such a conception of
+God.
+
+[Footnote 322: Hamilton's "Lectures on Metaphysics," Appendix, vol. ii.
+p. 531.]
+
+[Footnote 323: "Limits of Religious Thought," p. 76.]
+
+[Footnote 324: Ibid.]
+
+The fallacy of this reasoning consists in confounding a _supposed_
+Quantitative Infinite with _the_ Qualitative Infinite--the totality of
+existence with the infinitely perfect One. "Qualitative infinity is a
+secondary predicate; that is, the attribute of an attribute, and is
+expressed by the adverb _infinitely_ rather than the adjective
+_infinite_. For instance, it is a strict use of language to say, that
+space is infinite, but it is an elliptical use of language to say, God
+is infinite. Precision of language would require us to say, God is
+infinitely good, wise, and great; or God is good, and his goodness is
+infinite. The distinction may seem trivial, but it is based upon an
+important difference between the infinity of space and time on the one
+hand, and the infinity of God on the other. Neither philosophy nor
+theology can afford to disregard the difference. Quantitative Infinity
+is illimitation by _quantity_. Qualitative Infinity is illimitation by
+_degree_. Quantity and degree alike imply finitude, and are categories
+of the finite alone. The danger of arguing from the former kind of
+infinitude to the latter can not be overstated. God alone possesses
+Qualitative Infinity, which is strictly synonymous with _absolute
+perfection_; and the neglect of the distinction between this and
+Quantitative Infinity, leads irresistibly to pantheistic and
+materialistic notions. Spinozism is possible only by the elevation of
+'infinite extension' to the dignity of a divine attribute. Dr. Samuel
+Clarke's identification of God's immensity with space has been shown by
+Martin to ultimate in Pantheism. From ratiocinations concerning the
+incomprehensibility of infinite space and time, Hamilton and Mansel pass
+at once to conclusions concerning the incomprehensibility of God. The
+inconsequence of all such arguments is absolute; and if philosophy
+tolerates the transference of spatial or temporal analogies to the
+nature of God, she must reconcile herself to the negation of his
+personality and spirituality."[325] An Infinite Being, quite remote from
+the notion of _quantity_, may and does exist; which, on the one hand,
+does not include finite existence, and, on the other hand, does not
+render the finite impossible to thought. Without contradiction they may
+coexist, and be correlated.
+
+The thought will have already suggested itself to the mind of the reader
+that for Hamilton to assert that the Infinite, as thus defined (the One
+and the All), is absolutely unknown, is certainly the greatest
+absurdity, for in that case nothing can be known. This Infinite must be
+at least partially known, or all human knowledge is reduced to zero. To
+the all-inclusive Infinite every thing affirmative belongs, not only to
+be, but to be known. To claim it for being, yet deny it to thought, is
+thus impossible. The Infinite, which includes all real existence, is
+certainly possible to cognition.
+
+The whole argument as regards the conditionating nature of all thought
+is condensed into four words by Spinoza--"_Omnis determinatio est
+negatio_;" all determination is negation. Nothing can be more arbitrary
+or more fallacious than this principle. It arises from the confusion of
+two things essentially different--_the limits of a being_, and _its
+determinate and distinguishing characteristics_. The limit of a being is
+its imperfection; the determination of a being is its perfection. The
+less a thing is determined, the more it sinks in the scale of being; the
+most determinate being is the most perfect being. "In this sense God is
+the only being absolutely determined. For there must be something
+indetermined in all finite beings, since they have all imperfect powers
+which tend towards their development after an indefinite manner. God
+alone, the complete Being in whom all powers are actualized, escapes by
+His own perfection from all progress, and development, and
+indetermination."[326]
+
+[Footnote 325: North American Review, October, 1864, article, "The
+Conditioned and the Unconditioned," pp. 422, 423. See also Young's
+"Province of Reason," p. 72; and Calderwood's "Philosophy of the
+Infinite," p. 183.]
+
+[Footnote 326: Saisset, "Modern Pantheism," vol. ii. p. 71.]
+
+All real being must be determined; only pure Nothing can be
+undetermined. _Determination_ is, however, one thing; and _limitation_
+is essentially another thing. "Even space and time, though cognized
+solely by negative characteristics, are determined in so far as
+differentiated from the existences they contain; but this
+differentiation involves no limitation of their infinity." If all
+distinction is determination, and if all determination is negation, that
+is (as here used), limitation, then the infinite, as distinguished from
+the finite, loses its own infinity, and either becomes identical with
+the finite, or else vanishes into pure nothing. If Hamilton will persist
+in affirming that all determination is limitation, he has no other
+alternatives but to accept the doctrine of Absolute Nihilism, or of
+Absolute Identity. If the Absolute is the indeterminate--that is, no
+attributes, no consciousness, no relations--it is pure non-being. If the
+Infinite is "the One and All," then there is but one substance, one
+absolute entity.
+
+Herbert Spencer professes to be carrying out, a step farther, the
+doctrine put into shape by Hamilton and Mansel, viz., "the philosophy of
+the Unconditioned." In other words, he carries that doctrine forward to
+its rigidly logical consequences, and utters the last word which
+Hamilton and Mansel dare not utter--"Apprehensible by us there is no
+God." The Ultimate Reality is absolutely unknown; it can not be
+apprehended by the human intellect, and it can not present itself to the
+intellect at all. This Ultimate Reality can not be _intelligent_,
+because to think is to condition, and the Absolute is the unconditioned;
+can not be _conscious_, because all consciousness is of plurality and
+difference, and the Absolute is one; can not be _personal_, because
+personality is determination or limitation, and the Infinite is the
+illimitable. It is "audacious," "irreverent," "impious," to apply any of
+these predicates to it; to regard it as Mind, or speak of it as
+Righteous.[327] The ultimate goal of the philosophy of the Unconditioned
+is a purely subjective Atheism.
+
+[Footnote 327: "First Principles," pp. 111, 112.]
+
+And yet of this Primary Existence--inscrutable, and absolutely
+unknown--Spencer knows something; knows as much as he pleases to know.
+He knows that this "ultimate of ultimates is _Force_,"[328] an
+"_Omnipresent Power_,"[329] is "_One_" and "_Eternal_."[330] He knows
+also that it can not be intelligent, self-conscious, and a
+personality.[331] This is a great deal to affirm and deny of an
+existence "absolutely unknown." May we not be permitted to affirm of
+this hidden and unknown something that it is _conscious Mind_,
+especially as Mind is admitted to be the only analogon of Power; and
+"the _force_ by which we produce change, and which serves to symbolize
+the causes of changes in general, is the final disclosure of
+analysis."[332]
+
+[Footnote 328: "First Principles," p. 235.]
+
+[Footnote 329: Ibid., p. 99.]
+
+[Footnote 330: Ibid., p. 81.]
+
+[Footnote 331: Ibid., pp. 108-112.]
+
+[Footnote 332: Ibid., p. 235.]
+
+3. We advance to the review of the third fundamental principle of
+Hamilton's philosophy of the Unconditioned, viz., that the terms
+infinite and absolute are names for a "mere negation of thought"--a
+"mental impotence" to think, or, in other words, the absence of all the
+conditions under which thought is possible.
+
+This principle is based upon a distinction between "positive" and
+"negative" thought, which is made with an air of wonderful precision and
+accuracy in "the Alphabet of Human Thought."[333] "Thinking is
+_positive_ when existence is predicated of an object." "Thinking is
+_negative_ when existence is not attributed to an object." "Negative
+thinking," therefore, is not the thinking of an object as devoid of this
+or that particular attribute, but as devoid of all attributes, and thus
+of all existence; that is, it is "the negation of all
+thought"--_nothing_. "When we think a thing, that is done by conceiving
+it as possessed of certain modes of being or qualities, _and the sum of
+these qualities constitutes its concept or notion_." "When we perform an
+act of negative thought, this is done by thinking _something_ as _not_
+existing in this or that determinate mode; and when we think it as
+existing in no determinate mode, _we cease to think at all--it becomes a
+nothing_."[334] Now the Infinite, according to Hamilton, can not be
+thought in any determinate mode; therefore we do not think it at all,
+and therefore it is for us "a logical Non-entity."
+
+[Footnote 333: "Discussions," Appendix I. p. 567.]
+
+[Footnote 334: "Logic," pp. 54, 55.]
+
+It is barely conceivable that Hamilton might imagine himself possessed
+of this singular power of "performing an act of negative thought"--that
+is, of thinking and not thinking at once, or of "thinking something"
+that "becomes nothing;" we are not conscious of any such power. To think
+without an object of thought, or to think of something without any
+qualities, or to think "something" which in the act of thought melts
+away into "nothing," is an absurdity and a contradiction. We can not
+think about nothing. All thought must have an object, and every object
+must have some predicate. Even space has some predicates--as
+receptivity, unity, and infinity. Thought can only be realized by
+thinking something existing, and existing in a determinate manner; and
+when we cease to think something having predicates, we cease to think at
+all. This is emphatically asserted by Hamilton himself.[335] "Negative
+thinking" is, therefore, a meaningless phrase, a contradiction in terms;
+it is no thought at all. We are cautioned, however, against regarding
+"the negation of thought" as "a negation of all mental ability." It is,
+we are told, "an attempt to think, and a failure in the attempt." An
+attempt to think about _what_? Surely it must be about some object, and
+an object which is _known_ by some sign, else there can be no thought.
+Let any one make the attempt to think without something to think about,
+and he will find that both the process and the result are blank
+nothingness. All thought, therefore, as Calderwood has amply shown, is,
+must be, _positive_. "Thought is nothing else than the comparison of
+objects known; and as knowledge is always positive, so must our thought
+be. All knowledge implies an object _known_; and so all thought involves
+an object about which we think, and must, therefore, be positive--that
+is, it must embrace within itself the conception of certain qualities as
+belonging to the object."[336]
+
+[Footnote 335: "Logic," p. 55.]
+
+[Footnote 336: "Philosophy of the Infinite," p. 272.]
+
+The conclusion of Hamilton's reasoning in regard to "negative thinking"
+is, that we can form no notion of the Infinite Being. We have no
+positive idea of such a Being. We can think of him only by "the thinking
+away of every characteristic" which can be conceived, and thus "ceasing
+to think at all." We can only form a "negative concept," which, we are
+told, "is in fact no concept at all." We can form only a "negative
+notion," which, we are informed, "is only the negation of a notion."
+This is the impenetrable abyss of total gloom and emptiness into which
+the philosophy of the conditions leads us at last.[337]
+
+[Footnote 337: Whilst Spencer accepts the general doctrine of Hamilton,
+that the Ultimate Reality is inscrutable, he argues earnestly against
+his assertion that the Absolute is a "mere negation of thought."
+
+"Every one of the arguments by which the relativity of our knowledge is
+demonstrated distinctly postulates the _positive existence_ of something
+beyond the relative. To say we can not know the Absolute is, by
+implication, to affirm there _is_ an Absolute. In the very denial of our
+power to learn _what_ the Absolute is, there lies hidden the assumption
+_that_ it is; and the making of this assumption proves that the Absolute
+has been present to the mind, not as nothing, but as _something_. And so
+with every step in the reasoning by which the doctrine is upheld, the
+Noumenon, everywhere named as the antithesis of the Phenomenon, is
+throughout thought as actuality. It is rigorously impossible to conceive
+that our knowledge is a knowledge of appearances only, without, at the
+same time, conceiving a Reality of which these are appearances, for
+appearances without reality are unthinkable.
+
+"Truly to represent or realize in thought any one of the propositions of
+which the argument consists, the unconditioned must be represented as
+_positive_, and not negative. How, then, can it be a legitimate
+conclusion from the argument that our consciousness of it is negative?
+An argument, the very construction of which assigns to a certain term a
+certain meaning, but which ends in showing that this term has no
+meaning, is simply an elaborate suicide. Clearly, then, the very
+demonstration that a definite consciousness [comprehension] of the
+Absolute is impossible, unavoidably presupposes an indefinite
+consciousness of it [an apprehension]."--"First Principles," p. 88.]
+
+Still we have the word _infinite_, and we have _the notion_ which the
+word expresses. This, at least, is spared to us by Sir William Hamilton.
+He who says we have no such notion asks the question _how we have it?_
+Here it may be asked, how have we, then, the word infinite? How have we
+the notion which this word expresses? The answer to this question is
+contained in the distinction of positive and negative thought.
+
+We have a positive concept of a thing when we think of it by the
+qualities of which it is the complement. But as the attribution of
+qualities is an affirmation, as affirmation and negation are relatives,
+and as relatives _are known only in and through each other_, we can not,
+therefore, have a _consciousness_ of the affirmation of any quality
+without having, at the same time, the _correlative consciousness_ of its
+negation. Now the one consciousness is a positive, the other
+consciousness is a negative notion; and as all language is the reflex of
+thought, the positive and negative notions are expressed by positive and
+negative names. Thus it is with the Infinite.[338] Now let us carefully
+scrutinize the above deliverance. We are told that "relatives are known
+only in and through each other;" that is, such relatives as _finite_ and
+_infinite_ are known necessarily in the same act of thought. The
+knowledge of one is as necessary as the knowledge of the other. We can
+not have a consciousness of the one without the correlative
+consciousness of the other. "For," says Hamilton, "a relation is, in
+truth, a thought, one and indivisible; and while the thinking a relation
+_necessarily involves the thought of its two terms,_, so it is, with
+equal necessity, itself involved in the thought of either." If, then, we
+are _conscious_ of the two terms of the relation in the same "one and
+indivisible" mental act--if we can not have "the consciousness of the
+one without the consciousness of the other"--if space and position, time
+and succession, substance and quality, infinite and finite, are given to
+us in pairs, then 'the _knowledge of one is as necessary as the
+knowledge of the other,_' and they must stand or fall together. The
+finite is known no more positively than the infinite; the infinite is
+known as positively as the finite. The one can not be taken and the
+other left. The infinite, discharged from all relation to the finite,
+could never come into apprehension; and the finite, discharged of all
+relation to the infinite, is incognizable too. "There can be no
+objection to call the one 'positive' and the other 'negative,' provided
+it be understood that _each_ is so with regard to the other, and that
+the relation is convertible; the finite, for instance, being the
+negative of the infinite, not less than the infinite of the
+finite."[339]
+
+[Footnote 338: _Logic,_ p. 73.]
+
+[Footnote 339: Martineau's "Essays," p. 237.]
+
+To say that the finite is comprehensible in and by itself, and the
+infinite is incomprehensible in and by itself, is to make an assertion
+utterly at variance both with psychology and logic. The finite is no
+more comprehensible _in itself_ than the infinite. "Relatives are known
+only in and through each other."[340] "The conception of one term of a
+relation necessarily implies that of the other, it being the very nature
+of a relative to be thinkable only through the conjunct thought of its
+correlative." We comprehend nothing more completely than the infinite;
+"for the idea of illimitation is as clear, precise, and intelligible as
+the idea of limitability, which is its basis. The propositions "A is X"
+"A is not X," are equally comprehensible; the conceptions A and X are in
+both cases positive data of experience, while the affirmation and
+negation consist solely in the copulative or disjunctive nature of the
+predication. Consequently, if X is comprehensible, so is not--X; if the
+finite is comprehensible, so is the infinite."[341]
+
+Whilst denying that the infinite can by us be _known_, Hamilton tells us
+he is "far from denying that it is, must, and ought to be
+_believed_."[342] "We must believe in the infinity of God."
+"Faith--belief--is the organ by which we apprehend what is beyond
+knowledge."[343] We heartily assent to the doctrine that the Infinite
+Being is the object of faith, but we earnestly deny that the Infinite
+Being is not an object of knowledge. May not knowledge be grounded upon
+faith, and does not faith imply knowledge? Can we not obtain knowledge
+through faith? Is not the belief in the Infinite Being implied in our
+knowledge of finite existence? If so, then God as the infinite and
+perfect, God as the unconditioned Cause, is not absolutely "the
+unknown."
+
+[Footnote 340: Hamilton's "Logic," p. 73.]
+
+[Footnote 341: North American Review, October, 1864, article
+"Conditioned and the Unconditioned," pp. 441, 442.]
+
+[Footnote 342: Letter to Calderwood, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 530.]
+
+[Footnote 343: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 374.]
+
+A full exposition of Sir William Hamilton's views of _Faith_ in its
+connection with Philosophy would have been deeply interesting to us, and
+it would have filled up a gap in the interpretation of his system. The
+question naturally presents itself, how would he have discriminated
+between faith and knowledge, so as to assign to each its province? If
+our notion of the Infinite Being rests entirely upon faith, then upon
+what ultimate ground does faith itself rest? On the authority of
+Scripture, of the Church, or of reason? The only explicit statement of
+his view which has fallen in our way is a note in his edition of
+Reid.[344] "We _know_ what rests upon reason; we _believe_ what rests
+upon authority. But reason itself must rest at last upon authority; for
+the original data of reason do not rest upon reason, but are necessarily
+accepted by reason on the authority of what is beyond itself. These data
+are, therefore, in rigid propriety, Beliefs or Trusts. Thus it is that,
+in the last resort, we must, per force, philosophically admit that
+belief is the primary condition of reason, and not reason the ultimate
+ground of belief."
+
+[Footnote 344: P. 760; also Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, p. 61.]
+
+Here we have, first, an attempted distinction between faith and
+knowledge. "We _know_ what rests upon reason;" that is, whatever we
+obtain by deduction or induction, whatever is capable of explication and
+proof, is _knowledge_. "We _believe_ what rests upon authority;" that
+is, whatever we obtain by intellectual intuition or pure apperception,
+and is incapable of explication and of proof, is "a _belief or trust_."
+These instinctive beliefs, which are, as it were, the first principles
+upon which all knowledge rests, are, however, indiscriminately called by
+Hamilton "cognitions," "beliefs," "judgments." He declares most
+explicitly "that the principles of our knowledge must themselves be
+_knowledges_;"[345] and these first principles, which are "the primary
+condition of reason," are elsewhere called "_a priori cognitions_;" also
+"native, pure, or transcendental _knowledge_," in contradistinction to
+"_a posteriori cognitions_," or that knowledge which is obtained in the
+exercise of reason.[346] All this confusion results from an attempt to
+put asunder what God has joined together. As Clemens of Alexandria has
+said, "Neither is faith without knowledge, nor knowledge without faith."
+All faith implies knowledge, and all knowledge implies faith. They are
+mingled in the one operation of the human mind, by which we apprehend
+first principles or ultimate truths. These have their light and dark
+side, as Hamilton has remarked. They afford enough light to show _that_
+they are and must be, and thus communicate knowledge; they furnish no
+light to show _how_ they are and _why_ they are, and under that aspect
+demand the exercise of faith. There must, therefore, first be something
+_known_ before there can be any _faith_.[347]
+
+[Footnote 345: Ibid., p. 69.]
+
+[Footnote 346: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 347: M'Cosh, "Intuitions," pp. 197, 198; Calderwood,
+"Philosophy of the Infinite," p. 24.]
+
+And now we seem to have penetrated to the centre of Hamilton's
+philosophy, and the vital point may be touched by one crucial question,
+_Upon what ultimate ground does faith itself rest?_ Hamilton says, "we
+believe what rests upon _authority_." But what is that authority? I. It
+is not the authority of Divine Revelation, because beliefs are called
+"instinctive," "native," "innate," "common," "catholic,"[348] all which
+terms seem to indicate that this "authority" lies within the sphere of
+the human mind; at any rate, this faith does not rest on the authority
+of Scripture. Neither is it the authority of Reason. "The original data
+of reason [the first principles of knowledge] do not rest upon the
+authority of reason, but _on the authority of what is beyond itself_."
+The question thus recurs, what is this ultimate ground beyond reason
+upon which faith rests? Does it rest upon any thing, or nothing?
+
+[Footnote 348: Philosophy of Sir Wm. Hamilton, pp. 68, 69.]
+
+The answer to this question is given in the so-called "Law of the
+Conditioned," which is thus laid down: "_All that is conceivable in
+thought lies between two extremes, which, as contradictory of each
+other, can not both be true, but of which, as mutual contradictories,
+one must_." For example, we conceive _space_, but we can not conceive it
+as absolutely bounded or infinitely unbounded. We can conceive _time_,
+but we can not conceive it as having an absolute commencement or an
+infinite non-commencement. We can conceive of _degree_, but we can not
+conceive it as absolutely limited or as infinitely unlimited. We can
+conceive of _existence_, but not as an absolute part or an infinite
+whole. Therefore, "the Conditioned is that which is alone conceivable or
+cogitable; the Unconditioned, that which is inconceivable or
+incogitable. The conditioned, or the thinkable, lies between two
+extremes or poles; and each of these extremes or poles are
+unconditioned, each of them inconceivable, each of them exclusive or
+contradictory of the other. Of these two repugnant opposites, the one is
+that of Unconditional or Absolute Limitation; the other that of
+Unconditional or Infinite Illimitation, or, more simply, the Absolute
+and the Infinite; the term _absolute_ expressing that which is finished
+or complete, the term _infinite_ that which can not be terminated or
+concluded."[349]
+
+"The conditioned is the mean between two extremes--two inconditionates,
+exclusive of each other, neither of which _can be conceived as
+possible_, but of which, on the principle of contradiction, and excluded
+middle, _one must be admitted as necessary_. We are thus warned from
+recognizing the domain of our knowledge as necessarily co-extensive with
+the horizon of our faith. And by a _wonderful revelation_, we are thus,
+in the very consciousness of our inability to conceive aught above the
+relative and the finite, _inspired with a belief in_ the existence of
+something unconditioned beyond the sphere of all comprehensible
+reality."[350] Here, then, we have found the ultimate ground of our
+faith in the Infinite God. It is built upon a "mental imbecility," and
+buttressed up by "contradictions!"[351]
+
+[Footnote 349: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. pp. 368, 374. With
+Hamilton, the Unconditioned is a genus, of which the Infinite and
+Absolute are species.]
+
+[Footnote 350: "Discussions on Philosophy," p. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 351: The warmest admirers of Sir William Hamilton hesitate to
+apply the doctrine of the unconditioned to Cause and Free-will. See
+"Mansel's Prolegom.," Note C, p. 265.]
+
+Such a faith, however, is built upon the clouds, and the whole structure
+of this philosophy is "a castle in the air"--an attempt to organize
+Nescience into Science, and evoke something out of nothing. To pretend
+to believe in that respecting which I can form no notion is in reality
+not to believe at all. The nature which compels me to believe in the
+Infinite must supply me some object upon which my belief can take hold.
+We can not believe in contradictions. Our faith must be a rational
+belief--a faith in the ultimate harmony and unity of all truth, in the
+veracity and integrity of human reason as the organ of truth; and, above
+all, a faith in the veracity of God, who is the author and illuminator
+of our mental constitution. "We can not suppose that we are created
+capable of intelligence in order to be made victims of delusion--that
+God is a deceiver, and the root of our nature a lie."[352] We close our
+review of Hamilton by remarking:
+
+[Footnote 352: Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, p. 21.]
+
+1. "The Law of the Conditioned," as enounced by Hamilton, is
+contradictory. It predicates contradiction of two extremes, which are
+asserted to be equally incomprehensible and incognizable. If they are
+utterly incognizable, how does Hamilton _know_ that they are
+contradictory? The mutual _relation_ of two objects is said to be known,
+but the objects themselves are absolutely unknown. But how can we know
+any relation except by an act of comparison, and how can we compare two
+objects so as to affirm their relation, if the objects are absolutely
+unknown? "The Infinite is defined as Unconditional Illimitation; the
+Absolute as Conditional Limitation. Yet almost in the same breath we are
+told that each is utterly inconceivable, each the mere negation of
+thought. On the one hand, we are told they _differ_; on the other, we
+are told they do _not differ_. Now which does Hamilton mean? If he
+insist upon the definitions as yielding a ground of conceivable
+difference, he must abandon the inconceivability; but if he insist upon
+the inconceivability, he must abandon the definition as sheer verbiage,
+devoid of all conceivable meaning. There is no possible escape from this
+dilemma. Further, two negations can never contradict; for contradiction
+is the asserting and the denying of the same proposition; two denials
+can not conflict. If Illimitation is negative, Limitation, its
+contradictory, is positive, whether conditional or unconditional. In
+brief, if the Infinite and Absolute are wholly incomprehensible, they
+are not distinguishable; but if they are distinguishable, they are not
+wholly incomprehensible. If they are indistinguishable, they are to us
+identical; and identity precludes contradiction. But if they are
+distinguishable, distinction is made by difference, which involves
+positive cognition; hence one, at least, must be conceivable. It
+follows, therefore, by inexorable logic, that either the contradiction
+or the inconceivability must be abandoned."[353]
+
+[Footnote 353: North American Review, October, 1864, pp. 407, 408.]
+
+2. "The Law of the Conditioned," as a ground of faith in the Infinite
+Being, is utterly void, meaningless, and ineffectual. Let us re-state it
+in Hamilton's own words: "The conditioned is the _mean_ between two
+extremes, two inconditionates exclusive of each other, neither of which
+_can be conceived as possible_, but of which, on the principle of
+Contradiction and Excluded Middle, _one must be admitted as necessary_."
+It is scarcely needful to explain to the intelligent reader the above
+logical principles; that they may, however, be clearly before the mind
+in this connection, we state that the principle of Contradiction is
+this: "A thing can not at the same time be and not be; _A is_, _A is
+not_, are propositions which can not both be true at once." The
+principle of Excluded Middle is this: "A thing either is or is not--_A
+either is or is not B_; there is no _medium_."[354] Now, to mention the
+law of Excluded Middle and two contradictories with a _mean_ between
+them, in the same sentence, is really astounding. "If the two
+contradictory extremes are equally incogitable, yet include a cogitable
+mean, why insist upon the necessity of accepting either extreme? This
+necessity of accepting one of the contradictories is wholly based upon
+the supposed impossibility of a _mean_; if a mean exists, _that_ may be
+true, and both contradictories together false. But if a mean between two
+contradictories be both impossible and absurd, Hamilton's 'conditioned'
+entirely vanishes."[355] If both contradictories are equally unknown and
+equally unthinkable, we can not discover _why_, on his principles, we
+are bound to believe _either_.
+
+[Footnote 354: Hamilton's "Logic," pp. 58, 59; "Metaphysics," vol. ii.
+p. 368.]
+
+[Footnote 355: North British Review, October, 1864, pp. 415, 416.]
+
+3. The whole of this confusion in thought and expression results from
+the habit of confounding the sensuous imagination with the non-sensuous
+reason, and the consequent co-ordination of an imageable conception with
+an abstract idea. The objects of sense and the sensuous imagination may
+be characterized as extension, limitation, figure, position, etc.; the
+objects of the non-sensuous reason may be characterized as universality,
+eternity, infinity. I can form an _image_ of an extended and figured
+object, but I can not form an _image_ of space, time, or God; neither,
+indeed, can I form an image of Goodness, Justice, or Truth. But I can
+have a clear and precise idea of space, and time, and God, as I can of
+Justice, Goodness, and Truth. There are many things which I can most
+surely _know_ that I can not possibly _comprehend_, if to comprehend is
+to form a mental image of a thing. There is nothing which I more
+certainly know than that space is infinite, and eternity unbeginning and
+endless; but I can not comprehend the infinity of space or the
+illimitability of eternity. I know that God is, that he is a being of
+infinite perfection, but I can not throw my thoughts around and
+comprehend the infinity of God.
+
+(iv.) We come, lastly, to consider the position of the _Dogmatic
+Theologians_.[356] In their zeal to demonstrate the necessity of Divine
+Revelation, and to vindicate for it the honor of supplying to us all our
+knowledge of God, they assail every fundamental principle of reason,
+often by the very weapons which are supplied by an Atheistical
+philosophy. As a succinct presentation of the views of this school, we
+select the "_Theological Institutes_" of R. Watson.
+
+[Footnote 356: Ellis, Leland, Locke, and Horsley, whose writings are
+extensively quoted in Watson's "Institutes of Theology" (reprinted by
+Carlton & Lanahan, New York).]
+
+1st. The invalidity of "_the principle of causality_" is asserted by
+this author. "We allow that the argument which proves that the _effects_
+with which we are surrounded have been _caused_, and thus leads us up
+through a chain of subordinate causes to one First Cause, has a
+simplicity, an obviousness, and a force which, when we are previously
+furnished with the idea of God, makes it, at first sight, difficult to
+conceive that men, under any degree of cultivation, should be inadequate
+to it; yet if ever the human mind commenced such an inquiry at all, it
+is highly probable that it would rest in the notion of an _eternal
+succession of causes and effects_, rather than acquire the ideas of
+creation, in the proper sense, and of a Supreme Creator."[357] "We feel
+that our reason rests with full satisfaction in the doctrine that all
+things are created by one eternal and self-existent Being; but the Greek
+philosophers held that matter was eternally co-existent with God. This
+was the opinion of Plato, who has been called the Moses of
+philosophy."[358]
+
+For a defense of "the principle of causality" we must refer the reader
+to our remarks on the philosophy of Comte. We shall now only remark on
+one or two peculiarities in the above statement which betray an utter
+misapprehension of the nature of the argument. We need scarcely direct
+attention to the unfortunate and, indeed, absurd phrase, "an eternal
+succession of causes and effects." An "eternal succession" is a
+_contradictio in adjecto_, and as such inconceivable and unthinkable. No
+human mind can "rest" in any such thing, because an eternal succession
+is no rest at all. All "succession" is finite and temporal, capable of
+numeration, and therefore can not be eternal.[359] Again, in attaining
+the conception of a First Cause the human mind does not pass up "through
+a chain of subordinate causes," either definite or indefinite, "to one
+First Cause."
+
+[Footnote 357: Watson's "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 273.]
+
+[Footnote 358: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 359: See _ante_, pp. 181, 182, ch. v.]
+
+Let us re-state the principle of causality as a universal and necessary
+law of thought. "_All phenomena present themselves to us as the
+expression of_ POWER, and refer us to a causal ground whence they
+issue." That "power" is intuitively and spontaneously apprehended by the
+human mind as Supreme and Ultimate--"the causal ground" is a personal
+God. All the phenomena of nature present themselves to us as "effects,"
+and we know nothing of "subordinate causes" except as modes of the
+Divine Efficiency.[360] The principle of causality compels us to think
+causation behind nature, and under causation to think of Volition.
+"Other forces we have no sort of ground for believing; or, except by
+artifices of abstraction, even power of conceiving. The dynamic idea is
+either this or nothing; and the logical alternative assuredly is that
+nature is either a mere Time-march of phenomena or an expression of
+Mind."[361] The true doctrine of philosophy, of science, and of
+revelation is not simply that God did create "in the beginning," but
+that he still creates. All the operations of Nature are the operations
+of the Divine Mind. "Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return
+to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created; and thou
+renewest the face of the earth."[362]
+
+[Footnote 360: The modern doctrine of the Correlation and Homogenity of
+all Forces clearly proves that they are not many, but _one_--"a dynamic
+self-identity masked by transmigration."--Martineau's "Essays," pp.
+134-144.]
+
+[Footnote 361: Martineau's "Essays," pp. 140, 141.]
+
+[Footnote 362: Psalm civ.]
+
+The assertion that Plato taught "the eternity of matter," and that
+consequently he did not arrive at the idea of a Supreme and Ultimate
+Cause, is incapable of proof. The term yle=matter does not occur in the
+writings of Plato, or, indeed, of any of his predecessors, and is
+peculiarly Aristotelian. The ground of the world of sense is called by
+Plato "the receptacle" (ypodoche), "the nurse" (tithene) of all that is
+produced, and was apparently identified, in his mind, with _pure
+space_--a logical rather than a physical entity--the mere negative
+condition and medium of Divine manifestation. He never regards it as a
+"cause," or ascribes to it any efficiency. We grant that he places this
+very indefinite something (opoionoun ti) out of the sphere of temporal
+origination; but it must be borne in mind that he speaks of "creation in
+eternity" as well as of "creation in time;" and of time itself, though
+created, as "an eternal image of the generating Father."[363] This one
+thing, at any rate, can not be denied, that Plato recognizes creation in
+its fullest sense as the act of God.
+
+The admission that something has always existed besides the Deity, as a
+mere logical condition of the exercise of divine power (_e.g._, space),
+would not invalidate the argument for the existence of God. The proof of
+the Divine Existence, as Chalmers has shown, does not rest on the
+existence of matter, but on the orderly arrangement of matter; and the
+grand question of Theism is not whether the _matter of the world_, but
+whether the _present order of the world_ had a commencement.[364]
+
+2d. Doubt is cast by our author upon the validity of "_the principle of
+the Unconditioned or the Infinite_." "Supposing it were conceded that
+some faint glimmering of this great truth [the existence of a First
+Cause] might, by induction, have been discovered by contemplative minds,
+by what means could they have _demonstrated_ to themselves that he is
+eternal, self-existent, immortal, and independent?"[365] "Between things
+visible and invisible, time and eternity, beings finite and beings
+infinite, objects of sense and objects of faith, _the connection is not
+perceptible_ to human observation. Though we push our researches,
+therefore, to the extreme point whither the light of nature can carry
+us, they will in the end be abruptly terminated, and we must stop short
+at an immeasurable distance between the creature and the Creator."[366]
+
+[Footnote 363: Plato, "Timaeus," Sec. xiv.]
+
+[Footnote 364: Chalmers's "Natural Theology," bk. i. ch. v.; also
+Mahan's "Natural Theology," pp. 21-23.]
+
+[Footnote 365: Watson's "Institutes of Theol.," vol. i. p. 274.]
+
+[Footnote 366: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 273.]
+
+To this assertion that the connection of things visible and things
+invisible, finite and infinite, objects of sense and objects of faith,
+is utterly imperceptible to human thought, we might reply by quoting the
+words of that Sacred Book whose supreme authority our author is seeking,
+by this argument, to establish. "The _invisible_ things of God, even his
+eternal power and god-head, from the creation, are clearly _seen_, being
+_understood by the things which are made_." We may also point to the
+fact that in every age and in every land the human mind has
+spontaneously and instinctively recognized the existence of an invisible
+Power and Presence pervading nature and controlling the destinies of
+man, and that religious worship--prayer, and praise, and
+sacrifice--offered to that unseen yet omnipresent Power is an universal
+fact of human nature. The recognition of an _immediate_ and a
+_necessary_ "connection" between the visible and the invisible, the
+objects of sense and the objects of faith, is one of the most obvious
+facts of consciousness--of universal consciousness as revealed in
+history, and of individual consciousness as developed in every rational
+mind.
+
+That this connection is "not perceptible to human observation," if by
+this our author means "not perceptible to sense," we readily admit. No
+one ever asserted it was perceptible to human observation. We say that
+this connection is perceptible to human _reason_, and is revealed in
+every attempt to think about, and seek an explanation of, the phenomenal
+world. The Phenomenal and the Real, Genesis and Being, Space and
+Extension, Succession and Duration, Time and Eternity, the Finite and
+the Infinite, are correlatives which are given in one and the same
+indivisible act of thought. "The conception of one term of a relation
+necessarily implies that of the other; it being the very nature of a
+correlative to be thinkable only through the conjunct thought of its
+correlative; for a relation is, in truth, a thought one and indivisible;
+and whilst the thinking of one relation necessarily involves the thought
+of its two terms, so it is, with equal necessity, itself involved in the
+thought of either."[367] Finite, dependent, contingent, temporal
+existence, therefore, necessarily supposes infinite, self-existent,
+independent, eternal Being; the Conditioned and Relative implies the
+Unconditioned and Absolute--one is known only in and through the other.
+But inasmuch as the unconditioned is cognized solely _a priori_, and the
+conditioned solely _a posteriori_, the recognition by the human mind of
+their necessary correlation becomes the bridge whereby the chasm between
+the subjective and the objective may be spanned, and whereby Thought may
+be brought face to face with Existence.
+
+[Footnote 367: Hamilton's "Metaphysics," vol. ii. pp. 536, 537.]
+
+The reverence which, from boyhood, we have entertained for the
+distinguished author of the "Institutes" restrains us from speaking in
+adequate terms of reprobation of the statement that "the _First Cause_"
+may be known, and yet not conceived "as eternal, self-existent,
+immortal, and independent". Surely that which is the ground and reason
+of all existence must have the ground and reason of its own existence in
+itself. That which is _first_ in the order of existence, and in the
+logical order of thought, can have nothing prior to itself. If the
+supposed First Cause is not necessarily self-existent and independent,
+it is not the _first_; if it has a dependent existence, there must be a
+prior being on which it depends. If the First Cause is not eternal, then
+prior to this Ultimate Cause there was nothingness and vacuity, and pure
+nothing, by its own act, became something. But "_Ex nihilo nihil_" is a
+universal law of thought. To ask the question whether the First Cause be
+self-existent and eternal, is, in effect, to ask the question "who made
+God?" and this is not the question of an adult theologian, but of a
+little child. Surely Mr. Watson must have penned the above passage
+without any reflection on its real import[368].
+
+[Footnote 368: In an article on "the Impending Revolution in Anglo-Saxon
+Theology" Methodist Quarterly Review, (July, 1863), Dr. Warren seems to
+take it for granted that the "aiteological" and "teleological" arguments
+for the existence of God are utterly invalidated by the Dynamical theory
+of matter. "Once admit that _real power_ can and does reside in matter,
+and all these reasonings fail. If inherent forces of matter are
+competent to the production of all the innumerable miracles of movement
+in the natural world, what is there in the natural world which they can
+not produce. If all _the exertions of power_ in the universe can be
+accounted for without resort to something back of, and superior to,
+nature, what is there which can force the mind to such a resort?" (p.
+463). "Having granted that _power_, or _self-activity_, is a natural
+attribute of all matter, what right have we to deny it _intelligence_?"
+(p. 465). "_Self-moving matter must have thought and design_" (p. 469).
+
+It is not our intention to offer an extended criticism of the above
+positions in this note. We shall discuss "the Dynamical theory" more
+fully in a subsequent work. If the theory apparently accepted by Dr.
+Warren be true, that "_the ultimate atoms of matter are as uniformly
+efficient as minds_, and that we have the same ground to regard the
+force exerted by the one _innate_ and _natural_ as that exerted by the
+other" (p. 464), then we grant that the conclusions of Dr. Warren, as
+above stated, are unavoidable. We proceed one step farther, and boldly
+assert that the existence of God is, on this hypothesis, incapable of
+proof, and the only logical position Dr. Warren can occupy is that of
+spiritualistic Pantheism.
+
+Dr. Warren asserts that "the Dynamical theory of matter" is now
+generally accepted by "Anglo-Saxon _naturalists_." "One can scarcely
+open a scientific treatise without observing the altered stand-point"
+(p. 160). We confess that we are disappointed with Dr. Warren's
+treatment of this simple question of fact. On so fundamental an issue,
+the Doctor ought to have given the name of at least _one_ "naturalist"
+who asserts that "the ultimate atoms of matter are as uniformly
+efficient as minds." Leibnitz, Morrell, Ulrici, Hickok, the authorities
+quoted by him, are metaphysicians and idealists of the extremest school.
+At present we shall, therefore, content ourselves with a general denial
+of this wholesale statement of Dr. Warren; and we shall sustain that
+denial by a selection from the many authorities we shall hereafter
+present. "No particle of matter possesses within itself the power of
+changing its existing state of motion or of rest. Matter has no
+spontaneous power either of rest or motion, but is equally susceptible
+to each as it may be acted on by _external_ causes" (Silliman's
+"Principles of Physics," p. 13). The above proposition is "a truth on
+which the whole science of mechanical philosophy ultimately depends"
+(Encyclopaedia Britannica, art. "Dynamics," vol. viii. p. 326). "A
+material substance existing alone in the universe could not produce any
+effects. There is not, so far as we know, a self-acting material
+substance in the universe" (M'Cosh, "Divine Government, Physical and
+Moral," p. 78). "Perhaps the only true indication of matter is
+_inertia_." "The cause of gravitation is _not resident_ in the particles
+of matter merely," but also "_in all space_" (Dr. Faraday on
+"Conservation of Force," in "Correlation and Conservation of Force." (p.
+368). He also quotes with approbation the words of Newton, "That gravity
+should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, is so great an
+absurdity, that I believe no man who has in philosophic matters a
+competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it" p. 368). "The
+'force of gravity' is an improper expression" (p. 340). "Forces are
+transformable, indestructible, and, _in contradistinction from matter_,
+imponderable" (p. 346). "The first cause of things is Deity" (Dr. Mayer,
+in "Correlation and Conservation of Force," p. 341). "Although the word
+_cause_ may be used in a secondary and subordinate sense, as meaning
+antecedent forces, yet in an abstract sense it is totally inapplicable;
+we can not predicate of any physical agent that it is abstractedly the
+cause of another" (p. 15). "Causation is the _will_," "creation is the
+act, of God" Grove on "Correlation of Physical Forces," (p. 199).
+"Between gravity and motion it is impossible to establish the equation
+required for a rightly-conceived _causal_ relation" ("Correlation and
+Conservation of Force," p. 253). See also Herschel's "Outlines of
+Astronomy," p. 234.
+
+It certainly must have required a wonderful effort of imagination on the
+part of Dr. Warren to transform "weight" and "density," mere passive
+affections of matter, into self-activity, intelligence, thought, and
+design. Weight or density are merely relative terms. Supposing one
+particle or mass of matter to exist alone, and there can be no
+attractive or gravitating force. There must be a cause of gravity which
+is distinct from matter.]
+
+3d. The validity of "_the principle of unity_" is also discredited by
+Watson. "If, however, it were conceded that some glimmerings of this
+great truth, the existence of a First Cause, might, by induction, have
+been discovered, by what means could they have demonstrated to
+themselves that the great collection of bodies which we call the world
+had but _one_ Creator."[369]
+
+[Footnote 369: "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 275.]
+
+We might answer directly, and at once, that the oneness or unity of God
+is necessarily contained in "the very notion of a First Cause"--a
+_first_ cause is not many causes, but _one_. By a First Cause we do not,
+however, understand the first of a numerical series, but an arche--a
+principle, itself unbeginning, which is the source of all beginning. Our
+categorical answer, therefore, must be that the unity of God is a
+sublime deliverance of reason--God is one God. It is a first principle
+of reason that all differentiation and plurality supposes an incomposite
+unity, all diversity implies an indivisible identity. The sensuous
+perception of a plurality of parts supposes the rational idea of an
+absolute unity, which has no parts, as its necessary correlative. For
+example, extension is a congeries of indefinitesimal parts; the
+continuity of matter, as _empirically_ known by us, is never absolute.
+Space is absolutely continuous, incapable of division into integral
+parts, illimitable, and, as _rationally_ known by us, an absolute unity.
+The cognition of limited extension, which is the subject of quantitative
+measurement, involves the conception of unlimited space, which is the
+negation of all plurality and complexity of parts. And so the cognition
+of a phenomenal universe in which we see only difference, plurality, and
+change, implies the existence of a Being who is absolutely unchangeable,
+identical, and one.
+
+This law of thought lies at the basis of that universal desire of unity,
+and that universal effort to reduce all our knowledge to unity, which
+has revealed itself in the history of philosophy, and also of inductive
+science. "Reason, intellect, nous, concatenating thoughts and objects
+into system, and tending upward from particular facts to general laws,
+from general laws to universal principles, is never satisfied in its
+ascent till it comprehends all laws in a single formula, and consummates
+all conditional knowledge in the unity of unconditional existence." "The
+history of philosophy is only the history of this tendency, and
+philosophers have borne ample testimony to its reality. 'The mind,' says
+Anaxagoras, 'only knows when it subdues its objects, when it reduces the
+many to the one.' 'The end of philosophy,' says Plato, 'is the intuition
+of unity.' 'All knowledge,' say the Platonists, 'is the gathering up
+into one, and the indivisible apprehension of this unity by the knowing
+mind.'"[370]
+
+[Footnote 370: Hamilton's "Metaphysics," vol. i. pp. 68, 69.]
+
+This law has been the guiding principle of the Inductive Sciences, and
+has led to some of its most important discoveries. The unity which has
+been attained in physical science is not, however, the absolute unity of
+a material substratum, but a unity of _Will_ and of _Thought_. The late
+discovery of the monogenesis, reciprocal convertibility, and
+indestructibility of all Forces in nature, leads us upward towards the
+recognition of one Omnipresent and Omnipotent Will, which, like a mighty
+tide, sweeps through the universe and effects all its changes. The
+universal prevalence of the same physical laws and numerical relations
+throughout all space, and of the same archetypal forms and teleology of
+organs throughout all past time, reveals to us a Unity of Thought which
+grasps the entire details of the universe in one comprehensive
+plan.[371] The positive _a priori_ intuitions of reason and the _a
+posteriori_ inductions of science equally attest _that God is one_.
+
+[Footnote 371: We refer with pleasure to the articles of Dr. Winchell,
+in the North-western Christian Advocate, in which the _a posteriori_
+proof of "the Unity of God" is forcibly exhibited, and take occasion to
+express the hope they will soon be presented to the public in a more
+permanent form.]
+
+4th. By denying that man has any intuitive cognitions of right and
+wrong, or any native and original feeling of obligation, Mr. Watson
+invalidates "the moral argument" for the existence of a Righteous God.
+
+"As far as man's reason has applied itself to the discovery of truth or
+_duty_ it has generally gone astray."[372] "Questions of morals do not,
+for the most part, lie level to the minds of the populace."[373] "Their
+conclusions have no _authority_, and place them under no
+_obligation_."[374] And, indeed, man without a revelation "is without
+_moral control_, without _principles of justice_, except such as may be
+slowly elaborated from those relations which concern the grosser
+interests of life, without _conscience_, without hope or fear in another
+life."[375]
+
+[Footnote 372: "Institutes of Theology," vol. ii. p. 470.]
+
+[Footnote 373: Ibid., vol. i. p. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 374: Ibid., vol. i. p. 228.]
+
+[Footnote 375: Ibid., vol. ii. p. 271.]
+
+Now we shall not occupy our space in the elaboration of the proposition
+that the universal consciousness of our race, as revealed in human
+history, languages, legislations, and sentiments, bears testimony to the
+fact that the ideas of right, duty, and responsibility are native to the
+human mind; we shall simply make our appeal to those Sacred Writings
+whose verdict must be final with all theologians. That the fundamental
+principles of the moral law do exist, subjectively, in all human minds
+is distinctly affirmed by Paul, in a passage which deserves to be
+regarded as the chief corner-stone of moral science. "The Gentiles
+(ephne, heathen), which have not the written law, do by the guidance of
+nature (reason or conscience) the works enjoined by the revealed law;
+these, having no written law, are a law unto themselves; who show
+plainly the works of the law written on their hearts, their conscience
+bearing witness, and also their reasonings one with another, when they
+accuse, or else excuse, each other."[376] To deny this is to relegate
+the heathen from all responsibility. For Mr. Watson admits "that the
+will of a superior is not in justice binding unless it be in some mode
+sufficiently declared." Now in the righteous adjudgments of revelation
+the heathen are "without excuse." The will of God must, therefore, be
+"sufficiently declared" to constitute them accountable. Who will presume
+to say that the shadowy, uncertain, variable, easily and unavoidably
+corrupted medium of tradition running through forty muddy centuries is a
+"sufficient declaration of the will of God?" The law is "written on the
+heart" of every man, or all men are not accountable.
+
+[Footnote 376: Romans, ch. ii. ver. 14-15.]
+
+Now this "law written within the heart" immediately and naturally
+suggests the idea of a Lawgiver who is over us. This felt presence of
+Conscience, approving or condemning our conduct, suggests, as with the
+speed of the lightning-flash, the notion of a Judge who will finally
+call us to account. This "accusing or excusing of each other," this
+recognition of good or ill desert, points us to, and constrains us to
+recognize, a future Retribution; so that some hope or fear of another
+life has been in all ages a universal phenomenon of humanity.
+
+It is affirmed, however, that whilst this capacity to know God may have
+been an original endowment of human nature, yet, in consequence of the
+fall, "the understanding and reason are weakened by the deterioration of
+his whole intellectual nature."[377] "Without some degree of education,
+man is _wholly_ the creature of appetite. Labor, feasting, and sleeping
+divide his time, and wholly occupy his thoughts."[378]
+
+[Footnote 377: "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 378: Ibid., vol. i. p. 271.]
+
+We reverently and believingly accept the teaching of Scripture as to the
+depravity of man. We acknowledge that "the understanding is darkened" by
+sin. At the same time, we earnestly maintain that the Scriptures do not
+teach that the fundamental laws of mind, the first principles of reason,
+are utterly traversed and obliterated by sin, so that man is not able to
+recognize the existence of God, and feel his obligation to Him. "_Though
+they_(the heathen) _knew God_ (dioti gnontes), they did not glorify him
+as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imagination, and
+their foolish hearts were darkened. They changed the truth of God into a
+lie, and worshipped and served the creature _more_ than the Creator."
+"And as they did not _approve of holding God with acknowledgment_, God
+delivered them over to an unapproving mind, to work those things which
+are not suitable." After drawing a fearful picture of the darkness and
+depravity of the heathen, the Apostle adds, "Who, _though they_ KNOW
+_the law of God_, that they who practise such things are worthy of
+death, not only do them, but even are well pleased with those who
+practise them."[379] The obvious and direct teaching of this passage is
+that the heathen, in the midst of their depravity and idolatry, are not
+utterly ignorant of God; "they _know_ God"--"they _know_ the law of God
+"--"they worship Him," though they worship the creature _more than_ Him.
+They know God, and are unwilling to "acknowledge God." "They know the
+righteousness of God," and are "haters of God" on account of his purity;
+and their worshipping of idols does not proceed from ignorance of God,
+from an intellectual inability to know God, but from "corruption of
+heart," and a voluntary choice of, and a "pleasure" in, the sinful
+practices accompanying idol worship. Therefore, argues the Apostle, they
+are "without excuse." The whole drift and aim of the argument of Paul
+is, not to show that the heathen were, by their depravity, incapacitated
+to know God, but that because they knew God and knew his righteous law,
+therefore their depravity and licentiousness was "inexcusable."
+
+[Footnote 379: Romans, ch. i. ver. 23-32.]
+
+We conclude our review of opposing schools by the re-affirmation of our
+position, _that God is cognizable by human reason._ The human mind,
+under the guidance of necessary laws of thought, is able, from the facts
+of the universe, to affirm the existence of God, and to attain some
+valid knowledge of his character and will. Every attempt to solve the
+great problem of existence, to offer an explanation of the phenomenal
+world, or to explore the fundamental idea of reason, when fairly and
+fully conducted, has resulted in the recognition of a Supreme
+_Intelligence_, a personal _Mind_ and _Will_, as the ground, and reason,
+and cause of all existence. A survey of the history of Greek Philosophy
+will abundantly sustain this position, and to this we shall, in
+subsequent chapters, invite the reader's attention.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS.
+
+PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+
+SENSATIONAL:
+THALES--ANAXIMENES--HERACLITUS--ANAXIMANDER--LEUCIPPUS--DEMOCRITUS.
+
+
+      "Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the
+      Stoics encountered Paul."--Acts xvii. 18.
+
+      "Plato affirms that this is the most just cause of the
+      creation of the world, that works which are good should be
+      wrought by the God who is good; whether he had read these
+      things in the Bible, or whether by his penetrating genius he
+      beheld _the invisible things of God as understood by the
+      things which are made_"--ST. AUGUSTINE, "De Civ. Dei," lib.
+      xi. ch. 21.
+
+Of all the monuments of the greatness of Athens which have survived the
+changes and the wastes of time, the most perfect and the most enduring
+is her philosophy. The Propylaea, the Parthenon, and the Erechtheum,
+those peerless gems of Grecian architecture, are now in ruins. The
+magnificent sculpture of Phidias, which adorned the pediment, and outer
+cornice, and inner frieze of these temples, and the unrivalled statuary
+of gods and heroes which crowded the platform of the Acropolis, making
+it an earthly Olympus, are now no more, save a few broken fragments
+which have been carried to other lands, and, in their exile, tell the
+mournful story of the departed grandeur of their ancient home. The
+brazen statue of Minerva, cast from the spoils of Marathon, which rose
+in giant grandeur above the buildings of the Acropolis, and the flashing
+of whose helmet plumes was seen by the mariner as soon as he had rounded
+the Sunian promontory; and that other brazen Pallas, called, by
+pre-eminence, "the Beautiful;" and the enormous Colossus of ivory and of
+gold, "the Immortal Maid"--the protecting goddess of the
+Parthenon--these have perished. But whilst the fingers of time have
+crumbled the Pentelic marble, and the glorious statuary has been broken
+to pieces by vandal hands, and the gold and brass have been melted in
+the crucibles of needy monarchs and converted into vulgar money, the
+philosophic _thought_ of Athens, which culminated in the dialectic of
+Plato, still survives. Not one of all the vessels, freighted with
+immortal thought, which Plato launched upon the stream of time, has
+foundered. And after the vast critical movement of European thought
+during the past two centuries, in which all philosophic systems have
+been subjected to the severest scrutiny, the _method_ of Plato still
+preserves, if not its exclusive authority unquestioned, at least its
+intellectual pre-eminence unshaken. "Platonism is immortal, because its
+principles are immortal in the human intellect and heart."[380]
+
+[Footnote 380: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+9.]
+
+Philosophy is, then, the world-enduring monument of the greatness and
+the glory of Athens. Whilst Greece will be forever memorable as "the
+country of wisdom and of wise men," Athens will always be pre-eminently
+memorable as the University of Greece. This was the home of Socrates,
+and Plato, and Aristotle--the three imperial names which, for twenty
+centuries, reigned supreme in the world of philosophic thought. Here
+schools of philosophy were founded to which students were attracted from
+every part of the civilized world, and by which an impulse and a
+direction was given to human thought in every land and in every age.
+Standing on the Acropolis at Athens, and looking over the city and the
+open country, the Apostle would see these _places_ which are inseparably
+associated with the names of the men who have always been recognized as
+the great teachers of the pagan world, and who have also exerted a
+powerful influence upon Christian minds of every age. "In opposite
+directions he would see the suburbs where Plato and Aristotle, the two
+pupils of Socrates, held their illustrious schools. The streamless bed
+of the Ilissus passes between the Acropolis and Hymettus in a
+south-westerly direction, until it vanishes in the low ground which
+separates the city from the Piraeus." Looking towards the upper part of
+this channel, Paul would see gardens of plane-trees and thickets of
+angus-castus, "with other torrent-loving shrubs of Greece." Near the
+base of Lycabettus was a sacred inclosure which Pericles had ornamented
+with fountains. Here stood a statue of Apollo Lycius, which gave the
+name to the _Lyceum_. Here, among the plane-trees, Aristotle _walked_,
+and, as he walked, taught his disciples. Hence the name Peripatetics
+(the Walkers), which has always designated the disciples of the
+Stagirite philosopher.
+
+On the opposite side of the city, the most beautiful of the Athenian
+suburbs, we have the scene of Plato's teaching. Beyond the outer
+Ceramicus, which was crowded with the sepulchres of those Athenians who
+had fallen in battle, and were buried at the public expense, the eye of
+Paul would rest on the favored stream of the Cephisus, flowing towards
+the west. On the banks of this stream the _Academy_ was situated. A
+wall, built at great expense by Hipparchus, surrounded it, and Cimon
+planted long avenues of trees and erected fountains. Beneath the
+plane-trees which shaded the numerous walks there assembled the
+master-spirits of the age. This was the favorite resort of poets and
+philosophers. Here the divine spirit of Plato poured forth its sublimest
+speculations in streams of matchless eloquence; and here he founded a
+school which was destined to exert a powerful and perennial influence on
+human minds and hearts in all coming time.
+
+Looking down from the Acropolis upon the Agora, Paul would distinguish a
+cloister or colonnade. This is the Stoa Poecile, or "Painted Porch," so
+called because its walls were decorated with fresco paintings of the
+legendary wars of Greece, and the more glorious struggle at Marathon. It
+was here that Zeno first opened that celebrated school which thence
+received the name of _Stoic_. The site of the _garden_ where Epicurus
+taught is now unknown. It was no doubt within the city walls, and not
+far distant from the Agora. It was well known in the time of Cicero, who
+visited Athens as a student little more than a century before the
+Apostle. It could not have been forgotten in the time of Paul. In this
+"tranquil garden," in the society of his friends, Epicurus passed a life
+of speculation and of pleasure. His disciples were called, after him,
+the Epicureans.[381]
+
+[Footnote 381: See Conybeare and Howson's "Life and Epistles of St.
+Paul," vol. i., Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy;" and
+Encyclopaedia Britannica, article, "Athens," from whence our materials
+for the description of these "places" are mainly derived.]
+
+Here, then, in Athens the Apostle was brought into immediate contact
+with all the phases of philosophic thought which had appeared in the
+ancient world. "Amongst those who sauntered beneath the cool shadows of
+the plane-trees in the Agora, and gathered in knots under the porticoes,
+eagerly discussing the questions of the day, were the philosophers, in
+the garb of their several sects, ready for any new question on which
+they might exercise their subtlety or display their rhetoric." If there
+were any in that motley group who cherished the principles and retained
+the spirit of the true Platonic school, we may presume they felt an
+inward intellectual sympathy with the doctrine enounced by Paul. With
+Plato, "philosophy was only another name for _religion_: philosophy is
+the love of perfect Wisdom; perfect Wisdom and perfect Goodness are
+identical: the perfect Good is God himself; philosophy is the love of
+God."[382] He confessed the need of divine assistance to attain "the
+good," and of divine interposition to deliver men from moral ruin.[383]
+Like Socrates, he longed for a supernatural--a divine light to guide
+him, and he acknowledged his need thereof continually.[384] He was one
+of those who, in heathen lands, waited for "the desire of nations;" and,
+had he lived in Christian times, no doubt his "spirit of faith" would
+have joyfully "embraced the Saviour in all the completeness of his
+revelation and advent."[385] And in so far as the spirit of Plato
+survived among his disciples, we may be sure they were not among the
+number who "mocked," and ridiculed, and opposed the "new doctrine"
+proclaimed by Paul. It was "the philosophers of the Epicureans and of
+the Stoics who _encountered_ Paul." The leading tenets of both these
+sects were diametrically opposed to the doctrines of Christianity. The
+ruling spirit of each was alien from the spirit of Christ. The haughty
+_pride_ of the Stoic, the Epicurean abandonment to _pleasure_, placed
+them in direct antagonism to him who proclaimed the crucified and risen
+Christ to be "_the wisdom_ of God."
+
+[Footnote 382: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+61.]
+
+[Footnote 383: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vi. vii.]
+
+[Footnote 384: Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. p. 362.]
+
+[Footnote 385: Wheedon on "The Will," p. 352; also Butler's "Lectures,"
+vol. ii. p. 252]
+
+If, however, we would justly appreciate the relation of pagan philosophy
+to Christian truth, we must note that, when Paul arrived in Athens, the
+age of Athenian glory had passed away. Not only had her national
+greatness waned, and her national spirit degenerated, but her
+intellectual power exhibited unmistakable signs of exhaustion, and
+weakness, and decay. If philosophy had borne any fruit, of course that
+fruit remained. If, in the palmy days of Athenian greatness, any field
+of human inquiry had been successfully explored; if human reason had
+achieved any conquests; if any thing true and good had been obtained,
+that must endure as an heir-loom for all coming time; and if those
+centuries of agonizing wrestlings with nature, and of ceaseless
+questioning of the human heart, had yielded no results, then, at least,
+the _lesson_ of their failure and defeat remained for the instruction of
+future generations. Either the problems they sought to solve were proved
+to be insoluble, or their methods of solution were found to be
+inadequate; for here the mightiest minds had grappled with the great
+problems of being and of destiny. Here vigorous intellects had struggled
+to pierce the darkness which hangs alike over the beginning and the end
+of human existence. Here profoundly earnest men had questioned nature,
+reason, antiquity, oracles, in the hope they might learn something of
+that invisible world of _real_ being which they instinctively felt must
+lie beneath the world of fleeting forms and ever-changing appearances.
+Here philosophy had directed her course towards every point in the
+compass of thought, and touched every _accessible_ point. The sun of
+human reason had reached its zenith, and illuminated every field that
+lay within the reach of human ken. And this sublime era of Greek
+philosophy is of inestimable value to us who live in Christian times,
+because _it is an exhaustive effort of human reason to solve the problem
+of being_, and in its history we have a record of the power and weakness
+of the human mind, at once on the grandest scale and in the fairest
+characters.[386]
+
+[Footnote 386: See article "Philosophy," in Smith's "Dictionary of the
+Bible."]
+
+These preliminary considerations will have prepared the way for, and
+awakened in our minds a profound interest in, the inquiry--1st. What
+permanent _results_ has Greek philosophy bequeathed to the world? 2d. In
+what manner did Greek philosophy fulfill for Christianity a
+_propoedeutic_ office?
+
+It will at once be obvious, even to those who are least conversant with
+our theme, that it would be fruitless to attempt the answer to these
+important questions before we have made a careful survey of the entire
+history of philosophic thought in Greece. We must have a clear and
+definite conception of the problems they sought to solve, and we must
+comprehend their methods of inquiry, before we can hope to appreciate
+the results they reached, or determine whether they did arrive at any
+definite and valuable conclusions. It will, therefore, devolve upon us
+to present a brief and yet comprehensive epitome of the history of
+Grecian speculative thought.
+
+"_Philosophy_," says Cousin, "_is reflection_, and nothing else than
+reflection, in a vast form"--"Reflection elevated to the rank and
+authority of a _method_." It is the mind looking back upon its own
+sensations, perceptions, cognitions, ideas, and from thence to the
+_causes_ of these sensations, cognitions, and ideas. It is thought
+passing beyond the simple perceptions of things, beyond the mere
+spontaneous operations of the mind in the cognition of things to seek
+the _ground_, and _reason_, and _law_ of things. It is the effort of
+reason to solve the great problem of "Being and Becoming," of appearance
+and reality, of the changeful and the permanent. Beneath the endless
+diversity of the universe, of existence and action, there must be a
+principle of unity; below all fleeting appearances there must be a
+permanent substance; beyond this everlasting flow and change, this
+beginning and ending of finite existence, there must be an _eternal
+being_, the source and cause of all we see and know, _What is that
+principle of unity, that permanent substance_, or principle, or being?
+
+This fundamental question has assumed three separate forms or aspects in
+the history of philosophy. These forms have been determined by the
+objective phenomena which most immediately arrested and engaged the
+attention of men. If external nature has been the chief object of
+attention, then the problem of philosophy has been, _What is the
+arche--_the beginning; what are the first principles_--the elements from
+which, the ideas or laws according to which, the efficient cause or
+energy by which, and the reason or end for which the universe exists?_
+During this period reflective thought was a PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. If the
+phenomena of mind--the opinions, beliefs, judgments of men--are the
+chief object of attention, then the problem of philosophy has been,
+_What are the fundamental Ideas which are unchangeable and permanent
+amid all the diversities of human opinions, connecting appearance with
+reality, and constituting a ground of certain knowledge or absolute
+truth?_ Reflective thought is now a PHILOSOPHY OF IDEAS. Then, lastly,
+if the practical activities of life and the means of well-being be the
+grand object of attention, then the problem of philosophy has been,
+_What is the ultimate standard by which, amid all the diversities of
+human conduct, we may determine what is right and good in individual,
+social, and political life?_ And now reflective thought is a PHILOSOPHY
+OF LIFE. These are the grand problems with which philosophy has grappled
+ever since the dawn of reflection. They all appear in Greek philosophy,
+and have a marked chronology. As systems they succeed each other, just
+as rigorously as the phenomena of Greek civilization.
+
+The Greek schools of philosophy have been classified from various points
+of view. In view of their geographical relations, they have been divided
+into the _Ionian_, the _Italian_, the _Eleatic_, the _Athenian_, and the
+_Alexandrian_. In view of their prevailing spirit and tendency, they
+have been classified by Cousin as the Sensational, the Idealistic, the
+Skeptical, and the Mystical. The most natural and obvious method is that
+which (regarding Socrates as the father of Greek philosophy in the
+truest sense) arranges all schools from the Socratic stand point, and
+therefore in the chronological order of development:
+
+     I. THE PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.
+     II. THE SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.
+     III. THE POST-SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.
+
+The history of philosophy is thus divided into three grand epochs. The
+first reaching from Thales to the time of Socrates (B.C. 639-469): the
+second from the birth of Socrates to the death of Aristotle (B.C.
+469-322); the third from the death of Aristotle to the Christian era
+(B.C. 322, A.D. 1). Greek philosophy during the first period was almost
+exclusively a philosophy of nature; during the second period, a
+philosophy of mind; during the last period, a philosophy of life.
+Nature, man, and society complete the circle of thought. Successive
+systems, of course, overlap each other, both in the order of time and as
+subjects of human speculation; and the results of one epoch of thought
+are transmitted to and appropriated by another; but, in a general sense,
+the order of succession has been very much as here indicated. Setting
+aside minor schools and merely incidental discussions, and fixing our
+attention on the general aspects of each historic period, we shall
+discover that the first period was eminently _Physical_, the second
+_Psychological_, the last _Ethical_. Every stage of progress which
+reason, on _a priori_ grounds, would suggest as the natural order of
+thought, or of which the development of an individual mind would furnish
+an analogy, had a corresponding realization in the development of
+Grecian thought from the time of Thales to the Christian era. "Thought,"
+says Cousin, "in the first trial of its strength is drawn without." The
+first object which engages the attention of the child is the outer
+world. He asks the "_how_" and "_why_" of all he sees. His reason urges
+him to seek an explanation of the universe. So it was in the _childhood_
+of philosophy. The first essays of human thought were, almost without
+exception, discourses peri physeos (De rerum natura), of the nature of
+things. Then the rebound of baffled reason from the impenetrable
+bulwarks of the universe drove the mind back upon itself. If the youth
+can not interpret nature, he can at least "know himself," and find
+within himself the ground and reason of all existence. There are
+"_ideas_" in the human mind which are copies of those "_archetypal
+ideas_" which dwell in the Creative Mind, and after which the universe
+was built. If by "analysis" and "definition" these universal notions can
+be distinguished from that which is particular and contingent in the
+aggregate of human knowledge, then so much of eternal truth has been
+attained. The achievements of philosophic thought in this direction,
+during the Socratic age, have marked it as the most brilliant period in
+the history of philosophy--the period of its _youthful_ vigor. Deeply
+immersed in the practical concerns and conflicts of public life,
+_manhood_ is mainly occupied with questions of personal duty, and
+individual and social well-being. And so, during the hopeless turmoil of
+civil disturbance which marked the decline of national greatness in
+Grecian history, philosophy was chiefly occupied with questions of
+personal interest and personal happiness. The poetic enthusiasm with
+which a nobler age had longed for _truth_, and sought it as the highest
+good, has all disappeared, and now one sect seeks refuge from the storms
+and agitations of the age in Stoical indifference, the other in
+Epicurean effeminacy.
+
+If now we have succeeded in presenting the real problem of philosophy,
+it will at once be obvious that the inquiry was not, in any proper
+sense, _theological_. Speculative thought, during the period we have
+marked as the era of Greek philosophy, was not an inquiry concerning the
+existence or nature of God, or concerning the relations of man to God,
+or the duties which man owes to God. These questions were all remitted
+to the _theologian_. There was a clear line of demarkation separating
+the domains of religion and philosophy. Religion rested solely on
+authority, and appealed to the instinctive faith of the human heart. She
+permitted no encroachment upon her settled usages, and no questioning of
+her ancient beliefs. Philosophy rested on reason alone. It was an
+independent effort of thought to interpret nature, and attain the
+fundamental grounds of human knowledge--to find an arche--a first
+principle, which, being assumed, should furnish a rational explanation
+of all existence. If philosophy reach the conclusion that the arche was
+water, or air, or fire, or a chaotic mixture of all the elements or
+atoms, extended and self-moved, or monads, or to pan, or uncreated mind,
+and that conclusion harmonized with the ancient standards of religious
+faith--well; if not, philosophy must present some method of
+conciliation. The conflicts of faith and reason; the stragglings of
+traditional authority to maintain supremacy; the accommodations and
+conciliations attempted in those primitive times, would furnish a
+chapter of peculiar interest, could it now be written.
+
+The poets who appeared in the dim twilight of Grecian
+civilization--Orpheus, Musaeus, Homer, Hesiod--seem to have occupied the
+same relation to the popular mind in Greece which the Bible now sustains
+to Christian communities.[387] Not that we regard them as standing on
+equal ground of authority, or in any sense a revelation. But, in the eye
+of the wondering Greek, they were invested with the highest sacredness
+and the supremest authority. The high poetic inspiration which pervaded
+them was a supernatural gift. Their sublime utterances were accepted as
+proceeding from a divine afflatus. They were the product of an age in
+which it was believed by all that the gods assumed a human form,[388]
+and held a real intercourse with gifted men. This universal faith is
+regarded by some as being a relic of still more distant times, a faint
+remembrance of the glory of patriarchal days. The more natural opinion
+is, that it was begotten of that universal longing of the human heart
+for some knowledge of that unseen world of real being, which man
+instinctively felt must lie beyond the world of fleeting change and
+delusive appearances. It was a prolepsis of the soul, reaching upward
+towards its source and goal. The poet felt within him some native
+affinities therewith, and longed for some stirring breath of heaven to
+sweep the harp-strings of the soul. He invoked the inspiration of the
+Goddess of Song, and waited for, no doubt believed in, some "deific
+impulse" descending on him. And the people eagerly accepted his
+utterance as the teaching of the gods. They were too eager for some
+knowledge from that unseen world to question their credentials. Orpheus,
+Hesiod, Homer, were the theologoi--the theologians of that age.[389]
+
+[Footnote 387: "Homer was, in a certain sense, the Bible of the
+Greeks."--Whewell, "Platonic Dialogues," p. 283.]
+
+[Footnote 388: The universality of this belief is asserted by Cicero:
+"Vetus opinio est, jam usque ab heroicis ducta temporibus, eaque et
+populi Romani et omnium gentium firmata consensu, versari quandem inter
+homines divinationem."--Cicero, "De Divin." bk. i. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 389: Cicero.]
+
+These ancient poems, then, were the public documents of the religion of
+Greece--the repositories of the national faith. And it is deserving of
+especial note that the philosopher was just as anxious to sustain his
+speculations by quoting the high traditional authority of the ancient
+theologian, as the propounder of modern novelties is to sustain his
+notions by the authority of the Sacred Scriptures. Numerous examples of
+this solicitude will recur at once to the remembrance of the student of
+Plato. All encroachments of philosophy upon the domains of religion were
+watched as jealously in Athens in the sixth century before Christ, as
+the encroachments of science upon the fields of theology were watched in
+Rome in the seventeenth century after Christ. The court of the Areopagus
+was as earnest, though not as fanatical and cruel, in the defense of the
+ancient faith, as the court of the Inquisition was in the defense of the
+dogmas of the Romish Church. The people, also, as "the sacred wars" of
+Greece attest, were ready quickly to repel every assault upon the
+majesty of their religion. And so philosophy even had its martyrs. The
+tears of Pericles were needed to save Aspasia, because she was suspected
+of philosophy. But neither his eloquence nor his tears could save his
+friend Anaxagoras, and he was ostracized. Aristotle had the greatest
+difficulty to save his life. And Plato was twice imprisoned, and once
+sold into slavery.[390]
+
+[Footnote 390: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 305.]
+
+It is unnecessary that we should, in this place, again attempt the
+delineation of the theological opinions of the earlier periods of
+Grecian civilization. That the ancient Greeks believed in _one Supreme
+God_ has been conclusively proved by Cudworth. The argument of his
+fourth chapter is incontrovertible.[391] However great the number of
+"generated gods" who crowded the Olympus, and composed the ghostly array
+of Greek mythology, they were all subordinate agents, "demiurges,"
+employed in the framing of the world and all material things, or else
+the ministers of the moral and providential government of the eis Theos
+agentos--the one uncreated God. Beneath, or beyond the whole system of
+pagan polytheism, we recognize a faith in an _Uncreated Mind_, the
+Source of all the intelligence, and order, and harmony which pervades
+the universe the Fountain of law and justice; the Ruler of the world;
+the Avenger of injured innocence; and the final Judge of men. The
+immortality of the soul and a state of future retribution were necessary
+corollaries of this sublime faith. This primitive theology was
+unquestionably the people's faith; the faith, also, of the philosopher,
+in his inmost heart, however far he might wander in speculative thought.
+The instinctive feeling of the human heart, the spontaneous intuitions
+of the human reason, have led man, in every age, to recognize a God. It
+is within the fields of speculative thought that skepticism has had its
+birth. Any thing like atheism has only made its appearance amid the
+efforts of human reason to explain the universe. The native sentiments
+of the heart and the spontaneous movements of the reason have always
+been towards faith, that is, towards "a religious movement of the
+soul."[392] Unbridled speculative thought, which turns towards the outer
+world alone, and disregards "the voices of the soul," tends towards
+_doubt_ and irreligion. But, as Cousin has said, "a complete
+extravagance, a total delusion (except in case of real derangement), is
+impossible." "Beneath reflection there is still spontaneity, when the
+scholar has denied the existence of a God; listen to the man,
+interrogate him unawares, and you will see that all his words betray the
+idea of a God, and that faith in a God is, without his recognition, at
+the bottom of his heart."[393]
+
+[Footnote 391: "Intellectual System of the Universe;" see also ch. iii.,
+"On the Religion of the Athenians."]
+
+[Footnote 392: Cousin's "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 393: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 137.]
+
+Let us not, therefore, be too hasty in representing the early
+philosophers as destitute of the idea of a God, because in the imperfect
+and fragmentary representations which are given us of the philosophical
+opinions of Thales, and Anaximenes, and Heraclitus, and Diogenes of
+Apollonia, we find no explicit allusions to the _Uncreated Mind_ as the
+first principle and cause of all. A few sentences will comprehend the
+whole of what remains of the opinions of the earliest philosophers, and
+these were transmitted for ages by _oral_ tradition. To Plato and
+Aristotle we are chiefly indebted for a stereotype of those scattered,
+fragmentary sentences which came to their hands through the dim and
+distorting medium of more than two centuries. Surely no one imagines
+these few sentences contain and sum up the results of a lifetime of
+earnest thought, or represent all the opinions and beliefs of the
+earliest philosophers! And should we find therein no recognition of a
+personal God, would it not be most unfair and illogical to assert that
+they were utterly ignorant of a God, or wickedly denied his being? If
+they say "there is no God," then they are foolish Atheists; if they are
+silent on that subject, we have a right to assume they were Theists, for
+it is most natural to believe in God. And yet it has been quite
+customary for Christian teachers, after the manner of some Patristic
+writers, to deny to those early sages the smallest glimpse of underived
+and independent knowledge of a Divine Being, in their zeal to assert for
+the Sacred Scriptures the exclusive prerogative of revealing Him.
+
+Now in regard to the theological opinions of the Greek philosophers, we
+shall venture this general _lemma_--_the majority of them recognized an
+"incorporeal substance"_[394]_ an uncreated Intelligence, an ordering,
+governing Mind_. Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus, who were
+Materialists, are perhaps the only exceptions. Many of them were
+Pantheists, in the higher form of Pantheism, which, though it associates
+the universe with its framer and mover, still makes "the moving
+principle" superior to that which is moved. The world was a living
+organism,
+
+     "Whose body nature is, and God the soul."
+
+Unquestionably most on them recognized the existence of _two_ first
+principles, substances essentially distinct, which had co-existed from
+eternity--an incorporeal Deity and matter.[395] We grant that the free
+production of a universe by a creative fiat--the calling of matter into
+being by a simple act of omnipotence--is not elementary to human reason.
+The famous physical axiom of antiquity, "_De nihilo nihil, in nihilum
+posse reverti"_ under one aspect, may be regarded as the expression of
+the universal consciousness of a mental inability to conceive a creation
+out of nothing, or an annihilation.[396] "We can not conceive, either,
+on the one hand, nothing becoming something, or something becoming
+nothing, on the other hand. When God is said to create the universe out
+of nothing, we think this by supposing that he evolves the universe out
+of himself; and in like manner, we conceive annihilation only by
+conceiving the Creator to withdraw his creation from actuality into
+power."[397] "It is by _faith_ we understand the worlds were framed by
+the _word of God_, so that things which are were not made from things
+which do appear"--that is, from pre-existent matter.
+
+[Footnote 394: "Ousian asomaton."--Plato.]
+
+[Footnote 395: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 269.]
+
+[Footnote 396: Mansell's "Limits of Religious Thought," p. 100.]
+
+[Footnote 397: Sir William Hamilton's "Discussions on Philosophy," p.
+575.]
+
+Those writers[398] are, therefore, clearly in error who assert that the
+earliest question of Greek philosophy was, What is God? and that various
+and discordant answers were given, Thales saying, water is God,
+Anaximenes, air; Heraclitus, fire; Pythagoras, numbers; and so on. The
+idea of God is a native intuition of the mind. It springs up
+spontaneously from the depths of the human soul. The human mind
+naturally recognizes God as an uncreated Mind, and recognizes itself as
+"the offspring of God." And, therefore, it is simply impossible for it
+to acknowledge water, or air, or fire, or any material thing to be its
+God. Now they who reject this fundamental principle evidently
+misapprehend the real problem of early Grecian philosophic thought. The
+external world, the material universe, was the first object of their
+inquiry, and the method of their inquiry was, at the first stage, purely
+physical. Every object of sense had a beginning and an end; it rose out
+of something, and it fell back into something. Beneath this ceaseless
+flow and change there must be some permanent principle. What is that
+stoicheon--that first element? The changes in the universe seem to obey
+some principle of law--they have an orderly succession. What is that
+morphe--that form, or ideal, or archetype, proper to each thing, and
+according to which all things are produced? These changes must be
+produced by some efficient cause, some power or being which is itself
+immobile, and permanent, and eternal, and adequate to their production.
+What is that arche tes kineseos--that first principle of movement Then,
+lastly, there must be an end for which all things exist--a good reason
+why things are as they are, and not otherwise. What is that to ou eneken
+kai to agathon--that reason and good of all things? Now these are all
+archai or first principles of the universe. "Common to all first
+principles," says Aristotle, "is the being, the original, from which a
+thing is, or is produced, or is known."[399] First principles,
+therefore, include both elements and causes, and, under certain aspects,
+elements are also causes, in so far as they are that without which a
+thing can not be produced. Hence that highest generalization by
+Aristotle of all first principles; as--1. The Material Cause; 2. The
+Formal Cause; 3. The Efficient Cause; 4. The Final Cause. The grand
+subject of inquiry in ancient philosophy was not alone what is the final
+_element_ from which all things have been produced? nor yet what is the
+_efficient cause_ of the movement and the order of the universe? _but
+what are those First Principles which, being assumed, shall furnish a
+rational explanation of all phenomena, of all becoming?_
+
+[Footnote 398: As the writer of the article "Attica," in the
+Encyclopaedia Britannica.]
+
+[Footnote 399: "Metaphysics," bk. iv. ch. i. p. 112 (Bohn's edition).]
+
+So much being premised, we proceed to consider the efforts and the
+results of philosophic thought in
+
+
+
+THE PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.
+
+"The first act in the drama of Grecian speculation was performed on the
+varied theatre of the Grecian colonies--Asiatic, insular, and Italian,
+verging at length (in Anaxagoras) towards Athens." During the progress
+of this drama two distinct schools of philosophy were developed, having
+distinct geographical provinces, one on the east, the other on the west,
+of the peninsula of Greece, and deriving their names from the localities
+in which they flourished. The earliest was the _Ionian;_ the latter was
+the _Italian_ school.
+
+It would be extremely difficult, at this remote period, to estimate the
+influence which geographical conditions and ethnical relations exerted
+in determining the course of philosophic thought in these schools.
+Unquestionably those conditions contributed somewhat towards fixing
+their individuality. At the same time, it must be granted that the
+distinction in these two schools of philosophy is of a deeper character
+than can be represented or explained by geographical surroundings; it is
+a distinction reaching to the very foundation of their habits of
+thought. These schools represent two distinct aspects of philosophic
+thought, two distinct methods in which the human mind has essayed to
+solve the problem of the universe.
+
+The ante-Socratic schools were chiefly occupied with the study of
+external nature. "Greek philosophy was, at its first appearance, a
+philosophy of nature." It was an effort of the reason to reach a "first
+principle" which should explain the universe. This early attempt was
+purely speculative. It sought to interpret all phenomena by
+_hypotheses_, that is, by suppositions, more or less plausible,
+suggested by physical analogies or by _a priori_ rational conceptions.
+
+Now there are two distinct aspects under which nature presents itself to
+the observant mind. The first and most obvious is the _simple phenomena_
+as perceived by the senses. The second is the _relations_ of
+_phenomena_, cognized by the reason alone. Let phenomena, which are
+indeed the first objects of perception, continue to be the chief and
+almost exclusive object of thought, and philosophy is on the highway of
+pure physics. On the other hand, instead of stopping at phenomena, let
+their relations become the sole object of thought, and philosophy is now
+on the road of purely mathematical or metaphysical abstraction. Thus two
+schools of philosophy are developed, the one SENSATIONAL, the other
+IDEALIST. Now these, it will be found, are the leading and
+characteristic tendencies of the two grand divisions of the pre-Socratic
+schools; the Ionian is _sensational_, the Italian is _idealist_.
+
+These two schools have again been the subject of a further subdivision
+based upon diverse habits of thought. The Ionian school sought to
+explain the universe by _physical analogies._ Of these there are two
+clear and obvious divisions--analogies suggested by living organisms,
+and analogies suggested by mechanical arrangements. One class of
+philosophers in the Ionian school laid hold on the first analogy. They
+regarded the world as a living being, spontaneously evolving itself--a
+vital organism whose successive developments and transformations
+constitute all visible phenomena. A second class laid hold on the
+analogy suggested by mechanical arrangements. For them the universe was
+a grand superstructure, built up from elemental particles, arranged and
+united by some ab-extra power or force, or else aggregated by some
+inherent mutual affinity. Thus we have two sects of the Ionian school;
+the first, _Dynamical_ or vital; the second, _Mechanical_.[400]
+
+[Footnote 400: Ritter's "Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 191, 192.]
+
+The Italian school sought to explain the universe by rational
+conceptions and _a priori_ ideas. Now to those who seek, by simple
+reflection, to investigate the relations of the external world this
+marked distinction will present itself: some are relations _between_
+sensible phenomena--relations of time, of place, of number, of
+proportion, and of harmony; others are relations _of_ phenomena to
+essential being--relations of qualities to substance, of becoming to
+being, of the finite to the infinite. The former constituted the field
+of Pythagorean the latter of Eleatic contemplation. The Pythagoreans
+sought to explain the universe by numbers, forms, and harmonies; the
+Eleatics by the _a priori_ ideas of unity, substance, Being _in se_, the
+Infinite. Thus were constituted a _Mathematical_ and a _Metaphysical_
+sect in the Italian school. The pre-Socratic schools may, therefore, be
+tabulated in the following order:
+
+     I. IONIAN (Sensational), (1.) PHYSICAL {Dynamical or Vital.
+                                            {Mechanical.
+
+     II. Italian (Idealist), {(2.) MATHEMATICAL Pythagoreans.
+                             {(3.) METAPHYSICAL Eleatics.
+
+I. _The Ionian or Physical School._--We have premised that the
+philosophers of this school attempted the explanation of the universe by
+physical analogies.
+
+One class of these early speculators, the _Dynamical_, or vital
+theorists, proceeded on the supposition of a living energy infolded in
+nature, which in its spontaneous development continuously undergoes
+alteration both of quality and form. This imperfect analogy is the first
+hypothesis of childhood. The child personifies the stone that hurts him,
+and his first impulse is to resent the injury as though he imagined it
+to be endowed with consciousness, and to be acting with design. The
+childhood of superstition (whose genius is multiplicity) personifies
+each individual existence--a rude Fetichism, which imagines a
+supernatural power and presence enshrined in every object of nature, in
+every plant, and stock, and stone. The childhood of philosophy (whose
+genius is unity) personifies the universe. It regards the earth as one
+vast organism, animated by one soul, and this soul of the world as a
+"created god."[401] The first efforts of philosophy were, therefore,
+simply an attempt to explain the universe in harmony with the popular
+theological beliefs. The cosmogonies of the early speculators in the
+Ionian school were an elaboration of the ancient theogonies, but still
+an elaboration conducted under the guidance of that law of thought which
+constrains man to seek for _unity_, and reduce the many to the one.
+
+Therefore, in attempting to construct a theory of the universe they
+commenced by postulating an arche--a first principle or element out of
+which, by a _vital_ process, all else should be produced. "Accordingly,
+whatever seemed the most subtle or pliable, as well as _universal_
+element in the mass of the visible world, was marked as the seminal
+principle whose successive developments and transformations produced all
+the rest."[402] With this seminal principle the living, _animating_
+principle seems to have been associated--in some instances perhaps
+confounded, and in most instances called by the same name. And having
+pursued this analogy so far, we shall find the _most decided and
+conclusive_ evidence of a tendency to regard the soul of man as similar,
+in its nature, to the soul which animates the world.
+
+[Footnote 401: Plato's "Laws," bk. x. ch. i.; "Timaeus," ch. xii.]
+
+[Footnote 402: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. 1. p.
+292.]
+
+_Thales of Miletus_(B.C. 636-542) was the first to lead the way in the
+perilous inquiry after an arche, or first principle, which should
+furnish a rational explanation of the universe. Following, as it would
+seem, the genealogy of Hesiod, he supposed _water_ to be the primal
+element out of which all material things were produced. Aristotle
+supposes he was impressed with this idea from observing that all things
+are nourished by moisture; warmth itself, he declared, proceeded from
+moisture; the seeds of all things are moist; water, when condensed,
+becomes earth.
+
+Thus convinced of the universal presence of water, he declared it to be
+the first principle of things.[403]
+
+And now, from this brief statement of the Thalean physics, are we to
+conclude that he recognized only a _material_ cause of the universe?
+Such is the impression we receive from the reading of the First Book of
+Aristotle's Metaphysics. His evident purpose is to prove that the first
+philosophers of the Ionian school did not recognize an _efficient_
+cause. In his opinion, they were decidedly materialistic. Now to
+question the authority of Aristotle may appear to many an act of
+presumption. But Aristotle was not infallible; and nothing is more
+certain than that in more than one instance he does great injustice to
+his predecessors.[404] To him, unquestionably, belongs the honor of
+having made a complete and exhaustive classification of causes, but
+there certainly does appear something more than vanity in the assumption
+that he, of all the Greek philosophers, was the only one who recognized
+them all. His sagacious classification was simply a resume of the labors
+of his predecessors. His "principles" or "causes" were incipient in the
+thought of the first speculators in philosophy. Their accurate
+definition and clearer presentation was the work of ages of analytic
+thought. The phrases "efficient," "formal," "final" cause, are, we
+grant, peculiar to Aristotle; the ideas were equally the possession of
+his predecessors.
+
+[Footnote 403: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 404: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 77;
+Cousin's "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," p. 77.]
+
+The evidence, we think, is conclusive that, with this primal element
+(water), Thales associated a formative principle of motion; to the
+"material" he added the "efficient" cause. A strong presumption in favor
+of this opinion is grounded on the psychological views of Thales. The
+author of "De Placitis Philosophorum" associates him with Pythagoras and
+Plato, in teaching that the soul is incorporeal, making it naturally
+self-active, and an intelligent substance.[405] And it is admitted by
+Aristotle (rather unwillingly, we grant, but his testimony is all the
+more valuable on that account) that, in his time, the opinion that the
+soul is a principle, aeikineton--ever moving, or essentially
+self-active, was currently ascribed to Thales. "If we may rely on the
+notices of Thales, he too would seem to have conceived the soul as a
+_moving principle_."[406] Extending this idea, that the soul is a moving
+principle, he held that all motion in the universe was due to the
+presence of a living soul. "He is reported to have said that the
+loadstone possessed a soul because it could move iron."[407] And he
+taught that "the world itself is _animated_, and full of gods."[408]
+"Some think that _soul_ and _life_ is mingled with the whole universe;
+and thence, perhaps, was that [opinion] of Thales that all things are
+full of gods,"[409] portions, as Aristotle said, of the universal soul.
+These views are quite in harmony with the theology which makes the Deity
+the moving energy of the universe--the energy which wrought the
+successive transformations of the primitive aqueous element. They also
+furnish a strong corroboration of the positive statement of
+Cicero--"Aquam, dixit Thales, esse initium rerum, Deum autem eam mentem
+quae ex aqua cuncta fingeret." Thales said that water is the first
+principle of things, but God was that mind which formed all things out
+of water;[410] as also that still more remarkable saying of Thales,
+recorded by Diogenes Laertius; "God is the most ancient of all things,
+for he had no birth; the world is the most beautiful of all things, for
+it is the workmanship of God."[411] We are aware that some historians of
+philosophy reject the statement of Cicero, because, say they, "it does
+violence to the chronology of speculation."[412] Following Hegel, they
+assert that Thales could have no conception of God as Intelligence,
+since that is a conception of a more advanced philosophy. Such an
+opinion may be naturally expected from the philosopher who places God,
+not at the commencement, but at the _end_ of things, God becoming
+conscious and intelligent in humanity. If, then, Hegel teaches that God
+himself has had a progressive development, it is no wonder he should
+assert that the idea of God has also had an historic development, the
+_last_ term of which is an _intelligent God_. But he who believes that
+the idea of God as the infinite and the perfect is native to the human
+mind, and that God stands at the beginning of the entire system of
+things, will feel there is a strong _a priori_ ground for the belief
+that Thales recognized the existence of an _intelligent God who
+fashioned the universe_.
+
+[Footnote 405: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 71.]
+
+[Footnote 406: Aristotle, "De Anima," i. 2, 17.]
+
+[Footnote 407: Id., ib., i. 2, 17.]
+
+[Footnote 408: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," p. 18
+(Bohn's ed.).]
+
+[Footnote 409: Aristotle, "De Anima," i. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 410: "De Natura Deor.," bk. i. ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 411: "Lives," etc., p. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 412: Lewes's "Hist. Philos.," p. 4.]
+
+_Anaximenes of Miletus_ (B.C. 529-480) we place next to Thales in the
+consecutive history of thought. It has been usual to rank Anaximander
+next to the founder of the Ionian School. The entire complexion of his
+system is, however, unlike that of a pupil of Thales. And we think a
+careful consideration of his views will justify our placing him at the
+head of the Mechanical or Atomic division of the Ionian school.
+Anaximenes is the historical successor of Thales; he was unquestionably
+a vitalist. He took up the speculation where Thales had left it, and he
+carried it a step forward in its development.[413]
+
+Pursuing the same method as Thales, he was not, however, satisfied with
+the conclusion he had reached. Water was not to Anaximenes the most
+significant, neither was it the most universal element. But air seemed
+universally present. "The earth was a broad leaf resting upon it. All
+things were produced from it; all things were resolved into it. When he
+breathed he drew in a part of this universal life. All things are
+nourished by air."[414] Was not, therefore, _air_ the arche, or primal
+element of things?
+
+[Footnote 413: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p.
+203.]
+
+[Footnote 414: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 7.]
+
+This brief notice of the physical speculations of Anaximenes is all that
+has survived of his opinions. We search in vain for some intimations of
+his theological views. On this merely negative ground, some writers have
+unjustly charged him with Atheism. Were we to venture a conjecture, we
+would rather say that there are indications of a tendency to Pantheism
+in that form of it which associates God necessarily with the universe,
+but does not utterly confound them. His fixing upon "_air_" as the
+primal element, seems an effort to reconcile, in some apparently
+intermediate substance, the opposite qualities of corporeal and
+spiritual natures. Air is invisible, impalpable, all-penetrating, and
+yet in some manner appreciable to sense. May not the vital
+transformations of this element have produced all the rest? The writer
+of the Article on Anaximenes in the Encyclopaedia Britannica tells us (on
+what ancient authorities he saith not) that "he asserted this air was
+God, since the divine power resides in it and agitates it."
+
+Some indications of the views of Anaximenes may perhaps be gathered from
+the teachings of Diogenes of Apollonia (B.C. 520-490,) who was the
+disciple, and is generally regarded as the commentator and expounder of
+the views of Anaximenes. The air of Diogenes was a soul; therefore it
+was _living_, and not only living, but conscious and _intelligent_. "It
+knows much," says he; "for without _reason_ it would be impossible for
+all to be arranged duly and proportionately; and whatever objects we
+consider will be found to be so arranged and ordered in the best and
+most beautiful manner."[415] Here we have a distinct recognition of the
+fundamental axiom that _mind is the only valid explanation of the order
+and harmony which pervades the universe_. With Diogenes the first
+principle is a "divine air," which is vital, conscious, and intelligent,
+which spontaneously evolves itself, and which, by its ceaseless
+transformations, produces all phenomena. The soul of man is a detached
+portion of this divine element; his body is developed or evolved
+therefrom. The theology of Diogenes, and, as we believe, of his master,
+Anaximenes also, was a species of Materialistic Pantheism.
+
+[Footnote 415: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 8;
+Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 214.]
+
+_Heraclitus of Ephesus_(B.C. 503-420) comes next in the order of
+speculative thought. In his philosophy, _fire_ is the arche, or first
+principle; but not fire in the usual acceptation of that term. The
+Heraclitean "fire" is not flame, which is only an intensity of fire, but
+a warm, dry vapor--an _ether_, which may be illustrated, perhaps, by the
+"caloric" of modern chemistry. This "_ether_" was the primal element out
+of which the universe was formed; it was also a vital power or principle
+which animated the universe, and, in fact, the _cause_ of all its
+successive phenomenal changes. "The world," he said, "was neither made
+by the gods nor men, and it was, and is, and ever shall be, an
+_ever-living fire_, in due proportion self-enkindled, and in due measure
+self-extinguished."[416] The universe is thus reduced to "an eternal
+fire," whose ceaseless energy is manifested openly in the work of
+dissolution, and yet secretly, but universally, in the work of
+renovation. The phenomena of the universe are explained by Heraclitus as
+"the concurrence of opposite tendencies and efforts in the motions of
+this ever-living fire, out of which results the most beautiful harmony.
+This harmony of the world is one of conflicting impulses, like the lyre
+and the bow. The strife between opposite tendencies is the parent of all
+things. All life is change, and change is strife."[417]
+
+[Footnote 416: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p.
+235.]
+
+[Footnote 417: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 70;
+Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 244.]
+
+Heraclitus was the first to proclaim the doctrine of the perpetual
+fluxion of the universe (to reon, to gignomenon--Unrest and
+Development), the endless changes of matter, and the mutability and
+perishability of all individual things. This restless, changing flow of
+things, which never _are_, but always are _becoming_, he pronounced to
+be the _One_ and the _All_.
+
+From this statement of the physical theory of Heraclitus we might
+naturally infer that he was a Hylopathean Atheist. Such an hypothesis
+would not, however, be truthful or legitimate. On a more careful
+examination, his system will be found to stand half-way between the
+materialistic and the spiritual conception of the Author of the
+universe, and marks, indeed, a transition from the one to the other.
+Heraclitus unquestionably held that all substance is material, for a
+philosopher who proclaims, as he did, that the senses are the only
+source of knowledge, must necessarily attach himself to a material
+element as the primary one. And yet he seems to have _spiritualized_
+matter. "The moving unit of Heraclitus--the Becoming--is as immaterial
+as the resting unit of the Eleatics--the Being."[418] The Heraclitean
+"_fire_" is endowed with _spiritual_ attributes. "Aristotle calls it
+psyche--soul, and says that it is asomatotaton, or absolutely
+incorporeal ("De Anima," i. 2. 16). It is, in effect, the common ground
+of the phenomena both of mind and matter it is not only the animating,
+but also the intelligent and regulating principle of the universe; the
+Zynos Logos, or universal Word or Reason, which it behooves all men to
+follow."[419] The psychology of Heraclitus throws additional light upon
+his theological opinions. With him human intelligence is a detached
+portion of the Universal Reason. "Inhaling," said he, "through the
+breath the Universal Ether, which is Divine Reason, we become
+conscious." The errors and imperfections of humanity are consequently to
+be ascribed to a deficiency of the Divine Reason in man. Whilst,
+therefore, the theory of Heraclitus seems to materialize mind, it may,
+with equal fairness, be said to spiritualize matter.
+
+[Footnote 418: Zeller's "History of Greek Philosophy," vol. i. p. 57.]
+
+[Footnote 419: Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. p. 297, note.]
+
+The general inference, therefore, from all that remains of the doctrine
+of Heraclitus is that he was a Materialistic Pantheist. His God was a
+living, rational, intelligent Ether--a soul pervading the universe. The
+form of the universe, its ever-changing phenomena, were a necessary
+emanation from, or a perpetual transformation of, this universal soul.
+
+With Heraclitus we close our survey of that sect of the physical school
+which regarded the world as a living organism.
+
+The second subdivision of the physical school, _the Mechanical_ or
+_Atomist theorists_, attempted the explanation of the universe by
+analogies derived from mechanical collocations, arrangements, and
+movements. The universe was regarded by them as a vast superstructure
+built up from elemental particles, aggregated by some inherent force or
+mutual affinity.
+
+_Anaximander of Miletus_ (born B.C. 610) we place at the head of the
+Mechanical sect of the Ionian school; first, on the authority of
+Aristotle, who intimates that the philosophic dogmata of Anaximander
+"resemble those of Democritus," who was certainly an Atomist; and,
+secondly, because we can clearly trace a genetic connection between the
+opinions of Democritus and Leucippus and those of Anaximander.
+
+The arche, or first principle of Anaximander, was to apeiron, _the
+boundless, the illimitable, the infinite_. Some historians of philosophy
+have imagined that the infinite of Anaximander was the "unlimited all,"
+and have therefore placed him at the head of the Italian or "idealistic
+school." These writers are manifestly in error. Anaximander was
+unquestionably a sensationalist. Whatever his "infinite" may be found to
+be, one thing is clear, it was not a "metaphysical infinite"--it did not
+include infinite power, much less infinite mind.
+
+The testimony of Aristotle is conclusive that by "the infinite"
+Anaximander understood the multitude of primary, material particles. He
+calls it "a migma, or mixture of elements."[420] It was, in fact, a
+_chaos_--an original state in which the primary elements existed in a
+chaotic combination without _limitation_ or division. He assumed a
+certain "_prima materia_," which was neither air, nor water, nor fire,
+but a "mixture" of all, to be the first principle of the universe. The
+account of the opinions of Anaximander which is given by Plutarch ("De
+Placita," etc.) is a further confirmation of our interpretation of his
+infinite. "Anaximander, the Milesian, affirmed the infinite to be the
+first principle, and that all things are generated out of it, and
+corrupted again into it. _His infinite is nothing else but matter._"
+"Whence," says Cudworth, "we conclude that Anaximander's infinite was
+nothing else but an infinite chaos of matter, in which were actually or
+potentially contained all manner of qualities, by the fortuitous
+secretion and segregation of which he supposed infinite worlds to be
+successively generated and corrupted. So that we may easily guess whence
+Leucippus and Democritus had their infinite worlds, and perceive how
+near akin these two Atheistic hypotheses were."[421] The reader, whose
+curiosity may lead him to consult the authorities collected by Cudworth
+(pp. 185-188), will find in the doctrine of Anaximander a rude
+anticipation of the modern theories of "spontaneous generation" and "the
+transmutation of species." In the fragments of Anaximander that remain
+we find no recognition of an ordering Mind, and his philosophy is the
+dawn of a Materialistic school.
+
+[Footnote 420: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 421: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. pp. 186, 187.]
+
+_Leucippus of Miletus_ (B.C. 500-400) appears, in the order of
+speculation, as the successor of Anaximander. _Atoms_ and _space_ are,
+in his philosophy, the archai, or first principles of all things.
+"Leucippus (and his companion, Democritus) assert that the plenum and
+the vacuum [_i.e._, body and space] are the first principles, whereof
+one is the Ens, the other Non-ens; the differences of the body, which
+are only figure, order, and position, are the causes of all
+others."[422]
+
+[Footnote 422: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," p. 21 (Bohn's edition).]
+
+He also taught that the elements, and the worlds derived from them, are
+_infinite_. He describes the manner in which the worlds are produced as
+follows: "Many bodies of various kinds and shapes are borne by
+amputation from the infinite [_i.e._, the chaotic migma of Anaximander]
+into a vast vacuum, and then they, being collected together, produce a
+vortex; according to which, they, dashing against each other, and
+whirling about in every direction, are separated in such a way that like
+attaches itself to like; bodies are thus, without ceasing, united
+according to the impulse given by the vortex, and in this way the earth
+was produced."[423] Thus, through a boundless void, atoms infinite in
+number and endlessly diversified in form are eternally wandering; and,
+by their aggregation, infinite worlds are successively produced. These
+atoms are governed in their movements by a dark negation of
+intelligence, designated "Fate," and all traces of a Supreme Mind
+disappear in his philosophy. It is a system of pure materialism, which,
+in fact, is Atheism.
+
+[Footnote 423: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," p. 389.]
+
+_Democritus of Abdera_ (B.C. 460-357), the companion of Leucippus, also
+taught "that _atoms_ and the _vacuum_ were the beginning of the
+universe."[424] These atoms, he taught, were infinite in number,
+homogeneous, extended, and possessed of those primary qualities of
+matter which are necessarily involved in extension in space--as size,
+figure, situation, divisibility, and mobility. From the combination of
+these atoms all other existences are produced; fire, air, earth, and
+water; sun, moon, and stars; plants, animals, and men; the soul itself
+is an aggregation of round, moving atoms. And "motion, which is the
+cause of the production of every thing, he calls _necessity_."[425]
+Atoms are thus the only real existences; these, without any pre-existent
+mind, or intelligence, were the original of all things.
+
+[Footnote 424: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," p. 395.]
+
+[Footnote 425: Id, ib., p. 394.]
+
+The psychological opinions of Democritus were as decidedly materialistic
+as his physical theories. All knowledge is derived from sensation. It is
+only by material impact that we can know the external world, and every
+sense is, in reality, a kind of touch. Material images are being
+continually thrown off from the surface of external objects which come
+into actual contact with the organs of sense. The primary qualities of
+matter, that is, those which are involved in extension in space, are the
+only objects of real knowledge; the secondary qualities of matter, as
+softness, hardness, sweetness, bitterness, and the like, are but
+modifications of the human sensibilities. "The sweet exists only in
+form--the bitter in form, hot in form, color in form; but in causal
+reality only atoms and space exist. The sensible things which are
+supposed by opinion to exist have no real existence, but atoms and space
+alone exist."[426]
+
+[Footnote 426: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 96. The
+words of Democritus, as reported by Sextus Empiricus.]
+
+Thus by Democritus was laid the basis of a system of absolute
+materialism, which was elaborated and completed by Epicurus, and has
+been transmitted to our times. It has undergone some slight
+modifications, adapting it to the progress of physical science; but it
+is to-day substantially the theory of Democritus. In Democritus we have
+the culmination of the mechanical theory of the Ionian or Physical
+school. In physics and psychology it terminated in pure materialism. In
+theology it ends in positive Atheism.
+
+The fundamental error of all the philosophers of the physical school was
+the assumption, tacitly or avowedly, that sense-perception is the only
+source of knowledge. This was the fruitful source of all their erroneous
+conclusions, the parent of all their materialistic tendencies. This led
+them continually to seek an arche, or first principle of the universe,
+which should, under some form, be appreciable to _sense_; and
+consequently the course of thought tended naturally towards materialism.
+
+Thales was unquestionably a dualist. Instructed by traditional
+intimations, or more probably guided by the spontaneous apperceptions of
+reason, he recognized, with more or less distinctness, an incorporeal
+Deity as the moving, animating, and organizing cause of the universe.
+The idea of God is a truth so self-evident as to need no demonstration.
+The human mind does not attain to the idea of a God as the last
+consequence of a series of antecedent principles. It comes at once, by
+an inherent and necessary movement of thought, to the recognition of God
+as the First Principle of all principles. But when, instead of
+hearkening to the simple and spontaneous intuitions of the mind, man
+turns to the world of sense, and loses himself in discursive thought,
+the conviction of a personal God becomes obscured. Then, amid the
+endlessly diversified phenomena of the universe, he seeks for a cause or
+origin which in some form shall be appreciable to sense. The mere study
+of material phenomena, scientifically or unscientifically conducted,
+will never yield the sense of the living God. Nature must be
+interpreted, can only be interpreted in the light of certain _a priori_
+principles of reason, or we can never "ascend from nature up to nature's
+God." Within the circle of mere sense-perception, the dim and
+undeveloped consciousness of God will be confounded with the universe.
+Thus, in Anaximenes, God is partially confounded with "air," which
+becomes a symbol; then a vehicle of the informing mind; and the result
+is a semi-pantheism. In Heraclitus, the "ether" is, at first, a
+semi-symbol of the Deity; at length, God is utterly confounded with this
+ether, or "rational fire," and the result is a definite _materialistic
+pantheism_. And, finally, when this feeling or dim consciousness of God,
+which dwells in all human souls, is not only disregarded, but pronounced
+to be an illusion--a phantasy; when all the analogies which intelligence
+suggests are disregarded, and a purely mechanical theory of the universe
+is adopted, the result is the utter negation of an Intelligent Cause,
+that is, _absolute Atheism_, as in Leucippus and Democritus.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS _(continued_).
+
+PRE-SOCRATIC SCHOOL _(continued_).
+
+IDEALIST: PYTHAGORAS--XENOPHANES--PARMENIDES--ZENO. NATURAL REALIST:
+ANAXAGORAS.
+
+
+SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+
+SOCRATES.
+
+
+In the previous chapter we commenced our inquiry with the assumption
+that, in the absence of the true inductive method of philosophy which
+observes, and classifies, and generalizes facts, and thence attains a
+general principle or law, two only methods were possible to the early
+speculators who sought an explanation of the universe--1st, That of
+reasoning from physical analogies; or, 2d, That of deduction from
+rational conceptions, or _a priori_ ideas.
+
+Accordingly we found that one class of speculators fixed their attention
+solely on the mere phenomena of nature, and endeavored, amid sensible
+things, to find a _single_ element which, being more subtile, and
+pliable, and universally diffused, could be regarded as the ground and
+original of all the rest, and from which, by a vital transformation, or
+by a mechanical combination and arrangement of parts, all the rest
+should be evolved. The other class passed beyond the simple phenomena,
+and considered only the abstract _relations_ of phenomena among
+themselves, or the relations of phenomena to the necessary and universal
+ideas of the reason, and supposed that, in these relations, they had
+found an explanation of the universe. The former was the Ionian or
+Sensation school; the latter was the Italian or Idealist school.
+
+We have traced the method according to which the Ionian school
+proceeded, and estimated the results attained. We now come to consider
+the method and results of
+
+THE ITALIAN OR IDEALIST SCHOOL.
+
+This school we have found to be naturally subdivided into--1st, The
+_Mathematical_ sect, which attempted the explanation of the universe by
+the abstract conceptions of number, proportion, order, and harmony; and,
+2d, The _Metaphysical_ school, which attempted the interpretation of the
+universe according to the _a priori_ ideas of unity, of Being _in se_,
+of the Infinite, and the Absolute.
+
+_Pythagoras of Samos_(born B.C. 605) was the founder of the Mathematical
+school.
+
+We are conscious of the difficulties which are to be encountered by the
+student who seeks to attain a definite comprehension of the real
+opinions of Pythagoras. The genuineness of many of those writings which
+were once supposed to represent his views, is now questioned. "Modern
+criticism has clearly shown that the works ascribed to Timaeus and
+Archytas are spurious; and the treatise of Ocellus Lucanus on 'The
+Nature of the All' can not have been written by a Pythagorean."[427] The
+only writers who can be regarded as at all reliable are Plato and
+Aristotle; and the opinions they represent are not so much those of
+Pythagoras as "the Pythagoreans." This is at once accounted for by the
+fact that Pythagoras taught in secret, and did not commit his opinions
+to writing. His disciples, therefore, represent the _tendency_ rather
+than the actual tenets of his system; these were no doubt modified by
+the mental habits and tastes of his successors.
+
+[Footnote 427: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 24.]
+
+We may safely assume that the proposition from which Pythagoras started
+was the fundamental idea of all Greek speculation--_that beneath the
+fleeting forms and successive changes of the universe there is some
+permanent principle of unity_[428] The Ionian school sought that
+principle in some common physical element; Pythagoras sought, not for
+"elements," but for "relations," and through these relations for
+ultimate laws indicating primal forces.
+
+[Footnote 428: See Plato, "Timaeus," ch. ix. p. 331 (Bohn's edition);
+Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. v. ch. iii.]
+
+Aristotle affirms that Pythagoras taught "that _numbers_ are the first
+principles of all entities," and, "as it were, a _material_ cause of
+things,"[429] or, in other words, "that numbers are substances that
+involve a separate subsistence, and are primary causes of
+entities."[430]
+
+[Footnote 429: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. v.]
+
+[Footnote 430: Id., ib., bk. xii. ch. vi.]
+
+Are we then required to accept the dictum of Aristotle as final and
+decisive? Did Pythagoras really teach that numbers are real
+entities--the _substance_ and cause of all other existences? The reader
+may be aware that this is a point upon which the historians of
+philosophy are not agreed. Ritter is decidedly of opinion that the
+Pythagorean formula "can only be taken symbolically."[431] Lewes insists
+it must be understood literally.[432] On a careful review of all the
+arguments, we are constrained to regard the conclusion of Ritter as most
+reasonable. The hypothesis "that numbers are real entities" does
+violence to every principle of common sense. This alone constitutes a
+strong _a priori_ presumption that Pythagoras did not entertain so
+glaring an absurdity. The man who contributed so much towards perfecting
+the mathematical sciences, who played so conspicuous a part in the
+development of ancient philosophy, and who exerted so powerful a
+determining influence on the entire current of speculative thought, did
+not obtain his ascendency over the intellectual manhood of Greece by the
+utterance of such enigmas. And further, in interpreting the philosophic
+opinions of the ancients, we must be guided by this fundamental
+canon--"The human mind has, under the necessary operation of its own
+laws, been compelled to entertain the same fundamental ideas, and the
+human heart to cherish the same feelings in all ages." Now if a careful
+philosophic criticism can not render the _reported_ opinions of an
+ancient teacher into the universal language of the reason and heart of
+humanity, we must conclude either that his opinions were misunderstood
+and misrepresented by some of his successors, or else that he stands in
+utter isolation, both from the present and the past. His doctrine has,
+then, no relation to the successions of thought, and no place in the
+history of philosophy. Nay, more, such a doctrine has in it no element
+of vitality, no germ of eternal truth, and must speedily perish. Now it
+is well known that the teaching of Pythagoras awakened the deepest
+intellectual sympathy of his age; that his doctrine exerted a powerful
+influence on the mind of Plato, and, through him, upon succeeding ages;
+and that, in some of its aspects, it now survives, and is more
+influential to-day than in any previous age; but this element of
+immutable and eternal truth was certainly not contained in the inane and
+empty formula, "that numbers are real existences, the causes of all
+other existences!" If the fame of Pythagoras had rested on such "airy
+nothings," it would have melted away before the time of Plato.
+
+[Footnote 431: "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 359.]
+
+[Footnote 432: "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 38.]
+
+We grant there is considerable force in the argument of Lewes. He urges,
+with some pertinence, the unquestionable fact that Aristotle asserts,
+again and again, that the Pythagoreans taught "that numbers are the
+principles and substance of things as well as the causes of their
+modifications;" and he argues that we are not justified in rejecting the
+authority of Aristotle, unless better evidence can be produced.
+
+So far, however, as the authority of Aristotle is concerned, even Lewes
+himself charges him, in more than one instance, with strangely
+misrepresenting the opinions of his predecessors.[433] Aristotle is
+evidently wanting in that impartiality which ought to characterize the
+historian of philosophy, and, sometimes, we are compelled to question
+his integrity. Indeed, throughout his "Metaphysics" he exhibits the
+egotism and vanity of one who imagines that he alone, of all men, has
+the full vision of the truth. In Books I. and XII. he uniformly
+associates the "_numbers_" of Pythagoras with the "_forms_" and
+"_ideas_" of Plato. He asserts that Plato identifies "forms" and
+"numbers," and regards them as real entities--substances, and causes of
+all other things. "_Forms are numbers_[434]... so Plato affirmed,
+similar with the Pythagoreans; and the dogma that numbers are causes to
+other things--of their substance-_he, in like manner, asserted with
+them_."[435] And then, finally, he employs the _same_ arguments in
+refuting the doctrines of both.
+
+[Footnote 433: "Aristotle uniformly speaks disparagingly of Anaxagoras"
+(Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy"). He represents him as
+employing mind (nous) simply as "a _machine_" for the production of the
+world;--"when he finds himself in perplexity as to the cause of its
+being necessarily an orderly system, he then drags it (mind) in by force
+to his assistance" "Metaphysics," (bk. i. ch. iv.). But he is evidently
+inconsistent with himself, for in "De Anima" (bk. i. ch. ii.) he tells
+us that "Anaxagoras saith that mind is at once a _cause of motion_ in
+the whole universe, and also of _well_ and _fit_." We may further ask,
+is not the idea of fitness--of the good and the befitting--the final
+cause, even according to Aristotle?
+
+He also totally misrepresents Plato's doctrine of "Ideas." "Plato's
+Ideas," he says, "are substantial existences--real beings"
+("Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. ix.). Whereas, as we shall subsequently show,
+"they are objects of pure conception for human reason, and they are
+attributes of the Divine Reason. It is there they substantially exist."
+(Cousin, "History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 415). It is also pertinent
+to inquire, what is the difference between the "formal cause" of
+Aristotle and the archetypal ideas of Plato? and is not Plato's to
+agathon the "final cause?" Yet Aristotle is forever congratulating
+himself that he alone has properly treated the "formal" and the "final
+cause!"]
+
+[Footnote 434: This, however, was not the doctrine of Plato. He does not
+say "forms are numbers." He says: "God formed things as they first arose
+according to forms _and_ numbers." See "Timaeus," ch. xiv. and xxvii.]
+
+[Footnote 435: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. vi.]
+
+Now the writings of Plato are all extant to-day, and accessible in an
+excellent English translation to any of our readers. Cousin has
+shown,[436] most conclusively (and we can verify his conclusions for
+ourselves), that Aristotle has totally misrepresented Plato. And if, in
+the same connection, and in the course of the same argument, and in
+regard to the same subjects, he misrepresents Plato, it is most probable
+he also misrepresents Pythagoras.
+
+[Footnote 436: "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," pp. 77-81.]
+
+It is, however, a matter of the deepest interest for us to find the
+evidence gleaming out here and there, on the pages of Aristotle, that he
+had some knowledge of the fact that the Pythagorean numbers were
+regarded as _symbols_. The "numbers" of Pythagoras are, in the mind of
+Aristotle, clearly identified with the "forms" of Plato. Now, in Chapter
+VI. of the First Book he says that Plato taught that these "forms" were
+paradeigmata--models, patterns, exemplars after which created things
+were framed. The numbers of Pythagoras, then, are also models and
+exemplars. This also is admitted by Aristotle. The Pythagoreans indeed
+affirm that entities subsist by an _imitation_ (mimesis) of
+numbers.[437] Now if ideas, forms, numbers, were the models or paradigms
+after which "the Operator" formed all things, surely it can not be
+logical to say they were the "material" out of which all things were
+framed, much less the "efficient cause" of things. The most legitimate
+conclusion we can draw, even from the statements of Aristotle, is that
+the Pythagoreans regarded numbers as the best expression or
+representation of those laws of proportion, and order, and harmony,
+which seemed, to their eyes, to pervade the universe. Their doctrine was
+a faint glimpse of that grand discovery of modern science--that all the
+higher laws of nature assume the form of a precise quantitative
+statement.
+
+[Footnote 437: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. vi.]
+
+The fact seems to be this, the Pythagoreans busied themselves chiefly
+with what Aristotle designates "the _formal_ cause," and gave little
+attention to the inquiry concerning "the _material_ cause." This is
+admitted by Aristotle. Concerning fire, or earth, or the other bodies of
+such kind, they have declared nothing whatsoever, inasmuch as affirming,
+in my opinion, nothing that is peculiar concerning _sensible_
+natures.[438] They looked, as we have previously remarked, to the
+relations of phenomena, and having discovered certain "numerical
+similitudes," they imagined they had attained an universal principle, or
+law. "If all the essential properties and attributes of things were
+fully represented by the relations of numbers, the philosophy which
+supplied such an explanation of the universe might well be excused from
+explaining, also, that existence of objects, which is distinct from the
+existence of all their qualities and properties. The Pythagorean
+doctrine of numbers might have been combined with the doctrine of atoms,
+and the combination might have led to results worthy of notice. But, so
+far as we are aware, no such combination was attempted, and perhaps we
+of the present day are only just beginning to perceive, through the
+disclosures of chemistry and crystallography, the importance of such an
+inquiry."[439]
+
+[Footnote 4398: Id., ib., bk. i. ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 439: Whewell's "History of Inductive Sciences," vol. i. p.
+78.]
+
+These preliminary considerations will have cleared and prepared the way
+for a fuller presentation of the philosophic system of Pythagoras. The
+most comprehensive and satisfactory exposition of his "method" is that
+given by Wm Archer Butler in his "_Lectures on Ancient Philosophy_," and
+we feel we can not do better than condense his pages.[440]
+
+[Footnote 440: Lecture VI. vol. i.]
+
+Pythagoras had long devoted his intellectual adoration to the lofty idea
+of _order_, which seemed to reveal itself to his mind, as the presiding
+genius of the serene and silent world. He had, from his youth, dwelt
+with delight upon the eternal relations of space, and determinate form,
+and number, in which the very idea of _proportion_ seems to find its
+first and immediate development, and without the latter of which
+(number), all proportion is absolutely inconceivable. To this ardent
+genius, whose inventive energies were daily adding new and surprising
+contributions to the sum of discoverable relations, it at length began
+to appear as if the whole secret of the universe was hidden in these
+mysterious correspondences.
+
+In making this extensive generalization, Pythagoras may, on his known
+principles, be supposed to have reasoned as follows: The mind of man
+perceives the relations of an eternal _order_ in the proportions of
+space, and form, and number. That mind is, no doubt, a portion of the
+soul which animates and governs the universe; for on what other
+supposition shall we account for its internal principle of activity--the
+very principle which characterizes the prime mover, and can scarce be
+ascribed to an inferior nature? And on what other supposition are we to
+explain the identity which subsists between the principles of order,
+authenticated by the reason and the facts of order which are found to
+exist in the forms and multiplicities around us, and independent of us?
+Can this sameness be other than the sameness of the internal and
+external principles of a common nature? The proportions of the universe
+inhere in its divine soul; they are indeed its very essence, or at
+least, its attributes. The ideas or principles of Order which are
+implanted in the human reason, must inhere in the Divine Reason, and
+must be reflected in the visible world, which is its product. Man, then,
+can boldly affirm the necessary harmony of the world, because he has in
+his own mind a revelation which declares that the world, in its real
+structure, must be the image and copy of that divine _proportion_ which
+he inwardly adores.[441]
+
+[Footnote 441: It is an opinion which goes as far back as the time of
+Plato, and even Pythagoras, and has ever since been widely entertained,
+that beauty of _form_ consists in some sort of _proportion_ or _harmony_
+which may admit of a mathematical expression; and later and more
+scientific research is altogether in its favor. It is now established
+that complementary colors, that is, colors which when combined make up
+the full beam, are felt to be beautiful when seen simultaneously; that
+is, the mind is made to delight in the unities of nature. At the basis
+of music there are certain fixed ratios; and in poetry, of every
+description, there are measures, and correspondencies. Pythagoras has
+often been ridiculed for his doctrine of "the music of the spheres;" and
+probably his doctrine was somewhat fanciful, but later science shows
+that there is a harmony in all nature--in its forms, in its forces, and
+in its motions. The highest unorganized and all organized objects take
+definite forms which are regulated by mathematical laws. The forces of
+nature can be estimated in numbers, and light and heat go in
+undulations, whilst the movements of the great bodies in nature admit of
+a precise quantitative expression. The harmonies of nature in respect of
+color, of number, of form, and of time are forcibly exhibited in
+"Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation," by M'Cosh.]
+
+Again, the world is assuredly _perfect_, as being the sensible image and
+copy of the Divinity, the outward and multiple development of the
+Eternal Unity. It must, therefore, when thoroughly known and properly
+interpreted, answer to all which we can conceive as perfect; that is, it
+must be regulated by laws, of which we have the highest principles in
+those first and elementary properties of numbers which stand next to
+_unity_. "The world is then, through all its departments, _a living
+arithmetic in its development, a realized geometry in its repose_." It
+is a kosmos (for the word is purely Pythagorean)--the expression of
+_harmony_, the manifestation, to sense, of everlasting _order_.
+
+Though Pythagoras found in geometry the fitting initiative for abstract
+speculation, it is remarkable that he himself preferred to constitute
+the science of Numbers as the true representative of the laws of the
+universe. The reason appears to be this: that though geometry speaks
+indeed of eternal truths, yet when the notion of symmetry and proportion
+is introduced, it is often necessary to insist, in preference, upon the
+properties of numbers. Hence, though the universe displays the geometry
+of its Constructor or Animator, yet nature was eminently defined as the
+mimesis ton arithmon--the imitation of numbers.
+
+The key to all the Pythagorean dogmas, then, seems to be the general
+formula of _unity in multiplicity_:--unity either evolving itself into
+multiplicity, or unity discovered as pervading multiplicity. The
+principle of all things, the same principle which in this philosophy, as
+in others, was customarily called _Deity_, is the primitive unit from
+which all proceeds in the accordant relations of the universal scheme.
+Into the sensible world of multitude, the all-pervading Unity has
+infused his own ineffable nature; he has impressed his own image upon
+that world which is to represent him in the sphere of sense and man.
+What, then, is that which is at once single and multiple, identical and
+diversified--which we perceive as the combination of a thousand
+elements, yet as the expression of a single spirit--which is a chaos to
+the sense, a cosmos to the reason? What is it but
+harmony--proportion--the one governing the many, the many lost in the
+one? The world is therefore a _harmony_ in innumerable degrees, from the
+most complicated to the most simple: it is now a Triad, combining the
+Monad and the Duad, and partaking of the nature of both; now a Tetrad,
+the form of perfection; now a Decad, which, in combining the four
+former, involves, in its mystic nature, all the possible accordances of
+the universe.[442]
+
+The psychology of the Pythagoreans was greatly modified by their
+physical, and still more, by their moral tenets. The soul was arithmos
+eauton kinon--a self-moving number or Monad, the copy (as we have seen)
+of that Infinite Monad which unfolds from its own incomprehensible
+essence all the relations of the universe. This soul has three elements,
+Reason (nous), Intelligence (phren), and Passion (Thymos). The two last,
+man has in common with brutes, the first is his grand and peculiar
+characteristic. It has, hence, been argued that Pythagoras could not
+have held the doctrine of "transmigration." This clear separation of man
+from the brute, by this signal endowment of reason, which is
+sempiternal, seems a refutation of those who charge him with the
+doctrine.
+
+In the department of morals, the legislator of Crotona found his
+appropriate sphere. In his use of numerical notation, moral good was
+essential unity--evil, essential plurality and division. In the fixed
+truths of mathematical abstractions he found the exemplars of social and
+personal virtue. The rule or law of all morality is resemblance to God;
+that is, the return of number to its root, to unity,[443] and virtue is
+thus a harmony.
+
+[Footnote 442: That is, 1+2+3+4=10. There are intimations that the
+Pythagoreans regarded the Monad as God, the Duad as matter, the Triad as
+the complex phenomena of the world, the Tetrad as the completeness of
+all its relations, the Decad as the cosmos, or harmonious whole.]
+
+[Footnote 443: Aristotle, "Nichomachian Ethics," bk. i. ch. vi.]
+
+Thus have we, in Pythagoras, the dawn of an _Idealist_ school; for
+mathematics are founded upon abstractions, and there is consequently an
+intimate connection between mathematics and idealism. The relations of
+space, and number, and determinate form, are, like the relations of
+cause and effect, of phenomena and substance, perceptible _only in
+thought_; and the mind which has been disciplined to abstract thought by
+the study of mathematics, is prepared and disposed for purely
+metaphysical studies. "The looking into mathematical learning is a kind
+of prelude to the contemplation of real being."[444] Therefore Plato
+inscribed over the door of his academy, "Let none but Geometricians
+enter here." To the mind thus disciplined in abstract thinking, the
+conceptions and ideas of reason have equal authority, sometimes even
+superior authority, to the perceptions of sense.
+
+[Footnote 444: Alcinous, "Introduction to the Doctrines of Plato," ch.
+vii.]
+
+Now if the testimony of both reason and sense, as given in
+consciousness, is accepted as of equal authority, and each faculty is
+regarded as, within its own sphere, a source of real, valid knowledge,
+then a consistent and harmonious system of _Natural Realism_ or _Natural
+Dualism_ will be the result. If the testimony of sense is questioned and
+distrusted, and the mind is denied any immediate knowledge of the
+sensible world, and yet the existence of an external world is maintained
+by various hypotheses and reasonings, the consequence will be a species
+of _Hypothetical Dualism_ or _Cosmothetic Idealism_. But if the
+affirmations of reason, as to the unity of the cosmos, are alone
+accepted, and the evidence of the senses, as to the variety and
+multiplicity of the world, is entirely disregarded, then we have a
+system of _Absolute Idealism_. Pythagoras regarded the harmony which
+pervades the diversified phenomena of the outer world as a manifestation
+of the unity of its eternal principle, or as the perpetual evolution of
+that unity, and the consequent _tendency_ of his system was to
+depreciate the _sensible_. Following out this tendency, the Eleatics
+first neglected, and finally denied the variety of the universe--denied
+the real existence of the external world, and asserted an absolute
+_metaphysical_ unity.
+
+_Xenophanes of Colophon_, in Ionia (B.C. 616-516), was the founder of
+this celebrated school of Elea. He left Ionia, and arrived in Italy
+about the same time as Pythagoras, bringing with him to Italy his Ionian
+tendencies; he there amalgamated them with Pythagorean speculations.
+
+Pythagoras had succeeded in fixing the attention of his countrymen on
+the harmony which pervades the material world, and had taught them to
+regard that harmony as the manifestation of the intelligence, and unity,
+and perfection of its eternal principle. Struck with this idea of
+harmony and of unity, Xenophanes, who was a poet, a rhapsodist, and
+therefore by native tendency, rather than by intellectual discipline, an
+Idealist, begins already to attach more importance to _unity_ than
+multiplicity in his philosophy of nature. He regards the testimony of
+reason as of more authority than the testimony of sense; "and he holds
+badly enough the balance between the unity of the Pythagoreans and the
+variety which Heraclitus and the Ionians had alone considered."[445]
+
+We are not, however, to suppose that Xenophanes denied entirely the
+existence of _plurality_. "The great Rhapsodist of Truth" was guided by
+the spontaneous intuitions of his mind (which seemed to partake of the
+character of an inspiration), to a clearer vision of the truth than were
+his successors of the same school by their discursive reasonings. "The
+One" of Xenophanes was clearly distinguished from the outward universe
+(ta polla) on the one hand, and from the "_non-ens_" on the other. It
+was his disciple, Parmenides, who imagined the logical necessity of
+identifying plurality with the "_non-ens_" and thus denying all
+immediate cognition of the phenomenal world. The compactness and logical
+coherence of the system of Parmenides seems to have had a peculiar charm
+for the Grecian mind, and to have diverted the eyes of antiquity from
+the views of the more earnest and devout Xenophanes, whose opinions were
+too often confounded with those of his successors of the Eleatic school.
+"Accordingly we find that Xenophanes has obtained credit for much that
+is, exclusively, the property of Parmenides and Zeno, in particular for
+denying plurality, and for identifying God with the universe."[446]
+
+[Footnote 445: Cousin, "History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 440.]
+
+[Footnote 446: See note by editor, W.H. Thompson, M.A., on pages 331,
+332 of Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. His authorities are "Fragments of
+Xenophanes" and the treatise "De Melisso, Xenophane, et Gorgia," by
+Aristotle.]
+
+In theology, Xenophanes was unquestionably a _Theist_. He had a profound
+and earnest conviction of the existence of a God, and he ridiculed with
+sarcastic force, the anthropomorphic absurdities of the popular
+religion. This one God, he taught, was self-existent, eternal, and
+infinite; supreme in power, in goodness, and intelligence.[447] These
+characteristics are ascribed to the Deity in the sublime words with
+which he opens his philosophic poem--
+
+     "There is one God, of all beings, divine and human, the greatest:
+     Neither in body alike unto mortals, neither in mind."
+
+He has no parts, no organs, as men have, being
+
+     "All sight, all ear, all intelligence;
+     Wholly exempt from toil, he sways all things by _thought_ and
+                                                           _will_."[448]
+
+Xenophanes also taught that God is "uncreated" or "uncaused," and that
+he is "excellent" as well as "all-powerful."[449] And yet, regardless of
+these explicit utterances, Lewes cautions his readers against supposing
+that, by the "one God," Xenophanes meant a Personal God; and he asserts
+that his Monotheism was Pantheism. A doctrine, however, which ascribes
+to the Divine Being moral as well as intellectual supremacy, which
+acknowledges an outward world distinct from Him, and which represents
+Him as causing the changes in that universe by the acts of an
+intelligent volition, can only by a strange perversion of language be
+called pantheism.
+
+[Footnote 447: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 38;
+Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 428, 429.]
+
+[Footnote 448: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp.
+432, 434.]
+
+[Footnote 449: Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. p. 331, note; Ritter's
+"History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 428.]
+
+_Parmenides of Elea_ (born B.C. 536) was the philosopher who framed the
+psychological opinions of the Idealist school into a precise and
+comprehensive system. He was the first carefully to distinguish between
+_Truth_ (aletheian) and _Opinion_ (doxan)--between ideas obtained
+through the reason and the simple perceptions of sense. Assuming that
+reason and sense are the only sources of knowledge, he held that they
+furnish the mind with two distinct classes of cognitions--one variable,
+fleeting, and uncertain; the other immutable, necessary, and eternal.
+Sense is dependent on the variable organization of the individual, and
+therefore its evidence is changeable, uncertain, and nothing but a mere
+"_seeming_." Reason is the same in all individuals, and therefore its
+evidence is constant, real, and true. Philosophy is, therefore, divided
+into two branches--_Physics_ and _Metaphysics_; one, a science of
+absolute knowledge; the other, a science of mere appearances. The first
+science, Physics, is pronounced illusory and uncertain; the latter,
+Metaphysics, is infallible and immutable.[450]
+
+Proceeding on these principles, he rejects the dualistic system of the
+universe, and boldly declared that all essences are fundamentally
+_one_--that, in fact, there is no real plurality, and that all the
+diversity which "appears" is merely presented under a peculiar aesthetic
+or sensible law. The senses, it is true, teach us that there are "many
+things," but reason affirms that, at bottom, there exists only "the
+one." Whatever, therefore, manifests itself in the field of sense is
+merely illusory--the mental representation of a phenomenal world, which
+to experience seems diversified, but which reason can not possibly admit
+to be other than "immovable" and "one." There is but one Being in the
+universe, eternal, immovable, absolute; and of this unconditioned being
+all phenomenal existences, whether material or mental, are but the
+attributes and modes. Hence the two great maxims of the Eleatic school,
+derived from Parmenides--ta panta en, "_The All is One_" and to auto
+noein te kai einai (Idem est cogitare atque esse), "_Thought and Being
+are identical._" The last remarkable dictum is the fundamental principle
+of the modern pantheistic doctrine of "absolute identity" as taught by
+Schelling and Hegel.[451]
+
+[Footnote 450: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp.
+447, 451.]
+
+[Footnote 451: Id., ib., vol. i. pp. 450, 455.]
+
+Lewes asserts that "Parmenides did not, with Xenophanes, call 'the One'
+God; he called it Being.[452] In support of this statement he, however,
+cites no ancient authorities. We are therefore justified in rejecting
+his opinion, and receiving the testimony of Simplicius, "the only
+authority for the fragments of the Eleatics,"[453] and who had a copy of
+the philosophic poems of Parmenides. He assures us that Parmenides and
+Xenophanes "affirmed that '_the One,_' or unity, was the first Principle
+of all,....they meaning by this One _that highest or supreme God_, as
+being the cause of unity to all things.... It remaineth, therefore, that
+that _Intelligence_ which is the cause of all things, and therefore of
+mind and understanding also, in which all things are comprehended in
+unity, was Parmenides' one Ens or Being.[454] Parmenides was, therefore,
+a spiritualistic or idealistic Pantheist.
+
+_Zeno of Elea_ (born B.C. 500) was the logician of the Eleatic school.
+He was, says Diogenes Laertius, "the inventor of Dialectics."[455] Logic
+henceforth becomes the organon[456]--organon of the Eleatics.
+
+[Footnote 452: "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 50.]
+
+[Footnote 453: Encyclopaedia Britannica, article "Simplicius."]
+
+[Footnote 454: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 511.]
+
+[Footnote 455: "Lives," p. 387 (Bohn's edition).]
+
+[Footnote 456: Plato in "Parmen."]
+
+This organon, however, Zeno used very imperfectly. In his hands it was
+simply the "reductio ad absurdum" of opposing opinions as the means of
+sustaining the tenets of his own sect. Parmenides had asserted, on _a
+priori_ grounds, the existence of "the One." Zeno would prove by his
+dialectic the non-existence of "the many." His grand position was that
+all phenomena, all that appears to sense, is but a _modification_ of the
+absolute One. And he displays a vast amount of dialectic subtilty in the
+effort to prove that all "appearances" are unreal, and that all movement
+and change is a mere "seeming"--not a reality. What men call motion is
+only a name given to a series of conditions, each of which, considered
+separately, is rest. "Rest is force resistant; motion is force
+triumphant."[457] The famous puzzle of "Achilles and the Tortoise," by
+which he endeavored to prove the unreality of motion, has been rendered
+familiar to the English reader.[458]
+
+[Footnote 457: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 60.]
+
+[Footnote 458: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp.
+475, 476.]
+
+Aristotle assures us that Zeno, "by his one Ens, which neither was moved
+nor movable, meaneth God." And he also informs us that "Zeno endeavored
+to demonstrate that there is but one God, from the idea which all men
+have of him, as that which is the best, supremest, most powerful of all,
+or an absolutely perfect being" ("De Xenophane, Zenone, et
+Gorgia").[459]
+
+With Zeno we close our survey of the second grand line of independent
+inquiry by which philosophy sought to solve the problem of the universe.
+The reader will be struck with the resemblance which subsists between
+the history of its development and that of the modern Idealist school.
+Pythagoras was the Descartes, Parmenides the Spinoza, and Zeno the Hegel
+of the Italian school.
+
+In this survey of the speculations of the pre-Socratic schools of
+philosophy, we have followed the course of two opposite streams of
+thought which had their common origin in one fundamental principle or
+law of the human mind--the _intuition of unity_--"or the desire to
+comprehend all the facts of the universe in a single formula, and
+consummate all conditional knowledge in the unity of unconditioned
+existence." The history of this tendency is, in fact, the history of all
+philosophy. "The end of all philosophy," says Plato, "is the intuition
+of unity." "All knowledge," said the Platonists, "is the gathering up
+into one."[460]
+
+[Footnote 459: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 518.]
+
+[Footnote 460: Hamilton's "Metaphysics," vol. i. pp. 67-70 (English
+edition).]
+
+Starting from this fundamental idea, _that, beneath the endless flux and
+change of the visible universe, there must be a permanent principle of
+unity_, we have seen developed two opposite schools of speculative
+thought. As the traveller, standing on the ridges of the Andes, may see
+the head-waters of the great South American rivers mingling in one, so
+the student of philosophy, standing on the elevated plane of analytic
+thought, may discover, in this fundamental principle, the common source
+of the two great systems of speculative thought which divided the
+ancient world. Here are the head-waters of the sensational and the
+idealist schools. The Ionian school started its course of inquiry in the
+direction of _sense_; it occupied itself solely with the phenomena of
+the external world, and it sought this principle of unity in a
+_physical_ element. The Italian school started its course of inquiry in
+the direction of _reason_; it occupied itself chiefly with rational
+conceptions or _a priori_ ideas, and it sought this principle of unity
+in purely _metaphysical_ being. And just as the Amazon and La Plata
+sweep on, in opposite directions, until they reach the extremities of
+the continent, so these two opposite streams of thought rush onward, by
+the force of a logical necessity, until they terminate in the two
+Unitarian systems of _Absolute Materialism_ and _Absolute Idealism_,
+and, in their theological aspects, in a pantheism which, on the one
+hand, identifies God with matter, or, on the other hand, swallows up the
+universe in God.
+
+The radical error of both these systems is at once apparent. The
+testimony of the primary faculties of the mind was not regarded as each,
+within its sphere, final and decisive. The duality of consciousness was
+not accepted in all its integrity; one school rejected the testimony of
+reason, the other denied the veracity of the senses, and both prepared
+the way for the _skepticism_ of the Sophists.
+
+We must not, however, lose sight of the fact that there were some
+philosophers of the pre-Socratic school, as Anaxagoras and Empedocles,
+who recognized the partial and exclusive character of both these
+systems, and sought, by a method which Cousin would designate as
+Eclecticism, to combine the element of truth contained in each.
+
+_Anaxagoras of Clazomencoe_ (B.C. 500-428) added to the Ionian
+philosophy of a material element or elements the Italian idea of a
+_spirit_ distinct from, and independent of the world, which has within
+itself the principle of a spontaneous activity--Nous autocrates, and
+which is the first cause of motion in the universe--arche tes
+kineseos.[461]
+
+[Footnote 461: Cousin, "History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 411.]
+
+In his physical theory, Anaxagoras was an Atomist. Instead of one
+element, he declared that the elements or first principles were
+numerous, or even infinite. No point in space is unoccupied by these
+atoms, which are infinitely divisible. He imagined that, in nature,
+there are as many kinds of principles as there are species of compound
+bodies, and that the peculiar form of the primary particles of which any
+body is composed is the same with the qualities of the compound body
+itself. This was the celebrated doctrine of _Homoeomeria_, of which
+Lucretius furnishes a luminous account in his philosophic poem "De
+Natura Rerum"--
+
+                        "That bone from bones
+     Minute, and embryon; nerve from nerves arise;
+     And blood from blood, by countless drops increased.
+     Gold, too, from golden atoms, earths concrete,
+     From earths extreme; from fiery matters, fire;
+     And lymph from limpen dews. And thus throughout
+     From primal kinds that kinds perpetual spring."[462]
+
+These primary particles were regarded by Anaxagoras as eternal; because
+he held the dogma, peculiar to all the Ionians, that nothing can be
+really created or annihilated (de nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse
+reverti). But he saw, nevertheless, that the simple existence of
+"_inert_" matter, even from eternity, could not explain the motion and
+the harmony of the material world. Hence he saw the necessity of another
+power--_the power of Intelligence_. "All things were in chaos; then came
+Intelligence and introduced Order."[463]
+
+Anaxagoras, unlike the pantheistic speculators of the Ionian school,
+rigidly separated the Supreme Intelligence from the material universe.
+The Nous of Anaxagoras is a principle, infinite, independent
+(autocrates), omnipresent (en panti pantos moioa enon), the subtilest
+and purest of things (lepitotaton panion chrematon kaikai katharotaton);
+and incapable of mixture with aught besides; it is also omniscient
+(panta egno), and unchangeable (pas omoios esti).--Simplicius, in
+"Arist. Phys." i. 33.[464]
+
+[Footnote 462: Good's translation, bk. i. p. 325.]
+
+[Footnote 463: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," p. 59.]
+
+[Footnote 464: Butler's "Lectures on Philosophy," vol. i. p. 305, note.]
+
+Thus did Anaxagoras bridge the chasm between the Ionian and the Italian
+schools. He accepted both doctrines with some modifications. He believed
+in the real existence of the phenomenal world, and he also believed in
+the real existence of "The Infinite Mind," whose Intelligence and
+Omnipotence were manifested in the laws and relations which pervade the
+world. He proclaimed the existence of the Infinite Intelligence ("the
+ONE"), who was the Architect and Governor of the Infinite Matter ("the
+MANY").
+
+On the question as to the origin and certainty of human knowledge,
+Anaxagoras differed both from the Ionians and the Eleatics. Neither the
+sense alone, nor the reason alone, were for him a ground of certitude.
+He held that reason (logos) was the regulative faculty of the mind, as
+the Nous, or Supreme Intelligence, was the regulative power of the
+universe. And he admitted that the senses were veracious in their
+reports; but they reported only in regard to phenomena. The senses,
+then, perceive _phenomena_, but it is the reason alone which recognizes
+_noumena_, that is, the reason perceives being in and through phenomena,
+substance in and through qualities; an anticipation of the fundamental
+principle of modern psychology--"_that every power or substance in
+existence is knowable to us, so far only, as we know its phenomena_."
+Thus, again, does he bridge the chasm that separates between the
+Sensationalist and the Idealist. The Ionians relied solely on the
+intuitions of sense; the Eleatics accepted only the apperceptions of
+pure reason; he accepted the testimony of both, and in the synthesis of
+subject and object--the union of an element supplied by sensation, and
+an element supplied by reason, he found real, certain knowledge.
+
+The harmony which the doctrine of Anaxagoras introduced into the
+philosophy of Athens, soon attracted attention and multiplied disciples.
+He was teaching when Socrates arrived in Athens, and the latter attended
+his school. The influence which the doctrine of Anaxagoras exerted upon
+the mind of Socrates (leading him to recognize Intelligence as the cause
+of order and special adaptation in the universe),[465] and also upon the
+course of philosophy in the Socratic schools, is the most enduring
+memorial of his name.[466]
+
+[Footnote 465: "Phaedo," Sec. 105.]
+
+[Footnote 466: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. iii.]
+
+We have devoted a much larger space than we originally designed to the
+ante-Socratic schools--quite out of proportion, indeed, with that we
+shall be able to appropriate to their successors. But inasmuch as all
+the great primary problems of thought, which are subsequently discussed
+by Plato and Aristotle, were started, and received, at least, typical
+answers in those schools, we can not hope to understand Plato, or
+Aristotle, or even Epicurus, or Zeno of Cittium, unless we have first
+mastered the doctrines of Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Parmenides, and
+Anaxagoras.[467] The attention we have bestowed on these early thinkers
+will, therefore, have been a valuable preparatory discipline for the
+study of
+
+II. THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+
+The first cycle of philosophy was now complete. That form of Grecian
+speculative thought which, during the first period of its development,
+was a philosophy of nature, had reached its maturity; it had sought "the
+first principles of all things" in the study of external nature, and had
+signally failed. In this pursuit of first principles as the basis of a
+true and certain knowledge of the system of the universe, the two
+leading schools had been carried to opposite poles of thought. One had
+asserted that _experience_ alone, the other, that _reason_ alone was the
+sole criterion of truth. As the last consequence of this imperfect
+method, Leucippus had denied the existence of "the one," and Zeno had
+denied the existence of "the many." The Ionian school, in Democritus,
+had landed in Materialism; the Italian, in Parmenides, had ended in
+Pantheism; and, as the necessary result of this partial and defective
+method of inquiry, which ended in doubt and contradiction, a spirit of
+general skepticism was generated in the Athenian mind. If doubt be cast
+upon the veracity of the primary cognitive faculties of the mind, the
+flood-gates of universal skepticism are opened. If the senses are
+pronounced to be mendacious and illusory in their reports regarding
+external phenomena, and if the intuitions of the reason, in regard to
+the ground and cause of phenomena, are delusive, then we have no ground
+of certitude. If one faculty is unveracious and unreliable, how can we
+determine that the other is not equally so? There is, then, no such
+thing as universal and necessary truth. Truth is variable and uncertain,
+as the variable opinion of each individual.
+
+[Footnote 467: Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 114; Butler's
+"Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. pp. 87, 88.]
+
+The Sophists, who belonged to no particular school, laid hold on the
+elements of skepticism contained in both the pre-Socratic schools of
+philosophy, and they declared that "the sophia" was not only
+unattainable, but that no relative degree of it was possible for the
+human faculties.[468] Protagoras of Abdera accepted the doctrine of
+Heraclitus, that thought is identical with sensation, and limited by it;
+he therefore declared that there is no criterion of truth, and _Man is
+the measure of all things_.[469] Sextus Empiricus gives the
+psychological opinions of Protagoras with remarkable explicitness.
+"Matter is in a perpetual flux, whilst it undergoes augmentations and
+losses; the senses also are modified according to the age and
+disposition of the body. He said, also, that the reason of all phenomena
+resides in matter as substrata, so that matter, in itself, might be
+whatever it appeared to each. But men have different perceptions at
+different periods, according to the changes in the things perceived....
+Man is, therefore, the criterion of that which exists; all that is
+perceived by him exists; _that which is perceived by no man does not
+exist_."[470] These conclusions were rigidly and fearlessly applied to
+ethics and political science. If there is no Eternal Truth, there can be
+no Immutable Right. The distinction of right and wrong is solely a
+matter of human opinion and conventional usage.[471] "That which
+_appears_ just and honorable to each city, is so for _that city_, so
+long as the opinion prevails."[472]
+
+[Footnote 468: Encyclopaedia Britannica, article "Sophist."]
+
+[Footnote 469: Plato's "Theaetetus" (anthropos--"the individual is the
+measure of all things"), vol. i. p. 381 (Bohn's edition).]
+
+[Footnote 470: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 117.]
+
+[Footnote 471: "Gorgias," Sec. 85-89.]
+
+[Footnote 472: Plato's "Theaetetus," Sec. 65-75.]
+
+There were others who laid hold on the weapons which Zeno had prepared
+to their hands. He had asserted that all the objects of sense were mere
+phantoms--delusive and transitory. By the subtilties of dialectic
+quibbling, he had attempted to prove that "change" meant "permanence,"
+and "motion" meant "rest."[473] Words may, therefore, have the most
+opposite and contradictory meanings; and all language and all opinion
+may, by such a process, be rendered uncertain. One opinion is,
+consequently, for the individual, just as good as another; and all
+opinions are equally true and untrue. It was nevertheless desirable, for
+the good of society, that there should be some agreement, and that, for
+a time at least, certain opinions should prevail; and if philosophy had
+failed to secure this agreement, rhetoric, at least, was effectual; and,
+with the Sophist, rhetoric was "the art of making the worst appear the
+better reason." All wisdom was now confined to a species of "word
+jugglery," which in Athens was dignified as "the art of disputation."
+
+[Footnote 473: "And do we not know that the Eleatic Palamedes (Zeno)
+spoke by art in such a manner that the same things appeared to be
+similar and dissimilar, one and many, at rest and in
+motion?"--"Phaedrus," Sec. 97.]
+
+SOCRATES (B.C. 469-399), the grand central figure in the group of
+ancient philosophers, arrived in Athens in the midst of this general
+skepticism. He had an invincible faith in truth. "He made her the
+mistress of his soul, and with patient labor, and unwearied energy, did
+his great and noble soul toil after perfect communion with her." He was
+disappointed and dissatisfied with the results that had been reached by
+the methods of his predecessors, and he was convinced that by these
+methods the problem of the universe could not be solved. He therefore
+turned away from physical inquiries, and devoted his whole attention to
+the study of the human mind, its fundamental beliefs, ideas, and laws.
+If he can not penetrate the mysteries of the outer world, he will turn
+his attention to the world within. He will "know himself," and find
+within himself the reason, and ground, and law of all existence. There
+he discovered certain truths which can not possibly be questioned. He
+felt he had within his own heart a faithful monitor--a _conscience_,
+which he regarded as the voice of God.[474] He believed "he had a divine
+teacher with him at all times. Though he did not possess wisdom, this
+teacher could put him on the road to seek it, could preserve him from
+delusions which might turn him out of the way, could keep his mind fixed
+upon the end for which he ought to act and live."[475] In himself,
+therefore, he sought that ground of certitude which should save him from
+the prevailing skepticism of his times. The Delphic inscription, Gnoti
+seauton, "_know thyself_" becomes henceforth the fundamental maxim of
+philosophy.
+
+[Footnote 474: The Daemon of Socrates has been the subject of much
+discussion among learned men. The notion, once generally received, that
+his _daimon_ was "a familiar genius," is now regarded as an exploded
+error. "Nowhere does Socrates, in Plato or Xenophon, speak of _a_ genius
+or demon, but always of a _doemoniac something (to daimonion_, or
+_daimonin ti_), or of a _sign_, a _voice_, a _divine sign_, a _divine
+voice_" (Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 166).
+"Socrates always speaks of a _divine or supernatural somewhat_ ('divinum
+quiddam,' as Cicero has it), the nature of which he does not attempt to
+divine, and to which he never attributes personality" (Butler's
+"Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 357). The scholar need not
+to be informed that _to daimonion_, in classic literature, means the
+divine Essence (Lat. _numen_), to which are attributed events beyond
+man's power, yet not to be assigned to any special god.]
+
+[Footnote 475: Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 124.]
+
+Truth has a rational, _a priori_ foundation in the constitution of the
+human mind. There are _ideas_ connatural to the human reason which are
+the copies of those archetypal ideas which belong to the Eternal Reason.
+The grand problem of philosophy, therefore, now is--_What are these
+fundamental_ IDEAS _which are unchangeable and permanent, amid all the
+diversifies of human opinion, connecting appearance with reality, and
+constituting a ground of certain knowledge or absolute truth_? Socrates
+may not have held the doctrine of ideas as exhibited by Plato, but he
+certainly believed that there were germs of truth latent in the human
+mind--principles which governed, unconsciously, the processes of
+thought, and that these could be developed by reflection and by
+questioning. These were embryonate in the womb of reason, coming to the
+birth, but needing the "maieutic" or "obstetric" art, that they might be
+brought forth.[476] He would, therefore, become the accoucheur of ideas,
+and deliver minds of that secret truth which lay in their mental
+constitution. And thus _Psychology_ becomes the basis of all legitimate
+metaphysics.
+
+[Footnote 476: Plato's "Theaetetus," Sec. 22.]
+
+By the general consent of antiquity, as well as by the concurrent
+judgment of all modern historians of philosophy, Socrates is regarded as
+having effected a complete revolution in philosophic thought, and, by
+universal consent, he is placed at the commencement of a new era in
+philosophy. Schleiermacher has said, "the service which Socrates
+rendered to philosophy consisted not so much in the truths arrived at
+_as in the_ METHOD _by which truth is sought_." As Bacon inaugurated a
+new method in physical inquiry, so Socrates inaugurated a new method in
+metaphysical inquiry.
+
+What, then, was this _new method_? It was no other than the _inductive_
+method applied to the facts of consciousness. This method is thus
+defined by Aristotle: "Induction is the process from particulars to
+generals;" that is, it is the process of discovering laws from facts,
+causes from effects, being from phenomena. But how is this process of
+induction conducted? By observing and enumerating the real facts which
+are presented in consciousness, by noting their relations of resemblance
+or difference, and by classifying these facts by the aid of these
+relations. In other words, it is _analysis_ applied to the phenomena of
+mind.[477] Now Socrates gave this method of psychological analysis to
+Greek philosophy. There are two things of which Socrates must justly be
+regarded as the author,--the _inductive reasoning_ and _abstract
+definition_.[478] We readily grant that Socrates employed this method
+imperfectly, for methods are the last things perfected in science; but
+still, the Socratic movement was a vast movement in the right direction.
+
+[Footnote 477: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 478: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," vol. xii. ch. iv. p. 359
+(Bohn's edition).]
+
+In what are usually regarded as the purely Socratic dialogues,[479]
+Plato evidently designs to exhibit this method of Socrates. They proceed
+continually on the firm conviction that there is a standard or criterion
+of truth in the reason of man, and that, by _reflection_, man can
+apprehend and recognize the truth. To awaken this power of reflection;
+to compel men to analyze their language and their thoughts; to lead them
+from the particular and the contingent, to the universal and the
+necessary; and to teach them to test their opinions by the inward
+standard of truth, was the aim of Socrates. These dialogues are a
+picture of the conversations of Socrates. They are literally an
+education of the thinking faculty. Their purpose is to discipline men to
+think for themselves, rather than to furnish opinions for them. In many
+of these dialogues Socrates affirms nothing. After producing many
+arguments, and examining a question on all sides, he leaves it
+undetermined. At the close of the dialogue he is as far from a
+declaration of opinions as at the commencement. His grand effort, like
+that of Bacon's, is to furnish men a correct method of inquiry, rather
+than to apply that method and give them results.
+
+[Footnote 479: "Laches," "Charmides," "Lysis," "The Rivals," "First and
+Second Alcibiades," "Theages," "Clitophon." See Whewell's translation,
+vol. i.]
+
+We must not, however, from thence conclude that Socrates did not himself
+attain any definite conclusions, or reach any specific and valuable
+results. When, in reply to his friends who reported the answer of the
+oracle of Delphi, that "Socrates was the wisest of men," he said, "he
+supposed the oracle declared him wise _because he knew nothing_," he did
+not mean that true knowledge was unattainable, for his whole life had
+been spent in efforts to attain it. He simply indicates the disposition
+of mind which is most befitting and most helpful to the seeker after
+truth. He must be conscious of his own ignorance. He must not exalt
+himself. He must not put his own conceits in the way of the thing he
+would know. He must have an open eye, a single purpose, an honest mind,
+to prepare him to receive light when it comes. And that there is light,
+that there is a source whence light comes, he avowed in every word and
+act.
+
+Socrates unquestionably believed in one Supreme God, the immaterial,
+infinite Governor of all. He cherished that instinctive, spontaneous
+faith in God and his Providence which is the universal faith of the
+human heart. He saw this faith revealed in the religious sentiments of
+all nations, and in the tendency to worship so universally
+characteristic of humanity.[480] He appealed to the consciousness of
+absolute dependence--the persuasion, wrought by God in the minds of all
+men, that "He is able to make men happy or miserable," and the
+consequent sense of obligation which teaches man he ought to obey God.
+And he regarded with some degree of affectionate tenderness the common
+sentiment of his countrymen, that the Divine Government was conducted
+through the ministry of subordinate deities or generated gods. But he
+sought earnestly to prevent the presence of these subordinate agents
+from intercepting the clear view of the Supreme God.
+
+The faith of Socrates was not, however, grounded on mere feeling and
+sentiment. He endeavored to place the knowledge of God on a rational
+basis. We can not read the arguments he employed without being convinced
+that he anticipated all the subsequent writers on Natural Theology in
+his treatment of the argument from _special ends_ or _final causes_. We
+venture to abridge the account which is given by Xenophon of the
+conversation with Aristodemus:[481]
+
+[Footnote 480: "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iv. Sec. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 481: Ibid., bk. i. ch. iv.]
+
+"I will now relate the manner in which I once heard Socrates discoursing
+with Aristodemus concerning the Deity; for, observing that he never
+prayed nor sacrificed to the gods, but, on the contrary, ridiculed those
+who did, he said to him:
+
+"'Tell me, Aristodemus, is there any man you admire on account of his
+merits? Aristodemus having answered, 'Many,--'Name some of them, I pray
+you,' said Socrates. 'I admire,' said Aristodemus, 'Homer for his Epic
+poetry, Melanippides for his dithyrambics, Sophocles for his tragedy,
+Polycletus for statuary, and Zeuxis for painting.'
+
+"'But which seemed to you most worthy of admiration, Aristodemus--the
+artist who forms images void of motion and intelligence, or one who has
+skill to produce animals that are endued, not only with activity, but
+understanding?'
+
+"'The latter, there can be no doubt,' replied Aristodemus, 'provided the
+production was not the effect of chance, but of wisdom and contrivance.'
+
+"'But since there are many things, some of which we can easily see the
+use of, while we can not say of others to what purpose they are
+produced, which of these, Aristodemus, do you suppose the work of
+wisdom?'
+
+"'It would seem the most reasonable to affirm it of those whose fitness
+and utility are so evidently apparent,' answered Aristodemus.
+
+"'But it is evidently apparent that He who, at the beginning, made man,
+endued him with senses because they were good for him; eyes wherewith to
+behold what is visible, and ears to hear whatever was heard; for, say,
+Aristodemus, to what purpose should odor be prepared, if the sense of
+smelling had been denied or why the distinction of bitter or sweet, of
+savory or unsavory, unless a palate had been likewise given,
+conveniently placed to arbitrate between them and proclaim the
+difference? Is not that Providence, Aristodemus, in a most eminent
+manner conspicuous, which, because the eye of a man is so delicate in
+its contexture, hath therefore prepared eyelids like doors whereby to
+secure it, which extend of themselves whenever it is needful, and again
+close when sleep approaches? Are not these eyelids provided, as it were,
+with a fence on the edge of them to keep off the wind and guard the eye?
+Even the eyebrow itself is not without its office, but, as a penthouse,
+is prepared to turn off the sweat, which falling from the forehead might
+enter and annoy that no less tender than astonishing part of us. Is it
+not to be admired that the ears should take in sounds of every sort, and
+yet are not too much filled with them? That the fore teeth of the animal
+should be formed in such a manner as is evidently best for cutting, and
+those on the side for grinding it to pieces? That the mouth, through
+which this food is conveyed, should be placed so near the nose and eyes
+as to prevent the passing unnoticed whatever is unfit for
+nourishment?... And canst thou still doubt, Aristodemus, whether a
+_disposition of parts like this should be a work of chance, or of wisdom
+and contrivance_?'
+
+"'I have no longer any doubt,' replied Aristodemus; 'and, indeed, the
+more I consider it, the more evident it appears to me that man must be
+the masterpiece of some great Artificer, carrying along with it infinite
+marks of the love and favor of Him who hath thus formed it.'
+
+"'But, further (unless thou desirest to ask me questions), seeing,
+Aristodemus, thou thyself art conscious of reason and intelligence,
+supposest thou there is no intelligence elsewhere? Thou knowest thy body
+to be a small part of that wide-extended earth thou everywhere
+beholdest; the moisture contained in it thou also knowest to be a
+portion of that mighty mass of waters whereof seas themselves are but a
+part, while the rest of the elements contribute out of their abundance
+to thy formation. It is the _soul_, then, alone, that intellectual part
+of us, which is come to thee by some lucky chance, from I know not
+where. If so, there is no intelligence elsewhere; and we must be forced
+to confess that this stupendous universe, with all the various bodies
+contained therein--equally amazing, whether we consider their magnitude
+or number, whatever their use, whatever their order--all have been
+produced by chance, not by intelligence!'
+
+"'It is with difficulty that I can suppose otherwise,' returned
+Aristodemus; 'for I behold none of those gods whom you speak of as
+framing and governing the world; whereas I see the artists when at their
+work here among us.'
+
+"'Neither yet seest thou thy soul, Aristodemus, which, however, most
+assuredly governs thy body; although it may well seem, by thy manner of
+talking, that it is chance and not reason which governs thee.'
+
+"'I do not despise the gods,' said Aristodemus; 'on the contrary, I
+conceive so highly of their excellency, as to suppose they stand in no
+need of me or of my services.'
+
+"'Thou mistakest the matter,' Aristodemus, 'the great magnificence they
+have shown in their care of thee, so much the more honor and service
+thou owest them.'
+
+"'Be assured,' said Aristodemus, 'if I once could persuade myself the
+gods take care of man, I should want no monitor to remind me of my
+duty.'
+
+"'And canst thou doubt, Aristodemus, if the gods take care of man? Hath
+not the glorious privilege of walking upright been alone bestowed on
+him, whereby he may with the better advantage survey what is around him,
+contemplate with more ease those splendid objects which are above, and
+avoid the numerous ills and inconveniences which would otherwise befall
+him? Other animals, indeed, they have provided with feet; but to man
+they have also given hands, with which he can form many things for use,
+and make himself happier than creatures of any other kind. A tongue hath
+been bestowed on every other animal; but what animal, except man, hath
+the power of forming words with it whereby to explain his thoughts and
+make them intelligible to others? But it is not with respect to the body
+alone that the gods have shown themselves bountiful to man. Their most
+excellent gift is that of a soul they have infused into him, which so
+far surpasses what is elsewhere to be found; for by what animal except
+man is even the existence of the gods discovered, who have produced and
+still uphold in such regular order this beautiful and stupendous frame
+of the universe? What other creature is to be found that can serve and
+adore them?... In thee, Aristodemus, has been joined to a wonderful soul
+a body no less wonderful; and sayest thou, after this, the gods take no
+thought for me? What wouldst thou, then, more to convince thee of their
+care?'
+
+"'I would they should send and inform me,' said Aristodemus, 'what
+things I ought or ought not to do, in like manner as thou sayest they
+frequently do to thee.'"
+
+In reply, Socrates shows that the revelations of God which are made in
+nature, in history, in consciousness, and by oracles, are made _for_ all
+men and _to_ all men. He then concludes with these remarkable words:
+"As, therefore, amongst men we make best trial of the affection and
+gratitude of our neighbor by showing him kindness, and make discovery of
+his wisdom by consulting him in our distress, do thou, in like manner,
+behave towards the gods; and if thou wouldst experience what their
+wisdom and their love, render thyself deserving of some of those divine
+secrets which may not be penetrated by man, and are imparted to those
+alone who consult, who adore, and who obey the Deity. Then shalt thou,
+my Aristodemus, understand _there is a Being whose eye passes through
+all nature, and whose ear is open to every sound; extended to all
+places, extending through all time; and whose bounty and care can know
+no other bounds than those fixed by his own creation_".[482]
+
+[Footnote 482: Lewes's translation, in "Biog. History of Philosophy,"
+pp. 160-165.]
+
+Socrates was no less earnest in his belief in the immortality of the
+soul, and a state of future retribution. He had reverently listened to
+the intuitions of his own soul--the instinctive longings and aspirations
+of his own heart, as a revelation from God. He felt that all the powers
+and susceptibilities of his inward nature were in conscious adaptation
+to the idea of immortality, and that its realization was the appropriate
+destiny of man. He was convinced that a future life was needed to avenge
+the wrongs and reverse the unjust judgments of the present life;[483]
+needed that virtue may receive its meet reward, and the course of
+Providence may have its amplest vindication. He saw this faith reflected
+in the universal convictions of mankind, and the "common traditions" of
+all ages.[484] No one refers more frequently than Socrates to the grand
+old mythologic stories which express this faith; to Minos, and
+Rhadamanthus, and AEacus, and Triptolemus, who are "real judges," and
+who, in "the Place of Departed Spirits, administer _justice_."[485] He
+believed that in that future state the pursuit of wisdom would be his
+chief employment, and he anticipated the pleasure of mingling in the
+society of the wise, and good, and great of every age.
+
+[Footnote 483: "Apology," Sec. 32, p. 329 (Whewell's edition).]
+
+[Footnote 484: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 485: "Apology," p. 330.]
+
+Whilst, then, Socrates was not the first to teach the doctrine of
+immortality, because no one could be said to have first _discovered_ it
+any more than to have first discovered the existence of a God, he was
+certainly the first to place it upon a philosophic basis. The Phaedo
+presents the doctrine and the _reasoning_ by which Socrates had elevated
+his mind above the fear of death. Some of the arguments may be purely
+Platonic, the argument especially grounded on "ideas;" still, as a
+whole, it must be regarded as a tolerably correct presentation of the
+manner in which Socrates would prove the immortality of the soul.
+
+In _Ethics_, Socrates was pre-eminently himself. The systematic
+resolution of the whole theory of society into the elementary principle
+of natural law, was peculiar to him. _Justice_ was the cardinal
+principle which must lie at the foundation of all good government. The
+word sophia--_wisdom_--included all excellency in personal morals,
+whether as manifested (reflectively) in the conduct of one's self, or
+(socially) towards others. And _Happiness_, in its purity and
+perfection, can only be found in virtuous action.[486]
+
+[Footnote 486: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp.
+360, 361.]
+
+Socrates left nothing behind him that could with propriety be called a
+_school_. His chief glory is that he inaugurated a new _method_ of
+inquiry, which, in Plato and Aristotle, we shall see applied. He gave a
+new and vital impulse to human thought, which endured for ages; "and he
+left, as an inheritance for humanity, the example of a heroic life
+devoted wholly to the pursuit of truth, and crowned with martyrdom."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_).
+
+THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (_continued_).
+
+PLATO.
+
+
+We have seen that the advent of Socrates marks a new era in the history
+of speculative thought. Greek philosophy, which at first was a
+philosophy of nature, now changes its direction, its character, and its
+method, and becomes a philosophy of mind. This, of course, does not mean
+that now it had mind alone for its object; on the contrary, it tended,
+as indeed philosophy must always tend, to the conception of a rational
+ideal or _intellectual system of the universe_. It started from the
+phenomena of mind, began with the study of human thought, and it made
+the knowledge of mind, of its ideas and laws, the basis of a higher
+philosophy, which should interpret all nature. In other words, it
+proceeded from psychology, through dialectics, to ontology.[487]
+
+[Footnote 487: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 413.]
+
+This new movement we have designated in general terms as the _Socratic
+School_. Not that we are to suppose that, in any technical sense,
+Socrates founded _a_ school. The Academy, the Lyceum, the Stoa, and the
+Garden, were each the chosen resort of distinct philosophic sects, the
+locality of separate schools; but Athens itself, the whole city, was the
+scene of the studies, the conversations, and the labors of Socrates. He
+wandered through the streets absorbed in thought. Sometimes he stood
+still for hours lost in profoundest meditation; at other times he might
+be seen in the market-place, surrounded by a crowd of Athenians, eagerly
+discussing the great questions of the day.
+
+Socrates, then, was not, in the usual sense of the word, a teacher. He
+is not to be found in the Stoa or the Grove, with official aspect,
+expounding a system of doctrine. He is "the garrulous oddity" of the
+streets, putting the most searching and perplexing questions to every
+bystander, and making every man conscious of his ignorance. He delivered
+no lectures; he simply talked. He wrote no books; he only argued: and
+what is usually styled his school must be understood as embracing those
+who attended him in public as listeners and admirers, and who caught his
+spirit, adopted his philosophic _method_, and, in after life, elaborated
+and systematized the ideas they had gathered from him.
+
+Among the regular or the occasional hearers of Socrates were many who
+were little addicted to philosophic speculation. Some were warriors, as
+Nicias and Laches; some statesmen, as Critias and Critobulus; some were
+politicians, in the worst sense of that word, as Glaucon; and some were
+young men of fashion, as Euthydemus and Alcibiades. These were all alike
+delighted with his inimitable irony, his versatility of genius, his
+charming modes of conversation, his adroitness of reply; and they were
+compelled to confess the wisdom and justness of his opinions, and to
+admire the purity and goodness of his life. The magic power which he
+wielded, even over men of dissolute character, is strikingly depicted by
+Alcibiades in his speech at "the Banquet."[488] Of these listeners,
+however, we can not now speak. Our business is with those only who
+imbibed his philosophic spirit, and became the future teachers of
+philosophy. And even of those who, as Euclid of Megara, and Antisthenes
+the Cynic, and Aristippus of Cyrenaica, borrowed somewhat from the
+dialectic of Socrates, we shall say nothing. They left no lasting
+impression upon the current of philosophic thought, because their
+systems were too partial, and narrow, and fragmentary. It is in Plato
+and Aristotle that the true development of the Socratic philosophy is to
+be sought, and in Plato chiefly, as the disciple and friend of Socrates.
+
+[Footnote 488: "Banquet," Secs. 39, 40.]
+
+Plato (B.C. 430-347) was pre-eminently the pupil of Socrates. He came to
+Socrates when he was but twenty years of age, and remained with him to
+the day of his death.
+
+Diogenes Laertius reports the story of Socrates having dreamed he found
+an unfledged cygnet on his knee. In a few moments it became winged and
+flew away, uttering a sweet sound. The next day a young man came to him
+who was said to reckon Solon among his near ancestors, and who looked,
+through him, to Codrus and the god Poseidon. That young man was Plato,
+and Socrates pronounced him to be the bird he had seen in his
+dream.[489]
+
+[Footnote 489: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. iii.
+ch. vii.]
+
+Some have supposed that this old tradition intimates that Plato departed
+from the method of his master--he became fledged and flew away into the
+air. But we know that Plato did not desert his master whilst he was
+living, and there is no evidence that he abandoned his method after he
+was dead. He was the best expounder and the most rigid observer of the
+Socratic "organon." The influence of Socrates upon the philosophy of
+Plato is everywhere discernible. Plato had been taught by Socrates, that
+beyond the world of sense there is a world of eternal truth, seen by the
+eye of reason alone. He had also learned from him that the eye of reason
+is purified and strengthened by _reflection_, and that to reflect is to
+observe, and analyze, and define, and classify the facts of
+consciousness. Self-reflection, then, he had been taught to regard as
+the key of real knowledge. By a completer induction, a more careful and
+exact analysis, and a more accurate definition, he carried this
+philosophic method forward towards maturity. He sought to solve the
+problem of _being_ by the principles revealed in his own consciousness,
+and in the _ultimate ideas of the reason_ to find the foundation of all
+real knowledge, of all truth, and of all certitude.
+
+Plato was admirably fitted for these sublime investigations by the
+possession of those moral qualities which were so prominent in the
+character of his master. He had that same deep seriousness of spirit,
+that earnestness and rectitude of purpose, that longing after truth,
+that inward sympathy with, and reverence for justice, and purity, and
+goodness, which dwelt in the heart of Socrates, and which constrained
+him to believe in their reality and permanence. He could not endure the
+thought that all ideas of right were arbitrary and factitious, that all
+knowledge was unreal, that truth was a delusion, and certainty a dream.
+The world of sense might be fleeting and delusive, but the voice of
+reason and conscience would not mislead the upright man. The opinions of
+individual men might vary, but the universal consciousness of the race
+could not prevaricate. However conflicting the opinions of men
+concerning beautiful things, right actions, and good sentiments, Plato
+was persuaded there are ideas of Order, and Right, and Good, which are
+universal, unchangeable, and eternal. Untruth, injustice, and wrong may
+endure for a day or two, perhaps for a century or two, but they can not
+always last; they must perish. The _just_ thing and the _true_ thing are
+the only enduring things; these are eternal. Plato had a sublime
+conviction that his mission was to draw the Athenian mind away from the
+fleeting, the transitory, and the uncertain, and lead them to the
+contemplation of an Eternal Truth, an Eternal Justice, an Eternal
+Beauty, all proceeding from and united in an Eternal Being--the ultimate
+agathon--_the Supremely Good_. The knowledge of this "Supreme Good" he
+regarded as the highest science.[490]
+
+[Footnote 490: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xvi. p. 193.]
+
+Added to these moral qualifications, Plato had the further qualification
+of a comprehensive knowledge of all that had been achieved by his
+predecessors. In this regard he had enjoyed advantages superior to those
+of Socrates. Socrates was deficient in erudition, properly so called. He
+had studied men rather than books. His wisdom consisted in an extensive
+_observation_, the results of which he had generalized with more or less
+accuracy. A complete philosophic method demands not only a knowledge of
+contemporaneous opinions and modes of thought, but also a knowledge of
+the succession and development of thought in past ages. Its instrument
+is not simply psychological analysis, but also historical analysis as a
+counterproof.[491] And this erudition Plato supplied. He studied
+carefully the doctrines of the Ionian, Italian, and Eleatic schools.
+Cratylus gave him special instruction in the theories of
+Heraclitus.[492] He secured an intimate acquaintance with the lofty
+speculations of Pythagoras, under Archytas of Tarentum, and in the
+writings of Philolaus, whose books he is said to have purchased. He
+studied the principles of Parmenides under Hermogenes,[493] and he more
+than once speaks of Parmenides in terms of admiration, as one whom he
+had early learned to reverence.[494] He studied mathematics under
+Theodoras, the most eminent geometrician of his day. He travelled in
+Southern Italy, in Sicily, and, in search of a deeper wisdom, he pursued
+his course to Egypt.[495] Enriched by the fruits of all previous
+speculations, he returned to Athens, and devoted the remainder of his
+life to the development of a comprehensive system "which was to combine,
+to conciliate, and to supersede them all."[496] The knowledge he had
+derived from travel, from books, from oral instruction, he fused and
+blended with his own speculations, whilst the Socratic spirit mellowed
+the whole, and gave to it a unity and scientific completeness which has
+excited the admiration and wonder of succeeding ages.[497]
+
+[Footnote 491: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 31.]
+
+[Footnote 492: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 493: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. iii.
+ch. viii. p. 115.]
+
+[Footnote 494: See especially "Theaetetus," Sec. 101.]
+
+[Footnote 495: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+147.]
+
+[Footnote 496: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+22.]
+
+[Footnote 497: Encyclopaedia Britannica, article "Plato."]
+
+The question as to _the nature, the sources, and the validity of human
+knowledge_ had attracted general attention previous to the time of
+Socrates and Plato. As the results of this protracted controversy, the
+opinions of philosophers had finally crystallized in two well-defined
+and opposite theories of knowledge.
+
+1. That which reduced all knowledge to the accidental and passively
+receptive quality of the organs of sense and which asserted, as its
+fundamental maxim, that "_Science consists in_
+aisthesis--_sensation_."[498]
+
+This doctrine had its foundation in the physical philosophy of
+Heraclitus. He had taught that all things are in a perpetual flux and
+change. "Motion gives the appearance of existence and of generation."
+"Nothing _is_, but is always a _becoming"_[499] Material substances are
+perpetually losing their identity, and there is no permanent essence or
+being to be found. Hence Protagoras inferred that truth must vary with
+the ever-varying sensations of the individual. "Man (the individual) is
+the measure of all things." Knowledge is a purely relative thing, and
+every man's opinion is truth for him.[500] The law of right, as
+exemplified in the dominion of a party, is the law of the strongest;
+fluctuating with the accidents of power, and never attaining a permanent
+being. "Whatever a city enacts as appearing just to itself, this also is
+just to the city that enacts it, so long as it continues in force."[501]
+"The just, then, is nothing else but that which is expedient for the
+strongest."[502]
+
+[Footnote 498: "Theaetetus," Sec. 23.]
+
+[Footnote 499: Ibid., Secs. 25, 26.]
+
+[Footnote 500: Ibid., Secs. 39, 87.]
+
+[Footnote 501: Ibid., Sec. 87.]
+
+[Footnote 502: "Republic," bk. i. ch. xii.]
+
+2. The second theory is that which denies the existence (except as
+phantasms, images, or mere illusions of the mind) of the whole of
+sensible phenomena, and refers all knowledge to the _rational
+apperception of unity_ (to en) _or the One_.
+
+This was the doctrine of the later Eleatics. The world of sense was, to
+Parmenides and Zeno, a blank negation, the _non ens_. The identity of
+thought and existence was the fundamental principle of their philosophy.
+
+      "Thought is the same thing as the cause of thought; For
+      without the thing in which it is announced, You can not find
+      the thought; for there is nothing, nor shall be, Except the
+      existing."[503]
+
+[Footnote 503: Parmenides, quoted in Lewes's "Biog. History of
+Philosophy," p. 54.]
+
+This theory, therefore, denied to man any valid knowledge of the
+external world.
+
+It will at once be apparent to the intelligent reader that the direct
+and natural result of both these theories[504] of knowledge was a
+tendency to universal skepticism. A spirit of utter indifference to
+truth and righteousness was the prevailing spirit of Athenian society.
+That spirit is strikingly exhibited in the speech of Callicles, "the
+shrewd man of the world," in "Gorgias" (Sec.85, 86). Is this new to our
+ears?" My dear Socrates, you talk of _law_. Now the laws, in my
+judgment, are just the work of the weakest and most numerous; in framing
+them they never thought but of themselves and their own interests; they
+never approve or censure except in reference to _this._ Hence it is that
+the cant arises that tyranny is improper and unjust, and to struggle for
+eminence, guilt. Unable to rise themselves, of course they would wish to
+preach liberty and equality. But nature proclaims the law of the
+stronger.... We surround our children from their infancy with
+preposterous prejudices about liberty and justice. The man of sense
+tramples on such impositions, and shows what Nature's justice is.... I
+confess, Socrates, philosophy is a highly amusing study--in moderation,
+and for boys. But protracted too long, it becomes a perfect plague. Your
+philosopher is a complete novice in the life _comme il faut_.... I like
+very well to see a child babble and stammer; there is even a grace about
+it when it becomes his age. But to see a man continue the prattle of the
+child, is absurd. Just so with your philosophy." The consequence of this
+prevalent spirit of universal skepticism was a general laxity of morals.
+The Aleibiades, of the "_Symposium_," is the ideal representative of the
+young aristocracy of Athens. Such was the condition of society
+generally, and such the degeneracy of even the Government itself, that
+Plato impressively declares "that God alone could save the young men of
+his age from ruin."[505]
+
+[Footnote 504: Between these two extreme theories there were offered
+two, apparently less extravagant, accounts of the nature and limits of
+human knowledge--one declaring that "_Science_(real knowledge) _consists
+in right opinion_" (doxa alethes), but having no further basis in the
+reason of man ("Theaestetus," Sec. 108); and the other affirming that
+"_Science is right opinion with logical explication or definition_"
+(meta loxou, "Theaetetus," Sec. 139). A close examination will, however,
+convince us that these are but modifications of the sensational theory.
+The latter forcibly remind us of the system of Locke, who adds
+"reflection" to "sensation," but still maintains that all on "simple
+ideas" are obtained from without, and that these are the only material
+upon which reflection can be exercised. Thus the human mind has no
+criterion of truth within itself, no elements of knowledge which are
+connatural and inborn.]
+
+[Footnote 505: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vii.]
+
+Therefore the grand, the vital, the most urgent question for his times,
+as indeed for all times, was, _What is Truth? What is Right_? In the
+midst of all this variableness and uncertainty of human opinion, is
+there no ground of certainty? Amid all the fluctuations and changes
+around us and within us, is there nothing that is immutable and
+permanent? Have we no ultimate standard of Right? Is there no criterion
+of Truth? Plato believed most confidently there was such a criterion and
+standard. He had learned from Socrates, his master, to cherish an
+unwavering faith in the existence of an Eternal Truth, an Eternal Order,
+an Eternal Good, the knowledge of which is essential to the perfection
+and happiness of man, and which knowledge must therefore be presumed to
+be attainable by man. Henceforth, therefore, the ceaseless effort of
+Plato's life is to attain a standard (kriterion)[506]--a CRITERION OF
+TRUTH.
+
+[Footnote 506: "Theaetetus," Sec. 89.]
+
+At the outset of his philosophic studies, Plato had derived from
+Socrates an important principle, which became the guide of all his
+subsequent inquiries. He had learned from him that the criterion of
+truth must be no longer sought amid the ever-changing phenomena of the
+"sensible world." This had been attempted by the philosophers of the
+Ionian school, and ended in failure and defeat. It must therefore be
+sought in the metaphenomenal--the "intelligible world;" that is, it must
+be sought in the apperceptions of the reason, and not in opinions
+founded on sensation. In other words, he must look _within_. Here, by
+reflection, he could recognize, dimly and imperfectly at first, but
+increasing gradually in clearness and distinctness, two classes of
+cognitions, having essentially distinct and opposite characteristics. He
+found one class that was complex (synkegumenon), changeable (thateron),
+contingent and relative (ta pros ti schesin echonta); the other, simple
+(kexorismenon), unchangeable (akineton), constant (tauton), permanent
+(to on aei), and absolute (anypotheton = aploun). One class that may be
+questioned, the other admitting of no question, because self-evident and
+necessary, and therefore compelling belief. One class grounded on
+sense-perception, the other conceived by reason alone. But whilst the
+reason recognizes, it does not create them. They are not particular and
+individual, but universal. They belong not to the man, but to the race.
+
+He found, then, that there are in all minds certain "principles" which
+are fundamental--principles which lie at the basis of all our cognitions
+of the objective world, and which, as "mental laws," determine all our
+forms of thought; and principles, too, which have this marvellous and
+undeniable character, that they are encountered in the most common
+experiences, and, at the same time, instead of being circumscribed
+within the limits of experience, transcend and govern it--principles
+which are _universal_ in the midst of particular phenomena--_necessary,_
+though mingled with things contingent--to our eyes _infinite_ and
+_absolute_, even when appearing in us the relative and finite beings
+that we are.[507] These first or fundamental principles Plato called
+IDEAS (ideai).
+
+[Footnote 507: Cousin's "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," p. 40.]
+
+In attempting to present to the reader an adequate representation of the
+Platonic Ideas, we shall be under the necessity of anticipating some of
+the results of his Dialectical method before we have expounded that
+method. And, further, in order that it may be properly appreciated by
+the modern student, we shall avail ourselves of the lights which modern
+psychology, faithful to the method of Plato, has thrown upon the
+subject. Whilst, however, we admit that modern psychology has succeeded
+in giving more definiteness and precision to the "doctrine of Ideas," we
+shall find that all that is fundamentally valuable and true was present
+to the mind of Plato. Whatever superiority the "Spiritual" philosophy of
+to-day may have over the philosophy of past ages, it has attained that
+superiority by its adherence to the principles and method of Plato.
+
+In order to the completeness of our preliminary exposition of the
+Platonic doctrine of Ideas, we shall conditionally assume, as a natural
+and legitimate hypothesis, the doctrine so earnestly asserted by Plato,
+that the visible universe, at least in its present form, is an _effect_
+which must have had a _cause_,[508] and that the Order, and Beauty, and
+Excellence of the universe are the result of the presence and operation
+of a "regulating Intelligence"--a _Supreme Mind_.[509] Now that,
+anterior to the creation of the universe, there must have existed in the
+Eternal Mind certain fundamental principles of Order, Right, and Good,
+will not be denied. Every conceivable _form_, every possible _relation_,
+every principle of _right_, must have been eternally present to the
+Divine thought. As pure intelligence, the Deity must have always been
+self-conscious--must have known himself as substance and cause, as the
+Infinite and Perfect. If then the Divine Energy is put forth in creative
+acts, that energy must obey those eternal principles of Order, Right,
+and Good. If the Deity operate at all, he must operate rightly, wisely,
+and well. The created universe must be an _image_, in the sphere of
+sense, of the ideas which inhere in the reason of the great First Cause.
+
+[Footnote 508: "Timaeus," ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 509: "Phaedo," Sec. 105.]
+
+"Let us declare," says Plato, "with what _motive_ the Creator hath
+formed nature and the universe. He was _good_, and in the good no manner
+of envy can, on any subject, possibly subsist. Exempt from envy, he had
+wished that all things should, as far as possible, _resemble
+himself_.... It was not, and is not to be allowed for the Supremely Good
+to do any thing except what is most _excellent_ (kalliston)--most
+_fair_, most _beautiful_."[510] Therefore, argues Plato, "inasmuch as
+the world is the most beautiful of things, and its artificer the best of
+causes, it is evident that the Creator and Father of the universe looked
+to the _Eternal Model_(paradeigma), pattern, or plan,"[511] which lay in
+his own mind. And thus this one, only-generated universe, is the _image_
+(eikon) of that God who is the object of the intellect, the greatest,
+the best, and the most perfect Being.[512]
+
+[Footnote 510: "Timaeus," ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 511: Ibid., ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 512: "Timaeus," ch. lxxiii.]
+
+And then, furthermore, if this Supreme Intelligence, this Eternal Mind,
+shall create another _mind_, it must, in a still higher degree, resemble
+him. Inasmuch as it is a rational nature, it must, in a peculiar sense,
+partake of the Divine characteristics. "The soul," says Plato, "is that
+which most partakes of the _Divine_"[513] The soul must, therefore, have
+native _ideas_ and sentiments which correlate it with the Divine
+original. The ideas of substance and cause, of unity and identity, of
+the infinite and perfect, must be mirrored there. As it is the
+"offspring of God,"[514] it must bear some traces and lineaments of its
+Divine parentage. That soul must be configured and correlated to those
+principles of Order, Right, and Good which dwell in the Eternal Mind.
+And because it has within itself the same ideas and laws, according to
+which the great Architect built the universe, therefore it is capable of
+knowing, and, in some degree, of comprehending, the intellectual system
+of the universe. It apprehends the external world by a light which the
+reason supplies. It interprets nature according to principles and laws
+which God has inwrought within the very essence of the soul. "That which
+imparts truth to knowable things, and gives the knower his power of
+knowing truth, is the _idea of the good_, and you are to conceive of
+this as the source of knowledge and of truth."[515]
+
+[Footnote 513: "Laws," bk. v. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 514: Ibid., bk. x.]
+
+[Footnote 515: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xviii.]
+
+And now we are prepared to form a clear conception of the Platonic
+doctrine of Ideas. Viewed in their relation to the Eternal Reason, as
+giving the primordial thought and law of all being, these principles are
+simply eide auta kath auta--_ideas in themselves_--the essential
+qualities or attributes of Him who is the supreme and ultimate Cause of
+all existence. When regarded as before the Divine imagination, giving
+definite forms and relations, they are the tupoi, the paradeigmata--_the
+types_, _models, patterns, ideals_ according to which the universe was
+fashioned. Contemplated in their actual embodiment in the laws, and
+typical forms of the material world, they are eikones--_images_ of the
+eternal perfections of God. The world of sense pictures the world of
+reason by a participation (methexis) of the ideas. And viewed as
+interwoven in the very texture and framework of the soul, they are
+omoiomata--copies of the Divine Ideas which are the primordial laws of
+knowing, thinking, and reasoning. Ideas are thus the nexus of relation
+between God and the visible universe, and between the human and the
+Divine reason.[516] There is something divine in the world, and in the
+human soul, namely, _the eternal laws and reasons of things_, mingled
+with the endless diversity and change of sensible phenomena. These ideas
+are "the light of the intelligible world;" they render the invisible
+world of real Being perceptible to the reason of man. "Light is the
+offspring of the Good, which the Good has produced in his own likeness.
+Light in the visible world is what the _idea of the Good_ is in the
+intelligible world. And this offspring of the Good--light--has the same
+relation to vision and visible things which the Good has to intellect
+and intelligible things."[517]
+
+[Footnote 516: "Now, Idea is, as regards God, a mental operation by him
+(the notions of God, eternal and perfect in themselves); as regards us,
+the first things perceptible by mind; as regards Matter, a standard; but
+as regards the world, perceptible by sense, a pattern; but as considered
+with reference to itself, an existence."--Alcinous, "Introduction to the
+Doctrines of Plato," p. 261.
+
+"What general notions are to our minds, he (Plato) held, ideas are to
+the Supreme Reason (nous basileus); they are the eternal thoughts of the
+Divine Intellect, and we attain truth when our thoughts conform with
+His--when our general notions are in conformity with the
+ideas."--Thompson, "Laws of Thought," p. 119.]
+
+[Footnote 517: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xix.]
+
+_Science_ is, then, according to Plato, _the knowledge of universal,
+necessary, unchangeable, and eternal ideas_. The simple cognition of the
+concrete phenomena of the universe is not regarded by him as _real_
+knowledge. "Science, or real knowledge, belongs to _Being_, and
+ignorance to _non_-Being." Whilst that which is conversant only "with
+that which partakes of both--of being and non-being--and which can not
+be said either to be or not to be"--that which is perpetually
+"becoming," but never "really is," is "simply _opinion_, and not real
+knowledge."[518] And those only are "philosophers" who have a knowledge
+of the _really-existing_, in opposition to the mere seeming; of the
+_always-existing_, in opposition to the transitory; and of that which
+exists _permanently_, in opposition to that which waxes and wanes--is
+developed and destroyed alternately. "Those who recognize many beautiful
+things, but who can not see the Beautiful itself, and can not even
+follow those who would lead them to it, they _opine_, but do not _know_.
+And the same may be said of those who recognize right actions, but do
+not recognize an absolute righteousness. And so of other ideas. But they
+who look at these ideas--permanent and unchangeable ideas--these men
+_really know_."[519] Those are the true philosophers alone who love the
+sight of truth, and who have attained to the vision of the eternal
+order, and righteousness, and beauty, and goodness in the Eternal Being.
+And the means by which the soul is raised to this vision of real Being
+(to ontos on) is THE SCIENCE OF REAL KNOWLEDGE.
+
+Plato, in the "Theaetetus," puts this question by the interlocutor
+Socrates, "What is Science (Episteme) or positive knowledge?"[520]
+Theaetetus essays a variety of answers, such as, "Science is sensation,"
+"Science is right judgment or opinion," "Science is right opinion with
+logical definition." These, in the estimation of the Platonic Socrates,
+are all unsatisfactory and inadequate. But after you have toiled to the
+end of this remarkable discussion, in which Socrates demolishes all the
+then received theories of knowledge, he gives you no answer of his own.
+He abruptly closes the discussion by naively remarking that, at any
+rate, Theaetetus will learn that he does not understand the subject; and
+the ground is now cleared for an original investigation.
+
+[Footnote 518: "Republic," bk. v. ch. xx.]
+
+[Footnote 519: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxii.]
+
+[Footnote 520: "Theaetetus," Sec. 10.]
+
+This investigation is resumed in the "Republic." This greatest work of
+Plato's was designed not only to exhibit a scheme of Polity, and present
+a system of Ethics, but also, at least in its digressions, to propound a
+system of Metaphysics more complete and solid than had yet appeared. The
+discussion as to the _powers_ or _faculties_ by which we obtain
+knowledge, the _method_ or _process_ by which real knowledge is
+attained, and the ultimate _objects_ or _ontological grounds_ of all
+real knowledge, commences at Sec. 18, book v., and extends to the end of
+book vii.
+
+That we may reach a comprehensive view of this "sublimest of sciences,"
+we shall find it necessary to consider--
+
+1st. _What are the powers or faculties by which we obtain knowledge, and
+what are the limits and degrees of human knowledge?_
+
+2d. _What is the method in which, or the processes and laws according to
+which, the mind operates in obtaining knowledge?_
+
+3d. _What are the ultimate results attained by this method? what are the
+objective and ontological grounds of all real knowledge?_
+
+The answer to the first question will give the PLATONIC PSYCHOLOGY; the
+answer to the second will exhibit the PLATONIC DIALECTIC; the answer to
+the last will reveal the PLATONIC ONTOLOGY.
+
+I. PLATONIC PSYCHOLOGY.
+
+Every successful inquiry as to the reality and validity of human
+knowledge must commence by clearly determining, by rigid analysis, what
+are the actual phenomena presented in consciousness, what are the powers
+or faculties supposed by these phenomena, and what reliance are we to
+place upon the testimony of these faculties? And, especially, if it be
+asserted that there is a science of absolute Reality, of ultimate and
+essential Being, then the most important and vital question is, By what
+power do we cognize real Being? through what faculty do we obtain the
+knowledge of that which absolutely _is_? If by sensation we only obtain
+the knowledge of the fleeting and the transitory, "_the becoming_" how
+do we attain to the knowledge of the unchangeable and permanent, "the
+_Being_?" Have we a faculty of universal, necessary, and eternal
+principles? Have we a faculty, an interior eye which beholds "_the
+intelligible_," ideal, spiritual world, as the eye of sense beholds the
+visible or "_sensible world_?"[521]
+
+Plato commences this inquiry by first defining his understanding of the
+word dynamis--_power_ or _faculty_. "We will say _faculties_ (dynameis)
+are a certain kind of real existences by which we can do whatever we are
+able (_e.g._, to know), as there are powers by which every thing does
+what it does: the eye has a _power_ of seeing; the ear has a _power_ of
+hearing. But these powers (of which I now speak) have no color or figure
+to which I can so refer that I can distinguish one power from another.
+_In order to make such distinction, I must look at the power itself, and
+see what it is, and what it does. In that way I discern the power of
+each thing, and that is the same power which produces the same effect,
+and that is a different power which produces a different effect_."[522]
+That which is employed about, and accomplishes one and the same purpose,
+this Plato calls a _faculty_.
+
+[Footnote 521: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xviii.]
+
+[Footnote 522: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxi.]
+
+We have seen that our first conceptions (_i.e._, first in the order of
+time) are of the mingled, the concrete (to synkechymenon), "the
+multiplicity of things to which the multitude ascribe beauty, etc.[523]
+The mind "contemplates what is great and small, not as distinct from
+each other, but as confused.[524] Prior to the discipline of
+_reflection_, men are curious about mere sights and sounds, love
+beautiful voices, beautiful colors, beautiful forms, but their
+intelligence can not see, can not embrace, the essential nature of the
+Beautiful itself.[525] Man's condition previous to the education of
+philosophy is vividly presented in Plato's simile of the cave.[526] He
+beholds only the images and shadows of the ectypal world, which are but
+dim and distant adumbrations of the real and archetypal world.
+
+Primarily nothing is given in the abstract (to kegorismenon), but every
+thing in the concrete. The primary faculties of the mind enter into
+action spontaneously and simultaneously; all our primary notions are
+consequently synthetic. When reflection is applied to this primary
+totality of consciousness, that is, when we analyze our notions, we find
+them composed of diverse and opposite elements, some of which are
+variable, contingent, individual, and relative, others are permanent,
+unchangeable, universal, necessary, and absolute. Now these elements, so
+diverse, so opposite, can not have been obtained from the same source;
+they must be supplied by separate powers. "Can any man with common sense
+reduce under one what _is infallible_, and what is _not
+infallible?_"[527] Can that which is "_perpetually becoming_" be
+apprehended by the same faculty as that which "_always is?_"[528] Most
+assuredly not.
+
+[Footnote 523: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxii.]
+
+[Footnote 524: Ibid., bk. vii. ch. viii.]
+
+[Footnote 525: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xx.]
+
+[Footnote 526: Ibid., bk. vii. ch. i., ii.]
+
+[Footnote 527: "Republic," bk. v. ch. xxi.]
+
+[Footnote 528: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxii.; also "Timaeus," Sec. 9.]
+
+These primitive intuitions--the simple perceptions of sense, and the _a
+priori_ intuitions of the reason, which constitute the elements of all
+our complex notions, have essentially _diverse objects_--the sensible or
+ectypal world, seen by the eye and touched by the hand, which Plato
+calls doxasten--_the subject of opinion_; and the noetic or archetypal
+world, perceived by reason, and which he calls dianontiken--_the subject
+of rational intuition or science_. "It is plain," therefore, argues
+Plato, "that _opinion_ is a different thing from _science_. They must,
+therefore, have a different _faculty_ in reference to a different
+object--science as regards that which _is_, so as to know the nature of
+real _being_--opinion as regards that which can not be said absolutely
+to be, or not to be. That which is known and that which is opined can
+not possibly be the same,... since they are naturally faculties of
+different things, and both of them are faculties--_opinion_ and
+_science_, and each of them different from the other."[529] Here then
+are two grand divisions of the mental powers--a faculty of apprehending
+universal and necessary Truth, of intuitively beholding absolute
+Reality, and a faculty of perceiving sensible objects, and of judging
+according to appearance.
+
+[Footnote 529: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxi., xxii.]
+
+According to the scheme of Plato, these two general divisions of the
+mental powers are capable of a further subdivision. He says: Consider
+that there are two kinds of things, the _intelligible_ and the
+_visible_; two different regions, the intelligible world and the
+sensible world. Now take a line divided into two equal segments to
+represent these two regions, and again divide each segment in the same
+ratio--both that of the visible and that of the intelligible species.
+The parts of each segment are to represent differences of clearness and
+indistinctness. In the visible world the parts are _things_ and
+_images_. By _images_ I mean shadows,[530] reflections in water and in
+polished bodies, and all such like representations; and by _things_ I
+mean that of which images are resemblances, as animals, plants, and
+things made by man.
+
+You allow that this difference corresponds to the difference of
+_knowledge_ and _opinion_; and the _opinionable_ is to the _knowable_ as
+the _image_ to the _reality_.[531]
+
+[Footnote 530: As in the simile of the cave ("Republic," bk. vii. ch. i.
+and ii.).]
+
+[Footnote 531: The analogy between the "images produced by reflections
+in water and on polished surfaces" and "the images of external objects
+produced in the mind by sensation" is more fully presented in the
+"Timaeus," ch. 19.
+
+The eye is a light-bearer, "made of that part of elemental fire which
+does not burn, but sheds a mild light, like the light of day.... When
+the light of the day meets the light which beams from the eye, then
+light meets like, and make a homogeneous body; the external light
+meeting the internal light, in the direction in which the eye looks. And
+by this homogeneity like feels like; and if this beam touches any
+object, or any object touches it, it transmits the motions through the
+body to the soul, and produces that sensation which we call _seeing_....
+And if (in sleep) some of the strong motions remain in some part of the
+frame, they produce within us likenesses of external objects,... and
+thus give rise to dreams.... As to the images produced by mirrors and by
+smooth surfaces, they are now easily explained, for all such phenomena
+result from the mutual affinity of the external and internal fires. The
+light that proceeds from the face (as an object of vision), and the
+light that proceeds from the eye, become one continuous ray on the
+smooth surface."]
+
+Now we have to divide the segment which represents intelligible things
+in this way: The one part represents the knowledge which the mind gets
+by using things as images--the other; that which it has by dealing with
+the ideas themselves; the one part that which it gets by reasoning
+downward from principles--the other, the principles themselves; the one
+part, truth which depends on hypotheses--the other, unhypothetical or
+absolute truth.
+
+Thus, to explain a problem in geometry, the geometers make certain
+hypotheses (namely, definitions and postulates) about numbers and
+angles, and the like, and reason from them--giving no reason for their
+assumptions, but taking them as evident to all; and, reasoning from
+them, they prove the propositions which they have in view. And in such
+reasonings, they use visible figures or diagrams--to reason about a
+square, for instance, with its diagonals; but these reasonings are not
+really about these visible figures, but about the mental figures, and
+which they conceive in thought.
+
+The diagrams which they draw, being visible, are the images of thoughts
+which the geometer has in his mind, and these images he uses in his
+reasoning. There may be images of these images--shadows and reflections
+in water, as of other visible things; but still these diagrams are only
+images of conceptions.
+
+This, then, is _one_ kind of intelligible things: _conceptions_--for
+instance, geometrical conceptions of figures. But in dealing with these
+the mind depends upon assumptions, and does not ascend to first
+principles. It does not ascend above these assumptions, but uses images
+borrowed from a lower region (the visible world), these images being
+chosen so as to be as distinct as may be.
+
+Now the _other_ kind of intelligible things is this: that which the
+_Reason_ includes, in virtue of its power of reasoning, when it regards
+the assumptions of the sciences as (what they are) assumptions only, and
+uses them as occasions and starting-points, that from these it may
+ascend to the _Absolute_, which does not depend upon assumption, the
+origin of scientific truth.
+
+_The reason takes hold of this first principle of truth_, and availing
+itself of all the connections and relations of this principle, it
+proceeds to the conclusion--using no sensible image in doing this, but
+contemplates the _idea alone_; and with these ideas the process begins,
+goes on, and terminates.
+
+"I apprehend," said Glaucon, "but not very clearly, for the matter is
+somewhat abstruse. _You wish to prove that the knowledge which by the
+reason, in an intuitive manner, we may acquire of real existence and
+intelligible things is of a higher degree of certainty than the
+knowledge which belongs to what are commonly called the Sciences_. Such
+sciences, you say, have certain assumptions for their basis; and these
+assumptions are by the student of such sciences apprehended not by
+sense, but by a mental operation--by conception.
+
+"But inasmuch as such students ascend no higher than assumptions, and do
+not go to the first principles of truth, they do not seem to have true
+knowledge, intellectual insight, intuitive reason, on the subjects of
+their reasonings, though the subjects are intelligible things. And you
+call this habit and practice of the geometers and others by the name of
+JUDGMENT (dianoia), not reason, or insight, or intuition--taking
+judgment to be something between opinion, on the one side, and intuitive
+reason, on the other.
+
+"You have explained it well," said I. "And now consider these four kinds
+of things we have spoken of, as corresponding to four affections (or
+faculties) of the mind. INTUITIVE REASON (noesis), the highest; JUDGMENT
+(dianoia)(or _discursive reason_), the next; the third, BELIEF (pistis);
+and the fourth, CONJECTURE, or _guess_ (eikasia); and arrange them in
+order, so that they may be held to have more or less certainty, as their
+objects have more or less truth."[532] The completeness, and even
+accuracy of this classification of all the objects of human cognition,
+and of the corresponding mental powers, will be seen at once by studying
+the diagram proposed by Plato, as figured on the opposite page.
+
+[Footnote 532: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xx. and xxi.]
+
+PLATONIC SCHEME OF THE OBJECTS OF COGNITION, AND THE RELATIVE MENTAL POWERS
+___________________________________________________________________________
+            |                                 |
+            | VISIBLE WORLD                   | INTELLIGIBLE WORLD
+            | (the object of Opinion--doxa).  |(the object of Knowledge or
+            |                                 | Science--ipytteme).
+            |_________________________________|____________________________
+            |                |                |              |
+            | Things.        | Images.        | Intuitions.  | Conceptions.
+____________|________________|________________|______________|_____________
+
+And may be thus further expanded:
+___________________________________________________________________________
+            |                                 |
+            | VISIBLE WORLD.                  |   INTELLIGIBLE WORLD.
+____________|_________________________________|____________________________
+            |                |                |             |
+            | Things         | Images         | Ideas       | Conceptions
+OBJECT      |                |                |             |
+            | zoa. k. t. l.  | icones.        | ideai.      | duenoemata.
+____________|________________|________________|_____________|______________
+            |                |                |             |
+            | Belief.        | Conjecture.    | Intuition.  |Demonstration.
+PROCESS     |                |                |             |
+            | piotis.        | eikasia.       | noesis.     | ipisieie.
+____________|________________|________________|_____________|______________
+            |                |                |             |
+            | SENSATION.     | PHANTASY.      | INTUITIVE   | DISCURSIVE
+FACULTY     |                |                |   REASON.   |    REASON.
+            | aisthesis.     | phantasia.     | nous.       | logos.
+____________|________________|________________|_____________|______________
+            |                |                |             |
+MODERN      | SENSE.         | IMAGINATION.   | REASON.     | JUDGMENT.
+NOMENCLATURE|Presentative    |Representative  |Regulative   | Logical
+            | Faculty.       | Faculty        | Faculty.    |    Faculty.
+____________|________________|________________|_____________|______________
+            |                                 |
+            | MEMORY.                         | REMINISCENCE
+            | mneme.                          |   anamesis.
+            | The Conservative Faculty--      | The Reproductive Faculty--
+            | "the preserver of sensation"    |"the recollection of the
+            | (soteria aisin, seos.) [533]    | things which the soul
+            |                                 | saw (in Eternity) when
+            |                                 | journeying in the train of
+            |                                 | the Deity."[534]
+            |[Footnote 533: "Philebus," Sec. 67] | [Footnote 534: Phaedrus,
+            |                                 |                     Sec. 62.]
+____________|_________________________________|____________________________
+
+
+The foregoing diagram, borrowed from Whewell, with some modifications
+and additions we have ventured to make, exhibits a perfect view of the
+Platonic scheme of the _cognitive powers_--the faculties by which the
+mind attains to different degrees of knowledge, "having more or less
+certainty, as their objects have more or less truth."[535]
+
+1st. SENSATION (aisthesis).--This term is employed by Plato to denote
+the passive mental states or affections which are produced within us by
+external objects through the medium of the vital organization, and also
+the cognition or vital perception or consciousness[536] which the mind
+has of these mental states.
+
+2d. PHANTASY (phantasia).--This term is employed to describe the power
+which the mind possesses of imagining or representing whatever has once
+been the object of sensation. This may be done involuntarily as "in
+dreams, disease, and hallucination,"[537] or voluntarily, as in
+reminiscence. Phantasmata are the images, the life-pictures (zographena)
+of sensible things which are present to the mind, even when no external
+object is present to the sense.
+
+[Footnote 535: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xix.]
+
+[Footnote 536: "In Greek philosophy there was no term for
+'consciousness' until the decline of philosophy, and in the latter ages
+of the language. Plato and Aristotle, to say nothing of other
+philosophers, had no special term to express the knowledge which the
+mind has of the operation of its own faculties, though this, of course,
+was necessarily a frequent matter of consideration. Intellect was
+supposed by them to be cognizant of its own operations.... In his
+'Theaetetus' Plato accords to sense the power of perceiving that it
+perceives."--Hamilton's "Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 198 (Eng. ed.).]
+
+[Footnote 537: "Theaetetus," Sec. 39.]
+
+The conjoint action of these two powers results in what Plato calls
+_opinion_ (doxa). "Opinion is the complication of memory and sensation.
+For when we meet for the first time with a thing perceptible by a sense,
+and a sensation is produced by it, and from this sensation a memory, and
+we subsequently meet again with the same thing perceived by a sense, we
+combine the memory previously brought into action with the sensation
+produced a second time, and we say within ourselves [this is] Socrates,
+or a horse, or fire, or whatever thing there may be of such a kind. Now
+this is called _opinion_, through our combining the recollection brought
+previously into action with the sensation recently produced. And when
+these, placed along each other, agree, a true opinion is produced; but
+when they swerve from each other, a false one."[538] The dixa of Plato,
+therefore answers to the experience, or the _empirical knowledge_ of
+modern philosophy, which is concerned only with appearances (phenomena),
+and not with absolute realities, and can not be elevated to the dignity
+of _science_ or real knowledge.
+
+We are not from hence to infer that Plato intended to deny all reality
+whatever to the objects of sensible experience. These transitory
+phenomena were not real existences, but they were _images_ of real
+existences. The world itself is but the image, in the sphere of sense,
+of those ideas of Order, and Proportion, and Harmony, which dwell in the
+Divine Intellect, and are mirrored in the soul of man. "Time itself is a
+moving image of Eternity."[539] But inasmuch as the immediate object of
+sense-perception is a representative image generated in the vital
+organism, and all empirical cognitions are mere "conjectures" (eikasiai)
+founded on representative images, they need to be certified by a higher
+faculty, which immediately apprehends real Being (to on). Of things, as
+they are in themselves, the senses give us no knowledge; all that in
+sensation we are conscious of is certain affections of the mind
+(pathos); the existence of self, or the perceiving subject, and a
+something external to self, a perceived object, are revealed to us, not
+by the senses, but by the reason.
+
+[Footnote 538: Alcinous, "Introduction to the Doctrine of Plato," p.
+247.]
+
+[Footnote 539: "Timaeus," Sec. 14.]
+
+3d. JUDGMENT (dianoia, logos), _the Discursive Faculty, or the Faculty
+of Relations_.--According to Plato, this faculty proceeds on the
+assumption of certain principles as true, without inquiring into their
+validity, and reasons, by deduction, to the conclusions which
+necessarily flow from these principles. These assumptions Plato calls
+hypotheses (ypotheseis). But by hypotheses he does not mean baseless
+assumptions--"mere theories--"but things self-evident and "obvious to
+all;"[540] as for example, the postulates and definitions of Geometry.
+"After laying down hypotheses of the odd and even, and three kinds of
+angles [right, acute, and obtuse], and figures [as the triangle, square,
+circle, and the like], he _proceeds on them as known, and gives no
+further reason about them_, and reasons downward from these
+principles,"[541] affirming certain judgments as consequences deducible
+therefrom.
+
+[Footnote 540: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xx.]
+
+[Footnote 541: Ibid., bk. vi. ch. xx.]
+
+All judgments are therefore founded on _relations_. To judge is to
+compare two terms. "Every judgment has three parts: the subject, or
+notion about which the judgment is; the predicate, or notion with which
+the subject is compared; and the copula, or nexus, which expresses the
+connection or relation between them.[542] Every act of affirmative
+judgment asserts the agreement of the predicate and subject; every act
+of negative judgment asserts the predicate and subject do not agree. All
+judgment is thus an attempt to reduce to unity two cognitions, and
+reasoning (logizesthai) is simply the extension of this process. When we
+look at two straight lines of equal length, we do not merely think of
+them separately as _this_ straight line, and _that_ straight line, but
+they are immediately connected together by a comparison which takes
+place in the mind. We perceive that these two lines are alike; they are
+of equal length, and they are both straight; and the connection which is
+perceived as existing between them is a _relation of sameness or
+identity._[543] When we observe any change occurring in nature, as, for
+example, the melting of wax in the presence of heat, the mind recognizes
+a causal efficiency in the fire to produce that change, and the relation
+now apprehended is a _relation of cause and effect_[544] But the
+fundamental principles, the necessary ideas which lie at the basis of
+all the judgments (as the ideas of space and time, of unity and
+identity, of substance and cause, of the infinite and perfect) are not
+given by the judgment, but by the "highest faculty"--"the _Intuitive
+Reason_,[545] which is, for us, the source of all unhypothetical and
+absolute knowledge.
+
+[Footnote 542: Thompson's "Laws of Thought," p. 134.]
+
+[Footnote 543: "Phaedo," Secs. 50-57, 62.]
+
+[Footnote 544: "Timaeus," ch. ix.; "Sophocles," Sec. 109.]
+
+[Footnote 545: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xxi.]
+
+The knowledge, therefore, which is furnished by the Discursive Reason,
+Plato does not regard as "real Science." "It is something between
+Opinion on the one hand, and Intuition on the other."[546]
+
+[Footnote 546: Ibid., bk. vi. ch. xxi.]
+
+4th. REASON (nous)--_Intuitive Reason_, is the organ of self-evident,
+necessary, and universal Truth. In an immediate, direct, and intuitive
+manner, it takes hold on truth with absolute certainty. The reason,
+through the medium of _ideas_, holds communion with the world of real
+Being. These ideas are the _light_ which reveals the world of unseen
+realities, as the sun reveals the world of sensible forms. "_The idea of
+the good_ is the _sun_ of the Intelligible World; it sheds on objects
+the light of truth, and gives to the soul that knows, the power of
+knowing."[547] Under this light, the eye of reason apprehends the
+eternal world of being as truly, yes more truly, than the eye of sense
+apprehends the world of phenomena. This power the rational soul
+possesses by virtue of its having a nature kindred, or even homogeneous
+with the Divinity. It was "generated by the Divine Father," and, like
+him, it is in a certain sense "_eternal_."[548] Not that we are to
+understand Plato as teaching that the rational soul had an independent
+and underived existence; it was created or "generated" in eternity,[549]
+and even now, in its incorporate state, is not amenable to the
+conditions of time and space, but, in a peculiar sense, dwells in
+eternity; and therefore is capable of beholding eternal realities, and
+coming into communion with absolute beauty, and goodness, and
+truth--that is, with God, the _Absolute Being_.
+
+[Footnote 547: Ibid., bk. vi. ch. xix.; see also ch. xviii.]
+
+[Footnote 548: The reader must familiarize himself with the Platonic
+notion of _"eternity" as a fixed state out of time existing
+contemporaneous with one in time_, to appreciate the doctrine of Plato
+as stated above. If we regard his idea of eternity as merely an
+indefinite extension of time, with a past, a present, and a future, we
+can offer no rational interpretation of his doctrine of the eternal
+nature of the rational essence of the soul. An eternal nature
+"generated" in a "past" or "present" time is a contradiction. But that
+was not Plato's conception of "eternity," as the reader will discover on
+perusing the "Timaeus" (ch. xiv.). "God resolved to create a moving image
+of eternity, and out of that eternity which reposes in its own
+_unchangeable unity_ he framed an eternal image moving according to
+numerical succession, which we call _Time_. Nothing can be more
+inaccurate than to apply the terms, _past, present, future_, to real
+Being, which is immovable. Past and future are expressions only suitable
+to generation which proceeds through time." Time reposes on the bosom of
+eternity, as all bodies are in space.]
+
+[Footnote 549: "Timaeus," ch. xvi., and "Phaedrus," where the soul is
+pronounced arche de ageneton.]
+
+Thus the soul (psyche) as a composite nature is on one side linked to
+the eternal world, its essence being generated of that ineffable element
+which constitutes the real, the immutable, and the permanent. It is a
+beam of the eternal Sun, a spark of the Divinity, an emanation from God.
+On the other side it is linked to the phenomenal or sensible world, its
+emotive part[550] being formed of that which is relative and phenomenal.
+The soul of man thus stands midway between the eternal and the
+contingent, the real and the phenomenal, and as such, it is the mediator
+between, and the interpreter of, both.
+
+[Footnote 550: thymeides, the seat of the nobler--epithymetikon, the
+seat of the baser passions.]
+
+In the allegory of the "Chariot and Winged Steeds"[551] Plato represents
+the lower or inferior part of man's nature as dragging the soul down to
+the earth, and subjecting it to the slavery and debasement of corporeal
+conditions. Out of these conditions there arise numerous evils that
+disorder the mind and becloud the reason, for evil is inherent to the
+condition of finite and multiform being into which we have "fallen by
+our own fault." The present earthly life is a fall and a punishment. The
+soul is now dwelling in "the grave we call the body." In its incorporate
+state, and previous to the discipline of education, the rational element
+is "asleep." "Life is more of a dream than a reality." Men are utterly
+the slaves of sense, the sport of phantoms and illusions. We now
+resemble those "captives chained in a subterraneous cave," so poetically
+described in the seventh book of the "Republic;" their backs are turned
+to the light, and consequently they see but the shadows of the objects
+which pass behind them, and they "attribute to these shadows a perfect
+reality." Their sojourn upon earth is thus a dark imprisonment in the
+body, a dreamy exile from their proper home. "Nevertheless these pale
+fugitive shadows suffice to revive in us the reminiscence of that higher
+world we once inhabited, if we have not absolutely given the reins to
+the impetuous untamed horse which in Platonic symbolism represents the
+emotive sensuous nature of man." The soul has some dim and shadowy
+recollection of its ante-natal state of bliss, and some instinctive and
+proleptic yearnings for its return.
+
+[Footnote 551: "Phaedrus," Sec. 54-62.]
+
+     "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
+     The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
+       Has had elsewhere its setting,
+       And cometh from afar,
+       Not in entire forgetfulness,
+       And not in utter nakedness,
+     But trailing clouds of glory, do we come
+     From God, who is our home."[552]
+
+[Footnote 552: Wordsworth, "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality," vol.
+v.]
+
+Exiled from the true home of the spirit, imprisoned in the body,
+disordered by passion, and beclouded by sense, the soul has yet longings
+after that state of perfect knowledge, and purity, and bliss, in which
+it was first created. Its affinities are still on high. It yearns for a
+higher and nobler form of life. It essays to rise, but its eye is
+darkened by sense, its wings are besmeared by passion and lust; it is
+"borne downward, until at length it falls upon and attaches itself to
+that which is material and sensual," and it flounders and grovels still
+amid the objects of sense.
+
+And now, with all that seriousness and earnestness of spirit which is
+peculiarly Christian, Plato asks how the soul may be delivered from the
+illusions of sense, the distempering influence of the body, and the
+disturbances of passion, which becloud its vision of the real, the good,
+and the true?
+
+Plato believed and hoped this could be accomplished by _philosophy_.
+This he regarded as a grand intellectual discipline for the purification
+of the soul. By this it was to be disenthralled from the bondage of
+sense[553] and raised into the empyrean of pure thought "where truth and
+reality shine forth." All souls have the faculty of knowing, but it is
+only by reflection, and self-knowledge, and intellectual discipline,
+that the soul can be raised to the vision of eternal truth, goodness,
+and beauty--that is, to the vision of God. And this intellectual
+discipline was the _Platonic Dialectic_.
+
+[Footnote 553: Not, however, fully in this life. The consummation of the
+intellectual struggle into "the intelligible world" is death. The
+intellectual discipline was therefore melete thanatou, _a preparation
+for death_.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_.)
+
+THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (_continued_).
+
+PLATO.
+
+
+II. THE PLATONIC DIALECTIC.
+
+The Platonic Dialectic is the Science of Eternal and Immutable
+Principles, and the _method_ (organon) by which these first principles
+are brought forward into the clear light of consciousness. The student
+of Plato will have discovered that he makes no distinction between logic
+and metaphysics. These are closely united in the one science to which he
+gives the name of "_Dialectic_" and which was at once the science of the
+ideas and laws of the Reason, and of the mental process by which the
+knowledge of Real Being is attained, and a ground of absolute certainty
+is found. This science has, in modern times, been called _Primordial_ or
+_Transcendental Logic_.
+
+We have seen that Plato taught that the human reason is originally in
+possession of fundamental and necessary ideas--the copies of the
+archetypal ideas which dwell in the eternal Reason; and that these ideas
+are the primordial laws of thought--that is, they are the laws under
+which we conceive of all objective things, and reason concerning all
+existence. These ideas, he held, are not derived from sensation, neither
+are they generalizations from experience, but they are inborn and
+connatural. And, further, he entertained the belief, more, however, as a
+reasonable hypothesis[554] than as a demonstrable truth, that these
+standard principles were acquired by the soul in a pre-existent state in
+which it stood face to face with ideas of eternal order, beauty,
+goodness, and truth.[555] "Journeying with the Deity," the soul
+contemplated justice, wisdom, science--not that science which is
+concerned with change, and which appears under a different manifestation
+in different objects, which we choose to call beings; but such science
+as is in that which alone is indeed _being_.[556] Ideas, therefore,
+belong to, and inhere in, that portion of the soul which is properly
+ousia--_essence_ or _being_; which had an existence anterior to time,
+and even now has no relation to time, because it is now in
+eternity--that is, in a sphere of being to which past, present, and
+future can have no relation.[557]
+
+[Footnote 554: Within "the eikoton mython idea--the category of
+probability."--"Phaedo."]
+
+[Footnote 555: "Phaedo," Sec. 50-56.]
+
+[Footnote 556: "Phaedrus," Sec. 58.]
+
+[Footnote 557: See note on p. 349.]
+
+All knowledge of truth and reality is, therefore, according to Plato, a
+REMINISCENCE (anamnesis)--a recovery of partially forgotten ideas which
+the soul possessed in another state of existence; and the _dialectic_ of
+Plato is simply the effort, by apt _interrogation_, to lead the mind to
+"_recollect_"[558] the truth which has been formerly perceived by it,
+and is even now in the memory though not in consciousness. An
+illustration of this method is attempted in the "_Meno_" where Plato
+introduces Socrates as making an experiment on the mind of an uneducated
+person. Socrates puts a series of questions to a slave of Meno, and at
+length elicits from the youth a right enunciation of a geometrical
+truth. Socrates then points triumphantly to this instance, and bids Meno
+observe that he had not taught the youth any thing, but simply
+interrogated him as to his opinions, whilst the youth had recalled the
+knowledge previously existing in his own mind.[559]
+
+[Footnote 558: "To learn is to recover our own previous knowledge, and
+this is properly to _recollect._"--"Phaedo" Sec. 55.]
+
+[Footnote 559: "Meno," Sec. 16-20. "Now for a person to recover knowledge
+himself through himself, is not this to _recollect_."]
+
+Now whilst we readily grant that the instance given in the "_Meno_" does
+not sustain the inference of Plato that "the boy" had learnt these
+geometrical truths "in eternity," and that they had simply been brought
+forward into the view of his consciousness by the "questioning" of
+Socrates, yet it certainly does prove that _there are ideas or
+principles in the human reason which are not derived from without--which
+are anterior to all experience, and for the development of which,
+experience furnishes the occasion, but is not the origin and source_. By
+a kind of lofty inspiration, he caught sight of that most important
+doctrine of modern philosophy, so clearly and logically presented by
+Kant, _that the Reason is the source of a pure_ a priori _knowledge_--a
+knowledge native to, and potentially in the mind, antecedent to all
+experience, and which is simply brought out into the field of
+consciousness by experience conditions. Around this greatest of all
+metaphysical truths Plato threw a gorgeous mythic dress, and presented
+it under the most picturesque imagery.[560] But, when divested of the
+rich coloring which the glowing imagination of Plato threw over it, it
+is but a vivid presentation of the cardinal truth that _there are ideas
+in the mind which have not been derived from without_, and which,
+therefore, the mind brought with it into the present sphere of being.
+The validity and value of this fundamental doctrine, even as presented
+by Plato, is unaffected by any speculations in which he may have
+indulged, as to the pre-existence of the soul. He simply regarded this
+doctrine of pre-existence as highly probable--a plausible explanation of
+the facts. That there are ideas, innate and connatural to the human
+mind, he clung to as the most vital, most precious, most certain of all
+truths; and to lead man to the recognitions of these ideas, to bring
+them within the field of consciousness, was, in his judgment, the great
+business of philosophy.
+
+And this was the grand aim of his _Dialectic_--to elicit, to bring to
+light the truths which are already in the mind--"a maieusis" a kind of
+intellectual midwifery[561]--a delivering of the mind of the ideas with
+which it was pregnant.
+
+[Footnote 560: As in the "Phaedo," Secs. 48-57; "Phaedrus," Secs. 52-64;
+"Republic," bk. x.]
+
+[Footnote 561: "Theaetetus," Secs. 17-20.]
+
+It is thus, at first sight, obvious that it was a higher and more
+comprehensive science than the art of deduction. For it was directed to
+the discovery and establishment of First Principles. Its sole object was
+the discovery of truth. His dialectic was an _analytical_ and _inductive
+method_. "In Dialectic Science," says _Alcinous_, "there is a dividing
+and a defining, and an analyzing, and, moreover, that which is inductive
+and syllogistic."[562] Even _Bacon_, who is usually styled "the Father
+of the Inductive method," and who, too often, speaks disparagingly of
+Plato, is constrained to admit that he followed the inductive method.
+"An induction such as will be of advantage for the invention and
+demonstration of Arts and Sciences must distinguish the essential nature
+of things (naturam) by proper rejections and exclusions, and then after
+as many of these negatives as are sufficient, by comprising, above all
+(super), the positives. Up to this time this had not been done, nor even
+attempted, _except by Plato alone, who, in order to attain his
+definitions and ideas, has used, to a certain extent, the method of
+Induction_."[563]
+
+[Footnote 562: "Introduction to the Doctrines of Plato," vol. vi. p.
+249. "The Platonic Method was the method of induction."--Cousin's
+"History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 307.]
+
+[Footnote 563: "Novum Organum," vol. i. p. 105.]
+
+The process of investigation adopted by Plato thus corresponds with the
+inductive method of modern times, with this simple difference, that
+Bacon conducted science into the world of _matter_, whilst Plato
+directed it to the world of _mind_. The dialectic of Plato aimed at the
+discovery of the "laws of thought;" the modern inductive philosophy aims
+at the discovery of the "laws of nature." The latter concerns itself
+chiefly with the inquiry after the "causes" of material phenomena; the
+former concerned itself with the inquiry after the "first principles" of
+all knowledge and of all existence. Both processes are, therefore,
+carried on by _interrogation_. The analysis which seeks for a law of
+nature proceeds by the interrogation of nature. The analysis of Plato
+proceeds by the interrogation of mind, in order to discover the
+fundamental _ideas_ which lie at the basis of all cognition, which
+determine all our processes of thought, and which, in their final
+analysis, reveal the REAL BEING, which is the ground and explanation of
+all existence.
+
+Now the fact that such an inquiry has originated in the human mind, and
+that it can not rest satisfied without some solution, is conclusive
+evidence that the mind has an instinctive belief, a proleptic
+anticipation, that such knowledge can be attained. There must
+unquestionably be some mental initiative which is the _motive_ and
+_guide_ to all philosophical inquiry. We must have some well-grounded
+conviction, some _a priori_ belief, some pre-cognition "ad intentionem
+ejus quod quaeritur,"[564] which determines the direction of our
+thinking. The mind does not go to work aimlessly; it asks a specific
+question; it demands the "_whence_" and the "_why_" of that which is.
+Neither does it go to work unfurnished with any guiding principles. That
+which impels the mind to a determinate act of thinking is the possession
+of a _knowledge_ which is different from, and independent of, the
+process of thinking itself. "A rational anticipation is, then, the
+ground of the _prudens quaestio_--"the forethought query, which, in
+fact, is the prior half of the knowledge sought."[565] If the mind
+inquire after "laws," and "causes," and "reasons," and "grounds,"--the
+first principles of all knowledge and of all existence,--"it must have
+the _a priori_ ideas of "law," and "cause," and "reason," and "being _in
+se"_ which, though dimly revealed to the mind previous to the discipline
+of reflection, are yet unconsciously governing its spontaneous modes of
+thought. The whole process of induction has, then, some rational ground
+to proceed upon--some principles deeper than science, and more certain
+than demonstration, which reason contains within itself, and which
+induction "draws out" into clearer light.
+
+[Footnote 564: Bacon.]
+
+[Footnote 565: Coleridge, vol. ii. p. 413.]
+
+Now this mental initiative of every process of induction is the
+intuitive and necessary conviction _that there must be a sufficient
+reason why every thing exists, and why it is as it is, and not
+otherwise_;[566] or in other words, if any thing begins to be, some
+thing else must be supposed[567] as the ground, and reason, and cause,
+and law of its existence. This "_law of sufficient_ (or _determinant)
+reason_"[568] is the fundamental principle of all metaphysical inquiry.
+It is contained, at least in a negative form, in that famous maxim of
+ancient philosophy, "_De nihilo nihil_"--"Adynaton ginestai ti ek
+medenos prouparxontos." "It is impossible for a real entity to be made
+or generated from nothing pre-existing;" or in other words, "nothing can
+be made or produced without an efficient cause."[569] This principle is
+also distinctly announced by Plato: "Whatever is generated, is
+necessarily generated from a certain aitian"--_ground, reason_, or
+_cause_; "for it is wholly impossible that any thing should be generated
+without a cause."[570]
+
+[Footnote 566: "Phaedo," Sec. 103.]
+
+[Footnote 567: _Suppono_, to place under as a support, to take as a
+ground.]
+
+[Footnote 568: This generic principle, viewed under different relations,
+gives--
+
+     1st. _The principle of Substance_--every quality supposes a subject
+       or real being.
+
+     2d. _The principle of Causality_--every thing which begins to be
+       must have a cause.
+
+     3d. _The principle of Law_--every phenomenon must obey some uniform
+       law.
+
+     4th. _The principle of Final Cause_--every means supposes an end,
+       every existence has a purpose or reason why.
+
+     5th. _The principle of Unity_--all plurality supposes a unity as
+       its basis and ground.]
+
+[Footnote 569: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. ii. p. 161.]
+
+[Footnote 570: "Timaeus," ch. ix.]
+
+The first business of Plato's dialectic is to demonstrate that the
+ground and reason of all existence can not be found in the mere objects
+of sense, nor in any opinions or judgments founded upon sensation.
+Principles are only so far "first principles" as they are permanent and
+unchangeable, depending on neither time, nor place, nor circumstances.
+But the objects of sense are in ceaseless flux and change; they are
+"_always becoming_;" they can not be said to have any "_real being_."
+They are not to-day what they were yesterday, and they will never again
+be what they are now; consequently all opinions founded on mere
+phenomena are equally fluctuating and uncertain. Setting out, therefore,
+from the assumption of the fallaciousness of "_opinion_" it examined the
+various hypotheses which had been bequeathed by previous schools of
+philosophy, or were now offered by contemporaneous speculators, and
+showed they were utterly inadequate to the solution of the problem. This
+scrutiny consisted in searching for the ground of "contradiction"[571]
+with regard to each opinion founded on sensation, and showing that
+opposite views were equally tenable. It inquired on what ground these
+opinions were maintained, and what consequences flowed therefrom, and it
+showed that the grounds upon which "opinion" was founded, and the
+conclusions which were drawn from it, were contradictory, and
+consequently untrue.[572] "They," the Dialecticians, "examined the
+opinions of men as if they were error; and bringing them together by a
+reasoning process to the same point, they placed them by the side of
+each other: and by so placing, they showed that _the opinions are at one
+and the same time contrary to themselves, about the same things, with
+reference to the same circumstances, and according to the same
+premises_."[573] And inasmuch as the same attribute can not, at the same
+time, be affirmed and denied of the same subject,[574] therefore a thing
+can not be at once "changeable" and "unchangeable," "movable" and
+"immovable," "generated" and "eternal."[575] The objects of sense,
+however generalized and classified, can only give the contingent, the
+relative, and the finite; therefore the permanent ground and sufficient
+reason of all phenomenal existence can not be found in opinions and
+judgments founded upon sensation.
+
+[Footnote 571: "The Dialectitian is one who syllogistically infers the
+contradictions implied in popular opinions."--Aristotle, "Sophist," Secs.
+1, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 572: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xiii.]
+
+[Footnote 573: "Sophist," Sec. 33; "Republic," bk. iv. ch. xii.]
+
+[Footnote 574: See the "Phaedo," Sec. 119, and "Republic," bk. iv. ch.
+xiii., where the Law of Non-contradiction is announced.]
+
+[Footnote 575 "Parmenides," Sec. 3.]
+
+The dialectic process thus consisted almost entirely of
+_refutation_,[576] or what both he and Aristotle denominated _elenchus_
+(elenchos)--a process of reasoning by which the contradictory of a given
+proposition is inferred. "When refutation had done its utmost, and all
+the points of difficulty and objection had been fully brought out, the
+dialectic method had accomplished its purpose; and the affirmation which
+remained, after this discussion, might be regarded as setting forth the
+truth of the question under consideration;"[577] or in other words,
+_when a system of error is destroyed by refutation, the contradictory
+opposite principle, with its logical developments, must be accepted as
+an established truth_.
+
+[Footnote 576: Confutation is the greatest and chiefest of
+purification.--"Sophist," Sec. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 577: Article "Plato," Encyclopaedia Britannica.]
+
+By the application of this method, Plato had not only exposed the
+insufficiency and self-contradiction of all results obtained by a mere
+_a posteriori_ generalization of the simple facts of experience, but he
+demonstrated, as a consequence, that we are in possession of some
+elements of knowledge which have not been derived from sensation; that
+there are, in all minds, certain notions, principles, or ideas, which
+have been furnished by a higher faculty than sense; and that these
+notions, principles, or ideas, transcend the limits of experience, and
+reveal the knowledge of _real being_--to ontos on--_Being in se_.
+
+To determine what these principles or ideas are, Plato now addresses
+himself to the _analysis of thought_. "It is the glory of Plato to have
+borne the light of analysis into the most obscure and inmost region; he
+searched out what, in this totality which forms consciousness, is the
+province of reason; what comes from it, and not from the imagination and
+the senses--from within, and not from without."[578] Now to analyze is
+to decompose, that is, to divide, and to define, in order to see better
+that which really is. The chief logical instruments of the dialectic
+method are, therefore, _Division_ and _Definition_. "The being able to
+_divide_ according to genera, and not to consider the same species as
+different, nor a different as the same,"[579] and "to see under one
+aspect, and bring together under one general idea, many things scattered
+in various places, that, by _defining_ each, a person may make it clear
+what the subject is," is, according to Plato, "dialectical."[580]
+
+[Footnote 578: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 328.]
+
+[Footnote 579: "Sophist," Sec. 83.]
+
+[Footnote 580: "Phaedrus," Secs. 109, 111.]
+
+We have already seen that, in his first efforts at applying reflection
+to the concrete phenomena of consciousness, Plato had recognized two
+distinct classes of cognitions, marked by characteristics essentially
+opposite;--one of "_sensible_" objects having a definite outline, limit,
+and figure, and capable of being imaged and represented to the mind in a
+determinate form--the other of "_intelligible_" objects, which can not
+be outlined or represented in the memory or the imagination by any
+figures or images, and are, therefore, the objects of purely rational
+conception. He found, also, that we arrive at one class of cognitions
+"_mediately_" through images generated in the vital organism, or by some
+testimony, definition, or explication of others; whilst we arrive at the
+other class "_immediately_" by simple intuition, or rational
+apperception. The mind stands face to face with the object, and gazes
+directly upon it. The reality of that object is revealed in its own
+light, and we find it impossible to refuse our assent--that is, it is
+_self-evident_. One class consisted of _contingent_ ideas--that is,
+their objects are conceived as existing, with the possibility, without
+any contradiction, of conceiving of their non-existence; the other
+consisted of _necessary_ ideas--their objects are conceived as existing
+with the absolute impossibility of conceiving of their non-existence.
+Thus we can conceive of this book, this table, this earth, as not
+existing, but we can not conceive the non-existence of space. We can
+conceive of succession in time as not existing, but we can not, in
+thought, annihilate duration. We can imagine this or that particular
+thing not to have been, but we can not conceive of the extinction of
+Being in itself. He further observed, that one class of our cognitions
+are _conditional_ ideas; the existence of their objects is conceived
+only on the supposition of some antecedent existence, as for example,
+the idea of qualities, phenomena, events; whilst the other class of
+cognitions are _unconditional_ and _absolute_--we can conceive of their
+objects as existing independently and unconditionally--existing whether
+any thing else does or does not exist, as space, duration, the infinite,
+Being _in se_. And, finally, whilst some ideas appear in us as
+_particular_ and _individual_, determined and modified by our own
+personality and liberty, there are others which are, in the fullest
+sense, _universal_. They are not the creations of our own minds, and
+they can not be changed by our own volitions. They depend upon neither
+times, nor places, nor circumstances; they are common to all minds, in
+all times, and in all places. These ideas are the witnesses in our
+inmost being that there is something beyond us, and above us; and beyond
+and above all the contingent and fugitive phenomena around us. Beneath
+all changes there is a _permanent_ being. Beyond all finite and
+conditional existance there is something _unconditional_ and _absolute_.
+Having determined that there are truths which are independent of our own
+minds--truths which are not individual, but universal--truths which
+would be truths even if our minds did not perceive them, we are led
+onward to a _super-sensual_ and super-natural ground, on which they
+rest.
+
+To reach this objective reality on which the ideas of reason repose, is
+the grand effort of Plato's dialectic. He seeks, by a rigid analysis,
+clearly to _separate_, and accurately to _define_ the _a priori_
+conceptions of reason. And it was only when he had eliminated every
+element which is particular, contingent, and relative, and had defined
+the results in precise and accurate language, that he regarded the
+process as complete. The ideas which are self-evident, universal, and
+necessary, were then clearly disengaged, and raised to their pure and
+absolute form. "You call the man dialectical who requires a reason of
+the essence or being of each thing. As the dialectical man can define
+the essence of every thing, so can he of the good. He can _define_ the
+idea of the good, _separating_ it from all others--follow it through all
+windings, as in a battle, resolved to mark it, not according to opinion,
+but according to science."[581]
+
+[Footnote 581: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xiv.]
+
+_Abstraction_ is thus the process, the instrument of the Platonic
+dialectic. It is important, however, that we should distinguish between
+the method of _comparative_ abstraction, as employed in physical
+inquiry, and that _immediate_ abstraction, which is the special
+instrument of philosophy. The former proceeds by comparison and
+generalization, the latter by simple separation. The one yields a
+contingent general principle as the result of the comparison of a number
+of individual cases, the other gives an universal and necessary
+principle by the analysis of a single concrete fact. As an illustration
+we may instance "the principle of causality." To enable us to affirm
+"that every event must have a cause," we do not need to compare and
+generalize a great number of events. "The principle which compels us to
+pronounce the judgment is already complete in the first as in the last
+event; it can change in regard to its object, it can not change in
+itself; it neither increases nor decreases with the greater or less
+number of applications."[582] In the presence of a single event, the
+universality and necessity of this principle of causality is recognized
+with just as much clearness and certainty as in the presence of a
+million events, however carefully generalized.
+
+[Footnote 582: Cousin's "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," pp. 57,
+58.]
+
+Abstraction, then, it will be seen, creates nothing; neither does it add
+any new element to the store of actual cognitions already possessed by
+all human minds. It simply brings forward into a clearer and more
+definite recognition, that which necessarily belongs to the mind as part
+of its latent furniture, and which, as a law of thought, has always
+unconsciously governed all its spontaneous movements. As a process of
+rational inquiry, it was needful to bring the mind into intelligible and
+conscious communion with the world of _Ideas_. These ideas are partially
+revealed in the sensible world, all things being formed, as Plato
+believed, according to ideas as models and exemplars, of which sensible
+objects are the copies. They are more fully manifested in the
+constitution of the human mind which, by virtue of its kindred nature
+with the original essence or being, must know them intuitively and
+immediately. And they are brought out fully by the dialectic process,
+which disengages them from all that is individual and phenomenal, and
+sets them forth in their pure and absolute form.
+
+But whilst Plato has certainly exhibited the true method of
+investigation by which the ideas of reason are to be separated from all
+concrete phenomena and set clearly before the mind, he has not attempted
+a complete enumeration of the ideas of reason; indeed, such an
+enumeration is still the grand desideratum of philosophy. We can not
+fail, however, in the careful study of his writings, to recognize the
+grand Triad of Absolute Ideas--ideas which Cousin, after Plato, has so
+fully exhibited, viz., the _True_, the _Beautiful_, and the _Good_.
+
+PLATONIC SCHEME OF IDEAS
+
+I. _The idea of_ ABSOLUTE TRUTH or REALITY (to alethes--to on)--the
+ground and efficient cause of all existence, and by participating in
+which all phenomenal existence has only so far a reality, sensible
+things being merely shadows and resemblances of ideas. This idea is
+developed in the human intelligence in its relation with the phenomenal
+world; as,
+
+1. _The idea of_ SUBSTANCE (ousia)--the ground of all phenomena, "the
+being or essence of all things," the permanent reality.--"Timaeeus," ch.
+ix. and xii.; "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xiv.; "Phaedo,"Secs. 63-67, 73.
+
+2. _The idea of_ CAUSE (aitia)--the power or efficiency by which things
+that "become," or begin to be, are generated or produced.--"Timaeus," ch.
+ix.; "Sophist," Sec. 109; "Philebus," Secs. 45, 46.
+
+3. _The idea of_ IDENTITY (auto to ison)--that which "does not change,"
+"is always the same, simple and uniform, incomposite and
+indissoluble,"--that which constitutes personality or
+self-hood.--"Phaedo," Secs. 61-75; "Timaeus," ch. ix.; "Republic," bk. ii.
+ch. xix. and xx.
+
+4. _The idea of_ UNITY (to en)--one _mind_ or intelligence pervading the
+universe, the comprehensive conscious _thought_ or _plan_ which binds
+all parts of the universe in one great whole (to pan)--the principle of
+_order_.--"Timaeus," ch. xi. and xv.; "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xiii.;
+"Philebus," Secs. 50-51.
+
+5. _The idea of the_ INFINITE (to apeiron)--that which is unlimited and
+unconditioned, "has no parts, bounds, no beginning, nor middle, nor
+end."--"Parmenides," Secs. 22, 23.
+
+II. _The idea of_ ABSOLUTE BEAUTY (to kalon)--the formal cause of the
+universe, and by participation in which all created things have only so
+far a real beauty.--"Timaeus," ch. xi, "Greater Hippias," Secs. 17, 18;
+"Republic," bk. v. ch. 22.
+
+This idea is developed in the human intelligence in its relation to the
+organic world; as,
+
+      1. _The Idea of_ PROPORTION or SYMMETRY (symmetria)--the
+      proper relation of parts to an organic whole resulting in a
+      harmony (cosmos), and which relation admits of mathematical
+      expression.--"Timaeus," ch. lxix.; "Philebus," Sec. 155
+      ("Timaeus," ch. xi. and xii., where the relation of numerical
+      proportions to material elements is expounded).
+
+      2. _The idea of_ DETERMINATE FORM (paradeigma
+      archetypos)--the eternal models or archetypes according to
+      which all things are framed, and which admit of geometrical
+      representation.--"Timaeus," ch. ix.; "Phaedo," Sec.112 ("Timaeus,"
+      ch. xxviii.-xxxi., where the relation of geometrical forms
+      to material elements is exhibited).
+
+      3. _The idea of_ RHYTHM (rythmos)--measured movement in time
+      and space, resulting in melody and grace.--"Republic," bk.
+      iii. ch. xi. and xii.; "Philebus," Sec. 21.
+
+      4. _The idea of_ FITNESS or ADAPTATION
+      (chresimon)--effectiveness to some purpose or end.--"Greater
+      Hippias," Sec. 35.
+
+      5. _The idea of_ PERFECTION (teleiotes)--that which is
+      complete, "a structure which is whole and finished--of whole
+      and perfect parts."--"Timaeus," ch. xi., xii., and xliii.
+
+
+III. _The idea of_ ABSOLUTE GOOD (to agathon)--the final _cause_ or
+_reason_ of all existence, the sun of the invisible world, that pours
+upon all things the revealing light of truth.
+
+The first Good[583] (_summum bonum_) is God the highest, and Mind or
+Intelligence (nous), which renders man capable of knowing and resembling
+God. The second flows from the first, and are virtues of mind. They are
+good by a participation of the chief good, and constitute in man a
+likeness or _resemblance_ to God.--"Phaedo," Secs.110-114; "Laws," bk. i.
+ch. vi., bk. iv. ch. viii.; "Theaetetus," Secs. 84, 85; "Republic," bk. vi.
+ch. xix., bk. vii. ch. iii., bk. x. ch. xii.[584]
+
+[Footnote 583: "Let us declare, then, on what account the framing
+Artificer settled the formation of the universe. He was GOOD;" and being
+good, "he desired that all things should as much as possible resemble
+himself."--"Timaeus," ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 584: "At the utmost bounds of the intellectual world is the
+_idea of the Good_, perceived with difficulty, but which, once seen,
+makes itself known as the cause of all that is beautiful and good; which
+in the visible world produces light, and the orb that gives it; and
+which in the invisible world directly produces Truth and
+Intelligence."--"Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.]
+
+This idea is developed in the human intelligence in its relation to the
+world of moral order; as,
+
+1. _The idea of_ WISDOM or PRUDENCE (phronesis)--thoughtfulness,
+rightness of intention, following the guidance of reason, the right
+direction of the energy or will.--"Republic," bk. iv. ch. vii., bk. vi.
+ch. ii.
+
+2. _The idea of_ COURAGE or FORTITUDE (andria)--zeal, energy, firmness
+in the maintenance of honor and right, virtuous indignation against
+wrong.--"Republic," bk. iv. ch. viii.; "Laches;" "Meno," Sec. 24.
+
+3. _The idea of_ SELF-CONTROL or TEMPERANCE
+(sophrosyne)--sound-mindedness, moderation, dignity.--"Republic," bk.
+iv. ch. ix.; "Meno," Sec. 24; "Phaedo," Sec. 35.
+
+4. _The idea of_ JUSTICE (dikalosyne)--the harmony or perfect
+proportional action of all the powers of the soul.--"Republic," bk. i.
+ch. vi., bk. iv. ch. x.-xii., bk. vi. ch. ii. and xvi.; "Philebus," Sec.
+155; "Phaedo," Sec. 54; "Theaetetus," Secs. 84, 85.
+
+Plato's idea of Justice comprehends--
+
+(1) EQUITY (isotes)--the rendering to every man his due.--"Republic,"
+bk. i. ch. vi.
+
+(2.) VERACITY (alepheia)--the utterance of what is true.--"Republic,"
+bk. i. ch. v., bk. ii. ch. xx., bk. vi. ch. ii.
+
+(3.) FAITHFULNESS (pistotes)--the strict performance of a
+trust.--"Republic," bk. i. ch. v., bk. vi. ch. ii.
+
+(4.) USEFULNESS (opheltmon)--the answering of some valuable
+end.--"Republic," bk. ii. ch. xviii., bk. iv. ch. xviii.; "Meno," Sec. 22.
+
+(5.) BENEVOLENCE (eunoia)--seeking the well-being of
+others.--"Republic," bk. i. ch. xvii., bk. ii. ch. xviii.
+
+(6.) HOLINESS (osiotes)--purity of mind, piety.--"Protagoras," Secs. 52-54;
+"Phaedo," Sec. 32; "Theaetetus," Sec. 84.
+
+The final effort of Plato's Dialectic was to ascend from these ideas of
+Absolute Truth, and Absolute Beauty, and Absolute Goodness to the
+_Absolute Being_, in whom they are all united, and from whom they all
+proceed. "He who possesses the true love of science is naturally carried
+in his aspirations to the _real Being_; and his love, so far from
+suffering itself to be retarded by the multitude of things whose reality
+is only apparent, knows no repose until it have arrived at union with
+the _essence_ of each object, by the part of the soul which is akin to
+the permanent and essential; so that this divine conjunction having
+produced intelligence and truth, the knowledge of _being_ is won."[585]
+
+[Footnote 585: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. v.]
+
+To the mind of Plato, there was in every thing, even the smallest and
+most insignificant of sensible objects, a _reality_ just in so far as it
+participates in some archetypal form or idea. These archetypal forms or
+ideas are the "_thoughts of God_"[586]--they are the plan according to
+which he framed the universe. "The Creator and Father of the universe
+looked to an _eternal model_.... Being thus generated, the universe is
+framed according to principles that can be comprehended by reason and
+reflection."[587] Plato, also, regarded all individual conceptions of
+the mind as hypothetical notions which have in them an _a priori_
+element--an idea which is unchangeable, universal, and necessary. These
+unchangeable, universal, and necessary ideas are copies of the Divine
+Ideas, which are, for man, the primordial laws of all cognition, and all
+reasoning. They are possessed by the soul "in virtue of its kindred
+nature to that which is permanent, unchangeable, and eternal." He also
+believed that every archetypal form, and every _a priori_ idea, has its
+ground and root in a higher idea, which is _unhypothetical_ and
+_absolute_--an idea which needs no other supposition for its
+explanation, and which is, itself, needful to the explanation of all
+existence--even the idea of an _absolute_ and _perfect Being_, in whose
+mind the ideas of absolute truth, and beauty, and goodness inhere, and
+in whose eternity they can only be regarded as eternal.[588] Thus do the
+"ideas of reason" not only cast a bridge across the abyss that separates
+the sensible and the ideal world, but they also carry us beyond the
+limits of our personal consciousness, and discover to us a realm of real
+Being, which is the foundation, and cause, and explanation of the
+phenomenal world that appears around us and within us.
+
+[Footnote 586: Alcinous, "Doctrines of Plato," p. 262.]
+
+[Footnote 587: "Timaeus," ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 588: Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 149.]
+
+This passage from psychology to ontology is not achieved _per saltum_,
+or effected by any arbitrary or unwarrantable assumption. There are
+principles revealed in the centre of our consciousness, whose regular
+development carry us beyond the limits of consciousness, and attain to
+the knowledge of actual being. The absolute principles of _causality_
+and _substance_, of _intentionality_ and _unity_, unquestionably give us
+the absolute Being. Indeed the absolute truth _that every idea supposes
+a being in which it resides_, and which is but another form of the law
+or principle of substance, viz., _that every quality supposes a
+substance or being in which it inheres_, is adequate to carry us from
+Idea to Being. "There is not a single cognition which does not suggest
+to us the notion of existence, and there is not an unconditional and
+absolute truth which does not necessarily imply an absolute and
+unconditional Being."[589]
+
+[Footnote 589: Cousin's "Elements of Psychology," p. 506.]
+
+This, then, is the dialectic of Plato. Instead of losing himself amid
+the endless variety of particular phenomena, he would search for
+principles and laws, and from thence ascend to the great Legislator, the
+_First Principle of all Principles_. Instead of stopping at the
+relations of sensible objects to the general ideas with which they are
+commingled, he will pass to their _eternal Paradigms_--from the just
+thing to the idea of absolute justice, from the particular good to the
+absolute good, from beautiful things to the absolute beauty, and thence
+to the ultimate reality--_the absolute Being_. By the realization of the
+lower idea, embodied in the forms of the visible universe and in the
+necessary laws of thought, he sought to rise to the higher idea, in its
+pure and abstract form--the _Supreme Idea_, containing in itself all
+other ideas--the _One Intelligence_ which unites the universe in a
+harmonious whole. "The Dialectic faculty proceeds from hypothesis to an
+unhypothetical principle.... It uses hypotheses as steps, and
+starting-points, in order to proceed from thence to the _absolute_. The
+Intuitive Reason takes hold of the First Principle of the Universe, and
+avails itself of all the connections and relations of that principle. It
+ascends from idea to idea, until it has reached the Supreme Idea"--the
+_Absolute Good_--that is, _God_.[590]
+
+[Footnote 590: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xx. and xxi.]
+
+We are thus brought, in the course of our examination of the Platonic
+method, to the _results_ obtained by this method--or, in other words, to
+
+III. THE PLATONIC ONTOLOGY.
+
+The grand object of all philosophic inquiry in ancient Greece was to
+attain to the knowledge of real Being--that Being which is permanent,
+unchangeable, and eternal. It had proceeded on the intuitive conviction,
+that beneath all the endless diversity of the universe there must be a
+principle of _unity_--below all fleeting appearances there must be a
+permanent _substance_--beyond all this everlasting flow and change, this
+beginning and end of finite existence, there must be an eternal Being,
+which is the _cause_, and which contains, in itself, the _reason_ of the
+order, and harmony, and beauty, and excellency which pervades the
+universe. And it had perpetually asked what is this permanent,
+unchangeable, and eternal substance or being?
+
+Plato had assiduously labored at the solution of this problem. The
+object of his dialectic was "to lead upward the soul to the knowledge of
+real being,"[591] and the conclusions to which he attained may be summed
+up as follows:
+
+1st. _Beneath all_ SENSIBLE _phenomena there is an unchangeable
+subject-matter, the mysterious substratum of the world of sense, which
+he calls the receptacle (ipodoche) the nurse (tithene) of all that is
+produced_.[592]
+
+It is this "substratum or physical groundwork" which gives a reality and
+definiteness to the evanescent phantoms of sense, for, in their
+ceaseless change, _they_ can not justify any title whatever. It alone
+can be styled "_this_" or "_that_" (tode or touto); they rise no higher
+than "_of such kind_" or "_of what kind or quality" (toiouton or
+opoionoun ti).[593] It is not earth, or air, or fire, or water, but "an
+invisible _species_ and formless universal receiver, which, in the most
+obscure way, receives the immanence of the intelligible."[594] And in
+relation to the other two principles (_i.e._, ideas and objects of
+sense), "it is _the mother_" to the father and the offspring.[595] But
+perhaps the most remarkable passage is that in which he seems to
+identify it with _pure space_, which, "itself imperishable, furnishes a
+_seat_ (edran) to all that is produced, not apprehensible by direct
+perception, but caught by a certain spurious reasoning, scarcely
+admissible, but which we see as in a dream; gaining it by that judgment
+which pronounces it necessary that all which is, be _somewhere_, and
+occupy a _certain space_."[596] This, it will be seen, approaches the
+Cartesian doctrine, which resolves matter into _simple extension.[597]
+
+[Footnote 591: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xii. and xiii.]
+
+[Footnote 592: "Timaeus," ch. xxii.]
+
+[Footnote 593: "Timaeus," ch. xxiii.]
+
+[Footnote 594: Ibid., ch. xxiv.]
+
+[Footnote 595: Ibid., ch. xxiv.]
+
+[Footnote 596: Ibid., ch. xxvi.]
+
+[Footnote 597: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+171.]
+
+It should, however, be distinctly noted that Plato does not use the word
+yle--matter. This term is first employed by Aristotle to express "the
+substance which is the subject of all changes."[598] The subject or
+substratum of which Plato speaks, would seem to be rather a logical than
+a material entity. It is the _condition or supposition_ necessary for
+the production of a world of phenomena. It is thus the
+_transition-element_ between the real and the apparent, the eternal and
+the contingent; and, lying thus on the border of both territories, we
+must not be surprised that it can hardly be characterized by any
+definite attribute.[599] Still, this unknown recipient of forms or ideas
+has a _reality_; it has "an abiding nature," "a constancy of existence;"
+and we are forbidden to call it by any name denoting quality, but
+permitted to style it "_this_" and "_that_" (tode kai touto).[600]
+Beneath the perpetual changes of sensible phenomena there is, then, an
+unchangeable subject, which yet is neither the Deity, nor ideas, nor the
+soul of man, which exists as the means and occasion of the manifestation
+of Divine Intelligence in the organization of the world.[601]
+
+[Footnote 598: "Metaphysics," bk. vii. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 599: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+178.]
+
+[Footnote 600: "Timaeus," ch. xxiii.]
+
+[Footnote 601: Ibid., ch. xiiii]
+
+There has been much discussion as to whether Plato held that this
+"_Receptacle_" and "_Nurse_" of forms and ideas was eternal, or
+generated in time. Perhaps no one has more carefully studied the
+writings of Plato than William Archer Butler, and his conclusions in
+regard to this subject are presented in the following words: "As, on the
+one hand, he maintained a strict system of dualism, and avoided, without
+a single deviation, that seduction of pantheism to which so many
+abstract speculators of his own school have fallen victims; so, on the
+other hand, it appears to me that he did not scruple to place this
+principle, the opposite of the Divine intelligence, in a sphere
+independent of temporal origination.... But we can scarcely enter into
+his views, unless we ascertain his notions of the nature of _Time_
+itself. This was considered to have been created with the rest of the
+sensible world, to finish with it, if it ever finished--to be altogether
+related to this phenomenal scene.[602] 'The generating Father determined
+to create a moving image of eternity (aionos); and in disposing the
+heavens, he framed of this eternity, reposing in its own unchangeable
+unity, an eternal _image_, moving according to numerical succession,
+which he called _Time_. With the world arose days, nights, months,
+years, which all had no previous existence. The past and future are but
+forms of time, which we most erroneously transfer to the eternal
+substance (aidion ousian); we say it was, and is, and will be, whereas
+we can only fitly say _it is_. Past and future are appropriate to the
+successive nature of generated beings, for they bespeak motion; but the
+Being eternally and immovably the same is subject neither to youth nor
+age, nor to any accident of time; it neither was, nor hath been, nor
+will be, which are the attributes of fleeting sense--the circumstances
+of time, imitating eternity in the shape of number and motion. Nor can
+any thing be more inaccurate than to apply the term _real being_ to
+past, or present, or future, or even to non-existence. Of this, however,
+we can not now speak fully. _Time_, then, was formed with the heavens,
+that, together created, they may together end, _if indeed an end be in
+the purpose of the Creator_; and it is designed as closely as possible
+to resemble the eternal nature, its exemplar. The model exists through
+all eternity; the world has been, is, and will be through all
+_time_.'[603] In this ineffable eternity Plato places the Supreme Being,
+and the archetypal ideas of which the sensible world of time partakes.
+Whether he also includes under the same mode of existence the
+_subject-matter_ of the sensible world, it is not easy to pronounce; and
+it appears to me evident that he did not himself undertake to speak with
+assurance on this obscure problem."[604] The creation of matter "out of
+nothing" is an idea which, in all probability, did not occur to the mind
+of Plato. But that he regarded it as, in some sense, a _dependent_
+existence--as existing, like time, by "the purpose or will of the
+Creator"--perhaps as an eternal "generation" from the "eternal
+substance," is also highly probable; for in the last analysis he
+evidently desires to embrace all things in some ultimate _unity_--a
+tendency which it seems impossible for human reason to avoid.
+
+[Footnote 602: See _ante_, note 4, p. 349.]
+
+[Footnote 603: "Timaeus," ch. xiv.]
+
+[Footnote 604: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+171-175.]
+
+2d. _Beneath all mental phenomena there is a permanent subject or
+substratum which he designates_ THE IDENTICAL (to auto)--_the rational
+element of the soul--"the principle of self-activity" or
+self-determination_.[605]
+
+There are three principles into which Plato analyzes the soul--the
+principle of the _Identical_, the _Diverse_, and the _Intermediate
+Essence_.[606] The first is indivisible and eternal, always existing in
+_sameness_, the very substance of _Intelligence_ itself, and of the same
+nature with the Divine.[607] The second is divisible and corporeal,
+answering to our notion of the passive _sensibilities_, and placing the
+soul in relation with the visible world. The third is an intermediate
+essence, partaking of the natures of both, and constituting a medium
+between the eternal and the mutable--the conscious _energy_ of the soul
+developed in the contingent world of time. Thus the soul is, on one
+side, linked to the unchangeable and the eternal, being formed of that
+ineffable element which constitutes the _real_ or _immutable Being_, and
+on the other side, linked to the sensible and the contingent, being
+formed of that element which is purely _relative_ and _contingent_. This
+last element of the soul is regarded by Plato as "mortal" and
+"corruptible," the former element as "immortal" and "indestructible,"
+having its foundations laid in eternity.
+
+[Footnote 605: "Laws," bk. x. ch. vi. and vii.; "Phaedrus," Sec. 51; "arche
+kineseos."]
+
+[Footnote 606: "Timaeus," ch. xii.; tauton, thateron, and ousia or to
+symmisgomenon.]
+
+[Footnote 607: "Laws," bk. v. ch. i.]
+
+This doctrine of the eternity of the free and rational element of the
+soul must, of course, appear strange and even repulsive to those who are
+unacquainted with the Platonic notion of eternity as a fixed state out
+of time, which has no past, present, or future, and is simply that which
+"always _is_"--an everlasting _now_. The soul, in its elements of
+rationality and freedom, has existed anterior to time, because it now
+exists in eternity.[608] In its actual manifestations and personal
+history it is to be contemplated as a "generated being," having a
+commencement in time.
+
+Now, that the human soul, like the uncreated Deity, has always had a
+distinct, conscious, personal, independent being, does not appear to be
+the doctrine of Plato. He teaches, most distinctly, that the "divine,"
+the immortal part, was created, or rather "generated," in eternity. "The
+Deity himself _formed the divine_, and he delivered over to his
+celestial offspring [the subordinate and generated gods] the task of
+_forming the mortal_. These subordinate deities, copying the example of
+their parent, and receiving from his hands the _immortal principle_ of
+the human soul, fashioned subsequently to this the mortal body, which
+they consigned to the soul as a vehicle, and in which they placed
+another kind of soul, mortal, the seat of violent and fatal
+affections."[609] He also regarded the soul as having a derived and
+dependent existence. He draws a marked distinction between the divine
+and human forms of the "self-moving principle," and makes its
+continuance dependent upon the will and wisdom of the Almighty Disposer
+and Parent, of whom it is "the first-born offspring."[610]
+
+[Footnote 608: See _ante_, note 4, p. 349, as to the Platonic notions of
+"Time" and "Eternity."]
+
+[Footnote 609: "Timaeus," ch. xliv.]
+
+[Footnote 610: See the elaborate exposition in "Laws," bk. x. ch. xii.
+and xiii.]
+
+That portion of the soul which Plato regarded as "immortal" and "to be
+entitled divine," is thus the "_offspring of God_"--a ray of the
+Divinity "generated" by, or emanating from, the Deity. He seems to have
+conceived it as co-eternal with its ideal objects, in some mysterious
+ultimate _unity_. "The true foundation of the Platonic theory of the
+constitution of the soul is this fundamental principle of his
+philosophy--the _oneness of truth and knowledge_.[611] This led him
+naturally to derive the _rational_ element of the soul (that element
+that _knows_), that possesses the power of noesis from the _real_
+element in things (the element that _is_)--the nooumenon; and in the
+original, the final, and, though imperfectly, the present state of that
+rational element, he, doubtless, conceived it united with its object in
+an eternal conjunction, or even identity. But though intelligence and
+its correlative intelligibles were and are thus combined, the soul is
+_more_ than pure intelligence; it possesses an element of personality
+and consciousness distinct to each individual, of which we have no
+reason to suppose, from any thing his writings contain, Plato ever meant
+to deprive it."[612] On the contrary, he not only regarded it as having
+now, under temporal conditions, a distinct personal existence, but he
+also claimed for it a conscious, personal existence after death. He is
+most earnest, and unequivocal, and consistent in his assertion of the
+doctrine of the immortality of the soul. The arguments which human
+reason can supply are exhibited with peculiar force and beauty in the
+"Phaedo," the "Phaedrus," and the tenth book of the "Republic." The most
+important of these arguments may be presented in a few words.
+
+[Footnote 611: See Grant's "Aristotle," vol. i. pp. 150, 151.]
+
+[Footnote 612: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+209, note.]
+
+1. _The soul is immortal, because it is incorporeal_. There are two
+kinds of existences, one compounded, the other simple; the former
+subject to change, the latter unchangeable; one perceptible to sense,
+the other comprehended by mind alone. The one is visible, the other is
+invisible. When the soul employs the bodily senses, it wanders and is
+confused; but when it abstracts itself from the body, it attains to
+knowledge which is stable, unchangeable, and immortal. The soul,
+therefore, being uncompounded, incorporeal, invisible, must be
+indissoluble--that is to say, immortal.[613]
+
+[Footnote 613: "Phaedo," Secs. 61-75.]
+
+2. _The soul is immortal, because it has an independent power of
+self-motion_--that is, it has self-activity and self-determination. No
+arrangement of matter, no configuration of body, can be conceived as the
+originator of free and voluntary movement.
+
+Now that which can not move itself, but derives its motion from
+something else, may cease to move, and perish. "But that which is
+self-moved, never ceases to be active, and is also the cause of motion
+to all other things that are moved." And "whatever is continually active
+is immortal." This "self-activity is," says Plato, "the very essence and
+true notion of the soul."[614] Being thus essentially _causative_, it
+therefore partakes of the nature of a "principle," and it is the nature
+of a principle to exclude its _contrary_. That which is essentially
+self-active can never cease to be active; that which is the cause of
+motion and of change, can not be extinguished by the change called
+death.[615]
+
+3. _The soul is immortal, because it possesses universal, necessary, and
+absolute ideas_, which transcend all material conditions, and bespeak an
+origin immeasurably above the body. No modifications of matter, however
+refined, however elaborated, can give the Absolute, the Necessary, the
+Eternal. But the soul has the ideas of absolute beauty, goodness,
+perfection, identity, and duration, and it possesses these ideas in
+virtue of its having a nature which is one, simple, identical, and in
+some sense, eternal.[616] If the soul can conceive an immortality, it
+can not be less than immortal. If, by its very nature, "it has hopes
+that will not be bounded by the grave, and desires and longings that
+grasp eternity," its nature and its destiny must correspond.
+
+In the concluding sections of the "Phaedo" he urges the doctrine with
+earnestness and feeling as the grand motive to a virtuous life, for "the
+reward is noble and the hope is great."[617] And in the "Laws" he
+insists upon the doctrine of a future state, in which men are to be
+rewarded or punished as the most conclusive evidence that we are under
+the moral government of God.[618]
+
+[Footnote 614: "Phaedrus," Secs. 51-53.]
+
+[Footnote 615: "Phaedo," Secs. 112-128.]
+
+[Footnote 616: Ibid., Secs. 48-57, 110-115.]
+
+[Footnote 617: Ibid., Secs. 129-145.]
+
+[Footnote 618: The doctrine of Metempsychosis, or transmigration of
+souls, can scarcely be regarded as part of the philosophic system of
+Plato. He seems to have accepted it as a venerable tradition, coming
+within the range of probability, rather than as a philosophic truth, and
+it is always presented by him in a highly mythical dress. Now of these
+mythical representations he remarks in the "Phaedo" (Sec. 145) that "no man
+in his senses would dream of insisting _that they correspond to the
+reality_, but that, the soul having been shown to be immortal, this, or
+something like this, is true of individual souls or their habitations."
+If, as in the opinions of the ablest critics, "the Laws" is to be placed
+amongst the last and maturest of Plato's writings, the evidence is
+conclusive that whatever may have been his earlier opinions, he did not
+entertain the doctrine of "Metempsychosis" in his riper years. But when,
+on the one hand, the soul shall remain having an intercourse with divine
+virtue, it becomes divine pre-eminently; and pre-eminently, after having
+been conveyed to a _place_ entirely holy, it is changed for the better;
+but when it acts in a contrary manner, it has, under contrary
+circumstances, placed its existence in some _unholy spot_.
+
+     _This is the judgment of the gods, who hold Olympus._
+
+"O thou young man," [know] "that the person who has become more wicked,
+_departs to the more wicked souls;_ but he who has become better, to the
+better both in life and in all deaths, to do and suffer what is fitting
+for the like."--"Laws," bk. x. ch. xii. and xiii.]
+
+4. _Beyond all finite existences and secondary causes, all laws, ideas,
+and principles, there is an_ INTELLIGENCE _or_ MIND, _the First
+Principle of all Principles, the Supreme Idea on which all other ideas
+are grounded; the Monarch and Lawgiver of the universe, the ultimate
+Substance from which all other things derive their being and essence,
+the First and efficient Cause of all the order, and harmony, and beauty,
+and excellency, and goodness, which pervades the universe, who is called
+by way of pre-eminence and excellence the Supreme Good_, THE GOD (o
+Theos), "_the God over all_," (o epi pasi Theos).
+
+_This_ SUPREME MIND,[619] Plato taught, is incorporeal,[620]
+unchangeable,[621] infinite,[622] absolutely perfect,[623] essentially
+good,[624] unoriginated,[625] and eternal.[626] He is "the Father, and
+Architect, and Maker of the Universe,"[627] "the efficient Cause of all
+things."[628] "the Monarch and Ruler of the world,"[629] "the sovereign
+Mind that orders all things, and pervades all things,"[630] "the sole
+Principle of all things,"[631] and "the Measure of all things,"[632] He
+is "the Beginning of all truth,"[633] "the Fountain of all law and
+justice,"[634] "the Source of all order and beauty,"[635] "the Cause of
+all good;"[636] in short, "he is the Beginning, the Middle, and End of
+all things."[637]
+
+[Footnote 619: "Phaedo," Secs. 105-107.]
+
+[Footnote 620: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," bk. iii. ch. 77.]
+
+[Footnote 621: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xix.; "Timaeus," ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 622: "Apeleius," bk. i. ch. v.]
+
+[Footnote 623: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xx.]
+
+[Footnote 624: "Timaeus," ch. x.; "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xviii.]
+
+[Footnote 625: "Timaeus," ch. ix.-x.]
+
+[Footnote 626: Ibid., ch. xii.]
+
+[Footnote 627: Ibid., ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 628: "Phaedo," Sec. 105.]
+
+[Footnote 629: "Laws," bk. x. ch. xii.; "Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.;
+"Philebus," Sec. 50.]
+
+[Footnote 630: "Philebus," Sec.51.]
+
+[Footnote 631: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xix.]
+
+[Footnote 632: "Laws," bk. iv. ch. viii.]
+
+[Footnote 633: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xxi.]
+
+[Footnote 634: "Laws," bk. iv. ch. vii.]
+
+[Footnote 635: "Philebus," Sec. 51; "Timaeus," ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 636: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xviii.; "Timaeus," ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 637: "Laws," bk. iv, ch. vii.]
+
+Beyond the sensible world, Plato conceived another world of
+intelligibles or _ideas_. These ideas are not, however, distinct and
+independent existences. "What general notions are to our own minds,
+ideas are to the Supreme Reason (nous basileus); they are the _eternal
+thoughts_ of the Divine Intellect."[638] Ideas are not substances, they
+are qualities, and there must, therefore, be some ultimate substance or
+being to whom, as attributes, they belong. "It must not be believed, as
+has been taught, that Plato gave to ideas a substantial existence. When
+they are not objects of pure conception for human reason, they are
+attributes of the Divine Reason. It is there they substantially
+exist."[639] These eternal laws and reasons of things indicate to us the
+character of that Supreme Essence of essences, the Being of beings. He
+is not the simple aggregate of all laws, but he is the Author, and
+Sustainer, and Substance of all laws. At the utmost summit of the
+intellectual world of Ideas blazes, with an eternal splendor, the idea
+of the _Supreme Good_ from which all others emanate.[640] This Supreme
+Good is "far beyond all existence in dignity and power, and it is that
+from which all things else derive their being and essence."[641] The
+Supreme Good is not the truth, nor the intelligence; "it is the Father
+of it." In the same manner as the sun, which is the visible image of the
+good, reigns over the world, in that it illumes and vivifies it; so the
+Supreme Good, of which the sun is only the work, reigns over the
+intelligible world, in that it gives birth to it by virtue of its
+inexhaustible fruitfulness.[642] _The Supreme Good is_ GOD _himself_,
+and he is designated "the good" because this term seems most fittingly
+to express his essential character and essence.[643] It is towards this
+superlative perfection that the reason lifts itself; it is towards this
+infinite beauty the heart aspires. "Marvellous Beauty!" exclaims Plato;
+"eternal, uncreated, imperishable beauty, free from increase and
+diminution... beauty which has nothing sensible, nothing corporeal, as
+hands or face: which does not reside in any being different from itself,
+in the earth, or the heavens, or in any other thing, but which exists
+_eternally and absolutely in itself, and by itself;_ beauty of which
+every other beauty partakes, without their birth or destruction bringing
+to it the least increase or diminution."[644] The absolute being--God,
+is the last reason, the ultimate foundation, the complete ideal of all
+beauty. God is, _par excellent_, the Beautiful.
+
+[Footnote 638: Thompson's "Laws of Thought," p. 119.]
+
+[Footnote 639: Cousin, "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 415. "There is no quintessential metaphysics which can prevail
+against common sense, and if such be the Platonic theory of ideas,
+Aristotle was right in opposing it. But such a theory is only a chimera
+which Aristotle created for the purpose of combating it."--"The True,
+the Beautiful, and the Good," p. 77.]
+
+[Footnote 640: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 641: "Ibid.," bk. vi. ch. xviii. and xix.]
+
+[Footnote 642: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 642: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+275.]
+
+[Footnote 644: "Banquet," Sec. 35. See Cousin, "The True, the Beautiful,
+and the Good," Lecture IV., also Lecture VII. pp. 150-153; Denis,
+"Histoire des Theories et Idees Morales dans l'Antiquite," vol. i. p.
+149.]
+
+God is therefore, with Plato, _the First Principle of all Principles;_
+the Divine energy or power is the _efficient cause_, the Divine beauty
+the _formal cause_, and the Divine goodness the _final cause_ of all
+existence.
+
+_The eternal unity of the principles of Order, Goodness, and Truth, in
+an ultimate reality--the_ ETERNAL MIND, is thus the fundamental
+principle which pervades the whole of the Platonic philosophy. And now,
+having attained this sublime elevation, he looks down from thence upon
+the _sensible, the phenomenal world_, and upon _the temporal life of
+man;_ and in the light of this great principle he attempts to explain
+their meaning and purpose. The results he attained in the former case
+constitute the Platonic _Physics_, in the latter, the Platonic _Ethics_.
+
+I. PLATONIC PHYSICS.
+
+Firmly believing in the absolute excellence of the Deity, and regarding
+the Divine Goodness as the Final Cause of the universe, he pronounces
+the physical world to be an _image_ of the perfection of God.
+Anaxagoras, no doubt, prepared the way for this theory. Every one who
+has read the "Phaedo," will remember the remarkable passage in which
+Socrates gives utterance to the disappointment which he had experienced
+when expecting from physical science an explanation of the universe.
+"When I was young," he said--"it is not to be told how eager I was about
+physical inquiries, and curious to know _how the universe came to be as
+it is_; and when I heard that Anaxagoras was teaching that all was
+arranged by _mind_, I was delighted with the prospect of hearing such a
+doctrine unfolded; I thought to myself, if he teaches that mind made
+every thing to be as it is, he will explain _how it is_ BEST _for it to
+be_, and show that so it is." But Anaxagoras, it appears, lost sight of
+this principle, and descended to the explanation of the universe by
+material causes. "Great was my hope," says Socrates, "and equally great
+my disappointment."[645]
+
+[Footnote 645: "Phaedo," Secs. 105, 106.]
+
+Plato accepted this suggestion of Anaxagoras with all his peculiar
+earnestness, and devoted himself to its fuller development. It were a
+vain and profitless theory, which, whilst it assumed the existence of a
+Supreme Mind, did not represent that mind as operating in the universe
+by _design_, and as exhibiting his intelligence, and justice, and
+goodness, as well as his power, in every thing. If it be granted that
+there is a Supreme Mind, then, argued Plato, he must be regarded as "the
+measure of all things," and all things must have been framed according
+to a plan or "model" which that mind supplied. Intelligence must be
+regarded as having a _purpose_, and as working towards an _end_, for it
+is this alone which distinguishes reason from unreason, and mind from
+mere unintelligent force. The only proper model which could be presented
+to the Supreme Intelligence is "the eternal and unchangeable model"[646]
+which his own perfection supplies, "for he is the most excellent of
+causes."[647] Thus God is not simply the maker of the universe, but the
+model of the universe, because he designed that it should be an IMAGE,
+in the sphere of sense, of his own perfections--a revelation of his
+eternal beauty, and wisdom, and goodness, and truth. "God was _good_,
+and being good, he desired that the universe should, as far as possible,
+_resemble_ himself.... Desiring that all things should be _good_, and,
+as far as might be, nothing evil, he took the fluctuating mass of things
+visible, which had been in orderless confusion, and reduced it to
+_order_, considering this to be the _better_ state. Now it was and is
+utterly impossible for the supremely good to form any thing except that
+which is _most excellent_ (kalliston--most fair, most beautiful").[648]
+The object at which the supreme mind aimed being that which is "_best_,"
+we must, in tracing his operations in the universe, always look for
+"_the best_" in every thing.[649] Starting out thus, upon the assumption
+that the goodness of God is the final cause of the universe, Plato
+evolved a system of _optimism_.
+
+The physical system of Plato being thus intended to illustrate a
+principle of optimism, the following results may be expected:
+
+1. That it will mainly concern itself with _final causes_. The universe
+being regarded chiefly, as indeed it is, an indication of the Divine
+Intelligence--every phenomenon will be contemplated in that light.
+Nature is the volume in which the Deity reveals his own perfections; it
+is therefore to be studied solely with this motive, that we may learn
+from thence the perfection of God. The _Timaeus_ is a series of ingenious
+hypotheses designed to deepen and vivify our sense of the harmony, and
+symmetry, and beauty of the universe, and, as a consequence, of the
+wisdom, and excellence, and goodness, of its Author.[650]
+
+[Footnote 646: "Timaeus," ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 647: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 648: Ibid., ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 649: Ibid., ch. xix.]
+
+[Footnote 650: "Being is related to Becoming (the Absolute to the
+Contingent) as Truth is to Belief; consequently we must not marvel
+should we find it impossible to arrive at any certain and conclusive
+results in our speculations upon the creation of the visible universe
+and its authors; it should be enough for us if the account we have to
+give be as probable as any other, remembering that we are but men, and
+therefore bound to acquiesce in merely probable results, without looking
+for a higher degree of certainty than the subject admits of"--"Timaeus,"
+ch. ix.]
+
+Whatever physical truths were within the author's reach, took their
+place in the general array: the vacancies were filled up with the best
+suppositions admitted by the limited science of the time.[651] And it is
+worthy of remark that, whilst proceeding by this "high _a priori_ road,"
+he made some startling guesses at the truth, and anticipated some of the
+discoveries of the modern inductive method, which proceeds simply by the
+observation, comparison, and generalization of facts. Of these prophetic
+anticipations we may instance that of the definite proportions of
+chemistry,[652] the geometrical forms of crystallography,[653] the
+doctrine of complementary colors,[654] and that grand principle that all
+the highest laws of nature assume the form of a precise quantitative
+statement.[655]
+
+2. It may be expected that a system of physics raised on optimistic
+principles will be _mathematical_ rather than experimental. "Intended to
+embody conceptions of proportion and harmony, it will have recourse to
+that department of science which deals with the proportions in space and
+number. Such applications of mathematical truths, not being raised on
+ascertained facts, can only accidentally represent the real laws of the
+physical system; they will, however, vivify the student's apprehension
+of harmony in the same manner as a happy parable, though not founded in
+real history, will enliven his perceptions of moral truth."[656]
+
+[Footnote 651: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+157.]
+
+[Footnote 652: "Timaeus," ch. xxxi.]
+
+[Footnote 653: Ibid., ch. xxvii.]
+
+[Footnote 654: Ibid., ch. xlii.]
+
+[Footnote 655: "It is Plato's merit to have discovered that the laws of
+the physical universe are resolvable into numerical relations, and
+therefore capable of being represented by mathematical
+formulae."--Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 163.]
+
+[Footnote 656: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+163.]
+
+3. Another peculiarity of such a system will be an impatience of every
+merely _mechanical_ theory of the operations of nature.
+
+"The psychology of Plato led him to recognize mind wherever there was
+motion, and hence not only to require a Deity as first mover of the
+universe, but also to conceive the propriety of separate and subordinate
+agents attached to each of its parts, as principles of motion, no less
+than intelligent directors. These agents were entitled '_gods_' by an
+easy figure, discernible even in the sacred language,[657] and which
+served, besides, to accommodate philosophical hypotheses to the popular
+religion. Plato, however, carefully distinguished between the sole,
+Eternal Author of the Universe, on the one hand, and that 'soul,' vital
+and intelligent, which he attaches to the world, as well as the spheral
+intelligences, on the other. These 'subordinate deities,' though
+intrusted with a sort of deputed creation, were still only the deputies
+of the Supreme Framer and Director of all."[658] The "gods" of the
+Platonic system are "subordinate divinities," "generated gods," brought
+into existence by the will and wisdom of the Eternal Father and Maker of
+the universe.[659] Even Jupiter, the governing divinity of the popular
+mythology, is a descendant from powers which are included in the
+creation.[660] The offices they fulfill, and the relations they sustain
+to the Supreme Being, correspond to those of the "angels" of Christian
+theology. They are the ministers of his providential government of the
+world.[661]
+
+[Footnote 657: Psalm lxxxii. I; John x. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 658: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+164.]
+
+[Footnote 659: "Timaeus," ch. xv.]
+
+[Footnote 660: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 661: "Laws," bk. x.]
+
+The application of this fundamental conception of the Platonic
+system--_the eternal unity of the principles of Order, Goodness, and
+Truth in an ultimate reality, the Eternal Mind_--to the elucidation of
+the _temporal life_ of man, yields, as a result--
+
+II. THE PLATONIC ETHICS.
+
+Believing firmly that there are unchangeable, necessary, and absolute
+principles, which are the perfections of the Eternal Mind, Plato must,
+of course, have been a believer in an _immutable morality_. He held that
+there is a rightness, a justice, an equity, not arbitrarily constituted
+by the Divine will or legislation, but founded in the nature of God, and
+therefore eternal. The independence of the principles of morality upon
+the mere will of the Supreme Governor is proclaimed in all his
+writings.[662] The Divine will is the fountain of efficiency, the Divine
+reason, the fountain of law. God is no more the creator of _virtue_ than
+he is the creator of _truth_.
+
+And inasmuch as man is a partaker of the Divine essence, and as the
+ideas which dwell in the human reason are "copies" of those which dwell
+in the Divine reason, man may rise to the apprehension and recognition
+of the immutable and eternal principles of righteousness, and "by
+communion with that which is Divine, and subject to the law of order,
+may become himself a subject of order, and divine, so far as it is
+possible for man."[663]
+
+[Footnote 662: In "Euthyphron" especially.]
+
+[Footnote 663: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xiii.]
+
+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 (sophia) 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" (to agathon), 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 God, 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 God; philosophy is the "_Love of God_."[665] Ethically
+viewed, it is this one motive of _love_ for the Supreme Wisdom and
+Goodness, predominating over and purifying and assimilating every desire
+of the soul, and governing every movement of the man, raising man to a
+participation of and communion with Divinity, and restoring him to "the
+_likeness_ of God." "This flight," says Plato, "consists in resembling
+God (omoiosis Theo), and this resemblance is the becoming just and holy
+with wisdom."[666] "This assimilation to God is the enfranchisement of
+the divine element of the soul. To approach to God 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," Sec. 145.]
+
+[Footnote 665: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+61.]
+
+[Footnote 666: "Theaetetus," Sec. 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 God. 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, constitute 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 passions 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 passion 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 participation of the Supreme, the Absolute Good.
+
+This, then, is the meaning of the oft-repeated assertion 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," Secs. 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 circumstances 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 passions 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 God 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 God, and
+death must complete the final emancipation 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," Secs. 74-76.]
+
+[Footnote 673: "Phaedo," Secs. 130, 131.]
+
+Independent of all other considerations, virtue is, therefore, to be
+pursued as the true good of the soul. Wisdom, Fortitude, 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
+God."
+
+
+
+
+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 circumstances
+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 analytical. 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 classify 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 classification.
+
+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 analysis 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" (ta
+nooumena gene) 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 pass beyond the sensible world and
+ascend to "the absolute," that is, to God.[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 repetition 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 (ton kathekasta); art is that of universals (ton
+katholou)."[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 classification 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 transmuted
+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
+entitled 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 (nous) 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. Analytic," bk. i. ch. xxxi.]
+
+[Footnote 681: "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 682: "Topics," bk. i. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 683: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 684: "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 685: Ibid., bk. vi. ch. xi.]
+
+[Footnote 686: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 687: Hamilton attempts the following mode of reconciling the
+contradictory positions of Aristotle:
+
+"On the supposition of the mind virtually containing, antecedent to all
+experience, certain universal principles of knowledge, in the form of
+certain necessities of thinking; still it is only by repeated and
+comparative experiments that we compass the certainty; on the one hand,
+that such and such cognitions can not but be thought as necessary,
+native generalities; and, on the other, that such and such cognitions
+may or may not be thought, and are, therefore, as contingent, factitious
+generalizations. To this process of experiment, analysis, and
+classification, through which we attain to a scientific knowledge of
+principles, it might be shown that Aristotle, not improperly, applies
+the term _Induction_."--"Philosophy," p. 88.]
+
+The human mind, he tells us, has two kinds of intelligence--the
+_passive_ intelligence (nous pathetikos), which is the receptacle of
+forms (dectikon tou eidous); and the _active_ intelligence (nous
+poietikos), which impresses the seal of thought upon the data furnished
+by experience, and combines them into the unity of a single judgment,
+thus attaining "general notions."[688] The passive intelligence (the
+"external perception" of modern psychology) perceives the individual
+forms which appear in the external world, and the active intelligence
+(the intellect proper) classifies and generalizes according to fixed
+laws or principles inherent in itself; but of these fixed laws--prota
+noemata--first thoughts, or _a priori_ ideas, he offers no proper
+account; they are, at most, purely subjective. This, it would seem, was,
+in effect, a return to the doctrine of Protagoras and his school, "that
+man--the individual--is the measure of all things." The aspects under
+which objects present themselves in consciousness, constitute our only
+ground of knowledge; we have no direct, intuitive knowledge of Being _in
+se_. The noetic faculty is simply a _regulative_ faculty; it furnishes
+the laws under which we compare and judge, but it does not supply any
+original elements of knowledge. Individual things are the only real
+entities,[689] and "universals" have no separate existence apart from
+individuals in which they inhere as attributes or properties. They are
+consequently pure mental conceptions, which are fixed and recalled by
+general names. He thus substitutes a species of conceptual-nominalism in
+place of the realism of Plato. It is true that "real being" (to on) is
+with Aristotle a subject of metaphysical inquiry, but the proper, if not
+the only subsistence, or ouaia, is the form or abstract nature of
+things. "The essence or very nature of a thing is inherent in the _form_
+and _energy_"[690] The science of Metaphysics is strictly conversant
+about these abstract intellectual forms just as Natural Philosophy is
+conversant about external objects, of which the senses give us
+information. Our knowledge of these intellectual forms is, however,
+founded upon "beliefs" rather than upon immediate intuition, and the
+objective certainty of science, upon the subjective necessity of
+believing, and not upon direct apperception.
+
+[Footnote 688: "On the Soul," ch. vi.; "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 689: "Metaphysics," bk. vi. ch. xiii.]
+
+[Footnote 690: Ibid., bk. vii. ch. iii.]
+
+The points of contrast between the two methods may now be presented in a
+few sentences. Plato held that all our cognitions are reducible to two
+elements--one derived from _sense_, the other from _pure reason_; one
+element particular, contingent, and relative, the other universal,
+necessary, and absolute. By an act of _immediate abstraction_ Plato will
+eliminate the particular, contingent, and relative phenomena, and
+disengage the universal, necessary, and absolute _ideas_ which underlie
+and determine all phenomena. These ideas are the thoughts of the Divine
+Mind, according to which all particular and individual existences are
+generated, and, as divine thoughts, they are real and permanent
+existences. Thus by a process of immediate abstraction, he will rise
+from particular and contingent phenomena to universal and necessary
+principles, and from these to the First Principle of all principles, the
+First Cause of all causes--that is, to _God_.
+
+Aristotle, on the contrary, held that all of our knowledge begins with
+"the singular," that is, with the particular and the relative, and is
+derived from sensation and experience. The "sensible object," taken as
+it is without any sifting and probing, is the basis of science, and
+reason is simply the architect constructing science according to certain
+"forms" or laws inherent in mind. The object, then, of metaphysical
+science is to investigate those "universal notions" under which the mind
+conceives of and represents to itself external objects, and speculates
+concerning them. Aristotle, therefore, agrees with Plato in teaching
+"that science can only be a science of universals,"[691] and "that
+sensation alone can not furnish us with scientific knowledge."[692] How,
+then, does he propose to attain the knowledge of universal principles?
+How will he perform that feat which he calls "passing from the known to
+the unknown?" The answer is, by _comparative abstraction_. The universal
+being constituted by a relation of the object to the thinking subject,
+that is, by a property recognized by the intelligence alone, in virtue
+of which it can be retained as an object of thought, and compared with
+other objects, he proposes to _compare, analyze, define,_ and _classify_
+the primary cognitions, and thus evoke into energy, and clearly present
+those principles or forms of the intelligence which he denominate
+"universals." As yet, however, he has only attained to "general
+notions," which are purely subjective, that is, to logical definitions,
+and these logical definitions are subsequently elevated to the dignity
+of "universal principles and causes" by a species of philosophic
+legerdemain. Philosophy is thus stripped of its metaphysical character,
+and assumes a strictly _logical_ aspect. The key of the Aristotelian
+method is therefore the
+
+ARISTOTELIAN LOGIC.
+
+Pure Logic is the science of the formal laws of thought. Its office is
+to ascertain the rules or conditions under which the mind, by its own
+constitution, reasons and discourses. The office of Applied Logic--of
+logic as an art--is "to form and judge of conclusions, and, through
+conclusions, to establish proof. The conclusions, however, arise from
+propositions, and the propositions from conceptions." It is chiefly
+under the latter aspect that logic is treated by Aristotle. According to
+this natural point of view he has divided the contents of the logical
+and dialectic teaching in the different treatises of the _Organon_.
+
+[Footnote 691: "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 692: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. xxxi.]
+
+The first treatise is the "_Categories_" or "Predicaments"--a work which
+treats of the universal determinations of Being. It is a classification
+of all our mental conceptions. As a matter of fact, the mind forms
+notions or conceptions about those natures and essences of things which
+present an outward image to the senses, or those, equally real, which
+utter themselves to the mind. These may be defined and classified; there
+may be general conceptions to which all particular conceptions are
+referable. This classification has been attempted by Aristotle, and as
+the result we have the ten "Categories" of _Substance, Quantity,
+Quality, Relation, Time, Place, Position, Possession, Action, Passion_.
+He does not pretend that this classification is complete, but he held
+these "Predicaments" to be the most universal expressions for the
+various relations of things, under some one of which every thing might
+be reduced.
+
+The second treatise, "_On Interpretation_," investigates language as the
+expression of thought; and inasmuch as a true or false thought must be
+expressed by the union or separation of a subject and a predicate, he
+deems it necessary to discuss the parts of speech--the general term and
+the verb--and the modes of affirmation and denial. In this treatise he
+develops the nature and limitations of propositions, the meaning of
+contraries and contradictions, and the force of affirmations and denials
+in _possible, contingent_, and _necessary_ matter.
+
+The third are the "_Analytics_," which show how conclusions are to be
+referred back to their principles, and arranged in the order of their
+precedence.
+
+The First or Prior Analytic presents the universal doctrine of the
+Syllogism, its principles and forms, and teaches how must reason, if we
+would not violate the laws of our own mind. The theory of reasoning,
+generally, with a view to accurate demonstration, depends upon the
+construction of a perfect syllogism, which is defined as "a discourse in
+which, certain things being laid down, something else different from the
+premises necessarily results, in consequence of their existence."[693]
+Conclusions are, according to their own contents and end, either
+_Apodeictic_, which deal with necessary and demonstrable matter, or
+_Dialectic_, which deal with probable matter, or _Sophistical_, which
+are imperfect in matter or form, and announced, deceptively, as correct
+conclusions, when they are not. The doctrine of Apodeictic conclusions
+is given in the "_Posterior Analytic_," that of Dialectic conclusions in
+the "_Topics_," and that of the Sophistical in the "_Sophistical
+Elenchi_."
+
+Now, if Logic is of any value as an instrument for the discovery of
+truth, the attainment of certitude, it must teach us not only how to
+deduce conclusions from premises, but it must certify to us the validity
+of the principles from whence we reason and this is attempted by
+Aristotle in the Posterior Analytic. This treatise opens with the
+following statement: All doctrine, and all intellectual discipline,
+arises from a prior or pre-existent knowledge. This is evident, if we
+survey them all; for both mathematical sciences, and also each of the
+arts, are obtained in this manner. The same holds true in the case of
+reasonings, whether through [deductive] _Syllogism_ or through
+_Induction_, for both accomplish the instruction they afford from
+information previously known--the former (syllogistic reasoning)
+receiving it, as it were, from the traditions of the intelligent, the
+latter (inductive reasoning) manifesting the universal through the light
+of the singular.[694] Induction and Syllogism are thus the grand
+instruments of logic.[695]
+
+[Footnote 693: "Prior Analytic," bk. i. ch. i.; "Topics," bk. i. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 694: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 695: "We believe all things through syllogism, or from
+induction."--"Prior Analytic," bk. ii. ch. xxiii.]
+
+Both these processes are based upon an _anterior_ knowledge.
+Demonstrative science must be from things true, first, immediate, more
+known than, prior to, and the causes of, the conclusion, for thus there
+will be the appropriate first principles of whatever is
+demonstrated.[696] The first principles of demonstration, the material
+of thought, must, consequently, be supplied by some power or faculty of
+the mind other than that which is engaged in generalization and
+deductive reasoning. Whence, then, is this "anterior knowledge" derived,
+and what tests or criteria have we of its validity?
+
+1. In regard to deductive or syllogistic reasoning, the views of
+Aristotle are very distinctly expressed.
+
+Syllogistic reasoning "proceeds from generals to particulars."[697] The
+general must therefore be supplied as the foundation of the deductive
+reasoning. Whence, then, is this knowledge of "the general" derived? The
+answer of Aristotle is that the universal major proposition, out of
+which the conclusion of the syllogism is drawn, _is itself necessarily
+the conclusion of a previous induction, and mediately or immediately an
+inference_--a collection from individual objects of sensation or of
+self-consciousness. "Now," says he, "demonstration is from universals,
+but induction from particulars. It is impossible, however, to
+investigate universals except through induction, since things which are
+said to be from abstraction will be known only by induction."[698] It is
+thus clear that Aristotle makes _deduction necessarily dependent upon
+induction_. He maintains that the highest or most universal principles
+which constitute the primary and immediate propositions of the former
+are furnished by the latter.
+
+[Footnote 696: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 697: Ibid., bk. i. ch. xviii.; "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 698: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. xviii.]
+
+2. General principles being thus furnished by induction, we may now
+inquire whence, according to Aristotle, are the materials for induction
+derived? What is the character of that "anterior knowledge" which is the
+basis of the inductive process?
+
+Induction, says Aristotle, is "the progression from singulars to
+universals."[699] It is an illation of the universal from the singular
+as legitimated by the laws of thought. All knowledge, therefore, begins
+with singulars--that is, with individual objects. And inasmuch as all
+knowledge begins with "individual objects," and as the individual is
+constantly regarded by Aristotle as the "object of sense," it is claimed
+that his doctrine is that all knowledge is derived from _sensation_, and
+that science and art result to man (_solely_) by means of _experience._
+He is thus placed at the head of the empirical school of philosophy, as
+Plato is placed at the head of the ideal school.
+
+[Footnote 699: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. xviii.]
+
+This classification, however, is based upon a very superficial
+acquaintance with the philosophy of Aristotle as a whole. The practice,
+so commonly resorted to, of determining the character of the
+Aristotelian philosophy by the light of one or two passages quoted from
+his "Metaphysics," is unjust both to Aristotle and to the history of
+philosophic thought. We can not expect to attain a correct understanding
+of the views of Aristotle concerning the sources and grounds of all
+knowledge without some attention to his psychology. A careful study of
+his writings will show that the terms "sensation" (aisthesis) and
+"experience" (empeira) are employed in a much more comprehensive sense
+than is usual in modern philosophic writings.
+
+"Sensation," in its lowest form, is defined by Aristotle as "an
+excitation of the soul through the body,"[700] and, in its higher form,
+as the excitation of the soul by any object of knowledge. In this latter
+form it is used by him as synonymous with "intuition," and embraces all
+immediate intuitive perceptions, whether of sense, consciousness, or
+reason. "The universe is derived from particulars, therefore we ought to
+have a sensible perception (aisthesis) of these; and this is intellect
+(nous)."[701] Intelligence proper, the faculty of first principles, is,
+in certain respects, a sense, because it is the source of a class of
+truths which, like the perceptions of the senses, are immediately
+revealed as facts to be received upon their own evidence. It thus
+answers to the "sensus communis" of Cicero, and the "Common Sense" of
+the Scottish school. Under this aspect, "Sense is equal to or has the
+force of Science."[702] The term "Experience" is also used to denote,
+not merely the perception and remembrance of the impressions which
+external objects make upon the mind, but as co-extensive with the whole
+contents of consciousness--all that the mind _does_ of its own native
+energy, as well as all that it _suffers_ from without. It is evidently
+used in the Posterior Analytic (bk. ii. ch. xix.) to describe the whole
+process by which the knowledge of universals is obtained. "From
+experience, or from every universal remaining in the soul, the
+principles of art and science arise." The office of experience is "to
+furnish the principles of every science"[703]--that is, to evoke them
+into energy in the mind. 'Experience thus seems to be a thing almost
+similar to science and art.[704] In the most general sense, "sensation"
+would thus appear to be the immediate perception or intuition of facts
+and principles, and "experience" the operation of the mind upon these
+facts and principles, elaborating them into scientific form according to
+its own inherent laws. The "experience" of Aristotle is analogous to the
+"reflection" of Locke.
+
+[Footnote 700: "De Somn.," bk. i.]
+
+[Footnote 701: "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. xi.; see also ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 702: "De Cen. Anim."]
+
+[Footnote 703: "Prior Analytic," bk. i. ch. xix.]
+
+[Footnote 704: "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. i.]
+
+So much being premised, we proceed to remark that there is a distinction
+perpetually recurring in the writings of Aristotle between the elements
+or first principles of knowledge which are "clearest in their own
+nature" and those which "are clearest to our perception."[705] The
+causes or principles of knowledge "are _prior_ and _more known_ to us in
+two ways, for what is prior in nature is not the same as that which is
+prior to us, nor that which is more known (simply in itself) the same as
+that which is more known to us. Now I call things prior and more known
+to us, those which are _nearer to sense_; and things prior and more
+known simply in themselves, those which are _remote from sense_; and
+those things are most remote which are especially _universal_, and those
+nearest which are _singular_; and these are mutually opposed."[706] Here
+we have a distribution of the first or prior elements of knowledge into
+two fundamentally opposite classes.
+
+(i.) _The immediate or intuitive perceptions of sense,_
+
+(ii.) _The immediate or intuitive apperceptions of pure reason,_
+
+[Footnote 705: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. iv.; "Metaphysics," bk. ii. ch. i.;
+"Rhetoric," bk. i. ch. ii.; "Prior Analytic," bk. ii. ch. xxiii.]
+
+[Footnote 706: "Post. Analytic," bk. i. ch. ii.]
+
+The objects of sense-perception are external, individual, "nearest to
+sense," and occasionally or contingently present to sense. The objects
+of the intellect are inward, universal, and the essential property of
+the soul. They are "remote from sense," "prior by nature;" they are
+"forms" essentially inherent in the soul previous to experience; and it
+is the office of experience to bring them forward into the light of
+consciousness, or, in the language of Aristotle, "to evoke them from
+potentiality into actuality." And further, from the "prior" and
+immediate intuitions of sense and intellect, all our secondary, our
+scientific and practical knowledge is drawn by logical processes.
+
+The Aristotelian distribution of the intellectual faculties corresponds
+fully to this division of the objects of knowledge. The human intellect
+is divided by Aristotle into,
+
+1. The Passive or Receptive Intellect (nous paphetikos).--Its office is
+the reception of sensible impressions or images (Phantasmata) and their
+retention in the mind (myeme). These sensible forms or images are
+essentially immaterial. "Each sensoriurn (aistheteron) is receptive of
+the sensible quality _without the matter_, and hence when the sensibles
+themselves are absent, sensations and phantasikos remain."[707]
+
+[Footnote 707: "De Anima," bk. iii. ch. ii.]
+
+2. The Active or Creative Intellect (nous pointikos).--This is the power
+or faculty which, by its own inherent power, impresses "form" upon the
+material of thought supplied by sense-perception, exactly as the First
+Cause combines it, in the universe, with the recipient matter.
+
+"It is necessary," says Aristotle, "that these two modes should be
+opposed to each other, as matter is opposed to form, and to all that
+gives form. The receptive reason, which is as matter, becomes all things
+by receiving their forms. The creative reason gives existence to all
+things, as light calls color into being. The creative reason transcends
+the body, being capable of separation from it, and from all things; it
+is an everlasting existence, incapable of being mingled with matter, or
+affected by it; prior, and subsequent to the individual mind. The
+receptive reason is necessary to individual thought, but it is
+perishable, and by its decay all memory, and therefore individuality, is
+lost to the higher and immortal reason."[708]
+
+This "Active or Creative Intellect" is again further subdivided, by
+Aristotle--
+
+1. The _Scientific_ (epistemonikon) part--the "virtue," faculty, or
+"habit of principles." He also designates it as the "place of
+principles," and further defines it as the power "which apprehends those
+existences whose principles can not be otherwise than they are"--that
+is, self-evident, immutable, and necessary truths[709]--the _intuitive
+reason_.
+
+2. The _Reasoning_ (logistikon) part--the power by which we draw
+conclusions from premises, and "contemplate contingent matter"[710]--the
+_discursive reason_.
+
+The correlatives _noetic_ and _dianoetic_, says Hamilton, would afford
+the best philosophic designation of these two faculties; the knowledge
+attained by the former is an "intuitive principle"--a truth at first
+hand; that obtained by the latter is a "demonstrative proposition"--a
+truth at second hand.
+
+The preceding notices of the psychology of Aristotle will aid us
+materially in interpreting his remarks "_Upon the Method and Habits
+necessary to the ascertainment of Principles_."[711]
+
+[Footnote 708: "De Anima," bk. iii. ch. v.]
+
+[Footnote 709: "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 710: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 711: "Post. Analytic," bk. ii, ch. xix., the concluding
+chapter of the Organon.]
+
+"That it is impossible to have scientific knowledge through
+demonstration without a knowledge of first immediate principles, has
+been elucidated before." This being established, he proceeds to explain
+how that "knowledge of first, immediate principles" is developed in the
+mind.
+
+1. The knowledge of first principles is attained by the _intuition of
+sense_--the immediate perception of external objects, as the _exciting_
+or _occasional cause_ of their development in the mind.
+
+"Now there appears inherent in all animals an innate power called
+_sensible perception_ (aisthesis); but sense being inherent, in some
+animals a permanency of the sensible object is engendered, but in others
+it is not engendered. Those, therefore, wherein the sensible object does
+not remain have no knowledge without sensible perception, but others,
+when they perceive, retain one certain thing in the soul,... with some,
+_reason_ is produced from the permanency (of the sensible impression),
+[as in man], but in others it is not [as in the brute]. From sense,
+therefore, as we say, memory is produced, and from the repeated
+remembrance of the same thing we get experience.... From experience, or
+_from every universal remaining in the soul_--the one besides the many
+which in all of them is _one_ and the _same_--the principles of art and
+science arise. If experience is conversant with generation, the
+principles of art; if with being, the principles of science.... Let us
+again explain: When one thing without difference abides, there is then
+the first universal (notion) [developed] in the soul; for the singular
+indeed is perceived by sense, _but sense is [also] of the
+universal_"--that is, the universal is immanent in the sensible object
+as a property giving it "form." "It is manifest, then, that primary
+things become necessarily known by induction, for thus sensible
+perception produces [develops or evokes] the _universal_." 2. The
+knowledge of first principles is attained by the _intuition of pure
+intellect_ (nous)--that is, "_intellect itself is the principle of
+science_" or, in other words, intellect is the _efficient, essential
+cause_ of the knowledge of first principles.
+
+"Of those habits which are about intellect by which we ascertain truth,
+_some[712] are always true_, but others[713] admit the false, as opinion
+and reasoning. But science and (pure) intellect are always true, and no
+other kind of knowledge, except intellect [intellectual intuition], is
+more accurate than science. And since the principles of demonstration
+are more known, and all science is connected with reason, there could
+not be a science of principles. But since nothing can be more true than
+science, except intellect, intellect will belong to principles. From
+these [considerations] it is evident that, as demonstration is not the
+principle of demonstration, so neither is science the principle of
+science. If, then, we have no other true genus (of habit) besides
+science, _intellect will be the principle of science_; it will also be
+the principle (or cause of the knowledge) of the principle."
+
+[Footnote 712: The "noetic."]
+
+[Footnote 713: The "dianaetic."]
+
+The doctrine of Aristotle regarding "first principles" may perhaps be
+summed up as follows: All demonstrative science is based upon
+_universals_ "prior in nature"--that is, upon _a priori_, self-evident,
+necessary, and immutable principles. Our knowledge of these "first and
+immediate principles" is dependent primarily on _intellect_ (nous) or
+intuitive reason, and secondarily on sense, experience, and induction.
+Prior to experience, the intellect contains these principles in itself
+potentially, as "forms," "laws," "habitudes," or "predicaments" of
+thought; but they can not be "evoked into energy," can not be revealed
+in consciousness, except on condition of experience, and they can only
+be scientifically developed by logical abstraction and definition. The
+ultimate ground of all truth and certainty is thus a mode of our own
+mind, a subjective necessity of thinking, and truth is not in things,
+but in our own minds.[714] "Ultimate knowledge, as well as primary
+knowledge, the most perfect knowledge which the philosopher can attain,
+as well as the point from which he starts, is still a proposition. All
+knowledge seems to be included under two forms--knowledge _that_ it is
+so; knowledge _why_ it is so. Neither of these can, of course, include
+the knowledge at which Plato is aiming--knowledge which is correlated
+with Being--a knowledge, not _about_ things or persons, but _of_
+them."[715]
+
+[Footnote 714: "Metaphysics," bk. v. ch. iv.]
+
+[Footnote 715: Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 190.]
+
+ARISTOTELIAN THEOLOGY
+
+Theoretical philosophy, "the science which has truth for its end," is
+divided by Aristotle into Physics, Mathematics, and Theology, or the
+First Philosophy, now commonly known as "Metaphysics," because it is
+beyond or above physics, and is concerned with the primitive ground and
+cause of all things.[716]
+
+In the former two we have now no immediate interest, but with Theology,
+as "the science of the Divine,"[717] the _First Moving Cause_, which is
+the source of all other causes, and the original ground of all other
+things, we are specially concerned, inasmuch as our object is to
+determine, if possible, whether Greek philosophy exerted any influence
+upon Christian thought, and has bequeathed any valuable results to the
+Theology of modern times.
+
+"The Metaphysics" of Aristotle opens by an enumeration of "the
+principles or causes"[718] into which all existences can be resolved by
+philosophical analysis. This enumeration is at present to be regarded as
+provisional, and in part hypothetical--a verbal generalization of the
+different principles which seem to be demanded to explain the existence
+of a thing, or constitute it what it is. These he sets down as--
+
+[Footnote 716: "Physics are concerned with things which have a principle
+of motion in themselves; mathematics speculate on permanent, but not
+transcendental and self-existent things; and there is another science
+separate from these two, which treats of that which is immutable and
+transcendental, if indeed there exists such a substance, as we shall
+endeavor to show that there does. This transcendental and permanent
+substance, if it exist at all, must surely be the sphere of the
+_divine_--it must be the first and highest principle. Hence it follows
+that there are three kinds of speculative science--Physics, Mathematics,
+and Theology."--"Metaphysics," bk. x. ch. vii.]
+
+[Footnote 717: "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 718: Aition--cause--is here used by Aristotle in the sense of
+"account of" or "reason why."]
+
+1. The Material Cause (ten ylen kai to ypokeimenon)--the matter and
+subject--that _out of_ which a given thing has been originated. "From
+the analogy which this principle has to wood or stone, or any actual
+matter out of which a work of nature or of art is produced, the name
+'material' is assigned to this class." It does not always necessarily
+mean "matter" in the now common use of the term, but "antecedents--that
+is, principles whose inherence and priority is implied in any existing
+thing, as, for example, the premises of a syllogism, which are the
+material cause of the conclusion."[719] With Aristotle there is,
+therefore, "matter as an object of sense," and "matter as an object of
+thought."
+
+2. The Formal Cause (Ten ausian kai to ti einai)--the being or abstract
+essence of a thing--that primary nature on which all its properties
+depend. To this Aristotle gave the name of eidos--the form or exemplar
+_according to_ which a thing is produced.
+
+3. The Moving or Efficient Cause (othen e arche tes kineseos)--the
+origin and principle of motion--that _by which_ a thing is produced.
+
+4. The Final Cause (to ou eneken kai to agathon)--the good end answered
+by the existence of any thing--that for the sake of which_ any thing is
+produced--the eneka tou, or reason for it.[720] Thus, for instance, in a
+house, the wood out of which it is produced is the _matter (yle), the
+idea or conception according to which it is produced is _the form_
+(eidos morphe), the builder who erects the house is the _efficient_
+cause, and the reason for its production, or the end of its existence is
+the _final_ cause.
+
+[Footnote 719: Encyclopaedia Britannica, article "Aristotle;" "Post.
+Analytic," bk. ii. ch. xi.]
+
+[Footnote 720: "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. iii.]
+
+Causes are, therefore, the elements into which the mind resolves its
+first rough conception of an object. That object is what it is, by
+reason of the matter out of which it sprang, the moving cause which gave
+it birth, the idea or form which it realizes, and the end or object
+which it attains. The knowledge of a thing implies knowing it from these
+four points of view--that is, knowing its four causes or principles.
+
+These four determinations of being are, on a further and closer
+analysis, resolved into the fundamental antithesis of MATTER and FORM.
+
+"All things that are produced," says Aristotle,[721] "are produced from
+something (that is, from _matter_), by something (that is, _form_), and
+become something (the totality--to synolon);" as, for example, a statue,
+a plant, a man. To every subject there belongs, therefore, first,
+_matter_ (yle); secondly, _form_ (morphe). The synthesis of these two
+produces and constitutes _substance_, or ousia. Matter and form are thus
+the two grand causes or principles whence proceed all things. The
+formative cause is, at the same time, the moving cause and the final
+cause; for it is evidently the element of determination which impresses
+movement upon matter whilst determining it; and it is also the end of
+being, since being only really exists when it has passed from an
+indeterminate to a determinate state.
+
+[Footnote 721: "Metaphysics," bk. vi. ch. vii.]
+
+In proof that the eidos or form is an _efficient_ principle operating in
+every object, which makes it, to our conception, what it is, Aristotle
+brings forward the subject of generation or production.[722] There are
+three modes of production--natural, artificial, and automatic. In
+natural production we discern at once a matter; indeed Nature, in the
+largest sense, may be defined as "that out of which things are
+produced." Now the result formed out of this matter or nature is a given
+substance--a vegetable, a beast, or a man. But what is the _producing_
+cause in each case? Clearly something akin to the result. A man
+generates a man, a plant produces another plant like to itself. There
+is, therefore, implied in the resulting thing a _productive force_
+distinct from matter, upon which it works. And this is the eidos, or
+form. Let us now consider artificial production. Here again the form is
+the producing power. And this is in the soul. The art of the physician
+is the eidos, which produces actual health; the plan of the architect is
+the conception, which produces an actual house. Here, however, a
+distinction arises. In these artificial productions there is supposed a
+noesis and a poiesis. The noesis is the previous conception which the
+architect forms in his own mind; the poiesis is the actual creation of
+the house out of the given matter. In this case the conception is the
+moving cause of the production. The form of the statue in the mind of
+the artist is the motive or cause of the movement by which the statue is
+produced; and health must be in the thought of the physician before it
+can become the moving cause of the healing art. Moreover, that which is
+true of artificial production or change is also true of spontaneous
+production. For example, a cure may take place by the application of
+warmth, and this result is accomplished by means of friction. This
+warmth in the body is either itself a portion of health, or something is
+consequent upon it which is like itself, which is a portion of health.
+Evidently this implies the previous presence either of nature or of an
+artificer. It is also clearly evident that this kind of generating
+influence (the automatic) should combine with another. There must be a
+productive power, and there must be something out of which it is
+produced. In this case, then, there will be a yle and an eidos.[723]
+
+[Footnote 722: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 723: Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," pp. 205, 206.]
+
+From the above it appears that the _efficient_ cause is regarded by
+Aristotle as identical with the _formal_ cause. So also the _final_
+cause--the end for the sake of which any thing exists--can hardly be
+separated from the perfection of that thing, that is, from its
+conception or form. The desire for the end gives the first impulse of
+motion; thus the final cause of any thing becomes identical with the
+good of that thing. "The moving cause of the house is the builder, but
+the moving cause of the builder is the end to be attained--that is, the
+house." From such examples as these it would seem that the
+determinations of form and end are considered by Aristotle as one, in so
+far as both are merged in the conception of _actuality_; for he regarded
+the end of every thing to be its completed being--the perfect
+realization of its idea or form. The only fundamental determinations,
+therefore, which can not be wholly resolved into each other are _matter
+and form_.[724]
+
+[Footnote 724: Schwegler's "History of Philosophy," pp. 120, 123.]
+
+The opposition of matter and form, with Aristotle, corresponds to the
+opposition between the element of _generality_ and the element of
+_particularity_. Matter is indeterminate; form is determinate. Matter,
+abstracted from form, in thought, is entirely without predicate and
+distinction; form is that which enters into the definition of every
+subject, and without which it could not be defined. Matter is capable of
+the widest diversity of forms, but is itself without form. Pure form is,
+in fact, that which is without matter, or, in other words, it is the
+pure conception of being. Matter is the necessary condition of the
+existence of a thing; form is the essence of each thing, that in virtue
+of which substance is possible, and without which it is inconceivable.
+On the one side is passivity, possibility of existence, capacity of
+action; on the other side is activity, actuality, thought. The unity of
+these two in the realm of determined being constitutes every individual
+substance. The relation of matter and form, logically apprehended, is
+thus the relation of POTENTIALITY and ACTUALITY.
+
+This is a further and indeed a most important step in the Aristotelian
+theology. Matter, as we have seen, after all, amounts to merely capacity
+for action, and if we can not discover some productive power to develop
+potentiality into actuality, we look in vain for some explanation of the
+phenomena around us. The discovery, however, of energy (energeia), as a
+principle of this description, is precisely what we wanted, and a
+momentary glance at the actual phenomena will show its perfect identity
+with the eidos, or form.[725] "For instance, what is a calm? It is
+evenness in the surface of the sea. Here the sea is the subject, that
+is, the matter in _capacity_, but the evenness is the _energy_ or
+actuality;... energy is thus as form."[726] The form (or idea) is thus
+an energy or actuality (energeia); the matter is a capacity or
+potentiality (dynamis), requiring the co-operation of the energy to
+produce a result.
+
+These terms, which are first employed by Aristotle in their
+philosophical signification, are characteristic of his whole system. It
+is, therefore, important we should grasp their precise philosophical
+import; and this can only be done by considering them in the strictest
+relation to each other. It is in this relation they are defined by
+Aristotle. "Now energeia is the existence of a thing not in the sense of
+its potentially existing. The term _potentially_ we use, for instance,
+of the statue in the block, and of the half in the whole (since it may
+be subtracted), and of a person knowing a thing, even when he is not
+thinking of it, but might be so; whereas energeia is the opposite. By
+applying the various instances our meaning will be plain, and one must
+not seek a definition in each case, but rather grasp the conception of
+the analogy as a whole,--that it is as that which builds to that which
+has a capacity for building; as the waking to the sleeping; as that
+which sees to that which has sight, but whose eyes are closed; as the
+definite form to the shapeless matter; as the complete to the
+unaccomplished. In this contrast, let the energeia be set off as forming
+the one side, and on the other let the potential stand. Things are said
+to be in energeia not always in like manner (except so far as there is
+an analogy, that as this thing is in this, and related to this, so is
+that in that, or related to that); for sometimes it implies _motion_ as
+opposed to the _capacity of motion_, and sometimes _complete existence_
+opposed to _undeveloped matter_".[727] As the term dynamis has the
+double meaning of "_possibility of existence_" as well as "_capacity of
+action_" so there is the double contrast of "_action_" as opposed to the
+capacity of action; and "_actual existence_" opposed to possible
+existence or potentiality. To express accurately this latter antithesis,
+Aristotle introduced the term entelecheia[728]--entelechy, of which the
+most natural account is that it is a compound of en telei echein--"being
+in a state of perfection."[729] This term, however, rarely occurs in the
+"Metaphysics," whilst energeia is everywhere employed, not only to
+express activity as opposed to passivity, but complete existence as
+opposed to undeveloped matter.
+
+[Footnote 725: "That which Aristotle calls 'form' is not to be
+confounded with what we may perhaps call shape [or figure]; a hand
+severed from the arm, for instance, has still the outward shape of a
+hand, but, according to Aristotelian apprehension, it is only a hand now
+as to matter, and not as to form; an actual hand, a hand as to form, is
+only that which can do the proper work of a hand."--Schwegler's "History
+of Philosophy," p. 122.]
+
+[Footnote 726: "Metaphysics," bk. vii. ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 727: "Metaphysics," bk. viii. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 728: "Entelechy indicates the perfected act, the completely
+actual."--Schw.]
+
+[Footnote 729: Grant's Aristotle's "Ethics," vol. i. p. 184.]
+
+"In Physics dynamis answers to the necessary conditions for the
+existence of any thing before that thing exists. It thus corresponds to
+yle, both to the prote yle--the first matter, or matter devoid of all
+qualities, which is capable of becoming any definite substance, as, for
+example, marble; and also to the eschate yle--or matter capable of
+receiving form, as marble the form of the statue." Marble then exists
+potentially in the simple elements before it is marble. The statue
+exists potentially in the marble before it is carved. All objects of
+thought exist, either purely in potentiality, or purely in actuality, or
+both in potentiality and in actuality. This division makes an entire
+chain of all existence. At the one end is matter, the prote yle which
+has a merely potential existence, which is necessary as a condition, but
+which having no form and no qualities, is totally incapable of being
+realized by the mind. At the other end of the chain is pure form, which
+is not at all matter, the absolute and the unconditioned, the eternal
+substance and energy without matter (ousia aldios kai energeia aneu
+dynameos), who can not be thought as non-existing--the self-existent
+God. Between these two extremes is the whole row of creatures, which out
+of potentiality evermore spring into actual being.[730]
+
+[Footnote 730: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 185.]
+
+The relation of actuality to potentiality is the subject of an extended
+and elaborate discussion in book viii., the general results of which may
+be summed up in the following propositions:
+
+1. _The relation of Actuality to Potentiality is as the Perfect to the
+Imperfect_.--The progress from potentiality to actuality is motion or
+production (kinesis or genesis). But this motion is transitional, and in
+itself imperfect--it tends towards an end, but does not include the end
+in itself. But actuality, if it implies motion, has an end in itself and
+for itself; it is a motion desirable for its own sake.[731] The relation
+of the potential to the actual Aristotle exhibits by the relation of the
+unfinished to the finished work, of the unemployed builder to the one at
+work upon his building, of the seed-corn to the tree, of the man who has
+the capacity to think, to the man actually engaged in thought.[732]
+Potentially the seed-corn is the tree, but the grown-up tree is the
+actuality; the potential philosopher is he who is not at this moment in
+a philosophic condition; indeed, every thing is potential which
+possesses a principle of development, or of change. Actuality or
+entelechy, on the other hand, indicates the _perfect act_, the end
+gained, the completed actual; that activity in which the act and the
+completeness of the act fall together--as, for example, to see, to
+think, where the acting and the completed act are one and the same.
+
+2. _The Relation of Actuality to Potentiality is a causal Relation_.--A
+thing which is endued with a simple capacity of being may nevertheless
+not actually exist, and a thing may have a capacity of being and really
+exist. Since this is the case, there must ensue between non-being and
+real being some such principle as _energy_, in order to account for the
+transition or change.[733] Energy has here some analogy to motion,
+though it must not be confounded with motion. Now you can not predicate
+either motion or energy of things which are not. The moment energy is
+added to them they are. This transition from potentiality to actuality
+must be through the medium of such principles as propension or _free
+will_, because propension or free will possess in themselves the power
+of originating motion in other things.[734]
+
+[Footnote 731: "Metaphysics," bk. viii. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 732: Ibid., bk. viii. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 733: Ibid., bk. viii. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 734: Ibid., bk. viii. ch. v.]
+
+3. _The Relation of Actuality and Potentiality is a Relation of
+Priority_.--Actuality, says Aristotle, is prior to potentiality in the
+order of reason, in the order of substance, and also (though not
+invariably) in the order of time. The first of all capacities is a
+capacity of energizing or assuming a state of activity; for example, a
+man who has the capacity of building is one who is skilled in building,
+and thus able to use his energy in the art of building.[735] The primary
+energizing power must precede that which receives the impression of it,
+Form being older than Matter. But if you take the case of any particular
+person or thing, we say that its capacity of being that particular
+person or thing precedes its being so actually. Yet, though this is the
+case in each particular thing, there is always a foregone energy
+presumed in some other thing (as a prior seed, plant, man) to which it
+owes its existence. One pregnant thought presents itself in the course
+of the discussion which has a direct bearing upon our subject. [Dynamis]
+has been previously defined as "a principle of motion or change in
+another thing in so far forth as it is another thing"[736]--that is, it
+is fitted by nature to have motion imparted to it, and to communicate
+motion to something else. But this motion wants a resting-place. There
+can be no infinite regression of causes. There is some primary [dynamis]
+presupposed in all others, which is the beginning of change. This is
+[Greek: physis], or nature. But the first and original cause of all
+motion and change still precedes and surpasses nature. The final cause
+of all potentiality is energy or _actuality_. The one proposed is prior
+to the means through which the end is accomplished. A process of
+actualization, a tendency towards completeness or perfection ([Greek:
+telos]) presupposes an absolute actuality which is at once its beginning
+and end. "One energy is invariably antecedent to another in time, up to
+that which is primarily and eternally the Moving Cause."[737]
+
+[Footnote 735: "Metaphysics," bk. viii. ch. viii.]
+
+[Footnote 736: Ibid., bk. iv. ch. xii.]
+
+[Footnote 737: Ibid., bk. viii. ch. viii.]
+
+And now having laid down these fundamental principles of metaphysical
+science, as preparatory to Theology, Aristotle proceeds to establish the
+conception of the Absolute or Divine Spirit _as the eternal, immutable
+Substance, the immaterial Energy, the unchangeable Form of Forms, the
+first moving Cause_.
+
+I. _The Ontological Form of Proof_.--It is necessary to conceive an
+eternal and immutable substance--an actuality which is absolute and
+prior, both logically and chronologically, to all potentiality; for that
+which is potential is simply contingent, it may just as easily not be as
+be; that which exists only in capacity is temporal and corruptible, and
+may cease to be. Matter we know subsists merely in capacity and
+passivity, and without the operation of Energy,(energeia), or the
+formative cause, would be to us as non-entity. The phenomena of the
+world exhibits to us the presence of Energy, and energy presupposes the
+existence of an eternal substance. Furthermore, matter and potentiality
+are convertible terms, therefore the primal Energy or Actuality must be
+_immaterial_.[738]
+
+2. _The Cosmological Form of Proof_.--It is impossible that there should
+be _motion_, genesis, or a chain of causes, except on the assumption of
+a first Moving Cause, since that which exists only in capacity can not,
+of itself energize, and consequently without a principle of motion which
+is essentially active, we have only a principle of immobility. The
+principle "ex nihilo nihil" forbids us to assume that motion can arise
+out of immobility, being out of non-being. "How can matter be put in
+motion if nothing that subsists in energy exist, and is its cause?" All
+becoming, therefore, necessarily supposes that which has not become,
+that which is eternally self-active as the principle and cause of all
+motion. There is no refuge from the notion that all things are "born of
+night and nothingness" except in this belief.[739]
+
+[Footnote 738: "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 739: Ibid., bk. xi. ch. vii., viii.]
+
+The existence of an eternal principle subsisting in energy is also
+demanded to explain the _order_ of the world. "For how, let me ask, will
+there prevail _order_ on the supposition that there is no subsistence of
+that which is eternal, and which involves a separable existence, and is
+permanent."[740] "All things in nature are constituted in the best
+possible manner."[741] All things strive after "the good." "The
+appearance of ends and means in nature is a proof of design."[742] Now
+an end or final cause presupposes intelligence,--implies a _mind_ to see
+and desire it. That which is "fair," "beautiful," "good," an "object of
+desire," can only be perceived by Mind. The "final cause" must therefore
+subsist in that which is prior and immovable and eternal; and _Mind_ is
+"that substance which subsists absolutely, and according to
+energy."[743] "The First Mover of all things, moves all things without
+being moved, being an eternal substance and energy; and he moves all
+things as the object of reason and of desire, or love."[744]
+
+[Footnote 740: Ibid., bk. x. ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 741: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 742: "Nat. Ausc.," bk. ii. ch. viii.]
+
+[Footnote 743: "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. vii.]
+
+[Footnote 744: Ibid.]
+
+3. _The Moral Form of Proof_.--So far as the relation of potentiality
+and actuality is identical with the relation of matter and form, the
+argument for the existence of God may be thus presented: The conception
+of an absolute matter without form, involves the supposition of an
+absolute form without matter. And since the conception of form resolves
+itself into _motion_, _conception_, _purpose_ or _end_, so the Eternal
+One is the absolute principle of motion (the proton kinoun), the
+absolute conception or pure intelligence (the pure ti en einai), and the
+absolute ground, reason, or end of all being. All the other predicates
+of the First Cause follow from the above principles with logical
+necessity.
+
+(i.) _He is, of course, pure intellect_, because he is absolutely
+immaterial and free from nature. He is active intelligence, because his
+essence is pure actuality. He is self-contemplating and self-conscious
+intelligence, because the divine thought can not attain its actuality in
+any thing extrinsic; it would depend on something else than self--some
+potential existence for its actualization. Hence the famous definition
+of the absolute as "the thought of thought" (noesis noeseos).[745] "And
+therefore the first and actual perception by mind of Mind itself, doth
+subsist in this way throughout all eternity."[746]
+
+[Footnote 745: Schwegler's "History of Philosophy," p. 125.]
+
+[Footnote 746: "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. ix.]
+
+(ii.) _He is also essential life_. "The principle of life is inherent in
+the Deity, for the energy or active exercise of mind constitutes life,
+and God constitutes this energy; and essential energy belongs to God as
+his best and everlasting life. Now our statement is this--that the Deity
+is a living being that is everlasting and most excellent in nature, so
+that with the Deity life and duration are uninterrupted and eternal; for
+this constitutes the essence of God."[747]
+
+(iii.) _Unity belongs to him_, since multiplicity implies matter; and
+the highest idea or form of the world must be absolutely
+immaterial.[748] The Divine nature is "devoid of parts and indivisible,
+for magnitude can not in any way involve this Divine nature; for God
+imparts motion through infinite duration, and nothing finite--as
+magnitude is--can be possessed of an infinite capacity."[749]
+
+(iv.) _He is immovable and ever abideth the same_; since otherwise he
+could not be the absolute mover, and the cause of all becoming, if he
+were subject to change.[750] God is impassive and unalterable ([Greek:
+apathes kai analloioton]); for all such notions as are involved in
+passion or alteration are outside the sphere of the Divine
+existence.[751]
+
+[Footnote 747: "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. vii.]
+
+[Footnote 748: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 749: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 750: Ibid., bk. xi. ch. viii.]
+
+[Footnote 751: Ibid., bk. xi. ch. vii.]
+
+(v.) _He is the ever-blessed God_.--"The life of God is of a kind with
+those highest moods which, with us, last a brief space, it being
+impossible they should be permanent; whereas, with Him they are
+permanent, since His ever-present consciousness is pleasure itself. And
+it is because they are vivid states of consciousness, that waking, and
+perception, and thought, are the sweetest of all things. Now essential
+perception is the perception of that which is most excellent,... and the
+mind perceives itself by participating of its own object of perception;
+but it is a sort of coalescence of both that, in the Divine Mind,
+creates a regular identity between the two, so that with God both (the
+thinker and the thought, the subject and object) are the same. In
+possession of this prerogative, He subsists in the exercise of energy;
+and the contemplation of his own perfections is what, to God, must be
+most agreeable and excellent. This condition of existence, after so
+excellent a manner, is what is "so astonishing to us when we examine
+God's nature, and the more we do so the more wonderful that nature
+appears to us. The mood of the Divine existence is essential energy,
+and, as such, it is a life that is most excellent, blessed, and
+everlasting.[752]
+
+[Footnote 752: "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. vii.]
+
+The theology of Aristotle may be summed up in the following sentences
+selected from book xi. of his "Metaphysics:"
+
+"This motionless cause of motion is a necessary being; and, by virtue of
+such necessity, is the all-perfect being. This all-pervading principle
+penetrates heaven and all nature. It eternally possesses perfect
+happiness; and its happiness is in action. This primal mover is
+immaterial; for its essence is in energy. It is pure thought--thought
+thinking itself--the thought of thought. The activity of pure
+intelligence--such is the perfect, eternal life of God. This primal
+cause of change, this absolute perfection, moves the world by the
+universal desire for the absolute good, by the attraction exercised upon
+it by the Eternal Mind--the serene energy of Divine Intelligence."
+
+It can not be denied that, so far as it goes, this conception of the
+Deity is admirable, worthy, and just. Viewed from a Christian
+stand-point, we at once concede that it is essentially defective. There
+is no clear and distinct recognition of God as Creator and Governor of
+the universe; he is chiefly regarded as the Life of the universe--the
+Intellect, the Energy--that which gives excellence, and perfection, and
+gladness to the whole system of things. The Theology of Aristotle is, in
+fact, metaphysical rather than practical. He does not contemplate the
+Deity as a moral Governor. Whilst Plato speaks of "being made like God
+through becoming just and holy," Aristotle asserts that "all moral
+virtues are totally unworthy of being ascribed to God."[753] He is not
+the God of providence. He dwells alone, supremely indifferent to human
+cares, and interests, and sorrows. He takes no cognizance of individual
+men, and holds no intercourse with man. The God of Aristotle is not a
+being that meets and satisfies the wants of the human heart, however
+well it may meet the demands of the reason.
+
+[Footnote 753: "Ethics," bk. x. ch. viii.]
+
+Morality has no basis in the Divine nature, no eternal type in the
+perfections and government of God, and no supports and aids from above.
+The theology of Aristotle foreshadows the character of the
+
+ARISTOTELIAN ETHICS.
+
+We do not find in Aristotle any distinct recognition of an eternal and
+immutable morality, an absolute right, which has its foundation in the
+nature of God. Plato had taught that there was "an absolute Good, above
+and beyond all existence in dignity and power;" which is, in fact, "the
+cause of all existence and all knowledge," and which is God; that all
+other things are good in proportion as they "partake of this absolute
+Good;" and that all men are so far good as they "resemble God." But with
+this position Aristotle joins issue. After stating the doctrine of Plato
+in the following words--"Some have thought that, besides all these
+manifold goods upon earth, there is some _absolute good_, which is the
+cause to all these of their being good"--he proceeds to criticise that
+idea, and concludes his argument by saying--"we must dismiss the idea at
+present, for if there is any one good, universal and generic, or
+transcendental and absolute, it obviously can never be realized nor
+possessed by man; whereas something of this latter kind is what we are
+inquiring after." He follows up these remarks by saying that "Perhaps
+the knowledge of the idea may be regarded by some as useful, as a
+pattern (paradeigma) by which to judge of relative good." Against this
+he argues that "There is no trace of the arts making use of any such
+conception; the cobbler, the carpenter, the physician, and the general,
+all pursue their vocations without respect to the _absolute good_, nor
+is it easy to see how they would be benefited by apprehending it."[754]
+The good after which Aristotle would inquire is, therefore, a _relative
+good_, since the knowledge of the absolute good can not possibly be
+realized.
+
+[Footnote 754: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. vi.]
+
+Instead, therefore, of seeking to attain to "a transcendental and
+absolute good "--a fundamental idea of right, which may be useful as a
+paradigm by which we may judge of relative good, he addresses himself
+solely to the question, "what is good for man"--what is the good
+attainable in action? And having identified the Chief Good with the
+final and perfect end of all action, the great question of the _Ethics_
+is, "_What is the end of human action?_" (ti esti to ton prakton
+teloa).[755]
+
+[Footnote 755: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. xiii.]
+
+Now an end or final cause implies an intelligence--implies a mind to
+perceive and desire it. This is distinctly recognized by Aristotle. The
+question, therefore, naturally arises--is that end fixed for man by a
+higher intelligence, and does it exist for man both as an idea and as an
+ideal? Can man, first, intellectually apprehend the idea, and then
+consciously strive after its realization? Is it the duty of man to aim
+at fulfilling the purposes of his Creator? To this it may be answered
+that Aristotle is not at all explicit as to God's moral government of
+the world. "Moral government," in the now common acceptation of the
+term, has no place in the system of Aristotle, and the idea of "duty" is
+scarcely recognized. He considers "the good" chiefly in relation to the
+constitution and natural condition of man. "_It is_" says he, "_the end
+towards which nature tends_." As physical things strive unconsciously
+after the end of their existence, so man strives after the good
+attainable in life. Socrates had identified virtue and knowledge, he had
+taught that "virtue is a Science." Aristotle contended that virtue is an
+art, like music and architecture, which must be attained by exercise. It
+is not purely intellectual, it is the bloom of the physical, which has
+become ethical. As the flower of the field, obeying the laws of its
+organization, springs up, blooms, and attains its own peculiar
+perfection, so there is an instinctive desire (orexis) in the soul which
+at first unconsciously yearns after the good, and subsequently the good
+is sought with full moral intent and insight. Aristotle assumes that the
+desires or instincts of man are so framed as to imply the existence of
+this end (telos).[756] And he asserts that man can only realize it in
+the sphere of his own proper functions, and in accordance with the laws
+of his own proper nature and its harmonious development.[757] It is not,
+then, through instruction, or through the perfection of knowledge, that
+man is to attain the good, but through exercise and habit (ephos). By
+practice of moral acts we become virtuous, just as by practice of
+building and of music, we become architects and musicians; for the
+habit, which is the ground of moral character, is only a fruit of
+oft-repeated moral acts. Hence it is by these three things--nature,
+habit, reason--that men become good.
+
+[Footnote 756: Ibid, bk. i. ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 757: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. vii.]
+
+Aristotle's question, therefore, is, _What is the chief good for man as
+man_? not what is his chief good as a spiritual and an immortal being?
+or what is his chief good as a being related to and dependent upon God?
+And the conclusion at which he arrives is, that it is _the absolute
+satisfaction of our whole nature_--that which men are agreed in calling
+_happiness_. This happiness, however, is not mere sensual pleasure. The
+brute shares this in common with man, therefore it can not constitute
+the happiness of man. Human happiness must express the completeness of
+rational existence. And inasmuch as intelligence is essential activity,
+as the soul is the _entelechy_ of the body, therefore the happiness of
+man can not consist in a mere passive condition. It must, therefore,
+consist in _perfect activity_ in well-doing, and especially in
+contemplative thought,[758] or as Aristotle defines it--"_It is a
+perfect practical activity in a perfect life_."[759] His conception of
+the chief good has thus two sides, one internal, that which exists in
+and for the consciousness--a "complete and perfect life," the other
+external and practical. The latter, however, is a means to the former.
+That complete and perfect life is the complete satisfaction and
+perfection of our rational nature. It is a state of peace which is the
+crown of exertion. It is the realization of the divine in man, and
+constitutes the absolute and all-sufficient happiness.[760] A good
+action is thus an End-in-itself (teleion telos) inasmuch as it secures
+the _perfection_ of our nature; it is that for the sake of which our
+moral faculties before existed, hence bringing an inward pleasure and
+satisfaction with it; something in which the mind can rest and fully
+acquiesce; something which can be pronounced beautiful, fitting,
+honorable, and perfect.
+
+[Footnote 758: "If it be true to say that happiness consists in doing
+well, a life of action must be best both for the state and the
+individual. But we need not, as some do, suppose that a life of action
+implies relation to others, or that those only are active thoughts which
+are concerned with the results of action; but far rather we must
+consider those speculations and thoughts to be so which have their _end
+in themselves_, and which are for their own sake."--"Politics," bk. vii.
+ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 759: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 760: "Ethics," bk. x. ch. viii.]
+
+From what has been already stated, it will be seen that the Aristotelian
+conception of _Virtue_ is not conformity to an absolute and immutable
+standard of right. It is defined by him as _the observation of the right
+mean (mesotes) in action_--that is, the right mean relatively to
+ourselves. "Virtue is a habit deliberately choosing, existing as a mean
+(meson) which refers to us, and is defined by reason, and as a prudent
+man would define it; and it is a mean between two evils, the one
+consisting in excess, the other in defect; and further, it is a mean, in
+that one of these falls short of, and the other exceeds, what is right
+both in passions and actions; and that virtue both finds and chooses the
+mean."[761] The perfection of an action thus consists in its containing
+the right degree--the true mean between too much, and too little. The
+law of the mesotes is illustrated by the following examples: Man has a
+fixed relation to pleasure and pain. In relation to pain, the true mean
+is found in neither fearing it nor courting it, and this is _fortitude_.
+In relation to pleasure, the true mean stands between greediness and
+indifference; this is _temperance_. The true mean between prodigality
+and narrowness is _liberality_; between simplicity and cunning is
+_prudence_; between suffering wrong and doing wrong is _justice_.
+Extending this law to certain qualifications of temper, speech, and
+manners, you have the portrait of a graceful Grecian gentleman. Virtue
+is thus _proportion, grace, harmony, beauty in action_.
+
+[Footnote 761: Ibid, bk. ii. ch. vi.]
+
+It will at once be seen that this classification has no stable
+foundation. It furnishes no ultimate standard of right. The _mean_ is a
+wavering line. It differs under different circumstances and relations,
+and in different times and places. That mean which is sufficient for one
+individual is insufficient for another. The virtue of a man, of a slave,
+and of a child, is respectively different. There are as many virtues as
+there are circumstances in life; and as men are ever entering into new
+relations, in which it is difficult to determine the correct method of
+action, the separate virtues can not be limited to any definite number.
+
+Imperfect as the ethical system of Aristotle may appear to us who live
+in Christian times, it must be admitted that his writings abound with
+just and pure sentiments. His science of Ethics is a _discipline of
+human character in order to human happiness_. And whilst it must be
+admitted that it is directed solely to the improvement of man in the
+present life, he aims to build that improvement on pure and noble
+principles, and seeks to elevate man to the highest perfection of which
+he could conceive. "And no greater praise can be given to a work of
+heathen morality than to say, as may be said of the ethical writings of
+Aristotle, that they contain nothing which a Christian may dispense
+with, no precept of life which is not an element of Christian character;
+and that they only fail in elevating the heart and the mind to objects
+which it needed Divine Wisdom to reveal."[762]
+
+[Footnote 762: Encyclopaedia Britannica, article "Aristotle."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS _(continued)_
+
+POST-SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
+
+EPICURUS AND ZENO.
+
+
+Philosophy, after the time of Aristotle, takes a new direction. In the
+pre-Socratic schools, we have seen it was mainly a philosophy of nature;
+in the Socratic school it was characterized as a philosophy of mind; and
+now in the post-Socratic schools it becomes a philosophy of life--a
+moral philosophy. Instead of aiming at the knowledge of real Being--of
+the permanent, unchangeable, eternal principles which underlie all
+phenomena, it was now content to aim, chiefly, at individual happiness.
+The primary question now discussed, as of the most vital importance, is,
+What is the ultimate standard by which, amid all the diversities of
+human conduct and opinion, we may determine what is right and good in
+individual and social life?
+
+This remarkable change in the course of philosophic inquiry was mainly
+due--
+
+1st. _To the altered circumstances of the times_. An age of civil
+disturbance and political intrigue succeeded the Alexandrian period. The
+different states of Greece lost their independence, and became gradually
+subject to a foreign yoke. Handed over from one domination to another,
+in the struggles of Alexander's lieutenants, they endeavored to
+reconquer their independence by forming themselves into confederations,
+but were powerless to unite in the defense of a common cause. The Achaean
+and Etolian leagues were weakened by internal discords; and it was in
+vain that Sparta tried to recover her ancient liberties.
+
+Divided amongst themselves, the smaller states invoked the aid of
+dangerous allies--at one time appealing to Macedon, at another to Egypt.
+In this way they prepared for the total ruin of Greek liberty, which was
+destined to be extinguished by Rome.[763]
+
+[Footnote 763: Pressense, "Religions before Christ," pp. 136-140.]
+
+During this period of hopeless turmoil and social disorder, all lofty
+pursuits and all great principles were lost sight of and abandoned. The
+philosophic movement followed the downward course of society, and men
+became chiefly concerned for their personal interest and safety. The
+wars of the Succession almost obliterated the idea of society, and
+philosophy was mainly directed to the securing of personal happiness; it
+became, in fact, "the art of making one's self happy." The sad reverses
+to which the Grecian mind had been subjected produced a feeling of
+exhaustion and indifference, which soon reflected itself in the
+philosophy of the age.
+
+2d. In connection with the altered circumstances of the age, we must
+also take account of _the apparent failure of the Socratic method to
+solve the problem of Being_.
+
+The teaching of Aristotle had fostered the suspicion that the dialectic
+method was a failure, and thus prepared the way for a return to
+sensualism. He had taught that individuals alone have a real existence,
+and that the "essence" of things is not to be sought in the elements of
+unity and generality, or in the _idea_, as Plato taught, but in the
+elements of diversity and speciality. And furthermore, in opposition to
+Plato, he had taught his disciples to attach themselves to sensation, as
+the source of all knowledge. As the direct consequence of this teaching,
+we find his immediate successors, Dicearchus and Straton, deliberately
+setting aside "the god of philosophy," affirming "that a _divinity_ was
+unnecessary to the explanation of the existence and order of the
+universe." Stimulated by the social degeneracy of the times, the
+characteristic skepticism of the Greek intellect bursts forth anew. As
+the skepticism of the Sophists marked the close of the first period of
+philosophy, so the skepticism of Pyrrhonism marked the close of the
+second. The new skepticism arrayed Aristotle against Plato as the
+earlier skeptics arrayed atomism against the doctrine of the Eleatics.
+They naturally said: "We have been seeking a long time; what have we
+gained? Have we obtained any thing certain and determinate? Plato says
+we have. But Aristotle and Plato do not agree. May not our opinion be as
+good as theirs? What a diversity of opinions have been presented during
+the past three hundred years! One may be as good as another, or they may
+be all alike untrue!" Timon and Pyrrhon declared that, of each thing, it
+might be said to be, and not to be; and that, consequently, we should
+cease tormenting ourselves, and seek to obtain an _absolute calm_, which
+they dignified with the name of _ataraxie_. Beholding the overthrow and
+disgrace of their country, surrounded by examples of pusillanimity and
+corruption, and infected with the spirit of the times themselves, they
+wrote this maxim: "Nothing is infamous; nothing is in itself just; laws
+and customs alone constitute what is justice and what is iniquity."
+Having reached this extreme, nothing can be too absurd, and they cap the
+climax by saying, "We assert nothing; no, not even that we assert
+nothing!"
+
+And yet there must some function, undoubtedly, remain for the "wise man"
+(sophos).
+
+Reason was given for some purpose. Philosophy must have some end. And
+inasmuch as it is not to determine speculative questions, it must be to
+determine practical questions. May it not teach men to _act_ rather than
+to _think_? The philosopher, the schools, the disciples, survive the
+darkening flood of skepticism.
+
+Three centuries before Christ, the Peripatetic and Platonic schools are
+succeeded by two other schools, which inherit their importance, and
+which, in other forms, and by an under-current, perpetuate the disputes
+of the Peripatetics and Platonists, namely, the Epicureans and Stoics.
+With Aristotle and Plato, philosophy embraced in its circle nature,
+humanity, and God; but now, in the systems of Epicurus and "Zeno", moral
+philosophy is placed in the foreground, and assumes the chief, the
+overshadowing pre-eminence. The conduct of life--morality--is now the
+grand subject of inquiry, and the great theme of discourse.
+
+In dealing with _morals_ two opposite methods of inquiry were possible:
+
+1. _To judge of the quality of actions by their_ RESULTS.
+
+2. _To search for the quality of actions in the actions them selves_.
+
+Utility, which in its last analysis is _Pleasure_, is the test of right,
+in the first method; an assumed or discovered _Law of Nature_, in the
+second. If the world were perfect, and the balance of the human
+faculties undisturbed, it is evident that both systems would give
+identical results. As it is, there is a tendency to error on each side,
+which is fully developed in the rival schools of the Epicureans and
+Stoics, who practically divided the suffrages of the mass of educated
+men until the coming of Christ.
+
+EPICUREANS.
+
+Epicurus was born B.C. 342, and died B.C. 270. He purchased a Garden
+within the city, and commenced, at thirty-six years of age, to teach
+philosophy. The Platonists had their academic Grove: the Aristotelians
+walked in the Lyceum: the Stoics occupied the Porch: the Epicureans had
+their Garden, where they lived a tranquil life, and seem to have had a
+community of goods.
+
+There is not one of all the various founders of the ancient
+philosophical schools whose memory was cherished with so much veneration
+by his disciples as that of Epicurus. For several centuries after his
+death, his portrait was treated by them with all the honors of a sacred
+relic: it was carried about with them in their journeys, it was hung up
+in their schools, it was preserved with reverence in their private
+chambers; his birthday was celebrated with sacrifices and other
+religious observances, and a special festival in his honor was held
+every month.
+
+So much honor having been paid to the memory of Epicurus, we naturally
+expect that his works would have been preserved with religious care. He
+was one of the most prolific of the ancient Greek writers. Diogenes
+calls him "a most voluminous writer," and estimates the number of works
+composed by him at no less than three hundred, the principal of which he
+enumerates.[764] But out of all this prodigious collection, not a single
+book has reached us in a complete, or at least an independent form.
+Three letters, which contain some outlines of his philosophy, are
+preserved by Diogenes, who has also embodied his "Fundamental
+Maxims"--forty-four propositions, containing a summary of his ethical
+system. These, with part of his work "On Nature," found during the last
+century among the Greek MSS. recovered at Herculaneum, constitute all
+that has survived the general wreck.
+
+[Footnote 764: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xvi., xvii.]
+
+We are thus left to depend mainly on his disciples and successors for
+any general account of his system. And of the earliest and most
+immediate of these the writings have perished.[765] Our sole original
+authority is Diogenes Laertius, who was unquestionably an Epicurean. The
+sketch of Epicurus which is given in his "Lives" is evidently a "labor
+of love." Among all the systems of ancient philosophy described by him,
+there is none of whose general character he has given so skillful and so
+elaborate an analysis. And even as regards the particulars of the
+system, nothing could be more complete than Laertius's account of his
+physical speculations. Additional light is also furnished by the
+philosophic poem of Lucretius "On the Nature of Things," which was
+written to advocate the physical theory of Epicurus. These are the chief
+sources of our information.
+
+[Footnote 765: Some fragments of the writings of Metrodorus, Phaedrus,
+Polystratus, and Philodemus, have been found among the Herculanean
+Papyri, and published in Europe, which are said to throw some additional
+light on the doctrines of Epicurus. See article on "Herculanean Papyri,"
+in Edinburgh Review, October, 1862.]
+
+It is said of Epicurus that he loved to hearken to the stories of the
+indifference and apathy of Pyrrhon, and that, in these qualities, he
+aspired to imitate him. But Epicurus was not, like Pyrrhon, a skeptic;
+on the contrary, he was the most imperious dogmatist. No man ever showed
+so little respect for the opinions of his predecessors, or so much
+confidence in his own. He was fond of boasting that he had made his own
+philosophy--_he_ was a "self-taught" man! Now "Epicurus might be
+perfectly honest in saying he had read very little, and had worked out
+the conclusions in his own mind, but he was a copyist, nevertheless; few
+men more entirely so."[766] His psychology was certainly borrowed from
+the Ionian school. From thence he had derived his fundamental maxim,
+that "sensation is the source of all knowledge, and the standard of all
+truth." His physics were copied from Democritus. With both, "atoms are
+the first principle of all things." And in Ethics he had learned from
+Aristotle, that if an absolute good is not the end of a practical life,
+_happiness_ must be its end.[767] All that is fundamental in the system
+of Epicurus was borrowed from his predecessors, and there is little that
+can be called new in his teaching.
+
+[Footnote 766: Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 236.]
+
+[Footnote 767: "Ethics," bk. i. ch. vi]
+
+The grand object of philosophy, according to Epicurus, _is the
+attainment of a happy life_. "Philosophy," says he, "is the power by
+which reason conducts men to happiness." Truth is a merely relative
+thing, a variable quantity; and therefore the pursuit of truth for its
+own sake is superfluous and useless. There is no such thing as absolute,
+unchangeable right: no action is intrinsically right or wrong. "We
+choose the virtues, not on their own account, but for the sake of
+pleasure, just as we seek the skill of the physician for the sake of
+health."[768] That which is nominally right in morals, that which is
+relatively good in human conduct, is, therefore, to be determined by the
+effects upon ourselves; that which is agreeable--pleasurable, is right;
+that which is disagreeable--painful, is wrong. "The virtues are connate
+with living pleasantly."[769] Pleasure (edone), then, is the great end
+to be sought in human action. "Pleasure is the chief good, the beginning
+and end of living happily."[770]
+
+[Footnote 768: "Fundamental Maxims," preserved in Diogenes Laertius,
+"Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxx.]
+
+[Footnote 769: "Epicurus to Menaeceus," in Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of
+the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxvii.]
+
+[Footnote 770: Id., ib.]
+
+The proof which Epicurus offers in support of his doctrine, "that
+pleasure is the chief good," is truly characteristic. "All animals from
+the moment of their birth are delighted with pleasure and offended with
+pain, by their natural instincts, and without the employment of reason.
+Therefore we, also, of our own inclination, flee from pain."[771] "All
+men like pleasure and dislike pain; they naturally shun the latter and
+pursue the former." "If happiness is present, we have every thing, and
+when it is absent, we do every thing with a view to possess it."[772]
+Virtue thus consists in man's doing deliberately what the animals do
+instinctively--that is, choose pleasure and avoid pain.
+
+[Footnote 771: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xxix.]
+
+[Footnote 772: Id., ib., bk. x. ch. xxvii.]
+
+"Every kind of pleasure" is, in the estimation of Epicurus, "alike
+good," and alike proper. "If those things which make the pleasures of
+debauched men put an end to the fears of the mind, and to those which
+arise about the heavenly bodies [supernatural powers], and death and
+pain,... we should have no pretense for blaming those who wholly devote
+themselves to pleasure, and who never feel any pain, or grief (which is
+the chief evil) from any quarter."[773] Whilst, however, all pleasures
+of the body, as well as the mind, are equal in dignity, and alike good,
+they differ in intensity, in duration, and, especially, in their
+consequences. He therefore divides pleasure into two classes; and in
+this, as Cousin remarks, is found the only element of originality in his
+philosophy. These two kinds of pleasure are:
+
+1. _The pleasure of movement, excitement, energy_ (edone en
+kinesei).[774] This is the most lively pleasure; it supposes the
+greatest development of physical and mental power. "Joy and cheerfulness
+are beheld in motion and energy." But it is not the most enduring
+pleasure, and it is not the most perfect. It is accompanied by
+uneasiness; it "brings with it many perturbations," and it yields some
+bitter fruits.
+
+[Footnote 773: "Fundamental Maxims," No. 9, in Diogenes Laertius, "Lives
+of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxxi.]
+
+[Footnote 774: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xxviii.]
+
+2. _The second kind of pleasure is the pleasure of repose, tranquillity,
+impassibility_ (edone katastematike). This is a state, a "condition,"
+rather than a motion. It is "the freedom of the body from pain, and the
+soul from confusion."[775] This is perfect and unmixed happiness--the
+happiness of God; and he who attains it "will be like a god among men."
+"The storm of the soul is at an end, and body and soul are perfected."
+
+Now, whilst "no pleasure is intrinsically bad,"[776] prudence
+(phronesis), or practical wisdom, would teach us to choose the highest
+and most perfect happiness. Morality is therefore the application of
+reason to the conduct of life, and virtue is wisdom. The office of
+reason is to "determine our choices"--to take account of the duration of
+pleasures, to estimate their consequences, and to regard the happiness
+of a whole lifetime, and not the enjoyment of a single hour. Without
+wisdom men will choose the momentary excitements of passion, and follow
+after agitating pleasures, which are succeeded by pain; they will
+consequently lose "tranquillity of mind." "It is not possible," says
+Epicurus, "to live pleasantly without living prudently and honorably and
+justly."[777] The difference, then, between the philosopher and the
+ordinary man is this--that while both seek pleasure, the former knows
+how to forego certain indulgences which cause pain and vexation
+hereafter, whereas the ordinary man seeks only immediate enjoyment.
+Epicurus does not dispense with virtue, but he simply employs it as a
+means to an end, namely, the securing of happiness.[778]
+
+[Footnote 775: Id., ib.]
+
+[Footnote 776: "Fundamental Maxims," No. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 777: Ibid., No. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 778: Pressense, "Religions before Christ," p. 141.]
+
+Social morality is, like private morality, founded upon _utility._ As
+nothing is intrinsically right or wrong in private life, so nothing is
+intrinsically just or unjust in social life. "Justice has no independent
+existence: it results from mutual contracts, and establishes itself
+wherever there is a mutual engagement to guard against doing or
+sustaining any injury. Injustice is not intrinsically bad; it has this
+character only because there is joined with it the fear of not escaping
+those who are appointed to punish actions marked with this
+character."[779] Society is thus a contract--an agreement to promote
+each other's happiness. And inasmuch as the happiness of the individual
+depends in a great degree upon the general happiness, the essence of his
+ethical system, in its political aspects, is contained in inculcating
+"the greatest happiness of the greatest number."
+
+If you ask Epicurus what a man shall do when it is clearly his immediate
+interest to violate the social contract, he would answer, that if your
+general interest is secured by always observing it, you must make
+momentary sacrifices for the sake of future good. But "when, in
+consequence of new circumstances, a thing which has been pronounced just
+does not any longer appear to agree with utility, the thing which was
+just... ceases to be just the moment it ceases to be useful."[780] So
+that self-interest is still the basis of all virtue. And if, by the
+performance of duty, you are exposed to great suffering, and especially
+to death, you are perfectly justified in the violation of any and all
+contracts. Such is the social morality of Epicurus.
+
+With coarse and energetic minds the doctrine of Epicurus would
+inevitably lead to the grossest sensuality and crime; with men whose
+temperament was more apathetic, or whose tastes were more pure, it would
+develop a refined selfishness--a perfect egoism, which Epicurus has
+adorned with the name "tranquillity of mind--impassibility,"
+(ataraxia).[781]
+
+[Footnote 779: "Fundamental Maxims," Nos. 35, 36.]
+
+[Footnote 780: Ibid., No. 41.]
+
+[Footnote 781: It is scarcely necessary to discuss the question whether,
+by making pleasure the standard of right, Epicurus intended to encourage
+what is usually called sensuality. He earnestly protested against any
+such unfavorable interpretation of his doctrine:--"When we say that
+pleasure is a chief good, we are not speaking of the pleasures of the
+debauched man, or those which lie in sensual enjoyment, as some think
+who are ignorant, and who do not entertain our opinions, or else
+interpret them perversely; but we mean the freedom of the body from
+pain, and the soul from confusion" ("Epicurus to Menaeceus," in Diogenes
+Laertius, "Lives," bk. x. ch. xxvii.). The most obvious tendency of this
+doctrine is to extreme selfishness, rather than extreme sensuality--a
+selfishness which prefers one's own comfort and case to every other
+consideration.
+
+As to the personal character of Epicurus, opinions have been divided
+both in ancient and modern times. By some the garden has been called a
+"sty." Epicurus has been branded as a libertine, and the name
+"Epicurean" has, in almost all languages, become the synonym of
+sensualism. Diogenes Laertius repels all the imputations which are cast
+upon the moral character of his favorite author, and ascribes them to
+the malignity and falsehood of the Stoics. "The most modern criticism
+seems rather inclined to revert to the vulgar opinion respecting him,
+rejecting, certainly with good reason, the fanatical panegyrics of some
+French and English writers of the last century. Upon the whole, we are
+inclined to believe that Epicurus was an apathetic, decorous, formal
+man, who was able, without much difficulty, to cultivate a measured and
+even habit of mind, who may have occasionally indulged in sensual
+gratifications to prove that he thought them lawful, but who generally
+preferred, as a matter of taste, the exercises of the intellect to the
+more violent forms of self-indulgence. And this life, it seems to us,
+would be most consistent with his opinions. To avoid commotion, to make
+the stream of life flow on as easily as possible, was clearly the aim of
+his philosophy."--Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 236.]
+
+To secure this highest kind of happiness--this pure impassivity, it was
+necessary to get rid of all superstitious fears of death, of
+supernatural beings, and of a future retribution.[782] The chief causes
+of man's misery are his illusions, his superstitions, and his
+prejudices. "That which principally contributes to trouble the spirit of
+men, is the persuasion which they cherish that the stars are beings
+imperishable and happy (_i.e.,_ that they are gods), and that then our
+thoughts and actions are contrary to the will of those superior beings;
+they also, being deluded by these fables, apprehend an eternity of
+evils, they fear the insensibility of death, as though that could affect
+them...." "The real freedom from this kind of trouble consists in being
+emancipated from all these things."[783] And this emancipation is to be
+secured by the study of philosophy--that is, of that philosophy which
+explains every thing on natural or physical principles, and excludes all
+supernatural powers.
+
+[Footnote 782: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. 1. 100-118.]
+
+[Footnote 783: Epicurus to Herodotus, in Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of
+the Philosophers," p. 453 (Bohn's edition).]
+
+That ignorance which occasions man's misery is two-fold, (i.) _Ignorance
+of the external world, which leads to superstition._ All unexplained
+phenomena are ascribed to unseen, supernatural powers; often to
+malignant powers, which take pleasure in tormenting man; sometimes to a
+Supreme and Righteous Power, which rewards and punishes men for their
+good or evil conduct. Hence a knowledge of Physics, particularly the
+physics which Democritus taught, was needful to deliver men from false
+hopes and false fears.[784] (ii.) _Ignorance of the nature of man, of
+his faculties, powers, and the sources and limits of his knowledge_,
+from whence arise illusions, prejudices, and errors. Hence the need of
+Psychology to ascertain the real grounds of human knowledge, to explain
+the origin of man's illusions, to exhibit the groundlessness of his
+fears, and lead him to a just conception of the nature and end of his
+existence.
+
+[Footnote 784: "The study of physics contributes more than any thing
+else to the tranquillity and happiness of life."--Diogenes Laertius,
+"Lives," bk. x. ch. xxiv. "For thus it is that _fear_ restrains all men,
+because they observe many things effected on the earth and in heaven, of
+which effects they can by no means see the causes, and therefore think
+that they are wrought by a _divine_ power. For which reasons, when we
+have clearly seen that _nothing can be produced from nothing_, we shall
+have a more accurate perception of that of which we are in search, and
+shall understand whence each individual thing is generated, and how all
+things are done without the agency of the gods."--Lucretius, "On the
+Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 145-150.]
+
+Physics and Psychology are thus the only studies which Epicurus would
+tolerate as "conducive to the happiness of man." The pursuit of truth
+for its own sake was useless. Dialectics, which distinguish the true
+from the false, the good from the bad, on _a priori_ grounds, must be
+banished as an unnecessary toil, which yields no enjoyment. Theology
+must be cancelled entirely, because it fosters superstitious fears. The
+idea of God's taking knowledge of, disapproving, condemning, punishing
+the evil conduct of men, is an unpleasant thought. Physics and
+Psychology are the most useful, because the most "agreeable," the most
+"comfortable" sciences.
+
+EPICUREAN PHYSICS.
+
+In his physical theories Epicurus followed Leucippus and Democritus. He
+expounds these theories in his letters to Herodotus and Pythocles, which
+are preserved in Diogenes Laertius.[785] We shall be guided mainly by
+his own statements, and when his meaning is obscure, or his exposition
+is incomplete, we shall avail ourselves of the more elaborate statements
+of Lucretius,[786] who is uniformly faithful to the doctrine of
+Epicurus, and universally regarded as its best expounder.
+
+The fundamental principle of his philosophy is the ancient maxim--"_de
+nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil fosse reverti_;" but instead of employing
+this maxim in the sense in which it is used by Parmenides, Anaxagoras,
+Empedocles, and others, to prove there must be something self-existent
+and eternal, or in other words, "that nothing which once was not can
+ever of itself come into being," he uses it to disprove a divine
+creation, and even presents the maxim in an altered form--viz., "nothing
+is ever _divinely_ generated from nothing;"[787] and he thence concludes
+that the world was by no means made for us by _divine_ power.[788]
+Nature is eternal. "The universal whole always was such as it now is,
+and always will be such." "The universe also is infinite, for that which
+is finite has a limit, but the universe has no limit."[789]
+
+[Footnote 785: "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.]
+
+[Footnote 786: "De Natura Rerum."]
+
+[Footnote 787: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i.]
+
+[Footnote 788: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 789: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xxiv.]
+
+The two great principles of nature are a _vacuum_, and a _plenum._ The
+plenum is _body_, or tangible nature; the vacuum is _space_, or
+intangible nature. "We know by the evidences of the senses (which are
+our only rule of reasoning) that _bodies_ have a real existence, and we
+infer from the evidence of the senses that the vacuum has a real
+existence; for if space have no real existence, there would be nothing
+in which bodies can move, as we see they really do move. Let us add to
+this reflection that one can not conceive, either in virtue of
+perception, or of any analogy founded on perception, any general quality
+peculiar to all beings, which is not either an attribute, or an
+accident, of the body or of the vacuum."[790]
+
+Of bodies some are "combinations"--concrete bodies--and some are
+primordial "elements," out of which combinations are formed. These
+primordial elements, out of which the universe is generated, are
+"_atoms_" (atomoi). These atoms are "the first principles" and "seeds"
+of all things.[791] They are "_infinite_ in number," and, as their name
+implies, they are "_infrangible" "unchangeable_" and
+"_indestructible."_[792] Matter is, therefore, not infinitely divisible;
+there must be a point at which division ends.[793]
+
+The only qualities of atoms are _form_, _magnitude_, and _density._ All
+the other sensible qualities of matter--the secondary qualities--as
+color, odor, sweetness, bitterness, etc.--are necessarily inherent in
+form. All secondary qualities are changeable, but the primary atoms are
+unchangeable; "for in the dissolution of combined bodies there must be
+something _solid_ and _indestructible,_ of such a kind that it will not
+change, either into what does not exist, or out of what does not exist,
+but the change results from a simple displacement of parts, which is the
+most usual case, or from an addition or subtraction of particles."[794]
+
+[Footnote 790: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xxiv.]
+
+[Footnote 791: Id., ib., bk. x. ch. xxv.]
+
+[Footnote 792: Id., ib., bk. x. ch. xxiv.]
+
+[Footnote 793: Id., ib.; Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l.
+616-620.]
+
+[Footnote 794: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xxiv.]
+
+The atoms are not all of one _form_, but of different forms suited to
+the production of different substances by combination; some are square,
+some triangular, some smooth and spherical, some are hooked with points.
+They are also diversified in _magnitude_ and _density_. The number of
+original forms is "incalculably varied," but not infinite. "Every
+variety of forms contains an infinitude of atoms, but there is not, for
+that reason, an infinitude of forms; it is only the number of them which
+is beyond computation."[795] To assert that atoms are of every kind of
+form, magnitude, and density, would be "to contradict the phenomena;
+"for experience teaches us that objects have a finite magnitude, and
+form necessarily supposes limitation.
+
+[Footnote 795: Id., ib.]
+
+A variety of these primordial forms enter into the composition of all
+sensible objects, because sensible objects possess different qualities,
+and these diversified qualities can only result from the combination of
+different original forms. "The earth has, in itself, primary atoms from
+which springs, rolling forth cool _water_, incessantly recruit the
+immense sea; it has also atoms from which _fire_ arises.... Moreover,
+the earth contains atoms from which it can raise up rich _corn_ and
+cheerful _groves_ for the tribes of men...." So that "no object in
+nature is constituted of one kind of elements, and whatever possesses in
+itself must numerous powers and energies, thus demonstrates that it
+contains more numerous kinds of primary particles,"[796] or primordial
+"seeds of things."
+
+"The atoms are in a continual state of _motion_" and "have moved with
+_equal rapidity_ from all eternity, since it is evident the vacuum can
+offer no resistance to the heaviest, any more than the lightest." The
+primary and original movement of all atoms is _in straight lines, by
+virtue of their own weight_. The vacuum separates all atoms one from
+another, at greater or less distances, and they preserve their own
+peculiar motion in the densest substances.[797]
+
+[Footnote 796: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 582-600.]
+
+[Footnote 797: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xxiv.; Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 80-92.]
+
+And now the grand crucial question arises--_How do atoms combine so as
+to form concrete bodies?_ If they move in straight lines, and with equal
+rapidity from all eternity, then they can never unite so as to form
+concrete substances. They can only coalesce by deviating from a straight
+line.[798] How are they made to deviate from a straight line? This
+deviation must be introduced _arbitrarily_, or by some _external cause_.
+And inasmuch as Epicurus admits of no causes "but space and matter," and
+rejects all divine or supernatural interposition, the _new_ movement
+must be purely arbitrary. They deviate _spontaneously,_ and of their own
+accord. "The system of nature immediately appears _as a free agent_,
+released from tyrant masters, to do every thing of itself spontaneously,
+without the help of the gods."[799] The manner in which Lucretius proves
+this doctrine is a good example of the petitio principii. He assumes, in
+opposition to the whole spirit and tendency of the Epicurean philosophy,
+that man has "a free will," and then argues that if man who is nothing
+but an aggregation of atoms, can "turn aside and alter his own
+movements," the primary elements, of which his soul is composed, must
+have some original spontaneity. "If all motion is connected and
+dependent, and a new movement perpetually arises from a former one in a
+certain order, and if the primary elements do not produce any
+commencement of motion by deviating from the straight line to break the
+laws of fate, so that cause may not follow cause in infinite succession,
+_whence comes this freedom of will_ to all animals in the world? whence,
+I say, is this liberty of action wrested from the fates, by means of
+which we go wheresoever inclination leads each of us? whence is it that
+we ourselves turn aside, and alter our motions, not at any fixed time,
+nor in any fixed part of space, but just as our own minds prompt?....
+Wherefore we must necessarily confess that the same is the case with the
+seeds of matter, and there is some other cause besides strokes and
+weight [resistance and density] from which this power [of free movement]
+is innate in them, since we see that _nothing is produced from
+nothing_."[800] Besides form, extension, and density, Epicurus has found
+another inherent or essential quality of matter or atoms, namely,
+"_spontaneous" motion._
+
+[Footnote 798: "At some time, though at no fixed and determinate time,
+and at some point, though at no fixed and determinate point, they turn
+aside from the right line, but only so far as you can call the least
+possible deviation."--Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. ii. l.
+216-222.]
+
+[Footnote 799: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things" bk. ii. 1.
+1092-1096.]
+
+[Footnote 800: Id., ib., bk. ii. l. 250-290.]
+
+By a slight "voluntary" deflection from the straight line, atoms are now
+brought into contact with each other; "they strike against each other,
+and by the percussion new movements and new complications
+arise"--"movements from high to low, from low to high, and horizontal
+movements to and fro, in virtue of this reciprocal percussion." The
+atoms "jostling about, _of their own accord_, in infinite modes, were
+often brought together confusedly, irregularly, and to no purpose, but
+at length they _successfully coalesced_; at least, such of them as were
+thrown together suddenly became, in succession, the beginnings of great
+things--as earth, and air, and sea, and heaven."[801]
+
+[Footnote 801: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. ii. l.
+1051-1065.]
+
+And now Lucretius shall describe the formation of the different parts of
+the world according to the cosmogony of Epicurus. We quote from Good's
+translation:
+
+     But from this boundless mass of matter first
+     How heaven, and earth, and ocean, sun, and moon,
+     Rose in nice order, now the muse shall tell.
+     For never, doubtless, from result of thought,
+     Or mutual compact, could primordial seeds
+     First harmonize, or move with powers precise.
+     But countless crowds in countless manners urged,
+     From time eternal, by intrinsic weight
+     And ceaseless repercussion, to combine
+     In all the possibilities of forms,
+     Of actions, and connections, and exert
+     In every change some effort to create--
+     Reared the rude frame at length, abruptly reared,
+     Which, when once gendered, must the basis prove
+     Of things sublime; and whence eventual rose
+     Heaven, earth, and ocean, and the tribes of sense.
+
+     Yet now nor sun on fiery wheel was seen
+     Riding sublime, nor stars adorned the pole,
+     Nor heaven, nor earth, nor air, nor ocean lived,
+     Nor aught of prospect mortal sight surveyed;
+     But one vast chaos, boisterous and confused.
+     Yet order hence began; congenial parts
+     Parts joined congenial; and the rising world
+     Gradual evolved: its mighty members each
+     From each divided, and matured complete
+     From seeds appropriate; whose wild discortderst,
+     Reared by their strange diversities of form,
+     With ruthless war so broke their proper paths,
+     Their motions, intervals, conjunctions, weights,
+     And repercussions, nought of genial act
+     Till now could follow, nor the seeds themselves
+     E'en though conjoined in mutual bonds, co
+     Thus air, secreted, rose o'er laboring earth;
+     Secreted ocean flowed; and the pure fire,
+     Secreted too, toward ether sprang sublime.
+
+     But first the seeds terrene, since ponderous most
+     And most perplext, in close embraces clung,
+     And towards the centre conglobating sunk.
+     And as the bond grew firmer, ampler forth
+     Pressed they the fluid essences that reared
+     Sun, moon, and stars, and main, and heaven's high wall.
+     For those of atoms lighter far consist,
+     Subtiler, and more rotund than those of earth.
+     Whence, from the pores terrene, with foremost haste
+     Rushed the bright ether, towering high, and swift
+     Streams of fire attracting as it flowed.
+
+     Then mounted, next, the base of sun and moon,
+     'Twixt earth and ether, in the midway air
+     Rolling their orbs; for into neither these
+     Could blend harmonious, since too light with earth
+     To sink deprest, while yet too ponderous far
+     To fly with ether toward the realms extreme:
+     So 'twixt the two they hovered; _vital_ there
+     Moving forever, parts of the vast whole;
+     As move forever in the frame of man
+     Some active organs, while some oft repose.[802]
+
+[Footnote 802: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," b. v. l. 431-498]
+
+After explaining the origin and causes of the varied celestial
+phenomena, he proceeds to give an account of the production of plants,
+animals, and man:
+
+     Once more return we to the world's pure prime,
+     Her fields yet liquid, and the tribes survey
+     First she put forth, and trusted to the winds.
+
+     And first the race she reared of verdant herbs,
+     Glistening o'er every hill; the fields at large
+     Shone with the verdant tincture, and the trees
+     Felt the deep impulse, and with outstretched arms
+     Broke from their bonds rejoicing. As the down
+     Shoots from the winged nations, or from beasts
+     Bristles or hair, so poured the new-born earth
+     Plants, fruits, and herbage. Then, in order next,
+     Raised she the sentient tribes, in various modes,
+     By various powers distinguished: for not heaven
+     Down dropped them, nor from ocean's briny waves
+     Sprang they, terrestrial sole; whence, justly _Earth_
+     Claims the dear name of mother, since alone
+     Flowed from herself whate'er the sight surveys.
+
+     E'en now oft rears she many a sentient tribe
+     By showers and sunshine ushered into day.[803]
+     Whence less stupendous tribes should then have risen
+     More, and of ampler make, herself new-formed,
+     In flower of youth, and _Ether_ all mature.[804]
+
+     Of these birds first, of wing and plume diverse,
+     Broke their light shells in spring-time: as in spring
+     Still breaks the grasshopper his curious web,
+     And seeks, spontaneous, foods and vital air.
+
+     Then rushed the ranks of mortals; for the soil,
+     Exuberant then, with warmth and moisture teemed.
+     So, o'er each scene appropriate, myriad wombs
+     Shot, and expanded, to the genial sward
+     By fibres fixt; and as, in ripened hour,
+     Their liquid orbs the daring foetus broke
+     Of breath impatient, nature here transformed
+     Th' assenting earth, and taught her opening veins
+     With juice to flow lacteal; as the fair
+     Now with sweet milk o'erflows, whose raptured breast
+     First hails the stranger-babe, since all absorbed
+     Of nurture, to the genial tide converts.
+     Earth fed the nursling, the warm ether clothed,
+     And the soft downy grass his couch compressed.[805]
+
+[Footnote 803: The doctrine of "spontaneous generations" is still more
+explicitly announced in book ii. "Manifest appearances compel us to
+believe that animals, though possessed of sense, are generated from
+senseless atoms. For you may observe living worms proceed from foul
+dung, when the earth, moistened with immoderate showers, has contracted
+a kind of putrescence; and you may see all other things change
+themselves, similarly, into other things."--Lucretius, "On the Nature of
+Things," bk. i. l. 867-880.]
+
+[Footnote 804: Ether is the father, earth the mother of all organized
+being.--Id., ib., bk. i. l. 250-255.]
+
+[Footnote 805: Id., ib., bk. v. l. 795-836.]
+
+A state of pure savagism, or rather of mere animalism, was the primitive
+condition of man. He wandered naked in the woods, feeding on acorns and
+wild fruits, and quenched his thirst at the "echoing waterfalls," in
+company with the wild beast.
+
+Through the remaining part of book v. Lucretius describes how speech was
+invented; how society originated, and governments were instituted; how
+civilization commenced; and how religion arose out of ignorance of
+natural causes; how the arts of life were discovered, and how science
+sprang up. And all this, as he is careful to tell us, without any divine
+instruction, or any assistance from the gods.
+
+Such are the physical theories of the Epicureans. The primordial
+elements of matter are infinite, eternal, and self-moved. After ages
+upon ages of chaotic strife, the universe at length arose out of an
+_infinite_ number of atoms, and a _finite_ number of forms, by a
+fortuitous combination. Plants, animals, and man were spontaneously
+generated from ether and earth. Languages, society, governments, arts
+were gradually developed. And all was achieved simply by blind,
+unconscious nature-forces, without any designing, presiding, and
+governing Intelligence--that is, without a God.
+
+The evil genius which presided over the method of Epicurus, and
+perverted all his processes of thought, is clearly apparent. The end of
+his philosophy was not the discovery of truth. He does not commence his
+inquiry into the principles or causes which are adequate to the
+explanation of the universe, with an unprejudiced mind. He everywhere
+develops a malignant hostility to religion, and the avowed object of his
+physical theories is to rid the human mind of all fear of supernatural
+powers--that is, of all fear of God.[806] "The phenomena which men
+observe to occur in the earth and the heavens, when, as often happens,
+they are perplexed with fearful thoughts, overawe their minds with a
+dread of the gods, and humble and depress them to the earth. For
+ignorance of natural causes obliges them to refer all things to the
+power of the divinities, and to resign the dominion of the world to
+them; because of those effects they can by no means see the origin, and
+accordingly suppose that they are produced by divine influence."[807]
+
+[Footnote 806: "Let us trample religion underfoot, that the victory
+gained over it may place us on an equality with heaven" (book i.). See
+Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxiv. pp.
+453,454 (Bohn's edition); Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i.
+l. 54-120.]
+
+[Footnote 807: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. vi. l. 51-60.]
+
+To "expel these fancies from the mind" as "inconsistent with its
+tranquillity and opposed to human happiness," is the end, and, as
+Lucretius believes, the glory of the Epicurean philosophy. To accomplish
+this, God must be placed at an infinite distance from the universe, and
+must be represented as indifferent to every thing that transpires within
+it. We "must beware of making the Deity interpose here, for that Being
+we ought to suppose _exempt from all occupation_, and perfectly
+happy,"[808]--that is, absolutely impassible. God did not make the
+world, and he does not govern the world. There is no evidence of design
+or intelligence in its structure, and "such is the faultiness with which
+it stands affected, that it can not be the work of a Divine power."[809]
+
+Epicurus is, then, an unmistakable Atheist. He did not admit a God in
+any rational sense. True, he _professed_ to believe in gods, but
+evidently in a very equivocal manner, and solely to escape the popular
+condemnation. "They are not pure spirits, for there is no spirit in the
+atomic theory; they are not bodies, for where are the bodies that we may
+call gods? In this embarrassment, Epicurus, compelled to acknowledge
+that the human race believes in the existence of gods, addresses himself
+to an old theory of Democritus--that is, he appeals to dreams. As in
+dreams there are images that act upon and determine in us agreeable or
+painful sensations, without proceeding from exterior bodies, so the gods
+are images similar to those of dreams, but greater, having the human
+form; images which are not precisely bodies, and yet not deprived of
+materiality which are whatever you please, but which, in short, must be
+admitted, since the human race believes in gods, and since the
+universality of the religious sentiment is a fact which demands a
+cause."[810]
+
+[Footnote 808: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
+ch. xxv.; Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 55-60.]
+
+[Footnote 809: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. v. l. 195-200.]
+
+[Footnote 810: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 431.]
+
+It is needless to offer any criticism on the reasoning of Epicurus. One
+fact will have obviously presented itself to the mind of the reflecting
+reader. He starts with atoms having form, magnitude, and density, and
+essays to construct a universe; but he is obliged to be continually
+introducing, in addition, a "_nameless something_" which "remains in
+secret," to help him out in the explanation of the phenomena.[811] He
+makes life to arise out of dead matter, sense out of senseless atoms,
+consciousness out of unconsciousness, reason out of unreason, without an
+adequate cause, and thus violates the fundamental principle from which
+he starts, "_that nothing can arise from nothing_."
+
+EPICUREAN PSYCHOLOGY.
+
+In the system of Epicurus, the soul is regarded as corporeal or
+material, like the body; they form, together, one nature or substance.
+The soul is composed of atoms exceedingly diminutive, smooth, and round,
+and connected with or diffused through the veins, viscera, and nerves.
+The substance of the soul is not to be regarded as simple and
+uncompounded; its constituent parts are _aura_, heat, and air. These are
+not sufficient, however, even in the judgment of Epicurus, to account
+for _sensation_; they are not adequate to generate sensible motives such
+as revolve any thoughts in the mind. "A certain fourth nature, or
+substance, must, therefore, necessarily be added to these, _that is
+wholly without a name_; it is a substance, however, than which nothing
+exists more active or more subtile, nor is any thing more essentially
+composed of small and smooth elementary particles; and it is this
+substance which first distributes sensible motions through the
+members."[812]
+
+[Footnote 811: As, _e.g._, Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk.
+iii. l. 260-290.]
+
+[Footnote 812: Id., ib., bk. iii. l. 237-250.]
+
+Epicurus is at great pains to prove that the soul is material; and it
+can not be denied that he marshals his arguments with great skill.
+Modern materialism may have added additional illustrations, but it has
+contributed no new lines of proof. The weapons are borrowed from the old
+arsenal, and they are not wielded with any greater skill than they were
+by Epicurus himself, I. The soul and the body act and react upon each
+other; and mutual reaction can only take place between substances of
+similar nature. "Such effects can only be produced by _touch_, and touch
+can not take place without _body_."[813] 2. The mind is produced
+together with the body, it grows up along with it, and waxes old at the
+same time with it.[814] 3. The mind is diseased along with the body, "it
+loses its faculties by material causes, as intoxication, or by severe
+blows; and is sometimes, by a heavy lethargy, borne down into a deep
+eternal sleep."[815] 4. The mind, like the body, is healed by medicines,
+which proves that it exists only as a mortal substance.[816] 5. The mind
+does not always, and at the same time, continue _entire_ and
+_unimpaired_, some faculties decay before the others, "the substance of
+the soul is therefore divided." On all these grounds the soul must be
+deemed mortal; it is dissolved along with the body, and has no conscious
+existence after death.
+
+[Footnote 813: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. iii. l.
+138-168.]
+
+[Footnote 814: Id., ib., bk. iii. l. 444-460.]
+
+[Footnote 815: Id., ib., bk. iii. l. 438-490.]
+
+[Footnote 816: Id., ib., bk. iii. l. 500-520.]
+
+Such being the nature of the soul, inasmuch as it is material, all its
+knowledge must be derived from sensation. The famous doctrine of
+perception, as taught by Epicurus, is grounded upon this pre-supposition
+that the soul is corporeal. "The eidola aporroiai--_imagines, simulacra
+rerum, etc_., are, like pellicles, continually flying off from objects;
+and these material 'likenesses,' diffusing themselves everywhere in the
+air, are propelled to the perceptive organs." These images of things
+coming in contact with the senses produce _sensation_ (aisthesis). A
+sensation may be considered either as regards its object, or as regards
+him who experiences it. As regards him who experiences it, it is simply
+a passive affection, an agreeable or disagreeable feeling, passion, or
+sentiment (to pathos). But along with sensation there is inseparably
+associated some knowledge of the object which excites sensation; and it
+is for this reason that Epicurus marked the intimate relation of these
+two phenomena by giving them analogous names. Because the second
+phenomenon is joined to the first, he calls it
+epaisthesis--_perception_. It is sensation viewed especially in regard
+to its object--_representative sensation_, or the "sensible idea" of
+modern philosophy. It is from perception that we draw our general ideas
+by a kind of prolepsis (prolepsis) an anticipation or laying hold by
+reason of that which is implied in sensation. Now all sensations are
+alike true in so far as they are sensations, and error arises from false
+reasoning about the testimony of sense. All knowledge is purely relative
+and contingent, and there is no such thing as necessary and absolute
+truth.
+
+The system of Epicurus is thus a system of pure materialism, but not a
+system of materialism drawn, as a logical consequence, from a careful
+and unprejudiced study of the whole phenomena of mind. His openly avowed
+design is to deliver men from the fear of death, and rid them of all
+apprehension of a future retribution. "Did men but know that there was a
+fixed limit to their woes, they would be able, in some measure, to defy
+the religious fictions and menaces of the poets; but now, since we must
+fear eternal punishment at death, there is no mode, no means of
+resisting them."[817] To emancipate men from "these terrors of the
+mind," they must be taught "that the soul is mortal, and dissolves with
+the body"--that "death is nothing to us, for that which is dissolved is
+devoid of sensation, and that which is devoid of sensation is nothing to
+us."[818] Starting with the fixed determination to prove that
+
+     "Death is nothing, and naught after death,"
+
+he will not permit any mental phenomena to suggest to him the idea of an
+incorporeal spiritual substance. Matter, under any form known to
+Epicurus, is confessedly insufficient to explain sensation and thought;
+a "nameless something" must be _supposed_. But may not "that principle
+which _lies entirely hid, and remains in secret_"[819]--and about which
+even Epicurus does not know any thing--be a spiritual, an _immaterial_
+principle? For aught that he knows it may as properly be called
+"_spirit_" as matter. May not _sensation_ and _cognition_ be the result
+of the union of matter and spirit; and if so, may not their mutual
+affections, their common sympathies, be the necessary conditions of
+sensation and cognition in the present life? A reciprocal relation
+between body and mind appears in all mental phenomena. A certain
+proportion in this relation is called mental health. A deviation from it
+is termed disease. This proportion is by no means an equilibrium, but
+the perfect adaptation of the body, without injury to its integrity, to
+the purposes of the mind. And if this be so, all the arguments of
+materialism fall to the ground.
+
+[Footnote 817: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 100-118.]
+
+[Footnote 818: Diogenes Laertius, Maxim 2, in "Lives of the
+Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxxi.]
+
+[Footnote 819: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. iii. l.
+275-280.]
+
+The concluding portion of the third book, in which Lucretius discourses
+on _death_, is a mournful picture of the condition of the heathen mind
+before Christianity "brought life and immortality fully to light." It
+comes to us, like a voice from the grave of two thousand years, to prove
+they were "without hope." To be delivered from the fear of future
+retribution, they would sacrifice the hope of an immortal life. To
+extintinguish guilt they would annihilate the soul. The only way in
+which Lucretius can console man in prospect of death is, by reminding
+him that he will _escape the ills of life_.
+
+     "'But thy dear home shall never greet thee more!
+     No more the best of wives!--thy babes beloved,
+     Whose haste half-met thee, emulous to snatch
+     The dulcet kiss that roused thy secret soul,
+     Again shall never hasten!--nor thine arm,
+     With deeds heroic, guard thy country's weal!--
+     Oh mournful, mournful fate!' thy friends exclaim!
+     'One envious hour of these invalued joys
+     Robs thee forever!--But they add not here,
+     '_It robs thee, too, of all desire of joy_'--
+     A truth, once uttered, that the mind would free
+     From every dread and trouble. 'Thou art safe
+     The sleep of death protects thee, _and secures
+     From all the unnumbered woes of mortal life!_
+     While we, alas! the sacred urn around
+     That holds thine ashes, shall insatiate weep,
+     Nor time destroy the eternal grief we feel!'
+     What, then, has death, if death be mere repose,
+     And quiet only in a peaceful grave,--
+     What has it thus to mar this life of man?"[820]
+
+[Footnote 820: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. iii. l.
+906-926.]
+
+This is all the comfort that Epicureanism can offer; and if "the wretch
+still laments the approach of death," she addresses him "with voice
+severe"--
+
+     "Vile coward! dry thine eyes--
+     Hence with thy snivelling sorrows, and depart!"
+
+It is evident that such a system of philosophy outrages the purest and
+noblest sentiments of humanity, and, in fact, condemns itself. It was
+born of selfishness and social degeneracy, and could perpetuate itself
+only in an age of corruption, because it inculcated the lawfulness of
+sensuality and the impunity of injustice. Its existence at this precise
+period in Grecian history forcibly illustrates the truth, that Atheism
+is a disease of the heart rather than the head. It seeks to set man free
+to follow his own inclinations, by ridding him of all faith in a
+Divinity and in an immortal life, and thus exonerating him from all
+accountability and all future retribution. But it failed to perceive
+that, in the most effectual manner, it annihilated all real liberty, all
+true nobleness, and made of man an abject slave.
+
+STOICISM.
+
+The Stoical school was founded by Zeno of Citium, who flourished B.C.
+290. He taught in the Stoa Poecile, or Painted Porch; and his disciples
+thence derived the name of Stoics. Zeno was succeeded by Cleanthes (B.C.
+260); and Cleanthes by Chrysippus (B.C. 240), whose vigorous intellect
+gave unity and completeness to the Stoical philosophy. He is reported to
+have said to Cleanthes,--"Give me your doctrines, and I will find the
+demonstrations."[821]
+
+[Footnote 821: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. vii.]
+
+None of the writings of the early Stoics, save a "Hymn to Jupiter," by
+Cleanthes, have survived. We are chiefly indebted to Diogenes
+Laertius[822] and Cicero[823] for an insight into their system. The Hymn
+of Cleanthes sheds some light on their Theology, and their moral
+principles are exhibited in "The Fragments" of Epictetus, and "The Life
+and Meditations" of Marcus Aurelius.
+
+[Footnote 822: "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.]
+
+[Footnote 823: "De Fm.," and "De Natura Deorum."]
+
+The philosophy of the Stoics, like that of the Epicureans, was mainly a
+philosophy of life--that is, a _moral_ philosophy. The manner in which
+they approached the study of morals, and the principles upon which they
+grounded morality, were, however, essentially different.
+
+The grand object of Epicurus was to make the current of life flow on as
+comfortably as possible, without any distracting thoughts of the past or
+any disturbing visions of the future. He therefore starts with this
+fundamental principle, that the true philosophy of life is to enjoy
+one's self--the aim of existence is to be happy. Whatever in a man's
+beliefs or conduct tends to secure happiness is _right_; whatever
+awakens uneasiness, apprehension, or fear, is _wrong_. And inasmuch as
+the idea of a Divine Creator and Governor of the universe, and the
+belief in a future life and retribution, are uncomfortable thoughts,
+exciting superstitious fears, they ought to be rejected. The Physics and
+the Psychology of Epicurus are thus the natural outgrowth of his
+Morality.
+
+Zeno was evidently a more earnest, serious, and thoughtful man. He
+cherished a nobler ideal of life than to suppose "man must do
+voluntarily, what the brute does instinctively--eschew pain, and seek
+pleasure." He therefore seeks to ascertain whether there be not some
+"principle of nature," or some law of nature, which determines what is
+right in human action--whether there be not some light under which, on
+contemplating an action, we may at once pronounce upon its intrinsic
+_rightness_, or otherwise. This he believes he has found in the
+_universal reason_ which fashioned, and permeates, and vivifies the
+universe, and is the light and life of the human soul. The chief good
+is, confessedly, to live according to nature; which is to live according
+to virtue, for nature leads us to that point.... For our individual
+natures are all part of the universal nature; on which account, the
+chief good is to live in a manner corresponding to one's own nature, and
+to universal nature; doing none of those things which the common law of
+mankind (the universal conscience of our race) forbids. _That common law
+is identical with_ RIGHT REASON _which pervades every thing, being the
+same with Jupiter_ (Zeus), _who is the regulator and chief manager of
+all existing things_.[824] The foundation of the ethical system of the
+Stoics is thus laid in their philosophy of nature--their Physiology and
+Psychology. If, therefore, we would apprehend the logical connection and
+unity of Stoicism, we must follow their order of thought--that is, we
+must commence with their
+
+PHYSIOLOGY.
+
+Diogenes Laertius tells us that the Stoics held "that there are two
+general principles in the universe--the _passive_ principle (to
+naschon), which is matter, an existence without any distinctive quality,
+and the _active_ principle (to poioun), which is the reason existing in
+the passive, that is to say, God. For that He, being eternal, and
+existing throughout all matter, makes every thing."[825] This Divine
+Reason, acting upon matter, originates the necessary and unchangeable
+laws which govern matter--laws which the Stoics called logoi
+spermatikoi--generating reasons or causes of things. The laws of the
+world are, like eternal reason, necessary and immutable; hence the
+eimarmene--the _Destiny_ of the Stoics, which is also one of the names
+of the Deity.[826] But by Destiny the Stoics could not understand a
+blind unconscious necessity; it is rather the highest reason in the
+universe. "Destiny (eimarmene) is a connected (eiromene) cause of
+things, or the reason according to which the world is regulated."[827]
+
+[Footnote 824: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. liii.]
+
+[Footnote 825: Id., ib., bk. vii. ch. lxviii.]
+
+[Footnote 826: "They teach that God is unity, and that he is called
+Mind, and _Fate_, and Jupiter."--Id., ib., bk. vii. ch. lxviii.]
+
+[Footnote 827: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. lxxiv.]
+
+These two principles are not, however, regarded by the Stoics as having
+a distinct, separate, and independent existence. One is substance
+(ousia); the other is quality (poios). The primordial matter is the
+passive ground of all existence--the original substratum for the Divine
+activity. The Divine Reason is the active or formative energy which
+dwells within, and is essentially united to, the primary substance. The
+Stoics, therefore, regarded all existence as reducible, in its last
+analysis, to _one substance_, which on the side of its passivity and
+capacity of change, they called _hyle_ (yle);[828] and on the side of
+its changeless energy and immutable order, they called God. The
+corporeal world--physical nature--is "a peculiar manifestation" of God,
+generated from his own substance, and, after certain periods, absorbed
+in himself. Thus God, considered in the evolution of His power, is
+nature. And nature, as attached to its immanent principle, is called
+God.[829] The fundamental doctrine of the Stoics was a spiritual, ideal,
+intellectual pantheism, of which the proper formula is, _All things are
+God, but God is not all things_.
+
+[Footnote 828: Or "matter." A good deal of misapprehension has arisen
+from confounding the intellectual yle of Aristotle and the Stoics with
+the gross physical "matter" of the modern physicist. By "matter" we now
+understand that which is corporeal, tangible, sensible; whereas by yle,
+Aristotle and the Stoics (who borrowed the term from him) understood
+that which is incorporeal, intangible, and inapprehensible to sense,--an
+"unknown something" which must necessarily be _supposed_ as the
+condition of the existence of things. The _formal_ cause of Aristotle is
+"the substance and essence"--the primary nature of things, on which all
+their properties depend. The _material_ cause is "the matter or subject"
+through which the primary nature manifests itself. Unfortunately the
+term "material" misleads the modern thinker. He is in danger of
+supposing the _hyle_ of Aristotle to be something sensible and physical,
+whereas it is an intellectual principle whose inherence is implied in
+any physical thing. It is something distinct from _body_, and has none
+of those properties we are now accustomed to ascribe to matter. Body,
+corporeity, is the result of the union of "hyle" and "form." Stobaeus
+thus expounds the doctrine of Aristotle: Form alone, separate from
+matter (yle) is _incorporeal_; so matter alone, separated from form, is
+not _body_. But there is need of the joint concurrence of both
+these--matter and form--to make the substance of body. Every individual
+substance is thus a totality of matter and form--a sinolon.
+
+The Stoics taught that God is _oneliness_ (Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of
+the Philosophers," bk. vii. ch. lxviii.); that he is _eternal_ and
+_immortal_ (bk. vii. ch. lxxii.); he could not, therefore, be corporeal,
+for "body _infinite, divisible,_ and _perishable_" (bk. vii. ch.
+lxxvii.). "All the parts of the world are perishable, for they change
+one into another; therefore the world is perishable" (bk. vii. ch.
+lxx.). The Deity is not, therefore, absolutely identified with the world
+by the Stoics. He permeates all things, creates and dissolves all
+things, and is, therefore, _more_ than all things. The world is finite;
+God is infinite.]
+
+[Footnote 829: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. lxx.]
+
+Schwegler affirms that, in physics, the Stoics, for the most part,
+followed Heraclitus, and especially "carried out the proposition that
+nothing incorporeal exists; every thing is essentially _corporeal_." The
+pantheism of Zeno is therefore "_materialistic._"[830] This is not a
+just representation of the views of the early Stoics, and can not be
+sustained by a fair interpretation of their teaching. They say that
+principles and elements differ from each other. Principles have no
+generation or beginning, and will have no end; but elements may be
+destroyed. Also, that elements have bodies, and have forms, _but
+principles have no bodies, and no forms_.[831] Principles are,
+therefore, _incorporeal._ Furthermore, Cicero tells us that they taught
+that the universal harmony of the world resulted from all things being
+"contained by one _Divine_ SPIRIT;"[832] and also, that reason in man is
+"nothing else but part of the _Divine_ SPIRIT merged into a human
+body."[833] It thus seems evident that the Stoics made a distinction
+between corruptible _elements_ (fire, air, earth, water) and
+incorruptible _principles_, by which and out of which elements were
+generated, and also between corporeal and incorporeal substances.
+
+[Footnote 830: Schwegler's "History of Philosophy," p. 140.]
+
+[Footnote 831: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. lxviii.]
+
+[Footnote 832: "De Natura Deorum," bk. ii. ch. xiii.]
+
+[Footnote 833: Ibid, bk. ii. ch. xxxi.]
+
+On a careful collation of the fragmentary remains of the early Stoics,
+we fancy we catch glimpses of the theory held by some modern pantheists,
+that the material elements, "having body and form," are a vital
+transformation of the Divine substance; and that the forces of
+nature--"the generating causes or reasons of things" (logoi
+spermatikoi)--are a conscious transmutation of the Divine energy. This
+theory is more than hinted in the following passages, which we slightly
+transpose from the order in which they stand in Diogenes Laertius,
+without altering their meaning. "They teach that the Deity was in the
+beginning by _himself_".... that "first of all, he made the four
+elements, fire, water, air, and earth." "The fire is the highest, and
+that is called aether, in which, first of all, the sphere was generated
+in which the fixed stars are set...; after that the air; then the water;
+and the sediment, as it were, of all, is the earth, which is placed in
+the centre of the rest." "He turned into water the whole substance which
+pervaded the air; and as the seed is contained in the product, so, too,
+He, being the seminal principle of the world, remained still in
+moisture, making matter fit to be employed by himself in the production
+of things which were to come after."[834] The Deity thus draws the
+universe out of himself, transmuting the divine substance into body and
+form. "God is a being of a certain quality, having for his peculiar
+manifestation universal substance. He is a being imperishable, and who
+never had any generation, being the maker of the arrangement and order
+that we see; and who at certain periods of time _absorbs all substance
+in himself and then reproduces it from himself_."[835] And now, in the
+last analysis, it would seem as though every thing is resolved into
+_force_. God and the world are _power, and its manifestation_, and these
+are ultimately one. "This identification of God and the world, according
+to which the Stoics regarded the whole formation of the universe as but
+a period in the development of God, renders their remaining doctrine
+concerning the world very simple. Every thing in the world seemed to be
+permeated by the Divine life, and was regarded as the flowing out of
+this most perfect life through certain channels, until it returns, in a
+necessary circle, back to itself."[836]
+
+[Footnote 834: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. lxviii., lxix.]
+
+[Footnote 835: Id., ib., bk. vii. ch. lxx.]
+
+[Footnote 836: Schwegler's "History of Philosophy," p. 141.]
+
+The God of the Stoics is not, however, a mere principle of life
+vitalizing nature, but an _intelligent_ principle directing nature; and,
+above all, a _moral_ principle, governing the human race. "God is a
+living being, immortal, rational, perfect, and intellectual in his
+happiness, unsusceptible of any kind of evil; having a foreknowledge of
+the world, and of all that is in the world."[837] He is also the
+gracious Providence which cares for the individual as well as for the
+whole; and he is the author of that natural law which commands the good
+and prohibits the bad. "He made men to this end that they might be
+happy; as becomes his fatherly care of us, he placed our good and evil
+in those things which are in our own power."[838] The Providence and
+Fatherhood of God are strikingly presented in the "Hymn of Cleanthes" to
+Jupiter--
+
+[Footnote 837: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. lxxii.]
+
+[Footnote 838: Marcus Aurelius, bk. iii. ch. xxiv.]
+
+     Most glorious of the immortal Powers above!
+     O thou of many names! mysterious Jove:
+     For evermore almighty! Nature's source!
+     Thou governest all things in their order'd course!
+     All hail to thee! since, innocent of blame,
+     E'en mortal creatures may address thy name;
+     For all that breathe, and creep the lowly earth,
+     Echo thy being with reflected birth--
+     Thee will I sing, thy strength for aye resound:
+     The universe, that rolls this globe around,
+     Moves wheresoe'er thy plastic influence guides,
+     And, ductile, owns the god whose arm presides.
+     The lightnings are thy ministers of ire;
+     The double-forked and ever-living fire;
+     In thy unconquerable hands they glow,
+     And at the flash all nature quakes below.
+     Thus, thunder-armed, thou dost creation draw
+     To one immense, inevitable law:
+     And, with the various mass of breathing souls,
+     Thy power is mingled, and thy spirit rolls.
+     Dread genius of creation! all things bow
+     To thee: the universal monarch thou!
+
+     Nor aught is done without thy wise control,
+     On earth, or sea, or round the ethereal pole,
+     Save when the wicked, in their frenzy blind,
+     Act o'er the follies of a senseless mind,
+     Thou curb'st th' excess; confusion, to thy sight,
+     Moves regular; th' unlovely scene is bright.
+     Thy hand, educing good from evil, brings
+     To one apt harmony the strife of things.
+     One ever-during law still binds the whole,
+     Though shunned, resisted, by the sinner's soul.
+     Wretches! while still they course the glittering prize
+     The law of God eludes their ears and eyes.
+     Life, then, were virtue, did they thus obey;
+     But wide from life's chief good they headlong stray.
+     Now glory's arduous toils the breast inflame;
+     Now avarice thirsts, insensible of shame;
+     Now sloth unnerves them in voluptuous ease,
+     And the sweet pleasures of the body please.
+     With eager haste they rush the gulf within,
+     And their whole souls are centred in their sin.
+     But, oh, great Jove! by whom all good is given!
+     Dweller with lightnings and the clouds of heaven!
+     Save from their dreadful error lost mankind!
+     Father! disperse these shadows of the mind!
+     Give them thy pure and righteous law to know;
+     Wherewith thy justice governs all below.
+     Thus honored by the knowledge of thy way,
+     Shall men that honor to thyself repay;
+     And bid thy mighty works in praises ring,
+     As well befits a mortal's lips to sing:
+     More blest, nor men, nor heavenly powers can be,
+     Than when their songs are of thy law and thee.[839]
+
+[Footnote 839: Sir C. A. Elton's version, published in "Specimens of
+Ancient Poets," edited by William Peters, A. M., Christ Church, Oxford.]
+
+PSYCHOLOGY.
+
+As in the world there are two principles, the passive and the active, so
+in the understanding there are two elements: a passive
+element--_sensation_, and an active element--_reason_.
+
+All knowledge commences with the phenomena of sensation (aisthesis).
+This produces in the soul an image (phantasia), which corresponds to the
+exterior object, and which Chrysippus regarded as a modification of the
+mind (alloiosis).[840]
+
+Associate with sensibility is thought--the faculty of general ideas--the
+orthos logos, or right reason, as the supreme power and the guiding
+light of humanity. This active principle is of divine origin, "a part or
+shred of the Divinity."
+
+[Footnote 840: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. xxxiv.]
+
+This "right reason," or "common reason," is the source and criterion of
+all truth; "for our individual natures are all parts of the universal
+nature," and, therefore, all the dictates of "common reason" are
+"identical with that right reason which pervades every thing, being the
+same with Jupiter, who is the regulator and chief manager of all
+things."
+
+The fundamental canon of the logic of the Stoics, therefore, was that
+"what appears to all, that is to be believed, for it is apprehended by
+the reason, which is common and Divine."
+
+It is needless to remark that the Stoics were compelled by their
+physiological theory to deny the proper immortality of the soul. Some of
+them seem to have supposed that it might, for a season, survive the
+death of the body, but its ultimate destination was absorption into the
+Divine essence. It must return to its original source.
+
+ETHICS.
+
+If reason be the great organizing and controlling law of the universe,
+then, to live conformable to reason is the great practical law of life.
+Accordingly, the fundamental ethical maxim of the Stoics is, "Live
+conformably with nature--that is, with reason, or the will of the
+universal governor and manager of all things."[841] Thus the chief good
+(eudaimonia) is the conformity of man's actions to reason--that is, to
+the will of God, "for nothing is well done without a reference to
+God."[842]
+
+[Footnote 841: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. liii.]
+
+[Footnote 842: Marcus Aurelius, bk. iii. Sec. II.]
+
+It is obvious that this doctrine must lead to a social morality and a
+jurisprudence the very opposite of the Epicurean. If we must do that
+which is good--that is, that which is reasonable, regardless of all
+consequences, then it is not for the pleasurable or useful results which
+flow from it that justice should be practised, but because of its
+intrinsic excellence. Justice is constituted good, not by the law of
+man, but by the law of God. The highest pleasure is to do right; "this
+very thing is the virtue of the happy man, and the perfect happiness of
+life, when every thing is done according to a harmony of the genius of
+each individual to the will of the Universal Governor and Manager of all
+things."[843] Every thing which interferes with a purely rational
+existence is to be eschewed; the pleasures and pains of the body are to
+be despised. To triumph over emotion, over suffering, over passion; to
+give the fullest ascendency to reason; to attain courage, moral energy,
+magnanimity, constancy, was to realize true manhood, nay, "to be
+godlike; for they have something in them which is, as it were, a
+god"[844]
+
+The sublime heroism of the Stoic school is well expressed in the manly
+precept, "Anechou"--_sustine_--endure. "Endure the sorrows engendered by
+the bitter struggle between the passions support all the evils which
+fortune shall send thee--calumny, betrayal, poverty, exile, irons, death
+itself." In Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius this spirit seems to rise
+almost to the grandeur of Christian resignation. "Dare to lift up thine
+eyes to God and say, 'Use me hereafter to whatsoever thou pleasest. I
+agree, and am of the same mind with thee, indifferent to all things.
+Lead me whither thou pleasest. Let me act what part thou wilt, either of
+a public or a private person, of a rich man or a beggar.'"[845] "Show
+those qualities," says Marcus Aurelius, "which God hath put in thy
+power--sincerity, gravity, endurance of labor, aversion to pleasure,
+contentment with thy portion and with few things, benevolence,
+frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling,
+magnanimity."[846]
+
+[Footnote 843: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.
+ch. liii.]
+
+[Footnote 844: Id., ib., bk. vii. ch. xliv.]
+
+[Footnote 845: Arrian, "Diss. Epict.," bk. ii. ch. xviii.]
+
+[Footnote 846: "I read to-day part of the 'Meditations of Marcus
+Antonius' [Aurelius]. What a strange emperor! And what a strange
+heathen! Giving thanks to God for all the good things he enjoyed! In
+particular for his good inspirations, and for twice revealing to him, in
+dreams, things wherby he was cured of (otherwise) incurable distempers.
+I make no doubt but this is one of the 'many' who shall come from the
+east and the west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,' while
+the 'children of the kingdom'--nominal Christians--are 'shut
+out.'"--Wesley's "Journal," vol. i, p. 353.]
+
+Amid the fearful moral degeneracy of imperial Rome, Stoicism became the
+refuge of all noble spirits. But, in spite of its severity, and its
+apparent triumph over the feelings, it brought no real freedom and
+peace. "Stoical morality, strictly speaking, is, at bottom, only a
+slavish morality, excellent in Epictetus; admirable still, but useless
+to the world, in Marcus Aurelius." Pride takes the place of real
+disinterestedness. It stands alone in haughty grandeur and solitary
+isolation, tainted with an incurable egoism. Disheartened by its
+metaphysical impotence, which robs God of all personality, and man of
+all hope of immortality; defeated in its struggle to obtain purity of
+soul, it sinks into despair, and often terminates, as in the case of its
+two first leaders, Zeno and Cleanthes, and the two Romans, Cato and
+Seneca, in self-murder. "Thus philosophy is only an apprenticeship of
+death, and not of life; it tends to death by its image, _apathy_ and
+_ataraxy._"[847]
+
+[Footnote 847: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 439.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE PROPAEDEUTIC OFFICE OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY.
+
+
+"Philosophy, before the coming of the Lord, was necessary to the Greeks
+for righteousness, and it now proved useful for godliness, being in some
+part a preliminary discipline (propaideia tis ousa) for those who reap
+the fruits of faith through demonstration. Perhaps we may say it was
+given to the Greeks with this special object; for philosophy was to the
+Greeks what the Law was to the Jews, 'a schoolmaster to bring them to
+Christ.'"--CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS.
+
+Philosophy, says Cousin, is the effort of _reflection_--the attempt of
+the human mind to develop in systematic and logical form that which has
+dimly revealed itself in the spontaneous thought of ages, and to account
+to itself in some manner for its native and instinctive beliefs. We may
+further add, it is the effort of the human mind to attain to truth and
+certitude on purely rational grounds, uncontrolled by traditional
+authorities. The sublime era of Greek philosophy was, in fact, an
+independent effort of human reason to solve the great problems of
+existence, of knowledge, and of duty. It was an attempt to explain the
+phenomenal history of the universe, to interpret the fundamental ideas
+and laws of human reason, to comprehend the utterances of conscience,
+and to ascertain what Ultimate and Supreme Reality underlies the world
+of phenomena, of thought, and of moral feeling.[848] And it is this
+which, for us, constitutes its especial value; that it was, as far as
+possible, a result of simple reason; or, if at any time Faith asserted
+its authority, the distinction is clearly marked: If this inquiry was
+fully, and honestly, and logically conducted, we are entitled to presume
+that the results attain by this effort of speculative thought must
+harmonize with the positive utterances of the Divine Logos--the Eternal
+Reason, whose revelations are embalmed and transmitted to us in the Word
+of God. If the great truth that man is "the _offspring of God"_ and as
+such "_the image and glory of God_" which is asserted, alike, by Paul
+and the poet-philosophers of Tarsus and Mysia, be admitted, then we may
+expect that the reason of man shall have some correlation with the
+Divine reason. The mind of man is the _chef-d'oeuvre_ of Divine art. It
+is fashioned after the model which the Divine nature supplies. "Let us
+make man in _our_ image after _our_ likeness." That image consists in
+epignosis--_knowledge;_ dikalosyne--_justice_; and
+osiotes--_benevolence._ It is not merely the _capacity_ to know, to be
+just, and to be beneficent; it is _actual_ knowledge, justice, and
+benevolence. It supposes, first, that the fundamental ideas of the true,
+the just, and the good, are connate to the human mind; second, that the
+native determination of the mind is towards the realization of these
+ideas in every mental state and every form of human activity; third,
+that there is a constitutional sympathy of reason with the ideas of
+truth, and righteousness, and goodness, as they dwell in the reason of
+God. And though man be now fallen, there is still within his heart some
+vestige of his primal nature. There is still a sense of the divine, a
+religious aptitude, "a feeling after God," and some longing to return to
+Him. There are still ideas in the reason, which, in their natural and
+logical development compel him to recognize a God. There is within his
+conscience a sense of duty, of obligation, and accountability to a
+Superior Power--"a law of the mind," thought opposed and antagonized by
+depraved passions and appetites--"the law in the members." There is yet
+a natural, constitutional sympathy of reason with the law of God--"it
+delights in that law," and consents "that it is good," but it is
+overborne and obstructed by passion. Man, even as unregenerate, "wills
+to do that which is good," but "how to perform that which is good he
+finds not," and in the agony of his soul he exclaims, "Oh, wretched man
+that I am, who shall deliver me!"[849]
+
+[Footnote 848: Plato sought also to attain to the Ultimate Reality
+underlying all aesthetic feeling--the Supreme Beauty as well as the
+Supreme Good.]
+
+[Footnote 849: Romans, ch. vii.]
+
+The Author of nature is also the Author of revelation. The Eternal
+Father of the Eternal Son, who is the grand medium of all God's direct
+communications to our race--the revealer of God, is also "the Father of
+the spirits of all flesh." That divine inbreathing which first
+constituted man "a living soul"--that "inspiration of the Almighty
+which giveth man understanding," and still "teacheth him knowledge,"
+proceeds from the same Spirit as that which inspires the prophets and
+seers of the Old Testament Church, and the Apostles and teachers of the
+new. That "true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the
+world" shone on the mind of Anaxagoras, and Socrates, and Plato, as well
+as on the mind of Abraham and Rahab, Cornelius and the Syro-Phoenician
+woman, and, in a higher form, and with a clearer and richer effulgence,
+on the mind of Moses, Isaiah, Paul and John. It is not to be wondered
+at, then, if, in the teaching of Socrates and Plato, we should find a
+striking _harmony_ of sentiment, and even form of expression, with some
+parts of the Christian revelation. No short-sighted jealousy ought to
+impugn the honesty of our judgment, if, in the speculations of Plato, we
+catch glimpses of a world of ideas not unlike that which Christianity
+discloses, and hear words not unfamiliar to those who spake as they were
+moved by the Holy Ghost.
+
+If, then, there exists some correlation between Divine and human reason,
+and if the light which illuminates all minds in Christian and in heathen
+lands is the _same_ "true light," though differing in degrees of
+brightness, it is most natural and reasonable to expect some connection
+and some correspondence between the discoveries of philosophy and the
+revelations of the Sacred Oracles.
+
+Although Christianity is confessedly something which is above reason and
+nature--something communicated from above, and therefore in the fullest
+sense supernatural and superhuman, yet it must stand in _relation_ to
+reason and nature, and to their historic development; otherwise it could
+not operate on man at all. "We have no knowledge of a dynamic influence,
+spiritual or natural, without a dynamic reaction." Matter can only be
+moved by forces, and according to laws, as it has properties which
+correlate it with these forces and laws. And mind can not be determined
+from without to any specific form of cognition, unless it have powers of
+apprehension and conception which are governed by uniform laws. If man
+is to be instructed by a verbal revelation, he must, at least, be
+capacitated for the reception of divine communication--must have a power
+of forming supersensuous conceptions, and there must be some original
+community of thought and idea between the mind that teaches and the mind
+that is taught. A revelation from an invisible God--a being "whom no man
+has ever seen or ever can see" with the eye of sense--would have no
+affinity for, and no power to affect and enlighten, a being who had no
+presentiment of an invisible Power to which he is in some way related. A
+revealed law promulgated from an unseen and utterly unknown Power would
+have no constraining authority, if man had no idea of right, no sense of
+duty, no feeling of obligation to a Supreme Being. If, therefore,
+religious instruction be not already preceded by an innate consciousness
+of God, and of obligation to God, as an operative predisposition, there
+would be nothing for revelation to act upon. Some relation between the
+reason which planned the universe, and which has expressed its thoughts
+in the numerical relations and archetypal forms which are displayed
+therein, and the reason of man, with its ideas of form and number,
+proportion and harmony, is necessarily supposed in the statement of Paul
+that "the invisible things of God from the creation are seen." Nature to
+us could be no symbol of the Divine Thought, if there were no
+correlation between the reason of man and the reason of God. All
+revelation, indeed, supposes some community of nature, some affinities
+of thought, some correlation of ideas, between the mind communicating
+spiritual knowledge, and the mind to which the communication is made. In
+approaching man, it must traverse ground already occupied by man; it
+must employ phrases already employed, and assume forms of thought
+already familiar to man. It must address itself to some ideas,
+sentiments, and feelings already possessed by man. If religion is the
+great end and destination of man, then the nature of man must be
+constituted for religion. Now religion, in its inmost nature, is a
+communion, a fellowship with God. But no creature can be brought into
+this communion "save one that is constitutionally related to God in
+terms that admit of correspondence." There must be intelligence offered
+to his intelligence, sentiment to his sentiment, reason to his reason,
+thought to his thought. There must be implanted in the human mind some
+fundamental ideas and determinations grounded upon this fact, that the
+real end and destination of man is for religion, so that when that
+higher sphere of life and action is presented to man, by an outward
+verbal revelation, there shall be a recognized harmony between the inner
+idea and determination, and the outer revelation. We can not doubt that
+such a relation between human nature and reason, and Christianity,
+exists. We see evidences of this in the perpetual strivings of humanity
+to attain to some fuller and clearer apprehension of that Supreme Power
+which is consciously near to human thought, and in the historic
+development of humanity towards those higher forms of thought and
+existence which demand a revelation in order to their completion. This
+original capacity, and this historical development, have unquestionably
+prepared the way for the reception of Christianity.
+
+Christianity, then, must have some connection with the reason of man,
+and it must also have some relation to the progressive developments of
+human thought in the ages which preceded the advent of Christ.
+Christianity did not break suddenly upon the world as a new commencement
+altogether unconnected with the past, and wanting in all points of
+sympathy and contact with the then present. It proceeded along lines of
+thought which had been laid through ages of preparation; it clothed
+itself in forms of speech which had been moulded by centuries of
+education, and it appropriated to itself a moral and intellectual
+culture which had been effected by long periods of severest discipline.
+It was, in fact, the consummation of the whole moral and religious
+history of the world.
+
+A revelation of new truths, presented in entirely new forms of thought
+and speech, would have defeated its own ends, and, practically, would
+have been no revelation at all. The divine light, in passing through
+such a medium, would have been darkened and obscured. The lens through
+which the heavenly rays are to be transmitted must first be prepared and
+polished. The intellectual eye itself must be gradually accustomed to
+the light. Hence it is that all revelation has been _progressive_,
+commencing, in the infancy of our race, with images and symbols
+addressed to sense, and advancing, with the education of the race, to
+abstract conceptions and spiritual ideas. The first communications to
+the patriarchs were always accompanied by some external, sensible
+appearance; they were often made through some preternatural personage in
+human form. Subsequently, as human thought becomes assimilated to the
+Divine idea, God uses man as his organ, and communicates divine
+knowledge as an internal and spiritual gift. The theistic conception of
+the earliest times was therefore more or less anthropomorphic, in the
+prophetic age it was unquestionably more spiritual. The education of
+Hebraic, Mosaic, and prophetic ages had gradually developed a purer
+theism, and prepared the Jewish mind for that sublime announcement of
+our Lord's--"God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship in
+spirit." For ages the Jews had worshipped in Samaria and Jerusalem, and
+the inevitable tendency of thought was to localize the divine presence;
+but the gradual withdrawment from these localities of all visible tokens
+of Jehovah's presence, prepared the way for the Saviour's explicit
+declaration that "neither in this mountain of Samaria, nor yet at
+Jerusalem, shall men worship the Father," to the exclusion of any other
+spot on earth; the real temple of the living God is now the heart of
+man. The _Holiness_ of God was an idea too lofty for human thought to
+grasp at once. The light of God's ineffable purity was too bright and
+dazzling to burst at once on human eyes. Therefore it was gradually
+displayed. The election of a chosen seed in Abraham's race to a nearer
+approach to God than the rest of pagan humanity; the announcement of the
+Decalogue at Sinai amidst awe-inspiring wonders; the separation of a
+single tribe to the priestly office, who were dedicated to, and purified
+in an especial manner for the service of the tabernacle; the
+sanctification of the High-priest by sacrifice and lustration before he
+dared to enter "the holiest place"--the presence-chamber of Jehovah: and
+then the direct and explicit teaching of the prophets--were all
+advancing steps by which the Jewish mind was lifted up to the clearer
+apprehension of the holiness of God, the impurity of man, the distance
+of man from God, and the need of Mediation.
+
+The ideas of _Redemption_ and _Salvation_--of atonement, expiation,
+pardon, adoption, and regeneration--are unique and _sui-generis_. Before
+these conceptions could be presented in the fullness and maturity of the
+Christian system, there was needed the culture and education of the ages
+of Mosaic ritualism, with its sacrificial system, its rights of
+purification, its priestly absolution, and its family of God.[850]
+Redemption itself, as an economy, is a development, and has
+consequently, a history--a history which had its commencement in the
+first Eden, and which shall have its consummation in the second Eden of
+a regenerated world. It was germinally infolded in the first promise,
+gradually unfolded in successive types and prophecies, more fully
+developed in the life, and sayings, and sufferings of the Son of God,
+and its ripened fruit is presented to the eye of faith in the closing
+scenic representations of the grand Apocalypse of John. "Judaism was not
+given as a perfect religion. Whatever may have been its superiority over
+surrounding forms of worship, it was, notwithstanding, a provisional
+form only. The consciousness that it was a preparatory, and not a
+definite dispensation, is evident throughout. It points to an end beyond
+itself, suggests a grander thought than any in itself; its glory
+precisely consists in its constant looking forward to a glorious future
+destined to surpass it."[851]
+
+[Footnote 850: Romans, IX 4-6.]
+
+[Footnote 851: Pressense, "Religions before Christ," p. 202.]
+
+Thus the determinations which, through Redemption, fall to the lot of
+history, as Nitzsch justly remarks, obey the emancipating law of
+_gradual progress_.[852] Christianity was preceded by ages of
+preparation, in which we have a gradual development of religious phrases
+and ideas, of forms of social life and intellectual culture, and of
+national and political institutions most favorable to its advent and its
+promulgation; and "in the fullness of time"--the maturity and fitness of
+the age--"God sent his own Son into the world."
+
+[Footnote 852: "System of Doctrine," p. 73.]
+
+This work of preparation was not confined alone to Judaism. The divine
+plan of redemption comprehended all the race; its provisions are made in
+view of the wants of all the race; and we must therefore believe that
+the entire history of the race, previous to the coming of the Redeemer,
+was under a divine supervision, and directed towards the grand centre of
+our world's history. Greek philosophy and Grecian civilization must
+therefore have a place in the divine plan of history, and they must
+stand in an important relation to Christianity. He who "determined the
+time of each nation's existence, and fixed the geographical boundaries
+of their habitation in order that they may seek the Lord," can not have
+been unmindful of the Greek nation, and of its grandest age of
+philosophy. "The Father of the spirits of all flesh" could not be
+unconcerned in the moral and spiritual welfare of any of his children.
+He was as deeply interested in the Athenian as in the Hebrew. He is the
+God of the Gentile as well as the Jew. His tender mercies are over all
+his works. If the Hebrew race was selected to be the agent of his
+providence in one special field, and if the Jewish theocracy was one
+grand instrument of preparatory discipline, it was simply because,
+through these, God designed to bless all the nations of the earth. And
+surely no one will presume to say that a civilization and an
+intellectual culture which was second only to the Hebrew, and, in some
+of its aspects, even in advance of the Hebrew, was not determined and
+supervised by Divine Providence, and made subservient to the education
+and development of the whole race. The grand results of Hebrew
+civilization were appropriated and assimilated by Christianity, and
+remain to this day. And no one can deny that the same is true of Greek
+civilization. Through a kind of historic preparation the heathen world
+was made ready for Christ, as a soil is prepared to receive the seed,
+and some precious fruits of knowledge, of truth, and of righteousness,
+even, were largely matured, which have been reaped, and appropriated,
+and vitalized by the heaven-descended life of Christianity.
+
+The chief points of excellence in the civilization of the Greeks are
+strikingly obvious, and may be readily presented. High perfection of the
+intellect and the imagination displaying itself in the various forms of
+art, poetry, literature, and philosophy. A wonderful freedom and
+activity of body and of mind, developed in trade, and colonization, in
+military achievement, and in subtile dialectics. A striking love of the
+beautiful, revealing itself in their sculpture and architecture, in the
+free music of prosaic numbers, and the graceful movement and measure of
+their poetry. A quickness of perception, a dignity of demeanor, a
+refinement of taste, a delicacy of moral sense, and a high degree of
+reverence for the divine in nature and humanity. And, in general, a ripe
+and all-pervading culture, which has made Athens a synonym for all that
+is greatest and best in the genius of man; so that literature, in its
+most flourishing periods has rekindled its torch at her altars, and art
+has looked back to the age of Pericles for her purest models.[853] All
+these enter into the very idea of Greek civilization. We can not resist
+the conviction that, by a Divine Providence, it was made subservient to
+the purpose of Redemption; it prepared the way for, and contributed to,
+the spread of the Gospel.
+
+[Footnote 853: In Lord Brougham's celebrated letter to the father of the
+historian Macaulay in regard to the education of the latter, we read:
+"If he would be a great orator, he must go at once to the fountain-head,
+and be familiar with every one of the great orations of Demosthenes....
+I know from experience that nothing is half so successful in these times
+(bad though they be) as what has been formed on the Greek models. I use
+poor illustrations in giving my own experience, but I do assure you that
+both in courts and Parliament, and even to mobs, I have never made so
+much play (to use a very modern phrase) as when I was almost translating
+from the Greek. I composed the peroration of my speech for the Queen, in
+the Lords, after reading and repeating Demosthenes for three or four
+weeks."]
+
+Its subserviency to this grand purpose is seen in the Greek tendency to
+trade and colonization. Their mental activity was accompanied by great
+physical freedom of movement. They displayed an inherent disposition to
+extensive emigration. "Without aiming at universal conquest, they
+developed (if we may use the word) a remarkable catholicity of
+character, and a singular power of adaptation to those whom they called
+Barbarians. In this respect they were strongly contrasted with the
+Egyptians, whose immemorial civilization was confined to the long valley
+which extended from the cataracts to the mouth of the Nile. The Hellenic
+tribes, on the other hand, though they despised the foreigners, were
+never unwilling to visit them and to cultivate their acquaintance. At
+the earliest period at which history enables us to discover them, we see
+them moving about in their ships on the shores and among the islands of
+their native seas; and, three or four centuries before the Christian
+era, Asia Minor, beyond which the Persians had not been permitted to
+advance, was bordered by a fringe of Greek colonies; and lower Italy,
+when the Roman Republic was just becoming conscious of its strength, had
+received the name of Greece itself. To all these places they carried
+their arts and literature, their philosophy, their mythology, and their
+amusements.... They were gradually taking the place of the Phoenicians
+in the empire of the Mediterranean. They were, indeed, less exclusively
+mercantile than those old discoverers. Their voyages were not so long.
+But their influence on general civilization was greater and more
+permanent. The earliest ideas of scientific navigation and geography are
+due to the Greeks. The later Greek travellers, Pausanias and Strabo, are
+our best sources of information on the topography of St. Paul's
+journeys.
+
+"With this view of the Hellenic character before us, we are prepared to
+appreciate the vast results of Alexander's conquests. He took the meshes
+of the net of Greek civilization which were lying in disorder on the
+edge of the Asiatic shore, and spread them over all the countries he
+traversed in his wonderful campaigns. The East and the West were
+suddenly brought together. Separate tribes were united under a common
+government. New cities were built as the centres of political life. New
+lines of communication were opened as the channels of commercial
+activity. The new culture penetrated the mountain ranges of Pisidia and
+Lycaonia. The Tigris and Euphrates became Greek rivers. The language of
+Athens was heard among the Jewish colonies of Babylonia, and a Grecian
+Babylon was built by the conqueror in Egypt, and called by his name.
+
+"The empire of Alexander was divided, but the effects of his campaigns
+and policy did not cease. The influence of these fresh elements of
+social life was rather increased by being brought into independent
+action within the sphere of distinct kingdoms. Our attention is
+particularly directed to two of the monarchical lines which descended
+from Alexander's generals--the Ptolemies, or the Greek kings of Egypt,
+and the Seleucidae, or the Greek kings of Syria. Their respective
+capitals, Alexandria and Antioch, became the metropolitan centres of
+commercial and civilized life in the East."[854] Antioch was for ages
+the home of science and philosophy. Here the religious opinions of the
+East and the West were blended and mutually modified. Here it was
+discovered by the heathen mind that a new religion had appeared, and a
+new revelation had been given.[855] In Alexandria all nations were
+invited to exchange their commodities and, with equal freedom, their
+opinions. The representatives of all religions met here. "Beside the
+Temple of Jupiter there rose the white marble Temple of Serapis, and
+close at hand stood the synagogue of the Jews." The Alexandrian library
+contained all the treasures of ancient culture, and even a copy of the
+Hebrew Scriptures.
+
+[Footnote 854: Conybeare and Howson, "Life and Epistles of St. Paul,"
+vol. i. pp. 8-10.]
+
+[Footnote 855: Acts, xi. 26.]
+
+The spread of the Greek _language_ was one of the most important
+services which the cities of Antioch and Alexandria rendered to
+Christianity. The Greek tongue is intimately connected with the whole
+system of Christian doctrine.
+
+This language, which, in symmetry of structure, in flexibility and
+compass of expression, in exactness and precision, in grace and
+elegance, exceeds every other language, became the language of theology.
+Next in importance to the inspiration which communicates the superhuman
+thought, must be the gradual development of the language in which the
+thought can clothe itself. That development by which the Greek language
+became the adequate vehicle of Divine thought, the perfect medium of the
+mature revelation of truth contained in the Christian Scriptures, must
+be regarded as the subject of a Divine providence. Christianity waited
+for that development, and it awaited Christianity. "The Greek tongue
+became to the Christian more than it had been to the Roman or the Jew.
+The mother-tongue of Ignatius at Antioch was that in which Philo
+composed his treatises at Alexandria, and which Cicero spoke at Athens.
+It is difficult to state in a few words the important relation which
+Alexandria, more especially, was destined to bear to the whole Christian
+Church." In that city, the Old Testament was translated into Greek;
+there the writings of Plato were diligently studied; there Philo, the
+Platonizing Jew, had sought to blend into one system the teachings of
+the Old Testament theology and the dialectic speculations of Plato.
+Numenius learns of Philo, and Plotinus of Numenius, and the ecstasy of
+Plotinus is the development of Philo's intuitions. A _theological
+language_ by this means was developed, rich in the phrases of various
+schools, and suited to convey the spiritual revelation of Christian
+ideas to all the world. "It was not an accident that the New Testament
+was written in Greek, the language which can best express the highest
+thoughts and worthiest feelings of the intellect and heart, and which is
+adapted to be the instrument of education for all nations; nor was it an
+accident that the composition of these books and the promulgation of the
+Gospels were delayed till the instruction of our Lord, and the writings
+of his Apostles could be expressed in the dialect [of Athens and] of
+Alexandria."[856] This must be ascribed to the foreordination of Him
+who, in the history of nations and of civilizations, "worketh all things
+according to the counsel of his own will."
+
+[Footnote 856: Conybeare and Howson, "Life and Epistles of St. Paul,"
+vol. i. p. 10.]
+
+Now it is the doctrine of the best philologists that language is a
+_growth_. Gradually, and by combined efforts of successive generations,
+it has been brought to the perfection which we so much admire in the
+idioms of the Bible, the poetry of Homer, Dante, and Shakspeare, and the
+prose compositions of Demosthenes, Cicero, Johnson, and Macaulay. The
+material or root-element of language may have been the product of mental
+instinct, or perhaps the immediate gift of God by revelation; but the
+formal element must have been the creation of thought, and the result of
+rational combination. Language is really the incarnation of thought;
+consequently the growth of a language, its affluence, comprehension, and
+fullness must depend on the vigor and activity of thought, and the
+acquisition of general ideas. Language is thus the best index of
+intellectual progress, the best standard of the intellectual attainment
+of an age or nation. The language of barbaric tribes is exceedingly
+simple and meagre; the paucity of general terms clearly indicating the
+absence of all attempts at classification and all speculative thought.
+Whilst the language of educated peoples is characterized by great
+fullness and affluence of terms, especially such as are expressive of
+general notions and abstract ideas. All grammar, all philology, all
+scientific nomenclature are thus, in fact, _psychological deposits_,
+which register the progressive advancement of human thought and
+knowledge in the world of mind, as the geological strata bear testimony
+to the progressive development of the material world. "Language," says
+Trench, "is fossil poetry, fossil history," and, we will add, fossil
+philosophy. Many a single word is a concentrated poem. The record of
+great social and national revolutions is embalmed in a single term.[857]
+And the history of an age of philosophic thought is sometimes condensed
+and deposited in one imperishable word.[858]
+
+[Footnote 857: See Trench "On the Study of Words," p. 20, where the word
+"frank" is given as an illustration.]
+
+[Footnote 858: For example, the cosmos of the Pythagoreans, the eide of
+the Platonists, and the ataraxia of the Stoics.]
+
+If, then, language is the creation of thought, the sensible vesture with
+which it clothes itself, and becomes, as it were, incarnate--if the
+perfection and efficiency of language depends on the maturity and
+clearness of thought, we conclude that the wonderful adequacy and
+fitness of the Greek language to be the vehicle of the Divine thought,
+the medium of the most perfect revelation of God to men, can only be
+explained on the assumption that the ages of philosophic thought which,
+in Greece, preceded the advent of Christianity, were under the immediate
+supervision of a providence, and, in some degree, illuminated by the
+Spirit of God.
+
+Greek philosophy must therefore have fulfilled a propaedeutic office for
+Christianity. "As it had been intrusted to the Hebrews to preserve and
+transmit the heaven-derived element of the Monotheistic religion, so it
+was ordained that, among the Greeks, all seeds of human culture should
+unfold themselves in beautiful harmony, and then Christianity, taking up
+the opposition between the divine and human, was to unite both in one,
+and show how it was necessary that both should co-operate to prepare for
+the appearance of itself and the unfolding of what it contains."[859]
+During the period of Greek philosophy which preceded the coming of
+Christ, human reason, unfolding itself from beneath, had aspired after
+that knowledge of divine things which is from above. It had felt within
+itself the deep-seated consciousness of God--the sporadic revelation of
+Him "who is not far from any one of us"--the immanent thought of that
+Being "in whom we live and move and are," and it had striven by analysis
+and definition to attain a more distinct and logical apprehension. The
+heart of man had been stirred with "the feeling after God"--the longing
+for a clearer sense of the divine, and had struggled to attain, by
+abstraction or by ecstasy, a more immediate communion with God. Man had
+been conscious of an imperative obligation to conform to the will of the
+great Supreme, and he sought to interpret more clearly the utterances of
+conscience as to what duty was. He had felt the sense of sin and guilt,
+and had endeavored to appease his conscience by expiatory offerings, and
+to deliver himself from the power of sin by intellectual culture and
+moral discipline. And surely no one, at all familiar with the history of
+that interesting epoch in the development of humanity, will have the
+hardihood to assert that no steps were taken in the right direction, and
+no progress made towards the distant goal of human desire and hope. The
+language, the philosophy, the ideals of moral beauty and excellence, the
+noble lives and nobler utterances of the men who stand forth in history
+as the representatives of Greek civilization, all attest that their
+noble aspiration and effort did not end in ignominious failure and utter
+defeat. It is true they fell greatly beneath the realization of even
+their own moral ideals, and they became painfully conscious of their
+moral weakness, as men do even in Christian times. They learned that,
+neither by intellectual abstraction, nor by ecstasy of feeling, could
+they lift themselves to a living, conscious fellowship with God. The
+sense of guilt was unrelieved by expiations, penances, and prayers. And
+whilst some cultivated a proud indifference, a Stoical apathy, and
+others sank down to Epicurean ease and pleasure, there was a noble few
+who longed and hoped with increasing ardor for a living Redeemer, a
+personal Mediator, who should "stand between God and man and lay his
+hand on both." Christ became in some dim consciousness "the Desire of
+Nations," and the Moral Law became even to the Greek as well as the Jew
+"a school-master to lead them to Him."
+
+[Footnote 859: Neander's "Church History," vol. i. p. 4.]
+
+The arrival of Paul at Athens, in the close of this brilliant period of
+Greek philosophy, now assumes an aspect of deeper interest and
+profounder significance. It was a grand climacteric in the life of
+humanity--an epoch in the moral and religious history of the world. It
+marked the consummation of a periodic dispensation, and it opened a new
+era in that wonderful progression through which an overruling Providence
+is carrying the human race. As the coming of the Son of God to Judea in
+the ripeness of events--"the fullness of time"--was the consummation of
+the Jewish dispensation, and the event for which the Jewish age had been
+a preparatory discipline, so the coming of a Christian teacher to
+Athens, in the person of "the Apostle of the Gentiles," was the
+_terminus ad quem_ towards which all the phases in the past history of
+philosophic thought had looked, and for which they had prepared.
+Christianity was brought to Athens--brought into contact with Grecian
+philosophy at the moment of its exhaustion--at the moment when, after
+ages of unwearied effort, it had become conscious of its weakness, and
+its comparative failure, and had abandoned many questions in despair.
+Greek philosophy had therefore its place in the plan of Divine
+Providence. It had a mission to the world; that mission was now
+fulfilled. If it had laid any foundation in the Athenian mind on which
+the Christian system could plant its higher truths--if it had raised up
+into the clearer light of consciousness any of those _ideas_ imbedded in
+the human reason which are germane to Christian truth--if it had
+revealed more fully the wants and instincts of the human heart, or if it
+had attained the least knowledge of eternal truth and immutable right,
+upon this Christianity placed its _imprimatur_. And at those points
+where human reason had been made conscious of its own inefficiency, and
+compelled to own its weakness and its failure, Christianity shed an
+effulgent and convincing light.
+
+Therefore the preparatory office of Greek religion and Greek philosophy
+is fully recognized by Paul in his address to the Athenians. He begins
+by saying that the observations he had made enabled him to bear witness
+that the Athenians were indeed, in every respect, "a God-fearing
+people;"--that the God whom they knew so imperfectly as to designate Him
+"the Unknown," but whom "they worshipped," was the God he worshipped,
+and would now more fully declare to them. He assures them that their
+past history, and their present geographical position, had been the
+object of Divine foreknowledge and determination. "He hath determined
+beforehand the times of each nation's existence, and fixed the
+geographical boundaries of their habitation," all with this specific
+design, that they might "seek after," "feel after," and "find the Lord,"
+who had never been far from any one of them. He admits that their
+poet-philosophers had risen to a lofty apprehension of "the Fatherhood
+of God," for they had taught that "we are all his offspring;" and he
+seems to have felt that in asserting the common brotherhood of our race,
+he would strike a chord of sympathy in the loftiest school of Gentile
+philosophy. He thus "recognized the Spirit of God brooding over the face
+of heathenism, and fructifying the spiritual element in the heart even
+of the natural man. He feels that in these human principles there were
+some faint adumbrations of the divine, and he looked for their firmer
+delineation to the figure of that gracious Master, higher and holier
+than man, whom he contemplated in his own imagination, and whom he was
+about to present to them."[860]
+
+[Footnote 860: Merivale's "Conversion of the Roman Empire," p. 78.]
+
+This function of ancient philosophy is distinctly recognized by many of
+the greatest of the Fathers, as Justin, Clement, Origen, Augustine, and
+Theodoret. Justin Martyr believed that a ray of the Divine Logos shone
+on the mind of the heathen, and that the human soul instinctively turned
+towards God as the plant turns towards the sun. "Every race of men
+participated in the Word. And they who lived with the Word were
+Christians, even if they were held to be godless; as, for example, among
+the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and those like them."[861] Clement
+taught that "philosophy, before the coming of the Lord, was necessary to
+the Greeks for righteousness; and now it proved useful for godliness,
+being a sort of preliminary discipline for those who reap the fruits of
+faith through demonstration.... Perhaps we may say that it was given to
+the Greeks with this special object, for it brought the Greek nation to
+Christ as the Law brought the Hebrews."[862] "Philosophy was given as a
+peculiar testament to the Greeks, as forming the basis of the Christian
+philosophy."[863] Referring to the words of Paul, Origen says, the
+truths which philosophers taught were from God, for "God manifested
+these to them, and all things that have been nobly said."[864] And
+Augustine, whilst deprecating the extravagant claims made for the great
+Gentile teachers, allows "that some of them made great discoveries, so
+far as they received help from heaven; whilst they erred as far as they
+were hindered by human frailty."[865] They had, as he elsewhere
+observes, "a distant vision of the truth, and learnt, from the teaching
+of nature, what prophets learnt from the spirit."[866] In addressing the
+Greeks, Theodoret says, "Obey your own philosophers; let them be your
+initiators; for they announced beforehand our doctrines." He held that
+"in the depths of human nature there are characters inscribed by the
+hand of God." And that "if the race of Abraham received the divine law,
+and the gift of prophecy, the God of the universe led other nations to
+piety by natural revelation, and the spectacle of nature."[867]
+
+[Footnote 861: "First Apology," ch. xlvi.]
+
+[Footnote 862: "Stromata," bk. i. ch. v.]
+
+[Footnote 863: "Stromata," bk. vi. ch. viii.]
+
+[Footnote 864: "Contra Celsum," bk. vi. ch. iii.]
+
+[Footnote 865: "De Civitate Dei," bk. ii. ch. vii.]
+
+[Footnote 866: Sermon lxviii. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 867: See Smith's "Bible Dictionary," article "Philosophy;"
+Pressense, "Religions before Christ," p. II; Butler's "Lectures on
+Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. pp. 28-40.]
+
+In attempting to account for this partial harmony between Philosophy and
+Revelation, we find the Patristic writers adopting different theories.
+They are generally agreed in maintaining some original connection, but
+they differ as to its immediate source. Some of them maintained that the
+ancient philosophers derived their purest light from the fountain of
+Divine Revelation. The doctrines of the Old Testament Scriptures were
+traditionally diffused throughout the West before the rise of
+philosophic speculation. If the theistic conceptions of Plato are
+superior to those of Homer it is accounted for by his (hypothetical)
+tour of inquiry among the Hebrew nation, as well as his Egyptian
+investigations. Others maintained that the similarity of views on the
+character of the Supreme Being and the ultimate destination of humanity
+which is found in the writings of Plato and the teachings of the Bible
+is the consequence of _immediate_ inspiration. Origen, Jerome, Eusebius,
+Clement, do not hesitate to affirm that Christ himself revealed his own
+high prerogatives to the gifted Grecian. From this hypothesis, however,
+the facts of the case compel them to make some abatements. In the
+mid-current of this divine revelation are found many acknowledged
+errors, which it is impossible to ascribe to the celestial illuminator.
+Plato, then, was _partially_ inspired, and clouded the heavenly beam
+with the remaining grossnesses of the natural sense.[868] Whilst a
+third, and more reasonable, hypothesis was maintained by others. They
+regarded man as "the offspring and image of the Deity," and maintained
+there must be a correlation of the human and divine reason, and,
+consequently, of all discovered truth to God. Therefore they expected to
+find some traces of connection and correspondence between Divine and
+human thought, and some kindred ideas in Philosophy and Revelation.
+"Ideas," says St. Augustine, "are the primordial forms, as it were, the
+immutable reason of things; they are not created, they are eternal, and
+always the same: they are contained in the Divine intelligence and
+without being subject to birth and death, they are _types_ according to
+which is formed every thing that is born and dies." The copies of these
+archetypes are seen in nature, and are participated in by the reason of
+man; and there may therefore be some community of idea between man and
+God, and some relation between Philosophy and Christianity.
+
+[Footnote 868: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+41.]
+
+The various attempts which have been made to trace the elevated theism
+and morality of Socrates and Plato to Jewish sources have signally
+failed. Justin Martyr and Tertullian claim that the ancient philosophers
+"borrowed from the Jewish prophets." Pythagoras and Plato are supposed
+to have travelled in the East in quest of knowledge.[869] The latter is
+imagined to have had access to an existing Greek version of the Old
+Testament in Egypt, and a strange oversight in chronology brings him
+into personal intercourse with the prophet Jeremiah. A sober and
+enlightened criticism is compelled to pronounce all these statements as
+mere exaggerations of later times.[870] They are obviously mere
+suppositions by which over-zealous Christians sought to maintain the
+supremacy and authority of Scripture. The travels of Pythagoras are
+altogether mythical, the mere invention of Alexandrian writers, who
+believed that all wisdom flowed from the East.[871] That Plato visited
+Egypt at all, rests on the single authority of Strabo, who lived at
+least four centuries after Plato; there is no trace in his own works of
+Egyptian research. His pretended travels in Phoenicia, where he gained
+from the Jews a knowledge of the true God, are more unreliable still.
+Plato lived in the fourth century before Christ (born B.C. 430), and
+there is no good evidence of the existence of a Greek version of the Old
+Testament before that of "the Seventy" (Septuagint), made by order of
+Ptolemy Philadelphus, B.C. 270. Jeremiah, the prophet of Israel, lived
+two centuries before Plato; consequently any personal intercourse
+between the two was simply impossible. Greek philosophy was
+unquestionably a development of Reason alone.[872]
+
+[Footnote 869: Mr. Watson adopts this hypothesis to account for the
+theistic opinions of the ancient philosophers of Greece. See "Institutes
+of Theology," vol. i. pp. 26-34.]
+
+[Footnote 870: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
+147.]
+
+[Footnote 871: Max Muller, "Science of Language," p. 94.]
+
+[Footnote 872: See on this subject, Ritter's "History of Ancient
+Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 147, 148; Encyclopaedia Britannica, article
+"Plato," vol. xvii. p. 787; Smith's "Bible Dictionary," article
+"Philosophy;" and Thompson's "Laws of Thought," p. 326.]
+
+Some of the ablest Christian scholars and divines of modern times, as
+Cudworth, Neander, Trench, Pressense, Merivale, Schaff, after the most
+careful and conscientious investigation, have come to this conclusion,
+that Greek philosophy fulfilled a preparatory mission for Christianity.
+The general conclusions they reached are forcibly presented in the words
+of Pressense:
+
+It would be difficult to overstate the importance of Greek philosophy
+when viewed as a preparation to Christianity. Disinterested pursuit of
+truth is always a great and noble task. The imperishable want of the
+human mind to go back to first principles, suffices to prove that this
+principle is divine. We may abuse speculation; we may turn it into one
+of the most powerful dissolvents of moral truths; and the defenders of
+positive creeds, alarmed by the attitude too often assumed by
+speculation in the presence of religion, have condemned it as
+mischievous in itself, confounding in their unjust prejudice its use and
+its abuse. But, for all serious thinkers, philosophy is one of the
+highest titles of nobility that humanity possesses: and when we consider
+its mission previous to Christianity, we feel convinced that it had its
+place in the Divine plan. It was not religion in itself that philosophy,
+through its noblest representatives, combated, but polytheism. It
+dethroned the false gods. Adopting what was best in paganism, philosophy
+employed it as an instrument to destroy paganism, and thus clear the way
+for definite religion. Above all, it effectually contributed to purify
+the idea of Divinity, though this purification was but an approximation.
+If at times it caught glimpses of the highest spiritualism, yet it was
+unable to protect itself against the return and reaction of Oriental
+dualism. In spite of this imperfection, which in its way served the
+cause of Christianity by demonstrating the necessity of revelation, men
+like Socrates and Plato fulfilled amongst their people a really sublime
+mission.
+
+They were to the heathen world the great prophets of the human
+conscience, which woke up at their call. And the awakening of the moral
+sense was at once the glory and ruin of philosophy; for conscience, once
+aroused, could only be satisfied by One greater than they, and must
+necessarily reject all systems which proved themselves insufficient to
+realize the moral idea they had evoked.
+
+"But to perish thus, and for such a cause, is a high honor to a
+philosophy. It was this made the philosophy of Greece, like the Hebrew
+laws, though in an inferior sense, a schoolmaster that led to Jesus
+Christ, according to the expression of Clement of Alexandria. Viewed in
+this light, it was a true gift of God, and had, too, the shadow of good
+things to come, awakening the presentiment and desire of them, though it
+could not communicate them. Nor can we conceive a better way to prepare
+for the advent of Him who was to be 'the Desire of Nations' before
+becoming their Saviour."[873]
+
+[Footnote 873: "Religions before Christ," pp. 101, 102.]
+
+In previous chapters we have endeavored to sketch the history of the
+development of metaphysical thought, of moral feeling and idea, and of
+religious sentiment and want, which characterized Grecian civilization.
+In now offering a brief _resume_ of the history of that development,
+with the design of more fully exhibiting the preparatory office it
+fulfilled for Christianity, we shall assume that the mind of the reader
+has already been furnished and disciplined by preparatory principles. He
+can scarce have failed to recognize that this development obeyed a
+_general law_, however modified by exterior and geographical conditions;
+the same law, in fact, which governs the development of all individual
+finite minds, and which law may be formulated thus:--_All finite mind
+develops itself, first, in instinctive determinations and spontaneous
+faiths; then in rising doubt, and earnest questioning, and ill-directed
+inquiry; and, finally, in systematic philosophic thought, and rational
+belief_. These different stages succeed each other in the individual
+mind. There is, first, the simplicity and trust of childhood; secondly,
+the undirected and unsettled force of youth; and, thirdly, the wisdom of
+mature age. And these different stages have also succeeded each other in
+the universal mind of humanity. There has been, 1st. _The era of
+spontaneous beliefs_--of popular and semi-conscious theism, morality,
+and religion, 2d. _The transitional age_--the age of doubt, of inquiry,
+and of ill-directed mental effort, ending in fruitless sophism, or in
+skepticism. 3d. _The philosophic or conscious age_--the age of
+reflective consciousness, in which, by the analysis of thought, the
+first principles of knowledge are attained, the necessary laws of
+thought are discovered, and man arrives at positive convictions, and
+rational beliefs. In the history of Grecian civilization, the first is
+the Homeric age; the second is the pre-Socratic age, ending with the
+Sophists; and the third is the grand Socratic period. History is thus
+the development of the fundamental elements of humanity, according to an
+established law, and under conditions which are ordained and supervised
+by the providence of God. "The unity of civilization is in the unity of
+human nature; its varieties, in the variety of the elements of
+humanity," which elements have been successively developed in the course
+of history. All that is fundamental in human nature passes into the
+movement of civilization. "I say all that is fundamental; for it is the
+excellency of history to take out, and throw away all that is not
+necessary and essential. That which is individual shines for a day, and
+is extinguished forever, or stops at biography." Nothing endures, except
+that which is fundamental and true--that which is vital, and organizes
+itself, develops itself, and arrives at an historical existence.
+"Therefore as human nature is the matter and basis of history, history
+is, so to speak, the judge of human nature, and historical analysis is
+the counter-proof of psychological analysis."[874]
+
+[Footnote 874: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
+p. 31.] Nature, individual mind, and collective humanity, all obey the
+law of progressive development; otherwise there could be no history, for
+history is only of that which has movement and progress. Now, all
+progress is from the indefinite to the definite, from the inorganic to
+the organic and vital, from the instinctive to the rational, from a dim,
+nebulous self-feeling to a high reflective consciousness, from sensuous
+images to abstract conceptions and spiritual ideas. This progressive
+development of nature and humanity has not been a series of creations
+_de novo_, without any relation, in matter or form, to that which
+preceded. All of the present was contained in embryonic infoldment in
+the past, and the past has contributed its results to the present.[875]
+The present, both in nature, and history, and civilization, is, so to
+speak, the aggregate and sum-total of the past. As the natural history
+of the earth may now be read in the successive strata and deposits which
+form its crust, so the history of humanity may be read in the successive
+deposits of thought and language, of philosophy and art, which register
+its gradual progression. As the paleontological remains imbedded in the
+rocks present a succession of organic types which gradually improve in
+form and function, from the first sea-weed to the palm-tree, and from
+the protozoa to the highest vertebrate, so the history of ancient
+philosophy presents a gradual progress in metaphysical, ethical, and
+theistic conceptions, from the unreflective consciousness of the Homeric
+age, to the high reflective consciousness of the Platonic period. And as
+all the successive forms of life in pre-Adamic ages were a preparation
+for and a prophecy of the coming of man, so the advancing forms of
+philosophic thought, during the grand ages of Grecian civilization, were
+a preparation and a prophecy of the coming of the Son of God.
+
+[Footnote 875: The writer would not be understood as favoring the idea
+that this development is simply the result of "natural law." The
+connection between the past and the present is not a material, but a
+_mental_ connection. It is the bond of Creative Thought and Will giving
+to organic forces a foreseen direction towards the working out of a
+grand plan. See Agassiz, "Contributions to Natural History," vol. i. pp.
+9, 10; Duke of Argyll, "Reign of Law," ch. v.]
+
+We shall now endeavor to trace this process of gradual preparation for
+Christianity in the Greek mind--
+
+(i.) _In the field of_ THEISTIC _conceptions_.
+
+(ii.) _In the department of_ ETHICAL _ideas and principles_.
+
+(iii.) _In the region of_ RELIGIOUS _sentiment_.
+
+In the field of theistic conception the propaedeutic office of Grecian
+philosophy is seen--
+
+I. _In the release of the popular mind from Polytheistic notion, and the
+purifying and spiritualizing of the Theistic idea_.
+
+The idea of a Supreme Power, a living Personality, energizing in nature,
+and presiding over the affairs of men, is not the product of philosophy.
+It is the immanent, spontaneous thought of humanity. It has, therefore,
+existed in all ages, and revealed itself in all minds, even when it has
+not been presented to the understanding as a definite conception, and
+expressed by human language in a logical form. It is the thought which
+instinctively arises in the opening reason of childhood, as the dim and
+shadowy consciousness of a living mind behind all the movement and
+change of the universe. Then comes the period of doubt, of anxious
+questioning, and independent inquiry. The youth seeks to account to
+himself for this peculiar sentiment. He turns his earnest gaze towards
+nature, and through this living vesture of the infinite he seeks to
+catch some glimpses of the living Soul. In some fact appreciable to
+sense, in some phenomenon he can see, or hear, or touch, he would fain
+grasp the cause and reason of all that is. But in this field of inquiry
+and by this method he finds only a "receding God," who falls back as he
+approaches, and is ever still beyond; and he sinks down in exhaustion
+and feebleness, the victim of doubt, perhaps despair. Still the
+sentiment of the Divine remains, a living force, in the centre of his
+moral being. He turns his scrutinizing gaze within, and by
+self-reflection seeks for some rational ground for his instinctive
+faith. There he finds some convictions he can not doubt, some ideas he
+can not call in question, some thoughts he is compelled to think, some
+necessary and universal principles which in their natural and logical
+development ally him to an unseen world, and correlate and bind him fast
+to an invisible, but real God. The more his mind is disciplined by
+abstract thought, the clearer do these necessary and universal
+principles become, and the purer and more spiritual his ideas of God.
+God is now for him the First Principle of all principles, the First
+Truth of all truths; the Eternal Reason, the Immutable Righteousness,
+the Supreme Good. The normal and healthy development of reason, the
+maturity of thought, conduct to the recognition of the true God.
+
+And so it has been in the universal consciousness of our race as
+revealed in history. There was first a period of spontaneous and
+unreflective Theism, in which man felt the consciousness of God, but
+could not or did not attempt a rational explanation of his instinctive
+faith. He saw God in clouds and heard Him in the wind. His smile
+nourished the corn, and cheered the vine. The lightnings were the
+flashes of his vengeful ire, and the thunder was his angry voice. But
+the unity of God was feebly grasped, the rays of the Divinity seemed
+divided and scattered amidst the separate manifestations of power, and
+wisdom, and goodness, and retribution, which nature presented. Then
+plastic art, to aid and impress the imagination, created its symbols of
+these separate powers and principles, chiefly in human form, and gods
+were multiplied. But all this polytheism still rested on a dim
+monotheistic background, and all the gods were subordinated to
+Zeus--"the Father of gods and men." Humanity had still the sense of the
+dependence of all finite being on one great fountain-head of
+Intelligence and Power, and all the "generated gods" were the subjects
+and ministers of that One Supreme. This was the childhood of humanity so
+vividly represented in Homeric poetry.
+
+Then came a period of incipient reflection, and speculative thought, in
+which the attention of man is drawn outward to the study of nature, of
+which he can yet only recognize himself as an integral part. He searches
+for some arche--some first principle, appreciable to sense, which in its
+evolution shall furnish an explanation of the problem of existence. He
+tries the hypothesis of "_water_" then of "_air_" then of "_fire_" as
+the primal element, which either is itself, or in some way infolds
+within itself an informing Soul, and out of which, by vital
+transformation, all things else are produced. But here he failed to find
+an adequate explanation; his reason was not satisfied. Then he sought
+his first principle in "_numbers_" as symbols, and, in some sense, as
+the embodiment of the rational conceptions of order, proportion, and
+harmony,--God is the original _monas_--unity--One;--or else he sought it
+in purely abstract "_ideas_" as unity, infinity, identity, and all
+things are the evolution of an eternal thought, one and identical, which
+is God. And here again he fails. Then he supposes an unlimited
+_migma_--a chaotic mixture of elements existing from eternity, which was
+separated, combined, and organized by the energy of a Supreme Mind, the
+_nous_ of Anaxagoras. But he holds not firmly to this great principle;
+"he recurs again to air, and ether, and water, as _causes_ for the
+ordering of all things."[876] And after repeated attempts and failures,
+he is disappointed in his inquiry, and falls a prey to doubt and
+skepticism. This was the early youth of our humanity, the period that
+opens with Thales and ends with the Sophists.
+
+[Footnote 876: Thus Socrates complains of Anaxagoras. See "Phaedo," Sec.
+108.]
+
+The problem of existence still waits for and demands a solution. The
+heart of man, also, still cries out for the living God. The Socratic
+maxim, "know thyself," introverts the mental gaze, and self-reflection
+now becomes the method of philosophy. The Platonic analysis of thought
+reveals elements of knowledge which are not derived from the outer
+world. There are universal and necessary principles revealed in
+consciousness which, in their natural and logical development, transcend
+consciousness, and furnish the cognition of a world of Real Being,
+beyond the world of sense. There are absolute truths which bridge the
+chasm between the seen and the unseen, the fleeting and the permanent,
+the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal. There are
+necessary laws of thought which are also found to be laws of things, and
+which correlate man to a living, personal, righteous Lord and Lawgiver.
+From absolute ideas Plato ascends to an _absolute Being_, the author of
+all finite existence. From absolute truths to an _absolute Reason_, the
+foundation and essence of all truth. From the principle of immutable
+right to an _absolutely righteous Being_. From the necessary idea of the
+good to a being of _absolute Goodness_--that is, to _God_. This is the
+maturity of humanity, the ripening manhood of our race which was
+attained in the Socratic age.
+
+The inevitable tendency of this effort of speculative thought, spread
+over ages, and of the intellectual culture which necessarily resulted,
+was to undermine the old polytheistic religion, and to purify and
+elevate the theistic conception. The school of Elea rejected the gross
+anthropomorphism of the Homeric theology. Xenophanes, the founder of the
+school, was a believer in
+
+      "_ One God_, of all beings divine and human the greatest,
+      Neither in body alike unto mortals, neither in ideas."
+
+And he repels with indignation the anthropomorphic representations of
+the Deity.
+
+"But men foolishly think that gods are born as men are,
+And have, too, a dress like their own, and their voice, and their figure:
+But if oxen and lions had hands like ours, and fingers,
+Then would horses like unto horses, and oxen to oxen,
+Paint and fashion their god-forms, and give to them bodies
+Of like shape to their own, as they themselves too are fashioned."[877]
+
+Empedocles also wages uncompromising war against all representations of
+the Deity in human form--
+
+      "For neither with head adjusted to limbs, like the human,
+      Nor yet with two branches down from the shoulders outstretching,
+      Neither with feet, nor swift-moving limbs,....
+      He is, wholly and perfectly, _mind_, ineffable, holy,
+      With rapid and swift-glancing thought pervading the world."[878]
+
+[Footnote 877: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp.
+431, 432.]
+
+[Footnote 878: Ibid., vol. i. pp. 495, 496.]
+
+When speaking of the mythology of the older Greeks, Socrates maintains a
+becoming prudence; he is evidently desirous to avoid every thing which
+would tend to loosen the popular reverence for divine things.[879] But
+he was opposed to all anthropomorphic conceptions of the Deity. His
+fundamental position was that the Deity is the Supreme Reason, which is
+to be honored by men as the source of all existence and the end of all
+human endeavor. Notwithstanding his recognition of a number of
+subordinate divinities, he held that the Divine is one, because Reason
+is one. He taught that the Supreme Being is the immaterial, infinite
+Governor of all;[880] that the world bears the stamp of his
+intelligence, and attests it by irrefragable evidence;[881] and that he
+is the author and vindicator of all moral laws.[882] So that, in
+reality, he did more to overthrow polytheism than any of his
+predecessors, and on that account was doomed to death.
+
+[Footnote 879: Xenophon, "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iii. Sec. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 880: Id., ib., bk. i. ch. iv. Secs. 17, 18.]
+
+[Footnote 881: Id., ib., bk. i. ch. i. Sec. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 882: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 63;
+Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 359.]
+
+It was, however, the matured dialectic of Plato which gave the
+death-blow to polytheism. "Plato, the poet-philosopher, sacrificed Homer
+himself to monotheism. We may measure the energy of his conviction by
+the greatness of the sacrifice. He could not pardon the syren whose
+songs had fascinated Greece, the fresh brilliant poetry that had
+inspired its religion. He crowned it with flowers, but banished it,
+because it had lowered the religious ideal of conscience." He was
+sensible of the beauty of the Homeric fables, but he was also keenly
+alive to their religious falsehood, and therefore he excluded the poets
+from his ideal republic. In the education of youth, he would forbid
+parents and teachers repeating "the stories which Hesiod and Homer and
+the other poets told us." And after instancing a number of these stories
+"which deserve the gravest condemnation," he enjoins that God must be
+represented as he is in reality. "God," says he, "is, beyond all else,
+good in reality, and therefore so to be represented;" "he can not do
+evil, or be the cause of evil;" "he is of simple essence, and can not
+change, or be the subject of change;" "there is no imperfection in the
+beauty or goodness of God;" "he is a God of truth, and can not lie;" "he
+is a being of perfect simplicity and truth in deed and word."[883] The
+reader can not fail to recognize the close resemblance between the
+language of Plato and the language of inspiration.
+
+The theistic conception, in Plato, reaches the highest purity and
+spirituality. God is "_the Supreme Mind_," "incorporeal,"
+"unchangeable," "infinite," "absolutely perfect," "essentially good,"
+"unoriginated and eternal." He is "the Father and Maker of the world,"
+"the efficient Cause of all things," "the Monarch and Ruler of the
+world," "the Sovereign Mind that orders all things," and "pervades all
+things." He is "the sole principle of all things," "the beginning of all
+truth," "the fountain of all law and justice," "the source of all order
+and beauty;" in short, He is "the beginning, middle, and end of all
+things."[884]
+
+[Footnote 883: "Republic," bk. ii. Secs. 18-21.]
+
+[Footnote 884: See _ante_, ch. xi. pp. 377, 378, where the references to
+Plato's writings are given.]
+
+Aristotle continued the work of undermining polytheism. He defines God
+as "the Eternal Reason"--the Supreme Mind. "He is the immovable cause of
+all movement in the universe, the all-perfect principle. This principle
+or essence pervades all things. It eternally possesses perfect
+happiness, and its happiness consists in energy. This primeval mover is
+immaterial, for its essence is energy--it is pure thought, thought
+thinking itself--the thought of thought."[885] Polytheism is thus swept
+away from the higher regions of the intelligence. "For several to
+command," says he, "is not good, there should be but one chief. A
+tradition, handed down from the remotest antiguity, and transmitted
+under the veil of fable, says that all the stars are gods, and that the
+Divinity embraces the whole of nature. And round this idea other
+mythical statements have been agglomerated, with a view to influencing
+the vulgar, and for political and moral expediency; as for instance,
+they feigned that these gods have human shape, and are like certain of
+the animals; and other stories of the kind are added on. Now, if any one
+will separate from all this the first point alone, namely, that they
+thought the first and deepest grounds of existence to be Divine, he may
+consider it a divine utterance."[886] The popular polytheism, then, was
+but a perverted fragment of a deeper and purer "Theology." This passage
+is a sort of obituary of polytheism. The ancient glory of paganism had
+passed away. Philosophy had exploded the old theology. Man had learned
+enough to make him renounce the ancient religion, but not enough to
+found a new faith that could satisfy both the intellect and the heart.
+"Wherefore we are not to be surprised that the grand philosophic period
+should be followed by one of incredulity and moral collapse,
+inaugurating the long and universal _decadence_ which was, perhaps, as
+necessary to the work of preparation, as was the period of religious and
+philosophic development."
+
+[Footnote 885: "Metaphysics," bk. xii.]
+
+[Footnote 886: "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. viii. Sec. 19.]
+
+The preparatory office of Greek philosophy in the region of speculative
+thought is seen--
+
+2. _In the development of the Theistic argument in a logical
+form._--Every form of the theistic proof which is now employed by
+writers on natural theology to demonstrate the being of God was
+apprehended, and logically presented, by one or other of the ancient
+philosophers, excepting, perhaps, the "moral argument" drawn from the
+facts of conscience.
+
+(I.) _The_ AETIOLOGICAL _proof_, or the argument based upon the principle
+of causality, which may be presented in the following form:
+
+      All genesis or becoming supposes a permanent and uncaused
+      Being, adequate to the production of all phenomena.
+
+      The sensible universe is a perpetual genesis, a succession
+      of appearances: it is "always becoming, and never really
+      is."
+
+      Therefore, it must have its cause and origin in a permanent
+      and unoriginated Being, adequate to its production.
+
+The major premise of this syllogism is a fundamental principle of
+reason--a self-evident truth, an axiom of common sense, and as such has
+been recognized from the very dawn of philosophy. [Greek: Adounaton
+ginesthai ti ek medenos prouparxonios]--_Ex nihilo nihil_--_Nothing
+which once was not, could ever of itself come into being_. Nothing can
+be made or produced without an efficient cause, is the oldest maxim of
+philosophy. It is true that this maxim was abusively employed by
+Democritus and Epicurus to disprove a Divine creation of any thing out
+of nothing, yet the great body of ancient philosophers, as Pythagoras,
+Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Plato, and
+Aristotle, regarded it as the announcement of an universal conviction,
+that nothing can be produced without an efficient cause;--order can not
+be generated out of chaos, life out of dead matter, consciousness out of
+unconsciousness, reason out of unreason. A first principle of life, of
+order, of reason, must have existed anterior to all manifestions of
+order, of life, of intelligence, in the visible universe. It was clearly
+in this sense that Cicero understood this great maxim of the ancient
+philosophers of Greece. With him "_De nihilo nihil fit"_ is equivalent
+to "_Nihil sine causa_"--nothing exists without a cause. This is
+unquestionably the form in which that fundamental law of thought is
+stated by Plato: "Whatever is generated is necessarily generated from a
+certain cause, for it is wholly impossible that any thing should be
+generated without a cause."[887] And the efficient cause is defined as
+"a power whereby that which did not previously exist was afterwards made
+to be."[888] It is scarcely needful to remark that Aristotle, the
+scholar of Plato, frequently lays it down as a postulate of reason,
+"that we admit nothing without a cause."[889] By an irresistible law of
+thought, "_all phenomena present themselves to us as the expression of
+power_, and refer us to a causal ground whence they issue."
+
+[Footnote 887: "Timaeus," ch. ix.; also "Philebus," Sec. 45.]
+
+[Footnote 888: "Sophist," Sec. 109.]
+
+[Footnote 889: "Post. Analytic," bk. ii. ch. xvi.; "Metaphysics," bk. i.
+ch. i. Sec. 3.]
+
+The major premise of this syllogism is a fact of observation.
+
+To the eye of sense and sensible observation, to scientific induction
+even in its highest generalizations, the visible universe presents
+nothing but a history and aggregation of phenomena--a succession of
+appearances or effects having more or less resemblance. It is a
+ceaseless flow and change, "a generation and corruption," "a becoming,
+but never really _is_;" it is never in two successive moments the
+_same_.[890] All our cognitions of sameness, uniformity, causal
+connection, permanent Being, real Power, are purely rational conceptions
+_given in thought_, supplied by the spontaneous intuition of reason as
+the correlative prefix to the phenomena observed.[891]
+
+[Footnote 890: "Timaeus," ch. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 891: Ibid.]
+
+Therefore the ancient philosophers concluded justly, there must be
+something [Greek: agenneton]--something which was never generated,
+something [Greek: autophyes] and [Greek: authypostaton]--self-originated
+and self-existing, something [Greek: tauton] and [Greek:
+aionion]--immutable and eternal, the object of rational
+apperception--which is the real ground and efficient cause of all that
+appears.
+
+(2.) The COSMOLOGICAL proof, or the argument based upon the principle of
+order, and thus presented:
+
+      Order, proportion, harmony, are the product and expression
+      of Mind.
+
+      The created universe reveals order, proportion, and harmony.
+
+      Therefore, the created universe is the product of Mind.
+
+The fundamental law of thought which underlies this mode of proof was
+clearly recognized by Pythagoras. All harmony and proportion and
+symmetry is the result of _unity_ evolving itself in and pervading
+_multiplicity_. Mind or reason is unity and indivisibility; matter is
+diverse and multiple. Mind is the determinating principle; matter is
+indeterminate and indefinite. Confused matter receives form, and
+proportion, and order, and symmetry, by the action and interpenetration
+of the spiritual and indivisible element. In presence of facts of order,
+the human reason instinctively and necessarily affirms the presence and
+action of Mind.
+
+"Pythagoras had long devoted his intellectual adoration to the lofty
+idea of Order. To his mind it seemed as the presiding genius of the
+serene and silent world. He had from his youth dwelt with delight upon
+the eternal relations of space and number, in which the very idea of
+proportion seems to find its first and immediate development, until at
+length it seemed as if the whole secret of the universe was hidden in
+these mysterious correspondences. The world, in all its departments,
+moral and material, is a living arithmetic in its development, a
+realized geometry in its repose; it is a '_cosmos_' (for the word is
+Pythagorean), the expression of harmony, the manifestation to sense of
+everlasting order; and the science of _numbers_ is the truest
+representation of its eternal laws." Therefore, argued Pythagoras and
+the Pythagoreans, as the reason of man can perceive the relations of an
+eternal order in the proportions of extension and number, the laws of
+proportion, and symmetry, and harmony must inhere in a Divine reason, an
+intelligent soul, which moves and animates the universe. The harmonies
+of the world which address themselves to the human mind must be the
+product of a Divine mind. The world, in its real structure, must be the
+image and copy of that divine proportion which the mind of man adores.
+It is the sensible type of the Divinity, the outward and multiple
+development of the Eternal Unity, the Eternal One--that is, God.
+
+The same argument is elaborated by Plato in his philosophy of beauty.
+God is with him the last reason, the ultimate foundation, the perfect
+ideal of all beauty--of all the order, proportion, harmony, sublimity,
+and excellence which reigns in the physical, the intellectual, and the
+moral world. He is the "Eternal Beauty, unbegotten and imperishable,
+exempt from all decay as well as increase--the perfect--the Divine
+Beauty"[892] which is beheld by the pure mind in the celestial world.
+
+[Footnote 892: "Banquet," Sec. 35.]
+
+(3.) The Teleological proof, or the argument based upon the principle of
+intentionality or Final Cause, and is presented in the following form:
+
+      The choice and adaptation of means to the accomplishment of
+      special ends supposes an intelligent purpose, a Designing
+      Mind.
+
+      In the universe we see such choice and adaptation of means
+      to ends.
+
+      Therefore, the universe is the product of an intelligent,
+      personal Cause.
+
+This is peculiarly the Socratic proof. He recognized the necessity and
+the irresistibility of the conviction that the choice and adaptation of
+means to ends is the effect of Purpose, the expression of Will.[893]
+There is an obviousness and a directness in this mode of argument which
+is felt by every human mind. In the "Memorabilia" Xenophon has preserved
+a conversation of Socrates with Aristodemus in which he develops this
+proof at great length. In reading the dialogue[894] in which Socrates
+instances the adaptation of our organization to the external world, and
+the examples of design in the human frame, we are forcibly reminded of
+the chapters of Paley, Whewell, and M'Cosh. Well might Aristodemus
+exclaim: "The more I consider it, the more it is evident to me that man
+must be the masterpiece of some great Artificer, carrying along with it
+infinite marks of the love and favor of Him who has thus formed it." The
+argument from Final Causes is pursued by Plato in the "Timaeus;" and in
+Aristotle, God is the Final Cause of all things.[895]
+
+[Footnote 893: "Canst thou doubt, Aristodemus, whether a disposition of
+parts like this (in the human body) should be the work of chance, or of
+wisdom and contrivance?"--"Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iv.]
+
+[Footnote 894: "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iv.]
+
+[Footnote 895: Aristotle clearly recognizes that an end or final cause
+implies Intelligence. "The appearance of ends and means is a proof of
+Design."--"Nat. Ausc.," bk. ii. ch. viii.]
+
+(4.) The Ontological or Ideological proof, or the argument grounded on
+necessary and absolute ideas, which may be thrown into the following
+syllogism:
+
+      Every attribute or quality implies a subject, and absolute
+      modes necessarily suppose an Absolute Being. Necessary and
+      absolute truths or ideas are revealed in human reason as
+      absolute modes.
+
+      Therefore universal, necessary, and absolute ideas are modes
+      of the absolute subject--that is, God, the foundation and
+      source of all truth.
+
+This is the Platonic proof. Plato recognized the principle of substance
+([Greek: ousia ypokeimenon]), and therefore he proceeds in the "Timaeus"
+to inquire for the real ground of all existence; and in the "Republic,"
+for the real ground of all truth and certitude.
+
+The universe consists of two parts, permanent existences and transient
+phenomena--being and genesis; the one eternally constant, the other
+mutable and subject to change; the former apprehended by the reason, the
+latter perceived by sense. For each of these there must be a principle,
+subject, or substratum--a principle or subject-matter, which is the
+ground or condition of the sensible world, and a principle or substance,
+which is the ground and reason of the intelligible world or world of
+ideas. The subject-matter, or ground of the sensible world, is "the
+receptacle" and "nurse" of forms, an "invisible species and formless
+receiver (which is not earth, or air, or fire, or water) which receives
+the immanence of the intelligible."[896] The subject or ground of the
+intelligible world is that in which ideal forms, or eternal archetypes
+inhere, and which impresses form upon the transitional element, and
+fashions the world after its own eternal models. This eternal and
+immutable substance is God, who created the universe as a copy of the
+eternal archetypes--the everlasting thoughts which dwell in his infinite
+mind.
+
+[Footnote 896: "Timaeus," ch. xxiv.]
+
+These copies of the eternal archetypes or models are perceived by the
+reason of man in virtue of its participation in the Ultimate Reason. The
+reason of man is the organ of truth; by an innate and inalienable right,
+it grasps unseen and eternal realities. The essence of the soul is akin
+to that which is real, permanent, and eternal;--_It is the offspring and
+image of God_; therefore it has a true communion with the realities of
+things, by virtue of this kindred and homogeneous nature. It can,
+therefore, ascend from the universal and necessary ideas, which are
+apprehended by the reason, to the absolute and supreme Idea, which is
+the attribute and perfection of God. When the human mind has
+contemplated any object of beauty, any fact of order, proportion,
+harmony, and excellency, it may rise to the notion of a quality common
+to all objects of beauty--from a single beautiful body to two, from two
+to all others; from beautiful bodies to beautiful sentiments, from
+beautiful sentiments to beautiful thoughts, until, from thought to
+thought, we arrive at the highest thought, which has no other object
+than the perfect, absolute, _Divine Beauty_.[897] When a man has, from
+the contemplation of instances of virtue, risen to the notion of a
+quality common to all these instances, this quality becomes the
+representative of an ineffable something which, in the sphere of
+immutable reality, answers to the conception in his soul. "At the
+extreme limits of the intellectual world is the _Idea of the Good_,
+which is perceived with difficulty, but, in fine, can not be perceived
+without concluding that it is the source of all that is beautiful and
+good; that in the visible world it produces light, and the star whence
+light directly comes; that in the invisible world it directly produces
+truth and intelligence."[898] This _absolute Good is God_.
+
+[Footnote 897: "Banquet," Sec. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 898: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.]
+
+The order in which these several methods of proof were developed, will
+at once present itself to the mind of the reader as the natural order of
+thought. The first and most obvious aspect which nature presents to the
+opening mind is that of movement and change--a succession of phenomena
+suggesting the idea of _power_. Secondly, a closer attention reveals a
+resemblance of phenomena among themselves, a uniformity of nature--an
+order, proportion, and harmony pervading the _cosmos_, which suggest an
+_identity and unity of power and of reason_, pervading and controlling
+all things. Thirdly, a still closer inspection of nature reveals a
+wonderful adaptation of means to the fulfillment of special ends, of
+organs designed to fulfill specific functions, suggesting the idea of
+_purpose_, _contrivance_, and _choice_, and indicating that the power
+which moves and determines the universe is a _personal_, _thinking_, and
+_voluntary_ agent. And fourthly, a profounder study of the nature of
+thought, an analysis of personal consciousness, reveals that there are
+necessary principles, ideas, and laws, which universally govern and
+determine thought to definite and immovable conceptions--as, for
+example, the principles of causality, of substance, of identity or
+unity, of order, of intentionality; and that it is only under these laws
+that we can conceive the universe. By the law of substance we are
+compelled to regard these ideas, which are not only laws of thought but
+also of things, as inherent in a subject, or Being, who made all things,
+and whose ideas are reflected in the reason of man. Thus from universal
+and necessary ideas we rise to the _absolute Idea_, from immutable
+principles to a _First Principle of all principles_, a _First Thought_
+of all thoughts--that is, to _God_. This is the history of the
+development of thought in the individual, and in the race--_cause_,
+_order_, _design_, _idea_, _being_, GOD.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE PROPAEDEUTIC OFFICE OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY _(continued)_.
+
+
+      "If we regard this sublime philosophy as a preparation for
+      Christianity instead of seeking in it a substitute for the
+      Gospel, we shall not need to overstate its grandeur in order
+      to estimate its real value."--Pressense.
+
+      "Plato made me to know the true God. Jesus Christ showed me
+      the way to Him."--St. Augustine.
+
+The preparatory office of Grecian philosophy is also seen in _the
+department of morals_.
+
+I. _In the awakening and enthronement of Conscience as a law of duty,
+and the elevation and purification of the Moral Idea_.
+
+The same law of evolution, which we have seen governing the history of
+speculative thought, may also be traced as determining the progress of
+ethical inquiry. In this department there are successive stages marked,
+both in the individual and the national mind. There is, first, the
+simplicity and trust of childhood, submitting with unquestioning faith
+to prescribed and arbitrary laws; then the unsettled and ill-directed
+force of youth, questioning the authority of laws, and asking reasons
+why this or that is obligatory; then the philosophic wisdom of riper
+years, recognizing an inherent law of duty, which has an absolute
+rightness and an imperative obligation. There is first a dim and shadowy
+apprehension of some lines of moral distinction, and some consciousness
+of obligation, but these rest mainly upon an outward law--the observed
+practice of others, or the command of the parent as, in some sense, the
+command of God. Then, to attain to personal convictions, man passes
+through a stage of doubt; he asks for a ground of obligation, for an
+authority that shall approve itself to his own judgment and reason. At
+last he arrives at some ultimate principles of right, some immutable
+standard of duty; he recognizes an inward law of conscience, and it
+becomes to him as the voice of God. He extends his analysis to history,
+and he finds that the universal conscience of the race has, in all ages,
+uttered the same behest. Should he live in Christian times, he discovers
+a wondrous harmony between the voice of God within the heart, and the
+voice of God within the pages of inspiration. And now the convention of
+public opinion, and the laws of the state, are revered and upheld by
+him, just so far as they bear the imprimatur of reason and of
+conscience--that is, of God.
+
+This history of the normal development of the individual mind has its
+counterpart in the history of humanity. There is (1.) _The age of
+popular and unconscious morality_; (2.) _The transitional, skeptical, or
+sophistical age_; and (3.) _The philosophic or conscious age of
+morality_.[899] In the "Republic" of Plato, we have these three eras
+represented by different persons, through the course of the dialogue.
+The question is started--what is Justice? and an answer is given from
+the stand-point of popular morality, by Polemarchus, who quotes the
+words of the poet Simonides,
+
+      "To give to each his due is just;"[900]
+
+that is, justice is paying your debts. This doctrine being proved
+inadequate, an answer is given from the Sophistical point of view by
+Thrasymachus, who defines justice as "the advantage of the
+strongest"--that is, might is right, and right is might.[901] This
+answer being sharply refuted, the way is opened for a more philosophic
+account, which is gradually evolved in book iv., Glaucon and Adimantus
+personifying the practical understanding, which is gradually brought
+into harmony with philosophy, and Socrates the higher reason, as the
+purely philosophic conception. Justice is found to be the right
+proportion and harmonious development of all the elements of the soul,
+and the equal balance of all the interests of society, so as to secure a
+well-regulated and harmonious whole.
+
+[Footnote 899: Grant's "Aristotle's Ethics," vol. i. p. 46.]
+
+[Footnote 900: "Republic," bk. i. Sec. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 901: Ibid., bk. i. Sec. 12.]
+
+The era of _popular and unconscious morality_ is represented by the
+times of Homer, Hesiod, the Gnomic poets, and "the Seven Wise Men of
+Greece."
+
+This was an age of instinctive action, rather than reflection--of poetry
+and feeling, rather than analytic thought. The rules of life were
+presented in maxims and proverbs, which do not rise above prudential
+counsels or empirical deductions. Morality was immediately associated
+with the religion of the state, and the will of the gods was the highest
+law for men. "Homer and Hesiod, and the Gnomic poets, constituted the
+educational course," to which may be added the saws and aphorisms of the
+Seven Wise Men, and we have before us the main sources of Greek views of
+duty. When the question was asked--"What is right?" the answer was given
+by a quotation from Homer, Hesiod, Simonides, and the like. The morality
+of Homer "is concrete, not abstract; it expresses the conception of a
+heroic life, rather than a philosophic theory. It is mixed up with a
+religion which really consists in a celebration of the beauty of nature,
+and in a deification of the strong and brilliant qualities of human
+nature. It is a morality uninfluenced by a regard for a future life. It
+clings with intense enjoyment and love to the present world, and the
+state after death looms up in the distance as a cold and repugnant
+shadow. And yet it would often hold death preferable to disgrace. The
+distinction between a noble and ignoble life is strongly marked in
+Homer, and yet a sense of right and wrong about particular actions seems
+fluctuating" and confused.[902] A sensuous conception of happiness is
+the chief good, and mere temporal advantage the principal reward of
+virtue. We hear nothing of the approving smile of conscience, of inward
+self-satisfaction, and peace, and harmony, resulting from the practice
+of virtue. Justice, energy, temperance, chastity, are enjoined, because
+they secure temporal good. And yet, with all this imperfection, the
+poets present "a remarkable picture of primitive simplicity, chastity,
+justice, and practical piety, under the three-fold influence of right
+moral feeling, mutual and fear of the divine displeasure."[903]
+
+[Footnote 902: Grant's "Aristotle's Ethics," vol. i. p. 51.]
+
+[Footnote 903: Tyler, "Theology of the Greek Poets," p. 167.]
+
+The _transitional, skeptical_, or _sophistical era_ begins with
+Protagoras. Poetry and proverbs had ceased to satisfy the reason of man.
+The awakening intellect had begun to call in question the old maxims and
+"wise saws," to dispute the arbitrary authority of the poets, and even
+to arraign the institutions of society. It had already begun to seek for
+some reasonable foundation of authority for the opinions, customs, laws,
+and institutions which had descended to them from the past, and to ask
+why men were obliged to do this or that? The question whether there is
+at bottom any real difference between truth and error, right and wrong,
+was now fairly before the human mind. The ultimate standard of all truth
+and all right, was now the grand object of pursuit. These inquiries were
+not, however, conducted by the Sophists with the best motives. They were
+not always prompted by an earnest desire to know the truth, and an
+earnest purpose to embrace and do the right. They talked and argued for
+mere effect--to display their dialectic subtilty, or their rhetorical
+power. They taught virtue for mere emolument and pay. They delighted, as
+Cicero tells us, to plead the opposite sides of a cause with equal
+effect. And they found exquisite pleasure in raising difficulties,
+maintaining paradoxes, and passing off mere tricks of oratory for solid
+proofs. This is the uniform representation of the sophistical spirit
+which is given by all the best writers who lived nearest to their times,
+and who are, therefore, to be presumed to have known them best.
+Grote[904] has made an elaborate defense of the Sophists; he charges
+Plato with gross misrepresentation. His portraits of them are denounced
+as mere caricatures, prompted by a spirit of antagonism; all antiquity
+is presumed to have been misled by him. No one, however, can read
+Grant's "Essay on the History of Moral Philosophy in Greece"[905]
+without feeling that his vindication of Plato is complete and
+unanswerable: "Plato never represents the Sophists as teaching a lax
+morality to their disciples. He does not make sophistry to consist in
+holding wicked opinions; he represents them as only too orthodox in
+general,[906] but capable of giving utterance to immoral paradoxes for
+the sake of vanity. Sophistry rather tampers and trifles with the moral
+convictions than directly attacks them." The Sophists were wanting in
+deep conviction, in moral earnestness, in sincere love of truth, in
+reverence for goodness and purity, and therefore their trifling,
+insincere, and paradoxical teaching was unfavorable to goodness of life.
+The tendency of their method is forcibly depicted in the words of Plato:
+"There are certain dogmas relating to what is _just_ and _good_ in which
+we have been brought up from childhood--obeying and reverencing them.
+Other opinions recommending pleasure and license we resist, out of
+respect for the old hereditary maxims. Well, then, a question comes up
+concerning what is right? He gives some answer such as he has been
+taught, and straightway is refuted. He tries again, and is again
+refuted. And, when this has happened pretty often, he is reduced to the
+opinion that _nothing is either right or wrong_; and in the same way it
+happens about the just and the good, and all that before we have held in
+reverence. On this, he naturally abandons his allegiance to the old
+principles and takes up with those he before resisted, and so, from
+being a good citizen, he becomes lawless."[907] And, in point of fact,
+this was the theoretical landing-place of the Sophists. We do not say
+they became practically "lawless" and antinomian, but they did arrive at
+the settled opinion that right and wrong, truth and error, are solely
+matter of private opinion and conventional usage. Man's own fluctuating
+opinion is the measure and standard of all things.[908] They who "make
+the laws, make them for their own advantage."[909] There is no such
+thing as Eternal Right. "That which _appears_ just and honorable to each
+city is so for that city, as long as the opinion prevails."[910]
+
+[Footnote 904: "History of Greece."]
+
+[Footnote 905: Aristotle's "Ethics," vol. i. ch. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 906: "His teachings will be good counsels about a man's own
+affairs, how best to govern his family; and also about the affairs of
+the state, how most ably to administer and speak of state
+affairs."--"Protag.," Sec. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 907: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xvii.]
+
+[Footnote 908: "Theaetetus," Sec. 23.]
+
+[Footnote 909: "Gorgias," Secs. 85-89.]
+
+[Footnote 910: "Theaetetus," Secs. 65-75.]
+
+The age of the Sophists was a transitional period--a necessary, though,
+in itself considered, an unhappy stage in the progress of the human
+mind; but it opened the way for, _The Socratic, philosophic_, or
+_conscious age of morals_. It has been said that "before Socrates there
+was no morality in Greece, but only propriety of conduct." If by this is
+meant that prior to Socrates men simply followed the maxims of "the
+Theologians,"[911] and obeyed the laws of the state, without reflection
+and inquiry as to the intrinsic character of the acts, and without any
+analysis and exact definition, so as to attain to principles of ultimate
+and absolute right, it must be accepted as true--there was no philosophy
+of morals. Socrates is therefore justly regarded as "the father of moral
+philosophy." Aristotle says that he confined himself chiefly to ethical
+inquiries. He sought a determinate conception and an exact definition of
+virtue. As Xenophon has said of him, "he never ceased asking, What is
+piety? what is impiety? what is noble? what is base? what is just? what
+is unjust? what is temperance? what is madness?"[912] And these
+questions were not asked in the Sophistic spirit, as a dialectic
+exercise, or from idle curiosity. He was a perfect contrast to the
+Sophists. They had slighted Truth, he made her the mistress of his soul.
+They had turned away from her, he longed for more perfect communion with
+her. They had deserted her for money and renown, he was faithful to her
+in poverty.[913] He wanted to know what piety was, that he might be
+pious. He desired to know what justice, temperance, nobility, courage
+were, that he might cultivate and practise them. He wrote no books,
+delivered no lectures; he instituted no school; he simply conversed in
+the shop, the market-place, the banquet-hall, and the prison. This
+philosophy was not so much a _doctrine_ as a _life_. "What is remarkable
+in him is not the _system_ but the _man_. The memory he left behind him
+amongst his disciples, though idealized--the affection, blended with
+reverence, which they never ceased to feel for his person, bear
+testimony to the elevation of his character and his moral purity. We
+recognize in him a Greek of Athens--one who had imbibed many dangerous
+errors, and on whom the yoke of pagan custom still weighed; but his life
+was nevertheless a noble life; and it is to calumny we must have
+recourse if we are to tarnish its beauty by odious insinuations, as
+Lucian did, and as has been too frequently done, after him, by
+unskillful defenders of Christianity,[914] who imagine it is the gainer
+by all that degrades human nature. Born in a humble position, destitute
+of all the temporal advantages which the Greeks so passionately loved,
+Socrates exerted a kingship over minds. His dominion was the more real
+for being less apparent.... His power consisted of three things: his
+devoted affection for his disciples, his disinterested love of truth,
+and the perfect harmony of his life and doctrine.... If he recommended
+temperance and sobriety, he also set the example; poorly clad, satisfied
+with little, he disdained all the delicacies of life. He possessed every
+species of courage. On the field of battle he was intrepid, and still
+more intrepid when he resisted the caprices of the multitude who
+demanded of him, when he was a senator, to commit the injustice of
+summoning ten generals before the tribunals. He also infringed the
+iniquitous orders of the thirty tyrants of Athens. The satires of
+Aristophanes neither moved nor irritated him. The same dauntless
+firmness he displayed when brought before his judges, charged with
+impiety. 'If it is your wish to absolve me on condition that I
+henceforth be silent, I reply I love and honor you, but I ought rather
+to obey the gods than you. Neither in the presence of judges nor of the
+enemy is it permitted me, or any other man, to use every sort of means
+to escape death. It is not death but crime that it is difficult to
+avoid; crime moves faster than death. So I, old and heavy as I am, have
+allowed myself to be overtaken by death, while my accusers, light and
+vigorous, have allowed themselves to be overtaken by the light-footed
+crime. I go, then, to suffer death; they to suffer shame and iniquity. I
+abide by my punishment, as they by theirs. All is according to order.'
+It was the same fidelity to duty that made Socrates refuse to escape
+from prison, in order not to violate the laws of his country, to which,
+even though irritated, more respect is due than to a father. 'Let us
+walk in the path,' he says 'that God has traced for us.' These last
+words show the profound religious sentiment which animated Socrates....
+It is impossible not to feel that there was something divine in such a
+life crowned with such a death."[914]
+
+[Footnote 911: Homer, Hesiod, etc.]
+
+[Footnote 912: "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. i. p. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 913: Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 122.]
+
+[Footnote 914: Watson's "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 374.]
+
+[Footnote 915: Pressense, "Religions before Christ," pp. 109-111.]
+
+Socrates laid the foundation for conscious morality by placing the
+ground of right and wrong in an eternal and unchangeable reason which
+illuminates the reason and conscience of every man. He often asserted
+that morality is a science which can not be taught. It depends mainly
+upon principles which are discovered by an inward light. Accordingly he
+regarded it as the main business of education to "draw out" into the
+light of consciousness the principles of right and justice which are
+infolded within the conscience of man--to deliver the mind of the secret
+truth which was striving towards the light of day. Therefore he called
+his method the "maieutic" or "obstetric" art. He felt there was
+something divine in all men (answering to his _to daimonion_ or
+_daimonion ti_--a divine and supernatural something--a warning
+"voice"--a gnomic "sign"--a "law of God written on the heart"), which by
+a system of skillful interrogations he sought to elicit, so that each
+might hear for himself the voice of God, and, hearing, might obey. Thus
+was he the "great prophet of the human conscience," and a messenger of
+God to the heathen world, to prepare the way of the Lord.
+
+The morality of conscience was carried to its highest point by Plato.
+From the moment he became the disciple of Socrates he sympathized deeply
+with the spirit and the method of his master. He had the same deep
+seriousness of spirit, that same earnestness of purpose, that same
+inward reverence for justice, and purity, and goodness, which dwelt in
+the heart of Socrates. A naturally noble nature, he loved truth with all
+the glow and fervor of his young heart. He felt that if any thing gave
+meaning and value to life, it must be the contemplation of absolute
+truth, absolute beauty, and absolute Good. This absolute Good is God,
+who is the first principle of all ideas, the fountain of all the order
+and proportion and beauty of the universe, the source of all the good
+which exists in nature and in man. To practise goodness--to conform the
+character to the eternal models of order, proportion, and excellence, is
+to resemble God. To aspire after perfection of moral being, to secure
+assimilation to God ([Greek: omoiosis Theo]) is the noble aspiration of
+Plato's soul.
+
+When we read the "Gorgias," the "Philebus," and especially the
+"Republic," with what noble joy are we filled on hearing the voice of
+conscience, like a harp swept by a seraph's hand, uttering such
+deep-toned melodies! How does he drown the clamors of passion, the
+calculations of mere expediency, the sophism of mere personal interest
+and utility. If he calls us to witness the triumph of the wicked in the
+first part of the "Republic," it is in order that we may at the end of
+the book see the deceitfulness of their triumph. "As to the wicked," he
+says, "I maintain that even if they succeed at first in concealing what
+they are, most of them betray themselves at the end of their career.
+They are covered with opprobrium, and present evils are nothing compared
+with those that _await them in the other life_. As to the just man,
+whether in sickness or in poverty, these imaginary evils will turn to
+his advantage in this life, _and after his death_; because the
+providence of the gods is necessarily attentive to the interests of him
+who labors to become just, and to attain, by the practice of virtue, to
+the most perfect resemblance to God which is possible to man."[916] He
+rises above all "greatest happiness principles," and asserts distinctly
+in the "Gorgias" that it is better to suffer wrong than to do
+wrong.[917] "I maintain," says he, "that what is most shameful is not to
+be struck unjustly on the cheek, or to be wounded in the body; but that
+to strike and wound me unjustly, to rob me, or reduce me to slavery--to
+commit, in a word, any kind of injustice towards me, or what is mine--is
+a thing far worse and more odious for him who commits the injustice,
+than for me who suffer it."[918] It is a great combat, he says, greater
+than we think, that wherein the issue is whether we shall be virtuous or
+wicked. Neither glory, nor riches, nor dignities, nor poetry, deserves
+that we should neglect justice for them. The moral idea in Plato has
+such intense truth and force, that it has at times a striking analogy
+with the language of the Holy Scriptures.[919]
+
+[Footnote 916: "Republic," bk. x. ch. xii.]
+
+[Footnote 917: "Gorgias," Secs. 59-80.]
+
+[Footnote 918: Ibid., Sec. 137.]
+
+[Footnote 919: Pressense, "Religions before Christ," p. 129.]
+
+The obligation of moral rectitude is, by Plato, derived from the
+authoritative utterances of conscience as the voice of God. We must do
+right because reason and conscience say it is right. In the "Euthyphron"
+he maintains that the moral quality of actions is not dependent on the
+arbitrary will of a Supreme Governor;--"an act is not holy because the
+gods love it, but the gods love it because it is holy." The eternal law
+of right dwells in the Eternal Reason of God, the idea of right in all
+human minds is a ray of that Eternal Reason; and the requirement of the
+divine law that we shall do right is, and must be, in harmony with both.
+
+The present life is regarded by Plato as a state of probation and
+discipline, the future life as one of reward and punishment.[920]
+
+[Footnote 920: "Republic," bk. x. ch. xv., xvi.; "Laws," bk. x. ch.
+xiii.]
+
+Plato was thus to the heathen world "the great apostle of the moral
+idea;" he followed up and completed the work of Socrates. "The voice of
+God, that still found a profound echo in man's heart, possessed in him
+an organ to which all Greece gave ear; and the austere revelation of
+conscience this time embodied in language too harmonious not to entice
+by the beauty of form, a nation of artists, they received it. The tables
+of the eternal law, carved in purest marble and marvellously sculptured,
+were read by them."
+
+In Plato both the theistic conception and the moral idea seem to have
+touched the zenith. The philosophy of Aristotle, considered as a whole,
+appears on one side to have passed the line of the great Hellenic
+period. If it did not inaugurate, it at least prepared the way for the
+decline. It perfected logic, as the instrument of ratiocination, and
+gave it exactness and precision, Yet taken all in all, it was greatly
+inferior to its predecessor. From the moral point of view it is a
+decided retrogression. The god of Aristotle is indifferent to virtue. He
+is pure thought rather than moral perfection. He takes no cognizance of
+man. Morality has no eternal basis, no divine type, and no future
+reward. Therefore Aristotle's philosophy had little power over the
+conscience and heart.
+
+During the grand Platonic period human reason made its loftiest flight,
+it rose aloft and soared towards heaven, but alas! its wings, like those
+of Icarus, melted in the sun and it fell to earth again. Instead of wax
+it needed the strong "eagle pinions of faith" which revelation only can
+supply. The decadence is strongly marked both in the Epicurean and Stoic
+schools. They both express the feeling of exhaustion, disappointment,
+and despair. The popular theology had lost its hold upon the public
+mind. The gods no longer visited the earth. "The mysterious voice which,
+according to the poetic legend related by Plutarch, was heard out at
+sea--'Great Pan is dead'--rose up from every heart; the voice of an
+incredulous age proclaimed the coming end of paganism. The oracles were
+dumb." There was no vision in the land. All faith in a beneficent
+overruling Providence was lost, and the hope of immortality was
+well-nigh gone. The doctrines of a resurrection and a judgment to come,
+were objects of derisive mockery.[921] Philosophy directed her attention
+solely to the problem of individual well-being on earth; it became
+simply a philosophy of life, and not, as with Plato, "a preparation for
+death." The grosser minds sought refuge in the doctrines of Epicurus.
+They said, "Pleasure is the chief good, the end of life is to enjoy
+yourself;" to this end "dismiss the fear of gods, and, above all, the
+fear of death." The nobler souls found an asylum with the Stoics. They
+said, "Fata nos ducunt--The Fates lead us! Live conformable to reason.
+Endure and abstain!" Notwithstanding numerous and serious errors, the
+ethical system of the Stoics was wonderfully pure. This must be
+confessed by any one who reads the "Enchiridion" of Epictetus, and the
+"Meditations" of Aurelius. "The highest end of life is to contemplate
+truth and to obey the Eternal Reason. God is to be reverenced above all
+things, and universally submitted to. The noblest office of reason is to
+subjugate passion and conduct to virtue. Virtue is the supreme good,
+which is to be pursued for its own sake, and not from fear or hope. That
+is sufficient for happiness which is seated only in the mind, and
+therefore independent of external things. The consciousness of
+well-doing is reward enough without the applause of others. And no fear
+of loss, or pain, or even death, must be suffered to turn us aside from
+truth and virtue."[922]
+
+[Footnote 921: Acts xvii. 32.]
+
+[Footnote 922: Marcus Aurelius.]
+
+The preparatory office of Christianity in the field of ethics is further
+seen,
+
+II. _In the fact that, by an experiment conducted on the largest scale,
+it demonstrated the insufficiency of reason to elaborate a perfect ideal
+of moral excellence, and develop the moral forces necessary to secure
+its realization_.
+
+We have seen that the moral idea in Socrates, Plato, Epictetus, Marcus
+Aurelius, and Seneca rose to a sublime height, and that, under its
+influence, they developed a noble and heroic character. At the same time
+it must be conceded that their ethical system was marked by signal
+blemishes and radical defects. After all its excellence, it did not give
+roundness, completeness, and symmetry to moral life. The elements which
+really purify and ennoble man, and lend grace and beauty to life, were
+utterly wanting. Their systems were rather a discipline of the reason
+than a culture of the heart. The reason held in check the lower passions
+and propensities of the nature but it did not evoke the softer, gentler,
+purer emotions of the soul. The cardinal virtues of the ancient ethical
+systems are Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Courage, all which are in
+the last analysis reduced to Wisdom. Humility, Meekness, Forgiveness of
+injuries, Love of even enemies, Universal Benevolence, Real
+Philanthropy, the graces which give beauty to character and bless
+society, are scarcely known. It is true that in Epictetus and Seneca we
+have some counsels to humility, to forbearance, and forgiveness; but it
+must be borne in mind that Christianity was now in the air, exerting an
+indirect influence beyond the limits of the labors of the indefatigable
+missionaries of the Cross.[923] By their predecessors, these qualities
+were disparaged rather than upheld. Resentment of injuries was applauded
+as a virtue, and meekness was proclaimed a defect and a weakness. They
+knew nothing of a forgiving spirit, and were strangers to the charity
+"which endureth all things, hopeth all things, and never fails." The
+enlarged philanthrophy which overleaps the bounds of kindred and
+nationality, and embraces a common humanity in its compassionate regards
+and benevolent efforts, was unknown. Socrates, the noblest of all the
+Grecians, was in no sense cosmopolitan in his feeling. His whole nature
+and character wore a Greek impress. He could scarce be tempted to go
+beyond the gates of Athens, and his care was all for the Athenian
+people. He could not conceive an universal philanthropy. Plato, in his
+solicitude to reduce his ideal state to a harmonious whole, answering to
+his idea of Justice, sacrificed the individual. He superseded private
+property, broke up the sacred relations of family and home, degraded
+woman, and tolerated slavery. Selfishness was to be overcome, and
+political order maintained, by a rigid communism. To harmonize
+individual rights and national interests, was the wisdom reserved for
+the fishermen of Galilee. The whole method of Plato's "Politeia,"
+breathes the spirit of legalism in all its severity, untempered by the
+spirit of Love. This was the living force which was wanting to give
+energy to the ideals of the reason and conscience, to furnish high
+motive to virtue, to prompt to deeds of heroic sacrifice and suffering
+for the good of others; and this could not be inspired by philosophy,
+nor constrained by legislation. This love must descend from above. "The
+Platonic love" was a mere intellectual appreciation of beauty, and
+order, and proportion, and excellence. It was not the love of man as the
+offspring and image of God, as the partaker of a common nature, and the
+heir of a common immortality. Such love was first revealed on earth by
+the incarnate Son of God, and can only be attained by human hearts under
+the inspiration of his teaching and life, and the renewing influence of
+the Holy Spirit. "Love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of
+God and knoweth God." To "love our neighbor as ourself" is the golden
+precept of the Son of God, who is incarnate Love. The equality of all
+men as "the offspring of God" had been nominally recognized by the Stoic
+philosophers; its realization had been rendered possible to the popular
+thought by Roman conquest, law, and jurisprudence; these had prepared
+the way for its fullest announcement and practical recognition by the
+world. At this providential juncture St. Paul appears on Mars' Hill, and
+in the presence of the assembled philosophers proclaims, "_God hath made
+of one blood all nations of men_." A lofty ideal of moral excellence had
+been attained by Plato--the conception of a high and inflexible
+morality, which contrasted most vividly with the depravity which
+prevailed in Athenian society. The education "of the public assemblies,
+the courts, the theatres, or wherever the multitude gathered" was
+unfavorable to virtue. And the inadequacy of all mere human teaching to
+resist this current of evil, and save the young men of the age from
+ruin, is touchingly and mournfully confessed by Plato. "There is not,
+there never was, there never will be a moral education possible that can
+countervail the education of which these are the dispensers; that is,
+_human_ education: I except, with the proverb, that which is Divine.
+And, truly, any soul that in such governments escapes the common wreck,
+can only escape _by the special favor of heaven."_[924] He affirms again
+and again that man can not by himself rise to purity and goodness.
+"Virtue is not natural to man, neither is it to be learned, but it comes
+to us by a divine influence. Virtue is the gift of God in those who
+possess it."[925] That "gift of God" was about to be bestowed, in all
+its fullness of power and blessing, "_through Jesus Christ our Lord_."
+
+[Footnote 923: Seneca lived in the second century; Epictetus, in the
+latter part of the first century.]
+
+[Footnote 924: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vi., vii.]
+
+[Footnote 925: "Meno;" see conclusion.]
+
+In the department of _religious feeling_ and _sentiment_, the
+propaedeutic office of Greek philosophy is seen, in general, in the
+revealing of the immediate spiritual wants of the soul, and the distinct
+presentation of the problem which Christianity alone can solve.
+
+I. _It awakened in man the sense of distance and estrangement from God,
+and the need of a Mediator--"a daysman betwixt us, that might lay his
+hand upon us both_"[926]
+
+[Footnote 926: Job ix. 33.]
+
+During the period of unconscious and unreflective theism, the sentiment
+of the Divine was one of objective nearness and personal intimacy. The
+gods interposed directly in the affairs of men, and held frequent and
+familiar intercourse with our race. They descend to the battle-field of
+Troy, and mingle in the bloody strife. They grace the wedding-feast by
+their presence, and heighten the gladness with celestial music. They
+visit the poor and the stranger, and sometimes clothe the old and
+shrivelled beggar with celestial beauty. They inspire their favorites
+with strength and courage, and fill their mouths with wisdom and
+eloquence. They manifest their presence by signs and wonders, by visions
+and dreams, by auguries and prophetic voices. But more frequently than
+all, they are seen in the ordinary phenomena of nature, the sunshine and
+storm, the winds and tempests, the hail and rain. The natural is, in
+fact, the supernatural, and all the changes of nature are the movement
+and action of the Divine. The feeling of dependence is immediate and
+universal, and worship is the natural and spontaneous act of man.
+
+But the period of reflection is inevitable. Man turns his inquiring gaze
+towards nature and desires, by an imperfect effort of physical
+induction, to reach "the first principle and cause of things." Soon he
+discovers the prevalence of uniformity in nature, the actions of
+physical properties and agencies, and he catches some glimpses of the
+reign of universal law. The natural tendency of this discovery is
+obvious in the weakening of his sense of dependence on the immediate
+agency of God. The Egyptians told Herodotus that, as their fields were
+regularly irrigated by the waters of the Nile, they were less dependent
+on God than the Greeks, whose lands were watered by rains, and who must
+perish if Jupiter did not send them showers.[927] As man advances in the
+field of mere physical inquiry, God recedes; from the region of
+explained phenomena, he retires into the region of unexplained
+phenomena--the border-land of mystery. The gods are driven from the
+woods and streams, the winds and waves. Neptune does not absolutely
+control the seas, nor AEolus the winds. The Divine becomes, no more a
+physical arche--a nature-power, but a Supreme Mind, an ineffable Spirit,
+an invisible God, the Supreme Essence of Essences, the Supreme Idea of
+Ideas (eidos auto kath auto) apprehended by human reason alone, but
+having an independent, eternal, substantial, personal being. Through the
+instrumentality of Platonism, the idea of God becomes clearer and purer.
+Man had learned that communion with the Divinity was something more than
+an apotheosis of humanity, or a pantheistic absorption. He caught
+glimpses of a higher and holier union. He had surrendered the ideal of a
+national communion with God, and of personal protection through a
+federal religion, and now was thrown back upon himself to find some
+channel of personal approach to God. But alas! he could not find it. A
+God so vastly elevated beyond human comprehension, who could only be
+apprehended by the most painful effort of abstract thought; a God so
+infinitely removed from man by the purity and rectitude of his
+character; a God who was all pure reason, seemed alien to all the
+yearnings and sympathies of the human heart; and such a God, dwelling in
+pure light, seemed inapproachable and inacessible to man.[928] The
+purifying of the religious idea had evoked a new ideal, and this ideal
+was painfully remote. By the energy of abstract thought man had striven
+to pierce the veil, and press into "the Holy of Holies," to come into
+the presence of God, and he had failed. And he had sought by moral
+discipline, by self-mortification, by inward purification, to raise
+himself to that lofty plane of purity, where he might catch some
+glimpses of the vision of a holy God, and still he failed. Nay, more, he
+had tried the power of prayer. Socrates, and Plato, and Cleanthes had
+bowed the knee and moved the lips in prayer. The emperor Aurelius, and
+the slave Epictetus had prayed, and prayer, no doubt, intensified their
+longing, and sharpened and agonized their desire, but it did not raise
+them to a satisfying and holy _koinonia_ in the divine life. "It seems
+to me"--said Plato--as Homer says of Minerva, that she removed the mist
+from before the eyes of Diomede,
+
+      'That he might clearly see 'twixt Gods and men.'
+
+so must he, in the first place, remove from your soul the mist that now
+dwells there, and then apply those things through which you will be able
+to know[929] and rightly pray to God.
+
+[Footnote 927: Herodotus, vol. ii. bk. ii. ch. xiii. p. 14 (Rawlinson's
+edition).]
+
+[Footnote 928: "To discover the Maker and Father of the universe is a
+hard task;.... to make him known to all is impossible."--"Timaeus," ch.
+ix.]
+
+[Footnote 929: "Second Alcibiades," Sec. 23.]
+
+To develop this innate desire and "feeling after God" was the grand
+design of providence in "fixing the times" of the Greek nation, and "the
+boundaries of their habitation."[930] Man was brought, through a period
+of discipline, to feel his need of a personal relation to God. He was
+made to long for a realizing sense of his presence--to desire above all
+things a Father, a Counsellor, and a Friend--a living ear into which he
+might groan his anguish, or hymn his joy; and a living heart that could
+beat towards him in compassion, and prompt immediate succor and aid. The
+idea of a pure Spiritual Essence without form, and without emotion,
+pervading all, and transcending all, is too vague and abstract to yield
+us comfort, and to exert over us any persuasive power. "Our moral
+weakness shrinks from it in trembling awe. The heart can not feed on
+sublimities. We can not make a home of cold magnificence; we can not
+take immensity by the hand."[931] Hence the need and the desire that God
+shall condescendingly approach to man, and by some manifestation of
+himself in human form, and through the sensibilities of the human heart,
+commend himself to the heart of man--in other words, the need of an
+_Incarnation_. Thus did the education of our race, by the dispensation
+of philosophy, prepare the way for him who was consciously or
+unconsciously "_the Desire of Nations_," and the deepening earnestness
+and spiritual solicitude of the heathen world heralded the near approach
+of Him who was not only "the Hope of Israel" but "the Saviour of the
+world."
+
+[Footnote 930: Acts xvii. 26, 27.]
+
+[Footnote 931: Caird.]
+
+The idea of an _Incarnation_ was not unfamiliar to human thought, it was
+no new or strange idea to the heathen mind. The numberless metamorphoses
+of Grecian mythology, the incarnations of Brahm, the avatars of Vishnu,
+and the human form of Krishna had naturalized the thought.[932] So that
+when the people of Lystra saw the apostles Paul and Barnabas exercising
+supernatural powers of healing, they said, "The gods have come down to
+us in the likeness of men!" and they called Barnabas Jupiter, and Paul,
+Mercurius. The idea in its more definite form may have been, and indeed
+was, communicated to the world through the agency of the dispersed Jews.
+So that Virgil, the Roman poet, who was contemporary with Christ, seems
+to re-echo the prophecy of Isaiah--
+
+     The last age decreed by the Fates is come,
+     And a new frame of all things does begin;
+     A holy progeny from heaven descends
+     Auspicious in his birth, which puts an end
+     To the iron age, and from which shall arise
+     A golden age, most glorious to behold.
+
+[Footnote 932: Young's "Christ of History," p. 248.]
+
+II. _Finally, Greek philosophy prepared the way for Christianity by
+awakening and deepening the consciousness of guilt, and the desire for
+Redemption_.
+
+The consciousness of sin, and the consequent need of expiation for sin,
+were gradually unfolded in the Greek mind. The idea of sin was at first
+revealed in a confused and indefinite feeling of some external,
+supernatural, and bewildering influence which man can not successfully
+resist; but yet so in harmony with the sinner's inclination, that he can
+not divest himself of all responsibility. "Homer has no word answering
+in comprehensiveness or depth of meaning to the word _sin_, as it is
+used in the Bible..... The noun _amartia_ which is appropriated to
+express this idea in the Greek of the New Testament, does not occur in
+the Homeric poems..... The word which is most frequently employed to
+express wrong-doing of every kind is _ate_, with its corresponding
+verb..... The radical signification of the word seems to be a
+befooling--a depriving one of his senses and his reason, as by
+unseasonable sleep, and excess of wine, joined with the influence of
+evil companions, and the power of destiny, or the deity. Hence, the
+Greek imagination, which impersonated every great power, very naturally
+conceived of Ate as a person, a sort of omnipresent and universal cause
+of folly and sin, of mischief and misery, who, though the daughter of
+Jupiter, yet once fooled or misled Jupiter himself, and thenceforth,
+cast down from heaven to earth, walks with light feet over the heads of
+men, and makes all things go wrong. Hence, too, when men come to their
+senses, and see what folly and wrong they have perpetrated, they cast
+the blame on Ate, and so, ultimately, on Jupiter and the gods."[933]
+
+[Footnote 933: Tyler, "Theology of the Greek Poets," pp. 174, 175.]
+
+     "Oft hath this matter been by Greeks discussed,
+      And I their frequent censure have incurred:
+      Yet was not I the cause; but Jove, and Fate,
+      And gloomy Erinnys, who combined to throw
+      A strong delusion o'er my mind, that day
+      I robb'd Achilles of his lawful prize.
+      What could I do? a Goddess all o'erruled,
+      Daughter of Jove, dread Ate, baleful power
+      Misleading all; with light step she moves,
+      Not on the earth, but o'er the heads of men.
+      With blighting touch, and many hath caused to err."[934]
+
+And yet, though Agamemnon here attempts to shuffle off the guilt of his
+transgression upon Ate, Jove, and Fate, yet at other times he confesses
+his folly and wrong, and makes no attempt to cast the responsibility on
+the gods.[935] Though misled by a "baleful power," he was not compelled.
+Though tempted by an evil goddess, he yet followed his own sinful
+passions, and therefore he owns himself responsible.
+
+To satisfy the demands of divine justice, to show its hatred of sin, and
+to deter others from transgression, sin is punished. Punishment is the
+penalty due to sin; in the language of Homer, it is the payment of a
+debt incurred by sin. When the transgressor is punished he is said to
+"pay off," or "pay back" his crimes; in other words, to expatiate or
+atone for them.
+
+                             "If not at once,
+     Yet soon or late will Jove assert their claim,
+     And heavy penalty the perjured pay
+     With their own blood, their children's, and their wives'."[936]
+
+At the same time the belief is expressed that the gods may be, and often
+are, propitiated by prayers and sacrifices, and thus the penalty is
+remitted.
+
+     "The Gods themselves, in virtue, honor, strength,
+      Excelling thee, may yet be mollified;
+      For they when mortals have transgressed, or fail'd
+      To do aright, by sacrifice and pray'r,
+      Libations and burnt-off'rings, may be sooth'd."[937]
+
+[Footnote 934: "Iliad," bk. xix. l. 91-101 (Lord Derby's translation).]
+
+[Footnote 935: Ibid., bk. ix. l. 132-136.]
+
+[Footnote 936: Ibid., bk. iv. l. 185-188.]
+
+[Footnote 937: Ibid., bk. ix. l. 581-585.]
+
+Polytheism, then, as Dr. Schaff has remarked, had the voice of
+conscience, and a sense, however obscure, of sin. It felt the need of
+reconciliation with deity, and sought that reconciliation by prayer,
+penance, and sacrifice.[938]
+
+The sense of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the absolute need of
+expiation, is determined with increasing clearness and definiteness in
+the tragic poets.
+
+The first great law which the Tragedians recognize, as a law written on
+the heart, is "that the sinner must suffer for his sins." The connection
+between sin and suffering is constantly recognized as a natural and
+necessary connection, like that between sowing and reaping.
+
+     A haughty spirit, blossoming, bears a crop
+     Of woe, and reaps a harvest of despair.[939]
+
+"Lust and violence beget lust and violence, and vengeance too, at the
+appointed time."[940] "Impiety multiplies and perpetuates itself."[941]
+"The sinner pays the debt he contracted, ends the career that he
+begins,"[942] "and drinks to the dregs the cup of cursing which he
+himself had filled."[943] Conscience is the instrument in the hands of
+Justice and Vengeance by which the Most High inflicts punishment. The
+retributions of sin are "wrought out by God."
+
+The consequences of great crimes, especially in high places, extend to
+every person and every thing connected with them. "The country and the
+country's gods are polluted."[944] "The army and the people share in the
+curse."[945] "The earth itself is polluted with the shedding of
+blood,"[946] "and even the innocent and the virtuous who share the
+enterprises of the wicked may be involved in their ruin, as the pious
+man must sink with the ungodly when he embarks in the same ship."[947]
+
+[Footnote 938: Tyler, "Theology of the Greek Poets," p. 258.]
+
+[Footnote 938: AEschylus, "Persae," l. 821.]
+
+[Footnote 940: "Agamemnon," l. 763.]
+
+[Footnote 941: Ibid., l. 788.]
+
+[Footnote 942: Ibid., l. 1529.]
+
+[Footnote 943: Ibid., l. 1397.]
+
+[Footnote 944: Ibid., l. 1645.]
+
+[Footnote 945: "Persae," _passim._]
+
+[Footnote 946: "Sup.," 265.]
+
+[Footnote 947: "Theb.," p. 602.]
+
+The pollution and curse of sin, when once contracted by an individual,
+or entailed upon a family, will rest upon them and pursue them till the
+polluted individual or the hated and accursed race is extinct, unless in
+some way the sin can be expiated, or some god interpose to arrest the
+penalty. The criminal must die by the hand of justice, and even in Hades
+vengeance will still pursue him.[948] Others may in time be washed away
+by ablutions, worn away by exile and pilgrimage, and expiated by
+offerings of blood.[949] But great crimes can not be washed away; "For
+what expiation is there for blood when once it has fallen on the
+ground."[950] Thus the law (_[Greek: nomos]_)--for so it is expressly
+called--as from an Attic Sinai, rolls its reverberating thunders, and
+pronounces its curses upon sin, from act to act and from chorus to
+chorus of that grand trilogy--the "Agamemnon," the "Choephoroe," and the
+"Eumenides."
+
+[Footnote 948: "Sup.," l. 227.]
+
+[Footnote 949: "Eum.," l. 445 seq.]
+
+[Footnote 950: "Choeph.," l. 47.]
+
+But after the law comes the gospel. First the controversy, then the
+reconciliation. A dim consciousness of sin and retribution as a fact,
+and of reconciliation as a _want_, seems to have revealed itself even in
+the darkest periods of history. This consciousness underlies not a few
+of the Greek tragedies. "The 'Prometheus Bound' was followed by the
+'Prometheus Unbound,' reconciled and restored through the intervention
+of Jove's son. The 'oedipus Tyrannus' of Sophocles was completed by the
+'oedipus Colonus,' where he dies in peace amid tokens of divine favor.
+And so the 'Agamemnon' and 'Choephoroe' reach their consummation only in
+the 'Eumenides,' where the Erinyes themselves are appeased, and the
+Furies become the gracious ones. This is not, however, without a special
+divine interposition, and then only after a severe struggle between the
+powers that cry for justice and those that plead for mercy."
+
+The office and work which, in this trilogy, is assigned to Jove's son,
+Apollo, must strike every reader as at least a remarkable resemblance,
+if not a foreshadowing of the Christian doctrine of _reconciliation_.
+"This becomes yet more striking when we bring into view the relation in
+which this reconciling work stands to [Greek: Zeus Soter], Jupiter
+Saviour--[Greek: Zeus tritos], Jupiter the third, who, in connection
+with Apollo and Athena, consummates the reconciliation. Not only is
+Apollo a [Greek: Soter], a Saviour, who, having himself been exiled from
+heaven among men, will pity the poor and needy;[951] not only does
+Athena sympathize with the defendant at her tribunal, and, uniting the
+office of advocate and judge, persuade the avenging deities to be
+appeased;[952] but Zeus is the beginning and end of the whole process.
+Apollo appears as the advocate of Orestes only at her bidding;[953]
+Athena inclines to the side of the accused, as the offspring of the
+brain of Zeus, and of like mind with him."[954] Orestes, after his
+acquittal, says that he obtained it
+
+     "By means of Pallas and of Loxias
+      And the third Saviour who doth all things sway."[955]
+
+Platonism reveals a still closer affinity with Christianity in its
+doctrine of sin, and its sense of the need of salvation. Plato is
+sacredly jealous for the honor and purity of the divine character, and
+rejects with indignation every hypothesis which would make God the
+author of sin. "God, inasmuch as he is good, can not be the cause of all
+things, as the common doctrine represents him to be. On the contrary, he
+is the author of only a small part of human affairs; of the larger part
+he is not the author; for our evil things far outnumber our good things.
+The good things we must ascribe to God, whilst we must seek elsewhere,
+and not in him, the causes of evil."[956] The doctrine of the poets,
+which would in some way charge on the gods the errors of men, he sternly
+resists. We must express our disapprobation of Homer, or any other poet,
+if guilty of such foolish blunders about the gods as to tell us[957]
+
+     'Fast by the threshold of Jove's court are placed
+      Two casks, one stored with evil, one with good,'
+
+And that he for whom the Thunderer mingles both
+
+     'He leads a life checker'd with good and ill.'
+
+[Footnote 951: "Sup.," l. 214.]
+
+[Footnote 952: "Eum.," l. 970.]
+
+[Footnote 953: Ibid., l. 616.]
+
+[Footnote 954: Ibid., l. 664, 737.]
+
+[Footnote 955: Tyler's "Theology of the Greek Poets," especially ch. v.,
+from which the above materials are drawn.]
+
+[Footnote 956: "Republic," bk. ii. ch. xviii.]
+
+[Footnote 957: "Iliad," xxiv., l. 660.]
+
+Nor can we let our young people know that, in the words of AEschylus--
+
+     "'When to destruction God will plague a house
+       He plants among the members guilt and sin.'"[958]
+
+Whatever in the writings of Homer and the tragic poets give countenance
+to the notion that God is, in the remotest sense the author of sin, must
+be expunged. Here is clearly a great advance in ethical conceptions.
+
+The great defect in the ethical system of Plato was the identification
+of evil with the inferior or corporeal nature of man--"the irascible and
+concupiscible elements," fashioned by the junior divinities. The
+rational and immortal part of man's nature, which is derived immediately
+from God--the Supreme Good, naturally chooses the good as its supreme
+end and destination. Hence he adopted the Socratic maxim "that no man is
+willingly evil," that is, no man deliberately chooses evil as evil, but
+only as a _seeming_ good--he does not choose evil as an end, though he
+may choose it voluntarily as a means. Plato manifests great solicitude
+to guard this maxim from misconception and abuse. Man has, in his
+judgment, the power to act in harmony with his higher reason, or
+contrary to reason; to obey the voice of conscience or the clamors of
+passion, and consequently he is the object of praise or blame, reward or
+punishment. "When a man does not consider himself, but others, as the
+cause of his own sins,.... and even seeks to excuse himself from blame,
+he dishonors and injures his own soul; so, also, when contrary to
+reason.... he indulges in pleasure, he dishonors it by filling it with
+vice and remorse."[959] The work and effort of life, the end of this
+probationary economy, is to make reason triumphant over passion, and
+discipline ourselves to a purer and nobler life.
+
+[Footnote 958: "Republic," bk. ii. ch, xviii., xix.]
+
+[Footnote 959: "Laws," bk. v. ch. i.]
+
+The obstacles to a virtuous life are, however, confessedly numberless,
+and, humanly speaking, insurmountable. To raise one's self above the
+clamor of passion, the power of evil, the bondage of the flesh, is
+acknowledged, in mournful language, to be a hopeless task. A cloud of
+sadness shades the brow of Plato as he contemplates the fallen state of
+man. In the "Phaedrus" he describes, in gorgeous imagery, the purity, and
+beauty, and felicity of the soul in its anterior and primeval state,
+when, charioteering through the highest arch of heaven in company with
+the Deity, it contemplated the divine justice and beauty; but "this
+happy life," says he, "we forfeited by our transgression." Allured by
+strange affections, our souls forgot the sacred things that we were made
+to contemplate and love--we _fell_. And now, in our fallen state, the
+soul has lost its pristine beauty and excellence. It has become more
+disfigured than was Glaucus, the seaman "whose primitive form was not
+recognizable, so disfigured had he become by his long dwelling in the
+sea."[960] To restore this lost image of the good,--to regain "this
+primitive form," is not the work of man, but God. Man can not save
+himself. "Virtue is not natural to man, neither is it to be learned, but
+it comes by a divine influence. _Virtue, is the gift of God_."[961] He
+needs a discipline, "an education which is divine." If he is saved from
+the common wreck, it must be "by the special favor of Heaven."[962] He
+must be delivered from sin, if ever delivered, by the interposition of
+God.
+
+[Footnote 960: "Republic," bk. x. ch. xi.]
+
+[Footnote 961: "Meno."]
+
+[Footnote 962: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vi., vii.]
+
+Plato was, in some way, able to discover the need of a Saviour, to
+desire a Saviour, but he could not predict his appearing. Hints are
+obscurely given of a Conqueror of sin, an Assuager of pain, an Averter
+of evil in this life, and of the impending retributions of the future
+life; but they are exceedingly indefinite and shadowy. In all instances
+they are rather the language of _desire_, than of hope. Platonism
+awakened in the heart of humanity a consciousness of sin and a profound
+feeling of want--the want of a Redeemer from sin, a spiritual, a divine
+Remedy for its moral malady--and it strove after some remedial power.
+But it was equally conscious of failure and defeat. It could enlighten
+the reason, but it could only act imperfectly on the will. Platonic was
+a striking counterpart to Pauline experience prior to the apostle's
+deliverance by the power and grace of Christ. It discovered that "the
+Law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and just, and good." It
+recognized that "it is spiritual, but man is carnal, the slave of sin."
+It could say, "What I do I approve not; for I do not what I would, but
+what I hate. But if my will [my better judgment] is against what I do, I
+consent unto the Law that it is good. And now it is no more I that do
+it, but sin, that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me, that is, in my
+flesh, good abideth not, for to will is present with me, but the power
+to do the right is absent: the good that I would, I do not; but the evil
+that I would not, that I do. I consent gladly to the law of God in my
+inner man ['the rational and immortal nature'[963]]; but I behold a law
+in my members ['the irascible and concupiscible nature'[964]] warring
+against the law of my mind (or reason), and bringing me into captivity
+to the law of sin which is in my members. _Oh wretched man that I am!
+who shall deliver me from the body of this death_?"[965] Paul was able
+to say, "I thank God (that he hath now delivered me), through Jesus
+Christ our Lord!" Platonism could only desire, and hope, and wait for
+the coming of a Deliverer.
+
+[Footnote 963: Plato.]
+
+[Footnote 964: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 965: Romans, vii.]
+
+This consciousness of the need of supernatural light and help, and this
+aspiration after a light supernatural and divine, which Plato inherited
+from Socrates, constrained him to regard with toleration, and even
+reverence, every apparent approach, every pretension, even, to a divine
+inspiration and guidance in the age in which he lived. "'The greatest
+blessings which men receive come through the operation of _phrensy_
+([Greek: mania]--inspired exaltation), when phrensy is the gift of God.
+The prophetess of Delphi, and the priestess of Dodona, many are the
+benefits which in their phrensies (moments of inspiration) they have
+bestowed upon Greece; but in their hours of self-possession, few or
+none. And too long were it to speak of the Sibyl, and others, who,
+inspired and prophetic, have delivered utterances beneficial to the
+hearers. Indeed, this word phrenetic or maniac is no reproach; it is
+identical with mantic--prophetic.[966] And often when diseases and
+plagues have fallen upon men for the sins of their forefathers, some
+phrensy too has broken forth, and in prophetic strain has pointed out a
+remedy, _showing how the sin might be expiated, and the gods appeased_
+(by prayers, and purifications, and atoning rites).... So many and yet
+more great effects could I tell you of the phrensy which comes from the
+gods."[967] Some have discerned in all this merely the food for a feeble
+ridicule. They regard these sentiments as simply an evidence of the
+power and prevalence of superstition clouding the loftiest intellects in
+ancient times. By the more thoughtful and philosophic mind, however,
+they will be accepted as an indication of the imperishable and universal
+faith of humanity in a supernatural and supersensuous world, and in the
+possibility of some communication between heaven and earth.[968] And
+above all, it is a conclusive proof that Plato believed that the
+knowledge of _salvation_--of a remedy for sin, a method of expiation for
+sin, a means of deliverance from the power and punishment of sin, must
+be revealed from Heaven.
+
+[Footnote 966: [Greek: Mania], phrensy; _[Greek: pantis]_, a
+prophet--one who utters oracles in a state of divine phrensy; _[Greek:
+pantike]_, the prophetic art.]
+
+[Footnote 967: "Phaedrus," Sec. 47-50 (Whewell's translation).]
+
+[Footnote 968: "_Vetus opinio est_, jam usque ab heroicis ducta
+temporibus, eaque et populi Romani et _omnium gentium_ firmata consensu,
+versari quandem inter homines divinationem."--Cicero, "De Divin.," i.
+I.]
+
+Paul, then, found, even in that focus of Paganism, the city of Athens,
+religious aspirations tending towards Jesus Christ. A true philosophic
+method, notwithstanding its shortcomings and imperfections, concluded by
+desiring and seeking "the Unknown God," by demanding him from all forms
+of worship, from all schools of philosophy. The great work of
+preparation in the heathen world consisted in the developing of the
+_desire_ for salvation. It proved that God is the great want of every
+human soul; that there is a profound affinity between conscience and the
+living God; and that Tertullian was right when he wrote the "Testimonium
+Animae naturaliter Christianae."[969] And when it was sufficiently
+demonstrated that "the world by philosophy knew not God (as a Redeeming
+God and Saviour), then it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to
+save them that believe." This was all a dispensation of divine
+providence, which was determined by, or "in, the wisdom of God."[970]
+
+The history of the religions and philosophies of human origin thus
+becomes to us a striking confirmation of the truth of Christianity. It
+shows there is a wondrous harmony between the instinctive wants and
+yearnings of the human heart, as well as the necessary ideas and laws of
+the reason, and the fundamental principles of revealed religion. There
+is "a law written on the heart"--written by the finger of God, which
+corresponds to the laws written by the same finger on "tables of stone."
+There are certain necessary and immutable principles and ideas infolded
+in the reason of man, which harmonize with the revelations of the
+Eternal Logos in the written word.[971] There are instinctive longings,
+mysterious yearnings of the human heart, to which that unveiling of the
+heart of God which is made in the teaching and life of the incarnate God
+most satisfyingly answers. Within the depths of the human spirit there
+is an "oracle" which responds to the voice of "the living oracles of
+God."
+
+[Footnote 969: Pressense, "Religions before Christ" (Introduction);
+Neander, "Church History," vol. i. (Introduction).]
+
+[Footnote 970: I Corinthians, i. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 971: "The surmise of Plato, that the world of appearance
+subsists in and by a higher world of Divine Thought, is confirmed by
+Christianity when it tells us of a Divine subsistence--that Eternal Word
+by whom and in whom all things consist."--Vaughan, "Hours with the
+Mystics," vol. i. p. 213.]
+
+Here, then, are two distinct and independent revelations--the unwritten
+revelation which God has made to all men in the constitution of the
+human mind, and the external written revelation which he has made in the
+person and teaching of his Son. And these two are perfectly harmonious.
+We have here two great volumes--the volume of conscience, and the volume
+of the New Testament. We open them, and find they announce the _same_
+truths--one in dim outline, the other in a full portraiture. There are
+the same fundamental principles underlying both revelations. They both
+bear the impress of _divinity_. The history of philosophy may have been
+marked by many errors of interpretation; so, also, has the history of
+dogmatic theology. Men may have often misunderstood and misinterpreted
+the dictates of conscience; so have theologians misunderstood and
+misinterpreted the dictates of revelation. The perversions of conscience
+and reason have been plead in defense of error and sin; and so, for
+ages, have the perversions of Scripture been urged in defense of
+slavery, oppression, falsehood, and wrong. Sometimes the misunderstood
+utterances of conscience, of philosophy, and of science have been
+arrayed against the incorrect interpretations of the Word of God. But
+when both are better understood, and more justly conceived, they are
+found in wondrous harmony. When the New Testament speaks to man of God,
+of duty, of immortality, and of retribution, man feels that its
+teachings "commend themselves to his conscience" and reason. When it
+speaks to him of redemption, of salvation, of eternal life and
+blessedness, he feels that it meets and answers all the wants and
+longings of his heart. Thus does Christianity throw light upon the
+original revelations of God in the human conscience, and answers all the
+yearnings of the human soul. So it is found in individual experiences,
+so it has been found in the history of humanity. As Leverrier and Adams
+were enabled to affirm, from purely mathematical reasoning, that another
+planet must exist beyond _Uranus_ which had never yet been seen by human
+eyes, and then, afterwards, that affirmation was gloriously verified in
+the discovery of _Neptune_ by the telescope of Galle; so the reasonings
+of ancient philosophy, based on certain necessary laws of mind, enabled
+man to affirm the existence of a God, of the soul, of a future
+retribution, and an eternal life beyond the grave; and, then,
+subsequently, these were brought fully into light, and verified by the
+Gospel.
+
+We conclude in the words of Pressense: "To isolate it from the past,
+would be to refuse to comprehend the nature of Christianity itself, and
+the extent of its triumphs. Although the Gospel is not, as has been
+affirmed, the product of anterior civilizations--a mere compound of
+Greek and Oriental elements--it is not the less certain that it brings
+to the human mind the satisfaction vainly sought by it in the East as in
+the West. _Omnia subito_ is not its device, but that of the Gnostic
+heresy. Better to say, with Clement of Alexandria and Origen, that the
+night of paganism had its stars to light it, but that they called to the
+Morning-star which stood over Bethlehem."
+
+"If we regard philosophy as a preparation for Christianity, instead of
+seeking in it a substitute for the Gospel, we shall not need to
+overstate its grandeur in order to estimate its real value."
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+A.
+
+     Abstraction, comparative and immediate, 187-189; 362-364.
+
+     AEschylus, his conception of the Supreme Divinity, 146;
+       his recognition of human guilt, and need of expiation, 515-517.
+
+     AEtiological proof of the existence of God, 487-489.
+
+     Anaxagoras, an Eclectic, 311;
+       in his physical theory an Atomist, 312;
+       taught that the Order of the universe can only be explained by
+       Intelligence, 312;
+       his psychology, 313;
+       the teacher of Socrates, 313.
+
+     Anaximander, his first principle _the infinite_, 290;
+       his infinite a chaos of primary elements, 290.
+
+     Anaximenes, a vitalist, 286;
+       his first principle _air_, 287.
+
+     Aristotle, his opinion of the popular polytheism of Greece, 157;
+       his classification of causes, 280, 404, 405;
+       his misrepresentations of Pythagoras, 299;
+       his classification of the sciences, 389;
+       his Organon, 389-394;
+       his Logic, 394-403;
+       his Theology, 404-417;
+       his Ethics, 417-421;
+       his Categories, 395;
+       his logical treatises, 396;
+       on induction and deduction, 396-398;
+       his psychology, 398, 401;
+       on how the knowledge of first principles is attained, 394, 402,
+          403;
+       on Matter and Form, 405-408;
+       on Potentiality and Actuality, 408-412;
+       his proof of the Divine existence, 412-415;
+       on the chief good of man, 419, 420;
+       his doctrine of the Mean, 420, 421;
+       defect of his ethical system, 505.
+
+     [Archai], or first principles, the grand object of
+        investigation in Greek Philosophy, 271, 274, 279, 280.
+
+     Athenians, criticism on Plutarch's sketch of their character, 45;
+       their vivacity, 45;
+       love of freedom, 46--and of country, 46;
+       private life of, 47;
+       intellectual character of, 48;
+       inquisitive and analytic, 48;
+       rare combinations of imagination and reasoning powers, 49;
+       religion of, 98;
+       the Athenians a religious people, 102;
+       their faith in the being and providence of God, 107;
+       their consciousness of dependence on God, 110, 116;
+       their religious emotions, 117;
+       their deep consciousness of sin and guilt, 122-124;
+       their sense of the need of expiation, 124, 125;
+       their religion exerted some wholesome moral influence, 162, 163.
+
+     Athens, topography of 27;
+       the Agora, 28;
+       its porticoes, 29;
+       the Acropolis, 30;
+       its temples, 31;
+       the Areopagus, 33;
+       sacred objects in, 98, 99;
+       images of the gods, 99;
+       localities of schools of philosophy in, 266-268.
+
+     Attica, geographical boundaries of, 26;
+       a classic land, 34;
+       its geographical and cosmical conditions providentially ordained
+       for great moral   ends, 34, 35; soil of, not favorable to
+       agriculture, 40--necessitated industry and frugality, 41; the
+       climate of, 41--its influence on the mental character of the
+       people, 42.
+
+
+B.
+
+     Bacon, his assertion that the search after final causes had misled
+       scientific inquirers, 222.
+
+
+C.
+
+     Categories of Aristotle, 395.
+
+     Causality, principle of, 189;
+       assailed by the Materialists, 194--especially by Comte, 203-209;
+       the intuition of _power_ a fact of immediate consciousness, 204;
+       consciousness of _effort_ the type of all force, 211;
+       Aristotle on Causality, 413;
+       aetiological proof of existence of God, 487-489.
+
+     Cause, origin of the idea of, 204, 205.
+
+     Causes, Aristotle's classification of, 280, 404, 405.
+
+     Chief good of man, Aristotle on, 419, 420.
+
+     Cleanthes, his hymn to Jupiter, 452, 453.
+
+     Comte, his theory of the origin of religion, 57-65;
+       his doctrine that all knowledge is confined to material
+       phenomena, 203; denies all causation, both efficient and final,
+       203-214.
+
+     Conditioned, law of the, 227, 228;
+       is contradictory, 250;
+       as a ground of faith, meaningless and void, 251.
+
+     Cosmological proof of the existence of God, 489, 490.
+
+     Cousin, his theory that religion had its outbirth in the
+       spontaneous apperceptions
+       of reason, 78-84;
+       criticism thereon, 84-86.
+
+     Criterion of truth, Plato's search after, 333, 334.
+
+     Cudworth, his interpretation of Grecian mythology, 139, 143.
+
+     Cuvier, on final causes, 216, 222.
+
+D.
+
+     Darwin, his inability to explain the facts of nature without
+       recognizing design, 221, 222.
+
+     Democritus, taught that atoms and the vacuum are the beginning of
+       all things, 292; an absolute materialist, 293.
+
+     Dependence, consciousness of, the foundation of primary religious
+       emotions, 110-113.
+
+     Development, law of mental, 478; three successive stages clearly
+       marked, in the individual, 478--in the universal mind of
+       humanity, 479, 480;
+           (1) in the field of Theistic conceptions, 481-494;
+           (2) in the department of morals, 495-509;
+           (3) in the department of religious sentiment, 509-522.
+
+     Dialectic of Plato, 353-369.
+
+     Dogmatic Theologians, assert that all our knowledge of God is
+       derived from the teaching of the Scriptures, 86,167; cast doubt
+       upon the principle of causality, 253-255--upon the principle of
+       the unconditioned, 255-257--upon the principle of unity,
+       258-261--and upon the immutable principles of morality, 261-263.
+
+     Dynamical or Vital school of ancient philosophers, 282-289.
+
+E.
+
+     Eclecticism of Anaxagoras, 311.
+
+     Emotions, the religious, 117-122;
+       sentiment of the Divine exists in all minds, 119-121;
+       also instinctive yearning after the Invisible, 121, 122.
+
+     Empedocles, a believer in one Supreme God, 153.
+
+     Epicurus, his theory of the origin of religion, 56, 57;
+       his Ethics, 427-432;
+       his Physics, 433-438;
+       taught that pleasure is the chief end of life, 428--that
+       ignorance of nature is the sole cause of unhappiness, 432--that
+       Physics and Psychology are the only studies conducive to
+       happiness, 432--that the universe is eternal and infinite,
+       433--that concrete bodies are combinations of atoms, 434--that
+       atoms have spontaneity, 436, and some degree of freedom, 436,
+       437; the parts of the world self-formed, 437, 438; plants,
+       animals, and man are spontaneously generated, 438; a state of
+       savagism the primitive condition of man, 439; his Atheism, 441;
+       his Psychology, 442-444; the soul material and mortal, 445, 446.
+
+     Eternity, Platonic notion of, 349 (_note_), 372, 373.
+
+     Eternity of Matter, how taught by Plato, 371-373;
+       distinctly affirmed by Epicurus, 433.
+
+     Eternity of the Soul, Plato's doctrine of, 373-375.
+
+     Ethical ideas and principles, gradual development of, 495, 496;
+       (1) the age of popular and unconscious morals, 497, 498;
+       (2) the transitional or sophistical age, 498-500;
+       (3) the philosophic or conscious age, 500-506.
+
+     Ethics of Plato, 383-387, 502-505;
+       of Aristotle, 417-42l;
+       of Epicurus, 427-432;
+       of the Stoics, 454, 456.
+
+     Expiation for sin, the need of, 124;
+       universally acknowledged, 124--especially in Grecian mythology,
+       125--and in the language of Greece and Rome, 125.
+
+F.
+
+     Facts of the universe, classification of, 175-177.
+
+     Fathers, the early, recognized the propaedeutic office of Greek
+       philosophy, 473-475.
+
+     Feeling, theories which ground all religion on, 70-74;
+       its inadequacy, 74-78.
+
+     Final Causes, impossibility of interpreting nature without
+       recognizing, 221, 222;
+       the assumption of final causes a means of discovery, 222, 223;
+       Cuvier on, 216, 222;
+       argument of Socrates from, 320-324;
+       Plato on, 380-382;
+       Aristotle on, 405, 413, 414;
+       teleological proof of the existence of God, 490, 491.
+
+     Force, the idea of, rejected by Comte, 207.
+
+     Forces, all of one type, and that type mind, 211.
+
+     Freedom, human, 19;
+       exists under limitations, 20;
+       both admitted and denied by Comte, 208, 209;
+       of Will, as taught by Plato, 386, 387;
+       admitted by Epicurus, 486.
+
+G.
+
+     Geoffrey St. Hilaire, his pretense of not ascribing any intentions
+       to nature, 216, 217.
+
+     Geography and History, relations between, 14;
+       opposite theories concerning, 15;
+       theory of Buckle, 16--of Ritter, Guyot, and Coubin, 16;
+       the relation one of adjustment and harmony, 16.
+
+     God, universality of idea of, 89;
+       Athenians believed in one God, 107, 147, 148;
+       idea of God a common phenomenon of human intelligence, 168, 169;
+       the development of this idea dependent on experience conditions,
+       169-172; the phenomena of the universe demand a God for their
+       explanation, 172-175: there are principles revealed in
+       consciousness which necessitate the idea of God, 184-189; proofs
+       of the existence of God employed by Aristotle, 412-416--by
+       Socrates, 320-324; views of God entertained by the Stoics, 452,
+       453; logical proofs of the existence of God developed by Greek
+       philosophy, 487-494; gradual development of Theistic conception,
+       481-487.
+
+     Gods of Grecian Mythology, how regarded by the philosophers,
+       151-157; views of Plato regarding them, 383.
+
+     Great men, represent the spirit of their age, 20;
+       the creation of a providence interposing in history, 21.
+
+     Greece, its geographical relations favorable to free intercourse
+       with the great historic nations, 35--to commerce, 36--to the
+       diffusion of knowledge, 36--and to a high degree of civilization,
+       36; peculiar configuration of Greece conducive to activity and
+       freedom, 36-38--and independence, 38; natural scenery, 43--its
+       influence on imagination and taste, 44.
+
+     Greek Civilization, a preparation for Christianity, 465-468.
+
+     Greek Language, a providentially prepared vehicle for the perfect
+       revelation of Christianity, 468-470.
+
+     Greek Philosophy, first a philosophy of Nature, 271, 281, 282;
+       next a philosophy of Mind, 271, 316-318;
+       lastly a philosophy of Life, 271, 422;
+       prepared the way for Christianity, 457-522.
+
+     Greeks, the masses of the people believed in one Supreme God, 147,
+       148.
+
+     Guilt, consciousness of, a universal fact, 122, 123;
+       recognized in Grecian mythology, 123, 124;
+       awakened and deepened by philosophy, 513-518.
+
+H.
+
+     Hamilton, Sir W., teaches that philosophic knowledge is the
+       knowledge of effects as dependent on causes, 224, 225;
+       and of qualities as inherent in substances, 225, 226;
+       and yet asserts all human knowledge is necessarily confined to
+       phenomena, 227;
+       his doctrine of the relativity of all knowledge, 227, 229-236;
+       his philosophy of the conditioned, 228;
+       conditional limitation the law of all thought, 236-242;
+       the Infinite a mere negation of thought, 242-246;
+       asserts we must believe in the infinity of God, 246;
+       takes refuge in faith, 247;
+       faith grounded on the law of the conditioned, 243, 249--that is,
+       on contradiction, 249, 250.
+
+     Hegel, his philosophy of religion, 65-70.
+
+     Heraclitus, his first principle _ether_, 288;
+       change, the universal law of all existence, 288;
+       a Materialistic Pantheist, 289.
+
+     Hesiod, on the generation of the gods, 142.
+
+     Homer, his conception of Zeus, 144, 145.
+
+     Homeric doctrine of sin, 513,514.
+
+     Homeric theology, 143-145, 509, 510.
+
+     Humanity, fundamental ideas and laws of, 18;
+       developed and modified by exterior conditions, 19;
+       the most favorable conditions existed in Athens.
+
+I.
+
+     Idealism, furnishes no adequate explanation of the common belief
+       in an external world, 193,199--and of a personal self, 200-202;
+       Cosmothetic Idealism, 305;
+       absolute Idealism, 305.
+
+     Ideas, Platonic doctrine of, 334-337;
+       Platonic scheme of, 364-367.
+
+     Images of the gods, how regarded by Cicero, 129--by Plutarch, 129;
+       the heathens apologized for the use of images, 159.
+
+     Immortality of the soul, taught by Socrates, 324--and by Plato,
+       375, 376; denied by Epicurus, 444-446.
+
+     Incarnation, the idea of, not unfamiliar to heathen thought, 512.
+
+     Induction, the psychological method of Plato, 356, 357.
+
+     Induction and Deduction, Aristotle on, 397, 398.
+
+     Infinite, the, not a mere negation of thought, 242-244;
+       known as the necessary correlative of the finite, 245;
+       as comprehensible in itself, as the finite is comprehensible in
+       itself, 246;
+       in what sense known, 252.
+
+     Infinite Series, the phrase, when literally construed, a
+       contradiction, 181,182.
+
+     Infinity, qualitative and quantitative, 239;
+       qualitative infinity possessed by God alone, 184, 239.
+
+     Intentionality, principle of, 190;
+       denied by Materialists, 194;
+       a first law of thought, 221-223; recognized by Socrates, 320-324.
+
+     Ionian School of Philosophy, a physical and sensational school,
+       281; subdivided into Mechanical and Dynamical, 282, 283.
+
+     Italian School of Philosophy, an Idealist school, 281;
+       subdivided into the Mathematical and Metaphysical, 282, 296.
+
+J.
+
+     Jacobi, his faith-philosophy, 71.
+
+K.
+
+     Knowledge, Hamilton's doctrine of relativity of, 229-236;
+       opposite theories of knowledge among ancient philosophers, 330,
+       331; the tendency of these theories, 332;
+       Plato's theory of, 333, 334;
+       Plato's science of real knowledge, 337, 338.
+
+
+     L.
+
+     Language, inadequate to convey the idea of God, 92-94;
+       Greek language the best medium for the Christian revelation,
+       468-470.
+
+     Leucippus, his first principles _atoms_ and _space_, 291;
+       a pure Materialist, 292.
+
+     Logic of Aristotle, 394-403.
+
+     Logical Treatises of Aristotle, 395, 396.
+
+     Lucretius, the expounder of the doctrines of Epicurus, 426,427;
+       his account of the origin of worlds, 437, 438;
+       of plants, animals, and man, 438.
+
+M.
+
+     Mansel, bases religion on feeling of dependence, 72--and sense of
+       obligation, 73.
+
+     Materialists deny the principle of causality, 194, 203--and of
+       intentionality or final cause, 211-225;
+       Anaximander, Leucippus, and Democritus belong to the
+       materialistic school, 286-293:
+       Epicurus a materialist, 442-446.
+
+     Mathematical Infinite, not absolute, 179, 180;
+       capable of exact measurement, therefore limited, 180;
+       infinite sphere, radius, line, etc., self-contradictory, 180,
+       181.
+
+     Matter, did Plato teach the eternity of? 371-373;
+       the doctrine of the Stoics concerning matter, 449 (_note_).
+
+     Matter and Form, Aristotle on, 405-408.
+
+     Mean, Aristotle's doctrine of the, 420.
+
+     Mediator, consciousness of the need of a, awakened by Greek
+       philosophy, 509-513.
+
+     Metaphysical thought, law of its development, 478-480;
+       three different stages in the individual mind, 478, 479;
+       and in the universal consciousness of our race, 479.
+
+     Metempsychosis regarded by Plato as a mere hypothesis, 376
+       (_note_).
+
+     Mill, J. S., his doctrine that all knowledge is confined to mental
+       phenomena, 193;
+       his definition of matter, 196;
+       his views of personal identity, 196, 197;
+       his theological opinions, 197.
+
+     Miracles, not designed to prove the existence of God, 95.
+
+     Moral principles, universal and immutable, which lead to the
+       recognition of a God, 190;
+       the Dogmatic Theologians seek to invalidate the argument
+       therefrom, 261-263.
+
+     Mystics, base all religious knowledge on internal feeling, 70.
+
+     Mythology, philosophy of Greek, 134-139;
+       Cudworth's interpretation of, 139-143;
+       recognized the consciousness of guilt and need of expiation,
+       123-125.
+
+ N.
+
+     National Character, a complex result, 17;
+       conjoint effect of moral and physical influences, 17;
+       human freedom not to be disregarded in the study of, 20;
+       influence of geographical surroundings, 23--of climate and
+       natural scenery, on the pursuits and mental character of nations,
+       23--on creative art, 24--and literature of nations, 25.
+
+     Nations, individuality of, 22;
+       determined mainly from without, 22.
+
+     Natural Realism, 305;
+       Anaxagoras a natural realist, 311-313.
+
+     Nature, interpreted by man according to fundamental laws of his
+      reason, 133.
+
+O.
+
+     Obligation, the sense of, lies at the foundation of religion, 115.
+
+     Ontological proof of the existence of God, 491-493.
+
+     Ontology, of Plato, 369-379;
+       the subject-matter of the world of sense, 370-373;
+       the permanent substratum of mental phenomena, 373-376;
+       the first Principle of all principles--God, 377-379, 491-493.
+
+     Optimism of Plato, 382.
+
+     Order of the Universe, had it a beginning, or is it eternal?
+       178-184.
+
+     Order, principle of, pervades the universe, 220, 221;
+       recognized by Pythagoras, 301;
+       Cosmological proof of the existence of God, 489, 490.
+
+ P.
+
+     Parmenides, his theory of knowledge, 307-308;
+      a spiritualistic Pantheist, 308, 309.
+
+     Paul, St., at Athens, 14;
+       his emotion when he saw the city full of idols, 100;
+       the subject of his discourse, 101;
+       brought into contact with all the phases of philosophic thought,
+       268, 269;
+       his arrival at Athens an epoch in the moral history of the world,
+       472;
+       he recognized the preparatory office of Greek philosophy, 473.
+
+     Philosophers of Athens, 101;
+       believed in one supreme, uncreated, eternal God, 151-157;
+       their views of the mythological deities, 158, 159;
+       their apologies for images and image-worship, 159, 160.
+
+     Philosophic Schools, classification of, 271-273;
+       Pre-Socratic 280-314;
+       Socratic, 314-421;
+       Post-Socratic, 422-456.
+
+     Philosophy, the world-enduring monument of the glory of Athens,
+       265, 260;
+       defined, 270, 271;
+       an inquiry after first causes and principles, 271, 457;
+       not in any proper sense a theological inquiry, 273-277, 279;
+       the love of wisdom, 384, 385.
+
+     Philosophy in its relation to Christianity, 268-270;
+       sympathy of Platonism, 268;
+       antagonism of Epicureanism and Stoicism, 269;
+       the Propaedeutic office of philosophy, 457-524--recognized by St.
+       Paul, 473--and many of the early Fathers, 473-475;
+       philosophy undermined Polytheism, and purified the Theistic idea,
+       481-487;
+       developed the Theistic argument in a logical form, 487-494;
+       it awakened Conscience and purified the Ethical idea, 495-506;
+       demonstrated the insufficiency of reason to elaborate a perfect
+       ideal of moral excellence, 506-509;
+       awakened in man the sense of distance from God, and the need of
+       a Mediator, 509-513;
+       deepened the consciousness of sin, and the desire for a Redeemer,
+       513-522;
+       the history of philosophy a confirmation of the truth of
+       Christianity, 522-524.
+
+     Philosophy of Religion, 53;
+       based on the correlation between Divine and human reason,
+       458-462.
+
+     Plato, condemns the poets for their unworthy representations of
+       the gods, 130-132;
+       his views of the gods of Grecian mythology, 154-157:
+       the sympathy of his philosophy with Christianity, 268:
+       followed the philosophic method of Socrates, 328;
+       his moral qualifications for the study of philosophy, 328, 329;
+       his literary qualifications, 329, 330;
+       his search after a criterion of truth, 333, 334;
+       his doctrine of Ideas, 334-337;
+       his science of real knowledge, 337, 338;
+       his answer to the question, What is Science? 338, 339;
+       his Psychology 339-352;
+       his scheme of the intellectual powers, 345;
+       on the nature of the soul, 350;
+       his dialectic, 353-369;
+       his grand scheme of ideas, 364-367;
+       his Ontology, 369-379;
+       on the creation of time, 372;
+       did he teach that matter is eternal? 371, 372;
+       on the eternity of the rational element of the soul, 373-375;
+       on the immortality of the soul, 375, 376;
+       on God as the First Principle of all principles, 377-379;
+       his Physics, 380-383;
+       his Ethics, 383-387, 502-505;
+       defects of his
+       ethical system, 518;
+       his philosophy not derived from Jewish sources, 476;
+       felt the need of a superhuman deliverer from sin and guilt,
+       519-521.
+
+     Plutarch, his sketches of Athenian character, 44;
+       criticism on, 45;
+       on the universality of prayer and sacrifice, 115.
+
+     Poets, the Greek, believed in the existence of one uncreated Mind,
+       141;
+       their theogony was a cosmogony, 142;
+       the theologians of Greece, 274, 275.
+
+     Polytheism, Greek, a poetico-historical religion of myth and
+       symbol, 134;
+       its immoralities, 160, 161;
+       undermined by Philosophy, 484-487.
+
+     Post-Socratic Schools, classification of, 425;
+       a philosophy of life, 422-424.
+
+     Potentiality and Actuality, Aristotle on, 408-412.
+
+     Prayer, natural to man, 115.
+
+     Preparation for Christianity, not confined to Judaism alone,
+       464, 465;
+       Greek civilization also prepared the way for Christ, 465-468;
+       Greek language a providential development as the vehicle of a
+       more perfect revelation, 468-470;
+       Greek philosophy fulfilled a propaedeutic office, 470-472.
+
+     Pre-Socratic Schools, classification of, 280-282; 295, 296.
+
+     Principles, _universal and necessary_, how attained by the method
+       of Plato, 361-364, 390;
+       how, by the method of Aristotle, 390-394, 402, 403.
+
+     Psychological analysis, logical demonstration of the existence of
+       God begins with, 170;
+       reveals principles which in their logical development attain to
+       the knowledge of God, 184-189.
+
+     Psychology of Heraclitus, 289;
+       of Pythagoras, 304;
+       of Parmenides, 307, 308;
+       of Anaxagoras, 313;
+       of Protagoras, 315;
+       of Socrates, 317, 318;
+       of Plato, 339-352;
+       of Aristotle, 392, 398-401;
+       of Epicurus, 442-444;
+       of the Stoics, 453, 454.
+
+     Pythagoras, his doctrine that numbers are the first principles of
+       things, 297;
+       how to be interpreted, 297-304;
+       misrepresented by Aristotle, 298-300;
+       psychology of, 304.
+
+R.
+
+     Reason, insufficiency of, to elaborate a perfect ideal of moral
+       excellence, 505-509.
+
+     Redemption, desire of, awakened and defined by Greek philosophy,
+       513-521.
+
+     Relativity of all knowledge, Hamilton's doctrine of, 229-236.
+
+     Religion, the philosophy of, 53;
+       defined 53, 106;
+       universality of religious phenomena, 54;
+       hypothesis offered in explanation of, 55;
+       hypothesis of Epicurus and Comte, 56-65--of Hegel, 65-70--of
+       Jacobi and Schleiermacher, 70-78--of Cousin, 78-86--of Dogmatic
+       Theologians, 86-96--author's theory, 96, 97;
+       religion of the Athenians, 98--its mythological and symbolic
+       aspects, 128--exerted some wholesome influences, 161-163.
+
+     Reminiscence, Plato on, 354, 355.
+
+     Revelation, progressive, 462-464;
+       harmony of the two revelations in the volume of conscience and
+       the volume of the New Testament, 522-524.
+
+S.
+
+     Sacrifice, universal prevalence of, 115, 124;
+       prompted by the universal consciousness of guilt, 126:
+       expiatory sacrifices grounded on a primitive revelation, 127.
+
+     Schleiermacher, his theory that all religion is grounded on the
+       feeling of absolute dependence, 71, 72.
+
+     Science, Plato's answer to the question, What is Science? 338, 339.
+
+     Self-determination, limited by idea of duty, 113;
+       implies accountability, 114;
+       recognizes a Lawgiver and Judge, 115.
+
+     Socrates, his desire for truth, 316;
+       his daemon, 317 _(note_);
+       his philosophic method, 318, 319;
+       a believer in one Supreme God, 320;
+       his argument for the existence of God from final causes, 320-324;
+       his belief in immortality and a future retribution, 324, 325;
+       his Ethics, 325;
+       the great prophet of the human conscience, 500-502.
+
+     Socratic School, 314.
+
+     Sophists, 315, 316;
+       their skeptical tendency, 315;
+       their defective ethics, 498, 499.
+
+     Sophocles, believed in one Supreme God, 147.
+
+     Soul, Plato on the nature of the, 350, 373;
+       eternity of the rational element, 373-375.
+
+     Spencer, H., carries the law of the Conditioned forward to its
+       logical consequences, Atheism, 241, 242.
+
+     Stoical School, 446;
+       its philosophy a moral philosophy, 447.
+
+     Stoics, their Physiology, 448-453; their
+       Psychology, 453, 454;
+       their Ethics, 454-456;
+       their Theology, 452,453.
+
+     Substance, principle of, 189;
+       Idealism seeks to undermine it, 193;
+       Reason affirms a permanent substance as the ground of all mental
+       phenomena, 201--and of the phenomena of the sensible world,
+       202, 203.
+
+     Sufficient Reason, law of, recognized by Plato, 359.
+
+     Superstition, meaning of the term as used by Paul, 103.
+
+ T.
+
+     Teleological proof of the existence of God, 490, 491.
+
+     Thales, a believer in one uncreated God, 152;
+       his first principles, 283;
+       he regards _water_ as the material cause, 284;
+       and God as the efficient cause, 285.
+
+     Theistic argument, in its logical form, 487-494.
+
+     Theistic conception, gradual development of, 481-484,
+
+     Theological opinions of the early periods of Greek civilization,
+       150, 151; 276-278.
+
+     Theology of Aristotle, 404-417;
+       identical with Metaphysics, 404, 416.
+
+     Theology of the Greek poets, 143-151;
+       proposed reform of Poetry by Plato, 131, 132.
+
+     Thinking, conditionality of, 228;
+       in what sense to be understood, 237;
+       thought imposes no limits upon the object of thought, 237, 238.
+
+     Thought, negative and positive, 242, 243;
+       negative thought an impossibility, 243;
+       all thought must be positive, 243.
+
+     Time, Platonic notion of, 371, 372.
+
+     Tragedians, the Greek, were the public religious teachers of the
+       Athenians, 145;
+       their theology, 146, 147;
+       influence of the religious dramas on the Athenian mind, 161-163;
+       guiltiness of man, and need of reconciliation confessed by,
+       515-517.
+
+U.
+
+     Unconditioned, principle of, 189;
+       assailed by Hamilton, 194.
+
+     Unity of God, 259;
+       an affirmation of reason, 259-261;
+       Xenophanes taught the unity of God, 307--also Parmenides,
+       309--and Plato, 377--and Aristotle, 415.
+
+     Unity, principle of, 189;
+       attempt of Dogmatic Theologians to prove its insufficiency, 194,
+       258-261;
+       recognized by Pythagoras, 296;
+       his effort to reduce all the phenomena of nature to a Unity, 303,
+       304.
+
+     Universal and necessary Principles, classification of, 189, 190;
+       these the foundation of our cognition of a God, 191;
+       how attained according to Plato, 360-364;
+       how by the method of Aristotle, 390-394, 402, 403.
+
+     Universe, the, is it finite or infinite? 178-184;
+       Epicurus teaches that it is infinite, 433.
+
+     Unknown God, the true God, 104;
+       God not absolutely unknown, 107-110;
+       classification of opponents to the doctrine that God can be
+       cognized by reason, 166-168;
+       Idealist School of Mill, 194-203;
+       Materialistic School of Comte, 203-223;
+       Hamiltonian School, 224-252;
+       School of Dogmatic Theologians, 252-263.
+
+W.
+
+     Watson, Richard, represents the views of Dogmatic Theologians 86;
+       asserts that all our religious knowledge is derived from oral
+       revelation, 86-88, 167;
+       incompleteness and inadequacy of this theory, 88-96;
+       in vindicating for the Scriptures the honor of revealing all our
+       knowledge of God, he casts doubt upon the principle of Causality,
+       253-255--on the principle of the Unconditioned, 255-257--on the
+       principle of Unity, 258-261--and on the immutable principles of
+       Morality, 261-263.
+
+     Wordsworth, on the Sentiment of the Divine, 118.
+
+X.
+
+     Xenophanes, his attack on Polytheism, 130;
+       his faith in one God, 153, 306, 307.
+
+Z.
+
+     Zeno of Citium, the founder of the Stoical School, 446;
+       a Spiritualistic Pantheist, 450, 451.
+
+     Zeno of Elea, maintained the doctrine of Absolute Identity, 309.
+
+     Zeus, originally the Supreme and only God of the Greeks, 143;
+       the Homeric Zeus, the Supreme God, 144, 145.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
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