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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 & LANAHAN.<br> + +SAN FRANCISCO: E. THOMAS.<br> + +CINCINNATI: HITCHCOCK & 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 & 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 & 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> + +Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.</h3> + +<p> <i>For a full List of Books suitable for Libraries, see </i>Harper & Brother's Trade-List +<i>and</i> Catalogue, <i>which may be had gratuitously on application to the Publishers +personally, or by letter enclosing Five Cents</i>.</p> + +<p> HARPER & 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. 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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, &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, &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, +&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, +&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, &c. 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