i:!i; ' 1 ' ; J ; { '. . ' . |u::!i!ii:i:;;i{n,;;iiKl!'!!'^'" Uiiil.HHirihiiiiiiiii::! I ! . ! . I » : - • t ; t P ; : ' • • • il'iiti)'. \VM U : -• :" •f Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/outlinesofhistor01zell OUTLINES OE THE HISTOHY OP GREEK PHILOSOPHY De. edwaed zeller TRANSLATED WITH THE AUTHOR'S SANCTION BY SARAH FRANCES ALLEYNE AND EVELYN ABBOTT NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1890 APR IS 1921 IK MEMORIAM SARAH FRANCES ALLEYNE /^ 1^3 AUTHOR'S PEBFACB For some years it has been my intention to respond to a request arising from various quarters, and add to my larger work on the Philosophy of the Greeks a short sketch of the same subject. But until the third edition of the History was brought to a conclusion I had not the leisure for the work. Sketches of this kind will proceed on different lines according to the aim which is held in view. My object has been primarily to provide students with a help for academical lectures, which would facilitate preparation, and save the time wasted in writing down facts, without interfering with the lecturer's work or imposing any fetters upon it. Hence I have made it my task to give my readers a pic- ture of the contents of the philosophical systems, and the course of their historical development, which should contain all the essential traits — and also to put into their hands the more important literary references and sources. But as in the last points I have not gone beyond what is absolutely necessary, so in the historical account I have as a rule indicated the parts very briefly with which historical considerations of a general kind or special explanations and inquiries are connected, or in viu AUTHORS PREFACE. which it seemed proper to supplement my earlier work. (An addition of the latter kind, in some detail, will be found in sections 3 and 4.) My outlines are intended in the first place for beginners, who as a rule form the majority of an audience. But these are rather confused than assisted if the historical material is given in too great abun- dance, or they are overwhelmed with the titles of books of which they will only see a very small portion. Anyone who wishes to study the history of philosophy or any part of it more minutely, must not content himself with a compendium, but consult the sources and the more comprehensive works upon them. At the same time, I am well aware that manuals may very properly be constructed on a different plan from mine. A trustworthy bibliography, for instance, furnished with the necessary hints on the value and contents of the various works, or a chrestomathy on the plan of Preller, but more strict in selection, would be very valuable aids in instruction. Nor will it be against my intention if the present work finds readers beyond its immediate object. Nevertheless, it is my opinion that every scientific exposition must set out with an accurately defined aim. It is highly objectionable that an author should constantly strive after other ends than that which is the main purpose of his book. Thk Authok. Berlin : Sejjteviher 27, 1883. TEANSLATOE'S PEBFACE. Of the following pages, the first part, down to the words ' practical life ' on p. 90, is the work of the late Miss Alleyne, whose manuscripts were entrusted to me. For the remainder, and for the revision of the whole, I am responsible. Miss Alleyne began her series of translations of Zeller's ' History of Philosophy ' with the ' Plato and the Older Academy,' published in 1876 in conjunction with Prof. Goodwin, of University College, London. This was followed in 1881 by the two volumes of * The Pre-Socratic Philosophy,' and in 1883 by ' The Eclec- tics.' It was also her intention, when the present work was ended, to translate the last volume of the • History.' But in the prime of life, and in the full vigour of her powers, sh« died, after a month's illness, August 16, 1884. The excellence of her work has received universal recognition. It was a labour of love. The theories of the Greek Philosophers, and their efforts to conceive the world in which they lived, had a deep interest for z TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. her. An inward sympathy with them gave her an in- sight into the meaning of speculations which by many are deemed idle vagaries. To her they were steps or stages in the progress of the human mind, not merely words or opinions. In the ' being ' of Parmenides, in the ' dry light ' of Heracleitus, she perceived a begin- ning or foreshadowing of modem thought. Plato was ' one of the books she would have taken with her to a desert island.' She knew the value of accuracy, and was at great pains to secure it. She had also a keen sense of literary style, and would turn a sentence three or four times before she could be satisfied with it. Hence the excel- lence of her work as a translator. But though her literary powers were of an uncommon order, to those who were personally acquainted with her they form only a small part of her claim to remembrance. For she united with rare intellectual gifts a truly noble and womanly character. She was one of those who live for others, themselves not caring to be known. There are many by whom her writings would not have been understood who cherish her memory as a great posses- sion, and feel that they have lost a friend never to be replaced. Evelyn Abbott. Balliol Collbgb, Oxpobd ; November 10, 1885. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. A. METHODOLOGIC AND LITERARY, BJUfl, PAGE 1. The history of philosophy I 2. Greek philosophy 5 3. Original sources. The history of philosophy among the ancients 7 4. Modem aids . . .14 R. HISTORICAL INTROBUCTION, 5. Origin of Greek philosophy. Its supposed derivation from the East .18 6. Native sources of Greek philosophy 21 7. The development of Greek thought before the sixth cen- tury B.c 24 8. Character and development of Greek philosophy , , 28 FIRST PERIOD. THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 9. Course of its development 85 L The Theee Eaeliest Schools. A. THE ANCIENT lONIANS. 10. Thales 57 11. Anazimander •••..«.... 39 xii CONTENTS, BECT. PAOB 12. Anaximenes 41 13. Later adherents of the ancient Ionian school. Diogenes . 43 B. THE PYTHAGOREANS. 14. Pythagoras and his school 45 15. The Pythagorean system: number and the elements of number 50 16. The Pythagorean physics 62 17. Religious and ethical doctrines of the Pythagoreans . . 55 18. Pythagoreanism in combination with other doctrines . . 56 O. TilE ELEATICS. 19. Xenophanes 68 20. Parmenides 60 21. Zeno and Melissus 63 IT. The Physicists of the Fifth Century b.c. 22. Heracleitus 66 23. Empedocles 71 24. The atomistic school 76 25. Anaxagoras , » . . 83 III. The Sophists. 26. Origin and character of Sophisticism 88 27. Eminent Sophistical teachers . . . , . , . 91 28. The Sophistical scepticism and Eristic . . . ♦ 92 29. The Sophistic ethics and rhetoric . . . . • . 95 SECOND PERIOD. SOCRATESy PLATO, ARISTOTLE, 30. Introduction 99 I. Socrates. 81. Life and personality of Socrates 101 32. The philosophy of Socrates. The sources, principle, method 103 33. The nature of the Socratic teaching 107 34. The death of Socrates 112 CONTENTS. xiii II. The Smaller Socratic Schools. SECT. PAOK 35. The school of Socrates : Xenophon .113 36. The Megarean and the Elean-Eretrian schools , » 114 37. The Cynic school 117 38. The Cyrenaic school 122 IIL Plato and the Older Academy. 39. The life of Plato 126 40. Plato's writings 128 41. The character, method, and divisions of the Platonic system 134 42. The propedeutic foundation of the Platonic philosophy . 136 43. Dialectic, or the doctrine of ideas 140 44. Plato's physics, matter, and the world-soul . , . . 145 45. The universe and its parts . , . . , . 150 46. Plato's anthropology . , . . . , , , 152 47. Plato's ethics ......... 154 48. Plato's politics 158 49. Plato's views on religion and art 161 50. The later form of the Platonic doctrine. The ♦ Laws ' . . 163 61. The old Academy 166 rv. Aeistotlb and the Peripatetic School. 52. Aristotle's life 170 58. Aristotle's writings . . . • . , . .172 54. The philosophy of Aristotle. Introductory . . . . 179 65. The Aristotelian logic . . 181 56. Aristotle's metaphysics 187 57. Aristotle's physics. Point of view and general principles . 194 58. The universe and its parts , . , . . . . 197 59. Living beings 201 60. Man 204 61. The ethics of Aristotle . . . . . . . . 209 62. The politics of Aristotle 213 63. Rhetoric and Art. Attitude of Aristotle 1 to religion . .219 64. The Peripatetic school ...... .222 2dv CONTENTS, THIRD PERIOD. TEE POST-ARISTOTELIAN PHILOSOPHT. SECT. 65. Introduction FIRST SECTION. STOICISM, EPICUREANISM, SCEPTICISM, L The Stoic Philosophy. 66. The Stoic school in the third and second centuries B.C. . . 229 67. Character and divisions of the Stoic system . . .231 68. The Stoic logic 234 69. The Stoic physics ; the ultimate bases and the universe . 238 70. Nature and man 243 71. The Stoic ethics ; their general traits 244 72. Continuation. Applied morals. The relation of Stoicism to religion 250 n. The Epicueean Philosophy. 73. Epicurus and his school . 255 74. The Epicurean system. The Canonic 257 75. The physics of Epicurus. The gods 269 76. The ethics of Epicurus . 264 ni. Scepticism. 77. Pyrrho and the Pyrrhonians 268 78. The New Academy . 269 SECOND SECTION. ECLECTICISM, RENEWED SCEPTICISM, PRECURSORS OF NEO-PLATONISM, I. Eclecticism. 79. It« origin and character ... ... 274 80. The Stoicfl. Boethus, Panjetius, Posidonius . . 276 81. The Academicians of the last century B.C. .... 279 82. The Peripatetic school 282 CONTENTS. XV BSCT. PAOB 83. Cicero, Varro, the Sextians ..,»,.. 284 84. The first centuries A.D. The Stoic school . . . . 286 85. The later Cynics 293 86. The Peripatetic school in the Christian period . » . 295 87. The Platonists of the first century A.D. . » ' . .297 88. Dio, Lucian, and Galen , . . . , , . . 299 n. The Later Sceptics. 89. iBnesidemns and his school 300 m. The Peecuesoes of Nbo-Platonism. 90. Introduction 305 I. THE PURELY GEEBK SCHOOLS. 91. The Neo-Pythagoreans 306 92. The Pythagorising Platonists 311 n. THE JEWISH GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. 93. The period before Philo 316 94. Philo of Alexandria » . . » . . . . 320 THIED SECTION. NEO-PLATONISM. 95. Origin, character, and development of Neo-Platonism . . 326 96. The system of Plotinus. The supersensuous world . . 328 97. Plotinus' doctrine of the phenomenal world . . . . 333 98. Plotinus' doctrine of elevation into the supersensuous world 337 99. The school of Plotinus. Porphyrins 340 100. lamblichus and his school , • » . . » • 343 101. The school of Athena . .347 IKDBX 867 OUTLINES OP THB HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. INTRODUCTION. A. METHODOLOGIG AND LITERARY, § 1. The History of Philosophy, The problem of philosophy is to investigate scienti Scally the ultimate bases of Knowledge and Being, and to comprehend all Reality in its interconnection with them. The attempts at the solution of this problem form the subject-matter with which the history of philosophy is concerned. But they are so only to the extent that they connect themselves with greater wholes, with interdependent series of development. The history of philosophy must point out by what causes the human spirit was led to philosophic in- quiry ; in what form men first became conscious of its problems, and how they undertook to solve them ; how, in progress of time, thought subdued wider domains and found new statements of questions neces- sary, and new answers to them ; and how out of the multifarious repetition of this process arose all the 9 INTRODUCTION. [§ 1 philosopliic theories and systems with which we are at various periods more or less perfectly acquainted. In a word, it must describe the development of philosophic thought, in its historical connection from its earliest beginning, as completely as the condition of our sources of knowledge allow. As we are here concerned with the knowledge of historical facts, and as facts which we have not our- selves observed can only be known to us through tradition, the history of philosophy, like all history, must begin with the collection of direct and indirect testimonies, the examination of their origin and credi- bility, and the establishment of facts in accordance with such evidence. But if this problem cannot be solved without regard to the historical connection in which the particular fact first receives its closer determination and full verification, it is at the same time impossible to understand the progress of historical events unless we put together the particular facts not only in relation to their contemporaneous or successive occurrence, but also in relation to cause and effect; unless each phe- nomenon is explained in reference to its causes and conditions, and its influence on contemporary and suc- ceeding phenomena is pointed out. Now the theories and systems with which the history of philosophy is concerned are chiefly the work of individuals, and as such must be explained partly through the expe- riences which have given occasion to their formation, partly through the mode of thought and the character of their authors, the convictions, interests, and efibrts, under the influence of which they originated. But |1] THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPnY, S even if our authorities enabled us to carry out this biographical and psychological explanation far more completely than is the case, it would still be in- sufficient; for it would only inform us as to the immediate reasons of the historical phenomena, leaving unnoticed their more remote causes and the more com- prehensive connection to which they belong. The views of individuals always depend, though not in all instances to the same degree, upon the circle of presentations from which their spirit has derived its nourishment, and under the influence of which it has been developed ; and similarly their historical action is conditioned by the fact that they correspond to the necessities of the time, and find contemporary acknowledgment. On the other hand, however, these views do not remain confined to their first authors, they spread and maintain themselves in schools, and by means of writings; a scientific tradition is formed, the later members learn from the earlier, and through them are stimulated to the completion, continuation, and cor- rection of their results, to the asking of new questions, and the search after new answers and methods. The systems of philosophy, however peculiar and self- dependent they may be, thus appear as the members of a larger historical interconnection; in respect to this alone can they be perfectly understood; the farther we follow it, the more the individual becomes united to a whole of historical development, and the problem arises not merely of explaining this whole by means of the particular moments conditioning it, but likewise of explaining these moments by one another, 4^ mTnODUCTION, [§1 and consequently the individual by the whole. This does not mean that the historical facts are to be constructed in an a ^priori manner out of the con- ception of the sphere of life whose history is being considered, or out of the idea of the purpose to be attained through this history. By a purely historical method, on the basis of historical tradition, we must ascertain the conditions under which the actual course of events took place, the causes from which it pro- ceeded, and the concatenation of the Individual which was the result. These causes and conditions, so far as the history of philosophy is concerned, may be reduced to three classes: (1) the general conditions of culture in the particular nation at that time ; (2) the influence of the earlier systems upon the later ; (3) the indivi- dual character of the several philosophers. If for the explanation of philosophic theories, we confine our- selves to the last, we shall fall into that biographical and psychological pragmatism of which we have already spoken. If we start, for this purpose, from the consideration that philosophy is not an isolated domain, but only a particular member in the collective life of nations and of humanity, that in its origin, progress, and character, it is conditioned by reUgious and political circumstances, the general state of mental culture, and the development of the other sciences, we shall then make an attempt to understand it in rela- tion to these universal conditions of the history of culture. If we lay the greatest stress on the continuity of scientific tradition, on the internal connection and historical interaction of the philosophic schools and § 1] THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOFIIY. 5 systems, the history of philosophy appears as an isolated, self-included progression, proceeding from a definite starting-point, according to its own internal laws ; a progression which we shall the more thoroughly understand the more completely we succeed in showing each later phenomenon to be the logical consequence of its predecessor, and consequently the whole, as Hegel undertook to prove, a development fulfilling itself with dialectic necessity. But though this moment increases in importance the more independently philo- sophy develops itself, the direction and form of philo- sophic thought is, at the same time, likewise determined by the other considerations. These, however, do not always stand in the same relation to each other in regard to their influence and significance ; sometimes the creative energy of prominent personalities is more strongly felt, sometimes the dependence of the later systems upon the earlier, sometimes the operation of the universal conditions of culture. The historian has to inquire how much importance in the bringing about of historical results belongs to each of these elements, in any given case, and to draw a plan of the historical course and interconnection of the phenomena of which it consists, on the basis of this inquiry. § 2. Greek Philosophy, The question as to the causes by which the world and human life are determined has occupied the spirit of man from the earliest times and in the most various places. But that which caHed it forth was originally not so much the desire for knowledge as the feelitig of 6 INTRODUCTION. [§2 dependence upon higher powers, and the wish to secure their favour ; while the path on which an answer was sought was not that of scientific inquiry but of mytho- logical poetry. Among a few nations only this pro- duced in course of time theological and cosmological speculations which try to gain a more comprehensive view of the origin and constitution of the world, but as long as these speculations continue to start from mythological tradition, and are satisfied with the amplification and remodelling of mythical intuitions, they can only be reckoned as precursors of philosophy, not as philosophic theories proper. Philosophy first begins when man experiences and acts upon the neces- sity of explaining phenomena by means of natural causes. This necessity may have appeared indepen- dently in different places when the preliminary condi- tions of it were present ; and we actually find among the Indian and Chinese systems of doctrine some which are far enough removed from the theological specula- tions of these nations to be truly described as their philosophy. But the thought of a rational knowledge of things asserted itself more strongly and with more abiding results among the Hellenes than in either of these countries ; and it is from them alone that a con- tinuous scientific tradition extends to our own times. The founders of Greek philosophy are at the same time the ancestors of our own ; their knowledge therefore has for us not merely an historical, but also a very important practical and scientific interest ; the former, however, exceeds all that the remaining science of the ancient world can offer, as much as Greek philosophj §«] GREEK PHILOSOPHY, 7 itself, by its spiritual content, its scientific complete- ness, its rich and logical development, transcends all the rest of ancient science. § 3. Original Sources. The History of Philosophy among the Ancients. Among the sources from which our knowledge of ancient philosophy is derived, the existing writings of the philosophers and fragments of their lost works, so far as they are genuine, as immediate sources, occupy the first place. Unauthentic writings, in proportion as their origin and date of composition can be determined, may be used as evidence for the standpoint and views of the circles from which they emanated. The indirect sources comprise besides independent historical accounts of the personality, lives, and doctrines of the philo- sophers, all the works in which these are occasionally mentioned. Among the latter the most valuable in- formation is obtained partly from books of extracts, which have preserved for us fragments of older writers, such as those of Athenseus and Gellius, Eusebius' irpoirapaa-Ksvr) svayysXiKi] (about 330 A.D.), Johannes Stobseus' great work (probably composed between 450 a.d. and 550A.D.), which is now, so far as any portions have been preserved, divided between the * Eclogues ' and the * Florilegium ; ' and Photius' ' Library ' (he died in 891 A.D,); and partly from the writings of authors who for the establishment of their own theories enter minutely into those of their predecessors, as Plato, so far as we know, was the first to do in a comprehensive manner, and after him Aristotle, still more thoroughly; later on, 8 INTROD UCTION, t§ « authors like Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, Galen, Sextus Empiricus, Numenius, Porphyry, lamblichus, Proclus, the commentators on Aristotle and Plato, Philo of Alexandria, and the Christian Fathers, Justin, Clemens, Origen, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Augustin, Theodoret, &c. From Aristotle, through the critical survey of the principles of his predecessors contained in the first book of his ' Metaphysics,' came the first impulse towards the independent treatment of the history of philosophy, which Theophrastus undertook in the eighteen books of his ' Doctrines of the Physicists ' (quoted as (fyvaiKal Bo^aL, and also as (jivatKrj laropia, ' History of Physics'), and in numerous monographs ; while Eudemus treated of the history of Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy, perhaps also of theological views, in separate works. On Theophrastus' ' History of Physics ' were founded, as Diels has shown (' Doxographi,' 1879), those reviews of the doctrines of the various philosophers which Clitomachus (about 120 a.d.) gave in connection with the criticisms of Carneades, and which seem to have formed the chief treasury of the later sceptics, the compilation of the ' Placita,' which was made about 80-60 B.C. by an unknown author, and was already used by Cicero and Varro (an epitome of it has been to a great extent preserved in the Pseudo-Plutarchic ' Placita Philosophorum '), the ' Eclogues ' of Stobaeus {vide supra), and Theodoret's 'EWtjiukoju iraOrj^aTwv OepaTTEVTi/crj, iv. 5 ff. Theodoret calls the author of this work Aetius; the date of its compilation would seem to fall in the first third, and that of the Plutarchic ' Placita' in the middle, of the second cen- §8] SOURCES. ANCIENT WRITINGS. ft turj after Christ. The author of the Pseudo-Plutarchic (TTpw/iarsLS (about 150 A.D. ; fragments of them are preserved in Euseb. ' Pr. Ev.' i. 8), would seem to have drawn directly from Theophrastus, as also did two doxographs used by Hippolytus (alpsaswv eXsy^o^, B. i. formerly designated as ' Philosophumena of Origen') and Diogenes Laertius. Further traces of this literature can be discovered in the Fathers of the Church, in Irenseus (about 190 A.D.), Clement (200 A. D.), Eusebius (died about 340 A.D.), Epiphanius (died in 403 a.d.), Augustin (died in 430 a.d.). The last offshoots of it that have been preserved are the treatise Trspl (ptXo- v(nok6^(f3v, and the work of Clitomachus irspX alps- (T£(ov, perhaps not distinct from that mentioned on p. 8.- From the school of the Stoics came Eratosthenes (274-194), the celebrated scholar whose chronological dates were adopted for the history of philosophy; Apollodorus (about 140 B.C.), also a Stoic, who seems to have followed him almost entirely in his ' Chronica ; ' also the treatises of Cleanthes and Sphserus on indi- vidual philosophers, and a work of Panaetius on the schools of philosophy, but how far the three last- mentioned bore an historical character is doubtful. Nor does Epicurus appear to have given any historical accounts of the earlier philosophers. From his school came a few works which attempted to do this; an untrustworthy treatise on the Socratics by Idomeneus (about 270 B.C.); a o-waycoyT) t(ov BoyfjuaTcoVy and a life of Epicurus by Apollodorus (about 120 B.C.) ; a avvra^os rSiv iXo(T6(j)(ov StaSo^j^a/), and an interpretation of the Pythagorean symbols. Hippo- botus' catalogue of the philosopher.?-^ and his treatise 13 INTROD UCTION. [| 8 iTspl alpsascov appear to belong also to about the same period. From the first century of our era, the history and doctrines of Pythagoras were continually expounded in the Neo-Pythagorean school ; for example, by Moderatus and Apollonius of Tyana, 60-80 a.d., and by Nicomachus, about 130 a.d. But these expositions are altogether uncritical and without historical value. The writings of Favorinus (80 to 150 a.d.j contain many notices of the history of the philosophers, and Eusebius has preserved fragments of a critical survey of the philosophic- systems by Aristocles the Peripatetic (about 180 A.D.). Indeed, it is only in fragments, and through isolated quotations, that the great majority of the works hitherto spoken of are known to us, and of these fragments and quotations we owe a considerable portion to a single work, the ten books of Diogenes Laertius on the lives and doctrines of celebrated philo- sophers. For however carelessly and uncritically this compilation, probably dating from the second quarter of the third century a.d., may have been made, the in- formation it contains is of priceless worth, since most of the more ancient sources have been entirely lost. This information is as a rule given at second or third hand, but- very often with the names of the authorities to whom Diogenes, or the authors transcribed by him, may be indebted for it. Among the Neo-Platonists, the learned Porphyry (about 232-304 a.d.) has done good service for the knowledge of the older philosophers, down to Plato, by his commentaries, and also by his (j)t\6cro(l)os laropla, from which the life of Pythagoras has been preserved. The copious biography of Pytha- §8] S0URCB8. ANCIENT COMMENTARIES. 13 goras by his pupil lamblichus served as an introduction to a dogmatic work by the same author. For the history of the Neo-Platonic school, the chief authority is (about 400 A.D.) Eunapius' ^lol (f>Ckocr6^wv koI aocfao-TiMV (Ehetoricians) ; the later period of the school was treated of in Damascius' (J)l\6(to(J)09 laropla (about 520 A.D.), of which only some fragments remain. Subsequently to 550 A.D., Hesychias of Miletus com- posed his work irspl rcov iv TraiBsta StaXa/x-vlrayrcoz/jfrom which the articles on the ancient philosophers in Suidas' Lexicon (between 1000 A.D. and 1150 a.d.) are chiefly taken. The treatise, however, which we possess under the name of Hesychius is a late Byzantine compilation from Diogenes and Suidas, as is also the so-called «Violarium' of the Empress Eudocia (1060 to 1070 A.D.), probably a forgery of the sixteenth century. Among the sources of our knowledge of the ancient philosophers, the wgrks devoted to the explanation of their writings occupy an important place. At how early a period the necessity of such explanations was felt is shown by the fact that about 280 B.C., Grantor, the Academic philosopher, commented on Plato's 'TimaBus,' the Stoic Cleanthes (about 260 B.C.) on the treatise of Heracleitus, and that Aristophanes of Byzantium (about 200 B.C.) arranged the works of Plato in trilogies. But the most flourishing period of the commentators' activity first commences about the middle of the first century B.C. At this time Andronicus the Rhodian, the editor of ' Aristotle,' and Theophrastus established in the Peripatetic school the learned study of Aristotle's writings. From him 14 tNTRODVCTIOK, [§8 down to Alexander of Aphrodisias, the renowned expositor, stretches a long series of men who dis- cussed these writings either in commentaries or in introductory and comprehensive works. This example was followed by the Platonic school. Soon after Andronicus, first Eudorus, and then Dercyllides and Thrasyllus made themselves known by their treatises on Plato, and after the time of Phitarch this philo- sopher was as zealously expounded in the Platonic school as Aristotle in the Peripatetic. The Neo- Platonists (and individual scholars even earlier) devoted themselves with equal energy to both, until the sixth century. Of the commentaries that have come down to us, those of Alexander on Aristotle's ' Metaphysics,' and of Simplicius (about 530 A.D.) on the ' Physics,' and the books ' De Cselo,' are of conspicuous value for the history of philosophy ; next to these come the remaining commentaries of the same writers, and those of Johannes Philoponus (about 530 A.D.) on the works of Aristotle, and of Proclus (410 a.d. to 485 a.d.) on Plato. § 4. Modem Aids, Of modern writings on Greek philosophy, only those will be quoted here which have appeared during the last two centuries ; and of that number, only such as are of special importance in the history of our science, or of practical use in regard to its study at the present time. As a foundation, we must first m ention Brucker's *Historia critica Philosophise' (1742 ff . ; Ancient Philosophy is treated of in vols. i. and ii.), a learned and critical work of conspicuous worth, though its §43 MODERN Aim, Ifi standpoint of historical criticism is not beyond that of its time ; and, side by side with this, the appropriate por- tions of J. A. Fabricius' 'Bibliotheca Grrseca ' (1705 fF., considerably enlarged in the edition of Harless, 1790 ff.). At the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, the history of philosophy was treated of in its whole extent in three comprehensive works : Tiedemann's 'Geistder speculativen Philosophie' (1791-1797); Biihle's ' Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie' (1796-1804); and Tennemann's 'Ge- schichte der Philosophic ' (1798-1819). Each of these works has its value ; that of Tennemann retained its well-merited reputation the longest, in spite of the one-sidedness with which Kant dominates its histo- rical judgment. Next, in regard to Ancient Philo- sophy, come the works of Meiners (* Geschichte der Wissenschaften in Griechenland und Eom,' 1781 ff,, &c.) and Fiilleborn (« Beitrage,' 1791 £f.). Soon, however, the influence of the post-Kantian philosophy asserted itself, and ancient science began to be treated in a new spirit. Schleiermacher's treatises on various Greek philosophers (* Sammtliche Werke, Zur Phil.,' vols. ii. and iii.), but especially the introduction and notes to his translation of Plato ('Platon's Werke,' 1804-1828), which was followed after his death by his concise and suggestive ' History of Philosophy,' with its original points of view (1839, ' W. W. Z. Phil.,' vol. ii. sec. 1) ; and Bockh's writings (the most important are those printed in vol. iii. of the *Kleine Schrif- ten,'on < Plato,' 'Life of Philolaus,' &c., 1819; 'Unter- suchungen iiber das kosmische System des Plato,' 1852) 16 INTRODUCTION, [§4 gave the type for a treatment of history, entering more deeply into the special character of the ancieni philosophers and the inner laboratories of their thoughts. Hegel's ' Vorlesungen * on the History of Philosophy (published after his death, 1833, 1840, in vols, xiii.-xv. of his Works) emphasise the dialectical necessity of the evolution of the later philosophers from the earlier, not without some one-sidedness, but they have power- fully contributed to the scientific comprehension and historical criticism of the philosophic systems. The meritorious works of Ritter (' Gesch. der Phil./ vols, i.-iv., 1829 f., 1836 f.) and Brandis (« Handbuch der Gresch. der Grriechisch-Eom. Phil.,' 3 Th, in six volumes, 1835-1866) are allied with Schleiermacher as to their general tendency. To mediate between learned inquiry and the speculative view of history, and to gain a knowledge of the importance and inter- dependence of the individual from tradition itself through critical sifting and historical connection, is the task proposed to itself by my own * Philosophie der Grriechen' (first edition, 1844-1852; third edi- tion, 1869-1882; fourth edition of the first part, 1876). From the standpoint of the school of Herbart, Striimpell, in a more concise manner, has written his *Geschichte der theoretischen Philosophie der Griechen,' 1 854, and ' Geschichte der praktischen Philosophie der Griechen von Aristoteles,' 1861. Among the scholars of other countries, by whom the history of philosophy in modern times has been advanced, are Victor Cousin (1792-1867), in his * Fragments philosophiques,' his 'Introduction a Thistoii-e de la Philosophic,' and hi? I § 4] mob:ern aids. \i * Histoire Grenerale de la Philosophie ; * Greorge Grrote (1794-1871), in portions of his 'History of Greece,' especially vol. viii., his 'Plato' (1865), and the un- finished 'Aristotle' (1872). Of the numerous com- pendiums which deal with this subject, the following may be mentioned: Brandis, 'Gresch. der Entwick- lungen der Grriech. Phil.,' 1862-1864; Eitter and Preller (subsequently Preller only), 'Historia Philo- sophise Grrseco-Komanae ex fontium locis contexta,' 1838, sixth edition, 1879 ; Schwegler, ' Gresch. der Phil, im Umriss,' 1848, eleventh edition, 1882 ; ' Gesch. der Griech. Phil.,' edited by Kostlin, third edition, 1882; Ueberweg, ' Grundriss der Gesch. der Phil.,' 1 Theil, 1862, sixth edition, 1880 ; E. Erdmann, ' Grund- riss der Gesch. der Phil.,' Theil i. 1866, eighth edition, 1878; Lewes, 'History of Philosophy,' vol. i 1867; J. B. Meyer, 'Leitfaden zur Gesch. der Phil.,' 1882, pp. 8-32. Among the works which are con- cerned with the history of special philosophical subjects, the most important are the following : Prantl, ' Gesch d. Logik im Abendland,' vol. 1. 1885 ; ' Lange, ' Gesch. der Materialismus,' Theil i., second edition, 1873, fourth edition 1882; Heinze, 'Die Lehre vom Logos in der Griech. Phil.,' 1872 ; Siebeck, ' Gesch. der Psychologic,' Theil i. Abth. 1 ; ' Die Psychologic vor Aristoteles,' 1880; Ziegler, 'Gesch. der Ethik,' 1881; L.Schmidt, *Die Ethik der alten Griechen,' 1882; Hildenbrand, ' Gesch. und System der Kechts- und Staatsphilosophie,' vol. i. 1860. Diels (' Doxographi Graeci,' 1879) has edited the Greek doxographers and investigated their autho- rities ; the literature of the Florilegia is discussed by 18 INTRODUCTION. CS 4 Wadismuth (' Studien zu der Griech. Florilegien,' 1882); the most complete collection of fragments of the ancient philosophers as yet made is that of Mullach ('Fragmenta Philosophorum Grrsec.,' three parts, 1860, 1867, 1881). The most important mono- graphs OD particular philosophers and their works will be mentioned in the proper places. B. niSTOBICAL INTRODUCTION, § 5. Origin of Greek Philosophy, Its supposed derivation from the East. An old tradition affirms that several of the most important of the Grreek philosophers — Pythagoras, Democritus, Plato, and others — owe their scientific doctrines to Eastern nations. Even in the time of Herodotus the Egyptians tried to represent themselves to the Greeks as the fathers of the Greek religion, and from the third century before Christ and onwards we meet with the opinion, perhaps first introduced by Orientals, but readily adopted and further developed by the Greeks, that the whole Greek philosophy, or at any rate many of its most influential doctrines and systems, came from the East. The Jews of the Alex- andrian school, from the second century before Christ, set up a similar claim for the prophets and sacred writings of their nation; and the Christian scholars from Clement and Eusebius till after the close of the Middle Ages supported them in it. These Jewii-h fables indeed are now generally abandoned ; but th^ theory of aD Eastern origin of Greek philosophy as such continuea § 5] GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND THE EAST. 19 to find advocates. Its most strenuous defenders in modern times are Eoth (' Gesch. der abendl. Phil.' vol. i. 1846, 1862 ; vol. ii. 1858) and Gladisch (the latter in a series of works since 1841 ; cf. Zeller's 'Pre- Socratic Philosophy,' vol. i. p. 35). There is no doubt that the forefathers of the Hel- lenes brought from their Asiatic abodes into their new- home, together with the groundwork of their language, certain religious and ethical presentations akin to those of the other Indo-Germanic peoples ; in this new home itself they experienced for centuries the influence of their Eu,stern neighbours, especially the Phoenicians, and through the effects of such influence the later Hellenic nationality developed itself out of the Pelasgic. We may also give credit to the tradition which says that the Hellenes afterwards received the first elements of their mathematical and astronomical knowledge from the East. But that they borrowed philosophic doc- trines and methods from thence (irrespective of certain late phenomena) cannot be proved. Often as this assertion is made by authors of the Alexandrian and post-Alexandrian period, not one of them can show that he has taken it from a trustworthy tradition, or from one that goes back to the facts themselves. On the contrary we are confronted with the remarkable phenomenon that the authorities become more and more silent the nearer we approach the period of the supposed events, and are more and more copious the farther we recede from them ; and that in proportion as the Greeks become acquainted with more distant Oriental nations, so do the supposed instructors of their 20 INTRODUCTION, i% & ancient philosophers increase in number. This state of things decidedly indicates that the later statements are not derived from historical racollection, are not testimonies, but mere conjectures If on ^he other hand we seek to infer the dependeucb of Grreek philo- sophy on Oriental speculations froni their internal similarity, this appearance vanishes as suon as n^ regard them both in their historical definiteness, and ascribe neither to the Grreeks nor the Orientals what later interpretation has introduced into ttieir dcotrines. Their coincidence then is seen to be c^Jnfined to points in regard to which we do not require the explanation that the Greek philosophers wholly or partially derived their doctrines from Oriental sources. This theory is not merely indemonstrable, but has weighty and posi- tive reasons against it. The Eastern nations with whom the G-reeks down to the time of Alexander came in contact, so far as our knowledge respecting them extends, had indeed mythologies and mytLical cos- mogonies, but none of them possessed a philosophy, none made an attempt at a natural explanation of things, which could have served the Greek thinkers as the source or pattern of their own ; and if even some- thing of philosophy had been found among them, the difficulties arising from language would have put great hindrances in the way of its transfer to the Hellenes. Greek philosophy, on the other hand, bears an altogether national stamp. Even in its most ancient representatives it displays none of the phenomena which elsewhere universally appear when a nation derives its science from without ; no conflict of indi- § 6] GREEK I-JtlZOSOPHY AND THE EAST. 21 genous with alien elements, no use of uncomprehended formulae, no trace of slavish appropriation and imitation of the traditional. And while among the Orientals science is entirely a monopoly of the priesthood, and therefore dependent on priestly institutions and tradi- tions, not only was Greek philosophy from its very commencement wholly free a.nd self-dependent,. but the Greek people were more and more absolutely devoid of any special priestly class or hierarchy the farther we remount towards their earliest antiquity. If lastly, we take the older and more trustworthy evidence, Aristotle ('Metaph. i. 1, 981 b. 23) allows that the Egyptians were the discoverers of the mathematical sciences, but he never mentions Egyptian or Oriental philosophemes, though he carefully notices all traces of later doctrines in the earlier philosophers. In the time of Herodotus even the Egyptian priests do not as yet seem to have thought that philosophical knowledge might have come to the Greeks from them. Democritus (Clemens, ' Strom.' i. 304 A) allows no precedence to the Egyptian sages even in geometry, before himself, and Plato (' Kep.' iv. 435 E ; « Laws,' v. 747 C) ascribes to the Egyptians and Phoenicians to (fnXo^pw^Tov, and to the Hellenes to (jxXofjiaOss as their characteristic quality. § 6. Native Sources of Greek Philosophy, The real origins of Greek philosophy are to be found in the happy endowments of the Greek nation, in the incitements afforded by its situation and history, and the course taken by its religious, moral, political, and 22 INTRODUCTION, [§ 6 artistic development down to the period in which we discover the first attempts at philosophic inquiry. No other nation of antiquity was endowed from the very commencement with so many and various advantages of disposition as the Hellenic, in none do we find prac- tical address and active power united with so delicate a feeling for the beautiful and such a deep and keen thirst for knowledge, the healthiest realism with so much ideality, the acutest perception of individuality with such a remarkable genius for the orderly and agreeable combination of individuals, the shaping of a beautiful and self-consistent whole. To this natural temperament must be added the favourable character of the position of their country, which afforded stimulus and resources of the most diverse kinds, but only bestowed its gifts on those who knew how to earn them by their own exertions. With their settlements on the bridge connecting Europe and Asia, in islands and on richly developed coasts of moderate fertility, the Grreeks were marked out for the liveliest intercourse with each other and with their neighbours ; by some of the latter, so long as these retained their superiority in power and culture, they were considerably influenced {vide supray p. 19), but they also knew how to free themselves in time from this influence, to conquer or Hellenise the strangers, and to open for their own nationality a wide field of operation through extensive colonisation. Thus in the small commonwealths of the Hellenic cities, the foundations of a culture unique in itself, and in its historical effects, were early develoj^ed. Those views of Nature from which the worship of the gods in the § 6] GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION, 23 pre-Hellenic period arose were ethically deepened and artistically transformed ; the gods were raised to moral powers, the ideals of human activities and conditions, and if religion as such (in the mysteries as little as in the public worship) did not transcend the limits of an anthropomorphic polytheism, it contained living and powerful germs, which needed only to be developed in order to do so. And because it was more concerned with worship than doctrine ; because it possessed no uni> form and universally acknowledged dogmatic system, but only a mythology handed down by tradition with manifold variations, and kept by the active imagination of the people and the poets in a constant state of flux ; because, above all, it had no regularly organised priest- hood endowed with external power — for all these reasons, despite the attacks to which an Anaxagoras, a Prota- goras, a Socrates were subjected (Aristotle is scarcely to be included here), it opposed, generally speaking, no obstacles to the free movement and progress of thought among the Grreeks at all comparable to those which had to be combated in the Middle Ages and in the Oriental kingdoms. The same freedom reigns in the moral life and civil institutions of the Hellenic people, and in Athens and the Ionian colonies, precisely those portions which did the most for its science, it asserted itself to an extent that was of great importance for scientific labours. No less important, however, in this respect was the second fundamental feature of Grreek life, that respect for custom and law, that subordination of the individual to the whole, without which the repub- lican constitutions of the Grreek cities could not have 24 INTRODUCTION. [§ 6 subsisted. From the freedom with which men moved in all the relations of life, scientific thought derived the independence and boldness which we admire even in the most ancient Grreek philosophers; the taste for order and law which had developed itself in civil life demanded also that in the theoretic view of the world the individual should be comprehended in a whole and made dependent upon the laws of that whole. How essentially, moreover, the formal training of thought and speech must have been advanced by the animated move- ment and numerous claims of civil life, and how greatly scientific activity must have thereby benefited, may easily be seen. A similar service was rendered by poetry, which in its epic, lyric, and didactic forms was so richly developed in the four centuries preceding the first beginnings of Greek philosophy; it embraced the theological, cosmological, and ethical intuitions of the Grreek tribes in pictures and sayings which were re- garded as the expression of universally recognised truth by the contemporary and succeeding period ; and thus indicated to the rising philosophy the presuppositions it had to consider, and either endorse or reject, § 7. The Development of Greek Thought before the Sixth Century B.G, If then we survey the position to which Grreek thought had attained in the directions indicated, pre- vious to the sixth century before Christ, we shall find at first theological presentations of a general kind, as is natural, moving upon the soil of the traditional § 7] GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND COSMOGONIES. 26 Homeric and Hesiodic mythology. Nevertheless, among the poets of the seventh and sixth centuries, the traces are perceptible of a gradual purification of the idea of Grod, for Zeus as the uniform representative and protector of the moral order of the world begins to come forward more prominently from among the mul- tiplicity of gods. On the one hand (Solon. 'Fr.' 13, 17, f,) the difference between divine and human justice is acknowledged, but on the other (Theognis, about 540, V. 373) doubts are expressed of the latter, which could only lead to a critical state of mind in regard to the traditional ideas. But the need of worthier conceptions of the Deity first asserted itself more definitely and powerfully in the poets of the fifth century, when philo- sophy had already commenced its attacks upon the popular polytheism. As to cosmological theories, their groundwork is the 'Theogony' of Hesiod, from which the meagre fragments of some other expositions (those of Epimenides and Acusilaus), and of the most an- cient Orphic Theogony used by Plato, Aristotle, and Eudemus, are not far removed; while other Orphic Theogonies better known to us, with their theological sjmcretism and pantheism, unmistakably belong to the post -Aristotelian period. Nevertheless, the ideas and reflections which in these ancient cosmogonies combine to form a representation of the origin of the world are of a very simple description, and the question of the natural causes of things is not as yet entertained. Pherecydes of Syros (about 540 B.C.) approaches it somewhat more closely. He describes Zeus, Chronos, and Chthon as the first and everlasting, and the earth 26 INTRODUCTION, [§ 7 as clothed by Zeus in its many- coloured garment; lie also speaks of a conquest of Ophioneus by Chronos and the gods. Thus his exposition seems to be based upon the thought that the formation of the world is a con- sequence of the operation of the heavenly VL])on the terrestrial, and that in this process the unregulated forces of nature were only gradually overcome. But the mythical form of representation conceals thoughts under enigmatical symbols, and that which ought to be explained by its natural causes still appears throughout as the uncomprehended work of the gods. Among the Greeks, as everywhere else, the universally recognised moral laws are referred to the will of the gods, and their inviolability is founded on the belief in Divine retribu- tive justice. This belief gained considerably in power from the time that the ideas concerning a future state entered its service, and the shadowy existence in Hades, beyond which the belief in immortality of the Homeric period never went, was filled with greater life and mean- ing, through the doctrine of a future retribution. But though this change had gradually been taking place since the eighth and seventh centuries, together with the increasing spread of the mysteries — and the Orphic- Dionysiac mysteries especially contributed to it through the dogma of the transmigration of souls — it would nevertheless seem that the predominant mode of thought was not deeply affected by the belief in a future life, until towards the end of the sixth century, and that it was itself primarily only a means for recom- mending dedications, through hope and fear ; it was under the influence of Pythagoreanism that the belief § 7] PHILOSOPHY AND GNOMIC MORALITY. 37 appears first to have been more universally spread, and turned to account in a purer moral tendency. With this religious treatment of ethical questions, however, it was inevitable in so lively and capable a people as the Grreeks that the development of intelligent moral reflection should go on side by side. The traces of this may be followed from the Homeric portrayals of cha- racter and moral sayings, and Hesiod's practical rules of life, through the fragments of the later poets ; they are most marked in the Grnomic poets of the sixth century, in Solon, Phocylides, and Theognis. The development of such a tendency in this period is also indicated by the fact that most of the men reckoned among the so- called Seven Wise Men exhibit it. The story of the Wise Men (which we iirst meet with, as then universally recognised, in Plato, ' Protagoras,' 343 A) is for the rest entirely uu historical, not merely as to the statements concerning the tripod, their maxims, their meetings and letters, but also as to the theory that seven men were acknowledged by their contemporaries to be the wisest. Even their names are very variously given : we are acquainted with twenty-two belonging to widely dif- ferent periods. Only four are to be found in all the enumerations, viz. : Thales, Bias, Pittacus, and Solon. Of the rest those most frequently mentioned are Cleobulus, Myson, Chilon, Periander, and Anacharsis. The connection of this practical wisdom with the beginnings of Grreek science is shown by the signifi- cant fact that the same man stands at the head of the seven who opens the series of Grreek physicists. 28 INTRODUCTION. [§ 8 § 8. Character and Development of Greek Philosophy, As a product of the Hellenic spirit, Grreek philosophy exhibits the same characteristic features ; it accompanies the development of that spirit with its own, becomes an increasingly important factor in that development, and, after the loss of political independence, the leading power in the life of the Grreek people. Having grown strong in practical life, at the awa.kening of scientific necessity, thought first turns to the consideration of the world, of which the Greek felt himself a part, and in which he was already accustomed through his re- ligion to adore the most immediate original revelation of the divine powers. It does this with the simple self-confidence which is so natural to early inquiry before it is acquainted with the difficulties awaiting it or discouraged by disappointments, and especially natural to a people like the Greeks, who were so happy and so much at home in the world around them, and stood, in the main, on such familiar terms with their gods. Greek philosophy, therefore, in its first period was in respect to its object a philosophy of nature ; for its essential interest lay in the inquiry into the origin and causes of the universe. The problem of the nature and mission of man was treated in an isolated manner, and rather in a popular than a scientific form. Further, this philosophy was, in respect to its pro- cedure, a dogmatism : i.e. it seeks to obtain a theory of the objective world before it has given account to itself of the problem and conditions of scientific know- ledge. Finally, in its results it is realistic, and even § 8] DEVELOPMENT OF PHILOSOPHY. 29 materialistic ; not until the end of this period was the difference between spiritual and corporeal brought to consciousness by Anaxagoras. Already, however, in- terest had begun to be diverted from this wholly physical inquiry, in connection with the change which, since the Persian War had taken place in the conditions and needs of the Greeks; the Sophists destroy by their Sceptic and Eristic doctrines belief in the cognisability of objects, and require in its stead a knowledge that is practically useful and subservient to the ends of the subject; but Socrates was the first to lay a new foundation, not only for this practical philo- sophy, but for philosophy in general. By Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, Grreek philosophy was brought to its scientific climax. The consideration of the problem and conditions of knowledge leads to the development of logic ; physics are supplemented on the one side by ethics, and on the other by metaphysics (Plato's * Dialectic,' and Aristotle's ' First Philosophy') ; the formation, classification, and combination of con- cepts constitutes the fixed nucleus of the scientific method ; the immaterial essence of things which is the object of philosophic thought, the idea or the form of the idea opposes itself to its phenomenon as a higher reality, the spirit is distinguished as thinking essence from its body, and as man acknowledges it as his proper task to develop this higher part of himself, and to govern the lower by means of it, so the creative activity of nature is directed to bringing the form, as the end of its production, to its manifestation in matter. But though this was an advance not only beyond the 30 INTRODUCTION. [§ « philosophy of the time, but also beyond the general standpoint of the Hellenic view of the world, though the harmony of the inner and the outer, the simple unity of spirit with nature which had formed the original presupposition for the classic beauty of Greek life was interrupted, this change had nevertheless been preparing in the development of the Greek nation, and in it the features which distinguish ancient philosophy from modern are undeniable. In the concept-philosophy of Socrates and his successors a forward movement was made in the scientific sphere, similar to that achieved by the plastic art and poetry of the fifth century in the region of art ; out of the multiplicity of pheno- mena the commoi traits, the unchangeable forms of things were taken as the essential element in them ; in these were seen the proper object of artistic exposition and of scientific knowledge ; science and art coincide in their common direction towards the ideal. This idealism, even in Plato, does not bear the modern subjective character; the forms of things are not products of thought either divine or human ; they stand in plastic objectivity, as prototypes of things, over against the spirit which contemplates them. Far as the ancient Greek standpoint was transcended by the ethics of Socrates, and still more of Plato, the latter nevertheless remained true to the aesthetic as well as the political character of Greek morality ; and though Aristotle by his preference for scientific activity goes beyond this, his doctrine of virtue is wholly Greek ; he, too, upholds the connection of ethics with politics, the lofty contempt of material work for the purposes of § 8] DEVELOPMENT OF PHILOSOPHY. 8J gain, and that opposition of Hellenes and barbarians, the strongest expression of which is his defence of slavery. The stricter conception of personality is wanting in Plato and Aristotle, and its rights are very imperfectly recognised by them, especially by Plato. The study of nature is not only pursued with the liveliest interest by Aristotle, but even Plato is not | hindered by his idealism from intense admiration of I the beauty and divinity of the visible world ; and he ! and his disciple are agreed in their conviction of the ^ adaptation of means to end in nature, in that aesthetic view and worship of nature which clearly show the reaction of those intuitions whose most ancient product was the Greek natural religion. An important change took place in philosophy, as in the whole sphere of Grreek thought, after the end of the fourth century, under the influence of the con- ditions brought about by Alexander's conquests. The taste for natural investigation and purely theoretic inquiry unmistakably retrograded ; side by side with the Academy and the Peripatetic schools, and before long decidedly preponderating over them, appeared the Stoics and Epicureans, who placed the centre of gravity of philosophy in Ethics ; while in Physics they allied themselves to the pre-Socratic systems, appropriating and developing from these, however, for the most part only those elements which bore upon the moral and religious view of the world. Ethics themselves among the Stoics and Epicureans have the character partly of individualism, partly of an abstract cosmopolitanism; widely as those philosophers differ from each other in 32 INTRODUCTION, [§ « many respects, both schools require elevation above the limits of nationality, independence of all things exter- nal, the self-satisfaction of the wise man in his inner life. On these points the contemporary sceptics are likewise in harmony with them, but they sought to attain the same practical end by another road, through entire abandonment of knowledge. From the inter- course of these schools with each other and with their predecessors after the second half of the second century B.C., a reaction set in against the scepticism of the New Academy: namely, that eclecticism which was strongest in the Academy, but likewise found entrance among the Stoics and Peripatetics, while in the school of ^nesidemus scepticism acquired a new centre, and among the Neo-Pythagoreans and the /Platonists connected with them the eclectic and sceptical tendencies of the time unite to form a half- Oriental philosophy of revelation, developiug itself partly on Greek soil and partly on that of Judaic Hel- lenism. During the first centuries after Christ this mode of thought increasingly spread ; and in the middle of the third it was developed by Plotinus as Neo-Platonism into a comprehensive system, which overcame all others or adopted them into itself. With the dissolution of the Neo-Platonic School in the sixth century Greek philosophy disappears as a distinct phenomenon from the theatre of history, and only continues to exist in combination with foreign elements in the service of a new form of culture in the science of the Middle Ages and of modern times. It is undeniable that this development led Greek §8] DEVELOPMENT OF GREEK FHILOSOPHY. 33 thought further and further from its original starting- points. But certain important features still remain to show that we are always on Grreek soil. Abrupt as is the opposition in which reason and sense are placed by the ethics of the Stoics, life according to nature continues to be their watchword : in physics the Stoics went back from the Platonic- Aristotelian dualism to the hylozoism of Heracleitus; by their teleological view of the universe they approximate to the anthropomorphism of the popular religion, and in their theology they under- took the defence of the same notions with which science had in truth long since broken. Epicurus, by his mechanical physics, sets himself in the most marked opposition to the popular belief as well as to the teleological explanation of nature; but his gesthetic needs oblige him to adopt a new though inadequate doctrine of the gods ; and if in his ethics he dis- cards the political element of ancient Greek morality more completely than the Stoics, the harmony of the sensible and spiritual life, which is his practical ideal, approximates on that account more nearly to the original Hellenic view. The sceptical schools, also, are not far from that view in their practical principles, while on the other hand they accept the impossibility of knowledge as a natural destiny with a placidity which is no longer so easy in the Christian period. But even the phenomenon which announces most clearly the transition from the Greek world to the Christian, the Neo-Pythagorean and Neo-Platonic speculation, makes its connection with the ancient mode of thought plainly perceptible. Though it places 34 INTROD VCTION, [§ 8 the visible world far below tlie invisible, the former is still regarded as filled with divine powers, as a manifestation, perfect in its kind, of the higher world. The beauty of the world is defended against the Christian's contempt for Nature and its eternity against the theory of a creation ; and those orders of super- human essences in whom the divine powers descend to the world, and with whose assistance man is to raise himself to the Deity, are the metaphysical counterpart of the popular polytheism, of which these philosophers were the last champions. 1 FIEST PERIOD. THE PRE-SOCRATIG PHILOSOPHY, § 9. Course of its Development, The first attempt among the Greeks at a scientific explanation of the world was made by Thales the Milesian, who was followed by his countrymen Anaxi- mander and Anaximenes, and later by Diogenes of Apollonia and other representatives of the ancient Ionian school. Through the lonians, Pythagoras and Xenophanes, these endeavours were transplanted to Lower Italy and carried on with such independent inquiry that from each of them there arose a new school. These three most ancient schools, whose origin dates from the sixth century before Christ, agree only herein, that in regard to the causes of things which science has to point out, they think primarily of their substantial causes — i,e, that from which they arose, and in which, according to their essential nature, they consist ; but they do not as yet definitely face the problem of explaining origin, decay, and change as such, and of discovering the universal cause of these phenomena. Thus the ancient Ionian philosophers inquire of what matter the world was formed and in what way the world arose from it. The Pythagoreans seek the essence of which things consist in number, and derive their existence and qualities 86 PEJS-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. [§9 from the fixed and numerically determined regularity of phenomena. The Eleatic philosophy, starting from the unity of the world, through Parmenides recognises its essence in Being as such ; and by un- conditionally excluding all Non-being from the con- ception of Being, declares the multiplicity of things and motion to be unthinkable. A new departure of natural philosophical inquiry begins with Heracleitus. In asserting that in the ceaseless change of matter and the combinations of matter there is nothing permanent except the law of this change, he proposed to his successors the problem of explaining this phenomenon itself, of stating the reason of change and motion. Empedocles, Leucippus, and Anaxagoras attempted this by reducing all Be- coming and all change to the combination and separa- tion of underived, imperishable, and in themselves unchangeable material substances, and thereby deriving Becoming itself from one original Being, which differed indeed from the Being of Parmenides in respect of its multiplicity and divisibility but had otherwise the same essential qualities. These primitive substances are conceived by Empedocles as qualitatively distin- guished from each other, limited as to number, and divisible to infinity ; by Leucippus as homogeneous in quality, unlimited in number, and indivisible ; by Anaxagoras as different in quality, unlimited in number, and divisible to infinity. In order to explain motion, on which all combination and division of substances is based, Empedocles annexes moving forces to the elements in a mythical form ; Leucippus and Democritus I §9] COURSE OF ITS DEVELOPMENT. 87 remove the atoms into empty space ; lastly, Anaxagoras takes refuge in the world-forming Spirit. Here the standpoint hitherto occupied by physics is in point of fact transcended ; it was abandoned in principle by the Sophistic doctrine. This denies all possibility of knowledge, restricts philosophy to the questions of practical life, and even deprives practical life of any universally valid rule. Thus it brings about the Socratic reform of philosophy; in part directly. and in part indirectly, inasmuch as it rendt red that reform a necessity through the one-sided and doubtful character of its own results. I. The Three Earliest Schools. A. the ancient ionians. § 10. Thales, Thales, a contemporary of Solon and Croesus, was a citizen of Miletus, whose ancestry was derived from the Boeotian Cadmeans. His birth was placed by Apol- lodorus, according to Diog. i. 37, in 01. 35, 1, i,e, 640 B.C. (it was probably, however, in 01. 39, 1, or 624 B.C.), and his death in 01. 58, i,e, 548-5 B.C. The former of these dates appears to be founded on that of the solar eclipse in 585 B.C. (vide infra). The position assigned him as the head of the Seven Wise Men {vide sup. p. 27) and what is said of him in Herod, i. i70 and Diog. i. 25, are evidence of the esteem in which his practical wisdom and statesmanlike ability were held. His mathematical and astronomical knowledge, acquired, according to Eudemus, in Phoenicia and 38 PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. [§ 10 Egypt and transplanted to Grreece, are likewise cele- brated; among the proofs given of this, the most famous is that he predicted the solar eclipse which occurred, according to the Julian calendar, in 585 B.C., on May 28 (Herod, i. 74 and elsewhere.) It was no doubt in connection with these mathematical studies and the scientific taste awakened by them, that he undertook to answer the question concerning the ultimate basis of things in an unmythological form ; and, on the other hand, it is consistent with the elementary character of these, the most ancient Greek mathematics, that his physics did not extend beyond a first beginning. He declared water to be the matter from which all things arose and of which they consist, and that the earth floats upon the water. Aristotle ^ speaks about the reasons of this theory, but only from his own conjecture, for he possessed no writing of Thales, and doubtless none existed ; those which are mentioned by later writers, together with the doctrines quoted from them, are to be regarded as forgeries. As to the way in which things arise from water, Thales does not seem to have explained himself further ; he probably thought that the efficient force was directly combined with matter, and conceived this force in the spirit of the old natural religion as analogous to living forces, as is seen in the assertions (Arist. ' De An.' i, 5, 411 a. 7. 19) that all is full of gods, and that the magnet has a soul — i.e. life — since it attracts iron. That he • Metaph. i. 3, 983 b. 22. and Hippo together, and may Theophrastus expresses himself have found something in the more distinctly in Simpl. Phys. latter about which nothing was L'3, 21 (Diels, Doxogr. 476) ; but recorded in reference to Thales. hi is here speaking of Thales §101 THALES. 89 expressly discriminated, on the other hand, the force that forms the world as God or Spirit or World-soul, from matter, we have no reason to suppose. But how- ever meagre this first commencement of a physical theory may seem to us, it was of great importance that a beginning should be made. We find thus con- siderable progress already achieved by Anaximander. § 11. Anaximander, This important and influential thinker was a fellow- citizen of Thales, with whose theories he must certainly have been acquainted. He was born in 611-610 B.C., and died soon after 547-6 B.C. (Biog. ii. 2). Pre-eminent in his time for astronomical and geographical knowledge, he prosecuted the cosmological inquiries raised by Thales with independent investigations, and wrote down the results in an original treatise which was early lost; being thus, side by side with Pherecydes, the oldest Grreek prose writer, and the first philosophical author. He takes as the beginning of all things {dpxv) ^he unlimited (aTrscpov), i,e, the infinite mass of matter out of which all things arise, and into which they return by their destruction, in order ' to render to each other atonement and punishment for their offence against the order of time.' (Simpl. ' Phys.' 24, 18). This primitive matter, however, he conceived neither as composed of the later four elements, nor as a substance intermediate between air and fire, or air and water,* * As is maintained by several sumptions given above is defen- of the Greek commentators on ded by Liitze, Ueher das 'direipov Aristotle, partly in contradiction A.^s (Leipzig, 1878), and both to their own statements else- together by Neuhauser, Anaxi- where. The second of t>e as- mander Miles. (1883), s 44-273. 40 JPRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY, [§11 nor lastly as a mixture of particular substances in which these were contained as definite and qualita- tively distinct kinds of matter.* From the express statement of Theophrastus {ajp, Simpl. *Phys.' 27, 17 ff. 154, 14 ff.), and from the utterances of Aristotle,* we may rather infer that Anaximander either dis- tinguished his unlimited from all definite material substances, or, as is more likely, never explained him- self at all concerning its particular nature, but meant by it matter in general, as distinct from particular kinds of matter. He argued, doubtless wrongly, that this primitive matter must be unlimited, or it would otherwise be exhausted in the creation of things.^ As primitive matter the unlimited is underived and im- perishable, and its motion is also eternal. From the latter doctrine follows the separation {iKKpcvsa6ac\ of particular kinds of matter. First the warm and the cold were parted off; from both arose the damp, from the damp were separated the earth, the air, and the sphere of fire which surrounded the earth as a spherical crust. When this burst asunder wheel-shaped husks, filled with fire and having apertures, were formed : these being moved by currents of air, revolve around the earth, the shape of which is conceived as cylin- drical, in an inclined horizontal direction. The fire * On this assumption, upon b. 22. Pe Crelo, iii. 5, 303 b. 13 which Ritter bases his division ff. Cf. Pre-Socratic Philosophij of the Ionic philosopljcrs into i. 256 ff. Mechanical and Dynamic — an ' Arist, Phi/s. iii. 4, 203 b. assumption which is still shared 18; c. 8, 208 a. 8. Cf. Plut, by some, see Pre-Socratio Philo- Placit. i. 8, 4. (Stob. Eel. i. »oj)hy, i, 240, note 4. 21)2) &c. Pre-Socratio Philosophy *' Phy8. L 4, init. iii. 5, 204 i. 234 ff. §11] ANAXIMANDER. 41 which the wheel-shaped rings allow to stream forth from their apertures during their revolutions, and which is continually renewing itself by means of the exhalations of the earth, gives the appearance of stars moving through space ; a conception which may seem very strange to us, but is in truth the first known attempt to explain the regular movement of the heavenly bodies mechanically, in the manner of the later theory of the spheres. The earth was at first in a fluid state ; from its gradual drying up, living creatures were produced, beginning with men, who were first in the form of fishes in the water, which they only quitted when they had so far progressed as to be able to develop themselves on land. That Anaximander, in harmony with the presuppositions of his cosmology, held a periodical alternation of renewal and destruction of the world, and in consequence a series of successive worlds, without beginning or end, is maintained by a trustworthy tradition traceable to Theophrastus, and wrongly discredited by Schleiermacher. * § 12. Anaximenes. Anaximenes, also a Milesian, is called by later writers the disciple of Anaximander, which is at least 60 far true that he clearly betrays the influence of his predecessor. His life may approximately be assigned to the years between 588 B.C. and .524 B.C. * Of a * Ueher A7iaximandros,'Weike, of life) fell in 01. 58, 1 (548 3 Abth. ii. 195 A. B.C.), and under this hypothesis 2 On the ground of the state- that the data in Uiog. ii. 3, can ment (Hippol. Eefnt. hcer. i. 7), be changed, and that yeyevnTai that his aKfii) ( = the 40th year denotes the a/c/t^. 42 PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. [§ IJ treatise of his in Ionic prose, only a small fragment has been preserved. lu his physical theory, Anaximenes differs from Anaximander in taking for his first principle not infinite matter without more precise determination, but with Thales a qualitatively determined matter; but he again coincides with Anaximander in choosing for this principle a substance to which the essential qualities of Anaximander's primitive essence, un- limitedness and unceasing motion, equally appeared to belong. In the air both are to be found. It not only spreads itself boundlessly in space, but is also conceived in perpetual motion and change, and proves itself (according to the ancient notion which makes the soul identical with vital air) to be the ground of all life and all motion in living beings. 'As the air as our soul holds us together, so the blowing breath {irvsvjjia) and the air embraces the whole world.' (Anax. ap. Plut. ' Plac' i. 3, 6.) Through its motion, without beginning or end, the air suffers a change which is properly of a two-fold kind : — rarefaction {ixdvcocrcs, apal(0(TLs) or loosening {^akapov, dvsais); and condensation {irvKvwa-ts) or contraction (^avariX- XsaOai, sTTiTacns), The former is at the same time heating, and the latter cooling. Through rarefac- tion air becomes fire, through condensation it becomes wind, then clouds, water, earth, stones ; an idea which Anaximenes no doubt deduced in Ihe first instance from the atmospheric processes and precipitates. In the creation of the universe, the earth was first formed ; according to Anaximenes, it is flat like a §12] ANAXIMENES, 48 plate, and therefore borne upon the air ; the vapours ascending from it are condensed into fire ; the stars are portions of this fire pressed together by the air ; of a similar shape to the earth, they revolve around it laterally floating upon the air (supposing this was not intended to apply merely to the planets). Accord- ing to credible testimony, Anaximenes agreed with Anaximander in maintaining an alternate construction and destruction of the world. § 13. Later adherents of the ancient Ionian School. Diogenes, The school which the Milesian philosophers had founded in the sixth century also appears in the fifth. Hippo, who lived in the second third of this century, held with Thales that water, or more precisely the moist {vypov) was the primitive matter of the world. In this he was led by the analogy of animal life : ^ as also he regarded the soul as a moisture originating from the seed. From water arose fire, and from the conquest of water by fire, came the world. Anaximenes was followed Id his doctrine by Idseus, who taught that the air was the primitive matter ; those inter- mediate theories also which are mentioned (sup, p. 39, note), and which Aristotle repeats without naming their author, are mostly allied with those of Anaximenes. Even so late as 440-425 B.C. Diogenes of Apollonia * According to the statement to Thales this statement appears of Theophrastus, which is to be to rest on supposition only ; in gathered from Simpl. Fhys. 23, Hippo it seems to have the sup- 18 f. Plut. Plac. i. 3, 1 (cf. port of his treatise. Diels, Boxogr. 220). In regard 44 rHE-SOCBATIC PHILOSOPHY, [§ 13 made an attempt to defend the monistic materialism of Anaximenes against Anaxagoras' doctrine of the world-forming Spirit ; saying that Anaximenes found those qualities in the air itself, which Anaxagoras believed could be ascribed only to spirit. If, on the one hand (in opposition to the innumerable primitive substances of Anaxagoras), one common matter must be assumed for all things, as otherwise no mixture and reaction of them would be possible ; and, on the other hand, this matter must be a thinking and rational essence : as is proved partly by its distribution accord- ing to design, and partly and especially by the life and thought of men and animals, we find these very cliaracteristics united in air. It is air which ferments all things and (as soul) produces life, motion, and thought in ani-mals. Air is therefore, according to Diogenes, the underived, unlimited rational essence which governs and orders all things. All things are merely transformations of air (srspoLdocrsLs). Their transformation (according to Anaximenes) consists in rarefaction and condensation, or, which is the same, in heating and cooling. The denser and heavier sank down, the lighter ascended, and thus the two masses were separated from which, in further process of development, the earth and the heavenly bodies arose through the revolution efi'ected by the warm. From the terrestrial slime (no doubt by the influence of the solar heat), plants, animals, and human beings were produced: the soul of living creatures consists of a kind of air which though not nearly so warm as that of the sun, is warmer than the atmospheric air. §18] ZArun lOmANS, DIOGBNES. 46 On the particular character of this air, that of the various kinds of living creatures depend. The phe- nomena of corporeal and animate life, especially the circulation of the blood and the activity of the senses, Diogenes endeavoured not without ingenuity to explain by means of his theory. He agreed with the ancient lonians and with Heracleitus in maintaining an infinite series of successive worlds. B. THE PYTHAGOREANS, § 14. Pythagoras and his School, The history of Pythagoras was very early overgrown with many unhistorical legends and conjectures, and became so more and more as it was handed down by successive traditions. His doctrine also, especially after the rise of the Neo-Pythagorean school, and the extensive forgeries of Pythagorean writings which prevailed there, has been so mixed up with later ele- ments that it requires the most careful criticism to distinguish the unhistorical constituents in the accounts preserved. As far as the history of the Pythagorean school and its founder is concerned,^ a higher degree of certainty can only be attained in regard to a few main points, and as to their doctrines only for such portions as we can learn from the genuine fragments of Philo- laus,^ the utterances of Aristotle, and those statements * On the Greek biographies (1819). When I had proved that of Pythagoras known to us, cf. a part of them were forge- p. 9, 12 f . ries, Schaarschmidt {Die angehl. 2 All the fragments of Philo- SchriftsteHerei d. Philol. 186 !:> laus have been edited by Boeckh, attempted to prove the same of Philolaos der Pytliagor. Lehren all. Repeated examination only 46 PRE-SOCltATlC PmLOSOPHY. CI 14 of the later doxograpliers which we are justified in referring to Theophrastus.* Pythagoras, the son of Mnesarchus, was bom in Samos, whither his ancestors, who were Tyrrhenian Pelagians, had migrated from Phlius. From the in- exact statements in respect to the time when he lived, which are often contradictory in particular details, this much only can be accepted as probable, that he was born about 580-570 B.C., came to Italy about 540- 530 B.C., and died towards the end of the sixth or soon after the beginning of the fifth century. Even Heracleitus calls him the most learned man of his time,^ but how and where he gained his knowledge we do not know. The statements of later writers con- cerning his travels and the culture acquired in the course of them in the countries of the South and East, by reason of the untrustworthiness of the authorities, lateness of the accounts, and the suspicious circum- stances (mentioned supra, p. 19) under which they appeared, cannot be regarded as traditions based upon historical recollection, but only as conjectures to which proves to me that the fragments authorities. Roth's uncritical and from the treatise irepl t^/vxris are romancing Gcsck. vns. ahendldii- not genuine, and that the rest dischen. Philosophies vol. ii. of the fragments, which are in (1858), can only be used with part confirmed by Aristotle, are the greatest care, genuine. GL Prc-Socratic Philo- '" Fr. 17. Bj^w; in Diogenes, «ry;//?/, 318 wojfd 2, 392 ff,; 446 ff. viii. 6. TlveaySo-qs Mvrjadpxoi^ * Among the later accounts lyth. (2 vols. 1873) as a KaKorexfivv. Cf. Herod, iv. 95. careful book, though giving too 'EAAtj^wj/ ov tw aaQevioTdrc^ ao- muiih weight to untrustworthy