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A BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF 
 PHILOSOPHY 
 
A SELECTION FROM 
 ROUTLEDGE'S 
 
 POPULAR LIBRARY SERIES 
 
 Uniform -with this Volume. 
 
 MILL'S PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 MILMAN'S HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 
 
 THE WORKS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 Poetical and Dramatic, Tales, Essays, etc. Edited 
 by Charles Kent. 
 
 BARTLETT'S FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS. 
 
 EMERSON'S WORKS. With a Steel Portrait. 
 
 ADAM SMITH'S WEALTH OF NATIONS. 
 
 CRUDEN'S CONCORDANCE TO THE OLD AND 
 NEW TESTAMENTS. 
 Edited by the Rev. C. S. Carey. 
 
'A BIOGRAPHICAL 
 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 
 
 BY G. H. LEWES 
 
 LONDON: 
 GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LIMITED 
 New York: E. P. DUTTON and CO. 
 
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SERIES I. 
 
 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 
 
 417307 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 To write the Biography of Philosophy while writing the Bio- 
 graphies of Philosophers is the aim of the following work. The 
 expression " Biography of Philosophy," though novel, may per- 
 haps be pardoned, because it characterizes a novel attempt. 
 There have been numerous histories of philosophical schools ; 
 some of these learned and laborious chronicles being little more 
 than a collection of fragments and opinions ; others critical 
 estimates of various systems ; and others attempting to unite 
 both of these plans. But the rise, growth, and development of 
 Philosophy, as exhibited in these philosophical schools — in a 
 word, the Life of Philosophy — has yet, I believe, had no bio- 
 grapher. 
 
 My conception of such a task, and the principles which have 
 guided the composition of the present attempt, are stated in 
 the Introduction. 
 
 It is usual, in presenting to the public a work destined for 
 instruction, to show that such a work is wanted ; and, if other 
 works on the subject already exist, to express a proper dis- 
 satisfaction at them, as an excuse for one's own audacity. So 
 reasonable a practice invites imitation, even at the risk of 
 appearing presumptuous. 
 
 That a History of Philosophy is an important subject may 
 be taken for granted ; and although I by no means claim for 
 the present work that it should supersede others, I do think 
 that existing works have not rendered it superfluous. Stanley's 
 1 Lives of the Philosophers/ the delight of my boyhood, 
 though a great work, considering the era in which it was pro- 
 duced, had long been obsolete when Dr. Enfield undertook 
 his abridgment of Brucker; and, although the translation of 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 Ratter's * History of Philosophy ' has driven Enfield from the 
 shelves of the learned, yet its cost and voluminousness have 
 prevented its superseding Enfield with the many. 
 
 Dr. Enfield was a man equally without erudition and capa- 
 city, and he simply abridged the ill-digested work of a man of 
 immense erudition. Brucker was one of the learned and patient 
 Germans, whose industry was so indefatigable that his work 
 can hardly become altogether superseded ; it must remain one 
 great source whence succeeding writers will draw. But, 
 although he deserves the title of Father of the History of 
 Philosophy, his want of sagacity, and of philosophical, no less 
 than literary attainments, effectually prevent his ever again 
 being regarded otherwise than as a laborious compiler. Dr. 
 Enfield's Abridgment possesses all the faults of arrangement 
 and dulness of Brackets work, to which he has added no in- 
 considerable dulness and blundering of his own. Moreover, 
 his references are shamefully inaccurate. Yet his book has 
 been reprinted in a cheap form, and extensively bought — it 
 certainly has not been extensively read. 
 
 Ritter's ' History of Philosophy ' is a work of reputation. 
 This reputation, however, is higher in France and England than 
 in Germany ; and the reason is apparent : we have so little ol 
 our own upon the subject, that a work like Ritter's is a great 
 acquisition. In Germany they have so many works of all 
 degrees of excellence and in all styles, that the great advantage 
 of Ritter — his erudition — becomes of very secondary import- 
 ance, while his deficiencies are keenly felt. 
 
 I have been so much indebted to Ritter, during the progress 
 or my own work, that any depreciation of him here would be 
 worse than ingratitude ; but let me hope that a calm and honest 
 appreciation of his merits and demerits will not be misunder- 
 stood. Ritter is the Brucker of the nineteenth century — not 
 quite so learned, and not quite so dull ; also not quite so calm 
 and impartial As far as honest labour goes there is no defi- 
 ciency ; but where labour ends his merits end. His exposition 
 is generally purposeless and confused ; his historical appre- 
 ciation, when not borrowed from others, superficial in the 
 extreme; his criticisms heavy and deficient in speculative 
 ability, and the whole work wanting life and spirit. He 
 never rises with the greatness of his subject, and perhaps the 
 very worst portions of his book are those devoted to Socrates, 
 Plato, and Aristotle ; and this is the more remarkable because 
 
PREFACE. Xi 
 
 he has diligently studied the writings of the two last. As a coi 
 lection of materials for a study of the subject, his book is very 
 valuable ; but it is only an improved supplement to Brucker. 
 
 Beyond the above works I know of none whence the English 
 reader can gain satisfactory information. Essays on distinct 
 portions of the subject are numerous enough; and there have 
 appeared, from time to time, articles in the Reviews, all of 
 more or less ability. There was a connected view of ancient 
 systems from Thales to Plato, given in a series of articles 
 which excited attention in the ' Foreign Quarterly Review,' 
 during 1843 and 1844; and I must also mention the masterly 
 1 Essay on Metaphysical Philosophy/ which appeared in the 
 ' Encyclopaedia Metropolitana,' eloquent, ingenious, and pro- 
 found. But all these are buried in voluminous works not 
 always accessible. There still seemed to be an opening for 
 something new, something at once brief and complete. 
 
 The present work is not meant as a sketch. It is small ; not 
 because materials for a larger were deficient, but because only 
 what was deemed essential has been selected. It would have 
 been easier to let my materials wander into the diffuse space oi 
 bulky quartos or solid-looking octavos ; but I have a great dis- 
 like to "big books," and have endeavoured to make mine 
 small by concentration. It is no complete list of names that 
 figure in the annals of philosophy; it is no complete collection 
 of miscellaneous opinions preserved by tedious tradition. Its 
 completeness is an organic completeness, if the expression may 
 be allowed. Only such thinkers have been selected as repre- 
 sent the various phases of progressive development; and only 
 such opinions as were connected with those phases. I have 
 written the Biography, not the Annals, of Philosophy. 
 
 A word or two respecting the execution. I make no preten- 
 sions to the character of a savant ; consequently, as a work 
 of erudition this will appear insignificant beside its predeces- 
 sors. It is so. But to such works as already exist the greatest 
 erudition can add little, and that little of subsidiary value ; I 
 have, therefore, a good excuse for wishing to be measured by 
 a different standard. So little have I desired to give this work 
 an erudite air, that I have studiously avoided using references 
 in the foot-notes whenever their absence was unimportant. 
 The reader will not be sorry to see my pages thus pruned ot 
 the idle ostentation which disfigures so many works on this 
 subject; and, if the History look more superficial in conse- 
 
Xli PREFACE. 
 
 quence, it is some consolation to know that all who are compe- 
 tent to judge will not judge by appearances.* 
 
 Such as it is, the erudition is not " second-hand." The 
 passages upon which I have relied, which I have quoted, or 
 referred to, have all been scrupulously verified, when they were 
 not discovered by me. Of course I have liberally availed my- 
 self of the industry of others; but can conscientiously declare 
 that in no case have I accepted a passage at second-hand with- 
 out having previously verified it by the original, whenever that 
 was possible. This is a part of the historian's duty, irksome but 
 indispensable, and very rarely fulfilled even by the erudite. 
 
 Let me say, then, once for all, that the List of Books drawn 
 up at the end of this Preface comprises all those used by me in 
 the writing of this Series : and, consequently, any citation from, 
 or reference to, an ancient author not included in that List, is 
 to be considered as derived at second-hand, for the exactitude 
 of which I am not responsible. 
 
 G. H. L. 
 
 * It must not be supposed that I am insensible to the importance of 
 exact references ; my own pages will testify to the contrary. I speak only 
 of the abuse of citatic*. 
 
LIST OF WORKS USED IN THE COMPILA- 
 TION OF THIS SERIES. 
 
 Ritter and Preller : Historia Philosophic* Graco-Romana, 
 ex fontium locis contexta. Hamburg, 1838. 
 
 (A collection of all the scattered fragments of the early philosophers, 
 arranged historically. A work of the highest utility to the critic 
 and historian. Unfortunately I only possessed it after the com- 
 pletion of my first volume.) 
 
 Aristotle : De Melaphysicd. Ed. Tauchnitz. Leipsic, 1832. 
 (There is a good French translation of this work by MM. Pierron and 
 Z6vort, to the notes of which I have been sometimes indebted.) 
 
 Aristotle : De Animd. Ed. F. A. Trendelenburg. Jena, 
 
 (The commentary of Trendelenburg is erudite and useful; but I have 
 not always been able to verify his references.) 
 
 Aristotle : De Physicd. 
 De Animd. 
 
 De Cab. } Paris, 1561, 
 
 De Generatione ei Corruption*. 
 De Sensu. 
 
 Diogenes Laertius. Ed. Tauchnitz. Lipsiae, 1833. 
 (There is also a French translation by M. Chauffepie" ; but it cannot 
 be trusted.) 
 
 Sextus Empiricus : Hypotyposes, et Adversos Mathematicos. 
 Folio, Paris, 162 1. 
 
 (This is not a critical edition ; but it is the only one I possess. It is 
 the first of the Greek text.) 
 
 Karsten : Philosophorum Gracorum Operum Reliquiae. Pars 
 Prima. Xenophanes. Brussels, 1830. 
 (An excellent work.) 
 
 Plato : Ed. Bekker. Berlin, 1828. 
 (Also four dialogues : Protagoras, Gorgias, Phaedrus, and the Apology^ 
 which were analysed in a masterly manner in the ' Monthly Reposi- 
 tory ■ from March, 1834 to February, 1835. From these all extracti 
 which occur in my work have been taken.) 
 
 Xenophon : Memorabilia. Ed. Edwards, Oxon, 1785. 
 
XIV LIST OF WORKS. 
 
 Hornius: Historia Philosophica, Batav., 1756. 
 
 Brucker : History of Philosophy. Abridged by Enfield. 
 London, 18 19. 
 
 Brucker: Historia Critica Philosophic. Leipsig, 1767. 
 
 Ritter : History of Ancient Philosophy. 3 vols. English 
 Trans. Oxford, 1838-9. 
 
 Hegel : Geschichte der Philosophic. 3 Bande. Ed. Michelet 
 Berlin, 1833. 
 
 (This is rather the Philosophy of History than the History of Philo- 
 sophy. I have found it suggestive.) 
 
 Zeller : Die Philosophie der Griechen : ihrer Character, 
 Gang, Hauptmomente und Entwicklung. Erster Theil. Vor- 
 sokratische Philosophie. Tubingen, 1844. 
 
 (Useful. Rather a criticism on other historians than a history.) 
 
 Tennemann : Manuel de r Histoire de la Philosophie. Par 
 Victor Cousin. 2 vols. Paris, 1830. 
 (A good abridgment of an able work.) 
 
 Renouvier : Manuel de la Philosophie Ancienne. 2 vols. 
 Paris, 1844. 
 
 (A work of learning and acuteness.) 
 
 Jules Simon : Histoire de PEcole d 1 Alexandrie. 1st voL 
 Paris, 1844. 
 
 Victor Cousin : Cours de Philosophie. 3 vols. Bruxelles, 
 1840. 
 
 V. Cousin : Nouveaux Fragmens Philosophiques. 1 vol. 
 Bruxelles, 1840. 
 
 Encyclopcedia Metropolitana t — article, Moral and Metaphysical 
 Philosophy. 
 
 Bayle : Dictionnaire Historique. 
 
 Wiggers : Life of Socrates. English Trans., 1840. 
 
 De Gerando : Histoire Comparee des Syslemes de Philosophie. 
 Paris, 1822. 
 
 (This work enjoys considerable reputation, and deserves it. Clear, 
 discriminating, and well written.) 
 
 Van Heusde : Initio, Platonicoz. Trajecti ad Rhenam, 1827. 
 (One of the most elegant and delightful works on the subject ; written 
 in very pleasant Latin, with great enthusiasm and abundant know- 
 ledge. A valuable introduction to the study of Plato.) 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 This work is intended as a contribution to the History of 
 Humanity. Let us, therefore, at once define the nature and 
 limits of this contribution, lest its object be mistaken. The 
 History of Philosophy is a vague title, and should, properly 
 speaking, include the rise and progress of all the sciences. As 
 usually employed, the title is understood to refer to only one 
 science, viz., the science called metaphysics. Though disap- 
 proving of this restrictive sense of the word philosophy, we 
 use it in compliance with general usage. As all the earliest 
 philosophy was essentially metaphysical, there is no great 
 impropriety in designating Greek metaphysics by the name 
 of Philosophy ; but when Philosophy enlarged its bounds, 
 and included all the physical sciences as its lawful subjects, 
 then indeed the earlier and restricted use of the word occa- 
 sioned great confusion. To remedy this confusion slight but 
 ineffectual attempts have been made. The term metaphysics, 
 and sometimes the expressive, but uncouth, term ontology* 
 have been brought forward to distinguish a priori speculations 
 not within the scope of physical science. In order to prevent 
 confusion, and at the same time to avoid the introduction ot 
 words so distasteful as metaphysics and ontology, we shall 
 throughout speak of Philosophy in its earlier and more restricted 
 sense ; and shall designate by the term Positive Science that field 
 of speculation commonly known as Inductive, or Baconian, 
 Philosophy. It is the object of the present work to show how 
 and by what steps Philosophy became Positive Science; in 
 other words, by what Methods the Human Mind was enabled 
 *.The science of Being. 
 
XVi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 to conquer for itself, in the long struggle of centuries, its 
 present modicum of certain knowledge. All those who have 
 any conviction in the steady development of humanity, and 
 believe in a direct filiation of ideas, will at once admit, that 
 the curious but erroneous speculations of the Greeks were 
 necessary to the production of modern science. It is our 
 belief, that there is a direct parentage between the various 
 epochs ; a direct parentage between the ideas of the ancient 
 thinkers and the ideas of moderns. In Philosophy the evi 
 dences of this filiation are so numerous and incontestable, that 
 we cannot greatly err in signalizing them. 
 
 Having to trace the history of the mind in one region of its 
 activity, it is incumbent on us to mark out the countries and 
 epochs which we deem it requisite to notice. Are we to follow 
 Brucker, and include the Antediluvian period? Are we to 
 trace the speculations of the Scythians, Persians, and Egyp- 
 tians ? Are we to lose ourselves in that vast wilderness the 
 East ? It is obvious that we must draw the line somewhere ; 
 we cannot write the history of every nation's thoughts. We 
 confine ourselves, therefore, to Greece and modern Europe. 
 We omit Rome. The Romans, confessedly, had no Philosophy 
 of their own ; and did but feebly imitate that of the Greeks. 
 Their influence on modern Europe has, therefore, been only 
 indirect ; their labours count as nothing in the history of Philo- 
 sophy. We also omit the East. It is very questionable 
 whether the East had any Philosophy distinct from its Religion ; 
 and still more questionable whether Greece was materially 
 influenced by it. JTrue it is, that the Greeks themselves sup- 
 posed their early* teachers to have imbibed wisdom at the 
 Eastern fount. True it is, that modern Oriental scholars, on 
 first becoming acquainted with some of the strange doctrines 
 of the Eastern sages, have recognised in them strong resem- 
 blances to the doctrines of the Greeks. But neither of these 
 reasons are valid. The former is attributable to a very 
 natural prejudice, which will be explained hereafter. The 
 latter is attributable to the coincidences frequent in all specu- 
 lation, and inevitable in so vague and vast a subject as 
 Philosophy. Coincidences prove nothing but the similarity of 
 all spontaneous tendencies of thought. Something more is 
 needed to prove direct filiation. 
 
 A coincidence is the historian's will-o'-the-wisp, leading him 
 into deep and distant bogs. He has studied the history of 
 
 W 
 
INTRODUCTION. Xvii 
 
 Philosophy to little purpose who has not learned to estimate the 
 value of such resemblances \ who has not so familiarized him- 
 self with the nature of speculation as to be aware of their 
 necessary frequency. Pantheism, for example, under some of) 
 its shapes, seems to have been a doctrine entertained by mostj 
 speculative nations ; yet it seems to have been mostly spon4 
 taneous. Again, the physical speculations of the Greeks often V 
 coincide in expression with many of the greatest scientific 1 
 discoveries of modern times ; does this prove that the Greeks \ 
 anticipated the moderns ? M. Dutens has thought so ; and ^ 
 written an erudite, but singularly erroneous, book to prove it. 
 The radical error of all such opinions arises from mistaking the 
 nature of Positive Science. Democritus, indeed, asserted the 
 Milky Way to be only a cluster of stars ; but his assertion was 
 a mere guess ; and, though it happens to be correct, has no 
 proof of certainty. It was Galileo who discovered the fact. He 
 did not guess it. The difference between guessing and knowing 
 is just the difference between assertion and science. In the\ 
 same way it is argued that Empedocles, Democritus, Pythagoras, 
 and Plato were perfectly acquainted with the doctrine of 
 gravitation ; and, by dint of forced translations, something 
 coincident in-expression with the Newtonian theory is certainly 
 elicited. But Newton's incomparable discovery was not a 
 vague guess ; it was a positive demonstration. He did not 
 simply assert the fact of gravitation : he discovered the laws of 
 its action.* From that discovery of the laws gigantic results 
 have been obtained in a few years. From the antique asser- 
 tion no result whatever was obtained during the whole activity 
 of centuries. 
 
 From the above examples, it appears that coincidences of 
 doctrine in metaphysical matters are no proof of any direct 
 relationship, but only proofs of the spontaneous tendencies of 
 the mind when moving within a circumscribed limit. Coin- 
 cidences of expression, on the other hand, between a meta- 
 physical doctrine and a scientific doctrine, prove nothing 
 whatever. It is impossible for a doctrine which proceeds from 
 a metaphysical point of view, although apparently only occupied 
 with physical phenomena, to coincide with any truly scientific 
 doctrine, except in language. Nothing can be more opposite 
 
 * Karsten expresses the distinction very happily : u Empedocles poeticse 
 adumbravit idem quod tot seculis postea mathematicis rationibus demon- 
 stration est a Newtono." — Xcnophanes, Carm. Reliquia, p. xii. 
 
XV111 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 than the Pythagorean and Newtonian physics ; no bridge can 
 over-arch the chasm which separates them. Philosophy and 
 Positive Science are irreconcileable. This is a point which 
 it is of the utmost importance to understand clearly. Let us 
 briefly indicate the characteristics of each. 
 
 Philosophy (metaphysical philosophy, remember!) aspires 
 to the knowledge of Essences and Causes. Positive Science 
 aspires only to the knowledge of Laws. The one pretends to 
 discover what things are in themselves, apart from their appear- 
 ances to sense, and whence they came. The other only wishes 
 to discover their modus ope? andi ; observing the constant co- 
 existences and successions of phenomena amongst themselves, 
 and generalising them into some one Law.* In other words, 
 the one endeavours to compass the Impossible ; the other 
 knows the limits of human faculties and contents itself with 
 the Possible. To take an illustration from a popular subject, 
 how many ingenious efforts have been made to discover the 
 cause of Life — how many theories respecting the Vital Prin- 
 ciple ! All such have been frivolous because futile. The 
 man of science knows that Causes are not to be discovered 
 — knows that Life is a thing which escapes investigation, 
 because it defies experiment ; when you would examine it, it 
 is gone. Is Life, then, an enigma ? What it is may be safely 
 pronounced an enigma; but in what ways, and under what 
 conditions it manifests itself, may be discovered by proper 
 investigations. 
 
 Irreversible canon : whatever relates to the origin of things, 
 i.e., causes ; and whatever relates to the existence of things, per 
 se, i.e., essences, are the proper objects of Philosophy, and are 
 wholly and utterly eliminated from the aims and methods of 
 Positive Science. 
 
 With so broad and palpable a distinction between the two, 
 we may be prepared to find radical differences in the Methods 
 by which they are guided. 
 
 Philosophy and Positive Science are both Deductive. They 
 
 * The reader who desires perfect conviction, and who desires, moreover, 
 a clear idea of the nature and conditions of science, is earnestly recom- 
 mended to make himself master of John Stuart Mill's incomparable 
 1 System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive,' a work we feel bound, on 
 all occasions, to recommend to philosophical students, as doing more for 
 the education of the scientific intellect than any work we are acquainted 
 with 
 
INTRODUCTION. xix 
 
 have this in common, that they are both occupied with deduc- 
 ing conclusions from established axioms. But here the resem- 
 blance ends. 
 
 Philosophy is deductive d priori ; that is to say, starting 
 from some d priori axiom, such as "All bodies tend to rest," 
 or " Nature abhors a vacuum," the philosopher believes that 
 all the logical conclusions deduced from the axiom, when 
 applied to particular facts, are absolutely true of those facts ; 
 and, if the axiom be indisputable, the conclusions, if legiti- 
 mately drawn, will be true. Mathematics is the ideal of a 
 deductive science; it is wholly d priori f and wholly true. 
 
 Positive Science is deductive d posteriori. It begins by first 
 ascertaining whether the axiom from which it is to deduce 
 conclusions be indisputable, It experimentalises; it puts nature 
 to the test of " interrogation." After much observation, it 
 attains, by the inductive process, to the certainty of a Law, 
 such as " Attraction is inversely as the square of the distance." 
 A law equals an axiom. From this certain deductions are 
 drawn. Positive Science commences ; and that science is 
 pronounced perfect when it has reached the point at which 
 it may be carried on further by deduction atone. Such a 
 science is Astronomy. 
 
 This then is the difference between the Methods of Philo- 
 sophy and Positive Science : the one proceeds from d priori 
 axioms — that is, from axioms taken up without having under- 
 gone the laborious but indispensable process of previous verifi- 
 cation ; the other proceeds from axioms which have been 
 rigidly verified. The one proceeds from an Assumption, the 
 other from a Fact. 
 
 It is a law of the human mind that speculations on all gene- 
 ralities begin deductively : and the only road to truth is to 
 begin inductively. The origin of Positive Science is to be 
 sought in Philosophy. The boldest and the grandest specula- 
 tions came first. Man needed the stimulus of some higher 
 reward than that of merely tracing the co-existences and succes- 
 sions of phenomena. Nothing but a solution of the mystery 
 of the universe could content him ; nothing less could tempt 
 him to the labour of sustained speculation. Thus had Astro- 
 nomy its first impulse given to it by astrologers. Nightly did 
 the old Chaldeans watch the stars in the hope of wresting 
 from them their secret influence over the destiny of man. 
 Chemistry came from Alchemy ; Physiology from Auguriei 
 
XX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Many long and weary years, of long and weary struggles, were 
 passed before men learned to suspect the vanity of their efforts. 
 First came scepticism of human knowledge altogether. Next 
 came scepticism of the Methods men had followed. Induction 
 arose. Slowly and laboriously, but as surely as slowly, did this 
 method lead men into the right path. Axioms were obtained : 
 axioms that had stood the test of proof, that were adequate 
 expressions of general facts, not simply dogmatical expressions 
 of opinions. Deduction again resumed its office ; this time to 
 good purpose : it was no longer guess-work. 
 
 The position occupied by Philosophy in the History of 
 Humanity, is that of the great Initiative to Positive Science. 
 It was the forlorn hope of humanity which perished in its 
 efforts, but did not perish without having led the way to 
 victory. The present work is an attempt to trace the steps by 
 which this was accomplished; in this attempt consists its 
 originality and its unity. 
 
 There are many who altogether deny the fact of progression ; 
 who regard Philosophy as something higher and greater than 
 Positive Science ; who believe that the reign of Philosophy is 
 not yet finished. And they would point to Germany for con- 
 firmation. Thousands of Germans, to say nothing of indi- 
 vidual Frenchmen and Englishmen, are now struggling with 
 the same doubts as those which perplexed the Greeks of old. 
 It is very true ; " and pity 'tis 'tis true." We have no space, 
 nor is this the occasion, to develop our views, nor to combat 
 those of our adversaries. We content ourselves with pro- 
 claiming our belief in the constant Progression of Science, 
 which will finally sweep away into the obscure corners of indi- 
 vidual crotchets all the speculations which Philosophy boasts 
 of usurping. We cannot mistake the legible characters of 
 History. If Germany is behind, humanity is marching far 
 a-head, to great and certain conquests. Individuals may be 
 retrograding : the race is steadily advancing. There is nothing 
 to surprise, though much to deplore, in the number of eminent 
 minds led into the swamps and infinite mists of metaphysics, 
 even at the present day. 
 
 Long after Astronomy had been a science, accepted by all 
 competent investigators, Astrology had still its individual 
 votaries. Long after Chemistry had become a science, Alchemy 
 still tempted many. Long after Physiology had become a 
 science, there were and are still arduous seekers after the Vital 
 
INTRODUCTION. xx i 
 
 Principle. But as these individual errors do not affect the 
 general proposition respecting the wondrous and progressive 
 march of Science, so also the individual metaphysicians, how- 
 ever eminent, form no real exception to the general proposi- 
 tion, that Philosophy has gradually been displaced by Positive 
 Science, and will finally disappear. 
 
 Metaphysics has been defined Part de s'egarer avec tncthode : 
 no definition of it can be wittier or truer. 
 
 The nature of Philosophy, therefore, condemns its followers 
 to wander for ever in the same labyrinth, and in this circum- 
 scribed space many will necessarily fall into the track of their 
 predecessors. In other words coincidences of doctrine at 
 epochs widely distant from each other are inevitable. 
 
 Positive Science is further distinguished from Philosophy by 
 the incontestable progress it everywhere makes. Its methods 
 are stamped with certainty, because they are daily extending 
 our certain knowledge ; Decause the immense experience of 
 years and of myriads of intelligences confirms their truth, with- 
 out casting a shadow of suspicion on them. Science then 
 progresses, and must continue to progress. Philosophy only 
 moves in the same endless circle. Its first principles are as 
 much a matter of dispute as they were two thousand years ago. 
 It has made no progress, although in constant movement 
 Precisely the same questions are being agitated in Germany 
 at this moment as were being discussed in ancient Greece; 
 and with no better means of solving them, with no better 
 hopes of success. The united force of thousands of intellects, 
 some of them among the greatest that have made the past 
 illustrious, has been steadily concentrated on problems, supposed 
 to be of vital importance, and believed to be perfectly suscep- 
 tible of solution, without the least result All this meditation 
 and discussion has not even established a few first principles. 
 Centuries of labour have not produced any perceptible progress. 
 
 The history of science on the other hand is the history of 
 progress. So far from the same questions being discussed in the 
 same way as they were in ancient Greece, they do not remain 
 the same for two generations. In some sciences — Chemistry 
 for example — ten years suffice to render a book so behind the 
 state of knowledge as to be almost useless. Everywhere we 
 see progress, more or less rapid, according to the greater or 
 less facility of investigation. 
 
 In this constant circular movement of Philosophy and con- 
 
Xxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 stant linear progress of Positive Science, we see the condemna- 
 tion of the former. It is in vain to argue that because no 
 progress has yet been made, we are not therefore to conclude 
 none will be made ; it is in vain to argue that the difficulty of 
 Philosophy is much greater than that of any science, and there- 
 fore greater time is needed for its perfection. The difficulty 
 is Impossibility. No progress is made, because no certainty 
 is possible. To aspire to the knowledge of more than pheno- 
 mena, their resemblances and successions, is to aspire to trans- 
 cend the limitations of human faculties. " To know more we 
 must be more." 
 
 This is our conviction. It is also the conviction of the 
 majority of thinking men. Consciously or unconsciously, they 
 condemn Philosophy. They discredit, or disregard it The 
 proof of this is in the general neglect into which Philosophy 
 has fallen, and the greater assiduity bestowed on Positive 
 Science. Loud complaints of this neglect are heard. Great 
 contempt is expressed by the Philosophers. They may rail 
 and they may sneer, but the world will go its way. The empire 
 of Positive Science is established.* 
 
 We trust that no one will suppose we think slightingly of 
 Philosophy. Assuredly we do not, or else why this work? 
 Philosophy has usurped too many of our nights and days, has 
 been the object and the solace of too great a portion of our 
 bygone lives, to meet with disrespect from us. But we respect 
 it as a great power that has been, and no longer is. It was the 
 impulse to all early speculation ; it was the parent of Positive 
 Science. It nourished the infant mind of humanity ; gave it 
 aliment, and directed its faculties ; rescued the nobler part of 
 man from the dominion of brutish ignorance, stirred him with 
 insatiable thirst for knowledge, to slake which he was content 
 to undergo amazing toil. But its office has been fulfilled ; it 
 is no longer necessary to humanity, and should be set aside. 
 The only interest it can have is an historical interest. 
 
 The leading feature of this work is one which distinguishes 
 it from all others on the subject : the peculiarity of being a 
 History of Philosophy, by one who firmly believes that Philo- 
 sophy is an impossible attempt, that it never has had any cer- 
 titude, never can have any. All other historians have believed 
 
 * Let those who doubt this seek satisfaction in Auguste Comte's ' Couri 
 de Philosophic Positive.' Let every one who takes an interest in philo- 
 sophy master this opus magnum of our age. 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxiii 
 
 in philosophy. They have sometimes been tree from me 
 trammels of any particular system — (Brucker and Ritter were 
 so;) but they have not suspected the possible truth of Philo- 
 sophy : they have merely been free from any defined system. 
 Hitherto no one but a metaphysician has seen interest enough 
 in it to write the History of Philosophy ; besides, it could not 
 et written without Jong acquaintance with the subject, and no 
 sceptic of the possibility of the science could well have formed 
 tnat acquaintance, unless, like the presen writer, he was a 
 sceptic after having been many years a believer. 
 
 We write therefore not in the interest of Philosophy, but as 
 a contribution to the History of Humanity. Other historians 
 may be divided into cwo classes : the erudite and the specu- 
 lative. The one collecting the opinions of philosophers ; the 
 other explaining those opinions. Our great aim is to trace the 
 development of philosophy ; and we seek therefore to explain 
 methods, rather than individual opinions, though the latter are 
 of course necessary to our plan. 
 
 Our plan is purely historical Our scepticism will secure 
 impartiality : since, believing no one system to be truer than 
 another, though it may be more plausible, we can calmly 
 appreciate the value of every one. Impartiality is a requisite, 
 but it is not the only one. Impartiality implies unbiassed 
 judgment; but it does not imply correct judgment. We shall 
 doubtless err, and shall thankfully accept any indication of our 
 errors. Most of the ancient writers have come down to us in 
 fragments. We have not even the skeleton from which to judge 
 of the living figure. Nothing but a thigh-bone here, a jaw-bone 
 there, an arm elsewhere. But as the comparative anatomist 
 can often decide upon the nature and habits of an animal only 
 from an inspection of its jaw-bone, being enabled, by his 
 knowledge of the general animal structure, to fill up the 
 outline; so should the historian be able to decide upon the 
 nature and scope of any philosophical theory from a study of 
 only a fragment or two. 
 
 Now all historians who have attempted to explain the opinions 
 of the ancient thinkers have been somewhat in this condition : 
 they have either believed all animals to be of one specific type ; 
 or they have believed that all animals were of one type, without 
 having decided the nature of that type. Hegel is an illustra- 
 tion of the former ; Ritter of the latter class. 
 
 We also shall have to conjecture what was the nature of the 
 
Kdv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 system, from a fragment of its skeleton. But we are free from 
 the bias of any metaphysical theory. Our decisions will be 
 founded on our knowledge of the human mind, and of the 
 history of speculation ; as the comparative anatomist's decisions 
 are founded on his knowledge of the animal structure. Where 
 so much is conjectural, much will necessarily be erroneous. 
 How far we have erred, it is for readers to decide. 
 
JFtrst 'Epodb. 
 
 SPECULATIONS ON THE NATURE OP THE UN/VEPSB. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 THE PHYSIOLOGISTS * 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 THALES. 
 
 Although the events of his life, no less than the precise doc- 
 trines of his philosophy, are shrouded in mystery, and belong 
 rather to the domain of fable, nevertheless Thales is very justly 
 considered as the father of Greek Speculation. He made an 
 epoch. He laid the first foundation stone of Greek philosophy. 
 The step he took was small, but it was decisive. Accordingly, 
 although nothing but a few of his tenets remain, and those 
 tenets fragmentary and incoherent, we know enough of the 
 general tendency of his doctrines to speak of him with some 
 degree of certitude. 
 
 Thales was born at Miletus, a Greek colony in Asia Minor. 
 The date of his birth is extremely doubtful ; but the first year 
 of the 35th Olympiad is generally accepted as correct. He 
 belonged to one of the most illustrious families of Phoenicia, 
 and took a conspicuous part in all the political affairs of his 
 
 * We are forced, though unwillingly, to follow other historians in the 
 use of the word physiology in its primitive sense. It has another and very 
 different meaning in English, always signifying biology. But we have no 
 other word wherewith to translate fvmoXoyoi, or M inquirers into external 
 nature." 
 
26 THE PHYSIOLOGISTS. 
 
 country; a part which earned for him the highest esteem of 
 his fellow-citizens. His immense activity in politics has been 
 denied, by later writers, as inconsistent with the tradition, 
 countenanced by Plato, of his having spent a life of solitude 
 and meditation ; while, on the other hand, his affection for soli- 
 tude has been questioned on the ground of his political activity. 
 It seems to us that the two things are perfectly compatible. 
 Meditation does not necessarily unfit a man for action ; nor does 
 an active life absorb all his time, leaving him none for medita- 
 tion. The wise man will strengthen himself by meditation 
 before he acts ; and he will act, to test the truth of his opinions. 
 Thales was one of the Seven Sages. This reputation is suffi- 
 cient to settle the dispute. It shows that he could not have 
 been a mere Speculative Thinker; for the Greek Sages 
 were all moralists rather than metaphysicians. It shows also 
 that he could not have been a mere man of action. His mag- 
 nificent aphorism "Know thyself," reveals the solitary medi- 
 tative thinker. 
 
 Miletus was one of the most flourishing Greek colonies ; and, 
 at the period we are now speaking of, before either a Persian 
 or a Lydian yoke had crushed the energies of its population, it 
 was a fine scene for the development of mental energies. Its 
 commerce both by sea and land was immense. Its political 
 constitution afforded the finest opportunities for individual 
 development. Thales both by birth and education would 
 naturally have been fixed there ; and would not, as it has often 
 been said, have travelled into Egypt and Crete for the prose- 
 cution of his studies. These assertions, though frequently 
 repeated, are based on no trusty authority. The only ground 
 for the conjecture is the fact of Thales being a proficient in 
 mathematical knowledge ; and from very early times, as we see 
 in Herodotus, it was the fashion to derive the origin of almost 
 every branch of knowledge from Egypt. So little consistency 
 is there, however, in this narrative of his voyages, that he is 
 said to have astonished the Egyptians, by showing them how to 
 measure the height of their pyramids by their shadows. A 
 nation so easily astonished by one of the simplest of mathe- 
 matical problems could have had little to teach. Perhaps the 
 strongest proof that he never travelled into Egypt — or that, if 
 he travelled there, that he never came into communication 
 with the priests — is ihe absence of all trace, however slight, of 
 any Egyptian doctrine in the philosophy of Thales which he 
 
THALES. 2? 
 
 might not have found at home. To that philosophy we now 
 address ourselves. 
 
 The distinctive characteristic of the Ionian School, in its 
 first period, was that of physiological inquiry into the consti- 
 tution of the universe. Thales opened this inquiry. It is 
 commonly said, " Thales taught that the principle of all things 
 was water." On a first glance, this will perhaps appear a mere 
 extravagance. A smile of pity will greet it, accompanied by a 
 reflection on the smiler's part, of the unlikelihood of his having 
 ever believed in such an absurdity. But the serious student 
 will be slow to accuse his predecessors of extravagance. The 
 history 01 Philosophy may be the history of errors ; it is not 
 that of follies. All the systems that have appeared have had a 
 pregnant meaning. Only for this could they have been accepted. 
 The meaning was proportionate to the opinions of the epoch, 
 and as such is worth penetrating. Thales was one of the most 
 extraordinary men that ever lived, and produced a most extra- 
 ordinary revolution. Such a man was not likely to have enun- 
 ciated a philosophical thought which any child might have 
 refuted. There was deep meaning in the thought ; to him at 
 least. Above all there was deep meaning in the attempt to 
 discover this first of problems ; although the attempt itself was 
 abortive. Let us endeavour to penetrate the meaning of his 
 thought ; let us see if we cannot in some shape trace its rise 
 and growth in his mind. 
 
 It is characteristic of most philosophical minds, to reduce 
 all imaginable diversities to one principle. We shall see in- 
 stances enough of this in the course of our narrative, to absolve 
 us from the necessity of any demonstration here. We may, 
 however, illustrate it by one brief example. As it was the 
 inevitable tendency of religious speculation to reduce poly- 
 theism to monotheism — to generalize all the supernatural powers 
 into one expression — so also was it the tendency of early 
 philosophical speculation to reduce all possible modes of 
 existence into one generalization of existence itself. 
 
 Thales speculating on the constitution of the universe could 
 not but strive to discover the one principle — the primary Fact 
 — the substance, of which all special existences were but the 
 modes. Seeing around him constant transformations — birth 
 and death — change of shape, of size, and of mode of existence, 
 he could not regard any one of these variable states of exis- 
 tence as existence itself. He therefore asked himself, What is 
 
i8 THE PHYSIOLOGISTS. 
 
 that invariable existence of which these are the variable states t 
 In a word, what is the beginning of things ? * 
 
 To ask this question was to open the era of philosophical 
 inquiry. Hitherto men had contented themselves with accept- 
 ing the world as they found it ; with believing what they saw ; 
 and with adoring what they could not see. 
 
 Thales felt that there was a vital question to be answered 
 relative to the beginning of things. He looked around him. 
 On what he saw, he meditated ; the result of his meditation was 
 the conviction that Moisture was the Beginning. Could any- 
 thing be more naturally present to an Ionian mind than the 
 universality of water? Had he not from boyhood upwards 
 been familiar with the sea ? 
 
 M There about the beach he wandered nourishing a youth sublime 
 With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of time." 
 
 When gazing abroad upon the blue expanse, hearing "the 
 mighty waters rolling evermore," and seeing the red sun, hav- 
 ing spent its fiery energy, sink into the cool bosom of the 
 wave, to rest there in peace, how often must he have been led 
 to contemplate the all-embracing all-en gulphing sea, upon 
 whose throbbing breast the very earth itself reposed. This 
 earth how finite ; and that welling sea how infinite ! 
 
 Once impressed with this idea, he examined the constitution 
 of the earth. There also he found moisture everywhere. All 
 things he found nourished by moisture ; warmth itself he de- 
 clared to proceed from moisture ; the seeds of all things are 
 moist. Water when condensed becomes earth. 
 
 Thus convinced of the universal presence of water, he 
 declared it to be the beginning of things. Just what moisture 
 is to the ground, it has well been said, necessary to its being what 
 it is, yet not being the ground itself, just soch a thing did 
 Thales find in himself, something which was not his body, but 
 without which his body would not be what it is ; without which 
 it would be a dry husk falling to pieces. + 
 
 Thales would all the more readily adopt this notion from 
 its harmonising with ancient opinions; such for instance as 
 
 * Had historians said that Thales taught that moisture was the begin- 
 ning of things, they would have greatly simplified the question ; our word 
 " principle " has another meaning. Beginning is the correct word ; and 
 is the one used by Aristotle, Btfwp ilvat r?)v Apxhv. — Met. i. 3. 
 
 t ■ Ency. Merrop.' art. Moral and Metaph. Philos. 
 
THALES. 99 
 
 Hesiod's Theogony, wherein Oceanus and Thetis were regarded 
 as the parents of all such deities as had any relation to nature. 
 " He would thus have performed for the popular religion that 
 which modern science has performed for the book of Genesis : 
 explaining what before was enigmatical." * 
 
 This remark leads us to the rectification of a serious error, 
 which is very generally entertained. We allude to the supposed 
 Atheism of Thales. It is sufficient to name the learned Ritter, 
 and the brilliant, ingenious Victor Cousin, as upholders of this 
 opinion, to show that its refutation is requisite. Because Thales 
 held that water was the beginning of things, it is concluded that 
 God or the Gods, were not recognised by him. The only 
 authority adduced in support of this conclusion is the negative 
 authority of Aristotle's silence. But it seems to us that Aris- 
 totle's silence is directly against such a conclusion. Would he 
 have been silent on so remarkable a point as that Thales be- 
 lieved only in the existence of water ? We cannot think so. 
 Cicero, when speaking of Thales, expressly says that he held 
 water to be the beginning of things, but God was the mind 
 which created them from water. We certainly object, with 
 Hegel, to Cicero's attributing to Thales the conception of God 
 as intelligence (vow?) ; that being the expression of more ad- 
 vanced philosophy. Thales did not conceive any formative 
 principle, either as Power or Intelligence, by which the primeval 
 moisture was fashioned. He had no conception of a Creative 
 Power. He believed in the Gods ; but, in the ancient mytho- 
 logy, the generation of the Gods was a fundamental tenet ; he 
 believed, therefore, that the Gods, as all things, were generated 
 from water. Aristotle's account bears only this interpretation. 
 — Met. i. 3. But this is not Atheism. Atheism is not of so 
 early a date. Indeed, to believe in any Atheism at such a 
 period of the world's history, is radically to misconceive the 
 history of the human race. 
 
 In conclusion, we may say that the step taken by Thales was 
 twofold in its influence : — 1st, to discover the beginning, the 
 prima materia of all things (rj apxrj) ; 2dly, to select from 
 among the elements that element which was most omnipotent, 
 omnipresent. To those acquainted with the history of the 
 human mind, both these notions will be significant of an entirely 
 new era. In our Introduction, we stated the law of the progress 
 
 • Ben). Constant, ' Du Polyth6Ume Romaine,* p. i. 167. 
 
30 THE PHYSIOLOGISTS. 
 
 of science to be this : Starting with a pure deductive method, the 
 human mind exhausted its ingenuity, in developing all possible 
 theories, and, when satisfied with the vanity of its efforts, it 
 followed another method, the inductive ; till by means of the 
 accumulated treasures of this method it was again enabled to 
 reason deductively. The position occupied by Thales is that 
 of the Father of Philosophy ; since he was the first in Greece 
 to furnish a formula from which to reason deductively. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ANAXIMENES. 
 
 Anaximander is by most historians placed after Thales. We 
 agree with Ritter in giving that place to Anaximenes. The 
 reasons on which we ground this arrangement are, ist, in so 
 doing we follow our safest guide, Aristotle. 2dly, the doctrines 
 of Anaximenes are the development of those of Thales ; whereas 
 Anaximander follows a totally different line of speculation. 
 Indeed, the whole ordinary arrangement of the Ionian School 
 seems to have proceeded on the conviction that each disciple 
 not only contradicted his master, but also returned to the 
 doctrines of his master's teacher. Thus, Anaximander is made 
 to succeed Thales, though quite opposed to him ; whereas 
 Anaximenes, who only carries out the principles of Thales, 
 is made the disciple of Anaximander. When we state that 212 
 years, i.e. six or seven generations, are taken up by the lives of 
 the four individuals said to stand in the successive relations of 
 teacher and pupil, Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and 
 Anaxagoras, the reader will be able to estimate the value of 
 the traditional relationship. 
 
 The truth is, only the names of the great leaders in philo- 
 sophy were thought worth preserving ; all those who merely 
 applied or extended the doctrine were very properly consigned 
 to oblivion. This is also the principle upon which the present 
 history is composed. No one will therefore demur to our 
 placing Anaximenes second to Thales ; not as his disciple, 
 but as his historical successor ; as the man who, taking up the 
 speculation where Thales and his disciples left it, transmitted 
 it to his successors in a more developed form. 
 
DIOGENES OF APOLLONIA. 31 
 
 Of the life of Anaximenes nothing further is known than that 
 he was born at Miletus, probably in the 63rd Olympiad ; and 
 discovered the obliquity of the ecliptic by means of the 
 gnomon. 
 
 Pursuing the method of Thales, he could not satisfy himself 
 with the truth of Thales' doctrine. Water was not to him 
 the most significant element. He felt within him a something 
 which moved him he knew not how, he knew not why ; some- 
 thing higher than himself ; invisible, but ever present. This he 
 called his soul. His soul he believed to be air. Was there 
 not also without him, no less than within him, an ever-moving, 
 ever-present, invisible air ? The air which was within him, 
 and which he called Soul, was it not a part of the air which 
 was without him ? And, if so, was not this air the Beginning 
 of Things ? 
 
 He looked around him, and thought his conjecture was con- 
 firmed. The air seemed universal.* The earth was as a broad 
 leaf resting upon it. All things are produced from it: all 
 things are resolved into it. When he breathed, he drew in a part 
 of the universal life. All things were nourished by air, as he 
 was nourished by it. 
 
 This was the central idea of his system. He applied it to 
 the explanation of many phenomena in a way that would make 
 the reader smile ; but, as this history is a record of Methods, 
 and not a mere record of absurdities, we will not occupy our 
 space by further detail. Compared with the doctrine of Thales 
 this of Anaximenes presents a decided progress. As & physiolo- 
 gical principle, air may be as absurd as water; but the progress 
 is seen in the conception of a principle founded on the ana- 
 logies of the soul, rather than, as with Thales, on the analogies 
 of the seed. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DIOGENES OF APOLLONIA. 
 
 Diogenes of Apollonia is the real successor of Anaximenes, 
 although, from the uncritical arrangement usually adopted, he 
 is made to represent no epoch whatever. Thus, Tennemann 
 
 * When Anaximenes speaks of Air, as when Thales speaks of Water, 
 we must not understand these elements as they appear in this or that 
 determinate form on earth, but as Water and Air pregnant with vital 
 energy and capable of infinite transmutations. 
 
S* THE PHYSIOLOGISTS. 
 
 places him after Pythagoras. Hegel, by a strange oversight; 
 says that we know nothing of Diogenes but the name. 
 
 Diogenes was born at Apollonia, in Crete. More than this 
 we are unable to state with certainty ; but, as he is said to have 
 been a contemporary of Anaxagoras, we may assume him to 
 have flourished about the 8oth Olympiad. His work on Nature 
 was extant in the time of Simplicius (the 6th century of our 
 era), who extracted some passages from it. 
 
 Diogenes adopted the tenet of Anaximenes respecting Air as 
 the origin of things ; but he gave a wider and deeper significa- 
 cation to the tenet, by attaching himself more to the analogy 
 of the Soul. Struck with the force of this analogy, he was led 
 to push the conclusion to its ultimate limits. What is it, he 
 may have asked himself, that constitutes Air the origin of 
 things ? Clearly its vital force. The Air is a Soul : therefore 
 it is living and intelligent. But this Force or Intelligence is a 
 higher thing than the Air, through which it manifests itself; it 
 must consequently be prior in point of time ; it must be the 
 apxv philosophers have sought. The Universe is a living 
 being, spontaneously evolving itself, deriving its transformation 
 from its own vitality. 
 
 There are two remarkable points in this conception, both 
 indicative of very great progress in speculation. The first is 
 the attribute of Intelligence, with which the apxv is endowed. 
 Anaximenes considered the primary substance to be an ani- 
 mated substance ; Air was Soul in his system ; but the Soul did 
 not necessarily imply Intelligence. He conceived the Soul as 
 the vital principle. Diogenes saw that the Soul was not only 
 Force, but Intelligence ; the Air which stirred within him, not 
 only pro7?ipted but instructed. He carried this analogy of his 
 soul on to the operations of the world. The Air, as the 
 origin of all things, is necessarily an eternal, imperishable sub- 
 stance ; but, as soul, it is also necessarily endowed with con- 
 sciousness : " it knows much," and this knowledge is another 
 proot of its being the primary substance ; " for without Reason," 
 he says, " it would be impossible for all to be arranged duly 
 and proportionately ; and whatever object we consider will be 
 found to be arranged and ordered in the best and most beau- 
 tiful manner." Order can result only from Intelligence; the 
 Soul is therefore the First (apxv)> This conception was un- 
 doubtedly a great one ; but that the reader may not exaggerate 
 its importance, nor suppose that the rest of Diogenes' doctrines 
 
DIOGENES OF APOLLONIA. 33 
 
 were equally reasonable and profound, we must for the sake of 
 preserving historical truth advert to one or two of his applica- 
 tions of the conception. Thus : — 
 
 The world, as a living unity, must, like other individuals, 
 derive its vital force from the Whole : hence he attributed to 
 the world a set of respiratory organs, which he fancied he dis- 
 covered in the stars. All creation, and all material action, 
 were but respiration and exhalation. In the attraction of 
 moisture to the sun, in the attraction of iron to the magnet, he 
 equally saw a process of respiration. Man is superior to brutes 
 in intelligence, because he inhales a purer air than brutes who 
 bow their heads to the ground. 
 
 These 7iaive attempts at the explanation of phenomena will 
 suffice to show that, although Diogenes had made a large 
 stride, he had accomplished very little of the journey. 
 
 The second remarkable point indicated by his system is the 
 manner in which it closes the inquiry opened by Thales. 
 Thales, starting from the conviction that one of the four ele- 
 ments was the origin of the world, and Water that element, was 
 followed by Anaximenes, who thought that not only was Air a 
 more universal element than Water, but that, being the soul, 
 it must be the universal Life : to him succeeded Diogenes, who 
 saw that not only was Air Life, but Intelligence, and that Intel- 
 ligence must have been the First of Things. 
 
 We concur, therefore, with Ritter in regarding Diogenes as 
 the last philosopher attached to the Physiological method ; and 
 that in his system that method receives its consummation. 
 Having thus traced one great line of speculation, we must now 
 cast our eyes upon what was being contemporaneously evolved 
 in another direction. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 THE MATHEMATICIANS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ANAXIMANDER OF MILETUS. 
 
 " As we now, for the first time in the history of Greek Philo- 
 sophy, meet with contemporaneous developments, the observa- 
 tion will not, perhaps, be deemed superfluous, that in the 
 earliest times of philosophy, historical evidences of the recip- 
 rocal influence of the two lines either entirely fail or are very 
 unworthy of credit ; on the other hand, the internal evidence 
 is of very limited value, because it is impossible to prove a 
 complete ignorance in one of the ideas revolved and carried 
 out in the other ; nevertheless, any argument drawn from an 
 apparent acquaintance therewith, is far from being extensive or 
 tenable, since all the olden philosophers drew from one com- 
 mon source — the national habit of thought. When indeed 
 these two directions had been more largely pursued, we shall 
 find in the controversial notices sufficient evidence of an active 
 conflict between these very opposite views of nature and the 
 universe. In truth, when we call to mind the inadequate 
 means at the command of the earlier philosophers for the dis- 
 semination of their opinions, it appears extremely probable that 
 their respective systems were for a long time known only within 
 a very narrow circle. On the supposition, however, that the 
 philosophical impulse of these times was the result of a real 
 national want, it becomes at once probable that the various 
 elements began to show themselves in Ionia nearly at the same 
 time, independently and without any external connection."* 
 The chief of the school we are now about to consider was 
 * * Ritter/ i. p. j6$. 
 
ANAXIMANDER OF MILETUS. 35 
 
 Anaximander, of Miletus, whose birth is generally dated in 
 43rd Olympiad. He is sometimes called the friend, and some- 
 times the disciple, of Thales. We prefer the former relation ; 
 the latter is at any rate not the one in which this history can 
 regard him. His reputation, both for political and scientific 
 knowledge, was very great; and many important inventions 
 are ascribed to him ; amongst ' others that of the sun-dial and 
 the sketch of a geographical map. His calculations of the size 
 and distance of the heavenly bodies were committed to writing 
 in a small work which is said to be the earliest of all philoso- 
 phical writings. He was passionately addicted to mathematics, 
 and framed a series of geometrical problems. He was the 
 leader of a colony to Apollonia ; and he is also reported to 
 have resided at the court of the Tyrant Polycrates, in Samos, 
 where also lived Pythagoras and Anacreon. 
 
 No two historians are agreed in their interpretation of Anaxi- 
 mander's doctrines ; few, indeed, are agreed in the historical 
 position he is to occupy. In offering a new view of the 
 character of his philosophy, we call the reader's attention to 
 this point, as a warrant for the attempt, and as an excuse for 
 failure, if we fail. 
 
 Anaximander is stated to have been the first to use the term 
 apxr) for the beginning of things. What he meant by this term 
 principle is variously interpreted by the ancient writers ; for, 
 although they are unanimous in agreeing that he called it the 
 infinite (to a-n-eipov), what he understood by the infinite is yet 
 undecided.* 
 
 On a first view nothing can well be less intelligible than this 
 tenet: "The Infinite is the origin of all things." It either 
 looks like the monotheism of a far later date,t or like the word- 
 jugglery of mysticism. To our minds it is neither more nor 
 less difficult of comprehension than the tenet of Thales, that 
 " Water is the origin of all things." Let us cast ourselves back 
 in imagination into those early days, and see if we cannot 
 account for the rise of such an opinion. 
 
 On viewing Anaximander, side by side with his great pre- 
 
 • * Ritter,' i. 267. 
 
 t Which it certainly could not have been. To prevent any misconcep- 
 tion of the kind, we may merely observe that the Infinite here meant, was 
 not even the Limitless Power, much less the Limitless Mind, implied in 
 the modern conception. In Anaxagoras, who lived a century later, we find 
 ro dirnpov to be no more than vastness. — See Simplicius, Phys. 33, b. 
 quoted in 'Ritter.' 
 
36 THE MATHEMATICIANS. 
 
 decessor and friend Thales, we cannot but be struck with the 
 exclusively abstract tendency of his speculations. Instead of 
 the meditative Metaphysician, we see the Geometrician. 
 Thales, whose famous maxim, " Know thyself," was essentially 
 concrete, may serve as a contrast to Anaximander, whose 
 axiom, " The Infinite is the origin of all things," is the ultimate 
 effort of abstraction. Let us concede to him this tendency ; 
 let us see in him the geometrician rather than the moralist or 
 physiologist ; let us endeavour to understand how all things 
 presented themselves to his mind in the abstract form, and how 
 mathematics was the science of sciences, and we shall then be 
 able to understand his tenets. 
 
 Thales, in searching for the origin of things, was led, as we 
 have seen, to maintain Water to be that origin. But Anaxi- 
 mander, accustomed to view things in the abstract, could not 
 accept so concrete a thing as Water ; something more ultimate 
 in the analysis was required. Water itself, which, in common 
 with Thales, he held to be the material of the universe, was it 
 not subject to conditions ? what were those conditions ? This 
 Moisture, of which all things are made, does it not cease to be 
 moisture in many instances ? And can that which is the origin 
 of all, ever change, ever be confounded with individual things? 
 Water itself is a Thing ; but a Thing cannot be All Things. 
 
 These objections to the doctrine of Thales caused him to 
 reject, or rather to modify, that doctrine. The dpxn, he said, 
 was not Water ; it must be the Unlimited All, to a-rrzipov. 
 
 Vague and profitless enough this theory will doubtless 
 appear. The abstraction " All " will seem a mere distinction 
 in words. But, in Greek Philosophy, as we shall repeatedly 
 notice, distinctions in words were generally equivalent to dis- 
 tinctions in things. And, if the reader reflects how the Mathe- 
 matician, by the very nature of his science, is led to regard 
 abstractions as entities, and to separate for instance form, and 
 to treat of it as if it alone constituted body, there will be no 
 difficulty in conceiving Anaximander's distinction between all 
 Finite Things and the Infinite All. 
 
 It is thus only we can explain his tenet ; and it thus seems 
 borne out by the testimony of Aristotle and Theophrastus, who 
 agree, that, by the Infinite he understood the multitude of 
 elementary parts out of which individual things issued by 
 separation. " By separation " — the phrase is significant. It 
 means the passage from the abstract to the concrete — the All 
 
ANAXIMANDER OF MILETUS. yj 
 
 realizing itself in the Individual Thing. Call the Infinite by 
 the name of Existence, and say, "There is Existence per se and 
 Existence per aliud — the former is, Existence the ever-living 
 fountain whence flow the various existing Things" In this way 
 you may, perhaps, make Anaximander's meaning intelligible. 
 
 Let us now hear Ritter, Anaximander is "represented as 
 arguing, that the primary substance must have been infinite to 
 be all-sufficient for the limitless variety of produced things with 
 which we are encompassed. Now, though Aristotle expressly 
 characterizes this infinite as a mixture, we must not think of it 
 as a mere multiplicity of primary material elements ; for to the 
 mind of Anaximander it was a Unity immortal and imperish- 
 able — an ever-producing energy. This production of individual 
 things he derived from an eternal motion of the Infinite? 
 
 The primary Being, according to Anaximander, is unques- 
 tionably an Unity. It is One yet All. It comprises within 
 itself the multiplicity of elements from which all mundane 
 things are composed ; and these elements only need to be 
 separated from it to appear as separate phenomena of nature. 
 Creation is the decomposition of the Infinite. How does this 
 decomposition originate? By the eternal motion which is the 
 condition of the Infinite. " He regarded," says Ritter, " the 
 Infinite as being in a constant state of incipiency, which, how- 
 ever, is nothing but a constant secretion and concretion of 
 certain immutable elements ; so that we might well say, the 
 parts of the whole are constantly changing, while the whole is 
 unchangeable." 
 
 The reader may smile at this logic ; we would not have him 
 do so. True, the idea of elevating an abstraction into a Being 
 — the origin of all things — is baseless enough ; it is as if we 
 were to say, "There are numbers i, 2, 3, 20, 80, 100 5 but 
 there is also Number in the abstract, of which these individual 
 numbers are but the concrete realisation ; without Number 
 there would be no numbers." This is precisely similar reason- 
 ing : yet so difficult is it for the human mind to divest itself of 
 its own abstractions, and to consider them as no more than as 
 abstractions, that this error lies at the root of the majority of 
 philosophical systems. It may help the reader to some toler- 
 ance of Anaximander's error if we inform him, that two of the 
 most celebrated philosophers of modern times, Hegel and 
 Victor Cousin, have maintained precisely the same tenet, though 
 somewhat differently worded : they say that Creation is God 
 
J8 THE MATHEMATICIANS. 
 
 passing into activity, but not exhausted by the act ; in othei 
 words, Creation is the mundane existence of God ; finite Things 
 are but the eternal motion, the manifestation of the All. 
 
 Anaximander separated himself from Thales by regarding the 
 abstract as of higher significance than the concrete ; and in 
 this tendency we see the origin of the Pythagorean school, so 
 often called the mathematical school. The speculations of 
 Thales tended towards discovering the material constitution of 
 the universe ; they were founded, in some degree, upon an 
 induction from observed facts, however imperfect that induc- 
 tion might be. The speculations of Anaximander were wholly 
 deductive; and, as such, tended towards mathematics, the 
 science of pure deduction. 
 
 As an example of this mathematical tendency we may notice 
 his physiological speculations. The central point in his cos- 
 mopceia was the earth : for, being of a cylindrical form, with 
 a base in the ratio i : 3 to its altitude, it was retained in its 
 centre by the aid and by the equality of its distances from all 
 the limits of the world. 
 
 From the foregoing exposition, the reader may judge of the 
 propriety of that ordinary historical arrangement which places 
 Anaximander as the successor of Thales. It is clear, that he 
 originated one of the great lines of speculative inquiry, and that 
 one, perhaps, the most curious in all antiquity. We will make 
 one more remark. By Thales, Water, the origin of things, 
 was held to be a real physical element, which, in the hands of 
 his successors, became gradually transformed into a merely 
 representative emblem of something wholly different (Life or 
 Mind) ; and the element which lent its name as the representa- 
 tive was looked upon as a secondary phenomenon, derived 
 from that primary force of which it was the emblem. Water 
 was the real primary element with Thales ; with Diogenes, 
 Water (having previously been displaced for Air) was but the 
 emblem of Mind. A similar course is observable in the Italian 
 school. Anaximander's conception of the All, though abstract, 
 is, nevertheless, to a great degree, physical : it is All Things. 
 His conception of the Infinite was not ideal — it had not passed 
 into the state of a symbol — it was the mere description of the 
 primary fact of existence. Above all, it involved no conception 
 of intelligence except as a mundane finite thing. His to airtipov 
 was the Infinite Existence, but not the Infinite Mind. This 
 later development we shall meet with hereafter in the Eleatics. 
 
PYTHAGORAS. 39 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PYTHAGORAS. 
 
 It will create some surprise, in those not already familiar with 
 our plan, to see Pythagoras treated of in immediate connexion 
 with Anaximander ; but, although for the strongest evidence 
 we must refer to the next chapter, in which the Pythagorean 
 doctrines will be considered, yet we may at once adduce some 
 slight collateral proof. Anaximander resided at the court of 
 Poly crates, at Samos, where Pythagoras also 'ived. So runs 
 tradition. Now, although this tradition may be groundless, as 
 a fact, yet it indicates a connexion between the two thinkers 
 firmly credited by ancient writers, and fully confirmed by the 
 spirit of the two systems. 
 
 The life of Pythagoras is enshrouded in the dim magnificence 
 of legends, from which the attempt to extricate it is hopeless. 
 Many years ago we examined this subject in its minutest 
 details, and consulted almost everything that had been written 
 on it. Guided by no sound principles of historical scepticism, 
 we were perfectly bewildered with the force of contradictory 
 evidence. We are now inclined to think that these opposing 
 testimonies are of equal value : that is, of no value whatever. 
 
 Certain general indications are doubtless to be trusted ; but 
 they are few and vague. We will endeavour to sketch a 
 memoir from them. 
 
 As a specimen of the trouble necessary to settle any one 
 point in this biography, we will here cite the various dates given 
 by Scholars, as the results of their inquiries into his birth. 
 Bentley says 43rd Olympiad ; Stanley, 53rd Oly. ; Gale, 60th 
 Oly. ; Dacier, 47 th Oly. ; Diodorus Siculus, 61st Oly. ; Lloyd, 
 43rd Oly. ; Dodwell, 52nd Oly.; Clemens Alex., 62nd Oly.; 
 Eusebius, 63rd or 64th Oly. ; Thirwall, 51st Oly. ; Ritter, 49th 
 Oly. ; so that the accounts vary within the limits of eighty-four 
 years. If we must make a choice, we should decide with 
 Bentley ; not only from respect for that magnificent scholar, 
 but because it agrees with the probable date of the birth of 
 Pythagoras' friend and contemporary, Anaximander. 
 
 Pythagoras is usually classed among the great founders of 
 Mathematics ; and this receives confirmation from what we know 
 of the general scope of his labours, and from the statement that 
 
♦o THE MATHEMATICIANS. 
 
 he was chiefly occupied with the determination of extension and 
 gravity, and measuring the ratios of musical tones. His science 
 and skill are of course absurdly exaggerated ; as, indeed, is 
 every portion of his life. Fable assigns him the place of a saint ; 
 a worker of miracles, and the teacher of more than human 
 wisdom. His very birth was marvellous ; some accounts 
 making him the son of Hermes, others of Apollo : in proof 
 of the latter, he is said to have exhibited a golden thigh. 
 With a word he tamed the Daunian bear, which was laying 
 waste the country ; with a whisper he restrained an ox from 
 devouring beans. He was heard to lecture at different places, 
 such as Metapontum and Tauromenium, on the same day and 
 at the same hour. As he crossed the river, the river-god 
 saluted him with •' Hail, Pythagoras ! " and to him the harmony 
 of the Spheres was audible music. 
 
 Fable enshrines these wonders. But that they could exist, 
 even as legendary lore, is significant of the greatness of Pytha- 
 goras. It is well said by Sir Lytton Bulwer, in his brilliant 
 and thoughtful work on Athens, that not only all the traditions 
 respecting Pythagoras, but the certain fact of the mighty effect 
 that, in his single person, he afterwards wrought in Italy, 
 prove him also to have possessed that nameless art of making 
 a personal impression upon mankind, and creating individual 
 enthusiasm, which is necessary to those who obtain a moral 
 command, and are the founders of sects and institutions. It 
 is so much in conformity with the mariners of the time and the 
 objects of Pythagoras, to believe that he diligently explored 
 the ancient religious and political systems of Greece, from which 
 he had been long a stranger, that we cannot reject the tradi- 
 tions (however disfigured with fable) that he visited Delos, and 
 affected to receive instructions from the pious ministrants of 
 Delphi.* It is no ordinary man that Fable exalts into its 
 poetical region. Whenever you find romantic or miraculous 
 deeds attributed to any man, be certain that that man was 
 great enough to sustain the weight of this crown of fabulous 
 glory. So with Pythagoras, we accept the evidence of Fable. 
 
 But the fact thus indicated is to us a refutation of the 
 ordinary tradition of his having borrowed all his learning and 
 philosophy from the East. Could not so great a man dis- 
 pense with foreign teachers ? Assuredly he could and did. 
 
 • * Athens : it Rise and F^ll,' vol. ii. p. 412. 
 
PYTHAGORAS. 4 t 
 
 But his countrymen, by a very natural process of thought, 
 looked upon his greatness as the result of his Eastern educa- 
 tion. It is an old proverb, that no man is a prophet in his 
 own country ; and the imaginative Greeks were peculiarly prone 
 to invest the distant and the foreign with striking attributes. 
 They could not believe in wisdom springing up from amongst 
 them ; they turned to the East as to a vast and unknown region, 
 whence all novelty, even of thought, must spring. 
 
 When we consider, as Ritter observes, how Egypt was pecu- 
 liarly the wonder-land of the olden Greeks, and how, even in 
 later times, when it was so much better known, it was still, as 
 it is to this day, so calculated to excite awe by the singular 
 character of its people, which, reserved in itself, was always 
 protruding on the observer's attention, through the stupendous 
 structures of national Architecture, we can easily imagine how 
 the Greeks were led to establish some connexion between this 
 mighty East and their great Pythagoras. 
 
 But although we can by no means believe that Pythagoras 
 was much indebted to Egypt for his doctrines, we are not 
 sceptical as to the account of his having travelled there. 
 Samos was in constant intercourse with Egypt. If Pythagoras 
 had travelled into Egypt — or, indeed, listened to the relations 
 of those who had done so — he would thereby have obtained 
 as much knowledge of Egyptian customs as appears in his 
 system ; and that without having the least instruction from the 
 Priesthood. The doctrine of metempsychosis was a public 
 doctrine with the Egyptians; though, as Ritter says, he might 
 not have been indebted to them even for that. Funeral cus- 
 toms and abstinence from particular kinds of food were things 
 to be noticed by any traveller. But the fundamental objection 
 to Pythagoras having been instructed by the Egyptian Priests, 
 is to be sought in the constitution of the caste of Priesthood 
 itself. If they were so jealous of instruction as not to 
 bestow it even on the most favoured of their countrymen, 
 unless belonging to their caste, how unreasonable to suppose 
 they would bestow it on a stranger, and one of different 
 religion ! 
 
 The ancient writers were sensible of this objection. To 
 get rid of it, they invented a story which we shall give as it is 
 given by Brucker. Polycrates wns in friendly relations with 
 Amasis, King of Egypt, to whom he sent Pythagoras, with a 
 recommendation to enable him to gain access to the Priests, 
 
4* THE MATHEMATICIANS. 
 
 fhe king's authority was not sufficient to prevail on the 
 Priests to admit a stranger to their mysteries. They referred 
 Pythagoras therefore to Thebes, as of greater antiquity. The 
 Theban Priests were awed by the royal mandate, but were 
 loath to admit a stranger to their rites. To disgust the novice, 
 they forced him to undergo several severe ceremonies, among 
 which was circumcision. But he could not be discouraged. He 
 obeyed all their injunctions with such patience, that they 
 resolved to take him into their confidence. He spent two-and« 
 twenty years in Egypt, and returned perfect master of all 
 science. 
 
 This is not a bad story : it has, however, one objection ; it 
 is not substantiated. To Pythagoras the invention of the word 
 philosopher is ascribed. When he was in Peloponnesus, he 
 was asked by Leontius, what was his art ? "I have no art. I 
 am a philosopher," was the reply. Leontius never having 
 heard the name before, asked what it meant. Pythagoras 
 gravely answered : " This life may be compared to the Olympic 
 games ; for, as in this assembly some seek glory and the 
 crowns ; some by the purchase or by the sale of merchandise 
 seek gain ; and others, more noble than either, go there neither 
 for gain nor for applause, but solely to enjoy this wonderful 
 spectacle, and to see and know all that passes; we, in the same 
 manner, quit our country, which is heaven, and come into the 
 world, which is an assembly where many work for profit, many 
 for gain, and where there are but few who, despising avarice 
 and vanity, study nature. It is these last whom I call 
 philosophers ; for, as there is nothing more noble than to be a 
 spectator without any personal interest, so in this life the 
 contemplation and knowledge of nature, are infinitely more 
 honourable than any other application." It is necessary to 
 observe, that the ordinary interpretation of Philosopher, as 
 Pythagoras meant it, a *} lover of wisdom," is only accurate 
 where the utmost extension is given to the word "lover." 
 Wisdom must be the " be-all and the end-all here " of the 
 philosopher, and not simply a taste, or a pursuit. It must be his 
 mistress, to whom his life is devoted. This was the meaning of 
 Pythagoras. The word which had before designated a wise 
 man, was <ro0os. But he wished to distinguish himself from 
 the sophoi, or philosophers of his day, by name, as he had done 
 by system. What was the meaning of Sophos ? Unquestion- 
 ably what we mean by a wise man, as distinct from a philo- 
 
PYTHAGORAS. 43 
 
 gopher : one whose wisdom is practical, and turned to practical 
 purposes ; one who loves wisdom not for its own sake, so much 
 as for the sake of its uses. Now Pythagoras loved wisdom for 
 its own sake. Contemplation was to him the highest exercise 
 of humanity. To bring wisdom down to the base purposes 
 of life, was desecration. He called himself therefore a Philo- 
 sopher — a Lover of Wisdom — to demarcate himself from 
 those who sought Wisdom only as a power to be used for ulte- 
 rior ends. 
 
 Does this interpretation of the word Philosopher explain any 
 of his opinions ? We believe so. Above ali it explains the con- 
 stitution of his Secret Society, into which no one was admitted, 
 except after a severe initiation. For five years was the novice 
 condemned to silence. Many relinquished the task in despair; 
 they were unworthy of the contemplation of pure wisdom. 
 Others, in whom the tendency to loquacity was observed to be 
 less, had the period commuted. Various humiliations had to 
 be endured. Various experiments were made of their powers 
 of self-denial. By these Pythagoras judged whether they were 
 worldly-minded, or whether they were fit to be admitted into 
 the sanctuary of science. Having purged their souls of the 
 baser particles by purifications, sacrifices, and initiations, they 
 were admitted to the sanctuary, where the higher part of the 
 soul was purged by the knowledge of truth, which consists in 
 the knowledge of immaterial and eternal things. For this pur- 
 pose he commenced with Mathematics, because, as they just 
 preserve the medium between corporeal and incorporeal things, 
 they can alone draw off the mind from Sensible things and 
 conduct them to Intelligibles. 
 
 Shall we wonder, then, that he was venerated as a God. He 
 who could so transcend all earthly struggles, and the great 
 ambitions of the greatest men, as to live only for the sake of 
 wisdom, was he not of a higher stamp than ordinary mortals ? 
 Well might later historians picture him as clothed in robes of 
 white, his head crowned with gold, his aspect grave, majestical, 
 and calm ; above the manifestation of any human joy, of any 
 human sorrow ; enwrapt in contemplation of the deeper mys- 
 teries of existence; listening to music, and the hymns of 
 Homer, Hesiod, and Thales ; or listening to the harmony of 
 the spheres. 
 
 He was the first of Mystics. And, to a lively, talkative, 
 quibbling, active, versatile people like the Greeks, what a grand 
 
44 THE MATHEMATICIANS. 
 
 phenomenon must this solemn, earnest, silent, meditative man 
 have appeared. 
 
 From Sir Lytton Bulwer's ' Athens • we borrow the following 
 account of the political career of Pythagoras : — " Pythagoras 
 arrived in Italy during the reign of Tarquinius Superbus, ac- 
 cording to the testimony of Cicero and Aulus Gellius, and 
 fixed his residence in Croton, a city in the Bay of Tarentum, 
 colonized by Greeks of the Achaean tribe. If we may lend a 
 partial credit to the extravagant fables of later disciples, en- 
 deavouring to extract from florid superaddition some original 
 germ of simple truth, it would seem, that he first appeared in 
 the character of a teacher of youth, and, as was not unusual 
 in those times, soon rose from the preceptor to the legislator. 
 Dissensions in the city favoured his objects. The senate (con- 
 sisting of a thousand members, doubtless of a different race 
 from the body of the people ; the first the posterity of the 
 settlers, the last the native population) availed itself of the 
 arrival and influence of an eloquent and renowned philosopher. 
 He lent himself to the consolidation of aristocracies, and was 
 equally inimical to democracy and tyranny. But his policy 
 was that of no vulgar ambition : he refused, at least for a time, 
 ostensible power and office, and was contented with instituting 
 an organised and formidable society, not wholly dissimilar to 
 that mighty order founded by Loyola in times comparatively 
 recent. The disciples admitted into this society underwent 
 examination and probation ; it was through degrees that they 
 passed into its higher honours, and were admitted into its 
 deeper secrets. Religion made the basis of the fraternity, but 
 religion connected with human ends of advancement and 
 power. He selected the three hundred, who, at Croton, formed 
 his order, from the noblest families, and they were professedly 
 reared to know themselves, that so they might be fitted to 
 command the world. It was not long before this society, of 
 which Pythagoras was the head, appears to have supplanted 
 the ancient senate, and obtained the legislative administra- 
 tion. In this institution, Pythagoras stands alone ; no other 
 founder of Greek philosophy resembles him. By all accounts, 
 he also differed from the other sages ot nis time, in his estimate 
 of the importance of women. He is said to have lectured to, 
 and taught them. His wife was herseif a philosopher, and 
 fifteen disciples of the softer sex rank among the prominent 
 ornaments of his school. An order based upon so profound a 
 
PYTHAGORAS. 
 
 45 
 
 knowledge of all that can fascinate or cheat mankind, could not 
 fail to secure a temporary power. His influence was un- 
 bounded in Croton — it extended to other Italian cities — it 
 amended, or overturned political constitutions ; and, had 
 Pythagoras possessed a more coarse and personal ambition, he 
 might, perhaps, have founded a mighty dynasty, and enriched 
 our social annals with the result of a new experiment. But his 
 was the ambition, not of a hero, but a sage. He wished 
 rather to establish a system than to exalt himself; his immediate 
 followers saw not all the consequences that might be derived 
 from the fraternity he founded : and the political designs of his 
 gorgeous and august philosophy, only for a while successful, 
 left behind them but the mummeries of an impotent free- 
 masonry, and the enthusiastic ceremonies of half-witted as- 
 cetics. 
 
 " It was when this power, so mystic and so revolutionary, 
 had, by the means of branch societies, established itself 
 throughout a considerable portion of Italy, that a general 
 feeling of alarm and suspicion broke out against the sage and 
 his sectarians. The an ti- Pythagorean risings, according to 
 Porphyry, were sufficiently numerous and active to be remem- 
 bered for long generations afterwards. Many of the sage's 
 friends are said to have perished, and it is doubtful whether 
 Pythagoras himself fell a victim to the rage of his enemies, or 
 died, a fugitive, amongst his disciples at Metapontum. Nor 
 was it until nearly the whole of Lower Italy was torn by 
 convulsions, and Greece herself drawn into the contest, as 
 pacificator and arbiter, that the ferment was allayed : — the 
 Pythagorean institutions were abolished, and the timocratic 
 democracies of the Achaeans rose upon the ruins of those 
 intellectual but ungenial oligarchies. 
 
 " Pythagoras committed a fatal error when, in his attempt to 
 revolutionise society, he had recourse to aristocracies for his 
 agents. Revolutions, especially those influenced by religion, 
 can never be worked out but by popular emotions. It was 
 from this error of judgment that he enlisted the people against 
 him ; for, by the account of Neanthes, related by Porphyry, 
 and indeed from all other testimony, it is clearly evident that to 
 popular, not party, commotion, his fall must be ascribed. It is 
 no less clear that, after his death, while his philosophical sect 
 remained, his political code crumbled away. The only seeds 
 sown by philosophers, which spring up into Great States, are 
 
46 THE MATHEMATICIANS. 
 
 those that, whether for good or evil, are planted in the hearts 
 of the Many." 
 
 We cannot omit the story which so long amused the world 
 respecting his discovery of the musical chords. Hearing one 
 day, in the shop of a blacksmith, a number of men striking 
 successively a piece of heated iron, he remarked that all the 
 hammers except one produced harmonious chords, viz., the 
 octave, the fifth, and the third ; but the sound between the fifth 
 and third was discordant. On entering the workshop, he found 
 the diversity of sounds was owing to the difference in the weight 
 of the hammers. He took the exact weights, and on reaching 
 home suspended four strings of equal dimensions, and, hanging 
 a weight at the end of each of the strings, equal to the weight 
 of each hammer, he struck the strings, and found the sounds 
 correspond with those of the hammers. He then proceeded 
 to the formation of a musical scale. 
 
 On this, Dr. Burney, in his History of Music, remarks : — 
 "Though both hammers and anvil have been swallowed by 
 ancients and moderns with most ostrich-like digestion ; yet, 
 upon examination and experiment, it appears that hammers of 
 different size and weight will no more produce different tones 
 upon the same anvil, than bows or clappers of different size 
 will from the same string or bell." 
 
 We close here our account of the life of Pythagoras with 
 reminding the reader that one great reason for the fabulous and 
 contradictory assertions collected together in histories and 
 biographies, arises from the uncritical manner in which the 
 " authorities " have been used. To take only one " authority " 
 as an example : Iamblicus wrote his life of Pythagoras, with a 
 view of combating the rising doctrine of Christianity, and of 
 opposing, by implication, a Pagan philosopher to Christ 
 Hence the miracles that were attributed to him. 
 
 If our account is somewhat slender, it is so because no 
 certain materials for a better one are extant. 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF PYTHAGORAS. ^ 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF PYTHAGORAS. 
 
 There is no system in the whole course of our history more 
 difficult to seize and represent accurately than that commonly 
 known as the Pythagorean. It has made prodigious noise in 
 the world ; so much so as to be often confounded with its dis- 
 tant echoes. An air of mystery, always inviting to a large 
 class, surrounds it. The marvellous relations of its illustrious 
 founder; the supposed assimilation it contains of various 
 elements of Eastern speculation ; and the supposed symbolical 
 nature of its doctrines, have all equally combined to render it 
 attractive and contradictory. Every dogma in it has been 
 traced to some prior philosophy. Not a vestige will remain to 
 be called the property of the teacher himself, if we restore to 
 the Jews, Indians, Egyptians, Chaldeans, Phoenicians, nay even 
 Thracians, those various portions which he is declared to have 
 borrowed from them. 
 
 All this pretended plagiarism we incline to think extremely 
 improbable ; and, were this a critical history, we should en- 
 deavour to show on what false assumptions it is grounded. 
 
 We can here, however, merely record our conviction that 
 Pythagoras was a consequence of Anaximander ; and that his 
 doctrines, in as far as we can gather from their leading tendency, 
 were but a continuation of that abstract and deductive philo- 
 sophy of which Anaximander was the chief. 
 
 At the outset we must premise, that whatever interest there 
 may be in following out the particular opinions recorded as 
 belonging to Pythagoras, such a process is quite incompatible 
 with our plan. The greatest uncertainty still exists, and must 
 for ever exist, amongst scholars, respecting the genuineness of 
 those opinions. Even such as are recorded by trusty authorities, 
 are always vaguely attributed by them to " the Pythagoreans," 
 not to Pythagoras. Modern criticism has clearly shown that 
 the works attributed to Timaeus and Archytas are spurious; and 
 that the supposed treatise of Ocellus Lucanus on the nature of 
 The All cannot even have been written by a Pythagorean. 
 Plato and Aristotle, the only ancient writers who are to be 
 trusted in this matter, do not attribute any peculiar doctrines 
 to Pythagoras. The reason is simple. Pythagoras taught only 
 
4 8 THE MATHEMATICIANS. 
 
 in secret ; and never wrote. What he taught his disciples it is 
 impossible accurately to learn from what those disciples them- 
 selves taught. His influence over their minds was unquestion- 
 ably immense; and this influence would communicate to his 
 school a distinctive tendency, but not one accordant doctrine ; 
 for each scholar would carry out that tendency in the direction 
 which best suited his taste and powers.* 
 
 The extreme difficulty of ascertaining accurately what Pytha- 
 goras thought, or even what his disciples thought, will not 
 embarrass us, if we can but ascertain the general tendency of 
 their speculations, and, above all, the peculiarity of their 
 method. Because this difficulty, which, for the critical his- 
 torian we believe insuperable, only affects us indirectly; it 
 renders our endeavour to seize the characteristic method and 
 tendency more hazardous and more liable to contradiction ; but 
 it does not compel us to interrupt our march for the sake of 
 storming every individual fortress of opinion we may encounter 
 on our way. We have to trace out the map of the philosophical 
 world ; we must be careful to ascertain the great outlines of 
 each country : this we may be enabled to do without absolutely 
 being acquainted with the internal varieties of that country ; for 
 geographers are not bound to be also geologists. 
 
 What were the method and tendency of the Pythagorean 
 school ? The method purely Deductive ; the tendency wholly 
 towards the consideration of abstractions, as the only true 
 materials of science. Hence the name not unfrequently given 
 to that school of " the Mathematical." The list of Pytha- 
 goreans embraces the greatest names in mathematics and 
 astronomy : Archytas and Philolaus, and subsequently Hippar- 
 chus and Ptolemy, f 
 
 * We assume this to be the case, but we do not assume it groundlessly. 
 We are guided by the striking analogy afforded by the celebrated Saint 
 Simon. Like Pythagoras, the Frenchman published no complete account 
 of his system. He communicated it to his disciples, and, as his influence 
 over their minds was almost unparalleled, the tendency of his philosophy 
 took deep root, though producing very different fruits in different minds. 
 Those moderately acquainted with French writers will appreciate this when 
 we simply enumerate MM. Augustin Thierry, Auguste Comte, Pierre 
 Leroux, Michel Chevalier, Le Pere Enfantin, M. Bazard, &c, all disciples 
 of Saint Simon, yet with very different results ! 
 
 t The classical reader will remember that jiEschylus, a disciple of 
 Pythagoras, makes his Titan boast of having discovered for men, Number, 
 the highest of the sciences ; Kai fir)v aptOfibv, 'i^o\ov aoipicrfidirutv, tgtvpoy 
 «6roif. — Prom., 451. 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF PYTHAGORAS. 49 
 
 We may now, perhaps, in some sort, comprehend what 
 Pythagoras meant when he taught that Numbers were the 
 principles of Things : tovs apiOfiovs curious cu/ai 7-779 ovtuas, (Arist 
 Met. i. 6,) or, to translate more literally, " Numbers are the 
 cause of the material existence of Things ; " ovaia being here 
 evidently the expression of concrete existence. This is con- 
 firmed by the wording of the formula given elsewhere by 
 Aristotle, that Nature is realized from Numbers : rqv <pv<nv i£ 
 api$fxu)v awiaraai. — De Coslo, xix. i. Or again : Things are 
 but the copies ot Numbers : /xi/u-tjo-iv €tvat ra 6Vra twv apiO/Aw. — 
 Met., i. 6. What Pythagoras meant was, that Numbers were 
 the ultimate nature of things. Anaximander saw, that things 
 in themselves are not final ; they are constantly changing both 
 position and attributes ; they are variable, and the principle of 
 existence must be invariable; he called that invariable exis- 
 tence, THE ALL. 
 
 Pythagoras saw that there was an invariable existence lying 
 beneath these varieties; but he wanted some more definite 
 expression for it, and he called it Number. Thus each indivi- 
 dual thing may change its position, its mode of existence, all 
 its peculiar attributes may be destroyed except one ; and that 
 is its numerical attribute. It is always " One" thing; nothing 
 can destroy that numerical existence. Combine the Thing in 
 every possible variety of ways, and it still remains " One ; " it 
 cannot be made less than " one," it cannot be made more than 
 "one." Resolve it into its minutest particles, and each 
 particle is " one." Having thus found that numerical existence 
 was the only invariable existence, he was easily led to proclaim 
 all Things to be but copies of Numbers. " All phenomena 
 must originate in the simplest elements," says Sextus Empiricus, 
 "and it would be contrary to reason to suppose the Principle 
 of the Universe to participate in the nature of sensible pheno- 
 mena. The Principia are consequently not only invisible and 
 intangible, but also incorporeal." 
 
 As the numerical existence is the ultimate state at which 
 analysis can arrive with respect to finite Things, so also is it 
 the ultimate state at which we can arrive with respect to the 
 Infinite, or Existence in itself. The Infinite, therefore, must 
 be One. One is the absolute number; it exists in and by 
 itself; it has no need of any relation with anything else, not 
 even with any other number ; Two is but the relation of One 
 to One. All modes of existence are but finite aspects of the 
 
50 THE MATHEMATICIANS. 
 
 Infinite ; so all numbers are but numerical relations of the 
 One. In the original One, all numbers are contained, and 
 consequently the elements of the whole world. 
 
 Observe, moreover, that One is necessarily the apxh — tne 
 beginning of things, so eagerly sought by philosophers, since, 
 wherever you begin, you must begin with One. Suppose the 
 number be three, and you strike off the initial number to make 
 two, the second then will be One. In a word One is the 
 Beginning of all things. 
 
 The verbal quibble on which this, as indeed the whole 
 system, reposes, need not excite any suspicion of the sincerity 
 of Pythagoras. The Greeks were unfortunately acquainted 
 with no language but their own; and, as a natural consequence, 
 mistook distinctions in language for distinctions in things. It 
 has been well said by Mr. Whewell, that " all the first attempts 
 to comprehend the operations of Nature, led to the introduc- 
 tion of abstract conceptions, vague indeed, but not therefore 
 unmeaning. And the next step in philosophising, necessarily, 
 was to make those vague abstractions more clear and fixed, so 
 that the logical faculty should be able to employ them securely 
 and coherently. But there were two ways of making this 
 attempt; the one by examining the words only, and the 
 thoughts which they call up ; the other by attending to the 
 facts and things which bring these abstract terms into use. The 
 Greeks followed the verbal or notional course, and failed." * 
 
 It is only by means of the above explanation that we can 
 any way credit the belief in distinctions so wire-drawn as those 
 of Pythagoras ; it is only thus that we can understand how he 
 could have held that Numbers were Beings. Aristotle attri- 
 butes this philosophy to the fondness of Pythagoras for mathe- 
 matics, which concerns itself with the abstract not with the 
 material existence of sensible things ; but surely this is only 
 half the explanation ? The mathematicians in our day not 
 only reason entirely with symbols, which stand as the repre- 
 sentative of things, without having the least affinity or resem- 
 blance to the things (being wholly arbitrary marks), but very 
 many of these men never trouble themselves at all with 
 inspecting the things about which they reason by means of 
 symbols. Much of the science of Astronomy is carried on by 
 those who never use a telescope ; it is carried on by figures 
 
 * ' History of the Inductive Sciences,' i. p. 34. 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF PYTHAGORAS. 5s 
 
 upon paper, and calculations of those figures. Because, how- 
 ever, they use numbers as symbols, they do not suppose that 
 numbers are more than symbols. But Pythagoras was not able 
 to make this distinction. He believed that numbers were 
 things in reality, not merely in symbol. When therefore Ritter 
 says that the Pythagorean formula " can only be taken sym- 
 bolically," he appears to us to commit a great anachronism, 
 and to antedate by several centuries a mode of thought at 
 variance with all we know of Greek Philosophy ; at variance 
 also with the express testimony of Aristotle, who says : " The 
 Pythagoreans did not separate Numbers from Things. They 
 held Number to be the Principle and Material of things, no 
 less than their essence and power." — Met., i. 5.* The notion 
 that because we, in the present state of philosophy, cannot 
 conceive Numbers otherwise than as symbols, that therefore 
 Pythagoras must have conceived them in the same way, is one 
 which has been very widely spread, but which we hold to be 
 as great an anachronism as Shakspeare's making Hector quote 
 Aristotle, or Racine's exhibiting the etiquette of Versailles, in 
 the camp at Aulis. And Ritter himself, after having stated 
 with considerable detail the various points in this philosophy, 
 admits that the essential doctrine rests on " the derivation of 
 all in the world from mathematical relations, and on the reso- 
 lution of the relations of space and time into those of units or 
 numbers. All proceeds from the original one, or primary number, 
 or from the plurality of units or numbers into which the one in 
 its life-development divides itself." Now, to suppose that this 
 doctrine was simply mathematical, and not mathematico-cosmo- 
 logical is to violate all principles of historical philosophy ; for it 
 is to throw the opinions of our day into the period of Pytha- 
 goras. For a final proof, consider the formula, fufirjaiv elvat ra 
 6vra twv apidfiwv. "Things are the copies of Numbers." This 
 formula, which of all others is the most favourable to the notion 
 we are combating, will on a close inspection exhibit the real 
 meaning of Pythagoras to be directly the reverse of symbolical 
 
 * Perhaps it would be more accurate to say, " Numbers are the begin- 
 ning of things, the cause of their material existence (8X1; v rotg ovat he has 
 before defined OXiy as causa materialis, cap. 3), and of their modifications 
 (*»c iraBt) re Kai ?£«c)." 
 
 The whole chapter should be consulted by those who believe in the 
 symbolical use of numbers, a belief Aristotle had certainly no suspicion of. 
 — See ' Appendix A..' where a translation of the chapter is given. 
 
5* THE MATHEMATICIANS. 
 
 Symbols are arbitrary marks, bearing no resemblance to the 
 things they represent ; a, b, c, x are but letters of the alphabet ; 
 the mathematician makes them the symbols of quantities, or of 
 things ; but no one would call x the copy of an unknown quan- 
 tity. This is so far clear. But what is the meaning of Things 
 being copies of Numbers, if they are Numbers in essence ? 
 The meaning we must seek in anterior explanations. We shall 
 there find that Things are the concrete existences of abstract 
 Existence ; and that when Numbers are said to be the principia 
 it is meant that the forms of material things, the original 
 essences, which remain invariable, are Numbers.* Thus a 
 stone is One stone ; as such it is a copy of One ; it is the 
 realization of the abstract One into a concrete stone. Let the 
 stone be ground to dust, and the particle of dust is still a copy, 
 another copy of the One. 
 
 This may appear somewhat metaphysical and not a little 
 sophistical ; but it is thus that we represent to ourselves the 
 doctrine of Pythagoras. The reader will bear in mind the 
 nature of our task. We have only a few mystical expressions, 
 such as that " Number is the principle of Things," handed 
 down to us as the doctrines of a Thinker, who created a con- 
 siderable school, and whose influence on philosophy was unde- 
 niably immense. We have to interpret these expressions as we 
 best can. Above all, we have to give them some appearance 
 of plausibility; and this not so much an appearance of 
 plausibility to modern thinkers as what would have been 
 plausible to the ancients. Now, as far as we have familiarized 
 ourselves with the antique mode of thought, our interpretation 
 of Pythagoras is one which, if not the true, is at any rate very 
 analogous to it ; by such a logical process he might have 
 arrived at his conclusions, and for our purpose this is almost 
 the same as if he had arrived at them by it. 
 
 The great questions are these two : Did Pythagoras regard 
 Numbers as symbols, or as Entities? and, if as Entities, how 
 could such an opinion have originated ? 
 
 The first question is decisively answered by Aristotle, to the 
 effect that Numbers were Essences, were the real Beings, and 
 
 * Hence we must caution against supposing, as is not unfrequent, that 
 Pythagoras had at all anticipated the theory of " definite proportions." 
 Numbers are not the laws of combination, nor the expression of those laws, 
 but the essences which remain invariable under every variety of combina- 
 tion. See our Introduction. 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF PYTHAGORAS. 53 
 
 not merely Symbols, as we have shown. -Doubts are thrown 
 on Aristotle's authority j he is said to have misunderstood and 
 misrepresented Pythagoras. It may be so ; but we have no 
 authority at all equal to him, and we must either accept or 
 reject him entirely : and, if the latter, we must be silent on the 
 whole subject. Now, we not only accept his testimony as the 
 only valuable one, but we find it quite consonant with the 
 opinions antecedent to Pythagoras ; those namely of his friend 
 Anaximander. We should say d priori that some such opinions 
 as those of Pythagoras must have followed those of Anaxi- 
 mander. 
 
 The first question then being answered by Aristotle, it 
 remained for us to answer the second : we have endeavoured 
 to do so. 
 
 The nature of this work forbids any detailed account of the 
 various opinions attributed to him on subsidiary points. But 
 we may instance his celebrated theory of the music of the 
 spheres as a good specimen of the deductive method employed 
 by him. Assuming that everything in the great Arrangement 
 (/coor/xos), which he called the world, must be harmoniously 
 arranged, and, assuming that the planets were at the same 
 proportionate distances from one another as the divisions of 
 the monochord, he concluded that in passing through the 
 ether they must make a sound, and that this sound would vary 
 according to the diversity of their magnitude, velocity, and 
 relative distance. Saturn gave the deepest tone, as being the 
 farthest from the earth ; the Moon gave the shrillest, as being 
 nearest to the earth. 
 
 It may be necessary just to state that the attempt to make 
 Pythagoras a Monotheist is utterly without solid basis, and 
 unworthy of refutation. 
 
 The doctrine of Transmigration of Souls is of too great and 
 general an interest for us to pass it over in silence. It has 
 been also regarded as symbolical ; with very little reason, or 
 rather with no reason at all. He defined the soul to be a 
 monad (unity) which was self-moved. — Arist., De Anima, i. 2. 
 Of course the soul, inasmuch as it was a number, was One, 
 i.e. perfect. But all perfection, in as far as it is moved, must 
 pass into imperfection, whence it strives to regain its state of 
 perfection. Imperfection he called a departure from unity, 
 two therefore was accursed. 
 
54 THE MATHEMATICIANS. 
 
 The soul in man is in a state of comparative imperfection : * 
 it has three elements, Reason (vovs), Intelligence ((f>pr]v), and 
 Desire (Ov/mos) ; the two last man has in common with brutes ; 
 the first is his distinguishing characteristic. It has hence been 
 concluded that Pythagoras could not have maintained the 
 doctrine of transmigration ; his distinguishing man from brutes 
 being a refutation of those who charge him with the doctrine, t 
 Without disputing the ingenuity of this argument, we are 
 wholly unconvinced by it. J The Soul, being a self-moved 
 monad, is One, whether it connect itself with two or with three; 
 in other words the essence remains the same whatever its mani- 
 festations. The One soul may have two aspects ; Intelligence 
 and Desire, as in brutes ; or it may have three aspects, as in 
 man. But each of these aspects may predominate, and the 
 man will then become eminently rational, or able, or sensual ; 
 he will be a philosopher, a man of the world, or a beast. 
 Hence the importance of the Pythagorean initiation, and of 
 the studies of Mathematics and Music. 
 
 " This soul, which can look before and after, can shrink and 
 shrivel itself into an incapacity of contemplating aught but the 
 present moment, of what depths of degeneracy it is capable ! 
 What a beast it may become ! And, if something lower than 
 itself, why not something higher ! And, if something higher 
 and lower, may there not be a law accurately determining its 
 elevation and descent ? Each soul has its peculiar evil tastes, 
 bringing it to the likeness of different creatures beneath itself; 
 why may it not be under the necessity of abiding in the 
 condition of that thing to which it had adapted and reduced 
 itself ?"§ 
 
 In closing this account of a very imperfectly known doctrine, 
 we have only further to exhibit its relation to the preceding 
 philosophy. It is clearly an offshoot of Anaximander's doc- 
 trine, which it develops in a more logical manner. In Anaxi- 
 mander there remained a trace of physical inquiry ; in Pytha- 
 goras science is frankly mathematical. Assuming that Number 
 
 * Thus Aristotle expresses himself when he says that the Pythagoreans 
 maintained the soul and intelligence to be a certain combination of 
 numbers, to 8k roiovSi (sc. tuv apiOfitiv) ^v\t) icai vovg. — Met, i. 5. 
 
 t Pierre Leroux, ' De l'Humanite,' vol: i. p. 390-426. 
 
 X Plato distinctly mentions the transmigration to beasts. — Phadrus, p. 
 45. And the Pythagorean Timaeus, in his statement of the doctrine, ai 
 expressly includes beasts. — Tinueus, p. 45. 
 
 { 4 Ency. Metrop.' — art. Moral and Metaphy. Philos. 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF PYTHAGORAS. 55 
 
 is the real invariable essence of the world, it was a natural 
 deduction that the world is regulated by numerical proportions; 
 and from this all the rest of his system followed as a conse- 
 quence. Anaximander's system is but a rude and daring sketch 
 of a doctrine which the great mathematical genius of Pytha- 
 goras developed. The Infinite of Anaximander became the 
 One of Pythagoras. Observe, that in neither of these systems 
 is Mind an attribute of the In£ nite. It has been frequently 
 maintained that Pythagoras taught the doctrine of a " soul of 
 the world." But there is no solid ground for the opinion ; no 
 more than for that of his Theism, which later writers so anxiously 
 attributed to him. The conception of an Infinite Mind is much 
 later than Pythagoras. He only regarded Mind as a pheno- 
 menon ; as the peculiar manifestation of an essential number. 
 And the proof of this assertion we take to lie in his very doc- 
 trine of the soul. If the Monad, which is self-moved, can pass 
 into the state of a brute, or of a plant, in which state it succes- 
 sively loses its Reason, povs, and its Intelligence, <f>prjv, to be- 
 come merely sensual and concupiscible, does not this abdication 
 of Reason and Intelligence distinctly prove them to be only 
 variable manifestations (phenomena) of the invariable Essence? 
 Assuredly ; and those who argue for the Soul of the World as 
 an Intelligence, in the Pythagorean doctrine, must renounce 
 both the doctrine of transmigration, and the central doctrine 
 of the system, the invariable Number as the Essence of things. 
 Pythagoras represents the second epoch of the second Branch 
 of Ionian Philosophy ; he is parallel with Anaximenes, 
 
BOOK III. 
 THE ELEATICS. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 XENOPHANES. 
 
 The contradictory statements which, for so long, had obscured 
 the question of the date of Xenophanes' birth, may now be said 
 to have been satisfactorily cleared up. M. Victor Cousin's 
 essay on the subject will leave few readers unconvinced.* We 
 may assert, therefore, with some probability, that Xenophanes 
 was born in the 40th Olympiad, and that he lived nearly a 
 hundred years. His birth-place was Colophon, an Ionian city 
 of Asia Minor ; a city long famous as the seat of elegiac and 
 gnomic poetry, and ranking the poet Minmermus amongst its 
 celebrated men. He cultivated this species of poetry from his 
 youth upwards ; it was the joy of his youthhood, the consola- 
 tion and support of his manhood and old age. Banished from 
 his native city, from what cause is unknown, he wandered over 
 Sicily as a Rhapsodist :f a profession he exercised apparently 
 till his death, though, if we are to credit Plutarch, with very little 
 pecuniary benefit. He lived poor, and died poor. But he, above 
 all men, could dispense with riches, having within him treasures 
 inexhaustible. He whose whole soul was enwrapt in the con- 
 templation of grand ideas, and whose vocation was the poetical 
 expression of those ideas, could need but little of worldly gran- 
 deur. He seems to us to have been one of the most remark- 
 able men of antiquity ; certainly one of the sincerest. He had 
 
 * ' Nouveaux Fragmens Philosophiques,' Bruxelles, 184 1. — The critical 
 reader will observe some mis-statements in this essay, but on the whole it 
 is well worthy of perusal. Karsten's ' Xenophanis Carminum Reliquae ' 
 is of very great value to the student. 
 
 f The Rhapsodists were the Minstrels of antiquity. They learned 
 poems by heart and recited them to assembled crowds and on the occasions 
 of feasts Homer was a rhapsodist, and rhapsodised his own divine verses. 
 
XENOPHANES. 57 
 
 no pity for the idle and luxurious superstitions of his time ; he 
 had no tolerance for the sunny legends of Homer, defaced as 
 they were by the errors of polytheism. He, a poet, was fierce 
 in the combat he perpetually waged with the first of poets ; not 
 from petty envy; not from petty ignorance; but from the deep 
 sincerity of his heart, from the holy enthusiasm of his reverence 
 He who believed in one God, supreme in power, goodness, 
 and intelligence, could not witness without pain the degrada* 
 tion of the Divine in the common religion. It was not that he 
 was dead to the poetic beauty of the Homeric fables, but that 
 he was keenly alive to their religious falsehood. Plato, whom 
 none will accuse of want of poetical taste, made the same objec- 
 tion. The latter portion of the 2nd and the beginning of the 
 3rd books of Plato's ' Republic,' are but expansions of these 
 verses of Xenophanes' : — 
 
 " Such things of the gods are related by Homer and Hesiod 
 As would be shame and abiding disgrace to any of mankind ; 
 Promises broken, and thefts, and the one deceiving the other." 
 
 He who firmly believed that 
 
 " There's but one God alone, the greatest of Gods and of mortals, 
 Neither in body to mankind resembling, neither in ideas," * 
 
 could not but see, " more in sorrow fhan in anger," the gross 
 anthropomorphism of his fellows: — 
 
 *' But men foolishly think that Gods are born like as men are, 
 And have too a dress like their own, ana their voice and their figure : 
 But if oxen and lions had hands like ours, and fingers, 
 Then would horses like unto horses, and oxen to oxen, 
 Paint and fashion their god-forms, and give to them bodies 
 Of like shape to their own, as they themselves too are fashioned." f 
 
 * This is too important a position to admit of our passing over the 
 original : — 
 
 «Ic Bibq Iv re Qtolai nai avBpwtcoim /igyioroc 
 ovti dtfiag QvtiToiaiv bfioi'iog ovt( vorjua. 
 
 Fragm. i. Ed. KarsUn. 
 
 Wiggers, in his ' Life of Socrates,' expresses his surprise that Xeno- 
 phanes was allowed to speak so freely respecting the State Religion in 
 Magna Graecia, when philosophical opinions much less connected with 
 religion had proved so fatal to Anaxagoias at Athens. But the apparent 
 contradiction is reconciled when we remember that Xenophanes was a 
 poet, and poets have in all ages been somewhat privileged persons. 
 
 t Fragments v. and vi. are here united, as in Ritter. The sense seems 
 to demand this conjunction. But Clemens Alexandrinus quotes the second 
 fragment as if it occurred in another part of the poem ; introducing it with 
 rat rdXtv ^r/ai — " and again he says." — Karsien, p. 41. 
 
58 THE ELEATICS. 
 
 In confirmation of which satire he referred to the Ethiopians, 
 who represent their gods with flat noses, and of black colour ; 
 while the Thracians give them blue eyes and ruddy com- 
 plexions. 
 
 Having attained a clear recognition of the unity and perfec- 
 tion of the Godhead, it became the object of his life to spread 
 that conviction abroad, and to tear down the thick veil of super- 
 stition which hid the august countenance of truth. He looked 
 around him, and saw mankind divided into two classes ; those 
 who speculated on the nature of things, and endeavoured to 
 raise themselves up to a recognition of the Divine, and those 
 who yielded an easy unreflecting assent to the easy supersti- 
 tions which compose religion. The first class speculated ; but 
 they kept their speculations to themselves, and to a small circle 
 of disciples. If they sought truth, it was not to communicate 
 it to all minds ; they did not work for humanity, but for the 
 few. Even Pythagoras, earnest thinker as he was, could not 
 be made to believe in the fitness of the multitude for truth. He 
 had two sorts of doctrine to teach : one for a few disciples, 
 whom he chose with extreme caution; the other for such as 
 pleased to listen. The former was what he believed the truth ; 
 the latter was what he thought the mass were fitted to receive. 
 Not so Xenophanes. He recognised no such distinction. 
 Truth was for all men ; and to all men he endeavoured to pre- 
 sent it ; and for three-quarters of a century did he, the great 
 Rhapsodist of Truth, emulate his countryman Homer, the great 
 Rhapsodist of Beauty, and wander into many lands, uttering 
 the thought that was working in him. What a contrast is pre- 
 sented by these two Ionian singers ! contrast in purpose, in 
 means, and in fate. The rhapsodies of the philosopher once so 
 eagerly listened to, and affectionately preserved in traditionary 
 fragments, are now only extant in briefest extracts contained in 
 ancient books, so ancient and so uninteresting as to be visited 
 only by some rare old scholar and a few dilettanti spiders; 
 while the rhapsodies of the blind old bard are living in the 
 brain and heart of thousands and thousands, who go back to 
 them as the fountain-source of poetry, and as the crystal mirror 
 of an antique world ! How is this ? 
 
 Because the world presented itself to Homer in pictures, to 
 Xenophanes in problems. The one saw existence, enjoyed it, 
 and painted it. The other also saw existence, but questioned 
 it, and wrestled with it. Every trait in Homer is sunny clear ; 
 
XENOPFIANES. 59 
 
 in Xenophanes there is indecision, confusion. In Homer there 
 is a resonance of gladness, a sense of manifold life, activity, 
 and enjoyment. In Xenophanes there is bitterness, activity, 
 but of a spasmodic sort, infinite doubt, and infinite sadness. 
 The one was a poet singing as the bird sings, carolling for very 
 exuberance of life ; the other was a Thinker, somewhat also of 
 k fanatic. He did not sing, he recited : 
 
 "Ah ! how unlike 
 To that large utterance of the early Gods ! " 
 
 That the earnest philosopher should have opposed the sunny 
 poet, opposed him even with bitterness, on account of the 
 degraded actions and motives which he attributed to the gods, 
 is natural ; but we must distinguish between this opposition and 
 satire. Xenophanes was bitter, not satirical. The statement 
 derived frorn Diogenes, that he wrote satires against Homer 
 and Hesiod, is incredible.* Those who think otherwise are 
 referred to the excellent essay of Victor Cousin, before men- 
 tioned, or to Ritter. 
 
 Rhapsodising philosophy, and availing himself, for that pur- 
 pose, of all that the philosophers of his time had discovered, he 
 wandered from place to place, and at last came to Elea, where 
 he settled. Hegel questions this. He says he finds no dis- 
 tinct mention of such a fact in any of the ancient writers : on 
 the contrary, Strabo, in his sixth book, when describing Elea, 
 speaks of Parmenides and Zeno as having lived there, but is 
 silent respecting Xenophanes, which Hegel justly holds to 
 be suspicious. Indeed the words of Diogenes Laertius are 
 vague. He says: — "Xenophanes wrote two thousand verses 
 on the foundation of Colophon, and on a colony sent to 
 Elea." This by no means implies that he lived there. Never- 
 theless, we concur with the modern writers who, from the 
 various connexions with the Eleats observable in his fragments, 
 maintain that he must actually have resided there. The reader 
 is again referred to M. Cousin on this point Be that as it 
 may, he terminated a long and active life without having solved 
 
 * Ttypaipt 8k cat iv tirtotv, /cat LXtytiag, eat ianfiovQ Kara '\lai68ov tal 
 'Oprjpov. Here, says M. Cousin, the word iapfiovg is either an interpo- 
 lation of a copyist, as Feuerlin and Rossi conjecture, or else it is a mis- 
 statement by Diogenes. Iambics could never be the designation of hexa- 
 meters ; and there is not a single iambic verse of his remaining. But is 
 his hexameters he opposes Homer and Hesiod. as we have seen. 
 
60 THE ELEATICS. 
 
 the great problem. The indecision of his acute mind sowed 
 the seeds of that scepticism which was hereafter to play so 
 large a part in philosophy. All his knowledge enabled him 
 only to know how little he knew. His state of mind is finely 
 described by Timon the sinograph, who puts into the mouth of 
 Xenophanes these words : — 
 
 M Oh, that mine were the deep mind, prudent and looking to both sides ; 
 Long, alas ! have I strayed on the road of error, beguiled, 
 And am, now, hoary of years, yet exposed to doubt and distraction 
 Of all kinds ; for, wherever I turn to consider, 
 I am lost in the One and Ally — (etc \v tclvto re -nav avtXvtro.)* 
 
 It now remains for us to state some of the conclusions at 
 which this great man arrived. They will not, perhaps, answer 
 to the reader's expectation ; as, with Pythagoras, the reputation 
 for extraordinary wisdom seems ill justified by the fragments of 
 that wisdom which have descended to us. But although to 
 modern science the conclusions of these early thinkers may 
 appear trivial, let us never forget that it is to these early thinkers 
 that we owe our modern science. Had there not been many a 
 
 " Gray spirit yearning in desire 
 To follow knowledge, like a sinking star, 
 Beyond the utmost bound of human thought," f 
 
 we should not have been able to travel on the secure terrestrial 
 path of slow inductive science. The impossible has to be 
 proved impossible, before men will consent to limit their endea- 
 vours to the compassing of the possible. And it was the cry 
 of despair which escaped from Xenophanes, the cry that 
 nothing can be certainly known, which first called men's atten- 
 tion to the nothingness of knowledge, as knozuledge was the?i 
 conceived. Xenophanes thus opens a series of thinkers, which 
 attained its climax in Pyrrho. That he should thus have been 
 at the head of the monotheists, and at the head of the sceptics, 
 is sufficient to entitle his speculations to an extended consi- 
 deration here. 
 
 * Preserved by Sextus Empiricus: Hypot. Pyrrhon. i. 224 ; and quoted 
 also by Putter i. 443. 
 f Tennyson. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF XENOPHANES. ti 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF XENOPHANES. 
 
 The great problem of existence had early presented itself to his 
 mind ; and the resolution of that problem by Thales and 
 Pythagoras, had left him unsatisfied. Neither the physiological 
 nor the mathematical explanation could still the doubts which 
 rose within him. On all sides he was oppressed with mysteries, 
 tvhich these doctrines could not penetrate. The state of his 
 mind is graphically painted in that one phrase of Aristotle's : 
 " Casting his eyes upwards at the immensity of heaven, he 
 declared that The One is God?" Overarching him was the 
 deep blue, infinite vault, immoveable, unchangeable, embracing 
 him and all things ; that his heart proclaimed to be God. As 
 Thales had gazed abroad upon the sea, and felt that he was 
 resting on its infinite bosom ; so Xenophanes gazed above him 
 at the sky, and felt that he was encompassed by it. Moreover, 
 it was a great mystery, inviting yet defying scrutiny. The 
 sun and moon whirled to and fro through it ; the stars were 
 
 " Pinnacled dim in its intense inane." 
 
 The earth was constantly aspiring to it in the shape of vapour, 
 the souls of men were perpetually aspiring to it with vague 
 yearnings. It was the centre of all existence. It was exist- 
 ence itself. It was The One. The Immoveable in whose 
 bosom the Many were moved. 
 
 Is not this the explanation of that opinion universally attri- 
 buted to him, but always variously interpreted, " God is a 
 sphere ? " The Heaven encompassing him and all things, was 
 it not The One Sphere which he proclaimed to be God ? 
 
 It is very true that this explanation does not exactly accord 
 with his Physics, especially with that part which relates to the 
 earth being a flat surface whose inferior regions are infinite ; 
 by which he explained the fixity of the earth. M. Cousin, 
 therefore, in consequence of this discrepancy, would interpret 
 the phrase as metaphorical. " The epithet spherical is simply a 
 Greek locution to indicate the perfect equality and absolute 
 unity of God, and of which a sphere may be an image. The 
 «r</><upiKos of the Greeks is the roiundus of the Latins. It is a 
 
6s THE ELEATICS, 
 
 metaphorical expression such as that of square, meaning perfect : 
 an expression which though now become trivial, had at the 
 birth of mathematical science something noble and elevated in 
 it, and is found in most elevated compositions of poetry. 
 Simonides speaks of a ' man square as to his feet, his hands, 
 and his mind/ meaning an accomplished man ; and the meta- 
 phor is also used by Aristotle. It is not, therefore surprising 
 that Xenophanes, a poet as well as a philosopher, writing in 
 verse, and incapable of finding the metaphysical expression 
 which answered to his ideas, should have borrowed from the 
 language of imagination, the expression which would best 
 render his idea." 
 
 We should be tempted to adopt this explanation could we 
 be satisfied that the Physics of Xenophanes were precisely what 
 it is said they were, or that they were such at the epoch in 
 which he maintained the sphericity of God. This latter diffi- 
 culty is insuperable ; but has been unobserved by all critics. 
 A man who lives a hundred years, necessarily changes his 
 opinions on such subjects; and, when opinions are so lightly 
 grounded as were those of philosophers at that epoch, it is but 
 natural to admit that the changes may have been frequent and 
 abrupt. In this special instance, scholars have been aware of 
 the very great and irreconcileable contradictions existing 
 between certain opinions equally authentic ; showing him to 
 have been decidedly Physiological (Ionian) in one department, 
 and as decidedly Mathematical (Pythagorean) in another. 
 
 As to the case in point, Aristotle's express statement of 
 Xenophanes having " looked up at heaven, and pronounced 
 The One to be God," is manifestly at variance with any 
 belief in the infinity of the lower regions of the earth. The 
 One must be the Infinite. 
 
 To return, however, to his monotheism, which is the great 
 peculiarity of his doctrine. He not only destroyed the notion 
 of a multiplicity of Gods, but he proclaimed the self-existence 
 and Intelligence of The One. 
 
 God must be Self-existent ; for to conceive Being as inci- 
 pient is impossible. Nothing can be produced from Nothing. 
 Whence, therefore, was Being produced? From itself? No; 
 for then it must have been already in existence to produce 
 itself; otherwise it would have been produced from nothing. 
 Hence the primary law : Being is self-existent If self- existent, 
 consequently eternal. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF XENOPHANES. 63 
 
 As in this it is implied that God is all-powerful, and all- 
 wise, and all-existent ; a multiplicity of Gods is inconceivable. 
 
 It also follows that God is immoveable, when considered as 
 The All :— 
 
 " Wholly unmoved and unmoving it ever remains in the same place, 
 Without change in its place when at times it changes appearance." 
 
 The All must be unmoved ; there is nothing to move it : it 
 cannot move itself; for, to do so, it must be external to itself. 
 
 We must not suppose that he denied motion to finite things 
 because he denied it to the Infinite. He only maintained 
 that The All was unmoved. Finite things were moved by God : 
 " without labour he ruleth all things by reason and insight." 
 His monotheism was carefully distinguished from anthromor- 
 phism, as the verses quoted at page 60, have already exempli- 
 fied. Let us only further remark on the passage in Diogenes 
 Laertius, wherein he is said to have maintained, that u . God did 
 not resemble man ; for he heard and saw all things without 
 respiration!' This is manifestly in allusion to the doctrine of 
 Anaximenes that the soul was air. The intelligence of God, 
 being utterly unlike that of man, is said to be independent of 
 respiration. Only by thus connecting one doctrine with 
 another, can we hope to understand ancient philosophy. It is 
 in vain that we puzzle ourselves with the attempt to penetrate 
 the meaning of these antique fragments of thought, unless we 
 view them in relation to the opinions of their epoch. 
 
 This remark applies also to the negative portion of Xeno- 
 phanes' opinions. We have given above the positive notions 
 at which he arrived in speculating on the great problem of 
 existence. But one peculiarity of his philosophy is its double- 
 sidedness. All the other thinkers abided by the conclusions 
 to which they were led. They were dogmatical ; Xenophanes 
 was sceptical. He was the first who confessed the impotence 
 of reason to compass the wide exalted aims of philosophy. As 
 we said, he was a great earnest spirit struggling with Truth, 
 and, as he obtained a glimpse of her celestial countenance, he 
 proclaimed his discovery, however it might contradict what 
 he had before announced. Long travel ; various experience ; 
 examination of different systems; new and contradictory 
 glimpses of the problem he was desirous of solving — these 
 working together, produced in his mind a sceptism of a noble, 
 somewhat touching sort, wholly unlike that of his successors. 
 
64 THE ELBA TICS. 
 
 It was the combat of contradictory opinions in his mind rather 
 than disdain of knowledge. His faith was steady ; his opinions 
 vacillating. He had a profound conviction of the existence of 
 an eternal, all-wise, infinite Being; but this belief he was un- 
 able to reduce to a consistent formula. There is deep sad- 
 ness in these verses : 
 
 " Certainly no mortal yet knew, and ne'er shall there be one 
 
 Knowing both well, the Gods and the All, whose nature we treat of: 
 For when, by chance, he at times may utter the true and the perfect, 
 He wists not unconscious ; for error is spread over all things." 
 
 It is in vain that M. Cousin would attempt to prove these 
 verses are not sceptical ; especially when so many of the 
 recorded opinions of Xenophanes are of the same tendency. 
 The man who had lived to find his most cherished convictions 
 turn out errors, might well be sceptical of the truth of any of 
 his opinions. But this scepticism was vague ; it did not pre- 
 vent his proclaiming what he held to be the truth ; it did not 
 prevent his search after truth. 
 
 Nevertheless, as the negative portion of his system had 
 great influence on his successors, we must consider it awhile. 
 
 Reason (that is, the Logic of his day) taught him that God, 
 the Infinite, could not be infinite, neither could he be finite. 
 Not infinite, because non-being alone, as having neither begin- 
 ning, middle, nor end, is unlimited (infinite). Not finite, 
 because one thing can only be limited by another, and God is 
 one, not many. 
 
 In like manner did logic teach him, that God was neither 
 moved, nor unmoved. Not moved, because one thing can 
 only be moved by another ; and God is one, not many. Not 
 unmoved, because non-being alone is unmoved, inasmuch as it 
 neither goes to another, nor does another come to it. 
 
 With such verbal quibbles as these did this great thinker 
 darken his conception of the Deity. They were not quibbles 
 to him ; they were the real conclusions involved in the 
 premisses from which he reasoned. To have doubted their 
 validity, would have been to doubt the possibility of philo- 
 sophy. He was not quite prepared for that And Aris- 
 totle characterises this inconsequence by calling him " some- 
 what clownish " aypoiKorepos (Met. i. 5) ; meaning that his 
 conceptions were rude and undigested, instead of being 
 systematized. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF XENOPHANES. 6$ 
 
 Although in the indecision of Xenophanes we see the germs 
 of later scepticism, we are disposed to agree with M. Cousin in 
 discrediting the charge of absolute scepticism — of the incom- 
 prehensibility of all things — aKaraXrjif/Ca irdvrwv. Nevertheless 
 some of M. Cousin's grounds appear to us questionable.* 
 
 The reader will, perhaps, have gathered from the foregoing, 
 that Xenophanes was too much in earnest to believe in the in- 
 comprehensibility of all things, however the contradictions of 
 his logic might cause him to suspect his and other people's 
 conclusions. Of course, if carried out to their legitimate con- 
 sequences, his principles lead to absolute scepticism ; but he 
 did not so carry them out, and we have no right to charge him 
 with consequences which he himself did not draw. Indeed, it 
 is one of the greatest and commonest of critical errors, to 
 charge the originator or supporter of a doctrine with conse- 
 quences which he did not see, or would not accept. Because 
 they may be contained in his principles, it by no means follows 
 that he saw them. To give an instance : Spinoza was a very 
 religious man, although his doctrine amounted to atheism, or 
 little better ; but his critics have been greatly in the wrong in 
 accusing him of atheism. A man would be ridiculed if he 
 attributed to the discoverer of any law of nature the various dis- 
 coveries which the applicatiofi of that law might have produced , 
 nevertheless these applications were all potentially existing in 
 the law ; but as the discoverer of the law was not aware of 
 them, so he does not get the credit. Why, then, should a man 
 have the discredit of consequences contained, indeed, in his 
 principles, but which he himself could not see ? On the whole, 
 although Xenophanes was not a clear and systematic thinker, 
 it cannot be denied that he exercised a very remarkable 
 influence on the progress of speculation ; as we shall see in his 
 successors. 
 
 * E.g. He says : "It appears that Sotion, according to Diogenes, 
 attributed to Xenophanes the opinion, all things are incomprehensible ; 
 but Diogenes adds that Sotion is wrong on that point." — Fragment, p. 89. 
 Now, this is altogether a mis-statement. Diogenes says : — " Sotion 
 pretends that no one before Xenophanes maintained the incomprehensibility 
 of all things, but he is wrong." Diogenes here does not deny that Xeno- 
 phanes held the opinion, but that any one held it before him. 
 
THE ELEAT1CS. 
 
 CHAPTER IIL 
 
 PARMENIDES. 
 
 The readers of Plato will not forget the remarkable dialogue 
 in which he pays a tribute to the dialectical subtlety of Par- 
 menides ; but we must at the outset caution against any belief 
 in the genuineness of the opinions attributed to him by Plato. 
 If Plato could reconcile to himself the propriety of altering 
 the sentiments of his beloved master Socrates, and of attribut- 
 ing to him such as he had never entertained ; with far greater 
 reason could he put into the mouth of one long dead, senti- 
 ments which were the invention of his own dramatic genius. 
 Let us read the * Parmenides/ therefore, with extreme caution ; 
 let us prefer the authority of Aristotle, and the verses of Par- 
 menides which have been preserved. 
 
 Parmenides was born at Elea, somewhere about the 6ist 
 Olympiad. This date does not contradict the rumour which, 
 according to Aristotle, asserted him to have been a disciple of 
 Xenophanes whom he might have listened to when that great 
 Rhapsodist was far advanced in years. The most positive 
 statement, however, is that by Sotion, of his having been taught 
 by Ameinias, and Diochcetes the Pythagorean But both may 
 be true. 
 
 Born to wealth and splendour, enjoying the esteem and envy 
 which always follow splendour and talents, it is conjectured that 
 his early career was that of a dissipated voluptuary; but Diochcetes 
 taught him the nothingness of wealth (at times, perhaps, when 
 satiety had taught him the nothingness of enjoyment), and led 
 him from the dull monotony of noisy revelry to the endless 
 variety and excitement of philosophic thought. He forsook 
 the feverish pursuit of enjoyment to contemplate " the bright 
 countenance of Truth, in the quiet and still air of delightful 
 studies."* But this devotion to studies was no egotistical 
 seclusion. It did not prevent his taking an active share in the 
 political affairs of his native city. On the contrary, the fruits 
 of his study were shown in a code of laws which he drew 
 up, and which were deemed so wise and salutary that the 
 
 • Milton. 
 
PARMENIDES. 6; 
 
 citizens at first yearly renewed their oath to abide by the laws 
 of Parmenides. 
 
 " And something greater did his worth obtain ; 
 For fearless virtue bringeth boundless gain." 
 
 The first characteristic of his philosophy, is the decided dis- 
 tinction between Truth and Opinion ; in other words, between 
 the ideas obtained through the Reason and those obtained 
 through Sense. In Xenophanes we noticed a vague glimmering 
 of this notion. In Parmenides it attained to something like 
 clearness. In Xenophanes it contrived to throw an uncertainty 
 over all things ; which, in a logical thinker, would have become 
 absolute scepticism. But he was saved from scepticism by his 
 faith. Parmenides was saved from it by his philosophy. He 
 was perfectly aware of the deceitful nature of opinion ; but he 
 was also aware that within him there were certain ineradicable 
 convictions, in which, like Xenophanes, he had perfect faith, but 
 which he wished to explain by reason. Thus was he led in 
 some sort to anticipate the celebrated doctrine of i?mate ideas. 
 These ideas were concerning necessary truths ; they were true 
 knowledge. All other ideas were uncertain. 
 
 The Eleatae, as Ritter remarks, believed that they recognised 
 and could demonstrate that the truth of all things is one and 
 unchangeable ; perceiving, however, that the human faculty of 
 thought is constrained to follow the appearance of things, and 
 to apprehend the changeable and the many, they were forced 
 to confess that we are unable fully to comprehend the divine 
 truth in its reality, although we may rightly apprehend a few 
 general principles. Nevertheless, to suppose, in conformity 
 with human thought, that there is actually both a plurality and 
 a change, would be but a delusion of the senses. While, on 
 the other hand, we must acknowledge that in all that appears 
 to us as manifold and changeable, including all particular 
 thought as evolved in the mind, the Godlike is present, unper- 
 ceived indeed by human blindness, and become, as it were 
 beneath a veil, indistinguishable. 
 
 We may make this conception more intelligible if we recal 
 the mathematical tendency of the whole of this school. Their 
 knowledge of Physics was regarded as contingent — delusive. 
 Their knowledge of Mathematics eternal — self-evident. Par- 
 menides was thus led by Xenophanes on the one hand, and 
 Diochcetes on the other, to the conviction of the duality of 
 
66 THE ELEATIC&. 
 
 human thought. His reason—*.*., the Pythagorean logic — 
 taught him that there is naught existing but the One (which he 
 did notj with Xenophanes, call God, but Being). His sense, 
 on the other hand, taught him that there were Many Things, 
 because of his manifold sensuous impressions. Hence he 
 maintained two Causes and two Principles. The one to 
 satisfy the Reason, the other to accord with the explanations 
 of Sense. His work on ' Nature ' was, therefore, divided into 
 two parts; in the first is expounded the absolute Truth as 
 Reason proclaims it ; in the second, human opinion accus- 
 tomed to 
 
 " Follow the rash eye, and ears with ringing sounds confused, and tongue," 
 
 which is but a mere seeming (So£a, appearance) ; nevertheless, 
 there is a cause of this seeming ; there is also a principle ; con- 
 sequently, there is a doctrine appropriate to it. 
 
 It must not be imagined that Parmenides had a mere vague 
 and general notion of the uncertainty of human knowledge. 
 He maintained that thought was delusive because dependent 
 upon organisation. He had as distinct a conception of this 
 celebrated theory as any of his later imitators, as may be seen 
 in the passage preserved by Aristotle. Here is the passage. 
 
 Aristotle, in the 5th chap. 4th book of his Metaphysics, is 
 speaking of the materialism of Democritus, in whose system 
 sensation was thought ; he adds that others have shared this 
 opinion, and proceeds thus : " Empedocles affirms that a 
 change in our condition {rrjv l&v) causes a change in our 
 thought. 
 
 " * Thought is in men according to the impression of the moment ; '* 
 "and in another passage he says : — 
 
 " * It is always according to the changes which take place in men 
 That there is change in their thoughts.' " 
 
 Parmenides expresses himself in the same style. 
 
 " Such as to each man is the nature of his many-jointed limbs, 
 Such also is the intelligence of each man ; for it is 
 The nature of limbs (organization) which thinketh in men, 
 Both in one and in all : for the highest degree of organization gives the 
 highest degree of thought." f 
 
 • irpdg iraptbv yap pijTiQ ae^trai avQpuiiroiot* 
 
 t The last sentence, " for the highest degree of organization gives the 
 highest degree of thought," is a translation which, differing from that of 
 
PARMENIDBS. 69 
 
 Now, as thought was dependent on organization, and as 
 each organization differed in degree from every other, so would 
 the opinions of men differ. If thought be sensation, it requires 
 little reflection to show that as sensations of the same object 
 differ according to the senses of different persons, and indeed 
 differ at different times with the same person, therefore, one 
 opinion is not more true than another, and all are equally false. 
 But Reason is the same in all men. That alone is the fountain 
 of certain knowledge. All thought derived from sense is but 
 a seeming (86£a). But thought derived from Reason is abso- 
 lutely true. Hence his antithesis to 8o£a is always irtWis, faith. 
 
 This is the central point in his system. He was thereby 
 enabled to avert absolute scepticism, and at the same time to 
 admit the uncertainty of ordinary knowledge. He had, there- 
 fore, two distinct doctrines, each proportioned to the faculty 
 adapted to it. One doctrine of Absolute Knowledge (Meta- 
 physics, fxera to. <f>v<riKa) with which the faculty of pure Reason 
 was concerned, a doctrine called, in the language of that day, 
 the " science of Being." The other doctrine of Relative 
 Knowledge, or Opinion (Physics, to, <£vo-uca) with which the 
 faculty of Intelligence, or Thought, derived from Sense, was 
 concerned, and which may be called the science of Appearance. 
 
 On the science of Being, Parmenides did not differ much 
 from his predecessors Xenophanes and Pythagoras. He taught 
 that there was but one Being ; and that non-Being was impos- 
 sible. The latter assertion amounts to saying that non-existence 
 cannot exist. A position which will appear extremely trivial 
 to the reader not versed in metaphysical speculations ; but 
 which we would not have him despise, inasmuch as it is a 
 valuable piece of evidence respecting the march of human 
 opinion. It is only one of the many illustrations of the ten- 
 dency to attribute positive qualities to words, as if they were 
 things, and not simply marks of things. A tendency admirably 
 exposed by James Mill, and subsequently by his son.* It was 
 
 every other we have seen, and being, as we believe, of some importance in 
 the interpretation of Parmenides' system, we have deemed it necessary to 
 state at full our reasons in a note, for which the reader is referred to the 
 Appendix. It would be inconsistent with our plan to interrupt the exposi- 
 tion with critical remarks of the kind. — See ' Appendix B.' 
 
 * " Many volumes might be filled with the frivolous speculations con- 
 cerning the nature of Being (to bv ovaia, Ens Entitas, Essentia, and the 
 like), which have arisen from overlooking this double meaning of the words 
 to be ; from supposing that when it signifies to exist, and when it signifies 
 
 ^N 
 
?6 THE ELEATICS. 
 
 this tendency which so greatly puzzled the early thinkers, who, 
 when they said that "a thing is not," believed that they never- 
 theless predicted existence, viz., the existence of non-existence. 
 A thing is ; and a thing is not. These two assertions seemed to 
 be affirmations of two different states of existence. An error 
 from which, under some shape or other, later thinkers have not 
 been free. 
 
 Parmenides, however, though affirming that Being alone 
 existed, and that non-Being was impossible, did not see the 
 real ground of the sophism. He argued that non-Being could 
 not be, because Nothing can come out of Nothing (as Xeno- 
 phanes taught him) ; as, therefore, being existed, it must 
 embrace all existence. 
 
 Hence he concluded that The One was all existence, iden- 
 tical, unique, neither born nor dying, neither moving nor 
 changing. It was a bold step to postulate the finity of The 
 One, whom Xenophanes had declared to be necessarily in- 
 finite. But we have abundant evidence to prove that Par- 
 menides regarded The One as finite. Aristotle speaks of it as 
 the distinction between Parmenides and Melissos, " The unity 
 of Parmenides was a rational unity (rov Kara Xoyov evos). 
 That of Melissos was a material unity (rov Kara rrjv vXtjv). 
 Hence the former said that The One was finite (Tren-epao-fjievov) 
 but the latter said it was infinite (a-n-eipov)." From which it 
 appears that the ancients conceived the Rational unity as 
 limited by itself ; a conception it is difficult for us to under- 
 stand. Probably it was because they held The One to be 
 spherical ; all the parts being equal ; having neither beginning, 
 middle, nor end ; and yet self limited. 
 
 His conception of the identity of thought and existence is 
 expressed in gome remarkable verses, of which, as a very dif- 
 ferent opinion has been drawn from them, we shall give a 
 literal translation. 
 
 " Thought is the same thing as the cause of thought : 
 For without the thing in which it is announced 
 You cannot find the thought ; for there is nothing, nor shall be — 
 Except the existing." 
 
 to be some specified thing, as to be a man, to be Socrates, to be seen, to be 
 a phantom, or even to be a nonentity, it must still at the bottom answer to 
 the same idea ; and that a meaning must be found for it which shall suit 
 all these cases." — John Mill, System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive 
 voL. i. p. 104. 
 
ZENO OF ELEA. 71 
 
 Now, as the only Existence was The One, it followed that 
 The One and Thought are identical. A conclusion which by 
 no means contradicts the opinion before noticed of the iden- 
 tity of human thought and sensation ; both of these being 
 merely transitory modes of existence. 
 
 Respecting the second or physical doctrine of Parmenides, 
 we may briefly say that believing it necessary to give a science 
 of Appearances, he sketched out a programme according to 
 the principles reigning in his day. He denied motion in the 
 abstract, but admitted that according to appearance there was 
 motion. 
 
 Parmenides represents the logical and more rigorous side of 
 the doctrine of Xenophanes, from which the physiological 
 element is almost banished, by being condemned to the region 
 of uncertain sense — Knowledge. The ideal element alone was 
 really nourished by the speculations of Parmenides. Although 
 he preserved himself from scepticism, as we saw, nevertheless, 
 the tendency of his doctrine was to forward scepticism. In his 
 exposition of the uncertainty of knowledge, he retained a saving 
 clause; that, namely, of the certainty of Reason. It only 
 remained for successors to apply the same scepticism to the 
 ideas of Reason, and Pyrrhonism was complete. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ZENO OF ELEA. 
 
 Zeno, by Plato called the Palamedes of Elea, must not be 
 confounded with Zeno the Stoic. He was on all accounts one 
 of the most distinguished of the ancient philosophers ; as great 
 in his actions as in his works ; and remarkable in each, for a 
 strong, impetuous, disinterested spirit. Born at Elea, about 
 the 68th or 69th Olympiad, he became the pupil of Parmenides, 
 and, as some say, the adopted son. 
 
 The first period of his life was spent in the calm solitudes of 
 study. From his beloved friend and master he had learned to 
 appreciate the superiority of intellectual pleasures : the only 
 pleasures that do not satiate. From him also he had learned 
 to despise the tinsel splendours of rank and fortune, without 
 
72 THE ELEA TICS. 
 
 becoming misanthropical or egotistical. He worked for the 
 benefit of his fellow mem He only declined the recompense 
 of rank or worldly honours with which they would have repaid 
 those labours. His recompense was the voice of his own heart, 
 thus beating calmly in the consciousness of its integrity. The 
 absence of ambition in so fiery and exalted a mind, might well 
 have been the wonderment of antiquity ; for it was no sceptical 
 indifference or disdain for the opinions of his fellow men, which 
 made him shun office. His was a delicate no less than an 
 impetuous soul, extremely sensitive to praise and blame; as 
 may be seen in his admirable reply to one who asked him why 
 he was so hurt by blame : " If the blame of my fellow citizens 
 did not cause me pain, their approbation would not cause me 
 pleasure." In timid minds that shrink from the coarse ridicule 
 of fools and knaves, this sensitiveness is fatal ; but in those 
 brave spirits who fear nothing but their own consciences, and 
 who accept no approbation but such as their consciences can 
 ratify, this sensitiveness lies at the root of heroism, and all 
 noble endeavour. One of those men was Zeno. His life was 
 a battle, but the battle was for Truth ; it ended tragically, but 
 it had not been in vain. 
 
 Perhaps of all his moral qualities his patriotism has been the 
 most renowned. He lived at the period of liberty's awakening, 
 when Greece was everywhere enfranchising herself, everywhere 
 loosening the Persian yoke, and endeavouring to found national 
 institutions on Liberty. In the general effervescence and en- 
 thusiasm Zeno was not cold. His political activity we have 
 no means of judging ; but we know that it was great and bene- 
 ficial. Elea was but a small colony ; but Zeno preferred it to 
 the magnificence of Athens, whose luxurious, restless, quibbling, 
 frivolous, passionate, and unprincipled citizens, he contrasted 
 with the provincial modesty and honesty of Elea. 
 
 He did, however, occasionally visit Athens, and there pro- 
 mulgated the doctrines of his master, as we see by the open- 
 ing of Plato's dialogue, the ' Parmenides.' Zeno also taught 
 Pericles. 
 
 On the occasion of his last return to Elea he found it had 
 fallen into the hands of the tyrant Nearchus (or Diomedon, or 
 Demylos; the name is differently given by ancient writers). 
 He, of course, conspired against him, failed in his project and 
 was captured. It was then, as Cicero observes, that he proved 
 the excellence of his master's doctrines, and proved that a 
 
ZENO OE ELBA. 73 
 
 courageous soul fears only that which is base, and that fear and 
 pain are for women and children, or men who have feminine 
 hearts. When Nearchus interrogated him as to his accomplices, 
 he threw the tyrant into an agony of doubt and fear by naming 
 all the courtiers : a masterstroke of audacity, and in those days 
 not discreditable. Having thus terrified his accuser, he turned 
 to the spectators, and exclaiming : " If you can consent to be 
 slaves from fear of what you see me now suffer, I can only 
 wonder at your cowardice." So saying, he bit his tongue off, 
 and spat it in the face of the tyrant. The people were so 
 aroused that they fell upon Nearchus and slew him. 
 
 There are considerable variations in the accounts of this 
 story by ancient writers, but all agree in the main narrative 
 given above. Some say that Zeno was pounded to death in a 
 huge mortar. We have no other account of his death. 
 
 As a philosopher, Zeno's merits are peculiar. He was the 
 inventor of that logic so celebrated as Dialectics. This, which, 
 in the hands of Socrates and Plato, became so powerful a 
 weapon of offence, is, by the universal consent of antiquity, 
 ascribed to Zeno. It may be defined as, "A refutation of 
 error by the reductio ad absurdum as a means of establishing 
 the truth." The truth to be established in Zeno's case was the 
 system of Parmenides ; we must not, therefore, seek in his 
 arguments for any novelty beyond the mere exercise of dialecti- 
 cal subtlety. He brought nothing new to the system ; but he 
 invented a great method of polemical exposition. The system 
 had been conceived by Xenophanes ; had rigorous precision 
 given to it by Parmenides ; and there only remained for Zeno 
 the task of fighting for and defending it ; which task, as Cousin 
 says, he admirably fulfilled. " The destiny of Zeno was alto- 
 gether polemical. Hence, in the external world, the impetuous 
 existence and the tragical end of the patriot ; and, in the 
 internal world, the world of thought, the laborious character of 
 Dialectician."* 
 
 It was this fighter's destiny which caused him to perfect the 
 art of offence and defence. He very naturally wrote in prose ; 
 of which he set the first example ; for, as the wild and turbulent 
 enthusiasm of Xenophanes would instinctively express itself in 
 poetry, so would the argumentative subtlety of Zeno naturally 
 express itself in prose. The great Rhapsodist wandered from 
 
 • Cousin, * Fragmens Philos.' Art. Zhum d'EUe, an essay well worth 
 reading. 
 
74 THE ELEATICS, 
 
 city to city, intent upon earnest and startling enunciation of 
 the mighty thoughts that were stirring confusedly within him ; 
 the great Logician was more intent upon a convincing exposi- 
 tion of the futility of the arguments alleged against his system, 
 than upon any propaganda of the system itself; for he held 
 that the truth must be accepted when once error is exposed. 
 " Antiquity," says M. Cousin, " attests that he wrote not poems, 
 like Xenophanes and Parmenides, but treatises, and treatises 
 of an eminently prosaic character, that is to say, refutations." 
 
 The reason of this may be easily guessed. Coming, as a 
 young man to Athens, to preach the doctrine of Parmenides, he 
 must have been startled at the opposition which that doctrine 
 met with from the subtle, quick-witted, and empirical Athenians, 
 who had already erected the Ionian philosophy into the reign- 
 ing doctrine. Zeno, no doubt, was at first stunned by the 
 noisy objections which on all sides surrounded him ; but, 
 being also one of the keenest of wits, and one of the readiest, 
 he would soon have recovered his balance, and in turn assailed 
 his assailers. Instead of teaching dogmatically, he began to 
 teach dialectically. Instead of resting in the domain of pure 
 science, and expounding the ideas of Reason, he descended 
 upon the ground occupied by his adversaries — the ground of 
 daily experience and sense - knowledge, and, turning theii 
 ridicule upon themselves, forced them to admit that it was 
 more easy to conceive The Many as a produce of The One, 
 than to conceive The One on the assumption of the existing 
 many. Hence his discovery of his Dialectics. 
 
 " The polemical method entirely disconcerted the partisans 
 of the Ionian philosophy," says M. Cousin, " and excited a 
 lively curiosity and interest for the doctrines of the Italian 
 (Pythagorean) school; and thus was sown in the capital of 
 Greek civilization the fruitful germ of a higher development of 
 philosophy." 
 
 Plato has succinctly characterised the difference between 
 Parmenides and Zeno by saying, that the master established 
 the existence of The One, and the disciple proved the non- 
 existence of The Many. 
 
 When he argued that there was but One thing really existing, 
 all the others being only modifications or appearances of that 
 One, he did not deny that there were many appearances, he only 
 denied their being real existences. So, in like manner, he denied 
 motion, but not the appearance of motion. Diogenes the 
 
ZENO OP ELBA. 75 
 
 Cynic, who rose and walked, as a refutation of Zeno, entirely 
 mistook the argument ; his walking was no more a refutation 
 of Zeno, than Dr. Johnson's kicking a stone was a refutation of 
 Berkeley's denial of matter. Zeno would have answered : Very 
 true : you walk : according to opinion (to oo£<z<xtov), you are 
 in motion ; but according to Reason you are at rest. What 
 you call motion is but the name given to a series of similar 
 conditions, each of which, separately considered, is rest. Thus, 
 every object filling space equal to its bulk is necessarily at rest 
 in that space ; motion from one spot to another is but a name 
 given to the sum total of all these intermediate spaces in which 
 the object at each moment is at rest. Take the illustration of the 
 circle : a circle is composed of a number of individual points, 
 or straight lines ; not one of these lines can individually be 
 called a circle ; but all these lines, considered as a totality, 
 have one general name given them, viz., a circle. In the 
 same way, in each individual point of space the object is at 
 rest ; the sum total of a number of these states of rest is called 
 motion. 
 
 The fallacy is in the supposition, that Motion is a thing, 
 whereas, as Zeno clearly saw, it is only a condition. In a 
 falling stone there is not the " stone " and a thing called 
 " motion ; " otherwise there would be also another thing called 
 " rest." But both motion and rest are names given to express 
 conditions of the stone. Modern science has proved that even 
 rest is a positive exertion of force. Rest is force resistent, and 
 Motion is force triumphant. It follows that matter is always 
 in motion : which amounts to the same as Zeno's saying, there 
 is no such thing as motion. 
 
 The other arguments of Zeno against the possibility of 
 Motion (and he maintained four, the third of which we have 
 above explained), are given by Aristotle ; but they seem more 
 like the ingenious puzzles of dialectical subtlety than the real 
 arguments of an earnest man. It has, therefore, been asserted, 
 that they were only brought forward to ridicule the unskilful- 
 ness of his adversaries. We must not, however, be hasty in 
 rescuing Zeno from his own logical net, into which he may 
 have fallen as easily as others. Greater men than he have been 
 the dupe of their own verbal distinctions. 
 
 Here are his two first arguments : — 
 
 i st, Motion is impossible, because before that which is in 
 motion can reach the end, it must reach the middle point ; but 
 
?6 THE E LEA TICS. 
 
 this middle point then becomes the end, and the same objec- 
 tion applies to it : since to reach it the object in motion must 
 traverse a middle point ; and so on ad infinitum, seeing that 
 matter is infinitely divisible. Thus, if a stone be cast four 
 paces, before it can reach the fourth it must reach the second : 
 the second then becomes the end, and the first pace the middle ; 
 but before the object can reach the first pace it must reach the 
 half of the first pace, and before the half it must reach the half 
 of that half; and so on ad infinitum. 
 
 2nd, This is his famous Achilles puzzle. We give both the 
 statement and refutation as we find it in John Mill's * Logic' 
 (vol. ii. p. 453). 
 
 The argument is, let Achilles run ten times as fast as a 
 tortoise, yet, if the tortoise has the start, Achilles will never 
 overtake him ; for, suppose them to be at first separated by an 
 interval of a thousand feet; when Achilles has run these 
 thousand feet the tortoise will have run a hundred, and when 
 Achilles has run those hundred the tortoise will have got on 
 ten, and so on for ever : therefore Achilles may run for ever 
 without overtaking the tortoise. 
 
 Now the " for ever " in the conclusion means, for any length 
 of time that can be supposed ; but in the premisses " ever " 
 does not mean any length of time ; it means any number of 
 subdivisions of time. It means that we may divide a thousand 
 feet by ten, and that quotient again by ten, and so on as often 
 as we please; that there never need be an end to the sub- 
 divisions of the distance, nor, consequently, to those of the 
 time in which it is performed. But an unlimited number of 
 subdivisions may be made of that which is itself limited. The 
 argument proves no other infinity of duration than may be 
 embraced within five minutes. As long as the five minutes 
 are not expired, but what remains of them may be divided 
 by ten, and again by ten as often as we like, which is perfectly 
 compatible with there being only five minutes altogether. It 
 proves, in short, that to pass through this finite space requires 
 a time which is infinitely divisible, but not an infinite time; the 
 confounding of which distinction Hobbes had already seen to 
 be the gist of the fallacy. 
 
 Although th 2 credit of seeing the ground of the fallacy is 
 given to Hobbes in the above passage, we must also observe, 
 that Aristotle had clearly seen it in the same light. His answer 
 to Zeno, which Bayle thinks " pitiable," was, that a foot of 
 
ZENO OF ELBA. 77 
 
 space being only potentially infinite, but actually finite, it could 
 be easily traversed in a finite time. 
 
 We have no space to follow Zeno in his various arguments 
 against the existence of a multitude of things. His position 
 may be briefly summed up thus: — There is but one being 
 existing, who is necessarily indivisible and infinite. To suppose 
 that The One is divisible, is to suppose it finite. If divisible, 
 it must be infinitely divisible. But, suppose two things to 
 exist, then there must necessarily be an interval between 
 those two, something separating and limiting them. What is 
 that something ? It is some other thing. But, then, if not the 
 same thing, it also must be separated and limited ; and so on 
 ad infinitum. Thus only One thing can exist as the substratum 
 for all manifold appearances. 
 
 Zeno closes the second great line of independent inquiry, 
 which, opened by Anaximander, and continued by Pythagoras, 
 Xenophanes, and Parmenides, we may characterise as the 
 Mathematical or Absolute system. Its opposition to the Ionian, 
 Physiological or Empirical system was radical and constant. 
 But up to the coming of Zeno, these two systems had been 
 developed almost in parallel lines, so little influence did they 
 exert upon each other. The two systems clashed together on 
 the arrival of Zeno at Athens. The result of the conflict was 
 the creation of a new method — Dialectics. This method 
 created the Sophists and the Sceptics. It also greatly in- 
 fluenced all succeeding schools, and may be said to have con- 
 stituted one great peculiarity of Socrates and Plato, as will be 
 shown. 
 
 We must, however, previously trace the intermediate steps 
 which philosophy took, before the crisis of sophistry, which 
 preceded the era of Socrates. 
 
W$i gberonli IBpocf). 
 
 SPECULATIONS ON THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE 
 AND ON THE ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HERACLITUS. 
 
 " Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who 
 feel." This, Horace Walpole's epigram, may be applied to 
 Democritus and Heraclitus, celebrated throughout antiquity as 
 the laughing and the weeping philosophers. 
 
 " One pitied — one condemned the woful times ; 
 One laugh' d at follies, and one wept o'er crimes." 
 
 Modern criticism has indeed pronounced both these charac- 
 teristics to be fabulous ; but fables themselves are only ex- 
 aggerations of truth, and there must have been something in 
 each of these philosophers which formed the nucleus round 
 which the fables grew. Of Heraclitus it has been well said, 
 " The vulgar notion of him as the crying philosopher must not 
 be wholly discarded, as if it meant nothing, or had no connexion 
 with the history of his speculations. The thoughts which 
 came forth in his system are like fragments torn from his own 
 personal being, and not torn from it without such an effort and 
 violence as must needs have drawn a sigh from the sufferer. 
 
 " If Anaximenes discovered that he had within him a power 
 and principle which ruled over all the acts and functions of 
 his bodily frame, Heraclitus found that there was a life within 
 him which he could not call his own, and yet it was, in the 
 very highest sense, himself, so that without it he would have 
 been a poor, helpless, isolated creature ; an universal life, which 
 
HERACLITUS. 79 
 
 connected him with his fellow-men, with tne absolute source 
 and original fountain of life."* 
 
 Heraclitus was the son of Blyson, and was born at Ephesus, 
 about the 69th Olym. Of a haughty melancholy temper, he 
 refused the supreme magistracy which his fellow-citizens offered 
 him, on account of their dissolute morals, according to Diogenes 
 Laertius ; but as he declined the offer in favour of his brother, 
 we are disposed to think his rejection was grounded on some 
 other cause. Is not his rejection of magistracy in perfect 
 keeping with what else we know of him ? For instance : Play- 
 ing with some children near the temple of Diana, he answered 
 those who expressed surprise at seeing him thus occupied, " Is 
 it not better to play with children, than to share with you the 
 administration of affairs ? " The contempt which pierces through 
 this reply, and which subsequently became confirmed misan- 
 thropy, is rather the result of morbid meditation, than of 
 virtuous scorn. Was it because the citizens were corrupt that 
 he refused to exert himself to make them virtuous ? Was it 
 because the citizens were corrupt that he retired to the moun- 
 tains, and there lived on herbs and roots, like an ascetic ? If 
 Ephesus was dissolute, was there not the rest of Greece fee 
 him to make a home of? He fled to the mountains, that he 
 might there, in secret, prey on his own heart. He was a mis- 
 anthrope ; but misanthropy is madness, not virtuous indigna* 
 tion ; misanthrophy is a morbid consciousness of self, not a 
 sorrowful opinion formed of others. The aim of his life had 
 been, as he says, to explore the depths of his own nature. This 
 has been the aim of all ascetics, as of all philosophers : but in 
 the former it is morbid anatomy ; in the latter it is science. 
 
 The contemptuous letter in which he declined the courteous 
 invitation of Darius to spend some time at his court, will best 
 explain our view of his character : — 
 
 11 Heraclitus of Ephesus to the King Darius ', son of Ilystaspes, 
 health ! 
 
 " All men depart from the paths of truth and justice. They 
 have no attachment of any kind but avarice ; they only aspire 
 to a vain-glory with the obstinacy of folly. As for me, I know 
 not malice ; lam the envy of no one. I utterly despise the 
 vanity of courts, and never will place my foot on Persian 
 ground. Content with little, I live as I please." 
 • ♦ Ency. Metrop.' 
 
to HERACLITUS. 
 
 Misanthropy was the nucleus of the fable of Heraclitus as 
 a weeping philospher, who refused the magistracy because the 
 citizens were corrupt. More than this we cannot ascertain. 
 The story of his attempting to cure himself of a dropsy by 
 throwing himself on a dunghill, hoping that the heat would 
 cause the water within him to evaporate, is apocryphal. 
 
 The Philosophy of Heraclitus was, and is, the subject of 
 dispute. He expressed himself in such enigmatical terms, that 
 he was called " the Obscure." A few fragments have been 
 handed down to us.* From these it would be vain to hope 
 that a consistent system could be evolved ; but from them and 
 from other sources we may gather the general tendency of his 
 doctrines. 
 
 The tradition which assigns him Xenophanes as a teacher is 
 borne out by the evident relation of their systems. Heraclitus 
 is somewhat more Ionian than Xenophanes, that is to say, in 
 him the physiological explanation of the universe is more pro- 
 minent than the Eleatic explanation ; at the same time, Hera- 
 clitus is neither frankly an Ionian, nor an Italian ; he wavers 
 between the two. The pupil of Xenophanes would naturally 
 regard human knowledge as a mist of error, through which the 
 sunlight only gleamed at intervals. But the inheritor of the 
 Ionian doctrines would not adopt the conclusion of the Mathe- 
 matical school, viz., that the cause of this uncertainty of 
 knowledge, was the uncertainty of sensuous impressions ; and 
 that consequently Reason was the only fountain of truth. 
 Heraclitus was not mathematician enough for such a doctrine. 
 He was led to maintain a doctrine directly opposed to it. He. 
 maint ained that t he senses are the sources of a lLlgue know- 
 ledge Jor they~dnnk in the universal intelli gence. T he sen ses 
 deceive only wh en they be lon g to barbarian souls : jh other 
 words, t he jfrettucated sense gives fa l se impressions ; th e rightly- 
 educated sense gives, truth. Whatever is common is true ; 
 whatever is remote from the common, i.e. the exceptional, is 
 false. The True is the Unhidden.! Those whose senses are 
 open to receive the~TInhiriden T theUniversal , atta in truth. 
 
 As if to mark^Trie distinctiori~T)etween himself and Xeno- 
 
 • Schleiermacher has collected, and endeavoured to interpret them, in 
 Wolf and Butmann's ' Museum der Alterthumswissenschaften,' vol. i. 
 part iii. 
 
 t d\r)6kg r6 /»i) XfjQov. This play upon words is very characteristic of 
 metaphysical thinkers, and is common to all ages, 
 
HERACLITUS. bi 
 
 phanes more forcibly, he says : " Inhaling through the breath 
 the Universal Ether, which is Divine Reason, we become con- 
 scious. In sleep we are unconscious ; but on waking we again 
 become intelligent: for, in sleep, when the organs of sense 
 are closed, the mind within is shut out from all sympathy with 
 the surrounding ether, the universal Reason; and the only 
 connecting medium is the breath, as it were a root ; and by 
 this separation the mind loses the power of recollection it 
 before possessed. Nevertheless, on awakening, the mind 
 repairs its memory through the senses, as it were through inlets ; 
 and thus, coming into contact with the surrounding ether, it 
 resumes its intelligence. As fuel when brought near the fire is 
 altered and becomes fiery, but, on being removed, again becomes 
 quickly extinguished : so too the portion of the all-embracing 
 which sojourns in our body becomes more irrational when 
 separated from it ; but, on the restoration of this connexion, 
 through its many pores or inlets, it again becomes similar to 
 the whole." 
 
 Can anything be more opposed to the Eleatic doctrine \ 
 That system rests on the certitude of pure Reason; this declare! 
 that Reason left to itself, i.e. th e m 1 "^ w ^ pn ^ 1g nnf nrmri oh**) 
 by the sense^ can have no true kno wledge. The one system 
 is exclusively rational, the other exclusively material ; but both 
 are pantheistical, for in both it is the universal Intelligence 
 which becomes conscious in man. A conception pushed to 
 its ultimate limits by Hegel. Accordingly, Hegel declares 
 that there is not a single point in the Logic of Heraclitus which 
 he, Hegel, has not developed in his Logic. 
 
 The reader will remark how in Heraclitus, as in Parmenides, 
 there is opened the great question which for so long agitated the 
 schools, and which still agitates them, — the question respecting 
 the origin of our ideas. He will also remark how the two great 
 parties, into which thinkers have divided themselves on the ques- 
 tion, are typified in these two early thinkers. In Parmenides 
 the idealist school, with its contempt of sense ; in Heraclitus the 
 materialist school, with its contempt of every thing not derived 
 from sensation. 
 
 With Xenophanes, Heraclitus agreed in denouncing the per- 
 petual delusion which reigned in the mind of man ; but he 
 placed the cause of that delusion in the imperfection of human 
 Reason, not — as Xenophanes had done — in the imperfection 
 of the senses. He thought that man had ton little nf the Divine 
 
*8 HERACLITUS. 
 
 Eth er (soul) with in him. Xenophanes thought that the senses 
 clouded the intellectual vision : the one counselled man to let 
 the Universal mirror itself in his soul through the senses; the 
 other counselled him to shut himself up within himself, to dis- 
 regard the senses, and to commune only with ideas. 
 
 It seems strange that so palpable a contradiction between 
 two doctrines should ever have been overlooked. Yet such is 
 the fact. Heraclitu s is sa id to have regarded the world of 
 sense as a perpetual delusion ; and this is said in the very 
 latest a nd not the least intelli g ent of Histories , to say nothing 
 of fonnex_woxks. Whence this opinion ? Simply from the 
 admitted scepticism of both Heraclitus and Xenophanes, 
 with respect to Phenomena (appearances). It is true they 
 both denied the certainty of human knowledge ; but they 
 denied this on different grounds. "Man has no certain know- 
 ledge," said Heraclitus ; " but God has ; and vain man learns 
 from God just as the boy from the man." In his conception 
 human intelligence was but a portion of the Universal Intelli- 
 gence; but a part can never be otherwise than imperfect. 
 Hence it is that the opinion of all mankind upon any subject 
 (common sense) must be a nearer approximation to the truth 
 than the opinion of any individual ; because it is an accumu- 
 lation of parts, making a nearer approach to the Whole. 
 
 Another deviation from the doctrine of Xenophanes, and one 
 consequent on his view of sense-knowledge, was the attributing 
 to God a distinctive element and activity. Xenophanes arrived 
 at the conception of Unity, and that Unity he named God. 
 But he did not imitate his Ionian teachers, and clothe that 
 Unity in some material element. He called it simply The One, 
 or God. Heraclitus clothed his Unity. He called it fire. To 
 him Fire was the type of spontaneous force and activity ; not 
 flame, which was only an intensity of Fire, but a warm, 
 dry vapour — an Ether ; this was his Beginning. He says : 
 " The world was made neither by God* nor man ; and it was, 
 and is, and ever shall be, an ever-living fire in due measure self- 
 enkindled, and in due measure self-extinguished." How clearly 
 this is but a modification of the Ionian system, the reader will 
 at once discern. The Fire, whicjtJifixe__stajids--as--the demi- 
 symbol of Life and Intelligence, be gaiise- of it s c p ontaneous 
 
 * This is the translation given by Ritter. It is not, however, exact ; 
 ofirt Tie BtStv is the original, i.e., "neither one of the Gods," meaning, of 
 :ourse, one of *be Polytheistic Deities. 
 
HERACLITUS. 83 
 
 activit y, is but a modification of the Water of Thates, and the 
 Air of Anaximenesj _jnoreover t it is only demi- symbo lical. 
 Those who _ ac"cepnr"as a pure symbol overlook the other 
 parts of the system. The system which proclaims the senses 
 as the source of all knowledge, necessarily attaches itself to a 
 material element as the primary one. At the same time the 
 very system is in one respect a deviation from the Ionian ; in 
 the distinction between sense-knowledge and reflective know- 
 ledge. Hence we placed Diogenes of Apollonia as the last of 
 the pure Ionians ; although, chronologically, he came some 
 time after Heraclitus, and his doctrine is in many respects 
 the same as that of Heraclitus. 
 
 The Scepticism of phenomena which made the Eleatics 
 declare that all opinion was delusion of the senses assumed a 
 different aspect in Heraclitus. Declaring the great Being, The 
 One, the Cause of All to be Fire, ever self-enkindled, and ever 
 self-extinguished, both in due measure, he was led to pronounce 
 that all things were in a perpetual flux. This phrase had great 
 celebrity. " All is," said he, " and is not ; for though in truth 
 it does come into being, yet it forthwith ceases to be." This 
 has been variously interpreted. Hegel declares that it is a dis- 
 tinct affirmation of the ground-principle of Logic, viz. that das 
 Seyn ist das Nichts.* 
 
 It is very obscure, but seems to us only an enigmatical ex- 
 pression of his theory of flux: that nothing is but is always 
 becoming. The Fire is perpetually kindling and extinguishing, 
 i.e., Existence is constantly changing its phenomena — its modes 
 of existence. The carbon in the air nourishes plants ; plants 
 nourish men ; men breathe back the carbon into the air to 
 nourish fresh plants. This is an illustration of the flux / is 
 it not also of the phrase : " It comes into being, yet forthwith 
 ceases to be " ? Take his beautiful illustration of a River : 
 " No one has ever been twice on the same stream ; for different 
 waters are constantly flowing down ; it dissipates its waters and 
 gathers them again — it approaches and it recedes — it overflows 
 
 * i.e., " Being and non-Being are the same." This is in contra-dis- 
 tinction to the position "Nothing can come from Nothing." When 
 Hegel said that " Existence was Nothing," he did not mean that Existence 
 was No-Existence, as those who so feebly ridicule him suppose him to 
 have meant. Nothing was No Thing, i.e., no phenomenon. Few persons 
 will question the logician's right to treat of Existence^*/' se {das Seyn) and 
 Existence per aliud, that is, existing things. 
 
84 ANAXAGORAS. 
 
 and fails." This is evidently but a statement of the flux and 
 reflux, as in his aphorism that " all is in motion ; there is no 
 rest or quietude." Let us also add here what Ritter says : 
 
 " The notion of life implies that of alteration, which by the 
 ancients was generally conceived as motion. The Uni yersalX ife 
 is therefore an eternal m otion, and therefore tends^a s every 
 motion must,' towards some end, ev en though this end, in the 
 course of the— evo mtiuii of lif e f ~pfesent itself to us as a mere 
 transition to some ulterior end. Heraclitus on this_ ground 
 supposed a certain longing to be inherent in JF ire, tcT gratify 
 which it consta ntly transformed itself into some deter minate 
 form of being, without, however, any wish to maintain it, but 
 in the^Irler^cteTire^oT^ one form into 
 
 anotjier. Therefore to make worlds is Jove's pastime." 
 
 There are some other tenets of his on this point which are 
 but vaguely connected with the above. He explained pheno- 
 mena as the concurrence of opposite tendencies and efforts 
 in the emotion of the ever living Fire, out of which results the 
 most beautiful harmony. All is composed of contraries, so 
 that the good is also evil, the living is dead, &c. The harmony 
 of the world is one of conflicting impulses, like that of the lyre 
 and the bow. The strife between opposite tendencies is the 
 parent of all things. 
 
 The view we have taken of Heraclitus' doctrines will at once 
 explain the order of development in which we have placed them, 
 contrary to the practice of our predecessors. He stands with 
 one foot on the Ionian path, and with the other on the Italian : 
 but his attempt is not to unite these two : his office is negative ; 
 he has to criticise both. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ANAXAGORAS. 
 
 Anaxagoras is generally said to have been born at Clazomenae 
 in Lydia, not far from Colophon. Inheriting from his family a 
 splendid patrimony, he seemed born to figure in the State ; 
 but like Parmenides, he disregarded all such external greatness, 
 and placed his ambition elsewhere. Early in life, so early as 
 his twentieth year, the passion for philosophy engrossed him. 
 
ANAXAGORAS. 8 S 
 
 Like all young ambitious men, he looked with contempt upon 
 the intellect exhibited in his native city. His soul panted 
 for the capital. The busy activity, and the growing importance 
 of Athens, solicited him. He yearned towards it, as the am- 
 bitious youth in a provincial town yearns for London ; in a 
 word, as all energy longs for a fitting theatre on which to play 
 its part. 
 
 He came to Athens. It was a great and stirring epoch. 
 The countless hosts of Persia had been scattered by a handful 
 of resolute men. The political importance of Greece, and of 
 Athens the Queen of Greece, was growing to a climax. The 
 Age of Pericles, one of the most glorious in the long annals of 
 mankind, was dawning. The Poems of Homer formed the 
 subject of literary conversation, and of silent heartfelt enjoy- 
 ment. The early triumphs of ^Eschylus had created a Drama, 
 such as still remains the wonder and delight of scholars and 
 critics. The young Sophocles, that perfect flower of antique 
 art, was then in his bloom, meditating on that art which he 
 was hereafter to bring to perfection in the Antigone and the 
 Philoctetes. The Ionian philosophy had found a home there ; 
 and the young Anaxagoras shared his time with Homer and 
 Anaximenes.* 
 
 Philosophy soon obtained the supreme place in his affections. 
 The mysteries of the universe tempted him. He yielded him- 
 self to the fascination, and declared that the aim and purpose 
 of his life was to contemplate the heavens. All care for his 
 affairs was given up. His estates ran to waste, whilst he was 
 solving problems. But the day he found himself a beggar, he 
 exclaimed : u To Philosophy I owe my worldly ruin, and my 
 soul's prosperity." He commenced teaching, and he had 
 illustrious pupils in Pericles, Euripides, and Socrates. 
 
 He was not long without paying the penalty of success. 
 The envy and uncharitableness of some, joined to the bigotry of 
 others, caused an accusation of impiety to be brought against 
 
 * By this we no more intimate that he was a disciple of Anaximenes (as 
 most historians assert) than that he was a friend of Homer. But in some 
 such ambiguous phrase as that in the text, must the error of calling him the 
 disciple of Anaximenes have arisen. Brucker's own chronology is strangely 
 at variance with his statement, for he places the birth of Anaximenes 56th 
 Olymp. : that of Anaxagoras, 70th Olymp. : thus making master fifty-six 
 years old at the birth of the pupil, and the pupil only became such in the 
 middle of his life. So little criticism have historians bestowed on the 
 simplest facts ! 
 
86 ANAXAGORAS, 
 
 him. He was tried and condemned to death ; but owed the 
 mitigation of his sentence into banishment to the eloquence of 
 his friend and pupil, Pericles. Some have supposed that the 
 cause of his persecution was this very friendship of Pericles ; 
 and that the statesman was struck at through the unpopular 
 philosopher. The supposition is gratuitous, and belongs, rather, 
 to the perverted ingenuity of modern scholarship, than to the 
 sober facts of history. In the persecution of Anaxagoras we see 
 nothing but what was very natural, what occurred afterwards 
 in the case of Socrates, and what has subsequently occurred a 
 thousand times in the history of mankind. It is the simple 
 effect of outraged convictions. Anaxagoras controverted the 
 religion of his time: he was tried and condemned in con- 
 sequence. 
 
 After his banishment he resided in Lampsacus, and there 
 preserved his tranquillity of mind until his death. * It is not I 
 who have lost the Athenians ; it is the Athenians who have 
 lost me," was his proud reflection. He continued his studies, 
 and was highly respected by the citizens, who, wishing to pay 
 some mark of esteem to his memory, asked him, on his death- 
 bed, in what manner they could do so ? He begged that the 
 day of his death might be annually kept as a holiday in all the 
 schools of Lampsacus. For centuries this request was fulfilled. 
 He died in his seventy-third year. A tomb was erected to him 
 in the city with this inscription : — 
 
 " This tomb great Anaxagoras confines, 
 Whose mind explored the heavenly paths of Truth." 
 
 His philosophy contains so many contradictory principles, 
 or perhaps it would be more correct to say, that so many con- 
 tradictory principles are attributed to him, that it would be 
 vain to attempt a systematic view of them. We shall, as usual, 
 confine ourselves to leading doctrines. 
 
 On the great subject of the origin and certainty of our know- 
 ledge, he differs from Xenophanes and Heraclitus. He thought, 
 with the former, that all our sense-knowledge is delusive ; and, 
 with the latter, that all our knowledge comes through the senses. 
 Here is a double scepticism brought into play. It has usually 
 been held that these two opinions contradict each other ; that 
 he could not have maintained both. We may venture to 
 question this ; for we see the connecting link. His reason for 
 denying certainty to the senses was somewhat similar to that 
 
ANAXAGORAS. 87 
 
 of Xenophanes, viz., their incapacity of distinguishing all the 
 real objective elements of which things are made. Thus the 
 eye discerns a complex mass which we call a flower; but of that 
 of which the flower is composed we see nothing. In other 
 words the senses perceive phenomena but do not, and cannot 
 observe noumena* — an anticipation of the greatest discovery 
 of modern psychology, though seen dimly and confusedly by 
 Anaxagoras. Perhaps the most convincing proof of his having 
 so conceived knowledge, is in the passage quoted by Aristotle: 
 " Things are to each according as they seem to him " (on Totavro 
 avrols ra ovra, ofa av V7ro\af3<ocri). What is this but the asser- 
 tion of all knowledge being confined to phenomena ? It is 
 further strengthened by the passage in Sextus Empiricus, that 
 " phenomena are the criteria of our knowledge of things beyond 
 sense," i.e. things inevident are evident in phenomena (rrjq t&v 
 aS-qXwp Kara\^f<os, ra 0aivo/ieva). 
 
 It must not, however, be concluded, from the above, that 
 Anaxagoras regarded Sense as the sole origin of Knowledge. 
 He held that the reason (Xoyos) was the regulating faculty 
 of the mind, as intelligence (vovs) was of the universe. The 
 senses are accurate in their reports ; but their reports are not 
 accurate copies of things. They reflect objects ; but they 
 reflect them as these objects appear to them. Reason has ta 
 control their impressions. Reason has to verify their reports. 
 
 Let us now apply this doctrine to the explanation of some 
 of those, apparently, contradictory statements which have 
 puzzled all the critics. For instance, he says that Snow is not 
 white but black, because the water of which it is composed is 
 black. Now, in this he could not have meant that snow did 
 not appear to our senses white ; his express doctrine of sense- 
 knowledge forbids such an intepretation. But Reason told 
 him that the Senses gave inaccurate reports ; and, in this 
 
 * As this is the first time we have employed the uncouth but extremely 
 useful word noumena, it may be necessary to explain the invariable meaning 
 which will be attached to it in the course of these volumes. Phenomenon 
 is pretty well understood, noumenon is the antithesis to it. The former 
 means Appearance, the latter means the Substratum, or, to use the scho- 
 lastic woid, the Substance. (See the article 'Substance,' in the 'Penny 
 Cyclopaedia,' by the present writer.) Thus, as matter is recognised by us 
 only in its manifestations (phenomena), we may still distinguish logically 
 those manifestations from the thing manifested (noumenon). And the 
 former will be the materia circa quam ; the latter, the materia in qua. 
 Noumenon is therefore equivalent to the Essence ; phenomenon to the 
 manifestation. 
 
88 ANAXAGORAS. 
 
 instance, reason showed him how their report was contradictory, 
 since the Water was black, yet the Snow white. Here, then, 
 is the whole theory of knowledge exemplified : Sense asserting 
 that Snow is white ; reflection asserting that Snow, being made 
 from black Water could not be white. He had another illustra- 
 tion. Take two liquids, white and black, and pour the one 
 into the other drop by drop: the eye will be unable to discern 
 the actual change as it is gradually going on ; it will only 
 discern it at certain marked intervals. 
 
 Thus did he separate himself at once from Xenophanes and 
 Heraclitus. From the former, because admitting Sense to be 
 the only criterion of things, the only source of knowledge, he 
 could not regard the \6yos as the unfailing source of truth, 
 but merely as the reflective power, whereby the reports of sense 
 were controlled. From the latter, because reflection convinced 
 him that the reports of the senses were subjectively true, but 
 objectively false;* and Heraclitus maintained that the reports 
 of the senses were alone certain. Both Xenophanes and 
 Heraclitus had principles of absolute certitude ; the one pro- 
 claimed Reason, the other Sense, to be that principle. Anaxa- 
 goras annihilated the former, by showing that the reason was 
 dependent on the senses for materials ; and he annihilated the 
 other by showing that the materials were fallacious. 
 
 Having thus, not without considerable difficulty, brought his 
 various opinions on human knowledge under one system, let 
 us endeavour to do the same for his cosmology. And, as in 
 the foregoing attempt, we have had to cut almost every inch of 
 the way for ourselves, some tolerance may be demanded for 
 the arbitrary use we have made of our tools (the interpretation 
 of scattered passages) ; so, in that to come, we may also feel 
 it necessary to depart from the views of those whose authority 
 we greatly respect ; amongst others, Aristotle and Plato. In 
 neither case do we feel at liberty to supply any passage : we 
 
 * Subjective and objective are now so much used as almost to have 
 become naturalized : it may not be superfluous, nevertheless, to explain 
 them. The subject means ' the Mind of the Thinker ' {Ego), the object 
 means the 'Thing thought of ' {Non-Ego). (See also, 'Penny Cyclop.,' 
 art. Subjective, for a full explanation.) 
 
 In the above passage " the reports of the senses being subjectively true " 
 means that the senses truly inform us of their impressions ; but these im- 
 pressions are not at all like the actual objects (as may be shown by the broken 
 appearance of a stick half of which is dipped in water), and therefore the 
 reports are " objectively false." 
 
ANAXAGORAS. 89 
 
 take those that are extant, and interpret them as they seem to 
 us to mean. 
 
 The ground-principle of his system is thus announced : — 
 " Wrongly do the Greeks suppose that aught begins or ceases 
 to be ; for nothing comes into being or is destroyed ; but all is 
 an aggregation or secretion of pre-existent things : so that all- 
 becoming might more correctly be called becoming-mixed, and 
 all corruption becoming-separate." What is the thought here ? 
 That, instead of there being a creation, there was only an 
 Arrangement ; that, instead of one first element, there were an 
 infinite number of elements. These elements are the celebrated 
 homceomeria. 
 
 ** Ex auiique putat micis consistere posse 
 Aurum, et de terris terrain concrescere parvis ; 
 Ignibus ex ignem, humorem ex humoribus esse ; 
 Caetera consimili fin git ratione putatque." * 
 
 This singular opinion which maintains that flesh is made of 
 molecules of elementary flesh, and bones of elementary bones, 
 and so forth, is intelligible when we remember his theory of 
 knowledge. The sense discerns elementary differences in 
 matter, and reflection confirms the truth of this observation. 
 If Nothing can proceed from Nothing, all things can be only 
 an arrangement of existing things ; but that in this Arrange- 
 ment certain things should be discovered as radically distin- 
 guished from each other, gold from blood for example, can 
 only lead to this dilemma — either the distinction observed by 
 the Senses is altogether false, or else the things distinguished 
 must be elements. But the first horn of the dilemma is avoided 
 by the sensuous nature of all knowledge ; if the Senses deceive 
 us in this respect, and the reason does not indicate the decep- 
 tion, then is knowledge all a delusion ; therefore, unless we 
 adopt scepticism, we must abide by the testimony of the Senses, 
 as to the distinction of things. But, having granted the dis- 
 tinction, you must grant that the things distinguished are ele- 
 ments ; if not, whence the distinction ? Nothing can come of 
 Nothing ; blood can only become blood, gold can only become 
 gold, mix them how you will ; if blood can become bone, then 
 
 * 'Lucretius,' i. 884-8. 
 
 " That gold from parts of the same nature rose, 
 That earths do earth, fires fire, airs air compose, 
 And so in all things else alike to those." — Creech 
 
QO 
 
 ANAXAGORAS. 
 
 does it become something out of nothing, for it was not bone 
 before, and it is bone now. But, as blood can only be blood, 
 and bone only be bone, whenever they are mingled it is a 
 mingling of two elements, homceomerice. Thus would Anaxa- 
 goras reason. 
 
 In the beginning therefore there was the Infinite composed 
 of homceomerice, or elementary seeds of infinite variety. So far 
 from the All being The One, as Parmenides and Thales equally 
 taught, Anaxagoras proclaimed the All to be the Many. But 
 the mass of elements were as yet unmixed. What was to mix 
 them ? What power caused them to become arranged in one 
 harmonious all-embracing system ? 
 
 This question he answered by his famous Intelligence 
 (vovs) the moving force of the Universe. He had on the one 
 hand rejected Fate as an empty name ; on the other he re- 
 jected Chance as being no more than the Cause unperceived 
 by human logic {rrfv tv^v, aBrjXov olnav avflpawrivw Xoyicrfiw). 
 This is another remarkable glimpse of what modern science 
 was to establish. Having thus disclaimed these two powers, 
 so potent in early speculation, Fate and Chance, he had no 
 other course left than to proclaim Intelligence as the Arranging 
 Power.* 
 
 This seems to us as, on the whole, the most remarkable 
 speculation of all the pre-Socratic epoch ; and indeed is so 
 very near the scientific precision of modern times, that it is 
 with difficulty we preserve its original simplicity. We will cite 
 a portion of the fragment preserved by Simplicius, wherein 
 Intelligence is spoken of : " Intelligence (vovs) is infinite, and 
 autocratic ; it is mixed up with nothing, but exists alone in and 
 for itself. Were it otherwise, were it mixed up with anything, 
 it would participate in the nature of all things : for in all there 
 is a part of all ; and so that which was mixed with intelligence 
 would prevent it from exercising power over all things :"f — 
 Here we have as distinct an expression as possible of the 
 modern conception of the Deity acting through invariable 
 laws, but in no way mixed up with the matter acted on. 
 
 Will not the foregoing remarks enable us to meet Aristotle's 
 
 * We have his own words reported by Diogenes, who says that his work 
 opened thus: "Formerly all things were a confused mass; afterwards, 
 Intelligence coming, arranged them into worlds." 
 
 f This passage so perfectly accords with what Aristotle says, ' De AnimV 
 i. 2, and « Metaph.' i. 7, that we need only refer to them. 
 
ANAXAGORAS, 91 
 
 objection 10 Anaxagoras, that "he uses Intelligence as a 
 machine,* in respect to the formation of the world ; so that, 
 when he is embarrassed how to explain the cause of this or 
 that, he introduces Intelligence ; but in all other things it is 
 any cause but intelligence which produces things." Now, 
 surely, this is a very unfair criticism, and could only be valid 
 against a Malebranche, who saw God everywhere. Anaxagoras 
 assigned to Intelligence the great Arrangement of the homao- 
 meria ; but of course supposed that subordinate arrangements 
 were carried on by themselves. Let us take the case of the 
 Christian Thinker some centuries back. His creed being that 
 the Deity created and ordained all things ; nevertheless, when 
 he burnt his finger, the cause of the burn he attributed to fire, 
 and not to God ; but when the thunder muttered in the sky 
 he attributed that to no cause but God. Is not this a parallel 
 case with that of Anaxagoras ? What he can explain he does 
 explain by natural causes; whatever he is embarrassed to 
 explain, whatever he does not understand, he attributes to 
 God. Are these opinions contradictory? 
 
 It is here we see the force of Anaxagoras' opinion respect- 
 ing Chance as an unascertained cause : what others called 
 the effect of Chance he called the effect of the universal 
 Intelligence. 
 
 On the same grounds we object to the reasoning of Plato. 
 Those who have read the Phaedo — and who has not read it, in 
 some shape or other, either in the forlorn splendour of Plato's 
 diction, or in the dim and misty version of some translator? — 
 those who have read the Phaedo, we say, will doubtless 
 remember the passage in which Socrates is made to express 
 his poignant disappointment at the doctrine of Anaxagoras, to 
 which he had at first been so attracted. This passage has the 
 air of authenticity. It expresses a real disappointment, and 
 the disappointment of Socrates, not merely of Plato. We 
 believe firmly that Socrates is the speaker ; and it is rare that 
 
 * This is an allusion to the theatrical artifice of bringing down a God 
 from Olympus, to solve the difficulty of the denouement, — the Deus ex 
 tnachincl of Horace. 
 
 We make this remark to caution the reader against supposing that the 
 objection is to a mechanical Intelligence. There is need of this caution; 
 for the error has not unfrequently been adopted ; and it is made a special 
 charge in the latest German work, * Zeller, Die Philos. der Griechen.' vol. 
 i. p. 227 : — " Die bekannten Klagen der Alten fiber den einseitig mechan- 
 ischen Charakter seiner Lehre" — He then quotes Aristotle and Plato. 
 
98 ANAXAGORAS. 
 
 we can say so of opinions promulgated by Plato under the 
 august name of his master. But we believe also that Plato 
 participated in it. 
 
 Here is the passage in the misty version of Thomas 
 Taylor: we make no alterations, otherwise we should hold 
 ourselves responsible for the whole, which we are disinclined 
 to do. 
 
 " But, having once heard a person reading from a certain 
 book, composed as he said by Anaxagoras, when he came to 
 that part in which he says that intellect orders and is the cause 
 of all things, I was delighted with this cause, and thought 
 that in a certain respect it was an excellent thing for intellect 
 to be the cause of all, and I considered if this was the case, 
 disposing intellect would adorn all things, and place every- 
 thing in that situation in which it would subsist in the best 
 manner. If anyone, therefore, should be willing to discover 
 the cause through which everything is generated, or corrupted, 
 or is, he ought to discover how it may subsist in the best 
 manner, or suffer, or perform any thing else. In consequence 
 of this, therefore, it is proper that a man should consider 
 nothing else, either about himself or about others, except that 
 which is the most excellent, and the best : but it is necessary 
 that he who knows this should also know that which is 
 subordinate, since there is one and the same science of both/ 
 But, thus reasoning with myself I rejoiced, thinking that I had 
 found a preceptor in Anaxagoras, who would instruct me in 
 the causes of things agreeable to my own conceptions ; and 
 that he would inform me in the first place whether the earth is 
 flat or round ; and afterwards explain the cause of its being so ; 
 adducing for this purpose that which is better, and showing 
 that it is better for the earth to exist in this manner. And if 
 he should say that it is situated in the middle, that he would 
 besides this, show that it was better for it to be in the middle : 
 and if he should render all this apparent to me, I was so 
 disposed as not to require any other species of cause ; for I by 
 no means thought, after he had said that all these were 
 orderly disposed by intellect, he would introduce any other 
 cause for their subsistence, except that which shows that it is 
 better for them to exist in this manner. Hence I thought that 
 in rendering the cause common to each particular, and to all 
 things, he would explain that which is best for each, and is the 
 common good of all. And, indeed, I would not have ex- 
 
ANAXAGORAS. 93 
 
 changed tnese nopca for a mighty gain ! But, having obtained 
 his books with prodigious eagerness, I read them with great 
 celerity, that I might with great celerity know that which is best 
 and that which is base. 
 
 " But from this admirable hope, my friend, I was forced 
 away, when, in the course of my reading, I saw him make no 
 use of intellect, nor employ certain causes for the purpose of 
 orderly disposing particulars, but assign air, aether, and water, 
 and many other things equally absurd, as the causes of things. 
 And he appeared to me to be affected in a manner similar 
 to him who should assert that all the actions of Socrates are 
 produced by intellect ; and afterwards, endeavouring to relate 
 the causes of each particular action, should say, that I now sit 
 here because, in the first place, my body is composed of bones 
 and nerves, and that the bones are solid and are separated by 
 intervals from each other ; but that the nerves, which are by 
 nature capable of intension and remission, cover the bones, 
 together with the skin in which they are contained. The 
 bones, therefore, being suspended from their joints, the nerves, 
 by straining and relaxing them, enable me to bend my limbs 
 as at present; and through this cause I here sit in an inflected 
 position. And, again, should assign other such like causes of 
 my now conversing with you, viz., voice and air, and hearing, 
 and a thousand other particulars, neglecting the true cause, 
 that, since it appeared to the Athenians better to condemn me 
 on this account, it also appeared to me better and more just to 
 sit here and, thus abiding, sustain the punishment which they 
 have ordained me : for otherwise, by the dog, as it appears to 
 me, these bones and nerves would have been carried long ago 
 either into Megara or Bceotia, through an opinion of that which 
 is best, if I had not thought it more just and becoming to 
 sustain the punishment ordered by my country, whatever it 
 might be, than to withdraw myself and run away. But to call 
 things of this kind causes is extremely absurd. Indeed, if 
 anyone should say that, without possessing such things as 
 bones and nerves, I could not act as I do, he would speak the 
 truth ; but to assert that I act, as I do at present, through these, 
 and that I operate with this intellect, and not from the choice of 
 what is best, would be an assertion full of extreme negligence 
 and sloth : for this would be the consequence of not being 
 able to collect, by division, that the true cause of a thing is very 
 different from that without which a cause would not be a cause. r 
 
04 ANAXAGORAS. 
 
 Now this reasoning we take to be an ignorario elenchi. The 
 illustration made use of is nothing to the purpose, and would 
 be admitted by Anaxagoras as true, without in the least 
 impugning his argument. Indeed, from what we can gather, 
 we should say that Anaxagoras was not comprehended in 
 ancient times, because his philosophy was, in certain respects, 
 too much in advance of all ancient speculation. The dis- 
 appointment of Socrates was natural. He expected to find a 
 moral theory of the universe, and he found a metaphysico-physical 
 theory.* He expected to find that, on the theory of an arrang- 
 ing Intelligence (by which he understood a human Intelligence 
 idealized), the whole operations of nature could be established 
 a priori; he found that this theory was only an enunciation of 
 the fact of the operations of Nature being guided by fixed and 
 immutable causes (which moderns call laws) j and that these 
 causes were neither the result of Necessity nor of Chance, but 
 of Intelligence. Now, a theory more uncongenial to Socrates 
 could scarcely be found ; he therefore read it with haste and 
 disappointment, and he read it with misunderstanding. 
 
 The Intelligence which Anaxagoras conceived was in no 
 wise a moral Intelligence ; it was simply the primum mobile, 
 the all-knowing and motive force by which the arrangement of 
 the elements was affected. Hence, from a passage in Aristotle, 
 some have inferred that the vovs was only a physical principle, 
 whose sole office was to set matter in motion. This is an 
 error easy of explanation. Men are Istill so accustomed to 
 conceive the divine Intelligence as only a more perfect and 
 exalted human Intelligence, that where they see no traces of 
 the latter they are prone to question the existence of the 
 former. When Anaxagoras says that Nous was the creative 
 principle, men instantly figure to themselves a Nous similar 
 to their own. On examination, they find that such an Intelli- 
 gence as they conceive has no place in the doctrine. They 
 then declare that no intelligence has any place there. It is a 
 mere name. It means no more than Motion, aud might have 
 been called Motion. 
 
 But, fortunately, Simplicius has preserved a long passage 
 
 * But Socrates himself is open to the same objection as that which he 
 makes to Anaxagoras, since he says that God is not the author of all things, 
 but only of those things that are good : /i») fravrmv alnov rbv Qkov aSXd ruv 
 myaObiv. — Repub., lib. ii. This also shows how exclusively his was a 
 moral theory. 
 
ANAXAGORAS. 95 
 
 from the work of Anaxagoras : we have quoted a portion of it 
 before, and shall now select one or two sentences in which the 
 JVous, as a cognitive power, is distinctively set forth ; and we 
 quote these the more readily as Ritter, to whom we are 
 indebted for the passage, has not translated them : — " Intelli- 
 gence is, of all things, the subtlest and purest, and has entire 
 knowledge of all. Everything which has a soul, whether 
 great or small, is governed by the Intelligence (vovs KparZi). 
 Intelligence knows all things (irdvra eyv<* vovs), both those 
 that are mixed and those that are separated ; and the things 
 which ought to be, and the things which were, and those 
 which now are, and those which will be ; all are arranged by 
 Intelligence (iravra BLCKoo-prja* vovs*)." Here, the creative, or 
 rather disposing, faculty is not more distinctly expressed than 
 the cognitive. The Nous both knows and acts; this is its 
 duplicate existence. A grand conception; one that in ancient 
 speculation was seldom rivalled ; one that was so far in advance 
 of its chronological epoch, as to be a puzzle to all critics. 
 
 The relation in which the system of Anaxagoras stands to 
 those of others may be briefly characterized. The Infinite 
 Matter of the Ionians became in his hands the homaomeria. 
 Instead of One Substance, such as Water, Air, or Fire, he saw 
 the necessity of admitting Many substances. At the same 
 time, he carried out the Pythagorean and Eleatic principle of 
 The One, thus avoiding the dialectical thrusts of Zeno against 
 the upholders of The Many. Hegel and M. Cousin would 
 call this eclecticism, and, in one sense, they would be correct ; 
 but, inasmuch as Anaxagoras was led to his doctrine by the 
 development which the Ionian and the Eleatic principles 
 had taken, and was not led to it by any eclectical method, we 
 must protest against the application of such a name. There 
 was a truth dimly recognised by the Ionians, namely, that 
 the material phenomena are all reducible to some noumenon 
 or noumena, some apx$. What that beginning was, they 
 variously sought. Anaxagoras also sought it ; but his doctrine 
 of perception convinced him that it could not be one principle, 
 but many : hence his homceomerice. So far he was an Ionian. 
 But there was also a truth dimly seen by the Eleatics, namely, 
 
 * It would be needless, after this, to refer to the numerous expressions of 
 Aristotle, in confirmation. The critical reader will do well to consult 
 'Trendelenburg, Comment. Aristot. de Anim.,' p. \bt> et seq. Plato, is 
 npeaking of the vo«c, adds ecu tyvxn> — Craty., p. 400. 
 
96 ANAXAGORAS. 
 
 that The Many could never be resolved into One ; and, ah 
 without One there could not be Many, and with the many 
 only there could not be One ; in other words, as God must be 
 The One from whom the multiplicity of things is derived, the 
 necessity of admitting The One as The All and the Self- 
 existent was proved. This reasoning was accepted by Anaxa- 
 goras. He saw that there were Many things ; he saw also 
 the necessity for The One. In so far he was an Eleatic. 
 
 Up to this point the two doctrines had been at variance ; a 
 chasm of infinite depth yawned between them. Zeno's inven- 
 tion of Dialectics was a result of this profound difference. It 
 was reserved for Anaxagoras to bridge over the chasm which 
 could not be filled up. He did so with consummate skill. 
 He accepted both doctrines, with some modifications, and pro- 
 claimed the existence of the Infinite Intelligence (The One) 
 who was the Architect of the Infinite Matter {homaomerice, the 
 Many). By this means he escaped each horn of the dilemma ; 
 he escaped that which gored the Ionians, namely, as to how 
 and why the Infinite Matter became fashioned into worlds and 
 beings ; since Matter by itself can only be Matter. He 
 escaped that horn which gored the Eleatics, as to how and 
 why the Infinite One, who was pure and unmixed, became the 
 Infinite Many, impure and mixed ; since one thing could never 
 be more than one thing : it must have some other thing on 
 which to act; for it cannot act upon itself. Anaxogoras 
 escaped both these horns, by his dualistic theory of Mind 
 fashioning, and Matter fashioned. 
 
 A similar bridge was thrown by him over the deep chasm 
 separating the Sensualists from the Rationalists, with respect 
 to the origin of knowledge. He admitted both Sense and 
 Reason ; others had only admitted either Sense or Reason. 
 
 These two points entitle Anaxagoras to a very high rank in 
 the history of Philosophy ; and we regret to see that Aristotle 
 uniformly speaks disparagingly of him, but believe that the 
 great Stagyrite did not clearly apprehend the force of the 
 doctrine he was combating. 
 
EMPEDOCLES. jjjj 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 EMPEDOCLES. 
 
 We are forced to differ from all historians we have consulted, 
 except De Gerando, who hesitates about the matter, respecting 
 the place occupied by Empedocles. Brucker classes him 
 among the Pythagoreans ; Ritter amongst the Eleatics 1 ; Zeller 
 and Hegel as the precursor of the Atomists, who precede 
 Anaxagoras ; Renouvier as the precursor of Anaxagoras ; Ten- 
 neman placing Diogenes of Apollonia, between Anaxagoras 
 and Empedocles, but making Democritus precede them. 
 Whence these differences ? Because a just historical method 
 was wanting to all. Chronology supports our view ; but our 
 method originated it. When we come to treat of the doctrines 
 of Empedocles, we shall endeavour to show the filiation of 
 ideas from Anaxagoras. Meanwhile it may be necessary to 
 examine the passage in Aristotle, on which very contradictory 
 opinions have been grounded. 
 
 In the 3rd chapter of the 1st book of Aristotle's Metaphysics, 
 after a paragraph on the system of Empedocles, occurs this 
 passage : " But Anaxagoras, of Ciazomenae, being superior to 
 him (Empedocles) in respect of age, but inferior to him in 
 respect of opinions, said that the number of principles was 
 infinite." By "superior" and "inferior" we preserve the anti- 
 thesis of the original ; but it would be more intelligible to say, 
 " older " and " inferior." 
 
 There are two other interpretations of this passage. One of 
 them is that of M. Cousin (after Hegel), who believed that the 
 antithesis of Aristotle is meant to convey the fact of Anaxa- 
 goras, although older in point of time, being more recent in 
 point of published doctrine than Empedocles, having written 
 after him. This is his translation : " Anaxagoras qui naquit 
 avant ce dernier, mais qui e'crivit apres lui." 
 
 The second is that adopted by M. Renouvier from M. Ra- 
 vaisson, who interprets it as meaning that the doctrine of 
 Anaxagoras, though more ancient in point of publication, is 
 more recent in point of thought, i.e., more developed philo- 
 sophically although historically earlier. 
 
 Now, we believe both these interpretations to be erroneous. 
 There is no ground for them except in the antithesis of Aris- 
 
 G 
 
98 EMPEDOCLES. 
 
 totle ; and the real meaning of that antithesis we will examine 
 in the Appendix,* the present not being the place for such 
 critical inquiries. Chronology is on our side. Anaxagoras 
 was born about the 70th Olympiad ; Empedocles, by general 
 consent, is said to have flourished in the 84th Olympiad ; this 
 would make Anaxagoras at least 64 years old at the time when 
 Empedocles published his doctrine, after which age it is barely 
 probable that Anaxagoras could have written ; and even this 
 probability vanishes when we look back upon the life of Anaxa- 
 goras, who was teaching in Athens about the 76th or 77 th 
 Olympiad, and who died at Lampsacus, in exile, in the 88th 
 Olympiad, viz., 16 years after the epoch at which Empedocles 
 is said to have flourished. 
 
 Trusting that the above point was not unworthy of brief 
 discussion, we will now commence our narrative. 
 
 Empedocles was born in Agrigentum, in Sicily, and flourished 
 about the 84th Olympiad. Agrigentum was at that period in 
 the height of its splendour, and a formidable rival to Syracuse. 
 Empedocles, descended from a wealthy and illustrious family, 
 acquired a high reputation by his resolute espousal of the 
 democratic party. Much of his wealth is said to have been 
 spent in a singular and honourable manner ; namely, in bestow- 
 ing dowries on poor girls, and marrying them to young men of 
 rank and consequence. Like all the early philosophers, he is 
 supposed to have been a great traveller, and to have gathered 
 in distant lands the wondrous store of knowledge which he 
 displayed. Only in the far East could he have learned the 
 potent secrets of Medicine and Magic. Only from the Egyp- 
 tian Magi could he have learned the art of prophecy. 
 
 It is probable, however, that he did travel into Italy and to 
 Athens. But, in truth, we can mention little of his personal 
 history that is not open to question. His name rivals that of 
 Pythagoras in the regions of Fable. The same august majesty 
 of demeanour, and the same marvellous power over nature, are 
 attributed to both. Miracles were his pastimes. In prophe- 
 sying, in medicine, in power over the winds and rains, his 
 wonders were so numerous and so renowned, that when he 
 appeared at the Olympic Games all eyes were reverentially 
 fixed upon him. His dress and demeanour accorded with his 
 reputation. Haughty, impassioned, and eminently disinterested 
 
 *See " Appendix C 
 
EMPEDOCLES. 
 
 99 
 
 in character, he refused the tyranny of Agrigentum when freely 
 offered him by the citizens ; but his love of distinction showed 
 itself in priestly garments, a golden girdle, the Delphic crown, 
 and a numerous train of attendants. He proclaimed himself 
 to be a God whom men and women reverently adored. But 
 we must not take this literally. He probably only " assumed 
 by anticipation an honour which he promised all soothsayers, 
 priests, physicians and princes of the people." 
 
 Fable has also taken advantage of the mystery which over- 
 hangs his death, to create out of it various stories of marvel. 
 One relates, that, after a sacred festival, he was drawn up to 
 heaven in a splendour of celestial effulgence. Another and 
 more popular one is that he threw himself headlong into the 
 crater of Mount ^Etna, in order that he might pass for a god, 
 the cause of his death being unknown ; but one of his brazen 
 sandals, thrown up in an eruption, revealed the secret. 
 
 A similar uncertainty exists as to his Teachers and his 
 Writings. Pythagoras, Parmenides, Xenophanes, and Anaxa- 
 goras have all been positively named as his Teachers. Unless 
 we understand the word Teachers in a figurative sense, we 
 must absolutely reject these statements. Diogenes Laertius, 
 who reports them, does so in his dullest manner, with an 
 absence of criticism, remarkable even in him.* Considering 
 that there was, at least, one hundred and forty years between 
 Pythagoras and Empedocles, we need no further argument to 
 disprove any connection between them. 
 
 Diogenes, on the authority of Aristotle (as he says), attributes 
 to Empedocles the invention of Rhetoric ; and Quinctilian 
 (iii. c. i) has repeated the statement. We have no longer the 
 work of Aristotle ; but, as Ritter says, the assertion must have 
 arisen from a misunderstanding, or have been said in jest by 
 Aristotle, because Empedocles was the teacher of Gorgias ; 
 most likely from a misunderstanding, since Sextus Empiricus 
 mentions Aristotle as having said that Empedocles first incited, 
 or gave an impulse to Rhetoric (irpwrov KeiuvrjKa/ai. — Adv. 
 Mat. vii.). Aristotle, in his 'Rhetoric/ says that Corax and 
 Tisias were the first to publish a written Treatise on Eloquence. 
 We feel the less hesitation in rejecting the statement of Dio- 
 genes, because in the very passage which succeeds he is guilty 
 
 * Diogenes is one of the stupidest of the stupid race of compilers. His 
 work is useful as containing occasional extracts, but can rarely be relied oq 
 fpr anything else. 
 
loo EMPEDOCLES, 
 
 of a very gross misquotation of Aristotle, who, as he says, " In 
 his book of ' the Poets ' speaks of Empedocles as Homeric, 
 powerful in his eloquence, rich in metaphors, and other 
 poetical figures." — Diog. viii. c. ii. § 3, p. 57. Now, this work 
 of Aristotle, on the Poets, is fortunately extant ; and it pro- 
 claims the very reverse of what Diogenes alleges. Here is the 
 passage : — " Custom, indeed, connecting the poetry or making 
 with the metre, has denominated some elegiac poets, others epic 
 poets : thus distinguishing poets not according to the nature of 
 their imitation, but according to that of their metre only; for 
 even they who composed treatises of Medicine, or Natural 
 Philosophy in verse, are denominated Poets : yet Homer and 
 Empedocles have nothing in common except their metre; the 
 former, therefore, justly merits the name of Poet ; the other 
 should rather be called a Physiologist than a Poet." — De 
 Poet., c. i. 
 
 After this, and indeed on the strength of this very passage, 
 we may reasonably accept the suspicion of critics, that the 
 tragedies attributed to Empedocles were not the works of the 
 philosopher. 
 
 The diversity of opinion with respect to the position of 
 Empedocles, indicated at the opening of this chapter, is not 
 without significance. That men such as Hegel, Ritter, Zeller, 
 and Tenneman should see strong reasons for different classifi- 
 cation cannot be without importance to the Historian. They 
 destroy each other ; but it does not, therefore, follow that they 
 all build upon false grounds. Each of their views has a certain 
 truth in it ; but, not being the whole truth, it cannot prevail. 
 The cause of the difference seems to be this : Empedocles has 
 something of the Pythagorean, Eleatic, Heraclitic, and Anaxa- 
 gorean systems in his system ; so that each historian, detecting 
 one of these elements, and omitting to give due importance to 
 the others, has connected Empedocles with the system to which 
 that one element belongs. Ritter and Zeller have, however, 
 been aware of some of the complex relations of the doctrine, 
 but failed, we think, in giving it its true position. 
 
 Respecting human knowledge, Empedocles belongs partly to 
 the Eleatics. With them, he complained of the imperfection 
 of the Senses ; and looked for truth only in Reason, which is 
 partly human and partly divine — in other words, partly clouded 
 by the senses. The divine knowledge is opposed to the sen- 
 suous knowledge ; for man cannot approach the divine, neither 
 
EMPEDOCLES. 101 
 
 can he seize it with the hand nor the eye. Hence Empedocles 
 conjoined the duty of contemplating God in the mind. But 
 he appears to have proclaimed the existence of this divine 
 knowledge without attempting to determine its relation to 
 human knowledge. In this respect he resembles rather Xeno- 
 phanes than Parmenides.* 
 
 We have no clear testimony of his having studied the works 
 of Anaxagoras ; but, if we had, it might not be difficult to 
 explain his inferior theory of knowledge ; for, in truth, the 
 theory of Anaxagoras was too far in advance of the age to be 
 rightly apprehended. Empedocles, therefore, adhered to the 
 Eleatic theory. With Xenophanes, he bewailed the delusion 
 of the senses and experience. Listen to his lament : — 
 
 " Swift-fated and conscious, how brief is life's pleasureless portion ! 
 Like the wind-driven smoke, they are carried backwards awl forwards, 
 Each trusting to nought save what his experience vouches, 
 On all sides distracted ; yet wishing to find out the whole truth, 
 In vain ; neither by eye nor ear perceptible to man, 
 Nor to be grasped by mind : and thou, when thus thou hast wandered, 
 Wilt find that no further reaches the knowledge of mortals." 
 
 These verses seem to indicate a scepticism of Reason as 
 well as of the Senses ; but other passages show that he upheld 
 the integrity of Reason, which he thought was only prevented 
 from revealing the whole truth because it was imprisoned in 
 the body. Mundane existence was, in his system, the doom 
 of such immortal souls as had been disgraced from Heaven. 
 The Fall of Man he thus distinctly enunciated : — 
 
 " This is the law of Fate, of the Gods an olden enactment, 
 If with guilt or murder a Dsemonf polluteth his members, 
 Thrice ten thousand years must he wander apart from the blessed. 
 Hence, doomed I stray, a fugitive from Gods and an outcast 
 To raging strife submissive." 
 
 But he had some more philosophical ground to go upon 
 when he wished to prove the existence of Reason and of the 
 Divine Nature. He maintained that like could only be known 
 by like : through earth we learn the earth, through fire we 
 learn fire, through strife we learn strife, and through love we 
 
 * Having quoted (p. 68) Aristotle's testimony of the sensuous nature ol 
 knowledge in the Kmpedoclean theory, we need only here refer to it ; 
 adding that in this respect he ranks with Parmenides rather than Xeno- 
 phanes. 
 
 t An immortal soul. 
 
102 EMPEDOCLES. 
 
 learn love. If, therefore,* like could only be known by like, 
 the Divine could only be known by Divine Reason; and, 
 inasmuch as the Divine is recognised by man it is a proof 
 that the Divine exists. Knowledge and Existence mutually 
 imply each other. 
 
 Empedocles resembles Xenophanes also in his attacks on 
 anthromorphism. God, he says, has neither head adjusted to 
 limbs like human beings, nor legs, nor hands : 
 
 " He is, wholly and perfectly, mind ineffable, holy, 
 With rapid and swift-glancing thought pervading the whole world." 
 
 We may compare these verses with the lines of Xeno» 
 phanes — 
 
 " Without labour he ruleth all things by reason and insight." 
 
 Thus far Empedocles belonged to the Eleatics. The 
 traces of Pythagoras are fewer ; for we cannot regard as such 
 all those analogies which the ingenuity of some critics has 
 detected. f In his life, and in his moral precepts, there is a 
 strong resemblance to Pythagoras ; but in his philosophy we 
 see none beyond metempsychosis, and the consequent absti- 
 nence from animal food. 
 
 Heraclitus had said there was nothing but a perpetual flux 
 of things, that the whole world of phenomena was as a flowing 
 river, ever-changing yet apparently the same. Anaxagoras 
 had also said that there was no creation of elements, but 
 only an arrangement. Empedocles was now to amalgamate 
 these views. " Fools ! " he exclaims, 
 
 " Who think aught can begin to be which formerly was not, 
 Or, that aught which is, can perish and utterly decay. % 
 Another truth I now unfold : no natural birth 
 Is there of mortal things, nor death's destruction final ; 
 Nothing is there but a mingling, and then a separation of the mingled, 
 Which are called a birth and death by ignorant mortals. § " 
 
 * We are here thinking for Empedocles ; that is, we have no other 
 authority for this statement, than that something of the kind is wanting to 
 make out a plausible explanation of what is only implied in the fragments 
 extant. The fragments tell us that he believed in Reason as the transcen- 
 dent faculty ; and also that Reason did in some way recognise the Divine. 
 All we have done is to supply the link wanting. 
 
 f See them noticed in ' Zeller, Philos. der Griechen,' p. 169-173. 
 
 X Compare Anaxagoras, as quoted, p. 89 : " Wrongly do the Greeks 
 suppose that aught begins or ceases to be." 
 
 § Compare Anaxagoras : " So that all-becoming might more properly 
 be called becoming mixed, and all-corruption becoming separate/* 
 
EMPEDOCLES. 
 
 103 
 
 So distinct a relationship as these verses manifest towards 
 both Heraclitus and Anaxagoras will account for the classifi- 
 cation adopted by Hegel, Zeller, and Renouvier ; at the same 
 time, it gives greater strength to our opinion of Empedocles 
 as the successor of these two. 
 
 The differences are, however, as great as the resemblances. 
 Having asserted that all things were but a mingling and a 
 separation, he must have admitted the existence of certain 
 primary elements which were the materials mingled. 
 
 Heraclitus had affirmed Fire to be both the principle and 
 the element ; both the moving, mingling force, and the mingled 
 matter. Anaxagoras, with great logical consistency, affirmed 
 that 'the primary elements were homceomericz, since nothing 
 could proceed from nothing, and whatever was arranged must, 
 therefore, be an arrangement of primary elements. Empedocles 
 affirmed that the primary elements were Four, viz., Earth, Air, 
 Fire, and Water : out of these all other things proceed ; all 
 things are but the various minglings of these four. 
 
 Now, that this is an advance on both the preceding con- 
 ceptions will scarcely be denied ; it bears indubitable evidence 
 of being a later conception, and a modification of its antece- 
 dents. Nevertheless, although superior as a physiological view 
 it has not the logical consistency of that maintained by Anaxa- 
 goras ; for, as Empedocles taught that like can only be known 
 by like, i.e., that existence and knowledge were identical and 
 mutually implicative, he ought to have maintained that what- 
 ever is recognised by the mind as distinct, must be distinct 
 in esse. 
 
 With respect to the Formative Power, we see the traces of 
 Heraclitus and Anaxagoras in about the same proportion. 
 Heraclitus maintained that Fire was impelled by irresistible 
 Desire to transform itself into some determinate existence. 
 Anaxagoras maintained that the infinite Intelligence was the 
 great architect who arranged all the material elements; the 
 Mind that controlled and fashioned Matter. The great dis- 
 tinction between these two systems' is, that the Fire transforms 
 itself, the Nous transforms something which is radically 
 different from itself. Both these conceptions were amalga- 
 mated by Empedocles. He taught that Love was the creative 
 power. Wherever there is a mixture of different elements 
 Love is exerted. 
 
 Here we see the Desire of Heraclitus sublimed into its 
 
104 EMPEDOCLES. 
 
 highest expression, and the Nous of Anaxagoras reduced to 
 its moral expression, Love. The difficulties of the Heraclitean 
 doctrine, namely, as to how Fire can ever become anything 
 different from Fire, are avoided by the adoption of the Anaxa- 
 gorean dualism ; while the difficulties of the Anaxagorean 
 doctrine, namely, as to how the great Arranger was moved 
 and incited to arrange the primary elements, are in some mea- 
 sure avoided by the natural desire of Love (Aphrodite), 
 
 But there was a difficulty still to be overcome. If Love 
 was the creator, that is, the Mingler, what caused separation ? 
 To explain this, he had recourse to Hate. As the perfect state 
 of supra-mundane existence was Harmony, the imperfect state 
 of mundane existence was Discord. Love was, therefore, the 
 Formative Principle, and Hate the Destructive. Hence he 
 said that — 
 
 " All the members of God war together, one after the other" 
 This is but the phrase of Heraclitus : " Strife is the parent of 
 all things." It is, nevertheless, most probable that Empe- 
 docles regarded hate as only a mundane power, as only operat- 
 ing on the theatre of the world, and nowise disturbing the 
 abode of the Gods.* For, inasmuch as Man is a fallen and 
 perverted God, doomed to wander on the face of the earth, 
 sky-aspiring, but sense-clouded ; so may Hate be only perverted 
 Love, struggling through space. Does not this idea accord 
 with what we know of his opinions ? His conception of God, 
 that is, of The One, was that of a " sphere in the bosom of 
 harmony fixed in calm rest, gladly rejoicing." This quiescent 
 sphere, which is Love, exists above and around the moved 
 World. Certain points are loosened from the combination 
 of the elements, but the unity established by Love continues. 
 Ritter is convinced that Hate has only power over the smaller 
 portion of existence, over that part which, disconnecting itself 
 from the whole, contaminates itself with crime, and thereby 
 devolves to the errors of mortals. 
 
 Our account of Empedocles will be found to vary consider- 
 ably from that in Aristotle ; but our excuse is that furnished 
 by the great Stagyrite himself, who is constantly telling us 
 that Empedocles gave no reason for his opinions. This is 
 true. Moreover, Aristotle makes us aware that his interpreta- 
 tion is open to question; for, he says, that his interpreta- 
 
 * An opinion subsequently put forth with great splendour of diction by 
 Plato in the ' Phaedrus.' 
 
DEMOCRITUS. 105 
 
 tion can only be obtained by pushing Empedocles' premisses 
 to their legitimate conclusions ; a process which destroys all 
 historical integrity : for what thinker does push his premisses 
 to their utmost limits? Empedocles was an original thinker; 
 but he was certainly not a logical thinker, and we have no 
 right to supply his deficiencies in that respect. 
 
 The last sentence will, perhaps, be thought subversive of our 
 avowed plan of supplying the connecting links in a chain of 
 reasoning which tradition hands down to us in fragments. 
 But in truth our endeavour has been to connect two or more 
 fragments, not to lengthen the original chain. For instance, 
 at page 101-2, we take an admitted doctrine of perception, and 
 an admitted doctrine of the existence of the Divine, we bring 
 the two together by means of a syllogism j but we add nothing 
 in the shape of doctrine. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DEMOCRITUS. 
 
 The laughing Philosopher, the traditional antithesis to Hera- 
 clitus, was born at Abdera (the new settlement of the Teians 
 after their abandonment of Ionia), in the 80th Olymp. His 
 claim to the title of Laugher, 6 yeXaalvos has been disputed, 
 and by moderns generally rejected. Perhaps, the native 
 stupidity of his countrymen, — and they were renowned for 
 abusing the privilege which men have of being stupid, — afforded 
 him incessant matter for laughter. Perhaps he was by nature 
 satirical, and thought ridicule the test of truth. We have no 
 proof of his being a satirist, except the tradition : that may be 
 false, but must have had some origin. 
 
 Democritus was of a noble and wealthy family, so wealthy 
 that it entertained Xerxes at Abdera on his return from Asia. 
 Xerxes in recompense left some of his Magi to instruct the 
 young Democritus. Doubtless it was their tales of the won- 
 ders of their native land, and of the deep unspeakable wisdom 
 of their priests, that inspired him with the passion of travel. 
 "I, of all men," he says, " of my day, have travelled over the 
 greatest extent of country, exploring the most distant lands ; 
 most climates and regions have I visited, and listened to the 
 
io6 DEMOCR1TUS. 
 
 most experienced and wisest of men ; and, in the calculations 
 of line-measuring no one hath surpassed me, not even the 
 Egyptians, amongst whom I sojourned five years." In travel 
 he spent his patrimony ; but he exchanged it for an amount ot 
 knowledge which no one had previously equalled. The Ab- 
 derites, on his return, looked on him with vague wonder. The 
 sun-burnt traveller brought with him knowledge which, to them, 
 must have appeared divine. Curiosity encompassed him. He 
 exhibited a few samples of his lore, foretold unexpected changes 
 in the weather, and was at once exalted to the summit of that 
 power to which it is a nation's pride to bow. He was offered 
 political supremacy, but wisely declined it. 
 
 It would be idle to detail here the various anecdotes which 
 tradition hands down respecting him. They are mostly either 
 impossible or improbable. That, for instance, of his having 
 put out his eyes with a burning-glass, in order that he might 
 be more perfectly and undisturbedly acquainted with his 
 reason, is in violent contradiction to his very theory of the 
 soul, to which the eye was one of the great inlets. We may 
 credit the account of his having led a quiet sober life, and of 
 his dying at a very advanced age. More we cannot credit. 
 
 Respecting his Philosophy we have more certain evidence ; 
 but even that has been so variously interpreted, and is in many 
 parts so obscure, that historians have been at a loss to give it 
 its due position in relation to other systems. Reinhold, Bran- 
 dis, Marbach, and Hermann view him as an Ionian ; Buhle and 
 Tennemann, as an Eleatic ; Hegel, as the successor of Hera- 
 clitus, and the predecessor of Anaxagoras; Ritter, as a Sophist ; 
 and Zeller, as the precursor of Anaxagoras. Of all these 
 attempts at classification, that by Ritter is the worst : it is 
 pitiable. Because Democritus has an occasional phrase im- 
 plying great vanity — and those mentioned by Ritter seem to 
 us to imply nothing of the kind — he is a Sophist. That is a 
 sample of Ritter's arguing ! 
 
 We are convinced that all the above attempts are erroneous, 
 and for a similar reason to that which guided historians in their 
 classification of Empedocles. Democritus is distinguished 
 from the Ionians, by the denial of all sensible quality to the 
 primary elements ; from the Eleatics by his affirmation of the 
 existence of a multiplicity of elements ; from Heraclitus on the 
 same ground ; from Anaxagoras, as we shall see presently ; and 
 from Empedocles, by denying the Four Elements, and the 
 
DEMOCRITUS. IO ; 
 
 Formative Love. All these differences are radical. The 
 resemblances, such as they are, may have beet? coincidences, 
 or derived from one or two of the later thinkers : Parmenides 
 and Anaxagoras for example. 
 
 What did Democritus teach ? This question we will endea- 
 vour to answer somewhat differently from historians ; but our 
 answer shall be wholly grounded on precise and certain evi- 
 dence, with no other originality than that of developing the 
 system from its central principles. 
 
 We commence with Knowledge ; and with the passage of 
 Aristotle, universally accredited though variously employed : 
 " Democritus says, that nothing is true ; or, if so, it is not evi- 
 dent to us. Nevertheless, as, in his system, the sensation 
 constitutes the thought, and at the same time is but a change 
 in the sentient being, the sensible phenomena (i.e. sensations) 
 are of necessity true." * What does this pregnant passage 
 mean ? It means that sensation, inasmuch as it is sensation, 
 must be true : that is true subjectively ; but sensation, inasmuch 
 as it is sensation, cannot be true objectively. M. Renouvier 
 thinks that Democritus was the first to introduce this distinc- 
 tion ; but our readers will remember that it was the distinction 
 established by Anaxagoras. Sextus Empiricus quotes the very 
 words of Democritus: "The sweet exists only inform, the 
 bitter in form, the hot in form, the cold in form, colour in 
 form ; but in causal reality (am>/)t only atoms and space exist. 
 The sensible things which are supposed by opinion to exist 
 have no real existence, but only atoms and space exist." — Adv. 
 Mathem. vii. p. 163. When he says that colour, &c, exist in 
 form only, he means that they are sensible images constantly 
 emanating from things ; a notion we shall explain presently. 
 A little further on Sextus reports the opinion, that we only 
 perceive that which falls in upon us according to the disposi- 
 tion of our bodies ; all else is hidden from us. 
 
 Neither Condillac nor Destutt de Tracy have more distinctly 
 identified sensation and thought, than Democritus in the above 
 passages. But he does so in the spirit of Kant rather than that 
 
 * We feel bound to quote the original : jjtoi ov9tv tlvai a\r)9tg r\ rjfiiv 
 y'atiriXov. "OXwg 8k did to Dicdkapfiavttv, Qpovijoiv fiiv rrjv oXo9r\oiv, 
 ravri)v d'elvai dWoiuxriv, to <ttatv6fxtvov Kara Trjv aiaQi\oiv, ££ dvdyKrjQ 
 dXrjQec tlvai.—Met. iv. 5. 
 
 f Modern editors read tTtrj, " in reality." We are inclined, however, to 
 preserve the old reading, as more antithetical to vow. 
 
io8 DEMOCRITUS. 
 
 of Condillac; for, although with the latter he would say, 
 " Penser c'est sentir," yet would he with the former draw the 
 distinction between phenomenal and noumenal perception. 
 
 But did sensation constitute all knowledge? Was there 
 nothing to guide man but the reports of his senses ? Yes : 
 there was Reflection* 
 
 This Reflection, as with Anaxagoras, was not the source of 
 absolute truth, but fulfilled a controlling office, and established 
 certitude, as far as there could be certitude in human know- 
 ledge. And he proved the existence of this Reflection, very 
 much in the style of the celebrated addition to the aphorism, 
 "Nothing is in the Mind which was not previously in the 
 Senses ;" to which Leibnitz added, " except the Mind itself." 
 Democritus, aware that most of our conceptions are derived 
 through the senses, was also aware that many of them were 
 utterly independent of, and in defiance to the senses. Thus 
 the " infinitely small " and the li infinitely great " escape sense, 
 but are affirmed by Reflection. So also the atoms which his 
 Reason told him were the primary elements of things, he could 
 never have known by sense. 
 
 Thus far we have seen Democritus only as the inheritor of 
 Anaxagoras ; but, as the epoch we are now considering was 
 distinguished by the greater attention bestowed on the origin 
 of knowledge, we may reasonably expect that Democritus had 
 devoted considerable thought on the subject, and had origi- 
 nated some view of his own. 
 
 He was not content with the theory of Anaxagoras. There 
 were difficulties which remained unsolved by it; which, in- 
 deed, had never been appreciated. This was the grand prob- 
 lem Democritus set himself to solve : How do we perceive 
 external things ? It is no answer to say that we perceive them 
 by the senses. This is no better an explanation than that of 
 the occult quality of opium, given by Moliere's physician : 
 " L'opium endormit parcequ'il a une vertu soporifique." How 
 is it that the senses perceive ? 
 
 No one had asked this question ; to have asked it was to 
 form an era in the history of philosophy. Men began by 
 reasoning on the reports of the senses, unsuspicious of any 
 error. If they saw anything, they concluded that what they 
 
 * faavoia : etymology, no less than pyschology, seems to support our 
 translation. 
 
DEMOCRITUS. I ioj>) 
 
 saw existed, and existed as they saw it. Then came others 
 who began to question the accuracy of the senses; lastly came 
 those who denied that accuracy altogether, and pronounced the 
 reports to be mere delusions. Thus the question forced itself 
 on the mind of Democritus : — In what manner could the senses 
 perceive external things ? Once settle the modus operandi and 
 then the real efficacy may be estimated. 
 
 The hypothesis by which he attempted to explain percep- 
 tion was both ingenious and bold ; and many centuries elapsed 
 before a better one was suggested. He supposed that all 
 things were constantly throwing off images of themselves 
 (ctSwAa), which, after assimilating to themselves the surround- 
 ing air, enter the soul by the pores of the sensitive organ. The 
 eye, for example, is composed of aqueous humours ; and water 
 sees. But how does water see ? It is diaphanous and receives 
 the image of whatever is presented to it. This is a very rude 
 and material hypothesis, we will confess ; but did not philoso- 
 phers, for centuries, believe that their senses received impres- 
 sions of things ? and did they not suppose that they had images 
 of things reflected in the mind? Now this latter hypothesis is 
 perhaps, less obviously fantastic and gratuitous ; but it is also 
 less logical ; for, if the mind be a mirror reflecting the images 
 of things, how comes it that the images vary with different 
 minds, and with the same mind at different states r And how 
 is it that we never know the nature of things, but only their 
 appearances? But, more than all, how is it that the mind 
 becomes a mirror reflecting the images? The hypothesis 
 stands as much in need of explanation as the phenomenon it 
 pretends to explain. 
 
 The hypothesis of Democritus once admitted serves its pur- 
 pose ; at least, to a considerable extent. Only the external \y 
 surface of a body is thrown off in the shape of an ctSuAov or 
 image, and even that only imperfectly and obscurely. The 
 figure thrown off is not a perfect image of the object throwing 
 it off. It is only an image of the external form, and is subject 
 to variations in its passage to the mind. This being the case, 
 the strictly phenomenal nature of all knowledge is accurately / / 
 exhibited. The idols or images, being themselves imperfect, *s 
 our knowledge is imperfect. 
 
 With this theory of knowledge how could he exhibit the 
 other greater question of Creation ? We shall see. It is said, 
 that he rejected The One of the Eleatics, The Four of Empe. 
 
no DEMOCRITUS. 
 
 docks, and the homceomerice oi Anaxagoras, and declared Atoms 
 invisible and intangible to be the primary elements ; and that 
 all things were but modes of one of the triple arrangements, 
 viz., configuration, combination, and position. The atom being 
 indivisible is necessarily one ; and, being one, is necessarily 
 self-existent. By this hypothesis, therefore, Democritus satis- 
 fied the demands of those who declared that the self-existent 
 must be One ; and of those who declared that there were many 
 things existing, and that the One could never be more than 
 ^\J the One, never become the Many. He amalgamated the 
 Ionian and Eleatic schools in his speculation, correcting both. 
 He, doubtless, derived this idea from the homceomerice of 
 Anaxagoras ; or, as those who place Anaxagoras later than 
 Democritus would say, originated this idea. It becomes a 
 question, therefore, as to which of these speculations bears the 
 impress of greater maturity. On this question we cannot hesi- 
 tate to pronounce. The idea of homceomerice betrays its more 
 primitive nature in this : it attributes positive qualities to atoms, 
 which qualities are not changed or affected by combination or 
 arrangement. The idea of the atom divested of all quality, and 
 only assuming that quality as phenomenal, when in combina- 
 tion with other atoms, and changing its quality with every 
 change of combination, is indubitably a far more scientific 
 speculation ; it is also obviously later in point of development. 
 
 From the axiom that only " like can act upon like," Anaxa- 
 goras formed his homaomerice. Democritus accepted the 
 axiom, but gave it a wider application. If only like can act 
 upon like, said he, then must all things be alike in esse ; and 
 the only differences are those of phenomena, i.e., of manifes- 
 tation ; these depend on combination and arrangement. 
 
 Atomism is homgeomerianism stripped of qualities. It is, 
 therefore, Anaxagoras greatly improved. 
 
 The Atomism of Democritus has not been sufficiently ap- 
 preciated as a speculation. To us it appears one of the pro- 
 foundest yet reached by human subtlety. Some proof of this 
 may be seen in the fact of the great Leibnitz, many centuries 
 afterwards, having been led to a doctrine essentially similar. 
 His celebrated " Monadologie " is but Atomism, with a new 
 terminology. Leibnitz called his Monad & force; and that to 
 him was the prima materia. So also Democritus denied that 
 atoms had any weight j they had only force, and it was the 
 impulsion given by superior torce which constituted weight 
 
DEMOCRITUS. ill 
 
 It is worthy of remark that not only did these thinkers concur 
 in their doctrine of atomism, but also, as we have seen, in their 
 doctrine of the origin of knowledge, a coincidence which gives 
 weight to the supposition that in both minds one doctrine was 
 dependent on the other. 
 
 From what has already been said, the reader may estimate 
 Ritter's assertion, that it would be in vain to seek for any 
 profounder view in the theory of Democritus than that com- 
 mon to all mechanical physiologists who sought to reduce 
 everything to mathematical conceptions ; an assertion as pre- 
 posterous as that which follows it, namely, that Democritus 
 arrived at his atomic theory in the same way as modern physio- 
 logists, — from a bias for the mechanical consideration of 
 Nature. He here grossly contradicts himself. Having first 
 declared that there was nothing in the Democritian theory but 
 what the Ionians had previously discovered, he next declares 
 that this theory is the same as that of the modern atomic theory. 
 We are puzzled to which opinion we shall award the palm of 
 historical misconception. The modern atomic theory is the 
 law of definite proportions ; the ancient theory is merely the 
 affirmation of indefinite combinations. Between the two there is 
 precisely the difference of Positive Science and Philosophy.* 
 They were neither arrived at in the same way, nor have they 
 the same signification. 
 
 Ritter's chapter on Democritus is one of the worst in his 
 book. He has misrepresented almost every point, and even 
 failed, we believe, to seize the meaning of the very text he 
 quotes. For instance, he says, " Only one physical property 
 was attributed to these atoms — weight." This is in defiance ol 
 authority, + and the very passage from Aristotle which is quoted 
 to maintain it, is, we believe, against it. The passage is this : 
 "Atoms, indeed, are heavy according to excess" {Ka.ro. t^v 
 virepoxnv.) Excess of what? Clearly excess of aggregation, 
 i.e., of force. But if only heavy in excess, they cannot indi- 
 vidually be heavy ; ergo, weight is not a property of each atom, 
 but of a combination of atoms. 
 
 We can enter into no further details. Attempts have been 
 made, from certain expressions attributed to Democritus, to 
 deduce an Intelligence, somewhat similar to that in the Anaxa- 
 gorean doctrine, as the Formative Principle. We cannot sec 
 
 • See our * Introduction.' t See ' Renouvier,' i. 245, 6. 
 
i is DEMOCRTTUS. 
 
 our way on this path. Evidence is so small and so questionable 
 that we refrain from pronouncing on it. Certain it is that he 
 attributed the formation of things to Destiny; but whether 
 that Destiny was intelligent or not is uncertain. 
 
 In conclusion, we may observe that his system was an ad« 
 vance on that of his predecessors. In the two great points 
 of psychology and physics, which we have considered at length, 
 k is impossible to mistake a very decided progress, as well as 
 *Jhe opening of * new line in each department. 
 
TOtrto lEpocf). 
 
 INTELLECTUAL CRISIS. — THE INSUFFICIENCY OF ALL 
 ATTEMPTS TOWARDS A SOLUTION OF THE PROB- 
 LEM OF EXISTENCE, AS WELL AS THAT OF 
 KNOWLEDGE, PRODUCES THE SOPHISTS. 
 
 THE SOPHISTS. 
 
 The Sophists are a much calumniated race. That they should 
 have been so formerly does not surprise us ; that they should 
 be so still is an evidence that historical criticism is yet in its 
 infancy. In raising our voices to defend them, we are aware 
 that we shall incur the charge of paradox. But, looked at 
 nearly, the paradox is on the side of those who credit and 
 repeat the traditional account. In truth we know of no charge 
 so unanimous, yet so parodoxical, as that brought against the 
 Sophists. It is as if mankind had consented to judge of 
 Socrates by the representation of him in " The Clouds" The 
 caricature of Socrates by Aristophanes is quite as near the 
 truth as the caricature of the Sophists by Plato ;* with this 
 difference, that the one was wilfully, consciously caricaturing, 
 the other unconsciously. 
 
 On the Sophists we have only the testimony of antagonists ,• 
 and the history of mankind clearly proves that the enmities 
 which arise from difference of race and country are feeble, 
 compared with the enmities which arise from difference of 
 creed : the former may be lessened by contact and intercourse, 
 the latter only aggravated. Plato had every reason to dislike 
 the Sophists and their opinions : he, therefore, lost no occasion 
 of slandering the one, and misrepresenting the other. Yet 
 from Plato alone do writers draw their opinions of the Sophists 
 
 * See in particular that amusing dialogue the 'Euthydemus,' which is 
 quite as exaggerated as Aristophanes. 
 
 H 
 
ii4 THE SOPHISTS. 
 
 as a class : as thinkers, Aristotle, if the work be his, also mis- 
 represents them. 
 
 This may look presumptuous. We have nothing remaining 
 of what the Sophists taught, except the opinions reported by 
 others. These opinions we pronounce to be garbled. And 
 why ? The Sophists were wealthy ; the Sophists were powerful • 
 the Sophists_were_dazzling 1 rhetorical^ but shallow. Interro- 
 gate human nature — above all the nature of philosophers — and 
 ask what will be the sentiment entertained respecting these 
 Sophists by their contemporaries ? Ask the solitary thinker 
 what is his opinion of the showy, powerful, but shallow 
 rhetorician, who usurps the attention of the world. The man 
 of convictions has at all times a superb contempt for the man 
 of mere oratorical, or dialectical display. The Thinker knows 
 that the world is ruled by Thought ; yet he sees expression 
 gaining the world's attention. He knows perhaps that he has 
 within him thoughts pregnant with human welfare; yet he 
 sees the giddy multitude drunk with the enthusiasm excited 
 by some daring sophism, clothed in enchanting language, He 
 sees through the sophism, but cannot make others as clear- 
 sighted. His warning is unheeded. His wisdom is spurned. 
 His ambition is frustrated. The popular Idol is carried onward 
 in triumph. Now the Thinker would not be human if he bore 
 this with equanimity. He does not bear it. He is loud and 
 angry in lamenting the fate of a world that can so be led ; loud 
 and angry in his contempt of one who could so lead it. Should 
 he become the critic or historian of his age, what exactness 
 ought we to expect in his account of the popular idol ? 
 
 Somewhat of this kind was the relation in which the Sophists 
 and Philosophers stood to each other. 
 
 The Sophists were hated by some because powerful, by 
 others because shallow. They were misrepresented by all. 
 In later times, their antagonism to Socrates has brought them 
 ill-will ; and this ill-will is strengthened by the very prejudice 
 of the name. Could a Sophist be other than a cheat and a 
 liar ? As well ask, could a Devil be other than Evil ? In 
 the name of Sophist all odious qualities are implied : and this 
 implication perverts our judgment. Call the Sophists Professors 
 of Rhetoric, which is their truest designation, and then examine 
 their history ; it will produce a very different impression. 
 
 We said it was a paradox to maintain that the Sophists really 
 promulgated the opinions usually attributed to them. And by 
 
THE SOPHISTS. 
 
 "5 
 
 this we mean that not only are some of those opinions nothing 
 but caricatures of what was really maintained, but, also, that 
 in our interpretation of the others we grossly err, by a con- 
 fusion of Christian with Heathen views of morality. Moderns 
 cannot help regarding as fearfully immoral, ideas which, by the 
 Greeks, were regarded as moral, or, at least, as not disrepu- 
 table. For instance : the Greek orators are always careful to 
 impress upon their audience, that in bringing a charge against 
 any one, they are actuated by the strongest personal motives ; 
 that they have been injured by the accused; that they have 
 good honest hatred, as a motive, for accusing him. Can any- 
 thing be more opposite to Christian feeling? A Christian 
 accuser is just as anxious to extricate himself from any charge 
 of being influenced by personal considerations as the Greek 
 was of making the contrary evident. A Christian seeks to 
 place his motive to the account of abstract justice; and his 
 statement would be received with great suspicion were it known 
 that a personal feeling prompted it. _The .reason is that the. 
 Chris tian Ethics do not countenance vengeance ; the Greek 
 Ethics not only countenanced vengeance, but very much re- 
 probated i?iformers : consequently, whoever made an accusa- 
 tion had to clear himself from the ignominy of being an in- 
 former, and, to do so, he showed his personal motives. 
 
 This example will prepare the reader to judge, without pre- 
 cipitancy, the celebrated boast of the Sophists, that they could 
 "make the worse appear the better reason." This was the 
 grand aim of their endeavours. This was their avowed object 
 To teach this art they demanded enormous sums ; to learn it 
 enormous sums were readily given, and given by many. 
 
 Now, understanding this object as moderns have understood 
 it, and thereby forming our notion of the Sophists, let us ask : 
 Is it credible that such an art should have been avowed, and, 
 being avowed, should be rewarded, in a civilized state ? Let 
 us think, for an instant, of what are its moral, or rather its 
 immoral, consequences. Let us reflect how utterly it destroys 
 all morality ; how it makes the very laws but playthings for 
 dialectical subtlety. Then let us ask whether, with our opinions 
 respecting its morality, any state could have allowed such open 
 blasphemy — such defiance to the very fundamental principle of 
 honesty and integrity — such demolition of the social contract ? 
 
 Could any state do this ; and was Athens that state ? We 
 ask the reader to realize for himself some notion of the Athe- 
 
u6 THE SOPHISTS. 
 
 nians as citizens, not merely as statues ; to think of them as 
 human beings, full of human passions, not simply as architects, 
 sculptors, poets, and philosophers. Having done this we ask 
 him whether he can believe that these Athenians would have 
 listened to a man proclaiming all morality a farce, and all law 
 a quibble — proclaiming that for a sum of money he could in- 
 struct any one how to make an unjust cause appear a just one ? 
 Would not such a proclamation be answered with a shout of 
 derision, or of execration, according to the belief in his 
 sincerity ? Could any charlatan, in the corruptest age, have 
 escaped lapidation for such effrontery ? Yet the Sophists were 
 enormously wealthy, by many greatly admired, and were 
 selected as ambassadors on very delicate missions. They 
 were men of splendid talents, of powerful connexions. Around 
 them flocked the rich and noble youth of every city they 
 entered. They were the intellectual leaders of their age. If 
 they were what their adversaries describe them, Greece could 
 only have been an earthly Pandemonium, where Belial was 
 King. 
 
 To believe this is beyond our power. Such a paradox it 
 would be frivolous to refute, had it not been maintained for 
 centuries. Some have endeavoured to escape it by maintaining 
 that the Sophists were held in profound contempt, and certain 
 passages are adduced from Plato in proof of this. But the 
 fact appears to us to be the reverse of this. The great wealth 
 and power of the Sophists — the very importance implied in 
 Plato's constant polemic against them — prove that they were 
 not objects of contempt. Objects of aversion they might be 
 to one party ; the successful always are. Objects of contempt 
 they might be, to some sincere and profound thinkers. But 
 the question here is not one relating to individuals, but to the 
 State. It is not whether Plato despised Gorgias, but whether 
 Athens allowed him to teach the most unblushing and undis- 
 guised immorality. There have been daring speculators in all 
 times. There have been men shameless and corrupt. But 
 that there has been any speculator so daring as to promulgate 
 what he knew to be grossly immoral, and so shameless as to 
 avow it, is in such contradiction to our experience of human 
 nature as at once to be rejected.* 
 
 * We are told by Sextus that Protagoras was condemned to death by 
 the Athenians because he professed himself unable to say whether the Gods 
 
THE SOPHISTS. 117 
 
 It is evident, therefore, that in teaching the art of " making 
 worse appear the better reason," the Sophists were not guilty of 
 anything reprehensible to a Greek ; however serious thinkers, 
 such as Socrates and Plato, might detest the shallow philosophy 
 from which it sprung ; and their detestation was owing to their 
 love of truth, which the Sophists outraged. 
 
 It may not be easy to make the reader understand how such 
 doctrines could be regarded as otherwise than moral. But we 
 will try. If he is familiar with Mr. Macaulay's brilliant and 
 searching article on Machiavelli, he will at once see how such 
 doctrines might have been held by very virtuous men. If he 
 has not already made himself acquainted with that masterly 
 performance, the following extracts will be acceptable both 
 in themselves and in reference to our present subject : — 
 
 " Among the rude nations which lay beyond the Alps, valour 
 was absolutely indispensable. Without it, none wxild be 
 eminent, few could be secure. Cowardice was, therefore, 
 naturally considered as the foulest reproach. Among the 
 polished Italians, enriched by commerce, governed by law, 
 and passionately attached to literature, everything was done 
 by superiority of intelligence. Their very wars, more pacific 
 than the peace of their neighbours, required rather civil than 
 military qualifications. Hence, while courage was the point 
 of honour in other countries, ingenuity became the point of 
 honour in Italy. 
 
 " From these principles were deduced, by processes strictly 
 analogous, two opposite systems of fashionable morality. 
 Through the greater part of Europe, the vices which peculiarly 
 belong to timid dispositions, and which are the natural defence 
 of weakness, fraud, and hypocrisy, have always been most dis- 
 reputable. On the other hand, the excesses of haughty and 
 daring spirits have been treated with indulgence, and even 
 with respect. The Italians regarded with corresponding lenity 
 those crimes which require self-command, address, quick obser- 
 vation, fertile invention, and profound knowledge of human 
 nature. 
 
 " Such a prince as our Henry the Fifth would have been 
 the idol of the North. The follies of his youth, the selfish 
 and desolating ambition of his manhood, the Lollards roasted 
 
 existed, or what they were, owing to the insufficiency of knowledge. Yet 
 the Athenians are supposed to have tolerated the Sophists as they *re 
 understood by moderns ! 
 
n8 THE SOPHISTS. 
 
 at slow fires, the prisoners massacred on the field of battle, 
 the expiring lease of priestcraft renewed for another century, 
 the dreadful legacy of a causeless and hopeless war, bequeathed 
 to a people who had no interest in its event, everything is for- 
 gotten but the victory of Agincourt ! Francis Sforza, on the 
 other hand, was the model of the Italian hero. He made his 
 employers and his rivals like his tools. He first overpowered 
 his open enemies by the help of faithless allies ; he then armed 
 himself against his allies with the spoils taken from his enemies. 
 By his incomparable dexterity, he raised himself from the pre- 
 carious and dependent situation of a military adventurer to the 
 first throne of Italy. To such a man much was forgiven — 
 hollow friendship, ungenerous enmity, violated faith. Such 
 are the opposite errors which men commit, when their morality 
 is not a science, but a taste ; when they abandon eternal prin- 
 ciple for accidental associations. 
 
 " We have illustrated our meaning by an instance taken 
 from history. We will select another from fiction. Othello 
 murders his wife ; he gives orders for the murder of his lieu- 
 tenant ; he ends by murdering himself. Yet he never loses 
 the esteem and affection of a Northern reader — his intrepid 
 and ardent spirit redeeming everything. The unsuspecting con- 
 fidence with which he listens to his adviser, the agony with 
 which he shrinks from the thought of shame, the tempest of 
 passion with which he commits his crimes, and the haughty 
 fearlessness with which he avows them, give an extraordinary 
 interest to his character. Iago, on the contrary, is the object 
 of universal loathing. Many are inclined to suspect that 
 Shakspeare has been seduced into an exaggeration unusual 
 with him, and has drawn a monster who has no archetype in 
 human nature. Now, we suspect that an Italian audience, in 
 the fifteenth century, would have felt very differently. Othello 
 would have inspired nothing but detestation and contempt. 
 The folly with which he trusts to the friendly professions of a 
 man whose promotion he had obstructed, the credulity with 
 which he takes unsupported assertions, and trivial circum- 
 stances, for unanswerable proofs, the violence with which he 
 silences the exculpation till the exculpation can only aggravate 
 his misery, would have excited the abhorrence and disgust of 
 the spectators. The conduct of Iago they 'would assuredly have 
 condemned; but they would have condemned it as we con- 
 demn that of his victim. Something of interest and respect 
 
THE SOPHISTS. H 9 
 
 would have mingled with their disapprobation. The readiness 
 of his wit, the clearness of his judgment, the skill with which 
 he penetrates the dispositions of others and conceals his own, 
 would have insured to him a certain portion of their esteem. 
 
 " So wide was the difference between the Italians and their 
 neighbours. A similar difference existed between the Greeks 
 of the second century before Christ, and their masters, the 
 Romans. The conquerors, brave and resolute, faithful to their 
 engagements, and strongly influenced by religious feelings, 
 were, at the same time, ignorant, arbitrary, and cruel. With 
 the vanquished people were deposited all the art, the science, 
 and the literature of the Western world. In poetry, in philo- 
 sophy, in painting, in architecture, in sculpture, they had no 
 rivals. Their manners were polished, their perceptions acute, 
 their invention ready; they were tolerant, affable, humane. 
 But of courage and sincerity they were almost utterly destitute. 
 The rude warriors who had subdued them consoled themselves 
 for their intellectual inferiority by remarking that knowledge 
 and taste seemed only to make men atheists, cowards, and 
 slaves. The distinction long continued to be strongly marked, 
 and furnished an admirable subject for the fierce sarcasms of 
 Juvenal. 
 
 11 The citizen of an Italian commonwealth was the Greek of 
 the time of Juvenal and the Greek of the time of Pericles, 
 joined in one. Like the former, he was timid and pliable, 
 artful and unscrupulous. But, like the latter, he had a country. 
 Its independence and prosperity were dear to him. If his 
 character were degraded by some mean crimes, it was, on the 
 other hand, ennobled by public spirit and by an honourable 
 ambition. A vice sanctioned by the general opinion is merely 
 a vice. The evil terminates in itself. A vice condemned by 
 the general opinion produces a pernicious effect on the whole 
 character. The former is a local malady, the latter a constitu- 
 tional taint. When the reputation of the offender is lost, he 
 too often flings the remains of his virtue after it in despair. 
 The Highland gentleman who, a century ago, lived by taking 
 black mail from his neighbours, committed the same crime for 
 which Wild was accompanied to Tyburn by the huzzas of two 
 hundred thousand people. But there can be no doubt that he 
 was a much less depraved man than Wild. The deed for which 
 Mrs. Brownrigg was hanged sinks into nothing when compared 
 with the conduct of the Roman who treated the public to a 
 
120 THE SOPHISTS. 
 
 hundred pair of gladiators. Yet we should probably wrong 
 such a Roman if we supposed that his disposition was so cruel 
 as that of Mrs. Brownrigg. In our own country, a woman 
 forfeits her place in society by what, in a man, is too commonly 
 considered as an honourable distinction, and, at worst, as a 
 venial error. The consequence is notorious. The moral prin- 
 ciple of a woman is frequently more impaired by a single lapse 
 from virtue, than that of a man by twenty years of intrigue. 
 Classical antiquity would furnish us with instances stronger, if 
 possible, than those to which we have referred. 
 
 "We must apply this principle to the case before us. 
 Habits of dissimulation and falsehood, no doubt, mark a man 
 of our age and country as utterly worthless and abandoned ; 
 but it by no means follows that a similar judgment would be 
 just in the case of an Italian of the middle ages. On the con- 
 trary, we frequently find those faults which we are accustomed 
 to consider as certain indications of a mind altogether depraved, 
 in company with great and good qualities, with generosity, with 
 benevolence, with disinterestedness. From such a state of 
 society, Palamedes, in the admirable dialogue of Hume, might 
 have drawn illustrations of his theory as striking as any of those 
 with which Fourli furnished him. These are not, we well 
 know, the lessons which historians are generally most careful 
 to teach, or readers most willing to learn. But they are not, 
 therefore, useless. How Philip disposed his troops at Chsero- 
 nea, where Hannibal crossed the Alps, whether Mary blew up 
 Darnley, or Siguier shot Charles the Twelfth, and ten thousand 
 other questions of the same description, are in themselves un- 
 important. The inquiry may amuse us, but the decision leaves 
 us no wiser. He alone reads history aright-who, observing 
 how powerfully circumstances influence the feelings and opinions 
 of men, how often vices pass into virtues, and paradoxes 
 into axioms, learns to distinguish what is accidental and transi- 
 tory in human nature, from what is essential and immutable." 
 
 We must refer also to the universal practice of ancient rheto- 
 rical writers, who all inculcated this sophistical art. Even 
 Aristotle, who certainly loved truth as much as any man, in his 
 ' Organon,' after examining the means of investigating truth, 
 adds what he calls the Topics, in which he teaches the art of 
 discussion without any reference whatever to truth : indeed, 
 he teaches what the Sophists taught ; but no one accuses him 
 of being a Sophist. 
 
THE SOPHISTS. l2 i 
 
 The Sophists taught the art of disputation. The litigious 
 quibbling nature of the Greeks was the soil on which an art 
 like that was made to flourish. The excess of the Greek love 
 of lawsuits is familiar to all who are versed in Grecian history. 
 The almost farcical representation of a lawsuit given by 
 iEschylus, in his otherwise awful drama, 'The Eumenides,' 
 shows with what keen and lively interest the audience witnessed 
 even the very details of litigation. For such an appetite food 
 would not long be wanting. Corax and Tisias wrote precepts 
 of the art of disputation. Protagoras followed with disserta- 
 tions on the most remarkable points of law ; and Gorgias 
 composed a set accusation and apology for every case that 
 could present itself. People, in short, were taught to be their 
 own advocates. 
 
 Let us look at home. Does not every Barrister exert his 
 energy, eloquence, subtlety, and knowledge " to make the 
 worse appear the better reason " ? Do we reprobate Serjeant 
 Talfourd or Sir Frederick Thesiger, if they succeed in gaining 
 their client's cause, although that cause be a bad one ? On 
 the contrary, it is the badness of the cause that makes the 
 triumph great. 
 
 Now let us suppose Serjeant Talfourd to give lessons in 
 forensic oratory ; suppose him to announce to the world, that 
 for a certain sum he would instruct any man in the whole art 
 of exposition and debate, of the interrogation of witnesses, of 
 the tricks and turning points of the law, so that the learner 
 might become his own advocate : this would be contrary to 
 legal etiquette : but would it be immoral ? Grave men might, 
 perhaps, object that Mr. Talfourd was offering to make men 
 cheats and scamps, by enabling them to make the worse appear 
 the better reason. But this is a consequence foreseen by grave 
 men, not acknowledged by the Teacher. It is doubtless true 
 that owing to oratory, ingenuity, and subtlety, a scamp's cause 
 is sometimes gained ; but it is also true that many an honest 
 man's cause is gained and many a scamp frustrated by the 
 same means. If forensic oratory does sometimes make the 
 worse appear the better reason, it also makes the good appear 
 in all its strength. The former is a necessary evil, the latter is 
 the very object of a court of Justice. "If," says Callicles, in 
 defence of Gorgias, to Socrates, " anyone should charge you 
 with some crime which you had not committed, and carry you 
 off to prison, you would gape, and stare and would not know 
 
122 THE SOPHISTS. 
 
 what to say; and, when brought to trial, however contemptible 
 and weak your accuser might be, if he chose to indict you 
 capitally, you would perish. Can this be wisdom, which, if it 
 takes hold of a gifted man, destroys the excellence of his 
 nature, rendering him incapable of preserving himself and 
 others from the greatest dangers, enabling his enemies to 
 plunder him of all his property, and reducing him to the situa- 
 tion of those who, by a sentence of the court, have been 
 deprived of all their rights ? " 
 
 If it be admitted that Serjeant Talfourd's instruction in 
 forensic oratory would not be immoral, however unusual, we 
 have only to extend the sphere to include politics, to represent 
 to ourselves the democratic state of Athens, where demagogues 
 were ever on the alert, and we shall be fully persuaded that the 
 art of the Sophists was not considered immoral ; and, as further 
 proof, we select the passage in Plato's ' Republic,' as coming 
 from an unexceptionable source. 
 
 Socrates, speaking of the mercenary teachers whom the 
 people call Sophists, says : — " These Sophists teach them only 
 the things which the people themselves profess in assemblies : yet 
 this they call wisdom. It is as if a man had observed the 
 instincts and appetites of a great and powerful beast, in what 
 manner to approach it, how or why it is ferocious or calm, what 
 cries it makes, what tones appease and what tones irritate it ; 
 after having learnt all this, and calling it wisdom, commenced 
 teaching it without having any knowledge of what is good, just, 
 shameful, and unjust among these instincts and appetites; 
 but calling that good which flatters the animal, and that bad 
 which irritates it ; because he knows not the difference between 
 what is good in itself and that which is only relatively good." * 
 
 There is the usual vein of caricature in this description 
 (which is paraphrased in the * Quarterly Review,' f and there 
 given as if the undoubted and un exaggerated doctrines of the 
 Sophists; but it very distinctly sets forth the fact that the 
 Sophists did not preach anything contrary to public morals, 
 however contrary to abstract morality. Indeed the very fact 
 of their popularity would prove that they did but respond to a 
 public want ; and because they responded to this want they 
 received large sums of money. Some people believe that the 
 distinguishing peculiarity of the Sophists was their demanding 
 
 •■ Plato, 'Rep.,' vi. p. 291. f No. xlii. p. 289. 
 
THE SOPHISTS. ,23 
 
 money for their instructions ; and Plato constantly harps upon 
 their being mercenaries ; but he was wealthy, and could afford 
 such sarcasms. The Greeks paid their Musicians, Painters, 
 Sculptors, Physicians, Poets, and Teachers in Schools; why 
 therefore should they not pay their philosophers? Zeno of 
 Elea was paid ; so was Democritus ; but both of these have 
 been sometimes included amongst the Sophists. We see 
 nothing, whatever derogatory in Philosophers accepting money, 
 any more than in Poets ; and we know how the latter stipulated 
 for handsome payment 
 
 We believe ourselves entitled to conclude that where the 
 Sophists taught the art of disputation, they taught nothing that 
 was considered immoral by the Greeks. No doubt the serious 
 disliked this tampering with truth ; no doubt the old men saw 
 with uneasiness the Athenian youth exercising a dangerous 
 weapon, and foresaw demagogues in all the Sophists' pupils ; 
 but that they did not regard the Sophists as " corrupters of 
 youth," and enemies of the State, is evident from this striking 
 fact, — the Sophists not only escaped persecution, but were 
 rewarded with wealth and honours ; whereas Socrates was tried, 
 condemned, and executed on the charge of having corrupted 
 the Athenian youth. 
 
 We cannot accept Plato's account of his opponents. It is 
 perfectly true that the later Sophists became a frivolous and 
 shameless race; but the early masters were not so. Plato 
 himself makes the distinction, and speaks of some of the elder 
 teachers with more respect But he always misrepresents 
 them. 
 
 We admit that, at the time Plato wrote, there were still 
 many and powerful Sophists living. It may therefore be 
 argued that he could not have ventured to misrepresent their 
 doctrines when there were living witnesses against him. This 
 is an argument often used in other cases. It is extremely 
 trivial. In the first place do we not daily see instances of 
 gross misrepresentation of opinions, the authors of which are 
 still alive ? Is not misrepresentation a thing which cannot be 
 guarded against, being sometimes the effect of party spirit, 
 sometimes that of legitimate dulness ? In the second place we 
 have no proof that the disciples of the Sophists did not 
 contradict Plato. It is assumed that they did not, because no 
 works have been transmitted to us in which these contradic- 
 tions are mentioned. But it might have been done viva voce. 
 
i«4 THE SOPHISTS. 
 
 Plato's account of the Sophistical doctrines is on the face 
 of it a caricature, since it is impossible that any man should 
 have seriously entertained them. It is not what Protagoras 
 and Gorgias thought ; it is the reductio ad absurdum of what 
 they thought. Plato seizes hold of one or two of their funda- 
 mental doctrines, and, i?iterpreting them in his own way, makes 
 them lead to the most outrageous absurdity and immorality. 
 It is as if Berkeley's doctrine had been transmitted us by 
 Beattie. Berkeley, it is well known, denied the existence of 
 the external world, resolving it into a simple world of ideas. 
 Beattie taunted him with not having followed out his prin- 
 ciples, and with not having walked over a precipice. This was 
 a gross misrepresentation; an ignoratio elenchi: Beattie mis- 
 understood the argument, and drew conclusions from his mis- 
 understanding. Now, suppose him to have written a dialogue 
 on the plan of those of Plato : suppose him making Berkeley 
 expound his argument in such a way as he Beattie interpreted 
 it, and with a flavour of exaggeration for the sake of effect ; 
 and of absurdity for the sake of easy refutation : how would he 
 have made Berkeley speak ? Somewhat thus : — " Yes ;*I main- 
 tain that there is no such external existence as that which men 
 vulgarly believe in. There is no world of matter, but only a 
 world of ideas. If I were to walk over a precipice I should 
 receive no injury : it is only an ideal precipice." 
 
 This is Beattie's interpretation ; how true it is most men 
 know : it is, however, quite as true as Plato's interpretation of 
 the Sophists. From Berkeley's works we can convict Beattie. 
 Plato we can convict from experience of human nature ; that 
 experience tells us that no man, far less any set of men, could 
 seriously, publicly, and constantly broach doctrines acknow- 
 ledged to be subversive of all morality, without incurring the 
 heaviest penalties. To broach immoral doctrines with the 
 faintest prospect of success, a man must do so in the name of 
 rigid Morality. To teach immorality, and openly to avow that 
 it is immoral, was, according to Plato, the office of the Sophists ;* 
 a statement which carries with it its own contradiction. 
 
 It is absolutely necessary that the opinions attributed to the 
 Sophists should undergo a thorough revision. There are so 
 few data to be trusted that the task must be extremely delicate. 
 
 * In the ' Protagoras ' this passage is often referred to as a proof of the 
 shamelessness of the Sophists ; and sometimes of the ill-favour with which 
 
THE SOPHISTS. ti$ 
 
 We will make a venture in a line where successors may be 
 more fortunate. Our history, inasmuch as it concerns itself 
 with tendencies rather than with individual opinions, will not 
 greatly suffer from the deficiency of information respecting the 
 exact opinion of the Sophists. 
 
 Protagoras, the first who is said to have avowed himself a 
 Sophist, was born at Abdera, where Democritus first noticed 
 him as a porter, who showed great address in inventing the 
 knot.* The consequence of this was, that Democritus gave 
 him instructions in Philosophy. The story is apocryphal, but 
 indicates a connection to have existed between the specula- 
 tions of the two thinkers. Let us suppose Protagoras then to 
 have accepted the doctrine of Democritus, with him to have 
 rejected the unity of the Eleatics and to have maintained the 
 existence of the Many. With this doctrine he also learned 
 that thought is sensation, and all knowledge therefore jpheno- 
 menal. There were two theories in the system which he could 
 not accept, viz. the Atomic and Reflective. These two imply 
 each other, in the Democritean system. Reflection is neces- 
 sary for the idea of Atoms ; and it is from the idea of Atoms, 
 not perceived by the sense that the existence of Reflection is 
 proved. Protagoras rejected the Atoms, and could therefore 
 reject Reflection. He said, that Thought was Sensation, and 
 all knowledge consequently only individual. 
 
 Did not the place of his birth no less than the traditional 
 story lead one to suppose some connection with Democritus, 
 we might feel authorized to adopt certain expressions of Plato, 
 and consider Protagoras to have derived his doctrine from 
 Heraclitus. He certainly resembles the last-named in the 
 main results to which his speculations led him. Be that as 
 it may, the fact is unquestionable, that he maintained the 
 doctrine of Thought being Sensation. Now, what does this 
 doctrine imply ? It implies that every thing is true relatively — 
 every sensation is a true sensation ; and, as there is nothing 
 but sensation, knowledge is inevitably fleeting and imperfect. 
 In a melancholy mind such a doctrine would deepen sadness, 
 
 they were regarded. It is to us only a proof of Plato's tendency to 
 caricature. 
 
 * What the real signification of r»X»| is we are unable to say. A porter's 
 knot, such as is now used, is the common interpretation. Perhaps Prota- 
 goras had contrived a sort of board such as the glaziers use, and which is 
 still used by the porters in Italy. 
 
126 THE SOPHISTS, 
 
 till it produced despair. In Heraclitus it had this effect. In 
 minds of greater elasticity — in men of greater confidence, such 
 a doctrine would lead to an energetic scepticism or individual- 
 ism. In Protagoras it became the arrogant formula of " Man 
 is the measure of all things." 
 
 Sextus Empiricus gives the psychological doctrine of Prota- 
 goras very explicitly ; and his account may be received without 
 suspicion. We translate a portion of it : — 
 
 " Matter," said Protagoras, " 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 {appearances) 
 resided in matter as substrata (tovs Xoyovs irdvr<av tS>v (paivo- 
 ficvwv viroK€tff$ai h ttj v\rj) \ so that matter, in itself, might be 
 whatever it appeared to each. But men have different per- 
 ceptions at different times, according to the changes in the 
 things perceived. Whoever is in a healthy state perceives 
 things such as they appear to all others in a healthy state : and 
 vice versa. A similar course holds with respect to different 
 ages, as well as in sleeping and waking. Man is therefore 
 the criterion of that which exists; all that is perceived by 
 him exists, that which is perceived by no man does not 
 exist."t 
 
 Now, conceive a man conducted by what he thought irresis- 
 tible arguments to such a doctrine as the above, and then 
 see how naturally all the scepticism of the Sophists flows from 
 it. The difference between the Sophists and the Sceptics was 
 this : they were both convinced of the insufficiency of all know- 
 ledge, but the Sceptics contented themselves with the conviction, 
 while the Sophists gave up philosophy and turned their atten- 
 tion elsewhere. Satisfied with the vanity of all endeavour to 
 penetrate the mysteries of the universe, they began to consider 
 their relations to other men : they devoted themselves to 
 politics and rhetoric.J If there was no possibility of Truth 
 there only remained the possibility of Persuasion. If one 
 opinion was as true as another, — that is, if neither were true 
 — it was nevertheless desirable, for the sake of society, that 
 
 * rr\v v\r\v pevar^v tlvai, an expression which, if not borrowed by 
 Sextus from Plato, would confirm the conjecture above respecting Hera- 
 clitus, as the origin ot Protagoras' system. 
 
 t 'Hypoty. Pyrrhon,' p. 44. 
 
 X See Plato's definition of the sophistical art, ' Sophista,' p. 146. 
 
THE SOPHISTS. 127 
 
 certain opinions shoud prevail ; and, if Logic was powerless, 
 Rhetoric was efficient. Hence Protagoras is made to say, by 
 Plato, that the wise man is the physician of the soul. He 
 cannot indeed induce truer thoughts into the mind, since 
 all thoughts are equally true ; but he can induce healthier and 
 more profitable thoughts. He can in the same way heal Society, 
 since by the power of oratory he can introduce good useful 
 sentiments in the place of those base and hurtful.* 
 
 This doctrine may be false ; but is it not a natural conse- 
 quence of the philosophy of the epoch ? It may be immoral ; 
 but is it necessarily the bold and shameless immorality attri- 
 buted to the Sophists ? To us it appears to be neither more nor 
 less than the result of a sense of the radical insufficiency of 
 knowledge. Protagoras had spent his youth in the study of 
 philosophy ; he had found that study vain and idle ; he had 
 utterly rejected it, and had turned his attention elsewhere. A 
 man of practical tendencies, he wanted a practical result. 
 Failing in this, he sought another path. An admirable writer 
 in ' Blackwood's Magazine ' said a few years ago that although 
 metaphysics was an excellent study for young men, yet it was 
 fatal to them if they had not settled their doubts before the 
 age of thirty. Here also was a man firmly impressed with the 
 necessity of having something more definite wherewith to enter 
 the world of action. Plato would have called him a Sophist. 
 Plato could see no nobler end in life than that of contemplat- 
 ing the Being — than that of familiarising the mind with the 
 eternal Good, the Just, and the Beautiful — of which all good- 
 ness, justice and beautiful things were the images. With such a 
 view of life it was natural that he should despise the scepticism 
 of the Sophists. This scepticism is clearly set forth in the 
 following translation of a passage from the speech of Callicles, 
 in Plato's ■ Gorgias ' : — 
 
 " Philosophy is a graceful thing when it is moderately cul- 
 tivated in youth; but, if any one occupies himself with it 
 beyond the proper age, it ruins him ; for, however great may 
 be his natural capacity, if he philosophizes too long he must 
 of necessity be inexperienced in all those things which one 
 who would be great and eminent must be experienced in. He 
 must be unacquainted with the laws of his country, and with 
 the mode of influencing other men in the intercourse of lift, 
 
 • * Theaetetes,' p. 228. 
 
1*8 THE SOPHISTS. 
 
 whether private or public, and with the pleasures and passions 
 of men ; in short, with human characters and manners. And 
 when such men are called upon to act, whether on a private or 
 public occasion, they expose themselves to ridicule, just as 
 politicians do when they come to your conversation, and 
 attempt to cope with you in argument; for every man, as 
 Euripides says, occupies himself with that in which he finds 
 himself superior ; that in which he is inferior he avoids, and 
 speaks ill of it, but praises what he excels in, thinking that in 
 doing so he is praising himself. The best thing in my opinion 
 is to partake of both. It is good to partake of philosophy by 
 way of education, and it is not ungraceful in a young man to 
 philosophize. But, if he continues to do so when he grows 
 older he becomes ridiculous, and I feel towards him as I 
 should towards a grown person who lisped and played at 
 childish plays. When I see an old man still continuing to 
 philosophize, I think he deserves to be flogged. However 
 great his natural talents, he is under the necessity of avoiding 
 the assembly and public places, where, as the poet says, men 
 become eminent, and to hide himself, and to pass his life 
 whispering to two or three striplings in a corner, but never 
 speaking out anything great, and bold and liberal." 
 
 The distinguishing characteristics of the Sophists were their 
 protests against the possibility of science and their art of dis- 
 putation. As orators, and as travellers they learned to prefer 
 expression to truth : as orators, because it was their art ; as 
 travellers, because in their visits to various cities they could 
 not fail to remark the variety of laws and ordinances in the 
 different States. This variety impressed them with a convic- 
 tion that there were no such things as Right and Wrong by 
 nature, but only by convention. This, therefore, became a 
 fundamental precept with them. It was but a corollary of 
 their dogma respecting Truth. For man there was no Eternal 
 Right because there was no Eternal Truth ; to hUaiov koI to 
 alo-xpov ov (frvai aX\a vofno : law was but the law of each city. 
 " That which appears just and honourable to each city, is so 
 for that city, as long as the opinion is entertained," says 
 Protagoras in the 'Theaetetes' (p. 229). This denial of 
 abstract Truth, and abstract Justice, is easily pushed to absurd 
 and immoral consequences; but we have no evidence that 
 such consequences were maintained by the Sophists. Plato 
 often judges them by such consequences ; but independently 
 
THE SOPHISTS, 1*9 
 
 of the want of any confidence in his representations as faithful, 
 we can often detect in Plato himself evidences of the exaggera- 
 tion of his general statements. Thus, he on various occasion? 
 makes the Sophists maintain that Might is Right. Moderns, 
 who always accept him as positive testimony, have therefore 
 unanimously repeated this statement. Yet it is obvious that 
 they could not have held this opinion except in a very quali- 
 fied form. And in the first Book of the Republic, Thrasy- 
 machus the Sophist is made to explain his meaning ; viz., that 
 Justice is the law ordained by the party which is strongest in 
 the State. Thus, in a democracy the enactments of the people 
 are the laws : these laws are for their advantage ; therefore 
 just. Now, in this admission, by Plato, of a qualification of 
 the abstract formula, " Might is Right," we see evidence of 
 that formula never having been promulgated by the Sophists ; 
 it was only an interpretation by Plato. What they meant was 
 this : All law is but convention : the convention of each State 
 is therefore just for it ; and, inasmuch as any such convention 
 must necessarily be ordained by the strongest party, i.e. must 
 be the will of the many ; so we may say that justice is but 
 the advantage of the strongest 
 
 It would occupy too much space to pursue our explanation 
 of the Sophistical tenets. The foregoing will, we trust, 
 suffice to show that the tenets attributed to them by Plato are 
 caricatures, and admit of very different explanation. Well 
 might Gorgias exclaim, on reading the Dialogue which bears 
 his name, " I did not recognise myself. The young man, 
 however, has great talent for satire." 
 
 In summing up we may observe that the Sophists were the 
 natural production of the opinions of the epoch. In them we 
 see the first energetic protest against the possibility of metaphy- 
 sical science. This protest, however, must not be confounded 
 with the protest of Bacon — must not be mistaken for the germ 
 of positive philosophy. It was the protest of baffled minds. 
 The science of the day led to scepticism ; but with scepticism 
 no energetic man could remain contented. Philosophy was 
 therefore denounced, not because a surer, safer path of inquiry 
 had been discovered, but because Philosophy was found to 
 lead nowhither. The scepticism of the Sophists was a shallow 
 scepticism, in which no great speculative intellect could be 
 drowned. Accordingly with Socrates Philosophy again re- 
 asserted her empire. 
 
 I 
 
jfomti (Bpot% 
 
 I NEW ERA OPENED BY THE INVENTION OP A 
 NEW METHOD, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE LIFE OF SOCRATES. 
 
 Whilst the brilliant but dangerous Sophists were reaping 
 money and renown by protesting against Philosophy, and 
 teaching the word -jugglery which they call Disputation, and 
 the impassioned insincerity which they call Oratory, there 
 suddenly appeared amongst them a strange antagonist. He 
 was a perfect contrast to them morally and physically. They 
 had slighted Truth ; they had denied her. He had made her 
 his soul's mistress ; and, with patient labour, with untiring 
 energy, did his large, wise soul toil after perfect communion 
 with her. They had slighted Truth for Money and Renown. 
 He had remained constant to her in poverty. They professed 
 to know everything. He only knew that he knew nothing. 
 They professed to teach everything, and demanded enormous 
 sums in recompense. He denied that anything could be 
 taught. Yet he believed he could be of service to his fellow- 
 men, not by teaching, but by helping them to learn. His 
 mission was to examine the thoughts of others. This he 
 humorously explained by reference to his mother's profession, 
 viz., that of a midwife. What she did for women in labour he 
 could do for men pregnant with ideas. He was an accoucheur 
 of ideas. He assisted them in their birth, and having brought 
 them into light, he examined them to see if they were fit to 
 live ; if true, they were welcomed \ if false, destroyed. And 
 for this assistance he demanded no pecuniary recompense ; Ud 
 steadfastly refused every bribe of the kind. 
 
THE LIFE OF SOCRATES. i%\ 
 
 The Sophists were somewhat puzzled with their new anta- 
 gonist. Who is he ? Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus. What 
 does he ? Converse. For what purpose ? To expose error. 
 
 The gorgeous Sophists, in their flowing robes, followed by 
 crowds of eager listeners, treated the poor and humbly-clad 
 Socrates with ineffable contempt. He was rude and ungainly 
 in his movements ; unlike all respectable citizens in his habits. 
 Barefoot, he wandered about the streets of Athens absorbed in 
 thought, and sometimes standing still for hours, fixed in medi- 
 tation ; or he strolled into the market-place and disputed with 
 every one. In appearance he resembled a Silenus. His flat- 
 tened nose, with wide and upturned nostrils, his projecting 
 eyeballs, his thick and sensual lips, his squab figure and un- 
 wieldy belly, were all points upon which ridicule might fasten. 
 
 Yet when this Silenus spoke there was a witchery in his tongue 
 which fascinated those whom his appearance had disgusted. 
 And Alcibiades declared that he was forced to stop his ears 
 and flee away, that he might not sit down beside Socrates and 
 "grow old in listening to his talk." Let us hear Alcibiades 
 describe him : — 
 
 " I will begin the praise of Socrates by comparing him to a cer- 
 tain statue. Perhaps he will think that this statue is introduced 
 for the sake of ridicule ; but I assure you that it is necessary 
 for the illustration of truth. I assert, then, that Socrates is 
 exactly like those Silenuses that sit in the sculptors' shops, and 
 which are carved holding flutes or pipes, but which, when 
 divided in two, are found to contain withinside the images of 
 the gods. I assert that Socrates is like the satyr Marsyas; 
 that your form and appearance are like these satyrs, I think 
 that even you will not venture to deny ; and how like you are 
 to them in all other things, now hear. Are you not scornful 
 and petulant ? If you deny this, I will bring witnesses. Are 
 you not a piper, and far more wonderful a one than he ? For 
 Marsyas, and whoever now pipes the music that he taught, for 
 that music which is of heaven, and described as being taught 
 by Marsyas, enchants men through the power of the mouth ; 
 for if any musician, be he skilful or not, awakens this music, it 
 alone enables him to retain the minds of men, and from the 
 divinity of its nature makes evident those who are in want of 
 the gods and initiation. You differ only from Marsyas in this 
 circumstance, that you effect without instruments, by mere 
 words, all that he can do ; for when we hear Pericles, or any 
 
132 THE LIFE OF SOCRATES. 
 
 other accomplished orator, deliver a discourse, no one, as it 
 were, cares anything about it. But when any one hears you, 
 or even your words related by another, though ever so rude 
 and unskilful a speaker, be that person a woman, man, or 
 child, we are struck and retained, as it were, by the discourse 
 clinging to our mind. 
 
 " If I was not afraid that I am a great deal too drunk, 1 
 would confirm to you by an oath the strange effects which I 
 assure you I have suffered from his words, and suffer still ; for 
 when I hear him speak, my heart leaps up far more than the 
 hearts of those who celebrate the Corybantic mysteries ; my 
 tears are poured out as he talks, a thing I have seen happen to 
 many others beside myself. I have heard Pericles and other 
 excellent orators, and have been pleased with their discourses, 
 but I suffered nothing of this kind ; nor was my soul ever on 
 those occasions disturbed and filled with self-reproach, as if it 
 were slavishly laid prostrate. But this Marsyas here has often 
 affected me in the way I describe, until the life which I lead 
 seemed hardly worth living. Do not deny it, Socrates; for 
 I well know that if even now I chose to listen to you, I could 
 not resist, but should again suffer the same effects, for, my 
 friends, he forces me to confess, that while I myself am still in 
 want of many things, I neglect my own necessities, and attend 
 to those of the Athenians. I stop my ears, therefore, as from 
 the Syrens, and flee away as fast as possible, that I may not sit 
 down beside him and grow old in listening to his talk ; for this 
 man has reduced me to feel the sentiment of shame, which I 
 imagine no one would readily believe was in me; he alone 
 inspires me with remorse and awe ; for I feel in his presence 
 my incapacity of refuting what he says, or of refusing to do 
 that which he directs ; but when I depart from him, the glory 
 which the multitude confers overwhelms me. I escape, there- 
 fore, and hide myself from him, and when I see him I am 
 overwhelmed with humiliation, because I have neglected to do 
 what I have confessed to him ought to be done ; and often 
 and often have I wished that he were no longer to be seen 
 among men. But if that were to happen, I well know that I 
 should suffer far greater pain ; so that where I can turn, or 
 what I can do with this man, I know not. All this have I 
 and many others suffered from the pipings of this satyr. 
 
 " And observe how like he is to what I said, and what a 
 wonderful power he possesses. I know that there is not one 
 
THE LIFE OF SOCRATES. 133 
 
 of you who is aware of the real nature of Socrates ; but since 
 I have begun, I will make him plain to you. You observe 
 how passionately Socrates affects the intimacy of those who 
 are beautiful, and how ignorant he professes himself to be; 
 appearances in themselves excessively Silenic This, my 
 friends, is the external form with which, like one of the sculp- 
 tured Sileni, he has clothed himself; for if you open him, you 
 will find within admirable temperance and wisdom ; for he 
 cares not for mere beauty, but despises more than any one can 
 imagine all external possessions, whether it be beauty or wealth 
 or glory, or any other thing for which the multitude felicitates 
 the possessor. He esteems these things, and us who honour 
 them, as nothing, and lives among men, making all the objects 
 of their admiration the playthings of his irony. But I know 
 not if any one of you have ever seen the divine images which 
 are within, when he has been opened and is serious. I have 
 seen them, and they are so supremely beautiful, so golden, so 
 divine, and wonderful, that everything that Socrates commands 
 surely ought to be obeyed, even like the voice of a God. 
 
 " Many other and most wonderful qualities might well be 
 praised in Socrates, but such as these might singly be attri- 
 buted to others. But that which is unparalleled in Socrates, 
 is that he is unlike, and above comparison, with all other men, 
 whether those who have lived in ancient times, or those who 
 exist now ; for it may be conjectured, that Brasidas and many 
 others are such as was Achilles. Pericles deserves comparison 
 with Nestor and Antenor ; and other excellent persons of 
 various times may, with probability, be drawn into comparison 
 with each other. But to such a singular man as this, both 
 himself and his discourses are so uncommon, no one, should 
 he seek, would find a parallel among the present or the past 
 generations of mankind; unless they should say that he re- 
 sembled those with whom I lately compared him ; for assuredly 
 he and his discourses are like nothing but the Silen and the 
 satyrs. At first I forgot to make you observe how like his 
 discourses are to those satyrs when they are opened ; for if any 
 one will listen to the talk of Socrates, it will appear to him at 
 first extremely ridiculous ; the phrases and expressions which 
 he employs fold around his exterior the skin, as it were, of a 
 rude and wanton Satyr. He is always talking about great 
 market-asses, and brass-founders, and leather-cutters, and skin- 
 dressers ; and this is his perpetual custom, so that any dull 
 
134 THE LIFE 0F SOCRATES. 
 
 and unobservant person might easily laugh at his discourse. 
 But if any one should see it opened, as it were, and get within 
 the sense of his words, he would then find that they alone of 
 all that enters into the mind of man to utter, had a profound 
 and persuasive meaning, and that they were most divine ; and 
 that they presented to the mind innumerable images of every 
 excellence, and that they tended towards objects of the highest 
 moment, or rather towards all, that he who seeks the posses- 
 sion of what is supremely beautiful, and good, need regard as 
 essential to the accomplishment of his ambition. 
 
 "These are the things, my friend, for which I praise 
 Socrates." 
 
 This Silenus was to become the most formidable antagonist 
 that the Sophists had encountered ; but this is small praise for 
 him who was hereafter to become one of the most reverenced 
 names in the world's Pantheon — who was to give a new im- 
 pulse to the human mind, and leave as an inheritance to man- 
 kind, the grand example of an heroic life crowned with a 
 martyrdom to Truth. 
 
 Everything about Socrates is remarkable ; personal appear- 
 ance, moral physiognomy, position, object, method, life, and 
 death. Fortunately his character and his tendencies have 
 been so clearly pictured in the works of Plato and Xenophon, 
 that although the portrait may be flattered we are sure of its 
 resemblance. 
 
 He was the son of Sophroniscus. a sculptor,* and Phaenarete, 
 a midwife. His parents, though poor, managed, it is said, to 
 give him the ordinary education. Besides which he learnt 
 his father's art. Whether he made any progress in it we are 
 unable to say; probably not, as he relinquished it early. 
 There was a report, alluded to by Timon, that the Graces 
 which Socrates had executed found a place on the walls of the 
 Acropolis, close behind the Minerva of Phidias. If this 
 were authentic, it would imply great proficiency in the art. 
 The more creditable account, however, is that in Diogenes 
 Laertius, on the authority of Demetrius. Crito, a wealthy 
 Athenian, charmed with the manners of Socrates, is said to 
 have withdrawn him from the shop, and to have educated him 
 
 • Dr. Wiggers says, that Timon the Sillograph calls Socrates, with a 
 «rteer, Xt0o£6oc, "a stone-scraper." He forgets that Xi0o$ooc was one of 
 the names for a sculptor, as Lucian informs us in the account of his early life. 
 
THE LIFE OF SOCRATES. 
 
 135 
 
 (*<u iraiScvo-ai). This Crito afterwards became a reverential 
 disciple of the great genius he had discovered. 
 
 No credit whatever can be given to the statements which 
 make Socrates a disciple of Anaxagoras and Archelaus. With 
 respect to Parmenides, we agree with Dr. Wiggers, that, in 
 spite of the ambiguous phrase in Plato's 'Sophisto' (p. 169), 
 there is reason to believe that Socrates never attended his 
 lectures, though he must have read his works. If we are to 
 trust the passage in the * Meno' (p. 96), Prodicus taught him 
 Oratory; and the passage seems supported by that in 'iEschines' 
 (iii. a). But they are both directly at variance with what 
 Socrates is made to say in Xenophon's * Convivium ' (i. 5.), 
 where he denies having gained any instruction from Protagoras, 
 Prodicus, or others.* 
 
 Of his early studies we only know that they were directed 
 to Physics, and left him dissatisfied. " When I was young," 
 said he, " I had an astonishing longing for that kind of know- 
 ledge called Physics." This is sufficient answer to those who 
 accuse Aristophanes of gross ignorance when, in the f Clouds,' 
 he represented Socrates as speculating on physical subjects. 
 Socrates relinquished such speculations later in life ; but there 
 is abundant evidence to prove that he only relinquished them 
 on finding them lead to scepticism. 
 
 He did not commence teaching till about the middle of his 
 career. We have but few records of the events which filled up 
 the period between his first leaving his father and his first 
 teaching. One of these was his marriage with Xanthippe and 
 the domestic squabbles which ensued. She bore him two 
 children, and he bore with her temper. Indeed, the violence 
 of her temper, and the equanimity with which he submitted to 
 it are proverbial. She has become a type. Her name is syno- 
 nymous with Shrew. He gave a playful explanation of his 
 choice by remarking that, " those who wish to become skilled 
 in horsemanship, select the most spirited horses; after being 
 able to bridle those, they believe they can bridle all others. 
 Now, as it is my wish to live and converse with men, I married 
 this woman, being firmly convinced that in case I should be 
 able to endure her, I should be able to endure all others." t 
 
 • " You disdain me because you have squandered money upon Protagoras, 
 Gorgias, Prodicus, and so many others, in return for their teaching ; whereas 
 I am forced to draw my philosophy from my own brain." 
 
 t Xenophon, ' Convivium,' ii. 
 
136 THE LIFE OF SOCRATES. 
 
 Before he gave himself up to teaching, he performed military 
 service in three battles, and distinguished himself in each. In 
 the first, the prize of bravery was awarded to him. He relin- 
 quished his claim in favour of Alcibiades, whom it might 
 encourage to deserve such honour. Various anecdotes are 
 related of him during his campaigns. In spite of the severity 
 of winter, when the ice and snow were thick upon the ground, 
 he went bare-foot and lightly clad. On one occasion he stood 
 before the camp for four-and-twenty hours on the same spot 
 wrapped in meditation. Plato has given us a beautiful descrip- 
 tion of Socrates during the campaign, which we give in the 
 magnificent translation by Shelley : — 
 
 " At one time we were fellow-soldiers, and had our mess to- 
 gether in the camp before Potidaea. Socrates there overcame 
 not only me, but every one besides, in endurance of toils ; 
 when, as often happens, in a campaign, we were reduced to 
 few provisions, there were none who could sustain hunger like 
 Socrates ; and when we had plenty, he alone seemed to enjoy 
 our military fare. He never drank much willingly ; but when 
 he was compelled he conquered all even in that to which he 
 was least accustomed, and what is most astonishing, no person 
 ever saw Socrates drunk either then or at any other time. In 
 the depth of winter (and the winters there are excessively rigid) 
 he sustained calmly incredible hardships; and, amongst other 
 things, whilst the frost was intolerably severe, and no one went 
 out of their tents, or if they went out, wrapt themselves up 
 carefully, and put fleeces under their feet, and bound their legs 
 with hairy skins, Socrates went out only with the same cloak on 
 that he usually wore, and walked bare- foot upon the ice ; more 
 easily, indeed, than those who had sandalled themselves so 
 delicately ; so that the soldiers thought that he did it to mock 
 their want of fortitude. It would indeed be worth while to 
 commemorate all that this brave man did and endured in that 
 expedition. 
 
 " In one instance he was seen early in the morning standing 
 in one place wrapt in meditation, and, as he seemed not to be 
 able to unravel the subject of his thoughts, he still continued to 
 stand as inquiring and discussing within himself; and when 
 noon came, the soldiers observed him, and said to one 
 tn other : ' Socrates has been standing there thinking, ever since 
 he morning.' At last some Ionians came to the spot, and, 
 laving supped, as it was summer, bringing their blankets, they 
 
THE LIFE OF SOCRATES. 
 
 »37 
 
 lay down to sleep in the cool : they observed that Socrates 
 continued to stand there the whole night until morning, 
 and that, when the sun rose, he saluted it with a prayer, and 
 departed. 
 
 " I ought not to omit what Socrates is in battle ; for, in that 
 battle after which the generals decreed to me the prize of 
 courage, Socrates alone of all men Was the saviour of my life, 
 standing by me when I had fallen and was wounded, and 
 preserving both myself and my arms from the hands of the 
 enemy. On that occasion I entreated the Generals to decree 
 the prize, as it was most due to him. And this, O Socrates, 
 you cannot deny, that the Generals wishing to conciliate a 
 person of my rank, desired to give me the prize, you were 
 far more earnestly desirous than the Generals, that this glory 
 should be attributed, not to yourself, but me. 
 
 ''But to see Socrates when our army was defeated and 
 scattered in flight at Delius, was a spectacle worthy to behold. 
 On that occasion I was among the cavalry, and he on foot, 
 heavily armed. After the total rout of our troops, he and 
 Laches retreated together : I came up by chance, and, seeing 
 them, bade them be of good cheer : for that I would not leave 
 them. As I was on horseback, and therefore less occupied by 
 a regard of my own situation, I could better observe than at 
 Potidaea, the beautiful spectacle exhibited by Socrates on this 
 emergency. How superior was he to Laches in presence of 
 mind and courage ! Your representation of him on the stage, 
 O Aristophanes, was not wholly unlike his real self on this 
 occasion ; for he walked and darted his regards around with 1 
 majestic composure, looking tranquilly both on his friepds 
 and enemies ; so that it was evident to every one, even from 
 afar, that whoever should venture to attack him would 
 encounter a desperate resistance. He and his companion 
 thus departed in safety; for those who are scattered in flight 
 are pursued and killed, whilst men hesitate to touch those 
 who exhibit such a countenance as that of Socrates even in 
 defeat" 
 
 We must cast a glance at his public career. His doctrine 
 being Ethical, there is great importance in seeing how far it 
 was practical. He proclaimed the supremacy of Virtue over 
 all other rules of life ; he exhorted men to a brave and un- 
 flinching adhesion to Justice, as the only real happiness j he 
 declared that the unjust alone are unhappy. Was he virtuous, 
 
138 THE LIFE OF SOCRATES. 
 
 was he happy ? This question is pertinent ; fortunately it can 
 be answered. 
 
 His bravery as a soldier was surpassed by his bravery as a 
 .senator. He had that high moral courage which can brave 
 not only death, but opinion. He presents an example, almost 
 unique in history, of a man who could defy a tyrant, and also 
 defy a tyrannical mob, an impetuous imperious mob. The Thirty 
 Tyrants on one occasion summoned him, together with four 
 others, to the Tholos, the place in which the prytanes took 
 their meals. He was there commanded to bring Leon of 
 Salamis to Athens. Leon had obtained the right of Athenian 
 citizenship, but, fearing the rapacity of the Tyrants, had 
 retired to Salamis. To bring back Leon Socrates steadily 
 refused. He says himself, that the " Government, although it 
 was so powerful, did not frighten me into doing anything 
 unjust; but, when we came out of the Tholos, the four went 
 to Salamis and took Leon, but I went away home. And per- 
 haps I should have suffered death on account of this, if the 
 Government had not soon been broken up." 
 
 On another occasion he braved the clamorous mob. He 
 was then a Senator, the only State office he ever held. The 
 Athenian senate consisted of the Five Hundred, who were 
 elected from the ten tribes. Every thirty-fifth or thirty-sixth 
 day, one tribe had the presidency : these were called prytanes. 
 Of the fifty prytanes, ten had the presidency every seven 
 days : each day one of these ten enjoyed the highest dignity, 
 with the name of epistates. He laid everything before the 
 assembly of the people, put the question to the vote, examined 
 the votes, and, in short, conducted the whole business of the 
 assembly. He enjoyed this power, however, only for a single 
 day ; for that day he was invested with the keys of the citadel 
 and the treasury of the republic. 
 
 Socrates was epistates on the day when the unjust sentence 
 was to be passed on the admirals who had neglected to bury 
 the dead after the battle of Arginusae. To take care of the 
 burial of the dead was a sacred duty. The shades of the 
 unburied were believed to wander restlessly for a hundred 
 years on the banks of the Styx. The ' Antigone ' of Sophocles 
 is founded on the sacredness of this duty. After the battle of 
 Arginusae, a violent storm arose, which prevented the admirals 
 from obtaining the bodies of the slain. In order to remedy 
 this, they left behind them some inferior officers (taxiarchs) to 
 
THE LIFE OF SOCRATES. 139 
 
 attend to the office. But the violence of the storm rendered it 
 impossible. The admirals were tried. They produced the 
 evidence of pilots to show that the tempest had rendered the 
 burial impracticable ; besides which, they had left the taxiarchs 
 behind, so that the blame, if any, ought to fall on the latter. 
 This produced its natural effect on the people, who would 
 instantly have given an acquittal, if put to the vote. But the 
 accusers managed to adjourn the assembly, pretending that it 
 was too dark to count the show of hands. In the meanwhile 
 the enemies of the admirals did all they could to inflame the 
 minds of the people. The lamentations and mournful appear- 
 ance of the kinsmen of the slain, who had been hired for the 
 tragic scene, had a powerful influence on the assembly. The 
 votes were to be given on the general question, whether the 
 admirals had done wrong in not taking up the bodies of 
 the dead ; and, if they should be condemned by the majority 
 (so the senate ordained), they were to be put to death and 
 their property confiscated. But to condemn all by one vote 
 was contrary to law. The prytanes, with Socrates at their 
 head, refused to put the illegal question to the vote. The 
 people became furious, and loudly demanded that those who 
 resisted their pleasure should themselves be brought to trial. 
 The prytanes wavered, yielded. Socrates alone remained 
 firm, defying the threats of the mob. He stood there to 
 administer justice. He would not administer injustice. In 
 consequence of his refusal, the question could not be put to 
 the vote, and the assembly was again adjourned. The next 
 day a new epistates and other presidents were chosen, and the 
 admirals were condemned.* 
 
 It was impossible for the queer-looking Socrates to enter the 
 market-place without at once becoming an object of attention. 
 His Silenus figure, his moral character, and his bewitching 
 tongue, excited and enchained curiosity. He became known 
 to every citizen. Who had not listened to him ? Who had 
 not enjoyed his inimitable irony ? Who had not seen him 
 demolish the arrogance and pretension of some sophist ? He 
 was a prodigious talker ; to many, doubtless, a prodigious bore. 
 The last sentence may sound somewhat disrespectful. It was 
 not meant so. Socrates must have been a bore to all people 
 who believed that they were wise, because they could discourse 
 
 • ' Wiggers,' pp. 51-55. 
 
140 THE LIFE OF SOCRATES, 
 
 fluently ; and these were not few. He always declared that he 
 knew nothing. When you professed knowledge on any point, 
 especially if admiring crowds gave testimony to that profes- 
 sion, Socrates was sure to step up to you, and professing 
 ignorance, entreat to be taught. Charmed with so humble a 
 listener, you began. Interrogated, you unsuspectingly assented 
 to some very evident proposition; a conclusion from that, 
 almost as evident, next received your assent. From that 
 moment you were lost. With great power of logic, with 
 great ingenious subtlety, and sometimes with daring sophisti- 
 cation, a web was formed from which you could not extricate 
 yourself. Your own admissions were proved to lead to 
 monstrous conclusions ; these conclusions you repugned, but 
 could not see where the gist of the sophism lay. The laughter 
 of all bystanders bespoke your defeat. Before you was your 
 adversary, imperturbably calm, apparently innocent of all 
 attempt at making you ridiculous. Confused, but not con- 
 luted, you left the spot indignant with yourself, but more 
 indignant with the sophistry of your adversary. 
 
 It was thus that Socrates became mistaken for a Sophist; 
 but he was distinguished from the Sophists by his constant 
 object. Whilst they denied the possibility of truth, he only 
 sought to make truth evident, in the ironical, playful, and 
 sometimes, quibbling manner in which he destroyed the. 
 arguments of opponents. Truth was his object, even in his 
 lightest moments. 
 
 This sort of disputation daily occurred in Athens ; and to 
 it we doubtless owe the comedy of ' The Clouds,' in which 
 Aristophanes uniformly speaks of Socrates as a Sophist. No one 
 will doubt that to his adversaries he must have been a "bore of 
 the first magnitude." And this was the meaning of our calling 
 him so. No one was safe from his attack. No one who pre- 
 sumed to know anything could escape him. 
 
 In confirmation, let us quote the account Socrates gives 
 of his procedure, as reported by Plato in the 'Apology. 1 
 Socrates there describes his sensations on hearing that Apollo 
 had declared him to be the wisest of men. He could not 
 understand this. Knowing himself to be wise in nothing, yet 
 not daring to think the words of the god could be false, he was 
 puzzled. " I went to one of those who are esteemed to be 
 wise, thinking that here, if anywhere, I should prove the 
 oracle to be wrong, and to be able to say, ' Here is a man 
 
THE LIFE OF SOCRATES, 141 
 
 wiser than I.' After examining this man (I need not name 
 him, but he was one of the politicians), and conversing with 
 him, it was my opinion that this man seemed to many others, 
 and especially to himself, to be wise, but was not so. There- 
 upon I tried to convince him that he thought himself wise, 
 but was not. By this means I offended him and many 
 of the bystanders. When I went away, I said to myself, 
 'I am wiser than this man; for neither of us, it would 
 seem, knows anything valuable : but he, not knowing, fancies 
 he does know; I, as I really do not know, so I do not 
 think I know. I seem, therefore, to be in one small matter 
 wiser than he.' After this I went to another still wiser than 
 he, and came to the same result ; and by this I affronted him 
 too, and many others. I went on in the same manner, per- 
 ceiving with sorrow and fear that I was making enemies ; but 
 it seemed necessary to postpone all other considerations to the 
 service of the god, and therefore to seek for the meaning of 
 the oracle by going to all who appeared to know anything. 
 And, O Athenians, the impression made on me was this : The 
 persons of most reputation seemed to me nearly the most 
 deficient of all ; other persons of much smaller account seemed 
 much more rational. 
 
 ** When I had done with the politicians, I went to the poets, 
 tragic, dithyrambic, and others, thinking that I should surely 
 find myself less knowing than they. Taking up those of their 
 poems which appeared to me most laboured, I asked them, 
 (that I might at the same time learn something from them) 
 what these poems meant ? I am ashamed, O Athenians, to say 
 the truth, but I must say it; there was scarcely a person 
 present who could not have spoken better concerning their 
 poems than they. I soon found that what poets do, they 
 accomplish not by wisdom, but by a kind of natural turn, and 
 an enthusiasm like that of prophets and those who utter 
 oracles; for these, too, speak many fine things, but do not 
 know one particle of what they speak. 
 
 " Lastly, I resorted to artificers ; for I was conscious that I 
 myself knew, in a manner, nothing at all, but should find them 
 knowing many valuable things. And in this I was not mis- 
 taken ; they knew things which I knew not, and were, so far, 
 wiser than I. But they appeared to me to fall into the same 
 error as the poets ; each, because he was skilled in his own 
 art, insisted upon being the wisest man in other and greatest 
 
142 THE LIFE OF SOCRATES. 
 
 things ; and this mistake of theirs overshadowed what they 
 possessed of wisdom. From this search, O Athenians, the 
 consequences to me have been, on the one hand, many 
 enmities, and of the most formidable kind, which have brought 
 upon me many false imputations ; but, on the other hand, the 
 name and general repute of a wise man." 
 
 Socrates, like Dr. Johnson, did not care for the country. 
 * Sir," said the Doctor, " when you have seen one green field, 
 you have seen all green fields ; sir, I like to look upon men. Let 
 us walk down Cheapside." In words of the same import does 
 Socrates address Phaedrus, who accused him of being unac- 
 quainted even with the neighbourhood of Athens. "I am 
 very anxious to learn ; and from fields and trees I can learn 
 nothing. I can only learn from men in the city." And he 
 was always to be found where men were assembled. Ready to 
 argue with every one, he demanded money from none. He 
 gave no lectures : he only talked. He wrote no books : he 
 argued.* He cannot properly be said to have had a school, 
 since he did not even give a systematic exposition of his doc- 
 trine. What has been called his school, must be understood 
 to refer to the many delighted admirers whose custom it was 
 to surround him whenever he appeared, to talk with him as 
 often as possible, and to accept his leading opinions. 
 
 Although Socrates was a knight-errant of philosophy, ever on 
 the alert to rescue some forlorn truth from the dungeons of 
 prejudice, and therefore was not scrupulous as to who or what 
 his adversary might be, yet his especial enemies were the 
 Sophists. He never neglected an opportunity of refuting them. 
 He combated them with their own weapons, and on their own 
 ground. He knew all their tactics. He knew their strength 
 and their weakness. Like them he had studied Physics, in the 
 speculations of the early thinkers ; and like them had seen 
 that these speculations led to no certainty. But he had not, 
 Jike them, made scepticism a refuge ; he had not proclaimed 
 Truth to be a Phantom, because he could not embrace her. 
 No : defeated in his endeavour to penetrate the mysteries of 
 the world without, he turned his attention to the world within. 
 For Physics he substituted Morals. The certitude which he 
 
 * We are, therefore, disposed to accept as historical, the language Plato 
 puts into his mouth respecting the inefficiency of books. Books cannot be 
 interrogated, cannot answer; therefore, cannot teach. We can only learn 
 from them tljat which we knew before. — Fhadrus, p. 96. 
 
THE LIFE OF SOCRATES. 143 
 
 failed to gain respecting the operations of nature, had not 
 shaken his conviction of the certitude of the moral truths 
 which his conscience irresistibly impressed upon his attention. 
 The world of sense might be fleeting and deceptive. The 
 voice of conscience could not deceive. Turning his attention 
 inwards he discovered certain truths which admitted of no 
 question. They were eternal, immutable, evident. These he 
 opposed to the scepticism of the sophists. Moral certitude 
 was the rock upon which his shipwrecked soul was cast. There 
 he could repose in safety. From its heights he could survey 
 the world, and his relation to it 
 
 Thus was his life spent. In his two-and-seventieth year he 
 had to appear before his judges to answer the accusations of 
 Impiety and Immorality. He appeared, and was condemned. 
 When we think upon the character of this great man, whose 
 virtues, luminous in the distance, and surrounded with the halo 
 of imperishable glory, so impose on our imaginations that they 
 seem as evident as they were exalted, we cannot hear of his trial 
 and condemnation without indignant disgust at the Athenians. 
 But, for the sake of humanity, let us be cautious ere we decide. 
 The Athenians were volatile, credulous and cruel : all masses 
 of men are ; and they, perhaps, were eminently so. But it is 
 too much to suppose that they, or any people, would have 
 condemned Socrates had he appeared to them what he appears 
 to us. Had a tyrant committed such a deed, the people would 
 have avenged it. But Socrates was not to them what he appears 
 to us. He was offensive to them, and paid the penalty. 
 
 A great man cannot be understood by his contemporaries. 
 He can only be understood by his peers ; and his peers are few. 
 Posterity exalts a great man's fame by producing a number of 
 great men to appreciate him. 
 
 The great man is also necessarily a reformer in some shape 
 or other. Every reformer has to combat with existing preju- 
 dices and deep-rooted passions. To cut his own path, he must 
 displace the rubbish which encumbers it. He is therefore 
 in opposition to his fellow-men, and attacks their interests. 
 Blinded by prejudice, by passion, and by interest, men cannot 
 see the excellence of him they oppose ; and hence it is, as 
 Heine so admirably says, " everywhere that a great soul gives 
 utterance to its thoughts there also is Golgotha." 
 
 Reformers are martyrs ; and Socrates was a reformer. Al • 
 though, therefore, his condemnation appears to us very unjust 
 
144 THE LIFE OF SOCRATES. 
 
 and very frightful, to the Athenians it was no more than the 
 banishment of Empedocles, or the condemnation of Protagoras. 
 Pure as were his intentions, his actions and opinions were 
 offensive. He incurred the hatred of party-spirit ; and by that 
 hatred fell. We recognise the purity of his intentions ; he does 
 not oppose us. We can pardon what we believe to be his 
 errors, since those errors wage no war with our interests. How 
 differently were the Athenians situated ! To them he was 
 offensive. He hated injustice and folly of all kinds, and never 
 lost an occasion of exposing them. A man who sets up for 
 the critic of his age cannot escape the critic's penalty. Socrates 
 censured freely, openly. 
 
 But, perhaps, the most offensive part of his behaviour was 
 the undisguised contempt which he uniformly expressed for the 
 capacity for government assumed by all men. Only the wise, 
 he said, were fit to govern, and they were few. Government 
 is a science, and a difficult science. It is infinitely more diffi- 
 cult to govern a State than to govern the helm of a ship. Yet, 
 the same people who would not trust themselves in a ship 
 without an experienced pilot, not only trust themselves in a 
 State with an inexperienced ruler, but also endeavour to 
 become rulers themselves. This contempt was sufficient to cause 
 his condemnation ; but a better pretext was wanted, and it was 
 found in his impiety. His defenders, ancient and modern, 
 have declared that he was not guilty of impiety ; and Xenophon 
 " wonders " that the charge could have been credited for an 
 instant. But we believe that the charge was as much merited 
 as in the case of the other philosophers against whom it was 
 made." 5 He gave new interpretations to the reigning dogmas ; 
 he opposed the mythological interpretations, and that was 
 impiety. 
 
 It has been remarked by an anonymous writer, that, in com- 
 plying with the rites of his country, Socrates avoided her super- 
 stitions. The rite of sacrifice, so simple and natural that it 
 harmonises with all and any religious truth, required to be 
 
 • Sextus Empiricus, speaking of the Socratic heresy, calls it thg 
 fK$av\i£ov<Tav to 9tlov. — Adv. Math. ii. p. 69. — Plato's ' Dialogues of 
 the Second Alcibiades ' and the ' Euthyphro ' are evidence enough of So- 
 crates' opposition to the Mythology of his day. In the 'Euthyphro,' he 
 expressly says that it was because he did not believe the fables recounted 
 of the gods by poets that he was accused of impiety : 8'd Sij wc iot«e, <pi\ou 
 rtc /** iZapapTavav. — p. 359. 
 
THE LIFE OF SOCRATES. 
 
 145 
 
 guarded against a great abuse, and against this he warned his 
 countrymen. 
 
 " When he sacrificed, he feared not his offering would fail ol 
 acceptance in that he was poor ; but, giving according to his 
 ability, he doubted not but, in the sight of the gods, he equalled 
 those men whose gifts and sacrifices overspread the whole altar •, 
 for Socrates always reckoned upon it as a most indubitable 
 truth, that the service paid the Deity by the pure and pious 
 soul was the most grateful service. 
 
 " When he prayed his petition was only this — that the gods 
 would give to him those things that were good. And this he 
 did, forasmuch as they alone knew what was good for man. 
 But he who should ask for gold or silver, or increase of domi- 
 nion, acted not, in his opinion, more wisely than one who 
 should pray for the opportunity to fight, or game, or anything 
 of the like nature ; the consequence whereof being altogether 
 doubtful, might turn, for aught he knew, not a little to his dis- 
 advantage." — Memorabilia, book i. chap. iii. 
 
 It was more difficult for the philosopher either innocently to 
 comply with, or safely to oppose, that part of the popular 
 religion which related to oracles and omens. Socrates appears 
 to have done what was possible, and what therefore was best, 
 towards ultimately correcting this great evil. 
 
 " He likewise asserted, that the science of divination was 
 necessary for all such as would govern successfully, either cities 
 or private families ; for, although he thought every one might 
 choose his own way of life, and, afterwards, by his industry, 
 excel therein (whether architecture, mechanics, agriculture, 
 superintending the labourer, managing the finances, or practising 
 the art of war), yet even here, the gods, he would say, thought 
 proper to reserve to themselves, in all these things, the know- 
 ledge of that part of them which was of the most importance, 
 since he who was the most careful to cultivate his field, could 
 not know, of a certainty, who should reap the fruit of it." 
 
 " Socrates, therefore, esteemed all those as no other than 
 madmen who, excluding the Deity, referred the success of their 
 designs to nothing higher than human prudence. He likewise 
 thought those not much better who had recourse to divination 
 on every occasion, as if a man was to consult the oracle whether 
 he should give the reins of his chariot into the hands of one 
 ignorant or well versed in the art of driving, or place at the 
 helm of his ship a skilful or unskilful pilot. 
 
 X 
 
146 THE LIFE OF SOCRATES. 
 
 u He also thought it a kind of impiety to importune the gods 
 with our inquiries concerning things of which we may gain the 
 knowledge by number, weight, or measure; it being, as it 
 seemed to him, incumbent on man to make himself acquainted 
 with whatever the gods had placed within his power ; as for 
 such things as were beyond his comprehension, for these he 
 ought always to apply to the oracle ; the gods being ever ready 
 to communicate knowledge to those whose care had been to 
 render them propitious." — Memorabilia, book i. chap. i. 
 
 The trial of Socrates belongs rather to the history of Greece 
 than to the history of Philosophy. It was a political trial. His 
 bearing during the whole period was worthy of him : calm, grave, 
 and touching ; somewhat haughty perhaps, but the haughtiness 
 of a brave soul fighting for the truth. It increased the admira- 
 tion af his admirers, and exasperated his adversaries. 
 
 Plato, then a young man, was present at the trial, and has 
 preserved an admirable picture of it in his * Apology.' The 
 closing speech, made by Socrates after sentence of death had 
 been pronounced, is justly supposed to be pretty faithfully given 
 by Plato. We extract it : — 
 
 " It is for the sake of but a short span, O Athenians, that you 
 have incurred the imputation, from those who wish to speak 
 evil of the city, of having put to death Socrates, a wise man (for 
 those who are inclined to reproach you will say that I am wise, 
 even if I am not). Had you waited a short time the thing 
 would have happened without your agency; for you see my 
 years ; I am far advanced in life, and near to death. I address 
 this not to all of you, but to those who have voted for the 
 capital sentence, and this too I say to the same persons, — Per- 
 haps you think that I have been condemned for want of skill 
 in such modes of working upon your minds, as I might have 
 employed with success, if I had thought it right to employ all 
 means in order to escape from condemnation. Far from it : 
 I have been condemned, and not from want of things to say, 
 but from want of daring and shamelessness ; because I did not 
 choose to say to you the things which would have been plea- 
 santest for you to hear, weeping, and lamenting, and saying and 
 doing other things which I affirm to be unworthy of me ; as you 
 are accustomed to see others do. But neither did I then think 
 fit to do or say anything unworthy of a freeman j nor do I now 
 repent of having thus defended myself. I would far rather have 
 made the one defence and die, than have made the other and 
 
THE LIFE OF SOCRATES. 147 
 
 live. Neither in a court of justice, nor in war, ought we 
 to make it our object that, whatever happen, we may escape 
 death. In battle it is often evident that a man may save his 
 life by throwing away his arms and imploring mercy of his pur- 
 suers ; and in all other dangers there are many contrivances by 
 which a person may get off with life if he dare do or say every- 
 thing. The difficulty, O Athenians, is not to escape from death, 
 but from guilt ; for guilt is swifter than death, and runs faster. 
 And now I, being old and slow of foot, have been overtaken 
 by Death, the slower of the two ; but my accusers, who are 
 brisk and vehement, by wickedness the swifter. We quit this 
 place : I have been sentenced by you to death, but they having 
 sentence passed upon them, by Truth, of guilt and injustice. I 
 submit to my punishment, and they to theirs. 
 
 " But I wish, O men who have condemned me, to prophesy 
 to you what next is to come. I say, then, that, immediately 
 after my death, there will come upon you a far severer punish- 
 ment than that which you have inflicted upon me ; for you have 
 done this, thinking by it to escape from being called to account 
 for your lives. But I affirm that the very reverse will happen 
 to you. There will be many to call you to account whom I 
 have hitherto restrained, and whom you saw not ; and, being 
 younger, they will give you more annoyance, and you will be 
 still more provoked ; for, if you think by putting men to death 
 to deter others from reproaching you with living amiss, you 
 think ill. That mode of protecting yourselves is neither very 
 possible nor very noble : the noblest and the easiest too is not 
 to cut off other people, but so to order yourselves as to attain 
 the greatest excellence. 
 
 " Thus much I beg of you : When ray sons grow up, punish 
 them, O Athenians, by tormenting them as I tormented you, if 
 they shall seem to study riches, or any other ends, in preference 
 Jo virtue. And, if they are thought to be something, being 
 really nothing, reproach them, as I have reproached you, for 
 not attending to what they ought, and fancying themselves 
 something when they are good for nothing. And, if you do 
 this, both I and my sons shall have received what is just at 
 your hands. 
 
 " // is now time that we depart, I to die, you to live ; but which 
 has the better destiny is unknown to all except the God." 
 
 This is very grand and impressive, and paints the character 
 of the man. Magno animo et vultu carcerem intravit, says 
 
1 48 THE LIFE OF SOCRATES. 
 
 Seneca. He consoled his weeping friends, and gently upbraided 
 them for their complaints at the injustice of the sentence. No 
 man ever faced death with greater calmness ; for no man ever 
 welcomed it as a new birth to a higher state of being with 
 greater faith. 
 
 He would have been executed the next day, but it happened 
 that the next day was the first of the festival of Theoria, during 
 which no criminal could be put to death. This festival lasted 
 thirty days. Socrates, though in chains and awaiting his end, 
 spent the interval in cheerful conversation with his friends, and 
 in composing verses. "During this time," says Xenophon, 
 " he lived before the eyes of all his friends in the same manner 
 as in former days ; but now his past life was most admired on 
 account of his present calmness and cheerfulness of mind." 
 On the last day he held a conversation with his friends on the 
 immortality of the soul. This forms the subject of .Plato's 
 ' Phaedon.' The arguments in that dialogue are most pro- 
 bably Plato's own ; and it is supposed that the dying speech of 
 Cyrus, in Xenophon's * Cyropaedia,' is a closer copy of the 
 opinions of Socrates. 
 
 Phaedon, describing the impression produced on him by the 
 sight of Socrates on this final day, says : — " I did not feel the 
 pity which it was natural I should feel at the death of a friend : 
 on the contrary, he seemed to me perfectly happy as I gazed on 
 him and listened to him ; so calm and dignified was his bear- 
 ing. And I thought that he only left this world under the pro- 
 tection of the gods, who destined him to a more than a mortal 
 felicity in the next." He then details the conversation on the 
 immortality of the soul ; after which, he narrates the close oi 
 that glorious life in language worthy of it. We can only offer 
 the bald version of Taylor ; but, even in that, the beauty of the 
 narrative stands manifestly out. 
 
 " When he had thus spoke, he rose, and went into a room, 
 that he might wash himself, and Crito followed him : but he 
 ordered us to wait for him. We waited, therefore, accordingly, 
 discoursing over, and reviewing among ourselves, what had 
 been said ; and sometimes speaking about his death, how great 
 a calamity it would be to us ; and sincerely thinking that we, 
 like those who are deprived of their father, should pass the rest 
 of our life in the condition of orphans. But, when he had 
 washed himself, his sons were brought to him (for he had two 
 little ones, and one considerably advanced in age), and the 
 
THE LIFE OF SOCRATES. i 49 
 
 women belonging to his family likewise came in to him : but, 
 when he had spoken to them before Crito, and had left them 
 such injunctions as he thought proper, he ordered the boys and 
 women to depart ; and he himself returned to us. And it was 
 now near the setting of the sun : for he had been absent for a 
 long time in the bathing-room. But, when he came in from 
 washing, he sat down, and did not speak much afterwards ; for, 
 then, the servant of the eleven magistrates came in, and, stand- 
 ing near him, I do not perceive that in you, Socrates (says he), 
 which I have taken notice of in others; I mean that they are 
 angry with me, and curse me, when, being compelled by the 
 magistrates, I announce to them that they must drink the 
 poison. But, on the contrary, I have found you at the present 
 time to be the most generous, mild, and best of all men who 
 ever came into this place : and, therefore, I am now well con- 
 vinced that you are not angry with me, but with the authors of 
 your present condition. You know those whom I allude to. 
 Now, therefore ( for you know what I came to tell you), fare- 
 well ! and endeavour to bear this necessity as easily as possible. 
 And, at the same time, bursting into tears, and turning himself 
 away, he departed. 
 
 ( * Then Crito gave the sign to the boy that stood near him. 
 And the boy departing, and, having staid for some time, came, 
 bringing with him the person that was to administer the poison, 
 and who brought it properly prepared in a cup. But, Socrates, 
 beholding the man, — It's well, my friend (says he) ; but what 
 is proper to do with it? for you are knowing in these affairs. 
 You have nothing else to do (says he) but when you have 
 drunk it to walk about, till a heaviness takes place in your legs, 
 and afterwards lie down : this is the manner in which you 
 should act. And, at the same time, he extended the cup to 
 Socrates. But Socrates received it from him, and, indeed, 
 Echecrates, with great cheerfulness; neither trembling nor 
 suffering any alteration for the worse in his colour or counte- 
 nance, but, as he was accustomed to do, beholding the man 
 with a bull-like aspect What say you (says he) respecting this 
 potion ? Is it lawful to make a libation of it, or not ? We only 
 bruise (says he), Socrates, as much as we think sufficient for the 
 purpose. I understand you (says he) ; but it is certainly both 
 lawful and proper to pray to the gods, that my departure from 
 hence thither may be attended with prosperous fortune ; which 
 I entreat them to grant may be the case. And, at the same 
 
IS© THE LIFE OF SOCRATES. 
 
 time ending his discourse, he drank the poison with exceeding 
 facility and alacrity. And thus far, indeed, the greater part of 
 us were tolerably well able to refrain from weeping ; but, when 
 we saw him drinking, and that he had drunk it, we could no 
 longer restrain our tears. But from me, indeed, notwithstand- 
 ing the violence which I employed in checking them, they 
 flowed abundantly ; so that, covering myself with my mantle, I 
 deplored my misfortune. I did not, indeed, weep for him, but 
 for my own fortune, considering what an associate I should be 
 deprived of. But Crito, who was not able to restrain his tears, 
 was compelled to rise before me. And Apollodorus, who, 
 during the whole time prior to this, had not ceased from weep- 
 ing, then wept aloud, and with great bitterness; so that he 
 infected all who were present except Socrates. But Socrates, 
 upon seeing this, exclaimed : — What are you doing, excellent 
 men? For, indeed, I principally sent away the women, lest 
 they should produce a disturbance of this kind. For I have 
 heard it is proper to die attended with propitious omens. Be 
 quiet, therefore, and summon fortitude to your assistance. But 
 when we heard this we blushed, and restrained our tears. But 
 he, when he found, during his walking, that his legs felt heavy, 
 and had told us so, laid himself down in a supine position. For 
 the man had ordered him to do so. And, at the same time, he 
 who gave him the poison, touching him at intervals, considered 
 his feet and legs. And, after he had vehemently pressed his 
 foot, he asked him if he felt it. But Socrates answered he did 
 not. And, after this, he again pressed his thighs : and, thus 
 ascending with his hand, he showed us that he was cold and 
 stiff. And Socrates also touched himself, and said that when 
 the poison reached his heart he should then leave us. But 
 now his lower belly was almost cold ; when, uncovering himself 
 (for he was covered) he said (which were his last words), Crito, 
 we owe a cock to Esculapius. Discharge this debt, therefore, 
 for me, and don't neglect it. It shall be done (says Crito) : but 
 consider whether you have any other commands. To this 
 enquiry of Crito he made no reply ; but shortly after moved 
 himself, and the man covered him. And Socrates fixed his 
 eyes. Which, when Crito perceived, he closed his mouth and 
 eyes. This, Echecrates, was the end of our associate ; a man, 
 as it appears to me, the best of those whom we were acquainted 
 with at that time; and, besides this, the most prudent and 
 just" 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SOCRATES. 151 
 
 Thus perished this great and good man, a martyr to Philo- 
 sophy. His character we have endeavoured to represent fairly 
 though briefly. Let us now add the summing-up of Xen option- 
 who loved him tenderly, and expressed his love gracefully : — 
 
 " As to myself, knowing him of a truth to be such a man as 
 I have described ; so pious towards the gods, as never to undef 
 take anything without first consulting them ; so just towards 
 men, as never to do an injury, even the very slightest, to any 
 one, whilst many and great were the benefits he conferred on 
 all with whom he had any dealings ; so temperate and chaste 
 as not to indulge any appetite or inclination at the expense of 
 whatever was modest and becoming ; so prudent as never to 
 err in judging of good and evil, nor wanting the assistance of 
 others to discriminate rightly concerning them ; so able to dis- 
 course upon, and define with the greatest accuracy, not only 
 those points of which we have been speaking, but likewise 
 every other, and, looking as it were into the minds of men, dis- 
 cover the very moment for reprehending vice, or stimulating to 
 the love of virtue : experiencing, as I have done, all these 
 excellencies in Socrates, I can never cease considering him as 
 the most virtuous and the most happy of all mankind. But, if 
 there is any one who is disposed to think otherwise, let him go 
 and compare Socrates with any other, and afterwards let him 
 determine." — Memorabilia, book iv. chap. vii. 
 
 After-ages have cherished the memory of his virtues and of 
 his fate ; but, without profiting much by his example, and with- 
 out learning tolerance from his story, His name has become 
 a Moral Thesis for School boys and Rhetoricians. Would that 
 it could become a Moral Influence ! 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF SOCRATES. 
 
 Opinions vary so considerably respecting the philosophy of 
 Socrates, and materials whereby they can be tested are so 
 scanty, that any attempt at exposition must be made with 
 diffidence. The historian has to rely solely on his critical 
 skill j and on such grounds he will not, if prudent, be very 
 confident. 
 
I5« PHILOSOPHY OP SOCRATES. 
 
 Amongst the scattered materials from which an opinion may 
 be formed are, ist, The very general tradition of Socrates 
 having produced a revolution in thought ; in consequence of 
 which he is by all regarded as the initiator of a new epoch \ 
 and by some as the founder of Greek Philosophy, properly so 
 called : andly, The express testimony of Aristotle, that he first 
 made use of definitions and proceeded by induction.* These 
 two positions mutually imply each other. If Socrates pro- 
 duced a revolution in philosophy, he could only have done so 
 by a new Method. That Method we see exhibited in the 
 phrase of Aristotle, but it is there only exhibited in his brief 
 concentrated manner, and requires to be elucidated. 
 
 And first of Induction. In our reading for this chapter we 
 have been perpetually amazed at the want of just notions 
 respecting Induction, in general, and Bacon's conception of it, 
 in particular, which prevails amongst historians and critics. 
 Constantly have we stumbled over the assertion that Socrates, 
 like Bacon, proceeded inductively. Constantly have we seen 
 him ranked with Bacon ; being supposed to have destroyed 
 the vain hypotheses of the physiologists of his day, as Bacon 
 did those of a latter day. Now we must insist on a complete 
 revision of such an opinion. The aim and purpose of Socrates 
 was confessedly to withdraw the mind from its contemplations 
 of the phenomena of nature, and to fix it on its own phe- 
 nomena : truth was to be sought by looking inwards, not by 
 looking outwards. The aim and purpose of Bacon's philo- 
 sophy was the reverse of this ; he exhorted men to the observa- 
 tion and interpretation of nature, and energetically denounced 
 all attempts to discover the operations of mind. If Socrates 
 pushed too far this contempt of physics, Bacon pushed too far 
 his contempt of psychology: the exaggeration was, in each 
 case, produced by the absurdities of contemporaries. 
 
 Not more decided is the contrast between their conceptions 
 of Induction. With Socrates it was no more than that Inductio 
 per enumerationem simplicem, or u reasoning by analogy " — the 
 mere collection of particular facts — a process which it was 
 
 * u There are two things of which Socrates must justly be regarded as 
 the author, the Inductive Reasoning and Abstract Definitions." — tovq 
 r' tTdKTiKoiiQ Xoyovc tal rb bpfeoQat Ka06\ov. — Arist. Met., xiii. c. 4. 
 Xenophon has several indications of the inauctive method : he also says 
 that Socrates always proceeded from propositions best known to those 
 less known, which is a definition of Induction. 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SOCRATES. 153 
 
 Bacon's peculiar merit to have utterly destroyed. The whole 
 force of the ' Novum Organum ' may be said to be directed 
 against this erroneous method. The triviality of the method 
 may indeed be seen in the quibbles to which it furnishes support 
 in Plato ; it may be seen also in the argument used by Aris- 
 tippus to justify his living with Lais the courtezan. " Do you 
 think, Diogenes, that there is anything odd in inhabiting a 
 house that others have inhabited before you ? — No. Or sail- 
 ing in a ship in which many men have sailed before you ? — 
 No. By parity of reasoning, then, there is nothing odd in 
 living with a woman whom many men have lived with before." 
 This quibble is a legitimate Socratic induction ; and it was 
 made by a pupil of Socrates. It is only a parody of the argu- 
 ments by which it was proved that to inflict justice is more 
 painful than to suffer it ; one of the many startling dogmas 
 attributed to Socrates. Whoever supposes this Induction to 
 be at all similar to the Baconian Induction (which is an 
 interrogation of nature), has singularly mistaken the sense of 
 the * Novum Organum.' Indeed, to suppose that such a con- 
 ception as Bacon's could have been orginated so early in the 
 history of science, is radically to mistake the course of human 
 development; and to suppose that science is formed by 
 sudden and gigantic leaps, instead of by slow and gradual 
 developments. 
 
 Respecting Definitions, which Socrates first rigorously em- 
 ployed, and which Aristotle calls one of the first principles ot 
 Science, their value can only be appreciated when the opinions 
 of Socrates are understood. The Sophists had thrown a doubt 
 on knowledge by pointing out the illusory nature of sense- 
 experience, which, they said, constituted all knowledge. 
 They declared that man was only conversant with appearances; 
 and appearances varied according to various conditions. But 
 Socrates, looking inwards, and finding there certain irresistible 
 convictions, certain truths of which he could not doubt ; and 
 finding, moreover, that these truths were not derived through 
 Sense, he at once declared that the fundamental tenet of the 
 Sophists was false. They appealed to the facts of conscious- 
 ness ; he appealed to the deeper and more irrefragable con- 
 victions, which were also facts of consciousness. On their 
 own ground he refuted them. But to refute them was only 
 a part of his task. He had not only to show that there 
 was another channel besides Sense; he had to show how 
 
154 PHILOSOPHY OF SOCRATES. 
 
 that which was above and below sense could be perceived — in 
 other words, he had to explain our knowledge of essences : r% 
 ri tori. 
 
 How could this be done but by Definitions ? To know the 
 essence of a thing you must consider it as distinct from every- 
 thing else, you must define it ; by defining it you demarcate it 
 from what it is not, and so present the thing before you in its 
 essence. 
 
 It was a fundamental conviction with him that it is impos- 
 sible to start from one true thought, and be entangled in any con- 
 tradiction with another true thought ; knowledge derived from 
 any one point, and obtained by correct combination, cannot 
 contradict that which has been obtained from any other point. 
 He believed that Reason was pregnant with Truths, and only 
 needed an accoucheur. An accoucheur he announced him- 
 self; his main instruments were Definitions. By Definition he 
 enabled the thinker to separate the particular thought he 
 wished to express from the myriad of other thoughts which 
 clouded it. By Definition he enabled a man to contemplate 
 the essence of a thing, because he admitted nothing which was 
 not essential into the definition. 
 
 This may seem a poor method to the modern reader. Let 
 him not despise it. For centuries it was the great basis on 
 which speculation rested. We have more than once com- 
 mented on the natural tendency of the early thinkers to mistake 
 distinctions in words for distinctions in things. We have now 
 to signalize the appearance in the history of speculation of a 
 systematic formula of this. Names, henceforth, have the force 
 of things.* A correct Definition is held to be a true descrip- 
 tion of the Thing per se, and the explanation of terms as equi- 
 valent to the explanation of things, and the exhibition of the 
 nature of any thing in a definition as equivalent to the actual 
 analysis of it in a laboratory — are the central errors of the 
 Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. These errors continue 
 to flourish in all the metaphysical systems of the present day. 
 
 When stated in a naked manner, the absurdity of this method 
 is apparent : but it may be so disguised as to look profoundly 
 scientific. Hence the frequent use of such locutions as that 
 certain properties are " involved in the idea " of certain things ; 
 as if being involved in the idea, i.e. } being included in the 
 
 * See Plato's « Cratylus ' passim. 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SOCRATES. 155 
 
 definition, necessarily implied a correspondent objective exis- 
 tence; as if human conceptions were the faithful copies of 
 external things. The conceptions of men widely differ ; con- 
 sequently different properties are " involved " in these different 
 conceptions ; but all cannot be true, and the question arises, 
 Which conception is true ? To answer this question by any- 
 thing like a definition, is to argue in a circle. A principle o( 
 certitude must be sought. That principle, however, is still to 
 seek! 
 
 The influence of the theory of definitions will be more dis- 
 tinctly discernible as we proceed. It is the one grand charac- 
 teristic of the Method Socrates originated. In it must be 
 sought the explanation of his views of Science. 
 
 He has been almost taunted with never having promulgated 
 any system of his own. His rank in the history of philosophy 
 has been questioned ; and has been supposed only that of a 
 moralist. A passage of Aristotle has been quoted as decisive 
 on this point : " The speculations of Socrates were only 
 concerning Ethics, and not at all concerning Nature in 
 general " (rrjs 0A.77S <f>va€u>s). But this is not all the passage : it 
 continues thus : " In these speculations he sought the Abstract 
 (to KaOoXov), and was the first who thought of giving defini- 
 tions." Now in this latter portion we believe there is con- 
 tained a hint of something more than the mere moralist — a 
 hint of the metaphysician. On turning to another part of 
 Aristotle's treatise (Met. xiii. c. iv.), we accordingly find this 
 hint more clearly brought out ; we find an express indication 
 of the metaphysician. The passage is as follows : " Socrates 
 concerned himself with ethical virtues and he first sought the 
 abstract definitions of these. Before him Democritus had 
 only concerned himself with a part of Physics ; and defined 
 but the Hot and the Cold. But Socrates, looking deeper 
 (cvAoyws), sought the Essence of Things, i.e. sought what 
 exists ! y 
 
 Moreover, in another passage (lib. hi. ch. ii.) he reproaches 
 Aristippus for having rejected science, and concerned himself 
 solely with morals. This is surely negative evidence that 
 Socrates was not to be blamed for the same opinion ; otherwise 
 he would have been also mentioned. 
 
 Had Socrates been only a moralist, it would be difficult 
 to conceive Plato as his pupil. Socrates made Ethics the end 
 and aim of his philosophy; and this has given rise to the 
 
156 PHILOSOPHY OF SOCRATES. 
 
 notion of his being a mere moralist. But his rank in the 
 history of Philosophy is due to him for his conception of 
 science. Let it be remembered that the work of the Sophists 
 had been to destroy all belief in science. They denied the 
 validity of human testimony. They pronounced science to be 
 impossible. It was imperative therefore on Socrates to remove 
 this scepticism before he could proceed. He removed it by 
 presenting a conception of science which was not open to the 
 attacks of the Sophists. Instead of occupying himself with 
 any particular sciences, he directed his attention to science 
 in general — to Method. " Man is the measure of all things," 
 said Protagoras ; " and, as men differ, there can be no absolute 
 truth." " Man is the measure of all things," replied Socrates ; 
 " but descend deeper into his personality, and you will find 
 that underneath all varieties there is a ground of steady truth. 
 Men differ, but men also agree : they differ as to what is fleet- 
 ing ; they agree as to what is eternal. Difference is the 
 region of opinion ; Agreement is the region of Truth : let us 
 endeavour to penetrate that region." 
 
 The radical error of all the pre-Socratic philosophy was the 
 want of definite aim. Men speculated at random. They 
 sought truth, but they only built Hypotheses, because they 
 had r*ot previously ascertained the limits and conditions of 
 inquiry. They attempted to form sciences before having settled 
 the conditions of Science. It was the peculiar merit of Socrates 
 to have proposed as the grand question of philosophy the na- 
 ture and conditions of Science. His solution of that ques- 
 tion was incomplete ; but it was influential. 
 
 The reader may now begin to appreciate the importance of 
 Definitions in the Socratic Method and may understand why 
 Socrates did not himself invent systems, but only a Method. 
 He likened himself to his mother, who, though unable to 
 bring forth children herself, assisted women in their labours. 
 He believed that in each man lay the germs of wisdom. He 
 believed that no science could be taught ; only drawn out. To 
 borrow the ideas of another was not to learn ; to guide oneself 
 by the judgment of another was blindness. The Sophists, who 
 pretended to teach everything, could teach nothing; and their 
 ignorance was manifest in the very pretension. Each man must 
 conquer truth for himself, by rigid struggle with himself. He, 
 Socrates, was willing to assist any man when in the pains of 
 labour • he could do no more. 
 
PHILOSOPHY OP SOCRATES. 157 
 
 Such being the Method, we cannot wonder at his having 
 attached himself to Ethical, rather than to Physical specula, 
 tions. His philosophy was a realisation of the inscription at 
 Delphos — Know Thyself. It was in himself that he found the 
 ground of certitude which was to protect him against scepti- 
 cism. It was therefore moral science which he prized above 
 all others. Indeed we have great reason to believe that his 
 energetic denouncement of Physical speculations, as reported 
 by Xenophon, were the natural, though exaggerated, conclu- 
 sions to which he had been hurried by a consideration of the 
 manifold absurdities into which they drew the mind, and the 
 scepticism which they induced. There could be nothing but 
 uncertainty on such subjects. Certitude was only to be gained 
 in moral speculations. 
 
 This is the meaning of the common saying, that Socrates 
 brought Philosophy down from the clouds to domicile it upon 
 earth, or, as Cicero expresses it, " devocavit e ccelo et in 
 urbibus collocavit et in domos etiam introduxit et coegit de 
 vita et moribusque bonis et malis quaerere." He turned the 
 attention from speculations on cosmology to speculations on 
 morals. This is in flagrant contradiction to the representa- 
 tion of Socrates in * The Clouds.' There he is busy with 
 physical speculations. A contradiction so glaring has led many 
 to suppose that Aristophanes knew nothing whatever of 
 Socrates, but only took him as an available comic type of the 
 Sophists. To this there are several objections. Firstly, it 
 is not usual in Satirists to select for their butt a person of 
 whom they know nothing. Secondly, Socrates, of all Athe- 
 nians, was the most notorious, and most easily to be acquainted 
 with in a general way. Thirdly, he could not be a type of the 
 Sophists, in as far as related to physical speculations, since we 
 well know those persons scouted physics. Fourthly, he did 
 occupy himself with Physics, early in his career ; and probably 
 did so when Aristophanes satirised him. In after life he re- 
 garded such speculations as trivial. " I have not leisure for 
 such things," he is made to say by Plato ; " and I will tell you 
 the reason : I am not yet able, according to the Delphic in- 
 scription, to Know Myself ; and it appears to me very ridicu- 
 lous, while ignorant of myself, to inquire into what I am not 
 concerned in."» 
 
 • «Phaedrus,' p. 8. 
 
158 PHILOSOPHY OF SOCRATES. 
 
 Connected with the Socratic view of Science it is curious to 
 remark how he, who is accused of being only a moralist, always 
 considers Virtue to be identical with Knowledge.* Only the 
 wise man, said he, can be brave, just or temperate. Vice of 
 every kind is Ignorance; and involuntary, because ignorant. 
 If a man is cowardly, it is because he does not rightly appre- 
 ciate the importance of life and death. He thinks death an 
 evil, and flees it. If he were wise, he would know that death 
 is a good thing, or, at the worst, an indifferent one, and there- 
 fore would not shun it. If a man is intemperate it is because 
 he is unable to estimate the relative value of present pleasure 
 and future pain. Ignorance misleads him. It is the nature of 
 man to seek good and shun evil : he would never seek evil, 
 knowing it to be such ; if he seeks it, he mistakes it for good ; 
 if he is intemperate, it is because he is unwise. 
 
 It would be superfluous to refute these positions. We may 
 remark, however, that they are grounded on the assumption 
 that man is solely guided by his intellect. The passions are 
 completely overlooked ; yet it is their operation in the above 
 cases which interferes with the directing power of the intellect. 
 
 We must, in conclusion, say a word or two on that vexata 
 quastio, the Daemon of Socrates. He taught, and what he 
 taught he believed, that on all critical occasions, especially 
 whenever any danger awaited him or his friends, he was fore- 
 warned by a Daemon who always accompanied him. Respect- 
 ing the nature of this Daemon critics are, and probably will 
 remain, at issue. Some agree with Olympiodorus, that it only 
 meant Conscience. But although the voice of Conscience 
 will often seem to tally with the attributes of the Socratic 
 Daemon, it will still oftener fail. The Daemon not only warned 
 Socrates concerning his own affairs, but also concerning the 
 affairs of his friends ; as we see in the * Theages ' of Plato. By 
 others the Daemon has been held to be purely allegorical; 
 5y others to be a mystical expression for the operations of his 
 soul. 
 
 The most probable explanation we take to be this : Socrates 
 was a religious man, and implicitly believed in supernatural 
 communications. This explanation has been too simple for 
 Jhe critics, who have insisted on one more recondite. Yet the 
 
 * QpovqatiQ Sitro tlvai icaoaq rdc aptrdg. — Aristot. Ethic. Nicomach. t 
 vi. 13. Piato, in the ' Meno,' makes him maintain that Virtue cannot be 
 Science, cannot be taught. But this is not Socratic 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SOCRATES. 159 
 
 above is in perfect accordance with what Plato uniformly says 
 of Daemons. Apuleius tells us that Plato declared there was 
 " a peculiar Daemon allotted to every man, who is a witness 
 and guardian of his conduct in life, who, without being visible 
 to any one, is always present, and who is an arbitrator not only 
 of his deeds, but also of his thoughts." This Daemon presides 
 over the man inquisitively, participates of all that concerns 
 him, sees all things, understands all things, and dwells in the 
 most profound recesses of the mind.* Xenophon is equally 
 explicit. "The Daemon," he says, "gave signs" to Socrates, 
 who believed "that the Gods know all things, both those 
 spoken and those done, as also those meditated in silence ; for 
 they are present everywhere, and give signs (crqixavew) to men 
 concerning human affairs." — Memor., i. c, i. 
 
 Although Socrates was not the first to teach the doctrine of 
 the immortality of the soul, he was the first to give it a philo- 
 sophical basis. Nor can we read, without admiration, the 
 arguments by which he was wont to prove the existence of a 
 beneficent Providence. Listen to Xenophon : — 
 
 " I will now relate the manner in which I once heard Socrates 
 discoursing with Aristodemus, surnamed the Little, concerning 
 the Deity ; for observing that he neither prayed nor sacrificed 
 to the gods, but on the contrary, ridiculed and laughed at 
 those who did, he said to him : — 
 
 " Tell me, Aristodemus, is there any man whom you admire 
 on account of his merit? Aristodemus having answered 
 ' Many ' — Name some of them, I pray you. I admire, said 
 Aristodemus, Homer for his Epic poetry, Milanippides 
 for his dithyrambics, Sophocles for tragedy, Polycletes for 
 statuary, and Xeuxis for painting. 
 
 14 But which seems to you most worthy of admiration, Aristo- 
 demus — the artist who forms images void of motion and intel- 
 ligence, or one who hath the skill to produce animals that are 
 endued not only with activity but understanding? The 
 latter, there can be no doubt, replied Aristodemus, provided 
 the production was not the effect of chance, but of wisdom and 
 contrivance. But since there are many things, some of which 
 we can easily see the use of, while we cannot say of others to 
 what purpose they were produced, which of these, Aristodemus, 
 
 • See the whole passage, together with much other matter, in Professor 
 Long's truly admirable translation of * Plutarch,' i. p. 258. Consult also 
 Plato's 'Apologia,' « De Legibus,' x. p. 221, and 'Theages,' pp. 275-8. 
 
I6c PHILOSOPHY OF SOCRATES. 
 
 do you suppose the work of wisdom? It should seem the 
 most reasonable to affirm it of those whose fitness and utility 
 are so evidently apparent. 
 
 11 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 whatever was visible ; and 
 ears to hear whatever was to be heard ; for say, Aristodemus, 
 to what purpose should odours be prepared, if the sense of 
 smelling had been denied ? Or why the distinctions of bitter 
 and sweet, of savoury and unsavoury, unless a palate had been 
 likewise given, conveniently placed to arbitrate between them 
 and declare the difference ? Is not that Providence, Aristo- 
 demus, in a most eminent manner conspicuous, which, because 
 the eye of man is so delicate in its contexture, hath therefore 
 prepared eyelids like doors, whereby to secure it, which ex- 
 tend of themselves whenever it is needful, and again close 
 when sleep approaches ? Are not these eyelids provided, as it 
 were, with a fence on the edge of them, to keep off the wind 
 and guard the eye? Even the eyebrow itself is not without 
 its office, but, as a penthouse, is prepared to turn off the sweat 
 which, falling from the forehead, might enter and annoy that 
 no less tender than astonishing part of us. Is it not to be 
 admired that the ears should take in sounds of every sort, and 
 yet are not too much filled by them ? That the fore teeth of 
 the animal should be formed in such a manner as is evidently 
 best suited for the cutting of its food, as 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; while nature, on the contrary, hath set at a 
 distance, and concealed from the senses, all that might disgust 
 or any way offend them ? And canst thou still doubt, Aristo- 
 demus, whether a disposition of parts like this should be the work 
 of chance or of wisdom and contrivance ? I have no longer any 
 doubt, replied Aristodemus; and, indeed, the more I consider 
 it, the more evident it appears to me, that man must be the 
 masterpiece of some great artificer; carrying along with it 
 infinite marks of the love and favour of Him who hath thus 
 formed it. 
 
 "And what thinkest thou, Aristodemus, of that desire in the 
 individual which leads to the continuance of the species ? Of 
 that tenderness and affection in the female towards her young, 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF SOCRATES. 161 
 
 so necessary for its preservation ? Of that unremitted love of 
 life, and dread of dissolution, which take such strong posses- 
 sion of us from the moment we begin to be ? I think of them, 
 answered Aristodemus, as so many regular operations of the 
 same great and wise Artist, deliberately determining to pre- 
 serve what he hath made. 
 
 " But, farther (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 which thou everywhere beholdest; the moisture 
 contained in it, thou also knowest to be a small portion of 
 that mighty mass of waters, whereof seas themselves are but a 
 part, while the rest of the elements contribute out of their 
 abundance to thy formation. It is the soul then alone, that 
 intellectual part of us, which is come to thee by some lucky 
 chance, from I know not where. If so be, there is indeed 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, not by intelligence, but by chance. It is with 
 difficulty that I can suppose otherwise, returned Aristodemus ; 
 for I behold none of those gods whom you speak of as making 
 and governing all things ; whereas I see the artists when at their 
 work here among us. Neither yet seest thou thy soul, Aristo- 
 demus, which, however, most assuredly governs thy body ; 
 although it may well seem, by thy manner of talking, that it is 
 chance, and not reason, which governs thee. 
 
 " I do not despise the gods, said Aristodemus ; on the con- 
 trary, I conceive so highly of their excellence, as to suppose 
 they stand in no need either of me or of my services. Thou 
 mistakest the matter, Aristodemus ; the greater magnificence 
 they have shown in their care of thee, so much the more honour 
 and service thou owest them. Be assured, said Aristodemus, if I 
 once could be persuaded the gods take care of man, I should 
 want no monitor to remind me of my duty. And canst thou 
 doubt, Aristodemus, if the gods take care of man ? Hath not 
 the glorious privilege of walking upright been alone bestowed 
 on him, whereby he may, with the better advantage, survey 
 what is around him, contemplate with more ease those splendid 
 objects which are above, and avoid the numerous ills and 
 
16a PHILOSOPHY OF SOCRATES. 
 
 inconveniences which would otherwise befall him? Othei 
 animals, indeed, they have provided with feet, by which they 
 may remove from one place to another ; but to man they have 
 also given hands, with which he can form many things for his 
 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 thus bountiful to man. Their most 
 excellent gift is that 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 those gods dis- 
 covered, who have produced and still uphold, in such regular 
 order, this beautiful and stupendous frame of the universe ? 
 What other species of creature is to be found that can serve, 
 that can adore them ? What other animal is able, like man, to 
 provide against the assaults of heat and cold, of thirst and 
 hunger ? that can lay up remedies for the time of sickness, and 
 improve the strength nature has given by a well-proportioned 
 exercise ? that can receive like him information or instruction ; 
 or so happily keep in memory what he hath seen, and heard, 
 and learnt ? These things being so, who seeth not that man is, 
 as it were, a god in the midst of this visible creation ? so far 
 doth he surpass, whether in the endowments of soul or body, 
 all animals whatsoever that have been produced therein ; for, 
 if the body of the ox had been joined to the mind of man, the 
 acuteness of the latter would have stood him in small stead, 
 while unable to execute the well-designed plan j nor would the 
 human form have been 6f more use to the brute, so long as it 
 remained destitute of understanding ! But in thee, Aristo- 
 demus, hath been joined to a wonderful soul a body no less 
 wonderful ; and sayest thou, after this, the gods take no thought 
 for me ? What wouldst thou then more to convince thee of 
 their care ? 
 
 " I would they should send and inform me, said Aristodemus, 
 what. things I ought or ought not to do, in like manner as thou 
 sayest they frequently do to thee. — And what then, Aristo- 
 demus? supposest thou, that when the gods give out some 
 oracle to all the Athenians they mean it not for thee ? If by 
 {heir prodigies they declare aloud to all Greece — to all man- 
 
PHILOSOPHY OP SOCRATES. 163 
 
 kind — the things which shall befall them, are they dumb to thee 
 alone? And art thou the only person whom they have placed 
 beyond their care ? Believest thou they would have wrought 
 into the mind of man a persuasion of their being able to make 
 him happy or miserable, if so be they had no such power? or 
 would not even man himself, long ere this, have seen through 
 the gross delusion ? How is it, Aristodemus, thou rememberest 
 or remarkest not, that the kingdoms and commonwealths most 
 renowned as well for their wisdom as antiquity, are those whose 
 piety and devotion hath been the most observable ? and that 
 even man himself is never so well disposed to serve the Deity 
 as in that part of life when reason bears the greatest sway, and 
 his judgment is supposed in its full strength and maturity? 
 Consider, my Aristodemus, that the soul which resides in thy 
 body can govern it at pleasure ; why then may not the soul of 
 the universe, which pervades and animates every part of it, 
 govern it in like manner ? If thine eye hath the power to take 
 in many objects, and these placed at no small distance from it, 
 marvel not if the eye of the Deity can at one glance compre- 
 hend the whole. And, as thou perceivest it not beyond thy 
 ability to extend thy care, at the same time, to the concerns of 
 Athens, Egypt, Sicily, why thinkest thou, my Aristodemus, that 
 the Providence of God may not easily extend itself through the 
 whole universe ? 
 
 " As therefore, among men, we make best trial of the affection 
 and gratitude of our neighbour by showing him kindness, and 
 discover his wisdom by consulting him in his distress, do thou 
 in like manner behave towards the gods ; and, if thou wouldst 
 experience what their wisdom and what their love, render thy- 
 self deserving the communication of some of those divine 
 secrets which may not be penetrated by man, and are imparted 
 to those alone who consult, who adore, who obey the Deity. 
 Then shait thou, my Aristodemus, understand there is a Being 
 whose eye pierceth throughout 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 bound 
 than those fixed by his own creation. 
 
 "By this discourse, and others of the like nature, Socrates 
 taught his friends that they were not only to forbear whatever 
 was impious, unjust, or unbecoming before man ; but even, 
 when alone, they ought to have a regard to all their actions, 
 since the gods have their eyes continually upon us, and none 
 
1*4 PHILOSOPHY OF SOCRATES. 
 
 of our designs can be concealed from them." — MemorabJia, 
 book i. chap. iv. 
 
 To this passage we must add another equally deserving of 
 attention : — 
 
 " Even among all those deities who so liberally bestow on 
 us good things, not one of them maketh himself an object of 
 our sight. And He 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 vigour, 
 whereby they are able to execute whatever he ordains with 
 that readiness and precision which surpass man's imagination ; 
 even he, the supreme God, who performeth all these wonders, 
 still holds himself invisible, and it is only in his works that we 
 are capable of admiring him. For consider, my Euthydemus, 
 the sun which seemeth, as it were, set forth to the view of all 
 men, yet suffereth not itself to be too curiously examined ; 
 punishing those with blindness who too rashly venture so to 
 do; and those ministers of the gods, whom they employ to 
 execute their bidding, remain to us invisible ; for, though the 
 thunderbolt is shot from on high, and breaketh in pieces what- 
 ever it findeth in its way, yet no one seeth it when it falls, when 
 it strikes, or when it retires ; neither are the winds discoverable 
 to our sight, though we plainly behold the ravages they every- 
 where make, and with ease perceive what time they are rising. 
 And, if there be anything in man, my Euthydemus, partaking 
 of the divine nature, it must surely be the soul which governs 
 and directs him ; yet no one considers this as an object of his 
 sight. Learn, therefore, not to despise those things which you 
 cannot see ; judge of the greatness of the power by the effects 
 which are produced, and reverence the Deity." — Memorabilia, 
 book. iv. chap. iii. 
 
 And this, together with the ideal character of his ethics, and 
 the heroic character of his life, have been his great titles to 
 fame. His Method, which constitutes his real philosophical 
 importance, has long since been discarded. If, however, 
 Science has discarded it, History gratefully remembers and 
 immortalizes it. The discovery of to-day will be the common- 
 place of to-morrow ; but it is not less a discovery. A Dwarf 
 standing on the shoulders of a Giant sees farther than the 
 Giant ; but, if he stood upon his own basis, he would scarcely see 
 at all. It behoves him to remember that the Giant is a Giant. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Note A. 
 
 TRANSLATION OF THE FIFTH CHAPTER OF 
 ARISTOTLE'S METAPHYSICS. 
 
 (The various disputes respecting the doctrines of the Pythagoreans we can 
 scarcely hope to have settled ; but that the reader may have the benefit 
 of the greatest authority, and the greatest intellect, on this subject, 
 we translate here such portions of the fifth chapter of Aristotle as 
 relate to Pythagoras.) 
 
 "In the age of these philosophers (the Eleats and Atomists), and even 
 before them, lived those called Pythagoreans, who at first applied them- 
 selves to mathematics, a science they improved ; and, penetrated with it, 
 they fancied that the principles of mathematics were the principles of all 
 things. 
 
 " Since Numbers are, by nature, prior to all things, in Numbers they 
 thought they perceived greater analogies with that which exists and that 
 which is produced (bfiOLWfiara 7roXXdt roic oiot icai yiyvo/itVotc) than in 
 fire, earth, or water. So that a certain combination of Numbers was 
 justice ; and a certain other combination of Numbers was the soul and 
 intelligence ; and a certain other combination of Numbers was opportunity 
 (Kaipog) ; and so of the rest. 
 
 11 Moreover, they saw in Numbers the combinations of harmony. Since, 
 therefore, all things seemed formed similarly to Numbers, and Numbers 
 being by nature anterior to things, they concluded that the elements 
 (<rrox«a) of Numbers are the elements of things ; and that the whole 
 heaven is in harmony and a Number. Having indicated the great analogies 
 between Numbers, and the phenomena of heaven and its parts, and with 
 the phenomena of the whole world (r»)v i\tjv diaicoopritnv), they formed a 
 system, and, if anything was defective in their system, they endeavoured to 
 rectify it. Thus, since Ten appeared to them a perfect number, and 
 potentially contains all numbers, they declared that the moving celestial 
 bodies (rd ftpbptva icard rbv ovpavbv) were ten in number ; but because 
 only nine are visible, they imagined (woiovvi) a tenth, the Anticthone. 
 
 " We have treated of all these things more in detail elsewhere. If we 
 
166 APPENDIX. 
 
 again speak of them, it is for the sake of establfetoiug arhat they held to be 
 the Principles of things, and how those Principles were confounded with 
 Causes. 
 
 " They maintained that the Number was the Beginning (Principle, dpxn) 
 of things, the cause of their material existence, and of their modifications 
 and different states. The elements (aroxeia) of Number are Odd and Even. 
 The Odd is finite, and Even infinite. Unity, the One, partakes of both of 
 these, and is both Odd and Even. All number is derived from the One. 
 The heavens, as we said before, are composed of numbers. Other Pytha- 
 goreans say there are ten principia, which they thus arrange : — 
 
 The finite and the infinite. 
 The odd and the even. 
 The one and the many. 
 The right and the left. 
 The male and the female. 
 The quiescent and the moving. 
 The right line and the curve. 
 Light and darkness. 
 Good and evil. 
 The square and the oblong. 
 
 ". . . . All the Pythagoreans considered the elements as material, foi 
 (he elements are in all things, and constitute the world. 
 
 " . . . . The finite, the infinite, and the One, they maintained to be not 
 separate existences, such as are fire, water, &c, but the Infinite perse and the 
 One per se are the substances of all things — the essence — the prima materia 
 of all things {avrb rb airupov, cat avrb rb ev-, ovaiav tlvai rovirov). They 
 began by attending only to the Form (Quality, ictpi' rov ri). Aristotle uses 
 rb ri for forma substantiate, causa formalis, as synonymous with rb ri 
 tori, or rb rode ri, or even ddog and fiop^tj), and began to define it, but on 
 this subject they were very imperfect. They define superficially, and that 
 which suited their definition they declared to be the essence {causa 
 materialist of the thing defined ; as if one should maintain that the double 
 and the number two are the same thing, because the double is first found 
 in the two. But two and the double are not equal (in essence), or, if so, 
 then the one would be many, a consequence which follows from their (the 
 Pythagorean) doctrine." 
 
 {We add also a passage from the Jth Chapter.) 
 
 " The Pythagoreans employ the Principia and Elements more strangely 
 than even the Physiologists ; the cause of which is that they do not take 
 them from sensible things {avrag ovk iK aioOrjTutv). However, all their 
 researches are physical ; all their systems are physical. They explain the 
 production of heaven, and observe that which takes place in its various 
 parts, and its revolutions ; and thus they employ their Principles and 
 Causes, as if they agreed with the Physiologists, that whatever is, is 
 material (aiVflijrov), and is that which contains what we call heaven. 
 
 " But their Causes and Principles we should pronounce sufficient (i«avdte) 
 to raise them up to the conception of Intelligible things — of things above 
 ?euse {kiravufitivat. cat iiri to. avutrkput rHv ovrvv), and would accord with 
 such a conception much better than with that of physical things." 
 
 This criticism of Aristotle's is a perfect refutation of those who see in 
 
APPENDIX. 167 
 
 Pythagoras the traces of symbolical doctrine. Aristotle sees how much 
 more rational the doctrine would have been had it been symbolical, but his 
 very remark proves that it was not so. 
 
 Note B. 
 
 This Note being intended for the critical reader, we give the original of 
 
 the verses in our text : — 
 
 'Qc yap skcmttoq l\u Kpaoiv fte\tu>v TroXvKafticTtitv, 
 Twt vooq avQpb>iroi<Ti irapkoTTjKSv. To yap aitrb 
 "Eartv oirtp ippovett niX'nav fvoig avQpioTroim. 
 Kai tramv, Kai iravri' to yap irXkov sari vorjfia. 
 
 The last sentence Ritter translates : — 
 
 " For thought is the fulness." 
 Objecting to Hegel's version of to irXkov, " the most," and to that of 
 Brandis, "the mightier," Ritter says the meaning is " the full." But we 
 shall then want an interpretation of " the full." What is it ? He elsewhere 
 slightly alters the phrase thus : — 
 
 " The fulness of all being is thought." 
 We speak with submission, but it appears to us that Ritter's assertion 
 respecting to rrXiov meaning " the full or " the fulness " is unwarrantable. 
 The ordinary meaning is certainly " the more " or " the most," and hence 
 used occasionally to signify perfection, as in Theocritus : — 
 
 Kai rag /3w»coXncac swi to 7rXiov uceo ftuxrag. — Idy. i. 20 
 
 When Pannenides, therefore, uses the phrase t6 icXkov iari rof)pa, he 
 seems to us to have the ordinary meaning in view ; he speaks of to nXkov 
 as a necessary consequence of the iroXv ra/i7rroc. Man has many-jointed 
 limbs, ergo, many sensations. If he had more limbs he would have more 
 sensations. The highest degree of organization gives the highest degree 
 of thought. This explanation is in conformity with what Aristotle says on 
 introducing the passage ; is in conformity with the line immediately 
 preceding : — 
 
 ?<xrtv oirep <ppov'sti fiiXiuv $voiq dvOptoiroicti ; 
 
 is in conformity with the explanation of the scholiast Asclepias, rb irvkov 
 iari vor}p.a, wpooyiyverai Ik ri/c irXeovog aiaOrjatug Kai aKpifisoTtpag ; and, 
 finally, is in conformity with the opinion attributed to Parmenides by 
 Plutarch, that " sentir et penser ne lui paraissaient choses distinctes, ni 
 entre elles ni de Porganisation."* 
 
 It is on this account we reject the reading of iroXvirXdyKrutv, "far- 
 wandering," in place of icoXvKdfiwTuiv, "many-jointed," suggested by 
 Karsten. The change is arbitrary, and for the worse, 7roXv7rXdyKTu>v 
 having reference only to the feet, whereas the simile in Parmenides is 
 meant to apply to the whole man. 
 
 The meaning of the verses is, therefore, that the intelligence of man is 
 formed according to his many-jointed frame, i.e., dependent on his organi- 
 zation. 
 
 * Ch. Kenouvier, ' Manuel de la Philos. Ancienne,' i. p. 15a, who cite* ' Plutarch, 
 Opia. das Philos.,' iv. 5. 
 
i68 APPENDIX, 
 
 Note C. 
 
 The original of this disputed passage is this : — 'AvaCayopac di 6 
 K\al£ofiiviOQ rij p.kv TjXtKHf irportpog atv rovrov, rote S'tpyoig Vortpog — 
 which is rendered by MM. Pierron and Zevort : " Anaxagore de Clazomene, 
 l'ain6 d'Empedocle, rietait pas arrive a un systeme aussi plausible" — 
 La Metaphysique d' Aristotle, i. p. 233. 
 
 This agrees with our version. We confess, however, that on a first 
 glance M. Cousin's version better preserves the force of the antithesis ry 
 fikv ijfXiicip irpdrtpog — roic 0' fpyoic varepog. But the reasons alleged in 
 our text prevent a concurrence in his interpretation, and we must look 
 closer. MM. Pierron and Zevort, in their note on the passage, remark : 
 " Mais les mots tpyy, ipyoig, dans une opposition, ont ordinairement une 
 signification vague, comme re, revera, chez lez Latins, et, chez nous, en 
 fait, en realite"." The force of the objection does not strike us. If 
 Anaxagoras was in fact, in reality, posterior to Empedocles, we can only 
 understand this in the sense M. Cousin has understood Aristotle, and, 
 moreover, MM. Pierron and Zevort here contradict their translation, which 
 says that, in point of fact, the system of Anaxagoras was not so plausible 
 as that of Empedocles. 
 
 More weight must be laid on the meaning of vortpog, which certainly 
 cannot be exclusively taken to mean posterior in point of time. In the 
 eleventh chapter of Aristotle's fifth book, he treats of all the significations 
 of 7rp6rtpoc and vortpog. One of these significations is superiority and 
 : nferiority. In the sense of inferiority vortpog is often used by the poets. 
 Thus Sophocles : — 
 
 *Q fxiapbv tfQog, nai yvvaitcog vortpov. 
 " O shameful character, below a woman ! " 
 
 " Inferior " is the primitive meaning ; thus, also, we say, " second to 
 none " for " inferior to none." 
 
 This meaning of vortpog, namely, of inferiority, is the one always under- 
 stood by the commentators on the passage in question ; none of them 
 understood a chronological posteriority, irportpog indicates priority in 
 point of time ; vortpog inferiority in point of merit. Thus Philopon : 
 " prior quidem tempore, sed posterior et manens secundum opinionem," 
 fol. 2a ; and the anonymous scholiast of the Vatican MS. : irporepoc yovv 
 Ttp \povtp, &W vortpog Kal tWuirtav Kara T"qv SoZav : " first indeed in 
 time, but second and inferior in point of doctrine. ' ' 
 
 The only question -which now remains to be answered in order to estab- 
 lish the proof of the foregoing interpretation of vortpog, is this : Did 
 Aristotle regard the system ot Anaxagoras as inferior to that of Em- 
 pedocles ? 
 
 This question we can answer distinctly in the affirmative. The readei 
 will remember our citation of the passage in which Aristotle blames Anaxa- 
 goras for never employing his First Cause (Intelligence) except upon 
 emergencies (see page 9 ). Aristotle continues thus : " Empedocles 
 employs his causes more abundantly, though not indeed sufficiently." 
 Kai 'EfiirtdoKXrjg iimrXtov \t\v rovrt^ xprjrat rolg alriotg, ov ya) ovrt 
 'ucavuig.—Met. i. 4. 
 
JFtftf) IBpoci). 
 
 PARTIAL ADOPTION OF THE SO CR A TIC METHOD, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE MEGARIC SCHOOL : EUCLID. 
 
 " Several philosophers," says Cicero, " drew from the conver- 
 sations of Socrates very different results ; and, according as 
 each adopted views which harmonized with his own, they in 
 their turn became heads of philosophical schools all differing 
 amongst each other." It is one of the peculiarities of a 
 philosophical Method, to adapt itself indiscriminately to all sorts 
 of systems. A scientific Method is confined to one : if various 
 and opposing systems spring from it, they spring from an 
 erroneous or imperfect application of it. 
 
 On the Socratic Method various and opposing systems were 
 elaborated, all of which were equally legitimate, though not 
 equally plausible. On the Method of Descartes, the systems 
 of Spinoza, Malebranche, Leibnitz, Locke, and Hume, were 
 equally legitimate. But on the Method of Bacon only one 
 tendency is legitimate ; only one result can be obtained — that, 
 namely, of the reduction of many phenomena to one law. 
 
 We must not be surprised therefore to find many contradic- 
 tory systems claiming parentage with Socrates. But we must 
 be on our guard against supposing, as is usually done, that 
 this adaptation to various systems is a proof of the excellence 
 of the Socratic Method. It is only a proof of its vagueness. 
 It may be accepted as a sign of the great influence exercised 
 upon succeeding philosophers ; it is no sign that the influence 
 was in the right direction ; rather the contrary. 
 
 As we said, Socrates had no school \ he taught no system 
 
l7o THE MBGARIC SCHOOL: 
 
 He exhibited a Method; and this Method his hearers severalty 
 applied. Around him were men of various ages, various tem- 
 peraments, and various opinions. He discoursed with each 
 upon his own subject. With Xenophon on Politics; with 
 Theages or Theaetetus on science; with Antisthenes on morals; 
 with Ion on poetry ; and so forth. Some were convinced by 
 him ; others merely refuted. The difference between the two 
 is great. Of those who were convinced were formed the so- 
 called Socratic Schools ; those who were only refuted, became 
 his enemies. But of the former some were naturally only 
 more or less convinced; that is, were willing to adopt his 
 opinions on some subjects, but remained stubborn on others. 
 These are the imperfect Socratists. Amongst the latter was 
 Euclid of Megara. 
 
 Euclid, who must not be confounded with the great Mathe- 
 matician, was born at Megara ; date unknown. He had early 
 imbibed a great love of philosophy, and had diligently studied 
 the writings of Parmenides and the other Eleatics. From 
 Zeno he acquired great facility in dialectics ; and this continued 
 to be his chief excellence, even after his acquaintance with 
 Socrates, who reproved him for it as sophistical. 
 
 His delight in listening to Socrates was so great that he 
 frequently exposed his life to do so. A decree was passed, in 
 consequence of the enmity existing between Athens and 
 Megara, that any inhabitant of Megara found in Athens should 
 forfeit his life; Euclid, however, braved the penalty. He 
 frequently came to Athens at night, disguised as a female. 
 The distance was twenty miles. At the end of his journey he 
 was recompensed by the fascinating conversation of Socrates ; 
 and he returned to meditate on the results of their arguments. 
 
 Brucker's supposition that a rupture was caused between 
 them in consequence of Socrates having reproved Euclid's dis- 
 putatious tendency, is wholly without foundation, and seems 
 contradicted by the notorious fact that, on the death of 
 Socrates, Plato and the majority of the disciples retired to 
 Megara, in fear of some popular outbreak of the Athenians, 
 who were in a state of rage against all the philosopher's 
 friends. Euclid received them well. Bound by the same ties 
 of friendship towards the illustrious martyr, and sharing some 
 of his opinions, the Socratists made some stay in Megara. 
 Differences, however, arose ; as they will amongst all commu- 
 nities of the kind. Plato, and some others returned to Athens 
 
EUCLID. 
 
 & 
 
 as soon as the state of the public mind admitted their doing so 
 with safety. The rest remained with Euclid. 
 
 " The character of the Megaric doctrine, so far as it is pos- 
 sible to fix it in the defective state of our information, may be 
 briefly given as the Eleatic view enlarged by the Socratic 
 conviction of the moral obligation, and the laws of scientific 
 thought"* 
 
 We confess our inability to comprehend this. In Euclid we 
 have no hint of " moral obligation " ; in Socrates we are 
 unaware of the " laws of scientific thought" If, by the former, 
 Ritter means that Euclid gave an Ethical and Socratic mean- 
 ing to the Eleatic doctrine, he is correct ; if by the latter he 
 means that Euclid adopted the Socratic Method of Induction 
 and Definitions, he is hopelessly wrong ; and, if he does not 
 mean that by " laws of scientific thought " we are at a loss to 
 understand what he does mean. 
 
 Euclid agreed with the Eleatics in maintaining that there 
 was but One unalterable Being, which can be known by \ / 
 Reason only. This one Being was not simply The One ;r 
 neither was it simply Intelligence ; it was The Good . This 
 One Being received various names according to its various 
 aspects : thus it was sometimes Wisdom (<f>p6vrj<rts) ; some- i / 
 times God (0cos) ; at others Reason (vovs) ; and so forth. Thi' 
 One Good (Zv to ayadov) is the only Being that really exists, \y 
 everything opposed to it has nothing but a phenomenal, tran- 
 sitory existence. 
 
 Such is the outline of his doctrine, as presented by Diogenes , 
 Laertius. In it the reader will have no difficulty in detecting [/ 
 )x>th the Eleatic and Socratic elements. The conception of . 
 God as to ayaObv — the Good — is purely Socratic : and the [/ 
 denial of any existence to things opposed to the Good is an 
 explanation of that passage in Plato's ' Republic,' when 
 Socrates declares God not to be the author of all things, but * . 
 only of such as are good.+ 
 
 The Megaric doctrine is therefore the Eleatic doctrine, with 
 an Ethical tendency borrowed from Socrates, who taught that y> 
 «£irtae*was not any partial cultivation of the human mind, but 
 constitutes the true and entire essence of the rational man, and 
 indeed of the whole universe. The identificati on of Virtue U- 
 with Wisdom is also Socratic ' " 
 
 • 'Ritter.* 
 
 t 09 tdvTutv alriov top 0<ov, dk\a rwv ayaOvv. — Lib. ii. p. loo. 
 
 l/Gc 
 
172 THE MEGARIC SCHOOL: EUCLID. 
 
 With respect to Euclid's dialectics there is one point, often 
 alluded to, variously interpreted, and which is in direct oppo- 
 sition to the Method of Socrates. In refuting his adversaries 
 he did not attack the premisses, but the conclusion.* This is 
 certainly the reverse of the manner of Socrates, who always 
 managed to draw new conclusions from old premisses, and 
 who, as Xenophon says, proceeded from the generally known 
 to the less known. As if to mark this distinction more com- 
 pletely, we are told that Euclid rejected the analogical mode of 
 reasoning (8ia 7rapa/3oX^s Xoyov). If, said he, the things com- 
 pared are alike, it is better to confine the attention to that 
 originally in question ; if the things compared are unlike, there 
 must be error in the conclusion. This precept strikes into the 
 weakness of Socrates' method of induction ; which was a 
 species of analogical reasoning of not the highest order. 
 
 In dialectics, therefore, we see Euclid following out the 
 Eleatic tendency, and carrying forward the speculations of 
 Zeno. It was this portion of his doctrine that his immediate 
 followers, Eubulides, Diodorus and Alexinus, undertook to 
 carry out. The Socratic element was further developed by 
 Stilpo. 
 
 " The majority of the later members of the Megaric school," 
 says Ritter, " are famous either for the refutation of opposite 
 doctrines, or for the invention and application of certain fal- 
 lacies; on which account they were occasionally called Eristici 
 and Dialectici. Still it may be presumed that they did no: 
 employ these fallacies for the purposes of delusion, but of 
 instructing rash and hasty thinkers, and exemplifying the 
 superficial vanity of common opinion. At all events it is cer- 
 tain that they were mainly occupied with the forms of thought, 
 more perhaps, with a view to the discovery of particular rules 
 than to the foundation of a scientific system or method." 
 
 * ' Diog. Laert.,' ii. 107. This is paraphrased by Enfield into the fol- 
 lowing c ntradictory statement : — u He judged that legitimate argumenta- 
 tion consists in deducing fair conclusions from acknowledged premisses." — 
 Hist, of Phil., i., p. 199. The translation in the text is the right one, and 
 adopted by the best writers. 
 
THE CYRENAIC SCHOOL : ARISTIPPUS. 173 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CYRENAIC SCHOOL : ARISTIPPUS. 
 
 Among the " imperfect Socratists " we must rank Aristippus, 
 the founder of the Cyrenaic School, which borrowed its name 
 from the birth-place of its founder : Cyrene in Africa. 
 
 Aristippus was descended from wealthy and distinguished 
 parents, and was consequently thrown into the vortex of luxu- 
 rious debauchery which then characterized the colony of 
 Minyae. He came over to Greece to attend the Olympic 
 games. There he heard so much of the wisdom of Socrates, 
 that he determined on sharing his enchanting discourse. He 
 made Socrates an offer of a large sum of money ; which, as 
 usual, was declined. The great Talker did not accept money j 
 but he willingly admitted Aristippus among the number of his 
 disciples. It is commonly asserted that the pupil did not 
 agree well with his master ; and that his fondness for pleasure 
 was offensive to Socrates. There is no authority for such an 
 assertion. He remained with Socrates, until the execution of 
 the latter; and there was no bond on either side to have 
 prevented their separation as soon as they disagreed. The 
 impression seems to have originated in the discussion reported 
 by Xenophon,* wherein Aristippus expresses his political 
 indifference, and Socrates by an exaggerated extension of 
 logic endeavours to prove his views to be absurd. But this is 
 simply a difference of opinion, such as must have existed 
 between Socrates and many of his followers. It merely shows 
 that Aristippus thought for himself. 
 
 From Athens he went to ^Egina, where he met with Lais, 
 the world-renowned courtezan, whom he accompanied to 
 Corinth. On his way from Corinth to Asia he was shipwrecked 
 on the Island of Rhodes. On the sea-coast he discovered a 
 geometrical diagram, and exclaimed : " Take courage, I see 
 here the footsteps of men." On arriving at the principal town 
 he managed to procure for himself and friends a hospitable 
 reception. He used to say : " Send two men amongst 
 strangers, and you will see the advantage of the philosopher." 
 
 Aristippus was one of those 
 
 *' Children of the Sun whose blood is fire ; " 
 
 but to strong sensual passions he united a calm regulative 
 * 'Memorabilia,' ii. c. 1. 
 
174 THE CYRENAIC SCHOOL : 
 
 intellect. Prone to luxury, he avoided excess. Easy and 
 careless in ordinary affairs, he had great dominion over his 
 desires. Pleasure was his grand object in life ; but he knew 
 how to temper enjoyment with moderation. In disposition he 
 was easy and yielding ; a " fellow of infinite mirth " j a philo- 
 sopher whose brow was never " sicklied o'er with the pale cast 
 of thought." He had no dignity ; which is but too often a 
 stiff-necked virtue. He had no sternness. Gay, brilliant, 
 careless, and enjoying, he became the ornament and delight of 
 the Court of Dionysius — that Court already illustrious by the 
 splendid genius of Plato and the rigid abstinence of Diogenes. 
 The grave deportment of Plato and the savage virtue of 
 Diogenes had less charm for the Tyrant than the easy gaiety of 
 Aristippus, whose very vices were elegant. His ready wit was 
 often put to the test. On one occasion three hetairce were 
 presented to him for him to make a choice : he took them all 
 three, observing that it had been fatal even to Paris to make a 
 choice. On another occasion, in a dispute with ^Eschines, 
 who was becoming violent, he said : " Let us give over : we 
 have quarrelled, it is true ; but I, as your senior, have a right 
 to claim the precedency in the reconciliation."* 
 
 In his old age he appears to have returned to Cyrene, and 
 there opened his school. 
 
 His philosophy, as Hegel remarks, takes its colour from his 
 personality. So individual is it, that we should have passed it 
 over entirely, had it not been a precursor of Epicureanism. 
 Its relation to Socrates is also important. 
 
 In the only passage, we believe, in which Aristotle f men- 
 tions Aristippus, he speaks of him as a Sophist. What does 
 this mean ? Was he one of the professed Sophists ? — No. It 
 
 * Several of his repartees are recorded by Laertius. We add the best 
 of them : — Scinus, the treasurer of Dionysius, a man of low character but 
 immense wealth, once showed Aristippus over his house. While he was 
 expatiating on the splendour of every part, even to the floors, the philo- 
 sopher spat in his face. Scinus was furious. "Pardon me," exclaimed 
 Aristippus, "there was no other place where I could have spat with 
 decency." One day, in interceding with the Tyrant for a friend, he threw 
 himself on his knees. Being reproached for such want of dignity, he 
 answered : " Is it my fault if Dionysius has his ears in his feet ? " One day 
 he asked the Tyrant for some money. Dionysius made him own that a philo- 
 sopher had no need of money. "Give, give," reolied ArfcHnpnc?, "and 
 we will settle the question at once." D.onysius gave. " A/mm ' said ti*e 
 philosopher, " I have no need of money." 
 
 t ' Met.' iii. c. ii. 
 
ARISTIPPUS. 
 
 (& 
 
 means, we believe, that he shared the opinion of the Sophists 
 respecting the uncertainty of Science. That he did share this 
 opinion is evident from Sextus Empiricus,* who details his 
 reasons : such as that external objects make different impres- 
 sions on different senses. The names which we impose on 
 these objects express our sensations, but do not express the 
 things ; there is no criterium of truth ; each judges accordingly 
 to his impressions ; none judge correctly. 
 
 In so far he was a Sophist ; but, as the disciple of Socrates, 
 he learned that the criterium of truth must be sought within. 
 He sought there. He dismissed with contempt all physical 
 speculations, as on subjects beyond human comprehension, 
 and concentrated his researches upon the moral constitution 
 of man. 
 
 In so far he was a Socratist. But, although he took his 
 main direction from Socrates, yet his own individuality quickly 
 turned him into by-paths which his master would have 
 shunned. His was not a scientific intellect. Logical deduc- 
 tion, which was the rigorous process of his master, suited 
 neither his views nor his disposition. He was averse to 
 abstract speculations. His tendency was directly towards the 
 concrete. Hence, while Socrates was preaching about The 
 Good, Aristippus wished to specify what it was ; and resolved 
 it into Pleasure. It was the pith and kernel of Socrates' 
 Ethical system, that Happiness was the aim and desire of all 
 men — the motor of all action ; men only erred because of 
 erroneous notions of what constituted Happiness. Thus the 
 wise man alone knew that to endure an injury was better than 
 to inflict it ; he alone knew that immoderate gratification of 
 the senses, being followed by misery, did not constitute Hap- 
 piness, but the contrary. Aristippus thought this too vague. 
 He not only reduced this general idea to a more specific 
 one, viz. Pleasure ; he endeavoured to show how truth had 
 its only criterium in the sensation of pleasure or of pain. 
 Of that which is without us we can know nothing truly; 
 we only know through our senses, and our senses deceive 
 us with respect to objects. But our senses do not deceive 
 us with respect to our sensations. We may not perceive 
 things truly ; but it is true that we perceive. We may doubt 
 respecting external objects; we cannot doubt respecting our 
 sensations. Amongst those sensations we naturally seek the 
 • 'Adv. Math.' vii. p. 173. 
 
1/ 
 
 \S 2 
 
 176 THE CYRENAIC SCHOOL: ARISTIPPUS. 
 
 repetition of such as are pleasurable, and shun those that are 
 painful. 
 
 Pleasure, then, as the only positive good, and as the only 
 positive test of what was good, he declared to be the end of 
 life ; but, inasmuch as for constant pleasure the soul must 
 preserve its dominion over desires, this pleasure was only 
 another form of the Socratic temperance. It is distinguished 
 from the Socratic conception of Pleasure, however, in being 
 positive, and not merely the gratification of a want. In the 
 ' Phaedo,' Socrates, on being released from his chains, reflects 
 upon the intimate connexion of pleasure and pain ; and calls 
 the absence of pain, pleasure. Aristippus, on the contrary 
 taught that pleasure is not the mere removal of pain : they are 
 both positive emotions ; non-pleasure and non-pain are not 
 emotions, but as it were the sleep of the soul.* 
 
 In the application of this doctrine to ethics, Aristippus 
 betrays both his Sophistic and Socratic education. With the 
 Sophists he regarded pleasure and pain as the proper criteria 
 of actions ; no action being in itself either good or bad, but 
 only such according to convention. With Socrates, however, 
 he regarded the advantages acquired by injustice to be trifling* 
 whereas the evils and apprehensions of punishment are con- 
 siderable ; and pleasure was the result, notjpf individual pr os« 
 perity alone, but of the welfare of the whole State. 
 
 In reviewing the philosophy, such as it was, of Aristippus 
 we cannot fail to be struck with the manifest influence of 
 Socrates, although his method was not followed. We see the 
 Ethical tendency predominating. In the Megaric School the 
 bstract idea of The Good (to ayaOdv) of Socrates, was 
 grounded on the Eleatic conception of The One. In the 
 Cyrenaic the abstract conception was reduced to the concrete, 
 Pleasure ; and this became the only ground of certitude, and 
 morals the only science. In the Cynic school we shall see a 
 still further development in this direction. 
 * * Diog. Laert.,' ii. 89. 
 
THE CYNICS. , 77 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ANTISTHENES AND DIOGENES: THE CYNICS. 
 
 Cynicism is an imposing blasphemy. It imposed on antiquity ; 
 it has imposed on many modern imaginations by the energy of 
 its self-denials. But it is a " blasphemy against the divine 
 beauty of life ; " blasphemy against the divinity of man. To 
 lead the life of a Dog is not the vocation of man.* 
 
 Nevertheless, there were some points both in the characters 
 and doctrines of the founders of this school which may justly 
 claim the admiration of mankind. Their contemporaries 
 regarded them with feelings mingled with awe. We at least 
 may pay a tribute to their energy. 
 
 Antisthenes was born at Athens, of a Phrygian mother, 
 about the 90th Olympiad. In early life he distinguished him- 
 self at %e battle of Tanagra. After this he studied under 
 Gorgias the Sophist, and established a school for himself; but 
 captivated by the practical wisdom of Socrates, he ceased to 
 teach, and became once more a pupil; nay, more, he per- 
 suaded all his pupils to come with him to Socrates, and there 
 learn true wisdom. This is a bit of genuine modesty, such as 
 philosophers have rarely exhibited. He was then somewhat 
 advanced in life; his opinions on many points were too 
 deeply rooted to be exchanged for others ; but the tendency 
 of the Socratic philosophy towards Ethics, and the character of 
 that system as leading to the moral perfection of man seemed 
 entirely to possess him. It will be remembered that Socrates 
 did not teach .positive doctrines; he enabled each earnest 
 thinker to evolve a doctrine for himself All Socrates did was to 
 give an impulsion in a certain direction, and to furnish a certain 
 Method. His real disciples accepted the Method ; his imper- 
 fect disciples only accepted the impulsion. Antisthenes was 
 of the latter. Accordingly, his system was essentially personal. 
 He was stern and his doctrine was rigid ; he was proud and 
 his doctrine was haughty ; he was cold and his doctrine was 
 unsympathizing and self-isolating ; he was brave and his doc- 
 trine was a battle. The effeminacy of the luxurious he 
 despised ; the baseness of courtiers and flatterers he hated. 
 
 * It may be well to inform the unlearned reader that Cynic means " dog- 
 
1 7b ANTISTHENES AND DIOGENES : 
 
 He worshipped Virtue; but it was Virtue, ferocious and 
 unbending. 
 
 Even whilst with Socrates he displayed his contempt of 
 ordinary usages and his pride in differing from other men. 
 He used to appear in a threadbare cloak, with an ostentatious 
 poverty. Socrates saw through it all, and exclaimed : " I see 
 your vanity, Antisthenes, peering through the holes in your 
 cloak." How different was this from Socrates ! He, too, had 
 inured himself to poverty, to heat and to cold, in order that he 
 might bear the chances of fortune ; but he made no virtue of 
 being ragged, hungry and cold. Antisthenes thought he could 
 only preserve his virtue by becoming a savage. He wore no 
 garment except a coarse cloak ; allowed his beard to grow, 
 carried a wallet and a staff; and renounced all diet but the 
 simplest. His manners corresponded to his appearance. Stern, 
 reproachful, and bitter in his language ; careless and indecent 
 in his gestures. His contempt of all sensual enjoyment was 
 expressed in his saying, " 1 would rather be mad than 
 sensual."* 
 
 On the death of Socrates he formed a school, and chose for 
 his place oi meeting a public place called the Cynosarges 
 (Temple of the White Dog), from which it is said the sect of 
 Cynics derives its name ; others derive it from the snarling 
 propensities of the founder, who was frequently called " The 
 Dog." As he grew old, his gloomy temper became moroseness : 
 he became so insupportable that all his scholars left him, 
 except Diogenes of Sinope, who was with him at his death. 
 In his last agony Diogenes asked him, whether he needed 
 a friend. " Will a friend release me from this pain ? " he 
 replied. Diogenes gave him a dagger, saying, " This will." 
 "I wish to be freed from pain, not from life," was the 
 reply. 
 
 The contempt he uniformly expressed for mankind may be 
 read in two of his sayings. Being asked, what was the pecu- 
 liar advantage to be derived from philosophy, he answered : 
 " It enables me to keep company with myself." Being told, 
 that he was greatly praised by many : " Have I done anything 
 wrong, then, that I am praised?" he asked.f 
 
 * It is thus we would interpret ' Diog. Laert.,' vi. 3 : p.avtirjv uaXkov n 
 rjoQtitlv. Ritter give* this version : — "I had rather go mad than experience 
 pleasure," which is an outrageous sentiment. 
 
 t Dr. Enfield, who generally manages to introduce some blunder into 
 
THE CYNICS. 179 
 
 Diogenes of Sinope is generally remembered as the repre- 
 sentative of Cynicism ; probably, because more anecdotes of 
 his life have descended to us. He was the son of a banker at 
 Sinope, who was convicted of debasing the coin ; an affair in 
 which the son was also supposed to have been implicated. 
 Diogenes fled to Athens. From the heights of splendour and 
 extravagance he found himself reduced to squalid poverty. 
 The magnificence of poverty, which Antisthenes proclaimed,* 
 attracted him. Poor, he was ready to embrace the philosophy 
 of poverty : an outcast, he was ready to isolate himself from 
 society ; branded with disgrace, he was ready to shelter him- 
 self under a philosophy which branded all society. Having 
 in his own person experienced how little wealth and luxury 
 can do for the happiness of man, he was the more inclined to 
 try the converse; having experienced how wealth prompts to 
 vice, and how desires generate desires, he was willing to try 
 the efficacy of poverty and virtue. He went to Antisthenes ; 
 was refused. He continued to offer himself to the Cynic as a 
 scholar ; the Cynic raised his knotty staff, and threatened to 
 strike him if he did not depart. " Strike ! " replied Diogenes : 
 " you will not find a stick hard enough to conquer my perse- 
 verance." Antisthenes, overcome, accepted him as a pupil. 
 
 To live a life of virtue was henceforward his sole aim. That 
 virtue was Cynicism. It consisted in the complete renuncia- 
 tion of all luxury — the subjugation of all sensual desires. It 
 was a war carried on by the Mind against the Body. As 
 with the Ascetics of a later day, the basis of a pure life was 
 thought to be the annihilation of the Body; the nearer any 
 one approached to such a suicide, the nearer he was to the ideal 
 of virtue. The Body was vile, filthy, degraded and degrading ; 
 it was the curse of man ; it was the clog upon the free develop- 
 ment of Mind ; it was wrestled with, hated, despised. This 
 beautiful Body, so richly endowed for enjoyment, was regarded 
 as the " sink of all iniquity." 
 
 Accordingly, Diogenes limited his desires to necessities. 
 He ate little ; and what he ate was of the coarsest. He tried 
 to live upon raw meat and unboiled vegetables; but failed. His 
 dress consisted solely of a cloak : when he asked Antisthenes 
 
 every page, has spoiled this repartee, by giving it as a reply to the praise 
 of a bad man. Yet the language of Diogenes Laertius is very explicit :— 
 iroXXoi at txavovai, vi. 8. 
 
 • See the ' Banquet ' of Xenophon. 
 
ifc> ANTISTHENES AND DIOGENES i 
 
 for a shirt he was told to fold his cloak in two ; he did so. A 
 wallet and a huge stick completed his accoutrements. Seeing 
 a little boy drinking water out of his scooped hand, he threw 
 away his cup, declaring it superfluous. He slept under the 
 marble porticoes of the buildings, or in his celebrated Tub, 
 which was his place of residence. He took his meals in public. 
 In public he performed all those actions which the connate 
 decency of man has condemned to privacy. Decency of every 
 kind he studiously outraged. It was a part of his system to do so. 
 Everything, not in itself improper, ought, he said, to be per- 
 formed publicly — a sophism which could not have deluded any 
 one. Besides he was wont to annoy people with indecent 
 gestures ; had he a philosophical reason for that also ? 
 
 Doubts have been expressed respecting his Tub, which it is 
 thought was only an occasional residence, and used by him as 
 expressive of his contempt for luxury. We incline, however, to 
 the tradition. It is in keeping with all we know of the man ; 
 and seems confirmed by a passage in Aristophanes.* 
 
 It is not difficult to imagine the effect created by the Cynics 
 in the gay luxurious city of Athens. There the climate, no less 
 than the prevailing manners, incited everyone to enjoyment. 
 The Cynics told them, that the enjoyment was unworthy of 
 men ; that there were higher and purer things for man to seek. 
 To the polished elegance of Athenian manners, the Cynics 
 opposed the most brutal coarseness they could assume. To 
 the friendly flatteries of conversation, they opposed the bitter- 
 est pungencies of malevolent frankness. They despised all 
 men ; and told them so. 
 
 Now, although we cannot but regard Cynicism as a very 
 preposterous doctrine — as a feeble solution of the great problem 
 of morals, and not a very amiable feebleness — we are quite 
 prepared to admit that it required some great qualities in its 
 upholders. It required a great rude energy ; a fanatical logi- 
 cality of mind \ a power over self, diseased it may be, but still 
 a power. These qualities are not common qualities; and 
 therefore they command respect. Any deviation from the 
 beaten path implies a certain resolution ; a steady and consis- 
 tent deviation implies force. Now force is what all men 
 respect. The power of subjugating ordinary desires to one 
 remote but calculated end, always impresses men with a sense 
 
 * 'Knights/ 791. The soldiers are there spoken of as having been 
 forced to live in wine-casks and cellars during the war. 
 
THE CYNICS. i8i 
 
 of unusual power. Few are aware that to reflate desires is 
 more difficult than to subjugate them — requires greater power 
 of mind: greater will; greater constancy. Yet every one 
 knows that abstinence is easier than temperance : on the same 
 principle, it is easier to be a Cynic than a wise and virtuous 
 Epicurean. 
 
 That which prevents our feeling the respect for the Cynics 
 which the ancients seem to have felt, and which, indeed, some 
 portions of the Cynical doctrine would otherwise induce us to 
 feel, is the studious and uncalled for outrages on common 
 decency and humanity which Diogenes, especially, perpetrated. 
 All the anecdotes that have come down to us seem to reveal a 
 snarling and malevolent spirit, worshipping Virtue only because 
 it was opposed to the vices of contemporaries ; taking a pride 
 in poverty and simplicity only because those around sought 
 wealth and luxury. It may be well to raise an earnest protest 
 against the vices of one's age ; but it is not well to bring virtue 
 into discredit by the manner of the protest. Doubtless the 
 Athenians needed reproof and reformation, and some exaggera- 
 tion on the opposite side might have been allowed to the re- 
 formers. But Diogenes was so feeble in doctrine, so brutal in 
 manner, that we should prefer the debauchery of the first pro- 
 tligate we met with in that profligate city, to the debauchery of 
 pride which disgraced the Cynic. The whole character of the 
 man is exhibited in one anecdote. Plato had given a splendid 
 entertainment to some friends. Diogenes entered, unbidden, 
 and stamping on the rich carpets, said, " Thus I trample on 
 the pride of Plato;" whereupon Plato admirably replied, " With 
 greater pride, O Diogenes." 
 
 Diogenes, doubtless, practised great abstinence. He made 
 a virtue of his necessity ; and, being poor, resolved to be osten- 
 tatiously poor. The ostentation, being novel, was mistaken 
 for something greater than it was ; being in contradiction to 
 the universal tendency of his contemporaries, it was supposed 
 to spring from higher motives. To us it seems a miserable 
 mask worn by a mountebank. There are men who bear 
 poverty meekly ; there are men who look upon wealth without 
 envy, certain that wealth does not give happiness ; there are 
 men whose souls are so fixed on higher things as utterly to 
 disregard the pomps and shows of the world ; but none of these 
 despise wealth, they disregard it; none of these display their 
 feelings, they are content to act upon them. The virtue that 
 
I0t ANTISTHENES AND DIOGENES: 
 
 is loud, noisy, ostentatious, and self-affirmative, looks very like 
 an obtrusive egotism. And this was the virtue of the Cynics. 
 Pretending to reform mankind, it began by blaspheming huma- 
 nity; pretending to correct the effeminacies of the age, it 
 studiously outraged all the decencies of life. Eluding the real 
 difficulty of the problem, it pretended to solve it by unabashed 
 insolence. 
 
 In his old age Diogenes was taken captive by pirates, who 
 carried him to Crete, and exposed hiin for sale, as a slave. On 
 being asked what he could do, he replied : " Govern men : sell 
 me, therefore, to one who wants a master." Xeniades, a 
 wealthy Corinthian, struck with this reply, purchased him, and, 
 on returning to Corinth, gave him his liberty and consigned his 
 children to his education. The children were taught to be 
 Cynics, much to their own satisfaction. It was during this 
 period that his world-renowned interview with Alexander took 
 place. The prince, surprised at not seeing Diogenes joining 
 the crowd of his flatterers, went to see him. He found the 
 Cynic sitting in his tub, basking in the sun. " I am Alexander 
 the Great," said he. " I am Diogenes the Cynic," was the 
 reply. Alexander then asked him, if there was anything he 
 could do for him. " Yes ; stand aside from between me and 
 the sun." Surprised at such indifference to princely favour — 
 an indifference so strikingly contrasted with everything he 
 could hitherto have witnessed — he exclaimed: "Were I not 
 Alexander, I would be Diogenes ! " One day, being brought 
 before the king, and being asked whom he was, Diogenes 
 replied : " A spy on your cupidity ; " language, the boldness 
 of which must have gained him universal admiration, as imply- 
 ing great singularity as well as force of character. 
 
 Singularity and Insolence may be regarded as his grand 
 characteristics. Both of these are exemplified in the anecdote 
 of his lighting a lamp in the daytime, and peering about the 
 streets as if earnestly seeking something : being asked what he 
 sought, he replied : "A Man." The point of this story is lost 
 in the usual version, which makes him seek " an honest man." 
 The words in Laertius are simply : avOpioirov tyrta — " I seek a 
 man." Diogenes did not seek honesty ; he wanted to find a 
 man, in whom honesty would be included with many other 
 qualities. It was his constant reproach to his contemporaries, 
 that they had no manhood. He said, he had never seen men; 
 at Sparta, he had seen children ; at Athens, women. One 
 
THE CYNICS. 183 
 
 day, he called out : H Approach, all men ! n When some ap- 
 proached, he beat them back with his club, saying : " I called 
 for men ; ye are excrements." 
 
 Thus he lived till his ninetieth year, bitter, brutal, ostentatious 
 and abstemious ; disgracing the title of The Dog (for a dog has 
 affection, gratitude, sympathy, and caressing manners), yet 
 growling over his unenvied virtue as a cur growls over his 
 meatless bone : for ever snarling and snapping without occa- 
 sion. An object of universal attention ; and, from many 
 quarters, of unfeigned admiration. One day his friends went 
 to see him. On arriving at the Portico under which he was 
 wont to sleep, they found him still lying on the ground wrapped 
 in his cloak. He seemed to sleep. They pushed aside the 
 folds of his cloak : he was dead. It was thought that he had 
 committed suicide by holding his breath, — a physical impossi- 
 bility. Other versions of the cause of his death were current 
 in antiquity ; one of them seems consistent with his character : 
 it makes him die in consequence of devouring a neat's foot 
 raw. 
 
 The Doctrine of the Cynics may be briefly dispatched. 
 Antisthenes, as the disciple of Gorgias, was embued with the 
 sophistical principles respecting Science, principles which his 
 acquaintance with Socrates did not alter. He maintained, that 
 Science was impossible. As to the Socratic notion of Defini- 
 tions, he utterly rejected it. He said, that a Definition was 
 nothing but a series of words (\6yov ^cucprfv, "a long dis- 
 course") ; for which Aristotle calls him an ignoramus (a7rai8evros 
 — Met. viii. c. iii.). To the Socratic notion of a Definition, as 
 including the essence of a thing, he opposed the Sophistic 
 notion of a Definition, as expressing a purely subjective rela- 
 tion. You can only express qualities, not essences ; you can 
 call a thing silver, but cannot say in wnat it consists. Your 
 definition is only verbal : hence the first step in education 
 should be the study of woras.* 
 
 What was the consequence of this scepticism ? The conse- 
 quence was, that the Cynics answered arguments by facts. 
 When someone was arguing in support of Zeno of Elea's notion 
 respecting the impossibility of movement, Diogenes rose and 
 walked. Definitions might prove that there was no motion; 
 but definitions were only verbal, and could be answered by 
 facts. 
 * Arrian, 'Epictet.,' Diss. i. 17, quoted in • Ritter and Preller,' d- «74- 
 
184 'I HE CYNICS 
 
 This refuge found in common sense against the assaults of 
 logic, enabled the Cynics to shape a doctrine of morals which 
 had some certain basis. As they answered arguments by facts ; 
 so they made actions take the place of precepts. Instead of 
 speculating about virtue, they endeavoured to be virtuous. 
 Socrates had brought philosophy from the clouds ; the Cynics 
 Endeavoured to bring it into daily practice. Their personal 
 dispositions gave the peculiar colouring to their doctrine, as 
 that of Aristippus had done for the Cyrenaic 
 
Sbfxtf) «port. 
 
 COMPLETE ADOPTION AND APPLICATION OF THE 
 SOCRATIC METHOD : PLATO. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 LIFE OF PLATO. 
 
 Perhaps of all ancient writers Plato's name is the best known. 
 Homer himself is unknown to many who have some dim notion 
 of Plato, as the originator of the so-called Platonic love 
 There is a great and wide-spread interest about the Grecian 
 age. The young and romantic have strange romantic ideas 
 of him. " The general reader " — especially if a dabbler in 
 fashionable philosophy, or rather, in the philosophy current in 
 fashionable novels — has a very exalted notion of him as the 
 "great Idealist." The theological reader regards him with 
 affection, as the stout and eloquent upholder of the doctrine of 
 the immateriality and immortality of the soul. The literary 
 critic regards him as the type of metaphysical eloquence ; and 
 classes with him every vapoury, mystical, metaphorical writer 
 of <: poetical philosophy." 
 
 Now, except that of the theologian, these notions, derived 
 at second hand, are all false. It would be idle to inquire how 
 such extravagant opinions came into circulation. Enough for 
 us that they are false. Plato was anything but "dreamy;" 
 anything but " an Idealist," as that phrase is usually under- 
 stood. He was an inveterate dialectician, a severe and abstract 
 thinker, and a great quibbler. His metaphysics were of a 
 nature to frighten away all but the most determined students, so 
 abstract and so subtle were they. His morals and politics^ so fa' 
 
G? 
 
 LIFE OF PLATO. 
 
 y 
 
 from having any romantic tinge, were the ne plus ultra of logical 
 severity : hard, uncompromising and above humanity. In a 
 word, Plato the man was almost completely absorbed in Plato 
 the Dialectician ; he had learned to look upon human passion 
 as a disease, and human pleasure as a frivolity : the only thing 
 worth living for was truth. Dialectics was the noblest exercise 
 of humanity. *<* ■ 
 
 Even the notions respecting his style are erroneous. It is 
 not the " poetical " metaphorical style usually asserted. It 
 has unmistakeable beauties, but resembles no other writing we 
 are acquainted with. Its immense power is dramatic power. 
 The best dialogues are inimitable scenes of comedy. Character, 
 banter, irony, and animation are there ; but scarcely any 
 imagery, and that seldom beautiful.* His object was to refute, 
 or to convince ; his illustrations are therefore homely and 
 familiar. When fit occasion does arrive, he can be eloquent 
 and poetical. He clothes the myths in language of splendid 
 beauty; and the descriptions of sceiJc loveliness in the 
 1 Phaedrus' are perfectly ravishing. But such passages are as 
 oases in the arid desert of dialectics. 
 
 In truth, Plato is a very difficult, and, as far as regards 
 matter, somewhat repulsive writer : this is the reason of his 
 being so seldom read ; for we must not be deceived by the 
 many editions. He is often mentioned and often quoted, at 
 second hand; but he is rarely read. Scholars and critics 
 usually attack one dialogue out of curiosity. Their curiosity 
 seldom inspirits them to further progress. The difficulty of 
 mastering the ideas, and their unsatisfactory nature when 
 mastered, are barriers to any general acquaintance with Plato. 
 But those who persevere believe themselves repaid ; the journey 
 has been difficult, but it was worth performing. 
 
 We have performed that journey, and can honestly cry 
 " courage ! " to those who lag behind. Perhaps our brief ac- 
 count of Plato and his writings may be some inducement and 
 some preparation. 
 
 * " Even upon abstract subjects, whether moral, metaphysical, or mathe- 
 matical, the language of Plato is clear as the running stream, and, in sim- 
 plicity and sweetness, vies with the humble violet which perfumes the vale." 
 —Dr. Enfield, ii. p. 221. 
 
 Whenever you meet with such trash as this be certain that ihe writer of 
 it never read Plato. Aristotle capitally describes Plato's style as "a 
 middle species of diction between verse and prose." It has rhylhm rather 
 than imagery. 
 
LIFE OF PLATO. ,87 
 
 Aristocles, surnamed Plato (the broad-browed),* the son 
 of Ariston and Perictione, was born at Athens or i^Egina, Olym. 
 87. 3, on the 7th Thargelion (about the middle of May). 
 His youth consequently falls about the time of the Pelopon- 
 nesian war, the most active and brilliant period of Grecian 
 thought and action. His lineage was illustrious : on the 
 maternal side connected with Solon. 
 
 So great a name as Plato's could not escape becoming the 
 nucleus of many fables ; and we find, accordingly, the later 
 historians gravely repeating all sorts of miraculous events con- 
 nected with him. He was said to be the child of Apollo, his 
 mother a virgin. Ariston, though betrothed to Perictione, 
 delayed his marriage because Apollo had appeared to him in 
 a dream, and told him that she was with child. 
 
 We have given one specimen of the fables, and may hence- 
 forth leave them in peace. 
 
 Plato's education was excellent; and in gymnastics he was 
 sufficiently skilled to contend at the Pythian and Isthmian 
 games. Like a true Greek, he attached extreme importance 
 to gymnastics, as doing for the body what dialects did for the 
 mind ; and, like a true Greek, he did not suffer these corporeal 
 exercises to absorb all his time and attention : poetry, music, 
 and rhetoric were assiduously cultivated, and with some 
 success. He wrote an epic poem, besides some tragedies, 
 dithyrambics, lyrics, and epigrams. The epic he is said to 
 have burned in a fit of despair, on comparing it with Homer. 
 The tragedies he burned on becoming acquainted with 
 Socrates. The epigrams have been partially preserved. One 
 of them is very beautiful : — 
 
 dorcpac rfaa9pt?c, atrrtfp t/iog* el9e yevoip-rjv 
 ovpavoQ, &>q iroWolg opftaatv «c at /3X«»rw. 
 
 " Thou gazest on the stars, my Life ! ah ! gladly would I be 
 Yon starry skies, with thousand eyes, that I might gaze on thee ! " f 
 
 * Some writers incline to the opinion that ' Plato ' was the epithet of 
 broad-browed ; others of broad-shouldered ; others, again, that it was ex- 
 pressive of the breadth of his style. This last is absurd. The author of 
 the article ' Plato ' in the ' Penny Cyclopaedia ' pronounces all the above 
 explanations to be M idle, as the name of Plato was of common occurrence 
 among the Athenians of that time." But surely Aristocles was not 
 endowed with this surname of Plato without cause ? Unless he derived 
 the name from a relation, he must have derived it from one of the above 
 causes. 
 
 t The above translation is by Mr. Swynfen Jervi*. 
 
i» LIFE OF PLATO. 
 
 His studies of poetry were mingled with those of philosophy, 
 which he must have cultivated early, for we know that he was 
 only twenty when he first went to Socrates, and we also know 
 that he had been taught by Cratylus before he knew Socrates. 
 Early he must have felt 
 
 " A presence that disturbed him with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean, and the living air, 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : 
 A motion and a spirit that impels 
 Ail thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
 And rolls through all things." * 
 
 A deep and meditative spirit led him to question nature in 
 her secret haunts. The sombre philosophy of Heraclitus 
 suited well with his melancholy youth. Scepticism, which was 
 the fever of that age, had seized on Plato, as on all the rest. This 
 scepticism, together with that imperious craving for belief 
 which struggled with the scepticism, both found breathing 
 room in the doctrines of Socrates ; and the young scholai 
 found that, without impugning the justice of his doubts, he 
 could escape them by seeking Truth elsewhere. 
 
 He remained with Socrates ten years ; and was separated 
 from him only by death. He attended his beloved master 
 during the trial ; undertook to plead his cause ; indeed, began 
 a speech which the violence of the judges would not allow 
 him to continue ; and pressed his master to accept a sum of 
 money sufficient to purchase his life. 
 
 On the death of Socrates, he went to Megara to visit Euclid, 
 as we mentioned before. From thence he proceeded to Cyrene, 
 where he was instructed in mathematics by Theodorus, whom 
 he had known in Athens, if we may credit the ' Thesetetus," 
 where Theodorus is represented discoursing with Socrates. 
 From Cyrene he went to Egypt, in company, it is said, with 
 Euripides. There is very little authority for this visit, and that 
 little questionable. Certain it is that his stay there has been 
 greatly exaggerated. There is no trace in his works of 
 Egyptian research. " All he tells us of Egypt indicates at 
 most a very scanty acquaintance with the subject, and, although 
 he praises the industry of the Priests, his estimate of their 
 scientific attainments is far from favourable. "t 
 
 • Wordsworth, 'Tintem Abbey.' f 'Ritter,' ii. 147. 
 
LIFE OF PLATO. 189 
 
 In these travels, the broad-browed meditative man greatly 
 enlarged the Socratic doctrine, and, indeed, introduced antago- 
 nistic elements. But he strictly preserved the Socratic 
 Method. "Whilst studious youth," says Valerius Maximus, 
 " were crowding to Athens from every quarter in search of 
 Plato for their master, that philosopher was wandering along 
 the winding banks of the Nile or the vast plains of a barbarous 
 country himself, a disciple to the old men of Egypt." 
 
 He returned at last; and eager scholars flocked around him. 
 With a mind richly stored in foreign travel and constant medi- 
 tation, he began to emulate his beloved master, and devoted 
 himself to teaching. Like Socrates, he taught gratuitously. In 
 the world-renowned grove of Hecademus he founded the 
 Academy. This grove was planted with lofty plane trees, and 
 adorned with temples and statues ; a gentle stream rolled 
 through it, with 
 
 " A sound as of a hidden brook 
 In the leafy month of June, 
 Which to the sleeping woods all night 
 Singeth a quiet tune." 
 
 It was a delicious retreat, " for contemplation framed." Tht 
 longing thoughts of posterity have often hovered round it, and 
 made it the centre of myriad associations. Poets have sung of 
 it. Philosophers have sighed for it. 
 
 " See there the olive grove of Academe, — 
 Plato's retirement, — where the Attic-bird 
 Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long." 
 
 In such a spot, where the sound 
 
 " Of bees' industrious murmur oft invites 
 To studious musing,' 1 
 
 one would imagine none but the Graces could enter; and, 
 coupling this with the poetical beauties of Plato's ' Dialogues,' 
 people have supposed that the lessons in the Academy were 
 magnificent outbursts of eloquence and imagery upon philo- 
 sophical subjects. 
 
 Nothing can be farther from the truth. The lectures were 
 hard exercises of the thinking faculty, and demanded great 
 power of continued abstraction. Whatever graces might have 
 adorned Plato's compositions, his lectures were not literary, 
 but dialectical exercises. Over the door of his Academy he 
 
tqo LIFE OP PLATO. 
 
 wrote : " Let none but Geometricians enter here" — a sufficiently 
 explanatory programme of the nature of his lectures. 
 
 Ritter thinks differently. He says : " His school was less a 
 school of hardy deeds for all than of polished culture for the 
 higher classes, who had no other object than to enhance the 
 enjoyment of their privileges and wealth." This passage is 
 characteristic of the loose writing of its author. It is composed 
 of three statements, all three absurd. Plato's school " was less 
 a school of hardy deeds," does this mean that Plato did not 
 teach stoicism ? if so, it is a truism ; if not a falsism since what 
 has Dialectics to do with " hardy deeds " ? We are then in- 
 formed that it was a school of polished culture for the " higher 
 classes." A mere assertion, and an absard one. The " higher 
 classes," principally frequented the Sophists ; besides, Plato's 
 lectures were gratuitous, and every free citizen might attend 
 them on certain conditions. There were no aristocratical 
 exclusives in Athens. There were no " polished circles," with 
 a culture differing from that of the other citizens. Thirdly, we 
 are told that their object was " to enhance the enjoyment of 
 their privileges and wealth." How they were to do this by 
 listening to speculations on essences and archetypal Ideas, we 
 are at a loss to conceive ; the more so as Ritter himself tells us 
 Plato's views of justice and honour were" wholly impracticable 
 in the corrupt state of the Athenian constitution; and all 
 empirical knowledge, such as is indispensable to a politician, 
 was in his view contemptible."* 
 
 In his fortieth year Plato made his first visit to Sicily. It 
 was then he became acquainted with Dionysius I., the tyrant of 
 Syracuse, Dion, his brother-in-law, and Dionysius II. With 
 Dionysius I. he soon came to a rupture, owing to his political 
 opinions, and he so offended the Tyrant, that his life was 
 threatened. Dion, however, interceded for him ; and the Tyrant 
 spared his life, but commissioned Pollis, the Spartan Ambas- 
 sador, in whose ship Plato was to return, to sell him as a slave. 
 He was sold accordingly. Anniceris of Cyrene bought him, 
 
 * Some countenance seems given to the ordinary notion of Plato's 
 Lectures by the tradition that even some women attended them. We 
 confess this statement is to us suspicious, especially as it is also said that 
 one woman disguised herself in man's clothes ; disguise, then, was neces- 
 sary ? The fact, however, if correct, would only show the high cultivation 
 of the hetaira (for such the women must have been) ; and, when we think 
 of such women as Aspasia, we see no reason for supposing they could not 
 follow the ftbstrusest lectures. 
 
LIFE OF PLATO. 191 
 
 and immediately set him free. On his return to Athens, 
 Dionysius wrote hoping that he would not speak ill of him. 
 Plato contemptuously replied that he had not " leisure to think 
 of Dionysius." 
 
 Plato's second visit to Syracuse was after the death of 
 Dionysius I., and with the hope of obtaining from Dionysius 
 II. the establishment of a colony according to the laws framed 
 by himself. The colony was promised • but never granted. 
 Plato incurred the Tyrant's suspicions of having been con- 
 cerned in Dion's conspiracy ; but he was allowed to return 
 home in peace. 
 
 He paid a third visit ; and this time solely to endeavour to 
 reconcile Dionysius with his uncle Dion. Finding his efforts 
 fruitless, and perhaps dangerous, he returned. 
 
 In the calm retirement of the Academy Plato passed the 
 remainder of his days. Lecturing and writing were his chief 
 occupations. The composition of those dialogues which have 
 been the admiration of posterity, was the cheering solace of 
 his life, especially of his declining years. He died at the 
 advanced age of 83. 
 
 Plato was intensely melancholy. That great broad brow 
 which gave him his surname, was wrinkled and sombre. Those 
 brawny shoulders were bent with thought, as only those of 
 thinkers are bent. A smile was the utmost that ever played 
 over his lips ; he never laughed. " As sad as Plato " became 
 a phrase with the comic dramatists. He had many admirers \ 
 scarcely any friends. 
 
 In Plato the thinker predominated over the man. That 
 great expansive intellect had so fixed itself upon the absorbing 
 questions of philosophy that it had scarcely any sympathy left 
 tor other matters. 
 
 Hence his constant reprobation of Poets. Many people 
 suppose that his banishing the poets from his t Republic ' was 
 but an insincere extension of his logical principles, and that 
 he really loved poetry too well to condemn it, — a mistake. 
 Plato's opposition to poets was deep and constant. He had a 
 feeling not unallied to contempt for them, because he saw in 
 them some resemblance to the Sophists, viz., a&J&digerence 
 tojtruth and a preference for the arts of expression. The only 
 po^txy~PfcrtTjreverpraises is the moral poetry, which is in truth 
 versified philosophy. His soul panted for Truth. Poets, at 
 the best, were only inspired madmen, unconscious of what fell 
 
19* PLATO'S WRITINGS. 
 
 from their lips. Let the reader open the ' Ion ' (it has been 
 translated by Sheiley) ; he will then perceive the real cause of 
 Poets being banished from the i Republic' He had a repug- 
 nance for poetry, partly because it was the dangerous rival of 
 philosophy, partly because he had a contempt for pleasure.* 
 It is true that he frequently quotes Homer, and, towards the 
 close of the ' Republic,' some misgivings of having harshly 
 treated the favourite of his youth, escape him ; but he quickly 
 withdraws them, and owns that Truth alone should be man's 
 object. 
 
 There is something unpleasant in Plato's character, which 
 finds its echo in his works. He was a great, but not an amiable 
 man ; his works are great, but lamentably deficient in humanity. 
 His ethics are the ethics of a logician, not of a man ; they are 
 suited only to an impossible state of humanity. 
 
 In bringing forward this view of Plato's character we shall 
 doubtless shock many prejudices, and tilt against eminent men. 
 We cannot help it. The Plato we have drawn, if not so 
 romantic, is a truer figure than that usually drawn ; it is the only 
 one consonant with what the ancient writers transmit. Let no 
 one object to our assertion of his constant melancholy, on the 
 ground of the comic talent displayed in his dialogues. The 
 comic writers are not the gayest men. Moliere, whose humour 
 is the most genial, overflowing, and apparently most sponta- 
 neous, was one of the austerestof men. Comedy often springs 
 from the deepest melancholy ; as if in the rebound. Besides, 
 in Plato's comedy there is almost always some undercurrent 
 of bitterness \ it is Irony, rather than Joyousness. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PLATO'S WRITINGS : THEIR CHARACTER, OBJECT, AND 
 AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 Before attempting an exposition of Plato's doctrines, it may 
 be useful to say something respecting the character and authen- 
 ticity of his 'Dialogues.' Modern criticism, which spares 
 nothing, has not left them untouched. Dialogues, the authen 
 * Comp. ■ Philebttf,' p. t jt. 
 
PLATO'S WRITINGS. 193 
 
 ticity of which had never been questioned in antiquity, 
 have been rejected by modern critics upon the most arbitrary 
 grounds. 
 
 We cannot enter into the details, we have no space ; and, 
 had we space, we might be excused from combating the incft 
 vidual positions, when we refuse to accept as valid the funda 
 mental assumptions on which they are founded. Internal 
 evidence is deceptive at all times ; but that sort of internal 
 evidence supposed to be afforded by comparative inferiority in 
 artistic execution, is utterly worthless. Some of Plato's dia- 
 logues not being found equal to the exalted idea which his great 
 works have led men to entertain, are forthwith declared to be 
 spurious. But what writer is at all times equal to the highest 
 of his own flights ? What author has produced nothing but 
 chefs-d'oeuvre 1 Are there not times when the most brilliant 
 men are dull, when the richest style is meagre, when the com- 
 pactest style is loose ? The same subjects will not always call 
 forth the same excellence ; how unlikely then that various 
 subjects should be treated with uniform power ! The ' Theages ' 
 could hardly equal the ' Theaetetus;' the ■ Euthydernus' must 
 be inferior to the ' Gorgias.' No one thinks of disputing 
 Shakspeare's claim to the ' Merry Wives of Windsor/ because 
 it is immeasurably inferior to * Twelfth Night,' which in its turn 
 is inferior to ' Othello.' 
 
 Besides the dialogues rejected on account of inferior art, 
 there are others rejected on account of immature or contradic- 
 tory opinions. But this ground is as untenable as the former. 
 No one has yet been able to settle definitively what what was 
 Plato's philosophy ; yet opinions are said to be unworthy of 
 that unsettled philosophy ! A preconceived notion of Plato's 
 having been a pure Socratist has led to the rejection of what- 
 ever seemed contradictory to Socratic views. But there is 
 ahundant evidence to show that Plato was not a mere exponent 
 of Socratic opinions. Moreover, in a long life a man's opinions 
 undergo many modifications ; and Plato was no exception to 
 the rule. He contradicts himself constantly. He does so in 
 works the authenticity of which no one has questioned ; and 
 we are not to be surprised if we find him doing so in others. 
 
 It is somewhat amusing to observe the confidence of modern 
 criticism on this point.* An Ast, or a Socher, or a Schleier- 
 
 * " According as the deification has directed itself to this or that aspect 
 of his character, the opinions raised as to the genuineness or falsity of his 
 
194 PLATO'S WRITINGS. 
 
 macher, reject on the most fallacious assumptions the authen- 
 ticity of works quoted by Aristotle as the works of his master, 
 Plato. Now really to suppose that Aristotle could be mistaken 
 on such a matter is a great extension of the conjectural privilege; 
 but, to make this supposition on no better ground than that 
 ol internal evidence, derived from inferiority of execution, or 
 variation in opinion in the works themselves, seems truly 
 preposterous. 
 
 The ancients themselves admitted the ' Epinomis,' the 
 1 Eryxias,' the ' Axiochus ' and the ' Second Alcibiades * to 
 be spurious. The ' Epistles' are also now pretty generally 
 regarded as forgeries. With these exceptions, we really see no 
 reason for rejecting any of the dialogues. The ' Theages ' and 
 the 'Hippias Major' are certainly as much in Plato's manner 
 as ' Measure for Measure ' is in Shakspeare's ; indeed, the 
 ' Hippias ' seems to us a remarkably happy specimen of his 
 dramatic talent. 
 
 But whether all the dialogues were the productions of Plato, 
 or not, they equally serve the purpose of this history, since no 
 one denies them to be platonic. We may therefore leave this 
 question, and proceed to others. 
 
 Do the ' Dialogues ' contain the real opinions of Plato ? — 
 this question has three motives, ist. Plato himself never 
 speaks in propria persona, unless indeed the Athenian in the 
 ' Laws ' be accepted as representing Plato ; a supposition in 
 which we are inclined to concur. 2ndly. From certain passages 
 of the ' Phaedrus ' and the ' Epistles,' it would appear that 
 Plato had a contempt for written opinions as inefficient for 
 instruction. 3dly. On the testimony of a phrase in Aristotle 
 it is supposed that Plato, like Pythagoras, had exoteric and 
 esoteric opinions, the former being of course those set forth in 
 his • Dialogues.' 
 
 We will endeavour to answer these doubts. The first is of 
 very little importance ; the second of greater ; the last of very 
 great importance. That Plato adopts the dramatic form, and 
 preserves it, is true ; but this form, which quite baffles us with 
 Shakspeare, baffles us with no one else. It is easy to divine 
 the opinions of Aristophanes, Moliere, or Schiller. It is still 
 more easy to divine the opinions of Plato, because, unlike the 
 
 works have fluctuated ; so that we might safely say, the more his writings 
 have been examined, the more has the decision of their authenticity become 
 complicated." — Ritter. 
 
PLATO'S WRITINGS. 195 
 
 dramatists, he selects his dialogue solely with a view to the 
 illustration of his opinions. Besides, it is reasonable to suppose 
 that Socrates represents Plato's opinions seen through the 
 manner of Socrates. And, whatever the variations may be 
 with respect to subordinate points, we find but one Method in 
 all the ' Dialogues,' but one conception of science, in a word, 
 we find an unmistakeable tendency which we pronounce to be 
 Platonic. 
 
 Respecting his opinion on the insufficiency of books to 
 convey instruction, we may first quote what he says on the 
 subject in the ' Phaedrus : ' — 
 
 " Writing is something like painting • Uie creatures of the 
 latter art look very like living beings ; but, if you ask them a 
 question, they preserve a solemn silence. Written discourses 
 do the same : you would fancy, by what they say, that they 
 had some sense in them ; but, if you wish to learn, and there- 
 fore interrogate them, they have only their first answer to re- 
 turn to all questions. And when the discourse is once written, 
 it passes from hand to hand, among all sorts of persons, those 
 who can understand it, and those who cannot. It is not able 
 to tell its story to those only to whom it is suitable; and, when 
 it is unjustly criticised, it always needs its author to assist it, 
 for it cannot defend itself. There is another sort of discourse, 
 which is far better and more potent than this. What is it ? 
 That which is scientifically written in the learner's mind. This 
 is capable of defending itself, and it can speak itself, or be 
 silent, as it sees fit. You mean the real and living discourse of 
 the person who understands the subject; of which discourse the 
 written one may be called the picture ? Precisely. Now, think 
 you that a sensible husbandman would take seed which he 
 valued, and wished to produce a harvest, would seriously, after 
 the summer had begun, scatter it in the gardens of Adonis, for 
 the pleasure of seeing it spring up and look green in a week ? Or, 
 do you not rather think that he might indeed do this for sport 
 and amusement; but, when his purpose was serious, would 
 employ the art of agriculture, and, sowing the seed at the 
 proper time, be content to gather in his harvest in the eighth 
 month ? The last, undoubtedly. And do you think that he 
 who possesses the knowledge of what is just, and noble, and 
 good, will deal less prudently with his seeds than the husband- 
 man with his ? Certainly not. He will not, then, set about 
 sowing them with a pen and a black liquid ; or, (to drop the meta- 
 
196 PLATO* S WRITINGS. 
 
 phor,) scattering these truths by means of discourses which 
 cannot defend themselves against attack, and which are incap- 
 able of adequately expounding the truth. No doubt, he will, fot 
 the sake of sport, occasionally scatter some of the seeds in this 
 manner, and will thus treasure up memoranda for himself, in 
 case he should fall into the forgetfulness of old age, and for all 
 others who follow in the same track ; and he will be pleased 
 when he sees the blade growing up green." 
 
 Now, this remarkable passage is clearly biographical. It is 
 the justification of Socrates' philosophical career. But it must 
 not be too rigorously applied to Plato, whose voluminous 
 writings contradict it ; nor must we, in consequence, suppose 
 that those writings were designed only for amusement, or as 
 memoranda for his pupils. The main idea of this passage is 
 one that few persons would feel disposed to question. We are 
 all aware that books labour under very serious deficiencies ; 
 they cannot replace oral instruction. The frequent misappre- 
 hensions of an author's meaning would in a great measure be 
 obviated if we had him by our side to interrogate him. And 
 oral instruction has the further advantage of not allowing the 
 reader's mind to be so passive as it is with a book ; the teacher 
 by his questions excites the activity of the pupil. All this may 
 reasonably be conceded as Plato's opinion without at all 
 affecting the seriousness of his writings. Plato thought that 
 conversation was more instructive than reading ; but he knew 
 also that reading was instructive, and he therefore wrote : to 
 obviate as much as possible the necessary inconveniences of 
 written discourse he threw all his works into the form of 
 dialogue. Hence the endless repetitions, and divisions, and 
 illustrations of positions almost self-evident. The reader is 
 fatigued by them ; but, like Addison's tediousness, they have 
 " a design " in them : that design is, by imitating conversation, 
 to leave no position unexplained. As a book cannot be inter- 
 rogated, Plato makes the book anticipate interrogations. The 
 very pains he takes to be tedious, the very minuteness of his 
 details, is sufficient to rescue his works from the imputation of 
 being mere divertissements. He was too great an artist to have 
 sacrificed his art to anything but his convictions. That he did 
 sacrifice the general effect to his scrupulous dialectics no one 
 can doubt, and we believe that he did so for the sake of 
 deeply impressing on the reader's mind the real force of his 
 method. 
 
PLATO'S WRITINGS. 197 
 
 Had critics seen Plato's real drift, they would have spared 
 much of their censure, and hesitated before pronouncing against 
 the genuineness of certain dialogues. For our own part, we can 
 only reconcile the style of Plato with the above explanation ; 
 that once adopted, all the vexata questiones disappear. 
 
 The third division of our investigation may now be entered 
 upon. Connected with Plato's expressions respecting the 
 imperfection of written works, there is the passage in Aristotle 
 referring to the <xypa0a hoy^ara or " unwritten opinions " which 
 is supposed to indicate an esoteric doctrine. If Aristotle's 
 words do bear that meaning, then is the opinion consistent and 
 valid which regards the exoteric works — the " dialogues " — as 
 mere divertissements. Let us examine it. 
 
 Aristotle says that Plato, in the * Timaeus,' maintained space 
 and matter to be "the same, but that, in what are called the 
 unwritten opinions (ev rols Aeyo/xej/ois dypa0ois £oy/tao- ) he 
 considered space and place (rov roirov /ecu -n/v x®P av ) to De tne 
 same.* From such a passage it is surely somewhat gratuitous 
 to conclude that Plato had an esoteric doctrine ? The aypa<f>a 
 8oy/xaTa probably meant his lectures, or as Ritter suggests, 
 notes taken from the lectures by his scholars. At any rate 
 there is no ground for supposing them to have been esoterical 
 opinions ; the more so as Aristotle, his most illustrious pupil, 
 never speaks of any such distinct doctrine, but draws his state- 
 ments of Plato's views from published works. 
 
 We are convinced that the ' Dialogues ' contain the real 
 opinions of Plato, in as far as Plato ventured to express them. 
 We make this reservation because it is pretty generally known 
 that individual opinions were not of so much importance as 
 Method, in the Socratic philosophy. It would perhaps be 
 better to say, therefore, that the ' Dialogues ' exhibit Plato's 
 real Method and tendencies. Certain it is that the Method 
 and tendencies can only rightly be appreciated after a survey 
 of all the 'Dialogues.' The ancients, we are told by Sextus 
 
 * ' Phys.,' iv. c. 2, p. 53. Ritter, who refers to, but does not cite, the 
 passage, gives us to understand that, in these unwritten opinions, " much 
 was explained differently, or, at least, more definitively than in the ' Dia- 
 logues.' " But no such conclusion can be drawn from Aristotle. There is 
 no greater difference alluded to in the above passage that may frequently 
 be found between one dialogue and another. If the written (published) 
 opinions differ, surely those unwritten may be allowed also to differ from 
 the written? If the 'Republic* differs from the 'Timaeus,' surely the 
 " unwritten opinion " may differ from the ' Timaeus ? ' 
 
1 98 PLATO'S WRITINGS. 
 
 Empiricus,* were divided amongst themselves as to whether 
 Plato was a sceptic or a dogmatist. Nor was the dispute irra- 
 tional ; for, as some of the * Dialogues ' are expository and 
 dogmatical, and others are mere exercises of the dialectical 
 method — mere contests in which nothing is definitively settled 
 — any one having studied only one class of these ' Dialogues' 
 would think Plato either a sceptic or a dogmatist, according to 
 the nature of those which he had read. Thus Cicero, an ardent 
 admirer, says : " Plato affirms nothing ; but, after producing 
 many arguments, and examining a question on every side, 
 leaves it undetermined." This is true of such dialogues as the 
 1 Theaetetus,' or the ' Hippias Major ; ' but extremely untrue 
 of the ■ Phaedo,' 'Timaeus,' ' Leges,' &c. 
 
 This leads us to a consideration of the various attempts at 
 classifying the dialogues. That some sort of classification 
 should be adopted is admitted by all ; but no two persons seem 
 to agree as to the precise arrangement. Any attempt at chro- 
 nological arrangement must inevitably fail. Certain dialogues 
 can be satisfactorily shown to have been written subsequently 
 to some others; but any regular succession is beyond our 
 ingenuity. We may be pretty sure that the ' Phaedrus ' was 
 the earliest or one of the earliest, and the ' Laws ' the 
 latest. We may be sure that the ' Republic ' was earlier than 
 the * Laws,' because the latter is a maturer view of politics. 
 But when the ' Republic ' was written, baffles conjecture. It 
 is usually placed with the ' Timasus ' and the ■ Laws;' that is 
 to say with the last products of its author. But we demur to 
 this on several accounts. The difference of style and of ideas 
 observable in the ' Republic ' and the * Laws ' imply conside- 
 rable distance between the periods of composition. Besides, 
 a man not writing for his bread does not so soon resume a 
 subject which he has already exhausted. Plato had uttered his 
 opinions in the * Republic' He must have waited till new 
 ideas were developed before he could be tempted again to 
 write; for, observe both these dialogues are expository and 
 dogmatical j they express Plato's opinions ; they are not merely 
 dialectical exercises. 
 
 It strikes us also that there is but one safe principle to be 
 applied to the testing of such points. Whenever two works 
 exhibit variations of opinion, we should examine the nature of 
 
 * « Fyrrho. Hypot.,' i. p. 44. 
 
PLATO'S WRITINGS. 19$ 
 
 the variations and ask, which of the two opinions is the later in 
 development— which must have been the earlier? 
 
 Let us take an example. In the ' Republic,' iii. p. 123, he 
 attempts to prove that no one can excel in two arts ; that the 
 comic poet cannot be the same as the tragic, that the same 
 actor cannot act in tragedy and comedy with success. In the 
 1 Amatores,' p. 289, he has the same idea, though there only 
 mentioned briefly.* In the 'Symposium,' however, Plato's 
 opinion is directly the reverse ; for, in a celebrated passage, he 
 makes Socrates convince Agathon, that the tragic and comic 
 poet are the same person. Now, it is not difficult to decide 
 which is the earlier opinion : that in the ' Republic ' is the 
 logical consequence of his premisses ; but that in the \ Sympo- 
 sium \ is the opinion corrected by experience; for, in the poets 
 of his own day he found both comedy and tragedy united ; 
 and Socrates being made to convince Agathon proves that the 
 former opinion was not uncommon, and looks like a retracta- 
 tion on Plato's side. No one will deny that the former opinion 
 is superficial. The distinction between tragedy and comedy is 
 such that it seems to imply a distinct nature for the cultivation 
 of each. But Shakspeare, Racine, Cervantes, Calderon, and 
 very many others, confute this notion by their works. 
 
 Perhaps, a still more conclusive example is that of the " crea- 
 tion of Ideas " so expressly stated in the ' Republic,' and the 
 " eternity and uncreated nature of Ideas " as expressly stated in 
 the ' Timaeus.' So radical a difference in the most important 
 position of his philosophy would at once separate the epochs at 
 which the two dialogues were composed. And to this may be 
 added the difference in artistic treatment between the * Republic' 
 and the ■ Timaeus.' The former, although expository, has much 
 of the vivacity and dramatic vigour of the early dialogues. The 
 * Timaeus ' and the ' Laws ' have scarcely a trace of art. 
 
 Ritter has well observed that u the excellence of the Platonic 
 dialogues, as pieces of art, is twofold : the rare imitative powers 
 exhibited in the dialogue, and the acuteness with which piloso- 
 
 * According to Ritter's principle, this would prove the ' Republic ' to be 
 later than the 'Amatores.' He maintains, and with plausibility, that, 
 when a subject which has been developed in one dialogue is briefly assumed 
 in another, the latter is subsequent in composition. — See vol. ii. p. 183. 
 Yet, on this principle the ' Phaedo ' is earlier than the • Phsedrus,' inasmuch 
 as the doctrine of reminiscence is developed in the former and alluded to in 
 the latter. 
 
2oo PLATO'S WRITINGS, 
 
 phical matters are dialectically treated. No one will deny that 
 these two qualities have only an outward connexion, and con- 
 sequently that they cannot advance equally. With the philo- 
 sopher the latter is manifestly the more important, whereas the 
 former is of secondary importance. The degree of perfection 
 therefore in any dialogue, as such, affords at most a very uncer- 
 tain means for the determination of its date; whereas the 
 greatest weight ought to be laid on the dialectical skill." In 
 proportion as the dialectical skill became mature, it is natural 
 to suppose that the dramatic imitation was less cared for. In 
 proportion as Plato became settled in his convictions he became 
 anxious solely for their clear exposition. He began life with 
 a love of poetry ; but this he soon abandoned for philosophy. 
 So his first work was the ' Phaedrus,' the most luxuriant in poeti- 
 cal images ; his last were the ' Timseus ' and the ' Laws,' the 
 most exclusively dogmatical, and the least ornate. 
 
 The whole inquiry may seem idle ; but it is not so. Until 
 something like a positive arrangement of his works can be made, 
 there will be no end to the misconceptions of his opinions ; for 
 it is preposterous to cite passages in support of a doctrine before 
 having ascertained the date of the work whence the passages 
 are drawn. Yet this is the way critics and historians draw up 
 an imaginary outline of Plato's philosophy, and squabble 
 amongst each other as to who is right. When it is said that 
 Plato held such or such an opinion, it should be distinctly 
 understood at what period of his career he held it ; because, in 
 so long a career, and with so many changes of opinion, it is 
 necessary to be precise. For our own part we can scarcely 
 name an opinion held by him throughout his works. Even the 
 Socratic idea of Virtue being identical with knowledge, con- 
 sequently, Vice being Ignorance and therefore involuntary — 
 even this idea — he learned in his old age to repudiate, as we 
 see in the ' Laws,' book v. p. 385, where he calls incontinence, 
 no less than ignorance (17 yap oY afiaOiav rj 81 aKparetav), the 
 causes of vice. In the same sense, book ix. p. 138, after 
 speaking of anger and pleasure as causes of error, he says : 
 " There is a third cause of our faults, and that is ignorance " 
 (rpCrov fxrjv ayvouxv r<ov dixaprrjfiaLTiav alndv). So that here he 
 places ignorance only as a third cause; and by so doing 
 destroys the whole Socratic argument respecting the identity 
 of Virtue and knowledge.* 
 
 * The ' M?no ' is a further confirmation. In it virtue is shown to be un- 
 
PLATO'S WRITINGS. 201 
 
 This being the case, it will readily be acknowledged, that to 
 make up a doctrine from passages culled here and there must 
 inevitably lead into error. A consistent doctrine cannot be 
 made out. Indeed it is questionable whether Plato ever ela- 
 borated one. Like Socrates, he occupied himself with Method, 
 rather than results ; like Socrates, he had doubts respecting the 
 certainty of knowledge on the higher subjects of thought; like 
 Socrates, he sought Truth, without professing to have found her. 
 
 As a chronological arrangement has been impossible, a philo- 
 sophical arrangement has frequently been attempted. The most 
 celebrated is that of Schleiermacher, who divides the 'Dialogues' 
 into three classes — " 1st, elementary dialogues, or those which 
 contain the germs of all that follows, of logic as the instrument 
 of philosophy, and of ideas as its proper object; consequently, 
 of the possibility of the conditions of knowledge : these are 
 the ' Phaedrus/ 'Lysis,' 'Protagoras/ 'Laches,' 'Charmides/ 
 ' Euthyphro,' and ' Parmenides ; ' to which he subjoins, as an 
 appendix, the • Apologia,' ' Crito,' ' Ion/ f Hippias Minor,' 
 1 Hipparchus/ * Minos,' and ' Alcibiades IL' 2nd, progressive 
 dialogues, which treat of the distinction between philosophical 
 and common knowledge in their united application to the two 
 proposed and real sciences, Ethics and Physics ; these are the 
 ' Gorgias/ ' Theaetetus/ ' Meno/ ' Euthydemus/ ' Cratylus/ 
 1 Sophistes/ i Politicus/ ' Symposium/ ' Phaedo/ and ' Philebus/ 
 with an appendix containing the ' Theaeges,' • Erastae/ ■ Alci- 
 biades I./ 'Menexemus/ 'Hippias Major/ and 'Clitophon.' 
 3rd, construccive dialogues, in which the practical is completely 
 united with the speculative ; these are the ' Republic/ ' Timaeus,' 
 ' Critias/ with an appendix containing the S Laws ' and the 
 'Epistles.'"* There is considerable ingenuity in this, and it 
 has been adopted by Bekker in his edition. It has, however, 
 been much criticised, as every such attempt must necessarily be. 
 Van Heusde, in his charming work,f has suggested another. 
 He proposes three classes : I., those wherein the subject-matter 
 relates to the Beautiful : II., those wherein it relates to the 
 
 susceptible of being taught ; ergo, it is not Knowledge. This would make 
 the ' Meno ' one of the latest works. 
 
 Neither of these contradictions have, to our knowledge, been noticed 
 before. It was our intention to insert a chapter on the self-contradictions 
 of Plato, but the space such a chapter must have occupied it would hava 
 been utterly beyond our power to afford. 
 
 * ' Penny Cyclopaedia,' — art. Plato, p. 236 
 
 t « Initia Philos. Platonicae,' i. p. 72. 
 
202 PLATO'S WRITINGS. 
 
 Tiue ; III., those wherein it relates to the practical. Of the 
 first are those concerning Love, Beauty, and the Soul. Of the 
 second those concerning Dialectics, Ideas, Method, in which 
 Truth and the means of attaining it are sought. Of the third, 
 those concerning justice, ue. morals and politics. These three 
 classes represent the three phases of the philosophical mind • 
 the desire for Truth, the appreciation of Truth, and the realize 
 tion of it, in an application to human life. 
 
 There is one great objection to this classification, viz., the 
 impossibility of properly arranging the * Dialogues ' under the 
 separate heads. The ' Phaedrus/ which Van Heusde believes 
 devoted to Love and Beauty, is clearly, as Schleiermacher has 
 shown, devoted to Dialectics. So of the rest : Plato mixes up in 
 one dialogue very opposite subjects. Van Heusde is also 
 under the erroneous conviction of Plato's having been only a 
 Socratist, till he went to Megara, where he became imbued with 
 the Eleatic doctrines, and that it was in his maturer age that 
 he became acquainted with the Pythagorean philosophy. 
 
 It may be presumptuous to suggest a new classification, but 
 we cannot resist the temptation. If seems to us that the 
 'Dialogues' may reasonably be divided into the two classes 
 named by Sextus Empiricus : — Dogmatic and Agonistic, or 
 Expository and Polemical. The advantage of this division is 
 its clearness and practicability. There will always be some* 
 thing arbitrary in the endeavour to classify the dialogue* 
 according to their subject-matter, because they are almost all 
 occupied with more than one subject. Thus, the *■ Republic,' 
 would certainly be classed under the head of Ethics ; yet it 
 contains very important discussions on the nature of human 
 knowledge and on the theory of Ideas ; and these discussions 
 ought properly to be classed under the head of Metaphysics. 
 Again, the ' Phaedrus ' is more than half occupied with dis- 
 courses about Love ; but the real subject of the work is 
 Dialectics. 
 
 In the division we propose, such inconveniences are avoided. 
 It is easy to see which dialogues are polemical, and which are 
 expository. The ' Hippias Major' and the 'Timaeus' mav 
 stand as representatives of each class. In the former, no 
 attempt is made to settle the question raised. Socrates content? 
 himself with refuting every position of his antagonist. In the 
 1 Timaeus ' there is no polemic of any sort : all is calmly 
 expository. 
 
PLATO'S METHOD. *>? 
 
 A further sub-division might also be made of the agonistic dia- 
 logues, into such as are purely polemical, and such as by means 
 of polemics enforce ideas. Sometimes Plato only destroys ; at 
 other times the destruction is a clearance of the ground which 
 opens to us a vista of the truth: of this kind is the ' Theaetetus.' 
 
 We are, however, firmly persuaded that one distinct purpose 
 runs through all the 'Dialogues,' whatever may be their 
 varieties of form or of opinion : one great and fruitful purpose, 
 which may rightly be called the philosophy of Plato, and which 
 we will now attempt to exhibit. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PLATO'S METHOD. 
 
 By some, Plato is regarded as a mere literary exponent of the 
 Socratic doctrines ; by others, as the real founder of a new 
 epoch and of a new philosophy. Both of these views appear 
 to us erroneous ; but, really on the subject of Plato errors are 
 so numerous, and we had almost said so inevitable, that no 
 one who rightly appreciates the difficulty of ascertaining the 
 truth, will be disposed to dogmatise. Although we claim the 
 right of enforcing our opinions — a right purchased with no con- 
 temptible amount of labour in the inquiry — we would be dis- 
 tinctly understood to place no very great confidence in their 
 validity. After this preface, we trust, we may speak openly, 
 without incurring the charge of dogmatism. We are not 
 enunciating ascertained truths : we are simply recording the 
 results of study.* 
 
 Plato we hold to be neither a simple Socratist, nor the 
 creator of a new philosophy. He was the inheritor of all the 
 
 * It has beeu a principle with us throughout to abstain from all unne- 
 cessary references ; and we shall follow it in this account of Plato. To 
 have quoted chapter and verse for every statement would have been 
 endless. The absence of such references renders it the more needful for 
 us to state that, previous to writing this section, we renewed our acquain- 
 tance with Plato, by carefully reading all his works, with the exception of 
 two of the minor ones. This section is the result of that study. 
 
s<H PLATO'S METHOD. 
 
 wisdom of bis age. He fully seized the importance of the 
 Socratic Method : he adopted it, enlarged it. But he also saw 
 the importance of those ideas which his predecessors had so 
 laboriously excogitated ; he adopted and enlarged the leading 
 features of the Pythagoreans, and Eleatics, of Anaxagoras, and 
 Heraclitus. With vast learning and a puissant method, he 
 created an influence which is not yet totally extinct. But his 
 philosophy was critical, not dogmatical. He enlarged, ame- 
 liorated, the views of others ; but introduced no new element 
 into the philosophy of his age. He was the culminating point 
 of Greek philosophy. In his works all the various and con- 
 flicting tendencies of preceding eras were collected under one 
 Method. 
 
 That Method was doubtless the Method of Socrates, with 
 some modifications, or rather with some enlargement. Schleier- 
 macher, in a profound and luminous essay on the 'Worth of 
 Socrates as a Philosopher,'* looks upon the service rendered to 
 Philosophy by Socrates as consisting less in the truths arrived 
 at, than in the mode in which the truth should be sought. 
 Alluding to this view, John Mill has said : "This appears to us 
 to be, with some modifications, applicable likewise to Plato. 
 No doubt the disciple pushed his mere inquiries and speculations 
 over a more extended surface, and to a much greater depth 
 below the surface, than there is any reason to believe the 
 master did. But, though he continually starts most original 
 and valuable ideas, it is seldom that these, when they relate to 
 the results of inquiry are stated with an air of conviction, as if 
 they amounted to fixed opinions. But when the topic under 
 consideration is the proper mode of philosophising — either the 
 moral spirit in which truth should be sought, or the intellectual 
 processes and methods by which it is to be attained ; or, when 
 the subject-matter is not any particular scientific principle, but 
 knowledge in the abstract, the differences between knowledge 
 and ignorance, and between knowledge and real opinion — then 
 the views inculcated are definite and consistent, are always the 
 same, and are put forth, with the appearance of earnest and 
 matured belief. Even in treating of other subjects, and even 
 when the opinions advanced have the least semblance of being 
 seriously entertained, the discourse itself has generally a very 
 strong tendency to illustrate the conception which does seem to 
 
 ♦^Translated by Bishop Thirhvall, in the ' Philological Museum ; ' and 
 reprinted in the English version of Dr. Wigger's ' Life of Socrates.' 
 
PLATO'S METHOD. 205 
 
 be really entertained of the nature of some part or other of the 
 process of philosophising. The inference we would draw is 
 that on the science of the Investigation of Science, the theory 
 of the pursuit of truth, Plato had not only satisfied himself that 
 his predecessors were in error, and how, but had also adopted 
 definite views of his own • while, on all or most other subjects, he 
 contented himself with confuting the absurdities of others, point- 
 ing out the proper course for inquiry, and the spirit in which it 
 should be conducted, and throwing out a variety of ideas of his 
 own, of the value of which he was not quite certain, and which 
 he left to the appreciation of any subsequent inquirer compe- 
 tent to sit in judgment upon them." 
 
 We have here to examine what that Method was which Plato 
 constantly pursued. Socrates, as we have shown, relied upon 
 the Inductive, or, rather, Analogical Reasoning, and on Defini- 
 tions, as the two principles of investigation. The incomplete- 
 ness of these principles we have already pointed out; and 
 Plato himself found it necessary to enlarge them. 
 
 Definitions form the base of all science. To know a thing 
 you must also know what it is not In ascertaining the real 
 Definition, Socrates employed his accoucheur's art (tc^ 
 fjLaitvriKTJ) and proceeded inductively. Plato also used these 
 arts ; but he added to them the more scientific and efficient 
 processes of Analysis and Synthesis, of generalization and 
 classification.* 
 
 Analysis, which was first insisted on by Plato as a scientific 
 process, is the decomposition of the whole into its separate 
 parts ; whereby after examining those parts attentively, the idea 
 of the whole is correctly ascertained. To use Platonic lan- 
 guage, Analysis is seeing the One in the Many. Thus if the 
 subject be Virtue, the general term Virtue must first be decom- 
 posed into all its parts, i.e., into all the Virtues ; and from a 
 thorough examination of the Virtues a clear idea of Virtue may 
 be attained.! 
 
 Definitions were to Plato what general or abstract ideas were 
 to later metaphysicians. The individual thing was held to be 
 transitory and phenomenal, the abstract idea was eternal. Only 
 concerning the latter could philosophy occupy itself. But So- 
 crates, although insisting on proper Definitions, hat 7 no con- 
 
 * Consult Van Heusde, ' Init. Platon.' ii. pars. ii. p. 97, 98. 
 f A good example of his mode of conducting an inquiry may be seen in 
 the passage translated from the 'Gorgias.' — See 'Appendix A.' 
 
2p6 PLATO'S METHOD. 
 
 ception of the classification of those Definitions which must 
 constitute science. Plato, therefore, by the introduction of 
 this process, shifted philosophy from the ground of Ethics to 
 that of Dialectics. What was Dialectics ? It was the art of 
 discoursing, i.e., the art of thinking, i.e., logic. Plato uses the 
 word Dialectics, because with him Thinking was a silent dis- 
 course of the soul, and differed from speech only in being 
 silent. 
 
 In this conception of Philosophy as Dialectics, Plato ab- 
 sorbed the conversational method of Socrates, but gave a new 
 direction to science ; accordingly, instead of confining his 
 speculations to Ethics, he allowed them to embrace all 
 nature. 
 
 How erroneous that notion is which supposes that Plato's 
 merit was exclusively literary, may be gathered from the above 
 brief outline of his method. He was one of the most severe 
 Dialecticians on record. This is his leading peculiarity; but 
 he has clothed his Method in such fascinating language, that 
 the means have been mistaken for the end. His great prin- 
 ciple, we must constantly repeat, was the necessity of an un- 
 tiring investigation into general terms (or, as the schoolmen 
 say, abstract ideas). He did not look on life or on the world 
 with the temporary interest of a passing inhabitant of the 
 world. He looked on them with an immortal soul longing to 
 be released from its earthly sojourn, and striving to catch by 
 anticipation some faint glimpses of that region of eternal Truth 
 where it would some day rest. The fleeting phenomena of 
 this world he knew were nothing more. But he was too wise 
 to overlook them. Fleeting and imperfect as they were, they 
 were the indications of that eternal Truth for which he longed : 
 footmarks on the perilous journey, and guides unto the goal. 
 Long before him had wise and meditative men perceived that 
 sense -knowledge would only be knowledge of phenomena; 
 that everything men call existence was but a perpetual flux — a 
 something which, always becoming never was ; that the reports 
 which our senses made of these things partook of the same 
 fleeting and uncertain character. He could not, therefore, put 
 his trust in them ; he could not say that Time was anything 
 more than the wavering image of Eternity. 
 
 But he was not a Sceptic. These transitory phenomena 
 were not true existences ; but they were images of true exis- 
 tences. Interrogate them ; classify them ; discover what quali- 
 
SLATO'S ML 1 HOD, 207 
 
 ties they have in common ; discover that which is invariable v 
 necessary, amidst all that is variable, contingent ; discover The 
 One in The Many and you have penetrated the secret of 
 Existence.* 
 
 Now, in reducing this Platonic language to a modern 
 formula, what is the thought ? The thought is simply this : 
 Things exist as classes as well as individuals ; these classes 
 again are but species of higher classes ; eg., men are indi- 
 viduals of the class Man, and Man is a species of the class 
 Animal. But science, which is Deductive, has nothing to do 
 with individuals ; it is occupied solely with classes. General 
 Terms, or Abstract ideas, are, therefore, the materials with 
 which science works. 
 
 These General Terms, Plato said, stood for the only real 
 existences, the only objects of science. And, as far as ex- 
 pression is concerned, he would seem to be in perfect 
 accordance with modern thinkers. But we must be cautious 
 how we mistake these coincidences of expression for coinci- 
 dences of doctrine. Plato's philosophy was an inarticulate 
 utterance, curious to the historian, but valueless as a solution 
 to the problem. 
 
 We are here led to the origin of the world-famous dispute 01 
 Realism and Nominalism. This dispute may be summed up 
 in a sentence. The Realists maintain, that every General 
 Term (or abstract idea), such as Man, Virtue, &c, has a reaU 
 and independent existence, quite irrespective of any concrete 
 individual determination, such as Smith, Benevolence, &c. 
 The Nominalists, on the contrary, maintain, that all General 
 Terms are but the creations of human ingenuity, designating 
 no distinct entities, but merely used as marks of aggregate 
 conceptions. " It is a very pretty quarrel as it stands," and 
 has caused no small degree of bickering and heart-burning. 
 Plato was the first Realist ; M. Pierre Leroux is, we believe, 
 the last.f 
 
 In Realism Plato separated himself from his master 
 Socrates. On this point we have the indubitable, but hitherto 
 
 * To refer the reader to particular passages wherein this doctrine is 
 expressed, or implied, would be endless : it runs through all his works, 
 and is the only constant doctrine to be found there. Perhaps the easiest 
 passage where It may be read is 'Philebus,' pp. 233-6. 
 
 t In his wcrk ' De THumaniteV Without explicitly avowing Realism, 
 his conception of Humanity, as distinct from human individuals, implies it. 
 
208 PLATO'S IDEAL THEORY. 
 
 little noticed, testimony of Aristotle, who, after speaking of 
 the Socratic Method of Induction and Definition, says : " But 
 Socrates gave neither to General Terms nor to Definitions a 
 distinct existence."* This is plain enough. Aristotle, in con- 
 tinuation, obviously speaks of Plato: "Those who succeeded 
 him gave to these General Terms a separate existence, and 
 called them Ideas. 11 
 
 Thus are we introduced to Plato's famous Ideal theory; 
 which, although confused and contradictory enough in detail, 
 as is the case with all his special opinions, is clear enough as a 
 general tendency. It must have a chapter to itself. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PLATO'S IDEAL THEORY. 
 
 The word Idea has undergone more changes than almost 
 any word in philosophy ; and nothing can well be more opposed 
 to the modern sense of the word than the sense affixed to it by 
 Plato. 
 
 If we were to say, Uiat the Ideas were tantamount to the Sub- 
 stantial Forms of the schoolmen, we should run the risk of 
 endeavouring to enlighten an obscurity with an obscurity as 
 great. If we were to say, that the Ideas were tantamount to 
 Universals, the same objection might be raised. If we were 
 to say, that the Ideas were General Terms or Abstract Ideas, 
 we should mislead every Nominalist into the belief that Plato 
 was an " Idealist :" with this exception, the last illustration 
 would be pertinent. 
 
 It will be better, however, to describe first and to define 
 afterwards. Plato, according to Aristotle, gave to General 
 Terms a distinct existence and called them Ideas. He became 
 a Realist; and asserted, that there was the Abstract Man no 
 
 * ' Met./ xiii. iv. dXX' 6 piv SwKparije to. kciQgXov, ov x^ptffrd irroiei, 
 oviik tovq opiafxovi;. — The wording of this may appear strange. Many have 
 supposed universals to exist separately, but how a separate existence could 
 be given to Definitions may puzzle the stoutest Realist. "We believe the 
 difficulty vanishes, if we remember that the Platonic Definitions and 
 universals were the same things ; though Aristotle's phrase is ambiguous, 
 
PLATO* S^IDEAL THEORY. 
 
 3 
 
 less than the Concrete Men ; the latter only were Men in as far 
 as they participated in the Ideal Man. This may seem not a 
 little absurd ; but patience ! and it may turn out more rational. 
 No one will dispute, that we have a conception of a genus— 
 that we do conceive and reason about Man quite independently 
 of Smith or Brown, Peter or Paul. If we have such a concep- 
 tion, whence did we derive it ? Our experience has only been 
 of the Smiths and Browns, the Peters and Pauls ; we have only 
 known men. Our senses tell us nothing of Man. Individual 
 objects only give individual knowledge. A number of stones 
 placed before us will afford us no knowledge, will not enable 
 us to say : These are stones ; unless we have previously learned 
 what is the nature of Stone. So, also, we must know the nature 
 of Man, before we can know that Jones and Brown are Men. 
 
 We do know Man and we know Men; but our knowledge 
 of the former is distinct from that of the latter, and must have 
 a distinct source ; so, at least, thought the Realists. What is 
 that source ? Reflection, not sense. 
 
 The Realists finding The One in The Many, — in other words, 
 finding certain characteristics common to all Men, and not only 
 common to them but necessary to their being Men, abstracted 
 these general characteristics from the particular accidents of 
 individual men, and out of these characteristics made what they 
 called Uhiversals, what we call genera. These Universals 
 existed per se. They were not only conceptions of the mind • 
 they were entities ; and our perceptions of them were formed 
 in the same manner as our perceptions of other things. 
 
 Greek Philosophy, no less than Greek Art, was, as we have 
 elsewhere shown, eminently Objective. Now what is the objec- 
 tive tendency but the tendency to transform our conceptions int* 
 perceptions — to project our ideas out of us, and then to look at 
 them as images, or as entities ? 
 
 Let then the conception of genera be rendered objective, and 
 the Realist doctrine is explained. The conceptions were held 
 to be perceptions of existing Things ; these Plato called Ideas. 
 
 These Ideas he maintained to be the only real existences : 
 they were the noumena of which all individual things were the 
 phenomena. If then we define the Platonic " Idea " to be a 
 " Noumenon " or " Substantial Form," we shall not be fai 
 wrong : and most of the disputes respecting the real meaning 
 of the term will be set aside. For example, Ritter's weak and 
 wavering account of the word — in which he is at a loss to say 
 
iio PLATO'S IDEAL THEORY. 
 
 whether idea means the universal, or whether it does not also 
 mean the individual — is only thus to be reconciled. That 
 Plato usually designates an Idea, a General Term, there can 
 be no doubt ; there can be no doubt also that he sometimes 
 designates an Idea the essence of some individual thing, as in 
 the ' Republic,' where he speaks of the Idea of a Table from 
 which all other Tables were formed. There is no contradic- 
 tion in this. A general form is as necessary for Tables as for 
 Men : this Idea, therefore, equally partakes of generality even 
 where exemplified by particular things. 
 
 We must now endeavour to indicate the position occupied 
 by Ideas in the Platonic cosmology. 
 
 To Socrates Plato was indebted for his Method ; yet not 
 wholly indebted, seeing that he enlarged the conception trans- 
 mitted to him. To Pythagoras he was indebted for his theory 
 of Ideas ; yet not wholly indebted, seeing that he modified it 
 and rendered it more plausible. What he did for Method we 
 have seen : let us now see bow he transformed the Pythagorean 
 doctrine. 
 
 Aristotle, in a memorable passage, says : " Plato followed 
 Socrates respecting definitions, but accustomed as he was to 
 inquiries into universals (Sia to ^rjrrjaraL wept twv kclOoXov), he 
 supposed that definitions should be those of intelligibles (i.e. 
 noumena), rather than of sensibles (i.e. phenomena) ; for it is 
 impossible to give a general definition to sensible objects, which 
 are always changing. Those Intelligible Essences he called 
 Ideas : adding that sensible objects were different from Ideas, 
 and received from them their names ; for it is in consequence 
 of their participation (Kara fiMc£iv) in Ideas, that all objects of 
 the same genus receive the same name as the Ideas. He 
 introduced the word participation. The Pythagoreans say that 
 1 Things are the copies of Numbers.' Plato says, \ the partici- 
 pation.' He only changes the name." * 
 
 With due submission we venture to question the assertion of 
 Aristotle in the last sentence. Plato did more than change a 
 name. The conception alone of Ideas as generical types is a 
 great advance on the conception of Numbers. But Plato did 
 not stop here. He ventured on an explanation of the nature 
 and the degree of that participation of sensible objects in Ideas. 
 A.nd Aristotle himself, in another place, points out a funda- 
 
 * «Mct.,' L c. 6. 
 
PLATO'S IDEAL THEORY. an 
 
 mental distinction. Plato thought that sensible Things no less 
 than their causes were Numbers ; but the causes are Intelligible 
 Numbers {i.e. Ideas), and the Things are Sensible Numbers" * 
 Surely, this is something more than the invention of a name ? 
 It gives a new character to the theory ; it renders it at once 
 more clear, and more applicable. 
 
 The greatest difficulty felt in the Ideal theory is that of 
 participation. How, and in how far, does this participation 
 take place ? A question which Plato did not, and could not, 
 solve. All that he could answer was, that human knowledge 
 is necessarily imperfect, that sensation troubles the intellectual 
 eye, and only when the soul is free from the hindrances of the 
 body shall we be able to discern things in all the ineffable 
 splendour of truth. But, although our knowledge is imperfect, 
 it is not false. Reason enables us to catch some glimpses of 
 the truth, and we must endeavour to gain more. Whatever is 
 the object of the soul's thought, purely as such, was real and 
 true. The problem was to separate these glimpses of the truth 
 from the prejudices and errors of mere opinion. 
 
 In this doctrine, opinion is concerned only with Appearances 
 (phenomena) ; science with Existence. Our sensation, judg- 
 ments, opinions, have only reference to ra yiyvoficva; oui 
 scientific conceptions have reference to ra oVra. The whole 
 matter is comprised in Plato's answer to Diogenes, who thought 
 he demolished the theory of Ideas by exclaiming : " I see 
 indeed a table ; but I see no Idea of a table." Plato replied : 
 " Because you see with your eyes, and not with your reason." 
 Hence, at the close of the 5th Book of his ■ Republic,' he says 
 that those only are to be called Philosophers who devote 
 themselves to the contemplation of the to ov, i.e. existence. 
 
 The phenomena which constitute what we perceive of the 
 world (i.e. the world of sense) are but the participations of 
 matter in the nature of Ideas. In other words Ideas are the 
 Forms of .which material Things are copies ; the noumena, of 
 which all that we perceive are the Appearances (phenomena). 
 But we must not suppose these copies to be exact : they do not 
 at all participate in the nature of their models ; they do not 
 even represent them, otherwise than in a superficial manner. 
 Or, perhaps, it would be more correct to say that Ideas do not 
 resemble Things ; as the man does not resemble his portrait, 
 
 * 'Met.,' L 7. aXkd rove piv voqrovc airiov^ tovtovq Si aiaOijTovi. 
 
2ie PLATO* S PSYCHOLOGY, 
 
 although the portrait may be a tolerable resemblance of him \ 
 a resemblance of his aspect, not of his nature. 
 
 If, then, the Ideas as they exist realized in Nature do not 
 accurately resemble the Ideas as they exist, per se — i.e. if the 
 phenomena are not exact copies of the noumena — how are we 
 ever to attain a knowledge of Ideas and of Truth ? 
 
 This question plunges us into the midst of his psychology, 
 which we must first explain before the whole conception of the 
 Ideal theory can be made consistent. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 plato's psychology. 
 
 After the dreary dialectics of the two preceding chapters, it 
 is some refreshment to be able to open this chapter with a 
 myth, and that, perhaps, the most fascinating of all Plato's 
 myths. 
 
 In the ' Phaedrus,' Socrates very justly declares his inability 
 to explain the real nature of the soul. But, though he cannot 
 exhibit it, he can show what it resembles. Unable to give a 
 demonstration, he can paint a picture ; and that picture he 
 paints as follows : — 
 
 " We may compare it to a chariot, with a pair of winged 
 horses and a driver. In the souls of the gods, the horses and 
 the drivers are entirely good ; in other souls, only partially so, 
 one of the horses excellent, the other vicious. The business, 
 therefore, of the driver is extremely difficult and troublesome. 
 
 " Let us now attempt to show how some living beings came 
 to be spoken of as mortal, and others as immortal. All souls 
 are employed in taking care of the things which are inanimate ; 
 and travel about the whole of heaven in various forms. Now, 
 when the soul is perfect, and has wings, it is carried aloft, and 
 helps to administer the entire universe; but the soul which 
 loses its wings, drops down until it catches hold of something 
 solid, in which it takes up its residence ; and having a dwelling 
 of clay, which seems to be self-moving on account of the soul 
 which is in it, the two together are called an animal, and Mor- 
 tal. The phrase ' immortal animal ' arises not from any 
 
PLATO* S PSYCHOLOGY. 213 
 
 correct understanding, but from a fiction ; never having seen 
 nor being able to comprehend, a deity, men conceived an 
 immortal being, having a body as well as a soul, united 
 together for all eternity. Let these things then, be as it pleases 
 God ; but let us next state from what cause a soul becomes 
 unfledged. 
 
 " It is the nature of wings to lift up heavy bodies towards 
 the habitation of the gods ; and of all things which belong to 
 the body, wings are that which most partakes of the divine. 
 The divine includes the beautiful, the wise, the good, and 
 everything of that nature. By these the wings of the soul are 
 nourished and increased ; by the contraries of these, they are 
 destroyed. 
 
 " Jupiter and the other gods, divided into certain bands, 
 travel about in their winged chariots, ordering and attending 
 to all things, each according to his appointed function ; and 
 all who will, and who can, follow them. When they go to 
 take their repasts, they journey up hell, towards the summit of 
 the vault of heaven. The chariots of the gods, being in exact 
 equilibrium, and therefore easily guided, perform this journey 
 easily, but all others with difficulty ; for one of the two horses, 
 being of inferior nature, when he has not been exceedingly 
 well trained by the driver, weighs down the vehicle, and im- 
 pels it towards the earth. 
 
 " The souls which are called immortal (viz., the gods), when 
 they reach the summit, go through, and standing upon the 
 convex outside of heaven, are carried round and round by its 
 revolution, and see the things which lie beyond the heavens. 
 No poet has ever celebrated these supercelestial things, nor 
 ever will celebrate them as they deserve. This region is the 
 seat of Existence itself; Real Existence, colourless, figureless, 
 and intangible Existence, which is visible only to Mind, the 
 charioteer of the soul, and which forms the subject of Real 
 Knowledge. The minds of the gods, which are fed by pure 
 knowledge, and all other thoroughly well ordered minds, con- 
 template for a time this universe of * Being ' perse, and are 
 delighted and nourished by the contemplation, until the revolu- 
 tion of the heavens bring them back to the same point. In 
 this circumvolution, they contemplate Justice itself, Temper- 
 ance itself, and Knowledge, not that knowledge, which has a 
 generation or a beginning, not that which exists in a subject 
 which is any of what we term beings, but that Knowledge 
 
«4 PLATO'S PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 which exists in Being in general ; in that which really Is, 
 After thus contemplating all real existences, and being nour- 
 ished thereby, these souls again sink into the interior of tn« 
 heavens, and repose. 
 
 " Such is the life of the gods. Of other souls, those whicit 
 best follow the gods, and most resemble them, barely succeed 
 in lifting the head of the charioteer into the parts beyond the 
 heavens, and being carried round by the circumvolution, are 
 enabled with difficulty to contemplate this universe of self- 
 Existences. Others, being encumbered by their horses, some- 
 times rising and sometimes sinking, are enabled to see some 
 Existences only. The remainder only struggle to elevate 
 themselves, and by the unskilfulness of their drivers, coming 
 continually into collision, are lamed, or break their wings, and 
 after much labour, go away without accomplishing their purpose, 
 and return to feed upon mere opinion. 
 
 M The motive of this great anxiety to view the supercelestial 
 plain of truth is that the proper food of the soul is derived 
 from thence, and in particular, the wings, by which the soul is 
 made light and carried aloft, are nourished upon it. Now it 
 is an inviolable law that any soul which, placing itself in the 
 train of the gods, and journeying along with them, obtains a 
 sight of any of these self-existent Realities, remains exempt 
 from all harm until the next circumvolution, and if it can con- 
 xive to effect this every time, it is for ever safe and uninjured. 
 But if, being unable to elevate itself to the necessary height, it 
 altogether fails of seeing these realities, and being weighed 
 down by vice and oblivion, loses its wings and falls to the 
 earth, it enters into and animates some Body. It never enters 
 at the first generation, into the body of a brute animal ; but 
 that which has seen most enters into the body of a person who 
 will become a lover of wisdom, or a lover of beauty, or a 
 person addicted to music, or to love ; the next in rank into 
 that of a monarch who reigns according to law, or a warrior, or 
 a man of talents for command ; the third, into a person quali- 
 fied to administer the state, and manage his family affairs, or 
 carry on a gainful occupation ; the fourth, into a person fond 
 of hard labour and bodily exercises, or skilled in the prevention 
 and curing of bodily diseases ; the fifth, into a prophet, or a 
 teacher of religious ceremonies ; the sixth, into a poet, or a 
 person addicted to any other of the imitative arts ; the seventh, 
 into a husbandman or an artificer ; the eighth, into a sophist, 
 
PL A TCS PSYCHO LOG Y. 
 
 2I 5 
 
 or a courtier of the people; the ninth, into a despot and 
 usurper. And in all these different fortunes, they who conduct 
 tnemselves justly will obtain next time a more eligible lot; 
 they who conduct themselves unjustly, a worse. The sou* 
 never returns to its pristine state in less than ten thousand 
 years, for its wings do not grow in a shorter time, except only 
 the soul of one who philosophises with sincerity, or who loves 
 with philosophy. Such souls, after three periods of one 
 thousand years, if they choose thrice in succession this kind 
 of life, recover their wings in the three thousandth year, and 
 depart. The other souls, at the termination of their first life, 
 are judged, and having received their sentence, are either sent 
 for punishment into the places of execution under the earth, or 
 are elevated to a place in heaven, in which they are rewarded 
 according to the life which they led while here. In either case 
 they are called back on the thousandth year, to choose or draw 
 lots for a new life. Then a human soul often passes into the 
 body of a beast, and that of a beast, if it has ever been 
 human, passes again into the body of a man ; for a soul which 
 has never seen the Truth at all cannot enter into the human 
 form, it being necessary that man should be able to apprehend 
 many things according to kinds, which kinds are composed of 
 many perceptions combined by reason into one. Now, this 
 mode of apprehending is neither more nor less than the recol- 
 lecting of those things which the soul formerly saw when it 
 journeyed along with the gods, and, disregarding what we now 
 call beings, applied itself to the apprehension of Real Being. 
 It is for this reason that the soul of the philosopher is refledged 
 in a shorter period than others ; for it constantly, to the best 
 of its power, occupies itself in trying to recollect those things 
 which the gods contemplated, and by the contemplation of 
 which they are gods ; by which means being lifted out of, and 
 above, human cares and interests, he is, by the vulgar, con- 
 sidered as mad, while in reality he is inspired." 
 
 This is unquestionably the poetry of philosophy, and it is 
 from such passages that the popular opinion respecting Plato 
 has been formed ; but they represent only a small portion of the 
 real thinker. 
 
 Towards the close the reader will have remarked that the 
 famous doctrine of reminiscence is implied. This doctrine may 
 be seen fully developed in the * Phgedo ; ' it seems to have 
 Vxjen a fundamental one. The difficulties of conceiving the 
 
216 PLATO'S PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 possibility of any knowledge other than the sense-knowledge, 
 which the Sophists had successfully proved to lead to scepti- 
 cism, must early have troubled Plato's mind. If we know 
 nothing but what our senses teach us, then is all knowledge 
 trivial. Those who admit the imperfection of the senses and 
 fall back upon Reason, beg the question. How do we know 
 that Reason is correct ? How can we be assured that Reason 
 is not subject to some such inevitable imperfection as that to 
 which the Senses are subject. 
 
 Here the ever-recurring problem of human knowledge 
 presents itself. Plato was taught by Socrates that beyond the 
 world of sense, there was the world of eternal truth \ that men 
 who differed greatly respecting individual things did not differ 
 respecting universals ; that there was a common fund of Truth 
 from which all human souls drew their share. But this, though 
 dogmatic, was vague. Plato's inquiry was not to be satisfied. 
 Agreeing with his master that there were certain principles 
 about which there could be no dispute, he wished to know how 
 we came by those principles. 
 
 All who have examined the nature of our knowledge, are 
 aware that it is partly made up of direct impressions received 
 by the senses, and partly of ideas which never were, at least in 
 their ideal state, perceived by the senses. It is this latter part 
 which has agitated the schools. On the one side, men have 
 declared it to be wholly independent of the senses — to be the 
 pure action of the soul. In its simplest form, this doctrine 
 may be called the doctrine of Innate Ideas. On the other side, 
 men have as vigorously argued that, although our ideas were 
 not absolutely derived from the senses in a direct manner, yet 
 they were also derived in an indirect manner : thus, we have 
 never seen a mermaid ; but we have seen both a fish and a 
 woman, and to combine these two impressions is all that the 
 mind can do. This doctrine is that of the eighteenth-century 
 philosophy, which says : penser, c'est sentir : thought is a trans- 
 formed sensation. 
 
 Plato, in adopting the former view, rendered it more cogent 
 than any of his successors ; for is it not somewhat gratuitous 
 to say : We are born with such and such ideas ? It is not like 
 saying we are born with certain faculties : that would be intel- 
 ligible. But to be driven into a corner, and on being asked 
 whence came those ideas ? to answer, They are innate, .is a 
 pure petitio principii. What proof have you that they ?re 
 
PLATO'S PSYCHOLOGY. 21; 
 
 innate ? Merely the proof that you cannot otherwise account 
 for them ! 
 
 Plato was more consistent. He said The Soul is and ever 
 was immortal. In its anterior states of existence it had certain 
 conceptions of the eternal Truth. It was face to face with 
 Existence. Now, having descended upon earth, having passed 
 into a body, and, being subject to the hinderances of that 
 bodily imprisonment, it is no longer face to face with Existence : 
 it can see Existence only through the ever-changing flux of 
 material phenomena. The world is only becoming, never is. 
 The soul would comprehend only the becoming, had it not some 
 recollection of its anterior state — had it not the power in some 
 sort of tracing in the varying phenomena the unvarying Idea. 
 When, for example, we see a stone, all that our senses tell us 
 is the appearance of that stone : but, as it is large or small, 
 the soul comprehends the Idea of Greatness : and this appre- 
 hension is a reminiscence of the world of Ideas, awakened by 
 a sensation. So when we see or hear of a benevolent action, 
 besides the fact, our Soul apprehends the Idea of Goodness. 
 And all our recollection of Ideas is performed in the same way. 
 It is as if in our youth we had listened to some mighty orator, 
 whose printed speech we are reading in old age. That printed 
 page, how poor and faint a copy of that thrilling eloquence ! 
 how greatly do we miss the speaker's piercing vibrating tones, 
 his flashing eye, his flashing face ! And yet that printed page 
 in some dim way recalls those tones, recalls that face, and stirs 
 us somewhat as we then were stirred. Long years and many 
 avocations have somewhat effaced the impression he made, but 
 the printed words serve faintly to recall it. Thus it is with our 
 immortal Souls. They have so sojourned in that celestial 
 region where the voice of Truth rings clearly, where the aspect 
 of Truth is unveiled, undimmed. They are now sojourning in 
 this fleeting flowing river of life, stung with resistless longings 
 for the skies, and solaced only by the reminiscences of that 
 former state which these fleeting, broken, incoherent images of 
 Ideas awaken in them. 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose this a mere poetical conception. 
 Plato never sacrifices logic to poetry. If he sometimes calls 
 poetry to his aid, it is only to express by it those ideas which 
 logic cannot grasp, ideas which are beyond demonstration ; but 
 he never indulges in mere fancies. 
 
 Instead therefore of saying that Reason was occupied with 
 
 1/ 
 
ti8 PLATO'S PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 innate ideas, he consistently said that everything which the 
 Senses did not furnish was reminiscence of the world of Ideas. 
 
 We are now in a condition to answer the question with which 
 the last chapter was closed, — How are we to ascertain the 
 Truth, if phenomena are not exact copies of noumena ? 
 
 The sensation awakens recollection, and the recollection is of 
 Truth; the soul is confronted with the Many by means of 
 Sense, and by means of Reason it detects the One in the Many, 
 i.e. the particular things perceived by Sense awaken the recol- 
 lection of Universals or Ideas. 
 
 But this recollection of Truth is always more or less imperfect. 
 Absolute Truth is for the Gods alone. No man is without 
 some of the divine spark. Philosophers alone have any large 
 share ; and they might increase it by a proper method. What 
 that Method is we have already seen. 
 
 The philosophy of Plato has two distinct branches, some- 
 what resembling those of Parmenides. The universe is divided 
 into two parts : the celestial region of Ideas, and the mundane 
 region of material phenomena. These answer very well to the 
 modern conception of Heaven and Earth. As the phenomena 
 of matter are but copies of Ideas (not as some suppose their 
 bodily realization)) there arises a question : How do ideas 
 become matter ? In other words : How do things participate 
 in Ideas ? We have mooted the question in the former 
 chapter, where we said that it admitted of no solution ; nor 
 does it ; and we must not be surprised to find Plato giving at 
 different times two very different explanations. TheSfe two 
 explanations are too curious to be overlooked. In the 
 1 Republic,' he says, that God, instead of perpetually creating 
 individual things created a distinct type (Idea) for each thing. 
 From this type all other things of the class are made. Thus, 
 God made the Idea of a bed ; according to this type, any car- 
 penter may now fashion as many beds as he likes, in the same 
 way as an artist may imitate in his paintings the types already 
 created, but may not himself create anything new. The argu- 
 ment, as an illustration of Plato's Method, may be given 
 here : — 
 
 " Shall we proceed according to our usual Method? That 
 Method as you know is the embracing under one general Idea 
 the multiplicity of things which exists separately, but have tb< 
 same name. You comprehend ? 
 
 "Perfectly. 
 
PLATO'S PSYCHOLOGY. sif 
 
 "Let us take anything you like. For instance, there is ? 
 multiplicity of beds and tables ? 
 
 " Certainly. 
 
 " But these two kinds are comprised one under the Idea of 
 a bed and the other under the Idea of a table ? 
 
 " Without doubt. 
 
 " And we say that the carpenter who makes one of these 
 articles, makes the bed or the table according to the Idea he 
 has of each. For he does not make the Idea itself. That is 
 impossible ? 
 
 " Truly, that is impossible. 
 
 "Well,' now, what name shall we bestow on the workman 
 whom I am now going to name ? 
 
 " What workman ? 
 
 " Him who makes what all the other workmen make sepa- 
 rately. 
 
 " You speak of a powerful man ! 
 
 " Patience ; you will admire him still more. This workman 
 has not only the talent of making all the works of art, but also 
 all the works of nature : plants, animals, everything else ; in a 
 word, himself.* He makes the Heaven, the Earth, the Gods ; 
 everything in Heaven, Earth, or Hell. 
 
 " You speak of a wonderful Sophist, truly ! 
 
 " You seem to doubt me ? But, tell me : do you think there 
 is no such workman ; or, do you think that in one sense any 
 one could do all this, but in another no one could ? Could you 
 not yourself succeed in a certain way ? 
 
 " In what way ? 
 
 " It is not difficult ; it is often done and in a short time. 
 Take a mirror, and turn it round on all sides : in an instant you 
 will have made the sun and stars, the earth, yourself, the ani- 
 mals, and plants, works, and all we mentioned. 
 
 " Yes, the images, the appearances, but not the real things. 
 
 " Very well ; you comprehend my opinion. The painter is a 
 workman of this class, is he not ? 
 
 " Certainly. 
 
 " You will tell me that he makes nothing real, although he 
 makes a bed in a certain way. 
 
 * rh re &K\a xai kavrbv. We are inclined to regard this passage as 
 corrupt, the self-creation of God being certainly no Platonic notion ; at 
 least not countenanced by any other passage in any other work. The 
 scholiast makes no comment on it. 
 
2SC PLATO* S PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 " Yes : but it is only an appearance, an image, And the 
 carpenter, did you not allow that the bed which he made was 
 not the Idea which we call the essence of the bed, the real bed, 
 but only a certain bed ? 
 
 " I said so, indeed. 
 
 " If, then, he does not make the Idea of the bed, he makes 
 nothing real, but only something which represents that which 
 really exists. And, if any one maintain that the carpenter's 
 work has a real existence he will be in error." * 
 
 In the ' Timseus,* perhaps the most purely expository of all 
 his works, and unquestionably one of the latest, Plato takes a 
 totally different view of the creation of the world. God is not 
 made to create types (Ideas) ; but these types having existed 
 from all eternity, God in fashioning Chaos fashioned it after 
 the model of these Ideas. In this view there is no participation 
 in the nature of Ideas, but only a participation in their form. 
 
 Whichever hypothesis he adopted, and Plato did not much 
 care for either, this conception of Heaven and Earth as two 
 different regions is completed by the conception of the double 
 nature of the soul ; or rather of two souls ; one Rational and 
 the other sensitive. 
 
 These two souls are closely connected, as the two regions of 
 Ideas and Phenomena are connected. Neither of them are 
 superfluous ; neither of them, in a human sense, sufficient ; they 
 complete each other. The sensitive soul awakens the reminis- 
 cences of the Rational soul ; and the Rational soul, by detecting 
 the One in the Many, preserves Man from the scepticism 
 inevitably resulting from mere sense-knowledge. 
 
 Thus did Plato resume in himself all the conflicting tenden- 
 cies of his age ; thus did he accept each portion of the truth 
 supposed to be discovered by his predecessors, and reconcile 
 these portions in one general doctrine, ,- In- that vast system 
 all scepticism and all faith found acceptance ; the scepticism 
 was corrected, the faith was propped up by more solid argu- 
 ments. He admits with the sceptics the imperfection of all 
 sense-knowledge ; but, though imperfect, it is not worthless ; it 
 is no more like the truth than phenomena are like Ideas ; but, 
 as phenomena are in some sort modelled after Ideas, and do, 
 therefore, in some dim way, represent Ideas, so does sense- 
 knowledge lead the patient thinker to something like the 
 
 • * Repub.,' x. pp. 467-8. 
 
SUMMARY OF PLATO'S DIALECTICS, 221 
 
 Truth ; it awakens in him reminiscence of the Truth. As 
 Ritter says, " He shows, in detail, that in the world of sense 
 there is no perfect likeness, but that an object which at one 
 time appears like, is at another thought to be unlike, and is, 
 therefore, defective in completeness of resemblance, and has at 
 most but a tendency thereto. The same is the case with the 
 Beautiful, the Good, the Just, the Holy, and with all that really 
 is; in the sensible world there is nothing exactly resembling 
 them, neither similar nor dissimilar ; all, however, that possesses 
 any degree of correspondence with these true species of being 
 is perceived by us through the senses, and thereby reminds us 
 of what truly is. From this it is clear, that he had previously 
 seen it somewhere, or been conscious of it, and, as this could 
 not have been in the present, it must have been in some earlier 
 state of existence. In this respect there is a close connection 
 between this doctrine and the view of sensible objects, which 
 represents them as mere copies or resemblances of the super- 
 sensible truth; for, evenHn perception, a feeling arises upon 
 the mind, that all we see or hear is very far from reaching to a 
 likeness to that which is the true being and the absolutely like ; 
 but that, striving to attain, it falls short of perfect resemblance, 
 and consequently the impressions of the sense are mere tokens 
 of the eternal ideas whose similitude they bear and of which 
 they are copies." 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SUMMARY OF PLATO'S DIALECTICS. 
 
 Having exhibited Plato's conceptions of Method, of Ideas, 
 and of the Soul, it will now be convenient to take a brief 
 review of them to exhibit their position in the general doctrine. 
 It is often said that Dialectics was the base of the Platonic 
 doctrine — that in truth Plato believed in no other Science ; 
 Dialectics and Philosophy were synonymous. This, like many 
 other current remarks, labours under the very great disadvantage 
 of being unintelligible. We well remember the time when we 
 thought it pure galimatias ; and, indeed, if you look into the 
 ordinary critics and historians, it will be strange if they manage 
 
)l 
 
 M SUMMARY OF PLATO'S DIALECTICS. 
 
 to render the phrase intelligible to you. If you are not, how- 
 ever, in a condition to understand it after reading the preceding 
 chapters, we have abused your patience. 
 
 For Dialectics (or Logic) to be synonymous with Science, 
 the theory of Ideas was necessary. Dialectics is the science 
 of general propositions, of general terras, of universals. To 
 become the science it must necessarily be occupied with more 
 important things. Ideas were so ; for Ideas were at once the 
 only real Existences and General Terms. Whoso discoursed 
 about General Terms discoursed about Existence ; and deeper 
 than that no science could hope to penetrate. Plato, whose 
 opinions can scarcely ever be relied on, is yet both explicit and 
 constant in his conception of Dialectics as the Science. To 
 determine the real nature of Science he devotes an entire 
 dialogue : the ' Theaetetus.' That remarkable work is purely 
 critical ; it refutes the opinions of adversaries, in such a way as 
 to leave no doubt as to Plato's own opinion. All attempts to con- 
 stitute science either upon perception (ato-Orjo-ts) or upon opinion 
 (So£a) he crushes in an irresistible manner. Perception can 
 only be of objects which have no stability, which have no real 
 existence. Opinion though it be correct is unable to constitute 
 science : for there are two sorts of opinion — false and true, and 
 to distinguish the true from the false would require a science 
 which knew the Truth. It follows as a necessary consequence 
 that Ideas which are the real immutable elements of science 
 must be known in themselves, and that science consists in 
 seeking the order of development of these Ideas, that is to say, 
 in Dialectics. 
 
 Owing to the Ideal theory Dialectics was necessarily the 
 Science, that is, the Science of Being. The distinction between 
 his Dialectics and the Logic of his successors is very marked. 
 While he spoke of Dialectics as the art of methodical classifica- 
 tion of genera — the art of speaking upon general notions — he 
 did not confine it to subjective truth ; for he believed this sub- 
 jective truth to be only a reflex of the objective reality; he 
 believed that abstract ideas were images of real existences. 
 Dialectics was therefore not only the " art of thinking," but the 
 science of immutable being. 
 
 In the two-fold aspect of Creation there was this division of 
 knowledge ; 
 
 Perception. 
 
 Matter, phenomena, to. yiyvopwa = Sensation = Opinion. 
 
PLATO'S THEOLOGY AND COSMOLOGY 223 
 
 Dialectics. 
 Existence, Ideas, ra oi>Ta= Abstract ideas=Science. 
 
 In the everchanging flux of Becoming, which was the object 
 of Perception, there were traces of the immutable Being, which 
 was the object of science. This distinction may be applied to 
 Plato's own manifold works. We may say of them that the 
 opinions on psychology, physics, ethics, and politics are con- 
 stantly changing, uncertain, and of no value. But amidst all 
 these various opinions there reigns one constant Method. He 
 never wavers as to Dialectics. That is the Science. We may 
 therefore fully understand the importance bestowed on Dia- 
 lectics ; and we may also clearly see what is meant by identi- 
 fying his Philosophy with Dialectics. 
 
 The basis of the Platonic doctine therefore is Dialectics ; the 
 subject-matter of Dialectics consists of Ideas; and the Method 
 consists of Definitions, Analysis, Induction. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 flato's theology and cosmology. 
 
 Hitherto we have been occupied solely with the general 
 Doctrine j we have now to descend to particulars. 
 
 But, as so often remarked, particular doctrines have scarcely 
 uny stability in the Platonic writings; what is advanced to-day 
 is refuted to-morrow ; accordingly, critics and historians have 
 squabbled about these wavering opinions, as if agreement were 
 possible. One declares Plato held one opinion j and cites his 
 passages in proof. Another thinks his predecessor a block- 
 head, and cites other passages wholly destructive of the opinion 
 Plato is said to have maintained. A third comes, and string- 
 ing passages from one dialogue to passages from another, 
 interprets the whole in his own way. 
 
 Any consistent Theological doctrine will not therefore be 
 expected from us : we can only reproduce some of the Pla- 
 tonic notions, those especially which have influenced later 
 thinkers. 
 
 In the same way as Plato sought to detect the One amidst 
 
324 PLATO'S THEOLOGY AND COSMOLOGY. 
 
 the Multiplicity of material phenomena, and, having detected 
 it, declared it to be the real essence of matter, so also did he 
 seek to detect the One amidst the Multiplicity of Ideas, and, 
 having detected it, declared it to be God. What Ideas were 
 to Phenomena, God was to Ideas: the last result of generaliza- 
 tion. God was thus the One Being comprising within himself 
 all other Beings, the lv koX 7roAXa, the Cause of all things, 
 celestial and terrestrial. 
 
 God is the supreme Idea. Whatever view we take of the 
 Platonic cosmology — whether God created Ideas, or whether 
 he only fashioned unformed matter after the model of Ideas — 
 we are equally led to the conviction, that God represented the 
 supreme Idea of all Existence : the great Intelligence, source 
 of all other Intelligences: the Sun whose light illumined 
 creation. 
 
 God is perfect, ever the same, without envy, wishing nothing 
 but good ; for, although a clear knowledge of God is impos- 
 sible to mortals, an approximation to that knowledge is 
 possible ; we cannot know what he is, we can only know what 
 he is like. He must be good, because self-sufficing ; and the 
 world is good, because he made it. Why did he make it ? 
 
 God made the world because he was free from envy, and 
 wished that all things should resemble him as much as pos- 
 sible. He therefore persuaded Necessity to become stable, 
 harmonious, and fashioned according to Beauty. Yes, per- 
 suaded 'is Plato's word: for there were two eternal Principles, 
 Intelligence and Necessity, and from the mixture of these the 
 world was made ; but Intelligence persuaded Necessity to be 
 fashioned according to Beauty.* 
 
 He arranged chaos into Beauty. But, as there is nothing 
 beautiful but Intelligence, and as there is no Intelligence 
 without a Soul, he placed a Soul into the body of the World, 
 and made the World an animal. 
 
 Plato's proof of the world being an animal, is too curious a 
 specimen of his analogical or Inductive reasoning to be passed 
 over. There is warmth in the human being ; there is warmth 
 also in the world'; the human being is composed of various 
 elements, and is therefore called a body ; the world is also 
 composed of various elements, and is therefore a body; and, 
 
 * pifiiyfuvrj ydp ovv ij rovSe rov Koopov ytvkaiQ «£ dvdyKijg n cat vov 
 vwrrdviui iyyivvijOri, vov $k dvdyKtjg apxovroc ry ireiOttv avrrjv tup 
 yiyrofuvuv rd jcKiiara ixi to fitXrioTov dyuv. — Timnsus, p. 56. 
 
PLATO'S THEOLOGY AND COSMOLOGY. ■ 225 
 
 as our bodies have souls, the body of the world must have a 
 soul : and that soul stands in the same relation to our souls, as 
 the warmth of the world stands to our warmth.* 
 
 Having thus demonstrated the world to be an animal, it was 
 but natural he should conceive that animal as resembling its 
 creator, and human beings as resembling the universal animal, 
 to rrav £wov. 
 
 As soon as the World, that image of the eternal Gods or 
 Ideas, that vast Animal, began to move, live, and think, God 
 looked upon his work, and was glad.t 
 
 But, although God in his goodness would have made nothing 
 evil, he could not prevent the existence of it. Various dis- 
 putes have been warmly carried on by scholars, respecting the 
 nature of this Evil which Plato was forced to admit. Some 
 have conceived it nothing less than the Manichsean doctrine. 
 This much we may say : the notion of an antagonist principle 
 is inseparable from every religious formula : as God can only 
 be Good, and as Evil does certainly exist, it must exist inde- 
 pendently of him ; it must be eternal. Plato cut the matter 
 very short by his logical principle, — that since there was a 
 Good, there must necessarily be the contrary of Good, viz., 
 Evil. 
 
 If Evil exists, how does it exist, and where f It cannot 
 find place in the celestial region of Ideas. It must, therefore, 
 necessarily dwell in the terrestrial region of phenomena : its 
 home is the world ; it is banished from heaven. And is not 
 this logical? What is the world of Phenomena but an imper- 
 fect copy of the world of Ideas, and how can the imperfect be 
 the purely Good ? When Ideas are " realized," as the pan- 
 theists would say, when Ideas, pure immutable essences, are 
 clothed in material forms, or when matter is fashioned after 
 the model of those Ideas, what can result but imperfections ? 
 
 The Ideas are not in this world, the Ideas are 6vto>s ovra 
 not yiyvoixiva: in this world they are only in a state of 
 becoming. 
 
 Phenomena are in their very nature imperfect : they are 
 perpetually striving to exist as realities. In their constitution, 
 
 * « Philebus,' pp. 170-I. 
 
 f 'Qf l\ Kivr)6iv avrb icai £wv lvtv6t)<rt Twv aiSlutv 9tu>v ytyovoQ aya\pa 
 b yttvrjaag Tcarijp, t)ynnOrj re xai (uQpavtitiq iiri fidWov opoiov irp'oQ to 
 irapdcuypa iirtvoqatv aTftpyaoaoOai. — l^maus, p. 36. It is almost 
 superfluous to refer the reader to ' Genesis.' 
 
 P 
 
226 . PLATO'S THEOLOGY AND COSMOLOGY. 
 
 there is something of the divine : an image of the Idea, and 
 some participation in it ; but more of the primeval chaos.^ 
 
 Those, therefore, who say that Plato thought that " Evil was 
 inherent in matter," though expressing themselves loosely, 
 express themselves on the whole correctly. Matter was the 
 great Necessity which Intelligence fashioned. Being Necessity 
 and unintelligent it was Evil, for Intelligence alone can be 
 good.* 
 
 Now, as this world of phenomena is the region where Evil 
 dwells, we must use our utmost endeavours to escape from it. 
 And how escape ? By suicide ? No. By leading the life of 
 the gods ; and every Platonist knows that the life of the gods 
 consists in the eternal contemplation of truth, of Ideas. 
 
 Thus, as on every side, are we forced to encounter Dialectics 
 as the sole salvation for man ! 
 
 From the above explanation of the nature of Evil, it will be 
 seen that there is no contradiction in Plato's saying, that the 
 quantity of Evil in this life exceeded that of the Good ; it 
 exceeds it in the proportion that phenomena exceed noumena, 
 that matter exceeds ideas. 
 
 But although Evil be a necessary part of the world, it is in 
 constant struggle with Good. What is this but the struggle of 
 Becoming f And Man is endowed with Free Will and Intelli- 
 gence : he may, therefore, choose between Good and Evil : -rijf$ 
 $€ y€v«r«os ro iroiov rtvos dorJK* reus fiov\r}cr€<riv Ik6.(tt(ixv rjfi(ji)V 
 ras amas. — Leges, x. p. 217. And according to his choice will 
 his future life be regulated. Metempsychosis was a doctrine 
 Plato readily borrowed from Pythagoras ; and in that doctrine 
 he could find arguments for the enforcement of a sage and 
 virtuous life, which no other afforded at that epoch. 
 
 We have said nothing of the arguments whereby Plato proves 
 the existence of God ; for we have been forced to pass over 
 many details : but we cannot close this chapter without allud- 
 ing to that argument so often used in modern times, and 
 seldom suspected to have had so ancient an upholder, — God is 
 
 * In the * Laws,' x. pp. 201-2, he curiously distinguished the vovq 
 from the ipvxn in this manner. The rpvxfj (soul) is the self-moving 
 principle ; but, inasmuch as it is sometimes moved to bad as well as to 
 good (tu>v r« dyaOwv aWiav ilvai ^v\riv cat rutv ra/ca»v), it was neces- 
 sary to have some other principle which should determine its direction. 
 He therefore makes vovq (intelligence), the principle which determines the 
 soul (whether the soul of the world or of man, it is the same) to good ; 
 and avoia (ignorance — want of nous) which determines it to evil. 
 
PLATO'S VIEW OF THE BEAUTIFUL AND GOOD. 227 
 
 proved to exist by the very feeling of affinity to his nature 
 which stirs within our souls. 
 
 Such opinions as those above set down were certainly ex- 
 pressed by Plato, at different times : but we again warn the 
 reader against supposing them to have been his constant views. 
 They are taken from works written at wide intervals, and bear- 
 ing considerable difference of opinion; and in those very 
 works there are occasional glimpses of an appalling doctrine, 
 viz. that man is but the plaything of God, who alternately 
 governs and forsakes the world. The first notion seems de- 
 rived from Heraclitus, who said, that making worlds was the 
 sport of Demiourgos. Plato's words are these : avOpmirov Be 
 tfeov tl TraLyviov ilvai fitfxTjxavrjfiivov : and this is said to be 
 man's greatest excellence.* The second notion is formally 
 expressed in the ■ Politicus,' pp. 273-80. "God," he says, 
 " alternately governs and forsakes the world; when he governs 
 it, things go on well : it is the age of gold ; when he forsakes 
 it, the world suddenly turns round in a contrary orbit — a 
 fearful crisis takes place, all things are disordered, mundane 
 existence is totally disarranged, and only after some time do 
 things settle down to a sort of order, though of a very imper- 
 fect kind." 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 plato's view of the beautiful and the good; 
 
 THE to KaXov kcu to ayaOov. 
 
 So much has been written and talked in modern times of the 
 rb KaXbvj " the Beautiful," as conceived by Plato, and this by 
 persons who never read a line of his works, that we must 
 devote a few sentences to it ; certain as we are, that of those 
 who consult our pages, two-thirds would deem the omission 
 unpardonable. 
 
 The bond which unites the human to the divine is Love. 
 And what is Love ? The longing of the Soul for Beauty : the 
 inextinguishable desire which like feels for like, which the 
 divinity within us feels for the divinity revealed to us in 
 Beauty. 
 
 • ' De Legibus,' vii. p. 32. 
 
828 PLATO'S VIEW OF 
 
 This is the celebrated Platonic Love, which, from having 
 originally meant a communion of two souls, and that in a 
 rigidly dialectical sense, has been degraded to the expression 
 of hypocritical sentiment between the sexes. Platonic love 
 meant sympathy; it means the love of a sentimental young 
 gentleman for a woman he cannot or will not marry. 
 
 But what is Beauty ? Not the mere flattery of the senses. 
 It does not consist in harmonious outlines and resplendent 
 colours : these are but the indications of it. Beauty is Truth. 
 It is the radiant image of that which was most splendid in the 
 world of Ideas. Listen to Plato's description of it in the 
 ' Phsedrus ' : — " For, as we have already said, every human 
 soul has actually seen the Real Existences, or it would not 
 have come into a human shape. But it is not easy for all of 
 them to call to mind what they then saw : those, especially, 
 which saw that region for a short time only, and those which, 
 having fallen to the earth, were so unfortunate as to be turned 
 to injustice, and consequent oblivion of the sacred things which 
 were seen by them in their prior state. Few, therefore, remain 
 who are adequate to the recollection of those things. These 
 few, when they see here any image or resemblance of the 
 things which are there, receive a shock like a thunderbolt, and 
 are in a manner taken out of themselves ; but, from deficiency 
 of comprehension, they know not what it is which so affects 
 them. Now, the likenesses which exist there of Justice and 
 Temperance, and the other things which the soul honours, do 
 not possess any splendour ; and a few persons only, with great 
 difficulty, by the aid of dull, blunt, material organs, perceive 
 the terrestial likenesses of those qualities, and recognise them. 
 But Beauty was not only most splendid when it was seen by 
 us forming part of the heavenly possession or choir, but here 
 also the likeness of it comes to us through the most acute and 
 clear of our senses, that of sight, and with a splendour which 
 no other of the terrestrial images of super-celestial existences 
 possess. They, then, who are not fresh from heaven, or who 
 have been corrupted, are not vehemently impelled towards 
 that Beauty which is aloft when they see that upon earth which 
 is called by its name ; they do not, therefore, venerate and 
 worship it, but give themselves up to physical pleasure after 
 the manner of a quadruped. But they who are fresh from 
 those divine objects of contemplation, and who have formerly 
 contemplated them much, when they see a Godlike counten- 
 
THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE GOOD, 129 
 
 ance or form, in which celestial beauty is imaged and well 
 imitated, are first struck with a holy awe, and then, approach- 
 ing, venerate this beautiful object as a god, and, if they were 
 not afraid of the reputation of too raving a madness, would 
 erect altars, and perform sacrifices to it. 
 
 "And the warmth and genial influence derived from the 
 atmosphere which beauty generates around itself, entering 
 through the eyes, softens and liquefies the inveterate indura- 
 tion, which coats and covers up the parts in the vicinity of the 
 wings, and prevents them from growing: this being melted, 
 the wings begin to germinate and increase, and this, like the 
 growing of the teeth, produces an itching and irritation which 
 disturbs the whole frame of the soul. When, therefore, by the 
 contemplation of the beautiful object, the induration is soft- 
 ened, and the wings begin to shoot, the soul is relieved from 
 its pain and rejoices; but when that object is absent, the 
 liquefied substance hardens again, and closes up the young 
 shoots of the wings, which consequently boil up and throb, and 
 throw the soul into a state of turbulence and rage, and will 
 neither allow it to sleep nor remain at rest, until it can again 
 see the beautiful object, and be relieved. For this reason it 
 never willingly leaves that object ; but for its sake deserts 
 parents, and brothers, and friends, and neglects its patrimony, 
 and despises all established usages on which it valued itself 
 before. And this affection is Love. 
 
 The reader is doubtless by this time familiar enough with the 
 Platonic philosophy to appreciate this passage. He will see 
 the dialectical meaning of this poetical myth. He will com- 
 prehend, also, that the Platonic Love is naturally more appro- 
 priate between two men — master and pupil — than between the 
 two sexes ; because it is purer, and less disturbed by other 
 feelings. 
 
 Beauty is the most vivid image of Truth : it is divinity in its 
 most perceptible form. But what is the Good ? 
 
 The Good, to ayaObv, is God, but God in his abstract state. 
 Truth, Beauty, Justice, are all aspects of the Deity; Goodness 
 is his nature. The Good is therefore incapable of being per- 
 ceived ; it can only be known in reflection. In the same 
 manner as the sun is the cause of sight, and also the cause of 
 the objects of sight growing and being produced, so also the 
 Good is the cause of science, and the cause of being to what- 
 ever is the object of science : and, as the sun itself is not sight, 
 
830 PLATO'S JSTJff/CS. 
 
 nor the object of sight, but presides over both ; so also the 
 Good is not science, nor the object of science, but is superior 
 to both, for they are not the Good, but goodly. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 plato's ethics. 
 
 Plato was a Socratist. Hitherto, however, we have seen him 
 following his master only in his Method. The speculations on 
 Ideas, Reminiscence, Metempsychosis, God, &c, were things 
 he did not learn from Socrates, although the Socratic Method 
 was his most powerful instrument. We have before seen that 
 Socrates occupied himself almost exclusively with Ethics ; and 
 it is in Ethics, therefore, that we shall expect to find Plato 
 resembling him. Such is the fact ; and it will enable us to 
 pass more rapidly over the subject than the importance of it 
 would otherwise justify. 
 
 But, although Plato's ethical opinions are mostly Socratic, 
 yet even in them we see how the Dialectician was dominant : 
 they are logical rather than ethical : that is to say, they are 
 deductions from certain logical premisses, not from investiga- 
 tions into human nature. There is, moreover, considerable 
 contradiction in his various works on this, as on other points. 
 In one place (' Timaeus '), he advocates Free Will; in another 
 ('Hippias Minor'), Fatalism. Sometimes vice is involuntary, 
 at other times voluntary. Sometimes — indeed, generally — vice 
 is nothing but ignorance ; elsewhere, as we have shown, vice 
 is said to be partly ignorance and partly incontinence. Virtue 
 is said to be Science ; yet Knowledge alone does not constitute 
 Happiness, nor can Virtue be taught. 
 
 Although, therefore, many splendid passages may be quoted, 
 in which morals are worthily spoken of, we cannot but regard 
 as chimerical any attempt to deduce from them an ethical 
 system. All that can safely be relied on, is general tenden- 
 cies: such, for instance, as his subordination of Ethics to 
 Dialectics. As M. de Gerando well observes, " he did not 
 found his ethics on a principle of obligation, on the definition 
 of duty, but on the tendency to perfection." 
 
 In Plato's Ethics, the passions are entirely set aside ; they 
 
PLATO'S ETHICS. *3i 
 
 are regarded as disturbances in the moral economy. Virtue is 
 purely a matter of Intelligence. And the Intellect has there- 
 fore not only a regulative office, but the supreme direction of 
 all action.* Now, as Chamfort admirably said, " the Philo- 
 sopher who would set aside the passions, resembles a Chemist 
 who would extinguish his fire." We are all aware that it is 
 very common " to know the right, and yet the wrong pursue"; 
 that the passions not only disturb the regulative action of 
 Reason, but positively triumph over it ; and that morals are 
 our mores, our habits, rather than our beliefs. 
 
 The Ethics of Plato might suit the inhabitants of another 
 world ; they are quite useless to the inhabitants of this. 
 
 His Politics are his Ethics applied to the State ; and labour 
 under the same errors. But his Utopian Government, the 
 * Republic/ has had too much celebrity for us to neglect it. 
 
 The ' Republic ' is unquestionably one of the most interest- 
 ing of his works, and so slow has been the progress of social 
 science, compared with every other science, that many of the 
 ideas Plato has there put forth, are still entertained by very 
 serious thinkers ; whereas his ideas on physics, metaphysics, 
 or morals, would barely find a defender. 
 
 The weakness of Man is the cause that States are formed. 
 As he cannot suffice to himself, he must live in Society. This 
 society should be an image of himself. The faculties which 
 belong to him must find a proper field of activity in Society ; 
 and this vast union of intellects should form but one intelligence. 
 
 Thus man's virtues are, I. fpovrjais, wisdom; II. avSp«a, 
 fortitude; III. o-wjtpoovvrj, temperance; IV. SiKaiotrvvrj, justice. 
 The State, therefore, must have its Rulers, the philosophers, 
 who will represent wisdom ; its soldiers, who will represent 
 fortitude ; its craftsmen and burghers, who will represent tem- 
 perance. Justice is a quality which must be shared by all 
 classes, as lying at the root of all virtuous action. 
 
 In wisdom and justice we have the alpha and omega of 
 Plato's doctrine : justice is wisdom in act. The office of 
 the Rulers is therefore to ordain such laws as will effectually 
 prevent all injustice in the State. 
 
 * We cannot interrupt our exposition with any examples ; they are too 
 numerous. But we have added in the ' Appendix ' a passage respecting 
 the misery of the unjust man, from the ' Gorgias.' In it Plato endeavours 
 to prove that he who does an injury suffers more than he who endures it. — 
 See* Note B.' 
 
s$2 PLATO'S ETHICS. 
 
 Their first care will be to instil into the minds of the citizens, 
 just notions respecting the deity. All those who attribute to 
 the deity the passions and imperfections of men, must be 
 banished: hence the famous banishment of the poets, of which 
 so much has been said. 
 
 This Law, pushed to its rigorous conclusions, is the Law of 
 fanaticism. Whatever the Rulers believed respecting Religion, 
 was to be the Religion of the State. Strange that a pupil of 
 Socrates should have advocated a law, the operation of which 
 caused his master's condemnation ! 
 
 But there were other causes for the banishment of the Poets 
 besides their fictions respecting the gods. They enervate the 
 soul by pictures of immoderate desires : they give imitations of 
 the vices and follies of men : they overstep the limits of that 
 moderation which alone can balance the soul. Even the 
 Musicians were partly banished ; those at least who were 
 plaintive and harmonious. Only the Dorian and the Phrygian 
 music could be admitted; the one, impetuous and warlike, the 
 other calm. 
 
 There is a germ of Stoicism in Plato, and that germ here 
 bears its fruit. A measured equability of mind was the ideal 
 of human happiness, and anything which interfered with it was 
 denounced. Thus poetry and music. Thus also conjugal 
 love. As the State could not subsist without children, children 
 must be begotten. But parents are foolishly fond ; they are 
 avaricious for their children ; ambitious for them. Husbands 
 are also foolishly fond. To prevent these disturbances of good 
 order, Plato ordains community of wives, and interdicts paren- 
 tage. Women are to be chosen for marriage as brood mares 
 are chosen. The violent women to be assorted to the mild 
 men ; the mild to be assorted to violent men. But the chil- 
 dren belong to the State. They are, therefore, to be consigned 
 to the State Nurses, who will superintend their early education. 
 As children manifest different capacities, and, as Plato thought 
 with St. Simon, each citizen should be ranked according to his 
 capacity, the State would undertake to decide to which class 
 the young man should belong. 
 
 But, if domestic life is thus at a blow sacrificed to the public 
 good, do not imagine that women will lose their occupations. 
 No : women must share with men the toils of war and agricul- 
 ture. The female dog guards sheep as well as the male; why 
 should not the women guard the State?" And, as some few 
 
PLATO'S ETHICS. J33 
 
 women manifest a capacity for philosophy, those few will share 
 with men the Government. 
 
 With community of wives and children, it is natural that 
 community of property should be joined, and the reason is 
 similar. Property is the great disturber of social life; it 
 engenders crimes and luxuries, which are scarcely better than 
 crimes. Property, therefore, must be abolished. The State 
 alone has riches. 
 
 In one word, the Family, no less than the individual, is 
 sacrificed to the State ; the State itself being an Abstraction. 
 Like the Utopists of modern days, he has developed an 
 d priori theory of what the State should be, and by this theory 
 all human feelings are to be neglected : instead of developing 
 a theory d posteriori, i.e. from an investigation into the nature 
 of human wants and feelings. 
 
 By thus reducing the ' Republic ' to its theoretical formula, 
 we are doubtless viewing it in its most unfavourable light Its 
 value, and its interest, do not consist in its political ideas, but 
 in its collateral ideas on education, religion, and morals. But 
 these are beside our present purpose. 
 
 In the * Laws,' many of the above notions are modified ; 
 but the general theory is the same. 
 
 Willingly would we discourse upon these two remarkable 
 books at greater length ; but, although we have only touched 
 on a few points connected with Plato, we have already 
 exhausted the space we could afford ; and we must close here 
 this imperfect account of one of the greatest minds of antiquity. 
 If we have assigned him his due position in the history of 
 human development — if we have in some sort presented the 
 reader with a clue, whereby he may traverse the labyrinth of 
 that celebrated, but ill-understood doctrine — if we have suc- 
 ceeded in conveying some impression of the man, more con- 
 sonant with truth, than that usually accredited, we have 
 performed our task. 
 
Sbttantif) <8pocft. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY AGAIN REDUCED TO A SYSTEM: CLOSE 
 OF THE SOCRATIC MOVEMENT. ARISTOTLE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 LIFE OF ARISTOTLE. 
 
 When Plato was leaving Athens for the journey into Sicily, of 
 which we have spoken, and which occupied him three years or 
 more, Aristotle appeared in that active city, then an active, 
 restless youth of seventeen ; rich both in money and in know- 
 ledge, eager, impetuous, truth-loving, and insatiable in his 
 thirst for philosophy. Tidings of the wondrous men who made 
 that city illustrious, and whose fame still sheds a halo round 
 its ruins, had reached him in his native land ; tidings of the 
 great thinkers and the crowded schools had lured him, though 
 so young, to Athens. 
 
 Aristotle was born at Stagira, a colony in Thrace, Olympiad 
 99 (b.c. 384). His father Nicomachus was an eminent physi- 
 cian, who had written several works on medicine and natural 
 history ; so that Aristotle's love of such subjects may be called 
 hereditary. Losing his parents at an early age, he was con- 
 signed to the care of a certain Proxenus, who had him in- 
 structed in all the physical knowledge of the time. Proxenus 
 died, and Aristotle then fulfilled his desire of seeing Athens. 
 
 During the three years of Plato's absence Aristotle was not 
 idle. He prepared himself to be a worthy pupil. His wealth 
 enabled him to purchase those costly luxuries, Books — for 
 there was no cheap Literature in those days — and in them he 
 studied the speculations of the early thinkers, with a zeal and 
 intelligence of which his own writings bear ample evidence. 
 
UFE OF ARISTOTLE. 335 
 
 There were also some friends and followers of Socrates and 
 Plato still at Athens ; men who had listened to the entrancing 
 conversation of the "old man eloquent," who could still re- 
 member with a smile his keen and playful irony ; and others 
 who were acquainted with some of the deep thoughts brooding 
 in the melancholy soul of Plato. These Aristotle eagerly 
 questioned, and from them prepared himself to receive the 
 lessons of his future teacher. 
 
 Plato returned. His school was opened, and Aristotle joined 
 the crowd of his disciples, amongst whom the penetrating glance 
 of the master soon detected the immortal pupil. Plato saw 
 that the impetuous youth needed the curb ; but there was 
 promise of greatness in that very need. His restless activity 
 was characterized by Plato in an epithet: "Aristotle is the 
 Mind of my school." 
 
 Aristotle continued to listen to Plato for twenty years ; that 
 is, till the death of the latter. But he did not confine himself 
 to the Platonic philosophy ; nor did he entirely agree with it. 
 And from this disagreement has arisen the vulgar notion of a 
 personal disagreement between Master and Pupil : a notion, 
 to be sure, propped up with pretended anecdotes, and knocked 
 down with others equally authentic. Much has been written 
 on this quarrel, and on what people call Aristotle's ingratitude. 
 We place no reliance on it ; the same thing was said of Plato 
 with respect to Socrates, and we have excellent reasons for 
 treating that as calumny. In his writings Aristotle \ doubtless 
 combats the opinion of Plato; but he always mentions him 
 with respect, sometimes with tenderness. If that be ingrati- 
 tude, it is such as all pupils have manifested who have not 
 been slavish followers. 
 
 It was a wise thought of Macedonian Philip to give his son 
 Alexander such a preceptor as Aristotle. For four years was 
 the illustrious pupil instructed by the illustrious master in 
 poetry, rhetoric, and philosophy; and, when Alexander de- 
 parted on his Indian expedition, a scholar of Aristotle's, one 
 Callisthenes, attended him. Both from Philip and from Alex- 
 ander, the Stagyrite received munificent assistance in all his 
 undertakings: especially in the collection of natural curiosities, 
 which were selected from captured provinces, to form the 
 materials of the ' History of Animals.' 
 
 After a long interval Aristotle returned to Athens and opened 
 a school in the Lyceum : a school which eclipsed all the others 
 
236 ARISTOTLE'S METHOD. 
 
 both in numbers and importance. It is curiously illustrative of 
 his restless vivacious temperament that he could not stand still 
 and lecture, but delivered his opinions whilst walking up and 
 down the shady paths of the Lyceum, attended by his eager 
 followers. Hence his disciples were called the Walking Philo- 
 sophers : Peripatetics. 
 
 His lectures were of two kinds : scientific and popular : 
 acroamatic or acroatie, and exoteric. The former were for the 
 more advanced students, and those who were capable of 
 pursuing scientific subjects ; he delivered these in the morn- 
 ing. The latter were afternoon lectures to a much larger class, 
 and treated of popular subjects : rhetoric, politics, and sophis- 
 tics. Much learning and ingenuity has been thrown away in 
 the endeavour to determine the precise nature of these two 
 kinds of instruction ; but we cannot stop to notice it. Those 
 who conclude that the distinction between the esoteric and 
 exoteric was a distinction of doctrine seem to us in error ; the 
 distinction was, as above stated, purely that of subject-matter. 
 Dialectics and Poetics are not addressed to the same hearers. 
 
 He spent a long and laborious life in the pursuit of know- 
 ledge, and wrote an incredible number of works, about a fourth 
 of which it is calculated are extant; the division, arrangement, 
 and authenticity of which has long been a pet subject of con- 
 tention amongst scholars ; but, as no agreement has yet been 
 effected, we may leave the question as it stands. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 aristotle's method. 
 
 Plato and Aristotle may be said to contain all the speculative 
 philosophy of Greece : whoso knows them knows all that 
 Greece had to teach. It is not our plan to draw comparisons 
 between the greatness of two great men, otherwise these two 
 would furnish a happy subject. We have endeavoured to point 
 out in what way Plato advanced the science of his age. We 
 have now to do the same by Aristotle. 
 
 Aristotle was the most learned man of antiquity, but this 
 learning did not enervate the vigour of his mind. He studi- 
 
ARISTOTLE'S METHOD, 23? 
 
 ously sought, both in books and in external nature, for mate- 
 rials wherewith to build a doctrine. Before laying down his 
 own views he examines the views of his predecessors with 
 tedious minuteness ; and his own opinions often seem rather 
 brought out in his criticisms than dogmatically affirmed. 
 Hence some have declared his Method to be the historical 
 Method ; a misconception, not to be wondered at when we 
 consider the abundance of historical evidence, and the absence 
 of any express definition of his Method in his writings. 
 
 Unlike Plato, Aristotle never mentions the nature of his 
 method; but he has one, and we must detect it. We may 
 expect to find it somewhat resembling that of his master, with 
 some modifications of his own. It is so. Plato, as Van 
 Heusde remarks, stands as a middle point between Socrates 
 and Aristotle. The Method of Socrates was one of Investiga- 
 tion ; that of Aristotle was one of Demonstration. The Defi^ 
 nition and Induction of Socrates were powerful but vague ; the 
 Syllogism of Aristotle rendered them powerful and precise. 
 Plato, as it were, fills up the gap between these two thinkers ; 
 by the addition of Analysis and Classification he reduced the 
 Socratic Method to a more scientific form, and gave it precision. 
 Where Plato left it Aristotle took it up ; and, by still further 
 modifications, all of which had but one aim, *.*., greater 
 precision, he gave it a solidity which enabled it to endure for 
 centuries. 
 
 Wherein did Plato and Aristotle fundamentally differ ? 
 
 Until the time of Hegel the universal explanation of this 
 difference was briefly to this effect : Plato is an Idealist, Aris- 
 totle a Materialist ; the one a Rationalist, the other an Empiric : 
 one trusting solely to Reason, the other solely to Experience. 
 This explanation Hegel crushed by showing, that although 
 Aristotle laid more stress upon experience than did Plato, yet 
 he also expressly taught that Reason alone could form science. 
 
 Let us, then, try if we can penetrate the real difference. 
 And to do so, we must first ask, What was the fundamental 
 position ot the Platonic doctrine ? That question our readers 
 can readily answer : the theory of Ideas, whereby Dialectics 
 became science. If here Aristotle be found to agree with his 
 master, there can be no fundamental difference between them ; 
 if here he be found to differ, we shall be able to deduce from 
 it all other differences. 
 
 In truth, Aristotle radically opposed the Ideal theory ; and 
 
338 ARISTOTLE'S METHOD, 
 
 the greater part of his criticisms on Plato are criticisms of that 
 theory. He does not deny to Ideas a subjective existence : on 
 the contrary, he makes them the materials of science ; but he 
 is completely opposed to their objective existence, and calls 
 them empty and poetical metaphors. He says, that on the 
 supposition of Ideas being Existences and Models, there would 
 be several Models for the same Thing ; since the same thing 
 may be classed under several heads. Thus, Socrates may be 
 classed under the Ideas of Socrates, of Man, of Animal, and of 
 Biped; or Philosopher, General, and Statesman. The "stout 
 Stagyrite" not only perceived the logical error of the Ideal 
 theory, but also saw how the error originated. He profoundly 
 remarked, that Ideas are nothing but productions of the Reason, 
 separating, by a logical abstraction, the particular objects from 
 those relations which are common to them all. Aristotle saw 
 that Plato had mistaken a subjective distinction for an objective 
 one ; had mistaken a relation which the understanding per- 
 ceived between two objects for the evidence of a separate 
 existence. The partisans of the theory of Ideas Aristotle likens 
 to those who, having to enumerate the exact number of things, 
 commence by increasing the number, as a way of simplifying 
 the calculation. 
 
 In this caustic illustration we may read his whole criticism. 
 What, indeed, was the Ideal theory, but a multiplication of the 
 number of Existences? Men had before imagined that things 
 were great, and heavy, and black or brown. Plato separated 
 the qualities of greatness, weight, and colour, and made these 
 qualities new existences. 
 
 Having disproved the notion of Ideas being Existences, — in 
 other words, of General Terms being anything more than the 
 expressions of the Relations of individual things, — Aristotle 
 was driven to maintain that the Individual Things alone 
 existed. But, if only individuals exist, only by sensation can 
 they be known ; and, if we know them by sensation, how is 
 the Universal, to kolOoXov, ever known — how do we get abstract 
 ideas ? This question was the more pertinent because Science 
 could only be a Science of the Universal, or (to use the 
 language of Positive Science) a science of general truths. 
 Aristotle admitted, with Plato, that there could be no " science 
 of sensation," no science which was not founded on ideas ; and 
 it was needful, therefore for him to show how such ideas could 
 be obtained. 
 
ARISTOTLE'S METHOD. 339 
 
 Plato's solution of the problem we before exhibited ; it was 
 the ingenious doctrine of the soul's reminiscence of a former 
 apprehension of truth, awakened by the traces of Ideas which 
 sensation discovered in Things. / 
 
 This solution, of course, did not satisfy Aristotle. He, too, 
 was aware that reminiscence was indispensable ; but reminis- 
 cence of previous experience, not of an anterior state of 
 existence in the world of Ideas. By sensation we perceive 
 particular things ; by induction we perceive the general in the 
 particular. - Sensation is the basis of all knowledge : but we 
 have another faculty besides that of sensation ; we have 
 Memory. Having perceived many things, we remember our 
 sensations, and by that remembrance we are enabled to discern 
 wherein things resemble and wherein they differ; and this 
 Memory then becomes an art whereby a general conception is 
 formed : this art is Induction. Man alone has this art. The 
 distinction between Brutes and Men is, that the former, 
 although they have Memory, have no Experience; that is to 
 say, have not the art which converts Memory into Experience 
 — the art of Induction. Man is a reasoning animal. 
 
 That Aristotle meant Induction by the art of which he speaks 
 as furnished by experience, may be proved by one luminous 
 passage of the Metaphysics. " Art commences when, from a 
 great number of Experiences, one general conception is formed 
 which will embrace all similar cases." * And, lest there should 
 be any misunderstanding of his definition, he proceeds to illus- 
 trate it " Thus : if you know that a certain remedy has cured 
 Callias of a certain disease, and that the same remedy has pro- 
 duced the same effect on Socrates and on several other persons, 
 that is Experience ; but to know that a certain remedy will 
 cure all persons attacked with that disease is Art : for Experi- 
 ence is the knowledge of individual things (t£>v KaOeKatrra) ; 
 Art is that of Universals (iw kcl06\ov)." 
 
 " That strain I heard was of a higher mood ! ** 
 
 The commencement of Positive Science — the awakening to 
 an appreciation of the nature and processes of science, lies in 
 that passage. In the Socratic conception of Induction we saw 
 little more than Analogical Reasoning ; but in this Aristotelian 
 
 * yivtrat di Ti% vr l orav t/c woXAa-v r^y ifAirtioiag ivvonparw kclB6\ow 
 jita yivqrai rtpi *i>v bfioiuv iw 6\i)\pi<;. — 'Met.,' i. I. 
 
340 ARISTOTLE'S METHOD. 
 
 conception we see the Collection of Instances, and the generali- 
 zation from those Instances which Positive Science claims as 
 its Method. Nor was this a random guess of the old Stagy- 
 rite's : it was the logical deduction from his premisses respecting 
 knowledge. Hear him again : " Experience furnishes the 
 principles of every science. Thus Astronomy is grounded on 
 observation ; for, if we were properly to observe the celestial 
 phenomena, we might demonstrate the laws which regulate them. 
 The same applies to other sciences. If we omit nothing that 
 observation can afford us respecting phenomena, we could easily 
 furnish the demonstration of all that admits of being de- 
 monstrated, and illustrate that which is not susceptible of 
 demonstration." * 
 
 And, in another place, when abandoned in his investigation 
 by phenomena, he will not hazard an assertion. " We must 
 wait," he says, " for further phenomena, since phenomena are 
 more to be trusted than the conclusion of reason." 
 
 Had he always steadily held before his eyes this conception 
 of Science, had he always been the Empiric which Germans so 
 contemptuously call him, he would have anticipated Bacon — 
 he would have been the father of Positive Science. 
 
 But it was precisely because he did not — and, indeed, in 
 that age could not — confine himself to Experience and the 
 generalizations of Experience, that he could not effectually 
 carry out his own scheme. His conception of Method was 
 certainly a just one; but the application of such a Method 
 could have led him only a short way, because there was not 
 sufficient Experience then accumulated from which to generalize 
 with any effect. Hence Aristotle's speculations are not always 
 carried on upon the Method which he himself laid down. 
 Impatient at the insufficiency of facts, he jumps to a conclusion. 
 Eager, as all men are, to solve the problems which present 
 themselves, he solved them d priori. He applied his Syllogism 
 before he had ascertained the exactitude of his premisses. But 
 the radical defect in his Philosophy is the notion that science 
 can penetrate the mystery of existence. This made him en- 
 deavour to create a metaphysical system ; and this metaphysical 
 system is a sufficient disproof of the vulgar notion of his being 
 a mere Experimentalist, an Empiric. 
 
 The distinction between Aristotle and Plato is, that while 
 
 • * Analy. Prior./ i. c. 30. 
 
ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC. S41 
 
 both admitted science only could be formed from Universals, 
 Ta icdOoXov, Aristotle contended that such Universals had 
 purely a subjective existence, i.e. t that they were nothing more 
 than the inductions derived from particular facts. He, there- 
 fore, made Experience the basis of all Science, and Reason the 
 Architect. Plato made Reason the basis. The tendency of 
 the one was to direct man to the observation and interrogation 
 of Nature ; that of the other was to direct man to the contem- 
 plation of ideas. 
 
 The distinction between Aristotle and Bacon is, that while 
 they both insist upon the observation and generalization of 
 facts, as alone capable of furnishing correct ideas, Aristotle 
 believed that he could observe those primary facts of Existence 
 and Cause, which Bacon wisely declared beyond the human 
 ken. While both insisted on the necessity of experience, while 
 both saw that the science of the general must be framed from 
 the inductions of the particular, they differed profoundly as to 
 the nature of that * general.' Bacon endeavoured in particular 
 facts to trace the general laws ; Aristotle endeavoured in par- 
 ticular facts to trace the general ideas. 
 
 To understand this, we must cast a glance at Aristotle's 
 Logic, 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 aristotle's logic. 
 
 It is often remarked that Aristotle's use of the word Dialectics 
 differs from Plato's use of it. Indeed, with Plato, dialectics 
 was the science of Being ; with Aristotle, it was no more than 
 the instrument of Thought. 
 
 But it is highly necessary that we should clearly understand 
 the position occupied by Logic in the Aristotelian philosophy ; 
 the more so as after ages have prized the Logic above all his 
 other works. 
 
 Logic is the science of Affirmation ; Affirmation is the active 
 operation of the mind on that which sensation has presented to 
 it ; in other words, Affirmation is Thought. Affirmations may 
 be true or false : there can be no falsehood in Sensation. If 
 
a 4 3 Ak)STOTL&S LOGIC. 
 
 you have a sensation of an object, it must be a true sensation . 
 but you may affirm something false of it. Every single thought 
 is true ; but, when you connect two thoughts together, that is 
 when you affirm something of another thing, you may affirm 
 that which is false. 
 
 Everything therefore that you think about may be reduced 
 to a Proposition ; in fact, your thoughts are a series of Proposi- 
 tions. To understand the whole nature of Propositions — to 
 understand the whole Art of Thinking— is the province of 
 Logic. 
 
 By a very natural confusion, Aristotle, thus convinced of the 
 importance of language, was led to maintain that truth or false- 
 hood did not depend upon things but upon words, or rather upon 
 combinations of words — upon Propositions. Logic therefore to 
 him, as to Plato, though in a different way, became the real 
 Organon of Science. But, as John Mill remarks, " the distinc- 
 tion between real and nominal definitions, between definitions 
 of words and what are called definitions of things, though con- 
 formable to the ideas of most Aristotelian logicians, cannot, as 
 it appears to us, be maintained. We apprehend that no defini- 
 tion is ever intended to explain and unfold the nature of the 
 thing. It is some confirmation of our opinion that none of 
 those writers who have thought that there were definitions of 
 things have ever succeeded in discovering any criterion by 
 which the definition of a thing can be distinguished from any 
 other proposition relating to that thing. The definition they 
 say unfolds the nature of the thing : but no definition can 
 unfold its whole nature : and every proposition in which any 
 quality whatever is predicated of the thing unfolds some part 
 of its nature. The true state of the case we take to be this : 
 All definitions are of names and of names only ; but, in some 
 definitions, it is clearly apparent that nothing is intended except 
 to explain the meaning of the word ; while, in others, besides 
 explaining the meaning of the word, it is intended to be implied 
 that there exists a thing corresponding to the word. Whether 
 this be or be not implied in any given case, cannot be collected 
 from the mere form of expression. ■ A centaur is an animal 
 with the upper parts of a man and the lower parts of a horse ' 
 and * a triangle is a rectilineal figure with three sides ' are, in 
 form, expressions precisely similar; although, in the former, it 
 is not implied that any ^/^conformable to the term really exists, 
 while in the latter it is • as mav be seen by substituting, in both 
 
ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC 243 
 
 definitions, the word means for is. In the first expression, 'a 
 centaur means an animal,' &c, the sense would remain 
 unchanged : in the second ' a triangle means,' &c, the meaning 
 would be altered since it would be obviously impossible to 
 deduce any of the truths of geometry from a proposition 
 expressive only of the manner in which we intend to employ a 
 particular sign. 
 
 " There are, therefore, expressions commonly passing for 
 definitions which include in themselves more than the mere 
 explanation of the meaning of the term. But it is not correct 
 to call an expression of this sort, a peculiar kind of definition. 
 Its difference from the other kind consists in this, that it is not 
 a definition, but a definition and something more. The defini- 
 tion given above of a triangle, obviously comprises not one, 
 but two propositions, perfectly distinguishable. The one is, 
 1 There may exist a figure bounded by three straight lines : ' 
 the other, ' and this figure may be termed a triangle.' The 
 former of these propositions is not a definition at all : the latter 
 is a mere nominal definition or explanation of the use and 
 application of a term. The first is susceptible of truth or false- 
 hood, and may therefore be made the foundation of a train of 
 reasoning. The latter can neither be true nor false : the only 
 character it is susceptible of is that of conformity or discon- 
 formity to the ordinary usage of language. 
 
 "There is a real distinction, then, between definitions of 
 names and what are erroneously called definitions of things ; 
 but it is that ;the latter, along with the meaning of a name, 
 covertly asserts a matter of fact. This covert assertion is not a 
 definition, but a postulate. The definition is a mere identical 
 proposition, which gives information only about the use of 
 language, and from which no conclusions respecting matters of 
 fact can possibly be drawn. The accompanying postulate on 
 the other hand, affirms a fact which may lead to consequences 
 of every degree of importance. It affirms the real existence of 
 things, possessing the combination of attributes set forth in the 
 definition ; and this, if true, may be foundation sufficient to 
 build a whole fabric of scientific truth."* 
 
 This profound and luminous distinction was not seen by 
 Aristotle, and his whole system was vitiated in consequence of 
 the oversight. He thought that Logic was not only the Instru- 
 ment of Thought, but, as such, the Instrument of investigating 
 
 • « System of Lo^ic' vol. i. pp. 195-7. 
 
t44 ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC, 
 
 Causes. In his Logic the first place was occupied by the cele- 
 brated Categories. They are ten in number, and as follows : — 
 
 oicria Substance. 
 
 irooov Quantity. 
 
 iroiov Quality. 
 
 irpoQ n . • . . . . Relation. 
 
 iroitiv Action. 
 
 ica<s\iiv Passion. 
 
 -tcov the Where. 
 
 iron the When. 
 
 KtloQat Position in space. 
 
 tXtiv Possession. 
 
 These Categories, or, as the Latin writers say, Predicaments 
 were intended as an enumeration of those classes, or genera, 
 under some of which every thing was to be reduced. They 
 were held to be the most universal expressions for the various 
 relations of things; they cannot further be analysed, and remain 
 the fundamental definitions of things. It is, however, as has 
 been remarked, a mere catalogue of the distinctions rudely 
 marked out by the language of familiar life, with little or no 
 attempt to penetrate by philosophic analysis, to the rationale 
 even of those common distinctions. Such an analysis, however 
 superficially conducted, would have shown the enumeration to 
 be both redundant and defective. Some objects are omitted and 
 others repeated several times under different heads. It is like 
 a dvision of animals into men, quadrupeds, horses, asses, and 
 ponies. * 
 
 However imperfect this attempt at classification may be, it 
 was held to be a satisfactory attempt for many centuries ; nor 
 was any one bold enough to venture on another until Kant 
 What we have to do is not so much to criticise it, as to exhibit 
 its historical position. As such it is important. The idea of 
 examining the forms of thought could scarcely have originated 
 earlier. Previous speculators had occupied themselves with 
 inquiries into the origin and nature of knowledge ; Aristotle saw 
 that it was time to inquire into the necesssary forms of thought. 
 To do this, to analyse the various processes of the mind, and 
 to exhibit the " art of thinking " in all its details is the object 
 of his Logic. 
 
 Some had declared sense-knowledge to be all deceitful; 
 others had declared that sense-knowledge was perfectly faith- 
 ful, as fax as it went, but that it was incapable of penetrating 
 • ' Mill's System of Logic,' vol. i. p. 60. 
 
ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC. 
 
 *45 
 
 beneath phenomena. Scepticism was assuming a menacing 
 attitude. Aristotle, in his way, endeavoured to meet it, and he 
 met it thus : That the knowledge derived from our senses is not 
 always correct, is true; true also that our senses are to be 
 trusted, as far as they go. Both parties are right; both are also 
 wrong. A sensation as a sensation is true ; but any affirmation 
 you may make about that sensation may be either true or false, 
 according to the affirmation. If an oar dipped in the water 
 appears to you to be broken, the sensation you have is accurate 
 enough : you have that sensation. But if, on the strength of 
 that sensation, you affirm that the oar is broken, your affirma- 
 tion is false. Error lies not in false sensation, but in false 
 affirmation. 
 
 Hence the necessity of Logic, which is the science of Affirma- 
 tions ; it is in the Enunciate Proposition, aTro<f>avriKo<s Aoyos, that 
 we must seek truth or falsehood. This Proposition is sub- 
 divided into Affirmative and Negative Propositions, which are 
 mutually opposed, and give rise to Contradiction, so soon as 
 they are asserted in the same sense of one and the same thing : 
 *.£., " It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to 
 be." 
 
 We must not omit to mention the five Predicables, which have 
 also played a considerable part in the History of Philosophy. 
 The Predicables are a five-fold division of general Names, not 
 grounded, as usual, upon a difference in their meaning, that is, 
 in the attribute which they connote, but upon a difference in 
 the kind of class which they denote. We may predicate of a 
 thing five different varieties of class-name v — 
 
 yivog a Genus. 
 
 tldoc a Species. 
 
 Siaipopd a Difference. 
 
 Idiov a Property. 
 
 crv/Lt/3f/3i}coc an Accident. 
 
 " It is to be remarked of these distinctions," says the author 
 we are quoting, " that they express not what the predicate is in 
 its own meaning, but what relation it bears to the subject of 
 which it happens on the particular occasion to be predicated. 
 There are not some names which are exclusively genera, and 
 others which are exclusively species or differentiae; but the 
 same name is referred to one or another Predicable, according 
 to the subject of which it is predicated on the particular occa- 
 
146 ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC 
 
 sion. Animal, for instance, is a genus with respect to Man or 
 John ; a species with respect to substance or Being. The words 
 genus, species, &c, are therefore relative terms; they are 
 names applied to certain predicates, to express the relation 
 between them and some given subject : a relation grounded, 
 not upon what the predicates rt?«notes, but upon the class 
 which it */<fnotes, and upon the place which in some given 
 classification that class occupies relatively to the particular 
 subject"* 
 
 The various investigations into the nature of Propositions 
 which Aristotle prosecuted were necessary to form the basis of 
 his theory of reasoning, i.e. the Syllogism. He defined the 
 Syllogism to be an enunciation in which certain Propositions 
 being laid down, a necessary conclusion is drawn, distinct from 
 the Propositions and without employing any idea not contained 
 in the Propositions. Thus : — 
 
 All bad men are miserable ; 
 Every tyrant is a bad man : 
 
 ergo, 
 All tyrants are miserable. 
 
 His examination of the sixteen forms of the Syllogism would 
 needlessly weary our readers. It exhibits great ingenuity, and, 
 as a dialectical exercise, was doubtless sufficient ; but it must 
 not detain us here. In Mill's * System of Logic ' will be found 
 the clearest and the deepest exposition of the whole Syllogistic 
 Art ; and especially worthy of attention is that portion of it 
 devoted to an appreciation of the value of the Syllogism, a form 
 of reasoning which eminent men have often declared to be idle, 
 but which is there shown to be highly effective as an art of 
 ascertaining the real meaning of the premisses we employ in 
 any reasoning. 
 
 The theory of the Syllogism is succeeded in Aristotle by the 
 theory of Demonstration. We know that all rational know- 
 ledge owes its existence to anterior knowledge. What is this 
 anterior knowledge ? It is the major proposition of a Syllogism. 
 The^ conclusion is but the application of the general to the 
 particular. Thus, if we know that Tyrants are miserable, we 
 know it because we know that All bad men are miserable ; and 
 the middle term tells us that Tyrants are bad men. To know 
 is to be aware of the cause ; to demonstrate, is to give the 
 • ' System of Logic,' vol. i. p, 162. 
 
ARISTOTLE'S METAPHYSICS. 247 
 
 Syllogism which expresses the knowledge we have. It is 
 therefore necessary that every scientific Syllogism should repose 
 upon principles that are true, primitive, more evident in them- 
 selves than the conclusion, and anterior to U.e conclusion. 
 These undemonstrable principles are Axioms, Hypotheses, &c, 
 according as they are self-evident, or they presuppose some 
 affirmation or negation ; they are Definitions when they limit 
 themselves to an explanation of the essence of the thing defined 
 without affirming any thing respecting its existence. 
 
 The proper subjects of demonstration are those universal 
 attributes of particular things which make them what they are, 
 and which may be predicated of them. It is one thing to know 
 that a thing is so ; another thing to know why it is so : hence 
 the two orders of demonstrations : the tov on, " the demonstra- 
 tion of the cause from a consideration of the effect ; " and the 
 rov lion, " the demonstration of the effect from the presence of 
 the cause." 
 
 We close this exposition of the leading points of Aristotle's 
 Logic with his own somewhat touching words, as he concludes 
 his work : " We have had no works of predecessors to assist us 
 in this attempt to construct a science of Reasoning ; our own 
 labours have done it all. If, therefore, the work appears to you 
 not too inferior to the works on other sciences which have been 
 formed with the assistance of successive labourers in the same 
 department, you will show some indulgence for the imperfec- 
 tions of our work, and some gratitude for the discoveries it 
 contains/' 
 
 CHAPTER IV, 
 
 ARISTOTLE'S METAPHYSICS. 
 
 In spite of his Method, Aristotle was a Metaphysician because 
 of his Logic. We must rapidly set down the leading points of 
 his system. 
 
 The problem which the early thinkers had set themselves to 
 solve was that of the First Cause. Aristotle maintained, that 
 there were Four Causes, not one, and each of these must be 
 taken into consideration. The four Causes were as follows : — 
 [. The Material Cause, the Essence, to ti rjv etvai ; the Inva- 
 
* 4 8 ARISTOTLE'S METAPHYSICS. 
 
 riable Existence, which philosophers so variously sought Per- 
 haps " Essence " is the best translation of the phrase. II. The 
 Substantial Cause, viroKUfievov, the " Substance " of the School- 
 men. III. The Efficient Cause, hpxn rrjs Kivrjcreayg, " the 
 Principle of Motion." IV. The Final Cause, to ov Ive^a koi 
 rayadov, "the Purpose and End." These Causes were all 
 recognised separately by the early speculators, but no one had 
 recognised them as connected, and as all necessary. 
 
 No doubt Aristotle is right in his criticism on his predeces- 
 sors. But his own theory is extremely vicious ; it makes all 
 speculation subordinate to logical distinctions; it makes the 
 Categories the great instrument of investigation ; and it creates 
 that spirit of useless and quibbling distinctions which was the 
 characteristic vice of the schoolmen, who were almost all fervent 
 Aristotelians. In one word, the nearer Aristotle approached 
 to systematic precision, the wider he wandered from sound 
 principles of inquiry. And this because of his fundamental 
 error of supposing, that Logic was an Organon, i.e., that sub- 
 jcctve distinctions must accord with objective distinctions. In 
 consequence of which, instead of interrogating Nature, he 
 interrogated his own mind. 
 
 This may seem at variance with his notion of the necessity 
 t>f sense-experience, and at variance with his Method; but, 
 as we before observed, the rigorous application of his Method 
 was barely possible ; and, however excellent as a precept, it 
 was so vague as to be almost inevitably vitiated in practice. 
 The process of vitiation was this. Experience was necessary, 
 as affording the materials for Reason to work with. Any rea- 
 soning not founded on a knowledge of phenomena must be 
 false ; but it by no means follows, that all reasoning founded 
 on a knowledge of phenomena will be true. Here was Aristotle's 
 mistake. He thought that Experience could not deceive. But, 
 to make his Method perfect, he should have laid down the 
 rules for testing that Experience — for "interrogating" Nature 
 — for the discrimination of what was pertinent to the question 
 in hand — for establishing a proper " experimentum cruets. 1 ' 
 Thus " facts," as they are called, are notoriously valuable in 
 proportion only to the value of the theory upon which they 
 have been collected. People talk of " facts " as if facts were 
 to produce irresistible convictions. The truth is, they are sus- 
 ceptible of almost any explanation ; and, in the history of 
 science, we do not find the facts, but the theories, changing; 
 
ARISTOTLE'S METAPHYSICS. a 49 
 
 that is to say, Nature has preserved one uniform course, her 
 ordinary operations are open to all men's inspection ; and men 
 have endeavoured to explain these operations in an endless 
 variety of ways. 
 
 Now, from a want of a proper knowledge of the conditions 
 of Scientific inquiry, Aristotle's Method became fruitless. 
 The facts collected were vitiated by a false theory ; his sense- 
 experience was wrongly interpreted. 
 
 It is time, however, to give his solution of the great meta- 
 physical problem of Existence. 
 
 Matter, he said, exists in a threefold form. It is, I. Sub- 
 stance, perceptible by the senses, which is finite and perishable. 
 This Substance is either the abstract substance, or the sub- 
 stance connected with form, elSos. II. The higher Substance, 
 which, though perceived by the senses, is imperishable ; such as 
 are the heavenly bodies. Here the active principle (eve'pycia, 
 actus) steps in, which, in so far as it contains that which is 
 to be produced, is understanding (vovs). That which it con- 
 tains is the purpose (to ov eve/ca), which purpose is realized in 
 the act. Here we have the two extremes of potentiality and 
 agency, matter and thought The often-mentioned entelechie 
 is the relation between these two extremes — it is the point of 
 transition between SJva/us and cvepyaa; and is accordingly 
 the Cause of Motion, or Efficient Cause, and represents the 
 Soul. III. The third form of Substance is that in which the 
 three forms of power, efficient cause, and effect are united ; 
 the Absolute Substance ; eternal unmoved ; God himself. 
 
 God, as the Absolute Unmoved Eternal Substance, is 
 Thought. The Universe is a thought in the mind of God. It 
 is " God passing into activity, but not exhausted in the Act." 
 
 Existence, then, is Thought : it is the activity of the Divine 
 Reason. 
 
 In Man the thought of the Divine Reason completes itself 
 so as to become self-conscious. By it he recognises in the ob- 
 jective world his own nature again ; for thought is the thinking 
 of thought — Zarnv rf varjcris, vorjcrews, v6y]<tls. 
 
 Had we space, we would willingly have bestowed some chap- 
 ters upon his Physical, Ethical, and Psychological speculations ; 
 but to treat them worthily would require a volume, and would 
 also require a far abler hand ; to treat them superficially would 
 be useless. The object of our book fortunately enables us to 
 pass them over. We have assigned him his position in the 
 
250 ARISTOTLE'S METAPHYSICS. 
 
 history of human development ; we have exhibited his method. 
 It only remains to add, that his ethical and political works are 
 distinguished by such sober sagacity, the very genius of good 
 sense, that even in the present day they are studied with profit. 
 And those Logical and Metaphysical doctrines which we regard 
 as completely beside the truth were, as is well known, the great 
 source of speculation during many centuries. The influence 
 they exercised is beyond all appreciation ; and, although much 
 of that influence was evil, as leading to frivolous subtleties, as 
 misdirecting the energy of the human mind ; yet, on the other 
 hand, the constant appeal to experience, and the wondrous 
 acuteness and systematic reasoning which distinguished the 
 Stagyrite, did much to keep alive the activity of speculation, 
 and in some respects to give it a proper tone. 
 
 Aristotle, as the second pillar of Greek Science, must always 
 command attention and respect. His vast learning, his singular 
 acuteness, the wide range of his investigations, and the astonish- 
 ing number and excellence of his works, will always make him 
 a formidable rival to his more fascinating master. " A student 
 passing from the works of Plato," it has been well said, " to 
 those of Aristotle, is struck first of all with the entire absence 
 of that dramatic form and that dramatic feeling with which he 
 has been familiar. The living human beings with whom he has 
 conversed have passed away. Protagoras, and Prodicus, and 
 Hippias are no longer lounging upon their couches in the midst 
 of groups of admiring pupils : we have no walks along the walls 
 of the city ; no readings beside the Ilissus ; no lively symposia, 
 giving occasion to high discourses about love ; no Critias re- 
 calling the stories he had heard in the days of his youth, before 
 he became a tyrant of ancient and glorious republics ; above all, 
 no Socrates forming a centre to these various groups, while yet 
 he stands out clear and distinct in his individual character, 
 showing that the most subtle of dialecticians may be the most 
 thoroughly humorous and humane of men. Some little sorrow 
 for the loss of those clear and beautiful pictures will perhaps 
 be felt by everyone ; but by far the greater portion of readers 
 will believe, that they have an ample compensation, in the 
 precision and philosophical dignity of the treatise, for the rich- 
 ness and variety of the dialogue. To hear solemn disquisitions 
 solemnly treated ; to hear opinions calmly discussed without 
 the interruptions of personalities ; above all, to have a profound 
 and considerate judge, able and not unwilling to pronounce a 
 
SUMMARY OF THE SOCRATIC MOVEMENT. 251 
 
 positive decision upon the evidence before him ; this they 
 think a great advantage, and this and far more than this they 
 expect, not wrongly, to find in Aristotle." * 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SUMMARY OF THE SOCRATIC MOVEMENT. 
 
 For the sake of historical clearness we may here place a few 
 words respecting the position of the Socratic Movement (as we 
 may call the period from the Sophists down to Aristotle) in the 
 history of humanity. 
 
 What Socrates himself effected we have already seen. He 
 appeared during the reign of utter Scepticism. The various 
 tentatives of the early thinkers had all ended in one desolating 
 scepticism, which was made pernicious use of by the Sophists. 
 Socrates banished this Scepticism by the invention of a new 
 Method. He withdrew men from the metaphysical specula- 
 tions about Nature, which had led them into the inextricable 
 confusion of doubt. He bade them look inward. He created 
 moral science. The Cyrenaics and the Stoics attempted to 
 carry out this tendency ; but as they did so in a one-sided 
 manner, their endeavour was only partially successful. 
 
 Plato, the youngest and most remarkable of the disciples of 
 Socrates, accepted the Method, but applied it more universally. 
 Nevertheless, Ethics formed the most important of his specu- 
 lations. Physics were only subordinate and illustrative of 
 Ethics. The Truth — the God-like existence — which he for 
 ever besought men to contemplate, that they might share it, 
 had always an Ethical object : it was sought by man for his own 
 perfection. How to live in a manner resembling the gods was 
 the fundamental problem which he had set himself to solve. 
 But there was a germ of physical speculation in his philosophy, 
 and this germ was developed by his pupil, Aristotle. 
 
 The difference between Socrates and Aristotle is immense ; 
 Plato, however, fills up the abysm. In Plato we see the tran- 
 sition point of development, both in Method and in Doctrine. 
 Metaphysical speculations are intimately connected with those 
 
 • • Ency, Metrop.,' — Art. Moral and Met. Phtlos. 
 
a 5 2 SUMMARY OF THE S0CRAT1C MOVEMENT. 
 
 of Ethics. In Aristotle Ethics form only one branch of philo- 
 sophy : Metaphysics and Physics usurp the larger share of his 
 attention. 
 
 What then was the result of Aristotle's labours ? Precisely 
 this: he brought Philosophy round again to that condition 
 from which Socrates had wrested it j he opened the world again 
 to man. 
 
 Was then the advent of Socrates nullified ? No. The So- 
 cratic Epoch conferred the double benefit on humanity of 
 having first brought to light the importance of Ethical Philo- 
 sophy, and of having substituted a new and incomparably 
 better Method for that pursued by the early speculators. That 
 Method sufficed to humanity for several centuries. 
 
 In Aristotle's systematization of the Socratic Method, and, 
 above all, in his bringing Physics and Metaphysics again into 
 the region of Inquiry, he paved the way for a new epoch — the 
 epoch of Scepticism. 
 
<$igf)tl) e&poef). 
 
 SECOND CRISIS OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY: THE 
 SCEPTICS, EPICUREANS, STOICS, AND THE 
 NEJV ACADEMY. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 THE SCEPTICS. 
 
 Amongst the curious train which accompanied the expedition 
 of Alexander into India, there was one serious, reflective man, 
 who followed him with a purely philosophical interest; that 
 man was Pyrrho, the founder of the Sceptical philosophy. Con- 
 versing with the Gymnosophists of India, he must have been 
 struck with their devout faith in doctrines so unusual to him ; 
 and this spectacle of a race of wise and studious men believing 
 a strange creed, and acting upon their belief, must have led him 
 to reflect on the nature of belief. He had already, in the philo- 
 sophy of Democritus, been led to question the origin of know- 
 ledge; he had learned to doubt; and now this doubt became 
 irresistible. 
 
 On his return to Elis he became remarked for the practical 
 philosophy which he inculcated, and the simplicity of his life. 
 The profound and absolute scepticism with which he regarded 
 all speculative doctrines had the same effect upon him as upon 
 Socrates : it made him insist wholly on morality. He was 
 resigned and tranquil, accepting life as he found it, and guiding 
 himself by the general precepts of common sense. Socrates 
 on the contrary was uneasy, restless, perpetually questioning 
 himself and others, despising metaphysical speculations but 
 eager for truth. Pyrrho, utterly dissatisfied with all the attempts 
 of his predecessors to solve the great problems they had set to 
 
*54 THE SCEPTICS. 
 
 themselves, declared the problems insoluble. Socrates was also 
 dissatisfied : he too declared that he knew nothing ; but his 
 doubt was an active, eager, questioning doubt, used as a 
 stimulus to investigation, not as a final result of all investiga- 
 tion. The doubt of Pyrrho was a reprobation of all philosophy; 
 ♦.he doubt of Socrates was the opening by which a new philo- 
 sophy was to be established. Their lives accorded with their 
 doctrines. Pyrrho, the grand Priest of Elis, lived and died in 
 happiness, peace, and universal esteem.* Socrates lived in 
 perpetual warfare, was always misunderstood, was ridiculed as 
 a sophist, and perished as a blasphemer. 
 
 The precise doctrines of Pyrrho it is now hopeless to attempt 
 to detail. Even in antiquity they were so mixed up with those 
 of his followers that it was found impossible to separate them. 
 We are forced, therefore, to speak of the sceptical doctrines as 
 they are collected and systematized by that acute and admir- 
 able writer, Sextus Empiricus. 
 
 The strong-hold of Scepticism is impregnable. It is this : 
 There is nojCriteriu m of Truth. Plato magnificently developed 
 his Ideal Theory, which Aristotle crushed by proving it to be 
 purely subjective. But then the theory of Demonstration, which 
 Aristotle placed in its stead, was not that equally subjective ? 
 What was this boasted Logic but the systematic arrangement 
 of Ideas obtained originally through Sense ? Aristotle's know- 
 ledge could only be a knowledge of phenomena, although he 
 wished to make out a science of Causes. And what are Pheno- 
 mena ? Phenomena are the Appearances of things. But where 
 exists the Criterium of the truth of these Appearances? How 
 are we to ascertain the exactitude of the accordance of these 
 Appearances with the Things of which they are Appearances ? 
 We know full well that Things appear differently to us at 
 different times; appear differently to different individuals; 
 appear differently to different animals. Are any of these 
 Appearances true ? If so, which are ? and how do you know m 
 which are ? 
 
 Moreover reflect on this : We have five senses, each of 
 which reveals to us a different quality in the object. Thus an 
 Apple is presented to us : we see it, smell it, feel it, taste it, 
 
 * All the stories about him which pretend to illustrate the effects of his 
 scepticism in real life are too trivial for refutation, being obviously the 
 invention of those who thought Pyrrho ought to have been consequent in 
 absurdity. 
 
THE SCEPTICS. 255 
 
 hear it bitten, and the sight, smell, feeling, taste, and sound, are 
 five different Appearances — five different Aspects in which we 
 perceive the Thing. If we had three Senses more, the Thing 
 would have three qualities more ; it would present three more 
 Appearances : if we had three Senses less, the thing would have 
 but two qualities. Now, are these qualities wholly and entirely 
 dependent upon our Senses, or do they really appertain to the 
 Thing f And do they all appertain to it, or only some of them ? 
 The differences of impressions made on different people, would 
 seem to show that the qualities of things were dependent on 
 the Senses. These differences at any rate show that things do 
 not present one uniform series of Appearances. 
 
 All we can say with truth is, that Things appear to us in such 
 and such a manner. That we have Sensations is true ; but we 
 cannot say that our Sensations are true images of the Things. 
 That the Apple we have is brilliant, round, odorous and sweet, 
 may be very true, if we mean that it appears such to our senses ; 
 but, to keener or duller vision, scent, tact, and taste, it may be 
 dull, rugged, offensive, and insipid. 
 
 Amidst this confusion of sensuous impressions, Philosophers 
 pretend to distinguish the true from the false ; they assert that 
 Reason is the Criterium of Truth : Reason distinguishes. Plato 
 and Aristotle are herein agreed. 
 
 Very well, reply the Sceptics, Reason is your Criterium. 
 But what proof have you that this Criterium itself distinguishes 
 nuly ? You must not return to Sense : that has been already 
 given up; you must rely upon Reason; and we ask you what proof 
 have you that your reason never errs, what proof have you that 
 it is ever correct ? A Criterium is wanted for your Criterium ; 
 and so on ad infinitum. This argument we hold to be wholly 
 irreversible, as far as regards Metaphysical knowledge; and 
 lest we should be mistaken for Sceptics, ourselves, we will 
 endeavour briefly to point out the weak side of the Sceptical 
 philosophy. 
 
 The Sceptics maintain, and justly, that, as our knowledge is 
 only the knowledge of Phenomena, and not at all of Noumena 
 — as we only know Things as they appear to us, and not as 
 they really are — all attempt to penetrate the mysteries of Exis- 
 tence must be vain; for the attempt can only be made on 
 appearances. But, although absolute truth is not attainable by 
 man, although there cannot be a science of Being, there can be 
 a science of A pnearances. The Phenomena, they admit, are 
 
356 THE SCEPTICS. 
 
 true as Phenomena. What we have to do is therefore to 
 observe and classify Phenomena : to trace in them the resem- 
 blances of coexistence and succession ; or, as we say in com- 
 mon parlance, to trace the connexions of cause and effect, and, 
 having done this, we shall have founded a Science of Appear- 
 ances adequate to all man's wants. 
 
 But the age in which the Sceptics lived was not ripe for such 
 a conception : accordingly, having proved the impossibility of a 
 science of Being, they supposed that they had established the 
 impossibility of Science, and had destroyed all grounds of 
 certitude. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that modern Sceptics have added 
 nothing which is not implied in the principles of the Pyrrhonists. 
 The arguments by which Hume thought he destroyed all the 
 grounds of certitude are differently stated from those of Pyrrho, 
 but not differently founded ; and they may be answered in the 
 same way. 
 
 The Sceptics had oniy a negative doctrine; consequently, 
 only a negative influence. They corrected the tendency of the 
 mind towards accepting its conclusions as adequate expressions 
 of the facts ; they served to moderate the impetuosity of the 
 speculative spirit ; they showed that the pretended Science of 
 the day was not so firmly fixed as its professors supposed. It 
 is curious, indeed, to have witnessed the gigantic efforts of a 
 Socrates, a Plato and an Aristotle towards the reconstruction 
 of Philosophy, which the Sophists had brought to ruins — a 
 reconstruction, too, on different ground — and then to witness 
 the hand of the iconoclast smiting down that image, to witness 
 the pitiless logic of the Sceptic undermining that laboriously 
 constructed edifice, leaving nothing in its place but another 
 heap of ruins, like that from which the edifice was built :Jar. 
 not only did the Sceptics refute the notion that a knowledfeof 
 Appearances could ever become a knowledge of Existence, not 
 only did they exhibit the fallacious nature of sensation, and 
 the want of certitude in the affirmations of Reason, they also 
 attacked and destroyed the main positions of that Method 
 which was to supply the ground of certitude ; they attacked 
 Induction and Definitions. 
 
 Of Induction, Sextus, in one brief, pregnant chapter, 
 writes thus : — " Induction is the conclusion of the Universal 
 (to KaBoKov) from individual things. But this Induction can 
 only be correct in as far as all the individual things agree with 
 
THE SCEPTICS. 257 
 
 the Universal. This universality must therefore be verified 
 before the Induction can be made ; a single cass to the con- 
 trary would destroy the truth of the Induction." * 
 
 We will make the above clear by an example. The white- 
 ness of swans shall be the Induction. Swans are said to be 
 white because all the individual swans we may have seen are 
 svhite. Here the Universal (whiteness) seems induced from 
 the particulars ; and it is true as far as all particular swans are 
 white. But there are a few black swans ; one of these particular 
 black swans is sufficient to destroy the former Induction. If, 
 therefore, says Sextus, you are not able to verify the agreement 
 of the universal with every particular, i.e., if you are not able to 
 prove that there is no swan not black, you are unable to draw 
 a certain and accurate Induction. That you cannot make this 
 verification is obvious. 
 
 In the next chapter he examines Definitions. He pro- 
 nounces them perfectly useless. If we know the thing we 
 Refine, we do not comprehend it because of the definition, but 
 we impose on it the definition because we know it ; and, if we 
 are ignorant of the thing we would define, it is impossible to 
 define it. 
 
 Although the Sceptics destroyed the dogmatism of their pre- 
 decessors they did not substitute any dogmatism of their own 
 in its place. The nature of their scepticism is happily char- 
 acterized by Sextus in his comparison of them with Demo- 
 critus and Protagoras. Democritus had insisted on the uncer- 
 tainty of sense-knowledge; but he concluded therefrom that 
 objects had no qualities at all resembling those known to us 
 through sensation. The Sceptics contented themselves with 
 pointing out the uncertainty, but did not pronounce decisively 
 whether the qualities existed objectively or not. 
 
 Protagoras also insisted on the uncertainty, and declared 
 man to be the measure of truth ; he supposed that there was a 
 constant relation between the transformations of matter and 
 those of sensation ; but these suppositions he affirmed dogma- 
 tically : to the Sceptic they are uncertain. 
 
 This general incertitude often betrayed them into ludicrous 
 dilemmas, of which many specimens have been preserved: 
 thus they said, " We assert nothing — no, not even that we 
 assert nothing.** But, if the reader wishes to see this distinc- 
 
 * • Pynbon. Hypot.,' ii. ch. xv. p. 94. 
 
 9 
 
258 THE EPICUREANS. 
 
 tion between a thing seeming and a thing being ridiculed with a 
 truly comic gusto, he should turn to Moliere's ' Mariage ForceV 
 Act i. sc. 8. Such follies form no portion of our subject, and 
 we leave them with some pleasure to direct our attention to 
 more worthy efforts of human ingenuity. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE EPICUREANS. 
 
 The Epicureans are condemned in their names. We before 
 noticed how the meaning now attached to the name of Sophist, 
 inadvertently gives a bias to our judgment of the Sophist 
 school, and renders it extremely difficult to conceive the 
 members of that school otherwise than as shameless rogues. 
 Equally difficult is it to shake oft the influence of association 
 with respect to the Epicureans ; although historians are now 
 pretty well agreed in believing Epicurus to have been a man 
 of pure and virtuous life, and one whose doctrines were 
 moderate and really inculcating abstemiousness. 
 
 Epicurus was born Olymp. 109, at Samos, according to 
 some ; at Gargettus, in the vicinity of Athens, according to 
 others. His parents were poor; his father a teacher of 
 grammar. At a very early age, he tells us, his philosophical 
 career began ; so early as his thirteenth year. But we must 
 not misunderstand this statement. He dates his career frojlfc 
 those first questionings which occupy and perplex all young 
 minds, especially those of any superior capacity. He doubt- 
 less refers to that period when, boy-like, he puzzled his 
 teacher with a question beyond that teacher's power. Hearing 
 the verse of Hesiod wherein all things are said to arise from 
 Chaos. Epicurus asked : ff And whence came Chaos?" 
 
 " Whence came Chaos ? " is not this the sort of question to 
 occupy the active mind of a boy ? Is it not by such questions 
 that we are all led into philosophy ? And to philosophy he 
 was referred for an explanation. The writings of Democritus 
 fell in his way, and were avidly studied ; the writings of others 
 followed ; and, his vocation being fixed, he sought instruction 
 from many masters. 
 
THE EPICUREANS, «£> 
 
 But from all these masters he could gain no solid convic 
 tions; they gave him hints ; they could not give him Truth ; 
 and, working upon the materials they furnishea, he produced a 
 system of his own, by which we presume he justified his claim 
 to being self-taught 
 
 His early years were agitated and unsettled. He visited 
 Athens at eighteen, but remained there only one year. He 
 then passed to Colophon, Mitylene, and Lampsacus. He 
 returned to Athens in his six-and-thirtieth year, and there 
 opened a school, over which he presided till his death, 
 Olymp. 127. 
 
 The place he chose for his school was the famous Garden, a 
 spot pleasantly typical of his doctrine. The Platonists had 
 their Academic Grove ; the Aristotelians walked along the 
 Lyceum ; the Cynics occupied the Cynosarges : the Stoics 
 occupied the Porch ; and the Epicureans had their Garden. 
 
 Here, in the tranquil Garden, in the society of his friends, 
 he passed a peaceful life of speculation and enjoyment. The 
 friendship which existed amongst them is well known. In a 
 time of general scarcity and famine, they contributed to each 
 other's support, showing that the Pythagorean notion of com- 
 munity of goods was unnecessary among friends, who could 
 confide in each other. At the entrance of the Garden they 
 placed this inscription : "The hospitable keeper of this 
 mansion, where you will find pleasure the highest good, will 
 present you liberally with barley cakes and water fresh from 
 the spring. The gardens will not provoke your appetite by 
 artificial dainties, but satisfy it with natural supplies. Will 
 you not be well entertained ?" 
 
 The Garden has often been called a sty ; and the name of 
 Epicurean has become the designation of a sensualist. But, 
 in spite of his numerous assailants, the character of Epicurus 
 has been rescued from contempt both by ancient and by 
 modern critics. Diogenes Laertius, who gives some of the 
 accusations in detail, easily refutes them by an appeal to facts ; 
 and the modern writers have easily penetrated the motive of 
 the ancient calumnies, which mostly proceeded from the 
 Stoics. A doctrine like that of Epicurus would, at all times, 
 lend itself to gross misrepresentation ; but, in an epoch like 
 that in which it appeared, and contrasted with a doctrine so 
 furiously opposed to it as that of the Stoics, we cannot wonder 
 if the bitterness of opposition translated itaelf into bitter 
 
Sfe THE EPICUREANS. 
 
 calumny. It is one of the commonest results of speculative 
 differences to make you attribute to your opponent's opinions 
 the consequences which you deduce from them, as if they were 
 indubitably the consequences he deduces for himself. Your 
 opinions are conducive to sound morality ; of that you are 
 convinced ; and, being so convinced, it is natural for you to 
 believe that contrary opinions must be immoral. Your 
 opponent holds contrary, ergo, immoral opinions ; and you 
 proclaim his imn orality as an unquestionable fact. In this, 
 however, there s a slight forgetfulness ; viz., that your 
 opponent occupies exactly similar ground, and what you think 
 of him he thinks of you. 
 
 The Stoics had an ineffable contempt for the weakness and 
 effeminacy of the Epicureans. The Epicureans had an in- 
 effable contempt for the spasmodic rigidity and unnatural 
 exaggeration of the Stoics. That they mutually libelled each 
 other follows of course ; but the libels against the Epicureans 
 have met with more general credit than those against the 
 Stoics, from the more imposing character of the latter, both 
 in their actions and doctrines. 
 
 Epicurus is said to have been the most voluminous of all 
 Greek Philosophers, except Chrysippus ; and, although none 
 of these works are extant, yet so many fragments are preserved 
 here and there, and such ample testimony as to his opinions, 
 that there are few writers of whose doctrine we can speak with 
 greater certainty, the more so as it does not in itself present 
 any difficulties of comprehension. t^k\ 
 
 Nothing can be more unlike Plato and Aristotle than 
 Epicurus; and this difference may be characterized at the 
 mtset by their fundamental difference in the conception of 
 ?hilosophy, which Epicurus regarded as the Art of Life, and 
 not the Art of Truth. Philosophy, he said, was that power 
 (ivipytuC) by which Reason conducted man to happiness.* 
 
 The investigations of science he despised, because not only 
 were they uncertain, but contributed nothing towards happi- 
 ness ; and, of course, Logic, the instrument of science, found 
 no favour in his sight. His philosophy was, therefore, only 
 another form of Scepticism, consequent on mental dissatis- 
 faction at previous inquiries. Socrates had taught men to 
 
 * rfvot \6yoiq cat £ta\oyi<ruot£ rw ivdaiuova 3lor irpeirotovtrav. — 
 feefcu. Lmf. Adv. Math. 
 
TME EPICUREANS. Jbl 
 
 regard their own nature as the great object of investigation 
 and this lesson Epicurus willingly gave ear to. 
 
 But man does not interrogate his own nature out of simple 
 curiosity, or for simple erudition : he studies his nature in 
 order that he may improve it : he learns the extent of his 
 capacities in order that he may properly direct them. The 
 aim, therefore, of all such inquiries must be Happiness. 
 
 But what constitutes happiness ? Upon this point systems 
 differ: all profess to teach the road to Happiness, and all 
 point out divergent roads. There can be no dispute as to 
 what Happiness is, but infinite disputes as to the way of 
 securing it. In the, Cyrenaic and Cynic schools we saw this 
 question leading to very different results ; and the battle we 
 are now to see renewed on very similar ground, between the 
 Epicureans and the Stoics. 
 
 Epicurus, like Aristippus, declared that Pleasure constituted 
 Happiness; allanimals instinctively pursu e it, and as instinc- 
 tively avoid Pain. Man should do deliberately that which 
 animals do instinctively. Every Pleasure is in itself good ; 
 but, in comparison with another, it may become an evil. The 
 Philosopher differs from the common man in this, That while 
 they both seek Pleasure, the former knows how to forego cer- 
 tain enjoyments which will cause pain and vexation hereafter ; 
 whereas the common man seeks only to enjoy. The 
 Philosopher's art enables him to foresee what will be the 
 result of his acts ; and, so foreseeing, he will not only avoid 
 those enjoyments which occasion grief, but know how to 
 endure those pains from which surpassing pleasure will result. 
 
 Happiness, then, is not the enjoyment of the moment, but 
 the enjoyment of the whole life. We must not seek to inten- 
 sify, but to equalize : not debauchery to-day and satiety to- 
 morrow, but equable enjoyment all the year round. 
 
 No life can be pleasant but a virtuous life ; and the pleasures 
 of the body, although not to be despised, are insignificant when 
 compared with th ose of the soul. The former are but 
 momentary, the latter embrace both the past and the future. 
 
 Hence his golden rule of Temperance. He not only insisted 
 on the necessity of moderation for continued enjoyment, he 
 also slighted, and somewhat scorned, all exquisite indulgences. 
 He fed moderately and plainly. Without interdicting luxuries, 
 he saw that Pleasure was purer and more enduring if luxuries 
 were dispensed with. This is the ground upon which Cynics 
 
•6* THE EPICUREANS. 
 
 and Stoics built their own exaggerated systems. They also 
 saw that simplicity was preferable to luxury; but they pushed 
 their notion too far. Contentedness with a little Epicurus 
 regarded as a great good: and he said wealth consisted nolin 
 great possessions, but in having small wants. He did not 
 limit man to the fewest possible enjoyments : on the contrary, 
 he wished him in all ways to multiply them j but he wished 
 him to be able to live upon little, both as a preventive against 
 ill fortune, and as an enhancement of rare enjoyments. The 
 man who lives plainly has no fear of poverty, and is better 
 able to enjoy exquisite pleasures. 
 
 Virtue rests upon Free Will and Reason, which are insepar- 
 able : since, without Free Will our Reason would be passive, 
 and without Reason our Free Will would be blind. Every- 
 thing, therefore, in human actions which is virtuous or vicious 
 depends on man's knowing and willing. Philosophical edu- 
 cation consists in accustoming the Mind to judge accurately, 
 and the Will to choose manfully. 
 
 From this slight outline of his Ethical doctrine may be seen 
 how readily it furnished arguments both to assailants and to 
 defenders. We may also notice the vagueness and elasticity 
 of it, which would enable many minds to adapt it to their 
 virtues or to their vices. The luxurious would see in it only an 
 exhortation to their own vices ; the temperate would see in it 
 a scientific exposition of temperance. 
 
 Let us devote a few words to his theories on other subjects. 
 
 Epicureanism, in leading man to a correct appreciation of 
 the moral end of his existence, in showing him how to be truly 
 happy, has to combat with many obstructions which hide from, 
 him the real road of life. These obstructions are his illusions, 
 his prejudices, his errors, his ignorance. This ignorance is of 
 two kinds, as Victor Cousin points out ; ignorance of the laws 
 of the external world, which creates absurd superstitions and 
 troubles the soul with false fears and false hopes. Hence the 
 necessity of some knowledge of Physics. The second kind of 
 ignorance is that of the nature of man. Hence the necessity 
 of the Epicurean Logic called Canonic, which is a collection of 
 rules respecting human reason and its application. 
 
 The Epicurean pyschology and physics were derived from 
 the Democritean, upon which we have already expatiated. 
 The atoms of which the universe is formed are constantly 
 throwing off some of their parts, airoppoai; and these, in 
 
THE EPICUREANS, 
 
 contact with the senses, produce sensation, darkens. But 
 Epicurus did not maintain that these a-n-oppoai were images of 
 the atoms; he believed them to have a certain resemblance to 
 their atoms, but was unable to point out where, and in how 
 far this resemblance exists. 
 
 Every sensation must be true as a sensation; and, as such, 
 it can neither be proved nor contradicted ; it is aAoyos. The 
 sensations of the insane and the dreaming are also true ; and, 
 although there is a difference between their sensations and 
 those of sane and waking men, yet he confessed himself unable 
 to determine in what the difference consists. 
 
 Sensations, however, do not alone constitute knowledge; 
 man has also the faculty of conception, a-poX^is, which arises 
 from the repeated iteration of sensation : it is the recollection 
 of the various sensations ; or, as Aristotle would say, the 
 general idea gathered from particular sensations. It is from 
 these conceptions that the general ideas, So£cu, are formed, 
 and it is in these general ideas that error resides. 
 
 A sensation may be considered either in relation to its 
 object or in relation to him who experiences it; in the latter 
 case it is agreeable or disagreeable, and renders the sentiments, 
 to. iraOrj, the basis of all morality. 
 
 With such a basis, we may readily anticipate the nature of 
 the superstructure. If agreeable and disagreeable sensations 
 are the origin of all moral phenomena, there can be no other 
 moral rule than to seek the agreeable and to avoid the dis- 
 agreeable; and whatever is pleasant becomes the great object 
 of existence. 
 
 The Physics of Epicurus are so distinctly the Physics of 
 Democritus that we need do no more than allude to them. 
 
 On reviewing the whole doctrine of Epicurus, we find in it 
 the scepticism which the imperfect science of the day neces- 
 sarily brought with it to many minds in many different shapes ; 
 and, as a consequence of that scepticism a refuge in Morals, 
 and an attempt to construct Ethics on a scientific basis. The 
 attempt failed because the basis was not broad enough ; but 
 the attempt itself is worthy of notice, as characteristic of the 
 whole Socratic movement ; for, although the Socratic Method 
 was, as we have endeavoured to prove, an attempt at recon- 
 structing science, yet that reconstruction itself was only 
 attempted with a view to morals. Socrates was the first to 
 bring Philosophy down from the clouds , he was the first to 
 
 V 
 
 V 
 
a64 THE STOICS. 
 
 make Science itself the basis of Morality, and in one shape 01 
 other all his followers and all the schools that issued from them 
 kept this view present to their minds. 
 
 The Epicureans are, therefore, to be regarded as men who 
 ventured on a solution of the great problem, and failed because 
 they only saw a part of the truth. The Stoics were their rivals, 
 and of them we are now to speak. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE STOICS. 
 
 The Stoics were a large sect, and of its members so many have 
 been celebrated that a separate work would be needed to 
 chronicle them all. From Zeno, the founder, down to Brutus 
 and Marcus Antoninus, the sect embraces many Greek and 
 Roman worthies, and not a few solemn mountebanks. Some 
 of these we would willingly introduce ; but we are forced to 
 confine ourselves to one type, and the one we select is Zeno. 
 
 He was born at Citium, a small city in the island of Cyprus, 
 of Phoenician origin, but inhabited by Greeks. The date of his 
 birth is uncertain. His father was a merchant, in which trade 
 he himself engaged, until his father after a voyage to Athens 
 brought home some works of the Socratic philosophers ; * these 
 were studied with eagerness and rapture, and determined his 
 vocation. 
 
 When about thirty, he undertook a voyage both of interest 
 and pleasure, to Athens, the great mart both for trade and 
 philosophy. Shipwrecked on the coast, he lost the whole of 
 his valuable cargo of Phoenician purple ; and, thus reduced to 
 poverty, he willingly embraced the doctrines of the Cynics, 
 whose ostentatious display of poverty had captivated many 
 minds. We before noticed a similar influence as probably 
 determining Diogenes in his choice of philosophy. 
 
 There is an anecdote of his having one day read Xenophon's 
 1 Commentaries ' in a bookseller's shop, and so delighted was he 
 
 * Rittcrsays, » 4 the works of Socrates," but this is clearly an oversight 
 Socrates wrote nothing. 
 
THE STOICS. *>* 
 
 that he asked where such men were to be met with. At that 
 moment Crates the Cynic passed by : the bookseller pointed 
 him out to Zeno, and bade him follow Crates. He did so ; and 
 became a disciple. 
 
 But he could not long remain a disciple. The gross 
 manners of the Cynics, so far removed from true simplicity, and 
 their speculative incapacity soon caused him to seek a master 
 elsewhere. Stilpo, of Megara, became his next instructor ; and 
 from him he learned the art of disputation which he subse- 
 quently practised with such success. 
 
 But the Megaric doctrine was too meagre for him. He was 
 glad to learn from Stilpo ; but there were things which Stilpo 
 could not teach. He turned, therefore, to the expositors of 
 Plato : Xenocrates and Polemo. In the Philosophy of Plato 
 there is, as before remarked, a germ of stoicism ; but there is 
 also much that contradicts stoicism, and so, we presume, Zeno 
 grew discontented with that also. 
 
 After twenty years of laborious study in these various schools 
 he opened one for himself, wherein to teach the result of all 
 these inquiries. The spot chosen was the Stoa, or Porch varie- 
 gated with the pictures of Polygnotus, and which had once been 
 the resort of the Poets. From this Stoa the school derived 
 its name. 
 
 As a man, Zeno appears deserving of the highest respect. 
 Although sharing the doctrines of the Cynics he did not share 
 their grossness, their insolence, or their affectation. In person 
 he was tall and slender, and of weakly constitution. But he 
 lived to a great age, because he was rigidly abstemious : living 
 upon figs, bread, and honey. His brow was furrowed with 
 thought, and this gave a tinge of severity to his aspect, which 
 accorded with the austerity of his doctrines. So honoured and 
 respected was he by the Athenians that they entrusted to him 
 the keys of the citadel ; and when he died they erected to his 
 memory a statue of brass. His death is thus recorded : In his 
 ninety-eighth year, as he was stepping out of his school, he fell 
 and broke his finger. He was so affected at the consciousness 
 of his infirmity that, striking the earth he exclaimed : " Why am 
 I thus importuned ? Earth, I obey thy summons ! " He went 
 home and strangled himself 
 
 Let us now bestow our attention on his doctrines. 
 
 In the history of humanity there are periods when society 
 seems fast dissolving ; when ancient creeds have f lost theii 
 
«*> THE STOICS. 
 
 majesty, and new doctrines want sincerity : when the onlookei 
 sees the fabric tottering, beneath which his fellow-men are 
 crowded either in sullen despair or in blaspheming levity, and, 
 seeing this, he feels that there is safety still possible, if men will 
 but be bold. He raises a voice of warning, and a voice of 
 exhortation ; he bids them behold their peril and tremble, 
 behold their salvation and resolve. He preaches to them a 
 doctrine they may have been unused to hear, or, hearing it, 
 unused to heed ; and by the mere force of his own intense con- 
 viction he gathers round him some believers who are saved. If 
 the social anarchy be not too widely spread, he saves his 
 country by directing its energies in a new channel ; if the coun- 
 try's doom is sealed, he makes a gallant effort, though a vain 
 one, and " leaves a spotless name to after-times." 
 
 Such a man was Zeno. Greece was fallen ; but hope still 
 remained. A wide-spread disease was fast eating out the 
 vigour of its life : Scepticism, Indifference, Sensuality, Epicurean 
 softness were the reigning doctrines, only counteracted by the 
 magnificent but vague works of Plato, or the vast but abstruse 
 system of Aristotle. All Greek civilization was fast falling to 
 decay. A little time and Rome, the she-wolfs nursling, would 
 usurp the place which Greece had once so proudly held — the 
 place of vanguard of European civilization. Rome, the mighty, 
 would take from the feeble hands of Greece, the trust she was 
 no longer worthy to hold. There was a pres sentiment of Rome 
 in Zeno's breast In him the manly energy and stern sim- 
 plicity which was to conquer the world ; in him the deep rever- 
 ence for moral worth, which was the glory of Rome before, 
 intoxicated with success, she sought to ape the literary and 
 philosophical glory of old Hellas. Zeno the Stoic had a Roman 
 spirit; and this is the reason why so many noble Romans 
 became his disciples ; he had deciphered the wants of their 
 spiritual nature. 
 
 Alarmed at the scepticism which seemed inevitably following 
 speculations of a metaphysical kind, Zeno, like Epicurus, fixed 
 his thoughts principally upon Morals. His philosophy boasted 
 of being eminently practical and connected with the daily 
 practices of life. But, for this purpose, the philosopher 
 must not regard Pleasure so much as Virtue : and this Virtue 
 does not consist in a life of contemplation and speculation, but 
 in a life of activity ; for what is Virtue ? — Virtue is manhood. 
 And what are the attributes of man ? Are they not obviously 
 
THE STOICS. i&j 
 
 the attributes of an active as well as of a speculative being? and 
 can that be Virtue which excludes or neglects man's activity? 
 Man, Plato, and O Aristotle, was not made only to speculate : 
 wisdom is not his only pursuit. Man, O Epicurus, was not 
 made only to enjoy : he was made also to do somewhat, and to 
 be somewhat. Science ? — It is a great thing, but it is not alL 
 Pleasure ? — It is a slight thing, and, were it greater, could not 
 embrace man's entire activity. 
 
 The aim, then, of man's existence is neither to be wise nor 
 to enjoy, but to be Virtuous — to realize his manhood. To 
 this aim, Science is a means, and Pleasure may be also one : 
 but they are both subordinate. 
 
 But before we can t c taught to lead a Virtuous life, we must 
 be taught what Virtue '$. Zeno thought, with Socrates, that 
 Virtue wa s the Science of Good : and that Vice was. nothing 
 but error. If to know the good were tantamount to the pur- 
 suit and practice of it, then was the teacher's task easily defined : 
 he had to explain the nature of human knowledge, and to 
 explain the relations of man to the universe. 
 
 Thus, as with Socrates, does Morality find itself inseparably 
 connected with Science ; and more especially with psychology. 
 A brief outline of this psychology becomes, therefore, necessary 
 as an introduction to the stoical Morality. 
 
 Zeno utterly rejected the Platonic theory of knowledge, and 
 accepted, . though with some modifications, the Aristotelian 
 theory. 'Reminiscence" and "Ideas" were to him mere 
 words. Ideas he regarded but as the universal notions formed 
 by the mind from a comparison of particulars. Sense furnished 
 all the materials of knowledge : Reason was the plastic instru- 
 ment whereby these materials were fashioned. 
 
 But those who maintain that Sense furnishes us the materials 
 of knowledge are hampered with this difficulty, — By what 
 process does sense perceive ? What relation is there bet wee. i 
 Sense and the sensible Thing ? What proof have we of those 
 sensations being comformable with the Things ? 
 
 This difficulty is a serious one, and early occupied specu- 
 lators, as we have already shown. Indeed, this question may 
 be pronounced the vital question of all philosophy: upon 
 its solution depends to a great extent the solution of all other 
 questions. Let us state it more clearly in an illustration. 
 
 At the distance of fifty yards you descry a tower : it is round. 
 What do you mean by saying it is round ? You mean that the 
 
a** the stoics. 
 
 impression made upon your sense of sight is an impression 
 similar to that made by some other objects, such as trees, which 
 you, and all men call round. Now, on the supposition that 
 you never approached nearer to that tower, you would always 
 believe it to be round, because it appeared so. But, as you are 
 enabled to approach it, and as you then find that the tower is 
 square, and not round, you begin to examine into this difference. 
 It appeared round at that distance; and yet you say it really 
 is square. A little knowledge of optics seems to explain the 
 difference ; but does not. At fifty yards, you say, it appears 
 round; but it really is square. At fifty yards, we reply, it 
 appears round, and at one yard it appears square : it is neither : 
 both round and square are conceptions of the mind, not attri- 
 butes of things : they have a subjective, not an objective exist- 
 ence. 
 
 Thus far the ancient sceptics penetrated ; but, seeing herein 
 an utter destruction of all certainty in sense-knowledge, and 
 compelled to admit that Sense was the only source of our 
 knowledge, they declared all knowledge a deceit. The per- 
 ception of the real issue whence to escape this dilemma — the 
 recognition of the uncertainty of sense-knowledge, and the 
 reconciliation of that theory with the natural wants of the specu- 
 lative mind — reconciling scepticism with belief, and both with 
 reason, was the work of after-times. 
 
 Those who believed that the senses gave true reports of the 
 Things which affected them, were driven to invent some hypo- 
 thesis explanatory of the relation subsisting between the Object 
 and the Subject, the thing and the Sense. We have seen how 
 eidola, airy Images affluent from Things, were invented to 
 choke up the gap, and to establish a direct connection between 
 the Subject and the Object. 
 
 Zeno, acutely enough, saw that an image detaching itself in 
 an airy form from the Object, could only represent the super- 
 fices of that Object, even if it represented it correctly. In this 
 way the hypothesis was shown to be no more than an hypo- 
 thesis to explain Appearances ; whereas the real question is 
 not " How do we perceive Appearances ? " but, " How do we 
 perceive Objects?" If we only perceive their superfices, our 
 knowledge is only a knowledge of phenomena, and we fall 
 into the hands of the sceptics. 
 
 Zeno saw the extent of the difficulty, and tried to obviate it. 
 Bui his hypothesis, though more comprehensive, was as com- 
 
THE STOICS. 269 
 
 pletely without foundation. He assumed that Sense could 
 penetrate beneath Appearance, and perceive Substance itself. 
 
 As considerable confusion exists on this point in the ordi- 
 nary historians, we shall confine ourselves to the testimony oi 
 Sextus Empiricus ; to us the most satisfactory of alL 
 
 In his 7th Book— that, namely, directed against the 
 Logicians* — he tells us, the Stoics held that there was one 
 criterium of truth for man, and it was what they called the 
 Cataleptic Phantasm (ttjv KaTaXypmKrjv <j>avraaiav : i.e. the Sen- 
 suous Apprehension). We must first understand what they 
 meant by the Phantasm or Appearance. It was, they said an 
 impression on the mind (rvirwris cv ijn>x*))' But from this point 
 commence their differences ; for Cleanthus understood, by this 
 impression, an impression similar to that made by the signet- 
 ring upon wax, tov K-qpov tvttwo-iv. Chrysippus thought this 
 absurd ; for, said he, seeing that thought conceives many 
 objects at the same time, the soul must upon that hypothesis 
 receive many impressions of figures. He thought that Zeno 
 meant by impression nothing more than a modification (crepoiuio-is). 
 Comparing the soul to the air, which, when many voices sound 
 simultaneously, receives simultaneously the various alterations, 
 but without confounding them. Thus the Soul unites several 
 perceptions which correspond with their several objects. 
 
 This is extremely ingenious. Indeed, distinguishing thus 
 Sensation as a modification of the soul, is opening a shaft deep 
 down into the dark region of psychology. But, if it lets in 
 some of the light of day, it also brings into notice a new 
 obstacle. This soul, which is modified, does it not also in its 
 turn exercise an influence ? If you pour wine into water, you 
 modify the water ; but you also modify the wine. There can be 
 no action without reaction. If a stone is presented to my sight, 
 it modifies my soul ; but does the stone remain unmodified ? 
 — No; it receives from me certain attributes, certain form, 
 colour, taste, weight, &c, which my soul bestows on it, which 
 it does not possess in itself. 
 
 Thus is doubt again spread over the whole question. The 
 soul modifying the object in sensation, can it rely upon the 
 truth of the sensation thus produced? Has not the wine 
 become watery, no less than the water vinous ? These conse- 
 quences, however, Zeno did not foresee. He was intent upon 
 
 • Pp. i° T ^$ of Henry Stephen's edition. 
 
2?o THE STOICS. 
 
 proving that the soul really apprehended objects, not as eidola, 
 not as the wax receives the impression of a seal, but in absolute 
 truth. Let us continue to borrow from Sextus. 
 
 The Phantasm, or Appearance, which causes the modifica- 
 tion of the Soul which we name Sensation, is also understood 
 by the Stoics as we understand ideas ; and in this general sense, 
 they said that there were three Kinds of Phantasms : those that 
 were probable, those that were improbable, and those that were 
 neither one nor the other. The first are those that cause a 
 slight and equable motion in the soul : such as those which 
 inform us that it is day. The second are those which contra- 
 dict our reason, such as if one were to say during the day-time: 
 ,a Now the sun is not above the earth," or, during the night- 
 time : " Now it is day." The third are those, the truth of 
 which it is impossible to verify, such as this : " The number of 
 the stars is even " ; or, " the number is odd." 
 
 Phantasms, when probable, are true, or false, or both true 
 and false at the same time, or neither true nor false. They are 
 true when they can be truly affirmed of anything ; false if they 
 are wrongly affirmed, such as when one believes an oar dipped 
 in the water to be broken, because it appears so. When 
 Orestes, in his madness, mistook Electra for a Fury, he had a 
 Phantasm both true and false ; true, inasmuch as he saw 
 something, viz. Electra ; false, inasmuch as Electra was not a 
 Fury. 
 
 Of true Phantasms, some are Apprehensive (cataleptic,) and 
 others non-cataleptic. The latter are such as arise from 
 disease or perturbation of the mind; for innumerable Phan- 
 tasms are produced in phrenzy and hypochondria ; but these 
 are all non-cataleptic. The cataleptic Phantasm is that which 
 is impressed by an object which exists, which is a copy of that 
 object, and can be produced by no other object. 
 
 Perception is, elsewhere, said to be a sort of light, which 
 manifests itself at the same time that it lights up the object 
 from which it is derived. 
 
 From the foregoing exposition may be seen how easy the 
 task of criticism is compared to that of invention. Zeno dis- 
 tinctly saw the weakness of the* theories proposed by others ; 
 he failed, however, in establishing any better theory in their 
 place. Sextus Empiricus may well call the Stoical doctrine 
 vague and undecided. Can anything be more removed from 
 scientific precision than the above theory ? How are we tQ 
 
THE STOICS. •?■ 
 
 distinguish the true from the false in appearances ? Above 
 all, how are we to learn whether an impression exactly coin- 
 cides with the supposed object? This is the main problem, 
 and Zeno pretends to solve it by a most circular argument. 
 Thus : given the problem, How are we to distinguish the true 
 impressions from the false impressions ? The solution offered 
 is, — By ascertaining which of the impressions coincide with 
 the real objects ; in other words, By distinguishing the true 
 impressions from the false ? 
 
 Such is metaphysics. 
 
 Let us continue our exposition. Having a perception of an 
 object is not knowledge ; for knowledge, it is necessary that 
 reason should assent Perception comes from without ; assent 
 from within : it is the free exercise of man's reason. Science 
 is composed of perceptions so solidly established that no 
 argumentation can shake them. Perceptions not thus estab- 
 lished only constitute Opinion. 
 
 This is making short work with difficulties, it must be con- 
 fessed \ but the Stoics were eager to oppose something against 
 :he Scepticism which characterized the age, and, in their 
 eagerness to build, they did not sufficiently secure their foun- 
 dations. Universal doubt they felt to be impossible. Man 
 must occasionally assent, and that too in a constant and 
 absolute manner. There are perceptions which carry with 
 them irresistible conviction. There would be no possibility of 
 action unless there were some certain truth. Where, then, is 
 conviction to stop ? That all our perceptions are not correct 
 every one is willing to admit. But which are exact and which 
 are inexact? What criterium have we? The criterium we 
 possess is Evidence. Nothing can be clearer than evidence, 
 they said ; and, being so clear, it needs no definition. This 
 was precisely what it did want; but the Stoics could not 
 give it. 
 
 In truth, the Stoics, combating the scepticism of their age, 
 were reduced to the same strait as Reid, Beattie, and 
 Hutcheson, combating the Scepticism of Hume : reduced to 
 give up Philosophy, and to find refuge in Common Sense. The 
 battle fought by the Stoics is very analogous to the battle 
 fought by the Scotch philosophers, in the ground occupied, in 
 the instruments employed, and in the enemy attacked, and the 
 object to be gained. They both fought for Morality, which 
 they thought endangered. 
 
37? THE STOICS. 
 
 We shall subsequently have to consider the Common-Sense 
 theory; enough if we now call attention to the curious 
 ignoratio elenchi — the curious misconception of the real force of 
 the enemy, and the utter helplessness of their own position, 
 which the Common-Sense philosophers display. The Sceptics 
 had made an irresistible onslaught upon the two fortresses of 
 philosophy, — Perception and Reason. They showed Percep- 
 tion to be based upon Appearance, and Appearance to be 
 only Appearance, not Certainty. They showed, also, that 
 Reason was unable to distinguish between Appearance and 
 Certainty, because, in the first place, it had nothing but 
 Phenomena (Appearances) to build upon ; and, in the second 
 place, because we have no criterium to apply to Reason itself. 
 Having gained this victory, they proclaimed Philosophy no 
 longer existent. Whereupon the Stoics valorously rise, and, 
 taking their stand upon Common Sense, believe they rout the 
 forces of the Sceptics ; believe they retake the lost fortresses 
 by declaring that Perceptions are true as well as false, and that 
 you may distinguish the true from the false, by — distinguishing 
 them; and Reason has its criterium in Evidence, which 
 requires no criterium ; it is so clear. This seems to us pretty 
 much the same as if the French were to invade England ; 
 possess themselves of London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, declare 
 England the subject of France, and it was then supposed that 
 they were to be driven home again by a party of volunteers 
 taking their stand upon Hampstead Heath, displaying the 
 banners of England, and with loud alarums proclaiming the 
 French defeated ! 
 
 But it is time to consider the Ethical doctrines of the Stoics , 
 and to do this effectually we must glance at their conception 
 of the Deity. 
 
 There are two elements in Nature. The first is v\r) irgwrr^ 
 or primordial matter ; the passive element from which things 
 are formed. The second is the active element, which forms 
 things out of matter : Reason, Destiny (iifiapneirr)), God. 
 The divine Reason operating upon matter bestows upon it 
 the laws which govern it, laws which the Stoics called \6yoi 
 (rn-€pfutTLKoi i or productive causes. God is the Reason of the 
 world. 
 
 With this speculative doctrine it is easy to connect theTr 
 practical doctrine. Their Ethics are easily to be deduced 
 irom their theology. If Reason is the £reat creative law, tp 
 
THE STOICS. 273 
 
 live conformably with Reason must be the practical moral law. 
 If the universe be subject to a general law, every part of that 
 universe must also be duly subordinate to it The conse- 
 quence is clear : there is but one formula for Morals, and that 
 is, ** Live harmoniously with Nature," o/^oAoyo/xcVw? -nj <f>v<rci £tJv. 
 
 This is easily said. An anxious disciple might, however, 
 desire greater precision. He would ask : Is it universal 
 nature, or is it the particular nature of man that I am to live 
 with? Cleanthes taught the former; Chrysippus the latter; 
 or, we should rather say, taught that both individual and uni- 
 versal nature should be understood by the formula. And this 
 appears to have been the sense in which it was usually 
 interpreted. 
 
 The distinctive tendency of the formula cannot be mistaken : 
 it is to reduce everything to Reason, which, as it has supremacy 
 in creation, must also have supremacy in man. This is also the 
 Platonic conception. It makes Logic the rule of life; and 
 assumes that there is nothing in man's mind which cannot be 
 reduced within the limits of Logic ; assumes that man is all 
 intellect. 
 
 What follows ? It follows, that everything which interferes 
 with a purely intellectual existence is to be eliminated as dan- 
 gerous. The pleasures and the pains of the body are to be 
 despised : only the pleasures and the pains of the intellect are 
 worthy to occupy man. By his passions he is made a slave : 
 by his intellect he is free. His senses are passive : his intellect 
 is active. It is his duty, therefore, to surmount and despise his 
 passions and his senses, that he may be free, active, virtuous. 
 
 We have here the doctrine of the Cynics, somewhat purified, 
 but fundamentally the same ; we have here, also, the antici- 
 pation of Rome : the forethought of that which was subse- 
 quently realized in act. Rome was the fit theatre for Stoicism, 
 because Rome was peopled with soldiers : these soldiers had 
 their contempt of death formed in perpetual campaigns. How 
 little the Romans regarded the life of man their history shows. 
 The gladiatorial combats, brutal and relentless, must have 
 hardened the minds of all spectators ; and there were no 
 softening influences to counteract them. How different the 
 Greeks ! They did not pretend to despise this beautiful life ; 
 they did not affect to be above humanity. Life was precious 
 and they treasured it : treasured it not with petty fear but 
 with noble ingenuousness. They loved life, and wept on 
 
274 THE STOICS. 
 
 quitting it : and they wept without shame. They loved life, 
 and they said so. When the time came for them to risk it, or 
 to give it for their country or their honour — when something 
 they prized higher was to be gained by the sacrifice — then they 
 died unflinchingly. The tears shed by Achilles and Ulysses 
 did not unman them : they fought terribly as they had loved 
 tenderly. Philoctetes, in agony, howls like a wild _ beast 
 because he feels pain, and feels no shame in expressing it. 
 But these shrieks have not softened him : he is still the same 
 stern, terrible, implacable Philoctetes. So, also, the wounded 
 Mars goes howling off the plain. 
 
 The Stoics, in their dread of becoming effeminate, became 
 marble. They despised pain ; they despised death. To be 
 above pain was thought manly. They did not see that, in this 
 respect, instead of being abc Humanity, they sank miserably 
 below it. If it is a conditio *>f our human organization to be 
 susceptible of pain, it is only affectation to conceal the 
 expression of that pain. Could silence stifle pain, it were well ; 
 but to stifle the cry is not to stifle the feeling: and to have a 
 feeling, yet affect not to have it, is pitiful. The Savage soon 
 learns that philosophy ; but the civilized man is superior to it 
 You receive a blow, and you do not wince ; so does a stone. 
 You are face to face with Death, and you have no regrets ; 
 then you are unworthy oi life. 
 
 As a reaction against effeminacy, Stoicism may be applauded ; 
 as a doctrine, it is miserably one-sided. It ends in apathy and 
 egotism. Apathy, indeed, was considered by the Stoics as the 
 highest condition of Humanity ; whereas, in truth, it is thelowest. 
 
 It leads, also, to gross immorality and to unseemly extrava- 
 gances. Declaring Reason to be the only true regulator of our 
 actions, and, deducing from that the natural consequence of 
 all actions being either conformable or non-conformable with 
 Reason, they arrived at some curious conclusions. Thus, all 
 actions conformable with Reason are good ; and not only all 
 good, but all equally so. In like manner, all acticns not con- 
 formable with Reason are bad, and all equally bad. The 
 absurdities which this doctrine led them into are innumerable ; 
 enough if we mention that one gravely repeated by Perseus, 
 that to move your little finger without a reasonable motive is 
 a crime equal to killing a man, since both are non-conformable 
 with Reason. There is great difficulty in crediting such extrava- 
 gances, but really there seems no limit to systematic errors. 
 
THE NEW ACADEMY. a 75 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE NEW ACADEMY : ARCESILAUS AND CARNEADES. 
 
 The New Academy would solicit our attention, were it only 
 for the celebrity bestowed on it by Cicero and Horace ; but it 
 has other and higher points of interest than those of literary 
 curiosity. The combat of which it was the theatre was, and is, 
 of singular importance. The questions connected with it are 
 those vital questions respecting the origin and certitude of 
 human knowledge which so long have occupied the ingenuity 
 of thinkers, and the consequences which flow from either solu- 
 tion of the problem are of the utmost importance. 
 
 The Stoics, as we have seen, endeavoured to establish the 
 certitude of human knowledge, in order that they might estab 
 lish the truth of moral principles. They attacked the doctrines 
 of the Sceptics, and believed they triumphed by bringing 
 forward their own doctrine of Common Sense. But the New 
 Academicians had other arguments to offer. They too were 
 Sceptics, although their scepticism differed from that of the 
 Pyrrhonists. The nature of this difference Sextus Empiricus 
 has noted. 
 
 " Many persons," says he, u confound the Philosophy of the 
 Academy with that of the Sceptics. But, although the disciples 
 of the New Academy declare that all things are incomprehen- 
 sible ; yet they are distinguished from the Pyrrhonists in this 
 very dogmatism : they affirm that all things are incomprehen- 
 sible — the Sceptics do not affirm that. Moreover, the Sceptics 
 consider all perceptions perfectly equal as to the faithfulness of 
 their testimony ; the Academicians distinguish between pro- 
 bable and improbable perceptions : the first they class under 
 various heads. There are some, they say, which are merely 
 probable, others which are also confirmed by reflection, others 
 which are subject to no doubt 
 
 u Assent is of two kinds. Simple assent which the mind 
 yields without repugnance as without desire, such as that of a 
 child following its master ; and the assent which follows upon 
 conviction and reflection. The Sceptics admitted the former 
 kind ; the Academicians the latter." 
 
 These differences are of no great moment ; but in the history 
 of sects we find the smallest variation invested with a degree 
 
* 76 THE NEW ACADEMY: 
 
 of importance; and we can understand the pertinacity with 
 which the Academicians distinguished themselves from the 
 Sceptics even on such slight grounds as the above. 
 
 In treating of the Academicians we are forced to follow the 
 plan pursued with the Sceptics, viz., to consider the doctrines 
 of the whole sect, rather than to particularize the share of each 
 individual member. The Middle Academy and the New 
 Academy we thus unite in one ; although the ancients drew a 
 distinction between them, it is difficult for moderns to do so. 
 Arcesilaus and Carneades, therefore, shall be our types. 
 
 Arcesilaus was born at Pitane in 116 Olymp. He was early 
 taught mathematics and rhetoric, became the pupil of Theo- 
 phrastus, afterwards of Aristotle, and finally of Polemo the 
 Platonist. In this last school he was contemporary with Zeno, 
 and probably there began that antagonism which was so re- 
 markable in their subsequent career. On the death of Crates, 
 Arcesilaus filled the Academic chair, and filled it with great 
 ability and success. His fascinating manners won him general 
 regard. Hs was learned and sweet-tempered, and generous to 
 a fault. Visiting a sick friend, who, he saw, was suffering from 
 privation, he slipped, unobserved, a purse of gold underneath 
 the sick man's pillow. When the attendant discovered it, the 
 man said with a smile : " This is one of Arcesilaus's generous 
 frauds." He was of a somewhat luxurious temper, but he 
 lived till the age of seventy-five, when he killed himself by hard 
 drinking. 
 
 Carneades, the most illustrious of the Academicians, was 
 born at Cyrene, in Africa, 141 Olymp. He was a pupil of 
 Diogenes the Stoic, who taught him the subtleties of disputa- 
 tion. This made him sometimes exclaim in the course of a 
 debate : " If I have reasoned rightly, I have gained my point ; 
 if not, let Diogenes return me the mina I paid him for his 
 lessons." On leaving Diogenes he became the pupil of Hege- 
 sinus, who then held the Academic chair; by him he was 
 instructed in the sceptical principles of the Academy, and on 
 his death he succeeded to his chair. He also diligently studied 
 the voluminous writings of Chrysippus. These were of great 
 value to him as exercising his subtlety, and trying the temper 
 of his own metal. He owed so much to this opponent that he 
 used to say : " Had there not been a Chrysippus, I should not 
 be what I am," a sentiment very easy of explanation. There 
 are two kind'', of writers : Those who directly instruct us in 
 
ARCBSTLAUS AND CARNEADES. tjj 
 
 sound knowledge, and those who indirectly lead us to the 
 truth by the very opposition they raise against their own views. 
 Next to exact knowledge, there is nothing so instructive as 
 exact error : an error clearly stated, and presented to you in 
 somewhat the same way as it at first presented itself to the 
 mind that now upholds it, by enabling you to see not only that 
 it is an error, but by what process it was deduced from its pre- 
 misses, is among the most valuable modes of instruction. It is 
 better than direct instruction; better, because the learner's 
 mind is called into full activity, and apprehends the truth for 
 itself, instead of passively assenting to it 
 
 Carneades was justified in his praise of Chrysippus. He felt 
 how much he owed to his antagonist. He felt that to him he 
 owed a clear conception of the Stoical Error, and a clear con- 
 viction of the truth of the Academic doctrine ; and owed also 
 no inconsiderable portion of that readiness and subtlety which 
 marked him out amongst his countrymen as a fitting Ambas- 
 sador to send to Rome. 
 
 Carneades in Rome — Scepticism in the Stoic city — presents 
 an interesting picture. The Romans crowded round him, 
 fascinated by his subtlety and eloquence. Before Galba — 
 before Cato the Censor — he harangued with marvellous unction 
 in praise of justice; and the hard brow of the grim Stoic 
 softened ; an approving smile played over those thin firm lips. 
 But the next day the brilliant orator undertook to exhibit the 
 uncertainty of all human knowledge; and, as a proof, he refuted 
 all the arguments with which the day before he had supported 
 Justice. He spoke against Justice as convincingly as he had 
 spoken for it. The brow of Cato darkened again, and with a 
 keen instinct of the dangers of such ingenuity operating upon 
 the Roman youth, he persuaded the Senate to send back the 
 Philosophers to their own country. 
 
 Carneades returned to Athens, and there renewed his con- 
 test with the Stoics. He taught with great applause, and lived 
 to the advanced age of ninety. 
 
 That the Academicians should have embraced Scepticism is 
 not strange : indeed, as we have said, Scepticism was the in- 
 evitable result of the tendencies of the whole epoch ; and the 
 only sect which did not accept it was forced to find a refuge in 
 Common Sense ; that is to say, was forced to find refuge in the 
 abdication of Philosophy, which abdication is in itself a species 
 of Scepticism. But it may seem strange that the Academy 
 
*7« THE NEW ACADEMY : 
 
 should derive itself from Plato; it may seem strange that 
 Arcesilaus should be a continuer and a warm admirer of 
 Plato. 
 
 The ancients themselves, according to Sextus Empiricus, 
 were divided amongst each other respecting Plato's real doc- 
 trine; some considering him a sceptic, others a dogmatist. 
 We have already explained the cause of this difference of 
 opinion, and have shown how very little consistency and pre- 
 cision there is in the ideas of Plato upon all subjects except 
 Method. Scepticism, therefore, might very easily result from 
 a study of his writings. But this is not all. Plato's attack 
 upon the theories of his predecessors, which were grounded 
 upon sense-knowledge, is constant, triumphant. The dialogue 
 of the ' Theaetetus,' which is devoted to the subject of Science, 
 is an exposition of the incapacity of sense to furnish materials 
 for Science. All that sense can furnish the materials for is 
 Opinion, and Opinion, as he frequently declares, even when it 
 is Right Opinion, never can be Science. 
 
 Plato, in short, destroyed all the old foundations upon which 
 theories had been constructed. He cleared the ground before 
 commencing his own work. By this means he obviated the 
 attacks of the Sophists, and yet refused to sustain the onus of 
 errors which his predecessors had accumulated. The Sophists 
 saw the weakness of the old belief, and attacked it. Having 
 reduced it to ruins, they declared themselves triumphant. 
 Plato appeared, and admitted the fact of the old fortress being 
 in ruins, and its deserving to be so ; but he denied that the 
 city of Truth was taken. " Expend," said he, " your wrath and 
 skill in battering down such fortresses ; I will assist you ; for 
 I too declare them useless. But the real fortress you have not 
 yet approached ; it is situate on far higher ground." Sense- 
 knowledge and Opinion being thus set aside, the stronghold 
 of Philosophy was the Ideal theory : in it Plato found refuge 
 from the Sophists. Aristotle came and destroyed that theory. 
 What, then, remained? Scepticism. 
 
 Arcesilaus admitted, with Plato, the uncertainty of Opinion ; 
 but he also admitted with Aristotle the incorrectness of the 
 Ideal theory. He was thus reduced to absolute Scepticism. 
 Th? arguments of Plato had quite destroyed the certitude of 
 Opinion ; the arguments of Aristotle had quite destroyed the 
 Ideal theory. And thus, by refusing to accept one argument 
 of the Platonic doctrine, Arcesilaus could from Plato's works 
 
ARCESILAUS AND CARNEADES. » 79 
 
 deduce his own theory of the Incomprehensibility of all things : 
 the acatalepsy. 
 
 The doctrine of acatalepsy recalls to us the Stoical doctrine 
 of catalepsy or Apprehension, to which it is the antithesis. The 
 Cataleptic Phantasm was the True Perception according to the 
 Stoics ; and, according to the Academicians, all Perceptions 
 were acataleptic, i.e., bore no conformity to the objects per- 
 ceived ; or, if they did bear any conformity thereto, it could 
 never be known. 
 
 Arcesilaus saw the weak point of the Stoical argument. Zeno 
 pretended that there was a Criterium, which decided between 
 science and opinion, which decided between true and false 
 perceptions, and this was the Assent which the mind gave to 
 the truth of certain perceptions : in other words, Common 
 Sense was the Criterium. " But," said Arcesilaus, " what is 
 the difference between the Assent of a wise man, and the 
 Assent of a madman ? — There is no difference but in name." 
 He felt that the criterium of the Stoics was itself in need of a 
 Criterium. 
 
 Chrysippus the Stoic combated Arcesilaus, and was in turn 
 combated by Carneades. The great question then pending 
 was this : — 
 
 What Criterium is there of the truth of our knowledge t 
 
 We have seen the attempts of the Stoics to answer this 
 question. Let us now see how Carneades answered the Stoics. 
 
 The Criterium must reside either in Reason, Conception, or 
 Sensation. It cannot reside in Reason, because Reason itself 
 is not independent of the other two : it operates upon the 
 materials furnished by them, and is dependent upon them. 
 Our knowledge is derived from the Senses, and every object 
 presented to the mind must consequently have been originally 
 presented to the Senses : on their accuracy the mind must 
 depend. 
 
 Reason cannot therefore contain within itself the desired 
 Criterium. Nor can conception ; for the same arguments apply 
 to it. Nor can the Criterium reside in Sense, because, as all 
 admit, the senses are deceptive, and there is no perception 
 which cannot be false. 
 
 For what is Perception ? 
 
 Our senses only inform us of the presence of an object in so 
 Car as they are affected by it. But what is this ? Is it not we 
 who are affected — we who are modified ? Yes ; and this modi- 
 
280 THE NEW ACADEMY: 
 
 fication reveals both itself and the object which causes it. Like 
 Light, which, in showing itself, shows also the objects upon 
 which it is thrown. Like Light also in this, that it shows 
 objects in its own colours. 
 
 Perception is a modification of the soul The whole problem 
 now to solve is this : Does every modification of the soul exactly 
 correspond with the external object which causes that modifica- 
 tion f 
 
 This is the problem presented by the Academicians. They 
 answered ; but they did not solve it. They left to their adver- 
 saries the task of proving the correspondence between the 
 object and subject. We may here venture to carry out their 
 principles and endeavour to solve the problem, as it is one still 
 agitating the minds of metaphysicians. 
 
 We say, that in nowise does the Sensation correspond with 
 the object, in nowise does the modification correspond with 
 the external cause, except in the relation of cause and effect. 
 The early thinkers were well aware, that, in order to attribute 
 any certainty to sensuous knowledge, we must assume that the 
 Senses transmit us Copies of Things. Democritus, who was the 
 first to see the necessity of such an hypothesis, suggested that 
 our Ideas were £idola, or Images of the Objects, of an extremely 
 airy texture, which were thrown off by the objects in the shape 
 of effluvia, and entered the brain by the pores. Those who 
 could not admit such an explanation substituted the hypo- 
 thesis of Impressions. Ask any man, not versed in such in- 
 quiries, whether he believes his perceptions to be copies of 
 objects — whether he believes that the flower he sees before him 
 exists quite independently of him and of every other human 
 being, and exists with the same attributes of shape, fragrance, 
 taste, &c. — his answer is sure to be in the affirmative. He will 
 regard you as a madman if you doubt it. 
 
 And yet so early as the epoch of which we are now sketch- 
 ing the history, thinking men had learned in somewise to see 
 that our Perceptions were not Copies of Objects, but that 
 they were simply modifications of our minds, caused by the 
 objects. 
 
 Once admit this, and sensuous knowledge is for ever pro- 
 nounced not only uncertain, but absolutely false. Can such a 
 modification be a copy of the cause which modifies ? As well 
 ask, Is the pain occasioned by a burn a copy of the fire? Is 
 it at all like the fire ? Does if at all exoress the essence of fire ? 
 
ARCESTLAUS AND CARNEADES. 281 
 
 Not in the least. It only expresses one relation in which 
 we stand to the fire ; one effect upon us which the fire will 
 produce. 
 
 Nevertheless, fire is an Object, and a burn is a Sensation. 
 The way in which we perceive the existence of the Object (fire) 
 is similar to that in which we perceive the existence of other 
 Objects : and that is in the modifications they occasion : in our 
 Sensations. 
 
 Let us take another instance. We say that we hear Thunder. 
 In other words we have a Perception of the Object called 
 Thunder. Our Perception really is of a Noise, which the elec- 
 trical phenomena we call Thunder have caused in us by acting 
 on the aural nerve. Is our sensation of this Noise any Copy 
 of the Phenomena ? Does it in any degree express the nature 
 of tfie Phenomena ? No ; it only expresses the sensation we 
 receive from a certain state of the atmosphere. 
 
 In these cases most people will readily agree with us : for, by 
 * very natural confusion of ideas, whenever they speak of per- 
 ceptions they mostly mean visual perceptions : because with 
 sight is associated the clearest knowledge ; because also the 
 hypothesis of our perceptions being Copies of Things, is founded 
 upon sight. The same persons who would willingly admit that 
 Pain was not a Copy of the Fire, nor of any thing in the nature 
 of Fire, except in its effect on our nerves, would protest that the 
 appearance of Fire to tneJEyewas the real appearance of the Fire, 
 all Eyes apart, and quite independent of human vision. It all 
 Sentient beings were at once swept from the face of the earth, 
 the fire would have no attribute at all resembling Pain : because 
 Pain is a modification, not of Fire, but of a sentient being, in 
 like manner if all Sentient beings were at once swept from the 
 face of the earth, the Fire would have no attributes at all 
 resembling light and colour ; because light and colour (however 
 startling the assertion) are modifications of the sentient being, 
 caused by something external, but no more resembling its 
 cause than the pain inflicted by an instrument resembles that 
 instrument. 
 
 Pain and colour are modifications of the sentient being. The 
 question at issue is, Can a modification of a Sentient being 
 be a copy of its cause ? The answer is clearly a negative. We 
 may imagine that when we see an Object our sensation is a 
 copy of it, because we believe that the Object paints itself upon 
 the retina : and we liken perception to a mirror, in which things 
 
t83 THE NEW ACADEMY: 
 
 are reflected. It is extremely difficult to divest ourselves of this 
 prejudice ; but we may be made aware of the fallacy if we attend 
 to those perceptions which are not visual — to the perceptions 
 of sound, fragrance, taste, or pain. These are clearly nothing 
 but modifications of our being, caused by external objects, but 
 in nowise resembling them. We are all agreed that the heat is 
 not in the fire, but in us ; that sweetness is not in the sugar, but 
 in us; that fragrance is but an effluvia of particles, which, 
 impinging on the olfactory nerve, cause a sensation in us. In 
 all beings similarly constituted these things would have similar 
 effects, would cause pain, sweetness, and fragrance ; but, on all 
 other beings the effects would be different : Fire would burn 
 paper, but not pain it ; Sugar would mix with water, but not 
 give it the sensation of sweetness ; and so forth. 
 
 The radical error of those who believe that we perceive 
 things as they are, consists in mistaking a metaphor for a fact, 
 and believing that the mind is a Mirror in which external 
 objects are reflected. But, as Bacon finely says, " the human 
 understanding is like an unequal mirror to the rays of things, 
 which, mixing its own nature with the nature of things, distorts 
 and perverts them." This is the process whereby we attribute 
 heat to the fire and colour to the flower ; heat and colour really 
 being states of our consciousness occasioned by the fire and the 
 flower under certain conditions. 
 
 What is Perception? — Perception is nothing more than a 
 state of the percipient — i.e. a state of consciousness. This state 
 may be occasioned by some external cause, and may be as 
 complex as the cause is complex, but it is still nothing more 
 than a state of consciousness — an effect produced by an 
 adequate cause. Of every change in our Sensation we are 
 conscious, and in time we learn to give definite names and 
 forms to the causes of these changes. But in the fact of Con- 
 sciousness there is nothing beyond Consciousness. In our per- 
 ceptions we are conscious only of the changes which have taken 
 place within us ; we can never transcend the sphere of our own 
 consciousness ; we can never go out of ourselves, and become 
 aware of the objects which caused those changes : all we can 
 do is to identify certain external appearances with certain internal 
 changes, e.g. to identify the appearance we name " fire " with 
 certain sensations we have known to follow our being placed 
 near it. Turn the fact of consciousness how you will, you can 
 see nothing in it but the change of a sentient being operated 
 
ARCESILAUS AND CARNEADES. sfl3 
 
 by some external cause. Consciousness is no mirror of the 
 world : it gives no faithful reflection of things as they Mt per se; 
 it only gives a faithful report of its own modification as excited 
 by external things. 
 
 The world, apart from our consciousness, i.e. the non-ego 
 qua non-ego — the world per se — is, we may be certain, some- 
 thing utterly different from the world as we know it ; for all we 
 know of it is derived through our consciousness of what its 
 effects are on us, and our consciousness is obviously only a 
 state of ourselves, not a copy of external things. 
 
 How do you know that the world is different from what it 
 appears to us ? 
 
 This question is pertinent, and we will answer briefly. The 
 world per se must be different from what it appears to us 
 through consciousness, because to us it is only known in the 
 relation of cause and effect World is the Cause ; our Con- 
 sciousness the Effect. But the same world operating on some 
 other organization would produce a very different effect. If all 
 animals were blind there would be no such thing as light, be- 
 cause light is a phenomenon made up out of the operation of some 
 unknown thing on the retina. If all animals were deaf there 
 would be no such thing as sound, because sound is a phenomenon 
 made up out of whe operation of some unknown thing (supposed 
 to be pulsations of air) on the tympanum. If all animals were 
 without their present nerves, or nerves having the same dispo- 
 sitions, there would be no such thing as pain, because pain is 
 a phenomenon made up out of the operation of some external 
 thing on the nerves. 
 
 Light, colour, sound, pain, taste, smell are all states of con- 
 sciousness, and nothing more. Light with its myriad forms and 
 colours — Sound with its thousand-fold life — make Nature what 
 Nature appears to us ; but they are only the investitures of the 
 mind. Nature is an eternal Darkness — an eternal Silence. 
 
 We conclude, therefore, that the World per se is in nowise 
 resembling the World as it appears to us. Perception is an 
 Effect; and its truth is not the truth of resemblance, but of 
 relation, i.e. it is the true operation of the world on us, the true 
 operation of Cause and Effect. But Perception is not the true 
 resemblance of the world, Consciousness is no mirror reflect- 
 ing external things. 
 
 Let us substitute for the metaphor of a mirror the more 
 abstract expression of " Perception is an Effect caused by an 
 
««4 THE NEW ACADEMY. 
 
 external object," and much of the confusion darkening this 
 matter will be dissipated. 
 
 An Effect, we know, agrees with its Cause, out it does not 
 resemble it. 
 
 An Effect is no more a Copy of the Cause than pain is a 
 copy of the application of fire to a finger : ergo, Perception can 
 never be an accurate report of what things are per se, but only 
 of what they are in relation to us. 
 
 It has been said that, although no single sense does actually 
 convey to us a correct impression of anything, nevertheless we 
 are enabled to confirm or modify the report of one sense by 
 the report of another Sense, and that the result of the whole 
 activity of the five senses is a true impression of the externa) 
 Thing. 
 
 This is a curious fallacy. It pretends that a number of false 
 impressions are sufficient to constitute a true one ! 
 
 The conclusion to be drawn from the foregoing premisses is 
 this : There is no correspondence between the object and the 
 sensation, except that of Cause and Effect. Sensations are not 
 Copies of Objects; do not at all resemble them. As we can 
 only know objects through sensation — i.e. as we can only 
 know our Sensations — we can never ascertain the truth respect- 
 ing objects. 
 
 This brings us back to the New Academy, the disciples of 
 which strenuously maintained that Perception, being nothing 
 but a modification of the Soul, could never reveal the real 
 nature of things. 
 
 Do we then side with the Academicians in proclaiming all 
 human knowledge deceptive ? No : to them, as to the Pyr- 
 rhonists, we answer : You are quite right in affirming that man 
 cannot transcend the sphere of his own consciousness, cannot 
 penetrate the real essence of things, cannot know causes, can 
 only know phenomena. But this affirmation — though it crushes 
 Metaphysics — though it interdicts the inquiry into noumena, 
 into essences and causes, as frivolous because futile — does not 
 touch Science. If all our knowledge is but a knowledge of 
 phenomena, there can still be a Science of Phenomena adequate 
 to all man's true wants. If Sensation is but the effect of an 
 External Cause, we, who can never know that Cause, know it 
 in its relation to us, ix. in its Effect. These Effects are as 
 constant as their Causes; and, consequently, there can be a 
 Science of Effects. 
 
SUMMARY OF THE EIGHTH EPOCH. 385 
 
 Such a Science is that named Positive Science, the aim of 
 which is to trace the Co-existences and Successions of Pheno- 
 mena, ue. to trace the relation of Cause and Effect throughout 
 the universe submitted to our inspection. 
 
 But neither the Pyrrhonists nor the Academicians saw this 
 refuge for the mind ; they consequently proclaimed Scepticism 
 as the final result of inquiry. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SUMMARY OF THE EIGHTH EPOCH. 
 
 We have now brought our narrative to the second crisis in 
 the history of speculation. The Scepticism which made the 
 Sophists powerful, and which closed the first period of this 
 history, we now behold once more usurping the intellects of 
 men, and this time with far greater power. A Socrates ap- 
 peared to refute and to discredit the Sophists. Who is there 
 to refute and to discredit the Sceptics ? 
 
 The Sceptics, and all thinkers during the epoch we have just 
 treated were such, whether they called themselves Epicureans, 
 Stoics, Pyrrhonists or New Academicians — the Sceptics, we 
 say, were in possession of the most formidable arms. From 
 Socrates, from Plato, and from Aristotle, they had borrowed 
 their best weapons, and with these had attacked Philosophy, 
 and attacked it with success. 
 
 All the wisdom of the antique world was powerless against 
 the Sceptics. Speculative belief was reduced to the most 
 uncertain " probability." Faith in Truth was extinct. Faith 
 in human endeavour was gone. Philosophy was impossible. 
 
 But there was one peculiarity of the Socratic doctrine which 
 was preserved even in the midst of scepticism. Socrates had 
 made Ethics the great object of his inquiries : and all subse- 
 quent thinkers had given it a degree of attention which before 
 was unknown. What was the consequence? The consequence 
 was that the Common Sense doctrine of the Stoics, and the 
 Probabilities of the Sceptics, however futile, as scientific prin- 
 ciples, were efficacious enough as moral principles. Common 
 
286 SUMMARY OP THE EIGHTH EPOCH 
 
 Sense may be a bad basis for Metaphyseal or Scientific reason 
 ing ; but it is not so bad a basis for a system of morais. 
 
 The protest, therefore, which Scepticism made against all 
 Philosophy was not so anarchical in its tendency as the protest 
 made by the Sophists ; but it was more energetic, more terrible. 
 In the wisdom of that age there was no cure for it. The last 
 cry of despair seemed to have been wrung from the baffled 
 thinkers, as they declared their predecessors to have been hope- 
 lessly wrong, and declared also that their error was without a 
 a remedy. 
 
 It was, indeed, a saddening contemplation. The hopes and 
 aspirations of so many incomparable minds thus irrevocably 
 doomed ; the struggles of so many men from Thales, when he 
 first asked himself, Whence do all things proceed? to the 
 elaborate systematization of the forms of thought which occu- 
 pied an Aristotle — the struggles of these men had ended in 
 Scepticism. Little was to be gleaned from the harvest of their 
 endeavours but arguments against the possibility of that Science 
 they were so anxious to form. Centuries of thought have not 
 advanced the mind one step nearer to a solution of the problems 
 with which, child-like, it began. It began with a child-like 
 question ; it ended with an aged doubt. Not only did it doubt 
 the solutions of the great problem which others had attempted ; 
 it doubted the possibility of any solution. It was not the doubt 
 which begins, but the doubt which ends inquiry : it had no 
 illusions. 
 
 This was the second crisis of Greek Philosophy. Reason 
 thus assailed could only find a refuge in Faith, and the next 
 period opens with the attempt to construct a Religious Philo- 
 sophy. 
 
Ntnt!) lEpocij. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY ALLIES ITSELF WITH FAITH. THE 
 ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 CHAPTER 1. 
 
 ALEXANDRIA. 
 
 Philosophy no longer found a home in Greece ; it had no 
 longer any worshippers in its native country, and was forced to 
 seek them elsewhere. A period had arrived when all problems 
 seemed to have been stated, and when none seemed likely to 
 be solved. Every system which human ingenuity could devise 
 had been devised by the early thinkers ; and not one had beei* 
 able to stand examination. In the early annals of speculation, 
 a new and decisive advance is made whenever a new question 
 is asked ; to suggest a doubt, is to exercise ingenuity : to ask 
 a question, is to awaken men to a new view of the subject. 
 But now all questions had been asked ; old questions had been 
 revived under new forms ; nothing remained to stimulate in- 
 quiry, or to give speculators a hope of success. 
 
 Unable to ask new questions, or to offer new answers to 
 those already asked, the Philosophers readily seized on the 
 only occasion which enabled them to gain renown : they 
 travelled. They carried their doctrines into Egypt and into 
 Rome ; and in those places they were listened to with wonder 
 and delight. Their old doctrines were novelties to a people 
 who had none of its own ; and, from the excessive cost of 
 books in those days, almost all instruction being oral, the 
 strangers were welcomed warmly, and the doctrines imported 
 were as novel as if they had been just invented. 
 
 Philosophy, exiled from Greece, was a favoured guest in 
 Alexandria and Rome ; but in both cases it was a stranger, and 
 
288 ALEXANDRIA. 
 
 could not be naturalized. In Alexandria, however, it made a 
 brilliant display ; and the men it produced gave it an originality 
 and an influence which it never possessed in Rome. 
 
 Roman Philosophy was but a weak paraphrase of the 
 Grecian ; and we, therefore, give it no place in this history. 
 To speak Greek, to write Greek, became the fashionable ambi- 
 tion of Rome. The child was instructed by a Greek slave 
 Greek Professors taught Philosophy and Rhetoric to aspiring 
 youths. Athens had become the necessary " tour " which was 
 to complete a man's education. It was there that Cicero 
 learned those ideas which he delighted in setting forth in 
 charming dialogues. It was there Horace learned that light 
 and careless philosophy, which he has enshrined in the spark- 
 ling crystal of his verse. Wandering from the Academy to the 
 Porch, and from the Porch to the Garden, he became embued 
 with that scepticism which checks his poetical enthusiasm ; and 
 learned to make a system of that pensive epicureanism which 
 gives so peculiar a character to his poems ; a character which, 
 with a sort of after-dinner freedom and bonhomie, especially 
 recommends him to men of the world. Not that this consti- 
 tutes his sole merit ; his poems are the delight of every class ; 
 how could they be otherwise ? They are not only wise, they 
 are luxurious : it is rare old Falemian wine that sparkles in 
 their veins, and their numbers are musical with kisses. 
 
 In Rome, Philosophy might tinge the poetry, give weight to 
 oratory, and supply some topics of conversation ; but it was no 
 Belief filling the minds of serious men : it took no root in the 
 national existence ; it produced no great Thinkers. 
 
 In Alexandria the case was different. There several schools 
 were formed, and some new elements introduced into the 
 doctrines -then existent. Great thinkers — Plotinus, Proclus, 
 Porphyry — made it illustrious; and it had a rival, whose 
 antagonism alone would confer immortal renown upon it : that 
 rival was Christianity. 
 
 In no species of grandeur was the Alexandrian school de- 
 ficient, as M. Saisset justly observes :* genius, power, and 
 duration, have consecrated it. Reanimating, during an epoch 
 of decline, the fecundity of an aged civilization, it created a 
 whole family of illustrious names. Plotinus, its real founder 
 resuscitated Plato ; Proclus gave the world another Aristotle ; 
 
 * • Revue des Deux Aiondes,' 1844, tome iii. p. 783 ; an admirable 
 article on this subject. 
 
RISE OF NEO-PLATON1SM : PHILO. 289 
 
 and, in the person of Julian the Apostate, it became master of 
 the world. For three centuries it was a formidable rival to 
 the greatest power that ever appeared on earth — the power of 
 Christianity ; and, if it succumbed in the struggle, it only fell 
 with the civilization of which it had been the last rampart. 
 
 Alexandria, the centre of gigantic commerce, soon became a 
 new metropolis of science rivalling Athens. The Alexandrian 
 Library is too celebrated to need more than a passing allusion : 
 to it, and to the men assembled there, we owe the vast labours 
 of erudition in philosophy and literature which were of such 
 service to the world. We cannot here enumerate all the men 
 of science who made it illustrious ; enough, if we mention 
 Euclid, for Mathematics ; Conon and Hipparchus, for Astro- 
 nomy; Eratosthenes, for Geography; and Aristarchus, for 
 literary criticism. Besides these, there were the Philosophers ; 
 and Lucian, the witty Sceptic; and the Poets, Apollonius 
 Rhodius, Callimachus, Lycophron, Tryphiodorus, and, above 
 all, the sweet idyllic Theocritus. 
 
 It is a curious spectacle. Beside the Museum of Alexandria 
 there rises into formidable importance the Didascalia of the 
 Christians. In the same city, Philo the Jew, and CEnesidemus 
 the Pyrrhonist, founded their respective schools. Ammonius 
 Sacca appears there. Lucian passes through at the same time 
 that Clemens Alexandrinus is teaching. After Plotinus has 
 taught, Arius and Athanasiuswill also teach. Greek Scepticism, 
 Judaism, Platonism, Christianity — all have their interpreters 
 within so small a distance from the temple of Serapis I 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 RISE OF NEO-PLATONISM : PHILO. 
 
 Alexandria, as we have seen, was the theatre of various 
 struggles : of these we are to select one, and that one the 
 struggle of the Neo-Platonists with the Christian fathers. 
 
 Under the name of the Alexandrian School are designated, 
 though loosely enough, all those thinkers who endeavoured 
 to find a refuge from Scepticism in a new Philosophy, based 
 on altogether new principles. Now, although these various 
 
 T 
 
2 9 o RISE OF NEO-PLATONISM : PHILO. 
 
 Thinkers by no means constitute a School, they constitute a 
 Movement, and they form an Epoch in the history of Philo- 
 sophy. We may merely observe that the " Alexandrian School " 
 and the " Neo-Platonists " are not convertible terms; the 
 former designates a whole movement, the latter designates 
 the most illustrious section of that movement. As we are 
 writing the History of Philosophy only, we select only this 
 section for our purpose. 
 
 Philo the Jew is the first of these Neo-Platonists. He was 
 born at Alexandria a few years before Christ. The influence 
 of Greek ideas was already being felt in Alexandria, and Philo, 
 commenting on the writings of the Jews, did so in the spirit ot 
 one deeply imbued with Greek thought. His genius was 
 Oriental, his education Greek ; the result was a strange mixture 
 of mysticism and dialectics.* To Plato he owed much ; but 
 to the New Academy, perhaps, more. From Carneades he 
 learned to distrust the truth of all sensuous knowledge, and to 
 deny that Reason had any criterium of truth. 
 
 Thus far he was willing to travel with the Greeks ; thus far 
 had dialectics conducted him. But there was another element 
 in his mind beside the Greek : there was the Oriental, there 
 was mysticism. If human knowledge is a delusion, we must 
 seek for Truth in some higher sphere. The senses may de- 
 ceive ; Reason may be powerless ; but there is still a faculty 
 in man — there is Faith. Real Science is the gift of God : its 
 dame is Faith ; its origin is the goodness of God : its cause is 
 Piety. 
 
 Now this conception is not Plato's, and is nevertheless 
 Platonic. Plato would never have thus condemned Reason 
 for the sake of Faith ; and yet he, too, thought that the nature 
 of God could not be known, although his existence could be 
 proved. In this respect he would have agreed with Philo. 
 But, although Plato does not speak of Science as the gift of 
 God, he does in one place so speak of Virtue ; and he devotes 
 the whole dialogue of the ' Meno ' to show that Virtue cannot 
 be taught, because it is not a thing of the understanding, but a 
 gift of God. The reasons he there employs mayeasily have 
 suggested to Philo their application to Science. 
 
 From this point Philo's Philosophy of course becomes a 
 
 * St. Paul thus comprehensively expresses the national characteristic of 
 the Jews and Greeks: " The Jews require a sign {i.e. a miracle), and the 
 Greeks seek after wisdom (*.r. philosophy)." — I. Corinth., i. v. 22. 
 
RISE OF NEO-PLATONISM : PHILO. 291 
 
 theology. God is ineffable, incomprehensible: his existence 
 may be known ; his nature can never be known. oS* apa ov&X 
 rw vw tcaraXriirrb^, otl fiyj Kara to eivcu yjovov. But to know that 
 he exists is in itself the knowledge of his being one, perfect, 
 simple, immutable, and without attribute. This is knowledge 
 implied in the simple knowledge of his existence : he cannot 
 be otherwise, if he exist at all. But to know this is not to know 
 in what consists his perfection. We cannot penetrate with our 
 glance the mystery of his essence. We can only believe. 
 
 If, however, we cannot know God in his essence, we can 
 obtain some knowledge of his Divinity : we know it in The 
 Word. This Xoyos — this Word (using the expression in its 
 scriptural sense) — fills a curious place in all the mystical 
 systems. God being incomprehensible, inaccessible, an inter- 
 mediate existence was necessary as an interpreter between God 
 and Man, and this intermediate existence the 'Mystics called 
 The Word. 
 
 The- Word, according to Philo, is God V Thought * This 
 Thought is two-fold ; it is Aoyos cvSta^eroc, the Thought as 
 embracing all Ideas (in the Platonic sense of the term Idea), 
 i.e. Thought as Thought; and it is Xoyos irpo0opuco5, the 
 Thought realized: Thought became the World. 
 
 In these three hypostases of the Deity we see the Trinity of 
 Plotinus foreshadowed. There is first, God the Father; 
 secondly, the Son of God, i.e. the Aoyos ; thirdly, the Son oi 
 Aoyos, i.e. the World. 
 
 This brief outline of Philo's Theology will sufficiently 
 exemplify the two great facts which we are anxious to have 
 understood : — 1st, the union of Platonism with oriental mysti- 
 cism ; 2ndly, the entirely new direction given to Philosophy, 
 by uniting it once more with Religion. 
 
 It is this direction which characterizes the Movement of the 
 Alexandrian School. Reason had been shown to be utterly 
 powerless to solve the great questions of Philosophy then 
 agitated. 
 
 Various Schools had pursued various Methods, but all with 
 one result. Scepticism was the conclusion of every struggle. 
 And yet, said the Mystics, " we have an idea of God and of 
 his goodness ; we have an ineradicable belief in his existence, 
 and in the perfection of his nature, consequently, in the bene- 
 ficence of his aims. Yet these ideas are not innate ; were they 
 innate, they would be uniformly entertained by all men, and 
 
292 RISE OF NEO-PLATONISM : PHILO. 
 
 amongst all nations. If they are not innate, whence are they 
 derived? Not from Reason; not from experience; then from 
 Faith." 
 
 Now, Philosophy, conceive it how you will, is entirely the 
 offspring of Reason : it is the endeavour to explain by Reason 
 the mysteries »amidst which we " move, live, and have our 
 being/' Although legitimate to say, " Reason is incapable of 
 solving the problems proposed to it," it is not legitimate to 
 add : " therefore we must call in the aid of Faith." In Philo- 
 sophy, Reason must either reign alone, or abdicate. No com- 
 promise is permissible. If there are things between heaven 
 and earth which are not dreamt of in our Philosophy — which 
 do not come within the possible sphere of our Philosophy — we 
 may believe in them, indeed; but we cannot christen that 
 belief philosophical. 
 
 One of two things — either Reason is capable of solving the 
 problems, or it is incapable : in the one case its attempt is 
 Philosophy; in the second case its attempt is futile. Any 
 attempt to mix up Faith with Reason, in a matter exclusively 
 addressed to the Reason, must be abortive. We do not say 
 that what Faith implicitly accepts, Reason may not explicitly 
 justify ; but we say that to bring Faith to the aid of Reason, 
 is altogether to destroy the philosophical character of any in- 
 quiry. Reason may justify Faith ; but Faith must not furnish 
 conclusions for Philosophy. Directly Reason is abandoned, 
 Philosophy ceases ; and every explanation then offered is 
 a theological explanation, and must be put to altogether 
 different tests, from what a philosophical explanation would 
 require. 
 
 All speculation must originally have been theological ; but 
 in process of time Reason timidly ventured upon what are 
 called " natural explanations " ; and from the moment that it 
 felt itself strong enough to be independent, Philosophy was 
 established. In the early speculations of the Ionian s we saw 
 the pure efforts of Reason to explain mysteries. As Philo- 
 sophy progressed, it became more and more evident that the 
 problems so readily attacked by the early thinkers were, in 
 truth, so far from being a solution, that their extreme difficulty 
 was only just becoming appreciated. The difficulty became 
 more and more apparent, till at last it was pronounced in- 
 superable : Reason was declared incompetent. Then the Faith 
 which had so long been set aside was again called to assist the 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND NEO-PLATONISM. 193 
 
 inquirer. In other words, Philosophy discovering itself to be 
 powerless, resigned in favour of Theology. 
 
 What is a Theology? It is a doctrine in which Reason 
 undertakes to deduce conclusions from the premisses of Faith. 
 
 When, therefore, we say that the direction given to the human 
 mind by the Alexandrian School, in conjunction with Chris- 
 tianity — the only two spiritual movements which materially 
 influenced the epoch we are speaking of— was a theological 
 direction, the reader will at once see its immense importance, 
 and will be prepared to follow us in our exposition of the 
 mystical doctrines of Plotinus. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ANTAGONISM OF CHRISTIANITY AND NEO-PLATONISM. 
 
 While Christianity was making rapid and enduring progress in 
 *pite of every obstacle ; while the Apostles wandered from city 
 to city, sometimes honoured as demi-gods, at other times in- 
 sulted and stoned as enemies, the Neo-Platonists were develop- 
 ing the germ deposited by Philo, and not only constructing a 
 theology, but endeavouring on that theology to found a Church. 
 Whilst a new religion, Christianity, was daily usurping the souls 
 of men, these philosophers fondly imagined that an old Religion 
 could effectually oppose it. 
 
 Christianity triumphed without much difficulty. Looking at 
 it with a purely moral view, its immense superiority is at once 
 apparent. The Alexandrians exaggerated the vicious tendency 
 of which we have already seen the fruits in the Cynics and 
 Stoics, the tendency to despise Humanity. Plotinus blushed 
 because he had a body : contempt of human personality could 
 go no farther. What was offered in exchange ? The ecstatic 
 perception ; the absorption of your personality in that of the 
 Deity — a Deity inaccessible to knowledge as to love — a Deity 
 which the soul can only attain by a complete annihilation of its 
 personality. How different from Christianity; in which, so 
 far from human nature being degraded and despised, it is 
 elevated and sanctified by the Messiah who adopted it, and by 
 
«H CHRISTIANITY AND NEO-PLATONISM. 
 
 the doctrine of immortality in which the body is to rise again 
 and live the life to come ! 
 
 The attempt of the Neo-Platonists failed, as it deserved to 
 fail ; but it had great talents in its service, and it made great 
 noise in the world. It had, as M. Saisset remarks, three 
 periods. The first of these, the least brilliant but the most 
 fruitful, is that of Ammonius Saccas and Plotinus. A porter of 
 Alexandria becomes the chief of a school, and men of genius 
 listen to him ; amongst his disciples are Plotinus, Origen, and 
 Longinus. This School is perfected in obscurity, and receives 
 at last a solid basis by the development of a metaphysical 
 system. Plotinus, the author of this system, shortly after 
 lectures at Rome with amazing success. It is then that the 
 Alexandrian School enters upon its second period. With 
 Porphyry and Iamblicus it becomes a sort of Church, and dis- 
 putes with Christianity the empire of the world. Christianity 
 had ascended the throne in the person of Constantine ; Neo- 
 Platonism dethrones it, and usurps its place in the person of 
 Julian the Apostate. 
 
 But, now, mark the difference. In losing Constantine Chris 
 tianity lost nothing of its real power; for its power lay in the 
 might of convictions, and not in the support of potentates ; its 
 power was a spiritual power, ever active, ever fruitful. In 
 losing Julian, Neo-Platonism lost its power, political and 
 religious. 
 
 The third period commences with that loss : and the genius 
 of Proclus bestows on it one last gleam of splendour. In vain 
 did he strive to revive the scientific spirit of Platonism, as 
 Plotinus had endeavoured to revive the religious spirit of 
 Paganism ; his efforts were vigorous but sterile. Under Justi- 
 nian the School of Alexandria became extinct. 
 
 Such is the outward history of the School : let us now cast a 
 glance at the doctrines which were there elaborated. 
 
 In the writings of thinkers professedly eclectic, such as were 
 the Alexandrians, it is obvious that the greater portion will be 
 repetitions and reproductions of former thinkers ; and the 
 historian will therefore neglect that portion to confine himself 
 to that which constitutes the originality of the School. The 
 originality of the Alexandrians consists in having employed the 
 Platonic Dialectics as a guide to Mysticism and Pantheism ; in 
 having connected the doctrine of the East with the dialectics of 
 the Greeks ; in having made Reason the justification of Faith. 
 
THE ALEXANDRIAN DIALECTICS. 295 
 
 There are three essential points to be here examined. Their 
 Dialectics, their theory of the Trinity, and their principle of 
 Emanation. By their Dialectics they were Platonists ; by their 
 theory of the Trinity they were Mystics ; by their principle of 
 Emanation they were Pantheists. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE ALEXANDRIAN DIALECTICS. 
 
 The nature of the Platonic Dialectics we hope to have already 
 rendered intelligible; so that in saying Plotinus employed 
 them we are saved from much needless repetition. But, although 
 Dialectics formed the basis of Alexandrian science, they did not, 
 as with Plato, furnish the grounds of belief. As far as human 
 science went, Dialectics were efficient ; but there were problems 
 which did not come within the sphere of human science, and 
 for these another Method was requisite. 
 
 Plotinus agreed with Plato that there could only be a science 
 of Universals. Every individual thing was but a phenomenon, 
 passing quickly away, and having no real existence ; it could 
 not therefore be the object of science. But these universals — 
 these Ideas which are the only real existences — are they not 
 also subordinate to some higher Existence ? Phenomena were 
 subordinate to Noumena ; but Noumena themselves were sub- 
 ordinate to the One Noumenon. In other words, the Sensible 
 world was but the Appearance of the Ideal World, and the 
 Ideal World in its turn was but the mode of God's existence. 
 
 The question then arises : How do we know anything of 
 God ? The sensible world we perceive through our senses ; 
 the Ideal World we gain glimpses of, through the reminiscence 
 which the sensible world awakens in us ; but how are we to 
 take the last step — how are we to know the Deity ? 
 
 I am a finite being : how can I comprehend the Infinite ? 
 As soon as I comprehend the Infinite, I am Infinite myself : 
 that is to say, I am no longer myself, no longer that finite 
 being, having a consciousness of his own separate existence.* 
 
 * rig av ovv rrjv dvvaptv uvtov i\ot opov vaaav ; h yap optov Tcarray, 
 H qv rt avrov Sia&ipoi. — Plotinns> Enn. V. I. v. c. *. 
 
290 THE ALEXANDRIAN DIALECTICS. 
 
 If, therefore, I attain to a knowledge of the Infinite, it is not 
 by my Reason, which is finite and embraces only finite objects, 
 but by some higher faculty, a faculty altogether impersonal, 
 which identifies itself with its object. 
 
 The identity of Subject and Object — of the thought with the 
 thing thought of — is the only possible ground of knowledge. 
 This position, which some of our readers will recognise as the 
 fundamental position of modern German speculation, is so 
 removed from all ordinary conceptions that we must digress 
 awhile, in order to explain it. Neo-Platonism is a blank 
 without it. 
 
 Knowledge and Being are identical ; to know more is to be 
 more. We do not of course maintain the absurd proposition 
 that to know a horse is to be that horse ; but we maintain that 
 all we know of that horse is only what we know of the changes 
 in ourselves occasioned by some external cause, and, identi- 
 fying our internal change with that external cause, we call it a 
 horse. Here knowledge and being are identical : we really 
 know nothing of the external cause (horse) we only know our 
 own state of being ; and to say, therefore, that " in our know- 
 ledge of the horse we are the horse " is only saying, in unusual 
 language, that our knowledge is a state of our being, and 
 nothing more. The discussion in the fourth chapter of the 
 foregoing book respecting perception, was an attempt to prove 
 that knowledge is only a state of our own consciousness, excited 
 by some unknown cause. The cause must remain unknown 
 because knowledge is effect, not cause. 
 
 An apple is presented to you : you see it, feel it, taste it, 
 smell it, and are said to know it. What is this knowledge ? 
 Simply a consciousness of the various wave m which the apple 
 affects you. You are blind and cannot see it : there is one 
 quality less which it possesses, *.*. one mode less in which it is 
 possible for you to be affected. You are without the nerves of 
 smell and taste : there are two other deficiencies in your know- 
 ledge of the apple. So that, by taking away your senses, we 
 take away from the apple each of its qualities : in other words, 
 we take away the means of your being affected. Your know- 
 ledge of the apple is reduced to nothing. In a similar way, 
 by endowing you with more senses we increase the qualities of 
 the apple, we increase your knowledge, by enlarging your 
 being. Thus are Knowledge and Being identical ; knowledge 
 is a state of Being knowing. 
 
THE ALEXANDRIAN DIALECTICS. 397 
 
 ** If," said Plotinus, u knowledge is the same as the thing 
 known, the Finite, as Finite, never can know the Infinite, be- 
 cause it cannot be the Infinite. To attempt, therefore, to know 
 the Infinite by Reason is futile, it can only be known in imme- 
 diate presence, irapovo-t*. The faculty by which the mind 
 divests itself of its personality is Ecstacy. In this Ecstacy the 
 soul becomes loosened from its material prison, separated from 
 individual consciousness, and becomes absorbed in the Infinite 
 Intelligence from which it emanated. In this Ecstacy it con- 
 templates real existence : it identifies itself with that which it 
 contemplates." 
 
 The enthusiasm upon which this Ecstacy is founded is not a 
 faculty which we constantly possess, such as Reason or Percep- 
 tion ; it is only a transitory state, at least so long as our per- 
 sonal existence in this world continues. It is a flash o 
 rapturous light, in which reminiscence is changed into i n tu i ti o n , 
 because in that moment the captive soul is given back to its 
 parent, its God. The bonds which attach the soul to the body 
 are mortal; and God, our father, pitying us, has made those 
 bonds, from which we suffer, fragile and delicate, and in his 
 goodness he gives us certain intervals of respite : Zevs 8k irarr/p 
 *X.€Ti<Tas irovovfj.€va<s Ovarii avrtav ra Sco^a ttoivv ir€pi a trovovvrai, 
 SiBoxriv Qva.7rav\as iv xpovots. 
 
 The Oriental and mystical character of this conception is 
 worth remarking; at the same time there is a Platonic element 
 in it, which we may bring forward. Plato, in the * Ion,'* speaks 
 of a chain of inspiration, which descends from Apollo to poets, 
 who transmit the inspiration to the rhapsodists ; the last links 
 of the chain are the souls of lovers and philosophers, who, 
 unable to transmit the divine gift, are nevertheless agitated by 
 it. The Alexandrians also admit the divine inspiration : not 
 that inspiration which only warms and exalts the heart, but that 
 inspiration revealing the Truth which Reason can neither dis- 
 cern nor comprehend. Whether, in ascending through the 
 various sciences and laboriously mounting all the degrees of 
 Dialectics, we finally arrive at the summit, and tear away the 
 veil behind which the Deity is hidden; or, instead of thus 
 slowly mounting, we arrive at the summit by a sudden spring, 
 by the force of virtue or by the force of love, the origin of this reve- 
 lation is the same : the Poet, the Prophet, and the Philosopher 
 only differ in the point of departure each takes. Dialectics, 
 * See the passage in * Appendix C 
 
*)8 THE ALEXANDRIAN DIALECTICS. 
 
 therefore, though a valuable method, is not an infallible one foi 
 arriving at Ecstacy. Every thing which purifies the soul and 
 makes it resemble its primal simplicity, is capable of conducting 
 it to Ecstasy. Besides, there are radical differences in men's 
 natures. Some souls are ravished with Beauty; and these 
 belong to the Muses. Others are ravished with Unity and 
 proportion ; and these are philosophers. Others are more 
 struck with moral perfections ; and these are the pious and 
 ardent souls who live only in religion. 
 
 Thus, then, the passage from simple Sensation, or from 
 Reminiscence to Ecstacy may be accomplished in three ways. 
 By Music (in the ancient and comprehensive sense of the term), 
 by Dialectics, and by Love or Prayer. The result is always 
 the same, — the victory, namely, of the Universal over the 
 Individual. 
 
 Such is the answer given by the Alexandrians to that world- 
 old question : How do we know God ? The Reason of Man 
 is incompetent to such knowledge, because Reason is finite, 
 and the finite cannot embrace the infinite. But, inasmuch as 
 Man has a knowledge of the Deity, he must have obtained it 
 in some way: the question is, In what way? This question, 
 which the Christian Fathers were enabled to answer satisfac- 
 torily by referring to Revelation, the Alexandrians could only 
 answer most unsatisfactorily by declaring Ecstacy to be the 
 medium of communication, because in Ecstacy the soul lost 
 its personality and became absorbed in the infinite Intelligence. 
 
 We may read in this philosophy an instructive lesson re- 
 specting the vicious circle in which all such reasonings are 
 condemned to move. 
 
 ** The one poor finite being in the abyss 
 Of infinite being twinkling restlessly." 
 
 This finite being strives to comprehend that which includes it, 
 and in the impossible attempt exerts its confident ingenuity. 
 Conscious that the finite as finite cannot comprehend the 
 infinite, the Alexandrian hypothesis is at least consistent in 
 making the finite become, for an instant, infinite. The grounds, 
 however, upon which this hypothesis is framed are truly de- 
 plorable. The finite cannot comprehend the infinite : such is 
 the axiom. How can the finite comprehend the infinite? 
 such is the problem. The finite must become the infinite : such 
 \s the solution ! 
 
THE ALEXANDRIAN TRINITY. 2<w 
 
 Absurd as this is, it is the conclusion deduced by a vigorous 
 intellect from premisses which seemed indisputable. It is only 
 one of the absurdities inseparable from the attempted solution 
 of insoluble problems. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE ALEXANDRIAN TRINITY. 
 
 We have said that the philosophy of the Alexandrians was a 
 theology ; their theology may be said to be concentrated in 
 the doctrine of the Trinity. Nearly allied to the mystery of 
 the Incarnation, which was inseparable from the mystery of 
 Redemption, the dogma of the Holy Trinity was, as M. Saisset 
 remarks, the basis of all the Christian metaphysics. The 
 greater part of the important heresies, Arianism, Sabellianism, 
 Nestorianism, &c, resulted from differences respecting some 
 portion of this doctrine. It becomes, therefore, a matter of 
 high historical interest to determine its parentage. Some 
 maintain that the Trinity of the Christians was but an imitation 
 of that of the Alexandrians; others accuse the Alexandrians of 
 being the imitators. The dispute has been angrily conducted 
 on both sides. It is not our purpose to meddle with it, as our 
 subject steers clear of such matters ; but we thought it right to 
 indicate the quarrel.* 
 
 The Alexandrian Trinity is as follows : — God is triple, and, 
 at the same time, one. His nature contains within it three 
 distinct Hypostases (Substances, i.e., Persons), and these three 
 make one Being. The first is the Unity : not The One Being, 
 not Being at all, but simple Unity. The second is the Intelli- 
 gence, which is identical with Being. The third is the Uni- 
 versal Soul, cause of ail activity and life. 
 
 Such is the formula of the dogma. Let us now see how 
 their Dialectics conducted them to it. 
 
 On looking abroad upon the world, and observing its con- 
 stant translocations, what is the first thing that presents itself 
 
 * Such of our readers as may desire a compendious statement of the 
 question are referred to M.Jules Simon : 'Histoire de l'Ecole d'Aexandrie,' 
 vol. i. pp. 308-41, and to the article bv M. Saisset, in the ' Revue des 
 Deux Mondes,' before referred to. 
 
3 oo THE ALEXANDRIAN TRINITY. 
 
 to our minds as the cause of all these changes ? It is Life. 
 The whole world is alive ; and, not only alive, but seemingly 
 participating in a life similar to our own. 
 
 On looking deeper, we discover that Life itself is but an 
 effect of some higher cause; and this cause must be the 
 "Universal" which we are seeking to discover. Our logic 
 tells us that it is Activity — Motion. 
 
 But with this Motion we cannot proceed far. It soon 
 becomes apparent to us that the myriad ongoings of nature are 
 not merely activities, but intelligent activities. No hazard rules 
 this world. Intelligence is everywhere visible. The Cause, 
 then, we have been seeking is at last discovered : it is an 
 Intelligent Activity. Now, what is this, but that mysterious 
 force residing within us, directing us, impelling us ? What is 
 this Intelligent Activity but a Soul ? The soul which impels 
 and directs us is an image of the Soul which impels and directs 
 the world. 
 
 God, therefore, is the eternal Soul ; the V^X^* We nave 
 here the first Hypostasis of the Alexandrians. 
 
 On a deeper inspection this notion turns out less satisfactory. 
 The dialectician whose whole art consists in dividing and sub- 
 dividing, in order to arrive at pure unity — who is always 
 unravelling the perplexed web of speculation, to lay bare at 
 last the unmixed One which had become enveloped in the 
 Many — the dialectician bred up in the schools of Plato and 
 Aristotle — could not rest satisfied with so complex an entity as 
 an Intelligent Activity. There are at least two ideas here, 
 and two ideas entirely distinct in nature, viz. Intelligence and 
 Motion. Now, although these might be united in some idea 
 common to both, yet superior to both, neither of them Could 
 be considered as the last term in an analysis. The Intelli- 
 gence, when analyzed, is itself the activity of some intelligent 
 being, of Mind, Aoyos. 
 
 God, therefore, is Mind, absolute, eternal, immutable. We 
 have here the second Hypostasis. Superior to the Divine 
 Soul, Y rv X'7 T< ™ wawos, which is the cause of all activity, and 
 king of the sensible world, \opr)y6's t^s kiv^o-cws, /fatriAcvs tuv 
 yiyvo/xei/wv, we find the Divine Mind, vovs, the magnificence of 
 which we may faintly conceive by reflecting on the splendours 
 of the sensible world, with the Gods, Men, Animals, and 
 Plants, which adorn it : splendours which are but imperfect 
 images of the incomparable lustre of eternal truth. The Divine 
 
THE ALEXANDRIAN TRINITY. 3°* 
 
 Mind embraces all the intelligible Ideas which are without 
 imperfections, without movement. This superior region is the 
 Age of Gold, of which God is the Saturn. For Saturn, of 
 whom the Poets have so grandly sung, is the Divine Intelli- 
 gence; that perfect world which they have described, when 
 
 Ver erat aeternum : placidique tepentibus auris 
 Mulcebant Zephyri natos sine semine flores. 
 Mox etiam fruges tellus inarata ferebat ; 
 Nee renovatus ager gravidis canebat aristis. 
 Flumina jam lactis, jam flumina nectaris ibant ; 
 Flavaque de viridi stillabant ilice mella.* 
 
 That golden age is the Intelligible World, the eternal Thought 
 of eternal Intelligence. 
 
 A word or two on this Alexandrian vov%. It is Thought 
 abstracted from all thinking : it does not reason ; for to reason 
 is to acquire a knowledge of something : he who reasons 
 arrives at a consequence from his premisses, which he did not 
 see in those premisses without effect. But God sees the con- 
 sequence simultaneously with the premisses. His knowledge 
 resembles our knowledge as hieroglyphic writing resembles our 
 written language : that which we discursively develop, he 
 embraces at once. 
 
 This vov% is at the same time the eternal existence, since all 
 Ideas are united in it. It is the vojjo-is vorjerews vorja-ts of Aris- 
 totle — or, to use the language of Plotinus, is the Sight Seeing, 
 the identity of the act of seeing with the object seen : «m yap 
 il votjcTLs opcuxis opwera, a/A0a> to lv, — a conception which will at 
 once be understood by recurring to our illustration of the 
 identity of Knowledge and Being, given above. 
 
 One would fancy that this was a degree of abstraction to 
 satisfy the most ardent dialectician; to have analyzed thus far, 
 and to have arrived at pure Thought and pure Existence — the 
 Thought apart from Thinking and the Existence apart from its 
 modes — would seem the very limit of human ingenuity, the last 
 abstraction possible. But no : the dialectician is not yet con- 
 tented : he seeks another degree of abstraction still higher, 
 
 * " The flowers unsown in fields and meadows reigned ; 
 And western winds immortal spring maintained. 
 In following years the bearded corn ensued 
 From earth unasked, nor was that earth renewed. 
 From veins of valleys milk and nectar broke, 
 And hone) sweating from the pores of oak." 
 
 Dryden's Ovtd. 
 
302 THE ALEXANDRIAN TRINITY. 
 
 still simpler : he calls it unity. God, as Existence and 
 Thought, is God as conceived by human intelligence ; but, 
 although human intelligence is unable to embrace any higher 
 notion of God, yet is there in human intelligence a hint of its 
 own weakness and an assurance of God's being something 
 ineffable, incomprehensible. God is not, e?i derniere analyse, 
 Existence and Thought. What is Thought ? What is its type ? 
 The type is evidently human reason. What does an examina- 
 tion of human reason reveal ? This : To think is to be aware 
 of some object from which the thinker distinguishes himself. 
 To think is to have a self-consciousness, to distinguish one's 
 personality from that of all other objects, to determine the 
 relation of self to not-self. But nothing is external to God: in 
 him there can be no distinction, no determination, no relation. 
 Therefore God, in his highest hypostasis, cannot think, cannot 
 be Thought, but something superior to Thought. 
 
 Hence the necessity for a third hypostasis, which third in 
 the order of discovery is first in the order of being: it is Unity, 
 — rb tv carXovv. 
 
 The Unity is not Existence, neither is it Intelligence — it is 
 superior to both : it is superior to all action, to all determina- 
 tion, to all knowledge ; for, in the same way as the multiple is 
 contained in the simple^ the many in the one, in the same way 
 is the simple contained in the unity ; and it is impossible to 
 discover the truth of things until we have arrived at this abso- 
 lute unity ; for, how can we conceive any existing thing except 
 by unity ? What is an individual, an animal, a plant, but that 
 unity which presides over multiplicity ? What even is multi- 
 plicity — an army, an assembly, a flock — when not brought 
 under unity ? Unity is omnipresent : it is the bond which 
 unites even the most complex things. 
 
 The Unity which is absolute, immutable, infinite, and self- 
 sufficing is not the numerical unit, not the indivisible point. 
 It is the absolute universal One in its perfect simplicity. It is 
 the highest degree of perfection — the ideal Beauty, the supreme 
 God, irpdrov ayaObv. 
 
 God therefore in his absolute state — in his first and highest 
 Hypostasis — is neither Existence nor Thought — neither moved 
 nor mutable — he is the simple Unity — or, as Hegel would say, 
 the Absolute Nothing, the Immanent Negative. Our readers 
 will perhaps scarcely be patient under this infliction of dialec- 
 tical subtlety, and absurdity; but we would beg them to 
 
THE ALEXANDRIAN TRINITY. 303 
 
 remember that the absurdities of genius are often more in- 
 structive than the discoveries of common men, and that the 
 subtleties and extravagances of the Alexandrians seem to us 
 fraught with lessons. If rigorous logic conducted eminent 
 minds to conceptions which appear extravagant and sterile, 
 they may induce in us a wholesome suspicion of the efficacy of 
 that logic to solve the problems it is occupied with. Nor is 
 the lesson inapplicable to our age. The present enthusiasm 
 for German Literature and German Philosophy will of course 
 turn the attention of many young minds to the speculations in 
 which Germany is so rife; we are consequently more interested 
 in Plotinus, because he agitates similar questions and affords 
 very similar answers. The German Metaphysicians resemble 
 Plotinus more than Plato or Aristotle : nor is the reason diffi- 
 cult of discovery. Plotinus, coming after all the great thinkers, 
 had asked almost every metaphysical question, and given 
 almost every possible answer, was condemned either to scepti- 
 cism or to accept any consequences of his dialectics, however 
 extreme. Philosophy was in this dilemma : either to abdicate 
 or to be magnificently tyrannical : it chose to be the latter. 
 Plotinus, therefore, shrank from no extravagances : where 
 Reason failed, there he called upon Faith. The Germans, 
 coming after the secure establishment of Positive Science, 
 found Philosophy in a similar dilemma : either to declare itself 
 incapable, or to proclaim its despotism and infallibility : what 
 Logic demonstrated must be absolutely true. 
 
 This faith in Logic is remarkable, and may be contrasted 
 with the Alexandrian faith in Ecstacy. Of the possibility of 
 human Logic not being the standard of truth the Germans 
 have no suspicion ; they are without Greek scepticism as to 
 the Criterium. They proceed with peaceful dogmatism to tell 
 you that God is this, or that ; to explain how the Nothing 
 becomes the Existing world, to explain many other inexplicable 
 things, and, if you stop them with the simple inquiry, How do 
 you know this? What is your ground of certitude? they 
 smile, allude gently to Reason, and continue their exposition. 
 
 Plotinus was wiser, though less consequent. He said, that 
 although Dialectics raise us to some conviction of the existence 
 of God, we cannot speak of his nature otherwise than nega- 
 tively : kv d<£cu'p€<r£i iravTa. to. ircpl tovtov Xeyo/icvcu We are 
 forced to admit his existence, though it is not correct to speak 
 even of his existence. To say that he is superior to Existence 
 
304 THE ALEXANDRIAN TRINITY. 
 
 and Thought is not to define him ; it is only to distinguish him 
 from what he is not. What he is we cannot know ; it would 
 be ridiculous to endeavour to comprehend him. 
 
 This difference apart, there is remarkable similarity in the 
 speculations of the Alexandrians and the modern Germans : a 
 similarity which all will detect who are capable of detecting 
 identity of thought under diversity of language. 
 
 To return to the Alexandrian Trinity, we see in it the 
 Perfect Principle, the One, to h cbrXovv, which generates 
 but is ungenerated ; the Principle generated by the Perfect 
 is of all generated things the most perfect : it is, therefore, 
 Intelligence: vovs. In the same way as Intelligence is The 
 Word (koyos) of the One and the manifestation of its power, 
 so also the Soul is The Word and manifestation of the Intelli- 
 gence, o\ov koX rj yfrvcprj Xoyos vov. The three Hypostases of the 
 Deity are, therefore, ist, the Perfect, the Absolute Unity, to ev 
 airkovv; 2nd, the First Intelligence, to vovv irpdmos; 3rd, the 
 Soul of the world, tj Y rv X^ v7repK6o-[uos. 
 
 This Trinity is very similar to the threefold nature of God in 
 Spinoza's system. Spinoza says, that God is the infinite Exis- 
 tence, having two infinite Attributes : Extension and Thought. 
 Now this Existence, which has neither Extension nor Thought, 
 except as Attributes, although verbally differing from the 
 Absolute Unconditioned, the One, of Plotinus, is, in point of 
 fact, the same : it is the last abstraction which human Logic 
 can make : it is that of which nothing can be predicated, and 
 yet which must be the final predicate of everything : division 
 and subdivision, however prolonged, stop there, and admit, 
 as final, the Unconditioned Unconditional Something: that 
 which Proclus calls the The Non-Being, fir/ 6V, although it is 
 not correct to call it nothing, firiBev. 
 
 This conception, which it is impossible to state in words 
 without stating gross contradictions, is, as we endeavoured to 
 show, the result of rigorous Logic, reasoning from false pre- 
 misses. The process is this : I have to discover that which is 
 at the bottom of all the mystery of existence — the great First 
 Cause; and, to do this I must eliminate one by one everything 
 which does not present itself as self-existing, self-sufficing, as 
 ecessarily the first of all things, the dpx>?. 
 
 The ancients began their speculations in the same way, but 
 with less knowledge of the conditions of inquiry. Hence 
 Water, Air, Soul, Number, Force, were severally accepted as 
 
THE ALEXANDRIAN TRINITY. 305 
 
 Priticipia. In the time of the Alexandrians something more 
 subtle was required. They asked the same question, but they 
 asked it with a full consciousness of the failure of their prede- 
 cessors. Even Mind would not satisfy them as a Principium; 
 nor would abstract Existence. They said there is something 
 beyond Thought, something beyond Existence : there is that 
 which thinks, that which exists. This " that " — id quod — this 
 Indeterminate Ineffable is the Principium. It is self-sufficing, 
 self-existent ; nothing can be conceived beyond it. In the old 
 Indian hypothesis of the world being supported by an elephant, 
 who stood on the back of a tortoise, and the tortoise standing 
 on nothing, we see a rude solution of the same problem : the 
 mind is forced to arrest itself somewhere, and wherever it 
 arrests itself it is forced to declare, explicitly or implicitly, that 
 it stops at Nothing ; because, as soon as it predicates anything 
 of that at which it stops, it is forced to admit something be- 
 yond : if the tortoise stands on the back of some other animal, 
 upon what does that other animal stand ? is the question imme- 
 diately presenting itself. 
 
 Human Logic, when employed upon this subject, necessarily 
 abuts upon Nothing, upon absolute Negation ; the terms in 
 which this is clothed may differ, but the conception remains 
 the same : Plotinus and Spinoza shake hands. 
 
 In reviewing the history of Greek speculation, from the 
 " Water " of Thales to the " Absolute Negation " of Plotinus, 
 what a reflection is forced upon us of the vanity of meta- 
 physics ! So many years of laborious inquiry, so many splendid 
 minds engaged, and, after the lapse of ages, the inquiry re- 
 mains the same, the answer only more ingeniously absurd ! 
 Ah ! truly was it said, that Metaphysics was fart dc s'egarcr 
 avec methodc! 
 
 Was, then, all this labour vain ? Were those long laborious 
 years all wasted ? Were those splendid minds all useless ? 
 No : human endeavour is seldom without fruit. Those cen- 
 turies of speculation were not useless, they were the education 
 of the human race. They taught mankind this truth at least : 
 the Infinite cannot be known by the finite ; man can only 
 know phenomena. In those labours, so fruitless in their 
 immediate object, there are indirect lessons. The speculations 
 of the Greeks preserve the same privilege as the glorious pro- 
 ducts of their art and literature ; they are the models from 
 which the speculations of posterity are reproductions. The 
 
 n 
 
yfi> THE DOCTRINE OF EAfANAT/ON. 
 
 history of modern metaphysical philosophy is but the narrative 
 of the same struggle which agitated Greece. The same pro- 
 blems are revived and the same answers offered. 
 
 How different the history of Positive Science, in which there 
 is nothing but progression, slow but certain ! 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF EMANATION. 
 
 The science of Metaphysics consists in the answers to three 
 questions: Has human knowledge any absolute certainty? 
 What is the nature of God ? What is the origin of the world ? 
 
 Our review of the various attempts to answer these questions 
 has ended in the Alexandrian School, which answered them as 
 follows: i st. Human knowledge is necessarily uncertain ; but 
 this difficulty is got over by the hypothesis of an Ecstacy in 
 which the soul becomes identified with the Infinite. 2nd. The 
 Nature of God is a triple Unity — three hypostases of the One 
 Being. 3rd. The origin of the world is the law of Emanation. 
 
 This third answer is of course implied in the second. God, 
 as Unity, is not Existence; but he becomes Existence by the 
 Emanation from his Unity (Intelligence), and by the second 
 emanation from his Intelligence (Soul), and this Soul in its 
 manifestations is the World. 
 
 Hitherto dualism had been the universal creed of those who 
 admitted any distinction between the world and its creator. 
 Jupiter organizing Chaos, the God of Anaxagoras whose force 
 is wasted in creation ; the %«ov/oy69 of Plato, who conquers 
 and regulates Matter and Motion ; the immovable Thought of 
 Aristotle : all these creeds were dualistic ; and, indeed, to 
 escape dualism was no easy task. 
 
 If God is distinct from the World, dualism is at once 
 assumed. If he is distinct, he must be distinct in Essence. 
 If distinct in essence, the question of Whence came the world? 
 is not answered; for the world must have existed contem- 
 poraneously with him. 
 
 Here lies the difficulty : either God made the world, or he 
 did not. If he made it, whence did he make it ? He could 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF EMANATION. 307 
 
 not, said Logic, make it out of Nothing : for Nothing can come 
 of Nothing ; he must, therefore, have made it out of his own 
 substance. If it is made out of his own substance, then it is 
 identical with him : it must then have existed already in him, 
 or he could not have produced it But this identification of 
 God with the world is Pantheism ; and begs the question it 
 should answer. 
 
 If he did not make it out of his own substance, he must 
 have made it out of some substance already existing ; and the 
 question still remains unanswered. 
 
 This problem was solved by the Christians and Alexandrians 
 in a similar, though apparently different, manner. The Chris- 
 tians said that God created the world out of Nothing by the 
 mere exercise of his omnipotent will ; for to omnipotence 
 everything is possible ; one thing is as easy as another. The 
 Alexandrians said that the world was distinct from God in act 
 rather than in essence; it was the manifestation of his will or of 
 his intelligence. 
 
 Thus the world is God ; but God is not the world. With- 
 out the necessity of two principles, the distinction is preserved 
 between the Creator and the Created. God is not confounded 
 with Matter ; and yet philosophy is no longer oppressed with 
 the difficulty of accounting for two eternally existing and 
 eternally distinct principles. 
 
 Plotinus had by his Dialectics discovered the necessity of 
 Unity as the apex of existence: he had also by the same 
 means discovered that the Unity could not possibly remain 
 alone : otherwise, there would never have been the Many. If 
 the Many implies the One, the One also implies the Many. 
 It is the property of each principle to engender that which 
 follows it : to engender it in virtue of an ineffable power which 
 loses nothing of itself. This power, ineffable, inexhaustible, 
 exercises itself without stopping, from generation to generation, 
 till it attains the limits of possibility. 
 
 By this law, which governs the world, and from which God 
 himself cannot escape, the totality of existences, which Dialec- 
 tics teach us to arrange in a proper hierarchy from God to 
 sensible Matter, appear to us thus united in one indissoluble 
 chain, since each being is the necessary product of that which 
 precedes it, and the necessary producer of that which suc- 
 ceeds it. 
 
 If asked why Unity should ever become Multiplicity — why 
 
308 THE DOCTRINE OF EMANATION. 
 
 God should ever manifest himself in the world ? the answer is 
 ready, The One, as conceived by the Eleats, had long been 
 found incomplete ; for a God that had no intelligence could 
 not be perfect : as Aristotle says, a God that does not think is 
 unworthy of respect. If, therefore, God is Intelligent, he is 
 necessarily active : a force that engenders nothing, can that 
 be a real force ? It was, therefore, in the very nature of God 
 a necessity for him to create the world : kv rrj <f>vo-€L rjv to 
 rroLciv. 
 
 God, therefore, is in his very essence a Creator, iroirjTijs. 
 He is like a Sun pouring forth his rays, without losing any of 
 its substance : oiov ck 0<otos, ttjv i£ avrov irepLXa/xtyiv* All this 
 flux — this constant change of things, this birth and death — is 
 but the restless manifestation of a restless force. These mani- 
 festations have no truth, no duration. The individual perishes, 
 because individual : it is only the universal that endures. The 
 individual is the finite, the perishable ; the universal is the 
 infinite, immortal. God is the only existence : he is the real 
 existence, of which we and other things are but the transitory 
 phenomena. And yet timid ignorant man fears death ! timid 
 because ignorant. To die is to live the true life : it is to lose, 
 indeed, sensation, passions, interests, to be free from the con- 
 ditions of space and time — to lose personality ; but it is also 
 to quit this world and to be born anew in God — to quit this 
 frail and pitiable individuality, to be absorbed in the being of 
 the Infinite. 
 
 To die is to live the true life. Some faint glimpses of it- 
 some overpowering anticipations of a bliss intolerable to 
 mortal sense are realized in the brief moments of Ecstacy, 
 wherein the Soul is absorbed in the Infinite, although it cannot 
 remain there. Those moments so exquisite yet so brief are 
 sufficient to reveal to us the divinity, and to show us that deep 
 embedded in our personality there is a ray of the divine source 
 of light, a ray which is always struggling to disengage itself, and 
 return to its source. 
 
 To die is to live the true life; and Plotinus dying, answered, 
 in his agony, to friendly questions : "lam struggling to liberate 
 the divinity within me." 
 
 This mysticism resembles every other mysticism, but it is 
 worth attention, as indicative of the march of the human mind. 
 In preceding thinkers we have seen a very strong tendency 
 towards the desecration of personality. From Heraclitus to 
 
PROCLUS. 309 
 
 Plotinus there is a gradual advance in this direction. The 
 Cynics and the Stoics made it a sort of philosophical basis. 
 Plato implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, gave it his concur- 
 rence. The conviction of man's insignificance, and of the 
 impossibility of his ever in this world ascertaining the truth, 
 seem to have oppressed philosophers with self-contempt. To 
 curse the bonds which bound them to ignorance, and to quit a 
 world in which they were thus bound, seem to have been the 
 natural consequences of their doctrines ; but, linked mys- 
 teriously as we are to life — even to the life we curse — even to 
 the "vale of blood and tears" — our doctrines seldom lead to 
 suicide. In default of suicide, nothing remained but Asceticism 
 — a moral suicide. As man could not summon courage to quit 
 the world, he would at least endeavour to lead a life as far 
 removed from worldly passion and worldly condition as was 
 possible ; and he would welcome death as the only true life. 
 
 " Life," said Novalis, " is a disease of the Spirit ; an activity 
 excited by Passion." To die was to be free from all such 
 disease — to be no longer subject to human finite conditions. 
 Thus thought the hectic German whom admiring friends have 
 exalted into a Seer. Thus, also, thought Plotinus, at a time 
 when such a doctrine was the inevitable result of all systems, 
 except that one which he would not accept, that one which 
 was to pour new life-blood into the emaciated society it came 
 to renovate, that one which was to save Civilization from the 
 corruption which was fast eating it away : we mean the Chris- 
 tian system. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PROCLUS. 
 
 Plotinus attempted to unite Philosophy with Religion, at- 
 tempted to solve by Faith the problems insoluble by Reason, 
 and the result of such an attempt was necessarily mysticism. 
 
 But, although the mystical element is an important one in 
 his doctrine, he did not allow himself to be seduced into all 
 the extravagances which naturally flowed from it. That was 
 reserved for his successors ; Iamblicus in particular, who per- 
 formed miracles and constituted himself High Priest of th« 
 Universe. 
 
310 PROCLUS. 
 
 With Proclus the Alexandrian School made a final effort, 
 and with him its defeat was entire. He was born at Constan- 
 tinople, in the year of our Lord 412. He came early to 
 Alexandria, where Olympiodorus was then teaching. He 
 passed onwards to Athens, and from Plutarch and Syrianus he 
 learnt to comprehend the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle. 
 Afterwards, becoming initiated into the Theurgical mysteries, 
 he was soon made a High Priest of the Universe. 
 
 The theological tendency is still more visible in Proclus than 
 in Plotinus. He regarded the Orphic poems and the Chal- 
 dean oracles as divine revelations, and, therefore, as the real 
 source of Philosophy, if properly interpreted; and in this 
 allegorical interpretation consisted his whole doctrine. 
 
 " The intelligible forms of ancient poets, 
 The fair humanities of old religion, 
 The Power, the Beauty, and the Majesty, 
 That had her haunts in dale, or piny mountain, 
 Or forest by low stream, or pebbly spring, 
 Or chasms and wat'ry depths ; all these have vanished. 
 They live no longer in the faith of reason ! 
 But still the heart doth need a language, still 
 Doth the old instinct sing back the old names. 
 And to yon starry world they now are gone, 
 Spirits or Gods that used to "share this earth 
 With man as with their friend."* 
 
 To breathe the breath of life into the nostrils of these defunct 
 deities, to restore the beautiful Pagan creed, by interpreting 
 its symbols in a new sense, was the aim of the whole Alexan- 
 drian School. 
 
 Proclus placed Faith above Science. It was the only faculty 
 by which The Good, that is to say, The One, could be appre- 
 hended. " The Philosopher, " said he, " is not the priest of 
 one Religion, but of all Religions " ; that is to say, he is to 
 reconcile all modes of Belief by its interpretations. Reason is 
 the expositor of Faith. 
 
 But Proclus made one exception : there was one Religion 
 which he could not tolerate, which he would not interpret; 
 that was the Christian. He was one of its most vehement 
 opponents. 
 
 With this conception of his mission it is easy to see that his 
 method must be eclectic. Accordingly, in making Philosophy 
 the expositor of Religion, he relied upon the doctrines of his 
 
 • Coleridge, in his translation of the '.ficcolomini.' 
 
PROCLUS. 311 
 
 predecessors without pretending to discover new ones for his 
 purpose. Aristotle, whom he called " the Philosopher of the 
 understanding," he regarded as the man whose writings formed 
 the best introduction to the study of wisdom. In him the 
 student learnt the use of his Reason ; learnt also the forms of 
 thought. After this preparatory study came the study of Plato, 
 whom he called the " Philosopher of Reason," the sole guide 
 to the region of Ideas, that is, of Eternal Truths. 
 
 Plato was the idol of Proclus, and to the passionate disciple 
 every word was an oracle. Proclus perpetually studied his 
 writings, and discovered everywhere, some hidden and oracular 
 meaning : the simplest recitals he interpreted into sublime 
 allegories. Thus the affection of Socrates for Alcibiades 
 becomes the slender text for a whole volume of mystical ex- 
 position. 
 
 It is curious to notice the transformation of ideas in the 
 various schools. Socrates interpreted the inscription on the 
 temple at Delphi, "know thyself," as an exhortation to psycho- 
 logical and ethical study. He looked inwards, and there dis- 
 covered certain truths which the scepticism of the Sophists 
 could not darken ; and he discoursed, says his biographer, on 
 Justice and Injustice, on things holy and things unholy. 
 
 Plato also looked inwards, hoping to find there a basis of 
 philosophy ; but his " know thyself," had a different significa- 
 tion. Man was to study himself, because, by becoming 
 thoroughly acquainted with his mind, he would become ac- 
 quainted with the eternal Ideas of which sense awakened 
 Reminiscence. His self-knowledge was Dialectical rather than 
 Ethical. The object of it was the contemplation of eternal 
 Existence, not the regulation of our worldly acts. 
 
 The Alexandrians also intei prated the inscription; but with 
 them the Socratic conception was completely set aside, and 
 the Platonic conception carried to its limits. " Know thyself," 
 says Proclus in his commentary on Plato's ' First Alcibiades,' 
 " that you may know the essence from whose source you are 
 derived. Know the divinity that is within you, that you may 
 know the divine One of which your soul is but a ray. Know 
 your own mind, and you will have the key to all knowledge." 
 These are not the words of Proclus, but they convey the 
 meaning of many pages of his enthusiastic dialectics. 
 
 To this had the wise thoughts of Socrates conducted men 1 
 to this extravagance had its sober doctrine arrived 1 
 
312 PROCLUS. 
 
 We are struck in Proclus with the frank and decided 
 manner in which Metaphysics is assumed to be the only pos- 
 sible science ; we are struck with the naive manner in which 
 the fundamental error of metaphysical inquiry is laid open to 
 view, and presented as if it were absolute truth. In no other 
 ancient system is the matter stated so nakedly. If we desired 
 an illustration of the futility of metaphysics we could not find 
 a better than that afforded by Proclus, who, be it observed, 
 only pushed the premisses of others to their rigorous con- 
 clusions. 
 
 What does Proclus teach ? — He teaches that the hierarchy 
 of ideas, in which there is a gradual generation from the most 
 abstract to the most concrete, exactly corresponds with the 
 hierarchy of existences, in which there is a constant generation 
 from the most abstract (Unity) to the most concrete (pheno- 
 mena) : so that the relations which these ideas bear to each 
 other, the laws which subordinate one to the other ; in a word, 
 the forms of the nomenclature of human conceptions, express 
 the real causes, their action, their combinations ; in fact, the 
 whole system of the universe. 
 
 This is frank. The objection to the metaphysician has been 
 that he looks inwards to discover that which lies without him, 
 hoping, in his own conceptions of that which he is seeking to 
 know, to find the thing he seeks. To analyze your mind is to 
 learn the nature of your mind : nothing else. Proclus boldly 
 assumes that to know the nature of your own mind is to know 
 the whole universe. This is at least consistent. 
 
 But one might reasonably ask how this science is to be 
 learned? not simply by looking inwards, or else all philo- 
 sophers would have learned it ; not even by meditation. How 
 then ? Listen : — 
 
 "Mercury, the Messenger of Jove, reveals to us Jove's 
 paternal will, and thus teaches us science ; and, as the author 
 of all investigation, transmits to us his disciples, the genius of 
 invention. The Science which descends into the soul from 
 above is more perfect than any science obtained by investiga- 
 tion ; that which is excited in us by other men is far less per- 
 fect. Invention is the energy of the soul. The Science which 
 descends from above fills the soul with the influence of the 
 higher Causes. The Gods announce it to us by their presence 
 and by illuminations, and discover to us the order of the 
 universe." 
 
CONCLUSION. 313 
 
 Of course the Mystic who had revelations from above dis- 
 pensed with the ordinary methods of investigation, and hert 
 again we see Proclus consistent, though consistent in absurdity. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 With Proclus the Alexandrian School expired ; with Proclus 
 Philosophy ceased. Religion, and Religion only, was capable 
 of affording satisfactory answers to the questions which per- 
 plexed the human race, and Philosophy was reduced to the 
 subordinate office which the Alexandrians had consigned to 
 the Aristotelian Logic. Philosophy became the servant of 
 Religion, but no longer reigned in its own right. 
 
 Thus was the circle of Endeavour completed. With Thales, 
 Reason separated itself from Faith ; with the Alexandrians the 
 two were again united. The centuries between these epochs 
 were filled with helpless struggles to overcome an insuperable 
 difficulty. 
 
 The difference is great between the childlike question of the 
 Ionian thinker, and the naive extravagance of the Alexandrian 
 Mystic ; and yet each stands upon the same ground, and looks 
 out upon the same troubled sea, hoping to detect a shore, 
 ignorant that 
 
 u All experience is an arch wherethrough 
 Gleams that unt ravelled world, whose margin fades 
 For ever and for ever as we move." 
 
 But to the reflective student who thus sees these men after 
 centuries of endeavour, fixed on the selfsame spot, the Alexan- 
 drian straining his eager eyes after the same object as the Ionian, 
 and neither within the possible range of vision, there is some- 
 thing which would be unutterably sad, were it not corrected by 
 the conviction that these men were fixed to one spot, because 
 they had not discovered the only true pathway; a pathway 
 which those who came after them securely trod. 
 
 Still, the spectacle of human failure, especially on so 
 gigantic a scale, cannot be without some pain. So many hopes 
 thwarted, so many great intellects wandering in error, are not 
 
3*4 
 
 ONCLUSION. 
 
 to be thought of without sadness. But it bears a lesson which 
 we hope those who have followed us thus far will not fail to 
 read. It is a lesson on the vanity of philosophy ; a lesson 
 which almost amounts to a demonstration of the impossibility 
 of the human mind ever compassing those exalted objects 
 which its speculative ingenuity suggests as worthy of its pursuit. 
 It points to that profound remark of Auguste Comte, that 
 there exists in all classes of our investigations a constant and 
 necessary harmony between the extent of our real intellectual 
 wants, and the efficient extent, actual or future, of our real 
 knowledge. 
 
 But these great Thinkers whose failures we have chronicled 
 did not live in vain. They left the great problems where they 
 found them ; but they did not leave Humanity as they found it. 
 Metaphysics might still be a region of doubt ; but the human 
 mind in its endeavours to explore that region has learnt in some 
 measure to ascertain its weakness and its force. Greek Philo- 
 sophy was a failure ; but Greek Inquiry had immense results. 
 Methods had been tried and discarded; but great preparations 
 for the real Method had been made. 
 
 Moreover Ethics had become a science. In the Pagan 
 Religion morality consisted in obeying the particular gods : to 
 propitiate their favour was the only needful art. Greek philo- 
 sophy opened men's eyes to the importance of human conduct 
 — to the importance of moral principles, which were to stand 
 in the place of propitiations. The great merit of this is due to 
 Socrates. He objected to propitiation as impious : he insisted 
 upon moral conduct as alone guiding man to happiness here 
 and hereafter. 
 
 But the Ethics of the Greeks were at the best narrow and 
 egotistical. Morality, however exalted or comprehensive, only 
 seemed to embrace the individual ; it was extremely incom- 
 plete as regards the family : and had scarcely any suspicion of 
 what we call social relations. 
 
 What a flood of light was poured upon Morals by that one 
 divine axiom " Love your enemy ! " 
 
 No Greek ever attained the sublimity of such a point of view. 
 The highest point he could attain was to conduct /limself accord- 
 ing to just principles ; he never troubled himself with others. 
 
 By the introduction of that Christian element, Ethics became 
 Social as well as Individual. 
 
 So far advanced are we in the right direction — so earnestly 
 
CONCLUSIl, 315 
 
 are we engaged in the endeavour to perfect Social as well as 
 Individual Ethics — that we are apt to look down upon the 
 progress of the Greeks as trivial ; but, in truth, it was immense, 
 and in the history of Humanity must ever occupy an honour- 
 able place. 
 
 Ancient Philosophy expired With Proclus. Those who came 
 after him, although styling themselves philosophers, were in 
 truth Religious Thinkers employing philosophical formulae. No 
 one endeavoured to give a solution of the three great problems: 
 Whence came the world ? What is the nature of God ? What 
 is the nature of human knowledge ? Argue, refine, divide and 
 sub-divide as they would, the Religious Thinkers only used 
 Philosophy as a subsidiary process : for all the great problems, 
 Faith was the only instrument. 
 
 The succeeding Epochs are usually styled the Epochs of 
 Christian Philosophy : yet Christian Philosophy is an absurd 
 misnomer. A Christian may be also a Philosopher; but to 
 talk of Christian Philosophy is to abuse language. 
 
 Christian Philosophy means Christian Metaphysics : and 
 that means the solution of metaphysical problems upon Chris- 
 tian principles. 
 
 Now what are Christian Principles but the Doctrines revealed 
 to us through Christ; revealed because inaccessible to Reason ; 
 revealed and accepted by Faith, because Reason is utterly 
 incompetent ? 
 
 So that Metaphysical problems — the attempted solution of 
 which by Reason constitutes Philosophy — are solved by Faith, 
 and yet the name of Philosophy is retained ! But the very 
 essence of Philosophy consists in pure reason, as the essence of 
 Religion is Faith. There cannot, consequently, be a Religious 
 Philosophy : it is a contradiction in terms. 
 
 Philosophy may be occupied about the same problems as 
 Religion: but it employs altogether different Methods, and 
 depends on altogether different principles. 
 
 Religion may, and should, call in Philosophy to its aid ; but, 
 in so doing, it assigns to Philosophy only the subordinate office 
 of illustrating, reconciling, or applying its dogmas. This is 
 not a Religious Philosophy : it is Religion and Philosophy : the 
 latter stripped of its boasted prerogative of deciding for itself, 
 and allowed only to employ itself in reconciling the decisions 
 of Religion and of Reason. 
 
 From these remarks it is obvious that our History, being a 
 
316 CONCLUSION. 
 
 narrative of the progress of Philosophy only, will not include 
 any detailed account of the so-called Christian Philosophy, 
 because that is a subject strictly belonging to the History of 
 Religion. Accordingly Ancient Philosophy ends with Proclus, 
 and Modern Philosophy commences with Des Cartes ; because 
 with Proclus ceases the line of speculation opened by Thales ; 
 and, with Des Cartes, Reason again definitely separated itself 
 from Faith, and Philosophy once more endeavoured to solve its 
 problems for itself. 
 
 Once more, therefore, are we to witness the mighty struggle 
 and the sad defeat ; once more are we to watch the progress 
 and development of that vast but ineffectual attempt which the 
 sublime audacity of man has for centuries continued. Great 
 intellects and great hopes are once more to be reviewed ; and 
 the traces noted which they have left upon that Desert whose 
 only semblance of vegetation is a mirage — the Desert without 
 fruit, without flower, without habitation, and without horizon : 
 arid, trackless, silent, but vast, awful, and fascinating. To 
 trace the footsteps of the wanderers — to follow them on their 
 gigantic journey — to point again the moral of — 
 
 " Poor Humanity's afflicted will 
 Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny," 
 
 to bring home to the convictions of men the humble useful 
 truth, that 
 
 " Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop. 
 Than when we soar," 
 
 will be the object of our Second Suriss- 
 
APPENDIX A. 
 
 TRANSLATION OF A PASSAGE FROM PLATO'S 'GORG/AS. 1 
 
 Socrates. Since Rhetoric is the thing you are skilled in, what is the 
 subject-matter which Rhetoric relates to ? Weaving relates to the art of 
 making clothing ; does it not ? 
 
 Gorgias. Yes. 
 
 Soc . And music is about the making of songs. 
 
 Gorg. Yes. 
 
 Soc. What, then, is rhetoric about ? 
 
 Gorg. About discourse. 
 
 Soc. What sort of discourse ? that which teaches the sick by what regi- 
 men they may get well ? 
 
 Gorg. No. 
 
 Soc. Rhetoric, then, does not relate to all sorts of discourse ? 
 
 Gorg. It does not. 
 
 Soc. But it makes men able to speak ? 
 
 Gorg. It does. 
 
 Soc. And on the matters on which it makes them able to speak, it 
 makes them able, likewise, to think ? 
 
 Gorg. Certainly. 
 
 Soc. Now, does not the art of medicine enable people to speak and 
 think concerning the sick ? 
 
 Gorg. Undoubtedly. 
 
 Soc. Then medicine likewise relates to discourse, viz., discourse on the 
 subject of diseases ? 
 
 Gorg. It does. 
 
 Soc. And gymnastics relate to discourse ; viz., discourse on the subjects 
 of good and bad habits of body. 
 
 Gorg. Without doubt. 
 
 Soc. And the same thing may be said of all other arts : each of them 
 relates to discourse ; viz., discourse respecting the subject with which that 
 particular art is conversant ? 
 
 Gorg. It appears so. 
 
 Soc. Why, then, do you not call the other arts rhetoric, being on the 
 subject of discourse, if you call that which is on the subject of discourse 
 by the name of rhetoric ? 
 
 Gorg. Because the other arts relate, in a manner, entirely to manual 
 operation^, and such like things; but rhetoric has nothing to do with 
 manual operations ; its whole ;ency and f.rce are by means of discourse. 
 
 Soc. Now, I partly unders nd what you mean ; but I hope to under- 
 stand it still better. Are there not two kinds of arts ? In the one kind, 
 
3i8 APPENDIX. 
 
 the greater part of the art lies in action, and these arts have occasion foi 
 but little discourse ; some of them require none at all, and might be per- 
 formed in silence, such as painting, sculpture, and so forth. This is the 
 class to which you say that rhetoric does not belong ; do you not ? 
 
 Gorg. You understand me rightly. 
 
 Soc. But there is another kind which perform all by discourse, and 
 require no action, or very little, such as arithmetic, and geometry, and 
 many others, some of which have about an equal share of action and of 
 discourse, but the greater part have scarcely anything except discourse, 
 and effect all their purposes by means of it ; and I understand you to say 
 that rhetoric is one of these ? 
 
 Gorg. True. 
 
 Soc. But you do not call any of the arts which I have mentioned rhe- 
 toric ? although, in words, you said as much, saying, that rhetoric is the 
 art, of which the whole power consists in discourse ; and, if any one wished 
 to cavil, he might ask, Do you, then, call arithmetic rhetoric ? But I do 
 not believe that you call either arithmetic or geometry by that name ? 
 
 Gorg. You think rightly. 
 
 Soc. Then finish the answer to my question. Since rhetoric is one of 
 the arts which chiefly employ discourse, and, since there are others which do 
 the same, explain to me on what subject it is that rhetoric employs dis- 
 course. Thus, if any one asked me, What is arithmetic ? I might answer, 
 as you did, It is one of the arts whose force consists in discourse. And, if 
 he should further inquire, On what subject ? I should reply, On the sub- 
 ject of numbers. Since, then, rhetoric is one of the arts which effect their 
 end wholly by means of discourse, what is the subject of the discourse which 
 rhetoric employs ? 
 
 Gorg. The greatest and best of the concerns of man. 
 
 But this answer, observed Socrates, is disputable and ambiguous. I 
 suppose you have heard, at enter; ainments, the old song, " Health is the 
 best of all things, beauty the second best, and the third is to be rich with- 
 out guilt " ? 
 
 Gorg. I have ; but to what purpose is this ? 
 
 Soc. Because the providers of the three things which are praised in the 
 old song, viz., the physician, the teacher of gymnastics, and the man of 
 business, might start up, and, first, the physician might sav, Gorgias 
 deceives you, Socrates ; it is not his art, but mine, which relates to the 
 greatest and best concerns of man. And, if I asked, Who are you who 
 speak in this manner ? he would answer, a physician. And, if I rejoined, 
 How do your prove the object of your art to be the greatest good ? How 
 can it be otherwise? he would reply: What greater good is there to man 
 than health ? In like manner, the gvmnsst and the man of business would 
 each set up the claim of his art to be tiie art wnich is conversant with the 
 greatest good. I should answer, But Gorgias contends that his art pro- 
 duces a greater good to man than yours. They would then reply, And 
 what is this good ? Let Gorgias answer. Consider yourself, then, to be 
 interrogated both by them and by me, and answer, What is this which you 
 consider the greatest good to man, and of which you profess to be 'the 
 artist ? 
 
 It is, replied Gorgias, that which is really the greatest good, and which 
 both enables men to be themselves free, and enables each, in his own 
 state, to govern the rest. 
 
APPBNDIX. 319 
 
 Soc. And what is this ? 
 
 Gorg. The ability to persuade by discourse, either judges in a tribunal, 
 or senators in a council-house, or voters in a meeting of the people, and in 
 every other political assembly. If you have this power, you will have the 
 physician for your slave, and the man of business will transact business for 
 the profit, not of himself, but of you who are able to speak and persuade 
 the multitude. 
 
 Now, replied Socrates, you appear to me to come near to an explana- 
 tion what art you consider rhetoric to be. If I understand you, rhetoric 
 is that which works persuasion, and its sole agency is summed up and 
 terminates in that ; or can you point out anything which rhetoric can do, 
 raoie than to produce persuasion in the minds of the hearers ? 
 
 Gorg. No ; you seem to me to define it adequately. 
 
 Hear me, then, said Socrates : I persuade myself that if there is any 
 person who converses with another, wishing to arrive at a real knowledge 
 of the thing which the discussion relates to, I am such a person, and 1 
 wish you to be so. 
 
 Gorg. What then? 
 
 Soc. I will tell you. What, and on what topics this persuasion is, which 
 you say results from rhetoric, I do not clearly know ; and, though I cer- 
 tainly suspect, I will nevertheless ask you. Now, why do I, suspecting it 
 myself, question you, and not myself declare it ? Not on your account, but 
 for the sake of the discussion, that it may proceed in such a manner as to 
 make that about which we are talking clearest to us. Consider then, 
 whether I interrogate you fairly. If I were to ask you, What painter is 
 Xeuxis ? and you were to answer, The man who paints animals ; might I 
 not fairly ask you, What animals, on what material ? 
 
 Gorg. Certainly. 
 
 Soc . Because there are other painters who paint other animals. 
 
 Gorg. Yes. 
 
 Soc. But if nobody had ever painted animals except Xeuxis, your 
 answer would have been right ? 
 
 Gorg. Certainly. 
 
 Soc. Now, then, on the subject of rhetoric, tell me whether rhetoric is 
 the only art which produces persuasion ? What I mean is this : when a 
 man teaches anything, does he persuade people of that which he teaches, 
 or not ? 
 
 Gorg He persuades more than anybody. 
 
 Soc. To return to our former examples : does not arithmetic, and does 
 not the arithmetician, teach us the properties of numbers ? 
 
 Gorg. Yes. 
 
 Soc. Then they persuade us ? 
 
 Gorg. Yes. 
 
 Soc. Then arithmetic also works persuasion ? 
 
 Gorg. So it seems. 
 
 Soc. Then, if we are asked, What persuasion, and respecting what, we 
 should answer, The persuasion which instructs us respecting the properties 
 of numbers. And, in like manner, we can show what persuasion, and on 
 what matter, is wrought by each of the other arts which we mentioned ? 
 
 Gorg. Yes. 
 
 Soc. Then rhetoric is not the only worker of persuasion ? 
 
 Gorg. True. 
 
390 APPENDIX. 
 
 Soc. Then we may ask you, what persuasion, and on what matter, is 
 wrought by rhetoric. 
 
 Gore: The persuasion of courts of justice and other assemblies, and on 
 the subject of the just and the unjust. 
 
 Soc. I suspected that you meant this kind of persuasion, and on this 
 subject. But that you may not be surprised if I should hereafter ask you 
 something which, like this, appears obvious, I do so in order that the 
 argument may be carried straight through ; not on your account, but that 
 we may not accustom ourselves to anticipate each other's meaning by 
 guess ; and that you may complete your exposition in your own manner 
 
 Gorg. You do very right. 
 
 Soc. Let us then consider this. There is such a thing as to learn. 
 
 Gorg. Yes. 
 
 Soc. And such a thing as to believe. 
 
 Gorg. Yes. 
 
 Soc. To believe and to learn, are these the same thing, or different 
 things ? 
 
 Gorg. Different things, I conceive. 
 
 Soc. You conceive rightly, as may be known from this : If you were 
 asked, whether there are true belief and false belief, you would say, Yes ? 
 
 Gorg. I should. 
 
 Soc. But are there true knowledge and false knowledge ? 
 
 Gorg. No. 
 
 Soc. Then, they are not the same thing ? 
 
 Gorg. They are not. 
 
 Soc. But they who have learnt, and they who only believe, are both of 
 them persuaded ? 
 
 Gorg. They are. 
 
 Soc. Shall we say, then, that there are two kinds of persuasion ; the one 
 affording belief without knowledge, the other affording knowledge ? 
 
 Gorg. Yes. 
 
 Soc. Which sort of persuasion does rhetoric produce in courts of justice 
 and other assemblies, respecting the just and the unjust ? the sort which 
 produces belief without knowledge, or that which produces knowledge ? 
 
 Gorg. Evidently that which produces belief. 
 
 Soc. Rhetoric, then, works the persuasion of belief, not the persuasion 
 of knowledge, respecting the just and the unjust ? 
 
 Gorg. Yes. 
 
 Soc. The orator, then, does not instruct courts of justice and othei 
 assemblies respecting the just and the unjust, but only persuades them ; 
 for he could not, in a short time, instruct a large assembly in such great 
 matters ? 
 
 Gorg. Certainly not. 
 
 Soc. Let us see, then, what we are to think of rhetoric ; for I do not 
 know what to say about it. When an assembly is called together for the 
 choice of physicians, or of shipbuilders, or any other sort of artists, will 
 the rhetorician, then, not offer his opinion ? for it is clear that, in every 
 election, whoever is the greatest master of art ought to be chosen. If the 
 question relate to the building of walls, or the construction of ports or 
 docks, will the advisers be not the rhetoricians, but the engineers ? If it 
 relate to the choice of generals, or the operations of warfare, will the 
 uien versed in military affairs advise, and the rhetoricians not ? Or hov» 
 
APPENDIX. 3*i 
 
 if it? for, since you say that you are a rhetorician, and can make other* 
 so, it is right to ask of you what belongs to your art. Consider me to be 
 advancing your own interests also ; for there are, perhaps, some persons 
 here who wish to become your disciples. Imagine that you are asked by 
 them, What shall we get by your instructions ? On what subject shall we 
 be able to advise the State ? On the just and the unjust only, or on the 
 Other matters also, which Socrates just now mentioned ? 
 
 I will endeavour, answered Gorgias, to unfold to you clearly the whole 
 power of rhetoric ; for you have well led the way. You know that the 
 walls, and docks, and harbours of Athens were constructed by the advice 
 of Themistocles, and of Pericles, not by that of the workmen. 
 
 Soc. They say so of Themistocles ; and Pericles I have myself heard. 
 
 Gorg. And when there is a choice to be made on these matters, you see 
 that the orators are those who prevail, and carry the people along with 
 them. 
 
 Soc. It is the wonder which this excites in me that makes me so anxious 
 to find out what is the power of rhetoric ; for when considered in this 
 light, it appears a thing of astonishing greatness. 
 
 Gorg. If you knew all, you would see that it comprises and holds sub- 
 ject to itself almost all other powers. I will give you a remarkable 
 proof : — Often have I gone, with my brother and other physicians, to 
 visit a sick man who would not take medicine or undergo an operation ; 
 and, when the physician could not persuade him, I persuaded him, bv no 
 other art than rhetoric. I affirm that, in any city you please, if a rheto- 
 rician and a physician were to contend, by discourse, in an assembly or 
 meeting, as competitors for appointment to any office, the physician would 
 be thought nothing of; the able speaker would be chosen, if he wished it ; 
 and, if he became the rival of any other artist whatever, he would per- 
 suade them to choose him in prefeience to the other; for there is no 
 subject on which a rhetorician. would not speak more persuasively, than 
 any other person, to a multitude. Such and so great is the power of the 
 art. It should, however, be used like any other power of subversion and 
 overthrow. Such power ought not, because we possess it, to be therefore 
 used against all peisons indiscriminately. It does not follow, because a 
 man has learnt to box, or to wrestle, or to fence, so as to be more than a 
 match for friend or foe, that he should beat, and wound, and slay his 
 friends ; neither, if when, by gymnastic exercises, a man has acquired 
 strength and skill, he beats hi> father, or his mother, or any of his relatious 
 or friends, ought we, therefore to abhor and expel from the State the 
 teachers of gymnastics and the fencing-masters. They communicated the 
 art, that it might be used justly, against the enemy and against wrong- 
 doers, defensively, not for purposes of aggression ; but their pupils pervert 
 the faculty, and turn their strength and their art to an improper use. We 
 are not, however, to impute this, and the criminality of it, to the art or to 
 the teachers of the art, but to those who employ it ill. The like is true 
 with rhetoric. An orator is able to speak to all men, and on any subject, 
 so as to persuade the multitude ; but he ought not to employ this faculty 
 in depriving ph\sicians or artificers of their reputation, mer ly be> ause he 
 has the power to do so ; he should use rhetoric, like any other | o*er, with 
 justice ; and if, having become a rhetorician, he employs his power and 
 his art to do wrong, we should not abhor and banish the teacher, who 
 gave the art for a good purpose, but him who employs it for a bad one. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Socrates thus replied : — I think, Gorgias, that you have experience of 
 many discussions, and must have perceived this, that men seldom know 
 how jointly to examine and mark out the things about which they attempt 
 to discuss ; and, having learnt and instructed themselves, so to break ofi 
 the conversation. But, if they dispute on any matter, and one of them 
 charges the other with not speaking rightly or not clearly, they are angry 
 and think that it is said in envy, and not in pursuit of the proposed object 
 of discourse ; and they sometimes end by shamefully reproaching one 
 another, and bandying such words as make the bystanders ashamed of 
 themselves for having desired to listen to such men. Why do I say this ? 
 Because what you now say appears to me not very consistent with what 
 
 Jrou previously said concerning rhetoric. Now, I am afraid to confute you, 
 est you should suppose that I do it not from zeal to find the thing which 
 we are in quest of, but in the spirit of contention against you. Now, if 
 you are such a person as I am, I should like to go on interrogating you ; 
 if not, I will let it alone. And what sort of a man am I ? one who would 
 gladly be refuted, if I affirm what is not true ; and who would gladly 
 refute, when another person does so ; but who would just as gladly be 
 refuted as refute ; for I think it a greater good, by so much as it is a 
 greater thing to be ourselves relieved from the greatest of evils than to 
 relieve another person ; and I conceive that there is no human evil so 
 great as false opinion on the subject of which our present discourse 
 treats. If, then, you are a person of the same sort, let us continue ; but, 
 if you think we had better leave off, we will. 
 
 I, said Gorgias, profess to be such a person as you describe ; but, per- 
 haps, we should consider the wish of those who are present. They, how- 
 ever, unanimously begged that the argument might proceed ; and Gorgias 
 said, it would be disgraceful for him, especially after he had undertaken to 
 answer all questions, not to be willing to continue. 
 
 Hear, then, resumed Socrates, something in yonr discourse which siuv 
 prises me. You say that you can make any person who receives your 
 instructions an orator capable of persuading a multitude ; not producing 
 knowledge in their minds, but belief. You said that, on the subject of the 
 healthful or the unhealthful, an orator would be more capable of persuad- 
 ing than a physician. 
 
 Gorg. Certainly, in a multitude. 
 
 Soc. In a multitude, is as much as to say, among those who do not 
 know ; for those who do know, will not be persuaded by him better than 
 i>y a physician. 
 
 Gorg. Certainly. 
 
 Soc. Then, if he is more persuasive than a physician, he is more per- 
 suasive than one who knows ? 
 
 Gorg. Undoubtedly. 
 
 Soc. Not being himself a physician ? 
 
 Gorg. No. 
 
 Soc. And, therefore, being ignorant of those things which the physician 
 
 tiOWS? 
 
 Gorg. Yes. 
 
 Soc . When, then, the orator is more persuasive than the physician, one 
 tho does not know is more persuasive among those who do not know, than 
 Jne who does know? 
 
 Gorg. This certainly follows. 
 
APPENDIX. |tS 
 
 Soc. So it is. then, in all other arts. The orator and his art need not 
 know how things really are; but they have invented a contrivance of 
 persuasion, by which, among those who do not know, they appear to know 
 more than those who do know. 
 
 Gorg. Is it not, then, a great privilege, not learning any other art, but 
 only this one, to be nowise inferior to the artists themselves ? 
 
 Whether, replied Socrates, the orator is inferior or not inferior to other 
 people, we shall examine by-and-by. At present let me inquire this : — Is 
 the rhetorician situated in the same manner with respect to the just and 
 unjust, the noble and disgraceful, the good and evil, as he is with respect 
 to health, and the other subjects of the different arts ; viz., himself, not 
 knowing what is good or evil, just or unjust, but having a contrivance of 
 persuasion, so as to appear among those who do not know, to be more 
 knowing than those who do ? Or is it necessary that he should really 
 know these things, and should have leamt them before he comes to learn 
 rhetoric from you ? And pray, will you, the teacher of rhetoric, if you 
 find him ignorant of these things, not teach him them, but only enable 
 him, not knowing them, to seem to the vulgar to know them, and appear 
 a good man without being so ? Or are you not able to teach him rhetoric 
 at all, unless he knows the real nature of these things beforehand ? Or 
 how is it ? And pray unfold to me, as you just now said, the whole 
 power of the art. 
 
 Gorg. I conceive, that if he happened not to know these things, he 
 would learn them likewise from me. 
 
 Soc. If, then, you are to make any person a rhetorician, it is necessary 
 that he should know the jnst and the unjust, either beforehand, or by 
 your instructions ? 
 
 Gorg. Yes. 
 
 Soc. Now, is not he who has learnt architecture, an architect ? 
 
 Gorg. Yes. 
 
 Soc. He who has learnt music, a musician ? 
 
 Gorg. Yes. 
 
 Soc. He who has learnt medicine, a physician. And, to speak generally, 
 he who has learnt anything is that which the science he has learnt cause* 
 men to be ? 
 
 Gorg. Certainly. 
 
 Soc. Then, by this reasoning, he who has learnt justice is just ? 
 
 Gorg. Certainly. 
 
 Soc. Then a rhetorician must be just ? 
 
 Gorg. Yes. 
 
 Soc. But a just man acts justly ? 
 
 Gorg. Yes. 
 
 Soc. And a just man must necessaiily wish to act justly ? 
 
 Gorg. So it seems. 
 
 Soc. Then a just man will never wish to do injustice ? 
 
 Gorg. No. 
 
 Soc. But we said that a rhetorician must be just ? 
 
 Gorg. Yes. 
 
 Soc. Then a rhetorician will never wish to do injustice ? 
 
 Gorg. It appears not. 
 
 Soc. Do you remember, now, that you said a short time ago, that, as a 
 gymnast ought not to be blamed nor expelled from the State if a boxer Of 
 
*»4 APPENDIX. 
 
 wrestler makes an ill use of his art, so if an orator uses rhetoric for a bad 
 purpose, we ought not to reproach or banish the teacher of rhetoric, but 
 the person who perverts it to unjust purposes ? 
 
 Gorg. I did. 
 
 Soc. But now it seems that a rhetorician cannot be unjust. 
 
 Gorg. It seems so. 
 
 Soc. And it was observed before, that the subject of rhetoric is discourse ; 
 not discourse on numbers, but discourse on the just and the unjust ? 
 
 Gorg. Yes. 
 
 Soc. When you said this, I imagined that rhetoric could not be an un- 
 just thing, since all its discourse is of justice ; but, when you afterwards 
 said that an orator might employ rhetoric unjustly, I wondered, and, 
 thinking the two assertions inconsistent, I said, that if you, like myself, 
 thought it a benefit to be refuted, it was worth while to continue the 
 argument, but, if not, it was better to leave it alone. And now, on 
 further inquiry, we have admitted that a rhetorician cannot possibly use 
 rhetoric unjustly, or wish to do injustice. To discover how this is, would 
 require not a little conversation and discussion : 
 
 [Here Polus breaks in ; and, as we have seen in the preceding part of 
 the dialogue how Socrates could conduct a respectful and well-bred dispu- 
 tation, we shall now see in what manner he could beat back an overweening 
 and petulant assailant.] 
 
 What ! said Polus : do you really think on the subject of rhetoric what 
 vou say ? Do you not perceive that the advantage you have assumed ovei 
 Gorgias is only owing to his shamefacedness, because he did not like to 
 confess the truth ? He was ashamed not to profess that a rhetorician 
 knows what is really just, and good, and noble, and that he, Gorgias, if any 
 one comes to him ignorant of these things, can teach them, in conse- 
 quence of this admission, something like a contradiction, perhaps, arose ift 
 bis discourse; the thing which always delights you. Who do you suppose 
 would not, if asked, affirm that he knows what is just, and can teach it ? 
 But it is extremely unfair and ill-bred to drive any one into such a 
 dilemma. 
 
 Most excellent Polus, replied Socrates, the great use of having friends 
 or sons is, that when we grow old and fall into error, you younger men may 
 set as right. If, therefore, Gorgias and I have made any mistake, do you 
 correct it : and, if any of our admissions appear to you improper, we will 
 retract it, if you will only guard against one thing. 
 
 Pol. What thing ? 
 
 Soc. That lengthiness of discourse which you begun with. 
 
 Pol. What ! shall I not be allowed to say as much as I please ? 
 
 Soc. You would be extremely ill-used, my good friend, if, coming to 
 Athens, where there is greater freedom of speech than in any other city in 
 Greece, you alone should not be suffered to participate in it. But consider 
 this, on the other hand : if you make long speeches, and do not choose 
 to answer the question that is put to you, should not I also be very much 
 ill-used if I were not allowed to go away and not to listen to you? If 
 you have a real regard for the discussion which has been commenced, and 
 wish to rectify what was wrong in it, take back any of the concessions* that 
 have been made, and, by questioning and answering, refute and be refuted ; 
 for you profess to know what Gorgias knows, do you not ? 
 
APPENDIX. 3*5 
 
 Soc. "then you also Invite persons to put questions to you, and undertake 
 to answer them ? 
 
 Pol. Certainly. 
 
 Soc. Then do which you please ; interrogate, or answer. 
 
 Pol. So I will. Tell me, Socrates, since you think that Gorgias cannot 
 tell what rhetoric is, pray what do you consider it to be ? 
 
 Soc. Do you ask me what art I consider it to be ? 
 
 Pol. I do. 
 
 Soc. No art at all, to tell you the truth. 
 
 Pol. What thing, then, do you call it ? 
 
 Soc. A thing which you, in a book which I lately read, profess to erect 
 into an art. 
 
 Pol. And what is it ? 
 
 Soc. A kind of skill. 
 
 Pol. Rhetoric, then, according to you, is a kind of skill ? 
 
 Soc. Yes, if you have no objection. 
 
 Pol. Skill in what ? 
 
 Soc. In gratification, and the production of pleasure. 
 
 Pol. Is not rhetoric, then, a fine thing, since it is capable of causing 
 gratification ? 
 
 Soc. What, Polus ! have I yet told you what I say it is, so that you 
 should already ask me whether I do not think it a fine thing ? 
 
 Pol. Did you not tell me that it was a kind of skill ? 
 
 Soc. Since you set such a value on gratification, will you gratify me 
 I little ? 
 
 Pol. I will. 
 
 Soc. Ask me, then, what art I consider cookery to be. 
 
 Pol. I ask you, what art is cookery ? 
 
 Soc. None at all. 
 
 Pol. What is it then ? 
 
 Soc. A kind of skill. 
 
 Pol. Skill in what ? 
 
 Soc. In gratification, and the production of pleasure. 
 
 Pol. Are cookery and rhetoric, then, the same thing ? 
 
 Soc. No ; but they are branches of the same pursuit. 
 
 Pol. What pursuit is that ? 
 
 Soc. I am afraid it will be ill-bred to say the truth ; I do not like to say 
 it, on Gorgias's account, lest he should think that I am satirizing his 
 profession. I do not know whether this is the rhetoric which Gorgias pro- 
 fesses ; for we could not make out clearly in the former discussion what he. 
 understands by it : but what I call rhetoric, is a branch of a thing which is 
 not very admirable. What thing ? asked Gorgias. Speak, and do not have 
 any reluctance on my account. 
 
 Soc. I think, Gorgias, that it is a pursuit, not governed by art, but 
 belonging to a mind of great tact and boldness and greatly fitted by 
 nature for intercourse with men : and I call it, in one word, Adulation. Of 
 this pursuit there are many other branches, and cookery is one, which is 
 thought to be an art,but, in my opinion, is no art, but a skill, and a routine. 
 I call rhetoric and cosmetics (the toilet), and the pursuit of the sophist, 
 other species of the same pursuit. There are thus four branches of it, con- 
 versant with four different things. If Polus wishes to question me further, 
 let him do so ; tor I have told him that I consider rhetoric to be a branch 
 
3*6 APPENDIX, 
 
 of adulation, bat not what branch ; and he hat overlooked that I have 
 not yet answered his first question, though he goes on pressing me with 
 a second, and asks me whether I think rhetoric a fine thing, before I have 
 answered what it is. This is not fair, Polus ; if you wish to know, ask me 
 what branch of adulation I affirm rhetoric to be. 
 
 Pol. I do ask ; answer what branch it is. 
 
 Soe. Do you think you shall understand my answer ? Rhetoric, in my 
 view of the matter, is the counterfeit of a branch of politics. 
 
 Pol. Well, then, do you call it a noble or an ignoble thing ? 
 
 Soe. An ignoble thing ; for all bad things I call ignoble, since I must 
 answer you as if you already understood what I have been saying. 
 
 By Jupiter ! said Gorgias, neither do I myself understand what you mean. 
 
 Soe. And no wonder, for I have not yet explained myself at all clearly ; 
 but Polus is young and sharp, 
 
 Leave him alone, resumed Gorgias, and tell me how you consider rhe- 
 toric to be the counterfeit of a branch of politics. 
 
 I will try, said Socrates, to explain what rhetoric seems to me to be ; 
 and, if it be not so, Polus will refute me. There are such things as body 
 and mind ? 
 
 Gorgias answered, There are. 
 
 Soe. There is such a thing as a good habit of body or of mind ? 
 
 Gorg. There is. 
 
 Soe. And there is such a thing as an apparently good habit, which is not 
 really so. Many persons seem to be in a good state of body, and no one 
 but a physician or a gymnast could readily perceive that they are not so. 
 
 Gorg. True. 
 
 Soe. There are things, moreover, which cause the body and the mind to 
 be apparently in a good state, without really improving their condition 
 at all. 
 
 Gorg. There are so. 
 
 Soe. Now, then, I can more clearly explain my meaning. These two 
 things, body and mind, form the subjects of two arts. The art which 
 relates to the mind, I call Politics, or the Social Art. The art which re- 
 lates to the body, I cannot call by any single name ; but the culture of the 
 body, being itself one, has two branches, which are, gymnastics and 
 medicine. Politics consist of the art of legislation, which corresponds to 
 gymnastics, and the art of judicature, which corresponds to medicine. 
 Gymnastics and medicine, as they relate to the same subject, have some 
 things in common with each other, as have likewise judicature and legis- 
 lation ; but they nevertheless have some differences. These, then, are 
 four arts, which serve the body and mind, always having in view their 
 greatest good. Adulation, perceiving this, I do not say knowing, but 
 divining it, separates itself into four branches, and, decking itself in the 
 garb of these four arts, pretends to be that which it counterfeits ; not 
 paying any regard to the greatest good, but baiting its hook with the 
 greatest pleasure, so as to deceive the unreflecting, and appear the most 
 valuable of all things. Cookery puts on the semblance of medicine, and 
 pretends to know what kinds of food are best for the body ; and, if a 
 physician and a cook had to appear before children, or before men whs 
 are as unthinking as children, that it might be decided which of them best 
 understood good and bad diet, the physician would starve for want of em- 
 ployment. This I call adulation, and J hold it to be a disgraceful thing, 
 
APPENDIX. 327 
 
 Potas, because it aims at the pleasant only, without regarding the greatest 
 good ; and I affirm that it is not an art, but a mere skill, because it canno: 
 give any account of the real nature of the things which it employs ; nor, 
 consequently, can it explain the cause of the effects which it produces. I do 
 not give the name of art to that which cannot render a reason for what ;: 
 enjoins. If you doubt this, I am willing to contest it with you. Cookery, 
 then, counterfeits medicine. In like manner, cosmetics counterfeit gym- 
 nastics, being a tricky, ignoble, and illiberal practice, which deceives by 
 artificial colour and smoothness and figure and dress ; and, by giving fac- 
 titious beauty, produces neglect of our own natural beauty, which is the 
 result of Gymnastics. Not to be lengthy, I will say to you, in geometrical 
 language, that, as Cookery is to Med cine, so is Cosmetics to Gymnastics; 
 or, rather, as Cosmetics to Gymnastics, so is the pursuit of the sophist to 
 the art of Legislation ; and, as Cookery to Medicine, so is Rhetoric to the 
 art of Judicature. These distinctions, at any rate, are real ; although 
 their pursuits, being nearly allied, are not unfrequently blended together, 
 and it is not possible always to distinguish accurately which of them is 
 practised by any particular individual. Now, if the body were not 
 governed by the mind, but governed itself ; if Cookery and Medicine 
 were not surveyed and discriminated by the mind, but were to be judged by 
 the body, taking its own gratification lor the standard, no doubt the things 
 which conduce to health, and those which conduce to the palate, the things 
 which belong to Medicine, and those which belong to Cookery, would be 
 all confounded together. You now therefore know what I assert Rhetoric 
 to be : the counterpart of Cookery. Rhetoric is to the mind what Cookery 
 is to the body. 
 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 TRANSLATION OF A PASSAGE FROM PLATO'S 'GORGIAS 
 
 Polus. So then, Socrates, you would not like that it should be allowed 
 you to accomplish in the State whatever seems fit to you, nor to you leel 
 envy when you see a man killing, or imprisoning, or depriving of their pro- 
 perty whomsoever he pleases ? 
 
 Socrates. Do you mean justly or unjustly ? 
 
 P. In which ever way it is done, is it not enviable ? 
 
 S. It is not proper to envy the unenviable nor the miserable, but to pity 
 them. 
 
 P. What ! do you think it is thus with the person whom I describe ? 
 
 S. Undoubtedly. 
 
 P. Does he who kills whomsoever it seems best to him, and kills thea 
 justly, appear to you miserable and pitiable ? 
 
 S. No ; but neither does he appear enviable. 
 
 P. Did you not, just now, call him miserable f 
 
 S. Him who kills unjustly, I called miserable, and pitiable too ; him 
 who kills justly, unenviable. 
 
J2 8 APPENDIX. 
 
 P. Certainly, he who is killed unjustly is pitiable and miserable. 
 
 S. Less so than his slayer, and less so than he who is slain justly. 
 
 P. How so ? 
 
 S. Because to do injury is the greatest of evils. 
 
 P. The greatest ? Is it not a still greater evil to be injured ? 
 
 S. Bv no means. . . 
 
 P. Would you prefer to be injured, rather than do an injury ? 
 
 S. I should not prefer either ; but, if one or the other were unavoidable 
 I should choose rather to be injured than to injure. 
 
 P. Would you not consent to be a despot ? 
 
 S. If, by being a despot, you mean what I mean, I should not. 
 
 P. I mean, as I said before, being allowed to do in the State whatever 
 we think fit; to kill, and banish, and do everything according to our will. 
 
 S. Most excellent person, listen to me. Suppose that I were to go out 
 into the market-place when it is full, with a poniard under my arm, and 
 to say to you — Poius, I have obtained a splendid despotism ; for, if it 
 seems' good to me that any one of all these men should die, he will die 
 upon the spot ; if I will that he should be wounded, he will be wounded ; 
 if that his cloak should be torn, it will be torn ; so great is my power in 
 this State. And suppose that, you being incredulous, I were to show you 
 my poniard. You would probably answer, that, by this account, every- 
 body must be powerful ; for, in this way, any one might set fire to any 
 house, or to the docks and all the vessels in the harbour, if he thought fit. 
 But to be powerful does not consist in being able to do what we think fit. 
 
 P. Not in this manner, certamlv. 
 
 S. Now, can you tell what is your objection to this power ? 
 
 P. Surelv. 
 
 S. What is it? 
 
 P. That a person who acts thus must inevitably be punished. 
 
 S. And to be punished is an evil ? 
 
 P. Certainly. 
 
 S. Then it again appears to you, that to be powerful is good only * /hen, 
 doing what we think fit, we do what is for our benefit ; and this i£> what 
 is meant by being powerful ; without this, it is an evil, and is not power, 
 but impo ence. Let us con-ider father in this manner. It is sometimes 
 better to uo the thing which we were talking about, — to kill, and con- 
 fiscate, and b mish. — and sometimes not? 
 
 P. Undoubtedly. 
 
 S. This we are both of us agreed in ? 
 
 P. We are. 
 
 S. In what ca=es do you say it is better, and in what other otherwise ? 
 Tell me where you draw the line. 
 
 P. Do you, Socrates, answer this question yourself. 
 
 S. If you piefer to be a listener, I say, that when it is done justly it is 
 better, and when unjustly, it is worse. 
 
 P. Could not a child refute what you now assert ? 
 
 S. I shall be very thankful to the child, and equally so to you, if you 
 fefute me, and free me from error. Do not be tired of doing a service to 
 & fiend, but refute. 
 
 P. There is no occasion to go very far back in order to refute you. 
 vVhat happened only the other day is sufficient to prove that many unjusi 
 ►r-ons are happj . 
 
APPENDIX. & 
 
 S. What are these things ? 
 
 P. Do you see Archelaus, the king of Macedonia ? 
 
 S. If I do not see him, I have heard of him. 
 
 P. Does he appear to you happy or miserable ? 
 
 S. t do not know ; for I have never conversed with the man. 
 
 P. What ! could you know that he was happy by conversing with him 
 and not otherwise ? 
 
 S. Certainly not. / 
 
 P. Then you will say that you do not know whether the Great King 
 (of Persia^ is happy ? 
 
 .S. Ana I shall say truly ; for I do not know in what condition he is 
 with respect to mental cultivation and ju-tice. 
 
 P. What ? does all happiness consist in this ? 
 
 5. As I say, it does ; for I affirm that an excellent man or woman is 
 happy, an unjust and wicked one wretched. 
 
 P. Then Archelaus is wretched, by your account ? 
 
 S. If he be unjust. 
 
 P. But how can it be denied that he is unjust ? And here Polus 
 relates a series of ciimes, by which Archelaus had risen to the throne, 
 intermixing much sarcastic irony on the notion of Socrates, that he was 
 unhappy ; and ends by saying, — And do you suppose there is so much as a 
 single Athenian, beginning with yourself, who would not rather be Arche- 
 laus than any other of the Macedonians ? 
 
 Socrates replied, — At the commencement of our conversation, I praised 
 you for being well-versed in rhetoric, but said you bad neglected discussion. 
 Is this the argument with which a child could confute me ? Does this, 
 in your opinion, refute my assertion, that an unjust man is not happy ? 
 How, pray ? for I do not admit a word of what you have said. 
 
 P. Because you will not ; for you, in reality, think as I say. 
 
 S. My good friend, you attempt to refute me rhetorically, in the 
 manner of what is called refutation in the courts of justice. In those 
 courts, one man thinks that he refutes another if he can produce many 
 witnesses of good reputation in behalf of whnt he says, while his ad- 
 versary can produce only one, or none at all. But this sort of refutation 
 is good for nothing, as respects truth ; for it sometimes happens that a 
 great number of witnesses, and people who are thought to be of some 
 worth, bear false witness. And now, on the subject of what you are 
 speaking, very nearly all the Athenians, and foreigners too, will join in 
 your assertion ; and, if you wish to produce witnesses in proof that I am 
 wrong, you may have Nicias, if you please, and Aristocrates, and the 
 whole family of Pericles, and, in short, any one you please in this city. 
 But I, who am but one man, do not acknowledge it ; for you do not 
 compel me to do so, but attempt to bear me down, and deprive me of my 
 substance, of the Truth, by producing false witnesses against me. I, on 
 *tfie contrary, think I have done nothing, unless I can produce you, yourself, 
 who are but one, as a witness on my side. Nor do I think that you have 
 accomplished anything, unless I, one single person, bear witness in your 
 oehalf, without regard to any of the others. Yours is one kind of refuta- 
 tion, as you and many others think; there is another kind, as 1 think. Let 
 as compare them, and see whether they differ from one another. The 
 things respecting which we are disputing are no trifling things, but are 
 nearly those respecting which it is most honourable to know, and most 
 
3 jo APPENDIX. 
 
 disgraceful to be ignorant ; for it is, in short, to know, or not know, who 
 is, and who is not, happy. You think that a person who is unjust, and 
 acts unjustly, may be happy. 
 
 P. 1 do. 
 
 S. I say that it is not possible. This, then, is one point in dispute. 
 Next : will a person who commits injustice be happy, if he be brought to 
 justice and punishment? 
 
 P. By no means : in that case he would be most wretched. 
 
 S. But, if he do not suffer punishment, he is happy ? 
 
 P. Yes. 
 
 S. In my opinion, he who is unjust and commits injustice, is in any case, 
 miserable ; but more miserable if he be unjust and escape from punish" 
 ment than if he be brought to justice and suffer punishment. You have 
 refuted my first opinion, have you not ? 
 
 P. Yes. 
 
 S. Will you refute the second, too ? 
 
 P. That, truly, is still more difficult to refute than the first. 
 
 S. Not difficult, but impossible ; for the truth cannot be refuted. 
 
 P. How ? If a man is detected aiming unjustly at the tyranny, and, 
 being put to the rack, and hewed in pieces, and has his eyes burnt out, 
 and after suffering, both in himself and in his wife and children, the utter- 
 most insult and contumely, is at last impaled or crucified, will he be more 
 happy than if he succeeds in his enterprise, and, attaining despotic power, 
 continues master of the State to the end of his days, envied and felicitated 
 both by his countrymen and by foreigners ? Is this what you say it is 
 impossible to refute ? 
 
 S. You are inveighing now, and not refuting, as a little while ago you 
 were calling witnesses. But, pray, refresh my memory ; are you supposing 
 him to aim unjustly at the tyranny ? 
 
 P. Certainly. 
 
 S. Then neither of them, neither he who is punished, nor he wtm 
 escapes, is the more happy ; for of two miserable persons, it cannot o# 
 said that either is the happier ; but he who escapes and attains tyranny, a 
 the more wretched. What is this, Polus ? do you laugh ? Is this anothar 
 mode of refutation, when anything is asserted, to laugh, instead of t& 
 swering it ? 
 
 P. Do you not think yourself answered, when you say what no person 
 in the world would say except yourself ? Ask any of the by-standers. 
 
 Socrates replied • I am no politician, and last year, when it fell to me 
 by lot to be a member of the Council of Five Hundred, and when the turn 
 came for my tribe to preside, and it was my duty to take the votes, I was 
 laughed at for not knowing how to do it. Do not, therefore, bid me take 
 the votes of the by-standers ; but, if you cannot produce a better refuta- 
 tion of what I assert than this, let me take my turn, and try to show you 
 what I consider to be a refutation ; for I know how to produce one witness 
 in proof of my assertion, viz., the person with whom I am speaking ; but 
 the laige number I let alone. I know how to take the vote of one per- 
 son ; but with the many I do not converse. Let us see, therefore, whether 
 you are willing, in your turn, to submit yourself to refutation by answering 
 the questions which are asked of you : for my opinion is. that both you 
 and I, .-nd all men. consider it a greater evil to do an injury than to suffer 
 one, and to be unpunished than to be punished. 
 
APPENDIX. i|l 
 
 P. And I say, that neither I, nor any other person, is of that opinion. 
 Would you, yourself, rather be injured than injure ? 
 
 S. And you, too, and every one. 
 
 P. No such thing. 
 
 S. Then, will you answer ? 
 
 P. Yes ; for I greatly desire to hear what you will find to say. 
 
 S. Suffer me, then, to interrogate you, beginning from the very com- 
 mencement. Do you think it a greater evil to be injured, or to injure ? 
 
 P. To be injured. 
 
 S. Which do you think the more ignoble, to be injured, or to injure? 
 Answer me. 
 
 P. To injure. 
 
 S. Then, if it be more ignoble, it is more evil. 
 
 P. By no means. 
 
 S. I understand ; you do not, it seems, consider Noble and Good, 
 Ignoble and Evil, to be the same things ? 
 
 P. Certainly not. 
 
 S. Listen, then. When you cal 1 any thing noble, as a noble counte- 
 nance, or air, or figure, or voice, or conduct, what is it you look to in 
 calling them noble ? Do you not, for instance, affirm of a man, that he 
 has a noble person, either on account of some use to which his person is 
 subservient, or of some pleasure which it produces to those who see it ? 
 Can you assign any other reason ? 
 
 P. I cannot. 
 
 S. And are not all noble voices and persons, and so forth, called so. 
 either on account of some pleasure or some utility, or both ? 
 
 P. Yes. 
 
 S. And what is noble in conduct and action, is called noble on no othet 
 account, but either because it is useful, or agreeable, or both ? 
 
 P. So it appears to me. And you define the noble well, when yoi 
 define it by the Pleasant and the Good. 
 
 S. Then the ignoble must be defined by the contraries of these, Pain 
 and Evil ? 
 
 P. Of necessity. 
 
 S. When, therefore, of two noble things, one is the nobler, it is so 
 because it excels the other in fragrance, or usefulness, or in both ? 
 
 P. Certainly. 
 
 S. And when, of two ignoble things, the one is more ignoble than the 
 other, it is so by exceeding it either in pain, or evil, or in both ? 
 
 P. Yes. 
 
 S. Let us now call to mind what was said respecting Injuring and 
 Being Injured. Did you not say, that to be injured was more evil, but to 
 injure, more ignoble ? 
 
 P. I did. 
 
 S. Then, if to injure be more ignoble than to be injured, it must eithes 
 be more painful, or more evil, or both i 
 
 P. No doubt. 
 
 S. Let us then consider, in the first place, Is to injure more painful 
 than to be injured ? Docs the person who does an injury suffer more pain 
 than he who undergoes it ? 
 
 P. Certainly not. 
 
 S. It does not, then, exceed in painfulness ? 
 
33* APPENDIX. 
 
 P. No. 
 
 S. If not in painfulness, certainly not in botb t 
 
 P. So it seems. 
 
 S. Then it must exceed in evil ? 
 
 P. It appears so. 
 
 S. Then, to injure is more evil than to be injured t 
 
 P. It is evident. 
 
 5. It was admitted some time ago by you, in behalf of yourself, and of 
 mankind in general, that to injure is more ignoble than to be injured ? 
 
 P. Yes. 
 
 S. And now it has appeared to be more evil ? 
 
 P. It has. 
 
 S. Would you, then, prefer that which is more ignoble and more evil, 
 to that which is less so ? Do not fear to answer ; lor you will receive no 
 hurt, but nobly give yourself up to the argument, as to a physician, and 
 either admit or deny my proposition. 
 
 P. I would not prefer it. 
 
 S. Would any one? 
 
 P. According to this argument, it would appear not. 
 
 S. I spuke truth, then, when I said, that neither you, nor I, nor any 
 one, would choose rather to do than to suffer an injury ; for it is a 
 greater evil ? 
 
 P. It seems so. 
 
 S. You see, then, the difference between this mode of refutation and the 
 other. You had the suffrages of all the world, except me ; but I am con- 
 tented with the suffrage and testimony of you alone, and, having taken 
 your vote, I have nothing to say to the others. So much for this. Let us 
 now consider the other question, Whether to commit injustice, and be 
 punished, is, as you thought, the greatest of evils, or, as I thought, a less 
 evil than impunity. To commit injustice, and be punished, is the same 
 thing as to be punished justly, is it not ? 
 
 P. It is. 
 
 S. Can it be denied, that whatever is just is noble, in so far as it is 
 just ? Consider, and say. 
 
 P. It seems to me that it is so. 
 
 S. And consider this, likewise : if anything acts, is it not necessary that 
 there should be something which is acted upon f 
 
 P. Certainly. 
 
 S. And is not the one acted upon in the same manner in which the 
 other acts? For example, if you strike, there must be something which 
 is struck ? 
 
 P. Yes. 
 
 S. And, if you strike hard, the thing which is struck is struck hard ? 
 
 P. Certainly. 
 
 S. Then that which is acted upon, is affected in the same maimer in 
 which the thing which acts affects. Whatever the agent acts, the patient 
 suffers the same ? 
 
 P. I admit it. 
 
 S. Now, whether is to suffer punishment a mode of acting, or being 
 \cted upon? 
 P. Of being acted upon. 
 •S. Of being acted upon, then, by some agent? 
 
APPENDIX, 333 
 
 P. Certainly, by the ounisher. 
 
 S. But he who punishes rightly, punishes wstly? 
 
 P. Yes. 
 
 S. Then he acts justly ? 
 
 P. Certainly. 
 
 S. Then he who is punished, is punished justly. But what is just, we 
 have agreed, is noble ? 
 
 P. We have. 
 
 S. Then the agent who punishes does what is noble, and the patient 
 who is punished suffers what is nobie ? 
 
 P. Yes. 
 
 S. But, if he suffers what is noble, he suffers what is good ; for noble 
 must mean either pleasant or useful ? 
 
 P. Of necessity. 
 
 S. Then he who suffers punishment, suffers what is good ? 
 
 P. So it seems. 
 
 S. Then he is benefited ? 
 
 P. Yes. 
 
 S. In what way ? I suppose by becoming in a better state of mind, if 
 he is punished justly ? 
 
 P. It is probable. 
 
 S. Then he who suffers punishment, gets rid of the vice of the mind ? 
 
 P. Yes. 
 
 S. Does he not, then, get rid of the greatest of all evils ? Let us look 
 at it thus : Is there any possible vice or badness in our pecuniary con- 
 dition, except poverty ? 
 
 P. None. 
 
 S. In our bodily condition, is there any possible delect, except weak- 
 ness, and disease, and deformity, and so forth ? 
 
 P. None. 
 
 S. Is there not, also, a vicious state of the mind ? 
 
 P. There is. 
 
 S. And does not this consist of injustice, and ignorance, and cowardice, 
 and so forth? 
 
 P. Yes. 
 
 S. Then you have enumerated the three characteristic vices of the 
 estate, the body, and the mind ; and these are, poverty, disease, and 
 injustice ? 
 
 P. Yes. 
 
 S. And which of these vices is the most ignoble ? Is it not injustice 
 and, generally speaking, the vice of the mind ? 
 
 P. By far. 
 
 S. And, if it is the most ignoble, it is the worst ? 
 
 P. How so ? 
 
 S. The most ignoble is either the most painful, the most detrimental, 01 
 both ; as results from our previous admissions. 
 
 P. Certainly. 
 
 S. But injustice and, generally, the vice of the mind, have been granted 
 bv us to be the most ignoble of ail kinds of vice ? 
 
 ' P. Yes. 
 
 S. Then it must be either the most painful, or tiie most perntciru*, 
 or both ? 
 
334 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 P. It must. 
 
 S. Now, is injustice, or intemperance, or cowardice, or ignorance, mow; 
 
 excruciating than poverty or sickness ? 
 
 P. I apprehend not. 
 
 S. Then the vice of mind must surpass the vices of the body and of the 
 tstate, to an extraordinary degree, in mischievousness, if it does not 
 jurpass them in pain fulness ? 
 
 P. So it seems. 
 
 S. But that which surpasses all things in mischievousness must be the 
 greatest of evils ? 
 
 P. Yes. 
 
 S. Then injustice, and intemperance, and, in a word, the vice of the 
 mind, is the greatest of evils ? 
 
 P. So it appears. 
 
 S. What art is it that cures us of poverty ? Is it not that of the man 
 of business ? 
 
 P. It is. 
 
 S. And what art cures of disease ? Is it not medicine ? 
 
 P. Undoubtedly. 
 
 S. And what art cures us of wickedness and injustice ? If this be not 
 immediately obvious, let us look at it in another way. To whom do we 
 hand over whose bodies are disordered ? 
 
 P. To the physician. 
 
 S. And to whom do we hand over those who are unjust and lawless ? 
 
 P. You mean, to the magistrate. 
 
 S. In order to suffer punishment ? 
 
 P. Yes. 
 
 S. And those who punish rightly, do so by the exercise of justice ? 
 
 P. They do. 
 
 S. The art of the man of business, then, rids us of poverty ; medicine 
 rids us of disease ; legal justice rids us of injustice and intemperance ? 
 
 P. So it seems. 
 
 S. Which of these three, then, is the most noble ? 
 
 P. Justice, by far. 
 
 S. Then it either produces the greatest pleasure, or the greatest benefit, 
 or both ? 
 
 P. Yes. 
 
 S. Is it a pleasant thing to be under the hands of the physician ? 
 
 P. No. 
 
 S. But it is useful ? 
 
 P. Yes. 
 
 S. For it cures us of a great evil ; so that it is for our good to suffer 
 ,he pain, and receive health ? 
 
 P. Undoubtedly. 
 
 S. But whether is he most happy who undergoes medical treatment, or 
 le who has not been ill at all ? 
 
 P. Certainly the latter ; for happiness is not to be got rid of an evil, 
 but never to have had it. 
 
 S. But of two persons who have a malady, either of the body or of the 
 mind, which is the most miserable, he who undergoes medical treatment, 
 and is cured, or he who undergoes no medical treatment, and continues 
 ill? 
 
APPENDIX. 3}f 
 
 P. The last is the most miserable. 
 
 S. But to suffer punishment was, we admitted, to be freed from the 
 worst of evils, viz., wickedness ? 
 
 P. It was. 
 
 S. For punishment chastens men, and makes them more just, and is a 
 kind of medicine for the vice of the mind ? 
 
 P. Yes. 
 
 S. He. then, is happiest who has not the vice of the mind ; the next 
 happiest is he who is cured of it, viz., he who is reproved and undergoes 
 punishment. He who is afflicted with injustice, and is not cured, has the 
 worst life of all ; and that is, he who commits the greatest crimes, with 
 the greatest success, and escapes all reproof, and all punishment ; as you 
 say is the case with Archelaus, and other despots and orators ? 
 
 P. So it appears. 
 
 S. For their case is like that of a person afflicted with the worse diseases, 
 who should so manage as never to be punished by physicians for the 
 vicious state of his body, by undergoing medical treatment, being afraid, 
 like a child, of cutting and burning, because it is painful. Do you not 
 think so ? 
 
 P. I do. 
 
 S. And, being ignorant, it would seem, of the value of health, and the 
 excellence which belongs to the body, those who fly from punishment 
 appear, from our admissions, to be in a similar situation : they see the 
 painfulness of it, but are blind to the utility, and know not how much 
 more wretched it is to be afflicted with an unsound mind than with an un- 
 sound body. They, therefore, use all means which may aid them in 
 escaping from punishment and from cure, by collecting money, and ob- 
 taining friends, and acquiring the power of persuasion. But, if our 
 admissions were correct, do you see what follows, or shall we state it 
 particularly ? 
 
 P. If you have no objection. 
 
 S. Is not injustice and doing injury the greatest of evils, punishment 
 the cure of it, impunity the permanence of it, to be unjust and be punished 
 the greatest of all evils, except one, to be unjust with impunity, the 
 greatest of all ? 
 
 P. So it appears. 
 
 S. If this be the case, what, then, is the great use of rhetoric ? It 
 appears, from our admissions, that it is, most of aU, incumbent upon every 
 one to guard himself against the evil of injustice ? 
 
 P. Certainly. 
 
 S But, if he, or any one in whom he takes interest, should commit 
 injustice, he ought voluntarily to court a speedy punishment, and go to 
 the magistrate, as he would do to. the physician, as fast as he can, in order 
 that the disease may not become inveterate by age, and taint his consti- 
 tution, and be incurable. Does not this necessarily follow from our former 
 admissions ? 
 
 P. What else can we say ? 
 
 S. Rhetoric, then, is cf no use to us for defending our own injustice, or 
 that of our friends, or our country. We ought, on the contrary, to accuse 
 ourselves in the first instance, and next our relatives and our friends, aii 
 not to conceal our transgressions, but bring them to light, that we maj 
 suffer punishment, and be restored to health ; not caring for the pain, but 
 
J3 6 APPENDIX, 
 
 if we have merited strioes, giving ourselves up to the stripe ; if imprison- 
 ment, to the prison ; if death, to death ; and, employing rhetoric for the 
 accusation of ourselves, and of those who are dear to us, that their guilt 
 may be made manifest, and they may be freed from the greatest of evils, 
 that of injustice. Is it not so ? 
 
 P. It appears to me extreme y parodoxical ; but, from our previous 
 admissions, it cannot, perhaps, be escaped from. 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 
 TRANSLATION OF A PASSAGE IN PLATO'S 'ION 
 
 Ian. I cannot refute you, Socrates ; but of this I am conscious to my- 
 self : that I excel all men in the copiousness and beauty of my illustrations 
 o r Homer, as all who have heard me will coniess ; and, with respect to 
 other poets, I am deserted of this power. It is for you to consider what 
 mav be the cause of this distinction. 
 
 Socrates. 1 will tell you, O Ion, what appears to me to be the cause o\ 
 this inequality of powtr, It is that you are not master of any art for the 
 illustration of Homer ; but it is a divine influence which moves you, like 
 that which resides in the stone called magnet by Euripides, and Heraclea 
 by the people ; for not only does this stone possess the power of attracting 
 iron rings, but it can communicate to them the power of attracting other 
 rings ; so that you may see sometimes a long chain of rings, and other 
 iron substances, attached and suspended, one to the other, by this in- 
 fluence. And, as the power of the stone circulates through all the links 
 of this series, and attaches each to each, so the Muse, communicating, 
 through those whom she has first inspired, to all others capable of sharing 
 in the inspiration, the influence of that first enthusiasm creates a chain 
 and a succession ; for the authors of those great poems which we admire 
 do not attain to excellence through the rules of any ait, but they utter 
 their beautiful melodies of verse in a state of inspiration, and, as it were, 
 possessed by a spirit not their own. Thus the composers of lyrical poetry 
 create those admired songs of theirs in a state of divine insanity, like 
 the Corybantes, who lose all control over their reason, in the enthusiasm 
 of the sacred dance ; and, during this supernatural possession, are excited 
 to the rhythm and harmony which they communicate to men. Like the 
 Bacchantes, who, when possessed by the God, draw honey and milk 
 from the rivers, in which, when they come to their senses, they find 
 nothing but simple water; for the souls of the poets, as poets tell us, 
 have this peculiar ministration in the world : They tell us that these souls, 
 flying like bees from flower to flower, and wandering over the gardens 
 and the me;.dows, and the honey-flowing fountains of the Muses, return 
 to us laden with the sweetness of melody ; and, arrayed as they are in the 
 plumes of rapid imagination, they speak truth ; for a Poet is indeed a 
 thing etherially light, winged, and sacred, nor can he compose any thing 
 worth calling poetry until he becomes inspired, and, as it were, mad, or 
 
APPENDIX, 337 
 
 whilst any reason remains in him ; for whilst a man retains any portion oi 
 the thing called reason, he is utterly incompetent to produce poetry, 01 
 to vaticinate. Thus those who declaim various and beautiful poetry 
 upon any subject, as, for instance, upon Homer, are not enabled to do se 
 by art or study ; but every rhapsodist or poet, whether dithyrambic, 
 encomiastic, choral, epic, or iambic, is excellent in proportion to the ex- 
 tent of his participation in the divine influence, and the degree in which 
 the Muse itself has descended on him. In other respects, poets may be 
 sufficiently ignorant and incapable ; for they do not compose according 
 to any art which they have acquired, but from the impulse of the divinity 
 within them ; for, did they know any rules of criticism, according to 
 which they could compose beautiful verses upon one subject, they would 
 be able to exert the same faculty with respect to all or any other. The 
 God seems purposely to have deprived all poets, prophets, and soothsayers, 
 of every particle of leason and understanding, the better to adapt them 
 to their employment as his ministers and interpi eters ; and that we, their 
 auditors, may acknowledge that those who write so beautifully are 
 possessed, and address us, inspired by the God. Tynnicus the Chalcidean 
 is a manifest proof of this; for he never before composed any poem 
 worthy to be remembered, and yet was the author of that paean which 
 everybody sings, and which excels almost every other hymn, and which 
 he himself acknowledges to have been inspired by the Muse. And thus, 
 it appears to me, that the God proves beyond a doubt, that these tran- 
 scendent poems are not human, as the work of men, but divine, as 
 coming from the God. Poets, then, are the interpreters of the divinities, 
 each being possessed by some one deity ; and, to make this apparent, the 
 God designedly inspires the worst poets with the sublimest verse. Does 
 it seem to you that I am in the right, O Ion ? 
 
 Ion. Yes, by Jupiter ! my mind is enlightened by your words, O Soc- 
 rates ; and it appears to me that great poets interpret to us through some 
 divine election of the God. 
 
 Socrates. And do not you rhapsodists interpret poets ? 
 
 Ion. We do. 
 
 Socrates. Thus you interpret the interpreters ? 
 
 Ion. Evidently. 
 
 Socrates. Remember this, and teil me ; and do not conceal that which 
 1 ask. When you declaim well, and strike your audience with admiration ; 
 whether you sing of Ulysses rushing upon the threshold of his palace, dis- 
 covering himself to the suitors, and pouring his shafts out at his feet ; or 
 of Achilles assailing Hector ; or those affecting passages concerning 
 Andromache, or Hecuba, or Priam, are you then self-possessed ? or, 
 rather, are you not rapt, and filled with such enthusiam by the deeds yon 
 recite, that you fancy yourself in Ithaca or Troy, or wherever else the 
 poem transports you ? 
 
 Ion. You speak most truly, Socrates, nor will I deny it ; for, when I 
 recite of sorrow, my eyes fill with tears ; and when of fearful or terrible 
 deeds, my hair stands on end, and my heart beats fast. 
 
 SocruUs. Tell me, Ion, can we call him in his senses who weeps while 
 dressed in splendid garments and crowned with a golden coronal, not 
 losing any of these things ? and is filled with fear when surrounded by 
 ten thousand friendly persons, not one among whom desires to despoil or 
 injure him ? 
 
 Y 
 
338 APPENDIX 
 
 Ion To say the truth, we could not. 
 
 Socrates. Do you often perceive your audience moved also f 
 
 Ion. Many among them, and frequently. I standing on the rostrum 
 see them weeping, with eyes fixed earnestly on me, and overcome by 
 my declamation. 1 have need so to agitate them ; for, if they weep, I 
 laugh, taking their money ; if they should laugh, I must weep, going 
 without it. 
 
 Socrates. Do you not perceive that your auditor is the last link of that 
 chain which I have described as held together through the power of the 
 magnet ? You rhapsodists and actors are the middle links, of which the 
 poet is the first — and through all these the God influences whichever 
 mind he selects, as they conduct this power one to the other ; and thus, 
 as rings from the stone, so hangs a long series of chorus-dancers, teachers, 
 and disciples from the Muse. Some poets are influenced by one Muse, 
 some by another: we call them possessed, and this word really expi esses 
 the truth ; for they are held. Others, who are interpreters, are inspired 
 by the first links, the poets, and are filled with enthusiasm, some by one, 
 some by another ; some by Orpheus, some by Musaeus, but the greater 
 number are possessed and inspired by Homer. You, O Ion, are influenced 
 by Homer. If you recite the works of any other poet, you get drowsy, 
 and ate at a loss what to say ; but, when you hear any of the compositions 
 of that poet you are roused, your thoughts are excited, and you grow 
 eloquent; for what you say of Homer is not derived from any art ot 
 knowledge, but from divine inspiration and possession. As the Cory- 
 bantes feel acutely the melodies of him by whom they are inspired, and 
 abound with verse and gesture for his songs alone, and care tor no other ; 
 thus, you, O Ion, are eloquent when you expound Homer, and are barrep 
 of words with regard to eveiy other poet. And this explains the ques- 
 tion you asked, wherefore Homer, and no other poet, inspires you with 
 eloquence. It is that you are thus excellent in your praise, not through 
 science, but from divine inspiration. 
 
 [The passages from the * Gorgias ' are not strictly to be called translations. 
 They are taken from the analyses of Plato from dialogues mentioned on 
 p. xiii. The passage from the ; Ion' is from Shelley'.' trm-laii-.!- ] 
 
SERIES IT. 
 
 FROM BACON TO THE PRESENT DAY 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The present series exhibits so great a divergence from th< 
 ordinary route, that a word in explanation may not be super- 
 fluous. The omission of several familiar names, and the 
 disproportionate length at which some articles are treated, 
 might otherwise be regarded as negligence or caprice. If I 
 have sinned in this respect, it has been upon system. Im 
 portant as it was that the account of Modern Philosophy 
 should not exceed two volumes (for if it had exceeded that 
 quantity, it might as well have run to half-a-dozen), my first 
 consideration was to unite fulness with brevity. An account 
 of all the moderns would have occupied treble the space \ 
 unless I had contented myself with a skeleton of facts, repul- 
 sive in its rigidity. Driven to a selection, the nature of this 
 work at once determined the principle of selection. As it is 
 the History and not the Annals of Philosophy, only such 
 names as represent the various schools have been chosen. 
 Thus, I have given Descartes, but none of his school ; Spinoza, 
 but no Spinozist; Locke, but no Lockist; Kant, but no 
 Kantist. 
 
 With regard to the length at which each subject has been 
 treated, I was determined, first, by the importance of the ideas 
 to be exposed (hence the great stress laid upon Methods, and 
 all fundamental topics), and secondly, by the means of infor- 
 mation accessible to the general reader : so that he might find 
 in these volumes that which he could not find elsewhere with- 
 out difficulty — in some cases could not find at all. Dugald 
 Stewart's ' Dissertation,' prefixed to the ' Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica,' is, I believe, the only account of Modern 
 Philosophy in English. It is as entertaining as it is erudite ; 
 but it does not orofess to be a History, and is rather a collec- 
 
J4* PRE PACE. 
 
 tion of adversaria than an exposition of opinions. To relish 
 it, one must come prepared with a knowledge of the philo- 
 sophical systems treated of; Stewart rarely helps the reader to 
 that knowledge. Moreover, he knew nothing of German v 
 very little of Spinoza ; he has omitted Bacon ; and gives nt 
 exposition of Berkeley's ' Idealism.' I have, consequently, 
 treated Bacon and Spinoza at some length; have given 
 Berkeley's theory in his own words ; and have devoted con- 
 siderable care to Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. The 
 chapters on these latter will, I trust, be found to render those 
 speculations intelligible which have, hitherto, been given up in 
 despair by most French and English students. I have not 
 only presented the opinions of the Transcendentalists in a 
 more intelligible form, but have endeavoured to show by what 
 logical process these opinions were arrived at. 
 
 Some objection may, perhaps, be made to the amount of 
 criticism mingled with the exposition. In this, though sinning 
 against the office of Historian, I have been prompted by the 
 one steady purpose which gives this work its unity, viz. : That 
 of showing by Argument, what History shows by Facts, — that 
 to attempt to construct a science of Metaphysics is to attempt 
 an impossibility. 
 
 fanuary, 1 846. 
 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 rREr-A RATIONS FOR BACON AND DESCARTES r 
 SCHOLASTICISM. 
 
 Bacon and Descartes are the Fathers of Modern Philosophy t 
 The title is not unfrequently given to Descartes alone; and 
 with justice, if by Philosophy we understand Metaphysics; 
 which is, indeed, what all historians of Philosophy understand 
 by the word, and what has also been understood by it in the 
 course of this work."* 
 
 It was at the period in which Bacon and Descartes flourished 
 that the two antagonists, Metaphysics and Physics, first stood 
 up openly, manfully against each other : consequently it is at 
 this epoch of our history that the ambiguous nature of the 
 term Philosophy becomes most apparent. When Physics were 
 jumbled with Metaphysics, or received metaphysical expla- 
 nations, there was no impropriety in designating all man's 
 speculations by the name of Philosophy. When the separation 
 took place, men were anxious to indicate that separation even 
 in their language. Accordingly, it sounds somewhat harshly in 
 most English ears to speak of the science of Metaphysics, or 
 the science of Morals ; in the same way as it sounds inaccurate 
 
 * Vide Series I., Introduction, p. xv. We have heard many objections 
 to this restricted use of the word Philosophy, and have been blamed, as 
 if it were a caprice of ours. We must therefore again express our dis- 
 approval of the restriction ; and again declare that it is forced on us by 
 the invariable practice of our predecessors. Let one example suffice: 
 "Philosophy may, in general, be reduced to five sciences, united by 
 close bonds: Psychology, Logic, Metaphysics, Theodicy (Theology), and 
 Ethics." — Abilard, par Ch. de Remusat, Paris, 1845 
 
344 INTR OD UCTION. 
 
 to a German to speak of the Physical Sciences as Philosophy.* 
 Even amongst ourselves the word is usually qualified : thus 
 we speak of chemical philosophy, natural philosophy, &c. 
 
 The fact is, that a History of Philosophy is always under- 
 stood to mean a History of Metaphysics. Now, properly 
 speaking, in such a work Bacon has no place. Neither his 
 speculations nor his method have anything in common with 
 those of Philosophers. The great problems of Philosophy are 
 by him left untouched. The influence he exercised over suc- 
 ceeding generations has been that of a steady opposition to all 
 speculations not comprised within the sphere of physics. His 
 title — his great and glorious title — is that of Father of Experi- 
 mental Philosophy— Father of Positive Science. 
 
 There is no gainsaying this. And yet it would seem pre- 
 posterous to leave out Bacon from our history, the more so as 
 our predecessors have always included him. Mr. Whewell, 
 in his • History of the Inductive Sciences,' has excluded him. 
 Moreover, the peculiar object of our work being to trace the 
 various Methods by which the human mind " was enabled to 
 conquer for itself, in the long struggle of centuries, its present 
 modicum of certain knowledge," we could not pass over the 
 great attempt of Bacon to found that Method. 
 
 Bacon and Descartes must therefore be regarded as the 
 initiators of modern Science and modern Metaphysics.! They 
 bot h threw jjff the trammels nf their ag p , ? nrl opened a new 
 era in ejjohde partme nt. Bacon stands at the head of the 
 Inductwe^lTjtotcrwrl^movement, and is claimed by men of 
 science as their leader. Descartes stands at the head of the 
 pure Deductive, & priori, movement, and is claimed by all 
 metaphysicians as their leader. To him, therefore, belongs 
 the title of Father of Modern Philosophy, in that restricted 
 sense of the word which we are forced to adopt. But although 
 these two great men deserve the proud titles which posterity 
 oas bestowed upon them — although they really did separate 
 themselves from the reigning dogmas of their day, and did 
 open new paths of inquiry, on which they travelled far beyond 
 
 * Hegel, with some scorn, notices the fact that in England Newton is 
 ranked amongst the greatest philosophers ; and he justly enough ridicules 
 our applying the epithet ** philosophical " to the instruments used in the 
 laboratory and observatory. 
 
 t Descartes, however, has claims also to the title of Father of Science ; 
 btil hi-> great province is metaphysics 
 
INTRODUCTION. Hi 
 
 their contemporaries, we must not suppose them unindebted 
 to their contemporaries. They were the creatures no less than 
 the creators of their epoch. They foun ded new s chools, hnt 
 they fonn<jH their? ftn the ruin* 8 ? nr{ *Mtt--Af the materials 
 aroun d then T As the sophists of Greece were but the result 
 of preceding thinkers, and paved the way for Socrates, so did 
 the Science and Scholasticism of the Middle Ages pave the way 
 for Bacon and Descartes. 
 
 It would be frivolous to suppose that from .Proclus to 
 Descartes, from the fifth to the seventeenth centuries, there 
 had been no philosophical activity. No one would imagine, 
 that because Proclus was the last of ancient philosophers, and 
 Descartes the first of modern, that therefore the whole inter- 
 vening period was a blank. Thus it becomes a matter of 
 interest to inquire into this intervening period, and to learn by 
 what links the Ancient and the Modern are connected. 
 
 We have already (Series I., p. 315-16) stated reasons for not 
 including any detailed account of Philosophy during the 
 Middle Ages ; we shall therefore content ourselves with very 
 rapidly sketching the course which speculation took during the 
 interval between Proclus and Descartes. 
 
 With the Alexandrians, Philosophy became absorbed in 
 Religion. Those who succeeded them were the Fathers of 
 the Christian Church, and with them also Philosophy was only 
 the handmaid to Religion. The reader has heard of Scholas- 
 ticism — of its subtlety, its wire-drawn distinctions, and its 
 voluminous frivolity. He has, doubtless, also heard it spoken 
 of in the high-flown language of paradoxical eulogy ; and has 
 been told that this much-decried Scholasticism is a mine of 
 profound truths, and a splendid illustration of man's specula- 
 tive ability. How far either the contempt or the admiration is 
 deserved, we are not called upon to decide. Enough for our 
 present purpose if we cite the opinion of one favourable to 
 Scholasticism, who expressly declares that " it was nothing 
 else than the employment of philosophy in the service of faith, 
 and under the surveillance of religious authority."* 
 
 Scholasticism derives its name from the Scholce (schools) 
 which Charlemagne opened for the prosecution of philosophical 
 
 • Victor Cousin, Hist, de la Philos. y ii. oJeme lecon. Perhaps the most 
 intelligible and satisfactory idea of Scholasticism, in its method, object, and 
 results, is to be gained from the analysis of Abelard's works, which fills s 
 volume and a quarter of M. de Remusat's Abdlard, Paris, 1845. 
 
%• 
 
 346 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 studies. The clergy were almost the only persons who, in 
 those days, had leisure or inclination for such studies. Thus, 
 as M. Cousin remarks, the convents formed the cradle of 
 modern philosophy, as the Mysteries formed that of Greek 
 philosophy. 
 
 Scholasticism extended from the 8th to the- 15th century, but 
 its fortunes during that period were various. M. Cousin 
 divides it into three epochs. The first was the absolute 
 subordination of philosophy to theology. The second was the 
 alliance of philosophy and theology. The third was the begin- 
 ning of a separation, which, though feeble at first, gradually 
 increased, until it ended in Modern Philosophy. 
 
 There are many illustrious names in each of these epochs. 
 In the first we shall only mention Scotus Erigena, and we 
 mention him only to quote his clear enunciation of the nature 
 of scholasticism. "There are not two studies," says he, 
 * one of philosophy and the other of religion ; true philosophy 
 is true religion, and true religion is true philosophy." In this 
 spirit they all wrote. 
 
 The second epoch was formed by the introduction, through 
 the Arabians, of the works of Aristotle. " It has long been a 
 commonplace," says M. Cousin, " to deplore that philosophy 
 should have been under the yoke of Aristotle for so many 
 years, and that commonplace is not yet extinct. This only 
 proves how little we know of the real science of history. In 
 the first place, inasmuch as men were then only in possession 
 of Aristotle, and Plato was to them almost unknown, no choice 
 was left them between Aristotle and Plato. In the second 
 place, if they had known Plato, they would inevitably have 
 rejected him ; for only imagine what would have become of 
 the authority of the church, face to face with the dialectics and 
 induction of Plato and Socrates ! The Platonic induction 
 would infallibly have decomposed the dogmas. The philosophy 
 of Plato was doubtless more accordant, at bottom, with the 
 doctrines of the church ; but the form was so original, so inde- 
 pendent, and so provocative of liberty of thought, that it 
 would have then been inadmissible it it had been known. 
 The philosophy of Aristotle had the immense advantage of 
 being admissible. In a word, it perfected the only thing about 
 which men dared then to occupy themselves — tne only thing 
 about which it was then necessary to occupy themselves, viz. 
 the form. Strictly speaking, there was no philosophy in 
 
INTRODUCTION. 347 
 
 scholasticism j for it was condemned to be nothinsr more than 
 a simple means — a form of theology. But in this state of 
 things, that which ameliorated the form ameliorated philosophy. 
 
 Aristotle, ill understood as he was, became the great authority 
 in all matters of reasoning, as the Bible was the great authority 
 in all matters of faith. Aristotle and the Bible may be said 
 to have ruled the whole of this epoch with almost equal sway. 
 The reverence felt for the Grecian sage was such, that in many 
 universities the teachers were required to pledge an oath that 
 they would follow no other guide. An attempt was made to 
 canonize him as the Philosopher par excellence. And Melanc- 
 thon bitterly complains of Aristotle's Ethics having been read 
 aloud in the sacred assemblies. 
 
 The third epoch is opened by two extraordinary men, Ray- 
 mond Lully and Roger Bacon. In the former we see the 
 tendency to shake off the yoke of Aristotle by the substi- 
 tution of a new method of Dialectics. Lully is the precursot 
 of Ramus. In Robert Bacon's Exhortation to study Physics, 
 and in his own attempts in that department, we see the growing 
 tendency towards Positive Science. But it may be questioned 
 whether either of these tendencies had so dissolving an effect 
 as the mysticism of Tauler, Gerson, and the rest. In truth, 
 this third epoch, on the whole, was characterized by its 
 mysticism rather than by anything else. 
 
 Throughout these three epochs there was but one subject 
 of philosophical dispute — the rest were wholly theological. 
 This one was the old dispute of Nominalism and Realism, 
 which we have already characterised.* The doctrine of 
 Realism, as we saw, lies at the root of Plato's philosophy. In 
 the scholastic dispute, although the subject was philosophical, 
 yet it was made to have a theological bearing of a very im- 
 portant kind. No less a dogma than that of the Trinity was 
 understood to be based upon it. If, as Roscelinus and the 
 Nominalists pretended, all general ideas are but the abstrac 
 tions which the mind makes — if what are called abstract ideas 
 are but the general names which we give to classes of indi- 
 viduals, then can generals, universals, abstract ideas (call them 
 how you will) have no external independent existence — they 
 can be but words. If this be admitted, it follows that there 
 is no reality except in individual things \ and in that case 
 
 • See Series I., p. taq. 
 
348 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 many things we regard as unities can only be simply abstrac- 
 tions j amongst others the unity which is the basis of the Holy 
 Trinity. 
 
 Roscelinus was ordered to appear before the Council of 
 Soissons. There, in peril of his life, he retracted his opinion. 
 William de Champeaux wrote a treatise against him, in which 
 he maintained Realism in its extreme form, declaring that 
 universals were the only real existences, and that individuals 
 had only an existence in so far as they participated in uni- 
 versals ; men were but fragments of humanity. 
 
 This dispute has been very fruitful of dissensions in later 
 times, and is the sole dispute of the Middle Ages which has 
 any philosophical value. 
 
 With the 15th century another epoch commences, which 
 may be regarded as one of transition irom Scholasticism to 
 modern philosophy. The taking of Constantinople, and the 
 revival of ancient letters, hastened materially the development 
 of the human mind, by effectually enabling it to dethrone 
 scholasticism. The works of Plato became known, and were 
 enthusiastically studied. A school of Platonists, with Marsilio 
 Ficino at their head, was quickly formed. A school of 
 Aristotelians rose up against it : both counted remarkable men 
 amongst their members; and the rest of the 15th century was 
 occupied with their disputes. 
 
 The result of the introduction of ancient systems into 
 Europe, was that of eager imitation of those systems. Some 
 men became Platonists, other Aristotelians, others Epicureans, 
 others Sceptics, and others Mystics. However they might 
 differ amongst themselves, they all united in their exaggerated 
 admiration of antiquity; and whilst on the one hand the 
 literary men were striving to catch the Ciceronian turn of 
 phrase, or the Virgilian and Horatian curiosa felicitas, the 
 speculative thinkers were as busily endeavouring to reproduce 
 the errors of the ancient Greeks. 
 
 Philosophy had ceased allegiance to the Church, only to 
 iccept the authority of Antiquity ! 
 
 But this was a highly important change. As M. Cousin 
 remarks, it was impossible to pass at once from scholasticism 
 to modern philosophy, and suddenly cast off all authority. It 
 may therefore be regarded as fortunate that philosophy ac- 
 cepted a new species of authority ; one altogether human, yet 
 having no root in the thoughts and habits of the nation— 
 
INTRODUCTION. 349 
 
 having no external power, and divided in itself— consequently 
 very flexible, and not at all durable ; fortunate, because this 
 was the very authority which served for the transition — which 
 bridged over the chasm. 
 
 The 1 6th century brought Luther and the Reformation. 
 The immediate result, as far as philosophy was concerned, 
 may be at once divined : it placed the Bible in the hands of 
 the people, as the revival of letters had placed Aristotle and 
 Plato in the hands of students. Authority, already feeble, was 
 quickly thrown to the ground. 
 
 While these various elements of discord were working the 
 gradual dissolution of the old philosophy, Positive Science was 
 also making considerable advances. Galileo had popularised 
 Copernicus; and in 1609 had invented the telescope, which 
 enabled him to discover the satellites of Jupiter. Kepler was 
 engaged in those discoveries which have immortalized him. 
 The Algebra of the Greeks, introduced by the Arabs, was 
 strikingly developed by Tartaglia, Cardan, and above all, by 
 Vieta. Gilbert published his speculations on the magnet; 
 mathematics were sedulously cultivated, and had already been 
 applied to astronomy, mechanics, and physics ; thus effectually 
 ruining the authority of Aristotle and the Schoolmen. Those 
 who have familiarized themselves with the luminous and pro- 
 found classification of the sciences, operated by August e Comte 
 in his great work,* will at once seize the historical importance 
 of the epoch we are now speaking of; to those who are not 
 in that condition, we can only say, that in this epoch there 
 were the preparations for Bacon and Descartes. Elements 
 were there at work which made the age ripe for the appearance 
 of these two men, and rendered their speculations effective. 
 Had either of these great men appeared earlier, his influence 
 would have been comparatively trifling ; but the age was ripe 
 for them — the age wanted them — and the age adopted them. 
 
 And what was the special want of the age ? A Method — 
 and these men furnished it Widely as the method of Bacon 
 differs from the method of Descartes, the difference arises 
 principally from one-sided views of the real nature of science ; 
 but united, they go very far towards a perfect method. 
 
 * See Court de Philosophic Positive, i. pp. 86-97; also p. III. In 
 default thereof, see our analysis of it in the last chapter of this series. 
 
Jfixst HSpocJ. 
 
 FOUNDATION OF THE INDUCTIVE METHOD, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE LIFE OF BACON. 
 
 Francis Bacon was born on the 22nd January, 1561. Mr. 
 Basil Montagu, the laborious and affectionate (we had almost 
 said idolatrous) biographer of Bacon, wishes us to believe that 
 the family was ancient and illustrious ; and favours us with 
 some flourishes about Bacon retiring to the " halls of his ances- 
 tors." This is somewhat different from the story of Bacon's 
 grandfather having kept the sheep of the abbot of Bury.* 
 
 But although we can claim for Bacon no illustrious ancestry, 
 we must not forget his excellent parentage. His father, Sir 
 Nicholas, was generally considered as ranking next to the great 
 Burleigh as a statesman. His mother, Anne, daughter of Sir 
 Anthony Cooke, " was distinguished both as a linguist and as 
 a theologian. She corresponded in Greek with Bishop Jewel, 
 and translated his ' Apologia ' from the Latin so correctly, that 
 neither he nor Bishop Parker could suggest a single 
 alteration."! 
 
 It is not often that such remarkable parents have such a 
 son. His health, however, was very delicate, as is not un- 
 frequent with men of intellectual eminence. This delicacy 
 made him sedentary and reflective. Of his youth we know 
 little, but that little displays the reflective tendency of his 
 
 * See this question of lineage, and a great many other curious points, 
 Aitisfactorily settled in an article on the lives of Bacon, London Review, 
 January, 1836. 
 
 t Edin. Rev., July, 1837, p. 9. This is the brilliant article on Bacon, 
 by Mr. Macaulay, which has excited so much attention. It is reprinted in 
 his ' Essays ' ; but not having these at hand, we shall always quote from 
 the Review. 
 
THE LIFE OF BACON. i5» 
 
 mind. At the age of twelve he discussed the point as to how 
 a juggler could tell the card of which a man thought : he at 
 first ascribed it to a confederacy between the juggler and the 
 servants, till he at last discovered the law of the mind on which 
 the trick depends. We hear also of his leaving his playfellows 
 to examine the cause of an echo which he had observed in a 
 vault. 
 
 At thirteen he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, 
 where he imbibed a profound contempt for the course of study 
 pursued there, and an inveterate scorn for Aristotle and his 
 followers. It is said that he there planned his ' Novum 
 Organum ; ' but this is highly improbable. What he did was 
 doubtless to sketch some new scheme of philosophical study, 
 because of his contempt for that in vogue. There must, how- 
 ever, be a wide difference between the sketch of a boy, 
 prompted by contempt for reigning opinions, and the wise 
 maturity of his greatest work, the fruit of a life's meditations. 
 
 On leaving Cambridge, he visited Paris, from whence he was 
 recalled on the sudden death of his father. " Being returned 
 from travaile," says Dr. Rowley, " he applied himself to the 
 study of the common law, which he took upon him to be his 
 protession ; in which he obtained to great excellency, though 
 he made that (as himself said) but as an accessory, and not as 
 his principal study." 
 
 But before betaking himself to this study he made an appli- 
 cation to Government for an office. His claims were great ; 
 but he had Burleigh for an opponent, and was defeated. He 
 rose, however, rapidly into business, and had hopes of being 
 called within the bar ; but here also he was frustrated by Bur- 
 leigh. The path of ambition was of no easy ascent, yet to such 
 talents and such energy as his, few obstacles could be insuper- 
 able. He waited. 
 
 In 1593 he sat in Parliament as member for Middlesex. He 
 soon became distinguished as an orator and as a debater. We 
 have the testimony of an admirable judge to assure us that 
 "Bacon's oratory was worthy of his other powers. Ben Jonson thus 
 writes : " There happened, in my time, one noble speaker, who 
 *as full of gravity in his speaking. His language, where he 
 could spare or pass by a jest, was nobly censorious. No man 
 tver spoke more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or 
 suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No 
 member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His 
 hearers could not cough or look aside from him without loss. 
 
J5« THE LIFE OF BACON. 
 
 He commanded when he spoke, and had his judges angry ot 
 pleased at his devotion."* 
 
 Of his political bearing Mr. Macaulay thus speaks : " Bacon 
 tried to play a very difficult game in politics. He wished to 
 be at once a favourite at court and popular with the multitude. 
 If any man could have succeeded in this attempt, a man of 
 talents so rare, of judgments so prematurely ripe, of temper so 
 calm, and of manners so plausible, might have been expected 
 to succeed. Nor, indeed, did he wholly fail. Once, however, 
 he indulged in a burst of patriotism, which cost him a long and 
 bitter remorse, and which he never ventured to repeat. The 
 court asked for large subsidies and speedy payment. The re- 
 mains of Bacon's speeches breathe all the spirit of the Long 
 Parliament 
 
 * The Queen and her ministers resented this outbreak of 
 public spirit in the highest manner. The young patriot con- 
 descended to make the most abject apologies. He abjured 
 the Lord Treasurer to show some favour to his poor servant 
 and ally. He bemoaned himself to the Lord Keeper, in a 
 letter which may keep in countenance the most unmanly of the 
 epistles which Cicero wrote during his banishment. The lesson 
 was not thrown away. Bacon never offended in the same 
 manner again." 
 
 It is here that we begin to see the justification of he last 
 epithet in Pope's antithetical description of Bacon — 
 u The greatest, brightest, meanest of mankind." 
 
 In the want of manliness, which made him abjure his convic- 
 tions when he found them creating displeasure at cpurt, we see 
 a baseness kindred to that immeasurable baseness jvhich made 
 him not simply abjure, but malignantly trample on a fallen 
 friend ; and that which in both instances gives this baseness 
 so despicable a colour, is the paltriness of the motive — the 
 greatest man of his age selling his soul for the smiles of a 
 court! 
 
 It is sometimes said that we should not dwell upon the faults 
 of great men. Certainly we should not dwell upon their faults 
 to the exclusion of their great qualities. But if ever a striking 
 lesson is to be drawn from the examples of men, it is to be 
 drawn from the examples of great men : perhaps the light of 
 their glory may make the shadows deeper, but they thereby 
 make them distincter. It is not pleasant to behold intellectual 
 
 * Ben Jonson : Underwoods. In the Discoveries, Ben also speak? 
 admiringly and affectionately of him. 
 
77/A LIFE OF BACON. y& 
 
 greatness allied to moral turpitude ; and in the case of an 
 author, who has, perhaps, greatly assisted our mental culture, 
 and for whom we feel a sort of reverential gratitude, it is pecu- 
 liarly distressing. But we must not juggle with ourselves ; 
 there is nothing but peril in shutting our eyes to the 
 truth. Now what is the truth with respect to Bacon's 
 conduct ? 
 
 He had gained the affection of the daring, dashing, brilliant, 
 high-spirited Earl of Essex. The ardent temperament of the 
 young Earl showed itself in his uniform treatment of Bacon, no 
 less clearly than in his reckless political career. It was no 
 friendship contenting itself with words. When the office of 
 Attorney-General became vacant, Essex strove to secure it for 
 his iriend, declaring to Sir Robert Cecil, who refused him, that 
 he would * spend all his power, might, authority, and amity, 
 and with tooth-and-nail procure the same against whomsoever." 
 The office was, however, given to another. Essex then pressed 
 the Queen to make Bacon Solicitor General \ but after a con- 
 test of a year and a half he was again defeated. The Earl 
 consoled himself and Bacon by presenting him with an estate 
 near Twickenham worth two thousand pounds ; and presented 
 it, as Bacon owned, " with so kind and noble circumstance as 
 the manner was worth more than the matter." 
 
 " While in this year, 1598, the Earl of Essex was preparing 
 for the voyage," says Mr. Montagu, " Bacon communicated to 
 him his intention of making a proposal of marriage to the Lady 
 Hatton, the wealthy widow of Sir W. Hatton, and desired his 
 lordship's interest in support of his pretensions." Essex 
 pleaded his friend's cause with warmth. "If she were my sister 
 or my daughter," said he, " I protest I would as confidently 
 resolve to further it as I now persuade you." 
 
 "The suit," says Mr. Macaulay, "happily for Bacon, was 
 unsuccessful. The lady, indeed, was kind to him in more 
 ways than one. She rejected him, and she accepted his 
 enemy. She married that narrow - minded, bad - hearted 
 pedant, Sir Edward Coke, and did her best to make him as 
 miserable as he deserved to be." 
 
 Such had been the friendship of Essex for Bacon — a friend- 
 ship " destined to have a dark, a mournful, a shameful end. 
 The truth must be told. This friend — so loved, so trusted — 
 bore a principal part in ruining the Earl's fortunes, in shedding 
 his blood, and in blackening his memory."* 
 * Macaulay. 
 Z 
 
354 THE LIFE OF BACON. 
 
 Bacon's conduct is without excuse ; but it is of a piece with 
 what we have noted before with respect to his repentant ser- 
 vility. Essex, from having been perhaps the foremost man in 
 all England, was now on the eve of his disgrace, his rebellion, 
 and his fearful end. For his conduct in Ireland he was about 
 to answer. The Queen's favour had departed from him. And 
 what did Bacon ? This part of the story has been so admirably 
 narrated by Mr. Macaulay, that our readers cannot but be 
 grateful to us for presenting it in his words : " We believe that 
 Bacon sincerely exerted himself to serve Essex, as long as he 
 
 thought he could serve Essex without injuring himself. 
 
 He attempted to mediate between his friend and the Queen \ 
 and, we believe, honestly employed all his address for that 
 purpose. But the task which he had undertaken was too diffi- 
 cult, delicate, and perilous, even for so wary and dexterous an 
 agent. He had to manage two spirits equally proud, resentful 
 and ungovernable. At Essex House he had to calm the rage 
 of a young hero, incensed by multiplied wrongs and humilia- 
 tions ; and then to pass to Whitehall for the purpose of sooth- 
 ing the peevishness of a sovereign whose temper, never very 
 gentle, had been rendered morbidly irritable by declining 
 health, and by long habit of listening to flattery, and of exact- 
 ing implicit obedience. It is hard to serve two masters. 
 Situated as Bacon was, it was scarcely possible for him to 
 shape his course so as not to give one or both of his em- 
 ployers reason to complain. For a time he acted as fairly as 
 in circumstances so embarrassing could reasonably be expected. 
 At length he found that while he was trying to prop the for- 
 tunes of another he was in danger of shaking his own. He had 
 disobliged both parties whom he wished to reconcile. Essex 
 thought him wanting in zeal as a friend — Elizabeth thought 
 him wanting in duty as a subject. The Earl looked on him as 
 a spy of the Queen — the Queen, as a creature of the Earl. The 
 reconciliation which he had laboured to effect appeared utterly 
 hopeless. A thousand signs, legible to eyes far less keen than 
 his, announced that the fall of his patron was at hand. He 
 shaped his course accordingly. When Essex was brought 
 before the Council to answer for his conduct in Ireland, Bacon, 
 after a faint attempt to excuse himself for taking part against 
 his friend, submitted himself to the Queen's pleasure, and 
 appeared at the bar in support of the charges. But a darker 
 scene was behind. The unhappy young nobleman, made 
 reckless by despair, ventured on a rash and criminal enter 
 
THE LIFE OF BACON. U5 
 
 prise, which rendered him liable to the highest penalties of 
 the law. 
 
 " What course was Bacon to take ? This was one of those 
 conjectures which show what men are. To a high-minded 
 man, wealth, power, court-favour, even personal safety, would 
 have appeared of no account, when opposed to friendship, 
 gratitude, and honour. Such a man would have stood by the 
 side of Essex at the trial — would have ' spent all his power, 
 might, authority, and amity ' in soliciting a mitigation of the 
 sentence — would have been a daily visitor at the cell — would 
 have received the last injunctions, and the last embrace on the 
 scaffold — would have employed all the powers of his intellect 
 to guard from insult the fame of his generous though erring 
 friend. An ordinary man would neither have incurred the 
 danger of succouring Essex, nor the disgrace of assailing him. 
 Bacon did not even preserve neutrality : he appeared as counsel 
 for the prosecution. In that situation he did not confine him- 
 self to what would have been amply sufficient to procure a 
 verdict. He employed all his wit, his rhetoric, his learning — 
 not to ensure conviction, for the circumstances were such that 
 conviction was inevitable — but to deprive the unhappy prisoner 
 of all those excuses, which, though legally of no value, yet 
 tended to diminish the moral guilt of the crime ; and which, 
 therefore, though they could not justify the peers in pronouncing 
 an acquittal, might incline the Queen to grant a pardon. The 
 Earl urged as palliation of his frantic acts, that he was sur- 
 rounded by powerful and inveterate enemies, that they had 
 ruined his fortunes, that they sought his life, and that their perse- 
 cutions had driven him to despair. This was true, and Bacon 
 well knew it to be true. But he affected to treat it as an idle 
 pretence. He compared Essex to Pisistratus, who by pretend- 
 ing to be in imminent danger of assassination, and by exhibit- 
 ing self-inflicted wounds, had established tyranny at Athens 
 This was too much for the prisoner to bear. He interrupted 
 his ungrateful friend to bid him quit the part of advocate 
 — to come forward as a witness, and tell the lords whether 
 in old times he, Francis Bacon, had not repeatedly asserted 
 under his own hand the truth of what he now treated as idle 
 pretexts. 
 
 " It is painful to go on with this lamentable story. Bacon 
 returned a shuffling answer to the Earl's question ; and as if 
 the allusion to Pisistratus were not sufficiently offensive, made 
 another allusion still more unjustifiable. He compared Essex 
 
356 THE LIFE OF BACON, 
 
 to Henry Duke of Guise, and the rash attempt in the city to 
 the day of Barricades in Paris. Why Bacon had recourse to 
 such a topic it is difficult to say. It was quite unnecessary 
 for the purpose of obtaining a verdict. It was certain to pro- 
 duce a strong impression on the mind of the haughty 
 and jealous princess on whose pleasure the Earl's fate de- 
 pended." 
 
 We venture to interrupt for a moment the narrative to 
 attempt a solution of this problem of character, so strikingly 
 presented to us. Why did Bacon overdo the part of an 
 advocate? The known principles of human nature suggest 
 abundant causes. Firstly, it is the tendency of all persons con- 
 sciously doing a wrong to exaggerate the misdemeanours of 
 those they are wronging. Secondly, Bacon having, in the very 
 act of accusing his friend, abjured all ties of friendship and 
 gratitude, would naturally endeavour to screen the turpitude of 
 his conduct behind the higher duties of justice and patriotism; 
 and thus, by making Essex worse, make the ingratitude of Essex's 
 friend appear less. The greater the crime of Essex, the smaller 
 the expectation that his friends would espouse his cause. It 
 seems to us, therefore, that the fatal step taken by Bacon was the 
 first : accepting the office of counsel for the prosecution. 
 Having once done that — and done it from the paltriest motives 
 of self-interest, not from a stern sense of justice, nor from a 
 deep feeling of patriotism — all the rest of his conduct was 
 natural enough. Thirdly, we must also take into account the 
 exaggeration into which a mind so subtle, so quick in perceiving 
 analogies, and so richly stored with examples, would inevitably 
 be led during any display of rhetoric, the more especially 
 when unrestrained by any moral delicacy or firmness. We all 
 know how orators, warmed with their own efforts, are led away, 
 and for a moment lose all command over themselves, being 
 then in a state of real " enthusiasm," — and how in such a state 
 their imaginations are kindled by a word, so that a metaphor 
 has to them the force of a fact, and analogies, however remote, 
 are by the intensity of the momentary feeling seized upon as if 
 they were demonstrative truths. This is a fact familiar to all. 
 We have only to apply it to Bacon, who was a great orator, vain 
 of his oratory ; and who in that particular instance had base, 
 but strong, motives for exaggerating the crime of the accused ; 
 and we shall then be at no loss to understand the criminating 
 r jendency of his speech, nor the allusions to Pisistratus and 
 
THE LIFE OF BACON. 357 
 
 Henry of Guise.* With respect to these allusions also, any one 
 familiar with his writings will be fully aware of the extreme fond- 
 ness Bacon always exhibited for such analogies. Indeed one 
 may say that the reliance on analogies was one of the most 
 fruitful causes of his scientific and speculative errors. 
 
 Moral cowardice, then, was the primary cause of Bacon's 
 conduct. It made him desert his fallen friend ; and having 
 deserted him, the rest of his conduct was but a consequence of 
 his position, and his peculiar intellect. We do not say his con- 
 duct was defensible : far from it ; but it was intelligible. 
 
 " Essex was convicted," continues Mr. Macaulay. u Bacon 
 made no effort to save him, though the Queen's feelings were 
 such that he might have pleaded his benefactor's cause, possibly 
 with success, certainly without any serious danger to himself, f 
 The unhappy nobleman was executed. His fate excited strong, 
 perhaps unreasonable feelings of compassion and indignation. 
 The Queen was received by the citizens of London with 
 gloomy looks and faint acclamations. She thought it expedient 
 to publish a vindication of her late proceedings. The faithless 
 friend who had assisted in taking the Earl's life was now em- 
 ployed to murder the Earl's fame. He was accordingly 
 selected to write 'A Declaration of the Practices and Treasons 
 attempted and committed by Robert Earl of Essex,' which was 
 printed by authority. In the succeeding reign Bacon had not 
 a word to say in defence of this performance — a performance 
 abounding in expressions which no generous enemy would have 
 employed respecting a man who had so dearly expiated his 
 offences. His only excuse was that he wrote it by command — 
 that he considered himself as a mere secretary — that he had 
 particular instructions as to the way in which he was to treat 
 every part of his subject — and that, in fact, he had furnished 
 only the arrangement and the style." 
 
 Any one who has looked into this ' Declaration,' will pro- 
 nounce the charge of having written it infamy enough to be 
 
 * It is a curious, and, we believe, unnoticed, fact that Bacon in the hey" 
 day of their friendship once compared Essex to the Duke of Guise, though 
 on a very different account. When the Earl presented him with tne 
 Twickenham estate, Bacon telis us that he likentd him to the Duke of 
 Guise, who was called the greatest usurer in France, because he had turned 
 all his estates into obligations; meaning that he had left himself nothing, 
 but had only bound numbers of persons to him. — Sir Francis Bacon's 
 Apology. 
 
 t He must have been a bolder man than Bacon, who, after using all his 
 eloquence to get the Earl convicted, and to show that he deserved no 
 mtrcy, should have had the audacity to plead for him 1 
 
358 THE LIFE OF BACON. 
 
 borne by one man. But although this ' Declaration ' is as 
 indefensible as the rest of his conduct — and his very feeble 
 apology, printed in his works, in no way absolves him — yet we 
 cannot but regard it as what he was in some degree bound to 
 perform. He had taken up the Queen's cause, and assailed 
 his friend. He could not now refuse to justify the Queen and 
 himself. 
 
 Yet Bacon has found apologists and eulogists. If any doubt 
 exists in the minds of our readers, we refer them to the pages 
 of Mr. Macaulay, where every excuse is examined and refuted 
 with abundant wit and logic. 
 
 From this time Bacon's fortunes continued to improve. On 
 the accession of James he was very favourably received at 
 Court, and in 1607 he became Solicitor- General, and in 161 2 
 Attorney-General. How much of this favour he owed to the 
 eulogies of James in the ' Advancement of Learning,' which 
 was published in 1605, it would be difficult to say; but we may 
 be sure that a king of James's scholarly habits could not have 
 remained insensible to the transcendent talents therein dis- 
 played. 
 
 But good fortune had not made him less of a sycophant. The 
 trial of Oliver St. John, and above all, the disgraceful proceed- 
 ings in the case of Peacham, ending with the still more dis- 
 graceful use of torture, would have blackened the fame of any- 
 one less infamous than Bacon. Mr. Basil Montagu, as usual, 
 defends his hero on these points, and his critic in the Edin- 
 burgh Review triumphantly demolishes his arguments. 
 
 Bacon had early perceived that Villiers would eventually 
 become the favourite ; and while less discerning courtiers were 
 still fawning upon Somerset, he fawned upon Villiers. His 
 hopes were crowned with success. Buckingham became what 
 Essex had been ; and soon procured for his friend the favours 
 of the Court. In 16 16 Sir Francis Bacon was sworn of the 
 Privy Council ; and in March 16 17, on the retirement of Lord 
 Brackley, was appointed Keeper of the Great Seal. His 
 administration was anything but pure. He was the tool of 
 Buckingham, who was altogether unscrupulous. On his own 
 account, too, he accepted large presents from persons engaged 
 in Chancery suits. His enemies reckoned his gains in this way 
 at a hundred thousand pounds : an immense sum in those days, 
 and probably exaggerated. Meanwhile he continued prosper- 
 ous. His works had spread his fame throughout Europe. He 
 had also been created Baron Verulam; and subsequently 
 
THE LIFE OF BACON. 359 
 
 Viscount St. Alban's. We have every reason to believe that he 
 valued this title higher than that of the author of Instauratio 
 Magna ; but as Mr. Macaulay remarks, posterity, in defiance of 
 Royal letters patent, has obstinately refused to degrade Francis 
 Bacon into Viscount St. Alban's. 
 
 In the height of this prosperity a terrible reverse was at hand. 
 He was accused of corruption and impeached. His remorse 
 and dejection of mind were dreadful " During several days he 
 remained in bed, refusing to see any human being. He passion- 
 ately told his attendants to leave him — to forget him— never 
 again to name his name — never to remember that there had 
 been such a man in the world." The charges against him were 
 such, that the king, impotent to save him, advised him to plead 
 guilty. He did so. The sentence he received was severe : a 
 fine of forty thousand pounds, and to be imprisoned in the 
 Tower during the king's pleasure. He was declared incapable 
 of holding any office in the State, or of sitting in Parliament, 
 and was banished for life from the verge of the Court. 
 
 This sentence was not executed. He was sent, indeed to 
 the Tower ; but at the end of the second day he was released. 
 His fine was remitted by the Crown. He was soon allowed to 
 present himself at Court; and in 1624 the rest of his sentence 
 was remitted. He was at liberty to sit in the House of Lords, 
 and was summoned to the next Parliament He did not, how- 
 ever, attend ; age, infirmity, and let us hope, shame prevented 
 him. 
 
 In his retirement he devoted himself to literature ; and 
 amongst other works published his wonderful treatise De Aug- 
 mentis, which, though only an expansion of his ' Advancement 
 of Learning/ is nevertheless to be regarded as a new work.* 
 
 " The great apostle of experimental philosophy," says Mr. 
 Macaulay, * was destined to be its martyr. It had occurred to 
 him that snow might be used with advantage for the purpose 
 of preventing animal substances from putrefying. On a very 
 cold day, early in the year 1626, he alighted from his coach 
 near Highgate to try the experiment. He went into a cottage, 
 bought a fowl, and with his own hands stuffed it with snow. 
 While thus engaged, he felt a sudden chill, and was. so much 
 indisposed that it was impossible for him to return to Gray's 
 
 • " I find upon comparison that more than two-thirds of this treatise 
 «re a version, with slight interpolation or omission, from the • Advance- 
 ment 01' Learning,' the remainder being new matter." — Hallam, History of 
 Literature of Europe, lii. p. 169. 
 
j6o THE LIFE OF BACON. 
 
 Inn. After an illness of about a week, he expired on the morn- 
 ing of Easter-day, 1616. His mind appears to have reta'ned its 
 strength and liveliness to the end. He did not forget the fowl 
 which had caused his death. In the last letter that he ever 
 wrote, with fingers which, as he said, could not steadily hold a 
 pen, he did not omit to mention that the experiment of the 
 snow had succeeded excellently well." 
 
 Such was Francis Bacon the man. The picture is a painful 
 one : the union of great intellect with moral baseness is one of 
 the least pleasing, but most instructive examples of human 
 character. We have witnessed Bacon's infamy : we are now to 
 turn to his glory. For as the writer we have so often quoted, 
 admirably observes, " the difference between the soaring angel 
 and the creeping snake was but a type of the difference between 
 Bacon the Philosopher, and Bacon the Attorney-General — 
 Bacon seeking for the Truth and Bacon seeking for the Seals. 
 Those who survey only one half of his character may speak of 
 him with unmixed admiration or with unmixed contempt. But 
 those only judge of him correctly who take in at one view Bacon 
 in speculation and Bacon in action. They will have no diffi- 
 culty in comprehending how one and the same man should 
 have been far before his age and far behind it — in one line the 
 boldest and most useful of innovators, in another line the most 
 obstinate champion of the foulest abuses. In his library 
 all his rare powers were under the guidance of an honest 
 ambition — of an enlarged philanthropy — of a sincere love of 
 truth. There, no temptation drew him away from the right 
 course. Thomas Aquinas could pay no fees — Duns Scotus 
 could confer no peerages. The * Master of Sentences ' had no 
 rich reversions in his gift Far different was the situation of 
 the great philosopher when he came forth from his study and 
 laboratory to mingle with the crowd which filled the galleries 
 of Whitehall In all that crowd there was no man equally 
 qualified to render great and lasting services to mankind. But 
 in all that crowd there was not a heart more set on things which 
 no man ought to suffer to be necessary to his happiness — on 
 things which can often be obtained only by the sacrifice of 
 honour and integrity. To be the leader of the human race in 
 the career of improvement — to found on the ruins of ancient 
 intellectual dynasties a more prosperous and a more enduring 
 empire— to be revered to the latest generations as the most 
 illustrious among the benefactors of mankind — all this was 
 within his reach. But ail this availed him nothing while some 
 
BACON'S HISTORICAL POSITION. 3O1 
 
 quibbling special pleader was promoted before him to the bench 
 — while some heavy country gentleman took precedence of him 
 oy virtue of a purchased coronet — while some pander, happy in 
 a fair wife, could obtain a more cordial salute from Buckingham 
 — while some buffoon, versed in all the latest scandal of the 
 coi r:, could draw a louder laugh from James." 
 
 Bacon, when dying, did not disguise from himself the mourn- 
 ful fact, that if he had thought profoundly he had acted un- 
 worthily. He knew his baseness. He also knew his greatness ; 
 and he said, " for my name and memory I leave it to men's 
 charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and to the next 
 age." His confidence was well placed. Leniently as we 
 cannot but think him to have been treated by his contempora- 
 ries, posterity has been still more gracious ; and the reason is, 
 as so felicitously expressed by Mr. Macaulay, that turn where 
 we will, that trophies of that mighty intellect are full in view. 
 •• We arc judging Manhus in sight of the Capitol." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 bacon's HISTORICAL POSITION. 
 
 Bacon is the Father of Experimental Philosophy. And why? 
 Was he the first great experimentalist? No. Was he the 
 most successful experimentalist ? No. Was he the discoverer 
 of some of those great laws, the application of which is 
 the occupation of succeeding generations — was he a Coper- 
 nicus, a Galileo, a Kepler, a Torricelli, a Harvey, or a 
 Newton ? No. 
 
 He owes his title to his Method. What that Method was, 
 it is our purpose to examine ; but before doing so it may be 
 necessary to consider an opinion recently put forth in a work 
 of high authority, which, if correct, would reduce Bacon's merit 
 to that of a mere litterateur. We are speaking of an opinion 
 entertained by Dr. Whewell, and which may be said to form 
 the critical basis of his ' History of the Inductive Sciences.' 
 It is this : — 
 
 After a rapid review of Greek Physics, he comes to the 
 question of the cause of failure. It is indeed an interesting 
 problem: Why did the Greeks fail in constructing science 
 upon a solid basis ? Dr. Whewell first shows that the cause of 
 tailure was not neglect of feds ; next, that it was not deficiency 
 
362 BACON'S HISTORICAL POSITION 
 
 of ideas: and these two requisites of science, facts and ideas, 
 being fulfilled, it becomes a question why science was not 
 solidly established. 
 
 " We come back again, therefore, to the question, What was 
 the radical and fatal defect in the physical speculations of the 
 Greek philosophical schools ? 
 
 " To this I answer : The defect was, that though they had in 
 their possession facts and ideas, the ideas were not appropriate 
 to the facts. 
 
 "The peculiar characters of scientific ideas, which I have 
 endeavoured to express by speaking of them as distinct and 
 appropriate to the facts, must be more fully and formally set 
 forth when we come to the philosophy of the subject. In the 
 mean time the reader will probably have no difficulty in con- 
 ceiving that for each class of facts there is some special set ot 
 ideas, by means of which the facts can be included in general 
 scientific truths: and that these ideas, which may be thus 
 termed appropriate, must be possessed with entire distinctness 
 and clearness, in order that they may be successfully applied. 
 It was the want of such ideas having reference to material 
 phenomena, which rendered ancient philosophers with very few 
 exceptions helpless and unsuccessful speculators on physical 
 subjects. 
 
 "This must be illustrated by one or two examples. One of 
 the facts which Aristotle endeavours to explain is this : that 
 when the sun's light passes through a hole, whatever be the 
 form of the hole, the bright image, if formed at any consider- 
 able distance from the hole, is round, instead of imitating the 
 figure of the hole, as shadows resemble their objects. We 
 shall easily perceive this appearance to be a necessary conse- 
 quence of the circular figure of the sun, if we conceive light to 
 be diffused from the luminary by means of straight rays pro- 
 ceeding from every point. But instead of this appropriate idea 
 of rays, Aristotle attempts to explain the fact by saying that 
 the sun's light has a circular nature, which it always tends to 
 manifest. And this vague and loose conception of a circular 
 quality, employed instead of the distinct conception of rays, 
 which is really applicable, prevented Aristotle from giving a 
 true account even of this very simple optical phenomenon." * 
 
 With all due submission to Dr. Whewell we must say that 
 this explanation seems to us nothing more than answering the 
 question by the question itself, put in another form, it is 
 • 'Hilt, of inci. Sciences,' i. p. 79. 
 
BACON'S HISTORICAL POSITION. 363 
 
 simply saying that the Greeks tailed in their attempts to con- 
 struct science because they had not fit scientific ideas j that they 
 could not correctly explain phenomena, because they were not 
 in possession of the correct explanations. This looks very like 
 a truism. 
 
 The question was not, Had the Greeks appropriate (true) 
 ideas ? The fact that they had not such ideas was apparent in 
 their failure. The question asked by Dr. Whewell himself 
 was, What was the cause of their failure? And it will be 
 readily admitted that no explanation of a cause can be given 
 by simply stating, in a circumlocutory manner, the very fact to 
 be explained. 
 
 Can we have misunderstood Dr. Whewell? Scarcely; his 
 language is plain and decisive ; the only possible ambiguity 
 must be in the phrase "appropriate ideas." Tn his subsequent 
 work, \ The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,' he is at some 
 pains to explain what he understands by the phrase. He says 
 very justly that " no genuine advance could ever be obtained 
 in mechanics by applying to the subjects the ideas of space 
 and time merely : no advance in chemistry by the use of mere 
 mechanical conceptions : no discovery in physiology by referring 
 facts to mere chemical and mechanical principles." This is very 
 true, and adapted to his purpose ; but does not, we imagine, in 
 any way bear out his previous remarks on Greek philosophy. 
 
 In the first place, it is by no means true that the Greeks 
 always applied u inappropriate ideas," even when in error. 
 Their generalisations were too hasty, and here mainly was the 
 cause of their errors.* In the second place we have still to 
 learn the reasons which caused them to apply inappropiate ideas, 
 if we would learn the cause of their tailure. Men of vast 
 intellectual powers fail in discerning the real connections of 
 phenomena. The question is, why did they fail ? 
 
 The Greeks failed, we believe, because they sought false 
 objects, and employed a false method ; because they made science 
 a part of metaphysics ; and when pursuing science for science's 
 sake, they employed a wrong method. They did not acquire 
 
 * Since writing this we have read the following confirmation by Dr. 
 Whe well's reviewer : — " Aristotie gives no such explanation as that which 
 is ascribed to him. He never mentions the circular nature of the sun's 
 light ; and he give an explanation of the phenomenon which it is manifest 
 Mr. W. could not Lave given, and which would not have don- discredit 
 to Newton himself. Aristotle not only applies the appropriate idea of 
 rectilinear rays, but he does much more, he proves that the phenomenon 
 is not deducible from this idea." — Edin. Rev., Jan. 1842. 
 
364 BACON'S METHOD. 
 
 u appropriate ideas," because with such objects, and with such a 
 method, they could not acquire them. And the few scientific 
 ideas they did acquire were due either to mathematics or to an 
 empirical, consequently an unscientific method. 
 
 This answer is no novelty of ours ; it is that which the best 
 thinkers have given ; it is that which a careful inspection of 
 ancient theories must at once suggest. If it be correct, we shall 
 easily assign to Bacon his historical position ; if it be incorrect, 
 and if Dr. Whewell's opinion be accepted, it will be difficult to 
 say what place Bacon fills in the history of science : he certainly 
 did not leave mankind a rich inheritance of " appropriate 
 ideas ; " but he left mankind the rich inheritance of a method 
 " that being by these our aids and appliances freed and 
 defended from wanderings and impediments, men may lend 
 their hands also to the labours which remain to be performed." 
 He did not teach men appropriate ideas, but he taught them 
 hoiu they might acquire them. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 bacon's method. 
 
 This chapter will be purely expository ; and as the exposition 
 of Bacon's method has been given by Professor Playfair, in 
 his ' Dissertation on the Progress of Physical Science,' so 
 clearly and so fully as to leave nothing to desire, we shall 
 simply abridge it* 
 
 Before laying down the rules of his method Bacon proceeds 
 to enumerate the causes of error — the Idols, as he terms them, 
 in his figurative language, or false divinities to which the mind 
 had so long been accustomed to bow.* He considered this 
 enumeration as the more necessary, that the same idols were 
 likely to return, even after the reformation of science. 
 
 These idols he divides into four classes, viz. : — 
 
 Idola Tribus . . . . Idols of the Tribe. 
 
 Specus »••*••. of the Den. 
 
 Fori . , , . of the Forum. 
 
 Theatri . , . . of the Theatre. 
 
 * Mr. Hallam was the first to point out the mistake which all modem 
 writers have made respecting the meaning of the word Idol, as n?ed by 
 Bacon; which does not mean f'dot, but false appearance {udtuikov). Se« 
 the passage in Hallam's Lit. of Europe, vol. lii. pp. 194-0. 
 
BACON'S METHOD. 365 
 
 I. The Idols of the Tribe are the causes of error founded on 
 human nature in general. " The mind," he observes, " is not 
 like a plane mirror, which reflects the images of things exactly 
 as they are ; it is like the mirror of an uneven surface, which 
 combines its own figure with the figures of the object it 
 represents." 
 
 Among the idols of this class we may reckon the propensity 
 which there is in all men to find a greater degree of order, sim- 
 plicity, and regularity, than is actually indicated by obser- 
 vation. Thus as soon as men perceived the orbits of the 
 planets to return into themselves, they immediately supposed 
 them to be perfect circles, and the motion in those circles to 
 be uniform , and to these hypotheses the astronomers and 
 mathematicians of all antiquity laboured incessantly to reconcile 
 their observations. 
 
 The propensity which Bacon has here characterized may be 
 called the spirit of system. 
 
 The Idols of the Den are those which spring from the 
 peculiar character of the individual. Besides the causes of 
 error common to all mankind, each individual has his own 
 dark cavern, or den, into which the light is imperfectly 
 admitted, and in the obscurity of which a tutelary idol lurks, 
 at whose shrine the truth is often sacrificed. 
 
 Some minds are best adapted to mark the differences of 
 things, others to catch at the resemblances of things. Steady 
 and profound understandings are disposed to attend carefully, 
 to proceed slowly, and to examine the most minute differences ; 
 while those that are sublime and active are ready to lay hold 
 of the slightest resemblances. Each of these easily runs into 
 excess; the one by catching continually at distinctions, the 
 other at affinities. 
 
 3. The Idols of the Forum are those which arise out of the 
 intercourse of society, and those also which arise from language. 
 
 Men believe that their thoughts govern their words ; but it 
 also happens by a certain kind of reaction that their words 
 frequently govern their thoughts. This is the more pernicious 
 that words being generally the work of the multitude divide 
 things according to the lines most conspicuous to vulgar appre- 
 hensions. Hence when words are examined, few instances are 
 found in which, if at all abstract, they convey ideas tolerably 
 precise and denned. 
 
 The Idols of the Theatre are the deceptions which have arisen 
 from the dogmas of different schools. 
 
366 BACON'S METHOD. 
 
 As many systems as existed, so many representations of 
 imaginary worlds had been brought upon the stage. Hence 
 the name of Idola Theatri. They do not enter the mind 
 imperceptibly like the other three; a man must labour to 
 acquire them, and they are often the result of great learning 
 and study. 
 
 After these preliminary discussions Bacon proceeds in the 
 Second Book of his Organum to describe and exemplify the 
 nature of induction. 
 
 The first object must be to prepare a history of the 
 phenomena to be explained, in all their modifications and 
 varieties. This history is to comprehend not only all such 
 facts as spontaneously offer themselves, but all the experiments 
 instituted for the sake of discovery or for any of the purposes 
 of the useful arts. It ought to be composed with great care ; 
 the facts accurately related and distinctly arranged ; their 
 authenticity diligently examined; those that rest on doubtful 
 evidence though not rejected, yet noted as uncertain, with the 
 grounds of the judgment so formed. This last is very neces- 
 sary, for facts often appear incredible only because we are 
 ill-informed, and cease to appear marvellous when our know- 
 ledge is further extended. This record of facts is Natural 
 History. 
 
 The Natural History being prepared of any class of pheno- 
 mena, the next object is to discover, by a comparison of the 
 different facts, the cause of these phenomena, or as Bacon 
 calls it, the form. The form of any quality in a body is some- 
 thing convertible with that quality ; that is, where it exists the 
 quality exists : thus if transparency in bodies be the thing 
 inquired after, the form of it is something found wherever 
 there is transparency. Thus form differs from cause in this 
 only : we call it form or essence when the effect is a permanent 
 quality; we call it cause when the effect is a change or an 
 event. 
 
 Two other objects, subordinate to forms, but often essential 
 to the knowledge of them, are also occasionally subjects of 
 investigation. These are the latent process, latens pro- 
 cessus ; and the latent schematism, latens schematismus. The 
 former is the secret and invisible progress by which sensible 
 changes are brought about, and seems in Bacon's acceptation 
 to involve the principle since called the 'law of continuity, 
 according to which no change however small can be effected 
 but in time. To know the relation between the time and the 
 
BACON 1 S METHOD. 367 
 
 change effected in it would be to have a perfect knowledge of 
 the latent process. In the firing of a cannon, for example, the 
 succession of events during the short interval between the appli- 
 cation of the match and the expulsion of the ball, constitutes 
 a latent process of a very remarkable and complicated nature, 
 which, however, we can now trace with some degree of 
 accuracy. 
 
 The latent schematism is that invisible structure of bodies 
 on which so many of their properties depend. When we 
 inquire into the constitution of crystals, or into the internal 
 structure of plants. &c, we are examining into the latent sche- 
 matism. 
 
 In order to inquire into the form of anything by induction, 
 having brought together all the facts, we are to begin consider- 
 ing what things are thereby excluded from the number of possible 
 forms. This conclusion is the first part of the process of in- 
 duction. Thus if we are inquiring into the quality which is the 
 cause of transparency in bodies ; from the fact that the dia- 
 mond is transparent, we immediately exclude rarity or porosity 
 as well as fluidity from these causes, the diamond being a very 
 solid and dense body. 
 
 Negative instances, or those where the form is wanting to be 
 also collected. 
 
 That glass when pounded is not transparent is a negative 
 fact when the form of transparency is inquired into ; also that 
 collections of vapours have not transparency. The facts thus 
 collected, both negative and affirmative, should for the sake of 
 reference, be reduced to tables. 
 
 Bacon exemplifies his method on the subject of Heat ; and 
 though his collection of facts be imperfect, his method of treat- 
 ing them is extremely judicious,* and the whole disquisition 
 highly interesting. 
 
 After a great many exclusions have been made, and left but 
 few principles common to every case, one of these is to be 
 assumed as the cause ; and by reasoning from it synthetically 
 we are to try if it will account for the phenomena. So neces- 
 sary did this exclusive process appear to Bacon that he says, 
 u It may perhaps be competent to angels or superior intelli- 
 gences to determine the form or essence directly, by affirma- 
 tions from the first consideration of the subject ; but it is cer- 
 tainly beyond the power of man, to whom it is only given to 
 
 * A different opinion from that of Prof. Playfair respecting: this investi- 
 gation will be hcieafter quoted from John Mill.' 
 
368 BACON'S METHOD. 
 
 proceed at first by negatives, and in the last place to end in 
 affirmatives, after the exclusion of everything else." 
 
 There is, however, great difference in the value of facts. 
 Some of them show the thing sought for in the highest degree, 
 some in the lowest ; some exhibit it simple and uncombined, in 
 others it appears confused with a variety of circumstances. 
 Some facts are easily interpreted, others are very obscure, and 
 are understood only in consequence of the light thrown on 
 them by the former. This led Bacon to his consideration of 
 Prerogative Instances, or the comparative value of facts as 
 means of discovery. He enumerates twenty-seven different 
 species; but we must content ourselves with giving only the 
 most important. 
 
 I. Instantiai solitaries : which are either examples of the same 
 quality existing in two bodies otherwise different, or of a quality 
 differing in two bodies otherwise the same. In the first instance 
 the bodies differ in all things but one ; in the second they agree 
 in all but one. Thus if the cause or form of colour be inquired 
 into, instantiai solitaries are found in crystals, prisms, drops of 
 dew, which occasionally exhibit colour, and yet have nothing in 
 common with the stones, flowers, and metals which possess 
 colour permanently, except the colour itself. Hence Bacon 
 concludes that colour is nothing else than a modification of the 
 rays of light produced in the first case by the different degrees 
 of incidence ; and second by the texture or constitution of the 
 surface of bodies. He may be considered as very fortunate in 
 fixing on these examples, for it was by means of them that 
 Newton afterwards found out the composition of light. 
 
 II. The instantiai migrantes exhibit some property of the 
 body passing from one condition to another, either from less to 
 greater or from greater to less ; arriving nearer perfection in 
 the first case, or verging towards extinction in the second. 
 
 Suppose the thing enquired into were the cause of whiteness 
 in bodies ; an instantia migrans is found in glass, which entire 
 is colourless, but pulverized becomes white. The same is the 
 case with water unbroken or dashed into foam. 
 
 III. The Instantiai ostensiva are the facts which show some 
 particular property in its highest state of power and energy, 
 when it is either freed from impediments which usually counter- 
 act it, or is itself of such force as entirely to repress those im- 
 pediments. 
 
 If the weight of air were enquired into, the Torricellian ex- 
 periment, or the barometer, affords an ostensive instance, where 
 
THE SPIRIT OF BACON'S WORKS. 369 
 
 the circumstance which conceals the weight of the atmosphere 
 in common cases, namely, the pressure of it in all directions, 
 being entirely removed, that weight produces its full effect, and 
 sustains the whole column of mercury in the tube. 
 
 IV. The instances called analogous or parallel consist of facts 
 between which a resemblance or analogy is visible in some 
 particulars, notwithstanding great diversity in all the rest. Such 
 are the telescope and microscope compared to the eye. It 
 was the experiment of the camera obscura which led to the 
 discovery of the formation of images of external objects in the 
 bottom of the eye by the action of the crystalline lens, and 
 other humours of which the eye is formed. 
 
 V. Instantice comitatus : examples of certain qualities which 
 always accompany one another. Such are flame and heat — 
 flame being always accompanied by heat and the same 
 degree of heat in a given substance being always accompanied 
 with flame. 
 
 Hostile instances, or those of perpetual separation, are the 
 reverse of the former. Thus transparency and malleability in 
 solids are never combined. 
 
 VI. The instantia cruris. When in any investigation the 
 understanding is placed in equilibrio, as it were, between 
 two or more causes, each of which accounts equally well for 
 the appearances, as far as they are known, nothing remains to 
 be done, but to look out for a fact which can be explained 
 by one of these causes and not by the other. Such facts per- 
 form the office of a cross, erected at the separation of two 
 roads, to direct the traveller which to take : hence called cru- 
 cial instances. 
 
 The experimentum cruris is of such weight in matters of 
 induction, that in all those branches of science where it cannot 
 be resorted to (the circumstances of an experiment being out 
 of our power and incapable of being varied at pleasure) there 
 is often a great want of conclusive evidence. 
 
 Such are the leading points of Bacon 's analysis of the Induc- 
 tive Method. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF BACON'S WORKS. 
 
 From the foregoing exposition it will be seen that Bacon's 
 method was not a vague formula, but a system of specific rules. 
 
 A A 
 
J70 THE SPIRIT OF BACON'S WORKS. 
 
 He did not content himself with telling men to make obser 
 vations and experiments : he told them how observations and 
 experiments ought to be made. He did not content himself 
 with stating the proper method of investigation to be that of 
 induction founded upon facu : he distinguished proper from 
 improper inductions— the "interrogation" from the "antici- 
 pation " of Nature. 
 
 He did this, and he did more. His method may be said 
 to have two parts : the one, that precise system of rules just 
 spoken of; the other, that wise and pre-eminently scientific 
 spirit which breathes through his works. This latter has given 
 us those wise and weighty aphorisms which form perpetual 
 texts for philosophical writers. It is this, more than his rules, 
 which reveals to us the magnificence and profundity of his 
 views. It is this which shows us how completely he saw 
 through the false methods of his day, and how justly he is 
 entitled the father of positive science. 
 
 These aphorisms form, as we have said, perpetual texts. 
 They are quoted on all occasions in which method is treated 
 of by scientific men. We cannot, however, resist quoting a 
 half-dozen of them here, because of their exceeding value, and 
 of their fitness as illustrations of his greatness : — 
 
 I. Man, the minister and interpreter of Nature, can act and 
 understand in as far as he has, either in fact or in thought, 
 observed the order of Nature ; more he can neither know 
 nor do. 
 
 II. The real cause and root of almost all the evils in science, 
 is this : that, falsely magnifying and extolling the powers of the 
 mind, we seek not its real helps. / 
 
 III. There are two ways of searching after and discovering 
 truth : the one, from sense and particulars, rises directly to tne 
 most general axioms, and resting upon these principles, and 
 their unshaken truth, finds out intermediate axioms, and this 
 is the method in use ; but the other raises axioms from sense 
 and particulars by a continued and gradual ascent, till at last it 
 arrives at the most general axioms, which is the true way, but 
 hitherto untried. 
 
 IV. The understanding, when left to itself, takes the first of 
 these ways, for the mind delights in springing up to the most 
 general axioms, that it may find rest ; but after a short stay 
 there, it disdains experience, and these mischiefs are at length 
 increased by logic lor the ostentation of disputes. 
 
 V. The natural human reasoning we, for the sake of clear- 
 
THE SPTRIT OF BACON'S WORKS 371 
 
 ness, call the anticipation oi : nature, as being a rash and hasty 
 thing : and the reason duly exercised upon objects, we call the 
 interpretation of nature. 
 
 VI. It is false to assert that human sense is the measure of 
 things, since all perceptions, both of sense and mind, are with 
 relation to man, and not with relation to the universe ; * but the 
 human understanding is like an unequal mirror to the rays of 
 things, which, mixing its own nature with the nature of things, 
 distorts and perverts them. 
 
 We need only consider these half-dozen aphorisms to see 
 the positive tendency of his speculations ; but the greater the 
 attention we bestow on his writings, the more is this fact 
 pressed on our notice. This indeed is the scope of his writings. 
 His mind was averse to all metaphysics. Neither the ingenuities 
 of logicians, nor the passionate earnestness of theologians, in 
 that age of logicians and theologians, could lure him from his 
 path. " He lived in an age," says Mr. Macaulay, " in which 
 disputes on the most subtle points of divinity excited an intense 
 interest throughout Europe, and nowhere more than in England. 
 He was placed in the very thick of the conflict. He was in 
 power at the tin\e of the Synod of Dort ; and must for months 
 have been daily deafened with talk about election, reprobation, 
 and final perseverance ; yet we do not remember a line in 
 his works from which it can be inferred that he was either a 
 Calvinist or an Arminian. While the world was resounding 
 with the noise of disputatious theology and a disputatious 
 philosophy, the Baconian school, like Allworthy seated between 
 Thwackum and Square, preserved a calm neutrality, half 
 scornful, half benevolent, and content with adding to the sum 
 of practical good, left the war of words to those who liked it" 
 It may not at once be apparent how eminently scientific a 
 spirit is shown in Bacon's separation of science from theology ; 
 but a slight reflection will convince us that at such an epoch 
 such a conception was wonderful. The persecution of Galileo 
 by the Church, and his recantation, were fresh in every one's 
 memory, and are sufficient to show that religion was still con- 
 sidered the arbiter of philosophy and science; nor is this 
 notion yet extinct. The objections raised against the geolo- 
 gists still operate as a powerful obstacle to the universal 
 acceptation of the science; and only a few years ago Mr. 
 
 * This is Dr. Shaw's translation. The original is M sunt ex analogia 
 hominis, non ex ai.alogia universi," which is intelligible and exprcsiv* 
 enough, but difficult to render. 
 
37« THE SPIRIT OF BACON* S WORKS. 
 
 Crosse's celebrated experiments on the production of insects 
 by means of electricity were endeavoured to be put down by 
 the assertion that they "led to Atheism." As long as men 
 will not understand the distinction between faith and reason — 
 between religion and science — such objections will always be 
 made ; but Bacon clearly saw this distinction, and one great 
 aim of his method was to enforce it. 
 
 But he did not merely separate himself from the metaphy- 
 sicians : this was but one step towards positivism. He took 
 the other and far greater step when he so emphatically pro- 
 claimed that physics was " the mother of all the sciences." 
 That this was greatly in advance of his age may be gathered 
 from the fact of its to this day remaining a heresy ; and that 
 in spite of Dr. Arnott, Auguste Comte, and John Mill, the 
 notion of morals and politics having the same methods, and 
 being susceptible of the same treatment as physics, is looked 
 upon as fanciful, if not absurd. 
 
 Now let us listen to Bacon. Speaking of the causes of 
 errors in preceding philosophers, he says : " A second cause 
 of very great moment is that through all those ages wherein 
 men of genius and learning principally or even moderately 
 flourished, the smallest part of human industry has been spent 
 upon natural philosophy, though this ought to be esteemed as 
 the great mother of the sciences ; for all the rest, if torn from 
 this root, may perhaps be polished and formed for use, but can 
 receive little increase / 
 
 " But let none expect any great promotion of the sciences, 
 especially in their effective part, unless natural philosophy be 
 drawn out to particular sciences ; and again, unless these particular 
 sciences be brought back again to natural philosophy. From this 
 defect it is that astronomy, optics, music, many mechanic arts, 
 and, what seems stranger, even moral and civil philosophy, and 
 logic, rise but little above their foundations, and only skim 
 over the varieties and surfaces of things, viz., because, after 
 these particular sciences are formed and divided off, they are 
 no longer nourished by natural philosophy, which might give 
 them strength and increase ; and therefore no wonder if the 
 sciences thrive not, when separated from their roots."* 
 
 It was in consequence of his having so profoundly penetrated 
 
 the very nature of science that Bacon was able " to lay down 
 
 the rules for the conduct of experimental inquiries, before any 
 
 such inquiries had yet been instituted. The power and coru- 
 
 ♦ 'Nov. Org.,' I. Aph. 79,80. 
 
THE SPIRIT Or BACON'S WORKS. 373 
 
 pass of a mind which could form such a plan beforehand, and 
 trace not merely the outline but many of the most minute 
 ; .unifications of sciences which did not yet exist, must be an 
 object of admiration to all succeeding ages."* 
 
 In his separation of science from metaphysics and theology, 
 and in his conception of physics as the mother of all the 
 sciences, we see the eminently positive spirit of his works ; 
 and this makes him so entirely a modern. He was indeed 
 thoroughly opposed to antiquity, and was the first to expose 
 the fallacy of a supposed debt of reverence. " The opinion 
 which men entertain of antiquity is a very idle thing," said he, 
 " and almost incongruous to the word ; for the old age and 
 length of days of the world should in reality be accounted 
 antiquity; and ought to be attributed to our own times, not to 
 the youth of the world which it enjoyed among the ancients, 
 for that age, though with respect to us it be ancient and 
 greater, yet with regard to the world it was new and less." 
 
 The reader can now scarcely entertain a doubt of Bacon's 
 claim to the title of Father of Experimental Philosophy ; but 
 while endeavouring to indicate the spirit of his works we must 
 endeavour also to show that this spirit was new at that time — 
 that it was radically opposed to th« spirit which animated 
 earlier speculators. 
 
 What was the error of the ancitmts ? We before declared 
 that error to be the pursuit of an object impossible to attain : 
 a knowledge of things in themselves, and of course beyond the 
 sphere of human apprehension. And when they made scientific 
 investigations, they were guided by a false method. 
 
 Bacon understood this well. He bore testimony to the 
 genius of several of the ancients, while he declared that their 
 genius availed them nothing, because wrongly employed ; 
 adding, in his usual manner, " a cripple in the right way may 
 beat a racer in the wrong one. Nay, the fleeter the racer is, 
 who has once missed his way, the farther he leaves it behind." 
 " We have an example," he says, "in Aristotle, who corrupted 
 natural philosophy with Logic, . . . being all along more 
 solicitous how men might defend themselves by answers, and 
 advance something that should be positive in words, than to 
 come at the inward truth of nature. . . . It is true his books 
 of animals, problems, and other pieces, make frequent use of 
 experiments ; but then he first pronounced without theii 
 assistance and did not duly consult experience in forming 
 • Pkyfair. 
 
J74 THE SPIRIT OF BACON'S WORKS. 
 
 his degrees and axioms; but after he had passed judgment 
 according to his own humour, he winds experience round, and 
 leads her captive to his own opinions. . . . Another great 
 reason of the slow progress of the sciences is this : that it is 
 impossible to proceed well in a course where the end is not 
 rightly fixed and defined. Now the true and genuine end of 
 the sciences is no other than to enrich human life with new 
 inventions and new powers. . . . Fruits and discoveries of 
 works are as the vouchers and securities for the truth of 
 philosophies. But from the philosophies of the Greeks, and 
 their descents through particular sciences, now for the space 
 of so many years scarce a single experiment can be produced 
 tending to accommodate or improve the state of man, that 
 may be justly attributed to the speculations and doctrines of 
 their philosophy. . . . Therefore, since the end ©f the 
 sciences has not hitherto been well defined by any one, we 
 need not wonder if men have erred and wandered in the things 
 subservient to the proper end. Again, if this end had been 
 rightly proposed, yet men have chosen a very wrong and 
 impassable way to proceed in. And it may strike any one with 
 astonishment who duly considers it, that no morta/ should 
 hitherto have taken care to open and prepare a way for the 
 human understanding, from sense and a well-conducted expe- 
 rience ; but that all things should be left either to ttfe darkness 
 of tradition, the giddy agitation and whirlwind of argument, or 
 else to the uncertain waves of accident, or a vague and unin- 
 formed experience. Let any one soberly consider what the 
 way is which men have accustomed themselves to, in the 
 inquiry and discovery of anything, and he will doubtless find 
 that the manner of invention most commonly used is simple 
 and unartful : or on no other than this, viz, . when a person 
 goes upon an inquiry, in the first place he searches out and 
 peruses what has been said upon it by others ; in the next 
 place, adds his own thoughts thereto ; and lastly, with great 
 struggle of the mind, solicits and invokes, as it were, his own 
 spirit to deliver him oracles : which is a method entirely desti- 
 tute of foundation, and rolls wholly upon opinions. Others 
 may call in the assistance of logic j but this is only a nominal 
 assistance, for logic does not discover the principles and capital 
 axioms upon which arts are built, but only such as seem agree- 
 able thereto; and when men are curious and earnest with it, 
 to procure proofs, and discover principles or first axioms, it 
 refers them to faith, or puts them off with this trite and 
 
THE SPIRIT OF BACON'S WORKS. 375 
 
 common answer — that every artist must be believed in his 
 own art." 
 
 Dugald Stewart* well says, "that the idea of the object of 
 physical science (which may be justly regarded as the ground- 
 work of Bacon's Novum Organum) differs essentially from what 
 was entertained by the ancients, according to whom ■ Philosophy 
 is the science of causes.' If indeed by causes they had meant 
 merely the constant forerunners or antecedents of events, the 
 definition would have coincided nearly with the statement 
 which I have given. But it is evident that by causes they meant 
 such antecedents as were necessarily connected with the effects, 
 and from the knowledge of which the effects might be foreseen 
 and demonstrated. And it was owing to this contusion of the 
 proper objects of physics and metaphysics that, neglecting the 
 observation of facts exposed to the examination of their senses, 
 they vainly attempted, by synthetical reasoning, to deduce as 
 necessary consequences from their supposed causes the pheno- 
 mena and laws of nature." 
 
 Dugald Stewart also quotes Aristotle's express declaration 
 that to know the physical cause is also to know the efficient 
 cause; and observes, that from this disposition to coniound 
 efficient with physical causes may be traced the greater part 01 
 the theories recorded in the history of philosophy. It is this 
 which has given rise to the attempts, both in ancient and 
 modem times, to account for all the phenomena of moving 
 bodies by impulse ; and it is this also which has >uggested the 
 simpler expedient of explaining them by the agency of minds 
 united with the particles of matter. To this last class ot 
 theories may also be referred the explanations of physical 
 phenomena by such causes as svmpathies, antipathies, nature's 
 horror of a vacuum, &c, and other phrases borrowed by ana- 
 logy from the attributes of animated beings. 
 
 It was Bacon's constant endeavour, as it has been his en- 
 during fame, to teach men the real object of science and the 
 scope of their faculties ; and to furnish them with a proper 
 method whereon these faculties might be success ully employed. 
 
 He thus not only stands clearly out in history as the expo- 
 nent of the long-agitated antagonism to all the ancient and 
 scholastic thinkers, but also as the exponent of the rapidly in- 
 creasing tendency towards positive science. 
 
 He is essentially modern. All his predecessors, even in 
 
 * In (he excellent chapter on Induction, ' Philos. of Mind,' vol. ii. 
 chap. iv. sect. I. 
 
376 THE SPIRIT OF BACON'S WORKS. 
 
 their boldest attacks upon ancier. : philosophy, were themselves 
 closely allied to the spirit of that which they opposed. Ramus 
 is the child of Aristotle, though he raised his hand against his 
 father. But Bacon was modern in culture, in object, and iD 
 method. He attacked the ancient philosophy without having 
 thoroughly understood it : he attacked it because he saw that a 
 method which conducted great intelligences to such absurd 
 conclusions as those then in vogue must necessarily be false. 
 
 '? Whence can arise," he asks, " such vagueness and sterility 
 in all the physical systems which have hitherto existed in the 
 world? It is not certainly from any thing in nature itself; for 
 the steadiness and regularity of the laws by which it is governed 
 clearly mark them out as objects of precise and certain knowledge. 
 
 " Neither can it arise from any want of ability in those who 
 have pursued such inquiries, many of whom have been men of 
 the highest talent and genius of the ages in which they lived ; 
 and it can therefore arise from nothing else but the perverse- 
 ness and insufficiency of methods which have been pursued. Men 
 have sought to make a world from their own conceptions, and 
 to draw from their own minds all the materials which they em- 
 ployed ; but if, instead of doing so, they had consulted expe- 
 rience and observation, they would have had /tacts and not 
 opinions to reason about, and might have ultimately arrived 
 at the knowledge of the laws which govern the material world. 
 
 " As things are at present conducted a sudden transition is 
 made from sensible objects and particular facts to general pro- 
 positions, which are accounted principles, and round which, as 
 round so many fixed poles, disputation and argument con- 
 tinually revolve. From the propositions thus hastily assumed 
 ail things are derived by a process compendious and precipitate, 
 ill suited to discovery, but wonderfully accommodated to 
 debate. 
 
 "The way that promises success is the reverse of this. It 
 requires that we should generalize slowly, going from particular 
 things to those that are but one step more general ; from those to 
 others of still greater extent, and so on to such as are universal. 
 By such means we may hope to arrive at principles not vague 
 and obscure, but luminous and well defined, such as Nature 
 herself will not refuse to acknowledge." 
 
 In this pregnant passage he has clearly enough pointed out 
 the position which his philosophy was to occupy. Many other 
 philosophers, as Professor Macvey Napier remarks, " both 
 ancient and modern, had referred to observation and experi 
 
WAS BACON'S METHOD HIS OWN f 377 
 
 ment in a cursory way, as furhishing the materials of physical 
 knowledge ; but no one before him had attempted to systema- 
 tize the true method of discovery ; or to prove that the inductive 
 is the only method by which < the genuine office of philosophy 
 can be exercised, and its genuine ends accomplished. It has 
 sometimes been stated that Galileo was, at least, in an equal 
 degree with Bacon, the father of the Inductive Logic ; but it 
 would be more correct to say that his discoveries furnished 
 some fortunate illustrations of its principles. To explain these 
 principles was no object of his ; nor does he manifest any great 
 anxiety to recommend their adoption with a view to the general 
 improvement of science. The Aristotelian disputant, in his 
 celebrated Dialogues, is made frequently to appeal to obser- 
 vation and experiment; but the interlocutor through whom 
 Galileo himself speaks, nowhere takes occasion to distinguish 
 between the flimsy inductions of the Stagyrite in regard to the 
 objects in dispute, and which he himself had instituted, or 
 to hint at the very different complexion which philosophy must 
 asssume, according as the one kind or the other is resorted 
 to."* 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 WAS THE METHOD NEW, USEFUL, AND BACON'S OWN ? 
 
 Bacon's Method, and the scientific spirit which animates his 
 works, have been indicated in the foregoing chapters. His 
 philosophical importance is to be measured by that Method 
 and that Spirit ; not by any scientific discoveries. A mind so 
 richly stored as his could not fail to illustrate his writings 
 with manifold graces of style and with pregnant aphorisms. 
 Accordingly, his Method having been established, and having 
 done its work and been superseded, nothing remains for our 
 profit but these very graces and aphorisms. The great 
 Reformer may excite our admiration, historically ; his Method 
 excites no admiration for its present intrinsic value. We have 
 a more perfect Method ; the processes of scientific investiga- 
 tion are better understood; but we are never in communion 
 with his vast and penetrating intellect, without acknowledging 
 
 * ' On the Scope and Influence of the Philos. Writings of Bacon.'— 
 Trans, of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 18 18. By far the best disser- 
 tation on this subject we have met with ; full of curious matter and 
 recondite research. 
 
378 WAS BACON* S METHOD HIS OWNt 
 
 his greatness, for his remarks are often as applicable now as 
 when first written. Hence the frequency of quotations from 
 Bacon ; and these quotations, as Dr. Whewell observes, are 
 more frequently made by metaphysical, ethical, and even 
 theological writers, than they are by the authors of works on 
 Physics. For the present generation, then, whatever the value 
 of Bacon's works, Bacon's Method is useless. Some modern 
 writers have asserted that it was always useless; and this 
 assertion has been supported by arguments so plausible, that 
 they demand attention. 
 
 The objections made to Bacon's Method are of three kinds : 
 i st. It was nothing new ; 2nd. It was useless as a guide to 
 investigation; 3rd. It was already latent in the scientific spirit 
 then abroad, and must have been elicited by some one sooner 
 or later. 
 
 " It was nothing new. ' This is a very frequent objection. 
 We select two of the most worthy antagonists, the Count Joseph 
 de Maistre and Mr. Macaulay. The former has written a long 
 chapter to prove that Bacon's Induction is nothing more than 
 the Induction of Aristotle ; and Mr. Macaulay, who adopts 
 the same opinion, devotes several vivacious pages to show 
 that everybody unconsciously practises this Method. M. de 
 Maistre's Examen de la Philosophic de Bacon, is a vehement 
 attack upon Bacon, written with the celebrated author's usual 
 vivacity, but with more than his usual arrogance and passion. 
 As there are many things in Bacon either hasty, inexact, or par- 
 taking of the prejudices and errors of his age, his antagonist is 
 at no loss to find matter for ridicule ; but when he treats of 
 Bacon's Method and Spirit as contemptible puerilities, he only 
 excites in the dispassionate reader a smile. What are his argu- 
 ments against Bacon's Method? First, That Aristotle had 
 analysed it before him ; secondly, That Induction is only one 
 form of a syllogism. 
 
 It is true that Aristotle told us what Induction was ; but it 
 is not true that he analysed it, as Bacon has done ; nor did he 
 ever pronounce it to be the Method of inquiry : on the con- 
 trary, it only served him as one of the means of ascertaining 
 truth, and was not half so much employed as the Syllogism. 
 Bacon asserts Induction to be the only Method, and has no 
 words too strong to express his scorn of the syllogism " which 
 may catch the assent, but lets the things slip through." In 
 short, as Dugald Stewart observes, we might as well declare 
 that the ancients had anticipated Newton because they too used 
 
IVAS I! A COWS METHOD HIS OWN f 379 
 
 the word "attraction," as that Aristotle anticipated Bacon 
 because he too speaks of " Induction."* 
 
 But M. de Maistre says that Induction and Syllogism are 
 the same. " At bottom, what is Induction ? Aristotle clearly 
 saw it : // is a syllogism without the middle term — (<f<rri 8c 6 
 Totovros <rv\\oynTfJM9 r^s Trpwrrjs ical aveo-ov irporaartax. AnaL 
 prior ii. 12.) 
 
 ** What does it signify whether I say — every simple being is 
 indestructible by fiature ; now my soul is a simple being, there- 
 fore, &c. ; or whether I say directly — My soul is simple, therefore 
 it is indestructible. In either case it is the syllogism which is 
 virtually in the induction, as it is in the enthymem." 
 
 Now it is quite true that every induction may be thrown into 
 the form of syllogism by supplying the major premiss ; and it 
 is this which led Archbishop Whately to conclude that induc- 
 tion itself is but a peculiar case of ratiocination, and that the 
 universal type of all reasoning is the syllogism. We cannot 
 but agree with John Mill in holding precisely the reverse 
 opinion, and believing that ratiocination itself is resolvable into 
 Induction. t Be this as it may, M. de Maistre has afforded us 
 an illustration of the difference between Aristotle and Bacon 
 in the very passage quoted. 
 
 If every induction can be thrown into the form of a syllogism 
 by supplying the major premiss, it is in the way this major 
 premiss is established that we must seek the real difference 
 between the ^yllogistic and Inductive Methods : and that 
 difference is the difference between a priori and & posteriori. 
 Every one who has read Bacon knows that his scorn for the 
 Syllogism is not scorn for it as a form of ratiocination, but as 
 a means of investigation. He objects to proceeding to de- 
 duce from an axiom not accurately and inductively obtained, 
 consequences which may very well be contained in the axiom, 
 but yet have no- relation to the truth of things. " The axioms 
 in use being derived from slender experience and a few obvious 
 particulars, are generally applied in a corresponding manner; 
 no wonder they lead not to new particulars."! Again : " Syllo- 
 gism consists of propositions, propositions of words, and words 
 are the signs of notions ; therefore, if our notions, the basis 0} 
 
 * 4 Philos. of Mind,' vol. ii. chap. iv. sect. 2. The reader will do well 
 to consult the whole chapter. It contains a triumphant refutation of the 
 notion we are examining. 
 
 f See 4 System of" L gic : Inductive and Ratiocinaiive,' vol. i. pp. 372, 3. 
 
 ♦ ' Nov. Org.,' Ajh. 25. 
 
3&> WAS BACON'S METHOD HTS OWN t 
 
 ail, are contused, and over-hastily taken from things, nothing 
 that is built upon them can be firm ; whena our only hope rests 
 upon genuine Induction" * 
 
 Nothing can be more explicit. Bacon very well knew the 
 difference between his Method and that of the Aristotelians ; 
 and he very well expressed this difference. To turn round 
 upon him and say all Induction is itself but Syllogism, is mere 
 sophistry. He was not giving a logical analysis of the mind ; 
 he was warning men against long standing errors, and pointing 
 out to them the path of truth. 
 
 Mr. Macaulay's arguments are ot a different stamp. To us 
 they seem only ingenious and plausible ; and so ingenious and 
 so plausible as to gain many followers. They are mostly true 
 as far as they go, but do not appear to us to go to the real 
 point. We shall select the main parts of his opposition : — 
 
 " The inductive method has been practised! ever since the 
 beginning of the world by every human bei^ig. It is con- 
 stantly practised by the most ignorant clowA ; who by this 
 method is led to the conclusion, that if he sows] barley he shall 
 not reap wheat. A plain man finds his stomach out of order. 
 He never heard of Lord Bacon's name. But he proceeds in 
 the strictest conformity with the rules laid down in the second 
 book of the * Novum Organum/ and satisfies himself that mince 
 pies have done the mischief. ' I ate mince pies on Monday and 
 Wednesday, and was kept awake by indigestion all night.' 
 This is the comparentia ad intellectum instantiarum convenien- 
 tium. * I did not eat any on Tuesday and Friday, and I was 
 quite well.' This is the comparentia instantiarum in proximo 
 gum natura data privantur. ' I ate very sparingly of them on 
 Sunday, and was very slightly indisposed in the evening. But 
 on Christmas day I almost dined on them, and was so ill that 
 I was in some danger.' This is the comparentia instantiarum 
 secondum magis et minus. ' It cannot be the brandy which I 
 took with them ; for I have drunk brandy for years without 
 being the worse for it.' This is the rejeciio naturarum. We 
 might easily proceed, but we have already explained our 
 meaning." 
 
 The answer to this is, that induction being the type of 
 reasoning, oi course so long as men have reasoned they have 
 reasoned inductively. But there is correct induction, and in- 
 correct induction ; that is to say, even in ordinary cases men 
 frequently pursue the induction per enumerationem simpUcem, 
 • ■ Nov. Org.,' Aph. 14. 
 
WAS BACON'S METHOD HIS OWN t 381 
 
 instead of the correct method ; and at the time Bacon wrote, 
 almost all philosophical and scientific speculations were vitiated 
 by the incorrect method. 
 
 "Those who object to the importance of Bacon's precepts in 
 philosophy," says Mr. Hallam, " that mankind have practised 
 many of them immemorially, are rather confirming their utility 
 than taking off much from their originality, in any fair sense of 
 the term. Every logical method is built on the common facul- 
 ties of human nature which have been exercised since the 
 creation in discerning, better or worse, truth from falsehood, 
 and inferring the unknown from the known. That men might 
 have done this more correctly is manifest from the quantity of 
 error into which, from want of reasoning well on what came 
 before them, they have habitually fallen. In experimental philo- 
 sophy, to which the more special rules of Lord Bacon are 
 generally referred, there was a notorious want of that very pro- 
 cess of reasoning which he supplied."* " Nothing can be more 
 certain," as Professor Napier observes, " than that Bacon rests 
 the whole hopes of his philosophy on the novelty of his logical 
 precepts; and that he uniformly represents the ancient philo- 
 sophers, particularly Aristotle, as having been wholly regardless 
 of the inductive method in their physical inquiries. Bacon does 
 not indeed say that the ancient philosophers never employed 
 themselves in observing Nature ; but he maintains that there 
 is a wide difference between observation as it was employed by 
 them, and the art of observing for the purposes of philosophical 
 discovery.'' + 
 
 Men in Bacon's time reasoned like the facetious judge in Mr. 
 Macaulay's anecdote, " who was in the habit of jocosely pro- 
 pounding after dinner a theory, that the cause of the prevalence 
 of Jacobinism was the practice of bearing three names. He 
 quoted on the one side Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley 
 Sheridan, John Home Tooke, John Philpot Curran, Samuel 
 Taylor Coleridge, Theobald Wolfe Tone. These were instan- 
 tioe convenientes. He then proceeded to cite instances absentia 
 in proximo — William Pitt, John Scott, William Wyndham, 
 Samuel Horsley, Henry Dundas, Edmund Burke. He might 
 have gone on to instances secundum magis et minus. The prac- 
 
 * * Hist, of Lit. of Europe,' vol. iii. p. 182. 
 
 t ' Dissertation on the Scope and Influence of Bacon's Writings,' p. 13. 
 See also a splendid passage to the same effect in Herschel's 'Discourse,' 
 >p. 113, 114, which we do not quote, because the work is in everybody's 
 or ought to be. 
 
38a WAS BACONS MKTHOD HIS OWN? 
 
 tice of giving children three names has been for some time a 
 growing practice, and Jacobinism has also been growing. The 
 practice of giving children three names is more common in 
 America than England. In England we have still a king and 
 a House of Lords ; but the Americans are republicans. The 
 rejections are obvious. Burke and Wolfe Tone were both 
 Irishmen ; therefore the being an Irishman is not the cause. 
 In this way our inductive philosopher arrives at what Bacon 
 calls the vintage, and pronounces that having three names is the 
 cause of Jacobinism." 
 
 This is a very good theory for a jocular one ; but we are sur- 
 prised at so acute a writer as Mr. Macaulay speaking of it in 
 the terms he does : " Here is an induction corresponding with 
 Bacon's analysis, and ending in a monstrous absurdity. I In what 
 then does this induction differ from the induction which leads 
 us to the conclusion that the presence of the sun is the cause 
 of our having more light by day than by night ? Ttye differ- 
 ence evidently is, not in the kind of instances but in the number 
 of instances ; that is to say, the difference is not in that part of 
 the process for which Bacon has given precise rules, but in a 
 circumstance for which no precise rule can possibly be given. 
 If the learned author of the theory about Jacobinism had en- 
 larged either of the tables a little, his system would have been 
 destroyed. The names of Tom Paine and William Windham 
 Grenville would have been sufficient to do the work." 
 
 We especially dissent from the clause printed in italics, 
 which seems to us at variance with all sound induction. It is 
 precisely the kind of instances adduced in the theory which 
 makes the theory absurd. The whole theory is a gross example 
 of " causation inferred from casual conjunction, without any 
 presumption arising from known properties of the supposed 
 agent, which is the characteristic of the empiricism." Although 
 in this theory there has been a certain superficial elimination 
 employed, yet that is obviously too incomplete for any satis- 
 factory result. Mr. Macaulay subsequently asks — What number 
 of instances is sufficient to justify belief? After how many 
 experiments would Jenner have been justified in believing vac- 
 cination to be a safeguard against the smallpox ? We answer that 
 the number of instances depends on the kind of instances, and 
 on the theory which presides over their collection. In propor- 
 tion as the facts adduced are complex, must the theory which 
 would explain them be consistent with all other known truths, 
 before the facts themselves can have any significance. Thu& 
 
WAS BACON'S METHOD HIS OWN* 3*3 
 
 the facts brought forward to support the theory of clairvoyance 
 are utterly insignificant, although they have been collected by 
 hundreds. One or two simple facts would be decisive. Thus 
 it is pretended that during the state of coma, the patient can 
 read with his eyes completely guarded from the light. To 
 prove this, bandages are tied across his eyes, and books and 
 letters are presented to him. He reads these, and people are 
 amazed. Now we would suggest a very simple and decisive 
 experiment. Do not bandage the patient's eyes ; let them be 
 open, but let the book be shut Tf the patient can read in spite 
 of the bandage, he can surely read in spite of the book-cover? 
 The only precaution necessary is that neither the person holding 
 the book, nor the patient reading it, should have any previous 
 knowledge of its contents. 
 
 Bacon's originality is in no way affected by proving that all 
 men at all times, when they reasoned correctly, reasoned induc- 
 tively. Moreover, in Bacon's particular department, men had 
 notoriously pursued a wrong method ; they were not aware of 
 the necessity which he declared there was in all investigations, 
 to proceed upon a graduated and successive induction. Bacon 
 first made them aware of this ; and, as Dr. Whewell says '• the 
 truly remarkable circumstance is to find this recommendation 
 of a continuous advance from observation by limited steps, 
 through successive gradations of generality, given at a time 
 when speculative men in general had only just begun to per- 
 ceive that they must begin their course from experience in some 
 
 way or other In catching sight of this principle, and in 
 
 ascribing to it its due importance, Bacon's sagacity, so far as I 
 am aware, wrought unassisted and unrivalled."* 
 
 We cite this to support our assertion of Bacon's originality, 
 but we do not coincide in its admiration of Bacon's principle 
 of "graduated induction," which is an imperfect process, as 
 will be shown presently in treating of the utility of Bacon's 
 method. 
 
 After the foregoing testimonies we shall take for granted 
 that the reader is prepared to admit the originality of Bacon's 
 method. 
 
 The second question now presents itself. Was the method 
 useful as a guide in investigation ? Many persons have declared 
 it to be useless. Mr. Macaulay is of the same opinion. He 
 says, with great truth, " By stimulating men to the discovery 
 of new truth, Bacon stimulated them to employ the inductive 
 • ' Pbilos. of Inductive Sciences,' vol. ii. pp. 395, 396- 
 
384 WAS BACON'S METHOD HIS OWN? 
 
 method— the only method by which truth can be discovered 
 By stimulating men to the discovery of useful truth, he fur- 
 nished them with a motive to perform the inductive process 
 well and carefully. His predecessors had been anticipators of 
 nature. They had been content with first principles, at which 
 they had arrived by the most scanty and slovenly induction. 
 And why was this ? It was, we conceive, because their philo- 
 sophy proposed to itself no practical end, because it was merely 
 an exercise of the mind. A man who wants to contrive a new 
 machine or a new medicine has a strong motive to observe 
 patiently and accurately, and to try experiment after experi- 
 ment ; but a man who merely wants a theme for disputation or 
 declamation has no such motive." / 
 
 Now in this passage, as it seems to us, the very merit we are 
 claiming for Bacon is conceded. We are tolg that Bacon 
 stimulated men to employ the inductive method, the only 
 method by which new truth could be discovered. But who 
 originated the method ? — Bacon. Who pointed out the futility 
 of anticipating Nature? — Bacon. Who exposed the "scanty 
 and slovenly induction " of the schoolmen ? — Bacon. His 
 merit therefore is not simply that of stimulating men to the dis- 
 covery of new lands, but of also affording them chart and 
 compass wherewith to discover the new lands. There were 
 several eminent men, his predecessors and contemporaries, 
 who all rose up against the ancient systems, and stimulated 
 men to the discovery of useful truth ; but these men, although 
 all of them constantly insisted upon observation and experi- 
 ment, had no glimpse, or only a very partial and confused 
 glimpse, of the inductive method. So that when Mr. Macaulay 
 says, "It was not by furnishing philosophers with rules for per- 
 forming the inductive process well, buj by furnishing them with 
 a motive for performing it well, that he conferred so vast a 
 benefit on society," we believe he is contradicted on all sides 
 by history. The motive had been given by many — indeed, one 
 may say that it was a tendency of the age; the rules had been 
 devised by no one but himself. These rules, it is true, were 
 far from perfect ; but they constitute the beginning and form 
 the basis of the more perfect structure which successors have 
 erected. Mr. Macaulay's argument receives its force solely 
 from what we cannot but regard as his misconception of the 
 Baconian Induction. That Induction he declares to be daily 
 performed by every man ; but this is confounding ordinary 
 Induction with scientific Induction. It is coniounding a simple 
 
WAS BACON'S METHOD HIS OWN t 385 
 
 Inference with a long and complicated process of reasoning. 
 It is confounding what Bacon incessantly and emphatically 
 distinguishes : viz., Induction with the Inductive Method; and 
 this confusion has probably influenced him in the selection of 
 his illustrations. None of the things he has named require a 
 complicated process of reasoning for their discovery. If a 
 man wants to make a shoe, he is certainly in no need of the 
 Inductive Method ; but if he wants to discover a law of 
 Nature, the Inductive Method is indispensable. Mr. Macaulay 
 will not maintain that the ordinary man, who wishes to find 
 out a law of Nature, proceeds in his inquiry by a graduated 
 and successive induction from particulars to generals, and from 
 generals to those which are still more general j and this with- 
 out " anticipation " of Nature — without rash and hasty leaping 
 from one particular to some extreme generality. In fact, 
 although Induction, as the type of reasoning, must be carried 
 on by every reasoning animal, yet so far is the Inductive Method 
 from being the ordinary process of ordinary men, that we know 
 of scarcely any process so contrary to the natural bias of the 
 mind. Bacon has more than once alluded to this bias, where- 
 by we judge hastily, and on the slenderest evidence. Indeed, 
 the Inductive Method requires a constant and watchful repres- 
 sion of our natural tendency to "anticipate," and to endeavour, 
 by a short cut, to abridge the long journey which conducts us 
 to Truth. 
 
 But while we think Mr. Macaulay underrates the importance 
 of the inductive rules, we quite agree with him that Bacon 
 overrated their importance. " Our method of discovery in 
 science," so runs one of his aphorisms, " is of such a nature 
 that there is not much left to acuteness and strength of genius, 
 but all degrees of genius and intellect are brought nearly to the 
 same level." * This is contradicted by every two men engag- 
 ing in scientific pursuits. The truth is, the method, however 
 excellent when followed, cannot force men to follow it : the 
 natural bias of the mind is against it Mr. Macaulay, there- 
 fore, is perfectly right in preferring the spirit of Bacon's method 
 to the rules given in the second book of the Organum. 
 
 There is, however, another reason why the spirit is pre- 
 ferable to the rules ; and that reason is the incompleteness of 
 those rules. As this touches the question of the utility of the 
 method very nearly, we may dwell upon it for a while. 
 
 The radical defect of Bacon's method is being solely indue. 
 • 'Nov. Or£.,'I. Aph. 6«. 
 b a 
 
3*6 WAS BACON'S METHOD HIS OWN? 
 
 five, and not also deductive. He was so deeply impressed with 
 a sense of the insufficiency of the deductive method alone, 
 which he saw his contemporaries pursuing, and which he knew 
 to be the cause of the failure of his predecessors, that he 
 bestowed all his attention on the inductive method. His 
 want of mathematical knowledge had also no small share in 
 this. 
 
 Although, however, it may be justly said that /lie did not 
 sufficiently exemplify the Deductive Method, it is not correct 
 to say that he entirely neglected it. Those who assert this 
 forget that the second part of the Novum Organum was never 
 completed. In the second part it was his intention to treat of 
 Deduction, as is plain from the following passage : " The indi- 
 cations for the interpretation of nature include two general 
 parts. The first relates to the raising of Axioms from experi- 
 ence ; and the second, to the deducing or deriving of new 
 experiments from Axioms (de ducendis aut derivandis experi- 
 mentis novis ab axiomatibus ").* We here see that he com- 
 prehended the two-fold nature of the method ; but inasmuch 
 as he did not publish the second part of his Organum^ we may 
 admit the remark of Prof. Playfair, that " in a very extensive 
 department of physical science it cannot be doubted that 
 investigation has been carried on, not perhaps more easily, but 
 with a less frequent appeal to experience than the rules of the 
 Novum Organum would seem to require. In all physical 
 inquiries where mathematical reasoning has been employed, 
 after a few principles have been established by experience, a 
 vast multitude of truths, equally certain with the principles 
 themselves, have been deduced from them by the mere appli- 
 cation of geometry and algebra. .... The strict method 
 of Bacon is, therefore, only necessary where the thing to be 
 explained is new, and where we have no knowledge, or next 
 to none, of the powers employed." t 
 
 We repeat, it was Bacon's deficiency in mathematical know- 
 ledge which caused him to overlook the equal importance of 
 deduction with induction. On this subject we will quote a 
 passage from the highest authority we know of: — u Bacon has 
 judiciously remarked, that the axiomata media of every science 
 principally constitute its value. The lowest generalizations, 
 until explained by and resolved into the middle principles, of 
 which they are the consequences, have only the imperfect 
 
 • 'Nov. Org./ Ih Aph. 10. f 'Dissertation,' pp. 58, 61. 
 
WAS BACON'S METHOD HIS OWN t 387 
 
 accuracy of empirical laws ; while the most general laws are 
 too general, and include too few circumstances to give sufficient 
 indication of what happens in individual cases, where the cir- 
 cumstances are almost always immensely numerous. In the 
 importance, therefore, which Bacon assigns in every science to 
 the middle principles, it is impossible not to agree with him. 
 But I conceive him to have been radically wrong in his doc- 
 trine respecting the mode in which these axiomata media should 
 be arrived at; although there is no one proposition in his 
 works for which he has been so extravagantly eulogized. He 
 enunciates as an universal rule that induction should proceed 
 from the lowest to the middle principles, and from those to the 
 highest, never reversing that order, and consequently leaving 
 no room for the discovery of new principles by way of deduc- 
 tion at all. It is not to be conceived that a man of Bacon's 
 sagacity could have fallen into this mistake, if there had existed 
 in his time, among the sciences which treat of successive phe- 
 nomena, one single deductive science, such as mechanics, 
 astronomy, optics, acoustics, &c , now are. In those sciences 
 it is evident that the higher and middle principles are by no 
 means derived from the lowest, but the reverse. In some of 
 them the very highest generalizations were those earliest ascer- 
 tained with any scientific exactness ; as, for example (in 
 mechanics), the laws of motion. Those general laws had not 
 indeed at first the acknowledged universality which they 
 acquired after having been successfully employed to explain 
 many classes of phenomena to which they were not originally 
 seen to be applicable ; as when the laws of motion were em- 
 ployed in conjunction with other laws to explain deductively 
 the celestial phenomena. Still the fact remains, that the pro- 
 positions which were afterwards recognised as the most general 
 truths of the science, were, of all its accurate generalizations, 
 those earliest arrived at. 
 
 Bacon's greatest merit, therefore, cannot consist, as we are 
 so often told that it did, in exploding the vicious method pur- 
 sued by the ancients of flying to the highest generalizations for 
 it, and deducing the middle principles from them; since this is 
 neither a vicious nor an exploded method, but the universally 
 accredited method of modern science, and that to which it 
 owes its greatest triumphs. The error of ancient speculation 
 did not consist in making the largest generalizations first, but 
 in making them without the aid or warrant of rigorous inductive 
 methods, and applying them deductively without the needful 
 
388 WAS BACON'S METHOD HIS OIVN t 
 
 use of that important part of the deductive method termed 
 verification." * 
 
 This passage certainly lays bare the weakness of Bacon's 
 method ; and does so, we believe, for the first time. But we 
 cannot entirely concur in the concluding paragraph, It is clear 
 to us that, although Bacon did not see the real importance of 
 the deductive method, he did see the futility of the deductive 
 method employed before his time ; and he saw, moreover, that 
 the cause lay in the want of " verification " — jtn the want of 
 " the aid or warrant of rigorous inductive methods " : this 
 we must think his greatest merit — as we think his imperfect 
 conception of the Deductive Method his greatest imperfec- 
 tion. 
 
 There is also another potent reason why the merely induc- 
 tive method should not have contributed to any great dis- 
 coveries ; and we must again borrow from the * System of 
 Logic ' the passage wherein this is exhibited : — 
 
 " It has excited the surprise of philosophers that the detailed 
 system of inductive logic has been turned to so little use by 
 subsequent inquirers, — having neither continued, except in a 
 few of its generalities, to be recognised as a theory, nor having 
 conducted in practice to any great scientific results. But this, 
 though not unfrequently remarked, has scarcely received any 
 plausible explanation ; and some indeed have preferred to 
 assert that all rules of induction are useless, rather than sup- 
 pose that Bacon's rules are grounded upon an insufficient 
 analysis of the inductive process. Such, however, will be seen 
 to be the fact, as soon as it is considered that Bacon entirely 
 overlooked plurality of causes. All his rules tacitly imply the 
 assumption, so contrary to all we know of nature, that a phe- 
 nomenon cannot have more than one cause." f 
 
 In another passage, too long for extract, the same author 
 points out a capital error in Bacon's view of the inductive 
 philosophy, viz., his supposition that the principle of elimina- 
 tion (that great logical instrument which he had the immense 
 merit of first bringing into use) was applicable in the same 
 sense, and in the same unqualified manner, to the investigation 
 of co-existences, as to that of the successions of phenomena. % 
 
 In conclusion, it may be said that Bacon's conception of a 
 scientific method was magnificent, as far as it went ; but in 
 consequence of certain deficiencies, owing principally to the 
 
 * Mill's ' System of Logic,' ii., pp. 524-6. f lb. ii., p. 373. 
 
 t lb. ii., p. 127, etseq. 
 
WAS BACON'S METHOD HIS OWNt 389 
 
 want of any established science as a model (for, as Mr. Craik 
 remarks, you cannot have an Aristotle before Homer*), the 
 method he laid down was only indirectly useful. If it did not 
 produce great discoveries, it certainly did exercise an impor- 
 tant influence on the minds of those who were afterwards to 
 make great discoveries. "The way to prove that Bacon's 
 writings were powerful agents in the advancement of physical 
 knowledge," says Professor Napier, " is to prove that they pro- 
 duced these effects (viz., the overthrow of existing methods — 
 stimulus given to experimental inquiry — and ingenious views 
 and principles requisite for such inquiry) ; and the proof that 
 such effects were actually produced by them, must necessarily 
 be derived from the testimony of those who early experienced, 
 or became otherwise acquainted with their operation." And 
 the greater part of his admirable Essay is devoted to this proof. 
 It is to be regretted that this Essay has not been republished, 
 since it is not generally accessible in its present shape ; f and 
 our own limits obviously forbid our extracting any of these 
 proofs, because their multiplicity constitutes their force. 
 Enough if we remark that the proofs are numerous and deci- 
 sive, gathered not only from the English and French writers, 
 but also from Italian and German. 
 
 And now the last question presents itself, Was not Bacon's 
 Method latent in the scientific spirit of the age ? Yes ; just as 
 much as the invention of the steam-engine was latent in the 
 knowledge and tendencies of the age in which Watt invented 
 it What does invention here mean ? It means the finding 
 what others are still seeking : were it not hidden somewhere, 
 no one could find it. What idleness therefore to endeavour to 
 rob a great man of his fame by declaring that the thing found 
 was lying ready to be found, and would have sooner or later 
 been found by some one ! Yes, by some one who had eyes 
 to see what his fellow-men could not see : in fact, by some 
 other great man ! How was it that Bacon's immediate prede- 
 cessors and contemporaries did not detect this latent method ? 
 It was there lying as open for inspection to them as to him. 
 Why did he alone find it ? Because he alone was competent 
 to find it. 
 
 It is very true that in his day and previously great disco- 
 
 * 'Sketches of Literature and Learning in England,' vol. iii., p. 217; 
 where, by the way, the extreme opinions of Bacon's antagonists are 
 adopted, and the influence he exercised is questioned. On the other hand, 
 an elegant tribute is paid to Bacon's greatness as a thinker and writer. 
 
 t ' Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,' 1818. 
 
390 WAS BACON'S M&THOD MIS OWN* 
 
 veries had been made, and as they only could be made upon a 
 true method, the method was implied in them. But this is no 
 argument against Bacon's originality. " Principles of evi- 
 dence," says Mr. Mill, " and theories of method are not to be 
 constructed d priori. The laws of our rational faculty, like 
 those of every other natural agency, are only ldarnt by seeing 
 the agent at work. The earlier achievements of science were 
 made without the conscious observance of any scientific 
 method ; and we should never have known by what process 
 truth is to be ascertained if we had not previously ascertained 
 truths." This is true ; and if we consider for a moment the 
 extreme paucity of ascertained truths in science at the time 
 Bacon wrote, it will enhance our admiration of his marvellous 
 sagacity, to see him do so much with such poor materials ; as 
 Playfair says, "the history of human knowledge points out 
 nobody of whom it can be said that, placed in the situation of 
 Bacon, he would have done what Bacon did — no man whose 
 prophetic genius would enable him to delineate a system of 
 science which had not yet begun to exist." 
 
 We must cease. Bacon is a great subject, and one as attrac- 
 tive as great ; but our object here has been solely to exhibit his 
 method, and to indicate its historical position. We have done 
 nothing but point out the grounds upon which his fame, as the 
 father of Experimental Philosophy, is built. His method alone 
 engaged us, because by it alone he claims a place in this 
 history. We have not dwelt upon his errors ; neither have wc 
 dwelt upon the wondrous and manifold excellences of that 
 mind which Mr. Macaulay has so felicitously compared to the 
 tent which the fairy Paribanou gave to Prince Ahmed. Fold 
 it, and it seems a toy for the hand of a lady : spread it, and 
 the armies of the powerful sultans might repose beneath ita 
 shade. 
 
gbteonti fspocj. 
 
 FOUNDATION OF THE DEDUCTIVE METHOD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 LIFE OF DESCARTES. 
 
 Just at the close of the sixteenth century, 1596, there was 
 born in Touraine, of Breton parents, a feeble sickly child, 
 named Rene' Descartes Duperron. A few days after his birth, 
 a disease of the lungs carried off his mother. The sickly child 
 grew to a sickly boy; and, till the age of twenty, his life was 
 always despaired of. 
 
 That boy was one the world could ill afford to lose. Few 
 who saw him creeping on the path, which his companions 
 galloped along like young colts, would have supposed that the 
 boy, whose short dry cough and paleness seemed to announce 
 an early grave, was shortly to become one of the world's illus- 
 trious leaders ; and whose works would three centuries after 
 their appearance continue to be studied, quoted, and criticised. 
 His masters loved him. He was a pupil of promise ; and in 
 his eighth year had gained the title of the young philosopher, 
 from his avidity to learn, and his constant questioning. 
 
 His education was confided to the Jesuits. This astonish- 
 ing body has many evils laid to its door, but no one can refuse 
 to it the praise of having been ever ready to see and make use 
 of the value of education. In the college of La Fleche the 
 young Descartes was instructed in mathematics, physics, logic, 
 rhetoric, and the ancient languages. He was an apt pupil; 
 learnt quickly, and was never tired of learning. 
 
 Such was the food supplied by the Jesuits. Was it nutritious ? 
 As M. Thomas remarks, " there is an education for the ordi- 
 nary man ; for the man of genius there is no education but what 
 he gives himself; the second generally consists in destroying 
 the first." And so with Descartes ; who, on leaving La Fleche, 
 declared that he had derived no other benefit from his studies 
 than that of a conviction of his utter ignorance, and a profound 
 contempt for the systems of philosophy in vogue. The incom- 
 petence of philosophers to solve the problems they occupied 
 
J9* 
 
 LIFE OF DESCARTES. 
 
 themselves with— the anarchy which reigned in the scientific 
 world, where no two thinkers could agree upbn fundamental 
 points— the extravagances of the conclusions to which some 
 accepted premisses led, determined him to seek no more to 
 slake his thirst at their fountains. 
 
 " And that is why, as soon as my age permitted me to quit 
 my preceptors," he says, " I entirely gave up the study of 
 letters ; and resolving to seek no other science than that which 
 I could find in myself, or else in the great book of the world, 
 I employed the remainder of my youth in travel, in seeing 
 courts and camps, in frequenting people of diverse humours 
 and conditions, in collecting various experiences, and above 
 all in endeavouring to draw some profitable reflection from 
 what I saw. For it seemed to me that I should meet with 
 more truth in the reasonings which each man makes in his own 
 affairs, and which if wrong would be speedily punished by failure, 
 than in those reasonings which the philosopher makes in his 
 study, upon speculations which produce no effect, and which 
 are of no consequence to him, except perhaps that he will be 
 more vain of them the more remote they are from common 
 sense, because he would then have been forced to employ more 
 ingenuity and subtlety to render them plausible." * 
 
 For many years he led a roving unsettled life \ now serving 
 in the army, now making a tour ; now studying mathematics 
 in solitude, now conversing with scientific men. One constant 
 purpose gave unity to these various pursuits. He was elaborat- 
 ing his answers to the questions which perplexed him; he was 
 preparing his Method. 
 
 When only three-and-twenty he conceived the design of a 
 reformation in philosophy.! He was at that time residing in 
 his winter quarters at Neuburg, on the Danube. His travels 
 soon afterwards commenced, and at the age of thirty-three he 
 retired into Holland, there in silence and solitude to arrange 
 his thoughts into a consistent whole. He remained there 
 eight years ; and so completely did he shut himself from the 
 world, that he concealed from his friends the very place of his 
 residence. 
 
 When the results of his meditative solitude were given to 
 the world, in the shape of his celebrated ' Discourse on 
 Method,* and his ' Meditations' (to which he invited replies), 
 
 • * Discours de la M6thode,' p. 6, of the convenient edition of M. Jules 
 Simon. Paris, 1844. 
 t Compare Bacon at college. 
 
LIFE OF DESCAR7ES. 393 
 
 the sensation produced was immense. It was evident to all 
 men that an original and powerful thinker had arisen; and 
 although of course this originality could not but rouse much 
 opposition from the very fact of being original, yet Descartes 
 gained the day. His name became European. His contro- 
 versies were European quarrels. Charles I. of England 
 invited him over, with the promise of a liberal appointment ; 
 and the invitation would probably have been accepted had not 
 the civil war broken out He afterwards received a flattering 
 invitation from Christina of Sweden, who had read some of 
 his works with great satisfaction, and wished to learn from 
 himself the principles of his philosophy. He accepted it, and 
 arrived in Stockholm in 1649. His reception was most grati- 
 fying, and the queen was so pleased with him as earnestly to 
 beg him to remain with her, and give his assistance towards 
 the establishment of an academy of sciences. But the delicate 
 frame of Descartes was ill fitted for the severity of the climate, 
 and a cold, caught in one of his morning visits to Christina, 
 produced inflammation of the lungs which put an end to his 
 existence. Christina wept for him ; and had him interred in 
 the cemetery for foreigners, and placed a long eulogium upon 
 his tomb. His remains were subsequently, 1666, carried from 
 Sweden into France, and buried with great ceremony in St. 
 Genevieve du Mont. 
 
 Descartes was a great thinker; but having said this we have 
 almost exhausted the praise we can bestow upon him as a man. 
 In disposition he was timid to servility. When promulgating 
 his proofs of the existence of the Deity he was in evident alarm 
 lest the church should see something objectionable in them. 
 He had also written an astronomical treatise ; but hearing of 
 the fate of Galileo, he refrained from publishing, and always 
 used some chicane in speaking of the world's movement. He 
 was not a brave man ; he was also not an affectionate one. 
 There was in him a deficiency of all " finer feelings.* But he 
 was even-tempered, placid, and studious of not giving offence. 
 In these, as in so many other points, he resembles his illustri- 
 ous rival, Francis Bacon ; but his name has descended spotless 
 to posterity, while Bacon's has descended darkened with more 
 spots than time can efface. But it would be hard to say how 
 much difference of position had to do with this difference of 
 moral purity. Had Bacon lived in his study, we should have 
 only praises for his name 1 
 
394 THE METHOD OF DESCARTE^, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE METHOD OF DESCARTES. 
 
 There have been disputes as to Bacon's claim to the title of 
 Father of Experimental Science, but no one disputes the claim 
 of Descartes to the title of Father of Modern Philosophy. 
 Ontology and Psychology are still pursued upon his Method • 
 and his speculations are still proudly referred to by most 
 continental thinkers as perfect, or almost perfect, examples of 
 that method. 
 
 Throughout the epoch which preluded that in which he 
 lived, there had been a slow but progressive tendency towards 
 the separation of Philosophy from Theology. In Abelard we 
 see the commencement of this tendency : he constantly declared 
 that Reason ought to explain Faith ; that what we believe we 
 ought to comprehend. To this doctrine he fell a victim. In 
 Descartes we see the same tendency at its climax ; and in him 
 the existence of philosophy is a thing established beyond con- 
 troversy ; he boldly attempts to solve by reason alone the pro- 
 blems which hitherto had been solved by faith. 
 
 In his dedication of the Meditations to the Sorbonne, he 
 says : — " I have always thought that the two questions of the 
 existence of God, and the nature of the soul, were the chief of 
 those which ought to be demonstrated rather by philosophy 
 than by theology: for although it is sufficient for us, the 
 faithful, to believe in God, and that the soul does not perish 
 with the body, it certainly does not seem possible ever to 
 persuade the infidels to any religion, nor hardly to any moral 
 virtue, unless we first prove to them these two things by natural 
 reason." Extraordinary language, which shows how completely 
 philosophy had gained complete independence. 
 
 But if philosophy is to be independent — if reason is to walk 
 alone, in what direction must she walk ? Having relinquished 
 the aid of the church, there were but two courses open : the 
 one, to tread once more in the path of the ancients, and to 
 endeavour by the ancient Methods to attain the truth ; or else 
 to open a new path, to invent a new Method. The former was 
 barely possible : the spirit of the age was deeply imbued with 
 a feeling of opposition against the ancient Methods; and 
 Descartes himself had been painfully perplexed by the universal 
 anarchy and uncertainty which prevailed. The second course 
 was therefore chosen. 
 
TffE METHOD OF DESCARTES, 395 
 
 What was the disease of the epoch ? Uncertainty. Scepti- 
 cism was not only abounding, but even the most confident 
 dogmatism could give no criterium of certitude. This want of 
 a criterium we saw leading in Greece to Scepticism, Epicu- 
 reanism, Stoicism, the New Academy, and finally leading the 
 Alexandrians into the province of faith to escape from the 
 dilemma. The question of a criterium had long been the vital 
 question of philosophy. Descartes could get no answer to it 
 from the doctors of his day. Unable to find firm ground in 
 any of the prevalent systems ; distracted by doubts ; mistrust- 
 ing the conclusions of his own understanding ; mistrusting the 
 evidences of his senses, he determined to make a tabula rasa, 
 and reconstruct his knowledge. He resolved to examine the 
 premisses of every conclusion, and to believe nothing but upon 
 the clearest evidence of reason : evidence so convincing, that 
 he could not by any effort refuse assent to it. 
 
 He has given us the detailed history of his doubts. He has 
 told us how he found that he could plausibly enough doubt of 
 everything, except of his own existence. He pushed his scep- 
 ticism to the verge of self-annihilation. There he stopped : 
 there in Self, — there in his Consciousness, he found at last an 
 irresistible Fact, an irreversible Certainty. 
 
 Firm ground was discovered. He could doubt the existence 
 of the external world, and treat it as a phantasm. He could 
 doubt the existence of God, and treat the belief as a supersti- 
 tion. But of the existence of his thinking, doubting mind, no 
 sort of doubt was possible. He, the doubter, existed, if nothing 
 else existed. The existence that was revealed to him in his 
 own Consciousness was the primary Fact, the first indubitable 
 Certainty. Hence his famous Cogito, ergo Sum : I think, there- 
 fore I am. 
 
 It is somewhat curious, and, as an illustration of the frivolous 
 verbal disputes of philosophers, not a little instructive, that 
 this celebrated Cogito, ergo Sum, should have been frequently 
 attacked for its logical imperfection. It has been objected, 
 from Gassendi downwards, that to say " I think, therefore I am," 
 is a begging of the question, since existence has to be proved 
 identical with thought Certainly, if Descartes had intended 
 to prove his own existence by reasoning, he would have been 
 guilty of the petitio principii Gassendi attributes to him, viz. : 
 that the major premiss, " that which thinks exists," is assumed, 
 not proved. But he did not intend this. 
 
 What was his object ? He has told us. It was to find a 
 
396 THE METHOD OF DESCARTES. 
 
 starting-point from which to reason; it was to find an irre- 
 versible certainty. And where did he find this ? In his own 
 consciousness. Doubt as I may, I cannot doubt of my own 
 existence, because my very doubt reveals to me something 
 which doubts. You may call this an assumption, if you will j 
 I point out the fact to you as a fact above and beyond all 
 logic ; which logic can neither prove nor disprove ; but which 
 must always remain an irreversible certainty, and, as such, a 
 fitting basis of philosophy.* 
 
 I exist. No doubt can darken such a truth ; ao sophism can 
 confute this clear principle. This is a certainty, if there be 
 none other. This is the basis of all science. It is in vain to 
 ask for a proof of that which is self-evident and irresistible. I 
 exist. The consciousness of my existence is to me the assurance 
 of my existence. 
 
 Had Descartes done no more than point out this fact, he 
 would have no claim to notice here ; and we are surprised to 
 find many writers looking upon this Cogito, ergo Sum, as con- 
 stituting the great feature in his system. Surely it is only a 
 statement of universal experience — an epigrammatic form given 
 to the common-sense view of the matter. Any clown would 
 have told him that the assurance of his existence was his con- 
 sciousness of it ; but the clown would not have stated it so 
 well ; he would have said : I know I exist, because I feel that 
 I exist. 
 
 Descartes, therefore, made no discovery in pointing out this 
 fact as an irresistible certainty. The part it plays in his system 
 is only that of a starting-point. It makes consciousness the basis 
 of all truth : there is none other possible. Interrogate consci- 
 ousness, and its clear replies will be Science. 
 
 Here we have a new Method, and a new Philosophy, intro- 
 duced. It was indeed but another shape of the old formula, 
 " Know thyself," so differently interpreted by Thales, Socrates, 
 and the Alexandrians ; but it gave that formula a precise signi- 
 fication : a thing it had before always wanted. Of little use 
 could it be to tell man to know himself. How is he to know 
 himself? By looking inwards ? We all do that. By examin- 
 ing the nature of his thoughts ? That had been done without 
 success. By examining the process of his thoughts? That too 
 had been accomplished, and the logic of Aristotle was the 
 result. 
 
 • See his replies to the third and fifth series of Objections, affixed to 
 hi* 'Meditations.' 
 
THE METHOD OF DESCARTES. 39-, 
 
 The formula needed a precise interpretation ; and that inter- 
 pretation Descartes gave. Consciousness, said he, is the basis 
 of all knowledge ; it is the only ground of absolute certainty ; 
 whatever it distinctly proclaims must be true. The process 
 then is simple : examine your consciousness, and its clear 
 replies will be Science. 
 
 Hence the vital portion of his system lies in this axiom : all 
 clear ideas are true: whatever is clearly and distincdy conceived 
 is true. This axiom he caHs the foundation of all science, the 
 rule and measure of truth.* 
 
 The next step to be taken was to determine the rules for the 
 proper detection of these ideas ; and these rules he has laid 
 down as follows : — 
 
 I. Never to accept anything as true, but what is evidently 
 so ; to admit nothing but what so clearly and distinctly 
 presents itself as true that there can be no reason to 
 doubt it. 
 
 II. To divide every question into as many separate ques- 
 tions as possible ; that each part being more easily conceived, 
 the whole may be more intelligible. — (Analysis.) 
 
 III. To conduct the examination with order, beginning by 
 that of objects the most simple, and therefore the easiest to be 
 known, and ascending little by little up to knowledge of the 
 most complex. — (Synthesis.) 
 
 IV. To make such exact calculations, and such circum- 
 spections as to be confident that nothing essential has been 
 omitted. 
 
 Consciousness being the ground of all certainty, every thing 
 of which you are clearly and distinctly conscious must be true : 
 everything which you clearly and distinctly conceive exists, if 
 the idea of it involves existence. 
 
 In the four rules, and in this view of consciousness, we have 
 only half of Descartes' Method : the psychological half. It was 
 owing, we believe, to the exclusive consideration of this half 
 that Dugald Stewart was Jed (in controverting Condorcet's 
 assertion that Descartes had done more than either Galileo or 
 Bacon towards experimental philosophy) to say that Condorcet 
 would have been nearer the truth if he had pointed him out as 
 the Father of the Experimental Philosophy of the Mind. 
 
 * " H£c igitur detect veritate simul etiam invenit omnium scientiarura 
 'undamentum : ac etiam omnium aliarum veritatem mensuram ac regulam, 
 scilicet, quicquid tam clarfc ac distinct* percipitur quam istud varum est."— • 
 Princip. Phil. p. 4. 
 
398 THE METHOD OP DESCARTES. 
 
 Perhaps the title is just ; but Condorcet's praise, though exag- 
 gerated, was not without good foundation. 
 
 There is, in truth, another half of Descartes equally impor- 
 tant, or nearly so. We mean the Mathematical or Deductive 
 Method. His eminence as a mathematician is universally 
 recognised. He was the first to make the grand discovery of 
 the application of algebra to geometry, and he made this at 
 the age of twenty-three. The discovery that geometrical 
 curves might be expressed by algebraical numbers, though 
 highly important in the history of mathematics, only interests 
 us here, inasmuch as it puts us on the trace of his career. We 
 see him deeply engrossed in mathematics ; we see him awaken- 
 ing to the conviction that mathematics were capable of a still 
 further simplification, and of a far more extended application. 
 Struck as he was with the certitude of mathematical reasoning, 
 he began applying the principles of mathematical reasoning to 
 the subject of metaphysics. 
 
 His great object was, amidst the scepticism and anarchy of 
 
 his contemporaries, to found a system that should be solid and 
 
 \S convincing. He first wished to fi nd a basis of c ertitude — a 
 
 starting point, and found it in consciousness, lie nexTwfehed 
 
 / to find a metho d of certitude, and found it in mathematics. 
 
 '* Those long chains or reasoning," he tells us, " all simple 
 and easy, which geometers use to arrive at their most difficult 
 demonstrations, suggested to me that all things which came 
 within human knowledge must follow each other in a similar 
 chain ; and that provided we abstain from admitting anything 
 as true which is not so, and that we always preserve in them 
 the order necessary to deduce one from the other, there can 
 be none so remote to which we cannot finally attain, nor so 
 obscure but that we may discover them."* 
 
 From these glimpses of the twofold nature of Descartes' 
 
 Method, it will be easy to see into his whole system. The 
 
 psychological and mathematical Methods are in him insepar- 
 
 y able — consciousness being the only groun d of certitude ; 
 
 ^ mathematics the only method of certitude. 
 
 We may say, theceforeTtnat the Deductive Method was now 
 completely constituted. The whole operation of philosophy 
 consisted in deducing consequences. The premisses had been 
 found ; the conclusions alone were wanting. This applies as 
 much to physics as to psychology. Thus, in his * Principia,' 
 he announces his intention of giving a short account of the 
 * • Diseours de la Methode,' p. 12. 
 
THE METHOD OF DESCARTES. 399 
 
 principal phenomena of the world, not that he may use them 
 as reasons to prove anything ; for he adds, *' we desire to deduct 
 effects from causes, not causes from effects ; but only in order 
 that out of the innumerable effects which we learn to be capable 
 of resulting from the same causes, we may determine our minds 
 to consider some rather than others."* 
 
 Such being the Method of Descartes, our readers will hear 
 with surprise that some French writers have declared it to be 
 the same Method as that laid down by Bacon ; and this sur- 
 prise will be heightened on learning that a philosopher of such 
 reputation as M. Victor Cousin is one of those writers. He 
 says, " Let us now see what Descartes has done. He has 
 established in France the same method that England has 
 endeavoured to attribute exclusively to Bacon ; and he has 
 established it with less grandeur of imagination in style, but 
 with the superior precision which must always characterise one 
 who, not content with laying down rules, puts them himself in 
 practice, and gives the example with the precept." t M. Cousin 
 then quotes the four rules we before quoted from Descartes ; 
 and seeing in them Analysis and Synthesis, which he believes 
 constitutes the sole Method of Bacon, declares that the two 
 Methods are one. This requires 30 refutation ; nor indeed 
 would it have been noticed, but as affording an illustration of 
 the loose way in which the term Method is employed by certain 
 writers. 
 
 In truth Bacon was the reverse side of the medal of Des- 
 cartes. Bacon's deficiencies lay in that department where 
 Descartes was greatest — in mathematics. Hence Bacon's over- 
 valuation of Induction, and neglect of Deduction ; hence also 
 Descartes' over-valuation of Deduction and neglect of Induc- 
 tion. Both cultivated Physics : but Bacon made it the basis of 
 all the sciences ; Descartes made it a mere illustration of his 
 principles. The one argued from effects to causes — from the 
 known to the unknown ; and the other deduced effects from 
 causes — explaining phenomena by noumena — explaining that 
 
 * 'Principia Philos.,' pars iii. p. 51. The phrase, "cupimus enim 
 rationes effectuum a causis, non autem h contraris causarum ab effectibus 
 deducere," may be said to express the nature of his method, as opposed to 
 the method of Bacon. When M. Jules Simon says " The commencement 
 of philosophy for Descartes is Doubt : that alone is all his entire method — 
 tela seul est toute sa Methode" (Introduction prefixed to his edition of 
 Descartes, p. 3) he mistakes, as it seems to us, the whole purpose 0/ 
 Descartes' artificial scepticism ; besides, how can a Doubt be a Method ? 
 
 t 'Hist, de la Phil.,' lecon iii. p. 91, ed. Bruxelles, 184a 
 
400 APPLICATION OF THE METHOD. 
 
 which presented itself to the senses by that which was intui 
 tively known. Both separated religion from philosophy ; but 
 Bacon declared the problems of religion and ontology insoluble 
 by reason, and therefore beyond the province of science; 
 Descartes declared them soluble only by reason, and that it 
 was the first object of philosophy to solve them. 
 
 Besides these and other points of difference, there were also 
 several points of resemblance, owing to the resemblance of 
 their positions as reformers. They both overvalued their 
 Methods, which they declare will enable all men to philo- 
 sophize with equal justness. " It is not so essential to have a 
 fine understanding," says Descartes, "as to apply it rightly. 
 Those who walk slowly make greater progress, if they always 
 follow the right road, than those who run swiftly, but run on a 
 wrong one." This is precisely the thought of Bacon : " A 
 cripple in the right path will beat a racer in the wrong one." 
 But both these thinkers assume that the racer will choose the 
 wrong path : whereas, if their methods are adopted, the finer 
 understanding must always surpass the duller in the discovery 
 of truth. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE METHOD. 
 
 To prove the existence of God was the first attempt of Descartes 
 to apply his method ; not, as some say, to prove his own exist- 
 ence, for that neither admitted of logical proof nor of disproof : 
 it was the primary fact. 
 
 Interrogating his consciousness, he found that he had the 
 idea of God: understanding, by God, a substance infinite, 
 eternal, immutable, independent, omniscient, omnipotent. 
 
 This, to him, was as certain a truth as the truth of his own 
 existence. I exist : not only do I exist, but exist as a miser- 
 ably imperfect, finite being — subject to change — greatly igno- 
 rant, and incapable of creating anything. In this, my con- 
 sciousness, I find by my finitude that I am not the All \ by my 
 imperfection, that I am not perfect. Yet an infinite and perfect 
 being must exist, because infinity and perfection are implied, 
 as correlatives, in my ideas of imperfection and finitude. 
 
 God, therefore, exists : his existence is clearly proclaimed in 
 my consciousness, and can no more be a matter of doubt, when 
 fairly considered, than my own existence. 
 
APPLICATION OF THE METHOD. 
 
 401 
 
 The c on c eption of an infinite Being proved his real e xistence : 
 for if thefFfsnot really such a being, / must have raao!e"the 
 conception ; but if I could make it, I can also unmake it, 
 which evidently is not true : therefore there must be, externally 
 to myself, an archetype from which the conception was derived. 
 
 " The ambiguity in this case," it has been remarked,* " is in 
 the pronoun /, by which in one place is to be understood my 
 will, in another the laws of my nature. If the conception, 
 existing as it does in my mind, had no original without, the 
 conclusion would unquestionably follow that / had made it — 
 that is, the laws of my nature must have spontaneously evolved 
 it ; but that my will made it would not follow. Now, whea 
 Descartes afterwards adds that I cannot unmake the concep* 
 tion, he means that I cannot get rid of it by an act of my will, 
 which is true, but is not the proposition required. That what 
 some of the laws of my nature have produced, other laws, or 
 those same laws in other circumstances, might not subsequently 
 efface, he would have found it difficult to establish." 
 
 His second demonstration is the weakest of the three. 
 Indeed, upon his principles, it is the only one not irrefragable. 
 The third demonstration is peculiarly Cartesian, and may be 
 thrown into this syllogism : — 
 
 All that we clearly and distinctly conceive as contained 
 in anything, is true of that thing. 
 
 Now we conceive, clearly and distinctly, that the 
 existence of God is contained in the idea we have of 
 him. 
 
 Ergo, 
 
 God exists. 
 
 Having demonstrated the existence of God, he had to prove 
 the distinction between body and soul. This, to him, was 
 easy. The fundamental attribute of substance must be exten- 
 sion, because we can abstract from substance all the qualities 
 except extension. The fundamental attribute of mind is 
 thought, because by this attribute mind is revealed to itself. 
 Now, according to one of his logical axioms, two substances are 
 really distinct when their ideas are complete, and in no way 
 imply each other. The ideas, therefore, of extension and 
 thought being distinct, it follows that substance and mind are 
 distinct in essence. 
 
 We need not pursue our analysis of his metaphysical notions 
 * Mill's ' System of Logic,' ii. p. 447. 
 
 c c 
 
aoj APPLICATION OP THE METHOD. 
 
 further. We only stop to remark on the nature of his demon- 
 strations of God and the soul. It is, and was, usual to prove 
 the existence of God from what is called the " evidence of 
 design," — from the world, in fact. Descartes neither started 
 from design nor from motion, which must have a mover : he 
 started from the d priori ideas of perfection and infinity; his 
 ' / proof was in the clearness of his idea of God — in an analysis of 
 ( his own mind. His method was that of definition and deduc- 
 tion. To define the idea of God, and hence to construct the 
 world — not to contemplate the world, and hence infer the 
 existence of God — was the route he pursued. Is it not emi- 
 nently the procedure of a mathematician ? and of a mathema- 
 tician who has taken consciousness as his starting-point ? 
 
 Descartes' speculations are beautiful exemplifications of his 
 method ; and he follows that method, even when it leads him 
 to the wildest conclusions. His physical speculations are 
 sometimes admirable (he made some important discoveries in 
 optics), but mostly fanciful. The famous theory of vortices 
 «ieserves a mention here as an example of his method. 
 
 He begins by banishing the notion of a vacuum, not, as his 
 contemporaries said, because Nature has a horror of a vacuum, 
 but because the essence of substance being extension, wherever 
 there is extension there is substance, consequently empty space 
 is a chimera. The substance which fills all space must be 
 assumed as divided into equal angular parts. Why must this 
 be assumed? — Because it is the most simple, therefore the 
 most natural supposition. This substance being set in motion, 
 the parts are ground into a spherical form ; and the corners 
 thus rubbed off, like filings or sawdust, form a second and 
 more subtle kind of substance. There is, besides, a third 
 kind of substance, coarser and less fitted for motion. The first 
 kind makes luminous bodies, such as the sun and fixed stars ; 
 the second kind makes the transparent substance of the skies ; 
 the third kind is the material of opaque bodies, such as earth, 
 planets, &c. We may also assume that the motions of these 
 parts take the form of revolving circular currents, or vortices. 
 By this means the matter will be collected to the centre of each 
 vortex, while the second or subtle matter surrounds it, and 
 by its centrifugal effort constitutes light. The planets are 
 carried round the sun by the motion of this vortex, each planet 
 being at such a distance from the sun as to be in a part of 
 the vortex suitable to its solidity and mobility. The motions 
 are prevented from being exactly circular and regular by various 
 
APPLICATION OP THE METHOD. 403 
 
 causes For instance, a vortex may be pressed into an oval 
 shape by contiguous vortices.* 
 
 Descartes, in his physics, adopted a method which per- 
 mitted him to set aside the real qualities and the substantia) 
 forms (which others were seeking), and to consider only the 
 relations of number, figure, and motion. In a word, he saw 
 in physics only mathematical problems. This was premature. 
 Science, in its infancy, cannot be carried on by the deductive 
 method alone : that is reserved for the maturity of science. 
 Descartes was unaware of that, and failed in consequence. 
 
 But this deductive method, though premature, was puissant. 
 Science must employ it, and Bacon's greatest error was in not 
 sufficiently acknowledging it. Hence we may partly account 
 for the curious fact that Bacon, with his cautious method, made 
 no discoveries, while Descartes, with his rash method, made 
 important discoveries. Of course the greater physical know- 
 ledge of Descartes, and the greater attention bestowed by him 
 upon physics, had something to do with this ; but his method 
 also assisted him, because his discoveries were of a kind to 
 which the mathematical method was strictly applicable. 
 
 That Descartes had read Bacon there is no doubt. He has 
 himself praised Bacon's works as leaving nothing to be desired 
 on the subject of experience; but he perceived Bacon's de- 
 ficiency, and declared that we are liable to collect many super- 
 fluous experiences of particulars, and not only superfluous 
 but false, if we have not ascertained the truth before we 
 make these experiences. In other words, experience should 
 be the verification of an a priori conception ; whereas Bacon 
 teaches us to form our conceptions from experience. 
 
 We have said enough to make the method of Descartes ap- 
 preciable. His position is that of founder of the deductive 
 method on the basis of Consciousness. His scholars may be 
 divided into the mathematical cultivators of physics, and the 
 deductive cultivators of philosophy. By the first he was 
 speedily surpassed, and his influence on them can only be re- 
 garded as an impulsion. By the second he was continued : his 
 principles were unhesitatingly accepted, and only developed in 
 a somewhat different manner. 
 
 His philosophical method subsists in the present day. It is 
 
 • We have followed Dr. Whe well's exposition of this theory, as gives 
 by him — ' Hist, of Ind. Sciences,' ii. p. 134.. The curious reader will do 
 well, however, to turn to Descartes' own exposition, where it is illustrated 
 by diagrams — ' Principia Philosophise.' 
 
4 <H IS THE METHOD TRUE t 
 
 the method implicitly or explicitly adopted by most meta- 
 physicians in their speculations upon ontological subjects. Is 
 it a good method ? The question is of the highest importance : 
 we shall endeavour in the next chapter to answer it. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 IS THE METHOD TRUE? 
 
 In the dedicatory epistle prefixed to his ' Meditations ' Des- 
 cartes declares that his demonstrations of the existence of God, 
 &c, " equal, or even surpass, in certitude the demonstrations 
 of geometry." Upon what does he found this belief? He 
 founds it upon the very nature of certitude as conceived by him. 
 
 What is the basis of all certitude ? Consciousness. What- 
 ever I am distinctly conscious of, I must be certain of; all the 
 ideas which I find in my consciousness, as distinctly conceived, 
 must be true. The belief I have in my existence is derived 
 from the fact of my consciousness : I thi?ik, therefore I exist. 
 Now as soon as we think we conceive a truth with distinctness, 
 we are irresistibly led to believe in it ; and if that belief is so 
 firm that we can never have any reason to doubt that which we 
 believe, we have all the certitude that can be desired. 
 
 Further : we have no knowledge whatever of anything external 
 to us, except through the medium of ideas. What is the conse- 
 quence? The consequence is, says Descartes, that whatever 
 we find in the ideas must necessarily be in the external things. 
 
 It is only in our minds that we can seek whether things exist 
 or not. There cannot be more reality in an effect than in a 
 cause. The external thing, being the cause of the idea, must 
 therefore possess as much reality as the idea, and vice versa. 
 So that whatever we conceive as existent, exists. 
 
 This is the basis on which Descartes' system is erected ; if 
 this basis be rotten, the superstructure must fall. It is the 
 root from which the tree has grown ; if it is vitiated the tree 
 will bear no fruit. No thinker, except Spinoza, has so clearly, 
 so frankly stated his criterium. Let us then accept the chal- 
 lenge which it gives, since an opportunity is now afforded us of 
 bringing together in a narrow field the defenders and antago- 
 nists of philosophy. 
 
 If Descartes is wrong— if consciousness is not the ultimate 
 ground of certitude, embracing both objective and subjective— 
 
IS THE METHOD TRUEt 405 
 
 if ideas are not the internal copies of external things — then J 
 must philosophy be content to relinquish all claim to certitude, 
 and find refuge again in faith. 
 
 And Descartes is wrong. The very consciousness to which 
 he appeals shall convict him. There is a fallacy in his system 
 which may be briefly exposed. Consciousness is the ultimate 
 ground of certitude, for me; if I am conscious that I exist, I 
 cannot doubt that I exist ; if I am conscious of pain, I must be 
 in pain. This is self-evident. 
 
 But what ground of certitude can consciousness be respecting 
 things which are not me ? How does the principle apply ? How 
 far does it extend ? It can only extend to things which relate 
 to me. I am conscious of all that passes within myself ; but I 
 am not conscious of what passes in not-self: all that I can 
 possibly know of the not-self is in its effects upon me. 
 
 Consciousness is, therefore, " cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd'' to 
 me, and to what passes within me; so far does the principle of 
 certitude extend, and no farther. Any other ideas we may 
 have, any knowledge we may have respecting not-self, can only 
 be founded on inferences. Thus I burn myself in the fire : I 
 am conscious of the sensation ; I have certain and immediate 
 knowledge of it. But all that I can be certain of is that a change 
 has taken place in my consciousness ; when from that change 
 I infer the existence of an external object (the fire), my infer- 
 ence may be correct, but I have obviously shifted my ground ; 
 consciousness — my principle of certitude — forsakes me here : I j 
 go out of myself to infer the existence of something which is 
 not-self. My knowledge of the sensation was immediate, indu- 
 bitable. My knowledge of the object is mediate, uncertain. 
 
 Directly, therefore, we leave the ground of consciousness for 
 that of inference, our knowledge becomes questionable. Other 
 inferences can be brought to bear upon any one inference to 
 illustrate or to refute it. The mathematical certainty which 
 Descartes attributed to these inferences therefore becomes a 
 great uncertainty. 
 
 He says we only know things through the medium of ideas. 
 Good ; we will accept the position as unquestionable. But 
 then he also says that, in consequence of this, whatever we find J 
 in the ideas must necessarily be true of the things. 
 
 His reason is, that as ideas are caused in us by objects, and 1 
 as every effect must have as much reality as the cause — the 
 effect being equal to the cause — so must ideas have the same 
 reality as things. 
 
406 IS THE METHOD TRC/Et 
 
 But this is a doubtful fallacy. In the first place, an effect is 
 not equal to its cause ; it is a mere consequence of an antece- 
 dent, having no such relation as equality whatever. In the 
 second place, the use of the term reality is ambiguous. Un- 
 questionably an effect really exists j but reality of existence 
 does not imply similarity of modes of existence. The burn 
 occasioned by a fire is as real as the fire ; but it in no way 
 resembles a fire. 
 
 So when Descartes says that what is true of ideas must be 
 true of things, he assumes that the mind is a passive recipient 
 —a mirror, in which things reflect themselves. That this is 
 altogether fallacious, and that the mind is an active co-operator 
 in all perception — that perception is a consciousness of changes 
 operated in ourselves, not a consciousness of the objects causing those 
 changes — we have formerly endeavoured to demonstrate.* In 
 truth, so far from being able to apprehend the nature of things 
 external to us, there is an impenetrable screen for ever placed 
 before our eyes, and that impenetrable screen is the very 
 Consciousness upon which Descartes relies. When placed in 
 contact with external objects, they operate upon us ; their 
 operations we know, themselves we cannot know ; precisely 
 because our knowledge of them is mediate, and the medium is 
 our Consciousness. Into whatever regions we wander, we carry 
 with us this Consciousness, by means of which, indeed, we 
 know, but all we know, is — ourselves. 
 
 Knowledge is composed of Ideas. Ideas are the joint product 
 of an organization on the one hand, and of external causes on 
 the other ; or, rather, we may say that Ideas are the products 
 of that organization excited by external causes. Upon what 
 principles of inference (since we are here on the ground of 
 • inference) can you infer that the ideas excited are copies of the 
 exciting causes — that the Ideas excited apprehend the whole 
 nature of the causes ? 
 
 The cause of the fallacy is in that very strong disposition to 
 give objectivity to a law of the mind ; f in consequence of 
 which you so often hear people declare that something they 
 are asserting is " involved in the idea." 
 
 There is one mode of escape left for those who believe in the 
 
 validity of ontological speculations. That is to assert the 
 
 , existence of Innate Ideas — or, as the theory is generally stated 
 
 in modern times, of Necessary Truths indepenent of all expe< 
 
 • See Series I., pp. 254-5, 267-8, and especially pp. 279-284. 
 
 t See it exposed in Mill's ' System of Logic,' ii., p. 355. 
 
IS THE METHOD TRUE t 407 
 
 rience. If the idea of God, for example, be innate in us, it is 
 no longer a matter of Inference but of Consciousness ; and 
 Descartes would have been correct in believing that the cer- 
 tainty of this idea equalled the certainty of geometry. 
 
 But Descartes, according to Dugald Stewart, did not assert , 
 the existence of Innate Ideas, though, from its having been a 
 doctrine maintained by his followers, it is usually attributed to 
 him. Dugald Stewart quotes the following passage from Des- 
 cartes in reply to his adversaries, who accused him of holding 
 the tenet of Innate Ideas : — 
 
 " When I said that the idea of God is innate in us, I never 
 meant more than this, that Nature has endowed us with a 
 faculty by which we may know God; but I have never either J 
 said or thought that such ideas had an actual existence, or even 
 that they were a species distinct from the faculty of thinking. 
 .... Although the idea of God is so imprinted on our minds 
 that every person has within himself the faculty of knowing 
 him, it does not follow that there may not have been various 
 individuals who have passed through life without ever making 
 this idea a distinct object of apprehension ; and, in truth, they 
 who think they have an idea of a plurality of Gods have no 
 idea of God whatever." 
 
 From this it would appear that he did not hold the doctrine 
 of Innate Ideas. But we must venture to dissent from the 
 conclusion drawn by Mr. Stewart on the strength of such a 
 passage ; and against that passage we will bring another 
 equally explicit (we could bring fifty, if necessary), which 
 asserts the existence of Innate Ideas. " By the word idea" he 
 says, " I understand all that can be in our thoughts ;* and I 
 distinguish three sorts of ideas; — adventitious, like the common 
 idea of the sun ; framed by the mind, such as that which . 
 astronomical reasoning gives of the sun ; and innate, as the idea 
 of God, mind, body, a triangle, and generally all those which 
 represent true immutable and eternal essences" — {Lettres de Des- 
 cartes, LIV. Ed. Rev., Oct., 182 1, p. 236; where other 
 passages are given.) This last explanation is distinct : and it 
 is all that the serious antagonists of Innate Ideas have ever 
 combated. If Descartes, when pressed by objections, gave 
 different explanations, we must only set it down to the want of 
 
 * This was the first time that the word idea was used in its modern 
 sense. For the history of this much-abused word see ' Edin. Rev.,' Oct. 
 1830, p. 182, in an aiticle by Sir W. Hamilton, of which we know not 
 whether most to admire the extraordinary erudition or the rare acuteness. 
 
$o8 IS THE METHOD TRUE t 
 
 a steady conception of the vital importance of Innate Ideas to 
 his system. The fact remains that Innate ideas form the 
 necessary groundwork of the Cartesian doctrint 
 
 Although the theory of Innate Ideas may, in its Cartesian 
 form, be said to be exploded, it does really continue to be 
 upheld under a new form. A conviction of the paramount 
 necessity of some such groundwork for metaphysical specula- 
 tion has led to the modern theory of Necessary Truths, This 
 plausible theory has been adopted by Dr. Whewell in his 
 1 Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences ' ; but his arguments 
 have been completely shattered by John Mill on the one hand, 
 and by Sir John Herschell on the other.* We may for the 
 present assume the point to be settled. 
 
 The radical error of all ontological speculations lies in 
 assumption that we have ideas independent of experience ; because 
 experience can only tell us of ourselves or of phenomena ; of 
 noumena it can tell us nothing. That we have no such ideas 
 has been clearly enough established in the best schools of 
 psychology ; but the existence of metaphysical speculation 
 proves that the contrary opinion still exists. 
 
 The fundamental question, then, of modern Philosophy is 
 this: Have we any Ideas independent of experience? And 
 the attempts to solve it will occupy the greater portion of our 
 history. Before entering upon this subject we must exhibit 
 the method of Descartes, pushed to its ultimate conclusions in 
 Spinoza, t 
 
 * * System of Logic,' book ii. ch. 5 ; and ' Quarterly Rev.,' June, 1841 ; 
 indeed, they had been anticipated and refuted by Locke long before ; but 
 Dr. Whewell has apparently too great a contempt for Locke to be con- 
 vinced by any argument of his. See ' Essay,' book iv. ch. 6-7. 
 
 t The best modern works on Descartes, aparj from regular Histories 
 of Philosophy, are M. Francisque Boullier's 4 Histoire et Critique de la 
 Revolution Cart6sienne.' Paris, 1842; and M. Ch. Renouvier's 'Manuel 
 de la Philos. Moderne.' Paris, 1841. The best edition of Descartes' 
 works is that by Victor Cousin, in eleven vols. 8vo. Paris, 1826. M. 
 Jules Simon has also published a cheap and convenient edition in one 
 volume of the 'Discourse on Method,' the 'Meditations and the Treatise 
 on the Passions.' Paris, 1844. 
 
SPINOZA'S LIFE. 409 
 
 CHAPTER V.* 
 SP 1 noza's LIFE . 
 
 Early in the seventeenth century, on a fair evening of summer, 
 a little Jewish boy was playing with his sisters on the Burgwal 
 of Amsterdam, close to the Portuguese synagogue. His face 
 was mild and ingenuous ; his eyes were small, but bright, quick, 
 and penetrative ; and the dark hair floated in luxuriant curls 
 over his neck and shoulders. Noticeable, perhaps, for nothing 
 but his beauty and joyousness, the little boy played on un- 
 marked amongst the active citizens of that active town. The 
 Dutch then occupied the thoughtful attention of all Europe. 
 After having first conquered for themselves firm footing on this 
 earth, by securing their country from the sea, they had thrown 
 off the oppressive yoke of the mighty Spain ; and had now con- 
 quered for themselves a freedom from that far greater tyranny, 
 the tyranny of thought. 
 
 Amsterdam was noisy with the creaking of cordage, the 
 bawling of sailors, and the busy trafficking of traders. The 
 Zuyder Zee was crowded with vessels, laden with precious 
 stores from all quarters of the globe. The canals which ramify 
 that city, like a great arterial system, were blocked up with 
 boats and barges ; the whole scene was vivid with the great- 
 ness and the littleness of commerce. Heedless of all this tur- 
 moil, as unheeded in it — heedless of all those higher mysteries 
 of existence the solution of which was hereafter to be the 
 endeavour of his life — untouched by any of those strange 
 questionings which a restless spirit cannot answer, but which 
 it refuses to have answered by others — heedless of everything 
 but his game, that little boy played merrily with his sisters. 
 That boy was Benedict Spinoza. 
 
 It is pleasant to think of Spinoza as a boy playing at boyish 
 games. He has for so long been the bugbear of theologians, 
 and of timid thinkers ; he has for so long been looked upon as 
 a monster, an atheist, and (to add to the horror) a Jewish 
 atheist; and looked upon, even by those who were not so 
 aghast at the consequences of his system, as nothing more than 
 a frigid logician, that we dwell with singular pleasure on any 
 more human aspect of his character. We hope, ere we have 
 
 * In this account of Spinoza is incorporated the greater part of an 
 article by the present writer, which appeared in the « Westminster Review,' 
 No. Uxvii. 
 
4 io SPINOZA'S LIFE. 
 
 done, to convince the reader that this rigorous logician was a 
 wise and virtuous and affectionate man. 
 
 His parents were honest merchants of Amsterdam, who had 
 settled there in company with a number of their brethren, on 
 escaping the persecution to which all Jews were subject in 
 Spain. The young Baruch * was at first destined to commerce, 
 but his passion for study, and the precocity of his intellect, 
 made his parents alter their resolution in favour of a rabbinical 
 education : a resolution warranted by his sickly constitution, 
 which had increased his love of study. The sickly child is 
 mostly thoughtful j he is thrown upon himself, and his own 
 resources ; he suffers, and asks himself the cause of his pains, 
 and asks himself whether the world suffers like him ; whether 
 he is one with nature, and subject to the same laws, or whether 
 he is apart from it, and regulated by distinct laws. From these 
 he rises to the awful questions — Why ? Whence ? and Whither ? 
 
 The education of the Jews was almost exclusively religious, 
 the Old Testament and the Talmud forming their principal 
 studies. Spinoza entered into them with a fanatical zeal, 
 which, backed as it was by remarkable penetration and subtlety, 
 won the admiration of the Chief Rabbin Saul Levi Mor- 
 teira, who became his guide and instructor. Great, indeed, 
 were the hopes entertained of this youth, who at fourteen 
 rivalled almost all the doctors in the exactitude and extent of 
 his biblical knowledge. But these hopes were turned to fears, 
 when they saw that young and pertinacious spirit pursue its 
 undaunted inquiries into whatever region they conducted him, 
 and found him putting difficulties to them which they, rabbins 
 and philosophers, were unable to solve. 
 
 Spinoza was to be deterred neither by threats nor by sophisti- 
 cations. He found in the Old Testament no mention of the 
 doctrine of immortality; there was complete silence on the 
 point.f He made no secret of his opinions : and two of his 
 schoolfellows, irritated at his intellectual superiority, or else 
 anxious to curry favour with the rabbins, reported his heresy 
 with the usual fertility of exaggeration. Summoned to appear 
 before the synagogue, he obeyed with a gay carelessness, con- 
 
 • Baruch was Spinoza's Hebrew name, which he himself translated into 
 Latin as Benedictus ; from which some have erroneously supposed that he 
 embraced Christianity, whereas he only renounced Judaism. 
 
 t On this silence Warburton endeavoured to establish the divinity of 
 the Legation of Moses ; and Bishop Sherlock has exerted considerable 
 ingenuity m explaining the discrepancy which sceptics had seized hold of 
 as an argument in their favour. 
 
SPINOZA'S LIFE. 411 
 
 scious of his innocence. His judges, finding him obstinate 
 in his opinions, threatened him with excommunication ; he 
 answered with a sneer. Morteira, informed of the danger, 
 hastened to confront his rebellious pupil, but Spinoza remained 
 as untouched by his rhetoric as he was unconvinced by his 
 arguments. Enraged at this failure, Morteira took a higher 
 tone, and threatened him with excommunication, unless he at 
 once retracted. His pupil was irritated, and replied in sar- 
 casms. The rabbin then broke up the assembly, and vowed 
 " only to return with the thunderbolt in his hand." 
 
 In anticipation of the threatened excommunication, he 
 wisely withdrew himself from the synagogue — a step that pro- 
 foundly mortified his enemies, as he thereby rendered futile all 
 intimidations which had been employed against him, particu- 
 larly the otherwise terrible excommunication ; for what terror 
 could such a sentence inspire in one who voluntarily absented 
 himself from the society which pretended to exclude him ? 
 Dugald Stewart makes a most unwarrantable insinuation with 
 respect to this secession from the synagogue. He says Spinoza 
 withdrew himself " with a view, probably, to gain a more 
 favourable reception for his doctrines." (Dissert, prefixed to 
 the Ency. Brit., p. 144.) At that time Spinoza had no doctrines 
 of his own. 
 
 Dreading his ability, and the force of his example, the syna- 
 gogue made him an offer of an annual pension of a thousand 
 florins, if he would only consent to be silent, and assist from 
 time to time at their ceremonies. Spinoza, indignant at such 
 an attempt to palter with his conscience, refused it with scorn. 
 As neither threats nor temptations could turn him from his 
 path, fanaticism conceived another plan. One evening, as 
 Spinoza was coming out of the theatre, where he had been 
 relaxing his o'er-tasked mind, he was startled by the fierce 
 expression of a dark face, thrust eagerly before his. The glare 
 of blood-thirsty fanaticism arrested him; a knife gleamed in 
 the air, and he had barely time to parry the blow. It fell upon 
 his chest, but, fortunately deadened in its force, only tore his coat. 
 The assassin escaped. Spinoza walked home thoughtful.* 
 
 The day of excommunication at length arrived ; and a vast 
 concourse of Jews assembled to witness the awful ceremony. 
 
 * Some of the biographers contradict Bayle's statement of the assassi- 
 nation being attempted as Spinoza was leaving the theatre, and declare that 
 he was coming from the synagogue ; but they forget that he had entirely 
 renounced going there, and this was the probable motive of the assassin. 
 
41* SPINOZA'S LIFE. 
 
 It began by the solemn and silent lighting of a quantity of 
 black wax candles, and by opening the tabernacle wherein were 
 deposited the Books of Law of Moses. Thus were the dim 
 imaginations of the faithful prepared for all the horror of the 
 scene. Morteira, the ancient friend and master, now the 
 fiercest enemy of the condemned, was to order the execution. 
 He stood there, pained, but implacable ; the people fixed their 
 eager eyes upon him. High above, the chanter rose and 
 chanted forth, in loud lugubrious tones, the words of execration ; 
 while from the opposite side another mingled with these curses 
 the thrilling sounds of the trumpet ; and now the black candles 
 were reversed, and were made to melt drop by drop into a 
 huge tub filled with blood ! This spectacle — a symbol of the 
 most terrible faith — made the whole assembly shudder ; and 
 when the final Anathema Maranatha / were uttered, and the 
 lights all suddenly immersed in the blood, a cry of religious 
 horror and execration burst from all ; and in that solemn 
 darkness, and to those solemn curses, they shouted Amen, 
 Amen ! 
 
 And thus was the young truth-seeker expelled from his com- 
 munity, and his friends and relations forbidden to hold inter- 
 course with him. Like the young and energetic Shelley, who 
 afterwards imitated him, he found himself an outcast in this 
 busy world, with no other guides through its perplexing laby- 
 rinths than sincerity and self-dependence. Two or three new 
 friends soon presented themselves ; men who warred against 
 their religion as he had warred against his own ; and a bond of 
 sympathy was forged out of a common injustice. Here again 
 we trace a resemblance to Shelley, who, discountenanced by 
 his relations, sought amongst a few sceptical friends to supply 
 the affections he was thus deprived of. Like Spinoza, he too 
 had only sisters, with whom he had been brought up. No 
 doubt, in both cases, the consciousness of sincerity, and the 
 pride of martyrdom, were great sustainments in this combat 
 with society. They are always so ; and it is well that they are 
 so, or the battle would never be fought; but they never 
 entirely replace the affections. Shut from our family, we may 
 seek a brotherhood of apostacy ; but these new and precarious 
 intellectual sympathies are no compensation for the loss of the 
 emotive sympathies, with all their links of association, and all 
 their memories of childhood. 
 
 Spinoza must have felt this ; and as Shelley, in a rash 
 marriage, endeavoured to fill the void of his yearning heart, so 
 
SPINOZA* S LIFE, 413 
 
 Spinoza, urged we must think by the same feeling, sought the 
 daughter of his friend and master, Vanden Ende, as his wife. 
 
 This Vanden Ende had some influence on Spinoza's life. 
 He was a physician in Amsterdam, who conducted a philo- 
 logical seminary with such success, that all the wealthy citizens 
 sent him their sons ; but it was afterwards discovered, that to 
 every dose of Latin he added a grain of atheism. He under- 
 took to instruct Spinoza in Latin, and to give him board and 
 lodging on condition that he should subsequently aid him in 
 instructing his scholars. This Spinoza accepted with joy, for 
 although master of the Hebrew, German, Spanish, Portuguese 
 (and of course Dutch) languages, he had long felt the urgent 
 necessity of Latin. 
 
 Vanden Ende had a daughter ; her personal charms were 
 equivocal, but she was thoroughly versed in Latin, and was an 
 accomplished musician. The task of teaching young Benedict 
 generally fell to her : and as a consequence the pupil soon 
 became in love with the master. We often picture this court- 
 ship to ourselves, as a sort of odd reverse of Abelard and 
 Heloise. Spinoza, we fancy, not inattentive to the instruction, 
 but the more in love with it coming from so soft a mouth : 
 not inattentive, yet not wholly absorbed. He watches her 
 hand as it moves along the page, and longs to squeeze it. 
 While * looking out " in the dictionary their hands touch — 
 and he is thrilled ; but the word is found, nevertheless. The 
 lesson ended, he ventures on a timid compliment, which she 
 receives with a kind smile ; but the smile is lost, for the bash- 
 ful philosopher has his eyes on the ground ; when he raises 
 them, it is to see her trip away to household duties, or to 
 another pupil : and he looks after her sighing. But, alas for 
 maidenly discernment ! our female Abelard was more capti- 
 vated by the showy attractions of a certain Kerkering, a young 
 Hamburg merchant, who had also taken lessons in Latin and 
 love from the fair teacher ; and who, having backed his pre- 
 tensions by the more potent seductions of pearl necklaces, 
 rings, &c, quite cast poor Benedict into the shade. He then 
 turned from love to philosophy. 
 
 His progress in Latin had, however, been considerable ; he 
 read it with facility, and found it invaluable in his philosophical 
 studies ; and especially as the works of Descartes now fell into 
 his hands, which he studied with intense avidity, feeling that 
 a new world was therein revealed. The laws of the ancient 
 Jewish doctors expressly enjoin the necessity of learning some 
 
4 I4 SPINOZA'S LIFE. 
 
 mechanical art, as well as the study of the law. It was not 
 enough, they said, to be a scholar — the means of subsistence 
 must also be learned. Spinoza had accordingly, while belong- 
 ing to the synagogue, learnt the art of polishing glasses for 
 telescopes, microscopes, &c, in which he arrived at such 
 proficiency that the great Leibnitz, writing to him, mentioned, 
 " Among the honourable things which fame has acquainted me 
 with respecting you, I learn with no small interest that you are 
 a clever optician." By polishing glasses he gained a subsist- 
 ence—humble, it is true, but equal to his wants. To this he 
 joined, by way of relaxation, the study of design, and soon 
 became very expert. Coterus had a portfolio of portraits of 
 several distinguished men, sketched by him ; and one among 
 them was a portrait of himself, in the dress of Masaniello.* 
 
 In his eight-and-twentieth year Spinoza left his natal city of 
 Amsterdam, and resolving to devote his life to study, retired to 
 Rhynsburg, near Leyden, where, still pursuing his trade as a 
 glass polisher, he devoted every spare hour to philosophy. The 
 fruits of his solitude were the ' Abridgment of the Meditations 
 of Des Cartes,' with an appendix, in which he first disclosed 
 the principal points of his own system. This is a very interest- 
 ing work. It contains the most accurate and comprehensible 
 account of Descartes we have ever met with ; and the appendix 
 is curious, as containing the germs of the ' Ethica.' It made a 
 profound sensation ; and when, the following year, he removed 
 to Woorburg, a small village near the Hague, his reputation 
 attracted him a great concourse of visitors. Many enmities 
 were excited amongst the disciples of Descartes, by the expo- 
 sition of the weak points of their master's system ; and Spinoza 
 nad to suffer their rude attacks in consequence ; — but the 
 attention of all thinking men was fixed upon him, and the 
 clearness and precision of his work won him their admiration. 
 So many new friendships did he form, that he at last yielded 
 to the numerous solicitations that he should come and live en- 
 tirely at the Hague. It was not the learned alone who sought 
 his friendship— men of rank in public affairs were also num- 
 bered amongst them. Of the latter we may mention the 
 celebrated Jan de Witt, who loved Spinoza, and profited by 
 his advice in many an emergency. The great Conde' also, 
 
 • " Your enemies have not failed to assert that by that you pretended to 
 show that you would create in a little while the same uproar in Christianity 
 that Masaniello created in Naples."— Rencontre de Boyle avec Spinoaa 
 dans V autre Monde. 1 7 1 1 . 
 
SPINOZA'S LIFE. 415 
 
 during the invasion of Holland by the French, sent to desire 
 Spinoza to come and see him. The philosopher obeyed, but 
 the prince was prevented keeping his appointment — to his loss. 
 This journey was very near proving fatal to Spinoza. The 
 populace having learned that he had been in communication 
 with the enemy, began to suspect him of being a spy. His land- 
 lord, alarmed at these reports, warned him of them ; he feared, 
 he said, that the populace would attack the house. " Fear 
 nothing," replied Spinoza, calmly. " It is easy for me to justify 
 myself, and there are persons enough who know the object of 
 my journey ; but whatever may arrive, as soon as the people 
 assemble before your door, I will go out and meet them, even 
 though I should share the fate of De Witt" The same calm 
 courage which made him proclaim the truth, now made him 
 ready to confront the infuriated populace. Fortunately all 
 passed off in peace, and he was left to his studies. Karl Lud- 
 wig, anxious to secure so illustrious a thinker, offered him the 
 vacant chair of philosophy at Heidelberg, which, however, 
 Spinoza could not accept, conscious that the philosophy he 
 would teach was too closely allied to theology, not to trench 
 on its dogmas ; and the Elector had expressly stipulated that 
 he should teach nothing which could prejudice the established 
 religion. He therefore begged to decline it, as his public 
 duties would interfere with his private meditations. Yet it was 
 both a lucrative and honourable post he refused ; but a philo- 
 sophical contempt for worldly honours was amongst his charac- 
 teristics. 
 
 It is invigorating to contemplate Spinoza's life. Dependent 
 on his own manual exertions for his daily bread, limited in his 
 wants, and declining all pecuniary assistance so liberally offered 
 by his friends, he was always at ease, cheerful, and occupied. 
 There is an heroic firmness traceable in every act of his life, 
 worthy of our meditation ; there is a perpetual sense of man's 
 independence, worthy of all imitation. He refuses to accept 
 the belief of another man — he will believe for himself; he sees 
 mysteries around him — awful, inexplicable — but he will accept 
 of no man's explanation. God has given him a soul, and with 
 that he will solve the problem ; or remain without a solution. 
 Thus he leaves the synagogue ; thus also he leaves Des- 
 cartes; thus he thinks for himself. So in a far subordinate 
 sphere he will assert his independence. Having but the most 
 miserable pittance, and with the purses of his friends open to 
 him, he preferred limiting his desires to accepting their bounties. 
 
4 i* SPINOZA'S LIFE. 
 
 He preferred working, and gaining his own subsistence, so long 
 as it was to be gained. This was no crotchet of his ; neither 
 was it ignoble calculation. The friends were sincere, their 
 offers were sincere ; he knew it, but thanked them, and de- 
 clined. The heritage, which on his father's death fell to his 
 lot, he resigned to his sisters. The large property which his 
 friend Simon de Vries had announced his intention of leaving 
 him, he would not consent to accept ; but made Simon alter 
 his will in favour of his brother De Vries, at Schiedam. The 
 pension offered him if he would dedicate his next work to 
 Louis XIV., he refused, " having no intention of dedicating 
 anything to that monarch." He was indebted to no one but 
 to God : who had given him talents, and energy to make those 
 talents available, not to let them and him rot in idleness, or in 
 ignoble dependence, while all the world had to toil.* 
 
 Yet it was a hard, griping poverty that he endured. On 
 looking over his papers after his death, they found accounts of 
 his expenditure. One day he ate nothing but a soupe au lait, 
 with a little butter, which cost about three half-pence, Jtnd a 
 pot of beer, which cost three farthings more. Another day 
 he lived on a basin of gruel, with some butter and raisins, 
 which cost him twopence halfpenny ; and, says the pastor 
 Golems, " Although often invited to dinner, he preferred the 
 scanty meal that he found at home, to dining sumptuously at 
 the expense of another. " This was the man who was, by his 
 contemporaries, branded with the names of Atheist and Epi- 
 curean ; and who has borne these names for ever after through 
 all Europe, excepting only Germany. While on the one hand 
 no man was perhaps ever more filled with religion (so that 
 Novalis could call him a God-intoxicated man), on the other 
 hand his Epicureanism, at twopence halfpenny sterling per 
 diem, stands a legible charge against him. 
 
 The publication of his « Tractatus Theologico-Politicus ' was 
 an event of some importance, both in the history of philosophy 
 and of Spinoza. The state of men's minds at that period was 
 not favourable to the reception of any great philosophical 
 system ; and Spinoza found himself obliged to prepare the way 
 for his future doctrines, by examining the nature of that eccle- 
 
 • It was in a man's own energy that he saw the germ of worth and 
 greatness, and wisely ridiculed the notion of patronage in this noteworthy 
 passage : " Governments should never found academies, for they serve 
 more to oppress than to encourage genius. The unique method of making 
 the arts and sciences flourish, is to allow every individual to teach what he 
 thinks, at his own risk and peril." — Tract. Polity c. 8, § 49. 
 
SPINOZA'S L/F£. 417 
 
 siastical power which could excite at will such violent pertur- 
 bation in the state ; and by examining also the foundations on 
 which that power reposed. This great question still agitates 
 mankind ; and it is as curious as instructive to observe that the 
 late orthodox and estimable Dr. Arnold taught a doctrine 
 precisely similar to that taught by the reviled and persecuted 
 Spinoza.* 
 
 Times were troubled. Holland was reposing on her laurels, 
 won in the long and desperate struggle against Spain. Having 
 freed herself from a foreign yoke, she had, one would fancy, 
 little now to do but to complete her canals, extend her com- 
 merce, and enjoy her peace. But, oh, the glorious contradic- 
 tions in human history ! This land of political freedom — this 
 ark of refuge for the persecuted of all nations — the republic 
 whose banner was freedom, and in whose cities European free- 
 thinkers published their works — was itself disturbed by theo- 
 logical faction. The persecuted Jews might flock from Spam 
 and Portugal — the synagogue might rear itself beside the 
 church — the Protestants of France and Belgium were welcomed 
 as brothers and citizens ; but arrived there, the fugitives might 
 witness, even there, the implacable war of party. Toleration 
 was afforded to political freethinking, and to the diversities of 
 religion ; but, within the pale of the state-religion, malice and 
 all un charitableness were daily witnessed. There the Gomarists 
 and Arminians disputed concerning the infallibility of then 
 doctrines, and cloaked their political ambition under evan* 
 gel^al protestations, t 
 
 This was the state of things on the appearance of the ' Trac- 
 tates.' Spinoza, seeing the deplorable dissensions of the theo- 
 logians, endeavoured to make evident the necessity of a state 
 religion, which, without absolutely imposing or interfering with 
 private creeds, should regulate all outward observances. Be- 
 cause, as it is the office of the state to watch over all that con- 
 cerns the common welfare, so should it watch over the church, 
 and direct it according to the general wish. But two things 
 perfectly distinct must not here be confounded, viz., liberty of 
 observance and liberty of thought. The latter is independent 
 of all civil power; but the former must be subject to it, for the 
 sake of the public tranquillity. 
 
 Although this portion of the ' Tractates' could not have met 
 
 * Compare Arnold : ' Introductory Lectures on Modern History.' 
 Appendix to the first Lecture. 
 
 f Saintes. • Hist, de la Vie de Spinosa.' — P. 63. 
 
 D D 
 
; i« SPINOZdS LIFE. 
 
 with general approbation, yet it would scarcely have raised 
 violent dissensions, had Spinoza confined himself to such 
 speculation ; but, anticipating the rationalism of modern Ger- 
 mans, he undertook a criticism of the Bible, and attacked the 
 institution of priesthood as injurious to the general welfare. 
 It may be curious here to quote Spinoza's anticipation of the 
 Hegelian Christology. which, in the hands of Strauss, Feuer- 
 bach, and Bruno Baur, has made so much noise in the theo- 
 logical world : — " I tell you," says Spinoza, in his letter to 
 Oldenburg, " that it is not necessary for your salvation that you 
 should believe in Christ according to the flesh ; but of that 
 eternal Son of God, /. e. the eternal wisdom of God, which is 
 manifested in all things, but mostly in the human mind, and 
 most of all in Jesus Christ; a very different conception must 
 be formed." — " Dico ad salutem non esse omninb necesse, 
 Christum secundum carnem noscere, sed de seterno illo filio 
 Dei, hoc est, Dei aeterna sapientia, quae sese in omnibus rebus, 
 et maxime in mente humana et omnium maxime in Christo 
 Jesu manifestavit, longe aliter sentiendum." * The conse- 
 quences were as might have been expected ; the book was at 
 once condemned, and forbidden to be received in almost every 
 country. This, as usual, only gave a greater stimulus to 
 curiosity, and the sensation the work produced may be judged 
 of by the quantity of " refutations " which appeared. Many 
 were the artifices used to introduce it into the various coun- 
 tries. An edition was published at Leyden, under this title, 
 1 Dan. Hensii Operum Historicorum, collectio prima. Edit. 
 II., priori editione multo emendatior et auctior ; accedunt 
 quaedam hactenus inedita.' This was reprinted at Amsterdam 
 as ' Henriquez de Villacorta. M. Dr a cubiculo Philippi IV., 
 Caroli II., archiatri Opera chirugica omnia, sub auspiciis 
 potentissimi Hispaniarum Regis.' This absurd title was 
 adopted to pass it into Spain. Another edition in French, 
 called ' La Clef du Sanctuaire,' was published at Leyden in 
 1678, and in Amsterdam as * Traite* des Ce^monies des Juifs,' 
 and again as ' Reflexions curieuses d'un esprit d£sint£resse? 
 
 Spinoza's devotion to study, with its concurrent abstemi- 
 ousness and want of exercise, soon undermined his constitution; 
 but he never complained. He suffered that, as he had suffered 
 everything else — in silence. Once only a hint escapes him. 
 " If my life be continued," he writes to a friend respecting a 
 promise to explain certain matters. No plaint — no regret — 
 * 4 Opera Posthuma,' p. 450. 
 
SPINOZA'S LIFE. 419 
 
 merely a condition put upon a promise. He was a calm, 
 brave man ; he could confront disease and death, as he had 
 confronted poverty and persecution. Bravery of the highest 
 kind distinguished him through life, and was not likely to fail 
 him on the quitting it; and yet beneath that calm, cold 
 stoicism, there was a childlike gaiety springing from a warm 
 and sympathising heart. His character was made up of 
 generous simplicity and heroic forbearance. He could spare 
 somewhat from even his scanty pittance to relieve the wretched. 
 He taught the learned world the doctrines he had elaborated 
 with endless toil ; but he taught children to be regular in their 
 attendance on divine service. He would question his host 
 and hostess, on their return from church, respecting the sermon 
 they had heard, and the benefit they had derived. He had no 
 unwise proselytism which would destroy convictions in minds 
 unfitted to receive others. One day his hostess asked him if 
 he believed that she could be saved by her religion. He 
 answered, "Your religion is a good one — you ought not to 
 seek another, nor doubt that yours will procure your salvation, 
 provided you add to your piety the tranquil virtues of domestic 
 life." Words full of wisdom, springing from an affectionate 
 and experienced mind. 
 
 So lived the Jew, Spinoza. So he developed his own nature, 
 and assisted the development in others. Given up to philo- 
 sophy, he found in it " its own exceeding great reward." His 
 only relaxations were his pipe, receiving visitors, chatting to 
 the people of his house, and watching spiders fight. This 
 last amusement would make the tears roll down his cheeks 
 with laughter. 
 
 The commencement of the year 1677 found him near his 
 end. The phthisis, which he had suffered from for twenty 
 years, now alarmingly increased. On Sunday, the 22nd 
 February, he insisted on his kind host and hostess leaving him, 
 and attending divine service, as he would not permit his illness 
 to obstruct their devotions. They obeyed. On their return 
 he talked with them about the sermon, and ate some broth 
 with a good appetite. After dinner his friends returned to 
 church, leaving the physician with him. When they came 
 home they learnt, with sorrow and surprise, that he had expired 
 about three o'clock, in the presence of the physician, who 
 seized what money there was on the table, together with a 
 silver-handled knife, and left the body without further care. 
 So died, in his forty-fifth year, in the full vigour and maturity 
 
4 ao SPINOZA'S DOCTRINE. 
 
 of his intellect, Benedict Spinoza. " Offer up with me a lock 
 of hair to the manes of the holy but repudiated Spinoza ! " 
 exclaims the pious Schleiermacher. " The great spirit of the 
 world penetrated him ; the Infinite was his beginning and his 
 end ; the universe his only and eternal love. He was filled 
 with religion and religious feeling; and therefore it is that 
 he stands alone, unapproachable ; the master in his art, but 
 elevated above the profane world, without adherents, and 
 without even citizenship." * 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 spinoza's doctrine. 
 
 The system of Spinoza, which has excited so much odium, is 
 but the logical development of the system of Descartes which 
 has excited so much admiration. Curious ! The demonstration 
 of the existence of God was one of Descartes' proudest laurels ; 
 the demonstration of the existence of God — and of no other 
 existence but that of God, being possible — was Spinoza's title 
 to almost universal execration. 
 
 Dugald Stewart, generally one of the most candid of men, 
 evidently shared the common prejudice with respect to Spinoza. 
 He refuses, therefore, to admit that Spinoza, whom he dislikes, 
 held opinions at all similar to those of Descartes, whom he 
 admires. " It was in little else," says he, "than his physical 
 principles that he agreed with Descartes; for no two philo- 
 sophers ever differed more widely in their metaphysical and 
 theological tenets. Fontenelle characterizes his system as 
 Cartesianism pushed to extravagance." This is far from cor- 
 rect Spinoza differed with Descartes on a few points, and 
 agreed with him on most ; the differences were only those of a 
 more rigorous logical development of the principles both main- 
 tained. 
 
 It was at an important era in Spinoza's life that the writings 
 of Descartes fell in his way. He was then striving to solve for 
 himself the inexplicable riddle of the universe. He had pene- 
 trated deep into the science of the Cabbala ; he had studied 
 with the learned Morteira ; but though wise in all the wisdom 
 of the Jews, he was still at an immeasurable distance from the 
 • Schleiermacher : ■ Rede iiber die Religion ' p. 47 
 
SPINOZA'S DOCTRINE. 4*1 
 
 desired solution. Descartes captivated him by the boldness of 
 his logic, by the independent nature of his Method, whereby 
 truth was sought in the inner world of man, and not in the 
 outward world, nor in the records of authority. He studied 
 Descartes with avidity ; but he soon found that there also the 
 riddle remained unsolved. He found the fact of his own 
 existence somewhat superfluously established; but the far 
 greater existence in which his own was included — of which the 
 great All was but a varied manifestation — of this he found no 
 demonstration. Cogito, ergo sum, is irresistible. Cogito, ergo 
 Deus est, is no syllogism. 
 
 Spinoza, therefore, leaving Descartes, asked himself — What 
 is the noume?ion which lies beneath all phenomena ? We see 
 everywhere transformations perishable and perishing ; yet there 
 must be something beneath which is imperishable, immutable ; 
 what is it? We see a wondrous universe peopled with won- 
 drous beings, yet none of these beings exist perse, but per aliud : 
 they are not the authors of their own existence ; they do not rest 
 upon their own reality, but on a greater reality — on that of the 
 to iv kcu to vav. What is this reality ? 
 
 This question, Spinoza thought, could not be answered by 
 the idea of Perfection. No : the great reality of all existence 
 is Substance. Not substance in the gross and popular sense of 
 " body " or " matter," but that which is subs tans — which is 
 standing under all phenomena, supporting and giving them 
 reality. What is a phenomenon ? — an appearance, a thing per- 
 ceived : a state of the perceiving mind. But what originates 
 this perception — what changes the mind from its prior to its 
 present state ? Something, external and extrinsic, changes it. 
 What is this something ? What it is, in itself, we can never 
 know : because to know it would bring it under the forms and 
 conditions of the mind, i.e., would constitute it a phenome- 
 non — unknown, therefore, but not denied — this ens — this 
 something is; and this Kant calls noumenon. This Spinoza 
 calls Substance. 
 
 All science, as all existence, must start from one principle, 
 which must be the ground of all. What is this commence- 
 ment — this apxn. Perfection, replies Descartes. No, says 
 Spinoza, Perfection is an attribute of something prior to it. 
 Substance is the apxrj. Descartes, in common with most philo- 
 sophers, had assumed a duality : he had assumed a God and a 
 real world created by God. Substance, to him, was by no 
 means the primal fact of all existence ; on the contrary, be 
 
4M SPINOZA'S DOCTRINE. 
 
 maintained that both extension and Thought were Substances , 
 in other words, that mind and matter were distinct independent 
 Substances, different in essence, and united only by God. 
 Spinoza affirmed that both Extension and Thought were no 
 more than Attributes ; and by a subtle synthesis he reduced 
 the duality of Descartes to his own all-embracing unity, and 
 thus arrived at a conception of the One. 
 
 The absolute Existence — the Substance — (call it what you 
 will) is God. From Him all individual concrete existences 
 arise. All that exists, exists in and by God ; and can only thus 
 be conceived. Here, then, thought he, the mystery of the 
 world begins to unfold itself to the patient thinker ; he recog- 
 nises God as the fountain of life; he sees in the universe 
 nothing but the manifestation of God ; the finite rests upon the 
 bosom of the infinite ; the inconceivable variety resolves itself 
 into unity. There is but one reality, and that is God. 
 
 Such was Spinoza's solution of the problem : upon this he 
 felt he could repose in peace, and upon this only. To live with 
 God — to know God with perfect knowledge, was the highest 
 point of human development and happiness ; and to this he 
 consecrated his life. Taking the words of St. Paul, " In Him 
 we live, move, and have our being," as his motto, he undertook 
 to trace the relations of the world to God and to man, and 
 those of man to society. His * Tractatus J and ' Ethica,' were 
 the great results of that endeavour. 
 
 Spinoza agreed with Descartes in these three vital positions. 
 I. The basis of all certitude is Consciousness. II. Whatever 
 is clearly perceived in Consciousness must therefore be neces- 
 sarily true ; and distinct ideas are true ideas, true expressions 
 of objective existences. III. Consequently metaphysical 
 problems are susceptible of mathematical demonstration. The 
 only novelty in Spinoza's Method is, that it is the Method of 
 Descartes carried out. Descartes thought that the mathema- 
 tical method was capable of being applied to metaphysics, but 
 he did not apply it ; Spinoza did. 
 
 This may seem a trifling addition ; in reality it was the source 
 of all the differences between Spinoza and his teacher. Des- 
 cartes' principles inevitably lead to Spinoza's system, if those 
 principles are rigorously carried out. But Descartes never 
 attempted the rigorous deduction of consequences, which 
 Spinoza, using the mathematical method, calmly and inflexibly 
 deduces. Those who rebel at the conclusions drawn must 
 impugn the premisses from which they are drawn ; foi the 
 
SPINOZA'S DOCTRINE. 433 
 
 system of Spinoza is nothing more nor less than a demon- 
 stration. 
 
 To this demonstration we are about to lead our readers, and 
 only beg of them a little steady attention and a little patient 
 thought, convinced that they will then have little difficulty in 
 finding their way in this abstrusest of all subjects. We shall 
 translate some portion of the ■ Ethica ' with the utmost care, 
 because we think it every way advisable that the reader should 
 have Spinoza's own mode of statement, and thereby be enabled 
 to watch his manner of deducing his conclusions from his pre- 
 misses. The work opens with eight 
 
 DEFINITIONS. 
 
 I. By Cause of itself I understand that, the essence of which 
 
 involves existence ; or that, the nature of which can only 
 be considered as existent.* 
 
 II. A thing finite is that which can be limited (terminari potest) 
 
 by another thing of the same nature, e.g., body is said to 
 be finite because it can always be conceived as larger. 
 So thought is limited by other thoughts. But body does 
 not limit thought, nor thought limit body. 
 
 III. By Substance I understand that which is in itself, and is 
 conceived per se : that is, the conception of which does not 
 require the conception of anything else as antecedent to it. 
 
 IV. By Attribute I understand that which the mind perceives 
 as constituting the very essence of Substance. 
 
 V. By Modes I understand the accidents (affectiones) of Sub- 
 
 stance ; or that which is in something else, through which 
 also it is conceived. 
 
 VI. By God I understand the Being absolutely infinite ; /.*., 
 the Substance consisting of infinite Attributes, each of 
 which expresses an infinite and eternal essence. 
 
 Explication. I say absolutely infinite, but not in suo genere ; 
 for to whatever is infinite but not in suo genere, we can 
 deny infinite Attributes ; but that which is absolutely 
 infinite, to its essence pertains everything which implies 
 essence, and involves no negation. 
 
 VII. That thing is said to be free which exists by the sole 
 necessity of its nature, and by itself alone is determined to 
 
 • This is an important definition, as it gets rid of the verbal perplexity 
 hitherto felt relative to an " endless chain of causes." The doubter might 
 always ask the cause of the first cause in the series ; but here, by identi* 
 fying cause and existence, Spinoza very properly annihilates the sophism. 
 
424 SPINOZA'S DOCTRINE. 
 
 action. But that is necessary, or rather constrained, which 
 owes its existence to another, and acts according to certain 
 and determinate causes. 
 VIII. By Eternity I understand Existence itself, in as far as it 
 is conceived necessarily to follow from the sole definition 
 of an eternal thing. 
 
 These are the definitions : they need not long be dwelt on, 
 but must frequently be recurred to hereafter ; above all, no 
 objection ought to be raised against them, as unusual or untrue, 
 for they are the meanings of various terms in constant use with 
 Spinoza, and he has a'right to use them as he pleases, pro- 
 vided he does not afterwards depart from this use, which he is 
 careful not to do. We now come to the seven 
 
 axioms. 
 
 I. Everything which is, is in itself, or in some other thing. 
 
 II. That which cannot be conceived through another— -per 
 
 0//W— must be conceived pZLje^C ^7 ^c^ ) 
 
 III. From a given determinate cause the effect necessarily fol- 
 lows ; and vice versa, if no determinate cause be given no 
 effect can follow. 
 
 IV. The knowledge of an effect depends on the knowledge of 
 the cause, and includes it. 
 
 V. Things that have nothing in common with each other can- 
 
 not be understood by means of each other, i.e., the con- 
 ception of one does not involve the conception of the 
 other. 
 
 VI. A true idea must agree with its original in nature (idea vera 
 debet cum suo ideato convenire). 
 
 VI L Whatever can be clearly conceived as non-existent, does 
 not, in its essence, involve existence. 
 
 These axioms at once command assent, if we except the 
 fourth, which, because it is ambiguous, has been thought 
 absurd ; but the truth is, that the opposite conceptions now 
 prevalent respecting cause and effect prevent a real apprecia- 
 tion of this axiom. Mr. Hallam goes so far as to say, " It 
 seems to be in this fourth axiom, and in the proposition 
 grounded upon it, that the fundamental fallacy lurks. The 
 relation between a cause and effect is surely something per- 
 fectly different from our perfect comprehension of it, or indeed 
 from our having any knowledge of it at all ; much less can the 
 
SPINOZA'S DOCTRINE, 425 
 
 contrary assertion be deemed axiomatic."* There is a want of 
 subtlety in this criticism, as well as a want of comprehension of 
 Spinoza's doctrines ; and we wonder it never suggested itself 
 that the modern notions of cause and effect do not correspond 
 with the Spinozistic system. In the above axiom it is not 
 meant that there are no effects manifested to us of which we do 
 not also know the causes— it is not meant that a man receiving 
 a blow in the dark is not aware of that blow (effect), though 
 ignorant of the immediate cause. What is meant is, that a 
 complete and comprehensive knowledge of the effect is only to 
 be obtained through a complete and comprehensive knowledge 
 of the cause. If you would know the effect in its totality — in 
 itself — you must know also the cause in its totality. This is 
 obvious : for what is an effect ? An effect is a cause realized ; 
 it is the naiura naturans conceived as naiura naturata. We call 
 the antecedent, cause, and the sequent, effect, but these are 
 merely relative conceptions ; the sequence itself is antecedent 
 to some subsequent change, and the former antecedent was 
 once only a sequent to its cause ; and so on. Causation is 
 change ; when the change is completed, we name the result 
 effect. It is only a matter of naming. But inciting this change, 
 causing it as we say, there is some power (cause) in nature ; 
 to know this effect, therefore, — that is, not merely to have a 
 relative conception of our own condition consequent on it, but 
 to comprehend this power, this reality, to penetrate its mystery, 
 to see it in its totality, — you must know what the effect is, and 
 how it is ; you must know its point of departure, and its point 
 of destination ; in a word, you must transcend the knowledge of 
 phenomena, and acquire that of noumena. In a popular sense 
 we are said to know effects, but to be ignorant of causes. 
 Truly, we are ignorant of both — and equally ignorant. A 
 knowledge of sequences we have, and of nothing more. The 
 vital power determining these sequences we name, but cannot 
 know ; we may call it attraction, heat, electricity, polarization, 
 &c. ; but having named, we have not explained it. 
 
 This is what Spinoza implicitly teaches ; and had Mr. Hallam 
 attended only to what the very next axiom proclaims, viz., that 
 things having nothing in common with each other cannot be 
 understood by means of each other, ;'.<r., the conception of one 
 not involving the conception of the other — he would have 
 understood Spinoza's meaning : for, if effect be different from 
 
 • Introd. to * Lit. of Europe,' iv., 246. 
 
496 SPINOZA'S DOCTRINE, 
 
 cause, then its conception does not involve the conception of 
 cause ; but if it be the same as cause, then does the one con- 
 ception involve that of the other ; ergo, the more complete the 
 knowledge of the one, the more complete the knowledge of the 
 other. The reader will bear this in mind when studying 
 Spinoza. 
 
 We will now proceed to the 
 
 propositions. 
 
 Prop. I. Substance is prior in nature to its accidents. 
 
 Demonstration. Per Definitions 3 and 5. 
 
 Prop. II. Two Substances, having different Attributes, have 
 nothing in common with each other. 
 
 Demonst. This follows from Def. 3 ; for each Substance must 
 be conceived in itself and through itself; in other words, 
 the conception of one does not involve the conception of 
 the other. 
 
 Prop. III. Of things which have nothing in common, one 
 cannot be the cause of the other.* 
 
 Demonst. If they have nothing in common, then (per Axiom 5) 
 they cannot be conceived by means of each other ; ergo 
 (per Axiom 4), one cannot be the cause of the other. — 
 Q.E.D. 
 
 Prop. IV. Two or more distinct things are distinguished among 
 themselves either through the diversity of their Attributes, 
 or through that of their Modes. 
 
 Demonst. Everything which is, is in itself or in some other thing 
 (per Axiom 1), that is (per Def. 3 and 5), there is nothing 
 out of ourselves {extra intelledum) but Substance and 
 its Modes. There is nothing out of ourselves whereby 
 things can be distinguished amongst one another, except 
 
 * This fallacy has been one of the most influential corrupters of philo- 
 sophical speculation. For many years it was undisputed ; and most meta- 
 physicians still adhere to it. See 'Mill's System of Logic,' vol. ii., pp. 
 376-386. 
 
 The assertion is that only like can act upon like. This was the assump- 
 tion of Anaxagoras, and the groundwork of his system. If the assumption 
 be correct, his system is true. But although it is true that like produces 
 (causes^ like, it is also as true that like produces unlike : thus fire produces 
 fain when applied to our bodies, explosion when applied to gunpowder, 
 charcoal when applied to wood; all these effects are unlike the cause. 
 Spinoza's position is logically concluded from his premisses ; those who 
 have since upheld the fallacy have not that excuse. 
 
SPINOZA'S DOCTRINE. 4 t7 
 
 Substances, or (which is the same thing, per Def. 4*) 
 their Attributes and Modes. 
 
 Prop. V. It is impossible that there should be two or more 
 Substances of the same nature, or of the same Attri- 
 bute. 
 
 Demonst. If there are many different Substances they must be 
 distinguished by the diversity of their Attributes or of 
 their Modes (per Prop. 4). If only by the diversity of 
 their Attributes, it is thereby conceded that there is 
 nevertheless only one Substance of the same Attribute ; 
 but if by their diversity of Modes, then Substance being 
 prior in order of time to its Modes, it must be considered 
 independent of them ; that is (per Def. 3 and 6), cannot 
 be conceived as distinguished from another ; that is (per 
 Prop. 4), there cannot be many Substances, but only one 
 Substance.— Q.E.D. 
 
 Prop. VI. One Substance cannot be created by another 
 Substance. 
 
 Demonst. There cannot be two Substances with the same 
 Attributes (per Prop. 5); that is (per Prop. 2), that have 
 anything in common with each other ; and therefore (per 
 Prop. 3) one cannot be the cause of the other. 
 
 Corollary. Hence it follows that Substance cannot be created 
 by anything else. For there is nothing in nature except 
 Substance and its Modes (per Axiom 1, and Def. 3 and 
 5) ; now this Substance not being produced by another is 
 self-caused. 
 
 Corollary 2. This proposition is more easily to be demon- 
 strated by the absurdity of its contradiction — for if Sub- 
 stance can be produced by anything else, the conception 
 of it would depend on the conception of the cause 
 (per Axiom 4!), and hence (per Def. 3) it would not be 
 Substance. 
 
 Prop. VII. It pertains to the nature of Substance to exist. 
 
 Demonst. Substance cannot be produced by anything else (per 
 Coroll. Prop. 6), and is therefore the cause of itself ; i.e. 
 (per Def. 1) its essence necessarily involves existence ; or 
 it pertains to the nature of Substance to exist. — Q.E.D. 
 
 • In the original, by a slip of the pen, Axiom 4 is referred to instead of 
 Def. 4 ; and Auerbach has followed the error in his translation. We 
 notice it because the reference to Axiom 4 is meaningless, and apt to 
 puzzle the student. 
 
 t Here the potency and significance of Axiom 4 begins to unfold itself. 
 
4 a8 mnozas doctrine. 
 
 Prop. VIII. All Substance is necessarily infinite. 
 Demonst. There exists but one Substance of the same Attri- 
 bute ; and it must either exist as infinite or finite. But 
 not finite, for (per Def. 2) as finite it must be limited by 
 another Substance of the same nature, and in that case 
 there would be two Substances of the same Attribute, 
 which (per Prop. 5) is absurd. Substance, therefore, is 
 infinite.— Q.E.D. 
 Scholium I. — I do not doubt but that to all who judge con- 
 fusedly of things, and are not wont to inquire into first causes, 
 it will be difficult to admit the demonstration of Prop. 7, 
 because they do not sufficiently distinguish between the modi- 
 fications of Substances, and Substances themselves, and are 
 ignorant of the manner in which things are produced. Hence 
 it follows, that the commencement which they see natural 
 things have, they attribute to Substances ; for he who knows 
 not the true causes of things, confounds all things, and feigns 
 that trees talk like men ; that men are formed from stones as 
 well as from seeds, and that all forms can be changed into all 
 other forms. So, also, those who confound the divine nature 
 with the human, naturally attribute human affections to God, 
 especially as they are ignorant of how these affections are pro- 
 duced in the mind. But if men attended to the nature of 
 Substance, they would not in the least doubt Prop. 7 ; nay, 
 this proposition would be an axiom to all, and would be 
 numbered among common notions. For, by substance they 
 would understand that which exists in itself, and is conceived 
 through itself; i.e., the knowledge of which does not require 
 the knowledge of anything antecedent to it.* But by modifi- 
 cation they would understand that which is in another thing, 
 the conception of which is formed by the conception of the 
 thing in which it is, or to which it belongs : we can have, 
 therefore, correct ideas of non-existent modifications, because, 
 although out of the understanding they have no reality, yet 
 their essence is so comprehended in that of another, that they 
 can be conceived through this other. The truth of Substance 
 (out of the understanding) lies nowhere but in itself, because it 
 is conceived per se. If, therefore, anyone says that he has a 
 distinct and clear idea of Substance, and yet doubt whether 
 
 • The reader will bear in mind the result of Descartes' philosophy, if he 
 would fully seize Spinoza's meaning and the basis on which it reposes. 
 Descartes, as we saw, could find nothing indubitable but existence. 
 Existence was the primal fact of all science ; self-evident and indisputable. 
 
SPINOZA'S DOCTRINE. 4*9 
 
 such Substance exist, this would be as much as to say that he 
 had a true idea, and nevertheless doubts whether it be not 
 false (as a little attention sufficiently manifests) ; or, if any 
 man affirms Substance to be created, he at the same time 
 affirms that a true idea has become false ; than which nothing 
 can be more absurd. Hence it is necessarily confessed that 
 the existence of Substance as well as its essence is an eternal 
 truth. And hence we must conclude that there is only one 
 Substance possessing the same Attribute, which requires here a 
 fuller development. I note, therefore, 
 
 i. That the correct definition of a thing includes and ex- 
 presses nothing but the nature of the thing defined. From 
 which follows 
 
 2. That no definition includes or expresses a distinct num- 
 ber of individuals, because it expresses nothing but the nature 
 of the thing defined ; e.g., the definition of a triangle expresses 
 no more than the nature of a triangle, and not any fixed num- 
 ber of triangles. 
 
 3. There must necessarily be a distinct cause for the exist- 
 ence of every existing thing. 
 
 4. This cause, by reason of which anything exists, must be 
 either contained in the nature and definition of the existing 
 thing (viz. that it pertains to its nature to exist), or else must 
 lie beyond it — must be something different from it. 
 
 From these positions it follows, that if a certain number of 
 individuals exist, there must necessarily be a cause why that 
 number, and not a larger or smaller number : e.g. % if in the 
 world twenty men exist (whom, for greater perspicuity, I sup- 
 pose to exist at once, no more having previously existed), it 
 will not be sufficient to show the reason why twenty men 
 exist, to point to human nature as the cause, but it will fur- 
 ther be necessary to show cause why only twenty men exist, 
 because (per note 3) a cause must be given for the existence of 
 everything. This cause, however (per notes 2 and 3), cannot 
 be contained in human nature itself, because the true definition 
 of man does not involve the number twenty. Hence (per note 
 4) the cause why twenty men exist and why each individual 
 exists must lie beyond each of them ; and therefore must we 
 absolutely conclude that everything, the nature of which admits 
 of many individuals, must necessarily have an external cause 
 As, therefore, it pertains to the nature of Substance to exist, so 
 must its definition include a necessary existence, and conse- 
 quently from its sole definition we must conclude its existence. 
 
430 SPINOZA'S DOCTRINE. 
 
 But, as from its definition, as already shown in notes 2 and 3, 
 it is not possible to conclude the existence of many Substances, 
 ergo, it necessarily follows that only one Substance of the same 
 nature can exist. 
 
 We must here break off in our translation : we have arrived' 
 at the very heart and pith of the system, and have gone far 
 enough to present the method in all its rigour before the reader. 
 An analysis of the principal positions subsequently treated will 
 be all that is now necessary. 
 
 There is but one infinite Substance, and that is God. What- 
 ever is, is in God; and without Him, nothing can be con- 
 ceived. He is the universal Being of which all things are the 
 manifestations. He is the sole Substance ; everything else is 
 a Mode; yet, without Substance, Mode cannot exist. God, 
 viewed under the attributes of Infinite Substance, is the natura 
 naturans — viewed as a manifestation, as the modes under 
 which his attributes appear, he is the natura naturata. He is 
 the cause of all things, and that immanently, but not tran- 
 siently. He has two infinite attributes — Extension and 
 Thought. Extension is visible Thought ; and Thought is in- 
 visible Extension : they are the Objective and Subjective of 
 which God is the Identity. Every thing is a mode of God's 
 attribute of Extension ; every thought, wish, or feeling, a mode 
 of his attribute of Thought. That Extension and Thought are 
 not Substances, as Descartes maintained, is obvious from this : 
 that they are not conceived per se, but per aliud. Something is 
 extended : what is ? Not the Extension itself, but something 
 prior to it, viz. Substance. Substance is uncreated, but creates 
 by the internal necessity of its nature. There may be many 
 existing things, but only one existence ; many forms, but only 
 one Substance. God is the " idea immanens " — the One and All. 
 
 Such is a brief outline of the fundamental doctrine of 
 Spinoza ; and now we ask the reader, can he reconcile the 
 fact of this being a most religious philosophy, with the other 
 fact of its having been almost universally branded with 
 Atheism? Is this intelligible? Yes; three causes present 
 themselves at once. I. The readiness with which that term of 
 obloquy has been applied to opponents from time immemorial 
 — to Socrates as to Gottlieb Fichte. II. The obscurity of 
 party vision, and the rashness of party judgment. III. The 
 use of the ambiguous word Substance, whereby God was con- 
 founded with the material world. 
 
SPINOZA'S DOCTRINE. 431 
 
 This last point is the most important, and deserves atten- 
 tion. To say God is the infinite Substance, does look, at first 
 sight, like the grossest Atheism of the D'Holbach school; but 
 no one could ever have read twenty pages of Spinoza without 
 perceiving that this was but a misunderstanding ; for he ex- 
 pressly teaches that God is not corporeal, but that body is a 
 Mode of Extension.* No : God is not the material universe, 
 but the universe is one aspect of his infinite Attribute of Ex- 
 tension : he is the identity of the naiura naturans, and the 
 natura natura ta.f 
 
 It is a mere verbal resemblance, therefore, this of Spinozism 
 to Atheism ; but the history of philosophy shows too many in- 
 stances of the errors of language erected into errors of fact, to 
 astonish any reader. It was our place to point out the error, 
 which we trust has been done ; and the following passage from 
 Schelling's ' Philosophische Schriften ' accurately draws the 
 distinction between Pantheism and Atheism : — 
 
 " God is that which exists in itself, and is comprehended 
 from itself alone ; the finite is that which is necessarily in 
 another, and can only be comprehended from that other 
 Things therefore, are not only in degree, or through their 
 limitations different from God, but toto generc. Whatever their 
 relation to God on other points, they are absolutely divided 
 from him on this : that they exist in another, and he is self- 
 existent or original. From this difference it is manifest that 
 all individual finite things taken together cannot constitute 
 God, since that which is in its nature derived, cannot be one 
 with its original, any more than the single points of a circum- 
 
 * Dugald Stewart somewhat naively remarks that "in no part of 
 Spinoza's works has he avowed himself an Atheist" (he would have been 
 very much astonished at the charge) ; " but it will not be disputed by 
 those who comprehend the drift of his reasonings, that in point of practical 
 tendency Atheism and Spinozism are one and the same." It may be so ; 
 yet nothing can warrant the accusation of Atheism, merely because 
 Spinoza's doctrines may have the same practical tendency as that of 
 Atheism. Spinoza did not deny the existence of God ; he denied the 
 existence of the world : he was consequently an Acosmist, not an Atheist. 
 If the practical tendency of these two opposite systems really is the same, 
 Spinoza could not help it. 
 
 f "Natura naturans et natura naturata in identitate Deus est." It must 
 be borne in mind that identity does not (as in common usage) mean same- 
 ness, but the root from which spring two opposite stems, and in which 
 they have a common life. Man, for instance, is the identity of soul and 
 body ; water is the identity of oxygen and hydrogen. Great mistakes are 
 constantly being made, owing to overlooking this distinction of vulgar and 
 philosophical terms. 
 
43* SPINOZA'S DOCTRINE. 
 
 ference taken together can constitute the circumference, which, 
 as a whole, is of necessity prior to them in idea." 
 
 We here conclude our exposition of Spinoza's theology — one 
 of the most extraordinary efforts of the speculative faculty 
 which history has revealed to us. We have witnessed the 
 mathematical rigour with which it is developed; we have 
 followed him step by step, dragged onwards by his irresistible 
 logic ; and yet the final impression left on our minds is, that 
 the system has a logical but not a vital truth. We shrink back 
 from the consequences whither it so irresistibly leads us ; we 
 gaze over the abyss to the edge of which we have been dragged, 
 and seeing nought but chaos and despair, we refuse to build 
 our temples there. We retrace our steps with hurried earnest- 
 ness, to see if no false route has been taken ; we examine every 
 one of his positions, to see if there be not some secret error, 
 parent of all other errors. Arrived at the starting-point, we 
 are forced to confess that we have found no error — that each 
 conclusion is but the development of antecedent positions, and 
 yet the mind refuses to accept the conclusions. 
 
 This, then, is the state of the inquirer : he sees a vast chain 
 of reasoning carried on with the strictest rigour. He has not 
 been dazzled by rhetoric, nor confused by illustrations. There 
 has been no artful appeal to his prejudices or passions ; he has 
 been treated as a reasoning being, and has no more been able 
 to doubt the positions, after once understanding the definitions 
 and axioms, than he is able to doubt the positions of Euclid, 
 And yet we again say that the conclusions are repugned, re- 
 fused ; they are not the truth the inquirer has been seeking ; 
 they are no expressions of the thousand-fold life whose enigma 
 he has been endeavouring to solve. 
 
 Unable, himself, to see where this discrepancy lies, he turns 
 with impatience to the works of others, and seeks in criticisms 
 and refutations an outlet from his difficulty. But — and it is a 
 curious point in the history of philosophy — he finds that this 
 bold and extraordinary thinker has never been refuted by any 
 one meeting him on his own ground. Men have taken up 
 separate propositions, and having wrenched them from their 
 connexion with the whole system, have easily shown them to 
 be quite at variance with the systems of the refuters. This is 
 easy work.* On the other hand, the inquirer finds that the 
 
 • This is the way Bayle answers Spinoza ; yet his answer has been 
 pronounced by Dugald Stewart "one of the most elaborate and acute 
 refutations which has yet appeared." Mr. Stewart's dislike of the conse- 
 
SPINOZA'S DOCTRINE. 433 
 
 great metaphysicians of Germany adopt Spinoza's fundamental 
 positions, differing with him only on points of detail or of 
 language. In their works the consequences do not look so 
 appalling, because they are adorned with lofty names and 
 splendid eloquence ; but the difference is only verbal Is 
 there, then, no alternative ? Must I accept Spinoza's system, 
 repngnant as it is ? Such is the inquirer's perplexity. 
 
 We will endeavour to lead him out of it — we will endeavoui 
 to point out the fundamental error of Spinozism. In doing so, 
 we are aware that a charge of gross presumption would be 
 merited by us, did not the very nature of philosophical inquiry 
 imply an infinitely higher presumption. The human reason 
 that can dare attempt to solve the problems of philosophy may 
 well be pardoned any boldness in examining the errors of 
 others. 
 
 It is our firm conviction that no believer in metaphysics, as a 
 possible science, can escape the all-embracing dialectic of 
 Spinoza. To him who believes that the human mind can know 
 noumena, as well as phenomena — who accepts the verdict of the 
 mind as not merely the relative truth, but also the perfect, abso' 
 lute truth — we see nothing, humanly speaking, but Spinozism 
 as a philosophical refuge. For, observe, to believe in the 
 possibility of knowing " things in themselves " (and not simply 
 their appearances to us), which is the metaphysical assumption, 
 you must also believe with Spinoza that every clear idea is the 
 actual and total image of some thing as it exists in external 
 nature. If you do not believe that your knowledge is absolute, 
 and not simply relative, you have no sort of ground for the 
 belief in the possibility of ontology. Spinoza says — and every 
 ontologist who would be consequent must also say it — that the 
 subjective idea is the complete and actual image of the objective 
 fact; and this not merely relatively — qud subject, but also qua 
 object. 
 
 Never was language more explicit than Spinoza's on this 
 point ; to him it not only forms the basis of all science, but he 
 deems it necessary specially to enforce it as such, in various 
 passages. In the scholium to Prop. viii. he lays it down as a 
 fundamental rule, that the correct definition of a thing ex- 
 
 quences he believed inseparable from Spinozism has here, we think, 
 biassed his judgment. Bayle's attempt at a refutation is now pretty 
 generally considered to be pitiable. Jacobi declares Spinozism to be 
 unanswerable by those who simply reason on the problem: faith alone 
 can solve it otherwise. 
 
 II 
 
434 SPINOZA'S DOCTRINE. 
 
 presses the nature of that thing, and nothing but its nature. 
 We cannot but admire the consistency of this : he grapples 
 boldly with the very difficulty of the science he is endeavour- 
 ing to establish. It is obvious that, to know things which are 
 beyond appearances — which transcend the sphere of sense — we 
 must know them as they are, and not as they are under the con- 
 ditions of sense. Spinoza at once pronounces that we can so 
 know them. He says : whatever I clearly know is true ; true 
 not merely in reference to my conception of it, but in reference 
 to the thing known. In other words, the mind is a mirror re- 
 flecting things as they are. This necessary assumption, which 
 lies at the root of metaphysics, Descartes first distinctly brought 
 to light as the basis of all inquiry. Whatever was clearly in 
 Consciousness he accepted as the truth. It is on the truth of 
 this assumption that Spinoza's system depends : we may add, 
 that on it the whole fabric of philosophy depends. 
 
 Having thus signalised the fundamental position of Spinoza's 
 doctrine, it is there, if anywhere, that we shall be able to show 
 his fundamental error. On the truth or falsehood of this one 
 assumption must Spinozism stand or fall; and we have 
 formally endeavoured to show that the assumption is false. 
 Those who agree in the reasonings we adduced may escape 
 Spinozism, but they escape it by denying the possibility of all 
 philosophy. 
 
 This consideration, that the mind is not a passive mirror re- 
 flecting the nature of things, but the partial creator of its own 
 forms — that in perception there is nothing but certain changes 
 in the percipient — this consideration, we say, is the destruction 
 of the very basis of metaphysics, for it expressly teaches that 
 the subjective idea is not the correlate of the objective fact ; 
 and only upon the belief that our ideas are the perfect and 
 adequate images of external things can any metaphysical specu- 
 lation rest. Misled by the nature of geometry, which draws its 
 truths from the mind as the spider draws the web from its 
 bosom, Descartes assumed that metaphysical truths could be 
 attained in the same way. This was a confusion of reasoning, 
 yet Spinoza, Leibnitz, and their successors, followed him un- 
 hesitatingly. Spinoza, however, had read Bacon's denounce- 
 ment of this a priori method, though evidently unprepared to 
 see the truth of the protest. It is curious to read his criticism 
 of Bacon : he looks on it as that writer's great error to have 
 mistaken the knowledge of the first cause and origin of things. 
 On the nature of mind, he says, Bacon speaks very confusedly; 
 
SPINOZA'S DOCTRINE. 435 
 
 and while he proves nothing, judges much. For, in the first 
 place, he supposes that the human intellect, besides the decep- 
 tions of the senses, is subject to the deceptions of its own 
 nature, and that it conceives everything according to the 
 analogies of its own nature, and not according to the analogies 
 of the universe, so that it is like an unequal mirror to the rays 
 of things which mixes the conditions of its own nature with 
 those of external things.* 
 
 We look upon Spinoza's aberration as remarkable, however, 
 because he had also seen that in some sense the subjective 
 was not the absolute expression of the objective, as is proved 
 by his celebrated argument for the destruction of final causes, 
 wherein he showed that order was a thing of the imagination, 
 as were also right and wrong, useful and hurtful — these being 
 merely such in relation to us. Still more striking is his antici- 
 pation of Kant in this passage : — " Ex quibus clare videre est, 
 mensuram, tempus et numerum nihil esse praeter cogitandi, seu 
 potiiis imaginandi modos;" which should have led him to 
 suspect that the same law of mental forms was also applicable 
 to all other subjects. 
 
 Thus, then, may the inquirer escape Spinozism by denying 
 the possibility of metaphysical science ; thus, and thus only. 
 But in denying it he will not the less be grateful to the great 
 thinker who elaborated it. He will revere him as one of the 
 immortal intellects whose labours cleared the way for the pre- 
 sent state of things ; and he will affectionately trace the coinci- 
 dences of Spinoza with those who went before and those who 
 came after him. Pantheism is as old ac philosophy. It was 
 taught in the old Greek schools — by Plato, by St. Augustine,! 
 and by the Jews. J Indeed, one may say that Pantheism, under 
 
 * "Nam primo supponit, quod intellectus humanus piaeter fallaciara 
 sensuum sua soli naturfi fallitur, omniaque tin git ex analogic suae naturae 
 et non ex analogic universi, aded ut sit instar speculi inaequalis ad radias 
 rerum, qui suam naturam naturae rerum imruiscet." — Epist. u. Opera, 
 P- 398. 
 
 t St. Augustine says : " Substantiality Deus ubique diffusus est. Sed 
 sic est Deus per cuncta diffusus, ut non sit qualitas mundi, sed substantia 
 creatrix mundi, sine labore regens et sine ouere continens mundum. Non 
 tamen per spatia locorum, quasi mole diffusa, ita ut in dimidio mundi 
 corpore sit dimidius, atque ita per totum totus ; sed in solo ccelo totus, et 
 in sola terrd totus, et in ccelo et in terr& totus et nulla contentus loco, sed 
 in se ipso ubique totus " (Quoted in Mrs. Austin on ' Goethe,' vol. iii., 
 P- 272). 
 
 X The Cabbalists taught, however, a more vague and fanciful pantheism, 
 founded on material analogies and metaphors. See Salvador: * Jesus 
 Christ et sa Doctrine/ tome i. p. 122. 
 
4 j6 SPINOZA'S DOCTRINE. 
 
 one of its various shapes, is the necessary consequence of all 
 metaphysical inquiry, when pushed to its logical limits ; and 
 from this reason do we find it in every age and nation. The 
 dreamy contemplative Indian, the quick versatile Greek, the 
 practical Roman, the quibbling Scholastic, the ardent Italian, 
 the lively Frenchman, and the bold Englishman, have all pro- 
 nounced it as the final truth of philosophy. Wherein consists 
 Spinoza's originality? — what is his merit? — are natural ques- 
 tions, when we see him only lead to the same result as others 
 had before proclaimed. His merit and originality consist in 
 the systematic exposition and development of that doctrine — 
 in his hands, for the first time, it assumes the aspect of a 
 science. The Greek and Indian Pantheism is a vague fanciful 
 doctrine, carrying with it no scientific conviction ; it may be 
 true — it looks true — but the proof is wanting. But with 
 Spinoza there is no choice ; if you understand his terms, admit 
 the possibility of his science, and seize his meaning ; you can 
 no more doubt his conclusions than you can doubt Euclid ; no 
 mere opinion is possible, conviction only is possible. 
 
 Such was Benedict Spinoza — thus he lived and thought. A 
 brave and simple man, earnestly meditating on the deepest 
 subjects that can occupy the human race, he produced a system 
 which will ever remain as one of the most astounding efforts of 
 abstract speculation — a system that has been decried, for 
 nearly two centuries, as the most iniquitous and blasphemous 
 of human invention ; and which has now, within the last sixty 
 years, become the acknowledged parent of a whole nation's 
 philosophy, ranking among its admirers some of the most 
 pious and illustrious intellects of the age. The ribald Atheist 
 turns out, on nearer acquaintance, to be a " God-intoxicated 
 man." The blasphemous Jew becomes a pious, virtuous, and 
 creative thinker. The dissolute heretic becomes a child-like, 
 simple, self-denying, and heroic man. We look into his works 
 with calm earnestness, and read there another curious page of 
 human history : the majestic struggle with the mysteries of 
 existence has failed, as it always must fail ; but the struggle 
 demands our warmest admiration, and the man our ardent 
 sympathy. Spinoza stands out from the dim past like a tall 
 beacon, whose shadow is thrown athwart the sea, and whose 
 light will serve to warn the wanderers from the shoals and 
 rocks on which hundreds of their brethren have perished.* 
 
 * Spinoza's works have been very ably edited by Prof. Paulus. The 
 edition we use is the auarto which appeared shortly after his death : 
 
FIRST CRISIS IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 437 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FIRST CRISIS IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 The doctrine of Spinoza was of great importance, if for nothing 
 more than having brought about the first crisis in modern 
 Philosophy. His doctrine was so clearly stated, and so rigor- 
 ously deduced from admitted premises, that he brought Philo- 
 sophy into this dilemma — 
 
 Either my premises are correct ; and we must admit that 
 every clear and distinct idea is absolutely true ; true, not only 
 subjectively, but objectively; 
 
 If so, my system is true ; 
 
 Or my premises are false ; the voice of Consciousness is not 
 the voice of truth ; 
 
 And if so, then is my system false, but all Philosophy is 
 impossible : since the only ground of Certitude — our Conscious- 
 ness — is pronounced unstable, our only means of knowing the 
 truth is pronounced fallacious. 
 
 Spinozism or Scepticism, choose between them, for you have 
 no other choice. 
 
 Mankind refused, however, to make a choice. If the prin- 
 ciples which Descartes had established could have no other 
 result than Spinozism, it was worth while inquiring, whether 
 those principles themselves might not be modified. 
 
 The ground of discussion was shifted : psychology took the 
 place of ontology. It was Descartes' theory of knowledge 
 which led to Spinozism ; that theory therefore must be exa- 
 mined : that theory becomes the great subject of discussion. 
 Before deciding upon the merits of any system which embraced 
 the great questions of Creation, the Deity, Immortality, &c, 
 men saw that it was necessary to decide upon the competence 
 of the human mind to solve such problems. 
 
 All knowledge must be obtained either through experience, 
 or independent of experience. 
 
 ■ B. D. S. Opera Posthuma.' 1677. An excellent German translation in 
 five small volumes, by Berthold Auerbach, was published in 1841. M. 
 Emile Saisset has also recently published one in French, with an introduc- 
 tion, which, from the character of the translator, is, doubtless, to be relied 
 on. We are aware of scarcely anything in English, critical or explanatory, 
 except the account given in Mr. Hallam's « Introduction to the Literature 
 of Europe,' and the articles * Spinoza ' and ' Spinozism ' in the • Penny 
 Cyclopaedia ' (by the present writer) : the latter contains a few passages 
 not incorporated in this history, because lying beyond its province. 
 
4$8 FIRST CRISIS IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Knowledge dependent on experience must necessarily be 
 merely knowledge of phenomena. All are agreed that experi- 
 ence can only be experience of ourselves as modified by 
 objects. All are agreed that to know things per se— noumena 
 — we must know them through some other channel than 
 experience. 
 
 Have we, or have we not, that other channel ? This is the 
 problem. 
 
 Thus before we can dogmatise upon ontological subjects we 
 must settle this question : — 
 
 Can we transcend the sphere of our Consciousness and know 
 things per se ? 
 
 And this question further resolves itself into — Have we ideas 
 independent of experience ? 
 
 To answer this question was the great object of succeeding 
 philosophers. The fact that modern philosophy until Fichte 
 was almost exclusively occupied with psychology has been 
 constantly noticed ; but the reason why psychology assumed 
 this importance, the reason why it took the place of all the 
 higher subjects of speculation, has not we believe been dis- 
 tinctly stated. Men have contented themselves with the fact 
 that psychology occupied little of the attention of antiquity, 
 still less of the attention of the middle ages; and only in 
 modern times has it been the real ground on which the con- 
 tests of the schools have been carried on. Unless we are 
 strangely mistaken, psychology was the result of a tendency 
 similar to that which in science produced the Inductive Method. 
 In both cases a necessity has arisen for a new course of investi- 
 gation ; it had become evident that men had begun at the 
 wrong end, and that before a proper answer could be given to 
 any of the questions agitated, it was necessary first to settle 
 the limits and conditions of inquiry, the limits and conditions 
 of the inquiring faculties. Thus Consciousness became the 
 basis of Philosophy; to make that basis broad and firm, to 
 ascertain its nature and capacity, became the first object of 
 speculation. 
 
^i)trt iEpoet). 
 
 PHILOSOPHY REDUCED TO A QUESTION OF 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HOBBES. 
 
 We had at one time determined to omit Hobbes from oui 
 History. His contributions to Philosophy, though not insig- 
 nificant, had scarcely any influence, except through his illus- 
 trious successor, Locke. His real eminence lies in Politics ; 
 there also lies his influence. 
 
 But on further consideration, finding that the much vilified, 
 little read, Hobbes had not only been contemptuously treated 
 by antagonists, but had also been neglected by historians, we 
 thought that it would be unjust to pass over so great a name. 
 Dugald Stewart, in his ' Historical Dissertation,' bestows only 
 three pages upon Hobbes ; and those are pages of depreciation 
 rather than of exposition. Mackintosh, whose admiration was 
 greater, is more copious, and more instructive ; his temper was 
 calmer than Stewart's, and he was better able to tolerate differ- 
 ences of opinion ; but in the account he has given of Hobbes 
 there is little exposition, and of that little no portion is devoted 
 to the psychological doctrines. 
 
 Perhaps no writer except Spinoza has ever been so uniformly 
 depreciated as Hobbes. From his first appearance until the 
 present day he has been a by-word of contempt with the 
 majority of writers; and even with those who have been liberal 
 enough to acknowledge merit in an adversary, he has been 
 treated as a dangerous and shallow thinker. The first person 
 who saw his prodigious importance as a political thinker, and 
 had the courage to proclaim it, was, we believe, James Mill. 
 But as long as political and social theories continue to be 
 judged of by their supposed consequences, so long will Hobbes 
 be denied a fair hearing. He has roused the odium thtologicum. 
 It will be long ere that will be appeased. 
 
 At the risk of incurring some of the odium cast upon his 
 
440 HOBBES. 
 
 name, we cannot help standing up in his defence. Faults he 
 had, unquestionably; short-comings, incomplete views ; and — 
 as all error is dangerous in proportion to its plausibility — we 
 will say that he was guilty of dangerous errors. But what 
 then? Let the faults be noted, but not overstrained; the 
 short-comings and incomplete views enlarged and corrected ; 
 the errors calmly examined and refuted. We shall all be 
 gainers by it ; but by inconsiderate contempt, by screaming 
 and vilifying, no result can be obtained. Impartial minds will 
 always rank Hobbes amongst the greatest writers England has 
 produced ; and by writers we do not simply mean masters of 
 language, but also masters of thought. He is profound and he 
 is clear ; weighty and sparkling. His style, as mere style, is 
 in its way as fine as anything in English : it has the clearness 
 of crystal, and it has also the solidity and brilliancy. Nor is 
 the matter unworthy of this form. It is original ; in the sense 
 of having been passed through the alembic of his brain, even 
 when perhaps the property of others. Although little of it 
 could now appear novel, it was novel when he produced it. 
 Haughty, dogmatic, overbearing in manner, he loved Truth, 
 and never hesitated to proclaim her. " Harm I can do none," 
 he says, in the opening of the * Leviathan,' " though I err no 
 less than they (i.e. previous writers), for I shall leave men but 
 as they are, in doubt and dispute ; but intending not to take 
 any principle upon trust, but only to put men in mind of what 
 they know already, or may know by their experience, I hope to 
 err less ; and when I do, it must proceed from too hasty con- 
 cluding, which I will endeavour as much as I can to avoid." * 
 
 In this passage we see Locke anticipated. It is also an 
 evidence of the Baconian spirit It proclaims that Psychology 
 is a science of observation ; that if we would understand the 
 conditions and operations of our minds, we must patiently look 
 inwards and see what passes there. All the reasoning and 
 subtle disputation in the world will not advance us one step, 
 unless we first get a firm basis on fact. " Man," he says else- 
 where, with his usual causticity, "has the exclusive privilege of 
 forming general theorems. But this privilege is alloyed by 
 another, that is by the privilege of absurdity, to which no living 
 creature is subject but man only. And of men those are of all 
 most subject to it, that profess Philosophy." And the cause of 
 this large endowment of the privilege to Philosophers we may 
 read in another passage, where he attributes the difficulty men 
 • Works edited hy Sir W. Molesworth, vol. iv. p. i. 
 
HOB BBS. 441 
 
 have in receiving Truth, to their minds being prepossessed by 
 false opinions — they having prejudged the question. The pas- 
 sage is as follows : — " When men have once acquiesced in 
 untrue opinions, and registered them as authenticated records 
 in their minds, it is no less impossible to speak intelligibly to 
 such men than to write legibly on a paper already scribbled 
 over." 
 
 Hobbes's position in the History of Philosophy is easily 
 assigned. On the question of the origin of our knowledge he 
 takes a decided stand upon Experience : he is the precursor of 
 modern Materialism: — 
 
 " Concerning the thoughts of man I will consider them first 
 singly, and afterwards in a train or dependence upon one 
 another. Singly they are every one a representation or appearance 
 of some quality or other accident of a body without us, which 
 is commonly called an object. Which object worketh on the 
 eyes, ears, and other parts of a man's body ; and by diversity 
 of working, produceth diversity of appearances. 
 
 " The original of them all is that which we call Sense, for 
 there is no conception in a man's mind, which hath not at first 
 totally or by parts been begotten upon the organs of sense. 
 The rest are derived from that original." * 
 
 We have here stated in the broadest manner the principle of 
 Materialism. It is a direct antagonism to the doctrine of Des- 
 cartes that there are innate ideas ; a direct antagonism to the 
 old doctrine of the spirituality of Mind. Theoretically this 
 principle is trivial ; historically it is important, and we call 
 attention to it. 
 
 Hobbes's language is plain enough, but we will still further 
 quote from him to obviate any doubt as to his meaning : 
 
 " According to the two principal parts of man, I divide his 
 faculties into two sorts — faculties of the body, and faculties of 
 the mind. 
 
 " Since the minute and distinct anatomy of the powers of 
 the body is nothing necessary to the present purpose, I will 
 only sum them up in these three heads — power nutritive, power 
 generative, and power motive. 
 
 " Of the powers of the mind there be two sorts — cognitive, 
 imaginative, or conceptive and motive. 
 
 * ' Leviathan,' chap. i. 
 
 I11 the following exposition we shall sometimes cite from the ' Leviathan ' 
 and sometimes from the 'Human Nature.' This general reference will 
 enable us to dispense with iterated foot-notes. 
 
442 HOBBBS. 
 
 " For the understanding of what I mean by the power 
 cognitive, we must remember and acknowledge that there be in 
 our minds continually certain images or conceptions of the 
 things without us. This imagery and representations of the 
 qualities of the things without, is that which we call our con- 
 ception, imagination, ideas, notice, or knowledge of them ; and 
 the faculty, or power by which we are capable of such know- 
 ledge, is that I here call cognitive power, or conceptive, the power 
 of knowing or conceiving." 
 
 The mind is thus wholly constructed out of sense. Nor 
 must we be deceived by the words faculty and power which he 
 speaks of, as if they meant any activity of the mind— as if they 
 implied that the mind co-operated with sense. The last sentence 
 of the foregoing passage is sufficient to clear up this point. 
 He elsewhere says : — " All the qualities called sensible are, in 
 the object that causeth them, but so many several motions of 
 the matter by which it presseth on our organs diversely. 
 Neither in us that are pressed are they anything else but divers 
 motions; for motion produceth nothing but motion." 
 
 Hobbes, therefore, and not Locke, is the precursor of that 
 school of Psychology which flourished in the eighteenth cen- 
 tury (principally in France), and which made every operation 
 of the mind proceed out of transformed sensations ; which 
 ended, logically enough, in saying that to think is to feel, penser 
 c'est sentir. We shall come to this school by-and-by ; mean- 
 while we content ourselves with this historical indication. 
 
 It is to Hobbes that the merit is due of a discovery which, 
 though so familiar to us now as to appear self-evident, was yet 
 in truth a most important discovery, and was adopted by Des- 
 cartes in his * Meditations ' * — it is that our sensations do not 
 correspond with any external qualities ; that what are called 
 sensible qualities are nothing but modifications of the sentient 
 being : — 
 
 "Because the image in vision, consisting of colour and 
 shape, is the knowledge we have of the qualities of the object 
 of that sense ; it is no hard matter for a man to fall into this 
 opinion that the same colour and shape are the very qualities 
 themselves ; and for the same cause that sound and noise are 
 the qualities of the bell or of the air. And this opinion hath 
 been so long received that the contrary must needs appear a 
 
 * Descartes may possibly also have discovered it for himself; but the 
 priority of publication is at any rate due to Hobbes — a fact first noticed, 
 we believe, by Mr. Hallam. — Lit. of Europe, iii- 371. 
 
HOBBES. 443 
 
 great paradox; and yet the introduction of species visible and 
 intelligible (which is necessary for the maintenance of that 
 opinion) passing to and fro from the object is worse than any 
 paradox, as being a plain impossibility. I shall, therefore, 
 endeavour to make plain these points : 
 
 " That the subject wherein colour and image are inherent, is 
 not the object or thing seen. 
 
 " That there is nothing without us (really) which we call an 
 image or colour. 
 
 " That the said image or colour is but an apparition unto us 
 of the motion, agitation, or alteration which the object worketh in 
 the brain, or spirits, or some internal substance of the head : 
 
 " That as in vision, so also in conceptions that arise from 
 the other senses, the subject of their inherence is not the 
 object, but the sentient." 
 
 This important principle, which Carneades among the an- 
 cients alone seems to have suspected,* Hobbes has very clearly 
 and conclusively illustrated. 
 
 Sense furnishes us with conceptions ; but as there are other 
 operations of the mind besides the conceptive, it remains to be 
 seen how sense can also be the original of them. 
 
 And first, of fmaginaton. 
 
 Mr. Hallam has noticed the acuteness and originality which 
 often characterize Hobbes's remarks ; and he instances the 
 opening of the chapter on Imagination in the ' Leviathan.' It 
 is worth quoting : — 
 
 " That when a thing lies still, unless somewhat else stir it, it 
 will lie still for ever, is a truth no one doubts of. But that 
 when a thing is in motion it will eternally be in motion, unless 
 somewhat else stay it, though the reason be the same, namely, 
 that nothing can change itself, is not so easily assented to. 
 For men measure not only other men but all other things by 
 themselves ; and because they find themselves subject after 
 motion to pain and lassitude, think everything else grows 
 weary of motion and seeks repose of its own accord ; little 
 considering whether it be not some other motion wherein that 
 desire of rest, they find in themselves, consisteth." 
 
 Imagination Hobbes defines as a " conception remaining 
 and by little and little decaying from and after the act of 
 sense." " Imagination, therefore, is no- 
 thing but decaying sense." The reader must not here under- 
 stand by imagination anything more than the retaining of an 
 
 • Vide p. 279, sq. 
 
444 HOBBES. 
 
 image of the object, after the object is removed. It is the 
 term used by Hobbes to express what James Mill happily 
 called Ideation. Sense, Sensation ; ideas, Ideation. Hobbes 
 says, sense, Sensation ; images, Imagination. 
 
 The materialism of Hobbes's theory does not consist merely 
 in his language (as is the case with some philosophers ; Locke, 
 for instance) ; it lies at the very root of the theory. Thus, he 
 says, we have sensations and we have images — ideas. Whence 
 those images ? Listen : " When a body is once in motion it 
 moveth, unless something hinder it, eternally ; and whatsoever 
 hindereth it, cannot in an instant, but in time and by degrees, 
 quite extinguish it ; and, as we see in the water, though the 
 wind cease, the waves gives not over rolling for a long time 
 after : so also it happeneth in that motion which is made in the 
 internal parts of man ; then, when he sees, dreams, &c. For 
 after the object is removed, or the eye shut, we still retain an 
 image of the thing seen, though more obscure than when we 
 
 see it The decay of sense in men waking is not 
 
 the decay of the motion made in sense, but an obscuring of it, 
 in such manner as the light of the sun obscureth the light of 
 the stars; which stars do no less exercise their virtue, by which 
 they are visible in the day than in the night. But because 
 amongst many strokes which our eyes, ears, and other organs 
 receive from external bodies, the predominant only is sensible; 
 therefore the light of the sun being predominant we are not 
 affected with the action of the stars." This illustration is very 
 happy ; but it only serves to bring out into stronger relief the 
 materialism of the theory. 
 
 He has told us what Imagination is ; let us now learn what 
 is Memory. 
 
 "This decaying sense, when we would express the thing 
 itself, I mean fancy itself, we call imagi?iation> as I said before: 
 but when we would express the decay, and signify that the 
 sense is fading, old, and past, it is called memory. So that 
 imagination and memory are but one thing, which, for divers 
 considerations hath divers names." 
 
 Mr. Hallam objects to this, and says that it is very evident 
 that imagination and memory are distinguished by something 
 more than their names. Truly, by us ; but not by Hobbes : 
 he evidently uses the word imagination in a more generical 
 sense than we use it : he means by it ideation. Thus he calls 
 dreams " the imagination of them that sleep." It is that state 
 of the mind which remains when the objects which agitated it 
 
HOBBRS. 445 
 
 by sensations, are removed : the mind is then not so agitated, 
 but neither is it calm; and he compares that state to the gentle 
 rolling of the waves after the wind hath ceased. 
 
 Let this be distinctly borne in mind : Hobbes sees nothing 
 in the intellect but what was previously in the sense. Sen- 
 sations, and the traces which they leave (i.e. images), form the 
 simple elements of all knowledge ; the various commixtures of 
 these elements form the various intellectual faculties. We may 
 now open at the third chapter of the ' Leviathan.' In it he the 
 first propounded, as something quite simple and obvious, the 
 very important law of association of ideas. He states it with 
 great clearness and thorough mastery, though he evidently was 
 quite unaware of its extensive application. 
 
 " When a man thinketh," he says, " on anything whatsoever, 
 his next thought after is not altogether so casual as it seems to 
 be. Not every thought to every thought succeeds indifferently. 
 But as we have no imagination whereof we have not formerly 
 had sense in whole or in parts, so we have no transition from 
 one imagination to another whereof we never had the like 
 before in our senses. The reason whereof is this : all fancies 
 {i.e. images) are motions within us, relics of those made in sense ; 
 and those motions that immediately succeed one another in 
 the sense continue also together after the sense ; insomuch as 
 the former coming again to take place and be predominant, the 
 latter followeth by coherence of the matter moved, in such 
 manner as water upon a plain table is drawn which way any 
 one part of it is guided by the finger." 
 
 The materialism here is distinct enough ! He continues in 
 excellent style : — " This train of thoughts, or mental discourse, 
 is of two sorts. The first is unguided, without design, and 
 inconstant, wherein there is no passionate thought to govern 
 and direct those that follow to itself, as the end and scope of 
 some desire or other passion ; in which case the thoughts are 
 said to wander, and seem impertinent one to another as in a 
 dream. Such are commonly the thoughts of men that are not 
 only without company but also without care of anything; 
 though even then their thoughts are as busy as at other times, 
 but without harmony; as the sound which a lute out of tune 
 would yield to any man ; or in tune, to one that could not 
 play. And yet in this wild raging of the mind a man may 
 ofttimes perceive the way of it, and the dependence of one 
 thought upon another. For in a discourse of oui present civil 
 Var, what would seem more impertinent than to ask, as one 
 
yfi HOBBES. 
 
 did, what was the value of a Roman penny ? Yet the coherence 
 to me was manifest enough. For the thought of the war intro- 
 duced the thought of delivering up the king to his enemies ; 
 the thought of that brought in the thought of the delivering up 
 of Christ ; and that again the thought of the thirty pence, which 
 was the price of that treason ; and thence easily followed that 
 malicious question, and all this in a moment of time ; for 
 thought is quick." 
 
 " For thought is quick." This is the simple pregnant com- 
 ment, justly deemed sufficient. It is no purpose of this history 
 to dwell upon literary merits ; " but the style," as Buffon says, 
 " is the man," and occasionally we are forced to notice it. The 
 plain direct remark with which Hobbes concludes the above 
 passage would, in the hands of many moderns, have run some- 
 what thus : — " How wonderful is thought ! how mighty ! how 
 mysterious ! In its lightning speed it traverses all. space, and 
 makes the past present ! " Hobbes, with a few simple direct 
 words, produces a greater impression than would all the swell- 
 ing pomp of a passage bristling with notes of exclamation. 
 This is the secret of his style. It is also the characteristic of 
 his speculations. Whatever faults they may have they have no 
 vagueness, no pretended profundity. As much of the truth as 
 he has clearly seen he clearly exhibits ; what he has not seen 
 he does not pretend to see. 
 
 One important deduction from his principles he has drawn : 
 " Whatsoever we imagine is finite. Therefore there is no idea, 
 no conception of anything we call infinite. No man can have 
 in his mind an image of infinite magnitude, nor conceive infinite 
 swiftness, infinite time, or infinite power. When we say that 
 anything is infinite, we signify only that we are not able to 
 conceive the ends and bounds of the thing named, having no 
 conception of the thing, but of our own inability. And there- 
 fore the name of God is used not to make us conceive him, for 
 he is incomprehensible, and his greatness and power are incon- 
 ceivable, but that we may honour him. Also because what- 
 soever we conceive has been perceived first by sense, either all 
 at once or by parts; a tnan can have no thought representing 
 anything not subject to Sense" 
 
 This is frank, but is it true ? 
 
 On Hobbes's principles it is irresistible. His error lies in 
 assuming that all our thoughts must be images. So far is this 
 from being true, that not even all our sensations are capable of 
 forming images. 
 
HOBBRS. 447 
 
 Every man's Consciousness will assure him of this. It will 
 also assure him that he has the idea, notion, conception, fig- 
 ment (or whatever name he may give the thought) of Infinity. 
 If he attempts to form an image of it, that image will of course 
 be finite : it would not otherwise be an image. But he can 
 think of it ; he can reason of it. It is a thought. It is in his 
 mind ; though how it got there may be a question. 
 
 The incompleteness of Hobbes's psychology lies in the in- 
 ability to answer this question. If the maxim he adopts be 
 true : nihil est in intettedu quod non prius fuerit in sensu, the 
 question is insoluble ; or rather, the question itself is a practical 
 refutation of the maxim. 
 
 We insist upon Hobbes's materialism, the better to prepare 
 the reader for a correct appreciation of Locke: one of the 
 most misrepresented of plain writers. Hobbes, in the sixth 
 chapter of his * Human Nature,' has very carefully defined what 
 he means by knowledge. " There is a story somewhere," he 
 says, " of one that pretends to have been miraculously cured 
 of blindness, wherewith he was born, by St. Alban or other 
 saints, at the town of St. Alban's; and that the Duke of 
 Gloucester being there, to be satisfied of the truth of the 
 miracle, asked the man, What colour is this ? who, by answer- 
 ing it was green, discovered himself and was punished for a 
 counterfeit : for though by his sight newly received he might 
 distinguish between green and red and all other colours, as 
 well as any that should interrogate him, yet he could not 
 possibly know at first sight which of them was called green, or 
 red, or by any other name. 
 
 "By this we may understand there be two kinds of knowledge, 
 whereof the one is nothing else but sense, or knowledge original, 
 and remembrance of the same; the other is called science or 
 knowledge of the truth of propositions, and how things are 
 called, and is derived from understanding. Both of these sorts 
 are but experience ; the former being the experience of the 
 effects of things that work upon us from without ; and the 
 latter experience men have from the proper use of names in 
 language: and all experience being, as I have said, but 
 remembrance, all knowledge is remembrance.'' 
 
 The only ambiguity possible in the above passage is that 
 which might arise from the use of the word understanding. 
 This he elsewhere defines as follows : — 
 
 " When a man upon the hearing of any speech hath those 
 thoughts which the words of that speech and their connexion 
 
448 LIFE OF JOHN LOCKE. 
 
 were ordained and constituted to signify, then he is said to 
 understand it ; understanding being nothing else but conception 
 formed by speech/' 
 
 We must content ourselves with merely alluding to his 
 admirable observations on language, and with quoting, for the 
 hundredth time, his weighty aphorism, " Words are wise men's 
 counters; they do but reckon by them; but they are the 
 money of fools." 
 
 No attempt is made here to do justice to Hobbes; no 
 notice can be taken of the speculations which made him 
 famous. Our object has been fulfilled if we have made clear 
 to the reader the position Hobbes occupies in modern psycho- 
 logical speculation. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN LOCKE 
 
 John Locke, one of the wisest and sincerest of Englishmen, 
 was born at Wrington in Somersetshire, on the 29th August, 
 1632. Little is known of his family except that his father had 
 served in the Parliamentary wars : a fact not without signi- 
 ficance in connexion with the steady love of liberty manifested 
 by the son. 
 
 His education began at Westminster, where he stayed till he 
 was nineteen or twenty. He was then sent to Oxford. That 
 university was distinguished then, as it has ever been, by its 
 attachment to whatever is old : the Past is its model ; the Past 
 has its affection. That there is much good in this veneration 
 for the past, we will not gainsay. Nevertheless, a university 
 which piques itself on being behind the age, is not the place 
 for an original thinker. Locke was ill at ease there. The 
 Philosophy which was then upheld there was Scholasticism. 
 On such food a mind like Locke's could not nourish itself. 
 Like his great predecessor Bacon, he imbibed a profound con- 
 tempt for the university studies, and in after life regretted that 
 so much of his time should have been wasted on such profitless 
 pursuits. So deeply convinced was he of the vicious method 
 of college education, that he ran into the other extreme, and 
 thought self-education the best. 
 
 There is a mixture of truth and error in this notion which we 
 can here only indicate. It is true that all great men have been 
 
LIFE OF JOHN LOCKE. 449 
 
 self-taught; or, to state the matter more clearly, all that is 
 most valuable a man must learn for himself, must work out for 
 himself. It is not what we are taught, but what we conquer 
 for ourselves that constitutes nourishment : what we are taught 
 is laid up in the lumber-room o: the mind, from whence it may 
 be drawn for purposes of display or for purposes of tuition ; it 
 seldom nourishes the mind. 
 
 So far goes the advocacy of self-tuition. The error of it lies 
 in supposing that all men will educate themselves if left to 
 themselves. The fact is, the majority have to be educated by 
 force. For those who, left to themselves, would never educate 
 themselves, colleges and schools are indispensable. 
 
 Locke's notion of an educated man is very characteristic of 
 him. Writing to Lord Peterborough, he says, " Your Lordship 
 would have your son's tutor a thorough scholar, and I think it 
 not much matter whether he be any scholar or no : if he but 
 understand Latin well and have a general scheme of the sciences, 
 I think that enough. But I would have him well-bred and 
 well-tempered." 
 
 Disgusted with the disputes which usurped the title of 
 Philosophy, Locke while at Oxford principally devoted himself 
 to Medicine. His proficiency is attested by two very different 
 persons and in two very different ways. Dr. Sydenham, in the 
 Dedication of his ■ Observations on the History and Cure of 
 Acute Diseases,' boasts of the approbation bestowed on his 
 Method by Mr. John Locke, " who examined it to the bottom ; 
 and who, if we consider his genius and penetrating and exact 
 judgment, has scarce any superior, and few equals now living." 
 The second testimony is that afforded by Lord Shaftesbury 
 where Locke first met him. The Earl was suffering from an 
 abscess in the chest. No one could discover the nature of his 
 disorder. Locke at once divined it. The Earl followed his 
 advice ; submitted to an operation and was saved. A cbse 
 intimacy sprang up between them. Locke accompanied him 
 to London, and resided principally in his house. 
 
 His attention was thus turned to politics. His visits U 
 Holland delighted him. "The blessings which the people 
 there enjoyed under a government peculiarly favourable to civii 
 and religious liberty, amply compensated in his view for what 
 their uninviting territory wanted in scenery and climate."* He 
 also visited France and Germany : making the acquaintance 
 of several distinguished men. 
 
 • Dugald Stewart. 
 Vf 
 
45 o LIFE OF JOHN LOCSTF. 
 
 In 1670 he planned his Essay concerning Human Under- 
 standing. This he did not complete till 1687. In 1675 his 
 delicate state of health obliged him to travel, and he repaired 
 to the south of France, where he met Lord Pembroke. To 
 him the Essay is dedicated. He returned in 1679, and resumed 
 his studies at Oxiord. But his friendship with Shaftesbury, and 
 the Liberal opinions he was known to hold, drew upon him 
 the displeasure of the Court. He was deprived of his student- 
 ship by a very arbitrary act. Nor did persecution stop there. 
 He was soon forced to quit England and find refuge at the 
 Hague. There also the anger of Charles pursued him, and he 
 was obliged to retreat farther into Holland. It was there he 
 published his celebrated Letter on Toleration. 
 
 He did not return to England till after the Revolution. 
 Then there was security and welcome. He was pressed to 
 accept a high diplomatic office in Germany, but the state of 
 his health prevented him. 
 
 In 1690 the first edition of his * Essay' appeared. He 
 had indeed already (1688) published an abridgment of it in 
 Leclerc's * Bibliotheque Universelle.' The success of this 
 1 Essay ' was immense ; and Warburton's assertion to the con- 
 trary falls to the ground on the mere statement of the number 
 of editions which the work rapidly went through. Six editions 
 within fourteen years,* and in times when books sold more 
 slowly than they sell now, is evidence enough. 
 
 The publication of his - Essay ' roused great opposition. He 
 soon got involved in the discussions with Stillingfleet, Bishop 
 of Worcester. He was soon after engaged in the political 
 discussions of the day, and published his t Treatise on Govern- 
 ment.' It was about this time that he became acquainted with 
 Sir Isaac Newton ; and a portion of their very interesting corre- 
 spondence has been given by Lord King in his f. Life of Locke.' 
 
 Locke's health, though always delicate, had not been dis- 
 turbed by any imprudences, so that he reached the age of 
 seventy-two — a good ripe age for one who has studied and 
 thought. He expired in the arms of his friend, Lady Masham, 
 on the 28th October, 1704. 
 
 • The writer of the article ' Locke,' in the ' Ency. Brit.,' says that the 
 fourth edition appeared in 1 700. Victor Cousin repeats the statement, 
 and adds that a fi \h edition was preparing when death overtook the 
 author ; this fifth edition appeared in 1 705. 
 
 We know not on what authority these writers speak ; but that they arc 
 in error may be seen by turning to Locke's ' Epistle to the Reader,' the 
 last paragraph of which announces that the edition then issued by Locke 
 himself is the sixth. He died in 1704. 
 
SPIRIT OF LOCKE'S WRITINGS. 451 
 
 CHAPTER 1IL 
 
 ON THE SPIRIT OF LOCKE S WRITINGS. 
 
 It has for many years been the fashion to decry Locke. 
 Indirect sneers at his " superficiality " abound in the writings 
 of those who, because they are muddy and cannot see their 
 bottom, fancy they are profound. Locke's " materialism " is 
 also a favourite subject of condolence with these writers ; and 
 they fearlessly assert that his principles "lead to Atheism." 
 Lead whom f 
 
 Another mode of undervaluing Locke is to assert that he 
 only borrowed and popularised the ideas originated by Hobbes. 
 The late Mr. Hazlitt — an acute thinker and a metaphysician, 
 but a wilful reckless writer — used to riy into a passion at the 
 idea of Locke oeing regarded as a great thinker ; aud deliber- 
 ately asserted that Locke owed everything to Hobbes. Dr. 
 Whewell repeats the charge, though in a more qualified man- 
 ner. He says — " Hobbes had already promulgated the main 
 doctrines, which Locke afterwards urged, on the subject of the 
 origin and nature of our knowledge." 
 
 Locke is no favourite at Cambridge, we know, although he 
 is one of the students' text-books ; and of all Cambridge men, 
 perhaps, with no one could he be less congenial than with 
 Dr. Whewell. Locke is one of the clearest of thinkers, and 
 one of the homeliest. The antagonism between him and Dr. 
 Whewell is radical. We are therefore little surprised to find 
 the great Englishman thus appreciated by the Professor : — 
 "Locke owed his authority mainly to the intellectual circum- 
 stances of the time. Although a writer of great merit, he by 
 no means possesses such metaphysical acuteness, or such philo- 
 sophical largenes c of view, or such a charm of writing, as 
 to give him the high place he has held in the literature of 
 Europe. 
 
 That Locke did not borrow his ideas from Hobbes will be 
 very apparent in our exposition of Locke ; but meanwhile 
 we may quote the testimony of Sir James Mackintosh, one 
 of the best read of our philosophers, and one intimately 
 acquainted with both these thinkers : — 
 
 '* Locke and Hobbes agree chiefly on those points in which, 
 except the Cartesians, all the speculators of their age were 
 
45* SPIRIT OF LOCKE'S WRITINGS. 
 
 agreed. They differ on the most momentous questions — the 
 sources of knowledge, the power of abstraction, the nature of 
 the will • on the two last of which subjects, Locke, by his very 
 failures themselves, evinces a strong repugnance to the doc- 
 trines of Hobbes. They differ not only in their premises and 
 many of their conclusions, but in their manner of philoso- 
 phizing itself. Locke had no prejudice which could lead him 
 to imbibe doctrines from the enemy of liberty and religion. 
 His style, with all its faults, is that of a man who thinks for 
 himself; and an original style is not usually the vehicle of 
 borrowed opinions."* 
 
 To this passage we will add another from a writer the 
 weight of whose authority must carry conviction to all who 
 know his works, distinguished, as they are, no less by the 
 thorough knowledge of the subject than by the clear depth and 
 mastery of the speculations brought forward : — 
 
 " Few among the great names in philosophy have met with 
 a harder measure of justice from the present generation than 
 Locke, the unquestioned founder of the analytic philosophy of 
 mind, but whose doctrines were first caricatured, then, when 
 the reaction arrived, cast off by the prevailing school even with 
 contumely, and who is now regarded by one of the conflicting 
 parties in philosophy as an apostle of heresy and sophistry ; 
 while among those who still adhere to the standard which he 
 raised, there has been a disposition in later times to sacrifice 
 his reputation in favour of Hobbes — a great writer and a great 
 thinker for his time, but inferior to Locke not only in sober 
 judgment, but even in profundity and original genius. Locke, 
 the most candid of philosophers, and one whose speculations 
 bear on every subject the strongest mark of having been 
 wrought out from the materials of his own mind, has been 
 mistaken for an unworthy plagiarist, while Hobbes has been 
 extolled as having anticipated many of his leading doctrines. 
 He did not anticipate many of them, and the present is an 
 instance in what manner it was generally done. [The writer 
 is speaking of Locke's refutation of Essences'] They both re- 
 jected the scholastic doctrine of Essences, but Locke under- 
 stood and explained what these supposed essences were. 
 Hobbes, instead of explaining the distinction between essen- 
 tial and accidental properties, and between essential and acci- 
 dental propositions, jumped over it, and gave a definition 
 
 ♦ 'Edtn. Review' for October, 1821, p. 242. 
 
SPIRIT OF LOCKE* S WRITINGS. 453 
 
 which suits, at most, only essential propositions, and scarcely 
 those, as the definition of Proposition in general."* 
 
 Dugald Stewart, indeed, says that " it must appear evident 
 Locke had diligently studied the writings of Hobbes ; " but 
 Sir J. Mackintosh, as quoted above, has explained why Locke 
 appears to have studied Hobbes, and Stewart is far from 
 implying that Locke therefore gained his principal ideas 
 from Hobbes. Indeed he has an admirable note in which he 
 points out how completely Locke's own was the important 
 principle of Reflection. «* This was not merely a step beyond 
 Hobbes, but the correction of an error which lies at the very 
 root of Hobbes's system." t 
 
 We have heard great authorities speak. Let us now cast a 
 glance at the facts. 
 
 That Locke never read Hobbes may seem incredible, but 
 we are convinced of its truth. It is one among many ex- 
 amples of how few were the books he had read. He never 
 alludes to Hobbes in any way that can be interpreted into 
 having read him. Twice only, we believe, does he allude to 
 him, and then so distantly, and with such impropriety, as to be 
 quite convincing with respect to his ignorance. The first time 
 is in his ' Reply to the Bishop of Worcester,' in which he 
 absurdly classes Hobbes and Spinoza together. He says — 
 " I am not so well read in Hobbes and Spinoza as to be able 
 to say what were their opinions on this matter, but possibly 
 there be those who will think your Lordship's authority of 
 more use than those justly -decried writers" The term of ex- 
 pression, " I am not so well read," &c, is obviously equivalent 
 to I have never read those justly-decried writers. His second 
 allusion is simply this : — " A Hoobist would probably say." 
 We cannot at present lay our hands on the passage, but it 
 refers to some moral question. 
 
 The above is only negative evidence. Something like posi- 
 tive evidence, however, is the fact that Hobbes's great dis- 
 covery of Association of Id^as — a principle as simple of 
 apprehension as it is important — was completely unknown to 
 Locke, who first, in the fourth or fifth edition, added the 
 chapter on Association as it now stands. Moreover, Locke's 
 statement of the law is by no means so satisfactory as that by 
 Hobbes : he had not so thoroughly mastered it ; yet, had he 
 
 • Mill's * System of Logic/ vol. L p. 150. 
 
 t * Dissertation on the Progress of Met. Phil.,' p. 114. The uoie u 
 very long and carious. 
 
4 54 SPIRIT OF LOCKE'S WRITINGS. 
 
 read it in Hobbes, he would assuredly have improved on it 
 That he did not at first introduce it into his work is a strong 
 presumption that he had never read Hobbes, because the law 
 is so simple and so evident, when stated, that it must produce 
 instantaneous conviction. 
 
 It is strange that any man should have read Locke and 
 questioned his originality. There is scarcely a writer we could 
 name whose works bear such an indisputable impress of his 
 having "raised himself above the almsbasket, and not content 
 to live lazily on scraps of begged opinions, set his own thoughts 
 to work to find and follow truth." 
 
 It is still more strange that any man should have read 
 Locke and questioned his power. That patient sagacity which, 
 above all things, distinguishes a philosopher, is more remark- 
 able in Locke than almost any writer. He, too, was largely 
 endowed with good sense; a quality, as Gibbon remarks, 
 which is rarer than genius. In these two qualities, and in his 
 homely racy masculine style, we see the type of the English 
 mind when at its best The plain directness of his manner, 
 his earnestness without fanaticism, his hearty honest love of 
 truth, and the depth and pertinence of his thoughts, are quali- 
 ties which, though they do not dazzle the reader, yet win his 
 love and respect. There, in that volume, you have the honest 
 thoughts of a great honest Englishman. , It is the product of 
 a manly mind: clear, truthful, direct. No vague formulas — 
 no rhetorical flights — no base flattery of base prejudices — no 
 assumption of oracular wisdom, no word -jugglery. There are 
 so many writers who cover their vanity with a veil of words, 
 who seem profound because they are obscure, that a plainness 
 like Locke's deceives the careless reader, who is led to suppose 
 that what is there so plain must have been obvious. 
 
 Locke, though a patient, cautious thinker, was anything but 
 a timid thinker ; and it does great honour to his sagacity, that 
 at a time when all scientific men were exclaiming against the 
 danger of hypotheses, believing that the extravagant errors of 
 schoolmen and alchemists were owing to their use of hypo- 
 theses, a time when the great Newton himself could be led 
 into the vain boast hypotheses non Jingo, our wise Locke should 
 exactly appreciate them at their true value. He says, 
 
 " Not that we may not, to explain any phenomena of nature, 
 make use of any probable hypothesis whatsoever. Hypo- 
 theses, if they are well made, are at least great helps to 
 memory, and often direct us to new discoveries. But we 
 
SPIRIT OF LOCKE'S WRITINGS. 455 
 
 should not take them up too hastily (which the mind that 
 would always penetrate into the causes of things, and have 
 principles to rest on, is very apt to do) till we have very well 
 examined particulars, and made several experiments in that 
 thing which we would explain by our hypothesis, and see 
 whether it will agree to them all ; whether our principles will 
 carry us quite through, and not be as inconsistent with one 
 phenomenon of nature as they seem to accommodate and 
 explain another ; and, at least, that we take care that the name 
 oi principles deceive us not nor impose on us, by making us 
 receive that for an unquestionable truth which is really at best 
 but a very doubtful conjecture : such as are most (I had almost 
 said all) of the hypotheses in natural philosophy." 
 
 Locke did not seek to dazzle ; he sought Truth, and wished 
 all men to accompany him in the search. He was not bigoted. 
 He would exchange his opinions with ease when he fancied 
 that he saw their error. He readily retracted ideas which he had 
 published in an immature form; "thinking myself," as he says, 
 " more concerned to quit and renounce any opinion of my own 
 than oppose that of another, when truth appears against it." 
 
 He had a just and incurable suspicion of all " great volumes 
 swollen with ambiguous words." He knew how much jugglery 
 goes on with words ; some of it conscious, some of it uncon- 
 scious, but all pernicious. " Vague and insignificant forms of 
 speech and abuse of language have for so long passed for 
 mysteries of science ; and hard and misapplied words, with 
 little or no meaning, have, by prescription, such a right to be 
 mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation, that it 
 will not be easy to persuade either those who speak, or those 
 who hear them, that they are but the covers of ignorance and 
 hindrance of true knowledge. To break in upon this sanctuary 
 of vanity and ignorance will be, I suppose, some service to the 
 human understanding." 
 
 Locke had an analytical mind. He desired to understand 
 and to explain things, not to flourish rhetorically about tnem. 
 There were mysteries enough which he was contented to let 
 alone ; he knew that human faculties were limited, and reve- 
 rentially submitted to ignorance on all things which were 
 beyond his reach. But though he bowed down before that 
 which was essentially mysterious, he was anxious not to allow 
 that which was essentially cognizable to be enveloped in 
 mystery. Let that which is a mystery remain undisturbed: 
 let that which is not necessarily a mystery be brought into the 
 
456 SPIRIT OF LOCKE'S WRITINGS. 
 
 light of day. Know the limits of your understanding— beyond 
 those limits it is madness to attempt to penetrate ; within those 
 limits it is folly to let in darkness and mystery, to be incessantly 
 wondering and always assuming that matters cannot be so 
 plain as they appear, and that something lying deeper courts 
 our attention. 
 
 To minds otherwise constituted — to men who love to dwell 
 in the vague regions of speculation — to men who are only at 
 ease in an intellectual twilight— Locke (though if honestly 
 studied he would be a strengthener) is naturally a disagreeable 
 teacher. He flatters none of their prejudices ; he fits in with 
 none of their tendencies. Mistaking obscurity for depth, they 
 accuse him of being superficial. The owls declare that the 
 eagle is blind. They want the twilight ; he 
 "Wantons in the smile of Jove." 
 
 It has become, as we said, a fashion to decry Locke. So 
 frequent are the sneers and off-hand charges against him, that 
 we, who had read him in our youth with delight, began to 
 suspect that the admiration had been rash. The proverb says, 
 " Throw but mud enough, some will be sure to stick." It was 
 so with Locke. Reiterated depreciation had somewhat defaced 
 his image in our minds. The time came, however, when, for 
 the purposes of. this history, we had to read the ■ Essay on 
 Human Understanding' once more. We read it through, pen 
 in hand, carefully, admiringly. The image of John Locke was 
 again revived within us; this time in more than its former 
 splendour. His modesty, honesty, truthfulness, and directness 
 we had never doubted ; but now the vigour and originality of 
 his mind, the raciness of his colloquial style, the patient analy- 
 sis by which he has laid open to us such vast tracts of thought, 
 and above all, the manliness of his truly practical understand- 
 ing, are so strongly impressed upon us, that we feel satisfied 
 the best answer to his critics is to say, read him. 
 
 Amongst our readers many, very many, must have read and 
 thought over Locke. We earnestly say to them, " Read him 
 again ; M to those who have never read him, our exhortation is 
 still warmer. From communion with such a mind as his 
 nothing but good can result. He suggests as much as he 
 teaches ; and it has been well said, " that we cannot speak of 
 his Essay without the deepest reverence ; whether we consider 
 the era which it constitutes in philosophy, the intrinsic value 
 even at the present day of its thoughts, or the noble devotion 
 to truth, the beautiful and touching earnestness and simplicity 
 
SPIRIT OF LOCKE'S WRITINGS. 457 
 
 which he not only manifests in himself, but has the power, 
 beyond almost any writer, of infusing into his reader." It is a 
 book — to use a phrase, hacknied, indeed, but here true 
 enough — to make one wiser and better. 
 
 From this panegyric it must not be supposed that the ' Essay ; 
 is held up as containing the true exposition of the understand- 
 ing and its laws. Locke was the originator of modern psycho- 
 logy. He did not perfect it : it is but yet in its infancy. There 
 is much that is incomplete in the 'Essay/ and succeeding 
 inquirers have carried out his principles much farther than he 
 foresaw ; but with all deductions made, it remains a monument 
 of everlasting substance. To use the words of Sir James 
 Mackintosh, " Few books have contributed more to rectify 
 prejudice— to undermine established errors — to diffuse a just 
 mode of thinking — to excite a fearless spirit of inquiry — and 
 yet to contain it within the boundaries which nature has pre- 
 scribed to the human understanding. An amendment of the 
 general habits of thought is, in most parts of knowledge, an 
 object as important as even the discovery of new truths, though 
 it is not so palpable, nor in nature so capable of being esti- 
 mated by superficial observers. In the mental and moral 
 world, which scarcely admits of anything that can be called 
 discovery, the correction of the intellectual habits is probably 
 the greatest service which can be rendered to science. In this 
 respect the merit of Locke is unrivalled: his writings have 
 diffused throughout the civilized world the love of civil liberty 
 — the spirit of toleration and charity in religious differences — 
 the disposition to reject whatever is obscure, fantastic, or hypo- 
 thetical in speculation— to reduce verbal disputes to their 
 proper value — to abandon problems which admit of no solu- 
 tion — to distrust whatever cannot be clearly expressed — to 
 render theory the simple expression of facts — and to prefer 
 those studies which most directly contribute to human happi- 
 ness. If Bacon first discovered the rules by which knowledge 
 is improved, Locke has most contributed to make mankind at 
 large observe them. He has done most, though often by 
 remedies of silent and almost insensible operation, to cure the 
 distempers which obstructed the operation of these rules, and 
 thus led to that general diffusion of a healthy and vigorous 
 understanding which is at once the greatest of all improve- 
 ments, and the instrument by which all other improvements 
 must be accomplished. He has left to posterity the instructive 
 example of a prudent Reformer, and of a philosophy temperate 
 
4 5« LOCKE'S METHOD. 
 
 as well as liberal, which spares the feelings of the good, and 
 avoids direct hostility with obstinate formidable prejudice. If 
 Locke made few discoveries, Socrates made none. Yet both 
 did more for the improvement of the understanding, and not 
 less for the progress of knowledge, than the authors of the most 
 brilliant discoveries. Mr. Locke will ever be regarded as one 
 of the greatest ornaments of the English nation, and the most 
 distant posterity will speak of him in the language addressed to 
 him by the poet (Gray) — 
 
 " O decus Anglicae ccrte, O lux altera gentis ! " • 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 locke's method. 
 
 " It may be said that Locke created the science of Meta- 
 physics," says D'Alembert, "in somewhat the same way as 
 Newton created Physics. . . . To understand the soul, its 
 ideas, and its affections, he did not study books ; they would 
 have misdirected him ; he was content to descend within him- 
 self, and after having, so to speak, contemplated himself a long 
 while, he presented in his * Essay ' the mirror in which he had 
 seen himself. In one word, be reduced Metaphysics to that 
 which it ought to be, viz., the experimental physics of the 
 mind."t 
 
 This is great praise, and from a high authority, but we sus- 
 pect that it can only be received with some qualification. 
 Locke made no grand discovery, equal to Newton's, which 
 changed the face of science. He was not even the first to turn 
 his glance inwards. Descartes and Hobbes had been before 
 him. 
 
 Yet Locke had his Method ; a Method peculiarly his own. 
 Others before him had cast a hasty glance inwards, and dog- 
 matised upon what they saw. He was the first to watch 
 patiently the operations of his mind., that, watching, he might 
 surprise the evanescent thoughts, and steal from them the 
 secret of their combinations. He is the founder of Modern 
 Psychology. By him tbe questions of Philosophy are boldly 
 
 • «Ed. Rev.,' Oct., 1821, p. 343. 
 
 f « En un mot, il retiuisit la mitaphysique a ce qu'elle doit etre, en 
 cifet, la physique experimentale de l'arue."— Ducours Prilim. de VEncy- 
 tloptitie, ' 
 
LOCKE'S METHOD. 450 
 
 and scientifically reduced to the primary question of the limits 
 of human understanding. By him is begun the history of 
 the development and combination of our thoughts. Others 
 had contented themselves with the thoughts as they found 
 them : Locke sedulously inquired into the origin of all our 
 thoughts. 
 
 M. Victor Cousin, who, as the type of a rhetorician, is in 
 constant antagonism to the clear and analytical Locke, makes 
 it an especial grievance that Locke and his school have con- 
 sidered the question respecting the origin of ideas as funda- 
 mental. "It is from Locke," he continues, " that has been 
 borrowed the custom of referring to savages and children, upon 
 whom observation is so difficult ; for the one class we must 
 trust to the reports of travellers, often prejudiced and ignorant 
 of the language of the country visited; for the other class 
 (children), we are reduced to very equivocal signs."* 
 
 Really we cannot see how Locke should avoid referring to 
 savages and children, if he wanted to collect facts concerning 
 the origin of ideas ; this is inseparable from the psychological 
 Method. Perhaps no source of error has been more abundant 
 than the obstinacy with which men have in all times looked 
 upon their indissoluble associations as irresistible truths — as 
 primary and universal truths.f A little analysis — a little obser- 
 vation of minds removed from the influences which fostered 
 those associations, would prove that those associations were not 
 universal truths, but simply associations. It is because men 
 have analysed the cultivated mind that they have been led to 
 false results ; had they compared their analysis with that of an 
 uncultivated mind, they might have gained some insight. 
 Locke saw clearly enough that the philosophers were wrong in 
 method as well as in object. He saw that no advance could be 
 made by dogmatising upon loose data. He saw, moreover, 
 that philosophers were accustomed to consider their minds as 
 types of the human mind ; whereas their minds being filled 
 with false notions, and warped hy prejudices, could in nowise 
 be taken as types, for even granting that the majority of their 
 notions were true, yet these true notions were not portions of 
 the furniture of universal minds. He sought for illustrations 
 from such minds as had not been so warped. 
 
 What was Locke's object ? He has told us : — u To inquire 
 
 • • Hiatoire de la Philos.,' 17 lefon. 
 
 f This will be more fully discussed hereafter. See Epoch viii., 
 ch«p. ▼., of thk Serte*. 
 
460 LOCKE'S METHOD. 
 
 into the original, certainty, and extent of human knowledge." 
 He was led to this by a conversation with some friends, in 
 which disputes growing warm, " after we had puzzled ourselves 
 awhile, without coming any nearer a resolution of those doubts 
 which perplexed us, it came into my thoughts that we took a 
 wrong course ; and that before we set ourselves upon inquiries 
 of that nature, it was necessary to examine our own abilities, 
 and see what objects our understandings were or were not fitted to 
 deal with." 
 
 The plan he himself laid down is as follows : — 
 
 " First, I shall inquire into the original of those ideas, notions, 
 or whatever else you please to call them, which a man observes 
 and is conscious to himself he has in his mind : and the ways 
 whereby the understanding comes to be furnished with them. 
 
 " Secondly, I shall endeavour to show what knowledge the 
 understanding hath by those ideas ; and the certainty, evidence, 
 and extent of it. 
 
 " Thirdly, I shall make some inquiry into the nature and 
 grounds of faith or opinion ; whereby I mean that assent which 
 we give to any proposition as true, of whose truth we have yet 
 no certain knowledge ; and we shall have occasion to examine 
 the reason and degrees of assent." 
 
 We may here see decisively settled the foolish question so 
 often raised respecting the importance of Locke's Inquiry into 
 Innate Ideas. "For Locke and for his school," says M. 
 Cousin, justly, "the study of understanding is the study of 
 Ideas ; hence the recent celebrated name of Ideology for the 
 designation of the science of mind." 
 
 Indeed, as we have shown, the origin of Ideas was the most 
 important of all questions ; upon it rested the whole problem 
 of Philosophy. 
 
 Locke has given us a few indications of the state of opinion 
 respecting Innate Ideas, which it is worth while collecting. " I 
 have been told that a short epitome of this treatise which was 
 printed in 1688 was condemned by some without reading, be- 
 cause innate ideas were denied in it, they too hastily concluding 
 that if innate ideas were not supposed there would be little left 
 either of the notion or proof of spirits." Recapitulating the 
 contents of the chapter devoted to the refutation of innate 
 ideas, he says, " I know not how absurd this may seem to the 
 masters of demonstration, and probably it will hardly down 
 with anybody at first hearing" And elsewhere: "What cen- 
 sure doubting thus of innate principles may deserve from men, 
 
LOCKE'S METHOD. «fti 
 
 who will be apt to call it pulling up the old foundations of 
 knowledge and certainty, I cannot tell ; I persuade myself at 
 least that the way I have pursued, being conformable to truth, 
 lays those foundations surer." How well he anticipated his 
 critics ! 
 
 Locke's Method was purely psychological ; although he had 
 been a student of medicine, he never indulges in any physio- 
 logical speculations, such as his disciples Hartley and Darwin 
 delighted in. Ideas, and ideas only, occupied his analysis. 
 Dugald Stewart has remarked that in the ' Essay ' there is not 
 a single passage savouring of the anatomical theatre or ot the 
 chemical laboratory. 
 
 We have already spoken of the positivism of Bacon ; that of 
 Locke shall now speak tor itself in his own words : — 
 
 " If by this inquiry into the nature of the understanding I can 
 discover the powers thereof, how far they reach, to what things 
 they are in any degree proportionate, and where they fail us, 
 I suppose it may be of use to prevail with the busy mind of 
 man to be more cautious in meddling with the things exceeding 
 its comprehension, to stop when it is at the utmost extent of 
 its tether, and sit down in a quiet ignorance of those things which 
 upon examination are found to be beyond the reach of our capaci- 
 ties. We should not then perhaps be so forward, out of an 
 affectation of universal knowledge, to raise questions and per- 
 plex ourselves and others about things to which our under- 
 standings are not suited, and of which we cannot frame in our 
 minds any clear or distinct perceptions, or whereof (as it has 
 perhaps too often happened) we have not any notions at all. 
 Men have reason to be well satisfied with what God has thought 
 fit for them, since he has given them, as St. Peter says, wcara 7rpos 
 %jm\v cat cwrifiuav, whatsoever is necessary for the convenience of 
 life and the information of virtue ; and has put within the reach 
 of their discovery the comfortable provision for this lite, and the 
 way that leads to a better. How short soever their knowledge 
 may be of an universal or perfect comprehension of whatever 
 is, it yet secures their great concernments, that they have light 
 enough to lead them to the knowledge of their Maker and thf 
 sight of their own duties. Men may find matter sufficient to 
 busy their heads and employ their hands with variety, delight, 
 and satisfaction, if they will not boldly quarrel with their own 
 constitutions, and throw away the blessings their hands are 
 filled with because they are not big enough to grasp every- 
 thing. 
 
46s LOCKE'S METHOD. 
 
 " We shall not have much reason to complain of the narrow- 
 ness of our minds, if we will but employ them about what may 
 be of use to us ', for of that they are very capable ; and it will be 
 an unpardonable as well as childish peevishness, if we under- 
 value the advantages of our knowledge, and neglect to im- 
 prove it to the ends for which it was given us, because there 
 are some things set out of reach of it. It will be no excuse to 
 an idle and untoward servant who would not attend his busi- 
 ness by candle-light, to plead that he had not broad sunshine. 
 The candle that is set up within us shines bright enough for all 
 our purposes. 
 
 " When we know our own strength we shall the better know 
 what to undertake with hopes of success ;* and when we have 
 well surveyed the powers of our own minds, and made some 
 estimate what we may expect from them, we shall not be in- 
 clined either to sit still, and not set our thoughts on work at 
 all, despairing of knowing any thing ; or, on the other side, 
 question every thing, and disclaim all knowledge because some 
 things are not to be understood. It is of great use to the 
 sailor to know the length ot his line, though he cannot with it 
 fathom all the depths of the ocean. It is well he knows that 
 it is long enough to reach the bottom at such places as are 
 necessary to direct his voyage, and caution him against running 
 upon any shoals that they may ruin him. . . . This was 
 that which gave the first rise to this Essay concerning the 
 understanding ; for I thought that the first step towards satisfy- 
 ing several inquiries the mind of man was very apt to run into, 
 was to take a survey of our own understandings, and to see to 
 what things they were adapted. Till that was done I suspected 
 we began at the wrong end, and in vain sought for satisfaction 
 in a quiet and sure possession of truths that most concerned 
 us, whilst we let loose our thoughts into the vast ocean of 
 being : as if that boundless extent were the natural and un- 
 doubted possession of our understandings, wherein there is 
 nothing exempt from its decisions, or that escaped its compre- 
 hension. Thus men extending their inquiries beyond their 
 capacities, and letting their thoughts wander into those depths 
 where they can find no sure footing, it is no wonder that they 
 raise questions and multiply disputes, which never coming to 
 my cl^ar resolution, are proper only to continue and increase 
 
 * " Tne real cause and root of almost all the evils in science is this : that 
 falsely magnifying and extolling the powers of the mind, we seek not ite 
 jtnie helps."— Bacon. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS. 469 
 
 their doubts, and to confirm them at last in perfect scep- 
 ticism." 
 
 No apology is necessary for the length of these extracts; 
 their calm wisdom will be appreciated by all; and the de- 
 cisive manner in which Locke separates himself from the 
 ontologists is not only historically noteworthy, but is also 
 noticeable as giving the tone to his subsequent speculations. 
 We have admired the Portico ; let us enter the Temple. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS. 
 
 Hobbes had said, with Gassendi, that all our ideas are de- 
 rived from sensations ; nihil est in intellectu quod non prius 
 fuerit in sensu. 
 
 Locke, who is called a mere popularizer of Hobbes, said that 
 there were two sources, not one source, and these two were 
 Sensation and Reflection. 
 
 Separating himself decisively from the upholders of the 
 doctrine of innate ideas — of truths independent of experience, 
 — he declared that all our knowledge is founded on experience, 
 and from that it ultimately derives itself. 
 
 Separating himself no less decisively from the Gassendists, 
 who saw no source of ideas but Sensation, he declared that 
 although Sensation was the great source of most of our ideas, 
 yet there was " another fountain from which experience fur- 
 nisheth the understanding with ideas ; " and this source, 
 " though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with external 
 objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be 
 called internal sense; " this he calls Reflection. 
 
 After Dugald Stewart's ample exposure of the wide-spread 
 error that Locke was the chief of the so-called sensational 
 school, we need spend no time in inquiring whether Locke did 
 or did not teach that all knowledge was referable to sensation. 
 The passages which contradict the vulgar error respecting 
 Locke's doctrine are numerous and decisive ; Dugald Stewart 
 has selected several; but perhaps the one we have quoted 
 above will be considered sufficiently explicit Reflection, he 
 says, " though it be not sense," may yet analogically be con- 
 sidered as an internal sense. 
 
 To prevent all misconception, however, w* wUl as a deci- 
 
,6 4 THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS. 
 
 sive example refer to his proof of the existence of God, which 
 he sums up by saying, " It is plain to me that we have a more 
 certain knowledge of the existence of a God than of anything 
 our senses have not immediately discovered to us. Nay, I 
 presume I may say that we may more certainly know that 
 there is a God, than that there is anything else without us."— 
 (Book IV. ch. x.) Locke made the senses the source of all 
 our sensuous knowledge; our ideal knowledge (so to speak) 
 comes from Reflection. 
 
 Historians have not accorded due praise to Locke for the 
 important advance he made towards a solution of the great 
 question on the origin of knowledge. While Leibnitz has been 
 lauded to the skies tor having expressed Locke's doctrine in an 
 epigram, Locke has not only been robbed of his due, but has 
 been sacrificed to his rival. What is the usual statement of 
 their opinions ? It is this : "Locke reduced all our knowledge 
 to Sensation ; Leibnitz came and accepted the old adage of 
 nihil est in intellectu quod non prius Juerit in sensu, but he ac- 
 cepted it as only half the truth ; and therefore added nisi ipse 
 intelcectusT Now, firstly, Locke did not accept the adage as 
 the whole truth ; he said that Reflection was a second source 
 of ideas. 
 
 Secondly, Dugald Stewart has remarked that the addition 
 which Leibnitz made when he said there is nothing in the in- 
 tellect which was not previously in the sense, except the intellect 
 itself, expresses no more than the doctrine of Locke, who says, 
 " External objects furnish the mind with ideas of sensible 
 qualities ; and the mind furnishes the understanding with the 
 ideas of its own operations." 
 
 Thirdly, although the phrase is epigrammatic, and thereby 
 has had such success in the world, as epigrams usually have, it 
 will not bear scrutiny : — few epigrams will. Except as a verbal 
 jingle, how trivial is the expression — the intellect in the in- 
 tellect! Suppose a man to say, "I have no money in my 
 purse, except my purse itself" — he would scarcely be less ab- 
 surd. For when the schoolmen said, " Nothing was in the 
 intellect which was not previously in the sense," they did not 
 mean that the intellect was the same as the sense ; they meant 
 that the intellect was furnished with no ideas, notions, or con- 
 ceptions, which had not been furnished them by sense ; they 
 meant that the senses were the inlets to the soul. 
 
 Dr. Whewell, as may be anticipated, approves of the epi- 
 gram, and alluding to Mr. Sharpe's objection to it, viz., that 
 
THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS. 465 
 
 we cannot say the intellect is in the intellect, he says, " This 
 remark is obviously frivolous ; for the faculties of the under- 
 standing (which are what the argument against the Sensational 
 School requires us to reserve) may be said to be in the under- 
 standing with as much justice as we may assert that there are 
 in it the impressions derived from sense." We do not see the 
 frivolity. Moreover the " faculties " of the understanding are 
 not " all that must be reserved for the argument against the 
 Sensational School " (if the Lockists be meant, and to them 
 only did Leibnitz address himself), for the simple reason that 
 the faculties never were denied.* Foolish opponents have 
 attributed such a notion to Locke's school ; no member of that 
 ichool ever proposed it. The question never was — Have we 
 m Understanding, and has that Understanding certain Faculties! 
 No ; the question simply was — What is the origin of our Ideas: 
 are they partly innate, and partly acquired, or are they wholly 
 acquired, and if so, is Sense the sole inlet? To this plain ques- 
 tion some replied plainly, "Sense is the origin of all our 
 ideas," — Locke replied, — " Sense and Reflection are the 
 sources of all our ideas." Leibnitz replied, M There is nothing 
 in the intellect which was not previously in the sense ; except 
 the intellect itself." Which latter remark is altogether beside 
 the question. And yet how many pages of laudatory declama- 
 tion has this remark called forth ; pages in which Locke is 
 cast into the background, and charged with having overlooked 
 the important fact — that man has an intellect as well as senses. 
 This notion once started continued its triumphant course. 
 Critics are like sheep, who always follow the bell-wether. 
 What one asserts boldly, another echoes boldly ; a third trans- 
 mits it to a fourth, and the assertion becomes consolidated 
 into a traditional judgment. Some one more serious or more 
 independent than the rest looks into the matter ; sees an error, 
 exposes it ; but tradition rolls on its unimpeded course. 
 
 We do not expect to shake the traditional error respecting 
 Locke ; we were bound, however, to signalize it. Locke does 
 not derive all our knowledge from sensation ; Leibnitz has 
 not made any addition by his too famous nisi ipse intellectus. 
 
 By Sensation Locke understands the simple operation of 
 
 * Locke often speaks of the operations of the mind as proceeding from 
 powers intrinsical and proper to itself. He says al*o : •' Thus the first 
 tapacity of human intellect is, that the mind is fitted to receive the impres- 
 sions made on it ; either through the senses by outward objects, or by its 
 own operations when it refects <m them " — Essays, book ii., ch. i., \ 24. 
 
 Q O 
 
466 fHE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS. 
 
 external objects through the senses. The mind is herein wholly 
 passive. The senses, therefore, may be said to furnish the 
 mind with one portion of its materials. 
 
 By Reflection he understands that internal sense by means 
 of which the mind observes its own operations. This furnishes 
 the second and last portion of the materials out of which the 
 mind frames knowledge. 
 
 " If it shall be demanded," he says, "when a man begins .to 
 have any ideas ; I think the true answer is, when he first has 
 any sensation. For since there appear not to be any ideas in 
 the mind before the senses have conveyed any in, I conceive 
 that ideas in the understanding are coeval with sensation." 
 
 This is making a decisive stand against the upholders of in- 
 nate ideas ; but it is a very rude and incomplete view. 
 
 Deeply considered, not only are ideas not coeval with sensa- 
 tions, but sensations themselves are not coeval with the opera- 
 tion of external objects on our organs. Our senses have to be 
 educated, i.e. y to be drawn out, developed. We have to learn 
 to see, to hear, and to touch. Light strikes on the retina, 
 waves of air pulsate on the tympanum : but these are as yet 
 neither sight nor hearing : they are only the /udiments, they 
 are the preparations for sight and hearing. Many hundred 
 repetitions are necessary before what we call a Sensation (i.e., a. 
 distinct feeling corresponding to that which the object will 
 always produce upon the developed sense) can be produced. 
 Many Sensations are necessary to produce a perception : a per- 
 ception is a cluster of sensations. On the educated Sense 
 objects act so as instantaneously to produce what we call their 
 sensations ; on the uneducated Sense they act only so as to 
 produce a vague impression, which becomes more and more 
 definite by repetition.* 
 
 Plato finely compares the soul to a book, of which the 
 senses are the scribes.t Accepting this comparison, we must 
 carry it out : writing is only possible after a series of tentatives; 
 the hand must practise before it can steady itself sufficiently 
 to trace letters ; so also must the senses learn by repetition to 
 trace intelligible figures on the tabula rasa of the mind. 
 
 Locke continues his account of the origin of all our know. 
 ledge thus : *' In time the mind comes to reflect on its own 
 
 * See this treated in a masterly manner in Beneke's *Lehrbuch der 
 Psychologic' 
 
 t Philebus, p. xq2. Plato's words are not given in the text, but th« 
 sense ia. 
 
IDEALISM AND SCEPTICISM IN LOCKE. 467 
 
 operations about the ideas got by sensation, and thereby stores 
 itself with a new set of ideas, which I call ideas of reflection. 
 These are the impressions which are made on our senses by 
 outward objects that are extrinsical to the mind, and its own 
 operations proceeding from powers intrinsical and proper to it- 
 self; which when reflected on by itself, becoming also objects 
 of its contemplation, are, as I have said, the original of all 
 knowledge. Thus, the first capacity of the human intellect is 
 that the mind is fitted to receive the impressions made on it ; 
 either through the senses by outward objects ; or by its own 
 operations when it reflects on them. This is the first step that 
 a man makes towards the discovery of and the groundwork 
 whereon to build all those notions which ever he shall have 
 naturally in this world. All those sublime thoughts which 
 tower above the clouds and reach as high as heaven itself, take 
 their rise and footing here : in all that good extent wherein the 
 mind wanders, in those remote speculations it may seem to be 
 elevated with, it stirs not one jot beyond those ideas which 
 sense or reflection have offered for its contemplation." 
 
 The close of this passage is an answer to the ontologists ; not 
 ane, however, which they will accept. They deny that sensa- 
 tion and reflection are the only sources of materials. But we 
 will continue to hear Locke : — 
 
 " When the understanding is once stored with '. se simple 
 ideas, it has the power to repeat, compare, and unite them, 
 even to an almost infinite variety, and so can make at pleasure 
 new complex ideas* But it is not in the power of the most 
 exalted wit, or enlarged understanding, by any quickness or 
 variety of thought, to invent or frame one new simple idea in 
 the mind not taken in by the ways aforementioned." 
 
 This is very explicit — and, we believe, very true. If true, 
 what becomes of Philosophy ? 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 ELEMENTS OF IDEALISM AND SCEPTICISM IN LOCKS. 
 
 The passage last quoted naturally leads us to consider 
 Locke's position in the great debate carried on respecting our 
 knowledge of things per se. 
 
 • What docs Dr. Whewell say to tnis ? If there any denial of the 
 ' faculties ' here ? 
 
468 IDEALISM AND SCEPTICISM IN LOCKE. 
 
 Can we know things as they are? Descartes and his fol- 
 lowers suppose that we can : their criterion is the clearness and 
 distinctness of ideas. 
 
 Locke admirably said, " Distinct ideas of the several sorts of 
 bodies that fall under the examination of our senses, perhaps 
 we may have ; but adequate ideas I suspect we have not of any 
 one amongst them." 
 
 Our ideas, however clear, are never adequate ; they are sub- 
 jective. But Locke only went half way towards the conception 
 of knowledge as purely subjective. He did not think that all 
 our ideas were images, copies of external objects ; but he ex- 
 pressly taught that our ideas of what he calls primary qualities, 
 are resemblances of what really exist in bodies ; adding, that 
 " the ideas produced in us by secondary qualities have no re- 
 semblance of them at all. There is nothing like our ideas 
 existing in the bodies themselves. They are, in the bodies we 
 denominate from them, only a power to produce those sensations 
 in us" 
 
 It is remarkable that the last sentence did not lead him to 
 the conclusion that all the qualities which we perceive in bodies 
 are but the powers to produce sensations in us ; and that it is 
 we who attribute to the causes of these sensations a form 
 analogous to their effects. He himself warned us " that so we 
 may not think (as perhaps usually is done) that they (ideas) 
 are exactly the images and resemblances of something inherent in 
 the subject; most of those of sensation being in the mind no 
 more the likeness of something existing without us than the names 
 that stand for them are likenesses of our ideas, which yet upon 
 hearing they are apt to excite in us." And elsewhere, " it 
 being no more impossible to conceive that God should annex 
 such ideas to such motions (*.*., the motions of objects affect- 
 ing the senses) with which they have no similitude than that 
 he should annex the idea of pain to the motion of a piece of 
 steel dividing our flesh, with which that idea hath no re- 
 semblance." 
 
 From these passages it will be seen how clearly Locke under- 
 stood the subjective nature of one portion of our knowledge. 
 His not carrying out the application of his principles to primary 
 qualities, was owing perhaps to carelessness, or else to invete- 
 rate association having too firmly established the contrary iu 
 his mind. 
 
 Every one is willing to admit that colour, light, heat, 
 perfume, taste, &c, are not qualities in the bodies which 
 
IDEALISM AND SCEPTICISM IN LOCKE. 469 
 
 produce in us those effects; they are simply conditions of 
 our sensibility when placed in certain relations with certain 
 bodies. 
 
 But few are willing to admit — indeed only philosophers (ac- 
 customed as they are to undo their constant associations) can 
 conceive the primary qualities, viz., extension, solidity, motion, 
 and number, to be otherwise than real qualities of bodies — 
 copies of which are impressed upon us by the relation in 
 which we stand to the bodies. 
 
 And yet these are no less subjective than the former. 
 They do not belong at all to bodies, except as powers to 
 produce in us the sensations. They are demonstrably as 
 much the effects produced in us by objects, as the secondary 
 qualities are ; and the latter everyone admits to be effects^ 
 and not copies. 
 
 Wherein lies the difference? wherein the difficulty of con- 
 ceiving primary qualities not to belong to bodies ? 
 
 In this: the primary qualities are the invariable conditions 
 of sensation. The secondary qualities are the vartable con- 
 ditions. We can have no perception of a body that is not 
 extended, that is not solid (or the reverse), that is not simple 
 or complex (number), that is not in motion or rest. These 
 are invariable conditions. But this body is not necessarily of 
 any particular colour, taste, scent, heat, or smoothness ; it may 
 be colourless, tasteless, scentless. These secondary qualities 
 are all variable. 
 
 Consequently, the one set being invariable, have occasioned 
 indissoluble associations in our minds, so that it is not only 
 impossible for us to imagine a body, without at the same 
 time imagining it as endowed with these primary qualities ; 
 but also we are irresistibly led to believe that the bodies we 
 perceive do certainly possess those qualities quite inde- 
 pendently of us. Hence it has been said that the Creator 
 himself could not make a body without extension : for such a 
 body is impossible. The phrase should be, " such a body it 
 is impossible for us to conceive" But our indissoluble associa- 
 tions are no standards of reality. 
 
 That we cannot conceive body without extension is true; but 
 that, because we cannot conceive it, the contrary must be 
 false, is preposterous. All our assertion in this matter can 
 amount to is that knowledge must be subordinate to the con- 
 ditions of our nature. These conditions are not conditions of 
 things, but of our organizations. 
 
(^ IDEALISM AND SCEPTICISM IN LOCKE. 
 
 If we had been so constituted as that all bodies should 
 affect us with a degree of warmth, we should have been irre- 
 sistibly led to conclude that warmth was a quality inherent in 
 body ; but because warmth varies with different bodies and at 
 different times, there is no indissoluble association formed. 
 And so of the rest. 
 
 To return to Locke : he has very well stated the nature of 
 our knowledge of external things, though he excepts primary 
 qualities. " It is evident," he says, " that the bulk, figure, and 
 motion of several bodies about us, produce in us several sen- 
 sations, as of colours, sounds, tastes, smells, pleasure, and 
 pain, &c. These mechanical affections of bodies having no 
 affinity at all with those ideas they produce in us (there being no 
 conceivable connection between any impulse of any sort of 
 body, and any perception of a colour or smell which we find in 
 our minds) we can have no distinct knowledge of such operations 
 beyond our experience; and can reason about them no otherwise 
 than as the effects produced by an infinitely wise Agent, which 
 perfectly surpass our comprehensions." 
 
 He shortly after says, " The things that, as far as our obser- 
 vation reaches, we constantly find to proceed regularly, we 
 may conclude do act by a law set them ; but yet by a law that 
 we know not: whereby, though causes work steadily, and 
 effects constantly flow from them, yet their connexions and de- 
 pendencies being not discoverable in our ideas f we can have but 
 an experimental knowledge of them." Here we have Hume 's 
 doctrine of Causation anticipate d. 
 
 To prove the subjective nature of our knowledge is but one 
 step towards the great question. The second step, which it is 
 vulgarly supposed was only taken by Berkeley and Hume, was 
 also taken by Locke. Hear him : — 
 
 " Since the mind in all its thoughts and reasonings hath no 
 other immediate object but its own ideas, which it alone does 
 or can contemplate, it is evident that our knowledge is only 
 conversant about them. 
 
 " Knowledge, then, seems to me nothing but the perception 
 of the connexion and agreement, or disagreement and repug- 
 nancy of any one of our ideas." 
 
 This is the great stronghold of Idealism and Scepticism, 
 Locke foresaw the use which would be made of it ; and he 
 stated the problem with remarkable precision : — 
 
 * It is evident that the mind knows not things immediately, 
 but only by the intervention of ideas it has of them. Our 
 
IDEALISM AND SCEPTICISM IN LOCKE. 471 
 
 knowledge, therefore, is real, only so far as there is a con- 
 formity between our ideas and the reality of things. 
 
 " But what shall be here the criterion ? How shall the mind, 
 when it perceives nothing but its own ideas, know that they agree 
 with the things themselves ? " 
 
 Thus has he stated the problem which was solved by Idealism 
 on the one hand and by Scepticism on the other. Let us see 
 how he will solve it 
 
 There are two sorts of ideas, he says, the simple and the 
 complex ; or, to use more modern language, perceptions and 
 conceptions. The first " must necessarily be the product of 
 things operating on the mind in a natural way, and producing 
 those perceptions which by the wisdom and will of our Maker 
 they are ordained and adapted to. From whence it follows 
 that simple ideas are not fictions of our fancies, but the natural 
 and regular productions of things without us really operating 
 upon us ; and so carry with them all ttu conformity which is in- 
 tended, or which our state requires : for they represent things td 
 us under those appearances which they are fitted to produce in us." 
 
 This leaves the question of Idealism unanswered, though it 
 cuts the Gordian knot of Scepticism. It is a plain and explicit 
 avowal of the subjectivity of our knowledge; of the impossi- 
 bility of our ever transcending the sphere ot our consciousness 
 and penetrating into the essences of things. 
 
 Complex ideas being made out of simple ideas, we need not 
 examine their pretensions to infallibility. 
 
 All human certainty is, therefore, only a relative certainty. 
 Ideas may be true for us, without being at all true when con- 
 sidered absolutely. Such is Locke's position. He stands upon 
 a ledge of rock between two yawning abysses. He will stand 
 there, and proceed no farther. Why should he move when he 
 knows that a single step will precipitate him into some tat horn- 
 less abyss ? No ; he is content with his ledge of rock. " The 
 notice we have by our senses," he says, " of the existence of 
 things without us. though it be not altogether so certain as our 
 intuitive knowledge or the deductions of our reason, employed 
 about the clear, abstract ideas ot our own minds ; yet it is an 
 assurance that deserves the name of knowledge. If we per- 
 suade ourselves that our faculties act and inform us right 
 concerning the existence of those objects that affect them, it 
 cannot pass tor an ill-grounded confidence ; for I think nobody 
 can in earnest be so sceptical as to be uncertain of the exist- 
 ence of those things which he sees and feels. At least he that 
 
47* IDEALISM AND SCEPTICISM IN LOCKE. 
 
 can doubt so far (whatever he may have with his own thoughts) 
 will never have any controversy with me, since he can never be 
 sure I say anything contrary to his own opinions. As to myself, 
 I think God has given me assurance enough as to the existence 
 of things without me ; since by their different application I can 
 produce in myself both pleasure and pain, which is one great 
 concernment of my present state. We cannot act by anything 
 but our faculties ; nor talk of knowledge but by the help of 
 those faculties which are fitted to apprehend even what know- 
 ledge is." 
 
 Again, anticipating the objection that " all we see and hear, 
 feel and taste, think and do during our whole being is but the 
 series and deluding appearances of a long dream, and therefore 
 our knowledge of anything be questioned ; I must desire him 
 to consider that if all be a dream, then he doth but dream that 
 makes the question ; and so it is not much matter that a waking 
 man should answer him. But yet if he pleases, he may dream 
 that I make him this answer, That the certainty of things existing 
 in rerum naturd, when we have the testimony of our senses for 
 it, is not only as great as our frame can attain to, but as our 
 condition needs" This leaves Idealism unanswered ; but it 
 pronounces Scepticism to be frivolous : " for our faculties," he 
 continues, " being not suited to the full extent of being, nor to a 
 perfect, clear, comprehensive knowledge of things free from all 
 doubt and scruple, but to the preservation of us, in whom they 
 are, and accommodated to the use of life ; they serve to our 
 purpose well enough, if they will but give us certain notice of 
 those things which are convenient or inconvenient to us." 
 
 That this is very good common sense every one will admit. 
 But it is no ansiver to Scepticism. Hume, as we shall see 
 hereafter, proclaimed the very same opinions : but the difference 
 b etween him and Lo cke was, that he knew such opinions had 
 no influence whatever upon the philosophical question, but 
 simply upon the practical affairs oi lite; whereas Locke, con- 
 tenting himself with the practical, disdained to answer the 
 philosophical question.* 
 
 We may sum up the contents of this chapter by saying that 
 Locke distinctly enough foresaw the Idealistic and Sceptical 
 arguments which might be drawn from his principles. He did 
 not draw them, because he thought them frivolous. Aware 
 
 • Dr. Reid conjectures that " Locke had a glimpse of the system which 
 Berkeley aiterwards advanced, though he thought proper to suppress it 
 within his own breast." No, not to suppress, but to disdain it. 
 
LOCKE'S CRITICS, 473 
 
 that all human certitude could only be relative certitude — that 
 human knowledge could never embrace the nature of things, 
 but only the nature of their effects on us — he was content with 
 that amount of truth, and " sat down in quiet ignorance of 
 those things which are beyond the reach of our capacities." 
 
 The grand aim of the ' Essay ' was to prove that all know- 
 ledge is founded on Experience. That proved, he was quite 
 aware that Experience never could be other than relative — it 
 could only be our Experience of things ; and our Experience 
 could be no absolute standard ; it could only be a standard for 
 us. 
 
 Locke gave up philosophy as hopeless ; he was a Sceptic, 
 then? 
 
 In one sense, he was ; but as the word sceptic is invested 
 with so many indissoluble associations, which would distort our 
 meaning, we prefer saying that Locke was a thinker of the 
 Positive School.* 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LOCKE'S CRITICS. 
 
 We cannot leave the great Englishman without at least slightly- 
 adverting to the tone adopted by his critics. This tone has 
 been anything but considerate. The sincerest and least dog- 
 matic of thinkers has met with insincere and shallow criticism. 
 That men .should misrepresent Spinoza, Hobbes, or Hume, 
 is intelligible enough ; men are frightened, and in their terror 
 exaggerate and distort the object That they should misrepre- 
 sent Kant, Fichte, or Hegel, is also intelligible : the remoteness 
 of the speculations and the difficulty of the language are suffi- 
 cient excuses. But that they should misrepresent Locke is 
 wholly inexcusable. He is neither an audacious speculator, 
 nor a cloudy writer. His fault is that he spoke plainly and 
 honestly. He sought the truth ; he did not wish to mystify 
 any one. He endeavoured to explain the Chemistry of the 
 Mind (if the metaphor be permissible), renouncing the vague 
 futile dreams of Alchemy. All those men who still seek to 
 penetrate impenetrable mysteries, and who refuse to acknow- 
 ledge the limits of man's intelligence, treat Locke with the 
 
 • Compare our 'Introduction,' Series I., pp. xviii.-xxi., for an explana 
 tion of the term. 
 
474 LOCKE'S CRITICS. 
 
 same superb disdain as the ambitious alchemists treated the 
 early chemists. The tone in which modern Frenchmen and 
 Germans speak of Locke is painful ; the tone in which many 
 Englishmen speak of him is disgraceful. To point out any error 
 is honourable ; but to accuse him of errors which are not to be 
 found in his work, to interpret his language according to your 
 views, and then accuse him of inconsistency and superficiality j 
 to assume that his principles would " lead to Atheism " or 
 elsewhere, and on that assumption to condemn them ; to speak 
 of him with superciliousness, as if he were some respectable 
 but short-sighted gentleman dabbling with philosophy, and not 
 one of the great benefactors of mankind, deserves the severest 
 reprobation. 
 
 There is no excuse for not understanding Locke. If his 
 language be occasionally loose and wavering, his meaning is 
 always to be gathered from the context. He had not the 
 lucidity of Descartes or Hobbes ; but he was most anxious to 
 make himself intelligible, and to this end he varied his ex- 
 pressions, and stated his meaning in a variety ot forms. He 
 must not be taken literally. No single passage is to be relied 
 on, unless it be also borne out by the whole tenor ot his specu- 
 lations. Any person merely " dipping into " the Essay, will 
 find passages which seem very contradictory ; any person 
 carefully reading it through will find all clear and coherent. 
 But Locke is not read through : hence misconception. 
 
 The most considerable of Locke's modern critics is Victor 
 Cousin. He has undertaken an examination and refutation of 
 all Locke's important positions. The eminer ce of his name 
 and the popular style of his lectures have given great import- 
 ance to his criticism ; but if we are to speak out our opinion 
 frankly, we must consider this criticism very unfair, and extremely 
 shallow. There may be temerity in this declaration ; yet such 
 of our readers as do not suffer themselves to be imposed upon 
 by reputations however showy, but are content to think con- 
 scientiously for themselves, will see that the present is not a 
 fit occasion for idle courtesies. 
 
 We cannot here examine his examination : a volume would 
 not suffice to expose all his errors. Let one example of his 
 unfairness and one of his shallowness suffice. 
 
 Speaking of the principle of reflection, he says, "In the 
 first place, remark that Locke here evidently confounds reflec- 
 tion with consciousness. Reflection, strictly speaking, is 
 doubtless a faculty analogous to consciousness, but distinct 
 
lockb's critics. 4 7i 
 
 from it, and which more particularly belongs to philosophers* 
 whereas consciousness belongs to every man." 
 
 We answer thsX in the first place, so far from its being 
 evident that Locke confounds reflection with consciousness, 
 his whole Essay proves the contrary. In the second place, 
 M. Cousin, using the word reflection in a peculiar sense (viz., 
 as tantamount to speculation), forces that sense upon Locke, 
 and then exclaims about contradiction ! If M. Cousin had 
 interpreted Locke fairly, he could never have thus " caught 
 him on the hip." 
 
 It is quite true that in the passage quoted by M. Cousin, 
 the faculty of reflection is limited to the operations of the 
 mind ; but, as we said, to pin Locke down to any one passage 
 is unfair; and his whole Essay proves, in spite of some ill- 
 worded definitions, that by reflection he meant very much 
 what is usually meant by it, viz., the activity of the mind com- 
 bining the materials it receives through sense, and being thus a 
 second source of ideas. 
 
 This leads us to the second example. M. Cousin wishing 
 to prove, against Locke, that we have ideas from some other 
 source besides sensation and reflection, instances the idea of 
 space, and examines how it was possible to obtain that idea 
 through sensation and reflection. That the idea of pure space 
 could not have been obtained through the senses, he seems to 
 think is satisfactorily proved by proving that the idea has 
 nothing sensuous in it ; that it could not have been obtained 
 through reflection, because it has nothing to do with the opera- 
 tions of our understanding, is equally evident to him. Hence, 
 as both sources fail, he pronounces Locke's account of the 
 origin of our knowledge " incomplete and vicious." 
 
 This argument, which extends to several pages, is deemed 
 by M. Cousin triumphant. Locke, indeed, says that " we get 
 the idea of space both by our sight and touch." Any honest 
 inquirer would never quibble upon this — would never suppose 
 Locke meant to say that space is a sensation. He would 
 understand that Locke meant to say, " the idea of space is an 
 abstraction : the primary materials are obtained through our 
 touch and sight." Locke did not anticipate any quibbling 
 objection, so did not guard against it ; but in his explanation 
 of our idea of substance he has given an analogous case ; and 
 curiously enough his antagonists have frequently objected that 
 the idea of substance never could have been obtained through 
 sense ! It has been thought an irresistible argument against 
 
476 LOCKE'S CRITICS. 
 
 Locke's theory. The very fact that we have an idea of sub- 
 stance is supposed to be sufficient proof of some other source 
 of knowledge than sensation and reflection — an example of 
 how carelessly Locke has been read. He expressly tells us, 
 in more places than one, that the idea of substance (and by 
 idea he does not here mean image, but a thought) is an infer- 
 ence grounded upon our experience of external things. True 
 it is that we perceive nothing but phenomena, but our minds 
 are so constituted that we are forced to suppose these phe- 
 nomena have substances lying underneath them. 
 
 " If any one will examine himself," he says, "concerning his 
 notion of pure substance in general, he will find he has no 
 other idea of it at all, but only a supposition of he knows not 
 what support of such qualities which are capable of producing 
 simple ideas in us, which qualities are commonly called acci- 
 dents. If any one should be asked what is the subject 
 wherein colour or weight inheres, he would have nothing to 
 say but the solid extended parts ; and if he were demanded 
 what is it that solidity and extension inhere in, he would not 
 be in a much better case than the Indian who, saying that the 
 world was supported by a great elephant, was asked what the 
 elephant rested on, to which his answer was, A great tortoise ; 
 but being again pressed to know what gave support to the great 
 broad backed tortoise, replied, Something, he knew not what." 
 
 The same course of argument will apply to space — an idea 
 suggested by place, which is surely one derived from the senses ; 
 but M. Cousin declaims away at a great rate, and brings for- 
 ward many arguments and illustrations, all utterly trivial, to 
 show that the idea of space could never have been a sensation. 
 A little more attention in reading the author he attacks would 
 have saved him all this trouble. Locke never for an instant 
 supposed that the idea of space, or any ideas of that class, 
 could have been a sensation : on the fact that it could not, he 
 grounds his position that the idea is vague, and is a mere 
 " supposition." 
 
 The German critics we may pass over in silence. The 
 whole tenor of their speculations unfits them for judging 
 Locke. But let us hear an Englishman — a Cambridge pro- 
 fessor, and a philosophical historian : — " We need not spend 
 much time in pointing out the inconsistencies into which 
 Locke fell," says Dr. Whewell, " as all must fall into incon- 
 sistencies who recognise no source of knowledge except the 
 senses.''" 
 
LOCKE'S CRITICS. 477 
 
 Let us remark, in the first place, that it is surely a very 
 cavalier manner of writing history thus to pass over so great a 
 man as Locke, whose influence has been so general and last 
 ing, and whose "inconsistencies" it behoved Dr. Whewell, 
 more than most men, to refute, inasmuch as, otherwise, they 
 refute his whole philosophy. Secondly, it is a misrepresenta- 
 tion to talk of Locke's having recognised "no source of 
 knowledge except the senses." He knows that Locke did 
 recognise another source : but the suppression of ' Reflection ' 
 gives him an easy victory ; so he suppresses it, and triumphantly 
 proceeds ; — 
 
 " Thus he maintains that our idea of space is derived from 
 the senses of sight and touch — our idea of solidity from the 
 touch alone. Our notion of substance is an unknown suppor* 
 of unknown qualities, and is illustrated by the Indian fable of 
 the tortoise which supports the elephant which supports the 
 world." 
 
 As to space, we have already considered that in answering 
 M. Cousin. As to solidity, if the idea of that be not derived 
 from the sensation, from whence is it derived ? And as to 
 substance, we must here again notice a misrepresentation of 
 Locke, who does not define it as "an unknown support of 
 unknown qualities," but as an unknown support of known 
 qualities : from our knowledge of the qualities we infer the 
 existence of some substratum in which they inhere. We are 
 with respect to substance, somewhat in the condition of a 
 blind man, who, whenever he moved in a certain direction, 
 should receive a blow from some revolving wheel. Although 
 unable to see the wheel, and so understand the cause of the 
 pain he received, he would not hesitate to attribute that cause 
 to something without him. All he could ever know, un- 
 assisted, would be the fact of his being struck when he moved 
 in a certain direction ; he could have no other knowledge of 
 the wheel, yet he would be quite certain that there was some- 
 thing besides his pain, and that unknown something would 
 stand in a somewhat similar relation to him as the unknown 
 support of known accidents of bodies does to us. This is 
 Locke's meaning. 
 
 " Our notion of power or cause," continues the historian, 
 " is in like manner got from the senses ; and yet, though these 
 ideas are thus mere fragments of our experience, Locke does 
 not hesitate to ascribe to them necessity and universality when 
 thev occur in propositions. Thus he maintains the necessary 
 
478 LOCKE S CRITICS. 
 
 truth of geometrical properties : he asserts that the resistance 
 arising from solidity is absolutely insurmountable; he con- 
 ceives that nothing short of Omnipotence can annihilate a 
 particle of matter ; and he has no misgivings in arguing upon 
 the axiom that everything must have a cause. He does not 
 perceive that upon his own account of the origin of our know- 
 ledge, we can have no right to make any of these assertions. 
 If our knowledge of the truths which concern the external 
 world were wholly derived from experience, all that we could 
 venture to say would be, that geometrical properties of figures 
 are true as far as we have tried them ; that we have seen no 
 example of a solid body being reduced to occupy less space by 
 pressure, or of a material substance annihilated by natural 
 means ; and that, wherever we have examined, we have found 
 that every change has had a cause." 
 
 In another, such a passage might cause some surprise. 
 In Dr. Whewell, it is only one among innumerable instances 
 of his want of acquaintance with Locke. The fallacy on 
 which his argument rests, we shall examine fully when we come 
 to treat of Kant.* Meanwhile let the following exhibit his 
 misconception of Locke, who certainly did not hesitate to 
 ascribe necessity and universality to certain ideas when they 
 11 occur in propositions," but who very clearly explained the 
 nature of this necessity in a masterly passage : — 
 
 " There is one sort of propositions concerning the existence 
 of anything answerable to such an idea ; as having the idea of 
 an elephant, phoenix, motion, or angle, in my mind, the first 
 and natural inquiry is, whether such a thing does anywhere 
 exist ? And this knowledge is only of particulars. No exist- 
 ence of anything without us, except God, can certainly be 
 known farther than our senses inform us. 
 
 " There is another sort of propositions, wherein is expressed 
 the agreement or disagreement of our abstract ideas and their 
 dependence on one another. Such propositions may be uni- 
 versal and certain. So, having the idea of God and of myself, 
 of fear and obedience, I cannot but be sure that God is to be 
 feared and obeyed by me : and this proposition will be certain 
 concerning man in general, if I have made an abstract idea of 
 such species whereof I am one particular. But yet this pro- 
 position, how certain soever, that men ought to fear and obey 
 God, proves not to me the existence of men in the world, but 
 will be true of all such creatures wherever they do exist ; which 
 * See epoch viii., chap, v., of this Series. 
 
LOCKE'S CRITICS. 479 
 
 certainty of such general propositions depends on the agree- 
 ment or disagreement to be discovered in those abstract ideas. 
 In the former case our knowledge is the consequence of the 
 existence of things producing ideas in our minds by our 
 senses; in the latter, knowledge is the consequence of the 
 ideas (be they what they will) that are in our minds producing 
 their general certain propositions. 
 
 u Many of these are called (Bterruz vcritates ; and all of them 
 indeed are so ; not from being written in the minds of all men, 
 or that they were any of them propositions in any one's mind 
 till he, having got the abstract ideas, joined or separated them 
 by affirmation or negation. But wheresoever we can suppose 
 such a creature as man is, endowed with such faculties, and 
 thereby furnished with such ideas as we have, we must con- 
 clude he must needs, when he applies his thoughts to the 
 consideration of his ideas, know the truth of certain proposi- 
 tions that will arise from the agreement or disagreement which 
 he will perceive in his own ideas. Such propositions, there- 
 fore, are called eternal truths, not because they are eternal 
 propositions actually formed and antecedent to the under- 
 standing that makes them; nor because they are imprinted on 
 the mind from any patterns that are anywhere ot them out of 
 the mind and existed before ; but because being once made 
 about abstract ideas so as to be true, they will, whenever they 
 can be supposed to be made again at any time by a mind 
 having those ideas, always actually be true." — (Book IV. 
 ch. xi § 13, 14.) 
 
 This passage is sufficient to exonerate him from the charge 
 of inconsistency ; sufficient also, we believe, to show the 
 futility of Dr. Whewell's own account of the necessity of 
 certain truths. 
 
 The foregoing are samples of the style in which the great 
 master of Psychology is spoken of by his modern critics. Let 
 them be sufficient warning to the reader of what he is to expect 
 from the partisans of the reaction against Locke and his 
 followers ; and stimulate him to the caret ul study of that author 
 who " professes no more than to lay down, candidly and freely, 
 his own conjectures concerning a subject lying somewhat in 
 the dark, without any other design than an unbiassed inquiry 
 after truth." 
 
^ LEIBNITZ. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LEIBNITZ. 
 
 Leibnitz was the first and last of Locke's great critics. He 
 had studied the ' Essay on Human Understanding/ though he 
 could not accept its principles. His arguments have formed 
 the staple of objection against Locke; and from him they 
 come with peculiar force, because they are parts of his system. 
 
 Leibnitz is a great name in philosophy and mathematics ; 
 but the nature of this work forbids our entering into any 
 detailed examination of his claims. All that can here be done 
 is to indicate the line of opposition which he took with respect 
 to Locke's theory of the origin of Knowledge. 
 
 At first he answered Locke in a few paragraphs of a some- 
 what supercilious tone. He evidently looked upon the ' Essay' 
 as not destined to achieve any influential reputation.* This 
 opinion he lived to alter ; and in his ' Nouveaux Essais sur 
 r Enten dement Humain] he brought all his forces to bear upon 
 the subject ; he grappled with the * Essay,' and disputed the 
 ground with it inch by inch. This remarkable work was not 
 published till many years after his death, and is not included 
 in M. Duten's edition. Dugald Stewart was not aware of its 
 existence ; and this fact will explain a passage in his ' Disserta- 
 tion,' where he says Leibnitz always speaks coldly of Locke's 
 ' Essay.' Leibnitz does so in his earlier works ; but in the 
 1 New Essays' he treats his great adversary with due respect; 
 and in the Preface, speaks of him with eulogy. 
 
 The reader has heard Dr. Whewell speak of Locke, and can 
 have appreciated his tone ; let him now compare the language 
 of the great Leibnitz, speaking of his rival: 
 
 "The 'Essay concerning Human Understanding,' written 
 by an illustrious Englishman, being one of the finest and most 
 esteemed works oi our time, I have resolved to make some 
 comments on it. . . . . Thus I shall procure a favourable 
 introduction for my thoughts by placing them in such good 
 
 company It is true that I am often of a different 
 
 opinion; but so far from detracting on that account from the 
 merit of this celebrated writer, that I do him justice in making 
 known in what and wherefore I differ from him, when I judge 
 
 • See 'R6rlexions sur l'Essai de M. Locke,' in the 'Recueil'of ]>e» 
 uiaizeaux, vol. ii. 
 
LEIBNITZ. 481 
 
 it necessary to prevent his authority from prevailing over reason 
 on some important points. In fact, although the author of the 
 1 Essay' says a thousand things which I must applaud, yet our 
 systems greatly differ. His has great affinity to that of Aris- 
 totle — mine, to that of Plato." 
 
 This is the spirit in which the Homeric heroes regard their 
 adversaries : an interchange of admiration for each other's 
 prowess does not deaden one of their blows, but it makes the 
 combat more dignified. 
 
 Leibnitz belonged to the Cartesians; but he also mingled 
 with the doctrines of Descartes certain ideas which he had 
 gathered from his commerce with antiquity. Plato and Demo- 
 critus especially influenced him. To a mind thus furnished the 
 doctrines of Locke must needs have been unwelcome ; indeed 
 they could not expect to gain admission. Moreover, as F. 
 Schlegel well observed, every man is born either a Platonist or 
 an Aristotelian.* Leibnitz and Locke were examples of this 
 antagonism : " Our differences," says Leibnitz, " are important 
 The question between us is whether the soul in itself is entirely 
 empty, like tablets upon which nothing has been written {tabula 
 rasa) according to Aristotle and the author of the ' Essay ;' and 
 whether all that is there traced comes wholly from the senses 
 and experience ; or whether the soul originally contains the 
 principles of several notions and doctrines, which the externa] 
 objects only awaken on occasions, as I believe with P'ato." 
 
 The nature of the problem is well stated here ; and Leibnit2 
 sides with Plato in his solution of it. The main arguments by 
 which he supports his view are those so often since repeated of 
 the Universality and Necessity of certain truths, and of the 
 incapacity of experience to furnish us with anything beyond a 
 knowledge of individual cases. 
 
 " For if any event can be foreseen before it has been tried, 
 it is manifest that we contribute something for our own parts." 
 Ergo, mere experience, it is argued, does not constitute all our 
 knowledge. 
 
 " The senses, although necessary for all actual knowledge, 
 are not sufficient to give us all of it, since the senses never can 
 give but examples, that is to say particular or individual truths. 
 But all the examples which confirm a general truth, however 
 numerous, do not suffice to establish the universal necessity of 
 
 * Coleridge used to pass off this aphorism as his own. It is to be found, 
 however, in Schlegel's « Geschichte der Literatur.' 
 
 H H 
 
482 LEIBNITZ, 
 
 that truth, for it does not follow that that which has once 
 occurred will always occur in the same way." 
 
 Leibnitz continues: "Whence it appears that necessary 
 truths, such as we find in mathematics, and particularly in 
 arithmetic and geometry, must have principles of which the 
 proof does not depend upon examples, nor consequently upon 
 the senses, although without the senses one would never have 
 thought of them. So also logic, metaphysics, and morals are 
 full of such truths, and consequently their proofs can only 
 come from those internal principles which are called innate." 
 
 Locke would perfectly have agreed with these premises, but 
 the conclusion he would rightly have rejected. That the senses 
 alone could not furnish us with any general truth he taught as 
 expressly as Leibnitz ; but he did not build his theory upon the 
 senses alone. 
 
 Leibnitz, however, seems to have been misled by Locke's 
 language in the first definition of Reflection; for he says, 
 " Perhaps the opinions of our able author are not so far from 
 mine as they appear to be. For after having employed the 
 whole of his first book against innate knowledge taken in a 
 certain sense, he acknowledges in the beginning of the second 
 that there are ideas which do not originate from the senses, 
 but arise from Reflection. Now reflection is nothing but 
 attention to that which passes within us ; and the senses do not 
 convey to us what we already possess within ourselves. Can it 
 then be denied that there is much innate in the mind?" 
 
 The passage in italics is a curious instance of how the mind, 
 preoccupied with its own opinions, sees them reflected in the 
 expressions of others. 
 
 Leibnitz here assumes the very point at issue; assumes 
 that the mind has innate ideas which the senses cannot convey 
 to it; and this assumption he supposes to be contained in 
 Locke's words. Locke taught precisely the contrary. 
 
 " The mind is itself innate," continues Leibnitz (to which 
 we reiterate our objection: innate in what? In itself? or in 
 us ? To say that it is innate in itself is a quibble ; that it is 
 innate in us, is a displacement of the question : no one ever 
 doubted that the mind of man was born in man — born with 
 man ; the question is : Are there any ideas born with the 
 mind, or all ideas acquired by the mind?) u The mind is itself 
 innate, and there are included in it substance, duration, change, 
 action, perception, pleasure, and a thousand other objects of 
 
LEIBNITZ. 4S3 
 
 our intellectual ideas I have used the comparison of a 
 
 block of marble which has certain veins in it rather than a 
 plain piece of marble such as philosophers call tabula rasa ; 
 because if the soul resembled tablets unwritten on, truths would 
 be in us like the figure of Hercules is in the block of marble, 
 when that marble may receive indifferently one figure or 
 another. Eut if there are veins in the marble which mark the 
 figure of Hercules rather than any other figure, that marble 
 would be more determinate, and the figure of Hercules would 
 in some way be innate, although labour would be necessary to 
 discover the veins, and to free them from their envelopment 
 of marble. Thus are ideas and truths innate in us." 
 
 This is an ingenious statement of the theory : unfortunately 
 for it, the very existence of these veins in the marble is an 
 assumption, and an assumption not made for the facilitating of 
 inquiry, but simply for the proof of the theory assumed : it is 
 an hypothesis framed for the sake ol explaining — what? the 
 hypothesis itself! Ideas are first assumed to be innate; to 
 prove this assumption, another assumption — the existence of 
 innate ideas — is made ; and the theory is complete. 
 
 The real force of Leibnitz' theory lies in his distinction 
 between contingent and accessary truths, and in his position 
 that experience alone could never furnish us with necessar) 
 truths. The examination of this we must delay till we come 
 to Kant. 
 
 A brief view of the celebrated scheme of Pre-established 
 Harmony will be all that is necessary to complete what we 
 have here to say of Leibnitz. 
 
 It was in those days an axiom universally admitted that 
 " Like could only act upon Like." The question then arose : 
 how does body act upon mind ; how does mind act upon body? 
 The two were utterly unlike : how could they act upon each 
 other ? In other words : how is Perception possible ? 
 
 All the ordinary explanations of Perception were miserable 
 failures. If the mind perceived copies of things, how are these 
 copies transmitted ? Effluvia, eidola, images, motions in spirits, 
 &c, were not only hypotheses, but hypotheses which bore no 
 examination : they did not get rid of the difficulty of two unlike 
 substances acting upon each other. 
 
 Leibnitz therefore framed this hypothesis : — The human 
 mind and the human body are two independent but corresponding 
 machines. They are so adjusted that, like two unconnected 
 
484 SUMMARY OF THE THIRD EPOCH. 
 
 clocks constructed so as that at the same instant one should 
 strike the hour and the other point it. " I cannot help coming 
 to this notion," he says, " that God created the soul in such a 
 manner at first, that it should represent within itseif all the 
 simultaneous changes in the body ; and that he has made the 
 body also in such a manner as that it must of itself do what 
 the soul wills : so that the laws which make the thoughts of 
 the soul follow each other in regular succession, must produce 
 images which shall be coincident with the impressions made by 
 external objects upon our organs of sense j while the laws by 
 which the motions of the body follow each other are likewise 
 so coincident with the thoughts of the soul as to give to our 
 volitions and actions the very same appearance as if the latter 
 were really the natural and the necessary consequence of the 
 former." 
 
 This hypothesis has been much ridiculed by those unaware 
 of the difficulties it was framed to explain. It was so repug- 
 nant, however, to all ordinary views, that- it gained few, if any, 
 adherents. 
 
 The best edition of Leibnitz's works is that by Erdmann — 
 Leibnitii Opera Philosophica : Berlin, 1839. The Nouveaux 
 Essais are there for the second time published (the first was in 
 Raspe's edition, Leipsic, 1765); and they have been since 
 republished in a cheap and convenient form by M. Jacques : 
 Paris, 1845. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SUMMARY OF THE THIRD EPOCH. 
 
 The result of the speculations we have been considering — 
 speculations begun by Gassendi and Hobbes, and further de- 
 veloped by Locke — was to settle, for a long while, the dispute 
 respecting Experience, and to give therefore a new direction to 
 inquiry. 
 
 It was considered as established that we could have no 
 knowledge not derived from experience : 
 
 That experience was of two kinds, viz., of external objects 
 and of internal operations : therefore there were two distinct 
 sources — sensation and reflection : 
 
SUMMARY OF THE THIRD EPOCH. 485 
 
 That all knowledge could only consist in the agreement or 
 disagreement of our ideas : 
 
 Finally, that we could never know things in themselves, but 
 only things as they affect us ; in other words, we could only 
 know our ideas. 
 
 To this had Locke brought philosophy, which, rightly inter- 
 preted, was a denial of all philosophy — a demonstration of its 
 impossibility ; but this interpretation he did not put upon his 
 doctrines. That remained for Hume, Locke's system pro- 
 duced three distinct systems: Berkeley's idealism, Hume's 
 scepticism, and Condillac's sensualism. These it is now our 
 task to exhibit historically. 
 
JfourtJ) ®pod&. 
 
 THE SUBJECTIVE NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE BEING 
 ESTABLISHED AEADS TO IDEALISM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 LIFE OF BERKELEY. 
 
 There are few men of whom England has better reason to be 
 proud than of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne ; for to 
 extraordinary merits as a writer and thinker, he united the 
 most exquisite purity and generosity of character ; and it is still 
 a moot point whether he was greater in head or heart. 
 
 He was born on the 12th of March, 1684, at Kilcrin, in the 
 county of Kilkenny. He was educated at Trinity College, 
 Dublin, and was in 1707 admitted as a fellow. In 1709 he 
 published his ' New Theory of Vision/ which made an epoch 
 in science ; and the year after, his ' Principles of Human 
 Knowledge,' which made an epoch in metaphysics. After 
 this he came to London, where he was received with open 
 arms. " Ancient learning, exact science, polished society, 
 modern literature, and the fine arts, contributed to adorn 
 and enrich the mind of this accomplished man. All his con- 
 temporaries agreed with the Satirist in ascribing 
 To Berkeley every virtue under heaven. 
 Adverse factions and hostile wits concurred only in loving, 
 admiring, and contributing to advance him. The severe sense 
 of Swift endured his visions ; the modest Addison endeavoured 
 to reconcile Clarke to his ambitious speculations. His cha- 
 racter converted the satire of Pope into fervid praise. Even 
 the discerning, fastidious, and turbulent Atterbury said, after an 
 interview with him, 'so much learning, so much knowledge, so 
 much innocence, and such humility, I did not think had been 
 the portion of any but angels, till I saw this gentleman/ "* 
 * Sir J. Mackintosh. 
 
BERKELEY AND COMMON SENSE. 487 
 
 His acquaintance with the wits led to his contributing to the 
 1 Guardian.' He became chaplain and afterwards secretary to 
 the Earl of Peterborough, whom he accompanied on his 
 embassy to Sicily. He subsequently made the tour of Europe 
 with Mr. Ashe ; and at Paris met Malebranche, with whom he 
 had an animated discussion on the ideal theory. In 1724 he 
 was made dean of Derry. This was worth eleven hundred 
 pounds a-year to him ; but he resigned it in order to dedicate 
 his life to the conversion of the North American savages 
 stipulating only with the Government for a salary of one nun 
 dred pounds a-year. On this romantic and generous expedition 
 he was accompanied by his young wife. He set sail for Rhode 
 Island, carrying with him a valuable library of books and the 
 bulk of his property. But, to the shame of the Government, 
 be it said, the promises made him were not fulfilled, and after 
 seven years of single-handed endeavour, he was forced to return 
 to England, having spent the greater part of his fortune in vain. 
 
 He was made Bishop of Cloyne in 1734. When he wished 
 to resign, the King would not permit him ; and being keenly 
 alive to the evils of non-residence, he made an arrangement 
 before leaving Cloyne, whereby he settled 200/. a-year during 
 his absence on the poor. In 1752 he removed to Oxford, 
 where, in 1753, he was suddenly seized, while reading, with 
 palsy of the heart, and died almost instantaneously. 
 
 Of his numerous writings we cannot here speak ; two only 
 belong to our subject : the ' Principles of Knowledge,' and the 
 1 Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous.' We hope to remove 
 some of the errors and prejudices with which his name is 
 encrusted. We hope to show that, even in what are called his 
 wildest moods, Berkeley was a plain, sincere, deep-thinking 
 man, not a sophist, playing with paradoxes to display his skill. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 BERKELEY AND COMMON SENSE. 
 
 All the world has heard of Berkeley's Idealism, and innumer- 
 able " coxcombs " have vanquished it " with a grin."* Ridicule 
 has not been sparing of it. Argument has not been wanting. 
 • u And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin." — Popk. 
 
488 BERKELEY AND COMMON SENSE, 
 
 It has been laughed at, written at, talked at, shrieked at. That 
 it has been understood is not so apparent. Few writers seem 
 to have honestly read and appreciated his works ; and those 
 few are certainly not among his antagonists. In reading the 
 criticisms upon his theory it is quite ludicrous to notice the 
 constant iteration of trivial objections which, trivial as they are, 
 Berkeley had often anticipated. In fact the critics misunder- 
 stood him, and then reproached him for his inconsistency — 
 inconsistency, not with his principles, but with theirs. They 
 force a meaning upon his words which he had expressly 
 rejected ; and then triumph over him because he did not pur- 
 sue their principles to the extravagances which would have 
 resulted from them. 
 
 When Berkeley denied the existence of matter, he simply 
 denied the existence of that unknown substratum, the existence 
 of which Locke had declared to be a necessary inference from 
 our knowledge of qualities, but the nature of which must ever 
 be altogether hidden from us. Philosophers had assumed the 
 ^/existence of substance, i.e., of a noumenon lying underneath all 
 phenomena — a substratum supporting all qualities — a something 
 in which all accidents inhere. This unknown substance Berkeley 
 denies. It is a mere abstraction, he says. If it is unknown, 
 unknowable, it is a figment, and I will none of it ; for it is a 
 figment worse than useless ; it is pernicious, as the basis of all 
 Atheism. If by matter you understand that which is seen, felt, 
 tasted, and touched, then I say matter exists : I am as firm a 
 believer in its existence as any one can be, and herein I agree 
 with the vulgar. If, on the contrary, you understand by matter 
 that occult substratum which is not seen, not felt, not tasted, and 
 not touched — that of which the senses do not, cannot, inform 
 you — then I say I believe not in the existence of matter, and 
 herein I differ with the philosophers a?id agree with the vulgar. 
 
 " I am not for changing things into ideas," he says, " but 
 rather ideas into things ; since those immediate objects of percep- 
 tion, which according to you (Berkeley might have said, accord- 
 ing to philosophers) are only appearances of things, I take to be 
 the real things themselves. 
 
 " Hylas: Things ! you may pretend what you please ; but it 
 is certain you leave us nothing but the empty forms of things, 
 the outside of which only strikes the senses. 
 
 " Philonous : What you call the empty forms and outside of 
 things seem to me the very things themselves. . . . We 
 
BERKELEY AND COMMON SENSE. 489 
 
 both therefore agree in this, that we perceive only sensible 
 forms ; but herein we differ : you will have them to be empty 
 appearances ; I, real beings. In short, you do not trust your 
 senses ; /do." 
 
 Berkeley is always accused of having propounded a theory 
 which contradicts the evidence of the senses. That a man 
 who should thus disregard the senses must be out of his, was a 
 ready answer ; ridicule was not slow in retort : declamation 
 gave itself elbow-room, and exhibited itself in a triumphant 
 attitude. It was easy to declare that " the man who seriously 
 entertains this belief, though in other respects he may be a very 
 good man, as a man may be who believes he is made of glass ; 
 yet surely he hath a soft place in his understanding, and hath 
 been hurt by much thinking." — (Reid, Inquiry.) 
 
 Unfortunately for the critics, Berkeley did not contradict the 
 evidence of the senses ; did not propound a theory at variance 
 in this point with the ordinary belief of mankind. His 
 peculiarity is , , that he confined himself exclusively to the 
 evidence of the senses. What the senses informed him oC 
 that f and that only, would he accept. lie held last to the tacts 
 of consciousness ; he placed himseff resolutely in the centre of 
 the instinctive belief of mankind : there he took up his stand, 
 leaving to philosophers the region of supposition, inference, 
 and of occult substances. 
 
 The reproach made to him is really the reproach he made to 
 philosophers, viz. : that they would not trust to the evidence of 
 their senses ; that over and above what the senses told them,^. 
 they imagined an occult something of which the senses gave 
 no indication. " Now it was against this metaphysical phantom 
 of the brain," says an acute critic, " this crochet-world of philo- 
 sophers, and against it alone, that all the attacks of Berkeley 
 were directed. The doctrine that the realities of things were 
 not made for man, and that he must rest satisfied with mere 
 appearances was regarded, and rightly, by him as the parent of 
 scepticism with all her desolating train. He saw, that philo- 
 sophy, in giving up the reality immediately within her grasp, in 
 favour of a reality supposed to be less delusive, which lay 
 beyond the limits of experience, resembled the dog in the 
 fable, who carrying a piece of meat across a river, let the sub- 
 stance slip from his jaws, while with foolish greed he snatched 
 at the shadow in the stream. The dog lost his dinner, and 
 philosophy let go her secure hold upon truth. He therefore 
 
49 o BERKELEY AND COMMON SENSE. 
 
 sided with the vulgar, who recognise a© distinction between the 
 reality and the appearance of objects, and repudiating the base- 
 less hypothesis of a world existing unknown and unperceived, 
 he resolutely maintained that what are called the sensible shows 
 (/of things are in truth the very things themselves."* 
 
 True it is that owing to the ambiguities of language Berkeley's 
 theory does not seem to run counter to the ordinary belief of 
 mankind, because by Matter men commonly understand the 
 seen, the tasted, the touched, &c. ; therefore when the exist- 
 ence of Matter is denied, people naturally suppose that the 
 existence of the seen, the tasted, and the touch is denied, never 
 suspecting that Matter, in its philosophical sense, is the not 
 seen, not tasted, not touched. Berkeley has not, it must be 
 confessed, sufficiently guarded against all ambiguity. Thus he 
 says in one of the opening sections of his * Principles of Human 
 Knowledge/ that " It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing 
 amongst mm that houses, mountains, rivers, and, in a word, all 
 sensible objects have an existence, natural or real, distinct from 
 their being perceived by the understanding." This is striking 
 the key-note false. It rouses the reader to oppose a coming 
 paradox. 
 
 Yet Berkeley foresaw and answered the objections which 
 Wimpey, Beattie, Reid, and others brought forward. He was 
 not giving utterance to a caprice; he was not spinning an 
 ingenious theory, knowing all the while that it was no more than 
 an ingenuity. He was an earnest thinker, patient in the search 
 after truth. Anxious, therefore, that his speculations should 
 not be regarded as mere dialectical displays, he endeavoured on 
 various occasions to guard himself from misapprehension. 
 
 " I do not argue against the existence of any one thing that 
 we can apprehend either by sensation or reflection. That the 
 things I see with my eyes and touch with my hands do exist, really 
 exist, I make not the least question. The only thing whose existence 
 I deny is that which philosophers call Matter, or corporeal 
 substance. And in doing this there is no damage done to the 
 rest of mankind, who, I dare say, will never miss it 
 
 " If any man thinks we detract from the reality or existence 
 of things he is very far from understanding what has been pre- 
 mised in the plainest terms I could think of. .... It 
 
 • Blackwood's Mag., June, 1842, p. 814, art. * Berkeley and Idealism : ' 
 the best defence of Berkeley we have read, and written with perfect 
 mastery of the subject. 
 
BERKELEY AND COMMON SENSE. 491 
 
 will be urged that thus much at least is true, viz., that we take 
 away all corporeal substances. To this my answer is, that if 
 the word substance be taken in the vulgar sense for a combina- 
 tion of sensible qualities, such as extension, solidity, weight, 
 &c, this we cannot be accused of taking away.* But if it be 
 taken in the philosophic sense, for the support of accidents or 
 qualities without the mind; then, indeed, I acknowledge that 
 we take it away, if one may be said to take away that which 
 never had any existence, not even in the imagination^ 
 
 " But say what we can, some one perhaps may be apt to 
 reply, he will still believe his senses, and never suffer any argu- 
 ments, however plausible, to prevail over the certainty of them. 
 Be it so ; assert the evidence of sense as high as you please, we 
 are willing to do the same. That what I see, hear, and feel, doth 
 exist, i.e., is perceived by me, I no more doubt than I do of my 
 own being ; but 1 do not see how the testimony of sense can be 
 alleged as a proof of anything which is not perceived by sense." \ 
 
 After reading these passages (and more of a similar cast 
 might be quoted) in what terms shall we speak of the trash 
 written to refute Idealism ? Where was the acuteness of the 
 Reids and Beatties, when they tauntingly asked why Berkeley 
 did not run his head against a post, did not walk over pre* 
 cipices, &c, as, in accordance with his theory, no pain, n<t 
 broken limbs, could result ?§ Where was philosophical acumen, 
 when a tribe of writers could imagine they refuted Berkeley 
 by an appeal to common sense — when they contrasted the 
 instinctive beliefs of mankind with the speculative paradoxes 
 of a philosopher, who expressly took his stand with common 
 sense against philosophers ? 
 
 * An answer to Dr. Johnson's peremptory refutation of Berkeley, viz., 
 kicking a stone: as if Berkeley ever denied that what we call stones 
 existed ! 
 
 f This is not well said. That substance was imagined to exist (as a 
 support of accidents) Berkeley's argument supposes : it is against such an 
 imaginary existence he directs his attacks. Perhaps he means that no 
 image of substance could be formed in the mind ; which no one disputes. 
 
 t « Principles of Human Knowledge,' sections 35, 6, 7, 40. 
 
 I " But what is the consequence ? I resolve not to believe my senses. 
 I break my head against a post that comes in my way ; I step into a dirty 
 kennel ; and after twenty such wise and rational actions I am taken up 
 and clapt into a madhouse. Now I confess I had rather make one of those 
 credulous fools whom nature imposes upon, than of those wise and rational 
 philosophers who resolve to withhold assent at all this expense."— JZeid't 
 Itijuiry, oh. vi., see. so. This one passage is as food as a hundred. 
 
491 IDEALISM. 
 
 Men trained in metaphysical speculations may find it difficult 
 to conceive the non-existence of an invisible unknowable sub- 
 stratum ; but that the bulk of mankind find it almost impossible 
 to conceive any such substratum is a fact which the slightest 
 inquiry will verify. We have experienced this more than once. 
 V/e remember a discussion which lasted an entire evening, in 
 which by no power of illustration, by no force of argument, 
 could the idea of this substance, apart from its sensible qualities, 
 be rendered conceivable. 
 
 Berkeley, therefore, in denying the existence of matter sided 
 with common sense. He thought with the vulgar, that matter 
 was that of which his senses informed him ; not an occult 
 something of which he could have no information. The 
 table he saw before him certainly existed : it was hard, polished, 
 coloured, of a certain figure, and cost some guineas. But there 
 was no phantom table lying underneath the apparent table— 
 there was no invisible substance supporting that table. What 
 he perceived was a table, and nothing more ; what he per- 
 ceived it to be, he would believe it to be, and nothing more. 
 His starting point was thus what the plain dictates of his 
 senses, and the senses of all men furnished. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 IDEALISM. 
 
 The fiist step which a philosopher takes in any inquiry is a 
 departure from Common Sense. Reflecting upon what his 
 senses convey to him he seeks an explanation of phenomena : 
 and it is in proportion to the care with which he analyses the 
 facts to be explained that he is usually supposed to be free 
 from the mere extravagances of speculation. And yet 
 Berkeley's rigorous analysis of the facts of consciousness has 
 obtained for him the reputation of being one of the most ex- 
 travagant of speculators ! 
 
 This is the problem : our senses inform us of the existence 
 of certain sensible qualities, such as extension, colour, solidity, 
 &c. But our reason tells us that these qualities must be 
 qualities of something : they cannot exist as mere extension, 
 
IDEALISM, 493 
 
 colour, &c. : there must be something extended, coloured, &c. 
 What is that something ? 
 
 The solution given by the philosophers was uniformly this : 
 what that substance is we can never know, because it lies 
 beyond our apprehension ; but we are forced to admit it, as a 
 support to the qualities which we do apprehend, as a substance 
 in which sensible qualities inhere. 
 
 So that, deeply considered, the only reason for inferring 
 the existence of Matter is the necessity for some synthesis of 
 attributes. 
 
 Now, what did Berkeley ? With very subtle perception of 
 the difficulties of the problem, he boldly solved it by making 
 the synthesis a mental one. Thus was matter wholly got rid of ; 
 it had no longer the excuse of being an inference. 
 
 The nature of human knowledge is the first object of his in- 
 quiry. " It is said that the faculties we have are few, and 
 those designed by nature for the support and pleasure of life, 
 and not to penetrate into the inward essence and constitution 
 of things. Besides the mind of man being finite when it treats 
 of things which partake of infinity, it is not to be wondered at 
 if it run into absurdities and contradictions, out of which 
 it is impossible it should ever extricate itself, it being of the 
 nature of infinite not to be comprehended by that which is 
 finite." 
 
 This is plainly enough launched at Locke; but the worthy 
 Bishop has no such disposition ■ to sit down in quiet ignor- 
 ance." He suspects that " we may be too partial in placing 
 the fault originally in our faculties, and not rather in the wrong 
 use we make of them." He believes that God is too bountiful 
 not to have placed knowledge within our reach, of which he 
 has given us the desire. Forgetting here the lesson man was 
 taught in Paradise, where the Tree of Knowledge was placed 
 within his reach, but the fruits thereof forbidden him. " Upon 
 the whole," continues Berkeley, " I am inclined to think that 
 the far greater part, if not all, the difficulties which have 
 hitherto amused philosophers and blocked up the way to 
 knowledge, are entirely owing to themselves. That we have 
 first raised a dust, and then complain we cannot see." 
 
 The pretension on which all philosophy is founded is here 
 openly proclaimed. The consequences of Locke's doctrine 
 are rejected ; the premises are retained. Berkeley's account 
 of the origin of knowledge is the same as Locke's, only some- 
 
194 IDEALISM. 
 
 what more explicitly defined. " It is evident to any one who 
 takes a survey of the objects of human knowledge that they are 
 either ideas actually imprinted on the senses, or else such as 
 are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of 
 the mind ; or, lastly, ideas formed by help of memory and 
 imagination, either compounding, dividing, or barely represent- 
 ing those originally perceived in the aforesaid ways." 
 
 Remark, firstly, that the objects of knowledge are said to be 
 ideas. This has a paradoxical air to those unaccustomed to 
 metaphysics, yet it is the simple expression of the facts of con- 
 sciousness. All the mind can be conversant about is ob- 
 viously its ideas : we are conscious of changes that take place 
 in our minds. Such is the fact. Whether these ideas are the 
 copies or representatives of any things — whether changes in our 
 state are to be attributed to any external cause : this is a ques- 
 tion of philosophy — a question which common sense makes no 
 scruple of begging. You see before you a flower, and you 
 assume that an external thing resembling that flower exists, and 
 that your sensation is produced by it, as an object produces a 
 reflection of itself in a mirror. This is the ordinary opinion. 
 But dive deeper into consciousness ; interrogate yourself, and 
 you will find that the comparison of the mirror is an assump- 
 tion made only to explain the facts of consciousness, not given 
 in those facts. Moreover, granting the assumption, you will 
 then make the mind immediately conversant with its ideas only ; 
 for assuming that objects reflect themselves in the mirror, the 
 mirror itself knows only the reflections : these it knows 
 immediately; the object it knows mediately, i.e., through the 
 reflections. Thus is Berkeley keeping rigorously to the facts 
 of consciousness when he says that the "objects of knowledge 
 are ideas." 
 
 Secondly, remark on Berkeley's use of the word idea, which 
 stands both for sensation and idea. We cannot but regard 
 this confusion of language as the cause of no little mis- 
 apprehension of his doctrines. It is weJl therefore to warn the 
 reader thereof. 
 
 Now to consequences : — 
 
 "That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor tne ideas 
 formed by our imagination, exist without the mind, is what 
 everybody will allow ; and to me it is no less evident that the 
 various sensations or ideas imprinted on the sense, however 
 blended or combined together (that is, wliatever objects they 
 
IDEALISM. 495 
 
 compose}, cannot exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving 
 them. . . . The table I write on, I say, exists, i.e., I see it and 
 feel it, and if I were out of my study I should say it existed ; 
 meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, 
 or that some other spirit actually does perceive it. As to what 
 is said about the existence of unthinking things, without any 
 relation to their being perceived, that is to me perfectly unin- 
 telligible. Their esse is per dpi ; nor is it possible they should 
 have any existence out of the minds or thinking things which 
 perceive them." 
 
 It is in this last paragraph that the kernel of his system lies. 
 He had identified objects with ideas: having done so, it was 
 easy to prove that objects could not exist without a perceiving 
 mind in which to exist as ideas. " For what are the objects 
 but the things which we perceive by sense ? " Realism 
 assents : objects are what we perceive. " And what, I pray 
 you," continues Berkeley, " do we ^perceive . besides our own 
 ideas or sensations ? " Realism is posed : certainly the mirror 
 has nothing immediately present to it, besides the reflections. 
 "And is it not plainly repugnant," triumphantly continues 
 Idealism, " that any one of these ideas, or any combination of 
 them, should exist unperceived ? " Realism has no answer to 
 offer. It is in a dilemma from which there is apparently no 
 escape. 
 
 The supposition of the existence of matter is founded on the 
 doctrine of abstract ideas (against which Berkeley wages war). 
 ■ ' For can there be a nicer strain of abstraction than to dis- 
 tinguish the existence of sensible objects from their being per- 
 teived, so as to conceive them existing unperceived ? Light 
 and colours, heat and cold, extension and figures — in a word, 
 the things we see a?id feel — what are they but so many sensa- 
 tions, notions, ideas, or impressions on the sense ; and is it 
 possible to separate, even in thought, any of these from perception ? 
 For my part, I might as easily divide a thing from itself. I 
 may indeed divide in my thoughts, or conceive apart from each 
 other those things which perhaps I never perceived by sense so 
 divided. Thus I imagine the trunk of the human body with- 
 out the limbs, or conceive the smell of a rose without thinking 
 of the rose itself. So far I will not deny that I can abstract, if 
 that may properly be called abstraction which extends only to 
 the conceiving separately such objects as it is possible may 
 really exist, or be actually perceived asunder ; but my con- 
 
496 IDEALISM. 
 
 ceiving or imagining power does not extend beyond the possi- 
 bility of real existence or perception. Hence, as it is impossible 
 for me to see or feel anything without an actual sensation of 
 that thing, so it is impossible for me to conceive in my thoughts 
 any sensible thing or object distinct from the sensation 
 or perception of it. In truth, the object and the sensation are 
 the same thing, and cannot therefore be abstracted from one 
 another 
 
 * In a word, all the choir of heaven and furniture of earth — 
 all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world 
 — have not any subsistence without a mind : their esse is to be 
 perceived or known, and consequently, so long as they are not 
 actually perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind, or 
 that of any other created spirit, they must either have no 
 existence at all, or else subsist in tJu mind of some eternal 
 spirit 
 
 "Though we hold indeed the objects of sense to be nothing 
 else but ideas which cannot exist unperceived, yet we may not 
 hence conclude they have no existence except only while they 
 are perceived by us, since there may be some other spirit that 
 perceives them, though we do not. Whenever bodies are said 
 to have no existence without the mind, / would not be under- 
 stood to mean this or that particular mind, but all minds what- 
 soever. It does not therefore follow that bodies are annihilated 
 and created every moment, or exist not at all during the inter- 
 vals between our perception of them 
 
 " I am content to put the whole upon this issue : if you can 
 but conceive it possible for one extended moveable substance, 
 or in general for any one idea, or anything like an idea, to 
 exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving it, I shall readily 
 give up the cause j I shall grant you its existence, though you 
 cannot either give me a reason why you believe it exists, or 
 assign any use to it when it is supposed to exist. I say the 
 bare possibility of your opinion being true, shall pass for an 
 argument that it is so. 
 
 " But, say you, surely there is nothing easier than for me to 
 imagine trees in a park, or books in a closet, and nobody by to 
 perceive them. I answer you may so : there is no difficulty in 
 it. But what is all this, I beseech you, more than framing in 
 your mind certain ideas which you call books and trees, and at 
 the same time omitting to ftame the idea of any one perceiving 
 themf 
 
IDEALISM. 497 
 
 u But do not you yourself perceive or think of Hum all the 
 while ? This, therefore, is nothing to the purpose : it only- 
 shows you have the power of imagining or framing ideas in 
 your mind, but it does not show that you can conceive it pos- 
 sible the objects of your thought may exist without the mind. 
 To make out this, it is necessary that you conceive them exist- 
 ing unperceived or unthought of, which is a manifest repug- 
 nancy. When we do our utmost to conceive the existence of 
 external bodies, we are all the while only contemplating our owiv 
 ideas."* 
 
 This last very remarkable passage must have been overlooked 
 by the critic in ' Blackwood ' before mentioned, otherwise he 
 would not have said that the "knot which Berkeley loosened, 
 but which he certainly did not explicitly untie," was to be 
 resolved, for the first time, by the arguments he there brings 
 forward. Berkeley had untied the knot, explicitly, satisfactorily; 
 and that too in the same way as his critic. t 
 
 The distinction between primary and secondary qualities, 
 Berkeley easily refutes, and shows that the same arguments 
 which make the secondary qualities to be only affections of 
 the mind, may be applied to the primary qualities. 
 
 Having battered down almost every objection, trivial or 
 serious, that could be offered, Idealism iterates its fundamental 
 principle. ( All our kn owledge_ of obje cts is_a_JmQwiedgeL of 
 id eas; objects and jdejjjjjreTthe same. Er go z nothing exists 
 but what js_perceived. 
 
 ~ K.ealism espies~~a loophole. These ideas, with which we 
 admit the mind to be solely conversant, are but the ideas 
 (images) of certain things: these things exist independently of a )f\ 
 being perceived, though their ideas cannot. 
 
 Berkeley foresaw this also. " But, say you, though the ideas 
 themselves do not exist without the mind, yet there may be 
 things like them whereof they are copies or resemblances, which 
 things exist without the mind in an unthinking substance. I 
 answer, an idea can be like nothing but an idea ; a colour or 
 figure can be like nothing but another colour or figure. Again, 
 I ask whether those supposed originals or external things, of 
 which our ideas are the pictures or representations, be them- 
 selves perceivable or no ? If they are, then they are ideas, and 
 
 * The foregoing passages are all taken from the ' Principles of Human 
 Knowledge,' 5. 6, 8, 22, and 23. 
 + Vide Blackwood, p. 817. et stq. 
 
 I I 
 
498 IDEALISM. 
 
 we have gained our point ; but if you say they are not, I appeal 
 to any one whether it be sense to assert a colour is like some- 
 thing which is invisible ; hard or soft, like something which is 
 intangible?" (Sect. 8.) 
 
 Realism is without a shadow of an answer. The philosophers 
 are powerless against a theory so defended. No wonder that 
 Idealism should have been given up as irrefutable ; the weapons 
 were not forged, or, at any rate, were not in the armoury of 
 philosophy, which could successfully assail a fortress built on 
 such a position. Dr. Reid's attempt we shall examine by and 
 bye. 
 
 As far as the facts of consciousness reach, the analysis given 
 by Berkeley is unimpeachable. The next question is one of 
 mere inference. We are to settle whether it is a more plausible 
 hypothesis that ideas are proximately produced in us by the 
 mere Will of the Creator, whose will is effectuated by certain 
 iaws ; or whether the ideas are proximately produced in us by 
 external objects, which exist quite independently of us. This 
 question, remember, is one which admits of no proof. It is not 
 a question of fact, but of plausibility. It is not to be decided 
 by common sense, but by analogical reasoning. Our knowledge 
 extends no farther than our ideas. Our inference" can be nothing 
 more than inferences. 
 
 Berkeley has far better reasons for his inference than his 
 critics imagine. He could not see the force of the argument 
 which made Matter a necessary postulate. That we could have 
 sensations and ideas without the presence of objects is manifest 
 from the fact that we do often have them so, in dreams and 
 phrenzies. II, therefore, matter is not always necessary for the 
 production of ideas — if ideas can be sometimes produced with- 
 out the presence of external objects — the pretended necessity, 
 which alone forms the argument for the existence of matter, is 
 done away with. 
 
 u But though," he says, " we might possibly have all our 
 sensations without bodies, yet perhaps it may be thought easier 
 to conceive and explain the manner of their production by 
 supposing external bodies in their likeness rather than other- 
 wise, and so it might at least be probable there are such things 
 as bodies that excite ideas in our minds. But neither can this 
 be said, for though we give the Materialists their external 
 bodies, they, by their own confession, are never nearer the 
 knowing how our ideas are produced, since they own them- 
 
IDEALISM. 499 
 
 selves unable to comprehend in what manner body can act upon 
 spirit, or how it is possible it should imprint an idea in the mind." 
 
 We have here the difficulty stated, which the Dualists (those 
 who maintain the existence of spirit and matter, as distinct 
 substances) have not been sufficiently alive to ; and one which 
 gave rise to Leibnitz's theory of pre-established harmony, and 
 to Malebranche's theory of our seeing all things in God. This 
 difficulty is indeed insuperable. It is all very easy to talk of 
 the spirit being a mirror in which the universe reflects itself. 
 Try for an instant to imagine a substance such as matter 
 reflecting itself in, or acting upon, another substance having no 
 one property in common with it. You cannot. Nor is this 
 all : you cannot even imagine two substances so distinct as 
 matter and spirit are defined to be. 
 
 Berkeley then is right in triumphing over Realism and 
 Dualism. Right in saying that if he were to accord them the 
 existence of matter, they could make no use of it. The subject 
 would remain as dark as before : matter throws no light on it. 
 He maintains that our ideas are produced in us in conformity 
 with the laws of Nature. These laws have been ordained by 
 God. To suppose that matter is the mere occasional cause — 
 the vehicle through which the laws of nature operate — is gratui- 
 tous. The agency of the Creator is more simple and direct. 
 He had no need of creating laws and also matter, through 
 which these laws should come into effect. He created the laws 
 alone ; they act upon us as they were destined to act, and with- 
 out the superfluous aid of matter, which is a mere go-between. 
 
 Now, as a bit of inference — as a scientific hypothesis — no 
 one thoroughly acquainted with the question, and with the 
 data on which it was founded, can, we think, deny that 
 this of Berkeley is many degrees superior to the hypothesis of 
 Dualism. 
 
 While philosophers teach that there are two distinct eternal 
 substances, which they name Spirit and Matter, Berkeley teaches 
 that there is only one substance, viz., Spirit. With this one 
 substance he can construct the world. According therefore to 
 the fundamental rule in philosophy, that ' Entities or existences 
 are not to be multiplied unless upon necessity ' (entia non sunt 
 multiplicanda prater necessitatem) y the introduction of a second 
 substance, viz., matter, is superfluous, or worse. Moreover, of 
 the existence of spirit, or thinking substance, we have irrefra- 
 gable proof. Of the existence of matter we have no proof 
 
500 IDEALISM, 
 
 whatever : it is a mere inference ; it is inferred in order to 
 explain the phenomena — and what phenomena ? those of per- 
 ception— *>., the phenomena of the thinking substance. 
 
 If then Berkeley is more rigorous in his analysis of facts, and 
 more ingenious and plausible in his hypothesis than his anta- 
 gonists suppose, shall we pronounce his Idealism satisfactory 
 and true ? 
 
 Hume said of it that it admitted of no answer, but produced 
 no conviction. And we have met with no refutation of it 
 Yet, inasmuch as the irresistible belief of mankind is that 
 objects are not dependent either upon our perception of them, 
 or upon the perception of any other mind, for their existence — 
 that objects exist per se, and would continue to exist if all minds 
 were annihilated — Berkeley's theory never can produce con- 
 viction. Reid therefore was right in standing by this universal 
 and irresistible belief. He was egregiously wrong, however, 
 in supposing that he answered Berkeley by an appeal to this 
 irresistible belief. It does not follow that a belief which 
 is irresistible must be true. This maxim, so loudly proclaimed 
 by the Scotch school,* is altogether trivial, and is refuted by 
 several well-known facts in philosophy. Thus — to take the 
 most striking example — the belief that the sun revolved round 
 the earth was for many centuries irresistible, and false. Why 
 may not Berkeley have been a metaphysical Copernicus, who, 
 by rigorous demonstration, proved the belief of mankind in the 
 existence of matter to be irresistible and false ? Reid has no 
 answer to give. He can merely say, " I side with the vulgar;" 
 but he might have given the same answer to Copernicus. Many 
 illustrious men (Bacon among them) ridiculed the Copernican 
 theory ; but all the dogmatism, ridicule, and common sense in 
 the world could not affect that theory. Why, we repeat, may 
 not Berkeley have been a metaphysical Copernicus ? 
 
 To prove that he was not, you must prove his reasoning 
 
 * Especially by Dr. Brown, who says that the " sceptical argument for 
 the non-existence of an external world, as a mere play of reasoning, admits 
 of no reply." The only reply he makes is that the belief is irresistible. 
 Hume had already admitted that the belief was irresistible ; the whole 
 scope of his philosophy was to prove it both irresistible and. false. How 
 absurd, then, to appeal to the belief! Kant truly observes, in the Preface 
 to his •Kritik,' "admitting Idealism to be as dangerous as it really is, it 
 would still remain a shame to philosophy and reason to be forced to ground 
 the existence of an external world on the (mere) evidence of belief." The 
 more so as the fact of belief had never been questioned. The question 
 was, Is the belief well-grounded ? 
 
IDEALISM. joi 
 
 defective ; to prove this, you must show wherein his error lies, 
 and not wherein his theory is at variance with your belief. All 
 that your irresistible belief is worth, is that of a strong, a very 
 strong, presumption against the truth of that which opposes it. 
 Reid, in accepting this presumption as a proof, was in the right 
 so long as Berkeley's reasoning was not strong enough to over- 
 come it ; but singularly wrong in supposing that the presumption 
 was a refutation. 
 
 It has been said again and again that Berkeley is irrefutable. 
 if his theory of knowledge be admitted. We should say that 
 he was irrefutable, if the pretensions of philosophy be admitted. 
 We do not quarrel with his theory : we will concede him his 
 account of the origin of knowledge. The error appears to us 
 to lie elsewhere. It lies in the assumption that human know- 
 ledge can be anything more than the knowledge of the changes 
 txcited within us by objects without us. It lies in the assump- 
 tion that whatever is true of the modifications of the sentient 
 being, must be equally true of the causes of those modifica- 
 tions. It lies in the assumption that the subjective fact is 
 also, at the same time, the objective fact, and the whole of 
 that fact. 
 
 This assumption we have seen to be the fundamental 
 assumption made by philosophy, without which philosophy is 
 impossible ; and the various arguments with which we have 
 combated this assumption will have prepared the way for a 
 ready apprehension of the following brief exposure of the 
 fallacy of Idealism : — 
 
 Berkeley's main position is, that the objects of knowledge are 
 ideas, and nothing but ideas. 
 
 The position is incontrovertible. The conclusion there- 
 fore : all human knowledge can only be the knowledge of ideas, 
 and of nothing but ideas, is equally incontestable. Not less so 
 the second conclusion : objects being identified with ideas, and 
 we having no idea of an object but as it is perceived, the esse of 
 objects to us is percipi. 
 
 In admitting all this, what do we admit? Simply that 
 human knowledge is not the "measure of all things." 
 Objects to us can never be more than ideas ; but are we the 
 final measure of all existence? It was the dogma of the 
 sophist that Man is the measure of all things. It should not 
 be the dogma of the sober thinker. Because we can only 
 know objects as ideas, is it a proper conclusion that objects 
 
jot IDEALISM. 
 
 only exist as ideas ? For this conclusion to be rigorous, we 
 must have some proof of our knowledge being the absolute 
 standard of truth; it being really only the standard of the 
 relation things bear to our intellect. 
 
 The Idealist will say, M If you cannot know anything beyond 
 your ideas, why do you infer that there is anything?" — A 
 question not easily answered. He will moreover say, u I defy 
 you to conceive anything existing unperceived. Attempt to 
 imagine the existence of matter when mind is absent. You 
 cannot ; for in the very act of imagining it, you include an 
 ideal percipient. The trees and mountains you imagine to exist 
 away from your perceiving mind, what are they but the very 
 ideas of your mind, which you transport to some place where 
 you are not ? In fact, to separate existence from perception is 
 radically impossible. It is God's synthesis, and man cannot 
 undo it." * 
 
 To this we answer, it is very true that, inasmuch as our 
 knowledge of objects is identical with our ideas, we can never, 
 by any freak of thought, imagine an object apart from the con- 
 ditions under which we know it. We are forced by the laws of 
 our nature to invest objects with the forms in which we per- 
 ceive them.f We cannot therefore conceive anything which 
 has not been subject to the laws of our nature, because in the 
 very act of conception those laws come into play. But is it 
 not a very different proposition to say, " I cannot conceive 
 things otherwise than according to the laws of my nature," and 
 to say, * I cannot conceive things otherwise, consequently they 
 cannot exist otherwise?" The Idealist here assumes that 
 knowledge is absolute, not relative — that man is the measure 
 of all things. 
 
 Perception is the identity (in the metaphysical sense of the 
 
 * See this argued in a masterly manner by the critic in ' Blackwood,' 
 before quoted. 
 
 t " When in perception," says Schelling, " I represent an object, object 
 and representation are one and the same. And simply in this our ina- 
 bility to discriminate the object from the representation during the act, 
 lies the conviction which the common sense of mankind has of the reality 
 of external things, although these become known to it only through the 
 representations." (« Ideen ru einer Philos. der Natur. Einleitung,' 
 p. xix., quoted by Sir W. Hamilton, 'Ed. Rev.,' Oct. 1830.) This is 
 indisputable, but it is only saying that our knowledge of things is subject 
 to the conditions of knowledge ; because we cannot discriminate between 
 the object and the representation it is no proof that there is no distinction 
 between them. 
 
IDEALISM. 503 
 
 word) of the ego and the no n- ego — the tertium quid of two 
 united forces ; as water is the identity of oxygen and hydrogen. 
 The ego can never have any knowledge oi the non-ego, in 
 which it (the ego) is not indissolubly bound up ; as oxygen 
 never can unite with hydrogen to form water, without merging 
 itself and the hydrogen in a tertium quid. Let us suppose the 
 oxygen endowed with a consciousness of its changes. It 
 would attribute the change not to hydrogen, but to water, i.e., 
 to hydrogen and oxygen ; because it could only know the 
 hydrogen. In its consciousness it would find the state named 
 water (perception), which would be very unlike its own state 
 (the ego) ; and it would suppose that this state, so unlike its 
 own, was a representation of that which caused it. 
 
 In the above illustration we have used great licence. We 
 have also begged the question respecting the existence of a 
 non-ego (hydrogen) apart from the Ego. Our excuse in both 
 instances must be the right of framing one's own illustration, 
 provided it be only used as such. We say then, that although 
 the hydrogen can only exist to the oxygen (in the above case) 
 in the identity of both, as water ; this is no proof that hydro- 
 gen does not exist under some other relations to the other 
 forces. So, although the non-ego cannot exist in relation to 
 mind otherwise than in the identity of the two (perception) ; 
 this is no sort of proof that it does not exist in relation to other 
 beings under quite different conditions. 
 
 In conclusion, we admit, with the Idealists, that all our 
 knowledge of objects consists in our ideas. 
 
 But we cannot admit that all existence is limited to our 
 knowledge, merely on the ground that when we would conceive 
 anything existing, we are forced to conceive it in accordance 
 with the laws of our conceptive faculties. 
 
 We admit with the Idealists, that all our knowledge is sub- 
 jective. But we do not admit that what is true subjectively is 
 true objectively. 
 
 We believe in the existence of an external world quite inde- 
 pendent of any percipient; not only because such is the 
 obvious and universal belief, but because the arguments by 
 which Idealism would controvert it are vitiated by the assump- 
 tion of knowledge being a criterion of all existences, whereas 
 it is only the modification of one class of beings. For let us 
 understand the precise nature of the question. Idealism agrees 
 with Realism in placing reliance on the evidence of sense ; it 
 
5<H 
 
 IDEALISM. 
 
 argues, however, that inasmuch as our knowledge is confined to 
 ideas, we have no right to assume anything beyond ideas. Yet 
 it also is forced to assume something as the cause of ideas : 
 this cause it calls the Will of the Creator; and this is an 
 assumption. The real dispute, therefore, should be concen- 
 trated on this point — Which assumption is more consonant with 
 our irresistible belief 1 the assumption of an external matter 
 unlike our sensations, yet the cause of them ; or the assump- 
 tion of a providential scheme in which our sensations are 
 the effects of the operation of divine laws, in which matter 
 plays no part ? The answer cannot be dubious. The former 
 assumption, as more consonant with our belief, must be 
 accepted. 
 
 Had not psychologists so unreasonably assumed that the 
 mind is passive, they would have seen the fallacies of Idealism 
 and of Ontology long ago. Once understand that the mind 
 is active in sensation, and the psychical (consequently rela- 
 tive) nature of all sensation and all knowledge becomes 
 clear. 
 
 Berkeley, we believe, failed as a metaphysical Copernicus 
 because the assumption which he opposed to the universal 
 belief was less consonant with that belief than the assumption 
 it opposed. Had Copernicus not started an hypothesis which, 
 however contradictory to the senses, nevertheless afforded a 
 much better explanation of celestial phenomena than was pos- 
 sible on the old hypothesis, he would not have been listened to. 
 Berkeley's assumption, if conceded, carries him no deeper than 
 the old assumption. Idealism explains nothing. To accept 
 it would be to renounce an universal belief for a mere hy- 
 pothesis — and an hypothesis which is not justified by its con- 
 sequences. But that he was a deep and remarkable thinker 
 must be readily conceded ; and he failed as the greatest philo- 
 sophers of all times have failed, not because he was weak, but 
 because philosophy was impossible. 
 
 Those who have followed the course of this History with 
 attention to its moral (so to speak) will not fail to observe how 
 Berkeley's Idealism is at bottom but the much decried system 
 of Spinoza, who taught that there was but one essence in the 
 universe, and that was Substance. Berkeley also taught that 
 there was but one, and that one was Thought. Now call this 
 one being what you will, the result is the same : speculatively 
 or practically. You may have certain degrading associations 
 
IDEALISM, 505 
 
 attached to the idea of substance; or certain exalted asso- 
 ciations attached to that of spirit. But what difference can 
 your associations make with respect to the real nature of 
 things ? 
 
 One great result of Berkeley's labours was the lesson he 
 taught of the vanity of ontological speculations. He paved 
 the way to scepticism : the gulf which yawns at the end of all 
 consistent metaphysics. 
 
$iM «poct). 
 
 THE ARGUMENTS OF IDEALISM CARRIED OUT INTO 
 SCEPTICISM. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 LIFE OF HUMS. 
 
 David Hume has written an autobiography, which has always 
 been admired for its simplicity and modesty. As every library 
 — we may say every house which contains books at all — pos- 
 sesses a copy of the * History of England,' to which is prefixed 
 this autobiography, we need not occupy our scanty space with 
 anything more than a few dates. 
 
 He was born at Edinburgh, 26th April, 171 1. In 1734 he 
 went to France, where he composed his ' Treatise on Human 
 Nature,' which appeared in 1737. It fell still-born from the 
 press. In 1742 appeared the first part of his Essays. He 
 accompanied General St. Clair, as secretary, in his embassy to 
 Vienna and Turin, 1747. In 1752 he published his • Political 
 Discourses/ and his 'Inquiry concerning the Principles of 
 Morals.' He was appointed Librarian to the Faculty of Advo- 
 cates. The command of this library suggested to him the 
 undertaking which has long been held his greatest title to fame 
 —the History of England. He died in 1776. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 hume's scepticism. 
 
 The marvellous acuteness and subtlety of Hume have never 
 been denied ; and his influence upon speculation has been 
 aided as much by the alarm his doctrines excited, as by the 
 
BUMR'S SCEPTICISM. $6} 
 
 ingenuity with which they were upheld. If Berkeley met with 
 no refuters, Hume could meet with none. Antagonists have 
 been compelled to admit that the sceptical reasoning was un- 
 answerable. Perhaps it would have been more modest to have 
 said it was unanswerable by them. At any rate, the dilemma in 
 which Hume placed philosophy was one which has great 
 interest for us. 
 
 Locke had shown that all our knowledge was dependent 
 upon experience. 
 
 Berkeley had shown that we had no experience of an external 
 world independent of perception ; nor could we have any such 
 experience. He pronounced matter, therefore, to be a figment 
 Hume took up the line where Berkeley had cast it, and flung 
 it once more into the deep sea, endeavouring to fathom the 
 mysteries of being. Probing deeper in the direction Berkeley 
 had taken, he found that not only was Matter a figment, but 
 Mind was no less so. If the occult substratum, which men 
 had inferred to explain material phenomena, could be denied, 
 because not founded on experience ; so also, said Hume, must 
 we deny the occult substratum (mind) which men have inferred 
 to explain mental phenomena. All that we have any experi- 
 ence of, is of impressions and ideas. The substance of which 
 these are supposed to be impressions, is occult — is a mere in- 
 ference ; the substance in which these impressions are supposed 
 to be, is equally occult — is a mere inference. Matter is but a 
 collection of Impressions. Mind is but a succession of im- 
 pressions and ideas.* 
 
 Thus was Berkeley's dogmatic Idealism converted into 
 Scepticism. Hume, speaking of Berkeley, says, " Most of the 
 writings of that very ingenious philosopher form the best 
 lessons of scepticism which are to be found either among the 
 ancient or modern philosophers, Bayle not excepted. He pro- 
 fesses, however, in his title-page (and undoubtedly with great 
 truth), to have composed his book against the Sceptics as well 
 as against the Atheists and Free-thinkers. But that all his 
 arguments, though otherwise intended, are in reality merely 
 sceptical appears from this, that they admit of no answer and 
 produce no conviction." 
 
 * Locke had already shown that we are as ignorant of spirit as of sub- 
 stance. We know mind only in its manifestation; we cannot know it 
 per se as a substratum. Hume's argument therefore had a firm foundation 
 in philosophy. He only concluded from admitted premises. 
 
5©8 HUME'S SCEPTICISM. 
 
 Remark that Hume's scepticism, though it reduces philosophy 
 to a singular dilemma, viz., that of either refuting the sceptical 
 arguments, or of declaring itself and its pretensions to be vain 
 and baseless, nevertheless affects in no other way the ordinary 
 judgments or actions of mankind. Much stupid ridicule and 
 frivolous objection have been, and probably will continue to 
 be, brought against Hume. Reid, from whom one might have 
 expected something better, is surprised at Hume's pretending to 
 construct a science upon human nature, " when the intention of 
 the whole work is to show that there is neither human nature 
 nor science in the world. It may perhaps be unreasonable to 
 complain of this conduct in an author who neither believes his 
 own existence nor that of his reader ; and therefore could not 
 mean to disappoint him or laugh at his credulity. Yet I can- 
 not imagine that the author of the 'Treatise on Human 
 Nature ' is so sceptical as to plead this apology. He believed, 
 against his principles, that he should be read, and that he 
 should retain his personal identity, till he reaped the honour 
 and reputation justly due to his metaphysical acumen." He 
 continues further in this strain, dragging in the vulgar error 
 about Pyrrho having inconsistently been roused to anger by his 
 cook, " who probably had not roasted his dinner to his mind," 
 and compares this forgetfulness to Hume's every " now and 
 then relapsing into the faith of the vulgar."* 
 
 If this was meant for banter, it is very poor banter ; if for 
 argument, it is pitiable. But as such arguments have appeared 
 valid to a thinker of Reid's reputation, it is reasonable to sup- 
 pose that inferior men may also receive them as conclusive. 
 Hume shall therefore, be allowed to speak for himself; and he 
 shall speak in the language of that very * Treatise on Human 
 Nature ' to which Reid alludes : — 
 
 " Should it be here asked me whether I sincerely assent to 
 this argument which I seem to take such pains to inculcate, 
 and whether I be really one of those sceptics who hold that all 
 is uncertain, and that our judgment is not in any thing 
 possessed of any measures of truth and falsehood, I should 
 reply that this question is entirely superfluous, and that neither 
 I nor any other person was ever sincerely and constantly of 
 that opinion. Nature, by an absolute and uncontrollable 
 necessity, has determined us to judge as well as to breathe and 
 feel ; nor can we any more forbear viewing certain objects in a 
 • « Inquiry,' Intro, i,, j 5. 
 
HUME'S SCEPTICISM. 509 
 
 stronger and fuller light upon account of their customary con- 
 nexion with a present impression, than we can hinder ourselves 
 from thinking as long as we are awake, or seeing the surround- 
 ing bodies when we turn our eyes towards them in broad sun- 
 shine. Whoever has taken the pains to refute the cavils of 
 this total scepticism, has really disputed without an antagonist, 
 and endeavoured by arguments to establish a faculty which 
 nature has antecedently implanted in the mind and rendered un- 
 avoidable. 
 
 " My intention, then, in displaying so carefully the argu- 
 ments of that fantastic sect, is only to make the reader sensible 
 of the truth of my hypothesis, that all our reasonings concern- 
 ing causes and effects are derived from nothing but custom ; 
 and that belief is more properly an act of the sensitive than of 
 the cogitative part of our natures. ... If belief were a simple 
 act of the thought without any peculiar manner of conception, 
 or the addition of force and vivacity, it must infallibly destroy 
 itself, and in every case terminate in a total suspense of judg- 
 ment. But as experience will sufficiently convince any one that 
 although he finds no error in my arguments, yet he still con- 
 tinues to believe and think and reason as usual, he may safety 
 conclude that his reasoning and belief is some sensation or 
 peculiar manner of conception, which 'tis impossible for mere 
 ideas and reflections to destroy."* 
 
 It has always struck us, as an illustration of the great want 
 of candour displayed by Hume's opponents, that they never 
 quoted this very significant and explicit passage ; indeed, we 
 never remember to have seen the passage quoted by any one. 
 Let us ask what does the foregoing declaration amount to, if 
 not to the boasted " common sense view," that our belief in the 
 existence of matter is instinctive, fundamental ? Does not Dr. 
 Brown's admission that the sceptical argument, as a mere play 
 of reasoning, is unanswerable, concede all that Hume requires? 
 Does not Dr. Brown's conclusion, that we are thrown upon 
 "irresistible belief" as our only refuge against scepticism, 
 equally accord with Hume's explicit declaration that we do 
 believe, and cannot help believing, though we can give no 
 reason for the belief? 
 
 " Thus the sceptic," Hume adds a little further on, " still 
 continues to reason and believe, even though he asserts that 
 he cannot defend his reason by reason ; and by the same rule 
 * 'Human Nature,' part iv., sect, i., p. 250. 
 
5io HUME'S SCEPTICISM. 
 
 he must assent to the principle concerning the existence of 
 body, though he cannot pretend by any arguments of philosophy 
 to maintain its veracity. Nature has not left this to his choice, 
 and has doubtless esteemed it an affair of too great importance 
 to be trusted to our uncertain reasonings and speculations. 
 We may well ask, what causes induce us to believe in the exist- 
 ence of body f but 'tis in vain to ask whether there be body or 
 not? that is a point which we must take for granted in all our 
 reasonings." 
 
 After this, let no more be said about Hume's practical 
 inconsequences. Locke before him had clearly enough seen 
 and signalized the impotence of the mind in any attempt 
 to penetrate beyond phenomena, and had, with his usual 
 calm wisdom, counselled men to " sit down in quiet igno- 
 rance." 
 
 He knew the task was hopeless ; he knew also that it was 
 trivial. God has given us the means of knowing all that con- 
 cerns us, a certainty which suffices for all our wants. With 
 that, reasonable men will be content. If they seek more, they 
 seek the impossible ; if they push their speculations deeper, 
 they end in scepticism. It was the philosophical mission of 
 Hume (to adopt a phrase in vogue) to show how inevitably all 
 such speculations, if consistent, ended in scepticism. 
 
 " Men," he says, " are carried by a natural instinct or pre- 
 possession to repose faith in their senses. When they follow 
 this blind and powerful instinct of nature, they always suppose 
 the very images presented to the senses to be the external ob- 
 jects, and never entertain any suspicion that the one are nothing 
 but representations of the other. But this universal and primary 
 opinion of all men is soon destroyed by the slightest philosophy, 
 which teaches us that nothing can ever be present to the mind 
 but an image or perception. So far, then, we are necessitated by 
 reasoning to contradict the primary instincts of nature \ and to em- 
 brace a new system with regard to the evidence of our senses. 
 But here philosophy finds herself extremely embarrassed, when 
 she would obviate the cavils and objections of the sceptics. 
 She can no longer plead the infallible and irresistible instinct 
 of nature, for that led us to quite a different system, which is 
 acknowledged fallible, and even erroneous ; and to justify this 
 pretended philosophical system by a chain of clear and con- 
 vincing argument, or even any appearance of argument, exceeds 
 the power of all human capacity. 
 
HUME'S SCEPTICISM. 511 
 
 u Do you follow the instinct and propensities of nature in 
 assenting to the veracity of the senses ? But these lead you to 
 believe that the very perception or sensible image is the external 
 object — (Idealism). 
 
 " Do you disclaim this principle in order to embrace a more 
 rational opinion, that the perceptions are only representations 
 of something external? You here depart from your natural 
 propensities and more obvious sentiments ; and yet are not 
 able to satisfy your reason, which can never find any convincing 
 argument from experience to prove that the perceptions are con- 
 nected with external objects" — (Scepticism). 
 
 This is the dilemma to which philosophy is reduced : out of 
 it there is no escape; and Hume deserves the gratitude of 
 mankind for having " brought philosophy to this pass." Man- 
 kind, however, has paid him with execration. As the whole 
 course of this history has been occupied in tracing the inevit- 
 able result of all philosophy to be precisely this much-abused 
 scepticism, our readers will be prepared for a different appre- 
 ciation of Hume. Let us therefore endeavour to define the 
 nature of this scepticism, which has caused such great alarm. 
 Scepticism, meaning doubt, and being frequently used to 
 signify religious doubt, has alarming associations attached to 
 it. To call a man a sceptic is to call him a heretic. And, 
 unfortunately for Hume's philosophical reputation, he was a 
 sceptic in religion as well as in philosophy, and mankind have 
 consequently identified the former with the latter. 
 
 Now, philosophical scepticism can only mean a doubt as to 
 the possibility of philosophy — in other words, a doubt only on 
 one particular subject. If I accept the consequences to which 
 the doctrine of Hume leads me, am I forced to suspend my 
 judgment, and to pronounce all subjects uncertain? or am I 
 only to pronounce some subjects uncertain ? The latter is 
 clearly the only opinion I can entertain. What then are the 
 questions on which I must be content to remain in darkness ? 
 Locke, no less than Hume, has told us : All which relate to 
 philosophy — which pretend to discuss the nature of essences 
 and causes.* 
 
 This scepticism, the reader must acknowledge, has nothing 
 very alarming in it, except to philosophy. It is maintained by 
 the vast majority of thinking men — some from conviction, 
 others from a vague sense of the futility of ontological specula- 
 
 * Comp. in Series I., pp. 255-6, our answer to the ancient sceptics. 
 
5 i j HUME'S SCEPTICISM. 
 
 tion. It is only the bad passions roused in discussion which 
 could pretend to confound scepticism with heresy. 
 
 For, let us ask, in denying human reason the power of ap- 
 prehending the nature of essences and causes — in denying it 
 the power of deciding upon the impenetrable mysteries of 
 creation, immortality, " fate, foreknowledge, freewill absolute " 
 — does the sceptic shake the foundations of religious belief? — 
 does he in any way touch religion ? Polemics angrily, but in- 
 cautiously, declare that he does. 
 
 Upon what does religion base itself? — upon reason, or upon 
 revelation? What do the Fathers teach? — what do all the 
 highest theological authorities teach ? The question is per- 
 tinent, important. Do they teach that human reason is com- 
 petent to solve the problems of religion ? Do they teach that 
 to reason man must look for certitude and conviction ? No : 
 they one and all energetically declare, as they are forced to de- 
 clare, that reason is essentially a finite, limited, erring faculty, 
 wholly incompetent to produce certitude and conviction. To 
 admit reason's competence would be suicidal. It is to some 
 other source that we must look for certitude on such points ; it 
 is to some higher authority we must bow.* 
 
 We would merely recall, by way of illustration, the fact 
 that the stupid deism, so widely promulgated during the 
 last century, was proudly self-styled the "Religion of Reason!" 
 
 The philosophical sceptic, though he may also be a religious 
 sceptic, is not necessarily so. Several names illustrious in 
 science will at once occur to the reader, as examples of this 
 scepticism united with fervent religious ardour. 
 
 We may, then, accept the Scepticism of Hume as harmless 
 — nay, as beneficial. It only destroys the now somewhat 
 feeble pretension that metaphysics can be a science. It indi- 
 cates the boundaries of inquiry. It leads us from impossible 
 attempts to fly, to instruct us how securely we may run. It 
 destroys philosophy only to direct all our energies towards 
 positive science. 
 
 In the words of Gothe, " let us not attempt to demonstrate 
 what cannot be demonstrated ! Sooner or later we shall other- 
 wise make our miserable deficiencies more glaring to posterity 
 by our so-called works of knowledge." 
 
 * It would be idle to cite authorities for this fundamental and universally 
 acknowledged position. We should be ashamed of alluding to it, did not 
 the present discussion force us. 
 
HUME'S THEORY OF CAUSATION. 513 
 
 Hume was a sceptic ; and, consequently, early in life ceased 
 devoting his marvellous acuteness to any of the questions 
 agitated in the schools. His * Essays ' and his * History ' were 
 the excellent products of this change of direction ; and although 
 he did devote a portion of the * Essays ' to philosophy, yet it 
 was but a portion, and was only a more popular and elegant 
 exposition of the results of his first work. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 hume's theory of causation. 
 
 It is customary to speak of Hume's theory of causation and to 
 bestow no inconsiderable acrimony upon him on that account. 
 But, in the first place, the theory is not peculiarly his ; in the 
 second place, his application of it to the question of miracles, 
 which has excited so much vehement controversy, reduces itself 
 to " this very plain and harmless proposition, that whatever is 
 contradictory to a complete induction is incredible. That such 
 a maxim as this should be either accounted a dangerous heresy, 
 or mistaken for a recondite truth, speaks ill for the state of 
 philosophical speculation on such subjects."* 
 
 The theory may be thus briefly stated. All our experience of 
 causation is simply that of a constant succession. An ante- 
 cedent followed by a sequent — one event followed by another. 
 This is all that we experience. We attribute, indeed, to the 
 antecedent a power of producing or causing the sequent ; but 
 we can have no experience of such a power. If we believe that 
 the fire which has burned us will burn us again, we believe this 
 from habit or custom \ not from having perceived any power in 
 the fire. We believe the future will resemble the past, because 
 custom has taught us to rely upon such a resemblance. 
 
 "When we look about us towards external objects, and con- 
 sider the operation of causes, we are never able in a single 
 instance to discover any power or necessary connexion : any 
 quality which binds the effect to the cause, and renders the one 
 • Mill's 'System of Logic,' vol. W-+ p. 183. 
 K K 
 
514 HUME'S THEORY OF CAUSATION. 
 
 an infallible consequence of the other. We only find that the 
 one does actually in fact follow the other. The impulse of one 
 billiard-ball is attended with motion in the second. This is the 
 whole that appears to the outward senses. The mind feels no 
 sentiment or inward impression from this succession of objects; 
 consequently, there is not, in any single instance of cause and 
 effect, anything which can suggest the idea of power or neces- 
 sary connexion " (Essays, sect. vii.). This is the whole of his 
 theory. His explanation of our belief in power or necessary 
 connexion is that it is a matter of habit. 
 
 We know not whether Hume ever read Glanvill's Sceptis 
 Scientifica. The title was one to attract him. At any rate, 
 Glanvill had clearly enough stated Hume's theory. " AH 
 knowledge of causes is deductive ; for we know of none by 
 simple intuition, but through the mediation of their effects. 
 So that we cannot conclude anything to be the cause of another 
 but from its continual accompanying it ; for the causality itself is 
 insensible" Malebranche had also anticipated it 5 and so had 
 Hobbes. The language, indeed, of the latter is so similar to 
 that employed by Hume, that we agree with Dugald Stewart in 
 believing that it must have suggested to Hume his theory : 
 u What we call experience," says Hobbes, " is nothing else but 
 remembrance of what antecedents have been followed by what 
 consequents. . . No man can have in his mind a concep- 
 tion of the futuie, for the future is not yet ; but of our concep- 
 tions of the past we make a future, or rather call past, future 
 relatively. Thus, after a man has been accustomed to see like 
 antecedents followed by like consequents, whensoever he seeth 
 the like come to pass to anything he had seen before, he looks 
 there shall follow it the same that followed them." 
 
 No one can have any smattering of philosophy without 
 having stumbled upon that much-debated question of cause 
 and effect — a question considered as fundamental by all who 
 have treated of it. To clear it from the confusions of meta- 
 physicians would be no unworthy task. That task we will 
 attempt. We will at all events be brief; thinking, with Hume, 
 that " in all abstract reasonings there is one point of view which, 
 if we can happily hit, we shall go farther towards illustrating 
 the subject than by all the eloquence and copious expression in 
 the world. This point of view we should endeavour to reach, 
 and reserve the flowers of rhetoric for subjects which are more 
 adapted to them." 
 
HUME'S THEORY OF CAUSATION. 515 
 
 Imprimis. Hume's theory sins in two respects. It is not a 
 complete expression of the facts ; it is not a correct analysis of 
 the origin of our belief. When he says that invariable succes- 
 sion of antecedent and consequent is all that is given us in our 
 experience of causation, he asserts that which every man who 
 examines the matter attentively may contradict. Ask yourself 
 whether you have not a sense of power also given in the expe- 
 rience of causation. You cannot hesitate. You believe that 
 fire has the power to burn your finger — that one billiard-ball 
 has the power of moving another when impinging on it — that 
 a spark has the power of producing an explosion in gunpowder. 
 This idea of power (call it what you will) is as much given in 
 your experience as the idea of the succession of antecedent and 
 consequent, is given in it. Otherwise, day might be called the 
 cause of night, because it invariably precedes it. Dr. Brown, 
 indeed, and his followers deny this. They concur with Hume 
 in believing our idea of power to resolve itself into mere priority 
 and invariableness in the antecedent. We say that priority and 
 invariableness are rather to be resolved into our idea of power. 
 It has been objected to us by a friend, for whose opinions we 
 have the very highest respect, that our assertion respecting 
 power is incorrect. " I cannot," he says, " form any idea of 
 power, except that of one event infallibly following another." 
 We admit that no idea can be formed of power in one sense — i.e., 
 no image can be framed to represent the nature of power — but 
 the very infallibility said to constitute the idea of power is 
 enough for our argument. That we should believe one event 
 will infallibly be followed by another, is to believe that one 
 event has the power of occasioning another. 
 
 The idea of power may be vague, if by idea we understand^ 
 anything like an image ; but it is precise enough, if we under- 
 stand by it merely a conception formed by the mind. The 
 idea of power is analogous to the idea of mind or of substance, 
 in being thus vague but forcible. We cannot, indeed, frame an 
 image of power any more than we can frame an image of mind; 
 but we have a strong conviction of the existence of one and 
 the other. Because we know power only in its effects, and 
 cannot separate it therefrom — because we can have no percep- 
 tion of causality, it being insensible (to use Glanvill's language), 
 we are no more entitled to deny it, than we are entitled to 
 deny substance because we can only perceive its attributes, not 
 the substance itself. Hume has this note : — " Mr. Locke, in 
 
5 i6 HUME'S THEORY OF CAUSATION. 
 
 his chapter on Power, says, that finding from experience that 
 there are several new productions in matter, and concluding 
 that there must be somewhere a power capable of producing 
 them, we arrive at last by this reasoning at the idea of power. 
 But no reasoning can ever give us a new, original, simple idea ; 
 as this philosopher himself confesses. This, therefore, can 
 never be the origin of that idea." The force of this objection 
 lies in the unwarrantable assumption that reasoning cannot 
 give us a new idea. But we answer by the fact that we have 
 the idea of power; whence it comes is another matter. 
 
 It is useless to cavil at the word power. Call it what you 
 will ; the fact remains, that when we have had an experience of 
 fire burning, we have the experience of the power which the 
 fire has of burning : burning is one of the properties of fire. Or, 
 to state the matter more rigorously, fire, when placed in contact 
 with paper, produces a change in that paper ; the capability of 
 producing such a change is called power ; and the fire is said 
 to cause that change. We only perceive the change ; but from 
 that we infer the power. Just as we only perceive attributes, 
 but therefrom infer substance. 
 
 The ordinary belief of mankind in the existence of some- 
 thing more than mere antecedence and consequence, is there- 
 fore a fact. This fact Hume and others omit. Because they 
 cannot perceive the power, they declare that we have no belief 
 in it. Hume insists a good deal upon the impossibility of our 
 perceiving power — of our perceiving any necessary connexion 
 between two events : and as his theory of knowledge is con- 
 fined to " impressions," and " copies of those impressions," it 
 of course will not enable him to detect the fallacy ; because we 
 can have no " impression " of this power. But we say, that 
 although we cannot perceive the power, we are forced to believe 
 in it ; and this belief is not a matter of custom, but is given in 
 the very facts of consciousness. We perceive that some power 
 is at work producing effects ; the precise nature of this power, 
 indeed, we cannot perceive, because we never can know things 
 per se. When a spark ignites gunpowder, we perceive a power 
 in the spark to ignite gunpowder : what that power is, we know 
 not ; we only know its effects. But our ignorance is equally 
 great of the gunpowder : what it is we know not ; we only know 
 its appearances to us. It might as well be said that we believe 
 in the gunpowder from custom, because we really know nothing 
 of it i>er se. as that we believe ic the power of the spark to ignite 
 
HUME'S THEORY OF CAUSATION. 517 
 
 gunpowder from custom, because we really know nothing of 
 power per se. We know nothing per se. 
 
 Now to Hume's second error. The fact being established, 
 let it be explained. Men believe in power : is that belief well 
 grounded?— on what is it grounded? ^ 
 
 Two schools at once present themselves. The one (Hume) 0. 
 declares that the belief has no good grounds ; it is a matter of 
 custom. If I believe the sun will rise to-morrow, it is because 
 it has always risen. If I believe that fire will burn in future, 
 it is because it has always burned. From habit I expect the 
 future will resemble the past : I have no proof of it 
 
 The other school declares that this belief in causation " is QJ 
 an intuitive conviction that the future will resemble the past." 
 This is the language of Reid and Stewart. Dr. Whewell would 
 have us admit the belief as a fundamental idea — a necessary 
 truth independent of and superior to all experience. 
 
 Both explanations we take to be very incompetent. Custo m 
 or habit canhave n othing whatever to do with it, because our 
 belief is as strong from a single instance as from a thousand. 
 " When many uniform instances appear," says Hume, " and 
 the same object is always followed by the same event, we then 
 begin to entertain the notion of cause and connexion. We then 
 feel a new sentiment, to wit, a customary connexion in the 
 thought between one object and its usual attendant ; and this 
 sentiment is the original of that idea which we seek for." This 
 is manifestly wrong. One instance of one billiard-ball moving 
 a second, suffices to originate the " sentiment,'' without further 
 repetition. As to any conviction of the future resembling the 
 past, that is assuming that the general idea precedes the par- 
 ticular idea. When we believe that similar effects will follow 
 whenever the same causes are in operation — when we believe 
 that fire will burn, or that the sun will rise to-morrow — we are 
 simply believing in our experience, and nothing more. We can- 
 not help believing in our experience ; that is irresistible : but 
 in this belief the idea of either past or future has nothing what- 
 ever to do ; it does not enter into the belief. I do not believe 
 that fire will burn because I believe that the future will resemble 
 the past, but simply because my experience of fire is that it 
 burns — that it has the power to burn. Take a simple illustra- 
 tion, trivial, if you will, but illustrative : — A child is presented 
 with a bit of sugar : the sugar is white, of a certain shape, and 
 is solid ; his experience of the sugar is confined to these pro 
 
5 il HUME'S THEORY OF CAUSATION. 
 
 perties : he puts it in his mouth ; it is sweet, pleasant : his 
 experience is extended ; the sugar he now believes (knows) to 
 be sweet and pleasant, as well as white and solid.* Very well; 
 so far experience is not transcended. Some days later, another 
 piece of sugar is given him. Is it now necessary for him to 
 have any '* intuitive conviction that the future will resemble the 
 past " — any fundamental idea independent of experience — to 
 make him believe that if he puts the sugar in his mouth it will 
 taste sweet? Not in the least : he believes it is sweet, because 
 he knows it is sweet — because his experience of sugar is that it 
 is sweet. By no effort could he divest himself of the idea of 
 its sweetness, because sweetness forms a part of his idea of the 
 sugar. So we may say of the sun's rising : it is part and parcel 
 of our idea of the sun. So of one billiard-ball putting a 
 second in motion : our experience of billiard-balls is that they 
 put each other in motion. 
 
 Custom has primarily nothing to do with belief. If we had 
 only one experience of fire — if we saw it only once applied to 
 a combustible substance — we should believe that it would 
 burn, because our idea of fire would be the idea of a thing 
 which burns. Guatpmjias however, secondarily, some influence 
 in correcting the tendency to attribute properties to things. 
 Thus a child sees a friend who gives him an apple. The next 
 time the friend comes he is asked for an apple, because the idea 
 of this friend is of a man who, amongst other properties, has 
 that of giving apples. No apple is given, and this idea is 
 destroyed. Similarly, when all our experience of things is con- 
 firmatory of our first experience, we may say that habit or 
 custom induces us to attribute certain effects to certain causes. 
 When our subsequent experience contradicts our first experience, 
 we cease to attribute those effects to those causes which we first 
 experienced ; and this is only saying that our subsequent expe- 
 rience has destroyed or altered the idea we formed at first 
 
 Remark how much confusion is spread over this subject by 
 the inconsiderate introduction of the word Belief. It is absurd 
 to say that a child believes that fire will burn him if he puts his 
 
 * It will perhaps seem strange that we should select sweetness as an 
 example of causation. We selected it for its simplicity. No one will 
 deny that the taste of sweetness is as much an effect caused by the sugar as 
 pain is an effect caused by fire. But people are apt to overlook that 
 causation is the operation of the properties of one body upon the properties 
 of another. They would call sweetness a quality in sugar ; but the motion 
 of a billiard-ball they say is caused by another ball. 
 
HUME'S THEORY OF CAUSATION. 519 
 
 finger in it ; he knows it. He will believe that it has burned 
 some one else — he will believe in a proposition you make 
 about fire, because belief is the assent to propositions : but to 
 talk of his believing that sugar will be sweet, when he knows 
 it is sweet, when he cannot think of it otherwise than as sweet; 
 or that tire will burn when he knows it burns, is about as im- 
 proper as to say that he believes himself cold when he is cold. 
 
 Only from this improper use of the word belief could the 
 theory of fundamental ideas, or of " an intuitive conviction 
 that the future will resemble the past," have stood ground for a 
 moment If the proposition, " fire will burn paper,*' were put 
 to any one, he would unquestionably believe it, because he 
 knows it, i.e. he has no other knowledge of the fire under those 
 circumstances. It is a proposition as evident to him that fire 
 will burn paper as that two and two make four. Although, 
 therefore, he may be said to believe in the proposition, " fire 
 will burn paper," he cannot properly be said to act upon that 
 belief when he attempts to light paper: he acts upon his know- 
 ledge. Metaphysicians argue as if the belief in any instance 
 of cause and effect were a belief in some implied proposition 
 about the course of nature. It is really a reliance upon ex- 
 perience ; nothing more. 
 
 It is necessary to distinguish between belief in existence, and 
 belief in propositions. It is folly seriously to say a man believes 
 in his own existence, as if it were an act similar to his belief in 
 a proposition. Belief can never take place where the contrary 
 of what is asserted is inconceivable : there must be some pos- 
 sible opening for doubt, before we can call any proposition 
 believable or not But though a man cannot believe in his own 
 existence, simply because it is impossible for him to conceive 
 himself as non-existent, he may believe that he will exist 
 eternally, because that is a proposition the converse of which is 
 conceivable and maintainable. 
 
 Bearing this distinction in mind, we may say that, although 
 it is improper to speak of belief in any simple act of causation, 
 it is not improper to speak of belief in the uniformity and 
 universality of causation. That " fire burns paper " is an expe- 
 rience, not a belief. That the " law of causation is uniform and 
 universal " is a belief, and not an experience : it is a belief grounded 
 an experience. This is denied, indeed, by some who declare 
 that, as our experience can never have been universal, it could 
 never have furnished us with the belief, consequently the belief 
 
520 HUME'S THEORY OF CAUSATION. 
 
 must have some higher source. This doctrine we shall examine 
 when we treat of Kant : till then we must beg the reader to 
 suspend his judgment. 
 
 If the foregoing arguments be admitted, the theory of Causa- 
 tion to which Hume has given his name must be pronounced 
 defective. It is a theory which has excited bitter opposition on 
 the part of theologians \ it has also the honour of having first 
 set Kant speculating on the constituent elements of knowledge : 
 of which more anon* 
 
Sbtxtf) ©pod&. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE REDUCED TO SENSA- 
 TION BY THE CONFUSION OF THOUGHT WITH 
 FEELING : MA TERIALISM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 LIFE OF CONDIIXAC 
 
 Etienne de Condillac was born at Grenoble in 1715. His 
 life presents nothing of interest to the biographer ; it was 
 passed in study, and was not varied by any of those incidents 
 which give interest and romance to the biography of the 
 humblest of men. A few facts are therefore all we shall offer 
 the reader. 
 
 He published his first work, ' L'Essai sur l'Origine des 
 Connaissances Humaines,' in 1746. Three years after, his 
 ' Traite* des Systemes.' His other works followed rapidly, and 
 established for him such a reputation that he was appointed 
 tutor to the Prince of Parma, for whose instruction he wrote 
 the ' Cours d'Etudes.' In 1768 the capricious doors of the 
 Academie Francaise were opened to him ; but having been 
 elected a member, he never after attended any of its sittings. 
 He published his ' Logique ' in his old age, and left behind 
 him his ' Langue des Calculs.' He died in 1780. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CONDILLAC'S SYSTEM. 
 
 We have seen how Idealism and Scepticism grew out of the 
 doctrines respecting the origin of knowledge. We have now 
 
5*s CONDILLAC'S SYSTEM. 
 
 to see the growth of Materialism, or, as it is more correct to 
 call it, the "Sensational School." 
 
 The success which Locke's name met with in France is well 
 known. For a whole century the countrymen of Descartes 
 extolled the English Philosopher, little suspecting that philo- 
 sopher would have disclaimed their homage, could he have 
 witnessed it. In truth, when you see Locke's name mentioned 
 by the French writers of the eighteenth century, you may 
 generally read Hobbes ; for they had retrograded to Hobbes, 
 imagining they had developed Locke. 
 
 We must necessarily be brief, and therefore must confine 
 ourselves to Condillac as the acknowledged representative of 
 Locke in France. His first work, entitled Essai sur V Origins 
 des Connaissances Humaines, appeared in 1746. At this time 
 he had no notion of simplifying Locke by reducing all Know- 
 ledge to Sensation. He was a modest Lockeist, and laid down 
 as the fundamental principle that " sensations and the opera- 
 tions of the mind are the materials of all our knowledge — 
 materials which reflection sets in action by seeking their com- 
 binations and relations." (Chap. i. § 5.) 
 
 In 1754 appeared his celebrated work, the Traitk des Sensa- 
 tions. In it he quits Locke's principle for that of Gassendi 
 and Hobbes. "The principal object of this work," he says, 
 "is to show how all our knowledge and all our faculties are 
 derived from the senses, or, to speak more accurately, from 
 sensations." The inclusion of " our faculties," as well as our 
 ideas, in this sensuous origin is however due entirely to Con- 
 dillac. Hobbes never thought of such a "simplification." 
 The error is monstrous. Against it the epigram of Leibnitz, 
 nisi ipse intellectus, has full force, though powerless against 
 Locke. Nor was this a mere slip of Condillac's pen : the error 
 is radical ; it constitutes the peculiarity of his system. Speak- 
 ing of various philosophers, and after quoting, with praise, the 
 maxim attributed to Aristotle, that " nothing is in the intellect 
 which was not previously in the senses," he adds, " immediately 
 after Aristotle comes Locke, for we cannot reckon the other 
 philosophers who have written on this subject [!]. This 
 Englishman has certainly thrown great light on the subject, but 
 he has left some obscurity. ... All the faculties of the soul 
 appeared to him to be innate qualities, and he never suspected 
 they might be derived from sensation itself." 
 
 True enough: Locke never suspected such an absurdity. 
 
CONDILLAC S SYSTEM. 5*3 
 
 Because sensation calls our faculties into play, is that a reason 
 for suspecting our faculties themselves to be derived from 
 sensation ? If we never had any sensations, we should never 
 have any memory, for memory is the remembrance of sensa- 
 tions; but is that any argument in favour of memory itself 
 being a sensation ? Sensations develop our mental faculties : 
 they do not create them. Condillac might as well say that 
 exercise creates the faculty men have of running. The child 
 cannot run till he has exercised his limbs, but the exercise 
 does not give him the limbs, it only calls them into action. 
 Condillac is right in saying that we are not born with the 
 mental faculties (a point to be touched upon hereafter), but he 
 is wrong in saying that these faculties are nothing but sensa- 
 tions. Nothing but the grossest abuse of language could for 
 an instant warrant such a notion. Condillac, who endeavoured 
 to construct the mind and its faculties out of transformed sen- 
 sations, never once suspected that the faculty of transformation 
 — that which transforms — could not be itself a sensation. It 
 is very easy to talk about transformed sensations ; but the 
 sensations do not, we presume, transform themselves. What is 
 it, then, that transforms them? The mind? Not so. The 
 mind is the aggregate of our mental states, faculties, &c. ; the 
 mind is made up of "transformed sensations," and cannot 
 therefore be the transforming power. We return to the charge, 
 and demand, What is that which transforms ? Condillac has 
 no answer. All he can say is, what he says over and over 
 again, that our faculties are transformed sensations. Hear 
 him : — 
 
 " Locke distinguishes two sources of ideas, sense and re- 
 flection. It would be more exact to recognise but one : first, 
 because reflection is in its principle nothing but sensation 
 itself; secondly, because it is less a source of ideas than a 
 canal through which they flow from sense. 
 
 " This inexactitude, slight as it may seem, has thrown much 
 obscurity over his system. He contents himself with recog- 
 nising that the soul perceives, thinks, doubts, believes, reasons, 
 wills, reflects ; that we are convinced of the existence of these 
 operations, because we find them in ourselves and they con- 
 tribute to the progress of our knowledge : but he did not 
 perceive the necessity of discovering their origin and the prin- 
 ciple of their generation, — he did not suspect that they might 
 only be acquired habits; he seems to have regarded them 
 
5*4 CONDILLAC'S SYSTEM. 
 
 as innate, and he says only that they may be perfected by 
 exercise." * 
 
 This is far enough from Locke, t who would have stared to 
 hear that "judgment, reflection, the passions, in a word, all the 
 faculties of the mind are nothing but sensation which trans- 
 forms itself differently (qui se transforme differ emraent)." 
 
 As it is curious to see how sensation transforms itself into 
 these faculties, we will translate the Philosopher's account. 
 
 " If a multitude of sensations operate at the same time with 
 the same degree of vivacity, or nearly so, man is then only an 
 animal that feels ; experience suffices to convince us that then 
 the multitude of impressions takes away all activity from the 
 mind. 
 
 " But let only one sensation subsist, or without entirely dis- 
 missing the others, let us only diminish their force ; the mind 
 is at once occupied more particularly with the sensation which 
 preserves its vivacity, and that sensation becomes attention, with- 
 out its being necessary for us to suppose anything else in the 
 mind. 
 
 " If a new sensation acquire greater vivacity than the 
 former, it wili become in its turn attention. But the greater 
 the force which the former had, the deeper the impression 
 made on us, and the longer is it preserved. Experience 
 proves this. 
 
 " Our capacity of sensation is therefore divided into the 
 sensation we have had, and the sensation which we now have ; 
 we perceive them both at once, but we perceive them 
 differently : the one seems as past, the other as present. The 
 name of sensation designates the impression actually made 
 upon our senses ; and it takes that of memory when it presents 
 itself to us, as a sensation which has formerly been felt. 
 Memory, therefore, is oaly the transformed sensation. 
 
 * When there is double attention, there is comparison ; for 
 to be attentive to two ideas or to compare them, is the same 
 thing. But we cannot compare them without perceiving 
 
 * 'Extrait raiaonne du Traite des Sensations.'— CEuvres de CondUlac 
 (1803), vol. iv. p. 13. 
 
 t It would be idle to refute here the vulgar notion of Condillac's having 
 perfected Locke's principles ; or, as M. Cousin absurdlv says, of Locke's 
 ' Essay' being the rough sketch {ebauche) of which the Traiti des Sensations 
 is the perfected picture ; such a notion can only be entertained by those 
 who blindly accept traditionary judgments. The brief exposition we shall 
 give of Comlillac is a sufficient answer to all such assertions. 
 
CONDTLLACS SYSTEM. 525 
 
 some difference or some resemblance between them : to per- 
 ceive such relations is to judge. The acts of comparing and 
 judging are therefore only attention ; it is thus that sensation 
 becomes successively attention, comparison, judgment." 
 
 The other faculties are explained in a similar way, but we 
 need quote no more. That such a system should ever have 
 attained the favour it did, is a striking example of the facility 
 with which men may be led by an artful use of words. Verbal 
 distinctions, it is notorious, are the pabulum of Metaphysicians ; 
 but that suck word-jugglery as this should succeed may well be 
 pronounced a marvel. It is merely calling thoughts and 
 faculties sensations, and the thing is done. Take up, for a 
 moment, the "generation" of attention as explained by 
 Condillac. You have seen his analysis. Attention consists 
 in the vivacity of a sensation ; nothing more. There is no 
 effort of the Will. It is not the mind that attends ; it is the 
 vivacity which deepens the impressions and brings them into 
 notice. Now, we ask you to interrogate your own experience, 
 and say whether Attention be not voluntary as well as in- 
 voluntary. You are in conversation with some loud-voiced 
 importunate bore, who holds your button-hole. Out of 
 politeness you attend to what he says. Suddenly the fragment 
 of a remark, made at another part of the room, strikes on your 
 ear ; you wish to listen to it ; and although your loud-voiced 
 friend continues talking, yet you, by an effort, catch what is 
 being said elsewhere. This you do by an effort of your will. 
 That is to say, you will to attend to what is being said else- 
 where ; and though inasmuch as you cannot escape the laws 
 of your own constitution, you are forced to hear what the 
 bore utters, you attend only to what you wish to hear from 
 another. When we tell a man to listen, do we not appeal to 
 his will to give due attention ? or do we only tell him to let 
 some sound have the predominance in vivacity ? 
 
 If then, in Attention we discover an act of the Will — a 
 something which is not sensation — we need proceed no 
 further.* Condillac's analysis is false; and Comparison, 
 which is "double attention," and Judgment, which is only 
 comparison, may be safely left to the author of the Traite des 
 Sensations and his schooL 
 
 * Condillac, indeed, would get out of the dilemma by saying that the 
 will itself was only a sensation of great vivacity, but this assumption is too 
 gross for refutation. 
 
5>6 CONDILLAC S SYSTEM, 
 
 Condillac said that science is only a well-constructed 
 language (une langue bien faite) ; so much did he rely upon 
 precision in words. Nor is this inexplicable in a man who 
 fancied he had reduced the analysis of mind to its simplest 
 elements by merely naming them differently. It is, however, 
 as absurd to call ideas sensations, because originally the ideas 
 were sensations, as it would be to call reasoning observation, 
 because reasoning is founded on observation. We will go 
 further and say that it would be not less absurd to declare red 
 and green to be the same, because they are both colours, as to 
 say ideas and sensations are the same, because they are both 
 affections of the mind. The only excuse for the error is in the 
 common, but false, supposition that ideas are faint impres- 
 sions. They are not impressions at all. An idea is called a 
 remembered sensation. Condillac tells us that this remem- 
 brance is only a lesser degree of vivacity in the sensation. We 
 answer that the idea is nothing of the kind ; that so far from 
 being the sensation in a lesser degree, it is not the sensation at 
 all; it is altogether different from the sensation. You have the 
 idea of pain ; it shall be of a particular pain — that of toothache. 
 Now although every man, who has experienced toothache, can 
 have a very distinct idea of it (in other words, he can think of, 
 and talk of toothache), we defy you to detect in your idea 
 any resemblance whatever to the sensation. Try to recall the 
 sensation ; you cannot. Nor is this wonderful ; sensation is 
 feeling, thought is thinking. To suppose feeling and thinking 
 are the same (although both may come under the term feeling 
 by giving it some new general sense) is an absurdity reserved 
 for the sensational school, the last and not the least illustrious 
 of whom, M. Destutt de Tracy, consolidated it into an apho- 
 rism : penser Jest sentir. 
 
 The ambiguities of language have in this case been assisted 
 by the nature of our sensations. Thus all our visual ideas, 
 inasmuch as they assume shape, do seem like faint sensations ; 
 the reason is that although it is a very different thing to look 
 at the sun and to think of it, yet in the latter case our idea 
 corresponds in some measure with our sensation : it is the 
 idea of a round, yellow, luminous body : it is not improperly 
 called an image of the sun. If it is an image of the sun, we 
 might easily conclude that it was a faint copy of our sensation. 
 In the case of other senses, there is no difficulty in detecting 
 the error. When we say that we can recall the sensation of 
 
CONDILLAC'S SYSTEM. 5*7 
 
 fragrance or of sweetness, we confound our power of thinking 
 of a thing, with our power of feeling it. There is in truth a 
 wide distinction between Thought and Sensation, which it is 
 fatal to overlook ; nor could it have been overlooked but for 
 the introduction and adoption of that much abused word idea 
 instead of thought. 
 
 The whole " scheme of Materialism," as it is called, is 
 shallow, and its pretended simplicity is gained by a vicious 
 use of language. The attempt to construe matter into mind 
 belongs to the same unscientific spirit as that which attempted 
 to reduce the phenomena of Life to Chemistry. Now if matter 
 must, in science at least, be divided into organic and inorganic 
 — the phenomena of the former never being wholly reducible 
 to the laws of the latter — in the same way, admitting, with 
 Locke, that God may have superadded to matter the faculty 
 of thinking, we should still be forced by all sound rules ot 
 philosophy, to distinguish matter as physical, from matter as 
 organic and as inorganic ; or, as Locke so well says, " the 
 general idea of substance being the same everywhere, the modi- 
 fication of thinking, or the power of thinking joined to it, 
 takes it a spirit without considering what other modifications A 
 }as, or whether it has the modifications of solidity or not." 
 
 But, in regarding materialism as unscientific, we must also 
 regard the hypothesis of a " spirit " superadded to the brain 
 as not less so, nay as rather more so. The whole dispute is 
 frivolous, and has only acquired its importance from a supposed 
 connection with religious doctrines. 
 
 Condillac's theory of the origin of Knowledge has two 
 points deserving a passing notice. The first is the reduction 
 of all knowledge to sensation. The second is the dogma of 
 our faculties not being innate. 
 
 The first is the doctrine of Gassendi and Hobbes. It is 
 thus stated by Diderot — one of Condillac's most celebrate ■.! 
 pupils : — " Every idea must necessarily,, when brought to its 
 state of ultimate decomposition, resolve itself into a sensible 
 representation or picture ; and since everything in our under- 
 standing has been introduced there by the channel of sensation, 
 whatever proceeds out of the understanding is either chimerical 
 or must be able, in returning by the same road, to re-esta- 
 blish itself to its sensible archetype. Hence an important rule 
 in philosophy, That every expression which cannot find an 
 
5 sS CONDJLLACTS SYSTEM. 
 
 external and a sensible object to which it can thus establish its 
 affinity, is destitute of signification." * 
 
 The consequences to be drawn from such a rule are appa- 
 rent. But will the rule hold good ? Hardly. The least ex- 
 perience is sufficient to convince us that we have many ideas 
 which cannot be reduced to any sensible picture whatever ; or, 
 as these philosophers might quibble about the word idea, we 
 would prefer the phrase " many thoughts." That we can think 
 of Goodness, Virtue, Honour, &c, is undeniable. If you say 
 these are " abstract ideas," and fancy that they can have no 
 signification, we desire you to prove that they have none ; to 
 us, it is evident, they are as much ideas (thoughts) as the ideas 
 of sensible objects. But should we grant that M abstract ideas " 
 are beside the question, what do you say to our idea of a soul ? 
 That is not " abstract ; " that is certainly not reducible to a 
 sensible picture. That one example is a sufficient refutation of 
 the sensational theory. 
 
 Now for the second point : Condillac, we believe, was the 
 first to catch a glimpse of the important truth that our faculties 
 are not innate — are not even connate ; but he made a sad 
 bungle in attempting to trace the generation of these faculties. 
 That men are not born with the powers of reasoning, remem- 
 bering, imagining, and willing, is a proposition which will meet 
 with very little credit at first. A little experience and reflec- 
 tion, however, show us that as the child certainly cannot reason, 
 remember, imagine, or will, these being faculties subsequently 
 and slowly developed ; so may we conclude that the mental 
 faculties are only potentially in the new-born child. The baby 
 can no more reason than he can run. He learns to do both \ 
 and, before he can learn, the muscles of his mind no less than 
 the muscles of his legs must grow, be developed, and strength- 
 ened by exercise. Man is no more born with reason and will, 
 than an acorn is an oak. Every grown man has Reason and 
 Will, as every oak has branches and foliage. But the infant 
 and the acorn, though they contain that within them which, 
 under fitting circumstances, will be developed into reason in 
 the one and foliage in the other, cannot be said to have as yet 
 either reason or foliage. 
 
 What a new aspect this consideration gives to the science of 
 psychology ! It is perhaps the most important discovery ever 
 
 * ' Crimes VI.,' as quoted by Dug«dd Stewart, « Philos. Essays,' p. 166, 
 
CONDILLAC* S SYSTEM. 529 
 
 made, and yet one which is apparently the most obvious, and 
 the most obtruded upon our experience by the daily observation 
 of children. Condillac has the merit of having first seen it \ 
 but he saw it very imperfectly, and failed altogether to make 
 any good use of it. As an example : He who told us that our 
 faculties were not innate, but were "acquired habits," tells us, 
 when he comes to the generation of those faculties, that they 
 spring into existence at once — they are born full grown — the 
 acorn suddenly leaps into an oak. Thus his famous statue has 
 Memory, Judgment, Desire, &c, as soon as it has Sensations. 
 This is enough to show that if Condillac discovered an im- 
 portant fact, he only stumbled over it and knew not its signifi- 
 cance.* 
 
 Let us hope that, if England is to produce any new system of 
 psychology, this most important point will not be overlooked : 
 the growth and development of our faculties is as much a part 
 of psychology, as the growth and development of our organs is 
 a part of biology. 
 
 Condillac has made but a poor figure in our pages ; let us 
 hasten to add, that although his fundamental positions are 
 erroneous, his works display considerable merits both in manner 
 and matter. Many valuable remarks and some good analyses 
 may be found in his writings ; and the style is so clear that a 
 child might read them. His influence was immense. The 
 whole of the eighteenth century Philosophy was built upon his 
 system ; a Philosophy worthy of its origin: wordy, shallow, and 
 trenchant, pretending to be clear, simple, and rational ; a Philo- 
 sophy which began in confounding Thought with Feeling, and 
 ended in denying God, in favour of a Goddess called Nature ! 
 
 One word, at closing, on Condillac's historical position. He 
 departed in such a manner from Locke, that it seems strange he 
 should ever have been considered as a disciple. But we have 
 express testimony to the fact that he was Locke's disciple ; and 
 if we consider for a moment the great stress which Locke 
 always placed upon the sensuous origin of our knowledge — 
 that being the point he wished to bring prominently forward, 
 because his adversaries had neglected it — we shall easily con- 
 ceive how Condillac might have been more impressed with that 
 part of the system than with the other, which Locke had rather 
 
 * The only person who, to our knowledge, has made any use of this fact, 
 is Dr. Beneke, of Berlin, who has made it the basis of his whole philosophy. 
 See ' Neue Psychologic,' also the ' Lehrbuch der Psychologies Berlin, 1845. 
 
 U 
 
«3° 
 
 CONDILLACS SYSTEM. 
 
 indicated than developed. Moreover, it was Locke's object to 
 prove the mind to be a tabula rasa, in order to disprove innate 
 ideas. This once being granted, it was easy to fall into the 
 error of Condillac's " simplification." 
 
 Throughout the history of psychology one may see a con- 
 stant tendency to give undue prominence to one set of facts ; 
 and this will generally be found to arise by way of re-action 
 against the reigning doctrines. Now the materialists are in the 
 ascendant, and nothing but the facts of sensation are treated 
 of; and now the spiritualists are in the ascendant, and nothing 
 but the facts of the mind's activity are dwelt on. Each party ia 
 right in the dogmatic portion ; each party is wrong in exclud- 
 ing facts wi\icii its system cannot explain. 
 
Sbrbenft «pocfc 
 
 SECOND CRISIS — IDEALISM, SCEPTICISM, AND MATE- 
 RIALISM PRODUCING T^E REACTION OF COMMOA 
 SENSE. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE : RSID. 
 
 Dugald Stewart opens his ' Account of the Life and Writings 
 of Thomas Reid ' with remarking that the life was " uncom- 
 monly barren of those incidents which furnish materials for 
 biography ; M and as our space is scanty, we will content our- 
 selves with a bare enumeration of such facts as may be useful 
 for reference. Thomas Reid was born in 17 10, at Strachan in 
 Kincardineshire. He was educated at Marischall College, 
 Aberdeen. In 1752 he occupied the chair of Moral Philosophy 
 in Aberdeen. In 1764 appeared his ' Inquiry into the Human 
 Mind on the Principles of Common Sense.' In 1763* " the 
 Inquiry received a still more substantial testimony of appro- 
 bation from the university of Glasgow," in the offer of the chair 
 of Moral Philosophy, vacant by the resignation of Adam Smith. 
 In 1780 Reid resigned his office, and passed the remaining 
 years of his life in retirement and study. In 1785 appeared 
 his ' Essays on the Intellectual Powers/ He died at Glasgow 
 in 1796, having survived four of his children. 
 
 Reid's philosophy made a great stir at first, but has for some 
 years past been sinking into merited neglect. The appeal to 
 Common Sense as arbiter in Philosophy, is now pretty well 
 understood to be on a par with Dr. Johnson's kicking a stone 
 by way of refuting Berkeley. Indeed Dugald Stewart himself 
 
 * We follow Stewart, but there must be some error here. If the 
 4 Inquiry ' was not published till 1764, Reid could not in 1763 have been 
 
 ouered the chair as a ■' testimony of approbation." 
 
S3* RBID. 
 
 was fully alive to the inconsequence of such an argument, and 
 endeavoured to shield his master by saying that the phrases 
 " Common Sense " and " Instinct " were unhappily chosen. 
 Unfortunately they were not mere phrases with Reid ; they were 
 principles. It is impossible to read the ' Inquiry ■ and not see 
 that Reid took his stand upon Common Sense ; * and Beattie 
 and Oswald, his immediate disciples, are still more open to the 
 charge. 
 
 " It is genius," he says, " and not the want of it, that adul- 
 terates philosophy, and fills it with error and false theory," 
 This aphorism is the key to all his writings. Few would ever 
 accuse him of that pernicious quality — genius. He was a quiet, 
 sober, patient thinker ; but he was neither subtle nor profound. 
 We know of few works from which less is to be gained than 
 from those in which he has vindicated Common Sense — which 
 stood in no need of vindication. 
 
 It would carry us to great lengths if we were to examine all 
 the questionable tenets contained in the * Philosophy of Com- 
 mon Sense.' We cannot, however, pass the supposed triumph 
 over Locke, who said that personal identity consists in Con- 
 sciousness ; " that is," continues Reid, " if you are conscious 
 that you did such a thing a twelvemonth ago, this consciousness 
 of what is past can signify nothing else but the remembrance 
 that I did it ; so Locke's principle must be, that Identity con- 
 sists in remembrance ; and, consequently, a man must lose his 
 personal identity with regard to every thing he forgets." Here 
 Locke is altogether misstated. Consciousness does not resolve 
 itself into any single act of memory, as Reid would here have 
 us believe, nor can personal identity be limited to any one act. 
 I have the consciousness of a certain mental state, therewith is 
 connected the remembrance of some anterior state, which was 
 also connected with an anterior state, and so on. The chain 
 is made up of many links, and although some of these may be 
 out of sight, not one is broken. I am connected with my boy- 
 hood by a regular series of transmitted acts of consciousness. 
 I may have forgotten a thousand things, but I have not for- 
 gotten myself : if one act performed yesterday is forgotten to- 
 day, all are not forgotten ; and to remember one, however 
 
 * " I despise Philosophy, and renounce its guidance ; let my soul dwell 
 with Common Sense." ^Inquiry,' chap. i. \ 3.) Let it be observed in 
 passing, that by Reid's disciples the * Inquiry ' is always r -dad am his 
 great work ; the ' JRatays ' were written m old age. 
 
REID. 533 
 
 indistinctly, is sufficient to keep up the continuity of conscious- 
 ness. Let those who fancy the sentiment of personal identity 
 does not consist in the consciousness of personal identity, show 
 ns in what it does consist 
 
 We come now to Reid's great achievement, that upon which 
 he declared his philosophical fame to rest, the refutation of 
 Berkeley and Hume by the refutation of the Ideal theory. This 
 he considered as his contribution to philosophy ; this has been 
 made the monument of his glory. It appears to us, after a long 
 acquaintance with his writings, and a careful perusal of what 
 his critics and admirers have advanced, that his sole merit in 
 this respect is that of having called attention to some abuses of 
 language, and to some examples of metaphors being taken for 
 facts. How much confusion the word " idea " has always created, 
 since Aristotle used it, to the present day, need scarcely 
 be alluded to ; and any attempt to destroy the acceptation of 
 the word as tantamount to image, must be welcomed as salu- 
 tary. So far let us be grateful to Reid. Locke's use of the 
 word "idea "as signifying " a thought" instead of an " image," 
 has misled thousands. But whatever abuses may have crept in 
 with the use of idea, it seems to us quite clear that Berkeley 
 and Hume are not to be refuted by refuting the hypothesis of 
 ideas, as Reid and his school suppose. 
 
 Let us, to avoid useless discussion, take it for granted that 
 philosophers did adopt the theory of ideas which Reid com- 
 bats; let us also grant that Reid has overturned that theory. 
 What advance is made towards a solution of the problem ? Not 
 one step. The dilemma into which Hume threw Philosophy 
 remains the same as ever. 
 
 As I cannot transcend the sphere of my Consciousness, I can 
 never know things but as they act upon me — as they affect my 
 Consciousness. In other words, a knowledge of an external 
 world otherwise than as it appears to my Sense, which trans- 
 forms and distorts it, is impossible. 
 
 This proposition may be said to form the ground of 
 Scepticism. Now, we ask, how is that proposition affected by 
 overthrowing the ideal theory ? What does it signify whether 
 the " affections of my consciousness " be regarded as " images " 
 or not ? They do not remain less purely subjective, whichever 
 way we regard them. They are changes in me. Now the main 
 position of Scepticism is precisely this subjectivity of knowledge, 
 because we cannot transcend consciousness, we can never know 
 
y4 RSID. 
 
 things per se. Reid acknowledges that we cannot know things 
 per se; but he says that we must believe in them, because in 
 what we do know their existence is suggested. This is exactly 
 the opinion of Locke; nay more, it is the doctrine of Hume : 
 for he says that we do believe in an external world, though we 
 have no good reason for doing so. Sir J. Mackintosh relates 
 that he once observed to Dr. Thomas Brown that he thought 
 Reid and Hume differed more in words than opinion ; Brown 
 answered, "Yes, Reid bawled out we must believe in an 
 outward world ; but added in a whisper we can give no reason 
 for our belief. Hume cries out we can give no reason for such 
 a notion ; and whispers I own we cannot get rid of it." 
 
 A more acute man than Reid would at once have seen that 
 his refutation of the ideal theory left Idealism and Scepticism 
 untouched ; for either doctrine it matters little how the know- 
 ledge be acquired, so that it is entirely subjective.* The 
 argument brought forward by Dugald Stewart — that the belief 
 in the existence of an external world is one of the Fundamental 
 Laws of Human Belief — is far more philosophical ; but when 
 he says that Berkeley's Idealism was owing to the unhappy and 
 unphilosophical attempt of Descartes to prove the existence of 
 the world, he forgets that Idealism was known in the ancient 
 schools long before any one thought of proving the existence 
 of matter. Moreover, although Stewart's formula is not open 
 to the same objections as Reid's, yet it leaves the vital question 
 untouched. 
 
 No one doubts that we believe in the existence of an external 
 world. Idealism never questions the fact. The only doubt is 
 whether that belief be objectively as well as subjectively true. 
 To say that the belief in objective existence, is a Fundamental 
 Law, is simply saying that we are so constituted that we are 
 forced to attribute external reality to our sensations. As well 
 say we are so constituted that fire applied to our bodies will 
 give us pain. We are so constituted. What then? Have we 
 advanced one step ? Not one. We have still to seek some 
 proof of the laws of our constitution being the measure of the 
 laws of other existences — still to seek how what is true of the 
 subjective must necessarily be true of the objective. 
 
 Thus granting to Stewart all he claims, we see that he does 
 not attain to the heart of the question ; and, strictly speaking, 
 
 • In fact, Malebranche's Idealism, which is very similar to Berkeley's, u 
 founded on a theory of Perception almost identical with Reid's ! 
 
REM. 535 
 
 he does not touch Berkeley at all ; he only touches Hume. For 
 what answer can it be to Berkeley, to say that our Belief in 
 matter is a Fundamental Law not to be questioned ? Berkeley 
 would reply : " Exactly ; I said as much. I said that men 
 believed their senses, and believed that what they saw was out 
 of them. This is the law of human nature : God has so 
 ordained it. But that which men do not believe, is the existence 
 of an occult substance, a phantom-world lying underneath all 
 appearances. You do not mean to assert that the belief in this 
 substance is a Fundamental Law? If you do, you must be mad." 
 Stewart's answer is thus shown to be quite beside the mark. 
 
 Reid constantly declares that no reason can be given for oui 
 belief; it must be referred to an original instinctive principle of 
 our constitution implanted in us for that express purpose. If 
 this be so, we ask upon what pretence does Reid claim the 
 merit of having refuted Idealism and Scepticism by refuting the 
 ideal hypothesis ? If instinct and not reason is to settle the 
 question, then has the ideal hypothesis nothing to do with it ; 
 if the refutation of the ideal hypothesis sufficed, then has 
 instinct nothing to do with it. " To talk of Dr. Reid," says a 
 very able writer, " as if his writings had opposed a barrier to 
 the prevalence of sceptical philosophy, is an evident mistake. 
 Dr. Reid successfully retuted the principles by which Berkeley 
 and Hume endeavoured to establish their conclusions ; but the 
 conclusions themselves he himself adopted as the very premisses 
 from which he reasons. The impossibility of proving the 
 existence of a material world from ' reason, or experience, or 
 instruction, or habit, or any other principle hitherto known to 
 philosophers,' is the arg u.nent and the only argument by which 
 he endeavours to force upon us his theory ot instinctive prin- 
 ciples." * 
 
 It appears, then, that inasmuch as Reid declares instinct to be 
 the only principle upon which we can found our belief in an 
 external world, his argument against Berkeley is trebly vicious. 
 First, because the belief "was never questioned; secondly, because 
 although we must act according to our instincts, that is no sort 
 of proof that our beliefs are true ; thirdly, because if instinct and 
 not reason is to be the arbiter, the attack on the ideal hypothesis 
 is utterly beside the question. 
 
 Thus we see that granting to Reid the glory he claims ot 
 
 * 'Quarterly Review,' on Stewart's ■ Second Dissertation.' Having tha 
 paper bound up separately, we can give no more definite reference. 
 
536 RBW. 
 
 having destroyed the ideal hypothesis, he has only destroyed 
 an outpost, and fancies it to be the fortress. A few words on 
 his own theory of perception may not be out of place here. 
 
 He justly enough declared the ideal hypothesis to be gratui- 
 tous. We have no reason for supposing that the mind perceives 
 images of things instead of the things themselves. But he 
 overlooks, or rather denies, the fact that we perceive things 
 mediately ; he says we perceive them immediately. His expla- 
 nations are contradictory and confused, but he repeats the 
 assertion so often, that there can be no doubt he meant to say 
 we perceive things immedia ely : the mind stands face to face 
 with the thing, and perceives it immediately, without any 
 medium of ideas, images, eidola, or the like. In this we believe 
 him utterly in the wrong ; his battle against * ideas ' carried 
 him too far. It is one thing to say that we are affected by the 
 things, and not by images of things ; and another thing to say 
 that we perceive things immediately. The former is correct ; 
 the latter is in direct contradiction with all we know of percep- 
 tion, and Reid himself constantly contradicts himself on the 
 loint. 
 
 " When I attend," he says, " as carefully as I can, to what 
 passes in my mind, it appears evident that the very thing I saw 
 yesterday, and the fragrance I smelled, are now the immediate 
 
 objects of my mind when I remember it Upon the 
 
 strictest attention, memory appears to me to have the things 
 that are past, and not present ideas, for its objects." 
 
 This is his position against the ideal hypothesis which 
 assumes that nothing is perceived but what is in the mind which 
 perceives it ; that we do not really perceive things which are 
 external, but only certain images and pictures of them imprinted 
 on the mind. 
 
 Reid's position is untenable. The very thing, the rose, of 
 which he thinks, is not an immediate object at all : it is else- 
 where. The fragrance cannot even be recalled ; that is to say, 
 cannot be felt again in thought. All we can remember is the 
 fact of having been affected by the rose in a manner we call 
 fragrance ; we cannot recall the affection.* Reid could hardly 
 therefore have meant what his words literally express. Perhaps 
 he meant, that when I think of the rose and the fragrance, the 
 object of which I think is the rose, not an idea of the rose. 
 
 • See the remarks on Condillac's confusion of sensation and thought 
 
RBID. 537 
 
 But what a truism ! He says, that " in memory the things 
 that are past, and not present ideas are the objects of the mind." 
 This is either a needless truism or a falsism. Let us alter the 
 sentence thus — " in memory the things thought of are not them- 
 selves present to the mind, but the thoughts only are present to 
 it." Reid would not dispute this — could not dispute it : yet it 
 is only a more guarded statement of the ideal hypothesis ; it 
 substitutes " thoughts " for " ideas." He was misled by the 
 ambiguity of the word " object," which he uses as if meaning 
 simply what the mind is thinking of ; and of course the mind 
 thinks of the thing, and not of the idea. But the ideal hypo- 
 thesis takes " object " to be that which is immediately present to 
 — face to face with the mind — viz., an idea, or thought ; and of 
 course the mind thinks by its thoughts : it may think about the 
 things but it is through the medium of thought. 
 
 The difference is this. The Idealist says, that when things 
 affect us, our sensations are what we perceive, and not the 
 Things producing those sensations. Reid says, we feel our 
 sensations, but therewith also we perceive the things. The 
 Idealist further says, that when we think of things, the im- 
 mediate object face to face with the mind is not a thing but 
 an idea (thought). Reid says the object is the very thing : 
 which is either an absurdity or else does not differ from the 
 ideal hypothesis. 
 
 We are quite ready to admit that the pretended separation 
 of thoughts from thinking, and the making thoughts " objects,'' 
 is vicious; and therefore Reid's language is perhaps less objec- 
 tionable. But we must confess that we see no other advantage 
 he gains over his adversaries. He does not pretend that our 
 sensations are at all like their causes ; nay, he fancies that he 
 destroys the ideal hypothesis by insisting on the want of resem- 
 blance between matter and our sensations. He says, over and 
 over again, that the external world is in no respect like our sen- 
 sations of it. " Indeed, no man can conceive any sensation to 
 resemble any known quality of bodies. Nor can any man 
 show, by any good argument, that all our sensations might not 
 have been as they are, though no body, nor quality of body, 
 has ever existed " (Inquiry, ch. v. § 2). This granted, the 
 question arises, how do you know anything of the external 
 world ? Reid answers, " It is owing to an original instinct 
 implanted in us for that purpose." Push the question further, 
 drive him into a corner, and bid him tell vou what that instinct 
 
538 REID. 
 
 enables you to know of the matter, and he will answer, " In 
 sensation there is suggested to us a cause of that sensation in 
 the quality of a body capable of producing it." This is Locke's 
 view. 
 
 The great point in Reid's theory is, that with our sensations 
 are joined perceptions. " The senses have a double province," 
 he says ; " they furnish us with a variety of sensations, some 
 pleasant, others painful, and others indifferent ; at the same 
 time they give us a conception, and an invincible belief of the 
 existence of external objects. This conception and belief, which 
 Nature produces by means of the senses, we call perception"* 
 This, upon which so much stress is laid that, owing to ignor- 
 ance of it, philosophers are said to have been always in 
 error, we regard as a remarkable instance of Reid's want of 
 subtlety. Neither Berkeley nor Hume denied the fact of 
 our belief in the externality of the causes of sensations : 
 Berkeley denied that these causes had an occult substratum ; 
 Hume denied that any reason could be given for our belief in 
 their externality. What force then has " Perception ? " It is 
 nothing more than that " belief," according to Reid ; though to 
 call perception a belief is, to say the least, a somewhat inaccu- 
 rate use of language. But grant all he wishes, and you grant 
 that with our sensations there is an accompanying belief 
 in the existence of an external cause of those sensations. 
 Berkeley would answer, " Very true ; but that cause is not un- 
 thinking matter." Hume would answer, " Very true ; but we 
 can give no reason for our belief; we can know nothing of the 
 cause." Reid can only retort, " Perception is Belief." A posi- 
 tion which has been deemed satisfactory by his school ; which 
 really is only an abuse of language ; and which, moreover, has 
 the further disadvantage of being available only as an argument 
 against Hume, for against Berkeley it is powerless. If Percep- 
 tion is Belief, and we perceive an external world, Hume may be 
 answered when he says we have no grounds for our belief. But 
 Berkeley is not answered. He says that we do believe in an 
 external world ; but that world is not a world of unthinking 
 matter — it is a world of divine agency. Reid would not pre- 
 tend that in sensation or perception we can distinguish the 
 nature of the causes which affect us ;he constantly tells us tha 
 we cannot Know what those causes are, but only that there are 
 
 * « Essays on Intell. Powers,' ii, ch. 17. 
 
RBTD. 53$ 
 
 causes. As long as the noumenal world is removed from oui 
 inspection, so long must Berkeley remain unrefuted by any 
 theory of perception. The error of his system, as we en- 
 deavoured to show, is in the gratuitousness of his assumption 
 with respect to the immediate agency of the Deity. 
 
 Reid says, that if we grant Berkeley's premiss — viz., " we 
 can have no conception of any material thing which is not like 
 some sensation in our minds" — then are the conclusions of 
 Idealism and Scepticism unanswerable. This premiss, there- 
 fore, he disputes. Now attend to his challenge : — "This I 
 would therefore humbly propose, as an experimentum cruris, 
 by which the ideal system must stand or fall j and it brings the 
 matter to a short issue : Extension, figure, and motion may, 
 any one or all of them, be taken for the subject of this experi- 
 ment. Either they are ideas of sensation, or they are not. If 
 any one of them can be shown to be an idea of sensation, or to 
 have the least resemblance to any sensation, I lay my hand 
 upon my mouth and give up all pretence to reconcile reason to 
 common sense in this matter, and must suffer the ideal scepti- 
 cism to triumph " (Inquiry, ch. v. § 7). It was not till after re- 
 peated persuals that we caught the significance of this passage j 
 and are not quite positive that we have understood it now. To 
 admit it to have any force at all, we must understand " ideas of 
 sensation," as "images of sensation." Certainly, extension is 
 no copy of any one sensation. But if Reid means to say that 
 the feeling of extension is not the result of complex sensations 
 which a body excites in us — if he means to say that the idea of 
 extension is not an abstract idea by which we express a certain 
 property of bodies, a property known to us only through sensa- 
 tion — then must we cease all dispute, and leave him in pos- 
 session of his wonderful discovery. 
 
 Reid's theory of Perception may be thus stated. External 
 objects occasion certain sensations in us ; with these sensations 
 we perceive the existence of certain qualities capable of pro- 
 ducing them : these he distinguishes into primary and secon- 
 dary. The primary, he says, we perceive immediately: the 
 second, mediately. A curious ckample of his want or acuteness 
 in supposing that the primary qualities were perceived through 
 a different channel from the secondary. 
 
 And this is the theory by which, with the aid of an "original 
 instinct " (some instincts then are acquired ?), he is supposed to 
 have refuted Idealism ! Any one may see that Berkeley might 
 
540 RBID. 
 
 readily have relinquished his ideal hypothesis, and accepted 
 Reid's, with perfect security for Idealism. The " unknown 
 causes," which Reid calls "qualities," Berkeley calls "divine 
 laws." The difference is merely nominal. 
 
 Thus much with respect to Idealism. With respect to Hume . 
 the theory is almost as harmless. Hume would say, " all that 
 is given in sensation is sensation ; your * perception ' (which 
 you call belief) of qualities, amounts to nothing more than a 
 supposition — a necessary one, I admit ; but I have always said 
 that our belief in external causes of sensation was an irresistible 
 prejudice ; and my argument is, that we have nothing but the 
 prejudice as a proof — reason, we have none.' ; 
 
 Finally, with respect to Locke, it will in the first place be 
 seen that Reid's solution is neither more nor less than that 
 given by Locke ; in the second place, the boasted refutation of 
 the ideal hypothesis is always supposed by Reid's school to be 
 a refutation of Locke's view of the origin of Knowledge ; and 
 this is a very great mistake. Because Berkeley and Hume 
 pushed Locke's system to conclusions from which he wisely 
 shrank, it has been generally supposed that his account of the 
 origin of our Knowledge was indissolubly bound up with the 
 ideal hypothesis, by it to stand or fall. This probably is the 
 meaning of the vulgar error that Locke's view of Knowledge 
 leads to Atheism. It led to Hume. In disproof of this sup- 
 position we answer, firstly, Idealism is not indissolubly bound 
 up with the ideal hypothesis, although Berkeley may have 
 adopted that hypothesis ; secondly, Locke's system is altogether 
 independent of the hypothesis, and in his Review of the 
 doctrines of Malebranche he very distinctly and emphatically 
 denies it. The force of this observation will be better appre- 
 ciated when it is remembered that, although Locke's language 
 is notoriously unguarded and wavering, all his reasonings are 
 founded on the use of the word " ideas " as synonymous with 
 " notions " or " thoughts." 
 
 In conclusion, although we think it has been shown that the 
 Common-Sense Philosophy egregiously failed in answering 
 Berkeley and Hume, it was not without service by directing 
 the attention of mankind more exclusively to psychology. The 
 phrases so complacently used by Dugald Stewart to express the 
 nature of his inquiries, of "inductive metaphysics " and "expe- 
 rimental philosophy of the mind," are perhaps objectionable ; 
 but few will deny the value of his ' Elements,' and Brown's 
 
RSID. 541 
 
 ' Lectures,' works so popular as to need no further mention here. 
 The 'Analysis of the Mind,' by the late James Mill, which may 
 be regarded as the development of Hartley's doctrine, stripped 
 of its physical hypothesis, is less known ; but it is a work of far 
 higher value than those just named, and would long ago have 
 been as popular had it been written in a more engaging manner. 
 No one at all interested in these enquiries should omit studying 
 it; and as one recommendation, although dry, it is brief. 
 
 The philosophy of the Scotch School was a protest against 
 Scepticism. It failed ; but another protest was made in Ger- 
 many, and on Philosophical principles. That also failed, but 
 in another way; and the attempt was altogether more worthy 
 of Philosophy. The reader foresees that we allude to Kant 
 
LIFE OF KANT. 543 
 
 pally occupied his attention at first; and the success with 
 which he pursued these studies was soon made manifest in 
 various publications. He predicted the existence of the planet 
 Uranus ; and Herschel himself, after discovering it, admitted 
 Kant's having first announced it. 
 
 But none of these publications attracted much attention till 
 the renown of his ' Critique uf Pure Reason ' had made every- 
 thing produced by him a matter of interest Nor did the 
 * Critique' itself attract notice at first. The novelty of its 
 views, the repulsiveness of its terminology and style, for some 
 time obscured its real value. This value was at length dis- 
 covered and made known. All Germany rang with praises of 
 the new philosophy. Almost every " chair " was filled by a 
 Kantist. Endless books and some few pamphlets (a German 
 has seldom the courage to write a pamphlet : it is too small) 
 came rapidly from the press, and either attacked or defended 
 the principles of the Critical Philosophy. Kant had likened 
 himself to Copernicus. The disciples likened him both to 
 Copernicus and Newton. He had not only changed the whole 
 science of Metaphysics, as Copernicus had changed the science 
 of Astronomy, but had also consummated the science he had 
 originated. 
 
 The 'Critique' was, he tells us, the product of twelve 
 years' meditation. It was written in less than five months. 
 These two facts sufficiently explain the defects of its composi- 
 tion. In his long meditations he had elaborated his system, 
 divided and subdivided it, and completed its heavy and useless 
 terminology. In the rapidity of composition he had no time 
 for the graces of style, nor for that all-important clearness of 
 structure which (depending as it does upon the due gradation 
 of the parts, and upon the clearness with which the parts them- 
 selves are conceived) may be regarded as the great desideratum 
 of a philosophical style. 
 
 But in spite of its defects — defects which would have been 
 pardoned by no public but a German public — the ' Critique ' 
 became celebrated, and its author had to endure the penalty of 
 celebrity. He was pestered with numerous calls of curious 
 strangers, who would not leave Konigsberg without seeing him. 
 To the curious were added the admiring. Enthusiastic scholars 
 undertook long journeys to see their great master. Professor 
 Reuss one day walked into his study, saying brusquely that "he 
 had travelled one hundred and sixty miles to see and speak 
 
(£t$)tj) ©pork 
 
 RECURRENCE TO THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION RE- 
 SPECTING THE ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE — KANT'S 
 CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY, 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 LIFE OF KANT. 
 
 Immanuel Kant was bom at Konigsberg in Prussia, 22nd 
 April, 1724. His family was originally Scotch, a circumstance 
 which, when taken in conjunction with his philosophical con- 
 nexion with Hume, has some little interest. His father was a 
 saddler, a man of tried integrity. His mother was somewhat 
 severe, but upright, speaking the truth, and exacting it. Kant 
 was early bred in a love of truth, and had before him such 
 examples of moral worth as must materially have contributed 
 to form his own inflexible principles. 
 
 Madame de Stael has remarked that there is scarcely another 
 example, except among the Greeks, of a life so rigorously 
 philosophical as that of Kant. He lived to a great age, and 
 never once quitted the snows of murky Konigsberg. There he 
 passed a calm and happy existence, meditating, professing, and 
 writing. He had mastered all the sciences ; he had studied 
 languages, and cultivated literature. He lived and died a 
 type of the German professor : he rose, smoked, took his 
 coffee, wrote, lectured, took his daily walk always at precisely 
 the same hour. The cathedral clock, it was said, was not more 
 punctual in its movements than Immanuel Kant.* 
 
 He was early sent to the University. There he began and 
 there he ended his career. Mathematics and physics princi- 
 
 * He mention* having once been kept two or three days from his 
 promenade bv readme Rousseau's 'Emile,' which had just appeared. 
 
KANT'S HISTORICAL POSITION. 
 
 with Kant." The visits became so numerous, that in the latter 
 part of his life he contented himself with merely showing him- 
 self at the door of his study for a few minutes. 
 
 Kant never spoke of his own system, and from his house the 
 subject was entirely banished. He scarcely read any of the 
 attacks on his works : he had enough of Philosophy in his 
 study and lecture-room, and was glad to escape from it to the 
 topics of the day. 
 
 He died on the 12th February, 1804, in the eightieth year of 
 his age, retaining his powers almost to the last. He latterly, 
 during his illness, talked much of his approaching end. " I do 
 not fear death," he said, " for I know how to die. I assure 
 you that if I knew this night was to be my last, I would raise 
 my hands, and say ' God be praised ! ' The case would be 
 far different if I had ever caused the misery of any of his 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Kant's historical position. 
 
 There is a notion, somewhat widely spread through England, 
 that Kant was a " dreamer." He is regarded as a sort of 
 Mystic ; and the epithet " transcendental" expresses the superb 
 contempt which common sense feels for the vagaries of 
 philosophers. The " dreams of the Kantian philosophy," and 
 " transcendental nonsense," are phrases which, once popular, 
 now less so, are still occasionally to be met with in quarters 
 where one little expects to find them. 
 
 Now we are bound to say that, whatever the errors of 
 Kantism, " dreaminess " or " mysticism " are the last qualities 
 to be predicated of it. If its terminology render it somewhat 
 obscure and repulsive, directly the language is comprehended 
 all obscurity falls away, and a system of philosophy is revealed 
 which for rigour, clearness, and, above all, intelligibility, sur- 
 passes, by many degrees, systems hitherto considered easy 
 enough of comprehension. 
 
 Convinced that the system of Kant is plainly intelligible, 
 and finding that neither Kant himself nor the generality of his 
 expositors have succeeded in overcoming the repulsiveness of 
 
KANT'S HISTORICAL POSITION. 545 
 
 neologisms and a cumbrous terminology,* our task is plain. 
 It must obviously be to give an exposition of the system, as 
 far as possible, in ordinary philosophical language; and by 
 exhibiting the historical position which it occupies, connect it 
 with speculations already familiar to the English reader. 
 
 From Spinoza to Kant the great question had been this : — 
 Have we or have we not any Ideas which can be called necessarily, 
 absolutely true 1 A question which resolved itself into this : — 
 Have we or have we not any Ideas independent of Experience 1 
 
 The answer given by the majority of thinkers was, that we 
 had no ideas independent of Experience ; and Hume had 
 shown that Experience itself was utterly incompetent to assure 
 us of any truth not simply relative. 
 
 . Experience irresistibly led to Scepticism. The dilemma, 
 therefore, which we signalized in the First Crisis of modern 
 Philosophy again presented itself : Spinozism or Scepticism ? 
 The labours of so many thinkers had only brought the question 
 round to its starting-point ; but Spinozism was alarming — Scep- 
 ticism scarcely less so. Before submitting to be gored by either 
 horn of the dilemma, men looked about to see if there were no 
 escape possible. A temporary refuge was found by the Scotch 
 School in Common Sense, and by Kant in Criticism. 
 
 Kant called his system the Critical Philosophy. His object 
 was to examine into the nature of this Experience which led to 
 Scepticism. While men were agreed that Experience was the 
 source of all Knowledge, Kant asked himself, What is this 
 Experience ? — What are its Elements ? 
 
 The problem he set himself to solve was but a new aspect of 
 the problem of Locke's Essay, On this deep and intricate 
 question of human Knowledge two opposite parties had been 
 formed — the one declaring that all our Knowledge was given 
 in Experience, and all the materials were derived from Sensa- 
 tion, and Reflection upon those materials j the other declaring 
 
 * Since this was written we have read the work of Victor Cousin, 
 ' Lecons sur Kant/ vol. i. Paris, 1842. It is not only one of the best ex« 
 positions we have seen ; it is also the most intelligible. The chapter on 
 Kant in M. Barchou de Penhoen's useful work, 'Histoire de la Philos. 
 Allemande depuis Leibnitz jusqu'i Hegel,' 2 vols. Paris, 1836, may also 
 be read with advantage ; though incomplete it is intelligible. Readers of 
 German will do well to look at Chalybaus' ' Historische Entwickelung der 
 Speculativen Philos. von Kant bis Hegel,' Dresden, 1843. Michelet's 
 * Geschichte der letzten Systeme der Philos. in Deutschland von Kant bis 
 Hegel,' Berlin, 1837, is a learned and valuable work, but can be read only 
 by the initiated. 
 
 Ofi M 
 
546 KANT'S HISTORICAL POSITION. 
 
 that Sensation only furnished a portion of our Experience. This 
 second party maintained that there were Elements of Knowledge 
 which not only were never derived from Sensation, but which 
 absolutely transcended all sensation. Such, for instance, is the 
 idea of Substance. Experience only informs us of qualities : to 
 these qualities we add a substratum which we call Substance ; 
 and this idea of a substratum which we are compelled to add, 
 Locke himself confesses we never gained through any sensation 
 of matter.* Other ideas, such as Causality, Infinity, Eternity, 
 &c, are also independent of Experience : ergo, says this school, 
 antecedent to it ; ergo, innate. 
 
 In the course of inquiry the untenableness of the theory of 
 innate ideas had become apparent, Descartes himself, when 
 closely pressed by his adversaries, gave it up. Still the fact of* 
 our possessing ideas apparently not derivable from experience 
 remained, and this fact was to be explained : hence the doctrine 
 of Leibnitz, that although all Knowledge begins with Sensation, 
 it is not all derived front Sensation ; the mind furnishes its quota, 
 and what it furnishes has the character of universality, necessity, 
 consequently of truth, stamped on it. This doctrine, slightly 
 modified, becomes, in the hands of the Scotch, the doctrine of 
 M original instincts " — of " Fundamental Laws of Belief." 
 
 Kant also recognised the fact insisted on by the adversaries 
 of the Sensational School ; and this fact he set himself carefully 
 to examine. His first object was therefore a Criticism of the 
 operations of the mind. 
 
 On interrogating his Consciousness, Kant found that neither 
 of the two ordinary explanations would account for the pheno- 
 mena : the abstract Ideas we have, such as Time, Space, 
 Causality, &c, could not be resolved into Experience alone : 
 nor, on the other hand, although a priori, could they be sup- 
 posed absolutely independent of Experience, since they are, as it 
 were, only the forms (necessary conditions) of our Experience. 
 
 There are not two sources of Knowledge, said he ; on the one 
 side external Objects, and on the other Human understanding. 
 Knowledge has but one source, and that is the union of object 
 and subject Thus water is the union of oxygen and hydrogen ; 
 but you cannot say that water has two causes, oxygen and 
 hydrogen ; it has only one cause, viz., the union of the two. 
 J The whole world is to us a series of Phenomena. Are these 
 
 • Vide Epoch Third, chap, vii., of this Series, for Locke's explanation 
 of this. 
 
KANT'S HISTORICAL POSITION. 547 
 
 Appearances the production of the Mind to which they appear ; 
 or are they the pure presentation of the things themselves ? Ideal- 
 ism or Realism ? Neither ; yet both. The Mind and the object 
 co-operating produce the appearance or Perception. In their 
 union Perception is effectuated. 
 
 The Mind has certain materials furnished it, and on these 
 materials it imposes certain forms or conditions of its own. 
 These forms alone make perception possible, since they con- 
 stitute the modes of the mind's operation. If we had only 
 sensations — that is, supposing objects acted upon us, and we 
 did not also act upon them — the result would be no more than 
 that of the wind playing on the ^Eolian harp ; Experience 
 would be impossible. To make Experience possible, the mind 
 must grasp objects in a synthesis of the objects and the forms 
 or conditions of the perceptive power. 
 
 His criticism was directed against Locke on the one hand, 
 in establishing that we have ideas independent of Experience ; 
 and against Hume on the other, in establishing that these 
 ideas have a character of universality, necessity, and irresisti- 
 bility. But — and the point is important — his criticism proved 
 that these ideas, although universal, and certain, could not be 
 called absolutely true : they were only subjectively true. This 
 was falling back into Hume's position ; since although Hume 
 called belief in causality the effect of habit, and Kant called 
 it a law of the mind, yet both agreed in denying to it any 
 objective truth ; both agreed that a knowledge of things per se 
 was impossible. 
 
 We regard the result of Kant's investigation of the elements 
 of Thought as nothing less than a scientific basis for Scepticism. 
 He likens his philosophical reform to the reform introduced 
 into Astronomy by Copernicus. Finding the labours of men 
 unsatisfactory, Copernicus bethought him that perhaps success 
 might crown his efforts if he shifted his ground, if, instead of 
 assuming that the sun turned round the earth, he were to 
 assume that the earth turned round the sun. So Kant 
 says, that the ordinary assumption of our knowledge following 
 the order of external objects, seemed to him better if re- 
 versed, and if we were to assume that the objects obeyed the 
 laws of our mental constitution. And he calls his system 
 critical, because it is founded on an examination of our 
 cognitive faculties. Both the name and the comparison appear 
 to us erroneous. An examination of the cognitive faculties 
 
548 KANT'S HISTORICAL POSITION. 
 
 was, as we have often said, the great matter of philosophical 
 speculation since Spinoza; and although the examination of 
 Kant differed from every other in result, it in nowise differed 
 in method. Copernicus positively changed the point of view. 
 Kant did nothing of the kind : his attempt to deduce the laws 
 of the phenomenal world from the laws of mind, was little 
 more than the attempt of Descartes to deduce the world from 
 Consciousness ; and is the same as the attempts of Leibnitz 
 and Berkeley in method ; and the result is the result obtained 
 by Hume, viz., that we can know nothing but our own ideas, 
 we can never know things per se. Kant, after analysing the 
 operations of the mind, discovered indeed certain principles of 
 certitude ; but he admitted that those principles could not be 
 applied to things beyond the Mind ; and that all within the 
 sphere of our cognition was no more than phenomenal. He 
 reviews his investigation, and then declaring that he has gone 
 the round of the domain of human Understanding and mea- 
 sured it exactly, he is still forced to admit that that domain 
 is only an island. Nature has assigned to it invariable limits. 
 It is the empire of Truth ; but it is surrounded by a stormy 
 and illimitable sea, upon which we discover nothing but 
 illusions. There, on that sea, the navigator, deceived by masses 
 of ice which appear and disappear successively before him, 
 believing that at every moment he is about to discover land, 
 wanders without repose guided only by one hope ; he is the 
 plaything of the stormy waves, always forming new plans, 
 always preparing himself for new experiences, which he cannot 
 renounce, and yet which he can never obtain. 
 
 To the Sceptic Kant says, " No : experience is not a deceit ; 
 human Understanding has its fixed laws, and those laws are 
 true." 
 
 To the Dogmatist he says, " But this Understanding can 
 never know Things per se. It is occupied solely with its own 
 Ideas. It perceives only the Appearances of Things. How- 
 would it be possible to know Noumena ? By stripping them of 
 the forms which our Sensibility and Understanding have im- 
 pressed upon them (/.*., by making them cease to be Appear- 
 ances). But to strip them of these forms we must annihilate 
 Consciousness — we must substitute for our present Sensibility 
 and Understanding a faculty or faculties capable of perceiving 
 Things per se. This, it is obvious, we cannot do. Our only 
 means of communication with Objects are precisely this Sen- 
 
/CANT'S HISTORICAL POSITION. 549 
 
 sibility and this Understanding, which give to Objects the 
 forms under which we know them." 
 
 To the Dogmatist, therefore, Kant's reply is virtually the 
 same as Hume's. He proves that the Understanding, from the 
 very nature of its constitution, cannot know Things per se. 
 The question then arises, Have we any other Faculty capable 
 of knowing Things per se ? The answer is decisive, We have 
 no such Faculty. 
 
 The difference between Hume and Kant, when deeply con- 
 sidered, is this. Hume said that the Understanding was 
 treacherous, and, as such, it rendered Philosophy impossible. 
 Kant said that the Understanding was not treacherous but 
 limited ; it was to be trusted as far as it went, but it could not 
 go far enough ; it was so circumscribed that Philosophy was 
 impossible. 
 
 This difference, slight as it may appear, led to important 
 differences in the application of Kant's principles. The men- 
 dacity of Consciousness maintained by Hume led him to utter 
 Scepticism in Philosophy and in Religion, as subjects on which 
 reason could not pronounce. The veracity of Consciousness 
 (as far as it went) maintained by Kant, was a firm and certain 
 basis, though a limited one, on which to build Religion and 
 Morals, as we shall see hereafter. Kant's critics do not appear 
 to be aware of the consequences resulting from his exposition 
 of the veracity of the Understanding. Yet as the battle was 
 confessedly between him and Hume, it might have been sus- 
 pected that he would not have left the field entirely to his 
 antagonist. 
 
 The reader is, we trust, now prepared to follow with interest 
 the leading points of Kant's analysis of the mind. In giving 
 an indication of the result of that analysis, before giving the 
 analysis itself, we hope we have so far interested the reader 
 that he will read the analysis with sharpened attention ; seeing 
 whither dry details are leading, he will not deem them dry. 
 
 And first of the famous question : How are synthetic judg- 
 ments, a priori, possible 1 This is the nut Kant has to crack 
 with Hume. But first let us understand Kant's language. He 
 divides all our judgments into two classes, analytic and syn- 
 thetic. The analytic judgment is, as it were, but a writing out 
 of our experience. When we say that a triangle is a figure 
 with three sides, or that a body is extended, we are judging 
 analytically ; i.e. we are adding nothing to our conception of 
 
 L. 
 
55© KANT'S HISTORICAL POSITION. 
 
 body or triangle, we are only analysing it The synthetic 
 judgment, on the contrary, is when we predicate some attri- 
 bute of a thing, the conception of which does not involve that 
 attribute : such as that a straight line is the shortest road 
 between two points. 
 
 There are two classes of synthetic judgments : those d poste- 
 riori and those d priori. The former result from experience : 
 e.g., Gold is ductible. We must absolutely know that Gold is 
 ductible before we can predicate ductility of gold. But the 
 a priori judgments are independent of experience : e.g., 2 
 straight line is the shortest road between two points ; which 
 experience may confirm, but which is recognised as true inde- 
 pendent of experience ; above all, it has a character of uni - 
 versality which experience could not bestow ; for though 
 experience may show us how a straight line is in many instances 
 the shortest road between two points, it cannot prove that there 
 is absolutely no shorter road in any case. 
 
 Kant had to combat Hume on the question of Causality. 
 Hume declared that our experience of Cause and Effect was 
 simply and truly an experience of Antecedence and Sequence ; 
 and that our attributing a cause to any effect was a mere matter 
 of habit. 
 
 True, replied Kant, in the facts of antecedence and se- 
 quence, causation is not given ; but inasmuch as causation is 
 irresistibly believed in, the idea must have some source. If it 
 is not given in the things observed, then must we seek it in the 
 observer. So said Hume also ; but he found in the observer no 
 other source than mere habit. This is obviously not a sufficient 
 explanation, since upon it we ought to attribute causation to all 
 antecedence and sequence, that of Day and Night, for example. 
 
 In this fact of causation what have we ? We have first ante- 
 cedence and sequence ; we have next an attribute of causation 
 predicated of them. The first is given in our experience ; the 
 second is not given in our experience, but is independent of it. 
 This second is therefore an d priori synthetic judgment. By 
 means of such judgments we are not only able to say that one 
 thing is the cause of another, but also we are enabled to make 
 this wide generalization : Every Effect must have a Cause. 
 Here, as in the proposition of a straight line being the shortest 
 road between two points, we have an Idea not given in ex- 
 perience, and an idea, the universality of which, experience 
 could never verify. 
 
KANT'S HISTORICAL POSITION. 551 
 
 We are thus led to assert that the Mind does add something 
 to sense-experience ; and that what it adds is not only inde- 
 pendent of experience, but has the further character of certitude 
 and universality which experience can never claim. The cer- 
 tainty of experience is always limited , it never can have the 
 character of universality, however rich it may be, for after a 
 thousand years it may be proved erroneous. Thus it was 
 universally believed that all crows were black : a wide experience 
 had established it — yet white crows were found; and experience 
 was forced to acknowledge it had been in error. So with the 
 motion of the sun, once universally believed, because founded 
 upon experience. That which is to be held as irresistibly true, 
 which shall be universally and necessarily maintained by all 
 men, cannot have its origin in Experience, but in the constitu- 
 tion of the Mind. Hence the truth of Mathematics ; not, as is 
 so often said, because it is an abstraction of Forms and 
 Relations, but because it is founded on the necessary laws of 
 our mental constitution. 
 
 In these synthetic judgments, & priori, there is a ground of 
 certitude. The veracity of human reason reposes on that certi- 
 tude. Although therefore, says Kant, we can never know 
 whether our conceptions of things, per se, are adequate, we can 
 know what conceptions ail men must form of them ; although 
 we cannot know if our knowledge has any objective truth, we 
 can be certain of its subjective truth. 
 
 A principle of Certitude having been found, nothing further 
 was necessary for its confirmation than to ascertain in how far 
 this principle could be the basis of a science. Kant showed 
 that it formed the basis of all science. 
 
 People do not dispute, said he, respecting Mathematics or 
 Logic, or the higher branches of Physics ; and if they do dis- 
 pute, they end by agreeing. But in metaphysics disputes are 
 endless. Why is this ? 
 
 Simply because Logic, Mathematics, and the higher branches 
 of Physics are Sciences of Generalities ; they do not occupy 
 themselves with the variable and contingent, but with the in- 
 variable and universal properties. Logic is composed of rules 
 which are reducible to certain self-evident propositions. These 
 propositions, reduced to their principles, are nothing more than 
 the laws of the human mind. These laws are invariable be- 
 cause human nature is invariable. Mathematics is, in the same 
 way, the study of certain invariable properties, which do not 
 
55* KANT'S PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 exist in nature, but which are conceptions of the mind acting, 
 according to the laws of the mind, upon data furnished by 
 nature, abstraction being made of all that is variable and un- 
 certain in those data. E.g., the essential properties of an equi- 
 lateral triangle, abstraction being made of any body which is 
 triangular, and only the properties themselves being considered. 
 Here again, science reposes on the laws of the mind. 
 
 In physics, since the time of Galileo, men have seen that 
 they are judges, not the passive disciples, of nature. They pro- 
 pose an d priori problem ; and, to solve this problem, they in- 
 vestigate nature, they make experiments, and these experiments 
 are directed by reason. It is reason that they follow, even 
 when operating on nature ; it is the principles of that reason 
 which they seek in nature, and it is only in becoming rational 
 that physics become a science. Again we find science reposing 
 on the laws of the mind ! 
 
 Thus, the laws which form the basis of logic, mathematics, 
 and physics, are nothing less than the laws of the human mind. 
 It is, therefore, in the nature of the human mind, that the cer- 
 titude of all the sciences is to be found ; and the principles of 
 this certitude are universality and necessity. 
 
 Psychology thus becomes the groundwork of all philosophy ; 
 to Kant's psychology we now address ourselves. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 rant's psychology. 
 
 It has been shown that experience does not furnish the whole 
 of our knowledge ; 
 
 That what it does furnish has the character of contingency 
 and variability ; 
 
 That the mind also furnishes an element, and this element is 
 an inseparable condition of all knowledge, without it knowledge 
 could not be ; 
 
 That this element has the character of universality and 
 necessity ; 
 
 And that the principle of all certitude is precisely this univer- 
 sality and necessity. 
 
 It now remains for us to examine the nature of the mind, 
 
KANT'S PSYCHOLOGY. 553 
 
 and to trace the distinctive characters of each element of know- 
 ledge, the objective and the subjective. 
 
 Instead of saying, with the Sensational School, All our 
 Knowledge is derived from the Senses, Kant said, Half of 
 all our Knowledge is derived from the senses : and the half 
 which has another origin is indissolubly bound up with the 
 former half. Thus, instead of saying with the Cartesians, that, 
 besides the ideas acquired through the sense, we have also 
 certain ideas which are innate, and irrespective of sense; Kant 
 said all our ideas have a double origin : and this two-fold 
 co-operation of object and subject is indispensable to all 
 knowledge. 
 
 Let us clearly understand Kant's object. He calls his great 
 work the "Critique of the Pure Reason." What does that 
 mean ? It means an examination of the mind with a view to 
 detect its a priori principles. He calls these pure because they 
 are a priori, because they are above and beyond experience. 
 Having demonstrated that the mind has some pure principles — 
 has some ideas which were never given in experience, and 
 must therefore be d priori — he was led to inquire how many 
 the mind possessed. In his ' Critique,' therefore, we are 
 only to look for the exposition of a priori principles. He 
 does not trouble himself with investigating the nature of per- 
 ception ; he contents himself with the fact that we have sen- 
 sations, and with the fact that we have ideas whose origin is 
 not sensuous. 
 
 The non-ego and the ego, the objective world and the sub- 
 jective mind, being placed face to face, the two co-operate to 
 produce knowledge. We are, however, here only concerned 
 with the subject. What do we discover in it? First, a sensi- 
 bility — a power of being affected by objects; this is what Kant 
 calls the Receptivity of the mind: it is entirely passive. By it 
 the representations of objects (i.e., sensations) are received. 
 Secondly, an understanding ( Verstand) — a faculty of knowing 
 objects by means of the representations furnished by our sensi- 
 bility ; this is an active faculty ; in antithesis to sensibility, it is 
 a Spontaneity. 
 
 But our sensibility, although passive, has its laws or con- 
 ditions ; and, to discover these conditions, we must separate 
 in our sensations that which is diverse and multiple from that 
 which remains invariably the same. The objects are numerous 
 and various ; the subject remains invariable. Kant calls the 
 
554 KANT'S PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 multiple and diverse element by the name of material ; the 
 invariable element by the name of form. If, therefore, we 
 would discover the primary conditions of our sensibility, we 
 must discover the invariable elements in all sensations. 
 
 There are two invariable elements : Space and Time. They 
 are the forms of our sensibility. Space is the form of our 
 sensibility, as external ; time the form both as internal and 
 external. 
 
 Analyse sensations of external things as you will, you can 
 never divest them of the form of space. You cannot con- 
 ceive bodies without space ; but you can conceive space 
 without bodies. If all matter were annihilated, you must still 
 conceive space to exist. Space, therefore, is the indispensable 
 condition of sensation : the form of our external sensibility. 
 It is not given in the materials of sensation ; since you may 
 conceive the objects annihilated, but cannot conceive the 
 annihilation of space. Not being given in the material, it 
 must therefore constitute the form. 
 
 Similar reasoning proves that time is also the form of oui 
 sensibility, considered both as internal and external. We 
 cannot conceive things as existing, except as existing in time \ 
 but we can conceive time as existing, though all things were 
 annihilated. Things subjected to our sensibility are subjected 
 to it in succession ; that is the form of our sensibility. 
 
 Such, then, are the two indispensable conditions of all sen- 
 sation — the two forms with which we invest all the varied 
 materials presented to us. It is evident that these two ideas 
 of space and time cannot have been given in the materials, 
 consequently are not deducible from experience; ergo, they are 
 a priori, or, as Kant calls them, pure intuitions. 
 
 Having settled this point, he enters into his celebrated 
 examination of the question, Have space and time any objective 
 reality ? 
 
 We need not reproduce his arguments, which, however, may 
 be studied as fine dialectical exercises, but content ourselves 
 with giving the result. That result is easily foreseen : If space 
 and time are the forms of our sensibility, and are not given in 
 experience, not given in the materials presented, we may at 
 once assume that they have no existence out of our sensibility. 
 
 Having thus discovered the forms of sensibility, we must 
 interrogate the understanding to discover its forms. 
 
 The function of the understanding is to judge. It is emi- 
 
KANT'S PSYCHOLOGY. $SS 
 
 nently an active faculty ; and by it the perceptions furnished 
 through our sensibility are elevated into conceptions (Begriffe). 
 If we had only sensibility we should have sensations, but no 
 knowledge. It is to the understanding that we are indebted 
 for knowledge. And how are we indebted to it? Thus : — the 
 variety of our sensations is reduced to unity — they are linked 
 together and made to interpret each other by the understand- 
 ing. A sensation in itself can be nothing but a sensation ; 
 many sensations can be nothing but many sensations, they can 
 never alone constitute conceptions. But one sensation linked 
 to another by some connecting faculty — the diversity of many 
 sensations reduced to unity — the resemblances, existing amidst 
 the diversity, detected and united together — is the process of 
 forming a conception, and this is the process of the understand- 
 ing, by means of imagination, memory, and consciousness. 
 
 Our senses, in contact with the external world, are affected by 
 objects in a certain determinate manner. The result Kant calls 
 a representation ( Vorstellung) in reference to the object repre- 
 sented ; an intuition (Anschauung) in reference to the affection 
 itself. These intuitions are moulded by the understanding 
 into conceptions ; the sensation is converted into a thought. 
 
 The understanding is placed in a similar relation to sensi- 
 bility as sensibility stands to external things. It imposes 
 certain forms on the materials furnished it by sensibility, in 
 the same way as sensibility imposed the forms of space and 
 time upon objects presented to it. These forms of the under- 
 standing are the laws of its operation. 
 
 To discover these forms we must ask ourselves, What is the 
 function of the understanding ? — Judgment. How many classes 
 of judgments are there ? In other words, What are the in- 
 variable conditions of every possible judgment? — They are 
 four: quantity, quality, relation, modality. Under one of these 
 heads every judgment may be classed. 
 
 A subdivision of each of these classes follows : — I. In 
 judging of anything under the form of quantity, we judge of it 
 as unity or as plurality ; or, uniting these two, we judge of 
 it as totality. II. So of quality ; it may be reality, negation, 
 or limitation. III. Relation may be that of substance and 
 accident, cause and effect, or action and re-action. IV. 
 Modality may be that of possibility, existence, or necessity. 
 
 Such are Kant's famous Categories. Upon them we need 
 make no comment They are little better than those of 
 
55 6 KANT'S PSYCHOLOGY, 
 
 Aristotle, which we before declared to be useless.* It would 
 be tedious were we to venture further into the arcana of 
 Kantian logic on this subject: let us therefore content our- 
 selves with results. 
 
 In those Categories we find the pure forms of the under- 
 standing. They render thought possible; they are the in- 
 variable conditions of all conception ; they are the investitures 
 bestowed by the understanding on the materials furnished by 
 sense. 
 
 By the Categories, Kant declares he has answered the second 
 half of the question, How are synthetic judgments, a priori, 
 possible ? The synthetic judgments of the Categories are all 
 a priori. But we have not yet exhausted the faculties of the 
 mind. Sensibility has given us intuitions (perceptions), under- 
 standing has given us perceptions, but there is still another 
 faculty— the crowning faculty of reason ( Vernunft), the pure 
 forms of which we have to seek. 
 
 Understanding is defined the faculty of judging ( Vertnbgen 
 der Urthdle) ; reason is the faculty of ratiocination — of draw- 
 ing conclusions from given premises ( Vermogen der Schlusse). 
 Reason reduces the variety of conceptions to their utmost 
 unity. It proceeds from generality to generality till it reaches 
 the unconditional. Every conception must be reduced to some 
 general idea, that idea again reduced to some still more general 
 idea, and so on till we arrive at an ultimate and unconditional 
 principle, such as God. 
 
 Reason not only reduces particulars to a general, it also 
 deduces the particular from the general : thus, when I say 
 " Peter is mortal," I deduce this particular proposition from the 
 general proposition, " All men are mortal;" and this deduction 
 is evidently independent of experience, since Peter being now 
 alive, I can have no experience to the contrary. 
 
 These two processes of reducing a particular to some general, 
 and of deducing some particular from a general, constitute 
 ratiocination. 
 
 Reason has three pure forms ; or, as Kant calls them, 
 borrowing the term from Plato, ideas. These are wholly in- 
 dependent of experience ; they are above sensibility — above 
 the understanding ; their domain is reason, their function that 
 of giving unity and coherence to our conceptions. 
 
 * Compare p. 244 (Series I.). If a metaphysical refutation be needed, see 
 that by Sir W. Hamilton, in his paper on Cousin. — * Ed. Rev.,' Oct. 1829. 
 
CONSEQUENCES OF KANT* S PSYCHOLOGY, 557 
 
 The understanding can form certain general conceptions, 
 such as man, animal, tree; but these general conceptions them- 
 selves are subordinate to a still more general idea, embracing 
 all these general conceptions in the same way as the conception 
 of man embraces several particulars of bone, blood, muscle, 
 &c. This idea is that of the universe. 
 
 In the same way all the modifications of the thinking being 
 — all the sensations, thoughts, and passions— require to be 
 embraced in some general idea, as the ultimate ground and 
 possibility for these modifications, as the noumenon of these 
 phenomena. This idea is that of an ego — of a personality — of 
 a soul, in short. 
 
 Having thus reduced all the varieties of the ego to an un- 
 conditional unity, viz., soul, and having also reduced all the 
 varieties of the non-ego to an unconditional unity, viz., the 
 world, our task would seem completed; yet, on looking deeper, 
 we find that these two ideas presuppose a third — a unity still 
 higher, the source of both the world and of the ego — viz., God. 
 
 God, the soul, and the world are therefore the three ideas of 
 reason, the laws of its operation, the pure forms of its existence. 
 They are to it what space and time are to sensibility, and what 
 the categories are to understanding. 
 
 But these ideas are simply regulative: they operate on con- 
 ceptions as the understanding operates upon sensations ; they 
 are discursive, not intuitive ; they are never face to face with 
 their objects : hence reason is powerless when employed on 
 matters beyond the sphere of understanding; it can draw 
 nothing but false deceptive conclusions. If it attempts to 
 operate beyond its sphere — if it attempts to solve the question 
 raised respecting God and the world — it falls into endless con- 
 tradictions. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CONSEQUENCES OF KANT'S PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 We have given briefly the leading points in Kant's analysis of 
 the mind. We have now to trace the consequences of that 
 analysis. 
 
 The great question at issue was, Have we or have we not any 
 tdtas which are absolutely \ objectively true 1 Before this could be 
 
558 CONSEQUENCES OF KANT* S PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 answered it was necessary to answer this other question : — 
 Have we or have we not any ideas independent of experience t 
 Because if we had not such ideas, we could never pretend to 
 solve the first question : our experience could only be of that 
 which was relative, contingent, subjective ; and to solve the 
 question we must be in possession of absolute necessary 
 objective truth. 
 
 Kant answered the second question affirmatively. His 
 ' Critique ' was a laborious demonstration of the existence of 
 ideas not derived from experience, and in no way resolvable 
 into experience. But he answered the first question negatively. 
 He declared that our ideas were essentially subjective, and 
 could not therefore have objective truth. He did not deny the 
 existence of an external world, on the contrary he affirmed it, 
 but he denied that we can know it : he affirmed that it was 
 essentially unknowable. 
 
 The world existed — that is to say, the noumena of the 
 various phenomena which we perceive, exist. The world is not 
 known to us as it is flerje , but only as it is to us — as it is in our 
 knowledge of it. It appears to us ; only the appearance there- 
 fore can be known; it must ever remain unknown, because, 
 before being known, it must appear to us, i.e. come under the 
 conditions of our sensibility, and be invested with the forms of 
 space and time, and come under the conditions of our under- 
 standing, and be invested with the categorical forms. 
 
 Suppose object and subject face to face. Before the subject 
 can be affected by the object — that is to say, before a sensation 
 is possible — the object must be modified in the sensation by 
 the forms of our sensibility : here is one alteration. Then 
 before sensation can become thought, it must be subjected to 
 the categories of the understanding : here is another alteration. 
 
 Now to know the object per se — ue. divested of the modifi- 
 cations it undergoes in the subject — is obviously impossible ; 
 for it is the subject which knows, and the subject knows only 
 under the conditions which produce these modifications. 
 
 Knowledge, in its very constitution, implies a purely sub- 
 jective, ergo relative character. To attempt to transcend the 
 sphere of the subject is vain and hopeless ; nor is it wise to 
 deplore that we are " cabin'd, cribb'd, confined " within that 
 sphere from which we never can escape. As well might the 
 bird, when feeling the resistance of the air, wish that it were 
 in vacuo, thinking that there it might fly with perfect ease. 
 
CONSEQUENCES OF KAN7*S PSYCHOLOGY. 559 
 
 Let us therefore content ourselves with our own kingdom, 
 instead of crossing perilous seas in search of kingdoms inac- 
 cessible to man. Let us learn our weakness. 
 
 First Result. — A knowledge of things per se (Dinge an 
 SicK) is impossible, so long as knowledge remains composed as 
 at present ; consequently ontology, as a science, is impossible. 
 
 But, it may be asked, if we never knew noumena {Dinge an 
 Sich) y how do we know that they exist ? Their existence is a 
 necessary postulate. Although we can only know the appear- 
 ances of things, we are forced to conclude that the things exist. 
 Thus, in the case of a rainbow, we discover that it is only the 
 appearance of certain drops of water: these drops of water 
 again, although owing to us their shape, colour, &c, neverthe- 
 less exist. They do not exist as drops of water, because drops 
 of water are but phenomena ; but there is an unknown some- 
 thing which, when affecting our sensibility, appears as drops of 
 water. Of this unknown something we can affirm nothing, 
 except that it necessarily exists because it affects us. We are 
 conscious of being affected. We are conscious also that that 
 which affects us must be something different from ourselves. 
 This the law of causation reveais to us. 
 
 A phenomenon, inasmuch as it is an appearance, presup- 
 poses a noumenon — a thing which appears; but this noumenon, 
 which is a necessary postulate, is only negation to us. It can 
 never be positively known; it can only be known under the 
 conditions of sense and understanding, ergo as a phenomenon. 
 
 Second Result. — The existence of an external world is a 
 necessary postulate, but its existence is only logically affirmed. 
 
 From the foregoing it appears that we are unable to know 
 anything respecting things per se ; consequently we can never 
 predicate of our knowledge that it has objective truth. 
 
 But our knowledge being purely subjective and relative, can 
 we have no certainty ? — are we to embrace scepticism ? No. 
 
 Third Result. — Our knowledge, though relative, is certain. 
 We have ideas independent of experience; and these ideas 
 have the character of universality and necessity. Although we 
 are not entitled to conclude that our subjective knowledge 
 is completely true, as an expression of the objective fact, 
 yet we are forced to conclude that within its own sphere it is 
 true. 
 
 Fourth Result. — The veracity of consciousness is estab- 
 lished. 
 
56o CONSEQUENCES OF KANT'S PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 FrFTH Result. — With the veracity of consciousness is estab- 
 lished the certainty of morals. 
 
 It is here we see the amazing importance of Kant's analysis 
 of the mind. Those who reproach him with having ended, 
 like Hume, in scepticism, can only have attended to his 
 * Critique of the Pure Reason,' which certainly does, as we said 
 before, furnish a scientific basis for scepticism. It proves that 
 our knowledge is relative; and that we cannot assume that 
 things external to us are as we conceive them : in a word, that 
 ontology is impossible. 
 
 So far Kant goes with Hume. This is the goal they both 
 attain. This is the limit they agree to set to the powers of the 
 mind. But the different views they took of the nature of mind 
 led to the difference we before noted respecting the certainty 
 of knowledge. Kant having shown that consciousness, as far 
 as it extended, was veracious ; and having shown that in con- 
 sciousness certain elements were given which were not derived 
 from experience, but which were necessarily true ; it followed 
 that whatever was found in consciousness independent of ex- 
 perience was to be trusted without dispute. 
 
 See the consequences. If in consciousness I find the ideas 
 of God, the world, and virtue, I cannot escape believing in 
 God, the world, and virtue. This belief of mine is, I admit, 
 practical, not theoretical ; it is founded on a certainty, not on a 
 demonstration; it is an ultimate fact, from which I cannot 
 escape — it is not a conclusion deduced by reason. 
 
 The attempt to demonstrate the existence of God is an 
 impossible attempt. Reason is utterly incompetent to the task. 
 To attempt to penetrate the essence of things — to know things 
 per se — to know noumena — is also an impossible attempt. 
 And yet that God exists, that the world exists, are irresistible 
 convictions. 
 
 There is another certitude, therefore, besides that derived 
 from demonstration — and this is moral certitude, which is 
 grounded upon belief. I cannot say, " It is morally certain that 
 God exists," but I must say, " I am morally certain that God 
 exists." 
 
 Here then is the basis for a ' Critique of the Practical 
 Reason ;' an investigation into the reason, no longer as purely 
 theoretical, but as practical. Man is a being who acts as well 
 as knows. This activity must have some principle, and that 
 principle is freedom of will. 
 
CONSEQUENCES OF KANTS PSYCHOLOGY. 561 
 
 As in the theoretical part of Kant's system we saw the super- 
 sensual and unconditional presupposed (under the name of 
 things per se), but not susceptible of being known or specified ; 
 so in this practical part of the system we find the principle of 
 freedom altogether abstract and indeterminate. It realises 
 itself in acts. 
 
 In the very constitution of his conscience man discovers 
 the existence of certain rules which he is imperatively forced to 
 impose upon his actions ; in the same way as he is forced by 
 the constitution of his reason to impose certain laws upon the 
 materials furnished him from without. These moral laws have 
 likewise the character of universality and necessity. The idea 
 of virtue never could be acquired in experience, since all we 
 know of virtuous actions falls short of this ideal which we are 
 compelled to uphold as a type. The inalterable idea of justice 
 is likewise found, d priori, in the conscience of men. This 
 indeed has been denied by some philosophers ; but all d priori 
 truths have been denied by them. They cite the cruel customs 
 of some savage races as proofs that the idea of justice is not 
 universal.* Thus, some tribes are known to kill their old men 
 when grown too feeble ; and they test their strength by making 
 these old men hold on to a branch of a tree, which is violently 
 shaken, and those that fall are pronounced too weak to live. 
 But even here, in spite of the atrocity, we see the fundamental 
 ideas of justice. Why should they not abandon these aged 
 men to all the horrors of famine and disease? and why put 
 them to a test ? Look where you will, the varied customs of 
 the various nations peopling the earth will show you different 
 notions of what is just and what is unjust; but the d priori 
 idea of justice — the moral law from which no conscience can 
 be free — that you will find omnipresent. 
 
 We regret that our space will not permit us to enter further 
 into Kant's system of morality, and his splendid vindication of 
 the great idea of duty. But enough has been said to show the 
 dependence of his Critique of the Practical Reason upon the 
 principles of his Critique of the Pure Reason. 
 
 * Locke. 
 
 N X 
 
tfii KANFS fundamental principles. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 EXAMINATION OF KANT'S FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES. 
 
 Kant's system presents three important points for our con- 
 sideration : — 
 
 I. It assigns a limit to the powers of reason, and clearly 
 marks out the domain of scientific inquiry. Jn this it is scep- 
 tical, and furnishes scepticism with terrible weapons. 
 
 II. It proclaims that knowledge has another origin besides 
 experience ; and that the ideas thus acquired are necessarily 
 true. In this the veracity of consciousness is established, and 
 scepticism is defeated. 
 
 III. It founds upon this veracity of consciousness a system 
 of morals ; the belief in a future state, and in the existence of 
 God. 
 
 In the course of our exposition we abstained from criticism ; 
 certain that it would lead us far beyond our limits ; certain also 
 that all minor details might be set aside, and the fundamental 
 principles alone be considered. The three points above men- 
 tioned will, if closely examined, be found to present only one 
 calling for discussion here, and that one is the second. 
 
 For the admission contained in the first — viz., that we are 
 unable to know things in themselves — gives up philosophy as a 
 matter beyond the reach of human intelligence. Scepticism is 
 made the only result of legitimate speculation. But against 
 such a conclusion we are practically guarded by the demon- 
 stration of our having ideas independent of experience. This 
 is the second point. Were this second point to fall to the 
 ground, nothing but scepticism could remain. With the second 
 point must stand or fall the third. 
 
 The second point, thereiore, becomes the central and vital 
 joint ot Kant's system, that must engage our whole attention. 
 All such subsidiary criticism, as is current in Germany and 
 France, respecting the impossibility of separating the objective 
 from the subjective elements of a knowledge which is con- 
 fessedly both subject and object in one, may be safely set aside. 
 Let the possibility be granted j the vital question is not con- 
 nected with it. The same may be said of the illogicality of 
 Kant's assuming for the practical reason that which he denies 
 to the pure reason. The vital point in his system is, we repeat, 
 
KANT'S FUNDAMENTAL. PRINCIPLES. 563 
 
 the question as to whether we have ideas independent of ex- 
 perience. This is all-important. 
 
 And what gives it its importance ? The conviction that if 
 we are sent into this world with certain connate principles of 
 truth, those principles cannot be false ; that if, for example, the 
 principle of causality is one which is antecedent to all experi- 
 ence, and is inseparable from the mind, we are forced to pro- 
 nounce it an ultimate truth. 
 
 Now to the question. As Kant confessedly was led to his 
 own system by the speculations of Hume on causation, and as 
 that is the most important of all the d priori ideas with which 
 the mind is supposed to be furnished, we will content ourselves 
 with examining it. If that be found dependent on experi- 
 ence, all the a priori ideas must be likewise given up. This is 
 the nut we have to crack ; its kernel is the kernel of the whole 
 question. And first of necessary truths, as Dr. Whewell calls 
 & priori ideas. 
 
 That two straight lines can never meet is a Necessary Truth. 
 That is to say, it necessarily follows from the definition of a 
 straight line. To call it, however, an a priori truth, a truth 
 independent of experience, seems to us an example of very im- 
 perfect analysis of the mind's operations. An attempt is made 
 to prove that it could never have been gained through experi- 
 ence, because it commands universal assent, and because Ex- 
 perience itself could never give it necessity. Dr. Whewell's 
 argument is, that let us follow two straight lines out as far as 
 we can, we are still unable to follow them to infinity ; and, for 
 all our experience can tell us, these lines may possibly begin to 
 approach immediately beyond the farthest point to which we 
 have followed them, and so finally meet. Now what ground 
 have we for believing that this possibility is not the fact ? In 
 other words, how do we know the axiom to be absolutely true ? 
 Clearly not from experience. 
 
 We answer, Yes ; clearly from experience. For our experi- 
 ence of two par allel lines is precisely this : they cannot enclose 
 space. Dr. Whewell says that, for all our experience can tell 
 us to the contrary, the lines may possibly begin to approach 
 each other at some distant point, and he would correct this im- 
 perfect experience by d priori truth. The case is precisely the 
 reverse. The tendency of the mind unquestionably is to fancy 
 that the two lines will meet at some point; it is expcrimu 
 which corrects this tendency. There are many analogies in 
 
564 KANT'S FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES. 
 
 nature to suggest the meeting of the two lines. It is only our 
 reflective experience which can furnish us with the proof which 
 Dr. Whewell so triumphantly refers to ideas independent of all 
 experience. What proof have we that two parallel lines cannot 
 enclose space ? Why this : as soon as they assume the property 
 of enclosing space they lose the property of straightness : they are 
 no longer straight lines but bent lines. In carrying out imagina- 
 tively the two straight lines into infinity, we have a tendency 
 to make them approach ; we can only correct this by a recur- 
 rence to our experience of straight lines : we must call up a dis- 
 tinct image of a straight line, and then we see that it cannot 
 enclose space. 
 
 " Necessary truths," says Dr. Whewell, " are those in which 
 we not only learn that the proposition is true, but see that it 
 must be true ; in which the negation is not only false but im- 
 possible ; in which we cannot even by an effort of the imagi- 
 nation, or in a supposition, conceive the reverse of that which is 
 asserted. That there are such truths cannot be doubted. We 
 may take, for example, all relations of Number. Three and 
 two make five. We cannot conceive it otherwise. We cannot 
 by any freak of thought imagine Three and Two to make 
 Seven." 
 
 That Dr. Whewell cannot by any freak of thought now ima- 
 gine three and two to make seven, is very likely ; but that h< 
 could never imagine this, is untrue. If he had been asked the 
 question before he had learned to reckon, he would have ima- 
 gined seven quite as easily as five : that is to say, he would 
 not have known the relation of three and two. Children have 
 no intuitions of numbers : they learn them as they learn other 
 things. " The Apples and the Marbles," says Herschell, " are 
 put in requisition, and through the multitude of ginger-bread- 
 nuts their ideas acquire clearness, precision, and generality." 
 But though, from its simplicity, the calculation of three added 
 to two is with a grown man an instantaneous act ; yet if you 
 ask him suddenly how many are twice 365, he cannot answer 
 till he has reckoned. He might certainly by a very easy " freak 
 of thought" (i.e., by an erroneous calculation) imagine the total 
 sum to be 720; and although when he repeats his calculation, 
 he may discover the error, and declare 730 to be the sum total, 
 and say, " it is a Necessary Truth that 365 added to 365 make 
 730," we should not in the least dispute the necessity of the 
 truth, but presume that he himself would not dispute that he 
 
KAN7*S FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES. 565 
 
 had arrived at it through Experience, viz., through his know- 
 ledge of the relations of numbers, a knowledge which he re- 
 members to have laboriously acquired when a boy at school. 
 
 The foregoing remarks having, we trust, established that the 
 Truths of Geometry and Arithmetic, which form one class of 
 the so-called Necessary Truths, are not obtained d priori, inde- 
 pendently of Experience, we pass on to the other class, which 
 we would call Truths of Generalization. 
 
 Our example shall be that chosen by Kant : " Every effect 
 must have a cause." This is not a mere writing out of our con- 
 ceptions : it is not a mere explanation, in different terms, of 
 what we mean. It is a wide generalization. Experience can 
 only be Experience of individual causes and effects ; and 
 although in our conception of an effect is certainly involved the 
 conception of a cause, and in so far the judgment may be sup- 
 posed an analytic judgment, yet if we look closer the ambiguity 
 will disappear. The word effect implies as a correlative the 
 word cause. But the Thing we see before us does not imply the 
 existence of some other Thing which caused it; and our judg- 
 ment that it must have had an antecedent cause is purely syn- 
 thetic. 
 
 When we assert that every effect must have a cause, we assert 
 that which no Experience can have warranted. Is the idea, 
 therefore, acquired through some other channel ? No ; and 
 the upholders of the doctrines of Innate Ideas, Fundamental 
 Laws of Belief, Categories of the Understanding, and Neces- 
 sary Truths, appear to us to labour under a confusion of 
 thought, which a very little well-directed analysis might have 
 cleared up. The confusion is this. Our Experience is ob- 
 viously incapable of guaranteeing the truth of any universal and 
 necessary idea. But to assume therefore that the idea is in- 
 dependent of Experience, is to forget that what experience may 
 not guarantee it may suggest ; and the boasted universality and 
 necessity of our ideas is nothing more nor less than the sug- 
 gestions of the understanding, operating in obedience to a law 
 of human nature, and generalizing from particulars, converting 
 them into universals. We will presently explain this more 
 fully ; let us now hear Dr. Whewell, whose explanation will be 
 admitted by every Kantist. 
 
 " That this idea of cause is not derived from Experience, we 
 prove (as in former cases) by this consideration : that we can 
 make assertions, involving this idea, which are rigorously neces- 
 
566 KANTS FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES. 
 
 «ary and universal ; whereas knowledge derived from experi- 
 ence can only be true as far as experience goes, and can never 
 contain in itself any evidence whatever of its necessity. We 
 assert that " every Event must have a Cause : " and this pro- 
 position we know to be true, not only probably and generally 
 and as far as we can see : but we cannot suppose it to be false 
 in any single instance. We are as certain of it as we are of the 
 truths of arithmetic and geometry. We cannot doubt that it 
 must apply to all events, past, present, and to come, in every 
 part of the universe, just as truly as to those occurrences which 
 we have ourselves observed. What causes produce what 
 effects j — what is the cause of any particular event ; what will 
 be the effect of any peculiar process ; these are points on which 
 experience may enlighten us. But that every event must have 
 some cause, Experience cannot prove any more than she can 
 disprove. She can add nothing to the evidence of the truth, 
 however often she may exemplify it. This doctrine then can- 
 not have been acquired by her teaching : and the Idea of Cause 
 which the doctrine involves and on which it depends, cannot 
 have come into our minds from the region of observation." * 
 
 There is one minor point in this argument which we must 
 notice first. Dr. Whewell says that the proposition " every 
 event must have a cause," cannot possibly be false in any one 
 instance. We think there is one, which he himself would 
 admit : but to make it clear we must substitute an equivalent 
 for " event." The abstract formula of causation is this : " Every 
 existence presupposes some Cause of its existence : Ex nihilo 
 nihil fit." And this formula is employed against the Atheists, 
 to prove that the World could not have made itself out of 
 Nothing, ergo it must have a Cause. Now the obvious answer 
 has often been given : viz., that Cause itself must have had a 
 Cause, and so on ad infinitum. Nevertheless as reason re- 
 pugns such an argument ; and as it declares that somewhere the 
 chain of causes and effects must stop, in that very declaration 
 it falsifies the formula of Causation, "Every existence must 
 have a cause." 
 
 Let not this be thought quibbling ; it is only an exposure of 
 the weakness of the theory of causation. If that theory be cor- 
 rect — if Causality is a Necessary Truth, objectively as well as 
 subjectively, the argument against Atheism falls to the ground. 
 
 * ' Philos. Ind..' &c, vol. i. p. 159. 
 
KANT'S FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES. 567 
 
 For, would the Atheist argue, this is the dilemma, either the 
 chain of causes and effects must be extended to infinity ; or 
 you must stop somewhere and declare that the ultimate Exist- 
 ence has no cause. In the first case you fall into unlimited 
 scepticism ; in the second you fall into Atheism, because the 
 World is an Existence of which we are assured : why, then, is 
 not it the ultimate Existence ? You have no right to assume 
 any prior cause ; if you must stop somewhere it is more rational 
 to stop there. 
 
 This dilemma admits of but one escape-hole : that is in the 
 denial of Causality being anything more than a psychological 
 law. Curiously enough the only loophole is in the doctrine 
 maintained by David Hume — a doctrine for so many years sup- 
 posed to be the inlet of theological scepticism ! There is, ill 
 truth, no necessity in causation, except the necessity of oui 
 belief in it. 
 
 The nature of this belief we will now examine ; and we shall 
 find that it is founded entirely on experience — that it is, indeed, 
 nothing more than our experience generalized. 
 
 To prove this we will begin with a single case of causation. 
 A child burns his finger in the candle ; he then believes that a 
 candle will always burn his fingers. Now we are asked how it 
 is that the child is led to believe that the candle will always 
 burn his finger? And the answer usually afforded is, that he 
 is irresistibly led to believe in the uniformity of nature; in 
 other words, the idea of causality is a. fundamental idea. 
 
 We answer, the child believes the candle will burn, because 
 the experience he has of a candle is precisely this experience of 
 its burning properties. Before he had burnt his finger, his 
 experience of a candle was simply of a bright thing which set 
 paper, &c, alight. Having now extended his experiefice, the 
 candle is to him a bright thing which sets paper, &c, alight, 
 and which causes pain to the finger when placed in contact 
 with it.* 
 
 According to the well-known law of association, the flame of 
 a candle and pain to the finger applied to it are united, and 
 form one experience. This particular act of causation is there- 
 fore nothing but a simple experience to the child ; and for the 
 perfection of this experience it is in nowise needful to assume 
 that the child has any belief in the " connexion of events," or 
 
 • See pp. 517-8, where the argument is stated more fully. 
 
568 KANTS FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES. 
 
 in the " uniformity of the laws of Nature." No fundamental 
 idea is necessary for the particular belief.* Is it then, neces- 
 sary for the belief in the general proposition — " Every effect 
 must have a cause? " 
 
 We think not. In every particular act of causation our 
 belief will be the simple result of experience. For the belief in 
 the general proposition there is no other ground than that of 
 reason, which, generalizing the particular acts, from them de- 
 duces the universal proposition. 
 
 Thus, belief in particular laws of causation is no more than 
 belief in our experience ; and if we are asked why we believe that 
 our future experience will resemble the past, we answer, because 
 we have no other possible belief of things than that which is 
 formed by experience : we cannot possibly believe the candle 
 as not burning us in future, because our experience of a candle 
 has been that it does burn, and our beliefs cannot transcend the 
 experience which made them. 
 
 As to the belief in universal causation, we may prove in 
 various ways that it is the result of a mere act of generalization ; 
 and this very act itself is strictly limited by experience : that is 
 to say, we are led by the laws of our mind to judge of the un- 
 known according to the known. Thus, having found every 
 event which has come under our cognizance produced by some- 
 thing prior, i.e., cause, we conclude that every possible event 
 must have a cause. We judge of the unknown by the known. 
 Familiar illustrations of this generalizing tendency are those 
 rash judgments formed of nations and of classes, and formed on 
 the experience of a single fact. Thus we heard it gravely 
 asserted that " all French babies had long noses." What did 
 this reduce itself to ? To this : the person asserting it had seen 
 a French baby, and it had a long nose. Now the only con- 
 ception of a French baby in this person's mind was that of a 
 baby with a long nose. That was the type according to which 
 the unseen, unknown babies were judged. Not being a very 
 reflective person, he could not divest himself of his conception, 
 and he could not believe that his conception was not true of 
 all French babies. Had he never seen other French babies, he 
 
 * This is denied by the thinkers whom we are now combating. They 
 assume that the Fundamental Idea is necessary; but this is a mere 
 assumption made for the purpose of saving their theory, an assumption of 
 the very point at issue. We will presently expose the fallacy of Funda- 
 mental Ideas. 
 
KANTS FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES. 569 
 
 would have died in the belief that they all had long noses ; un- 
 less some better-informed person had corrected this conception 
 by his larger experience. So if we had only the experience of 
 one fact of causation, we should always believe in that fact — 
 we should always believe that all candles would burn. To 
 make many similar experiences of the conjunction of cause and 
 effect, is not only to have many beliefs in particular acts of 
 causation, it is also to collect materials for a wide generalization, 
 and from these known conjunctions to pronounce that formula 
 of universal conjunction applied to unknown and yet unborn 
 events. 
 
 This latter process, however, is performed by few. All 
 believe irresistibly in particular acts of causation. Few believe 
 in universal causation ; and those few not till after considerable 
 reflection. Philosophers, indeed, assure us that this belief is 
 universal ; that it is an instinct ; a law of the mind ; a Funda- 
 mental Idea. But philosophers are too apt to argue without 
 reference to the facts : like the Frenchman, whose system being 
 reproached as contrary to facts, replied, " So much the worse 
 for the facts — tant pis pour Us /aits /" If philosophers would 
 take the trouble to inquire amongst intelligent people they 
 would find that, so far from the belief in question being 
 instinctive and irresistible, the greater proportion have no 
 consciousness at all of such an instinct — the belief never having 
 once presented itself to their minds — the proposition requiring 
 a great deal of explanation and argument before it could be 
 received ; and amongst those persons many would absolutely 
 refuse to admit the truth of the proposition. Those who live 
 only amongst philosophers will doubt this. We can, however, 
 declare that it has more than once come within our experience. 
 We have argued even with an intelligent student of chemistry, 
 whom we found it impossible to convince that the law, " Every 
 event having some cause," was universal. He not only could 
 conceive it to be otherwise in the moon ; but looked upon our 
 argument as an unwarrantable assumption. The mystery of 
 this was, that he had never read any metaphysics. So much 
 for the instinct ; so much for the irresistibility ! Here is an 
 instinctive belief, which, unlike all other instinctive beliefs, 
 never presents itself to our consciousness ; and when presented, 
 is with the utmost difficulty accepted ; and accepted only by 
 some. Compare this with any other instinctive belief — that in 
 the existence of our external world, for instance — and see what 
 
57© KANT'S FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES. 
 
 characters the two have in common. Ask a boor if he believes 
 in the existence of the world, and he will deem you mad that 
 you ask him. Ask an ordinary man if he believe that every 
 effect must have a cause ; and the chances are that he will tell 
 you that he does not know ; he will ask you to explain why it 
 must. 
 
 Nay, to leave ordinary men, and to confine ourselves to 
 philosophers, amongst them we shall find that, with respect to 
 one class of phenomena, more than one-half of the thinking 
 world is firmly convinced that every effect does not imply a 
 cause : the class of phenomena referred to are those of human 
 volitions. All those who espouse the doctrine of Freedom of 
 the Will declare that all our volitions are self-caused — that is to 
 say, our volitions are not caused by anything external to them- 
 selves, not determined by any prior fact. 
 
 If, then, speculative men can be led to believe that one large 
 class of phenomena is not amenable to the law of cause and 
 effect, what becomes of the universality of causation ? And, if 
 speculative men can conceive the laws of cause and effect to 
 be absent from some phenomena, and ordinary men do not 
 conceive these laws to be universally applicable, what becomes 
 of the necessity ? And, if the mass of mankind require a con- 
 siderable quantity of argument and explanation to make them 
 understand the proposition, what becomes of the instinctive 
 belief? 
 
 We promised to expose the fallacy of " Fundamental Ideas," 
 and have now arrived at a stage of the inquiry in which this 
 may be briefly performed. It is argued that a belief in a parti- 
 cular act of causation is only possible on the assumption of a 
 fundamental idea of causality inherent in the mind • that, 
 although a child may never have had the formula, " Every effect 
 must have a Cause," presented to his mind, nevertheless this 
 formula is implicitly in his mind, otherwise he would have no 
 reason for believing in the particular act ; it must exist as a 
 fundamental idea. 
 
 We might as rationally argue that a child cannot have an 
 idea of a man without previously having a fundamental idea of 
 humanity. 
 
 The fallacy lies in this : the fundamental idea of causality is 
 a generalization. Now, of course, the general includes the par- 
 ticulars ; but though it includes, yet it does noX precede them, and 
 the error is in supposing that it must and does precede them. 
 
KANT'S FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES. 571 
 
 A boy, as Locke says, knows that his whole body is larger 
 than his finger; but he knows this from his perceptions of the 
 two, not from any knowledge of the axiom that the " whole is 
 greater than a part." Dr. Whewell would say that he could 
 not have such knowledge unless he had the fundamental idea ; 
 whereas, we side with Locke in asserting that the mind never 
 begins with generalities, but ends with them ; and, to say that 
 because the general axiom implies the particular instance, or 
 that the particular instance implies the general axiom, that 
 therefore the axiom is independent of Experience, is to cheat 
 one's-self with words. 
 
 The results of our argument are : I. The belief in causation 
 is belief founded upon the experience of particular acts of 
 causation. 
 
 II. The irresistible tendency we have to anticipate that the 
 future course of events will resemble the past, is simply that we 
 have experience only of the past, and, as we cannot transcend 
 our experience, we cannot conceive things really existing other- 
 wise than as we have known them. From this we draw a con- 
 clusion strikingly at variance with the doctrine maintained 
 by Kant and Dr. Whewell. We say that the very fact of our 
 being compelled to judge of the unknown by the known — of 
 our irresistibly anticipating that the future course of events will 
 resemble the past — of our incapacity to believe that the same 
 effects should not follow from the same causes — this very fact 
 is a triumphant proof of our having no ideas not acquired 
 through Experience. If we had d priori ideas, these, as inde- 
 pendent of, and superior to, all Experience would enable us to 
 judge the unknown according to some other standard than that 
 of the known. But no other standard is possible for us. We 
 cannot by any effort believe that Things will not always have 
 the properties we have experienced in them ; so long as they 
 continue to exist we must believe them to exist as we know 
 them. 
 
 III. Although belief in particular acts of causation is irre- 
 sistible and universal, yet belief in the general proposition, 
 " Every effect must have a cause," is neither irresistible nor 
 universal, but is entertained only by a small portion of mankind. 
 Consequently the theory of d priori ideas independent of all 
 experience receives no support from the Idea of Causality. 
 
 What, then, becomes of Kant's system ? 
 
 We are forced to conclude, that inasmuch as his stronghold 
 
5?s KANT'S FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES. 
 
 — the existence of d priori ideas — cannot sustain attack, the 
 entrance of the enemy Scepticism is inevitable. Kant was not 
 a sceptic j but he deceived himself in supposing that his system 
 was any safeguard from Scepticism. 
 
 The veracity of Consciousness, which he had so laboriously 
 striven to establish, and on which his " Practical Reason " was 
 based is only a relative, subjective veracity. Experience is 
 the only basis of Knowledge ; and experience, we know, leads 
 to Scepticism. 
 
 Our exposition, already somewhat lengthy, must be closed. 
 It has, we believe, embraced every point of importance in the 
 Kantian doctrine; and those who desire greater detail will find 
 it in the Geschichte der ktzle.n Systeme der Philosophic, by Karl 
 Michelet ; or better still in 'Cant's Kritik der Rei?ien Vernunft, 
 and his Prolegomena zu einer jeden kiinftigen Metaphysik. An 
 English translation of the " Kritik" has been published, and a 
 French one by M. Tissot ■ but we cannot speak as to their 
 merits. 
 
THE DEMONSTRATION OF THE SUBJECTIVITY OF 
 KNOWLEDGE ONCE MORE LEADS TO IDEALISM. 
 -—AND FIRST TO SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 LIFE OF FICHTE. 
 
 Johann Gottlieb Fichte was born at Rammenau, a village 
 lying between Bischofswerda and Pulsniz, in Upper Lusatia, on 
 the 19th May, 1762. 
 
 His childhood, of which many touching anecdotes are related, 
 was signalized by extraordinary intellectual capacity and great 
 moral energy. He was, a precocious child, and long before 
 he was old enough to be sent to school he had learned many 
 things from his father, who taught him to read, and taught him 
 the pious songs and proverbs which formed his own simple 
 stock of erudition. With these various studies was mixed an 
 enchanting element : the stories of his early wanderings in 
 Saxony and Franconia — stories to which young Johann listened 
 with never-tiring eagerness. It was probably the vague long- 
 ings which these recitals inspired, that made him wander into 
 the fields, leaving his companions, boisterous in mirth, to roam 
 away and enjoy the luxury of solitude, there to give vent to the 
 indulgence of those unspeakable longings. This pale and medi- 
 tative child is at ease in solitude. There he stands for hours 
 gazing into the far distance, or in mournful yearning at the 
 silent sky o'er-arching him. The sun goes down, and the boy 
 returns home melancholy with the twilight. He does this so 
 constantly that neighbours remark it ; comment on it ; and, in 
 after years, when that boy has become a renowned man, they 
 recur to it with sudden pleasure, not forgetting also that they 
 
574 LIFE OF FICHTR. 
 
 had 4< always said that there was something remarkable in the 
 boy." Remarkable, indeed. 
 
 Fichte's progress was so rapid that he was soon entrusted 
 with the office of reading family prayers; and his father 
 cherished the hope of one day seeing him a clergyman. An 
 event, curious in itself and very important in its influence on 
 his subsequent career, soon occurred which favoured that hope 
 and went far to realize it But before we relate it we must give 
 a touching anecdote which exhibits Fichte's heroic self-com- 
 mand in a very interesting light.* 
 
 The first book which fell into his hands after the Bible and 
 Catechism, was the renowned history of * Siegfried the Horned,' 
 and it seized so powerfully upon his imagination, that he lost 
 all pleasure in any other employment, became careless and 
 neglectful, and for the first time in his life was punished. Then, 
 in the spirit of the injunction which tells us to cut oft our right 
 hand if it cause to offend, Fichte resolved to sacrifice the 
 beloved book, and, taking it in his hand, walked slowly to a 
 stream flowing past the house, with the intention of throwing 
 it in. Long he lingered on the bank, ere he could muster 
 courage for this first self-conquest of his life ; but at length, 
 summoning all his resolution, he flung it into the water. His 
 fortitude gave way as he saw the treasure, too dearly loved, 
 floating away for ever, and he burst into a passionate flood of 
 tears. Just at this moment the father arrived on the spot, and 
 the weeping child told what he had done; but either from 
 timidity or incapacity to explain his feelings, was silent as to 
 his true motive. Irritated at this treatment of his present, 
 Fichte's father inflicted upon him an unusually severe punish- 
 ment, and this occurrence formed a fitting prelude to his after 
 life, in which he was so often misunderstood, and the actions 
 springing from the purest convictions of duty, were exactly 
 those for which he had most to suffer. When a sufficient time 
 had elapsed for the offence to be in some measure forgotten, 
 the father brought home another of these seducing books; but 
 Fichte dreaded being again exposed to the temptation, and 
 begged that it might be given to some of the other children. 
 
 It was about this time that the other event before alluded to 
 occurred. The clergyman of the village, who had taken a fancy 
 
 * For both anecdotes we are indebted to a very interesting article on 
 Fichte which appeared in the 'Foreign Quarterly Review,' No. 71. W« 
 have abridged the passages, otherwise the narrative is unaltered, 
 
LIFE OF FICHTE. 575 
 
 to Gottlieb, and often assisted in his instruction, happened one 
 day to ask him how much he thought he could remember of 
 the sermon of the preceding day. Fichte made the attempt, 
 and to the astonishment of the pastor, succeeded in giving a 
 very tolerable account of the course of argument, as well as 
 of the texts quoted in its illustration. The circumstance was 
 mentioned to the Count von Hoffmansegg, the lord of the 
 village, and when one day another nobleman, the Baron von 
 Mittiz, who was on a visit at the castle, happened to express his 
 regret at having been too late for the sermon on the Sunday 
 morning, he was told half in jest, that it was of little conse- 
 quence, for that there was a boy in the village who could repeat 
 it all from memory. Little Gottlieb was sent for, and soon 
 arrived in a clean smock frock and bearing a large nosegay, 
 such as his mother was accustomed to send to the castle occa- 
 sionally as a token of respect. He answered the first questions 
 put to him with his accustomed quiet simplicity ; but when 
 asked to repeat as much as he could recoilect of the morning's 
 sermon, his voice and manner became more animated, and, as 
 he proceeded, entirely forgetting the presence of the formidable 
 Lompany, he became so fervid and abundant in his eloquence, 
 mat the count thought it necessary to interrupt him, lest the 
 playful tone of the circle should be destroyed by the serious 
 subjects of the sermon. The young preacher had, however, 
 made some impression on his auditory ; the baron made 
 enquiries concerning him, and the clergyman, wishing for no- 
 thing more than an opportunity to serve his favourite, gave such 
 an account that the Baron determined to undertake the charge of 
 his education. He departed, carrying his protege with him, to his 
 castle of Siebeneichen, in Saxony, near Meissen, on the Elbe : 
 and the heart of the poor village boy sank as he beheld the 
 gloomy grandeur of the baronial hall, and the mountains and 
 dark oak forests by which it was surrounded. His first sorrow, 
 his severest trial, had come in the shape of what a misjudging 
 world might regard as a singular piece of good-fortune, and so 
 deep a dejection fell on him, as seriously to endanger his health. 
 His patron here manifested the really kindly spirit by which he 
 had been actuated ; he entered into the feelings of the child, and 
 removed him from the lordly mansion to the abode of a country 
 clergyman in the neighbourhood who was passionately fond of 
 children, and had none of his own. Under the truly paternal 
 care of this excellent man, Fichte passed some of the happiest 
 
576 LIFE OF FICHTE. 
 
 years of his life, and to his latest day looked back to them with 
 tenderness and gratitude. The affectionate care of this amiable 
 couple, their sharing with him every little domestic pleasure, 
 and treating him in every respect, as if he had been indeed 
 their son, was always remembered by him with the liveliest sen- 
 sibility, and certainly exercised a most favourable influence on 
 his character. 
 
 In this family, Fichte received his first instruction in the 
 languages of antiquity, in which, however, he was left much to 
 his own efforts, seldom receiving what might be called a regular 
 lesson. This plan, though it undoubtedly invigorated and 
 sharpened his faculties, left him imperfectly acquainted with 
 grammar, and retarded, in some measure, his subsequent pro- 
 gress at Schulpforte. His kind preceptor soon perceived the 
 insufficiency of his own attainments for advancing the progress 
 of so promising a pupil, and urged his patron to obtain for 
 Fichte what appeared to him the advantages of a high school. 
 He was accordingly sent, first to Meissen, and afterwards to 
 the seminary at Schulpforte. 
 
 There the system of fagging existed in full force, and with 
 its usual consequences, tyranny on the one side, dissimulation 
 and cunning on the other. Even Fichte, whose native strength 
 of character, in some measure, guarded him from evil in- 
 fluences that might have been fatal to a mind of a feebler 
 order, confesses that his life at Schulpforte was anything but 
 favourable to his integrity. He found himself gradually 
 reconciled to the necessity of ruling his conduct by the 
 opinion of the little community around him, and compelled 
 to practise occasionally the same artifices as others, if he would 
 not with all his talents and industry be always left behind. 
 
 Into this microcosm of contending forces the boy of thirteen, 
 nurtured amidst lonely mountains and silent forests, now found 
 himself thrown. The monastic gloom of the buildings con- 
 trasted at first most painfully with the joyous freedom of fields 
 and woods, where he had been accustomed to wander at will ; 
 but still more painfully the solitude of the moral desert. Shy 
 and shrinking within himself he stood, and the tears which 
 furnished only subjects of mockery to his companions were 
 forced back, or taught to flow only in secret. Here, however, 
 he learned the useful lesson of self-reliance, so well, though so 
 bitterly taught, by want of sympathy in those around us, and 
 from this time to the close of his life it was never forgotten- 
 
LIFE OF FICHTE. 577 
 
 Tt was natural that the idea of escape should occur to a boy 
 thus circumstanced, but the dread of being retaken and brought 
 back in disgrace to Schulpforte occasioned hesitation. Whilst 
 brooding over this project, it happened that he met with a copy 
 of * Robinson Crusoe,' and his enthusiasm — the enthusiasm of 
 thirteen, was kindled into a blaze. The desert should be his 
 dwelling-place ! On some far-off island of the ocean, beyond 
 the reach of mankind, and of the students of Schulpforte, he 
 would pass golden days of freedom and happiness. It was a 
 common boyish notion, but the manner in which it was carried 
 into execution shows traces of the character of the individual. 
 Nothing could have been easier than for him to have taken his 
 departure unperceived on one of the days when the scholars 
 were allowed to go to the playground ; but he scorned to steal 
 away in secret ; he would have this step appear as the result 
 of necessity and deliberate determination. He therefore made 
 a formal declaration to his superior, a lad who had made a 
 cruel and oppressive use of the brief authority entrusted him, 
 that he would no longer endure the treatment he received, but 
 would leave the place at the first opportunity. As may be 
 supposed, the announcement was received with sneers and 
 laughter, and Fichte now considered himself in all honour free 
 to fulfil his resolution. It was easy to find an opportunity, and 
 accordingly, having taken the precaution to study his proposed 
 route on the map, he set off, and trudged on stoutly on the 
 road to Naumburg. As he walked, however, he bethought 
 himself of a saying of his beloved old pastor, that one should 
 never begin an important undertaking without a prayer for 
 Divine assistance ; he turned, therefore, and kneeling down on 
 a green hillock by the road-side, implored, in the innocent 
 sincerity of his heart, the blessing of Heaven on his wanderings. 
 As he prayed it occurred to the new Robinson that his dis- 
 appearance must occasion grief to his parents, and his joy in 
 his wild scheme was gone in a moment. " Never, perhaps, 
 to see his parents again ! " This terrible thought suddenly 
 presented itself with such force that he resolved to retrace his 
 steps, and meet all the punishments that might be in store 
 for him, " that he might look once more on the face of his 
 mother." 
 
 On his return he met those who had been sent in pursuit of 
 torn ; for as soon as he had been missed the " Obergesell" had 
 given information of what had passed between them. When 
 
 00 
 
578 LIFE OF FICHTB. 
 
 carried before the rector, Fichte immediately confessed that he 
 had intended to escape, and at the same time related the whole 
 story with such straightforward simplicity and openness, that 
 the rector became interested for him, and not only remitted his 
 punishment, but chose for him, among the elder lads, another 
 master, who treated him with the greatest kindness, and to 
 whom he became warmly attached. 
 
 Fichte had become aCandidatus Theologise when his patron 
 died, and with him died all hopes of being a clergyman. His 
 prospects were gloomy in the extreme ; but he was relieved 
 from anxiety by being offered the situation of private tutor in 
 a family in Switzerland. He soon afterwards made acquain- 
 tance with Lavater, and some other literary men. He also 
 formed an attachment, which was to last him through life, with 
 a niece of Klopstock. 
 
 Fichte's tutorship was remarkable. The parents of his 
 pupils, although neither perfectly comprehending his plans, 
 nor approving of that part which they did comprehend, were 
 nevertheless such admirers of his moral character — they stood 
 in such respectful awe of him — that they were induced to sub- 
 mit their own conduct with respect to their children to his 
 judgment. We presume that all well-meaning tutors occa- 
 sionally make suggestions to parents respecting certain points 
 in their conduct towards the children ; but Fichte's plan is, 
 we fancy, quite unexampled in the history of such relations. 
 He kept a journal which he laid before them every week, and 
 in which he had noted the faults of conduct of which they 
 had been guilty. This lets us into the secret of Fichte's firm 
 and truthful character, as much as anything we know about 
 him. It was from such a soil that we might expect to find 
 growing the moral doctrines which afterwards made his name 
 illustrious. But this domestic censorship could not last long } 
 it lasted for two years ; and that it should have lasted so long 
 is, as has been remarked, strong evidence of the respect in 
 which his character was held. But it was irksome, insupport- 
 able, and ended, at length, in mutual dissatisfaction. He 
 was forced to seek some other mode of subsistence. He went 
 to Leipsig, where he gave private lessons in Greek and Philo- 
 sophy, and became acquainted with the writings of Kant. This 
 was an important event to him. Hear in what terms he speaks 
 of it : — 
 
 " I have been Jiving for the last four or five months in 
 
LIFE OF F1CHTB. 579 
 
 Leipsig, the happiest life I can remember. I came here with 
 my head full of grand projects, which all burst one after another, 
 like so many soap-bubbles, without leaving me so much as the 
 froth. At first this troubled me a little, and, half in despair, I 
 took a step which I ought to have taken long before. Since I 
 could not alter what was without me, I resolved to try to alter 
 what was within. I threw myself into philosophy — the Kantian 
 videlicet — and here I found the true antidote for all my evils, 
 and joy enough into the bargain The influence which this 
 philosophy, particularly the ethical part of it (which, however, 
 is unintelligible without a previous study of the ' Kritik der 
 Reinen Vernunft'), has had upon my whole system of thought ; 
 the revolution which it has effected in my mind is not to be 
 described. To you especially I owe the declaration that I 
 now believe, with my whole heart, in free will, and that I see 
 that under this supposition alone can duty, virtue, and morality 
 have any existence. From the opposite proposition of the 
 necessity of all human actions must flow the most injurious 
 consequences to society; and it may, in fact, be in part the 
 source of the corrupt morals of the higher classes which we 
 hear so much of. Should any one adopting it remain virtuous, 
 we must look for the cause of his purity elsewhere than in the 
 innocuousness of the doctrine. With many it is their want of 
 logical consequence in their actions. 
 
 " I am furthermore well convinced, that this life is not the 
 land of enjoyment but of labour and toil, and that every joy is 
 granted to us but to strengthen us for further exertion ; that 
 the management of our own fate is by no means required of us, 
 but only self-culture. I trouble myself, therefore, not at all 
 concerning the things that are without, I endeavour not to 
 appear but to be. And to this perhaps I owe the deep tran- 
 quillity I enjoy ; my external position, however, is well enough 
 suited to such a frame of mind. I am no man's master, and 
 no man's slave. As to prospects I have none at all, for the 
 constitution of the church here does not suit me, nor, to say 
 the truth, that of the people either. As long as I can maintain 
 my present independence I shall certainly do so. I have been 
 for some time working at an explanatory abridgment of Kant's 
 1 Kritik der Urtheilscraft ' (Critical Inquiry into the Faculty of 
 Judgment), but I am afraid I shall be obliged to come before 
 the public in a ^ery immature state, to prevent being forestalled 
 
|Bo LIFE OF FICHTE. 
 
 by a hundred vamped-up publications. Should the child ever 
 make its appearance I will send it to you."* 
 
 It was in consequence of his admiration of Kant that, after 
 several ineffectual attempts to settle himself, he went to 
 Konigsberg. Instead of a letter of introduction, Fichte pre- 
 sented Kant with a work, written in eight days, and which 
 bore the title of ' A Critique of every possible Revelation.' 
 Kant at once recognised his peer, and received him warmly. 
 But Kant himself, though celebrated, was poor and un- 
 influential. Fichte's affairs were desperate. We have his 
 own confession in the fragment of a journal which he kept 
 at the time. 
 
 " 2%tk August, — I yesterday began to revise my * Critique.' 
 In the course of my meditation some new and excellent ideas 
 were excogitated, which convinced me that my work was 
 superficial. I endeavoured to carry out my investigation 
 to-day; but my imagination led me so far away, that I could 
 do nothing. I have reckoned my finances, and find that I 
 have just enough to subsist on for a fortnight. It is true this 
 is not the first time in my life that I have found myself in such 
 an embarrassment, but I was then in my own country; besides, 
 in growing older, one's sense of honour becomes more delicate, 
 and distress is more and more of a hardship. ... I have not 
 been able to make any resolution. I certainly shall not speak 
 on the subject to M. Borowsky, to whom Kant has given me 
 an introduction. If I speak to any one it shall be to Kant 
 himself. 
 
 " ist Sept. — I have made a resolution which I must com- 
 municate to Kant. A situation as tutor, however reluctantly 
 I might accept it, does not even offer itself; while, on the other 
 hand, the incertitude in which I am placed does not allow me 
 to work. I must return home. I can perhaps borrow from 
 Kant the small sum necessary for my journey. I went to him 
 to-day for that purpose, but my courage failed me. I resolved 
 to write to him. 
 
 " 2nd Sept. — I finished my letter to Kant, and sent it 
 
 " yd Sept. — Received an invitation to dinner from Kant. 
 He received me with his usual cordiality, but informed me that 
 it would be quite out of his power to accede to my request for 
 another fortnight Such amiable frankness ! 
 
 * It was never printed, probably because, as he here anticipates, he was 
 forestalls*! 
 
LIFE OF FICHTE. 581 
 
 " I have done nothing lately ; but 1 shall set myself to work, 
 and leave the rest to Providence. 
 
 " tth Sept. — Dined with Kant, who proposed that I should 
 sell the MS. of my * Critique ' to Hartung the bookseller. « It 
 ,'s admirably written,' said he, when I told him I was going to 
 rewrite it. Is that true ? It is Kant who says so. 
 
 " \2th Sept. — I wanted to work to-day; but could do nothing. 
 How will this end ? What will become of me a week hence? 
 Then all my money will be gone." 
 
 These extracts will not be read without emotion. They 
 paint a curious picture in the life of our philosopher : a life 
 which was little more than a perpetual and energetic combat. 
 
 The ' Critique ' was published anonymously, and gained 
 immense applause ; partly, no doubt, because it was generally 
 mistaken for the production of Kant himself. The celebrity he 
 acquired when the authorship was disclosed was the means of 
 procuring him the chair of Philosophy at Jena, the offer of 
 which was made him towards the end of 1793. 
 
 Jena was then the leading University of Germany; and Fichte 
 might flatter himself that at length he had a settled position, in 
 which he might calmly develop his scientific views. But his 
 was a Fighter's destiny. Even here, at Jena, he found himself 
 soon opposing and opposed. His endeavours to instil a higher 
 moral feeling into the students — his anxiety for their better 
 culture — only brought on him the accusation of endeavouring 
 to undermine the religious institutions of his country;* and his 
 speculative views brought on him the charge of Atheism. 
 
 Atheism is a grave charge, and yet how lightly made ! The 
 history of opinion abounds in instances of this levity; yet 
 scarcely ever was a charge less groundless in appearance than 
 that against Fichte ; but it was only in appearance. Never- 
 theless the cry was raised, and he had to battle against it. It 
 is understood that the Government would have been willing to 
 overlook the publication of the work which raised the cry, if 
 Fichte had made any sort of explanatory modification ; but he 
 would not hear of it ; tendered his resignation, and soon after- 
 wards found an asylum in Prussia, where he occupied the Chair 
 it Erlangen, and afterwards at Berlin. From his career at 
 Berlin we will select one incident typical of his character. 
 
 * What bitter satire ! and yet so constantly is this charge made against 
 those whose intentions are purer than their neighbours, that the satire is a 
 common-place. 
 
58s LIFE OF FICHTB. 
 
 It is 1 8 13. The students are assembled in crowds to hear 
 their favourite professor, who is to lecture that day upon duty 
 — on that duty whose ideal grandeur his impassioned eloquence 
 has revealed to them. Fichte arrives, calm and modest. He 
 lectures with his usual dignified calmness, rising into fiery 
 bursts of eloquence, but governed by the same marvellous 
 rigour of logic as before. He leads them from the topic to 
 the present state of affairs. On them he grows still more 
 animated; the rolling of drums without frequently drowning 
 his voice, and giving him fresh spirit. He points to the bleed- 
 ing wounds of his country ; he warms with hatred against 
 oppressors ; and enforces it as the duty of every one to lend 
 his single arm to save his country. 
 
 " This course of lectures," he exclaims, " will be suspended 
 till the end of the campaign. We will resume them in a free 
 country, or die in the attempt to recover her freedom." Loud 
 shouts respondent ring through the hall ; clapping of hands and 
 stamping of feet make answer to the rolling drums without ; 
 every German heart there present is moved, as at the sound of 
 a trumpet. Fichte descends ; passes through the crowd, and 
 places himself in the ranks of a corps of volunteers then depart 
 tng for the army. It is the commencement of the memorable 
 campaign of 181 3.* 
 
 It was in this campaign that his noble wife distinguished 
 herself in a truly womanly manner. We must trespass again 
 on the " Foreign Quarterly " for the account of her conduct 
 and of Fichte's end. 
 
 " Hostilities were now openly commenced ; and although 
 the victories of Grossbeer and Dennewiz averted the threatened 
 danger of Berlin, its nearness to the scene of action, and the 
 many sanguinary conflicts that took place filled the hospitals 
 with the sick and wounded ; and at length, the public institu- 
 tions becoming entirely unequal to the demands made upon 
 them, the authorities, through the public journals, called on the 
 inhabitants to come to their assistance with extraordinary con- 
 tributions, and the women to take charge of the sick. Among 
 the foremost of those who devoted themselves to this noble and 
 Christian duty was the wife of Fichte, who, with the full con- 
 sent and approbation of her husband, engaged heart and soul 
 in this sacred vocation. She devoted her days to the distribn- 
 
 * We have here, as on some other occasions, taken the liberty of trans- 
 cribing a passage from one of our former lucubrations. 
 
LIFE OF FICHTE. 583 
 
 tion of clothes, food, and medicine, and to pious cares around 
 the beds of the unknown sick and dying; and after she returned 
 late on a winter's evening to her home, often again went out to 
 collect contributions from her friends and acquaintances. 
 
 "After about five months' uninterrupted exertions of this 
 kind in the hospitals, she began, however, to feel alarming 
 symptoms of illness, and in January, 18 14, was attacked by a 
 violent nervous fever, which had prevailed among the wounded. 
 It soon attained such a height as to leave scarce a hope of 
 recovery ; and on the very day when she was in the greatest 
 peril, Fichte, who had been engaged ua close and anxious 
 attendance upon her during her illness, was compelled to leave 
 her, to deliver the first of a course of philosophical lectures, 
 which he had now recommenced. With wonderful self 
 command, he continued to speak for two hours on the most 
 abstract subjects, scarcely hoping to find, on his return, his 
 beloved companion still alive. This was, however, the crisis 
 of her illness ; and those who witnessed the transports of joy 
 and gratitude with which he hailed the symptoms of recovery, 
 were able to estimate the power of self-control he had exercised. 
 It was, probably, at that moment, that innocently and uncon- 
 sciously she communicated to him the fatal infection. On the 
 following day, the commencement of a serious indisposition 
 was evident, but Fichte could not be induced to relax any of 
 his customary exertions. The continued sleeplessness, how- 
 ever, soon produced its usual effect on his mental faculties, 
 and in the course of fourteen days the attack terminated fatally. 
 His death was worthy of his life, for he fell a sacrifice to 
 conjugal affection and Christian duty." (" Beati qui in Domino 
 moriuntur.")* 
 
 There are few characters which inspire more admiration 
 than that of Fichte ; we must all admire " that cold, colossal, 
 adamantine spirit standing erect and clear, like a Cato Major 
 among degenerate men ; fit to have been the teacher of the Stoa 
 and to have discoursed of beauty and virtue in the groves 0/ 
 Academe ! So robust an intellect, a soul so calm, so lofty, 
 massive, and immovable has not mingled in philosophical dis- 
 cussion since the time of Luther. For the man rises before us 
 
 * * Foreign Quarterly/ No. 71, p. 140. The article is well worth read- 
 ing ; it is founded on Fichte's 'Leben und Briefwechsel, ' 1836, edited by 
 Fichte's son ; to which source all are referred who desire further details 
 respecting the noble thinker's life. 
 
584 FICHTE'S HISTORICAL POSITION. 
 
 amid contradiction and debate like a granite mountain amid 
 clouds and winds. Ridicule of the best that could be com- 
 manded has been already tried against him ; but it could not 
 avail. What was the wit of a thousand wits to him ? The cry 
 of a thousand choughs assaulting that old cliff of granite ; seen 
 from the summit, these, as they winged the midway air, showed 
 scarce so gross as beetles and their cry was seldom even audible. 
 Fichte's opinions may be true or false ; but his character as a 
 thinker can be slightly valued only by those who know it ill; 
 and as a man approved by action and suffering, in his life and 
 in his death, he ranks with a class of men who were common 
 onlv in better ages than ours." With this eloquent tribute, 
 from Thomas Carlyle, we close our memoir of Johann Gottlieb 
 Fichte. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 fichte's historical position. 
 
 The ' Criticism ' of Kant, although really leaving scepticism in 
 possession of the field, was nevertheless believed to have indi- 
 cated a new domain, in which a refuge might be found. The 
 thought soon suggested itself that on this domain an indestruc- 
 tible temple might be erected. Kant had driven the piles 
 deep down into the earth — a secure foundation was made ; but 
 Kant had declined building. 
 
 Jacobi, for one, saw in the principles of " criticism* a path 
 on which he could travel. He maintained that just as sense 
 was, according to Kant, a faculty whereby we perceive mate- 
 rial things, so also was reason a sense, a faculty, whereby we 
 perceive the supersensual. 
 
 It was, indeed, soon evident that men would not content 
 themselves with the mere negation to which Kant had reduced 
 our knowledge of things per se. It was the positive part of his 
 system they accepted and endeavoured to extend. 
 
 This attempt iorms the matter of all the subsequent history 
 of German Philosophy till Hegel. We will however briefly 
 state the nature of the discussions, which the result of Kant's 
 system had rendered imperative. 
 
 Kant had postulated the existence of an object as the ne- 
 cessary correlate to a subject. Knowledge was both objective 
 
FICHTE'S HISTORICAL POSITION. 5S5 
 
 and subjective ; but inasmuch as it was thus inseparably two- 
 fold it could never penetrate the essence of things — it could 
 never know the object — it could only know phenomena. Hence 
 the problem was : 
 
 What is the relation of object and subject ? 
 
 To solve this, it was necessary to penetrate the essence of 
 things, to apprehend noumena. All the efforts of men were 
 therefore to be directed towards this absolute science. 
 
 The ground of all certitude being in the a priori ideas, an 
 attempt was made to construct d priori the whole system of 
 human knowledge. 
 
 The ego was the necessary basis of the new edifice. Conscious 
 ness, as alone certain, was the ground upon which absolute science 
 must rest. 
 
 Fichte's position is here clearly marked out. His sole object 
 was to construct a science out of consciousness, and thereon to 
 found a system of morals. 
 
 Let us at the outset request the reader to give no heed to 
 any of the witticisms which he may hear, or which may suggest 
 themselves to him on a hasty consideration of Fichte's opinions. 
 That they are not those of ordinary thinkers we admit ; that 
 they are repugnant to all " common sense," we must also admit ; 
 that they are false, we believe : but we also believe them to 
 have been laborious products of an earnest mind, the conse- 
 quences of admitted premises, drawn with singular audacity and 
 subtlety, and no mere caprices of ingenious speculation — no 
 paradoxes of an acute, but trifling mind. 
 
 It was within him that he found a lamp to light him on his 
 path. Deep in the recesses of his soul, beneath all under- 
 standing, superior to all logical knowledge, there lay a faculty 
 by which truth, absolute truth, might be known. 
 
 " I have found the organ," he says in his Bestimmung des 
 Menschen, "by which to apprehend all reality. It is not the 
 understanding, for all knowledge supposes some higher know- 
 ledge on which it rests, and of this ascent there is no end. It 
 is Faith, that voluntarily reposing on views naturally presenting 
 themselves to us, because through these views alone we can fulfil 
 our destiny, which sees our knowledge, and pronounces that 
 1 it is good,' and raises it to certainty and conviction. It is no 
 knowledge, but a resolution of the will to admit this knowledge. 
 There is no mere verbal distinction, but a true and deep one, 
 pregnant with the most important consequences. Let me for 
 
S«fe FICHT&S HISTORICAL POSITION. 
 
 ever hold fast by it. All my conviction is but faith, and it pro- 
 ceeds from the will and not from the understanding ; from will 
 also, and not from the understanding, must all the true culture 
 proceed. Let the first only be firmly directed towards the 
 Good, the latter will of itself apprehend the True. Should the 
 latter be exercised and developed while the former remains neg- 
 lected, nothing can come of it but a facility in vain and endless 
 sophistical subtleties refining away into the absolutely void 
 inane. I know that every seeming truth, born of thought alone, 
 and not ultimately resting on faith, is false and spurious, for 
 knowledge, purely and simply such, when carried to its utmost 
 consequences leads to the conviction that we can do nothing ! 
 Such knowledge never finds anything in the conclusions, which 
 it has not previously placed in the premises by faith, and even 
 then its conclusions are not always correct. . . . Every 
 human creature born into the world has unconsciously seized on 
 the reality which exists for him alone through this intuitive 
 faith. If in mere knowledge — in mere perception and reflec- 
 tion — we can discover no ground for regarding our mental pre- 
 sentations as more than mere pictures, why do we all neverthc 
 less regard them as more, and imagine for them a basis, a sub- 
 stratum independent of all modifications? If we all possess 
 the capacity and the instinct to go beyond this natural view of 
 things, why do so few of us follow this instinct, or exercise this 
 capacity, nay, why do we even resist with a sort of bitterness 
 when we are urged towards this path? What holds us im- 
 prisoned in these natural boundaries ? Not inferences of our 
 reason, for there are none which could do this. It is our deep 
 interest in reality that does this — in the good that we are to 
 produce — in the common and the sensuous that we are to enjoy. 
 From this interest can no one who lives detach himself, and 
 just as little from the faith which forces itself upon him simul- 
 taneously with his existence. We are all born in faith, and he. 
 who is blind follows blindly the irresistible attraction. He who 
 sees follows by sight, and believes because he will believe." * 
 
 Here the limit, set by Kant, is overleaped : a knowledge of 
 realities is affirmed. But it is not enough to affirm such a 
 knowledge ; we must prove it. To prove this is the mission of 
 Philosophy. 
 
 Fichte, who thought himself a true Kantist, although Kant 
 
 • We adopt the translation of Mrs. Percy Sinnett : Destination of Man. 
 London, 1 646. 
 
BASIS OF FICHTE 9 S SYSTEM. 587 
 
 very distinctly and publicly repudiated him, Fichte declared 
 that the materials for a science had been discovered by Kant ; 
 nothing more was needed than a systematic co-ordination of 
 these materials : and this task he undertook in his lamous 
 Doctrine of Science ( Wisscnschaftslehre), In this he endea- 
 voured to construct & priori all knowledge. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 BASIii of fichte's system. 
 
 We are supposed to perceive external objects through the 
 ideas which these objects excite in us. But this assumption is 
 not warranted by the facts of consciousness. What is the 
 fundamental fact ? It is that I have in my mind a certain idea 
 This, and this only, is primitively given. When we leave this 
 fact in quest of an explanation, we are forced to admit either 
 that this idea is spontaneously evolved by me ; or else some not 
 me — something different from myself h*as excited it in me. 
 Idealism or Dualism ? Choose between them. 
 
 Kant, unwilling to embrace idealism, and unable to conceive 
 how the ego spontaneously evolved within itself ideas of that 
 which it regarded as different from itself postulated the exist- 
 ence of a non-ego, but declared that we knew nothing of it. In 
 this he followed Locke and the majority of philosophers. 
 
 Truly, said Fichte, we know nothing of it ; we can only know 
 that which passes within ourselves. Only so much as we are 
 conscious of, can we know ; but in consciousness there is no 
 object given, there is only an idea given. Are we forced by 
 the very laws of our reason to suppose that there is a non-ego 
 existing — are we forced to assume that these ideas are images 
 of something out of us and independent of us ? To what does 
 this dilemma bring us ? Simply to this : that the very assump- 
 tion, here called a necessary consequence of our mental consti- 
 tution — this non-ego, which must be postulated, is, after all, 
 nothing but a postulate of our reason ; is therefore a product of 
 the ego. It is the ego which thus creates the necessity for a non- 
 ego ; it is the ego which thus answering to the necessity, create* 
 
588 BASIS OF FTCHTE'S SYSTEM. 
 
 the non-ego wanted. Ideas and nothing but ideas are given in 
 the primitive fact of consciousness. These are the products of 
 the activity of the ego ; and not, as is so commonly asserted, the 
 products of the passivity of the ego. The soul is no passive 
 mirror reflecting images. It is an active principle creating 
 them. The soul is no lifeless receptivity. Were it not brim- 
 ming over with life and activity, perception would be impos- 
 sible. One stone does not perceive another. A mould does 
 not perceive the liquid that is poured into it. 
 
 Consciousness is in its very essence an activity. Well, then, 
 if in its activity it produces images, and if by the laws of its 
 nature it is forced to assume that these images have some sub- 
 stratum, what is this assumption but another form of the soul's 
 activity ? If the ego is conscious of its changes, and yet is 
 forced to attribute these changes to some external cause — what 
 is this very act of assuming an external cause but the pure act of 
 the ego ? another change in the ego ? 
 
 You admit that we cannot know substances; all our know- 
 ledge is limited to accidents — to phenomena. But, you say, you 
 are forced to assume a substance as the basis of these accidents 
 — a noumenon as that whereby phenomena are possible ; and 
 yet you cannot know this noumenon. 
 
 I answer : if you cannot know it, your assumption, as the 
 mere product of your reason, is nothing more nor less than another 
 form of the activity of the ego. It is you who assume ; and you 
 assume what you call substance. 
 
 Substance is nothing but the synthesis of accidents. And it 
 is a mental synthesis. 
 
 Thus Fichte founded Idealism upon the basis of conscious- 
 ness, which was the admitted basis of all certitude ; and not 
 only founded idealism, but reduced the ego to an activity, and 
 all knowledge to an act. 
 
 The activity of the ego is, of course, an assumption ; but it is 
 the only assumption necessary for the construction of a science. 
 That once admitted, the existence of the non-ego, as a product 
 of the ego, follows as a necessary consequence. 
 
 Every one will admit that A=A j or that A«A, This is 
 an axiom which is known intuitively, and has no need of proof. 
 It is the proposition of absolute identity (Satz der Identitat). It 
 is absolutely true. In admitting this to be absolutely true, we 
 ascribe to the mind a faculty of knowing absolute truth. 
 
 But in saying A equals A, we do not affirm the existence oi 
 
BASIS OF FICMTB'S SYSTEM. 5S9 
 
 A j we only affirm that if A exist, then it must equal A. And 
 the axiom teaches us not that A exists ; but that there is a 
 necessary relation between a certain if and theti ; and this 
 necessary relation we will call X. But this relation, this X, is 
 only in the ego, comes only from the ego. It is the ego that 
 judges in the preceding axiom that A=A ; and it judges by 
 means of X. 
 
 To reduce this to language a little less scholastic we may say 
 that, in every judgment which the mind makes, the act of 
 judging is an act of the ego. 
 
 But as the X is wholly in the ego, so therefore is A in the 
 ego, and is posited by the ego. And by this we see that there 
 is something in the ego which is for ever one and the same, and 
 that is the X. Hence the formula " I am I : ego =. ego." 
 
 We come here to the Cogito, ergo sum, of Descartes as the 
 basis of all certitude. The ego posits itself and is by means of 
 this very self-positing. When I say " I am," I affirm in con- 
 sciousness my existence ; and this affirmation of my conscious- 
 ness is the condition of my existence. The ego is therefore at 
 one and the same time both the activity and the product of 
 activity ; precisely as thought is both the thinking activity, and 
 the product thought. 
 
 We will, for the present, spare the reader any further inflic- 
 tion of such logical abstractions. He will catch in the foregoing 
 a glimpse of Fichte's method, and be in some way able to esti- 
 mate the strength of the basis on which idealism reposes. 
 
 The great point Fichte has endeavoured to establish is the 
 identity of being and thought — of existence and consciousness 
 — of object and subject. And he establishes this by means of 
 the ego considered as essentially an activity. 
 
 Hence the conclusion drawn in the practical part of his philo- 
 sophy that the true destination of man is not thought, but ac- 
 tion, which is thought realised. " I am free," he says. That 
 is the revelation of consciousness. " 1 am free ; and it is not 
 merely my action, but the free determination of my will to obey 
 the voice of conscience, that decides all my worth. More 
 brightly does the everlasting world now rise before me ; and 
 the fundamental laws of its order are more clearly revealed to 
 my mental sight My will alone, lying hid in the obscure 
 depths of my soul, is the first link in a chain of consequences 
 stretching through the invisible realms of spirit, as in this terres- 
 trial world, the action itself, a certain movement communicated 
 
59o FICHTE'S IDEALISM. 
 
 to matter, is the first link in a material chain of cause and 
 effect, encircling the whole system. The will is the efficient 
 cause, the living principle of the world of spirit, as motion is of 
 the world of sense. I stand between two worlds, the one 
 visible, in which the act alone avails, and the intention 
 matters not at all ; the other invisible and incomprehensible, 
 acted on only by the will. In both these worlds I am an effec- 
 tive force. The Divine life, as alone the finite mind can con- 
 ceive it, is self-forming, self-representing will, clothed, to the 
 mortal eye, with multitudinous sensuous forms, flowing through 
 me and through the whole immeasurable universe, here stream- 
 ing through my veins and muscles — there, pouring its abun- 
 dance into the tree, the flower, the grass. The dead, heavy 
 mass of inert matter, which did but fill up nature, has disap- 
 peared, and, in its stead, there rushes by the bright, everlasting 
 flood of life and power, from its Infinite Source. 
 
 " The eternal will is the Creator of the world, as he is the 
 Creator of the finite reason. Those who will insist that the 
 world must have been created out of a mass of inert matter, 
 which must always remain inert and lifeless, like a vessel made 
 by human hands, know neither the world nor Him. The In- 
 finite Reason alone exists in himself — the finite in him ; in our 
 minds alone has he created a world, or at least that by and 
 through which it becomes unfolded to us. In his light we be- 
 hold the light, and all that it reveals. Great, living Will ! 
 whom no words can name and no conception embrace ! well 
 may I lift my thoughts to thee, for I can think only in thee. In 
 thee, the Incomprehensible, does my own existence, and that 
 of the world, become comprehensible to me ; all the problems 
 of being are solved, and the most perfect harmony reigns. I 
 veil my face before thee and lay my finger on my lips." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 fichte's idealism. 
 
 The ground-principle of Fichte's Idealism having been given, 
 we have now to see how he avoids the natural objections which 
 
FICHTE'S IDEALISM. J»l 
 
 rise against such a doctrine. But first let us notice how this 
 deification of personality was at once the most natural product 
 of such a mind as Fichte's, and the best adapted to the spirit 
 of the age which produced it. His doctrine was an inspiration 
 of that ardent and exalted spirit which stirred the heart of Ger- 
 many, and made the campaign of 1813 an epoch in history. 
 What was Germany then, as now, most deficient in ? It was 
 will. They had armies, and these armies were headed by 
 experienced generals. But among them there was scarcely 
 another beyond the impetuous Blucher, who had that greatest 
 of all heroic (or villainous) qualities, will. They were beaten 
 and beaten. At length they were roused. A series of insults 
 had roused them. They rose as a man to fight for fatherland, 
 and in their ranks was Fichte, who by deed as well as doctrine 
 sought to convince them that in will lay man's divinity. 
 
 The question being What is the relation of Object and Sub- 
 ject ? And Fichte's solution being Object and Subject are iden- 
 tical ; it followed from his position that inasmuch as an Object 
 and a Subject — a Non-Ego and an Ego — were given in Know- 
 ledge, and the distinction between them by all men supposed 
 to be real, the origin of this distinction must arise in one of 
 two ways : either the Ego must posit the Non-Ego, wilfully and 
 consciously (in which case mankind would never suppose the 
 distinction to be a real distinction); or else the Ego must cause 
 tlie Non-Ego to be, and must do so necessarily and uncon- 
 sciously. 
 
 How does Fichte solve the problem ? He assumes that the 
 existence of the very Ego itself is determined* by the Non-Ego; 
 and in this way. To be, and to be conscious, are the same. 
 The existence of the Ego depends upon its consciousness. But 
 to be conscious of Self is at the same time to be conscious of 
 Not-Self; the correlates Self and Not-Self are given in the same 
 act of consciousness. 
 
 But how is it that we attribute reality to Not-Self? Just as 
 we attribute reality to Self, viz., by an act of Consciousness. 
 Not-Self is given in Consciousness as a reality, and therefore 
 we cannot suppose it to be a phantom. 
 
 * The German word bestimmen, which we are forced to translate to 
 deteimine, is of immense use to the metaphysicians ; we would gladly have 
 substituted some other, could we have found one to represent the meaning. 
 To determine in philosophy does not mean to resolve (as in English}, bu^ 
 to render definite. Chaos, when determined, is the created world. 
 
59* FICHTETS IDEALISM 
 
 We may pause here to remark how all the witticisms against 
 Idealism fall to the ground. The wits assume that when it is 
 said the World is produced by the ego, therefore must this 
 World be a phantom. Now nobody ever believed that external 
 objects had no reality ; the only possible doubt is as to whether 
 they have any reality independent of mind. 
 
 In consciousness we have a twofold fact, viz., the fact of 
 self, and the fact of not-self, indissolubly given in one. We 
 conclude, therefore, that consciousness — that the ego — is partly 
 self-determined, and partly determined by not-self. Let us 
 suppose the entire reality of the ego (that is, in its identity of 
 subject and object) represented by the number ten. The ego, 
 conscious of five of its parts — or, to speak with Fichte — positing 
 five, does by that very act posit five parts negatively in itself. 
 But how is it that the Ego can posit a negation in itself? It 
 does so by the very act of consciousness ; in the act of separat- 
 ing five from ten, the five remaining are left passive. The nega- 
 tion is, therefore, the passivity of the Ego. This seems to lead 
 to the contradiction that the Ego, which was defined as an 
 Activity, is at the same time active and passive. The solution 
 of this difficulty is that it is Activity which determines Passi- 
 vity, and reciprocally. Let us suppose the absolute reality as 
 a Sphere ; this is entirely in the Ego, and has a certain quan- 
 tity. Every quantity less than this totality, will, of necessity 
 be negation, passivity. In order that a less quantity should be 
 compared to the totality and so opposed to it, it is necessary 
 there should be some relation between them, and this is in the 
 idea of divisibility. In the absolute totality, as such, there are 
 no parts ; but this totality may be compared with parts and dis- 
 tinguished from it. Passivity is therefore a determinate quantity 
 of Activity, a quantity compared with the totality. In regard 
 to the Ego as absolute, the Ego as limited is passive ; in the 
 relation of Ego as limited to the Non-Ego, the Ego is active 
 and the Non-Ego passive. And thus are activity and passivity 
 reciprocally determined. 
 
 The result of this and much more reasoning is that when 
 mankind attribute to Objects a real existence they are correct; 
 but they are incorrect in supposing that the Object is indepen- 
 dent of the Subject : it is identical with the Subject. The com- 
 mon sense belief is therefore correct enough. It is when we 
 would rise above this belief, and endeavour to philosophise 
 that we fall into error. All the philosophers have erred, not in 
 
FICHTE'S IDEALISM. $93 
 
 assuming the reality of Objects, but in assuming the reality of 
 two distinct, disparate existences, Matter and Mind ; whereas 
 we have seen that there is only one existence, having the two- 
 fold aspect of Object and Subject. 
 
 Nor is the distinction unimportant. If Dualism be accepted, 
 we have no refuge from Scepticism. If we are to believe that 
 Dinge an Sich exist — that Matter exists independently of Mind, 
 exists/<?r se — then are we doomed to admit only a knowledge 
 of phenomena as possible. The Things in themselves we can 
 never know ; we can only know their effects upon us. Our 
 knowledge is relative, and can never embrace the absolute 
 truth. 
 
 But if Idealism be accepted, the ordinary belief of men is not 
 only respected but confirmed; for this belief is that we do know 
 things in themselves, and that the things we know do exist. The 
 Dualist forces you to admit that you cannot know Things in 
 themselves ; and that your belief in their existence is merely 
 the postulate of your Reason, and is not immediately given in 
 the facts of Consciousness. The Idealist, on the contrary, 
 gives you an immediate knowledge of Things in themselves, con- 
 sequently opens to you the domain of absolute Truth. He 
 only differs from your view, in saying that these Things, which 
 you immediately know, are part and parcel of yourself ; and it 
 is because you and they are indissolubly united, that immediate 
 knowledge is possible. 
 
 " But," says Realism, " I know that Objects are altogether 
 independent of me. I did not create them. I found them there 
 out of me. The proof of this is that if, after looking at a tree, 
 I turn away, or shut my eyes, the image of a tree is annihilated, 
 but the tree itself remains." 
 
 " No," answers Idealism, " the tree itself does not remain •. 
 for the tree is but a phenomenon or collection of phenomena — 
 the tree is a Perception, and all perceptions are subjective. 
 You stare ? You suppose that every one must admit that our 
 perceptions are different from their objects. But are they dif- 
 ferent ? that is precisely the question at issue ; and you assume 
 it. Let us be cautious. What is an object — a Tree for in- 
 stance? Tell me what does your Consciousness inform you of? 
 Let me hear the fact, the whole fact, and no inference from the 
 fact. Is not the object (Tree) one and the same as your percep- 
 tion (Tree) ? Is not the tree a mere name for your perception ? 
 Does not your Consciousness distinctly tell you that the Form! 
 
 p p 
 
5 94 FICHT&S IDEALISM. 
 
 Colour, Solidity, and Smell of the Tree are in you — are affeo 
 tions of your Subject?" 
 
 " 1 admit that," replies p ealism; "but although these are 
 m mf. they are caused by something out of me. Consciousness 
 tell* nie that very plainly." 
 
 Does it so ? I tell you that Consciousness has no such 
 po.ver. It tells you of its own changes ; it cannot transcend 
 itself to tell you anything about that which causes its changes." 
 
 *• But I am irresistibly compelled to believe," says Realism, 
 " that there are things which exist out of me ; and this belief, 
 because irresistible, is true." 
 
 " Stop ? you run on too fast," replies Idealism ; " your belief 
 is not what you describe it. You are not irresistibly compelled 
 to believe that things exist, which said things lie underneath all 
 their appearances, and must ever remain unknown. This is no 
 instinctive belief; it is a philosophic inference. Your belief 
 simply is, that certain things, coloured, odorous, extended, 
 sapid, and solid, exist ; and so they do. But you infer that 
 they exist out of you? Rash inference! Have you not ad- 
 mitted that colour, odour, taste, extension, &c; are but modi- 
 fications of your sentient being ; and if they exist in you, how 
 can they exist out of you ? they do not : they seem to do so by 
 a law of the mind which gives objectivity to our sensations." * 
 
 a Try your utmost to conceive an object as anything more 
 than a synthesis of perceptions. You cannot. You may infer 
 indeed that a substratum for all phenomena exists, although 
 unknown, unknowable. But on what is your inference grounded ? 
 On the impossibility of conceiving the existence of qualities — 
 extension, colour, &c. — apart from some substance of which they 
 are qualities. This impossibility is a figment The qualities have 
 no need of an objective substratum, because they have a sub- 
 jective substratum : they are the modifications of a sensitive 
 subject, and the synthesis of these modifications is the only 
 substratum of which they stand in need. This may be proved 
 in another way. The qualities of objects, it is universally ad- 
 mitted, are but modifications of the subject : these qualities 
 are attributed to external objects ; they are dependent upon the 
 subject for their existence; and yet, to account for their exis- 
 
 * The difference between Berkeley and Fichte is apparent here. The 
 former said that the objects did exist independent of the Ego, but did not 
 exist independent of the universal Mind. Fichte' s Idealism was Egoism ; 
 Berkeley's was a theological Idealism. 
 
FWHTE y S IDEALISM. 595 
 
 cence, it is asserted that some unknown external something 
 must exist as a substance in which they must inhere. Now it 
 is apparent that inasmuch as these qualities are subjective and 
 dependent upon the subject for their existence, there can be 
 no necessity for an object in which they must inhere." 
 
 Thus will Idealism defend itself against Realism. 
 
 We have made ourselves the advocates of Fichte's principles, 
 but the reader will not mistake us for disciples of Fichte. In 
 the exposition of his system we have, for obvious reasons, 
 generally avoided his own manner, which is too abstract to be 
 followed without difficulty ; and have endeavoured to state his 
 ideas in our own way. Those who are curious to see what he 
 himself makes of his system are referred to his Wissenschaftslehrt 
 (of which a new edition, handsomely printed, has just ap- 
 peared, and of which a French translation by M. Paul Grim- 
 blot exists, under the title of Doctrine de la Science, but we can- 
 not speak as to its merits), or, as a more popular exposition, to 
 his Bestimmung des Menschen, a French translation of which 
 has been published by M. Barchou de Penhoen, under the title 
 Destination de I Homme, which, from the character and learning 
 of the translator, is, we have no doubt, an excellent version.* 
 
 To exhibit Fichte's Idealism is, strictly speaking, all that our 
 plan imposes on us ; but although his philosophical doctrines 
 are all founded upon ft, and although it was the doctrine which 
 made an epoch in German philosophy, consequently the doc- 
 trine which entitles him to a place in this History, nevertheless 
 we should be doing him injustice and misleading our readers 
 if we did not give some glimpse of his moral system. The 
 Idealism as Idealism seems little better than an ingenious 
 paradox: only when we see it applied can we regard it as 
 serious. 
 
 * An English translation has also been made by Mrs. Percy Sinnett, 
 which can be recommended. Fichte's 4 Wesen der Gelehrte ' has also 
 receady appeared under the title of * The Nature of the ichoiar.' 
 
596 APPLICATION OP PIC LITE'S IDEALISM. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 APPLICATION OF FICHTE'S IDEALISM. 
 
 The Ego is essentially an Activity; consequently free. But 
 this free activity would lose itself in infinity, and would remain 
 without consciousness — in fact, without existence— did it not 
 encounter some resistance. In the effort to vanquish this resist - 
 ance, it exerts its will, becomes conscious of something not 
 itself, and thereby becomes conscious of itself. But resistance 
 limits freedom, and as an Activity the Ego is essentially free- 
 it is irresistibly impelled to enjoy perfect freedom. 
 
 This expansive force, which impels the Ego to realize itself 
 by complete development, and thereby assimilating the Non- 
 Ego — this force, in as far as it is not realized, is the aim of 
 man's existence — it is his duty. 
 
 Here the difference from the ordinary schools of morality 
 begins to show itself. Duty is not a moral obligation which 
 we are free to acknowledge or reject ; it is a pulse beating in 
 the very heart of man — a power inseparable from his constitu- 
 tion, and according to its fulfilment is the man complete. 
 
 The world does not exist because we imagine it, but because 
 we believe it. Let all reality be swept away by scepticism — we 
 are not affected. Man is impelled by his very nature to realize 
 his existence by his acts. Our destination is not thought, but 
 action. Man is not born to brood over his thoughts, but to 
 manifest them — to give them existence. There is a moral 
 world within ; our mission is to transport it without. By this 
 we create the world. For what is the condition of existence — 
 what determines thought to be? Simply that it should realize 
 itself as an object. The Ego as simple subject does not exist ; 
 it has only a potentiality of existence. To exist, it must realize 
 itself and become subject- object. 
 
 Mark the consequence. Knowing that we carry within us 
 the moral world, and that upon ourselves alone depends the 
 attainment of so sublime an object as the manifestation of this 
 world, it is to ourselves alone that we must direct our atten- 
 tion. This realisation of the world, what is it but the complete 
 development of ourselves? If we would be> therefore, if we 
 would enjoy the realities of existence, we must develop our- 
 
APPLICATION OF FICHTE 1 S IDEALISM. 597 
 
 •elves in the attempt to incessantly realize the beautiful, the 
 useful, and the good. Man is commanded to be moral by the 
 imperious necessity of his own nature. To be virtuous is not 
 to obey some external law, but to fulfil an internal law ; this 
 obedience is not slavery, but freedom ; it is not sacrificing one 
 particle of freedom to any other power, but wholly and truly 
 realizing the power within us of being free. 
 
 Life is a combat. The free spirit of man, inasmuch as it 
 is finite, is limited, imperfect ; but it incessantly struggles to 
 subjugate that which opposes it — it tends incessantly towards 
 infinity. Defeated in his hopes, he is sometimes discouraged, 
 but this lasts not long. There is a well-spring of energy for 
 ever vital in the heart of man ; an ideal is for ever shining 
 before him, and that he must attain. 
 
 Man knows himself to be free ; knows also that his fellow- 
 men are free ; and therefore the duty of each is to treat the 
 others as beings who have the same aim as himself. Indivi- 
 dual liberty is therefore the principle of all government : from 
 it Fichte deduces his political system. 
 
 And what says Fichte respecting God ? He was, as we know, 
 accused of atheism. Let us hear his real opinions. In his 
 answer to that charge we have an abstruse, but at the same 
 time positive, exposition of his views.* God created the world 
 out of an inert mass of matter; and from the evidence of design 
 in this created world we infer an intelligent designer. This is 
 the common view ; but Fichte could not accept it. In the 
 first place, what we call the World is but the incarnation of 
 our Duty (unsere Welt ist das vcrsinnlkhte Materiale unserer 
 Pflicht). It is the objective existence of the Ego : we are, so 
 to speak, the creators of it. This looks very like atheism, 
 especially when Fichte's system is not clearly apprehended : it 
 is, however, at the worst, only Acosmism. 
 
 Nor could Fichte accept the evidence of Design, because 
 Design is a mere conclusion of the understanding, applicable 
 only to finite, transient things, wholly inapplicable to the 
 infinite: Design itself is but a subjective notion.t 
 
 "God," said Fichte, "must be believed 'in, not inferred. Faith 
 is the ground of all conviction, scientific or moral. Why do 
 you believe in the existence of the world ? It is nothing more 
 
 * Vide 'Der Herausgeber des Philos. Journals gerichtliche Verant 
 wortungs-schriften gegen die Anklage des Atheismus.' Von J. G. Fichte 
 f See the before-named work, p. 43. 
 
5*S APPLICATION OF FICHTE'S IDEALISM. 
 
 than the incarnation of that which you carry within you, yet 
 you believe in it. In the same way God exists in your Con- 
 sciousness, and you believe in Him. He is the Moral Ordei 
 {moralische Ordnung) of the world : as such we can know him, 
 and only as such. For if we attempt to attribute to him 
 Intelligence or Personality, we at once necessarily fall into 
 anthropomorphism. God is infinite: therefore beyond the 
 reach of our science, which can only embrace the finite, but not 
 beyond ova faith." 
 
 By our efforts to fulfil our Duty, and thus to realize the Good 
 and Beautiful, we are tending towards God, we live in some 
 measure the life of God. True religion is therefore the realiza- 
 tion of universal reason. If we were all perfectly free we 
 should be one ; for there is but one Liberty. If we had all the 
 same convictions, the law of each would be the law of all, since 
 all would have but one WilL To this we aspire; to this 
 Humanity is tending. 
 
 The germ of mysticism which lies in this doctrine was fully 
 developed by some of Fichte's successors, although he himself 
 had particularly guarded against such an interpretation, and 
 distinguishes himself from the mystics. 
 
 We may now pass to Fichte's Philosophy of History. 
 The historian only accomplishes half of the required task. 
 He narrates the events of an epoch, in their order of occurrence, 
 and in the form of their occurrence ; but he cannot be assured 
 that he has not omitted some of these events, or that he has 
 given them their due position and significance. The Philo- 
 sopher must complete this incomplete method. He must form 
 some Idea of the epoch — an Idea a priori, independent of 
 experience. He must then exhibit this Idea always dominant 
 throughout the epoch — and manifesting itself in all the multi- 
 plicity of facts, which are but its incarnation. What is the 
 world but an incarnation of the Ego ? What is an epoch but 
 an incarnation of an idea ? 
 
 Every epoch has therefore its pre-existent Idea. And this 
 Idea will be determined by the Ideas of the epochs which have 
 preceded it; and will determine those which succeed it. Hence 
 we conclude that the evolutions of Ideas — or the History of 
 the World — is accomplished on a certain plan. The Philo- 
 sopher must conceive this plan in its totality, that he may from 
 
 ♦ Sec his ' Sitteuichre • (1798). pp. 189, 194. 
 
APPLICATICJf OF FICHTE'S IDEALISM. 599 
 
 it deduce the Ideas of the principal epochs in the history of 
 Humanity, not only as past but as future. 
 
 The question first to be settled is this : what is the ground- 
 plan of the world ? or, in other words, according to Fichte, 
 what is the fundamental Idea which Humanity has to realize? 
 
 The answer is : The Idea of Duty. This, in its concrete 
 expression, is : To fix the relations of man to man in such 
 order that the perfect liberty of each be compatible with the 
 liberty of the whole. 
 
 History may thus be divided into two principal epochs. The 
 one in which man has not established the social relations on 
 the basis of reason. The other in which he has established 
 them, and knows that he has done so. 
 
 That Humanity exists but for the successive and constant 
 realization of the dictates of reason is easily proved. But 
 sometimes Humanity has knowledge of what it performs, and 
 why it performs it ; sometimes it obeys but a blind impulse, 
 In this second case, that is to say, in the first epochs of the 
 terrestrial existence of Humanity, Reason, although not mani- 
 festing itself distinctly, consciously, nevertheless exists. It 
 manifests itself as an instinct, and appears under the form of a 
 natural law ; it manifests itself in the intelligence only as a 
 vague and obscure sentiment. Reason, on the contrary, no 
 sooner manifests itself as reason, than it is gifted with con- 
 sciousness of itself and its acts. This constitutes the second 
 epoch. 
 
 But Humanity does not pass at once from the first to the 
 second epoch. At first Reason only manifests itself in a few 
 men, the Great Men of their age, who thereby acquire 
 authority. They are the instructors of their age; their mis- 
 sion is to elevate the mass up to themselves. Thus Instinct 
 diminishes, and reason supervenes. Science appears. Morality 
 becomes a science. The relations of man to man become more 
 and more fixed in accordance with the dictates of reason. 
 
 The entire life of Humanity has five periods. I. The 
 domination of Instinct over Reason : this is the primitive 
 age. II. The general Instinct gives place to an external 
 dominant Authority : this is the age of doctrines unable to 
 convince and employing force to produce a blind belief, claim- 
 ing unlimited obedience; this is the period in which Evil 
 arises. III. The Authority, dominant in the preceding epoch, 
 but constantly attacked by Reason, becomes weak and waver- 
 
6oo APPLICATION OF FICHTE'S IDEALISM. 
 
 ing : this is the epoch of scepticism and licentiousness. IV. 
 Reason becomes conscious ot itself; truth makes itself known ; 
 the science of Reason develops itself : this is the beginning of 
 that perfection which Humanity is destined to attain. V. The 
 science of Reason is applied ; Humanity fashions itself after 
 the ideal standard of Reason : this is the epoch of Art ; the 
 last term in the history of our species. 
 
 This brief outline of Fichte's system will be sufficient to 
 assign him his place in the long line of European tninkers who 
 have worked with such perseverance, the glittering mine of 
 Metaphysics ; and sufficient also, we trust, not only to stimu- 
 late the curiosity of such readers whose studies lie in that 
 direction, but also to furnish them with a general view capable 
 of rendering all the details intelligible. 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 LIFE OF SCHELLINO. 
 
 Schelling is yet living. We saw him this spring (1845), na * e 
 and vigorous ; we heard him lecture with an energy and per- 
 fection of delivery few young men exhibit. In his conversa- 
 tion, as in his bearing, there are few signs of age. In spite of 
 his seventy years, one would say that he had still a long 
 career to run. Does it not therefore seem somewhat premature 
 to write his Life ? 
 
 That others have written it is scarcely an excuse : and yet 
 this being a Biographical History, some sort of biography is 
 necessary. We must get out of the difficulty by confining 
 ourselves to the leading facts of his public career. 
 
 Frederick William Joseph Schelling was born 27th January, 
 1775. **e was subsequently ennobled by the King of Bavaria, 
 and is now Vor; Schelling. At the University in Tubingen he 
 first knew Hegel, and their friendship was enduring and pro- 
 ductive. He studied, at Leipsig, Medicine and Philosophy; 
 in the latter he became the pupil of Fichte. He afterwards 
 filled Fichte's vacant chair at Jena, where he lectured with 
 immense success. In 1807 he was made a member of the 
 Munich Academy of Sciences. And in Bavaria, honoured and 
 rewarded, he remained till 1842, when the King of Prussia 
 seduced him to Berlin ; and there, in the chair once held by 
 Hegel, he opened a series of lectures, which still are continued, 
 in which he was to give the fruit of a life's meditation. 
 
 His appearance at Berlin was the signal for violent polemics. 
 The Hegelians were all up in arms. Pamphlets, full of per- 
 
«0f SWELLING'S DOCTRINES, 
 
 sonalities and dialectics, were launched against Schelling. 
 apparently without much effect His foes have grown weary 
 of screaming ; he continues quietly to lecture. He has pro- 
 mised soon to publish these lectures, which will contain his 
 system thoroughly developed and matured. Meanwhile we 
 have only to concern ourselves with his early writings, and of 
 those only such portions as contain the views which can be 
 called fundamental. It would be a laborious task to follow 
 him through all the modifications which his opinions under- 
 went — a task, moreover, by no means falling in with the plan 
 of this History. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 sckelling's doctrines. 
 
 Schelling is often styled the German Plato. In such parallels 
 there is always some truth amidst much error. Schelling's 
 works unquestionably exhibit great power of vivid imagination 
 conjoined with subtle dialectics ; if on this ground he is to be 
 styled a Plato, then are there hundreds to share that title with 
 him. His doctrines have little resemblance to those of his 
 supposed prototype. Curiously enough he has a head mar- 
 vellously like that of Socrates ; not so ugly, not so like a mask, 
 but still in the general character so resembling as to strike 
 every one. 
 
 Schelling may be regarded as having been the systematiser 
 of a tendency, always manifesting itself, but then in full vigour 
 in Germany — the tendency towards Pantheism. This tendency 
 is not merely the offspring of Mysticism. It may be recognised 
 in the clear Gothe no less than in the mystical Novalis. It 
 may as easily be logically deduced, as it may be confusedly 
 felt Spinoza " demonstrated " it, and Novalis felt it. In 
 some way or other, Pantheism seems to result from every 
 Philosophy of Religion, if the consequences be rigorously car- 
 ried out; but Germany, above all European countries, has, 
 both in feeling and speculation, the most constantly repro- 
 duced it Her poets, her artists, her musicians, and her 
 
SCHELLING' S DOCTRINES. 
 
 603 
 
 thinkers, hare been more or less Pantheists. Schelling's 
 attempt therefore to give Pantheism a scientific basis, could 
 not but meet with hearty approbation. 
 
 That Spinoza had already given this basis — that he had 
 built on it a structure solid and compact — seems to have been 
 overlooked. True that several Germans had studied his works, 
 and borrowed many ideas from them j Schelling did so. But 
 although Jacobi distinctly saw that Spinozism was the only 
 rational solution of the great problems of Philosophy, he 
 avoided Spinozism by calling in the aid of Faith. This also, 
 in his own way, did Schelling. 
 
 We may here notice the similarity, in historical position, of 
 the modern German speculations with those of the Alexandrian 
 schools. In both the incapacity of Reason to solve the pro- 
 blems of Philosophy is openly proclaimed ; in both some 
 higher faculty is called in to solve them. Plotinus called this 
 faculty Ecstacy. Schelling called it the Intellectual Intuition. 
 The Ecstacy was not supposed to be a faculty possessed by all 
 men, and at all times ; it was only possessed by the few, and 
 by them but sometimes.. The Intellectual Intuition was not 
 supposed to be a faculty common to all men ; on the contrary, 
 it was held as the endowment only of a few of the privileged : 
 it was the faculty of philosophising. Schelling has superb dis- 
 dain for those who talk about not comprehending the highest 
 truths of Philosophy. " Really," he exclaims, " one sees not 
 wherefore Philosophy should pay any attention whatever to 
 Incapacity. It is better rather that we should isolate Philo- 
 sophy from all the ordinary routes, and keep it so separated 
 from ordinary knowledge that none of these routes should lead 
 to it. Philosophy commences where ordinary knowledge ter- 
 minates."* The highest truths of science cannot be proved, 
 they must be apprehended ; for those who cannot apprehend 
 them there is nothing but pity, argument is useless. 
 
 After this, were we to call Schelling the German Plotinus, 
 we should, perhaps, be nearer the truth than in calling him the 
 German Plato. But it was for the sake of no such idle parallel 
 that we compared the fundamental positions of each. Our 
 object was to " point a moral," and to show how the same 
 forms of error re-appear in history, and how the labours of so 
 many centuries have not advanced the human mind in this 
 direction one single step. 
 
 * 'Neue Zeitschrift fiir Speculative Physik,' toI. ii., p. 34. 
 
foj SCHELLING'S doctrines. 
 
 But although Schelling's Philosophy is thus placed above 
 criticism, and indeed above discussion, it is not placed above 
 appreciation ; and in giving a brief exposition of it we shall 
 leave the appreciation to our readers. 
 
 The first point to be established is the nature of Schelling's 
 improvement upon Fichte : the relation in which the two doc- 
 trines stand to each other. 
 
 Fichte's Idealism was a purely subjective Idealism. The 
 Object had indeed reality, but was solely dependent upon the 
 Subject. Endeavour as we might we could never separate the 
 Object from the Subject, we could never conceive a possible 
 mode of existence without being forced to identify with it a 
 Subject. Indeed the very conception itself is but an act of the 
 Subject. Admitting that we are forced by the laws of our 
 mental constitution to postulate an unknown something, a 
 Noumenon, as the substance in which all phenomena inhere, 
 what, after all, is this postulate ? It is an act of the Mind ; it 
 is wholly subjective ; the necessity for the postulate is a mental 
 necessity. The Non-Ego, therefore, is the product of the Ego. 
 
 There is subtle reasoning in the above ; nay more, it con- 
 tains a principle which is irrefutable : the principle of the iden- 
 tity of Object and Subject in knowledge.* This Schelling 
 adopted. Nevertheless, in spite of such an admission, the 
 nullity of the external world was too violent and repulsive a 
 conclusion to be long maintained; and it was necessary ro see 
 if the principle of identity might not be preserved, without 
 forcing us to such a conclusion. 
 
 The existence of the objective world is as firmly believed in 
 as the existence of the subjective : they are, indeed, both given 
 in the same act. We cannot be conscious of our own existence 
 without at the same time inseparably connecting it with some 
 other existence from which we distinguished ourselves. So in 
 like manner we cannot be aware of the existence of anything 
 out of ourselves without at the same time inseparably connect- 
 ing with it a consciousness of ourselves. Hence we conclude 
 that both exist j not indeed separately, not independently of 
 each other, but identified in some higher power. Fichte said 
 
 * This is the sti onghold of Idealism, and we consider it impregnable, so 
 long as men reason on the implied assumption, that whatever is trne in 
 human knowledge is equally true (i.e., actually so co-ordinated) in fact ; 
 that as things appear to us so they are per se. And yet without this 
 assumption Philosophy is impossible. Ergo ? 
 
SCHELLING S DOCTRINES. 605 
 
 that the Non-Ego was created by the Ego. Schelling said that 
 the two were equally real, and that both were identified in the 
 Absolute. 
 
 Knowledge must be knowledge of something. Hence 
 Knowledge implies the correlate of Being. Knowledge with- 
 out an Object known, is but an empty form. But Knowledge 
 and Being are correlates ; they are not separable ; they are 
 identified. It is as impossible to conceive an Object known 
 without a Subject knowing, as it is to conceive a Subject know- 
 ing without an Object known. 
 
 Nature is Spirit visible ; Spirit is invisible Nature :* the ab- 
 solute Ideal is at the same time the absolute Real. 
 
 Hence Philosophy has two primary problems to solve. In 
 the Transcendental Philosophy the problem is to construct 
 Nature from Intelligence — the Object from the Subject. In 
 the Philosophy of Nature the problem is to construct Intelli- 
 gence from Nature — the Subject from the Object, t And how 
 are we to construct one from the other ? This Fichte has 
 taught us in the principle of the identity of Subject and Object, 
 whereby the productivity and the product are in constant op- 
 position, yet always one. The productivity (Thatigkeit) is the 
 activity in act : it is the force which develops itseli into all 
 things. The product is the activity arrested and solidified into 
 a fact ; but it is always ready to pass again into activity. And 
 thus the world is but a balancing of contending' powers within 
 the sphere of the Absolute. 
 
 In what, then, does Schelling differ from Ficnce, since both 
 assert that the product (object) is but the arrested activity of 
 the Ego ? In this : the Ego in Fichte's system is a finite Ego 
 —it is the human soul. The Ego in Schelling's system is the 
 Absolute — the Infinite — the All which Spinoza called Sub- 
 stance ; and this Absolute manifests itself in two forms : in the 
 form of the Ego, and in the form of the Non-Ego — as Nature 
 and as Mind. 
 
 The Ego produces the Non-Ego, but not by its own force, 
 not out of its own nature ; it is the universal Nature which 
 works within us, and which produces from out of us; it is 
 universal Nature which here in us is conscious of itself. Men 
 
 * Our readers will recognise here a favourite saying of Coleridge, many 
 of whose remarks, now become famous, are almost verbatim from Schelling 
 and the two Schlegels. 
 
 t ' System des TraasceadenUlen IdtaliM&us,' p. 7. 
 
6o6 SCHELLING'S DOCTRINES. 
 
 are but the innumerable individual eyes with which the Infi- 
 nite World spirit beholds himself. 
 
 What is the Ego? It is one and the same with the act 
 which renders it an Object to itself. When I say " myself" — 
 when I form a conception of my Ego, what is that but the Ego 
 making itself an Object ? Consciousness, therefore, may be 
 denned the objectivity of the Ego. Very well ; now apply 
 this to the Absolute. He, too, must be conscious of himself, 
 and for that he must realize himself objectively. We can now 
 understand Schelling when he says "The bhnd and uncon- 
 scious products of Nature are nothing but unsuccessful 
 attempts of Nature to make itself an Object (sick selbst zu 
 reflectiren) ; the so-called dead Nature is but an unripe Intelli- 
 gence. The acme of its efforts — that is, for Nature com- 
 pletely to objectize itself — is attained through the highest and 
 ultimate degree of reflection in Man— or what we call Reason. 
 Here Nature returns into itself, and reveals its identity with 
 that which in us is known as the Object and Subject."* 
 
 This function of Reason is elsewhere more distinctly de- 
 scribed as the total indifference-point of the Subjective and 
 Objective. The Absolute he represents by the symbol of the 
 Magnet. Thus, as it is the same principle, which divides itself 
 in the Magnet into the North and South poles, the centre of 
 which is the Indifference-point, so in like manner does the 
 Absolute divide itself into the Real and Ideal, and holds itself 
 in this separation as absolute Indifference.t And as in the 
 Magnet every point is itself a Magnet, having a North pole, a 
 South pole, and a point of Indifference, so also is the Universe, 
 the individual varieties are but varieties of the eternal One. 
 Man is a microcosm. 
 
 Reason is the Indifference-point. Whoso rises to it, rises 
 to the reality of things {sum wahren Ansich) which reality is 
 precisely in the indifference of Object and Subject The 
 basis of Philosophy is therefore the basis of Reason; its 
 Knowledge is a Knowledge of things as they are, i.e., as they 
 are in Reason.J 
 
 The spirit of Plotinus dictated these expressions. We have 
 in them the whole key-stone of the Alexandrian school. The 
 
 * ' System des Transcend. Idealismus/ p. 5. 
 
 t Hence Schelling's philosophy is often styled the Indifference Philo- 
 sophy 
 t ' Zdtschrift fur spcculat. Phy*.,' toi. ii., bmtkt. 
 
SCHELLIN&S DOCTRINES. fe? 
 
 Intellectual Intuitioa by which we are to embrace the Absolute, 
 is, as before remarked, but another form of the Alexandrian 
 Ecstacy. Scheming was well aware that the Absolute, the In- 
 finite as such, could not be known under the conditions of finity, 
 cannot be known in personal consciousness. How, then, can 
 it be known ? By some higher faculty which discerns tne 
 Identity of Object and Subject — which perceives the Absolute 
 as Absolute, where all difference is lost in indifference. 
 
 There are three divisions in Schelling's system : the philo- 
 sophy of Nature, the transcendental philosophy, and the philo- 
 sophy of the Absolute. 
 
 His speculations with respect to Nature have met with con- 
 siderable applause in Germany, and could meet with it nowhere 
 else. Ingenious they certainly are, but vitiated in Method ; 
 leading to no results, because incapable of verification. Those 
 who are curious to see what he makes of Nature are referred to 
 his Ztitschift fiir Speculative Physik, and his Idem zu einer 
 Philosophic der Natur. The following examples will serve to 
 indicate the kind of speculation : * 
 
 Subject and Object being identical, the absolute Identity is 
 the absolute Totality named Universe. There can be no 
 difference except a quantitative difference; and this is only 
 conceivable with respect to individual existences. For the 
 absolute Identity is quantitative indiffermce both of Object and 
 Subject, and is only under this form. If we could behold all 
 that is, and behold it in its totality, we should see a perfect 
 quantitative equality. It is only in the scission of the in- 
 dividual from the infinite that quantitative difference takes 
 place. This difference of object and subject is the ground of 
 all finity ; and, on the other hand, quantitative indifference of 
 the two is infinity. 
 
 That which determines any difference is a Power (Potmz), 
 and the Absolute, is the Identity of all Powers (aller Potmzen). 
 
 All matter is originally liquid ; weight is the power through 
 which the Attractive and Expansive force, as the immanent 
 ground of the reality of Matter, operates. Weight is the first 
 Potmz. The second Potmz is Light — an inward intuition of 
 Nature, as Weight is the outward intuition. Identity with 
 
 • The reader must not complain if he do not understand what follows : 
 intelligibility is not the characteristic of German speculation ; and we are 
 bere only translating Schelling's words without undertaking to enlighten 
 their darkness. 
 
608 SCHELLING'S DOCTR1NF 
 
 Light is Transparency. Heat does not pt ain to the nature 
 of Light, but is simply a modus existendi < Light. Newton's 
 speculations upon Light are treated with disdain, as a system 
 built upon illogical conclusions, a system self-contradictory, and 
 leading to infinite absurdities. Nevertheless, this absurd sys- 
 tem has led men to many discoveries : it is the basis of all that 
 science builds, while the " superior " views of Schelling lead to 
 nothing except disputation. So with his explanation of Elec- 
 tricity : let us suppose it exact, and we must still acknowledge 
 it to be useless. It admits of no verification j admits of no 
 application. It is utterly sterile. 
 
 Schelling, in his Jahrbiicher der Median, says that science is 
 only valuable in as far as it is speculative; and by speculation 
 he means the contemplation of God as he exists. Reason, 
 inasmuch as it affirms God, cannot affirm anything else, and 
 annihilates itself at the same time as an individual existence, 
 as anything out <?/"God. Thought (Das Denkeri) is not my 
 Thought ; and Being is not my Being : for everything belongs 
 to God or the All. There is no such thing as a Reason which 
 we have ; but only a Reason that has us. If nothing exists out 
 of God, then must the knowledge of God be only the infinite 
 knowledge which God has of himself in the eternal Self- 
 affirmation. God is not the highest, but the only One. He 
 is not to be viewed as the summit or the end, but as the 
 centre, as the All in All. Consequently, there is no such thing 
 as a being lifted up to the knowledge of God ; but the know- 
 ledge is immediate recognition. 
 
 If we divest Schilling's speculations of their dialectical forms 
 we shall arrive at the following results : — 
 
 Idealism is one-sided. Beside the Subject there must exist 
 an Object : the two are identical in a third, which is the Abso- 
 lute. This Absolute is neither Ideal nor Real — neither Mind 
 nor Nature — but both. This Absolute is God. He is the All 
 in All : the eternal source of all existence. He realizes himself 
 under one form, as an objectivity ; and under a second form as 
 a subjectivity. He becomes conscious of himself in man ; and 
 this man, under the highest form of his existence, manifests 
 Reason, and by this Reason God knows himself. Such are 
 the conclusions to which Schelling's philosophy leads us. And 
 now, we ask, in what does this philosophy differ from Spinozism?* 
 
 TTie Absolute, which Schelling assumes as the Indifference- 
 point of Subject and Object, is but the irpdrov ayadbv and primal 
 
HELLING? S DOCTRINES. 609 
 
 Nothing, which /™s the first Hypostasis of the Alexandrian 
 Trinity.* The Absolute, as the Identity of Subject and Object^ 
 being neither and yet both, is but the Substance of Spinoza 
 whose Attributes are Extension and Thought. 
 
 With Spinoza also he agreed in giving only a phenomena; 
 reality to the Object and Subject. With Spinoza he agreed 
 in admitting but one existence — the Absolute. 
 
 But, although agreeing with Spinoza in his fundamental 
 positions, he differed with him in Method, and in the applica- 
 tions of those positions. In both differences the superiority, 
 as it seems to us, is incontestably due to Spinoza. 
 
 Spi'toza deduced his system very logically from one funda- 
 mentai assumption, viz., that whatever was true of ideas was 
 true of objects. This assumption itself was not arbitrary. It 
 was grounded upon the principle of certitude, which Descartes 
 had brought forward as the only principle which was irrefragable. 
 Whatever was found to be distinct and a priori in Conscious- 
 ness, was irresistibly true. Philosophy was, therefore, deductive ; 
 and Spinoza deduced his system from the principles laid down 
 by Descartes. 
 
 Schelling's Method was very different. Aware that human 
 knowledge was necessarily finite, he could not accept Spinoza's 
 Method, because that would have given him only a knowledge 
 of the finite, the conditioned ; and such knowledge it was ad- 
 mitted, led to scepticism. He was forced to assume another 
 faculty of knowing the truth, and this was the Intellectual 
 Intuition. Reason which could know the Absolute was only 
 possible, by transcending Consciousness and sinking into the 
 Absolute. As Knowledge and Being were identical, to know 
 the Infinite we must be the Infinite, i.e., must lose our indi- 
 viduality in the universal. 
 
 Consciousness, then, which had for so long formed the basis 
 of all Philosophy, was thrown over by Schelling, as incompetent 
 to solve any of the problems. Consciousness was no ground 
 of certitude. Reason was the organ of Philosophy, and Reason 
 was impersonal. The Identity of Being and Knowing took the 
 place of Consciousness, and became the basis of all specula- 
 tion. We shall see to what it led in Hegel. 
 
 Our notice of Schelling has necessarily been brief; not be- 
 
 * See pp. 301-2 (Series I). If the reader feels any difficulty in seizing 
 Schelling's meaning with respect to the Absolute, he will find it illustrated 
 In the chapter above referred to. 
 
 QQ 
 
610 SCHELLING'S DOCTRINES. 
 
 cause he merited no greater space, but because to have entered 
 into details, with any satisfaction, would have carried us far 
 beyond our limits. His works are not only numerous, but 
 differ considerably in their views. All we have endeavoured to 
 represent is the ideas which he produced as developments of 
 Fichte, and which served Hegel as a basis. 
 
 A French translation of his best work, under the title of 
 Systeme de ridealisme transcendental, by P. Grimblot, the trans- 
 lator ot Fichte, is announced ; also a version of Bruno on Let 
 Principes des Cfioses. Nothing in English. 
 
(Skbenti) dpotfe. 
 
 THE THIRD FORM OF IDEALISM, VIZ., ABSOLUTE, 
 IDEALISM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 LIFE OF HEGEL. 
 
 George Frederick William Hegel was bora at Stuttgard 
 the 27th of August, 1770. He received that classical education 
 which distinguished the Wirtembergian students beyond all 
 others ; and in his eighteenth year he went to Tubingen, to 
 pursue his theological and philosophical studies. He was there 
 a fellow-student with Schelling, for whom he contracted great 
 esteem. The two young thinkers communicated to each other 
 their thoughts, and discussed their favourite systems. In after 
 life when opposition had sundered these ties, Hegel never spoke 
 of this part of their connexion without emotion. In his twen- 
 tieth year he had to give up all his plans for a professorship, 
 and was content (hunger impelling) to accept the place of 
 private tutor, first in Switzerland, and subsequently in Frankfort. 
 Early in 1801 his father died : and the small property he 
 inherited enabled him to relinquish his tutorship, and to move 
 to Jena, where he published his dissertation De orbitis plane- 
 {arum. This work was directed against the Newtonian system 
 of Astronomy. It was an application of Schelling's Philosophy 
 of Nature ; and in it Newton was treated with that scorn 
 which Hegel never failed to heap upon Empirics, i.e., those who 
 trusted more to experience than to logic. In the same year he 
 published his 'Difference between Fichte and Schelling,' in 
 which he sided with the doctrines of his friend, whcun he joined 
 
6iz LIFE OF HEGEL, 
 
 in editing the * Critical Journal of Philosophy.' It is in the 
 second volume of this Journal that we meet with his celebrated 
 essay Glauben und Wisscn (Faith and Knowledge), in which 
 Kant, Jacobi, and Fichte are criticised. 
 
 At Jena he enjoyed the society of Gothe and Schiller. Th« 
 former, with his usual sagacity, detected the philosophical 
 genius which as yet lay undeveloped in Hegel ; of which more 
 may be read in Gothe and Schiller's 'Correspondence.' Hegel r 
 on the other hand, was to the last one of Gothe's staunches* 
 admirers ; and many a gleam of lustre is shed over the pages 
 of the philosopher, by his frequent quotation of the poet. 
 
 At the University of Jena, Hegel then held the post of 
 Privat docent; but his lectures had only four listeners. These 
 four, however, were all remarkable men : Gabler, Troxler, 
 Bachmann, and Zellmann. On Schelling's quitting Jena, Hegel 
 filled the chair ; but filled it only for one year. Here he pub- 
 lished his Phanotnenologic dcs Geistes. He finished writing this 
 work on the night of the ever-memorable battle of Jena. While 
 the artillery was roaring under the walls, the Philosopher was 
 deep in his work, unconscious of all that was going on. He 
 continued writing, as Archimedes at the siege of Syracuse con- 
 tinued his scientific researches. The next morning, manuscript 
 in hand, he steps into the streets, is proceeding to his pub- 
 lisher's, firmly convinced that the interests of mankind are bound 
 up with that mass of writing which he hugs so tenderly. The 
 course of his reverie is somewhat violently interrupted ; bearded 
 and gesticulating French soldiers arrest the philosopher, and sig- 
 nificantly enough inform him that, for the present, the interests 
 of men lie elsewhere than in manuscripts. In spite of French 
 soldiers, however, the work in due time saw the light, and was 
 welcomed by the philosophical world, as a new system — or 
 rather as a new modification of Schelling's system. The editor- 
 ship of the Bamberg newspaper was then offered him, and he 
 quitted Jena. He did not long remain at Bamberg ; for in the 
 autumn of 1808 we find him Rector of the Gymnasium College 
 at Nurnberg. He shortly after married Fraulein von Tucher, 
 with whom he passed a happy life, and by whom he had two 
 sons. In 1816 he was called to the chair of Heidelberg, and 
 published in 181 7 his Encyclopedic dcr Philos. Wissenschaftcn, 
 which contains an outline of his system. This work so exalted 
 his reputation that in 18 18 he was called to the chair of Berlin, 
 then the most important in Germany. He there lectured for 
 
HEGEL'S METHOD. 
 
 613 
 
 thirteen years, and formed a school, of which it is sufficient to 
 name as among its members Gans, Rosen kranz, Michelet, 
 Werder, Marheinecke, and Hothe. 
 
 Hegel was seized with the cholera in 1831, and after a short 
 illness expired in the sixty-first year of his age, on the 24th 
 of November, the anniversary of the death of Liebnitz. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 hegel's method. 
 
 Schelling's doctrines were never systematically co-ordinated. 
 The characteristic of his mind was certainly not scientific. He 
 was subtle, ardent, and audacious ; but he abhorred precision ; 
 and was in striking contradiction to his predecessors Kant and 
 Fichte in the absence of logical forms. He preached; he 
 never attempted to demonstrate. 
 
 The effect of his preaching was felt more in the department 
 of the philosophy of Nature than elsewhere. Crowds of dis- 
 ciples, some of them, as Oken and Steffens, illustrious disciples, 
 attempted the application of his principles ; and after a vast 
 quantity of ingenious, but sterile generalization, it was found 
 that these principles led to no satisfactory conclusion. 
 
 Schelling's ideas were, however, very generally accepted in 
 the philosophical world at the time Hegel appeared. These 
 ideas were thought to be genuine intuitions of the truth ; the 
 only drawback was their want of systematic co-ordination. 
 They were inspirations of the truth ; and demonstrations were 
 needed. The position Hegel was to occupy became therefore 
 very clear. Either he must destroy those ideas and bring 
 forward others; or he must accept them, and, in accepting, 
 systematise them. This latter was no easy task, and this was 
 the task he chose. In the course of his labours he deviated 
 somewhat from Schelling, because the rigorous conclusions of 
 his logic made such deviations necessary ; but these are, after 
 all, nothing but modifications of Schelling's ideas ; very often 
 nothing but different expressions for the same ideas. 
 
 What, then, constitutes Hegel's glory ? What is the nature 
 
6i 4 HEGEL'S METHOD. 
 
 of his contribution to philosophy, which has placed him on so 
 high a pedestal of renown ? It is nothing less than the inven- 
 tion of a new Method.* 
 
 The invention of a Method we have always considered as, 
 perhaps, the greatest effort of philosophical genius, and the 
 most deserving of the historian's attention. A Method is a 
 path of transit. Whoso discovers a path whereon mankind may 
 travel in quest of truth, has done more towards the discovery 
 of truth than thousands of men merely speculating. What had 
 the observation and speculation of centuries done for astronomy 
 before the right path was found ? And if a Method could be 
 found for Philosophy — if a path of transit from the phenomenal 
 to the noumenal world could be found — should we not then be 
 quickly in possession of the truth. 
 
 A Method is all-important. That invented by Descartes 
 seemed promising ; but it led to Malebranche and Spinoza. 
 That invented by Locke had obvious excellences ; but it was 
 a path of transit to Berkeley and Hume. That of Kant led 
 to Fichte and Scepticism. 
 
 Curious to consider ! In the modern as in the ancient world, 
 the inevitable results of a philosophical Method are Idealism 
 and Scepticism. One class of minds is led to Idealism or 
 Mysticism ; another class is led to Scepticism. But as both 
 these conclusions are repugnant to the ordinary conclusions of 
 mankind, they are rejected, and the Method which led to them 
 is also rejected. A new one is found ; hopes beat high ; truth 
 is about to be discovered ; the search is active, and the result — 
 always the same — repugnant Idealism or Scepticism ! Thus 
 struggling and being baffled, hoping and being dispirited, has 
 Humanity for ever renewed the conflict, without once gaining 
 a victory. It is Sisyphus rolling up the heavy stone, that 
 no sooner reaches a certain point than down it rolls to the 
 bottom, and all the labour is to begin again. 
 
 In this history we have already traced the efforts of many 
 noble minds ; we have seen the stone laboriously rolled up- 
 wards, and seen it swiftly roll down again. We have seen 
 Methods discovered; followed adventurous spirits as they 
 rushed forward to conquest ; and seen the discouragement, the 
 
 • This is the claim put up by his disciple Michelet : — \ Gesch der Systeme 
 der Philos.,' vol. ii., pp. 604-5 J who declares Hegel's method to be all 
 that can properly be called his own. Comp. Hegel's ' Vermischte Schriften,' 
 •«*• "., P- 479- 
 
HEGEL'S METHOD. 615 
 
 despair which possessed them, as they found their paths leading 
 only to a yawning gulf of scepticism, or a baseless cloud-land 
 of Idealism. We have now to witness this spectacle once 
 more. We have to see whither Hegel's Method can conduct 
 men. 
 
 And what is this Method which Hegel discovered? Ac- 
 cepting as indisputable the identity of object and subject, he 
 was forced also to accept the position that whatever was true of 
 the thought was true of the thing. In other words, Mind and 
 Matter being identical, Ideas and Objects were correlates, and 
 equally true. This is the position upon which Descartes stood ; 
 the position upon which Spinoza stood. Schelling and Hegel 
 arrived at this position by a different route, but they also took , 
 their stand upon it 
 
 Now, it is evident that such a position is exposed to attacks 
 on all sides ; to none more so than to the contradictions which 
 rise up from within it. If whatever is true of Ideas is true 
 also of Objects, a thousand absurdities bristle up against us. 
 Thus, as Kant said, there is considerable difference between 
 thinking we possess a hundred dollars, and possessing them. 
 Hegel's answer is delicious : he declares that Philosophy 
 does not concern itself with such things as a hundred 
 dollars ! (daran ist philosophisch nichts zu erkennen). Philo- 
 sophy directs its thoughts only towards that which is necessary 
 and eternal. 
 
 Very well : let such miserable illustrations as that of dollars 
 be banished from discourse ; let us concern ourselves only with 
 what is necessary and eternal ; let us confine ourselves to ab- 
 stractions. Are there no contradictions here between Thoughts 
 and Realities ? For example, we have the Thought of Non- 
 existence : does, therefore, this Non-existence which is our 
 Thought also possess an objective being? Is there a Non- 
 existence ? 
 
 We have chosen this idle question because Hegel himself 
 has forced us to it. He boldly says that the Non-existence — 
 the Nothing — exists, because it is a Thought (Das Nichts ist; 
 denn es ist ein Gedanke). It is not, however, merely a Thought, 
 but it is the same Thought as that of pure Being (Seyn), viz., 
 an entirely unconditioned Thought. 
 
 In this, coupled with his tamous axiom, that " Being and 
 Non- Being are the same" (Seyn und Nichts ist dasst/oe), we 
 have two of the curious results to which his Method led him. 
 
/ 
 
 616 HEGEVS METHOD. 
 
 Let us again ask, What was that Method ? It was the Method 
 of Descartes, founded upon Descartes' principle of the truth of 
 ideas being equivalent to the truth of things; but inasmuch as 
 this met with strong opposition from various sides, Hegel 
 resolved to give it a deeper, firmer basis, a basis that went 
 underneath these contradictions. The basis was his principle 
 of the identity of contraries. 
 
 Let us explain. Two contraries are commonly supposed 
 to exclude each other reciprocally : Existence excludes Non- 
 Existence. This notion Hegel pronounces to be false. 
 Everything is contradictory in itself: contradiction forms its 
 essence : its identity consists in being the union of two con- 
 traries. Thus Being (Seyn) considered absolutely — considered 
 as unconditioned — that is to say, as Being in the abstract, apart 
 from any individual thing, is the same as Nothing. Existence 
 is therefore identical with its negation. But to conclude that 
 there is not Existence would be false ; for the abstract Nothing 
 (Nichts) is at the same time the abstract Being. We must, 
 therefore, unite these two contraries, and in so doing we arrive 
 at a middle term — the realization * of the two in one, and this 
 is conditioned Existence — it is the world. 
 
 Here is another example : in pure light, that is light without 
 colour or shadow, we should be totally unable to see anything. 
 Absolute clearness is, therefore, identical with absolute ob- 
 scurity — with its negation, in fact ; but neither clearness nor 
 obscurity are complete alone : by uniting them we have clear- 
 ness mingled with obscurity; that is to say, we have Light 
 properly so called. 
 
 Hegel thus seized the bull by the horns. Instead of allow- 
 ing himself to be worsted by the arguments derived from the 
 contradictions to which the identity of Existence and Know- 
 ledge was exposed, he at once met the difficulty by declaring 
 •that the identity of contraries was the very condition of all 
 existence; without a contrary nothing could come into being. 
 This was a bit of logical audacity which astounded his country- 
 Hen, and they have proclaimed this feat worthy of immortal 
 glory. A new light seemed to be thrown upon the world ; a 
 new aspect was given to all existences. Being was at the 
 same time Non-Being ; Subject was at the same time Object ; 
 and Object was Subject; Force was at the same time Im- 
 
 * The original word is werden — the becoming. It is much used in 
 German speculation to express the transition from Non-being to Being. 
 
HEGEVS METHOD. 617 
 
 potence ; Light was also Darkness, and Darkness was also 
 Light. 
 
 Nothing in this world is single, 
 
 All things by a law divine 
 
 In one another's being mingle. 
 
 The merit of this discovery, whatever may be its value, is 
 considerably diminished, when we remember how distinctly it 
 was enunciated in ancient Greece. Heraclitus had told us 
 how " All is, and is not ; for though it comes into being, yet it 
 forthwith ceases to be." Empedocles had told us how there 
 was tl Nothing but a mingling and then a separation of the 
 mingled." Indeed, the constant flux and reflux of life, the 
 many changes, and the compound nature of all things, must 
 early have led men to such a view. Hegel himself admits that 
 all the positions maintained by Heraclitus, have been by him 
 developed in his Logic. What, then, was wanting to Hera- 
 clitus — what is the great merit of Hegel ? A perception of the 
 logical law of the identity of contraries. To this Hegel has 
 sole claim. 
 
 Here, then, is the foundation-stone of Hegel's system. He 
 adopts the principle of the identity of Subject and Object 
 
 This principle being pronounced false, because it leads to 
 manifest contradictions. 
 
 Hegel replies that the principle is true ; and that it must lead 
 to contradictions, because the identity of contraries is the con- 
 dition of all existence. 
 
 Such is the Method which admiring disciples extol as the 
 greatest effort of Philosophy, as the crown of all previous specu- 
 lations ; and even in France it has been in some quarters 
 accepted as a revelation. The latest Historian of Philosophy 
 — M. Ch. Renouvier — has declared this Method irreproachable 
 Manuel de Philos. Moder?ie, p. 363). 
 
 The law being given, we may now give the process. Let us 
 take any one Idea (and with Hegel an Idea is a reality, an 
 object, not simply a modification of the subject) ; this Idea by 
 its inherent activity tends to develop that which is within it. 
 This development operates a division of the Idea into two 
 parts — a positive and a negative. Instead of one Idea we have 
 therefore two, which reciprocally exclude each other. The 
 Idea, therefore, by the very act of development only conduces 
 to its own negation. But the process does not stop there. The 
 negation itself must be negatived. By this negation of its nega- 
 
6r8 ABSOLUTS IDEALISM. 
 
 tion, the Idea returns to* its primitive force. But it is no longer 
 the same. It has developed all that it contained. It has ab- 
 sorbed its contrary. Thus the negation of the negation, by 
 suppressing the negation at the same time preserves it.* 
 
 We may, by way of anticipation, observe that HegePs notion 
 of God becoming conscious of himself in Philosophy, and 
 thereby attaining his highest development, is founded on the 
 above process. God as pure being can only pass into reality 
 through a negation ; in Philosophy he negatives this negation, 
 and thus becomes a positive affirmation. 
 
 As a display of perverse ingenuity, stolidly convinced of its 
 entire seriousness and importance — as an example of unhesi- 
 tating confidence in the validity of verbal distinctions — the 
 philosophy of Hegel has perhaps never been equalled. As Dr. 
 Ott epigrammatically remarks, *' Ici l'absurdite' se pose comme 
 me*thode fondamentale." Twenty volumes 8vo. — twenty serious 
 volumes attest the seriousness with which this method was 
 pursued. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ABSOLTJ1K IDEALISM. 
 
 We have seen Hegel's Method. Whether that be a path of 
 transit to the domain of truth, or only to the cloudland of mys- 
 ticism and the bogs of absurdity, our readers will very soon 
 decide. Meanwhile we must further detail Hegel's opinions ; 
 we must see whither his Method did lead him. 
 
 As every thing contains within itself a contradiction, and as 
 the identity of the two constitutes its essence, so we may say 
 that Schelling's conception of the identity of subject and object 
 was not altogether exact. He assumed the reality of both oi 
 these poles of the magnet; and the identity he called the point 
 of indifference between them. These two extremities were 
 always separate, though identified. Hegel declared that the 
 essence of all relation — that which is true and positive in every 
 relation — is not the two terms related, but the relation itself. 
 
 This is the basis of Absolute Idealism. 
 
 * This play upon words is assisted by the German aufJieben, which 
 means to suppress as well as to preserve. See Ott, ' Hegel et la Philos, 
 AJleraande,' p. 80. 
 
ABSOLUTE IDEALISM. 619 
 
 It may be thus illustrated. I see a tree. The common 
 psychologists tell me that there are three things implied in this 
 one fact of vision, viz., a tree, an image of that tree, and a mind 
 which apprehends that image. Fichte tells me that it is I 
 alone who exist. The tree and the image of the tree are one 
 thing, and that is a modification of my mind. This is Sub- 
 jective Idealism. Schelling tells me that both the tree and my 
 Ego are existences equally real or ideal, but they are nothing 
 less than manifestations of the Absolute. This is Objedivt 
 Idealism. But Hegel tells me that all these explanations are 
 false. The onlv thing really existing (in this one fact of vision) 
 is the Idea — the relation. The Ego and the Tree are but two 
 terms of the relation, and owe their reality to it. This is Abso- 
 lute Idealism. Of the three forms of Idealism this is surely the 
 most preposterous ; and that any sane man — not to speak of 
 a man so eminent as Hegel — should for an instant believe in 
 the correctness of the logic which " brought him to this pass " 
 — that he should not at once reject the premisses from which 
 such conclusions followed — must ever remain a wonder to all 
 sober thinkers, must ever remain a striking illustration of the 
 unbounded confidence in bad logic which distinguishes Meta- 
 physicians. 
 
 Gens ratione ferov, et mentem pasta chimaeris. 
 
 Truly, a race mad with logic, and feeding the mind with 
 chimaeras ! 
 
 What does this Absolute Idealism bring us to ? It brings us 
 to a world of mere "relations." The Spinozistic notion of 
 " Substance " was too gross. To speak of substance, was to 
 speak only of one term of a relation. The Universe is but the 
 Universe of Ideas, which are at once both objective and sub- 
 jective, and whose essence consists in the relation they bear to 
 each other, in the identity of their contradiction. 
 
 Remark also that this Absolute Idealism is nothing bu! 
 Hume's Scepticism, in a dogmatical form. Hume denied the 
 existence of Mind and Matter, and said there was nothing but 
 Ideas. Hegel denies the existence of both object and subject, 
 and says there is nothing but the <l relations " of the two. He 
 blames Kant for having spoken of Things as if they were only 
 appearances to us (Erscheinungen fur uns) while their real 
 nature (Ansich) was inaccessible. The real relation, he says, 
 if this : that the Things we know are not only appearances to 
 
6tt> ABSOLUTE IDEALISM. 
 
 us, but are in themselves mere appearances {sondern ansich 
 
 blosse Erscheinungen) The real objectivity is this: 
 
 that our Thoughts are not only Thoughts, but at the same time 
 are the reality of Things.* 
 
 This is the Philosophy ; not a Philosophy, remember, not a 
 system which may take its place amongst other systems. No, 
 it is the Philosophy par excellence. We have. Hegel's word for 
 it ; f we have the confirmation of that word by many ardent 
 disciples. True it is that some of the young Hegelians when 
 reproached with the constant changes they introduce, reply 
 that it belongs to the nature of Philosophy to change (!) But 
 these are inconsiderate rash young men. Mature and sober 
 thinkers (of Hegel's school) declare that although some improve- 
 ments are possible in detail, yet on the whole Hegel has given 
 the Philosophy to the world. 
 
 And this philosophy is not a system of doctrines whereby 
 man is to guide himself. It is something far greater. It is the 
 contemplation of the self-development of the Absolute. Hegel 
 congratulates mankind upon the fact of a new epoch having 
 dawned. " It appears," says he, " that the World-Spirit ( Well- 
 geisi) has at last succeeded in freeing himself from all incum- 
 brances and is able to conceive himself as Absolute Intelligence 
 (sich als absoluten Geist zu erfassen). . . . For he is this 
 only in as far as he knows himself to be the Absolute Intelli- 
 gence: and this he knows only in Science; and this knowledge 
 alone constitutes his true existence." % 
 
 Such pretensions would be laughable were they not so painful 
 to contemplate. To think not only of one man, and that one 
 remarkable for the subtlety of his intellect, a subtlety which 
 was its bane, together with many other men — some hundred or 
 so, all rising above the ordinary level of ability — one and all 
 cultivating as the occupation of their lives a science with such 
 pretensions as those above noted, and with such a method as 
 that of the identity of contraries ! We know of few delusions 
 more sad to look upon. The delusions daily to be seen are 
 those of ignorance and only depend upon ignorance. But the 
 delusions of Metaphysics are the delusions of an ambitious 
 
 * "Dass die Gedanken nicht bloss unsere Gedanken, sondern zugleich 
 das Ansich der Dinge und des Gegenstandlichen iiberhaupt sind." — 
 4 Encyclopaedic/ p. 89. See also p. 97 for that quoted above. The whole 
 of this Introduction to the ' Encyclopaedic ' is worth consulting. 
 
 t ' Gesch. der Philos.,' vol. iii., p. 690. 
 
 % Ibid., p. 689. 
 
ABSOLUTE IDEALISM. 621 
 
 intelligence which " o'er-leaps • itself." Men such as Fichte, 
 Schelling, and Hegel, for example, belong incontestably to a 
 high order of intelligences ; yet we have seen to what their 
 reasonings brought them ; we have seen what absurdities they 
 could take up with, believing they had found the truth. Hegel 
 especially impresses you with a sense of his wonderful power. 
 We who trace these lines, in which respect for common sense, 
 no less therefore sound logic forces a condemnation of the 
 system of Hegel — we are amongst his warm admirers. His 
 works we have always found very suggestive;* his ideas, if 
 repugnant to what we regard as the truth, are yet so coherent, 
 so systematically developed, and the whole matter so obviously 
 coming from matured meditation, that we have always risen 
 from the perusal with a sense of the author's greatness, and oi 
 having had new lights thrown on the subject We allude 
 especially to his ' Lectures on ^Esthetics ; ' his ' History of 
 Philosophy ; ' his * Philosophy of History,' and his ' Philosophy 
 of Religion.' These are works which it must always be profit- 
 able to study. 
 
 But the system itself we may leave to all readers to decide, 
 whether it be worthy of any attention, except as an illustration 
 of the devious errors of speculation. A system which begins 
 with assuming that Being and Non-Being are the same, because 
 Being in the abstract is the Unconditioned, and so also is Non- 
 Being; therefore both, as unconditioned, are the same; a 
 system which proceeds upon the identity of contraries as the 
 method of Philosophy; a system in which Thought is the same 
 as the Thing, and the Thing is the same as the Thought; a 
 system in which the only real positive existence is that of simple 
 Relation, the two terms of which are Mind and Matter ; this 
 system were it wholly true, leaves all the questions, for which 
 science is useful as a light, just as much in the dark as ever ; 
 and is, therefore, unworthy the attention of earnest men working 
 for the benefit of mankind. 
 
 * Suggestive we mean as provoking the student to refute Lira, and in 
 the refutation striking out new views of his own. 
 
622 HEGEVS LOGIC 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HEGEL'S LOGIC. 
 
 Philosophy being the contemplation of the self-development 
 of the Absolute, or, as Hegel sometimes calls it, the represen- 
 tation of the Idea {Darstellung der Idee), it first must be settled 
 in what directions this development takes place. 
 
 The process is this. Everything must be first considered 
 per se {ansich) ; next in its negation as some other thing {ander- 
 seyn). These are the two terms — the contraries ; but they must 
 be identified in some third or they cannot exist; this third is 
 the Relation of the two (the anundfursichseyri). This is the 
 affirmation which is founded on the negation of a negation : it 
 is therefore positive, real. 
 
 The Absolute, which is both Thought and Being, must be 
 considered in this triple order, and Philosophy falls into three 
 parts : — 
 
 I. Logic, the science of the Idee * an undfiir sich. 
 
 II. Nature-philosophy as the science of the Idee in its 
 Anderseyn. 
 
 III. Philosophy of intelligence, as the Idee which has 
 returned from its Anderseyn to itself. 
 
 Logic, in this system, has a very different meaning from that 
 usually given to the word. It is indeed, equally with the com- 
 mon logic, an examination of the forms of Thought ; but it is 
 more : — it is an examination of Things, no less than of 
 Thoughts. As Object and Subject are declared identical, and 
 whatever is true of the Thought is equally true of the Thing, 
 since the Thought is the Thing, Logic, of course, takes the 
 place of the ancient Logic and at the same time of Metaphysics. 
 It is the generation of all abstract ideas. Consequently it 
 contains the whole system of Science, and the other parts are 
 but the application of this Logic. 
 
 Hegel's "Logic" is in three stout volumes of dry hard 
 icholasticism. It is a representation of the Idee in its process 
 of pure Thought free from all contact with objects. It is 
 wholly abstract. It begins with pure Being. This pure Being 
 
 * The Idee is but another term for the absolute. We shall use it rather 
 than Idea, its English translation, because the English word cannot so be 
 employed without creating unnecessary confusion. 
 
HEGEL'S LOGIC. 623 
 
 in virtue of its purity is unconditioned ; but that which has no 
 conditions has no existence : it is a pure abstraction. Now a 
 pure abstraction is also the Nothing {das Nichts) : it also has 
 no conditions ; its unconditionalness makes its nothingness. 
 
 The first proposition in Logic is, therefore, "Being and 
 Non-Being are the same." 
 
 Hegel admits the proposition to be somewhat paradoxical, 
 and is fully aware of its openness to ridicule ; but he is not a 
 man to be scared by a paradox, to be shaken by a sarcasm. 
 He is aware that stupid common sense will ask, " whether it is 
 the same if my house, my property, the air I breathe, this 
 town, sun, the law, mind, or God, exist or not." Certainly, a 
 very pertinent question : how does he answer it ? " In such 
 examples," he says, " particular ends — utility, for instance — 
 are understood, and then it is asked if it is indifferent to me 
 whether these useful things exist or not ? But, in truth, Philo- 
 sophy is precisely the doctrine which is to free man from 
 innumerable finite aims and ends, and to make him so in- 
 different to them that it is really all the same whether such 
 things exist or not." Here we trace the Alexandrian influence 
 — except that Plotinus would never have had the audacity to 
 say that Philosophy was to make us indifferent whether God 
 existed or not ; and it must have been a slip of the pen which 
 made Hegel include God in the examples : a slip of the pen, 
 or else the " rigour of its pitiless logic," of which his disciples 
 talk. " Pitiless," indeed : a man more intrepid in absurdity it 
 would be impossible to find. 
 
 Remark, also, the evasive nature of his reply. Common 
 sense suggests to him a plain direct question, not without 
 interest. This question, plain as it is, goes to the bottom 
 of his system. He evades it by answering, that Philosophy 
 has nothing to do with the interests of men. Very true; his 
 system has nothing to do with them. But the question put 
 was not, " Has Philosophy to concern itself with the interests 
 of mankind ? " The question put was, " If, as you say, Being 
 and Non-Being are the same, is it the same thing to have a 
 house and not to have it ? " Hegel might have given a better 
 inswer even upon his own principles. 
 
 To return, however. The first proposition has given us the 
 two contraries ; there must be an identity — a relation — to give 
 them positive reality. As pure Being, and as pure Non-Being, 
 they have no reality; they are mere potentialities. Unite 
 
624 HEGEVS LacrzC. 
 
 them, and you have the Becoming ( Werden), and that is reality. 
 Analyse this idea of Becoming, and you will find that it con- 
 tains precisely these two elements — a Non-Being from whicb 
 it is evolving, and a Being whicb is evolved. 
 
 Now these two elements, which reciprocally contradict eack 
 other, which incessantly tend to absorb each other, are only 
 maintained in their reality by means of the relation in which 
 they are to each other — that is, the point of the magnet which 
 keeps the poles asunder ; and by keeping them asunder pre- 
 vents their annihilating each other. 
 
 The Becoming is the first concrete Thought we can have, 
 the first conception, against which Being and Non- Being are 
 pure abstractions. 
 
 A question naturally suggests itself as to how Being 
 and Non-Being pass from Abstractions into Realities. The 
 only answer Hegel gives us is that they become Realities ; but 
 this is answering us with the very question itself. We want to 
 know how they become. In themselves, as pure Abstractions, 
 they have no reality ; and although two negatives make an 
 affirmative in language, it is not so evident how they accom- 
 plish this in fact. The question is of course insoluble ; and 
 the Hegelians whom we have questioned on the point have 
 unanimously declared it to be one of those truths (very 
 numerous in their system) which can be comprehended, but 
 not proved. 
 
 Let us grant the Becoming. It is the identity of Being and 
 Non-Being; and as such it is Being as determined, conditioned. 
 All determination {Bestimmung) is Negation.* Therefore, in 
 order that Being should become, it must suffer first a negation : 
 the ansichseyn must also be anderseyn, and the relation of the 
 two is total reality, the anund-fur-sich-seyn. 
 
 Quality is the first negation : it is the reality of a thing. 
 That which constitutes Quality is the negation which is the 
 condition of its Being. Blue, for example, is blue only because 
 it is the negation of red, green, purple, &c. ; a meadow is a 
 meadow only because it is not a vineyard, a park, a ploughed 
 field, &c. 
 
 Being, having suffered a Negation, is determined as Quality 
 — it is Something, and no longer an Abstraction. But this 
 Something is limited by its very condition ; and this limit, this 
 
 * This, as many other ide*s, is borrowed from Spinoza, in whose 
 system it has real significance. In Hegel's it is a mere play upon words. 
 
HEGEL'S LOGIC. 625 
 
 negation, is external to it : hence Something implies Some- 
 other-thing. There is a This and a That. Now the Something 
 and the Some-other-thing — the This and the That are the same 
 thing. This is a tree ; That is a house. If I go to the house, 
 it will then be the This, and the tree will be That. Let the 
 tree be the Something, and the house the Some-other- thing, 
 and the same change of terms may take place. This proves 
 that the two are identical. The Something carries its opposite 
 (other-thing) within itself ; it is constantly becoming the other- 
 thing. Clearly showing that the only positive reality is the 
 Relation which always subsists throughout the changes of the 
 terms. 
 
 This, it must be owned, is the genuine insanity of Logic. 
 With difficulty will many believe that any sane man should 
 have put it forth. As a specimen of verbal sophistry it would 
 be feeble ; as a specimen of Logic it is pitiable. It is not, 
 however, unexampled in Hegel's works. Inhis'Phaenomeno- 
 logie des Geistes,' he tells us that perception gives us the ideas 
 of Now, Here, This, &c. And what is the Now ? At noon I 
 say " Now it is day." Twelve hours afterwards I say " Now it 
 is night." My first affirmation is therefore false as to the 
 second, my second false as to the first : which proves that the 
 Now is a general idea ; and as such a real existence inde- 
 pendent of all particular Nows. 
 
 Our readers are by this time probably quite weary of this 
 frivolous Logic ; we shall spare them any further details. If 
 they wish further to learn about Quantities, Identities, Diver- 
 sities, &c, they must consult the original; or, in default 
 thereof, the long analysis given by Dr. Ott. 
 
 Those who are utter strangers to German speculation will 
 wonder, perhaps, how it is possible for such verbal quibbles to 
 be accepted as philosophy. 
 
 But, in the first place, philosophy itself, in all its highest 
 speculations, is but a more or less ingenious playing upon 
 words. From Thales to Hegel, verbal distinctions have always 
 formed the ground of philosophy, and must ever do so as long 
 as we are unable to penetrate the essence of things. In the 
 second place, Hegel's Logic is a work requiring prodigioui 
 effort of thought to understand ; so difficult and ambiguous is 
 the language, and so obscure the meaning. Now, when a matt 
 has once made this effort, and succeeded, he is very apt to 
 overvalue the result of all that labour, and to believe what he 
 
 R R 
 
626 APPLICATION OP METHOD TO NATURE, 
 
 Das found to be a genuine truth. Thirdly, Hegel is very con- 
 sistent ; consistent to audacity, to absurdity. If the student 
 once yields assent to the premises, he is sure to be dragged 
 irresistibly to the conclusions. Fourthly, the reader must not 
 suppose that the absurdities of Hegel' s system are so apparent 
 in his works as in our exposition. We have exerted ourselves 
 to the utmost to preserve the real significance of his specula- 
 tions ; but we have also endeavoured to bring them into the 
 clear light of day. Anything except a verbal translation would 
 reveal some aspects of the absurdity, by the very fact of bring- 
 ing it out of the obscurity with which the German terminology 
 veils it. The mountain looming through a fog turns out to 
 be a miserable hut as soon as the fog is scattered ; and so the 
 boasted system of Absolute Idealism turns out to be only a play 
 upon words, as soon as it is dragged from out the misty ter- 
 minology in which it is enshrouded. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE METHOD TO NATURE, AND HISTORY, 
 RELIGION, AND PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Having exhibited the various evolutions of the Idee as pure 
 Thought, Hegel undertakes to exhibit its objective evolutions 
 in the domain of Nature. 
 
 In the former attempt he had only to deal with abstractions, 
 and it was no such difficult matter to exhibit the " generation 
 of ideas " — the dependence of one formula upon another. 
 Verbal distinctions were sufficient there. But in attacking the 
 problems presented us by Nature, and in endeavouring to give 
 scientific solutions, verbal distinctions, audacious logic, and 
 obscure terminology avail nothing. Nature is not to be 
 toerced. But this does not make Hegel hesitate. Aware of 
 fre difficulties, seeing instinctively that the varieties of Nature 
 tould not be reduced to the same simplicity as the varieties of 
 the Idee — as Thought had been reduced in his Logic — he at 
 once asserted that the determinations of the Idee in its 
 txteriorily could not follow the same march as the determina- 
 
HISTORY, RELIGION, AND PHILOSOPHY. 627 
 
 tions of the Idee as Thought. Instead of generating each 
 other reciprocally, as in the Logic, these determinations have 
 no other connexion than that of co-existence ; sometimes in- 
 deed they appear isolated. 
 
 When we look abroad upon Nature, we observe an endless 
 variety of transformations. At first these seem without order ; 
 on looking deeper, we find that there is a regular series of de- 
 velopment from the lowest to the highest. These transforma- 
 tions are the struggles of the Idee to manifest itself objectively. 
 Nature is a dumb Intelligence striving to articulate. At first 
 she mumbles ; with succeeding efforts she articulates ; at last 
 she speaks. 
 
 Every modification which the Idee undergoes in the sphere 
 of pure Thought it endeavours to express in the sphere of 
 Nature. And thus an object is elevated in the scale of creation 
 in so far as it resumes within itself a greater number of 
 qualities : inorganic matter is succeeded by organic, and 
 amongst organized beings there is a graduated scale from the 
 plant up to man. In Man the Idee assumes its highest grade. 
 In Reason it becomes conscious of itself, and thereby attains 
 real and positive existence — the highest point of development. 
 Nature is divine in principle (ansich), but it is a mistake to 
 suppose it divine as it exists. This is the mistake of Pantheism. 
 Nature is made one with God, and God one with Nature. In 
 truth, Nature is but the exteriority (Ausserlichkeit) of God : it 
 is the passage of the Idee through imperfection (Ab/all der 
 Idee). Observe, moreover, that Nature is not only external in 
 relation to the Idee, and to the subjective existence of the Idee, 
 namely, Intelligence ; but exteriority constitutes the condition 
 in virtue of which Nature is Nature (sondern die Ausserlichkeit 
 tnacht die Bestimmung aus, in welcher sie als Natur ist). 
 
 The Philosophy of Nature is divided into three sections — 
 Mechanics, Physics, and Physiology. Into the details, we are 
 happy to say, our plan forbids us to enter; or we should have 
 many striking illustrations of the deplorable frivolity of that 
 method which pretends to construct the scheme of the world 
 priori. Experimental philosophers — Newton especially — 
 we treated with consistent contempt. Hegel is not a timid 
 spectator ; he recoils from no consequence ; he bows down to 
 no name; he is impressed by no fact, however great. That 
 Newton's speculations should be no better than drivel, and his 
 " discoveries " no better than illusions, were natural conse- 
 
628 APPLICATION OF METHOD 
 
 quenccs of Hegel's fundamental theories. That all Europe 
 had been steadily persevering in applying Newton's principles, 
 and extending his discoveries — that Positive Science was mak- 
 ing gigantic strides, hourly improving man's mastery over 
 nature, hourly improving the condition of mankind — this fact, 
 however great it may appear to us when coupled with the 
 other fact that upon the ontological Method no discoveries had 
 yet been made, and none seemed likely to be made — appeared 
 to Hegel as unworthy of a philosopher's notice. The interests 
 of mankind were vulgar considerations, for which there would 
 always be abundant vulgar minds. The philosopher had other 
 objects. 
 
 The third and last part of Hegel's system is the Philosophy 
 of Intelligence. Therein the Idee returns from Nature to itself, 
 and returns through a consciousness of itself. 
 
 Subjectively the Idee first manifests itself as a Soul ; it then 
 returns upon itself, and becomes Consciousness ; and finally 
 renders itself an Object to itself, and then it is Reason. 
 
 Objectively the Idee manifests itself as Will, and realizes itself 
 in History and in Law. 
 
 The Subjective and Objective manifestations being thus 
 marked out, we have now to see in what manner the identity 
 of the two will manifest itself. The identity of the Objective 
 and Subjective is the Idee, as Intelligence, having conscious- 
 ness of itself in individuals, and realizing itself as Art, as Reli- 
 gion, and as Philosophy. 
 
 We must be very brief in our exposition of his remaining 
 tenets. Psychology and Law we pass over altogether : the 
 former would require too much space to render it intelligible, 
 and would then only seem to all our readers absurd ; the latter 
 has no interest for us here. 
 
 We will pause a moment at History. The Lectures on the 
 Philosophy of History,* edited by the late accomplished Pro- 
 fessor Gaus, is one of the pleasantest books on the subject we 
 ever read : let the following ideas be sufficient to give an in- 
 dication of its method. 
 
 History is the development of the Idee objectively — the 
 process by which it attains to a consciousness of itself by ex- 
 plaining itself, t The condition of Intelligence is to know 
 
 ♦ 'Werke,' vol. ix. 
 
 f History is a sort of Theodicea ; the merit of originality, however, 
 which Hegel claims (' Einleitung,' p. 20), is due to Vico, from whom he 
 
HISTORY, RELIGION, AND PHILOSOPHY. 629 
 
 itself; but it can know itself only after having passed through 
 the three phases of the method, viz., affirmation, negation, and 
 negation of negation, as the return to consciousness endowed 
 with reality. It is owing to these phases that the human race 
 is perfectible. 
 
 States, Nations, and Individuals represent the determinate 
 moments of this development. Each of these moments mani- 
 fests itself in the constitution, in the manners, in the creeds, in 
 the whole social state of any one nation. For this nation it is 
 what we call the spirit of the age : it is the only possible truth, 
 and by its light all things are seen. But with reference to the 
 absolute Idee, all these particular manifestations are nothing 
 but moments of transition — instruments by which the transition 
 to another higher moment is prepared. Great men are the 
 incarnations of the spirit of the age. 
 
 It is not every nation that constitutes itself into a state : to 
 do that, it must pass from a family to a horde, from a horde to 
 a tribe, and from a tribe to a state. This is the formal realiza- 
 tion of the Idee. 
 
 But the Idee must have a theatre on which to develop itself. 
 The earth is that theatre ; and as it is the product of the Idee 
 (according to the Naturphilosophie), we have the curious pheno- 
 menon of an actor playing upon a stage — that stage being 
 himself ! But the Earth, as a geographical basis of History, has 
 three great divisions : — I. The mountainous regions. II. The 
 plains and valleys. III. The coasts and mouths of rivers. 
 The first represents the primitive condition of mankind ; the 
 second the more advanced condition, when society begins to 
 be formed; the third, when, by means of river-communication, 
 the activity of the human race is allowed free development in 
 all directions, particularly of commerce. This is another of 
 the ideas of Vico,* and is in defiance of all history. 
 
 The great moments of History are four. I. In the East we 
 have the predominance of substantiality : the Idee does not 
 know its freedom. The rights of men are unknown because 
 the East knows only that one is free. This is the childhood of 
 the World. II. In Greece we have the predominance of indi- 
 viduality. The Idee knows that it is free, but only under certain 
 forms, that is to say, only some are free. Mind is still mixed 
 
 has largely borrowed ; Vico expressly calls his New Science a civil theology 
 of Divine Providence. See 'La Science Nouvelle,' liv. i. ch. iv. 
 * 'La Science Nouvelle,' livre i. ch. ii., $ 97. 
 
630 APPLICATION OF METHOD TO NATURE, 
 
 with Matter and finds its expressions therein ; this expression 
 is Beauty. This is the youthhood of the World. III. In Rome 
 we have opposition between the Objective and Subjective. 
 The political universality and individual freedom both de- 
 veloped yet not united. This is the manhood of the world. 
 IV. In the Teutonic Nations we have the unity of the contra 
 diction — the Idee knowing itself; and instead of supposing like. 
 Greece and Rome that some only are free, it knows that all men 
 are free. This is the old age of the world ; but although the 
 old age of body is weakness, the old age of Mind is ripeness. 
 The first form of government which we see in History is Des- 
 potism ; the second is Democracy and Aristocracy ; the third 
 is Monarchy.* 
 
 On reading over this meagre analysis we scarcely recognise 
 the ingenious speculations of the original. Such is the art with 
 which Hegel clothes his ideas in the garb of philosophy, that 
 though aware that he is writing fiction, not history, and giving us 
 perversions of notorious facts as the laws of historical develop- 
 ment — telling us that the Spirit of the World manifests himself 
 under such and such phases, when it is apparent to all that, 
 granting the theory of this World-spirit's development, the 
 phases were not such as Hegel declares them to have been — 
 although aware of all this, yet is the book so ingenious and 
 amusing, that it seems almost unfair to reduce it to such a caput 
 mortuum as our analysis. Nevertheless the principles of his 
 philosophy of History are those we have given above. The 
 application of those principles to the explication of the various 
 events of History, is still more ingenious ; but we cannot touch 
 upon this subject. 
 
 Hegel's ' Philosophy of Religion ' has in the last few years 
 been the subject of bitter disputes. The schisms of the young 
 Hegelians — the doctrines of Strauss, Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer, 
 and others — being all deduced, or pretended to be deduced 
 from Hegel's system, much angry discussion has taken plaec, as 
 to the real significance of that system. When Doctors thus 
 disagree we shall not presume to decide. We will leave the 
 matter to theologians ; and for the present only notice Hegel's 
 fundamental ideas. 
 
 It is often a matter of wonder to see how Hegel's Method is 
 applied to all subjects, and how his theory of life can be brought 
 to explain every product of life. This is doubtless a great 
 * 'Philos. der Gcsch.,' p. 128. 
 
HISTORY, RELIGION, AND PHILOSOPHY. 631 
 
 logical merit; and it inspires disciples with boundless confi- 
 dence. Few, however, we suspect, have approached the subject 
 of Religion without some misgivings as to the applicability of 
 the Method to explain it. Probably the triumph is great, when 
 the applicability is shown to be as perfect here as elsewhere, 
 Of this our readers shall judge. 
 
 Hegel of course accepts the Trinity : his whole system is 
 Trinitarian. God, the Father, is the eternal Idee an und fiir 
 sich : that is to say, the Idee as an unconditioned Abstraction. 
 God, the Son, engendered by the Father, is the Idee as Anders- 
 seyn : that is to say, as a conditioned Reality. The separation 
 has taken place which, by means of a negation, gives the Abstrac- 
 tion real existence. God, the Holy Ghost, is the Identity of 
 the two; the negation of the negation and perfect totality of 
 existence. He is the Consciousness of himself as Spirit : this 
 is the condition of his existence. 
 
 God, the Father was before the World, and created it. That 
 is to say, he existed an sich, as the pure Idee, before he assumed 
 any reality. He created the World, because it is the essence 
 of his being to create (es gehort zu seinen Seyn, Wesen, Schbpfer 
 zu seyn). Did he not create, then would his own existence be 
 incomplete. 
 
 The vulgar notion of theologians is that God created the 
 world by an act ; but Hegel says that the creation is not an 
 act, but an eternal moment — not a thing done, but a thing per- 
 petually doing — God did not create the World, he is eternally 
 creating it. Attached also to this vulgar notion, is another less 
 precisely but more commonly entertained ; namely, that God 
 having created the world by an act of his will, now lets it 
 develop itself, with no interference of his ; as Gothe some- 
 where ridicules it, he " sits aloft seeing the world go." This 
 was not the doctrine of St. Paul, whose pregnant words are, 
 " In Him we live, and move, and have our being " («v avvuj yap 
 £ay* €v, koX KivovpeOa, xai cv/jlev). We live in God, not out of 
 him, not simply by him. And this is what Hegel means when 
 he denies that the creation was a single act. Creation was, and 
 is, and ever will be. Creation is the reality of God : it is God 
 passing into activity ; but neither suspended nor exhausted in 
 the act. 
 
 This is all that we can here give of his ' Philosophy of 
 Religion ;' were we to venture further, we should only get our- 
 selves entangled in the thorny labyrinth of theological problems, 
 
63a APPLICATION OF METHOD TO NATURE, 
 
 Let us pass therefore to his f History of Philosophy,' which, 
 according to him, is the history of the development of the Idee 
 as intelligence. This development of thought is nothing more 
 than the various transitions which constitute the moments of the 
 absolute Method. All these moments are represented in his- 
 tory ; so that the * History of Philosophy ' is the reproduction 
 of the ' Logic/ under the forms of intelligence. The succession 
 of these moments gives to each period a particular philosophy ; 
 but these various philosophies are, in truth, only parts of the 
 one philosophy. This looks like the Eclecticism of Victor 
 Cousin ; and, indeed, Cousin's system is but an awkward imita- 
 tion of Hegel : but the Frenchman has either misunderstood, 
 or has modified the views of his master. 
 
 Historically speaking, there have been but two philosophies : 
 that of Greece and that of Germany. The Greeks conceived 
 Thought under the form of the Idee ; the moderns have con- 
 ceived it under the form of Spirit. The Greeks of Alexandria 
 arrived at unity; but their unity was only ideal, it existed 
 objectively in thought. The subjective aspect was wanting : 
 the totality knew itself not as subjective and objective. This 
 is the triumph of modern philosophy. 
 
 The moments have been, briefly, these : I. With Thales and 
 the Eleatics the Idee was conceived as pure Being : the One. 
 II. With Plato it was conceived as Universal, Essence, 
 Thought. III. With Aristotle as Conception (Begriff). IV. 
 With the Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics, as subjective Con- 
 ception. V. With the Alexandrians as the totality of Thought. 
 VI. With Descartes as Self-Consciousness. VII. With Fichte 
 as Absolute, Ego. VIII. With Schelling as the Identity of 
 Subject and Object. 
 
 We close here our exposition of Hegel's ienets; an exposi- 
 tion which we have been forced to give more in his own words 
 than we could have wished ; but the plan we adopted with 
 respect to Kant and Fichte would not have been so easy (we 
 doubt if it be possible) with respect to Hegel, whose language 
 must be learned, for the majority of his distinctions are only 
 verbal. In Kant and Fichte the thoughts were to be grappled 
 with ; in Hegel the form is everything. 
 
 We have only touched upon essential points. Those desirous 
 of more intimate acquaintance with the system are referred to 
 the admirable edition of his complete works, published by his 
 disciples, in twenty volumes, 8vo. If this be somewhat too 
 
HISTORY, RELIGION, AND PHILOSOPHY. 633 
 
 alarming from voluminousness, we can cordially recommend 
 the abridgment by Franz and Hillert (Hegel's Philosophic in 
 Wortlichen Ausziigen, Berlin, 1843), where the whole system is 
 given in Hegel's own words, and only his illustrations and 
 minute details are omitted. Michelet's work is useful only for 
 its bibliography. He indicates the various directions taken by 
 Hegel's disciples. Chalybaus is popular, but touches only on 
 a few points. Barchou de Penhoen evidently knows Hegel 
 only at second-hand, and is not always to be trusted. Dr. 
 Ott's work is ill-written, but very useful as an introduction to 
 the study of the works themselves, and has been very useful to 
 us in our exposition. No work of Hegel's has been translated 
 into English ; and only his * jEstheiik ' into French, and that 
 is more an analysis, we believe, than a translation. The 
 * Philosophy of History ' has been translated into Italian, 
 
©fctlftf) (Spot!). 
 
 FINAL CRISIS IN THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY, AN1S 
 DEFINITIVE ESTABLISHMENT OF POSITIVISM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PRESENT STATE OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLAND, GERMANY, 
 AND FRANCE. 
 
 Since Thomas Brown's ' Lectures,' and Mill's ■ Analysis,' no 
 work has appeared either as a continuation of the Scotch 
 psychology, or as a reaction against it, unless we are to reckon 
 Phrenology. Ontology can scarcely have been said to have 
 taken root in England ; and psychology has for many years 
 been neglected. This silence of our press is interpreted, in 
 Germany and France, as a proof of our speculative incapacity ; 
 and not a few Englishmen echo the cry. But is it true ? Can 
 we plausibly accuse that nation of a deficiency in philosophical 
 capacity which produced Hobbes, Glanvil, Locke, Berkeley, 
 Clarke, Hume, Hartley, Bentham, Brown, &c? which still 
 boasts of John Mill, Sir Wm. Hamilton, Thomas de Quincey, 
 Sir John Herschell, F. Maurice, J. Ferrier, not to mention men 
 less known, but remarkable for subtlety and comprehensive- 
 ness ? Germany may boast of a greater number, but it cannot 
 show a better list of names than the above. 
 
 That there are men of remarkable ability still cultivating 
 Philosophy in England we are assured ; they publish little, 
 because there is no public And why is there no public ? Is 
 it because the English mind is incapable of speculation? or is 
 it not rather because the English mind rejects as frivolous, 
 because useless, all speculation that does not come within the 
 sphere of positive science ? It is. Germany and France may 
 
PRESENT STATE OF PHILOSOPHY. 635 
 
 style us "incapable " — u shopkeepers " — pursuers of the * prac- 
 tical ;" may declare we grovel in the mud because we cannot 
 revel in the sky ; it avails nothing : England pursues her steady 
 course, and her sons, as children of the earth, declare they have 
 no wish to leave it for the clouds. In one word, the " groi 
 bon sens " — the plain practical reasoning of the English Publtf 
 pronounces Philosophy unworthy of study ; and neglects it 
 Let steady progress in Positive Science be our glory ; Meta- 
 physical speculation we can leave to others. 
 
 Whether this contempt be well or ill-founded, let the readers 
 of our History judge. If it be ill-founded, there is one simple 
 remedy : once show the public that the problems of Philosophy 
 are capable of solution — that the enquiry has any practical 
 bearing on the affairs of life — show this instead of asserting it — 
 and there will be no lack of intelligences ready to devote them- 
 selves to it. 
 
 As a proof : Phrenology claims its thousands of disciples : 
 and this, because it not only has a practical bearing, but also 
 admits of verification. It is true, or it is false ; the test is ready, 
 or seems so. Hence the acceptance which it finds ; and we feel 
 constrained to say, that had it been more carefully matured 
 before it made such bold pretensions, it would not have met 
 with a tithe of the opposition which has been excited by the 
 ignorance, presumption, and quackery of some of its professors. 
 The majority of thinking men seem agreed upon the funda- 
 mental principles of phrenology ; but they reject (we think with 
 justice) all the premature attempts at elaborating a doctrine, 
 and applying it. Phrenology, if ever it be constituted as a 
 science, can only be so through a careful inductive process, 
 carried on by men of far greater capacity than those now 
 assuming the office. And we feel little hesitation in saying 
 it is owing to the discredit brought on the science by some of 
 its professors, that eminent thinkers and sober inquirers are 
 averse to own any allegiance to its principles. 
 
 Such as it is, however, Phrenology affords sufficient evidence 
 of the readiness with which any philosophical doctrine that 
 admitted of verification — that did not begin and end in mere 
 argument — would receive in England. Nothing else can eve: 
 attract attention. Metaphysics are still cultivated in certain 
 quarters ; but generally as a menial gymnastic, or else because 
 the fashion for German Literature has created a desire to know 
 something of German Philosophy. Whatever individual excep- 
 
6$6 PRESENT STATE OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 tions there may be, it remains indisputable that there is not a 
 School of Philosophy in England; there is not even a doctrine 
 elaborated which would possibly, by any propagande, form a 
 School. In other words, Philosophy has ceased to form a por- 
 tion of the national culture. 
 
 In Germany the case is different. There we see some signs 
 of activity. The press is constantly sending forth some philo- 
 sophical work. The various colleges, all over Germany, are 
 endowed with professorships. Philosophy will give a man his 
 daily bread there — if he be fortunate. To this latter fact we 
 ascribe much of the simulated life which Philosophy exhibits 
 there. Giving bread to some two or three hundred professors 
 and private teachers — it is always kept alive, at least to that 
 extent. Thus far, but not much farther. If we look closely 
 into the state of things since Hegel's death, we shall see 
 nothing but anarchy. The Hegelians are split into diverse fac- 
 tions, waging internecine war. We were present one evening 
 at a meeting of the most illustrious of Hegel's immediate dis- 
 ciples and defenders, when the question of the Origin of Evil 
 was discussed ; and the differences manifested were as great as 
 any differences between Catholics and Protestants upon tran- 
 substantiation. Fichte's son has produced a new system ; of 
 which, however, we can give no account. Schelling has been 
 called from Munich to Berlin, and has undertaken to identify 
 Philosophy with Religion, by making Faith the criterion. 
 Strauss has turned the history of Christ into a myth; Feuerbach 
 and Bruno Bauer have carried this " historical scepticism " to 
 the utmost limit of speculative infidelity. And to make the 
 anarchy complete, every small professor sets up as a prophet, 
 and either promulgates a doctrine of his own, or throws himself 
 back upon Kant, or Fichte, or Reinhold. 
 
 To the English student the activity in Germany appears 
 prodigious. Strictly speaking, it is only the press that is 
 active ; and in Germany, where everybody prints everything, 
 activity of the press goes for nothing. Look at the matter a 
 little closer, and you will see how hollow it is. Not one philo- 
 sophical book in five thousand reaches a second edition ! This 
 speaks plainly. And, to make it more striking, we will observe, 
 that Professor Beneke's works on Psychology and Education,* 
 
 * 'Lehrbuch der Psychologie als Naturwissenschaft.' Berlin, 1845. 
 And 'Erziehungs und Unterrichtslehre.' 1842. The latter was reviewed 
 in the ' Foreign Quarterly ' by a very able writer. 
 
JN ENGLAND, GERMANY, AND FRANCE, 637 
 
 though labouring under the double disadvantage of being 
 opposed in toto to everything which the Germans call philo- 
 sophy, and of proceeding from one occupying no prominent 
 station, have nevertheless a large circle of disciples, and have 
 reached second editions. 
 
 Professor Beneke is an honourable exception. For five-and 
 twenty years he has steadily worked in one direction, and witk 
 considerable success. We cannot here appreciate his labours. 
 Suffice it to say, that he makes psychology the basis of all 
 science, and, in his endeavours to construct that basis, he has 
 been led to many profound truths which had escaped the 
 search of his predecessors. We very cordially recommend the 
 two works just named, as also the Neue Psychologic (Berlin, 
 
 1845). 
 
 Professor Beneke is as profoundly convinced of the impo- 
 tence of ontology as any one in England can be. His efforts 
 have been all towards directing the attention of the public to 
 the Positive Method. Psychology he regards as a science to 
 be pursued on the same inductive principles as the other 
 sciences. But this very peculiarity of position isolates him 
 from his brother professors ; so that it is common in Germany 
 to hear philosophers express the most profound contempt for 
 him — a contempt which he repays in kind. 
 
 In this contest with established authorities in matters of 
 philosophy he has few supporters amongst professors, though 
 the majority amongst the men of science. One professor, how- 
 ever, we must name as an associate in the labour of disabusing 
 the public, and that is O. F. Gruppe, the author of one of the 
 very best books on the Greek Drama,* who in his two separate 
 works has attacked philosophy with remarkable vigour and 
 effect, f. The ' Wendepunkt ' takes the bull by the horns, and 
 fairly overthrows him. The pretensions of Philosophy being 
 founded upon d priori ideas ; and d priori ideas being assumed 
 as universal and necessary, because they are a priori, the task 
 Gruppe has undertaken is to show that they are not d priori — 
 that they are all derived from individual d posteriori ideas. This 
 he does triumphantly. 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that Philosophy has any existence 
 
 * * Ariadne : oder die Tragische Kunst der Griechen.' Berlin, 1834. 
 
 t * Antaeus. Ein Briefwechsel tiber speculative Philos. in ihrem Conflict 
 mit Wissenschaft und Sprache.' - Berlin, 1831. And the 'Wendepunkt 
 der Philos. in iolen Jahrhundert.' Berlin, 1834. 
 
638 PRESENT STATE OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 in German)', apart from the Universities ; the jargon, indeed, 
 of metaphysics infects even the daily newspapers ; but so little 
 hold has any doctrine upon the national mind, that if the Pro- 
 fessorships were abolished* we should soon cease to hear of 
 Philosophy : whereas so long as it remains a profession, it will 
 be more or less kept up. Yet compare England in this respect ! 
 England, that is said to possess a positive incapacity for Philo- 
 sophy, because it has a positive contempt for it. Our great 
 thinkers have not been men who made Philosophy a profession 
 by which to gain their livelihood. Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, 
 Berkeley, Hume, Hartley, were not professors ; yet they found 
 audiences composed of thinking men not rival professors. 
 Could any German metaphysician now find such an audience ? 
 We unhesitatingly answer No. Remember, that we wish to 
 cast no shadow of blame upon Professorships ; that men can 
 earn their daily bread while prosecuting their philosophical 
 studies is a subject not of reproach, but of congratulation. Our 
 observation only extends to the fact, that inasmuch as it is a 
 profession there will always be a certain number of professors 
 anxious to magnify its merits, and to increase its influence ; and 
 this fact explains the other fact of Germany still manifesting 
 certain activity in a pursuit long since abandoned by England. 
 
 In France an analogous situation presents itself. There also 
 is Philosophy a profession. Add to this the important fact of 
 the great majority of French metaphysicians having been writers 
 as admirable for the clearness and attractiveness of their style 
 as the Germans have been remarkable for the reverse. Descartes 
 and Pascal are the fathers of French Prose ; after naming these 
 we need only allude to Malebranche, Condillac, Diderot, 
 D'Alembert, Voltaire, &c, and the force of the remark will be 
 felt on a mere glance at the names of the German writers, 
 Kant, Reinhold, Fichte, Schleiermacher, Schelling, Oken, 
 Hegel. The French thinkers were popular ; the Germans in- 
 telligible only to professors. Hence the superiority of the former 
 as expositors is so great, that the ideas originated in Germany 
 tre spread over Europe through the medium of France. 
 
 Although the philosophical public in France extends beyond 
 
 * In one University — we forget which — we are happy to say the Chair 
 t>f Philosophy has been abolished ; may the others soon follow the 
 example ! « 
 
TN ENGLAND, GERMANY, AND FRANCE. 639 
 
 the Universities, and although the activity which philosophy 
 manifests is, on the whole, greater than in Germany (a startling 
 assertion, perhaps, to those who judge by hearsay), a very little 
 acquaintance with the present state of things suffices to show 
 that it has no deep root in the national mind. The main efforts 
 are directed towards the History of Philosophy, towards transla- 
 tions and expositions of various systems — more than towards 
 elaborating any one general doctrine. The speculative thinkers 
 are split into various sects ; an useful account of which may be 
 found in Damiron's work * Essai sur la Philosophic en France 
 au xix e Steele.' We have on a former occasion endeavoured to 
 characterize the leading tendencies of the principal sects.* 
 We then pointed out the mistake (too current) of supposing 
 that modern French Philosophy partook of the spirit of the 
 Encyclopedists : " it may, in its best and latest writers be 
 characterized as a general reaction against that spirit. It is 
 dogmatical and constructive where that was sceptical and 
 destructive ; it is spiritual where that was material ; religious 
 when that was opposed to religion. There is doubtless much 
 of what is called infidelity in France ; meaning thereby a dis- 
 sent from ancient forms and received interpretations of religion; 
 but it assumes a different aspect from that of the eighteenth 
 century. The latter was directed against Priesthood ; its pro- 
 fessed object was the destruction of all Religion, which it 
 stigmatized a Superstition. The present dissent is directed 
 against literal interpretations of doctrines, against the refusal to 
 enlarge those interpretations in accordance with the wants of 
 the age. It would enlarge, not destroy : it is no longer queru- 
 lous, flippant, or sarcastic ; but learned, earnest, zealous, above 
 all dogmatic." 
 
 The doctrines of Condillac, after having met with unexampled 
 popularity, were routed from the field by the reaction against 
 the Encyclopedists. This reaction proceeded from various 
 quarters. From the Catholics, with Count Joseph de Maistre 
 and M. de Bonald at their head ; from the litterateurs, with 
 Mad. de Stael and Chateaubriand ; and from the philosophers 
 themselves, with Laromiquiere and Maine de Biran, who were 
 succeeded by Royer Collard, Joufiroy, and Victor Cousin. The 
 three last mentioned were the warm advocates for the Scotch 
 
 * * British and Foreign Review,' July, 1843. We are not prepared to 
 Stand by every opinion there enunciated ; but as an historical survey, it 
 contains, in the shape of facts and quotations, some valuable matter. 
 
640 PRESENT STATE OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 School. Jouffroy translated Reid and Stewart, Royer Collard 
 and Cousin commented on them. The talents of these pro- 
 fessors, aided by the tendency towards any reaction, made the 
 Scotch philosophy quite " the rage " in France. But Victor 
 Cousin's restless activity led him to the study of Kant : — and 
 the doctrines of the " Konigsburg sage " were preached by him 
 with the same ardour as that which he had formerly devoted ta 
 the Scotch. As soon as the Parisians began to know something 
 of Kant, M. Cousin started off to Alexandria for a doctrine : 
 he found one in Proclus. He edited Proclus : lectured on 
 him ; borrowed some of his ideas, and would have set him on 
 the throne of Philosophy, had the public been willing. A trip 
 to Germany in 1824 made him acquainted with the modern 
 Proclus — Hegel. On his return to Paris he presented the 
 public with as much of Hegel's doctrines as he could under- 
 stand. His celebrated Eclecticism is nothing but a misconcep- 
 tion of Hegel's " History of Philosophy." But as he fences 
 that theory round with several plausible arguments, and as the 
 doctrine itself has made great noise in France, we may briefly 
 state upon what grounds it rests and the fallacy of its appli- 
 cation. 
 
 All error, M. Cousin repeatedly enforces, is nothing but " an 
 incomplete view of the truth." Upon this definition is based 
 the proposition that " All systems are incomplete views of the 
 reality, set up for complete images of the reality." The con- 
 clusion is obvious : " All systems containing a mixture of truth 
 and error have only to be brought together, and then the error 
 would be eliminated by the mere juxtaposition of system with 
 system. The truth or portion of the truth which is in one 
 system would be assimilated with the portions of the truth 
 which are in other systems ; and thus the work would be easy 
 enough." 
 
 Eclecticism, therefore, means the bringing together of aU 
 discovered truths eliminated from their accompanying errors, 
 and out of this body of truths elaborating a doctrine. A great 
 task ; but is it practicable ? On the definition of error is the 
 system based ; by that it must stand or fall. 
 
 Now, the definition appears to us altogether untenable. 
 Error is sometimes an incomplete view of the truth; but it is 
 not always; it is sometimes no view of the truth at all, but 
 a mere divergence from it. When Newton constituted his 
 theory of the laws of attraction, and interposed an ether as the 
 
IN ENGLAND, GERMANY, AND FRANCE. 641 
 
 medium through which they operated, he had an incomplete 
 view of the truth. But when Descartes developed his theory 
 of vortices he had no view of the truth at all — he was 
 altogether wrong. The phrase " incomplete view f is indeed so 
 vague, that men who sport with verbal subtleties may justify 
 the theory of Descartes as an incomplete view of the truth ; it 
 is, indeed, a very incomplete view. At any rate no one will 
 be disposed to assert that the mere juxtaposition of Newton's 
 doctrine with that of Descartes could in any way eliminate the 
 error that is in both. 
 
 If therefore all systems are not incomplete views of the 
 reality, if all systems do not contain certain portions of the 
 truth — how is the eclectic to decide which systems are avail- 
 able for his purpose, which philosophies are to be juxtaposed ? 
 This leads to the necessity of a criterion. M. Jouffroy tells us 
 that it is an easy matter. We have only to collect all the 
 systems which have ever been produced, have them translated 
 and arranged in their legitimate order, and the truths dis- 
 covered by each will become organized in one doctrine. 
 
 Without stopping to ask what is the legitimate order, and 
 how we are to know it, the student is naturally anxious to learn 
 by what criterion eclecticism proposes to judge and separate 
 truth from error in any system. The inquiry is pertinent. It 
 is easy to bid us be careful in separating the wheat from the 
 chaft, that we may garner it up in the storehouses of the world. 
 Suppose the farmer does not know the wheat when he sees it, 
 what criterion do you give him whereby he may judge wheat 
 to be wheat, not chaff? None. The philosopher can only 
 distinguish the truth in two ways: either he knows it already, 
 and then he has what he is seeking ; or else he knows it by its 
 relation to and accordance with those truths which he is 
 already in possession of. That is to say, he has a criterion in 
 his system : those views which range under it, he accepts as 
 extensions of his knowledge ; those which range beyond its 
 limits he denies to be true. 
 
 Suppose the eclectic places in juxtaposition, the two great 
 schools which have always divided the world, viz., that which 
 declares experience to be the source of all knowledge ; and 
 that which declares we have a great deal of our knowledge 
 antecedent to and independent 01 experience. Both of these 
 systems he pronounces to be composed of truth and error. 
 He assumes this i for a little consideration might tell him tliat 
 
 ss 
 
*4* PRESENT STATE OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 it is utterly impossible both should be correct: experience 
 either is, or is not, the sole fountain of knowledge. The differ- 
 ence is as decided as that respecting the motion of the earth, 
 or the motion of the sun. Ptolemy and Copernicus : choose 
 between them ; any compromise is impossible ; unless you 
 wish to side with the Sizar who, when the question was put, 
 " Does the earth move round the sun or the sun round the 
 earth ? " replied, " Sometimes one and sometimes the other." 
 He was an eclectic, apparently. Let us, however, for a 
 moment grant that the two schools of psychology are both 
 partly right and partly wrong ; we then ask, what criterion has 
 the eclectic whereby he is to distinguish error from truth? He 
 has none ; the doctors are silent on the point. 
 
 That men derive assistance from others, and that those who 
 went before us discovered many truths, all admit. And there 
 can be no doubt that a juxtaposition and comparison of various 
 doctrines would be of service. Eclecticism, therefore, as a 
 subsidiary process is valuable ; and has always been practised. 
 M. Cousin, however, converts this subsidiary process into a 
 primary one, and dignifies it with the attributes of a method. 
 In the one sense it is simply that the inquirer consults the 
 works of his predecessors, and selects from them all that he 
 considers true : viz., such portions as confirm, extend, and 
 illustrate his previous opinions ; these opinions constituting his 
 criterion. Let the reader reflect on the pertinacity with which 
 men refuse to admit views which to others are self-evident, 
 because those views are or seem to be opposed to religion, or 
 the reigning doctrine, and he will clearly enough see the nature 
 of this criterion. The history of opinion is crowded with 
 instances of it. M. Cousin, however, does not so understand 
 eclecticism. He says we should admit all systems as contain- 
 ing some truths; and these truths separate themselves from 
 errors by the mere process of juxtaposition, somewhat in the 
 manner we presume of chemical affinities. — A theory that 
 needs, one would think, no further refutation than a simple 
 statement of its principles. 
 
 Eclecticism, ridiculous as a doctrine, has not been without 
 service in directing attention to the history of philosophy. It 
 has roused a spirit of historical inquiry of far more value in 
 our eyes than if it had originated a hundred new doctrines. 
 And indeed if called upon to characterize French philosophy 
 in a word, we should say it was historical. However various 
 
AUGUSTS COMTE 6*j 
 
 the doctrines, they have a sort oi unity given them by the 
 pretension they all have of being founded on history. The 
 Eclectics, the Catholics, and the Humanitarians all point to 
 the attestation of history in proof of their systems. 
 
 Amidst the intellectual anarchy of France there is one sys* 
 tem to which we would fain direct the earnest attention of out 
 readers ; we mean the Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte, 
 to which the next chapter will be devoted. 
 
 CHAPTER II, 
 
 AUGUSTE COMTE. 
 
 Comte is the Bacon of the nineteenth century. Like Bacon he 
 fully sees the causes of our intellectual anarchy, and also sees 
 the cure. His great work, * Cours de Philosophic Positive' (6 
 vols.) is known to the majority of our eminent scientific men, 
 and is highly prized by them ; but we have observed, even 
 amongst those admirers, that in most instances he has rather 
 been dipped into than studied. The chapters relating to 
 science have alone been read ; while those more important 
 chapters on social science, to which the former are but pre- 
 paratory, have been neglected. On the other hand, students 
 of philosophy have often confined their attention solely to the 
 social science, neglecting the introductory volumes : a process 
 really little less rational than for a man to study Euclid by 
 beginning towards the end. Comte's system must be studied, 
 or it had better be left alone ; and we beg to assure the reader 
 that however slight a smattering he may have of the various 
 sciences, he may perfectly follow Comte through his exposition, 
 because it is an exposition of the Philosophy of the Sciences, 
 not treatises on them. 
 
 Whoever casts his glance at the present intellectual state of 
 Europe, will perceive a great want of unity, caused by the 
 absence of any one doctrine, general enough to embrace every 
 variety of ideas, and positive enough to carry with it irresistible 
 conviction. Look at the state of religion. Catholicism and 
 Protestantism make one great division ; but within the sphere 
 
*44 AUGUSTE COMTS. 
 
 of each we sec countless subdivisions ; the variety of sects is 
 diily increasing. Each religion has remarkable men amongst 
 its members; but each refuses to admit the doctrines of the 
 others. There is, in fact, no one general doctrine capable of 
 embracing Catholics, Protestants, Mahometans, and their sub- 
 divisions. Look also at the state of philosophy. There is no 
 one philosophy universally accepted ; there are as many philo- 
 sophies as there are speculative cities, almost as many as there 
 are professors. The dogmas of Germany are held as the 
 dreams of alchemists in England and Scotland ; the psychology 
 of Scotland is laughed at in Germany, and neglected in England 
 and France. Besides this general dissidence, we see, in France 
 and Germany at least, great opposition between religion and 
 philosophy openly pronounced, or openly signalized. This 
 opposition is inevitable : it lies in the very nature of philosophy ; 
 and although, now as heretofore, many professors eagerly argue 
 that the two are perfectly compatible and accordant, the 'dis- 
 cordance is, and always must be, apparent 
 
 With respect to general doctrines, then, we find the state of 
 Europe to be this : religions opposed to religions ; philosophies 
 opposed to philosophies; and religion and philosophy at war 
 with each other. Such is the anarchy in the higher regions. 
 
 In the positive sciences there is less dissidence, but there is 
 the same absence of any general doctrine ; each science is on 
 a firm basis, and rapidly improves ; but a philosophy of science 
 — a positive philosophy is nowhere to be found except in the 
 work of M. Auguste Comte, which comes forward with the 
 express purpose of supplying the deficiency. The speciality of 
 scientific men and their incapacity of either producing or ac- 
 cepting any general idea, has long been a matter of complaint j 
 and this has been one great cause of the continuance of philo- 
 sophy ; for men of speculative ability saw clearly enough that 
 however exact each science might be in itself, it could only 
 form a part of philosophy. Moreover the evil of speciality is 
 not confined to neglecting the whole for the sake of the parts ; 
 it affects the very highest condition of science, viz., its capa- 
 bility of instructing and directing society. 
 
 In the early ages of speculation general views were eagerly 
 sought and easily obtained. As science became rich and com- 
 plex in materials, various divisions took place ; and one man 
 cultivated one science, another man another. Even then 
 general views were not absent. But as the tide rolled on, dis 
 
AUGUSTS COMTE. 643 
 
 covery succeeding discovery, and new tracks of inquiry leading 
 to vast wildernesses of undiscovered truth, it became necessary 
 for one man to devote himself only to a small fraction of a 
 science : that he pursued, leaving to others the task of bringing 
 his researches under their general head. Such a minute divi- 
 sion of labour was necessary for the successful prosecution of 
 minute and laborious researches ; but it ended in making men 
 of science regard only the individual parts of science ; the con- 
 struction of general doctrines was left to philosophers. A fatal 
 error ; for such doctrines could only be truly constructed out 
 of the materials of science and upon the method of science ; 
 whereas the philosophers were ignorant of science — or only 
 superficially acquainted with it — and despised the method. 
 The Natur- Philosophic of Schelling and Hegel is a sufficiently 
 striking example of the results of such a procedure. 
 
 We come then to this conclusion : in the present state of 
 things the speculative domain is comprised of two very dif- 
 ferent portions : viz., general ideas and positive sciences. The 
 general ideas are powerless because they are not positive ; 
 the positive sciences are powerless because they are not general. 
 The new philosophy which, under the title of positive, M. 
 Comte proposes to create — and the basis of which he has 
 himself laid — is destined to put an end to this anarchy, by pre- 
 senting a doctrine positive, because elaborated from the sciences, 
 and yet possessing all the desired generality of metaphysical 
 doctrines, without possessing their vagueness, instability, and 
 inapplicability. 
 
 This is a gigantic attempt for one individual; but it has 
 been undertaken by one possessing the thews and sinews of a 
 giant, and the result is astounding. We have no hesitation in 
 recording our conviction that the Cours de Philosophie Positive 
 is the greatest work of our century, and will form one of the 
 mighty landmarks in the history of opinion. 
 
 The first point upon which our attention must be fixed, in 
 M. Comte's work, is that important law of mental evolution 
 which he has not only discovered, but applied historically. It 
 forms the keystone of the arch. His object is to construct a 
 positive philosophy, — that is, a doctrine capable of embracing 
 all the sciences, and with them all the problems of social life, 
 — to which no other doctrine now aspires ; for metaphysics have, 
 since the time of Bacon, been separated from physics, and have 
 lost all power over them. If^ therefore, we are to have a nevr 
 
6*4 AUGUSTS COMl'H. 
 
 Philosophy which is to supply the present deficiencies, we 
 must have one capable of embracing both the positive and social 
 sciences. The conception of a social science is due to M. 
 Comte. No one before him ever dreamed of treating social 
 problems otherwise than upon theological or metaphysical 
 methods. He first showed how possible — nay, how imperative 
 — it was that social questions should be treated on the same 
 footing with all other scientific questions.* This being his 
 object, he was forced to detect the law of mental evolution 
 before he could advance. This law is the law of historical pro- 
 gression. " The state of the speculative faculties, the character 
 of the propositions assented to, essentially determines the moral 
 and political state of the community, as we have already seen 
 that it determines the physical. Every considerable change 
 historically known to us in the condition of any portion of man- 
 kind, has been preceded by a change of proportional extent in 
 the state of their knowledge or in their prevalent beliefs." f 
 
 M. Comte's law may be thus stated : — Every branch of 
 knowledge passes successively through three stages : ist, the 
 supernatural, or fictitious ; and, the metaphysical, or abstract ; 
 3rd, the positive or scientific. The first is the necessary point 
 of departure taken by human intelligence ; the second is merely 
 a stage of transition from the supernatural to the positive ; 
 and the third is the fixed and definite condition which know- 
 ledge is alone capable of progressive development. 
 
 In the supernatural stage, the mind seeks after causes ; as- 
 pires to know the essences of things and their modes of opera- 
 tion. It regards all effects as the productions of supernatural 
 agents, whose intervention is the cause of all the apparent 
 anomalies and irregularities. Nature is animated by super- 
 natural beings. Every unusual phenomenon is a sign of the 
 pleasure or displeasure of some being adored and propitiated 
 as a God. The lowest condition of this stage, is that of the 
 savages, viz., Fetichism. The highest condition is when one 
 being is substituted for many, as the cause of all phenomena. 
 
 In the metaphysical stage, which is only a modification of the 
 former, but which is important as a transitional stage, the 
 supernatural agents give place to abstract forces (personified 
 
 * See also the last book of Mill's * System of Logic * for a view of 
 Social Science. 
 
 t < System of Logic,' vol. ii. p. 608. The reader should consult the 
 whole chapter. 
 
AUGUSTS COMTE. 647 
 
 abstractions) supposed to inhere in the various substances, and 
 capable themselves of engendering phenomena. The highest 
 condition of this stage is when all these forces are brought 
 under one general force named Nature. 
 
 In the positive stage, the mind, convinced of the futility of all 
 inquiry into causes and essences, applies itself to the observa- 
 tion and classification of laws which regulate effects ; that is to 
 say, the invariable relations of succession and similitude which 
 all things bear to each o'her. The highest condition of this 
 stage would be, to be able to represent all phenomena as the 
 various particulars of one general view. 
 
 Thus in Astronomy we may trace the gradual evolution from 
 Apollo and his chariot, to the Pythagorean ideas of Numbers, 
 Harmonies, and so many other metaphysical abstractions, to 
 the firm basis on which it is now settled: the law of gravitation. 
 So that it is by geometry and dynamics we hope to wrest their 
 secret from the spheres ; not by the propitiation of a Sun-God. 
 Thus also in Physics, where thunder was the intervention of 
 Jove, and where metaphysics had introduced Nature's " horror 
 of a void," we seek truth in the regular study of gravitation, 
 electricity, light, &c. 
 
 We cannot pursue the illustrations of this law. Its history is 
 the history of mankind. Those critics who have spoken of this 
 law as if it were merely an ingenious apercu cannot have seen 
 its bearing nor can they have duly studied Comte's work. To 
 pretend to judge of such a law by a mere reflection on its 
 statement, without tracing its verification throughout the history 
 of speculation, is as wise as it would be to judge the law of 
 gravitation a priori, without waiting to see its application to 
 phenomena. We believe that Comte's law is the fundamental 
 law of mental evolution. It is proved by the experience not 
 of one science only but of all sciences \ not of one nation and 
 one epoch, but of all nations and all epochs. Therefore does 
 the diligent perusal of Comte's work become indispensable to 
 those who would form any opinion on his system. The neglect 
 of this has led some of his critics into ludicrous misstatements. 
 They have made objections which he had early anticipated and 
 refuted. They have denied his facts, because they have not 
 learned that all history confirms these facts. They have mis- 
 taken his law for a mere hypothesis. It is now some years since 
 we first read the work; and since that time we have met with 
 nothing but confirmations of its truth. 
 
646 AUGUSTS CONtTE. 
 
 Although the verification of this law exceeds out limits, we 
 may fitly adduce Comte's arguments in its favour. All are 
 agreed, in these days, that real knowledge must be founded on 
 the observation of facts. Hence contempt of mere theories. 
 But no science could have its origin in simple observation ; 
 for if, on the one hand, all positive theories must be founded 
 on observation, so, on the other, it is equally necessary to have 
 some sort of theory before we address ourselves to the task of 
 steady observation. If, in contemplating phenomena, we do 
 not connect them with some principle, it would not only be 
 impossible for us to combine our isolated observations, and 
 consequently to draw any benefit from them ; but we should 
 also be unable even to retain them, and most frequently the 
 important facts would remain unperceived. We are conse- 
 quently forced to theorize. A theory is necessary to observa- 
 tion, and a correct theory to correct observation. 
 
 This double necessity imposed upon the mind — of observa- 
 tion for the formation of a theory, and of a theory for the 
 practice of observation — would have caused it to move in a 
 circle, if nature had not fortunately provided an outlet in the 
 spontaneous activity of the mind. This activity causes it to 
 begin by assuming a cause, which it seeks out of nature, i.e , 
 supernatural. As man is conscious that he acts according as 
 he wills, so he naturally concludes that evervthing acts in ac- 
 cordance with some superior will. Hence Fetichism, which is 
 nothing but the endowment of inanimate things with life and 
 volition. This is the logical necessity for the supernatural 
 stage: the mind commences with the unknowable; it has first 
 to learn its impotence, to learn the limits of its range belore it 
 can content itself with the knowable.* 
 
 The metaphysical stage is equally important as transitive. 
 The supernatural and positive stages are so widely opposed as 
 to require intermediate notions to bridge over the chasm. In 
 substituting an entity inseparable from phenomena for a super- 
 natural agent through whose will these phenomena were pro- 
 duced, the mind was habituated to consider only the phenomena 
 themselves. This was a most important condition. The result 
 was, that the ideas of these metaphysical entities gradually faded, 
 and were lost in the mere abstract names of the phenomena. 
 
 The positive stage was now possible. The mind having 
 
 • Sec the Imrod. to the First Serieg. 
 
 
AUGUSTE COMTE. (*49 
 
 ceased to interpose either supernatural agents or metaphysical 
 entities between the phenomena and their production, attended 
 solely to the phenomena themselves. These it reduced to laws; 
 in other words, it arranged them according to their invariable 
 relations of similitude and succession. The search after essences 
 and causes was renounced. The pretension to absolute know- 
 ledge was set aside. The discovery of laws became the great 
 object of mankind. 
 
 Remember that although every branch of knowledge must 
 pass through these three stages, in obedience to the law of 
 evolution, nevertheless the progress is not strictly chronological. 
 Some sciences are more rapid in their evolution than others ; 
 some individuals pass thiough these evolutions more qu ckly 
 than others ; so also of nations. The present intellectual anarchy 
 results from that difference ; some sciences being in the posi- 
 tive, some in the supernatural, and some in the metaphysical 
 stage: and this is further to be subdivided into individual dif- 
 ferences; (or in a science which, on the whole, may fairly be 
 admitted as being positive, there will be found some cultivators 
 still in the metaphysical stage. Astronomy is now in so posi- 
 tive a condition, that we need nothing but the laws of dynamics 
 and gravitation to explain ail celestial phenomena; and this 
 explanation we know to be correct, as far as anything can be 
 known, because we can predict the return of a comet with the 
 nicest accuracy, or can enable the mariner to discover his lati- 
 tude and find his way amidst the " waste of waters."* This is 
 a positive science. But so far is meteorology from such a con- 
 dition, that prayers for dry or rainy weather are still offered up 
 in churches ; whereas if once the laws of these phenomena were 
 traced, there would no more be prayers for rain than for the sun 
 to rise at midnight. Remark also that while in the present day 
 no natural philosopher is insane enough to busy himsell with 
 the attempt to discover the cause of attraction, thousands are 
 busy in the attempt to discover the cause of life and the essence 
 of mind ! This difference characterizes positive and metaphy- 
 sical sciences. The one is content with a general fact, that 
 " the operation of attraction is inversely as the square of the 
 distance ; " this being sufficient for all scientific purposes, be- 
 cause enabling us to predict with unerring certainty the results 
 of that operation. The metaphysician or metaphysical physio- 
 
 • How*. 
 
6jo AUGUSTS COMTE. 
 
 logist, on the contrary, is more occupied with guessing at the 
 causes of life than in observing and classifying vital phenomena 
 with a view to detect their laws of operation. First he guesses 
 it to be what he calls a " vital principle " — a mysterious entity 
 residing in the frame, and capable of engendering phenomena. 
 He then proceeds to guess at the nature or essence of this 
 principle, and pronounces it " electricity," or " nervous fluid," 
 or '* chemical affinity." Thus he heaps hypothesis upon hypo- 
 thesis, and clouds the subject from his view. 
 
 The closer we examine the present condition of the sciences, 
 the more we shall be struck with the anarchy above indicated. 
 We shall find one science in a perfectly positive stage (Physics), 
 another in the metaphysical stage (Biology, or Electricity), a 
 third in the supernatural stage (Sociology). Nor is this all. 
 The same varieties will be found to co-exist in the same indi- 
 vidual mind. The same man who in physics may be said to 
 have arrived at the positive stage, and recognises no other 
 object of inquiry than the laws of phenomena, will be found 
 still a slave to the metaphysical stage in Biology, and endea- 
 vouring to detect the cause of life; and so little emancipated 
 from the supernatural stage in Sociology, that if you talk to him 
 of the possibility of a science of history, or a social science, he 
 will laugh at you as a " theorizer." So vicious is our philoso- 
 phical education! So imperfect the conception of a scientific* 
 Method i Well might Shelley exclaim — 
 
 How green is this grey world ! 
 
 The present condition of science, therefore, exhibits three 
 Methods instead of one: hence the anarchy. To remedy the. 
 evil all differences must cease : one Method must preside. 
 Auguste Comte was the first to point out the fact, and to sug 
 gest the cure ; and it will render his name immortal. So long 
 as the supernatural explanation of phenomena was universally 
 accepted, so long was there unity of thought, because one 
 general principle was applied to all facts. The same may be 
 said of the metaphysical stage, though in a less degree, because 
 it was never universally accepted ; it was in advance of the ' 
 supernatural, but before it could attain universal recognition, 
 the positive stage had already begun. When the positive 
 method is universally accepted — and the day we hope is not 
 far distant, at least among the elite of humanity — then shall we 
 again have unity of thought, then shall we a^ain have one 
 
AUGUSTR COMTE. 6$i 
 
 general doctnne, powerful because general. That the positirc 
 Method is the only Method adapted to human capacity, the 
 only one on which truth can be found is easily proved : on it 
 alone can prevision of phenomena depend. Prevision is the 
 characteristic and the test of knowledge. If you can predict 
 certain results and they occur as you predicted, then are you 
 assured that your knowledge is correct If the wind blows 
 according to the will of Boreas, we may, indeed, propitiate his 
 favour, but we cannot calculate upon it. We can have no cer- 
 tain knowledge whether the wind will blow or not. U, on the 
 other hand, it is subject to laws, like everything else, once dis- 
 cover these laws, and men will predict concerning it as they 
 predict concerning other matters. " Even the wind and rain," 
 to use the language of one of our most authoritative writers, 
 " which in common speech are the types of uncertainty and 
 change, obey laws as fixed as those of the sun and moon ; and 
 already, as regards many parts of the earth, man can foretell 
 them without fear of being deceived. He plans his voyages to 
 suit the coming monsoons, and prepares against the floods of 
 the rainy seasons."* If one other argument be needed, we 
 would simply refer to the gradual and progressive improvement 
 which has always taken place in every department of inquiry 
 conducted upon the positive Method — and with a success in 
 exact proportion to its rigorous employment of that Method — 
 contrasted with the circular movement of Philosophy, which is 
 just as far from a solution of any one of its problems as it was 
 five thousand years ago ; the only truths that it can be said to 
 have acquired are a few psychological truths, and these it owes 
 to the positive Method ! t 
 
 It is obvious that our limits do not allow of our presenting 
 even the meagi est outline of a system which, embracing all the 
 sciences, and attaching thereto the new science of society, pre- 
 sents a complete philosophy. We have indicated the presiding 
 spirit, and have briefly stated the important law of mental 
 evolution on which his system is grounded. We must further 
 
 * Dr. Arnott's « Elements of Physics.' Fifth ed., vol. i. p. 13. A work 
 stamped with such universal approbation as to render superfluous any 
 tribute of our own ; but we cannot refrain from pointing to it as, perhaps, 
 the most perfect specimen of positive philosophy ihis country haspioduced. 
 It is, indeed, one of the many obligations which this great and generous 
 benefactor of his species has laid us under : one stone of the monument he 
 has raised for our reverential admiration. 
 
 ♦ See tike introduction to First Series, p. so — it, - 
 
6$s AUGUSTB COMTR. 
 
 observe that the mere conception of a social science, to be con- 
 stituted on the same method as the other sciences, is no ordi- 
 nary achievement ; but Comte has done more : he has laid the 
 basis of the science ; he has created the philosophy of history. 
 The various attempts at founding a philosophy of history from 
 Vico to Herder, and from Hegel to Michelet,are so many testi- 
 monies of the restless discontent occasioned by the urgent 
 demand for one, and the insufficiency of prevalent conceptions. 
 History is still the hieroglyphic monument of our past life. We 
 must decipher it, if we would understand the present and pre- 
 dict the future. The key had to be found when Comte came 
 forward. The writing was there before us, abundant, instructive, 
 if we could but have read it : unfortunately we could not. And 
 when we see so great a writer as Niebuhr unable to give any 
 other explanation of the stability and progress of the Roman 
 people than that of destiny — unable to read any signs but those 
 of the " finger of God " — it is high time to bestir ourselves to 
 rid the world of this supernatural method of explaining facts. 
 To the firth and sixth volume of M. Comte's works we earnestly 
 refer the reader who may be desirous of gaining the key to 
 decipher the past. 
 
 We must not close this inadequate account of the positive 
 philosophy without noticing Comte's profound and luminous 
 classification of the sciences. It is so simple and so striking 
 that, when once it has been stated, the mind feels some diffi- 
 culty in conceiving any other possible.* The principle adopted 
 by him is this : — The problem to be solved is the dependence 
 of the sciences upon each other. This dependence can only 
 result from that of the corresponding phenomena. In consider- 
 ing these, it is easy to class them in a small number of natural 
 categories, so disposed that the rational study of each succes- 
 sive category should be founded on the knowledge of the prin- 
 cipal laws of the preceding category. The order of their 
 dependence is determined Dy the degree of simplicity or gene- 
 rality of the phenomena. It is evident that the most simple 
 
 * This made a valued friend declare, in an article in ' Blackwood,' that it 
 was just such a classification as would naturally arise in any reflective mind 
 on a review of the subject. We demur : for, not to refer to the abortive 
 attempts at classification made by Bacon, D'Alembert, and Stewart, we 
 need only refer to the chances of any one being correct. There are, 
 including Mathematics, six sciences ; now six objects admit of 720 different 
 dispositions ; consequently 720 classifications are possible, and tne problem 
 IS to choose tli nt which is necessarily unique ! 
 
AUGUSTS COMTR. h$x 
 
 phenomena— those which are least mixed up with others — are 
 the most general ; for that which is observed in the greatest 
 number of circumstances is the most independent of the 
 various particulars of those circumstances. The principle 
 therefore to be adopted is this : we must commence with the 
 study of the most simple or general phenomena, and proceed 
 successively to the most complex and particular. 
 
 A distinction is to be made between the two classes of pheno- 
 mena which are manifested by inorganized bodies and by organized 
 bodies. The phenomena of the latter are obviously more com- 
 plex than those of the former : they greatly depend upon inor- 
 ganized bodies, while these in no way depend upon organized 
 bodies. Organized bodies manifest all the phenomena of the 
 inorganized, whether chemical or mechanical; but they also 
 manifest the phenomena named vital, which are never mani- 
 fested by inorganized bodies. 
 
 In the study of inorganic physics we commence by separating 
 the general phenomena of the universe from the less general 
 terrestrial phenomena. Thus we have, first, celestial physics, or 
 astronomy, whether geometrical or mechanical ; secondly, ter- 
 restrial physics. The phenomena of astronomy being the most 
 general, the most simple, and the most abstract of all, we must 
 begin our study with them. Their laws influence all other 
 terrestrial phenomena, of which they are essentially independent. 
 In all terrestrial physics universal gravitation is a condition ; 
 and so the simple movement of a body, if we would considei 
 all the determining conditions, is a subject of greater complexity 
 than any astronomical question. 
 
 Terrestrial physics is also divided into two classes : mechanics 
 and chemistry. Chemistry, rightly conceived, presupposes a 
 knowledge of mechanics : for all chemical phenomena are more 
 complex than those of mechanics and depend on them in great 
 part : whereas they have no influence on them. All chemical 
 action is subject to the influence of weight, heat, &c, and must 
 therefore be treated after them. 
 
 Organic physics requires a similar division into physiology 
 and social science. The phenomena relating to mankind are 
 obviously more complex than those relating to the individual 
 man, and depend upon them. In all social questions we see 
 the Influence of physiological laws of the individual; and we 
 see also something peculiar, not physiological, which modifies 
 the effects of these laws, and which results from the action of 
 
6$4 AUGUSTB COMTE. 
 
 individuals on etuh other, curiously complicated by the action of 
 each generation on its successor. It would be manifestly as 
 impossible to treat the study of the collective species as a pure 
 deduction from the study of the individual, as it would be to 
 treat physiology as a pure deduction from chemistry. 
 
 The positive philosophy, therefore, resolves itself into five 
 fundamental sciences, of which the succession is determined by 
 a necessary and invariable subordination founded on a com- 
 parison of corresponding phenomena. The first (astronomy) 
 considers the most general, simple, and abstract phenomena — 
 those farthest removed from humanity: they influence all others, 
 but are not influenced by them. The last (sociology) considers 
 the most particular, complex, and concrete phenomena; those 
 most directly interesting to man ; they depend more or less 
 upon all the preceding classes, without exercising on the latter 
 the slightest influence. Between these two extremes the degrees 
 of speciality and of complication of phenomena gradually aug- 
 ment according to their successive dependence. 
 
 Such is Comte's classification reduced to its simplest terms ; 
 a remarkable evidence of the profound and luminous intellect 
 which originated it. A striking proof both of the correctness of 
 this classification and of the truth of his great law of mental 
 evolution is seen in the fact that the history of the sciences 
 teaches us how they all developed themselves into the positive 
 stage precisely in their successive order of dependence. Astro- 
 nomy was the /irst to become positive; Sociology is the last; 
 between these extremes have come physics, chemistry, and bio- 
 logy, in successive development. 
 
 We must cease. Anxious, as we are, that Comte's philosophy 
 should occupy the serious attention of every one who aspires 
 to the title of philosopher, we must nevertheless declare that 
 Comte's works are not calculated to be popular. Six stout 
 volumes are enough to make the student pause ere he begin ; 
 and the length of the journey is not lightened by any graces of 
 style. The truth must be told : Comte is a wordy writer ; but 
 he is not obscure, coins no terminology to bewilder the reader, 
 repeats what he says in various ways, so as to ensure intelli- 
 gibility at the expense of some ennui. The course we should 
 recommend the student to pursue is first to read M. Littre*'s 
 pamphlet De la Philosophic Positive* — a masterly exposition of 
 
 * Paris, cher Ladrange, 1845. 
 
CONCLUSION. 655 
 
 the object and tendencies of positivism, which may be pur- 
 chased for a couple of shillings. Having read that, he will be 
 in a condition to attack with sufficient eagerness the Cours di 
 Philosophie Positive by the master ; which he should follow up 
 with the Traite de r Astronomic Populaire^ also by Comte, in one 
 volume. We are confident he will then be grateful to us for 
 the advice. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Modern philosophy opens with a method— Bacon ; and ends 
 with a method — Comte ; and in each case this method leads 
 to positive science, and sets metaphysics aside. Within these 
 limits we have witnessed various efforts to solve the problems 
 of Philosophy ; and all those efforts have ended in scepticism. 
 
 There are two characteristics of Modern Philosophy which 
 may here be briefly touched on. The Jirst is the progressive 
 development of positive science, which in ancient speculations 
 occupied the subordinate rank, and which now occupies the 
 highest. The second is the reproduction of all the questions 
 which agitated the Greeks, and that too in a similar course of 
 ievelopment. Not only are the questions similar, but their 
 evolutions are so. 
 
 After the Eleatics had vexed the problems of existence to 
 no purpose, there came Democritus, Anaxagoras, Plato, and 
 Aristotle, who endeavoured to settle the problems of the nature 
 and origin of human knowledge. So, in modern times, after 
 Descartes and Spinoza came Hobbes, Locke, Leibnitz, &c. 
 The ancient researches into the origin of knowledge ended in 
 the Sceptics, the Stoics, and the New Academy: that is to say, 
 in Scepticism, Common Sense, and Scepticism again. The 
 modern researches ended in Berkeley, Hume, Reid, and Kant : 
 that is, in Idealism, in Scepticism, Common Sense, and Scep- 
 ticism again. These inquiries terminating thus fruitlessly, a 
 new and desperate spring was made in Alexandria; reason 
 was given up for ecstacy ; this resolved philosophy into religion. 
 in Germany a similar spectacle presents itself; and Scheilin^, 
 has, in his final stage, identified philosophy with religion.^ Thus 
 hac philosophy completed its circle, and we are left in thii 
 
«$b CONCLUSION. 
 
 nineteenth century precisely at the same point at which we 
 were in the afth ! 
 
 Observe, however — and the fact is full of significance, — how, 
 in the course of speculation, those questions which were sus- 
 ceptible of positive treatment, gradually acquired strength and 
 development. If we are as far removed from a solution of 
 any ontological problem as we were in the days of Proclus, we 
 are not nearly so ignorant of the laws of mental operation. 
 Psychology is not a science jet; but it boasts of some indis- 
 putable truths. Although much remains to do, much also has 
 been done: and we believe that it will one day rank as a 
 positive science. 
 
 Modern philosophy staked its pretensions on the one ques- 
 tion: Have we any ideas independent of experience f This was 
 asking, in other words, Have we any organum of philosophy ? 
 
 The answer always ends in a negative. If any one, there- 
 fore, remain unshaken by the accumulated proofs this History 
 affords of the impossibility of philosophy, let him distinctly 
 bear in mind that the first problem he must solve is, Have we 
 ideas independent of experience ? Let him solve that ere he 
 begins to speculate. 
 
 And now, reader, our task is don& 
 
 THE END 
 
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