to move in the realms of the physical[1] and focused itself upon human reason in its application to the practical conduct of life. “Virtue,” says Socrates, “is knowledge”: in the ultimate harmony of morality with reason is to be found the only true existence of man. Antisthenes adopted this principle in its most literal sense, and proceeded to explain “knowledge” in the narrowest terms of practical action and decision, excluding from the conception everything except the problem of individual will realizing itself in the sphere of ordinary existence. Just as in logic the inevitable result was the purest nominalism, so in ethics he was driven to individualism, to the denial of social and national relations, to the exclusion of scientific study and of almost all that the Greeks understood by education. This individualism he and his followers carried to its logical conclusion. The ordinary pleasures of life were for them not merely negligible but positively harmful inasmuch as they interrupted the operation of the will. Wealth, popularity and power tend to dethrone the authority of reason and to pervert the soul from the natural to the artificial. Man exists for and in himself alone; his highest end is self-knowledge and self-realization in conformity with the dictates of his reason, apart altogether from the state and society. For this end, disrepute and poverty are advantageous, in so far as they drive back the man upon himself, increasing his self-control and purifying his intellect from the dross of the external. The good man (i.e. the wise man) wants nothing: like the gods, he is αὐταρκής (self-sufficing); “let men gain wisdom—or buy a rope”; he is a citizen of the world, not of a particular country (cf. Diogenes Laërtius vi. 11 μόνην τε ὀρθὴν πολιτείαν εἶναι τὴν, ἐν κόσμῳ).
It is not surprising that the pioneers of such a system were criticized and ridiculed by their fellows, and this by no means unjustly. We learn that Diogenes and Crates sought to force their principles upon their fellows in an obtrusive, tactless manner. The very essence of their philosophy was the negation of the graces of social courtesy; it was impossible to “return to nature” in the midst of a society clothed in the accumulated artificiality of evolved convention without shocking the ingrained sensibilities of its members. Nor is it unjust to infer that the sense of opposition provoked some of the Cynics to an overweening display of superiority. At the same time, it is absurd to regard the eccentricities of a few as the characteristics of the school, still more as a condemnation of the views which they held.
In logic Antisthenes was troubled by the problem of the One and the Many. A nominalist to the core, he held that definition and predication are either false or tautological. Ideas do not exist save for the consciousness which thinks them. “A horse,” said Antisthenes, “I can see, but horsehood I cannot see.” Definition is merely a circuitous method of stating an identity: “a tree is a vegetable growth” is logically no more than “a tree is a tree.”
Cynicism appears to have had a considerable vogue in Rome in the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D. Demetrius (q.v.) and Demonax are highly eulogized by Seneca and Lucian respectively. It is probable that these later Cynics adapted themselves somewhat to the times in which they lived and avoided the crude extravagance of Diogenes and others. But they undoubtedly maintained the spirit of Antisthenes unimpaired and held an honourable place in Roman thought. This very popularity had the effect of attracting into their ranks charlatans of the worst type. So that in Rome also Cynicism was partly the butt of the satirist and partly the ideal of the thinker.
Disregarding all the accidental excrescences of the doctrine, Cynicism must be regarded as a most valuable development and as a real asset in the sum of ethical speculation. With all its defective psychology, its barren logic, its immature technique, it emphasized two great and necessary truths, firstly, the absolute responsibility of the individual as the moral unit, and, secondly, the autocracy of the will. These two principles are sufficient ground for our gratitude to these “athletes of righteousness” (as Epictetus calls them). Furthermore they are profoundly important as the precursors of Stoicism. The closeness of the connexion is illustrated by Juvenal’s epigram that a Cynic differed from a Stoic only by his cloak. Zeno was a pupil of Crates, from whom he learned the moral worth of self-control and indifference to sensual indulgence (see Stoics).
Finally it is necessary to point out two flaws in the Cynic philosophy. In the first place, the content of the word “knowledge” is never properly developed. “Virtue is knowledge”; knowledge of what? and how is that knowledge related to the will? These questions were never properly answered by them. Secondly they fell into the natural error of emphasizing the purely animal side of the “nature,” which was their ethical criterion. Avoiding the artificial restraints of civilization, they were prone to fall back into animalism pure and simple. Many of them upheld the principle of community of wives (see Diogenes Laërtius vi. 11); some of them are said to have outraged the dictates of public decency. It was left to the Stoics to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to assign to the words “knowledge” and “nature” a saner and more comprehensive meaning.
For relation of Cynicism to contemporary thought, compare Cyrenaics, Megarian School. See also Asceticism.
See F. W. Mullach, Fragmenta philosophorum Graecorum (Paris, 1867), ii. 261–438; H. Ritter and L. Preller, Hist. phil. Graec. et Rom. ch. v.; histories of ancient philosophy, and specially Ed. Zeller, Socrates and the Socratic Schools, Eng. trans., O. J. Reichel (1868, 2nd ed. 1877); Th. Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, Eng. trans., vol. ii., G. G. Berry (1905); E. Caird, Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers (1904), ii. 44 seq., 55 seq., 62 seq.; arts. Stoics and Socrates.
CYNOSURE (Lat. cynosura, Gr. κυνόσουρα, from κυνός,
genitive of κύων, a dog, and οὐρά, tail), the name given by the
Greeks and Romans to the constellation of the Little Bear, Ursa
Minor; the word is applied in English to the pole-star which
appears in that constellation, and hence to something bright
which, like a “guiding-star,” draws all attention to it, as in
Milton’s “cynosure of neighbouring eyes.”
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| Fig. 1.—Partial inflorescence of Cyperus longus (Galingale), slightly reduced. 1, Spikelet of same; 2, flower. |
CYPERACEAE, in botany, a natural order of the monocotyledonous group of seed-bearing plants. They are grass-like herbs, sometimes annual, but more often persist by means of an underground stem from which spring erect solitary or clustered, generally three-sided aerial stems, with leaves in three rows. The minute flowers are arranged in spikelets somewhat as in grasses, and these again in larger spike-like or panicled inflorescences. The flower has in rare cases a perianth of six scale-like leaves arranged in two whorls, and thus conforming to the common monocotyledonous type of flower. Generally the perianth is represented by hairs, bristles or similar developments, often indefinite in number; in the two largest genera, Cyperus, (fig. 1) and Carex (fig. 2), the flowers are naked. In a few cases two whorls of stamens are present, with three members in each, but generally only three are present; the pistil consists of three or two carpels, united to form an ovary bearing a corresponding number of styles and containing one ovule. The flowers, which are often unisexual, are wind-pollinated. The fruit is one-seeded, with a tough, leathery or hard wall. There are nearly 70 genera containing about 3000 species and widely distributed throughout the earth, chiefly as marsh-plants. In the arctic zone they form 10% of the flora; they will flourish in soils rich in humus which are too acid to support grasses. The large genus Cyperus contains about 400 species, chiefly in the warmer parts of the earth; C. Papyrus is the Egyptian Papyrus. Carex,
