A General History for Colleges and High Schools (Myers)/Chapter 20
CHAPTER XX.
GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
The Seven Sages; the Forerunners.—About the sixth century b.c. there lived and taught in different parts of Hellas many philosophers of real or reputed originality and wisdom. Among these were seven men, called the "Seven Sages," who held the place of pre-eminence.[1] To them belongs the distinction of having first aroused the Greek intellect to philosophical thought. The wise sayings—such as "Know thyself" and "Nothing in excess"—attributed to them, are beyond number.
The ethical maxims and practical proverbs ascribed to the sages, while, like the so-called proverbs of Solomon, they contain a vast amount of practical wisdom, still do not constitute philosophy proper, which is a systematic search for the reason and causes of things. They form simply the introduction or prelude to Greek philosophy.
The Ionic Philosophers.—The first Greek school of philosophy grew up in the cities of Ionia, in Asia Minor, where almost all forms of Hellenic culture seem to have had their beginning. The founder of the system was Thales of Miletus (about 640–550 B.C.), who was followed by Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Heraclitus.
One tenet held in common by all these philosophers was that matter and mind are inseparable; or, in other words, that all matter is animate. They never thought of the soul as something distinct and separable from matter as we do. Even the soul in Hades was conceived as having a body in every respect like that the soul possessed in the earthly life, only it was composed of a subtler substance. This conception of matter as being alive will help us to understand Greek mythology, which, it will be remembered, endowed trees, rivers, springs, clouds, the planets, all physical objects indeed, with intelligence and will.
Pythagoras.—Pythagoras (about 580–500 B.C.) was born on the island of Samos, whence his title of "Samian Sage." Probable tradition says that he spent many years of his early life in Egypt, where he became versed in all the mysteries of the Egyptians. He returned to Greece with a great reputation, and finally settled at Crotona, in Italy.
Like many another ancient philosopher, Pythagoras sought to increase the reverence of his disciples for himself by peculiarities of dress and manner. His uncut hair and beard flowed down upon his shoulders and over his breast. He never smiled. His dress was a white robe, with a golden crown. For the first years of their novitiate, his pupils were not allowed to look upon their master. They listened to his lectures from behind a curtain. Ipse dixit, " he himself said so," was the only argument they must employ in debate. It is to Pythagoras, according to legend, that we are indebted for the word philosopher. Being asked of what he was master, he replied that he was simply a "philosopher," that is, a "lover of wisdom."
Pythagoras held views of the solar system that anticipated by two thousand years those of Copernicus and his school. He taught, only to his most select pupils however, that the earth is a sphere; and that, like the other planets, it revolves about a central globe of fire. From him comes the pretty conceit of the " music of the spheres." He imagined that the heavenly spheres, by their swift, rolling motions, produced musical notes, which united in a celestial melody, too refined, however, for human ears.
He taught the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, an idea he had doubtless brought from Egypt. Because of this belief the Pythagoreans were strict vegetarians, abstaining religiously from the use of all animal food.
Anaxagoras.—Anaxagoras (499–427 B.C.) was the first Greek philosopher who made mind, instead of necessity or chance, the arranging and harmonizing force of the universe. "Reason rules the world" was his first maxim.
Anaxagoras was the teacher in philosophy of Pericles, and it is certain that that statesman was greatly influenced by the liberal views of the philosopher; for in his general conceptions of the universe, Anaxagoras was far in advance of his age. He ventured to believe that the moon was somewhat like the earth, and inhabited; and taught that the sun was not a god, but a glowing rock, as large, probably, as the Peloponnesus.
But for his audacity, the philosopher suffered the fate of Galileo in a later age; he was charged with impiety and exiled. Yet this id not disturb the serenity of his mind. In banishment he said, "It is not I who have lost the Athenians, but the Athenians who have lost me."
Empedocles and Democritus.—In the teachings of Empedocles (about 492–432 B.C.) and Democritus (about 460–370 B.C.) we meet with many speculations respecting the constitution of matter and the origin of things which are startlingly similar to some of the doctrines held by modern scientists. Empedocles, with the evolutionists of to-day, taught that the higher forms of life arise out of the lower; Democritus conceived all things to be composed of invisible atoms, all alike in quality, but differing in form and combination.
The Sophists.—The Sophists, of whom the most noted were Pythagoras, Gorgias, and Prodicus, were a class of philosophers or teachers who gave instruction in rhetoric and the art of disputation. They travelled about from city to city, and contrary to the usual custom of the Greek philosophers, took fees from their pupils. They were shallow but brilliant men, caring more for the dress in which the thought was arrayed than for the thought itself, more for victory than for truth; and some of them inculcated a selfish morality. The better philosophers of the time despised them, and applied to them many harsh epithets, taunting them with selling wisdom, and accusing them of boasting that they could "make the worse appear the better reason."
Socrates.—Volumes would not contain what would be both instructive and interesting respecting the lives and works of the three great philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. We can, however, accord to each only a few words. Of these three eminent thinkers, Socrates (469–399 B.C.), though surpassed in grasp
and power of intellect by both Plato and Aristotle, has the firmest hold upon the affections of the world.
Nature, while generous to the philosopher in the gifts of soul, was unkind to him in the matter of his person. His face was ugly as a satyr's, and he had an awkward, shambling walk, so that he invited the shafts of the comic poets of his time. He loved to gather a little circle about him in the Agora or in the streets, and then to draw out his listeners by a series of ingenious questions. His method was so peculiar to himself that it has received the designation of the "Socratic dialogue." He has very happily been called an educator, as opposed to an instructor. In the young men of his time Socrates found many devoted pupils. The youthful Alcibiades declared that "he was forced to stop his ears and flee away, that he might not sit down by the side of Socrates and grow old in listening."
Socrates was unfortunate in his domestic relations. Xanthippe, his wife, seems to have been of a practical turn of mind, and unable to sympathize with the abstracted ways of her husband.
This great philosopher believed that the proper study of mankind is man, his favorite maxim being "Know Thyself"; hence he is said to have brought philosophy from the heavens and introduced it to the homes of men.
Socrates held the Sophists in aversion, and in opposition to their selfish expediency taught the purest system of morals that the world had yet known, and which has been surpassed only by the precepts of the Great Teacher. He thought himself to be restrained from entering upon what was inexpedient or wrong by a tutelary spirit. He believed in the immortality of the soul and in a Supreme Ruler of the universe, but sometimes spoke slightingly of the temples and the popular deities. This led to his prosecution on the double charge of blasphemy and of corrupting the Athenian youth. The fact that Alcibiades had been his pupil was used to prove the demoralizing tendency of his teachings. He was condemned to drink the fatal hemlock. The night before his death he spent with his disciples, discoursing on the immortality of the soul.
Plato.—Plato (429–348 B.C.), "the broad-browed," was a philosopher of noble birth, before whom in youth a brilliant career in the world of Greek affairs opened; but, coming under the influence
Plato imitated in his writings the method of Socrates in conversation. The discourse is carried on by questions and answers, hence the term Dialogues that attaches to his works. He attributes to his master, Socrates, much of the philosophy that he teaches: yet his Dialogues are all deeply tinged with his own genius and thought. In the Republic Plato portrays his conception of an ideal state. He was opposed to the republic of Athens, and his system, in some of its main features, was singularly like the Feudal System of mediæval Europe.
The Phædo is a record of the last conversation of Socrates with his disciples—an immortal argument for the immortality of the soul.
Plato believed not only in a future life (post-existence), but also in pre-existence; teaching that the ideas of reason, or our intuitions, are reminiscences of a past experience.[2] Plato's doctrines have exerted a profound influence upon all schools of thought and philosophies since his day. In some of his precepts he made a close approach to the teachings of Christianity. " We ought to become like God," he said, " as far as this is possible; and to become like Him is to become holy and just and wise."
Aristotle.—As Socrates was surpassed by his pupil Plato, so in turn was Plato excelled in certain respects by his disciple Aristotle, " the master of those who know." In him the philosophical genius of the Hellenic intellect reached its culmination. He was born in the Macedonian city of Stagira (384 B.C.), and hence is frequently called the "Stagirite." As in the case of Socrates, his personal appearance gave no promise of the philosopher. His teacher, Plato, however, recognized the genius of his pupil, and called him the "Mind of the school."
After studying for twenty years in the school of Plato, Aristotle became the preceptor of Alexander the Great. When Philip invited him to become the tutor of his son, he gracefully complimented the philosopher by saying in his letter that he was grateful to the gods that the prince was born in the same age with him. Alexander became the liberal patron of his tutor, and aided him in his scientific studies by sending him large collections of plants and animals, gathered on his distant expeditions.
At Athens the great philosopher delivered his lectures while walking about beneath the trees and porticoes of the Lyceum; hence the term peripatetic (from the Greek peripatein, "to walk about") applied to his philosophy.
Among the productions of his fertile intellect are works on rhetoric, logic, poetry, morals and politics, physics and metaphysics. For centuries his works were studied and copied and commented upon by both European and Asiatic scholars, in the schools of Athens and Rome, of Alexandria and Constantinople. Until the time of Bacon in England, for nearly two thousand years, Aristotle ruled over the realm of mind with a despotic sway. All teachers and philosophers acknowledged him as their guide and master.
Zeno and the Stoics.—We are now approaching the period when the political life of Hellas was failing, and was being fast overshadowed by the greatness of Rome. But the intellectual life of the Greek race was by no means eclipsed by, the calamity that ended its political existence. For centuries after that event the poets, scholars, and philosophers of this intellectual people led a brilliant career in the schools and universities of the Roman world.
From among all the philosophers of this long period, we can select for brief mention only a few. And first we shall speak of Zeno and Epicurus, who are noted as founders of schools of philosophy that exerted a vast influence upon both the thought and the conduct of many centuries.
Zeno, founder of the celebrated school of the Stoics, lived in the third century before our era (about 362–264). He taught at Athens in a public porch (in Greek, stoa), from which circumstance comes the name applied to his disciples.
The Stoical philosophy was the outgrowth, in part at least, of that of the Cynics, a sect of most rigid and austere morals. The typical representative of this sect is found in Diogenes, who lived, so the story goes, in a tub, and went about Athens by daylight with a lantern, in search, as he said, of a man. The Cynics were simply a race of pagan hermits.
The Stoics inculcated virtue for the sake of itself. They believed—and it would be very difficult to frame a better creed—that " man's chief business here is to do his duty." They schooled themselves to bear with perfect composure any lot that destiny might appoint. Any sign of emotion on account of calamity was considered unmanly and unphilosophical. Thus, when told of the sudden death of his son, the Stoic replied, " Well, I never imagined that I had given life to an immortal."
Stoicism became a favorite system of thought with certain classes of the Romans, and under its teachings and doctrines were nourished some of the purest and loftiest characters produced by the pagan world. It numbered among its representatives, in later times, the illustrious Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, and the scarcely less renowned and equally virtuous slave Epictetus. In many of its teachings it anticipated Christian doctrines, and was, in the philosophical world, a very important preparation for Christianity.
Epicurus and the Epicureans.—Epicurus (342–270 B.C.), who was a contemporary of Zeno, taught, in opposition to the Stoics, that pleasure is the highest good.
Epicurus had many followers in Greece, and his doctrines were eagerly embraced by many among the Romans during the corrupt period of the Roman empire. Many of these disciples carried the doctrines of their master to an excess that he himself would have been the first to condemn. Allowing full indulgence to every appetite and passion, their whole philosophy was expressed in the proverb, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." No pure or exalted life could be nourished in the unwholesome atmosphere of such a philosophy. Epicureanism never produced a single great character.
The Skeptics; Pyrrho.—About the beginning of the third century B.C. skepticism became widespread in Greece. It seemed as though men were losing faith in everything. Many circumstances had worked together in bringing about this state of universal unbelief. A wider knowledge of the world had caused many to their faith in the myths and legends of the old mythologies. The existence of so many opposing systems of philosophy caused men to doubt the truth of any of them. Many thoughtful minds were hopelessly asking, "What is truth?"
Pyrrho (about 360–270 B.C.) was the doubting Thomas of the Greeks. He questioned everything, and declared that the great problems of the universe could not be solved. He asserted that it was the duty of man, and the part of wisdom, to entertain no positive judgment on any matter, and thus to ensure serenity and peace of mind.
The disciples of Pyrrho went to absurd lengths in their skepticism, some of them even saying that they asserted nothing, not even that they asserted nothing. They doubted whether they doubted.
The Neo-Platonists.—Neo-Platonism was a blending of Greek philosophy and Oriental mysticism. It has been well called the "despair of reason," because it abandoned all hope of man's ever being able to attain the highest knowledge through reason alone, and looked for a Revelation. The centre of this last movement in Greek philosophical thought was Alexandria in Egypt, the meeting-place, in the closing centuries of the ancient world, of the East and the West.
Philo the Jew (b. about 30 B.C.), who labored to harmonize Hebrew doctrines with the teachings of Plato, was the forerunner of the Neo-Platonists. But the greatest of the school was Plotinus (A.D. 204–269), who spent the last years of his life at Rome, where he was a great favorite.
Conflict between Neo-Platonism and Christianity.—While the Neo-Platonists were laboring to restore, in modified form, the ancient Greek philosophy and worship, the teachers of Christianity were fast winning the world over to a new faith. The two systems came into deadly antagonism. Christianity triumphed. The gifted and beautiful Hypatia. almost the last representative of the old system of speculation and belief, was torn to pieces in the streets of Alexandria by a mob of fanatic Christian monks (A.D. 415). Finally the Roman emperor Justinian forbade the pagan philosophers to teach their doctrines (A.D. 529). This imperial edict closed forever the Greek schools, in which for more than a thousand years the world had received instruction upon the loftiest themes that can engage the human mind. The Greek philosophers, as living, personal teachers, had finished their work; but their systems of thought will never cease to attract and influence the best minds of the race.
Science among the Greeks.
The contributions of the Greek observers to the physical sciences have laid us under no small obligation to them. Some of those whom we have classed as philosophers, were careful students of nature, and might be called scientists. The great philosopher Aristotle wrote some valuable works on anatomy and natural history. From his time onward the sciences were pursued with much zeal and success. Especially did the later Greeks do much good and lasting work in the mathematical sciences.
Mathematics: Euclid and Archimedes.—Alexandria, in Egypt, became the seat of the most celebrated school of mathematics of antiquity. Here, under Ptolemy Lagus, flourished Euclid, the great geometer, whose work forms the basis of the science of geometry as taught in our schools at the present time. Ptolemy himself was his pupil. The royal student, however, seems to have disliked the severe application required to master the problems of Euclid, and asked his teacher if there was not some easier way. Euclid replied, "There is no royal road to geometry."
In the third century B.C., Syracuse, in Sicily, was the home of Archimedes, the greatest mathematician that the Grecian world produced.
Astronomy.—Among ancient Greek astronomers, Aristarchus, Hipparchus, and Claudius Ptolemy are distinguished.
Aristarchus of Samos, who lived in the third century B.C., held that the earth revolves about the sun as a fixed centre, and rotates on its own axis. He was the Greek Copernicus. But his theory was rejected by his contemporaries and successors.
Hipparchus, who flourished about the middle of the second century B.C., was, through his careful observations, the real founder of scientific astronomy. He calculated eclipses, catalogued the stars, and wrote several astronomical works of a really scientific character.
Claudius Ptolemy lived in Egypt about the middle of the second century after Christ. His great reputation is due not so much to his superior genius as to the fortunate circumstance that a vast work compiled by him, preserved and transmitted to later times almost all the knowledge of the ancients on astronomical and geographical subjects. In this way it has happened that his name has become attached to various doctrines and views respecting the universe, though these probably were not originated by him. The phrase Ptolemaic system, however, links his name inseparably with that conception of the solar system set forth in his works, which continued to be the received theory from his time until Copernicus—fourteen centuries later.
Ptolemy combated the theory of Aristarchus in regard to the rotation and revolution of the earth; yet he believed the earth to be a globe, and supported this view by exactly the same arguments that we to-day use to prove the doctrine.
- ↑ As in the case of the Seven Wonders of the World, ancient writers were not always agreed as to what names should be accorded the honor of enrolment in the sacred number. Thales, Solon, Periander, Cleobulus, Chilo, Bias, and Pittacus are, however, usually reckoned as the Seven Wise Men.
- ↑ In the following lines from Wordsworth we catch a glimpse of Plato's doctrine of pre-existence:—
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
Nor yet in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come
From God, who is our home."—Ode on Immortality.