achieved for our generation, Empedokles offered to the thinkers of antiquity-the simple and penetrating thought, that adaptations preponderate in nature just because it is their nature to perpetuate themselves, while what fails of adaptation has long since perished. Hellenic intellectual life attained to an active development in Sicily and Lower Italy not much later than on the coasts of Asia Minor. Indeed, 'Magna Graecia,' with its proud and wealthy cities, far outstripped the mothercountry, until at last the rays of philosophy were again concentrated, as in a focus, at Athens. The rapid development of these colonies must have been influenced by an element like that which caused Goethe's ejaculation— "Amerika! du hast es besser, Als unser Continent, das alte, The greater freedom from tradition, removal from antique religious observances, and from the contact of the priestly families and their despotic, deeply-rooted authority, seem to have especially favoured the transition from the prejudices of religious faith to scientific inquiry and philosophical speculation. The Pythagorean brotherhood was, with all its austerity, still at the same time a religious revolution of a tolerably radical nature; and amongst the intellectual chiefs of this confederation there arose the most fruitful study of mathematics and natural science which Greece had known before the Alexandrian epoch. Xenophanes, who migrated from Asia Minor to Lower Italy, and there founded the school of Elea, is an eager Rationalist. He attacks the mythological representation of the gods, and substitutes a philosophical conception. Empedokles of Agrigentum cannot be described as a Materialist, because with him force and matter are still fundamentally separated. He was probably the first Greek who divided matter into the four elements, which, by means of Aristotle, secured so long a tenure of life, that even VOL. I. C in the science of to-day we constantly come upon their traces. Besides these elements, Empedokles supposed that there were two ultimate forces-Love and Hate-which, in the formation and dissolution of the world, performed the functions of attraction and repulsion. Had Empedokles made these forces properties of the elements, we might quietly rank him as a Materialist; for not only did the picturesque language of his poems draw its illustrations from the feelings of the human heart, but he set the whole Olympos and the lower world in motion in order to give life to his conceptions, and to find occupation for the imagination as well as for the reason. But his forces are independent of matter. For immeasurable periods now the one preponderates, now the other. If love has attained a complete predominance, then all matter, collected into a great sphere, enjoys a blessed peace. If hate has reached the height of power, everything is thrown into confusion and dislocation. In each case no individual things exist. All terrestrial life is in connection with the circumstances of transition, which lead from the unity of the worldsphere, through the growing power of hatred, to absolute dissolution, or the contrary way, through the increasing power of love. This latter way is that of our world-epoch, in which we gather from the fundamental principles of the system we must clearly have an enormous extent of time behind us. The special features of his cosmogony interest us here only so far as it deals with the development of organisms, since here we are met by that principle which, in the hands of Epikuros and Lucretius, has subsequently exercised so great an influence. The principles of 'hate' and 'love' do not operate according to a plan, or, at least, have no other plan than that of universal separation and reunion. Organisms arise through the fortuitous play of the elements and elementary forces. First were formed plants, and then animals. The animal organs were first developed by nature individually: eyes without faces, arms without bodies, and so on. Then there resulted, in the progress of the combining tendency, a confused play of bodies, now united in one way, and now in another. Nature tried all possible combinations simultaneously, until there resulted a creature capable of life, and finally of propagation. As soon as this is produced it perpetuates itself, whilst the previous products had perished as they were produced. Ueberweg remarks as to this doctrine (Hist. of Phil., E. T. i. 62, n.), that it may be compared with the physical philosophy of Schelling and Oken, and the theory of descent proposed by Lamarck and Darwin; yet that these find the explanation of progress rather in the successive differentiation of simpler forms, while the Empedoklean doctrine seeks it rather in the union of heterogeneous forms. The observation is very just; and we might add, that the later theory of descent is supported by the facts, while the doctrine of Empedokles, considered from our present scientific standpoint, is absurd and fantastic. It is worth while, however, to point out what links the two doctrines in the most distinct and united opposition to the views of Schelling and Oken, and that is the purely mechanical attainment of adaptations through the infinitely repeated play of production and annihilation, in which finally that alone survives which bears the guarantee of persistence in its relatively fortuitous constitution. And if, in regard to Empedokles, criticism must still doubt whether he really so understood the matter, yet this much is quite certain, that Epikuros so construes the Empedoklean theory, and has accordingly fused it with his Atomism, and with his doctrine of the realisation of all possibilities. About the name of Empedokles, as about that of Demokritos, there has gathered a mass of myth and legend, much of which is due to a mastery of natural forces, which seemed very wonderful to his contemporaries. But while Demokritos must have earned this renown, in spite of the most sober simplicity and openness in his life and teaching, by merely practical achievements, Empedokles appears to have loved the nimbus of the wonder-worker, and to have utilised it for his reforming purposes. He also sought to spread purer ideas of the gods, though he did not reach the rationalism of Xenophanes, who discarded all anthropomorphism. Empedokles believed in the transmigration of souls, and forbade the offering of sacrifices as well as the eating of flesh. His earnest demeanour, his fiery eloquence, the fame of his works, imposed upon the people, who revered him as a god. Politically, he was a zealous partisan of democracy, and contributed to its victory in his native city. Yet he, too, must have experienced the fickleness of popular favour: he died in the Peloponnese, probably in exile. How his religious views. were to be reconciled with his scientific theories we do not know. "How many theological doctrines," remarks Zeller, "have there not been believed by Christian philosophers, whose philosophical conclusions would be in complete antagonism with those doctrines!" CHAPTER II. THE SENSATIONALISM OF THE SOPHISTS AND ARISTIPPOS's ETHICAL MATERIALISM. WHAT stuff or matter is in the outer world of nature, sensation is in the inner life of man. If we believe that consciousness can exist without sensation, this is due to a subtle confusion. It is possible to have a very lively consciousness, which busies itself with the highest and most important things, and yet at the same time to have sensations of an evanescent sensuous strength. But sensations there always are; and from their relations, their harmony or want of harmony, are formed the contents and meaning of consciousness; just as the cathedral is built of the rough stone, or the significant drawing is composed of fine material lines, or the flower of organised matter. As, then, the Materialist, looking into external nature, follows out the forms of things from the materials of which they are composed, and with them lays the foundations of his philosophy, so the Sensationalist refers the whole of consciousness back to sensations. Sensationalism and Materialism, therefore, agree at bottom in laying stress on matter in opposition to form: the question then arises, how are their mutual relations to be explained? Obviously not by a mere convention, which at once sets a man down as a Sensationalist in regard to the internal, and a Materialist in regard to the external world. Although this standpoint is the commonest in our inconsequent practice, it is anything but a philosophical one. Much rather will the consequent Materialist deny that sensation exists independently of matter, and will accord |