Page images
PDF
EPUB

cordingly, the solid lump of existence, which for Parmenides had constituted reality, was broken up into an infinite multitude of reproductions of itself in miniature, or atoms. These atoms, too infinitesimal to be visible to the eye, and differing from one another only in shape and size, are eternal and unalterable, and possess, indeed, individually, the characteristics of Parmenides' Being, except its immobility. They, and their changing relations, alone are real; all else is appearance, which is explained ultimately by these real movements in space.

In Leucippus, we have the first clear statement of philosophical materialism—the reduction of true reality to what afterward came to be known as the primary qualities of body. This proved to be a point of view of the greatest value for scientific thought; by its reduction of qualitative to quantitative differences, it opened the way for the mathematical treatment of phenomena, which belongs to scientific method. The same result flows from its rejection of teleology and final causes, in favor of a mechanical explanation. Since all reality alike is qualitatively indifferent, there is no room for a special kind of existence which shall impart motion and direction to the rest; motion, therefore, has to be restored to each atom as its original possession. And as thus all the data necessary for understanding the world are immanent in the notion of matter itself, it is not necessary to appeal to purpose, or intelligence, or to anything except the necessary laws of mechanical interaction. Mind, or soul, is no exception to the rule; it is composed of the fire atoms, which are the finest and most active of all. These soul atoms exist everywhere; but they are only endowed with sensation when they come together in certain quantities, as they do in the human body. Consciousness, therefore, disappears with the dissolution of the body.

The scientific elaboration of this standpoint at the hands of Democritus (about 460-360 B.C.), was one of the great philosophical achievements of antiquity. Democritus

is to be classed, indeed, not with the earlier philosophers, but rather with Plato and Aristotle, whose older contemporary he was, and whom he rivals in the comprehensiveness of his system. In particular, he goes beyond his predecessors by the more elaborate treatment which he gives to the philosophical doctrine of knowledge. His whole theory compels him to insist upon a difference between our ordinary perception, which gives us the unreal appearance of things as qualitatively distinct, and thought, which discloses their true atomic structure; and it only is in thought terms that science deals. On the other hand, his materialism forces him to explain knowledge in terms of contact, and so to reduce it ultimately to the form of touch. He does this through the theory of effluxes, or images, a theory which remained influential even down to the time of Locke. External objects shed minute copies or images of themselves. These enter the sense organs which are fitted to receive them, and, by setting in motion the soul atoms, give rise to perception. How, then, does false knowledge differ from true, sensation from thought? This question, which the earlier philosophers had been unable to answer, Democritus seems to have solved without admitting any difference in kind between them. Thought is caused by those finer images which copy the atomic structure of things, and which, as they give rise to a gentler motion of the soul, are able to affect us only as more violent disturbances are prevented. Sensation, on the contrary, being due to the larger and coarser images, which aggregates of atoms give off, throws the soul into the violent commotion which results only in confused perceptions, i.e., in subjective and phenomenal appearance.

§ 7. The Pythagoreans

I. At the same time with the development which has just been traced, another interconnected movement was gaining numerous adherents. The originator of this movement is the semi-mythical figure of Pythagoras, a native of

[ocr errors]

Samos, who lived about 580-500 B.C., and who, after many travels, finally settled down at Crotona in Italy. The facts about Pythagoras are not easy to discover, but it is apparent that, besides being a philosopher, he had also certain practical aims. He was the founder of a religious society, in which more or less ascetic ethical and social ideals appear to have been at least as important as scientific doctrines. The school was a brotherhood, bound together by common beliefs and rules, and common intellectual pursuits. Some of the rules of the order have come down to us, and they throw an interesting light on its character. Apart from the injunction of celibacy and ascetic practices, of meditations, devotions, and the social virtues, there are other requirements of a more ambiguous nature. Do not sit on a quart measure; do not eat the heart; do not stir the fire with iron; do not look in a mirror beside a light; when you rise from the bedclothes, roll them together and smooth out the impress of the body these are a few that are sufficiently characteristic. So, also, the prohibition of animal sacrifices, of the use of wool, of the eating of beans. Most of these rules seem so trivial, that the later Pythagoreans were driven to interpret them metaphorically, and to find in them all sorts of hidden wisdom. But anthropology throws a different light upon them, and makes it plain that they are simply survivals of primitive savagery, based on the notion of taboo, and similar customs and superstitions. They seem to have appealed to Pythagoras as a suitable instrument for bringing about a reform of the widespread luxury and license which marked the age, and which have made the neighboring city of Sybaris a byword for self-indulgence. There are other indications that a wave of religious revival had been passing over Greece, marked by a deepened sense of guilt, and of the need of expiation. Such a revival always tends to turn back to the authority of ancient customs, with which the religious feeling is deeply implicated, particularly on its more gloomy side. This

sense of guilt shows itself in the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, which plays a large part in the Pythagorean teaching, and which has its chief attraction in its emphasis on the fact of moral retribution. The rapid growth of the new society, its inner coherence, and its possession of scientific knowledge, soon gave it a preponderating political influence in Crotona, and other Italian cities. Its exclusiveness, however, and its rather supercilious and self-righteous attitude, gave strength to its opponents, and finally resulted in its overthrow at the hands of the popular party.

2. Deprived of political power, the movement continued to exert a more permanent influence through the medium of those philosophical and scientific aspects which probably had been present to some extent from the start. The doctrine of the Pythagoreans is summed up in the statement that the reality of things consists in number. If we take number in the modern sense, as distinguished from the concrete objects to which it applies, this is too abstract a conception to mean anything, even to us; and it certainly would not have been intelligible at so early a period. It is necessary to interpret it, therefore, if it is to be made consistent with the rest that is known of Greek thought; and the most probable interpretation seems, briefly, to be this: It is the common presupposition of the Greek type of mind, that the real is the definite. It is only as Chaos takes on ordered and harmonious form, that we have anything deserving to be called a world. But if existence is spatial and material, then such regularity is most obviously to be found in the geometrical forms to which space lends itself. With the Pythagoreans, this takes shape in the doctrine that the Cosmos is the result of bringing together two factors the Unlimited, or infinite and formless empty space, and the Limit which is given to this. The result is the world of definite forms, which partake of the characteristics of both. They are spatial in their nature, but it is limited space. It was with this ascending series of geomet

-

rical forms regarded, however, not as abstractions, but as concrete physical facts — that the number series seems to have been identified, and so to have got its entrance into the theory. Thus, the number one is the point, two the line, three the surface, four the cube, and so on. The interest of the Pythagoreans in musical theory, and their discovery of the numerical relations of the length of the strings, may have helped to emphasize this identification.

Of course, the actual scientific results which they had to show from their investigations, were scanty. The inquiries just mentioned, concerning the numerical relations involved in musical harmony, had some value; but the extension of the same idea to phenomena on a larger or a different scale - for example, their fancy about the "music of the spheres, and their theory that the soul is merely the harmony of the body, as a melody is the harmony of the lyre-led them into the realm of pure guesswork, or poetic imagination. For the most part, their procedure consisted in attempting to discover, through the use of more or less fanciful analogies, a special number for every sort of existence. Thus, opportunity is represented by the number seven; marriage by the number five-the first harmony between the male (odd) and the female (even). The triviality of these results should not lead us, however, to ignore the real value of their fundamental thought. The recognition that the aim of scientific inquiry is the discovery of numerical relationships, was destined, under more favorable conditions, to be taken up again, and, in connection with the atomism of Democritus, to be made the basis of all modern science.

LITERATURE

Burnet, Early Greek Philosophers.

Blackie, Horae Hellenicae, p. 255.

Grote, History of Greece.

Fairbanks, The First Philosophers of Greece.

Symonds, Greek Poets, Vol. I.

Zeller, The Pre-Socratic Schools, 2 vols.

« PreviousContinue »