Читать книгу Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates - Grote George - Страница 10

Antisthenes took up Ethics principally, but with negative Logic intermingled.

Antisthenes, the originator of the Cynic succession of philosophers, was one of those who took up principally the ethical element of the Sokratic discoursing, which the Megarics left out or passed lightly over. He did not indeed altogether leave out the logical element: all his doctrines respecting it, as far as we hear of them, appear to have been on the negative side. But respecting ethics, he laid down affirmative propositions,84 and delivered peremptory precepts. His aversion to pleasure, by which he chiefly meant sexual pleasure, was declared in the most emphatic language. He had therefore, in the negative logic, a point of community with Eukleides and the Megarics: so that the coalescence of the two successions, in Stilpon and Menedêmus, is a fact not difficult to explain.

The life of Sokrates being passed in conversing with a great variety of persons and characters, his discourses were of course multifarious, and his ethical influence operated in different ways. His mode of life, too, exercised a certain influence of its own.

He copied the manner of life of Sokrates, in plainness and rigour.

Antisthenes, and his disciple Diogenes, were in many respects closer approximations to Sokrates than either Plato or any other of the Sokratic companions. The extraordinary colloquial and cross-examining force was indeed a peculiar gift, which Sokrates bequeathed to none of them: but Antisthenes took up the Sokratic purpose of inculcating practical ethics not merely by word of mouth, but also by manner of life. He was not inferior to his master in contentment under poverty, in strength of will and endurance,85 in acquired insensibility both to pain and pleasure, in disregard of opinion around him, and in fearless exercise of a self-imposed censorial mission. He learnt from Sokrates indifference to conventional restraints and social superiority, together with the duty of reducing wants to a minimum, and stifling all such as were above the lowest term of necessity. To this last point, Sokrates gave a religious colour, proclaiming that the Gods had no wants, and that those who had least came nearest to the Gods.86 By Antisthenes, these qualities were exhibited in eminent measure; and by his disciple Diogenes they were still farther exaggerated. Epiktetus, a warm admirer of both, considers them as following up the mission from Zeus which Sokrates (in the Platonic Apology) sets forth as his authority, to make men independent of the evils of life by purifying and disciplining the appreciation of good and evil in the mind of each individual.87

Doctrines of Antisthenes exclusively ethical and ascetic. He despised music, literature, and physics.

Antisthenes declared virtue to be the End for men to aim at—and to be sufficient per se for conferring happiness; but he also declared that virtue must be manifested in acts and character, not by words. Neither much discourse nor much learning was required for virtue; nothing else need be postulated except bodily strength like that of Sokrates.88 He undervalued theory even in regard to Ethics: much more in regard to Nature (Physics) and to Logic: he also despised literary, geometrical, musical teaching, as distracting men’s attention from the regulation of their own appreciative sentiment, and the adaptation of their own conduct to it. He maintained strenuously (what several Platonic dialogues call in question) that virtue both could be taught and must be taught: when once learnt, it was permanent, and could not be eradicated. He prescribed the simplest mode of life, the reduction of wants to a minimum, with perfect indifference to enjoyment, wealth, or power. The reward was, exemption from fear, anxiety, disappointments, and wants: together with the pride of approximation to the Gods.89 Though Antisthenes thus despised both literature and theory, yet he had obtained a rhetorical education, and had even heard the rhetor Gorgias. He composed a large number of dialogues and other treatises, of which only the titles (very multifarious) are preserved to us.90 One dialogue, entitled Sathon, was a coarse attack on Plato: several treated of Homer and of other poets, whose verses he seems to have allegorised. Some of his dialogues are also declared by Athenæus to contain slanderous abuse of Alkibiades and other leading Athenians. On the other hand, the dialogues are much commended by competent judges; and Theopompus even affirmed that much in the Platonic dialogues had been borrowed from those of Antisthenes, Aristippus, and Bryson.91

Constant friendship of Antisthenes with Sokrates—Xenophontic Symposion.

Antisthenes was among the most constant friends and followers of Sokrates, both in his serious and in his playful colloquies.92 The Symposion of Xenophon describes both of them, in their hours of joviality. The picture drawn by an author, himself a friend and companion, exhibits Antisthenes (so far as we can interpret caricature and jocular inversion) as poor, self-denying, austere, repulsive, and disputatious—yet bold and free-spoken, careless of giving offence, and forcible in colloquial repartee.93

Diogenes, successor of Antisthenes—His Cynical perfection—striking effect which he produced.

In all these qualities, however, Antisthenes was surpassed by his pupil and successor Diogenes of Sinôpê; whose ostentatious austerity of life, eccentric and fearless character, indifference to what was considered as decency, great acuteness and still greater power of expression, freedom of speech towards all and against all—constituted him the perfect type of the Cynical sect. Being the son of a money-agent at Sinôpê, he was banished with his father for fraudulently counterfeiting the coin of the city. On coming to Athens as an exile, he was captivated with the character of Antisthenes, who was at first unwilling to admit him, and was only induced to do so by his invincible importunity. Diogenes welcomed his banishment, with all its poverty and destitution, as having been the means of bringing him to Antisthenes,94 and to a life of philosophy. It was Antisthenes (he said) who emancipated him from slavery, and made him a freeman. He was clothed in one coarse garment with double fold: he adopted the wallet (afterwards the symbol of cynicism) for his provisions, and is said to have been without any roof or lodging—dwelling sometimes in a tub near the Metroon, sometimes in one of the public porticoes or temples: he is also said to have satisfied all his wants in the open day. He here indulged unreservedly in that unbounded freedom of speech, which he looked upon as the greatest blessing of life. No man ever turned that blessing to greater account: the string of repartees, sarcasms, and stinging reproofs, which are attributed to him by Diogenes Laertius, is very long, but forms only a small proportion of those which that author had found recounted.95 Plato described Diogenes as Sokrates running mad:96 and when Diogenes, meeting some Sicilian guests at his house and treading upon his best carpet, exclaimed “I am treading on Plato’s empty vanity and conceit,” Plato rejoined “Yes, with a different vanity of your own”. The impression produced by Diogenes in conversation with others, was very powerfully felt both by young and old. Phokion, as well as Stilpon, were among his hearers.97 In crossing the sea to Ægina, Diogenes was captured by pirates, taken to Krete, and there put up to auction as a slave: the herald asked him what sort of work he was fit for: whereupon Diogenes replied—To command men. At his own instance, a rich Corinthian named Xeniades bought him and transported him to Corinth. Diogenes is said to have assumed towards Xeniades the air of a master: Xeniades placed him at the head of his household, and made him preceptor of his sons. In both capacities Diogenes discharged his duty well.98 As a slave well treated by his master, and allowed to enjoy great freedom of speech, he lived in greater comfort than he had ever enjoyed as a freeman: and we are not surprised that he declined the offers of friends to purchase his liberation. He died at Corinth in very old age: it is said, at ninety years old, and on the very same day on which Alexander the Great died at Babylon (B.C. 323). He was buried at the gate of Corinth leading to the Isthmus: a monument being erected to his honour, with a column of Parian marble crowned by the statue of a dog.99

Doctrines and smart sayings of Diogenes—Contempt of pleasure—training and labour required—indifference to literature and geometry.

In politics, ethics, and rules for human conduct, Diogenes adopted views of his own, and spoke them out freely. He was a freethinker (like Antisthenes) as to the popular religion: and he disapproved of marriage laws, considering that the intercourse of the sexes ought to be left to individual taste and preference.100 Though he respected the city and conformed to its laws, yet he had no reverence for existing superstitions, or for the received usages as to person, sex, or family. He declared himself to be a citizen of the Kosmos and of Nature.101 His sole exigency was, independence of life, and freedom of speech: having these, he was satisfied, fully sufficient to himself for happiness, and proud of his own superiority to human weakness. The main benefit which he derived from philosophy (he said) was, that he was prepared for any fortune that might befall him. To be ready to accept death easily, was the sure guarantee of a free and independent life.102 He insisted emphatically upon the necessity of exercise or training (ἄσκησις) both as to the body and as to the mind. Without this, nothing could be done: by means of it everything might be achieved. But he required that the labours imposed should be directed to the acquisition of habits really useful; instead of being wasted, as they commonly were, upon objects frivolous and showy. The truly wise man ought to set before him as a model the laborious life of Hêraklês: and he would find, after proper practice and training, that the contempt of pleasures would afford him more enjoyment than the pleasures themselves.103

Admiration of Epiktêtus for Diogenes, especially for his consistency in acting out his own ethical creed.

Diogenes declared that education was sobriety to the young, consolation to the old, wealth to the poor, ornament to the rich. But he despised much of what was commonly imparted as education—music, geometry, astronomy, &c.: and he treated with equal scorn Plato and Eukleides.104 He is said however to have conducted the education of the sons of his master Xeniades105 without material departure from the received usage. He caused them to undergo moderate exercise (not with a view to athletic success) in the palæstra, and afterwards to practise riding, shooting with the bow, hurling the javelin, slinging and hunting: he cultivated their memories assiduously, by recitations from poets and prose authors, and even from his own compositions: he kept them on bread and water, without tunic or shoes, with clothing only such as was strictly necessary, with hair closely cut, habitually silent, and fixing their eyes on the ground when they walked abroad. These latter features approximate to the training at Sparta (as described by Xenophon) which Diogenes declared to contrast with Athens as the apartments of the men with those of the women. Diogenes is said to have composed several dialogues and even some tragedies.106 But his most impressive display (like that of Sokrates) was by way of colloquy—prompt and incisive interchange of remarks. He was one of the few philosophers who copied Sokrates in living constantly before the public—in talking with every one indiscriminately and fearlessly, in putting home questions like a physician to his patient.107 Epiktêtus—speaking of Diogenes as equal, if not superior, to Sokrates—draws a distinction pertinent and accurate. “To Sokrates” (says he) “Zeus assigned the elenchtic or cross-examining function: to Diogenes, the magisterial and chastising function: to Zeno (the Stoic) the didactic and dogmatical.” While thus describing Diogenes justly enough, Epiktetus nevertheless insists upon his agreeable person and his extreme gentleness and good-nature:108 qualities for which probably Diogenes neither took credit himself, nor received credit from his contemporaries. Diogenes seems to have really possessed—that which his teacher Antisthenes postulated as indispensable—the Sokratic physical strength and vigour. His ethical creed, obtained from Antisthenes, was adopted by many successors, and (in the main) by Zeno and the Stoics in the ensuing century. But the remarkable feature in Diogenes which attracts to him the admiration of Epiktêtus, is—that he set the example of acting out his creed, consistently and resolutely, in his manner of life:109 an example followed by some of his immediate successors, but not by the Stoics, who confined themselves to writing and preaching. Contemporary both with Plato and Aristotle, Diogenes stands to both of them in much the same relation as Phokion to Demosthenes in politics and oratory: he exhibits strength of will, insensibility to applause as well as to reproach, and self-acting independence—in antithesis to their higher gifts and cultivation of intellect. He was undoubtedly, next to Sokrates, the most original and unparalleled manifestation of Hellenic philosophy.

Admiration excited by the asceticism of the Cynics—Asceticism extreme in the East—Comparison of the Indian Gymnosophists with Diogenes.

Respecting Diogenes and the Cynic philosophers generally, we have to regard not merely their doctrines, but the effect produced by their severity of life. In this point Diogenes surpassed his master Antisthenes, whose life he criticised as not fully realising the lofty spirit of his doctrine. The spectacle of man not merely abstaining from enjoyment, but enduring with indifference hunger, thirst, heat, cold, poverty, privation, bodily torture, death, &c., exercises a powerful influence on the imagination of mankind. It calls forth strong feelings of reverence and admiration in the beholders: while in the sufferer himself also, self-reverence and self-admiration, the sense of power and exaltation above the measure of humanity, is largely developed. The extent to which self-inflicted hardships and pains have prevailed in various regions of the earth, the long-protracted and invincible resolution with which they have been endured, and the veneration which such practices have procured for the ascetics who submitted to them are among the most remarkable chapters in history.110 The East, especially India, has always been, and still is, the country in which these voluntary endurances have reached their extreme pitch of severity; even surpassing those of the Christian monks in Egypt and Syria, during the fourth and fifth centuries of the Christian era.111 When Alexander the Great first opened India to the observation of Greeks, one of the novelties which most surprised him and his followers was, the sight of the Gymnosophists or naked philosophers. These men were found lying on the ground, either totally uncovered or with nothing but a cloth round the loins; abstaining from all enjoyment, nourishing themselves upon a minimum of coarse vegetables or fruits, careless of the extreme heat of the plain, and the extreme cold of the mountain; and often superadding pain, fatigue, or prolonged and distressing uniformity of posture. They passed their time either in silent meditation or in discourse on religion and philosophy: they were venerated as well as consulted by every one, censuring even the most powerful persons in the land. Their fixed idea was to stand as examples to all, of endurance, insensibility, submission only to the indispensable necessities of nature, and freedom from all other fear or authority. They acted out the doctrine, which Plato so eloquently preaches under the name of Sokrates in the Phædon—That the whole life of the philosopher is a preparation for death: that life is worthless, and death an escape from it into a better state.112 It is an interesting fact to learn that when Onesikritus (one of Alexander’s officers, who had known and frequented the society of Diogenes in Greece), being despatched during the Macedonian march through India for the purpose of communicating with these Gymnosophists, saw their manner of life and conversed with them he immediately compared them with Diogenes, whom he had himself visited—as well as with Sokrates and Pythagoras, whom he knew by reputation. Onesikritus described to the Gymnosophists the manner of life of Diogenes: but Diogenes wore a threadbare mantle, and this appeared to them a mark of infirmity and imperfection. They remarked that Diogenes was right to a considerable extent; but wrong for obeying convention in preference to nature, and for being ashamed of going naked, as they did.113

The precepts and principles laid down by Sokrates were carried into fullest execution by the Cynics.

These observations of the Indian Gymnosophist are a reproduction and an application in practice114 of the memorable declaration of principle enunciated by Sokrates—“That the Gods had no wants: and that the man who had fewest wants, approximated most nearly to the Gods”. This principle is first introduced into Grecian ethics by Sokrates: ascribed to him both by Xenophon and Plato, and seemingly approved by both. In his life, too, Sokrates carried the principle into effect, up to a certain point. Both admirers and opponents attest his poverty, hard fare, coarse clothing, endurance of cold and privation:115 but he was a family man, with a wife and children to maintain, and he partook occasionally, of indulgences which made him fall short of his own ascetic principle. Plato and Xenophon—both of them well-born Athenians, in circumstances affluent, or at least easy, the latter being a knight, and even highly skilled in horses and horsemanship—contented themselves with preaching on the text, whenever they had to deal with an opponent more self-indulgent than themselves; but made no attempt to carry it into practice.116 Zeno the Stoic laid down broad principles of self-denial and apathy: but in practice he was unable to conquer the sense of shame, as the Cynics did, and still more the Gymnosophists. Antisthenes, on the other hand, took to heart, both in word and act, the principle of Sokrates: yet even he, as we know from the Xenophontic Symposion, was not altogether constant in rigorous austerity. His successors Diogenes and Krates attained the maximum of perfection ever displayed by the Cynics of free Greece. They stood forth as examples of endurance, abnegation—insensibility to shame and fear—free-spoken censure of others. Even they however were not so recognised by the Indian Gymnosophists; who, having reduced their wants, their fears, and their sensibilities, yet lower, had thus come nearer to that which they called the perfection of Nature, and which Sokrates called the close approach to divinity.117 When Alexander the Great (in the first year of his reign and prior to any of his Asiatic conquests) visited Diogenes at Corinth, found him lying in the sun, and asked if there was anything which he wanted—Diogenes made the memorable reply—“Only that you and your guards should stand out of my sunshine”. This reply doubtless manifests the self-satisfied independence of the philosopher. Yet it is far less impressive than the fearless reproof which the Indian Gymnosophists administered to Alexander, when they saw him in the Punjab at the head of his victorious army, after exploits, dangers, and fatigues almost superhuman, as conqueror of Persia and acknowledged son of Zeus.118

Antithesis between Nature—and Law or Convention—insisted on by the Indian Gymnosophists.

Another point, in the reply made by the Indian Gymnosophist to Onesikritus, deserves notice: I mean the antithesis between law (or convention) and nature (νόμος—φύσις)—the supremacy which he asserts for Nature over law—and the way in which he understands Nature and her supposed ordinances. This antithesis was often put forward and argued in the ancient Ethics: and it is commonly said, without any sufficient proof, that the Sophists (speaking of them collectively) recognised only the authority of law—while Sokrates and Plato had the merit of vindicating against them the superior authority of Nature. The Indian Gymnosophist agrees with the Athenian speaker in the Platonic treatise De Legibus, and with the Platonic Kallikles in the Gorgias, thus far—that he upholds the paramount authority of Nature. But of these three interpreters, each hears and reports the oracles of Nature differently from the other two: and there are many other dissenting interpreters besides.119 Which of them are we to follow? And if, adopting any one of them, we reject the others, upon what grounds are we to justify our preference? When the Gymnosophist points out, that nakedness is the natural condition of man; when he farther infers, that because natural it is therefore right and that the wearing of clothes, being a departure from nature, is also a departure from right—how are we to prove to him that his interpretation of nature is the wrong one? These questions have received no answer in any of the Platonic dialogues: though we have seen that Plato is very bitter against those who dwell upon the antithesis between Law and Nature, and who undertake to decide between the two.

The Greek Cynics—an order of ascetic or mendicant friars.

Reverting to the Cynics, we must declare them to be in one respect the most peculiar outgrowth of Grecian philosophy: because they are not merely a doctrinal sect, with phrases, theories, reasonings, and teachings, of their own—but still more prominently a body of practical ascetics, a mendicant order120 in philosophy, working up the bystanders by exhibiting themselves as models of endurance and apathy. These peculiarities seem to have originated partly with Pythagoras, partly with Sokrates—for there is no known prior example of it in Grecian history, except that of the anomalous priests of Zeus at Dodona, called Selli, who lay on the ground with unwashed feet. The discipline of Lykurgus at Sparta included severe endurance; but then it was intended to form, and actually did form, good soldiers. The Cynics had no view to military action. They exaggerated the peculiarities of Sokrates, and we should call their mode of life the Sokratic life, if we followed the example of those who gave names to the Pythagorean or Orphic life, as a set of observances derived from the type of Pythagoras or Orpheus.121

Logical views of Antisthenes and Diogenes—they opposed the Platonic Ideas.

Though Antisthenes and Diogenes laid chief stress upon ethical topics, yet they also delivered opinions on logic and evidence.122 Antisthenes especially was engaged in controversy, and seemingly in acrimonious controversy, with Plato; whose opinions he impugned in an express dialogue entitled Sathon. Plato on his side attacked the opinions of Antisthenes, and spoke contemptuously of his intelligence, yet without formally naming him. At least there are some criticisms in the Platonic dialogues (especially in the Sophistês, p. 251) which the commentators pronounce, on strong grounds, to be aimed at Antisthenes: who is also unfavourably criticised by Aristotle. We know but little of the points which Antisthenes took up against Plato and still less of the reasons which he urged in support of them. Both he and Diogenes, however, are said to have declared express war against the Platonic theory of self-existent Ideas. The functions of general Concepts and general propositions, together with the importance of defining general terms, had been forcibly insisted on in the colloquies of Sokrates; and his disciple Plato built upon this foundation the memorable hypothesis of an aggregate of eternal, substantive realities, called Ideas or Forms, existing separate from the objects of sense, yet affording a certain participation in themselves to those objects: not discernible by sense, but only by the Reason or understanding. These bold creations of the Platonic fancy were repudiated by Antisthenes and Diogenes: who are both said to have declared “We see Man, and we see Horse; but Manness and Horseness we do not see”. Whereunto Plato replied “You possess that eye by which Horse is seen: but you have not yet acquired that eye by which Horseness is seen”.123

First protest of Nominalism against Realism.

This debate between Antisthenes and Plato marks an interesting point in the history of philosophy. It is the first protest of Nominalism against the doctrine of an extreme Realism. The Ideas or Forms of Plato (according to many of his phrases, for he is not always consistent with himself) are not only real existences distinct from particulars, but absorb to themselves all the reality of particulars. The real universe in the Platonic theory was composed of Ideas or Forms such as Manness or Horseness124 (called by Plato the Αὐτὸ-Ἄνθρωπος and Αὐτὸ-Ἵππος), of which particular men and horses were only disfigured, transitory, and ever-varying photographs. Antisthenes denied what Plato affirmed, and as Plato affirmed it. Aristotle denied it also; maintaining that genera, species, and attributes, though distinguishable as separate predicates of, or inherencies in, individuals—yet had no existence apart from individuals. Aristotle was no less wanting than Antisthenes, in the intellectual eye required for discerning the Platonic Ideas. Antisthenes is said to have declared these Ideas to be mere thoughts or conceptions (ψιλὰς ἐννοίας): i.e., merely subjective or within the mind, without any object corresponding to them. This is one of the various modes of presenting the theory of Ideas, resorted to even in the Platonic Parmenidês, not by one who opposes that theory, but by one seeking to defend it—viz., by Sokrates, when he is hard pressed by the objections of the Eleate against the more extreme and literal version of the theory.125 It is remarkable, that the objections ascribed to Parmenides against that version which exhibits the Ideas as mere Concepts of and in the mind, are decidedly less forcible than those which he urges against the other versions.

Doctrines of Antisthenes about predication—he admits no other predication but identical.

There is another singular doctrine, which Aristotle ascribes to Antisthenes, and which Plato notices and confutes; alluding to its author contemptuously, but not mentioning his name. Every name (Antisthenes argued) has its own special reason or meaning (οἰκεῖος126 λόγος), declaring the essence of the thing named, and differing from every other word: you cannot therefore truly predicate any one word of any other, because the reason or meaning of the two is different: there can be no true propositions except identical propositions, in which the predicate is the same with the subject—“man is man, good is good”. “Man is good” was an inadmissible proposition: affirming different things to be the same, or one thing to be many.127 Accordingly, it was impossible for two speakers really to contradict each other. There can be no contradiction between them if both declare the essence of the same thing—nor if neither of them declare the essence of it—nor if one speaker declares the essence of one thing, and another speaker that of another. But one of these three cases must happen: therefore there can be no contradiction.128

The same doctrine asserted by Stilpon, after the time of Aristotle.

The works of Antisthenes being lost, we do not know how he himself stated his own doctrine, nor what he said on behalf of it, declaring contradiction to be impossible. Plato sets aside the doctrine as absurd and silly; Aristotle—since he cites it as a paradox, apt for dialectical debate, where the opinion of a philosopher stood opposed to what was generally received—seems to imply that there were plausible arguments to be urged in its favour.129 And that the doctrine actually continued to be held and advocated, in the generation not only after Antisthenes but after Aristotle—we may see by the case of Stilpon: who maintained (as Antisthenes had done) that none but identical propositions, wherein the predicate was a repetition of the subject, were admissible: from whence it followed (as Aristotle observed) that there could be no propositions either false or contradictory. Plutarch,130 in reciting this doctrine of Stilpon (which had been vehemently impugned by the Epikurean Kolôtês), declares it to have been intended only in jest. There is no ground for believing that it was so intended: the analogy of Antisthenes goes to prove the contrary.

Nominalism of Stilpon. His reasons against accidental predication.

Stilpon, however, while rejecting (as Antisthenes had done) the universal Ideas131 or Forms, took a larger ground of objection. He pronounced them to be inadmissible both as subject and as predicate. If you speak of Man in general (he said), what, or whom, do you mean? You do not mean A or B, or C or D, &c.: that is, you do not mean any one of these more than any other. You have no determinate meaning at all: and beyond this indefinite multitude of individuals, there is nothing that the term can mean. Again, as to predicates—when you say, The man runs, or The man is good, what do you mean by the predicate runs, or is good? You do not mean any thing specially belonging to man: for you apply the same predicates to many other subjects: you say runs, about a horse, a dog, or a cat—you say good in reference to food, medicine, and other things besides. Your predicate, therefore, being applied to many and diverse subjects, belongs not to one of them more than to another: in other words, it belongs to neither: the predication is not admissible.132

Difficulty of understanding how the same predicate could belong to more than one subject.

Stilpon (like Antisthenes, as I have remarked above) seems to have had in his mind a type of predication, similar to the type of reasoning which Aristotle laid down the syllogism: such that the form of the proposition should be itself a guarantee for the truth of what was affirmed. Throughout the ancient philosophy, especially in the more methodised debates between the Academics and Sceptics on one side, and the Stoics on the other—what the one party affirmed and the other party denied, was, the existence of a Criterion of Truth: some distinguishable mark, such as falsehood could not possibly carry. To find this infallible mark in propositions, Stilpon admitted none except identical. While agreeing with Antisthenes, that no predicate could belong to a subject different from itself, he added a new argument, by pointing out that predicates applied to one subject were also applied to many other subjects. Now if the predicates belonged to one, they could not (in his view) belong to the others: and therefore they did not really belong to any. He considered that predication involved either identity or special and exclusive implication of the predicate with the subject.

Analogous difficulties in the Platonic Parmenidês.

Stilpon was not the first who had difficulty in explaining to himself how one and the same predicate could be applied to many different subjects. The difficulty had already been set forth in the Platonic Parmenidês.133 How can the Form (Man, White, Good, &c.) be present at one and the same time in many distinct individuals? It cannot be present as a whole in each: nor can it be divided, and thus present partly in one, partly in another. How therefore can it be present at all in any of them? In other words, how can the One be Many, and how can the Many be One? Of this difficulty (as of many others) Plato presents no solution, either in the Parmenidês or anywhere else.134 Aristotle alludes to several contemporaries or predecessors who felt it. Stilpon reproduces it in his own way. It is a very real difficulty, requiring to be dealt with by those who lay down a theory of predication; and calling upon them to explain the functions of general propositions, and the meaning of general terms.

Menedêmus disallowed all negative predication.

Menedêmus the Eretrian, one among the hearers and admirers of Stilpon, combined even more than Stilpon the attributes of the Cynic with those of the Megaric. He was fearless in character, and uncontrouled in speech, delivering harsh criticisms without regard to offence given: he was also a great master of ingenious dialectic and puzzling controversy.135 His robust frame, grave deportment, and simplicity of life, inspired great respect; especially as he occupied a conspicuous position, and enjoyed political influence at Eretria. He is said to have thought meanly both of Plato and Xenokrates. We are told that Menedêmus, like Antisthenes and Stilpon, had doctrines of his own on the subject of predication. He disallowed all negative propositions, admitting none but affirmative: moreover even of the affirmative propositions, he disallowed all the hypothetical, approving only the simple and categorical.136

It is impossible to pronounce confidently respecting these doctrines, without knowing the reasons upon which they were grounded. Unfortunately these last have not been transmitted to us. But we may be very sure that there were reasons, sufficient or insufficient: and the knowledge of those reasons would have enabled us to appreciate more fully the state of the Greek mind, in respect to logical theory, in and before the year 300 B.C.

Distinction ascribed to Antisthenes between simple and complex objects. Simple objects undefinable.

Another doctrine, respecting knowledge and definition, is ascribed by Aristotle to “the disciples of Antisthenes and other such uninstructed persons”: it is also canvassed by Plato in the Theætêtus,137 without specifying its author, yet probably having Antisthenes in view. As far as we can make out a doctrine which both these authors recite as opponents, briefly and their own way, it is as follows:—“Objects must be distinguished into—1. Simple or primary; and 2. Compound or secondary combinations of these simple elements. This last class, the compounds, may be explained or defined, because you can enumerate the component elements. By such analysis, and by the definition founded thereupon, you really come to know them—describe them—predicate about them. But the first class, the simple or primary objects, can only be perceived by sense and named: they cannot be analysed, defined, or known. You can only predicate about them that they are like such and such other things: e.g., silver, you cannot say what it is in itself, but only that it is like tin, or like something else. There may thus be a ratio and a definition of any compound object, whether it be an object of perception or of conception: because one of the component elements will serve as Matter or Subject of the proposition, and the other as Form or Predicate. But there can be no definition of any one of the component elements separately taken: because there is neither Matter nor Form to become the Subject and Predicate of a defining proposition.”

This opinion, ascribed to the followers of Antisthenes, is not in harmony with the opinion ascribed by Aristotle to Antisthenes himself (viz., That no propositions, except identical propositions, were admissible): and we are led to suspect that the first opinion must have been understood or qualified by its author in some manner not now determinable. But the second opinion, drawing a marked logical distinction between simple and complex Objects, has some interest from the criticisms of Plato and Aristotle: both of whom select, for the example illustrating the opinion, the syllable as the compound made up of two or more letters which are its simple constituent elements.

Remarks of Plato on this doctrine.

Plato refutes the doctrine,138 but in a manner not so much to prove its untruth, as to present it for a verbal incongruity. How can you properly say (he argues) that you know the compound AB, when you know neither A nor B separately? Now it may be incongruous to restrict in this manner the use of the words know—knowledge: but the distinction between the two cases is not denied by Plato. Antisthenes said—“I feel a simple sensation (A or B) and can name it, but I do not know it: I can affirm nothing about it in itself, or about its real essence. But the compound AB I do know, for I know its essence: I can affirm about it that it is compounded of A and B, and this is its essence.” Here is a real distinction: and Plato’s argument amounts only to affirming that it is an incorrect use of words to call the compound known, when the component elements are not known. Unfortunately the refutation of Plato is not connected with any declaration of his own counter-doctrine, for Theætêtus ends in a result purely negative.

Remarks of Aristotle upon the same.

Aristotle, in his comment on the opinion of Antisthenes, makes us understand better what it really is:—“Respecting simple essences (A or B), I cannot tell what they really are: but I can tell what they are like or unlike, i.e., I can compare them with other essences, simple or compound. But respecting the compound AB, I can tell what it really is: its essence is, to be compounded of A and B. And this I call knowing or knowledge.”139 The distinction here taken by Antisthenes (or by his followers) is both real and useful: Plato does not contest it: while Aristotle distinctly acknowledges it, only that among the simple items he ranks both Percepta and Concepta.

Later Grecian Cynics—Monimus—Krates—Hipparchia.

Monimus a Syracusan, and Krates a Theban, with his wife Hipparchia,140 were successors of Diogenes in the Cynic vein of philosophy: together with several others of less note. Both Monimus and Krates are said to have been persons of wealthy condition,141 yet their minds were so powerfully affected by what they saw of Diogenes, that they followed his example, renounced their wealth, and threw themselves upon a life of poverty; with nothing beyond the wallet and the threadbare cloak, but with fearless independence of character, free censure of every one, and indifference to opinion. “I choose as my country” (said Krates) “poverty and low esteem, which fortune cannot assail: I am the fellow-citizen of Diogenes, whom the snares of envy cannot reach.”142 Krates is said to have admonished every one, whether they invited it or not: and to have gone unbidden from house to house for the purpose of exhortation. His persistence in this practice became so obtrusive that he obtained the title of “the Door-Opener”.143 This feature, common to several other Cynics, exhibits an approximation to the missionary character of Sokrates, as described by himself in the Platonic Apology: a feature not found in any of the other eminent heads of philosophy—neither in Plato nor in Aristotle, Zeno, or Epikurus.

Zeno of Kitium in Cyprus.

Among other hearers of Krates, who carried on, and at the same time modified, the Cynic discipline, we have to mention Zeno, of Kitium in Cyprus, who became celebrated as the founder of the Stoic sect. In him the Cynic, Megaric, and Herakleitean tendencies may be said to have partially converged, though with considerable modifications:144 the ascetic doctrines (without the ascetic practices or obtrusive forwardness) of the Cynics—and the logical subtleties of the others. He blended them, however, with much of new positive theory, both physical and cosmological. His compositions were voluminous; and those of the Stoic Chrysippus, after him, were still more numerous. The negative and oppugning function, which in the fourth century B.C. had been directed by the Megarics against Aristotle, was in the third century B.C. transferred to the Platonists, or Academy represented by Arkesilaus: whose formidable dialectic was brought to bear upon the Stoic and Epikurean schools—both of them positive, though greatly opposed to each other.