Читать книгу Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates - Grote George - Страница 11

Along with Antisthenes, among the hearers and companions of Sokrates, stood another Greek of very opposite dispositions, yet equally marked and original—Aristippus of Kyrênê. The stimulus of the Sokratic method, and the novelty of the topics on which it was brought to bear, operated forcibly upon both, prompting each of them to theorise in his own way on the best plan of life.

Aristippus—life, character, and doctrine.

Aristippus, a Kyrenean of easy circumstances, having heard of the powerful ascendancy exercised by Sokrates over youth, came to Athens for the express purpose of seeing him, and took warm interest in his conversation.145 He set great value upon mental cultivation and accomplishments; but his habits of life were inactive, easy, and luxurious. Upon this last count, one of the most interesting chapters in the Xenophontic Memorabilia reports an interrogative lecture addressed to him by Sokrates, in the form of dialogue.146

Discourse of Sokrates with Aristippus.

Sokrates points out to Aristippus that mankind may be distributed into two classes: 1. Those who have trained themselves to habits of courage, energy, bodily strength, and command over their desires and appetites, together with practice in the actual work of life:—these are the men who become qualified to rule, and who do actually rule. 2. The rest of mankind, inferior in these points, who have no choice but to obey, and who do obey.147—Men of the first or ruling class possess all the advantages of life: they perform great exploits, and enjoy a full measure of delight and happiness, so far as human circumstances admit. Men of the second class are no better than slaves, always liable to suffer, and often actually suffering, ill-treatment and spoliation of the worst kind. To which of these classes (Sokrates asks Aristippus) do you calculate on belonging—and for which do you seek to qualify yourself?—To neither of them (replies Aristippus). I do not wish to share the lot of the subordinate multitude: but I have no relish for a life of command, with all the fatigues, hardships, perils, &c., which are inseparable from it. I prefer a middle course: I wish neither to rule, nor to be ruled, but to be a freeman: and I consider freedom as the best guarantee for happiness.148 I desire only to pass through life as easily and pleasantly as possible.149—Which of the two do you consider to live most pleasantly, the rulers or the ruled? asks Sokrates. — I do not rank myself with either (says Aristippus): nor do I enter into active duties of citizenship anywhere: I pass from one city to another, but everywhere as a stranger or non-citizen. — Your scheme is impracticable (says Sokrates). You cannot obtain security in the way that you propose. You will find yourself suffering wrong and distress along with the subordinates150—and even worse than the subordinates: for a stranger, wherever he goes, is less befriended and more exposed to injury than the native citizens. You will be sold into slavery, though you are fit for no sort of work: and your master will chastise you until you become fit for work. — But (replies Aristippus) this very art of ruling, which you consider to be happiness,151 is itself a hard life, a toilsome slavery, not only stripped of enjoyment, but full of privation and suffering. A man must be a fool to embrace such discomforts of his own accord. — It is that very circumstance (says Sokrates), that he does embrace them of his own accord—which renders them endurable, and associates them with feelings of pride and dignity. They are the price paid beforehand, for a rich reward to come. He who goes through labour and self-denial, for the purpose of gaining good friends or subduing enemies, and for the purpose of acquiring both mental and bodily power, so that he may manage his own concerns well and may benefit both his friends and his country—such a man will be sure to find his course of labour pleasurable. He will pass his life in cheerful152 satisfaction, not only enjoying his own esteem and admiration, but also extolled and envied by others. On the contrary, whoever passes his earlier years in immediate pleasures and indolent ease, will acquire no lasting benefit either in mind or body. He will have a soft lot at first, but his future will be hard and dreary.153

Choice of Hêraklês.

Sokrates enforces his lecture by reciting to Aristippus the memorable lecture or apologue, which the Sophist Prodikus was then delivering in lofty diction to numerous auditors154—the fable still known as the Choice of Hêraklês. Virtue and Pleasure (the latter of the two being here identified with Evil or Vice) are introduced as competing for the direction of the youthful Hêraklês. Each sets forth her case, in dramatic antithesis. Pleasure is introduced as representing altogether the gratification of the corporeal appetites and the love of repose: while Virtue replies by saying, that if youth be employed altogether in pursuing such delights, at the time when the appetites are most vigorous—the result will be nothing but fatal disappointment, accompanied with entire loss of the different and superior pleasures available in mature years and in old age. Youth is the season of labour: the physical appetites must be indulged sparingly, and only at the call of actual want: accomplishments of body and mind must be acquired in that season, which will enable the mature man to perform in after life great and glorious exploits. He will thus realise the highest of all human delights—the love of his friends and the admiration of his countrymen—the sound of his own praises and the reflexion upon his own deserts. At the price of a youth passed in labour and self-denial, he will secure the fullest measure of mature and attainable happiness.

“It is worth your while, Aristippus” (says Sokrates, in concluding this lecture), “to bestow some reflexion on what is to happen in the latter portions of your life.”

Illustration afforded of the views of Sokrates respecting Good and Evil.

This dialogue (one of the most interesting remnants of antiquity, and probably reported by Xenophon from actual hearing) is valuable in reference not only to Aristippus, but also to Sokrates himself. Many recent historians of philosophy describe Sokrates and Plato as setting up an idea of Virtue or Good Absolute (i.e. having no essential reference to the happiness or security of the agent or of any one else) which they enforce—and an idea of Vice or Evil Absolute (i.e. having no essential reference to suffering or peril, or disappointment, either of the agent or of any one else) which they denounce and discommend and as thereby refuting the Sophists, who are said to have enforced Virtue and denounced Vice only relatively—i.e. in consequence of the bearing of one and the other upon the security and happiness of the agent or of others. Whether there be any one doctrine or style of preaching which can be fairly ascribed to the Sophists as a class, I will not again discuss here: but I believe that the most eminent among them, Protagoras and Prodikus, held the language here ascribed to them. But it is a mistake to suppose that upon this point Sokrates was their opponent. The Xenophontic Sokrates (a portrait more resembling reality than the Platonic) always holds this same language: the Platonic Sokrates not always, yet often. In the dialogue between Sokrates and Aristippus, as well as in the apologue of Prodikus, we see that the devotion of the season of youth to indulgence and inactive gratification of appetite, is blamed as productive of ruinous consequences—as entailing loss of future pleasures, together with a state of weakness which leaves no protection against future suffering; while great care is taken to show, that though laborious exercise is demanded during youth, such labour will be fully requited by the increased pleasures and happiness of after life. The pleasure of being praised, and the pleasure of seeing good deeds performed by one’s self, are especially insisted on. On this point both Sokrates and Prodikus concur.155

Comparison of the Xenophontic Sokrates with the Platonic Sokrates.

If again we compare the Xenophontic Sokrates with the Platonic Sokrates, we shall find that the lecture of the former to Aristippus coincides sufficiently with the theory laid down by the latter in the dialogue Protagoras; to which theory the Sophist Protagoras is represented as yielding a reluctant adhesion. But we shall find also that it differs materially from the doctrine maintained by Sokrates in the Platonic Gorgias. Nay, if we follow the argument addressed by the Xenophontic Sokrates to Aristippus, we perceive that it is in substance similar to that which the Platonic dialogue Gorgias puts in the mouth of the rhetor Pôlus and the politician Kalliklês. The Xenophontic Sokrates distributes men into two classes—the rulers and the ruled: the former strong, well-armed, and well-trained, who enjoy life at the expense of the submission and suffering of the latter: the former committing injustice, the latter enduring injustice. He impresses upon Aristippus the misery of being confounded with the suffering many, and exhorts him to qualify himself by a laborious apprenticeship for enrolment among the ruling few. If we read the Platonic Gorgias, we shall see that this is the same strain in which Pôlus and Kalliklês address Sokrates, when they invite him to exchange philosophy for rhetoric, and to qualify himself for active political life. “Unless you acquire these accomplishments, you will be helpless and defenceless against injury and insult from others: while, if you acquire them, you will raise yourself to political influence, and will exercise power over others, thus obtaining the fullest measure of enjoyment which life affords: see the splendid position to which the Macedonian usurper Archelaus has recently exalted himself.156 Philosophy is useful, when studied in youth for a short time as preface to professional and political apprenticeship: but if a man perseveres in it and makes it the occupation of life, he will not only be useless to others, but unable to protect himself; he will be exposed to suffer any injustice which the well-trained and powerful men may put upon him.” To these exhortations of Pôlus and Kalliklês Sokrates replies by admitting their case as true matter of fact. “I know that I am exposed to such insults and injuries: but my life is just and innocent. If I suffer, I shall suffer wrong: and those who do the wrong will thereby inflict upon themselves a greater mischief than they inflict upon me. Doing wrong is worse for the agent than suffering wrong.”157

Xenophontic Sokrates talking to Aristippus—Kallikes in Platonic Gorgias.

There is indeed this difference between the Xenophontic Sokrates in his address to Aristippus, and the Platonic Kalliklês in his exhortation to Sokrates: That whereas Kalliklês proclaims and even vindicates it as natural justice and right, that the strong should gratify their desires by oppressing and despoiling the weak—the Xenophontic Sokrates merely asserts such oppression as an actual fact, notorious and undeniable,158 without either approving or blaming it. Plato, constructing an imaginary conversation with the purpose that Sokrates shall be victorious, contrives intentionally and with dramatic consistency that the argument of Kalliklês shall be advanced in terms so invidious and revolting that no one else would be bold enough to speak it out:159 which contrivance was the more necessary, as Sokrates is made not only to disparage the poets, rhetors, and most illustrious statesmen of historical Athens, but to sustain a thesis in which he admits himself to stand alone, opposed to aristocrats as well as democrats.160 Yet though there is this material difference in the manner of handling, the plan of life which the Xenophontic Sokrates urges upon Aristippus, and the grounds upon which he enforces it, are really the same as those which Kalliklês in the Platonic Gorgias urges upon Sokrates. “Labour to qualify yourself for active political power”—is the lesson addressed in the one case to a wealthy man who passed his life in ease and indulgence, in the other case to a poor man who devoted himself to speculative debate on general questions, and to cross-examination of every one who would listen and answer. The man of indulgence, and the man of speculation,161 were both of them equally destitute of those active energies which were necessary to confer power over others, or even security against oppression by others.

Language held by Aristippus—his scheme of life.

In the Xenophontic dialogue, Aristippus replies to Sokrates that the apprenticeship enjoined upon him is too laborious, and that the exercise of power, itself laborious, has no charm for him. He desires a middle course, neither to oppress nor to be oppressed: neither to command, nor to be commanded—like Otanes among the seven Persian conspirators.162 He keeps clear of political obligation, and seeks to follow, as much as he can, his own individual judgment. Though Sokrates, in the Xenophontic dialogue, is made to declare this middle course impossible, yet it is substantially the same as what the Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias aspires to:—moreover the same as what the real Sokrates at Athens both pursued as far as he could, and declared to be the only course consistent with his security.163 The Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias declares emphatically that no man can hope to take active part in the government of a country, unless he be heartily identified in spirit with the ethical and political system of the country: unless he not merely professes, but actually and sincerely shares, the creed, doctrines, tastes, and modes of appreciation prevalent among the citizens.164 Whoever is deficient in this indispensable condition, must be content “to mind his own business and to abstain from active meddling with public affairs”. This is the course which the Platonic Sokrates claims both for himself and for the philosopher generally:165 it is also the course which Aristippus chooses for himself, under the different title of a middle way between the extortion of the ruler and the suffering of the subordinate. And the argument of Sokrates that no middle way is possible—far from refuting Aristippus (as Xenophon says that it did)166 is founded upon an incorrect assumption: had it been correct, neither literature nor philosophy could have been developed.

Diversified conversations of Sokrates, according to the character of the hearer.

The real Sokrates, since he talked incessantly and with every one, must of course have known how to diversify his conversation and adapt it to each listener. Xenophon not only attests this generally,167 but has preserved the proofs of it in his Memorabilia—real conversations, reported though doubtless dressed up by himself. The conversations which he has preserved relate chiefly to piety and to the duties and proceedings of active life: and to the necessity of controuling the appetites: these he selected partly because they suited his proclaimed purpose of replying to the topics of indictment, partly because they were in harmony with his own idéal. Xenophon was a man of action, resolute in mind and vigorous in body, performing with credit the duties of the general as well as of the soldier. His heroes were men like Cyrus, Agesilaus, Ischomachus—warriors, horsemen, hunters, husbandmen, always engaged in active competition for power, glory, or profit, and never shrinking from danger, fatigue, or privation. For a life of easy and unambitious indulgence, even though accompanied by mental and speculative activity—“homines ignavâ operâ et philosophiâ sententiâ”—he had no respect. It was on this side that the character of Aristippus certainly seemed to be, and probably really was, the most defective. Sokrates employed the arguments the most likely to call forth within him habits of action—to render him πρακτικώτερον.168 In talking with the presumptuous youth Glaukon, and with the diffident Charmides,169 Sokrates used language adapted to correct the respective infirmities of each. In addressing Kritias and Alkibiades, he would consider it necessary not only to inculcate self-denial as to appetite, but to repress an exorbitance of ambition.170 But in dealing with Aristippus, while insisting upon command of appetite and acquirement of active energy, he at the same time endeavours to kindle ambition, and the love of command: he even goes so far as to deny the possibility of a middle course, and to maintain (what Kritias and Alkibiades171 would have cordially approved) that there was no alternative open, except between the position of the oppressive governors and that of the suffering subjects. Addressed to Aristippus, these topics were likely to thrust forcibly upon his attention the danger of continued indulgences during the earlier years of life, and the necessity, in view to his own future security, for training in habits of vigour, courage, self-command, endurance.

Conversations between Sokrates and Aristippus about the Good and Beautiful.

Xenophon notices briefly two other colloquies between Sokrates and Aristippus. The latter asked Sokrates, “Do you know anything good?” in order (says Xenophon) that if Sokrates answered in the affirmative and gave as examples, health, wealth, strength, courage, bread, &c., he (Aristippus) might show circumstances in which this same particular was evil; and might thus catch Sokrates in a contradiction, as Sokrates had caught him before.172 But Sokrates (says Xenophon) far from seeking to fence with the question, retorted it in such a way as to baffle the questioner, and at the same time to improve and instruct the by-standers.173 “Do you ask me if I know anything good for a fever?—No. Or for ophthalmic distemper?—No. Or for hunger?—No. Oh! then, if you mean to ask me, whether I know anything good, which is good for nothing—I reply that I neither know any such thing, nor care to know it.”

Again, on another occasion Aristippus asked him “Do you know anything beautiful?—Yes; many things. — Are they all like to each other?—No; they are as unlike as possible to each other. — How then (continues Aristippus) can that which is unlike to the beautiful, be itself beautiful?—Easily enough (replies Sokrates); one man is beautiful for running; another man, altogether unlike him, is beautiful for wrestling. A shield which is beautiful for protecting your body, is altogether unlike to a javelin, which is beautiful for being swiftly and forcibly hurled. — Your answer (rejoined Aristippus) is exactly the same as it was when I asked you whether you knew anything good. — Certainly (replies Sokrates). Do you imagine, that the Good is one thing, and the Beautiful another? Do you not know that all things are good and beautiful in relation to the same purpose? Virtue is not good in relation to one purpose, and beautiful in relation to another. Men are called both good and beautiful in reference to the same ends: the bodies of men, in like manner: and all things which men use, are considered both good and beautiful, in consideration of their serving their ends well. — Then (says Aristippus) a basket for carrying dung is beautiful?—To be sure (replied Sokrates), and a golden shield is ugly; if the former be well made for doing its work, and the latter badly. — Do you then assert (asked Aristippus) that the same things are beautiful and ugly?—Assuredly (replied Sokrates); and the same things are both good and evil. That which is good for hunger, is often bad for a fever: that which is good for a fever, is often bad for hunger. What is beautiful for running is often ugly for wrestling—and vice versâ. All things are good and beautiful, in relation to the ends which they serve well: all things are evil and ugly, in relation to the ends which they serve badly.”174

Remarks on the conversation—Theory of Good.

These last cited colloquies also, between Sokrates and Aristippus, are among the most memorable remains of Grecian philosophy: belonging to one of the years preceding 399 B.C., in which last year Sokrates perished. Here (as in the former dialogue) the doctrine is distinctly enunciated by Sokrates—That Good and Evil—Beautiful (or Honourable) and Ugly (or Dishonourable—Base)—have no intelligible meaning except in relation to human happiness and security. Good or Evil Absolute (i.e., apart from such relation) is denied to exist. The theory of Absolute Good (a theory traceable to the Parmenidean doctrines, and adopted from them by Eukleides) becomes first known to us as elaborated by Plato. Even in his dialogues it is neither always nor exclusively advocated, but is often modified by, and sometimes even exchanged for, the eudæmonistic or relative theory.

Good is relative to human beings and wants, in the view of Sokrates.

Sokrates declares very explicitly, in his conversation with Aristippus, what he means by the Good and the Beautiful: and when therefore in the name of the Good and the Beautiful, he protests against an uncontrolled devotion to the pleasures of sense (as in one of the Xenophontic dialogues with Euthydemus175), what he means is, that a man by such intemperance ruins his prospects of future happiness, and his best means of being useful both to himself and others. Whether Aristippus first learnt from Sokrates the relative theory of the Good and the Beautiful, or had already embraced it before, we cannot say. Some of his questions, as reported in Xenophon, would lead us to suspect that it took him by surprise: just as we find, in the Protagoras of Plato that a theory substantially the same, though in different words, is proposed by the Platonic Sokrates to the Sophist Protagoras: who at first repudiates it, but is compelled ultimately to admit it by the elaborate dialectic of Sokrates.176 If Aristippus did not learn the theory from Sokrates, he was at any rate fortified in it by the authority of Sokrates; to whose doctrine, in this respect, he adhered more closely than Plato.

Aristippus adhered to the doctrine of Sokrates.

Aristippus is recognised by Aristotle177 in two characters: both as a Sophist, and as a companion of Sokrates and Plato. Moreover it is remarkable that the doctrine, in reference to which Aristotle cites him as one among the Sophists, is a doctrine unquestionably Sokratic—contempt of geometrical science as useless, and as having no bearing on the good or evil of life.178 Herein also Aristippus followed Sokrates, while Plato departed from him.

Life and dicta of Aristippus—His type of character.

In estimating the character of Aristippus, I have brought into particular notice the dialogues reported by Xenophon, because the Xenophontic statements, with those of Aristotle, are the only contemporary evidence (for Plato only names him once to say that he was not present at the death of Sokrates, and was reported to be in Ægina). The other statements respecting Aristippus, preserved by Diogenes and others, not only come from later authorities, but give us hardly any facts; though they ascribe to him a great many sayings and repartees, adapted to a peculiar type of character. That type of character, together with an imperfect notion of his doctrines, is all that we can make out. Though Aristippus did not follow the recommendation of Sokrates, to labour and qualify himself for a ruler, yet both the advice of Sokrates, to reflect and prepare himself for the anxieties and perils of the future—and the spectacle of self-sufficing independence which the character of Sokrates afforded—were probably highly useful to him. Such advice being adverse to the natural tendencies of his mind, impressed upon him forcibly those points of the case which he was most likely to forget: and contributed to form in him that habit of self-command which is a marked feature in his character. He wished (such are the words ascribed to him by Xenophon) to pass through life as easily and agreeably as possible. Ease comes before pleasure: but his plan of life was to obtain as much pleasure as he could, consistent with ease, or without difficulty and danger. He actually realised, as far as our means of knowledge extend, that middle path of life which Sokrates declared to be impracticable.

Aristippus acted conformably to the advice of Sokrates.

Much of the advice given by Sokrates, Aristippus appears to have followed, though not from the reasons which Sokrates puts forward for giving it. When Sokrates reminds him that men liable to be tempted and ensnared by the love of good eating, were unfit to command—when he animadverts on the insanity of the passionate lover, who exposed himself to the extremity of danger for the purpose of possessing a married woman, while there were such abundant means of gratifying the sexual appetite without any difficulty or danger whatever179—to all this Aristippus assents: and what we read about his life is in perfect conformity therewith. Reason and prudence supply ample motives for following such advice, whether a man be animated with the love of command or not. So again, when Sokrates impresses upon Aristippus that the Good and the Beautiful were the same, being relative only to human wants or satisfaction—and that nothing was either good or beautiful, except in so far as it tended to confer relief, security, or enjoyment—this lesson too Aristippus laid to heart, and applied in a way suitable to his own peculiar dispositions and capacities.

Self-mastery and independence—the great aspiration of Aristippus.

The type of character represented by Aristippus is the man who enjoys what the present affords, so far as can be done without incurring future mischief, or provoking the enmity of others—but who will on no account enslave himself to any enjoyment; who always maintains his own self-mastery and independence and who has prudence and intelligence enabling him to regulate each separate enjoyment so as not to incur preponderant evil in future.180 This self-mastery and independence is in point of fact the capital aspiration of Aristippus, hardly less than of Antisthenes and Diogenes. He is competent to deal suitably with all varieties of persons, places, and situations, and to make the best of each—Οὗ γὰρ τοιούτων δεῖ, τουοῦτος εἶμ’ ἐγώ:181 but he accepts what the situation presents, without yearning or struggling for that which it cannot present.182 He enjoys the society both of the Syracusan despot Dionysius, and of the Hetæra Lais; but he will not make himself subservient either to one or to the other: he conceives himself able to afford, to both, as much satisfaction as he receives.183 His enjoyments are not enhanced by the idea that others are excluded from the like enjoyment, and that he is a superior, privileged man: he has no jealousy or antipathy, no passion for triumphing over rivals, no demand for envy or admiration from spectators. Among the Hetæræ in Greece were included all the most engaging and accomplished women—for in Grecian matrimony, it was considered becoming and advantageous that the bride should be young and ignorant, and that as a wife she should neither see nor know any thing beyond the administration of her own feminine apartments and household.184 Aristippus attached himself to those Hetæræ who pleased him; declaring that the charm of their society was in no way lessened by the knowledge that others enjoyed it also, and that he could claim no exclusive privilege.185 His patience and mildness in argument is much commended. The main lesson which he had learnt from philosophy (he said), was self-appreciation—to behave himself with confidence in every man’s society: even if all laws were abrogated, the philosopher would still, without any law, live in the same way as he now did.186 His confidence remained unshaken, when seized as a captive in Asia by order of the Persian satrap Artaphernes: all that he desired was, to be taken before the satrap himself.187 Not to renounce pleasure, but to enjoy pleasure moderately and to keep desires under controul—was in his judgment the true policy of life. But he was not solicitous to grasp enjoyment beyond what was easily attainable, nor to accumulate wealth or power which did not yield positive result.188 While Sokrates recommended, and Antisthenes practised, the precaution of deadening the sexual appetite by approaching no women except such as were ugly and repulsive,189—while Xenophon in the Cyropædia,190 working out the Sokratic idea of the dangerous fascination of beauty, represents Cyrus as refusing to see the captive Pantheia, and depicts the too confident Araspes (who treats such precaution as exaggerated timidity, and fully trusts his own self-possession), when appointed to the duty of guarding her, as absorbed against his will in a passion which makes him forget all reason and duty—Aristippus has sufficient self-mastery to visit the most seductive Hetæræ without being drawn into ruinous extravagance or humiliating subjugation. We may doubt whether he ever felt, even for Lais, a more passionate sentiment than Plato in his Epigram expresses towards the Kolophonian Hetæra Archeanassa.

Aristippus compared with Antisthenes and Diogenes—Points of agreement and disagreement between them.

Aristippus is thus remarkable, like the Cynics Antisthenes and Diogenes, not merely for certain theoretical doctrines, but also for acting out a certain plan of life.191 We know little or nothing of the real life of Aristippus, except what appears in Xenophon. The biography of him (as of the Cynic Diogenes) given by Diogenes Laertius, consists of little more than a string of anecdotes, mostly sayings, calculated to illustrate a certain type of character.192 Some of these are set down by those who approved the type, and who therefore place it in a favourable point of view—others by those who disapprove it and give the opposite colour.

We can understand and compare the different types of character represented by Antisthenes or Diogenes, and by Aristippus: but we have little knowledge of the real facts of their lives. The two types, each manifesting that marked individuality which belongs to the Sokratic band, though in many respects strongly contrasted, have also some points of agreement. Both Aristippus and Diogenes are bent on individual freedom and independence of character: both of them stand upon their own appreciation of life and its phenomena: both of them are impatient of that servitude to the opinions and antipathies of others, which induces a man to struggle for objects, not because they afford him satisfaction, but because others envy him for possessing them—and to keep off evils, not because he himself feels them as such, but because others pity or despise him for being subject to them; both of them are exempt from the competitive and ambitious feelings, from the thirst after privilege and power, from the sense of superiority arising out of monopolised possession and exclusion of others from partnership. Diogenes kept aloof from political life and civil obligations as much as Aristippus; and would have pronounced (as Aristippus replies to Sokrates in the Xenophontic dialogue) that the task of ruling others, instead of being a prize to be coveted, was nothing better than an onerous and mortifying servitude,193 not at all less onerous because a man took up the burthen of his own accord. These points of agreement are real: but the points of disagreement are not less real. Diogenes maintains his free individuality, and puts himself out of the reach of human enmity, by clothing himself in impenetrable armour: by attaining positive insensibility, as near as human life permits. This is with him not merely the acting out of a scheme of life, but also a matter of pride. He is proud of his ragged garment and coarse194 fare, as exalting him above others, and as constituting him a pattern of endurance: and he indulges this sentiment by stinging and contemptuous censure of every one. Aristippus has no similar vanity: he achieves his independence without so heavy a renunciation: he follows out his own plan of life, without setting himself up as a pattern for others. But his plan is at the same time more delicate; requiring greater skill and intelligence, more of manifold sagacity, in the performer. Horace, who compares the two and gives the preference to Aristippus, remarks that Diogenes, though professing to want nothing, was nevertheless as much dependent upon the bounty of those who supplied his wallet with provisions, as Aristippus upon the favour of princes: and that Diogenes had only one fixed mode of proceeding, while Aristippus could master and turn to account a great diversity of persons and situations—could endure hardship with patience and dignity, when it was inevitable, and enjoy the opportunities of pleasure when they occurred. “To Aristippus alone it is given to wear both fine garments and rags” is a remark ascribed to Plato.195 In truth, Aristippus possesses in eminent measure that accomplishment, the want of which Plato proclaims to be so misleading and mischievous—artistic skill in handling human affairs, throughout his dealings with mankind.196

Attachment of Aristippus to ethics and philosophy—contempt for other studies.

That the scheme of life projected by Aristippus was very difficult requiring great dexterity, prudence, and resolution, to execute it—we may see plainly by the Xenophontic dialogue; wherein Sokrates pronounces it to be all but impracticable. As far as we can judge, he surmounted the difficulties of it: yet we do not know enough of his real life to determine with accuracy what varieties of difficulties he experienced. He followed the profession of a Sophist, receiving fees for his teaching: and his attachment to philosophy (both as contrasted with ignorance and as contrasted with other studies not philosophy) was proclaimed in the most emphatic language. It was better (he said) to be a beggar, than an uneducated man:197 the former was destitute of money, but the latter was destitute of humanity. He disapproved varied and indiscriminate instruction, maintaining that persons ought to learn in youth what they were to practise in manhood: and he compared those who, neglecting philosophy, employed themselves in literature or physical science, to the suitors in the Odyssey who obtained the favours of Melantho and the other female servants, but were rejected by the Queen Penelopê herself.198 He treated with contempt the study of geometry, because it took no account, and made no mention, of what was good and evil, beautiful and ugly. In other arts (he said), even in the vulgar proceeding of the carpenter and the currier, perpetual reference was made to good, as the purpose intended to be served and to evil as that which was to be avoided: but in geometry no such purpose was ever noticed.199

Aristippus taught as a Sophist. His reputation thus acquired procured for him the attentions of Dionysius and others.

This last opinion of Aristippus deserves particular attention, because it is attested by Aristotle. And it confirms what we hear upon less certain testimony, that Aristippus discountenanced the department of physical study generally (astronomy and physics) as well as geometry; confining his attention to facts and reasonings which bore upon the regulation of life.200 In this restrictive view he followed the example and precepts of Sokrates—of Isokrates—seemingly also of Protagoras and Prodikus though not of the Eleian Hippias, whose course of study was larger and more varied.201 Aristippus taught as a Sophist, and appears to have acquired great reputation in that capacity both at Athens and elsewhere.202 Indeed, if he had not acquired such intellectual and literary reputation at Athens, he would have had little chance of being invited elsewhere, and still less chance of receiving favours and presents from Dionysius and other princes:203 whose attentions did not confer celebrity, but waited upon it when obtained, and doubtless augmented it. If Aristippus lived a life of indulgence at Athens, we may fairly presume that his main resources for sustaining it, like those of Isokrates, were derived from his own teaching: and that the presents which he received from Dionysius of Syracuse, like those which Isokrates received from Nikokles of Cyprus, were welcome additions, but not his main income. Those who (like most of the historians of philosophy) adopt the opinion of Sokrates and Plato, that it is disgraceful for an instructor to receive payment from the persons taught will doubtless despise Aristippus for such a proceeding: for my part I dissent from this opinion, and I therefore do not concur in the disparaging epithets bestowed upon him. And as for the costly indulgences, and subservience to foreign princes, of which Aristippus stands accused, we must recollect that the very same reproaches were advanced against Plato and Aristotle by their contemporaries: and as far as we know, with quite as much foundation.204

Aristippus composed several dialogues, of which the titles alone are preserved.205 They must however have been compositions of considerable merit, since Theopompus accused Plato of borrowing largely from them.

Ethical theory of Aristippus and the Kyrenaic philosophers.

As all the works of Aristippus are lost, we cannot pretend to understand fully his theory from the meagre abstract given in Sextus Empiricus and Diogenes. Yet the theory is of importance in the history of ancient speculation, since it passed with some modifications to Epikurus, and was adopted by a large proportion of instructed men. The Kyrenaic doctrine was transmitted by Aristippus to his disciples Æthiops and Antipater: but his chief disciple appears to have been his daughter Arêtê: whom he instructed so well, that she was able to instruct her own son, the second Aristippus, called for that reason Metrodidactus. The basis of his ethical theory was, pleasure and pain: pleasure being smooth motion, pain, rough motion:206 pleasure being the object which all animals, by nature and without deliberation, loved, pursued, and felt satisfaction in obtaining pain being the object which they all by nature hated and tried to avoid. Aristippus considered that no one pleasure was different from another, nor more pleasurable than another:207 that the attainment of these special pleasurable moments, or as many of them as practicable, was The End to be pursued in life. By Happiness, they understood the sum total of these special pleasures, past, present, and future: yet Happiness was desirable not on its own account, but on account of its constituent items, especially such of those items as were present and certainly future.208 Pleasures and pains of memory and expectation were considered to be of little importance. Absence of pain or relief from pain, on the one hand—they did not consider as equivalent to positive pleasure—nor absence of pleasure or withdrawal of pleasure, on the other hand—as equivalent to positive pain. Neither the one situation nor the other was a motion (κίνησις), i.e. a positive situation, appreciable by the consciousness: each was a middle state—a mere negation of consciousness, like the phenomena of sleep.209 They recognised some mental pleasures and pains as derivative from bodily sensation and as exclusively individual—others as not so: for example, there were pleasures and pains of sympathy; and a man often felt joy at the prosperity of his friends and countrymen, quite as genuine as that which he felt for his own good fortune. But they maintained that the bodily pleasures and pains were much more vehement than the mental which were not bodily: for which reason, the pains employed by the laws in punishing offenders were chiefly bodily. The fear of pain was in their judgments more operative than the love of pleasure: and though pleasure was desirable for its own sake, yet the accompanying conditions of many pleasures were so painful as to deter the prudent man from aiming at them. These obstructions rendered it impossible for any one to realise the sum total of pleasures constituting Happiness. Even the wise man sometimes failed, and the foolish man sometimes did well, though in general the reverse was the truth: but under the difficult conditions of life, a man must be satisfied if he realised some particular pleasurable conjunctions, without aspiring to a continuance or totality of the like.210

Prudence—good, by reason of the pleasure which it ensured, and of the pains which it was necessary to avoid. Just and honourable, by law or custom—not by nature.

Aristippus regarded prudence or wisdom as good, yet not as good per se, but by reason of the pleasures which it enabled us to procure and the pains which it enabled us to avoid—and wealth as a good, for the same reason. A friend also was valuable, for the use and necessities of life: just as each part of one’s own body was precious, so long as it was present and could serve a useful purpose.211 Some branches of virtue might be possessed by persons who were not wise: and bodily training was a valuable auxiliary to virtue. Even the wise man could never escape pain and fear, for both of these were natural: but he would keep clear of envy, passionate love, and superstition, which were not natural, but consequences of vain opinion. A thorough acquaintance with the real nature of Good and Evil would relieve him from superstition as well as from the fear of death.212

The Kyrenaics did not admit that there was anything just, or honourable, or base, by nature: but only by law and custom: nevertheless the wise man would be sufficiently restrained, by the fear of punishment and of discredit, from doing what was repugnant to the society in which he lived. They maintained that wisdom was attainable; that the senses did not at first judge truly, but might be improved by study; that progress was realised in philosophy as in other arts, and that there were different gradations of it, as well as different gradations of pain and suffering, discernible in different men. The wise man, as they conceived him, was a reality; not (like the wise man of the Stoics) a sublime but unattainable ideal.213

Their logical theory—nothing knowable except the phenomenal, our own sensations and feelings—no knowledge of the absolute.

Such were (as far as our imperfect evidence goes) the ethical and emotional views of the Kyrenaic school: their theory and precepts respecting the plan and prospects of life. In regard to truth and knowledge, they maintained that we could have no knowledge of anything but human sensations, affections, feelings, &c. (πάθη): that respecting the extrinsic, extra-sensational, absolute, objects or causes from whence these feelings proceeded, we could know nothing at all. Partly for this reason, they abstained from all attention to the study of nature—to astronomy and physics: partly also because they did not see any bearing of these subjects upon good and evil, or upon the conduct of life. They turned their attention mainly to ethics, partly also to logic as subsidiary to ethical reasoning.214

Such low estimation of mathematics and physics and attention given almost exclusively to the feelings and conduct of human life—is a point common to the opposite schools of Aristippus and Antisthenes, derived by both of them from Sokrates. Herein Plato stands apart from all the three.

The theory of Aristippus, as given above, is only derived from a meagre abstract and from a few detached hints. We do not know how he himself stated it: still less how he enforced and vindicated it. — He, as well as Antisthenes, composed dialogues: which naturally implies diversity of handling. Their main thesis, therefore—the text, as it were, upon which they debated or expatiated (which is all that the abstract gives)—affords very inadequate means, even if we could rely upon the accuracy of the statement, for appreciating their philosophical competence. We should form but a poor idea of the acute, abundant, elastic and diversified dialectic of Plato, if all his dialogues had been lost—and if we had nothing to rely upon except the summary of Platonism prepared by Diogenes Laertius: which summary, nevertheless, is more copious and elaborate than the same author has furnished either of Aristippus or Antisthenes.

Doctrines of Antisthenes and Aristippus passed to the Stoics and Epikureans.

In the history of the Greek mind these two last-mentioned philosophers (though included by Cicero among the plebeii philosophi) are not less important than Plato and Aristotle. The speculations and precepts of Antisthenes passed, with various enlargements and modifications, into the Stoic philosophy: those of Aristippus into the Epikurean: the two most widely extended ethical sects in the subsequent Pagan world. — The Cynic sect, as it stood before it embraced the enlarged physical, kosmical, and social theories of Zeno and his contemporaries, reducing to a minimum all the desires and appetites—cultivating insensibility to the pains of life, and even disdainful insensibility to its pleasures—required extraordinary force of will and obstinate resolution, but little beyond. Where there was no selection or discrimination, the most ordinary prudence sufficed. It was otherwise with the scheme of Aristippus and the Kyrenaics: which, if it tasked less severely the powers of endurance, demanded a far higher measure of intelligent prudence. Selection of that which might safely be enjoyed, and determination of the limit within which enjoyment must be confined, were constantly indispensable. Prudence, knowledge, the art of mensuration or calculation, were essential to Aristippus, and ought to be put in the foreground when his theory is stated.

Ethical theory of Aristippus is identical with that of the Platonic Sokrates in the Protagoras.

That theory is, in point of fact, identical with the theory expounded by the Platonic Sokrates in Plato’s Protagoras. The general features of both are the same. Sokrates there lays it down explicitly, that pleasure per se is always good, and pain per se always evil: that there is no other good (per se) except pleasure and diminution of pain—no other evil (per se) except pain and diminution of pleasure: that there is no other object in life except to live through it as much as possible with pleasures and without pains;215 but that many pleasures become evil, because they cannot be had without depriving us of greater pleasures or imposing upon us greater pains while many pains become good, because they prevent greater pains or ensure greater pleasures: that the safety of life thus lies in a correct comparison of the more or less in pleasures and pains, and in a selection founded thereupon. In other words, the safety of life depends upon calculating knowledge or prudence, the art or science of measuring.

Difference in the manner of stating the theory by the two.

The theory here laid down by the Platonic Sokrates is the same as that of Aristippus. The purpose of life is stated almost in the same words by both: by the Platonic Sokrates, and by Aristippus in the Xenophontic dialogue—“to live through with enjoyment and without suffering.” The Platonic Sokrates denies, quite as emphatically as Aristippus, any good or evil, honourable or base, except as representing the result of an intelligent comparison of pleasures and pains. Judicious calculation is postulated by both: pleasures and pains being assumed by both as the only ends of pursuit and avoidance, to which calculation is to be applied. The main difference is, that the prudence, art, or science, required for making this calculation rightly, are put forward by the Platonic Sokrates as the prominent item in his provision for passing through life: whereas, in the scheme of Aristippus, as far as we know it, such accomplished intelligence, though equally recognised and implied, is not equally thrust into the foreground. So it appears at least in the abstract which we possess of his theory; if we had his own exposition of it, perhaps we might find the case otherwise. In that abstract, indeed, we find the writer replying to those who affirmed prudence or knowledge, to be good per se—and maintaining that it is only good by reason of its consequences:216 that is, that it is not good as End, in the same sense in which pleasure or mitigation, of pain are good. This point of the theory, however, coincides again with the doctrine of the Platonic Sokrates in the Protagoras: where the art of calculation is extolled simply as an indispensable condition to the most precious results of human happiness.

What I say here applies especially to the Protagoras: for I am well aware that in other dialogues the Platonic Sokrates is made to hold different language.217 But in the Protagoras he defends a theory the same as that of Aristippus, and defends it by an elaborate argument which silences the objections of the Sophist Protagoras; who at first will not admit the unqualified identity of the pleasurable, judiciously estimated and selected, with the good. The general and comprehensive manner in which Plato conceives and expounds the theory, is probably one evidence of his superior philosophical aptitude as compared with Aristippus and his other contemporaries. He enunciates, side by side, and with equal distinctness, the two conditions requisite for his theory of life. 1. The calculating or measuring art. 2. A description of the items to which alone such measurement must be applied—pleasures and pains. — These two together make the full theory. In other dialogues Plato insists equally upon the necessity of knowledge or calculating prudence: but then he is not equally distinct in specifying the items to which such prudence or calculation is to be applied. On the other hand, it is quite possible that Aristippus, in laying out the same theory, may have dwelt with peculiar emphasis upon the other element in the theory: i.e. that while expressly insisting upon pleasures and pains, as the only data to be compared, he may have tacitly assumed the comparing or calculating intelligence, as if it were understood by itself, and did not require to be formally proclaimed.

Distinction to be made between a general theory—and the particular application of it made by the theorist to his own tastes and circumstances.

A distinction must here be made between the general theory of life laid down by Aristippus—and the particular application which he made of that theory to his own course of proceeding. What we may observe is, that the Platonic Sokrates (in the Protagoras) agrees in the first, or general theory: whether he would have agreed in the second (or application to the particular case) we are not informed, but we may probably assume the negative. And we find Sokrates (in the Xenophontic dialogue) taking the same negative ground against Aristippus—upon the second point, not upon the first. He seeks to prove that the course of conduct adopted by Aristippus, instead of carrying with it a preponderance of pleasure, will entail a preponderance of pain. He does not dispute the general theory.

Kyrenaic theorists after Aristippus.

Though Aristippus and the Kyrenaic sect are recognised as the first persons who laid down this general theory, yet various others apart from them adopted it likewise. We may see this not merely from the Protagoras of Plato, but also from the fact that Aristotle, when commenting upon the theory in his Ethics,218 cites Eudoxus (eminent both as mathematician and astronomer, besides being among the hearers of Plato) as its principal champion. Still the school of Kyrênê are recorded as a continuous body, partly defending, partly modifying the theory of Aristippus.219 Hegesias, Annikeris, and Theodôrus are the principal Kyrenaics named: the last of them contemporary with Ptolemy Soter, Lysimachus, Epikurus, Theophrastus, and Stilpon.

Theodôrus—Annikeris—Hegesias.

Diogenes Laertius had read a powerfully written book of Theodôrus, controverting openly the received opinions respecting the Gods:—which few of the philosophers ventured to do. Cicero also mentions a composition of Hegesias.220 Of Annikeris we know none; but he, too, probably, must have been an author. The doctrines which we find ascribed to these Kyrenaics evince how much affinity there was, at bottom, between them and the Cynics, in spite of the great apparent opposition. Hegesias received the surname of the Death-Persuader: he considered happiness to be quite unattainable, and death to be an object not of fear, but of welcome acceptance, in the eyes of a wise man. He started from the same basis as Aristippus: pleasure as the expetendum, pain as the fugiendum, to which all our personal friendships and aversions were ultimately referable. But he considered that the pains of life preponderated over the pleasures, even under the most favourable circumstances. For conferring pleasure, or for securing continuance of pleasure—wealth, high birth, freedom, glory, were of no greater avail than their contraries poverty, low birth, slavery, ignominy. There was nothing which was, by nature or universally, either pleasurable or painful. Novelty, rarity, satiety, rendered one thing pleasurable, another painful, to different persons and at different times. The wise man would show his wisdom, not in the fruitless struggle for pleasures, but in the avoidance or mitigation of pains: which he would accomplish more successfully by rendering himself indifferent to the causes of pleasure. He would act always for his own account, and would value himself higher than other persons: but he would at the same time reflect that the mistakes of these others were involuntary, and he would give them indulgent counsel, instead of hating them. He would not trust his senses as affording any real knowledge: but he would be satisfied to act upon the probable appearances of sense, or upon phenomenal knowledge.221

Hegesias—Low estimation of life—renunciation of pleasure—coincidence with the Cynics.

Such is the summary which we read of the doctrines of Hegesias: who is said to have enforced his views,222—of the real character of life, as containing a great preponderance of misfortune and suffering—in a manner so persuasive, that several persons were induced to commit suicide. Hence he was prohibited by the first Ptolemy from lecturing in such a strain. His opinions respecting life coincide in the main with those set forth by Sokrates in the Phædon of Plato: which dialogue also is alleged to have operated so powerfully on the Platonic disciple Kleombrotus, that he was induced to terminate his own existence. Hegesias, agreeing with Aristippus that pleasure would be the Good, if you could get it—maintains that the circumstances of life are such as to render pleasure unattainable: and therefore advises to renounce pleasure at once and systematically, in order that we may turn our attention to the only practicable end—that of lessening pain. Such deliberate renunciation of pleasure brings him into harmony with the doctrine of the Cynics.

Doctrine of Relativity affirmed by the Kyrenaics, as well as by Protagoras.

On another point, however, Hegesias repeats just the same doctrine as Aristippus. Both deny any thing like absolute knowledge: they maintain that all our knowledge is phenomenal, or relative to our own impressions or affections: that we neither do know, nor can know, anything about any real or supposed ultra-phenomenal object, i.e., things in themselves, as distinguished from our own impressions and apart from our senses and other capacities. Having no writings of Aristippus left, we know this doctrine only as it is presented by others, and those too opponents. We cannot tell whether Aristippus or his supporters stated their own doctrine in such a way as to be open to the objections which we read as urged by opponents. But the doctrine itself is not, in my judgment, refuted by any of those objections. “Our affections (πάθη) alone are known to us, but not the supposed objects or causes from which they proceed.” The word rendered by affections must here be taken in its most general and comprehensive sense—as including not merely sensations, but also remembrances, emotions, judgments, beliefs, doubts, volitions, conscious energies, &c. Whatever we know, we can know only as it appears to, or implicates itself somehow with, our own minds. All the knowledge which I possess, is an aggregate of propositions affirming facts, and the order or conjunction of facts, as they are, or have been, or may be, relative to myself. This doctrine of Aristippus is in substance the same as that which Protagoras announced in other words as—“Man is the measure of all things”. I have already explained and illustrated it, at considerable length, in my chapter on the Platonic Theætêtus, where it is announced by Theætetus and controverted by Sokrates.223

* As stated in the prefatory note to this edition, the present and the following chapter have been, for convenience, transferred from the place given to them by the author, to their present position.

1. Dionysius of Halikarnassus contrasts Plato with τὸ Σωκράτους διδασκαλεῖον πᾶν (De Adm. Vi Dic. Demosthen. p. 956.) Compare also Epistol. ad Cn. Pomp. p. 762, where he contrasts the style and phraseology of Plato with that of the Σωκρατικοὶ διάλογοι generally.

2. Xenophon, Memor. i. 2, 60. ὧν τινὲς μικρὰ μέρη παρ’ ἐκείνου προῖκα λαβόντες πολλοῦ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἐπώλουν, καὶ οὐκ ἦσαν ὥσπερ ἐκεῖνος δημοτικοί· τοῖς γὰρ μὴ ἔχουσι χρήματα διδόναι οὐκ ἤθελον διαλέγεσθαι.

3. We find a remarkable proof how long the name and conception of Sokrates lasted in the memory of the Athenian public, as having been the great progenitor of the philosophy and philosophers of the fourth century B.C. in Athens. It was about 306 B.C., almost a century after the death of Sokrates, that Democharês (the nephew of the orator Demosthenes) delivered an oration before the Athenian judicature for the purpose of upholding the law proposed by Sophokles, forbidding philosophers or Sophists to lecture without a license obtained from the government; which law, passed a year before, had determined the secession of all the philosophers from Athens until the law was repealed. In this oration Democharês expatiated on the demerits of many philosophers, their servility, profligate ambition, rapacity, want of patriotism, &c., from which Athenæus makes several extracts. Τοιοῦτοι εἰσιν οἱ ἀπὸ φιλοσοφίας στρατηγοί· περὶ ὧν Δημοχάρης ἔλεγεν—Ὥσπερ ἐκ θύμβρας οὐδεὶς ἂν δύναιτο κατασκευάσαι λόγχην, οὔδ’ ἐκ Σωκράτους στρατιώτην ἄμεμπτον.

Demetrius Phalereus also, in or near that same time, composed a Σωκράτους ἀπολογίαν (Diog. La. ix. 37–57). This shows how long the interest in the personal fate and character of Sokrates endured at Athens.

4. Diogenes Laert. 1. 47–61-83, vi. 15; Athenæ. xi. p. 505 C.

Bryson is mentioned by Theopompus ap. Athenæum, xi. p. 508 D. Theopompus, the contemporary of Aristotle and pupil of Isokrates, had composed an express treatise or discourse against Plato’s dialogues, in which discourse he affirmed that most of them were not Plato’s own, but borrowed in large proportion from the dialogues of Antisthenes, Aristippus, and Bryson. Ephippus also, the comic writer (of the fourth century B.C., contemporary with Theopompus, perhaps even earlier), spoke of Bryson as contemporary with Plato (Athenæ. xi. 509 C). This is good proof to authenticate Bryson as a composer of “Sokratic dialogues” belonging to the Platonic age, along with Antisthenes and Aristippus: whether Theopompus is correct when he asserts that Plato borrowed much, from the three, is very doubtful.

Many dialogues were published by various writers, and ascribed falsely to one or other of the viri Sokratici: Diogenes (ii. 64) reports the judgment delivered by Panætius, which among them were genuine and which not so. Panætius considered that the dialogues ascribed to Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, and Æschines, were genuine; that those assigned to Phædon and Eukleides were doubtful; and that the rest were all spurious. He thus regarded as spurious those of Alexamenus, Kriton, Simmias, Kebês, Simon, Bryson, &c., or he did not know them all. It is possible that Panætius may not have known the dialogues of Bryson; if he did know them and believed them to be spurious, I should not accept his assertion, because I think that it is outweighed by the contrary testimony of Theopompus. Moreover, though Panætius was a very able man, confidence in his critical estimate is much shaken when we learn that he declared the Platonic Phædon to be spurious.

5. Diogen. Laert. i. 62–65; Athenæus, xi. p. 507 C.

Dion Chrysostom (Orat. lv. De Homero et Socrate, vol. ii. p. 289, Reiske) must have had in his view some of these other Sokratic dialogues, not those composed by Plato or Xenophon, when he alludes to conversations of Sokrates with Lysikles, Glykon, and Anytus; what he says about Anytus can hardly refer to the Platonic Menon.

6. Plutarch, Perikles, c. 24–32; Cicero, De Invent. i. 31; Athenæus, v. 220. Some other citations will be found in Fischer’s collection of the few fragments of Æschines Sokraticus (Leipsic, 1788, p. 68 seq.), though some of the allusions which he produces seem rather to belong to the orator Æschines. The statements of Athenæus, from the dialogue of Æschines called Telaugês, are the most curious. The dialogue contained, among other things, τὴν Προδίκου καὶ Ἀναξαγόρους τῶν σοφιστῶν διαμώκησιν, where we see Anaxagoras denominated a Sophist (see also Diodor. xii. 39) as well as Prodikus. Fischer considers the three Pseudo-Platonic dialogues—Περὶ Ἀρετῆς, Περὶ Πλούτου, Περὶ Θανάτου—as the works of Æschines. But this is noway established.

7. Athenæus, xiii. pp. 611–612. Πεισθεὶς δ’ ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ τοιαῦτα λέγοντος, καὶ ἅμα οἰόμενος τοῦτον Αἰσχίνην Σωκράτους γεγονέναι μαθητήν, καὶ περὶ δικαιοσύνης καὶ ἀρετῆς πολλοὺς καὶ σεμνοὺς λέγοντα λόγους, οὐκ ἄν ποτε ἐπιχειρῆσαι οὐδὲ τολμῆσαι ἅπερ οἱ πονηρότατοι καὶ ἀδικώτατοι ἄνθρωποι ἐπιχειροῦσι πράττειν.

We read also about another oration of Lysias against Æschines—περὶ συκοφαντίας (Diogen. Laert. ii. 63), unless indeed it be the same oration differently described.

8. Aristotel. ap. Athenæum, xi. p. 505 C; Rhetoric. iii. 16.

Dionys. Halikarnass. ad Cn. Pomp. de Platone, p. 762, Reiske. Τραφεὶς (Plato) ἐν τοῖς Σωκρατικοῖς διαλόγοις ἰσχνοτάτοις οὖσι καὶ ἀκριβεστάτοις, οὐ μείνας δ’ ἐν αὐτοῖς, ἀλλὰ τῆς Γοργίου καὶ Θουκυδίδου κατασκευῆς ἐρασθείς: also, De Admir. Vi Dicend. in Demosthene, p. 968. Again in the same treatise De Adm. V. D. Demosth. p. 956. ἡ δὲ ἑτέρα λέξις, ἡ λιτὴ καὶ ἀφελὴς καὶ δοκοῦσα κατασκευήν τε καὶ ἰσχὺν τὴν πρὸς ἰδιώτην ἔχειν λόγον καὶ ὁμοιότητα, πολλοὺς μὲν ἔσχε καὶ ἀγαθοὺς ἄνδρας προστάτας—καὶ οἱ τῶν ἠθικῶν διαλόγων ποιηταί, ὧν ἦν τὸ Σωκρατικὸν διδασκαλεῖον πᾶν, ἔξω Πλάτωνος, &c.

Dionysius calls this style ὁ Σωκρατικὸς χαρακτὴρ p. 1025. I presume it is the same to which the satirist Timon applies the words:—

Ἀσθενική τε λόγων δυας ἢ τριὰς ἢ ἔτι πόρσω,

Οἶος Ξεινοφόων, ἤτ’ Αἰσχίνου οὐκ ἐπιπειθὴς

γράψαι—

Diogen. La. ii. 55.

Lucian, Hermogenes, Phrynichus, Longinus, and some later rhetorical critics of Greece judged more favourably than Timon about the style of Æschines as well as of Xenophon. See Zeller, Phil. d. Griech. ii. p. 171, sec. ed. And Demetrius Phalereus (or the author of the treatise which bears his name), as well as the rhetor Aristeides, considered Æschines and Plato as the best representatives of the Σωκρατικὸς χαρακτήρ, Demetr. Phaler. De Interpretat. 310; Aristeides, Orat. Platon. i. p. 35; Photius, Cods. 61 and 158; Longinus, ap. Walz. ix. p. 559, c. 2. Lucian says (De Parasito, 33) that Æschines passed some time with the elder Dionysius at Syracuse, to whom he read aloud his dialogue, entitled Miltiades, with great success.

An inedited discourse of Michæl Psellus, printed by Mr. Cox in his very careful and valuable catalogue of the MSS. in the Bodleian Library, recites the same high estimate as having been formed of Æschines by the chief ancient rhetorical critics: they reckoned him among and alongside of the foremost Hellenic classical writers, as having his own peculiar merits of style—παρὰ μὲν Πλάτωνι, τὴν διαλογικὴν φράσιν, παρὰ δὲ τοῦ Σωκρατικοῦ Αἰσχίνου, τὴν ἐμμελῆ συνθήκην τῶν λέξεων, παρὰ δὲ Θουκυδίδου, &c. See Mr. Cox’s Catalogue, pp. 743–745. Cicero speaks of the Sokratic philosophers generally, as writing with an elegant playfulness of style (De Officiis, i. 29, 104): which is in harmony with Lucian’s phrase—Αἰσχίνης ὁ τοὺς διαλόγους μακροὺς καὶ ἀστείους γράψας, &c.

9. Cicero, Brutus, 85, s. 292; De Divinatione, i. 54–122; Aristeides, Orat. xlv. περὶ Ῥητορικῆς Orat. xlvi. Ὑπὲρ τῶν Τεττάρων, vol. ii. pp. 295–369, ed. Dindorf. It appears by this that some of the dialogues composed by Æschines were mistaken by various persons for actual conversations held by Sokrates. It was argued, that because Æschines was inferior to Plato in ability, he was more likely to have repeated accurately what he had heard Sokrates say.

10. Diog. L. ii. 122. He mentions a collection of thirty-three dialogues in one volume, purporting to be reports of real colloquies of Sokrates, published by Simon. But they can hardly be regarded as genuine.

The charge here mentioned is advanced by Xenophon (see a preceding note, Memorab. i. 2, 60), against some persons (τινὲς), but without specifying names. About Æschines, see Athenæus, xiii. p. 611 C; Diogen. Laert. ii. 62.

11. Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, xii. 38:—“viri acuti magis quam eruditi,” is the judgment of Cicero upon Antisthenes. I presume that these words indicate the same defect as that which is intended by Aristotle when he says—οἱ Ἀνθισθένειοι καὶ οἱ οὕτως ἀπαίδευτοι, Metaphysic. Η. 3, p. 1043, b. 24. It is plain, too, that Lucian considered the compositions of Antisthenes as not unworthy companions to those of Plato (Lucian, adv. Indoctum, c. 27).

12. Diogen. Laert. vi. 1. If it be true that Antisthenes received lessons from Gorgias, this proves that Gorgias must sometimes have given lessons gratis; for the poverty of Antisthenes is well known. See the Symposion of Xenophon.

13. Theopomp. ap. Athenæ. xi. p. 508. See K. F. Hermann, Ueber Plato’s Schriftsteller. Motive, p. 300. An extract of some length, of a dialogue composed by Æschines between Sokrates and Alkibiades, is given by Aristeides, Or. xlvi. Ὑπὲρ τῶν Τεττάρων, vol. ii. pp. 292–294, ed. Dindorf.

14. Athenæus, xi. p. 507 A-B. from the ὑπομνήματα of the Delphian Hegesander. Who Hegesander was, I do not know: but there is nothing improbable in the anecdote which he recounts.

15. Plato, Phædon. pp. 59 A. 117 D. Eukleides, however, though his school was probably at Megara, seems to have possessed property in Attica: for there existed, among the orations of Isæus, a pleading composed by that rhetor for some client—Πρὸς Εὐκλείδην τὸν Σωκρατικὸν ἀμφισβήτησις ὑπὲρ τῆς τοῦ χωρίου λύσεως (Dion. Hal., Isæ., c. 14, p. 612 Reiske) Harpokr. — Ὅτι τὰ ἐπικηρυττόμενα: also under some other words by Harpokration and by Pollux, viii. 48.

16. Aristot. Rhet. ii. 23, p. 1398, b. 30. ἢ ὡς Ἀρίστιππος, πρὸς Πλάτωνα ἐπαγγελτικώτερόν τι εἰπόντα, ὡς ᾥετο—ἀλλὰ μὴν ὁ γ’ ἑταῖρος ἡμῶν, ἔφη, οὐθὲν τοιοῦτον—λέγων τὸν Σωκράτην.

This anecdote, mentioned by Aristotle, who had good means of knowing, appears quite worthy of belief. The jealousy and love of supremacy inherent in Plato’s temper (τὸ φιλότιμον), were noticed by Dionysius Hal. (Epist. ad Cn. Pompeium, p. 756).

17. Athenæus, xi. pp. 505–508. Diog. Laert. ii. 60–65, iii. 36.

The statement made by Plato in the Phædon—That Aristippus and Kleombrotus were not present at the death of Sokrates, but were said to be in Ægina—is cited as an example of Plato’s ill-will and censorious temper (Demetr. Phaler. s. 306). But this is unfair. The statement ought not to be so considered, if it were true: and if not true, it deserves a more severe epithet. We read in Athenæus various other criticisms, citing or alluding to passages of Plato, which are alleged to indicate ill-nature; but many of the passages cited do not deserve the remark.

18. Respecting these ancient philosophers, whose works are lost, I transcribe a striking passage from Descartes, who complains, in his own case, of the injustice of being judged from the statements of others, and not from his own writings:—“Quod adeo in hâc materiâ verum est, ut quamvis sæpe aliquas ex meis opinionibus explicaverim viris acutissimis, et qui me loquente videbantur eas valdé distincté intelligere: attamen cum eas retulerunt, observavi ipsos fere semper illas ita mutavisse, ut pro meis agnoscere amplius non possem. Quâ occasione posteros hic oratos volo, ut nunquam credant, quidquam à me esse profectum, quod ipse in lucem non edidero. Et nullo modo miror absurda illa dogmata, quæ veteribus illis philosophis tribuuntur, quorum scripta non habemus: nec propterea judico ipsorum cogitationes valdé à ratione fuisse alienas, cum habuerint præstantissima suorum sæculorum ingenia; sed tantum nobis perperam esse relatas.” (Descartes, Diss. De Methodo, p. 43.)

19. See ch. i. pp. 19–22.

20. Xenophon. Memor. i. 4, 17. τὴν ἐν τῷ παντὶ φρόνησιν. Compare Plato, Philêbus, pp. 29–30; Cicero, Nat. Deor. ii. 6, 6, iii. 11.

21. Diog. L. ii. 106. Οὖτος ἒν τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἀπεφῄνατο πολλοῖς ὀνόμασι καλούμενον· ὅτε μὲν γὰρ φρόνησιν, ὅτε δὲ θεόν, καὶ ἄλλοτε νοῦν καὶ τὰ λοιπά. Τὰ δὲ ἀντικείμενα τῷ ἀγαθῷ ἀνῄρει, μὴ εἶναι φάσκων. Compare also vii. 2, 161, where the Megarici are represented as recognising only μίαν ἀρετὴν πολλοῖς ὀνόμασι καλουμένην. Cicero, Academ. ii. 42.

22. However, in the verse of Xenophanes, the predecessor of Parmenides—Οὗλος ὁρᾷ, οὗλος δὲ νοεῖ, οὗλος δέ τ’ ἀκούει—the Universe is described as a thinking, seeing, hearing God—Ἓν καὶ Πᾶν. Sextus Empir. adv. Mathemat. ix. 144; Xenophan. Fragm. p. 36, ed. Karsten.

23. Plato, Republic, vi. p. 508 E, vii. p. 517 A.

24. The account given by Aristotle of Plato’s doctrine of Ideas, as held by Plato in his later years, appears in various passages of the Metaphysica, and in the curious account repeated by Aristoxenus (who had often heard it from Aristotle—Ἀριστοτέλης ἀεὶ διηγεῖτο) of the ἀκρόασις or lecture delivered by Plato, De Bono. See Aristoxen. Harmon. ii. p. 30, Meibom. Compare the eighth chapter in this work—Platonic Compositions Generally. Metaphys. N. 1091, b. 13.τῶν δὲ τὰς ἀκινήτους οὐσίας εἶναι λεγόντων (sc. Platonici) οἱ μέν φασιν αὐτὸ τὸ ἓν τὸ ἀγαθὸν αὐτὸ εἶναι· οὐσίαν μέντοι τὸ ἓν αὐτοῦ ᾤοντο εἶναι μάλιστα, which words are very clearly explained by Bonitz in the note to his Commentary, p. 586: also Metaphys. 987, b. 20, and Scholia, p. 551, b. 20, p. 567, b. 34, where the work of Aristotle, Περὶ Τὰγαθοῦ, is referred to: probably the memoranda taken down by Aristotle from Plato’s lecture on that subject, accompanied by notes of his own.

In Schol. p. 573, a. 18, it is stated that the astronomer Eudoxus was a hearer both of Plato and of Eukleides.

The account given by Zeller (Phil. der Griech. ii. p. 453, 2nd ed.) of this latter phase of the Platonic doctrine of Ideas, applies exactly to that which we hear about the main doctrine of Eukleides. Zeller describes the Platonic doctrine as being “Eine Vermischung des ethischen Begriffes vom höchsten Gut, mit dem Metaphysischen des Absoluten: Der Begriff des Guten ist zunächst aus dem menschlichen Leben abstrahirt; er bezeichnet das, was dem Menschen zuträglich ist. So noch bei Sokrates. Plato verallgemeinert ihn nun zum Begriff des Absoluten; dabei spielt aber seine ursprüngliche Bedeutung noch fortwährend herein, und so entsteht die Unklarheit, dass weder der ethische noch der metaphysische Begriff des Guten rein gefasst wird.”

This remark is not less applicable to Eukleides than to Plato, both of them agreeing in the doctrine here criticised. Zeller says truly, that the attempt to identify Unum and Bonum produces perpetual confusion. The two notions are thoroughly distinct and independent. It ought not to be called (as he phrases it) “a generalization of Bonum”. There is no common property on which to found a generalization. It is a forced conjunction between two disparates.

25. Plato, Parmenides, p. 128 C, where Zeno represents himself as taking for his premisses the conclusions of opponents, to show that they led to absurd consequences. This seems what is meant, when Diogenes says about Eukleides—ταῖς ἀποδείξεσιν ἐνίστατο οὐ κατὰ λήμματα, ἀλλὰ κατ’ ἐπιφοράν (ii. 107); Deycks, De Megaricorum Doctrinâ, p. 34.

26. Aristot. Metaph. iv. p. 1046, b. 29.

The sarcasm ascribed to Diogenes the Cynic implies that Eukleides was really known as the founder of a school—καὶ τὴν μὲν Εὐκλείδου σχολὴν ἔλεγε χολήν (Diog. L. vi. 24)—the earliest mention (I apprehend) of the word σχολὴ in that sense.

27. Aristotel. Metaph. B. 906, a. 32. ὥστε διὰ ταῦτα τῶν σοφιστῶν τινες οἷον Ἀρίστιππος προεπηλάκιζον αὐτὰς (τὰς μαθηματικὰς τέχνας)·—ἐν μὲν γὰρ ταῖς ἄλλαις τέχναις, καὶ ταῖς βαναύσοις, οἷον ἐν τεκτονικῇ καὶ σκυτικῇ, διότι βέλτιον ἢ χεῖρον λέγεσθαι πάντα, τὰς δὲ μαθηματικὰς οὐθένα ποιεῖσθαι λόγον περὶ ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν.

Aristotle here ranks Aristippus among the σοφισταί.

Aristippus, in discountenancing φυσιολογίαν, cited the favourite saying of Sokrates that the proper study of mankind was ὅττι τοι ἐν μεγάροισι κακόν τ’ ἀγαθόν τε τέτυκται.

Plutarch, ap. Euseb. Præp. Evang. i. 8.

28. Sext. Emp. adv. Math. vii. 191; Diog. L. ii. 92.

29. Plato, Theætet. p. 169 A. Theodorus. Οὐ ῥᾴδιον, ὦ Σώκρατες, σοὶ παρακαθήμενον μὴ διδόναι λόγον, ἀλλ’ ἐγὼ ἄρτι παρελήρησα φάσκων σε ἐπιτρέψειν μοι μὴ ἀποδύεσθαι, καὶ οὐχὶ ἀναγκάσειν καθάπερ Λακεδαιμόνιοι· σὺ δέ μοι δοκεῖς πρὸς τὸν Σκίῤῥωνα μᾶλλον τείνειν. Λακεδαιμόνιοι μὲν γὰρ ἀπιέναι ἣ ἀποδύεσθαι κελεύουσι, σὺ δὲ κατ’ Ἀνταῖόν τί μοι μᾶλλον δοκεῖς τὸ δρᾶμα δρᾷν· τὸν γὰρ προσελθόντα οὐκ ἀνίης πρὶν ἀναγκάσῃς ἀποδύσας ἐν τοῖς λόγοις προσπαλαῖσαι.

Sokrates. Ἆριστα γε, ὦ Θεόδωρε, τὴν νόσον μου ἀπείκασας· ἰσχυρικώτερος μέντοι ἐγὼ ἐκείνων· μυρίοι γὰρ ἤδη μοι Ἡρακλέες τε καὶ Θησέες ἐντυχόντες καρτεροὶ πρὸς τὸ λέγειν μάλ’ εὖ ξυγκεκόφασιν, ἀλλ’ ἐγὼ οὐδέν τι μᾶλλον ἀφίσταμαι. οὕτω τις ἐρὼς δεινὸς ἐνδέδυκε τῆς περὶ ταῦτα γυμνασίας· μὴ οὖν μηδὲ σὺ φθονήσῃς προσανατριψάμενος σαυτόν τε ἅμα καὶ ἐμὲ ὀνῆσαι.

How could the eristic appetite be manifested in stronger language either by Eukleides, or Eubulides, or Diodôrus Kronus, or any of those Sophists upon whom the Platonic commentators heap so many harsh epithets?

Among the compositions ascribed to Protagoras by Diogenes Laertius (ix. 55), one is entitled Τέχνη Ἐριστικῶν. But if we look at the last chapter of the Treatise De Sophisticis Elenchis, we shall find Aristotle asserting explicitly that there existed no Τέχνη Ἐριστικῶν anterior to his own work the Topica.

30. Plato, Parmen. p. 136.

31. Plato, Parmen. p. 166. ἓν εἴτ’ ἔστιν, εἴτε μὴ ἔστιν, αὐτό τε καὶ τἄλλα καὶ πρὸς αὐτὰ καὶ πρὸς ἄλληλα πάντα πάντως ἐστί τε καὶ οὐκ ἔστι, καὶ φαίνεταί τε καὶ οὐ φαίνεται. — Ἀληθέστατα.

See below, vol. iii. chap. xxvii. Parmenides.

32. This is the phrase of the satirical sillographer Timon, who spoke with scorn of all the philosophers except Pyrrhon:—

Ἀλλ’ οὔ μοι τούτων φλεδόνων μέλει, οὐδὲ μὲν ἄλλου

Οὐδενός, οὐ Φαίδωνος, ὅτις γε μὲν—οὔδ’ ἐριδάντεω

Εὐκλείδου, Μεγαρεῦσιν ὃς ἔμβαλε λύσσαν ἐρισμοῦ.

33. If we may trust a sarcastic bon-mot ascribed to Diogenes the Cynic, the contemporary of the viri Sokratici and the follower of Antisthenes, the term σχολὴ was applied to the visitors of Eukleides rather than to those of Plato—καὶ τὴν μὲν Εὐκλείδου σχολὴν ἔλεγε χολήν, τὴν δὲ Πλάτωνος διατριβήν, κατατριβήν. Diog. L. vi. 24.

34. Schleierm. Einleitung to Plat. Euthyd. p. 403 seq.

35. Schleierm. Introduction to the Sophistês, pp. 134–135.

See Deycks, Megaricorum Doctrina, p. 41 seq. Zeller, Phil. der Griech. vol. ii. p. 180 seq., with his instructive note. Prantl, Gesch. der Logik, vol. i. p. 37, and others cited by Zeller. — Ritter dissents from this view, and I concur in his dissent. To affirm that Eukleides admitted a plurality of Ideas or Forms, is to contradict the only one deposition, certain and unequivocal, which we have about his philosophy. His doctrine is that of the Transcendental Unum, Ens, Bonum; while the doctrine of the Transcendental Plura (Ideas or Forms) belongs to Plato and others. Both Deycks and Zeller (p. 185) recognise this as a difficulty. But to me it seems fatal to their hypothesis; which, after all, is only an hypothesis—first originated by Schleiermacher. If it be true that the Megarici are intended by Plato under the appellation οἱ τῶν εἰδῶν φίλοι, we must suppose that the school had been completely transformed before the time of Stilpon, who is presented as the great opponent of τὰ εἴδη.

36. Aristokles, ap. Euseb. Præp. Ev. xv. 2. Eubulides is said not merely to have controverted the philosophical theories of Aristotle, but also to have attacked his personal character with bitterness and slander: a practice not less common in ancient controversy than in modern. About Alexinus, Diog. L. ii. 109.

Among those who took lessons in rhetoric and pronunciation from Eubulides, we read the name of the orator Demosthenes, who is said to have improved his pronunciation thereby. Diog. Laert. ii. p. 108. Plutarch, x. Orat. 21, p. 845 C.

37. Diog. L. ii. pp. 108–109; vii. 82. Lucian vit. Auct. 22.

1. Cicero, Academ. ii. pp. 30–96. “Si dicis te mentiri verumque dicis, mentiris. Dicis autem te mentiri, verumque dicis: mentiris igitur.” 2, 3. Ὁ ἐγκεκαλυμμένος. You know your father: you are placed before a person covered and concealed by a thick veil: you do not know him. But this person is your father. Therefore you both know your father and do not know him. 5. Κερατίνης. That which you have not lost, you have: but you have not lost horns; therefore you have horns. 4, 6. Σωρείτης—Φάλακρος. What number of grains make a heap—or are many? what number are few? Are three grains few, and four many?—or, where will you draw the line between Few and Many? The like question about the hairs on a man’s head—How many must he lose before he can be said to have only a few, or to be bald?

38. Diog. L. v. p. 49; vii. pp. 192–198. Seneca, Epistol. p. 45. Plutarch (De Stoicor. Repugnantiis, p. 1087) has some curious extracts and remarks from Chrysippus; who (he says) spoke in the harshest terms against the Μεγαρικὰ ἐρωτήματα, as having puzzled and unsettled men’s convictions without ground—while he (Chrysippus) had himself proposed puzzles and difficulties still more formidable, in his treatise κατὰ Συνηθείας.

39. Plato, Republic, vii. pp. 523 A, 524. τὰ μὲν ἐν ταῖς αἰσθήσεσιν οὐ παρακαλοῦντα τὴν νόησιν εἰς ἐπίσκεψιν, ὡς ἱκανῶς ὑπὸ τῆς αἰσθήσεως κρινόμενα—τὰ δὲ παντάπασι διακελευόμενα ἐκείνην ἐπισκέψασθαι, ὡς τῆς αἰσθήσεως οὐδὲν ὑγιὲς ποιούσης … Τὰ μὲν οὐ παρακαλοῦντα, ὅσα μὴ ἐκβαίνει εἰς ἐναντίαν αἴσθησιν ἅμα· τὰ δ’ ἐκβαίνοντα, ὡς παρακαλοῦντα τίθημι, ἐπειδὰν ἡ αἴσθησις μηδὲν μᾶλλον τοῦτο ἢ τὸ ἐναντίον δηλοῖ. Compare p. 524 E: the whole passage is very interesting.

40. The remarks of Ritter (Gesch. der Philos. ii. p. 189. 2nd ed.) upon these Megaric philosophers are more just and discerning than those made by most of the historians of philosophy “Doch darf man wohl annehmen, dass sie solche Trugschlüsse nicht zur Täuschung, sondern zur Belehrung für unvorsichtige, oder zur Warnung vor der Seichtigkeit gewöhnlicher Vorstellungsweisen, gebrauchen wollten. So viel ist gewiss, dass die Megariker sich viel mit den Formen des Denken beschäftigten, vielleicht mehr zu Aufsuchung einzelner Regeln, als zur Begründung eines wissenschaftlichen Zusammenhangs unter ihnen; obwohl auch besondere Theile der Logik unter ihren Schriften erwähnt werden.”

This is much more reasonable than the language of Prantl, who denounces “the shamelessness of doctrinarism” (die Unverschämtheit des Doctrinarismus) belonging to these Megarici “the petulance and vanity which prompted them to seek celebrity by intentional offences against sound common sense,” &c. (Gesch. der Logik, pp. 39–40. — Sir Wm. Hamilton has some good remarks on these sophisms, in his Lectures on Logic, Lect. xxiii. p. 452 seq.)

41. See the first chapter of his book v. on Fallacies, System of Logic, vol. ii.

42. Aristotel. Metaphys. B. 1, p. 995, a. 33.

διὸ δεῖ τὰς δυσχερείας τεθεωρηκέναι πάσας πρότερον, τούτων δὲ χάριν καὶ διὰ τὸ τοὺς ζητοῦντας ἄνευ τοῦ διαπορῆσαι πρῶτον ὁμοίους εἶναι τοῖς ποῖ δεῖ βαδίζειν ἀγνοοῦσι, καὶ πρὸς τούτοις οὐδ’ εἰ ποτε τὸ ζητούμενον εὕρηκεν ἢ μὴ γιγνώσκειν· τὸ γὰρ τέλος τούτῳ μὲν οὐ δῆλον, τῷ δὲ προηπορηκότι δῆλον.

Aristotle devotes the whole of this Book to an enumeration of ἀπόριαι.

43. See my account of the Platonic dialogue Hippias Major, vol. ii. chap. xiii. Aristot. Metaphys. A. minor, p. 995, a. 9. τοὺς δὲ λυπεῖ τὸ ἀκριβὲς, ἢ διὰ τὸ μὴ δύνασθαι συνείρειν, ἢ διὰ τὴν μικρολογίαν· ἔχει γάρ τι τὸ ἀκριβὲς τοιοῦτον, ὥστε καθάπερ ἐπὶ τῶν συμβολαίων, καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν λόγων ἀνελεύθερον εἶναι τισι δοκεῖ. Cicero (Paradoxa, c. 2) talks of the “minutæ interrogatiunculæ” of the Stoics as tedious and tiresome.

44. The same charge is put by Cicero into the mouth of Lucullus against the Academics: “Similiter vos (Academici) quum perturbare, ut illi” (the Gracchi and others) “rempublicam, sic vos philosophiam, benè jam constitutam velitis. … Tum exortus est, ut in optimâ republicâ Tib. Gracchus, qui otium perturbaret, sic Arcesilas, qui constitutam philosophiam everteret” (Acad. Prior, ii. 5, 14–15).

Even in the liberal and comprehensive history of the Greek philosophy by Zeller (vol. ii. p. 187, ed. 2nd), respecting Eukleides’ and the Megarians;—“Dagegen bot der Streit gegen die geltenden Meinungen dem Scharfsinn, der Rechthaberei, und dem wissenschaftlichen Ehrgeiz, ein unerschöpfliches Feld dar, welches denn auch die Megarischen Philosophen rüstig ausbeuteten.”

If by “die geltenden Meinungen” Zeller means the common sense of the day that is, the opinions and beliefs current among the ἰδιῶται, the working, enjoying, non-theorising public—it is very true that the Megaric philosophers contended against them: but Sokrates and Plato contended against them quite as much: we see this in the Platonic Apology, Gorgias, Republic, Timæus, Parmenidês, &c.

If, on the other hand, by “die geltenden Meinungen” Zeller means any philosophical or logical theories generally or universally admitted by thinking men as valid, the answer is that there were none such in the fourth and third centuries B.C. Various eminent speculative individuals were labouring to construct such theories, each in his own way, and each with a certain congregation of partisans; but established theory there was none. Nor can any theory (whether accepted or not) be firm or trustworthy, unless it be exposed to the continued thrusts of the negative weapon, searching out its vulnerable points. We know of the Megarics only what they furnished towards that negative testing; without which, however—as we may learn from Plato and Aristotle themselves—the true value of the affirmative defences can never be measured.

45. Marbach (Gesch. der Philos. s. 91), though he treats the Megarics as jesters (which I do not think they were), yet adds very justly: “Nevertheless these puzzles (propounded by the Megarics) have their serious and scientific side. We are forced to inquire, how it happens that the contradictions shown up in them are not merely possible but even necessary.”

Both Tiedemann and Winckelmann also remark that the debaters called Eristics contributed greatly to the formation of the theory and precepts of Logic, afterwards laid out by Aristotle. Winckelmann, Prolegg. ad Platon. Euthydem. pp. xxiv.-xxxi. Even Stallbaum, though full of harshness towards those Sophists whom he describes as belonging to the school of Protagoras, treats the Megaric philosophers with much greater respect. Prolegom. ad Platon. Euthydem. p. 9.

46. System of Logic, Book v. 1, 1.

47. Prantl (Gesch. der Logik, vol. i. pp. 43–50) ascribes to the Megarics all or nearly all the sophisms which Aristotle notices in the Treatise De Sophisticis Elenchis. This is more than can be proved, and more than I think probable. Several of them are taken from the Platonic Euthydêmus.

48. See the remarkable passages in the discourses of Sokrates (Memorab. iii. 1, 6; iv. 2, 15), and in that of Kambyses to Cyrus, which repeats the same opinion—Cyropæd. i. 6, 27—respecting the amount of deceit, treachery, the thievish and rapacious qualities required for conducting war against an enemy—(τὰ πρὸς τοὺς πολεμίους νόμιμα, i. 6, 34).

Aristotle treats of Dialectic, as he does of Rhetoric, as an art having its theory, and precepts founded upon that theory. I shall have occasion to observe in a future chapter (xxi.), that logical Fallacies are not generated or invented by persons called Sophists, but are inherent liabilities to error in the human intellect; and that the habit of debate affords the only means of bringing them into clear daylight, and guarding against being deceived by them. Aristotle gives precepts both how to thrust, and how to parry with the best effect: if he had taught only how to parry, he would have left out one-half of the art.

One of the most learned and candid of the Aristotelian commentators—M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire—observes as follows (Logique d’Aristote, p. 435, Paris, 1838) respecting De Sophist. Elenchis:—

“Aristote va donc s’occuper de la marche qu’il faut donner aux discussions sophistiques: et ici il serait difficile quelquefois de décider, à la manière dont les choses sont présentées par lui, si ce sont des conseils qu’il donne aux Sophistes, ou à ceux qui veulent éviter leurs ruses. Tout ce qui précède, prouve, au reste, que c’est en ce dernier sens qu’il faut entendre la pensée du philosophe. Ceci est d’ailleurs la seconde portion du traîté.”

It appears to me that Aristotle intended to teach or to suggest both the two things which are here placed in Antithesis—though I do not agree with M. St. Hilaire’s way of putting the alternative—as if there were one class of persons, professional Sophists, who fenced with poisoned weapons, while every one except them refrained from such weapons. Aristotle intends to teach the art of Dialectic as a whole; he neither intends nor wishes that any learners shall make a bad use of his teaching; but if they do use it badly, the fault does not lie with him. See the observations in the beginning of the Rhetorica, i. p. 1355, a. 26, and the observations put by Plato into the mouth of Gorgias (Gorg. p. 456 E).

Even in the Analytica Priora (ii. 19, a. 34) (independent of the Topica) Aristotle says:—χρὴ δ’ ὅπερ φυλάττεσθαι παραγγέλλομεν ἀποκρινομένους, αὐτοὺς ἐπιχειροῦντας πειρᾶσθται λανθάνειν. Investigations of the double or triple senses of words (he says) are useful—καὶ πρὸς τὸ μὴ παραλογισθῆναι, καὶ πρὸς τὸ παραλογίσασθαι, Topica, i. 18, p. 108, a. 26. See also other passages of the Topica where artifices are indicated for the purpose of concealing your own plan of proceeding and inducing your opponent to make answer in the sense which you wish, Topica, i. 2, p. 101, a. 25; vi. 10, p. 148, a. 37; viii. 1, p. 151, b. 23; viii. 1, p. 153, a. 6; viii. 2, p. 154, a. 5; viii. 11, p. 161, a. 24 seq. You must be provided with the means of meeting every sort and variety of objection—πρὸς γὰρ τὸν πάντως ἐνιστάμενον πάντως ἀντιτακτέον ἐστίν. Topic. v. 4, p. 134, a. 4.

I shall again have to touch on the Topica, in this point of view, as founded upon and illustrating the Megaric logical puzzles (ch. viii. of the present volume).

49. Theophrastus wrote a treatise in three books on the solution of the puzzle called Ὁ ψευδόμενος (see the list of his lost works in Diogenes L. v. 49). We find also other treatises entitled Μεγαρικὸς ά (which Diogenes cites, vi. 22)—Ἀγωνιστικὸν τῆς περὶ τοὺς ἐριστικοὺς λόγους θεωρίας—Σοφισμάτων ά, β—besides several more titles relating to dialectics, and bearing upon the solution of syllogistic problems. Chrysippus also, in the ensuing century, wrote a treatise in three books, Περὶ τῆς τοῦ ψευδομένον λύσεως (Diog. vii. 107). Such facts show the importance of these problems in their bearing upon logical theory, as conceived by the ancient world. Epikurus also wrote against the Μεγαρικοί (Diog. x. 27).

The discussion of sophisms, or logical difficulties (λύσεις ἀπορίων), was a favourite occupation at the banquets of philosophers at Athens, on or about 100 B.C. Ἀντίπατρος δ’ ὁ φιλόσοφος, συμπόσιόν ποτε συνάγων, συνέταξε τοῖς ἐρχομένοις ὡς περὶ σοφισμάτων ἑροῦσιν (Athenæus, v. 186 C). Plutarch, Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum, p. 1096 C; De Sanitate Præcepta, c. 20, p. 133 B.

50. Various portions of the Theætêtus illustrate this Megaric sophism (pp. 165–188). The situation assumed in the question of Eubulidês—having before your eyes a person veiled—might form a suitable addition to the various contingencies specified in Theætêt. pp. 192–193.

The manner in which the Platonic Sokrates proves (Theæt. 165) that you at the same time see, and do not see, an object before you, is quite as sophistical as the way in which Eubulidês proves that you both know, and do not know, your father.

51. Cicero, in his Academ. Prior, ii. 92–94, has very just remarks on the obscurities and difficulties in the reasoning process, which the Megarics and others brought to view—and were blamed for so doing, as unfair and captious reasoners—as if they had themselves created the difficulties—“(Dialectica) primo progressu festivé tradit elementa loquendi et ambiguorum intelligentiam concludendique rationem; tum paucis additis venit ad soritas, lubricum sané et periculosum locum, quod tu modo dicebas esse vitiosum interrogandi genus. Quid ergo? istius vitii num nostra culpa est? Rerum natura nullam nobis dedit cognitionem finium, ut ullâ in re statuere possimus quatenus. Nec hoc in acervo tritici solum, unde nomen est, sed nullâ omnino in re minutatim interroganti—dives, pauper—clarus, obscurus, sit—multa, pauca, magna, parva, longa, brevia, lata, angusta, quanto aut addito aut dempto certum respondeamus, non habemus. At vitiosi sunt soritæ. Frangite igitur eos, si potestis, ne molesti sint. … Sic me (inquit) sustineo, neque diutius captiosé interroganti respondes. Si habes quod liqueat neque respondes, superbis: si non habes, ne tu quidem percipis.”

The principle of the Sorites (ἡ σωριτικὴ ἀπορία—Sextus adv. Gramm. s. 68), though differently applied, is involved in the argument of Zeno the Eleate, addressed to Protagoras—see Simplikius ad Aristot. Physic. 250, p. 423, b. 42. Sch. Brand. Compare chap. ii. of this volume.

52. Aristot. De Interpret. p. 19, a. 6–20. ὅλως ἔστιν ἐν τοῖς μὴ ἀεὶ ἐνεργοῦσι τὸ δυνατὸν εἶναι καὶ μὴ ὁμοίως· ἐν οἷς ἀμφω ἐνδέχεται, καὶ τὸ εἶναι καὶ τὸ μὴ εἶναι, ὥστε καὶ τὸ γενέσθαι καὶ τὸ μὴ γενέσθαι.

53. Aristot. Metaph. Θ. 3, p. 1046, b. 29. Εἰσὶ δέ τινες, οἴ φασιν, οἷον οἱ Μεγαρικοί, ὅταν ἐνεργῇ, μόνον δύνασθαι, ὅταν δὲ μὴ ἐνεργῇ, μὴ δύνασθαι—οἷον τὸν μὴ οἰκοδομοῦντα οὐ δύνασθαι οἰκοδομεῖν, ἀλλὰ τὸν οἰκοδομοῦντα ὅταν οἰκοδομῇ· ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἄλλων.

Deycks (De Megaricorum Doctrinâ, pp. 70–71) considers this opinion of the Megarics to be derived from their general Eleatic theory of the Ens Unum et Immotum. But I see no logical connection between the two.

54. About this condition implied in the predicate δυνατός, see Plato, Hippias Minor, p. 366 D.

55. Aristot. Metaph. Θ. 3, 1047, a. 3. ὅταν παύσηται (οἰκοδομῶν) οὐχ ἕξει τὴν τέχνην.

56. Aristot. Metaph. Θ. 3, 1047, a. 8–13.

57. The question between Aristotle and the Megarics has not passed out of debate with modern philosophers.

Dr. Thomas Brown observes, in his inquiry into Cause and Effect—“From the mere silence of any one, we cannot infer that he is dumb in consequence of organic imperfection. He may be silent only because he has no desire of speaking, not because speech would not have followed his desire: and it is not with the mere existence of any one, but with his desire of speaking, that we suppose utterance to be connected. A man who has no desire of speaking, has in truth, and in strictness of language, no power of speaking, when in that state of mind: since he has not a circumstance which, as immediately prior, is essential to speech. But since he has that power, as soon as the new circumstance of desire arises—and as the presence or absence of the desire cannot be perceived but in its effects—there is no inconvenience in the common language, which ascribes the power, as if it were possessed at all times, and in all circumstances of mind, though unquestionably, nothing more is meant than that the desire existing will be followed by utterance.” (Brown, Essay on the Relation of Cause and Effect, p. 200.)

This is the real sense of what Aristotle calls τὸ δὲ (λέγεται) δυνατόν, οἷον δυνατὸν εἶναι βαδίζειν ὅτι βαδισειεν ἂν, i.e. he will walk if he desires to do so (De Interpret. p. 23, a. 9–15).

58. Hobbes, in his Computation or Logic (chaps. ix. and x. Of Cause and Effect. Of Power and Act) expounds this subject with his usual perspicuity.

“A Cause simply, or an Entire Cause, is the aggregate of all the accidents, both of the agents, how many soever they be, and of the patient, put together; which, when they are all supposed to be present, it cannot be understood but that the effect is produced at the same instant: and if any one of them be wanting, it cannot be understood but that the effect is not produced” (ix. 3).

“Correspondent to Cause and Effect are Power and Act: nay, those and these are the same things, though for divers considerations they have divers names. For whensoever any agent has all those accidents which are necessarily requisite for the production of some effect in the patient, then we say that agent has power to produce that effect if it be applied to a patient. In like manner, whensoever any patient has all those accidents which it is requisite it should have for the production of some effect in it, we say it is in the power of that patient to produce that effect if it be applied to a fitting agent. Power, active and passive, are parts only of plenary and entire power: nor, except they be joined, can any effect proceed from them. And therefore these powers are but conditional: namely, the agent has power if it be applied to a patient, and the patient has power if it be applied to an agent. Otherwise neither of them have power, nor can the accidents which are in them severally be properly called powers: nor any action be said to be possible for the power of the agent alone or the patient alone.”

59. Aristotle does in fact grant all that is here said, in the same book and in the page next subsequent to that which contains his arguments against the Megaric doctrine, Metaphys. Θ. 5, 1048, a. 1–24.

In this chapter Aristotle distinguishes powers belonging to things, from powers belonging to persons—powers irrational from powers rational—powers in which the agent acts without any will or choice, from those in which the will or choice of the agent is one item of the aggregate of conditions. He here expressly recognises that the power of the agent, separately considered, is only conditional; that is, conditional on the presence and suitable state of the patient, as well as upon the absence of counteracting circumstances. But he contends that such absence of counteracting circumstances is plainly implied, and need not be expressly mentioned in the definition.

ἐπεὶ δὲ τὸ δυνατὸν τὶ δυνατὸν καὶ ποτὲ καὶ πῶς καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα ἀνάγκη προσεῖναι ἐν τῷ διορισμῷ—

τὸ δυνατὸν κατὰ λόγον ἅπαν ἀνάγκη, ὅταν ὀρέγηται, οὖ τ’ ἔχει τὴν δύναμιν καὶ ὡς ἔχει, τοῦτο ποιεῖν· ἔχει δὲ παρόντος τοῦ παθητικοῦ καὶ ὡδὶ ἔχοντος ποιεῖν· εἰ δὲ μή, ποιεῖν οὐ δυνήσεται. τὸ γὰρ μηθενὸς τῶν ἕξω κωλύοντος προσδιορίζεσθαι, οὐθὲν ἔτι δεῖ· τὴν γὰρ δύναμιν ἔχει ὥς ἔστι δύναμις τοῦ ποιεῖν, ἔστι δ’ οὐ πάντως, ἀλλ’ ἐχόντων πῶς, ἐν οἷς ἀφορισθήσεται καὶ τὰ ἕξω κωλύοντα· ἀφαιρεῖται γὰρ ταῦτα τῶν ἐν τῷ διορισμῷ προσόντων ἔνια. The commentary of Alexander Aphr. upon this chapter is well worth consulting (pp. 546–548 of the edition of his commentary by Bonitz, 1847). Moreover Aristotle affirms in this chapter, that when τὸ ποιητικὸν and τὸ παθητικὸν come together under suitable circumstances, the power will certainly pass into act.

Here then, it seems to me, Aristotle concedes the doctrine which the Megarics affirmed; or, if there be any difference between them, it is rather verbal than real. In fact, Aristotle’s reasoning in the third chapter (wherein he impugns the doctrine of the Megarics), and the definition of δυνατὸν which he gives in that chapter (1047, a. 25), are hardly to be reconciled with his reasoning in the fifth chapter. Bonitz (Notes on the Metaphys. pp. 393–395) complains of the mira levitas of Aristotle in his reasoning against the Megarics, and of his omitting to distinguish between Vermögen and Möglichkeit. I will not use so uncourteous a phrase; but I think his refutation of the Megarics is both unsatisfactory and contradicted by himself. I agree with the following remark of Bonitz:—“Nec mirum, quod Megarici, aliis illi quidem in rebus arguti, in hâc autem satis acuti, existentiam τῷ δυνάμει ὄντι tribuere recusarint,” &c.

60. The dialectic ingenuity of Diodorus is powerfully attested by the verse of Ariston, applied to describe Arkesilaus (Sextus Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. i. p. 234):

Πρόσθε Πλάτων, ὄπιθεν Πύῤῥων, μέσσος Διόδωρος.

61. Aristot. De Interpret. p. 18, a. pp. 27–38. Alexander ad Aristot. Analyt. Prior. 34, p. 163, b. 34, Schol. Brandis. See also Sir William Hamilton’s Lectures on Logic, Lect. xxiii. p. 464.

62. Arrian ad Epiktet. ii. p. 19. Upton, in his notes on this passage of Arrian (p. 151) has embodied a very valuable and elaborate commentary by Mr. James Harris (the great English Aristotelian scholar of the 18th century), explaining the nature of this controversy, and the argument called ὁ Κυριεύων.

Compare Cicero, De Fato, c. 7–9. Epistol. Fam. ix. 4.

63. Xenophon, Memor. i. 1; Plato, Timæus, p. 48 A. ἡ πλανωμένη αἰτία, &c.

64. Ἡ τύχη—τὸ ὁπότερ’ ἔτυχε—τὸ αὐτόματον are in the conception of Aristotle independent Ἀρχαί, attached to and blending with ἀνάγκη and τὸ ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολύ. See Physic. ii. 196, b. 11; Metaphys. E. 1026–1027.

Sometimes τὸ ὁπότερ’ ἔτυχε is spoken of as an Ἀρχή, but not as an αἴτιον, or belonging to ὕλη as the Ἀρχή. 1027, b. 11. δῆλον ἄρα ὅτι μέχρι τινὸς βαδίζει ἀρχῆς, αὔτη δ’ οὔκετι εἰς ἄλλο· ἔσται οὖν ἡ τοῦ ὁπότερ’ ἔτυχεν αὔτη, καὶ αἴτιοι τῆς γενέσεως αὐτῆς οὐθέν.

See, respecting the different notions of Cause held by ancient philosophers, my remarks on the Platonic Phædon infrà, vol. ii. ch. xxv.

65. Aristot. Metaph. E. 1027, a. 13; A. 1071, a. 10.

ὥστε ἡ ὕλη ἔσται αἰτία, ἡ ἐνδεχομέν ἠ παρὰ τὸ ὡς ἐπὶ το πολὺ ἄλλως τοῦ συμβεβηκότος.

Matter is represented as the principle of irregularity, of τὸ ὁπότερ’ ἔτυχε—as the δύναμις τῶν ἐναντίων.

In the explanation given by Alexander of Aphrodisias of the Peripatetic doctrine respecting chance—free-will, the principle of irregularity—τύχη is no longer assigned to the material cause, but is treated as an αἰτία κατὰ συμβεβηκός, distinguished from αἰτία προηγούμενα or καθ’ αὑτά. The exposition given of the doctrine by Alexander is valuable and interesting. See his treatise De Fato, addressed to the Emperor Severus, in the edition of Orelli, Zurich. 1824 (a very useful volume, containing treatises of Ammonius, Plotinus, Bardesanes, &c., on the same subject); also several sections of his Quæstiones Naturales et Morales, ed. Spengel, Munich, 1842, pp. 22–61-65–123, &c. He gives, however, a different explanation of τὸ δυνατὸν and τὸ ἀδύνατον in pp. 62–63, which would not be at variance with the doctrine of Diodorus. We may remark that Alexander puts the antithesis of the two doctrines differently from Aristotle—in this way. 1. Either all events happen καθ’ εἱμαρμένην. 2. Or all events do not happen καθ’ εἱμαρμένην, but some events are ἐφ’ ἡμῖν. See De Fato, p. 14 seq. This way of putting the question is directed more against the Stoics, who were the great advocates of εἱμαρμένη, than against the Megaric Diodorus. The treatises of Chrysippus and the other Stoics alter both the wording and the putting of the thesis. We know that Chrysippus impugned the doctrine of Diodorus, but I do not see how.

The Stoic antithesis of τα καθ’ εἱμαρμένην—τὰ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν is different from the antithesis conceived by Aristotle and does not touch the question about the universality of regular sequence. Τὰ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν describes those sequences in which human volition forms one among the appreciable conditions determining or modifying the result; τὰ καθ’ εἱμαρμένην includes all the other sequences wherein human volition has no appreciable influence. But the sequence τῶν ἐφ’ ἡμῖν is just as regular as the sequence τῶν καθ’ εἱμαρμένην: both the one and the other are often imperfectly predictable, because our knowledge of facts and power of comparison is so imperfect.

Theophrastus discussed τὸ καθ’ εἱμαρμένην, and explained it to mean the same as τὸ κατὰ φύσιν. φανερώτατα δὲ Θεόφραστος δείκνυσι ταὐτὸν ὃν τὸ καθ’ εἱμαρμένην τῷ κατὰ φύσιν (Alexander Aphrodisias ad Aristot. De Animâ, ii.).

66. The same doctrine as that of the Megaric Diodorus is declared by Hobbes in clear and explicit language (First Grounds of Philosophy, ii. 10, 4–5):—“That is an impossible act, for the production of which there is no power plenary. For seeing plenary power is that in which all things concur which are requisite for the production of an act, if the power shall never be plenary, there will always be wanting some of those things, without which the act cannot be produced. Wherefore that act shall never be produced: that is, that act is impossible. And every act, which is not impossible, is possible. Every act therefore which is possible, shall at some time or other be produced. For if it shall never be produced, then those things shall never concur which are requisite for the production of it; wherefore the act is impossible, by the definition; which is contrary to what was supposed.

“A necessary act is that, the production of which it is impossible to hinder: and therefore every act that shall be produced, shall necessarily be produced; for that it shall not be produced is impossible, because, as has already been demonstrated, every possible act shall at some time be produced. Nay, this proposition—What shall be shall be—is as necessary a proposition as this—A man is a man.

“But here, perhaps, some man will ask whether those future things which are commonly called contingents, are necessary. I say, then, that generally all contingents have their necessary causes, but are called contingents, in respect of other events on which they do not depend—as the rain which shall be to-morrow shall be necessary, that is, from necessary causes; but we think and say, it happens by chance, because we do not yet perceive the causes thereof, though they exist now. For men commonly call that casual or contingent, whereof they do not perceive the necessary cause: and in the same manner they use to speak of things past, when not knowing whether a thing be done or not, they say, It is possible it never was done.

“Wherefore all propositions concerning future things, contingent or not contingent, as this—It will rain to-morrow, or To-morrow the sun will rise—are either necessarily true or necessarily false: but we call them contingent, because we do not yet know whether they be true or false; whereas their verity depends not upon our knowledge, but upon the foregoing of their causes. But there are some, who, though they will confess this whole proposition—To-morrow it will either rain or not rain—to be true, yet they will not acknowledge the parts of it, as, To-morrow it will rain, or To-morrow it will not rain, to be either of them true by itself; because (they say) neither this nor that is true determinately. But what is this true determinately, but true upon our knowledge or evidently true? And therefore they say no more but that it is not yet known whether it be true or not; but they say it more obscurely, and darken the evidence of the truth with the same words by which they endeavour to hide their own ignorance.”

67. The reader will find this problem admirably handled in Mr. John Stuart Mill’s System of Logic, Book iii. ch. 21, and Book vi. chs. 2 and 8; also in the volume of Professor Bain on the Emotions and the Will, Chapter on Belief.

68. Sextus Emp. Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. ii. pp. 110–115. ἀληθὲς συνημμένον. Adv. Mathemat. viii. 112. Philo maintained that an hypothetical proposition was true, if both the antecedent and consequent were true—“If it be day, I am conversing”. Diodorus denied that this proposition, as an Hypothetical proposition, was true: since the consequent might be false, though the antecedent were true. An Hypothetical proposition was true only when, assuming the antecedent to be true, the consequent must be true also.

69. Sextus Empir. adv. Mathemat. x. pp. 85–101.

70. Plato, Parmenidês, p. 156 D-E. Πότ’ οὖν, μεταβάλλει; οὔτε γὰρ ἑστὸς ἂν οὔτε κενούμενον μετάβαλλοι, οὔτε ἐν χρόνῳ ὄν. (Here Plato adverts to the difficulties attending the supposition of actual μεταβολή, as Diodorus to those of actual κίνησις. Next we have Plato’s hypothesis for getting over the difficulties.) Ἆρ’ οὖν ἐστί τὸ ἄτοπον τοῦτο, ἐν ᾦ τότ’ ἂν εἴη ὅτε μεταβάλλει; Τὸ ποῖον δή; Τὸ ἐξαίφνης· ἡ ἐξαίφνης αὔτη φύσις ἄτοπος τις ἐγκάθηται μεταξὺ τῆς κινήσεως τε καὶ στάσεως, ἐν χρόνῳ οὐδενὶ οὖσα, καὶ εἰς ταύτην δὴ καὶ ἐκ ταύτης τό τε κινούμενον μεταβάλλει ἐπὶ τὸ ἐστάναι καὶ τὸ ἐστὸς ἐπὶ τὸ κινεῖσθαι.

Diodorus could not make out this φύσις ἄτοπος which Plato calls τὸ ἐξαίφνης.

71. To illustrate this apparent paradox of Diodorus, affirming past motion, but denying present motion, we may compare what is said by Aristotle about the Now or Point of Present Time—that it is not a part, but a boundary between Past and Future.

Aristot. Physic. iv. p. 218, a. 4–10. τοῦ δὲ χρόνον τὰ μὲν γέγονε, τὰ δὲ μέλλει, ἐστι δ’ οὐδὲν, ὄντος μεριστοῦ· τὸ δὲ νῦν οὐ μέρος—τὸ δὲ νῦν πέρας ἔστι (a. 24)—p. 222, a. 10–20-223, a. 20. ὁ δὲ χρόνος καὶ ἡ κίνησις ἅμα κατά τε δύναμιν καὶ κατ’ ἐνεργείαν.

Which doctrine is thus rendered by Harris in his Hermes, ch. vii. pp. 101–103-105:—“Both Points and Nows being taken as Bounds, and not as Parts, it will follow that in the same manner as the same point may be the end of one line and the beginning of another—so the same Now may be the End of one time, and the beginning of another. … I say of these two times, that with respect to the Now, or Instant which they include, the first of them is necessarily Past time, as being previous to it: the other is necessarily Future, as being subsequent. … From the above speculations, there follow some conclusions, which may be called paradoxes, till they have been attentively considered. In the first place, there cannot (strictly speaking) be any such thing as Time Present. For if all Time be transient, as well as continuous, it cannot like a line be present altogether, but part will necessarily be gone and part be coming. If therefore any portion of its continuity were to be present at once, it would so far quit its transient nature, and be Time no longer. But if no portion of its continuity can be thus present, how can Time possibly be present, to which such continuity is essential?”—Compare Sir William Hamilton’s Discussions on Philosophy, p. 581.

72. Hobbes, First Grounds of Philosophy, ii. 8, 11. “That is said to be at rest which, during any time, is in one place; and that to be moved, or to have been moved, which whether it be now at rest or moved, was formerly in another place from that which it is now in. From which definition it may be inferred, first, that whatsoever is moved has been moved: for if it still be in the same place in which it was formerly, it is at rest: but if it be in another place, it has been moved, by the definition of moved. Secondly, that what is moved, will yet be moved: for that which is moved, leaveth the place where it is, and consequently will be moved still. Thirdly, that whatsoever is moved, is not in one place during any time, how little soever that may be: for by the definition of rest, that which is in one place during any time, is at rest. … From what is above demonstrated—namely, that whatsoever is moved, has also been moved, and will be moved: this also may be collected, That there can be no conception of motion without conceiving past and future time.”

73. Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. x. pp. 91–97-112–116.

74. See this point touched by Plato in Philêbus, p. 43 B.

75. Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. x. 113. κίνησις κατ’ εἰλικρίνειαν … κίνησις κατ’ ἐπικράτειαν. Compare Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griech. ii. p. 191, ed. 2nd.

76. Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. x. pp. 346–348.

77. Diog. L. ii. 112.

78. This is asserted by Diogenes upon the authority of Φίλιππος ὁ Μεγρικός, whom he cites κατὰ λέξιν. We do not know anything about Philippus.

Menedêmus, who spoke with contempt of the other philosophers, even of Plato and Xenokrates, admired Stilpon (Diog. L. ii. 134).

79. The phrase of Diogenes is here singular, and must probably have been borrowed from a partisan—ὥστε μικροῦ δεῆσαι πᾶσαν τὴν Ἑλλάδα ἀφορῶσαν εἰς αὐτὸν μεγαρίσαι. Στιλπον εὑρεσιλογίᾳ καὶ σοφιστείᾳ προῆγε τοὺς ἄλλους—κομψότατος (Diog. L. ii. 113–115).

80. Diog. L. ii. 119–120. ψυχροί.

81. The story given by Diogenes L. (ii. 31 and 106; compare Aulus Gellius, ii. 18) about Phædon’s adventures antecedent to his friendship with Sokrates, is unintelligible to me. “Phædon was made captive along with his country (Elis), sold at Athens, and employed in a degrading capacity; until Sokrates induced Alkibiades or Kriton to pay his ransom.” Now, no such event as the capture of Elis, and the sale of its Eupatrids as slaves, happened at that time: the war between Sparta and Elis (described by Xenophon, Hell. iii. 2, 21 seq.) led to no such result, and was finished, moreover, after the death of Sokrates. Alkibiades had been long in exile. If, in the text of Diogenes, where we now read Φαίδων, Ἥλειος, τῶν εὐπατριδῶν—we were allowed to substitute Φαίδων, Μήλιος, τῶν εὐπατριδῶν—the narrative would be rendered consistent with known historical facts. The Athenians captured the island of Melos in 415 B.C., put to death the Melians of military age, and sold into slavery the younger males as well as the females (Thucyd. v. 116). If Phædon had been a Melian youth of good family, he would have been sold at Athens, and might have undergone the adventures narrated by Diogenes. We know that Alkibiades purchased a female Melian as slave (Pseudo-Andokides cont. Alkibiad.).

82. Diog. L. ii. 105, 126 seq. There was a statue of Menedêmus in the ancient stadium of Eretria: Diogenes speaks as if it existed in his time, and as if he himself had seen it (ii. 132).

83. Diog. L. ii. 129–142.

84. Clemens Alexandr. Stromat. ii. 20, p. 485, Potter. ἐγὼ δ’ ἀποδέχομαι τὸν Ἀφροδίτην λέγοντα κᾂν κατατοξεύσαιμι, εἰ λάβοιμι, &c.

Μανείην μᾶλλον ἢ ἠσθείην, Diog. L. vi. 3.

85. Cicero, de Orator. iii. 17, 62; Diog. L. vi. 2. παρ’ οὖ (Sokrates) καὶ τὸ καρτερικὸν λαβὼν καὶ τὸ ἀπαθὲς ζηλώσας κατῆρξε πρῶτος τοῦ κυνισμοῦ: also vi. 15. The appellation of Cynics is said to have arisen from the practice of Antisthenes to frequent the gymnasium called Κυνόσαργες (D. L. vi. 13), though other causes are also assigned for the denomination (Winckelmann, Antisth. Frag. pp. 8–10).

86. Sokrates had said, τὸ μηδενὸς δέεσθαι, θεῖον εἶναι· τὸ δ’ ὡς ἐλαχίστων, ἐγγυτάτω τοῦ θείου (Xenophon, Memor. i. 6, 10. Compare Apuleius, Apol. p. 25). Plato, Gorgias, p. 492 E. The same dictum is ascribed to Diogenes (Diog. L. vi. 105).

87. Epiktetus, Dissert. iii. 1, 19–22, iii. 21–19, iii. 24–40-60–69. The whole of the twenty-second Dissertation, Περὶ Κυνισμοῦ, is remarkable. He couples Sokrates with Diogenes more closely than with any one else.

88. Diog. L. vi. 11.

89. Diog. L. vi. 102–104.

90. Diog. L. vi. 1, 15–18. The two remaining fragments—Αἴας, Ὄδυσσεὺς (Winckelmann, Antisth. Fragm. pp. 38–42)—cannot well be genuine, though Winckelmann seems to think them so.

91. Athenæus, v. 220, xi. 508; Diog. L. iii. 24–35; Phrynichus ap. Photium, cod. 158; Epiktêtus, ii. 16–35. Antisthenes is placed in the same line with Kritias and Xenophon, as a Sokratic writer, by Dionysius of Halikarnassus, De Thucyd. Jud. p. 941. That there was standing reciprocal hostility between Antisthenes and Plato we can easily believe. Plato never names Antisthenes: and if the latter attacked Plato, it was under the name of Sathon. How far Plato in his dialogues intends to attack Antisthenes without naming him—is difficult to determine. Probably he does intend to designate Antisthenes as γέρων ὀψιμαθής, in Sophist. 251. Schleiermacher and other commentators think that he intends to attack Antisthenes in Philêbus, Theætêtus, Euthydêmus, &c. But this seems to me not certain. In Philêbus, p. 44, he can hardly include Antisthenes among the μάλα δεινοὶ περὶ φύσιν. Antisthenes neglected the study of φύσις.

92. Xenophon, Memor. iii. 11, 17.

93. Xenophon, Memorab. iii. 11, 17; Symposion, ii. 10, iv. 2–3-44. Plutarch (Quæst. Symp. ii. 1, 6, p. 632) and Diogenes Laertius (vi. 1, 15) appear to understand the description of Xenophon as ascribing to Antisthenes a winning and conciliatory manner. To me it conveys the opposite impression. We must recollect that the pleasantry of the Xenophontic Symposion (not very successful as pleasantry) is founded on the assumption, by each person, of qualities and pretensions the direct reverse of that which he has in reality—and on his professing to be proud of that which is a notorious disadvantage. Thus Sokrates pretends to possess great personal beauty, and even puts himself in competition with the handsome youth Kritobulus; he also prides himself on the accomplishments of a good μαστροπός. Antisthenes, quite indigent, boasts of his wealth; the neglected Hermogenes boasts of being powerfully friended. The passage, iv. 57, 61, which talks of the winning manners of Antisthenes, and his power of imparting popular accomplishments, is to be understood in this ironical and inverted sense.

94. Diog. L. vi. 2, 21–49; Plutarch Quæst. Sympos. ii. 1, 7; Epiktetus, iii. 22, 67, iv. 1, 114; Dion Chrysostom. Orat. viii.-ix.-x.

Plutarch quotes two lines from Diogenes respecting Antisthenes:—

Ὅς με ῥάκη τ’ ἤμπισχε κὰξηνάγκασε

Πτωχὸν γενέσθαι καὶ δόμων ἀνάστατον—

οὐ γὰρ ἂν ὁμοίως πιθανὸς ἦν λέγων—Ὅς με σοφὸν καὶ αὐτάρκη καὶ μακάριον ἐποίησε.

The interpretation given of the passage by Plutarch is curious, but quite in the probable meaning of the author. However, it is not easy to reconcile with the fact of this extreme poverty another fact mentioned about Diogenes, that he asked fees from listeners, in one case as much as a mina (Diog. L. vi. 2, 67).

95. Diog. L. v. 18, vi. 2, 69. ἐρωτηθεὶς τί κάλλιστον ἐν ἀνθρώποις ἔφη—παῤῥησία. Among the numerous lost works of Theophrastus (enumerated by Diogen. Laert. v. 43) one is Τῶν Διογένους Συναγωγὴ, ά, a remarkable evidence of the impression made by the sayings and proceedings of Diogenes upon his contemporaries. Compare Dion Chrysostom. Or. ix. (vol. i. 288 seq. Reiske) for the description of the conduct of Diogenes at the Isthmian festival, and the effect produced by it on spectators.

These smart sayings, of which so many are ascribed to Diogenes, and which he is said to have practised beforehand, and to have made occasions for—ὅτι χρείαν εἴη μεμελετηκώς (Diog. L. v. 18, vi. 91, vii. 26)—were called by the later rhetors Χρεῖαι. See Hermogenes and Theon, apud Walz, Rhetor. Græc. i. pp. 19–201; Quintilian, i. 9, 4.

Such collections of Ana were ascribed to all the philosophers in greater or less number. Photius, in giving the list of books from which the Sophist Sopater collected extracts, indicates one as Τὰ Διογένους τοῦ Κυνικοῦ Ἀποφθέγματα (Codex 161).

96. Diog. L. vi. 54: Σωκράτης μαινό μενος. vi. 26: Οἱ δὲ φασι τὸν Διογένην εἰπεῖν, Πατῶ τὸν Πλάτωνος τῦφον· τὸν δὲ φάναι, Ἑτέρῳ γε τύφῳ, Διόγενες. The term τῦφος (“vanity, self-conceit, assumption of knowing better than others, being puffed up by the praise of vulgar minds”) seems to have been mach interchanged among the ancient philosophers, each of them charging it upon his opponents; while the opponents of philosophy generally imputed it to all philosophers alike. Pyrrho the Sceptic took credit for being the only ἄτυφος: and he is complimented as such by his panegyrist Timon in the Silli. Aristokles affirmed that Pyrrho had just as much τῦφον as the rest. Eusebius, Præp. Evang. xiv. 18.

97. Diog. L. vi. 2, 75–76.

98. Diog. L. vi. 2, 74. Xeniades was mentioned by Democritus: he is said to have been a sceptic (Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. vii. 48–53), at least he did not recognise any κριτήριον.

99. Diog. L. vi. 2, 77–78.

Diogenes seems to have been known by his contemporaries under the title of ὁ Κύων. Aristotle cites from him a witty comparison under that designation, Rhetoric. iii. 10, 1410, a. 24. καὶ ὁ Κύων (ἐκάλει) τὰ καπηλεῖα, τὰ Ἀττικὰ φιδίτια.

100. Diog. L. vi. 2, 72. Cicero, De Nat. Deor. i. 13.

101. Diog. L. vi. 2, 63–71. The like declaration is ascribed to Sokrates. Epiktêtus, i. 9, 1.

102. Diog. L. vi. 2, 63, 72. μηδὲν ἐλευθερίας προκρίνων. Epiktêtus, iv. 1, 30. Οὕτω καὶ Διογένης λέγει, μίαν εἶναι μηχανὴν πρὸς ἐλευθερίαν—τὸ εὐκόλως ἀποθνήσκειν. Compare iv. 7–28, i. 24, 6.

103. Diog. L. vi. 2, 70–71. καὶ γὰρ αὐτὴ τῆς ἡδονῆς ἡ καταφρόνησις ἡδυτάτη προμελετηθεῖσα, καὶ ὥσπερ οἱ συνεθισθέντες ἡδέως ζῇν, ἀηδῶς ἐπὶ τοὐναντίον μετίασιν, οὕτω οἱ τοὐναντίον ἀσκηθέντες ἥδιον αὐτῶν τῶν ἡδονῶν καταφρονοῦσι. See Lucian, Vitar. Auct. c. 9, about the hard life and the happiness of Diogenes. Compare s. 26 about the τῦφος of Diogenes treading down the different τῦφος of Plato, and Epiktêtus iii. 22, 57. Antisthenes, in his dialogue or discourse called Ἡρακλῆς, appears to have enforced the like appeal to that hero as an example to others. See Winckelmann, Fragm. Antisthen. pp. 15–18.

104. Diog. L. vi. 2, 68–73-24–27.

105. Diog. L. vi. 2, 30–31.

106. Diog. L. vi. 2, 80. Diogenes Laertius himself cites a fact from one of the dialogues—Pordalus (vi. 2, 20): and Epiktêtus alludes to the treatise on Ethics by Diogenes—ἐν τῇ Ἠθικῇ—ii. 20, 14. It appears however that the works ascribed to Diogenes were not admitted by all authors as genuine (Diog. L. c.).

107. Dion Chrysost. Or. x.; De Servis, p. 295 E. Or. ix.; Isthmicus, p. 289 R. ὥσπερ ἰατροὶ ἀνακρίνουσι τοὺς ἀσθενοῦντας, οὕτως Διογένης ἀνέκρινε τὸν ἄνθρωπον, &c.

108. Epiktêtus, iii. 21, 19. ὡς Σωκράτει συνεβούλευε τὴν ἐλεγκτικὴν χώραν ἔχειν, ὡς Διογένει τὴν βασιλικὴν καὶ ἐπιπληκτικήν, ὡς Ζήνωνι τὴν διδασκαλικὴν καὶ δογματικήν.

About τὸ ἥμερον καὶ φιλάνθρωπον of Diogenes, see Epiktêtus, iii. 24, 64; who also tells us (iv. 11, 19), professing to follow the statements of contemporaries, that the bodies both of Sokrates and Diogenes were by nature so sweet and agreeable (ἐπίχαρι καὶ ἡδύ) as to dispense with the necessity of washing.

“Ego certé” (says Seneca, Epist. 108, 13–14, about the lectures of the eloquent Stoic Attalus) “cum Attalum audirem, in vitia, in errores, in mala vitæ perorantem, sæpé misertus sum generis humani, et illum sublimem altioremque humano fastigio credidi. Ipse regem se esse dicebat: sed plus quam regnare mihi videbatur, cui liceret censuram agere regnantium.” See also his treatises De Beneficiis, v. 4–6, and De Tranquillitate Animi (c. 8), where, after lofty encomium on Diogenes, he exclaims—“Si quis de felicitate Diogenis dubitat, potest idem dubitare et de Deorum immortalium statu, an parum beaté degant,” &c.

109. Cicero, in his Oration in defence of Murena (30–61-62) compliments Cato (the accuser) as one of the few persons who adopted the Stoic tenets with a view of acting them out, and who did really act them out—“Hæc homo ingeniosissimus M. Cato, autoribus eruditissimis inductus, arripuit: neque disputandi causa, ut magna pars, sed ita vivendi”. Tacitus (Histor. iv. 5) pays the like compliment to Helvidius Priscus.

M. Gaston Boissier (Étude sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de Varron, pp. 113–114, Paris, 1861) expresses an amount of surprise which I should not have expected, on the fact that persons adopted a philosophical creed for the purpose only of debating it and defending it, and not of acting it out. But he recognises the fact, in regard to Varro and his contemporaries, in terms not less applicable to the Athenian world: amidst such general practice, Antisthenes, Diogenes, Krates, &c., stood out as memorable exceptions. “Il ne faut pas non plus oublier de quelle manière, et dans quel esprit, les Romains lettrés étudiaient la philosophie Grecque. Ils venaient écouter les plus habiles maîtres, connaître les sectes les plus célèbres: mais ils les étudiaient plutôt en curieux, qu’ils ne s’y attachaient en adeptes. On ne les voit guères approfondir un système et s’y tenir, adopter un ensemble de croyances, et y conformer leur conduite. On étudiait le plus souvent la philosophie pour discuter. C’était seulement une matière à des conversations savantes, un exercice et un aliment pour les esprits curieux. Voilà pourquoi la secte Académique étoit alors mieux accueillie que les autres,” &c.

110. Dion Chrysostom, viii. p. 275, Reiske.

111. See the striking description in Gibbon, Decl. and Fall, ch. xxxvii. pp. 253–265.

112. Strabo, xv. 713 A (probably from Onesikritus, see Geier, Fragment. Alexandr. Magn. Histor. p. 379). Πλείστους δ’ αὐτοῖς εἶναι λόγους περὶ τοῦ θανάτου· νομίζειν γὰρ δὴ τὸν μὲν ἐνθάδε βίον ὡς ἂν ἀκμὴν κυομένων εἶναι, τὸν δὲ θάνατον γένεσιν εἰς τὸν ὄντως βίον καὶ τὸν εὐδαίμονα τοῖς φιλοσοφήσασι· διὸ τῇ ἀσκήσει πλείστῃ χρῆσθαι πρὸς τὸ ἐτοιμοθάνατον· ἀγαθὸν δὲ ἢ κακὸν μηδὲν εἶναι τῶν συμβαινόντων ἀνθρώποις, &c.

This is an application of the doctrines laid down by the Platonic Sokrates in the Phædon, p. 64 A: Κινδυνεύουσι γὰρ ὅσοι τυγχάνουσιν ὀρθῶς ἀπτόμενοι φιλοσοφίας λεληθέναι τοὺς ἄλλους, ὅτι οὐδὲν ἄλλο αὐτοὶ ἐπιτηδεύουσιν ἢ ἀποθνήσκειν τε καὶ τεθνάναι. Compare p. 67 D.; Cicero. Tusc. D. i. 30. Compare Epiktêtus, iv. i. 30 (cited in a former note) about Diogenes the Cynic. Also Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 27; Valerius Maximus, iii. 3, 6; Diogen. L. Proœm. s. 6; Pliny, H. N. vii. 2.

Bohlen observes (Das Alte Indien, ch. ii. pp. 279–289), “It is a remarkable fact that Indian writings of the highest antiquity depict as already existing the same ascetic exercises as we see existing at present: they were even then known to the ancients, who were especially astonished at such fanaticism”.

113. Strabo gives a condensed summary of this report, made by Onesikritus respecting his conversation with the Indian Gymnosophist Mandanis, or Dandamis (Strabo, xv. p. 716 B):—Ταῦτ’ εἰπόντα ἐξερέσθαι (Dandamis asked Onesikritus), εἰ καὶ ἐν τοῖς Ἕλλησι λόγοι τοιοῦτοι λέγοιντο. Εἰπόντος δ’ (Ὀνησικρίτου), ὅτι καὶ Πυθαγόρας τοιαῦτα λέγοι, κελεύοι τε ἐμψύχων ἀπέχεσθαι, καὶ Σωκράτης, καὶ Διογένης, οὗ καὶ αὐτὸς (Onesikritus) ἀκροάσαιτο, ἀποκρίνασθαι (Dandamis), ὅτι τἄλλα μὲν νομίζοι φρονίμως αὐτοῖς δοκεῖν, ἓν δ’ ἁμαρτάνειν—νόμον πρὸ τῆς φύσεως τιθεμένους· οὐ γὰρ ἂν αἰσχύνεσθαι γυμνούς, ὥσπερ αὐτόν, διάγειν, ἀπὸ λιτῶν ζῶντας· καὶ γὰρ οἰκίαν ἀρίστην εἶναι, ἤτις ἂν ἐπισκευῆς ἐλαχίστης δέηται.

About Onesikritus, Diog. Laert. vi. 75–84; Plutarch, Alexand. c. 65; Plutarch, De Fortuna Alexandri, p. 331.

The work of August Gladitsch (Einleitung in das Verständniss der Weltgeschichte, Posen, 1841) contains an instructive comparison between the Gymnosophists and the Cynics, as well as between the Pythagoreans and the Chinese philosophers—between the Eleatic sect and the Hindoo philosophers. The points of analogy, both in doctrine and practice, are very numerous and strikingly brought out, pp. 356–377. I cannot, however, agree in his conclusion, that the doctrines and practice of Antisthenes were borrowed, not from Sokrates with exaggeration, but from the Parmenidean theory, and the Vedanta theory of the Ens Unum, leading to negation and contempt of the phenomenal world.

114. Onesikritus observes, respecting the Indian Gymnosophists, that “they were more striking in act than in discourse” (ἐν ἔργοις γὰρ αὐτοὺς κρείττους ἢ λόγοις εἶναι, Strabo, xv. 713 B); and this is true about the Cynic succession of philosophers, in Greece as well as in Rome. Diogenes Laertius (compare his prooem, s. 19, 20, and vi. 103) ranks the Cynic philosophy as a distinct αἵρεσις: but he tells us that other writers (especially Hippobotus) would not reckon it as an αἵρεσις, but only as an ἔνστασις βίου—practice without theory.

115. Xenophon, Memor. i. 6, 2–5; Plato, Sympos. 219, 220.

The language of contemporary comic writers, Ameipsias, Eupolis, Aristophanes, &c., about Sokrates—is very much the same as that of Menander a century afterwards about Kratês. Sokrates is depicted as a Cynic in mode of life (Diogen. L. ii. 28; Aristophan. Nubes, 104–362-415).

116. Zeno, though he received instructions from Kratês, was ἄλλως μὲν εὔτονος πρὸς τὴν φιλοσοφίαν, αἰδήμων δὲ ὡς πρὸς τὴν κυνικὴν ἀναισχυντίαν (Diog. L. vii. 3).

“Disputare cum Socrate licet, dubitare cum Carneade, cum Epicure quiescere, hominis naturam cum Stoicis vincere, cum Cynicis excedere,” &c. This is the distinction which Seneca draws between Stoic and Cynic (De Brevitat. Vitæ, 14, 5). His admiration for the “seminudus” Cynic Demetrius, his contemporary and companion, was extreme (Epist. 62, 2, and Epist. 20, 18).

117. Xenoph. Memor. i. 6, 10 (the passage is cited in a previous note). The Emperor Julian (Orat. vi. p. 192 Spanh.) says about the Cynics—ἀπάθειαν γὰρ ποιοῦνται τὸ τέλος, τοῦτο δὲ ἴσον ἐστὶ τῷ θεὸν γενέσθαι. Dion Chrysostom (Or. vi. p. 208) says also about Diogenes the Cynic—καὶ μάλιστα ἐμιμεῖτο τῶν θεῶν τὸν βίον.

118. Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 32, 92, and the Anabasis of Arrian, vii. 1–2-3, where both the reply of Diogenes and that of the Indian Gymnosophists are reported. Dion Chrysostom (Orat. iv. p. 145 seq. Reiske) gives a prolix dialogue between Alexander and Diogenes. His picture of the effect produced by Diogenes upon the different spectators at the Isthmian festival, is striking and probable.

Kalanus, one of the Indian Gymnosophists, was persuaded, by the instances of Alexander, to abandon his Indian mode of life and to come away with the Macedonian army—very much to the disgust of his brethren, who scornfully denounced him as infirm and even as the slave of appetite (ἀκόλαστον, Strabo, xv. 718). He was treated with the greatest consideration and respect by Alexander and his officers; yet when the army came into Persis, he became sick of body and tired of life. He obtained the reluctant consent of Alexander to allow him to die. A funeral pile was erected, upon which he voluntarily burnt himself in presence of the whole army; who witnessed the scene with every demonstration of military honour. See the remarkable description in Arrian, Anab. vii. 3. Cicero calls him “Indus indoctus ac barbarus” (Tusc. Disp. ii. 22, 52); but the impression which he made on Alexander himself, Onesikritus, Lysimachus, and generally upon all who saw him, was that of respectful admiration (Strabo, xv. 715; Arrian, l. c.). One of these Indian sages, who had come into Syria along with the Indian envoys sent by an Indian king to the Roman Emperor Augustus, burnt himself publicly at Athens, with an exulting laugh when he leaped upon the funeral pile (Strabo, xv. 720 A)—κατὰ τὰ πάτρια τῶν Ἰνδῶν ἔθη.

The like act of self-immolation was performed by the Grecian Cynic Peregrinus Proteus, at the Olympic festival in the reign of Marcus Antoninus, 165 A.D. (See Clinton, Fasti Romani.) Lucian, who was present and saw the proceeding, has left an animated description of it, but ridicules it as a piece of silly vanity. Theagenes, the admiring disciple of Peregrinus, and other Cynics, who were present in considerable numbers—and also Lucian himself compare this act to that of the Indian Gymnosophists—οὗτος δὲ τίνος αἰτίας ἕνεκεν ἐμβάλλει φέρων ἑαυτὸν εἰς τὸ πῦρ; νὴ Δί’, ὅπως τὴν καρτερίαν ἐπιδείξηται, καθάπερ οἱ Βραχμᾶνες (Lucian, De Morte Peregrini, 25–39, &c.).

119. Though Seneca (De Brevitate Vit. 14) talks of the Stoics as “conquering Nature, and the Cynics as exceeding Nature,” yet the Stoic Epiktêtus considers his morality as the only scheme conformable to Nature (Epiktêt. Diss. iv. 1, 121–128); while the Epikurean Lucretius claims the same conformity for the precepts of Epikurus.

120. Respecting the historical connexion between the Grecian Cynics and the ascetic Christian monks, see Zeller, Philos. der Griech. ii. p. 241, ed. 2nd.

Homer, Iliad xvi. 233–5:—

Ζεῦ ἄνα, Δωδωναῖε, Πελασγικέ, τηλόθι ναίων,

Δωδώνης μεδέων δυσχειμέρου, ἀμφὶ δὲ Σέλλοι

Σοὶ ναίουσ’ ὑποφῆται ἀνιπτόποδες, χαμαιεῦναι.

There is no analogy in Grecian history to illustrate this very curious passage: the Excursus of Heyne furnishes no information (see his edition of the Iliad, vol. vii. p. 289) except the general remark:—“Selli—vitæ genus et institutum affectarunt abhorrens à communi usu, vitæ monachorum mendicantium haud absimile, cum sine vitæ cultu viverent, nec corpus abluerent, et humi cubarent. Ita inter barbaros non modo, sed inter ipsas feras gentes intellectum est, eos qui auctoritatem apud multitudinem consequi vellent, externâ specie, vitæ cultu austeriore, abstinentiâ et continentiâ, oculos hominum in se convertere et mirationem facere debere.”

121. Plato, Republic, x. 600 B; Legib. vi. 782 C; Eurip. Hippol. 955; Fragm. Κρῆτες.

See also the citations in Athenæus (iv. pp. 161–163) from the writers of the Attic middle comedy, respecting the asceticism of the Pythagoreans, analogous to that of the Cynics.

122. Among the titles of the works of Antisthenes, preserved by Diogenes Laertius (vi. 15), several relate to dialectic or logic. Ἀλήθεια. Περὶ τοῦ διαλέγεσθαι, ἀντιλογικός. Σάθων, περὶ τοῦ ἀντιλέγειν, α, β, γ. Περὶ Διαλέκτον. Περὶ Παιδείας ἢ ὀνομάτων, α, β, γ, δ, ε. Περὶ ὀνομάτων χρησεως, ἢ ἐριστικός. Περὶ ἐρωτήσεως καὶ ἀποκρίσεως, &c., &c.

Diogenes Laertius refers to ten τόμοι of these treatises.

123. Simplikius, ad Aristot. Categ. p. 66, b. 47, 67, b. 18, 68, b. 25, Schol. Brand.; Tzetzes, Chiliad. vii. 606.

τῶν δὲ παλαιῶν οἱ μὲν ἀνῄρουν τὰς ποιότητας τελέως, τὸ ποιὸν συγχωροῦντος εἶναι· ὥσπερ Ἀντισθένης, ὅς ποτε Πλάτωνι διαμφισβητῶν—ὧ Πλάτων, ἔφη, ἵππον μὲν ὁρῶ, ἱππότητα δ’ οὐχ ὁρῶ· καὶ ὃς εἶπεν, ἔχεις μὲν ᾧ ἵππος ὁρᾶται τόδε τὸ ὄμμα, ᾧ δὲ ἱππότης θεωρεῖται, οὐδέπω κέκτησαι. καὶ ἄλλοι δέ τινες ἦσαν ταύτης τῆς δόξης. οἱ δὲ τινὰς μεν ἀνῄρουν ποιότητας, τινὰς δὲ κατελίμπανον.

Ἀνθρωπότης occurs p. 58, a. 31. Compare p. 20, a. 2.

The same conversation is reported as having taken place between Diogenes and Plato, except that instead of ἱππότης and ἀνθρωπότης, we have τραπεζότης and κυαθότης (Diog. L. vi. 53).

We have ζωότης—Ἀθηναιότης—in Galen’s argument against the Stoics (vol. xix. p. 481, Kühn).

124. We know from Plato himself (Theætêtus, p. 182 A) that even the word ποιότης, if not actually first introduced by himself, was at any rate so recent as to be still repulsive, and to require an Apology. If ποιότης was strange, ἀνθρωπότης and ἱππότης would be still more strange. Antisthenes probably invented them, to present the doctrine which he impugned in a dress of greater seeming absurdity.

125. Plato, Parmenidês, p. 132 B. See, afterwards, chapter xxvii., Parmenides.

126. Diogen. L. vi. 3. Πρωτός τε ὡρίσατο (Antisthenes) λόγον, εἰπών, λόγος ἐστὶν ὁ τὸ τί ἦν ἤ ἐστι δηλῶν.

127. Aristotle, Metaphy. Δ. 1024, b. 32, attributes this doctrine to Antisthenes by name; which tends to prove that Plato meant Antisthenes, though not naming him, in Sophist, p. 251 B, where he notices the same doctrine. Compare Philêbus, p. 14 D.

It is to be observed that a doctrine exactly the same as that which Plato here censures in Antisthenes, will be found maintained by the Platonic Sokrates himself, in Plato, Hippias Major, p. 304 A. See chap xiii. vol. ii. of the present work.

128. Aristot. Topic. i. p. 104, b. 20. θέσις δέ ἐστιν ὑπόληψις παράδοξος τῶν γνωρίμων τινὸς κατὰ φιλοσοφίαν· οἷον ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν ἀντιλέγειν, καθάπερ ἔφη Ἀντισθένης.

Plato puts this θέσις into the mouth of Dionysodorus, in the Euthydêmus—p. 286 B; but he says (or makes Sokrates say) that it was maintained by many persons, and that it had been maintained by Protagoras, and even by others yet more ancient.

Antisthenes had discussed it specially in a treatise of three sections polemical against Plato—Σάθων, ἢ περὶ τοῦ ἀντιλέγειν, α, β, γ (Diog. L. vi. 16).

129. Aristotle (Met. Δ. 1024) represents the doctrine of Antisthenes, That contradictory and false propositions are impossible—as a consequence deduced from the position laid down—That no propositions except identical propositions were admissible. If you grant this last proposition, the consequences will be undeniable. Possibly Antisthenes may have reasoned in this way: “There are many contradictory and false propositions now afloat; but this arises from the way in which predication is conducted. So long as the predicate is different from the subject, there is nothing in the form of a proposition to distinguish falsehood from truth (to distinguish Theætêtus sedet, from Theætêtus volat—to take the instance in the Platonic Sophistês—p. 263). There ought to be no propositions except identical propositions: the form itself will then guarantee you against both falsehood and contradiction: you will be sure always to give τὸν οἰκεῖον λόγον τοῦ πράγματος.” There would be nothing inconsistent in such a precept: but Aristotle might call it silly εὐηθῶς), because, while shutting out falsehood and contradiction, it would also shut out the great body of useful truth, and would divest language of its usefulness as a means of communication.

Brandis (Gesch. der Gr. Römisch. Phil. vol. ii. xciii. 1) gives something like this as the probable purpose of Antisthenes—“Nur Eins bezeichne die Wesenheit eines Dinges—die Wesenheit als einfachen Träger des mannichfaltigen der Eigenschaften” (this is rather too Aristotelian)—“zur Abwehr von Streitigkeiten auf dem Gebiete der Erscheinungen”. Compare also Ritter, Gesch. Phil. vol. ii. p. 130. We read in the Kratylus, that there were persons who maintained the rectitude of all names: to say that a name was not right, was (in their view) tantamount to saying that it was no name at all, but only an unmeaning sound (Plato, Krat. pp. 429–430).

130. Plutarch, adv. Kolôten, p. 1119 C-D.

131. Hegel (Geschichte der Griech. Philos. i. p. 123) and Marbach (Geschichte der Philos. s. 91) disallow the assertion of Diogenes, that Stilpon ἀνήρει τὰ εἴδη. They maintain that Stilpon rejected the particular affirmations, and allowed only general or universal affirmations. This construction appears to me erroneous.

132. Diog. L. ii. 113; Plutarch, adv. Kolôten, 1119–1120. εἰ περὶ ἵππου τὸ τρέχειν κατηγοροῦμεν, οὔ φησι (Stilpon) ταὐτὸν εἶναι τῷ περὶ οὖ κατηγορεῖται τὸ κατηγορούμενον—ἐκατέρου γὰρ ἀπαιτούμενοι τὸν λόγον, οὐ τὸν αὐτὸν ἀποδίδομεν ὑπὲρ ἀμφοῖν. Ὅθεν ἁμαρτάνειν τοὺς ἕτερον ἑτέρου κατηγοροῦντας. Εἰ μὲν γὰρ ταὐτον ἐστι τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ τὸ ἀγαθόν, καὶ τῷ ἵππῳ τὸ τρέχειν, πῶς καὶ σιτίου καὶ φαρμάκου τὸ ἀγαθόν; καὶ νὴ Δία πάλιν λέοντος καὶ κυνὸς τὸ τρέχειν, κατηγοροῦμεν; εἰ δ’ ἕτερον, οὐκ ὀρθῶς ἄνθρωπον ἀγαθὸν καὶ ἵππον τρέχειν λέγομεν.

Sextus Empiricus (adv. Mathem. vii. p. 269–282) gives a different vein of reasoning respecting predication—yet a view which illustrates this doctrine of Antisthenes. Sextus does not require that all predication shall be restricted to identical predication: but he maintains that you cannot define any general word. To define, he says, is to enunciate the essence of that which is defined. But when you define Man—“a mortal, rational animal, capable of reason and knowledge”—you give only certain attributes of Man, which go along with the essence—you do not give the essence itself. If you enumerate even all the accompaniments (συμβεβηκότα), you will still fail to tell me what the essence of Man is: which is what I desire to know, and what you profess to do by your definition. It is useless to enumerate accompaniments, until you explain to me what the essence is which they accompany.

These are ingenious objections, which seem to me quite valid, if you assume the logical subject to be a real, absolute essence, apart from all or any of its predicates. And this is a frequent illusion, favoured even by many logicians. We enunciate the subject first, then the predicate; and because the subject can be conceived after abstraction of this, that, or the other predicates—we are apt to imagine that it may be conceived without all or any of the predicates. But this is an illusion. If you suppress all predicates, the subject or supposed substratum vanishes along with them: just as the Genus vanishes, if you suppress all the different species of it.

“Scais-tu au moins ce que c’est que la matière? Très-bien. … Par exemple, cette pierre est grise, est d’une telle forme, a ses trois dimensions; elle est pésante et divisible. Eh bien (dit le Sirien), cette chose qui te paroît être divisible, pésante, et grise, me dirois tu bien ce que c’est? Tu vois quelques attributs: mais le fond de la chose, le connois tu? Non, dit l’autre. Tu ne scais donc point ce que c’est que la matière.” (Voltaire, Micromégas, c. 7.)

“Le fond de la chose”—the Ding an sich—is nothing but the name itself, divested of every fraction of meaning: it is titulus sine re. But the name being familiar, and having been always used with a meaning, still appears invested with much of the old emotional associations, even though it has been stripped of all its meaning by successive acts of abstraction. If you subtract from four, 1 + 1 + 1 + 1, there will remain zero. But by abstracting, from the subject man, all its predicates, real and possible, you cannot reduce it to zero. The name man always remains, and appears by old association to carry with it some meaning—though the meaning can no longer be defined.

This illusion is well pointed out in a valuable passage of Cabanis (Du Degré de Certitude de la Médecine, p. 61):—

“Je pourrois d’ailleurs demander ce qu’on entend par la nature et les causes premières des maladies. Nous connoissons de leur nature, ce que les faits en manifestent. Nous savons, par exemple, que la fièvre produit tels et tels changements: ou plutôt, c’est par ces changements qu’elle se montre à nos yeux: c’est par eux seuls qu’elle existe pour nous. Quand un homme tousse, crache du sang, respire avec peine, ressent une douleur de côté, a le pouls plus vite et plus dur, la peau plus chaude que dans l’état naturel—l’on dit qu’il est attaqué d’une pleurésie. Mais qu’est ce donc qu’une pleurésie? On vous répliquera que c’est une maladie, dans laquelle tous, ou presque tous, ces accidents se trouvent combinés. S’il en manque un ou plusieurs, ce n’est point la pleurésie, du moins la vraie pleurésie essentielle des écoles. C’est donc le concours de ces accidents qui la constitue. Le mot pleurésie ne fait que les retracer d’une manière plus courte. Ce mot n’est pas un être par lui-même: il exprime une abstraction de l’esprit, et réveille par un seul trait toutes les images d’un assez grand tableau.

“Ainsi lorsque, non content de connoître une maladie par ce qu’elle offre à nos sens, par ce qui seul la constitue, et sans quoi elle n’existeroit pas, vous demandez encore quelle est sa nature en elle-même, quelle est son essence—c’est comme si vous demandiez quelle est la nature ou l’essence d’un mot, d’une pure abstraction. Il n’y a donc pas beaucoup de justesse à dire, d’un air de triomphe, que les médecins ignorent même la nature de la fièvre, et que sans cesse ils agissent dans des circonstances, ou manient des instruments, dont l’essence leur est inconnue.”

133. Plato, Parmenidês, p. 131. Compare also Philêbus, p. 15, and Stallbaum’s Proleg. to the Parmenidês, pp. 46–47. The long commentary of Proklus (v. 100–110. pp. 670–682 of the edition of Stallbaum) amply attests the δυσκολίαν of the problem.

The argument of Parmenidês (in the dialogue called Parmenidês) is applied to the Platonic εἴδη and to τὰ μετέχοντα. But the argument is just as much applicable to attributes, genera, species: to all general predicates.

134. Aristot. Physic. i. 2, 185, b. 26–36.

Lykophron and some others anterior to Aristotle proposed to elude the difficulty, by ceasing to use the substantive verb as copula in predication: instead of saying Σωκράτης ἐστὶ λευκός, they said either Σωκράτης λευκός, simply, or Σωκράτης λελεύκωται.

This is a remarkable evidence of the difficulty arising, even in these early days of logic, about the logical function of the copula.

135. Diog. L. ii. 127–134. ἦν γὰρ καὶ ἐπικόπτης καὶ παῤῥησιαστής.

136. Diog. L. ii. 134.

137. Plato, Theætêt, pp. 201–202. Aristotel. Metaph. Η. 1043, b. 22.

138. Plato, Theætêt. ut suprâ.

139. Aristot. Metaphys. Η. 1043, b. 24–32, with the Scholia, p. 774, b. Br.

Mr. J. S. Mill observes, Syst. of Logic, i. 5, 6, p. 116, ed. 9:—“There is still another exceptional case, in which, though the predicate is the name of a class, yet in predicating it we affirm nothing but resemblance: the class being founded not on resemblance in any given particular, but on general unanalysable resemblance. The classes in question are those into which our simple sensations, or other simple feelings, are divided. Sensations of white, for instance, are classed together, not because we can take them to pieces, and say, they are alike in this, not alike in that but because we feel them to be alike altogether, though in different degrees. When therefore I say—The colour I saw yesterday was a white colour, or, The sensation I feel is one of tightness—in both cases the attribute I affirm of the colour or of the other sensation is mere resemblance: simple likeness to sensations which I have had before, and which have had that name bestowed upon them. The names of feelings, like other concrete general names, are connotative: but they connote a mere resemblance. When predicated of any individual feelings, the information they convey is that of its likeness to the other feelings which we have been accustomed to call by the same name.”

140. Hipparchia was a native of Maroneia in Thrace; born in a considerable station, and belonging to an opulent family. She came to Athens with her brother Mêtroklês, and heard both Theophrastus and Kratês. Both she and her brother became impressed with the strongest admiration for Kratês: for his mode of life, as well as for his discourses and doctrine. Rejecting various wealthy suitors, she insisted upon becoming his wife, both against his will and against the will of her parents. Her resolute enthusiasm overcame the reluctance of both. She adopted fully his hard life, poor fare, and threadbare cloak. She passed her days in the same discourses and controversies, indifferent to the taunts which were addressed to her for having relinquished the feminine occupations of spinning and weaving. Diogenes Laertius found many striking dicta or replies ascribed to her (ἄλλα μυρία τῆς φιλοσόφου vi. 96–98). He gives an allusion made to her by the contemporary comic poet Menander, who (as I before observed) handled the Cynics of his time as Aristophanes, Eupolis, &c., had handled Sokrates—

Συμπεριπατήσεις γὰρ τρίβων’ ἔχους ἐμοὶ,

ὥσπερ Κράτητι τῷ Κυνικῷ ποθ’ ἡ γυνὴ.

Καὶ θυγατέρ’ ἐξέδωκ’ ἐκεῖνος, ὡς ἔφη

αὐτὸς, ἐπὶ πειρᾷ δοὺς τριάκονθ’ ἡμέρας.

(vi. 93.)

141. Diog, L. vi. 82–88. Μόνιμος ὁ Κύων, Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. vii. 48–88.

About Krates, Plutarch, De Vit. Aere Alieno, 7, p. 831 F.

142. Diog. L. vi. 93. ἔχειν δὲ πατρίδα ἀδοξίαν τε καὶ πενίαν, ἀνάλωτα τῇ τύχῃ: καὶ—Διογένους εἶναι πολίτης ἀνεπιβουλεύτου φθόνῳ. The parody or verses of Krates, about his city of Pera (the Wallet), vi. 85, are very spirited—

Πήρη τις πόλις ἐστὶ μέσῳ ἐνὶ οἴνοπι τύφῳ, &c.

Krates composed a collection of philosophical Epistles, which Diogenes pronounces to be excellent, and even to resemble greatly the style of Plato (vi. 98).

143. Diog. L. vi. 86, ἐκαλεῖτο δὲ θυρεπανοίκτης, διὰ τὸ εἰς πᾶσαν εἰσιέναι οἰκίαν καὶ νουθετεῖν. Compare Seneca, Epist. 29.

144. Numenius ap. Euseb. Præp. Evang. xiv. 5.

145. Plutarch (De Curiositate, p. 516 A) says that Aristippus informed himself, at the Olympic games, from Ischomachus respecting the influence of Sokrates.

146. See the first chapter of the Second Book of the Memorabilia.

I give an abstract of the principal points in the dialogue, not a literal translation.

147. Xen. Memor. ii. 1, 1 seq. τὸν μὲν ὅπως ἱκανὸς ἔσται ἄρχειν, τὸν δὲ ὅπως μήδ’ ἀντιποιήσεται ἀρχῆς—τοὺς ἀρχικούς.

148. Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 11. ἀλλ’ εἶναι τίς μοι δοκεῖ μέση τούτων ὁδός, ἢν πειρῶμαι βαδίζειν, οὔτε δι’ ἀρχῆς, οὔτε διὰ δουλείας, ἀλλὰ δι’ ἐλευθερίας, ἤπερ μάλιστα πρὸς εὐδαιμονίαν ἄγει.

149. Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 9. ἐμαυτον τοίνυν τάττω εἰς τοὺς βουλομένους ᾖ ῥᾷστα καὶ ἥδιστα βιοτεύειν.

150. Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 12. εἰ μέντοι ἐν ἀνθρώποις ὢν μήτε ἄρχειν ἀξιώσεις μήτε ἄρχεσθαι, μήτε τοὺς ἄρχοντας ἑκὼν θεραπεύσεις, οἶμαί σε ὁρᾷν ὡς ἐπίστανται οἱ κρείττονες τοὺς ἥττονας καὶ κοινῇ καὶ ἰδίᾳ κλαίοντας καθίσαντες, ὡς δούλοις χρῆσθαι.

What follows is yet more emphatic, about the unjust oppression of rulers, and the suffering on the part of subjects.

151. Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 17. Ἀλλὰ γὰρ, ὦ Σώκρατες, οἱ εἰς τὴν βασιλικὴν τέχνην παιδευόμενοι, ἢν δοκεῖς μοι σὺ νομίζειν εὐδαιμονίαν εἶναι.

Compare Memor. ii. 3, 4.

152. Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 19. πῶς οὐκ οἴεσθαι χρὴ τούτους καὶ πονεῖν ἡδέως εἰς τὰ τοιαῦτα, καὶ ζῆν εὐφρονομένους, ἀγαμένους μὲν ἑαυτοὺς, ἐπαινουμένους δὲ καὶ ζηλουμένους ὑπὸ τῶν ἄλλων;

153. Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 20, cited from Epicharmus:—

μὴ τὰ μαλακὰ μώεο, μὴ τὰ σκλήρ’ ἔχῃς.

154. Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 21–34. ἐν τῷ συγγράμματι τῷ περὶ Ἡρακλέους, ὅπερ δὴ καὶ πλείστοις ἐπιδείκνυται—μεγαλειοτέροις ῥήμασιν.

155. Xenoph. Mem. ii. 1, 31. τοῦ δὲ πάντων ἡδίστου ἀκούσματος, ἐπαίνου σεαυτῆς, ἀνήκοος εἶ, καὶ τοῦ πάντων ἡδιστου θεάματος ἀθέατος· οὐδὲν γὰρ πώποτε σεαυτῆς ἔργον καλὸν τεθέασαι. …

τὰ μὲν ἡδέα ἐν τῇ vεότητι διαδραμόντες, τὰ δὲ χαλεπὰ ἐς τὸ γῆρας ἀποθέμενοι.

156. Plato, Gorgias, pp. 466–470-486.

157. Plato, Gorgias, pp. 508–509-521–527 C. καὶ ἔασόν τινα σοῦ καταφρονῆσαι ὡς ἀνοήτου, καὶ προπηλακίσαι ἐὰν βούληται, καὶ ναὶ μὰ Δία σύ γε θαῤῥῶν πατάξαι τὴν ἄτιμον ταύτην πληγήν· οὐδὲν γὰρ δεινὸν πείσει, ἐὰν τῷ ὄντι ᾗς καλὸς κἀγαθός, ἀσκῶν ἀρετήν.

158. If we read the conversation alleged by Thucydides (v. 94–105-112) to have taken place between the Athenian generals and the executive council of Melos, just before the siege of that island by the Athenians, we shall see that this same language is held by the Athenians. “You, the Melians, being much weaker, must submit to us who are much stronger; this is the universal law and necessity of nature, which we are not the first to introduce, but only follow out, as others have done before us, and will do after us. Submit—or it will be worse for you. No middle course, or neutrality, is open to you.”

159. Plato, Gorgias, pp. 482–487-492.

160. Plato, Gorgias, pp. 472–521.

161. If we read the treatise of Plutarch, Περὶ Στωίκων ἐναντιωμάτων (c. 2–3, p. 1033 C-D), we shall see that the Stoic writers, Zeno, Kleanthes, Chrysippus, Diogenes, Antipater, all of them earnestly recommended a life of active citizenship and laborious political duty, as incumbent upon philosophers not less than upon others; and that they treated with contempt a life of literary leisure and speculation. Chrysippus explicitly declared οὐδὲν διαφέρειν τὸν σχολαστικὸν βίον τοῦ ἡδονικοῦ i.e. that the speculative philosopher who kept aloof from political activity, was in substance a follower of Epikurus. Tacitus holds much the same language (Hist. iv. 5) when he says about Helvidius Priscus:—“ingenium illustre altioribus studiis juvenis admodum dedit: non, ut plerique, ut nomine magnifico segne otium velaret, sed quo constantior adversus fortuita rempublicam capesseret,” &c.

The contradiction which Plutarch notes is, that these very Stoic philosophers (Chrysippus and the others) who affected to despise all modes of life except active civic duty—were themselves, all, men of literary leisure, spending their lives away from their native cities, in writing and talking philosophy. The same might have been said about Sokrates and Plato (except as to leaving their native cities), both of whom incurred the same reproach for inactivity as Sokrates here addresses to Aristippus.

162. Herodot. iii. 80–83.

163. Plato, Apol. So. p. 32 A. ἰδιωτεύειν, ἀλλὰ μὴ δημοσιεύειν.

164. Plato, Gorgias, pp. 510–513. Τίς οὖν ποτ’ ἐστὶ τέχνη τῆς παρασκευῆς τοῦ μηδὲν ἀδικεῖσθαι ἢ ὡς ὀλίγιστα; σκέψαι εἴ σοι δοκεῖ ᾗπερ ἐμοί. ἐμοὶ μὲν γὰρ δοκεῖ ἥδε· ἢ αὐτὸν ἄρχειν δεῖν ἐν τῇ πόλει ἢ καὶ τυραννεῖν, ἢ τῆς ὑπαρχούσης πολιτείας ἑταῖρον εἶναι. (This is exactly the language which Sokrates holds to Aristippus, Xenoph. Memor. ii. 1, 12.)

ὃς ἂν ὁμοήθης ὢν, ταὐτα ψέγων καὶ ἐπαινῶν, ἐθέλῃ ἄρχεσθαι καὶ ὑποκεῖσθαι τῷ ἄρχοντι—εὐθὺς ἐκ νέου ἐθίζειν αὑτὸν τοῖς αὐτοῖς χαίρειν καὶ ἄχθεσθαι τῷ δεσπότῃ (510 D). οὐ γὰρ μιμητὴν δεῖ εἶναι ἀλλ’ αὐτοφυῶς ὅμοιον τούτοις (513 B).

165. Plato, Gorgias, p. 526 C-D. (Compare Republic, vi. p. 496 D.) ἀνδρὸς ἰδιώτου ἢ ἄλλου τινός, μάλιστα μέν, ἔγωγέ φημι, ὦ Καλλίκλεις, φιλοσόφου τὰ αὑτοῦ πράξαντος καὶ οὐ πολυπραγμονήσαντος ἐν τῷ βίῳ—καὶ δὴ καὶ σὲ ἀντιπαρακαλῶ (Sokrates to Kalliklês) ἐπὶ τοῦτον τὸν βίον. Upon these words Routh remarks: “Respicitur inter hæc verba ad Calliclis orationem, quâ rerum civilium tractatio et πολυπραγμοσύνη Socrati persuadentur,”—which is the same invitation as the Xenophontic Sokrates addresses to Aristippus. Again, in Plat. Republ. viii. pp. 549 C, 550 A, we read, that corruption of the virtuous character begins by invitations to the shy youth to depart from the quiet plan of life followed by a virtuous father (who is τὰ ἑαυτοῦ πράττει) and to enter on a career of active political ambition. The youth is induced, by instigation of his mother and relatives without, to pass from ἀπραγμοσύνη to φιλοπραγμοσύνη, which is described as a change for the worse. Even in Xenophon (Memor. iii. 11, 16) Sokrates recognises and jests upon his own ἀπραγμοσύνη.

166. Xen. Mem. iii. 8, 1. Diogenes L. says (and it is probable enough, from radical difference of character) that Xenophon was adversely disposed to Aristippus. In respect to other persons also, Xenophon puts invidious constructions (for which at any rate no ground is shown) upon their purposes in questioning Sokrates: thus, in the dialogue (i. 6) with the Sophist Antiphon, he says that Antiphon questioned Sokrates in order to seduce him away from his companions (Mem. i. 6, 1).

167. Xen. Mem. iv. 1, 2–3.

168. Xenoph. Memor. iv. 5, 1. ὡς δὲ καὶ πρακτικωτέρους ἐποίει τοὺς συνόντας αὐτῷ, νῦν αὖ τοῦτο λέξω.

169. Xenoph. Mem. iii. capp. 6 and 7.

170. Xenoph. Memor. i. 2, 15–18-24. Respecting the different tone and arguments employed by Sokrates, in his conversations with different persons, see a good passage in the Rhetor Aristeides, Orat. xlvi. Ὑπὲρ τῶν τεττάρων, p. 161, Dindorf.

171. We see from the first two chapters of the Memorabilia of Xenophon (as well as from the subsequent intimation of Æschines, in the oration against Timarchus, p. 173) how much stress was laid by the accusers of Sokrates on the fact that he had educated Kritias and Alkibiades; and how the accusers alleged that his teaching tended to encourage the like exorbitant aspirations in others, dangerous to established authority, traditional, legal, parental, divine. I do not doubt (what Xenophon affirms) that Sokrates, when he conversed with Kritias and Alkibiades, held a very opposite language. But it was otherwise when he talked with men of ease and indulgence without ambition, such as Aristippus. If Melêtus and Anytus could have put in evidence the conversation of Sokrates with Aristippus, many points of it would have strengthened their case against Sokrates before the Dikasts. We read in Xenophon (Mem. i. 2, 58) how the point was made to tell, that Sokrates often cited and commented on the passage of the Iliad (ii. 188) in which the Grecian chiefs, retiring from the agora to their ships, are described as being respectfully addressed by Odysseus—while the common soldiers are scolded and beaten by him, for the very same conduct: the relation which Sokrates here dwells on as subsisting between οἱ ἀρχικοὶ and οἱ ἀρχόμενοι, would favour the like colouring.

172. Xenoph. Memor. iii. 8, 1. Both Xenophon and some of his commentators censure this as a captious string of questions put by Aristippus—“captiosas Aristippi quæstiunculas”. Such a criticism is preposterous, when we recollect that Sokrates was continually examining and questioning others in the same manner. See in particular his cross-examination of Euthydêmus, reported by Xenophon, Memor. iv. 2; and many others like it, both in Xenophon and in Plato.

173. Xenoph. Memor. iii. 8, 1. βουλόμενος τοὺς συνόντας ὡφελεῖν.

174. Xenoph. Memor. iii. 8, 1–9.

175. Xenoph. Memor. iv. 5.

Sokrates exhorts those with whom he converses to be sparing in indulgences, and to cultivate self-command and fortitude as well as bodily energy and activity. The reason upon which these exhortations are founded is eudæmonistic: that a person will thereby escape or be able to confront serious dangers—and will obtain for himself ultimately greater pleasures than those which he foregoes (Memor. i. 6, 8; ii. 1, 31–33; iii. 12, 2–5). Τοῦ δὲ μὴ δουλεύειν γαστρὶ μηδὲ ὕπνῳ καὶ λαγνείᾳ οἴει τι ἄλλο αἰτιώτερον εἶναι, ἢ τὸ ἕτερα ἔχειν τούτων ἡδίω, ἃ οὐ μόνον ἐν χρείᾳ ὄντα εὐφραίνει, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἔλπιδας παρέχοντα ὠφελήσειν ἀεί; See also Memor. ii. 4, ii. 10, 4, about the importance of acquiring and cultivating friends, because a good friend is the most useful and valuable of all possessions. Sokrates, like Aristippus, adopts the prudential view of life, and not the transcendental; recommending sobriety and virtue on the ground of pleasures secured and pains averted. We find Plutarch, in his very bitter attacks on Epikurus, reasoning on the Hedonistic basis, and professing to prove that Epikurus discarded pleasures more and greater for the sake of obtaining pleasures fewer and less. See Plutarch, Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum, pp. 1096–1099.

176. Plato, Protagoras, pp. 351–361.

177. Aristot. Rhetoric. ii. 24; Metaphysic. B. 996, a. 32.

178. Xenophon. Memor. iv. 7, 2.

179. Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 5. καὶ τηλικούτων μὲν ἐπικειμένων τῷ μοιχεύοντι κακῶν τε καὶ αἰσχρῶν, ὄντων δὲ πολλῶν τῶν ἀπολυσόντων τῆς τῶν ἀφροδισιῶν ἐπιθυμίας ἐν ἀδείᾳ, ὅμως εἰς τὰ ἐπικίνδυνα φέρεσθαι, ἆρ’ οὐκ ἤδη τοῦτο παντάπασι κακοδαιμονῶντός ἐστιν; Ἔμοιγε δοκεῖ, ἔφη (Ἀρίστιππος).

180. Diog. L. ii. 67. οὔτως ἦν καὶ ἑλέσθαι καὶ καταφρονῆσαι πολὺς.

181. Diog. L. ii. 66. ἦν δὲ ἱκανὸς ἁρμόσασθαι καὶ τόπῳ καὶ χρόνῳ καὶ προσώπῳ, καὶ πᾶσαν περίστασιν ἁρμονίως ὑποκρίνασθαι· διὸ καὶ παρὰ Διονυσίῳ τῶν ἄλλων ηὐδοκίμει μᾶλλον, ἀεὶ τὸ προσπεσὸν εὖ διατιθέμενος· ἀπέλαυε μὲν γὰρ ἡδονῆς τῶν παρόντων, οὐκ ἐθήρα δὲ πόνῳ τὴν ἀπόλαυσιν τῶν οὐ παρόντων.

Horat. Epistol. i. 17, 23–24:—

“Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res,

Tentantem majora, ferè præsentibus æquum.”

182. Sophokles, Philoktêtes, 1049 (the words of Odysseus).

183. Diog. L. ii. 75. ἔχρητο καὶ Λαΐδι τῇ ἑταίρᾳ· πρὸς οὖν τοὺς μεμφομένους ἔφη, Ἔχω Λαΐδα, ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἔχομαι· ἐπεὶ τὸ κρατεῖν καὶ μὴ ἡττᾶσθαι ἡδονῶν, ἄριστον—οὐ τὸ μὴ χρῆσθαι. ii. 77, Διονυσίου ποτὲ ἐρομένου, ἐπὶ τί ἥκοι, ἔφη, ἐπὶ τῷ μεταδώσειν ὧν ἔχοι, καὶ μεταλήψεσθαι ὧν μὴ ἔχοι.

Lucian introduces Ἀρετὴ and Τρυφὴ as litigating before Δίκη for the possession of Aristippus: the litigation is left undecided (Bis Accusatus, c. 13–23).

184. Xenophon, Œconomic. iii. 13, vii. 6, Ischomachus says to Sokrates about his wife, Καὶ τί ἂν ἐπισταμένην αὐτὴν παρέλαβον, ἣ ἔτη μὲν οὔπω πεντεκαίδεκα γεγονυῖα ἦλθε πρὸς ἐμέ, τὸν δ’ ἐμπροσθεν χρόνον ἔζη ὑπὸ πολλῆς ἐπιμελείας, ὅπως ὡς ἔλαχιστα μὲν ὄψοιτο, ἐλάχιστα δ’ ἀκούσοιτο, ἐλάχιστα δὲ ἔροιτο;

185. Diog. L. ii. 74. On this point his opinion coincided with that of Diogenes, and of the Stoics Zeno and Chrysippus (D. L. vii. 131), who maintained, that among the wise wives ought to be in common, and that all marital jealousy ought to be discarded. Ἀρέσκει δ’ αὐτοῖς καὶ κοινὰς εἶναι τὰς γυναῖκας δεῖν παρὰ τοῖς σοφοῖς ὥστε τὸν ἐντυχόντα τῇ ἐντυχούσῃ χρῆσθαι, καθά φησι Ζήνων ἐν τῇ Πολιτείᾳ καὶ Χρύσιππος ἐν τῷ περὶ Πολιτείας, ἀλλά τε Διογένης ὁ Κυνικὸς καὶ Πλάτων· πάντας τε παῖδας ἐπίσης στέρξομεν πατέρων τρόπον, καὶ ἡ ἐπὶ μοιχείᾳ ζηλοτυπία περιαιρεθήσεται. Compare Sextus Emp. Pyrrh. H. iii. 205.

186. Diog. L. ii. 68. The like reply is ascribed to Aristotle. Diog. L. v. 20; Plutarch, De Profect. in Virtut. p. 80 D.

187. Diog. L. ii. 79.

188. Diog. L. ii. 72–74.

189. Xenoph. Memor. i. 3, 11–14; Symposion, iv. 38; Diog. L. vi. 3. (Ἀντισθένης) ἔλεγε συνεχὲς—Μανείην μᾶλλον ἢ ἡσθείην—καὶ—χρὴ τοιαύταις πλησιάζειν γυναιξίν, αἳ χάριν εἴσονται.

190. Xenoph. Cyropæd. v. 1, 2–18.

191. Sextus Empiricus and others describe this by the Greek word ἀγωγή (Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. i. 150). Plato’s beautiful epigram upon Archeanassa is given by Diogenes L. iii. 31. Compare this with the remark of Aristippus—Plutarch, Amatorius, p. 750 E.

That the society of these fascinating Hetæræ was dangerous, and exhaustive to the purses of those who sought it, may be seen from the expensive manner of life of Theodotê, described in Xenophon, Mem. iii. 11, 4.

The amorous impulses or fancies of Plato were censured by Dikæarchus. See Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iv. 34, 71, with Davies’s note.

192. This is justly remarked by Wendt in his instructive Dissertation, De Philosophiâ Cyrenaicâ, p. 8 (Göttingen, 1841).

193. It is this servitude of political life, making the politician the slave of persons and circumstances around him, which Horace contrasts with the philosophical independence of Aristippus:—

Ac ne forté roges, quo me duce, quo lare tuter;

Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri

Quo me cunque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes.

Nunc agilis fio et mersor civilibus undis,

Virtutis veræ custos rigidusque satelles:

Nunc in Aristippi furtim præcepta relabor,

Et mihi res, non me rebus, subjungere conor.

(Epist. i. 1, 15.)

So also the Platonic Sokrates (Theætêt. pp. 172–175) depicts forcibly the cramped and fettered lives of rhetors and politicians; contrasting them with the self-judgment and independence of speculative and philosophical enquirers—ὡς οἰκέται πρὸς ἐλευθέρους τεθράφθαι—ὁ μὲν τῷ ὄντι ἐν ἐλευθερίᾳ τε καὶ σχολῇ τεθραμμένος, ὃν δὴ φιλόσοφον καλεῖς.

194. Diog. L. ii. 36. στρέψαντος Ἀντισθένους τὸ διεῤῥωγὸς τοῦ τρίβωνος εἰς τοὐμφανές, Ὁρῶ σοῦ, ἔφη (Σωκράτης), διὰ τοῦ τρίβωνος τὴν κενοδοξίαν.

195. Horat. Epistol. i. 17, 13–24; Diog. L. vi. 46–56-66.

“Si pranderet olus patienter, regibus uti

Nollet Aristippus.” “Si sciret regibus uti,

Fastidiret olus, qui me notat.” Utrius horum

Verba probes et facta, doce: vel junior audi

Cur sit Aristippi potior sententia. Namque

Mordacem Cynicum sic eludebat, ut aiunt:

“Scurror ego ipse mihi, populo tu: rectius hoc et

Splendidius multò est. Equus ut me portet, alat rex,

Officium facio: tu poscis vilia rerum,

Dante minor, quamvis fers te nullius egentem.”

Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et status, et res,

Tentantem majora, ferè præsentibus æquum.

(Compare Diog. L. ii. 102, vi. 58, where this anecdote is reported as of Plato instead of Aristippus.)

Horace’s view and scheme of life are exceedingly analogous to those of Aristippus. Plutarch, Fragm. De Homero, p. 1190; De Fortunâ Alex. p. 330 D. Diog. Laert. ii. 67. διό ποτε Στράτωνα, οἱ δὲ Πλάτωνα, πρὸς αὐτὸν εἰπεῖν, Σοὶ μόνῳ δέδοται καὶ χλανίδα φορεῖν καὶ ῥάκος. The remark cannot have been made by Straton, who was not contemporary with Aristippus. Even Sokrates lived by the bounty of his rich friends, and indeed could have had no other means of supporting his wife and children; though he accepted only a portion of what they tendered to him, declining the remainder. See the remark of Aristippus, Diog. L. ii. 74.

196. Plato, Phædon, p. 89 E. ὅτι ἄνευ τέχνης τῆς περὶ τἀνθρώπεια ὁ τοιοῦτος χρῆσθαι ἐπιχειρεῖ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις.

197. Diog. L. ii. 70; Plutarch, Fragm. Ὑπομνήματ’ εἰς Ἡσίοδον, s. 9. Ἀρίστιππος δὲ ἀπ’ ἐναντίας ὁ Σωκρατικὸς ἔλεγε, συμβούλου δεῖσθαι χεῖρον εἶναι ἢ προσαιτεῖν.

198. Diog. L. ii. 79–80. τοὺς τῶν ἐγκυκλίων παιδευμάτων μετασχόντας, φιλοσοφίας δὲ ἀπολειφθέντας, &c. Plutarch, Fragm. Στρωματέων, sect. 9.

199. Aristot. Metaph. B. 996, a 32, M. 1078, a. 35. ὥστε διὰ ταῦτα καὶ τῶν σοφιστῶν τινὲς οἷον Ἀρίστιππος προεπηλάκιζον αὐτὰς, &c.

200. Diog. L. ii. 92. Sext. Emp. adv. Math. vii. 11. Plutarch, apud Eusebium Præp. Ev. i. 8, 9.

201. Plato, Protagor. p. 318 E, where the different methods followed by Protagoras and Hippias are indicated.

202. Diog. Laert. ii. 62. Alexis Comicus ap. Athenæ. xii. 544.

Aristokles (ap. Euseb. Præp. Ev. xiv. 18) treats the first Aristippus as a mere voluptuary, who said nothing generally περὶ τοῦ τέλους. All the doctrine (he says) came from the younger Aristippus. I think this very improbable. To what did the dialogues composed by the first Aristippus refer? How did he get his reputation?

203. Several anecdotes are recounted about sayings and doings of Aristippus in his intercourse with Dionysius. Which Dionysius is meant?—the elder or the younger? Probably the elder.

It is to be remembered that Dionysius the Elder lived and reigned until the year 367 B.C., in which year his son Dionysius the Younger succeeded him. The death of Sokrates took place in 399 B.C.: between which, and the accession of Dionysius the Younger, an interval of 32 years occurred. Plato was old, being sixty years of age, when he first visited the younger Dionysius, shortly after the accession of the latter. Aristippus cannot well have been younger than Plato, and he is said to have been older than Æschines Sokraticus (D. L. ii. 83). Compare D. L. ii. 41.

When, with these dates present to our minds, we read the anecdotes recounted by Diogenes L. respecting the sayings and doings of Aristippus with Dionysius, we find: that several of them relate to the contrast between the behaviour of Aristippus and that of Plato at Syracuse. Now it is certain that Plato went once to Syracuse when he was forty years of age (Epist. vii. init.), in 387 B.C.—and according to one report (Lucian, De Parasito, 34), he went there twice—while the elder Dionysius was in the plenitude of power: but he made an unfavourable impression, and was speedily sent away in displeasure. I think it very probable that Aristippus may have visited the elder Dionysius, and may have found greater favour with him than Plato found (see Lucian, l. c.), since Dionysius was an accomplished man and a composer of tragedies. Moreover Aristippus was a Kyrenæan, and Aristippus wrote about Libya (D. L. ii. 83).

204. See the epigram of the contemporary poet, Theokritus of Chios, in Diog. L. v. 11; compare Athenæus, viii. 354, xiii. 566. Aristokles, ap. Eusebium Præp. Ev. xv. 2.

205. Diog. L. ii. 84–85.

206. Diog. L. ii. 86–87. δύο πάθη ὑφίσταντο, πόνον καὶ ἡδονήν· τὴν μὲν λείαν κίνησιν, τὴν ἡδονήν, τὸν δὲ πόνον, τραχεῖαν κίνησιν· μὴ διαφέρειν τε ἡδονὴν ἡδονῆς, μηδὲ ἥδιον τι εἶναι· καὶ τὴν μὲν, εὐδοκητὴν πᾶσι ζώοις, τὸν δὲ ἀποκρουστικόν.

207. Diog. L. ii. p. 87. μὴ διαφέρειν τε ἡδονὴν ἡδονῆς, μηδὲ ἥδιον τι εἶναι. They did not mean by these words to deny that one pleasure was more vehement and attractive than another pleasure, or that one pain is more vehement and deterrent than another pain: for it is expressly said afterwards (s. 90) that they admitted this. They meant to affirm that one pleasure did not differ from another so far forth as pleasure: that all pleasures must be ranked as a class, and compared with each other in respect of intensity, durability, and other properties possessed in greater or less degree.

208. Diog. L. ii. pp. 88–89. Athenæus, xii. p. 544.

209. Diog. L. ii. 89–90. μὴ οὔσης τῆς ἀπονίας ἢ τῆς ἀηδονίας κινήσεως, ἐπεὶ ἡ ἀπονία οἱονεὶ καθεύδοντός ἐστι κατάστασις—μέσας καταστάσεις ὠνόμαζον ἀηδονίαν καὶ ἀπονίαν.

A doctrine very different from this is ascribed to Aristippus in Galen—Placit. Philos. (xix. p. 230, Kühn). It is there affirmed that by pleasure Aristippus understood, not the pleasure of sense, but that disposition of mind whereby a person becomes insensible to pain, and hard to be imposed upon (ἀνάλγητος καὶ δυσγοήτευτος).

210. Diog. L. ii. 91.

It does not appear that the Kyrenaic sect followed out into detail the derivative pleasures and pains; nor the way in which, by force of association, these come to take precedence of the primary, exercising influence on the mind both more forcible and more constant. We find this important fact remarkably stated in the doctrine of Kalliphon.

Clemens Alexandr. Stromat. ii. p. 415, ed. 1629. Κατὰ δὲ τοὺς περὶ Καλλιφῶντα, ἕνεκα μὲν τῆς ἡδονῆς παρεισῆλθεν ἡ ἀρετή· χρόνῳ δὲ ὕστερον, τὸ περὶ αὐτὴν κάλλος κατιδοῦσα, ἰσότιμον ἑαυτὴν τῇ ἀρχῇ, τουτέστι τῇ ἡδονῇ, παρέσχεν.

211. Diog. L. ii. 91. τὴν φρόνησιν ἀγαθὸν μὲν εἶναι λέγουσιν, οὐ δι’ ἑαυτὴν δὲ αἱρετήν, ἀλλὰ διὰ τὰ ἐξ αὐτῆς περιγινόμενα· τὸν φίλον τῆς χρείας ἕνεκα· καὶ γὰρ μέρος σώματος, μέχρις ἂν παρῇ, ἀσπάζεσθαι.

The like comparison is employed by the Xenophontic Sokrates in the Memorabilia (i. 2, 52–55), that men cast away portions of their own body, so soon as these portions cease to be useful.

212. Diog. L. ii. p. 92.

213. Diog. L. ii. p. 93.

214. Diog. L. ii. p. 92. Sextus Empiric. adv. Mathemat. vi. 53.

215. Plato, Protag. p. 355 A. ἢ ἀρκεῖ ὑμῖν τὸ ἡδέως καταβιῶναι τὸν βίον ἄνευ λυπῶν; εἰ δὲ ἀρκεῖ, καὶ μὴ ἔχετε μηδὲν ἄλλο φάναι εἶναι ἀγαθὸν ἢ κακόν, ὃ μὴ εἰς ταῦτα τελευτᾷ, τὸ μετὰ τοῦτο ἀκούετε.

The exposition of this theory, by the Platonic Sokrates, occupies the latter portion of the Protagoras, from p. 351 to near the conclusion. See below, ch. xxiii. of the present work.

The language held by Aristippus to Sokrates, in the Xenophontic dialogue (Memor. ii. 1. 9), is exactly similar to that of the Platonic Sokrates, as above cited—ἐμαυτὸν τάττω εἰς τοὺς βουλομένους ᾗ ῥᾷστά τε καὶ ἥδιστα βιοτεύειν.

216. Diog. L. ii. p. 91.

217. See chapters xxiii., xxiv., xxxii. of the present work, in which I enter more fully into the differences between the Protagoras, Gorgias, and Philêbus, in respect to this point.

Aristippus agrees with the Platonic Sokrates in the Protagoras, as to the general theory of life respecting pleasure and pain.

He agrees with the Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias (see pp. 500–515), in keeping aloof from active political life. ἂ αὑτοῦ πράττειν, καὶ οὐ πολυπραγμονεῖν ἐν τῷ βίῳ—which Sokrates, in the Gorgias (p. 526 C), proclaims as the conduct of the true philosopher, proclaimed with equal emphasis by Aristippus. Compare the Platonic Apology, p. 31 D-E.

218. Aristot. Ethic. Nikom. x. 2.

219. Sydenham, in his notes on Philêbus (note 39, p. 76), accuses Aristippus and the Kyrenaics of prevarication and sophistry in the statement of their doctrine respecting Pleasure. He says that they called it indiscriminately ἀγαθὸν and τἀγαθόν—(a good—The Good)—“they used the fallacy of changing a particular term for a term which is universal, or vice versâ, by the sly omission or insertion of the definite article The before the word Good” (p. 78). He contrasts with this prevarication the ingenuousness of Eudoxus, as the advocate of Pleasure (Aristot. Eth. N. x. 2). I know no evidence for either of these allegations: either for the prevarication of Aristippus or the ingenuousness of Eudoxus.

220. Diog. L. ii. 97. Θεόδωρος—παντάπασιν ἀναιρῶν τὰς περὶ θεῶν δόξας. Diog. L. ii. 86, 97. Cicero, Tusc. Disp. i. 34, 83–84. Ἡγησίας ὁ πεισιθάνατος.

221. Diog. L. ii. 93, 94.

222. Compare the Pseudo-Platonic dialogue entitled Axiochus, pp. 366, 367, and the doctrine of Kleanthes in Sext. Empiric. adv. Mathemat. ix. 88–92. Lucretius, v. 196–234.

223. See below, vol. iii. ch. xxviii. Compare Aristokles ap. Eusebium, Præp. Ev. xiv. 18, 19, and Sextus Emp. adv. Mathemat. vii. 190–197, vi. 53. Sextus gives a summary of this doctrine of the Kyrenaics, more fair and complete than that given by Aristokles—at least so far as the extract from the latter in Eusebius enables us to judge. Aristokles impugns it vehemently, and tries to fasten upon it many absurd consequences—in my judgment without foundation. It is probable that by the term πάθος the Kyrenaics meant simply sensations internal and external: and that the question, as they handled it, was about the reality of the supposed Substratum or Object of sense, independent of any sentient Subject. It is also probable that, in explaining their views, they did not take account of the memory of past sensations—and the expectation of future sensations, in successions or conjunctions more or less similar—associating in the mind with the sensation present and actual, to form what is called a permanent object of sense. I think it likely that they set forth their own doctrine in a narrow and inadequate manner.

But this defect is noway corrected by Aristokles their opponent. On the contrary, he attacks them on their strong side: he vindicates against them the hypothesis of the ultra phenomenal, absolute, transcendental Object, independent of and apart from any sensation, present, past, or future—and from any sentient Subject. Besides that, he assumes them to deny, or ignore, many points which their theory noway requires them to deny. He urges one argument which, when properly understood, goes not against them, but strongly in their favour. “If these philosophers,” says Aristokles (Eus. xiv. 19, 1), “know that they experience sensation and perceive, they must know something beyond the sensation itself. If I say ἐγὼ καίομαι, ‘I am being burned,’ this is a proposition, not a sensation. These three things are of necessity co-essential—the sensation itself, the Object which causes it, the Subject which feels it (ἀνάγκη γε τρία ταῦτα συνυφίστασθαι—τό τε πάθος αὐτὸ καὶ τὸ ποιοῦν καὶ τὸ πάσχον).” In trying to make good his conclusion—That you cannot know the sensation without the Object of sense—Aristokles at the same time asserts that the Object cannot be known apart from the sensation, nor apart from the knowing Subject. He asserts that the three are by necessity co-essential—i.e. implicated and indivisible in substance and existence: if distinguishable therefore, distinguishable only logically (λόγῳ χωριστὰ), admitting of being looked at in different points of view. But this is exactly the case of his opponents, when properly stated. They do not deny Object: they do not deny Subject: but they deny the independent and separate existence of the one as well as of the other: they admit the two only as relative to each other, or as reciprocally implicated in the indivisible fact of cognition. The reasoning of Aristokles thus goes to prove the opinion which he is trying to refute. Most of the arguments, which Sextus adduces in favour of the Kyrenaic doctrine, show forcibly that the Objective Something, apart from its Subjective correlate, is unknowable and a non-entity; but he does not include in the Subjective as much as ought to be included; he takes note only of the present sensation, and does not include sensations remembered or anticipated. Another very forcible part of Sextus’s reasoning may be found, vii. sect. 269–272, where he shows that a logical Subject per se is undefinable and inconceivable—that those who attempt to define Man (e.g.) do so by specifying more or fewer of the predicates of Man—and that if you suppose all the predicates to vanish, the Subject vanishes along with them.