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Efforts toward Reconciliation. The theories of Heracleitus and Parmenides were in part fantastic and in part abstract. They were the two motives of the Milesian school that had been developed so far as to reveal their inherent inconsistencies.

Physical theories now began to spring up which modified the metaphysical theories; and these produced results which while not so logical, were less distant from the facts of life. The Eleatics had so conceived Being as to deny the existence of changing phenomena perceived in the world of nature. On the other hand, Heracleitus had so emphasized the universality of change that there was little reality left in the particular changes. The later Heracleitans were Heracleitus gone mad. “We not only cannot step into the same river twice, but we cannot do it once.” All the preceding philosophers had been monists. The time had therefore come for thinkers to abandon monism if thought were to have any usefulness. Monism, whether in the form of Heracleitus’ doctrine of universal change or of Parmenides’ doctrine of universal permanence, had merely set aside the problem about the Many. Of course, a more satisfactory solution of this problem could come only when human life had become riper and had more experiences upon which to draw. It was natural for the Greek philosopher to look now to pluralism for his solution, when he turned away from monism. At the outset pluralism tried to reconcile the two extremes to which the Milesian motifs had gone. Its later development in the doctrine of Protagoras was as extreme as that of the monists.

The New Conception of Change of the Pluralists. Facing the fact that change has to be explained and cannot be denied, change is conceived by the pluralists to be not a transformation but a transposition. It is an alteration in position of the parts of a mass. Birth, growth, death, are only such changes of transposition. Empedocles, to whom the origin of the doctrine is attributed, says, “There is no coming into Being of aught that perishes, nor any end for it in baneful death, but only a mingling and a separation of what has been mingled. Just as when painters are elaborating temple offerings,—they, when they have taken the pigments of many colors in their hands, mix them in a harmony,—so let not the error prevail in thy mind that there is any other source of all the perishable creatures that appear in countless numbers.” All origination, then, is a new combination, and every destruction only a separation of the original parts. The Pluralists thus make Heracleitus’ conception useful in the explanation of nature.

The New Conception of the Unchanging of the Pluralists—The Element. But there must be a permanence in order that there be change. This can only be conceived by assuming that there are many original units that in themselves do not change. The mass of the world is ever the same; there is no new creation. Being consists in many elements, and not in a single block. So to Empedocles in particular is accredited the priority of forming the conception of the element, which has occupied an important place in science. The element is conceived by the Pluralists as unoriginated, imperishable, and unchanging. It has all the qualities that Parmenides attributed to his single Being, only the elements may change their place and suffer mechanical division. The Pluralists thus make the Eleatic conception useful in the explanation of nature.

The Introduction of the Conception of the Efficient Cause. The Eleatics had detached the quality of motion from Being. The Pluralists, in reintroducing it, were obliged to make it a separate force in order to get movement into their universe. The elements are changeless. How can they move? They cannot move themselves. They are moved from without. Here in Empedocles is made a differentiation of great importance—the concept of the moving or efficient cause. However, this does not appear in this early time in conceptual but in mythical-poetic and undefined form. With this differentiated efficient cause, can Pluralism be considered to be hylozoism? Authorities differ. Certainly this new concept shows the beginning of the breaking up of hylozoism and the beginning of the formation of a mechanistic conception of the universe. But probably the Pluralists were as much hylozoists as their predecessors, the monists. Their efficient causes are material like the elements, and they are poetically and indefinitely described. They are in every case conceived as the material which has a lively or an originating motion. We must keep in mind that all the Cosmologists except the Eleatics believed movement to be life.

Summary of Similarities and Differences in the Theories of the Reconcilers.

The general common characteristics of the theories of the Reconcilers:—

1. A plurality of the elements.

2. An efficient cause which explains the shifting of the elements in causing the origin, growth, and decay of the world of nature.

The general differences between the theories of the Reconcilers:—

1. In the number and quality of the elements.

2. In the number and quality of the causes.

The Pluralistic Philosophers: Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus, and the Later Pythagoreans. With the Pluralists we pass completely out of the sixth century B.C. The lives of the hylozoistic Pluralists span the fifth century, and cosmological interest extends later. Even the Eleatic Zeno lived from 490 to 430 B.C. Empedocles lived from 490 to 430 B.C., Anaxagoras from 500 to 425 B.C., and the Pythagoreans and Leucippus later. When the cosmological movement was still virile in the Grecian colonies, and even before it had reached its systematic form in Democritus of Abdera, the anthropological movement had begun in the motherland, in Athens. The Persian Wars are the dividing line between the two periods, but only because they denote the beginning of the new movement in Athens, not the end of the old movement in Asia Minor and Magna Græcia. Contemporaneous with the Pluralists was the brilliant Age of Pericles, when the Sophists were carrying education to the people and Socrates was teaching in the Athenian market-place. By the middle of the fifth century B.C. there was the liveliest interchange of scientific ideas throughout Greek society, and the contemporaneousness of the Pluralists with one another and with the Athenian philosophers shows this in many similarities in their doctrines and in many polemical references. There are four schools of Reconcilers, of which Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus, and the later Pythagoreans are the representatives.

Empedocles11 (490 to 430 B.C.) was the first Dorian philosopher, a partisan of the democracy, and belonged to a rich family of Agrigentum. He became a distinguished statesman, but he later fell from popular favor. Then, in the garb of a magician, he traveled as physician and priest through Magna Græcia. His political affiliations would prevent his direct connection with the Pythagoreans, but he showed that the Pythagoreans influenced him, and his career is an imitation of that of Pythagoras. He was acquainted with the theory of Heracleitus, and he knew Parmenides personally. He was one of the first rhetoricians, and was probably connected with a large literary circle. He is the first and most imperfect representative of the reconciliation. The story of his suicide by leaping into Mt.Ætna is supposed to be a myth.

Anaxagoras (500–425 B.C.), a man of wealthy antecedents, was much esteemed, was born in Clazomenæ in a circle rich in Ionian culture, but was isolated from practical life. He declared the heaven to be his fatherland and the study of the heavenly bodies to be his life’s task. He went to Athens about 450 B.C., where he formed one of a circle of notable men of culture. He lived in Athens under the patronage of Pericles, but in 434 B.C. he was expelled. In Athens he was intimate with such men as Euripides, Thucydides, and Protagoras. He represents the first appearance of philosophy in Athens.

The life of Leucippus is almost unknown. He was probably born in Miletus, visited Elea, and settled in Abdera.

The Later Pythagoreans. After the Pythagoreans as a religious and political body had been defeated at Crotona, they lost their prestige and were scattered to the four winds. They were beaten in the battle of Crotona (510 B.C.) and dispersed about 450 B.C. Pythagoras died 504 B.C. His scattered followers, these later Pythagoreans, formed a school of philosophy which had its centre at Thebes. Destroyed as a religious body the members lost their superstitions and turned their attention to philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, and physics. As mathematicians and as astronomers they are the most notable among the ancients. Philolaus is the probable originator of their philosophy of numbers. This school disappeared about 350 B.C. Pythagoreanism reappeared later under the name of neo-Pythagoreanism.

The Philosophy of Empedocles. Empedocles conceived the number of elements to be four,—earth, air, fire, and water,—an arbitrary enumeration, which nevertheless persisted in the popular imagination throughout the Middle Ages. He chose this number of elements because they included all the elements in his predecessors’ theories. By the transposition and new arrangement of these elements he could account for the variety of the world. The efficient causes that make these different separations and mixtures are Love and Hate, two mythical and sensuous entities. Love is the cause of the union of things, Hate of their separation.

This is the general metaphysical theory that Empedocles uses to explain the physical world and especially physiological phenomena; and he is probably best known as the author of the aphorism, “Like attracts Like.” For example, he conceives the physical world as continuously repeating itself through four cosmic stages, each centuries long. The world moves therefore in cyclical evolution, in which Love is bringing like elements together only to be followed by stages of the separation of the like elements by Hate,—an endless cosmic procession.

But Empedocles’ interest in cosmology was only a part of his dominating interest in the organic world. He held some interesting evolution theories. His special interest in human physiology led him to frame the first theory of perception. Man is composed of the four elements, and he can know the universe around himself because Like in him attracts Like in the external world. The earth forms our solid parts, water the liquid parts, air is the vital breath, and fire is the soul. The blood contains the four elements, and is therefore the real carrier of life. If we perceive anything, it is because we have qualities similar to that thing. The element in us attracts the like element outside. He fancifully explained how parts of each element pressed upon parts of like elements—earth upon earth, air upon air; and how these clung together until sundered by Hate. The senses have only a partial number of elements, while the reason has them all; therefore sense knowledge is partial when compared with rational knowledge.

The Philosophy of Anaxagoras. The pluralistic conception of the nature-substance, that was originated by Empedocles in this crude form, got a more complete character in the hands of Anaxagoras. For Anaxagoras took exception to the arbitrary assumption of Empedocles that the elements were only four in number. How could this world of infinite variety be derived from only four elements? We must postulate as many elements as there are qualities, if by merely shuffling them—by various combinings and separatings of them—their infinite number is to be explained. There are a plural number of elements qualitatively distinct. Every perceptual thing is composed of these heterogeneous parts or qualities or elements. But how do you know an element when you find one? Always by the fact that when you divide it, its parts are homogeneous. The elements are, therefore, those substances that divide into parts that are like one another; while the perceptual objects of nature can be divided into parts that are unlike one another. They are called “seeds” by Anaxagoras, and designated as “homoiomeriai” by Aristotle and later philosophy. This was a time, it must be remembered, when chemical analysis had not developed, and when mechanical division and change of temperature were the only means of investigation. Form, color, and taste were the characteristics that differentiated elements. So Anaxagoras was content to name as elements such things as bones, muscles, flesh, marrow, metals, etc. The countless elements or qualities are present in a finely divided state throughout the universe. Every perceptual object has present in it all elements, even opposite elements. It is, however, known and named by the element that prevails in it at any particular instant. For example, fire contains an element of cold but the fire element prevails. Opposites attract, and the qualitative change in a thing consists in the predominance of some other quality already present in it.

For the efficient cause of the combining and separating of the elements Anaxagoras selected one of the elements. He called it the Nous, the Greek word for mind or reason. Many historians have therefore concluded that Anaxagoras is the author of an idealistic philosophy. Aristotle says of Anaxagoras that he “stood out like a sober man among the random talkers that had preceded him.” But both Plato12 and Aristotle are disappointed with the way in which Anaxagoras handles the conception of Nous and, as a matter of fact, the Nous, as Anaxagoras uses it, is not less hylozoistic than the Love and Hate of Empedocles. In the Nous Anaxagoras threw out a thought that was too big for him. Its introduction, however, marks the breaking up of pre-Socratic hylozoism. Anaxagoras wrote down the word, Nous, from which comes the contrast with matter. He stripped the mythical dress from the efficient cause of Empedocles and substituted Nous, because he wished to emphasize the unity of the cosmic process. The Nous is one of the elements; it is “thought-stuff,” it is a corporeal substance. It differs from all the other elements in that it is the finest, the most mobile, and has the power of self-motion. If among the early schools motion is life, here we find the new conception of self-motion as most alive. Instead of a departure from hylozoism, this is a rehabilitation of hylozoism in more perfect form. The Nous is the cause of the harmony and order of the cosmos.

The Philosophy of the Atomists—Leucippus and the School at Abdera. Only circumstantial evidence is left to testify to the early beginnings of the school of atomists at Abdera. About 450 B.C., owing to the rise of Athens and the great victory of Cimon over the Persians, the Ionian civilization on the coasts of Asia Minor had a new lease of life, and there was a renewal of scientific activity in the cities. The influence of the Milesians appeared and Anaxagoras’ doctrine, which had been widely disseminated, began to have great vigor. Among the philosophers of this section was one about whom we know very little, except that his name was Leucippus and that he was the father of atomism. Miletus was probably his native place, and after visiting Elea he settled in Abdera in Thrace. We know that the polemic of Zeno was directed against contemporary atomism; and we know the theories of the pupils of Leucippus, of Protagoras, and of Democritus, in whom the doctrine of atomism culminated. Probably the theory of Leucippus was that the cosmic substance is composed of an infinite number of elements quantitatively distinct, in opposition to Empedocles’ theory of a fourfold division as well as against Anaxagoras’ theory of an infinite number of qualities. Atomism in this early form represents one of the ways that Greek thought took in reconciling the conflicting claims of Heracleitus and Parmenides. The doctrine of atomism will be presented fully in its greatest representative, Democritus.

The Later Pythagoreans. Had the Pythagorean band remained what Pythagoras had designed it, had it not had its political aspirations crushed at the battle of Crotona and the members scattered far and wide, it would probably have for the historian of to-day only the importance of a local band of political and religious reformers. The adversity at Crotona was, however, a blessing in disguise for the Pythagoreans and for Greece, for it turned the Pythagoreans from religious politics to science and metaphysics. In the first place, they became the authors of an important metaphysical theory. This was the theory of numbers, which influenced Plato, became the foundation of a vigorous school in Alexandria in the Hellenic-Roman Period, flourished during the Middle Ages, and united with the doctrines of the Jews in what is called the Cabala. To-day the magic numbers persist in our superstitions. In the second place, the Pythagoreans turned to science,—especially to mathematics and astronomy,—and in these two branches became very celebrated in ancient times. Their astronomical theory had a most extraordinary history. With modifications it was preserved by Plato and Aristotle, and later became the basis of the Ptolemaic system of astronomy. This system was the scientifically accepted system for fifteen hundred years, when it was supplanted by the Newtonian theory. It is a most singular fact that the cosmological background of the Epics of Dante and Milton is the astronomical system of the Pythagoreans as expressed in the Ptolemaic system.

The Pythagoreans, be it remarked, were “Reconcilers,” but they were more. The original ethical motive of Pythagoras influenced them as scientists. They did not attempt to formulate a science of ethics, but the ethical motive was always back of their mathematics and astronomy.

1. The Pythagorean Conception of Being. The Pythagorean conception of reality is the most advanced of any cosmological theory in this period. The Pythagoreans were hylozoists, but they come the nearest to transcending the hylozoism of their time. The influence of the later Pythagoreans, whom Plato met in Italy, upon Plato shows that Pythagorean philosophy forms a link between the cosmology of the colonies and the following comprehensive systems of thought.

The important position in the evolution of Greek thought occupied by the Pythagoreans depends upon their conception of that Being that abides amid all change. Pythagoreanism is usually spoken of as “the number theory.” This is, however, only a suggestion of its import. For numbers are not to the Pythagoreans what the different kinds of cosmic matter were to the early monists, or what the several elements were to the pluralists,—Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and the atomists. Neither are they abstractions merely, such as we use in scientific reckoning. The Pythagoreans were pluralists and hylozoists whose plural numbers look beyond hylozoism.

There are two kinds of reality in the Pythagorean teaching: (1)numbers, and (2)unlimited space. The essential nature of things, the Being that abides, consists in the shaping of this unlimited space into mathematical forms. The numbers or the forms are the limited aspect of Being; space is the unlimited aspect of Being. Actual Being consists in the union of the two aspects. Being therefore has two roots, each being necessary to the other. The later Pythagoreans, indeed, called attention to the fact that their numbers were not the same as the different kinds of matter out of which the other Cosmologists conceived the world to be fashioned. Numbers are not the stuff out of which the world of nature-objects have arisen, but rather are forms of nature-objects. Numbers are the patterns or models of things; things are the copies or imitations of numbers. Unlimited space furnishes the material; numbers or mathematical forms furnish the mould; the result is a material thing. Here we find the early basis of Plato’s doctrine of Ideas, and the correlation in Aristotle of Form and matter. If we were to draw an analogy between the Pythagorean conception of numbers and any part of the preceding cosmological teaching, we should find the similarity between the numbers and the earlier efficient causes and not between the numbers and the elements. For example, Pythagorean numbers have a function more nearly like Love and Hate than like the four elements in Empedocles’ teaching. On the other hand, Pythagorean unlimited space is analogous to the Empedoclean elements.

2. The Pythagorean Dualistic World.13 The Pythagoreans carried out their conception of this twofold reality both in their mathematical studies and in their conceptions of natural objects. It was from such investigations that they were impressed by the dualism in everything and so reached their principle. They observed in mathematics that the number-series consists of alternate odd and even numbers. The odd numbers are limited and the even unlimited (because they could be divided). They explained the elements as determined by mathematical forms: fire has the form of a tetrahedron; earth, of the cube; air, of the octohedron; water, of the icosahedron; and an additional fifth element, the æther, of the dodecahedron. They carried this dualism further by identifying the limited form with the odd, with the perfect, and with the good; while the unlimited was identified with the even, the imperfect, and the bad. Some of the Pythagoreans even sought to trace out this dualism in the many realms of experience, and they originated a table of ten pairs of opposites: limited and unlimited; odd and even; one and many; right and left; male and female; rest and motion; straight and crooked; light and dark; good and bad; square and oblong.

There is a system in the Pythagorean theory not to be found in the teaching of the other reconcilers. Although all the numbers, and with them all the world, are divided into two opposing classes, these are, nevertheless, united in a harmony. The harmony of a dualism reminds us of Heracleitus’ harmony of antitheses. All series of numbers have their unity and harmony in the odd-even number, One. To the Pythagorean the opposites of life—the good and the bad, the limited and unlimited, the perfect and imperfect, the odd and even—exist in an harmonious whole.

As the Pythagorean school grew in years, the realms to which it applied its theory increased. While we have stated its metaphysical theory first in order to give it prominence, the school came to the formulation of its theory through its investigations in mathematics, music, and astronomy. Then it applied the theory to geometrical structures and to other fields with a procedure that was arbitrary and unmethodical. Yet so universal was the application of the theory that it lived to have superstitious authority for the human mind in the Middle Ages.

3. Pythagorean Astronomy. The formation of the world-all began from the One, or central fire, which attracted and limited the nearest portions of the unlimited. This fire became the centre of the world-all, which had the shape of a hollow globe. Around the central fire the celestial bodies move in globular transparent shells. Their movements are concentric to the fire. This is the beginning of the astronomical theory of the crystalline spheres. The world-all is divided into three concentric portions. The periphery or outer rim is Olympus, where all is perfection and where the gods dwell. Between Olympus and the moon is Cosmos, where all is orderly and all movements are in circles. Between the moon and the central fire is the region called Uranus, where all is disorderly and the movements are up and down. The earth is in this lower section of disorder, and moves in a transparent globular shell like the celestial bodies around the central fire. The number of the heavenly bodies is the perfect number, ten. The world-all is conceived as a heavenly heptachord, with the orbits of the seven planets as the sounding strings. Upon this notion was founded the harmony of the spheres, which harmony is not heard by man because it is constant. In modifying this astronomical theory and then accepting it, the most important change that Aristotle made was to conceive the earth as at the centre of the world-all with the sun revolving about it. This was the form in which the Ptolemaic astronomers received it.

Historical Retrospect. In these many searchings of the Cosmologists for a reality amid the changes of nature, what result can be found significant for the Cosmological Period and valuable as a bequest for the following periods? Are these crude scientific speculations of the early Greeks to be looked upon as out of connection with their own age and the age to come? The Cosmological philosophy had two definite results. In the first place, with reference to its own century and a half, it saved the intellectual world of Greece from the slavery of a mystic religion. When we started with Thales in 625 B.C., we saw Greece confronted with two perils. One was political, and consisted of internecine troubles and of danger from its warlike neighbors. This peril grew still greater, until at the very end of the period it was averted at the battle of Salamis. Greek arms banished this political peril. But the other peril was subjective and therefore more menacing. The mysteries of the Orphic religion would have quenched the Greek genius had not its rational philosophy given the Greek intellectual life new conceptions. In the next place, it bequeathed to the succeeding period a fairly well-drawn contrast between a world of intellectual order and a world of sensuous disorder. The thought of an order in nature in conformity to law was developed into clearness in the Cosmological Period. The order was obtained from the astronomical studies of these scientists. Reasoning from the order that they saw, to an ordering principle, Anaxagoras and the Pythagoreans almost, but not quite, gave to that principle a teleological meaning. The principle of permanence that these nature scientists sought was found in the great and simple relations of the stars, whose revolutions are the expression of order and constancy. Impregnated as they were with their elemental hylozoism, the Greek Cosmologists were as yet not quite able to find an orderly permanence in the terrestrial world with its manifold and intersecting motions. Yet Greek thought was looking forward. The Cosmologist had already contrasted the terrestrial as the imperfect with the celestial as the perfect peace and permanence. The step was but a short one from the contrast of the two realms to the effort to bring them into a unity. Thus in this astronomical and concrete form a distinction of value was obtained that had lasting ethical and æsthetical significance, not only upon Plato and Aristotle, but upon modern thought.