History of the Intellectual Development of Europe Volume I Part 18

[Sidenote: His mystical philosophy.]

In this final period of Greek philosophy, the first to whom we must turn is Philo the Jew, who lived in the time of the Emperor Caligula. In harmony with the ideas of his nation, he derives all philosophy and useful knowledge from the Mosaic record, not hesitating to wrest Scripture to his use by various allegorical interpretations, a.s.serting that man has fallen from his primitive wisdom and purity; that physical inquiry is of very little avail, but that an innocent life and a burning faith are what we must trust to. He persuaded himself that a certain inspiration fell upon him while he was in the act of writing, somewhat like that of the penmen of the Holy Scriptures. His readers may, however, be disposed to believe that herein he was self-deceived, judging both from the character of his composition and the nature of his doctrine. As respects the former, he writes feebly, is vacillating in his views, and, when watched in his treatment of a difficult point, is seen to be wavering and unsteady. As respects the latter, among other extraordinary things he teaches that the world is the chief angel or first son of G.o.d; he combines all the powers of G.o.d into one force, the Logos or holy Word, the highest powers being creative wisdom and governing mercy. From this are emitted all the mundane forces; and, since G.o.d cannot do evil, the existence of evil in the world must be imputed to these emanating forces. It is very clear, therefore, that though Philo declined Oriental pantheism, he laid his foundation on the Oriental theory of Emanation.

[Sidenote: Apollonius of Tyana.]

[Sidenote: Is a miracle-worker and prophet.]

As aiding very greatly in the popular introduction of Orientalism, Apollonius of Tyana must be mentioned. Under the auspices of the Empress Julia Domna, in a biographical composition, Philostratus had the audacity to inst.i.tute a parallel between this man and our Saviour. He was a miracle-worker, given to soothsaying and prophesying, led the life of an ascetic, his raiment and food being of the poorest. He attempted a reformation of religious rites and morals; denied the efficacy of sacrifice, subst.i.tuting for it a simple wors.h.i.+p and a pure prayer, scarce even needing words. He condemned the poets for propagating immoral fables of the G.o.ds, since they had thereby brought impurity into religion. He maintained the doctrine of transmigration.

[Sidenote: Plutarch leans to patronizing Orientalism.]

[Sidenote: Numenius inclines to a trinitarian philosophy.]

Plutarch, whose time reaches to the Emperor Hadrian, has exercised an influence, through certain peculiarities of his style, which has extended even to us. As a philosopher he is to be cla.s.sed among the Platonists, yet with a predominance of the prevailing Orientalism. His mental peculiarities seem to have unfitted him for an acceptance of the national faith, and his works commend themselves rather by the pleasant manner in which he deals with the topic on which he treats than by a deep philosophy. In some respects an a.n.a.logy may be discerned between his views and those of Philo, the Isis of the one corresponding to the Word of the other. This disposition to Orientalism occurs still more strongly in succeeding writers; for example, Lucius Apuleius the Numidian, and Numenius: the latter embracing the opinion that had now become almost universal--that all Greek philosophy was originally brought from the East. In his doctrine a trinity is a.s.sumed, the first person of which is reason; the second the principle of becoming, which is a dual existence, and so gives rise to a third person, these three persons const.i.tuting, however, only one G.o.d. Having indicated the occurrence of this idea, it is not necessary for us to inquire more particularly into its details. As philosophical conceptions, none of the trinities of the Greeks will bear comparison with those of ancient Egypt, Amun, Maut, and Khonso, Osiris, Isis, and Horus; nor with those of India, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, the Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer, or, the Past, the Present, and the Future of the Buddhists.

[Sidenote: Ammonius Saccas founds Neo-Platonism.]

The doctrines of Numenius led directly to those of Neo-Platonism, of which, however, the origin is commonly imputed to Ammonius Saccas of Alexandria, toward the close of the second century after Christ. The views of this philosopher do not appear to have been committed to writing. They are known to us through his disciples Longinus and Plotinus chiefly. Neo-Platonism, a.s.suming the aspect of a philosophical religion, is distinguished for the conflict it maintained with the rising power of Christianity. Alexandria was the scene of this contest.

The school which there arose lasted for about 300 years. Its history is not only interesting to us from its antagonism to that new power which soon was to conquer the Western world, but also because it was the expiring effort of Grecian philosophy.

[Sidenote: Plotinus, a Mystic. Reunion with G.o.d.]

Plotinus, an Egyptian, was born about A.D. 204. He studied at Alexandria, and is said to have spent eleven years under Ammonius Saccas. He accompanied the expedition of the Emperor Gordian to Persia and India, and, escaping from its disasters, opened a philosophical school in Rome. In that city he was held in the highest esteem by the Emperor Gallienus; the Empress Salonina intended to build a city, in which Plotinus might inaugurate the celebrated Republic of Plato. The plan was not, however, carried out. With the best intention for promoting the happiness of man, Plotinus is to be charged with no little obscurity and mysticism. Eunapius says truly that the heavenly elevation of his mind and his perplexed style make him very tiresome and unpleasant. His repulsiveness is, perhaps, in a measure due to his want of skill in the art of composition, for he did not learn to write till he was fifty years old. He professed a contempt for the advantages of life and for its pursuits. He disparaged patriotism. An ascetic in his habits, eating no flesh and but little bread, he held his body in utter contempt, saying that it was only a phantom and a clog to his soul. He refused to remember his birthday. As has frequently been the case with those who have submitted to prolonged fasting and meditation, he believed that he had been privileged to see G.o.d with his bodily eye, and on six different occasions had been reunited to him. In such a mental condition, it may well be supposed that his writings are mysterious, inconsequent and diffuse. An air of Platonism mingled with many Oriental ideas and ancient Egyptian recollections, pervades his works.

[Sidenote: The trinity of Plotinus.]

[Sidenote: Ecstasy; communion with the invisible.]

Like many of his predecessors, Plotinus recognized a difference between the mental necessities of the educated and the vulgar, justifying mythology on the ground that it was very useful to those who were not yet emanc.i.p.ated from the sensible. Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, referring to mythology and the G.o.ds in human form, had remarked, "Much has been mythically added for the persuasion of the mult.i.tude, and also on account of the laws and for other useful ends." But Plotinus also held that the G.o.ds are not to be moved by prayer, and that both they and the daemons occasionally manifest themselves visibly; that incantations may be lawfully practised, and are not repugnant to philosophy. In the body he discerns a penitential mechanism for the soul. He believes that the external world is a mere phantom--a dream--and the indications of the senses altogether deceptive. The union with the divinity of which he speaks he describes as an intoxication of the soul which, forgetting all external things, becomes lost in the contemplation of "the One." The doctrinal philosophy of Plotinus presents a trinity in accordance with the Platonic idea. (1.) The One, or Prime essence. (2.) The Reason. (3.) The Soul. Of the first he declares that it is impossible to speak fully, and in what he says on this point there are many apparent contradictions, as when he denies oneness to the one. His ideas of the trinity are essentially based on the theory of emanation. He describes how the second principle issues by emanation out of the first, and the third out of the second. The mechanism of this process may be ill.u.s.trated by recalling how from the body of the sun issues forth light, and from light emerges heat. In the procession of the third from the second principle it is really Thought arising from Reason; but Thought is the Soul. The mundane soul he considers as united to nothing; but on these details he falls into much mysticism, and it is often difficult to see clearly his precise meaning, as when he says that Reason is surrounded by Eternity, but the Soul is surrounded by Time. He carries Idealism to its last extreme, and, as has been said, looks upon the visible world as a semblance only, deducing from his doctrine moral reflections to be a comfort in the trials of life. Thus he says that "sensuous life is a mere stage-play; all the misery in it is only imaginary, all grief a mere cheat of the players." "The soul is not in the game; it looks on, while nothing more than the external phantom weeps and laments." "Pa.s.sive affections and misery light only on the outward shadow of man." The great end of existence is to draw the soul from external things and fasten it in contemplation on G.o.d. Such considerations teach us a contempt for virtue as well as for vice: "Once united with G.o.d, man leaves the virtues, as on entering the sanctuary he leaves the images of the G.o.ds in the ante-temple behind." Hence we should struggle to free ourselves from everything low and mean: to cultivate truth, and devote life to intimate communion with G.o.d, divesting ourselves of all personality, and pa.s.sing into the condition of ecstasy, in which the soul is loosened from its material prison, separated from individual consciousness, and absorbed in the infinite intelligence from which it emanated. "In ecstasy it contemplates real existence; it identifies itself with that which it contemplates." Our reminiscence pa.s.ses into intuition. In all these views of Plotinus the tincture of Orientalism predominates; the principles and practices are altogether Indian. The Supreme Being of the system is the "unus qui est omnia;" the intention of the theory of emanation is to find a philosophical connexion between him and the soul of man; the process for pa.s.sing into ecstasy by sitting long in an invariable posture, by looking steadfastly at the tip of the nose, or by observing for a long time an unusual or definite manner of breathing, had been familiar to the Eastern devotees, as they are now to the impostors of our own times; the result is not celestial, but physiological. The pious Hindus were, however, a.s.sured that, as water will not wet the lotus, so, though sin may touch, it can never defile the soul after a full intuition of G.o.d.

[Sidenote: Porphyry--his writings destroyed;]

[Sidenote: resorts to magic and necromancy.]

The opinions of Plotinus were strengthened and diffused by his celebrated pupil Porphyry, who was born at Tyre A.D. 233. After the death of Plotinus he established a school in Rome, attaining great celebrity in astronomy, music, geography, and other sciences. His treatise against Christianity was answered by Eusebius, St. Jerome, and others; the Emperor Theodosius the Great, however, silenced it more effectually by causing all the copies to be burned. Porphyry a.s.serts his own unworthiness when compared with his master, saying that he had been united to G.o.d but once in eighty-six years, whereas Plotinus had been so united six times in sixty years. In him is to be seen all the mysticism, and, it may be added, all the piety of Plotinus. He speaks of daemons shapeless, and therefore invisible; requiring food, and not immortal; some of which rule the air, and may be propitiated or restrained by magic: he admits also the use of necromancy. It is scarcely possible to determine how much this inclination of the Neo-Platonists to the unlawful art is to be regarded as a concession to the popular sentiment of the times, for elsewhere Porphyry does not hesitate to condemn soothsaying and divination, and to dwell upon the folly of invoking the G.o.ds in making bargains, marriages, and such-like trifles. He strenuously enjoins a holy life in view of the fact that man has fallen both from his ancient purity and knowledge. He recommends a wors.h.i.+p in silence and pure thought, the public wors.h.i.+p being of very secondary importance. He also insists on an abstinence from animal food.

[Sidenote: Iamblicus a wonder-worker.]

The cultivation of magic and the necromantic art was fully carried out in Iamblicus, a Coelo-Syrian, who died in the reign of Constantine the Great. It is scarcely necessary to relate the miracles and prodigies he performed, though they received full credence in those superst.i.tious times; how, by the intensity of his prayers, he raised himself unsupported nine feet above the ground; how he could make rays of a blinding effulgence play round his head; how, before the bodily eyes of his pupils, he evoked two visible daemonish imps. Nor is it necessary to mention the opinions of aedesius, Chrysanthus, or Maximus.

[Sidenote: Proclus unites emanation with mysticism.]

For a moment, however, we may turn to Proclus, who was born in Constantinople A.D. 412. When Vitalian laid siege to Constantinople, Proclus is said to have burned his s.h.i.+ps with a polished bra.s.s mirror.

It is scarcely possible for us to determine how much truth there is in this, since similar authority affirms that he could produce rain and earthquakes. His theurgic propensities are therefore quite distinct.

Yet, notwithstanding these superhuman powers, together with special favours displayed to him by Apollo, Athene, and other divinities, he found it expedient to cultivate his rites in secret, in terror of persecution by the Christians, whose attention he had drawn upon himself by writing a work in opposition to them. Eventually they succeeded in expelling him from Athens, thereby teaching him a new interpretation of the moral maxim he had adopted, "Live concealed." It was the aim of Proclus to construct a complete theology, which should include the theory of emanation, and be duly embellished with mysticism. The Orphic poems and Chaldaean oracles were the basis upon which he commenced; his character may be understood from the dignity he a.s.sumed as "high priest of the universe." He recommended to his disciples the study of Aristotle for the sake of cultivating the reason, but enjoined that of Plato, whose works he found to be full of sublime allegories suited to his purpose. He a.s.serted that to know one's own mind is to know the whole universe, and that that knowledge is imparted to us by revelations and illuminations of the G.o.ds.

[Sidenote: Justinian puts an end to philosophy.]

He speculates on the manner in which absorption is to take place; whether the last form can pa.s.s at once into the primitive, or whether it is needful for it to resume, in a returning succession, the intervening states of its career. From such elevated ideas, considering the mystical manner in which they were treated, there was no other prospect for philosophy than to end as Neo-Platonism did under Damasius. The final days were approaching. The Emperor Justinian prohibited the teaching of philosophy, and closed its schools in Athens A.D. 529. Its last representatives, Damasius, Simplicius, and Isidorus, went as exiles to Persia, expecting to find a retreat under the protection of the great king, who boasted that he was a philosopher and a Platonist.

Disappointed, they were fain to return to their native land; and it must be recorded to the honour of Chosroes that, in his treaty of peace with the Romans, he stipulated safety and toleration for these exiles, vainly hoping that they might cultivate their philosophy and practise their rites without molestation.

So ends Greek philosophy. She is abandoned, and preparation made for crowning Faith in her stead. The inquiries of the Ionians, the reasoning of the Eleatics, the labours of Plato, of Aristotle, have sunk into mysticism and the art of the conjurer. As with the individual man, so with philosophy in its old age: when all else had failed it threw itself upon devotion, seeking consolation in the exercises of piety--a frame of mind in which it was ready to die. The whole period from the New Academy shows that the grand attempt, every year becoming more and more urgent, was to find a system which should be in harmony with that feeling of religious devotion into which the Roman empire had fallen--a feeling continually gathering force. An air of piety, though of a most delusive kind, had settled upon the whole pagan world.

[Sidenote: Summary of Greek philosophy.]

From the long history of Greek philosophy presented in the foregoing pages, we turn, 1st, to an investigation of the manner of progress of the Greek mind; and, 2nd, to the results to which it attained.

The period occupied by the events we have been considering extends over almost twelve centuries. It commences with Thales, B.C. 636, and ends A.D. 529.

[Sidenote: Age of Inquiry--its solutions.]

[Sidenote: First problem. Origin of the world.]

1st. Greek philosophy commenced on the foundation of physical suggestions. Its first object was the determination of the origin and manner of production of the world. The basis upon which it rested was in its nature unsubstantial, for it included intrinsic errors due to imperfect and erroneous observations. It diminished the world and magnified man, accepting the apparent aspect of Nature as real, and regarding the earth as a flat surface, on which the sky was sustained like a dome. It limited the boundaries of the terrestrial plane to an insignificant extent, and a.s.serted that it was the special and exclusive property of man. The stars and other heavenly bodies it looked upon as mere meteors or manifestations of fire. With superficial simplicity, it received the notions of absolute directions in s.p.a.ce, up and down, above and below. In a like spirit is adopted, from the most general observation, the doctrine of four elements, those forms of substance naturally presented to us in a predominating quant.i.ty--earth, water, air, fire. From these slender beginnings it made its first attempt at a cosmogony, or theory of the mode of creation, by giving to one of these elements a predominance or superiority over the other three, and making them issue from it. With one teacher the primordial element was water; with another, air; with another, fire. Whether a genesis had thus taken place, or whether all four elements were co-ordinate and equal, the production of the world was of easy explanation; for, by calling in the aid of ordinary observation, which a.s.sures us that mud will sink to the bottom of water, that water will fall through air, that it is the apparent nature of fire to ascend, and, combining these illusory facts with the erroneous notion of up and down in s.p.a.ce, the arrangement of the visible world became clear--the earth down below, the water floating upon it, the air above, and, still higher, the region of fire. Thus it appears that the first inquiry made by European philosophy was, Whence and in what manner came the world?

[Sidenote: Its irreligious solution thereof.]

The principles involved in the solution of this problem evidently led to a very important inference, at this early period betraying what was before long to become a serious point of dispute. It is natural for man to see in things around him visible tokens of divinity, continual providential dispensations. But in this, its very first act, Greek philosophy had evidently excluded G.o.d from his own world. This settling of the heavy, this ascending of the light, was altogether a purely physical affair; the limitless sea, the blue air, and the unnumbered s.h.i.+ning stars, were set in their appropriate places, not at the pleasure or by the hand of G.o.d, but by innate properties of their own. Popular superst.i.tion was in some degree appeased by the localization of deities in the likeness of men in a starry Olympus above the sky, a region furnis.h.i.+ng unsubstantial glories and a tranquil abode. And yet it is not possible to exclude altogether the spiritual from this world. The soul, ever active and ever thinking, a.s.serts its kindred with the divine. What is that soul? Such was the second question propounded by Greek philosophy.

[Sidenote: Second problem. What is the soul?]

[Sidenote: Its material solution thereof.]

A like course of superficial observation was resorted to in the solution of this inquiry. To breathe is to live; then the breath is the life. If we cease to breathe we die. Man only becomes a living soul when the breath of life enters his nostrils; he is a senseless and impa.s.sive form when the last breath is expired. In this life-giving principle, the air, must therefore exist all those n.o.ble qualities possessed by the soul. It must be the source from which all intellect arises, the store to which all intellect again returns. The philosophical school whose fundamental principle was that the air is the primordial element thus brought back the Deity into the world, though under a material form. Yet still it was in antagonism to the national polytheism, unless from that one G.o.d, the air, the many G.o.ds of Olympus arose.

[Sidenote: Third problem. What is G.o.d?]

But who is that one G.o.d? This is the third question put forth by Greek philosophy. Its answer betrays that in this, its beginning, it is tending to Pantheism.

In all these investigations the starting-point had been material conceptions, depending on the impressions or information of the senses.

Whatever the conclusion arrived at, its correctness turned on the correctness of that information. When we put a little wine into a measure of water, the eye may no longer see it, but the wine is there.

When a rain-drop falls on the leaves of a distant forest, we cannot hear it, but the murmur of many drops composing a shower is audible enough.

But what is that murmur except the sum of the sounds of all the individual drops?

[Sidenote: Fourth problem. Has man a criterion of truth?]

And so it is plain our senses are p.r.o.ne to deceive us. Hence arises the fourth great question of Greek philosophy: Have we any criterion of truth?

[Sidenote: Importance of the views of Pythagoras.]

The moment a suspicion that we have not crosses the mind of man, he realizes what may be truly termed intellectual despair. Is this world an illusion, a phantasm of the imagination? If things material and tangible, and therefore the most solid props of knowledge, are thus abruptly destroyed, in what direction shall we turn? Within a single century Greek philosophy had come to this pa.s.s, and it was not without reason that intelligent men looked on Pythagoras almost as a divinity upon earth when he pointed out to them a path of escape; when he bid them reflect on what it was that had thus taught them the fallibility of sense. For what is it but reason that has been thus warning us, and, in the midst of delusions, has guided us to the truth--reason, which has objects of her own, a world of her own? Though the visible and audible may deceive, we may nevertheless find absolute truth in things altogether separate from material nature, particularly in the relations of numbers and properties of geometrical forms. There is no illusion in this, that two added to two make four; or in this, that any two sides of a triangle taken together are greater than the third. If, then, we are living in a region of deceptions, we may rest a.s.sured that it is surrounded by a world of truth.

[Sidenote: Influence of the Eleatic school and the Sophists.]

From the material basis speculative philosophy gradually disengaged itself through the labours of the Eleatic school, the controversy as to the primary element receding into insignificance, and being replaced by investigations as to Time, Motion, s.p.a.ce, Thought, Being, G.o.d. The general result of these inquiries brought into prominence the suspicion of the untrustworthiness of the senses, the tendency of the whole period being manifested in the hypothesis at last attained, that atoms and s.p.a.ce alone exist; and, since the former are mere centres of force, matter is necessarily a phantasm. When, therefore, the Athenians themselves commenced the cultivation of philosophy, it was with full partic.i.p.ation in the doubt and uncertainty thus overspreading the whole subject. As Sophists, their action closed this speculative period, for, by a comparison of all the partial sciences thus far known, they arrived at the conclusion that there is no conscience, no good or evil, no philosophy, no religion, no law, no criterion of truth.

[Sidenote: Age of faith--its solutions.]