History of the Intellectual Development of Europe Volume I Part 19

[Sidenote: Its continuation by Plato, and its end by the Sceptics.]

But man cannot live without some guiding rule. If his speculations in Nature will yield him nothing on which he may rely, he will seek some other aid. If there be no criterion of truth for him in philosophy, he will lean on implicit, unquestioning faith. If he cannot prove by physical arguments the existence of G.o.d, he will, with Socrates, accept that great fact as self evident and needing no demonstration. He will, in like manner, take his stand upon the undeniable advantages of virtue and good morals, defending the doctrine that pleasure should be the object of life--pleasure of that pure kind which flows from a cultivation of enn.o.bling pursuits, or instinctive, as exhibited in the life of brutes. But when he has thus cast aside demonstration as needless for his purposes, and put his reliance in this manner on faith, he has lost the restraining, the guiding principle that can set bounds to his conduct. If he considers, with Socrates, who opens the third age of Greek development--its age of faith--the existence of G.o.d as not needing any proof, he may, in like manner, add thereto the existence of matter and ideas. To faith there will be no difficulty in such doctrines as those of Reminiscence, the double immortality of the soul, the actual existence of universals; and, if such faith, unrestrained and unrestricted, be directed to the regulation of personal life, there is nothing to prevent a falling into excess and base egoism. For ethics, in such an application, ends either in the attempt at the procurement of extreme personal sanct.i.ty or the obtaining of individual pleasure--the foundation of patriotism is sapped, the sentiment of friends.h.i.+p is destroyed. So it was with the period of Grecian faith inaugurated by Socrates, developed by Plato, and closed by the Sceptics. Antisthenes and Diogenes of Sinope, in their outrages on society and their self-mortifications, show to what end a period of faith, unrestrained by reason, will come; and Epicurus demonstrated its tendency when guided by self.

Thus closes the third period of Greek philosophical development.

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

In introducing us to a fourth, Aristotle insists that, though we must rely on reason, Reason itself must submit to be guided by Experience; and Zeno, taking up the same thought, teaches us that we must appeal to the decisions of common sense. He disposes of all doubt respecting the criterion of truth by proclaiming that the distinctness of our sensuous impressions is a sufficient guide. In all this, the essential condition involved is altogether different from that of the speculative ages, and also of the age of faith. Yet, though under the ostensible guidance of reason, the human mind ever seeks to burst through such self-imposed restraints, attempting to ascertain things for which it possesses no suitable data. Even in the age of Aristotle, the age of Reason in Greece, philosophy resumed such questions as those of the creation of the world, the emanation of matter from G.o.d, the existence and nature of evil, the immortality, or, alas! it might perhaps be more truly said, judging from its conclusions, the death of the soul, and this even after the Sceptics had, with increased force, denied that we have any criterion of truth, and showed to their own satisfaction that man, at the best, can do nothing but doubt; and, in view of his condition here upon earth, since it has not been permitted him to know what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is false, his wisest course is to give himself no concern about the matter, but tranquilly sink into a state of complete indifference and quietism.

How uniformly do we see that through such variations of opinion individual man approaches his end. For Greek philosophy, what other prospect was there but decrepitude, with its contempt for the present, its attachment to the past, its distrust of man, its reliance on the mysterious--the unknown? And this imbecility how plainly we witness before the scene finally is closed.

[Sidenote: Duration of these ages.]

If now we look back upon this career of the Grecian mind, we find that after the legendary prehistoric period--the age of credulity--there came in succession an age of speculative inquiry, an age of faith, an age of reason, an age of decrepitude--the first, the age of credulity, was closed by geographical discovery; the second by the criticism of the Sophists; the third by the doubts of the Sceptics; the fourth, eminently distinguished by the greatness of its results, gradually declined into the fifth, an age of decrepitude, to which the hand of the Roman put an end. In the mental progress of this people we therefore discern the foreshadowing of a course like that of individual life, its epochs answering to Infancy, Childhood Youth, Manhood, Old Age; and which, on a still grander scale, as we shall hereafter find, has been repeated by all Europe in its intellectual development.

[Sidenote: Boundaries of these ages.]

In a s.p.a.ce of 1150 years, ending about A.D. 529, the Greek mind had completed its philosophical career. The ages into which we have divided that course pa.s.s by insensible gradations into each other. They overlap and intermingle, like a gradation of colours, but the characteristics of each are perfectly distinct.

[Sidenote: Determination of the law of variations of opinions.]

[Sidenote: Philosophical conclusions finally arrived at by the Greeks.]

2nd. Having thus determined the general law of the variation of opinions, that it is the same in this nation as in an individual, I shall next endeavour to disentangle the final results attained, considering Greek philosophy as a whole. To return to the ill.u.s.tration, to us more than an empty metaphor, though in individual life there is a successive pa.s.sage through infancy, childhood, youth, and manhood to old age, a pa.s.sage in which the characteristics of each period in their turn disappear, yet, nevertheless, there are certain results in another sense permanent, giving to the whole progress its proper individuality.

A critical eye may discern in the successive stages of Greek philosophical development decisive and enduring results. These it is for which we have been searching in this long and tedious discussion.

There are four grand topics in Greek philosophy: 1st, the existence and attributes of G.o.d; 2nd, the origin and destiny of the world; 3rd, the nature of the human soul; 4th, the possibility of a criterion of truth.

I shall now present what appear to me to be the results at which the Greek mind arrived on each of these points.

[Sidenote: As to G.o.d--His unity.]

(1.) Of the existence and attributes of G.o.d. On this point the decision of the Greek mind was the absolute rejection of all anthropomorphic conceptions, even at the risk of encountering the pressure of the national superst.i.tion. Of the all-powerful, all-perfect, and eternal there can be but one, for such attributes are absolutely opposed to anything like a partic.i.p.ation, whether of a spiritual or material nature; and hence the conclusion that the universe itself is G.o.d, and that all animate and inanimate things belong to his essence. In him they live, and move, and have their being. It is conceivable that G.o.d may exist without the world, but it is inconceivable that the world should exist without G.o.d. We must not, however, permit ourselves to be deluded by the varied aspect of things; for, though the universe is thus G.o.d, we know it not as it really is, but only as it appears. G.o.d has no relations to s.p.a.ce and time. They are only the fictions of our finite imagination.

[Sidenote: But their solution is Pantheism.]

But this ultimate effort of the Greek mind is Pantheism. It is the same result which the more aged branch of the Indo-European family had long before reached. "There is no G.o.d independent of Nature; no other has been revealed by tradition, perceived by the sense, or demonstrated by argument."

Yet never will man be satisfied with such a conclusion. It offers him none of that aspect of personality which his yearnings demand. This infinite, and eternal, and universal is no intellect at all. It is pa.s.sionless, without motive, without design. It does not answer to those lineaments of which he catches a glimpse when he considers the attributes of his own soul. He shudderingly turns from Pantheism, this final result of human philosophy, and, voluntarily retracing his steps, subordinates his reason to his instinctive feelings; declines the impersonal as having nothing in unison with him, and a.s.serts a personal G.o.d, the Maker of the universe and the Father of men.

[Sidenote: As to the world--a manifestation of G.o.d.]

(2.) Of the origin and destiny of the world. In an examination of the results at which the Greek mind arrived on this topic, our labour is rendered much lighter by the a.s.sistance we receive from the decision of the preceding inquiry. The origin of all things is in G.o.d, of whom the world is only a visible manifestation. It is evolved by and from him, perhaps, as the Stoics delighted to say, as the plant is evolved by and from the vital germ in the seed. It is an emanation of him. On this point we may therefore accept as correct the general impression entertained by philosophers, Greek, Alexandrian, and Roman after the Christian era, that, at the bottom, the Greek and Oriental philosophies were alike, not only as respects the questions they proposed for solution, but also in the decisions they arrived at. As we have said, this impression led to the belief that there must have been in the remote past a revelation common to both, though subsequently obscured and vitiated by the infirmities and wickedness of man. This doctrine of emanation, reposing on the a.s.sertion that the world existed eternally in G.o.d, that it came forth into visibility from him, and will be hereafter absorbed into him, is one of the most striking features of Veda theology. It is developed with singular ability by the Indian philosophers as well as by the Greeks, and is ill.u.s.trated by their poets.

[Sidenote: This solution identical with the Oriental.]

The following extract from the Inst.i.tutes of Menu will convey the Oriental conclusion: "This universe existed only in the first divine idea, yet unexpanded, as if involved in darkness; imperceptible, undefinable, undiscoverable by reason, and undiscovered by revelation, as if it were wholly immersed in sleep. Then the sole self-existing power, himself undiscerned, but making this world discernible, with five elements and other principles of nature, appeared with undiminished glory, expanding his idea, or dispelling the gloom. He whom the mind alone can perceive, whose essence eludes the external organs, who has no visible parts, who exists from eternity--even He, the soul of all beings, whom no being can comprehend, shone forth in person. He, having willed to produce various beings from his own divine substance, first with a thought created the waters. The waters are so called (nara) because they were the production of _Nara_, or the spirit of G.o.d; and, since they were his first _ayana_ or place of motion, he thence is named Narayana, or moving on the waters. From that which is the first cause, not the object of sense existing everywhere in substance, not existing to our perception, without beginning or end, was produced the divine male. He framed the heaven above, the earth beneath, and in the midst placed the subtle ether, the light regions, and the permanent receptacle of waters. He framed all creatures. He gave being to time and the divisions of time--to the stars also and the planets. For the sake of distinguis.h.i.+ng actions, he made a total difference between right and wrong. He whose powers are incomprehensible, having created this universe, was again absorbed in the spirit, changing the time of energy for the time of repose."

[Sidenote: Ill.u.s.trations of the origins, duration, and absorption of the world.]

From such extracts from the sacred writings of the Hindus we might turn to their poets, and find the same conceptions of the emanation, manifestation, and absorption of the world ill.u.s.trated. "The Infinite being is like the clear crystal, which receives into itself all the colours and emits them again, yet its transparency or purity is not thereby injured or impaired." "He is like the diamond, which absorbs the light surrounding it, and glows in the dark from the emanation thereof."

In similes of a less n.o.ble nature they sought to convey their idea to the illiterate "Thou hast seen the spider spin his web, thou hast seen its excellent geometrical form, and how well adapted it is to its use; thou hast seen the play of tinted colours making it s.h.i.+ne like a rainbow in the rays of the morning sun. From his bosom the little artificer drew forth the wonderful thread, and into his bosom, when it pleases him, he can withdraw it again. So Brahm made, and so will he absorb the world." In common the Greek and Indian a.s.serted that being exists for the sake of thought, and hence they must be one; that the universe is a thought in the mind of G.o.d, and is unaffected by the vicissitudes of the worlds of which it is composed. In India this doctrine of emanation had reached such apparent precision that some a.s.serted it was possible to demonstrate that the entire Brahm was not trans.m.u.ted into mundane phenomena, but only a fourth part; that there occur successive emanations and absorptions, a periodicity in this respect being observed; that, in these considerations, we ought to guard ourselves from any deception arising from the visible appearance of material things, for there is reason to believe that matter is nothing more than forces filling s.p.a.ce. Democritus raised us to the n.o.ble thought that, small as it is, a single atom may const.i.tute a world.

The doctrine of Emanation has thus a double interpretation. It sets forth the universe either as a part of the substance of G.o.d, or as an unsubstantial something proceeding from him: the former a conception more tangible and readily grasped by the mind; the latter of unapproachable sublimity, when we recall the countless beautiful and majestic forms which Nature on all sides presents. This visible world is only the shadow of G.o.d.

In the further consideration of this doctrine of the issue forthcoming, or emanation of the universe from G.o.d, and its return into or absorption by him, an ill.u.s.tration may not be without value. Out of the air, which may be pure and tranquil, the watery vapour often comes forth in a visible form, a misty fleece, perhaps no larger than the hand of a man at first, but a great cloud in the end. The external appearance the forthcoming form presents is determined by the incidents of the times; it may have a pure whiteness or a threatening blackness; its edges may be fringed with gold. In the bosom of such a cloud the lightning may be pent up, from it the thunder may be heard; but, even if it should not offer these manifestations of power, if its disappearance should be as tranquil as its formation, it has not existed in vain. No cloud ever yet formed on the sky without leaving an imperishable impression on the earth, for while it yet existed there was not a plant whose growth was not delayed, whose substance was not lessened. And of such a cloud the production of which we have watched, how often has it happened to us to witness its melting away into the untroubled air. From the untroubled air it came, and to the pure untroubled air it has again returned.

Now such a cloud is made up of countless hosts of microscopic drops, each maintaining itself separate from the others, and each, small though it may be, having an individuality of its own. The grand aggregate may vary its colour and shape; it may be the scene of unceasing and rapid interior movements of many kinds, yet it presents its aspect unchanged, or changes tranquilly and silently, still glowing in the light that falls on it, still casting its shadow on the ground. It is an emblem of the universe according to the ancient doctrine, showing us how the visible may issue from the invisible, and return again thereto; that a drop too small for the una.s.sisted eye to see may be the representative of a world. The spontaneous emergence and disappearance of a cloud is the emblem of a transitory universe issuing forth and disappearing, again to be succeeded by other universes, other like creations in the long lapse of time.

[Sidenote: As to the soul--a part of the divinity.]

(3.) Of the nature of the soul. From the material quality a.s.signed to the soul by the early Ionian schools, as that it was air, fire, or the like, there was a gradual pa.s.sage to the opinion of its immateriality.

To this, precision was given by the a.s.sertion that it had not only an affinity with, but even is a part of G.o.d. Whatever were the views entertained of the nature and attributes of the Supreme Being, they directly influenced the conclusions arrived at respecting the nature of the soul.

[Sidenote: Its immortality and final absorption.]

Greek philosophy, in its highest state of development, regarded the soul as something more than the sum of the moments of thinking. It held it to be a portion of the Deity himself. This doctrine is the necessary corollary of Pantheism. It contemplated a past eternity, a future immortality. It entered on such inquiries as whether the number of souls in the universe is constant. As upon the foregoing point, so upon this: there was a complete a.n.a.logy between the decision arrived at in Grecian and that in Indian philosophy. Thus the latter says, "I am myself an irradiated manifestation of the supreme BRAHM." "Never was there a time in which I was not, nor thou, nor these princes of the people, and never shall I not be; henceforth we all are." Viewing the soul as merely a spectator and stranger in this world, they regarded it as occupying itself rather in contemplation than in action, a.s.serting that in its origin it is an immediate emanation from the Divinity--not a modification nor a transformation of the Supreme, but a portion of him; "its relation is not that of a servant to his master, but of a part to the whole." It is like a spark separated from a flame; it migrates from body to body, sometimes found in the higher, then in the lower, and again in the higher tribes of life, occupying first one, then another body, as circ.u.mstances demand. And, as a drop of water pursues a devious career in the cloud, in the rain, in the river, a part of a plant, or a part of an animal, but sooner or later inevitably finds its way back to the sea from which it came, so the soul, however various its fortunes may have been, sinks back at last into the divinity from which it emanated.

Both Greeks and Hindus turned their attention to the delusive phenomena of the world. Among the latter many figuratively supposed that what we call visible nature is a mere illusion befalling the soul, because of its temporary separation from G.o.d. In the Buddhist philosophy the world is thus held to be a creature of the imagination. But among some in those ancient, as among others in more modern times, it was looked upon as having a more substantial condition, and the soul as a pa.s.sive mirror in which things reflected themselves, or perhaps it might, to some extent, be the partial creator of its own forms. However that may be, its final destiny is a perfect repose after its absorption in the Supreme.

[Sidenote: Ill.u.s.tration of the nature of the soul.]

On this third topic of ancient philosophy an ill.u.s.tration may not be without use. As a bubble floats upon the sea, and, by reason of its form, reflects whatever objects may be present, whether the clouds in the sky, or the stationary and moving things on the sh.o.r.e, nay, even to a certain extent depicts the sea itself on which it floats, and from which it arose, offering these various forms not only in shapes resembling the truth in the proper order of light and shade, the proper perspective, the proper colours, but, in addition thereto, tincturing them all with a play of hues arising from itself, so it is with the soul. From a boundless and unfathomable sea the bubble arose. It does not in any respect differ in nature from its source. From water it came, and mere water it ever is. It gathers its qualities, so far as external things are concerned, only from its form, and from the environment in which it is placed. As the circ.u.mstances to which it is exposed vary, it floats here and there, merging into other bubbles it meets, and emerging from the collected foam again. In such migrations it is now larger, now smaller; at one moment pa.s.sing into new shapes, at another lost in a coalescence with those around it. But whatever these its migrations, these its vicissitudes, there awaits it an inevitable destiny, an absorption, a re-incorporation with the ocean. In that final moment, what is it that is lost? what is it that has come to an end? Not the essential substance, for water it was before it was developed, water it was during its existence, and water it still remains, ready to be re-expanded.

Nor does the resemblance fail when we consider the general functions discharged while the bubble maintained its form. In it were depicted in their true shapes and relative magnitudes surrounding things. It hence had a relation to s.p.a.ce. And, if it was in motion, it reflected in succession the diverse objects as they pa.s.sed by. Through such successive representations it maintained a relation to Time. Moreover, it imparted to the images it thus produced a coloration of its own, and in all this was an emblem of the Soul. For s.p.a.ce and Time are the outward conditions with which it is concerned, and it adds thereto abstract ideas, the product of its own nature.

[Sidenote: Its continued existence--its Nirwana.]

But when the bubble bursts there is an end of all these relations. No longer is there any reflection of external forms, no longer any motion, no longer any innate qualities to add. In one respect the bubble is annihilated, in another it still exists. It has returned to that infinite expanse in comparison with which it is altogether insignificant and imperceptible. Transitory, and yet eternal: transitory, since all its relations of a special and individual kind have come to an end; eternal in a double sense--the sense of Platonism--since it was connected with a past of which there was no beginning, and continues in a future to which there is no end.

[Sidenote: As to the criterion of truth--sense-delusions.]

(4.) Of the possibility of a criterion of truth. An absolute criterion of truth must at once accredit itself, as well as other things. At a very early period in philosophy the senses were detected as being altogether untrustworthy. On numberless occasions, instead of accrediting, they discredit themselves. A stick, having a spark of fire at one end, gives rise to the appearance of a circle of light when it is turned round quickly. The rainbow seems to be an actually existing arch until the delusion is detected by our going to the place over which it seems to rest. Nor is it alone as respects things for which there is an exterior basis or foundation, such as the spark of fire in one of these cases, and the drops of water in the other. Each of our organs of sense can palm off delusions of the most purely fict.i.tious kind. The eye may present apparitions as distinct as the realities among which they place themselves; the ear may annoy us with the continual repet.i.tion of a murmuring sound, or parts of a musical strain, or articulate voices, though we well know that it is all a delusion; and in like manner, in their proper way, in times of health, and especially in those of sickness, will the other senses of taste, and touch, and smell practise upon us their deceptions.

This being the case, how shall we know that any information derived from such unfaithful sources is true? Pythagoras rendered a great service in telling us to remember that we have within ourselves a means of detecting fallacy and demonstrating truth. What is it that a.s.sures us of the unreality of the fiery circle, the rainbow, the spectre, the voices, the crawling of insects upon the skin? Is it not reason? To reason may we not then trust?

[Sidenote: Uncertainties in philosophizing.]

With such facts before us, what a crowd of inquiries at once presses upon our attention--inquiries which even in modern times have occupied the thoughts of the greatest metaphysicians. Shall we begin our studies by examining sensations or by examining ideas? Shall we say with Descartes that all clear ideas are true? Shall we inquire with Spinoza whether we have any ideas independent of experience? With Hobbes, shall we say that all our thoughts are begotten by and are the representatives of objects exterior to us; that our conceptions arise in material motions pressing on our organs, producing motion in them, and so affecting the mind; that our sensations do not correspond with outward qualities; that sound and noise belong to the bell and the air, and not to the mind, and, like colour, are only agitations occasioned by the object in the brain; that imagination is a conception gradually dying away after the act of sense, and is nothing more than a decaying sensation; that memory is the vestige of former impressions, enduring for a time; that forgetfulness is the obliteration of such vestiges; that the succession of thought is not indifferent, at random, or voluntary, but that thought follows thought in a determinate and predestined sequence; that whatever we imagine is finite, and hence we cannot conceive of the infinite, nor think of anything not subject to sense? Shall we say with Locke that there are two sources of our ideas, sensation and reflection; that the mind cannot know things directly, but only through ideas? Shall we suggest with Leibnitz that reflection is nothing more than attention to what is pa.s.sing in the mind, and that between the mind and the body there is a sympathetic synchronism? With Berkeley shall we a.s.sert that there is no other reason for inferring the existence of matter itself than the necessity of having some synthesis for its attributes; that the objects of knowledge are ideas and nothing else; and that the mind is active in sensation? Shall we listen to the demonstration of Hume, that, if matter be an unreal fiction, the mind is not less so, since it is no more than a succession of impressions and ideas; that our belief in causation is only the consequence of habit; and that we have better proof that night is the cause of day, than of thousands of other cases in which we persuade ourselves that we know the right relation of cause and effect; that from habit alone we believe the future will resemble the past? Shall we infer with Condillac that memory is only transformed sensation, and comparison double attention; that every idea for which we cannot find an exterior object is dest.i.tute of significance; that our innate ideas come by development, and that reasoning and running are learned together. With Kant shall we conclude that there is but one source of knowledge, the union of the object and the subject--but two elements thereof, s.p.a.ce and time; and that they are forms of sensibility, s.p.a.ce being a form of internal sensibility, and time both of internal and external, but neither of them having any objective reality; and that the world is not known to us as it is, but only as it appears?

[Sidenote: Remarks on the criterion.]

I admit the truth of the remark of Posidonius that a man might as well be content to die as to cease philosophizing; for, if there are contradictions in philosophy, there are quite as many in life. In the light of this remark, I shall therefore not hesitate to offer a few suggestions respecting the criterion of human knowledge, undiscouraged by the fact that so many of the ablest men have turned their attention to it. In this there might seem to be presumption, were it not that the advance of the sciences, and especially of human physiology has brought us to a more elevated point of view, and enabled us to see the state of things much more distinctly than was possible for our predecessors.

[Sidenote: Defective information of the old philosophy.]

[Sidenote: Necessity of a more general conception as to man.]

[Sidenote: The whole cycle must be included,]