CHAPTER XXII. The Stoics

THE STOICS

Semitic admixture--Closed fist and open hand--'Tabula rasa'--Necessity of evil--Hymn of Cleanthes--Things indifferent--Ideal and real--Philosophy and humanity

Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy (born circa 340 B.C.), was a native of Citium in Cyprus. The city was Greek, but with a large Phoenician admixture. And it is curious that in this last and sternest phase of Greek thought, not the founder only, but a large proportion of the successive leaders of the school, came from this and other places having Semitic elements in them. Among these places notable as nurseries of Stoicism was Tarsus in Cilicia, the birthplace of St. Paul. The times of preparation were drawing to a close; and through these men, with their Eastern intensity and capacities of self-searching and self-abasement, the philosophy of Greece was linking itself on to the wisdom of the Hebrews.

Zeno came to Athens to study philosophy, and for twenty years he was a pupil first of Crates the Cynic, and then of other teachers. At length he set up a school of his own in the celebrated Stoa {229} Poecile (Painted Colonnade), so named because it was adorned with frescoes by Polygnotus. There he taught for nearly sixty years, and voluntarily ended his life when close on a century old. His life, as Antigonus, King of Macedon, recorded on his tomb, was consistent with his doctrine--abstemious, frugal, laborious, dutiful. He was succeeded by Cleanthes, a native of Assos in Asia Minor. But the great constructor of the Stoic doctrine, without whom, as his contemporaries said, there had been no Stoic school at all, was Chrysippus, a native of Soli or of Tarsus in Cilicia. He wrote at enormous length, supporting his teachings by an immense erudition, and culling liberally from the poets to illustrate and enforce his views. Learned and pedantic, his works had no inherent attraction, and nothing of them but fragments has been preserved. We know the Stoic doctrine mainly from the testimony and criticisms of later times.

Like the Epicureans, Zeno and his successors made philosophy primarily a search for the chief good, a doctrine of practice and morals. But like them they were impelled to admit a logic and a physics, at least by way of preliminary basis to their ethics. The relations of the three they illustrated by various images. Philosophy was like an animal; logic was its bones and sinews, ethics its flesh, physics its life or soul. Or again, philosophy was {230} an egg; logic was the shell, ethics the white, physics, the yolk. Or again, it was a fruitful field; logic was the hedge, ethics the crop, physics the soil. Or it was a city, well ordered and strongly fortified, and so on. The images seem somewhat confused, but the general idea is clear enough. Morality was the essential, the living body, of philosophy; physics supplied its raw material, or the conditions under which a moral life could be lived; logic secured that we should use that material rightly and wisely for the end desired.

Logic the Stoics divided into two parts--Rhetoric, the 'science of the open hand,' and Dialectic, the 'science of the closed fist,' as Zeno called them. They indulged in elaborate divisions and subdivisions of each, with which we need not meddle. The only points of interest to us are contained in their analysis of the processes of perception and thought. A sensation, Zeno taught, was the result of an external impulse, which when combined with an internal assent, produced a mental state that revealed at the same time itself and the external object producing it. The perception thus produced he compared to the grip which the hand took of a solid object; and real perceptions, those, that is, which were caused by a real external object, and not by some illusion, always testified to the reality of their cause by this sensation of 'grip.'

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The internal assent of the mind was voluntary, and at the same time necessary; for the mind could not do otherwise than will the acceptance of that which it was fitted to receive. The peculiarity of their physics, which we shall have to refer to later on, namely, the denial of the existence of anything not material, implied that in some way there was a material action of the external object on the structure of the perceiving mind (itself also material). What exactly the nature of this action was the Stoics themselves were not quite agreed. The idea of an 'impression' such as a seal makes upon wax was a tempting one, but they had difficulty in comprehending how there could be a multitude of different impressions on the same spot without effacing each other. Some therefore preferred the vaguer and safer expression, 'modification'; had they possessed our modern science, they might have illustrated their meaning by reference to the phenomena of magnetism or electricity.

An interesting passage may be quoted from Plutarch on the Stoic doctrine of knowledge: "The Stoics maintain," he says, "that when a human being is born, he has the governing part of his soul like a sheet of paper ready prepared for the reception of writing, and on this the soul inscribes in succession its various ideas. The first form of the writing is produced through the senses. When we perceive, for example, {232} a white object, the recollection remains when the object is gone. And when many similar recollections have accumulated, we have what is called experience. Besides the ideas which we get in this natural and quite undesigned way, there are other ideas which we get through teaching and information. In the strict sense only these latter ought to be called ideas; the former should rather be called perceptions. Now the rational faculty, in virtue of which we are called reasoning beings, is developed out of, or over and beyond, the mass of perceptions, in the second seven years' period of life. In fact a thought may be defined as a kind of mental image, such as a rational animal alone is capable of having."

Thus there are various gradations of mental apprehensions; first, those of sensible qualities obtained through the action of the objects and the assent of the perceiving subject, as already described; then by experience, by comparison, by analogy, by the combinations of the reasoning faculty, further and more general notions are arrived at, and conclusions formed, as, for example, that the gods exist and exercise a providential care over the world. By this faculty also the wise man ascends to the apprehension of the good and true.

The physics of the Stoics started from the fundamental proposition that in the universe of things there were two elements--the active and the passive. {233} The latter was Matter or unqualified existence; the former was the reason or qualifying element in Matter, that is, God, who being eternal, is the fashioner of every individual thing throughout the universe of matter. God is One; He is Reason, and Fate, and Zeus. In fact all the gods are only various representations of His faculties and powers. He being from the beginning of things by Himself, turneth all existence through air to water. And even as the genital seed is enclosed in the semen, so also was the seed of the world concealed in the water, making its matter apt for the further birth of things; then first it brought into being the four elements--fire, water, air, earth. For there was a finer fire or air which was the moving spirit of things; later and lower than this were the material elements of fire and air. It follows that the universe of things is threefold; there is first God Himself, the source of all character and individuality, who is indestructible and eternal, the fashioner of all things, who in certain cycles of ages gathers up all things into Himself, and then out of Himself brings them again to birth; there is the matter of the universe whereon God works; and thirdly, there is the union of the two. Thus the world is governed by reason and forethought, and this reason extends through every part, even as the soul or life extends to every part of us. The universe therefore is a living thing, having a {234} soul or reason in it. This soul or reason one teacher likened to the air, another to the sky, another to the sun. For the soul of nature is, as it were, a finer air or fire, having a power of creation in it, and moving in an ordered way to the production of things.

The universe is one and of limited extension, being spherical in form, for this is the form which best adapts itself to movement. Outside this universe is infinite bodiless space; but within the universe there is no empty part; all is continuous and united, as is proved by the harmony of relation which exists between the heavenly bodies and those upon the earth. The world as such is destructible, for its parts are subject to change and to decay; yet is this change or destruction only in respect of the qualities imposed upon it from time to time by the Reason inherent in it; the mere unqualified Matter remains indestructible.

In the universe evil of necessity exists; for evil being the opposite of good, where no evil is there no good can be. For just as in a comedy there are absurdities, which are in themselves bad, but yet add a certain attraction to the poem as a whole, so also one may blame evil regarded in itself, yet for the whole it is not without its use. So also God is the cause of death equally with birth; for even as cities when the inhabitants have multiplied overmuch, {235} remove their superfluous members by colonisation or by war, so also is God a cause of destruction. In man in like manner good cannot exist save with evil; for wisdom being a knowledge of good and evil, remove the evil and wisdom itself goes. Disease and other natural evils, when looked at in the light of their effects, are means not of evil but of good; there is throughout the universe a balance and interrelation of good and evil. Not that God hath in Himself any evil; the law is not the cause of lawlessness, nor God Himself responsible for any violation of right.

The Stoics indulged in a strange fancy that the world reverted after a mighty cycle of years in all its parts to the same form and structure which it possessed at the beginning, so that there would be once more a Socrates, a Plato, and all the men that had lived, each with the same friends and fellow-citizens, the same experiences, and the same endeavours. At the termination of each cycle there was a burning up of all things, and thereafter a renewal of the great round of life.

Nothing incorporeal, they maintained, can be affected by or affect that which is corporeal; body alone can affect body. The soul therefore must be corporeal. Death is the separation of soul from body, but it is impossible to separate what is incorporeal from body; therefore, again, the soul must {236} be corporeal. In the belief of Cleanthes, the souls of all creatures remained to the next period of cyclic conflagration; Chrysippus believed that only the souls of the wise and good remained.

Coming finally to the Ethics of the Stoic philosophy, we find for the chief end of life this definition, 'A life consistent with itself,' or, as it was otherwise expressed, 'A life consistent with Nature.' The two definitions are really identical; for the law of nature is the law of our nature, and the reason in our being the reason which also is in God, the supreme Ruler of the universe. This is substantially in accordance with the celebrated law of right action laid down by Kant, "Act so that the maxim of thine action be capable of being made a law of universal action." Whether a man act thus or no, by evil if not by good the eternal law will satisfy itself; the question is of import only for the man's own happiness. Let his will accord with the universal will, then the law will be fulfilled, and the man will be happy. Let his will resist the universal will, then the law will be fulfilled, but the man will bear the penalty. This was expressed by Cleanthes in a hymn which ran somewhat thus--

Lead me, O Zeus most great, And thou, Eternal Fate: What way soe'er thy will doth bid me travel That way I'll follow without fret or cavil. {237} Or if I evil be And spurn thy high decree, Even so I still shall follow, soon or late.

Thus in the will alone consists the difference of good or ill for us; in either case Nature's great law fulfils itself infallibly. To their view on this point we may apply the words of Hamlet: "If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come; the readiness is all."

This universal law expresses itself in us in various successive manifestations. From the moment of birth it implants in us a supreme self-affection, whereby of infallible instinct we seek our own self-preservation, rejoice in that which is suitable to our existence, shrink from that which is unsuitable. As we grow older, further and higher principles manifest themselves--reason and reflection, a more and more careful and complete apprehension of that which is honourable and advantageous, a capacity of choice among goods. Till finally the surpassing glory of that which is just and honourable shines out so clear upon us, that any pain or loss is esteemed of no account, if only we may attain to that. Thus at last, by the very law of our being, we come to know that nothing is truly and absolutely good but goodness, nothing absolutely bad but sin. Other things, inasmuch as they have no character of moral good {238} or moral evil, cannot be deemed really good or bad; in comparison with the absolutely good, they are things indifferent, though in comparison with each other they may be relatively preferable or relatively undesirable. Even pleasure and pain, so far as concerns the absolute end or happiness of our being, are things indifferent; we cannot call them either good or evil. Yet have they a relation to the higher law, for the consciousness of them was so implanted in us at the first that our souls by natural impulse are drawn to pleasure, while they shrink from pain as from a deadly enemy. Wherefore reason neither can nor ought to seek wholly to eradicate these primitive and deep-seated affections of our nature; but so to exercise a resisting and ordering influence upon them, as to render them obedient and subservient to herself.

That which is absolutely good--wisdom, righteousness, courage, temperance--does good only and never ill to us. All other things,--life, health, pleasure, beauty, strength, wealth, reputation, birth,--and their opposites,--death, disease, pain, deformity, weakness, poverty, contempt, humility of station,--these are in themselves neither a benefit nor a curse. They may do us good, they may do us harm. We may use them for good, we may use them for evil.

Thus the Stoics worked out on ideal and absolute lines the thought of righteousness as the chief and {239} only good. Across this ideal picture were continually being drawn by opponents without or inquirers within, clouds of difficulty drawn from real experience. 'What,' it was asked, 'of progress in goodness? Is this a middle state between good and evil; or if a middle state between good and evil be a contradiction, in terms, how may we characterise it?' Here the wiser teachers had to be content to answer that it tended towards good, was good in possibility, would be absolutely good when the full attainment came, and the straining after right had been swallowed up in the perfect calm of settled virtue.

'How also of the wise man tormented by pain, or in hunger and poverty and rags, is his perfectness of wisdom and goodness really sufficient to make him happy?' Here, again, the answer had to be hesitating and provisional, through no fault of the Stoics. In this world, while we are still under the strange dominion of time and circumstance, the ideal can never wholly fit the real. There must still be difficulty and incompleteness here, only to be solved and perfected 'when iniquity shall have an end.' Our eyes may fail with looking upward, yet the upward look is well; and the jibes upon the Stoic 'king in rags' that Horace and others were so fond of, do not affect the question. It may have been, and probably often was, the case that Stoic teachers {240} were apt to transfer to themselves personally the ideal attributes, which they justly assigned to the ideal man in whom wisdom was perfected. The doctrine gave much scope for cant and mental pride and hypocrisy, as every ideal doctrine does, including the Christian. But the existence of these vices in individuals no more affected the doctrine of an ideal goodness in its Stoic form, than it does now in its Christian one. That only the good man is truly wise or free or happy; that vice, however lavishly it surround itself with luxury and ease and power, is inherently wretched and foolish and slavish;--these are things which are worth saying and worth believing, things, indeed, which the world dare not and cannot permanently disbelieve, however difficult or even impossible it may be to mark men off into two classes, the good and the bad, however strange the irony of circumstance which so often shows the wicked who 'are not troubled as other men, neither are they plagued like other men; they have more than their heart could wish,' while good men battle with adversity, often in vain. Still will the permanent, fruitful, progressive faith of man 'look to the end'; still will the ideal be powerful to plead for the painful right, and spoil, even in the tasting, the pleasant wrong.

The doctrine, of course, like every doctrine worth anything, was pushed to extravagant lengths, and {241} thrust into inappropriate quarters, by foolish doctrinaires. As that the wise man is the only orator, critic, poet, physician, nay, cobbler if you please; that the wise man knows all that is to be known, and can do everything that is worth doing, and so on. The school was often too academic, too abstract, too fond of hearing itself talk. This, alas! is what most schools are, and most schoolmasters.

Yet the Stoics were not altogether alien to the ordinary interests and duties of life. They admitted a duty of co-operating in politics, at least in such states as showed some desire for, or approach to, virtue. They approved of the wise man taking part in education, of his marrying and bringing up children, both for his own sake and his country's. He will be ready even to 'withdraw himself from life on behalf of his country or his friends. This 'withdrawal,' which was their word for suicide, came unhappily to be much in the mouths of later, and especially of the Roman, Stoics, who, in the sadness and restraint of prevailing despotism, came to thank God that no one was compelled to remain in life; he might 'withdraw' when the burden of life, the hopelessness of useful activity, became too great.

With this sad, stern, yet not undignified note, the philosophy of Greece speaks its last word. The later scepticism of the New Academy, directed mainly to a negative criticism of the crude enough logic of the {242} Stoics, or of the extravagances of their ethical doctrine, contributed no substantial element to thought or morals. As an eclectic system it had much vogue, side by side with Stoicism and Epicureanism, among the Romans, having as its chief exponent Cicero, as Epicureanism had Lucretius, and Stoicism, Seneca.

The common characteristic of all these systems in their later developments, is their cosmopolitanism. Homo sum, nil humani a me alienum puto, 'I am a man; nothing appertaining to humanity do I deem alien from myself,' this was the true keynote of whatever was vital in any of them. And the reason of this is not far to seek. We have seen already (p. 82) how the chaos of sophistic doctrine was largely conditioned, if not produced, by the breakdown of the old civic life of Greece. The process hardly suffered delay from all the efforts of Socrates and Plato. Cosmopolitanism was already a point of union between the Cynics and Cyrenaics (see p. 128). And the march of politics was always tending in the same direction. First through great leagues, such as the Spartan or Athenian or Theban, each with a predominant or tyrannical city at the head; then later through the conquest of Greece by Alexander, and the leaguing of all Greek-speaking peoples in the great invasion of Asia; then through the spread of Greek letters all over the Eastern {243} world, and the influx upon Greek centres such as Athens and Alexandria, of all manner of foreign intelligences; and finally, through the conquest of all this teeming world of culture by the discipline and practical ability of Rome, and its incorporation in a universal empire of law, all the barriers which had divided city from city and tribe from tribe and race from race disappeared, and only a common humanity remained.

The only effective philosophies for such a community were those which regarded man as an individual, with a world politically omnipotent hedging him about, and driving him in upon himself. Thus the New Academy enlarged on the doubtfulness of all beyond the individual consciousness; Stoicism insisted on individual dutifulness, Epicureanism on individual self-satisfaction. The first sought to make life worth living through culture, the second through indifference, the third through a moderate enjoyment. But all alike felt themselves very helpless in face of the growing sadness of life, in face of the deepening mystery of the world beyond. All alike were controversial, and quick enough to ridicule their rivals; none was hopefully constructive, or (unless in the poetic enthusiasm of a Lucretius) very confident of the adequacy of its own conceptions. They all rather quickened the sense of emptiness in human existence, than satisfied it; {244} at the best they enabled men to "absent themselves a little while from the felicity of death."

Thus all over the wide area of Greek and Roman civilisation, the activity of the later schools was effectual to familiarise humanity with the language of philosophy, and to convince humanity of the inadequacy of its results. Both of these things the Greeks taught to Saul of Tarsus; at a higher Source he found the satisfying of his soul; but from the Greek philosophies he learned the language through which the new Revelation was to be taught in the great world of Roman rule and Grecian culture. And thus through the Pauline theology, Greek philosophy had its part in the moral regeneration of the world; as it has had, in later times, in every emancipation and renascence of its thought.

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INDEX

Abdera, birthplace of Democritus, 74; of Protagoras, 86

Absolute knowledge, unattainable by man, 19; absorption in, 133; no separate existence, 182

Abstract ideas not derivable from experience, 45; abstract truth impossible, 87; of no value, 132; revival of, 133

Academus, grove of, 135

Achilles and tortoise, 44; death of, 139

Acroatic, kind of lectures, 175

Actuality, see Realisation.

Agrigentum, birthplace of Empedocles, 59

Air, beginning of things, 14

Alcestis, referred to, 139

Alcibiades, dialogue, 137

Alexander, relations with Aristotle, 174; influence of conquests of, 242

Anarchy, in politics and in philosophy, 83; reaction against, by Socrates, 102

Anaxagoras, 52; relation of Empedocles to, 62; quoted by Aristotle, 200

Anaximander, 7

Anaximenes, 14

Anthropomorphism, criticised, 32

Antigonus, friend of Zeno, 229

Antisthenes, 128

Apology, dialogue, 136

Appetite, the only reality, 96

Archilochus, criticised by Heraclitus, 16

Aristippus, 124

Aristocracy, in politics and in philosophy, 82

Aristotle, on Thales, 4; on Xenophanes, 32; on Zeno, 42; on Melissus, 47; on Anaxagoras, 54; on Empedocles, 59, 63, 70; a complete Socratic, 103; on Socrates, 106; on Sophists, 115; debt to Plato, 159; on Plato, 163; chapters on, 172 sqq.; his fresh contributions to Academic philosophy, 173; two classes of lectures, 175; library, ib.; predominance of, 176; style, 177; differences from Plato, 178

Art, a greater revealer than science, 66; relation of Love to, 137; a mode of creation, 139

Asceticism, of Cynics, 128; of Plato, 168; of Epicurus, 225

Atarneus, residence of Aristotle, 174

Athens, visited by Parmenides and Zeno, 34, 42, 157; residence of Anaxagoras, 52; centre of sophistry, 85; birthplace of Socrates, 103; visited by Aristippus, 124; birthplace of Antisthenes, 129; and of Plato, 134; dialogue in praise of, 137; residence of Aristotle, 173; of Epicurus, 211

Atlantis, kingdom of, 153

Atomists, 52; revived theory of, 215

Atoms, constituents of nature, 76, 216; deviation of, 216

Beauty, one aspect of ideal, 110; relation to creative instinct, 139; science of universal beauty, 141

Becoming, the fundamental principle, 16; passage from Being to, 36, 39

Beginning (arche), of Thales, 3; Aristotle's definition, 4; difficulties of material theories of, 36l

Being, eternal being like a sphere, 32; passage from, to Becoming, 36, 39; a co-equal element with Nonentity, 75; analysis of, 159; and the Other, 165

Body, realisation of soul, 27; a prison, 28; unthinkable except with reference to space, 75; source of illusion, 164

Canonics, form of logic, 215

Cause, three causes, 110; equals essence, 167; first causes subject of philosophy, 179; relation of, to potentiality, 185

Cave, of this life, 148, 166

Chaldaea, visited by Pythagoras, 22; by Democritus, 74

Change, how account for, 10, 35, 39, 75

Chaos, of the Atomists, 53; of Empedocles, 69; king in philosophy, 83; life not a chaos, 105

Charmides, dialogue, 136

Christ, brings sword, 99; kingdom of, 149

Chrysippus, successor of Cleanthes, 229

Cicero, mistranslates Pythagoras, 28; criticises Epicurus, 212, 221; exponent of New Academy, 242

Citium, birthplace of Zeno, 228

Clazomenae, birthplace of Anaxagoras, 52

Cleanthes, successor of Zeno, 229; hymn of, 236

Codrus, Plato descended from, 134; sacrifice of, 139

Colophon, birthplace of Xenophanes, 31

Commonplaces, function of, in sophistry, 84

Community of wives, 148; ideal community, 149 (and see State)

Contradiction, philosophy of, 65

Cosmogony, of Democritus, 77; of Plato, 150; of Aristotle, 200; of Epicurus, 219; of the Stoics, 231

Cosmopolitanism, of Cyrenaics and Cynics, 128; of later systems, 242

Courage, treated of in Laches, 136

Cratylus, dialogue, 137

Creation, a great expiation, 73; in the soul, 139; working out of God's image, 151; union of Essence and Matter, 167

Criterion, feeling the only, 127

Critias, dialogue, 153

Crito, dialogue, 136

Crux, in philosophy, 190

Cynic, origin of name, 130; influence of school on Plato, 154; v. Epicurean, 226

Cyrene, seat of Cyrenaic school, 124; visited by Plato, 134; influence of school on Plato, 154

Death, birth of the soul, 19

Deduction, v. Induction, 48; function of, in Aristotle, 184

Definitions, search for, by Socrates, 106; of no value, 132; rules for, laid down by Plato, 156

Democritus, 74; relation of Epicurus to, 216

Demonstrative science, based on abstraction, 11

Desire, part of soul, 28, 169; thought without, gives no motive, 191; distinctions among, 224

Destruction, meaning of, 53

Dialectic, Parmenides founder of, 39; Zeno inventor of, 42; Platonic theory of, 164, 171

Dichotomy, invented by Zeno, 43

Difference (see Essence), all difference quantitative, 76; conditioned by dissimilarity in atoms, 77

Dilemma, Melissus' use of, 46

Diogenes, pupil of Antisthenes, 130

Dionysius, elder and younger, connection of Plato with, 135

Diotima, conversation of, with Socrates, 137

Dry light, 19

Dualism, unthinkable, 32; in nature, 38; of Plato and Aristotle, 184

Dynamic, see Potentiality

Earth, principle in nature, 38

Education, preparation for heaven, 148; ideal, 149; true function of, 169; three stages, 170; an entelechy, 191

Egypt, visited by Pythagoras, 22; Democritus, 74; Plato, 135

Elea, seat of Eleatic school, 30; birthplace of Parmenides, 33

Eleatics, relation of Empedocles to, 62; of Democritus, 75; of Plato, 154, 165

Elements, the four, 62; in creation, 151; in body and in soul, 156

Empedocles, 58

Ends of Life, indifference as to, 96; importance in later Greek philosophy, 125; Plato's view of, 168; Aristotle's, 193; Epicurean, 222

Entelechy, Life, 186, 190; God, 188; Thought, ib.; Education, 191; Morality, 193; State, 197; physical world, 199; Soul, 203

Ephesus, birthplace of Heraclitus, 15

Epicurus, 211; praises of, by Lucretius, 212; garden of, 213; relation to Democritus, 216

Essence v. Difference, 48; equals Cause, 167

Euclides, 132

Euripides, friend of Anaxagoras, 52

Euthydemus, conversation with Socrates, 116; dialogue, 137

Euthyphro, dialogue, 136

Even, v. Odd, 24

Evil, origin of, 33; necessary on earth, 168; God cause of evil, but hath none, 234

Evolution, Anaximander's conception of, 12; Xenophanes' theory of, 33; relation of, to fundamental conception of Being, ib.; view of Empedocles, 70

Existence, an idea prior to Time and Space, 37; not given by Experience, 45; four forms of, 166; philosophy treats of existence as such, 181

Exoteric kind of lectures, 175

Female, see Male

Fire, original of things, 17; one of two principles, 38

Flux, of all things, 16; of life, 27, 73; sophistic theory of, 87

Form v. Matter, 25, 48; Aristotle's theory of, 203

Formulae, never adequate, 122

Freewill, problem of, 33; relation to law, 113; and overruling providence, 155

Friendship, treated of in Lysis, 136

Genus, has less of existence than species, 183

God, soul of the world, 27; the Odd-Even, 26; the universe His self-picturing, 26; God is one, 32; not a function of matter, 33; atomic origin of idea of, 80; the law or ideal in the universe, 112; Man the friend of God, 142; works out His image in creation, 151; God's thought and God's working, 152; is Mind universal, 164; cause of union in creation, 166; His visible images in Man and Nature, ib.; cause both of good and of knowledge, 166; thoughts of, eternally existing, 187; an entelechy, 188; Epicurean theory of, 221; Stoic theory of, 233

Golden age, 73

Gorgias, 92; Antisthenes pupil of, 129; dialogue, 137

Greek v. Modern difficulties, 158

Gymnastic, function of, 170

Habit, Aristotle's definition of, 195

Happiness, chief good, 193; reason standard of, 196

Harmony, the eternal, 19; soul a harmony, 29

Hecataeus, referred to by Herodotus, 2

Hegel, philosophic system of, 159

Heraclitus, 15; v. Democritus, 74; Plato student of, 134; relation of Plato to, 163

Hercules, patron-god of Cynics, 130

Herodotus, notices Hecataeus, 2

Hesiod, praised, 139

Hippias, dialogue, 137

Homer, criticised by Heraclitus, 16; anthropomorphism of, 31; praised, 139

Horace, quoted, 125

Humanitarianism, began in scepticism, 99

Humanity, granted only to possessors of eternal truth, 145

Husk, symbol of evolution, 12

Idea, exists prior to sensation, 143; eternal in universe, 150; rational element in sensation, 152; Platonic criticism of, 157; universals are ideas of real existences, 163; things partake of, 164; relation of, to Pythagorean 'Numbers,' 167; Aristotelian criticism of, 181; necessarily prior to sensation, 187

Ideal, struggle of old and new, 99; in the arts, 110; has three aspects, Justice, Beauty, Utility, ib.; great ideal in the universe, 112; can never wholly fit the real, 239

Idealism, v. Practicality, 4, 96; Parmenides founder of, 39; v. Realism, 51; v. Epicureanism, 216

Immortality, aspect of, to Greeks, 40; Parmenides pioneer for, 41; Phaedo dialogue on, 136; Love and immortality, 138; of soul, 150; relation of doctrine to Platonic recollection, 154; faith as to, 155; Man must put on, 168; Aristotle's view of, 207

Inconsistency, not forbidden in philosophy, 64

Individual, v. Universal, 99; relation of, to community, 147, 196; reality of, 184; importance of, in later systems, 243

Individualism, in philosophy, 83, 85; not wholly bad, 98; required reconciling with universalism, 100

Induction (see Deduction); Socrates inventor of, 106; Plato's contributions to, 160; function of, in Aristotle, 184

Infinite or indefinite, origin of things, 8; function of, in mathematics, 10; relation to definite, 24, 26, 165

Infinity, origin of idea of, 46

Intellect, division of soul, 28, 169

Ion, dialogue, 136

Irony, of Socrates, 105

Jowett, Prof., quoted, 39, 43, 89, 138, 142, 153, 158

Judgment, vision of, 150

Justice, a cheating device, 95; one form of ideal or universal, 110; related to law and to utility, 120; the fairest wisdom, 139; dialogue on, 146; only interest of stronger, 147; writ large in state, 147; perfection of whole man, and of state, 169; a civic quality restraining, 198; Epicurean theory of, 225

Kant, his Critic referred to, 158; maxim of, 236

Knowledge, v. Opinion, 33, 35, 51; impossible, 93; really exists, 164; first causes pertain to, 179; must have real object, 183; potential and actual, 203

'Know thyself,' 113; dialogue on, 137

Laches, dialogue, 136

Lampsacus, place of death of Anaxagoras, 57

Laughing philosopher, 74

Law, in universe, 112; relation to Freewill, 113; relation to Justice, 120; fulfilled through Love, 122; Laws, dialogue, 160; potential and actual, 192

Leontini, birthplace of Gorgias, 92

Leucippus, 74

Life, death of the soul, 19; a prison, 28; a sentinel-post, ib.; a union of contradictories, 66; a dwelling in cave, 148; organic idea of, 185; an entelechy, 190; different kinds of, 194; Aristotle's definition, 203

Listeners, in Pythagorean system, 23

Logic, Parmenides founder of, 39; Zeno inventor of, 42; contributions of Plato and Aristotle to, 159; governing idea of Aristotle's, 184; of Epicurus, 215; Stoic divisions of, 230

Love, motive force in Nature, 38; one of two principles, 38, 63; fulfilling of the law, 122; dialogues on, 137, 144; pure and impure, 145

Lucretius, praises Empedocles, 59; Epicurus, 212; proofs by, of Epicurus' theory, 217; exponent of Roman Epicureanism, 242

Lyceum, school of Aristotle, 174

Lycurgus, praised, 140

Lysis, dialogue, 136

Magnet, soul of, 6

Male and Female, Pythagorean view of, 24; principles in Nature, 38; equality of, 148; correlative, 167; basis of State, 197

Man, measure of truth, 87; working with Eternal Mind, 155; Does Man partake in God's ideas? 158; differentia of, possession of reason, 191; function of, 193; a political animal, 197; wisest of animals, why? 200

Materialism, ancient and modern, 57; of Epicureans, 220; of Stoics, 233

Mathematicians, in system of Pythagoras, 23

Mathematics, based on indefinables, 10; function of, in Pythagorean philosophy, 25; and in Platonic, 170

Matter (see Mind), v. Thought, 48; another name for the formless, 151, 167; correlative of Mind, 167; what it symbolises, 184; relation to Form, 203

Mechanical theory, of universe, 56, 78; of virtue, 195

Megara, birthplace of Euclides, 132; influence of school on Plato, 154

Melissus, 46

Menexenus, dialogue, 137

Meno, dialogue, 136; relation to Aristotle's doctrine, 191

Midwifery of Socrates, 104

Might, without Right is weak, 147; is Right in tyrant, 149

Miletus, birthplace of Thales, 1; of Anaximander, 7; of Anaximenes, 14

Mind, v. Matter, 51, 167; function of, in the universe, 54; God's mind working on matter, 151; ruler of universe, 155; must rule pleasure, 156; home of ideas, 164; correlative of matter, 167; passive and creative, 207

Moist or base element, 18

Monarchy, in politics and in philosophy, 82

Morality, a convention, 95, 126; traditional morality of Greece required remodelling, 98; question as to origin solved by Socrates, 121; can never exhaust Subject, 188; an entelechy, 192; potential and actual, 194

Motion, animal, how accounted for, 79

Multiplicity, see Unity

Music, of the spheres, 27; of seven planets, 151; function of, in education, 29, 170

Myth, of Steeds, 144; of Judgment, 150; of Creation, 152; philosophers fond of, 178

Names, approximations to reality, 165

Nature, treatises on, 16, 34, 46, 217; a reason in, 37; male and female principles in, 38; Love motive force in, ib.; the non-existent, 92; 'touch of nature,' 191; Aristotle's conception of, 199; violations of, 201; order of, 217; clearly immortal, 218; a life consistent with, 236

Necessity, creative power, 38, 63; how used by Democritus, 78; Aristotle's conception of, 201

Neleus, family (owners of Aristotle's library), 175

Nicomachus, father of Aristotle, 172

Notions, Epicurus' view of, 215

Number, original of things, 24; relation of ideas to, 167

Obedience, through disobedience, 122

Obscure, epithet of Heraclitus, 15

Odd, v. Even, 24

Opinion, v. Knowledge, 33, 35

Oracle, answer of, respecting Socrates, 107; maxim engraved on, 113

Organism, idea of, in Aristotle, 185, 205

Organon, of Aristotle, 159

Origination, meaning of, 53, 62

Other, the 'Other' of Plato, 165

Pains, classification of, 131; converted into pleasures, 131, 227; moral function of, 238

Pantheistic apathy, 20

Parmenides, 33; relation of Zeno to, 42; visited Athens, 157; dialogue, ib.

Particular, see Universal

Passion, part of soul, 28, 169

Paul, St., influence of Stoicism on, 228; relation of, to Greek philosophy, 244

Pericles, friend of Anaxagoras, 52; and of Protagoras, 86

Peripatetics, origin of name, 174

Personality, absence of, in Greek thought, 40

Persuasion, only true wisdom, 88

Phaedo, quoted from, 54; dialogue, 136

Phaedrus, dialogue, 142

Phenomena, not source of abstract ideas, 15

Philebus, dialogue, 156

Philosophy, different from science, 9; does not forbid inconsistency, 64; a form of poesy or fiction, 66; at the basis of religion, art, and morals, 67; great philosophies never die, 68; first systematically divided by Democritus, 75; relation to politics, 82, 97; paradox of, 100; crisis of, ib.; of nature and of moral, 101; a means of social culture, 125; relation of Love to, 137; must rule on earth, 149; only makes happy guesses in science, 152; origin of, 178; investigates first causes, 179; crux in, 190; Epicurus' definition of, 214; a search for chief good, 229

Plato, criticism of Protagoras, 89; a complete Socratic, 103: took refuge with Euclides, 132, 134; compared to Shakespeare, 134; as psychologist, 155; central doctrines of, 155; dogma impossible, 162; Aristotle on, 163; relation to Heraclitus, ib.; and to the Eleatics, 165; relation of Aristotle to, 178, 181; his mistake as to universals, 182

Pleasure, end of life, 126; contempt of, 131; reason gives law to, 149; is it chief good? 156; Epicurean theory of, 222; moral function of, 238

Politics, relation to philosophy, 82, 97; influence of sophistry upon, 88

Politicus, see Statesman

Potentiality (Dynamic idea), how used by Aristotle, 185; of feeling, 195; equals matter, 203

Practicality, v. Idealism, 4

Predication, Epicurus' view of, 215

Propositions, v. Things, 189

Protagoras, 85; Plato's criticism of, 89; dialogue, 136

Protoplasm, explains nothing, 37

Punishment, Sophistic theory of, 88

Pyrrho, founder of Scepticism, 211

Pythagoras, 23

Quinta Essentia, origin of, 202

Quixote, the world admires, 227

Realisation (Actuality), correlative of potentiality, 185; relation to Plato's Recollection, 188; chief good, 194

Reality, standard of, 40, 51; distinction between, and appearance, abolished, 83, 87; no necessary relation between thought and reality, 94; the only reality appetite, 96; thoughts of God the only reality, 164; approximations to, 165; ideal can never wholly fit, 239

Reason, function of, 37, 56; corrector of the senses, 61; governs evolution, 70; worse made to appear better, 84; realises itself through individuals, 114; gives law to pleasure, 149, 156; man possesses, 191; actual and latent, 192; partly obedient, partly contemplative, 194; an element in Habit, 195; an impersonal ruler, 196

Recollection (or Reminiscence), departure and renewal of knowledge, 138; doctrine of, in Plato, 142; Platonic criticism of, 154; nature of, 165; relation of Aristotle's theory to, 188

Reminiscence, see Recollection

Republic, dialogue, 146; relation of, to Aristotle's doctrine, 192

Revelation, how criticise? 158

Right, Might without, is weak, 147

Samos, birthplace of Pythagoras, 23; of Melissus, 46; of Epicurus, 211

Scepticism, its isolating influence, 94; destroys not appetite, but moral restraint, 95; represented birth of new conditions, 98; phase of decay in distinctively Greek life, 211

Science, philosophy different from, 9; happy guesses in, 152; different kinds of, 180; can never exhaust object, 188

Scrip and staff, emblems of Cynics, 130

Semitic elements in later Greek philosophy, 228

Seneca, on Epicurus, 225; exponent of Roman Stoicism, 242

Senses (or Sensation), channel for the eternal wisdom, 18; data of, no measure of reality, 40; not source of ideas, 45; untrustworthy, 49; necessary to truth, 56; no test of truth, 60; relation to reason, 61; based on composite character of body, 71; atomic theory of, 79; give no absolute truth, 80; no distinction between, and thing or mind, 87; reaction of moral theory on theory of sensation, 102; invalid as against reason, 133; has rational elements conditioning, 151; universal cannot belong to, 163; universals furthest removed from, 180; only source of knowledge, 214; Epicurean theory of emission, 221; Stoic theory, 230

Shakespeare, Plato compared to, 134

Sicily, birthplace of Empedocles, 58; connection with rise of Sophistry, 84, 86, 92; connection of Plato with, 135

Sin, willing and unwilling, 121

Sinope, birthplace of Diogenes, 130

Sleep, cuts us off from eternal wisdom, 18

Socrates, 101; relation to Anaxagoras, 54; his doctrine in general, 100; marks a parting of ways, 103; warning 'voice' or 'daemon' of, 104; philosophic midwifery, ib.; irony, 105; not an expositor, 115; relation to Sophists, ib.; Aristippus student of, 124; criticises Antisthenes, 129; Plato pupil of, 134; dialogue concerning, 136; conversation of Diotima with, 137; in Republic, 146

Socratics, complete and incomplete, 103; incomplete, 125, 128

Solon, Plato descended from, 134; praised, 140

Sophists, 82; name first used by Protagoras, 85; influence of, on politics, 88, 97; refuted by the arts, 111; relation to Socrates, 115; Platonic dialogues on, 136; dialogue so named, 159

Soul of all things, 6; a fiery exhalation, 18; God soul of the world, 27; soul realised in body, ib.; soul double, 28; triple, 28, 169; life of soul a harmony, 29; composed of finest atoms, 78; even that of universe, 80; loss of one's soul, 150; world-soul the first creation, 151; divisions of, 169; an entelechy, 203; definition of, 204; v. body, 205; Epicurean theory of, 220

Space, existence prior to, 37, 167; unthinkable except with reference to body, 75

Sparta, ideas from, in Republic, 148; influence on Plato's Laws, 160

Species, has more of existence than genus, 183

Speusippus, successor of Plato, 172

Stagira, birthplace of Aristotle, 172

State, Justice writ large in, 147; classes in, 169; an entelechy, 196

Statesman (or Politicus), dialogue, 159

Stoicism, Semitic element in, 228; origin of name, 229

Strife, original of things, 17; one of two principles, 38, 63

Substance defined, 203

Sulla, brought Aristotle's library to Rome, 176

Summum bonum, what? 156; relation of man's perfection, 168; philosophy search for, 229

Symposium, dialogue, 137

Tabula rasa, Stoic theory of, 231

Tarsus, birthplace of St. Paul and (possibly) of Chrysippus, 229

Temperance, treated of in Charmides, 136; fairest sort of wisdom, 139

Thales, 2

Theaetetus, quoted from, 89; dialogue, 159

Theophrastus, successor of Aristotle, 175

Things, in themselves, how known? 158; partake in the idea, 164; v. Propositions, 189

Thought, of God, 150; ideal elements in, 152; of God, source of reality, 164; relation to matter, 184; of God, eternally existing in ideas, 187; an entelechy, 188; without desire, no motive, 191; arms of, 198; only converted sensation, 223

Thucydides, quoted, 97

Thurii, code for, drawn up by Protagoras, 86

Timaeus, dialogue, 150

Time, brings its revenges, 8; plays with the dice, 20; existence prior to, 37, 168

Tortoise, see Achilles

Transmigration of souls, 27, 73

Truth, first duty of man, 29 senses give no absolute, 80; title of work by Protagoras, 86; man measure of, 87; abstract truth impossible, ib.; dialogue concerning, 137

Tyranny, in politics and in philosophy, 83

Ultimately, significance of word, 190

Unity, v. Multiplicity, 28; of objects only apparent, 76; no absolute unity either of body or soul, 138; analysis of, 159; in thoughts of God, 164

Universal, v. Particular, 48; v. Individual, 99; search after lost, 105, 163; three forms, Justice, Beauty, Utility, 110; cannot belong to sense, 163; knowledge of, function of philosophy, 180; does not exist apart from particulars, 181; has less of existence than particulars, 183; they are not antithetical, 189

Universe, the self-picturing of God, 27; mechanical theory of, 56; ideal working in, 112; origin of, 151, 165, 200, 216, 232

Utility, relation to Justice, 120; philosophy does not seek, 178

Virtue, teachable through persuasion, 88; is knowledge, 112, 118; teachable through training, 131; sufficient for happiness, ib.; teachableness of, 136, 191; immortal product of soul, 139; a habit, 195; a mean, ib.; Reason standard of, 196; alone absolutely good, 238

Void, existence of, 75; proofs of, 219

Water, beginning of things, 4

Weeping philosopher, 20; v. laughing philosopher, 74

Wisdom, persuasion only true, 88; moderate indulgence, 126; a weaning of soul from pleasure, 131; temperance and justice the fairest, 139; heavenly and earthly, 148; Is it chief good? 156; Divine wisdom governor, 157; Aristotle's definition of, 180

Wise man, personification of reason, 196

Withdrawal, Stoic name for suicide, 241

World, a living creature, 27; why did God make? 190

Xenocrates, academic philosopher, 172

Xenophanes, 31, 48

Xenophon, quoted, 116

Xerxes, invasion of, 52

Zeno, the Eleatic, 42; the Stoic, 238