Chapter Iii.*

OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.

Having dwelt at some length on the life and compositions of Plato, I now proceed to place in comparison with him some other members of the Sokratic philosophical family: less eminent, indeed, than the illustrious author of the Republic, yet still men of marked character, ability, and influence. Respecting one of the brethren, Xenophon, who stands next to Plato in celebrity, I shall say a few words separately in my next and concluding chapter.

The ascendancy of Sokrates over his contemporaries was powerfully exercised in more than one way. He brought into vogue new subjects both of indefinite amplitude, and familiar as well as interesting to every one. On these subjects, moreover, he introduced, or at least popularised, a new method of communication, whereby the relation of teacher and learner, implying a direct transfer of ready-made knowledge from the one to the other, was put aside. He substituted an interrogatory process, at once destructive and suggestive, in which the teacher began by unteaching and the learner by unlearning what was supposed to be already known, for the purpose of provoking in the learner's mind a self-operative energy of thought, and an internal generation of new notions. Lastly, Sokrates worked forcibly upon the minds of several friends, who were in the habit of attending him when he talked in the market-place or the palæstra. Some tried to copy his wonderful knack of colloquial cross-examination: how far they did so with success or reputation we do not know: but Xenophon says that several of them would only discourse with those who paid them a fee, and that they thus sold for considerable sums what were only small fragments obtained gratuitously from the rich table of their master. There were moreover several who copied the general style of his colloquies by composing written dialogues. And thus it happened that the great master,--he who passed his life in the oral application of his Elenchus, without writing anything,--though he left no worthy representative in his own special career, became the father of numerous written dialogues and of a rich philosophical literature.

Demetrius Phalereus also, in or near that same time, composed a [Greek: Sôkra/tous a)pologi/an] (Diog. La. ix. 37-57). This shows how long the interest in the personal fate and character of Sokrates endured at Athens.]

Besides Plato and Xenophon, whose works are known to us, we hear of Alexamenus, Antisthenes, Æschines, Aristippus, Bryson, Eukleides, Phædon, Kriton, Simmias, Kebês, &c., as having composed dialogues of this sort. All of them were companions of Sokrates; several among them either set down what they could partially recollect of his conversations, or employed his name as a dramatic speaker of their own thoughts. Seven of these dialogues were ascribed to Æschines, twenty-five to Aristippus, seventeen to Kriton, twenty-three to Simmias, three to Kebês, six to Eukleides, four to Phædon. The compositions of Antisthenes were far more numerous: ten volumes of them, under a variety of distinct titles (some of them probably not in the form of dialogues) being recorded by Diogenes. Aristippus was the first of the line of philosophers called Kyrenaic or Hedonic, afterwards (with various modifications) Epikurean: Antisthenes, of the Cynics and Stoics: Eukleides, of the Megaric school. It seems that Aristippus, Antisthenes, Eukleides, and Bryson, all enjoyed considerable reputation, as contemporaries and rival authors of Plato: Æschines, Antisthenes (who was very poor), and Aristippus, are said to have received money for their lectures; Aristippus being named as the first who thus departed from the Sokratic canon.

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

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

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

Æschines the companion of Sokrates did not become (like Eukleides, Antisthenes, Aristippus) the founder of a succession or sect of philosophers. The few fragments remaining of his dialogues do not enable us to appreciate their merit. He seems to have employed the name of Aspasia largely as a conversing personage, and to have esteemed her highly. He also spoke with great admiration of Themistokles. But in regard to present or recent characters, he stands charged with much bitterness and ill-nature: especially we learn that he denounced the Sophists Prodikus and Anaxaras, the first on the ground of having taught Theramenes, the second as the teacher of two worthless persons--Ariphrades and Arignôtus. This accusation deserves greater notice, because it illustrates the odium raised by Melêtus against Sokrates as having instructed Kritias and Alkibiades. Moreover, we have Æschines presented to us in another character, very unexpected in a vir Socraticus. An action for recovery of money alleged to be owing was brought in the Athenian Dikastery against Æschines, by a plaintiff, who set forth his case in a speech composed by the rhetor Lysias. In this speech it is alleged that Æschines, having engaged in trade as a preparer and seller of unguents, borrowed a sum of money at interest from the plaintiff; who affirms that he counted with assurance upon honest dealing from a disciple of Sokrates, continually engaged in talking about justice and virtue. But so far was this expectation from being realized, that Æschines had behaved most dishonestly. He repaid neither principal nor interest; though a judgment of the Dikastery had been obtained against him, and a branded slave belonging to him had been seized under it. Moreover, Æschines had been guilty of dishonesty equally scandalous in his dealings with many other creditors also. Furthermore, he had made love to a rich woman seventy years old, and had got possession of her property; cheating and impoverishing her family. His character as a profligate and cheat was well known and could be proved by many witnesses. Such are the allegations against Æschines, contained in the fragment of a lost speech of Lysias, and made in open court by a real plaintiff. How much of them could be fairly proved, we cannot say: but it seems plain at least that Æschines must have been a trader as well as a philosopher. All these writers on philosophy must have had their root and dealings in real life, of which we know scarce anything.

We read also about another oration of Lysias against Æschines--[Greek: peri\ sukophanti/as] (Diogen. Laert. ii. 63), unless indeed it be the same oration differently described.]

The dialogues known by the title of Sokratic dialogues, were composed by all the principal companions of Sokrates, and by many who were not companions. Yet though thus composed by many different authors, they formed a recognised class of literature, noticed by the rhetorical critics as distinguished for plain, colloquial, unstudied, dramatic execution, suiting the parts to the various speakers: from which general character Plato alone departed--and he too not in all of his dialogues. By the Sokratic authors generally Sokrates appears to have been presented under the same main features: his proclaimed confession of ignorance was seldom wanting: and the humiliation which his cross-questioning inflicted even upon insolent men like Alkibiades, was as keenly set forth by Æschines as by Plato: moreover the Sokratic disciples generally were fond of extolling the Dæmon or divining prophecy of their master. Some dialogues circulating under the name of some one among the companions of Sokrates, were spurious, and the authorship was a point not easy to determine. Simon, a currier at Athens, in whose shop Sokrates often conversed, is said to have kept memoranda of the conversations which he heard, and to have afterwards published them: Æschines also, and some other of the Sokratic companions, were suspected of having preserved or procured reports of the conversations of the master himself, and of having made much money after his death by delivering them before select audiences. Aristotle speaks of the followers of Antisthenes as unschooled, vulgar men: but Cicero appears to have read with satisfaction the dialogues of Antisthenes, whom he designates as acute though not well-instructed. Other accounts describe his dialogues as composed in a rhetorical style, which is ascribed to the fact of his having received lessons from Gorgias: and Theopompus must have held in considerable estimation the dialogues of that same author, as well as those of Aristippus and Bryson, when he accused Plato of having borrowed from them largely.

Dionys. Halikarnass. ad Cn. Pomp. de Platone, p. 762, Reiske. [Greek: Traphei\s] (Plato) [Greek: e)n toi=s Sôkratikoi=s dialo/gois i)schnota/tois ou)=si kai\ a)kribesta/tois, ou) mei/nas d' e)n au)toi=s, a)lla\ tê=s Gorgi/ou kai\ Thoukudi/dou kataskeuê=s e)rasthei/s]: also, De Admir. Vi Dicend. in Demosthene, p. 968. Again in the same treatise De Adm. V. D. Demosth. p. 956. [Greek: ê( de\ e(te/ra le/xis, ê( litê\ kai\ a)phelê\s kai\ dokou=sa kataskeuê/n te kai\ i)schu\n tê\n pro\s i)diô/tên e)/chein lo/gon kai\ o(moio/têta, pollou\s me\n e)/sche kai\ a)gathou\s a)/ndras prosta/tas--kai\ oi( tô=n ê)thikô=n dialo/gôn poiêtai/, ô(=n ê)=n to\ Sôkratiko\n didaskalei=on pa=n, e)/xô Pla/tônos], &c.

Dionysius calls this style [Greek: o( Sôkratiko\s charaktê\r] p. 1025. I presume it is the same to which the satirist Timon applies the words:--

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

An inedited discourse of Michæl Psellus, printed by Mr. Cox in his very careful and valuable catalogue of the MSS. in the Bodleian Library, recites the same high estimate as having been formed of Æschines by the chief ancient rhetorical critics: they reckoned him among and alongside of the foremost Hellenic classical writers, as having his own peculiar merits of style--[Greek: para\ me\n Pla/tôni, tê\n dialogikê\n phra/sin, para\ de\ tou= Sôkratikou= Ai)schi/nou, tê\n e)mmelê= sunthê/kên tô=n le/xeôn, para\ de\ Thoukudi/dou], &c. See Mr. Cox's Catalogue, pp. 743-745. Cicero speaks of the Sokratic philosophers generally, as writing with an elegant playfulness of style (De Officiis, i. 29, 104): which is in harmony with Lucian's phrase--[Greek: Ai)schi/nês o( tou\s dialo/gous makrou\s kai\ a)stei/ous gra/psas], &c.]

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

Eukleides, Antisthenes, and Aristippus, were all companions and admirers of Sokrates, as was Plato. But none of them were his disciples, in the strict sense of the word: none of them continued or enforced his doctrines, though each used his name as a spokesman. During his lifetime the common attachment to his person formed a bond of union, which ceased at his death. There is indeed some ground for believing that Plato then put himself forward in the character of leader, with a view to keep the body united. We must recollect that Plato though then no more than twenty-eight years of age, was the only one among them who combined the advantages of a noble Athenian descent, opulent circumstances, an excellent education, and great native genius. Eukleides and Aristippus were neither of them Athenians: Antisthenes was very poor: Xenophon was absent on service in the Cyreian army. Plato's proposition, however, found no favour with the others and was even indignantly repudiated by Apollodorus: a man ardently attached to Sokrates, but violent and overboiling in all his feelings. The companions of Sokrates, finding themselves unfavourably looked upon at Athens after his death, left the city for a season and followed Eukleides to Megara. How long they stayed there we do not know. Plato is said, though I think on no sufficient authority, to have remained absent from Athens for several years continuously. It seems certain (from an anecdote recounted by Aristotle) that he talked with something like arrogance among the companions of Sokrates: and that Aristippus gently rebuked him by reminding him how very different had been the language of Sokrates himself. Complaints too were made by contemporaries, about Plato's jealous, censorious, spiteful, temper. The critical and disparaging tone of his dialogues, notwithstanding the admiration which they inspire, accounts for the existence of these complaints: and anecdotes are recounted, though not verified by any sufficient evidence, of ill-natured dealing on his part towards other philosophers who were poorer than himself. Dissension or controversy on philosophical topics is rarely carried on without some invidious or hostile feeling. Athens, and the viri Sokratici, Plato included, form no exception to this ordinary malady of human nature.

This anecdote, mentioned by Aristotle, who had good means of knowing, appears quite worthy of belief. The jealousy and love of supremacy inherent in Plato's temper ([Greek: to\ philo/timon]), were noticed by Dionysius Hal. (Epist. ad Cn. Pompeium, p. 756).]

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

It is common for historians of philosophy to speak of a Sokratic school: but this phrase, if admissible at all, is only admissible in the largest and vaguest sense. The effect produced by Sokrates upon his companions was, not to teach doctrine, but to stimulate self-working enquiry, upon ethical and social subjects. Eukleides, Antisthenes, Aristippus, each took a line of his own, not less decidedly than Plato. But unfortunately we have no compositions remaining from either of the three. We possess only brief reports respecting some leading points of their doctrine, emanating altogether from those who disagreed with it: we have besides aphorisms, dicta, repartees, bons-mots, &c., which they are said to have uttered. Of these many are evident inventions; some proceeding from opponents and probably coloured or exaggerated, others hardly authenticated at all. But if they were ever so well authenticated, they would form very insufficient evidence on which to judge a philosopher--much less to condemn him with asperity. Philosophy (as I have already observed) aspires to deliver not merely truth, but reasoned truth. We ought to know not only what doctrines a philosopher maintained, but how he maintained them:--what objections others made against him, and how he replied:--what objections he made against dissentient doctrines, and what replies were made to him. Respecting Plato and Aristotle, we possess such information to a considerable extent:--respecting Eukleides, Antisthenes, and Aristippus, we are without it. All their compositions (very numerous, in the case of Antisthenes) have perished.

* * * * *

EUKLEIDES.

Eukleides was a Parmenidean, who blended the ethical point of view of Sokrates with the ontology of Parmenides, and followed out that negative Dialectic which was common to Sokrates with Zeno. Parmenides (I have with already said) and Zeno after him, recognised no absolute reality except Ens Unum, continuous, indivisible: they denied all real plurality: they said that the plural was Non-Ens or Nothing, i.e. nothing real or absolute, but only apparent, perpetually transient and changing, relative, different as appreciated by one man and by another. Now Sokrates laid it down that wisdom or knowledge of Good, was the sum total of ethical perfection, including within it all the different virtues: he spoke also about the divine wisdom inherent in, or pervading the entire Kosmos or universe. Eukleides blended together the Ens of Parmenides with the Good of Sokrates, saying that the two names designated one and the same thing: sometimes called Good, Wisdom, Intelligence, God, &c., and by other names also, but always one and the same object named and meant. He farther maintained that the opposite of Ens, and the opposite of Bonum (Non-Ens, Non-Bonum, or Malum) were things non-existent, unmeaning names, Nothing, &c.: i.e. that they were nothing really, absolutely, permanently, but ever varying and dependent upon our ever varying conceptions. The One--the All--the Good--was absolute, immoveable, invariable, indivisible. But the opposite thereof was a non-entity or nothing: there was no one constant meaning corresponding to Non-Ens--but a variable meaning, different with every man who used it.

It was in this manner that Eukleides solved the problem which Sokrates had brought into vogue--What is the Bonum--or (as afterwards phrased) the Summum Bonum? Eukleides pronounced the Bonum to be coincident with the Ens Unum of Parmenides. The Parmenidean thesis, originally belonging to Transcendental Physics or Ontology, became thus implicated with Transcendental Ethics.

Plato departs from Sokrates on the same point. He agrees with Eukleides in recognising a Transcendental Bonum. But it appears that his doctrines on this head underwent some change. He held for some time what is called the doctrine of Ideas: transcendental Forms, Entia, Essences: he considered the Transcendental to be essentially multiple, or to be an aggregate--whereas Eukleides had regarded it as essentially One. This is the doctrine which we find in some of the Platonic dialogues. In the Republic, the Idea of Good appears as one of these, though it is declared to be the foremost in rank and the most ascendant in efficacy. But in the later part of his life, and in his lectures (as we learn from Aristotle), Plato came to adopt a different view. He resolved the Ideas into numbers. He regarded them as made up by the combination of two distinct factors:--1. The One--the Essentially One. 2. The Essentially Plural: The Indeterminate Dyad: the Great and Little.--Of these two elements he considered the Ideas to be compounded. And he identified the Idea of Good with the essentially One--[Greek: to\ a)gatho\n] with [Greek: to\ e(/n]: the principle of Good with the principle of Unity: also the principle of Evil with the Indeterminate. But though Unity and Good were thus identical, he considered Unity as logically antecedent, or the subject--Good as logically consequent, or the predicate.

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

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

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

This last doctrine of Plato in his later years (which does not appear in the dialogues, but seems, as far as we can make out, to have been delivered substantially in his oral lectures, and is ascribed to him by Aristotle) was nearly coincident with that of Eukleides. Both held the identity of [Greek: to\ e(/n] with [Greek: to\ a)gatho/n]. This one doctrine is all that we know about Eukleides: what consequences he derived from it, or whether any, we do not know. But Plato combined, with this transcendental Unum = Bonum, a transcendental indeterminate plurality: from which combination he considered his Ideas or Ideal Numbers to be derivatives.

Eukleides is said to have composed six dialogues, the titles of which alone remain. The scanty information which we possess respecting him relates altogether to his negative logical procedure. Whether he deduced any consequences from his positive doctrine of the Transcendental Ens, Unum, Bonum, we do not know: but he, as Zeno had been before him, was acute in exposing contradictions and difficulties in the positive doctrines of opponents. He was a citizen of Megara, where he is said to have harboured Plato and the other companions of Sokrates, when they retired for a time from Athens after the death of Sokrates. Living there as a teacher or debater on philosophy, he founded a school or succession of philosophers who were denominated Megarici. The title is as old as Aristotle, who both names them and criticises their doctrines. None of their compositions are preserved. The earliest who becomes known to us is Eubulides, the contemporary and opponent of Aristotle; next Ichthyas, Apollonius, Diodôrus Kronus, Stilpon, Alexinus, between 340-260 B.C.

The sarcasm ascribed to Diogenes the Cynic implies that Eukleides was really known as the founder of a school--[Greek: kai\ tê\n me\n Eu)klei/dou scholê\n e)/lege cholê/n] (Diog. L. vi. 24)--the earliest mention (I apprehend) of the word [Greek: scholê\] in that sense.]

With the Megaric philosophers there soon become confounded another succession, called Eleian or Eretrian, who trace their origin to another Sokratic man--Phædon. The chief Eretrians made known to us are Pleistanus, Menedêmus, Asklepiades. The second of the three acquired some reputation.

The Megarics and Eretrians, as far as we know them, turned their speculative activity altogether in the logical or intellectual direction, paying little attention to the ethical and emotional field. Both Antisthenes and Aristippus, on the contrary, pursued the ethical path. To the Sokratic question, What is the Bonum? Eukleides had answered by a transcendental definition: Antisthenes and Aristippus each gave to it an ethical answer, having reference to human wants and emotions, and to the different views which they respectively took thereof. Antisthenes declared it to consist in virtue, by which he meant an independent and self-sufficing character, confining all wants within the narrowest limits: Aristippus placed it in the moderate and easy pleasures, in avoiding ambitious struggles, and in making the best of every different situation, yet always under the guidance of a wise calculation and self-command. Both of them kept clear of the transcendental: they neither accepted it as Unum et Omne (the view of Eukleides), nor as Plura (the Eternal Ideas or Forms, the Platonic view). Their speculations had reference altogether to human life and feelings, though the one took a measure of this wide subject very different from the other: and in thus confining the range of their speculations, they followed Sokrates more closely than either Eukleides or Plato followed him. They not only abstained from transcendental speculation, but put themselves in declared opposition to it. And since the intellectual or logical philosophy, as treated by Plato, became intimately blended with transcendental hypothesis--Antisthenes and Aristippus are both found on the negative side against its pretensions. Aristippus declared the mathematical sciences to be useless, as conducing in no way to happiness, and taking no account of what was better or what was worse. He declared that we could know nothing except in so far as we were affected by it, and as it was or might be in correlation with ourselves: that as to causes not relative to ourselves, or to our own capacities and affections, we could know nothing about them.

Aristotle here ranks Aristippus among the [Greek: sophistai/].

Aristippus, in discountenancing [Greek: phusiologi/an], cited the favourite saying of Sokrates that the proper study of mankind was [Greek: o(/tti toi e)n mega/roisi kako/n t' a)gatho/n te te/tuktai].

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

Such were the leading writers and talkers contemporary with Plato, in the dialectical age immediately following on the death of Sokrates. The negative vein greatly preponderates in them, as it does on the whole even in Plato--and as it was pretty sure to do, so long as the form of dialogue was employed. Affirmative exposition and proof is indeed found in some of the later Platonic works, carried on by colloquy between two speakers. But the colloquial form manifests itself evidently as unsuitable for the purpose: and we must remember that Plato was a lecturer as well as a writer, so that his doctrines made their way, at least in part, through continuous exposition. But it is Aristotle with whom the form of affirmative continuous exposition first becomes predominant, in matters of philosophy. Though he composed dialogues (which are now lost), and though he appreciates dialectic as a valuable exercise, yet he considers it only as a discursive preparation; antecedent, though essential, to the more close and concentrated demonstrations of philosophy.

Most historians deal hardly with this negative vein. They depreciate the Sophists, the Megarics and Eretrians, the Academics and Sceptics of the subsequent ages--under the title of Eristics, or lovers of contention for itself--as captious and perverse enemies of truth.

I have already said that my view of the importance and value of the negative vein of philosophy is altogether different. It appears to me quite as essential as the affirmative. It is required as an antecedent, a test, and a corrective. Aristotle deserves all honour for his attempts to construct and defend various affirmative theories: but the value of these theories depends upon their being defensible against all objectors. Affirmative philosophy, as a body not only of truth but of reasoned truth, holds the champion's belt, subject to the challenge not only of competing affirmants, but of all deniers and doubters. And this is the more indispensable, because of the vast problems which these affirmative philosophers undertake to solve: problems especially vast during the age of Plato and Aristotle. The question has to be determined, not only which of two proposed solutions is the best, but whether either of them is tenable, and even whether any solution at all is attainable by the human faculties: whether there exist positive evidence adequate to sustain any conclusion, accompanied with adequate replies to the objections against it. The burthen of proof lies upon the affirmant: and the proof produced must be open to the scrutiny of every dissentient.

Among these dissentients or negative dialecticians, Sokrates himself, during his life, stood prominent. In his footsteps followed Eukleides and the Megarics: who, though they acquired the unenviable surname of Eristics or Controversialists, cannot possibly have surpassed Sokrates, and probably did not equal him, in the refutative Elenchus. Of no one among the Megarics, probably, did critics ever affirm, what the admiring Xenophon says about Sokrates--"that he dealt with every one in colloquial debate just as he chose," i.e., that he baffled and puzzled his opponents whenever he chose. No one of these Megarics probably ever enunciated so sweeping a negative programme, or declared so emphatically his own inability to communicate positive instruction, as Sokrates in the Platonic Apology. A person more thoroughly Eristic than Sokrates never lived. And we see perfectly, from the Memorabilia of Xenophon (who nevertheless strives to bring out the opposite side of his character), that he was so esteemed among his contemporaries. Plato, as well as Eukleides, took up this vein in the Sokratic character, and worked it with unrivalled power in many of his dialogues. The Platonic Sokrates is compared, and compares himself, to Antæus, who compelled every new-comer, willing or unwilling, to wrestle with him.

Sokrates. [Greek: A)=rista ge, ô)= Theo/dôre, tê\n no/son mou a)pei/kasas; i)schurikô/teros me/ntoi e)gô\ e)kei/nôn; muri/oi ga\r ê)/dê moi Ê(rakle/es te kai\ Thêse/es e)ntucho/ntes karteroi\ pro\s to\ le/gein ma/l' eu)= xugkeko/phasin, a)ll' e)gô\ ou)de/n ti ma=llon a)phi/stamai. ou(/tô tis e)rô\s deino\s e)nde/duke tê=s peri\ tau=ta gumnasi/as; mê\ ou)=n mêde\ su\ phthonê/sê|s prosanatripsa/menos sauto/n te a(/ma kai\ e)me\ o)nê=sai].

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

Among the compositions ascribed to Protagoras by Diogenes Laertius (ix. 55), one is entitled [Greek: Te/chnê E)ristikô=n]. But if we look at the last chapter of the Treatise De Sophisticis Elenchis, we shall find Aristotle asserting explicitly that there existed no [Greek: Te/chnê E)ristikô=n] anterior to his own work the Topica.]

Of the six dialogues composed by Eukleides, we cannot speak positively, because they are not preserved. But they cannot have been more refutative, and less affirmative, than most of the Platonic dialogues; and we can hardly be wrong in asserting that they were very inferior both in energy and attraction. The Theætêtus and the Parmenides, two of the most negative among the Platonic dialogues, seem to connect themselves, by the personnel of the drama, with the Megaric philosophers: the former dialogue is ushered in by Eukleides, and is, as it were, dedicated to him: the latter dialogue exhibits, as its protagonistes, the veteran Parmenides himself, who forms the one factor of the Megaric philosophy, while Sokrates forms the other. Parmenides (in the Platonic dialogue so called) is made to enforce the negative method in general terms, as a philosophical duty co-ordinate with the affirmative; and to illustrate it by a most elaborate argumentation, directed partly against the Platonic Ideas (here advocated by the youthful Sokrates), partly against his own (the Parmenidean) dogma of Ens Unum. Parmenides adduces unanswerable objections against the dogma of Transcendental Forms or Ideas; yet says at the same time that there can be no philosophy unless you admit it. He reproves the youthful Sokrates for precipitancy in affirming the dogma, and contends that you are not justified in affirming any dogma until you have gone through a bilateral scrutiny of it--that is, first assuming the doctrine to be true, next assuming it to be false, and following out the deductions arising from the one assumption as well as from the other. Parmenides then gives a string of successive deductions (at great length, occupying the last half of the dialogue)--four pairs of counter-demonstrations or Antinomies--in which contradictory conclusions appear each to be alike proved. He enunciates the final result as follows:--"Whether Unum exists, or does not exist, Unum itself and Cætera, both exist and do not exist, both appear and do not appear, all things and in all ways--both in relation to themselves and in relation to each other".

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

If this memorable dialogue, with its concluding string of elaborate antinomies, had come down to us under the name of Eukleides, historians would probably have denounced it as a perverse exhibition of ingenuity, worthy of "that litigious person, who first infused into the Megarians the fury of disputation " But since it is of Platonic origin, we must recognise Plato not only as having divided with the Megaric philosophers the impulse of negative speculation which they had inherited from Sokrates, but as having carried that impulse to an extreme point of invention, combination, and dramatic handling, much beyond their powers. Undoubtedly, if we pass from the Parmenidês to other dialogues, we find Plato very different. He has various other intellectual impulses, an abundant flow of ideality and of constructive fancy, in many distinct channels. But negative philosophy is at least one of the indisputable and prominent items of the Platonic aggregate.

While then we admit that the Megaric succession of philosophers exhibited negative subtlety and vehement love of contentious debate, we must recollect that these qualities were inherited from Sokrates and shared with Plato. The philosophy of Sokrates, who taught nothing and cross-examined every one, was essentially more negative and controversial, both in him and his successors, than any which had preceded it. In an age when dialectic colloquy was considered as appropriate for philosophical subjects, and when long continuous exposition was left to the rhetor--Eukleides established a succession or school which was more distinguished for impugning dogmas of others than for defending dogmas of its own. Schleiermacher and others suppose that Plato in his dialogue Euthydêmus intends to expose the sophistical fallacies of the Megaric school: and that in the dialogue Sophistês, he refutes the same philosophers (under the vague designation of "the friends of Forms") in their speculations about Ens and Non-Ens. The first of these two opinions is probably true to some extent, though we cannot tell how far: the second of the two is supported by some able critics--yet it appears to me untenable.

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

Of Eukleides himself, though he is characterised as strongly controversial, no distinct points of controversy have been preserved: but his successor Eubulides is celebrated for various sophisms. He was the contemporary and rival of Aristotle: who, without however expressly naming him, probably intends to speak of him when alluding to the Megaric philosophers generally. Another of the same school, Alexinus (rather later than Eubulides) is also said to have written against Aristotle.

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

Six sophisms are ascribed to Eubulides. 1.--[Greek: O( pseudo/menos]--Mentiens. 2.--[Greek: O( dialantha/nôn], or [Greek: e)gkekalumme/nos]--the person hidden under a veil. 3.--[Greek: Ê)le/ktra]. 4.--[Greek: Sôrei/tês]--Sorites. 5.--[Greek: Kerati/nês]--Cornutus. 6.--[Greek: Pha/lakros]--Calvus. Of these the second is substantially the same with the third; and the fourth the same with the sixth, only inverted.

1. Cicero, Academ. ii. pp. 30-96. "Si dicis te mentiri verumque dicis, mentiris. Dicis autem te mentiri, verumque dicis: mentiris igitur." 2, 3. [Greek: O( e)gkekalumme/nos]. You know your father: you are placed before a person covered and concealed by a thick veil: you do not know him. But this person is your father. Therefore you both know your father and do not know him. 5. [Greek: Kerati/nês]. That which you have not lost, you have: but you have not lost horns; therefore you have horns. 4, 6. [Greek: Sôrei/tês--Pha/lakros]. What number of grains make a heap--or are many? what number are few? Are three grains few, and four many?--or, where will you draw the line between Few and Many? The like question about the hairs on a man's head--How many must he lose before he can be said to have only a few, or to be bald?]

These sophisms are ascribed to Eubulides, and belonged probably to the Megaric school both before and after him. But it is plain both from the Euthydêmus of Plato, and from the Topica of Aristotle, that there were many others of similar character; frequently employed in the abundant dialectic colloquies which prevailed at Athens during the fourth and third centuries B.C. Plato and Aristotle handle such questions and their authors contemptuously, under the name of Eristic: but it was more easy to put a bad name upon them, as well as upon the Eleate Zeno, than to elucidate the logical difficulties which they brought to view. Neither Aristotle nor Plato provided a sufficient answer to them: as is proved by the fact, that several subsequent philosophers wrote treatises expressly in reference to them--even philosophers of reputation, like Theophrastus and Chrysippus. How these two latter philosophers performed their task, we cannot say. But the fact that they attempted the task, exhibits a commendable anxiety to make their logical theory complete, and to fortify it against objections.

It is in this point of view--in reference to logical theory--that the Megaric philosophers have not been fairly appreciated. They, or persons reasoning in their manner, formed one essential encouragement and condition to the formation of any tolerable logical theory. They administered, to minds capable and constructive, that painful sense of contradiction, and shock of perplexity, which Sokrates relied upon as the stimulus to mental parturition--and which Plato extols as a lever for raising the student to general conceptions. Their sophisms were not intended to impose upon any one, but on the contrary, to guard against imposition. Whoever states a fallacy clearly and nakedly, applying it to a particular case in which it conducts to a conclusion known upon other evidence not to be true--contributes to divest it of its misleading effect. The persons most liable to be deceived by the fallacy are those who are not forewarned:--in cases where the premisses are stated not nakedly, but in an artful form of words--and where the conclusion, though false, is not known beforehand to be false by the hearer. To use Mr. John Stuart Mill's phrase, the fallacy is a case of apparent evidence mistaken for real evidence: you expose it to be evidence only apparent and not real, by giving a type of the fallacy, in which the conclusion obtained is obviously false: and the more obviously false it is, the better suited for its tutelary purpose. Aristotle recognises, as indispensable in philosophical enquiry, the preliminary wrestling into which he conducts his reader, by means of a long string of unsolved difficulties or puzzles--([Greek: a)po/riai]). He declares distinctly and forcibly, that whoever attempts to lay out a positive theory, without having before his mind a full list of the difficulties with which he is to grapple, is like one who searches without knowing what he is looking for; without being competent to decide whether what he hits upon as a solution be really a solution or not. Now that enumeration of puzzles which Aristotle here postulates (and in part undertakes, in reference to Philosophia Prima) is exactly what the Megarics, and various other dialecticians (called by Plato and Aristotle Sophists) contributed to furnish for the use of those who theorised on Logic.

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

Aristotle devotes the whole of this Book to an enumeration of [Greek: a)po/riai].]

You may dislike philosophy: you may undervalue, or altogether proscribe, the process of theorising. This is the standing-point usual with the bulk of mankind, ancient as well as modern: who generally dislike all accurate reasoning, or analysis and discrimination of familiar abstract words, as mean and tiresome hair-splitting. But if you admit the business of theorising to be legitimate, useful, and even honourable, you must reckon on free working of independent, individual, minds as the operative force--and on the necessity of dissentient, conflicting, manifestations of this common force, as essential conditions to any successful result. Upon no other conditions can you obtain any tolerable body of reasoned truth--or even reasoned quasi-truth.

Now the historians of philosophy seldom take this view of philosophy as a whole--as a field to which the free antithesis of affirmative and negative is indispensable. They consider true philosophy as represented by Sokrates, Plato, and Aristotle, one or other of them: while the contemporaries of these eminent men are discredited under the name of Sophists, Eristics, or sham-philosophers, sowing tares among the legitimate crop of wheat--or as devils whom the miraculous virtue of Sokrates and Plato is employed in expelling from the Athenian mind. Even the companions of Sokrates, and the Megarics among them, whom we know only upon the imperfect testimony of opponents, have fallen under this unmerited sentence: as if they were destructive agents breaking down an edifice of well-constituted philosophy--no such edifice in fact having ever existed in Greece, though there were several dissenting lecture rooms and conflicting veins of speculation promoted by eminent individuals.

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

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

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

Whoever undertakes, bonâ fide, to frame a complete and defensible logical theory, will desire to have before him a copious collection of such difficulties, and will consider those who propound them as useful auxiliaries. If he finds no one to propound them, he will have to imagine them for himself. "The philosophy of reasoning" (observes Mr. John Stuart Mill) "must comprise the philosophy of bad as well as of good reasoning." The one cannot be complete without the other. To enumerate the different varieties of apparent evidence which is not real evidence (called Fallacies), and of apparent contradictions which are not real contradictions--referred as far as may be to classes, each illustrated by a suitable type--is among the duties of a logician. He will find this duty much facilitated, if there happen to exist around him an active habit of dialectic debate: ingenious men who really study the modes of puzzling and confuting a well-armed adversary, as well as of defending themselves against the like. Such a habit did exist at Athens: and unless it had existed, the Aristotelian theories on logic would probably never have been framed. Contemporary and antecedent dialecticians, the Megarici among them, supplied the stock of particular examples enumerated and criticised by Aristotle in the Topica: which treatise (especially the last book, De Sophisticis Elenchis) is intended both to explain the theory, and to give suggestions on the practice, of logical controversy. A man who takes lessons in fencing must learn not only how to thrust and parry, but also how to impose on his opponent by feints, and to meet the feints employed against himself: a general who learns the art of war must know how to take advantage of the enemy by effective cheating and treachery (to use the language of Xenophon), and how to avoid being cheated himself. The Aristotelian Topica, in like manner, teach the arts both of dialectic attack and of dialectic defence.

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

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

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

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

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

Even in the Analytica Priora (ii. 19, a. 34) (independent of the Topica) Aristotle says:--[Greek: chrê\ d' o(/per phula/ttesthai paragge/llomen a)pokrinome/nous, au)tou\s e)picheirou=ntas peira=sthtai lantha/nein]. Investigations of the double or triple senses of words (he says) are useful--[Greek: kai\ pro\s to\ mê\ paralogisthê=nai, kai\ pro\s to\ paralogi/sasthai], Topica, i. 18, p. 108, a. 26. See also other passages of the Topica where artifices are indicated for the purpose of concealing your own plan of proceeding and inducing your opponent to make answer in the sense which you wish, Topica, i. 2, p. 101, a. 25; vi. 10, p. 148, a. 37; viii. 1, p. 151, b. 23; viii. 1, p. 153, a. 6; viii. 2, p. 154, a. 5; viii. 11, p. 161, a. 24 seq. You must be provided with the means of meeting every sort and variety of objection--[Greek: pro\s ga\r to\n pa/ntôs e)nista/menon pa/ntôs a)ntitakte/on e)sti/n]. Topic. v. 4, p. 134, a. 4.

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

The Sophisms ascribed to Eubulidês, looked at from the point of view of logical theory, deserve that attention which they seem to have received. The logician lays down as a rule that no affirmative proposition can be at the same time true and false. Now the first sophism (called Mentiens) exhibits the case of a proposition which is, or appears to be, at the same time true and false. It is for the logician to explain how this proposition can be brought under his rule--or else to admit it as an exception. Again, the second sophism in the list (the Veiled or Hidden Man) is so contrived as to involve the respondent in a contradiction: he is made to say both that he knows his father, and that he does not know his father. Both the one answer and the other follow naturally from the questions and circumstances supposed. The contradiction points to the loose and equivocal way in which the word to know is used in common speech. Such equivocal meaning of words is not only one of the frequent sources of error and fallacy in reasoning, but also one of the least heeded by persons untrained in dialectics; who are apt to presume that the same word bears always the same meaning. To guard against this cause of error, and to determine (or impel others to determine) the accurate meaning or various distinct meanings of each word, is among the duties of the logician: and I will add that the verb to know stands high in the list of words requiring such determination--as the Platonic Theætêtus alone would be sufficient to teach us. Farthermore, when we examine what is called the Soritês of Eubulides, we perceive that it brings to view an inherent indeterminateness of various terms: indeterminateness which cannot be avoided, but which must be pointed out in order that it may not mislead. You cannot say how many grains are much--or how many grains make a heap. When this want of precision, pervading many words in the language, was first brought to notice in a suitable special case, it would naturally appear a striking novelty. Lastly, the sophism called [Greek: Kerati/nês] or Cornutus, is one of great plausibility, which would probably impose upon most persons, if the question were asked for the first time without any forewarning. It serves to administer a lesson, nowise unprofitable or superfluous, that before you answer a question, you should fully weigh its import and its collateral bearings.

The discussion of sophisms, or logical difficulties ([Greek: lu/seis a)pori/ôn]), was a favourite occupation at the banquets of philosophers at Athens, on or about 100 B.C. [Greek: A)nti/patros d' o( philo/sophos, sumpo/sio/n pote suna/gôn, sune/taxe toi=s e)rchome/nois ô(s peri\ sophisma/tôn e(rou=sin] (Athenæus, v. 186 C). Plutarch, Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum, p. 1096 C; De Sanitate Præcepta, c. 20, p. 133 B.]

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

The causes of error and fallacy are inherent in the complication of nature, the imperfection of language, the small range of facts which we know, the indefinite varieties of comparison possible among those facts, and the diverse or opposite predispositions, intellectual as well as emotional, of individual minds. They are not fabricated by those who first draw attention to them. The Megarics, far from being themselves deceivers, served as sentinels against deceit. They planted conspicuous beacons upon some of the sunken rocks whereon unwary reasoners were likely to be wrecked. When the general type of a fallacy is illustrated by a particular case in which the conclusion is manifestly untrue, the like fallacy is rendered less operative for the future.

The principle of the Sorites ([Greek: ê( sôritikê\ a)pori/a]--Sextus adv. Gramm. s. 68), though differently applied, is involved in the argument of Zeno the Eleate, addressed to Protagoras--see Simplikius ad Aristot. Physic. 250, p. 423, b. 42. Sch. Brand. Compare chap. ii. of this volume.]

Of the positive doctrines of the Megarics we know little: but there is one upon which Aristotle enters into controversy with them, and upon which (as far as can be made out) I think they were in the right. In the question about Power, they held that the power to do a thing did not exist, except when the thing was actually done: that an architect, for example, had no power to build a house, except when he actually did build one. Aristotle controverts this opinion at some length; contending that there exists a sort of power or cause which is in itself irregular and indeterminate, sometimes turning to the affirmative, sometimes to the negative, to do or not to do; that the architect has the power to build constantly, though he exerts it only on occasion: and that many absurdities would follow if we did not admit, That a given power or energy--and the exercise of that power--are things distinct and separable.

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

Now these arguments of Aristotle are by no means valid against the Megarics, whose doctrine, though apparently paradoxical, will appear when explained to be no paradox at all, but perfectly true. When we say that the architect has power to build, we do not mean that he has power to do so under all supposable circumstances, but only under certain conditions: we wish to distinguish him from non-professional men, who under those same conditions have no power to build. The architect must be awake and sober: he must have the will or disposition to build: he must be provided with tools and materials, and be secure against destroying enemies. These and other conditions being generally understood, it is unnecessary to enunciate them in common speech. But when we engage in dialectic analysis, the accurate discussion ([Greek: a)kribologi/a]) indispensable to philosophy requires us to bring under distinct notice, that which the elliptical character of common speech implies without enunciating. Unless these favourable conditions be supposed, the architect is no more able to build than an ordinary non-professional man. Now the Megarics did not deny the distinctive character of the architect, as compared with the non-architect: but they defined more accurately in what it consisted, by restoring the omitted conditions. They went a step farther: they pointed out that whenever the architect finds himself in concert with these accompanying conditions (his own volition being one of the conditions) he goes to work--and the building is produced. As the house is not built, unless he wills to build, and has tools and materials, &c.--so conversely, whenever he has the will to build and has tools and materials, &c., the house is actually built. The effect is not produced, except when the full assemblage of antecedent conditions come together: but as soon as they do come together, the effect is assuredly produced. The accomplishments of the architect, though an essential item, are yet only one item among several, of the conditions necessary to building the house. He has no power to build, except when those other conditions are assumed along with him: in other words, he has no such power except when he actually does build.

Aristotle urges against the Megarics various arguments, as follows:--1. Their doctrine implies that the architect is not an architect, and does not possess his professional skill, except at the moment when he is actually building.--But the Megarics would have denied that their doctrine did imply this. The architect possesses his art at all times: but his art does not constitute a power of building except under certain accompanying conditions.

2. The Megaric doctrine is the same as that of Protagoras, implying that there exists no perceivable Object, and no Subject capable of perceiving, except at the moment when perception actually takes place. On this we may observe, that the Megarics coincide with Protagoras thus far, that they bring into open daylight the relative and conditional, which the received phraseology tends to hide. But neither they nor he affirm what is here put upon them. When we speak of a perceivable Object, we mean that which may and will be perceived, if there be a proper Subject to perceive it: when we affirm a Subject capable of perception, we mean, one which will perceive, under those circumstances which we call the presence of an Object suitably placed. The Subject and Object are correlates: but it is convenient to have a language in which one of them alone is introduced unconditionally, while the conditional sign is applied to the correlate: though the matter affirmed involves a condition common to both.

3. According to the Megaric doctrine (Aristotle argues) every man when not actually seeing, is blind; every man when not actually speaking, is dumb.--Here the Megarics would have said that this is a misinterpretation of the terms dumb and blind; which denote a person who cannot speak or see, even though he wishes it. One who is now silent, though not dumb, may speak if he wills it: but his own volition is an essential condition.

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

This is the real sense of what Aristotle calls [Greek: to\ de\ (le/getai) dunato/n, oi(=on dunato\n ei)=nai badi/zein o(/ti badiseien a)\n], i.e. he will walk if he desires to do so (De Interpret. p. 23, a. 9-15).]

4. According to the Megaric doctrine (says Aristotle) when you are now lying down, you have no power to rise: when you are standing up, you have no power to lie down: so that the present condition of affairs must continue for ever unchanged: nothing can come into existence which is not now in being.--Here again, the Megarics would have denied his inference. The man who is now standing up, has power to lie down, if he wills to do so--or he may be thrown down by a superior force: that is, he will lie down, if some new fact of a certain character shall supervene. The Megarics do not deny that he has power, if--so and so: they deny that he has power, without the if--that is, without the farther accompaniments essential to energy.

On the whole, it seems to me that Aristotle's refutation of the Megarics is unsuccessful. A given assemblage of conditions is requisite for the production of any act: while there are other circumstances, which, if present at the same time, would defeat its production. We often find it convenient to describe a state of things in which some of the antecedent conditions are present without the rest: in which therefore the act is not produced, yet would be produced, if the remaining circumstances were present, and if the opposing circumstances were absent. The state of things thus described is the potential as distinguished from the actual: power, distinguished from act or energy: it represents an incomplete assemblage of the antecedent positive conditions--or perhaps a complete assemblage, but counteracted by some opposing circumstances. As soon as the assemblage becomes complete, and the opposing circumstances removed, the potential passes into the actual. The architect, when he is not building, possesses, not indeed the full or plenary power to build, but an important fraction of that power, which will become plenary when the other fractions supervene, but will then at the same time become operative, so as to produce the actual building.

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

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

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

to\ dunato\n kata\ lo/gon a(/pan a)na/gkê, o(/tan o)re/gêtai, ou)= t' e)/chei tê\n du/namin kai\ ô(s e)/chei, tou=to poiei=n; e)/chei de\ paro/ntos tou= pathêtikou= kai\ ô(di\ e)/chontos poiei=n; ei) de\ mê/, poiei=n ou) dunê/setai. to\ ga\r mêtheno\s tô=n e(/xô kôlu/ontos prosdiori/zesthai, ou)the\n e)/ti dei=; tê\n ga\r du/namin e)/chei ô(/s e)/sti du/namis tou= poiei=n, e)/sti d' ou) pa/ntôs, a)ll' e)cho/ntôn pô=s, e)n oi(=s a)phoristhê/setai kai\ ta\ e(/xô kôlu/onta; a)phairei=tai ga\r tau=ta tô=n e)n tô=| diorismô=| proso/ntôn e)/nia]. The commentary of Alexander Aphr. upon this chapter is well worth consulting (pp. 546-548 of the edition of his commentary by Bonitz, 1847). Moreover Aristotle affirms in this chapter, that when [Greek: to\ poiêtiko\n] and [Greek: to\ pathêtiko\n] come together under suitable circumstances, the power will certainly pass into act.

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

The doctrine which I have just been canvassing is expressly cited by Aristotle as a Megaric doctrine, and was therefore probably held by his contemporary Eubulidês. From the pains which Aristotle takes (in the 'De Interpretatione' and elsewhere) to explain and vindicate his own doctrine about the Potential and the Actual, we may see that it was a theme much debated among the dialecticians of the day. And we read of another Megaric, Diodorus Kronus, perhaps contemporary (yet probably a little later than Aristotle), as advancing a position substantially the same as that of Eubulidês. That alone is possible (Diodorus affirmed) which either is happening now, or will happen at some future time. As in speaking about facts of an unrecorded past, we know well that a given fact either occurred or did not occur, yet without knowing which of the two is true--and therefore we affirm only that the fact may have occurred: so also about the future, either the assertion that a given fact will at some time occur, is positively true, or the assertion that it will never occur, is positively true: the assertion that it may or may not occur some time or other, represents only our ignorance, which of the two is true. That which will never at any time occur, is impossible.

The argument here recited must have been older than Diodorus, since Aristotle states and controverts it: but it seems to have been handled by him in a peculiar dialectic arrangement, which obtained the title of [Greek: O( Kurieu/ôn]. The Stoics (especially Chrysippus), in times somewhat later, impugned the opinion of Diodorus, though seemingly upon grounds not quite the same as Aristotle. This problem was one upon which speculative minds occupied themselves for several centuries. Aristotle and Chrysippus maintained that affirmations respecting the past were necessary (one necessarily true and the other necessarily false)--affirmations respecting the future, contingent (one must be true and the other false, but either might be true). Diodorus held that both varieties of affirmations were equally necessary--Kleanthes the Stoic thought that both were equally contingent.

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

It was thus that the Megaric dialecticians, with that fertility of mind which belonged to the Platonic and Aristotelian century, stirred up many real problems and difficulties connected with logical evidence, and supplied matters for discussion which not only occupied the speculative minds of the next four or five centuries, but have continued in debate down to the present day.

The question about the Possible and Impossible, raised between Aristotle and Diodorus, depends upon the larger question, Whether there are universal laws of Nature or not? whether the sequences are, universally and throughout, composed of assemblages of conditions regularly antecedent, and assemblages of events regularly consequent; though from the number and complication of causes, partly co-operating and partly conflicting with each other, we with our limited intelligence are often unable to predict the course of events in each particular situation. Sokrates, Plato, and Aristotle, all maintained that regular sequence of antecedent and consequent was not universal, but partial only: that there were some agencies essentially regular, in which observation of the past afforded ground for predicting the future--other agencies (or the same agencies on different occasions) essentially irregular, in which the observation of the past afforded no such ground. Aristotle admitted a graduation of causes from perfect regularity to perfect irregularity:--1. The Celestial Spheres, with their included bodies or divine persons, which revolved and exercised a great and preponderant influence throughout the Kosmos, with perfect uniformity; having no power of contraries, i.e., having no power of doing anything else but what they actually did (having [Greek: e)nergei/a] without [Greek: du/namis]). 2. The four Elements, in which the natural agencies were to a great degree necessary and uniform, but also in a certain degree otherwise--either always or for the most part uniform ([Greek: to\ ô(s e)pi\ to\ polu/])--tending by inherent appetency towards uniformity, but not always attaining it. 3. Besides these there were two other varieties of Causes accidental, or perfectly irregular--Chance and Spontaneity: powers of contraries, or with equal chance of contrary manifestations--essentially capricious, undeterminable, unpredictable. This Chance of Aristotle--with one of two contraries sure to turn up, though you could never tell beforehand which of the two--was a conception analogous to what logicians sometimes call an Indefinite Proposition, or to what some grammarians have reckoned as a special variety of genders called the doubtful gender. There were thus positive causes of regularity, and positive causes of irregularity, the co-operation or conflict of which gave the total manifestations of the actual universe. The principle of irregularity, or the Indeterminate, is sometimes described under the name of Matter, as distinguishable from, yet co-operating with, the three determinate Causes--Formal, Efficient, Final. The Potential--the Indeterminate--the May or May not be--is characterised by Aristotle as one of the inherent principles operative in the Kosmos.

Sometimes [Greek: to\ o(po/ter' e)/tuche] is spoken of as an [Greek: A)rchê/], but not as an [Greek: ai)/tion], or belonging to [Greek: u(/lê] as the [Greek: A)rchê/]. 1027, b. 11. [Greek: dê=lon a)/ra o(/ti me/chri tino\s badi/zei a)rchê=s, au)/tê d' ou)/keti ei)s a)/llo; e)/stai ou)=n ê( tou= o(po/ter' e)/tuchen au)/tê, kai\ ai)/tioi tê=s gene/seôs au)tê=s ou)the/n].

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

Matter is represented as the principle of irregularity, of [Greek: to\ o(po/ter' e)/tuche]--as the [Greek: du/namis tô=n e)nanti/ôn].

In the explanation given by Alexander of Aphrodisias of the Peripatetic doctrine respecting chance--free-will, the principle of irregularity--[Greek: tu/chê] is no longer assigned to the material cause, but is treated as an [Greek: ai)ti/a kata\ sumbebêko/s], distinguished from [Greek: ai)ti/a proêgou/mena] or [Greek: kath' au(ta/]. The exposition given of the doctrine by Alexander is valuable and interesting. See his treatise De Fato, addressed to the Emperor Severus, in the edition of Orelli, Zurich. 1824 (a very useful volume, containing treatises of Ammonius, Plotinus, Bardesanes, &c., on the same subject); also several sections of his Quæstiones Naturales et Morales, ed. Spengel, Munich, 1842, pp. 22-61-65-123, &c. He gives, however, a different explanation of [Greek: to\ dunato\n] and [Greek: to\ a)du/naton] in pp. 62-63, which would not be at variance with the doctrine of Diodorus. We may remark that Alexander puts the antithesis of the two doctrines differently from Aristotle,--in this way. 1. Either all events happen [Greek: kath' ei(marme/nên]. 2. Or all events do not happen [Greek: kath' ei(marme/nên], but some events are [Greek: e)ph' ê(mi=n]. See De Fato, p. 14 seq. This way of putting the question is directed more against the Stoics, who were the great advocates of [Greek: ei(marme/nê], than against the Megaric Diodorus. The treatises of Chrysippus and the other Stoics alter both the wording and the putting of the thesis. We know that Chrysippus impugned the doctrine of Diodorus, but I do not see how.

The Stoic antithesis of [Greek: ta kath' ei(marme/nên--ta\ e)ph' ê(mi=n] is different from the antithesis conceived by Aristotle and does not touch the question about the universality of regular sequence. [Greek: Ta\ e)ph' ê(mi=n] describes those sequences in which human volition forms one among the appreciable conditions determining or modifying the result; [Greek: ta\ kath' ei(marme/nên] includes all the other sequences wherein human volition has no appreciable influence. But the sequence [Greek: tô=n e)ph' ê(mi=n] is just as regular as the sequence [Greek: tô=n kath' ei(marme/nên]: both the one and the other are often imperfectly predictable, because our knowledge of facts and power of comparison is so imperfect.

Theophrastus discussed [Greek: to\ kath' ei(marme/nên], and explained it to mean the same as [Greek: to\ kata\ phu/sin. phanerô/tata de\ Theo/phrastos dei/knusi tau)to\n o(\n to\ kath' ei(marme/nên tô=| kata\ phu/sin] (Alexander Aphrodisias ad Aristot. De Animâ, ii.).]

In what manner Diodorus stated and defended his opinion upon this point, we have no information. We know only that he placed affirmations respecting the future on the same footing as affirmations respecting the past: maintaining that our potential affirmation--May or May not be--respecting some future event, meant no more than it means respecting some past event, viz.: no inherent indeterminateness in the future sequence, but our ignorance of the determining conditions, and our inability to calculate their combined working. In regard to scientific method generally, this problem is of the highest importance: for it is only so far as uniformity of sequence prevails, that facts become fit matter for scientific study. Consistently with the doctrine of all-pervading uniformity of sequence, the definition of Hobbes gives the only complete account of the Impossible and Possible: i.e. an account such as would appear to an omniscient calculator, where May or May not merge in Will or Will not. According as each person falls short of or approaches this ideal standard--according to his knowledge and mental resource, inductive and deductive--will be his appreciation of what may be or may not be--as of what may have been or may not have been during the past. But such appreciation, being relative to each individual mind, is liable to vary indefinitely, and does not admit of being embodied in one general definition.

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

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

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

Besides the above doctrine respecting Possible and Impossible, there is also ascribed to Diodorus a doctrine respecting Hypothetical Propositions, which, as far as I comprehend it, appears to have been a correct one. He is also said to have reasoned against the reality of motion, renewing the arguments of Zeno the Eleate.

But if he reproduced the arguments of Zeno, he also employed another, peculiar to himself. He admitted the reality of past motion: but he denied the reality of present motion. You may affirm truly (he said) that a thing has been moved: but you cannot truly affirm that any thing is being moved. Since it was here before, and is there now, you may be sure that it has been moved: but actual present motion you cannot perceive or prove. Affirmation in the perfect tense may be true, when affirmation in the present tense neither is nor ever was true: thus it is true to say--Helen had three husbands (Menelaus, Paris, Deiphobus): but it was never true to say--Helen has three husbands, since they became her husbands in succession. Diodorus supported this paradox by some ingenious arguments, and the opinion which he denied seems to have presented itself to him as involving the position of indivisible minima--atoms of body, points of space, instants of time. He admitted such minima of atoms, but not of space or time: and without such admission he could not make intelligible to himself the fact of present or actual motion. He could find no present Now or Minimum of Time; without which neither could any present motion be found. Plato in the Parmenidês professes to have found this inexplicable moment of transition, but he describes it in terms not likely to satisfy a dialectical mind: and Aristotle denying that the Now is any portion or constituent part of time, considers it only as a boundary of the past and future.

Diodorus could not make out this [Greek: phu/sis a)/topos] which Plato calls [Greek: to\ e)xai/phnês].]

Aristot. Physic. iv. p. 218, a. 4-10. [Greek: tou= de\ chro/non ta\ me\n ge/gone, ta\ de\ me/llei, e)sti d' ou)de\n, o)/ntos meristou=; to\ de\ nu=n ou) me/ros--to\ de\ nu=n pe/ras e)/sti] (a. 24)--p. 222, a. 10-20-223, a. 20. [Greek: o( de\ chro/nos kai\ ê( ki/nêsis a(/ma kata/ te du/namin kai\ kat' e)nergei/an].

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

This opinion of Aristotle is in the main consonant with that of Diodorus; who, when he denied the reality of present motion, meant probably only to deny the reality of present motion apart from past and future motion. Herein also we find him agreeing with Hobbes, who denies the same in clearer language. Sextus Empiricus declares Diodorus to have been inconsistent in admitting past motion while he denied present motion. But this seems not more inconsistent than the doctrine of Aristotle respecting the Now of time. I know, when I compare a child or a young tree with what they respectively were a year ago, that they have grown: but whether they actually are growing, at every moment of the intervening time, is not ascertainable by sense, and is a matter of probable inference only. Diodorus could not understand present motion, except in conjunction with past and future motion, as being the common limit of the two: but he could understand past motion, without reference to present or future. He could not state to himself a satisfactory theory respecting the beginning of motion: as we may see by his reasonings distinguishing the motion of a body all at once in its integrity, from the motion of a body considered as proceeding from the separate motion of its constituent atoms--the moving atoms preponderating over the atoms at rest, and determining them to motion, until gradually the whole body came to move. The same argument re-appears in another example, when he argues--The wall does not fall while its component stones hold together, for then it is still standing: nor yet when they have come apart, for then it has fallen.

That Diodorus was a person seriously anxious to solve logical difficulties, as well as to propose them, would be incontestably proved if we could believe the story recounted of him--that he hanged himself because he could not solve a problem proposed by Stilpon in the presence of Ptolemy Soter. But this story probably grew out of the fact, that Stilpon succeeded Diodorus at Megara, and eclipsed him in reputation. The celebrity of Stilpon, both at Megara and at Athens (between 320-300 B.C., but his exact date can hardly be settled), was equal, if not superior, to that of any contemporary philosopher. He was visited by listeners from all parts of Greece, and he drew away pupils from the most renowned teachers of the day; from Theophrastus as well as the others. He was no less remarkable for fertility of invention than for neatness of expression. Two persons, who came for the purpose of refuting him, are said to have remained with him as admirers and scholars. All Greece seemed as it were looking towards him, and inclining towards the Megaric doctrines. He was much esteemed both by Ptolemy Soter and by Demetrius Poliorkêtes, though he refused the presents and invitations of both: and there is reason to believe that his reputation in his own day must have equalled that of either Plato or Aristotle in theirs. He was formidable in disputation; but the nine dialogues which he composed and published are characterised by Diogenes as cold.

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

Contemporary with Stilpon (or perhaps somewhat later) was Menedêmus of Eretria, whose philosophic parentage is traced to Phædon. The name of Phædon has been immortalised, not by his own works, but by the splendid dialogue of which Plato has made him the reciter. He is said (though I doubt the fact) to have been a native of Elis. He was of good parentage, a youthful companion of Sokrates in the last years of his life. After the death of Sokrates, Phædon went to Elis, composed some dialogues, and established a succession or sect of philosophers--Pleistanus, Anchipylus, Moschus. Of this sect Menedêmus, contemporary and hearer of Stilpon, became the most eminent representative, and from him it was denominated Eretriac instead of Eleian. The Eretriacs, as well as the Megarics, took up the negative arm of philosophy, and were eminent as puzzlers and controversialists.

But though this was the common character of the two, in a logical point of view, yet in Stilpon, as well as Menedêmus, other elements became blended with the logical. These persons combined, in part at least, the free censorial speech of Antisthenes with the subtlety of Eukleides. What we hear of Menedêmus is chiefly his bitter, stinging sarcasms, and clever repartees. He did not, like the Cynic Diogenes, live in contented poverty, but occupied a prominent place (seemingly under the patronage of Antigonus and Demetrius) in the government of his native city Eretria. Nevertheless he is hardly less celebrated than Diogenes for open speaking of his mind, and carelessness of giving offence to others.

* * * * *

ANTISTHENES.

Antisthenes, the originator of the Cynic succession of philosophers, was one of those who took up principally the ethical element of the Sokratic discoursing, which the Megarics left out or passed lightly over. He did not indeed altogether leave out the logical element: all his doctrines respecting it, as far as we hear of them, appear to have been on the negative side. But respecting ethics, he laid down affirmative propositions, and delivered peremptory precepts. His aversion to pleasure, by which he chiefly meant sexual pleasure, was declared in the most emphatic language. He had therefore, in the negative logic, a point of community with Eukleides and the Megarics: so that the coalescence of the two successions, in Stilpon and Menedêmus, is a fact not difficult to explain.

The life of Sokrates being passed in conversing with a great variety of persons and characters, his discourses were of course multifarious, and his ethical influence operated in different ways. His mode of life, too, exercised a certain influence of its own.

Antisthenes, and his disciple Diogenes, were in many respects closer approximations to Sokrates than either Plato or any other of the Sokratic companions. The extraordinary colloquial and cross-examining force was indeed a peculiar gift, which Sokrates bequeathed to none of them: but Antisthenes took up the Sokratic purpose of inculcating practical ethics not merely by word of mouth, but also by manner of life. He was not inferior to his master in contentment under poverty, in strength of will and endurance, in acquired insensibility both to pain and pleasure, in disregard of opinion around him, and in fearless exercise of a self-imposed censorial mission. He learnt from Sokrates indifference to conventional restraints and social superiority, together with the duty of reducing wants to a minimum, and stifling all such as were above the lowest term of necessity. To this last point, Sokrates gave a religious colour, proclaiming that the Gods had no wants, and that those who had least came nearest to the Gods. By Antisthenes, these qualities were exhibited in eminent measure; and by his disciple Diogenes they were still farther exaggerated. Epiktetus, a warm admirer of both, considers them as following up the mission from Zeus which Sokrates (in the Platonic Apology) sets forth as his authority, to make men independent of the evils of life by purifying and disciplining the appreciation of good and evil in the mind of each individual.

Antisthenes declared virtue to be the End for men to aim at--and to be sufficient per se for conferring happiness; but he also declared that virtue must be manifested in acts and character, not by words. Neither much discourse nor much learning was required for virtue; nothing else need be postulated except bodily strength like that of Sokrates. He undervalued theory even in regard to Ethics: much more in regard to Nature (Physics) and to Logic: he also despised literary, geometrical, musical teaching, as distracting men's attention from the regulation of their own appreciative sentiment, and the adaptation of their own conduct to it. He maintained strenuously (what several Platonic dialogues call in question) that virtue both could be taught and must be taught: when once learnt, it was permanent, and could not be eradicated. He prescribed the simplest mode of life, the reduction of wants to a minimum, with perfect indifference to enjoyment, wealth, or power. The reward was, exemption from fear, anxiety, disappointments, and wants: together with the pride of approximation to the Gods. Though Antisthenes thus despised both literature and theory, yet he had obtained a rhetorical education, and had even heard the rhetor Gorgias. He composed a large number of dialogues and other treatises, of which only the titles (very multifarious) are preserved to us. One dialogue, entitled Sathon, was a coarse attack on Plato: several treated of Homer and of other poets, whose verses he seems to have allegorised. Some of his dialogues are also declared by Athenæus to contain slanderous abuse of Alkibiades and other leading Athenians. On the other hand, the dialogues are much commended by competent judges; and Theopompus even affirmed that much in the Platonic dialogues had been borrowed from those of Antisthenes, Aristippus, and Bryson.

Antisthenes was among the most constant friends and followers of Sokrates, both in his serious and in his playful colloquies. The Symposion of Xenophon describes both of them, in their hours of joviality. The picture drawn by an author, himself a friend and companion, exhibits Antisthenes (so far as we can interpret caricature and jocular inversion) as poor, self-denying, austere, repulsive, and disputatious--yet bold and free-spoken, careless of giving offence, and forcible in colloquial repartee.

In all these qualities, however, Antisthenes was surpassed by his pupil and successor Diogenes of Sinôpê; whose ostentatious austerity of life, eccentric and fearless character, indifference to what was considered as decency, great acuteness and still greater power of expression, freedom of speech towards all and against all--constituted him the perfect type of the Cynical sect. Being the son of a money-agent at Sinôpê, he was banished with his father for fraudulently counterfeiting the coin of the city. On coming to Athens as an exile, he was captivated with the character of Antisthenes, who was at first unwilling to admit him, and was only induced to do so by his invincible importunity. Diogenes welcomed his banishment, with all its poverty and destitution, as having been the means of bringing him to Antisthenes, and to a life of philosophy. It was Antisthenes (he said) who emancipated him from slavery, and made him a freeman. He was clothed in one coarse garment with double fold: he adopted the wallet (afterwards the symbol of cynicism) for his provisions, and is said to have been without any roof or lodging--dwelling sometimes in a tub near the Metroon, sometimes in one of the public porticoes or temples: he is also said to have satisfied all his wants in the open day. He here indulged unreservedly in that unbounded freedom of speech, which he looked upon as the greatest blessing of life. No man ever turned that blessing to greater account: the string of repartees, sarcasms, and stinging reproofs, which are attributed to him by Diogenes Laertius, is very long, but forms only a small proportion of those which that author had found recounted. Plato described Diogenes as Sokrates running mad: and when Diogenes, meeting some Sicilian guests at his house and treading upon his best carpet, exclaimed "I am treading on Plato's empty vanity and conceit," Plato rejoined "Yes, with a different vanity of your own ". The impression produced by Diogenes in conversation with others, was very powerfully felt both by young and old. Phokion, as well as Stilpon, were among his hearers. In crossing the sea to Ægina, Diogenes was captured by pirates, taken to Krete, and there put up to auction as a slave: the herald asked him what sort of work he was fit for: whereupon Diogenes replied--To command men. At his own instance, a rich Corinthian named Xeniades bought him and transported him to Corinth. Diogenes is said to have assumed towards Xeniades the air of a master: Xeniades placed him at the head of his household, and made him preceptor of his sons. In both capacities Diogenes discharged his duty well. As a slave well treated by his master, and allowed to enjoy great freedom of speech, he lived in greater comfort than he had ever enjoyed as a freeman: and we are not surprised that he declined the offers of friends to purchase his liberation. He died at Corinth in very old age: it is said, at ninety years old, and on the very same day on which Alexander the Great died at Babylon (B.C. 323). He was buried at the gate of Corinth leading to the Isthmus: a monument being erected to his honour, with a column of Parian marble crowned by the statue of a dog.

Plutarch quotes two lines from Diogenes respecting Antisthenes:--

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

These smart sayings, of which so many are ascribed to Diogenes, and which he is said to have practised beforehand, and to have made occasions for--[Greek: o(/ti chrei/an ei)/ê memeletêkô/s] (Diog. L. v. 18, vi. 91, vii. 26)--were called by the later rhetors [Greek: Chrei=ai]. See Hermogenes and Theon, apud Walz, Rhetor. Græc. i. pp. 19-201; Quintilian, i. 9, 4.

Such collections of Ana were ascribed to all the philosophers in greater or less number. Photius, in giving the list of books from which the Sophist Sopater collected extracts, indicates one as [Greek: Ta\ Dioge/nous tou= Kunikou= A)pophthe/gmata] (Codex 161).]

Diogenes seems to have been known by his contemporaries under the title of [Greek: o( Ku/ôn]. Aristotle cites from him a witty comparison under that designation, Rhetoric. iii. 10, 1410, a. 24. [Greek: kai\ o( Ku/ôn (e)ka/lei) ta\ kapêlei=a, ta\ A)ttika\ phidi/tia.]]

In politics, ethics, and rules for human conduct, Diogenes adopted views of his own, and spoke them out freely. He was a freethinker (like Antisthenes) as to the popular religion: and he disapproved of marriage laws, considering that the intercourse of the sexes ought to be left to individual taste and preference. Though he respected the city and conformed to its laws, yet he had no reverence for existing superstitions, or for the received usages as to person, sex, or family. He declared himself to be a citizen of the Kosmos and of Nature. His sole exigency was, independence of life, and freedom of speech: having these, he was satisfied, fully sufficient to himself for happiness, and proud of his own superiority to human weakness. The main benefit which he derived from philosophy (he said) was, that he was prepared for any fortune that might befall him. To be ready to accept death easily, was the sure guarantee of a free and independent life. He insisted emphatically upon the necessity of exercise or training ([Greek: a)/skêsis]) both as to the body and as to the mind. Without this, nothing could be done: by means of it everything might be achieved. But he required that the labours imposed should be directed to the acquisition of habits really useful; instead of being wasted, as they commonly were, upon objects frivolous and showy. The truly wise man ought to set before him as a model the laborious life of Hêraklês: and he would find, after proper practice and training, that the contempt of pleasures would afford him more enjoyment than the pleasures themselves.

Diogenes declared that education was sobriety to the young, consolation to the old, wealth to the poor, ornament to the rich. But he despised much of what was commonly imparted as education--music, geometry, astronomy, &c.: and he treated with equal scorn Plato and Eukleides. He is said however to have conducted the education of the sons of his master Xeniades without material departure from the received usage. He caused them to undergo moderate exercise (not with a view to athletic success) in the palæstra, and afterwards to practise riding, shooting with the bow, hurling the javelin, slinging and hunting: he cultivated their memories assiduously, by recitations from poets and prose authors, and even from his own compositions: he kept them on bread and water, without tunic or shoes, with clothing only such as was strictly necessary, with hair closely cut, habitually silent, and fixing their eyes on the ground when they walked abroad. These latter features approximate to the training at Sparta (as described by Xenophon) which Diogenes declared to contrast with Athens as the apartments of the men with those of the women. Diogenes is said to have composed several dialogues and even some tragedies. But his most impressive display (like that of Sokrates) was by way of colloquy--prompt and incisive interchange of remarks. He was one of the few philosophers who copied Sokrates in living constantly before the public--in talking with every one indiscriminately and fearlessly, in putting home questions like a physician to his patient. Epiktêtus,--speaking of Diogenes as equal, if not superior, to Sokrates--draws a distinction pertinent and accurate. "To Sokrates" (says he) "Zeus assigned the elenchtic or cross-examining function: to Diogenes, the magisterial and chastising function: to Zeno (the Stoic) the didactic and dogmatical." While thus describing Diogenes justly enough, Epiktetus nevertheless insists upon his agreeable person and his extreme gentleness and good-nature: qualities for which probably Diogenes neither took credit himself, nor received credit from his contemporaries. Diogenes seems to have really possessed--that which his teacher Antisthenes postulated as indispensable--the Sokratic physical strength and vigour. His ethical creed, obtained from Antisthenes, was adopted by many successors, and (in the main) by Zeno and the Stoics in the ensuing century. But the remarkable feature in Diogenes which attracts to him the admiration of Epiktêtus, is--that he set the example of acting out his creed, consistently and resolutely, in his manner of life: an example followed by some of his immediate successors, but not by the Stoics, who confined themselves to writing and preaching. Contemporary both with Plato and Aristotle, Diogenes stands to both of them in much the same relation as Phokion to Demosthenes in politics and oratory: he exhibits strength of will, insensibility to applause as well as to reproach, and self-acting independence--in antithesis to their higher gifts and cultivation of intellect. He was undoubtedly, next to Sokrates, the most original and unparalleled manifestation of Hellenic philosophy.

About [Greek: to\ ê(/meron kai\ phila/nthrôpon] of Diogenes, see Epiktêtus, iii. 24, 64; who also tells us (iv. 11, 19), professing to follow the statements of contemporaries, that the bodies both of Sokrates and Diogenes were by nature so sweet and agreeable ([Greek: e)pi/chari kai\ ê(du/]) as to dispense with the necessity of washing.

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

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

Respecting Diogenes and the Cynic philosophers generally, we have to regard not merely their doctrines, but the effect produced by their severity of life. In this point Diogenes surpassed his master Antisthenes, whose life he criticised as not fully realising the lofty spirit of his doctrine. The spectacle of man not merely abstaining from enjoyment, but enduring with indifference hunger, thirst, heat, cold, poverty, privation, bodily torture, death, &c., exercises a powerful influence on the imagination of mankind. It calls forth strong feelings of reverence and admiration in the beholders: while in the sufferer himself also, self-reverence and self-admiration, the sense of power and exaltation above the measure of humanity, is largely developed. The extent to which self-inflicted hardships and pains have prevailed in various regions of the earth, the long-protracted and invincible resolution with which they have been endured, and the veneration which such practices have procured for the ascetics who submitted to them are among the most remarkable chapters in history. The East, especially India, has always been, and still is, the country in which these voluntary endurances have reached their extreme pitch of severity; even surpassing those of the Christian monks in Egypt and Syria, during the fourth and fifth centuries of the Christian era. When Alexander the Great first opened India to the observation of Greeks, one of the novelties which most surprised him and his followers was, the sight of the Gymnosophists or naked philosophers. These men were found lying on the ground, either totally uncovered or with nothing but a cloth round the loins; abstaining from all enjoyment, nourishing themselves upon a minimum of coarse vegetables or fruits, careless of the extreme heat of the plain, and the extreme cold of the mountain; and often superadding pain, fatigue, or prolonged and distressing uniformity of posture. They passed their time either in silent meditation or in discourse on religion and philosophy: they were venerated as well as consulted by every one, censuring even the most powerful persons in the land. Their fixed idea was to stand as examples to all, of endurance, insensibility, submission only to the indispensable necessities of nature, and freedom from all other fear or authority. They acted out the doctrine, which Plato so eloquently preaches under the name of Sokrates in the Phædon--That the whole life of the philosopher is a preparation for death: that life is worthless, and death an escape from it into a better state. It is an interesting fact to learn that when Onesikritus (one of Alexander's officers, who had known and frequented the society of Diogenes in Greece), being despatched during the Macedonian march through India for the purpose of communicating with these Gymnosophists, saw their manner of life and conversed with them he immediately compared them with Diogenes, whom he had himself visited--as well as with Sokrates and Pythagoras, whom he knew by reputation. Onesikritus described to the Gymnosophists the manner of life of Diogenes: but Diogenes wore a threadbare mantle, and this appeared to them a mark of infirmity and imperfection. They remarked that Diogenes was right to a considerable extent; but wrong for obeying convention in preference to nature, and for being ashamed of going naked, as they did.

This is an application of the doctrines laid down by the Platonic Sokrates in the Phædon, p. 64 A: [Greek: Kinduneu/ousi ga\r o(/soi tugcha/nousin o)rthô=s a)pto/menoi philosophi/as lelêthe/nai tou\s a)/llous, o(/ti ou)de\n a)/llo au)toi\ e)pitêdeu/ousin ê)\ a)pothnê/skein te kai\ tethna/nai]. Compare p. 67 D.; Cicero. Tusc. D. i. 30. Compare Epiktêtus, iv. i. 30 (cited in a former note) about Diogenes the Cynic. Also Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 27; Valerius Maximus, iii. 3, 6; Diogen. L. Prooem. s. 6; Pliny, H. N. vii. 2.

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

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

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

These observations of the Indian Gymnosophist are a reproduction and an application in practice of the memorable declaration of principle enunciated by Sokrates--"That the Gods had no wants: and that the man who had fewest wants, approximated most nearly to the Gods". This principle is first introduced into Grecian ethics by Sokrates: ascribed to him both by Xenophon and Plato, and seemingly approved by both. In his life, too, Sokrates carried the principle into effect, up to a certain point. Both admirers and opponents attest his poverty, hard fare, coarse clothing, endurance of cold and privation: but he was a family man, with a wife and children to maintain, and he partook occasionally, of indulgences which made him fall short of his own ascetic principle. Plato and Xenophon--both of them well-born Athenians, in circumstances affluent, or at least easy, the latter being a knight, and even highly skilled in horses and horsemanship--contented themselves with preaching on the text, whenever they had to deal with an opponent more self-indulgent than themselves; but made no attempt to carry it into practice. Zeno the Stoic laid down broad principles of self-denial and apathy: but in practice he was unable to conquer the sense of shame, as the Cynics did, and still more the Gymnosophists. Antisthenes, on the other hand, took to heart, both in word and act, the principle of Sokrates: yet even he, as we know from the Xenophontic Symposion, was not altogether constant in rigorous austerity. His successors Diogenes and Krates attained the maximum of perfection ever displayed by the Cynics of free Greece. They stood forth as examples of endurance, abnegation--insensibility to shame and fear--free-spoken censure of others. Even they however were not so recognised by the Indian Gymnosophists; who, having reduced their wants, their fears, and their sensibilities, yet lower, had thus come nearer to that which they called the perfection of Nature, and which Sokrates called the close approach to divinity. When Alexander the Great (in the first year of his reign and prior to any of his Asiatic conquests) visited Diogenes at Corinth, found him lying in the sun, and asked if there was anything which he wanted--Diogenes made the memorable reply--"Only that you and your guards should stand out of my sunshine". This reply doubtless manifests the self-satisfied independence of the philosopher. Yet it is far less impressive than the fearless reproof which the Indian Gymnosophists administered to Alexander, when they saw him in the Punjab at the head of his victorious army, after exploits, dangers, and fatigues almost superhuman, as conqueror of Persia and acknowledged son of Zeus.

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

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

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

The like act of self-immolation was performed by the Grecian Cynic Peregrinus Proteus, at the Olympic festival in the reign of Marcus Antoninus, 165 A.D. (See Clinton, Fasti Romani.) Lucian, who was present and saw the proceeding, has left an animated description of it, but ridicules it as a piece of silly vanity. Theagenes, the admiring disciple of Peregrinus, and other Cynics, who were present in considerable numbers--and also Lucian himself compare this act to that of the Indian Gymnosophists--[Greek: ou(=tos de\ ti/nos ai)ti/as e(/neken e)mba/llei phe/rôn e(auto\n ei)s to\ pu=r? nê\ Di/', o(/pôs tê\n karteri/an e)pidei/xêtai, katha/per oi( Brachma=nes] (Lucian, De Morte Peregrini, 25-39, &c.).]

Another point, in the reply made by the Indian Gymnosophist to Onesikritus, deserves notice: I mean the antithesis between law (or convention) and nature ([Greek: no/mos--phu/sis])--the supremacy which he asserts for Nature over law--and the way in which he understands Nature and her supposed ordinances. This antithesis was often put forward and argued in the ancient Ethics: and it is commonly said, without any sufficient proof, that the Sophists (speaking of them collectively) recognised only the authority of law--while Sokrates and Plato had the merit of vindicating against them the superior authority of Nature. The Indian Gymnosophist agrees with the Athenian speaker in the Platonic treatise De Legibus, and with the Platonic Kallikles in the Gorgias, thus far--that he upholds the paramount authority of Nature. But of these three interpreters, each hears and reports the oracles of Nature differently from the other two: and there are many other dissenting interpreters besides. Which of them are we to follow? And if, adopting any one of them, we reject the others, upon what grounds are we to justify our preference? When the Gymnosophist points out, that nakedness is the natural condition of man; when he farther infers, that because natural it is therefore right and that the wearing of clothes, being a departure from nature, is also a departure from right--how are we to prove to him that his interpretation of nature is the wrong one? These questions have received no answer in any of the Platonic dialogues: though we have seen that Plato is very bitter against those who dwell upon the antithesis between Law and Nature, and who undertake to decide between the two.

Reverting to the Cynics, we must declare them to be in one respect the most peculiar outgrowth of Grecian philosophy: because they are not merely a doctrinal sect, with phrases, theories, reasonings, and teachings, of their own--but still more prominently a body of practical ascetics, a mendicant order in philosophy, working up the bystanders by exhibiting themselves as models of endurance and apathy. These peculiarities seem to have originated partly with Pythagoras, partly with Sokrates--for there is no known prior example of it in Grecian history, except that of the anomalous priests of Zeus at Dodona, called Selli, who lay on the ground with unwashed feet. The discipline of Lykurgus at Sparta included severe endurance; but then it was intended to form, and actually did form, good soldiers. The Cynics had no view to military action. They exaggerated the peculiarities of Sokrates, and we should call their mode of life the Sokratic life, if we followed the example of those who gave names to the Pythagorean or Orphic life, as a set of observances derived from the type of Pythagoras or Orpheus.

Homer, Iliad xvi. 233-5:--

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

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

Though Antisthenes and Diogenes laid chief stress upon ethical topics, yet they also delivered opinions on logic and evidence. Antisthenes especially was engaged in controversy, and seemingly in acrimonious controversy, with Plato; whose opinions he impugned in an express dialogue entitled Sathon. Plato on his side attacked the opinions of Antisthenes, and spoke contemptuously of his intelligence, yet without formally naming him. At least there are some criticisms in the Platonic dialogues (especially in the Sophistês, p. 251) which the commentators pronounce, on strong grounds, to be aimed at Antisthenes: who is also unfavourably criticised by Aristotle. We know but little of the points which Antisthenes took up against Plato and still less of the reasons which he urged in support of them. Both he and Diogenes, however, are said to have declared express war against the Platonic theory of self-existent Ideas. The functions of general Concepts and general propositions, together with the importance of defining general terms, had been forcibly insisted on in the colloquies of Sokrates; and his disciple Plato built upon this foundation the memorable hypothesis of an aggregate of eternal, substantive realities, called Ideas or Forms, existing separate from the objects of sense, yet affording a certain participation in themselves to those objects: not discernible by sense, but only by the Reason or understanding. These bold creations of the Platonic fancy were repudiated by Antisthenes and Diogenes: who are both said to have declared "We see Man, and we see Horse; but Manness and Horseness we do not see". Whereunto Plato replied "You possess that eye by which Horse is seen: but you have not yet acquired that eye by which Horseness is seen".

Diogenes Laertius refers to ten [Greek: to/moi] of these treatises.]

The same conversation is reported as having taken place between Diogenes and Plato, except that instead of [Greek: i(ppo/tês] and [Greek: a)nthrôpo/tês], we have [Greek: trapezo/tês] and [Greek: kuatho/tês] (Diog. L. vi, 53).

We have [Greek: zôo/tês--A)thênaio/tês]--in Galen's argument against the Stoics (vol. xix. p. 481, Kühn).]

This debate between Antisthenes and Plato marks an interesting point in the history of philosophy. It is the first protest of Nominalism against the doctrine of an extreme Realism. The Ideas or Forms of Plato (according to many of his phrases, for he is not always consistent with himself) are not only real existences distinct from particulars, but absorb to themselves all the reality of particulars. The real universe in the Platonic theory was composed of Ideas or Forms such as Manness or Horseness (called by Plato the [Greek: Au)to\-A)/nthrôpos] and [Greek: Au)to\-I(/ppos]), of which particular men and horses were only disfigured, transitory, and ever-varying photographs. Antisthenes denied what Plato affirmed, and as Plato affirmed it. Aristotle denied it also; maintaining that genera, species, and attributes, though distinguishable as separate predicates of, or inherencies in, individuals--yet had no existence apart from individuals. Aristotle was no less wanting than Antisthenes, in the intellectual eye required for discerning the Platonic Ideas. Antisthenes is said to have declared these Ideas to be mere thoughts or conceptions ([Greek: psila\s e)nnoi/as]): i.e., merely subjective or within the mind, without any object corresponding to them. This is one of the various modes of presenting the theory of Ideas, resorted to even in the Platonic Parmenidês, not by one who opposes that theory, but by one seeking to defend it--viz., by Sokrates, when he is hard pressed by the objections of the Eleate against the more extreme and literal version of the theory. It is remarkable, that the objections ascribed to Parmenides against that version which exhibits the Ideas as mere Concepts of and in the mind, are decidedly less forcible than those which he urges against the other versions.

There is another singular doctrine, which Aristotle ascribes to Antisthenes, and which Plato notices and confutes; alluding to its author contemptuously, but not mentioning his name. Every name (Antisthenes argued) has its own special reason or meaning ([Greek: oi)kei=os lo/gos]), declaring the essence of the thing named, and differing from every other word: you cannot therefore truly predicate any one word of any other, because the reason or meaning of the two is different: there can be no true propositions except identical propositions, in which the predicate is the same with the subject--"man is man, good is good". "Man is good" was an inadmissible proposition: affirming different things to be the same, or one thing to be many. Accordingly, it was impossible for two speakers really to contradict each other. There can be no contradiction between them if both declare the essence of the same thing--nor if neither of them declare the essence of it--nor if one speaker declares the essence of one thing, and another speaker that of another. But one of these three cases must happen: therefore there can be no contradiction.

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

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

Antisthenes had discussed it specially in a treatise of three sections polemical against Plato--[Greek: Sa/thôn, ê)\ peri\ tou= a)ntile/gein, a, b, g] (Diog. L. vi. 16).]

The works of Antisthenes being lost, we do not know how he himself stated his own doctrine, nor what he said on behalf of it, declaring contradiction to be impossible. Plato sets aside the doctrine as absurd and silly; Aristotle--since he cites it as a paradox, apt for dialectical debate, where the opinion of a philosopher stood opposed to what was generally received--seems to imply that there were plausible arguments to be urged in its favour. And that the doctrine actually continued to be held and advocated, in the generation not only after Antisthenes but after Aristotle--we may see by the case of Stilpon: who maintained (as Antisthenes had done) that none but identical propositions, wherein the predicate was a repetition of the subject, were admissible: from whence it followed (as Aristotle observed) that there could be no propositions either false or contradictory. Plutarch, in reciting this doctrine of Stilpon (which had been vehemently impugned by the Epikurean Kolôtês), declares it to have been intended only in jest. There is no ground for believing that it was so intended: the analogy of Antisthenes goes to prove the contrary.

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

Stilpon, however, while rejecting (as Antisthenes had done) the universal Ideas or Forms, took a larger ground of objection. He pronounced them to be inadmissible both as subject and as predicate. If you speak of Man in general (he said), what, or whom, do you mean? You do not mean A or B, or C or D, &c.: that is, you do not mean any one of these more than any other. You have no determinate meaning at all: and beyond this indefinite multitude of individuals, there is nothing that the term can mean. Again, as to predicates--when you say, The man runs, or The man is good, what do you mean by the predicate runs, or is good? You do not mean any thing specially belonging to man: for you apply the same predicates to many other subjects: you say runs, about a horse, a dog, or a cat--you say good in reference to food, medicine, and other things besides. Your predicate, therefore, being applied to many and diverse subjects, belongs not to one of them more than to another: in other words, it belongs to neither: the predication is not admissible.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stilpon (like Antisthenes, as I have remarked above) seems to have had in his mind a type of predication, similar to the type of reasoning which Aristotle laid down the syllogism: such that the form of the proposition should be itself a guarantee for the truth of what was affirmed. Throughout the ancient philosophy, especially in the more methodised debates between the Academics and Sceptics on one side, and the Stoics on the other--what the one party affirmed and the other party denied, was, the existence of a Criterion of Truth: some distinguishable mark, such as falsehood could not possibly carry. To find this infallible mark in propositions, Stilpon admitted none except identical. While agreeing with Antisthenes, that no predicate could belong to a subject different from itself, he added a new argument, by pointing out that predicates applied to one subject were also applied to many other subjects. Now if the predicates belonged to one, they could not (in his view) belong to the others: and therefore they did not really belong to any. He considered that predication involved either identity or special and exclusive implication of the predicate with the subject.

Stilpon was not the first who had difficulty in explaining to himself how one and the same predicate could be applied to many different subjects. The difficulty had already been set forth in the Platonic Parmenidês. How can the Form (Man, White, Good, &c.) be present at one and the same time in many distinct individuals? It cannot be present as a whole in each: nor can it be divided, and thus present partly in one, partly in another. How therefore can it be present at all in any of them? In other words, how can the One be Many, and how can the Many be One? Of this difficulty (as of many others) Plato presents no solution, either in the Parmenidês or anywhere else. Aristotle alludes to several contemporaries or predecessors who felt it. Stilpon reproduces it in his own way. It is a very real difficulty, requiring to be dealt with by those who lay down a theory of predication; and calling upon them to explain the functions of general propositions, and the meaning of general terms.

The argument of Parmenidês (in the dialogue called Parmenidês) is applied to the Platonic [Greek: ei)/dê] and to [Greek: ta\ mete/chonta]. But the argument is just as much applicable to attributes, genera, species: to all general predicates.]

Lykophron and some others anterior to Aristotle proposed to elude the difficulty, by ceasing to use the substantive verb as copula in predication: instead of saying [Greek: Sôkra/tês e)sti\ leuko/s], they said either [Greek: Sôkra/tês leuko/s], simply, or [Greek: Sôkra/tês leleu/kôtai].

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

Menedêmus the Eretrian, one among the hearers and admirers of Stilpon, combined even more than Stilpon the attributes of the Cynic with those of the Megaric. He was fearless in character, and uncontrouled in speech, delivering harsh criticisms without regard to offence given: he was also a great master of ingenious dialectic and puzzling controversy. His robust frame, grave deportment, and simplicity of life, inspired great respect; especially as he occupied a conspicuous position, and enjoyed political influence at Eretria. He is said to have thought meanly both of Plato and Xenokrates. We are told that Menedêmus, like Antisthenes and Stilpon, had doctrines of his own on the subject of predication. He disallowed all negative propositions, admitting none but affirmative: moreover even of the affirmative propositions, he disallowed all the hypothetical, approving only the simple and categorical.

It is impossible to pronounce confidently respecting these doctrines, without knowing the reasons upon which they were grounded. Unfortunately these last have not been transmitted to us. But we may be very sure that there were reasons, sufficient or insufficient: and the knowledge of those reasons would have enabled us to appreciate more fully the state of the Greek mind, in respect to logical theory, in and before the year 300 B.C.

Another doctrine, respecting knowledge and definition, is ascribed by Aristotle to "the disciples of Antisthenes and other such uninstructed persons": it is also canvassed by Plato in the Theætêtus, without specifying its author, yet probably having Antisthenes in view. As far as we can make out a doctrine which both these authors recite as opponents, briefly and their own way, it is as follows:--"Objects must be distinguished into--1. Simple or primary; and 2. Compound or secondary combinations of these simple elements. This last class, the compounds, may be explained or defined, because you can enumerate the component elements. By such analysis, and by the definition founded thereupon, you really come to know them--describe them--predicate about them. But the first class, the simple or primary objects, can only be perceived by sense and named: they cannot be analysed, defined, or known. You can only predicate about them that they are like such and such other things: e.g., silver, you cannot say what it is in itself, but only that it is like tin, or like something else. There may thus be a ratio and a definition of any compound object, whether it be an object of perception or of conception: because one of the component elements will serve as Matter or Subject of the proposition, and the other as Form or Predicate. But there can be no definition of any one of the component elements separately taken: because there is neither Matter nor Form to become the Subject and Predicate of a defining proposition."

This opinion, ascribed to the followers of Antisthenes, is not in harmony with the opinion ascribed by Aristotle to Antisthenes himself (viz., That no propositions, except identical propositions, were admissible): and we are led to suspect that the first opinion must have been understood or qualified by its author in some manner not now determinable. But the second opinion, drawing a marked logical distinction between simple and complex Objects, has some interest from the criticisms of Plato and Aristotle: both of whom select, for the example illustrating the opinion, the syllable as the compound made up of two or more letters which are its simple constituent elements.

Plato refutes the doctrine, but in a manner not so much to prove its untruth, as to present it for a verbal incongruity. How can you properly say (he argues) that you know the compound AB, when you know neither A nor B separately? Now it may be incongruous to restrict in this manner the use of the words know--knowledge: but the distinction between the two cases is not denied by Plato. Antisthenes said--"I feel a simple sensation (A or B) and can name it, but I do not know it: I can affirm nothing about it in itself, or about its real essence. But the compound AB I do know, for I know its essence: I can affirm about it that it is compounded of A and B, and this is its essence." Here is a real distinction: and Plato's argument amounts only to affirming that it is an incorrect use of words to call the compound known, when the component elements are not known. Unfortunately the refutation of Plato is not connected with any declaration of his own counter-doctrine, for Theætêtus ends in a result purely negative.

Aristotle, in his comment on the opinion of Antisthenes, makes us understand better what it really is:--"Respecting simple essences (A or B), I cannot tell what they really are: but I can tell what they are like or unlike, i.e., I can compare them with other essences, simple or compound. But respecting the compound AB, I can tell what it really is: its essence is, to be compounded of A and B. And this I call knowing or knowledge." The distinction here taken by Antisthenes (or by his followers) is both real and useful: Plato does not contest it: while Aristotle distinctly acknowledges it, only that among the simple items he ranks both Percepta and Concepta.

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

Monimus a Syracusan, and Krates a Theban, with his wife Hipparchia, were successors of Diogenes in the Cynic vein of philosophy: together with several others of less note. Both Monimus and Krates are said to have been persons of wealthy condition, yet their minds were so powerfully affected by what they saw of Diogenes, that they followed his example, renounced their wealth, and threw themselves upon a life of poverty; with nothing beyond the wallet and the threadbare cloak, but with fearless independence of character, free censure of every one, and indifference to opinion. "I choose as my country" (said Krates) "poverty and low esteem, which fortune cannot assail: I am the fellow-citizen of Diogenes, whom the snares of envy cannot reach." Krates is said to have admonished every one, whether they invited it or not: and to have gone unbidden from house to house for the purpose of exhortation. His persistence in this practice became so obtrusive that he obtained the title of "the Door-Opener". This feature, common to several other Cynics, exhibits an approximation to the missionary character of Sokrates, as described by himself in the Platonic Apology: a feature not found in any of the other eminent heads of philosophy--neither in Plato nor in Aristotle, Zeno, or Epikurus.

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

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

Among other hearers of Krates, who carried on, and at the same time modified, the Cynic discipline, we have to mention Zeno, of Kitium in Cyprus, who became celebrated as the founder of the Stoic sect. In him the Cynic, Megaric, and Herakleitean tendencies may be said to have partially converged, though with considerable modifications: the ascetic doctrines (without the ascetic practices or obtrusive forwardness) of the Cynics--and the logical subtleties of the others. He blended them, however, with much of new positive theory, both physical and cosmological. His compositions were voluminous; and those of the Stoic Chrysippus, after him, were still more numerous. The negative and oppugning function, which in the fourth century B.C. had been directed by the Megarics against Aristotle, was in the third century B.C. transferred to the Platonists, or Academy represented by Arkesilaus: whose formidable dialectic was brought to bear upon the Stoic and Epikurean schools--both of them positive, though greatly opposed to each other.

* * * * *

ARISTIPPUS.

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

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

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

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

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

Compare Memor. ii. 3, 4.]

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

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

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

ta\ me\n ê(de/a e)n tê=| veo/têti diadramo/ntes, ta\ de\ chalepa\ e)s to\ gê=ras a)pothe/menoi.]]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sokrates exhorts those with whom he converses to be sparing in indulgences, and to cultivate self-command and fortitude as well as bodily energy and activity. The reason upon which these exhortations are founded is eudæmonistic: that a person will thereby escape or be able to confront serious dangers--and will obtain for himself ultimately greater pleasures than those which he foregoes (Memor. i. 6, 8; ii. 1, 31-33; iii. 12, 2-5). [Greek: Tou= de\ mê\ douleu/ein gastri\ mêde\ u(/pnô| kai\ lagnei/a| oi)/ei ti a)/llo ai)tiô/teron ei)=nai, ê)\ to\ e(/tera e)/chein tou/tôn ê(di/ô, a(\ ou) mo/non e)n chrei/a| o)/nta eu)phrai/nei, a)lla\ kai\ e)/lpidas pare/chonta ô)phelê/sein a)ei/?] See also Memor. ii. 4, ii. 10, 4, about the importance of acquiring and cultivating friends, because a good friend is the most useful and valuable of all possessions. Sokrates, like Aristippus, adopts the prudential view of life, and not the transcendental; recommending sobriety and virtue on the ground of pleasures secured and pains averted. We find Plutarch, in his very bitter attacks on Epikurus, reasoning on the Hedonistic basis, and professing to prove that Epikurus discarded pleasures more and greater for the sake of obtaining pleasures fewer and less. See Plutarch, Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum, pp. 1096-1099.]

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

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

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

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

Horat. Epistol. i. 17, 23-24:--

"Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res, Tentantem majora, ferè præsentibus æquum."]

Lucian introduces [Greek: A)retê\] and [Greek: Truphê\] as litigating before [Greek: Di/kê] for the possession of Aristippus: the litigation is left undecided (Bis Accusatus, c. 13-23).]

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

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

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

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

Ac ne forté roges, quo me duce, quo lare tuter; Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri Quo me cunque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes. Nunc agilis fio et mersor civilibus undis, Virtutis veræ custos rigidusque satelles: Nunc in Aristippi furtim præcepta relabor, Et mihi res, non me rebus, subjungere conor. (Epist. i. 1, 15.)

So also the Platonic Sokrates (Theætêt. pp. 172-175) depicts forcibly the cramped and fettered lives of rhetors and politicians; contrasting them with the self-judgment and independence of speculative and philosophical enquirers--[Greek: ô(s oi)ke/tai pro\s e)leuthe/rous tethra/phthai--o( me\n tô=| o)/nti e)n e)leutheri/a| te kai\ scholê=| tethramme/nos, o(\n dê\ philo/sophon kalei=s.]]

"Si pranderet olus patienter, regibus uti Nollet Aristippus." "Si sciret regibus uti, Fastidiret olus, qui me notat." Utrius horum Verba probes et facta, doce: vel junior audi Cur sit Aristippi potior sententia. Namque Mordacem Cynicum sic eludebat, ut aiunt: "Scurror ego ipse mihi, populo tu: rectius hoc et Splendidius multò est. Equus ut me portet, alat rex, Officium facio: tu poscis vilia rerum, Dante minor, quamvis fers te nullius egentem." Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et status, et res, Tentantem majora, ferè præsentibus æquum.

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

Horace's view and scheme of life are exceedingly analogous to those of Aristippus. Plutarch, Fragm. De Homero, p. 1190; De Fortunâ Alex. p. 330 D. Diog. Laert. ii. 67. [Greek: dio/ pote Stra/tôna, oi( de\ Pla/tôna, pro\s au)to\n ei)pei=n, Soi\ mo/nô| de/dotai kai\ chlani/da phorei=n kai\ r(a/kos]. The remark cannot have been made by Straton, who was not contemporary with Aristippus. Even Sokrates lived by the bounty of his rich friends, and indeed could have had no other means of supporting his wife and children; though he accepted only a portion of what they tendered to him, declining the remainder. See the remark of Aristippus, Diog. L. ii. 74.]

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

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

Aristokles (ap. Euseb. Præp. Ev. xiv. 18) treats the first Aristippus as a mere voluptuary, who said nothing generally [Greek: peri\ tou= te/lous]. All the doctrine (he says) came from the younger Aristippus. I think this very improbable. To what did the dialogues composed by the first Aristippus refer? How did he get his reputation?]

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

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

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

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

A doctrine very different from this is ascribed to Aristippus in Galen--Placit. Philos. (xix. p. 230, Kühn). It is there affirmed that by pleasure Aristippus understood, not the pleasure of sense, but that disposition of mind whereby a person becomes insensible to pain, and hard to be imposed upon ([Greek: a)na/lgêtos kai\ dusgoê/teutos]).]

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

Clemens Alexandr. Stromat. ii. p. 415, ed. 1629. [Greek: Kata\ de\ tou\s peri\ Kalliphô=nta, e(/neka me\n tê=s ê(donê=s pareisê=lthen ê( a)retê/; chro/nô| de\ u(/steron, to\ peri\ au)tê\n ka/llos katidou=sa, i)so/timon e(autê\n tê=| a)rchê=|, toute/sti tê=| ê(donê=|, pare/schen.]]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The language held by Aristippus to Sokrates, in the Xenophontic dialogue (Memor. ii. 1. 9), is exactly similar to that of the Platonic Sokrates, as above cited--[Greek: e)mauto\n ta/ttô ei)s tou\s boulome/nous ê(=| r(a=|sta/ te kai\ ê(/dista bioteu/ein.]]

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

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

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

He agrees with the Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias (see pp. 500-515), in keeping aloof from active political life. [Greek: a\ au(tou= pra/ttein, kai\ ou) polupragmonei=n e)n tô=| bi/ô|]--which Sokrates, in the Gorgias (p. 526 C), proclaims as the conduct of the true philosopher, proclaimed with equal emphasis by Aristippus. Compare the Platonic Apology, p. 31 D-E.]

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

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

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

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

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

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