CHAPTER II.

General Remarks on the Earlier Philosophers--Growth of Dialectic--Zeno and Gorgias.

Variety of sects and theories--multiplicity of individual authorities is the characteristic of Greek philosophy 84

These early theorists are not known from their own writings, which have been lost. Importance of the information of Aristotle about them 85

Abundance of speculative genius and invention--a memorable fact in the Hellenic mind 86

Difficulties which a Grecian philosopher had to overcome--prevalent view of Nature, established, impressive, and misleading ib.

Views of the Ionic philosophers--compared with the more recent abstractions of Plato and Aristotle 87

Parmenides and Pythagoras--more nearly akin to Plato and Aristotle 89

Advantage derived from this variety of constructive imagination among the Greeks 90

All these theories were found in circulation by Sokrates, Zeno, Plato, and the dialecticians. Importance of the scrutiny of negative Dialectic 91

The early theorists were studied, along with Plato and Aristotle, in the third and second centuries B.C. 92

Negative attribute common to all the early theorists--little or no dialectic 93

Zeno of Elea--Melissus ib.

Zeno's Dialectic--he refuted the opponents of Parmenides, by showing that their assumptions led to contradictions and absurdities 93

Consequences of their assumption of Entia Plura Discontinua. Reductiones ad absurdum 94

Each thing must exist in its own place--Grain of millet not sonorous 95

Zenonian arguments in regard to motion 97

General purpose and result of the Zenonian Dialectic. Nothing is knowable except the relative 98

Mistake of supposing Zeno's reductiones ad absurdum of an opponent's doctrine, to be contradictions of data generalized from experience 99

Zenonian Dialectic--Platonic Parmenides 100

Views of historians of philosophy, respecting Zeno 101

Absolute and relative--the first, unknowable ib.

Zeno did not deny motion, as a fact, phenomenal and relative 102

Gorgias the Leontine--did not admit the Absolute, even as conceived by Parmenides 103

His reasonings against the Absolute, either as Ens or Entia ib.

Ens, incogitable and unknowable 104

Ens, even if granted to be knowable, is still incommunicable to others ib.

Zeno and Gorgias--contrasted with the earlier Grecian philosophers 105

New character of Grecian philosophy--antithesis of affirmative and negative--proof and disproof ib.