A study of Greek philosophy

Front matter

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Preface

IT may be interesting to my readers to know something of the genesis of this book. Twelve years ago, in St. Louis, a little band of women used to assemble every week to study and discuss the problems of philosophy. I led the circle as teacher and learner. Beginning with the study of Greek thought, and applying myself diligently to the works of its great masters, and the commentaries to be found in English, German and French, I sought continually to make clear to others what became clear to myself. At the end of two years, the circle in St. Louis was exchanged for one in Denver, but with unabated interest and enthusiasm on my own part and that of my co-workers. At their request, the verbal exposition became a written one, and finally developed into its present form. Whatever merit it possesses is due in part to those who have helped me towards the light by their eager questions, their hesitation at the obscure, their quick appreciation of spiritual truth hidden beneath abstruse phraseology, their loving fellowship and sympathy.

Above all other teachers I am indebted to Dr. William T. Harris. From him I first learned to seek philosophy in the history of philosophy, and to find it everywhere as the spiritual interpretation of the universe. I have also received help and stimulus from the exposi-

VI PREFACE.

tions and lectures of Prof. F. Louis Soldan, of St. Louis; Prof. D. J. Snider, of Chicago; Prof. Thomas Davidson, of New York; from the Concord School of Philosophy, and the Kant Club, of Denver.

I have consulted all the accessible authorities, but have relied chiefly on the histories of Greek philosophy by Zeller and Hegel. The quotations are from the original German, except where T have availed myself of those of Dr. Harris, in his translation of HegeFs chapters on Plato and Aristotle, published in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, The greater part of Zeller's work is to be found in an English translation, but not that of Hegel, with the above exception.

In order not to encumber my pages with notes and quotation marks, I here acknowledge my general indebtedness to Zeller and Hegel, and append a list of the most important works that I have read and studied in the prosecution of my task.

Elle:n^ M. Mitchell.

Stbacuse, N. Y., August, 1891.

A LIST OF REFERENCE BOOKS ON GREEK PHILOSOPHY.

VORLESUNGEN UBER DIE GeSCHICHTE DER PhILOSOPHIE. By G.

W. Hegel. English translation of the chapters on Plato and Aristotle by Dr. William T. Harris, in TJie Journal of Speculative Philosophy,

Geschichte der Philosophie im Umriss. By Albert Schwegler. Two English translations, the first by J. H. Sterling, the second by J. H. Seelye.

History of Philosophy. From Thales to the Present Time. By Friedrich Ueberweg. English translation by Prol George S. Morris.

Geschichte der Philosophie. By J. E. Erdmann. English translation, edited by Prof. Williston S. Hough.

Introduction a l'Histoire de la Philosophie. By Victor Cousin. English translation, by 0. W. Wight.

Lectures on Greek Philosophy. By James Frederick Ferrier.

Ancient and Modern Philosophy. By Frederick Denison Maurice.

Christianity and Greek Philosophy. By B. F. Cocker, D. D.

The Science of Thought. By Charles Carroll Everett.

The Fragments of Parmenides. Translated by Thomas Davidson, The Journal of Speculative Philosophy,

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Viii KEFERENCE BOOKS ON GREEK PHILOSOPHY.

Plato's Works, translated into German, with Introductions, by F. Schleiermacher.

Plato's Dialogues. Translated into English, with Analyses, by Prof. B. Jowett.

Aristotle. By Sir Alexander Grant.

Aristotle's De Anima. English translation, with introduction and notes, by Edwin Wallace.

Aristotle's Ethics. English translation, with notes and essays, by Sir Alexander Grant.

Aristotle's Politics. English translation, with notes, by Prof. B. Jowett.

Outlines of the Philosophy op Aristotle. By Edwin Wallace.

Prolegomena to Ethics. By Thomas Hill Green.

The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. Edited by Dr. William T. Harris.

OOI^TEKTS,

Introduction

THE CLAIM AND CHARM OP PHILOSOPHY AS A STUDY. By William Rounseville Alger.

Chapter I

PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY. Philosophy a progressive process of knowledge comprehending the progressive process of culture; philosophy a history of philosophy; self-knowledge and knowledge of the world; philosophy the self-knowledge of the human race.

CHAPTER 11.

CHARACTER OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. Greek being the unity of the spiritual and the natural; the stage of Greek consciousness the stage of beauty; the classic style in philosophy; contrast between Greek and modern philosophy

CHAPTER IIL

PRE-SOPHISTIC PHILOSOPHY. The rise of philosophy in Greece ; perception of nature its basis ; the Ionian philosophers, the Pythagoreans, the Eleatics, Heraclitus, the Atomists, Anaxagoras

CHAPTER IV.

THE IONIC PHILOSOPHERS. Thales; his proposition that water is the originative principle of all things an at-

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X CONTENTS.

tempt to trace multiplicity back to unity ; Anaximander ; Anaximenes ; the philosophic significance of Ionic philosophy 10

CHAPTER V.

PYTHAaORAS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS. Fabulous stories of Pythagoras; the Pythagorean Order; Aristotle's explanation of the Pythagorean principle ; number both form and substance, but the two not yet definitely separated; mathematics and music; metempsychosis; the Doric character of Pythagoreanism. . . . . 14

CHAPTER YI.

THE ELEATICS. Thought freed wholly from the finite affirms its own infinity; Xenophanes declares that God is pure spirit ; the principle of Parmenides pure being ; the contradiction between Being and Appearance; Zeno the inventor of dialectic ; his arguments against the possibility of motion; the importance of the Eleatic principle and its influence upon language. . . . . . 19

CHAPTER YII.

HERACLITUS. The principle of- the Becoming; fire the symbol of the Becoming; the consciousness of truth a consciousness of the universal ; the principle of the Becoming antithetical to that of Being, but both alike valid. . 27

CHAPTER VIII.

EMPEDOCLES. A mediator between God and men; doctrine of the four elements ; two moving forces, love and hate ; belief in metempsychosis ; value of his philosophy. 31

CHAPTER IX.

THE ATOMISTS. Leucippus and Democritus; the full and the void, or atoms and empty space ; atoms an object of

COHTEKTS. XI

thought, not of sensuous experience ; the Atomistic philosophy a mediation between the principles of Heraclitus and of the Eleatics 36

CHAPTER X.

ANAXAGORAS. Athens and Sparta; the principle of Anaxagoras intelligence (vov^); its mechanical application; individualized atoms; Anaxagoras closes the old period and opens the new 40

CHAPTER XI.

THE SOPHISTS. Influence of democracy upon philosophy; the true meaning of culture ; theoretical and practical egoism ; definition of the sophist ; method of Greek education ; rhetorical skill of the Sophists; their final criterion of judgment *' particular subjectivity," the individual self; relativity of truth and goodness ; the Sophists the Encyclopaedists of Greece 45

CHAPTER XII.

INDIVIDUAL SOPHISTS. Protagoras; his fundamental proposition, **Man is the measure of all things;" its one-sided interpretation, truth is relative, not absolute; the three propositions of Gorgias; based on the contradictory nature of sensuous phenomena they are unanswerable from that point of view 55

CHAPTER XIII.

SOCRATES. The teaching of Socrates the positive complement of the Sophistic philosophy; one principle represented at different stages of growth by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle ; the philosophy of Socrates closely connected with his life; his mode of instruction; his character a model of virtue ; his friendship for young men ; Xanthippe ; his inner absorption ; different interpretations of his * ' dae-

Xll CONTENTS.

mon," or "genius;" the characteristics of Greek and modern consciousness united in Socrates. . . . 61

CHAPTER XIV.

THE FATE OF SOCRATES. His trial; his fate the traggedy of Athens and Glreece ; his last hours ; Socrates and Aristophanes; the teachings of Socrates misunderstood; Socrates the precursor and founder of our moral view of the world; the truth of Subjectivity not the exclusive feeling of self, but the universal idea of self. . . 70

CHAPTER XV.

THE SOURCES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. The union of the ethical and the scientific, morality and knowledge ; an absolute moral authority at the basis of self -consciousness ; true knowledge derived from correct concepts; the Socratic method ; the Socratic irony ; the Socratic Eros ; the Socratic process of induction and definition ; the relation between the universal concepts of Socrates and the Ideas of Plato . , . . 78

CHAPTER XVI.

THE SOCRATIC ETHICS. Virtue true knowledge ; self-knowledge morally essential; the attainment of moral independence; the concept of the Good and its abstract character ; the office of friendship ; the state, the family, and the individual; an ideal view of nature ; the Socratic trinity, knowledge, virtue, happiness 85

CHAPTER XVII.

THE PARTIAL DISCIPLES OF SOCRATES. Varied character of the impression produced by Socrates; Euclid and the Megarian School; Antisthenes and the Cynics; Aristippus and the Cyrenaics; the only complete Socratist Plato 92

CONTENTS. xm

CHAPTER XVIII.

PLATO'S LIFE AND WRITINGS. Early influences; acquaintance with Socrates; travels; the Academy; personal character; quotation from Goethe; arrangement of his dialogues 102

CHAPTER XIX.

CHARACTER OF PLATO'S PHILOSOPHY. Socratic basis of Plato's philosophy; idealism the deepest principle of all speculation; form of Plato's exposition; employment of myths ; knowledge the activity of the soul itself in the sphere of Ideas; virtue based upon knowledge; exaltation of Love ; Dialectic ; Idea of the Good ; allegory of the cave ; meaning of education ; philosophy the royal science ; quotation from Emerson 109

CHAPTER XX.

THE PLATONIC DIALECTIC. Dialectic the science of true Being, the inquiry into Ideas ; Ideas the eternal prototypes of Being; the laws of thought objective as well as subjective ; opinion the middle ground between ignorance and knowledge ; knowledge as opposed to perception considered in the Theaetetus ; the ideas of movement and rest, of Being and non-Being, investigated in the Sophist ; Being defined in the Parmenides as a unity which includes multiplicity ; the distinction between the absolute and the relative in the Philebus; dialectic inseparably united with moral culture; the Divine reason identified with God. . . 119

CHAPTER XXL

THE PLATONIC PHYSICS. Views of nature in the Timaeus ; creation of the world ; the world-soul ; Hegel's interpretation of Plato's thought ; matter ; the human soul ; the doctrine of reminiscence; immortality; retribution after death ; ethics the central point of Platonic philosophy 137

XIV COKTEKTS.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE PLATONIC ETHICS. The good the endeavor of the soul to become like God ; philosophy a means of purification; virtue the internal harmony and health of the soul; virtue its own reward, vice its own punishment; justice the fundamental principle of Plato's ethics ; his ideal Republic; his communistic views; violation of subjective freedom; Science of the Beautiful; the basis of Plato's philosophy the substantial Idea ; the older Academy. 147

CHAPTER XXIII.

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ARISTOTLE. Early influences; relation to Plato; tutor of Alexander the Great; school in Athens ; technical and popular lectures ; style of exposition ; stupendous achievements in science and philosophy ; strange fate of his manuscripts; Aristotle's writings the basis of Scholasticism ; their influence upon modern thinkers 163

CHAPTER XXIY.

GENERAL CHARACTER OP THE ARISTOTELIAN PHILOSOPHY. Philosophy the knowledge of final causes; Aristotle not an empiricist, but unites scientific observation with dialectic ; his style severely logical ; the Platonic idea the Aristotelian form toward which the sensuous strives with inner necessity ; Aristotle's philosophy original and independent, though resting on a Socratic-Platonic basis 170

CHAPTER XXV.

ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC. The formal activity of the pure understanding described by Aristotle for all time ; the categories; the nature of the concept; the judgment and the syllogism; the theory of scientific demonstration; a necessary limit to mediatory knowing; the ''prior in nature " and the ''prior for us ; " proofs of probability ; the

CONTEJ^TS. XV

laws of the understanding formal laws, to attain speculative truth its logic must become the logic of Reason. . 175

CHAPTER XXVI.

ARISTOTLE'S METAPHYSICS. First Philosophy, or Wisdom ; Being-in-itself the common basis of categories and propositions ; earlier theories examined and criticized by Aristotle ; agreement and disagreement with Plato ; the Idea with both related to an objective reality, but Plato emphasizes its transcendence, Aristotle its immanence ; the relation of form to matter; the becoming, or the nature of change; the substrate of change matter; matter pure potentiality ; motion the energy of matter ; motion presupposes a moving cause itself unmoved, Absolute Spirit; the universe a continuous system of ascending progression ; Absolute Good the final end of everything ; the Divine activity the activity of pure thought ; God not mere abstract Being, but living, eternal Energy. . 182

CHAPTER XXVII.

ARISTOTLE'S PHYSICS. Nature as a whole a gradual overcoming of matter through form ; motion, space, time ; life the power of self-motion; the soul, entelechy, the unity which embraces life, sense-perception, and thought ; the vegetative, the sensitive, and the cognitive soul ; dunamis Siud energeia; free-will; the active and the passive reason. 197

CHAPTER XXVIII.

ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. Happiness the chief good for man; its highest realization participation in the blessed life of God; the moral significance of dunamis and energeia; natural tendencies the basis of morality, but morality their transformation through rational insight and will ; the law of moderation ; moral and intellectual virtue ; the relation of happiness to self -consciousness ; the distinction between

XVI CONTENTS.

happiness and pleasure ; the highest virtue an excellence of

the intellect ; friendship 210

CHAPTER XXIX.

ARISTOTLE'S POLITICS, PHILOSOPHY OP ART, ETC. Politics the presupposition and completion of ethics; the relation of the family; prejudice against trade and traffic; opposition to Plato's communism; Aristotle's ideal state; his views on education; wise men rather than wise laws; . the ultimate identification of politics with ethics; Art closely connected with spiritual development ; purification (katharsis) ; the Peripatetic School. , . . . . 217

CHAPTER XXX.

TRANSITION TO THE POST-ARISTOTELIAN PHILOS- OPHY. The affirmation of self-thinking Reason the culmination of Greek philosophy ; thought the unity of the subjective and objective with Aristotle ; later schools neglect the objective and emphasize the subjective ; abstract universality of thought in Stoicism ; abstract individuality of feeling in Epicureanism; the negation of this one-sidedness in Scepticism; the final attempt to solve the dualism between subjective and objective in Neo-Platonism. . 225

CHAPTER XXXI.

STOICISM. Life and character of Zeno; aim of Stoic philosophy the exercise of virtue; virtue depends upon knowledge; Stoic view of nature dynamic; Destiny and Providence; the human will identified with universal law through self-conscious obedience; pleasure, not the aim, but a result of moral activity, different from virtue in essence and kind ; duty for its own sake a categorical imperative; the ideal wise man; self-culture and the social well-being of the community; a universal human brotherhood. . . . 229

CONTENTS. XVll

CHAPTER XXXII.

EPICUREANISM. Personal influence of Epicurus ; the aim of philosophy to promote happiness ; theoretical interests subordinated to practical ; the test of truth sensuous perception; Epicurus the inventor of empirical physics and empirical psychology; the supreme good not to suffer; virtue never an end in itself, but a means to pleasure; the highest form of social life friendship; one and the same principle viewed from opposite sides in Stoicism and Epicureanism 245

CHAPTER XXXIII.

SCEPTICISM. Philosophy contains in itself the negative of Scepticism as its own dialectic ; the New Academy ; the contrast between thought and being ; Pyrrho of Elis ; the ten tropes ; the consciousness of the negative and the definition of its forms of the highest importance in philosophy. 254

CHAPTER XXXIV.

ECLECTICISM. Character of Eclecticism ; Cicero the representative Roman Eclectic ; the softened Stoicism of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius ; Plutarch's aim in philosophy to create moral character ; the union of Hellenic philosophy and Hebraic theology in Philo. . . . 261

CHAPTER XXXV.

NEO-PLATONISM. The aim of Neo-Platonism ; Platonism posits the One only as the primitive source of all being; the One produces nous, pure reason; pure reason produces the world-soul ; the human soul once a part of the world-soul; its descent into the sensuous from which it must be freed to regain its original purity; the perfect life the life of thought ; the highest knowledge the self- intuition of reason ; mystical union with God the final aim of philosophy; the doctrines of Platonism popularized by

XVlll CONTENTS.

Porphyry ; the speculative basis of religion sought by Jamblichus; Proclus the representative of Scholasticism in Greek philosophy ; the creation of the finite and its return to the Infinite conceived as a spiral descent and ascent; the ways to Grod three, love, truth, faith; the altar of the Absolute One a luminous centre in whose flame all is consumed and united ; Neo-Platonism a high idealism . 265

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE CLOSE OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. The great work achieved by human reason in Greek philosophy ; the propaedeutic office it fulfilled for Christianity ; its affirmation of the existence of God and of the soul ; its identification of faith and knowledge, God's revelation to man and man's discovery of God 279

INTEODUCTIOE".

THE CLAIM AND CHAKM OF PHILOSOPHY AS A STUDY.

THE REASON" that so many persons study the less important and less attractive branches of knowledge, while so few turn their attention to its supreme department, is that a multitude perceive the value and the interest of the inferior parts where one appreciates the claim and charm of the all-commanding whole. In the special domains of study the materials lie open to the senses and the understanding, in tangible form, to be experimentally dealt with, and to be mastered by efforts easily made, little by little. But in that universal field of principles, laws and processes, which philosophy covers, the appeal is made to the reflective faculties and speculative insight ; and these, with the vast majority of persons, are not keenly alive but undeveloped and disinclined to exertion.

For every student of philosophy, without doubt, there are a hundred students of botany. Aside from utility, there is a strong attraction to the investigation of the structure and life of plants and flowers ; for they comprise one of the chief domains of material beauty. But, both in dignity of range and intensity of interest, how incomparably superior is the study

xix

XX A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY.

of metaphysics ; since this explores the very ground and nature and operation of beauty itself^ not merely in its physical manifestations but also in its intellectual and moral forms^ and in its constituent essence as the living revelation of the perfection of God!

So there are a thousand avid devourers of poetry and romantic literature where there is one earnest reader of philosophical dissertations and treatises. This is because the pictures and narration of the former delight the craving sensuous powers of the mind^ and exact no costly effort ; while the profound discrimination and sustained stretch of the latter overtask the attention and interest of all except serious and robust spirits. And yet what an immense advantage the ripe philosopher has over the mere poet or romanticist;, in the solid service and joy yielded by the exercise of their respective gifts and discipline ! For while poetry pleases^ with the rich loveliness and freedom of its productions^ philosophy^ not content with an empty enjoyment of them^ lays bare the innermost secrets of those productions^ and of their origin^ by expounding the fundamental nature and offices of the imagination and rhythm and metaphor^ whereby their matter is given and their spells are woven. All other modes of inquisitive spiritual activity are partial and preliminary ; philosophy alone final or complete.

The etymological force of the word philosophy is the love of wisdom. Seizing this, we grasp a descriptive phrase, not a definition ; we take possession

INTRODUCTION^. XXI

of the practical substance but miss the dialectic essence. Nevertheless this fructiferous ethical aspect is almost as valuable as the constitutive procedure itself. For the keenest metaphysical analysis or synthesis is no more than a vacant gymnastic of abstractions^ if it do not begin and end in the love of wisdom. Wisdom is knowledge enriching experience with blessed fruits. Wisdom is assimilative insight in fruition at its goal. And to the pursuit of this man has an integral vocation lodged in the generic core of his being. Luminous demonstration of the accuracy of this statement is easy, and may be given in a single sentence.

As the transcendent paragon of animals, the only one who caps the climax of animality with the surpassing crown of rationality, man fulfills Ms destiny by the progressive attainment of applied and enjoyed truth. And that is the real definition of wisdom. What is wisdom but truth happily realized in a living experience of its uses ? All knowledge that falls short of this is mere information in a storehouse. Wisdom is the term or end in which alone a rational nature reposes with satisfaction. Familiarity with it, according to a wonderful passage of Scripture, is friendship with that Divine Playfellow whose delight is in the children of men. Thus understood, is it not obvious that the study of philosophy presents both a claim and a charm of the supreme order?

But let us leave the surface of description, and enter the depth of definition. What is philosophy? It is that form of thinking wherein all the parts imply

XXll A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY.

one another, and every part implies the whole. It is that kind of knowledge which has its presuppositions in itself^ and is, therefore, independent of all other knowledge, while all other knowledge is dependent on it. It is the self-seizure of the idea in reflective consciousness. It is the science of self -activity. It is the pure search after the First Principle, the finding of it, and the deduction thence of all else. It takes for its province those elements and methods which are common to all the special sciences, and groups them in a sovereign unification. Hence, with entire justice, it has generally been designated the science of sciences, queen of all the rest.

The definition of philosophy given by the great masters of thinking are all in substantial agreement under their verbal differences. For example, Ueberweg formulates it as the Science of Principles; Fichte, as the Science of Knowledge; Eosmini, as the Science of Ultimate Grounds. In response to every why asked by the human mind the philosopher undertakes to reach an answer so comprehensive and final that it cannot be transcended. The aim of philosophical study, then, is the conquest of truth in its universal essence, aspects, relations, source and end. And so it is the specialty of its royal prerogative to forerun, pervade and follow, all the other sciences which are subdivided under its universality, and subordinated to its authority. Its cultivators study the nature and providence of God, in theology; the character and experience of man, in psychology; the phenomena and laws of the universe, in cosmology; and the varied treasures

IJS^TRODUCTION. XXlll

of the other special domains of knowledge, under their several rubrics. In all these departments the laws of consciousness, observation, cognition, discrimination, classification, congruity, are the same; and they can be furnished by philosophy alone. It is, then, plainly, unrivaled in its importance.

Strenuous eilorts have recently been made in several elaborate lectures to show that ethical science does not depend either on religion or philosophy, but is every way competent to itself. This is a shallow confusion of thought, and an unwarrantable use of language. The case may be conclusively stated in a nutshell thus : Philosophy is the science of ultimate grounds. Morality is the science of right and wrong in human conduct. Every concept that enters into it, such as causation, duty, conscience, motive, sanction, vice, crime, penalty, derives its significance from certain principles, theoretical and practical. If moral science furnishes these principles from its own resources, it is itself a philosophy. If it looks elsewhere for them, it presupposes a foundation deeper and broader than itself. By consequence, ethics necessarily rests on philosophy.

There is another consideration which places the importance and the attractiveness of this study in a still more striking light. The highest intellectual power and dignity of which our nature is capable can be realized only through the cultivation of philosophy, which deals directly with the sublimest thoughts conceivable by any minds created or uncreated. Consider, for instance, the content of the idea of absolute per-

XXIV A STUDY OF GEEEK PHILOSOPHY.

fection indicated by the word God. The meaning of this word;, the greatest in human language^ is 'a completely self-determined Person, who is a free infinitude of love, wisdom, power, holiness and bliss, forever giving himself to a boundless number of persons, whom he creates for the purpose of multiplying his perfecfection by them! Such is the developed Christian idea of God. Pure act is a self-distinguishing unity, which has no potentialities. That is, all possible presuppositions are actualized in it. This is at once the realized experience of God and the offered destiny of man. Being is knowableness; and man is a free power of determining it for himself. His determinations of pure being are ideas, which are universal and infinite in their nature. There is nothing real apart from thought ; for the thinking of God originates all that is. And thought can comprehend all else while nothing else can comiDrehend thought. Knowledge, without which ignorance could not be known, is participation of omniscience; as duration, without which time could not be known, is participation of eternity. And knowledge is possible only as the progressive actualization in us of a self -consciousness in itself complete, and in itself including the universe as its object. That is to say, all true knowledge in man is his participation of the creative thinking of God. Thus we become, as the New Testam ent says, ' ' partakers of the divine nature.^^ What other dignity is worthy of comparison with this? But clearly it cannot be bestowed by any degree of familiarity with the physical sciences, or with the political sciences, or with historic or liter-

IKTKODUCTION. XXV

ary lore. It is to be achieved by the development of the spirit in the study of philosophy.

It is astonishing how materialistic science is overrated and ideal philosophy underrated at the present time. It is as if one should put a high value on a • pebble because he can clutch it^ and despise a star because he cannot. A popular declaim er, whose name rings through America^ says^ "^^ Darwin contented himself with giving to his fellowmen the greatest and the sublimest truths that man has spoken since lips uttered speech ! '' What are those truths ? That all through nature there is a struggle for existence^ from the lowest vermin to the highest animals; and that in that struggle a law of natural selection causes the survival of those best fitted to their environment. Whatever value may be assigned to these formulas^ surely they cannot^ for purity, grandeur, beauty, inspiring power, stand in any comparison with the cardinal doctrines of philosophy, such as the perfection of God, the infinity of intellect, the immortality of the soul, the absolute authority of right. The weightiest sentences Darwin ever wrote are utterly insignificant when set along side of any one of hundreds of sentences which may be quoted from the really sovereign thinkers represented by Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Leibnitz, Kant, Hegel.

No one able to appreciate them can pay even passing attention to such statements as the following, without seeing that the study of philosophy is the sublimest and worthiest of all studies. Infinite being

XXVI A STUDY OP GREEK PHILOSOPHY.

is the object of thought^ and personal spirit is the thinking subject capable of distinguishing it into infinite determinations. Being is one and personalities are innumerable : but the whole of the object is for every one of the subjects. Consciousness is a potential infinite ; because it cannot be limited by anything of which it is unconscious. Therefore it is exclusively self -limited ; and self -limitation is the definition of the true infinite. Consciousness is a self-determinable mirror which becomes whatever it refiects. For certainly nothing can enter consciousness save as this from its own substance creates a representation of that which enters it. Here is matter for one to muse over with worshiping wonder as long as he lives.

Finally, in illustration of the claim and charm of philosophy as a study, we must say that it is not only the most comprehensive and exalted of all studies, but it is also the purest, the freest, the most beautiful and delightful. The subject is self-contained and the student is self-sufficing. Stimulants and aids may be attained abroad, from books and from teachers. But all the essential data are in the student himself. The learning faculties, being, nature, life, humanity, God, are all within his immediate reach, just as they were with Fichte or with Pythagoras. And great attainments were as easy for the ancient masters of insight as they are for the latest student, because all that they did for themselves he must now do for himself in his own psychical work-shop. If the deepest thoughts have been thought many times already it is

INTKODUCTIOi^. XXVU

none the less necessary that each new comer think them again. He never can obtain them from another.

And nothing can be imagined cleaner^ lovelier, or more precious, than the task whose triumphant accomplishment initiates the performer, even in this dim world, into that sacred hierarchy of intelligences who contemplate the divine archetypes. The differential and integral calculus is the science of continuous being and its determinations, in the mathematical or formal order. The dialectic is the science of continuous being and its determinations, in the moral or substantial order. Leibnitz began the unification of these two and Swedenborg wished to continue it. When some inspired genius, in the future, shall complete this unification of the mathematical and the metaphysical dialectic, and simplify it for popular communication, the epoch of illumination and redemption for which travailing humanity waits so long will dawn.