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dividuality, and our perceptions are never more and never less than the natural relationship or interaction between ourselves and the things perceived. In the silent contemplation of nature we come face to face with the deepest realities, but the moment we would translate these realities into the metaphor of language we are defeated on every hand. What is more real than action? What is more unreal than its portrayal in words? What is more certain than a feeling, a sentiment, or a thought? What is more impotent than the best attempt at its conversion into symbols? The incontrovertible part of life is its action, the delusive part is its speech; words are forever meaningless to those who have not actually experienced the thoughts which they express. The whole history of thought is a struggle with metaphors, an effort to express thought and then a confusion of the expression with the thing expressed. As language, the great medium of thought and feeling, enriches the lives of all who use it, so it is the source of endless confusion and error to those who have not actually lived up to its significance.

The issue we take with those who are willing to surrender the results of philosophy to the Skeptic is now apparent. Skepticism is only an involved and obscure philosophy, a system of ultimate beliefs. Contrary to its teachings, we hold that there is a successful philosophy, a successful metaphysics, and that the most absolute Skepticism which it is possible to state in terms is both a positive and a mistaken belief.

These arguments, which seek to disclose the Scope of Language, cannot be further produced without attempting a close study of the Nature of Perception, which follows in its allotted place. I am content for the present if I have helped to dispel that logical presumption which has hung for so many centuries like a dark cloud over the entire field of thought.

CHAPTER V.

THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL, SCHOLASTICISM, AND THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING.

Philo-Plotinus-Abelard-Bruno-Bacon.

THE fall of Greek independence and the advent of Skepticism dethroned philosophy in Greece, and the centre of speculative thought was transferred to Alexandria. Here, during the first centuries of our era, Greek thought and oriental mysticism combined in the formation of Christian theology. Alexandria, for three centuries previous to this time, had been the centre of vast commercial as well as literary enterprise. Its celebrated library, which contained inestimable treasures of Egyptian, Indian, and Greek literature, (destroyed by Christian fanatics under the archbishop Theophilus, in 391 A.D.) had been enriched and fostered by such men as Euclid, Conon, Theocritus, Callimachus, Apollonius Rhodius, and Hipparchus.

For three centuries the Alexandrian school of philosophy contended with Christianity for the intellectual and moral control of Europe. It was not a fight between religious faith and reason, as might be supposed,-for religious faith was the foundation of the Alexandrian philosophy; it was a struggle between the special beliefs of Christianity, which were formed by the early Christian fathers into a complete organon of faith, and the incomplete beliefs which philosophy at that time offered. This struggle still continues, with the difference that the completeness of philosophical beliefs now is far in advance of the Alexandrian school. The chief objection to resigning Christian faith for Philosophy is that something is given up with the former which is not replaced

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by the latter, and the objection is valid; for until Philosophy can round out and organize its tenets so as to present a complete system of belief, with a definite creed, a moral law, a source of inspiration, a cosmology, a distinct theory of the origin and destiny of our race,-expressed of course in terms which comply with the laws of perception,—until then, revealed religion will have an advantage over philosophy which will decide the choice of the multitude in its favor. The question which presses upon us is whether it is not possible to make of philosophy a religion superior to any faith which the world has yet known.

The curious feature of the Alexandrian philosophy is, that it was founded on faith, not on reason. Reason had been defeated by Skepticism, and it was declared, by what was then an unanswerable argument, that it was not a criterion of truth. A philosophy of Skepticism sprang up which denied the validity of human reason and demanded another criterion of truth; for belief is ever active, it never tires of the effort to establish itself in fact. The philosophy of the Alexandrian school took the stand that Faith was the criterion of truth. It is interesting to know, therefore, that Christianity owes to philosophy its doctrine of faith, so predominant among its teachings. It is to the ingenuity of the teachers of philosophy, who, defeated by Skepticism, sought another explanation of the source of knowledge than reason, that religion owes this bulwark of its creeds, this unanswerable argument of Faith. It is certainly a most fortunate startingpoint for any special belief, for it was devised as a defence against the reasonings of Skeptics and has proved invulnerable to all kinds of reasoning, both true and false.

Philo, the Jew, the first of the Neo-Platonists, was born in Alexandria, shortly before the beginning of the Christian

era.

He had imbibed the doctrines of the New Academy, and therefore made no attempt to refute Skepticism; he merely tried to avoid it and to build a system of belief which would endure in spite of Skepticism, not in place of it. The manner in which he expressed his criterion of truth

is as follows: "The Senses may deceive, Reason may be powerless; but there is still a faculty in man—there is Faith. Real Science is the gift of God; its name is Faith; its origin is the goodness of God; its cause is Piety." That Hebrew anthropomorphism which regards the Universal Principle or Ultimate Generalization that the Greeks called God, or the One, as a person having human attributes, asserted itself in Philo's teachings. Again: Mysticism, that peculiar belief of oriental nations, far more ancient than any thing which has come to us from the Greeks, was also a factor in the doctrines of Philo; and from these various sources he framed a theology which is reproduced with wonderful faithfulness in the Christian system of belief. The most singular tenet of mysticism is that of a mediator between God and man, made necessary by the inaccessible nature of Deity. This mediator the Mystics called The Word.

The school of Alexandria was founded by Ammonius Saccas, toward the close of the second century of the Christian era, at a time when civilization was on the decline. This school gathered to itself many great and noble minds which gave it unwonted brilliancy and power, while its rivalry with Christianity spread its renown throughout the world. For three centuries, this school lasted, during which time Plotinus revived the doctrines of Plato; Porphyry and Iamblicus sought to make it rival Christianity; and Proclus tried to harmonize philosophy and religion. This grand intellectual centre to which the religious culture of our era can be so clearly traced was indeed cosmopolitan in its influences. Not far from the temple of Serapis, Greek Skepticism, Platonism, Judaism, and Christianity, were all interpreted.

Alexandrian Eclecticism,' though based on the doctrines of Plato, had much that was original in it; but its composite

'Eclecticism is that method of philosophy which believes that by placing the better parts of all systems of thought in comparison the highest truth will make itself apparent. In modern philosophy, this method has been employed in France by Victor Cousin and his contemporaries.

character produced by degrees a mystic pantheism wholly foreign to Greek thought. If the method of the school was Platonic, its doctrine of the Trinity rendered it clearly mystic. What is generally understood by the term theology is a body of beliefs, largely originated by the teachers of philosophy known as the Neo-Platonists, concerning the attributes of God. These men, as above stated, were not only opposed to the special tenets of Christianity, but endeavored to found a religious organization in opposition to the Christian church. The Alexandrians exaggerated the vicious tendency so prevalent in most religions, to despise human nature. "Plotinus blushed because he had a body: contempt for human personality could go no further."

Plotinus was the chief author of the metaphysics of the Alexandrians, an exceedingly subtle and involved system, especially interesting because it is closely reproduced in modern German speculations. This system rests upon the identification of subject and object as the principle of human perception. If the explanation of perception which the Alexandrians offered were reduced to its simplest terms it would be correct; but it is so involved, so many repetitions in the use of ultimate terms occur, that it is impossible to give it any definite form. The object seems to be to prove that the varieties of the universe are but modes of God's existence. If God is viewed as the universal principle, the theory is essentially true, although unhappily expressed. The commanding generalization which it suggests is clouded by the fault of regarding God as a person, and the power which is represented by divine unity as an intelligence. This tendency to view human intelligence as universal degrades what would otherwise be a sublime philosophy into a pantheism, or the belief that the universe is God and that God is a personal intelligence. Thus Plotinus taught that "the Sensible world was but the appearance of the Ideal world, and that the Ideal world, in its turn, was but the modes of God's existence." The correct view of the nature of perception which we see struggling to the surface in the teach

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