andrian school, in which Plato's philosophy received so many interpretations, until the second century of our era, when Ammonius Saccas founded the school of the Neo-Platonists, the mind of Plato seems to have presided over the most thoughtful part of the world.

The second generation of the Neo-Platonists went to great lengths in mysticism, citing texts from the writings of their "God-enlightened master" as authority for all sorts of extravagances of faith, among which were the revival of the ancient rites of expiation, divination, astrology, and the interpretation of visions; all of which had been strongly condemned by Plato. Plutarch, and Boethius (the last of the Neo-Platonists), redeemed somewhat the character of this philosophy, until it almost disappeared after the Emperor Justinian interdicted all instruction in the Platonic schools.

The early Christian Fathers owe much of their theology to Plato. "Justin Martyr, Jerome, and Lactantius, all speak of him as the wisest and greatest of philosophers. St. Augustine calls him his converter, and thanks God that he became acquainted with Plato first and with the Gospel afterward." Passages of his Dialogues bear a close resemblance to parts of the Scriptures, and the moral ideals which are pictured in the Platonic accounts of the death of Socrates are reproduced with singular faithfulness in the Christian. accounts of the tragedy of Christ.

Thus the metaphysical teachings and the original genius of Plato have become insensibly merged in Christianity. In the bosom of the Christian Church Plato survives through the dark ages, when the classics were read only by monks and churchmen, and Platonism, with its natural logical opponent the Aristotelian faith, produced through the agency of Scholasticism that marvellous compound of Greek thought and primitive science known as Medieval Theology. When in the wake of this development the revival of learning in Europe brought into life a modern philosophy, the influence of Plato again asserted itself, and the German idealists have made this great teacher immortal.

CHAPTER IV.

ARISTOTLE, THE STOICS, THE CYNICS, AND THE SKEPTICS of the NEW ACADEMY.

Aristotle-Zeno the Stoic-Antisthenes-Diogenes-Epicurus-Pyrrho

Arcesilaus-Carneades.

ARISTOTLE was the scientist of antiquity. His life was given rather to the investigation of facts than to abstract speculation. He had an aversion to the unrealities of metaphysics, and yet he was obliged, in common with every thinker of every school, to offer his solution of the great metaphysical problem. This effort led to the formation of his celebrated ten categories of thought, or the classification of the ultimate realities, which will receive full treatment as we proceed.

Aristotle was born at Stagira, a colony of Thrace on the western shores of the Strymonic Gulf, in the 99th Olympiad (B.C. 384). His life was one long devotion to the pursuit of knowledge. His writings were numerous, but only a fourth part of them is supposed to have descended to us; and the authenticity of even these has long been a subject of discussion among scholars. The influence of these works, spurious and genuine, upon Eastern as well as European culture, it is impossible to estimate. "Translated in the fifth century of the Christian era into the Syriac language by the Nestorians, who fled into Persia, and from Syriac into Arabic four hundred years later, his writings furnished the Mohammedan conquerors of the East with a germ of science which, but for the effect of their religious and political institutions, might have shot up into as tall a tree as it did produce in

the West; while his logical works, in the Latin translation which Boethius, 'the last of the Romans,' bequeathed as a legacy to posterity, formed the basis of that extraordinary phenomenon, the Philosophy of the Schoolmen. An empire like this, extending over nearly twenty centuries of time, sometimes more and sometimes less despotically, but always with great force, recognized in Bagdad and in Cordova, in Egypt and in Britain, and leaving abundant traces of itself in the language and modes of thought of every European nation, is assuredly without a parallel.”1

The ceaseless civil wars and counter-invasions which make up the major part of the history of Greece had exhausted the nation, enabling Philip of Macedon to subjugate the Greek States. Philip gave the charge of the education of his son Alexander to Aristotle, who taught the illustrious boy philosophy during four years. They separated at the beginning of the Macedonian war. Aristotle went to Athens to open his school, which received the name of Peripatetic, from his habit of walking up and down the shady groves of the Lyceum while explaining his philosophy. Alexander departed on his Indian expedition accompanied by Calisthenes, a pupil and kinsman of Aristotle. The philosopher long enjoyed the favor of Philip and Alexander. "The conqueror is said, in Athenæus, to have presented his master with the sum of eight hundred talents (about one million dollars) to meet the expenses of his 'History of Animals,' and, enormous as the sum is, it is only in proportion to the accounts we have of the vast wealth acquired by the plunder of the Persian treasures. Pliny also relates that some thousands of men were placed at his disposal for the purpose of procuring zoological specimens which served as materials for this celebrated treatise." It is a work based on knowledge evidently acquired by close inspection and special studies of dissection, and is one which naturalists may still consult with profit.

2

Aristotle severely criticised the Ideal theory of Plato, for

'Blakesley: "Life of Aristotle."

2

Blakesley, p. 68.

he was convinced that this theory had its origin in introspective, not in physical, researches; that it sought to separate the universal from the material, and put forth doctrines concerning things which did not correspond with phenomena. He denied to ideas an objective being, and could not, like Plato, give to qualities, such as weight, size, and color, separate existences. While Plato believed that from a single idea man could arrive at the knowledge of all ideas, Aristotle maintained that all knowledge comes through experience; that every idea is caused by a separate sensation, and that the universal principle is a principle of contradiction, man having power to perceive difference only through comparing like with unlike. His method was new, his conceptions just; but, in that early age of knowledge, and with such narrow data to generalize from, he could not accomplish much. Though both these philosophers admitted that science could only be derived from universals, one gave Experience as the basis of all science, and taught men to observe and question Nature; the other gave Reason as the basis, and taught men the contemplation of Ideas.

It will be asked: If Aristotle was a cautious thinker, and closely followed what has since received the name of the Scientific Method, how could he have been at the same time so famous a metaphysician?

This question will be answered by getting at the nature, not particularly of Aristotle's metaphysics, but of metaphysics in general. Perhaps the most exact metaphysical thought which the world has produced up to the time of the appearance of Lewes's "Problems of Life and Mind," is to be found in the writings of Herbert Spencer; and yet Mr. Spencer would, no doubt, be astonished were he called a metaphysician. The fact is, no one can take an intelligent view of life and its surroundings without becoming in some degree a metaphysician. The moment we attempt any thing like ultimate questions, we are in the midst of the most profound metaphysical problems. Aristotle stated what he took to be the ultimate realities or principles of all things, his ten categories of thought, as follows:

Relation,

Quantity,

Action,

The Where,

Position in Space,

Substance,
Quality,
Passion,

The When,
Possession.

It will be seen at a glance that there are repetitions in these principles. If we refer back to the beginning of Greek philosophy, we shall find that the ten double principles of Pythagoras, to whose school Aristotle gave a great deal of attention, probably suggested the above categories. However this may be, Aristotle reduced the number of these principles by one half, as those of the Pythagoreans were double or coördinates, making twenty in all. Modern thought has reduced these principles or ultimate realities to five. In Spencer's system, which agrees substantially with the best contemporaneous writings upon the subject, they are stated as follows:

I contend that a generalization of these principles is possible; that they are all aspects of the single principle of Motion. There are so many repetitions, however, among the terms employed to represent them, that confusion inevitably results. It should be the aim of a true system of metaphysics to do away with this tautology. For as Matter and Space are but different aspects of the statical appearance of the universe, Time and Force are also the obverse aspects of the dynamical appearance of the universe. The greatest difficulty in making physics and metaphysics harmonize, or in making the experiences of phenomena agree with the ruling principles of all things, is to identify motion and the thing moved; or, in other words, to overcome what

'In Spencer's "First Principles" there are six ultimate realities postulated, as Consciousness is added to the five above cited; it is a fair inference from other parts of his works, however, that Consciousness is a relative, not an absolute, fact.