agree with Hegel that Thales could have had no conception of God as Intelligence, since that is the conception of a more advanced philosophy. We doubt whether we had any conception of a Formative Intelligence or of a Creative Power. Aristotle* very explicitly denies that the old Physicists made any distinction between Matter (ή ύλη καὶ τὸ ὑποκείμενον) and the Moving Principle or Efficient Cause (ή άρχὴ τῆς κινήσεως); and he further adds that Anaxagoras was the first who arrived at a conception of a Formative Intelligence. Thales believed in the Gods and in the generation of the Gods: they, as all other things, had their origin in water. This is not Atheism, whatever else it may be. If it be true that he held all things to be living, and the world to be full of demons or Gods, there is nothing inconsistent in this with his views about Moisture as the origin, the starting-point, the primary existence. It is needless however to discuss what were the particular opinions of a thinker whose opinions have only reached us in fragments of uncritical tradition; all we certainly know is that the step taken by Thales was twofold in its influence:-first, to discover the Beginning, the prima materia of all things ( apxt); secondly, to select from among the elements that element which was most potent and omnipresent. To those acquainted with the history of the human mind, both these notions will be significant of an entirely new era. § II. ANAXIMENES. Anaximander is by most historians placed after Thales. We agree with Ritter in giving that place to Anaximenes. The reasons on which we ground this arrangement are, first, that in so doing we follow our safest guide, Aristotle; secondly, that the doctrines of Anaximenes are the development of those of Thales; whereas Anaximander follows a totally different line of speculation. Indeed, the whole ordinary arrangement of the Ionian * Arist. Metaph. i. 3. + It will presently be seen that Diogenes was the first to conceive this. School seems to have proceeded on the conviction that each disciple not only contradicted his master, but also returned to the doctrines of his master's teacher. Thus Anaximander is made to succeed Thales, though quite opposed to him; whereas Anaximenes, who only carries out the principles of Thales, is made the disciple of Anaximander. When we state that 212 years, i. e. six or seven generations, are taken up by the lives of the four individuals said to stand in the successive relations of teacher and pupil, Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Anaxagoras, the reader will be able to estimate the value of the traditional relationship. The truth is, only the names of the great leaders in philosophy were thought worth preserving; all those who merely applied or extended the doctrine were very properly consigned to oblivion. This is also the principle upon which the present history is composed. No one will therefore demur to our placing Anaximenes second to Thales: not as his disciple, but as his historical successor; as the man who, taking up the speculation where Thales and his disciples left it, transmitted it to his successors in a more developed form. Of the life of Anaximenes nothing further is known than that he was born at Miletus, probably in the 63d Olympiad (B. c. 529), others say in the 58th Olympiad (B. c. 548), but there is no possibility of accurately fixing the date. He is said to have discovered the obliquity of the Ecliptic by means of the gnomon. Pursuing the method of Thales, he could not satisfy himself of the truth of his doctrine. Water was not to him the most significant element. He felt within him a something which moved him he knew not how, he knew not why; something higher than himself; invisible, but ever-present: this he called his life. His life he believed to be air. Was there not also without him, no less than within him, an ever-moving, everpresent, invisible air? The air which was within him, and which he called Life, was it not a part of the air which was without him? and, if so, was not this air the Beginning of things? He looked around him and thought his conjecture was confirmed. The air seemed universal.* The earth was as a broad leaf resting upon it. All things were produced from it; all things were resolved into it. When he breathed, he drew in a part of the universal life. All things were nourished by air, as he was nourished by it. To Anaximenes, as to most of the ancients, Air breathed and expired seemed the very stream of life, holding together all the heterogeneous substances of which the body was composed, giving them not only unity, but force, vitality. The belief in a living world-that is to say, of the universe as an orgauism—was very ancient, and Anaximenes, generalizing from the phenomena of individual life to universal life, made both dependent on Air. In many respects this was an advance on the doctrine of Thales, and the reader may amuse himself by finding its coincidence with some speculations of modern science. A grave chemist like Dumas can say, "Les Plantes et les Animaux dérivent de l'air, ne sont que de l'air condensé, ils viennent de l'air et y retournent ;" and Liebig, in a well-known passage of the Chemical Letters, eloquently expresses the same idea. § III. DIOGENES OF APOLLONIA. Diogenes of Apollonia is the proper successor to Anaximenes, although, from the uncritical arrangement usually adopted, he is made to represent no epoch whatever. Thus, Tennemann places him after Pythagoras. Hegel, by a strange oversight, says that we know nothing of Diogenes but the name. Diogenes was born at Apollonia, in Crete. More than this we are unable to state with certainty; but as he is said to have been a contemporary of Anaxagoras, we may assume him to have flourished about the 80th Olympiad (B. c. 460). His work On * When Anaximenes speaks of Air, as when Thales speaks of Water, we must not understand these elements as they appear in this or that determinate form on earth, but as Water and Air pregnant with vital energy and capable of infinite transmutations. Nature was extant in the time of Simplicius (the sixth century of our era), who extracted some passages from it. Diogenes adopted the tenet of Anaximenes respecting Air as the origin of things; but he gave a wider and deeper signification to the tenet by attaching himself more to its analogy with the Soul.* Struck with the force of this analogy, he was led to push the conclusion to its ultimate limits. What is it, he may have asked himself, which constitutes Air the origin of things? Clearly its vital force. The air is a Soul; therefore it is living and intelligent. But this Force or Intelligence is a higher thing than the Air, through which it manifests itself; it must consequently be prior in point of time; it must be the apý philosophers have sought. The Universe is a living being, spontaneously evolving itself, deriving its transformation from its own vitality. There are two remarkable points in this conception, both indicative of very great progress in speculation. The first is the attribute of Intelligence, with which the dpyn is endowed. Anaximenes considered the primary substance to be an animated substance. Air was Life, in his system, but the Life did not necessarily imply Intelligence. Diogenes saw that Life was not only Force, but Intelligence; the air which stirred within him not only prompted, but instructed. The Air, as the origin of all things, is necessarily an eternal, imperishable substance; but as soul, it is also necessarily endowed with consciousness. "It knows much," and this knowledge is another proof of its being the primary substance; "for without Reason," he says, "it would be impossible for all to be arranged duly and proportionately; and whatever object we consider will be found to be arranged and ordered in the best and most beautiful manner." Order can result only from Intelligence; the Soul is therefore the first (px). This conception was undoubtedly a great one; but that the *By Soul (4x) we must understand Life in its most general meaning, rather than Mind in the modern sense. Thus the treatise of Aristotle #epi 4uxs is a treatise on the Vital Principle, including Mind, not a treatise on Psychology. reader may not exaggerate its importance, nor suppose that the rest of Diogenes' doctrines were equally reasonable and profound, we must for the sake of preserving historical truth advert to one or two of his applications of the conception. Thus: The world, as a living unity, must like other individuals derive its vital force from the Whole: hence he attributed to the world a set of respiratory organs, which he fancied he discovered in the stars. All creation and all material action were but respiration and exhalation. In the attraction of moisture to the sun, in the attraction of iron to the magnet, he equally saw a process of respiration. Man is superior to brutes in intelligence because he inhales a purer air than brutes who bow their heads to the ground. These naïve attempts at the explanation of phenomena will suffice to show that although Diogenes had made a large stride, he had accomplished very little of the journey. The second remarkable point indicated by his system is the manner in which it closes the inquiry opened by Thales. Thales, starting from the conviction that one of the four elements was the origin of the world, and Water that element, was followed by Anaximenes, who thought that not only was Air a more universal element than Water, but that, being life, it must be the universal Life. To him succeeded Diogenes, who saw that not only was Air Life, but Intelligence, and that Intelligence must have been the First of Things. We concur therefore with Ritter in regarding Diogenes as the last philosopher attached to the Physical method; and that in his system the method receives its consummation. Having thus traced one great line of speculation, we must now cast our eyes upon what was being contemporaneously evolved in another di rection. 10 |