Lecture One
The Oriental Foundation of Thought
A study of the work of the Indo-European mind
reveals its tendency was toward the "other" side of life. The sources
of all Philosophical Principles are found there. India has had hundreds
of schools, all teaching the way of the One Idea, Brahm, or "That," or
God, and other terms for the Absolute Being. Most of these schools owe
their existence to the various ways of explaining the phenomenal world
in its relation to the "noumenon" or "That."
India, the fountainhead of philosophical thought,
contains the whole history of philosophy in brief. The Vedas and
Upanishads reference every philosophical conception that the Western
mind has evolved.
Spinoza reproduced almost exactly the conception of
Hindu philosophy. They had worked out his ideas 2,000 years before him.
They taught evolution more than 2,500 years before Darwin. Pythagoras,
a father of philosophy, sojourned in India, and based his whole scheme
of thought upon their system. Plato was full of Eastern thought, while
Neo-Platonism and Christian Gnosticism owe much to India. The great
thinkers of the past twenty-five centuries have gone over the same
ground the Hindu thinkers canvassed more than thirty centuries ago.
To understand Eastern philosophical thinking, one
must remember that much of their thought exists only in oral teaching,
and "reading between the lines" in printed books, which contain
fundamental oppositions between the basic Hindu conceptions and those
of the Christian Theologian.
To the Eastern mind, "Creation" is unthinkable,
since it involves the making of something out of nothing, and to them
nothing comes from nothing. Everything that is, is
either an eternal thing, or else it is a form, manifestation,
appearance, emanation or phase of some eternal thing. Therefore they
could see evolution as the only method of bringing the universe into
appearance, because everything evolved was first involved.
Again, a mortal thing can never become immortal by
any means. An immortal thing must have always been immortal, or it can
never become so. So that which begins must end. That which is born must
die sometime, and everything that dies has been born sometime.
Eternity must exist on both sides of the now,
in fact now is but a point in eternity. So the Hindu
concedes immortality to the soul only when they concede previous
immortality.
The Western tendency is to publish abroad every
detail of its thought, even before leading minds accept them. The
Eastern tendency is exactly opposite, and the sage or wise man reserved
for himself and his close circle of students and followers the cream of
the idea, deeming it too important to broadcast to an unthinking,
unappreciative public. Their great body of inner teachings has grown in
this way. The Western mind tends to take philosophy as a matter of
intellectual diversion, which he does not bother to live up to, while
the Easterner takes philosophy in the sense of religion itself, which
he must live out in everyday life.
The Hindu confines his speculation to the "other
side of Life," deeming it the only real one, while the physical and
material world is essentially illusion, a thing of a moment, which
begins to pass away while it is being formed. The Western mind tends to
emphasize the material side of life, to promote material advancement
and prosperity. In other words, the tendency of each is to be
one-sided. The East leans to the "I AM" side, ignoring the "I DO" side.
The West depends on the "I DO" side, almost entirely ignoring the "I
AM" phase. The one regards the side of Being and ignores the side of
Action. The other regards Action as the essential thing, ignoring the
vital importance of Being.
In India, the veil between the Visible and the
Invisible is much thinner than in Western lands. The consequent mental
and psychic atmosphere produces all sorts of growth, good and bad. The
best philosophy and spiritual unfoldment dwells side by side with
superstition, credulity, devil worship and frightful debasement of
thought and practice. The noxious weeds grow in a tropical climate with
fruits and flowers.
Surprise and wonder fills us at the speculative
achievement of those people, running back 100 centuries. Unquestionably
they are the progenitors of the Aryan or Indo-European race, but legend
shrouds their origin. One is that they are remnants of a high
civilization in the region of the North pole, from where a cataclysm
drove them, which changed it from a tropical to a polar climate.
Another legend is that they are remnants of a high
civilization in the great continent of Lemuria, now sunk in the Pacific
Ocean. The legend states that many of them, under prophetic direction,
took refuge in the higher altitudes, which in the cataclysm became
islands, where they lived for centuries before finally migrating to the
mainland. They found India inhabited by another people, also driven
there by earth’s upheaval.
Through all the centuries these people have
survived. In this new world, like all pioneers, they lost much of the
veneer of the old civilization. The old truths and knowledge were
largely lost, and in its place tradition, legends, they handed down, as
vague memories of the old teachings from one generation to another.
They had gods and demigods, etc., but they never
entirely lost the main idea of their philosophy: A great Universal One
Absolute Being from whom all else emanated, and from whom the
individual souls proceeded "as sparks rising from the blazing fire."
They taught the immortality of the soul, which was never born, which
could never die, which was subject to rebirth, under a Universal Law of
Cause and Effect.
Even the idea of the One was at times dimmed under
the conception of a great Nature Spirit, of which they were a part in
some mysterious way. In spite of the variations, we are indebted to
them for the Master Key to all philosophy, namely: The Reality
and Being of One Universal Spirit Principle, from which all
other life, being and principles were manifested by emanation,
reflection or otherwise, which manifestations had their only Real
Being in the One Source.
Some 5,000 years before the Christian era,
philosophical thought in India underwent a great revival of interest,
under the leadership of really great thinkers of the time, called
sages, or wise men. The Hindus claim that these were the reincarnations
of ancient Masters. They laid the foundation for a philosophy of pure
Reason, doing their work so well that while many philosophies have come
and gone, the foundation of the sages remains, sound and unhurt, and is
still the base upon which we build all philosophy, ancient or modern.
The outline of their work follows:
First, the sages bade their students to
observe that nothing is constant, abiding, fixed and imperishable in
the phenomenal aspect of nature and the universe. That is, it was not
"real" in the sense we use the word, as in "real estate, real property"
or "realty." The phenomenal universe was not "real" in the
philosophical sense of the word.
Second, they bid the students recognize that
something Real and substantial must lie underneath all the changing
manifestations of the phenomenal universe, below the
face or surface of that which occurred – the constant play of nature,
force, and life, as the clouds passed before the blue sky or the wave
upon the face of the ocean. They held that pure Reason must convince
any rational mind that something Real and substantial must be under and
behind the phenomenal universe, else the latter could not exist, even
in appearance. A background of Reality or a foundation of Substance
must exist. They did not speak or think of this substance as matter,
but as the underlying or existing essence. This
Universal Substance must be Real, and in its totality, it was
necessarily the only Reality.
Third, was the recognition that this
substantiality must be but One in its essential being, otherwise that
continuity and orderly trend of manifestation as seen in the Phenomenal
Universe could not exist. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is ONE
Lord."
Fourth, in logical reasoning, this Ultimate
Reality must be above all phenomenal attributes and qualities,
including those of man. Consequently, its Inner Nature as Essential
Being was beyond the cognition, knowledge, or even the imagination of
man, and was beyond definition or name. The sages styled this Ultimate
Reality by the Sanscrit word "TAT" or That, referring to
something understood, but having no qualities, attributes or name.
Similar terms are "Brahman," the "Absolute," "That, as in "I am THAT I
am."
Fifth, they applied the Hindu Axiom:
"Something can never be caused by, or proceed from, nothing." Since
nothing other than That is in Real Existence, or which could
have caused it, and since Reality could not have been self-created from
nothing, it follows that "TAT" must always have existed and must be
eternal. Since "Something cannot be dissolved into nothing," "TAT"
cannot cease to be, and must be everlasting.
Sixth. Since there was nothing outside of
TAT with which or by which it could be defined, bounded, determined,
affected, caused or influenced, it must be held that That is
Infinite.
Seventh. Since That was the only
Reality, nothing else could act as a Cause in the phenomenal universe. That
must be its only official and sufficient Cause – the causeless Cause,
the only real cause, from which proceeds the cause and effect
in the phenomenal world, in which each object or event is both a cause
and an effect. Working by this law, the movements of the phenomenal
universe are continuous, regular, uniform, arising from That,
the only Real Cause.
Eighth. The next step was to recognize that That
was necessarily unchangeable, there being nothing to change it, nothing
into which it could be changed, nothing it could change itself into,
and even That could not change itself into any reality other
than that which it is. By the same reasoning, That
was not divisible and is essentially One. Therefore they held that That
was Unchangeable and Indivisible.
Ninth. The next step was the truth that as
all that truly is, must be real, and that as That,
being all that is Real, must be all that is, therefore
it follows that other than That, there can be nothing that is.
We must base all truth regarding the universe upon
this basic proposition. That could not have created the
phenomenal universe or the undivided souls from nothing, nor could That
have "created" anything from its own substance or essence, nor was
there anything outside of itself that That could have used to
create anything. It therefore follows that nothing had been or could
have been really "created," so the phenomenal universe and all that it
contained, including individual souls, must have "emanated from," or
been "manifested by" That, in some manner or by means of
processes beyond the mind of men to determine, although not beyond his
power to imagine.
This was the sum of their reasoning. And it is the
basis of all Hindu philosophy. These are the basic principles of all
Hindu Philosophy. Upon them they have constructed several great systems
of philosophy.
The Sankhya System: First among these is the
Sankhya System formulated by Kapila about 700 B.C. His basic
proposition is that there exists in the universe two active principles
whose interaction accounts for all that appears. We know them as
Prakriti, the primordial Substance or Energy, and Purusha, the Spirit
principle, embodied in Prakriti, producing everything from atoms to
man. They held that both were emanations of That, or
thought-forms in the Mind of the One.
Kapila taught that Purusha is to be thought of, not
as one great world Spirit or world Principle of Spirit in the sense of
Undivided Unity, but rather as a countless myriad of spirit atoms,
bound together by filaments of attraction, giving them harmony, yet
individual freedom.
He taught that Purusha is pure Spirit, unaffected
by pleasure or pain or other emotions, until it becomes embodied in
Prakriti. This in turn produces the "Soul" or as some term it, the
subconscious, in which it becomes subject to Samsara, "the cycle of
existence," with its chain of Cause and Effect, karmic results and
rebirths. Out of this, Purusha struggles to return to its first state
of freedom and bliss.
Prakriti, he taught was the cosmic primordial
Energy or Substance from which the Universe is evolved. It is a subtle,
ethereal Substance, carrying our Western idea of Universal Ether,
higher. He taught that it was atomless or continuous, until invaded by
Purusha, when it took an atomic form. Out of this conjunction of Spirit
and Substance, Chitta, or Mind stuff arose.
Purusha was pictured as a "lame man, possessed of
eyesight and the other senses," and Prakriti, as "a man in whom the
senses of seeing and hearing, etc., had been omitted, but who possessed
a good pair of legs." So they made a combination, and the lame man
(Purusha) mounts up on the shoulders of the blind man (Prakriti) and
together they move along briskly and intelligently, whereas separately
they could make no progress.
It was here that Ernest Haeckel, the German
scientist, found his "soul of the atom," and Schopenhauer found his
"Will," and Spencer his "Universal Matrix," whence issued all
appearance. Kapila taught that true knowledge and right living alone
could enable man to grasp the nature of Purusha and Prakriti, and
through that understanding to find liberation or freedom.
Happiness sought in material things is a
will-o-the-wisp, which man never overtakes. It is found only in the
renunciation of material things, and setting the face toward the land
of the soul’s desire, Spirit.
Kapila taught that atoms were simply centers of
force in the Prakriti Substance, established by the presence of Purusha
"Spirit." He set forth the law of "love and hate" of atoms, thus
explaining the attraction and repulsion of particles evident in the
physical universe, and which action and reaction accounted for the
greater part of material phenomena. From this he formulated the
doctrine of evolution. He made Spirit the active cause of evolution
rather than any inherent quality in Prakriti (Substance) itself.
His is the first recorded attempt to answer the
questions of the origin of the world, the nature and relations of man
and his future destiny. It differs from our idea of creation. When the
great outpouring took place, the Absolute projected its Spirit into the
manifestation called matter, from which evolution and the individual
consciousness proceeded.
The Vedanta System: The other great Hindu
system is called the Vedanta, meaning "the last of the Vedas or what we
know as the Upanishads." The Vedas were concerned with ceremonies,
ritual, worship, etc. The Upanishads concerns itself with questions of
"the inquiry into Brahm," or the Absolute and the Manifestations of the
latter in the phenomenal universe. It is a philosophy of pure Reason.
It brushed aside all previous conceptions, including Kapila with his
Purusha and Prakriti as being nothing in themselves, but merely
reflections of the One. In fact it was the first great school of Ideal
philosophy.
The One Brahman, the Absolute Substance, is beyond
qualities or attributes, subject or object, is the source of Being,
Intelligence, Bliss, The Cause of the Universe in all its
manifestations. It is both creator and created, doer and deed, cause
and effect, etc., nothing outside itself. Since it cannot be divided
into parts, or be subject to change, it must follow that the self of
each of us must be in some way identical with the Self of the One,
instead of being an emanation of it. The Self of Spirit in us must be
the identical Spirit of the One, undivided and whole.
Here the system divides, and one part expressed
their idea of "manifestation" in symbols. Individual souls were "sparks
rising from the fires and returning thereto, being always within the
heat-waves of the fire." Other symbols included the perfume of the
flower, which is of it, the rays of the Sun, which seemingly apart, are
still of it. Others believed that all is a reflection.
The main school reaches the limit of speculative
thought. Brahman is all, and nothing else is. Brahman itself imagining
itself separated into countless souls building an imaginary universe of
the senses. Maya, or the world of appearances, is purely imaginary, yet
it must be of Brahman, for He is all.
Right here, this school of Hindu philosophy faces
the ultimate question, "Why did God create the universe, since He is
not bound by necessity or desire, since it can accomplish nothing,
since nothing can be that has not always been, whether the universe is
illusion or reality – why was it created? For it they had no answer.
Most of the innumerable systems of Hindu Philosophy
hold to the conception of seven "principles" or "husks" of the
individual soul.
1. Physical body
2. Prana or vital
force
3. Astral body
4. Animal soul
5. Human Soul
6. Spiritual Soul
7. Atman or Spirit
We find these seven principles in all forms of
Hindu thought. Sometimes they applied the same idea to Brahman and His
emanations. It would require many volumes to give even an outline of
the various schools of Indian Philosophy. Yet after reading them, then
studying the course of philosophical thought from the Greeks until
today, one is struck by the presence of these ideas in every age.
The Yoga System: Following the Sankhya
System of Kapila, with its Purusha and Prakriti, and the Vedanta System
with its pure Reason and Idealism, we have the third great school of
Philosophy, the Yoga System, meaning yoking or joining. Its
central idea is advancement through mental control. Patanjali founded
the Yoga System about 200 B.C., based on the system of Kapila with the
addition of a Personal God, or World Purusha. There are many forms of
Yoga teaching and practice. A yogi or yogin is a practitioner of Yoga
methods, one who seeks union, realization and attainment by means of
Wisdom, Divine Love, Action or Control, or by all together.
The Gnani Yoga, or the Yoga of Wisdom, was
preferred by the Vedantists, who strive for attainment or emancipation
by means of Wisdom, Understanding and Knowledge, acquired by the
exercise of Pure Reason and Right Thinking.
The Rajah Yoga (Royal), or the Yoga of
Absolute Concentration. Its central ideas are mental control, psychic
development and the unfoldment of latent forces. Rajah Yoga has eight
steps. 1. Self control. 2 Religious duty. 3. Postures. 4. Control of
prana or vital force. 5. Control of the senses. 6. Control of the mind.
7. Meditation. 8. Transcendental contemplation, or ecstacy.
They taught the Eight Superior Powers. 1. Power of
shrinking to the size of an atom, or invisibility. 2. Power of becoming
very light, or levitation. 3. Power of becoming very heavy, or
gravitation. 4. Unlimited extension of perception, clairvoyance,
clairaudience, etc. 5. Irresistible power of Will. 6. Unlimited
dominion over everything. 7. Control over the Powers of Nature. 8.
Transporting oneself anywhere at will.
Karma Yoga, followed by the religious sects
and cults, is the Yoga of Work, Duty, Action, Devotion, etc., the Path
of Right Living and Devotion to Duty and God.
Hatha Yoga is the Yoga of Breath, Physical
Well-being or Physical Perfection.
In addition to these three great schools of Hindu
thought there were three minor schools: The Vaisheshika of Kanada, the
Purva Mimansa of Jaimini, and the Nyaya of Gautama.
The Vaisheshika System: Kanada lived prior
to the Christian era. He taught the doctrine of atomic individualities.
The phenomenal universe is composed of six categories or final classes.
The aim is the science of deliverance from material life by the
perception of the true nature of the soul, and the unreality of matter.
Categories:
1. Drava, the
innermost Cause of the collective Effect, the Substratum of Phenomena.
Drava, or Substance, is nine-fold – earth, water, light, air, ether,
time, space, Soul or Self (the Atman) Mind.
2. Gunas, or
Qualities: seventeen, such as color, taste, odor, touch, number,
dimension, understanding, pleasure, pain, desire, aversion, volition,
gravity. Later teachers added seven others. These qualities are
inherent in the substance of the soul, as well as in the substances of
matter.
3. Karma, or
Action: Upward, downward, contraction, expansion, change of position.
4. Samanya:
The principle of generality or genus, or species.
5. Vishesha,
atomic individuality of the nine-fold substance: Atomic souls, atomic
substance, air, water, etc., scientific.
6. Samavaya,
the Principle of Coherence: Explaining the relations, parts and whole,
action and agent, atoms and substance, subject and object.
Kanada taught that Understanding was the Guna or
Quality of the Soul, and that the instruments of understanding were
perception and inference. He included a personal God in his teaching,
not a substitute for TAT, but made up of the countless souls who have
mastered the flesh, and are become one great World Spirit.
The Purva Mimansa System: The Purva Mimansa
System consists of attainment of freedom through observance of rites
and ceremonies, and the practice of the Yoga methods. They are the
Fundamentalists of the Hindus. The Sutras of Jaimini enquire into and
expound law and the duties of ordinary life. A form of
predestinationism, the sect claims for the Vedas what Western
Fundamentalists claim for the Bible.
The Nyaya System: The Nyaya System is
primarily concerned with the conditions of correct knowledge and the
means of receiving this knowledge. Nyaya is predominantly based on
reasoning and logic. Because this system analyzes the nature and source
of knowledge and its validity and nonvalidity, it is also referred to
as "the science of critical study." Using systematic reasoning, this
school attempts to discriminate valid knowledge from invalid knowledge.
Gautama was the Aristotle of the Hindus, using the most minute methods
for reasoning.
Lecture Two
Review of the Ancient Thinkers: The Greek
Masters
The Milesian (Ionian) Physicists
The Ionian school (named Milesian because they
originated in Miletus) made the first, and radical step from
mythological to scientific explanation of natural phenomena. They
discovered the scientific principles of the permanence of substance,
the natural evolution of the world, and the reduction of quality to
quantity. These philosophers sought the one, unchanging material
principle of all things, and evolved physical theories to explain all
existence in terms of primary matter.
Thales of Miletus (624-547 B.C.) is
considered the founder of Greek Philosophy. Among the first teachers of
mathematics in Hellas, he disputed the attribution of all phenomena to
the activities of gods and goddesses, and contended that some
fundamental principle must be behind all the flux and change about us,
some single primitive substance from which all reality has sprung.
Having observed that moisture is necessary to life and motion and that
"water is the essential principle whereby moist is moist," he concluded
that all things, even the gods, consist of water.
His thought marks the first attempt to separate
science and theology, and to explain the world without reference to
myth or religion. It is the first statement of the view that natural
phenomena are not the products of divine caprice, but are referable to
a material principle, the fundamental postulate upon which we base all
modern science.
Anaximander (611-547 B.C.) was a
mathematician who first calculated the size and distance of various
planets, wrote a book on geometry, and invented the sundial. He also
thought of life as always and inseparably connected with matter. He
traced the universe’s origin to an infinite and indeterminate material
called the Boundless, "which surrounds all things and animates all
things." The world is a vast cylinder and was originally in a fluid
state. All life was generated in sea-slime, and all animals, including
man, descended from the fishes. All things at last return to that
origin.
Anaximenes (550-528 B.C.) was the third
great Milesian. He taught that all substances consist of air, and
differ only in the degree of their condensation. The human soul is
composed of highly rarified air, and life consists simply in inhaling
and exhaling. When this movement ceases, death ensues. The same idea
holds concerning the world. Air "differs in essence in accordance with
its rarity or density. When it is thinned, it becomes fire, while when
it is condensed it becomes wind, then cloud, when still more condensed
it becomes water, then earth, then stones. Everything else comes from
these."
Diogenes (550 B.C.) taught that an
underlying unity must exist in all matter, else how is it that plants
convert water into plant tissue, while animals eat the plants and turn
them into flesh and bone. He regarded air as the primal element of all
things, and the universe as issuing from an intelligent principle,
which gave it life and order, a rational, sensitive soul. Yet he did
recognize any distinction between matter and mind. At last, all things
return to air or vapor, from which all things arise by condensation and
rarefaction.
The Eleatics: The Philosophers of Elea
A reflection of the Upanishads, the Eleatics held
that the true explanation of things lies in the conception of a
Universal Unity of Being. It is by thought alone that we can pass
beyond the false appearances of sense and arrive at the knowledge of
being, at the fundamental truth that "the All is One." There can be no
creation, for being cannot come from not-being; a thing cannot arise
from that which is different from it. The Eleatics, being concerned
with the problem of logical consistency, laid the basis for the
development of the science of logic.
Xenophanes (570-480 B.C.) ridiculed the
popular religion and said that man created God in his own image. "Each
man represents God as he himself is. The Ethiopian as black and snub
nosed, the Thracian as red-haired and blue-eyed, and if horses and oxen
could paint, they would no doubt depict the gods as horses and oxen."
He reduced the gods of mythology to meteorological phenomena, and
especially to clouds. He maintained there was only one god, namely, the
world. God is one incorporeal eternal being, and, like the universe,
spherical in form, "a vast unchanging, all-embracing sphere, all eye,
all ear, all understanding."
He was the father of pantheism and doctrine of the
One. God is of the same nature with the universe, comprehending all
things within himself, is intelligent, and pervades all things, but
bears no resemblance to human nature either in body or mind. He
regarded petrified marine animals in the mines in Syracuse as evidence
that the sea once covered the land, and from this fact evolved the
theory that alternate mixtures and separations of water and earth
produced the whole visible universe.
Parmenides (540-480 B.C.) developed the idea
of the Unity of God into a systematic Philosophy, contending that
Reality or Being is one, immutable and eternal, in the form of a
well-rounded sphere, and that the notions of plurality, motion and
change are illusions of the senses. He reasoned that since Being is,
and non-being is not, being is necessarily a unity.
Being is eternal, for how could it have a beginning? It certainly was
not produced by the nonexistent, nor by the existent, because being
itself is the existent.
His famous argument against motion goes something
like this: Empty space is simply nothing and as nothing can be said to
exist, space is an illusion. An object could not move without occupying
first one space and then another, therefore since there is no space for
it to occupy, there is no such thing as motion.
Zeno of Elea (488-425 B.C.) held the same
philosophy, and devoted himself to refuting the views of the opponents
of Parmenides. He used the reduction ad absurdum, which means
tentatively using the opposing thesis, then draws some preposterous
conclusions from it. The flying arrow, said he, does not really move at
all, because at any particular moment it must be in one particular
place. Now if an arrow is in one particular place, it is at rest, and
if an arrow is at rest during each moment of its flight, when
does it move? ["The more precisely the position is determined,
the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice
versa." -- Heisenberg, uncertainty paper, 1927, Center for History of
Physics of the American Institute of Physics]
Melissus of Samos (490-430 B.C.) used the
idea that nothing comes from nothing. In the beginning he said,
everybody must admit either that things exist or they do not exist. If
they do not exist, further argument is profitless, but if they do
exist, we may proceed to the conclusion that they always existed or
else contend that they have been produced. If things have been
produced, then they must have come from being or non-being. Nothing can
possibly come from non-being, and if we say that being arose from
being, we must admit that being was before being came to be, which is
nonsense. Therefore we must conclude that all being is eternal –
everything that it has always been and always will be. Being is also
infinite, changeless, immovable unity. All else is foolishness.
The Pythagoreans
Pythagoras and his disciples comprised an eclectic
blend of philosophy, mathematic and religious mysticism. The
Pythagoreans believed that the soul is a prisoner of the body; that it
is released from the body at death, and reincarnated in a higher or
lower form of life, depending on the degree of virtue achieved.
Pythagoras of Samos (569-475 B.C.) was
semi-mythical, viewed as a philosopher, mathematician and mystic. It
was said that he studied in Egypt and in India, worked miracles, and
claimed to remember several previous incarnations or lives.
Pythagoras coined the term philosophia,
Greek for "love of wisdom." He discovered the relation between the
length of a string and the tone it produces, which led to the discovery
of the musical scale. He was the first to postulate that earth was a
sphere orbiting around a "central fire." He taught that the natural
order could be expressed in numbers, and is known for the Pythagorean
theorem.
He wrote nothing, nor did any of his immediate
disciples. Theirs was a secret teaching and was memorized by each
initiate. All order and system was based upon numbers and vibration,
and nothing else existed. They talked about the "music of the spheres"
and thought the universe was a sort of lyre, each planet strung on a
different length of string, and the swing of the planets on the
different lengths or intervals produced the music of the spheres.
Philolaus (480-? B.C.), a contemporary of
Socrates, first published an exposition of the sacred doctrines of
Pythagoras. Everything is number, and we may reduce all natural laws to
numerical relations. God is the Unity that rules the world. From the
Unity sprang arithmetical numbers, then geometrical magnitudes, then
material objects and finally life, love and intelligence. The world
soul comes from the Central Fire around which the earth revolves daily,
and spreads everywhere, and invented the concept of a counter-earth for
numerological reasons.
Heraclitus of Ephesus (536-470 B.C.) taught
that there is no such thing as a changeless motionless Being. The world
is a perpetual flux and reflux. Every particle of matter is in constant
motion. Nothing is, but all is becoming.
Nothing is permanent but the law of change. Fire is the fundamental
pattern of existence. Everything comes from fire by a process of
condensation and returns to fire by a process of rarefaction. Earth,
air and water, are but fire in different forms. Man himself is "kindled
and put out like a candle in the nighttime." Fire and heat are always
associated with life. Fire is the basis of virtue. The drunkard is
wicked because his soul is too moist; warm, dry souls are the best.
Everywhere there is duality, being and not-being, truth and falseness,
good and evil. It is the conflict of the opposites that brings always
into existence. Nothing is permanent.
The Pluralists
The Pluralists developed a philosophy which
replaced the assumption of a single primary substance with a plurality
of such substances.
Empedocles (492-432 B.C.) believed that all
things are composed of four immortal elements, earth, air, fire, and
water. A uniting force, called love or attraction, builds up
combinations of these elements, and a disintegrating force, called hate
or repulsion, breaks them down. Originally the elements were all mixed
together in a gigantic sphere in which love and hate did not operate.
Finally love and hate entered and the elements became separated and the
conflict between the two forces brought individual things into
existence. The first living thing to spring from the earth were plants,
then animals in monstrous forms incapable of surviving. Those now
existing are the descendants of those that did survive because of their
fitness and adaptability, (including men), which is Darwin’s theory of
survival of the fittest, taught 2,000 years earlier. Thought was a
recent development generated by the blood’s activity.
Anaxagoras (500-430 B.C.) was the first
teleologist. There are not merely four elements but an unlimited
number. All substances, except mind, are mixtures containing all sorts
of atoms, or "elementary seeds." Mind is unmixed passionless matter,
the thinnest and purest of things, which gives motion and order to all
other material. Faith or chance does not govern the world, but Divine
Reason, and according to intelligent purpose or design.
The Atomists
Atomism is a theory which proposed that all matter
is composed of tiny, indivisible particles differing only in simple
physical properties.
Leucippus of Elea (480-420 B.C.) formulated
the philosophy of Atomism. He stated that atoms are "imperceptible,
individual particles that differ only in shape and position." The
mixing of these particles produces the world we experience. He was the
first philosopher to affirm the existence of empty space, really a
vacuum. The solitary fragment of Leucippus that remains, says "Naught
happens for nothing, but all things from a ground (logos) and of
necessity."
Democritus of Abdera (460-362 B.C.) was a
bald materialist. Nothing exists but matter and space. The full is no
more real than the empty. The world is made up of atoms and the void
and there is no third thing. Atoms are eternal and uncaused and differ
only in size, shape and arrangement. As to quality, they are alike.
Atoms are brought together not by fortune or divine intelligence but by
Natural Necessity. There is no free will in man, and no plan or purpose
in the Universe. Everything happens through a cause and of necessity.
The human soul consists of very small, smooth, round atoms, like those
in fire, and are distributed to every part of the body. Rational
thought is a higher kind of perception and is sealed in the brain.
Anger is located in the heart, while desire is a function of the liver.
All knowledge comes to use through the senses and these are a
modification of the sense of touch. Death is a scattering of the Soul
atoms.
The Sophists
Specializing in rhetoric, the Sophists were more
professional educators than philosophers. The whole Sophistic tendency
of thought, which identifies knowledge with sense-perception, ignores
the rational element. They acquired a reputation for deceit,
insincerity, and demagoguery. Thus, the word sophistry has come to
signify these moral faults.
Protagoras of Abdera (490-420 B.C.) was a
dialectician, the first to distinguish between the different modes of
the verb. He held that logic was the right use of words. Later (425
B.C.) he was condemned for impiety and banished from Athens. Agnostic,
he believed that man is the measure of all things, and denied the
existence of any absolute or objective truth or absolute standards of
value. His teaching that all depends on the viewpoint, led to the
position that knowledge is relative to the knower. Expediency is the
only factor to be considered in belief or conduct. Metaphysics, to him,
was a total failure, and logic a collection of theoretical tricks.
Gorgias (483-375 B.C.) His philosophical
studies ended in nihilism, the denial of all existence. All statements
are equally false and differ only in plausibility. We can sum his
position up in three propositions: (1) Nothing exists; (2) If anything
existed, it could not be known; (3) If anything did exit, and could be
known, it could not be communicated.
Hippias, Prodicus and Critias
were all famous Sophists.
The Philosophy of Socrates
Socrates (354-399 B.C.) believed himself
appointed of the gods to expose ignorance and pretension wherever
found, and to awaken in his followers desire for genuine knowledge. So
he gave up stone cutting and devoted his time to heckling teachers and
orators. So great was his skill that he discomfitted them all. He wrote
nothing and did not fit his doctrines into a definite philosophical
system.
To him, ethics was the only subject worth studying.
The supreme good for humanity is happiness, the only way to be happy is
to be virtuous, and the only way to be virtuous is to be wise. Virtue
is identical unto knowledge and ignorance is the only vice. Virtue is
not innate but must be taught like arithmetic, etc. To be happy one
must become relatively independent of physical needs. Happiness is not
found in the mere possession of worldly goods. It is best for a man to
worship the gods of his own city. Polytheistic. He regarded the
phenomenon of adaptation in animal life, and the intricate harmony of
the physical universe, as evidence that some sort of Divine
Intelligence governs the world.
Euclides of Megara (430-360 B.C.) held that
mind and not matter is the ultimate reality, which makes his system the
connecting link between Socrates and Plato.
Plato (427-348) was a pupil of Socrates, the
founder of Idealism. He believed that general concepts or ideas are
more real and true than anything else in the world. All changing things
exist only as they resemble ideas. (His contributions will be discussed
more fully under Aristotle.)
Aristippus (435-390 B.C.), a pupil of
Socrates, carried Socrates’ idea that happiness is the supreme good to
the idea that it is the only good possible for mankind. In fact, he
builds his whole philosophy upon hedonism, the gospel of pleasure.
Theodorus (465-398 B.C.) carried out the
gospel of pleasure to its limit; that to avoid the ills of life one
should commit suicide and obtain peace.
The Cynics
Following Socrates and his pupils, the Cynic School
arose.
Antisthenes (441-371 B.C.) and Diogenes
of Sinope (404-323 B.C.): The essence of their teaching was that virtue
is the only thing that matters, and the virtuous man is always happy
because he cares for nothing and fears nobody. The philosopher should
reduce the number of his desires as far as possible because the less a
man wants, the more apt he is to get it.
The Peripatetics
Greek philosophers who followed the principles of
Aristotle, so-named because they learned from the master while
strolling about (Gk. peripate) in the covered walkways of the Lyceum.
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) condemned Plato’s
subjectivism and based his philosophy on sensation rather than reason
or intuition. He believed that one must proceed from the particular to
the general (which is the modern scientific method). The general truth
of Idea exists in the particular object and not apart from it. Each
individual thing is a combination of form (the idea), and matter,
except God who is pure form (or Idea). He summarized the scientific
knowledge of his time, pointed out the importance of Observation and
inductive reasoning and rescued philosophy from the introspective
method of Socrates and Plato.
His was a colossal mind, and we find most terms of
science and philosophy in his writings. He covered the whole range of
human thought from the beginning until now. Yet crudities fill his
astronomy, logic, biology, botany, and metaphysics, which we could not
understand unless we know the limitations under which he lived and
worked.
He was "compelled to fix time without a watch, to
compare degrees of heat without a thermometer, to observe the heavens
without a telescope and the weather without a barometer." Of all our
mathematical, optical and physical instruments, he possessed only the
rule and compass and a few imperfect substitutes for others. Chemical
analysis, correct measurements and weights, and a thorough application
of mathematics to physics, were unknown.
One of his greatest achievements was the overthrow
of Plato’s idea of "universals." Plato held that man the individual did
not really exist, but that man the universal was the only reality.
Aristotle held that man the individual was the idea embodied and that
man, the universal, was a handy mental abstraction. Plato loved the
universal to such an extent that in his "Republic" he destroyed the
individual to make a perfect state.
Aristotle met Plato’s communism with such a
statement as this. Individual quality, privacy and liberty are above
social efficiency and power. He would not care to call every
contemporary, "brother or sister," nor every elderly person, "father or
mother." If all are your brothers, none is. How much better it is to be
the real cousin to somebody than to be a son after Plato’s fashion
(i.e., not know who your father was). In a state having women and
children in common, love will be watery. Neither of the two qualities
that inspire regard and affection that a thing is your own, and that it
awakens real love in you, can exist in such a state as Plato’s.
Aristotle was the creator of the syllogism. A trio
of propositions of which the third (the conclusion) follows from the
conceded truth of the other two, e.g., man is a rational animal.
Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is a rational animal. Things
equal to the same thing are equal to each other.
His biology is illuminating. "In the midst of this
bewildering richness of structure certain things stand out
convincingly. That life has grown steadily in complexity and power;
that intelligence has grown in correlation with complexity of structure
and mobility of form; that there has been an increasing specialization
of function and a continuous centralization of physiological control.
Slowly life created for itself a nervous system and a brain and mind
moved resolutely onward toward the mastery of its environment."
In his metaphysics, Divine Providence coincides
completely with the operation of natural causes. Development is not
accidental or haphazard, but everything is guided in a certain
direction from within by its structure, nature and inner purpose. The
egg of the hen is internally designed or destined to become not a duck
but a chick. The acorn becomes not a willow but an oak. The design is
internal and arises from the type, function and purpose of the thing.
God does not create but He moves the world, moves
it not as a mechanical force, but as the total motive of all operations
in the world. God moves the world as the beloved object moves the
lover. He is the final cause of nature, the drive and purpose of
things, the form of the world, the principle of its life, the sum of
its vital processes and powers, the inherent goal of its growth, the
energizing purpose of the whole.
His psychology is fascinating. We cannot directly
will to be different from what we are, but we can choose what we shall
be, by choosing now the environment that shall mold us, so we are free
in the sense that we mold our own characters by our choice of friends,
books, occupations and amusements.
His ethics seem as fresh as if thought out
yesterday. The best in life consists in happiness through fulfillment.
The chief condition of happiness is the life of reason. Virtue or
excellence will depend on clear judgment, self-control, symmetry of
desire, artistry of means. Life’s best is found in the means and not
the extremes. Between cowardice and rashness is courage, between
stinginess and extravagance is liberality, between sloth and greed is
ambition, between humility and pride is modesty, between secrecy and
loquacity is honesty, between moroseness and buffoonery is good humor,
between quarrelsomeness and flattery is friendship. Between Hamlet’s
indecisiveness and Quixote’s impulsiveness, is self-control.
Right in the ethical sense is the same as right in
mathematics. We do not act right because we have virtue or excellence,
but rather we have these because we have acted rightly. We are what we
repeatedly do. Virtue is not then an act but a habit. It is not one
swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day, or
act, or short time that makes a man blessed and happy.
Aristotle’s Ideal Man does not expose himself
needlessly to danger, since he cares for few things sufficiently. Yet
he is willing in a great crisis to give his life, knowing that under
certain circumstances it is not worthwhile to live. He is disposed to
do men service, though he is ashamed to have a service done him. To
confer a kindness is a mark of superiority, to receive one is a mark of
subordination. He does not take part in public displays, he is open in
his likes and dislikes, he talks and acts frankly because of his
contempt for men and things. He is never fired with admiration, since
there is nothing great in his eyes. He cannot live in complaisance with
others, except it be a friend, for complaisance is the characteristic
of slaves. He never feels malice and always forgets and passes over
injuries. He is not fond of talking. It is no concern of his that he
should be praised or that others should be blamed. He does not speak
evil of others, even his enemies, unless it be to themselves. His
carriage is sedate, his voice deep, his speech measured. He is not
given to hurry, for he is concerned only about a few things. He is not
prone to vehemence, for he thinks nothing very important. A shrill
voice and hasty steps come to a man through care. He bears the
accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of his
circumstances. He is his own best friend and takes delight in privacy
whereas the man of no virtue or ability is his own worst enemy and is
afraid of solitude. This is the superman of Aristotle.
His statements in the realm of political economy,
sociology, domestic life, birth control, and a hundred other subjects
still challenge the thought of the world. True inventions and
betterment of the means of the observation and analysis have changed a
few incidentals, but Aristotle’ s creation of a true discipline of
thought and his firm establishment of its essential lines, remain among
the lasting achievements of mind. His categories or metaphysical
classifications, somewhat worked over by Kant, are still the standards
of human thinking.
Theoprastus (373-287 B.C.) held fast to the
teachings of Aristotle, but placed a greater emphasis on the natural
sciences, particularly botany. He also softened Aristotle’s rigid moral
code, conceding that violating the laws of the land may be right at
times.
Strato of Lampsacus (340-270 B.C.) succeeded
Theophrastus and laid the emphasis on materialistic science. There is
no mind or intelligence apart from the body. He was the first to note
that falling bodies accelerate. His main interest was physics, and he
described methods for forming a vacuum.
The Epicureans
The Epicureans, like the Stoics, recognized only
that knowledge which originates and stops in the senses as valid. All
other cognition is only the result of sensations and combinations of
many sensations.
Epicurus (342-270 B.C.) His ethical
doctrines were those of Aristippus: Pleasure, and he adopted the
physical science of the Atomists. There is no plan or purpose behind
the world. Science is valuable only as it makes people happier by
destroying their fear of death and the gods. Virtue is an asset only as
far as it is pleasure to be virtuous. Honesty is the best policy, not
because stealing is wrong, but because punishment is painful. He did
not favor marriage or the rearing of children.
Lucretius (98-55 B.C.) was a Roman Epicurean
who taught that religion is the cause of all human suffering, and the
only fight worthwhile is the struggle against fear of the gods.
Horace (65 B.C.), a Roman poet, was also an
Epicurean. His was a philosophy of take things as they come. Don’t
worry about tomorrow, be happy, young or old. Death is the ultimate
boundary of our woes, and a man can die whenever he pleases.
The Stoics
Stoicism is essentially a system of ethics, guided
by a logic as theory of method, and rests upon physics as foundation.
Their view of morality is stern, living a life in accord with nature
and controlled by virtue. It is an ascetic system, teaching perfect
indifference to everything external, for nothing external could be
either good or evil. Both pain and pleasure, poverty and riches,
sickness and health, were equally unimportant.
Zeno (340-265 B.C.) was a Jewish merchant
from Cyprus, founder of the school that met in the Stoa or porch in the
marketplace in Athens. He was a materialist. The world is a rational
animal and God is the soul or reason of the world. What is to be will
be. Everything is ordained by fate or the Divine Reason that knows all
things. He was succeeded by
Cleanthes (300- 225 B.C.) was an
ex-pugilist, who sought to rationalize Ethics. All individual acts are
sinful. To move a finger without sufficient reason is as wicked as
murder.
Chrysippus (282-209 B.C.) was a dialectic
and logician, who refined and restated the precepts of Zeno.
Panaetus (180-111 B.C.) abandoned many
philosophical doctrines and moral precepts of the earlier Stoics.
Seneca (3 B.C.-A.D. 65) His philosophy was a
system of moral maxims, such as "There is but one way of getting into
this world, but many ways of getting out of it."
Epictetus (AD 55?-135?) was a Phrygian-born
philosopher who popularized the Stoic ethical doctrine of limiting
one's desires, believing that one should act in life as at a banquet by
taking a polite portion of all that is offered.
Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 121-180) was a Roman
Emperor, the last of the great Stoics, and a man of sterling character,
intent on leading a good life and trying to live up to his position. He
loved a quiet and studious career, but couldn’t follow it. His view in
his "Meditations" was rather pessimistic.
The Skeptics
Skepticism maintains that human being can never
arrive at a certain knowledge, because there is no such thing as
certainty in knowledge, and that most knowledge is only probably true.
The modern word for this is agnosticism.
Pyrrho of Elis (360-270 B.C.), according to
his disciple Timon, declared that "(1) things are equally indifferent,
unmeasurable and inarbitrable. For this reason (2) neither our
sensations nor our opinions tell us truths or falsehoods. Therefore,
for this reason we should not put our trust in them, but we should be
unopinionated, uncommitted and unwavering, saying concerning each
individual thing that it no more is than is not, or it both is and is
not, or it neither is nor is not. (3) The outcome for those who
actually adopt this attitude will be first speechlessness, and then
freedom from disturbance."
Timon of Philas (325-235 B.C.) showed his
agnosticism by saying that people need only know three things: What is
the nature of things, how we are related to them, and what we can gain
from them. However, since our knowledge of things must always be
subjective and unreal, we can only live in a state of suspended
judgment.
Arcesilaus (318-243 B.C.) who was the sixth
head of Plato’s Academy, was responsible for turning it into a form of
skepticism.
Carneades of Cyrene (213-129 B.C.) developed
a wider array of skeptical arguments against any possible dogmatic
position.
The Skeptical movement killed rational philosophy
in Greece. Men began to suspect that some unseen spiritual world might
be just as real and true as anything
else, so they abandoned reason, and took up Neo-Platonism or one of the
new Christian cults. Faith alone ruled for 1,000 years of darkness.