95. GREEK PHILOSOPHY
THE SOPHISTS
The Greek philosophy took its rise in the seventh century B.C., when a few bold students began to search out the mysteries of the universe. Their theories were so many and so contradictory, however, that after a time philosophers gave up the study of nature and proposed in turn to study man himself. These later thinkers were called sophists. They traveled throughout Greece, gathering the young men about them and lecturing for pay on subjects of practical interest. Among other things they taught the rhetoric and oratory which were needed for success in a public career.
SOCRATES
One of the founders of Greek philosophy and the greatest teacher of his age was Socrates the Athenian. He lived and taught during the period of the Peloponnesian War. Socrates resembled the sophists in his possession of an inquiring, skeptical mind which questioned every common belief and superstition. But he went beyond the sophists in his emphasis on problems of every-day morality.
Though Socrates wrote nothing, his teaching and personality made a deep impression on his contemporaries. The Delphic oracle declared that no one in the world was wiser than Socrates. Yet he lived through a long life at Athens, a poor man who would neither work at his trade of sculptor, nor (as did the sophists) accept money for his instruction. He walked the streets, barefoot and half-clad, and engaged in animated conversation with anyone who was willing to discuss intellectual subjects with him. Socrates must have been a familiar figure to the Athenians. His short body, large, bald head, and homely features hardly presented the ideal of a philosopher. Even Aristophanes in a comedy laughs at him.
[Illustration: SOCRATES (Vatican Gallery, Rome)]
CONDEMNATION AND DEATH OF SOCRATES
Late in life Socrates was accused of impiety and of corrupting the youth of Athens with his doctrines. As a matter of fact he was a deeply religious man. If he objected to the crude mythology of Homer, he often spoke of one God, who ruled the world, and of a divine spirit or conscience within his own breast. A jury court found him guilty, however, and condemned him to death. He refused to escape from prison when opportunity offered and passed his last days in eager conversation on the immortality of the soul. When the hour of departure arrived, he bade his disciples farewell and calmly drained the cup of hemlock, a poison that caused a painless death. Although Socrates gave his life for his philosophy, this did not perish with him.
PLATO
One of the members of the Socratic circle was Plato, a wealthy noble who abandoned a public career for the attractions of philosophy. After the death of Socrates, Plato traveled widely in the Greek world and even visited Egypt, where he interviewed the learned priests. On his return to Athens Plato began teaching in the garden and gymnasium called the Academy. [27] His writings, known as Dialogues, are cast in the form of question and answer that Socrates had used. In most of them Plato makes Socrates the chief speaker. Plato's works are both profound in thought and admirable in style. The Athenians used to say that if Zeus had spoken Greek he would have spoken it as did Plato.
ARISTOTLE
As great a philosopher as Plato, but a far less attractive writer, was Aristotle. He was not an Athenian by birth, but he passed many years in Athens, first as a pupil of Plato, who called him the "mind" of the school, and then as a teacher in the Athenian city. Aristotle seems to have taken all knowledge for his province. He investigated the ideas underlying the arts of rhetoric and poetry; he gathered the constitutions of many Greek states and drew from them some general principles of politics; he studied collections of strange plants and animals to learn their structure and habits; he examined the acts and beliefs of men in order to write books on ethics. In all this investigation Aristotle was not content to accept what previous men had written or to spin a pleasing theory out of his own brain. Everywhere he sought for facts; everything he tried to bring to the test of personal observation. Aristotle, then, was as much a scientist as a philosopher. His books were reverently studied for centuries after his death and are still used in our universities.
EPICUREANISM
The system of philosophy called Epicureanism was founded by a Greek named Epicurus. He taught in Athens during the earlier part of the third century B.C. Epicurus believed that pleasure is the sole good, pain, the sole evil. He meant by pleasure not so much the passing enjoyments of the hour as the permanent happiness of a lifetime. In order to be happy men should not trouble themselves with useless luxuries, but should lead the "simple life." They must be virtuous, for virtue will bring more real satisfaction than vice. Above all, men ought to free themselves from idle hopes and fears about a future existence. The belief in the immortality of the soul, said Epicurus, is only a delusion, for both soul and body are material things which death dissolves into the atoms making up the universe. And if there are any gods, he declared, they do not concern themselves with human affairs. Some of the followers of Epicurus seemed to find in his philosophic system justification for free indulgence in every appetite and passion. Even to-day, when we call a person an "Epicurean," we think of him as a selfish pleasure seeker.
STOICISM
The noblest of all pagan philosophies was Stoicism, founded by Zeno, a contemporary of Epicurus. Virtue, said the Stoic, consists in living "according to nature," that is, according to the Universal Reason or Divine Providence that rules the world. The followers of this philosophy tried, therefore, to ignore the feelings and exalt the reason as a guide to conduct. They practiced self-denial, despised the pomps and vanities of the world, and sought to rise above such emotions as grief, fear, hope, and joy. The doctrines of Stoicism gained many adherents among the Romans [28] and through them became a real moral force in the ancient world. Stoicism is even now no outworn creed. Our very word "stoical" is a synonym for calm indifference to pleasure or to pain.