One class of these early speculators, the Dynamical, or vital theorists, proceeded on the supposition of a living energy infolded in nature, which in its spontaneous development continuously undergoes alteration both of quality and form. This imperfect analogy is the first hypothesis of childhood. The child personifies the stone that hurts him, and his first impulse is to resent the injury as though he imagined it to be endowed with consciousness, and to be acting with design. The childhood of superstition (whose genius is multiplicity) personifies each individual existence--a rude Fetichism, which imagines a supernatural power and presence enshrined in every object of nature, in every plant, and stock, and stone. The childhood of philosophy (whose genius is unity) personifies the universe. It regards the earth as one vast organism, animated by one soul, and this soul of the world as a "created god." [401] The first efforts of philosophy were, therefore, simply an attempt to explain the universe in harmony with the popular theological beliefs. The cosmogonies of the early speculators in the Ionian school were an elaboration of the ancient theogonies, but still an elaboration conducted under the guidance of that law of thought which constrains man to seek for unity, and reduce the many to the one.
Therefore, in attempting to construct a theory of the universe they commenced by postulating an ἀρχή--a first principle or element out of which, by a vital process, all else should be produced. "Accordingly, whatever seemed the most subtle or pliable, as well as universal element in the mass of the visible world, was marked as the seminal principle whose successive developments and transformations produced all the rest." [402] With this seminal principle the living, animating principle seems to have been associated--in some instances perhaps confounded, and in most instances called by the same name. And having pursued this analogy so far, we shall find the most decided and conclusive evidence of a tendency to regard the soul of man as similar, in its nature, to the soul which animates the world.
[Footnote 401: ][ (return) ] Plato's "Laws," bk. x. ch. i.; "Timæus," ch. xii.
[Footnote 402: ][ (return) ] Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. 1. p. 292.
Thales of Miletus(B.C. 636-542) was the first to lead the way in the perilous inquiry after an ἀρχή, or first principle, which should furnish a rational explanation of the universe. Following, as it would seem, the genealogy of Hesiod, he supposed water to be the primal element out of which all material things were produced. Aristotle supposes he was impressed with this idea from observing that all things are nourished by moisture; warmth itself, he declared, proceeded from moisture; the seeds of all things are moist; water, when condensed, becomes earth. Thus convinced of the universal presence of water, he declared it to be the first principle of things. [403]
And now, from this brief statement of the Thalean physics, are we to conclude that he recognized only a material cause of the universe? Such is the impression we receive from the reading of the First Book of Aristotle's Metaphysics. His evident purpose is to prove that the first philosophers of the Ionian school did not recognize an efficient cause. In his opinion, they were decidedly materialistic. Now to question the authority of Aristotle may appear to many an act of presumption. But Aristotle was not infallible; and nothing is more certain than that in more than one instance he does great injustice to his predecessors. [404] To him, unquestionably, belongs the honor of having made a complete and exhaustive classification of causes, but there certainly does appear something more than vanity in the assumption that he, of all the Greek philosophers, was the only one who recognized them all. His sagacious classification was simply a resumè of the labors of his predecessors. His "principles" or "causes" were incipient in the thought of the first speculators in philosophy. Their accurate definition and clearer presentation was the work of ages of analytic thought. The phrases "efficient," "formal," "final" cause, are, we grant, peculiar to Aristotle; the ideas were equally the possession of his predecessors.
[Footnote 403: ][ (return) ] Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. iii.
[Footnote 404: ][ (return) ] Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 77; Cousin's "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," p. 77.
The evidence, we think, is conclusive that, with this primal element (water), Thales associated a formative principle of motion; to the "material" he added the "efficient" cause. A strong presumption in favor of this opinion is grounded on the psychological views of Thales. The author of "De Placitis Philosophorum" associates him with Pythagoras and Plato, in teaching that the soul is incorporeal, making it naturally self-active, and an intelligent substance. [405] And it is admitted by Aristotle (rather unwillingly, we grant, but his testimony is all the more valuable on that account) that, in his time, the opinion that the soul is a principle, ἀεικίνητον--ever moving, or essentially self-active, was currently ascribed to Thales. "If we may rely on the notices of Thales, he too would seem to have conceived the soul as a moving principle." [406] Extending this idea, that the soul is a moving principle, he held that all motion in the universe was due to the presence of a living soul. "He is reported to have said that the loadstone possessed a soul because it could move iron." [407] And he taught that "the world itself is animated, and full of gods." [408] "Some think that soul and life is mingled with the whole universe; and thence, perhaps, was that [opinion] of Thales that all things are full of gods," [409] portions, as Aristotle said, of the universal soul. These views are quite in harmony with the theology which makes the Deity the moving energy of the universe--the energy which wrought the successive transformations of the primitive aqueous element. They also furnish a strong corroboration of the positive statement of Cicero--"Aquam, dixit Thales, esse initium rerum, Deum autem eam mentem quæ ex aqua cuncta fingeret." Thales said that water is the first principle of things, but God was that mind which formed all things out of water; [410] as also that still more remarkable saying of Thales, recorded by Diogenes Laertius; "God is the most ancient of all things, for he had no birth; the world is the most beautiful of all things, for it is the workmanship of God." [411] We are aware that some historians of philosophy reject the statement of Cicero, because, say they, "it does violence to the chronology of speculation." [412] Following Hegel, they assert that Thales could have no conception of God as Intelligence, since that is a conception of a more advanced philosophy. Such an opinion may be naturally expected from the philosopher who places God, not at the commencement, but at the end of things, God becoming conscious and intelligent in humanity. If, then, Hegel teaches that God himself has had a progressive development, it is no wonder he should assert that the idea of God has also had an historic development, the last term of which is an intelligent God. But he who believes that the idea of God as the infinite and the perfect is native to the human mind, and that God stands at the beginning of the entire system of things, will feel there is a strong à priori ground for the belief that Thales recognized the existence of an intelligent God who fashioned the universe.
[Footnote 405: ][ (return) ] Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 71.