[Footnote 429: ][ (return) ] Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. v.
[Footnote 430: ][ (return) ] Id., ib., bk. xii. ch. vi.
Are we then required to accept the dictum of Aristotle as final and decisive? Did Pythagoras really teach that numbers are real entities--the substance and cause of all other existences? The reader may be aware that this is a point upon which the historians of philosophy are not agreed. Ritter is decidedly of opinion that the Pythagorean formula "can only be taken symbolically." [431] Lewes insists it must be understood literally. [432] On a careful review of all the arguments, we are constrained to regard the conclusion of Ritter as most reasonable. The hypothesis "that numbers are real entities" does violence to every principle of common sense. This alone constitutes a strong à priori presumption that Pythagoras did not entertain so glaring an absurdity. The man who contributed so much towards perfecting the mathematical sciences, who played so conspicuous a part in the development of ancient philosophy, and who exerted so powerful a determining influence on the entire current of speculative thought, did not obtain his ascendency over the intellectual manhood of Greece by the utterance of such enigmas. And further, in interpreting the philosophic opinions of the ancients, we must be guided by this fundamental canon--"The human mind has, under the necessary operation of its own laws, been compelled to entertain the same fundamental ideas, and the human heart to cherish the same feelings in all ages." Now if a careful philosophic criticism can not render the reported opinions of an ancient teacher into the universal language of the reason and heart of humanity, we must conclude either that his opinions were misunderstood and misrepresented by some of his successors, or else that he stands in utter isolation, both from the present and the past. His doctrine has, then, no relation to the successions of thought, and no place in the history of philosophy. Nay, more, such a doctrine has in it no element of vitality, no germ of eternal truth, and must speedily perish. Now it is well known that the teaching of Pythagoras awakened the deepest intellectual sympathy of his age; that his doctrine exerted a powerful influence on the mind of Plato, and, through him, upon succeeding ages; and that, in some of its aspects, it now survives, and is more influential to-day than in any previous age; but this element of immutable and eternal truth was certainly not contained in the inane and empty formula, "that numbers are real existences, the causes of all other existences!" If the fame of Pythagoras had rested on such "airy nothings," it would have melted away before the time of Plato.
[Footnote 431: ][ (return) ] "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 359.
[Footnote 432: ][ (return) ] "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 38.
We grant there is considerable force in the argument of Lewes. He urges, with some pertinence, the unquestionable fact that Aristotle asserts, again and again, that the Pythagoreans taught "that numbers are the principles and substance of things as well as the causes of their modifications;" and he argues that we are not justified in rejecting the authority of Aristotle, unless better evidence can be produced.
So far, however, as the authority of Aristotle is concerned, even Lewes himself charges him, in more than one instance, with strangely misrepresenting the opinions of his predecessors. [433] Aristotle is evidently wanting in that impartiality which ought to characterize the historian of philosophy, and, sometimes, we are compelled to question his integrity. Indeed, throughout his "Metaphysics" he exhibits the egotism and vanity of one who imagines that he alone, of all men, has the full vision of the truth. In Books I. and XII. he uniformly associates the "numbers" of Pythagoras with the "forms" and "ideas" of Plato. He asserts that Plato identifies "forms" and "numbers," and regards them as real entities--substances, and causes of all other things. "Forms are numbers [434]... so Plato affirmed, similar with the Pythagoreans; and the dogma that numbers are causes to other things--of their substance-he, in like manner, asserted with them." [435] And then, finally, he employs the same arguments in refuting the doctrines of both.
[Footnote 433: ][ (return) ] "Aristotle uniformly speaks disparagingly of Anaxagoras" (Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy"). He represents him as employing mind (νοῦς) simply as "a machine" for the production of the world;--"when he finds himself in perplexity as to the cause of its being necessarily an orderly system, he then drags it (mind) in by force to his assistance" "Metaphysics," (bk. i. ch. iv.). But he is evidently inconsistent with himself, for in "De Anima" (bk. i. ch. ii.) he tells us that "Anaxagoras saith that mind is at once a cause of motion in the whole universe, and also of well and fit." We may further ask, is not the idea of fitness--of the good and the befitting--the final cause, even according to Aristotle?
He also totally misrepresents Plato's doctrine of "Ideas." "Plato's Ideas," he says, "are substantial existences--real beings" ("Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. ix.). Whereas, as we shall subsequently show, "they are objects of pure conception for human reason, and they are attributes of the Divine Reason. It is there they substantially exist." (Cousin, "History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 415). It is also pertinent to inquire, what is the difference between the "formal cause" of Aristotle and the archetypal ideas of Plato? and is not Plato's τὸ ἀγαθόν the "final cause?" Yet Aristotle is forever congratulating himself that he alone has properly treated the "formal" and the "final cause!"
[Footnote 434: ][ (return) ] This, however, was not the doctrine of Plato. He does not say "forms are numbers." He says: "God formed things as they first arose according to forms and numbers." See "Timaeus," ch. xiv. and xxvii.
[Footnote 435: ][ (return) ] Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. vi.