Christianity and Greek Philosophy / or, the relation between spontaneous and reflective thought in Greece and the positive teaching of Christ and His Apostles

by B. F. Cocker

As well befits a mortal's lips to sing:

More blest, nor men, nor heavenly powers can be,

Than when their songs are of thy law and thee. [⁸³⁹]

[Footnote 839: ][ (return) ] Sir C. A. Elton's version, published in "Specimens of Ancient Poets," edited by William Peters, A. M., Christ Church, Oxford.

PSYCHOLOGY.

As in the world there are two principles, the passive and the active, so in the understanding there are two elements: a passive element--sensation, and an active element--reason.

All knowledge commences with the phenomena of sensation (αἴσθησις). This produces in the soul an image (φαντασία), which corresponds to the exterior object, and which Chrysippus regarded as a modification of the mind (ἀλλοίωσις). [⁸⁴⁰]

Associate with sensibility is thought--the faculty of general ideas--the ὀρθὸς λόγος, or right reason, as the supreme power and the guiding light of humanity. This active principle is of divine origin, "a part or shred of the Divinity."

[Footnote 840: ][ (return) ] Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii. ch. xxxiv.