[2. Parminides.]
Parmenides is a striking figure in the Eleatic school, and he arrives at more definite conceptions than does Xenophanes. He was, according to Diogenes (IX. 21), born at Elea of a rich and honourable race. Of his life, however, little is known; Aristotle only says (Met. I. 5) from tradition that he was a scholar of Xenophanes. Sextus Empiricus (adv. Math. VII. 111) calls him a friend (γνώριμος) of Xenophanes. Diogenes Laertius further states: “He heard Anaximander and Xenophanes also, but did not follow the latter” (which seems only to refer to his place of abode), “but he lived with Aminias and Diochartes the Pythagorean, attached himself to the latter, and by the former, and not by Xenophanes, was prevailed upon to lead a quiet life.” That the period in which his life falls comes between Xenophanes and Zeno—so that he is contemporaneous with them, though younger than the former and older than the latter—is ascertained. According to Diogenes (IX. 23) he flourished about the 69th Olympiad (504-501 B.C.). What is most important is his journey to Athens with Zeno, where Plato makes them talk with Socrates. This may be accepted generally, but what is strictly historical in it cannot be ascertained. In the Thætetus Plato makes Socrates reply to the invitation to examine the Eleatic system: “For Melissus and the others who assert the All to be One at rest, I have a certain respect; I have even more for Parmenides. For, to speak in Homeric language, he seems to me both venerable and strong. I knew him when he was an old man and I was still quite young, and I heard wonderful things from him.”[52] And in the Platonic Dialogue Parmenides (p. 127. Steph. p. 4. Bekk.) where, as is well known, the conversation is carried on by Parmenides and Socrates, the historic circumstances of this interview are related in detail. “Parmenides was very old, had hair which was quite grey, was beautiful in countenance, about sixty-five years old, and Zeno almost forty.” Tennemann (Vol. I. p. 415) places the journey in the 80th Olympiad (460-457 B.C.). Thus Socrates, since he was born in Olympiad 77, 4 (469 B.C.), would seem to have been still too young to have carried on a dialogue such as Plato describes, and the principal matter of this dialogue, which is written in the spirit of the Eleatic school, belongs to Plato himself. Besides, we know from Parmenides’ life, that he stood in high respect with his fellow-citizens at Elea, whose prosperity must be chiefly ascribed to the laws which Parmenides gave them.[53] We also find in the πίναξ of Cebes (towards the beginning) “a Parmenidian life” used synonymously with a moral life.
It must be remarked that here, where the Eleatic school is definitely treated of, Plato does not speak of Xenophanes at all, but only of Melissus and Parmenides. The fact that Plato, in one of his dialogues, likewise accords the chief part to Parmenides, and puts in his mouth the most lofty dialectic that ever was given, does not concern us here. If with Xenophanes, by the proposition that out of nothing nothing comes, origination and what depends upon or can be traced back to it is denied, the opposition between Being and non-being makes its appearance still more clearly with Parmenides, though still unconsciously. Sextus Empiricus and Simplicius have preserved to us the most important fragments from the poems of Parmenides; for Parmenides also propounded his philosophy as a poem. The first long fragment in Sextus (adv. Math. VII. 111) is an allegorical preface to his poem on Nature. This preface is majestic; it is written after the manner of the times, and in it all there is an energetic, impetuous soul which strives with Being to grasp and to express it. We can show Parmenides’ philosophy best in his own words. The introduction runs thus:—
“Horses that bore me, impelled by their courage,
Brought me to the much-famed streets of the goddess
Who leads the wise man to every kind of knowledge.
Maidens point out the way.
The axle sings hot as the daughters of Helios quickly approach,
Leaving the dwelling of night, pressing on to the light,
With mighty hands raising the sheltering veil.”
The maidens are, according to Sextus (adv. Math. VII. 112, 113), the senses, and Helios’ daughters are more especially the eyes:—
“These are the gates of the pathways of night and of day.
Now the heavenly maidens approach the great doors,
Whose lock double-turned the punishing Dice protects.
To this one soft words were by the maidens addressed
Subtly persuading her the barriers of oak from the gates,
Now to withdraw. Yet these,
Directly the yawning breadth of the doors was revealed,
Drove the horses and waggon, on through the gate.
The goddess received me in friendship, seized with her one hand my right,
And turning towards me, she said:
‘Oh, thou, who with guides all immortal and horses,
Camest here in my palace,—be welcome, young man.
For no evil fate has led thee into this path,
(Indeed it lies far from the ways of a man)
But Themis and Dice. Now shalt thou all things explore,
The heart never-flinching of the truth that persuades,
The transient opinions which are not to be trusted.
But from such paths keep the inquiring soul far away.
On this way let not the much followed custom
Cause thee to take the rash eye as thy guide,
Or the confused sounding ear and the tongue. Ponder considerately
With thy reason alone, the doctrine much and often examined,
Which I will proclaim. For there lacks but desire on your way.’”
The goddess develops everything from the double knowledge (α) of thought, of the truth, and (β) of opinion; these make up the two parts of the poem. In another fragment taken from Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics (p. 25; 19 a) and from Proclus on the Timæus (p. 29 b), we have the principal part of what is here related preserved to us. “Understand,” says the goddess, “which are the two roads of knowledge. The one which is only Being, and which is not non-being, is the path of conviction, the truth is in it. The other that is not Being, and which is necessarily non-being, is, I must tell you, a path quite devoid of reason, for thou canst neither know, or attain to, or express, non-being.” The nothing, in fact, turns into something, since it is thought or is said: we say something, think something, if we wish to think and say the nothing. “It is necessary that saying and thinking should be Being; for Being is, but nothing is not at all.” There the matter is stated in brief; and in this nothing, falls negation generally, or in more concrete form, limitation, the finite, restriction: determinatio est negatio is Spinoza’s great saying. Parmenides says, whatever form the negation may take, it does not exist at all. To consider the nothing as the true is “the way of error in which the ignorant and double-minded mortals wander. Perplexity of mind sways the erring sense. Those who believe Being and non-being to be the same, and then again not the same, are like deaf and blind men surprised, like hordes confusedly driven.” The error is to confuse them and to ascribe the same value to each, or to distinguish them as if non-being were the limited generally. “Whichever way is taken, it leads back to the point from which it started.” It is a constantly self-contradictory and disintegrating movement. To human ideas, now this is held to be reality and now its opposite, and then again a mixture of both.
Simplicius quotes further, in writing on Aristotle’s Physics (p. 17 a; 31, 19): “But the truth is only the ‘is’; this is neither begotten of anything else, nor transient, entire, alone in its class (μουνογενές), unmoved and without end; it neither was, nor will be, but is at once the all. For what birth wouldst thou seek for it? How and whence should it be augmented? That it should be from that which is not, I shall allow thee neither to say nor to think, for neither can it be said or thought that the ‘is’ is not. What necessity had either later or earlier made it begin from the nothing? Thus must it throughout only be or not be; nor will any force of conviction ever make something else arise out of that which is not. Thus origination has disappeared, and decease is incredible. Being is not separable, for it is entirely like itself; it is nowhere more, else would it not hold together, nor is it less, for everything is full of Being. The all is one coherent whole, for Being flows into unison with Being: it is unchangeable and rests securely in itself; the force of necessity holds it within the bounds of limitation. It cannot hence be said that it is imperfect; for it is without defect, while non-existence is wanting in all.” This Being is not the undetermined (ἄπειρον) for it is kept within the limits of necessity; we similarly find in Aristotle that limitation is ascribed to Parmenides. The sense in which the expression “limit” is to be taken is uncertain. According to Parmenides, however, this absolute limitation is as Δίκη, absolute necessity clearly determined in itself; and it is an important fact that he went beyond the uncultured conception of the infinite. “Thought, and that on account of which thought is, are the same. For not without that which is, in which it expresses itself (ἐν ᾦ πεφατισμένον ἐστίν), wilt thou find Thought, seeing that it is nothing and will be nothing outside of that which is.” That is the main point. Thought produces itself, and what is produced is a Thought. Thought is thus identical with Being, for there is nothing beside Being, this great affirmation. Plotinus, in quoting (V. Ennead. I. 8) this last fragment says: “Parmenides adopted this point of view, inasmuch as he did not place Being in sensuous things; identifying Being with Thought, he maintained it to be unchangeable.” The Sophists concluded from this: “All is truth; there is no error, for error is the non-existent, that which is not to be thought.”
Since in this an advance into the region of the ideal is observable, Parmenides began Philosophy proper. A man now constitutes himself free from all ideas and opinions, denies their truth, and says necessity alone, Being, is the truth. This beginning is certainly still dim and indefinite, and we cannot say much of what it involves; but to take up this position certainly is to develop Philosophy proper, which has not hitherto existed. The dialectic that the transient has no truth, is implied in it, for if these determinations are taken as they are usually understood, contradictions ensue. In Simplicius (in Arist. Phys. p. 27 b.; 31 b.) we have further metaphorical images from Parmenides. “Since the utmost limit of Being is perfect, it resembles on every side the form of a well rounded sphere, which from its centre extends in all directions equally, for it can be neither larger or smaller in one part or another. There is no non-being which prevents it from attaining to the like”—from coming into unity with itself—“and there is no Being where it was devoid of Being, here more and there less. Because the all is without defect, it is in all places in the same way like itself in its determinations.” Plotinus in the passage quoted says: “He compares Being with the spherical form, because it comprehends all in itself, and Thought is not outside of this, but is contained in it.” And Simplicius says: “We must not wonder at him, for on account of the poetic form, he adopts a mythological fiction (πλάσματος).” It immediately strikes us that the sphere is limited, and furthermore in space, and hence another must be above it; but then the Notion of the sphere is the similarity of withholding the different, notwithstanding that even the undifferentiated must be expressed; hence this image is inconsistent.
Parmenides adds to this doctrine of the truth, the doctrine of human opinions, the illusive system of the world. Simplicius, writing on Aristotle’s Physics (p. 7 b; 39 a), tells us that he says: “Men have two forms of opinion, one of which should not be, and in it they are mistaken; they set them in opposition to one another in form and symbol. The one, the ethereal fire of the flame, is quite fine, identical with itself throughout, but not identical with the other, for that is also for itself; on the other hand there is what belongs to night, or thick and ponderous existence.” By the former, warmth, softness, lightness is expressed, and by the latter, cold. “But since everything is called light and night, and their qualities are suited both to the one kind of things and the other, everything alike is filled with light and dark night; both are alike since nothing exists without both.” Aristotle (Met. I. 3 and 5), and the other historians, likewise unanimously attribute to Parmenides the fact that he sets forth two principles for the system of manifest things, warmth and cold, through the union of which everything is. Light, fire, is the active and animate; night, cold, is called the passive.