Another argument of Aristotle[41] against the Protagorean “Homo Mensura� — That it implies in every affirming Subject an equal authority and equal title to credence, as compared with every other affirming Subject — I have already endeavoured to combat in my review of the Platonic Theætêtus, where the same argument appears fully developed. The antithesis between Plato and Aristotle on one side, and Protagoras on the other, is indeed simply that between Absolute and Relative. The Protagorean doctrine is quite distinct from the other doctrines with which they jumble it together — from those of Herakleitus and Anaxagoras, and from the theory that Knowledge is sensible perception. The real opponents of the Maxim of Contradiction were Herakleitus, Anaxagoras, Parmenides, and Plato himself as represented in some of his dialogues, especially the Parmenides, Timæus, Republic, Sophistes. Each of these philosophers adopted a First Philosophy different from the others: but each also adopted one completely different from that of Aristotle, and not reconcileable with his logical canons. None of them admitted determinate and definable attributes belonging to determinate particular subjects, each with a certain measure of durability.
[41] Ibid. v. p. 1010, b. 11.
Now the common speech of mankind throughout the Hellenic world was founded on the assumption of such fixed subjects and predicates. Those who wanted information for practical guidance or security, asked for it in this form; those who desired to be understood by others, and to determine the actions of others, adopted the like mode of speech. Information was given through significant propositions, which the questioner sought to obtain, and which the answer, if cognizant, enunciated: e.g., Theætêtus is sitting down[42] — to repeat the minimum or skeleton of a proposition as given by Plato, requiring both subject and predicate in proper combination, to convey the meaning. Now the logical analysis, and the syllogistic precepts of Aristotle, — as well as his rhetorical and dialectical suggestions for persuading, for refuting, or for avoiding refutation — are all based upon the practice of common speech. In conversing (he says) it is impossible to produce and exhibit the actual objects signified; the speaker must be content with enunciating, instead thereof, the name significant of each.[43] The first beginning of rhetorical diction is, to speak good Greek;[44] the rhetor and the dialectician must dwell upon words, propositions, and opinions, not peculiar to such as have received special teaching, but common to the many and employed in familiar conversation; the auditors, to whom they address themselves, are assumed to be commonplace men, of fair average intelligence, but nothing beyond.[45] Thus much of acquirement is imbibed by almost every one as he grows up, from the ordinary intercourse of society. The men of special instruction begin with it, as others do; but they also superadd other cognitions or accomplishments derived from peculiar teachers. Universally — both in the interior of the family, amidst the unscientific multitude, and by the cultivated few — habitual speech was carried on through terms assuming fixed subjects and predicates. It was this recognized process in its two varieties of Analytic and Dialectic, which Aristotle embraced in his logical theory, and to which he also adapted his First Philosophy.
[42] Plato, Sophistes, pp. 262-263.
[43] Aristot. Soph. El. p. 165, a. 5: ἐπεὶ γὰρ οὐκ ἔστιν αὐτὰ τὰ πράγματα διαλέγεσθαι φέροντας, ἀλλὰ τοῖς ὀνόμασιν ἀντὶ τῶν πραγμάτων χρώμεθα συμβόλοις.
[44] Aristot. Rhet. III. v. p. 1407, b. 19: ἔστι δ’ ἀρχὴ τῆς λέξεως τὸ Ἑλληνίζειν.
[45] Aristot. Rhet. I. i. p. 1354, a. 1: ἡ ῥητορικὴ ἀντίστροφός ἐστι τῇ διαλεκτικῇ· ἀμφότεραι γὰρ περὶ τοιούτων τινῶν εἰσὶν ἃ κοινὰ τρόπον τινὰ ἁπάντων ἐστὶ γνωρίζειν καὶ οὐδεμιᾶς ἐπιστήμης ἀφωρισμένης· διὸ καὶ πάντες τρόπον τινὰ μετέχουσιν ἀμφοῖν. — p. 1355, a. 25: διδασκαλίας γάρ ἐστιν ὁ κατὰ τὴν ἐπιστήμην λόγος, τοῦτο δὲ ἀδύνατον, ἀλλ’ ἀνάγκη διὰ τῶν κοινῶν ποιεῖσθαι τὰς πίστεις καὶ τοὺς λόγους, ὥσπερ καὶ ἐν τοῖς Τοπικοῖς ἐλέγομεν περὶ τῆς πρὸς τοὺς πολλοὺς ἐντεύξεως. — p. 1357, a. 1: ἔστι δὲ τὸ ἔργον αὐτῆς περί τε τοιούτων περὶ ὧν βουλευόμεθα καὶ τέχνας μὴ ἔχομεν, καὶ ἐν τοῖς τοιούτοις ἀκροαταῖς οἳ οὐ δύνανται διὰ πολλῶν συνορᾶν οὐδὲ λογίζεσθαι πόῤῥωθεν. — p. 1357, a. 11: ὁ γὰρ κρίτης ὑποκεῖται εἶναι ἁπλοῦς. Compare Topica, I. ii. p. 101, a. 26-36; Soph. El. p. 172, a. 30.
But the First Philosophy that preceded his, had not been so adapted. The Greek philosophers, who flourished before dialectical discussion had become active, during the interval between Thales and Sokrates, considered Philosophy as one whole — rerum divinarum et humanarum scientia — destined to render Nature or the Kosmos more or less intelligible. They took up in the gross all those vast problems, which the religious or mythological poets had embodied in divine genealogies and had ascribed to superhuman personal agencies.
Thales and his immediate successors (like their predecessors the poets) accommodated their hypotheses to intellectual impulses and aspirations of their own; with little anxiety about giving satisfaction to others,[46] still less about avoiding inconsistencies or meeting objections. Each of them fastened upon some one grand and imposing generalization (set forth often in verse) which he stretched as far as it would go by various comparisons and illustrations, but without any attention or deference to adverse facts or reasonings. Provided that his general point of view was impressive to the imagination,[47] as the old religious scheme of personal agencies was to the vulgar, he did not concern himself about the conditions of proof or disproof. The data of experience were altogether falsified (as by the Pythagoreans)[48] in order to accommodate them to the theory; or were set aside as deceptive and inexplicable from the theory (as by both Parmenides and Herakleitus).[49]
[46] Aristot. Met. B. iv. p. 1000, a. 9: οἱ μὲν οὖν περὶ Ἡσίοδον καὶ πάντες ὅσοι θεόλογοι μόνον ἐφρόντισαν τοῦ πιθανοῦ τοῦ πρὸς αὐτούς, ἡμῶν δ’ ὠλιγώρησαν· — καὶ γὰρ ὅνπερ οἰηθείη λέγειν ἄν τις μάλιστα ὁμολογουμένως αὑτῷ, Ἐμπεδοκλῆς, καὶ οὑτὸς ταὐτὸν πέπονθεν. — Metaph. N. iv. p. 1091, b. 1-15.