Antithesis between Nature — and Law or Convention — insisted on by the Indian Gymnosophists.
Another point, in the reply made by the Indian Gymnosophist to Onesikritus, deserves notice: I mean the antithesis between law (or convention) and nature (νόμος — φύσις) — the supremacy which he asserts for Nature over law — and the way in which he understands Nature and her supposed ordinances. This antithesis was often put forward and argued in the ancient Ethics: and it is commonly said, without any sufficient proof, that the Sophists (speaking of them collectively) recognised only the authority of law — while Sokrates and Plato had the merit of vindicating against them the superior authority of Nature. The Indian Gymnosophist agrees with the Athenian speaker in the Platonic treatise De Legibus, and with the Platonic Kallikles in the Gorgias, thus far — that he upholds the paramount authority of Nature. But of these three interpreters, each hears and reports the oracles of Nature differently from the other two: and there are many other dissenting interpreters besides.[119] Which of them are we to follow? And if, adopting any one of them, we reject the others, upon what grounds are we to justify our preference? When the Gymnosophist points out, that nakedness is the natural condition of man; when he farther infers, that because natural it is therefore right and that the wearing of clothes, being a departure from nature, is also a departure from right — how are we to prove to him that his interpretation of nature is the wrong one? These questions have received no answer in any of the Platonic dialogues: though we have seen that Plato is very bitter against those who dwell upon the antithesis between Law and Nature, and who undertake to decide between the two.
[119] Though Seneca (De Brevitate Vit. 14) talks of the Stoics as “conquering Nature, and the Cynics as exceeding Nature,” yet the Stoic Epiktêtus considers his morality as the only scheme conformable to Nature (Epiktêt. Diss. iv. 1, 121-128); while the Epikurean Lucretius claims the same conformity for the precepts of Epikurus.
The Greek Cynics — an order of ascetic or mendicant friars.
Reverting to the Cynics, we must declare them to be in one respect the most peculiar outgrowth of Grecian philosophy: because they are not merely a doctrinal sect, with phrases, theories, reasonings, and teachings, of their own — but still more prominently a body of practical ascetics, a mendicant order[120] in philosophy, working up the bystanders by exhibiting themselves as models of endurance and apathy. These peculiarities seem to have originated partly with Pythagoras, partly with Sokrates — for there is no known prior example of it in Grecian history, except that of the anomalous priests of Zeus at Dodona, called Selli, who lay on the ground with unwashed feet. The discipline of Lykurgus at Sparta included severe endurance; but then it was intended to form, and actually did form, good soldiers. The Cynics had no view to military action. They exaggerated the peculiarities of Sokrates, and we should call their mode of life the Sokratic life, if we followed the example of those who gave names to the Pythagorean or Orphic life, as a set of observances derived from the type of Pythagoras or Orpheus.[121]
[120] Respecting the historical connexion between the Grecian Cynics and the ascetic Christian monks, see Zeller, Philos. der Griech. ii. p. 241, ed. 2nd.
Homer, Iliad xvi. 233-5:—
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Ζεῦ ἄνα, Δωδωναῖε, Πελασγικέ, τηλόθι
ναίων, Δωδώνης μεδέων δυσχειμέρου, ἀμφὶ δὲ Σέλλοι Σοὶ ναίουσ’ ὑποφῆται ἀνιπτόποδες, χαμαιεῦναι. |