A Beginner's History of Philosophy, Vol. 1: Ancient and Mediæval Philosophy

by Herbert Ernest Cushman

When we enter upon the one hundred and fifty years of philosophical beginnings of Greece, which are called the Cosmological Period, we find ourselves confronted with an extremely interesting social situation, which has been brought about partly by the political and geographical environment of the Greek, partly by his inherited genius. On the one hand, during this century and a half, the political troubles of the Greeks became increasingly aggravated by the growth of Persia on the east and of Carthage on the west. On the other hand, we find that the Greek religion took a sudden turn to mysticism, and by its side a slow but increasing interest in philosophical questions. All through this period Greek politics and Greek religion were a constant peril to Greek life. Greek philosophy proved to be its safety.

The Peril in the Greek Political Situation: Persia and Carthage. It must be remembered that the Greek cities never united into a nation. They were always fighting among themselves. We have already pointed out the civil disturbances between the oligarchy and the democracy throughout the land. These internal troubles continued to the end of Greek history. In this period there was added to these internal troubles a critical external situation which threatened the existence of Greece itself. The sixth century was a momentous one for Greece. In both the east and the west therearose mighty empires that threatened to wipe out its civilization. “The expansion of the Persian power (on the one hand) had suspended a stone of Tantalus over Hellas,and it seemed likely that Greek civilization might be submerged in an Oriental monarchy.”[6] Cyrus had laid the foundation of Persia by taking Media in 550 B. C., Lydia in 546 B. C., Babylonia in 538 B. C.; Egypt was added by Cambyses in 528 B. C.; and Darius organized the great Persian possessions in his long reign from 528 to 486 B. C. On the west, Carthage was threatening the Greek cities of Sicily, and at the close of this period was acting in conjunction with Persia to obtain possession of the Mediterranean.

The Peril in the New Religion: The Mysteries and Pythagoras. Already in the seventh century B. C. the political society of Greece felt that it was under the wrath of the gods because of some unatoned guilt. “The earth is full of ills, of ills the sea,” sang the poet. Religious depression became universal. Dissatisfied with the old polytheism, especially as expressed in the theogony of Hesiod, the Greek in the sixth century B. C. began to interpret it according to his present need. Among the masses there appeared the craving for immortality and for personal knowledge of the supernatural. The desire to solve the mystery of life by a short road became universal. Men looked to rites to purify them from the guilt of the world and for gaining personal contact with the world of shades. This new religion became pan-Hellenic. It is called the Mysteries or the Orgia. By Mysteries is not meant societies founded on some occult intellectual belief, as the name might suggest. The Mysteries were based on cult (ceremony), and not ondogma. The special ceremonies were those of initiation and purification. They were supposed to purify the participant and put him in a new frame of mind. The soul would then be protected from the malicious spirits to which it was constantly exposed. The ceremonies are reported to have been attended sometimes by more than thirty thousand people. They consisted of processions, songs, dances, and dramatic spectacles. The most important of the Mysteries were the Orphic and the Eleusinian.

The Mysteries were the basis of the society of Pythagoreans. Pythagoras of Samos was a remarkable man, who went to Italy and settled at Crotona. His sect is of double importance to us because in later times it developed a philosophy on its mathematical and astronomical sides. Pythagoras and his immediate following must be distinguished from the later Pythagoreans. Pythagoras and the early Pythagoreans were not philosophers, but a sect like the Orphic society of Mysteries, yet the sect of Pythagoreans embraced much more in its scope.It tried to control the public and private life of its members and to evolve a common method of education.[7] Pythagoras was an exiled aristocrat, and his sect was an aristocratic religious body in reaction against the democratic excesses. The only doctrine upon which Pythagoras placed any emphasis was that of immortality in the form of metempsychosis (transmigration of the soul from one bodily form into another). The sect was dispersed as a religious body about 450 B. C. The scattered members formed a school of philosophy at Thebes until about 350 B. C.Of these later philosophical Pythagoreans and their number theory, we shall speak in the proper place.

At the time of the dispersion of the Pythagoreans there existed no longer any peril from the new religion. The craze of the new religion was passing away. During the sixth century B. C. it was a great peril to the future intellectual life of Greece. Had it then gained a little more power it would probably have been admitted by the priesthood to the temples. In the exercise of such enormous sacerdotal power, the priests would have enslaved the Greek mind to superstition, and the priesthood in turn would have become an easy tool for tyrants. There would then have been no Socrates, no Plato, and no Aristotle. The Mysteries were a reaction toward asceticism as a religious salvation from the political peril, but they were, however, equally as great a peril to Greece. The medium course along the line of a rational philosophy, which the Greek genius actually took, proved its salvation.

Characteristics of the Cosmologists. There are certain characteristics of this early philosophy that should be noted at the beginning.

(1) All the Cosmologists were physical scientists, and with few exceptions their scientific views were noteworthy. Aristotle calls them physicists in distinction from their predecessors, whom he calls theologians.

(2) They often worked together in schools. Tradition has been common since Bacon that philosophy centres in individuals; but history shows that frequently the Greeks worked in corporate bodies. These philosophical scientists worked in schools; just as the Homeridæ developed the epic; the Dædalidæ, a group of the earliest artists, the secret of art; the Mysteries, religion.Philosophy now is in the cloister, and the intellect of the time speaks from its retreat from public life. While the Milesian school was undisturbed, owing to the long peace that Miletus enjoyed, we shall find that most of the philosophers of the Cosmological period were in retirement on account of political persecution.

We must remember that by “school” is not necessarily meant a group of pupils under the established instruction of a teacher. A school at this early period is a group of learned men at work on the same problems. Later on in history we shall find that one of the group more learned than the others stands in the position of teacher: for example, Plato in the Academy.

(3) All the Cosmologists were hylozoists. The etymological meaning of hylozoism is its true one—matter is alive. This is the fundamental characteristic of these pre-Socratics from Thales down to Anaxagoras, although some authorities contend that those from the time of Empedocles were not hylozoists. The meaning of hylozoism is simple enough, but the conception is a difficult one for the modern mind; for to-day we are accustomed to think of an impersonal nature under mechanical laws. To the Greek of the Cosmological period the substantial constitution of the universe is impersonal living matter; to us it is impersonal dead matter. Both these views are to be contrasted with the religious belief involved in Greek polytheism, in which the cosmos is conceived to be living personal spirits; this Homeric polytheism is again to be contrasted with the animism of the tribal period, in that it had organized into an æsthetic unity the early savage animism. These hylozoistic philosophers did not, however, give up the Homeric gods, but they treated theirexistence in a poetic way. They usually believed in their existence, but they always subordinated them to the one living world-ground.