How the Philosophical Question Arose. The interests of these philosophical scientists sharply differentiate them from the preceding theogonists, like Hesiod and Epimenides, as well as from the masses who were absorbed in the religion of the Mysteries. They were, moreover, the men of Greece to whom the emotionalexcitement of a religious revival would not appeal as a refuge from the troubles of the time. Their own experience in the political troubles had made paramount the question as to the permanence of things. Nevertheless, its answer must be found in nature and in an intellectual way. When they turned to the traditional theogonies they found no answer to their question, for there was only a mythical chronicle of a succession of gods beginning with the unknown. The question of the Cosmologists was not, therefore, what was the original form of this changing world, but what is fundamental in the world always. The time factor is no longer important. Not the temporal prius but the real prius is what they seek. The idea of a temporal origin of things gives place to that of eternal being, and the question finally emerges, What is the real substance that constitutes the universe?
MAP SHOWING WHERE THE COSMOLOGISTS LIVED
(None of the Cosmologists, except the later Pythagoreans, lived in the motherland of Greece. Philosophical activity during this period took place in the colonies. The map shows the cities which were the centres of philosophy and the homes of the philosophers as indicated.)
The Greek Monistic Philosophies. Turning back to our classification on [page 20], we see that the earliest Greek philosophers emphasized the monistic tendency, which had become so prominent in Greek religion. This group of monists was composed of the Milesians, Xenophanes, the Eleatic School, and Heracleitus. The course of reasoning of these early thinkers is naïvely simple, and like all naïve thought, it contains such contradictions that the modern reader is likely to become impatient with it. The value of the study of the philosophy of these early Greeks is entirely historical. Its historical value, however, is very great, for it is a revelation of the culture of the Greece of that time, it throws light on many of the teachings of Plato and Aristotle, and most of all it contains the germs of modern metaphysical problems. These first Greek philosophers raised the question, What is the constitution of the substance of the universe? Their answers are naïve solutions to the historical metaphysical “riddle.”
The Milesians, who form the earliest philosophical school in European history, seem to have assumed two facts as self-evident about the substance of the universe: (1) There is a single cosmic substance identical with itself, which is the basis of all the changes in nature; (2) Moving matter is the same as life. The Milesians were quite unconscious that these two assumptions were contradictory, but the contradiction impressed their successors—Xenophanes, Heracleitus, and the Eleatics; and divided them in their development of philosophy.Matter which keeps identical with itself is the Unchanging[8]and is brought into opposition with Life, the Changing, or matter which moves. The question for Xenophanes, Heracleitus, and the Eleatics—and indeed for all future philosophy—was: How can the changing processes of life be explained by an unchanging substance?
Xenophanes, who was more of a religious reformer than a philosopher, was so absorbed in the first of these assumptions that he developed it for his purpose in his practical social reformation to the entire neglect of the second assumption. The Eleatics, however, to whose city Xenophanes had come, could not leave his doctrine in its one-sided and undeveloped form. They accepted his teaching of the divine Unchangingness of the universe, but this compelled these profounder thinkers to offer some explanation of the natural processes of change. Change to them cannot really exist. Heracleitus, on the other hand, was impressed with the aspect of life that is expressed in the second assumption of the Milesians—living matter is moving matter. He therefore maintained in direct opposition to the Eleatics, that the changing, living processes of nature alone are real. The two contradictory assumptions that lay so mutually indifferent in the Milesian doctrine thus became the basis of a sharp metaphysical controversy between Heracleitus and the Eleatics. The substance of the world is permanent, change is an illusion, said the Eleatics. The substance of the world changes, permanence is an illusion, said Heracleitus. Either all things are permanent or all things change. These early philosophers had no wealth of empirical knowledge nor of psychological reflection upon which to draw, and it is not strange that they should take extreme positions and be blind to their practical consequences.
1. The Milesian School. Of all the Greek cities in the sixth century B. C. Miletus was the wealthiest and most prosperous. It was one of the Ionian colonies and was situated on the coast of Asia Minor, and it alone was able to preserve its autonomy as neighbor of the warring eastern empires. Not until the battle of Lade was it captured and destroyed (494 B. C.). From two generations of philosophers history has preserved three names,—Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. The school is called indifferently the Milesian or the Ionic school. The proximity of Miletus to Ephesus, Colophon, and Clazomenæ (as a glance at the [map] will show) explains the influence of the Milesian school upon the doctrines of Heracleitus, Xenophanes, and Anaxagoras. Undoubtedly the contact of the Milesians with the Orient and Egypt had brought to them knowledge and correct scientific observations of many sorts, especially astronomical.
Thales (b. 640 B. C.) was a member of one of the leading families of Miletus, and lived during the flourishing period of the city under the tyranny of Thrasybulus. He is counted among the seven Wise Men, and belonged to the rich commercial class. He probably engaged in commerce and traveled in Egypt. He was versed in the current learning, predicted an eclipse, and was acute in mathematics and physics. Probably he never committed anything to writing. Aristotle’s comments are the only data about him.
Anaximander (611–545 B. C.?) was an astronomer and geographer; he made an astronomical globe, a sundial, and a geographical map. He was an intimate disciple of Thales and wrote Concerning Nature, which is referred to as the first Greek philosophical treatise. Nothing is known of his life.