While the Greek colonies in Asia Minor developed thus the Asiatic form of philosophy, the colonies in Magna Græcia unfolded the Italian or ideal side. Of these, Pythagoras was the earliest and most conspicuous. Born at Samos (B.C. 584), he was a contemporary of Thales of Miletus. He taught that God was one; yet not outside of the world, but in it, wholly in every part, overseeing the beginnings of all things and their combinations.[242]
The head of the Italian school, known as Eleatics, was Xenophanes (born B.C. 600), who, says Zeller,[243] both a philosopher and a poet, taught first of all a perfect monotheism. He declared God to be the one and all, eternal, almighty, and perfect being, being all sight, feeling, and perception. He is both infinite and finite. If he were only finite, he could not be; if he were only infinite, he could not exist. He lives in eternity, and exists in time.[244]
Parmenides, scholar and successor of Xenophanes at Elea, taught that God, as pure thought, pervaded all nature. Empedocles (about B.C. 460)[245] followed Xenophanes, though introducing a certain dualism into his physics. In theology he was a pure monotheist, declaring God to be the Absolute Being, sufficient for himself, and related to the world as unity to variety, or love to discord. We can only recognize God by the divine element in ourselves. The bad is what is separate from God, and out of harmony with him.
After this came a sceptical movement, in which Gorgias, a disciple of Empedocles (B.C. 404) and Protagoras the Abderite, taught the doctrine of nescience. The latter said: "Whether there are gods or not we cannot say, and life is too short to find out."[246] Prodicus explained religion as founded in utility, Critias derived it from statecraft. They argued that if religion was founded in human nature, all men would worship the same gods. This view became popular in Greece at the time of the Peloponnesian War. Euripides, as we have seen, was a sceptic. Those who denied the popular gods were persecuted by the Athenians, but the sceptical spirit was not checked by this course.[247] Anaxagoras escaped with his life only through the powerful protection of Pericles. Protagoras was sentenced to death, and his writings were burned. Diogenes was denounced as an atheist, and a reward of a talent was offered to any one who should kill him. For an unbelieving age is apt to be a persecuting one. When the kernel of religion is gone, more stress is laid on keeping the shell untouched.
It was in the midst of these dilapidated opinions that Socrates came, that wonderful phenomenon in human history. A marvellous vision, glorifying humanity! He may be considered as having created the science of ethics. He first taught the doctrine of divine providence, declaring that we can only know God in his works. He placed religion on the basis of humanity, proclaiming the well-being of man to be the end of the universe. He preferred the study of final causes to that of efficient causes. He did not deny the inferior deities, but regarded them only as we regard angels and archangels, saints and prophets; as finite beings, above man, but infinitely below the Supreme Being. Reverence for such beings is quite consistent with the purest monotheism.
In Plato, says Rixner[248] the two polar tendencies of Greek philosophy were harmonized, and realism and idealism brought into accord. The school of realism recognized time, variety, motion, multiplicity, and nature; but lost substance, unity, eternity, and spirit. The other, the ideal Eleatic school, recognized unity, but lost variety, saw eternity, but ignored time, accepted being, but omitted life and movement.
The three views may be thus compared:—
| Italian Philosophy, or Eleatic. | Plato. | Ionian or Asiatic Atomic. |
|---|---|---|
| The One. | The One in All. | The All. |
| Unity. | Unity and Variety. | Variety. |
| Being. | Life. | Motion. |
| Pantheism. | Divine in Nature. | Naturalism. |
| Substance. | Substance and Manifestation. | Phenomena. |
The philosophy of Plato was the scientific completion of that of Socrates. Socrates took his intellectual departure from man, and inferred nature and God. Plato assumed God, and inferred nature and man. He made goodness and nature godlike, by making God the substance in each. His was a divine philosophy, since he referred all facts theoretically and practically to God as the ground of their being.
The style of Plato singularly combined analysis and synthesis, exact definition with poetic life. His magnificent intellect aimed at uniting precision in details with universal comprehension.[249]